Árbók Landsbókasafns Íslands - Nýr flokkur - 01.01.1983, Page 40

40
BRÉF WILLARDS FISKES
„Balder the beautiful is dead,“ said Longfellow, and it turns out to
be true. The white Balder was only the mythic shadow of the white
Christ, projected through a pagan camera. Höðr the blind was a
masked Paris. Nanna, the tenderly-loved of Balder, is only Oinone.
Loki is Lucifer. The jarl Angantyr is only Kentaur, witli a Keltic
article prefixed to his name. Loðyn, Thor’s mother, is nothing but
Latona. And how long is this to go on? When Völva proves to be
merely Sibylla, with the first syllable of her name cut oíf, what
certainty is there that we shall be able to keep Thor and Oðinn and
Freyr? Will not some philologist soon find out that they, too, are false
gods, who belong not to the old North, but to India or some other
remote clime?
Seriously I feel a sort of tender compassion for you poets. For,
whom will you sing now? Whose deeds will you chant? When Balder
is gone, who is there left to praise? And the prose-writers, too, are
shorn of half their glory. Here are the great volumes of Keyser, and
Grimm and Simrock and Finnr Magnússon on the old Northern or
Teutonic Mythology. Many of their leaves must be torn out. Well
may Dr. Maurer speak of these new results of Eddic study as an
„úberraschende Entdeckung“ and as „wahrhaft verbluífend“.
I wish that I could see you once more, and talk all these things over
with you. But I can’t, and so I can only sigh with you over the
tarnished splendor of the ancient myths.
Good bye!
ever faithfully yours,
Willard Fiske
Mr. Steingrímur Thorsteinsson.
Kæri herra.
Heyrið þér skáldin ekki pípur Pans hljóðna mæðulega í íjarska? Sjáið þér ekki ljós
Valhallar blakta daufara langt í burtu? Er ekki sem þér skynjið faldaþytinn af gömlu
guðunum, er þeir þjóta hjá og hverfa, eins og óttaslegnar vofur, að fullu inn í
skuggalega afkima gleymskunnar?
Því að er það ekki einmitt um þetta sem þær snúast þessar uppgötvanir þeirra
doktoranna Bangs og Bugge. Hinum fornu guðum er steypt af stóli, eins og þegar
synir Satúrnusar kollvörpuðu honum, og þeir verða ekki framar kunnir í heimi
skáldskaparins. Þeir ganga fylktu liði út úr Eddu, þar sem þeir réðu ríkjum, en
reynast nú einungis hafa verið dulbúnir guðir og hetjur suðursins, er flúðu á