An.oJ<Ct>. Septentrion3l i. - RGII_E-Band 65 - Seiten 467_501 (I WoJ"r <lo Gruy'" 21lO'J • Berlin. Now Vorl:

The Rok Stone's latun and Mythology of Death

by JOSEPH HARRIS

My work on the RBk inscription, driven over the last decade largely by literary ooncems, was conducted in relative isolation from what I now realize is a contemporary wave of fre.,h interest in this earliest Swedish m:merpiece' - though it wa, an isolation always in communion with the great tradition of scholarship going back to Sophus Bugge.' The present articl e will be concerned with the myth "refracted'" in Section 3 of the inscription; but since that reconstructed story is, I am oonvinced, a variant of the familiar Baldr myth. certain caveat, are in order. I do not propose here to modify or even systematically to survey the conclusions of pm­found students of Baldr such as Kun Schier. a1thoufh I have appreciated and, I hope. assimi lated much of his work on Baldr. Vesteinn Gla,on felt called upon to begin a recent article with a similar ca,-eat; but mine is more necessary since an obvious circularity inheres in my methoo:b here. a circu­larity that potentially eJ<ceeds 1M limits of Spitzer's "philological circle." I have employed the Baldr story a. an outside pattern to help make sense of the fragmentary references in Rok. To tum around and use the Rok narrative so constructed a, 1M earliest attestation of the Baldr myth for the purpose of revising Baldr scholarship, while not ultimately prohibited. must await the development of a consensus on my RBk proposals. In the meantime, it =ms legitimate to continue the study of Riik' s mythology of death against the backdrop of the Baldr myth. My own work on the inscrip-

,

,

, • ,

But Andc=oo 2006. p. 9 rig/1t1y ""Y' in hi, Engli.h 'tiITlTTllll)' th'" the ROk inscrip­tion "j, IlJIdcr Jl"fT1l"DI'1It discu"ioo. " 0Ihcr im]>O<Wlt rq>rescnta1i, .. of the ",oe'" "w .. e" include: BlIJ1lC> 2007; Ralpll2007a, 20071>: Schul", 2008; Malm 2008.

Hani, 2006b, fonhcoming ., b , e; """ the"" bibliogrnphie. f..- the "grrut Ir.>diti",," which o"end, from Bugge 1910 through.oo Frie""n 1920, HOflcr 1952. We..en 195R, liinnroth 1977, Gnlnvik 1983, 2003, ..,d WidmaJl 1992, 1993, 1997.

Cf. Glo""cki 2007, 1'1'. XV_XVl . 'The mogt rek ... 111 hero: Schier 1976; 1992: 1995.

Vb",;nn 61...,n 2003, p. 153.

'" Joseph HMri.

tion is the staning poi nt for the Jlf"sent mide on som<: details of this death mythology, but it 'ittrn. necessary to b.gin with a summary account of the inscription as a whole, as [understand it.

The Rok inscription, overview

The Riik ,{One is a tall block of gmnil" b.aring a long inscription - the longest of any run.. stone - in about 750 runes. with a text of imponance not on ly 10 runologists and linguist" but also to oomparative mythologists and literary historians. It was rai,ed as a memorial in Ihe first half of the ninth century, as generally dated, or perhaps more precisely 810--820.' and stands now on the western edge of East GautJand (l'l,jergotland) near the great central lake Valtern. It may originally have been JXI,itioned b..ide a segment of the Swedi.' h royal route, the Erik'gala, whe,.., ;1 crossed a small sm:.am just north of the stone's present position in the church-yard of the hamlet of Rok, but a number of facto,", incl uding local plac~ narn~s

apparently echoed in the inscription, make it unl ikdy that it has ~v~r ~n

moved far from its origin.' The ston~'s four .ides are compl~tdy cov~red with nm~s, as is th~ top,

which stands almost two and a half met~'" abov~ the eanh. Th~ fiv~ fac~s (labeled A- E) are to be read, g~nemlly, in alphabetical order, though the or<kr becomes more complicated a. th~ inscription near. its end ; [ adopt the consecutive Ii"" numbering , 1-28, from Wessen. who"," discussion­edition of 1958 i. th~ cI",~st thing to a 'Sllmdard' in Rok scholarship. (Ultimately [ argue, in Harri s 2006b, for a reading order 1-26, 2&-27, which more rigorously k""ps face E for the conclusion.) Faces A- B and most of C are written in a variant of the 16-rune younger futhark known as ,hon-twig runes and the sub-variant known as Riik runes. But beginn ing

•

,

GT,,,,.ik 2003. p . '12; t983, 1'1'. t39-14(). 11>< broader dating "'''''''' from Bugge 1910 and ~i. carli ..... >ludi«, Tbough one cocoun1<". other date> (0. 7'50. c. Il00) in the lit",,,hlT< and IToontly hint. of a radically new dating, one oOITfuJ cootempornry linguiSlic-runologicoi .rudy "'PI'0rt> Bugge (Bame. 2006). G1j<nvik and m:my 0Ihcr ""hoi"", "'" • coflTlCCtion bctwocn a port of the imrnption and a farr.ou> bruru.c «jucstrian SIlIIoc of 'Illeodoric the Grrat and '" LL"\c it. ITIDc"oI by Ch..-Io· magne from Ravenn. and i1lSl3llation in the oourtyard in Aochen "" • terntinn, po" 4ocm; , ioco !hi, occurred in 80 I, ho .. 'oYCT, it i, hardly usofuJ in rumowing Bnggo's dating. Sre e>pcci , liy Caningu' 1930 ..,d Strid 2004; but the plocemc:nt of the ,tone i . 01"" 'ouo~cd on by !TWly othcr ""holon, e.g., Palm 2004 , p. 25. 11>< pi""" n'ID<. and """'" li'cfliture on them am cited in H"";s lOO6b, p. 72, n. 31 , p. 73, n. 33, ""d p. 92,n.7L

n.. lUll: Stooe', iau.. and MytI>ol"IY <>f l)eOlh '" with line 21 OIl face C the: ",mainder of the in-,.cription ;, predominantly in cipMr. TIle readt'r;~ clearly meant to ~gin with the large "co1ica1 lineo 1-11 of side A. progress to the horizontal line< 9-10 of A and go on 10 the "Y"!3C!ic and semantic continualIDn on line I I of 5ide B, Thi' segme1ll A­B also forms a complete sense unit. Ne51 we are intended to continue reading the Rlik runes. in the . imilar ammgement on C " 'ith the ~enical lines 12- 19: lines 12-19 also form a sepanlle and rohe",nt 5Cfl!e unit. Line 20 i. the only sel'c",ly damaged pan of the inwiplion. but almost certainly il constilute.' ~n inlroduction 10 the ci~r seclion, lines 21-28.

The third section of lhe: inscription. lhe: ci~r sectiun. i. wrillen in Ihree diffe",m types uf cipher and distri buted in a Ie .. tntl'lsparent arrangement. Fi rst, line.< 21- 22 a'" in a uniq ue ly modified versiun of the o lder, 24-charn<:ter fu thorl:, thu ~ 001 a genuine cipher at all , Secund, l inc.~ 23-24 and the heginning uf 2S (2Sa) are basically in shift cipher, but a l1emating with <Jrdinary uniJlifted Kllk run<:.'i (24a and lSa). (In ~hif1 cipM' each rune Mand< for the!'IeX1 rune in the.1aI>dard onItr, as if A 5100d for 8 , 8 for C, and 110 on.) At 2Sb the inscription switches to the third type o f cipher, coonIi~ cipher, which continues tu the md uf the irucri plion, spar.ocly interlarded willi ordinary Rill: tunCS, (Ik 16-rune folharl: wa.; amwgal in lIIrr:e 'familjc,·. u,<ually numbered 1- 3, thuugll o ften reversed. 3- 1. In coordinrucs cipher 11IOffietiTTJe5 called numenea l cipher l any rune can he designated by i15 posi tion in a family, .... '3-2' for the lieCond rune in the third family.) The coonlinates-ciphercd litlC!< on Rllk = realized in four different modes: I) si mple repetition of nme.; 2) the number of twigs branching off all upright stal'c at top and bottom (l cu mpared this .ign tu a medicva l key in Harri s 2006b and forthroming a, but it i~ belle. unden;t<KKI as baoed on the poIhook (K".u,,/haUn) uoed to hang a kettle OVer a fire and is knuwn tu runulogists as hahalruna);' 3) the haha/-runcs 1bem.dvcs rq>eated in a layered amrngemcnt; and 4) the Mira/-rune.< crossed to yield a bold 'windmill' figllrc. lbe rullClJLil'lier o;ccnn 10 have arranged the cipher f""", of 2 1- 28 acconJjnll to increasing diffirulty of decipMnncnt, and that difflCtilty is coordi nated with the complex gnophic design o f the cipher section.

'The " 'bole in.<eription i. thus wucturcd ... an [nlrotlUClion or Ocdicati"" (A [-2) and tllrl't'.'lCCtiono. unified by grapltic arrnngemcnt. runes. used. and semantic content! Section I: .imple ROk runco, front and right 8idc. A-B 3-[I : Section 2: ~i mple IWk runes. back side. C 12-1 9: Sectiun 3: c iph~r in increa,i ngly difficult forms, back, left sid.., top, lop of back C 21-25. D 26,

• Derot« t954 , p. 133: d . Oil ... cl t ~7. PI'- 567_:1611_

'" [oser" HMTi.

E 27--C2S" or C 21- 25, D26. C 28_E27.w In addition, each of the three 'narrative' sections i, structured a, two questions or questioning bims followed by an answer. We turn now to content and its interpretation.

The first two narrative ""'tions deal with beroic material like that of ~rmanic heroic and eulogistic I""'try found in We.'1 Germanic sources and elsewhere in North Ckrmanic. While every aspect of Riik has bun furiously debated. one can safely say that Sections I and 2 are I"" con­tentious than Section 3 and that they contrast with Section 3 in being drawn from the heroic. that is human. world They also contrast with Section 3 in having item numbers attached to them, as if they ",presented selections from the same itemizod "'p"no;", of heroic 1o"" while the unnumbered Section 3 comprises mythic material and is drnwn from a diff"",n! sto"" This opinion, that Section 3 ",fleets sacred material. as opposed to hemic story, is a consensus position ba,ed on lhe ~Jief that the function of cipher and the graphic arrangement was to veil a sacred myslery, but hased also on ge nerations of work on the coment; however, ne ither the hemic nor the mythic seclions are plainly lahded, Other Norse sources, notably the Poetic and Prose Eddas hul also the Gotland picture stones and several mYlhic­heroic saga., evince a similar juxtapositioning of hemic and mythic narra­tive even while maintaining the di,tinction hetwttn human octions and sacred ,tory, n.ematically, howe,-er, all three sections make literary sense

both individually and in juxtaposition, and it will come as no swprise that dealh-and-life is the unifying subjoct of this funeral or memorial inscription as a whole, " n.e dedicatory lines tell us unambiguously that the stone wa, rai,ed and the runes cut by Varinn, a father in memory of his "dealh­doomed" (jaixim!, i.e.,feigr) son V oim6iIr." T1>e body of the imcription in its thrtt narrati,'e sections is ( in fI}()';t interp"'tatiom since Wessen 1958) a . mall anthology of heroic-mythic stories or miMi produced for Varinn'. "'f'gr 'descendant' , an emotion-laden won! found in early poetry and at lea.t once in an earl ier funeral inscription. The stories, however, could not he ",]aled in detail on ,tone. Instead, they are evoked by hinting questions and brief answers in a version of a skaldic routine or gllJlle known as xreppa-minni (cf, m~g-minni)." V;im6ilr may have been very young ("'f'gr

• So Wo,sen t~g.

'" So Ham, 2OOOb.

" My intcrprctatioo in Ham, 2OO6b i. mLJCh indcbt<d to lOOmtlth t977,

" T adopt this fonn of the 1IlIITIO from Widmark t993 and ofb an etymology in

" Ham, fOfthcoming . , n. 1,

T have adopted thi • ..,Iution from Widrnarl< t992, PI'. 29-31; Ham, fonhcoming •. ll>< IWn< "", ution w,,-, """,bed by Marcz 1991 .nd carliIT by Bugge (but 1m,

""",,,lonodl.

Tho 11.1;1: SlOne" iawn and Mltho"'z;y of lJoe.uh

also means "boy"); and the playful routine may be evoking so,"" favorite tales as a kind of gift of story for the dead. But the thematic connection, and sense of the whole are serious and religious in a ""nse deeper than cult,

In an earlier publication I attempted to capture that sense, and J summa­rize here," The three sections of Rok agree on a thematics of death-and­life, l1Ie relationship of the ~atment of theme in those three sections can be understood as a classic U;vi-Straussian exercise in reasoning with

,tories, but a reader does not have to accept the binary opposition with mediation in order to recognize the theme and its three different treatments. Section I features a great individual hero, Theodoric the Ostrogoth (454-526), and the mystery of his continuing life despite death: "Who became without life (died) among the HreilJ.-Goths nine ages ago, and yet hi. affairs arc still under discussion?" Section 2 is less well understood, but we hear there of twenty sea-kings, who had ruled in Zealand, lying dead uJXIn a battlefield there; a name-list (or thula) shows that the y shared four names and communal ·'fathers," The form of life-after-<kath JXIrtrayed is thus

corporate. the immortality of the Miinnerbund, Section 3's story (as reconstructed) has the death of a Baldr-like figure and the birth of a new brother in his place; the replacement brother is sired hy an aged Kinsman through a sacred rape, Life i, thus renewed after death within the blood

line, the fami ly, but the U;"i -Strallssian proble m that is mediated involves the opposition of individual and community, mediated by the recyclabl e individual within the traditional community,

The myth in Section 3

After a study of lines 21 - 2H, I arrived at the inte'l'retati,'e translation in the Appendix to this article and ill the conclusion that the myth alluded to is a local, East Gautish version of the divine death we know best from the West Nordic Baldr myths, (l refer he,.., to "western·' ve rsions by contrast to the postulated "eastern" variants in Sweden, but this relative point of view is not intended as comment on Schier' s ··southern" Baldr "ariants, which are equally ·western'· from our JXIint of view.) l1Ie main lines of that rea,oning

are summarized here. The western Baldr story can be analyzed as havi ng five actors: I) a bereaved father; 2) a beloved son dead before his time; 3) his slayer, 4) a brother born later and dedicated to a mi .. ion related to the slai n brother: and 5) the mother of the late-born brother. Analogues of all the.., figures are alluded to in Riik 2 1- 2H, and their actions track, up to a

.. Harri,2OO6b,pp. 97_ I03.

