Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/688

* SCANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY. 620 SCANDINAVIANS. voted to eating niiil driiikinfr. Tliors picture is carved on the seat of lionor of the master of the house, to bring eoiufort and prosperity to the houschoKl. The last of the Teuton divinities, to whom was consecrated a (Uiy of the week, is Krigg, the wife of (Idin. With him slie surveys, from his seat lllidliskjalf. the whole universe, and knows, as Odin's confidante, the fates of men. She is in cliarge of marriage, of housewifely success and happiness, and of marital fidelity. Sterile women pray to her for children, and she gives aid in the throes of childbirth. Veiled, with a dis- talV in her hand, and a bunch of keys at her side, she tvpilies the true Teuton housewife. She is the devoted mother of t5alder, and weeps when he is slain. The Scandinavian myth has creiited a goddess Freyja (q.v.), in addition to Frigg, as a female abstraction, or sister, of the male god Kreyr. The latter is one of the Vanir, a class of gods who a])pear to be in some kind of opposi- tion to the ^Ksir. .s Freyr is a goil of love and fruil fulness, his female counterpart Freyja is the fairest of goddesses, benclicent. ami invoked in .Tll'airs of love, and is invoked in company with Frigg. The two most important remaining characters of Scandinavian mythology are Balder and Loki. Balder, the son of Odin, and husband of Nanna, is the darling of the gods. He is so fair that light streams from him, and the whitest of all (lowers is likened to him. He has an evil dream (if impending danger, an<l therefore Frigg, his mother, ])uts all animate and inanimate things under a vow not to harm Balder. On the field the gods, certain not to hurt him, begin to throw all sorts of objects at him. Nothing harms him. Loki changes into a woman and extracts from Frigg the information that she had put all things under a vow, except the mistletoe, which was too young to be able to do him harm. Loki then puts the mistletoe into the hands of Hodhr, Balder's brother, to shoot as an arrow. The mis- sile hits the mark and Balder falls dead. The kernel of the myth is probably the vanishing of the summer sun in winter. Balder, god of physical light, has become the emblem of purity and innocence. Balder's death ushers in the de- struction of the world in Eagnaruk (q.v.) Loki is deceitful and malicious in character, and his naturalistic basis is problematical. He appears only in the Scandinavian myth. Though he often goes in the company of the gods, him- self one of the .-Fsir, yet on the whole, whatever his origin, Me|)histophelian deviltry is a constant element of his character. Both his origin and name have been traced to Lucifer. His part in Balder's death has been shown above. Loki once ate the heart of a courtesan, became pregnant thereof, and gave birth to monsters, the wolf Fenrir, the serpent Midhgardh, and Hel (q.v.), the goddess of death. As a boatswain upon a sliip he leads the dark powers against the -Esir at I^agnarok. No Teutonic god has been ex- plained more variously, as Fire, as the equivalent of the Vedie demon Vritra, as Prometheus, Vul- can. Lucifer, and other types. His name is sup- posed to mean 'the closer' — a vague and doubtful aiqiellation. It seems likely that he contains at least in part a demonic personification of Fire, and as such Richard Wagner pictured him in his Xibelungen tetralogy. Consult: Miiller, Geschichte und System der allilrutsclini h'riiyinii ( ( iiittingen, 1,S44) ; Holtz- manii, IJiiitHthc MiillKjlnr/ic (Leipzig, 1874); Wolf, liiitriijie .:iir ihiilsclifn Mylhulogic (Oijt- tiiigen, 1 852-54 ) ; JMannhardt, Oertnanische MijUicn (Berlin, 1858) ; id.. Die Gotlerwelt der deutschen nnd nordisclicn Milker (ib., 18U0) ; Grimm, Deutsche Mi/thologle (4th ed., ib., 1875-78) ; Simroclc, Handbuch der d.eulsvhcn Mythologie (Gth ed., Bonn, 1878) ; Ander.sen, Mj/thologie scdtuliitin^e (Paris, 1880); Hahn, Odin und seiii lleich (Berlin, 1887) ; Meyer, (Jcr- munische Miilliologic (ib., 18'Jl); Gummere, (Icnnanic Origins (New York, 1892): K;iuir- mann, Deutsche Miithologie (2d ed., Stuttgart, 189.S) ; Golther, Handbuch der gcrmanisehem Mgthologie (Leipzig, 1895) ; Hermann, Deutsche Mythologie (ib., 1898) ; Mogk, "Germanisehe Mythologie," in Paul, Grundriss der gennani- schen Philologie, vol. ii. (2d ed., Strassburg, 1898) ; La Saussaye, Religion of the Teutons (translated by Vos', Boston, 1902). SCANDINAVIANS. People of the Scandi- navian group of the Teutonic stock consisting of the Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, and Icelanders. They are long-headed blonds. Prehistoric re- mains show that Scandinavia was settled in the Neolithic Stone Age, probably by migrants from the Eurasian steppes who followed a, more nortli- ern route than the Slavs and developed the physical characters whieli are noticeable in the Teutonic stock. Scandinavia is believed by many to be the true home of the Teutonic race. These original migrants were the Gotar and Svear, who are now collectively grouped as the Scandinavians. ' The settlement of Scandinavia began after the retreat of the ice cap of the Glacial period; hence the earliest and by far the most abundant traces of Neolithic man are found in the south- ern portion. Nowhere is the sequence of culture periods more orderly than in this region, and from this fact the students of Scandinavia have been foremost in giving to the science of archie- ology a. sequential basis. The burial places of the Polished Stone Age in Southern Sweden and Norway consist. of dolmens, stone graves, and mounds ; funeral chambers with galleries and kitchen-middens (q.v.) are also found. The Bronze Age brought in a higher civilization, and through this age and the succeeding age of iron to the historic period may be traced .an increasing culture. With the Iron Age came the alphabet and the writing of runes, the use of which survived in Gothland till the sixteenth century. The Scandinavians appear in history at the time of the sea-roving expeditions, when they came in actual contact with many civilized nations and carried back to the north coins and art works of these nations. The trade in amber, which fol- lowed a well-known route, also had its eft'ect up- on the culture of Scandinavia. The inexhaustible supply of food, especially of fi.sh, gave rise to early commerce between the peoples of this region and the nations to the south, explaining largely the diffusion of foreign culture in Scan- dinavia. The Swedes have taken less of Jdend- ing than the Norwegians or Danes, and preserve the best type of the early migrants, especially in the Dalecarlians. The only foreign types of the region are the Laps and the settlements of short- heads on the west coast of Norway.