SOURCE: "Some Comments on Voluspa, Stanzas 17-18," in Old Norse Literature and Mythology: A Symposium, edited by Edgar C. Polome, University of Texas Press, 1969, pp. 265-90.

[In the following essay, Polome analyzes an important creation episode in the Voluspa, one of the greatest Eddic poems.]

Among the controversial problems of Eddic cosmology, the identification of the Scandinavian trinity that presides over the creation of man is certainly one of the most disputed. This creation episode is related in two stanzas of the Voluspá ("The Seeress' Prophecy"), whose wording reads as follows in Dr. Hollander's rhythmical translation:¹

To the coast then came,    kind and mighty,
from the gathered gods    three great Æsir;
on the land they found,    of little strength,
Ask and Embla,    unfated yet.

Sense they possessed not,    soul they had not,
being nor bearing,    nor blooming hue,
soul gave Óthin,    sense gave Hœnir,
being, Lóthur,    and blooming hue.

In like manner, Snorri Sturluson² gives this account in the Gylfaginning ("Beguiling of Gylfi"): "While the sons of Borr³ were walking along the shore, they discovered two tree trunks, took them up, and made men out of them; the first gave them breath and life, the second wit and movement, and the third appearance, speech, hearing and vision." Here, the gods are not explicitly mentioned by name, but the structural similarity of the two versions of the creation myth is obvious.

Several attempts have been made to find parallels to this myth, without great success, however. Thus, it is quite striking to notice that Hesiod, in his Works and Days, reports that "Zeus created a… race of men … from the ash-trees"⁴ since the Eddic name of the first man, Askr, is precisely the Germanic word for 'ash-tree,' although the parallelism of the two traditions does not go any further. Friedrich von der Leyen⁵ compared the Eddic account to an Indian tale in which a sculptor, a goldsmith, a weaver, and a priest are seen traveling together. After cutting a piece of sandalwood into the effigy of a pretty woman, the sculptor successively hands it over to the weaver, who dresses it, and to the goldsmith, who adorns it with jewels. Then, the priest succeeds through his incantations in breathing life into it, after which the problem arises as to who will get the pretty creature as his wife.

If the point of departure is apparently the same—a human being fashioned out of a piece of wood—the elaboration upon the theme is obviously totally different. The Hindu tale is a curious apologue intended to throw light upon a problem of casuistry; it describes step by step the shaping of a human being who is endowed with life only in the final stage, as the crowning act of a long process. In the Scandinavian tradition, on the contrary, there is no trace of a similar process: the triad of gods creates the primordial couple straight away. We witness a creative act, performed through direct divine intervention; through it, the pieces of wood immediately acquire the fullness of life.⁶ In other words, the characteristic feature of the Eddic account is the unity of the creative act in spite of the distribution of the human attributes by three different gods. This has evidently been the understanding of the exegetes of the Voluspá stanzas who have also tried to reduce the triad of gods to one by considering Lóðurr and Hœnir merely as poetic creations due to Christian influence⁷ or as hypostases of Othin.⁸ Without drawing such far-reaching conclusions, we cannot fail to notice with surprise that, whereas the attribution of vital breath to the human being normally falls within Othin's province, this is not also the case with the inspired cerebral activity which Hœnir's gift implies.

Let us reexamine the facts, text in hand.⁹ From Othin, man receives ond, in which everyone agrees to recognize the 'breath of life' (it would, indeed be rather imprudent to translate it as 'soul,' considering the Christian implications of this term, which the Old Norse substantive acquired only at a later date; literally, ond means 'breath'). Such a gift is quite in keeping with the very nature of Othin as the sovereign god meting out life-giving power. Besides, it should be remembered that his name in Proto-Germanic, ^*Wōðanaz, is ultimately derived from an Indo-European theme ^*awē-, meaning 'to blow,' whose participial form, ^*wē-nt-, supplied the Indo-European word for 'wind.' Further analysis of this theme led George van Langenhove to posit a root ^*H₂éw-, which would designate the 'life-giving power'.¹⁰ But the name of Othin, ^*Wōðanaz, is more directly connected with the Western Indo-European stem ^*wāt-, which appears in Lat. vātes, 'soothsayer,' OIr. fáith, 'seer, prophet,' and Ger. Wut, 'rage'; Adam of Bremen himself considered the name of Othin as synonymous with furor. Actually, Othin is the inspired god, the prince of poets, the magician par excellence, the master of divinatory runes—attributes which agree perfectly with the meaning of his name, of which the stem denotes inspired cerebral activity and the suffix possession and mastery.¹¹

The same meaning, 'inspired cerebral activity,' should also be ascribed to ON Mor, which is usually translated 'mind,' 'reason (understanding),' or 'sense' in the context of the Voluspá stanza, where it appears as Hœnir's gift to man. The noun odr can indeed hardly be dissociated from the adjective óðr, which means 'mad, frantic' or 'furious, vehement' or 'eager, impatient,' meanings which point either to strong emotional stress or to lack of control of the power of reasoning. This is in keeping with the fact that the inspired mental activity expressed by Germanic ^*wōð- can verge on ecstasy, as shown by the name of the poetic mead stimulating inspiration: óðrœrir, literally 'rousing to the point of ecstasy.'¹² That ON óðr denotes an 'inspired mental activity,' and not merely 'intelligence,' conceived as the faculty of reasoning, is further confirmed by its second meaning, 'poetry,' especially in the skaldic phrase designating the poet as óðar smiðr, 'smith of inspired thought'.¹³ Actually, the only context in which the meaning 'intelligence, mind, reason' is assumed for óðr is in stanza 18 of the Voluspá, and in modern Norwegian the noun continued to exist as a neuter under the form od, besides a feminine oda, with the meaning 'strong desire' (sterk lyst).¹⁴ The current interpretation of óðr as 'mind, intelligence, reason' in the Eddic passage under reference is ascribable to the parallel text of Snorri, where the second god participating in the creation of man endows him with vit ok hrœring, usually translated 'wit and movement,' with special focus on vit, because the association of 'movement' with 'intelligence' sounds rather awkward. However, hrœring does not necessarily apply to a physical movement: in the compound hugarhrœring, as well as in numerous contexts and phrases like geðs hrœringar, it indicates emotion and may therefore, better than vit, reflect the connotations of the Eddic noun óðr, which Leiv Heggstad glosses more adequately hugrørsla (movements of the mind).¹⁵ It is consequently legitimate to question Georges Dumézil's statement:

la répartition des tâches est claire: le premier dieu fait le grand miracle, il anime, donne aux deux planches cette force vitale qui est commune à l'homme, aux animaux et aux plantes; le second leur donne ce qui est le propre de l'homme, l'esprit, l'intelligence ou la raison; le troisième leur donne les moyens de s'exprimer, la parole et l'apparence ou les "belles couleurs,"

because it implies that:

sous le grand dieu Odhinn, qui fait le don primordial et la plus général (la vie), Hœnir patronne donc la partie profonde, invisible de l'intelligence, "l'intelligence en soi", tandis que Lôdhurr patronne l'intelligence incarnée dans le "système de relation", dans les organes, accrochée aux sens, au gosier, à la peau, comme une araignée à sa toile.¹⁶

Dumézil's assumption that Hœnir is the god of careful thought is the basis of this interpretation, which would confirm the ingenious etymology of the name Hœnir proposed by George van Langenhove, namely its derivation from a Germanic prototype ^*hōnija-, reflecting Indo-European ^*kōniyo-, derived from the root ^*kō-, 'make keen, sharpen,' Hœnir being the 'sharpener'¹⁷—the god who sharpens the wit.

This view is based mainly on the interpretation of Hœnir's attitude on two occasions: (a) when Þjazi, in the shape of an eagle, requests of him a full share of the gods' meal, Hœnir does not answer, but cannot help breathing heavily with anger;¹⁸ (b) whenever he attends the þing as chief of the Vanir and fails to get Mímir's advice, he does not take a stand but merely says: ráði aðrir (Let others decide).¹⁹ Dumézil considers Hœnir's refusal as the only wise attitude under the circumstances and contrasts it with Loki's rash decision, which turns to disaster for him when he tries to beat Þjazi with a stick after snatching four pieces of beef away from the sacred table to feed him. Hœnir knows the giant is not supposed to receive any of the food of the gods, but since he can do nothing about it, he remains passive, though not without emotion.