'" point, with t~ of the we,{ern version.< of what we inevitably think of as the Baldr myth.

But we consi<k:r first the actions attested in the Rot inscription. On Riil< the "''''"Iial actions are the slaying of a (young) man (II. 24--25) and the birth of a "descendant" (nMy; 23--24). n,., descendant i. "engendered" (01; 28) by a very holy Kinsman (27) at the age of ninety (28). We may go two step' further and say that the new nwr is born '"for" a gallant young man (drtl'ngi, a dat. of advantage; 24) and thai. since the "shri ne-respecting Kinsman" (27) is a new (though very old) father, the newborn ni(Jr is the (hall) brother of the dead youth "for whom" he is born. ParnJ ld. in diction, conu.n!, and ritual function in SonafOrrek (st. 11) help to clarify the,,, event, as alluding to an ancient heliefto the dfecl1hat lhe only recompense for a dead son i. another engemlaed specifically In replace lhe /0.<1 one."

We now consider the acton. In the weste rn ve",ions of Snorri. Saxo, and the ve",e tradition. the molher is called RindrfRinda; and 10 fulfill fate,

the conception of the newborn hrother will have to he accomplished by her (sacred) rap". This ·'backstory·' makes good sense of Section 3's first Question, accordi ng to which comp"nsation for a dead youth is accom­plished ·'by a woman's sacrifice." The inscription does not n~ Rindr, but

a fann not far from Rok ~ a n~ in lhe Middle Age.. , which onomastic scholars interp...,t as "Rindr's shrine." This place narne is widely taken as an indep" ndent witness 10 knowledge of the giantesslgodde" Rindr and of her wo"'hip in Osterg&land. Since the only actions involvi ng Rindr known to survivi ng tradition consisl of the story of her ,.. .. p'" motherhood, and on­

goi ng rdation to the god OOin n, Ihe ancient place name i., also a witness to know ledge of the myth in the area of Rok.

In the west the ""...,aved father is OJinn. He is not named on Rok 001 referred to (a, if in a noo-n~) by a ...,specrfuJ periphrasi', "shrine­...,specting Kinmlan" (27). But old age is characteristic of &inn prnctically everywhe..., in the mythology. In the west the newborn brother, son of Rindr, is called VdJi or (in Saxo) B()u.. (i.e. , Danish Bo- + Lalin _ ..... );'0 on Rok he is named Ptirr(26). !>Orr is of course not elsewhere known in this role, bul he is a son of OOinn by a figure closely associated with Rindr in the mythology (namely JQrur); and a few other features of his dos,ier are compatible with this variation. n.e Baldr-sWTOgate, the slain youth, in ROk's provincial myth is named Vilillt!, a name or nickname thai undoubto:lly takes us into the Odi nic sphe..., (d. the three brothe", OOinn, ViIi, and Vel and by its root meaning and strucru..., suits a bdoved young god, whose mo..., usual name is,

" Harri,2OO!\b. pp. 58-1it: t994 . .. Fo< """'" """"0' on B",,-, ond (prublIbty) ,dated figure. """ Harris t999.

after all, in origin quia. possibly a title (cf. F",yr)." Baldr was of cou= the darling of the gods; etymologically Vilinn might mean something like 'lord of joy'. and in real life names were commonly compounded with vil-, even including ON Vi/baldr. OE Wilbe.aJd, Willibaldus, etc. We tak" up a discussion of the fifth actor, the slayer. further on.

The weste rn Balm myths contrast in two main (and linked) features with the minni, or narrntive hint'. in Riik'. Section 3, first in the matter of compensation for the killing of the young god. In Snorn' s elaborate version, the ",'ent' that immediately follow Balm's death are the magnifi­cent funeral and an attempt to thwan death (He!1l"l603r's ride; the effort to weep Baldr out of HeI); only when this anempt fails. does the narrati"e spotlight fallon ",,,enge. In Snom of course ther" ar" two slayers, Loki the intellectual author of the crime (rallbam) and HQilr the blind brother and hand-slayer (handbnni). Though Snom's account follows only the revenge on Loki. he must have known of (and supp",ssed) the ",veng" on HQl1r (a, a ,e mark in ch. 28 [quoted below1 and ,efe,ences in hi.' verse sources make clear). The older strand is obviously Ninn's engendering of VaJi to take ,evenge on his half brother. as attested in the Icelandic ve,se sources, and this , ,,,'enge thread is followed exclusively in Saxo. whe", no Loki-figu'" is mentioned in connection with the slaying of Balderus and the two anta­gonist, are not brothers. Saxo', aveng ing newborn Bou. is a character from Danish myth or folklo",; seemingly as extraneOl15 to the myth as we know it from Snom a, I>6rr in the Rok ver.;ion. Bous fulfills his role and imme­diately dies. Similarly, nothing more i. told of Vali than that he took ,evenge for Baldr (Baldrs draumar II [name missing]: HyndluijM 29; V{Jlu"pd 32-33 Iname missing]). except that he will ",tum after Ragnarvk with the younger gods. (Confusingly Loki also had a son named Vali. according to some J>3-"ages. who is also a fmtricide in Gyljaginni1lg, p. 49 Ich.50J.)

llineral ly, then, the familiar western sources, the Poetic &Ida. Snom. and Saxo. offer th",e (or perhaps four) diffe,ent versions of the myth with varying plots and name •. The south Scandinavian (Danish) traces fruitfully studied by Schier add local detai ls (e.g., a spring called Baldersbrllnde" ",flected in an episode in Saxo) and pull the story in the direction of heroic genealogy, without extensively contradicting th" Norwegian/Icelandic sources or modifying thei, narrative. The Icelandic version, agree that a (half) brother of Balm is born. one dedicated from hinh to ",venge and supporting no further narrative; this is the story aI.'O in Saxo except for the

" FOT Baldr etymologies, ScbiIT t976, ~ L

" Schicr t '192. p, 273 and n. to; J 993, p, t 34.

'" ab""nce of hrolherhood. In Vplu.<pd and Baldrs draumar. the newborn is an infant avenger, and BOils ,,,,,ms to have been a baby figure in the back­ground folklore (but a fertility bringer, not an avenger). HytulluljM Sttms generally to b<.long with the verso: tradition, but it does not give the age of BaJdr'. avenger. In addition, by mentioning that 1M revenge fall. on the handhani, Hyndlulj6ll may imply a background knowledge of a rMbani and the,..,fore knowledge of the Loki version. Gustav Neckel. in what J consider to be still one of the ITKI,t exciting hooks on Balill, speculated that Bous was originally a rebinh of Bald .. ," de Vries (summarized b<.low) also ,,,,,s Vali as a ,..,born Baldr. but only in the context of an initiation ritual. In general, scholarship has produced linle or no speculation on non-revenge versions of the corn~n""lion for Bald., though Liberman has expressed the opinion thai '"[a.lt no mo"",nt in the history of u.., myth could u.., rev~nge be viewed a. it. central theme."'" But the pro"erb from SOMlnrrek has cenainly never ~n applied to this (a, usually conceived) archetypal revenge tale.

Rebirth or heir-replacement would of course nOi logically preclude revenge. In any ca,e. the Ea.,t Nordic version. of the death of u.., b"loved young god manage, despite a very sintilar narrative soucture, not to focus ~xc1usively on revenge.

Exhibit One for this daim is. of course, the Rot ,tory itself, where 'com­p"nsation' (vari guldinn 'wa, comp"nsated for' ; 21 - 22) app"ars to consist in regeneration within the family, the engendering and birth of a new nior in place of the lost one, rruher than coming in the form eiu..,r of wergild or of revenge. This interpretation is ,upponed by SmUllnrrelc, st. 17, which sp"ak, of an old proverb to the effect that there is no comp"nsation for a dead son unless the father himself should be able to ~ngender a new heir "in place of' the dead.

Exhibit Two: The Baldr myth is reflected in a second Gautish , probably West Gauti'h, .10ry, the Herebeald and H<r&yn epi.,ode in Ckatish (Gautish) history as told in Beowulf (U. 2434-2470)." H~re HlZil-c}"n (whose name reflects the same root as that of H~r) accidentally (or 'accidentally') kills hi, brother Here ·beald (d. Baldr). 1heir father King Hre<lel, occupying the structural slot of 6oinn, grieves like 60inn but cannOi take revenge or, obviously, get monetary cOTnp"n,ation for a slaying within the family; no new son is engend~, either for revenge on his

" Nedel 1920. pp. 21 1_ 12 .

• L;berman 2004. p. 46.

" B<",,1II/;, c;ted from tho 2008 <d;t;oo.

Tho lUll: Stone', iatun and Mythoklgy of De.<h '" bmth~r or as a "'plac~m~nt, though th~ Beowulfpoet doe, arrang~ to hav~ th~ broth~r-bane soon slain in battl~ as if rev~nge w~re ",,,,rved to God or Fate, Hl'e<kl', gri~f I~ads swiftly to hi, death,

Exhibit Three: Within this famous ~pisod~, the Beowulf poet has positioned a long, almost Hom<:ric ,imi le in which an unnamed old karl I""" hi, son in circumstance" which similarly prohibit any form of ~xtemal comp"nsa­tion, w~rgild or revenge (2114 2462a) - the Old Man'., Lamelll, as the pa,>;age is called, In an allusion to the >;arne pmv~rb heanl in SOlll1lOrret 17, the poet t~lIs Ll' that the old man doe, not care to await another h~ir (245Ib--2454), We do not learn wh~ther this fath~r too dies of grief, but our last gl impse of him is taking !O his bed to sing a lament."

BeowuJrs narrative of a tragedy at the Geatish court - ",inforced by the mo", distant simile - is, I bdieve, a further Gautish analogue of the Baldr myth." And while revenge is h~re a preoccupation of the narrative (in both analogue'S in Beowulf, the He",beald story and it< own mirror text,24 the Old Man's wment) or a pOlel1liai tum of narrative (in Rokj, these East Scan­dinavian v~",ions do not end like the western myth in realized revenge. A, for the East Gautish v~rsion about the death of Vilinn, we cannot be su", that some tdlings might not have ITKIved on from the dedicated new birth to "'v~nge (a pos<ibility discu,,,,d further on); but the version pref~rred by Varinn and inscribed on the Rok slone on the occasion of the death of Vam6ilr was more int~rested in the ancient form of comp"n,ation in SonalOrrek's proverb, which is also alluded to in the Beowulfian simile, mundy "'g~neration of the family through ",placement or ",birth of the ,lain lad.

Vilinn' s slayer

The second major contra,t between Rok's myth and the we,tem version, lie, in the agent of the death of the young god, and here we take up the fifth actor, the slayer. In Saxo, Hjltherus', enmity to Balderus is systematic

" Discussed in Harri. 1994 and 20C1J.

" 11>oogb ! find it IIanI to undcr<.and how Irtuden\., of the myth COIl d<xJbt thi., • 1000g

"

line of doubting scholars <l.,.,. exi,1. fo< cump!e, KI.d"'T", throug/1 bi. T- ed., and apparently the editor> of the 4'" cd. (B.",,-ulf, 1'1'. XUIlI-Xl V11I), with omplc bibli_ ography. Lindo ... (19"l7, I'P. 139-45) trc.ru the B....,,,,ulf cpi.oo:l< fruitfully .. a !ego] :malog"". Harri, 2000.

'" and overdetermined: un...,lated to Balderus, the human HpthefLl' apparently simply hales the gods; in addition, 1M two are contp"ling for the woman Nanna (in Snorri the name of Baldr's wife) but also for the crown of Iknmark - a typical Saxonian mishmash of a narrative." [n the lcdandic verse tradition (Baldrs draumar 9, Vpluspd 32, 62--63) HQ'ill is OOinn' s son, Ba/dr's brother," and alone ""'JIOnsible for Baldr', death (unless we pre.s the pa''''ge HyndluljOil 29 exceptionally hard, as hinted above), but he 'tand, ra~r in ~ background of the story. Only in Snorri is he blind. and the whole famous tale of ~ game of shooting at Baldr and of Loki', manipulations follows from that trait."

