One of the versions makes him spur his horse over the castle wall; another speaks of seven young men guarding the wall, who show him the way to the castle, and who in reality are "god's angels under the heaven, the blue."
The horse who bears his rider over the salt sea is a reminiscence of Sleipner, which Svipdag rode on more than one occasion; and when it is stated that Sveidal on this horse galloped over the castle wall, this reminds us of Skirner-Svipdag when he leaps over the fence around Gymer's abode, and of Hermod-Svipdag when he spurs Sleipner over the wall to Balder's lower-world castle. The shepherds, who are "god's angels," refers to the watchmen mentioned in Fjölsvinnsmal, who are gods; the wild beasts in the open court to the two wolf-dogs who guard Asgard's gate; the shepherd whom Sveidal meets outside of the wall to Fjölsvin; the linden-tree with the golden leaves to _Mimameidr_ and to the golden grove growing in Asgard. One of the versions makes two years pass while Sveidal seeks the one he is destined to marry.
In Germany, too, we have fragments preserved of the myth about Svipdag and Freyja. These remnants are, we admit, parts of a structure built, so to speak, in the style of the monks, but they nevertheless show in the most positive manner that they are borrowed from the fallen and crumbled arcades of the heathen mythology. We rediscover in them the old medieval poem about "Christ's unsewed grey coat."
The hero of the poem is Svipdag, here called by his father's name Orendel, Orentel--that is, Orvandel. The father himself, who is said to be a king in Trier, has received another name, which already in the most ancient heathen times was a synonym of Orvandel, and which I shall consider below. This in connection with the circumstance that the younger Orentel's (Svipdag's) patron saint is called "the holy Wieland," and thus he has the name of a person who, in the mythology, as shall be shown below, was Svipdag's uncle (father's brother) and helper, and whose sword is Svipdag's protection and pledge of victory, proves that at least in solitary instances not only the events of the myth but also its names and family relations have been preserved in a most remarkable and faithful manner through centuries in the minds of the German people.