The above brief epitome of the Odin cosmogony serves as a framework for the numer ous beautiful prose and poetic myths which make up the substance of northern mytho logy; and are contained in a rich mass of sagas, not all complete in themselves, but each capable of throwing some light on the others.
Many theories have been advanced to explain the origin and the fundamental ideas on which the northern myths have been based; and while some expositors have seen in them a mere re-clothing of Bible narratives, and a perversion of Christian truths, and have referred their composition to monks living in the middle ages, others, feeling that their title to antiquity could not be set aside, have gone to the other extreme, and tried to prove that they reflected the truths of Christianity, and represented under active and tangible forms the mysteries Of revelation; and that thus, for instance, in the narrative of Thor crushing the serpent we have a figurative delineation of Christ. Other inter preters, again, have attached very different meanings to these myths, regarding them as historic, psychical, physical, or even chemical; but against each of these assumed modes of explanation, taken in their full integrity, conclusive arguments might be adduced; and all that can be safely accepted is, that they are partly partly an imper souation of the active forces of nature. Like the northern languages, their original scat wars in the south and east, where kindred mythologies existed among the ancient tribes of India and Persia; and it is probable that the more practical energetic spirit of the northern myths, and the more warlike the gods of the north, when com pared with the reflective and contemplative nature of thdir oriental prototypes. may be due to-the gradual effect on the minds of a people who had passed from the soft, enerv influences of a southern climate to the stern rigors of the north, where man lived in constant warfare with the elements and with his fellow-men. According to Snorri Sturlesson (q.v.), whose opinion seems to a certain extent to have been a mere re-echo of the traditional belief of his forefathers, Odin and his sons and companions were earthly kings and priests of a sacerdotal caste, who had migrated from Asia—perhaps, as some conjectured, from Troy—and who conquered and ruled over various parts of Scandinavia and northern Germany, where, after their death, they were regarded by the people as deities. In conjunction with this mode of representation, the mythic tales of the warfare of the gods with giants, their intercourse with dwarfs, and spirits of the air and water, and their wanderings on earth, are interpreted as memorials of real war with pre-existing races, and of the spread of Odin's religion from its chief seat in Sweden over the neighboring countries. This theory explains only a few of the myths; while some, as we have already observed, maybe referred to traces of an older faith, which lingered among the Finns and Lapps after the advance of the more civilized conquering races had driven those tribes from the southern districts of Scandinavia, which they originally occupied, to the barren recesses of the north.
The worship of the gods was celebrated either in spacious temples, of which there were many in different parts of Scandinavia, or on stone heaps or altars, known as liorg. These altars were always near sonic well, and close to a sacred grove, or a solitary tree, en which the votive were suspended, after they bad been washed at the neigh Loring spring by the attendant priestesses, known as horgabruddr. Human sacrifices, although never resorted loon ordinary occasions, were not uncommon in times of public calamity, arising from war, failure of crops, disease; etc.; and the horse, whose flesh was highly esteemed, was a frequent victim, while the fruits of the earth and spoils of war were the usual offerings. Three great festivals were held every year, the first of which was celebrated at the new year in the Yule mouth, when Thoralilot, or the sacri fice of Thorri. an ancient god of the Finns and Lapps, was offered. On these occasions, offerings were made to Odin for success in war, and to Frey for a fruitful year, the chief victim being a hog, which was sacred to the latter god, on the assumption that swine first taught mankind to plow the earth. Feastings and Yule games occupied the whole of the month, whence it was also called the merry month. The second festival wits in mid-winter, and the third in spring, when Odin was chiefly invoked for prosper ity and victory on the Vikings, or sea-roving expeditions which were then entered upon. On the introduction of Christianity, the people were the more ready to conform to the great church festivals of Christmas and easter, from the fact of their corresponding with the ancient national sacrificial feasts; and so deep-rooted was the adhesion to the faith of Odin in the north, that the early Christian teachers, unable to eradicate the old ideas, were driven to the expedient of trying to give them a coloring of Christianity. Thus the black elves, giants, evil subterranean sprites, and dwarfs, with which the N orthmen peopled earth, air, and water, were declared by them to be fallen angels or devils, and under their latter character suffered to retain their old denominations. Belief in these imaginary beings survived the spread of the Reformation, and can scateely be said to have died out in Scandinavian lands among the superstitious and ignorant, while among the more enlightened the myths connected with them are still related, and serve to give poetic interest to special localities.
Oar own association with the Scandinavian mythology is perpetuated in numerous superstitions and usages still lingering among us, and in the names of the days of the week. See WEEK.
The best northern authorities on Scandinavian mythology are N. M. Petersen, Danmarks Hi4torie i Hedenokl (1837); Bask, in his edition of Scemund's Edda; Jakob Grimm; Deutsche Mythologie; Faye, Norske-Folke-Sang; Thorpe, Northern -Ifythology (bind. 1851).