In the case of his refusal to make decisions in the absence of Mímir, Dumézil offers an ingenious explanation:

Le binôme Hœnir-Mîmir…, réuni, fait un chef parfait et…, séparé, ne vaut plus rien.… [It constitutes] une juste image du mécanisme de nos meilleures pensées: devant une question, une difficulté, nous suspendons d'abord notre réaction et notre jugement, nous savons d'abord ne pas agir et nous taire, ce qui est déjá une grande chose; et puis nous écoutons la voix de l'inspiration, le verdict qui nous vient de notre savoir et de notre expérience antérieurs ou de l'expérience héréditaire de l'espèce humaine ou de plus loin encore, cette parole intérieure qui, comme la Raison des philosophes ou la "conscience collective" des durkheimiens, est à la fois en nous et plus que nous, autre que nous. Mîmir, près de Hœnir… représente cette partie mystérieuse, intime et objective, de la sagesse, dont Hœnir représente la partie extérieure, individuelle, I'attitude conditionnante. Hœnir a l'air d'un sot? Il pourvoit seulement au vide, à l'attente que remplira Mîmir.²⁰

For all the brilliant style of the French scholar, one cannot help wondering whether he has not begged the question. All the texts show is that Hœnir is incapable of acting on his own. If this does not make him weak in wits, as has often been assumed,²¹ it hardly points him out as the "dieu de la pensée réfléchie"; he is much rather the instrument of godly inspiration, the one who utters the message conveyed by outside wisdom. Therefore, he remains mute in the discussions of the þing of the Vanir when this inspiration, embodied by Mímir, fails him; therefore, he is described as the most fearful of the Æsir in the Sogubrot,²² since he cannot act without being advised; therefore, also, he appears in a sacerdotal function after Ragnarok, when he will hlautvið kjósa, that is, consult the oracles according to the age-old practice of picking up sticks marked with divinatory symbols.²³ Here, again, interpreting the signs given by an outside Power, he is the vehicle of divine inspiration. It is also in this capacity that he is instrumental in endowing man with 'inspired mental activity' (óðr).²⁴

But, to return to the third component of the divine triad, what do we actually know about Lóðurr? Very little indeed. Aside from the reference to him in the stanza under consideration, he appears only in a poetic paraphrase designating Othin by the name of 'friend of Lóðurr,'²⁵ a phrase which tells us nothing new, since the association of this divine personage with the majestic sovereign god of the Edda is already known. Besides, in a considerable number of parallel kennings Othin is associated with the most diverse gods.²⁶ In short, Lóðurr is practically unknown to us except by the role he plays in the creation of man according to Scandinavian mythology.

This has not prevented exegetes from indulging in numerous conjectures concerning Lóðurr. Numerous are those who, relying upon the parallel association between Othin, Hœnir, and Loki in Snorri's prose Edda, wish to compare Lóðurr with Loki, but one would seek in vain for any cogent argument backing up this hypothesis. Proceeding from the idea that Loki was a god of fire, these authors merely resort to etymology in endeavoring to associate the two names more closely. Because the nature assigned to Loki is most debatable²⁷ and because, on the other hand, Lóðurr has apparently not the least connection with fire, it is superfluous to analyze the multiple etymological reconstructions advanced in order to justify this parallel.²⁸ In an important study devoted to Loki, E. J. Gras²⁹ has, however, attempted to bring new elements into the debate by comparing the name Lóðurr with the name logapore, which appears beside wigiponar and wodan in the runic inscription of the Nordenhof brooch, and with the name of the Brabantine demon Lodder.

This hypothesis is based on three postulates, which Jan de Vries³⁰ has seriously questioned:

1. the identification between Loki, Lóðurr, and the demon Lodder, also known by the name Loeke;
2. the interpretation of runic logapore as a divine name, related to ON logi 'fire';
3. the survival in the Lodder-Loeke of Brabant of an ancient Germanic divinity.

The idea that Loki, Lóðurr, and Lodder belong to the same religious sphere had already been expressed by H. Gruiner-Nielsen and Axel Olrik in 1912.³¹ By describing Lodder as a definite, facetious, nocturnal creature, most frequently a kind of will-o'-the-wisp ("et eller andet natligt gækkende væsen, snarest af lygtemandsartig art"), they manage to associate the Brabantine demon rather plausibly with the Lokke of Scandinavian folklore, which appears especially in connection with certain natural phenomena such as the vibration of the air as a result of heat or the sulfurous odor following a flash of lightning, with certain sacrificial ceremonies on the family hearth, with certain weeds and vermin (particularly spiders), as well as in phrases referring to lying and deceit.³² However, this association remains superficial, because the Brabantine Lodder is somewhere halfway between a werewolf and a fiery ghost,³³ and he definitely appears to be very remote from the Scandinavian conception of the demon of the hearth, to say nothing of the possibility of comparing him to the Eddic god Loki. Several years ago, I suggested³⁴ considering him as a 'wanderer'—a sort of terrā vagans—a hypothesis which is confirmed by the use of the term lodder to designate a vagrant in Middle Dutch and by the clear etymological parallel of Russ. lyta, 'to wander,' and I see no reason to reconsider this opinion. Nothing, indeed, justifies the assertion that the Lodder of Brabant is a distant reminiscence of any Germanic god. On these grounds the third postulate of Miss Gras's hypothesis can be safely dismissed. Indeed, if Lodder is only a local variant of the kludde, a demonic horse which hurls into the water the drunken peasant who thinks to be dealing with one of his own animals that has not been taken back to the stable,³⁵ one can hardly see what such an equine and aquatic demon would have in common with the god Loki: To be sure, it could be objected that Othin's horse, Sleipnir, was born to Loki, transformed into a mare, after intercourse with Svaðilfœri, stallion of the giant builder of the stronghold of the gods, as is told in Chapter 42 of Gylfaginning. But, enlarging upon a suggestion of Jan de Vries, Georges Dumézil³⁶ has clearly shown that the bringing forth of Sleipnir is a merely episodic event in the life of the Scandinavian god: "si Loki se transforme ici en jument, c'est que, seul des dieux scandinaves, il a une faculté illimitée de métamorphoses animales." This is not the only case in which Loki has functioned as a female in order to give birth to some monstrous creature. The short Voluspá, inserted in the Hyndluljóðd, gives another example of it in stanza 43: "with child he grew from the guileful woman. Thence are on earth all ogres sprung."³⁷ His association with the horse is accordingly rather fortuitous: it just happened to be necessary to deprive the master-builder of the stronghold of the Æsir of the aid of his horse Svaðilfœri in order to provide the gods with an excuse for not meeting their obligations to him; hence, the ad hoc metamorphosis of Loki to distract the stallion from his duty. Furthermore, the superficiality of possible resemblances disregarded, there is a matter of principle involved. Lodder is a strictly localized demon of little importance. Nowhere in the region where Lodder appears do we find any trace of Loki. The latter does not appear anywhere in pagan tradition as an aquatic and equine demon; if the Lokke of Scandinavian folklore is actually a distant survival of Loki,³⁸ there is a gap between these traditions and those to which the Brabantine Lodder was supposed to go back. How can one, in this case, reasonably conclude in favor of the identity of Lodder, Lokke, and Loki?

What about Lóðurr? It is hard to see what would make his association with Lodder possible, except for a vague etymological possibility of considering the Dutch term as derived from a Germanic stem ^*lóðr-.³⁹ It would then be necessary to show that this god, associated with Othin in the work of creation, could have degenerated into an aquatic spirit—or should it be assumed that the role assigned to Lóðurr results from a promotion of a secondary demonic being, similar to the modern Lodder or Lokke? All of this is, indeed, too hypothetical.⁴⁰

As for Miss Gras's second point, if logabore is assumed to be identifiable with Lóðurr—which would entail the identification of Hœnir with Donar, the triads Oðinn-Lóðurr-Hœnir and Wodan-Logaþore-Wigiþonar being interchangeable⁴¹—the same problems as with Lóðurr arise: how to explain his importance with regard to the ghostlike nature of the Brabantine Lodder in view of his association with such gods as Donar and Wodan in Old High German in the seventh century?

But is it really justifiable to associate Logaþore with Lóðurr? While admitting that the term logaþore is rather difficult to interpret, Wolfgang Krause, in the first edition of his Runeninschriften im älter en Futhark,⁴² subscribed to the hypothesis of Friedrich von der Ley en and W. von Unwerth, who consider logaþore an alternate form, under the conditions of Verner's Law, of Gmc. ^*lohaþoraz, from which Lóðurr would have developed. It would originally mean 'der mit Feuer Andringende,' the second element being related to the Old Norse verb þora, 'have the courage to do something'. But the only argument which Krause presented in favor of this interpretation was the fact that one of the two gifts Lóðurr grants to man in the eighteenth stanza of Voluspá is lá, that is, 'vital warmth,' as the Old Norse term is usually translated.⁴³ Upon closer examination, the grounds on which the translation of ON lá by 'vital warmth' was based, however, appear to be most questionable. First of all, this meaning is not confirmed by any parallel passage; it merely results from a rather disputable etymological comparison of a conjectural Germanic prototype ^*wlahō with Lat. ^*volca, contained in Volcanus, and with Skt. ulkā, 'heat of the fire.'⁴⁴ However, the name Volcanus is presumably a borrowing from the pre-Italic Mediterranean culture, like the fire-god who bears it,⁴⁵ whereas the Old-Indic term ulk means in fact 'meteor, fiery appearance in the sky' and is related to Gk. [awlax] [lamprōs] (Hesychios), [ēlektōr], 'bright sun.'⁴⁶ Accordingly, the interpretation of ON lá as 'vital warmth' remains unfounded, and this line of argument for relating Logaþore to Lóðurr has to be abandoned. One would then be tempted to subscribe to de Vries's stem judgment about Logaþore: "Die oft versuchte Gleichsetzung mit dem altnordischen Gott Lóðurr ist nur eine etymologische Spielerei und ist auch sachlich unbedingt abzulehnen."⁴⁷ But historians of Germanic religion find it difficult to give up the tempting identification Lóðurr = Logaþore = Loki, and if Karl Helm considers the identification Logaþore = Lóðurr only as "quite possible,"⁴⁸ interpreting Logaþore as a "Feuerdämon," his disciple Ernst A. Philippson endeavors to save the whole set of correlations of divinities through the expedient of an ingenious etymology. Pointing out that Loki is handsome and attractive in appearance, but evil in conscience,⁴⁹ Philippson asserts that Loki's beauty evokes the gift of a 'beautiful complexion' (lito góða), attributed to Lóðurr, while Lóðurr's name suggests the wiliness of Loki. According to him, Lóðurr and logaþore are, indeed, closely related with OE logðor, logeðer, which Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcole Toller⁵⁰ translate 'plotting mischief, wily, crafty'—epithets perfectly fitting the essential trait of Loki's personality.⁵¹ Furthermore, his name could be merely a hypocoristic of the appellative contained in logaþore.