Who is the .Iayer in the Gautish trndition? In RBk the relationship oflhe killer to the victim is nOi s~ified, and we will ",tum to the description of him a, a latun. [n Beowulfof course one brother "missed his mark and shot hi, brother" (miste mereelses ond his I"fIdi of seer; l. 2439); H",ocyn is neither blind nor the eat's paw of some Loki -like figure, so he re",mbles ITKIre hi.' namesake in Vplusl'd and Baldrs draumar, On the other hand, the scene implicit in Herebeald's death does =m to have the characteristics of a g:une , perhaps an archery contest. Neckel'. study of Baldr brings out the fratricidal aspect, and there are otm.r Swedish stories of Irdgic brother slayings,"" Moot "tudents of the Baldr myth have considered Loki to be an interloper in the trndition; and von Friesen, whose early study of Rok al,o identifies allu,;ons to the Baldr myth there, thought that Loki entered the Baldr complex as late as the eleventh ce ntury.'" Thus von Friesen's view of

" •

,

•

"

Cf. Fisher I David"," t979, L pp. M_66 (David,,,,,', introductiOll to BooI; ITT),

Gadc 2006 point. out thai STlOlTi doc, not menti"" \hi, in Gylfaginning imd that the place, in Sta/dri<apamujl where ().;};nn·, pat=ity of HI"""" "'" mcntioocd are ,u'-poct. Snoni', <ilmcc on the paITntago of H", ... i, al"" mentioned in pasging by O'Donoghue 2003. p. 84, 'The point i , well· taken, but tho Vpluspa pa""ge. ably di""","'" by Gade (1'1" 27t _272) W<>Uld ,",em to make it difficult for STlOITi to h.se mi..ru tho relalion"'ip, even if hi. delie""y might Ie"" him to ,npp""" any direct menti"" of it (d. Vo',,';nn 61 .. ",n 20)3, p . (55),

O'Donoghue (20)3, pp. 8!!-ll9) astutely points out o,.t ,ina: tho knowledge of the dangcr inhcrrnt in the mi,tktoe i, limited to Frigg and Loki, "any . ightcd god might throw it, e,'en witbout pc""""-,i",,, in inllOCCnt ignornncc of its kthal potcnti.t." And O'Donoghue goes on to build a >trong COlIC for regarding cert,in dements of STlOITi', telling not found in other JOUrCel<, ",J>OCially the blindr!es, motif, as am"i"" bon-owing-; . Lindow (t 997, ch. 5, e,p. pp, t 31_ (45) has " thorough di",,,,,,i,,,, of litling within the lin-group and the fratricide. of YnglingalaJ and Ynglinga.<aga. T om more iocliocd than be to """ 'ITlotiOlL'lIip" among ,ueh "."-;,,,. whcthcr genetic Of by OOIIt""" von Frie"," t 92(), 1'1', ti()...6 t.

The lUll: Stone', iatun .00 Mythoioz;y of lJea<h

HQill, like Saxo's, held ~ kill~r at a distance from the "family romanc~." It wou ld be foolish to attempt h~re a full -fledged reconstruction of th~ "original" narrntiv~ in view of the many, many studi~s of th~ Baldr myth J hav~ not read, but it should be obviou, that Snorri, Icelandic v~""', and Bem.;ulj support th~ killer's family relationship to the victim whi le Rok may be compatible with that analy.i, and Saxo's deviance can be explai ned in many way., perhaps begi nning with hi, historicization of the story.

This hrings liS to a consid~ration of the description of the killer on Rok as a lattin, a chal lenge to our hypothesis about the myth ~ncoded there - its secrecy protected by cipher and a cryptic arrange""'nt of text - but also an opportunity perhaps to look more deq>ly into the myth and into Old Norse myth gen~rally, Liberman has recently commented on Baldr's slay~r in a man ner that sounds prophetic in the context of our argument:

The earliest name of the ,.illain in the ancient myth is lost. Lo.i w'"' originally a chthonic deilY, and tIlere were others, such,", Hoi. Still anulher may have been HQI\r. The name varied from c'OmmLU1ity to community, and by tile end of the first mill""i um A.D. no one !mew for ,lire who killed Ilahlr.'"

The word latun can only be an early form of the lat~r OWNj~lUnn, Modic jOtunn , which of course normally means "giant," although the OE cognate eOfen tends more toward 'monster" and does not ~xtend to the (goofy, arnu.,i ng, rarely frightening) big fdlows of later folklore. The re.'peeted dictionary of Clark Hal l and Meritt registers the semantic range in OE as "giant, mon,ter, enemy."" The word appear. in Rok for the first time in the

written record" and poses ~ question how a jotunn should be integ"'ted into the Baldr myth in its variants.

(I) It is possible, perhaps just barely possible, that Jorunn is simply the narne or, more probably, the nickname of the killer. E. H. Lind lists a JOt""o:.i, brother of Night, as a fictional name from a mythic-heroic saga and also a ",m i-historical lorunbiorn, a nickname which, like many others, would have become a regular name in the neXi ge"""'tion." Hellqui,t recognius thai Old Swedish had this word as a narne or nickname, citi ng

" " "

"

Liocnnan 2004, p. 36.

Clad Hall I Meritt t96l, ....

Lindow 1995 , p. to """"'& tb< 00000- of tb< r,"'t occurrenco to Ynglingatal, st. 2 f.il'1WIbJ.·UJF1; oot if we gi"" bot~ e..-ly ""'JrCO< thei, tnlditioml dato •. ROl mu,t t" 0<000 by oj 1=" halh ccntury. Cf. Sc~~1z 20)4. p. 41.

Lind J 93 J, p. 340, t <nO-2 t, p. t R2.

the example of a lamu"bol, now la/shot, in SOdennanland." In Riik litera­lUre it""lf we find a nearby hamlet named lilt/ings/a, which appears a. itNungsradh in the fourteenth century. Von Fri esen traces this place name to a runic latunstajlum and comments:

Nlinnasllill nand. ligger kan,k, all hllt uppfallll ialun .loom eU vt:dernamn ~ en pet"'iOfI. Men den ml)jlighelcn lit nlAhlinda icke ute,juten all lill plal""n en gang ,·at knulcn en myli.k lukal<li&en om n1tgon j!ille, .. ,m cl gif"it byn de"

" "-If JOnmn is a name or nickname. the favored fratricidal model would be untouched in Rok' s variant of the myth.

(2) It ..,.,ms more likely lhat jOiunn is used in thi, early text as a ho,tile epithet, as if in modem English we were to call someone a '·n"Kmster." Thi.

usage would make most sense in the context of a fraternal slayer, where perhap" it i.s painful, from the father's point of "iew, to utter the real name of his .on's kilter. Snorn happens to mention precisely this motivation in GylfogiJming, ch. 2~:

Ho;Ilr tleilir cinn A,inn . ... Ell >ilja mwtdu gullin al ""nna A. ~yrfti cigi at nefna, ~>1al han, hark\av.".k- munu longi Vc .... hQf6 al minn um me6 gOOum 01: hlQf1num

'There is nne god (A .. ) <alltd HQI\r ... But "'" god, would wi,h "'at il was not nee"","",), to """'" tlti' god because hi. handiwork will long he ~c".. in the memory of gods and men. '

We may ..,., a parallel to this (imagined) situation in Beowulfs Baldr-ana­logue, where the deed, though apparently accidental ("missed his mark") is neve!theless a feah/em gefeaht (244 la) 'a fight/feud that could not be compounded by wergild' and fyrenum Ke.ryngad 'wickedly and sinfully committed' (244 I b); H",ocyn is flatly called his own brother'. ·· Ii fe' s bane·' (jearhbana) and no longer dear to his father (J>eah him liof II« W<T,', 2467b); the deed was a ··ho,ti le act" (jlLgMe, 2465b; so Klaeber). H",ilcyn's name

is not used again after 2437, whi le Beowulf. narrating hi. memoirs, adopts a paternal viewpoint (roughly 2440----71), and is only named again when the narrdtive has resumed a more objecti,'e view as H",<lcyn is slain in battle

• Hc1lqLIi '1 t%7, p. 428. An early modo.-m Low German feminine (o/.k) <~inn< '(oIto) Hcxo' oppc= in the dictionario" Karsten 19t5, p. I t7 altrihu"" it 10 a tM2 publicatioo by Ltnrrnbcrg (Joh",," LaLlfcmbcrg) via Tomm t890-19O'I.oo oalb< il • "Spitz"""",." Thi. oom,,, from Tamm t890-t9O'i , p. 4()4: " . gammalt tron" . • kiimtsaml vcdcm..,.,n." I am tIIIlIbk to chock the coote" in LaLlfCJJlbeT-g, hut ifTamm ,",'as rigllt wo h.,'c .., iruuancc of our oppcllative .. a nicknaJrlO.

" ,<XI Frio"," t920, p. 6 L

Tbo RIlt Stone', iatun .00 M;.ooklzy of lJe.><h ,,. (24l!2b). In me stretch of text mat shows what I am calling paternal narrative shadi ng, H:dlcyn is once referred to as paM heailorinC (2466a); mis is of COUI'M: ,imply a p"ripbrasis, avoid ing me name and call ing him "that warrior" but util izi ng a noun mat embodi"" me same firs t element as we fi nd in H~yn'. real name. Heailoril1<! i. indeed an epit""t , ubstituting for the name of a brother-killer in a context of strong paternal di,approval, but in itse lf heailorinc doe. not carry me negative connotations of '"mon­

ster" or jorunn. Beo .... ulf does. however. offer other passages where eaten, tbe OE cognate of jOiunn. may we ll be a negative epithet for '"enemy." In the COUI'M: of another argument (on which .,.,Iow) Karsten commented on the New Nor.1iegian ",nse., of the by-fonn of our word with ·1-, in.tead of -

" -, ""ri,·ation ,j,ml,juIUJ. "d ie, ganz wie die in Frage Slehenden finnisc""n, als Schimpfwiirter flir Menschen angewandt werden."'"

A new study of the giant in O N gi,''''s some ,light comfort 10 this point of view. Schulz compre""ns ively surveys "giants" under their ""'eral app"lIatives. but all her texts are later. most much later, man Rok. In her survey of words ~or "giant'," jOtim" a~f"ars a, t~e. most neutral (among such terms as troll, pyrs, slwss. etc.), mough !l lS used a, a term of opprobrium, "al. Beschim pfung," a few times in traditional prose (VO/s· uoga .<aga).'" But it is noteworthy that, according 10 Schulz, the charac­teristic. of '"giants" in me earlier texIS do nO{ include size!" and even the humanoid character of Imer "giants" is nO{ unifonn ly ",flected in p",sum­ahly early sources: thus the World Serpent. the Fenri.ulfr, Hel, Garmr, and also in Fdfoismtil Reginn (a dwarf) and FMnir (a dragon) ;He jOl1UJ.'.""

The Bwwulfian pa"ages supporting a negative metaphorical usage are we ll known, me Finn,burg Episode (1063- 1159a) and the deam of

He remod (901- 915). Beowuifscholars have long argued inconc lusively for eit""r Jutes or giants in me two pas,ag"" , whe", reference is made to eole · num and eote1UJ. (dat. pl. . gen. pl.), ambiguous grammatical fonns, wh ich can be understood as belonging 10 eotenas (ON jiimar) or to lornn (Lat. 11m). (Teehnically the gen. pI. is the only ambiguous fonn in the paradigm of i· stem fo lk names." 11>e origi n of the - /Ill i. obsc~, but thi, was the point from which me weak inflection of such form. as Seamn, Englan

• K.,..t"" t922. p. 30: t943, p. 82: t906, p. 7.

" Schulz 2004, P!'. 41 _ 'SO: .ummary chm fot" jomaitUJ"ogur, P!'. 51_ ';2. • Schulz 2004, p. '; t "p .. pcrjora!;'. 0], Bo""h;mpfung."

" Schulz 2004, PI'. 24, 57, 1'12-64.

• Schulz 2004, p. ';4, n. 1.J.6.

" Sec the fult o'p];mat;on ;n Compbcll t 9';9. P!'. 245-46.

bogan,") Th~ result was that the n-st~m revision of th~ originally i-stem folk n~ of th~ lUl~s (*lou, *[ote, *fte) could be confused with refl~x~s of our latun, But in the two Bem.'ulj pas'lage, the problem is not only whether to pUl the equivalents of lUle or latun into the teU but in what s~nse to understand the lawn word. As early as 1839. Heinrich Leo explained the 06 forms as "",aning "die iilteren, risenhaften, untergegan­genen einwone r des landes; dann Uberhaupt aileS, waS sich in wilder natur­haft feindselig entgegensetzt, aile widerwiirtigen feinde";" and he sett led on the last ph ... se, "widerwlirtige feinde." as his paraph ... "" of the eo/en­won! in its later {)Ccu....,n"" ..... Basical ly the same idea appears in a brilliant Tll<XIem fonn by R.E. Ka,ke," Kaske demonstrates from skaldic so~s that j6/nar could be "an insulting figurative e pithet for 'enemies'" and also finds some loo"" r parallel.,."" This interchange botween "gianl" and "enemy" is not one of the canonical skaldic tro!"'s but only an informal and ad hoc usage that could arise anywhere. Kaske works carefully through u.., ten Beowulfian instan""" of eo/en and argues !",l'Suasively that the "enemy" connotation of eolen fits the five problematic instan""" in Beoy,ulj" NO! e,'ery reader has been convinced, but the only programmatic objection J know to Kaskc', main argument concerning the "hosti le epithet" is our faith . inherited largely from Hell.sler and his scholarly tradition, that Gennanic heroic poetry did not take sides, that its 'epic ' namltive reponed event, objectively,

(3) The possibility mu,t remai n a strong one, in the context of Old Norse myth and of the message of this pan of Riik. thaI the latun is a real "giant," a creature thaI ap!",:tfS widely in later Norse verse and prose and constitutes

.,

.,

" .,

"

Compllell t959, p. 246 .

UO t839, p. 67. n.1 owc thorcfCIToce'o Leo ' 0 1I1cedilOfll' tcam<d n. '0 I. t072 in B,,,,,uJj, p. 18 t ; tho cdilO<s do not favo< ~i :mts,

uo t 839, pp. 80, 8 t. Kaskc 1967: cf. S,uhmillcr t999.

