Re[2]: [tied] Re: Spartacus, Hoby, etc etc

From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 66448
Date: 2010-08-13

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten"
> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

[...]

> John Lindow
> Swedish Legends of Buried Treasure
> The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 95, No. 377
> (Jul. - Sep., 1982), pp. 257-279

> 'The relative importance of buried treasure and its claim
> on the imagination is further indicated by attributes
> assigned to Odin, head of the Norse gods, by the medieval
> Icelandic mythographer Snorri Sturluson. In a euhemeristic
> account of Odin's founding of a kingdom in the North,
> Snorri wrote in his Ynglinga saga:

> Odin knew all about treasure in the ground, where it was
> hidden, and he knew the charms which would open the earth
> and boulders and stones and mounds, and he bound with
> words alone those who dwelt there [scil. supernatural
> beings and/or the dead] and went in and took what he
> wanted .... Odin established those laws in his land which
> had previously been maintained among the Æsir. Thus he
> established that all dead men were to be burned on a pyre
> with all their possessions. He said that with such riches
> as he had with him on the pyre each would come to
> Valhalla, and those too he would enjoy, which he had
> buried in the ground [Aðalbjarnarson 1941:19-20; my
> translation].

[...]

> Problem is, I can't find the first sentence of the passage
> in any version of the Ynglinga Saga online. Anybody
> recognize it?

It's from the middle of Ch. 7, Frá íþróttum Óðins:

Óðinn vissi um alt jarðfé, hvar fólgit var, ok hann kunni
þau ljóð, er upp laukst fyrir honum jörðin, ok björg ok
steinar, ok haugarnir, ok batt hann með orðum einum þá er
fyrir bjoggu, ok gékk inn ok tók þar slíkt er hann vildi.

The rest is from Ch. 8, Lagasetning Óðins:

Óðinn setti lög í landi sínu, þau er gengit höfðu fyrr með
Ásum. Svá setti hann, at alla dauða menn skyldi brenna ok
bera á bál með þeim eign þeirra; sagði hann svá, at með
þvílíkum auðœfum skyldi hverr koma til Valhallar, sem hann
hafði á bál; þess skyldi hann ok njóta, er hann sjálfr
hafði í jörð grafit:

<http://www.heimskringla.no/wiki/Ynglinga_saga>

Brian