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BL860 .GSeVeT'^'" '■'""^ 
 
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 ^^"limiiiiiiIiii)fi'i!?if?i'i?flL,/,,..''y Jacob Grimm. 
 
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 3 1924 032 323 481 
 
TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. 
 
 BY 
 
 JACOB GBIMM. 
 
 A — 
 
 TEANSLATED PEOM THE FOURTH EDITION 
 
 WITH 
 
 NOTES AND APPENDIX 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES STEVEN STALLYBRASS. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: aEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, 
 
 CO VENT GARDEN. 
 
 1882. 
 
/^cornell\ 
 university 
 
 \LIBRARY^ 
 
TO 
 
 Professor MAX MULLER, M.A., &e., &e., 
 
 i^xs '^otrft 
 
 la 
 
 EESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
 
 BY PEEMISSION. 
 
^. J<ING AND pO., J'F^INTEF^, ;AbEI^EEN. 
 
TEANSLATOE'S PEEEACE. 
 
 " I THINE Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting 
 than any other. It is, for one thing, the latest ; it continued in 
 these regions of Europe till the eleventh century ; 800 years ago 
 the Norwegians were stiU worshippers of Odin. It is interesting 
 also as the creed of our fathers ; the men whose blood still runs in 
 our veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in so many ways. 
 . . . There is another point of interest in these Scandinavian 
 mythologies, that they have been preserved so well." — Caelyle's 
 " Hero-Worship ". 
 
 What Mr. Carlyle says of the Scandinavian will of course apply 
 to all Teutonic tradition, so far as it can be recovered ; and it was 
 the task of Grimm in his Deutsche Myihologie to supplement the 
 Scandinavian mythology (of which, thanks to the Icelanders, we 
 happen to know most) with aU that can be gleaned from other 
 sources, High-Dutch and Low-Dutch, and build it up into a whole. 
 And indeed to prove that it was one connected whole ; for, strange 
 as it seems to us, forty years ago it was stUl considered necessary to 
 prove it. 
 
 Jacob Grimm was perhaps the first man who commanded a wide 
 enough view of the whole field of Teutonic languages and literature 
 to be able to bring into a focus the scattered facts which show the 
 prevalence of one system of thought among all the Teutonic nations 
 from Iceland to the Danube. In this he was materially aided by 
 his mastery of the true principles of Philology, which he was the 
 first to establish on a firm scientific basis, and which enabled him 
 to trace a word with certitude through the strangest disguises. 
 
 The Comparative Mythology of all nations has made great 
 
 .strides since Grimm first wrote his book ; but as a storehouse of facts 
 
 within his special province of Teutonic Mythology, and as a clue to 
 
 the derivation and significance of the Names of persons and things 
 
vi Translator's Preface. 
 
 in the various versions of a myth, it has never been superseded 
 and perhaps it never can be. Wot that he confines himself to the 
 Teutonic field ; he compares it at every point with the classical 
 mythus and the wide circle of Slavic, Lettic and occasionally of 
 Ugric, Celtic, and Oriental tradition. StiU, among his Deutseh 
 kindred he is most at home ; and Etymology is his forte. But then 
 etymology in his hands is transfigured from random guessing into 
 scientific fact. 
 
 There is no one to whom Folk-lore is more indebted than to 
 Grimm. Not to mention the loving care with which he hunted up 
 his Kiridxr und Raus-marchen from all over Germany, he delights 
 to detect in many a nursery-tale and popular custom of to-day the 
 beliefs and habits of our forefathers thousands of years ago. It is 
 impossible at times to forbear a smile at the patriotic zeal with 
 which he hunts the trail of his German gods and heroes ; the glee 
 with which he bags a new goddess, elf, or swan-maid ; and his 
 indignation at any poaching Celt or Slav who has spirited away a 
 mythic being that was German bom and bred : " Ye have taken 
 away my gods, and what have I more ? " 
 
 The present translation of the Deutsche Mythologie wiU, like the 
 last (fourth) edition of the original, be published in Ifcree volumes ; 
 the first two of which, and part of the third, will contain the trans- 
 lation of Grimm's text, and the remainder of the third volume will 
 consist of his own Appendix and a Supplement. 
 
 The author's second and third editions (1844 and 1854) were 
 each published in 2 vols., accompanied by an Appendix consisting, 
 first, of a short treatise on the Anglo-Saxon Genealogies, and secondly, 
 of a large collection of the Superstitions of various Teutonic nations. 
 This Appendix will form a part of our VoL III. After Grimm's 
 death his heirs entrusted to Prof E. H. Meyer, of Berlin, the task 
 of bringing out a fourth edition, and including in it such additional 
 matter as the author had collected in his note-books for future use. 
 If Grimm had lived to finish his great Dictionary, which engrossed 
 the latter years of his Hfe,^ he would, no doubt, have incorporated 
 
 1 He used to say, he had a hook ready to run out of each of his ten fingers 
 hut he was no longer free. 
 
Translator's Preface. vii 
 
 the pith of these later jottings in the text of his book, rejecting 
 much that was irrelevant or pleonastic. The German editor, not 
 feeling himself at liberty to select and reject, threw the whole of 
 this posthumous matter into his third volume (where it occupies 
 370 pages), merely arranging the items according to the order of 
 subjects in the book, and numbering each by the page which it 
 illustrates. This is the Supplement so frequently referred to in 
 the book, under the form (" see Suppl"). I have already introduced 
 a few extracts from it in the Foot-notes, especially where it appeared 
 to contradict, or materially to confirm, the author's opinion ex- 
 pressed in the text. But in the present English edition it is intended 
 to digest this Supplement, selecting the most valuable parts, and 
 adding original articles by the editor himself and by other gentlemen 
 who have devoted special attention to individual branches of the 
 science of Folk-knowledge. A full classified Bibliography and an 
 accurate and detailed Index to the whole work will accompany the 
 book. It is hoped by this means to render the English Edition as 
 complete and serviceable as possible. 
 
 Grimm's Preface to the edition of 1844, giving a vigorous re- 
 sum4 of the book, and of the whole subject, will, as in the German 
 accompany Vol. II. There is so much in it, which implies the 
 reader's acquaintance with every part of the book, that I have felt 
 bound to keep it where I find it in the original. 
 
 The only additions or alterations I have ventured to make in 
 the text are the following : — 
 
 1. The book bristles with quotations in various languages, for 
 the most part untranslated. An ordinary German reader might 
 find the Old and the Middle High German about as intelligible as 
 an ordinary Englishman does Anglo-Saxon and Chaucer respec- 
 tively. But when it comes to making out a word or passage in 
 Old Norse, Greek, and even Slavic, I must suppose the author to 
 have written for a much more limited and learned public than that 
 which, I hope, will find this English edition sufficiently readable. 
 I have therefore translated a great many words and sentences, 
 
viii Translator's Preface. 
 
 where the interest, and even the argument, of the paragraph de- 
 pended on the reader's understanding the quotations. To have 
 translated all that is not English would have swelled the size of 
 the book too much. Apart from such translation, any additions of 
 my own are always placed in square brackets [ ], except a few 
 notes which bear the signature " Teans.". 
 
 2. For the sake of clearness, I have divided some of the chapters 
 (XII. to XVI.) into smaller sections with headings of their own. 
 
 3. I have consulted the English reader's convenience by sub- 
 stituting the w and m, which he is accustomed to see in Anglo- 
 Saxon words, for Grimm's v and a, as ' wteg ' instead of ' vag '. I 
 have also used the words ' Dutch, Mid. Dutch ' in a wider sense 
 comprehending all the Teutonic dialects of the Netherlands, instead 
 of coining the awkward adjective ' Netherlandish '. 
 
 One word on the title of the book. Ought not " Deutsche 
 Mythologie " to be translated German, rather than Teutonic Myth- 
 ology ? I am bound to admit that the author aimed at buUding 
 up a Beutsch mythology, as distinct from the Scandinavian, and 
 that he expressly disclaims the intention of giving a complete 
 account of the latter, because its fulness would have thrown the 
 more meagre remains of the Deutsch into the shade. At the same 
 time he necessarily draws so much upon the richer remains of the 
 Norse mythology, that it forms quite a substantive portion of his 
 book, though not exhaustive as regards the Norse system itself. 
 But what does Grimm mean by Deutsch ? To translate it by 
 German would be at least as misleading in the other direction. It 
 would not amongst us be generally understood to include — what he 
 expressly intends it to include — the Netherlands and England ; for 
 the English are simply a branch of the Low German race which 
 happened to cross the sea. I have therefore thought, that for the 
 English ear the more comprehensive title was truer to the facts on 
 the whole than the more limited one would have been. 
 
CH4PTER I. 
 INTEODUCTIOKi 
 
 From the westerftinost shore of Asia, Christianity had turned at 
 once to the opposite one of Europe. The wide soil of the continent 
 which had given it birth could not supply it long with nourish- 
 ment; neither did i£ strike deep root in the north of Africa. 
 Europe soon became, and remained, its proper dwelling-place and 
 home. 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that the direction in which the new faith 
 worked its way, from South to North, is contrary to the current of 
 migration which was then driving the nations from the East and 
 North to the West and South. As spiritual light penetrated from 
 the one quarter, life itself was to be reinvigorated from the other, 
 
 ^ In a book that deals so mucli with Heathenism, the meaning of the term 
 ought not to be passed over. The Greeks and Romans had no special name for 
 nations of another faith (for eVfpo8o|ot, fidpfiapoi were not used in that sense) ; 
 but with the Jews and Christians of the N.T. are contrasted edvos, edvea, 
 tdviKot, Lat. gentes, gentiles ; Ulphilas uses the pi. thiudSs, and by preference in 
 the gen. after a pronoun, thai thiudo, sumai thiudo (gramm. 4, 441, 457), while 
 thiudishds translates eOviKas Gal. 2, 14 As it was mainly the Greek religion 
 that stood opposed to the Judseo-Christian, the word "EXKrjv also assumed the 
 meaning i6vi<6s, and we meet with €X\r]v(.Ka>s = edviKSis, which the Goth would 
 still have rendered thiudisJcSs, as he does render "EXX?;i/cs thiuU6s, John 7, 35. 
 12, 20. 1 Cor. 1, 24. 12, 13 ; only in 1 Cor. 1, 22 he prefers Krekos. This 
 "EXXi)!/=gentilis bears also the meaning of giant, which has developed itself 
 out of more than one national name (Hun, Avar, Tchudi) ; so the Hellenic 
 walls came to be heathenish, gigantic (see ch. XVIII). In Old High German, 
 Notker still uses the pi. dwte for gentiles (Graff 5, 128). In the meanwhile 
 pagus had expanded its narrow meaning of Konfiri into the wider one of ager, 
 campus, in which sense it still Kves on in It. paese, Fr. pays ; while paganus 
 began to push out geintilis, which was lapsing into the sense of nobilis. All the 
 Eomance languages have their pagano, payen, &c., nay, it has penetrated into 
 Bohem. pohan, Pol. poganin, Lith. pagonas [but Euss. pogan=-aRc\ea,Tij. The 
 Gothic hdithi campus early developed an adj. hdithns agrestis, campestris = 
 paganus (Ulph. in Mark 7, 26 renders iXXrjvis by lidithnd), the Old H.G. heida 
 an adj. heidan, Mid. H.G. and Dutch heide heiden, A.S. haeS limKn, Engl, heath 
 heathen. Old Norse heiSi heiSinn ; Swed. and Dan. use hedning. The O.H.G 
 word retains its adj. nature, and forms its gen. pi. heidanero. Our present 
 heide, gen. heiden (for heiden, gen. heidens) is -erroneous, but current ever since 
 Luther. Full confirmation is afforded by Mid. Lat. agrestis = paganus, e.g. in 
 the passage quoted in ch. IV from Vita S. Agili ; and the ' wilde heiden ' in 
 our Heldenbuch is an evident pleonasm (see Supplement). 
 
 1 
 
2 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 The -worn out empire of the Eomans saw both its interior con- 
 vulsed, and its frontier overstept. Yet, by the same mighty- 
 doctrine which had just overthrown her ancient gods, subjugated 
 Eome was able to subdue her conquerors anew. By this means the 
 flood-tide of invasion was gradually checked, the newly converted 
 lands began to gather strength and to turn their arms against the 
 heathen left in their rear. 
 
 Slowly, step by step, Heathendom gave way to Christendom. 
 Five hundred years after Christ, but few nations of Europe believed 
 in him; after a thousand years the majority did, and those the 
 most important, yet not all (see Suppl.). 
 
 From Greece and Italy the Christian faith passed into Gaul first 
 of all, in the second and third centuries. About the year 300, or 
 soon after, we find here and there a christian among the Germans 
 on the Ehine, especially the Alamanni ; and about the same time 
 or a little earlier ^ among the Goths. The Goths were the first 
 Teutonic people amongst whom Christianity gained a firm footing ; 
 this occurred in the course of the fourth century, the West-goths 
 leading the way and the East-goths following ; and after them the 
 Vandals, Gepidee and Eugii were converted. All these races held 
 by the Arian doctrine. The Burgundians in Gaul became Catholic 
 at the beginning of the fifth century, then Arian under their 
 Visigoth rulers, and Catholic again at the commencement of the 
 sixth century. The Suevi in Spain were at first Catholic, then 
 Arian (about 469), until in the sixth century they, with all the 
 West-goths, went over likewise to the Catholic church. Not till the 
 end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth did Christianity win 
 the Franks, ^soon after that the Alamanni, and after them the 
 Langobardi. The Bavarians were converted in the seventh and 
 eighth centuries, the Frisians, Hessians and Thuringians in the 
 eighth, the Saxons about the ninth. 
 
 Christianity had early found entrance into Britain, but was 
 checked by the irruption of the heathen Anglo-Saxons. Towards 
 the close of the sixth and in the course of the seventh century, they 
 also went over to the new faith. 
 
 The Danes became christians in the tenth century, the Norwe- 
 gians at the beginning of the eleventh, the Swedes not completely 
 
 1 Waltz's Ulfila, p. 35. 
 
ismoDUCTiox 3 
 
 till the second, half of the same century. About the same time 
 Christianity made its way to Iceland. 
 
 Of the Slavic nations the South Slavs were the first to adopt 
 the christian faith: the Carentani, and under HeracHus (d. 640) 
 the Croatians, then, 150 years after the former, the Moravians in 
 the eighth and ninth centuries. Among the North Slavs, the 
 Obotritse in the ninth, Bohemians ^ and Poles in the tenth. Sorbs 
 in the eleventh, and Eussians at the end of the tentL 
 
 Then the Hungarians at the beginning of the eleventh, Li- 
 vonians and Lettons in the twelfth, Esthonians and Finns in the 
 twelfth and thirteenth, Lithuanians not even till the commencement 
 of the fifteenth. 
 
 All these data are only to be taken as true in the main ; they 
 neither exclude some earlier conversions, nor a longer and later 
 adherence to heathenism in limited areas. Eemoteness and inde- 
 pendence might protect the time-honoured religion of a tribe. 
 Apostates too would often attempt at least a partial reaction. 
 Christianity would sometimes lead captive the minds of the rich 
 and great, by whose example the common people were carried 
 away ; sometimes it affected first the poor and lowly. 
 
 When Chlodowig (Clovis) received baptism, and the Salian 
 Franks followed his lead, individuals out of all the Frankish tribes 
 had already set the example. Intercourse with Burgundians and 
 West-goths had inclined them to the Arian doctrine, while the 
 Catholic found adherents in other parts of Gaul. Here the two 
 came into collision. One sister of Chlodowig, Lanthild, had become 
 an Arian christian before his conversion, the other, Albofled, had 
 remained a heathen ; the latter was now baptized with him, and 
 the former was also won over to the Catholic communion.^ But 
 even in the sixth and seventh centuries heathenism was not yet 
 uprooted in certain districts of the Frankish kingdom. Neustria 
 
 ^ Fourteen Boliemiaii princes baptized 845 ; see Palacky 1, 110. The 
 Middle North-slaTs — ijiaderi, Tolenzi, Kycini, Circipani — still heathen in the 
 latter half of the 11th century; see Helmold 1, 21. 23 (an. 1066). The 
 Rugians not till 1168 ; Helm. 2, 12. 13. 
 
 ^ baptizata est Albofledis. . . . Lanthildis chrismata est, Greg. Tur. 2, 
 31. So among the Goths, chrismation is administered to Sigibert's ■wife Brune- 
 child (4, 27), and to Ingimd's husband Herminichild (5, 38, who assumes the 
 new name of Joannes. The Arians appear to have re-baptized converts from 
 Catholicism ; Ingund herself was compelled by her grandmother-mother in 
 law Goisuintha 'ut rebaptizaretur '. Eebaptizare katholicos, Eugippii vita 
 :Severini, cap. 8. 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 had heathen inhabitants on the Loire and Seine, Burgundy in the 
 Vosges, Austrasia in the Ardennes ; and heathens seem still to 
 have been living in the present Flanders, especially northwards 
 towards Friesland.^ Vestiges of heathenism lingered on among the 
 Frisians into the ninth century, among the Saxons into the tenth, 
 and in Ulce manner among the Normans and Swedes into the 
 eleventh and twelfth.^ Here and there among the northern Slavs , 
 idolatry was not extinct in the twelfth century, and not universally 
 so among the Finns and Lithuanians in the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth' ; nay, the remotest Laplanders chng to it still. 
 
 Christianity was not popular. It came from abroad, it aimed at 
 supplanting the time-honoured indigenous gods whom the country 
 revered and loved. These gods and their worship were part and 
 parcel of the people's traditions, customs and constitution. Their 
 names had their roots in the people's language, and were hallowed 
 by antiquity ; kings and princes traced their lineage back to 
 individual gods ; forests, mountains, lakes had received a living 
 consecration from their presence. All this the people was now to 
 renounce ; and what is elsewhere commended as truth and Isyalty 
 was denounced and persecuted by the heralds of the new faith as a 
 sin and a crime. The source and seat of all sacred lore was 
 shifted away to far-off regions for ever, and only a fainter borrowed 
 glory could henceforth be shed on places in one's native land. 
 
 The new faith came in escorted by a foreign language, which 
 the missionaries imparted to their disciples and thus exalted into a 
 sacred language, which excluded the slighted mother-tongue from 
 almost all share in public worship. This does not apply to the 
 Greek-speaking countries, which could follow the original text of 
 the christian revelation, but it does to the far vidder area over 
 which the Latin church-langnage was spread, even among 
 Eomance populations, whose ordinary dialect was rapidly emanci- 
 pating itself from the rules of ancient Latin. Still more violent 
 was the contrast in the remaining kingdoms. 
 
 The converters of the heathen, sternly devout, abstemious, 
 mortifying the flesh, occasionally peddling, headstrong, and in 
 
 ^ Authorities given in Oh. IV.— Conf. lex Frisionum, ed. Qaupp, p. xxiv 
 19, 47. Heathenism lasted the longest between Laubaoh and the Weser. ' 
 
 ^ Fornmannasogur 4^116. 7,151. 
 
 3 Wedekind's notes 2, 275, 276. Rheaa dainos, p. 3.33. The Lithuanians 
 proper converted 1387, the Samogits 1413. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 slavisli subjection to distant Eome, could not fail in many ways to 
 offend the national feeling. N'ot only the rude bloody sacrifices, 
 but the sensuous pleasure-loving side of heathenism was to them 
 an abomination (see Suppl.). And what their words or their 
 wonder-working gifts could not effect, was often to be executed 
 against obdurate pagans by placing fire and sword in the hands of 
 christian proselytes. 
 
 The triumph of Christianity was that of a mild, simple, spiritual 
 doctrine over sensuous, cruel, barbarizing Paganism. In exchange 
 for peace of spirit and the promise of heaven, a man gave his 
 earthly joys and the memory of his ancestors. Many followed the 
 inner prompting of their spirit, others the example of the crowd, 
 and not a few the pressure of irresistible force. 
 
 Although expiring heathenism is studiously thrown into the 
 shade by the narrators, there breaks out at times a touching 
 lament over the loss of the ancient gods, or an excusable protest 
 against innovations imposed from without^ (see Suppl.). 
 
 The missionaries did not disdain to work upon the senses of the 
 heathen by anything that could impart a higher dignity to the 
 Christian cultus as compared with the pagan : by white robes for 
 subjects of baptism, by curtains, peals of bells (see Suppl), the 
 lighting of tapers and the burning of incense.^ It was also a wise 
 or politic measure to preserve many heathen sites and temples by 
 simply turning them, when suitable, into Christian ones, and 
 assigning to them another and equally sacred meaning. The 
 heathen gods even, though represented as feeble in comparison with 
 the true God, were not always pictured as powerless in themselves ; 
 they were perverted into hostile malignant powers, into demons, 
 sorcerers and giants, who had to be put down, but were never- 
 theless credited with a certain mischievous activity and influence. 
 Here and there a heathen tradition or a superstitious custom lived 
 on by merely changing the names, and applying to Christ, Mary 
 and the saints what had formerly been related and believed of idols 
 (see Suppl.). On the other hand, the piety of ch ristian priests 
 suppressed and destroyed a multitude of heathen monuments, 
 poems and beliefs, whose annihilation history can hardly cease to 
 
 ^ Pommanna sogur 1, 31-35. Laxdsela, p. 170. Kralodworsky rukopis, 
 72.74. 
 
 ^ Greg. Tur. 2, 31. Fomm. sog. 1, 260. 2, 2Q0. 
 
b INTBODUCTION. 
 
 lament, though the sentiment which deprived us of them is not to 
 be blamed. The practice of a pure Christianity, the extinction of 
 all trace of heathenism was of infinitely more concern than the 
 advantage that might some day accrue to history from their longer 
 preservation. Boniface and Willibrord, in felling the sacred oak, 
 in polluting the sacred spring, and the image-breaking Calvinists 
 long after them, thought only of the idolatry that was practised by 
 such means (see Suppl.). As those pioneers ' purged their floor ' a 
 first time, it is not to be denied that the Eeformation eradicated 
 aftergrowths of heathenism, and loosing the burden of the Eomish 
 ban, rendered our faith at once freer, more inward and more 
 domestic. God is near us everywhere, and consecrates for us every 
 country, from which the fixing of our gaze beyond the Alps would 
 alienate us. 
 
 Probably some sects and parties, non-conformity here and there 
 among the heathen themselves, nay, in individual minds a precoci- 
 ous elevation of sentiment and morals, came half-way to meet 
 the introduction of Christianity, as afterwards its purification 
 (see Suppl.). It is remarkable that Old N"orse legend occasionally 
 mentions certain men who, turning away in utter disgust and doubt 
 from the heathen faith, placed their reliance on their own strength 
 and virtue. Thus in the Solar lioS 17 we read of Vebogi and 
 Eadey ' I sik Jjau truSu,' iu themselves they trusted ; of king H§,kon 
 (Fornm. sog. 1, 35) ' konungr gerir sem allir aSrir, Ipeir sem trua §, 
 mS,tt sinn ok megin,' the king does like all others who trust in their 
 own might and main ; of BarSr (ibid. 2, 151) ' ek trui ekki §, skurSgoS 
 eSr fiandr, hefi ek Jjvi lengi tr^at k matt minn ok megin,' I tmst not 
 in idols and fiends, I have this long while, &c. ; of Hiorleifr ' vildi 
 aldri biota,' would never sacrifice (Landn. 1, 5.7) ; of HaUr and 
 Thorir goSlauss 'vildu eigi biota, ok truSu k m^tt sinn' (Landn. 1, 
 11) ; of king Hrolfr (Fornm. sog. 1, 98) ' ekki er >ess getit at Hrolfr 
 konungr ok kappar bans hafi nokkurn tima blotat goS, heldr triiSu 
 §, matt sinn ok megin,' it is not thought that king H. and his cham- 
 pions have at any time, &c.; of Orvaroddr (Fornald. sog. 2, 165 ; cf. 
 505) ' ekki vandist blotum, ]?vi hann truSi k matt sinn ok me"in '; 
 of Finnbogi (p. 272) ' ek trui a sialfan mik.' This is the mood that 
 still finds utterance in a Danish folk-song (D.V. 4, 27), though 
 without a reference to religion : 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 Forst troer jeg mit gode svard. 
 Og saa min gode hest, 
 Dernast troer jeg mine dannesvenne, 
 Jeg troer mig self allerbedst ; 
 
 and it is Christian sentiment besides, which strives to elevate and 
 consecrate the inner man (see Suppl.). 
 
 We may assume, that, even if Paganism could have lived and 
 luxuriated a v?hile longer, and brought out in sharper relief and 
 more spontaneously some characteristics of the nations that obeyed 
 it, yet it bore within itself a germ of disorganisation and disrup- 
 tion, which, even without the intervention of Christian teaching, 
 would have shattered and dissolved it.^ I liken heathenism to a 
 strange plant whose brilliant fragrant blossom we regard with 
 wonder ; Christianity to the crop of nourisliing grain that covers 
 wide expanses. To the heathen too was germinating the true God, 
 who to the Christians had matured into fruit. 
 
 At the time when Christianity began to press forward, many of 
 the heathen seem to have entertained the notion, which the mis- 
 sionaries did all in their power to resist, of combining the new 
 doctrine with their ancient faith, and even of fusing them into one. 
 Of Norsemen as well as of Anglo-Saxons we are told, that some 
 believed at the, same time, in Christ and in heathen gods, or at least 
 continued to invoke the latter in particular cases in which they 
 
 ^ Old Norse sagas and songs have remarkaUe passages in which the gods 
 are coarsely derided. A. good deal in Lokasenna and Harbard's song may 
 pass for rough joking, which still leaves the holiest things unshaken (see 
 Suppl.). But faith has certainly grown fainter, when a daring poet can com- 
 pare OSinn and Freyja to dogs (Fornm. sog. 2, 207. Islend. sog. 1, 11. ed. nov. 
 372. Nialss. 160) : when another calls the gods rangeyg (squint-eyed, unfair) 
 and rokindusta (Fornm. sog. 2, 154). When we come to Freyr, I shall quote a 
 story manifestly tending to lessen the reverence for him ; but here is a pas- 
 sage from Oswald 2913 : ' din got der ist ein junger tor (fool), ich wil glouben 
 an den alten.' — If we had a list of old and favo^irite dogs'-names, I believe we 
 should find that the designations of several deities were bestowed upon the 
 brute by way of degradation. Vilk. saga, cap. 230. 235, has handed down 
 Tlwr (but cf. ed. nov., cap. 263) and Paron, one being the O.N., the other the 
 Slav name in the Slovak fomi Parom = Perun ch. VIII. With the Saxon 
 herdsmen or hunters Thunar was doubtless in use for dogs, as perhaps Donner 
 is to this day. One sort of dog is called by the Poles Gfrzmilas (Linde 1, 779a. 
 2, 798), by the Bohemians Hrmiles (Jungm. 1, 759) = Thunder, Forest-thunder. 
 In Helbling 4, 441 seq. I find a dog Wunsch (not Wilnsch). Similar to this is 
 the transference of national names to dogs : the Bohemian Bodroh is a dog's 
 name, but signifies an Obotrite (Jungm. 1, 150) ; Samr in the Nialssaga seems 
 to mean a Same, Sabme=Lapp ; Helbling 4, 458 has a Franh (see Suppl.). 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 had formerly proved helpful to them. So even by christians much 
 later, the old deities seem to have been named and their aid 
 invoked in enchantments and spells. Landna,mab6k 3, 12 says of 
 Helgi: 'hann truSi a Krist, en Ipo Mt hann a Thor til ssefara ok 
 harSrseSa ok alls >ess, er honum J^otti mestu varSa' ; he believed in 
 Christ, and yet he called upon Thor in voyages and difficulties, 
 &c. Hence the poets too transferred heathen epithets to Christ. 
 Beda 1, 15 relates of Eedwald, an East-AngUan king in the begin- 
 ing of the 7th century : ' rediens domum ab uxore sua, a quibusdam 
 perversis doctoribus seductus est, atque a sinceritate fidei depravatus, 
 habuit posteriora pejora prioribus, ita ut in morem antiquorum 
 Samaritanorum, et Christo servire videretur et diis quibus antea 
 serviebat, atque in eodem fano et altare habebat in sacrificium 
 Christi et arulam ad victimas daemoniorum' (see Suppl.). This 
 helps to explain the relapses into paganism. 
 
 The history of heathen doctrines and ideas is easier to write, 
 according as particular races remained longer outside the pale of 
 baptism. Our more intimate acquaintance with the Greek and 
 Eoman religion rests upon writings which existed before the rise of 
 Christianity; we are oftener at fault for information as to the 
 altered shape which that religion had assumed among the common 
 people in Greece and Italy during the first centuries of our era. 
 Eesearch has yet to penetrate, even deeper than it has done, into 
 the old Celtic faith ; we must not shrink from recognizing and ex- 
 amining Celtic monuments and customs on ground now occupied 
 by Germans. Leo's important discovery on the real bearings of the 
 Malberg glossary may lead to much. The rehgion of the Slavs and 
 Lithuanians would be far more accurately known to us, if these 
 nations, in the centuries immediately following their conversion, 
 had more carefully preserved the memory of their antiquities; as it 
 is, much scattered detail only wants collecting, and traditions still 
 alive in many districts afford rich material. On the Finnish 
 mythology we possess somewhat fuller information. 
 
 Germany holds a middle place, peculiar to herself and not un- 
 favourable. While the conversion of Gaul and that of Slavland 
 were each as a whole decided and finished in the course of a very 
 few centuries, the Teutonic races forsook the faith of their fathers 
 very gradually and slowly, from the 4th to the 11th century. 
 Eemains of their language too haye been preserved more fully and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 from the successive periods. Besides wMch we possess in the 
 works of Roman writers, and especially Tacitus, accounts of the 
 earlier undisturbed time of Teutonic heathenism, which, though 
 scanty and from a foreign source, are yet . exceedingly important, 
 nay invaluable. 
 
 The religion of the East and South German races, which were 
 converted first, is more obscure to us than that of the Saxons ; 
 about the Saxons again we know incomparably less than about the 
 Scandinavians. What a far different insight we should get into the 
 character and contents of the suppressed doctrine, how vastly the 
 picture we are "able to form of it would gain in clearness, if some 
 clerk at Fulda, Eegensburg, Eeichenau or St. Gall, or one at 
 Bremen, Gorvei or Magdeburg, had in the eighth, ninth or tenth 
 century, hit upon the plan of collecting and setting before us, after 
 the manner of Saxo Grammaticus, the still extant traditions of his 
 tribe on the beliefs and superstitions of their forefathers ! Let no 
 one tell me, that by that time there was nothing more to be had ; 
 here and there a footmark plainly shows that such recollections 
 could not really have died out.^ And who will show me in Sweden, 
 which clung to heathenism longer and' more tenaciously, such a 
 composition as actually appeared in Denmark during the twelfth 
 century ? But for this fact, would not the doubters declare such a 
 thing impossible in Sweden ? In truth, the first eight books of 
 Saxo are to me the most welcome monument of the ITorse mytho- 
 logy, not only for their intrinsic worth, but because they show in 
 what an altered light the ancient faith of the people had to be 
 placed before the recent converts. I especially remark, that Saxo 
 suppresses all mention of some prominent gods ; what right have 
 we then to infer from the non-mention of many deities in the far 
 scantier records of inland Germany, that they had never been heard 
 of there ? 
 
 Then, apart from Saxo, we find a purer authority for the Norse 
 religion preserved for us in the remotest corner of the North, 
 whither it had fled as it were for more perfect safety, — namely, in 
 Iceland. -It is preserved not only in the two Eddas, but in a 
 multitude of Sagas of various shape, which, but for that emigration 
 
 1 As late as the tenth century the heroic tale of "Walther and Hildegund was 
 poetized in Latin at St. Gall, and arelie of heathen poetry was written down in 
 German [deutlich, a misprint for deutsch ?], probably at Merseburg. 
 
10 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 coming to the rescue, would probably have perished in Norway, 
 Sweden and Denmark. 
 
 To assail the genuineness of the Norse mythology is as much as 
 to cast doubt on the genuineness and independence of the Norse 
 language. That it has been handed down to us both in a clearer 
 and an obscurer shape, throiigh older and more modern authorities, 
 makes it all the easier to study it from many sides and more 
 historically. 
 
 Just as little can we fail to perceive the kinship and close con- 
 nexion of the Norse mythology with the rest of Teutonic mythology. 
 I have undertaken to collect and set forth all that can now be 
 known of German heathenism, and that exclusively of the complete 
 system of Norse mythology. By such limitation I hope to gain 
 clearness and space, and to sharpen our vision for a criticism of 
 the Old German faith, so far as it stands opposed to the Norse, or 
 aloof from it ; so that we need only concern ourselves with the 
 latter, where in substance or tendency it coincides with that of 
 inland Germany. 
 
 The antiquity, originality and affinity of the German and Norse 
 mythologies rest on the following grounds : 
 
 1. The undisputed and very close affinity of speech between the 
 two races, and the now irrefutably demonstrated identity of form 
 in their oldest poetry. It is impossible that nations speaking 
 languages which had sprung from the same stock, whose, songs all 
 wore the badge of an alliteration either unknown or quite differently 
 applied by their neighbours, should have differed materially in their 
 religious belief. Alliteration seems to give place to christian 
 rhyme, first in Upper Germany, and then in Saxony, precisely 
 because it had been the characteristic of heathen songs then still 
 existing. Without prejudice to their original affinity, it is quite 
 true that the German and the Norse dialects and poetries have 
 their peculiarities of form and finish ; but it would seem incredible 
 that the one race should have had gods and the other none, or that 
 the chief divinities of the two should have been really different 
 from one another. There were marked differences no doubt, but 
 not otherwise than in their language ; and as the Gothic_, Anglo- 
 Saxon and Old High German dialects have their several points of 
 superiority over the Old Norse, so may the faith of inland Germany 
 have in many points its claims to distinction and individuality. 
 
INTRODUCTIOK. 11 
 
 2. The joint possession, by all Teutonic tongues, of many terms 
 relating to religious worship. If we are able to produce a word 
 used by the Goths in the 4th century, by the Alamanni in the 
 8th, in exactly the same form and sense as it continues to bear in 
 the ISTorse authorities of the 12th or 13th century, the affinity of 
 the German faith with the Norse, and the antiquity of the latter, 
 are thereby vindicated. 
 
 3. The identity of mythic notions and nomenclature, which 
 ever and anon breaks out : thus the agreement of the O.H.G. 
 muspilli, 0. Sax. mudspelli, with the Eddie muspell, of the O.H.G. 
 itis, A. Sax. ides, with the Eddie dis, or of the A. Sax. brosinga mene 
 with the Eddie brisinga men, affords perfectly conclusive evidence. 
 
 4. The precisely similar way in which both there and here the 
 religious mythus tacks itself on to the heroic legend. As the 
 Gothic, Frankish and Norse genealogies all run into one another, 
 we can scarcely deny the connexion of the veiled myths also which 
 stand in the background. 
 
 5. The mingling of the mythic element with names of plants 
 and constellations. This is an uneffaced vestige of the primeval 
 intimate union between religious worship and nature. 
 
 6. The gradual transformation of the gods into devils, of the 
 wise women into witches, of the worship into superstitious customs. 
 The names of the gods have found a last lurking-place in disguised 
 ejaculations, oaths, curses, protestations.^ There is some analogy 
 between this and the transfer of heathen myths from goddesses 
 and gods to Mary and the saints, from elves to angels. Heathen 
 festivals and customs were transformed into christian, spots which 
 heathenism had already consecrated were sometimes retained for 
 churches and courts of justice. The popular religion of the Catho- 
 lics, particularly in the adoration of saints, includes a good many 
 and often graceful and pleasing relics of paganism (see SuppL). 
 
 7. The evident deposit from god-myths, which is found to this 
 day in various folk-tales, nursery-tales, games, saws, curses, ill- 
 understood names of days and months, and idiomatic phrases. 
 
 8. The undeniable intermixture of the old religious doctrine 
 with the system of law ; for the latter, even after the adoption of 
 
 ' Conf. our ' doimer ! hammer ! ' the Serv. ' lele ! lado ! ' the Lat. ' pol ! 
 aedepol ! me herole ! me castor ! mediusfidius,' &o. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the new faith, would not part with certain old forms and usages 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 In unravelling these complex relations, it appears indispensable 
 not to overlook the mythologies of neighbouring nations, especially 
 of the Celts, Slavs, Lithuanians and Finns, wherever they afford 
 confirmation or elucidation. This extension of our scope would 
 find ample reason and justification in the mere contact (so fruitful 
 in many ways) of the languages of those nationalities with Teu- 
 tonic ones, particularly of the Celtic with Old Frankish, of the 
 Finnish and Lithuanian with Gothic, and of the Slavic with High 
 German. But also the myths and superstitions of these very 
 nations are peculiarly adapted to throw light on the course taken 
 by our domestic heathenism in its duration and decadence. 
 
 Against the error which has so frequently done damage to the 
 study of the Norse and Greek mythologies, I mean the mania of 
 foisting metaphysical or astronomical solutions on but half-dis- 
 covered historical data, I am sufficiently guarded by the incomplete- 
 ness and loose connexion of all that has been preserved. My object 
 is, faithfully and simply to collect what the distortions early 
 introduced by the nations themselves, and afterwards the scorn and 
 aversion of christians have left remaining of heathenism ; and to 
 enlist fellow-labourers in the slow task of securing a more solid 
 store of facts, without which a general view of the substance and 
 worth of our mythology is not to be attained (see Suppl.), 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 GOD. 
 
 In aU Teutonic tongues the Supreme Being has always mth 
 one consent been called by the general name God. The dialectic 
 varieties are : Goth, gwd', A.S., O.S., 0. Fris. god, O.H.G. cot, 0. 
 Norse go& ; Swed. Dan. gud, M.H.G. got, M.L.G. god ; and here 
 there is a grammatical remark to make. Though all the dialects, 
 even the Norse, use the word as masculiae (hence in O.H.G. the ace. 
 siag. cotan ; I do not know of a M.H.G. goten), yet in Gothic and 
 0. Norse it lacks the nom. sing, termination (-s, -r) of a masc. noun, 
 and the Gothic gen. sing, is formed gii&s without, the connecting 
 vowel i, agreeing therein with the three irreg. genitives mans, 
 fadrs, broSrs. Now, as O.H.G. has the same three genitives irreg., 
 man, fatar, pruodar, we should have expected the gen. cot to bear 
 them company, and I do not doubt its having existed, though I 
 have nowhere met with it, only with the reg. cotes, as indeed 
 mannes and fateres also occur. It is more likely that the sanctity 
 of the name had preserved the oldest form inviolate, than that fre- 
 quent use had worn it down.^ The same reason preserved the 
 O.H.G. spelling cot (Gramm. 1, 180), the M. Dut. god (1, 486), and 
 perhaps the Lat. vocative deus (1, 1071).^ Moreover, God and 
 other names of divine being* reject every article (4, 383. 394. 404. 
 424. 432) ; they are too firmly established as proper nouns to 
 need any such distinction. The dergot in MS. 2, 260a. is said of a 
 heathen deity. 
 
 On the radical meaning of the word Gqd we have not yet 
 arrived at certainty f it is not immediately connected with the adj. 
 
 ^ The drift of these remarks seems to be this : The word, though used as a 
 masc, has a neut. form ; is this an archaism, pointing to a time when the 
 word was really neuter ; or a mere irregularity due to abtrition, the word 
 having always been masc. 1 — Teans. 
 
 ' Saxo does not inflect Thor ; Uhland p. 198. 
 
 ' The Slav, bogh is connected with the Sanskr. bhaga felicitas, bhakta 
 devotus, and bhaj colere ; perhaps also with the obscure bahts in the Goth, 
 andbahts minister. cMtor ; conf. p. 20, note on boghat, dives. Of 6c6s, deus 
 we shall have to speak in ch. IX. 
 
14 GOD. 
 
 good, Goth, gods, CIST, gSSr, A.S. gSd, O.H.G. cuot, M.H.G., guot, as 
 the difference of vowel shows ; we should first have to show an 
 intermediacy of the gradations gida gad, and gada god, which 
 does take place in some other cases ; and certainly God is called the 
 Good.i It is still farther removed from the national name of the 
 Goths, who called themselves Gutans (O.H.G. Kuzun, CN". Gotar), 
 Eind who must be distinguished from CN. Gautar (A. S. Geatas, 
 O.H.G. Koza ; Goth. Gautps ?). 
 
 The word God has long been compared with the Pers. Kliodd 
 (Bopp, comp. gram., p. 35). If the latter be, as has been supposed, 
 a violent contraction of the Zend qvad§,ta (a se datus, increatus, 
 Sanskr. svadS.ta, conf. D^vadatta ©eoSoro?, Mitradatta 'HXiSSoto?, 
 Sridatta), then our Teutonic word must have been originally a com- 
 pound, and one with a very apt meaning, as the Servians also 
 address God as samozazdani b6zhe ! self-created God ; Vuk 741. 
 
 The O.H.G. cot forms the first half of many proper names, as 
 Cotadio, Cotascalh, Cotafrit, Cotahram, Cotakisal, Cotaperaht, 
 Cotalint, but not so that we can infer anything as to its meaning • 
 they are formed like Irmandio, Hiltiscalh, Sikufrit, and may just as 
 well carry the general notion of the Divine Being as a more definite 
 one. When cot forms the last syllable, the compound can only 
 stand for a god, not a man, as in Irmincot, Hellicot. 
 
 In derivatives Ulphilas exchanges the TH for a D, which ex- 
 plains the tenuis in O.H.G. ; thus guda-faurhts (god-fearing) Luke 
 2, 25, gagudei (godliness) Tit. 1, 1 ; though the dat. sing, is invari- 
 ably gu5a.2 Likewise in speaking of many gods, which to Christians 
 would mean idols, he spells guda, using it as a neuter, John 10, 
 34-5. The A.S. god has a neut. pi. godii, when idols are meant 
 (cod. exon. 250,2. 254,9. 278,16.). In like manner the O.H.G. and 
 M.H.G. compound apcot, aptcot (false god) is commonly neuter, and 
 forms its pi. apcotir; whether the M.H.G. ' der aptgot' in Geo. 
 3254. 3302 can be correct, is questionable ; we have taken to 
 
 1 oiSeis ayaSbs (1 uij eh 6 deos, Mark 10, 18, Luke 18, 19, which in Gothic 
 is rendered 'ni hvashun >iutSeigs alja ains GuS', but in A.S, 'nis nan man 
 god buton God ana'. God ia the giver of all good, and himself the highest 
 good, summum boniim. Thus Plato names him to ayadov. 
 
 2 In Gothic the rule is to change TH into D before a vowel in inflection, 
 as, faSSs, fadis, fada, fatS ; haubiS, -dis, -da, -S. The peculiarity of guS is 
 that it retains TH throughout the sing., gutS, guSs, gutSa, guS j though in pi. 
 and in derivatives it falls under rule again. — Teans. 
 
GOD. 15 
 
 usiug abgott as a masc. throughout, yet our pi. gotter itself 
 can only be explained as originally neuter, since the true God is 
 one, and can have no plural ; and the O.H.G-. cota, M.H.G. gote 
 contain so far a contradiction. In Ulph. afguds is only an adj., and 
 denotes impius Sk. 44, 22 ; afgudei impietas, Eom. 11, 26 ; elhaJKa 
 he translates by galiuga (figmenta), 1 Cor. 5, 10. 10, 20. 28, or by 
 galiiiqaguda, 1 Cor. 10, 20 ; and elhoiKelov by galiugS staSs, 1 Cor. 
 8, 10. Another N.H.G. expression gotze I have discussed, Gramm. 
 3, 694 ; Luther has in Deut. 12, 3 ' die goizen ihrer gotter, making 
 gotze=idolum. In Er. Alberus fab. 23, the gotz is a demigod^ (see 
 Suppl.). The O.N. language distinguished the neut. gocF idolum 
 from the masc. guff deus. Snorri 119 says of Sif ' it harfagra go5,' 
 the fairhaired god ; I do not know if a heathen would have said it. 
 
 In curses and exclamations, our people, from fear of desecrating 
 the name of God, resort to some alteration of it:^^ofe wetter! 
 potz tausend ! or, kotz tausend ! kotz wunder ! instead of Gottes ; ' 
 but I cannot trace the custom back to our ancient speech. The 
 similar change of the Fr. dieu into hiev,, bleu, guieu^ seems to be 
 older (see Suppl.). 
 
 Some remarkable uses of the word God in our older speech and 
 that of the common people ^may also have a connexion with 
 heathen notions. 
 
 Thus it is thrown in, as it were, to intensify a personal pronoun 
 (see Suppl.). Poems in M.H.G. have, by way of giving a hearty 
 welcome : gote unde mir willekomen ; Trist. 504. Frib. Trist. 497. 
 
 ^Writers of tlie 16-17tli centuries use olgotze for statue (Stieler says, from 
 an allegorical representation of the apostles asleep on the Mount of Olives, 
 61 = oil). Hans Sachs frequently has ' den olgotzen tragen ' for doing house 
 drudgery, I. 5, 418^ bi%\ III. 3, 24" 49<i. IV. 3, Z'^ m\ The O.H.G. coz, 
 simpuvium Numae (Juvenal 6, 343), which Graff 4, 154 wovdd identify with 
 gotze, was a vessel, and belongs to giozan=fundere. 
 
 2 Such a fear may arise from two causes : a holy name must not be abused, 
 or an unholy dreaded name, e.g., that of the devil, has to be softened down by 
 modifying its form ; see Chap. XXXIII, how the people call formidable animals 
 by another name, and for Donner prefer to say donnerwetter (Dan. tordenveir 
 for Thursday), donnerwettstein (wetterstein or wetzstein ?), donnerkeil, donner- 
 wasche, dummer. In Fomm. sog. 10, 283 we have Oddiner for OSinn ; per- 
 haps Wuotansheer (Woden's host) was purposely changed into Mutesheer ; 
 whether Phol into Falant, is worth considering. 
 
 ' Sangbieu (sang de Dieu), corbieu (corps de D.) vertubleu (vertu de D,), 
 morbleu (mort de D.), parbleu (par D.}, vertuguieu, vertugoi (vertu de D.), 
 morguoi (mort de D.), &c. As early as Eenart 18177, por la char bleu. So 
 the Engl, cock's bones, 'od's bones, 'od's wounds, 'zounds, &c. Conf. Weber 
 metr. rom. 3, 234. 
 
16 GOD. 
 
 gote suit ir willekomen sin, iurem lande unde mir (ye shall be 
 welcome to God, your country, and me) ; Trist. 5186. got aMst, 
 dar -nkch. mir, west willekomen ; Parz. 305, 27. wis willekomen 
 mir und got ; Frauend. 128, 13. sit mir gote wilkomen^ ; Eilh. 
 Trist. 248. rehte got wilkomen mir ; Dietr. 5200. Nu sit, oucli 
 mir got wilkomen ; Dietr. 5803. sit willekomen got und oueh m,ir ; 
 Dietr. 4619. nu wis mir got wilkomen ; Oswalt 208. 406. 1163. 
 1268. 1393. 2189. du solt gr6z willekomen sin dem richen got 
 unde mir ; Lanz. 1082. wis mir unde ouch got wilkomen ; Ls. 1, 
 514. Occasionally gote stands alone : diu naht si gote willekomen ; 
 Iw. 7400, explained in the note, p. 413, as 'devoted to God/ though 
 it only means ' to-night be (thou) welcome '. Upper Germany has 
 to this day retained the greeting 'gottwilche, gottwillkem, gotti- 
 kum, skolkuom' (Staid. 1, 467. Schm. 2, 84). I do not find it in 
 Eomance poems ; but the Saxon-Latin song of the 10th century 
 on Otto I. and Ms brother Heinrich has : sid wilicomo bethiu goda 
 ende mi. The Supreme Being is conceived as omnipresent, and is 
 expected, as much as the host himself, to take the new-comer under 
 his protection ; so the Slovfeny say to the arriving guest ' b6gh tfe 
 vsprimi, God receive you ! ' ^ and we to the parting guest ' God 
 guide, keep, bless you ! ' We call it commending or committing 
 one to God, M.H.G. gote ergeben, Er. 3598. I compare with these 
 the Hail ! called out to one who arrives or departs (heill ver Ipu ! 
 Ssem. 67° 86"), with which are also associated the names of helpful 
 gods : heill Jju farir, heiU J?u dsyniom s^r ! fare thou well, be thou 
 well by (the aid of) the Asynior ; Ssem. 31°. heill scaltu Agnarr, 
 allz Ipic heilan biSr vera t5^r vera ! Ssem. 40. 
 
 In the same way the name of the omniscient God emphasizes 
 an assurance of knowledge or ignorance : daz weiz got unde ich ; 
 Trist. 4151. den schatz weiz nu nieman wan (except) got unde 
 mtn ; Nib. 2308, 3.^ This comfortable combination of / with God 
 has for its counterpart the opprobrious one of a thou with devil, ch. 
 XXXIII. Here too the got alone is enough : ingen vet min sorg 
 utan gud; Svenska visor 2, 7. That we are fully justified in 
 
 1 The omission of and betw een the two datives is archaic, conf. Zeitschr. 
 f. cl. a. 2, 190. 
 
 = Buge waz primi, gralva Venus ! Frauend. 192, 20 ; conf. 177, 14. 
 
 'hie haert uns anclers nieman dan got unde diu waltvogelltn; Ecke 96. 
 niemen bevinde daz wan er und ich und ein kleinez vogellia, das mac woi 
 getriuwe sin ; Wakh. 40, 15. Birds play the spy on men's privacy. 
 
GOD. 17 
 
 referring these modes of speech so far back as to the heathen time, 
 is shown by a remarkable passage in Fomald. sog. 1, 380 : ek hugSa 
 engan kunna nema mik ok OSinn. By secrets which none can 
 know save OSinn and to whomsoever he has whispered them, his 
 divinity is at once revealed, Ssem. 38"' ^ 95^ Fomald. sog. 1, 487. Not 
 quite parallel are phrases such as : daz geloube gofe unde mir ; 
 Amis 989. iu unde gote, von himile klage ich unser leit ; Mb. 
 1889,3. ik klage gfOtZe unde m; Eichtsteig landr. 11. 16. 37. sane 
 die messe beide got u. in ; Parz. 378, 25. Wh. 289, 5. neic si hn 
 v^n&Q gote, ; Iw. 6013. Also in O.Fr., jel te pardoins de diu et de 
 mi ; Mones untersuch. 245. Sometimes the Evil One is named by 
 the side of the Deity : got noch den tiuvel loben ; Iw. 1273. in 
 beschirmet der tivwd noch got ; Iw. 4635, i.e. no one protects him. 
 
 Poems of the Middle Ages attribute human passions to God ; 
 especially is He often pictured in a state of complacency and joy 
 (see Suppl.), and again in the contrary state of wrath and vengeance. 
 The former is favourable to the creation of eminent and happily 
 endowed men : got was an einer siiezen zuht, do'r Parziv^len 
 worhte (in amiable trim — form, training — when he made Perci- 
 val) ; Parz. 148, 26. got der was vil sen/tes muotes, do er 
 geschuof so reine ein wip ; MS. 1, 17^ got der was in froiden, d6 
 er dich als ebene maz (so evenly meted) ; MS. 1, 22''. got in grossen 
 frtuden was, do er dich schuof {i.e., created wine) ; Altd. bl. 1, 413. 
 got der was in hdhem werde, ^ do er geschuof die reinen fruht, wan 
 ime was gar wol ze muote ; MS. 1, 24\ got si zer werlde brahte, do 
 ze freuden stuont sin muot ; Wigal. 9282. got der was vil wol 
 gemuot, d8 er schuof s8 reinem wlbe tugent, wiinne, schoene an llbe ; 
 MS. 1, 201*. got was gezierde milte, der si beide schuof nach lobe ; 
 Troj. 19922. got selb in richen freuden was, do er ir lip als ebene 
 maz ; Misc. 2, 186. ich weiz daz got in froiden was, do er niht, 
 frouwe, an dir vergaz waz man ze lobe sol schouwen. Ls. 1, 35. 
 So a troubadour sings : belha domna, de cor y entendia Dieus, quan 
 formet vostre cors amoros; Eayn. 1, 117.^ It is an equally heathen 
 
 1 Tlie Gothic gavairthi = peace. 
 
 ' To the creative God rejoicing in his work, the M.H.G. poets especially 
 attribute diligence and zeal : an den henden lac der gotes fliz ; Parz. 88, 15. 
 jach, er triiege den gotes fliz ; Parz. 140, 5. got het sinen iliz gar ze wunsche 
 wol an si geleit ; Wigal. 4130. ich wajn got selbe worhte dich mit siner got- 
 Hcher hant ; Wigal. 9723. zware got der hat geleit sine kunst und sine kraft, 
 sinen fliz und sine meisterschaft an disen lobllchen lip; Iw. 1685. So in 
 
 2 
 
18" god; 
 
 sentiment, tliat imputes to God a propensity to gaze at human' 
 beauty, or to do whatever men do : got mohte selbe gerne selien die 
 selben juncfrouwen ; Pragm. 22". gott moht in (him, i.e. the 
 musician) gerne hmren in sinen himelkoeren; Trist. 7649. den slac 
 scolte got selbe haben gesehen (should have seen that -stroke) ; Eol. 
 198, 18. Karl 72 . got selbe moht ez gerne sehen ; Trist. 6869. ein 
 puneiz (diadem), daz in got selber mohte sehen ; Frauend. 84, Ifi, 
 gestriten dazz d'engel mohten hoeren in den niun koeren ; "VVilleh. 
 230, 27. si mohte n^ch betwingen mite (might nigh compel 
 withal) eines engels gedanc, daz er vil lilite einen ivanc durch si 
 von himele tcete (fail from heaven for her) ; Iw. 6500 (imitated by 
 Ottocar 166'). ich weiz daz wol, daz sin got nicht verdriizze ; MS. 
 2, 127". ir har gelich dem golde, als ez got wilnschen soldo; MS. 2 
 62^. sin swert dat geinc (ging, went) an siner hant, dat got selve 
 vrdchde mere (would ask to know), we der ritter w^re ? dey engele 
 muosten lachen, dat hey is sus kunde machen ; Haupts zeitschr. 3, 
 24. This hilarity of the attendant guardian-angels (ch. XXVIII) 
 or valkiirs must be thought of in connexion with the laughing of 
 ghosts (ch. XXXI). In Hartmann's Erec, when Enite's white hands 
 groomed (begiengen) a horse, it says 355 : und wsere, daz got Men 
 erde rite, ich w£en, in genuocte da mite, ob er solhen marstallcr hcdc. 
 This view of a sympathizing, blithe and gracious god, is particularly 
 expressed in the subst. htildi, O.N". hylli : OSins hylli ; Ssem. 47^ 
 Ullar hylli ok allra goSa ; Ssem. 45''. 
 
 On the other hand, of the prim.itive sensuous representation of 
 an angry avenging deity (see SuppL), the most striking example 
 will be treated of presently in ch. VIII, under Donar, thunder.^ 
 The idea recurs several times in the Edda and elsewhere : reiffr er 
 per 0?5inn, reiffr er J?er Asabragr ; Ssem. 85''. OSinn ofreiffr ; Stem, 
 228''. reiS varS Tpk Freyja oc fnasaSi; Ssem. 71''. — she was wroth, 
 
 Chrestien; jafe fl.st Dex cle sa main nue, por nature fere muser, tout le mont i 
 porroit user, s'ele la voloit contrefere, que ja neu porroit a chief trere ; no Dex, 
 s'il sen voloit pener, mi porroit, ce cuit, ass'ener, que ja une telle feist, por peine 
 que il i meist (see Suppl.). 
 
 1 Piacula irce deum, Liv. ■82, 9. deos iratos habeani ! dii immortales homin- 
 ibus irasoi et succensere consueverunt, Cic. pro Rose. 16. And Tacitus on this 
 very subject of the Germans : propitiine an irati dii, Germ. 5. ira dei. Hist. \ 
 26. infensi Batavis dii, Hist. 5, 25. And in the Mid. Ages : tu odium Dei 
 omniumque sanctorum habeas ! Vita Meinwerci, cap. 13 § 95. crebrescen- 
 tibus jamjamquecottidie Deijusto judicio in populo diversis calamitatibus et 
 iiagellis .... quid esset in quo Deus offensus esset, vel quibus placari 
 posset operibus ; Pertz 2, 547. 
 
GOD. 19' 
 
 and snorted or panted, as the angry wolf in Eeinli. XLII spirtles out 
 his beard. guSin reid' ordin ; Fornm. sog. 2, 29. 231. goSa gremi 
 (deorum ira) is announced ; Egilss. 352. at gremia goS (offendere 
 deos); Fornald. sog. 2, 69. was imo god dbolgan ; Hel. 157, 19. 
 than wirdid iu waldand gram, mahtig mSdag; Hel. 41, 16 (elsewhere : 
 diu Sselde, or the world, earth, is gram), ein eornec got in daz gebot 
 (bade them), daz uns hie suohten mit ir her ; Parz. 43, 28. hie ist 
 geschehen gotes rdche; Eeinh. 975. got wil verviieren sinen mm ; 
 Osw. 717- ich wsene daz got rceche da selbe sinen anden (wreak his 
 vengeance) ; Gudr. 845, 4. daz riuwe got ! (God rue it) ; Trist. 
 12131. daz ez got immer riuive ! Trist. 11704. The Lex Bajuv. 
 6, 2, in forbidding Sunday labour, says : quia tahs causa vitanda 
 est, quae Deum ad iracundiam provocat, et exinde flagellamur in 
 frugibus et penuriam patimur. How coarse were the expressions 
 still used in the 17th century ' " An abuse that putteth God on 
 his mettle, and maketh him to hold strict and pitiless inquisition, 
 that verily he shall, for saving of his honour, smite thereinto with 
 his fists " ; and again : " to run upon the spears of an offended 
 jealous God "} A wicked man was in the Mid. Ages called gote hide, 
 loathed by God. One form of imprecation was to consign a man 
 to God's hatred : uz in gotes haz ! Trist. 5449. uz strichet (sheer 
 off) balde in gotes haz ! Trist. 14579. nu vart den gotes haz alsam 
 ein boeswiht von mir hin ! Frauend. 109, 12. mich hat der gotes 
 Jmz bestanden ; Kl. 518. iuch hit rehte gotes haz (al. foul weather, 
 the devil, &c.) daher gesendet beide ; Iw. 6104. so mijeze ich 
 haben gotes haz ; Altd. w. 3, 212. varet hen an godes haz ! Wiggert 
 2, 47. nu mueze er gewinnen gotes haz; Eoth 611. In like manner 
 the MLG. godsat hebbe ! Huyd. op St. 2, 350. Eeinaert 3196.2 
 But, what deserves particular notice, this formula ' in gotes haz,' or 
 in ace. without prepos. ' gotes haz varn, strichen ' has a perfect 
 parallel in another which substitutes for God the sun, and so heigh- 
 tens the heathenish colouring ; ir suit farn der sunnen haz ! Parz. 
 247, 26. var der sunnen haz ! XJnprinted poems of Etiediger 46. 
 hebe dich der sunnen haz ! Er. 93. nu ziuhe in von mir der sunnen 
 haz ! Helmbr. 1799. si hiezen in strichen in der sunnen haz; Eracl. 
 1100. hiez in der Mmw«w /las hin varn ; Frauend. 375, 26. A man 
 so cursed does not deserve to have the sun shine on him kindly. 
 
 1 Hartmann on benedictions, Nfirnb. 1680, p. 158, 180. 
 
 - Serious illne.s3 or distress is habitnally called ' der gotes slac,' stroke. 
 
20 GOD. 
 
 The Vandal Gizerich steps into his ship, and leaves it to the winds 
 where they shall drive it to, or among what people he shall fall 
 that Ood is angry with, i^' o&? o 0eo<s oipyivTai. Procop. de hello 
 Vand. 1, 5. 
 
 Such hostile attitude breeds now and then a rehellimis spirit in 
 men, which breaks out in promethean defiance and threats, or even 
 takes a violent practical turn (see Suppl.). Herodotus 4, 94 says of 
 the Thracians : ovroi ol avrol OpijlKe^ koi, Trpo? ^povrrjv re /cat 
 derTpaTrfjv To^eiovT€<; dvco ttjoo? tov ovpavov, aTretXevcrt to) 6em. If 
 the god denied the assistance prayed for, his statue was flung into 
 the river by the people, immersed in water, or beaten. In the 
 Carolingian romances we repeatedly come upon the incident of 
 Charles threatening the Deity, that if he deny his aid, he will throw 
 down his altars, and make the churches with all their priests to 
 cease from the land of the Franks ; e.g. Ferabr. 1211, 1428, &c. 
 So dame Breide too threatens to uncover the altar and break the 
 holy relics ; Orendel 2395 ; and MarsiHes actually, after losing the 
 battle, has the houses of his gods pulled down ; Eol. 246, 30. If 
 the vintage failed, the statue of Urban was thrown into a bath or 
 the river.^ The Arcadians would scourge their Pan with squills 
 (a-KiWaif), when they returned bootless from the chase (Theocr. 7, 
 106). The Greeks imputed to their gods not only anger and hate, 
 but envy, love of mischief, ve'fieai.<;. 
 
 Epithets of God (see Suppl.). In our modern speech : der liehe, 
 liebste, gnadige^ grosse, gute, allmdchtige. In our older tongue : hgrre 
 got der guote ; Eeinh. 1296. Gute frau, 276. hSrro the gSdo ; Hel. 
 78, 3. 90, 6. fro min the^drfo; 143, 7. gnmdeger trehtin; Eeinh. 
 1309.— Freq. the rich God: tliie rikeo Christ; Hel. 1, 2. riki 
 god; Hel. 195,9. riki drohtin; Hel. 114,22. der rMe got von 
 himele; Eoth. 4971. got der riche; Nib. 1793, 3. Trist. 2492. 
 durch den richen got von himel , Morolt 3526. der riclie got mich 
 ie gesach; V.d. wibe list lU.^— Cot almahtico, cot heilac; Wesso- 
 
 1 When lightning strikes, oiir people say : If God can burn, we can build 
 again ; Ettners hebamme, p. 16. 
 
 ^ Where God is, there is grace and peace ; of a solemn spot it is said : 
 Here dwells der liebe Gott ! And, to drive den lieben Gott from a person's 
 room (Lessing 1, 243), means, to disturb a solitary in his sanctum. 
 