Without endeavoring to discuss in detail the cogency of this etymology, first proposed by Willy Krogmann⁵² and now adopted by various runologists,⁵³ it must be recognized that the argument set forth in order to connect Lóðurr to these terms is hardly convincing. The mere possibility of an etymological explanation of the name Lóðurr by comparison with logaþore and an Old English term meaning 'cunning', and the rather vague statement that the attribution of a beautiful complexion to man by Lóðurr evokes the purely external beauty of Loki,⁵⁴ is not enough to legitimately justify the conclusion that Lóðurr is just another name for Loki in the divine triad involved in the creation of man in Scandinavian cosmogony.

But who, then, is Lóðurr? Attempts have also been made to identify him with Lotherus, the son of Dan, the eponymous hero of the Danes, and of a Teutonic noblewoman, Grytha. According to the account of Saxo Grammaticus,⁵⁵ Lotherus dethroned his brother Humblus and was then killed by the people. But this identification is erroneous because this tale is related to the epic tradition of the struggle between the Huns and the Goths, and Saxo's Lotherus is to be identified with Hloðr, appearing in the Hervarar saga. The Danish chronicler has obviously related this name to the Norse poetic epithet hløðir, 'destroyer, vanquisher,' when, in fact, it came by metathesis from Hrøþil, the Old Norse form of the Old English personal name Hréþel of the king of the Geats in Beowulf⁵⁶ Thus, no more than Humblus ultimately goes back to the same origin as Gaulish (Mars) Camulus⁵⁷ is Lotherus identifiable with Lóðurr.

It would be rather futile to enumerate all the attempts to explain this term through etymology. Those who wanted at all costs to compare Lóðurr with Loki sought by ingenious parallels to attribute to his name an original meaning in keeping with the assumed essential traits of Loki's personality. Thus, Lóðurr is the 'seducer' (der Verfuhrer) for Hugo Gering,⁵⁸ who compares MHG luoder, 'bait.' F. Holthausen⁵⁹ is thinking of Loki's perfidy when he relates Lóðurr to ON lómr, 'treachery,' mainly preserved in compounds. Such constructions, which usually neglect to analyze in detail the formation of the Scandinavian divine name, can hardly be taken very seriously—no more, actually, than the hypothesis of George van Langenhove⁶⁰ which derives Lóðurr from IE ^*lāturo-, from the root ^*lā(t)-, 'to be concealed,' attested by … Lat. lateo, and so on, with the primary meaning 'he who conceals, makes invisible,' or 'he who is concealed, the invisible one.' None of these interpretations, indeed, shows any direct relation with the text of the only Eddic stanza in which the name they pretend to explain occurs. In the absence of any other positive element related to Lóðurr, would it not seem obvious to look first for the basis of a plausible explanation in the context in which he appears? And rather than overemphasize his association with Othin and Hœnir in the creational work by taking Lóðurr for a hypothetical surname of Loki merely because Loki forms, in other circumstances, a triad with the two aforementioned gods, isn't it preferable to examine more closely the attributes with which he endows man?

Before Lóðurr's intervention, man was without that which the Norse text calls lá, lœti, and lito góða. What is to be understood by these terms?

The last of these attributes—in the Old Norse nominative plural litir góðir, literally 'good colors'—is the indication of good health. The Old Norse term litr, 'complexion,' corresponds to OE wlite, which designates physical beauty, a sign of noble ancestry with the Anglo-Saxons as with the Germanic peoples in general. It will be remembered that Beowulf differs from his companions by his handsome appearance, which the poet describes with the term wlite and menlic ansȳn, 'peerless appearance.'⁶¹ In this connection it is worth noticing that in the Gylfaginning Snorri uses precisely the Old Norse term asjona 'appearance,' corresponding with OE ansyn, in order to designate the attribute indicated by the phrase lito góða in Voluspá.

The second trait characterizing Lóðurr's intervention in the creation of man is lœti, but the text of the Eddic stanza hardly insists on it, since it is only cited among the things man is deprived of and is not repeated, like the other two, among the attributes the various gods confer upon him. Its interpretation does not present much of a problem: ON lœti is a well-attested term, with the meanings 'noise, voice,' 'gestures, attitude.' It corresponds to MHG gelze, 'behavior, conduct,' and is closely related to ON hit, 'manners.'⁶² This is probably also the meaning that should be ascribed to it in the Eddic stanza, as Gering does,⁶³ in view of the parallelism with the first line of stanza 39 of Gripisspd—lit hefir pu Gunnars ok lceti hans ("thou hast the appearance and the manners of Gunnar")—where lketi is contrasted with mcelska, 'way of speaking,' in the following line. Nevertheless, it should also be pointed out that Snorri mentions speech (malit) specifically among the gifts of the third divinity creating man, but in association with sight (sjón) and hearing (heyrn). In addition to external appearance (ásjóna), Snorri actually attributes to the divinity the principal sensory perceptions, which is apparently not the case in the corresponding Eddic stanza.

But the third attribute is presumably the key to the whole problem. What does hi designate? It has been pointed out that the meaning 'vital warmth,' most often ascribed to it, is hardly plausible, What of other interpretations?

The translation 'blood' has also been proposed⁶⁴ by a rather audacious interpretation of the Old Norse substantive lá, 'sea, wave, shoal water along the shore.⁶⁵ It has been attempted to make the implied shift more plausible by referring to the kenning for 'blood': oddlo, appearing in the fifth line of the eighth stanza of the Hákonarmál of Eyvindr skáldaspillir.⁶⁶ However, the verbymia, 'resound,' of which this term is the subject in this context, only applies to sounds, and the compound oddlo is strictly parallel to the Old Norse kenning for 'combat': oddregn, literally 'rain of shafts.' This is why Jöran Sahlgren is justified in ruling out the translation of oddlo as 'blood.' The simile indicates that the tips of the shafts (oddar) resound upon the shields, weapons, and breastplates as the waves (1áar) driven by the storm boom upon the shore.⁶⁷

Quite different, however, must be the meaning of hi in a stanza of the skald Kormakr ogmundarson,⁶⁸ in which the term appears associated with the adjective solr. This is the only attestation of solr in Old Norse poetry, although the term survives in dialectal Norwegian in the form sal in Røldal.⁶⁹ Old Norse solr means 'pale' and is related to OE salu, 'dusky, dark' (surviving in Modern English sallow, applying to the complexion), to OHG salo, 'turbid, dull' (from which the French word sale 'dirty' is derived), and to MDu. salu(w), 'yellowish, dirty.' Obviously, the association of such an adjective with a noun meaning 'blood' would be rather unexpected; therefore, the phrase lisolva in line 4 of the stanza under reference is usually translated 'sallow-complexioned.'⁷⁰ Why, then, could not Id simply mean 'look, mien, face'?

In this case, a plausible etymology would be available for the Old Norse term. There is, indeed, in the Tocharian texts, a noun lek, meaning 'appearance, mien,'⁷¹ for which, to the best of my knowledge, no satisfactory etymology has as yet been supplied.⁷² This word can reflect an Indo-European prototype ^*lēk-, whose reduced grade would yield Gmc. ^*lah-; the -ō theme derived from this root⁷³ would, indeed, normally be reflected by lá in Old Norse. This interpretation, furthermore, fits perfectly into the context of the Eddic stanza: "Lóðurr has given man his mien and fair complexion." Lá and lito góða would then be associated into a kind of hendiadys to designate the physical aspect of the newly created human being, both indications of his external appearance being summarized by Snorri's ásjóna, which means altogether 'face,' 'mien,' 'countenance,' and 'look.'

