Halfdan's weapon, which he wields successfully in advantageous exploits, is in fact, the club (Saxo, Hist., 26, 31, 323, 353). That the Teutonic patriarch's favourite weapon is the club, not the sword; that the latter, later, in his hand, sheds the blood of a kinsman; and that he himself finally is slain by the sword forged by Thjasse, and that, too, in conflict with a son (the stepson Svipdag—see below), I regard as worthy of notice from the standpoint of the views cherished during some of the centuries of the Teutonic heathendom in regard to the various age and sacredness of the different kinds of weapons. That the sword also at length was looked upon as sacred is plain from the fact that it was adopted and used by the Asa-gods. In Ragnarok, Vidar is to avenge his father with a hjörr and pierce Fafner's heart (Völuspa). Hjörr may, it is true, also mean a missile, but still it is probable that it, in Vidar's hand, means a sword. The oldest and most sacred weapons were the spear, the hammer, the club, and the axe. The spear which, in the days of Tacitus, and much later, was the chief weapon both for foot-soldiers and cavalry in the Teutonic armies, is wielded by the Asa-father himself, whose Gungner was forged for him by Ivalde's sons before the dreadful enmity between the gods and them had begun.
The hammer is Thor's most sacred weapon. Before Sindre forged one for him of iron (Gylfaginning), he wielded a hammer of stone. This is evident from the very name hamarr, a rock, a stone. The club is, as we have seen, the weapon of the Teutonic patriarch, and is wielded side by side with Thor's hammer in the conflict with the powers of frost. The battle-axe belonged to Njord. This is evident from the metaphors found in the Younger Edda, p. 346, and in Islend. Saga, 9. The mythological kernel in the former metaphor is Njördrklauf Herjan's hurdir, i.e., "Njord cleaved Odin's gates" (when the Vans conquered Asgard); in the other the battle-axe is called Gaut's megin-hurdar galli, i.e., "the destroyer of Odin's great gate." The bow is a weapon employed by the Asa-gods Hödr and Ullr, but Balder is slain by a shot from the bow, and the chief archer of the myth is, as we shall see, not an Asa-god, but a brother of Thjasse. (Further discussion of the weapon-myth will be found in No. 39.)
32.
HALFDAN'S CONFLICTS INTERPRETED AS MYTHS OF NATURE. THE WAR WITH THE HEROES FROM SVARIN'S MOUND. HALFDAN'S MARRIAGE WITH DISES OF VEGETATION.
In regard to the significance of the conflicts awaiting Halfdan, and occupying his whole life, when interpreted as myths of nature, we must remember that he inherits from his father the duty of stopping the progress southward of the giant-world's wintry agents, the kinsmen of Thjasse, and of the Skilfing (Yngling) tribes dwelling in the north. The migration sagas have, as we have seen, shown that Borgar and his people had to leave the original country and move south to Denmark, Saxland, and to those regions on the other side of the Baltic in which the Goths settled. For a time the original country is possessed by the conquerors who according to Völuspa, "from Svarin's Mound attacked and took (sótti) the clayey plains as far as Jaravall." But Halfdan represses them. That the words quoted from Völuspa really refer to the same mythic persons with whom Halfdan afterwards fights is proved by the fact that Svarin and Svarin's Mound are never named in our documents except in connection with Halfdan's saga. In Saxo it is Halfdan-Gram who slays Svarin and his numerous brothers; in the saga of "Helge Hundingsbane" it is again Halfdan, under the name Helge, who attacks tribes dwelling around Svarin's Mound, and conquers them. To this may be added, that the compiler of the first song about Helge Hundingsbane borrowed from the saga-original, on which the song is based, names which point to the Völuspa strophe concerning the attack on the south Scandinavian plains. In the category of names, or the genealogy of the aggressors, occur, as has been shown already, the Skilfing names Alf and Yngve. Thus also in the Helge-song's list of persons with whom the conflict is waged in the vicinity of Svarin's Mound. In the Vö1uspa's list Moinn is mentioned among the aggressors (in the variation in the Prose Edda); in the Helge-song, strophe 46, it is said that Helge-Halfdan fought á Móinsheimom against his brave foes, whom he afterwards slew in the battle around Svarin's Mound. In the Völuspa's list is named among the aggressors one Haugspori, "the one spying from the mound"; in the Helge-song is mentioned Sporvitnir, who from Svarin's Mound watches the forces of Helge-Halfdan advancing. I have already (No. 28B), pointed out several other names which occur in the Völuspa list, and whose connection with the myth concerning the artists, frost-giants, and Skilfings of antiquity and their attack on the original country, can be shown.
