The Form of Man.

 

Found on the land

With little power,

Ask and Embla

Without Orlaug.

Odh they had not,

Neither La nor Laeti,

Nor the Form of the Gods.

Spirit gave Woden,

Odh gave Hoenir,

La gave Lodur

And Lito Gotha.

Here we can see that the Gods found the First Man (Ask) and the First Woman (Embla) 'with little power' and with 'no destiny'. They had the material physical form and the vegetative force, and were seen as growing like trees, as can be seen from their names. These were formed through Natural Law and without the divine intervention of the Gods - they existed before the Gods altered their genetic makeup (so to speak). The Gods came, and from the 'trees' made humans with blood, motion and spiritual qualities. 

Lodur's gifts - La and Laeti makes from the original animal beings; La means 'blood' and Laeti means 'manners', i.e. the way in which people move and act. Blood and the power of motion sets animals apart from the trees and plants. Thus, blood is a very important concept here, and is one of the Gifts of the Gods. From this we get what is known as the inherited features, the growth, and the posture. The blood gives us the family-type, and also the family-ties, which were not acquired by the natural process of regeneration. 

Another gift given by Lodur is that of the Litr Gotha which is usually translated as 'good complexion' but which has a far deeper meaning than this. The Germanic-Norse people saw the Gods in human form, and this piece of text shows that these characteristics were borne by the Gods before Man was created; this form originally belonged to the Gods. The mystery here is that the Litr Gotha was the 'Form of the Gods' or the 'Light of the Gods'; Man was conceived in the image of the Gods. This 'Form of the Gods' gave shape and character to the physical form of Man; it was not merely an abstract concept. This means 'look, appearance, expression'.

Man has an 'inner body' or 'Body of Light' ('Astral Body') which is made in the 'image of the Gods'. This makes it clear that the outer body thus depends upon the litr which is the inner being. It seems that our emotions have an influence on the litr, such as 'blushing' or 'going pale'. As we can see from the legend around Sigurd-Siegfried one man's litr can be swapped with another, to give a different appearance to both. This is also known as Hamr which is a form of shape-shifting into another form, sometimes and animal form. It is the litr that lives on after death, and which passes on to the Realm of the Dead. Those who are deemed to be worthy are allowed to drink from the Serpent-Horn which contains the liquid of the Three Fountains of Life, those which give life to the world. Their litr gets a 'higher grade' of body and a nobler blood.

Honer gave to Man the gift of Odh which is connected to the emotions (Wod) and which forms the human personality, including Memory and the Will. Since the by-names Longleg and Mireking were applied to Honer this suggests that Honer is the Stork, a concept that we still had (until recently) whence the new-born child is brought by the Stork. He brings to the mother the human Ego that is to become. It seems that the 'fruit' of which the child is developed is grown on the World Tree, which is logical when the First Man and First Woman were created from 'trees'. Each individual then develops his 'Family Tree'. In Fjolsvinnsmal 22 we find that it is called manna mjotudhr - 'Man-Measurer'. 

Woden, the High-God of the Ese-Gods adds Ond which is the Spirit of Man; thus man not only was given a Divine Outer Form but also a Divine Inner Form, thus the idea than Man was descended from the Gods. As the Cycle of the Ages turned it was necessary that man should strive to create a higher spiritual development, and in the case of those who do their outer and inner form has taken on a 'higher vibration', so much so that after their death this lives on as a powerful force. This is the Fire seen around the burial-mounds of the Aethlingas and Divine Heroes. The 'Dweller-in-the-Mound' retained his character after death, but this could also be said not just of the good and just, but of the evil and corrupt too. Hence the term draugh which came to mean just 'evil' in later times, but was originally said of both types. 

Since Man has the 'Image of the Gods', and his inner being reflects that which is is outer physical being, then we can today glimpse the reason why so many people are taking on a degenerate appearance. When the inner being is 'sick', the outer being takes on that appearance. There is another important point here, the Christian Church long ago denied the Spirit of Man and Rudolf Steiner predicted that materialistic scientists would find a way to destroy the Soul of Man. The techno-crackpots have also declared that man his no Free-Will and that there is no 'Spirit', nor 'Soul'. They have declared war on the Gods by trying to destroy their Divine Creation.