Midgard

“ For the people of Midgard cannot understand the wonders of the heavens and the mysteries of the gods.
The gods stood, wonder-struck. Their faces were pale with fright. The brow of Thor grew black and stern. Odin looked pityingly upon them all. “Lose not your courage,” said he kindly. “The Fenris-wolf shall yet be bound; and there shall yet remain [113] to us ages upon ages of happiness and freedom from his wicked power. Go now to the dwarfs who work their forges in the great mines beneath the mountains of Midgard. They shall make for you a magic chain that even Fenris cannot break.” ”

“ The roots of this mundane ash reach as far downwards as its branches do upwards. Its roots, trunk, and branches together thrid the universe, shooting Hela, the kingdom of death, Midgard, the abode of men, and Asgard, the dwelling of the gods, like so many concentric rings. ”

“ Thus the earth and mankind are represented as a stronghold besieged by the powers of evil from without, defended by the gods from above and from within. Midgard.
Midgardsormr [The serpent of Midgaard] . The world-serpent hidden in the ocean, whose coils gird around the whole Midgard. Thor once fishes for him, and gets him on his hook. In Ragnarok Thor slays him, but falls himself poisoned by his breath. Midgard-serpent.
Mimameidr. A mythic tree; probably the same as Ygdrasil. It derives its name from Mimer, and means Mimer's tree. Mimameider. ”

“ From this pair descend all mankind.
On the confines of Midgard towards the north, and separated from it by mountains of ice and snow, and dreary wastes eternally agitated by storms, lies Utgard, the domain of the giants, whose sovereign is Lok, commonly called Utgard-Lok, to distinguish him from an Asa bearing the same name. Utgard became thus the region assigned to the giant race, as Midgard was to mankind. The Asar chose for themselves a region supposed to be in the heavens above the earth, and this region they called Asagard. There they built for themselves various palaces and tenements ”

“ More years than you mortals can reckon. But I was an adventurous lad and one night I crossed the bridge Bifrost from Midgard to Asgard. Asgard, you understand, is the land of the old gods, but I was safe there as long as it was dark. While I was there, I met Thrud, only daughter of Thor, god of the yeomen and peasants, dispenser of thunder. Aye, she was beautiful—more beautiful than you'd know, Kevan MacGreene—and I knew she was the lass for Alviss. ”

“ Hereafter, men watching the going out of the tide will call it the ebb, or draught of Thor. Scarcely less wonderful was the prowess you displayed in the second trial. What appeared to you to be a cat, was, in reality, the Midgard serpent, which encircles the world. When we saw you succeed in moving it we trembled lest the very foundations of earth and sea should be shaken by your strength. Nor need you be ashamed of having been overthrown by the old woman Elli, for she is old age; and there never has, and never will be, one whom she has not the power to lay low. ”

“ The sword in his hand to the heart he thrusteth Of the fiend's offspring; avenged is his Father. Now goeth Hlödyn's glorious son Not in flight from the Serpent, of fear unheeding; All the earth's offspring must empty the homesteads, When furiously smiteth Midgard's defender. The sun shall be darkened, earth sinks in the sea,— Glide from the heaven the glittering stars; Smoke-reek rages and reddening fire: The high heat licks against heaven itself. And here it says yet so:
Vígrídr hight the field where in fight shall meet Surtr and the cherished gods ”

“ Then the gods determined to create new beings to people the universe. They gave human bodies and understanding to dwarfs, who had been generated within the dead body of Ymir, and who took up their abodes in the bowels of the earth, in rocks, in stones, and in trees and flowers. Then Odin, with two companions, went forth on an excursion to the earth, and created a man and woman; and from this pair, whose abode was at Midgard, the human race sprang. A bridge of various colours, known to men as the rainbow, connected Midgard with Asgard, and over this the gods rode daily to a sacred fountain. ”

“ Encircling the whole earth like a ring, lay the huge snake Midgard,—always hidden in the sea, save when half drawn forth on one occasion by the god Thor; outside the snake a broader ring of ice-mountains swept round both land and ocean, and formed the outer frame of the world,—for there lay only blank space beyond ”