 3 OHG. rthU dives, potens, also beatus ; and dives is near akin to Divus 
 as Dis, Ditis springs out of divit. From the Slav. h6gh is derived hoghdt (dives), 
 Lith. hagotas ; compare ops, in-ops (Buss. u-b6ghiy), opulentus with Ops, the 
 Bona Dea. Conf. Diefenb. celt. 1, 196. 
 
GOD. 21 
 
 brunn. Gebet mahtig drohtin ; Hel. 2, 2. fred cdmiktig ; Caedm. 
 
 I, 9. 10, 1. se celmihtiga -wealdend ; Thorpe's anal. 83. manno 
 miliisto (largissimus) ; Wessobr. Geb. vil milter Christ ; Cod. pal. 
 350, 56. — The AS. has freq. : e^ce dryhten, seternus ; Ceedm. 246, 
 
 II. Beow. 3382. 3555. 4655. Also : witig god, sapiens ; Beow. 
 
 1364, 2105. Cjedm. 182, 24 witig dryhten ; Beow. 3101. 3679. 
 
 Caedm. 179, 8. witig wuldorcyning ; Csedm. 242, 30. — Waltant got ; 
 
 Hild. waldindinger got; Both. 213. 523. 1009. 2332. 4031. 
 
 waltant Krist : OV. 25, 91. Gudr. 2243. (AS.) wealdend ; Caedm. 
 
 9, 25. wuldres wealdend; Beow. 4. heofnes wealdend; Caedm. 
 
 17, 15. }?eoda wealdend. faeder alwealda; Beow. 630. (OS.) 
 
 waldand ; Hel. 4,5. 6,6. waldand god 3,17. waldand dTohtin 
 
 1, 19. alowaldo 4, 8. 5, 20. 8, 2. 69, 23. This epithet is not found 
 
 in the Edda. The notion of ' wielding ', dominari, regere, is further 
 
 appUed to the Supreme Being in the phrase es walten, Parz. 568, 1. 
 
 En. 7299. 10165. 13225. So our gottwalt's ! M. Dut. godwouds ! 
 
 Huyd. op St. 2, 548. Our ace. in ' das wait Gott ! ' is a blunder ; 
 
 Agricola 596. Praet. weltb. 2, 50. — God is occasionally called the 
 
 Old : der alte Gott lebt noch, i.e. the same as ever. A.S. eald metod. 
 
 MHG. h^t got sin alt gemuete ; Wh. 66, 20. der aide got ; Eoth. 
 
 4401. popul. ' der alte Vater '. In a Servian song (Vuk 2, 244. 
 
 Montenegro 101), bogh is named ' stari krvnik', the old blood- 
 shedder, kiUer; and in Frauenlob MS. 2, 214" der alte friedel 
 
 (sweetheart). The 13th century poets sometimes use the Lat. 
 epithet altissimus, Wh. 216, 5. 434, 23. Geo. 90, 401 ; with which 
 may be compared the MHG. diu hdhste hant, Parz. 484, 6. 487, 20. 
 568, 8. Wh. 134, 7. 150, 14. and the OHG. zi waltanteru henti, 
 V. 25, 91. — The ' aU-wielding ' God is at the same time the all- 
 seeing, all-knowing, aU-remembering ; hence it is said of fortunate 
 men, that God saw them, and of unfortunate, that Qod forgot them : 
 (OHG.) kesak tih kot! = te felicem! N. Boeth. 145. (MHG.) 
 gesaeh in got != happy he! Altd. bl. 1, 347. so mir got ergaz ; 
 Troj. kr. 14072. so hat got mln vergezzen ; Nib. 2256, 3. wie gar 
 iuwer got vergaz (how utterly God forgot you) ; Iw. 6254. got min 
 vergaz; Ecke 209. got haete sin vergezzen; Trist. 9243. genaede- 
 licher trehtln, wie vergaeze dl ie min s6 ? Trist. 12483. For other 
 examples, see Gramm. 4, 175. — God, by regarding, guards : daz si 
 got iemer schouwe ! Iw. 794. 0. Engl. God you see ! God keep 
 you in his sight ! 
 
22 GOD. 
 
 Among substantive epithets are several which God has in com- 
 mon with earthly rulers (see Suppl.) : — Gothic fr&uja OS. frdho, 
 frd, AS. frea ; which name I shall treat of more fully by and by. 
 — OHG. truMin, MHG. treUin, OS. drohtin, AS. dnjhten, ON". 
 drdttinn. — OHG. hiriro, MHG. Mrre, which however,, when used 
 of God, is never contracted into lier, any more than Dominus into 
 the Bomance domnus, don. — Conspicuous above all is the name 
 Father (see Suppl). In the Edda, alfo&r. (Sjem. 46" 88" 154^ Sn. 
 3. 11. 17), h&rfaSir, herja facFir, valfaffir are applied to OSinn as 
 the father of all gods, men and created things. Such compounds 
 are not found in the other dialects, they may have sounded heathen- 
 ish ; though the AS. could use fmder alwealda, Beow. 630, and the 
 idea of God as Father became more familiar to the christians than 
 to heathens. The OHG. altfatar = grandfather, 0. i. 3, 6. AS. 
 ealdfseder, Beow. 743. 1883, I have nowhere seen applied to God. 
 As the Greeks coupled together Zeu? TraTijp, esp. in the voc. Zev 
 ■ncirep, and the Eomans Jupiter, Diespiter, Dispiter, Mars pater,^ 
 as well as ArifnJTrjp, AafiaT-rip, Terra mater, so the Lettons bestow 
 on almost every goddess the epithet viahte, mahmina^mater, 
 matercula (Biittner 244. Bergmann 142), on which we shall have 
 more to say hereafter. To all appearance, father Goth, fadr is 
 connected with iaJps lord, as pater irarrip is with -ttotk, "ttoctk, Lith. 
 pats. — The AS. meotod, metod, Csedm. 223, 14. eald metod, Beow. 
 1883. s65 metod, Beow. 3222. OS. metod, Hel. 4, 13. 15, 17. 66, 19, 
 an expression which likewise appears in the Edda, miotu&r Ssem. 
 226"^ 241,^ seems to signify Creator, as verbally it bears the sense of 
 mensor, moderator, iinitor. The fuU meaning of metod will not be 
 disclosed, till we have a more exact knowledge of the relation 
 between the Goth, mitan (to mete) and maitan (to ciit), the OHG. 
 mezan and meizan; in the Lat. metiri and metere, besides there 
 being no shifting of consonant (d for t), the quantity is inverted. 
 The ON. miotu&r appears to be also sector, messor ; in Snorri 104. 
 105, the wolfs head with which HeimdaU was killed is called 
 ' miotu8r HeimSallar,' and the sword is ' mans miotuSr ' ; so in 
 Eornald. sog. p. 441, 'manna miotuSr' (see Suppl.). In MHG. 
 too, the poets use mezzan of exquisite symmetry in creating : do 
 sin (Wunsch's) gewalt ir bilde maz ; Troj. 19626. got selb in 
 
 ^ Jane pater ! Cato 134 ; but what can Dissnnapiter mean in tlie remark- 
 able conjuring-spell, Cato 160 ? 
 
.GOD. 23 
 
 I'iclieu frouden was, do er ir lip als ehene maz ; Misc. 2, 186. er sol 
 ze relite lauge nuzzcu, der au si so ebene maz, daz er an si zer weiite 
 iiie uach. voUeni wunsche weder des nocli des vergaz ; MS. 1, 154". 
 got der was in froiden, d6 er dich als ebene maz; MS. 1,22" 
 wer kunde in so gemezzen. Tit. 130. 1. anders denne got uns 
 maz, do er ze werke iiber mich gesaz, Parz. 518, 21. ' ein bilde 
 niezzen ' is . therefore the same thing as ' ein bilde schafen ' 
 to create (Troj. 19805), or gieze7i to cast, mould (Walth. 45, 
 25. MS. 1, 195^ 2, 226"^) ; and in Suchenwirt 24, 154 it says : 
 ' got het gegozzen M ir. vel, ir miindel rot und wiz ir kel ' ; which 
 throws a significant light on the Gothic tribal name Gduts, A.S. 
 Gedt OHG. K6z (see Snppl.). — AS. seip-peiul, creator, OHGr. scefo, 
 scephio, MHG. seheirfcere, Wh. 1, 3. NHG. sclwpfer. — Some of 
 these names can be strung together, or they can be intensified by 
 composition : drohtin god, Hel. 2. 13. loaldand frd min, Hel. 148, 
 14. 153, 8. fred dryliten, Beow. 62. 186. Uf-fred, Casdm. 2, 9. 108, 
 18. 195, 3. 240, 33. Beow. 4. The earthly cuning with a prefix can 
 be used of God : ivuldoreyning, king of glory, Ctedm. 10, 32. hevan- 
 ciming, Hel. 3, 12, 18. 4, 14. 5, 11. and synonymously with these, 
 rodora weard, Csedm. 11, 2. or the epic amplification, irmin-got 
 dbana a6 Acwwe, Hild. got von himele, Nib. 2090,4. 2114, 1. 2132, 1. 
 2136, 1. 
 
 Of such epic formidas (see SuppL), beautiful specimens, all of 
 one tenour, can be cited from the poets, especially the Eomance : 
 they are mostly borrowed from God's dwelling-place, his creative 
 power, his omnipotence, omniscience and truth : — Dios aquel, que 
 e,sta en alto, Cid 800. 2352. 2465. qui la amont el seint eel 
 maint (abides), Een. 26018. qui maint el firmament, Berte 
 129. 149. der hoho sizet unde nideriu sihet, N. ps. 112, 5. qui 
 haut siet et de loing mire, Een. 11687. qui haut siet et loins 
 voit, Berte 44, 181. Guitecl. 2, 139. der iiber der blauen decke 
 sitzt, Melander Jocoseria 1, 439. cot almahtico, dii himil inti 
 erda gaworahtos (wroughtest heaven and earth), Wessobr. Geb. eel 
 senhor, qui lo mon a creat, Ferabr. 775. qui tot le mont forma, 
 Berte 143. que fezit nueyt e dia, Ferabr. 3997. per aycel senhor que 
 fetz eel e rozada (sky and dew), Ferabr. 2994. 4412. qui fist ciel et 
 rousee, Berte 28. 66. 111. 139. 171. 188. Aimon 876. qui feis mer 
 salee, Berte 67. qui fist et mer et onde, M&n 3, 460. des hant 
 daz mer gesalzen h^t, Parz. 514, 15. qui fait courre la nue, Berte 
 
24 COD. 
 
 136. 183 (ve^eXriyepera Zev<s). par celui qui fait toner, Een. 
 1G658. 17780. par qui li soleus raie, Berte 13. 81. der himel und 
 erde gebSt und die mergriezen zelt (counts the sea-sands, or pebbles). 
 Mar. 18. der der sterne zal weiz, Wh. 466, 30. der die sterne hat 
 gezalt, Parz. 629, 20. der uns gap des m§,nen (moon's) schin, Wh. 
 476, 1. qui fait croitre et les vins et les blez, Ferabr. 163'. der 
 mir ze lebene geriet (planned), Nib. 2091, 4. Kl. 484. der mir ze 
 lebene gebot (bade), Eoth. 215. 517. 4552. der uns daz leben 
 gebot, Mar. 24. (M. Dut.) bi den here die mi gheb6t (Gramm. 
 4, 134), die mi ghewrochte, Elegast 345. 451. 996. qui tot 
 a a baillier (oversee), Berte 35. qui tot a a garder, Berte 7. 
 que totz nos a jutgier, Ferabr. 308. 694. 1727. the man- 
 cunnies forwardSt, Hel. 152, 5. qtu sor tos homes puet et vaut, 
 M&n 4, 5. dominus qui omnia potest, Docum. of 1264 in Wenk 3. 
 no. 151. wider den nieman vermac, A. Heinr. 1355. der aller 
 wunder h^t gewalt, Parz. 43, 9. der git unde nimt (gives and 
 takes), Parz. 7 9. der weinen und lachen geschuof, AVTi. 258, 19. 
 der beidiu krump unde sleht gescuof (both crooked and plain), 
 Parz. 264, 25. der ane sihet alle getougen (secrets), Diut. 3, 52. 
 der durch elliu herzen siht, Frtd. 355. der in diu herze siht, Wh. 
 30, 29. der ie daz guote geriet (aye the good devised), Greg. 2993. 
 ther suntil6so man (sinless), 0. iii. 21, 4. dem nie voller genaden 
 zeran (tear, waste), Er. 2490. qui onques ne menti (nunquam 
 mentitus), Berte 82. 96. 120. 146. M(5on 3, 8. icil dieu qui ne 
 ment, et qui fist tot quanque mer serre, Een. 19338. er mik sk6p 
 ok ollu rseSr, Fornm. sog. 1, 3. sk er ollu rasSr, ibid. 8, 107. er 
 sohna hefSi skapat, ibid. 1, 242. het k ]jann sem solina skapaSi, 
 Landn. p. 139. 
 
 If, in some of the preceding names, epithets and phrases descrip- 
 tive of God, unmistakable traces of Heathenism predominate, while 
 others have barely an inkling of it, the following expressions are 
 stni more indisputably connected with the heathen way of 
 thinking. 
 
 In the Norse mythology, the notion of a Deus, Divus, if not of 
 the uppermost and eldest, yet of a secondary rank, which succeeded 
 to power later, is expressed by the word ds, pi. cesir (see SuppL). 
 Landds (Egilss. pp. 365-6) is patrium numen, and by it Thor, the 
 chief god of the North, is designated, though ds and allmdttki ds is 
 given to OSinn (Landn. 4, 7). dsmec/in is divine power : tha vex 
 
GOD. 25 
 
 honum asmegin halfu, Sn. 26. foeraz 1 asmegin, Sn. 65. But the 
 name must at one time have been universal, extending over Upper 
 Germany and Saxony, under such forms as: Goth. OHG. oms, pi. 
 anseis, enst, AS. 6s, pi. e's (conf. our gans, with ON. g§,s, pi. 
 g£ess, AS. g6s, pi. ges ; and hose = hansa). It continued to form 
 a part of proper names: Goth. Ansila, OHG. Anso; the OHG. 
 Anshelm, Anshilt, Anspald, Ansn6t correspond in sense to Cotahelm, 
 Cotahilt, &c. ; AS. Osweald, Oslaf, Osdseg, Osred ; ON. Asbiorn,i 
 Asdis, Asgautr, Aslaug, Asmundr, &c. — Now in UlphUas Lu. 2, 
 41-2, ans denotes a beam, Soa;6?, which is also one meaning of the 
 ON. ds, whether because the mighty gods were thought of as joist, 
 rafter and ceiling of the sky, or that the notions of jugum and 
 mountain-ridge were associated with them, for ds is especially used 
 of jugum terrse, mountain-ridge, Dan. bierg-aas (dettitls = sliding 
 beam, portcullis, Landn. 3, 17). But here we have some other 
 striking passages and proofs to weigh. An AS. poem couples 
 together ' esa gescot ' and ' ylfa gescot,' the shots of anses and of 
 elves, jaculum divorum et geniorum, just as the Edda does cEsir and 
 alfar, Stem. 8'' 71" 82" 83''. Jornandes says, cap. 13 : Turn Gothi, 
 magna potiti per loca victoria, jam proceres sues quasi qui fortuna 
 vincebant, non puros homines, sed semideos, id est anses (which 
 would be anseis) vocavere. What can be plainer ? The Norse eesir 
 in like manner merge into the race of heroes, and at much the 
 same distance from an elder dynasty of gods M'hom they have 
 dethroned. And here the well-known statement of Suetonius and 
 Hesychius,^ that the Etruscans called the gods cesares or cesi, may 
 fairly be called to mind, without actually maintaining the affinity 
 of the Etruscan or Tyrrhenian race with the ancient German, 
 striking as is the likeness between rvpf)r]v6<;, rvp<7rjv6<: and the ON. 
 Jjurs, OHG. durs.3 
 
 The significance of this analogy, however, is heightened, when 
 
 1 Ursu3 divinus, Asbima (uisa divina), for which the Waltharius has the 
 hybrid Ospim, prop. Anspim ; conf. Eeinh. fucha p. ccxcv. For AsketUl, 
 Oscytel, see end of en. III. 
 
 " Suet. Octavian. cap. 97. futummque, ut inter deos referretur, quod 
 msar, id est reliqua pars e Csesaris nomine, Etrusca lingua deus vocaretui'. 
 Hesych. s.v. ala-oL 6eol iird rav Tvpprjvav. Conf. Lanzi 2, 483-4 ; also Dio 
 Cass. 56, 29. 
 
 ^ Unfortunately ]jurs means a giant, and durs a demon, which, if they 
 have anything to do with the Tvpa~qvol, would rather imply that these were a 
 hostile and di'eaded people.— Trans. 
 
26 GOD; 
 
 we observe that the Etruscan religion, and perhaps also the Eoman 
 and the Greek, supposed a circle of twelve superior beings closely- 
 bound together and known by the name oi dii cofisentes or complices 
 (see Suppl.), exactly as the Edda uses the expressions hopt and bond, 
 literally meaning vincula, for those high numina (Seem. 24" 89". 
 Sn. 176. 204), and also the sing, hapt and hand for an indi-vidual god 
 (Stem. 93"). Though haptbandun in the Merseburg poem cannot 
 with certainty be taken to mean the same thing (the compound 
 seems here to denote mere bodily chains), it is possible that deus 
 and Sto9 are referable to Seco I bind ; that same ' ans ' a yoke, is the 
 same thing as the ' brace and band ' of all things ; neither can we 
 disregard the fact that twelve is likewise the number of the ISTorse 
 Eesir ; conf Ssem. 3^ : ' sesir or ]?vi liSi ' of the set, kindred. 
 
 Some other appellations may be added in support. In the 
 earliest period of our language, the neut. ragin meant consilium. 
 ISTow the plural of this, as used in the Edda, denotes in a special 
 manner the plurality of the gods (see Suppl.). Begin are the 
 powers that consult together, and direct the world ; and the expres- 
 sions bits regin,^ hoU regin (kind, merciful gods), uppregin, ginregin 
 (superae potestates) have entirely this technical meaning. Ragna- 
 rokr (Goth, raging riqvis ? dimness, darkness of gods) signifies the 
 end of the world, the setting of the divine luminaries. Seem. 
 89'' has "rognir ok regin" coupled together, rognir (cf 196") being 
 used to distinguish the individual ragineis (raguneis ? ), masc. 
 These ON. regin would be Goth, ragina, as the hopt and bond are 
 Gothic hafta and banda, aU neut. — The same heathen conception 
 peeps out in the OS. re^awgiscapu, re^awogiscapu, Hel. 79, 13. 103, 
 3, equivalent to fatum, destiny, the decree and counsel of the gods, 
 and synonymous with wurdgisca-pn, Hel. 103, 7, from wurd, fatum. 
 And again in wetot^ogiscapu, Hel. 66, 19. 147, 11. We have seen 
 that metod likewise is a name for the Supreme Being, which the 
 christian poet of the HeHand has ventured to retain from the 
 
 ^ 1 The blithe, hcappy gods ; -when people stepped along in stately gorgeous 
 attire, men thought that gods had appeared : nienn hugtSu at wsir veeri bar 
 komnir,' Landn. 3, 10. The Vols, saga c. 26 says of Sigurt5 : ']5at hygg ec at 
 her /on einn af goounum,' I think that here rides one of the gods. So in Parz. 
 36, 18 ; ' alda wip und man verjach, si ne gesachen nie helt s6 wiinneolich, ir 
 gate im solten sin gelich' (declared, they saw never a hero so winsome, their crods 
 must be like him). The more reason is there for my note on Siegfried °ch. 
 XV), of whom the Nib. 84, 4 says : der dort sS liMiclien gdt ' (see Suppl.). 
 
GOD. 27 
 
 heatlien poetry. But these gen. plurals regano, metodo again point 
 to the plurality of the binding gods. . ' ■ .' ' ' ' 
 
 The collection of Augustine's letters contains (cap. 178)', in the 
 altercatio with Pascentius, a Gothic or perhaps a Vandal formula 
 sihora armen, the meaning of which is simply Kvpie iXirja-ov} Even 
 if it be an interpolation, and written in the fifth or sixth century, 
 instead of at the end of the fourth, it is nevertheless remarkable 
 that sihora should be employed in it for God and Lord. Ulphilas 
 would have said : frauja armai. The inf. arming if not a mistake 
 for armi, might do duty as an imperative ; at the same time there 
 is a Finn, and Esth. word armo signifying gratia, misericordia. But 
 sihora, it seems, can only be explained as Teutonic, and must have 
 been already in heathen times an epithet of God derived from his 
 victorious might (see SuppL). Goth, sigis, ON. sigr, OHG. sigii,, 
 AS. sige victoria, triumphus. OSinn is styled sigrgod', sigt§r, 
 sigfoffur ; and the Christian poets transfer to God sigidrohf.in , Hel. 
 47, 13. 114, 19. 125,6. sigidryhten, Csdm. 33, 21. 48, 20. 
 sigmetod, Beow. 3544. vigsigor, Beow. 3108.^ elsewhere sigoradryhten, 
 sigorafred, sigorawealdend, sigoragod, sigoracyning. It is even pos- 
 sible that from that ancient sihora sprang the title sira, sire still 
 current in Teutonic and Eomance languages.^ 
 
 The gods being represented as superi and uppregin, as dwelling 
 on high, in the sky, uphimin, up on the mountain height (is, ans), 
 it was natural that individual gods should have certain particular 
 mountains and abodes assigned them. 
 
 Thus, from a mere consideration of the general names for God 
 and gods, we have obtained results which compel us to accept an 
 intimate connexion between expressions in our language and con- 
 ceptions proper to our heathenism. The ' me and God,' the graci- 
 ous and the angry God, the froho (lord) and the father, the behold- 
 ing, creating, measuring, casting, the images of ans, fastening, band. 
 
 'The TclieremL«ses also pray 'juma sirlaga,' and the Tohiivashes 'tora 
 sirlag,' i.e., God have mercy ; G. J. Mullers saml. russ. gesch. ?, 359. The 
 Morduina say when it thunders ' pashangui Porguini pas,' have mercy, god 
 Porgviini ; Georgi description 1, 64. 
 
 ^ den sig hat got in siner hant, MS. 2,16". 
 
 ' Gcitt. anz. 1833, pp. 471-2. Diez however raises douhts, Roman, gram. 
 1,41. 
 
28 GOD. 
 
 and ragin, all lead both individually, and with all the more weight 
 collectively, into the path to be trod. I shall take up all the threads 
 again, but I wish first to determine the nature and bearings of the 
 cultus. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 WOESHIR 
 
 The simplest actions by which man expressed his reverence^ for 
 the gods (see Suppl.), and kept up a permanent connexion with 
 them, were Prayer and Sacrifice. Sacrifice is a prayer offered up 
 with gifts. And wherever there was occasion for prayer, there was 
 also for sacrifice (see Suppl.). 
 
 Pkayek. — When we consider the word employed by Ulphilas 
 to express adoration, we at once come upon a correspondence with 
 the Norse phraseology again. For TrpoaKweo) the Goth, equivalent 
 is inveita, invait, invitum. Matt. 8, 2. 9, 18. Mk. 5, 6. 15, 19. 
 Lu. 4, 7-8. John 9, 38. 12, 20. 1 Cor. 14, 25 ; and once for 
 acnrdt^ofiai,, Mk. 9, 15 (see Suppl.). Whether in using this word 
 the exact sense of TrpoaKvvrjaK was caught, may be doubted, if only 
 because it is invariably followed by an ace, instead of the Greek 
 dat. In Mod. Greek popular songs, Trpoa-Kvvelv is used of a van- 
 quished enemy's act of falling to the ground in token of surrender. 
 We do not know by what gesture inveitan was accompanied, 
 whether a bowing of the head, a motion, of the hand, or a bending 
 of the knee. As we read, 1 Cor. 14, 25 : driusands ana anda- 
 vleizn (=antlitz), inveitiS guS ; a suppliant prostration like irpocr- 
 Kvvr]cn<; is not at variance with the sense of the word. An OS. 
 giwitan, AS. gewitan, means abire ; could inveitan also have signi- 
 fied merely going up to, approaching ? Paul. Diac. 1, 8 twice uses 
 accedere. Praveitan is vindicare. Now let us compare the ON. vita 
 inclinare,^ which Biorn quotes under veit, and spells, erroneously, I 
 
 1 Verehrung, O.H.G. era, Goth. prob. aiza. The O.H.G. h6n is not merely 
 our ehren, to honour, but also verehren, revereri (as reverentia is adoration, 
 cultus) ; A.S. weorSian, O.S. giwerthdn. All that comes from the gods or con- 
 cern!? them is holy, for which the oldest Teutonic word is Goth, veilis, O.H.G. 
 wth ; but only a few of the O.H.G. documents use this word, the rest preferring 
 heiktc, O.S. has only Mlag, A.S. Mlig, O.N. heilagr. On the connexion of win 
 with the subst. mh, more hereafter. Frdn denotes holy in the sense of 
 dominicus. 
 
 ' Cleasby-Vigfusson gives no meaning like inclinare, either under vUa ' to 
 fine,' or under vita ' to wit.' — Trans. 
 
30 WORSHIP. 
 
 think, vita. From it is derived veita (Goth, vaitjan ?) ; veita heiSr, 
 honorem peragere ; veita tiSir, sacra peragere ; veitsla, epulum, 
 Goth, vaitislo ? i 
 
 The Goth, hida preces, hidjan precari, rogare, orare, are used 
 both in a secular and a spiritual sense. The same with OHG. 
 peta a.nd pittan; but from piita is derived a petSn adorare, construed 
 with ace. of the person whom: O.i. 17, 62. ii. 14, 63. nidar- 
 faUan joh viih letdn, 0. ii. 4, 86-9. 97. iii. 11, 25. T. 46, 2. 60, 
 1. petota inan, Diut.'l, 513^ But letSn can also express a spiri- 
 tual orare, T. 34, 1, 2, 3. Uto-man cultores, 0. II. 14, 68. In 
 MHG. I fiud Mten .always followed by the prep, an (see Suppl.) : 
 beten an diu abgot, Barl. 72, 4. an ein bilde beten, ibid. 98, 15. 
 so muoz si iemer mS n§,ch gote sin min anebet, she must after God 
 be my (object ofj adoration, Ben. 146. Our hitten ask, heten pray, 
 anbeten adore, are distinct from one another, as hitte request is from 
 gebet prayer. The OS. hedon is not followed by ace, but by prep. 
 te : bedon te minun barma, Hel. 33, 7. 8 ; and this of itself would 
 suggest what I conjectured in my Gramm. 2, 25, that bidjan origin- 
 ally contained the physical notion of jacere, prosterni, which again 
 is the only explanation of Goth, badi kKwlSiov a bed, and also of 
 the old badu, AS. beado = ctedes, strages.^ — The AS. New Test, 
 translates adorare by ge-edd'-medan, i.e., to humble oneself. The 
 MHG. flShen, when it signifies supplicare, governs the dat. : gote 
 flehen, Aegid. 30. den goten vlehen, Parz. 21, 6. Wh. 126, 30. 
 Ttlrl. Wh. 71' ; but in the sense of demulcere, solari, the ace, Parz. 
 119, 23. 421, 25. Mb. 499, 8 (see Suppl.).^ It is the Goth pi&ilian, 
 fovere, consolari. An OHG. flehSn vovere I only know from N. 
 cap. 8, Bth. 178, and he spells it fiehdn: ten (ace. quern) wir fle- 
 hoton. We say ' zu gott flehen' but ' gott anflelien '. — The Goth. 
 aihtrdn irpoaevxeo'dai,, irpoaaiTelv expresses begging rather than 
 asking or praying. The OHG. diccan, OS., thiggian, is both 
 precari and impetrare, while AS. picgan, ON"., piggja, is invariably 
 
 invoco 
 
 Bopp, Comp. gram. p. 128, identifies inveita with the Zend nivaedhay^mi 
 
 0. 
 
 What was the physical meaning of the Slav, moliti rogare, molitise orare, 
 modliti se, Pol. modlid siij 1 The Sloven, moliti still means porrigere, 
 uuiii. Lith. meldziu rogo, inf. melsti, and malda oratio. Pruss. madia, oonf. 
 Goth, majiljan loqui, majileins loquela, which is next door to oratio. 
 ^ Iw. 3315 vlegete got ; but in tlie oldest MS. vlShete gote. 
 
PKAYER. '31 
 
 impetrare, accipere, so that asking has passed over into effectual 
 asking, getting (see SuppL). 
 
 Another expression for prayer is peculiar to the N"orse and AS. 
 dialects, and foreign to all the rest : OIST. ISn or ban, Swed. Dan. 
 6o?i, AS. hen, gen. bene f., Ctedm. 152, 26, in Chaucer hone, Engl. 
 boon ; from it, bena supplex, bensian supplicare. Lastly the Icel. 
 Swed. dyrka, Dan. dyrke, which like the Lat. colere is used alike of 
 worship and of tillage, seems to be a recent upstart, unknown to 
 the ON. language. 
 
 On the form and manner of heathen prayer we lack informa- 
 tion ; I merely conjecture that it was accompanied by a looldng wp 
 to heaven, bending of the body (of which bidjan gave a hint), folding 
 of hands, bowing of hiees, uncovering of tlie head. These gestures 
 grow out of a crude childlilie notion of antiqu.ity, that the human 
 suppliant presents and submits himself to the mighty god, his 
 conqueror, as a defenceless victim (see SuppL). Precari decs cmluin- 
 que sv^picere is attested by Tacitus himself. Germ. 10. Genuflec- 
 tere is in Gothic hnussjan, the supplicare of the Eomans was Hexo 
 corpore adorare. Falling down and bowing were customs of the 
 christians too; thus in Hel. 47, 6. 48, 16. 144, 24 we have: te 
 bedu hnigan. 58, 12 : te drohtine hnigan. 176, 8 : te bedu fallan. 
 145, 3 : gihn^g an kniobeda. In the S61arlio3 is the remarkable 
 expression : henni ec laut, to her (the sun) I bowed. Stem. 126" ; 
 from I'Ata inclinare. falla a kn§ ok luta, Vilk. saga cap. 6. nu 
 strauk kongsdottir sinn legg, ok mtelti, ok ser i lopti& uf-p, (stroked 
 her leg, and spoke, and looks up to the sky), Vilk. saga cap. 61. 
 So the saga of St. Olaf tells how the men bowed before the statue 
 of Thor, lutu }7vi skrimsli, Fornm. sog. 4, 247. fell til iardar fyrir 
 likneski (fell to earth before the likeness). Fornm. sog. 2, 108. 
 The Langobards are stated in the Dial. Gregorii M. 3, 28 to have 
 adored submissis cervicibus a divinely honoured goat's head. In the 
 Middle Ages people continued to bow to lifeless objects, by way of 
 blessing them, such as a loved country, the road they had traversed, 
 or the day.^ Latin writers of the time, as Lambert, express urgent 
 entreaty by pedibus provolvi ; the attitude was used not only to 
 
 1 Dem stige nigen, Iw. 5837. dem wege nlgen, Parz. 375, 26. dem lande 
 nigen, Trist. 11532. nigen in daz lant, Wigal. 4018. nlgen in elliu lant, Iw. 
 7755. in die werlt nigen, Fra«end. 163, 10. den stigen und wegen segen 
 tuon, Iw. 357 (see Siippl.). 
 
32 WORSHIP. 
 
 God, but to all whom one wished to honour : neig im uf den fuoz, 
 Morolt 41''. hie viel sie M slnen vuoz, Iw. 8130. ouch nlge ich ir 
 unz uf den fuoz, MS. 1, 155°. vaUe flir si (fall before her), und nlge 
 fif ir fuoz, MS. 1, 54*. buten sich (bowed) weinende M sinen vuoz, 
 Greg. 355. neig im nider uf die bant, Dietr. 55^ These passages show 
 that people fell before the feet, and at the feet, of him who was to 
 be reverenced : wilt fallan te minun fotun, bedos te mlnun barma, 
 Hel. 33, 7. sich bot ze tal (bowed to the ground) gein sinen fiiezen 
 nieder, Wh. 463, 2} An 0. Boh. song has : ' sie klanieti bohu,' to 
 bow before God, Koniginh. hs. 72 ; but the same has also the un- 
 Teutonic ' se hiti w Mo prede bohy,' to beat one's brow before God.^ 
 Uncovering the head (see SuppL) certainly was from of old a token 
 of respect with our ancestors, which, like bowing, was shown to 
 deity as well as to kings and chiefs. Perhaps the priests, at least 
 those of the Goths, formed an exception to this, as their name pile- 
 ati is thus accounted for by Jornandes, quia opertis capitibus tiaris 
 litabant, while the rest of the people stood uncovered. In a 
 survival of heathenish harvest-customs we shall find this uncover- 
 ing further established, ch. VII. In Mcolai Magni de Gow 
 registrum superstitionum (of 1415) it is said : Insuper hodie 
 inveniuntur homines, qui cum novilunium primo viderint Jleads 
 genibus adorant vel deposito caputio vel pileo, inclinato capite 
 honorant alloquendo et suscipiendo.^ An AS. legend of CuSberht 
 relates how that saint was wont to go down to the sea at 
 
 1 Fial in sine fuazi, 0. III. 10, 27. an sine fiieze, Karl 14''. The Chris- 
 tians in the Mid. Ages called it venie fallen, Parz. 460, 10. Karl 104'. Berth. 
 173. Ksrchr. 2958. 3055. Kneeling and kissing the ground, to obtain abso- 
 lution : da er uf siner venie lac (lay), Barl. 366, 21. den anger maz mit der langen 
 venie, Frib. Trist. 2095. venien suochen, MS. 1, 23''. Morolt. 28'. Troj. 
 9300. terrae oscvilationibus, quas venias appellant, Fez. bibl. a.scet. 8, 440. gie 
 ze kirchen und banekte (prostrated 1) ze sote siniu glider mit venien und gebet. 
 Cod. kolocz. 180. _ ^66 g , 
 
 ' The tchelo-bitnaya, beating of the forehead in presenting a petition, was 
 prohibited in Eussia by Catherine II. Conf. pronis vultibus adorare, Hehnold 
 1, 38. 
 
 8 What else I have collected about this practice, may be inserted here ; 
 elevato a capite pileo alloquitur seniorem, Dietm. Merseb. p. 824 (an. 1012). 
 sublata cydare surgens inclinat honeste, Ruodlieb 2, 93. Odofredus in I. 
 secundo loco digest, de postulando : Or signori, hie colligimus argumentum, 
 quod aliquis qua,ndo veniet coram magistratu debet ei revereri, quod est contra 
 Ferrarienses, qui, si essent coram Deo, non extraherent sibi capellum vel bvrretum 
 de capite, nee flexis genibus postularent. Pilletis in capite est, Isengrimus 1139. 
 oster la cha^e (in saluting), Meon 4, 261. geliipfet den huot, Ms H. 3, 33o'. 
 sinen hMot er ahenam, hiemit eret er in also, Wigal. 1436. er z6ch duroh sin 
 hiibscheit den huot gezogenlichen abe, Troj. 1775. do stuont er M geswinde 
 
PRAYER. 33 
 
 night, and standing wp to his neck in the briny breakers, to siag bis 
 prayers, and afterwards to kneel down on tbe shingles, with palms 
 stretched out to the firmament.^ Lifting wp and folding of the 
 hands (see Suppl.) was also practised to a master, particularly to a 
 feudal lord. In Ls. 3, 78 we have ' bat mit zertanen armen^ prayed 
 with outspread arms. The Old Bavarian stapfsak^n (denial of 
 indebtedness) was accompanied by elevation of the hands, EA. 927 
 (see Suppl.). It is not impossible that the christian converts 
 retained some heathen customs in praying. In a manuscript, pro- 
 bably of the 12th century, the prayers are to be accompanied by 
 some curious actions: s6 miz (measure) den ubir din herza in modum 
 crucis, unde von dem hrustleffile zuo demo nabile, unde miz denne von 
 eime rippe unz an daz andire, unde sprich alsus. Again : so miz 
 denne die rehtim hant von deme lengistin vingire unz an daz resti 
 (wrist), unde miz denne von deme dumin zuo deme minnisten vin- 
 gire. One prayer was eaUed ' der vane (flag) des almehtigin gotis'; 
 nine women are to read it nine Sundays, ' s& ez morginet' ; the 
 ninth has to read the psalm Domini est terra, in such a posture 
 ' daz ir lib niet more die erde, wan die ellebogin unde diu chnie,' 
 that her body touch not the ground, except at the elbows and knees; 
 the others are all to stand till the lighted candle has burnt out ; 
 Diut. 2, 292-3. 
 
 We cannot now attach any definite meaning to the Gothic 
 aviliuddn evxapta-Telv ; it is formed from aviliud x°-P''^> '^^^'^ 
 resembles an 0. Sax. alat, olat gratiae ; does it contain HuS cantus, 
 and was there moreover something heathenish about it? (See 
 Suppl.). The old forms of prayer deserve more careful collecting; 
 the I^orse, which invoke the help of the gods, mostly contain the 
 
 gnuoc, ein schapel daz er uf truoc von gimmen tmd von golde fln, daz nam, er ah 
 dem howpte sin, Troj . 18635. er zucket im sin heppalt, Ls. 3, 35. er was gereit, 
 daz er von dem houbt den huot liez vliegen und sprach, Kolocz. 101. Festus 
 explains : lucem facere diountur Satumo sacriflcantes, id est capita detegere; 
 again : Satumo fit saorificiuna capite aperto ; conf. Macrob. Sat. 1, 8. Serv. in 
 Virg. 3, 407. 
 
 1 Wses gewunod Jiaet he wolde gan on niht to see, and standan on )jani 
 sealtnm brimme, o5 nis swuran, singende his gebedu, and siSSan his cneowu 
 on ]jam ceosle gebygde, astrehtum handbredum t6 heofenlicum rodere; Thorpe's 
 analecta, pp. 76-7. homil. 2. 138. [I have thought it but fail to rescue the 
 saint from a perilous position in which the German had inadvertently placed 
 him by making him " wade into the sea up to his neck, and kneel down to 
 sing his prayers". — Trans.] — In the O.Fr. jeu de saint Nicolas, Tervagant 
 has to be approached on bare elbows and knees; Legrand fabl. 1, 343. 
 
 3 
 
34 WOESHIP. 
 
 verb duga with the sense propitium esse: biS ec Ottari oil goS duga. 
 (I Ot. pray aU, &c.), Seem. 120^ biSja \k dlsir duga, Saem. 195*. 
 Duga means to help, conf. Gramm. 4, 687. There is beauty in the 
 ON. prayer: bitJjom herjafoSr i hugom sitja (rogemus deum in 
 animis sedere nostris), Ssem. 113', just as Christians pray the Holy 
 Ghost to descend : in herzen unsin sdzi, 0. iv. 5, 30 (see Suppl.). 
 
 Christians at prayer or confession looked toward the East, and 
 lifted up their arms (Bingham lib. xi. cap. 7, ed. hal. 3, 273) ; and 
 so we read in the Kristinbalkr of the old Gulathing law: ' ver skulum 
 liXta austr, oc biSja til ens helga Krists ars ok friSar,' we must bow 
 east, and pray the holy Christ for plenty and peace (conf. Syntagma 
 de baptismo p. 65) ; in the Waltharius 1159 : contra orientalem 
 prostratus corpore partem precatur ; in AS. formulas : edstweard 
 ic stande; and in Troj. 9298. 9642: keret inch gen Srient. The 
 heathens, on the contrary, in praying and sacrificing, looked North- 
 wards : horfa (turn) i norffr, Pornm. sog. 11, 134. leit (looked) i 
 norffr, Saem. 94'. beten gegen mitternacht, Keisersperg omeiss 49''. 
 And the North was looked upon by the christians as the unblessed 
 heathen quarter, on which I have given details in EA. 808 ; it was 
 unlucky to make a throw toward the north, EA. 57 ; in the Lombard 
 boundary-treaties the northern tract is styled ' nuUa ora,' EA 544. 
 These opposite views must serve to explain a passage in the Eoman 
 de Eenart, where the fox prays christianly, and the wolf heathenly, 
 Eeinh. fuchs p. xli.^ 
 
 As the expressions for asking and for obtaining, pp. 30, 31, are 
 identical, a prayer was thought to be the more effectual, the more 
 people it was uttered by : 
 
 got enwolde so manegem munde 
 sin gen§,de niht versagen. Wigal. 4458. 
 
 die juncvrouwen b^ten alle got, 
 nu ist er so gnsedec unt so guot 
 imt so reine gemuot, 
 daz er niemer kunde 
 so manegem siiezen munde 
 betelichiu dine versagen. Iw. 5351. 
 
 1 At the abrenuntiatio one had to face the simset, with ■wrinkled brow (fronte 
 caperata), expressing anger and hatred ; but at the confession of faith, to face 
 the sunrise, with eyes and hands raised to heaven ; Bingham lib. xi. cap 7 S 
 13.14. Conf. Joh. Olavii synt. de baptismo, pp. 64-5. " ' ^' " '' 
 
SACKIFIC^. 35 
 
 in (to the nuns) waren de munde s& royt, 
 so wes si god bS,den, 
 of syt mit vllze d§,den, 
 he id in nummer inkdnde 
 dem rosenroten munde 
 bedelicher dinge versagen. 
 
 Ged. von der vrouwen sperwere, Cod. berol. 184, 54^ Hence: 
 Mfen singen, MS. 1, 57'. 2, 42^ Conf. cento novelle 61.^ 
 
 Sacrifice. — The word opfer, a sacrifice, was introduced into 
 German by Christianity, being derived from the Lat. offero. offerre? 
 The AS. very properly has only the verb offrian and its derivative 
 offrung (oblatio). In OHG., from opfardn, ojpfordn there proceeded 
 also a subst. opfar, MHG. ophern and opher ; ^ and from Germany 
 the expression seems to have spread to neighbouring nations, ON. 
 offr, Swed. Dan. offer, Lith. appiera, Lett, uppuris, Esth. ohwer, Fin. 
 uhri, Boh. of^ra, Pol. qfiara, Sloven, ofer. Everywhere the original 
 heathen terms disappeared (see Suppl.). 
 
 The oldest term, and one universally spread, for the notion ' to 
 worship (God) by sacrifice,' was bldian (we do not know if the 
 Goth. pret. was baiblot or bl6taida) ; I incHne to attach to it the 
 full sense of the Gk. Ovetv^ (see Suppl.). UlphUas saw as yet no 
 objection to translating by it ae^eaOai, and Xarpevew, Mk. 7, 7. 
 
 1 Mock-piety, hypocrisy, was branded in the Mid. Ages likewise, by strong 
 phraseology : er wil gate die fiieae abezzen (eat the feet off), Ls. 3, 421. Fragm. 
 28». Mones anz. 3, 22. imserm Herrgott die fiiess abbeissen woUen (bite off), 
 Schmeller 2, 231. den heiligen die fuss abbeten wollen (pray the saints' feet off 
 them), Simplic. 1. 4, 17. herrgottbeisser, Hofer 2, 48. herrgottflsler (fuszler), 
 Schmid 1, 93. heiligenfresserin, 10 ehen, p. 62. So the Ital. mangiaparadiso, 
 Fr. mangeur de crucefix. Boh. Pol. Uciobrazek (licker of saints). A sham 
 saint is indifferently termed kapeltrete, tempeltrete, tempelrinne, Mones schausp. 
 p. 123. 137 (see Suppl.). 
 
 ^ Not from operari, which in that sense was unknown to the church, the 
 Eomance languages likewise using It. offerire, Sp. ofrecer, Fr. ojfrir, never 
 operare, obrar, ouvrer ; the same technical sense adheres to offerta, ofrenda, 
 offrande. From oblata come the Sp. oblea, Fr. oublie, and perhaps the MHG. 
 oblei, unless it is from exilogia, oblagia. From oflxe and ofterta are formed the 
 Wei. offryd, Jr. oifrion, aifrwn, offrail. Lastly, the derivation from ferre, 
 offerre, is confirmed by the German phrase ' ein opfer bringen, darbrmgen.' 
 
 ^ Ophar, opfer could hardly be the Goth, aibr dSpoi', in which neither the 
 vowel nor the consonant agrees. The Wei. abert, Gael, iobairt, Ir. iodbairt, 
 (sacrificium) probably belong also to offerta. 
 
 * When Sozomen hist. eccl. 6, 37 in a narrative of Athanaric uses irpoa-nvvelv 
 leai 6ieiv, the Gothic would be inveitanjah bUtan. 
 
36 WORSHIP. 
 
 Lu. 2, 37; he construes it with an ace. of the person: bl6tan 
 fraujan is to him simply Deum colere, with apparently no thought 
 of a bloody sacrifice. For Xarpeia Eom. 12, 1, he puts UStinassm, 
 and for ^eoo-eyS?;? John 9, 31 g\M)l6streis. The latter presupposes a 
 subst. hldstr (cultus, oblatio), of which the S is explained in 
 Gramm. 2, 208. UsUdteins {■n-apaKXTjai';) 2 Cor. 8, 4 implies a verb 
 usblStjan to implore. Csedmon uses the AS. hlStan pret. bl^ot, 
 onblStan pret. onbl^ot, of the Jewish sacrifice, and follows them up 
 with ace. of thing and dat. of person : blotan sunu (fiHum sacri- 
 ficare) 173, 5. ' onbleot Jjaet lac Gode (obtulit hostiam Deo) 177, 21. 
 In Alfred's Orosius we have the same blStan pret. blotte. I derive 
 from it hUtsian, later blessian, to bless. The OHG. pluozan, pret. 
 pliez and pluozta, appears only in glosses, and renders libare, litare, 
 victimare, immolare, Gl. Hrab. 959" 960" 966" 968*. Diut. 1, 245, 
 258". 'Eo case-construction is found, but an ace. of the thing may 
 be inferred from partic. kapl6zaniu immolata. A subst. pluostar 
 sacrificium, Uuostar, Is. 382. Gl. emm. 411. Gl. jun. 209. T. 56, 4. 
 95, 102^; pluosiarh'As idolium, Gl. emm. 402. ploazli-As fanum, 
 phwstrari sacrificator, ibid. 405. It is plain that here the word has 
 more of a heathen look, and was not at that time used of christian 
 worship ; with the thing, the words for it soon die out. But its 
 universal use in Norse heathendom leaves no doubt remaining, that 
 it was equally in vogue among Goths, Alamanni, Saxons, before 
 their conversion to Christianity. The ON", verb blSta, pret. blet and 
 blotaSi, takes, like the Gothic, an ace. of the object worshipped ; 
 thus, Grlg§,s 2, 170, in the formula of the trygdamal: svS, viSa sem 
 (as widely as) kristnir menn kirkior scfikia, heiSnir menn Iiof hldta 
 (fana colunt); and in the Edda: Thor U6ta, mik lldta, blStaffi OSin. 
 Stem. Ill", 11 3^ 141", 165^^: always the meaning is sacrificio vene- 
 rari. So that in Goth, and ON. the verb brings out more the idea 
 of the person, in OHG. and AS. more that of the thing. But 
 even the O.Dan, version of the OT. uses bloihe immolare, Uodhma.d]i 
 
 1 The Gl. Hrab. 954»' : baolia, plSstar, is incomplete ; in Gl. Ker. 45. Diut. 
 1, 166" it stands : bacha sacriftcat, ploastar ploazit, or ziipar pUzit; so that it is 
 meant to translate only the Lat. verb, not the subst. bacha (paKxri). Or per- 
 haps a better reading is ' baohat ' for baochatur, and the meaning ia ' non 
 sacriftcat '. 
 
 ^ Landn. 1,2: blotaSi hratha Jjria, worshipped three ravens, who were 
 going to show him the road ; so, in Srem. 141", a bird demands that cows be 
 sacrificed to him ; the victim itself is ON. hlSt, and we are told occasionally : 
 feck at bloti, ak bloti miklu, offered a sacrifice, a great sacrifice, Landn. 2 29. 
 
SACRIFICE. 37 
 
 libamina, hlotelsa holocaustum, Molbech's ed. pp. 171. 182. 215. 249. 
 Also the O.Swed. Uplandslag, at the very beginning of the church- 
 balkr has : aengin skal affguSum hlotoe, with dat. of person, implying 
 an ace. of the thing. — The true derivation of the word I do not know.^ 
 At all events it is not to be looked for in bloS sanguis, as the dis- 
 agreeing consonants of the two Gothic words plainly show; equally 
 divergent are the OHG. pluozan and pluot from one another; 
 besides, the worship so designated was not necessarily bloody. A 
 remarkable passage in the Livonian rhyming chronicle 4683 tells of 
 the Sameits (Schamaits, Samogits) : 
 
 ir Uuotekirl der warf zuo hant 
 sin 18z n5.ch ir alden site, 
 zuo hant er Uuotete alles mite 
 ein quek. 
 
 Here, no doubt, an animal is sacrificed. I fancy the poet retained 
 a term which had penetrated from Scandinavia to Lithuania with- 
 out understanding it himself ; for bluotkirl is merely the O.Swed. 
 blotkarl, heathen priest; the term is foreign to the Lithuanian 
 language.^ 
 
 A few more of these general tetms for sacrifice must be added 
 (see SuppL). — OHG. antheiz (hostia, victima), Diut. 1, 240^ 246, 
 258. 278" ; and as verbs, both antkeizSn and inheizan (immolare), 
 Diut. 1, 246. 258.— OHG. insaJcSn (litare), Gl. Hrab. 968", insaJcet pim 
 (dehbor), ibid. 959* 960°, to which add the Bavarian stapfsakgn, 
 EA. 927 ; just so the AS. onsecgan, Cod. exon. 171, 32. 257, 23. 
 onsecgan t6 tibre (devote as sacrifice), Caedm. 172, 30. fiber 
 onscegde, 90, 29. 108, 17. tifer onsecge, Ps. 65, 12. lie onsecge 
 Cod. exon. 254, 19. 257, 29; lac onscegde, CEedm. 107, 21. 113, 
 15. Cod. exon. 168, 28. gild onsagde, Csedm. 172, 11. and 
 onscegdnes (oblatio). — As inheizan and onsecgan are formed 
 with the prefix and-, so is apparently the OHG. ineihan pim 
 (delibor), Hrab. 960°, which would yield a Goth, anddilcan ; it is 
 
 ^ Letter for letter it agrees with (j>koib6a I light up, bum, which is also ex- 
 pressed in 6va and the Lat. suffio ; but, if the idea of bumt-offering was 
 originally contained in blotan, it must have got obscured very early. 
 
 * Even in MHG. the word seems to have already become extinct ; it 
 may survive still in terms referring to place, as Wotegraben, ifofegarten in 
 Hessen, conf. the phrase ' blotzen miissen,' to have to fork out (sacrifice) money. 
 An old knife or sword also is called hlotz (see SuppL). 
 
38 WOKSHIP. 
 
 from this OHG. ineihhan, which I think Graff 1, 128 has misread 
 ireihan, that a later neihhan immolare, libare Graff (2, 1015) seems 
 to have risen by aphseresis (Gramm. 2, 810), as neben from ineben; 
 conf. eichon (dicare, vindicare), Graff 1, 127. To this place also 
 belongs the OHG. pifelahan (libare, immolare), Diut. 1, 245. 248. 
 — All this strictly denotes only the ' on-saying,' dedication, conse- 
 cration of the offering ; and it foUows from the terminology at least 
 that particular objects were selected beforehand for sacrifice.^ 
 Thus antheiz is elsewhere simply a vow, votum, solemn promise, 
 intheizan vovere ; hence also the AS. onsecgan has determinative 
 substantives added to it. 
 
 In the same sense hiudan (offerre) seems to have been in use 
 very early, AS. lac heheodan, Csedm. 173, 9. ON", hodn (oblatio). 
 From this biudan I derive hiuds (mensa), ON. hioffr (discus), AS. 
 leod (mensa, lanx), OHG. piot, from its having originally signified 
 the holy table of offerings, the altar. 
 
 The Goth, fullafahjan (with dat. of pers.) prop, to please, give 
 satisfaction, is used for TuLTpeveiv, Lu. 4, 8 (see SuppL). — In Mk. 1, 
 44. Lu. 5, 14 atlairan adferre, irpoa^epeiv, is used of sacrifice ; and 
 in AS. the subst. bring by itseK means oblatio ; so Wolfram in 
 Parz. 45, 1 says : si hrakten opfer vil ir goten, and Pundgr. II. 25 : 
 ein lam zopphere hrdkte. — It is remarkable that the Goth, saljan, 
 which elsewhere is intransitive and means divertere, manere [put 
 up, lodge, John 1, 39. 40] is in Lu. 1, 9. Mk. 14, 12. 1 Cor. 10, 
 20. 28 used transitively for Ovfiidv and 66eiv, and hunsla scdjan, 
 John 16, 2 stands for Xarpeiav Trpocr^epeiv, which brings it up to 
 the meaning of OHG. and AS. seUan, ON. selja, tradere, to hand 
 over, possibly because the solemn presentation included a personal 
 approach. The OHG. pigangan (obire) is occasionally applied to 
 worship : figanc (ritus), Diut. 1, 272'. afgoda legangan, Lacomblet 
 1, 11. — Gildan, keltan, among its many meanings, has also to do 
 with worship and sacrifice ; it was from the old sacrificial banquets 
 that our guilds took their name. OS. waldandes (God's) geld, Hel. 
 3, 11. 6, 1. that geld l^stian, Hel. 16, 5. AS. hrjnegield, holo- 
 caustum, Caedm. 175, 6, 177, 18. gild onsecgan, 172, 11. Abel's 
 offering is a gield, 60, 5. deofol(7^eM, idololatria, Beda 3, 30. Cod. 
 
 1 So the O Boh. ohiecati obiet (Koniginh. hs. 72) is strictly opfer verheissen, 
 to pronuse or devote an otfenng. ' 
 
SACKIFICE. 39 
 
 exon. 245, 29. 251, 24. heefSengield, Cod. exon. 243, 23. OHG. 
 heidsLukelt sacrilegium : gote ir gelt bringent, Warn. 2906. offer- 
 xmcgMldar, sacrificium. Is. 395. dhiu blostar iro ghelstro, Is. 382. 
 — Peculiar to the AS. dialect is the general term Idc, neut., often 
 rendered more definite by verbs containing the notion of sacrifice : 
 onblfot Jjset Idc gode, Csedm. 177, 26. dryhtne Idc brohton, 60, 2. 
 Idc bebeodan, 173, 9. Idc onssegde, 107, 21. 113, 15. ongan Idc, 
 90, 19 (see SuppL). The word seems to be of the same root as the 
 Goth. masc. laiks (saltatio), OHG. leih (Indus, modus), ON. leikr, 
 and to have signified at first the dance and play that accompanied a 
 sacrifice, then gradually the gift itself^ That there was playing 
 and singing at sacrifices is shown by the passages quoted further 
 on, from Gregory's dialogues and Adam of Bremen. 
 
 The following expressions I regard as more definite (see Suppl). 
 Ulph. in Eom. 11, 16 renders airapx^, the offering of firstfruits at 
 a sacrifice, delibatio, by ufarskafis, which I derive not from skapan, 
 but from skaban (shave) radere, since airapxai were the first 
 clippings of hair off the victim's forehead, Odyss. 14, 422. 3, 446. 
 If we explain it from skapan, this word must have passed from its 
 tneaning of creare into that of facere, immolare. — The Goth. vitSd 
 is lex, the OHG. wizdt (Graff 1, 1112. Fundgr. 1, 398") both lex 
 and eucharistia, the Fris. vitcd invariably the latter alone ; just as 
 zakon in Serv. has both meanings [but in Euss. only that of lex]. 
 ■^Ulph. translates Ovoia by Goth, hunsl, Matt. 9, 13. Mk. 9, 49. 
 Lu. 2, 24 ; then again \arpeCav irpocr^epeiv in John 16, 2 hyhunsla 
 saljan, where the reference is expressly to kUling. And dvcriaa-Trjpiov 
 is called hunslasta^s, Matt. 5, 23-4. Lu. 1, 11. But the corre- 
 sponding AS. h'dsel, Engl, liovsel, allows of being applied to a 
 Christian sacrament, and denotes the encharist, /i-ilseZgong the 
 partaking of it, hllseKsdt the sacred vessel of sacrifice ; conf. Csedm. 
 260, 5 MseZfatu hMegu for the sacred vessels of Jerusalem. Like- 
 wise the OK MsZ in the Norw. and Swed. laws is used in a 
 christian, never in a heathen sense. No hunsal is found in OHG.; 
 neither can I guess the root of the word. — Twice, however, Ulph. 
 
 ' Serv. prildg offering, what is laid before, prilozhiti to offer ; Sloven, dar, 
 da/rina, daritva = hapov. [Buss, darii sviatiiye = bS>pa Upa meaxis the 
 eucharist.] The Sloven aldov, bloodless offering, seems not to be Slavic, it 
 resembles Hung, aldozat. Qva-ia is rendered in 0. Slav, by zhrtva (Kopitar's 
 Glagol. 72°), in Euss. by zhertva [fr. zhariti to roast, bum ? or zhrati devour, 
 zhera glutton ?]. 
 
40 WORSHIP. 
 
 renders Ovala by sdud's, pi. saudeis, Mk. 12, 33. Eom. 12, 1. I sup- 
 suppose he thought of the sacrifice as that of an animal slaughtered 
 and boiled ; the root seems to be siuSan to seethe, and the ON. has 
 savxfr a ram, probably because its flesh is boiled.^ In Eph. 5, 2 we 
 have ' hunsl jah sdud' ' side by side, for irpocr^opav km 6va-iav, and 
 in Skeir. 37, 8 gasaljands sik hunsl jah sauS. — The OHG. zepar is 
 also a sacrifice in the sense of hostia, victima. Hymn. 10, 2. 12, 2. 21, 
 5. Gl. Hrab. 965^ Diut. 240" 272" (see Suppl.), We could match 
 it with a Goth, tibr, if we might venture on such an emendation of 
 the unique dihr Saipov, Matt. 5, 23 (con£ Gramm. 1, 63). My con- 
 jecture that our German ungeziefer (vermin), formerly ungeziber/' 
 and the O.Fr. atoivre also belong to this root, has good reasons in 
 its favour. To this day in Franconia and Thuringia, ziefer, geziefer 
 (insects) not only designate poultry, but sometimes include even 
 goats and swine (Reinwald henneb. id. 1, 49. 2, 52, conf. Schm. 4, 
 228). What seems to make against my view is, that the A.S. tiher 
 cannot even be restricted to animals at all, Ceedm. 90, 29. 108, 5. 
 172, 31. 175, 3. 204, 6. 301, 1. sigetiher, 203, 12. sigortifer, Cod. 
 exon. 257, 30 ; on the contrary, in 60, 9 it is Cain's offering of 
 grain that is called tiber, in distinction from Abel's gield ; and in 
 ^Ifr. gl. 62'' we find wlntifer, libatio. But this might be a later 
 confusion ; or our ungeziefer may have extended to weeds, and con- , 
 sequently zepar itself would include anything fit for sacrifice in 
 plants and trees.^ Meanwhile there is also to be considered the 
 ON. tafn, victima and esca ferarum. — Lastly, I will mention a 
 term peculiar to the ON. language, and certainly heathen : fSm, 
 fem. victima, hostia, f&rna, immolare, or instead of it fdrnfara, 
 conf Fornm. sog. 1, 97 2, 76. this f6rna at the same time, according 
 to Biorn, meaning elevare, tollere. AS. f6rn porcus, porcaster (?). 
 
 1 Eom. 12, 1. 'present your bodies a Ktimji sautS ' was scarcely a happy 
 combination, if sa.n.?Ss conveyed the notion of something boiled ! Can nothing 
 be made of soSjan satiare soothe (Milton's ' the soothest shepherd ' = sweetest, 
 Goth. sAtista) ? Grimm's law of change in mutes has many exceptions : pater 
 father faeder vater (4 stages instead of 3, so mater) ; sessel a settle, and sattel 
 a saddle, both from sit sat ; treu true, but trinken drink, &c. — Thans. 
 
 * Titur. 5198, ungezibere stands for monster ; but what can ungezibele mean 
 in Lanz. 5028 vor gr6zem ungezibele 1 nibele t 
 
 ' Casdm. 9, 2 : ]>a seo tid gewat ofer tiber sceacan middangeardes. This 
 passage, whose meaning Thorpe himseK did not rightly seize, I understand 
 thus : As time passed on over (God's) gift of this earth. The inf. sceacan (elabi) 
 depends on gewit ; so in Judith anal. 140, 5 : gewiton on fleto sceacan, began 
 to flee ; and stUl more freq. gewiton gangan. 
 
SACRIFICE. 41 
 
 If the 6 did not hinder, we could identify it -with the adj. fo7'n 
 vetus, forn sorcerer, fornceskia sorcery, and the OHGr. furnic 
 antiquus, prisons, canus (Graff 3, 628) ; and in particular, use the 
 same glosses for the illustration of baccha pluostar. Forn would 
 then be the term applied by the christians to heathen sacrifices of 
 the former olden time, and that would easily glide into sorcery, nay, 
 there would be an actual kinship conceivable between zepar and 
 zoupar (zauber, magic), and so an additional link between the 
 notions of sacrifice and sorcery, knowing as we do that the verbs 
 garawan, wihan and perhaps zouwan [AS. gearwian to prepare, 
 Goth, veihan to consecrate, and taujan to bring about] are appli- 
 cable to both, though our OHG. karo, karawi victima, Graff 4, 241 
 (Germ, gar, AS. gearw, yare) expresses no more than what is made 
 ready, made holy, consecrated.^ We shall besides have to separate 
 more exactly the ideas ww and sacrifice, Mid. Lat. votum and census, 
 closely as they border on one another : the vow is, as it were, a 
 private sacrifice. 
 
 Here then our ancient language had a variety of words at its 
 command, and it may be supposed that they stood for different 
 things ; but the difficulty is, to unravel what the differences in the 
 matter were. 
 
