Norse Stories Retold From The Eddas , livre ebook

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48 pages

English

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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Sujets

Folk Tales

Fairy Tales

Legends

Mythology

Fiction

Informations

Publié par	Read Books Ltd.
Date de parution	06 septembre 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781473351974
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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NORSE STORIES RETOLD FROM THE EDDAS BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Hamilton Wright Mabie
Hamilton Wright Mabie was born at Cold Spring, New York, America in 1846. He was an American essayist, editor, critic and lecturer, best known for his collections of children s stories and fairytales. Mabie was the youngest child of Sarah Colwell Mabie, who was from a wealthy Scottish-English family and Levi Jeremiah Mabie, whose ancestors were French political exiles.
Due to business opportunities with the opening of the Erie Canal (a canal in New York that originally ran about 363 miles (584 km) from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie) his family moved to Buffalo when he was approaching school age. At the young age of sixteen, Mabie passed his college entrance examination, but waited a year before attending Williams College (1867) and Columbia Law School (1869).
While at Williams, Mabie was a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity and later served as the first president of the North-American Inter-fraternity Conference. He received honorary degrees from his own alma mater, from Union College and from Western Reserve and Washington and Lee Universities. Although Mabie passed his bar exams in 1869 he hated both the study and the practice of law-avoiding it where at all possible! In 1876 he married Jeanette Trivett and was subsequently hired to work at the Christian Union magazine, an association that lasted until his death.
Mabie lived for most of his life at Summit, New Jersey, and here wrote some of his best known works. These included; Norse Stories, Retold from the Eddas (1882), Nature in New England (1890), William Shakespeare; Poet, Dramatist and Man (1900) Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know (1905) and American Ideals, Character and Life (1913). In 1884 Mabie was promoted to Associate Editor of the Christian Union (renamed The Outlook in 1893) and then elected to the Author s Club. This prestigious association included members of established reputation such as George Cary Eggleston, Richard Watson Gilder, Brander Mathews and Edmund Clarence Stedman-and signalled Mabie s acceptance into the literary community. Mabie died in 1916 at the age of seventy.
Contents

I.
T HE M AKING OF THE W ORLD
II.
G ODS AND M EN
III.
O DIN S S EARCH FOR W ISDOM
IV.
H OW O DIN BROUGHT THE M EAD TO A SGARD
V.
T HE W OOING OF G ERD
VI.
T HE M AKING OF THE H AMMER
VII.
O DIN IN G EIRROD S P ALACE
VIII.
T HE A PPLES OF I DUN
IX.
T HOR GOES A F ISHING
X.
H OW T HOR FOUND HIS H AMMER
XI.
H OW T HOR FOUGHT THE G IANT H RUNGNER
XII.
T HE B INDING OF THE W OLF
XIII.
T HOR S W ONDERFUL J OURNEY
XIV.
T HE D EATH OF B ALDER
XV.
H OW L OKE WAS P UNISHED
XVI.
T HE T WILIGHT OF THE G ODS
XVII.
T HE N EW E ARTH
Norse Stories