!Ca.,"" 1967. "'p, 1'1'. 289-\10; 294; SMldshJpann4l, ch. 3 1 (Faulkco I. p. 40): M""" ,,01< ,itt at UI11W til aU", ..I.m h<ira. K,,,,,, ok viJ NfnIl ""iii. ok " }xH fl'-" MJ .00 /mrmali. Thi. pa=!gc i. abo cited by Schulz (2004, p. t4, n. 3), who odds. citation of Gula/>ingslpg criminoli,in~ ,imitar in,ults (thoogll lbc "gian,M word, LlSCd do not ioctude jor"",,). K .. ,kc·, US< of a fourtrenl~-ocn'ury commentary OIl DOC appaIt01It usc of a "gi..,,"' won! (mi~j""gi, dol. , glos..oo .. jotlOl) i, ciTCulrupoc~ (t967, 1'1'. 289-90, 3O'i , n, (4) and cites Mcifln",', C""lraI)' opini"". I am k» JlCf'uadcd by hi, >econd.aJy ..-gumcn" 1I1at tho in,u1, w"' lr.>ditiOTllllly applied c"JlC'-'ially '0 Fri,i ... , and by hi, biblicol och""" and oocompanying di:cpcr reading, buI 1I1e fim part of K .. <!<c·, article ClIJI ,tand withool lhc>c furtliCT d.c.dopmcnl,.

The 1<.61: Stone', iatun and Myth<>klgy of lJe.>lh '"' an important ""g""'nt of the v~ry structl1/'e of Norse mythology, Som~times the jii/nar sum, Titan-like, to resemble an old~r race of god" mo", often monsters; in early myths their universal defining trait .... m. to be hostility and contrast to the god.; but if the opposition between gods and giant' is structural in Old Norse mythology, so too is their integration and inter­d~p"ndence, Loki, who is blood-brother to ooinn and lives among the god" is of giant ance.my, and of course the male gods happily practice exogamy with giantesses, whil~ male giants would gladly reciprocate by abducting goddes""s if they could. In fact, if Rimlr was originally a giantess (Snom says that she and JQrilr are "enrolled" among the god<ksses, as if added in a courtesy appointment), then Baldr', precocious avenger V:ili wa, a half-giant; and I>6rr's giant mistress Jamsaxa gave birth to a similarly precocious strong-baby, Magni. For that matter I>6rr', mother in the standard mythology is the g iantess JQrm ('earth'; how~ver, she is also cia"ified as a goddess, and the primary sources here are contradictory), Anoth~r coupling on this pattern (ooin n with Gnilr) yield, another av~ng­ing god of the younger gen<:ration, Vi6arr, who av~nges ooinn at Ragnrok and is paired with V;Ui in Snom's account,. n,., fortner giantesses Rindr and JQrilr ",main Nebenfrauen of ooinn e"~n after their narrative moment as hi, mi.ires<, and the mythology .... ms to t"'at them, like Skaoi, a. convened to goode." status. The the"", of giantes,-;:,xogarny in Old Norse myth and genealogy and mo", generdlly the role of giant' in the mythology have bun ext~nsively discussed in r~nt worb,"

If latun in th~ Rak imcrip!:ion designates a "giant" li ke those in the standard w~stern m)ihological sources, then it will be difficult to ""parate him from Loki, who of course is in Snom one of the slayers of Baldr. Von Friesen's solution (though his reconstruction of the myths attested on Rak is quite diffe",nt) was to suppose that HQiIr wa, originally a giant, hence his hosti lity to the gods in Saxo and hi s outsider status in Snom:" Th~ lawn in Rok might then simply be an epithet for HQilr and, we might add, the root of the later western version with Loki. But d~spite von Friesen, Rok ', lawn need not hav~ borne the name HQilr and of course could not literally have bun Vi linniBaldr' ., full-brother if he wa, literally a giant. This rnodd is thus not strong when consi<kred in th~ context of the other versions, Saxo and the v~rse versions, for it would not be easy to imagine how the hostile jOflmn of Rak could hav~ ~volved into th~ brother of Baldr. And conversdy, severing Rak from the broth~r motif would separate it

" See the ,tudic. of Gro Stein,tand and of Marganot Clnnie, R,,,-,. c"JlCCiolly Steins-land tWt ..,dOUTlie, ROM t994.

" von Flie"", t92(), 1'1'. 60-6 t.

'"' from u.., most constant a.pect of the slayer in the Western versions, Tn satisfy the history of the story we still need the fraternal model and have to imagine the convergence of two related story pattel1\S. which oould ~ indep<'ndem realiz.alions ofthe same myth.

Of these three explanations - in short hand, (I) name/nickname; (2) hostile epithet in a fratricidal model; (3) real giant - the first and second ""' scarcely mutually exclusive. and I find that ex planation the least unsalis­fying, at lea,! at a sUJI"rficial level. A ,..,al giant rai",,, ITIO,.., problems in ex plaining the relation of the Rok myth to the western versions and "specially to Beowulf, and J am still very taken wilh Neck.,!', great con.ouction (which [ have not tried to .ummariz" here) ba,ed on fratricide. Two featu",s of Rok must be cited in favor of the third explanation of latlln . however. First, the newborn bmther. replace"",o! of VilinnlBaldr, is here named 1>6rr, and !>Orr's enmity to gianl' i, one of hi, most obvious characteristic. throughout the mythology. Even though Vannn', version of the Baldr myth (like the pmverb cited in Sonmorrek 17) imagines comJl"nsation through ,.,placement (or ,.,hirth) within the family, it is undeniable that the coincidence of a "Mrr" and a 'jiitunn" in the same story raises expectations of violence, And, as J theorized above, other tellings with the same dramati. Jl"rsonae might have led straight to the jotunn', death, The second featu,., favoring a ,.,aI giant is the manner in which Ja tun killed Vilinn in my reconstruction: the verb knua, which like so many words in Rok is hapax legomenon, has been related to the words for knuckles and might imply a more primitive mode of killing than any of the other versions (making the slayer a literal Iwndbani). One of the hemic! historical fratricidal tales of Ynglinga saga ha, similar, more phy'ical acts of violence,'" hutlhe status of these stories in ,.,Iation 10 the myth is not at all dear, All the otkr established teUs of the myth pmJl"r allude to a missile or in Saxo to a sword thrust during a mysteriOLl' (or poorly told) night-time encounter on a path, 'n>e ",.,aI giant" plot: is howe,'er rather thin and unsatisfying. One wants to ask, who was this giant and why did he want to kill ""the lord of joy"?

'" On the fuobicidlll brother> of Ynglinga "'ga, """ Lindow t997,!'P_ 13<!-t40.

The 1<.01: Stone', iatun ond Mytholozy of lJe.uh

ia tun in the context of a mythology of death

Many theories of the Baldr myth have Ilooon propounded and now ably su",'eyed in three recent publications." I can add nothing to their For­schunK.<berichl, except evaluation. In this respect, though, I still regard Jan de Vries's 1955 article "0." Mythos von Baldni Too" (the main source of his interpretation of the myth in his Altnordische Religion.'Kuchichle)" as the single richest interpretative study fOf my PUI1"'""s. Lindow'. work. the mo,t extensive recent book on Baldr, dDe-. command agreement as far as it goes; he writes about the mythic material around Baldr chiefly as it ex ists in thirteenth - and founeenth-century Icelandic sources. asking what write" li ke Snorri saw in it." Not surprisingly, the answers chiefly relate to medieval society, espec ially to the feud a, social institution. While it would he difficult to assert that this "oomemporary" medieval view - medieval reception, in short - is nO! a reasonabl e mode of imerpretation, it seems to me ultimately an exercise in demythologiz.ation. Perhaps to Snorri and the thin""nth ""nrury these were pretty or horrific tales of the ancients that could have a oomemporary application (what kind of automobile would Jesus drive?), but at an older stage of helief. something darker and probably not accessible to ",a'<On (the Trinity; drinking the blood and eating the flesh of god) is to be expected. In any case. Rok ' s version of the Baldr myth -always assuming a cautionary "if it i. the Baldr myth" - is over two centuries earlie, than any other and geographical ly marginal with respeet to the late r attestations. If 1 a<k what i. the Baldr story ahout a, relatively early myth, de Vries's article "",ms the place to start. Lindow also ex ­presses admiration of de Vries's idea. ("doubless the most lasti ng oontri ­bution to recent Baldr research"), but of course he also proceed. to criti ­cize.'" I agree with those parts of Lindow's criticism that focus e'l~cially on de Vries's ritual of initiation; hut while thi.' is indeed foregrounded in de Vries's theory. hi. background reading of the myth is not del"'ndent on it. In the following I draw on de Vries without citing his support at e,'ery tum.

Baldr's death is, then, the First o.,ath in this mythology, and a< a whole his myth treats the problem of death. True. the primordial being Ymir was

" Schie.- 1995; Limlow 1997; Libcrman 2004.

" 00 Vri"" 1955; 195-&-51, IT. 1'1'. 237_23R.

" 6 Cootcm~ rt=ption i, al"" too zq:oproaoh of V",tcirm I .. ",n 2<Xl3.

" Lindo"" 1997. p . 30. 1'1'. 33_36. A ,om,,,,'h .. more tboorctical criti qoc of 00 Vries 1955 i, to be found in Schjo>dt 2OOO.nd 2<Xl3; in 2000 Schj;odt foc ... cd ohiefly OIl tbe initial,,"),_rit",,1 a.pcct but in 2<Xl3 brought out mo<c fu lly th< contradiction between th< two pam of do Vrie, ' , point of view.

'"' butchered to furni,h Ixxly pan. for the creation of the universe at the very beginning of the cosmic or""" bUl Bald,' s drama stages the first tragedy of mortality ...,levant to humans. Bald,', position a, beloved memb<., of a family and "" a human-like god (demi-god in Saxo) separate him from Ymir and hi. death from any death-like phenomenon not grounded in a 'society,' the primeval society of the family, in mythological time before him. As source of the consoucrion blocks of lbe un;ve""" Yrnir belongs to nature; Baldr b<.longs to culrure.

OOinn'. grief is the paradigm of paternal grief; Bald,'s funeral is para­digmatic for human funeral.,. at lea,! among the el ite cults. It ""ems that grief wa, di'ICovered on this occa,;on and ""maps the funeral elegy, the eifikwzJj, invented. The effort to bring Baldr back from the realm of death (HefTll6Ur's ride and the attempt to weep Baldr out of HeI) is almost successful. but not quite, and de Vries is right in comparing lhi, mOlif aero« cuhures to origin-<>f-<lealh motih. This motif might have carried variou., meanings in various time, and place" but Lindow is probably right in associating lhe "near-miss" at preventing dealh with death's inevitability in the world lL< we know it. " Commentators have not in general noted a similarly paradigmatic quality in Baldr's manner of death, but to me dealh in a game and at the hand, of a relative seem. quintessential.'" Further, Hre&I 's reaction in Be,wmlj, and lhe Old Man' s in lhe simile there, seem to me the quintessential reaction to dealh within the family." Riik and the ancient proverb provide a natural form of compensation - if only one could believe in it - and in general lhe myth can surely be said to concern lhe consequences of death, including the social consequence. such as revenge.

Lindow empha,ius this la't element of the "mythologem," supplement­ing de Vries's breakdown into three pans (death; funeral; and attempt to overcome dealh) wilh two more part." revenge and reconciliation .'" And indeed revenge may well have been the element that found the greatest resonance in the later reception of the myth in the age of its preservation in Snorri." I have argued that at an earlier period the Baldr paradigm was intimately tied to grief and it, express ion in the eifikl)(~ili along the lines of

" Lindo .. · t997, p. 32 . • On Baldr', death and the di,;"" p .. ttm f ... the livi~g. """ Stti~,1and t99t. pp.

260-270 and Harri. t999b.

" See .1<0 Lindow', discUll,iOll of Hroilcl ..,d of the problem of accident (t 997. pp. t4t _ 145).

" doe Vries t955 . p. 47; Lindo ... 1997, p. 32.

" l indo .. , seOUl, the .""')oct of fcoo within the mythology in brooder onthropological tcmu in Lindow t994.

Tho 11.1;1: SlOne" iawn and Mltho"'z;y of lJoe.uh

Eliade'. famous exposition of reciprocal imitations between god and man,"" [n Riik', in"'ription, and to an extent in the Baldr-influenced compositions SonalOrrt't and the Old Man 's Lament in Be(w.'ulj, compen'!:ttion for death other than revenge i5 weighed, and at an early period, [ hypothesize, the slOry of this First Death concerned the nature of death itself,

Baldr does nO! return from death in the man""r of a vegetation god, He returns only at the end of the present co,mic cycle, along with the other younger IEsir; they do not ""tum like spring 10 the same world they left but instead will begin a new aeon, True, some fealu""s of the older culture (perhap" symbolized by chess men found in the gra,,) will exist in their memory, but the new world is not something the see""" of Vpluspd can extensively pre"iew or even conceive. TIl<: important thing about Baldr is precisely that he dies, thai he is a dead god. Baldr's death is foreshadowed by dreams; in his siory, death is firsl of all the fated end of the beloved hero, and imofar a, the god is a paradigm for man, it teaches thai man cannot evade the fact of his own faled end. Death comes 10 Baldr too soon, but that too seems paradigmatic for the experience of men in the world, [n

the very first line of the Riik inscription, V3m60r is de",ribed by the epithel "fated 10 die" (falglao); commentators have had some difficulty in justify­ing this epithet for a youlh who is already dead." The point, [ believe, is 10 associate VliIn6i!r with BaldrlVilinn very much in the way Eliade's famous theory would ha,'e p""dicted, After all, we are all fated to die Ife;g,) and, wilh few ex""ptions, to die too young by our own [ight., Whal death actually does in the myth i., not con""ived in anatomical tel1lls (as we TllIXiems might describe death); inslead it is a social fact; it ""moves Baldr from his family and the clan of the gods, breaching the circle of kin (so SonalOrret). 11>c famous funeral ritualizes thi.' b""ach and causes the ""­mains of Baldr to disappear, but Baldr himself continues 10 ex ist in the underworld home of Hel. Norse mytholofY of various periods knows various thing. about the lands of the dead,' but etymologically He[ is the "covered," hidden, invisible. And .ince Hel "lies downward and north­ward" (nwr ok tIOrilr liggr Hel~gr; Gyljaginnmg 47 lch. 49]) according 10 Snorri , the concept of He[ is widely held to have been ba.«ed on the communal passage graves of the late SlOne Age, which opened to lhe south.6:l It i, also generally agreed of Hel that the covered realm carne first

'" Harri, 199\lb and 2OO6.a. .. Harri, forthcoming., n. 80..,d ossoci atcd moin to,,; Buggo 1910, 1'1'. !!-9; Harri. 2006b, p. 89 . .. Tho old ' LIro'cy orEl]i, [David"",1 1943 i. ";]1 """,ioool>,"­.. de Vries 19~57, I, p. 91. n, 1'1'. 374-375; Simek 19M. p . 168.

and t~ goddess (genealogically a giantess, of course, but respectfully treated by Snorri) followed as a peroonification;'" in any ca,e, Hel as an individualized frightening human-like figure is firmly p~nt already in the SOnMorrek of Wil.