The physical significance of Halfdan's conflicts and adventures is apparent also from the names of the women, whom the saga makes him marry. Groa (grow), whom he robs and keeps for some time, is, as her very name indicates, a goddess of vegetation. Signe-Alveig, whom he afterwards marries, is the same. Her name signifies "the nourishing drink." According to Saxo she is the daughter of Sumblus, Latin for Sumbl, which means feast, ale, mead, and is a synonym for Ölvaldi, Ölmódr, names which belonged to the father of the Ivalde sons (see No. 123).
According to a well-supported statement in Forspjallsljod (see No. 123), Ivalde was the father of two groups of children. The mother of one of these groups is a giantess (see Nos. 113, 114, 115). With her he has three sons, viz., the three famous artists of antiquity—Ide, Gang-Urnir, and Thjasse. The mother of the other group is a goddess of light (see No. 123). With her he has daughters, who are goddesses of growth, among them Idun and Signe-Alveig. That Idun is the daughter of Ivalde is clear from Forspjallsljod (6), álfa ættar Ithunni hèto Ivallds ellri ýngsta barna.
Of the names of their father Sumbl, Ölvaldi, Ölmódr, it may be said that, as nature-symbols, "öl" (ale) and "mjöd" (mead), are in the Teutonic mythology identical with soma and somamadhu in Rigveda and haoma in Avesta, that is, they are the strength-developing, nourishing saps in nature. Mimer's subterranean well, from which the world-tree draws its nourishment, is a mead-fountain. In the poem "Haustlaung" Idun is called Ölgefn; in the same poem Groa is called Ölgefion. Both appellations refer to goddesses who give the drink of growth and regeneration to nature and to the gods. Thus we here have a family, the names and epithets of whose members characterise them as forces, active in the service of nature and of the god of harvests. Their names and epithets also point to the family bond which unites them. We have the group of names, Idvaldi, Idi, Idunn, and the group, Ölvaldi (Ölmódr), Ölgefn, and Ölgefion, both indicating members of the same family. Further on (see Nos. 113, 114, 115), proof shall be presented that Groa's first husband, Orvandel the brave, is one of Thjasse's brothers, and thus that Groa, too, was closely connected with this family.
As we know, it is the enmity caused by Loke between the Asa-gods and the lower serving, yet powerful, divinities of nature belonging to the Ivalde group, which produces the terrible winter with its awful consequences for man, and particularly for the Teutonic tribes. These hitherto beneficent agents of growth have ceased to serve the gods, and have allied themselves with the frost-giants. The war waged by Halfdan must be regarded from this standpoint. Midgard's chief hero, the real Teutonic patriarch, tries to reconquer for the Teutons the country of which winter has robbed them. To be able to do this, he is the son of Thor, the divine foe of the frost-giants, and performs on the border of Midgard a work corresponding to that which Thor has to do in space and in Jotunheim. And in the same manner as Heimdal before secured favourable conditions of nature to the original country, by uniting the sun-goddess with himself through bonds of love, his grandson Halfdan now seeks to do the same for the Teutonic country, by robbing a hostile son of Ivalde, Orvandel, of his wife Groa, the growth-giver, and thereupon also of Alveig, the giver of the nourishing sap. A symbol of nature may also be found in Saxo's statement, that the king of Svithiod, Sigtrygg, Groa's father, could not be conquered unless Halfdan fastened a golden ball to his club (Hist., 31). The purpose of Halfdan's conflicts, the object which the norns particularly gave to his life, that of reconquering from the powers of frost the northernmost regions of the Teutonic territory and of permanently securing them for culture, and the difficulty of this task is indicated, it seems to me, in the strophes above quoted, which tell us that the norns fastened the woof of his power in the east and west, and