But this interpretation remains dependent upon the correctness of an always disputable etymology.⁷⁴ One can, accordingly, wonder whether the poetic meaning of'hair,' which lá also shows,⁷⁵ cannot, after all, supply an acceptable interpretation for the term in the text of Voluspá. Adolph Noreen⁷⁶ once suggested it, but Hugo Gering⁷⁷ utterly rejected such an interpretation. Nevertheless, it rests upon an etymologically flawless explanation: lá, lo reflect a Germanic prototype ^*lawō, meaning literally 'cutting,' derived from a root ^*lu-, attested in another connection by OHG lō, 'tan,' ON logg, 'croze,' and by Lith. 1óva, 'bedstead,' Russ. 1áva, 'bench, board.' The transition from the idea of'cutting' to that of 'hair' (i.e., 'that which one cuts') is also illustrated by OInd. lava-, 'cutting, wool, hair,' and Alb. léš, 'wool, hair,' derived from the same Indo-European root. As for the importance of the hair in the creation of man, one could refer to the numerous passages in the sagas where it appears as the most significant element of human appearance. The hair was sacred for the ancient German; freely growing hair hanging on the shoulders was characteristic of priests, kings, and women; hair was the vehicle of the hamingia, of the soul, of happiness.⁷⁸ In support of this, it might be relevant to cite paragraph 35 of Salic law, in which the act of cutting the hair of a young girl without the permission of her parents is taxed forty-five shillings, whereas one pays only thirty for having seduced a female servant of the king.⁷⁹ Important also are Tacitus' notes⁸⁰ on Germanic manners of wearing the hair, in which he describes the Suevian chiefs and deals with the Chatti warriors' custom of cutting their beards and hair only after killing an enemy. The cutting of the hair is also a rite of passage, which marks the accession of the adolescent to manhood.⁸¹ Furthermore, descriptions in the sagas closely associate complexion and hair to suggest the fine presence of their heroes, and a particular shade of hair color is never dissociated from a definite hue of the face.⁸² Would it be surprising, then, that features so essential to the noble bearing of the Norsemen be put directly under the patronage of Lóðurr in the Eddic line "Lóðurr gave hair and fair complexion to man"?

Thus, a choice between two interpretations of lá is offered. Without trying to settle the question of which is the more plausible, it should be pointed out that both emphasize, like litir góðir, the physical aspect of man, whereas the qualities bestowed upon him by Hœnir and Othin are essentially spiritual. Accordingly, it is likely that the divinity responsible for these purely external features of man is a god governing the physical aspect of living beings, a god closer to nature than the Æsir—the majestic sovereigns—were. In a word, a god of the Vanic group of the ancient Germanic fertility cult.

These are the kind of considerations that led F. Detter and R. Heinzel⁸³ to identify Lóðurr with Freyr, without, however, being able to give any more support to such an identification than the derivation of the name Lóðurr from the stem contained in ON lóð, 'produce of the land.' Since such an etymology can hardly be considered as a sufficient argument to interpret Lóðurr as a mere surname of Freyr, the god par excellence of agricultural production, this hypothesis has been abandoned. In my opinion, the principle of interpretation which motivated it was, however, correct. This is why, in his Altgermanische Religions-geschichte,⁸⁴ Jan de Vries gave preference to the explanation of Joran Sahlgren,⁸⁵ which proceeds from the same principle. Having recognized the zero grade of the Indo-European root ^*leudh- 'grow,' in the first component, lud- of a series of Swedish toponyms,⁸⁶ Sahlgren identifies the deity Ludhgodha, attested by place-names, as one of the Germanic hypostases of the Great Goddess of fertility. Because, in the parishname Locknevi (1378: Lodkonuvi), this deity also appears under the name Lopkona, whose second component is ON kona, 'woman,' corresponding to Goth. qino and OE cwene, Sahlgren interprets Lóðurr as her male counterpart, deriving the name from an original ^*Loþverr, whose second component would be ON verr, 'man, husband,' akin to Goth. wair, Lat. vir, and so on. The long -ō- of Lóðurr, required by Eddic metrics, would then be of secondary origin, since it would replace the short -o- of ^*Loþverr—long by position in the line lá gaf*lopverr—when this term became Lóðurr by reduction of the unstressed syllable of the second component. The Edda manuscript merely shows loðvR without indication of quantity, but the length of -ō-, implied by the meter, is confirmed by the skaldic kenning Lóðurs vinr, 'Lóðurr's friend,' for Othin.⁸⁷ On the other hand, parallels like onundr from onvondr, adduced by Sahlgren, show that the loss of the vowel of the second component does not necessarily entail compensatory lengthening of the vowel of the first component. Unless lengthening for metrical purposes may be admitted, there remains, accordingly, an unsolved phonological difficulty connected with Sahlgren's interpretation.⁸⁸

Should it, therefore, be abandoned? I think not, for various reasons. First of all, the interpretation of Lóðurr as a male counterpart of the goddess of agrarian fertility fits in neatly with the purely physiological qualities he grants man—the more so since the root to which ^*Loþverr is linked is that of Goth. liudan, 'grow,' whose Old Norse correspondent occurs only in the past participle loðinn, meaning 'hairy, shaggy, woolly, covered with thick grass'⁸⁹; in Old Swedish ludhin means 'hairy, shaggy' (as luden still does in Modern Swedish), and in the Swedish dialects, a word lå occurs, meaning 'hair of animal, spring fleece.'⁹⁰ The meaning of these terms obviously brings to mind the interpretation of ON 1á as 'hair,' whereas the meanings of related Germanic terms—Goth. ludja. [prosōpon] (Matt. 6:17), laudi (marginal gloss for [morphē]); OS lud, 'figure' (Heliand, vs. 154);⁹¹ OHG antlutti, 'face'⁹²—correspond to those of ásjóna, which replaces lá and litir góðir in Snorri. Furthermore, it should be remembered that the root whose zero grade occurs in ^*Loþverr is the same as appears in the Germanic term for 'people' (ON ljóðr, OE lēode, OHG liuti) in the meaning of 'full-fledged members of the ethnic community,' which points to its close semantic link with Lat. liber and Gk. [eleutheros]. Also derived from the same root is the name of the Italic god Liber, the deity of Eddic loðvR, applying to a divinity of generation and growth, as, cluded the protection of the popular community.⁹³ Sahlgren's hypothesis accordingly shows far-reaching implications, not even surmised by its author, and the minor objection concerning the vocalism of Lóðurr can easily be dismissed if one takes into consideration the semantic field to which he belongs. Indeed, two West Norse terms, at least, could promote the lengthening, required by the meter, of the short -o- of Eddic loðvR, applying to a divinity of generation and growth, as, for example, ON lóð, 'produce of the land' (which belongs etymologically with Gk. [latron], 'pay, hire,'⁹⁴ and Icelandic lóða, 'in heat' (applying to a bitch), which Evald Lidén has compared with MIr. lāth, 'rut' (of a sow).⁹⁵ If these arguments are cogent, Lóðurr, bestower of beautiful complexion and hair, appears in the Germanic North as the counterpart of the Italic Liber, just as the Scandinavian Viðarr corresponds to the Illyrian Vidasus⁹⁶—a new element in the rich set of common features between Germanic and Italic culture and religion.⁹⁷"

¹ Lee M. Hollander (trans.), The Poetic Edda (2nd ed.; Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962), p. 3.

² Anne Holtsmark and Jón Helgason (eds.), Snorri Sturluson Edda, Gylfaginning og Prosafortellingene av Skáldskaparmál (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard, 1950), p. 1O: þá erpeir Bors synir gengu með sœvarstrondu, fundu peir tré tvau ok tóku upp tréin ok skoþuðu af menn, gafhinn frysti ond ok lif, annarr vit ok hrœring, AH. ásiónu, málit ok heyrn ok sion …

³ Name of the father of Othin as well as of Vili (lit., 'strong will' [if its first i is originally short]) and of Vé (lit., 'religious feeling'). The name appears as burr in the manuscripts and is undoubtedly identical with ON burr, 'son' (Sveinbjörn Egilsson, Lexicon Poeticum Antiquae Linguae Septentrionalis, ed. Finnur Jónsson [2nd ed.; Copenhagen: S.L. Møller, 1931], p. 57).

⁴ Lines 143-145: [Zeus de patēr … genos meropōn anthrōpōn polēs … ekmeliān] (A. Rzach [ed.], Hesiodi Carmina [Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1958], p. 62). The meaning of [meropos] remains obscure ('articulate'? 'mortal'? see Hjalmar Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, [Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1963], II, 211-212). Ancient scholia already identified [meliān] with the [Meliai] Nymphs mentioned in line 187 of the Theogony (see Agostino Pertusi, Scholia Vetera in Hesiodi Opera et Dies [Milano: Vita e Pensiero, s.a.], p. 59), but this presumably reflects a cosmogonic tale in which Ash-nymphs were the mothers of the human race (Paul Mazon, Hésiode [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1947], p. 37 n. 1). The translation '(ashen) spears' (Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns and Homerica [London: W. Heinemann, 1936], p. 13; Richmond Lattimore, Hesiod [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959], p. 35) has little to commend itself in this context (cf. [meliēgenēs] [Apollonius Rhodius], 'ashborn'). On Hesiod's myth of the generations of men, cf. the collection of articles by F. Bamberger, R. Roth, E. Meyer, R. Reitzenstein, A. Heubeck, A. Lesky, and Th. G. Rosenmeyer in Ernst Heitsch (ed.), Hesiod (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966), pp. 439-648.

