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The Swarm: Valhalla

In Scandinavia mead was a national drink, and none who know the delights of Valhalla itself can doubt that mead flowed in those high halls where all were heroes ! Honey dropped from the leaves of the sacred ash Ygdrasil, as in ancient Greece it dropped from the oak of Zeus; but the mead of Valhalla, as we learn from the "Younger Edda," was derived from another source.

Odin received the Einheriar, or heroes slain in battle, in Valhalla. "Then asked Gangleri the Wayfarer, 'What have the Einheriar to drink, which can supply them together with their meat (the flesh of the ever-renewed boar Sæhrimner), or is water their drink there?' Then answered Hár (the Lofty One), 'Wonderfully spierest thou now, that Allfather should bid to him King or Jarls or other chief men, and should give them water to drink! And, indeed, many men, I trow, come up to Valhall, who, we should think, had dearly bought their water-drinking, if no better cheer could be expected there, - even such as have suffered wounds and pains unto the death. Nay ! something very different have I to tell thee there-about. A goat there is, hight Hejdrun, which standeth up in Val- 4 hall and biteth leaves from the branches of that right famous tree called Lerathr. Now from out her teats there runneth so much mead, that she filleth therewith each day a drinking vessel so huge that all the Einheriar are made drunken thereby?' Then quod Gangleri, 'Most curious surely is that Goat, and right excellent must be the tree whose leaves she croppeth.'"” From the "Elder Edda " we learn that Odin daily visited Saga, the Goddess of History, and drank with her mead from out a golden bowl.

In the "Elder Edda" we also learn how Heimdal, the ward of the gods, guarding the bridge to heaven against the mountain giants, sustains himself by means of mead. "Himinbjorg it is called, Where Heimdal rules Over his holy halls; There drinks the ward of the gods In his delightful dwelling Glad the good mead."

In the "Eddas" mead flows as freely as in the Anglo- Saxon poems; every guest has it pressed upon him. "The massy flagon deign to wield, With generous cool metheglin filled," is ever the invitation, though the wording may differ, as "Bid him welcome, maiden; haste, Let him our metheglin taste."

In "Tegner's Frithiof's Saga," when King Bele feels his death approaching, he says: - "My mead-cup's flavor all is gone, The helm weighs down my brow; My vision fails to trace the lines Of human weal and woe; But nearer, brighter, Valhall shines, - My death's at hand, I trow!"

Mead The mead-hall was the meeting-place of heroes where, "Went there at times a fair maid round the board, upfilling the mead-horns, - Blush'd she with downcast eyne, - in the mirrowing shield her image, Even as she blush'd too; - how it gladded the deep-drinking champions!"

After the battle, the feast; care has no place here. "What wilt thou? - For have we not more than we need Of rich yellow bacon and brown-foaming mead?"

In Frithiof's Saga we have the hero's love song in which he assures his beloved, - "Did Valhall's blushing maids round-proffer The Mead-Horns, rich with foam of gold, - I Thee alone would pledge, Thee offer In gentle whispers love untold."