Heimdall

“ Heimdall was speaking sharply, for he did not altogether like the stranger's look. "For what purpose do you come?" he was inquiring.
"I am a Master Builder," replied the stranger. "I can build towers and forts more strongly than any other builder in all the world. Have you anything of the kind that wants doing here?"
The eyes of the Asas met as they heard these words, and Odin, stepping forward, said, "Can you build us a fortress so strong that not all the strength of the Frost Giants could avail against it?" ”

“ Accordingly, the next day the Æsir and Asyniur all rose with the sun, and prepared to set forth. Niörd came from Noatun, the mild sea-coast, which he had made his home, and with continual gentle puffings out of his wide, breezy mouth, he made their journey to Bifröst so easy and pleasant, that they all felt a little sorry when they caught the first glitter of Heimdall's golden teeth. But Heimdall was glad to see them; glad, at least, for their sakes. He thought it would be so good for them to go and see the Norns. As far as he himself was concerned he never felt dull alone. ”

“ Heimdall spake:
47."Drunk art thou, Loki, and mad are thy deeds,
Why, Loki, leavst thou this not?
For drink beyond measure will lead all men
No thought of their tongues to take."
Loki spake:
48."Be silent, Heimdall! in days long since
Was an evil fate for thee fixed;
With back held stiff must thou ever stand,
As warder of heaven to watch."
Skathi spake:
49."Light art thou, Loki, but longer thou mayst not
In freedom flourish thy tail;
On the rocks the gods bind thee with bowels torn
Forth from thy frost-cold son." ”

“ They will try to make a secret attack on the gods. But Heimdall, the sentry of heaven, will be on guard at the end of the rainbow-bridge. He needs no more sleep than a bird and can see for a hundred miles either by day or night. He only can sound the horn whose blast can be heard through heaven and earth and the under-world. Loki and his army will be seen by him. His loud alarm will sound and bring the gods together. They will rush to meet the giants. Woden will wield his spear—Tiew his glittering sword—Thor his terrible hammer. These will all be in vain. The gods must die. ”

“ Heimdall was provided further with a flashing sword and a marvellous trumpet, called Giallar-horn, which the gods bade him blow whenever he saw their enemies approach, declaring that its sound would rouse all creatures in heaven, earth, and Nifl-heim. ”

“ While the battle goes on between the gods and the giants they keep their effulgent bands apart on the field of battle. Meantime Heimdall—doorkeeper of the gods—sounds his mighty trumpet, which is heard through the whole universe, to summon the gods to conflict. The gods, or Æsir, and all the heroes of Valhalla, arm themselves and go to the field. Odin fights with the Wolf; Thor with the Midgard Serpent, whom he kills, but being suffocated with the floods of venom dies himself. ”

“ When he was still a child, he was fond of brandishing his spear and of bending his bow; at fifteen he swam across the blue waters of the lake, or plunged on an unbroken horse into [169] the depths of the forest, riding as fast as the wind. They called him Jarl, the noble.
Some years later Heimdall paid another visit to this country; delighted with the prowess of Jarl, he acknowledged him as his son and taught him the language of birds, which the gods alone understand and fluently speak. He taught him also the science of Runes, of runes of victory which are engraven on the blades of swords ”

“ Why mankind should be referred to as Heimdall’s sons is uncertain, and the phrase has caused much perplexity. Heimdall seems to have had various attributes, and in the Rigsthula, wherein a certain Rig appears as the ancestor of the three great classes of men, a fourteenth century annotator identifies Rig with Heimdall, on what authority we do not know, for the Rig of the poem seems much more like Othin (cf. Rigsthula, introductory prose and note) . ”

“ Heimdall’s horn was called the Gialar-horn. At Balder’s funeral, Heimdall rode to the sea on his horse Gulltopp. Back
Having received a command from Odin to let the stranger pass, Heimdall allowed the king to enter the sacred city; and Gylfe soon found himself in the presence of Odin. ”

“ One of them is Heimdall, called also the White God. He is the son of nine virgins, who were sisters, and is a very sacred and powerful deity. He also bears the appellation of the Gold-toothed, on account of his teeth being of pure gold, and also that of Hallinskithi. ”

