An episode in the story is the death
of Baldr. This we may assume to be the religion of the Viking age
(800-1000 A.D.), a compound of the beliefs of various ages and tribes.
_The Aesir._--The number of the Aesir is not fixed. _Hyndluljod_
says there were twelve ("there were eleven Aesir when Baldr went
down into the howe"). Snorri gives a list of fourteen Aesir or Gods
(Odin, Thor, Baldr, Njoerd, Frey, Tyr, Bragi, Heimdal, Hoed, Vidar, Vali,
Ullr, Forseti, Loki), and adds Hoeni in another list, all the fifteen
occurring in the poems; and sixteen Goddesses (Asynjor), the majority
of whom are merely personified epithets, occurring nowhere else. Of
the sixteen, Frigg, Gefion, Freyja and Saga (really an epithet only)
are Goddesses in the poems, and Fulla is Frigg's handmaid. In another
chapter, Snorri adds Idunn, Gerd, Sigyn and Nanna, of whom the latter
does not appear in the Elder Edda, where Idunn, Gerd (a giantess)
and Sigyn are the wives of Bragi, Frey and Loki; and two others,
the giantess Skadi and Sif, are the wives of Njoerd and Thor.
A striking difference from classical mythology is that neither Tyr
(who should etymologically be the Sky-god), nor Thor (the Thunder-god),
takes the highest place. Tyr is the hero of one important episode,
the chaining of the Wolf, through which he loses his right hand. This
is told in full by Snorri and alluded to in _Lokasenna_, both in the
prose preface ("Tyr also was there, with only one hand; the Fenris-wolf
had bitten off the other, when he was bound") and in the poem itself:
_Loki_.
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