 Sacrifice rested on the supposition that human food is agreeable 
 to the gods, that intercourse takes place between gods and men. 
 The god is invited to eat his share of the sacrifice, and he really 
 enjoys it. Not till later is a separate divine food placed before him 
 (see SuppL). The motive of sacrifices was everywhere the same : 
 either to render thanks to the gods for their kindnesses, or to 
 appease their anger ; the gods were to be kept gracious, or to be 
 made gracious again. Hence the two main kinds of sacrifice : 
 thank-oSexings and sim-offerings.^ When a meal was eaten, a head of 
 
 1 The Skr. kratu sacrifice, or accord, to Benfey 2, 307 process, comes from 
 hri facere ', and in Latin, facere (agnis, vitula, Virg. eel. 3, 77) and operari were 
 used of the sacred act of sacrifice ; so in Grk, pi^eiv = epSeiv, Boeot. piSSeiv of 
 ofi'ering the hecatomb, and epSeiv is epyeiv, our vdrken, work ; imppi^av Od. 17, 
 211. 6iuv, p^C^tv, Spav, Athenseus 5, 403, as Spai, for 6ieiv, so Spaa-is — dva-ia. 
 The Catholic priest also uses conficere, perjicere for consecraro (C^sar. heisterbac. 
 9, 27) ; compare the ' aliquid plus novi fqcere ' in Burcard of Worms 10, 16 
 and p. 193°. The Lat. agere signified the slaughtering of the victim. 
 
 '■' Siihn-o'pieT, strictly, conciliatory offerings ; but as these were generally 
 identical with Simd-opfer, sin-offerings, I have used the latter expression, as 
 short and familiar. — Tjians. 
 
42 WORSHIP. 
 
 game killed, the enemy conquered (see Suppl), a firstling of the cattle 
 born, or grain harvested, the gift-bestowing god had a first right to 
 a part of the food, drink, produce, the spoils of war or of the chase 
 (the same idea on which tithes to the church were afterwards 
 grounded). If on the contrary a famine, a failure &f crops, a 
 pestilence had set in among a people, they hastened- to present 
 propitiatory gifts (see Suppl.). These sin-offerings have by their 
 nature an occasional and fitful character, while those performed to 
 the propitious deity readily pass into-periodically recurring festivals. 
 There is a third species of sacrifice-, by which one seeks to know 
 the issue of an enterprise; and to secure the aid of the god to whom 
 it is presented (see Suppl.). Divination however could also be 
 practised without sacrifices. Besides these three, there were special 
 sacrifices for particular occasions, such as coronations, births, 
 weddings and funerals, which were- also for the most part coupled 
 with solemn banquets. 
 
 As the gods show favour more than- anger, and as men are 
 oftener cheerful than oppressed by their sins and errors, thank- 
 offerings were the earliest and commonest, sin-offerings the more 
 rare and impressive; Whatever in the world of plants can be laid 
 before the gods is gay, innocent, but also less imposing and effective 
 than an animal sacrifice. The streaming blood^, the life spilt out 
 seems to have a' stronger binding and atoning power. Animal 
 sacrifices are natural to- the watrior, the hunter, the herdsman, 
 while the husbandman will offer up grain and flowers. 
 
 The great anniversaries of the heathen coincide with po- 
 pular assemblies and assizes.^ la the Ynglinga saga cap. 8 they 
 are specified thus : ]?a skyldi biota t moti vetri (towards winter) til 
 §,rs, enn at miSjum vetri bl&ta til grSSrar, it ]?ri5ja at sumri, ]jat 
 var sigrblot (for victory): In the 01afs=helga saga>cap. 104 (Fornm. 
 sog. 4, 237) ; en >at er siSr Jjeirra (it is their custom) at hafa blot 
 a haustum (autumn) ok fagna ])a vetri, annat blot hafa J^eir at 
 miSjum vetri, en hit JiriSja at sumri, ]>a fagna ];eir sumari ; conf. ed. 
 holm. cap. 115 (see Suppl). The Autumn sacrifice was offered to 
 welcome, the winter, and til ars (pro annonae ubertate)' ; the Mid- 
 winter sacrifice til groSrar (pro feracitate) ; the Summer one to 
 welcome the summer, and til sigrs (pro victoria). Halfdan the Old 
 
 1 EA. 245. V45. 821-5. 
 
SACBIFICE. 43 
 
 held a great midwinter sacrifice for the long duration of his life and 
 kingdom, Sn. 190. But the great general blot held at Upsal every 
 winter included sacrifices ' til §,rs ok friSar ok sigrs,' Fornm. sog. 4, 
 154. The formula sometimes runs ' til arbotar ' (year's increase), 
 or ' til friSar ok vetrarfars goSs (good wintertime). In a striking 
 passage of the Gutalagh, p. 108, the great national sacrifices are 
 distinguished from the smaller offerings of cattle, food and drink : 
 ' firi ]?ann tima oc lengi eptir sijjan tro]?u menn §, hult oc &. 
 hauga, vi ok staf-gar]?a, oc k hai]?in gu]? bl6ta}ju Jpair synum oc 
 dydrum sinum, oc filejii mi]p mati oc mundgati, ]?at gier}?u Jjair 
 eptir vantro sinni. Land alt hafjji sir hoystu Uotan mij? fulki, 
 eUar hafj^i huer Jjrijjiungr sir. En smeri Jjing hafjju mindri 
 Uotan med, filejyi mati oc mungati, sum haita supnautar : ]ji et 
 Jjair sujju allir saman.' 
 
 Easter-fires, Mayday-fires, Midsummer-fires, with their numerous 
 ceremonies, carry us back to heathen sacrifices ; especially such 
 customs as rubbing the sacred flame, running through the glowing 
 embers, throwing flowers into the fire, baking and distributing large 
 loaves or cakes, and the circular dance. Dances passed into plays 
 and dramatic representations (see ch. XIII, drawing the ship, ch. 
 XXIII, and the witch-dances, ch. XXXIV). Afzehus 1, 3 
 describes a sacrificial play stUl performed in parts of Gothland, 
 acted by young fellows in disguise, who blacken and rouge their 
 faces (see ch. XVII, sub fine). One, wrapt in fur, sits in a chair as 
 the victim, holding in his mouth a bunch of straw-stalks cut fine, 
 which reach as far as his ears and have the appearance of sow- 
 bristles : by this is meant the boar sacrificed at Yule, which in 
 England is decked with laurel and rosemary (ch. X), just as the 
 devil's offering is with rue, rosemary and orange (ch. XXXIII). — 
 The great sacrificial feast of the ancient Saxons was on Oct. 1, and 
 is traced to a victory gained over the Thuringians in 534 (see ch. 
 VI) ; in documents of the Mid. Ages this high festival stills bears 
 the name of the gemeinwoehe or common week (see ch, XIII, Zisa), 
 Wtirdtwein dipl. magunt. 1 praef. III-V. Scheffers Haltaus p. 142. 
 conf. Hofers ostr. wb. 1, 306. Another chronicle places it on Sept. 
 25 (Ecc. fr. or. 1, 59) ; Zisa's day was celebrated on Sept. 29, St. 
 Michael's on the 28th; so that the holding of a harvest-offering must 
 be intended aU through. — In addition to the great festivals, they 
 also sacrificed on special occasions, particularly when famine or 
 
44 -WORSHIP. 
 
 disease was rife ; sometimes for long life : ' bl6ta til langlifi,' Landn. 
 3, 4 ; or for favour (thockasaeld) with the people : ' Grtmr, er 
 blotinn var dauSr (sacrificed when dead) fiir thokkasaeld, ok kallaSr 
 kamban', Landn. 1, 14. 3, 16. This epithet kamban must refer to 
 the sacrifice of the dead man's body ; I connect it with the OHG. 
 picJiimpida funus, Mid. Dut. Jcimban comere, Diut. 2, 207'. conf. 
 note to Andr. 4. ■ 
 
 Human Sacrifices are from their nature and origin expiative ; 
 some great disaster, some heinous crime can only be purged and 
 blotted out by human blood. With all nations of antiquity they 
 were an old-established custom ^ ; the following evidences place it 
 beyond a doubt for Germany (see Suppl.). Tac. Germ. 9 : Deorum 
 maxime Mercurium colunt, cui certis diebus humanis quoque hostiis 
 Htare fas habent. Germ. 39 : stato tempore in silvam coeunt, 
 caesoque puUice (in the people's name) homine celebrant barbari 
 ritus horrenda primordia. Tac. Ann. 1, 61 : lucis propinquis bar- 
 barae arae, apud quas tribunos ac primorum ordinum centuriones 
 inactaverant Tac. Ann. 13, 57 : sed bellum Hermunduris pros- 
 perum, Cattis exitiosius fuit, quia victores diversam aciem Marti ac 
 Mercurio sacravere, quo voto equi, viri, cuncta victa occidioni 
 dantur. Isidori chron. Goth., aera 446 : quorum (regum Gothi- 
 corum) unus Eadagaisus . . . Italiam belli feritate aggreditur, 
 promittens sanguinem Christianorum diis suis lifare, si vinceret. 
 Jornandes cap. 5: quem Martem Gothi semper asperrima placavere 
 cultura, nam victimae ejus mortes fuere caftorwm, opinantes bellor- 
 um praesulem aptius humani sanguinis effusione placandum.^ 
 Orosius 7, 37 of Eadagaisus, whom he calls a Scythian, but 
 makes him lead Goths to Italy: qui (ut mos est barbaris 
 hujusmodi generis) sang%dnem diis suis propinare devomrat? 
 
 1 Lasaulx die siihnopfer der Grieohen u. Romer, 'Wiirzbvu^ 1841. pp. 
 8—13. 
 
 ^ Conf. Cebs. de B. Gall. 6, IV on the worship of Mars among the Gauls ; 
 and Procop. de B. Goth. 3, 14 on the Slavens and Antes : 6t6v iicv yap eva tov 
 TTJs aorpaTT^ff SrjfiLovpyov AiravToyv Kvpiov p.6vov avTov vofii^ovtriv eti'm, Kal 6vov<rLv 
 avra /Soar re Koi lepela Slttuvto. . . . aW iiraSav airois iv iroa\v rjbr} o 
 Bavaros UJ), r] i/oVia iXoCert fj es noXf/iOv Ka6uiTa)iivoK, eirayyeWovrat fiev, ^v 
 &m(f)vya<ri., dvaiav ra 6ea avTi ttjs ■<lrvx^s avrlita jroiijo-eiv, 6ia<^iiydi/Tfs 8e 
 6vov(Tiv Strep iiiTiay^ovTO, Koi oiovrm r^i/ (rarrjpiav TavTtjs Sfj Trjs Ovirlas airois 
 €O)vrj(T0ai. 
 
 2 Of him Augustine says, in semio 105, cap. 10 : Ehadagaysus rex Goth- 
 oruni . . . Eomae . . . Jovi sacrificabat quotidie, nuntiabaturq^ue 
 ubique, quod a sacriflciis non desisteret. 
 
SACEIFICE. 45 
 
 Procopius de bello Goth. 2, 15 of the Thulites, i.e. Scandinavians : 
 Ovovcri, Be ivBeXe'xeaTara lepeia irdvTa Koi evayi^ovat. tcov Be 
 lepelwv a^iat, to KaX\.t,(TTOv av6 pcoTT 6<; iariv, '6virep av Bo p td- 
 X(OT0v iroirja'aivTO tt ptorov. tovtov yap rip ' Apei dvovcnv, 
 iirel 6eov avrov vofii^ovcrt fieyicTTov ehai. Ibid. 2, 14, of the 
 Heruli : iroX-bv Tiva vo/Mi^ovrei Oeotv oiJuXov, ofi? Brj koX 
 dvO peo-rraiv 6viT[ai<; iXdaKeadai, ocriov avTol<; iBoicei elvai. Ibid. 
 2, 25, of the already converted Franks at their passage of the Po : 
 eTTLXa^oixevoi Be T'Q? yei^vprn ot ^pdr/yoi, tt a Z S a ? re kol yvvai- 
 Ka^ rSiv Tordmv, ov'sirep ivravOa evpov lepevov re koi avrwv 
 ra acofiara e<; rov TTorafibv uKpoO iv la rov tt oXe/jLov eppvrr- 
 rovv. oi Pdp^apoi yap oiiroi, Xpiariavol yeyovore<i, ra rroXka t^9 
 iraXaM'i Bo^rj'; ^vKdcraovci,, dv(riai<s re ')(pd)fievoi dvOpcoTTCov 
 Kal dWa ovy^ ocna iepevovre^, ravry re rd<; fj,avreLa<; 'Troiov/xevoi. 
 Sidonius Apollinaris 8, 6 of the Saxons: mos est remeaturis 
 decimum quemque captorum per aequales et cruciarias poenas, 
 plus ob hoc tristi quod superstitioso ritu necare. Capitul. de partib. 
 Saxon. 9 : si quis hominem diabolo sacrijicaverit et in hostiam, more 
 paganorum, daeTnonihus oUulerit. Lex Frisionum, additio sap. tit. 
 42 : qui fanum effregerit . . . immolatur diis, quorum templa 
 violavit ; the law affected only the Frisians ' trans Laubachi/ who 
 remained heathens longer. What Strabo relates of the Cimbri, and 
 Dietmar of the Northmen, will be cited later. Epist. Bonif 25 (ed. 
 Wiirdtw.) : hoc quoque inter alia crimina agi in partibus iUis 
 dixisti, quod quidam ex fidelibus ad immolaiidum paganis sua 
 venundent mancipia ; masters were allowed to sell slaves, and 
 christians sold them to heathens for sacrifice. The captive prince 
 Graecus Avar de (a) Suevis pecudis more litatus (ch. XIII, the 
 goddess Zisa).^ For evidences of human sacrifice among the Norse, 
 see Miiller's sagabibl. 2, 560. 3, 93. As a rale, the victims were 
 captive enemies, purchased slaves or great criminals ; the sacrifice 
 of women and children by the Franks on crossing a river reminds 
 of the Greek Bta^arjjpia ; ^ the first fruits of war, the first prisoner 
 
 1 Adam of Bremen de situ Daniae cap. 24, of the Lithuanians : dracones 
 adorant cum volucribus, quibus etiam vivos litant homines, quos a mercatoiibus 
 emunt, dUigenter omnino probates, ne maculam in corpore habeant. 
 
 ' Hence in our own folk-tales, the first to cross the bridge, the first to 
 enter the new building or the country, pays with his life, which meant, falls a 
 sacrifice. Jornandes cap. 25, of the Hims : ad Soythiara properant, et quantos- 
 cunque prius in ingressu Scytharwm habuere, litavere Victoriae. 
 
46 WORSHIP. 
 
 taken, was supposed to bring luck. In folk-tales we find traces of 
 the immolation of children ; they are killed as a cure for leprosy, 
 they are walled up in basements (ch. XXXV. XXXVl, end) ; and 
 a feature that particularly points to a primitive sacrificial rite is, 
 that toys and victuals are handed in to the child, while the roofing-in 
 is completed. Among the Greeks and Eomans likewise the victims 
 fell amid noise and flute-playing, that their cries might be drowned, 
 and the tears of children are stifled with caresses, ' ne flebilis hostia 
 immoletur '. Extraordinary events might demand the death of 
 kings' sons and daughters, nay, of kings themselves. Thoro offers 
 up Ms son to the gods ; Worm mon. dan. 285. King Oen the Old 
 sacrificed nine sons one after the other to OSin for his long life ; 
 Yngl. saga cap. 29. And the Swedes in a grievous famine, when 
 other great sacrifices proved unavailing, offered up their own Mnff 
 Domaldi; ibid. cap. 18, 
 
 Animal sacrifices were mainly thank-offerings, but sometimes 
 also expiatory, and as such they not seldom, by way of mitigation, 
 took the place of a previous human sacrifice. I will now quote the 
 evidences (see Suppl.). Herculem et Martem concessis aniwalibus 
 placant, Tac. Germ. 9 ; i.e., with animals suitable for the purpose 
 (Hist. 5, 4), ' concessum ' meaning sacrum as against profanum ; 
 and only those animals were suitable, whose flesh could be eaten 
 by men. It would have been unbecoming to offer food to the god, 
 which the sacrificer himself would have disdained. At the same 
 time these sacrifices appear to be also banquets ; an appointed 
 portion of the slaughtered beast is placed before the god, the rest is 
 cut up, distributed and consumed in the assembly. The people 
 thus became partakers in the holy offering, and the god is regarded 
 as feasting with them at their meal (see Suppl.). At great sacri- 
 fices the kings were expected to taste each kind of food, and down 
 to late times the house-spirits and dwarfs had their portion set 
 aside for them by the superstitious people. — Quadraginta rustic! a 
 Langobardis capti carnes immolatitias comedere compellebantur, 
 Greg. M. dial. 3, 27 ; which means no more than that the heathen 
 Langobards permitted or expected the captive christians to share 
 their sacrificial feast.^ These 'immolatitiae carnes' and 'hostiae im- 
 
 ^ I do not know how compellere ean be softened down to ' permittin" or 
 expecting '. — Tkans. 
 
SAOEIFICE. 47 
 
 molatitiae, quas stnlti homines juxta ecclesias ritu pagano faciunt ' 
 are also mentioned in Bonifacii epist. 25 and 55, ed. Wiirdtw. 
 
 In the earliest period, the Horse seems to have been the 
 favourite animal for sacrifice ; there is no doubt that before the 
 introduction of Christianity its flesh was universally eaten. There 
 was nothing in the ways of the heathen so offensive to the new 
 converts, as their not giving up the slaughter of horses (hrossa-sldtrj 
 and the eating of horseflesh ; conf Nialss. cap, 106. The Christian 
 Northmen reviled the Swedes as hross-ceturnar ; Fornm. sog. 2, 
 309. Fagrsk. p, 63. King Hakon, whom his subjects suspected of 
 Christianity, was called upon ' at hann skyldi eta hrossasldtr ;' Saga 
 H§,k. goSa cap. 18. From Tac. ann. 13, 57 we learn that the Her- 
 munduri sacrificed the horses of the defeated CattL As late as the 
 time of Boniface (Epist. ed. Wiirdtw. 25. 87 Serr. 121. 142),i 
 the Thuringians are strictly enjoined to abstain from horseflesh. 
 Agathias bears witness to the practice of the Alamanni : iWou? 
 Tf KCbi ^6a<;, Kal aXXa arra fivpia Kupar o fiovvr e^ (beheading), 
 eTTiOeid^ovai, ed, bonn, 28, 5. — Here we must not overlook the 
 cutting off of the head,, which was not consumed with the rest, but 
 consecrated by way of eminence to the god. When Csecina, on 
 approaching the scene of Varus's overthrow, saw horses' heads 
 fastened to the stems of trees (equorum artus, simul truncis arhorum 
 antefixa ora, Tac. ann. 1, 61), these were no other than the Eoman 
 horses, which the Germans had seized in the battle and offered up 
 to their gods^ (see Suppl.). A similar ' immolati diis equi ahscissum 
 caput ' meets us in Saxo gram. p. 75 ; in the North they fixed it on 
 the neidstange (niSstong, stake of envy) which gave the power to 
 bewitch an enemy, Egilss. p. 389. In a Hessian kindermarchen 
 (no. 89) we have surviving, but no longer understood, a reminiscence 
 
 ^ Inter cetera agrestem cahallvm aliquantos comedere adjunxisti, plerosque 
 et domesticum. lioc nequaquam fieri deinceps sinas. And , inprimis de volatili- 
 bus, id est graculis et comiculis atque ciconiis, quae omnino cavendae sunt ab 
 esu christianorum. etiam et fibri et lepores et equi silvatici multo amplius 
 vitandi. Again, Hieronymus adv. Jov. lib. 2 (ed. basil. 1553. 2, 75) • Sar- 
 matae, Quadi, Vandali et innumerabiLes aliae gentes s^Montm et vulpium camibus 
 delectantur. Otto frising. 6, 10 . audiat, quod Pecenati (the wild Pesclienaere, 
 Nib. 1280, 2) et hi qui Palones vocantur (the Valwen, Nib. 1279, 2. Tit. 
 4097), crudia et immundis carnibus, utpote equinis et mtinis usque hodie 
 vescuntur. Rol. 98, 20 of the heathen : sie ezzent diu ros. Witches also are 
 charged with eating horseflesh (see Suppl.). 
 
 2 Also in that passage of Jornandes about Mars : huic truncis suspende- 
 bantur exuviae. 
 
48 WORSHIP. 
 
 of the mysterious meaning of a suspended horse's head? — But on 
 horse-sacrifices among the heathen ISTorse we have further informa- 
 tion of peculiar value. The St. Olafs saga, cap. 113 (ed. holm. 2, 
 181), says : Jjat fylgSi ok Jjeirri sogn, at j^ar vseri drepit Tiaut ok 
 hross til arbStar (followed the saying that there were slain neat and 
 horse for harvest-boot). A taU-piece at the very end of the 
 Hervararsaga mentions a similar sacrifice offered by the apostate 
 Swedes at the election of king Svein (second half of 11th century): 
 var }>k framleidt hross eitt k Jjingit, ok hoggvit 1 sundr, ok shipt til 
 dts,&D. riofiuSu blSSinu UdttrS; kostuSu ]>k allir Sviar kristni ok 
 hofust blot ; then was led forward a horse into the Thing, and hewed 
 in sunder, and divided for eating, and they reddened with the blood 
 the bl6t-tree, &c. Fornald. sog. 1, 512. Dietmar 'Of Merseburg's 
 description of the great Norse (strictly Danish) sacrificial rite, 
 which however was extinct a hundred years before his time, 
 evidently contains circumstances exaggerated legendwise and dis- 
 torted ; he says 1, 9 : Sed quia ego de hostiis (Northmannorum) 
 mira audivi, haec indiscussa praeterire nolo, est unus in his 
 partibus locus, caput istius regni, Lederun nomine, in pago qui 
 Selon^ dicitur, ubi post novem annos mense Januario, post hoc 
 tempus quo nos theophaniam domini celebramus, omnes con- 
 venerunt, et ibi diis suismet Ixxxx. et ix. homines, et totidem equos, 
 cum canibus et galUs pro accipitribus oblatis, immolant, pro certo, 
 ut praedixi, putantes hos eisdem erga inferos servituros, et commissa 
 crimina apud eosdem placaturos. quam bene rex noster (Heinrich 1. 
 an. 931) fecit, qui eos a tam execrando ritu prohibuit ! — A grand 
 festive sacrifice, coming once in nine years, and costing a consider- 
 able number of animals — in this there is nothing incredible. Just 
 as the name hecatomb lived on, when there was nothing like that 
 number sacrificed, so here the legend was likely to keep to a high- 
 sounding number; the horror of the human victims perhaps it 
 threw in bodily. But the reason alleged for the animal sacrifice 
 is evidently wide of the mark; it mixes up what was done 
 
 ' Gregory the Great ('epist. 7, 5) admonishes Brunichild to take pre- 
 cautions with her Franks, ' ut de animaUum capitibiis sacriiicia sacrilega non 
 exhibeant.' 
 
 " Sllon for SMond, ON. Sselundr, afterwards Sioland, Seeland, i.e., Zea- 
 land. Lederftn, the Sax. dat. of LSdera, ON. HleitSra, afterwards Lfethra, 
 Leire ; conf. Goth. hlei}>ra tabernacuhim. 
 
SACEIFICE. 49 
 
 at funerals^ with what was done for expiation. It was only 
 the bodies of nobles and rich men that were followed in death 
 by bondsmen and by domestic and hunting animals, so that 
 they might have their services in the other world. Suppose 99 
 men, we will say prisoners of war, to have been sacrificed 
 to the gods, the animals specified cannot have been intended to 
 escort those enemies, nor yet for the use of the gods, to whom 
 no one ever set apart and slaughtered horses or any beasts of the 
 chase with a view to their making use of them. So whether the 
 ambiguous eisdem refers to homines or diis (as eosdem just after 
 stands for the latter), either way there is something inadmissible 
 asserted. At the new year's festival I believe that of all the victims 
 named the horses alone were sacrificed ; men, hounds and cocks 
 the legend has added on.^ How Dietmar's story looks by the side 
 of Adam of Bremen's on the Upsal sacrifice, shall be considered on 
 p. 53. 
 
 Among all animal sacrifices, that of the horse was preeminent 
 and most solemn. Our ancestors have this in common with several 
 Slavic and Finnish nations, with Persians and Indians : with all of 
 them the horse passed for a specially sacred animal.* 
 
 Sacrifice of Oxen (see SuppL). The passage from Agathias 
 (tTTTTOv? re Koi ^6a<;) proves the Alamannic custom, and that from 
 the Olafssaga (naut ok hross) the Norse. A letter to Saint Boniface 
 (Epist. 82, Wiirdtw.) speaks of ungodly priests ' qui tauros et Mrcos 
 diis paganorum immolabant.' And one from Gregory the Great 
 ad Mellitum (Epist. 10, 76 and in Beda's hist. eccl. 1, 30) affirms 
 of the Angles : hoves solent in sacrificio daemonum multos occidere. 
 
 1 With Sigur?5r servwnts and hawks are bttrnt, Saem. 22oi' ; elsewhere horses 
 and dogs as well, conf. RA. 344. Asvitus, morbo consumptus, cum cane et eqiio 
 terreno mandatur antro ; Saxo gram. p. 91, who misinterprets, as though the 
 dead man fed upon them : nee contentus equi vel canis esu, p. 92. 
 
 " ' Pro accipitribus ' means, that in default of hawks, cooks were used. 
 Some have taken it, as though dogs aad cocks were sacrificed to deified birds of 
 prey. But the ' pro ' is -unmistakable. 
 
 ' Conf. Bopp's Nalas and Damajanti, p. 42, 268. The Hyperboreans sacri- 
 ficed asses to Apollo ; Pindar Pyth. 10. Callimach. fr. 187. Anton. Liberal, 
 metam. 20. The same was done at Delphi ; Bockh corp. inscr. I, 807. 809. 
 In a Mod. Greek poem TaSdpov, \vkov koI dXawovs StriYqa-is w. 429-434, a 
 similar ofi'ering seems to be spoken of ; and Hagek's bohm. chron. p. 62 gives 
 an instance among the Slavs. That, I suppose, is why the SUesians are 
 called ass-eaters (Zeitvertreiber 1668, p. 153) ; and if the Gottingers receive the 
 same nickname, these popular jokes must be very old in Germany itself (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 4 
 
50 WOESHIP. 
 
 The Uaclc ox and hlack cow, which are not to be killed for the house- 
 hold (Superst. 887), — were they sacred sacrificial beasts ? Val. 
 SupHt, a free peasant on the Samland coast (Samogitia or Semi- 
 galia), sacrificed a hlack lull with strange ceremonies.^ I will add 
 a few examples from the Korse. During a famine in Sweden under 
 king D6maldi : '\>t eflSo (instituted) Sviar bl6t st6r at Uppsolum, it 
 fyrsta haust (autumn) bl6tu?5u Jjeir yxnum ; and the oxen proving 
 insufficient, they gradually went up to higher and higher kinds ; 
 Yngl. saga, c. 18. ]?^ gekk hann til hofs (temple) Freyss, ok 
 leiddi Jpagat uxan gamlan (an old ox), ok maelti sv^ : ' Freyr, nil 
 gef ek ]?er uxa jjenna ' ; en uxanum brS, svh viS, at hann qvaS viS, 
 ok f^U niSr dauSr (dealt the ox such a blow, that he gave a groan 
 and feU down dead) ; Islend. sog. 2, 348. conf. Vigaglumssaga, cap. 
 9. At a formal duel the victor slew a hull with the same weapons 
 that had vanquished his foe: ]?§, var leiddr fram grd&'Angr mikill ok 
 gamall, var J^at kallat lUtnaut, ]jat skyldi s§, hoggva er sigr hefSi 
 (then was led forth a bull mickle and old, it was called bl6t-neat, 
 that should he hew who victory had), Egilss. p. 506. conf. Kormaks- 
 saga p. 214-8. — Sacrifice of Cows, Stem. 141. Fornm. sog. 2, 138. 
 — The Greek eKarofi^r] (as the name shows, 100 oxen) consisted at 
 first of a large number of neat, but very soon of other beasts also. 
 The Indians too had sacrifices of a hundred ; Holzmann 3, 193.^ 
 
 Boars, Pigs (see Suppl.). In the SaUc Law, tit. 2, a higher 
 composition is set on the maj'alis sacrivus or votivus than on any 
 other. This seems a relic of the ancient sacrifices of the heathen 
 Franks ; else why the term sacrivus 1 True, there is no vast differ- 
 ence between 700 and 600 den. (17 and 15 sol.) ; but of animals 
 so set apart for holy use there must have been a great number in 
 heathen times, so that the price per head did not need to be high. 
 Probably they were selected immediately after birth, and marked, 
 and then reared with the rest till the time of sacrificing.— In 
 Frankish and Alamannic documents there often occurs the word 
 friscing, usually for porcellus, but sometimes for agnus, occasionally 
 in the more limited sense of porcinus and agninus; the word may by 
 
 1 Berlin, monatschr. 1802. 8, 225. conf. Lucas David 1, 118-122. 
 
 s In many districts of Germany and France, the butcliers at a set time of 
 the year lead through the streets a fatted ox decked with flowers and ribbons, 
 accompanied by drum and fife, and collect drink-money. In Holland they call 
 the ox belder, and hang gilded apples on his horns, while a butcher walks in 
 front with the axe (beil). All this seems a relic of some old sacrificial rite. 
 
SACRIFICE. 51 
 
 its origin express recens natus, new-born/ but it now lives only in 
 the sense of porcellus (friscbHng). How are we to explain then, 
 that this OHGr. friscing in several writers translates precisely the 
 Lat. hostia, victima, holocaustum (ISTotker cap. 8, ps. 15, 4. 26, 6. 
 33, 1. 39, 8. 41, 10. 43, 12. 22. 50, 21. 115, 17. 6sterfriscing, ps. 20,, 
 3. lamp unkawemmit kakepan erdu friscing, i.e. lamb unblemished 
 given to earth a sacrifice. Hymn 7, 10), except as a reminiscence of 
 heathenism 1 The Jewish paschal lamb would not suggest it, for in 
 friscing the idea of porcellus was predominant. — In the North, the 
 expiatory boar, sSnargoUr, offered to Freyr, was a periodical sacri- 
 fice; and Sweden has continued down to modern times the practice 
 of baking loaves and cakes on Yule-eve in the shape of a boar. 
 This golden-h-istled boar has left his track in inland Germany too. 
 According to popular belief in Thuringia,^ whoever on Christmas 
 eve abstains from all food tUl suppertime, will get sight of a young 
 golden pig, i.e. in olden times it was brought up last at the even- 
 ing banquet. A Lauterbach ordinance (weisthum) of 1589 decreed 
 (3, 369), that unto a court holden the day of the Three-kings, 
 therefore in Yule time, the holders of farm-steads (hiibner) 
 should furnish a clean goldferch (gold-hog) gelded while yet under 
 milk ; it was led round the benches, and no doubt slaughtered 
 afterwards.* So among the Welsh, the swine offered to the gods 
 
 1 Ducange sub v. Eccard Fr. or. 2,' 677. Dorows denkm. I. 2, 55. Lacom- 
 blet 1, 327. Graff 3, 833. Schmeller wtb. 1, 619. 
 
 ' GutgeseUa beitr. zur gescb. des deutscben altertbums, Meiningen 1834, 
 p. 138. 
 
 ' Tbis passage from tbe Lauterb. ordin. I can now matcb by another from 
 those of Vinkbucb in the Alamann country. It says 1, 436 ; tbe provost shall 
 pick out in the convent a smne worth 7 schilling pfennig, and as soon as harvest 
 begins, let it into the convent crewyard, -vvbere it must be allowed generous 
 fare and free access to the com ; there it is left till the Tbuisday after St. Adolf s 
 day, when it is slaughtered and divided, half to the farm-baiUff, half to the 
 parish ; on the same day there is also a distribution of bread and cheese to 
 the parish. — The price of seven shillings tallies with the seven and a half 
 fixedT by the Lauterb. ordin., and is a high one, far exceeding the ordinary 
 value (conf. Gott. anz. 1827, pp. 336-7) ; it was an arrangement long continued 
 and often employed in these ordinances, and one well suited to a beast selected 
 for sacrifice. The Lauterbach goldferch, like that of Vinkbucb, is doled out 
 and consumed at a festive meal ; the assize itself is named after it (3, 370) ; 
 at Vinkbuch the heathenish name only has been forgotten or suppressed. 
 Assuredly such assize-feasts were held in other parts of Germany too. St. 
 Adolf was a bishop of Straszburg, his day falls on August 29 or 30 (Com. v. 
 Dankr. namenb. p. 117), and the assize therefore in the beginning of September. 
 Swine are slaughtered for the household when winter sets in, in Nov. or Dec. ; 
 and as both of these by turns are called schlachtmonat, there might linger iu 
 
52 WORSHIP. 
 
 became one destined for the King's table. It is the 'swin ealgylden, 
 eofor Irenheard ' of the Anglo-Saxons, and of its exact relation to 
 the worship of rr6ho (Freyr) we have to treat more in detail by 
 and by. The Greeks sacrificed swine to Dem^t^r (Ceres), who as 
 Nerthus stands very near to MorSr, Freyr and Freyja. 
 
 Bams, Goats (see Suppl.). — As friscing came to mean victima, so 
 conversely a name for animal sacrifice, Goth. sauSs, seems to have 
 given rise to the ON. name for the animal itself, saw d^r= wether. 
 This species of sacrifice was therefore not rare, though it is seldom 
 expressly mentioned, probably as being of small value. Only the 
 saga Hakonar goSa cap. 16 informs us : j^ar var oc drepinn (liiUed) 
 allskonar smali, ok sv^ hross. Small (fi^Xa) denotes principally 
 sheep, also more generally the small beasts of the flock as opposed 
 to oxen and horses, and as ' alls konar (omnis generis) ' is here 
 added, it seems to include goats. The sacrifice of he-goats (hircos) 
 is spoken of in the above-quoted Epist. Boiiif. 82. In the Swedish 
 superstition, the water-sprite, before it will teach any one to play 
 the harp, requires the sacrifice of a Hack lami ; Svenska folkv. 2, 
 128. Gregory the Great speaks once of she-goats being sacrificed; 
 he says the Langobards offer to the devil, i.e., to one of their gods, 
 caput caprae, hoc ei, per circuitum currentes, carmine nefando 
 dedicantes ; Dial. 3, 28. This head of a she-goat (or he-goat ?) was 
 reared aloft, and the people bowed before it. The hallowing of a 
 he-goat among the ancient Prussians is well known (Luc. David 1, 
 87, 98). The Slavonian god Triglav is represented with three 
 goats' heads (Hanka's zbjrka 23). If that Langobardic 'carmen 
 nefandum ' had been preserved, we could judge more exactly of the 
 rite than from the report of the holy father, who viewed it with 
 hostile eyes. 
 
 About other sacrificial beasts we cannot be certain, for of Diet- 
 mar's dogs and hawks and cocks, hardly any but the last are to be 
 depended on (see SuppL). But even then, what of domestic poultry, 
 fowls, geese, pigeons? The dove was a Jewish and christian 
 
 this also a reference to heathen sacrifices ; an AS. name for Nov. is expressly 
 6Z(5*m6ne(5. The common man at his yearly slaughtering gets up a feast, and 
 sends meat and sausages to his neighbours (cont. mauchli, Stalder 2, 525), 
 ■which may be a survival of the common sacrifice and distribution of flesh. 
 It is remarkable that in Sema too, at the solemn burning of the badnyak, 
 which is exactly like the yule-log (ch. XX, Fires), a whole swine is roasted, and 
 often a sucldng pig along with it ; Vuk's Montenegro, pp. 103-4. 
 
SACRIFICE. 63 
 
 sacrifice, the Greeks offered cocks to Asklepios, and in Tonraine a 
 white cock used to be sacrificed to St. Christopher for the cure of a 
 bad finger (Henri Estienne cap. 38, 6). Of game, doubtless only 
 those fit to eat were fit to sacrifice, stags, roes, wild boars, but never 
 bears, wolves or foxes, who themselves possess a ghostly being, and 
 receive a kind of worship. Yet one might suppose that for expiation 
 uneatable beasts, equally with men, might be offered, just as slaves 
 and also hounds and falcons followed the burnt body of their 
 master. Here we must first of all place Adam of Bremen's descrip- 
 tion (4, 27) of the great sacrifice at Upsala by the side of Dietmar's 
 account of that at Hlethra (see p. 48) : — Solet quoque post novem 
 annos communis omnium Sveoniae provinciarum solennitas 
 celebrari, ad quam nuUi praestatur immunitas ; reges et populi, 
 omnes et singuli sua dona ad Ubsolam transmittunt, et, quod omni 
 poena crudelius est, illi qui jam induerunt christianitatem ab illis 
 ceremoniis se redimunt. Sacrificium itaque tale est : ex om7ii 
 animante quod mascidinum est, novem capita offeruntur ; quorum 
 sanguine deos tales placari mos est. Corpora autem suspenduntur 
 in lucum qui proximus est templo. Is enim lucus tam sacer est 
 gentiUbus, ut singulae arbores ejus ex morte vel tabo immolatorum 
 divinae credantur. Ibi etiam canes, qui pendent cum hominibus, 
 quorum corpora mixtim suspensa narravit mihi quidam christian- 
 orum se septuaginta dxio vidisse. Ceterum naeniae, quae in 
 ejusmodi ritibus libatoriis fieri solent, multiplices sunt et inhonestae, 
 ideoque melius reticendae. — The number nine is prominent in this 
 Swedish sacrificial feast, exactly as in the Danish ; but here also all 
 is conceived in the spirit of legend. First, the heads of victims 
 seem the essential thing again, as among the Franks and Langobards; 
 then the dogs come in support of those Hlethra ' hounds and hawks,' 
 but at the same time remind us of the old judicial custom of hanging 
 up wolves or dogs by the side of criminals (RA. 685-6). That only 
 the male sex of every living creature is here to be sacrificed, is in 
 striking accord with an episode in the Eeinardus, which was 
 composed less than a century after Adam, and in its groundwork 
 might weU be contemporary with him. At the wedding of a kin", 
 the males of all quadrupeds and birds were to have been slaughtered, 
 but the cock and gander had made their escape. It looks to me 
 like a legend of the olden time, which still circulated in the ll-12th 
 centuries, and which even a nursery-tale (No. 27, the Town- 
 
54 WOESHIP. 
 
 musicians) knows something of.^ Anyhow, in heathen times Tnale 
 animals seem to be in special demand for sacrifice.^ As for killing 
 one of every species (and even Agathias's koI dWa arra fivpla does 
 not come up to that), it would be such a stupendous affair, that its , 
 actual execution could never have been conceivable ; it can only 
 have existed in popular tradition. It is something like the old 
 Mirror of Saxony and that of Swabia assuring us that every living 
 creature present at a deed of rapine, whether oxen, horses, cats, 
 dogs, fowls, geese, swine or men, had to be beheaded, as well as the 
 actual delinquent (in real fact, only when they were his property);* 
 or like the Edda relating how oaths were exacted of all animals 
 and plants, and all beings were required to weep. The creatures 
 belonging to a man, his domestic animals, have to suffer with him 
 in case of cremation, sacrifice or punishment. 
 
 Next to the kind, stress was undoubtedly laid on the colour of 
 the animal, white being considered the most favourable. White 
 horses are often spoken of (Tac. Germ. 10. Weisth. 3, 301. 311. 
 831), even so far back as the Persians (Herod. 1, 189). The friscing 
 of sacrifice was probably of a spotless white ; and in later law- 
 records snow-white pigs are pronounced inviolable.* The Votiaks 
 sacrificed a red stallion, the Tcheremisses a white. When under 
 the old German law dun or pied cattle were often required in pay- 
 ment of fines and tithes, this might have some connexion with 
 sacrifices^; for witchcraft also, animals of a particular hue were 
 requisite. The water-sprite demanded a hlack lamb, and the huldres 
 have a Uach lamb and hlack cat offered up to them (Asb. 1. 159). 
 Saxo Gram. p. 16 says; rem divinam facere furvis hostiis; does 
 that mean black beasts ? — ^We may suppose that cattle were 
 
 1 Or will any one trace this incident in the Reynard to the words of the 
 Vulgate in Matt. 22, 4 : tauri mei et altilia occisa sunt, venite ad miptias ; 
 which merely descrihe the preparations for the wedding-feast ? Any hint 
 about males is just what the passage lacks. 
 
 2 The Greeks offered male animals to gois, female to goddesses, II. 3, 103 : 
 a white male lamb to Helios (sun), a hlack ewe lamb to G6 (earth). The 
 Lithuanians sacrificed to their earthgod Zemiennik utriusgue sexus domestica 
 animalia ; Haupt's zeitschr. 1, 141. 
 
 ' Eeyscher and Wilda zeitschr. fur deutsches recht 5, 17, 18. 
 
 * RA. 261. 594. Weisth. 3, 41. 46. 69. conf. Virg. Aen. 8, 82 : Candida 
 cum foetu concolor alio sus ; and the Umbrian ; trif apnif rufni ute peiu (tres 
 apros ruhros aut piceos), Aufrecht und Kirchh. umbr. sprachd. 2, 278-9. 
 
 » RA. 587. 667. Weisth. 1, 498. 3, 430. White animals hateful to the 
 god-i ; Tettau and Temme preuss. sag. 42. 
 
SACRIFICE. 55 
 
 garlanded and adorned for sacrifice. A passage in the Edda 
 requires gold-horned cows, Seem. 141° ; and in the village of Fienstadt 
 in Mansfeld a coal-black ox with a white star and white feet, and 
 a he-goat with gilded horns were imposed as dues.^ There are indi- 
 cations that the animals, before being slaughtered, were led round 
 within the circle of the assembly — that is how I explain the 
 leading round ilie benches, and per circuitum currere, pp. 51, 52 — 
 perhaps, as among the Greeks and Eomans, to give them the 
 appearance of going voluntarily to death^ (see Suppl.). Probably 
 care had to be taken also that the victim should not have been used 
 in the service of man, e.g., that the ox had never drawn plough or 
 waggon. For such colts and bullocks are required in our ancient 
 law-records at a formal transfer of land, or the ploughing to death 
 of removers of landmarks. 
 
 On the actual procedure in a sacrifice, we have scarcely any 
 information except from Norse authorities. While the animal 
 laid down its life on the sacrificial stone, all the streaming blood 
 (ON. hlaut) was caught either in a hollow dug for the purpose, or 
 in vessels. With this gore they smeared the sacred vessels and 
 utensils, and sprinkled the participants.^ Apparently divination 
 was performed by means of the blood, perhaps a part of it was 
 mixed with ale or mead, and drunk. In the North the blood- 
 bowls (hlsiutbollar, hlbtbollar) do not seem to have been large; 
 some nations had big cauldrons made for the purpose (see Suppl.). 
 The Swedes were taunted by Olafr Tryggvason with sitting at home 
 and licking their sacrificial pots, ' at sitja heima ok sleikja blot- 
 bolla slna,' Fornm. sog. 2, 309. A cauldron of the Cimbri is noticed 
 in Strabo 7, 2 : e'^o? Se ri twv Kifi^pcov BbrjyovvTai toiovtov, oti 
 Tol's yvvav^lv avrmv <7V(TTpaTevovaaK iraprfKoXovOovv Trpo/ji.dvrei's 
 ispeiai •iToXi,6Tpf)(e^, "Kevxei^ove^, Kap7racriva<: i^airTiSai} eTnireirop- 
 
 ^ Neue mittli. des thiir. eaclis. vereins V. 2, 131, conf. II. 10, 292. Od. 
 3, 382 : 
 
 crol fi' av iya pe^ft) ^ovu rjvtv, eipvu^TaTTov, 
 abfir)'n)v, rjv oCiro) vtto ^vyov rjyayev dvrjp ' 
 Trjv TOt. €yd> p4^(0, ;(/)u<r6v Kepacnv Trept^evas. 
 " Oc eingu skyldi tortyna hvarki fe ne monnuiri, nema eialft gengi I hurt. 
 Eyrb. saga, p. 10. And none should they kiU (tortima?) neither beast nor 
 man, unless of itself it ran a-tilt. 
 
 ' Saga Hakonar goSa, cap. 16. Eyrb. saga p. 10. rauS horgin, reddened 
 the (stone) altar, Fomald. sog. 1, 413. stalla lata rio?Sa bloSi, 1, 454. 527. 
 Ssem. 114'' rioSutSii bloSinu hUttr^, Fomald. sog. 1, 512, the Grk af/ia tw 
 3<a/iffl neptxfeiv.coid. Exod. 24, 8. 
 
56 WOESHIP. 
 
 •jTrj/xevai, ^aia-fia '^aXKovv e-xpvaai, 'yvfiv6TroBe<; • tow ovv ai,)(/iaXa)- 
 TOi<; Bia Tov crrpaTOTriSov awqvTOJV ^i(f>i]pei,9 ' KaTaerTeyfracrai, S' 
 avToii'; ?j^ov iirl k parrj pa j^aXKovv, octov dfuftopeav e'lKOcri, ' eij^ov 
 Be ava^dOpav, rjv dva^ao'a {rj fidvri<;) vweptreri)'; tov \ e /3 17 t o ? 
 €\aifioT6/u.ei eKacTTOv fieTeaptadevra' i/c Bk tov Trpo')(eofievov aifuiTOi} 
 eh TOV KpaTTJpa, fiavTeiav Tiva iiToutvvTO?- Another cauldron of 
 the Suevi, in the Life of St. Columban : Sunt etenim inibi vicinse 
 nationes Suevorum ; quo cum moraretur, et inter habitatores Ulius 
 loci progrederetur, reperit eos sacrificium profanum litare veUe, 
 vasque magnum, quod vulgo cupam vocant, quod viginti et sex 
 modios amplius minusve capiebat, cerevisia plenum in medio habe- 
 bant positum. Ad quod vir Dei accessit et sciscitatur, quid de illo 
 fieri vellent? Illi aiunt: deo suo Wodano, quern Mercurium 
 vocant aUi, se Telle litare. Jonas Bobbiensis, vita Columb. (from 
 the first half of the 7th cent. Mabillon ann. Bened. 2, 26). Here 
 we are expressly told that the cauldron was filled with ale, and not 
 that the blood of a victim was mixed with it ; unless the narrative 
 is incomplete, it may have meant only a drink-offering. 
 
 Usually the cauldron served to cook, i.e. boil, the victim's flesh ; 
 it never was roasted. Thus Herodotus 4, 61 describes a boiling 
 (eyfreiv) of the sacrifice in the great cauldron of the Scythians. 
 From this seethvag, according to my conjecture, the ram was called 
 saujjs, and those who took part in the sacrifice sucFnautar (partakers 
 of the sodden), Gutalag p. 1 08 ; the boilings, the cauldrons and pots 
 of witches in later times may be connected with this.^ The distri- 
 bution of the pieces among the people was probably undertaken by 
 a priest ; on great holidays the feast^ was held there and then in ' 
 the assembly, on other occasions each person might doubtless take 
 
 ' ' They say the Cimbri had this custom, that their women marching with 
 them were accompanied by priestess-prophetesses, gray-haired, white-robed, 
 with a linen scarf buckled over the shoulder, wearing a brazen girdle, and 
 bare-footed ; these met the prisoners in the camp, sword in hand, and having 
 crowned them, led them to a bra-M basin as large as 30 amphora (180 gals) ; 
 and they had a ladder, which the priestess mounted, and standing over the 
 basin, cut the throat of each as he was handed up. With the blood that gushed 
 into the basin, they made a prophecy.' 
 
 ' The trolAs too, a kind of elves, have a copper kettle in the Norw. sa^a, 
 Faye 11 ; the christians long believed in a Satumi doliim, and in a k^ge 
 cauldron in hell (chaudiere, Meon 3, 284-5). 
 
 ' They also ate the strong broth and the fet swimming at the top. The 
 heathen offer their king Hjlkon, on his refusing the flesh, drecl:a soSit and da 
 flotit; Saga Blkonar g6?5a cap. 18. conf. Fornm. sog. 10, 381. 
 
SACEIFICK 57 
 
 his share home with him. That priests and people really ate the 
 food, appears from a number of passages (conf. above, p. 46). The 
 Capitularies 7, 403 adopt the statement in Epist. Bonif. cap. 25 
 (an. 732) of a Christian ' presbyter Jovi mactans, et immolatitias 
 carnes vescens,' only altering it to ' diis mactanti, et immolatitiis 
 carnibus vescenti'. We may suppose that private persons were 
 allowed to offer small gifts to the gods on particular occasions, and 
 consume a part of them ; this the Christians called ' more gentilium 
 offerre, et ad honorem daemonum comedere,' Capit. de part. Sax. 20. 
 It is likely also, that certain nobler parts of the animal were 
 assigned to the gods, the head, liver, heart, tongue} The head and 
 skin of slaughtered game were suspended on trees in honour of 
 them (see Suppl.). 
 
 Whole lurntofferings, wliere the animal was converted into 
 ashes on the pile of wood, do not seem to have been in use. The 
 Goth, allbrunsts Mk 12, 33 is made merely to translate the Gk. 
 6\oKavTa>/j,a, SO the OHG. albrandopher, N. ps. 64, 2 ; and the AS. 
 Irynegield onhredcf rommes bloSe, Csedm. 175, 6. 177, 18 is meant 
 to express purely a burntoffering in the Jewish sense.^ 
 
 Neither were incense-offerings used ; the sweet incense of the 
 christians was a new thing to the heathen. UlphUas retains the 
 Gk. thyiniama Lu. 1, 10. 11 ; and our weih-rauch (holy-reek), O. 
 Sax. wir6c Hel. 3, 22, and the ON. reykelsi, Dan. rogelse are 
 formed according to christian notions (see Suppl.). 
 
 While the sacrifice of a slain animal is more sociable, more 
 universal, and is usually offered by the collective nation or 
 community ; fruit or flowers, milk or honey is what any household, 
 or even an individual may give. These Fruit-offerings are therefore 
 more solitary and paltry ; history scarcely mentions them, but they 
 have lingered the longer and more steadfastly in popular customs 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 When the husbandman cuts his corn, he leaves a clump of ears 
 standing for the god who blessed the harvest, and he adorns it with 
 
 ^ y\ai(T(Ta Koi KoiKla (tongue and entrails) Upelov Siarrewpayitivov, Plutarch, 
 Phoc. 1. yXmo-o-of TOfivetv and tV mpl fidWeiv, Od. 3, 332. 341. conf. De 
 linguae usu in sacrificiis, Nitzsch ad Horn. Od. 1, 207. In the folk-tales, who- 
 ever has to kill a man or beast, is told to bring in proof the tongue or heart, 
 apparently as being eminent portions. 
 
 ^ Sla.v. pdKti obi^t, to kindle an offering, Koniginh. hs. 98. 
 
58 WOESHIP. 
 
 ribbons. To this day, at a fruit-gathering in Holstein, five or six 
 apples are left hanging on each tree, and then the next crop will thrive. 
 More striking examples of this custom will be given later, in treat- 
 ing of individual gods. But, just as tame and eatable animals 
 were especially available for sacrifice, so are frmt-trees (frugiferae 
 arbores, Tac. Germ. 10), and grains; and at a formal transfer of 
 land, boughs covered with leaves, apples or nuts are used as earnest 
 of the bargain. The MHG. poet (Fundgr. II, 25) describes Gain's 
 sacrifice in the words : ' eine garb er nam, er wolte sie oppheren mit 
 eheren joch mit agenen,' a sheaf he took, he would offer it with ears 
 and eke with spikes ; a formula expressing at once the upper part 
 or beard (arista), and the whole ear and stalk (spica) as well. 
 Under this head we also put the crowning of the divine image, of a 
 sacred tree or a sacrificed animal with foliage or flowers ; not the 
 faintest trace of this appears in the Norse sagas, and as little in our 
 oldest documents. From later times and surviving folk-tales I can 
 bring forward a few things^ On Ascension day the girls in more 
 than one part of Germany twine garlands of white and red flowers, 
 and hang them up in the dwellingroom or over the cattle in the 
 stable, where they remain tm replaced by fresh ones the next year.^ 
 At the village of Questenberg in the Ilarz, on the third day in 
 Whitsuntide, the lads carry an oak up the castle-hill which 
 overlooks the whole district, and, when they have set it upright, 
 fasten to it a large garland of branches of trees plaited together, 
 and as big as a cartwheel. They aU shout ' the qtieste {i.e. garland) 
 hangs,' and then they dance round the tree on the hUl top ; both 
 tree and garland are renewed every year.^ Not far from the 
 Meisner mountain in Hesse stands a high precipice with a cavern 
 opening under it, which goes by the name of the Hollow Stone. 
 Into this cavern every Easter Monday the youths and maidens of 
 the neighbouring villages carry nosegays, and then draw some 
 cooling water. No one wiU venture down, unless he has flowers 
 with him.* The lands in some Hessian townships have to pay a 
 hunch of mayflovjers (lilies of the valley) every year for rent.* In 
 all these examples, which can easily be multiplied, a heathen 
 
 1 Bragur VI. 1, 126. 
 
 " Otmara volkssagen, pp. 128-9. What is told of the orisin of the custom 
 seems to be fiction. 
 
 ^ Wigands arohiv 6, 317. 
 
 * Wigands archiv 6, 318. Casselsches wochenbl. 1815, p. 928''. 
 
MINNE-DEINKING. 59 
 
 practice seems to have been transferred to christian festivals and 
 offerings.^ 
 
 As it was a primitive and widespread custom at a banquet to 
 set aside a part of the food for the household gods, and particularly 
 to place a dish of broth before Berhta and Hulda, the gods were 
 also invited to share the festive drink. The drinker, before taking 
 any himself, would pour some out of his vessel for the god or house- 
 sprite, as the Lithuanians, when they drank beer, spilt some of it 
 on the ground for their earth-goddess Zemynele.^ Compare with 
 this the Norwegian sagas of Thor, who appears at weddings when 
 invited, and takes up and empties huge casks of ale. — I will now 
 turn once more to that account ot the Suevic ale-tub (cupa) in Jonas 
 (see p. 56), and use it to explain the heathen practice of minne- 
 drinhing, which is far from being extinct under Christianity. Here 
 also both name and custom appear common to all the Teutonic 
 races. 
 
 The Gothic man (pi. munum, pret. munda) signified I think ; 
 gaman (pi. gamunum, pret. gamunda) I bethink me, I remember. 
 From the same verb is derived the OHG. minna = minia amor, 
 minndn = minidn amare, to remember a loved one. In the ON. 
 language we have the same Tnan, munum, and also minni memoria, 
 minna recordari, but the secondary meaning of amor was never 
 developed. 
 
 It was customary to honour an absent or deceased one by 
 making mention of him at the assembly or the banquet, and 
 draining a goblet to his memory : this goblet, this draught was 
 called in ON. erf, dryclcja, or again minni (erfi = funeral feast). 
 
 At grand sacrifices and banquets the god or the gods were 
 remembered, and their minni drunk: minnis-ol (ale), Ssem. IIQ"" 
 (opposed to ominnis 61), mMmis-horn, minnis-ixxH (cupful), foro 
 minni morg, ok skyldi horn dreckia 1 minni hvert (they gave many 
 a m., and each had to drink a horn to the m.). um golf g§.nga at 
 minnom oUum, Egilss. 206. 253. minniol signSff asom, Olafs helga. 
 
 ' Beside cattle and grain, other valuables were offered to particular gods 
 and in special cases, as even in christian times voyagers at sea e.g., would vow 
 a silver ship to their church as a votive gift ; in Swedish folk-songs, offra en 
 yryta afmaVm (vessel of metal), Arvidss. 2, 116 ; en gryta af blankaste malm (of 
 silver) Ahlqvists Oland II. 1, 214 ; also articles of clothing, e.g. red shoes. 
 
 '' In the Teut. languages I know of no technical term like the Gk. a-rrhSa, 
 Xeifia, Lat. libo, for drink-offerings (see Suppl.). 
 
60 WOESHIP, 
 
 saga (ed. holm.) 113. signa is the German segnen to bless, conse- 
 crate, siffna full O^ni, ThoT. OiSins full, IdaT^ax full, Fveys fall 
 drecka, Saga Hakonar goSa cap. 16.18. In the Herrau5s-saga cap. 
 11, Thor's, OSin's and Freya's minne is drunk. At the burial of a 
 king there was brought up a goblet called Bragafull (funeral toast 
 cup), before which every one stood up, took a solemn vow, and 
 emptied it, Yngl. saga cap. 40; other passages have IragarfiM, 
 Stem. 146^. Fornald. sog. 1, 345. 417. 515. The goblet was also 
 called minnisveiff (swig, draught), Ssem. 193*. After conversion 
 they did not give up the custom, but drank the minne of Christ, 
 Mary, and the saints : Krists minni, Michaels minni, Fomm. sog. 
 
 1, 162. 7, 148. In the Fortim. sog. 10, 1781, St. Martin demands of 
 Olaf that his minni be proposed instead of those of Th6r, OSin, and 
 the other ases. 
 
 The other races were just as little weaned from the practice ; 
 only where the term minne had changed its meaning, it is trans- 
 lated by the Lat. amor instead of memoria -^ notably as early as in 
 Liutprand, hist. 6, 7 (Muratori II. 1, 473), and Liutpr. hist. Ott. 12: 
 didboK in amorem, vinum bibere. Liutpr. antapod. 2, 70 : amons 
 salutisgue mei causa bibito. Liutpr. leg. 65 : potas in amore beati 
 Johannis prsecursoris. Here the Baptist is meant, not the Evan- 
 gelist; but in the Fel. Faber evagat. 1, 148 it is distinctly the 
 latter. In Eckehard casus S. Galli, Pertz 2, 84: amoreqae, ut 
 nioris est, osculato et epoto, laetabundi discedunt. In the Eudlieb 
 
 2, 162 : 
 
 post poscit vinum Gerdrudis amore, quod haustum 
 participat nos tres, postremo basia fingens, 
 quando vale dixit post nos gemit et benedixit. 
 
 In the so-called Liber occultus, according to the Miinchen MS., at 
 
 the description of a scuffle : 
 
 hujus ad edictum riullus plus percutit ictum, 
 sed per clamorem poscimt Gertrudis amorem. 
 
 In the Peregrinus, a 13th cent. Latin poem, v. 335 (Leyser 2114) : 
 et rogat ut potent sanctae Gertrudis amore, 
 ut possent omni prosperitate frui. 
 
 I The 12th cent, poem Von dem gelouben 1001 says of the institution of 
 the Lord's Supper, whose cup is also a drink of remembrance to Christians : 
 den cof nam er mit dem wine, unde segente darinne ein vil guote minne. Conf. 
 loving cwp, Thom's Atecd. 82. 
 
MINNE-DEINKING. 61 
 
 At Erek's departure : der -wirt neig im an den fuoz, ze hand truog 
 er im do ze lieiles gewinne sant Gertr-Ade minne, Er. 4015. The 
 armed champion ' tranc sant Johannes segen,' Er. 8651. Hagene, 
 while killing Etzel's child, says, Mb. 1897, 3 : 
 
 nu trinken wir die minne unde gelten skiineges win, 
 
 iz mac anders niht gesln 
 
 wan trinkt und geltet Ezeln win; Helbl. 6, 160, 14. 86. 
 
 Here the very word gelten recalls the meaning it had acquired in 
 connexion with sacrificing ; conf. Schm. 2, 40. si do zucten di suert 
 unde scancten eine minne (drew their swords and poured out a m.), 
 Herz. Ernst in Hoffm. fundgr. 1, 230, 35. minne schenken, 
 Berthold 276-7. sant Johannis minne geben, Oswald 611. 1127- 
 1225 (see Suppl.). No doubt the same thing that was afterwards 
 called ' einen ehrenwein schenken ' ; for even in our older speech 
 era, ere denoted verehrung, reverence shown to higher and loved 
 beings. 
 
 In the Mid. Ages then, it was two saints in particular that had 
 minne drunk in honour of them, John the evangelist and Gertrude. 
 John is said to have drunk poisoned wine without hurt, hence 
 a drink consecrated to him prevented all danger of poisoning. 
 Gertrude revered John above all saints, and therefore her memory 
 seems to have been linked with his. But she was also esteemed as 
 a peacemaker, and in the Latinarius metricus of a certain Andreas 
 rector scholarum she is invoked : 
 
 pia Gerdrudis, quae pacis commoda cudis 
 bellaque concludis, nos caeli mergito ludis ! 
 
 A clerk prayed her daily, ' dass sie ihm schueffe herberg guot,' to 
 find him lodging good; and in a MS. of the 15th cent, we are 
 informed : aliqui dicunt, quod quando anima egressa est, tunc prima 
 nocte pernoctabit cum beata Gerdrude, secunda nocte cum arch- 
 angelis, sed tertia nocte vadit sicut diffinitum est de ea. This 
 remarkable statement will be found further on to apply to Ereya, 
 of whom, as well as of Hulda and Berhta, Gertrude reminds us the 
 more, as she was represented spinning. Both John's and Ger- 
 trude's minne used especially to be drunk by parting friends, 
 travellers and lovers of peace, as the passages quoted have shown. 
 I know of no older testimony to Gertrude's minne (which presup- 
 poses John's) than that in Eudlieb ; in later centuries we find 
 
62 WOESHIP. 
 
 plenty of them: der brslhte.inir sant Jolmns segea, Ls. 3, 336. 
 sant Johans segen trinken, Ls. 2, 262. ich d^ht an sant Johans 
 minne, Ls. 2, 264. varn (to fare) mit sant Girtr-Me minne, 
 Amgb. 33''. setz sant Johans ze biirgen mir, daz du komest 
 gesunt herwider schier, HatzL 191*. sant Johannes namen 
 trinken, Altd. bl. 413. sant GirtrMe minne. Cod. kolocz. 72. 
 trinken sant Johannes segen und scheiden von dam lande, Morolt. 
 3103. diz ist sancte Johans minne, Cod. pal. 364, 158. S. Johans 
 segen trinken, Anshelm 3, 416. Johans segen, Fischart gescL kl. 
 99''. Simpliciss. 2, 262.^ 
 
 Those Suevi then, whom Columban was approaching, were pro- 
 bably drinking Wtiotan's minne ; Jonas relates how the saint blew 
 the whole vessel to pieces and spoilt their pleasure : manifesto 
 datur intelligi, diabolum in eo vase fiusse occultatiim, qui per pro- 
 fanum litatorem caperet animas sacrificantium. So by Liutprand's 
 devil, whose minne is drunk, we may suppose a heathen god to 
 have been meant, gefa priggja sdlda 61 OSni (give three tuns of 
 ale to OSinn), Fomm. sog. 2, 16. gefa Thor ok OSni 61, ok signa 
 full asum, ibid. 1, 280. drecka minni Thors ok OSins, ibid. 3, 191. 
 As the Iforth made the sign of Thor's hammer, christians used the 
 cross for the blessing (segnung) of the cup ; conf. jpoculum signare, 
 Walthar. 225, precisely the Norse signa full. 
 