“ The Karls' children are said to be clothed in linen, to be ruddy headed and have twinkling eyes, and they grow up to "tame oxen, make ploughs, build houses, make carts and farm;" but the favoured, useless Jarls, "Light of hair, bright cheeks, eyes piercing as a serpent's," grow up to "shake the shield, to brandish spears,
"Horses to ride,
Dogs to slip,
Swords to draw,
Swimming to practise."
Heimdall keeps the bridge alike from thunder god and frost giants, but at Ragnarök, the swarthy god Surtur, who lives on the borders of Muspellheim, will ride over it and shatter it to pieces. ”

“ He bears in one hand a sword, in the other a trumpet, the sound of which resounds throughout the universe.
When the powers of evil break loose, Heimdall will rouse the gods to their last conflict by a blast of his trumpet, and in the struggle will kill and be killed by Loki.
His name is explained by heim, home, and dallr, powerful. The latter half is in Anglo-Saxon deall, in old High German tello, and in the old Norse dallr, whence Dalla is found as a name in the Landnama-bok. ”

“ Heimdall: the phrase “whitest of the gods” suggests that Heimdall was the god of light as well as being the watchman. His wisdom was probably connected with his sleepless watching over all the worlds; cf. Lokasenna, 47 and note. On the Wanes cf. Voluspo, 21 and note. They are not elsewhere spoken of as peculiarly gifted with knowledge of future events.
16. Possibly a line has been lost from this stanza.
17. Laufey: Loki’s mother, cf. Lokasenna, 52 and note. [179]
18–19. The manuscript abbreviates all six lines, giving only the initial letters of the words. ”

“ Here the Volva turns from her memories of the past to a statement of some of Othin’s own secrets in his eternal search for knowledge (stanzas 27–29) . Bugge puts this stanza after stanza 29. The horn of Heimdall: the Gjallarhorn (“Shrieking Horn”) , with which Heimdall, watchman of the gods, will summon them to the last battle. Till that time the horn is buried under Yggdrasil. Valfather’s pledge: Othin’s eye (the sun?) , which he gave to the water-spirit Mimir (or Mim) in exchange for the latter’s wisdom. ”

“ But as will be seen in the perusal of these volumes, no man was allowed to rule over the people unless he excelled in many things.
The Rigsmál gives in a striking manner the mode of life of early times, and shows into how many classes society was divided: viz., the slave; the karl or bondi; the jarl, and the hersir.
487In the first stanza of the Voluspa we have seen that all men are called the sons of Heimdall, of which we have an explanation in the Rigsmál. Heimdall travels about under the name of Rig, from house to house ”

“ The battle-bold Freyr rideth First on the golden-bristled Barrow-boar to the bale-fire Of Baldr, and leads the people.
The boar is also called Fearful-Tusk.
VIII. "How should one periphrase Heimdallr? By calling him Son of Nine Mothers, or Watchman of the Gods, as already has been written; or White God, Foe of Loki, Seeker of Freyja's Necklace. A sword is called Heimdallr's Head: for it is said that he was pierced by a man's head. The tale thereof is told in Heimdalar-galdr; and ever since a head is called Heimdallr's Measure; a sword is called Man's Measure. ”

“ Thus in Voluspo, 1, the Volva asks hearing “from Heimdall’s sons both high and low”; in Grimnismol, 13, there is a very doubtful line which may mean that Heimdall “o’er men holds sway, it is said,” and in “the Short Voluspo” (Hyndluljoth, 40) he is called “the kinsman of men.” On the other hand, everything in the Rigsthula, including the phrase “the aged and wise” in stanza 1, and the references to runes in stanzas 36, 44, and 46, fits Othin exceedingly well. It seems probable that the annotator was wrong, and that Rig is Othin, and not Heimdall. ”

“ Odin, in spite of his Druids and their demands for bloody sacrifices, seems to have been full of good intentions. The god Thor, with all his somewhat brutal ways, rendered great services to mankind; and the same hammer, which protected them against the giants, afterwards served, [188] without the aid of geometry, to mark the boundary lines of their respective properties. The golden-teethed god, Heimdall, gave most undoubted evidence of his devotion to the human race and of his self-denial in his visits to the Grandmother and the Great-grandmother, and so did the other gods. ”

“ On his wings bears Nidhögg, flying o'er the plain, a corpse. Now she will descend.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] In the Rigsmal we are informed how Heimdall, under the name of Rig, became the progenitor of the three orders of mankind.
[6] In the Germanic tongues, as in the Semitic, the sun is fem., the moon masc.
[7] The Vala here speaks of herself in the third person.
[8] His eye here understood to signify the sun.
[9] A personification of gold. With the introduction of gold was the end of the golden age.
[10] i.e., Odin's: his hall is the world. ”