In Kalyp.w, hi., highly original book of 19 19, Hermann Qunten seemed to argue the conlmr)', '0 that Hel the indi,-idual preceded He! the dismal hidden land of the dead, ,,,ther than the other way around;"' but as hi s argu­ment de,'e!ops, the person and the place = m 10 become rather co-develop­ments from the fear of the communal grave."" Giinten's etymological exploration of the expressions of the PIE roots for the ideas "hide, cover, enwrap," especially the derivatives of PIE °tol_ / k£1-, puts many aspects of Ikrmanic death mythology imo illuminating c ro',,-culrural perspectives. To Oilmen, He! is "eine uralte, gemeingermanische Dlimonin - eine Dlimonin [ ... J nicht eine persOnlich gestaltete GOnin!"'" Her name and function are, he says, "pre-Indo-European," presumably in t~ sense that they are shared with Finno-Ugric.'" Giimert cites the Finnish scholar E. N. &tal1i:

IN lach ihm gab e. cine allen finnisch.~grischen Vmkem gemeinoamc, chthoni_ sche (;onheit KIIljll , dc1'Ctl Name .ich ergibi aus finn. /",ljo 'Rie.e, riesc:nhaftes Geschilpf ... lall"'laiion.I ... tch denke die.e Iklcge genUgen, urn zu bcwci_ scn, dal\ die"" finnisch.~grische chthonische Todesgottlrit Ko/jo identi""h i'l mil unserer nord. lid < urgerm. *J/ulja, idg. 'Ko/j!, ... f!!

Now, it must he said immediately that the field of Germanic-Finno-Ugric loanworus has been a controversial one over a long period oftime, and I do not have credentials independently to suppon my enthusiasm for Giinten's brillian, book or SetiiHi's equation. The connection of Hel and Kotjo is still accepted by some experts but general ly is out of favor.'" Luckily the Finno-

• Simck 19R4. p. 168. • Giinlcrt 1919, 1'1'. 35-40. • GLinlcrt 1919, p. 43 . .,

Giinttrt 1919, p. 39. •

• "

Giinttrt 1919. p. 44: "wi, kooncn dic Gc>!3l, nicht OUT in indog=illCoc, ..,.,.. 0Cm gar in ""riMog~rmanisch< ai, .prachlich vcrfolgrn, in eioo Zeit, in dcrcn tief"" tides Dunkel hi> jetzl nUT in seltrnco, be..,.,dc" gu",":igcn HUm dio Spnorhwis.=hlofi hinunttn:~kuc htcn crrniiglicht."

Giinlcrt 1919, 1'1'. 52-53 ; Sctiilii 1912, 1'1'. 17(1..183.

An important witne" to moJcm opinion is Kly"'" ct.1. 1991-96; on p. 105 ( • .v. toljo) the cditon TCport that. while the Ura/i.'lCi1<. ~'YmoIogjsch" Wlirurouch (R61ei 19R8, J, p. 173-_ 174) fOCognize, the word .. Finno-Ugric f ..- "bOse, Gci<l," vmou, othcr aulborit.tive "'LIfe." ell.." doubt on the word il",lf. n.c OOilon , urrunari",: HS-ctiil. dloo~", an Hc,l:unft OIl> eincr!lOCh indogcrmani!.COCn Spnocll­,tufe; mnhc"'" bei Pul;orny. SKES [S"""",n ki,kn <'Y7MUn<n sal!olkilja) vcmcht

1'h. 11.0< SlOne" iatun and Mytho~ of lJea<h

Ugric connections of the mythological figures under discussion here, while they add color and depth, are nOl crucial in my overall argu""'nt,

In Snorri, Hel is a daughter of Loki by ~ giantess Angrbo& and one of the three great mon,ters of Norse mythology - the co,mic wolf Fenrir, ~ world-encircling se~nt liirrnungandr, and the ghastly half-black mistress of the dead, Hel. But Mr treattnent there is much more diplomatic than that of her monstrous sibling.; SM is for e~ample barely mentioned in connec­tion with Ragnarok where her brothers have their great mo"",nt of destruc­tion ( ... ell LohJfylgja allir He/jar s;nnar 'but all He1's folk will follow Loki'; Gylfaginning 50 jch. 51j). Probably Giintert is wrong in his original emphatic dismi.",1 of the "personification" of the grave, and indeed he hardly maintains his own claim." He is probably right, however, in seeing the creature He!, a personification but nOl necessarily a late one, as ori­ginally a corpse-devouring demon rdlher than the sober admini,trdtor over the halls of the dead Snorri poncays (Gyl/aginning 27 jch. 33]), and in general the development of Norse religion - for example in the concepn of Yalhiill and of valkyries - from a real terror of death in more primitive stage. toward medie"al bowdlerization is clear.

Hel seems, then, etymologically to be a demon who "covers, hides, conceals" the corpses of the dead, but Giintert fre<juently refers to her with a different vocabulary: ''rnenschem'erschlingende ~ichend1imonin, wie ich sie fUr gemeingermanisch un<! vorgermanisch halle"; "in den Hohlen und Griiften, in weld", die Toten ge""nkt we~n, haust die gierige, aile Men­schenleiber verschlingende ~ichendfunonin ... ~" This language implicitly identifies the "concealing" she-demon with one that actively ("gierig") con­su"",s its victims; and while a few images of Hel in ON s""m to support this eater of the dead (e.g., Hel as a carrion-<oating raven in Egill" H~fu/J­Jau.,n 10' '), Giintert , ,,,,ms really to have in mind the wolf and hound which are associated with death:

"

" "

die HcrJeilung von fi .• ugr.°l:01ja OIl' <!em Indogerrnani",ocn mit eincm Fnog.,. zci<OCnH and <""tin"" by m:ntioning three TlCUtJal or >emi-p""itive .tOOie •. (Th<: only DOC 1 ~avc been ablo to commit is Loikala 1978, pp. 45-46.) Y ct the editors' ""m.i,·c bibliognq>hy on 1I1i. item "Warcntly supporu their final jOOgmenl: "Kcin gam. LW.~ An invaluable =unl of the compl« focld itself i. ]([y...-a 1961, 1 hay. not been abk to ""'lui", the rontinuation of 1I1i, "udy in Hof,tra 1985. Giintcn find><;1 """OJIgo" thai ",en hi, main guide to c.,-lie" Finno-UgricIIE ",Ia_ ti",,-,rup', Sctiilii, view. the feminine Ok. Hd os a late pcnonification (Giintcrt 1919, p. 53, n. 5; Setiilii, p. 183, n.). Giintcrt 1919,1'1'.40,39. Cited by Gtintcn 1919, p. 42; Elli. [Davi,"",nl 1943, p. 84.

'"" Mil die""", Garmr abet tlaben wit oinon Beleg rut die ural'" V"rsldl~ng vom leichenf,.."ser geoan"t, ".0'" cierisch. gierig ""hlingenJcn Todcsdlimon, "," or gemoinsam.rm ',icrliu.g;gcn Hund' der allen Indcr, den bcid<:n HBllcnhW1den dc. AW<:sla die die Brtlcke Cinvat_ bcwoct\en und dom Kn&ems der ar;ttl\cn -- ,- " lugrunuc ,eg!.

GUnter! goes on to make wlm! he calies "eine Proportion", a proportional fonnula. out of the relationship of the g<Kkks. and ~ hell-hound such that

Gotlc'g<:otaiten und Oilmooen, die auf Grund lihnlid,.". V"",{cllungcn enMan· den ,,'aren, """,hcinen in der Sprache de, Mylhoo aI. leibliche Verwantlte .. . ,

H<i : Fennrulfr, Gamlr .. I/,LJre, 1I~1:ab. : K~d"ro5."

A few of Hel', j6mnn rdatives are explicitly associated with the eating of human flesh (1uf1tJ ntig,.,..,ug 'camon grttdy giant-woman' He/gakvilJa Hj{ln'ar/Jssonar. sl. 16 [PoeIic &Ma, p. 144]), the most impressive instance ~ing the jOtunn in eagle-form, HrlZsvelgr (,carrion-gul""r'), who ,its at

the end of heaven creating til<: winds (Vaj}mMnisnuiJ, sts. 36--37 [Poetic Edda, pp. 51 - 52J; Gylfaginning, p. 2U [ch. II\]). But the category '"jii/unn" is ca,ually lIsed, and Ihe development of Hr.rsvelgr from the "~asts of c, "· ,. ",,0 e "an easy one.

n.e etymologies of Fenrisulfr and Gam" offer no connection with the sphere of death, despite the ir role in the mythology. (Fen,i, ha. no .alis­factory etymology; the cnonwion with fen "swamp, water" .uggests only a wilderness monster, but one related ethnic name does make probable a respectable age for til<: name." Garm' is derived from a root associated wilh noise, in this ca<e his barking.) But Ihe<e monsters were jOlnar, and jorwm does have a widely accepted etymology that leads. I would argue. into the sphere of He!'. (presumably corp<e-<levouring) canine kinsmen . De Vries reconstruct, POmc "etwUl- from the root of *ewn- 'to eat" and ex­pands: "Wohl e in riesenname 'der gewaltige fresser', oder 80gar 'lei chen-

,. " ,

n

Gililtcrt 1919,p.4t.

GLintcrt 1919.p.4t.

<Ie Vri .... (1956-57. I. p. 2SO I~ I 77]) <XmllIl<nl>: "Ocr Nome ·Lcicocn.cr",,~ling<r'

hat .ur 11>roric Anloll gcgebcn, thII die Ricsen UJl<poilT1g1ie~ Totrndilmoncn (>arlophagoi) gow"",," wiiJrn .. " abe, das i,t .ichcrlic~ f.hc~. Ocr Gcd:rnlo, daB <leT Wind dem F1ilgcbchlag oine, Ric'IC1l.'ogcl, zur .mlanJocn i .. , lomml in oJkn Tcikn dcr Welt .0.-; dcr Adl", wi,d gcmc oJ, S.urmmgc! gewiihlt, und weil or von Lcicocnfrall lob!, lonnl< man ihn in dcr """~ NlIJTlOtI kchz.endcn oonIi",hcn Mythologio H",,",elgr nenncn. Scine riescnhafte Gc.al. lie8 ilm <bbci oJ. cincn jo;>tunn c.-.chciOC1l." Simek (1984, 1'1', 189-90) aB"""'. On the be .... of battle, ,.'" Harri.2007.

d.c Vries 1977, • .•.

Th< 11.111: Stone', iatun ond M;.ooKlgy of De.><h

verschl ingender dlimon."'" Within Germanic, n-stem derivatives from the root give O HG ew, uw, glossing edax 'glutton',jllujrezo ' Fresser', and man-elZO 'man-eater' .'" If Fin n. nona, eIana 'schnecke, wiirmc hen; schlechter ,""nsch' is a Germanic borrowing, as so,"" of the earliest scholars of Germanic-Finnic loanwords have claimed, then we have the old o.,rmanic form more or les., froun in time and, perhaps, in the worm a reflection of original devouring death.'" The later forms in Danish and Swedi.,h like jane, jiiIre are attri buted by He ll quist to hypocoristic gemina­tion, but it seem., more probable that they arose from forms in the paradigm which have the geminating combination --dn- (PIE -ldun-, -edn-1."

Finno-Ugric or variOll.' Finnic languages have bolTowed words derived from the root of jofunn se"el"",11 times. Among others. the dictionaries cite an -1- (instead of -n-) deri vative in Finn. eroiainen 'repui, i"e' from PrNordic ·eruia- , ·etola-, which itse lf is direct ly attested in NNorw jpIul ·giant'. as well as later Finn. borrowings from an OSw -iarul in Finn. jaru/i ·giant'. O:!

Old Engl ish a lso shows an -/-derivative, the adj. etol, glossing edax 'vorac ious , gluttonous', a compound enul-man, glossing homo edax, and an abstract eIru/ny.<, rendering e<kJciIas." TImmsen. the ninetunth-centwy father of o.,rmanic-Finnish loanword studies, listed a lso NorwSaami jeIanas and SwSaami janenes "giant" as e<J uivalent to jomnn and derived from ·eIllllm, while Finn. jam, dial. jamli are later borrowings." In the period from 1906 to 1943 Karsten publ ished a great series of , tudies of German ic-Finnish loanword re lations. in each of which Finn. nona, eIana

• N

•

"

"

" •

oc Vries 1977, 1'1'. 295-296.

