Oldal 114 [114]
VILMOS VOIGT
thence to the ground fell again.
140. ... I mastered mighty songs nine,
and a drink I had of the dearest mead...
141. Ihen began I to grow and gain in insight,
to wax eke in wisdom:
one verse led on to another verse,
one poem led on to the other poem.”
The situation is simple: Odin is hanging on the world-tree for nine days,
without eating or drinking, then he takes up the runes, falls down from
the tree and learns nine songs, the key to wisdom, and the capacity for making
verses one after the other. His new knowledge is twofold: runic and poetic.
From the text we learn that it was a difficult self-sacrifice, resulting in more
wisdom and poetic gift. From a phenomenological point of view, we have here
an example of an initiation rite. But it happened only once, at the beginning
of times, to the god of all wisdom, and it was never repeated, neither by gods
nor by humans. The secret knowledge of using the runes is an important part
of the event.
In general, the runes in Scandinavia are often associated with magic power
and use but runic writing itself was not religious or secret. Runes could
be used for any purpose and by anybody who mastered the art of carving
the signs. The oldest inscriptions with Old Germanic runes are on artefacts or
are tomb inscriptions with exact data. We do not have long runic inscriptions,
religious texts, or inscriptions with double or symbolic meanings.
Among the early songs in Old Icelandic, we do not find “mystery songs.”
Undoubtedly, however, mythological and ritual songs did exist. Their
specialized literature is not very rich.
One aspect I would like to dedicate special attention to is Euhemerism.'®
In mysticism and mysteries in general, there is a situation 1 (everyday life), which
develops into and becomes a complex situation 2 (higher strata of meaning,
hidden knowledge, and special techniques of achieving it). Euhemerism, then,
affirms that references to the divine in situation 2 are not of a divine character;
today’s gods just go back to ordinary situations of type 1 which took place
yesterday. In short, gods were first common people: dii homines fuisse.
In Old Icelandic literature, Euhemerism mingled with a Christian
understanding of religion: medieval learned authors considered the Old
Icelandic mythology as a field of Euhemerism. Ari Frodi in his Islendingabék
(1225) narrates the history of the Icelanders (and not their religion), pointing
out that two Nordic gods, Yngvi and Njordr, had in fact been men, even
7 Translation by Lee M. Hollander, The Poetic Edda, 36.
18 G. W. Weber, Euhemerismus, in RDA, Bd. 8, 1991, 1-16.
+ 112 +
Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 112 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:16