⁵ Quoted by Jan de Vries, The Problem of Loki (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1933), pp. 34-35; for a complete translation of the tale, see Johannes Hertel, Indische Märchen (Düsseldorf: Diederichs, s.a.), pp. 182-183: "Die belebte Puppe." Von der Leyen's comparison appears in Das Märchen in den Göttersagen der Edda (Berlin: Reimer, 1889), p. 12:

Derselbe glaube findet sich auch in dem folgenden indischen belebungsmärchen (vgl. meine 'Indische Märchen,' s. 145 f.): Ein jüngling schnitzt ein mädchen aus holz, ein zweiter bemalt sie, ein dritter verbessert sie und macht sie einen frauenzimmer ähnlich, ein vierter beseelt sie und sie wird ein schönes weib. Alle vier streiten sich um sie: wem soll sie gehören?—Von diesem punkt an ist der verlauf der geschichte ein doppelter; in ihrer türkischen fassung, die wie ich glaube, auf der älteren indischen beruht, wird schliesslich ein gottesurteil angerufen, da tut sich ein baum auf, an dem das mädchen gelehnt und nimmt es wieder zu sich (Rosen, Tuti Nameh I,151).

To this he adds the following comments:

In diesen beiden berichten also, dem nordischen und dem indischen, wird die schöpfung, hier eines menschenpaares, dort eines menschen, von verschiedenen wesen vollzogen. Im nordischen werden die lebenskräfte verteilt, während sich im indischen die beseelung in einem akt vollzieht, die herrichtung des baumes dagegen, bis er einem menschen äusserlich ähnlich wird, den erzähler hauptsächlich beschäftigt. Demgemäss ist es den mythologen bis auf den heutigen tag unklar, wie man sich Ask und Embla vor ihrer belebung zu denken habe: ob als baumhölzer (Mogk, s. 378) oder ob als menschen in baumgestalt (Golther, s. 526). Vgl. auch Mannhardt, W[ald-und] F[eld]k[ulte], s. 8.

Man darf hier auch auf Hygin, fabula CCXX verweisen: Cura, cum quendam fluvium transiret, vidit cretosum lutum, sustulit cogitabunda et ccepit fingere hominem. Dum deliberat secum, quidnam fecisset, intervenit Jovis. Rogat eum Cura, ut ei daret spiritum; quod facile ab Jovē impetravit. Cui cum vellet Cura nomen suum imponere, Jovis prohibuit, suumque nomen ei dandum esse dixit. Dum de nomine Cura et Jovis disceptarent, surrexit et Tellus, suumque nomen ei imponi debere dicebat, quandoquidem corpus praebuisset. Sumpserunt Satumum judicem, quibus Satumus secus videtur judicasse: "Tu Jovis quoniam spiritum dedisti, corpus recipito. Cura, quoniam prima eum finxit, quamdiu vixerit, Cura eum possideat. Sed quoniam de nomine ejus controversia est, homo vocetur, quoniam ex humo videtur esse factus."

⁶ Friedrich von der Leyen, Die Welt des Märchen, (Dusseldorf: Diederichs, 1953), I, 205-206.

⁷ Elard Hugo Meyer, Mythologie der Germanen (Strasbourg: K. Trulbner, 1903), pp. 411, 449-450.

⁸ Friedrich von der Leyen, Die Götter der Germanen (Münich: C. H. Beck, 1938), p. 268.

⁹ The edition used here is Gustav Neckel, Edda. Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmalern, ed. H. Kuhn (3rd ed.; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1962), I, 4-5:

(17) Unz krir qvómo         ór pri lioi,
   oflgir oc ástgir,          æsir, at hósi;
   fundo a landi,           litt megandi,
   Asc oc Emblo,           orloglausa.
(18) Ond pau ne atto,        ó6 pau ne hofóo,
   lá ne læti                  né lito góoa;
   ond gaf Ooinn,            óo gaf Hœnir,
   lá gaf Lóourr            oc lito gooa.

¹⁰Linguistische Studien. II: Essais de linguistique indoeuropéenne (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1939). p. 46-47.

¹¹ See my "L'dtymologie du terme germanique *ansuz 'dieu souverain'," Etudes Germaniques, VIII (1953), 39.

¹² Jan de Vries, "Über das Verhältnis von óðr und óðinn," Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, LXXIII (1954), 344.

¹³ In a line in Egils saga (cf. Rudolf Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden [Bonn and Leipzig: Kurt Schroeder, 1921], p. 364).

¹⁴ Leiv Heggstad, Gamalnorsk Ordbok (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1930), p. 501.

¹⁵Ibid. See also de Vries, "Über das Verhältnis von Óðr und Óðinn," Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie, p. 345. In this article (pp. 340-343), de Vries also discusses Dr. Hollander's interpretation of the god óðr in his relationship with Freyja as a Scandinavian reflex of the myth of Cupid and Psyche ("The Old Norse God Óðr," Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XLIX [1950], 307-308.) In view of the semantic content of ON óðr, it is undoubtedly disputable that "ÓðR … as closely as possible translates [psychē] 'animus, spirit'."

¹⁶ Dumézil, Loki (Paris: G. P. Maisonneuve, 1948), p. 283; German edition (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1959), p. 232-233.

¹⁷Linguistische Studien, II, p. 70-72.

¹⁸Haustlong, st. 4: hlaut… hrafnasar vinr blasa. On the interpretation of this line, cf. Ernst A. Koch, Notationes Norrcence (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1926), Part 7, sec. 1016, p. 18-19). Anne Holtsmark ("Myten om Idun og Tjatse i Tjodolvs Haustlong," Arkivfor nordisk Filologi, LXIV [1950], 17), however, thinks that Loki is meant, to continue the comic effect of the preceding stanza, but Dumézil (Loki [1948], p. 275 n. 7, 276; [1959], p. 226 n. 94) is presumably right in claiming that the described reaction would hardly fit with the subsequent readiness of Loki to parcel out the meat to Iiazi. In the parallel tale in the Snorra Edda (Skaldskaparmal, Chap. 1), Hœnir is not even mentioned in this connection.

¹⁹Heimskringla: Ynglinga saga, Chap. 4. This is the only context in which a specific description of Hoenir is given: "kolloðu hann allvel til hofðingja fallinn; hann var mikill maor ok inn vwensti" (they [i.e. the Æsir] said he was very worthy, indeed, to be a chief; he was a big man, and a very beautiful one). The only additional information is from kennings, which characterize him as 'the rapid As' or as 'long-legged'—a feature which may also account for his designation as 'pace-Meili' (fet-Meili) in the fourth stanza of Haustlong (cf. A. Holtsmark, "Myten om Idun og Tjatse," Arkiv, p. 46). No further clue can be derived from the kenning for Loki: Hcenis hugreynandi (Haustlong, st. 12), literally 'Hœnir's mind-assayer.'

²⁰ Dumézil, Loki (1948), p. 278; (1959), pp. 228-229.

²¹ See, e.g., Wolfgang Golther, Handbuch der germanischen Mythologie (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1895), p. 398-399: "Hönir [ist] zwar schön und stattlich, aber schwachim Geiste und unselbstandig im Urteil. Er braucht stets Mimirs Beirat, sonst weiss er sich nicht zu helfen." That Heenir should grant óðr to man "is surprising when we remember how witless Hœnir appeared to be when Snorri described him in the Ynglinga Saga" (E. 0. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North [London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964], p. 142). Following R. M. Meyer (Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte [Leipzig: Quelle and Meyer, 1910], p. 370), where the exchange of Kvasir against Mímir and Hœnir is considered as "später Mythologenwitz," Jan de Vries wrote in the first edition of his Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte ([Berlin and Leipzig: W. de Gruyter, 1937], II, 309-310): "Die Geschichte ist sehr sonderbar; wenn sie nicht ganz für den Roman des Skaldenmetes, den Snorri in seiner Edda aufgenommen hat, erdichtet worden ist, so ist sie doch wohl bei der Einarbeitung so start umgemodelt worden, dass wir die ursprüngliche Form and Bedeutung nicht mehr herausfinden können." In the second edition ([1957], II, 270), however, he no longer questions the authenticity of the tale and follows Dumézil in stating: "eine schweigende Rolle … braucht aber … dennoch nicht die Rolle des Unverstandes zu sein."

²²Sogubrot af fornkonungum, Chap. 3: er brceddastr var asa.

²³Voluspa, st. 63. This practice of divination is described by Tacitus (Germania, Chap. 10; see the comment of Rudolf Much, Die Germania des Tacitus [Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1937], pp. 130-132). On its relation with the Scandinavian sacrifice, see de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, (2nd ed.; 1956), I, 417, 432-433.

²⁴ This does not, by far, solve the problem of Hctnir. His interpretation as a vehicle of divine inspiration has recently been illustrated from a different angle: reexamining Elof Hellquist's derivation of the name Henir from Gmc. *honya-, 'belonging to the rooster,' "a vrddhi-for mation from hani," Anne Holtsmark ("Mythen om Idun og Tjatse," Arkiv, pp. 48-53) considers Hœnir as an emanation of Othin in the shape of a rooster, whose part is played by a priestly performer imitating the rooster's step in a cultual drama. Folke Strom (Loki. Ein mythologisches Problem [Goteborgs Universitets Arsskrift, LXII, No. 8 (1956)], pp. 56-58; "Une diviniteoiseau dans la mythologie scandinave," Ethnos, XXI, [1956], 73-84; "Guden Hœnir och odensvalan," Arv, XII, 1956], 41-68), while dismissing the poorly documented hypothesis of the cultural drama, confirms the view that Hœnir must be a hypostasis of Othin in bird-shape: names like aurkonungr, translated 'king of the silt,' or phrases like inn langi fótr, 'the long-legged,' currently designating Hoenir in skaldic poetry, seem to point to a stilt, and Strom ultimately identifies Hœnir with the black stork, also called odensvala, 'Othin's swallow.' E. 0. G. Turville-Petre, however, argues that, if Hœnir's name is derived from a bird-name, he must be Othin's bird, i.e., a raven: "When divorced from their master, óðinn's ravens could have little wit, for it was his wit which they incorporated. When separated from Mimir, Hoenir had no wits, and was no better than a barnyard cock" (Myth and Religion of the North, p. 142).