Kar<tcn 1943-44. p. 82.

"A"cn bety<lc1scutvccLlingrn 'jiitte' > 'daggmasl' [eartbwOITIl ] b..- en be\:antJ"'" rnlkll: i ocn nonJj,\:a jiittcbcniimningcn trol~ vil\:en .avO! i S ... ,rige " ,m i /'{o<go ','cn anviindc, om hypondc in""Ltcr; jiimliir redan firu;h Linonkt ",rila.! (.., ncdan) _ I) jllite. 2) ,lad)ig trildi n>ekt"' (Kar<tcn 1943-44, p. 82).

Hd lqui'" 1967, s.v,jatu; Krabe I Meid 1969, 1'1'.114-15 f§ W I. d . 1'1'.1 2 1_ 124 f§ lll l- Mci d comment.: "'Nacb andcrer (und wahr>cocinlicb oc,;=) Auffa.,,,,ng ,ind die bctreffrn<lcn Gcminatcn tcil, cxpr" .,iv", N.rur, lei1, , ind oic _ in 00-.timmt"" Formatioocn _ arutlogi'iCb_morpllOlogillChcr Natur"' (p. (15). Scb.ffocr, woo doubt, th .. this word i, 'iCJTllIJlti colly likely to bave bern sLtbjoct to bypo­rori"ic gemination. provides the rontcmporary otndcr<tanding of the phonological oc.c1opmcnt (200'5, p. 85); but e,,,,,,tiolly the """" ur.OCnd;mding "'" been long hocn standard (K""'t"" 1943, p. 82).

Hdlq ui'" 1967, , .v.iiitte. K.rnrt"" (1943-44, p. 82) 001« that tbe N};orw won t. foc jii"" _ ~1Ul. iUlUI, juul _ arc used """" .\:ymfo.-.l ffi< miirmi,koc"; 1'1'. ~2--l!3 bave the c1caIT" di""u"i"" of ~'olainm (obo ~to, ~tOMl, "oa), in my opinion. ilu<;wonh I Toller 1898, S.V .

Thorn"", 192G'1S69, p. 178.

"" ~Iongs to a group of Finno-Ugric words from o.,nnanic that mus! have bo.n borrowed ~fore the first sound shift."' In the tv.enties and thini es. however, Colli nder made a strong ca."" for all the forms ", Ialed to eWna

that did not show breaking, i.e., showing el I ed-, as native," Thi.' whole territory, and our word in panicular, remain. controversial and forbidding to the non-linguist out, i<kr, but the helpful modem works of Klystra seem to authon"" the trespassin g mythologist to proceed in the ~Iid that "rona may actually be a horrowing from (pre-)Germanic. '"

[n Old English, of COUTSe, w e find thai 1he cognate eOlen is applied especially to the cannibalistic monste, Grendel. Old English eOlen ha. the variant ere" , and in Middle and Early M<Kkm Englis h el(/);/I is still common. OE also has a well -attested enf 'giant' where the ""age approxi­mate. to giXd' closely, especial ly a, to size; J have not been abl e to find a satisfactory elymology of em, which (a, en::) i. found, accordi ng to Grimm, in !he Bavarian dialect of NHG." Falk and To", also take ·e/una- to ·",an­'10 eal' and gloss il "al", 'vielfresser' (oder 'menschenfresser,),'." Alexan­der J6han nesson eXlensively parallds hi s etymological gloss 10 mlleY'ja:

Die walkllren hatlen Il1Spr. vOllcige'laJl (vgL Ned.d , Walhall 79), ~OJ ag •. wa ldasiga 'rabe' de~tet auf die lINpi'. bed. von kj<i.a hin: '.dunoci:en, genie,_

""'" Den",,,,,h i.1 ""ltyrja u"'Pf. "in vampyr odcr blullrinkendcr dlimon, eine personification der ...,v~gd der walMall, eben", wie N'unn cin leichen_ fre,sender dlimon, cine personifjcation der vennodcrung iSI . . :'"

Ik Vries expresses some doubl about !he <krivation of ON )PlUM from *elUJllJ- on Iwo counts. Firsl, i. a u-slem ·edu- likely? This ""'0lS to echo

"

• "

• • •

iCar><tcn 1\lO6, 1'1'. 7-l! ; 1915, 1'1'. I 16-1 18 (a very ac"" .. ibk di"" ... iOll); 1922, 1'1'. 79-l! I, 1943. pp. 82-l!3 (hi. I." word on the . ubjoct); "'" hi. bibliognp/ly fo< <107ril, 1943, p. 83.

Collindcr 1924, 1'1'. 79-l!1; 1932-34, pp. 18!!-190. Klystr.. 1961 i. very reod.IDlc, but it, dctoilod treatment doc, not knd it,elf to

,umm.uy (but "'" p. (52). Foo- ~'o"", etana the Uxihm of Kl y''''' et.1. (1991-96, I, p. 57) is mo.-c quotabk : "Die alte, 1IOCh vom Fcnnilrtcn Sctiila gntgebeillcnc Her_ lcitung au. dem Germ. WIlTIle VOll Cotlindcr [ __ .1 obgelchnt und findct sich ,,"tdem nur noch bci Skondinavi,tcn (HdlqniSl, Karsten , Niehcn). [ __ .1 Zu erwjig"" wiiIT, ob nieht <tana <loch gCTlTl. Hcrlmntl i". Scmanti""h i" EnUchnung d.cnkb= die Gcfriil1igkcit von Schneckcn is! j. bebnn~ Pur cin germ. Original voo ~I""" i" die Bedeutung 'Frc."",', die im Ahd. vo<liegt, cber dcnkh.,- .Is die Bede utung 'Riese' , die ,ich im Kordgcrrn . findct nnd wool ouch auf 'p"",,,,,' zuruckgchcn kfurnte." n.e cdit ... ' concluding verdki i,'~ Germ. LW."

Holthau..,., 1963, s.v. ' Olen; Grimm 1854-1960, '.v. '''''. Pall< I T"'1' 1910. ' .v. Jtz~.

Akxmdcr llilw,"",,,,,, 19'56. p. 322, bo"ic etymology under ~d_, pp. 53-54.

'" Pokomy, who integrate. jOiunn , eoten into the large word-family under *ed- ''''''"0' with a question whether ""in alter a-St. edu-" may be a"u"",d from Lat "dulus 'Es""r' and Lat edulis 'dlbar'." Pokorny's display of derivati,-"s includes many verbal fonns and nominal stern" but most noun. are built on extended-grade roots. Our word seems to be the only agent noun built on the normal grade among lhi, group of derivatives in Pokorny. but my linguistic consultants raise no ..,rinus objection.'" [k Vries' " second doubt concerns (I) the suffix * - U/Ill - (as in Lal rribiinu.) instead of the more common *-a/ill- and *-ina- and (2) the fact thai words with thi, suffix,,", usually deri,-ed from collectives." To judge by Meid's extens ive srudy of "Da, Suffix -no- in Giittem~n." the *-u/ill-suffix, though common in Latin, may be rare in German ic. but the material is nOl exam­ined for this question. Howe,'er, Meid's paragraphs on the hase .. vord seem to demonstrate that while "'I'l"'lIatives showing leadership (drli/finn to

drlirt, {>eoden to WOO) are indeed ba.ed on a collective, divine names are not (OJinn, not to, for example, the "Wild Hunt" but to &Jr, with original u-slem exchanged for an a -stem; Ullinn to .wul/m .• , etc,),"" (De Vries, who,"" dictionary came out in 1%2, d"". not cite Meid', 1951 anide.) The ha.e word of jorunn would seem to qualify well if it meant here not so much simple "food" as a collective idea of food, especially "carrion, a collection of dead bodies for eating" ; we find precisely this meaning in vocahulary ba,ed on the extended grade of the same rOOI, *edeJ-, as in (*ed-.• -om) OE ~s, OHG, OSa:< ii,r 'carrion'," Using Meid' s ",mantics, then, the · -uno- derivative would originally have meant '1he one who is equipped with carrion for eating. "

Hellqui,t favors a simple "storatare" ''big eater" (d, Lat edax): "enL somliga dock, sannoL felaktigt, med syfming pa ursprungliga likdemoner: liklitare.'''" But it seems unlikely thai such an early mythological tenTI would have taken its name merely from human gluttony or from its projec­tion onto the app"tite of "giant'" such as we encounter in the comical fOnTIS of folktal es; in the older Jceiamlic sources, for what it's wonh, the arp"tite

.. Pokorny 2002, p. 289: se" Pokorny', whole cnlIy, 1'1'. 287_289 . .. I wiM. to tl1ank Benj.min Fortson ond "']lCciolly loff Boum , f..- help witl1 linguis-tic "-']lCct, of thi, artiole. 100 mi<lllko" of 0"""", are my own . ., doc Vri"" t977, p. 296.

... Moo t 957. P1'. 72-92. e,p, 9 t-92 (conelu,i"",,), 8S-l17 (6<l;nn ond tnti"n) . ., Cf. the di'ptay of v"-;"",. of the ex(<mocd grado in Pokorny 2002. P1'. 288-289 ond Alexander J6I>OJloc""", t956, 1', 53, iocluding ON ilt. OE (ft. OS"" St, OHG d, 'food'. frequently 'food for onimal.' .

• Hdlqui ,t t%7, p. 428.

of giants is dwarfed by that of MIT." Even if "big ealer" were the original meani ng of the form. an early religious-mythological context would in any case have lent a pregnant ,ignificance. Jt is negative ev icknce. of oourse, but Gothic may have invented its won! for the concept "g lutton," namely af-erja , p"rhap. to avoid a demonic word.9\! If Kanne" is right and *etU/UJ­was borrowed by Fin no-Ugric people, well to the east of the Baltic in the pre-llirmanic fonn ·eduno-, the time m ight have bttn about the middle of the first millennium Be."" That i5 of course speculative and disputable, but in any ca,,, this word must h"v" a long history.

The rarity of the construction with ' -U/UJ-. when OOinn and Ullinn Ll'" ' -QIIl1- even though they are buill on u-s!em base words,"" could be an argumcnt for antiquity "special ly if the observations of Michael Janda are borne out. In the context of settli ng the elymology of Varo!lll, Janda gives a formal account of the earliest phase of the etyroo logy of jiilunn:

Dos ved. S~ffi. _una_. mil dcrn Va1U(ltJ ..,heinbar gebildel is!, findel ' ieh nur sellen in Erbwilrlern. Jedenfall . einmal in.t...,. Indogemlal1i",;m "al l dcr gema_ ni..,hen Riesenbe:t.eichung a;,1. N'unn, &c. ooten, die au. ~ridg_ oh l ,dum1-

'Pre,,,,,' hL-rgdcitel "inl, 'lehl cine Ilildun§ nul >_un,,_ neben eioem uridg. Heleroklilikon >iI/d-ur 'E'liCn ' (gr .• .&ljl)' ,

Janda sets up !hi., parallel with the derivalion of Vant!lll' s name:

" •

"

Der Ablci'~ng"Pfo,eB war ..,mit: '1!:i1-!!E 'E;nliChlicBW1g, UnmUliung' --+

"l!<'IU1I":,' 'n,;t einer ll;n",ltlieBW1g, UmhUItW1g """",hen'. Dos Adjek,;v ,,!!d~n..:'. muSte;m Ai. ,vtmIIl<l_ erg"ben. Wie bei tr"",,_ ·..,hw8r,' --+ Kr~",,_.

bel:annler 1'ersorIen_ W1d Gou",n","", brachl" die Suhstanti,ierung Ova""",·

--+ VJ1U(ItJ· ' der (Gou) mil dcr UmhUllung' t ine Ab.enlvc"fIiCbiebung auf di< o , ~. . . ~ 101

"""',,, u< nut "Cu.

Schulz 2004, p_ 69_

Lchman~ 1986. ,ub A 15. Agoi~,t thi, ' p<eulali,", obout Gothic vocabulary ;, ma' Ole ha., an aI<if-I1t "glnttooy", which 110 .... ",,,, ;, formed from tile e"rndod grad< (ibid);..,d Pokorny (2002. p. 288) gi, ''''' the roo< .ow<1 of the Go. word .. long, afttjQ_

KlITSlrn 1922. p_ 35 qooting Much. For more ITC,,"' dati ng. Kl y'lr.l. <, at I <ill l-'Xi. I , p_ xxm.

'00 Mcid 1957, 1'1'_ !l6--S7, 117_ 1 IS: but the .0Ji0Wl fomu of 6mnn >bow .. I ,hrcc (ablaLlting) fOfTJl' , • ...ma •• o.j",,_, and o .~ ...... (Mcid 1957, p. 11 7: No<con, p. 151 I~ 173, 51: do Vrie. 1977. p. 41 6: Sch.tfucr 1999, 1'1'_ I S5-1 88).

