her back to Asgard.

The poet of _Eiriksmal_, quoted above, alludes to the Baldr myth:
Bragi, hearing the approach of Eirik and his host, asks "What is
that thundering and tramping, as if Baldr were coming back to Odin's
hall?" The funeral pyre of Baldr is described by Ulf Uggason: he is
burnt on his ship, which is launched by a giantess, in the presence
of Frey, Heimdal, Odin and the Valkyries.

Though heathen writers outside of Scandinavia are lacking, references
to Germanic heathendom fortunately survive in several Continental
Christian historians of earlier date than any of our Scandinavian
sources. The evidence of these, though scanty, is corroborative,
and the allusions are in striking agreement with the Edda stories in
tone and character.

Odin (Wodanus) is always identified by these writers with the
Roman Mercurius (whom Tacitus named as the chief German God). This
identification occurs in the eighth-century Paulus Diaconus, and in
Jonas of Bobbio (first half of the seventh century), and probably rests
on Odin's character as a wandering God (Mercury being diaktoros), his
disguises, and his patronage of poetry and eloquence (as Mercury is
logios). Odin is not himself in general the conductor of dead souls
(psychopompos), like the Roman God, his attendant Valkyries performing
the office for him. The equation is only comprehensible on the
presumption of the independence of Germanic mythology, and cannot be
explained by transmission. For if Odin were in any degree an imitation
of the Roman deity, other notable attributes of the latter would have
been assigned to him: whereas in the Edda the thieving God (kleptis)
is not Odin but Loki, and the founder of civilisation is Heimdal.

The legend of the origin of the Lombards given by Paulus Diaconus
illustrates the relations of Odin and Frigg. The Vandals asked Wodan
(Odin) to grant them victory over the Vinili; the latter made a similar
prayer to Frea (Frigg), the wife of Wodan. She advised them to make
their wives tie their hair round their faces like beards, and go with
them to meet Wodan in the morning. They did so, and Wodan exclaimed,
"Who are these _Long-beards_?" Then Frea said that having given the
Vinili a name, he must give them the victory (as Helgi in the Edda
claims a gift from Svava when she names him). As in _Grimnismal_,
Odin and Frigg are represented as supporting rival claims, and Frigg
gains the day for her favourites by superior cunning. This leg