Читать книгу The Story Of Frithiof - John Henderson - Страница 9

Spring returned once more to gladden the earth with its brightness, and Friga adorned the hills, fields, and valleys with a brilliant carpet of flowers, and called forth again the melody of the sweet songsters of the woods. On a calm evening, when the air was fragrant with perfume, Ingeborg, Frithiof, and Hilding ascended a hill overlooking the sea, and sat down on a large moss-covered stone. At the request of Ingeborg, the old man told them the story of the sad and untimely death of the god Balder.

"Balder," said Hilding, "was the son of the all-powerful god Odin and his beautiful queen Friga. His countenance was of wondrous beauty, and when he swept through the heavens on his white charger, a glow of light and splendor attended him. Ho was averse to evil, and hated quarrelling and strife with all his heart. Wise and eloquent, gentle and upright, he strove perpetually to promote peace and goodwill, to avert misfortune, and to remove sorrow and distress. He sometimes took the form of a warrior, and mingled with the combatants in the noise and fury of battle; but never was he tempted, in the heat of the contest, to draw his heavenly weapons against mortals. While some of the other gods took part in the strife and bloodshed, love and pity alone led Balder to the scene of death. One day in the middle of summer, he observed that the warriors were nearly exhausted from thirst. Striking the ground with his lance, a refreshing stream of water immediately burst forth, and in other places water sprang up even at the touch of bis horse's hoofs. These fountains never ceased to flow, and were surrounded by groves of trees, in which Balder is honored and worshipped to this day. His wife, the beautiful goddess Nanna, was as amiable as her husband; and their palace stands far above the clouds, never to be penetrated by the gaze of mortals, and free from the slightest stain of sin or impurity.

Balder was beloved by all the gods except the wicked Loki, who thought of nothing but evil and mischief. It happened one night that Balder had a very unpleasant dream, and believed that his life was in danger. He tried to drive the remembrance of it from his mind, but it was in vain, so he became melancholy and sad at heart.

Not only Balder's wife, the blue-eyed Nanna, but Odin and Friga, and all the other gods and goddesses, save Loki, were filled with sorrow and anxiety when they heard the gloomy forebodings which oppressed his heart. It was in vain that Odin meditated upon the dream — in vain that he held councils with the other gods, and inquired from the white ravens, to which the past and the future were alike known; he was quite unable to ascertain the danger which threatened his favorite son. At last, in despair, he determined upon undertaking the perilous journey to the abode of the goddess of destiny. He rose from his brilliant throne, left his palace, mounted the steed which stood ready at the gate, and attended by the two ravens and the two wolves, the companions of all his journeys, fled with the speed of lightning towards the earth, and soon reached the pathway leading to the dark and mysterious abyss in which the pale goddess Hela held her court.

Far from the Valhalla, the palace of Odin and the dwelling of the heroes, lies the awful and gloomy abode of the implacable Hela. Loki is her father; her mother is a giantess, the sister of the terrible wolf Fenrix and of the serpent that coils round the earth. Unhappy, thrice unhappy, is he who must descend to the dismal abyss of the goddess of destruction! Her hall is named Misery, Decay is written upon her threshold, Consumption is her couch; Danger, the curtains; Laziness is her manservant, and Sloth her maid; she eats from the dish called Hunger, and insatiable Avarice is the knife with which she cuts.

'Within the gloomy cavern there stands a hideous throne,

'Tis builded up of human bones and skulls of men alone;

Upon it sits the goddess, her form of ashy gray,

Her face blood-stained and ghastly, and blue with foul decay.

Her temple is surrounded with massive palisades,

With human heads most awful upon its stanchions raised;

And round about her wander, in dark and vicious mood,

Assassins, perjured robbers, with all death's wretched brood.'

Odin was rapidly approaching this awful realm of the goddess of death. The path, which no mortal had ever before trodden, wound along the brink of terrible precipices, and was overhung by threatening cliffs; but Odin cared not for the terrors of the way, or the raging hounds which met him; one thought took up all his attention — to learn what danger threatened his favorite son.

At last he reached the dwelling of the goddess Hela, and leaped from his horse at the first gray Runic stone, beneath which one of the Nornes, who foretold events, had slept for thousands of years. Lone and dreary was the burying-place; the wind moaned sadly through the leafless hedges, and whirled clouds of sand high in the air.