'"'

'"'

Janda 2000. !'P- I 10-1 I 1_ Voga' S.m .... odor 1993, p_ I 74 [~ 4 and ~. 30], • dta-lioo I ha,. from Janda, ""m.t" '~JIIlCf1 the rarity of the comtruction i~ qucsliOll, Y'" cito. qui'. a few c .... mplo.; bnt the", detai l. <XrOOO my lingui,ti< gra"P-

Janda 2000, p_ I I L

The Rbi: Stone', iawn and Mythoklgy of lJo<a<h '" It would appear, then, that the o ld Germanic word *elWUl-, !",maps ori ­ginally designating a demon who consumes (the dead), is constructed according to a pattern rare in o"nnanic and paralleled by one of the most original Indic gods and one who hap!",ns to share a semantic range with the o"rrnanic He1. M

Mythologies of the greater world beyond Gel1l1ania offer many images of gaping Hell-mouths, cannibali.,tic death-emlxxlying monsters, many demon.' that, like the early jli/nar in ON, border on di,-ine , but in the end I have limited comparison here largely to directly related material. We have not solved the problem of latun in the Rbk stone's ve"ion of the (putative) Baldr myth, It i, dear, however, that whether latlln was metaphorical - an unflatteri ng nickname or a hosti le epithet IlSed to avoid the real name of the slayer - or li teral - a hostile supernatural being designated by his species ­we should clear our mind, of the later images evoked by "giant." This latun is the earliest occurre nce of the word and of the race in Scandinavia; the being evoked should be at least as monstrous as the contemporary eolen

G rendel, but as pan of the central myth in the ON mythic system, the Rbk latun may have carried even more archaic religious sign ificance .

.. , landa (1000, p_ 1 t t, n. 245) ntend, ~i, argument by n:fcrrncc to loll..,,,,,,, t9 17 "" follow>: "Sctlt"" A>lWIn und Vrtro _ und darnit .och Va!'U!I<1 ('SL loHANs.'>ON t9 t 7: 137) _ 1lII'<iichlich mythologiege>chiehtlich ZU!\llJTlmrngehilren, wic loham­""" t917: t5Rf. v=~Iiigt, dann mag dio Wortbihlung<par.tl1cle *h~duno- ~ *!I<1ww- nieht zufillig ","n." lolwl,,,,,,, compare, Sc..,di na, i.., goth, theiT names, and function' "'ten,i, 'ely with VOOic and sct. up very wi oo.ranging ",hem .. of ..,Ialioo"'ip bet""ocn the two mythologie, and within Vedic; a brief ,ummary c.m"" <I" jw<tice to lobansson', comple,iti"". B ut, h>ving e,tobli,OOl an ",ch:mge ..,Ialion"'ip bet""",," Va",,,,, and vrrra through evolutionary differentiation, <m W . t 37_ 138 he equate, the name of Vrr", ('W,ro-,r) with VII, (Go . ... ulpu" from .W"'­. ; DE wultW, from *yJtro-) 'glanz' , 'The "",non ""'" reb'ant to our argument "'luatcs 1>6oT', battte agoirull iptna, with Tndra", agai n" Vrrra; illIT"' ronnoctioo to giant< >cem< to be thruug~ S~, and 1>6oT", , ietm), i, n:f1cctcd in tho asccndanre oni. mit and the <locline of Ultr' • . l ob"",,,," adds thi, footnote: "Die n:"', wenn nicht ur>prungliche, vcrw:mdbchaft \'On iptna, (zu g. jflJ1!" idg. ',d5).J. 'frn,=-' <kr lcichcn (c~tbooische diirnoncn in ;plWl/u!;"" haUM:nd) und 0Cm indi",hcn V]1r.>.-Ahi kmmte d..-in angcdeutet "'"11, do. .. .om I"""oren do> ,-crbum 8"'''' vcrwcOOct win:! . __ M (t 917, p _ t59, n. I). [Pokorny glos"" the root pm_ .. 'rre.""", knabbcm' (2002, p. 404).1

'" Appendix: The Riik inscription, a reference text

{~ letters A- Ei refer to side. of 1M stone, The line numbering, however, is sequential 1- 28, following W"""," 1958: OSw nOl1l1aJiz.alion also follows Wes.""". Transcription of L 20 (with underdotting indicating con­jectural runes) is that of Grylnvik 2003, p. 67. The reversal of Wes"'n', order in lines 27- 28 is argued for in Harri, 2006.J

Dedication (lines 1- 2. side A):

Aft Vamoil .• tanila rut"'. />aft. I £II Varinnfaili, falli" aft faixkln .,wm. In memory of V3rrt60:1r stand these runes. But Varinn wrote them, a father in memory of his death-doomed son.

Narrdtive Section one (3--11, A- B: Theoderic =tion):

First Questionlhint (3- 5): Sag/lm m~!?min"i />al: hl'aria .. mlra.maR vallin tva" IIJaIl, n'M tvalf,.imwm vattin nUIIIII"" at valraubu, I ba<la • .<aman a ymiuum mannum?

1 pronounce this hint for the lad: Which were the two war­spoils which. both together, were taken (\I .. eI"e time, in booty­taking from different men?

Second Questionlhint (5--8): Pal sagum annmn: hvaltfur "iu aJdum (JJI urlli flam I meilr HraiilgU1UJ1l, aublolmiR 1I''' umh SaktlR?

This I pronounce as ""oond: Who became without life (died) among the HreiO-Ooths ninc ages ago, and yet his affairs are still under discussion'!

Answer (A9-- B II): Reil PjoilrikR hinn /mrmoili, srilli,,1 j1U!11l1, ."randu Hrajilmara1t. Siri" nu garuR alB I gum sinUIl!, .,kialdi umb faluw., shui MlI'ri"ga.

I>j6l\rikr the bold. rule r of ""a-warriors, (once) ruled the shore of the Gothic Sea. Now he sit, outfitted on hi, Gothic steed, with his shield buckled on, prince of the Ma: ri ngs.

Narrative Section two (12- 19; side C; the twenty lUngs):

First Questionlhint (12- 14): Pm sagum n;alfta, hvar /UUfR se Gulnnatt elU l'envangi a, kunungaR ",aiR rigi" s,;alil a /iggilJ?

This I pronounce as twelfth: Where doe, the steed of Gunnr see food on the battlefield, which twenty kings are lying on?

'" Second questionlhint (14--17): Pat sagum f>rellaunda, hvaritt rival.

rigiR. kunungllR. .wlin at Siolundi jiaJgura vin/aT at fiaflurum IIlImpnum, bumlitt foJgunun brdilrum?

This I pronounce as thineenth : Which twenty king. sat on ua­land for four winters under four names, sons of four brothers"

Answer (17- 19): ValkaR. Jim, Railulfs sy/nill, HraiiJuljllR. Jim, Rugal!. syuill, Haislatt jim, HaruJls .fYllill, Kynmundmt fim, Bema,,­.rynir.

Fi,-" Valkar, so"", of RMlul fr: five H""iilulfar, so"", of RugulfJ; f,ve Haislar, sons of HQrilr: five Kynmundar, sons of Bjgrn.

Line 20: nukm!{l lm!~aluwklalnhua R[ .. . ]ftlRfTa

Narrative Section three (21 -26, 28. 27; C, D. C top, E):

First ~stionlhint (21 - 22): Sagum m~Jlminni par: hvar Inguldlinga vari guldinn at kl'llna,,- husli?

I pronounce this hint for the lad: Who among the descendants of lng-Yaldr was compensated for through the sacrifice of a woman?

Second Que-,jion/hint (23- 24): Sagum "'ill/minni: fh/vaim se bunnn niill,,- d,.,.,ngi?

I pronounce a (funh~r) hint for Ih~ lad: To whom wa. a son born for a gallant young man?

Answ~r (24--26. 28, 27): Vilinn ~ .• />al ... knua bUll/ii illlun. Vilinn eJ

Pal + n)'ti.! Sagum mpgminni: !>or! o/ni/1M1l.,! ufi via van.

Vilinn it is, whom the ·~nerny ' sl~w. Vilinn il is: may h~ ~njoy (this). I pronounc~ the h~ir-"",morial; AI ninety, the Kin.man, respecter of shri"" •. eng~ndered 1>61T.

'" References

Source.

Beowulf. Kl""~r'. Bwwulf aOO the Fight at Finn.burg. Ed .. R. D. Full;; I Roben E. Bjork I John D. Niles. 4th ed rev. ToromolBuffalolLoooOll 2008.

Poetic Edda. Edda. Die Lieder de. Codex "'gim nebs! "erwandten Den\;;­m~lem. Ed. G. Nechl. 4'" ed. rev. IIan, Kuhn. IIeidelb"rg 1962.

[Prose &lda1 Gylfaginning. Snorri Sruriuson. &Ida: Prologue and Gylfaginning. Ed. Antho­

ny Faulk.,., Oxford 1982. Skllld,kapann.1I. Snorri Sturln."on. Edda: SkAldskapanniL Ed. Anthony

Faulk.", 2 vol"~ London 199K rSam] Fi,her I David",". Saxo Grammaticus. The History of the Danes. Trans. Peter

Fi,her. Ed. Hilda R. Ellis David.on. 2 ,·ols. Cambridge/Tol<>wa, NJ 1979. Saxon;, Ge'la Danorum. J: Text. Eds I. Olrik I H. R .. d .... Co!",nhagen 1931. SOIlRtolTd:. in: Skjaldeve". Ed. ]6n Helga,on (Nordi,1;; mologi). C"""nhagenl

OslolStockholm 1962.

L iterature

Alexander JOhan"",son 1956. Tsl!indisches elymoiog isc\>e, Wtlnerbuch. Bern. Andersson, Tho"ten 2txl6. "Varin och Vamod - och Sibbe··, in: Lena Peterson

I Svame Strandberg I Henrik W illiams (eds), Nanm och runor. Ul'!'saJa­.tudier i ononulSlik och runologi till Lennan Elmevik p3. 70-Ars<iagen 2 februari 2txl6 (Nanm och s.amhli.lle 17). UppsaJa

Bames, Michael 2007. ''Rok-steinen - noen runologi,ke og sprM:lige over­veiel"",'·. Maal og minne 2. pp. 120-132.

Bosworth, Io""ph I T. Northcott: Toller 189K An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford.

Bugge, Sophu. 1910. De, Runenstein ,·on Rok in ClstergOtland, Schweden. Ed. Magnuo Ol""n, with contributions by Axel Oink and Frik Brat~. Stock­holm.

Cambell, A. 1959. Old English Grammar. Oxford. Cattingu., Bengt 1930. ·'Var har Robtenen ursprungligen .tauT" Fomv!innen

25, pr. 116-119. Dark Hall, John R.I Herbert D. Meritt 1962. A Conci."" Anglo-Saxon Diction­

ary. 4'" ed. with a supplement. Cambridge. Ounies Ros., Margaret 1994. Prolonged Echoes. J: The Myth, (TlIe Viking

Collection 7). Oden..e. Collinde,. BjOrn. 1924. ·'NAgra problematiska gemutnska I! nord i finskan·', in:

Femkrift tillagnad Hugo Pipping pA han. st:,uiOOrsdag den 5 novembe, 1924. Helsingfors, pp. 77-89.

Tbe Rill: Stone', iatun and Mythoklgy of be.>lh '" - 1932-34. Die urg.rmanischen lehnwoner im finnischen (Shifter Ulgivna

av Kungl. lTumanistiska Vetenskapssamfun<J.t i Uppsala 2B: I). Uppsala. Demlez. Ren~ 1954. Runica Manuscripta: The English Traditinn (Werken

uitgegeven door <J. Facnlteit van de wijsbeg""ne en letterr:n liB). Brugge. Diiwel , Klaus 1997. "Geh<:imrunen", in: Reallexikon der Gennanisch<:n

Altennn~,lrun<J. 10. 2"" ed. Eds Heinrich Beck et al. BerlinINew York. pp. 565- 568.

Ellis [Davidson]. Hilda Roderick 1943. The Road to ne!: A Srudy of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature. Cambridge.

Falk. II.S. I Alf Torp 1910. Norwegisch-dilni.<che, erymologisches Woner­buch. 2 vols. IIei<J.lberg.

von Friesen, Otto 1920. R!>kstenen. RUn<tenen vid Rtlks kyrka Lysings hlirad Osterg6tland. Stockholm.

Gade, Kari Ellen 2006. "II¢r ... sonr ooins - but did Snorri know thatT' in: John McKinnel1 I David Ashurst I Donata Kick (cds), TIle Fantastic in Old NorsdJcelandic Literarure : Saga, and the British Isle •. Pre]l'rint ~" of the 13'" International Saga Confen:nce, Durham and Yor!<, 6"'-12'" Augrnt 2006. Durham, vol. I, pp. 268--277.

Glosecki. Stephen O. 2007. '1ntroduction: Myth Theory: Rite Refracted", in: S. Glo,ecki (ed.). Myth in Early Nonhwest Europe. Tempe, AZ, pp. XTtl-XU.

Grimm. Jacob 1854-1960. Dent,ch<:, Wonerlmch. Accessed through <http://gennazope. uni -trier .deJ1'rojects/WB Blwoene rbuochen . ' 'Das W tlr­terboch-Netz".

Gr"nvi k, Ottar 19B3. "Runeinnskrifte pol R!>k-steinen". Maal og min"", pp. WI - ISO.

- 2003 . Der Robtein. Ober die n:ligi(}se Bestimmung und das weltliche Schicksal eines nel<J.n aus der frtihen Wikingerzeit (Osloer Beitriige zur Gennani'tik 33). Frankfurt am Main .

Giintert, nern"",n 1919. Kalypso: BcdeutWlgsgeschichtliche Untusuchungen auf dem Gebier <J.r indogennanischen Sprachen. Halle a. S.

lianis, Jo",ph 1994. "A Nati,-ist Ap]l'l'ORCh to Beowulf: 1lIe Case of Gennanic Elegy", in: Henk Aen",n I Rolf H. Bremn..,r, Jr. (cds). Companion to Old English Poetry. Am'terdam, pp. 45-62.

- 1999a. ''The Dos,ier on Byggvir. God and Hero: Cur deu, homo". Arv: Nordic Yearbook of Folklore 55 , pp. 7-23.

- 1999b. '''~gn ",m hjaJp til 00 lifa ar f Sonatorreki", in: Haraldur Bessa""" I Baldur Hatstad (cds). IIei"in minni: Gn:inar um fornar b6k­menntic. Reykjavft. pp. 47- 70.