²⁵Lóðurs vinr (Eyvindr skaldaspillir, Haleygjatal, 10.7: vinar Lóðurs; Haukr Valdisarson, islendingadrápa, 1.2: Lóðurs vinar; cf. Ernst A. Kock [ed.], Den norskisldndska Skaldediktningen [Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1946], I, 38, 261); cf. Rudolf Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden, p. 252.

²⁶ Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden, p. 252; Jan de Vries, De Skaldenkenningen met mythologischen inhoud (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1934), p. 19; the parallel kenning Lopts vinr, 'friend of of Lóðurr (i.e., Loki)' in Einarr skálaglamm, Vellekla, 12.2 (tenth century), is assumed to have served as a model for the twelfth century Lóðurs vinr.

²⁷ On the challenging study of Dumézil, Loki, see mainly the comments of de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (1957), II, 265-267, and Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North, pp. 144-146. Recent efforts to interpret Loki, including Folke Strom, Loki, and Anna Birgitta Rooth, Loki in Scandinavian Mythology (Skrifter utgivna av Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskapssamfundet i Lund, Vol. LXI [Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1961]), are discussed by Anne Holtsmark in "Loki—en omstridt skikkelse i nordisk Mytologi," in Maal og Minne, 1962, pp. 81-89.

²⁸ They are briefly analyzed by Jan de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 50-51.

²⁹De Noordse Loki-Mythen in hun onderling verband (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1931), pp. 9-11.

³⁰The Problem of Loki, pp. 53-55.

³¹ "Efterslwt til Loke-myterne. I. Loeke, Lodder i flamsk folktro," in Danske Studier, 1912, pp. 87-90.

³² De Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 225-227 (summarizing the extensive collection of popular traditions by Axel Olrik); Dumézil, Loki (1948), pp. 71-79, (1959), pp. 45-52; Rooth, Loki in Scandinavian Mythology, pp. 196-202.

³³ Jos. Schrijnen, Nederlandsche Volkskunde, (2nd ed.; Zutphen: W. J. Thieme, 1930), I, 97-98.

³⁴ Marcel Renard, "Les figurines d'Asse-Elewijt et le culte d'Epona," in Latomus, X (1951), 182 n. 2.

³⁵ Cf. Schrijnen, Nederlandsche Volkskunde, 1, 97-98. On the alleged relationship of this kludde with the Celtic goddess Epona, see Renard, "Les figurines," Latomus, pp. 181-187.

³⁶Loki (1948), pp. 116-120; (1959), pp. 80-83 (see also de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 74-78).

³⁷ Hollander, The Poetic Edda, p. 139 ("The Short Seeress' Prophecy," st. 14). Loki, called Loptr in this context, had eaten a woman's heart which he found half-roasted. Hollander's translation of ON flagl by 'ogre' is presumably too specific; as Turville-Petre points out (Myth and Religion of the North, p. 129), "the poet probably expresses an ancient tradition, when he says that every female monster (flagd hvert) on earth comes from Loki's brood."

³⁸ On the basis of the meaning 'spider' of the appellative locke and on the basis of the spider's role as a trickster in other cultures, Rooth has tried in her study on Loki in Scandinavian Mythology (1961) to correlate some constitutive elements of the Old Norse myths, like Loki's invention of the net, with modern folklore material, but her argumentation fails to convince. See, e.g., Willy Krogmann, "Neue Untersuchungen zur germanischen und keltischen Mythologie. I. Loki in der germanischen Mythologie," in Zeitschrift für Religionsund Geistesgeschichte, XV (1963), 361-363.

³⁹ E. J. Gras, De Noordse Loki-Mythen, p. 10, follows H. Grüner-Nielsen and A. Olrik in considering Brabantine Loeke (which appears sporadically instead of Lodder) as hypocoristic to Lóðurr. This implies a prototype with long *ō. Consequently, in Lodder, the voiced dental must have been "geminated" before r with shortening of the preceding vowel. It is, however, more plausible to derive the Dutch dialectal word from Germanic *luðar- (= OHG [Gl.] lotara vana, inania), with "expressive gemination" as in OE loddere, 'beggar' (cf. André Martinet, La gémination consonantique d'origine expressive dans les langues germaniques [Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard, 1937], p. 179).

⁴⁰ Cf. de Vries, The Problem of Loki, pp. 54-55.

⁴¹Ibid., p. 55 n. 1. But one can hardly conceive of Donar bestowing man with "inspired mental activity" (óðr)!

⁴² Halle/Saale: Max Niemeyer, 1937, p. 204-205 (Schriften der Königsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, XIII, 626-627).

⁴³ This interpretation is based on Hugo Gering, Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, Vol. I: Götterlieder (Halle/Saale: Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1927), p. 21. Cf., e.g., Jan de Vries, Edda (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1944), p. 25 ('warmte'); C. A. Mastrelli, L'Edda. Carmi Norreni (Firenze: Sansoni, 1951), p. 3 ('calore'); E. A. Philippson, Die Genealogie der Götter in germanischer Religion, Mythologie und Theologie (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1953), p. 42 ('Lebenswärme'). F. Genzmer, Die Edda, Vol. II: Götterdichtung und Spruchdichtung (Iena: Eugen Diederichs, 1934), p. 76, translates it first by 'Lebenswärme' and, then, simply by 'Leben,' and Hollander, The Poetic Edda, p. 3, merely uses the rather vague term 'being.'

⁴⁴ Adolf Noreen, Tidskrift for philologi og pœdagogik, N.R., IV, 31 ff. (quoted from H. Gering, Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, cf. also Sigurður Nordal, Völuspá. Vølvens spådom [Copenhagen: H. Aschehoug, 1927], p. 46). Karl Schneider, Die germanischen Runennamen (Meisenheim am Glan: Anton Hain, 1956), pp. 318-321, goes a step further. He derives both ON Lóðurr and Runic loga, bore from Germanic alternating forms ^*wlōhaþuraz ∼ ^*wlōyaþuraz, reflecting IE ^*wlōkāturos, assuming a lengthened grade ^*wlōk- to ^*wlok- in ^*wlōka, 'brightness, >Gmc. ^*wlahō > ON lá, lo, 'blooming hue,' reconstructing an alliterative line: ^*vlá gaf^* Vlóðurr ok ^*vlito góða. He does not pay enough attention to the implied chronological problem: the loss of initial w- before -l- is assumed to have taken place between 650-850, whereas Voluspá is usually considered to have been composed after 950. Furthermore, the assimilation of Lóðurr with the 'skygod' Tyr on the basis of this etymology is unwarranted.

⁴⁵ In his Griechische Götter im alten Rom (Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1930), pp. 172-208, Franz Altheim made a strong case for the Etruscan origin of Volcanus, pointing out Etruscan names to which it bears resemblance. His argumentation on such premises has, however, been strongly criticized (cf., e.g., J. L. M. de Lepper, De Godsdienst der Romeinen [Roermond and Maaseik: J. J. Romen and Zonen, 1950], pp. 27-28). Furthermore, Rætic velϰanu (on the Caslir situla; Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy, Vol. 2, ed. J. Whatmough [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press], No. 215, pp. 26-29) and Cretan [welchanos] have also been connected with Lat. Volcanus. Leaving aside the obscure Retic form, the Cretan [welchanos], who appears on coins from Phaistos as a young man sitting in a tree with a rooster in his lap, can hardly be closely identified with the fire-god Volcanus, though the latter's association with Zeus may be a rather late phenomenon (Margherita Guarducci, "Velchanos-Volcanus," in Scrilti in onore di B. Nogara [1937], p. 183 ff., quoted by Martin P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, Vol. I [Münich: C. H. Beck, 1941], p. 300 n. 2; 2nd ed. [1955], p. 323 n. 2). It remains preferable to keep them apart, in spite of the efforts to correlate the widely divergent functions of [welchanos] and Volcanus (Guarducci, "Velchanos-Volcanus"; Paul Kretschmer, in Glotta, XXVIII (1939), 109-110; Albert Grenier, Les Religions étrusque et romaine [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948], pp. 44-45). Nevertheless, Volcanus' name is "certainly not Latin" (H. J. Rose, "Volcanus," in The Oxford Classical Dictionary [Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1949], p. 953), and [welchanos] is "offenbar vorgriechisch" (Hjalmar Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, I, 503-504). Perhaps Kurt Latte (Römische Religionsgeschichte [Münich: C. H. Beck, 1960], p. 130 n. 3) is right when he suggests: "Es könnte sich nur um einen Gott der Mittelmeerkultur handeln, dem die italischen Einwanderer eine andere Bedeutung unterlegten"—presumably by divinizing the 'third aspect of fire,' the 'hungry' fire on the lurk for evil spirits, corresponding to the daksināgni of Old Indic liturgy (cf. Georges Dumézil, La religion romaine archaïque [Paris: Payot, 1966], p. 315). If, however, this should be the original function of Volcanus, as Dumézil claims ("Quaestiunculae Indo-Italicae. 2. Les pisciculi des Volcanalia," in Revue des Etudes Latines XXXVI (1958), 121-130), his suggestion that Lat. ^*Volco- would be related to Skt. várcas-, Avest. varčah-, 'brilliance' (ibid., p. 123 n. 4) would deserve further consideration. Further relation with Hittite ^dGUL-aššeš (read Valhannaššeš by E. Forrer) is improbable (see Alois Walde and J. B. Hofmann, Lateinisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, [3rd ed.; Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1954], II, 825-826; on the nature of the ^dGUL-aššeš deities, whose Hittite name remains unknown, see Emmanuel Laroche, Recherches sur les noms des dieux hittites [Paris: C. P. Maisonneuve, 1947], p. 99).