 Minne-drinking, even as a religious rite, apparently exists to 
 this day in some parts of Germany. At Otbergen, a village of 
 Hildesheim, on Dec. 27 every year a chalice of wine is hallowed by 
 the priest, and handed to the congregation in the church to drink 
 as Johannis segen (blessing) ; it is not done in any of the neigh- 
 bouring places. In Sweden and Norway we find at Candlemas a 
 dricka eldborgs skal, drinking a toast (see Superst. k, Swed. 122). 
 
 ^ Thomasius de poculo S. Johannis vulgo Johannistrunk, Lips. 1675. 
 Scheffere Haltans p. 165. Oberlin s. vb. Johannis minn und trunk. Schmeller 
 2, 593. Hannov. mag. 1830, 171-6. Ledeburs archiv 2, 189. On Gertrude 
 espec, Huyd. op St. 2, 343-5. Clignett's bidr. 392-411. HoflEm. horae belg. 
 2, 41-8. Antiqvariske annaler 1, 313. Hanka's Bohem. glosses 79'' 132» 
 render Johannis amor by swatd rnina (holy m.). And in that Slovenic docu- 
 ment, the Freysinger MS. (Kopitar's Glagolita xxxvii, conf. xliii) is the 
 combination : da klanyamse, i modlimse, im i tchesti ich piyem, i obieti naahe 
 ini nesem (ut genuflectamus et preoemur eis et honorea eorum bibamus et obli- 
 
 fationes nostras illis feramus); tchest is honor, Tifirj, cultus, our old era ; but 
 also find slava (fame, glory) used in the sense of minne, and in a Servian 
 song (Vuk, 1 no. 94) wine is drunk ' za slave bozhye ' to the glory of God. In 
 the Finnish mythology is mentioned an Ukkon malja, bowl of Ukko ; malja = 
 Swed. skal, strictly scutella, potatio in memoriam vel sanitatem. 
 
MINNE-DEINKING. M 
 
 Now that Suevic cupa filled with beer (p. 75) was a hallowed 
 sacrificial cauldron, like that which the Cimbri sent to the emperor 
 Augustus.^ Of the Scythian cauldron we have already spoken, 
 p. 75 ; and we know what part the cauldron plays in the Hymis- 
 qviSa and at the god's judgment on the seizure of the cauldron (by 
 Thor from giant Hymir). Nor ought we to overlook the ON. 
 proper names Asketill, Thdrketill (abbrev. Thorkel) AS. Oscytel 
 (Kemble 2, 302) ; they point to kettles consecrated to the S,s and 
 to Thor. 
 
 Our knowledge of heathen antiquities will gain both by the 
 study of these drinking usages which have lasted into later times, 
 and also of the shapes given to laked meats, which either retained 
 the actual forms of ancient idols, or were accompanied by sacrificial 
 observances. A history of German cakes and bread-rolls might 
 contain some unexpected disclosures. Thus the Indicul. superstit. 
 26 names simulacra de consparsa farina. Baked figures of animals 
 seem to have represented animals that were reverenced, or the 
 attributes of a god.^ From a striking passage in the Fridthiofssaga 
 (fornald. sog. 2, 86) it appears that the heathen at a dlsa blot baJced 
 images of gods and smeared them with oil : ' situ konur viS eldinn 
 ok bokuSu gofSin, en sumar smurSu ok ]?erSu me8 dukum,' women 
 sat by the fire and baked the gods, while some anointed them with 
 cloths. By FriSJpiof s fault a baked Baldr falls into the fire, the fat 
 blazes up, and the house is burnt down. According to Voetius de 
 superstit. 3, 122 on the day of Paul's conversion they placed a 
 figure of straw before the hearth on which they were baking, and 
 if it brought a fine bright day, they anointed it with butter ; other- 
 wise they kicked it from the hearth, smeared it with dirt, and 
 threw it in the water. 
 
 Much therefore that is not easy to explain in popular offerings 
 and rites, as the colour of animals (p. 54), leading the boar round 
 (p. 51), flowers (p. 58), minne-drinking (p. 59), even the shape 
 of cakes, is a reminiscence of the sacrifices of heathenism (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 ^ cirffji-^av ™ 2e0a(rT<» Swpov tov Upararov trap' avTots Xc'^ijto, the most 
 sacred cauldron tney had, Strabo VII. 2. 
 
 2 Baking in the shape of a hoar must have been much more widely spread 
 than in the North alone, see below, Fro's boar ; even in France they baked 
 coclielins for New Year's day, Mem. de I'ac. celt. 4, 429. 
 
64 woESfflP. 
 
 Beside prayers and sacrifices, one essential feature of the 
 heathen cultus remains to be brought out: the solemn carrying 
 about of divine images. The divinity was not to remain rooted to 
 one spot, but at various times to bestow its presence on the entire 
 compass of the land (see ch. XIV). So Nerthus rode in state (in- 
 vehebatur populis), and Berecynthia (ch. XIII), so Fro travelled out 
 in spring, so the sacred ship, the sacred plough was carried round 
 (ch. XIII Isis). The figure of the unknown Gothic god rode in its 
 waggon (ch. VI). Fetching-in the Summer or May, carrying-out 
 Winter and Death, are founded on a similar view. Holda, Berhta 
 and the like beings all make their circuit at stated seasons, to the 
 heathen's joy and the christian's terror ; even the march of 
 Wuotan's host may be so interpreted (conf ch. XXXI. Frau 
 Gauden). When Fro had ceased to appear, Dietrich with the ber 
 (boar) and Dietrich Bern still showed themselves (ch. X. XXXI), 
 or the sonargoltr (atonement-boar) was conveyed to the heroes' 
 banquet (ch. X), and the boar led round the benches (p. 51). 
 Among public legal observances, the progress of a newly elected 
 king along the highways, the solemn lustration of roads, the beating 
 of bounds, at which in olden times gods' images and priests can 
 hardly have been wanting, are all the same kind of thing. After 
 the conversion, the church permanently sanctioned such processions, 
 except that the Madonna and saints' images were carried, particu- 
 larly when drought, bad crops, pestilence or war had set in, so as to 
 bring back rain (ch. XX), fertility of soil, healing and victory ; sacred 
 images were even carried to help in putting out a fire. The Indicul. 
 paganiar. XXVIII tells ' de simulacra quod per campos portant' on 
 which Eccard 1, 437 gives an important passage from the manuscript 
 Vita Marcsvidis (not Maresvidis) : statuimus ut annuatim secunda 
 feria pentecostes patronum ecclesiae in parochiis vestris longo 
 amhitu circumferentes et domos vestras lustrantes, et pro gentilitio 
 amharvali in lacrymis et varia devotione vos ipsos mactetis et ad 
 refectionem pauperum eleemosynam comportetis, et in hac curti 
 pemoctantes super reliquias vigiliis et cantibus solennisetis, ut 
 praedicto mane determinatum a vobis ambitum pia lustratione com- 
 plentes ad monasterium cum honore debito reportetis. Confido 
 autem de patroni hujus misericordia, quod sic ab ea gyrade terras 
 semina uberius proveniant, et variae aeris inclementiae cessent. The 
 Eoman ambarvalia were purifications of fields, and sacrifices were 
 
PROCESSIONS. 65 
 
 offered at the terminus publicus ; the May procession and the riding 
 of bounds and roads during the period of German heathenism must 
 have been very similar to them. On the Gabel-heath in Mecklen- 
 burg the Wends as late as the 15th century walked round the 
 budding corn with loud cries ; Giesebrecht 1, 87- 
 
CHAPTEK IV. 
 TEMPLES. 
 
 In our inquiries on the sacred dwelling-places of the gods, it 
 wiU be safest to begin, as before, with expressions which preceded the 
 christian terms temple and church, and were supplanted by them. 
 
 The Gothic alhs fern, translates the Jewish-Christian notions of 
 m69 (Matt. 27, 5. 51. Mk. 14, 58. 15, 29. Lu. 1, 9. 21. 2 Cor. 6, 
 16) and iepov (Mk. 11, 11. IG. 27. 12, 35. 14, 49. Lu. 2, 27. 46. 4, 9. 
 18, 10. 19, 45. John 7, 14. 28. 8, 20. 59. 10, 23). To the Goth 
 it would be a time-haUowed word, for it shares the anomaly of 
 several such nouns, forming its gen. alhs, dat. alh, instead of alhais, 
 alhai. Once only, John 18, 20, gvdhus stands for Iepov ; the simple 
 hus never has the sense of domus, which is rendered razn. Why 
 should Ulphilas disdain to apply the heathen name to the christian 
 thing, when the equally heathen templum and j/oos were found 
 quite inoffensive for christian use ? 
 
 Possibly the same word appears even earlier ; namely in Tacitus, 
 Germ. 43 : apud Naharvalos antiquae religionis lucus ostenditur ; 
 praesidet sacerdos muliebri ornatu, sed deos interpretatione romana 
 Castorem Pollucemque memorant. Ea vis nuinini, nomen Alcis; 
 nulla simulacra, nullum peregrinae superstitionis vestigium. Ut 
 fratres tamen, ut juvenes venerantur. — This alcis is either itself the 
 nom., or a gen. of alx (as falcis of falx), which perfectly corresponds 
 to the Gothic alhs. A pair of heroic brothers was worshipped, 
 without any statues, in a sacred grove ; the name can hardly be 
 ascribed to them,^ it is the abode of the divinity that is called aJx. 
 Numen is here the sacred wood, or even some notable tree in it.^ 
 
 ' Unless it were dat. pi. of alcus [or alca dXx^]. A Wendicholz, Bohein. 
 holec, which ha-s been adduced, is not to the point, for it means strictly a bald 
 naked wretch, a beggar boy, Pol. golec, Euss. gholiak. Besides, the Naharvah 
 and the other Lygian nations can scarcely have been Slavs, 
 
 ' I am not convinced that numen can refer to the place. The plain sense 
 seems to be : ' the divinity has that virtue (which the Gemini have), and the 
 name Alcis,' or 'of Alx,' or if dat. pL, 'the Alcae, Alci '. May not Alcis be conn, 
 with oKkti strength, safeguard, and the dat. oKkI pointing to a nom. oX^ ; * uXkb 
 I defend ; or even Caesar's alces and Pausanias's aXxai elks ? — Tbans. 
 
TEMPLES. 67 
 
 Four or five centuries after Ulpliilas, to the tribes of Upper 
 Germany tlieir word alah must have had an old-fashioned heathen- 
 ish sound, but we know it was still there, preserved in composition 
 with proper names of places and persons (see Suppl.) : Alaholf, 
 Alahtac, Alahhilt, Alahgund, Alahtrut ; Alahstat in pago Hassorum 
 (a.d. 834), Schannat trad. fuld. no. 404. Alahdorp in Mulahgowe 
 (a.d. 856), ibid. no. 476. The names Alahstat, Alalulorf may have 
 been borne by many places where a heathen temple, a hallowed place 
 of justice, or a house of the king stood. For, not only the fanum, but 
 the folk-mote, and the royal residence were regarded as consecrated, 
 or, in the language of the Mid. Ages, as frSno (set apart to the 
 fr6, lord). Alstidi, a Idng's pfalz (palatium) in Thuringia often 
 mentioned in Dietmar of Merseburg, was in OHG. alahsteti, nom. 
 alahstat. Among the Saxons, who were converted later, the word 
 kept itself alive longer. The poet of the Heliand uses alah masc. 
 exactly as UlphUas does alhs (3, 20. 22. 6,2. 14,9. 32,14. 115,9. 
 15. 129, 22. 130, 19. 157, 16), seldomer ^o&s h4s 135, 8. 130, 
 18, or, that hSlaga Ms 3, 19. Cffidm. 202, 22 alhn (1. alh haligne 
 =holy temple) ; 258, 11 ealhstede (palatium, aedes regia). In 
 Andr, 1642 I would read ' ealde eaUistedas ' (delubra) for ' eolhstedas', 
 conf. the proper names Eallistdn in Kemble 1, 288. 296 and Ealh- 
 heard 1, 292 quasi stone-hard, rock-hard, which possibly leads us to 
 the primary meaning of the word.^ The word is wanting in OlST. 
 documents, else it must have had the form air, gen. ah. 
 
 Of another primitive word the Gothic fragments furnish no 
 example, the OHG. wih (nemus), Diut. 1, 492° ; 0. Sax. wih masc. 
 (templum), Hel. 3, 15. 17. 19. 14,8.115,4 119,17. 127,10. 
 129,23. 130,17, 154,22. 169, 1 ; /H^mwiA, Hel. 15, 19 ; AS. 
 wih wiges, or weoh weos, also masc. : wiges (idoli), Csedm. 228, 12. 
 Jjisne wig wurSigean (hoc idolum colore), Caedm. 228, 24. conf. 
 wigweorSing (cultus idolorum), Beow. 350. weohweorSing Cod. 
 exon. 253, 14. wihgild (cultus idol.), Csedm. 227,5. weobedd (ara), 
 for weohbedd, wihbedd, Csedm. 127, 8. weos (idola), for weohas. 
 Cod. exon. 341, 28.— The alternation of i and eo in the AS. indicates 
 a short vowel ; and in spite of the reasons I have urged in Gramm. 1, 
 462, the same seems to be true of the OK ve, which in the sing., as 
 
 1 There is however a noun Hard, the name of many landing-places in the 
 south of England, as Cracknor Hard, &c.— Trans. 
 
68 TEMPLES. 
 
 Ve, denotes one particular god ; but has a double pi., namely, a masc. 
 vear dii, idola, and a neut. ve loca sacra. Gutalag 6, 108. Ill : 
 haita h. hult elpa. hauga, §, in ejja stafgar]?a (invocare lucos aut tumulos, 
 idola aut loca palis circumsepta) ; tr{ia k hult, §, hauga, vi oc staf- 
 garjpa ; han standr 1 vi (stat in loco sacro). In that case we have 
 here, as in alah, a term alternating between nemus, templum, fanum, 
 idolum, numen, its root being doubtless the Gothic veiha (I hallow), 
 vaih, vaihum, OHG. wihu, weih, wihum, from which also comes 
 the adj. veihs sacer, OHG. wih ; and we saw on p. 41 that wihan 
 was applied to sacrifices and worship. In Lappish, vi is said to 
 mean siLva. 
 
 Still more decisive is a third heathen word, which becomes 
 specially important to our course of inquiry. The OHG. hurue 
 masc, pi. haruga, stands in the glosses both for fanum, Hrab. 963*. 
 for delubrum, Hrab. 959^ for lucus, Hrab. 969% Jun. 212. 
 Diut. 1, 495^ and for nemus, Diut. 1, 492*. The last gloss, 
 in full, i-uns thus: 'nemus plantavit=/ors^ flanzota, edo (or) 
 lucrue, edo wih.' So that haruc, like wih, includes on the one 
 hand the notion of templum, fanum, and on the other that of wood, 
 grove, lueus.^ It is remarkable that the Lex Eipuar. has preserved, 
 evidently from heathen times, harahus to designate a place of 
 judgment, which was originally a wood (EA. 794. 903). AS. Tiearg 
 masc, pi. heargas (fanum), Beda 2, 13. 3, 30. Orosius 3, 9, p. 109. 
 licargiixi (fani tabulatum), Beow. 349. ast hearge, Kemble, 1, 282. 
 ON. Iwrgr masc, pi. horgar (delubrum, at times idolum, simulacrum) 
 Ssem. ZQ^ 42^ 91^ 114'' 141^; especially worth notice is Seem. 114* : 
 Mrgr hlaSinn steinom, griot at gleri orSit, roSit 1 nyio nauta bloSi 
 (h. paven with stones, grit made smooth, reddened anew with neat's 
 blood). Sometimes horgr is coupled with hof (fanum, tectum), 36* 
 141% in which case the former is the holy place amidst woods and 
 rocks, the built temple, aula ; conf. ' liamarr ok liorgrl Fornm. sog. 
 5, 239. To both expressions belongs the notion of the place as well 
 
 ' And in one place haraga = aTae. Elsewhere the heathen tenn for altar, 
 Gk ^wfids, was Goth, hiuds, OHG. jjiot, AS. hmi, strictly a table (p. 38) ; 
 likewise the Goth, hadi, OHG. fdti, AS. hei, hedd (lectus, p. 30) gets to mean 
 ara, areola, fanum, conf. AS. wihbed, weohbed, vxohid, afterwards distorted into 
 weofed (ara, altare), OHG. Jcotapetti (gods'-bed, lectus, piilvinar templi), Graff 
 3, 51 ; with which compare Brunhild's bed and the like, also the Lat. lectister- 
 nium. ' Ad altare S. Kiliani, quod vulgo lectus dicitur,' Lang reg. 1, 239. 255 
 (A.D. 1160-5) ; (see SuppL). 
 
GEOVES. 69 
 
 as that of the numen and the image itself (see SuppL). Haruc seems 
 unconnected with the 0. Lat. haruga, amga, bull of sacrifice, whence 
 haruspex, aruspex. The Gk Tefievo^ however also means the sacred 
 grove, II. 8, 48. 23, 148. re/xei/o? toliiov, II. 20, 184. 
 
 Lastly, synonymous with haruc is the OHG. paw, gen. parawes, 
 AS. Icaro, gen. bearwes, which betoken lucus^ and arbor, a sacred 
 grove or a tree; set bearwe, Kemble. 1, 255. ON", larr (arbor), 
 Ssem. 109"; larri (nemus) 86'' 87*. qui ad aras sacrificat=de za 
 demo ^arawe (al. zathemo we) ploazit, Diut. 1, 150 ; ara, or rather 
 the pi. arae, here stands for templum (see SuppI). 
 
 Temple then means also wood. What we figure to ourselves as 
 a built and walled house, resolves itself, the farther back we go, 
 into a holy place untouched by human hand, embowered and 
 shut in by self-grown trees. There dwells the deity, veiling his 
 form in rustling foliage of the boughs ; there is the spot where 
 the hunter has to present to him the game he has killed, and the 
 herdsmen his horses and oxen and rams. 
 
 What a writer of the second century says on the cultus of the 
 Celts, wiU hold good of the Teutonic and all the kindred nations : 
 KeXTol cre^ovcn fiev Aia, aya\fia Be Aio'; KeXriKov v-\lrr]\fj Spu?, 
 Maximus Tyrius (diss. 8, ed. Eeiske 1, 142). Compare Lasicz. 46 : 
 deos nemora incolere persuasum habent (Samogitae). Habitarunt 
 di quoque sylvas (Haupts zeitschr. 1, 138). 
 
 I am not maintaining that this forest-worship exhausts all the 
 conceptions our ancestors had formed of deity and its dwelling- 
 place ; it was only the principal one. Here and there a god may 
 haunt a mountain-top, a cave of the rock, a river ; but the grand 
 general worship of the people has its seat in the grove. And no- 
 where could it have found a worthier (see SuppL). 
 
 At a time when rude beginnings were all that there was of the 
 builder's art, the human mind must have been roused to a higher 
 devotion by the sight of lofty trees under an open sky, than it could 
 feel inside the stunted structures reared by unskilful hands. When 
 long afterwards the architecture peculiar to the Teutons reached its 
 
 1 To the Lat. lucus would correspond a Goth, lauhs, and this is confirmed 
 hy the OHG. I6h, AS. leak. The Engl, lea, ley has aoq^uired the meaning 
 of meadow, field ; also the Slav. Ivig, Boh. lutz, is at once grove, glade, and 
 meadow. Not only the wood, but wooded meadows were sacred to gods (see 
 SuppL). 
 
70 TEMPLES. 
 
 jjerfection, did it not in its boldest creations stUl aim at reproducing 
 the soaring trees of the forest ? Would not the abortion of 
 miserably carved or chiseEed images lag far behind the form of the 
 god which the youthful imagination of antiquity pictured to itself, 
 throned on the bowery summit of a sacred tree ? In the sweep 
 and under the shade^ of primeval forests, the soul of man found 
 itself filled with the nearness of sovran deities. The mighty 
 iniluence that a forest life had from the first on the whole being 
 of our nation, is attested by the ' march-fellowships ; ' marM, the 
 word from which they took their name, denoted first a forest, and 
 afterwards a boundary. 
 
 The earliest testimonies to the forest-cultus of the Germans are 
 furnished by Tacitus. Germ. 9: ceterum nee cohibere parietibus 
 decs, neque in ullam human! oris speciem adsimulare ex magni- 
 tudine coelestium arbitrantur. Lucos ac 'fierrwra ayasecrami, deorum- 
 que nominibus adpellant secretum Ulud quod sola reverentia vident.^ 
 Germ. 39, of the Semnones ; Stato tempore in siham auguriis 
 patrum et prisca formidiyie sacram^ omnes ejusdem sanguinis 
 populi legationibus coeunt. est et alia luco revereTitia. nemo nisi 
 vinculo ligatus ingreditur, ut minor et potestatem numinis prae se 
 ferens. si forte prolapsus est, attolli et insurgere baud Kcitum : 
 per humum evolvuntur.* cap. 40 ; est in insula oceani cadum, 
 
 1 Waldes Ueo, hlea (umbra, Tunbraculmn), HeL 33, 22. 73, 23. AS. Ideo, 
 OX. Mie, OHG. liwa, Graff 2, 296, MHG. lie, liem. 
 
 ' Euodolf of FuH (t 863j has incorporated the whole passage, -with a few 
 alterations, in his treatise De translatione Alexandri (Pertz 2, 675), perhaps 
 from some intermediate source. Tacitus's words must be taken as they stand. 
 In his day Germany possessed no ma-stera who could build temples or chisel 
 statues ; 80 the grove wa.s the dwelling of the gods, and a sacred symbol did 
 ins-tead of a statue, lloser § 30 takes the passage to mean, that the divinity 
 common to the whole nation was worshipped uiween, so as not to give one dis- 
 trict the advantage of posse.s.sing the temple ; but that separate gods did have 
 their images made. This view ls too political, and al-o ill-suited to the isolation 
 of tribes in those times. No doubt, a region which included a god's hill wotdd 
 acquire the more renown and sacredness, as spots like Ehetra and Loreto did 
 from containing the Slavic sanctuary or a :Madonna : that did not prevent the 
 same worship from obtaining seats elsewhere. With the words of Tacitus 
 compare what he says in Hist. 2, 78 : e.st Jndaeam inter S\Tiamque Carmelns, 
 ita vocant montem deumque, nee simulacrum deo aut templum, sic tradidere 
 majores, o.ra tantum et nvermtm ; and in Dial, de Oral. 12 : nemora vero et 
 luci et secretum ipsum. In Tacitus secretum = seces-'us, seclusion, not arcanum. 
 
 ' This hexameter is not a quotation, it is the author's own. 
 
 * Whoever is engaged in a holy office, and stands in the presence and pre- 
 emcts of the god, mu.st not stumble, and if he falls to the ground, he forfeits 
 his privilege. So he who in holy combat sinks to the earth, may not set 
 
GEOVES. 71 
 
 nermis, dicatumque in eo vehiculum veste contectum. cap. 43 : 
 apud Naharvalos antiquae religionis lucus ostenditur , . 
 numini nomen Alois, nulla simulacra, cap 7 : effigies et signa {i.e. 
 effigiata signa) quaedam detractae lucis in proelium ferunt ; with 
 which connect a passage in Hist. 4, 22 : inde depromptse silvis 
 hicisque ferarum imagines, ut cuique genti inire proelium mos est. 
 Ann. 2, 12 : Caesar transgressus Visurgini indicio perfugae 
 cognoscit delectum ab Arminio locum pugnae, convenisse et 
 alias nationes in silvam Herculi sacram. Ann. 4, 73 : mox 
 conpertum a transfugis, nongentos Eomanorum apud lucum, 
 quern Baduhennae vocant, pugna in posterum extracta con- 
 fectos ; though it does not appear that this grove was a con- 
 secrated one.^ Ann. 1, 61 : lucis propinquis hariarae arae, apud 
 quas tribunes mactaverant ; conf. 2, 25 : propinquo luco defossam 
 Varianae legionis aquilam modico praesidio servari. Hist. 4, 14 : 
 CivUis primores gentis . . . sacrum in nemus Yocatos. These 
 expressions can be matched by others from Claudian three 
 centuries later. Cons. Stilich. 1, 288 : 
 
 Ut procul Hercyniae per vasta silentia silvae 
 venari tuto liceat, lucesque vetusta 
 religione truces, et robora numinis instar 
 harharici nostrae feriant impune bipennes. 
 De belle Get. 545 : 
 
 Hortantes his adde deos. Xon somnia nobis, 
 nee volucres, sed clara palam vox edita luco est : 
 ' rumpe omnes, Alarice, moras L ' 
 It is not pure nature-worship that we are told of here ; but Tacitus 
 could have had no eye for the ' mores Germanorum,' if their most 
 essential feature had escaped him. Gods dwell ia these groves ; no 
 images (simulacra, in human form) are mentioned by name as being 
 set up, no temple walls are reared.^ But sacred vessels and altars 
 
 himself on liis legs, but must finish the fight on his knees, Danske viser 1, 115 ; 
 so in certain places a stranger's carriage, if overturned, must not be set upright 
 again, RA. 554. What is fabled of an idol called Sompar at Gorlitz (neue 
 lausitz. monatsschr. 1805, p. 1-18) has evidently been spun out of this passage 
 in Tac. ; the Semnones are placed in the Lausitz country, as they had been 
 previously by Aventin (Frankf. 1580, p. ST*"), who only puts a king Schwab in 
 the place of Sompar. 
 
 1 Baduhenna, perhaps the name of a place, like Arduenna. Miillenhoff 
 adds Badvinna, Patunna (Haupts zeitschr. 9, 241). 
 
 ^ Brissonius de regno Pers. 2, 28 ; ' Persae diis suig nulla templa vel altaria 
 constituunt, nulla simulacra' ; after Herodot. 1, 131. 
 
72 TEMPLES. 
 
 stand in the forest, heads of animals (ferarum imagines) hang on 
 the boughs of trees. There divine worship is performed and 
 sacrifice offered, there is the folk-mote and the assize, everywhere a 
 sacred awe and reminiscence of antiquity. Have not we here 
 alah, wih, paro, haruc' faithfully portrayed ? How could such 
 technical terms, unless they described an organized national 
 worship presided over by priests, have sprung up in the language, 
 and lived ? 
 
 During many centuries, down to the introduction of Christianity, 
 this custom endured, of venerating deity in sacred woods and trees. 
 
 I will here insert the detailed narrative given by Wilibald 
 (t 786) in the Vita Bonifacii (Canisius II. 1, 242. Pertz 2, 343) of 
 the holy oak of Geismar (on the Edder, near Fritzlar in Hesse).^ 
 The event falls between the years 725 and 731. Is autem (Boni- 
 facius) ... ad obsessas ante ea Hessorum metas cum consensu 
 Carli ducis {i.e. of Charles Martel) rediit. tum vero Hessorum jam 
 multi catholica fide subditi ac septiformis spiritus gratia confirmati 
 manus impositionem acceperunt, et alii quidem, nondum animo 
 confortati, intemeratae fidei documenta integre percipere renuenint, 
 alii etiam linguis et faucibus clanculo, alii vero aperte sacrificabant, 
 alii vero auspicia et divinationes, praestigia atque incantationes 
 occulte, alii quidem ihanifeste exercebant, alii quippe auspicia et 
 auguria intendebant, diversosque sacrificandi ritus incoluerunt, alii 
 etiam, quibus mens sanior inerat, omni abjecta gentilitatis pro- 
 phanatione nihil horum commiserunt. quorum consultu atque 
 consiUo arhorem quandam mirae Ttiagnitudinis, quae j)?'tsco Pagan- 
 orum vocdbulo appellatur rdbur Jovis, in loco, qui dicitur Gaesmere, 
 servis Dei secum astantibus, succidere tentavit. cumque mentis 
 constantia confortatus arborem succidisset, magna quippe aderat 
 copia Paganorum, qui et inimicum deorum suorum intra se diligen- 
 tissime devotabant, sed ad modicum quidem arbore praecisa 
 confestim imTnensa rohoris moles, divino desuper flatu exagitata, 
 palmitum confracto culmine, corruit, et quasi superi nutus solatio 
 in quatuor etiam partes disrupta est, et quatuor ingentis magnitu- 
 dinis aequali longitudine trunci, absque fratrum labore astantium 
 apparuerunt. quo viso prius devotantes Pagani etiam versa vice 
 benedictionem Domino, pristina abjecta maledictione, credentes 
 
 1 A shorter account of the same in the annalist Saxo, p. 133. 
 
GROVES. 73 
 
 reddiderunt. Tunc autem summae sanctitatis antistes consilio inito 
 cum fratribus ex supradictae arboris materia ^) oratorium construxit, 
 illudque in honors S. Petri apostoli dedicavit. From that time 
 Christianity had in this place a seat in Hesse ; hard by was the 
 ancient capital of the nation, ' Mattium (Marburg), id genti caput,' 
 Tac. Ann. 1, 56 ; which continued in the Mid. Ages to be the chief 
 seat of government. According to Landau, the oak and the church 
 bmlt out of it stood on the site of St. Peter's church at Fritzlar. 
 The whole region is well wooded (see SuppL). 
 
 Not unsimilar are some passages contained in the Vita S. 
 Amandi (-f- 674), on the wood and tree worship of the northern 
 Franks : Acta Bened. sec. 2. p. 714, 715, 718) : Amandus audivit 
 pagum esse, cui vocabulum Gandavum, cujus loci habitatores ini- 
 quitas diaboli eo circumquaque laqueis vehementer irretivit, ut 
 incolae terrae illius, rel^cto deo, arbores et ligna pro deo colerent, 
 atque farm vel idola adorarent. — Ubi fana destruebantur, statim 
 monasteria aut ecclesias construebat. — Amandus in pago belvacense 
 verbum domini dum praedicaret, pervenit ad quendam locum, cui 
 vocabulum est Eossonto juxta Aronnam fluvium . . . respondit 
 ilia, quod non ob aliam causam ei ipsa coecitas evenisset, nisi quod 
 auguria vel idola semper coluerat. insuper ostendit ei locum, in 
 quo praedictum idolum adorare consueverat, scilicet arborem, quae 
 erat daemoni dedicata . . . ' nunc igitur accipe securim et banc 
 nefandam arborem quantocius succidere festina'. 
 
 Among the Saxons and Frisians the veneration of groves lasted 
 much longer. At the beginning of the 11th century, bishop Unwan 
 of Bremen (conf. Adam. Brem. 2, 33) had all such woods cut down 
 among the remoter inhabitants of his diocese : hicos in episcopatu 
 suo, in quibus paludicolae regionis illius errore veteri cum profes- 
 sione falsa christianitatis immolabant, succidit; Vita Meinwerci, 
 cap. 22. Of the holy tree in the Old Saxon IrmmsiXl I will treat 
 in ch. VI. Several districts of Lower Saxony and Westphalia 
 have' until quite recent times preserved vestiges of holy oaks, to 
 which the people paid a half heathen half christian homage. Thus, 
 in the principality of Minden, on Easter Sunday, the young people 
 of both sexes used with loud cries of joy to dance a reigen (rig, 
 
 ' Other MS. have ' mole ' or ' metallo '. A brazen image on the oak is not 
 to be thought of, as such a thing would have been alluded to in what precedes 
 or follows. 
 
74 TEMPLES. 
 
 circular dance) round an old. oak} In a thicket near the village of 
 Wormeln, Paderborn, stands a holy oak, to which the inhabitants 
 of Wormeln and Calenberg still make a solemn procession every 
 year.2 
 
 I am inclined to trace back to heathenism the proper name of 
 Holy Wood so common in nearly all parts of Germany, It is not 
 likely that from a christian church situated in a wood, the wood 
 itself would be named holy ; and in such forests, as a rule, there is 
 not a church to be found. Still less can the name be explained by 
 the royal ban-forests of the Mid. Agesj on the contrary, these 
 forests themselves appear to have sprung out of heathen groves, 
 and the king's right seems to have taken the place of the cultus 
 which first withdrew the holy wood from the common use of the 
 people. In such forests too there used to be sanctuaries for crimi- 
 nals, EA. 886-9. 
 
 An old account of a battle between Franks and Saxons at 
 Notteln in the year 779 (Pertz 2, 377) informs us, that a badly 
 wounded Saxon had himself secretly conveyed from his castle into a 
 holy wood : Hie vero (Luibertus) magno cum merore se in castrum 
 recepit. Ex quo post aliquot dies mulier egrotum humeris clam in 
 sylvam Sytheri, qiMe fuit fhegathon sacra, nocte portavit. Vulnera 
 ibidem lavans, exterrita clamore effugit. Ubi multa lamentatione 
 animam expiravit. The strange expression thegathon is explained 
 by t' ayaOov (the good), a name for the highest divinity (summus 
 et princeps omnium deorum), which the chronicler borrowed from 
 Macrobius's somn. Scip. 1, 2, and may have chosen purposely, to 
 avoid naming a well-known heathen god (see Suppl.). Sytheri, 
 the name of the wood, seems to be the same as Sunderi (southern), 
 a name given to forests in more than one district, e.g. a Sundernhart 
 ia Franconia (Hofers urk. p. 308). Did this heathen hope for heal- 
 ing on the sacred soil 1 or did he wish to die there % 
 
 The forest called Dat hillige holt is mentioned by a document 
 in Kindlinger's Miinst. beitr. 3, 638. In the county of Hoya there 
 stood a Heiligen-loh (Pertz 2, 362). A long list of Alsatian 
 documents in Schopflin allude to the holy forest near Hagenau ; no. 
 218 (a.d. 1065) : cum foresto heiligenforst nominato in comitatu 
 Gerhardi comitis in pago Nortcowe, no. 238 (1106) : in sylva 
 
 1 Weddigen's westphal. mag. 3, 712. 
 
 2 Spilckers beitrage 2, 121. 
 
GROVES. 75 
 
 heiligeforst. no. 273 (1143) : praedium Loubach in sacro nemore 
 situm. no. 297 (1158) : utantur pascuis in sacra silva. no. 317 
 (1175) : in silva sacra, no. 402 (1215) : in sacra silva. no. 800 (1292): 
 conventum in konigesbriicken in hciligenforst. no. 829 (1304) 
 nemus nostrum et imperii dictum heiligvorst. no. 851 (1310) 
 pecora in foresta nostra, quae dicitur der heilige forst, pascere et 
 tenere. no. 1076 (1356) : porcos tempore glaudium nutriendos in 
 silva sacra. The alternating words ' forst, silva, nemus,' are enough 
 to show the significance of the term. The name of the well-known 
 Breieich (Drieichahi) is probably to be explained by the heathen 
 worship of three oaks ; a royal ban-forest existed there a long time, 
 and its charter (I, 498) is one of the most primitive. 
 
 The express allusion to Tliuringia and Saxony is remarkable in 
 the following lines of a poem that seems to have been composed 
 soon after the year 1200, Eeinh. F. 302 ; tlie wolf sees a goat on a 
 tree, and exclaims : 
 
 ich sihe ein obez hangen, I see a fruit hanging,, 
 
 ez habe har ode borst ; That it has hair or bristles ; 
 
 in einem heiligen vorsie In any holy forest 
 
 ze Dliringen noch ze Sachseu Of Thuringia nor of Saxony 
 enkunde niht gewahsen There could not grow 
 
 bezzer obez uf rise. Better fruit on bough. 
 
 The allusion is surely to sacrificed animals, or firstfrnits of the 
 chase, hung up on the trees of a sacred wood ? Either the story is 
 based on a more ancient original, or may not the poet have heard 
 tell from somewhere of heathenish doings going on in his own day 
 among Saxons and Thuringians ? (see SuppL). 
 
 And in other poems of the Mid. Ages the sacredness of the 
 ancient forests still exerts an after-influence. In Alex. 5193 we 
 read ' der edele wait frSne ' ; and we have inklings now and again, 
 if not of sacrifices offered to sacred trees, yet of a lasting indestruc- 
 tible awe, and the fancy that ghostly beings haunt particular trees. 
 Thus, in Ls. 2, 575, misfortune, like a demon, sat on a tree ; and in 
 Altd. w. 3, 161 it is said of a hollow tree : 
 
 da sint heiligen inne. There are saints in there, 
 
 die hoerent aller liute bet.^ That hear aU people's prayers 
 
 (see SuppL). 
 
 ^ Prom the notion of a forest temple the transition is easy to paying divine 
 honours to a single tree. Festus has ; delubrwm fustis delibratiis (staff with 
 
T6 TEMPLES. 
 
 Still more unmistakably does this forest cultus prevail in the 
 North, protected by the longer duration of heathenism. The great 
 sacrifice at LMera described by Dietmar (see p. 48) was performed 
 in the island which, from its even now magnificent beech- woods, 
 bore the name of Scelundr, sea-grove, and was the finest grove in all 
 Scandinavia. The Swedes in like manner solemnized their festival 
 of sacrifice in a grove near Upsala ; Adam of Bremen says of the 
 animals sacrificed: Corpora suspenduntur in lucum qui pi-oximus 
 est templo ; is enim lucus tam sacer est gentibus, ut singulae 
 arbor es ejus ex morte vel tabo immolatorum divinae credantur. Of 
 HloSr HeiSreksson we are told in the Hervararsaga cap. 16 
 (fornald. sog. 1, 491), that he was born with arms and horse in the 
 hohj wood (k mork hinni helgu). In the grove Glasislundr a bird 
 sits on the boughs and demands sacrifices, a temple and gold-horned 
 cows, Ssem. 140-1. The sacred trees of the Edda, Yggdrasil and 
 MimameiSr, Ssem. 109% hardly need reminding of. 
 
 Lastly, the agreement of the Slav, Prussian, Finnish and Celtic 
 paganisms throws light upon our own, and tends to confirm it. 
 Dietmar of Merseburg (Pertz 5, 812) affirms of the heathen temple 
 at Riedegost : quam undique sylva ab incolis intacta et venerdbilis 
 circumdat magna; (ibid. 816) he relates how his ancestor Wibert 
 about the year 1008 rooted up a grove of the Slavs : lacum Zuti- 
 bure dictum, ab accolis ut deum in omnibus honoratum, et ab aevo 
 antiquo nunquam violatum, radicitus eruens, sancto martyri 
 Eomano in eo ecclesiam construxit. Zutibure is for Sveti bor = 
 holy forest, from bor (fir), pine-barren ; a Merseburg document of 
 1012 already mentions an ' ecclesia in Scutibure,' Zeitschr. f. 
 archivkunde, 1, 162, An GIST, saga (Fornm. sog. 11, 382) names a 
 UStlundr (sacrificial grove) at Straela, called Boku, Helmold 1, 1 
 says of the Slavs : usque hodie profecto inter iUos, cum cetera 
 
 bark peeled off) quem venerabantiir pro deo. Names given to particular trees 
 are at the same time names of goddesses, e.g. ON. HUn, Gna. It is worthy of 
 notice, that the heathen idea of divine figures on ti-ees has crept into christian 
 legends, so deeply rooted was tree worship among the people. I refer douhters 
 to the story of the Tyiolese image of grace, which grew up in a forest tree 
 (Deutsche sagen, no. 348). In Carinthia you find Madonna figures fixed on the 
 trees in gloomy groves (Sartoris reise 2, 165). Of like import seem to be the 
 descriptions of wonderful maidens sitting inside hollow trees, or perched on the 
 boughs (Marienkind, hausmarchen no. 3. Romance de la infantina, see ch. 
 XVI.). Madonna in the wood, Mar. legend. 177. Many oaks with Madonnas 
 in Normandy, Bosquet 196-7. 
 
GROVES. 77 
 
 omnia communia sint cum nostris, solus prohibetur accessus lucorum 
 ac fontium, quos autumant pollui christianorum access u. A song 
 in the Koniginhof MS. p. 72 speaks of the grove {hain, Boh. hai, 
 hag, Pol. gay, Sloven, gaj ; conf. gains, gahajus, Lex Eoth. 324, 
 kaheius. Lex Bajuv. 21, 6) from which the christians scared away 
 the holy sparrow.^ The Esth. sallo, Finn, salo means a holy wood, 
 especially a meadow with thick underwood ; the national god Thara- 
 pila is described by Henry the Letton (ad. ann. 1219) : in confinio 
 Wironiae erat mons et silva pulcherrima, in quo dicebant indigenae 
 magnum deum Osiliensium natum qui Tharapila^ vocatur, et de 
 loco illo in Osiliam volasse, — in the form of a bird ? (see Suppl.). 
 To the Old Prussians, iJomow was the most sacred spot in the land, 
 and a seat of the gods ; there stood their images on a holy oak hung 
 with cloths. No unconsecrated person was allowed to set foot in 
 the forest, no tree to be foiled, not a bough to be injured, not a 
 beast to be slain. There were many such sacred groves in other 
 parts of Prussia and Lithuania.^ 
 
 The Vita S. Germani Autisiodorensis (b. 378, d. 448) written 
 by Constantius as early as 473 contains a striking narrative of a 
 peartree which stood in the middle of Auxerre and was honoured 
 by the heathen* As the Burgundians did not enter Gaul tiU the 
 beginning of the 5th century, there is not likely to be a mixture in 
 it of German tradition. But even if the story is purely Celtic, it 
 deserves a place here, because it shows how widely the custom 
 prevailed of hanging the heads of sacriiicial beasts on trees.^ Eo 
 tempore (before 400) territorium Autisiodorensis urbis visitatione 
 propria gubernabat Germanus. Cui mos erat tirunculorum potius 
 industriis indulgere, quam christianae religioni operam dare, is 
 ergo assidue venatui invigilans ferarum copiam insidiis atque artis 
 strenuitate frequentissime capiebat. Erat autem arhor pirus in 
 
 J Brzetislav burnt down the heathen groves and trees of the Bohemians in 
 1093, Pelzel 1, 76. The Poles called a sacred grove rofc and uroczysko, conf. 
 Euss. roshtcha, grove [root rek roh = f'ari, fatum ; roshtcha is from rostl, rasti 
 = grow]. On threat of hostile invasion, they cut rods (wicie) from the grove, 
 and sent them round to summon their neighbours. Miokiewicz 1, o6. 
 
 2 Conf. Turwpid in Fornm. sog. 11, 385; but on Slav nations conf. Schief- 
 ner on Gastrin 329. 
 
 ' Joh. Voigts gesch. Preussens 1, 595 — 597. 
 
 ■* Acta sanctor. Bolland. July 31, p. 202 ; conf. Legenda aurea, cap. 102. 
 
 ^ Huie (Marti) praedae primordia vovebantur, huio truncis suspendehantur 
 exuviae, Jornandes cap. 5, 
 
78 TEMPLES. 
 
 urhe media, amoenitate gratissima : ad cujus ramusculos ferarum ab 
 eo deprehensarum capita pro admiratione venationis nimiae depen- 
 dehant. Quem Celebris ejusdem civitatis Amator episcopus his 
 frequens compellebat eloquiis : ' desine, quaeso, vir honoratorum 
 splendidissime, haec jocularia, quae Christianis offensa, Paganis vero 
 imitanda sunt, exercere. hoe opus idololatriae cultura est, non chris- 
 tians elegantissimae disciplinae.' Et licet hoc indesinenter vir deo 
 dignus perageret, ille tamen nullo modo admonenti se adquiescere 
 voluit aut obedire. vir autem domini iterum atque iterum eum horta- 
 batur, ut non solum a consuetudine male arrepta discederet, verum 
 etiam et ipsam arborem, ne Christianis oifendiculum esset, radici- 
 tus exstirparet. sed Hie nuUatenus aurem placidam applicare voluit 
 admonenti. In hujus ergo persuasionis tempore quodam die Ger- 
 manus ex urbe in praedia sui juris discessit. tunc beatus Amator 
 opportunitatem opperiens sacrilegam arborem cum caudicibus -a^r 
 scidit, et ne aliqua ejus incredulis esset memoria igui concreman- 
 dam Ulico deputavit, oscHImP) vero, quae tanquam trophaea cujus- 
 dam certaminis umbram dependentia ostentabant, longius a civitatis 
 terminis projici praecipit. Protinus vero fama gressus suos ad 
 aures Germani retorquens, dictis animum incendit, atque iram suis 
 suasionibus exaggerans ferocem effecit, ita ut oblitus sanctae 
 religionis, cujus jam fuerat ritu atque munere insignitus, mortem 
 beatissimo viro minitaret. 
 
 A poem of Herricus composed about 876 gives a fuller descrip- 
 tion of the idolatrous peartree : 
 
 altoque et lato stabat gratissima quondam 
 urbe pirus media, populo spectabilis omni ; 
 non quia pendentum flavebat honore pirorum, 
 nee quia perpetuae vernabat munere frondis : 
 
 ^ Virg. Qeorg. 2, 388 : tibique (Bacche) oscilla ex alta suspenduut moUia 
 pinii. In the story, however, it is not masks that are hung up, but real heads 
 of beasts ; are the ferarum imagines in Tac. Hist. 4, 22 necessarily images ? 
 Does oscilla mean capita oscillantia ? It appears that when they Imng up the 
 heads, they propped open the mouth with a stick, conf. Isengr. 645. Reinardus 
 3, 293 (see Suppl.). Nailing birds of prey to the gate of a burg or barn is well 
 known, and is practised to this day. Hanging up horses' heads was mentioned 
 on p. 47. The Qrimnismal 10 tells us, in Ooin s mansion there hung a wolj 
 outside the door, and over that an eagle ; were these mere simulacra and insignia 1 
 Witechind says, the Saxons, when sacrificing, set up an eagle over the gate : Ad 
 orientalem portam ponunt aquilam, aramque Victoriae construentes ; this eagle 
 seems to have been her emblem. A dog hung up over the threshold is also 
 mentioned, Lex. Alam. 102, 
 
BUILDINGS. 79 
 
 sed deprensarum passim capita alta, ferarum 
 arboris obscoenae patulis hcterentia ramis 
 praebebant vano plausum spectacula vulgo. 
 horrebant illic trepidi ramalia cervi 
 et dirum frendentis apri, fera spicula, denies, 
 acribus exitium meditantes forte molossis. 
 tunc quoque sic variis arbos induta tropaeis 
 fundebat rudibus lasfiivi semina risus. 
 
 It was not the laughter of the multitude that offended the christian 
 priests ; they saw in the practice a performance, however degene- 
 rate and dimmed, of heathen sacrifices.^ 
 
 Thus far we have dwelt on the evidences which go to prove 
 that the oldest worship of our ancestors was connected with sacred 
 forests and trees. 
 
 At the same time it cannot be doubted, that even in the earliest 
 times there were temples huilt for single deities, and perhaps rude 
 images set up inside them. In the lapse of centuries the old forest 
 worship may have declined and been superseded by the structure 
 of temples, more with some populations and less with others. In 
 fact, we come across a good many statements so indefinite or incom- 
 plete, that it is impossible to gather from them with any certainty 
 whether the expressions used betoken the ancient cultus or one 
 departing from it. 
 
 The most weighty and significant passages relating to this part 
 of the subject seem to be the following (see Suppl.) : 
 
 Tac. Germ. 40 describes the sacred grove and the worship of 
 Mother Earth ; when the priest in festival time has carried the 
 goddess round among the people, he restores her to her sanctuary : 
 satiatam conversatione mortalium deam templo reddit. 
 
 Tac. ann. 1, 51 : Caesar avidas legiones, quo latior populatio 
 foret, quatuor in cuneos dispertit, quinquaginta millium spatium 
 ferro flammisque pervastat ; non sexus, non aetas miserationem 
 
 ■" St. Benedict found at Montecassino vetustissimum fanmn, in quo ex 
 antique more gentilium a stulto rustioano populo Apollo colebatur, circumquaque 
 enim in cultum daemoniorum luci succreverant, in quibus adhuc eodem tempore 
 infidelium insana multitudo sacrificiis sacrilegia insudabat. Greg. Mag. dialogi 
 2, 8. These were not German heathens, but it proves the custom to have been 
 the more universal 
 
80 TEMPLES. 
 
 attulit: profana simul et sacra, et eeleherrimum illis gentibus 
 templum, quod Tanfana^ vocabant, solo aequantur. The nation to 
 ■vvhicli this temple belonged were the Marsi and perhaps some 
 neighbouring ones (see Suppl.). 
 
 Vita S. Eugendi abbatis Jurensis (f circ. 510), auctore monacho 
 Condatescensi ipsius discipulo (in Actis sanctor. Bolland. Jan. 1, p. 
 50, and ia Mabillon, acta Ben. sec. 1, p. 570) : Sanctus igitur 
 famulus Christi Eugendus, sicut beatonim patrum Eomani et 
 Lupicini in rehgione discipulus, ita etiam natalibus ac provincia 
 extitit indigena atque concivis. ortus nempe est baud longe a vico 
 cui vetusta paganitas ob celebritatem clausuramque fortissimam 
 superstitiosissimi templi Gallica lingua Isarnodori, id est, ferrei ostii 
 indidit nomen : quo nunc quoque in loco, delubris ex parte jam 
 dirutis, sacratissime micant coelestis regni cuhnina dicata Christi- 
 colis ; atque inibi pater sanctissimae prolis judicio pontificali 
 plebisque testimonio extitit in presbyterii dignitate sacerdos. If 
 Eugendus was born about the middle of the oth century, and his 
 father already was a priest of the christian church which had been 
 erected on the site of the heathen temple, heathenism can at the 
 latest have lingered there only in the earlier half of that century, 
 at whose commencement the West Goths passed through Italy into 
 Gaul. Galliea lingua here seems to be the German spoken by the 
 invading nations, in contradistinction to the Eomana ; the name of 
 the place is almost pure Gothic, eisarnadaiiri, still more exactly it 
 might be Burgundian, isarnodori.^ Had either West Goths or 
 Burgundians, or perhaps even some Alamanns that had penetrated 
 so far, founded the temple in the fastnesses and defiles of the Jura?' 
 The name is weU suited to the strength of the position and of the 
 building, which the christians in part retained (see Suppl.). 
 
 A Constitutio Childeberti I of about 554 (Pertz 3, 1) contains 
 the following : Praecipientes, ut quicunque admoniti de agro sue, 
 ubicumque fuerint simulacra constructa vel idola daemoni dedicata 
 
 1 An inscription found in Neapolitan territory, but supposed by Orelli 
 2053 to have been made by Ligorius, has ' Tamfanae sacrum (Gudii inscript. 
 antiq. p. Iv. 11, de Wal p. 188) ; the word is certainly Geiman, and formed like 
 Hludana, Sigana (Sequana), Liutana (Lugdunum), Eabana (Eavenna\ &c. 
 
 ^ Yet the Celtic forms also are not far removed, Ir. iaran, Wei. haiam, 
 Armor, uarn (ferrum) ; Ir. doras, Wei. dor (porta) : haearndor = iron, gate, 
 quoted in Davies's Brit. Mythol. pp. 120, 560. 
 
 ' Frontier mountains held sacred and made places of sacrifice by some 
 nations ; Ritters erdkunde 1, aufl. 2, 79. vol. 2, p. 903. 
 
iuiLDINGS. 81 
 
 ab hominibus, factum non statim abjecerint vel sacerdotibus haec 
 destruentibus prohibuerint, datis fidejussoribus non aliter discedant 
 nisi in nostris obtutibus praesententui'. 
 
 Vita S. Eadegundis (f 587) the wife of Clotaire, composed by a 
 contemporary nun Baudonivia (acta Bened. sec. 1, p. 327) : Dum 
 iter ageret (Eadegundis) seculari pompa se comitante, interjecta 
 longinquitate terrae ae spatio, fanum quod a Francis colebatur in 
 itinere beatae reginae quantum miliario uno proximum erat. hoc 
 ilia audiens jussit famulis fanum igne comburi, iniquum judicans 
 Deum coeli contemni et diabolica machinamenta venerari. Hoc 
 audientes Franci universa multitude cum gladiis et fustibus vel 
 omni fremitu conabantur defendere. sancta vero regina immobilis 
 perseverans et Christum in pectore gestans, equum quern sedebat 
 in antea (i.e. ulterius) non movit antequam et fanum perureretur 
 et ipsa orante inter se populi pacem firmarent. The situation of 
 the temple she destroyed I do not venture to determine; Eadegund 
 was journeying from Thuringia to France, and somewhere on that 
 line, not far from the Ehine, the fanum may be looked for. 
 
 Greg. Tur. vitae patrum 6 : Eunte rege (Theoderico) in Agrip- 
 pinam urbem, et ipse (S. Gallus) simul abiit. erat autem ibi fanum 
 quoddam diversis ornamentis refertum, in quo barbaris (1. Barbarus) 
 opima libamina exhibens usque ad vomitum cibo potuque repleba- 
 tur. ibi et simulacra ut deum adorans, membra, secundum quod 
 unumquemque dolor attigisset, sculpebat in ligno. quod libi S. 
 Gallus audivit, statim illuc cum uno tantum clerico properat, ac- 
 censoque igne, cum nullus ex stultis Paganis adesset, ad fanum 
 applicat et succendit. at illi videntes fumum deluhri ad coelum 
 usque conscendere, auctorem incendii quaerunt, inventumque eva^ 
 ginatis gladiis prosequuntur ; ille vero in fugam versus aulae se 
 regiae condidit. verum postquam rex quae acta fuerant Paganis 
 minantibus recognovit, blandis eos sermonibus lenivit. This Gallus 
 is distinct from the one who appears in Alamannia half a century 
 later; he died about 553, and by the king is meant Theoderic I of 
 Austrasia. 
 
 Vita S. Lupi Senonensis (Duchesne 1, 562. Bouquet 3, 491) : 
 Eex Chlotarius virum Dei Lupum episcopum retrusit in pago quodam 
 Neustriae nuncupante Vinemaco (le Vimeu), traditum duci pagano 
 (i.6. duci terrae), nomine Bosoni LandegisHo (no doubt a Frank) 
 quern Die direxit in vUla quae dicitur Andesagiaa super fiuvium 
 
82 TEMPLES. 
 
 Auciam, iibi erant templa fanatica a decurionibus cuUa. (a.d. 
 614.) Andesagina is Ansenne, Aucia was afterwards called la 
 Bresle, BriseUe. 
 
 Beda, hist. eccl. 2, 13, relates how the Forthumbrian king 
 Eadwine, baptized 627, slain 633, resolved after mature consultation 
 with men of understanding to adopt Christianity, and was especially- 
 made to waver in his ancient faith by Coifi (Coefi) his chief heathen 
 priest himself: Cumque a praefato pontifice saerorum suoruni 
 quaereret, quis aras et fana idolorum cum septis quibus erant cir- 
 cumdata primus profanare deberet ? respondit : ego. quis enim ea, 
 quae per stultitiam colui, nunc ad exemplum omnium aptius quam 
 ipse per sapientiam mihi a Deo vero donatam destruam ? . . . 
 Accinctus ergo gladio accepit lanceam in manu et ascendens 
 emissarium regis (all three unlawful and improper things for a 
 heathen priest), pergebat ad idola. quod aspiciens vulgus aesti- 
 mabat eum insanire. nee distulit ille. mox ut appropinquabat ad 
 fanum, profanare iUud, iajecta in eo lancea quam tenebat, multum- 
 que gavisus de agnitione veri Dei cultus, jussit sociis destruere ac 
 succendere fanum cum omnibus septis suis. ostenditur autem locus 
 ille quondam idolorum non longe ab Eboraco ad orientem ultra 
 amnem Dorowentionem et vocatur hodie Godmundinga h^m, ubi 
 pontifex ipse, inspirante Deo vero, poUuit ac destruxit eas, quas 
 ipse sacraverat, aras.^ 
 
 Vita S. Bertuffi Bobbiensis (f 640) in Acta Bened. sec. 2, p. 
 164 : Ad quandam viUam Iriae fiuvio adjacentem accessit, ubi 
 fanum quoddam arboribus consitum ■widens allatimi ignem ei admovit, 
 congestis in modum pirae lignis. Id vero cernentes fani cultores 
 Meroveum apprehensum diuque fustibus caesum et ictibus con- 
 tusum in fiuvium illud demergere conantur. — The Iria runs into 
 the Po ; the event occurs among Lombards. 
 
 Walafridi Strabonis vita S. GaUi (f 640) in actis Bened. sec. 2 
 p. 219, 220: Venerunt (S. Columbanus et GaUus) infra partes 
 Alemanniae ad fiuvium, qui Lindimacus vocatur, juxta quern ad 
 superiora tendentes pervenerunt Turicinulm. cumque per littus 
 ambulantes venissent ad caput lacus ipsius, in locum qui Tucconia 
 dicitur, placuit Ulis loci quaUtas ad inhabitandum. porro homines 
 
 1 The A.S. translation renders arae by wigbed (see p. 67), fana by heargas, 
 idola by deofolgild, septa once by hegas (hedges), and the other time by getymhro. 
 The spear hurled at the hearg gave the signal for its demolition. 
 
BUILDINGS. 83 
 
 ibidem commanentes crudeles erant et impii, simulacra colentes, 
 idola sacrificiis mnerantes, observantes auguria et divinationes et 
 multa quae contraria sunt cultui divino superstitiosa sectantes. 
 Sancti igitur homines cum coepissent inter Ulos habitare, docebant 
 eos adorare Patrem et Filium et Spiritum sanctum, et custodire 
 fidei veritatem. Beatus quoque Gallus sancti viri discipulus zelo 
 pietatis armatus fana, in quibus daemoniis sacrificabant, igni suc- 
 cendit et quaecumque invenit oblata demersit in lacum. — Here 
 follows an important passage which will be quoted further on ; it 
 says expressly : cumque ejusdem templi solemnitas ageretur. 
 
 Jonae Bobbiensis vita S. Columbani (-)- 615) cap. 17. in act. 
 Bened. 2, 12. 13 : Cumque jam multorum monachorum societate 
 densaretur, coepit cogitare, ufc potiorem locum in eadem eremo 
 {i.e. Vosago saltu) quaereret, quo monasterium construeret. in- 
 venitque castrum firmissimo munimine olim fuisse cultum, a supra 
 dicto loco distans plus minus octo millibus, quem prisca tempora 
 Luxovium nuncupabant, ibique aquae calidae cultu eximio constru- 
 ctae habehantur. ibi imaginum lapidearum densitas vicina saltus 
 densabat,'- quas cultu miserdbili rituque profano vetusta Paganorum 
 tempora honorabant. — This Burgundian place then (Luxeuil in 
 Franche Comte, near Vesoul) contained old Eoman thermae 
 adorned with statues. Had the Burgundian settlers connected 
 their own worship with these ? The same castrum is spoken of 
 in the 
 
 Vita S. Agili Eesbacensis (f 650), in Acta Ben. sec. 2, p. 317 : 
 Castrum namque intra vasta eremi septa, quae Vosagus dicitur, 
 ineiat fanaticorum cultui ohm dedicatum, sed tunc ad solum usque 
 dirutum, quod hujus saltus incolae, quamquam ignoto praesagio, 
 Luxovium [qu. lux ovium ?] nominavere. A church is then built 
 on the heathen site : ut, ubi olim prophano ritu veteres coluerunt 
 fana, ibi Christi figerentur arae et erigerentui vexiUa, habitaculum 
 Deo militantium, quo adversus aerias potestates dimicarent superni 
 Eegis tirones. p. 319 : Ingressique (Agilus cum Eustasio) hujus 
 itineris viam, juvante Christo, Warascos praedicatori accelerant, 
 qui agrestium fanis decepjii, quos vulgi faunas vocant, gentilium 
 
 ^ The multitude of statues made the adjoining wood thicker ? Must we not 
 supply an ace. copiam or speciem after imag. lapid. 1 [vicina saltus densabat 
 evidently means 'crowded the adjoining part of the wood . So in Ovid: densae 
 foliis huxi. — Trans.] 
 
84 TEMPLES, 
 
 quoque errore seducti, in perfidiam devenerant, Fotini seu Bonosi 
 vims infecti, quos, errore depulso, matri ecclesiae reconciliatos veros 
 Christi fecere servos. 
 
 Vita S. Wmibrordi (f 789), in Acta Bened. sec. 3, p. 609 : 
 Pervenit in confinio Fresonum et Danorum ad quandam insiilam, 
 quae a quodam deo suo Fosite ab accolis terrae Fositesland appel- 
 latur, quia in ea ejusdem dei fana fuere constructa. Qui locus a 
 paganis tanta veneratione habebatur, ut nil in eo vel animalium 
 ibi pascentium vel aHarum quarumlibet rerum gentUium quisquam 
 tangere audebat, nee etiam a fonte qui ibi ebulliebat aquam haurire 
 nisi tacens praesumebat. 
 
 Vita S. WiUehadi (f 793), in Pertz 2, 381 : Unde contigit, ut 
 quidam discipulorum ejus, diviao compuncti ardore, fana in morem 
 gentilium circumguaque ereda coepissent evettere et ad nihilum, 
 prout poterant, redigere ; quo facto barbari, qui adhuc forte 
 perstiterant, furore nimio succensi, irruerunt super eos repente cum 
 impetu, volentes eos funditus interimere, ibique Dei famulum 
 fustibus caesum multis admodum plagis affecere. — This happened 
 in the Frisian pagus Thrianta (Drente) before 779. 
 
 Vita Ludgeri (beginning of the 9th cent.) 1,8: (In Frisia) Paganos 
 asperrimos . . . mitigavit, ut sua ulum delubra destruere coram 
 oculis paterentur. Inventum infanis aurum et argentum plurimum 
 Albricus in aerarium regis intuHt, accipiens et ipse praecipiente 
 Carolo portionem ex Olo. — Conf. the passage cited p. 45 from the 
 Lex Frisionum. 
 
 Folcuini gesta abb. Lobiensium (circ. 980), in Pertz 6, 55 : Est 
 locus intra terminos pagi, quern veteres, a loco ubi superstitiosa 
 gentilitas fanum Marti sacraverat, Fanum Martinse dixeruut. — This 
 is Famars in Hainault, not far from Valenciennes. 
 
