Chapter XLV: Section II: Thor and Hrungner

Thor had once gone eastward to crush trolls, but Odin rode on his horse, Sleipner, to Jotunheim, and came to a giant by name Hrungner. Then asked Hrungner what man that was, who with a helmet of gold rode through the air and over the sea, and added that it was an extraordinarily good horse he had. Odin replied that he would wager his head that so good a horse could not be found in Jotunheim. Hrungner said that it was indeed a very excellent horse, but he had one, by name Goldfax (gold-mane), that could take much longer paces, and he immediately sprang upon his horse and galloped away after Odin. Odin constantly kept ahead, but Hrungner’s giant nature had become so excited that before he was himself aware of it he had come within the gates of Asgard. When he came to the door of the hall the gods invited him to drink, which as soon as he had entered he demanded. Then the gods set before him the bowls out of which Thor was accustomed to drink, and them he emptied each in one draught. And when he had become drunk, he gave the freest vent to his loud boastings. He was going to take Valhal, he said, and carry it off to Jotunheim; he would demolish Asgard and kill the gods, except Freyja and Sif, whom he would take home with him; and while Freyja was pouring the celestial beverage into the bowls for him he remarked that he was going to drink up all the ale of the gods. When the gods at length grew tired of his arrogance, they named Thor, who immediately came and swung his hammer and was very much enraged, and asked who was to blame that dogwise giants should be permitted to drink there, or who had given safety to Hrungner in Valhal, and why Freyja should pour ale for him as she did at the feasts of the gods. Hrungner, looking at Thor with anything but a friendly eye, answered that Odin had invited him and that he was under his protection. Thor said that Hrungner should come to rue that invitation before he came out; but the giant answered that it would be but little honor to Asathor to kill him, unarmed as he was; it would be a better proof of his valor if he dared contend with him at the boundaries of his territory, at Grjottungard (_Grjóttunagarðar_). Foolish was it also of me, continued Hrungner, to leave my shield and my flint-stone at home; had I my weapons here we would now try a holmgang;[64] but I declare you to be a coward if you kill me unarmed. Thor would not excuse himself from a duel when he was challenged out on a holm; this was something that no one had ever offered him before. Hrungner now went his way and hastened home. This journey of Hrungner was much talked of by the giants, and especially did his challenge of Thor awaken their interest, and it was of great importance to them which of the two should come out from the combat victorious. For if Hrungner, who was the most powerful among the giants, should be conquered, they might look for nothing but evil from Thor. They therefore made at Grjottungard a man of clay, nine rasts (miles?) high and three rasts broad between the shoulders; they could not find a heart corresponding to his size, and therefore took one out of a mare; but this fluttered and trembled when Thor came. Hrungner had a heart of hard stone, sharp and three-cornered; his head was also of stone, and likewise his shield, which was broad and thick, and this shield he held before himself when he stood at Grjottungard waiting for Thor. His weapon was a flint-stone, which he swung over his shoulders, so that it was no trifle to join in combat with him. By his side stood the clay-giant, that is called Mokkerkalfe (_Mökkrkálfi_), and was so extremely terrified that the sweat poured from off him. Thor went to the holmgang together with Thjalfe, a servant, whom he had got from a peasant by the sea. Thjalfe ran to the place where Hrungner was standing, and said to him: You stand unguarded, giant; you hold the shield before you, but Thor has seen you; he comes with violence from beneath the earth and attacks you. Then Hrungner hastily put the shield beneath his feet and stood on it, but he seized his flint-stone with both hands. Presently he saw flashes of lightning and heard loud crashings, and then he saw Thor in his asamight, rushing forward with impetuous speed, swinging his hammer and throwing it from the distance against Hrungner. The latter lifted the flint-stone with both his hands and threw it with all his might against the hammer; the two met in the air and the flint-stone broke into two pieces, one piece of which fell on the ground (and hence the flint mountains), while the other fell with such force against the head of Thor that he fell forward to the ground; but the hammer Mjolner hit Hrungner right in the head and crushed his skull into small pieces, he himself falling over Thor, so that his foot lay across Thor’s neck. Thjalfe contended with Mokkerkalfe, who fell with little honor. Then Thjalfe went over to Thor, and was going to take Hrungner’s foot away, but he was not able to do it. Thereupon came all the gods to Grjottungard, when they had learned that Thor had fallen, but neither was any one of them able to remove the foot of the giant. Then came Magne (_magni_, strength), the son of Thor and Jarnsaxa; he was only three nights old and he threw Hrungner’s foot off from Thor saying: It was a great mishap, father, that I came so late; this giant, I think, I could have slain with my fist. Thor stood up and lovingly greeted his son, adding that he would give him the giant’s horse Goldfax; but Odin remarked that this was wrongfully done of Thor to give the son of a hag (_gýgjar syni_, son of Jarnsaxa) and not his father so excellent a horse.

Thor returned home to Thrudvang, and the flint-stone sat fast in his head. Then came a sorceress, whose name was Groa, wife of Orvandel the Wise; she sang her magic songs over Thor until the flint-stone became loose. But when Thor perceived this, and was just expecting that the stone would disappear, he desired to reward Groa for her cure, and gladden her heart. He accordingly related to her how he had waded from the north over the rivers Elivagar and had borne Orvandel on his back in a basket from Jotunheim; and in evidence he told her that one toe of Orvandel had protruded from the basket and had frozen, wherefore he had broken it off and thrown it up into the sky and made of it the star which is called Orvandel’s toe. Finally he added that it would not be long before Orvandel would come home again. But Groa became so delighted with this news that she forgot all her magic songs and the flint-stone became no looser than it was, and it sticks fast in Thor’s head yet. Therefore no one must throw a flint-stone across the floor, for then the stone in Thor’s head is moved. Thus sings the Skald, Thjodolf of Hvin:

We have ample evidence
Of the terrible giant’s journey
To Grjottungard,
With berg-folks’ consuming fire
The blood boiled in Meile’s brother,[65]
The moon-land trembled.
When earth’s son went
To the steel-gloved contest.

