of culture. Hyndla's lay tells how these friendly powers prepared the child for its important mission, after it was born in the outermost borders of the earth (vid jardar thraum), in a wonderful manner, by nine sisters (Hyndla's Lay, 35; Heimdallar Galdr., in the Younger Edda; compare No. 82, where the ancient Aryan root of the myth concerning Heimdal's nine mothers is pointed out).
For its mission the child had to be equipped with strength, endurance, and wisdom. It was given to drink jardar magn svalkaldr sær and Sonar dreyri. It is necessary to compare these expressions with Urdar magn, svalkaldr sær and Sónar dreyri in Gudrunarkivda, ii. 21, a song written in Christian times, where this reminiscence of a triple heathen-mythic drink reappears as a potion of forgetfulness allaying sorrow. The expression Sónar dreyri shows that the child had tasted liquids from the subterranean fountains which water Yggdrasil and sustain the spiritual and physical life of the universe (cp. Nos. 63 and 93). Són contains the mead of inspiration and wisdom. In Gylfaginning, which quotes a satire of late origin, this name is given to a jar in which Suttung preserves this valuable liquor, but to the heathen skalds Són is the name of Mimer's fountain, which contains the highest spiritual gifts, and around whose rush-bordered edge the reeds of poetry grow (Eilif Gudrunson, Skáldskaparmál). The child Heimdal has, therefore, drunk from Mimer's fountain. Jardar magn (the earth's strength) is in reality the same as Urdar magn, the strength of the water in Urd's fountain, which keeps the world-tree ever green and sustains the physical life of creation (Völusp.). The third subterranean fountain is Hvergelmer, with hardening liquids. From Hvergelmer comes the river Sval, and the venom-cold Elivogs (Grimner's Lay, Gylfaginning). Svalkaldar sær, cool sea, is an appropriate designation of this fountain.
When the child has been strengthened in this manner for its great mission, it is laid sleeping in the decorated ship, gets the grain-sheaf for its pillow, and numerous treasures are placed around it. It is certain that there were not only weapons and ornaments, but also workmen's tools among the treasures. It should be borne in mind that the gods made on the plains of Ida not only ornaments, but also tools (tangir skópu ok tol gördu). Evidence is presented in No. 82 that Scef-Heimdal brought the fire-auger to primeval man who until that time had lived without the blessings produced by the sacred fire.
The boy grows up among the inhabitants on the Scandian coast, and, when he has developed into manhood, human culture has germinated under his influence and the beginnings of classes in society with distinct callings appear. In Rigsthula, we find him journeying along "green paths, from house to house, in that land which his presence has blessed." Here he is called Rigr—it is true of him as of nearly all mythological persons, that he has several names—but the introduction to the poem informs us that the person so called is the god Heimdal (einhverr af asum sá er Heimdallr het). The country is here also described as situated near the sea. Heimdal journeys framm med sjofarströndu. Culture is in complete operation. The people are settled, they spin and weave, perform handiwork, and are smiths, they plough and bake, and Heimdal has instructed them in runes. Different homes show different customs and various degrees of wealth, but happiness prevails everywhere. Heimdal visits Ai's and Edda's unpretentious home, is hospitably received, and remains three days. Nine months thereafter the son Träl (thrall) is born to this family. Heimdal then visits Ave's and Amma's well-kept and cleanly house, and nine months thereafter the son Karl (churl) is born in this household. Thence Rig betakes himself to Fadir's and Modir's elegant home. There is born, nine months later, the son Jarl. Thus the three Teutonic classes—the thralls, the freemen, and the nobility—have received their divine sanction from Heimdal-Rig, and all three have been honoured with divine birth.
In the account of Rig's visit to the three different homes lies the mythic idea of a common fatherhood, an idea which must not be left out of sight when human heroes are described as sons of gods in the mythological and heroic sagas. They are sons of the gods and, at the same time, from a genealogical standpoint, men. Their pedigree, starting with Ask and Embla, is not interrupted by the intervention of the visiting god, nor is there developed by this intervention a half-divine, half-human middle class or bastard clan. The Teutonic patriarch Mannus is, according to Tacitus, the son of a god and the grandson of the goddess Earth. Nevertheless he is, as his name indicates, in the full physical sense of the word, a man, and besides his divine father he has had a human father. They are the descendants of Ask and Embla, men of all classes and conditions, whom Völuspa's skald gathered around the seeress when she was to present to them a view of the world's development and commanded silence with the formula: "Give ear, all ye divine races, great and small, sons of Heimdal." The idea of a common fatherhood we find again in the question of Fadir's grandson, as we shall show below. Through him the families of chiefs get the right of precedence before both the other classes. Thor becomes their progenitor. While all classes trace their descent from Heimdal, the nobility trace theirs also from Thor, and through him from Odin.
Heimdal-Rig's and Fadir's son, begotten with Módir, inherits in Rigsthula the name of the divine co-father, and is called Rig Jarl. Jarl's son, Kon, gets the same name after he has given proof of his knowledge in the runes introduced among the children of men by Heimdal, and has even shown himself superior to his father in this respect. This view that the younger generation surpasses the older points to the idea of a progress in culture among men, during a time when they live in peace and happiness protected by Heimdal's fostering care and sceptre, but must not be construed into the theory of a continued progress based on the law and nature of things, a theory alike strange to the Teutons and to the other peoples of antiquity. Heimdal-Rig's reign must be regarded as the happy ancient age, of which nearly all mythologies have dreamed. Already in the next age following, that is, that of the second patriarch, we read of men of violence who visit the peaceful, and under the third patriarch begins the "knife-age, and axe-age with cloven shields," which continues through history and receives its most terrible development before Ragnarok.
The more common mythical names of the persons appearing in Rigsthula are not mentioned in the song, not even Heimdal's. In strophe 48, the last of the fragment, we find for the first time words which have the character of names—Danr and Danpr. A crow sings from the tree to Jarl's son, the grandson of Heimdal, Kon, saying that peaceful amusement (kyrra fugla) does not become him longer, but that he should rather mount his steed and fight against men; and the crow seeks to awaken his ambition or jealousy by saying that "Dan and Danp, skilled in navigating ships and wielding swords, have more precious halls and a better freehold than you." The circumstance that these names are mentioned makes it possible, as shall be shown below, to establish in a more satisfactory manner the connection between Rigsthula and other accounts which are found in fragments concerning the Teutonic patriarch period.
The oldest history of man did not among the Teutons begin with a paradisian condition. Some time has elapsed between the creation of Ask and Embla, and Heimdal's coming among men. As culture begins with Heimdal, a condition of barbarism must have preceded his arrival. At all events the first generations after Ask and Embla have been looked upon as lacking fire; consequently they have been without the art of the smith, without metal implements, and without knowledge of agriculture. Hence it is that the Vana-child comes across the western sea with fire, with implements, and with the sheaf of grain. But the barbarous condition may have been attended with innocence and goodness of heart. The manner in which the strange child was received by the inhabitants of Scandia's coast, and the tenderness with which it was cared for (diligenti animo, says Ethelwerd) seem to indicate this.
When Scef-Heimdal had performed his mission, and when the beautiful boat in which he came had disappeared beyond the western horizon, then the second mythic patriarch-age begins.
22.
HEIMDAL'S SON BORGAR-SKJOLD, THE SECOND PATRIARCH.
Ynglingasaga, ch. 20, contains a passage which is clearly connected with Rigsthula or with some kindred source. The passage mentions three persons who appear in Rigsthula, viz., Rig, Danp, and Dan, and it is there stated that the ruler who first possessed the kingly title in Svithiod was the son of