“ In the beginning, when the town of the gods was building, when the gods had established Midgard and made Valhal, there came a certain builder and offered to make them a burg, in three half years, so excellent that it should be perfectly safe against the mountain giants and frost-giants, even though they should get within Midgard. But he demanded as his reward, that he should have Freyja, and he wanted the sun and moon besides. Then the asas came together and held counsel, and the bargain was made with the builder that he should get what he demanded if he could get the burg done in one winter ”

“ Though the gods fought with the courage of despair, they knew that it was useless to contend with the fury and strength and numbers that were arrayed against them. One by one the shining heroes of Asgard fell beneath the attacks of the madly exultant foe, and even the mighty Mjölner was powerless to avert the doom which had been decreed by fate.
Thor struggled fiercely with the Midgard serpent, and though he killed it at last with his hammer, the terrible coils closed slowly about him and he was drowned in the flood of venom that poured out of the dying creature’s mouth. ”

“ From Hlidskjalf, the outlook of the gods in Asgard (Forspjallsljod, the prose texts in Skirnersmal and in Grimnersmal) , the view is open to Midgard, to the sea, and to the giant-world situated beyond the Elivagar rivers (see the texts mentioned) , [Pg 696] and should accordingly also be so to the broad zone of Jormungrund, excepting its northernmost part, which always is shrouded in night. ”

“ The earth, or Midgard, [14] was represented as level and circular, and midway between Muspell, above, and Niflheim, below. Around the outer edge, next to the ocean, the sons of Bör raised a bulwark of Ymir’s eyebrows, as a 245protection against the Jötuns. Outside of Midgard, flows the great ocean; and beyond this, in another circle, is Jötunheim, [15] the land of the Jötuns, a rough mountain waste.
One of the most intricate and sublime conceptions, is the myth of the ash Yggdrasill. This tree is typical of nature, and intimately connected with and partly supporting the earth. ”

“ In the temple at Upsala he occupied the same place in the Scandinavian Trinity that Christ does in the Christian Trinity. Like Christ he died for man and was worshiped as a Savior. Midgard had a serpent, more formidable if not more wily than that of Eden, which threatened to destroy the human race. Thor attacked and slew the monster, but was himself killed by the venom which was exhaled from it. The slaying of the serpent of Midgard by Thor, the slaying of the python by the Greek god, and the bruising of the head of the serpent of Hebrew mythology by Christ, are analogous myths. ”

“ From these two, the giant and the god, came the two great races of giants and gods, who were always [3] enemies to each other. The giants were constantly trying to break into Asgard, the home of the gods, in the sky; the gods, on the other hand, watched and planned to keep out the giants, and to drive them back to their own stronghold, Utgard. Our world, where men and women lived, was between Utgard and Asgard; it was called Midgard, and around this Midgard world, under the ocean, was coiled a monstrous serpent, who grew so long that his tail grew down his throat. ”

“ Midgard’s snake is the serpent Jormundgard, type of the ocean, which surrounds the earth (Midgard) . According to Ling, a Swedish poet, the mythe of Lok and his three offspring, Fenris, Hela and Jormundgard, may be thus explained. Fenris denotes what is destructive or prejudicial in Fire: Hela denotes the deleterious qualities of the Earth, in decomposing substances and causing rottenness: Jormundgard denotes the destructive qualities of Water: all these are caused by the action of Air (Lok or Loptur) mixing with Angurbod (impurity) . ”

“ Under this root also lies Helheim, a home of the dead. The third root is in heaven: gods and men live under it, in Asgard and Midgard; the giant fate-sisters also live under it, at the top of the Rainbow's arch in their palace very beauteous, which stands by the Holy Urda Fount. They water the tree every day with the holy water, so that ever "it stands green over Urda's Fount."
These maidens are called Norns;—they fix the destinies of men, Har says; "but besides them," he adds, "there are a great many other norns—indeed, for each man that is born there is a norn to decide his fate." ”

