Teutonic Mythology: The Gods and Goddesses of the Northland (Vol. 1-3). Viktor Rydberg
that this bargain shall cause his death in Ragnarok. This bride-purchase is fully described in Skirnismal, in which poem we learn that the gods most unwillingly part with the safety which the incomparable sword secured to Asgard. They yield in order to save the life of the harvest-god, who was wasting away with longing and anxiety, but not until the giants had refused to accept other Asgard treasures, among them the precious ring Draupner, which the Asa-father once laid on the pulseless breast of his favourite son Balder. At the approach of Ragnarok, Surt's son, Fjalar, goes to the Ironwood to fetch for his father the sword by which Frey, its former possessor, is to fall. The sword is then guarded by Angerboda's shepherd, and consequently belongs to her. In other words, the sword which Aurboda enticed Frey to give her is now found in the possession of Angerboda. This circumstance of itself is a very strong reason for their identity. If there were no other evidence of their identity than this, a sound application of methodology would still bid us accept this identity rather than explain the matter by inventing a new, nowhere-supported myth, and thus making the sword pass from Aurboda to another giantess.
When we now add the important fact in the disposition of this matter, that Aurboda's son-in-law, Frey, demands, in behalf of a near kinsman, satisfaction from the Asas when they had killed and burnt Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda, then it seems to me that there can be no doubt in regard to the identity of Aurboda and Angerboda, the less so, since all that our mythic fragments have to tell us about Gymer's wife confirms the theory that she is the same person. Aurboda has, like Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda, practised the arts of sorcery: she is one of the valas of the evil giant world. This is told to us in a strophe by the skald Refr, who calls her "Gymer's primeval cold vala" (ursvöl Gymis völva—Younger Edda, i. 326, 496). She might be called "primeval cold" (ursvöl) from the fact that the fire was not able to pierce her heart and change it to ashes, in spite of a threefold burning. Under all circumstances, the passage quoted informs us that she is a vala.
But have our mythic fragments preserved any allusion to show that Aurboda, like Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda, ever dwelt among the gods in Asgard? Asgard is a place where giants are refused admittance. Exceptions from this prohibition must have been very few, and the myths must have given good reasons for them. We know in regard to Loke's appearance in Asgard, that it is based on a promise given him by the Asa-father in time's morning; and the promise was sealed with blood (Lokasenna, 9). If, now, this Aurboda, who, like Angerboda, is a vala of giant race, and like Angerboda, is the owner of Frey's sword, and, like Angerboda, is a kinswoman of the Vans—if now this same Aurboda, in further likeness with Angerboda, was one of the certainly very few of the giant class who was permitted to enter within the gates of Asgard, then it must be admitted that this fact absolutely confirms their identity.
Aurboda did actually dwell in Asgard. Of this we are assured by the poem "Fjölsvinsmal." There it is related that when Svipdag came to the gates of Asgard to seek and find Menglad-Freyja, who was destined to be his wife (see Nos. 96, 97), he sees Menglad sitting on a hill surrounded by goddesses, whose very names Eir, Björt, Blid, and Frid, tell us that they are goddesses of lower or higher rank. Eir is an asynja of the healing art (Younger Edda, i. 114). Björt, Blid, and Frid are the dises of splendour, benevolence, and beauty. They are mighty beings, and can give aid in distress to all who worship them (Fjolsv., 40). But in the midst of this circle of dises, who surround Menglad, Svipdag also sees Aurboda (Fjolsv., 38).
Above them Svipdag sees Mimer's tree—the world-tree (see No. 97), spreading its all-embracing branches, on which grow fruits which soothe kelisjukar konur and lighten the entrance upon terrestrial life for the children of men (Fjolsv., 22). Menglad-Freyja is, as we know, the goddess of love and fertility, and it is Frigg's and her vocation to dispose of these fruits for the purposes for which they are intended.
