Stand up, Vidar!
And let the wolf's father[1]
Be guest at the feast,
That Loke may not
Bring reproach on us
Here in Æger's hall.
His realm is thus described in the Elder Edda:
Grown over with shrubs
And with high grass
Is Vidar's wide land.
There sits Odin's
Son on the horse's back:
He will avenge his father.
He avenges his father in the final catastrophe, in Ragnarok; for when the Fenris-wolf has swallowed Odin, Vidar advances, and setting his foot on the monster's lower jaw he seizes the other with his hand, and thus tears and rends him till he dies. It is now his shoe does him such excellent service. After the universe has been regenerated
There dwell Vidar and Vale
In the gods' holy seats,
When the fire of Surt is slaked.
Vidar's name (from viðr, a forest) indicates that he is the god of the primeval, impenetrable forest, where neither the sound of the ax nor the voice of man was ever heard; and hence he is also most fittingly surnamed the Silent God. Vidar is, then, imperishable and incorruptible nature represented as an immense indestructible forest, with the iron trunks of the trees rearing their dense and lofty tops toward the clouds. Who has ever entered a thick and pathless forest, wandered about in its huge shadows and lost himself in its
- ↑ Loke