“ The Creation of Man
Although the gods had from the beginning designed Midgard, or Mana-heim, as the abode of man, there were at first no human beings to inhabit it. One day Odin, Vili, and Ve, according to some authorities, or Odin, Hoenir (the bright one) , and Lodur, or Loki (fire) , started out together and walked along the seashore, where they found either two trees, the ash, Ask, and the elm, Embla, or two blocks of wood, hewn into rude semblances of the human form. The gods gazed at first upon the inanimate wood in silent wonder ”

“ The earth is fashioned round without, and there beyond, round about it lies the deep sea; and on that sea-strand the gods gave land for an abode to the giant kind, but within on the earth made they a burg round the world against restless giants, and for this burg reared they the brows of Ymir, and called the burg Midgard. The gods went along the sea-strand and found two stocks, and shaped out of them men ”

“ Here are the matchless tales of All-Father Odin, who crosses the Rainbow Bridge to walk among men in Midgard and sacrifices his right eye to drink from the Well of Wisdom; of Thor, whose mighty hammer defends Asgard; of Loki, whose mischievous cunning leads him to treachery against the gods; of giants, dragons, dwarfs and Valkyries ”

“ Midgard raised his glittering snaky head above the darkness and the shadows, and greeted the monarch with a cordial and complimentary hiss; wolf Fenris tried hard for a good-natured howl; and the grim Hela, their sister, the queen of death, tortured her ghastly face into a smile, as she capered nimbly backwards and forwards in the festival, animated by the thought of the many meals Frotho would furnish for her famished maw. But, at length, the immortals grew weary of their own noises—the infernal jollification p. ”

“ Might Hela perchance surrender Balder if Höder himself should take his place among the shades? "Nay," replied Frigga, "no way is there but one, that the first god thou meetest on the return to Asgard take Sleipnir, Odin's horse, and ride o'er the bridge Bifrost where is Heimdall's watch, past Midgard fortress, down the dark, unknown road to Hel, and there entreat the goddess Hela that she yield Balder back to heaven." Höder, returning cityward, met Hermod, swiftest of the gods ”

“ It would have robbed Valhal of many of Midgard's most brilliant heroes, and it would have demanded from faithful believers that they should prefer death even with defeat to victory and life, since the latter lot was coupled with the possibility of death from disease. With such a view no army goes to battle, and no warlike race endowed with normal instincts has ever entertained it and given it expression in their doctrine in regard to future life. ”

“ Slung over her shoulder were snowshoes and skates, for Skadi had come from her mountain home in the icy north. Very angry about the loss of her father, she had come to ask the Æsir why they had been so cruel to him.
Father Odin spoke kindly to her, saying, “We will do honor to your father by putting his eyes in the sky, where they will always shine as two bright stars, and the people in Midgard will remember Thiassi [77] whenever they look up at night and see the two twinkling lights. ”

“ When you met the first giant in the forest you would have killed him with your hammer, if he had not put a mountain between himself and you. Loki was a wonderful eater, but we matched him against fire, and who can devour more than fire? The boy was a swift runner, and I had to make him race against thought, in order to beat him; what [49] can be swifter than thought? The horn, from which you drank, was the ocean, and you took such a mighty draught, that the people in Midgard saw the tide ebb. ”

“ Delling, who is the father of his leikr—have their dwellings in Mimer's domain, and belong to the subterranean class of the numina of Teutonic mythology.
From regions situated below Midgard's horizon, Nat, Sol, and Dag draw their chariots upon the heavens. On the eastern border of the lower world is the point of departure for their regular journeys over the heavens of the upper world ("the upper heavens," upphiminn—Völuspa, 3; Vafthr., 20, and elsewhere; uppheimr—Alvm., 13) . Nat has her home and, as shall be shown hereafter, her birthplace in dales beneath the ash Ygdrasil. ”

“ They occasionally descend from Asagard to Midgard, by passing over the bridge Bifrost, when they deem it necessary to intervene immediately in the affairs of mankind, for the purpose of relieving the oppressed, or of enforcing the practice of justice and benevolence.
The giants, on the contrary, when they sally forth from their domain in Utgard, do so for the purpose of creating storms and earthquakes, and causing, either openly or insidiously, as much mischief as possible to gods and men. ”