⁴⁶ Although approved without reservation by Manfred Mayrhofer, (A Concise Etymological Sanskrit Dictionary, [Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1954], I, 112) and by J. B. Hofmann (Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Griechischen [Münich: R. Oldenbourg, 1950], p. 106), this etymology is considered as unacceptable, without further comment, by Hjalmar Frisk (Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, I, 629), who considers Gk. [ēlektōr] unexplained.

⁴⁷Germanische Religionsgeschichte, (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1935), I, 234; see also Vol. 11 (2nd ed., 1957), pp. 271-272.

⁴⁸Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, Vol. II: Die nachrömische Zeit. 2. Die Westgermanen (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1954), pp. 276-277.

⁴⁹Gylfaginning, Chap. 33: Loki erfridr okfagr synum, illr i skaplyndi.

⁵⁰An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (London: Oxford University Press, 1898), p. 646. The Old English adjective is glossed cacomicanus (from Gk. [kakomēchanos], 'mischief-plotting') or marsius (Middle Latin derivation from the name of the Marsi, who were celebrated as magicians and snake-charmers).

⁵¹ According to Ernst Alfred Philippson, Die Genealogie der Götter in Germanischer Religion, pp. 45-48, this etymology "betont das Dämonisch-Böse in Loki," but he does not succeed in establishing that this "Arglist" is indeed Loki's fundamental feature, as he fails to take fully into account the complexity of the dossier assembled by Dumézil. This was briefly attempted by Friedrich von der Leyen in his study "Zur grosseren Nordendorfer Spange" (Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, LXXX [Westerned.; 1958], 210-213). Pointing out that Loki appears as a god of all shapes ("Keiner beherrscht wie er die Kuinste der Verwandlung"), von der Leyen suggests that, in a later, Christian context, the evil side of his complex personality was strongly emphasized, whereas, in Logajora and Lóðurr, his creativeness prevailed ("das Schopferische blieb das UIberwiegende"). In those two cases, the ethical approach is different: for the pagan, there is no such strong moral censure for his "kluge Oberlistungen" and "frechen und ubermultigen Betrug." However, von der Leyen concedes that his suggestions are purely tentative and rejects Krogmann's etymology as "sprachgeschichtlich zu kunstlich und inhaltlich ein Fehlgriff."

⁵² "Loki," Acta Philologica Scandinavica, XII (1938), 67-69. The etymology was suggested independently by Siegfried Gutenbrunner to Helmut Arntz and Hans Zeiss in Die einheimischen Runendenkmdler des Festlandes (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1939), p. 297.

⁵³ E.g., Lucien Musset, Introduction a la Runologie (Paris: Aubier, 1965), p. 371; Wolfgang Krause and Herbert Jankuhn, Die Runeninschriften im alteren Futhark, Vol. I: Text (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1966), p. 293. Cf., however, the negative comment of de Vries, Altgermanische Religions geschichte (1956), I, 310-311.

⁵⁴ Obviously, in this context, the deceitful outward appearance is meant to contrast with the evil disposition of Loki.

⁵⁵Gesta Danorum, ed. J. Olrik and H. Reder (Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard, 1931), 1, 10-11; see de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (1957), II,271.

⁵⁶ Cf. Kemp Malone, "Humblus and Lotherus," Acta Philologica Scandinavica, XIII (1939), 200-214, esp. 213-214.

⁵⁷ Against this identification, see my remarks in "Notes critiques sur les concordances germano-celtiques," Ogam, VI (1954), 157-158.

⁵⁸Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, I: Götterlieder, p. 23.

⁵⁹Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altwestnordischen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1948), p. 184-185; on the meaning of ON lómr, see Stefan Einarsson, Acta Philologica Scandinavica, IX (1934), 94-5.

⁶⁰Linguistische Studien, II, 67-70.

⁶¹ Cf. Beowulf 11. 247-251, where the Danish coast guard immediately recognizes Beowulf as a nobleman because of his impressive stature and fine presence: "Never did I see a bigger man among the warriors on earth …; he is no mere retainer … unless his countenance [wlite], his peerless appearance [œnlic ansȳn] deceives …" (see Willi Gramm, Die Körperpflege der Angelsachsen [Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1938], p. 8).

⁶² Swedish later (plural to the obsolete laat [Stiernhielm]) and Danish lader (plural to lade, 0. Dan. ladh(ac)) are late loan words from Middle Low German (lit(e), 'Benehmen,' Gebärde,' gelāt, 'Aussehen, Gebarde, ausseres Benehmen'). See Elof Hellqvist, Svensk etymologisk ordbok (3rd ed.; Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1948), I, 563; Niels Age Nielsen, Dansk etymologisk Ordbog (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1966), p. 221.

⁶³Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, p. 22.

⁶⁴ Cf., e.g., Johan Palmér, "Till Voluspá," Studier tillägnade Axel Kock (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1929), p. 100; Egilsson, Lexicon poeticum, ed. Jónsson, p. 390; Heggstad, Gamalnorsk Ordbok, p. 397; Johan Fritzner, Ordbog over Det gamle norske Sprog (reprint of 1891 ed.; Oslo: Tryggve Juul Møller, 1954), II, 391.

⁶⁵ Cf., e.g., Richard Cleasby and Gudbrand Vigfusson, An Icelandic English Dictionary, ed. William A. Craigie (2nd ed.; Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1957), p. 376. In this meaning, it corresponds to MLG l, 'boggy water, spring,' and reflects a Gmc. prototype *laho, akin to Lat. lacus, 'lake'; it survives in Norw. laa, 'boggy water (esp. reddish with iron ore).' See, e.g., Jan de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1961), p. 343.

⁶⁶Umou oddlaar i Ooins veori (Kock, Den norskislandska Skaldediktningen, 1, 36). "the … resounded in the fight (literally: 'Othin's weather')." On the translation of the kenning by 'blood,' see, e.g., Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden, p. 205; Egilsson, Lexicon poeticum, ed. Jónsson, p. 434; Heggstad, Gamalnorsk Ordbok, p. 501.

⁶⁷Eddica et Scaldica. Fornvastnordiska Studier, Vol. I (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1927), pp. 69-71, 122.

⁶⁸ 'Visor,' st. 6 (Kock, Den norsk-islandska Skaldediktningen, p. 43):

Svort augu berk sveigasnyrti-Grund til fundar-pykkik erma Ilmiallfolr ok la solva.

⁶⁹ Heggstad, Gamalnorsk Ordbok, p. 487; see also Egilsson, Lexicon poeticum, ed. Jónsson, p. 561.

⁷⁰ Cf. e.g., Egilsson, Lexicon poeticum, ed. Jónsson, p. 390, where it appears in association with the translation of 16 in Voluspá by 'blood,' but as reflecting a particular semantic development: the phrase sol lo means 'pallor' ('blegt udseende, 10d'), as is confirmed by its relation with allfolr in the context of the stanza ("With black eyes and a pallid countenance, I betake myself to a meeting with the elegant lady with the snoods—very pale do I seem to be to the lady" [literally: 'the Ilmr of the sleeves']).

⁷¹ Wilhelm Schulze, Emil Sieg, and Wilhelm Siegling, Tocharische Grammatik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1931), p. 49 (etwa 'Aussehen, Geste'); Pavel Poucha, Institutiones Linguae Tocharicae, Vol. I: Thesaurus Linguae Tocharicae Dialecti A (Prague: Statni Pedagogicke Nakladatelstvi, 1955), p. 271 ('aspectus, gestus'). It appears frequently in a phrase with pikar in the meaning 'appearance and gestures,' e.g., k,, ulenici wanke lek pikffr (55b4) 'weibliches Geschwatz, Miene und Gebarde.'

⁷² A. J. van Windekens, Lexique etymologique des dialectes tokhariens (Louvain: Museon, 1941), p. 56, derives it from IE *wlek-, 'shine,' and compares Skt. ulka 'meteor'; since this is semantically rather unconvincing, Vittore Pisani (Glottica Parerga. 5. Etimologie tocariche [Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1942-1943], p. 26) prefers to compare OCS lice. [prosdpon], Russ. lic, 'face' (about which, see Max Vasmer, Russisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, [Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1953], II, 41), but he must admit that Toch. B e, instead of *ai, hardly agrees with the Indo-European prototype *leyk- implied by the Slavonic terms. In genuine Tocharian words, A B e is, indeed, deemed to reflect IE *e

(cf. Walter Couvreur, Hoofdzaken van de Tochaarse Klanken Vormleer [Louvain: Philologische Studien, 1947], p. 10; Wolfgang Krause and Werner Thomas, Tocharisches Elementarbuch [Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1960], p. 56).

