Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/367

 FREY:

Speak, Skirner, speak and tell with speed! Take not the harness from your steed, Nor stir your foot, till you have said, How fares my love with Gymer's maid!

SKIRNER:

Bar-isle is hight, the seat of love; Nine nights elapsed, in that known grove To brave Njord's, the gallant boy, Will Gerd yield the kiss of joy.

FREY:

Long is one night, and longer twain; But how for three endure my pain? A month of rapture sooner flies Than half one night of wishful sighs.

This poem illustrates how beautifully a myth can be elaborated. Gerd is the seed; Skirner is the air that comes with the sunshine. Thus the myth is easily explained: The earth, in which the seed is sown, resists the embrace of Frey; his messenger Skirner, who brings the seed out into the light, in vain promises her the golden ears of harvest and the ring, the symbol of abundance. She has her giant nature, which has not yet been touched by the divine spirit; she realizes not the glory which she can attain to by Frey's love. Skirner must conjure her, he must use incantations, he must show her how she, if not embraced by Frey, must forever be the bride of the cold frost, and never experience the joys of wedded life. She finally surrenders herself to Frey, and they embrace each other, when the buds burst forth in the grove. This myth then corresponds to Persephone, the goddess of the grain planted in the ground. Demeter's sorrow on account of the naked, forsaken field, from which the sprout shall shoot forth from the hidden reed, is Frey's impatient