Chapter I
The Making of the World
EIGHT hundred years ago, when the galleys of the bold Norsemen were scudding through storm and mist far into the unknown western seas, or, in the soft summer of the Mediterranean, riding at anchor in the ports of Italy and Northern Africa, the old stories of the battles of the gods and the giants that had been repeated for hundreds of years by Norse firesides in the long winter evening were brought together by some unknown man in Iceland, and were known henceforth as the Elder Edda; and a hundred years later Snorre Sturleson retold the same old stories, with others equally marvellous, in the Younger Edda. These ancient books, which a brave and noble race carried in its heart through all its wide wanderings and conquests, take one back to the beginning of time, and tell of the birth of the worlds and the coming of the gods to rule over them.
Norway faces the sea with a line of cliffs so massive that their foundations seem everlasting. Islands without number rise out of the tossing waves; the deep, tranquil waters of the fjords, overhung with fir-covered mountains, and bright at night with the quenchless splendour of the stars, flow through narrow channels to the outer ocean; and against the sky great mountains stand vast and immovable, as if from eternity to eternity. No Norseman, steering his adventurous galley along these rocky shores, seeing, perhaps, the mighty rush of the polar seas against the North Cape, and hearing the long reverberation of Thor s hammer roll from mountain peak to mountain peak, would have believed that these things had not been as he saw them from the very beginning, if the Eddas, wiser than any wisdom of man, had not told him of a time when even the gods had not begun to live, and in the vast space where no worlds hung and no heavens shone there was nothing but the unseen spirit of the great All-father, solitary and silent in the depths.
Not even the Eddas are able to reveal his thoughts or to describe his life in the awful solitariness of a silent universe; they can only declare that in his own good time he began to build the worlds, and far in the north Niflheim rose out of the depths, the land of eternal winter wrapped in fogs and mists, and far in the south Muspelheim, the land of quenchlesr fire, glowing with unspeakable heat and overhung with clouds and fiery sparks, in the midst of whose blinding heat and light sat Surt, guarding the kingdom of fire with a flaming sword. Between the land of ice and the land of fire yawned the bottomless abyss, Ginungagap, black and fathomless, and into it the rivers of Niflheim poured with soundless fury, and as the icy streams fell into the darkness they congealed and hung in great masses from the northern edges of the abyss; and over the awful chasm and the silent cataracts icy fogs gathered and bitter winds swept.
Against the whirling snows and shifting fogs of Niflheim glowed the wandering flames and floating fires of Muspelheim, throwing broad beams of light far into the sunless abyss, and sending a wide glow through the drifting snow. Glittering sparks shot into the silent space above and floated far off towards the north like stars that had wandered from their courses; and as the icy mist met the burning heat in the upper air, it hung motionless for a brief moment and then fell drop by drop into the abyss, and there, out of heat and cold, fire and fog, in darkness and solitude, the giant Ymer grew into life. To give him food the cow Audhumbla was made, and as she stood nourishing the giant with her milk, she licked the icy stones which were covered with salt, and straightway the head of a man began to take shape, grew larger, and on the third day the man stood upright, fair of face and mighty of stature; and his name was Bure. Now Bure had a son, whom he called Bor, and Bor, in turn, became the father of Odin, Vile, and Ve, the first of the gods. The giant Ymer also was the father of many children who were frost-giants and enemies of the gods.
Ymer grew to such vast size, and was so full of evil, that Odin, Vile, and Ve could not live in peace with him, and at last they fell upon him, and slew him, and the blood poured in such torrents from his great body that all the giants, save Bergelmer and his wife, were drowned; these two alone escaped on a chest, and from them the whole race of the frost-giants sprang. The gods dragged Ymer s body into the centre of the abyss, and there they fashioned the world out of it. They wrought with divine beauty and power, spreading out the great plains, cutting the deep valleys through the hills, filling the wide seas and sending the waters far up into the deep fjords; and over all they stretched the bending heaven, and north, south, east, and west set a dwarf to keep it in place; and they caught the great sparks that floated out of Muspelheim and set them in the sky, until the splendour of the stars shone over the whole earth. Around the world lay the deep sea, an endless circle of waters, and beyond it were the dreary shores of Jotunheim, the home of the frost-giants.
To the giantess Night, and to her beautiful son Day, whose father was of their own number, the gods gave chariots and swift horses that they might ride through the sky once in every twenty-four hours. Night drove first behind the fleet Hrimfaxe, and as she ended her course at dawn bedewed the waiting earth with drops from his bit; Day flew swiftly after his dusky mother, the shining mane of his horse, Skinfaxe, filling the heavens with light. There was also one Mundilfare, who had a son and daughter of such exceeding beauty that he called the one Maane, or Moon, and the other Sol, or Sun; and the gods were so angry at his daring that they set the one to guide the Sun and the other the Moon in their daily courses around the world. So day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, were established.
In the very centre of the earth rose a lofty mountain, and on the top of it was the beautiful plain of Ida, overlooking all lands and seas. Here the gods came when their work was done, and looked upon all that they had made and saw that it was fair; the earth, green and fruitful, blossomed at their feet, and the heavens bent over them radiant with sun by day and filled with the soft splendour of moon and stars by night. And they chose the plain of Ida for their home, and built the shining city of Asgard. In the midst of it stood a hall of pure gold, whose walls were circled with the thrones of the twelve gods, and they called it Gladsheim. There was a noble hall for the goddesses also, and homes for all the gods. They made ready a great smithy, and filled it with all manner of tools, anvils, hammers, and tongs, with which to forge the weapons that were to slay the giants and keep the world in order. From earth to heaven they stretche