⁷³ With initial stress like Gmc. *lahce, 'water,' in ON 1, la (see Charles Clyde Barber, Die vorgeschichtliche Betonung der germanischen Substantiva und Adjektiva [Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1932], p. 44).

⁷⁴ "Wörter mit -e- im Ostund Westtoch, sind selten und sämtlich etymologisch dunkel, soweit es sich nicht um Lehnwörter handelt" (Wolfgang Krause, in a personal communication). Though Krause considers lek as "echt tocharisch" (Tocharisches Elementarbuch, p. 55), one may therefore wonder whether the term is not borrowed from a common source in the two dialects? Because of the -e- vocalism, the possibility of a Bactrian origin might be taken into consideration (see Werner Winter's paper "Bactrian Loanwords in Tocharian," read before the American Oriental Society meeting at New Haven, Connecticut, on March 22, 1967).

⁷⁵Skáldskaparmál Chap. 69: Hár heitir lá.

⁷⁶Tidskriftforphilologi ogpaodagogik, N.R., IV, 31 ff.

⁷⁷Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, 1: Götterlieder, p. 21.

⁷⁸ F. de Tollenaere, De schildering van den mensch in de Oudijslandsche familiesaga (Louvain: De Vlaamsche Drukkerij, 1942), p. 67; with reference to Vilhelm Grønbech, Vor Folkewet, III, 157 ff. (= The Culture of the Teutons, [London: Oxford University Press/Copenhagen: Jespersen and Pios, 1931], II, 123-125, with further bibliographical data, III, p. 100-101) and to Ake Ohlmarks, Heimdalls Horn und Odins Auge (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup/Copenhagen: Levin and Munksgaard, 1937), p. 362 (in Saxo's narrative the priest of Svantovit has long hair and a long beard, in contrast with current fashion). See also Wolfgang Krause, Die Frau in der Sprache der Altislandischen Familiengeschichten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1926), p. 82; Willi Gramm, Die Körperpflege der Angelsachsen, pp. 9, 13-16, 70-79 (to which should be added the remarks of Valtyr Guðmundsson on "Haarpflege" and "Haartracht" in Johannes Hoops, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, [Strasbourg: Karl J. Truibner, 1914], II, 345-347). On the concept of hamingia, see, e.g., de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, (1937), II, 348-351; (1956), I, pp. 222-224.

⁷⁹ Karl August Eckhardt (ed.), Lex Salica: 100 Titel-Text (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1953), pp. 148-149 (XXXV.2, XXXVI.2).

⁸⁰Germanica, Chap. 38 (Suebi); see Much, Die Germania des Tacitus pp. 332-337. Whether the description muliebri ornatu of the Naharvalian priests (Chap. 43) also implies long hair is more doubtful; if the Vandalic (H)astingi are to be closely associated with the Naharvali, as Karl Müllenhoff claims, their name (Gmc. ^*Hazdingōz, derived from ^*hazdaz, 'woman's hair' [ON haddr, OE heord], would point in that direction (see Much, Die Germania des Tacitus, p. 380; Georges Dumézil, La Saga de Hadingus [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1953], pp. 126-127).

⁸¹ Tacitus, Germania, Chap. 31; cf. V. Grønbech, The Culture of the Teutons, II, 123; Much, Die Germania des Tacitus, pp. 291-298.

⁸² Cf. de Tollenaere, De schildering van den mensch, pp. 100-101.

⁸³Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur XVIII (1894), 560.

⁸⁴ (1937), II,312; (1957), II, 272.

⁸⁵ "Förbjudna namn. V. Luggude, Ludgo och Luggavi," Namn och Bygd, VI (1918), 28-40.

⁸⁶ E.g., Luggude (Skåne, thirteenth century: Lyuthgudhœret, on the secondary insertion of -j-, see Sahlgren, "Förbjudna namn," Namn och Bygd, pp. 36-37. Ludgo (1293: Liuthguthuwi); Luggavi (1310: Ludhgudwi; the second component is OSwed. gudha, 'goddess,' [see Sahlgren, "Förbjudna namn," p. 32]).

⁸⁷ Hugo Gering (Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, I: Götterlieder, p. 23) considers that the "völlig gesicherte länge des wurzelvokals (Lópors steht in der Isl[endinga] dr[ápa] in aðalhending mit glópa)" excludes Sahlgren's hypothesis; to this, de Vries (The Problem of Loki, p. 53) comments: "The objection of Gering … is of no value, for Haukr Valdísarson, who lived in the 12th century has borrowed the kenning Lóþurs vinr for Othin from Eyvindr's Háleygjatal, where the vowel may be short as well as long. In fact, the Voluspá proves the length of the vowel, as in the line of st. 18 lo gaf Lóðurr no other quantity is possible." Willy Krogmann ("Loki," Acta Philologica Scandinavica, p. 61) however, objects: "Wir haben gar keinen Grund anzunehmen, dass Lóðurr sein ō erst dem Verfasser der Íslendinga drápa verdanke, ganz abgeschen davon, dass schon wegen des Unterschiedes zwischen lið Lóðurs vinar und gnýr vinar Lóðurs nicht an eine unmittelbare Uebernahme aus Eyvindrs Háleygjatal zu denken ist." Actually, de Vries does not assume that the length of ō only developed in the twelfth century, since he states: "Sahlgren has aptly suggested that the long ó may be the consequence of the fact that in course of time the name Loðverr (where the first syllable is by position long) was changed into Loðurr and then the syllable Loð-, used in the same line, had to lengthen its vowel." However, as Krogmann pointed out ("Loki," p. 61), Sahlgren merely said: "Det metriska skemat fordrar hos loðvR lång första stavelse. Man har därfor i normaliserade texter insatt Lóðurr. Detta är enligt min mening fullständigt oriktigt. Sättes i stället in Loþverr blir stavelsen fortfarande lång och ett begripligt fonemerhålles."

⁸⁸ The basic difference between personal names like Onundr and Lóðurr is that the former reflect the loss of -ν- with a change of o to u (see Adolf Noreen, Altnordische Grammatik. I. Altisländische Grammatik [4th ed.; Halle/Saale: Max Niemeyer, 1923], pp. 127-128, sec. 148), whereas a syncope of -e- in the second syllable seems to be involved in ^*Loþverr. At any rate, at the time of the reduction of^*Loþverr to ^*Loðurr (which must be posterior to the composition of Voluspá, i.e., after 950), the use of the term was confined to verse reflecting mythological tradition, in which the metrical length of o in ^*Loþverr had to be preserved.

⁸⁹ See, e.g., Alexander Jóhannesson, Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Bern: A. Francke, 1954), p. 746; Jan de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 363.

⁹⁰ J. Sahlgren, "Förbjudna namn," Namn och Bygd, pp. 34-35.

⁹¹is unca lud giliðen, lîk gidrusnod (Otto Behaghel, Heliand und Genesis [4th ed.; Halle/Saale: Max Niemeyer, 1933], p. 9. OS lud is translated by German 'Gestalt' by Edward H. Sehrt (Vollständiges Wörterbuch zum Heliand und zur altsächsischen Genesis [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1925], p. 352) and by Ferdinand Holthausen (Altsächsisches Wörterbuch [Münster and Köln: Böhlau, 1954], p. 48). Heinrich Wagner, however, translates 'Lebenskraft' and compares MIr. lúth, 'Kraft' (Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, XXIV [1953], 92).

⁹² Sigmund Feist, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1939), p. 323, 337; Jóhannesson, Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 146.

⁹³ Cf. my comments on Adrien Bruhl's Liber Pater (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1953), in Latomus, XIII (1954), 295-296.

⁹⁴ Jóhannesson, Isländisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 732; de Vries, Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959), p. 343; see also Frisk, Griechisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, pp. 89-90.

⁹⁵ "Wortgeschichtliches. 3," in Mélanges linguistiques offerts à M. Holger Pedersen (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1937), pp. 41-42. Ferdinand Holthausen (Vergleichendes und etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altwestnordischen-Altnorwegischisländischen [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1948], p. 365) considers Lóðurr as possibly derived from this etymon.

⁹⁶ "Die illyrischen Götter Vidasus und Thana," in Glotta, XXXI (1951), 238-243. For a different interpretation of Viðarr, see Dumézil, "Le dieu scandinave Vioarr," Revue d'Histoire des Religions, CLXVIII (1965), 1-13, and La religion romaine archaïque, p. 331.

⁹⁷ A brief oral presentation of some of the ideas discussed in this paper was given at the March 1955 meeting of the Societe pour le Progres des Etudes philologiques et historiques (Brussels, Belgium); see Revue Belge de Philologie et d'Histoire, XXXIII (1955), 493-494. Further research for this paper was made possible through a University of Texas Research Council grant (no. R 0 45). Not all the problems connected with the Eddic myth of the creation of man have been tackled here; further research would have to focus, for example, on the etymology of the name Embla (see Sigurður Nordal, Voluspa, p. 44-45; de Vries, Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte (1957) II, pp. 371-372.