Odin drew his sword, wrote thrice on the sand the Runic sentence, and then uttered three times the Runic call, which is powerful enough, when coming from the mouth of one of the gods, to rouse the dead from their graves.

He paused a few moments, and then the following words came forth from the depths of the earth in a low and hollow tone:

'What magic overpowering might

Calls me from the dungeon's nighty

Disturbing death's deep quiet rest?

Tell me thy name, thou daring guest!

A thousand years my bones have lain

'Neath wetting dew and streaming rain,

No foot hath sought my dark retreat

In winter's snow or summer's heat.

Profane! I disturb'st thou my deep rest?

Tell me, who art thou, daring guest? '

Then answered Odin:

' A wand'rer am I, thou know'st me not,

A warrior's son, thou namest not.

What Heav'n ordains, tell I to thee;

What 's planned below reveal to me.

For whom is the glittering table spread.

And who shall sleep on the golden bed? '

In low and muttering accents, he heard the voice reply:

" The foaming tankard's glittering sheen,

With mead's sweet draught, hast thou not seen?

Above it hangs the golden shield;

For Balder is the tankard filled.

Thy son's brave head in death must bow.

And all the gods shall be brought low.

Unwilling speak I, stranger guest;

Disturb no more my sacred rest.

Away! begone to thine own place!

Henceforth no trifler findeth grace.'

Odin ventured for a moment to peer into the joyless and dreary region of deaths and saw through the mist and darkness the preparations for the reception of his favorite son. With tears starting to his eyes, he mounted his horse again, and went back with a heavy heart to his palace, where the gods and goddesses were waiting in anxious suspense to hear the result of his long and perilous journey. He was received with deep silence; but when the doom of Balder was announced to them, they burst forth into loud cries and lamentations. No one was able to suggest any means by which the threatened evil could be averted. At last, after long meditation, his mother Friga proposed the following plan, which changed their lamentations into rejoicings. As goddess of the earth, she would take an oath of all created beings and powers not to harm Balder in any way.

Obedience was readily sworn to Friga by fire and by water, by iron and all other metals, by stone and clay, bush and tree, by swift consumption and all other diseases; as well as by all the animals of the earth; the air, and the sea. Nothing was freed from this oath but a tender mistletoe clinging to an oak, for from it she feared no ill.

The gods now thought their favorite was perfectly safe, and in their delight began a number of pastimes with him. Some threw sharp-pointed lances at him; and behold! they fell harmless to the earth without causing him the least pain. Others, smote him on the bare head with their swords, but not a single lock was ruffled. Smiling like a fresh spring morning, Balder stood in the midst of the gods, sharing the happiness which they felt, and playfully grasping the arrows and spears which they aimed at him.

Their pleasure was so unbounded that it soon reached the ears of the malicious Loki, who found his only happiness in stirring up strife and causing distress both to gods and men, and he hastened to the spot, that he might, if possible, blight their pleasures. Taking the form of a gray-haired old woman, with a staff in her trembling and withered hand, he reverently approached the goddess Friga. 'Pray, inform me, gracious mother of the earth,' said he, 'what is the cause of all this mirth and joy, that I may share in it with the gods.'

'Have you not heard,' replied Friga, with a beaming countenance, ' that all the beings and powers of the earth have taken an oath not to injure Balder? A terrible danger was hanging over him; but the sentence of the Nome has been defeated, and he is now safe, and will not have to descend to the regions of the pale and ghastly Hela!'

'Has everything sworn this oath?' inquired Loki.

' Yes', was the reply; ' everything has sworn to me, except a small plant of mistletoe which I saw growing on the eastern side of Valhalla. Why should I fear any mischief from such a harmless, trifling thing as that? '

This information was sufficient for the wicked Loki, who was glad to And that it was the mistletoe, which strangles the tree to which it clings for support, that had been passed over by Friga. So, stealing quietly away from the palace, he fled with the swiftness of thought in search of the plant, which he soon found. He broke off a piece of its hard stem, shaped it into an arrow, and returning in the same disguise as before, approached the happy circle of the gods. He soon discovered a fitting instrument for his base design. Hadu, the blind god, was standing at a little distance listening to the joyful shouts and merry laughter which arose from the happy company, and Loki tottered towards him. 'Why', said he, 'do you not take part in the amusement of your companions?'