- 2(x)(). '''Double scene' and ' mi"" en aby"",' in Beowulfian narrative", in : Stina Hans""" I Mats Maim (cds). Gudar pol jorden. Festskrift till Lars Unnroth. StockholmlStehag, M'. 322-338.

- 2006a. "Erfikv..,~ - myth, rimal, elegy", in: Anders An""'n et at. (eds), Old Norse n:ligi(}n in long-term perspectives: Origins, changes and inter-

"" I"""ph Horri,

action •. An international conference in Lund, Sweru.n, lUI'" 3--7, 21Xl4. (VlIgar till MidgArd R). Lund.!'P. 267-271.

- 2006b. "Myth and Meaning in the Rtlk im,eriplion". Viking and Medieval Scandinavian 2, "". 45--1 09. [Distributed 2007.}

- 2007. "Bea't' of Banle, South and Nonh'", in: Charles D. Wright et aI. (ed.), Source of Wisdom: Old English and Early Mroieval Latin Smdie. in Honour of TImms.. D. Hill. Toronto/BuffalolLondon, pp. 3--25.

- Fonhcoming a. 'The Rak Stone through Anglo-Saxon Eye," , in: Mani Kilp io I Jane R~n, I Leens Kahla.-Tar\:ka (eds), The Anglo-Salons and the Nonh (Medieval and Renaissance Teus and Studie.). Tempe. AZ. [Promi..,d 2008. fini'hed 2005.1

- Forthcoming b. 'The Rlik in", riIHino , 1. 20", in: a festschrift comprising a special heme of Mediaeval Scandinavia. [Promised 2008.1

- Fonhcoming c. ''Philology, Elegy, and Cultural Change", in, pnxeedings of a workshop on "Nordic civilization in the medieval world" to arrear in Gripla in 2009.

Iiellquist, Elof 1967. S,'ensk etymologisk ordbok. 3'" ro. Lund. [1 - ro. 1922; 2"" ro. rev. 1939.1

Hofler,Ouo 1952. ~r Runenstein von Rok und di~ germanische Individual ­weihe (Germanisches Sakralkonigtum I). ThbingeniMU"'ter.

Hofstra, Tene 1985. Omeefmnisch 1100 ~mlanisch: Frt1he Lehnkziehllllgen im nOrdl ichen Ostseeraum im Lichte der Forschllng ""it 1961 . Dis""rtation Groningen. Groningen. [NO! seen.1

Holthall.<en. Ferdinand 1963. Alrenglisches etymologi.<ehe, Wonerbuch. 2'" ed rev. Heidelberg.

Janda. Michael 2000. Eleusi.: Das indogennanische Erbe der Mysterien (lnns­hrucker Be itrllge zur Sprochwis""nschaft (6). Inmbruck.

Johansson. K. F. 19 17. tiber die a1tindische GOnin Dhi~aQa lind Verwandte •. Beitrage zum Fruchtbarkeigkulrus in !rldien (Skrifter II!gifna af Kung!. HllmaniS{iska Vetenskaps-Sarnfundet i Uppsala 20: 1). Uppsala!Le ipzig.

Karsten, T. E. 1906. "Zur Kennm i. der ge-nrutllischen Bestandteile im Finni­schen·' . Nenphilologi<ehe Mineilungen 8, pp. 1-17.

- 1915. ~nnanisch-finnische Lehnwonstudien. Ein Beitrag zu der ~ltesten Sprach- lind Kulturgeschiehre Ikr Gennanen (Aeta Societatis Scientiarum Fennie,", 45, No.2). Helsingfors.

- 1922. Fragen aus dem Gebiete der gemllUlisch -finnischen Bertihrungen (Finsh Verenskaps-Societerens FOrhandlingar 64 [ 1921-221, pt. B. 00. 3). Helsingfors.

- 1943. "Finnar och ge11lllltler". FolkmAisstudier 9---10: I-VIII. pp. 1-260, 261~30.

!{aske, Robe" E. 1967. "The Eorenas in BeowulF', in: Robe" P. Creed Old (ed.), English PO<1ry: Pift..,n Essay •. Provilknce, pp. 28S---3 I O.

Klystra, A.D. 1961. Geschichte der gennanisch-flnnischen Lehn"",nforschung. Dissertation Utrecht As",n.

1'h. 11.0< SlOne" iatun and Mytho~ of lJea<h '" Kly'tra, A.D. et ai, 1991- 1996, u,xi kon de. lilteren genllani",""n u,hnw~tter

in den o<tseefinnischen Spr""""n. 2 vols. An~'terdamiAtlanta.

Krahe, Han. f Wolfgang Meid 1969. Genllani","" Sprachwi.,senschaft. I: Ein­leitung und Lautleh,..,. of' ed rev. Berlin.

Lehmann. Winft"ril P. 1986. A Gothic Etymological Dictionary. u,iden. Leo, Heinrich 1839. B<;6"l1lf, daB lilie.'te deutsche, in angelsachsischer

mundan emaltene, ""Idengedicht ... Halle. Liherman, Anatoly 2004. "Some Controversial Aspects of the Myth of Baldr".

alvfssmAI 11 , pp. 17-54. Lind E.B. 192G---21. Norsk-isHmdsJ:a personbinamn fnln medeliiden. Upp<ala. - 1931. Norsk-isHmdsJ:a dopnanm ock fingerade Damn frAn medeltiden.

Supplementband utgill av Det norske viden.J:ap.-akademi i Oslo. 0.101 Uppsala/Copenhagen.

Lindow, John 1994. "Bloodfel1d and Scandinavian Mythology'". alvl"rrull 4, pp.51--68.

- 1995. "Supernarural Oth .... and Ethnic Othe ... , A Millenium of World View". Scandinavian Studies 67, pp. 8---31.

- 1997. Murder and Vengeance among the God" Baldr in Scandinavian Mythology (FF CommWlications 262j. Helsinki.

Unnroth. Lars 1977. wille Riddle. of the Rok-Stone: A Strucrural Approach". Arkiv mr nordi,k filologi 92, pp. I- 57.

wikola (Sruranij, Panla 1978. T p,..,stiti germanici pill. antichi nella lingua fin­landese. Problemi di cmoolngia (Linguistica ge""rale e storica 6). Bologna.

MaIm, Mat. 2008. "Rohte"em tilltal", in: Au3ur Magnt1sd6nir et al. (ed'j, "Vi ,J:a alIa vam valkomnal" Nordiska ,rudier tilUgnooe Kristinn 16hannesson. Gliteborg, pp. 243---257.

Marez. Alain 1997. ",sakumnkminh1- Une relecture de !'inscription de R~k".

Etnde.< germaniques 52, pp. 543---557. Meid Wolfgang 1957. "03.< Snffix -no- in Glitternamen". Beitfiige zur Nan~n­

forschWlg 8, 111'. 72- 108,113---126. Noreen, Adolf 1923. Alii,Hindische nnd alino .... vegi",he Grarnmatik. 4'" ed rev.

Hal le (Saalej, O'Donoghue. Heather WI)]. "What has Baldr to do with Lamech1 The Lethal

ShOl: of a Blind Man in Old Norse Myth and 1ewish Exegetical Traditions". Medium '£VIIm 72, pp. 82-107.

Palm, Rn"" 2004. Vikingarna., ,pnlk 75G---II 00. Stockholm. Pokorny, Julius 2002. Indogernlatlisc"", etymologi.<che, Wllnerbuch. 2 vok

4'" ed. T\Ibingen/Basel. [l« ed. 1959.1 Ralph, Bo. 2007a. "Glttan som l!>sning. Ell bidrag till f6r,tklsen av Rok­

,tenem runinskrift". Maal og minne 2, pp. 133---L~7.

- 2001b. "Robtenen och .pnlkhistorien", in, Lennan Elmevik (ed.j, Nya p"rspekiiv inom nordis!;: 'prAi:historia. F~redrag ruillna vid ell ,ymposium i Upp.ala 2G---22 januari 2006 (Acta Academiae Regi"" Gn<tavi Adolphi 97j. Uppsala, pp. 121-143.

500 Joser" HMTi.

R~i, Karoly et a1. 198t>--1991. Uralische, etymologische, W(lrterbuch. 3 vols. Wieshad.n.

Schaff""r, Stefan 1999. "Die GOll=lUllen des Zweiten Me rseburger Zauber­spruehs". Die Sprache 4 1 , pp. 153-205.

- 2005. "Untersuchungen zu ausgewlihten Problemen der nominalen Mor­phologie und der Etymologie der altindogermaniscben Sprachen'·. lTabilita­tionsschlift Regensburg.

Schier. Kun 1976. "Balder", in: ReallexikOll der Gemtalli,chen Altertums­irunde 2. r ed. Eds Heinrich Beck e! al. BerliniNew Yorl:. pp. 2- 7.

- 1992. ''BreiOOblik I Bredeblkhe: Zur Frage einer Balder·Uberlieferung in Dlinemark"', in: Finn Hj1dne~ et al. (eds). Byvindarb6k: r"'S!skrift til Eyvind rield Halv","",n 4. mai 1992. Oslo.

- 1995. "Gab e" . ine eigenstiindige Balde r-TmditiOll in Danemar1c7 Mit einigen al lgemeinen Uberlegungen zum Problem der "'genann!e" 'sternen· den und wi.derauferstehenden Gooheiten' in nordgennanischen und altorientali""hen Uberlieferungen", in: Edith Marold I Christiane Zimmer­mann (ed.), NordweSlgennanisch (Erg~nzung,biinde zum Reallexikon de, Germanischen Altertumsirunde 13). BerlinINew Yorl:, pp. 127-153.

Schjj1dt, len< Peter 2000. "Balder og BPI - om gooier, helte og initiation.­ritualer". in: Michru:1 Dallapiazza et al. (eds). International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Web<:r. Trie.te, pp. 421 - 33.

- 2003. "Myth. as Sourees for Rimals - Theoretical and Proctical Implica­tion." , in: Margaret Clnnie, Ross (ed.), Old Norse Myths, Literature and Society (The Viking Collection 14). n.p., pp. 261-278.

Schulte. Michru:1 2008. "Memory culture in the Viking Age. The runic evidence of fornrulaic pall=s··. Scripta Islandica 59. pp. 57-73.

Schulz. Katja 2004. Riesen. Von Wissenshiit= und Wildni,bewoh""rn in Edda und Saga (Skandinavisti,che Arneiten 20). Heidelberg.

Setiil~, E.N. 1912. "Au< dem gebiet der lehnbeziehWlgen", in: Finnisch­ugli""he For:schungen (Zeitschrlft ft1r finni,ch-ugrische Sprach- WId Volko­kunde) 12. pp. 161-289. [Fe'tgalle ft1rVilh. Thomsen. ersterTeil.]

Simek, Rudolf 19&4. Lexikon der germani""hen Mythologie. SlUllgart. Stein.land, Gro 1991. Det hellige bryllup og no""" kongeideologi. En analyse

av hierogami-myten i Skfrni,,,,",l, Ynglingatai, IIlIIey&ialai og HyndJuljM. n.p.

Strid, Jan Paul 2004. "Rohte""n, gtllama och goterna", in: Unn IIell'ten (ed.j, SpniJ:m vArd och v!irden. En fest.krifi till Catharina Grtinbaum. Stock­holm, pp. 2&6--296.

Sruhmiller. Jacqueline 1999. "On the Identity of the eoIenas". Neuphiloio. gische Milleilungen 100, pp. 7-1 4.

Tamm, Frederik AugU<t 1890-1905. Etymologisk ,vensk ordbok. Uppsala.

The Rill: Stone', iatun """ Mythology of De.<h '" Tho""",n, Vilhelm 192OJI869. "Den gOOske .progkla.se. inflydelse ~ den

fimke. En 'proghislorisk undersogelse", in: Samlede afhaoolinger, vol. 2. CopenhagetJlKrisliana, pp, 49--264.

Vegas Sansalvador, AM 1993. '\Kamy,..,>, ein Beiname der Demeler in Olympia". Glotta 70, pp. 166--180.

V~'leinn 61ason 2003. '''Jk Un/Grateful Dead - From Baldr to B"'gif6t,", in: Margam ChIllies Ros. (ed.), Old Norse Myths, Lirerarur. and Society (The Vi king CoII":lion 14). n.p .. pp. 153-171,

de Vries, Jan 1955, "Der Mythos von Balders Tod" _ Amv TOr ""rdi.k filolngi 70,pp.41-60.

- 1956--57. Altgermanische Religio",geschichre. 2 vol •. (Gnrndriss der germanischen Philologie 1111-11). Berlin.

- I rn7. Altnordische. etymologische. Worterbuch. 2'" ed. rev. Leiden. We.sen, Elias 1958. RUll.te,..,n >rid Roks kyrka (KUllg!. vittemelS historie och

anl;kv;let' obdemiens handlingar, filologi.k-filo,ofi.ka serien 5). Stock­holm.

Widmark, Gun 1992. ''Varftlr ri,tade Varin ronor? Tankar kring Rokste""n". Saga och Sed: KungL Gustav Adolf, Akademiens Itrsbok 1992 (pub!, 1993), pp. 25--43.

- 1993. ''Vamod eller Vllmod", in : Nordi.ka otter och ord. Fest.krifl till Bengl Pamp ~ 65-ru-sdagen den 3 "o,-ember 1993. Lund, Pr- 21G---212.

- 1997. "Tolkningen som social konstruktion. Roksrenen< in'krift", in: Slaffan NystrOm (ed.), Runor och ABC. Elva TOrelasningar fnin en sym­po.ium i Siockholm vAre 1995. Stockholm, pp. 165---175.