 In all probability the sanctuary of Tanfana which Germanicus 
 demolished in a.d. 14 was not a mere grove, but a real building, 
 otherwise Tacitus would hardly have called the destruction of it a 
 ' levelling to the ground '. During the next three or four centuries 
 we are without any notices of heathen temples in Germany. In 
 the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, as I have shown, we come 
 upon casfra, templa, fana among Burgundians, Franks, Lombards, 
 Alamanns, Anglo-Saxons, and Frisians. By /a?iMwi (whence fana- 
 ticus) seems often to have been understood a building of smaller 
 
BUILDINGS. 85 
 
 extent, and by templum one of larger ; the Indiculus superstit. xxxi. 
 4 has : ' de casulis (huts), i.e. fanis ' (see Suppl.). I admit that 
 some of the authorities cited leave it doubtful whether German 
 heathen temples be intended, they might be Eoman ones which 
 had been left standing ; in which case there is room for a twofold 
 hypothesis : that the dominant German nation had allowed certain 
 communities in their midst to keep up the Eoman-GaUic cultus, or 
 that they themselves had taken possession of Eoman buildings for 
 the exercise of their own religion^ (see Suppl.). No thorough 
 investigation has yet been made .of the state of reUgion among the 
 Gauls immediately before and after the irruption of the Germans ; 
 side by side with the converts there were still, no doubt, some 
 heathen Gauls; it is difficult therefore to pronounce for either 
 hypothesis, cases of both kinds may have co-existed. So much for 
 the doubtful authorities ; but it is not all of them that leave lis in 
 any doubt. If the Tanfana temple could be built by Germans, we 
 can suppose the same of the Alamann, the Saxon and the Frisian 
 temples; and what was done in the first century, is stiU more likely 
 to have been done in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. 
 
 Built Temples must in early times have been named in a variety 
 of ways (see Suppl.) : OHG. AS. OS. ON. hof, aula, atrium f— 
 OHG. halla, templum (Hymn. 24, 8), AS. heal, ON. holl (conf. hallr, 
 lapis, Goth, hallus) ; — OHG. sal, ON. salr, AS. sele, OS. seli, aula ; — 
 AS. reced, domus, basilica (Caedm. 145, 11. 150, 16. 219, 23), OS. 
 mhkd (Hel. 114, 17. 130, 20. 144, 4. 155, 20), an obscure word not 
 found in the other dialects ; — OHG. petapdr, delubrum (Diut. 1, 
 
 ^ As the vulgar took Boman fortifications for devil's dikes, it was natural 
 to associate with Eoman castella the notion of idolatry. Eupertus Tuitiensis 
 (t 1135) in his account of the fire of 1128 that levelled such a castellum at 
 Deuz, which had been adapted to christian worship, informs us that some 
 thought it was built by Julius Caesar, others by Constantius and Constantine. 
 In the emperor Otto's time, St. Mary appears by night to archbishop Heribert: 
 ' surge, et Tuitiense castrum petens, locum in eodem mundari praecipe, ibique 
 monasterium Deo mihique et omnibus Sanctis constitue, ut, ubi quondam 
 habitavit peccatum et cultus daemonimi, ibi justitia regnet et memoria 
 sanctorum, with more of the like, in the Vita Heriberti cap. 15. Conf. the 
 fanum at Cologne above, p. 81. 
 
 " The asylum that atrium and temple offered within their precincts is in 
 ON. grilfastaSr, OHG. frUhof, OS. vrithob, Hel. 151, 2, 9. MHG. vrone 
 wtthof. Nib. 4795, 2 ; not at all our friedhof [but conn, with frei, free], conf. 
 Goth, freidjan, OS. fridon (parcere). That the constitution of the Old 
 German sanctuaries was still for the most part heathenish, is discussed in EA. 
 886-92. 
 
86 TEMPLES. 
 
 IQS'')!; — to which were afterwards added petahils, minores ecclesiae 
 (Gl. sletst. 21, 32) and chirihhd, AS. cyrice. The MHG. poets like 
 to use beteh'ds of a heathen temple as opposed to a christian church 
 (En. 2695. Barl. 339, 11.28. 342,6. Athis D 93. Herb. 952. Wigal. 
 8308. Pass. 356, 73. Tit. 3329), so in M. N"ethl. hedeh4s (Maerl. 
 1, 326. 3, 125), much as the Catholics in their own countries do not 
 allow to Protestants a church, but only a bethaus, prapng-house 
 (see SuppI). 0. iv. 33, 33 has the periphrase gates hds, and ii. 4, 
 52 druhtines h4s. ISTotker cap. 17 makes no scrapie of translating 
 the Lat. fanis by cMlechon, just as bishop does duty for heathen 
 priest as well. In the earliest times temple was retained. Is. 382. 
 395. T. 15,4. 193,2. 209,1. Diut. 1, 195.^ 
 
 The hut which we are to picture to ourselves under the term 
 fanum or piir (A.S. bur, bower) was most Kkely constructed of logs 
 and twigs round the sacred tree ; a wooden temple of the goddess 
 Zisa will find a place in ch. XIII. With haUa and some other 
 names we are compelled to think rather of a stone building. 
 
 We see all the christian teachers eager to lay the axe to the 
 sacred trees of the heathen, and fire under their temples. It would 
 almost seem that the poor people's consent was never asked, and 
 the rising smoke was the first thing that announced to them the 
 broken power of their gods. But on a closer study of the details in 
 the less high-flown narratives, it comes out that the heathen were 
 not so tame and simple, nor the christians so reckless. Boniface 
 resolved on hewing down the Thunder-oak after taking counsel with 
 the already converted Hessians, and in their presence. So too the 
 Thuringian princess might not have dared to sit so immovable on 
 her paKrey and give the order to fire the Prankish temple, had not 
 her escort been numerous enough to make head against the heathen. 
 That these did make an armed resistance, appears from Eadegund's 
 request, after the fane was burnt down, ut inter se populi pacem 
 firmarent. 
 
 In most of the cases it is expressly stated that a church was 
 erected on the site of the heathen tree or temple.^ In this way the 
 
 ^ Actum, in illo letapAre (the church at Fulda) puhUce, Trad. Fuld. ed. 
 Sohannat no. 193. in bedebur, Laoomhl. no. 412 (a.d. 1162). in bedebure, Erhaid 
 p. 148 (a.d. 1121). betbur, Meyer Zurch. ortsn. 917. 
 
 ^ Snip. Severus (ed. Amst. 1665), p. 458 : Nam ubi fana destruxerat 
 (Martinus), statim ibi aut ecclesiae aut monasteria construebat. Dietmar of Merseb. 
 7, 52, p. 859 (speaking of Bishop Eeinbem on Slav, territory, a.d. 1015) : 
 
TEMPLES. 87 
 
 people's habits of thinking were consulted, and they conld believe 
 that the old sacredness had not departed from the place, but hence- 
 forth flowed from the presence of the true God (see Suppl.). 
 
 At the same time we here perceive the reason of the almost 
 entire absence of heathen monuments or their remains, not only 
 in Germany proper, but in the North, where certainly such 
 temples existed, and more plentifully ; conf. in chaps. VI. X. XVI. 
 the temple at Sigtun, baer 1 Baldrshaga, and the Nomas' temple. 
 Either these were levelled with the ground to make room for a 
 christian church, or their walls and halls were worked into the new 
 bunding. We may be slow to form any high opinion of the build- 
 ing art among the heathen Germans, yet they must have understood 
 how to arrange considerable masses of stone, and bind them firmly 
 together. We have evidence of this in the grave-mounds and places 
 of sacrifice still preserved in Scandinavia, partly also in Friesland 
 and Saxony, from which some important inferences might be drawn 
 with regard to the old heathen services, but these I exclude from 
 my present investigation. 
 
 The results are these : the earliest seat of heathen worship was 
 in groves, whether on mountain or in pleasant mead ; there the first 
 temples were afterwards built, and there also were the tribunals of 
 the nation. 
 
 Fana idolonim destruens incendit, et mare daemonibus ciiltum, immissis quatiior 
 lapidibus sacro chrismate perunctis, et aqua purgans benedicta, novam Domino 
 . . . plantationem eduxit. — On the conversion of the Pantheon into a 
 church, see Massmann's Eradius 476. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 PEIESTS. 
 
 The most general term for one who is called to. the immediate 
 service of deity (minister deorum, Tac. Germ. 10) is one derived 
 from the name of deity itself. From the Goth. guS (deus) is formed 
 the adj. gaguds (godly, pius, eia-€^^<s), then gagvdei (pietas, eiae^eia). 
 In OHG. and MHG., I find pius translated ^rhaft, strictly reverens, 
 but also used for venerandus ; our fromm has only lately acquired 
 this meaning, the MHG. vrum being simply able, excellent. The 
 God-serving, pious man is in Goth, gudja {lepev<;. Matt. 8, 4, 27, 1. 
 63. Mk. 10, 34. 11, 27. 14, 61. Lu. 1, 5. 20, 1. Jo. 18, 19. 
 22. 19,6. ■?t/arg'Mc^a(a/3%t6/36i5s) MklO, 33. gudjindn (lepareveiv), 
 Lu. 1, 8. gudjinassus (lepareia) Lu. 1, 9. (see Suppl.). 
 
 That these were heathen expressions follows from the accordance 
 of the ON. goffi (pontifex), hofs go&i (fani antistes), Egilss. 754. 
 Freys godi, Malss. cap. 96. 117. Fornm. sog. 2, 206. go&ord 
 (sacerdotium). An additional argument is found in the disappear- 
 ance of the word from the other dialects, just as our alah dis- 
 appeared, though the Goths had found alhs unobjectionable. Only 
 a faint vestige appears in the OHG. cotinc by which tribunus is 
 glossed, Diut. 1, 187 (Goth, gudiggs 1).— Now as Ulphilasi associates 
 gudja and sinista (irpea-^vTepo's, elder, man of standing, priest), a 
 remarkable sentence in Amm. MarcelL 28, 5 informs us, that the 
 high priest of the Burgundians was called sinisto : Nam sacerdos 
 omnium maximus apud Burgundies voeatur sinistm, et est perpetu- 
 us,2 obnoxius disCriminibus nuUis ut reges. The connexion of 
 priests with the nobility I have discussed in EA. 267-8 (see Suppl.). 
 
 More decidedly heathen are the OHG. names for a priest 
 harugari, Diut. 1, 514V and parawari, Diut. 1, 150% (being derived 
 from haruc and paro, the words for temple given on p. 68-9, and 
 
 1 Strictly the Evangelist ; the translator had no choice.— Trans. 
 _ For the sense of perpetuity attaching to sin- in composition, see Gramm. 
 *j 554-5. 
 
 ''If haruc meant wood or rock, and harugari priest, they are very like the 
 Ir. and Gael, cam, cairn, and cairneac priest. O'Bnen TJ\ 
 
PRIESTS. 89 
 
 confirming what I have maintained, that these two terms were 
 synonymous). They can hardly have been coined by the glossist 
 to interpret the Lat. aruspex, they must have existed in our ancient 
 speech. — ^A priest who sacrificed was named pluostrari (see p. 36). 
 
 The fact that cotinc could bear the sense of tribunus shows the 
 close connexion between the offices of priest and judge, which 
 comes out still more clearly in a term peculiar to the High Germ, 
 dialect : iwa, ia signified not only the secular, but the divine law, 
 these being closely connected in the olden times, and equally 
 sacred ; hence eowart, ^wart law- ward, administrator of law, vofuic6<;, 
 AS. 8&-gleaw, ee-lareow, Goth. vit6dafasteis, one learned in the law, 
 K. 55* 56%^. Gl. Hrab. 974». K ps. 50, 9. iwarto of the weak decl. 
 in 0.1. 4, 2. 18. 72. gotes ewarto I. 4, 23. and as late as the 12th 
 century ewarte, Mar. 21. and, without the least reference to the 
 Jewish office, but quite synonymous with priest : der heihge 
 Ewarte, Eeinh. 1705. der baruc und die Swarten sin, Parz. 13, 25. 
 Wh. 217, 23 of Saracen priests (see Suppl.). The very similar 
 iosago, isago stood for judex, legislator, EA. 781. 
 
 The poet of the Heliand uses the expression wihes ward (templi 
 custos) 150, 24 ; to avoid the heathen as well as a foreign term, he 
 adopts periphrases: the giirddo man (geehrte, honoured), 3, 19. 
 the frddo man (frot, fruot, prudens) 3, 21. 7, 7. fr6dgumo (gumo, 
 homo) 5, 23. 6, 2. godcund gumo 6, 12, which sounds like gudja 
 above, but may convey the peculiar sense in which Wolfram uses 
 ' der guote man'} In the Eomance expressions jprudens homo, bonus 
 homo (prudhomme, bonhomme) there lurks a reference to the 
 ancient jurisprudence. — Once UlphUas renders apx^epev^ by aiihu- 
 mists veiha, John 18, 13, but never iepeix; by veiha. 
 
 With Christianity there came in foreign words (see Suppl). 
 The Anglo-Saxons adopted the Lat. sacerdos in abbreviated form : 
 sacerd, pi. sacerdas ; and JElhed translates Beda's pontifex and 
 summus pontificum (both of them heathen), 2, 13 by iiscop and 
 ealdorUscop. T. and 0. use in the same sense iisgof, biscof (from 
 
 1 Parz. 457, 2. 458, 2.5. 460, 19. 476, 23. 487, 23. The g6do gumo, Hel. 4, 16 
 is said of John ; ther guato man, O. ii. 12, 21. 49 of Nicodemus ; in Ulxich'a Lan- 
 zelot, an abbot is styled der guote man, 4613. 4639. conf. 3857, 4620_6warte, 4626 
 priester. But with this is connected diu guote frowwe (v. infra), i.e. originally 
 bona socia, so that in the good man also there peeps out something heathenish, 
 heretical. In the great Apologue, the cricket is a clergyman, and is called 
 (Een. 8125) preudoms and Frobert = Fruotbert (see Suppl.). 
 
90 PEIESTS. 
 
 episcopus), 0. I. 4, 4 27. 47 ; and the Hel. 150, 24 hiscop. Later 
 on,'priester (from presbyter, following the idea of elder and superior), 
 a,ndi pfaffe (papa) came to be the names most generally used ; AS. 
 preost, Engl, ^-^msit, Fr. prestre, pr^tre ; in Veldek, prester rhymes 
 with mester. En. 9002. 
 
 When Ceesar, bell. Gall. 6, 21, says of the Germans: Neque 
 druides habent qui rebus divinis praesint, neque sacrificiis student, 
 — the statement need not be set down as a mistake, or as contra- 
 dicting what Tacitus teUs^ us of the German priests and sacrifices. 
 Cassar is all along draM'ing a contrast between them and the Gauls. 
 He had described the latter 6, 16 as excessively addicted to 
 sacrifices ; and his ' non studere sacrificiis ' must in the connexion 
 mean no more than to make a sparing use of sacrifices.. As little 
 did there prevail among the Germans the elaborately finished 
 Druid-system of the Gauls ; but they did not want for priests or 
 sacrifices of their own. 
 
 The Germaneness, as we have already gathered' from a cursory 
 review of their titles, were employed in the worship of the gods 
 and in judging the people. In campaigns, discipline is entrusted 
 to them alone, not to the generals,, the whole war being carried on 
 as it were in the presence of the deity : Ceterum neque animad- 
 vertere neque vincire nee verberare quidem nisi sacerdotibus per- 
 missum, non quasi in poenam, nee ducis jussu, sed velut deo 
 imperante,. quern adesse bellantibus credunt. Germ. 7 (see SuppL). 
 The succeeding words must also refer to the priests, it is they that 
 take the ' effigies et signa ' from the sacred grove and carry them 
 into battle. We learn from cap. 10, that the sacerdos civitatis 
 superintends the divination by rods, whenever it is done for the 
 nation. If the occasion be not a public one, the paterfamilias 
 himself can direct the matter, and the priest need not be called in : — 
 a remarkable limitation of the priestly power, and a sign how far the 
 rights of the freeman extended in strictly private Life ; on the same 
 principle, I suppose, that in very early times covenant transac- 
 tions could be settled between the parties, without the interven- 
 tion of the judge (EA. 201). Again, when the divination was by 
 the neighing of the white steeds maintained by the state, priests 
 accompanied the sacred car, and accredited the transaction. Thepriest 
 alone may touch the car of Nerthus, by him her approaching 
 presence is perceived, he attends her full of reverence, and leads 
 
PEIESTS. 91 
 
 her back at last to her sanctuary, cap. 40. Segimund, the son of 
 Segestes, whom Tac. Ann. 1, 57 calls sacerdos, had been not a 
 German but a Eoman priest (apud aram Ubioruin), and after tearing 
 up the alien chaplet (vittas ruperat), had fled to his home. 
 
 Tbese few incidental notices of priests give us anything but a 
 complete view of their functions (see SuppI). On them doubtless 
 devolved also the performance of public prayers, the slaying of 
 victims, the consecration of the kings and of corpses, perhaps of 
 marriages too, the administering of oaths, and many other duties. 
 Of their attire, their insignia and gradations, we hear nothing at 
 all ; once Tacitus cap. 43 speaks of a sacerdos muliebri ornatu, but 
 gives no details. No doubt the priests formed a separate, possibly 
 a hereditary order, though not so powerful and influential as in 
 Gaul. Probably, beside that sacerdos civitatis, there were higher 
 and lower ones. Only one is cited by name, the Cattian, i.e. 
 Hessian, Libes in Strabo {ALJSrji toov Xuttcov tepeu?), who with 
 other German prisoners was dragged to Eome in the pompa of 
 Germanicus. Of him Tacitus (so far as we still have him) is 
 sUent.^ Jornandes's statement is worthy of notice, that the Gothic 
 priests were termed pileati in distinction from the rest of the people, 
 the cwpillati, and that during sacrifice they had the head covered 
 with a hat ; conf. EA. 271 (see SuppL). OSinn is called SiShottr, 
 broadhat. 
 
 The succeeding period, down to the introduction of Christi- 
 anity, scarcely yields any information on the condition of the 
 priesthood in continental Germany ; their existence we infer from 
 that of temples and sacrifices. A fact of some importance has been 
 preserved by Beda, Hist. eccl. 2, 13 : a heathen priest of the Anglo- 
 Saxons was forbidden to carry arms or to ride a male horse : Non 
 enim licuerat, pontificem sacrorum vel arma ferre, vel praeferquam 
 in equa equitare. Can this have any connexion with the regulation 
 which, it is true, can be equally explained from the Bible, that 
 christian clergymen, when riding about the country, should be 
 mounted on asses and colts, not horses (EA. 86-88) ? Festus also 
 remarks : Equo vehi flamini diali non licebat, ne, si longius digre- 
 deretur, sacra neglegerentur (see SuppL). The transmission of 
 such customs, which havd impressed themselves on the habits of 
 
 ' Libes miglit be Leip, Leb, O.N. Leifr, Gotli. Laibs 2 A var. lect. has M^vs. 
 
92 PEIESTS. 
 
 life, -would seem to have been quite admissible. I shall try else- 
 where to show in detail, how a good deal in the gestures and atti- 
 tudes prescribed for certain legal transactions savours of priestly- 
 ceremony at sacrifice and prayer, (see Suppl.). It is not unlikely, 
 as heathen sacred places were turned into christian ones, that it 
 was also thought desirable amongst a newly converted people to 
 attract their former priests to the ser-vice of the new religion. 
 They were the most cultivated portion of the people, the most 
 capable of comprehending the christian doctrine and recommending 
 it to their countrymen. From the ranks of the heathen priesthood 
 would therefore proceed both the bitterest foes and the warmest 
 partizans of innovation.^ The collection of the Letters of Boniface 
 has a passage lamenting the confusion of christian and heathen 
 rites, into which foolish or reckless and guilty priests had suffered 
 themselves to fall.^ This might have been done in blameless ignor- 
 ance or from deliberate purpose, but scarcely by any men except 
 such as were previously familiar with heathenism. 
 
 Even the Norse priesthood is but very imperfectly delineated in 
 the Eddas and sagas. A noteworthy passage in the Ynglingasaga 
 cap. 2 which regards the Ases altogether as colonists from Asia, 
 and their residence Asgard as a great place of sacrifice, makes the 
 twelve principal Ases sacrificial priests (hofgoSar) : skyldu Jjeir raSa 
 fyrir bl6tum ok domum manna 1 miOi (they had to ad-vise about 
 sacrifices and dooms) ; and it adds, that they had been named Mar 
 (divi) and drdttnar (domini). This representation, though it be but 
 a conjecture of Snorri's, shows the high estimation in which the 
 priestly order stood, so that gods themselves were placed at the 
 head of sacrifices and judgments. But we need not therefore con- 
 found diar and dr6ttnar with real human priests. 
 
 1 Just as the Catholic clergy furnished as -well the props as the opponents of 
 the Reformation. The notable example of a heathen priest abjuring his ancient 
 faith, and even putting forth his hand to destroy the temple he had once held 
 sacred, has been quoted from Beda on p. 82. This priest -was an English, not 
 a British one, though Beda, evidently for the mere purpose of more exactly 
 marking his station, designates him by a Gaelic -word Coifi (choibi, choibhidh, 
 cuimhi, see Jamieson, supplement siib. v. coivie, archdruid). Coiti is not a 
 proper name, even in Gaelic ; and it is incredible that Ead-vyine king of Nor- 
 thumbria should have adopted the British religion, and maintained a British 
 priest. 
 
 ^ Ed. Wiirdtw. 82. Serr. 140 : Pro sacrilegis itaque presbyteris, ut scripsisti, 
 qui tauros et liircos diis paganorum immolabant, manducantes sacrificia mor- 
 tuorum. . . . modo vero incognitum esse, utrum baptizantes trinitatem 
 dixissent an non, &c.— Connect with this the presbyter Jovi mactans, Ep. 25. 
 
PEIESTSu 93 
 
 T must draw attention to the fact, that certain men who stood 
 nearer to the gods by services and veneration, and priests first of 
 all, are entitled /m7i& of the gods'- (see Suppl.). Hence such names 
 as Freysvinr, AS. Fredwine, Bregoivine for heroes and kings (see ch. 
 X, FrSwin). According to Eyrbygg. pp. 6, 8, 16, 26, Kolfr was a 
 Tlidrs vinr ; he had a hof of that god on a meadow, and was there- 
 fore named ThorrSlfr, he dedicated to him his son Steinn and named 
 him Th6rsteinn, who again dedicated his son Grimr to the god and 
 named him Thorgrlmr ; by this dedicating (gefa), was meant the 
 appointing to the office of go?5i or priest. And (according to Landn. 
 2, 23) Hallstein gave his son as goSi to Th6rr. Here we see the 
 priestly office running on through several generations (see Suppl.). 
 However, Odysseus is also called Ait ^iXo<s, II. 10, 527. Also 
 j4?o\o9 ^t\o? aOavaTouTi Oeoicn, Od. 10, 2 ; but then in Od. 10, 21 
 he is Tafiirj'i avifiav, director of winds, therefore a priest. 
 
 How deeply the priestly of&ce in the North encroached on the 
 administration of justice, need not be insisted on here ; in their 
 judicial character the priests seem to have exercised a good deal of 
 control over the people, whereas little is said of their political 
 influence at the courts of kings ; on this point it is enough to read 
 the Nialssaga. In Iceland, even under Christianity, the judges 
 retained the name and several of the functions of heathen goSar, 
 Gr^gls 1, 109-113. 130. 165. Convents, and at the same time 
 state-farmers, especially occupiers of old sanctuaries (see p. 85, note) 
 apparently continue in the Mid. Ages to have peculiar privileges, 
 on which I shall enlarge in treating of weisthiimer. They have the 
 keeping of the county cauldron, or weights and measures, and above 
 all, the brood-animals, to which great favour is shown everywhere 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 The goSi is also called a hlStmaS'r (sacrificulus), bliotr (Egilssaga 
 p. 209), but all bl6tmenn need not be priests ; the word denoted 
 rather any participant in sacrifices, and afterwards, among christians, 
 the heathen in general. It tallies with the passage in Tacitus 
 about the paterfamilias, that an)' iarl or hersir (baron) might per- 
 form sacrifice, though he was not a priest. Saxo Gramm. p. 176 
 
 ' The MHG. poets still bestow on hermits and monks the epithets gates 
 friunt, gates degen (Jpega, warrior). In the Eenner 24587, St. Jost is called 
 heiliger gates kneht (cniht, servant). [See however ' servus dei, famulus dei ' 
 passim in the lives of saints]. 
 
94 PRIESTS. 
 
 relates of Harald after his baptism : Delubra diruit, victimarios 
 proscripsit, Jlaminium abrogavit. By victimarii he must mean 
 blotmenn, by flamens the priests. He tells us on p. 104, that at 
 the great Upsala sacrifices there were enacted effoeminati corporum 
 motus, scenicique mimorum plausus, ac moUia nolarum crepitacula; 
 Greek antiquity has also something to tell of choruses and dances 
 of priests. 
 
 On the clothing of the Norse priests, I have not come across 
 any information. Was there a connexion between them and the 
 poets ? Bragi the god of song has nothing to do with sacrifices ; 
 yet the poetic art was thought a sacred hallowed thing : OSinn 
 spoke in verse, he and his hofgoffar are styled liocfasmi&ir (song- 
 smiths), Yngl. saga cap. 6. Can skdlcl (poeta, but neut.) be the 
 same as the rare OHG. sgalto (sacer) ? Diut. 1, 183. Gl. ker. 69, 
 scaldo. Even of christian minstrels soon after the conversion one 
 thing and another is told, that has also come down to us about 
 heathen skalds. 
 
 Poetry borders so closely on divination, the Eoman vates is 
 alike songster and soothsayer, and soothsaying was certainly a 
 priestly function. Amm. Marcell. 14, 9 mentions Alamannian 
 auspices, and Agathias 2, 6 fidvreK or ■xprjcrfioXoyot, 'A\a/j,avviKoL 
 
 Ulphilas avoids using a Gothic word for the frequently occur- 
 ring ■irpoi^rjTrj';, he invariably puts praiif^tus, and for the fem. 
 •7rpo(prjT(,<i praiifeteis, Lu. 2, 36 ; why not veitaga and veitago ? The 
 OHG-. and AS. versions are bolder for once, and give wizago, vAfega} 
 Was the priest, when conducting auguries and auspices, a veitaga? 
 conf. inveitan, p. 29. The ON. term is spdma&r (spae-man), and for 
 prophetess spdkona (spae-woman, A.S. witegestre). Such diviners 
 were Mimir and Gripir. In old French poems they are devin 
 (divini, divinatores), which occasionally comes to mean poets : 
 uns devins, qui de voir dire est esprovez, M&n 4, 145. ce dient li 
 devin, Een. 7383 ; so Tristr. 1229 : li contor dient (see Suppl.). 
 
 We have now to speak of the prophetesses and priestesses of 
 antiquity. — The mundium (wardship) in which a daughter, a sister, 
 a wife stood, appears in the old heathen time not to have excluded 
 
 ' The S is become ei in our weissager, MHG. wissage for wizege ; equally 
 erroneous is our verb weissagen, MHG. wissagen, Iw. 3097 (OHG. wizagon, AS! 
 witegian). 
 
PRIESTESSES. 95 
 
 them from holy offices, such as sacrificing (see SuppL), or from a 
 good deal of influence over the people. Tacitus, after telling us 
 how mightily the German women wrought upon the valour of their 
 warriors, and that the Eomans for greater security demanded noble 
 maidens from particrdar nations, adds : Inesse quin etiam sanctum 
 et providum (feminis) putant^, nee aut consilia earum aspernantur, 
 aut responsa negligunt. And before that, Caesar 1. 50 : Quod apud 
 Germanos ea consuetudo esset, ut matres fam. eorum sortibus et 
 vaticinationibus declararent, utrum proelium committi ex usu esset, 
 necne ; eas ita dicere : non esse fas Germanos superare,, si ante 
 novam lunam proelio coutendissent (see SuppL). 
 
 While history has not preserved the name of one German vates, 
 it has those of several prophetesses. Tac. Germ. 8 : Vidimus sub 
 divo Vespasiano Veledam (as a prisoner in his triumph) diu apud 
 plerosque numinis loco habitam. Hist. 4, 61 : Ea virgo nationis 
 Bructerae, late imperitabat, vetere apud Germanos more, quo 
 plerasque iemmsiraxafatidicas, et augescente superstitione arbitrantur 
 deas. Tuncque Veledae auetoritas adolevit ; nam ' prosperas 
 Germanis res et excidium legionum ' praedixerat. In 4, 65, when 
 the people of Cologne were making an alliance with the Tencteri 
 they made the offer : Arbitrum habebimus Civilem et Veledam 
 apud quos pacta sancientur. Sic lenitis Tencteris, legati ad Civilem 
 et Veledam missi cum donis, cuncta ex voluntate Agrippinensium 
 perpetravere. Sed coram adire, alloquique Veledam negatum. 
 Arcebantur aspectu, quo venerationis plus inesset. Ipsa edita in 
 turre ; delectus e propinquis consulta responsaque ut internuntius 
 numinis portabat. 5, 22 : Praetoriam triremem flumine Luppia 
 donum Veledae traxere. 5, 25 ; Veledam propinquosque monebat. 
 Her captivity was probably related in the lost chapters of the fifth 
 book.^ This Veleda had been preceded by others : Sed et olim 
 Auriniam (hardly a translation of any Teutonic name, such as the 
 ON. GuUveig, gold-cup ; some have guessed Aliruna, Olrun, 
 Albruna) et complures alias venerati sunt, non adulatione nee 
 tamquam facerent deas, Germ. 8. A later one, named Oanna, is 
 
 1 A wild force of phantasy, and the state called clairvoyance, have shown 
 themselves preeminently in women. 
 
 ^ Statins silv. I. 4, 90 : CaptivaecLue pieces Veledae ; he scans the first 
 two syllables as short, which seems more correct than Dio's BeXijSa. Zeuss 436 
 thinka BeXcSa, BeXi'Sa = Vilida. Graff has a n. prop. Wallodu 1, 800. I would 
 suggest the Gothic fem. name FiiMamarca in Jomandes cap. 48, and the Thur- 
 ingian name of a place Walada in Pertz I. 308. 
 
96 PRIESTS. 
 
 cited by Dio Cassius, 67, 5 ;^ and in the year 577 Gunthcramnus 
 consulted a woman ' habentem spiritum phitonis, ut ei quae erant 
 eventura narraret/ Greg. Tux. 5, 14 (in Aimoin 3, 22 she is mulier 
 fhytonissa, i.e. -TrvOmvhcra-a). One much later stUl, Thiota, who had 
 come to Mentz out of Alamannia, is noticed in the Annals of Fulda, 
 anno 847 (Pertz 1, 365).^ As Cassandra foretold the fall of Troy, 
 our prophetesses predict the end of the world (v. infra) ; and 
 Tacitus Ann. 14, 32 speaks of British druidesses in these words : 
 Teminae in furore turbatae adesse, exitium canebant ; conf. 14, 30. 
 But we have the sublimest example before us in the VoluspS, (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 Those grayhaired, barefooted Cimbrian priestesses in Strabo (v. 
 supra, p. 55) in white robe and linen doublet, begirt with brazen 
 clasps, slaughtering the prisoners of war and prophesying from 
 
 ^ Tdwa (al. Tavva) 7rap64vos /tera Tijv BcX^Sav eV Ty KeXnK^ Beia^ovaa, 
 conf. the maso. name Gannascusm Ann. 11, 18. 19 ; the fern. Ganna, dat. Gan- 
 nane, in. aLothr. urk., as late as 709, Don Calmet, ed. 1728, torn. 1. preuves p. 
 265. 
 
 2 Traditions, which Hubertus Thomas of Liittich, private secretary to the 
 Elector Palatine, according to his book De Tungris et Eburonibus 1541, pro- 
 fesses to have received from an antiquary Joan. Berger out of an old book 
 (libello vetustissimis charaoteribus descripto), and which he gives in his treatise 
 De Heidelbergae antiquitatibus, relate as follows : Quo tempore Velleda virgo 
 in Bruchteris imperitabat, iietula quaedam, cui nomen Jettha, emn collem, 
 ubi nunc est arx Heidelbergensis et Jetthae collis etiam nunc nomen 
 habet, inhabitabat, vetustissimumque phanum incolebat, cujus fragmenta adhue 
 nuper vidimus, dum comes palatinus Fridericus factus elector e^egiam domum 
 construx.it, quam novam aulam appellant. Haee mulier xaticiniis inclyta, et 
 quo venerabilior foret, raro in conspectum hominum prodiens, volentibus con- 
 silium, ab ea petere, de fenestra, non prodeunte imltu, respondebat. Et inter cetera 
 praedixit, ut inconditis versibus canebat, suo coUi a fatis esse datum, ut futuris 
 temporibus regiis viris, quos nominatim recensebat, inhabitaretur et templis 
 celeberrimis ornaretur. Sed ut tandem fabulosae antiquitati valedicamus, lubet 
 adscribere quae is liber de infelici morte ipsius Jetthae continebat. Egressa 
 quondam amoenissimo tempore phanum, ut deambiHatione recrearetur, progre- 
 diebatur juxta montes, donee pervenit in locum, quo montes intra convallem 
 declinant et multis locis scaturiebant pulcherrimi fontes, quibus vehementer 
 ilia coepit delectari, et assidens ex illis bibebat, cum ecce lupa famelica cum 
 catulis e silva prorupit, quae conspectam mulierem nequicquam divos invocan- 
 tem dUaniat et frustatim discerpsit, quae casu suo fonti nomen dedit, vocaturque 
 quippe in hodiernum diem fans Iwporwm ob amoenitatem loci omnibus notns. 
 It is scarcely worth while trying to settle how much in this may be genuine 
 tradition, and how much the erudition of the 16th century foisted in, to the 
 glorification of the new palace at Heidelberg ( = Heidberg) ; the very window 
 on the hill would seem to have been copied from Veleda's tower, though 
 Brynhild too resides upon her rock, and has a high tower (Vols, saga, cap. 20, 
 24, 25 ; conf. MenglotS, OHG. Maniklata !) on the rock, with nine virgins at 
 her knees (Ssem. 110. 111). If the enchantress's name were Heida instead of 
 Jettha, it would suit the locality better, and perhaps be an echo of the ON. 
 Hei&r. 
 
PRIESTESSES. 97 
 
 their blood in the sacrificial cauldron, appear as frightful witches by 
 the side of the Bructerian Maid ; together -with divination they 
 exercise the priestly ofSce. Their minutely described apparel, we 
 may suppose, resembled that of the priests. 
 
 While in Tac. Germ. 40 it is a priest that attends the goddess, 
 and guides the team of kine in her car ; in the North conversely, 
 we have handmaids waiting upon gods. From a remarkable story 
 in the Olaf Tryggv. saga (Fornm. sog. 2, 73 seq.), which the 
 christian composer evidently presents in an odious light, we at all 
 events gather that in Sweden a virgin attended the car of Freyr on 
 its travels among the people : Frey var fengin til Jjionosto kona 
 ung ok friS (into Frey's service was taken a woman young and 
 fair), and she is called kona Freys. Otherwise a priestess is 
 called gySja, hofgyd'ja, corresponding to goSi, hofgoSi ; ^ see TuriSr 
 hofgySja, Islend. sog. 1, 205. Jjorlaug gySja, Landn. 1, 21. 
 Steinvor and FridgerSr, Sagabibl 1, 99. 3, 268. 
 
 But the Norse authorities likewise dwell less on the priestly 
 functions of women, than on their higher gift, as it seems, of 
 divination: Perita augurii femina, Saxo Granu 121. Valdamarr 
 konungr §,tti moSur raiok gamla ok orvasa, svS. at hun 11 1 rekkju, 
 en Jjo var hun framsyn af Fitons anda, sem margir heiSnii' menn 
 (King V. had a mother very old and feeble, so that she lay in bed, 
 and there was she seized by a spirit of Python, like many heathen 
 folk), Fornm. sog. 1, 76. — Of like import seems to be a term which 
 borders on the notion of a higher and supernatural being, as in the 
 case of Veleda ; and that is dis (nympha, numen). It may be not 
 accidental, that the sp&,kona in several instances bears the proper 
 name ThSrdis (Vatnsd. p. 186 seq. Fornm. sog. 1, 2.5-5. Islend. sog. 
 1, 140. Kormakkss. p. 204 seq.) ; dis however, a very early word, 
 which I at one time connected with the Gothic filudeisei (astutia, 
 dolus), appears to be no other than our OHG. itis^ OS. idis, AS. 
 ides (femina, nympha). — As famous and as widely spread was the 
 term volva,^ which first denotes any magic- wielding soothsayeress 
 (Vatnsd. p. 44. Fornm. sog. 3, 214. Fornald. sog. 2, 165-6. 506), 
 and is afterwards attached to a particular mythic Volva, of whom 
 one af the oldest Eddie songs, the Voluspd, treats. Either volu 
 
 ' Can our gotte, gothe, goth for godmother (taufpathin, susceptrix e sacro 
 fonte) be the survival of an old heathen term J Morolt 3184 has gode of the 
 bapti'/ed virgin. 
 
 ' The Slavic volkhv magus. — Tbans. 
 
 7 
 
98 PRIESTS. 
 
 stands here for volvu, or the claim of the older form Vala may he 
 asserted ; to each of them would correspond an OHGr. Walawa or 
 Wala, which suggests the Walada above, being only derived in a 
 different way. In the saga Eirtks rauSa we come upon ThorUorg, 
 the little Vala (Edda Seem. Hafn. 3, 4). — HeiS'r is the name not 
 only of the volva in the Edda (Ssem. 4*", conf 118*") but also of the 
 one in the Orvarodssaga (conf. Sagabibl. 3, 155). — Eyndla (canicula) 
 is a prophetess that rides on wolves, and dwells in a cave. — I guess 
 also that the virgins Thorger&r and Irpa (Eornm. sog. 2, 108. 3, 100. 
 11, 134-7. 142. 172), to whom all but divine honours were paid, 
 and the title of horgabruSr (nympha lucorum) and even the name 
 of guS (numen) was accorded, Kialss. cap. 89, are not to be excluded 
 from this circle. So in the valkyrs, beside their godhood, there 
 resides somewhat of the priestly, e.g. their virginity (see ch. XVI 
 and SuppL). 
 
 We shall return to these ' gleg ' and ' wise ' women (and they 
 have other names besides), who, in accordance with a deeply 
 marked feature of our mythology, trespass on the superhuman. 
 Here we had to set forth their connexion with sacrifice, divination 
 and the priesthood. 
 
CHAPTEE VL 
 GODS. 
 
 Now, I think, we are fully prepared for the inquiry, whether 
 real gods can be claimed for Germany in the oldest time. AU the 
 branches of our language have the same general name for deity, 
 and have retained it to the present day ; all, or at any rate most of 
 them, so far as the deficiency of documents allows the chain of 
 evidence to be completed, show the same or but slightly varying 
 terms for the heathen notions of worship, sacrifice, temples and 
 priesthood. Above all there shines forth an unmistakable analogy 
 between the Old Norse terminology and the remains, many cen- 
 turies older, of the other dialects : the Norse sesir, bl6ta, horgr, 
 go?5i were known long before, and with the same meanings, to the 
 Goths, Alamanns, Franks and Saxons. And this identity or 
 similarity extends beyond the words to the customs themselves : 
 in sacred groves the earliest human and animal victims were 
 offered, priests conducted sacrifices and divinations, ' wise women ' 
 enjoyed aU but divine authority. 
 
 The proof furnished by the sameness of language is of itself 
 sufficient and decisive. When the several divisions of a nation 
 speak one and the same language, then, so long as they are left to 
 their own nature and are not exposed to violent influences from 
 without, they always have the same kind of belief and worship. 
 
 The Teutonic race lies midway between Celts, Slavs, Lithu- 
 anians, Finns, all of them populations that acknowledge gods, 
 and practise a settled worship. The Slav nations, spread over 
 widely distant regions, have their principal gods in common ; how 
 should it be otherwise in Teutondom ? 
 
 As for demanding proofs of the genuineness of Norse mythology, 
 we have really got past that now. All criticism cripples and anni- 
 hilates itself, that sets out with denying or doubting what is trea- 
 sured up in song and story born alive and propagated amongst an 
 entire people, and which lies before our eyes. Criticism can but 
 collect and arrange it, and unfold the materials in their historical 
 sequence. 
 
100 GODS. 
 
 Then the only question that can fairly be raised, is : Whether 
 the gods of the North, no longer disputable, hold good for the rest 
 of Teutondom ? To say yea to the question as a whole, seems, 
 from the foregoing results of our inquiry, altogether reasonable 
 and almost necessary. 
 
 A negative answer, if it knew what it was about, would try to 
 maintain, that the circle of Norse gods, in substance, were formerly 
 common to all Germany, but by the earlier conversion were extin- 
 guished and annihilated here. But a multitude of exceptions and 
 surviving vestiges would greatly limit the assertion, and materially 
 alter what might be made out of the remainder. 
 
 In the meanwhile a denial has been attempted of quite another 
 kind, and the opinion upheld, that those divinities have never 
 existed at all in Germany proper, and that its earliest inhabitants 
 knew nothing better than a gross worship of nature without gods. 
 
 This view, drawing a fundamental distinction between German 
 and Scandinavian heathenism, and misapprehending all the clues 
 which discover themselves to unprejudiced inquiry as infallible 
 evidence of the unity of two branches of a nation, lays special stress 
 upon a few statements on the nature of the heathen faith, dating 
 from about the sixth century and onwards. These for the most 
 part proceed from the lips of zealous christians, who did not at all 
 concern themselves to understand or faithfully portray the paganism 
 they were assailing, whose purpose was rather to set up a warning 
 against the grosser manifestations of its cultus as a detestable abo- 
 mination. It will be desirable to glance over the principal passages 
 in their uniformity and one-sidedness. 
 
 Agathias (f before 582), himself a newly converted Greek, who 
 could only know from christianly coloured reports what he had 
 heard about the distant Alamanns, thus exhibits the Alamannic 
 worship as opposed to the Prankish : BivSpa re j/ip riva iXda-KovTai 
 Kal peWpa TroTUficov koI X6^ov<; koI (pdpwyya'i, Kal tovtoi'; axrirep 
 ocria S/jaji/Te? 28, 4. Then foUow the words quoted on p. 47 about 
 their equine sacrifices. 
 
 But his contrast to the Franks breaks down at once, when 
 we hear almost exactly the same account of them from the lips of 
 their first historian Gregory : Sed haec generatio fanaticis semper 
 cultibus visa est obsequium praebuisse, nee prorsus agnovere Deum, 
 sibique silvamm atque aquarum, avium bestiarumque et aliorum 
 
GODS. 101 
 
 quoque elementorum finxere formas, ipsasque ut deum colere eisque 
 sacrificia delibare consueti. Greg. Tur. 2, 10. — Similarly, Einhard 
 (^ginhard) in Vita Oaroli cap. 7, about the Saxons : Sicut omnes 
 fere Germaniam incolentes nationes et natnra feroces et cultui 
 daemonum dediti, nostraeque religioni contrarii. — Euodolf of Fuld, 
 after quoting Tacitus and Einhard, adds (Pertz 2, 676) : Nam et 
 frondosis arboribus fontibusque venerationem exhibebant ;i and then 
 mentions the Irminsfil, which I shall deal with hereafter (see 
 Suppl.). — Lastly, Helmold 1, 47 affirms of the Holsteiners : Nihil 
 de religione nisi nomen tantum christianitatis habentes; nam 
 lucorum et fontium ceterarumque superstitionum multiplex error 
 apud eos habetur . . . Vicelinus . . . luces et omnes 
 ritus sacrUegos destruens, &c.' 
 
 Conceived in exactly the same spirit are the prohibitions of 
 heathenish and idolatrous rites in decrees of councils and in laws. 
 Concn. Autissiod. anno 586, can. 3 : Non licet inter sentes aut ad 
 ai'bores sacrivos vel ad fontes vota exsolvere ; conf. Concil. Turon. 
 II. anno 566, can. 22. — Leges Liutpr. 6, 30 : Simili modo et qui ad 
 arborem, quam rustici sanguinum (al. sanctivam, sacrivam) vocant, 
 atque ad fontanas adoraverit. — Capit. de partibus Sax. 20 : Si quis 
 ad fontes aut arbores vel lucos votum fecerit, aut aliquid more 
 gentUium obtulerit et ad honorem daemonum comederit. And the 
 converters, the christian clergy, had for centuries to poiir out their 
 wrath against the almost ineradicable folly. — It is sufficient merely 
 to allude to the sermons of Caesarius episcopus Arelatensis (f 542) 
 'Contra saorUegos et aruspices, contra kalendarum quoque pagan- 
 issimos ritus, contraque augures L'gnicolas, fonticolas,' Acta Bened. 
 sec. 1, p. 668. 
 
 All these passages contain, not an untruth, yet not the whole 
 truth. That German heathenism was destitute of gods, they can- 
 not possibly prove; for one thing, because they aU date from 
 periods when heathenism no longer had free and undisturbed sway, 
 but had been hotly assailed by the new doctrine, and was well- 
 nigh overmastered. The general exercise of it had ceased, isolated 
 partizans cherished it timidly in usages kept up by stealth ; at the 
 same time there were christians who in simplicity or error con- 
 tinued to practise superstitious ceremonies by the side of christian 
 ones. Such doings, not yet extinct here and there among the 
 
 ' Adam of Bremen again copies Euodolf, Pertz 9, 286. 
 
102 GODS. 
 
 common people, but withdrawn from all regulating guidance by 
 heathen priests, could not fail soon to fcecome vulgarized, and to 
 appear as the mere dregs of an older faith, which faith we have no 
 right to measure by them. As we do not fail to recognise in the 
 devils and witches of more modern times the higher purer fancies of 
 antiquity disguised, just as little ought we to feel any scruple about 
 tracing back the pagan practices in question to the untroubled foun- 
 tainhead of the olden time. Prohibitions and preachings kept strictly 
 to the practical side of the matter, and their very purpose was to put 
 down these last hateful remnants of the false religion. A sentence 
 in Cnut's AS. laws (Schmid 1, 50) shows, that fountain and tree 
 worship does not exclude adoration of the gods themselves : 
 HteSenscipe biS, Jjset man deofolgild weorSige, J?8et is, ]jset man 
 weorSige hseSene godas, and sunnan o?SSe monan, fyre oSSe floSwse- 
 ter, wyllas oSSe st§,nas o5Se seniges cynnes wudutreowa; conf. 
 Homil. 1, 866. Just so it is said of Olaf the Saint, Fornm. sog. 5, 
 2.39, that he abolished the heathen sacrifices and gods : Ok morg 
 onnur (many other) blotskapar skrimsl, bseSi hamra ok horga, 
 skoga, votn ok tr§ ok 611 onnur blot, bseBi meiri ok minni. 
 
 But we can conceive of another reason too, why on such occa- 
 sions the heathen gods, perhaps still unforgotten, are passed over in 
 sUence : christian priests avoided uttering their names or describing 
 their worship minutely. It was thought advisable to include them 
 aU under the general title of demons or devils, and utterly uproot 
 their influence by laying an interdict on whatever yet remained 
 of their worship. The Merseburg poems show how, by way of 
 exception, the names of certain gods were still able to transmit 
 themselves in formulas of conjuring. 
 
 Pictures of heathenism in its debasement and decay have no 
 right to be placed on a level with the report of it given by Tacitus 
 from five to eight centuries before, when it was yet in the fulness 
 of its strength. If the adoration of trees and rivers still lingering 
 in the habits of the people no longer bears witness to the existence 
 of gods, is it not loudly enough proclaimed in those imperfect and 
 defective sketches by a Eoman stranger ? When he expressly tells 
 us of a deus terra editus, of heroes and descendants of the god 
 (plures deo ortos), of the god who rules in war (velut deo imperante), 
 of the names of gods {deorum nominibus) which the people trans- 
 ferred to sacred groves, of the priest who cannot begin a divination 
 
GODS. 103 
 
 without invoking the gods (precatus deos) and who regards himself 
 as a servant of the gods (ministros deorum), of a regnator omnium 
 deiis, of the gods of Germany (Germaniae deos in aspectu, Hist. 5, 
 17), of the diis patriis to whom the captured signa Eomana were 
 hung up (Ann. 1, 59) ; when he distinguishes between penetrales 
 Germaniae deos or dii penates (Ann. 2, 10. 11, 16), communes dii 
 (Hist. 4, 64), and conjugales dii (Germ. 18) ; when he even distin- 
 guishes individual gods, and tries to suit them with Roman names, 
 and actually names (interpretatione Eomana) a Mars, Mercurius, 
 Hercules, Castor and Pollux, Isis, nay, has preserved the German 
 appellations of the deus terra editus and of his son, and of a goddess, 
 the terra mater ; how is it possible to deny that at that time the 
 Germans worshipped veritable gods ? How is it possible, when we 
 take into account all the rest that we know of the language, the 
 liberty, the manners, and virtues of the Germani, to maintain the 
 notion that, sunk in a stolid fetishism, they cast themselves down 
 before logs and puddles, and paid to them their simple adoration ? 
 
 The opinion of Csesar,^ who knew the Germans more super- 
 ficially than Tacitus a hundred and fifty years later, cannot be 
 allowed to derogate from the truth. He wants to contrast our 
 ancestors with the Gauls, with whom he had had more familiar 
 converse ; but the personifications of fhe sun, fire, and the moon, 
 to which he limits the sum total of their gods, will hardly bear even 
 a forced ' interpretatio Eomana'. If in the place of sun and moon 
 we put Apollo and Diana, they at once contradict that deeply rooted 
 peculiarity of the Teutonic way of thinking, which conceives of the 
 sun as a female, and of the moon as a male being, which could not 
 have escaped the observation of the Eoman, if it had penetrated 
 deeper. And Vulcan, similar to the Norse Loki, but one of those 
 divinities of whom there is least trace to be found in the rest of 
 Teutondom, had certainly less foundation than the equally visible 
 and helpful deities of the nourishing earth, and of the quickening, 
 fish-teeming, ship-sustaining water. I can only look upon Caesar's 
 statements as a half-true and roughcast opinion, which, in the face 
 of the more detailed testimony of Tacitus, hardly avails to cast a 
 
 ' Deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cemunt, et quorum opibus aperte 
 juyantur, Solem et Vulcanvm et Lunam; reliquos ne fama quidem acceperunt. 
 B.G. 6, 21. Compare with this B.G. 4, 7 where the Usipetes and Tenchtheri 
 say to Gsesar : Sese imis Suevis concedere, quibus ne dii quidem vmrnwrtales 
 pares esse possint. 
 
104 GODS. 
 
 doubt on other gods, much less to prove a bare worship of elements 
 among the Germani. 
 
 All the accounts that vouch for the early existence of individual 
 gods, necessarily testify at the same time to their great number and 
 their mutual relationship. When Procopius ascribes a ttoXvs dewv 
 o/itXo9 to the Heruli, this 'great host' must also be good for the 
 Groths, just those of whom we know the fewest particulars, and for 
 all the Germans together. Jornandes would have us believe that 
 Diceneus was the first to make the Goths acquainted with gods, 
 cap. 11 : Elegit ex eis tunc nobilissimos prudentiores viros, quos 
 theologiam instruens numina quaedam et sacella venerari suasit ; 
 here evidently we see the ruler who promoted the service of 
 particular gods. But that Jornandes himself credited his Goths 
 with unmistakably native gods, is plain from cap. 10 : Unde et 
 sacerdotes Gothorum aliqui, illi qui pii vocabantur, subito patefactis 
 portis cum citharis et vestibus candidis obviam sunt egreasi paternis 
 diis, ut sibi propitii Macedones repellerent voce supplici modulantes. 
 The fact here mentioned may even have been totally alien to the 
 real Goths, but anyhow we gather from it the opinion of Jornandes. 
 And if we also want evidence about a race lying quite at the 
 opposite extremity of Germany, one that clung with great fidehty 
 to their old-established faith, we have it in the Lex Prisionum, 
 addit. tit. 13, where the subject is the penalty on temple-breakers : 
 Immolatur diis quorum templa violavit. 
 
 We have now arrived at the following result. In the first 
 century of our era the religion of the Germans rested mainly upon 
 gods ; a thousand or twelve hundred years later, among the northern 
 section of the race, which was the last to exchange the faith of its 
 fathers for a new one, the old system of gods is preserved the most 
 perfectly. Linked by language and unbroken tradition to either 
 extremity of heathenism, both its first appearance in history and its 
 fall, stands central Germany from the fifth to the ninth century. 
 During this period the figures of the heathen gods, in the feeble 
 and hostile light thrown upon them by the reports of recent con- 
 verts, come before us faded and indistinct, but still always as gods. 
 
 I must here repeat, that Tacitus knows no simulacrum of 
 German gods, no image ^ moulded in human shape ; what he had 
 
 ' Grk. ayaX/ia, signum, statue ; Goth, manleika, OHG. manalthho, ON. 
 l&nesM (see Suppl.) ; can the Sloven, malik, idol, have sprung from manleika? 
 
IMA.GES. 105 
 
 stated generally in cap. 9, he asserts of a particular case in cap. 43, 
 and we have no ground for disbelieving his assertion. The exist- 
 ence of real statues at that time in Germany, at least in the parts 
 best known to them, would hardly have escaped the researches of 
 the Eomans. He knows of nothing but signa and formas, appar- 
 ently carved and coloured, which were used in worship as symbols, 
 and on certain occasions carried about ; probably they contained 
 some reference to the nature and attributes of the several deities. 
 The model of a boat, signum in modum liburnae figuratum (cap. 9), 
 betokened the god of sailing, the fornute aprorum (cap. 45) the god 
 to whom the boar was consecrated ; and in the like sense are to be 
 taken the ferarum imagines on trees and at certain sacrifices (see 
 SuppI). The vehiculum veste contectum of the goddess Earth 
 will be discussed further on. 
 
 The absence of statues and temples, considering the impotence 
 of aU artistic skill at the period, is a favourable feature of the 
 German cultus, and pleasing to contemplate. But it by no means 
 follows that in the people's fancy the gods were destitute of a form 
 like the human; without this, gods invested with all human 
 attributes, and brought into daily contact with man, would be 
 simply inconceivable. If there was any German poetry then in 
 existence, which I would sooner assert than deny, how should the 
 poets have depicted their god but with a human aspect ? 
 
 Attempts to fashion images of gods, and if not to carve them 
 out of wood or stone, at least to draw and paint them, or quite 
 roughly to bake them of dough (p. 63), might nevertheless be made 
 at any period, even the earliest ; it is possible too, that the interior 
 parts of Germany, less accessible to the Eomans, concealed here 
 and there temples, statues and pictures. In the succeeding cen- 
 turies, however, when temples were multiplied, images also, to fill 
 their spaces, may with the greatest probability be assumed. 
 
 The terminology, except where the words simulacra, imagines, 
 which leave no room for doubt, are employed, makes use of several 
 
 Bohem. malik, the little finger, also Thmnhkin, Tom Thumb? which may 
 have to do with idol. [In the Slavic languages, mal = little, s-malll Other 
 OHG. terms are avard ; piladi, pilidi (bild) effigies or imago in general ; in the 
 Mid. Ages they said, for making or forming (p. 23), ein bilde giezen, eine 
 schcene juncfrouwen ergiezen, Cod. Vindob. 428, num. 211, without any refer- 
 ence to metal-casting ; ein bilde mezzen, Troj. 19626, mezzen, Misc. 2, lb6. On 
 the Lith. balwonas, idolum, statua, conf. Pott de hng. Litth. 2, 51, Russ. 
 bolvdn, Hung, balvany ; Euss. kwmlr, idol, both lit. and fig. (object of affection). 
 
106 GODS. 
 
 terms whose meaning varies, passing from that of temple to that of 
 image, just as we saw the meaning of grove mixed up with that of 
 numen. If, as is possible, that word alah originally meant rock or 
 stone (p. 67), it might easily, like h/iruc and wih, melt into the 
 sense of altar and statue, of ara, fanum, idolum. In this way the 
 OHGr. dbcut, abcuti (Abgott, false god) does signify both fana and 
 idola or statuae, Diut. 1, 497'' 613* 515* SSS'', just as our gotze is at 
 once the false god and his image and his temple (see above, p. 15. 
 Gramm. 3, 694). Idolum must have had a similar ambiguity, 
 where it is not expressly distiaguished from delubrum, fanum and 
 templum. In general phrases such as idola colere, idola adorare, 
 idola destruere, we cannot be sure that images are meant, for just 
 as often and with the same meaning we have adorare fana, des- 
 truere fana. Look at the following phrases taken from OHGr. 
 glosses : abcuti wihero stetio, fana excelsorum, Diut. 1, 515*. alcut 
 in heilag^m stetim, fana in excelsis, Diut. 1, 213*. steininu zeihan 
 inti abcuti, titulos et statuas, Diut. 1, 497''. altara inti manalihun 
 inti haruga, aras et statuas et lucos, Diut. 1, 513^ afgoda began- 
 gana, Lacombl. arch. 1, 11. — Saxo Gram, often uses simulacra for 
 idols, pp. 249, 320-1-5-7. The statement in Aribonis vita S. 
 Emmerammi (Acta sanct. Sept. 6, 483) : ' tradidero' te genti 
 Saxonum, quae tot idolorum cultor existit' is undeniable evidence 
 that the heathen Saxons in the 8th century served many false gods 
 (Aribo, bishop of Freisingen in the years 764-783).. The vita 
 Lebuini,. written by Hucbald between 918-976, says of the ancient 
 Saxons (Pertz 2, 361-2) : Inservire idolorum cultibus , . . 
 numinibus suis vota solvens ac sacrificia . . . simulacra quae 
 deos esse putatis, quosque venerando colitis. Here,, no doubt, 
 statues must be meant (see Suppl.). 
 
 In a few instances we find the nobler designation deus still 
 employed, as it had been by Tacitus : Cumque idem rex (Eadwine 
 in 625) gratias ageret diis suis pro nata sibi filia, Beda 2, 9. 
 
 The following passages testify to visible representations of gods ; 
 they do not condescend to describe them, and we are content to 
 pick up hints by the way. 
 
 The very earliest evidence takes us already into the latter half 
 of the 4th century, but it is one of the most remarkable. Sozomen, 
 Hist. eccl. 6, 37, mentions the manifold dangers that beset UlphUas 
 among the heathen Goths : While the barbarians were yet heathens 
 
IMAGES. 107 
 
 (en Twv fiap^dpmv eA.Xi^i'tKoJ? BprfcrKevovToiv) — eWiji't/cw? here 
 means in heathen fashion, and dpr^crKewiv (to worship) is presently 
 described more minutely, when the persecution of the Christians 
 by Athanaric is related — Athanaric, having set the statue (evidently 
 of the Gothic deity) on a waggon {^oavov i(j>' ap/j,ap,d^T]<; eo-ro)?), 
 ordered it to be carried round to the dwellings of those suspected 
 of Christianity ; if they refused to fall down and sacrifice {■rrpoa-Kv- 
 veiv Koi Oveiv), their houses were to be fired over their heads. By 
 dpfid/jM^a is understood a covered carriage ; is not this exactly the 
 vehiculum veste confecfum, in which the goddess, herself unseen, was 
 carried about (Tac. Germ. 40) ? Is it not the vagn in which Freyr 
 and his priestess sat, when in holy days he journeyed round among 
 the Swedish people (Fornm. sog. 2, 74-5) ? The people used to 
 carry about covered images of gods over the fields, by which fertility 
 was bestowed upon them.^ Even the harrdsdien in our poems of 
 the Mid. Ages, with Saracen gods in them, and the carroccio of the 
 Lombard cities (EA. 263-5) seem to be nothing but a late reminis- 
 cence of these primitive gods'- waggons of heathenism. The Eoman, 
 Greek and Indian gods too were not without such carriages. 
 
 What Gregory of Tours tells us (2, 29-31) of the baptism of 
 Chlodovich (Clovis) and the events that preceded it, is evidently 
 touched up, and the speeches of the queen especially I take to be 
 fictitious ; yet he would hardly have put them in her mouth, if it 
 were generally known that the Franks had no gods or statues at all. 
 ChrothUd (Clotilda) speaks thus to her husband, whom she is try- 
 ing to prepossess in favour of baptism : NihU sunt dii guos colitis, 
 qui Deque sibi neque aHis poterunt subvenire ; sunt enim aut ex 
 lapide aut ex ligno aut ex metallo aliquo sculpti, nomina vero, quae 
 eis indidistis, homines fuere, non dii. Here she brings up Saixirnus 
 and JujAter, with arguments drawn from classical mythology; 
 and then : Quid Mars Mercurvusqne potuere ? qui potius sunt 
 magicis artibus praediti quam divini numinis potentiam habuere. 
 Sed ille magis coli debet qui coelum et terram, mare et omnia quae 
 in eis sunt, verbo ex non extantibus procreavit, &c. Sed cum haec 
 regina diceret, nullatenus ad credendum regis animus movebatur, 
 sed dicebat : Deorum nostrorum jussione cuncta creantur ac pro- 
 
 ' De simulacra quod per campos portant (Indie, superstit. cap. 28) ; one vita 
 S. Martini cap. 9 (Surius 6, 252) : Quia esset haec Gallorum riisticis consue- 
 tude, simulacra daemonum, candido tecta vdamine, misera per agios suos cir- 
 cumferre dementia. 
 
108 GODS. 
 
 deunt; deus vero vester nihil posse manifestatur, et quod magis est, 
 nee de deorum genere esse prohatur (that sounds German enough !). 
 When their little hoy dies soon after receiving christian baptism, 
 Chlodovich remarks : Si in nomine deorum meorum puer fuisset 
 dicatus, vixisset utique ; nunc autem, quia ia nomine dei vestri 
 baptizatus est, vivere omnino non potuit. — So detailed a report of 
 Chlodovich's heathenism, scarcely a hundred years after the event, 
 and from the mouth of a well instructed priest, would be absurd, if 
 there were no truth at the bottom of it. When once Gregory had 
 put his Latin names of gods in the place of the Frankish (in which 
 he simply followed the views and fashion of his time), he would as 
 a matter of course go on to surround those names with the appro- 
 priate Latin myths ; and it is not to be overlooked, that the four 
 deities named are aU. gods of the days of the week, the very kind 
 which it was quite customary to identify with native gods. I 
 think myself entitled therefore, to quote the passage as proving at 
 least the existence of images of gods among the Franks (see SuppL). 
 The narrative of an incident from the early part of the 7th 
 century concerns Alamannia. Columban and St. Gallus in 612 
 came upon a seat of idolatry at Bregenz on the Lake of Constance : 
 2\-es ergo imagines aereas et deaur,atas superstitiosa gentilitas 
 ibi colebat, quibus magis quam Creatori mundi vota reddenda 
 credebat. So says the Vita S. Galli (Pertz 2, 7) written in the 
 course of the next (8th) century. A more detailed account is given 
 by Walafrid Strabo in his Vita S. Galli (acta Bened. sec. 2. p. 233) : 
 Egressi de navicula oratorium in honore S. Aureliae constructum 
 adierunt. . . . Post orationem, cum per gyrum oculis cuncta 
 lustrassent, placuit Ulis qualitas et situs locorum, delude oratione 
 praemissa circa oratorium mansiuiiculas sibi fecerunt. Eepererunt 
 autem in templo ires imagines aereas deauratas parieti affixas} quas 
 populus, dimisso altaris sacri cultu, adorabat, et oblatis sacrificUs 
 dicere consuevit : isti sunt dii veteres et antiqui hujus loci tutores, 
 quorum solatio et nos et nostra perdurant usque in praesens. . . . 
 Cumque ejusdem templi solemnitas ageretur, venit multitude non 
 minima promiscui sexus et aetatis, non tantum propter festivitatis 
 honorem, verum etiam ad videndos peregrinos, quos cognoverant 
 
 ^ So then, in a chnrch really christian, these old heathen god^ images had 
 lieen let into the wall, probahly to conciliate the people, who were still attached 
 to them 1 There are several later instances of this practice, couf. Ledebur's 
 aichiv. 14, 363. 378. Thiir. mitth. VI. 2, 13 (see Suppl.). 
 
