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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