In bright flame stood
All the realms of the sky
For Uller’s step-father,
And the earth rocked;
To pieces flew Svolner’s widow
When the span of goats
Drew the sublime chariot
And its divine master
To the meeting with Hrungner.

The most prominent feature of this myth is the lightning which strikes down among the rocks and splits them. Hrungner (from _hruga_, to wrinkle, to heap up) is the naked, wrinkled mountains with their peaks. Everything is made of stone. Hrungner’s heart and head and shield and weapon were all of stone; beside him stands the clayey mountain (Mokkerkalfe) clad in mist (_mökkr_), and the contest is at Grjottungard, on the boundary of the stone-covered field. Thor crushes the mountain to make way for agriculture. Thjalfe is the untiring labor, which prepares the rock for cultivation. He advises Hrungner to protect himself from below with his shield. The cultivation of the mountain must begin at the foot of it; there labors the industrious farmer. When he looks up the mountain lifts its rocky head like a huge giant of stone, but the clouds gather around the giant’s head, the lightnings flash and split it. Thjalfe may also be regarded as a concomitant of the thunderstorm, and would then represent the pouring rain, as Thor had got him from a peasant by the sea, and he contends with the mountain of clay, from which the water pours down. Thor’s forehead may also represent the face of the earth, from which he rises as the son of earth, and we know that Minerva sprang forth full-grown and equipped from the brain of Zeus. Orvandel[66] and Groa (to grow) refer to the seed sprouting (Orvandel) and growing. Thor carries the seed in his basket over the ice-cold streams (Elivagar), that is, he preserves plant-life through the winter; the sprout ventures out too early in the spring and a toe freezes off; and it is a beautiful idea that the gods make shining stars of everything in the realm of giants that has became useless on earth, and what more charming theme can the painter ask for than Thor carrying on his divine shoulders the reckless Orvandel wading through the ice streams of winter?

Before proceeding to the next myth, we will pause here for a moment and take a cursory look at history, to see whether a few outlines of it do not find their completest reflection in this stone-hearted myth about Hrungner and Thor.

Hrungner on his horse _Goldfax_, racing with Odin and Sleipner, in the most perfect manner represents the Roman _poetastry_, reveling in the _wealth_ robbed from the nations of the earth, in rivalry with the genuine Greek _poetry_ and philosophy; for Sleipner is Pegasos; and when the Roman poetasters are in the hight of their glory Hrungner is entertained at Asgard, drunk and crazy, bragging and swearing that he will put all the gods to death excepting Sif (Fortuna) and Freyja (Venus), destroy Asgard and move Valhal to Jotunheim; or, in other words, Venus and Fortuna are the only divinities that shall be worshiped; all religion (Asgard) shall be rooted out and history (Valhal) shall only serve to glorify Rome.

But in the course of time the North begins to take part in determining the destinies of the world; Thor comes home, and shortly afterwards a duel is fought between the Goth and Roman (Vandal) in which Rome is worsted, which could not be expressed more fitly than by the fortunate blow of Mjolner, which crushes the stone-hearted and stone-headed Giant (Roman Vandalism).

But the Goth becomes Romanized, he becomes a slave of Roman thought and Roman civilization, and thus Hrungner falls upon Thor, with his foot upon Thor’s neck, until his son Magne comes and takes it away. Magne is the Anglo-Saxon who created a Gothic Christianity and a Gothic book-speech; and well might the Anglo-Saxon be called Magne, son of Asathor and the hag Jarnsaxa, for Magne is the mythical representation of the mechanical arts, which have received their most perfect development in England and America (the Anglo-Saxons). And we need only to look at the literature of England and America to observe with what pleasure Magne (the Anglo-Saxon) is a great child, who rides the horse Goldfax (the Latin language), at which Odin (the Goth) may well complain that it was wrongfully done, although the spirit of the North (Odin) might rather envy the horse (Romanism) its rider than the rider (the Anglo-Saxon) his horse.

In regard to the piece of flint-stone that remained in Thor’s forehead, and sticks there yet, we know, alas! that it is too true that the schools and the literature of all the Teutonic races suffer more or less from the curse of Romanism; and this they suffer in spite of the German sorceress Groa (Luther), who in the sixteenth century loosened the ugly Roman popery in Thor’s forehead, without his getting rid of it; for he began boasting too soon, and Groa (the Lutheran Reformation) became so glad on account of her husband with his frozen toe (German scholasticism and soulless philosophy elevated to the skies), that she forgot not her Latin but her magic Teutonic songs; and hence we look in vain for a complete system of German mythology and old German poetry.

Who the Mokkerkalfe who assisted Hrungner is, in this picture, it is difficult to say, unless it be the Arab, and he may well be called a brother of the Roman (Hrungner) against Thor. The Mokkerkalfe had a mare’s heart in him, and we know that love of horses has forever been a characteristic of the Arabs; and the Frank, who defeated the Arab on the historical arena, must then be Thjalfe, who was a servant of Thor.

Thus this myth is disposed of and its application in a prophetic sense has been pointed out. It is not claimed that the ancient Norsemen had in their minds Arabs and Greeks and Romans and Franks and Anglo-Saxons, but that they had in their minds a profound comprehension of the relations of things, the supreme law of the universe; and history is but the reflection of the sublimest riddles in nature.