IMAGES. 109 
 
 advenisse. . . . Jussu venerandi abbatis (Columbani) Gallus 
 coepit viam veritatis ostendere populo. . . , et in conspectu 
 omnium arripiens simulacra, et lapidibus in frusta comminuens pro- 
 jeeit in lacum. His visis nonnulli conversi sunt ad dominum. — Here 
 is a strange jumble of heathen and christian worship. In an 
 oratory built in honour of St. AureUa, three heathen statues still 
 stand against the wall, to which the people continue to sacrifice, 
 without going near the christian altar: to them, these are still their 
 old tutelary deities. After the evangelist has knocked the images 
 to pieces and thrown them into Lake Constance, a part of these 
 heathen turn to Christianity. Probably in more places than one 
 the earliest christian communities degenerated in like manner, 
 owing to the preponderance of the heathen multitude and the 
 supineness of the clergy. A doubt may be raised, however, as to 
 whether by these heathen gods are to be understood Alamannish, or 
 possibly Eoman gods ? Eoman paganism in a district of the old 
 Helvetia is quite conceivable, and dii tutores loci sounds almost like 
 the very thing. On the other hand it must be remembered, that 
 Alamanns had been settled here for three centuries, and any other 
 worship than theirs could hardly be at that time the popular one. That 
 sacrifice to Woden on the neighbouring Lake of Zurich^ (supra, p. 56) 
 mentioned by Jonas in his older biography of the two saints, 
 was altogether German. Lastly, the association of three di- 
 vinities to be jointly worshipped stands out a prominent feature in 
 our domestic heathenism ; when the Eomans dedicated a temple to 
 several deities, their images were not placed side by side, but in 
 separate cellae (chapels). — Eatpert (Casus S. Galli, Pertz 2, 61) 
 seems to have confounded the two events, that on L. Zurich, and 
 the subsequent one at Bregenz: Tucconiam (to Tuggen) advenerunt, 
 quae est ad caput lacus Turicini, ubi cum consistere vellent, popu- 
 lumque ab errore demonum revocare (nam adhuc idolis immolahant), 
 Gallo idola vana confririgente et in lacum vicinum demergente, populus 
 in iram conversus. . . . sanctos exinde pepulerunt. Inde iter 
 agentes pervenerunt ad castrum quod Arbona nuncupatur, juxta 
 
 ' Cvuiously, Mone (Gesch. des heid. 1, 171-5) tries to put this Woden- 
 worship at Tuggen upon the Heruli, who had never been heard of there, instead 
 of the Alamanns, because Jonas says : Sunt inibi vicinae nationes Suevoruin. 
 But this means simply those settled thereabouts ; there was no occasion to speak 
 of distant ones. Columban was staying in a place not agreeable to himself, in 
 order to convert the heathen inhabitants ; and by Walafrid's description too, 
 the district lies imfra partes Alamaimiae, where intra would do just as well. 
 
110 GODS. 
 
 lacum potamicum, ibique a WiUimaro presbytero honorifice suscepti, 
 septem dies cum gaudio permanserunt. . Qui a Sanctis interrogatus, 
 si sciret locum in solitudine illorum proposito congruum, ostendit 
 eis locum jocundissimum ad inhabitandum nomine Brigantium. 
 Ibique reperientes templum dim cliristianae religioni dedicatum, 
 nunc autem denionum imaginibus pollutum, mundando et conse- 
 crando in pristinum restituerunt statum, atque pro statuis quas 
 ejecerunt, sanctae Aureliae reliquias ibidem coUocaverunt. — By this 
 account also the temple is first of all christian, and afterwards 
 occupied by the heathen (Alamanns), therefore not an old Eoman 
 one. That Woden's statue was one of those idola vana that were 
 broken to pieces, may almost be inferred from Jonas's account of 
 the beer-sacrifice offered to him. Eatpert's cantilena S. GaUi has 
 only the vague words : 
 
 Castra de Turegum adnavigant Tucconium, 
 Decent fidem gentem, Jovem linquunt ardentem. 
 This Jupiter on fire, from whom the people apostatized, may very 
 well he Donar (Thunar, Thor), but his statue is not alluded to. 
 According to Arx (on Pertz 2, 61), Eckehardus IV. quotes ' Jovis 
 et Neptuni idola,' but I cannot find the passage ; conf. p. 122 
 Ermoldus Mgellus on Neptune. It is plain that the three statues 
 have to do with the idolatry on L. Constance, not with that on L. 
 Zurich ; and if Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune stood there together, 
 the first two at all events may be easily applied to German deities. 
 In ch. VII, I will impart my conjecture about Neptune. But I think 
 we may conclude from all this, that our tres imagines have a better 
 claim to a German origin, than those imagines lapideae of the 
 Luxovian forest, cited on p. 83^. 
 
 1 Two narratives by Gregory of Tours on statues of Diana in the Treves 
 , country, and of Mercury and Mars in the south of Gaul, though they exclude 
 all thought of German deities, yet offer striking comparisons. Hist. 8, 15 : 
 Deinde territorium Trevericae urhis expetii, et in quo nunc estis monte 
 habitaculum, quod cernitis, proprio labore construxi ; reperi tamen hie Dianae 
 simulacrum, quod populus hie incredulus quasi deum adordbat. columnam etiam 
 statui, in qua cum grandi cruciatu sine ullo pedum stabam tegmine. . . . 
 Verum ubi ad me multitudo vicinarum oivitatum confluere coepit, praedicabam 
 jugiter, nihil esse Dianam, nihil simulacra, nihilque quae eis videbatur exerceri 
 cultura : indigna etiam esse ipsa, quae inter pocula luxuriasque profluas cantica 
 proferebant, sed potius deo omnipotenti, qui coelum fecit ac terram, dignum 
 sit sacriflcium laudis impendere. orabam etiam saepius, ut simulacra dominus 
 diruto dignaretur populum ab hoc errore disoutere. Flexit domini miseri- 
 cordia mentem rusticam, ut inclinaret aurem suam in verba oris mei, ut scilicet 
 relictis idolis dominum sequeretm-, (et) tunc convocatis quibusdam ex eis 
 simulacrum hoc immenswm, quod elidere propria virtute non poteram, cum 
 
IMAGES. Ill 
 
 The chief authority for images of gods among the Saxons is the 
 famous passage in Widekind of Corvei (1, 12), where he relates 
 their victory over the Thuringians on the E. TJnstrut (circ. 530), 
 ' ut majorum memoria prodit ' : Mane autem facto, ad orientalem 
 portam (of castle Schidungen) ponunt aquilam, aramqne vidoriae 
 construentes, secundum errorem paternum, sacra sua propria vener- 
 atione venerati sunt, nomine Martem, effigie columnarum imitantes 
 Eerculem, loco Solem quem Graeci appellant Apollinem. — This 
 important witness will have to be called up again in more than one 
 connexion. 
 
 To the Corvei annals, at year 1145, where the Ereshurg is 
 spoken of, the following is added by a 12th century hand (Pertz 
 5, 8 note) : Hec eadem Eresburg est corrupto vocabulo dicta, quam 
 et Julius Cesar Eomano imperio subegit, quando et ArispoHs 
 nomen habuit ab eo qui Aris Greca designatione ac Ma7-s ipse 
 dictus est Latino famine. Duohus siquidem idoMs hec dedita fuit, 
 id est Aris, qui urhis meniis insertus, quasi dominator dominantium, 
 et Ermis, qui et MercuHus mercimoniis insistentibus colebatur in 
 forensibus. — According to this, a statue of Mars seems to have stood 
 on the town-wall. 
 
 That the Frisian temples contained images of gods, there seems 
 to be suf&cient evidence. It is true, the passage about Fosite (p. 
 84) mentions only fana dei ; we are told that Wilibrord laid violent 
 hands on the sacred fountain, not that he demolished any image. 
 
 eorum adjutorio possem eruere ; jam enim reliqua dgillorum (tte smaller 
 figures) quae faciUora erant, ipse confregeram. Convenientibus autem multis 
 ad hanc Dianae statuam, missis funibus trabere coeperunt, sed nihil labor eorum 
 proficere poterat. Then came prayers ; egressusque post orationem ad operarios 
 veni, adprebensumque funem ut primo iotu trabere coepimus, protinus simula- 
 crum ruit im terra/m, confractimnque cum malleis ferreis in pulverem redegi. So 
 images went to the ground, whose contemplation we should think very in- 
 structive now. This Diana was probably a mixture of Roman and Gallic 
 worship ; there are inscriptions of a Diana arduinna (Bouquet 2, 319). — The 
 second passage stands in Mirac. 2, 5 : Erat autem baud procul a cellula, 
 quam sepulchrum, martyris (Juliani Arvernensis) baec matrona construxerat 
 (in vico Brivatensi), grande delubrum, ubi in colwmna altissima simulachrum 
 Martis Mercuriique colebatur. Cumque delubri illius festa a gentilibus agerentur 
 ac mortui mortuis thura deferrent, medio e vulgo commoventur pueri duo in 
 scandalum, nudatoque unus gladio alteram appetit trucidandum. The boy 
 runs to the saint's cell, and is saved. Quarta autem die, cum gentilitas vellet 
 iterum diis exhibere Hbamina, the christian priests offer a fervent prayer to the 
 martyr, a violent thunderstorm arises, the neathens are terrified : Eecedente 
 autem tempestate, gentiles baptizati, statuas quas ooluerant confringentes, in 
 locum vico amnique proximum projecerunt. — Soon after this, the Burgundians 
 settled in the district. The statues broken down, crushed to powder, and flung 
 into the lake, every bit the same as in that story of Ratpert's. 
 
112 GODS. 
 
 On tEe otlier hand, the Vita Bonifacii (Pertz 2, 339), in describing 
 the heathen reaction under King Eedbod (circ. 716), uses this 
 language: Jam pars ecclesiarum Christi, quae Francorum prius 
 subjecta erat imperio, vastata erat ac destructa, idolonim quoque 
 cultura exstructis delubrorum fanis lugubriter renovata. And if it 
 should be thought that idolorum here is equivalent to deorum, the 
 Vita Willehadi (Pertz 2, 380) says more deiinitely : Insanum esse 
 et vanum a lapidibus auxilium petere et a simulacris niutis et surdis 
 subsidii sperare solatium. Quo audito, gens fera et idololatriis 
 nimium dedita stridebant dentibus in eum, dicentes, non debere 
 profanum longius vivere, imo reum esse mortis, qui tam sacrilegia 
 contra deos suos invictissimos proferre praesumsisset eloquia. — The 
 event belongs to the middle of the 8th century, and the narrator 
 Anskar (f 865) comes a hundred- years later ; still we are not 
 warranted in looking upon his words as mere flourishes. And I 
 am not sure that we have a right to take for empty phrases, what is 
 said in a Vita S. Goari (f 049), which was not written till 839 : 
 Coepit gentihbus per circuitum (i.e. in Eipuaria), simulacrorum 
 cultui deditis et vana idolorum superstitionis deceptis, verbum 
 salutis annuntiare (Acta Bened. sec. 2, p. 282). Such biographies 
 are usually based on older memorials. 
 
 The Frisians are in every sense the point of transition to the 
 Scandinavians ; considering the multifarious intercourse between 
 these two adjoining nations, nothing can be more natural than to 
 suppose that the Frisians also had in common witla their neighbours 
 the habit of temple and image worship. Even Fosete's temple in 
 Heligoland I can hardly imagine destitute of images. 
 
 Some facility in carving figures out of wood or chiselling them 
 out of stone is no more than we should have expected from those 
 signa and effigies in Tacitus, and the art might go on improving up 
 to a certain stage. Stone weapons and other implements that we 
 find in barrows testify to a not unskilful handling of difficult 
 materials. That not a single image of a Teutonic god has escaped 
 the destructive hand of time and the zeal of the christians, need 
 surprise us less than the total disappearance of the heathen temples. 
 Why, even in the North, where the number of images was greater, 
 and their destruction occurred much later, there is not one preserved; 
 all the Lethrian, aU the UpsaUan idols are clean gone. The technical 
 term in the Norse was slcurdgoS (Fornm. sog. 2, 73-5), from skera 
 
IMAGES. 113 
 
 (sculpere), skurd (sculptura) ; in the two passages referred to, it is 
 likneski af Freyr. Biorn gives sMrgod', idolum, sculptile, from 
 skftr, subgrundium (penthouse), because it had to be placed under 
 cover, in sheds as it were ; with which the OHG. skftrguta (Graff 
 6, 536) seems to agree. But there is no distinct proof of an ON. 
 skiirgoS. 
 
 Dietmar's account is silent about the gods' images at Lethra ^ ; 
 in Adam of Bremen's description of those at Upsal (cap. 233), the 
 most remarkable thing is, that three statues are specified, as they 
 were in that temple of the Alamanns : Nunc de superstitione 
 Sveonum pauca dicemus. NoMlissimum ilia gens templum habet, 
 quod Ubsola dicitur, non longe positum a Sictona civitate (SigtUn) 
 vel Birka. In hoc templo, quod totum ex auro paratum est, statuas 
 trium deorum veneratur populus, ita ut potentissimus eorum Thor 
 in medio soHum habeat triclinio. Hiuc et inde locum possident 
 Wodan et Fricco. The further description we have nothing to do 
 with here, but there occurs in it also the term sculpere; as the 
 whole temple was ex auro paratum, i.e., decorated with gold, he 
 might doubtless have described the figures of the gods above all as 
 gilded, just as those in Alamannia were aereae et deauratae. — Saxo 
 p. 13 teUs of a golden statue of Othin ; Cujus numen Septentrionis 
 reges propensiore cultu prosequi cupientes, effigiem ipsius aureo 
 complexi simulacra, statuam suae dignationis indicem maxima cum 
 religionis simulatione Byzantium transmiserunt, cujus etiam 
 brachiorum lineamenta confertissimo armUlarum pondere per- 
 stringebant. The whole passage, with its continuation, is not only 
 unhistorical, but contrary to the genuine myths ; we can only see 
 in it the view of the gods taken by Saxo and his period, and 
 inasmuch as golden and bedizened images of gods were consonant 
 with such view, we may uifer that there stm lived in his time a 
 recollection of such figures (see SuppL). Ermoldus Nigellus, in 
 describing Herold's (Harald's) interview with King Charles, 
 mentions 4, 444 seq. (Pertz 2, 509-10) the gods' images (sculpta) of 
 the heathen, and that he was said to have had ploughshares, 
 kettles and water-buckets forged of that metal. According to the 
 Nialssaga cap. 89, in a Norwegian temple (goSahus) there were to 
 be seen three figures again, those of Thor and the two half -goddesses 
 Thorger?Sr and Irpa, of human size, and adorned with armlets ; 
 
 ^ On recently discovered figures of ' Odin,' v. infra, Wodan. 
 
114 GODS. 
 
 probably Thor sat in the middle on his car. Altogether the 
 portraitures of Thor seem to have been those most in vogue, at least 
 in Norway .1 One temple in which many skurdgoS were wor- 
 shipped, but Thor most of all, is described in Fornm. sog. 2, 153 and 
 159, and his statue 1, 295. 302-6 ; in 2, 44 we read : Thorr sat i 
 iniffju ok var m^st tignaSr, hann var mikill ok allr gulli hdinn ok 
 silfri (ex auro et argento confectus) ; conf. Olafs helga saga, ed. 
 Holm. cap. 118-9, where a large standing figure of Thor is described ; 
 and Fornm. sog. 4, 245, ed. Christ, p. 26. Freyr giorr af silfri, IsL 
 sog. 1, 134. Landn. 3, 2. One man carried a statuette of Thor 
 carved in whalebone (liknesld Thors af tonn gert) in his pocket, so 
 as to worship him secretly, when living among christians, Fornm. 
 sog. 2, 57. Thor's figure was carved on the ondvegis-pillars, 
 Eyrbygg. p. 8. Landnamab. 2, 12 ; and on the prows of ships, 
 Fornm. sog. 2, 324. A figure of ThorgerSr holgabruSr, with rings 
 of gold round the arm, to which people kneel, Fornm. sog. 2, 108.^ 
 
 ^ Finn Magnusen, bidrag til nordisk archaeologie, pp. 113-159. 
 
 ^ There is another thing to notice in this passage. The figure of ThorgertSr 
 hent its hand, up, when some one tried to snatcli a ring ott' its arm, and the 
 goddess was not disposed to let him have it. Th« same man then broi^ht a 
 lot of money, laid it at the figure's feet, fell on his knees and shed tears, then 
 rose up and once more grasped at the ring, which now the figure let go. The 
 same is told in the Foereyingasaga, cap. 23, p. 103. I regard it as a genuine 
 trait of heathen antiquity, like others which afterwards passed into christian 
 folk-tales of tlie Mid. Ages (see SuppL). Of more than one image of grace we 
 are told that it dropt a ring off its finger or a shoe off its foot as a gift to those 
 who prayed before it. A figure of Christ gave its shoes to a poor man (Nicolai 
 abbatis peregrinatio, ed. Werlauff p. 20), and a saint's image its gold slippers 
 (Mones anz. 7, 584. Arcluv. des Henneb. vereins, pp. 70, 71). A figm-e of 
 Mary accepts a ring that is presented to it, and bends lier finger as a sign that 
 she will keep it (Meon nouv. reoueil 2, 296-7. Maerl. 2, 214). The two 
 Virgin-stories in Mdon and Maerlant, though one at bottom, have very differ- 
 ent turns given them. In the latter, a young man at a game of ball pulls the 
 ring off his finger, and puts it on the hand of a Madonna ; in the former, the 
 youth is boxing in tlie Colosseum at Eome, and puts his ring on the finger of a 
 heathen statue, which bends the finger. Botli figures now hold the man to his 
 engagement. But the 0. French poem makes the afflicted youth bring an 
 image of Mary to bear on the heathen one, the Mary takes the ring off the 
 other figure, and restores it to the youth. Conf. Kaiserchr. 13142. 13260. 
 13323. Forduni Scoti ohronicon 1, 407 (W. Scott's minstr. 2, 136), relates 
 this fable as an event of the Uth century : a nobleman playing at ball slips his 
 ring on the finger of a broken statue of Venus, and only gets it back with the 
 help of a priest Palumbus who understands magic. We see the story had 
 spread at an early time, but it is old Teutonic in its origin [' itiideutsch,' evid. a 
 slip for Mrdeutsch]. Even in a painting of Mary, the infant in her lap hands her 
 a casket to give to a suppliant, Cod. pal. 341 fol. 63). .Similarly, statues turn 
 the face away, stretch out the arm to protect, they speak, laugh, weep, eat and waft ; 
 thus a figure of Christ turns itself away (Ls. 3, 78. 262), another begins to eat 
 and grow bigger (Kinderm. legenden no. 9), to weep, to beckon, to run away 
 
IMAGES. 115 
 
 Prey's statue of silver, (Freyr markafSr af silfri), Vatnsd. p. 44. 50 ■ 
 carried about in a waggon in Sweden, Formn. sog. 2, 73-7. The 
 Jomsvikingasaga tells of a temple on Gautland (I. of Gothland), in 
 which were a hundred gods, Fornm. sog. 11, 40 ; truly a ' densitas 
 imaginum,' as Jonas has it (see p. 83). Saxo Gram. 327 mentions 
 a simulacrum quercu factum, carved in oak ? or an oaktree 
 worshipped as divine ? (see Suppl.). 
 
 Not only three, but occasionally two figures side by side are 
 mentioned, particularly those of Wuotan and Donar or of Mars and 
 Mereurius, as we see from the passages cited. Figures of Freyr 
 and Thor together, and of Frigg and Freyja, occur in Miiller's 
 sagabibl. 1, 92. Names of places also often indicate such joint 
 worship of two divinities, e.g. in Hesse the Donnerseiche (Thor's 
 oak) stood close by the Wodansberg ; and explorers would do well 
 to attend to the point. 
 
 But neither the alleged number of the statues, nor their descrip- 
 tions in the sagas can pass for historical ; what they do prove is, 
 that statues there were. They appear mostly to have been hewn 
 out of wood, some perhaps were painted, clothed, and overlaid with 
 silver or gold ; but no doubt stone images were also to be met with, 
 and smaller ones of copper or ivory.^ 
 
 I have put off until now the mention of a peculiar term for 
 statue, with which some striking accounts of heathen idols connect 
 themselves. 
 
 OHG. glosses have the word irmans4H, pyramides, Mons. 360. 
 avar4n, irmansiUi, pyramides, Doc. 203''. irmansM, colossus, 
 altissima columna, Florent. 987% Bias. 86. colossus est irminsill, 
 61. Schletst. 18, 1. 28, 1. The literal meaning seems to be statue, 
 to judge by the synonym avard, which in Gl. Jun. 226 is used for 
 
 (Deutsche sagen, no. 347. Tettaus, preuss. sagen, pp. 21 1-5-8). In Eeinbot's 
 Georg the idol Apollo is flogged with rods by a child, and forced to walk away 
 (3258-69), which reminds one of the god Perilin, whom, according to monk 
 Nestor, Vladimir the Apostolic caused to be scourged with rods. In an Indian 
 story I find a statue that eats the food set before it, Poller 2, 302-3. Antiquity 
 then did not regard these images altogether as lumps of dead matter, but as 
 penetrated by the life of the divinity. The Greeks too have stories of statues 
 that move, shake the lance, fall on their kness, close their eyes (xara/iiJcrf i?), 
 bleed and sweat, which may have been suggested by the attitudes of ancient 
 images ; but of a statue making a movement of the hand, bending a finger, I 
 have nowhere read, significant as the position of the arms in images of gods 
 was held to be. That the gods themselves x^ 'P" vitipixovaiv over those whom 
 they wish to protect, occurs as early as in Homer. 
 ^ Finn Magnusen ibid. 132-7. 
 
1 16 GODS. 
 
 statua and imago. It was not yet extinct in the 12th century, as 
 appears from two places in the Kaiserchronik, near the beginning 
 of the poem, and very likely there are more of them ; it is said of 
 Mercury (Massmann 129) : — 
 
 M einir yrmensdle Upon an yrmensiil 
 
 stuont ein abgot ungehiure. Stood an idol huge, 
 den hiezen sie ir koufman. Him they called their 
 
 merchant. 
 Again of Julius Caesar (Massm. 624) : — 
 
 Eomere in ungetruweliche Eomans him untruly slew, 
 
 sluogen, On an yrm. they buried him. 
 
 uf einir yrmensiU sie in begruoben. 
 And of Simon Magus 24" (Massm. 4432) :— 
 
 uf eine yrmens'Al er steic. On an yrmensul he climbed, 
 
 daz lantvolc im allesamt neic. The land-folk to him aU bowed. 
 That is, worshipped him as a god. N"ay, in "WoKram's Titurel, last 
 chapter, where the great pillars of the (christian) temple of the 
 Grail are described, instead of ' inneren seul ' of the printed 
 text (Hahn 6151), the Hanover MS. more correctly reads irmensdl 
 Further, in the Prankish annals ad ann. 772 it is repeatedly 
 stated, that Charles the Great in his conquest of the Saxons 
 destroyed a chief seat of their heathen superstition, not far from 
 Heresburg ^ in Westphalia, and that it was called IrminsM. Ann. 
 Petav. : Domnus rex Karolus perrexit in Saxoniam et conquisivit 
 Erisburgo, et pervenit ad locum qui dicitur Brmensul, et succendit 
 ea loca (Pertz 1, 16). Ann. Lauresh. : Fuit rex Carlus hostiliter 
 in Saxonia, et destruxit /awwwi eorum quod vocatur Irminsul (Pertz 
 1, 30). The same in the Chron. Moissiac, except the spelling Hir- 
 minsul (Pertz 1, 295), and in Ann. Quedlinb., &c. (Pertz 5, 37). 
 Ann. Juvavenses : Karolus idolum Saxonorum combussit, quod 
 dicebant Irminsul (Pertz 1, 88). Einhardi Fuld. annales : Karolus 
 Saxoniam bello aggressus, Eresburgum.castrum cepit, et idolum Sax- 
 onum quod vocabatur Irminsul destruit (Pertz 1, 348). Ann. Eatis- 
 bon. : Carolus in Saxonia conquesivit Eresburc et Irminsul (Pertz 1, 
 92). Ann. Lauriss.: Karlus in Saxonia castrum Aeresburg expugnat, 
 fanum et lucum eorum famosum Irminsul subvertit (Pertz 1, 117). 
 
 ^ Now Stadtbergen, conf. the extract from Dietmar ; biit strong reasons 
 incline us to push the pillar (seule) some 15 miles deeper into the Osning 
 forest ; Clostermeier Eggesterstein, pp. 26-7 : Ereshurg, Horohus in pago Hessi 
 Saxonico Saraoho 735. 350. Conf. Massmann's Eggesterst. p. 34. 
 
GODS. 117 
 
 Ann. Lauriss. : Et inde perrexit partibus Saxoniae prima vice, 
 Aeresburgum castrum cepit, ad Ermensul usque pervenit, et ipsum 
 fanum destruxit, et aurum et argentum quod ibi repperit abstulit. 
 Et fuit siccitas magna, ita ut aqua deficeret in supradicto loco ubi 
 Ernumul stabat, &c. (Pertz 1, 150). Einbardi Ann. : Ferro et igni 
 cuncta depopulatus, Aeresburgum castrum cepit, idolum quod Irmin- 
 sul a Saxonibus vocabatur evertit (Pertz 1, 151) ; repeated in Ann. 
 Tilian., and Chron. Eegin.,witb spelling Ormensul (Pertz 1, 220, 557).^ 
 And Dietmar of Merseburg (Pertz 5, 744) further tells us, in connex- 
 ion with later events: Sed exercitus capta urbe (Eresburch) ingressus, 
 juvenem praefatum usque in ecclesiam S. Petri, uhi prius ah antiquis 
 Trminsul colebatur, belle defatigatum depulit. — Taking all these 
 passages together, Irminsul passes through the very same grada- 
 tions of meaning we unfolded in ch. IV, and signifies now fanum, 
 now lucus, now idolum, itself. It can scarcely be doubted, that vast 
 woodlands extended over that region : what if Osning^ the name of 
 the mountain-forest in which the piUar stood, betokened a Jioly- 
 wood ? The gold and silver hoard, which Charles was supposed to 
 have seized there, may well be legendary embellishment.^ Euodolf 
 of Fuld goes more into detaU about the Irminsul ; after his general 
 statement on the heathen Saxons, that ' frondosis arboribus fonti- 
 busque venerationem exhibebant' (p. 101), he goes on: Truncum 
 quoque liffni non parvae magnitudinis in altum erectum sub divo 
 colebant, patria eum lingua Irminsul appellantes, quod Latine 
 dicitur universalis columna, quasi sustinens omnia (Pertz 2, 676), 
 
 • Poeta Saxo 1, 65 (Bouquet 5, 1^7) : 
 
 Gens eadem coluit simulacrum quod vocitabant 
 
 IrminsAl, cujus factura simulque columna 
 
 Non operis parvi fuerat, pariterque decoris. 
 ^ 6s is the Sax. form for arts (p. 25), wMcli denoted a god, and also a moun- 
 tain ; in High Gr. the name 'would be Ansninc, Ensninc. But, beside this 
 mons Osnengi near Theotmelli, i.e. Detmold (Pertz 2, 447), there stood also a 
 silva Osning not far from Osnabriick (Moser urk. no 2), and a (hiri in Ripuaria 
 on the Lower Rhine (Lacomblet no 310. 343. 354), which seems to have ex- 
 tended towards the Ardennes as far as Aachen (Aix la Chap.), mentioned in 
 Vilkinasaga cap. 40 ; and according to Barsch on Schannat's Eiflia, illustr. 1 , 
 110, and HatteanerS, 602", the Ardennes itself was called Osninlca, Oseninch. 
 By the Osnabriick charter above, the forest there appears even to have been 
 modelled on the Osning of Aachen (ad similitudinem foresti Aquisgranum per- 
 tinentis). That Osning is met with in several places, speaks for a more general 
 meaning [than that of a mere proper name] ; like as, ans, and fairguni, it is 
 the sacred mountain and forest. Ledebur takes the Teutoburgiensis saltus to 
 be Osning. Osnabriick, .i4snebruggi (bridge of the ases) seems nearly related. 
 
 ' Is this Ennen-pillar hoard an allusion to the legend of Ermenrich's hoard ' 
 (Saxo Gram. 156. Reinh. fuchs CLII.) 
 
118 GODS. 
 
 (see SuppL). Here was a great wooden pillar erected, and wor- 
 shipped under the open sky, its name signifies universal all-sustain- 
 ing pillar. This interpretation appears faultless, when we take 
 with it other words in which the meaning is intensified by 
 composition with irmin. In the Hildebrands lied, irmingot is the 
 supreme god, the god of all, not a peculiar one, agreeing in sense 
 with thiodgod, the (whole) people's god, formed by another streng- 
 thening prefix, Hel. 33, 18. 52, 12. 99, 6. irminman, an elevated 
 expression for man, Hel. 38, 24. 107, 13. 152, 11. irminthiod, 
 the human race, Hel. 87, 13 and in Hildebr.^ In the same way I 
 explain proper names compounded with irman, irmin (Gramm. 2, 
 448). And irmansiU, irminsUl is the great, high, divinely honoured 
 statue ; that it was dedicated to any one god, is not to be found in 
 the term itself — In like manner the AS. has eormencyn (genus 
 humanum), Beow. 309. Cod. Exon. 333, 3. eormengrv.nd (terra), 
 Beow. 1711. (and singularly in an adj. form : ofer ealne yrmenne 
 grund, Cod. Exon. 243, 13). eormenstrpnd (progenies). — O'N. 
 iormungrund (terra), iormungandr (anguis maximus), iormunrekr 
 (taurus maximus). From all this may be gathered the high mythic 
 antiquity of these appellations, and their diffusion among all 
 branches of the Teutonic race ; for neither to the Goths can they 
 have been strange, as their famous king's name Brmanaricus 
 (Airmanareiks, ON. Iormunrekr) shows ; and beyond a doubt the 
 Hermunduri are properly Urmunduri (Gramm. 2, 175), the H being 
 often prefixed to all such forms. 
 
 Now whatever may be the probable meaning of the word irman, 
 iormun, eormen, to which I shall return in due time, one thing is 
 evident, that the Irman-pillar had some connexion, which continued 
 to be felt down to a late period (p.ll6),with Mercury or Hermes, to 
 whom Greek antiquity raised similar posts and pillars, which were 
 themselves called Hermae, a name which suggests our Teutonic one. 
 
 The Saxons may have known more about this ; the Franks, in 
 Upper Germany, from the 8th to the 13th century, connected with 
 irnmns'Hl, irminsiXl the general notion of a heathen image set up on 
 a pillar. Probably Euodolf associated with his truncus ligni the 
 
 ' The Slav, ramo, Bohem. ramenso, is with transposition the Lat. armus, 
 OHG. aram, and means both arm and shoulder ; in the Sloven, compound 
 ramen-velik, valde magnus, it intensifies exactly like irman ; does tliis point to 
 an affinity between irman and arm 1 Arminius too is worth considermg ; conf. 
 SohafTarik 1, 427. 
 
IMAGES. Il9 
 
 thought of a choice and hallowed tree-stem (with, or without, a 
 god's image ?), rather than of a pillar hewn into shape by the hand 
 of man ; this fits in too with the worshipping sub divo, with the 
 word lucus used by some of the chroniclers, and with the simplicity 
 of the earliest forest- worship. As the image melts into the notion 
 of tree, so does the tree pass into that of image ; and our West- 
 phalian Irmen-pillar most naturally suggests the idea of that 
 Thor's-oak in Hesse ; the evangelists converted both of them into 
 churches of St. Peter. I suspect an intimate connexion between 
 the Irman-pillars and the Boland-pillars erected in the later Mid. 
 Ages, especially in North Germany ; there were in Sweden Thor's- 
 pUlars, and among the Anglo-Saxons J^JtlielstAn-pillars (Lappenberg 
 1, 376). There yet remains to be given an account of a sacred post 
 in Neustria, as contained in the Vita Walarici abbatis Leuconensis 
 (t622), said to have been composed in the 8th century : Et juxta 
 ripam ipsius fluminis slips erat magnus, cliversis imaginibus figuratns, 
 atque ibi in terram magna virtute immissus, qui nimio cultu moreen 
 gentilium a rusticis colebatur. Walaricus causes the log to be 
 thrown down : et his quidem rusticis habitantibus in locis non 
 parvum tam moerorem quam et stuporem omnibus praebuit. Sed 
 undique illis certatim concurrentibus cum armis et fustibus, indigne 
 hoc ferontes invicem, ut injuriam dei sui vindicarent (Acta Bened. 
 sec. 2, pp. 84-5). The place was called Augusta (bourg d' Augst, 
 near the town of Eu), and a church was built on the spot. 
 
 I think I have now shown, that in ancient Germany there were 
 gods and statues. It will further be needful to consider, how 
 antiquity went to work in identifying foreign names of gods with 
 German, and conversely German with foreign. 
 
 The Eomans in their descriptions cared a great deal more to 
 make themselves partially understood by a free translation, than, 
 by preserving barbarous vocables, to do a service to posterity. At 
 the same time they did not go arbitrarily to work, but evidently 
 with care. 
 
 Caesar's Sol, Luna and Vulcan are perhaps what satisfies us 
 least ; but Tacitus seems never to use the names of Eoman deities, 
 except advisedly and with reflection. Of the gods, he names only 
 Mercury and Mars (Germ. 9. Ann. 13, 57. Hist. 4, 64) ; of deified 
 heroes, i/ercM^es, Castor and Pollux (Germ. 9, 43); of goddesses. 
 
120 GODS. 
 
 Isis (Germ. 9), the terra mater by her German name (Germ. 40), 
 and the mater deum (Germ. 45). Incompatible deities, such as 
 Apollo or Bacchus, are never compared. What strikes us most, is 
 the absence of Jupiter, and the distinction given to Mercwry, who 
 was but a deity of the second rank with the Romans, a mere god 
 of merchants, but here stands out the foremost of all: Deorum 
 maxime Mercurium colunt : to him alone do human sacrifices faU, 
 while Mars and Hercules content themselves with beasts. This 
 prominence of Mercury is probably to be explained by the fact, 
 that this god was worshipped by the Gauls likewise as their chief 
 divinity, and was the most frequently portrayed (deum maxime 
 Mercurium colunt, hujus sunt plurima simulacra, Caes. B. Gall 6, 
 17) -^ and that the looks of the Eomans, when directed towards 
 Germany, still saw Gaul in the foreground ; besides, it may have 
 been Gallic informants that set the German divinity before them in 
 this light. Observe too the Gaulish juxtaposition of Mars and 
 Mercurius in statues (p.lll),precisely as Tacitus names the German 
 ones together (Ann. 13, 57). The omission of Jupiter is obviously 
 accounted for, by his worship yielding the precedence to that of 
 Mercury in those nations which Tacitus knew best : we shall see, as 
 we go on, that the northern and remoter branches on the contrary 
 reserved their highest veneration for the thunder-god. On Isis and 
 Hercules I shall express my views further on. Whom we are to 
 understand by the Dioscuri, is hard to guess ; most likely two sons 
 of Woden, and if we go by the statements of the Edda, the brothers 
 Baldr and Herm8?5r would be the most fitting. 
 
 This adaptation of classical names to German gods became 
 universally Spread, and is preserved with strict unanimity by the 
 Latin writers of the succeeding centuries ; once set in circulation, 
 it remained current and intelligible for long ages. 
 
 The Gothic historian names but one god after the Eoman fashion, 
 and that is Mars : Quem Gothi semper asperrima placavere ciiltura 
 (Jornandes cap. 5), with which the Scythian Ares, so early as iu 
 Herodotus 4, 62-3, may be compared. 
 
 Paulus Diaconus winds up his account of Wodan with the 
 express announcement (1, 9): Wodan sane, quem adjecta htera 
 Gwodan dixerunt, ipse est qui apud Eomanos Mercurius dicitur, et 
 
 ' Schopflin, Als. ill. 1, 435-60 ; esp. on a fanum of Mercury at Ebennunster 
 1, 58. Conf. Hummel, bibl. deutsch. alterth. p. 229. Creuzer, altrom. cultiu- am 
 Oberrliein, pp. 48, 98. 
 
GODS. 121 
 
 ab universis Germaniae gentibus ut deus adoratur. Just so bis 
 older countryman Jonas of Bobbio, in that account of the sacrificing 
 Alamanns, declares : UK aiunt, deo suo Vodano, quem Mermrium 
 vocant alii, se velle litare ; upon which, a gloss inserted by another 
 hand says less correctly : Qui apud eos Vuotant voeatur, Latini 
 autem Martem ilium appellant ; though otherwise Woden greatly 
 resembles Mars (v. infra). 
 
 Gregory of Tours (supra, p.l07) makes Saturn and Jwpiter, and 
 again Mars Mercuriusqne the gods whom the heathen Chlodovich 
 adored. In 1, 34 he expresses himself in more general terms: Pri- 
 vatus, Gabalitanae urbis episcopus. . . . daemoniis immolare com- 
 pellitur a Chroco Alamannorum rege (in the third cent.). Wide- 
 kind of Corvei names Mars and Hercules as gods of the Saxons (see 
 p. Ill); and that little addition to the Corvei Annals (see p.lll) 
 couples together the Greek and Latin denominations Aris and Mars, 
 Ermis and Mercurius. 
 
 The Indiculus paganiarum reckons up, under 8: De sacris 
 Mercurii vel Jovis^ ; under 20 : De feriis quae faciunt Jovi vel 
 Mercuric. So that the thunder-god, of whom Tacitus is silent, is 
 in other quarters unforgotten ; and now we can understand Wili- 
 bald's narrative of the robur Jovis (see p. 72), and in Bonifac. 
 epist. 25 (a.d. 723) the presbyter Jovi mactans (see Suppl.). 
 
 In the Additamenta operum Matthaei Paris, ed. W. Watts, 
 Paris 1644, pp. 25-6, there is an old account of some books which 
 are said to have been discovered in laying the foundation of a church 
 at Verlamacestre (St Albans) in the tenth century, and to have been 
 burnt. One of them contained ' invocationes et ritus idololatrarum 
 civium Varlamacestrensium, in quibus comperit, quod specialiter 
 Phoebum deum solis invocarunt et coluerunt, secundario vero Mer- 
 curium, Voden anglice appeUatum, deum videlicet mercatorum, 
 quia cives et compatriotae . . . fere omnes negotiatores 
 et institores fuerunt.' Evidently the narrator has added somewhat 
 out of his own erudition ; the invocations and rites themselves 
 would have given us far more welcome information. 
 
 Passages which appear to speak of a German goddess by the 
 name of Diana, will be given later. Neptune is mentioned a few 
 times (supra, p. 110). 
 
 1 Had these been Roman gods, Jupiter would certainly have been named 
 first, and Mercury after. 
 
] 22 GODS. 
 
 Saxo Grammaticus, though he writes in Latin, avoids applying 
 the Eoman names of gods, he uses Othinus or Othin, never 
 Mercurius instead; yet once, instead of his usual Thor (pp. 41, 
 103), he has Jvjpiter, p. 236, and maUeus Jovialis; Mars on p. 36 
 seems to stand for Othin, not for Tyr, who is never alluded to in 
 Saxo. Ermoldus Nigellus, citing the idols of the Normanni, says 4, 9 
 (Pertz 2, 501), that for God (the Father) they worshipped Neptune, 
 and for Christ Jupiter ; I suppose Neptune must here mean 05in, 
 and Jupiter Thor ; the same names recur 4, 69. 100. 453-5. 
 
 Melis-Stoke, as late as the beginning of the 14th century, stiU. 
 remembers that the heathen Frisians worshipped Mercury (1, 16. 
 17) ; I cannot indicate the Latin authority from which no doubt he 
 drew this.^ 
 
 If the supposition be allowed, and it seems both a justifiable 
 and almost a necessary one, that, from the first century and during 
 the six or eight succeeding ones, there went on an uninterrupted 
 transfer of the above-mentioned and a few similar Latin names of 
 gods to domestic deities of Gaul and Germany, and was familiar 
 to all the educated ; we obtain by this alone the solution of a 
 remarkable phenomenon that has never yet been satisfactorily 
 explained : the early diffusion over half Europe of the heathen 
 nomenclature of the days of the week. 
 
 These names are a piece of evidence favourable to German 
 heathenism, and not to be disregarded. 
 
 The matter seems to me to stand thus.^ — From Egypt, through 
 the Alexandrians, the week of seven days (e/SSo/ia?), which in 
 Western Asia was very ancient, came into vogue among the Eomans, 
 but the planetary nomenclature of the days of the week apparently 
 not till later. Under Julius Caesar occurs the earliest mention 
 of 'dies Batumi' in connection with the Jewish sabbath, TibulL 1, 
 3, 18. Then fjkCov rjixepa in Justin Mart, apolog. 1, 67. 'Ep/iov 
 and A(ppoBiTr]^ -fjixepa in Clem. Alex, strom. 7, 12. The institution 
 fully carried out, not long before Dio Cassius 37, 18, about the close 
 
 1 Our MHG. poets impart no such, information ; they only trouble their 
 heads about Saracen gods, among whom it is tme Jupiter and Apollo make 
 their appearance too. In Eol. 97, 7 are named Mars, Jovinus, Saturnus. 
 
 ^ I can here use only the beginning, not the conclusion, which would be 
 more useful for my investigation, of a learned paper by JuUus Hare on the 
 names of the days of the week (Philolog. Mus., Nov. 1831). Conf. Idelers 
 handb. der ohronol. 2, 177-180, and Letronne, observations sur les representa- 
 tions zodiacales, p. 99. 
 
GODS OF THE WEEK. 123 
 
 of the 2nd century .^ The Eomans had previously liad a week of 
 nine days, nundinae=novendinae. Christianity had adopted from 
 the Jews the hebdomas, and now it could not easily guard the 
 church against the idolatrous names of days either (see Suppl.). 
 
 But these names, together with the institution of the week, had 
 passed on from Eome to Gaul and Germany, sooner than the 
 christian religion did. In all the Eomance countries the planetary 
 names have lasted to this day (mostly in a very abridged form), 
 except for the first day and the seventh : instead of dies solis they 
 chose dies doviinica (Lord's day), It. domenica, Sp. domingo, Fr. 
 dimanche ; and for dies Saturni they kept the Jewish sahhatum, It. 
 sabbato, Sp. sabado, Fr. samedi (=8abdedi, sabbati dies). But the 
 heathen names of even these two days continued in popular use 
 long after : Ecce enim dies solis adest, sic enim barbaries vocitare 
 diem dominicum consueta est, Greg. Tur. 3, 15. 
 
 Unhappily a knowledge of the Gothic names of days is denied 
 us. The sabhatS dags, sabbato dags, which alone occurs in UlphUas, 
 proves nothing, as we have just seen, against a planetary designation 
 of the remaining six or five days. A sunnons dags, a mSnins 
 dags may be guessed ; the other four, for us the most important, I 
 do not venture to suggest. Their preservation woTild have been of 
 the very highest value to our inquiry. 
 
 Old High Germ.— I. sunn4n dag, 0. v. 5, 22. Gl. bias. 76^. 
 Lacombl. arch. 1, 6. — II. mdnin tac (without authority, for 
 m^nitag, minotag in Graff 2,795. 5, 358 have no reference ; manetag 
 in Notker, ps. 47, 1). — III. dies Martis, prob. Ziuwes tac among 
 Alamanns ; in the 11th cent. Cies dac, GL bias. 76^ f prob. different 
 among Bavarians and Lombards. — IV. dies Mercurii, perhaps still 
 Wuotanes tac ? our abstract term, diu miitawecha already ia N. ps. 
 93, and mittwocha, Gl. bias. 76''. — V. dies Jovis, Donares tac, Toniris 
 tac, N. ps. 80, 1. donrestsic, GL bias. 76^ Burcard von Worms WB"": 
 quintam feriam in honorem Jovis honorati. — VI. dies Veneris, Fria 
 dag, 0. V. 4, 6. Fry'e tag, T. 211, 1.— VII. at last, like the Eomance 
 and Gothic, avoiding the heathenish dies Saturni, sambaziag, T. 68, 
 1. N. 91, 1.^ samiztag, K 88, 40. sunn4n dband, our sonnabend, 
 
 ' An old hexameter at the end of the editions of Ausonius : Ungues 
 Menurio, barbam Jove, Gypride crines (nails on Wednesday, beard on Thursday, 
 hair on Friday). 
 
 2 Cies for Zies, as the same glossist 86^ writes gioimbere and cinnum. 
 
 ' Sambazolus n. prop, in Karajan. 
 
124 GODS. 
 
 already in 0. v. 4, 9, prob. abbreviation of sunnundages S,band, feria 
 ante dominicam, for vespera solis cannot have been meant [conf 
 Engl. Whitsun-eve] ; and occasionally, corresponding to the Kom- 
 ance dies dominica, /r^wtag, N". ps. 23. 
 
 Mid. High Germ. — ^Would any one believe, that the names of 
 the days of the week are not easily to be picked out of the abun- 
 dant remains of our MHG. literature ? It is true, sunnen tac 
 (suntac in Berth. 118) and maniac (Parz. 452, 16. moentac 498, 22. 
 Amis 1648)^ admit of no doubt. Neither do Bonrestac (Donerstag, 
 Uolrich 73\ Dunrestac, Berth. 128), spelt Buristag in' a Semi- 
 Low Germ. urk. of 1300 in Hofer p. 57), and Boriistag in one of 
 1495, Useners femgerichten p. 131 ; nor Fritac (Parz. 448, 7. 470, 
 1. "Walth. 36, 31. Berth. 134), Vriegtag, Uolrich 73''; nor yet 
 samztao (Parz. 439, 2. Berth. 138), sunnen dbent (Trist. 3880).— 
 But uncertainty hangs about the third and fourth days. The 
 former, by a remarkable variation, was in Bavaria named Urifac, 
 Erdac (the true form not quite certain, eritag in Adelung's vat. 
 hss. 2, 189. ergetag in Berth. 122 ; see examples collected from 
 urkunden, Schm. 1, 96-7), in Swabia on the contrary Ziestae, for 
 Ziewestac. Both of these forms, which have nothing to do with 
 each other, live to this day in the speech of the common people : 
 Bav. ierte, Austr. iarta, irita, Vicentino-Germ. eortd, ortd, Alem. 
 ziestag, zinstag, ziestig, zistig, zienstig, zeinstig, zinstag. The insertion of 
 the liquid has corrupted the word, and brought in quite irrelevant 
 notions. In central Germany the form diestag, tiestag seems to 
 predominate (diestik in the Ehbn), whence our dienstag (less cor- 
 rectly dinstag, there is good reason for the ie) ; the spelling ding- 
 stag, as if from ding, thing, judicium, is false ; dinstag occurs in 
 Gaupps magdeb. recht p. 272. — The fourth day I have never seen 
 named after the god, either in MHG. or in our modern dialects, 
 unless indeed the gwontig cited in the note can be justified as 
 standing for Gwuotenstag, Wuotenstag; everywhere that abstrac- 
 tion ' midweek ' has carried all before it, but it has itself become 
 
 1 Zuemtig for Monday, Staid. 2, 470 ought perhaps to be zue mentig, ze 
 mantage ; yet 1, 490 he has giienti, giienti, Tobler 248'" has gwontig, 
 guentig, and Zellwegers urk. l**, 19 guonti, for which Urk. no. 146 
 has 'an gutem tag,' which seems to be supported by Haltaus 
 jahrzeitb. Or is only this particular Monday after Lent called so? In 
 the Cod. pal. 372, 103 (ann. 1382) wo have 'guotem tag.' The resemblance 
 of this good day to the WestphaHan Gudensdag (Woden's day) is purely 
 accidental. 
 
GODS OF THE WEEK. 125 
 
 almost unintelligible by being changed into a masculine mitiwoch, 
 mittich, Berth. 24, maktig, Staid. 2, 194, conf. the Gothl. majkadag, 
 Almqv. 442^^), ' an der mitkun' fem., is found in the Cod. zaringobad. 
 no. 140 (a.d. 1261). So even for the fifth day, the numeric name 
 phinztac (Berth. 128. Ottoc. 144^ Gratzer urk. of 1.338. Schwa- 
 benspiegel, p. 196. Schm. 1, 322), or phingstag, has made its 
 way into some districts of Upper Germany through Grseco-Slavic 
 influences, Tre/x'n-Tr], petek, piatek, patek, though by these the Slavs 
 mean Friday (see Suppl.). 
 
 New High Germ. — I. sonntag. II. montag. III. Dienstag. 
 
 IV. mittwoch. V. Donnerstag. VI. Freitag. VII. smnstag, 
 sonnabend. 
 
 Old Saxon. — The OS. names are wanting, but must have 
 differed in some . essential points from the OHG., as the derived 
 dialects prove. We may pretty safely assume Wddanes dag for 
 the fourth day of the week, for in Westphalia it is still called 
 Godenstag, Gonstag, Gaunstag, Gunstag, at Aix Gouesdag, in Lower 
 Ehen. urkunden Gudestag, Gtinther, 3, 585. 611 (a.d. 1380-7), 
 Gudenstag, Kindlinger horigk. p. 577-8 (a.d. 1448). — The third day 
 was probably Tiwesdag, the fifth Thunaresdag, the sixth Friundag. 
 The most unlike would doubtless be the seventh, was it formed 
 after dies Saturni, Sdteresdag ? conf. the Westph. Saterstag, Saiter- 
 staig, Giinter 3, 502 (a.d. 1365). In Sachsensp. 2, 66 one MS. reads 
 for sunavend Satersdach (see Suppl.). 
 
 Mid. Dutch. — I. sondach, Maerl. 2, 159. II. manendach, Huyd. 
 op St. 3, 389. maendach, Maerl. 2, 139. III. JDisendach, Maerl. 
 2, 140. al. Dicendach, Dissendach, Cannaert strafrecht, pp. 124, 481 
 apparently corrupted from Tisdach. IV. Woensdach, Maerl. 2, 143. 
 
 V. Donresdach, Maerl. 2, 144. VI. Vridach, Maerl. 2, 159. gen. 
 VHndaghes, Maerl. 2, 143. 157. VII. Saterdach, Maerl. 2, 114. 
 120-3. 157-9. 276. 3, 197. 343. also smnacht, Maerl. 2, 164. 3, 240. 
 (see Suppl). 
 
 New Dutch. — I. zondag. II. mdndag. III. dingsdag, for- 
 merly dinsdag, Bissendag. IV. Woensdag, Belg. Goensdag. V. 
 Bonderdag. VI. Vridag. VII. Zaterdag. 
 
 Old Fkisian. — I. sonnadei. 11. monadci. III. Tysdei. IV. 
 Wernsdei. V. Thunresdei, Tornsdei. VI. Frigendci, Fredei. VII. 
 Saterdei (references for all these forms in Eichthofen). 
 
 New Fkisian. — I. sneyn, abbrev. from sinnedey, sendei, senned 
 
126 GODS. 
 
 (conf. Fred) ; the final n in sneyn, no doubt, as in OFris. Frigendei, 
 a relic of the old gen. sing, in the weak decL • II. mooMdey. III. 
 Tyesdey. IV. Wd'osdey. V. Tong'ersdey. VI. FrM, abbrev. from 
 Fredey. VII. sniuvyn, snioun, abbrev. from sinnejuwn=Suii(day)- 
 even. Conf. tegenwoordige staat van Friesland 1, 121. Was- 
 senbergh's bidraghen 2, 56. Halbertsma naoogst p. 281-2 (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 North Feisian. — L sennendei. II. monnendei. III. Tirsdei. 
 rV. Winsdei. V. Tv.rsdei. VI. Fridei. VIL sennin (m=even). 
 
 Anglo-Saxon. — L sonnan dteg. 11. monan dseg. III. Times 
 daeg. rV. W'xhnes or Fof^nes dseg. V. Thunores d£eg. VI. 
 .Fr^e dseg. VII. Sxtres or Sceternes daeg. 
 
 Old Noese. — I. sunnudayr} IL mdnadayr. III. Tyrsdayr, 
 Tysdagr. IV. OSvasdagr. V. Thdrsdagr. VL Friadagr, Frey- 
 judagr. VII. la.ugardagr. 
 
 Swedish. — I. sondag. 11. Tno-iidag. III. Tisd.ag, whence 
 even Finn. tystaL IV. Onsdag. V. Thorsdag. VI. Fredag 
 VII. lordag. 
 
 Danish. — L sond.ag. II. ma'udag. III. Tirsdag. IV. 0?i«- 
 <fa^. V. Torsdag. VI. Fredag. VIL lovirdag (see SuppL). 
 
 We see, it is only in the seventh day that the Scandinavian 
 names depart from the Saxon, Frisian and Dutch : langardagr 
 means bath-day because people bathed at the end of the week 
 Yet even here there may be some connexion ; a Latin poem of the 
 9th century on the battle of Fontenay (Bouquet 7, 304) has the 
 singular verse: Sabhoium, non Olud fuit, sed Saiurni dolium; a 
 devil's bath ? conf. cL XII, Saturn. [The Germ, for carnage is 
 blutbad, blood-bath.] 
 
 Even if the Germans from the earliest times knew the week of 
 seven days from the four phases of the lunar change,^ yet the 
 
 ^ This OX. svnnudagr is noticeable, as in other cases sol is used rather than 
 smma ; sunnudagr seems to have been formed by the christian teachers in imita- . 
 tion of the other Teutonic languages. The Swed. and Ban. sondag (instead of 
 soldag) mTi=t have been taken bodily from a Plattdeutsch form. 
 
 ^ To the Lat. word vis, gen. vicis (change, turn) corresponds, without the 
 usual consonant-change, the Gothic vUcS, OHG. wecha and wehsal, both refer- 
 able to the verb veika, vaik, OHG. wichu (I give way), because change is a 
 giving way [in German, ' der wechsel ist ein weichen ']. Ulph- has viko only 
 once, Lu. 1 , 8, where iv 1-3 ra^ei tjjs e(f>Tiiiepias is translated ' in vUc^n knnjis ' ; it 
 L? evidently something more than rd^ts here, it expres-es at the same time a part 
 of the gen. ((fyjjiieplas, therefore lit ' in vice generis ', which the Vulg. renders 
 
GODS OF THE WEEK. 127 
 
 naming of the days and the order in which they stand is manifestly 
 an importation from abroad. On the contrary supposition, there 
 would have been variation in details ; and Saturn, for whom no 
 Teutonic god seems prepared to stand sponsor, would have been left 
 out in the cold. 
 
 But it would be no less absurd to attribute the introduction of 
 the week and the names of the days to the Christians. As they 
 came into vogue among the heathen Eomans, they could just 
 as well among heathen Gauls and Germans ; nay, considering 
 the lively intercourse between the three nations, a rapid 
 diffusion is altogether natural.^ Christianity had the Jewish week, 
 and it tolerated names which were a frequent offence to it, but were 
 already too deeply rooted, and could only be partially dislodged. 
 Those words of Gregory reveal the utter aversion of the clergy, 
 which comes out still more plainly in the language (publ. in Syn- 
 tagma de baptismo, p. 190) of an Icelandic bishop in 1107, who 
 actually did away with them in Iceland, and replaced them by 
 mere numeric names. How should the christian teachers ever have 
 suffered hateful names of idols to be handed over to their recent 
 converts for daily use, unless they had already been long established 
 among the people ? And in Germany, how should the Latin gods 
 have been allowed to get translated into German ones, as if on pur- 
 pose to put them within easy reach of the people, had they not 
 already been familiar with them for centuries ? 
 
 Again, the high antiquity of these translations is fully estabbsh- 
 ed by their exact accordance with the terminology used in the first 
 centuries, as soon as people came to turn German gods into Eoman. 
 In my opinion, the introduction of the seven days' names 
 
 by ' in ordine vicis '. Now whether viko expressed to the Goths the alterna- 
 tion of the moon's quarters, we do not know for certain ; I incline to believe 
 it, as the OHG. weha, wocha, AS. wice, wnce, ON. vika, Swed. vecka, Dan. 
 uge, are all limited to the one meaning of septimana. The very absence of con- 
 sonant-change points to a high antiquity in the word. It is remarkable that 
 the Javanese vulcu means a section of time, the year falling into 30 vukua 
 (Humb. Kawispr. 1, 196). The Finn, wijkko is more likely to have been 
 borrowed from the Norse than from so far back as the Gothic. I remark 
 further, that an observance by the Germani of sections of time must be inferred 
 from the mere fact that certi dies were fixed for the sacrifices to Mercury, Tac. 
 Germ. 9. 
 
 ^ Jos. Fuchs, gesch. von Mainz 2, 27 seq. (Kupfert 4, no 7) describes a 
 Eoman round altar, prob. of the 3rd or 4th century, on which are cai-ved the 
 seven gods of the week (1 Saturn, 2 Apollo, 3 Diana, 4 Mars, 5 Mercury, 6 
 Jupiter, 7 Venus), and in an 8th place a genius. 
 
128 GODS. 
 
 amongst us must be placed at latest in the fourth or fifth century ; 
 it may not have taken place simtiltaneously iu all parts of Teuton- 
 dom. 
 
 Our forefathers, caught in a natural delusion, began early to 
 ascribe the origin of the seven days' names to the native gods of 
 their fatherland. — ^WiUiam of Maknesbury, relating the arrival of 
 the Saxons in Britain, says of Hengist and Horsa, that they were 
 sprung from the noblest ancestry: Erant enim abnepotes illius 
 antiquissimi Voden, de quo omnium pene barbararum gentium 
 regium genus Uneam trahit, quemque gentes Anglorum deum esse 
 delirantes, ei quaTium diem septimanae, et sextum uxori ejus Freae 
 perpetuo ad hoc tempus consecraverunt sacrilegio (Savile 1601. p. 
 9). — More circumstantially, Geoffrey of Monmouth (Ub. 6. ed. 1587, 
 p. 43) makes Hengist say to Vortigem: Ingressi sumus maria, 
 regnum tuum duce Mereurio petivimus. Ad nomen itaque Mer- 
 curii erecto vultu rex inquhit cujusmodi religionem haberent? cui 
 Hengistus : deos patrios Saturnum, atque ceteros, qui mundum 
 gubemant, colimus, maxime Mer curium (as in Tac. 9.), quem Woden 
 lingua nostra appeUamus. Huic veteres nostri dicaverunt quartam 
 septimanae feriam, quae usque in hodiemum diem nomen Wodenes- 
 dai de nomine ipsius sortita est. Post ilium colimus deam inter 
 ceteras potentissimam, cui et dicaverunt sextam feriam, quam de 
 nomine ejus Fredai vocamus. — As Matthew of Westminster (Tlores, 
 ed. 1601, p. 82) varies in some details, his words may also be 
 inserted here : Cumque tandem in praesentia regis (Vortigemi) 
 essent constituti, quaesivit ab eis, quam fidem, quam religionem 
 patres eorum coluissent ? cui Hengistus : deos patrios, scUicet 
 Saturnum, Jovem atque ceteros, qui mundum gubemant, coUmus, 
 rriMxime autern Mercurium,, quem lingua nostra Voden appellamus. 
 Huic patres nostri veteres dedicaverunt quartam feriam septimanae, 
 quae in hunc hodiemum diem Vodenesday appellatur. Post ilium 
 colimus deam inter ceteras potentissimam, vocabulo Fream, cujus 
 vocabulo Frido.y appellamus. Frea ut volunt quidam idem est 
 quod Venus, et dicitur Prea, quasi Proa a frodos [A-frod-ite = from 
 froth ?] quod est spuma maris, de qua nata est Venus secundum 
 fabulas, unde idem dies appellatur dies Veneris. — Anglo-Saxon 
 legend then, unconcerned at the jumbling of foreign and homespun 
 fable, has no doubt at all about the high antiquity of the names 
 among its people. 
 
GODS. 129 
 
 Saxo GrammaticTis, more critical, expresses his opinion (p. 103) 
 of the Norse nomencla.ture, that it is derived from the native gods, 
 but that these are not the same as the Latin. This he proves by 
 Othin and Thor, after whom the fourth and fifth days of the week 
 are named, as in Latin after Mercury and Jupiter. For Thor, 
 being Othin's son, cannot possibly be identified with Jupiter, who 
 is Mercury's father; consequently, neither can the Norse Othin, 
 Thor's father, with the Eoman Mercury, who is Jupiter's son. The 
 discrepancy is certainly strong, but all that it can prove is, that at 
 the time when Othin and Mercury began to be placed on the same 
 pedestal, Mercury was thought of as a Celtic divinity, probably 
 with attributes differing widely from his classical namesake. Saxo 
 is quite right in what he means, and his remark confirms the early 
 heathen origin of these names of days ; ^ yet upon occasion, as we 
 saw on p. 122, he lets himself be carried away after all by the over- 
 powering identity of Thor and Jupiter (see SuppL). 
 
 The variations too in the names of the seven days among the 
 various Teutonic races deserve aU attention ; we perceive that they 
 were not adopted altogether cut-and-dry, nor so retained, but tha,t 
 national ideas stUl exercised some control over them. The later 
 heathenism of Friesland and Saxony caused the. old names of 
 Wednesday and Saturday to live on, while in Upper Germany they 
 soon sank into oblivion. But what is especially significant to us, 
 is the deviation of the Alamanns and Bavarians when we come to 
 the third day ; how could it have arisen at a later (christian) time, 
 when the idea of the heathen god that does duty for Mars had 
 already become indistinct ? how came the christian clergy, supposing 
 that from them the naming had proceeded, ever to sanction such a 
 divergence ? 
 
