Names in Xenogears Acquired from Norse Mythology
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Irwin Kwan, tas.b@rocketmail.com
Deus Ex Machina: http://members.tripod.com/~project_xat/
March 1999.

DISCLAIMER: I used a source for this book, and it is cited below. 
Corresponding page numbers appear in the text.  There will likely be
no more updates of this document so don't ask me to explain anything
^_^ I don't know much in the first place!
     If you choose to use this document, please go ahead, but be
courteous and leave me an E-mail message telling me that you have
it.]


Source:
Cotterell, Arthur, 1996.  The Encyclopedia of Mythology.  London:
     Acropilos Books.


ANDVARI

P. 179

     Andvari was the dwarf who lost his treasure to the fire god
Loki.  He was a craftsman and was the richest dwarf, out of all men
who dwelt underground.   
     Loki, Odin, and Honir, three Norse gods were on an expedition
to Midgard (the land of men) when Loki was inticed by a sleeping
otter's soft fur, and he slew it with a stone.  As they travelled,
they came across a farmhouse, and offered to share the otter's meat
with the family in exchange for lodgings.  The farmer, named
Hreidmar, was horrified because the gift was his own son, Otter.
     The farmer cast a spell to weaken the guests and his two other
sons, Fafnir and Regin, bound them hand and foot.  Odin protested,
claiming that they did not know about the otter being the farmer's
son, so Hreidmar made a deal: he wanted enough gold to cover Otter's
skin, inside and out.  Otter's skin was endowed with magical powers,
and the skin could stretch to such a great length that no
comprehensible amount of gold could fulfill the task.
     Loki, accompanied by Hreidmar, undertook this great task, and
went through a maze of underground tunnels to an underground lake,
where he caught a large pike, which, not unlike the otter, turned out
to be quite more than it first appeared.  The pike was, in fact, the
dwarf Andvari.  Andvari sacrificed his immense treasure, which
included a magical gold-making ring (known as Andvarinaut), because
of Loki's horrible threats, but in his anger, the dwarf laid a
powerful curse on his ring.  The curse would cause doom to whoever
wore it.
     Loki went back with the farmer, and tried to cover Otter in
gold, but was off by a whisker, so he gave up the ring to Hreidmar. 
Loki freed his friends and told Hreidmar about the properties of
Andvari's curse.  As the curse foretold, Hreidmar was soon killed
after that by his son, Fafnir, who then ran away with the treasure. 
Eventually, Fafnir turned into a dragon because of his evil thoughts
and greed.

     The hero, Sigurd, was eventually convinced by his foster-father
Regin to pursue Fafnir the dragon.  Sigurd tracked the creature down
and slew it by cunningly cleaving the creature in its soft belly. 
However, Sigurd discovered that Regin was going to kill him in turn
for the treasure, and thus, he made sure that he hunted down Regin
first.  He managed to kill his foster-father.
     "In this way, we see that Andvari's curse continued to cling to
the stolen gold and brought about the death of all those who
attempted to possess it."  (P. 179, Cotterell).

[Note: It says in the book, also, to see "Rings of Power".  Perhaps
this legend was a large influence on Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings';
for instance, one might aquaint Andvari with Gollum, and the cursed,
gold-making ring with Frodo's Ring of Power.]

[Note: Why Bart's gear is called Andvari is quite beyond me; Andvari
himself did not appear to be significant in Norse legends, but his
ring caused the great hero Sigurd much grief.  Although Bart wasn't
as nice to Sigurd as he could have been, there was nothing in the
game that hinted to anything of the magnitude of giving away a cursed
ring.]


SIGURD (or Siegfried)

P.224, also 205, 219, and other pages.

     Also known as Siegfried, in German.  He was a northern Germanic
hero similar to King Arthur from Celtic Mythology.  He was the
foster-son of Regin the smith, and his natural birth parents were
Siegmund and Sieglinde.
     As was stated above, Sigurd eventually acquired Andvari's gold-
making ring by killing Fafnir the dragon, but he had to kill his
foster-father Regin, who coveted the cursed treasure.
     Eventually, Sigurd falls in love with Brynhild.  Brynhild was a
valkyrie who defied Odin and was put into a charmed sleep by Odin and
imprisoned in a ring of fire.  Sigurd braved the fire, woke the
woman, and fell in love with her.  He gave her Andvari's ring, and
due to the ring's curse of bad luck, was tricked into marrying
Gudrun.  Brynhild herself was tricked into marrying Gunner. 
Brynhild, at first, believed that Sigurd betrayed her and cried for
vengeance, and called for the Nibelung brothers to slay the hero. 
However, Brynhild was overcome by grief and killed herself to be laid
at rest beside him.

[Note: The dragon-slayer sword in Tactics Ogre is called the
"Fafniel".  It is not stated what Sigurd's sword was called in this
book.  In addition, one of the most powerful swords in the game is
known as the Brunhild Sword, which happens to be named after Sigurd's
love.]

[We see that Andvari's treasure, Andvarinaut, was the cause of
Sigurd's fall.  In many ways in Xenogears, this is true, as it was
always Bart who triumphed over Sigurd in the end: mainly in reference
to the Omnigear and the inheritance of the kingdom.]