' Gladly would I do so', replied Hadu; ' but alas! I am blind, and cannot join in honoring Balder with the other gods.'

'That is a great affliction', said the wily Loki; ' but if you will only take this bow and arrow in your hands, I will shew you how you can honor the hero of the day.'

Following the directions of the stranger, Hadu took the bow, discharged the arrow, and Balder suddenly fell lifeless to the ground.

Never before had such sorrow distressed the hearts of the dwellers in Odin's palace. For a while they stood speechless and paralyzed with grief and astonishment; then forming a group around the dead body, burst into loud cries, which echoed and re-echoed throughout the arched halls of Valhalla. Their terror and anguish were so great that none of them could speak a word. When the power of speech returned, they began to inquire who could have been wicked enough to do so foul a deed; but no one thought of avenging their murdered companion, for they were assembled in a sanctuary, where no act of punishment could take place; and Loki had again disappeared With deep sighs and piercing lamentations, the corpse was carried to the sea-shore to be devoted to the flames. Balder's ship lay upon the strand, and his body was to be burned on the deck; but first the vessel had to be launched. All the efforts of the gods to push it into the sea were, however, in vain; they could not move it a single inch. They were then obliged to call the giantess Hyrrockin to their help. Preceded by a rushing sound, the giantess appeared with streaming hair, riding a wolf bridled with a serpent. She laid her powerful hands on the vessel, and pushed it with such violence into the sea that the rollers on which it was standing burst into flames. Enraged at her vehemence, Thor lifted his hammer, and would have dashed her to the earth had not the other gods quieted him. Then arose a new disaster. Nanna, the beautiful wife of Balder, was so overwhelmed with sorrow at the death of her beloved husband, that her heart broke, and she sank into the arms of Friga a lifeless corpse. United in death, as they had been in life, Balder and Nanna were laid upon the funeral pile which had been erected on the deck of the ship, and burned to ashes, amid the loud wailing and bitter lamentations of the gods."

"This, my children," said Hilding, "is the story of the death of Balder, through which the palace of Valhalla sustained a loss never to be replaced."

Ingeborg and Frithiof had listened with the deepest interest to the sad story; while, in the distance, they heard the rolling of the chariot in which Thor, the god of thunder, travelled through the sky, and saw the flashes of fire from the strokes of his mighty hammer. Tears glistened in Ingeborg's eyes as she thought of the melancholy fate of Balder and Nanna, and the heart of Frithiof was stirred with deep emotion. After a short time, they rose and went home again; and Ingeborg stole silently into her chamber, while Frithiof continued in conversation with Hilding.

"Horrible as death is," said he, "I would willingly die, and go down to the terrible dwelling-place of Hela, if I only felt sure that Ingeborg would mourn for me as Nanna mourned for Balder! "

These wards alarmed Hilding. "Can it be possible, my son," he exclaimed, "that you are cherishing a love which can end in nothing but sorrow and disappointment? The ancestors of King Beli reach back to the gods themselves, while you are but the son of a yeoman. Beli will choose a husband for his daughter from among princes, and it is quite in vain for you to think of wooing her."

Frithiof smiled at the words of his venerable tutor, and then replied in a burst of noble passion, in which his eyes flashed like fire: " With the thunder-god, birth is nothing; courage is the only thing which he regards. He who is descended from the gods, and is destitute of bravery and spirit, is disowned by them. They love and reward those only who strive to excel in courage and virtue. The fame which I have won in hunting the wild beasts of the forest is worth as much to me as if I could trace my ancestors back to the halls of Odin!"

" Alas, alas! " exclaimed Hilding, " this love will yield you nothing but thorns and misery! How blind I must have been not to have sooner noticed the evil that was brooding! "

" Speak not thus, my father," replied Frithiof. " Never, till now, have I dreamed of Ingeborg becoming my wife; but my heart tells me that it can be satisfied with no other than the king's daughter. I swear to you, by all the gods, that I will never give her up, even if it be necessary to win her at the point of the sword! If I have to fight with Thor himself, I will be parted from her only with my life. Woe to the man that tries to separate us! "

While Frithiof thus gave vent to his love for Ingeborg, .she sat in her quiet chamber, and compared him in her mind to Balder, praying to the gods to protect the high-spirited youth, and to crown him with honor and fame.