Note 141.1 — Chapter XX · THE MEDUSA-WITCH IN SAGA AND SUPERSTITION.

More nearly akin to the classical myth is a Danish tradition that in former days a troll who dwelt in the Issefiord was accustomed to stop every passing vessel and take a man by way of toll. At last it became known that the troll’s power would endure until the head of Pope Lucius, who had suffered decapitation in Rome ages before, should be shown him. Some monks were accordingly despatched to Rome for the head. “When the ship returned and was about to run into the fiord the troll made his appearance; but as soon as they held forth the head and the troll got a sight of it, he with a horrid howl transformed himself into a rock.” Representations in Roeskilde Cathedral commemorate the event.141.1 One of the commonest of Scandinavian sagas is that which attributes the power of transforming trolls and giants to the sun. The earliest mention of it is in the Helgi poems, which are only known to us in a single manuscript, the Codex Regius at Copenhagen, but which probably date from the tenth century. In one of these poems, Rimegerd, the giantess, whose father Helgi has slain, appears by night and calls on the hero to recompense her for her father’s slaughter. Helgi and Atli his warder detain her in a war of words until the sun rises, when Atli exclaims: “Look eastward now, Rimegerd! Helgi hath stricken thee with the wand of Death.… It is day, Rimegerd! Atli has lured thee to deadly delay. It will be a laughter-moving harbour-mark, methinks, that thou wilt make now thou art turned to stone!” The same catastrophe is implied in the Alvíssmal, also found only in the Codex Regius, but at least as old as the Helgi poems. Allwise the dwarf has come to fetch Freya, whom he has entrapped the Anses into a promise to give him as wife. He comes by night; and one of the Anses detains him with questions calculated to bring out his extensive cosmological knowledge, until the day breaks and the hall is full of sunshine. We are then to understand, from the triumphant expressions of his interlocutor, that the power of the sun effects his petrifaction.142.1 In a Norwegian ballad of Hermod the Young the hero rescues a beautiful maiden from a giantess, riding off with her on Christmas Day. The giantess pursues all night, and is on the point of catching the fugitives, when the sun arises and she is changed to a stone.142.2 Two tall isolated cliffs lift themselves out of the sound between Eysturoy and Streymoy, two of the Færoe Islands. They were a giant and his wife who had been sent from Iceland to drag the Færoe Islands nearer to that island. It was at night. The giant stood in the sea while the giantess took the other end of the rope, and after an ineffectual attempt made it fast to the top of one of the hills. She saw the glimmering of dawn and hastened down; but too late. Before she and her husband could wade back to Iceland with their charge the sun came up out of the sea and they were instantly turned to stone, to stand there for ever looking northward but unable to move from the spot.142.3 These are sufficient as samples of the Scandinavian belief in the transforming influence exercised by the gaze of the sun upon the evil powers of darkness. The incident has passed into a Lapp märchen from Tanen, where a king’s son, by the help of a friendly fox, has stolen a maiden called Evening-glow, the sun’s sister, from some giants who held her captive. The fox leads the pursuing giants astray until the dawn, when he exclaims: “See, there comes the sun’s sister!” They raise their eyes to the morning glow, and are forthwith changed into stone pillars.142.4 The incident here probably owes its origin to the adjacent Norsemen; the Quiché saga of the three tribal gods, Tohil, Avilix, and Hacavitz is, however, quite independent. Originally, we learn, there was neither sun, moon, nor star. When for the first time the sun rose, it petrified these and other ferocious deities, but without taking away from them the power of changing their forms and resuming mobility when they pleased.143.1 According to the story of the inhabitants of Hispaniola, men came out of two caves. A giant, Machakael, was set to guard these caves and prevent mankind from looking upon the light of the sun. One night he wandered from his post, and could not return before sunrise. The sun rose out of the sea and looked with anger upon the giant, who was forthwith turned into a rock called Kauta.143.2