(Information taken from under the refences of "Brynhild", "Tragic
Lovers", "Valkyrie", and "Rings of Power".]



HEIMDALL (also known as Heimdalr)

P.195

     The son of nine mothers and watchman for the Germanic gods; he
could have been seen as the "sky god".  He could hear the sounds of
grass and woll growing, and could see over one-hundred miles away. 
The name Heimdall may have been related with the idea of a "World
Tree", in which he was the supreme watchman at the top.
     He stood upon the bridge Bifrost, which linked Asgard (the
fortress of the gods) and Midgard (the land of men) together (heaven
and earth, respectively).  There, he was ready to blow his horn at
the onset of Ragnarok, in which he fell in a one on one battle with
Loki.
     In the mortal world, Heimdall disguised himself as Rig, the
mortal who established the three social groups of the nobles, the
peasants, and the enslaved.  As Rig, Heimdall visited in turn, three
houses in Midgard and fathered handsome children for the nobles,
sturdy children for the peasants, and ill-favoured children for the
slaves.
     The name Rig is associated with "king".  There is more legend
associated with Rig, but the above paragraph is a shorter summary of
the bulk of the story.

[Notes: Interesting that Heimdall, who is piloted by Citan, is
considered the "Watcher" of the bridge between "earth" and "heaven". 
Citan, in the game, is considered a "link" between the worlds of
earth and Solaris.  In the end, though, it is said that Heimdall is
supposed to blow the horn that starts Ragnarok (obviously, Citan did
not herald the final battle).
     In addition, he is also a "mortal", as Heimdall was when he
assumed the form of Rig.  How this relates directly to Citan and
Heimdall in Xenogears I cannot figure out at the moment.]


FENRIR (also Fenris)

P. 188

     Fenrir was the son of the mischief-making fire god, Loki, and
the forest giantess named Angrboda.  He was the devouring wolf, the
spawn of Ragnarok, and the doom of the gods.  "His was an axe-age, a
sword-age, an wind-age, a wolf-age, before the wrecking of the
world." (Cotterell, P. 189).
     Fenrir was kidnapped by the gods and kept under Asgard where
the gods could keep an eye on him, but he was so savage that only
Tyr, the war god, dared to feed him.  The gods tried to restrain
Fenrir by asking the dwarves to make a powerful chain, but no one
could loop it around his neck.  Only Tyr dared to, and he lost his
hand when Fenrir bit onto it after finding out that it would not
break.
     At Ragnarok, Fenrir was freed from captivity.  His vast mouth
stretched from the top of the sky to the ground, and he swallowed
Odin in the war.

[Notes: Citan pilots the gear, Heimdall, who heralds Ragnarok, and
eventually ends the game by piloting Fenrir, who, in the end,
destroys the king of the Norse Gods, Odin.  That's quite an
interesting connection.
     However, it would have been interesting to hear the references
that were made about Heimdall being a gear that could not be tamed to
Fenrir instead, as Fenrir was the vicious being that never let
himself be restrained.]


YGGDRASIL (also Yggdrasill)

P.251

     The name means something similar to "dreadful mount" and was
the cosmic ash tree in Germanic mythology.  The name was a reference
to either Odin's horse, Sleipner, or gallows.
     It was from the Yggdrasil that Odin hung himself for nine
months in order to gain wisdom: from this, sacrificial hangings were
derived as a way to worshipping the god.  The Tollund Man, found in
peat moss, was one of the persons offered in this ritual; he was a
prisoner found after battle.  Many parallels between the hanging of
Odin on the gallows and the crucifixion of Christ have been made: the
author here claims that the situation and circumastances were
surprisingly similar.
     The Yggdrasil is described as the largest and most stately tree
that has ever.  Its branches overhung the nine worlds and spread out
above the heavens.  It drew its power, supposedly, from three great
roots: one dedicated to Jothunheim, the land of the giants, the
second ended in Niflheim, close by the spring of Hvergelmir, where
the dragon Nidhogg would chew on the root when he was tired of
chewing corpses.  The third root ended in Asgard, the stronghold of
the gods beneath Urd's well, where the gods held their daily
assembly.
     Water was taken from Urd's well by the three fates, Urd, Skuld,
and Verdandi, to be mixed with the earth to prevent the Yggdrasil's
bark from rotting.

     In the photo of the wood carving of the Yggdrasil, from 8thcentury AD, we see that it looks like a flat, indented column
surrounded by curving vines that resemble a helix.  Inside the
column, swirls that are dynamic and full of vitality dance within. 
There are animals within the tree's roots, symbolizing the struggle
right at the source of all life.
     
     
[Notes: Why the heck Square chose Yggdrasil as the name of a sand
cruiser sure eludes me.  The idea of a "cosmic tree" is by no means
unique in European mythology, and it could be stated that the
Yggdrasil was the "backbone" for our heroes' efforts in the game, but
other than that, there is really no logical reason for the cruiser to
be labelled as the Yggdrasil.  We don't see any dragons knawing on
its roots, squirrels who tell the tree unpleasant messages from
Nidhogg, or people hanging themselves from it to gain wisdom.]

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