 The nations that lie behind us, the Slavs, the Lithuanians, do 
 not know the planetary names of days, they simply coxmt hke the 
 Greeks,^ not because they were converted later, but because they 
 became acquainted with Latin culture later. The Finns and Lapps 
 
 1 Conf. Pet. Er. MiiUer om Saxo, p. 79. 
 
 ^ The Indian nations also name their days of the week after planets ; and 
 it seems worth remarking here, that Wednesday is in Sanskrit Budhuvaras, 
 Tamil Budhunhilramei, because some have identified Buddha with Woden. In 
 reality Budhas, the ruler of Mercury and son of the moon, is quite distinct from 
 the prophet Buddkas (Schlegel's ind. bibl. 2. 177). 
 
 9 
 
130 GODS. 
 
 do not count, while tlie Esthonians again mostly do (see SuppL). 
 Even the christianizing influence of Byzantium decided nothing on 
 this point; Byzantium had no influence over Lithuanians and Fions, 
 and had it over a part only of the Slavs. These in their counting 
 begin with Monday, as the first day after rest, consequently Tues- 
 day is their second, and Thursday their fourth,^ altogether deviating 
 from the Latin and Icelandic reckoning, which makes Monday second 
 and Thursday fiftL Hence the Slavic piatek (fifth) means Friday, 
 and that Up. Germ, pfinztag (fifth) Thursday. Wednesday they 
 call middle, sreda, sereda, srida (whence Lith. serrada), which may 
 have acted upon our High German nomenclature ; the Finns too 
 have kesMwijcko (half -week, from keski medium). It would be well 
 worth finding out, when and for what reason the High German and 
 the Slav first introduced the abstract names mittewoche and sreda 
 (Boh. stfeda), while the Low German and the Eomance have kept 
 to Woden and Mercury. Alone of Slavs, the Wends in Liineburg 
 show a trace of naming after a god; dies Jovis was with them 
 PereTidan, from Peren, Perun, thunder-god: apparently a mere 
 imitation of the German, as in all the other days they agree with 
 the rest of the Slavs.^ 
 
 The nett result of these considerations is, that, in Latin records 
 dealing with Germany and her gods, we are warranted in interpret- 
 ing, with the greatest probability, Mercurius as Wuotan, Jupiter as 
 Donar, and Mars as Ziu. The gods of the days of the week 
 translated into German are an experiment on Tacitus's ' interpretatio 
 Eomana'. 
 
 1 E.g. in Eiissian : 1, voskreslnie, resurrection (but O.Sl. ne-delia, no- 
 doing). 2, po-nedernii, day after-no-work. 3, vtdmik, second day. 4, 
 sereda, middle. 5, chet^erg, fonrtli day. 6, piatnitsa, fifth day. 7, subbota, 
 sabbath. — Trans. 
 
 " It is striking, that in O. Bohem. glossaries (Hanka 54. 165) Mercury, 
 Venus and Saturn are quoted in the order of their days of the week ; and that 
 any Slav deities that have been identified with Latin ones are almost sure to 
 be of the number of those that preside over the week. And whilst of the Slav 
 gods, Svatovit answers to Mars (Ziu), Radigast to Mercury (Wuotan), Perun to 
 Jupiter (Donar), Lada (golden dame, zolotababa, in Hanusch 241, 35'') to Venus 
 (Fria), and perhaps Sitivrat to Saturn ; the names of the planets are construed 
 qiute otherwise, Mars by Smrto-nos (letifer), Mercury by Dobro-pan (good lord, 
 or rather bonorum dator), Jupiter by Krale-moc (rex pot«ns), Venus by CtM 
 (cupitor ? venerandus ?), Saturn by Hlado-kt (famelicus, or annonae caritatem 
 afi'erens). Respecting Sitivrat I give details at the end of ch. XII. 
 
CHAPTEE VII. 
 WUOTAN, WODAN (ODINN). 
 
 The highest, the supreme divinity, universally honoured, as we 
 have a right to assume, among all Teutonic races, would in the 
 Gothic dialect have been called Vddans ; he was called in OHG-. 
 Wuotan, a word which also appears, though rarely, as the name of a 
 man: Wuotan, Trad. Fuld. 1, 149. 2, 101-5-8. 128. 168. 161. Woatan 
 2, 146, 152. The Longobards spelt it Wddan or GuSdan, the Old 
 Saxons Wiiodan, WSdan, but in Westphalia again with the g prefixed, 
 Guddan, Gudan, the Anglo-Saxons Wdden, the Frisians Weda from 
 the propensity of their dialect to drop a final n, and to modify 6 
 even when not followed by an i} The Norse form is Offinn, in 
 Saxo Othinus, in the Faroe isles Ouvin, gen. Ouvans, ace. Ouvan. 
 Up in the Grisons country — and from this we may infer the extent 
 to which the name was diffused in Upper Germany — the Eomance 
 dialect has caught the term Vut from Alamanns or Burgundians of 
 a very early time, and retained it to this day in the sense of idol, 
 false god, 1 Cor. 8, 4.^ (see SuppL). 
 
 It can scarcely be doubted that the word is immediately derived 
 from the verb OHG. watan wuot, OK va&a, 6&, signifying meare, 
 transmeare, cum impetu f erri, but not identical with Lat. vadere, as 
 the latter has the a long, and is more likely connected with OS. 
 gavltan, AS. gewitan. From watan comes the subst. wuot (our 
 wuth, fury), as /ieVo? and animus properly mean mens, ingenium, 
 and then also impetuosity, wildness ; the ON. o&r has kept to the 
 
 ^ A Frisian god Warns has simply been invented from the gen. in the 
 compound Wamsdei, Wernsdei (Eichth. p. 1142), where Werns plainly 
 stands for "Wedens, "Wodens, an r being put for d to avoid collision with 
 the succeeding si ; it wUl be hard to find anywhere a nom. Wem. And the 
 present West Frisians say Wansdey, the North Frisians Winsdei, without 
 such r. 
 
 ^ Conradis wbrterb. 263. Christmann, pp. 30 — 32. 
 
132 WODAN. 
 
 one meaning of mens or sensus.^ According to this, Wuotan, 
 O&inn would be the all-powerful, all-penetrating being, qui omnia 
 permeat ; as Lucan says of Jupiter : Est quodcunque vides, quo- 
 cunque raoveris, the spirit-god^ ; conf. Yirg. Georg. 4, 221 : Deum 
 ire per omnes terras, and Eel. 3, 60 : Jovis omnia plena. In the 
 popular language of Bavaria, vmeteln is to bestir oneself, to swarm, 
 grow luxuriantly, thrive, Schm. 4, 203 (see SuppI). 
 
 How early this original meaning may have got obscured or 
 extinguished, it is impossible to say. Together with the meaning 
 of wise and mighty god, that of the wild, restless, vehement, must 
 also have prevailed, even in the heathen time. The christians were 
 the better pleased, that they could bring the bad sense into promia- 
 ence out of the name itself. In the oldest glosses, wdtan is put for 
 tyrannus, herus malus, Diut. 1, 276''. gl. Ker. 270 ; so ivileterieh, 
 wiiterich (Gramm. 2, 516) is used later on, and down to the present 
 day, conf. ein ungestiiemer wlieterich, Ben. 431 ; as in Mar. 217. 
 Herod's messengers of murder are wiieteilche, O.i. 19, 18 names the 
 king himself gotewuoto. The form imwtunc seems not to differ in 
 sense ; an unprinted poem of the 13th century says ' Wiietunges 
 her ' apparently for the ' wiitende heer,'* the host led as it were by 
 Wuotan ; and Wuotunc is likewise a man's name in OHG., Wddunc, 
 Trad, patav. no. 19. The former divinity was degraded, into an evU, 
 fiendish, bloodthirsty being, and appears to live yet as a form of 
 protestation or cursing in exclamations of the Low German people, 
 as in Westphalia : Woudan, Woudan ! Eirmenich 1, 257, 260 ; 
 and in Mecklenburg : Wed, Wod ! (see SuppL). 
 
 Proofs of the general extension of Woden's worship present 
 themselves, for one thing, in the passages collected in the preceding 
 chapter on Mercurius, and again in the testimonies of Jonas of 
 Bobbio (pp. 56 and 121) and Paulus Diaconus, and in the Abre- 
 nuntiatio, which deserves to be studied more closely, and lastly in the 
 concurrence of a number of isolated facts, which I believe have 
 hitherto been overlooked. 
 
 If we are to sum up in brief the attributes of this god, he is the 
 
 1 A word that has nevfer been fully explained, Goth. v6}>is dulcis, 2 Cor. 2, 
 15, OHG. wiwdi, Diut. 2, 304% OS. vmothi, Hel. 36, 3. 140, 7, AS. wlfSe, must 
 either be regarded as wholly unconnected, or its meaning be harmonized. 
 
 2 Finn Magnusen comes to the same conclusion, Lex. myth. 621. 636. 
 
 ' The belief, so common in the Mid. Ages, in a 'furious host' or ' wild 
 hunt,' is described ia ch. XXXI.— Thans. 
 
WODAN. 133 
 
 all-pervading creative and formatim 'power, who bestows shape and 
 beauty on men and all things, from whom proceeds the gift of song 
 and the management of war and victory, on whom at the same 
 time depends the fertility of the soil, nay wishing, and all highest 
 gifts and blessings, Ssem. 113^■^ 
 
 & 
 
 To the heathen fancy Wuotan is not only the world-ruling, wise, 
 ingenious god, he is above all the arranger of wars and battles.^ 
 Adam of Bremen cap. 233, ed. 1595 says of the Norse god : Wodan, 
 id est fortior, beUa gerit, hominique ministrat virtutem contra 
 inimicos . . . Wodanem sculpunt (Sveones) armatum, sicut nostri 
 Martem sculpere solent. To the fortior, fortis, would answer his 
 ON. name of Sviffr, i.e. the strong, masterful, swift (OS. suith) : but 
 fortior is, no doubt, a false reading, all the MSS. (conf. Pertz 3, 379) 
 read 'Wodan, id est furor,' which agrees with the conclusion arrived 
 at above. To him, says the Edda, belong aU the nobles who fall in 
 battle (Sam. 77''). and to Thor the common folk, but this seems 
 added merely to depreciate the latter ; in another passage (Saem. 
 42''), Freya shares the fallen with OSinn ; he is named valfadir and 
 herfa&ir (val, choice ; her, host). O&inn vildi J'iggja mann at hlut- 
 faUi at hanga or herinom, Fornald. sog. 3, 31. Eidem prostratorum 
 manes muneris loco dedicaturum se poUicetur (Haraldus), Saxo p. 
 146. Othinus armipotens, p. 37, auctor aciei corniculatae, ordinandi 
 agminis disciplinae traditor et repertor, pp. 138-9, 146. When old, 
 he teaches arraying of battle, p. 17, the hamalt at fylkja, svinfylkja, 
 Fornald. sog. 1, 380 ; he teaches how to bring down with pebbles 
 those whom sword wUl not wound, ibid. p. 157 (see Suppl.). 
 
 We need not be surprised then to find him confounded with 
 Ziu or Tyr, the special god of war, or Mercurius coupled with Mars 
 (pp. 107, 111), or a gloss on Jonas of Bobbio, who had rightly 
 identified him with Mercury (p. 121), correcting him thus : Qui 
 apud eos (Alamannos) Vioofani (part. pres. of wuotan) vocatur, 
 Latini autem Martem iUum appellant. Are Adam's words also, 
 ' sicut nostri Martem sculpere solent,' to be so taken that nostri 
 
 1 Got waldes an der sige lair ! Wh. 425, 24. sigehafte hende fiiege in got ! 
 Dietr. 84^ OSinn, when he sent the people forth to war, laid his hands on their 
 heads and blessed, ace. to Yngl. cap. 2, gaf Tpeun. bianac ; Ir. beannact, bean- 
 nugad, beandacht, Gael, beannachd, Wei. bianoch (Villemarque, essai LIX) = 
 benedictio, prob. all from the Lat. word ? conf. Fr. benir, Ir. beannaigim. 
 
134 WODAil. 
 
 should mean Saxones ? He, it is true, may have meant those 
 acquainted with Eoman mythology. 
 
 Especially does the remarkable legend preserved by Paulus 
 Diaconus 1, 8 show that it is Wodan who dispenses victory, to whom 
 therefore, above aU other gods, that antique name sihora (p. 27) 
 rightfully belongs, as well as in the Eddas the epithets Sigt^r (god 
 of victory), Saem. 248% Sn. 94, Sigfo&r (father of victory), Seem. 68»; 
 AS. vigsigor (victor in battle), Beow. 3107, sigmetod (creator of 
 victory), Beow. 3554 (see Suppl.) : — Eefert hoc loco antiquitas ridi- 
 culam fabulam, quod accedentes WandaH ad Wodan, victoriam de 
 Winilis postulaverint, Uleque respondent, se illis victoriam daturum, 
 quos primum oriente sole conspexisset. Tunc accessisse Gambaram 
 ad Fream, uxorem Wodan, et "Winilis vidwiam postulasse, Fream- 
 que consUium dedisse, Winilorum mulieres solutos crines erga 
 faciem ad barbae simihtudinem componerent maneqne primo cum 
 Yiris adessent, seseque a Wodan videndas pariter e regione, qua 
 Ole per fenestram orientem versus erat solitus adspicere, colloca- 
 rent ; atque ita factum fuisse. Quas cum Wodan conspiceret oriente 
 sole, dixisse : qui sunt isti Langobardi ? tunc Fream subjunxisse, 
 ut quibus nomen tribuerat, victoriam condonaret, sicque W inilis 
 Wodan victoriam concessisse. Here deacon Paul, as a good chris- 
 tian, drops the remark : Haec risu digna sunt, et pro mhilo habenda : 
 victoria enim non potestati est adtributa hominum, sed e coelo 
 potius ministratur ; and then adds a more exact interpretation of 
 the name Longobard : Certum tamen est Longobardos ab intactae 
 ferro barbae longitudine, cum primitus WioUi dicti fuerint, ita, 
 postmodum appellatos. Nam juxta iUorum linguam lang longam, 
 bart barbam significat. Wodan sane, quern adjecta litera Gwodan 
 dixerunt, et ab universis Germaniae gentihis ut deus adoratur, qui 
 non circa haec tempora, sed longe anterius, nee in Germania, sed in 
 Graecia fuisse perhibetur.^ 
 
 The whole fable bears the stamp of high antiquity ; it has even 
 been related by others before Paid, and with variations, as in the 
 Hist. Prancor. epitomata, which has for its author, though not Tre- 
 degar, yet some writer of the seventh century. Here Chimi 
 
 1 Godfrey of Viterbo (in PistoriTis, ed. Struve 2, 305) has the legend out of 
 Paul Diac. with the names corrupted, Godam for Wodan, Fena for Frea. 
 Godam or Votam sets him thinking of the Germ, -vrord got (dens). The 
 unheard-of ' Toclacvs historiographus ' has evidently sprung out of ' hoc loco ' 
 in Paul. 
 
WODAN. 135 
 
 (Huns) are named instead of Vandals : — Cum a Chunis (Lango- 
 bardi) Danubium transeuntes fuissent comperti, eis bellum conati 
 sunt inferre. Interrogati a Chunis, quare gens eorum terminos 
 introire praesumeret ? At illi mulieribus suis praecipiunt, comam 
 capitis ad maxillas et mentum ligare, quo potius virorum habitum 
 simulantes plurimam multitudinem hostium ostenderent, eo quod 
 erant mulierum comae circa maxUlas et mentum ad instar barbae 
 valde longae : fertur desuper utraeque phalangae vox dixisse : ' hi 
 sunt Langobardi ! ' quod ab his gentibus fertur eorum de/wm, fuisse 
 locutum, quem fanatici nominant Wodanum (al. Wisodano, a mere 
 copyist's or reader's error for Wuodanp). Tunc Langobardi cum cla- 
 massent, qui instituerat nomen, concederet mdoriam, in hoc praelio 
 Chuuos superant. (Bouquet 2, 406 ; according to Pertz, all the MSS. 
 read Wodano.) In this account, Frea and her advice are nowhere ; 
 the voice of the god, giving the name, is heard up in the air. 
 
 It was the custom for any one who bestowed a name, to follow 
 it up with a gift.^ Wodan felt himself bound to confer the victory 
 on those for whom he had found a new national name. In this 
 consisted the favour of fortune, for the people, in dressing up their 
 wives as men, had thought of nothing but swelling the apparent 
 numbers of their warriors. I need scarcely remind the reader, that 
 this mythical interpretation of the Lombard name is a false one, 
 for all the credit it found in the Mid. Ages.^ 
 
 There is one more feature in the legend that must not escape 
 our notice. Wodan from his heavenly dwelling looks down on the 
 earth through a window, which exactly agrees with ON. descrip- 
 tions. OSinn has a throne named Hli&shialf, sitting on which he 
 can survey the whole world, and hear all that goes on among 
 men : ]jar er einn staSr er HliSscialf heitir, oc }?aer OSinn settiz 
 }>ar i h§,s8eti, oc ]>k sd hann of alia heima, oe vissi aUa luti, 
 ])t, er hann sk (there is a stead that H. hight, and when 0. 
 sat there on high-seat, then saw he over all countries, and 
 wist, &c.), Sn. 10. oc ]>t er AUfotJr sitr 1 ]jv1 steti, )p8, ser hann oj 
 allan heim, Sn. 21. hlustar (listens) OSinn HliSscialfo i. Seem. 89''. 
 
 ' Lata fylgja nafni, Ssem. 142". ISO". Fomm. sog. 3, 182. 203. gefa at 
 nafnfesti (name-feast), Sn. 151. Fomm. sog. 2, 51. 3, 133. 203. Islend. sog. 
 2, 143. 194, VocaDuli largitionem muneiis additione commendare, Saxo 
 Gram, 71. 
 
 " Longobardi a longis barbis vocitati, Otto fris. de gest. Frid. 2, 13. But 
 OSinn himself was named LAngbartSr. 
 
136 WODAN. 
 
 When Loki wanted to hide, it was from this seat that OSinn espied 
 his whereabouts, Sn. 69. Sometimes also Frigg, his consort, is 
 imagined sitting by his side, and then she enjoys the same prospect : 
 OSian ok Frigg sdto 1 HlitJscialfo, ok s& um heima alia, Saem. 39. 
 The proem to the Grimnismal bears a strong resemblance to the 
 legend in Paid ; for, just as Frea pulls her favourites the Wimh 
 through, in opposition to Wodan's own resolve, so Frigg brings to 
 grief GeirroSr, whom OSinn favoured. — Sensuous paganism, how- 
 ever, makes the god-hke attribute of overseeing all things depend 
 on the position or structure of a particular chair, and as the 
 gift forsakes the god when he does not occupy the seat, others can 
 enjoy the privilege by taking his place. This was the case when 
 Freyr spied the beautiful GerSr away down in lotunheim ; Freyr 
 Jia/di setsc 1 HliSskialf, oc sd um heima alia, Saem. 81. Sn. 39. The 
 word hlidscialf seems to mean literally door-bench, from hhS 
 (ostium, conf. Engl, lid), and sHaK (scamnum), AS. scylfe, Csedm. 
 79, 4. EngL shelf (see SuppL). Mark the language in which the 
 OS. poet describes the Ascension of Christ: sohtaimo theruiMlagon 
 sfSl, sitit imo thar an thea suldron (right) half Godes, endi thanan 
 all gisihit (seeth) waldandeo Crist, s6 huat so (whatso) thius werold 
 behabgt, HeL 176, 4—7, conf. Csedm. 265, 16. 
 
 This idea of a seat in the sky, from which God looks on the 
 earth, is not yet extinct among our people. The sitting on the 
 right hand is in the Bible, but not the looking down. The 
 formulas 'qui haut siet et de loing mire, qui haut siet et 
 loins voit' (supra, p. 23) are not cases in poiut, for men 
 everywhere have thought of the Deity as throned on high and 
 seeing far around. Zeus also sits on Ida, and looks on at mortal 
 men ; he rules from Ida's top, "ISyjdev fj,eSea>v, even as Helios, the 
 eye of the sun, surveys and discerns all things, II. 3, 277. But a 
 widely-circulated marchen teUs us of a mortal man, whom St. Peter 
 admitted into heaven, and who, led on by curiosity, ended by 
 climbing into the chair of the Lord, from which one can look down 
 and see all that is done on the whole earth. He sees a washerwoman 
 steal two lady's veils, and in his anger seizes the footstool of the 
 Lord, which stands before the chair (al. a chair's leg), and hurls it 
 down at the thief.^ To such lengths has the ancient fable travelled. 
 
 ' Kindennarclien no. 35. First in Bebel, ed. 1, Tub. 1506, p. 6. Prev's 
 gartengesellschaft cap. 109, ed. 1556 p. 106, ed. 1590 p. 85. RoUwagenbiichlein 
 1590, pp. 98-9 (here a golden settle). Moserd vermischte sohiiften 1, 332. 2, 
 
WODAN. 137 
 
 Can it be alluded to in the MHG-. poem, Amgb. 3* ? 
 
 Der nt den himel hat erkorn, 
 
 der geiselt uns bl unser habe ; 
 
 ich viirhte s§re, nnt wirt im zorn, 
 
 den slegel wirft er uns her abe.^ 
 In a Servian song (Vuk 4, 9) the angels descend to earth out of 
 God's window (od Bozhieg prozdra ; pro-zor (out-look, hence window) 
 reminds one of zora (dawn), prozorie (morning twilight), and of 
 Wodan at early mom looking toward the sunrise. The dawn is, so 
 to speak, the opening in heaven, through which God looks into the 
 world. 
 
 Also, what Paulus Diac. 1, 20 tells of the anger of the Loi'd 
 (supra, p. 18), whereby the Herulian warriors were smitten before 
 their enemies, I am inclined to trace up to "Wuotan : Tanta super eos 
 coelitus ira respexit ; and again : Vae tibi, misera Herulia, quae 
 codestis Domini flecteris ira! Conf. Egilssaga p. 365: reidr s§ 
 rogn ok OSinn ! wrathful see the gods and 0.; and Fornald. sog. 1, 
 501 : gramr er ySr OSinn, angry is 0. with you. 
 
 Victory was in the eyes of our forefathers the first and highest 
 of gifts, but they regarded Wuotan not merely as dispenser of 
 victory ; I have to show next, that in the widest sense he repre- 
 sented to them the god to whose bounty man has to look for every 
 other distinction, who has the giving of all superior blessings ; and 
 in this sense also Hermes (Mercury) was to the Greeks pre- 
 eminently ScoTcop ideov, giver of good things, and I have ventured 
 to guess that the name Gibika, Kijpicho originally signified the 
 same to us^. 
 
 235. ed. 1842, 4, 5, 39. H. Sacts (1563) v. 381. According to Greek and 0. 
 Norse notions, the gods laave a throne or dtair : tha gengengo regin 611 a lokstola 
 ginheUog go5, Sasm. V'. Compare in the Bible : heaven is God's throne, the 
 earth his footstool, Matt. 5, 34-5 ; and Hel. 45, 11. 12 (see Suppl.). 
 
 1 Also MS. 2, 254'' : ze hiis wirf ich den slegel dir. MS. 2, &> : mit 
 einem slegel er zuo dem kinde warf. This cudgel-throwing resembles, 
 what meant so much to our ancestors, the hammer's throw, and the 
 OHG. slaga is malleus, sfe(?^e-hammer (Graff 6, 773). The cudgel thrown 
 from heaven can hardly be other than a thunderbolt ; and the obscure 
 
 froverb, ' swer irre rite daz der den slegel fiinde,' whoso astray should ride, that 
 e the s. might find, Parz. 180, 10, may refer to a thunder-stone (see ch. VIII, 
 Donar) which points to hidden treasure and brings deliverance, and which only 
 those can light upon, who have accidentally lost their way in a wood ; for 
 which reason Wolfram calls trunks of trees, from under which peeps out the 
 stone of luck, ' slegels urkiinde und zil,' slegel's document and mark (aim). 
 '^ Haupts zeitschr. 1, 573. Lasicz. 47 names a Datanus donator bonorum. 
 
133: WODAN. 
 
 The sum total of well-being and blessedness, the fulness of all 
 graces, seems in our ancient language to have been expressed by a 
 single word, whose meaning has since been narrowed down ; it was 
 named wunsch (wish). This word is probably derived from wunja, 
 wunnja, our wonne, bliss ; wunisc, wunsc, perfection in whatever 
 kind, what we should call the Ideal Thus, Er. 1699 ' der wunsch 
 was an ir garwe,' wish was in her complete ; Iw. 3991 ' daz mir des 
 wunsches niht gebrast,' nought of wish was wanting ; Iw. 6468 
 ' der rat, des der wunsch an wibe gert,' such store as wish can 
 crave in wife ; Gerh. 1754 ' an der got wunsches niht vergaz,' in 
 whom God nought of wish forgot (left out) ; Parz. 742, 15 ' der 
 wunsch wirt in beiden ' ; Trist. 3710 ' dir ist der wunsch gegeben'; 
 Frauend. 87 ' der wunsch von edlem obze,' the pick of noble fruit ; 
 Parz. 250, 25 ' erden wunsches rlche,' rich in all gifts of the earth ; 
 235, 24, ' erden wunsches iiberwal '; Trist, 4696, 4746 ' der wunsch 
 von worten, von bluomen ' ; Trist. 1374 ' in dem wunsche sweben,' 
 i.e., in perfect satisfaction. And the magic wand, by whose impact 
 treasures are acquired, was a vmnschiligerta, wishing-rod ; conf. 
 Parz. 235, 22 ' wurzel unde ris des wunsches,' root and spray of 
 wish. The (secondary) meaning of "^ desiring and longing for' 
 these perfections would seem to have but accidentally attached 
 itself to the wunsc, ON. 6sk (see Suppl.). 
 
 Among other Eddie names of OSinn, appears Osci, Ssem. 46''. 
 Sn. 3, 24, i.e. he who makes men partakers of wunsch, of the 
 highest gift. Osk, gen. Oskar, a woman's name, Fornm. sog. 1, 246. 
 Eyrbyggja saga cap. 7. Laxd. p. 12. 
 
 Another thing seems to me to be connected with this, and there- 
 fore to be a relic of the heathen religion : the fact that our poets of 
 the 13th century personify wunsch, and represent it as a mighty 
 creative being. Instances in proof of this are found chiefly in 
 Hartmann, Eudolf and Conrad : 
 
 Got erloubte dem Wumche iiber About him,. God gave to Wish 
 
 in, full leave, 
 
 daz er lib unde sin that he body and mind 
 
 meistert nach sim werde. fashioned according to his worth, 
 
 swi von ouch M der erde Of whatsoever upon earth, 
 
 deheinem man ze loben geschiht, to any man, praiseworthy falls, 
 
 desn gebrast im niht ; thereof lacked him nought ; 
 
 der Wimsch het in gemeistert so Wish had him fashioned so, 
 
WODAN:. 
 
 139 
 
 daz er sin was ze kinde vrS, 
 wande er nihts an im vergaz : 
 er hetn geschaffet, kunder, baz. 
 
 Greg. 1091-1100. 
 
 man sagt daz rie kint gewan 
 ein lip so gar dem Wunsche gllch. 
 Ex. 330. 
 
 als6 was ez (daz phert) gestalt, 
 und ob er (der werltwlse man) 
 
 danne den gewalt 
 von dem Wunsche hcete, 
 daz ez belibe stsete 
 
 swes er darzuo gedsehte, 
 
 und swenne erz volbrsehte, 
 
 daz erz fiir sich stalte 
 
 und er von sinem gwalte 
 
 dar abe nseme 
 
 swaz daran im missezeeme, 
 
 als6 was ez volkomen 
 
 daz er dar abe niht hete geno- 
 
 men 
 alse groz als umb ein Mr. 
 
 Er. 7375-87. 
 
 that he was glad of him for child, 
 for he nought in him forgot : 
 he had him shapen, if he could, 
 better. 
 
 They say that never a child won 
 a body so wholly equal to Wish 
 (or, exactly Uke Wish). 
 
 So was it wrought (the horse), 
 that if he (the wright) had had 
 
 the command from Wish, 
 
 that (his work) should be left 
 
 unaltered, 
 whatever he attempted thereon, 
 and when he had completed it, 
 that he should set it before Him, 
 and He at his discretion 
 therefrom should take away 
 whatever therein misUked him, — 
 so perfect was it 
 that he therefrom nought would 
 
 have taken 
 so great as a hair. 
 
 als ez der Wunschgebot (bade). Er. 8213. 
 
 was eia wunschkint (was a child of wish). Ex. 8277. 
 
 Enite was des Wunsches kint, 
 
 der an ir mhtes vergaz. Er. 8934. 
 
 d& was ir har und ir Hch (lyke, lych, body) 
 
 so gar dem Wunsehe gellch (Uke). Iw. 1333. 
 
 diz was an ir (zuht, schcene, jugent) und gar der rat (all the store) 
 
 des der Wunsch (or wunsch ?) an wibe gert (desires.) Iw. 6468. 
 
 wande sie nie gesahen (for they never had seen) 
 
 zwgne riter gestalt (two knights fashioned) 
 
 s6 gar in Wunsches gewalt 
 
 an dem Ube und an den siten (manners). Iw. 6913. 
 
 der Wunsch vlmchet (curses) im s6. Iw. 7066. 
 
140 WODAN, 
 
 mir Mt der Wunscli gevluochet. Hartm. biichl. 2, 113. 
 
 er was schoBne und wol gevar (for gefarwet, coloured), 
 
 rehte, als in der Wunsch erkds (chose). Gerh. 771. 
 
 mln herze in (ihnen, to them) des begunde jehen (acknowledge), 
 
 in wsere des Wunschesfiiz (zeal, care) bereit. Gerh. 1599. 
 
 an der der Wunsch mit kiusche bar 
 
 sine sueze lehende fruht. Gerh. 1660. 
 
 daz ich ir schoene kroene 
 
 ob alien frouwen schone 
 
 mit des Wunsches krSne. Gerh. 1668. ' 
 
 ein regen liz dem wolken vloz 
 
 der M des Wtmsches ouwe goz 
 
 so heizen regen (?). Gerh. 2307. 
 
 an lobe (praise) des Wunsches krdne. Gerh. 2526. 
 
 swes ich begunde daz geschach (was accomplished), 
 
 der Wunsch ie minen werken jach (ever to my works said yea) 
 
 des wunsches als ich wolte 
 
 und als ich wunsch en solte. Gerh. 2945. 
 
 nach des Wunsches l^re (lore). Gerh. 4500. 
 
 der Wunsch mit siner hende 
 
 vor wandel (change, fault) hete si getwagen (cleansed). Troj. 1212. 
 
 der Wunsch hat kne lougen (without lying, undeniably) 
 
 erzeiget an ir sine kraft, 
 
 und slner kiinste meisterschaft 
 
 mit vlize an ir bewert (carefuUy evinced in her). Troj. 7569. 
 
 der Wunsch h§,t in gemachet wandels vrl (free of fault). Troj. 3154. 
 
 der Wunsch der hete an si geleit (gelegt, laid out, spent) 
 
 mg flizes denne M eUiu wip (more pains than on any woman). 
 
 Troj. 19620, 
 s8 daz er niemer wibes leben 
 fiir sie geschepfen wolde baz (better) ; 
 d6 sin gewalt ir bilde maz (measured), 
 do leit (legte) er an sie manec model. Troj. 19627 
 und hsete sin der Wunsch gesworn, 
 er wolde bilden ein schoener wip, 
 und schepfcn als6 klaren Up 
 als HSlen^ min frouwe treit (tragt, bears) 
 er miieste brechen slnen eit (eid, oath) 
 wan er kunde niemer (for he could never), 
 
"WODAN. 141 
 
 und solte hilden lemer (were he to shape for ever), 
 
 gcschepfen wiinnecllcher fruht. Troj. 19526-32. 
 
 ez hat ze slnem telle der Wunsch vergezzen nieader. Engelh. 579. 
 
 daz haete an si der Wunsch geleit. Engelh. 4703. 
 
 der Wumch der hete niht gespart 
 
 an ir die sine meisterschaft, 
 
 er hete sine beste kraft 
 
 mlt ganzemj^^s an sie geleit. Der werlde Ion. 84 
 
 Other poets personify too (not, however. Wolfram nor Gotfried): 
 der zweier kurt^sle 
 sich ze dem Wunsche het geweten, 
 si ware niender 'uz getreten. Wigal. 9246. 
 an ir schcene was wol schln, 
 daz ir der Wunsch gedahte. Wigal. 9281. 
 der Wunsch het sich geneiget in ir gewalt. ibid. 904. 
 in was der Wunsch bereit. ib. 10592. 
 des Wimsches amie. ib. 7906. 8735. 
 wen mohte d§, erlangen, 
 Ah der Wunsch inne was. ib. 10612. 
 der Wunsch het si gemachet so, 
 und ist ir ze kinds vr6. Amur 1338. (Pf. 1343). 
 des Wunsches ougenweide (food for the eye) 
 sit ir und miner saelden spil (are ye, and the play of my delight). 
 
 Wigal. 8760. Amur 1068. (Pf. 1072). 
 si schepfet uz des Wunsches heilawdge (holy water). Martina, 259. 
 ,(diu hant) ist im groz, lane unde wiz, 
 zuo der het sich der Wunsch gesellct. Turl. Wh. 38\ 
 hie stuont (here stood) der Wunsch. ib. 137''. 
 dar an lit (therein lieth) wol des Wunsches vUz. Tyrol E, 3. 
 si ist des Wunsches hostez zil (highest mark or aim). Ms. 1, 84^ 
 sie ist der Wunsch <if erde. Ms. 2, 100''. 
 
 sie ist des Wunsches ingesinde (one of W.'s household). Ms. 1, 6\ 
 von ir scheitel ^f ir z6hen (from her crown to her toes) 
 so ist niht an minnecllchen widen wan (save, but) des Wunsches 
 
 Ilia. MsH. 3, 493^ 
 des Wunsches bliiete sint entsprungen in mine herzen. Eragm. 45''. 
 si trage des Wunsches Hide. Ms. 1, 191^ 
 des Wunsches krSne tragen. Docen misc. 2, 186. 
 
142 WODAN. 
 
 sie h§,t des Wunsches gewalt. Amgb. 31^ 
 er was so gar des Wunsches hint, 
 
 daz alle man gein (against, before) siner schoene w^ren blint, 
 und doch menlich gestalt bi clarem velle (complexion) ; 
 der Wuv^ch im niht gebrechen liez (let nought be lacking) 
 d^ von man 's Wunsches kint den stolzen hiez (should call the 
 stately one). Lohengr. ed. Eiickert str. 625. 
 
 The following is outside the bounds of MHG. : 
 an yr yst Wensches vlyt geleit. Haupts zeitschr. 3, 221. 
 Mid. Dutch poems have no personification Wensch ; nor is there a 
 Wunsch in the Nibelungen or Gudrun ; but in Wolfdietrich 970 : 
 des Wunsches ein amie! There must be many more instances; 
 but the earliest one I know of is found in the Entelmst from the 
 12th century (Hoffm. fundgr. 2, 107) : 
 
 mit Wunschis gewalte With Wish's might 
 
 segniti sie der alte. The old man blessed her. 
 
 We see Wish provided with hands, power, looks, dihgence, art, 
 blossom, fruit ; he creates, shapes, produces master-pieces, thinks, 
 bows, swears, curses, is glad and angry, adopts as child, handmaid, 
 friend: all such pretty- well stock phrases would scarcely' have 
 sprung up and lived in a poetry, ia a language, if they did not 
 unconsciously relate to a higher being, of whom earlier times had a 
 livelier image; on such a basis indeed nearly all the personifications 
 made use of by MHG. poets seem to me to rest. In the majority 
 of our examples we might fairly put the name of God in the place 
 of Wish, or that of Wish in the phrases quoted on pp. 17-8, which 
 describe the joyous or the angry God: freudenVoU hat sie Got 
 gegozzen, MS. 1, 226'' ; der Wtin^ch maz ir bilde, as mezzen is said 
 of God, p. 23; and gebieten, to command, is just as technically 
 applied to the one as to the other, p. 24. The 'gramr er ySr OSian,' 
 p. 137, might be rendered in MHG. 'der Wunsch ziirnet iu, fluochet 
 iu,' meaning, the world is sick of you. At times the poet seems to 
 be in doubt, whether to say God or Wish: in the first passage from 
 Gregor, Wish is subordinated, as a being of the second rank, so to 
 speak, as a servant or messenger, to the superior god; the latter has 
 to give him leave to assume his creative function, which in other 
 cases he does of his own might. Again, when body, figure, hair are 
 said to be 'like Wish,' it exactly reminds us of Homer's ko/mm 
 
"WODAN. 143 
 
 Xapkea<7iv ofioiai, II. 17, 51; and Xdpi,Te^, the Gratiae, creatresses 
 of grace and beauty, play precisely the part of our Wish, even 
 down to the circumstance, that in addition to the personal meaning, 
 there is an abstract %a/3(9, gratia, as there is a wish.^ Piiterich of 
 Eeicherzhausen (Haupts zeitschr. 6, 48) speaks of ' die wuntsches 
 fiiesse ' of a princess ; the older phrase would have been ' ir flieze 
 w^ren dem Wunsche gelich'. It is a genuine bit of German 
 . heathenism to make this creative faculty reside in a god, and not, 
 after the Greek fashion, in a female personage. And there are other 
 features too, that point back to our native heathen eld. Wish's 
 aue and heilwac can be matched by Phol's ouwa and brunno, or the 
 meads and holywells of other gods ; Wish's crown by that worn by 
 gods and kings. And, most remarkable of all, Wish rejoices in his 
 creature as in a child ; here Woden's self comes upon the scene as 
 patriarch or paterfamUias, before whom created men make their 
 appearance like children, friends, domestics ; and ' wunschkint ' is 
 also used in the sense of an adopted, i.e. wished for, chUd.^ Her- 
 bert 13330 makes Hecuba exclaim : ich han einen sun verlorn, er 
 gezaeme gote ze kinde (would smt God as a child) ; which does not 
 mean in a christian sense, ' God has doubtless been pleased to take 
 him to Himself,' but in a heathen sense, ' he was so lovely, he 
 might be called Wish's child '. Por the Norse OSinn too has these 
 marvellous children and wish-maidens in his train (see Suppl.)^ 
 
 To the ON. Oski ought by rights to correspond an OHG. Wunsco, 
 Wunscjo, (weak decl.), which I am not able to produce even as a 
 man's name (see Suppl.).* A MHGr. Wunsche cannot be proved 
 
 1 In many places it is doubtful, whether the poet meant wish or Wish. In' 
 Wolfram and Grotfried, who abstain from distinct peraonification, I always 
 prefer the abstract interpretation, while Hartmann admits of both by turns. 
 When we read in Parz. 102, 30 : si was gar ob dem wunsches zil (over wish's 
 goal, beyond all that one could wish), the phrase borders close upon the above- 
 q^uoted, ' si ist des Wunsches hostez zil (the highest that Wish ever created) ' ; 
 and it is but a step from ' mines wunsches paradls,' MS. 2, 126% to ' des 
 Wunsches paradis ' or ' ouwe '. So, ' da ist wunsch, und niender breste (here is 
 one's wish, and nothing wanting),' MS. 1, 88" = ' der Wunsch liez im niht 
 gebrechen,' W. left him nothing lacking (see Suppl.). 
 
 ' The Germ, an-wiinschen verbally translates the Lat. ad-opto. — Trans. 
 
 ' That Wish was personified, and very boldly, by the christian poets, is 
 abundantly proved. "That he was ever believed in as a person, even in heathen 
 times, is, to my thinking, far from clear. I believe some German scholars 
 regard the notion as Kttle better than a mare's nest. — Trans. 
 
 * The name does occur later : Johannes dictus de ( = der) Wunsch, Ch. 
 'anu. 1324 (Neue mitth. des thiir. vereins I. 4,65). In the Oberhess. wochen- 
 Matt, Marburg 1830, p. 420, I read of a Joh. Wunsch who is probably alive at 
 this moment. 
 
144 -WODAN. 
 
 from Troj. 3154. 7569. 19620. 19726 (Straszb. MS.), both the metre 
 and the strong gen. in -es forbidding. But the whole idea may in 
 the earliest times have taken far stronger root in South Germany 
 than in Scandinavia, since the Edda tells next to nothing of OsM, 
 while our poetry as late as the 1 5th century has so much to say of 
 Wunsch. That it was not foreign to the North either, is plainly 
 proved by the Oskmeyjar = Wunschelfrauen, wish-women; by the 
 Oskasteinn, a philosopher's stone connected with our Wiinsehelrute, 
 wishing-rod, and Mercury's staff; by Oskahyrr, MHGr. Wmisehmnt, 
 fair wind ; by Oshabiorn, wish-bear, a sea-monster ; all of which 
 wUl be discussed more fully by and by. A fern, proper name Osh 
 occurs in a few places ; what if the unaccountable Oskopnir, Ssem. 
 188% were really to be explained as Osk-opnir ? Opnir, Ofnir, we 
 know, are epithets of OSinn. Both word and meaning seem to grow 
 in relevancy to our mythology , it is a stumbling-block indeed, that 
 the AS. remains furnish no contribution, even the simple wfisc 
 (optio, votum) seeming to be rare, and only wyscan (optare) in 
 common use ; yet among the mythic heroes of Deira we meet with 
 a W'&scfred, lord of Wish as it were ; and to the Anglo-Saxons too 
 this being may have merely become extinct, though previously well 
 known (see SuppL). 
 
 But to make up for it, their oldest poetry is still dimly conscious 
 of another name of Wuotan, which again the Edda only mentions 
 cursorily, though in Ssem. 46^" it speaks of Oski and Omi in a 
 breath, and in Ql*" uses Omi once more for OSinn. Now this Omi 
 stands related to &mr, sonus, fragor, as the AS. w6ma to worn, 
 clamor, sonitus ; I have quoted instances in Andr. and El. pp. xxx, 
 xxxi, to which may now be added from the Cod. exon. : heofonwoma 
 52, 18. 62, 10; da3gredw6ma 179, 24; hildewoma 250, 32. 282, 15; 
 wiges woma 277, 5 ; wintres woma 292, 22 : in this last, the mean- 
 ing of hiemis impetus, fragor, furor, is self-evident, and we see 
 ourselves led up to the thought which antiquity connected with 
 Wuotan himself : out of this living god were evolved the abstrac- 
 tions wuot (furor), wunsch (ideal), woma (impetus, fragor). The 
 gracious and grace-bestowing god was at other times called the 
 stormful, the terror-striking, who sends a thriU through nature; 
 even so the ON. has both an Yggr standing for OSinn, and an yggr 
 for terror. The AS. wdma is no longer found as Wdma ; in OHG. 
 wuomo and Wuomo are alike unknown. Thorpe renders the 
 
WODAN. 145 
 
 ' heofonwoman ' above in a local sense by 'heaven's corners,' I doubt 
 if correctly ; in both the passages coeli fragores are meant. "We 
 may however imagine Omi, Wdma as an air-god, like the Hindu 
 Indras, whose rush is heard in the sky at break of day, in the din 
 of battle, and the tramp of the ' furious host ' (see SuppL). 
 
 Precisely as the souls of slain warriors arrive at Indra's heaven,^ 
 the victory-dispensing god of our ancestors takes up the heroes 
 that fall in fight, into his fellowship, into his army, into his 
 heavenly dwelling. Probably it has been the belief of aU good 
 men, that after death they would be admitted to a closer com- 
 munion with deity. Dying is therefore, even according to the 
 christian view, called going to Ood, turning home to God : in AS. 
 metodsceaft seen, Beow. 2360. Csedm. 104,31. Or seeking, visiting 
 God : OS. god suoJdan, Hel. 174,26 ; fadar suohion, HeL 143, 23 ; 
 v/p6dasMm, lioht Sdar, sinllf, godes riki suokian, Hel. 85, 21. 17, 17. 
 63, 14. 137, 16. 176, 5. In a like sense the Thracians, ace. to 
 Herodotus 4, 94, said levat irapa Zak^o^iv (Te^eXei^iv) Baifiova, 
 which Zalmoxis or Zamolxes is held by Jornandes to be a deified 
 king of the Goths (Getae). In the North, faring to Offinn, being 
 guest with O&inn, visiting O&inn, meant simply to die, Fornald. 
 sog. 1, 118. 422-3. 2, 366. and was synonymous with faring to 
 Valholl, being guest at Valholl,. ib. 1, 106. Among the christians, 
 these were turned into curses : far JjH til Odins ! O&ins eigi pik ! 
 may OSin's have thee (see SuppL). Here is shown the inversion 
 of the kindly being, with whom one fain would dwell, into an 
 evil one,^ whose abode inspires fear and dread. Further on, we shall 
 exhibit more in detail the way in which Wuotan was pictured 
 driving through the air at the head of the ' furious (wiitende) host ' 
 named after him. Valholl (aula optionis) and Valkyrja obviously 
 express the notion of wish and choice (Germ, wahl, Scotch wale). 
 
 Of the peculiarities of figure and outward appearance of this 
 god, which are brought out in such bold relief in the northern 
 
 1 Bopp's Nalas, p. 264. 
 
 " So Wuotan's name of itself degenerates into the sense of fury (wut) and 
 anger ; the Edda has instances of it. In revenge he pricked BrynhUd with 
 the sleeping-thorn, Saem, 194", and she says : OSinn J^vi veldr, er ek eigi 
 mattak bregSa blunnstofom. He breeds enmity and strife : einn veldr OSinn 
 oUu bolvi, pviat meS sifjungom sakrftnar bar, Sasm. IBS'", inimicitias Othinus 
 eerit, Saxo gram. p. 142, as christians say of the devil, that he sows the seeds 
 of discord, gremi OSins, Saem. ISl" (see SuppL). 
 
 10 
 
146 WODAN. 
 
 myths, I have found but few traces left among us in Germany. 
 The Norse OSinn is one-eyed, he wears a iroad hat and wide mantle: 
 Grimnir i feldi Udm, blue cloak, Ssem. 40. 1 heklu gromni ok 
 hldm brdkum, green cloak and blue breeks, Fornald. sog. 1, 324. 
 heklumaffr, cloaked man, 1, 325. When he desired to drink of 
 Mlmi's fountain, he was obliged to leave one of his eyes in pawn, 
 Ssem. 4^ Sn. 15.^ In Saxo,p. 12, he &T^Tpea,TS as grandaevus, altera 
 orbits oculo ; p. 37, armipotens, uno semper contentus ocello ; p. 138, 
 senex orhus oculis, hispido amictu. So in the Sagas : kom J>ar maSr 
 gamall, miok orSspakr, einsynn ok aiigdapr, ok hafSi liatt siffan ; 
 there came an old man, very word- wise, one-eyed and sad-eyed, 
 and had a wide hat, Fornm. sog. 2, 138. hann hafir heklu flekkdita 
 yfir ser, sa maSr var berfoettr ok hafSi knytt linbrokum at beini, haim 
 var har miok (very high), ok eldiligr ok einsynn, Fornald. sog. 1, 120. 
 Jja kom maSr 1 bardagann meS stdan hatt ok heklu hld^ hann hafSi 
 eitt auga, ok geir (spear) 1 hendi, ib. 1, 145. Jjetta mun OSinn 
 gamli verit hafa, ok at visu var ma?5rinn einsynn, ib. 1, 95. si 
 hann mana mikinn me8 siSun hetti, ib. 5, 250. meS hetti HS.ngat^ss 
 ginga, cum cidari Odiniana incedere, Vigagl. saga, p. 168. Othinus, 
 OS pileo, ne cultu proderetur, obnubens, Saxo Gram. 44. An Eddie 
 song already names him Si&hottr, broad-hatted, Ssem. 46^ and one 
 saga merely Hottr, hatted, Fornald. sog. 2, 25-6; conf. Miillers 
 sagabibl. 3, 142. Were it not for the name given him in the 
 Grlmnismal, I should have supposed it was the intention of the 
 christians to degrade the old god by mean clothing, or else that, 
 wrapt in his mantle, he was trying to conceal himself from 
 christians. Have we a right here to bring in the pileati of 
 Jornandes ? A saga in Saxo, p. 12, tells prettily, how the blind old 
 god takes up a protdg^ in his eloak, and carries him through the air, 
 but Hading, peeping through a hole in the garment, observes that 
 the horse is stepping over the sea-waves. As for that heklumad'r 
 of the hat with its rim turned up, he is our Hakolberend at the 
 head of the wild host, who can at once be turned into a Gothic 
 
 ^ Conf. Tritas in the fountain, Knlin in Hofer 1, 290. Ace. to the 
 popular religion, you must not look into running water, because you look into 
 God's eye, Tower's Appenzel p. 369'' ; neither must you point at the stars with 
 your lingers, for fear of sticking them into the angels' eyes. 
 
 ^ There is a Swed. marchen of Greymantle (grakappan), Molbech 14, who, 
 like Mary in German tales, takes one itp to heaven and forbids the opening of a 
 lock, Kinderm. 3, 407. 
 
WODAN. 147 
 
 Mdhilabairands, now that hakuls for ^OJivt}'; is found in. 2 Tim. 
 iv. 13. — Swedish folk-tales picture Odin as bald-headed, Iduna 10, 
 231. In the ancient poetry he is HarlarSr, SiSgrani, Si&skeggr, 
 all in allusion to his thick growth of hair and beard. The name 
 Eedbeard I have elsewhere understood of Thor, but in Fornald. 
 sog. 2, 239 — 257 the Grani and Raicffgrani are expressly OSinn (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 The Norse myth arms OSinn with a wonderful spear (geir), 
 G-Angnir by name, Ssem. 196. Sn. 72 ; which I put on a par with 
 the lance or sword of Mars, not the staff of Mercury. Sigmund's 
 sword breaks, when he hacks at 05inn's spear. Vols, saga cap. 11. 
 He lends this spear to heroes to win victories with, Ssem. 165. A 
 remarkable passage in the Fornm. sog. 5, 250 says : seldi honum 
 reyrspidta (gave him the reeden spear) 1 hond, ok baS hann skiota 
 honum yfir US Styrbiarnar, ok ]jat skyldi hann maela : OSin §, ySr 
 aUa ! AU the enemies over whom the spear he shoots shall fly, are 
 doomed to death, and the shooter obtains the victory. So too the 
 Eyrbyggja saga p. 228 : Jj§, skaut Stein}j6rr spioti at fornom siff til 
 heUla ser yfir flock Snorra ; where, it is true, nothing is said of the 
 spear launched over the enemy being the god's. Ssem. 5% of OSinn 
 himself : fleigSi ok i folk um skaut (see Suppl.). 
 
 To the god of victory are attached two wolves and two ravens, 
 which, as combative courageous animals, foUow the fight, and 
 pouncQ upon the fallen corpses, Andr. and El. xxvi. xxvii. The 
 wolves are named Geri and Freki, Sn. 42 ; and so late as in Hans 
 Sachs (i. 5, 499), we read in a schwank, that the Lord God has chosen 
 wolves for his hounds, that they are his cattle. The two ravens are 
 Huginn and Muninn, from hugr (animus, cogitatio) and munr 
 (mens) ; they are not only brave, but cunning and wise, they sit on 
 the shoulders of OSinn, and whisper in his ear whatever they see 
 and hear, Saem. 42" 88^ Sn. 42. 56. 322. To the Greek Apollo too 
 the wolf and raven were sacred -^ his messenger the raven informed 
 him when Koronis was unfaithful, and Aristeas accompanied him 
 as a raven, Herod. 4, 15 ; a raven is perched aloft on the mantle of 
 Mithras the sun-god. The Gospels represent the Holy Ghost as a 
 
 ■■ In Marc. Cap. 1, 11, the words : ' augurales vero alites ante currmn 
 Delio constiterunt, are transl. by Notker 37 : to waren garo ze ApoUinis reito 
 sine wizegfogela, rabena nnde alUsze. To OSinn hawks are sometimes given 
 instead of ravens : OtSins havMar Ssem. 167*. 
 
148 WODAN. 
 
 dove descending upon Christ at his baptism, Lu. 3, 22, and resting 
 upon him, efieivev iir avrov, mansit super eum, John 1, 32 : 'in 
 Krist er sih gisidalta,' says 0. i. 25, 24 ; but Hel. 30, 1 of the 
 dove : sat im wppan iises drohtines ahslu (our Lord's shoulder). Is 
 this an echo of heathen thoughts ? None of the Fathers have this 
 circumstance, but in the Mid. Ages there is talk enough about 
 doves resting on shoulders ;^ and the dove, though frequently 
 contrasted with the raven (which, like the wolf, the christians 
 applied to the. Evil one), may nevertheless be put in the place of 
 it. Oswald's raven flies to his shoulder and arm, 749. 942. 
 Oswald talks to it, 95-6, and kneels before it, 854. Conf. Zingerle, 
 Oswalt p. 67 (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 Now under that figure of the bearded old man, Wuotan is 
 apparently to be regarded as a water-sprite or water-god, answering 
 well to the Latin name of Neptunus which some of the earher 
 writers put upon him (p. 122). In ON. he is HniJcar, Hnikuffr, 
 Nikarr, Nikuz, and the hesitation between the two forms which in 
 Sn. 3 are expressly made optional — ' Nikarr ed'a (or) Nikuz ' — ^may 
 arise from the diversity of old dialects. Nikarr corresponds to the 
 AS. Nicor, and Nikuz to OHG. Mchus ; the initial Hn seems to 
 be ON. alone. On these I shall have more to say, when treating 
 of water-sprites (see Suppl.) — Another epithet of OSinn is equally 
 
 1 Qregor. Nyssen. encom. Ephraemi relates,' that when Basil the Great was 
 preaching, Ephraem saw on his right shoulder a white dove, which put words of 
 wisdom in his mouth. Of Gregory the Great we read in Paul. Diac, vita p. 
 14, that when he was expounding the last vision of Ezekiel, a white dove sat 
 upon his head, and now and then put its beak in his mouth, at which times he, 
 the writer, got nothing for his styliis to put dowii ; conf. the narrative of a 
 poet of the 12th cent., Hoffm. fundgr. 2, 229 ; also Myst. 1. p. 226-7. Augus- 
 tine and Thomas Aquinas are portrayed with a white dove perched on tlmr 
 shoulders or hovering over their heads. A nursery-tale (Kindenn. no. 3.3) makes 
 two doves settle on the pope's shoulder, and tell him in his ear all that he has to 
 do. A white dove descends singing on the head of St. Devy, and instructs him, 
 Buhez santez Nonn. Paris 1837, p. 117. And on other occasions the dove flies 
 down to make known the will of heaven. No one will trace the story of 
 Wuotan's ravens to these doves, still the coincidence is striking (see Suppl.). 
 
 2 There are said to have been found lately, in Denmark and Swedeu, 
 representations of Odin, which, if some rather strange reports are well-founded, 
 ought to be made known without delay. A ploughman at Boeslund in Zealand 
 turned up two golden urns filled with ashes ; on the lids is carved Odin, 
 standing up, with two ravens on his shoulders, and the two wolves at his feet ; 
 Kunstbl. 1843, no. 19, p. 80''. Gold coins also were discovered near the 
 village of Gomminga in Oeland, one of which represents Odin with the ravens 
 on his shoulder ; the reverse has runes ; Kunstbl. 1844, no. 13, p. 62*. 
 
WODAN. 149 
 
 noticeable for its double form : Bifli&i eSa Biflindi, Sn. 3 ; Saem. 
 46'' has BiUindi. As bif (Germ, beben) signifies motus, aer, aqua, 
 the quaking element, and the AS. liSe is lenis, OHGr. lindi, ON. 
 linr (for linnr) ; an AS. BifliSe, BeofliSe, 0H&. Pepalindi, might be 
 suggested by the soft movement of the air, a very apt name for the 
 all-penetrating god ; but these forms, if they gave rise to the Norse 
 term, are no longer found in AS. or OHG. Wuotan's dominion 
 both over the air and over the water explains, how it is that he 
 walks on the waves, and comes rushing on the gale. — It is 0?5inn 
 that sends wind to the ships, Fornm. sog. 2, 16, hence a good sail- 
 ing wind is called Sskahjrr, Ssem. 165'', i.e.,Oskabyrr ; byrr is from 
 byrja, OHG. purran, to rise, be lifted up. It is in striking accord 
 with this, that the MHG. poets use wunschwint in the same sense ; 
 Hartmann says, Greg. 615 : 
 
 Do sande in (to them) der siieze Krist 
 den vil rehten wunschwint (see Suppl.) 
 
 But other attributes of Wuotan point more to Hermes and 
 Apollo. He resembles the latter, in as much as from him proceed 
 contagious diseases and their cure ; any severe illness is the stroke 
 of God, and Apollo's arrows scatter pestilence. The Gauls also 
 imagined that Apollo drove away diseases (ApoUinem morbos 
 depellere, Caes. B. G. 6, 17) ; and Wodan's magic alone can cure 
 Balder's lamed horse. The raven on the god's shoulder exactly fits 
 Apollo, and still more plaialy the circumstance that OSinn invented 
 the poetic art, and Saga is his divine daughter, just as the Greek 
 Muses, though daughters of Zeus, are under Apollo's protection, 
 and in his train. — On the other hand, writing and the alphabet 
 were not invented by ApoUo, but by Hermes. The Egyptian priests 
 placed Hermes at the head of all inventions (lamblich. de myst. 
 Aegypt. 8, 1), and Tlieufh or Thofh is said to have first discovered 
 letters (Plato's Phaedr. 1, 96, Bekker) , while, ace. to Hygin. fab. 
 143, Hermes learnt them by watching the flight of cranes. In the 
 AS. dialogue between Saturn and Solomon, we read (Thorpe's anal, 
 p. lOO) : ' saga me, hwa serQst bocstafas sette V ' ic the secge, 
 Mercurius se gygand'. Another dialogue, entitled Adrian and 
 Epictus (MS. Brit. mus. Arund. no. 351. fol. 39) asks : ' quis prinlus 
 fecit literas ? ' and answers ' Seith,' which is either a corruption of 
 Theuth, or the Seth of the Bible. Just so the Eddie Eftnatals )?attr 
 seems to ascribe the first teaching of runes to OSinn, if we may so 
 
150 WODAN. 
 
 interpret the words : nam ec upp riXnar, Saem. 28^ Jiser oMS, Jijer 
 Dfreist, ]jser ofhugSi Hroptr, i.e., them OSinn read out, cut out, 
 thought out, Ssem. IDS'". Also Snorri, YngL cap. 7 : allar Jjessar 
 idrottu" kendi hann me?5 rdnum ok lid&um: Hincmar of Eheims 
 attributes to Mercury the invention of dice-playing : sicut isti qui 
 de denariis quasi jocari dicuntur, quod omnino diabolicum est, et, 
 sicut legimus, primum dialohis hoc per Mercurium prodidit, unde 
 et Mercurius inventor illius dicitur, 1, 656. Conf. Schol. to Odyss. 
 23, 198, and MS. 2, 124" : der tiuvel schuof das wiirfelspil. Our 
 folk-tales know something about this, they always make the devU 
 play at cards, and entice others to play (see Suppl.).^ When to this 
 we add, that the wishing-rod, i.e., Wish's staff, recals Mercury's 
 caduceus, and the wish- wives, ^.e.,oskmeyjar, valkyrior, the occupa- 
 tion of the Psychopompos ; we may fairly recognise an echo of the 
 Gallic^ or Germanic Mercury in the epithet Trismegistos (Lactanfcius 
 i. 6, 3. vi. 25, 10. ter maximus Hermes in Ausonius), wliicli later 
 poets, Eomance and German, in the 12th and 13th centuries' 
 transferred to a Saracen deity Termagan,* Tervagan, TervigarU, 
 Terviant. Moreover, when Hermes and Mercury are described as 
 dator bonorum, and the Slavs again call the same god Dobro-pan 
 (p. 130, note), as if mercis domifnus ; it is worth noticing, that the 
 Misnere Amgb. 42% in enumerating all the planets, singles out 
 Mercury to invoke in the words : Nu hilf mir, daz mir sselde 
 wache! schin er mir ze gelticke, noch so kum ich wider M der 
 sselden phat (pfad). Just so I find Odin invoked in Swedish popu- 
 lar songs : Hielp nu, Oden Asagrim ! Svenska fornsangor 1, 11. 
 hielp mig Othin ! 1, 69. To this god first and foremost the people 
 turned when in distress ; I suppose he is called Asagrim, because 
 among the Ases he bore the name of Grlmnir ? 
 
 ^ Reiisch, sagen des preuss. Samlands, no. 11, 29. 
 
 ^ In the Old British mythology there appears a Gu-ydwn ab Don, G. son of 
 Don, whom Davies (Celtic researches pp. 168, 174. Brit. myth. p. 118, 204, 263-4, 
 353, 429, 504, 541) identifies with Hermes ; he invented writing, practised 
 magic, and built the rainbow ; the milky way was named caer Gwydion, G.'s 
 castle (Owen, sub v.). The British antiquaries say nothing of Woden, yet 
 Gwydion seems near of kin to the above Gwodan = Wodan. So the Irish 
 name for dies Mercurii, dia Geden, whether modelled on the Engl. Wednesday 
 or not, leads us to the form Goden, Gwoden (see Suppl.). 
 
 ^ Even nursery-tales of the present time speak of a groszmachtige Mercurius, 
 Kinderm. no. 99. 2, 86. 
 
 ■* This Termagan, Termagant occurs especially in 0. Engl, poems, and may 
 have to do with the Irish tormac augmentum, tormacaim augere. 
 
WODAN. 151 
 
 It is therefore not without significance, that also the wanderings 
 of the Herald of gods among men, in whose hovels he now and 
 then takes up his lodgiag, are parallelled especially by those of 
 OSinn and Hcenir, or, in christian guise, of God and St. Peter. 
 