The Volsungasaga has preserved a record concerning these fruits, and concerning the giant-daughter who was admitted to Asgard as a maid-servant of the goddesses. A king and queen had long been married without getting any children. They beseeched the gods for an heir. Frigg heard their prayers and sent them in the guise of a crow the daughter of the giant Hrimner, a giantess who had been adopted in Asgard as Odin's "wish-may." Hrimner's daughter took an apple with her, and when the queen had eaten it, it was not long before she perceived that her wish would come to pass (Volsungasaga, pp. 1, 2). Hrimner's daughter is, as we know, Gulveig-Heid.
Thus the question whether Aurboda ever dwelt in Asgard is answered in the affirmative. We have discovered her, though she is the daughter of a giant, in the circle around Menglad-Freyja, where she has occupied a subordinate position as maid-servant. At the same time we have found that Gulveig-Heid has for some time had an occupation in Asgard of precisely the same kind as that which belongs to a dis serving under the goddess of fertility. Thus the similarity between Aurboda and Gulveig-Heid is not confined to the fact that they, although giantesses, dwelt in Asgard, but they were employed there in the same manner.
The demonstration that Gulveig-Heid-Angerboda is identical with Aurboda may now be regarded as complete. Of the one as of the other it is related that she was a vala of giant-race, that she nevertheless dwelt for some time in Asgard, and was there employed by Frigg or Freyja in the service of fertility, and that she possessed the sword, which had formerly belonged to Frey, and by which Frey is to fall. Aurboda is Frey's mother-in-law, consequently closely related to him; and it must have been in behalf of a near relation that Frey and Njord demanded satisfaction from the Asas when the latter slew Gulveig-Heid. Under such circumstances it is utterly impossible from a methodological standpoint to regard them otherwise than identical. We must consider that nearly all mythic characters are polyonomous, and that the Teutonic mythology, particularly, on account of its poetics, is burdened with a highly-developed polyonomy.
But of Gulveig-Heid's and Aurboda's identity there are also other proofs which, for the sake of completeness, we will not omit.
So far as the very names Gulveig and Aurboda are concerned the one can serve as a paraphrase of the other. The first part of the name Aurboda, the aur of many significations may be referred to eyrir, pl. aurar, which means precious metal, and is thought to be borrowed from the Latin aurum (gold). Thus Gull and Aur correspond. In the same manner veig in Gulveig can correspond to boda in Aurboda. Veig means a fermenting liquid. Boda has two significations. It can be the feminine form of bodi, meaning fermenting water, froth, foam. No other names compounded with boda occur in Norse literature than Aurboda and Angrboda.
Ynglingasaga[20] (ch. 4) relates a tradition that Freyja kendi fyrst med Ásum seid, that Freyja was the first to practise sorcery in Asgard. There is no doubt that the statement is correct. For we have seen that Gulveig-Heid, the sorceress and spreader of sorcery in antiquity, succeeded in getting admission to Asgard, and that Aurboda
is mentioned as particularly belonging to the circle of serving dises who attended Freyja. As this giantess was so zealous in spreading her evil arts among the inhabitants of Midgard, it would be strange if the myth did not make her, after she had gained Freyja's confidence, try to betray her into practising the same arts. Doubtless Völuspa and Saxo have reference to Gulveig-Heid-Aurboda when they say that Freyja, through some treacherous person among her attendants, was delivered into the hands of the giants.
In his historical account relating how Freyja (Syritha) was robbed from Asgard and came to the giants but was afterwards saved from their power, Saxo (Hist., 331; cp. No. 100) tells that a woman, who was secretly allied with a giant, had succeeded in ingratiating herself in her favour, and for some time performed the duties of a maid-servant at her home; but this she did in order to entice her in a cunning manner away from her safe home to a place where the giant lay in ambush and carried her away to the recesses of his mountain country. (Gigas fæminam subornat, quæ cum obtenta virginis familiaritate, ejus aliquamdiu pedissequam egisset, hanc tandem a paternis procul penatibus, quæsita callidius digressione, reduxit; quam ipse mox irruens in arctiora montanæ crepidinis septa devexit.) Thus Saxo informs us that it was a woman among Freyja's attendants who betrayed her, and that this woman was allied with the giant world, which is hostile to the gods, while she held a trusted servant's place with the goddess. Aurboda