Þrymskviþa
The Lay of Thrym

Pages XXXVI – XXXIX

In Thrymskviþa we come to one of the best known and best sung of all the Scandinavian myths. Strong and vigorous like Thor striding into Jötunheim, crisp and clear as a northern snow-scene in the sunlight, this narrative poem is very perfect of its kind, and needs but little explanation. Like the more modern Saga writers, the author shows an appreciation of the spirit and peculiar qualities of Scandinavian literature which appear in the Lay of Hymir. But his arrangement and choice of details is made with more conscious design. He handles his subject as an artist, and plays with it as a humourist ; throughout retaining a simplicity and rudeness which is strong, but never crude.

Thor is discovered in helpless plight, his red beard quivering in impotent rage, a Thunder-god searching vainly for his thunder-hammer, “which the Frost-giants and Mountain-giants well know when they see it uplifted, and small wonder, for many a head has it broken of their forefathers and their kindred.” But now it is stolen, and none must be told the dire secret except Loki, the mischievous fire-god and the swiftest of all messengers, who on this occasion uses his cunning in the service of the gods, and soon discovers the lost treasure. The hammer, like the thunderbolt of superstition, which is silent during the winter months, is deep hidden below the earth in the keeping of the Frost-giant Thrym ; nor will he surrender it until he has seen the fair Spring-goddess Freyja coming as bride to his dark realms like the sunshine which she impersonates. He has never yet beheld the bright maiden, though he may have heard her light footfall overhead. Thor hastens to her court and bids her at once put on her bridal veil, not dreaming that, with Asgarth in danger and the precious hammer stolen, she will refuse to go meekly into Jötunheim. But she is not so poor spirited, and flies into a rage as god-like as that of Thor himself when the great sea-serpent refused to be caught upon his fish-hook. Thor must himself fetch the hammer. Then Heimdal who, though one of the warlike Æsir, is as wise and far-seeing as the Wanes, counsels that Thor should deceive the Frost-giant disguised as Freyja. In this scene one can almost hear the laugh that goes through Asgarth at the rueful picture of the Thunderer thus decked with jewels and feminine trifles, his sturdy figure draped in woman’s weeds. Thrym seems to accept his strange bride without expressing surprise, perhaps because Frost-giants and Spring-goddesses have seldom a chance of meeting. But Thor can control his appetite as little as his temper, and the giant wonders much at its capacity. He wonders yet more when he stoops to kiss her, and sees beneath the veil those flaming eyes, half hidden by the bushy brows. The wedding, however, must be completed. The hammer which hallowed the wedding feast of man is brought forth, and Thor seizing it becomes once more the god—and summer is first announced by the crashing thunder peal.

This poem is worthy of all praise for its realism and humour ; but it is responsible, with others of its kind, for the comic, even ridiculous figure which has always passed for Thor. In the ruder Lay of Hymir the heroic outlines of the god are more clearly discerned. The nature myth too, suggested above, would be unrecognisable, if Thor and his hammer had not elsewhere played such parts. Mjöllnir is one of the mythical treasures forged by the dwarfs. A belief in it was not confined to Old Norse mythology, for it appears in many traditions and fairy tales of Germany.

Two other famous objects are mentioned—Freyja’s feather coat in st. 3, and her necklace called Brisinga-men in st. 12. If the story of the last could be reconstructed, it might prove to be one of the most poetical in mythology. It is undoubtedly old, though it may not, as Müllenhoff suggests, date back to Indo-Germanic times. It was known in England, the earliest reference to it being in Beowulf, and in Denmark, where Saxo mentions it as the property of Frigg. In the Sörlaþattr we have the following story :—Once Freyja, mistress of Odin, spied a necklace lying in a cave. It was the work of certain dwarfs, perhaps the Brisings, and when she looked at it she longed to possess it. They promised to give it her if she would stay with them four nights, and this she did. Odin was angry when he discovered it, and caused Loki to steal the necklace from her chamber, and would only give it back to her on condition that she stirred up war between two kings, whence the legend of the “Everlasting Battle.” The poet Ulf Uggason tells in the following lines of the battle between Loki and Heimdal:— “The famous and skilled one of the bridge of the Powers (Bifröst) wrestled with the evil and cunning son of Farbauti (Loki) at Singastone, ere the mighty son of nine mothers gained the shining necklace of sea-stones.”

What is the meaning of this fragmentary tale? The shining necklace must have been a symbol of light, especially the light cast upon the ocean waves. We can scarcely venture, like some critics, to define it as the moon, the morning and evening star, or the rainbow.* It belonged to the Sun goddess, whether called Freyja, Frigg (wife of the heaven god), or Gefjon, for that the three were originally one is suggested by the frequent confusion between them, in Saxo, in Sörlaþattr, and in Ls., st. 20, 21. But Brisinga-men in Old Norse tradition is the property of Freyja, who is also called Mardöll, or Sea-shining, and Menglöd, the Necklace-glad. Freyja loses her necklace, and Heimdal, the god of light, wins it back for her in some conflict with darkness, which was possibly confused with the last fight between Loki and Heimdal at the Doom of the gods, or it may have given rise to this latter incident, which is only told by Snorri. Müllenhoff pursues the myth of Brisinga-men through the story of Hildr and Hogni, and other heroic lays which belong to more recent times.