There is here no
certainty as to detail; the Norse myth is advanced and congealed, if not
spurious, as Professor Bugge and his school would have us believe. At
the feet of Odin lie his two wolves, Geri and Freki, "Greedy" and
"Voracious." They hurl themselves across the lands when peace is broken.
Who shall say that they are to be entirely dissociated from Yama's two
dogs of death? The virgin Mengloedh sleeps in her wonderful castle on the
mountain called Hyfja, guarded by the two dogs Geri and Gifr, "Greedy"
and "Violent," who take turns in watching; only alternately may they
sleep as they watch the Hyfja mountain. "One sleeps by night, the other
by day, and thus no one may enter" (_Fioelsvinnsmal_, 16). It is not
necessary to suppose any direct connection between this fable and the
Vedic myth, but the root of the thought, no matter from how great a
distance it may have come, and how completely it may have been worked
over by the Norse skald, is, after all, alternating sun and moon and
their partners, day and night.
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