Claude Lecouteux - Encyclopedia of Norse and Germanic Folklore, Mythology, and Magic

To Corinne, ut semper,

and to Perrine

for her first birthday

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank my esteemed teachers Rgis Boyer and Georges Zink (Sorbonne); my old friend Ronald Grambo (Oslo) for his help; Jon Graham for his ongoing interest in my books and for his translations; and, last but not least, Michael Moynihan for valuable references and suggestions for expanding and updating the information in this volume.

Fig. 1. Picture stone from Lrbro on the island of Gotland, Sweden, eighth century. Photo by Jrgen Howaldt.

EDITORS NOTE

HOW TO USE THIS ENCYCLOPEDIA

Claude Lecouteuxs Encyclopedia of Norse and Germanic Folklore, Mythology, and Magic offers a stimulating and fascinating overview of its vast subject matter, which is drawn from the ancient and medieval cultures of Europe, England, and Scandinavia. While this is not the only reference handbook available in English that deals with Norse mythological material, it truly distinguishes itself with the veritable wealth of Germanic folkloric and legendary material that appears heremuch of it previously inaccessible to English readers.

We have endeavored to faithfully reproduce various original names and terms in keeping with the traditional orthography (spelling) from languages such as Old Norse, Old English, and modern Icelandic. Two letters that may be unfamiliar to some readers are those known as eth (/) and thorn (/), which represent the sound that is reproduced as /th/ in modern texts (the character eth corresponds to the voiced /th/ sound, as in the English word that, while thorn corresponds to the unvoiced /th/ sound, as in the English word thin). Entry names that begin with the letter appear in the T section, alphabetized as if they begin with Th.

Old Norseand its descendant, modern Icelandicis a highly inflected language, and one indication of this is in the nominative final -r ending that appears on certain nouns. This includes many proper names such as Freyr and Heimdallr, Asgarr (Asgard), Migarr (Midgard), and so forth. The original orthography is generally retained throughout the encyclopedia entries, except for the god namesOdin and Thorwhich generally appear in their modern, anglicized spellings instead of their Old Norse forms (inn, rr).

Occasionally a reference is made to certain names or words for which no literal attestation exists. This may be due to their great age or simply the arbitrary nature of the historical record that has come down to us. These earlier forms, which have been reliably reconstructed by historical linguists, appear preceded by an asterisk. Two examples would be the names of the proto-Germanic deities *Nerthuz (the antecedent of the continental goddess Nerthus and the Norse god Njrr) and *Tiwaz (the antecedent of the Norse god Tr, the Anglo-Saxon god Tiw, and the continental German god Ziu).

In the presentation of the individual entries, the English edition follows the same basic format as its French predecessor. The keyword appears in bold capital letters, followed by a translation/interpretation of the wordfor example, LFHEIMR (World of the Elves). When relevant, additional grammatical information may be included, such as sg. (singular) and pl. (plural), as well as the gender of the noun itself: masc. (masculine), fem. (feminine), or neut. (neuter).

Many entries are followed by suggestions for further reading. References to books appear first, concisely cited by the authors last name together with the main title of the book. For the complete information on a given book, the reader should refer to the bibliography at the back of the encyclopedia. Articles or essays are given full citations as they are not included in the bibliography. These references for further reading are not meant to be complete, nor do they provide the history of scholarship on a given topic, which is often vast. They are simply Professor Lecouteuxs suggestions of a few useful starting points that a curious reader may wish to investigate further. With regard to Norse entries in particular, more detailed information can be found by consulting John Lindows Norse Mythology: A Guide to Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) or Rudolf Simeks Dictionary of Northern Mythology (Woodbridge, U.K.: Boydell, 1993). The latter work in particular provides detailed references on the history of the scholarship that has been done on these topics. Neither of these volumes makes any attempt to systematically deal with Germanic folklore or continental literature, however.

INTRODUCTION

NORSE AND GERMANIC MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE

Traditions of Considerable Influence

Interest in Norse and Germanic mythology has been growing in recent decades, yet it probably remains less well known to the public at large than Celticand especially Arthurianmythology, which has enjoyed a long period of popularity in Western Europe and North America. For many people, the main frame of reference for Germanic and Norse myth is through Wagners Ring Cycle, which has done as much harm as good to its source material. Furthermore, Germanic mythology still has an unsavory reputation due to its appropriation for some aspects of Nazi ideology, which has led many to view it as a vehicle for pernicious ideas. Fortunately, there is no truth to this as it is a misunderstanding of the modern myth of the blond, Aryan German, a notion that was itself based on erroneous interpretations. This is the stock portrait of Vikings that we often come across in popular movies and books, or in graphic novels such as Asterix and the Normans. In this regard it is interesting to note that in Normandy, France, even into the nineteenth century, the prayer A furore Normannorum libera nos domine (Lord, deliver us from the fury of the Northmen!) continued to be included among the litanies of the church. Distorted by these sorts of misunderstandings, ancient Germanic and Norse civilization tends to repel rather than attract, all the more so as the bulk of serious works on the topic have been restricted to academics. Germanic mythology remains the victim of prejudice.

The influence of the ancient Germanic peoples on the development of European culture has been considerable. It is too often forgotten that the Franks, who gave their name to the nation of France, were a Germanic people, and French civilization is in fact the result of a massive commingling of Celto-Gallic, Roman, and Germanic cultures. The place-names of France still show vestiges of the Germanic invaders who settled in various regions: the Burgundians in the Rhne Valley and Savoy, the Saxons in Boullonnois, the Alemanni in Alsace, the Visigoths in Narbonnais, and the Taifals in Poitou.

We may ask, then, just what does Germanic mean? This adjective is descriptive of a number of peoples who originally all spoke the same language. The result of what happens when those who share a common tongue split off into separate groups is, however, well known: the language evolves differently in each group. We have good examples of this with Portuguese and Spanish, American English and British English, Afrikaans and Dutch. The Germanic linguistic branch contains three major families: North Germanic (represented by Norse and other Scandinavian dialects); East Germanic (mainly attested in Gothic, now a dead language, whichas its name indicateswas spoken by the Goths); and the West Germanic (represented by English and the continental High and Low German dialects).