The hieros gamos myth is thus multi-functional. The genealogical function has been in
focus here so far, but the giantess has other symbolic meanings than as a proto-mother to
ruling families. She may also be interpreted as a representative of the territory ruled by
the king or earl. She is a personification of the land that is to be conquered and governed
by the ruler. In Norse poetry the relationship between the territory and the ruler may be
pronounced in erotic metaphors as a love relation between woman and man. In scaldic
poems connected to the earls of Lade, the territory is called ‘the bride of Óðinn’ or ‘the
broad-cheeked bride of Óðinn’, lying in the arms of the earl as his mistress (Ström
1983 ).
DEATH AND FATEIt is self-evident that a myth that deals with an erotic relationship between man and
woman contains a fertility motif. But the myth of this extremely exogamous marriage
includes further meaningful elements. The polar relationship involves a unification of
opposites that contain within themselves the seed of a fate-laden new creation. In this way,
the myth falls into a pattern that is characteristic of the pagan Norse view of life. New
forms spring from the merger of opposite forces. An essential point is that the initial
situation determines the consequences. In the powerful semantic field of the myth of
hieros gamos – the abnormal relationship between the gods and the giant world – we can
find the explanation of the fated life and death.
The poem Ynglingatal offers several variations of the theme ‘the death of the king’.
This material has led scholars to regard the poem as a major source of the tradition of
Scandinavian royal sacrifice or cult of the dead king. A common feature in the portrayal
of the deaths of the different kings by this poet is the fact that death appears as
meaningless and dishonourable as that of the prototypic king, Fjo ̨lnir, who drowned in a
butt of mead in far from honourable circumstances (Ynglingatal saga ch. 11 ). Things
hardly went better for the remaining kings of ynglingar.
The motif of dramatic destiny of the rulers is probably expressed in the myth of the
extreme exogamy between representatives of the gods and the giant world. Genealogical
explanatory models are typical of the pagan Norse society. If one considers the saga
literature, one will recognise that the saga narrator uses the same original model when
he introduces a new pagan character (Meulengracht Sørensen 1977 ). It is typical of these
heroes that their life is determined by fate to a special degree, and this destiny is in the
end rooted in its own, inherited constitution. The pattern is based on the fact that
the hero derives on his father’s side from a recognised social milieu, but on the mother’s
side from Útgarðsættir – in other words from a socially unrecognised group. Just like the
king, the hero is presented as an incarnation of opposition between order and chaos. He
bears within himself the whole spectrum of possibilities for life. The powerful tension in
his being is only released through his fated death, which is usually violent and dramatic.
The Norse marriage myth with its extreme polarity reflects the Norse cosmology where
both the polarity and the interaction between the two poles is the main theme.
An interesting question is from where this important pattern of mythology origin-
ates. Frands Herschend ( 1996 ) seems to have found some strange parallels in south
Germanic poetry of the sixth century. Johan Wickström ( 2001 ) has examined the Norse
heroic poems and concluded that traces of the wedding myth are working in heroic
poetry as well. Else Mundal ( 1997 ) has followed the myth in the historical writing in the
–– chapter 16 ( 3 ): The mythology of pagan Norse rulership––