“ In this painful position Loki was destined to remain until the twilight of the gods, when his bonds would be loosed, and he would take part in the fatal conflict on the battlefield of Vigrid, falling at last by the hand of Heimdall, who would be slain at the same time. ”

“ Heimdall, as Irmin, the shining, a dweller upon heavenly mountains, who sees and hears far off, who wanders over the earth, blows his golden horn. Thor, whose dwelling is the heavens; god of the storm, of cultivation; the warrior, the chooser of the slain; for it is said that whilst Odin had all the Jarls that fell in battle, Thor claimed the Thralls for his share. Frey, the Summer, god of the fruitful year, the pledger of his sword. It is supposed that Frey was once the husband of Freyja, and that it was their separation which founded the myth of Freyja's wanderings and tears ”

“ Ljónar heita their menn, er ganga um sættir manna, "ljónar are called those men whose business it is to settle disputes." That this word ljónar originally designated a certain group of Asa-gods whose special duty it was to act as arbitrators is manifest from the phrase ljóna kindir, "the children of the peacemakers," an expression inherited from heathendom and applied to mankind far down in Christian times; it is an expression to be compared with the phrase megir Heimdallar, "Heimdal's sons," which also was used to designate mankind. ”

“ Beginning with this stanza, the names of the speakers are lacking in the manuscript. The mill: i.e., at slaves’ tasks.
45. Nothing further is known of either Byggvir’s swiftness or his cowardice. Hropt: Othin.
47. Heimdall: besides being the watchman of the gods (cf. Voluspo, 27) , he appears also as the god of light (cf. Thrymskvitha, 14) , and possibly also as a complex cultural deity in the [167] Rigsthula. He was a son of Othin, born of nine sisters; cf. Hyndluljoth, 37–40. In the last battle he and Loki slay one another. Line 2 is quoted by Snorri; cf. stanza 29, note. ”

“ In the manuscript this stanza stands after stanza 44. Regarding Heimdall’s kinship to the three great classes of men, cf. Rigsthula, introductory note, wherein the apparent confusion of his attributes with those of Othin is discussed.
42. Probably a lacuna before this stanza. Regarding the wolf Fenrir, born of Loki and the giantess Angrbotha, cf. Voluspo, 39 and note. Sleipnir: Othin’s eight-legged horse, born of the stallion Svathilfari and of Loki in the guise of a mare (cf. Grimnismol, 44) . The worst: doubtless referring to Mithgarthsorm, another child of Loki. ”

“ Heimdaller then Lok’s plan explained, and spoke: “Ye Asar high!
His hammer Thor will ne’er regain, unless we mystify
The amorous giant: as ye know, he seeks a bride more fair
Than those he’s been accustomed to, in his dark mountain lair.
Unused to females, who possess grace, beauty, symmetry.
To dupe the giant’s senses coarse no arduous task would be.
If Thor will but consent to dress in feminine attire,
There is a bride at once most fit to cool the giant’s fire!
Let Thor like Freya be array’d: to further the deceit
She’ll not refuse, I trow, to lend the robes and jewels meet. ”

“ A few editors, following Bugge, in an effort to clarify the poem, place stanzas 22, 28 and 30 before stanzas 1–20, but the arrangement in both manuscripts, followed here, seems logical. In stanza 1 the Volva, or wise-woman, called upon by Othin, answers him and demands a hearing. Evidently she belongs to the race of the giants (cf. stanza 2) , and thus speaks to Othin unwillingly, being compelled to do so by his magic power. Holy: omitted in Regius; the phrase “holy races” probably means little more than mankind in general. Heimdall: the watchman of the gods; cf. stanza 46 and note. ”

“ HARBARD, in this poem, is the name of a ferryman of Jotun race, who refuses to ferry Skirnir across a river until he has answered his questions and displayed his knowledge.
HEIDRUNA, name of the mythological goat who stands on the roof of Valaskialf, and whose teats afford a constant supply of hydromel to the guests at Valhalla.
HEIMDAL, or Heimdaller, name of an Asa who stands as sentinel at the bridge of Bifrost, to give notice of the approach of strangers by blowing his horn Giallar. He is constantly on the alert to prevent surprise on the part of the giants. ”