The Fairy Mythology. Thomas Keightley

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СКАЧАТЬ their forefathers. Sæmund's Edda may be regarded as an Anthology of ancient Scandinavian poetry; and the author of the prose Edda (who it is plain did not always understand the true meaning of the tales he related) wrote it as a northern Pantheon and Gradus ad Parnassum, to supply poets with incidents, ornaments, and epithets. Fortunately they did so, or impenetrable darkness had involved the ancient religion of the Gothic stock!

      Beside the Eddas, much information is to be derived from the various Sagas or northern histories. These Sagas, at times transmitting true historical events, at other times containing the wildest fictions of romance, preserve much valuable mythic lore, and the Ynglinga, Volsunga, Hervarar, and other Sagas, will furnish many important traits of northern mythology.

      It is not intended here to attempt sounding the depths of Eddaic mythology, a subject so obscure, and concerning which so many and various opinions occur in the works of those who have occupied themselves with it. Suffice it to observe that it goes back to the most remote ages, and that two essential parts of it are the Alfar (Alfs or Elves) and the Duergar (Dwarfs), two classes of beings whose names continue to the present day in all the languages of the nations descended from the Gotho-German race.

      "Our heathen forefathers," says Thorlacius,[96] "believed, like the Pythagoreans, and the farther back in antiquity the more firmly, that the whole world was filled with spirits of various kinds, to whom they ascribed in general the same nature and properties as the Greeks did to their Dæmons. These were divided into the Celestial and the Terrestrial, from their places of abode. The former were, according to the ideas of those times, of a good and elevated nature, and of a friendly disposition toward men, whence they also received the name of White or Light Alfs or Spirits. The latter, on the contrary, who were classified after their abodes in air, sea, and earth, were not regarded in so favourable a light. It was believed that they, particularly the land ones, the δαιμονες επιχθονιοι of the Greeks, constantly and on all occasions sought to torment or injure mankind, and that they had their dwelling partly on the earth in great thick woods, whence came the name Skovtrolde[97] (Wood Trolls), or in other desert and lonely places, partly in and under the ground, or in rocks and hills; these last were called Bjerg-Trolde (Hill Trolls): to the first, on account of their different nature, was given the name of Dverge (Dwarfs), and Alve, whence the word Ellefolk, which is still in the Danish language. These Dæmons, particularly the underground ones, were called Svartálfar, that is Black Spirits, and inasmuch as they did mischief, Trolls."

      This very nearly coincides with what is to be found in the Edda, except that there would appear to be some foundation for a distinction between the Dwarfs and the Dark Alfs.[98]

THE ALFAR.

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      Ther ro meth Alfum.

       Brynhildar Quida.

      Those are with the Alfs.

      In the prose Edda, Ganglar inquires what other cities beside that in which the Nornir dwelt were by the Urdar fount, under the Ash Yggdrasil.[99] Hár replies,

      "There are many fair cities there. There is the city which is called Alf-heim, where dwelleth the people that is called Liosálfar (Light Alfs). But the Döckálfar (Dark Alfs) dwell below under ground, and are unlike them in appearance, and still more unlike in actions. The Liosálfar are whiter than the sun in appearance, but the Döckálfar are blacker than pitch."[100]

      The Nornir, the Parcæ, or Destinies of Scandinavian mythology, are closely connected with the Alfar.

      "Many fair cities are there in Heaven," says Hár, "and the divine protection is over all. There standeth a city under the ash near the spring, and out of its halls came three maids, who are thus named, Udr, Verthandi, Skulld (Past, Present, Future). These maids shape the life of man. We call them Nornir. But there are many Nornir; those who come to each child that is born, to shape its life, are of the race of the gods; but others are of the race of the Alfs; and the third of the race of dwarfs. As is here expressed,

      Sundry children deem I

       The Nornir to be—the same

       Race they have not.

       Some are of Æser-kin,

       Some are of Alf-kin,

       Some are the daughters of Dualin." (i.e. of the Dwarfs.)

      "Then," said Ganglar, "if the Nornir direct the future destiny of men, they shape it very unequally. Some have a good life and rich, but some have little wealth and praise, some long life, some short." "The good Nornir, and well descended," says Hár, "shape a good life; but as to those who meet with misfortune, it is caused by the malignant Nornir."

      These Nornir bear a remarkable resemblance to the classical Parcæ and to the fairies of romance. They are all alike represented as assisting at the birth of eminent personages, as bestowing gifts either good or evil, and as foretelling the future fortune of the being that has just entered on existence.[101] This attribute of the fairies may have been derived from either the north or the south, but certainly these did not borrow from each other.

      Of the origin of the word Alf nothing satisfactory is to be found. Some think it is akin to the Latin albus, white; others, to alpes, Alps, mountains. There is also supposed to be some mysterious connexion between it and the word Elf, or Elv, signifying water in the northern languages; an analogy which has been thought to correspond with that between the Latin Nympha and Lympha. Both relations, however, are perhaps rather fanciful than just. Of the derivation of Alf, as just observed, we know nothing certain,[102] and the original meaning of Nympha would appear to be a new-married woman,[103] and thence a marriageable young woman; and it was applied to the supposed inhabitants of the mountains, seas, and streams, on the same principle that the northern nations gave them the appellation of men and women, that is, from their imagined resemblance to the human form.

      Whatever its origin, the word Alf has continued till the present day in all the Teutonic languages. The Danes have Elv, pl. Elve; the Swedes, Elf pl. Elfvar m. Elfvor f.; and the words Elf-dans and Elf-blæst, together with Olof and other proper names, are derived from them. The Germans call the nightmare Alp; and in their old poems we meet with Elbe and Elbinne, and Elbisch occurs in them in the bad sense of elvish of Chaucer and our old romancers; and a number of proper names, such as Alprecht, Alphart, Alpinc, Alpwin,[104] were formed from it, undoubtedly before it got its present ill sense.[105] In the Anglo-Saxon, Æl

, or Ælen, with its feminine and plural, frequently occurs. The Oreas, Naias, and Hamodryas of the Greeks and Romans are rendered in an Anglo-Saxon glossary by en, en, and elСКАЧАТЬ