 Our olden times tell of Wuotan's wanderings, his waggon, his 
 way, his retinue (duce Mercuric, p. 128). — ^We know that in the 
 very earliest ages the seven stars forming the Bear in the northern 
 sky were thought of as a four-wheeled waggon, its pole being formed 
 by the three stars that hang downwards : 
 
 "ApKTOv 6\ rjv Kal afia^av i'JTlKXrjariv icaXeovcnv. II. 18, 487. 
 Od. 5, 273. So in OHG. glosses : ursa wagen, Jun. 304 ; in MHG. 
 Mmelwagen, Walth. 54, 3.^ herwagen Wackern. lb. 1. 772, 26. 
 The clearest explanation is given by Notker cap. 64 : Selbiu ursa 
 ist pi demo norde mannellchemo zeichenhaftiu fone dien siben 
 glatSn sternon, die aller der liut wagen heizet, unde n§,h eiuemo 
 gloccun joche^ gescaffen sint, unde ebenmichel sint, ane (except) 
 des mittelosten. The Anglo-Saxons called the constellation wcenes 
 fiisl (waggon's thUl, pole), or simply Jjisl, but carles wmn also is 
 quoted in Lye, the Engl, charles wain, Dan. karlsvogn, Swed. 
 harlwagn. Is carl here equivalent to lord, as we have lierrenwagen 
 in the same sense ? or is it a transference to the famous king of 
 christian legend ? But, what concerns us here, the constellation 
 appears to have borne in heathen times the full name of Wuotanes 
 wagan,, after the highest god of heaven. The Dutch language has 
 evidence of this in a MS. of as late as 1470 : ende de poeten in 
 heure fablen heetend (the consteU.) ourse, dat is te segghene 
 WoenswagJien. And elsewhere ^ dar dit teekin Arcturus, dat wy 
 heeten Woonswaghen, up staet ; het sevenstarre ofde Woenswaghen ; 
 conf. Huydec. proeven 1, 24. I have nowhere met with plaustrum 
 Mercurii, nor with an ON. OSins vagn ; only vagn d himnum. 
 
 It is a question, whether the great open highway in heaven — to 
 which people long attached a peculiar sense of sacredness, and 
 perhaps allowed this to eclipse the older fancy of a ' milky way ' 
 (caer Gwydion, p. 150) — was not in some districts called Wii^gjies 
 wee or strdza (way or street). W6denesweg, as the name of a place, 
 stood its ground in Lower Saxony, in the case of a vUlage near 
 Magdeburg, Oh. ad ann. 973 in Zeitschr. fiir archivk. 2, 349 ; an 
 
 1 Septentrion, que nos char el del apelon ; Roman de Eou. 
 
 " Crossbeam, such as bells (glocken) are suspended on ; conf. ans, as, p. 125. 
 
152 WODAN. 
 
 older doc. of 937 is said to have Watammeg (conf. Wiggert in the 
 Neu. mitth. des thiir. vereins VI. 2, 22). praedium in Wddeneswege, 
 Dietm. Merseb. 2, 14 p. 750. Annal. Saxo 272. Johannes de Wdevr 
 mege, Heinricus de Wddensweghe (Lenz.) Brandenb. urk. p. 74 
 (anno 1273), 161 (anno 1301). later, Wutenswege, Godenschwege, 
 Gfutenswegen, conf. Ledebur n. arch. 2, 165, 170. Gere ex familia 
 Wodenswegiorum, Ann. Magdeb. in chron. Marienthal. Meibom 3, 
 263. I would mention here the lustration der koninges straie, EA. 
 69 ; in the XJplandslag vidherb. balkr 23, 7 the highway is called 
 karlsveg, like the heavenly wain above. But we shall have to raise 
 a doubt by and by, whether the notion of way, via, is contained at 
 all in Wodensweg. 
 
 Plainer, and more to the purpose, appear the names of certaia 
 mountains, which in heathen times were sacred to the service of 
 the god. At Sigtp hergi, Seem. 248*. Othensberg, now Omherg, 
 on the Danish I. of Samsoe ; Odensberg in Schonen. Godesberg 
 near Bonn, in docs, of Mid. Ages Gvdenesherg, Giinther 1, 211 (anno 
 1131), 1, 274 (anno 1143), 2, 345 (anno 1265) ; and before that, 
 WSdenesberg, Lacomblet 97. 117, annis 947, 974 So early as in 
 Caesarius heisterb. 8, 46 the two forms are put together : Gudins- 
 berg vel, ut aUi dicunt, Wudiiisberg. Kear the holy oak in Hesse, 
 which Boniface brought down, there stood a Wuodenesberg, stUl so 
 named in a doc. of 1154 (Schminke beschr. von Cassel, p. 30, conf. 
 Wenk 3, 79), later Vdenesberg, Gudensberg ; this hiLl is not to be 
 confounded with Gudensberg by Erkshausen, district Eotenburg 
 (Niederhess. wochenbl. 1830, p. 1296), nor with a Gudenberg by 
 Oberelsungen and Zierenberg (ib. p. 1219. Eommel 2, 64. Ovden- 
 burg by Landau, p. 212) ; so that three mountains of this name 
 occur in Lower Hesse alone ; conf. ' montem Vodinberg, cum sUva 
 eidem monti attinente,' doc. of 1265 in Wenk II, no. 174. In a 
 different neighbourhood, a Henricus comes de WSdenesberg is named 
 in a doc. of 1130, Wedekind's notes 1, 367 ; acurtis WSdenesberg in 
 a doc. of 973, Falke tradit. corb. 534. Gotansberg (anno 1275), 
 Langs reg. 3, 471 : vineas duas gotansberge vocatas. Mabillon's 
 acta Bened. sec. 5, p. 208 contain the following : 'in loco ubi mons 
 quem dicunt Wonesberth (1. Wdnesberch = 'W6danesberg) a radicibus 
 astra petit,' said to be situate in pagus Gandavensis, but more cor- 
 rectly Mt. Ardenghen between Boulogne and St. Omer. Comes 
 Wadanimontis, aft. Vaudemont in Lorraine (Don Calmet, tome 2, , 
 
WODAN. 153 
 
 preuves XLVIII. L.), seems to be the same, and to mean Wodarti- 
 mons} A Wddnes heorg in the Sax. Chron. (Ingram pp. 27. 62), 
 later Wodnesborough, Wanshorough in Wiltshire ; the corruption 
 already in Ethelwerd p. 835 : ' facta ruina magna ex utraque parte 
 in loco qui dicitur Wodnesbyrg ' for Wodnesberg ; but Florence, ed. 
 1592, p. 225, has ' Wodnesbeorh, id est mons "Wodeni '? A WSdnes- 
 leorg in Lappenberg's map near the Bearucwudu, conf. Wodnesbury, 
 WodnesdyJce, Wddanesfeld in Lappenb. engl. gesch. 1, 131. 258. 354. 
 To this we must add, that about the Hessian Gudensberg the story 
 goes that King Charles lies prisoned in it, that he there won a victory 
 over the Saxons, and opened a well in the wood for his thirsting 
 army, but he will yet come forth of the mountain, he and his host, 
 at the appointed time. The mythus of a victorious army pining for 
 water is already applied to King Carl by the Frankish annalists 
 (Pertz 1, 150. 348), at the very moment when they bring out the 
 destruction of the Irminsul ; but beyond a doubt it is older and 
 heathen: Saxo Gram. 42 has it of the victorious Balder. The agree- 
 ment of ,such legends with fixed points in the ancient cultus can- 
 not but heighten and confirm their significance. A people whose 
 faith is falUng to pieces, wiU save here and there a fragment of 
 it, by fixing it on a new and unpersecuted object of veneration. 
 After such numerous instances of ancient Woden-hills, one need 
 not be afraid to claim a vwns Mercurii when mentioned in Latin 
 annalists, such as Fredegar. 
 
 Other names occur, besides those of mountains. The brevi- 
 arium LuUi, in Wenk II. no. 12, names a place in Thuringia : 
 'in Wudaneshiisun,' and again Woteneshusun (conf. Schannat no. 
 84. 105) ; in Oldenburg .there is a WodenshoU, now Godensholt, 
 cited in a land-book ,of 1428, Ehrentraut Fries, arch. 1, 445 : ' to 
 Wodensholte Tideke Tammen gut x schiUinge'; Wothenower (W6- 
 den6ver ?), seat of a Brandenburg family, Hofers urk. p. 270, anno 
 1334 ; not far from Bergen op Zoom and the Scheldt, towards Ant- 
 werp, stands to this day a Woensdrecht, as if Wodani trajectum. 
 Woensel = Wodenssele, Wodani aula, lies near Eindhoven on the 
 
 _ 1 We know of Graisivaudan, a valley near Grenoble in Dauphine, for 
 which the Titurel has Graswaldane ; but there is no ground for connecting it 
 with the god. 
 
 ^ Our present -borough, -bury, stands both correctly for hurh, hyrig, castle, 
 town (Germ, burg), and incorrectly for the lost heorg, heorh, mountain (Germ, 
 berg).— Teans. 
 
154 WODAN. 
 
 Dommel in K Brabaut ; a remarkable passage on it in Gramaye's 
 Taxandria, p. 23, was pointed out to me by J. W. Wolf : Imo 
 amplius supersunt aperte Cymbricorum deorum pagis aliquot, ubi 
 forte culti erant, indita nomina, nominatim MerGurii in Woensel, 
 honoris in JEersel, Martis in Eoysel. Uti enim Woen Mercurium 
 eis dictum alias docui, et eer honorem- esse omnes sciunt, ita Eoy 
 Martem a colore sanguineo cognominatum ostendunt illi qui tertiam 
 hebdomadis feriam Eoydach indigitant„ In due time I shall 
 speak of Eersel and Eoysel, which lie in the- neighbourhood of 
 Woensel, and all of them in the N. Brabant district of Oirschot. 
 This Woensel is like the OSinssalr, Othansale^ Onsala named on 
 p. 158. Wunstorp, Wunsdorf,, a. convent and small town in Lower 
 Saxony, stands unmutilated as Wodenstorp va. a doc. of 1179, Falke 
 tradit. corb. 770. ITear Windbergen in the Ditmar country,, an 
 open space in a wood bears the name of Wodenslag, Wonslagi Near 
 Hadersleben in Schleswig are the villages of Wonsbeke, Wonslei, 
 Woyens formerly Wodensyen, An AS. doc. of 862 (Kemble 2, 73) 
 contains in a boundary-settlement the name- Wdnstoc = Wddeinesstoe, 
 Wodani stipes, and at the same time betrays the influence of the 
 god on ancient delimitation. Wuotan, Hermes, Mercury, all seem 
 to be divinities of measurement and demarcation ; eonf. Woedens- 
 spanne, Weenslet, p. 160 (see-Suppl.). 
 
 As these names, denoting the waggon and the mountain of the 
 old god, have survived chiefly in Lower Germany, where heathenism 
 maintained itself longest ; a remarkable custom of the people in 
 Lower Saxony at harvest-time points the same way. It is usual to 
 leave a clump- of standing com in afield to Woden for Imhorse. 
 OSinn in the Edda rides the eight-footed steed Sleipnir, the- best of 
 all horses, Ssem. 46'' 93\ Sn. 18. 45. 65. Sleipnis ver&r (food) is a 
 poetic name for hay, Yngl. saga cap. 21 : other sagas speak of a 
 tall white horse,, by which the god of victory might be recognised in 
 battles (see SuppL). Christianity has not entirely rooted out the 
 harmless practice for the- Norse any more^ than for the Saxon 
 peasant. In Schonen and Blekingen it continued for a long time 
 to be the custom for reapers to- leave on the field a gift for Oden's 
 horses} The usage in Mecklenburg is thus described by G-ryse-: 
 
 'Geyers schwed. gesch. 1, 110. orig. 1, 123. In the Hogrumsisocken, 
 Oeland, are some large stones named Odins flisor, Odini lamellae, of -which the 
 
WODAN. 155 
 
 Ja, im heidendom hebben tor tid der arne (at harvest-tide) de 
 meiers (mowers) dem afgade Woden umme god korn angeropen 
 (invoked for good corn), denn wenn de roggenarne geendet, heft 
 men up den lesten platz eins idem (each) veldes einen kleinen ord 
 Tinde humpel korns unafgemeiet stan laten, datsiilve baven (b' oben, 
 a-b'ove) an den aren drevoldigen to samende geschortet, unde 
 besprenget (ears festooned together three times, and sprinkled). 
 Alle meierS' sin darumme her getreden, ere Iwde (their hats) vam 
 hffppe genamen (v, supra, p. 32), unde ere seisen (scythes) na der 
 sulven wode [mode ?] unde geschrenke (encircling) denx kornbusche 
 upgerichet, und hebben den Wodendiivel dremal semplik lud averall 
 also angeropen unde gebeden : 
 
 Wode, hale (fetch) dinem rosse nu voder, 
 
 nu distil utide dorn, 
 
 torn anderii jar beter korn ! 
 
 welker afgodischer gebruk im Pawestom gebleven. Daher denn ok 
 noch an- dissen orden dar heiden gewanet, bi etliken ackerliiden 
 (-leuten, men) solker avergelovischer gebruk in anropinge des 
 Woden tor tid der arne gesporet werd, und ok oft desiilve helsche 
 jeger (the same hellish hunter), sonderliken im- winter, des nachtes 
 up dem velde mit sinen jagethunden sik horen let.'- 
 
 David Franck (Meklenb. 1, 56-7), who has heard the same from 
 old people, quotes the rhyme thus : 
 
 story is told, that Odin, in turning his horse out to graze, took the bit oflF him 
 and laid it on a huge bloek of stone ; th« weight of the bit split the stone into 
 two pieces, which were set upright as a memorial. Another story is, that Oden 
 was about to fight an adversary, and knew not where to tie his horse up. In 
 the hurry he ran to the stone, pierced it with his swoiJ, and tied his horse fast 
 through the hole. But the horse broke loose, the stone burst in pieces and 
 rolled away, and from this arose the deep bog named Hogrumstrask ; people 
 have tied poles together, but never could reach the bottom. Abrah. Ahlquist, 
 Oelands historia, Calmar 1822. 1, 37. 2, 212. There is a picture of the stones 
 ia Liliengren och Brunius, no. xviii. In the Hogbysooken of Oeland is also a 
 smooth block of granite named Odinssten, on which, ace. to the folk-tale, the 
 warriors of old, when marching to battle, used to whet their swords ; Ahl- 
 quist 2, 79. These legends confirm the special importance of Odin's horse in 
 his mythus. Verelii notae on the Gautrekssaga p. 40 quote from the Clavis 
 computi runici : ' Odin beter hesta sina i belg bunden,' which I do not quite 
 understand. In the Fornm. sog. 9, 55-6 OSinn has his horse shod at a black- 
 smith's, and rides away by enormous leaps to Sweden, where a war breaks out 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 ■' Spegel des antichristischen pawestdoms (popery), dorch Nicolaum Qrysen, 
 predigern in Eostock, Host. 1593. 4, sheet E iiii''. With the verses cited by 
 Iiim, conf. the formula in weisthijmer : Let it lie fallow one year, and bear 
 thistle and thorn the next. 
 
156 WODAN. 
 
 Wode, Wode, 
 
 hal dinen rosse nu voder, 
 
 nu distel un dorn, 
 
 achter jar beter kom ! 
 He adds, that at the squires' mansions, when the rye ia all cut, 
 there is Wodel-heer served out to the mowers ; no one weeds flax 
 on a Wodenstag, lest Woden's horse should trample the seeds ; from 
 Christmas to Twelfth-day they will not spin, nor leave any flax on 
 the distaff, and to the question why ? they answer, Wode is galloping 
 across. We are expressly told, this wild hunter Wode riies a white 
 horse} Near Satuna in Vestergotland are some fine meadows 
 called Onsangarne (Odens angar, ings), in which the god's horses 
 are said to have grazed, Afzelius 1, 4. In S. Germany they tell of 
 the lord of the castle's grazing gray (or white), Mone anz. 3, 259 ; v. 
 infra, the ' wiitende heer'. I have been told, that in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Kloppenburg in Oldenburg, the harvesters leave a 
 bunch of corn-stalks uncut on the field, and dance round it. There 
 may be a rhyme sung over it still, no doubt there was formerly. 
 
 A custom in Schaumburg I find thus described •? the people go 
 out to mow in parties of twelve, sixteen or twenty scythes, but it is 
 so managed, that on the last day of harvest they all finish at the 
 same time, or some leave a strip standing which they can cut down 
 at a stroke the last thing, or they merely pass their scythes over 
 the stubble, pretending there is still some left to mow. At the last 
 stroke of the scythe they raise their implements aloft, plant them 
 upright, and beat the blades three times with the strop. Each 
 spills on the field a little of the drink he has, whether beer, brandy, 
 or milk, then drinks himself, while they wave their hats, beat their 
 scythes three times, and cry aloud W6ld, WSld, Wdld! and the 
 women knock all the crumbs out of their baskets on the stubble. 
 They march home shouting and singing. Fifty years ago a song 
 was in use, which has now died out, but whose first strophe ran 
 thus: 
 
 WSld, Wdld, Wdld! 
 havenhiine weit wat schiit, 
 jttmm hei dal van haven silt. 
 
 ■ 1 Mussaus meklenb. volkssagen no. 5 ; in Lisch meklenb. jahrb. 2, 133 it 
 is spelt WoMd, and a note is made, that on the Elbe they aayfruh Wod, i.e. 
 fioho, lord ; conf. infra, fru Gaue and fru Gaiiden in the 'wiitende heer', 
 ' By Munchhausen in Bragur VI. 1, 21 — 34. 
 
WODAN. 157 
 
 Vulle kruken un sangen hSt hei, 
 Tipen holte wiisst (grows) manigerlei : 
 liei is nig barn un wert nig old. 
 Wdld, Wdld, W6ld! 
 
 If the ceremony be omitted, the next year will bring bad crops of 
 hay and corn. 
 
 Probably, beside the libation, there was corn left standing for the 
 venerated being, as the fourth line gives us to understand : ' full 
 crocks and shocks hath he'; and the second strophe may have 
 brought in his horse. ' Heaven's giant knows what happens, ever 
 he down from heaven sees,' accords with the old belief in 
 Wuotan's chair (p. 135) ; the sixth line touches off the god that 
 'ne'er is born and ne'er grows old' almost too theosophically. 
 W6ld, though excused by the rhyme, seems a corruption of W6d, 
 Wdde} rather than a contraction from waldand (v. supra, p. 21). 
 A Schaumburg man pronounced the name to me as Wauden, and 
 related as follows : On the lake of Steinhude, the lads from the 
 village of Steinhude go every autumn after harvest, to a hOl named 
 Heidenhiigel, light a fire on it, and when it blazes high, wave their 
 hats and cry Wauden, Wauden ! (see Suppl.). 
 
 Such customs reveal to us the generosity of the olden time. 
 Man has no wish to keep all his increase to himself ; he gratefully 
 leaves a portion to the gods, who will in future also protect his> 
 crops. Avarice increased when sacrificing ceased. Ears of corn 
 are set apart and offered here to Wuotan, as elsewhere to kind 
 spirits and elves, e.g., to the brownies of Scotland (see Suppl. to 
 Elves, pixy-hoarding). 
 
 It was not Wuotan exclusively that bestowed fertility on the 
 fields ; Donar, and his mother the Earth, stood in still closer con- 
 nexion with agriculture. "We shall see that goddess put in the place 
 of Wuotan in exactly similar harvest-ceremonies. 
 
 In what countries the worship of the god endured the longest, 
 may be learnt from the names of places which are compounded 
 with his name, because the site was sacred to him. It is very 
 unlikely that they should be due to men bearing the same name as 
 the god, instead of to the god himself ; Wuotan, OSinn, as a man's 
 
 ' Conf. Dutcli oud, goud for old, gold ; so Woude, which apiproximates 
 the form Wode. Have we the latter in ' Theodericus de Wodestade ? Scheldt's 
 mantissa p. 433, anno 1205. 
 
158 WODAN. 
 
 name, does occur, but not often ; and the meaning of the second 
 half of the compounds, and their reappearance in various regions, 
 are altogether in favour of their being attributable to the god. 
 From Lower Germany and Hesse, I have cited (p. 151) Wddenesweg, 
 Wddenesberff, WSdeneshoU, Wddeneshdsun, and on the Jutish border 
 Wonsild ; from the Netherlands Woensdrecht ; in ''Upper Germany- 
 such names hardly show themselves at all.^ In England we find : 
 Woodnesbord in Kent, near Sandwich : Wednesbury and Wednes- 
 field in Staffordshire ; Wednesham in Cheshire, oallpd Wodnesfield 
 in Ethelwerd p. 848.^ But their number is more considerable in 
 Scandinavia, where heathenism was preserved longer : and if in 
 Denmark and the Gothland portion of Sweden they occur more 
 frequently than in Norway and Sweden proper, I infer from this a 
 preponderance of Odin-worship in South Scandinavia. The chief 
 town in the I. of Funen (Fion) was named Odinsve (Fornm. sog. 11, 
 266. 281) from ve, a sanctuary ; sometimes also O&insey (ib. 230. 
 352) from ey, island, meadow ; and later again Odense, and in 
 Waldemar's Liber censuahs^ 530. 542 Othdnso. In Lower Norway, 
 close to Frederikstad, a second Odinsey (Heimskr. ed. Havn. 4, 348. 
 398), aft. called Onso. In Jutland, Othanshylld, (-huld, grace, 
 Wald. lib. cens. 519), aft. Onsild. Othdnslef (Othini reliquiae, 
 leavings, ib. 526), now Onslev. In Halland, Othansale (-saal, hall, 
 ib. 533), now Onsala (Tuneld's geogr. 2, 492. 504) ; as well as in 
 Old Norway an Odhinssalr (conf. Woensel in Brabant, Woenssele ?). 
 In Schonen, Othdnshdret (Wald. lib. cens. 528) ; Othenshdrat (Bring 
 2, 62. 138. 142),* now Onsjo (Tuneld 2, 397) ; Onslunda (-gi'ove, 
 Tuneld 2, 449) ; Otliensvara (Bring 2, 46-7, Othenvara 39) ; 
 Othenstroo (Bring 2, 48), from vara, foedus, and tro, fides ? In 
 Smaland, Odensvalahult (Tuneld 2, 146) and Odensjo (2, 109. 147. 
 Sjoborg lorsok p. 61). In Ostergotland, Odenfors (Tuneld 2, 72). 
 In Vestergotland, Odenskulla (2, 284) and Odenskdlla (2, 264), a 
 medicinal spring ; Odensalcer, Onsaker (-acre, field, 2, 204. 253). In 
 
 ' An Odensberg in the Mark of Bibelnheim (now Biebesheim below Gems- 
 heim in Darmstadt) is named in a doc. of 1403. Cbmels reg. Kuperti p. 204 ; 
 the form Wodensberg would look more trustworthy. 
 
 ^ If numbers be an object, I fancy the English contribution might be 
 swelled by looking up in a gazetteer the names b^inning with Wans-, Wens-, 
 Wadden-, Weddin-, Wad-, Wed-, Wood-, Wam-, Wem-, Worn-. — Trans. 
 
 ° Langebek script, torn. 7. 
 
 * Sven Bring, monumenta Scanensia, vol 2, Lend. goth. 1748. 
 
WODAK. 159 
 
 Westmanland, Odensvi (1, 266. conf. Grau, p. 427),^ like the 
 Odinsve of Fiiuen ; and our Lower Saxon Wodeneswege may have 
 to do with this ve (not with weg, via), and be explained by the old 
 wig, wih, templum (see p. 67). This becomes the more credible, 
 as there occurs in the Cod. exon. 341, 28 the remarkable sentence : 
 
 Wdden worhte weos, wuldor alwealda 
 rftme roderas-; 
 
 i.e.,W6denconstruxit, creavit fana (idola), Deus omnipotens ainplos 
 coelos ; the christian writer had in his recollection the heathen 
 sanctuaries assigned to Woden, and contrasts with them the greater 
 creations of God. "The plur. weos is easily justified, as wih is 
 resolved into weoh, and weohas contracted into w-eos : so that an 
 AS. WSdenesweoh would exactly fit the OS. Wodanesweg = W6- 
 daneswih, and the ON. OSinsve. Also in Westmanland, an Odensjo 
 (Grau p. 502). In Upland, Odensala (Tuneld 1, 56) ; Odensfors 
 (1, 144) ; Onsike (1, 144). In ISTerikej Odensbacke (1, 240), (see 
 SuppL). 
 
 It seemed needful here to group the most important of these 
 names together, and no doubt there are many others which have 
 escaped me f in their very multitude, as well as the similarity or 
 identity of their structure, Ues the full proof of their significance. 
 Pew, or isolated, they might have been suspected, and explained 
 otherwise ; taken together, they are incontestable evidence of the 
 wide diffusion of Odin's worship. 
 
 Herbs and plants do not seem to have been named after this 
 god. In Brun's beitr.,p. 54, wodesterne is given as the name of a 
 plant, but we ought first to see it in a distincter form. The Ice- 
 landers and Danes however call a small waterfowl (tringa minima, 
 inquieta, lacustris et natans) O&inshani, OdensJuxiie, Odens fugl, 
 which fits in with the belief, brought out on p. 147, in birds conse- 
 crated to him. An OHG. gloss (Haupts altd. bl. 2, 212) supplies 
 a doubtful-looking vtinswaluwe, fulica (see SuppL). 
 
 Even a part of the human body was named after the god : the 
 
 ' Olof Grau, beskrifning ofver Wastmanland. Wasteras 1754. conf. Dybeck 
 runa I. 3, 41. 
 
 ' There are some in Finn Magnusen's lex. myth. 648 ; but I do not agree 
 with him in including the H. Germ, names Odenwald, Odenheim, which lack 
 the HG, form Wuotan and the -s of the genitive ; nor the Finn. Odenpa, which 
 means rather bear's head. 
 
160 WODAN. 
 
 space between the thumb and the forefinger when stretched outj 
 which the Greeks name Xt%a9, was called in the ^Netherlands 
 Woedensspanne, Woedenspanne, Woenslet. The thumb was sacred, 
 and even worshipped as thumbkin and Pollux = pollex ; Wodan 
 was the god of play, and lucky men were said to have the game 
 running on their thumb. We must await further disclosures about 
 the name, its purport, and the superstition lying at the bottom of 
 it (see SuppL). 
 
 I started with assuming that the worship of this divinity was 
 common to all the Teutonic races; and foreign to none,just because 
 we must recognise him as the most universal and the supreme one. 
 Wuotan — so far as we have succeeded in gleaning from the relics 
 of the old religion an idea of his being — ^Wuotan is the most 
 intellectual god of our antiquity, he shines out above all the other 
 gods ; and therefore the Latin writers, when they speak of the 
 German cultus, are always prompted to make mention first of 
 Mercury. 
 
 We know that not only the Norsemen, but the Saxons, Thurin- 
 gians, Alamanns and Langobards worshipped this deity ;. why should 
 Pranks, Goths, and the rest be excluded from his service ? 
 
 At the same time there are plain indications that his worship 
 was not always and everywhere the dominant one. In the South 
 of Germany, although the personification of Wish maintained its 
 ground, Wuotan became extinct sooner than in the North ; neither 
 names of places, nor that of the fourth day of the week, have pre- 
 served him there. Among the Scandinavians, the Swedes and 
 Norwegians seem to have been less devoted to him than the Got- 
 landers and Danes. The ON. sagas several times mention images 
 of Thor, never one of OtJinn ; only Saxo Gram, does so in an 
 altogether mythical way (p^ 113) ; Adam of Bremen, though he 
 names Wodan among the Upsala gods, assigns but the second place 
 to him, and the first to Thor. Later still, the worship of Preyr 
 seems to have predominated in Sweden. 
 
 An addition to the St. Olaf saga, though made at a later time, 
 furnishes a striking statement about the heathen gods whom the 
 introduction of Christianity overthrew. I will quote it here, 
 intending to return to it from time to time : ' Olafr koniing)? 
 kristnaSi Jjetta riki allt, oil blot braut hann niSr ok oil gotJ, seifl " 
 
WODAN. 161 
 
 Th8r Engilsmanna goS, ok OMn Saxa goS, ok Skiold Sk§,nftnga goS, 
 ok Frey Svla goS, ok GoSorm Dana go?5 ' ; i.e. king 0. christened 
 all this kingdom, broke down all sacrifices and all gods, as Thor the 
 Englishmen's god, OSin the Saxons' god, &c., Fomm. sog. 5, 239.— 
 This need not be taken too strictly, but it seems to rue to express 
 the stiU abiding recollections of the old national gods : as the 
 Swedes preferred Freyr, so probably did the Saxons Woden, to all 
 other deities. Why, I wonder, did the writer, doubtless a Norwe- 
 gian, omit the favourite god of his own countrymen ? To them he 
 ought to have given Thor, instead of to the English, who, like other 
 Saxons, were votaries of Woden. 
 
 Meanwhile it must not be overlooked, that in the Abrenuntiatio, 
 an 8th century document, not purely Saxon, yet Low German, 0. 
 Prankish and perhaps Ripuarian, Thunar is named before Vuodan, 
 and SaxTidt occupies the third place. From this it follows at all 
 events, that the worship of Thunar also prevailed in those regions; 
 may we still vindicate Wuodan's claims to the highest place by 
 supposing that the three gods are here named in the order in which 
 their statues were placed side by side? that Wuodan, as the greatest 
 of them, stood in the middle ? as, according to Adam of Bremen, 
 Thor did at Upsala, with Wodan and Fricco on each side of him. 
 
 In the ON. sagas, when two of these gods are named together, 
 Th6rr usually precedes OSinn. The Laxdaelasaga, p. 174, says of 
 Kiartan: At hann Jjykist eiga meira traust undir aiii sinu ok 
 vipnum (put more trust in his strength and weapons, conf. pp. 6, 
 7) heldr enn Jjar sem er Thdrr ok Offinn. The same passage is 
 repeated in Fornm. sog. 2, 34. Again, Eyvindr relates how his 
 parents made a vow before his birth: At sa maSr skal alt til 
 dauSadags Jjiona Thor ok OSni (this man shall until death-day 
 serve, &c.), Fornm. sog. 2, 161.^ But it does not follow from this, 
 that Thorr was thought the greatest, for Eyvindr was actually 
 dedicated to OSinn. In Fornm. sog. 5, 249, Styrbiorn sacrifices to 
 Thorr, and Eirekr to OSinn, but the former is beaten. Thdrr tok 
 
 ' So in an AS. homily De temporibus Antichristi, in Wheloo's Bedap. 495, 
 are enumerated ' Thxir and EocSwen, \e hsetSene men heriatS swiSe ' ; and before 
 that, ' Enulus se ent (Hercules gigas) and Apollinis (Apollo), ]>e. hi mseme god 
 leton '. The preacher was thinking of the Greek and the Norse deities, not of 
 the Saxon, or he would have said Thunor and Woden. And in other cases, 
 where distinctly Norse gods are meant, AS. writers use the Norse form of name. 
 P. Magnusens lex. p. 919. 
 
 11 
 
162 WODAN. 
 
 jolaveizlu fra Haraldi, onn OSinn t&k M H§,lfd§.ni, Fornm. sog. 
 10, 178. In the popular assembly at Tlir9,ndlieim, the first 
 cup is drunk to OSinn, the second to Th&rr, ibid. 1, 35. In the 
 famous Bravalla fight, Othin under the name of Bruno acts as 
 charioteer to the Danish king Harald, and to the latter's destruction; 
 on the Swedish side there fight descendants of Freyr, Saxo Gram. 
 144-7. Yet the Eddie HarbarzlioS seems to place OSinn above Th6rr. 
 A contrast between OSinn and Thorr is brought out strongly in the 
 Gautrekssaga quoted below, ch. XXVIII. But, since Th6rr is repre- 
 sented as OSin's son, as a rejuvenescence of him, the two must 
 often resolve into one another.^ 
 
 If the three mightiest gods are named, I find OSinn foremost : 
 O&inn, Thdr, Freyr, Sn. edda 131. According to Fornm. sog. 1, 16, 
 voyagers vow money and three casks of ale to Freyr, if a fair wind 
 shall carry them to Sweden, but to Thdrr or O&inn, if it bring tliem 
 home to Iceland (see Suppl.). 
 
 It is a different thing, when OSinn in ON. documents is styled 
 Thridi, the third f in that case he appears not by the side of Th6rr 
 and Freyr, but by the side of Hdr and lafnhdr (the high and the 
 even-high or co-equal, OHG. epan hoh) as the Third Higli? (see 
 Suppl.), Sn. 7. Yngl. saga 52. Sa3m. 46*. As we might imagine, 
 the grade varies : at other times he is Tveggi (duplex or secundus). 
 Again, in a different relation he appears with his brothers Vili and 
 Ve, Sn. 7 ; with Hcenir and LoSr, Stem. 3^ or with Hcenir and Lohi 
 Ssem. 180. Sn. 135 ; all this rests upon older myths, which, as 
 peculiar to the North, we leave on one side. Yet, with respect to 
 the trilogy O&inn, Vili, Ve, we must not omit to mention here, 
 that the OHG-. willo expresses not only voluntas, but votum, 
 impetus and spiritus,* and the Gothic viljan, velle, is closely con- 
 nected with valjan, eligere; whence it is easy to conceive and 
 
 1 When OSinn Ls called Thundr in the songa of the Edda, Seem. 28' 47^ 
 this may be derived from a lost hynja = AS. Jjunian, tonare, and so be eg^uivalent 
 to Donar ; it is true, they explain ]7vindr as loricatus, from );und lorica. But 
 AVuotan, as Voma, is the noise of the rushing air, and we saw him hurl the 
 cudgel, aa Thorr does the hammer. 
 
 ^ As Zeus also is rpiros, from which Tpiroyivtia is more easily explained 
 than by her birth from his head (see SuppL). 
 
 ' iElfric's glosses 56% Altanus: W6den. Altanns, like Summanns, an 
 epithet of Jove, the Altissimus ; else Altanus, aa the name of a wind, might 
 also have to do with the storm of the ' wiitende heer '. 
 
 * The Greek fihos would be well adapted to unite the meanings of courage, 
 fuiy (niut, wut), wish, will, thought. 
 
WODAN. 163 
 
 believe, how Wuotan, Wish and Will should touch one another (see 
 Suppl.). With the largitor opum may also be connected the AS. 
 wela, OS. welo, OHG. -wolo, welo = opes, felicitas [weal, wealth], 
 and Wela comes up several times almost as a personification (conf. 
 Gramm. 4, 752), like the Lat. goddess Ops (conf. infra Sselde, note) ; 
 there is also a Vali among the Norse gods. In the case of Ve, gen. 
 vea, the sense may waver between wiho, sanctus (Goth. Ahma sa 
 veiha. Holy Ghost), and wih, idolum. In Saem. 63, Loki casts in 
 the teeth of Trigg her intrigues with Ve and Vili ; this refers to 
 the story in Yngl. saga cap. 3, from which we clearly gather the 
 identity of the three brothers, so that Trigg could be considered the 
 wife of any one of them.^ 
 
 Lastly, a principal proof of the deeply-rooted worship of this 
 divinity is furnished by Wodan's being interwoven with the old 
 Saxon genealogies, which I shall examine minutely in the Appendix.^ 
 
 Here we see Wodan invariably in the centre. To him are 
 traced up all the races of heroes and kings ; among his sons and 
 his ancestors, several have divine honours paid them. In parti- 
 
 1 According to this story, 0?5inti was ahroad a long time, during which his 
 brothers act for him ; it is worthy of note, that Saxo also makes Othin travel 
 to foreign lands, and Mithothin fill his place, p. 13 ; this Mithothin's position 
 throws light on that of Vili and Ve. But Saxo, p. 45, represents Othin as once 
 more an exile, and puts Oiler in his place (see Suppl.). The distant journeys 
 of the god are implied in the Norse by-names GdngrdSr, Gdngleri, Vegtamr, 
 and Vioforull, and in Saxo 45 viator indefessus. It is not to be overlooked, 
 that even Paulus Diac. 1, 9 knows of Wodan's residence in Greece (qui non 
 circa haec tempera — of the war between Langobards and Vandals — sed loiige 
 anterius, nee in Germania, sed in Graecia fuisse perhibetur ; while Saxo removes 
 him to Byzantium, and Snorri to Tyrkland). In the passage in Paul. Diac. : 
 'Wodan sane, quern adjecta litera Gwodan dixerunt, ipse est qui apud Romanos 
 Mercurius dicitur, et ab universis Germaniae gentibus ut deus adoratur, qui 
 non circa haec tempera, sed longe anterius, nee in Germania, sed in Graecia 
 fuisse perhibetur ' — it has been proposed to refer the second ' qui ' to Mercurius 
 instead of Wodan (Ad. Schmidt zeitschr. 1, 264), and then the harmony of 
 this account with Snorri and Saxo would disappear. But Paul is dealing with 
 the absurdity of the Langobardic legend related in 1, 8, whose unhistoric basis 
 he lays bare, by pointing out that Wodan at the time of the occurrence between 
 the Wandali and Winili, had not ruled in Germany, but in Greece ; which 
 is the main point here. The notion that Mercury should be confined to Greece, 
 has wider bearings, and would shock the heathen faith not only of the Germans 
 hut of the Eomans. The heathen gods were supposed to be omnipresent, as 
 may be seen by the mere fact that Woden-hills were admitted to exist in 
 various spots all over the country ; so that the community of this god to 
 Germans, Greeks and Eomans raised no difficulty. 
 
 2 This Appendix forms part of the third volume. In the meanwhile, 
 readers may be glad to see for themselves the substance of these pedigrees, 
 which I have extracted from the Appendix, and placed at the end of this 
 chapter. — Trans, 
 
164 WODAN. 
 
 cular, there appear as sons, Balder and that Saxndt who in the 8th 
 century was not yet rooted out of N.W. Germany ; and in the line 
 of his progenitors, Heremdd and Gedt, the latter expressly pro- 
 nounced a god, or the son of a god, in these legends, whUe WSdan 
 himself is regarded more as the head of all noble races. But we 
 easily come to see, that from a higher point of view both Geat ^nd 
 Wodan merge into one being, as in fact OSinn is called 'alda Gdutr' 
 Ssem. 93" 95" ; conf. infra Goz, Koz. 
 
 In these genealogies, which in more than one direction are 
 visibly interwoven with the oldest epic poetry of our nation, the 
 gods, heroes and kings are mixed up together. As heroes become 
 deified, so can gods also come up again as heroes ; amid such reap- 
 pearances, the order of succession of the individual links varies [in 
 different tables]. 
 
 Each pedigree ends with real historical kings : but to reckon 
 back from these, and by the number of human generations to get 
 at the date of mythical heroes and gods, is preposterous. The 
 earliest Anglo-Saxon kings that are historically certain fall into the 
 fifth, sixth or seventh century ; count four, eight or twelve genera- 
 tions up to Woden, you cannot push him back farther than the 
 third or fourth century. Such calculations can do nothing to shake 
 our assumption of his far earlier existence. The adoration of 
 Woden must reach up to immemorial times, a long way beyond 
 the first notices given us by the Eomans of Mercury's worship in 
 Germania. 
 
 There is one more reflection to which the high place assigned 
 by the Germans to their Wuotan may fairly lead us. Monotheism 
 is a thing so necessary, so natural, that almost all heathens, amidst 
 their motley throng of deities, have consciously or unconsciously 
 ended by acknowledging a supreme god, who has already in him 
 the attributes of all the rest, so that these are only to be regarded 
 as emanations from him, renovations, rejuvenescences of him. 
 This explains how certain characteristics come to be assigned, now 
 to this, now to that particular god, and why one or another of them, 
 according to the difference of nation, comes to be invested with 
 supreme power. Thus our Wuotan resembles Hermes and Mercury, 
 but he stands higher than these two ; contrariwise, the German ; 
 Donar (Thunor, Thorr) is a weaker Zeus or Jupiter; what was 
 added to the one, had to be subtracted from the other ; as for Ziu 
 
WODAN. 
 
 165 
 
 (Ttw, Tyr), he hardly does more than administer one of Wuotan's 
 ofaces, yet is identical in name with the first and highest god of the 
 Greeks and Eomans : and so all these god-phenomena keep meet- 
 ing and crossing one another. The Hellenic Hermes is pictured as 
 a youth, the Teutonic Wuotan as a patriarch : OSinn hinn gamli 
 (the old). Yngl. saga cap. 15, like ' the oM.god ' on p. 21. Ziu and 
 Froho are mere emanations of Wuotan (see Suppl.). 
 
 Genealogies of Anglo-Saxon Kings. 
 
 
 Descending Series. 
 
 
 Kent. 
 
 Eastanglia. 
 
 Essex. 
 
 Mehcia. 
 
 Woden 
 
 W6den 
 
 Woden 
 
 Woden 
 
 Wecta 
 
 Casere 
 
 Saxneat 
 
 Wihtlaeg 
 
 Witta 
 
 Titmon 
 
 Gesecg 
 
 Wasrmund 
 
 WihtgilB 
 
 Trigel 
 
 Andsecg 
 
 Gffa 
 
 Hengest (d. 489) 
 
 Hrothmimd 
 
 Sweppa 
 
 Angeltheow 
 
 Eoric (Oeso) 
 
 Hrippa 
 
 Sigefugel 
 
 Eomeer 
 
 Octa 
 
 Quichelm 
 
 Bedeca 
 
 Icel 
 
 Eormenilc 
 
 Uffa 
 
 OflFa 
 
 Cnebba 
 
 iEthelbeorht (567) 
 
 1 Tidel 
 
 .ffiscwine (527) 
 
 Cynewald 
 
 
 Eaedwald (d. 617) 
 
 Sledda 
 
 Creoda 
 
 
 Eorpwald (632) 
 
 Seebeorlit (604) 
 
 Wibba 
 Penda (d. 656) 
 
 Deira 
 
 Bernicia. 
 
 Wessbx. 
 
 LiNDESPAEAN. 
 
 Woden 
 
 Woden 
 
 Woden 
 
 Woden 
 
 Wsegdseg 
 
 Baeldaeg 
 
 Bseldaeg 
 
 Winta 
 
 Sigegar 
 
 Brand 
 
 Brand 
 
 Cretta 
 
 SwaeiVljfig 
 
 Beonoo 
 
 Fridhogar 
 
 Queldgila 
 
 Sigegeat 
 
 Aloe 
 
 Freawine 
 
 Ceadbed 
 
 SEebald 
 
 Angenwit 
 
 Wig_ 
 
 Bubba 
 
 SiEfugel 
 
 Ingwi 
 
 Gewia 
 
 Bedeca 
 
 Westerfalcna 
 
 Esa 
 
 Esla 
 
 Biscop 
 
 Wilgisl 
 
 Eoppa 
 
 Elesa 
 
 Eanferth 
 
 Uscfrea 
 
 Ida (d. 560) 
 
 Cerdic (d. 534) 
 
 Eatta 
 
 Yffe 
 
 
 Cyniic 
 
 Ealdfrith 
 
 Mile (d. 588) Ceawlin 
 
 According to this, Woden had seven sons (Baeldaeg being common to two 
 royal lines) ; elsewhere be has only three, e.g. WU. Malm. p. 17 : tres filii, 
 Weldegius, Witblegius et Beldegius, from whom the Kentish kings, the 
 Mercian kings, and the West Saxon and Northumbrian kings respectively were 
 descended. 
 
 Ascending Series. 
 
 Woden Finn Beaw Hathra (Itermdd) 
 
 Fridhuwald Godwulf (Folcwald)Sceldwa Hwala (Hatlira) 
 
 Freawine (Fre&Mf) Ge&t Heremod (Sceaf) Bedwig (Hwala) 
 
 Fridhuwulf Tsetwa Itennon (Herem6d)Sceaf (Bedwig) 
 
 Some accounts contain only four links, others eight, others sixteen, stopping 
 either at Fridhuwulf, at Geat, or at SceW. Sceaf is the oldest heathen name.; 
 but after the conversion the line was connected with Noah, and so with Adam ! 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 DONAE, THUl^AE, (THOEE). 
 
 The god who rules over clouds and rain, who makes himself 
 known in the lightning's flash and the rolling thunder, whose bolt 
 cleaves the sky and alights on the earth with deadly aim, was 
 designated in our ancient speech by the word Donar itself, OS. 
 Thunar, AS. Thunor, ON. Thdrr} The natural phenomenon is 
 called in ON". J^ruma, or duna, both fern, like the Gothic J7eihv6, 
 which was perhaps adopted from a Finnic language. To the god 
 the Goths would, I suppose, give the name Thunrs. The Swed. 
 tordon, Dan. torden (tonitru), which in Harpestreng still keeps the 
 form thordyn, thordun, is compounded of the god's name and that 
 same duna, OK TMrduna / (see Suppl.). In exactly the same 
 way the Swed. term aska (tonitru, fulmenj, in the Westgothl. Laws 
 asikkia,^ has arisen out of §,saka, the god's waggon or driving, from 
 &s, deus, divus, and aka, vehere, vehi, Swed. aka. In Gothland they 
 say for thunder Thorsakan, Thor's driving ; and the ON. reiS" 
 signifies not only vehiculum, but tonitru, and reiSarslag, reiSar- 
 ]jruma, are thunderclap and lightning. For, a waggon rumbling 
 over a vavdted space comes as near as possible to the rattling and 
 crashing of thunder. The comparison is so natural, that we find 
 it spread among many nations : hoKei o'^rj/Ma tov Ai,o<! rj ^povTt) 
 elvM, Hesychius sub. v. eXaa-i^povja. In Carniola the rolling of 
 thunder is to this day gotta fahren. [To the Eussian peasant it is 
 the prophet Ilia driving his chariot, or else grindmg his com.] 
 Thorr in the Edda, beside his appellation of Asajjorr, is more 
 minutely described by Oku]j6rr, i.e. Waggon-thorr (Sn. 25) ; his 
 waggon is drawn by two he-goats (Sn. 26). Other gods have their 
 
 1 So even in High German dialects, durstag for donrstag, Engl. Thursday, 
 and Bav. doren, daren for donnern (Schni. 1, 390). In ThSrr it is not EE, hut 
 only the first E (the second being flectional), that is an abbrev. of NE. ; i.e. 
 N suffers syncope before E, much as in the M. Dut. ere, mire, for enre minre. 
 
 - Conf. Onsike (Odin's drive ?) supra, p. 159. 
 
THUNAE. 167 
 
 waggons too, especially OSinn and Freyr (see pp. 107, 151), but Thorr 
 is distinctively thought of as the god who drives ; he never appears 
 riding, like OSinn, nor is he supposed to ov^n a horse : either he 
 drives, or he walks on foot. We are expressly told : ' Thorr gengr 
 tn domsins, ok veSr 3,r,' walks to judgment, and wades the rivers 
 (Sn. 18).i The people in Sweden still say, when it thunders : 
 godguhhen aker, the good old (fellow) is taldng a drive, Ihre C96. 
 740. 926. gofar akar, goffa7' kor, the gaffer, good father, drives (see 
 Suppl.). They no longer lilced to utter the god's real name, or they 
 wished to extol his fatherly goodness (v. supra, p. 21, the old god, 
 Dwa. vor gamie fader). The Norwegian calls the lightning Thors- 
 var7ne, -warmth, Faye p. 6. 
 
 Thunder, lightning and rain, above all other natural phenomena, 
 proceed directly from God, are looked upon as his doing, his 
 buisiness (see Suppl.). ^ When a great noise and racket is kept up, 
 a common expression is : you could not hear the Lord thunder for 
 the uproar ; in France : le bruit est si fort, qu'on n'entend pas Dieu 
 tonner. As early as the Eoman de Eenart 11898 : 
 
 Font une noise si grant 
 quen ni oist pas Dieu tonant. 
 
 29143 : Et commen^a un duel si grant, 
 que len ni oist Dieu tonant. 
 
 Ogier 10915 : Lor poins deterdent, lor paumes vont batant, 
 ni oissiez nis ame Dieu tonant. 
 
 Garin 2, 38 : Nes Dieu tonnant ni possiez oir. 
 
 And in the Eoman de Maugis (Lyon 1599, p. 64) : De la noyse 
 quils faisoyent neust Ion pas ouy Dieu tonner. 
 
 But thunder is especially ascribed to an angry and avenging 
 god ; and in this attribute of anger and punishment again Donar 
 resembles Wuotan (pp. 18, 142). In a thunderstorm the people say 
 to their children : the gracious God is angry ; in Westphaha : use 
 hergot kift (chides, Strodtm. osnabr. 104) ; in Franconia : God is out 
 
 1 Scarcely contradicted by his surname HUrritSi ; this ritSi probably points 
 to reiS, a waggon ; HlorritSi seems to me to come by assimilation from hl6tSrit5i, 
 conf. ch. XIII, the goddess HlotSyn. 
 
 2 A peasant, being requested to kneel at a procession of the Host, said : I 
 don't believe the Lord can be there, 'twas only yesterday I heard him thunder 
 up in heaven ; Weidners apophthegmata, Amst. 1643, p. 277. 
 
168 THUNAE. 
 
 there scolding ; in Bavaria ; der hivfimeltatt (-daddy) greint (Schnr. 
 1, 462). In Eckstrom's poem in honour of the county of Honstein 
 1592, cii^ it is said: 
 
 Gott der herr muss warlich from sein (must be really kind), 
 
 dass er nicht mit donner schlegt drein.^ 
 The same sentiment appears among the Letton and Finn nations. 
 Lettic : wezzajs kahjS,s, wezzajs tehws barrahs (the old father has 
 started to his feet, he chides), Stender lett. gramm. 150. With 
 dievas (god) and dievaitis (godkin, dear god) the Lithuanians 
 associate chiefly the idea of the thunderer : dievaitis grauja ! 
 dievaitis ji numusse. Esthonian : wanna issa hiiab, wanna essa 
 waljan, murrisep (the old father growls), Eosenplanters beitr. 8, 
 116. 'The Lord scolds,' 'heaven wages war,' Joh. Christ. Petris 
 Ehstland 2, 108 (see Suppl.). 
 
 Now with this Donar of the Germani fits in significantly the 
 Gallic Taranis whose name is handed down to us in Lucan 1, 440 ; 
 all the Celtic tongues retain the word taran for thunder, Irish toran, 
 with which one may directly connect the ON. form Th6rr, if one 
 thinks an assimilation from rn the more likely But an old 
 inscription gives us also Tanarus (Forcellini sub v.) = Taranis. 
 The Irish name for Thursday, dia Tordain (dia ordain, diardaoin) 
 was- perhaps borrowed from a Teutonic one (see Suppl.). 
 
 So in the Latin Jupiter (literally, God father, Diespiter) there 
 predominates the idea of the thunderer ; in the poets Tonans is 
 equivalent to Jupiter {e.g., Martial vi. 10, 9. 13, 7. Ovid Heroid. 
 9, 7, Easti 2, 69. Metam. 1, 170. Claudian's Stilicho 2, 439) ; 
 and Latin poets of the Mid. Ages are not at all unwilling to apply 
 the name to the christian God («.5'.,Dracontius de deo 1, 1. satisfact. 
 149. Ven. Eortunat. p. 212-9. 258). And expressions in the 
 lingua vulgaris coincide with this : celui qui fait toner, qui fait 
 courre la nue (p. 23-4). An inscription, Jovi tonanti, in Gruter 21, 
 6. The Greek Zeus who sends thunder and lightning {Kepavv6<;) is 
 styled Kepavveio<;. Zev^ eKTvire, II. 8, 75. 170. 17, 595. Aio'; 
 Krr{nro<;, II. 15, 379.^ And because he sends them down from the 
 
 ^ In a poem made up of the first lines of hymns and songs : Ach gott vom 
 himmel sieh darein, und werfe einen donnerstein, es ist gewislioh an der zeit, 
 dass schwelgerei und uppigkeit zersehmettert werden mauaetodt ! sonst schrein 
 wir bald aus tiefer notfi. 
 
 ^ One might be tempted to connect the Etruscan Tina = Jupiter with 
 Tonans and Donar ; it belongs more immediately to Zr)v (v. infra, Zio). 
 
THUNAE. 169 
 
 height of heaven, he also bears the name uKpio^, and is pictured 
 dwelling on the mountain-top (aKpii). Zeus is enthroned on 
 Olympus, on Athos, Lycaeus, Casius, and other mountains of Greece 
 and Asia Minor. 
 
 And here I must lay stress on the fact, that the thundering 
 god is conceived as emphatically a fatherly one, as Jupiter and 
 Diespiter, as far and tatl. Por it is in close connexion with this, 
 that the mountains sacred to him also received in many parts such 
 names as Htzel, AUvater, Grossvater} Th6rr himself was likewise 
 caUed Atli, i.e. grandfather. 
 
 A high mountain, along which, from the earliest times, the 
 main road to Italy has lain, in the chain between the Graian and 
 Pennine Alps, what we now call the St. Bernard, was in the early 
 Mid. Ages named mons Jovis. This name occurs frequently in the 
 Franldsh annals (Pertz 1, 150. 295. 453. 498. 512. 570. 606. 2, 82), 
 in Otto fris. de gest. Frid. 2, 24, in Eadevicus 1, 25, who designates 
 it via JuUi Caesaris, modo mons Jovis ; in AS. writers munt Jofes 
 (Lye sub. v.), in M\h. Boet. p. 150 muntgimo ; in our Kaiserchro- 
 nik 2i%^ monte job. — The name and the worship carry us back to 
 the time of the Eomans ; the inhabitants of the Alps worshipped 
 a Feninus deus, or a Penina dea : Neque montibus his ab transitu 
 Poenorum uUo Veragri, incolae jugi ejus norunt nomen inditum, 
 sad ab eo (al. deo) quem in summo sacratum vertice peninum 
 montani adpellant ; Livy 31, 38. Quamvis legatur a poenina dea 
 quae ibi colitur Alpes ipsas vocari ; Servius on Virg. Aen. 10, 13. 
 An inscription found on the St Bernard (Jac. Spon miscellanea 
 antiq. Lugd. 1685, p. 85) says expressly: Lucius Lucilius deo 
 Penino opt. max. donum dedit ; from which it follows, that this god 
 was understood to be no other than Jupiter. Conf. Jupiter apenni- 
 nus, Micali storia 131-5. Zeii<; Kapai,6<; occurs in Hesych. [^xdpa 
 means head, and so does the Celtic pen, hen]. The classic writers 
 never use m-oms Jovis, and the tabula Antonini names only the 
 summus Penninus and the Penni lucus ; but between the 4th and 
 7th centuries Jovis mons seems to have taken the place of these, 
 
 ^ Zeitaclir. des hess. vereins 2, 139-142. Altd. hmt. 1, 288. Haupts 
 zeitschr. 1, 26. Fumish. : isdmen panee (Eenval. 118"), the father thunders. 
 To the Finns uMo signifies proavus, senex, and is a surname of the gods 
 Wainasnoinen and Ilmarinen. But also Uhho of itself denotes the thunder- 
 god (v. infra). Among the Swedish Lapps aya is both avus and toBitms (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
170 THUNAE. 
 
 perhaps with reference [not so much to the old Eoman, as] to the 
 Gallic or even German sense which had then come to be attached 
 to the god's name. Eemember that German isarnodori on the Jura 
 mountains not far off (p. 80).^ 
 
 Such names of mountains in Germany itself we may with 
 perfect safety ascribe to the worship of the native deity. Every 
 one knows the Donnersherg (mont Tonnerre) in the Ehine palatiaate 
 on the borders of the old county of Falkenstein, between Worms, 
 Kaiserslautern and Kreuznach ; it stands as TJwneresberg in a doc. 
 of 869, Schannat hist, wormat. probat. p. 9. Another Thuneresherg 
 situate on the Diemel, in Westphalia, not far from Warburg, and 
 surrounded by the villages of Wormeln, Germete and Welda, is 
 first mentioned in a doc. of 1100, Schaten mon. paderb. 1, 649 ; 
 in the Mid. Ages it was stUl the seat of a great popular assize, 
 originally due, no doubt, to the sacredness of the spot : ' comes ad 
 Thuneresherhc ' (anno 1123), Wigands feme 222. comitia de Dwnris- 
 berg (1105), Wigands arch. I. 1, 56. a judicio jiostro Thonresberch 
 (1239), ib. 58. Precisely in the vicinity of this mountain stands the 
 holy oak mentioned on p. 72-4, just as the rohur Jovis by Geismar 
 in Hesse is near a Wuotansberg, p. 132. To all appearance the two 
 deities could be worshipped close to one another. The KniiUge- 
 birge in Hesse iacludes a DonnerJcaute. In the Bernerland is a 
 Bonnerluhel (doc. of 1303, Joh. Miiller 1, 619), called Tonrbiil in 
 Justingers Berner chron. p. 50. Probably more Donnersbergs are 
 to be found in other parts of Germany. One in the Eegensburg 
 country is given in a doc. of 882 under the name of Tunieslerg^ 
 Eied, cod. dipl. num. 60. A Sifridus marschalcus' de Donnersperch 
 is named in a doc. of 1300, MB. 33, pars 1, p. 289 ; an Otto de 
 Bonersperg, MB. 4, 94 (in 1194), but Duonesberc, 4, 528 (in 1153), 
 and Tunniesberg 11, 432. In the Thiiringer wald, between Steia- 
 
 1 This mons Jovis must be distinguished from mons gaudii, by which the 
 Mid. Ages meant a height near Eome : Otto frising 1. c. 2, 22 ; the Kaiserchr. 
 88* translates it verbally mendelberc. In Romance poems of the 12- 13th 
 centuries, monjoie is the French battle-cry, generally with the addition of St 
 Denis, e.g. monjoya, monjoya sant Denis ! Ferabras 365. monjoie enseigne S. 
 Denis ! Garin 108. Ducange in his 11th dissertation on Joinville declares 
 monjoie inadmissible as a mere diminutive of mont, since in other passages 
 (Roquefort 2, 207) it denotes any place of joy and bliss, a paradise, so that we 
 can fairly keep to the literal sense ; and there must have been mountains of 
 this name in more than one region. It is quite possible that monjoie itself 
 came from an earlier monjove (mons Jovis), that with the god's hill there 
 associated itself the idea of a mansion of bliss (see Suppl.). 
 
THUNAE. 171 
 
 bach and Oberhof, at the 'rennsteig' is a Donershauk (see Suppl.). 
 — ^A Donares eih, a rohur Jovis, was a tree specially sacred to the 
 god of lightning, and of these there grew an endless abundance in 
 the German forests. 
 
 Neither does Scandinavia lack mountains and rocks bearing the 
 name of ThSrr : Thors Mint in East Gothland (conf. Wildegren's 
 Ostergotland 1, 17); Thorsborg in Gothland, Molbech tidskr. 4, 189. 
 From Norway, where this god was pre-eminently honoured, I have 
 nevertheless heard of none. The peasant in Vermland calls the 
 south-west corner of the sky, whence the summer tempests mostly 
 rise, Thorshala (-hole, cave, Geijer's Svearikes hafder 1, 268). 
 
 And the Thunder-mountains of the Slavs are not to be over- 
 looked. Near Milleschau in Bohemia stands a Mromolan, from 
 hrom, thunder, in other dialects grom. One of the steepest moun- 
 tains in the Styrian Alps (see Suppl.) is Grimming, i.e., SI. germnik, 
 OSl. gr"mnik, thunder-hill (Sloven, gr'mi, it thunders, Serv. grmi, 
 Euss. grom gremit, quasi fipofiov ^pefj,ei,) ; and not far from it is a 
 rivulet named Donnerslach.^ The Slavs then have two different 
 words to express the phenomenon and the god: the latter is in OSl. 
 Per'tin, Pol. Piorun, Boh. Peraun ;^ among the Southern Slavs it 
 seems to have died out at an earlier time, though it is still found in 
 derivatives and names of places. Dobrowsky (inst. 289) traces the 
 word to the verb peru, ferio, quatio [general meaning rather pello, 
 to push], and this tolerably apt signification may have contributed 
 to twist the word out of its genuine form.^ I think it has dropt a 
 k : the Lithuanian, Lettish and OPrussian thundergod is PerJcunas, 
 Pehrkons, Perhunos, and a great many names of places are com- 
 pounded with it. Lith., Perkunas grauja (P. thunders), Perkunas 
 musza (P. strikes, ferit) ; Lett., Pehrkons sperr (the lightning 
 strikes, see Suppl.). The Slav, perim is now seldom applied 
 personally, it is used chiefly of the lightning's flash. Procopius (de 
 Bello Goth. 3, 14) says of the Sclaveni and Antes : 6eov fiev yap 
 eva Tov T^9 aarpairfj'i Brjfj.iovpyov airdvTWv Kvpiov fi6vov aiirov 
 
 ^ Kindermann, abriss von Steiermark pp. 66, 67, 70, 81. 
 
 - The Sltivaks say Parom, and ■paromova strela (P.'s bolt) for perunova ; 
 phrases about Parom, from Kollar, in Hanusch 259, 260. 
 
 3 Might igerun be connected with Kfpavvos = nepawos t Still nearer to 
 Perun would seem to be the Sansk. Parjanyas, a name borne by Indra as 
 Jupiter pluvius, literally, fertilizing rain, thunder-cloud, thunder. A hymn to 
 this rain-god in Rosen's Vedae specimen p. 23. Conf. Hitzig Philist. 296, and 
 Holtzmann 1, 112, 118. 
 
172 THUNAE. 
 
 vofj,i^ov(TLV etvai, koI Gvovcriv avru) ^6a<; re Kal lepeia avdvra, , 
 Again, the oak was consecrated to Perun, and old documents define , 
 boundaries by it (do perunova duba, as far as P.'s oak) ; and the 
 Eomans called the the acoTn juglans, t.e.j'oviglans, Jovis glans, \hs, 
 fruit of the fatherly god. Lightning is supposed to strike oaks by 
 preference (see Suppl.). 
 
 Now Perkun suggests that thundergod of the Morduins, Porguini 
 (p. 27), and, what is more worthy of note, a Gothic word also, 
 which (I grant), as used by Ulphilas, was already stript of all per- 
 sonification. The neut. noun fairguni (Gramm. 2, 175. 453) 
 means opo'^, mountain.^ What if it were once especially the 
 Thunder-mountain, and a lost Fairguns the name of the god (see 
 Suppl.) ? Or, starting with fairguni with its simple meaning of 
 mons unaltered, may we not put into that masc. Fairguns or Fair- 
 guneis, and consequently into Perkunas, the sense of the above- 
 mentioned a/c/3to9, he of the mountain top ? a fitting surname for 
 the thundergod. Fergunna, ending like Patunna, p. 71, signifies 
 in the Chron. moissiac. anno 805 (Pertz 1, 308) not any particulM 
 spot, but the metal-mountains (erzgebirge) ; and Virgunnia (Vir- 
 gundia, Virgunda, conf. Zeuss p. 10) the tract of wooded mountains 
 between Ansbach and EUwangen. Wolfram, Wh. 390, 2, says of 
 his walt-swenden (wood-wasting ?) : der Swarzwalt und Virgunt 
 miiesen d§, von cede ligen, Black Forest and V. must lie waste 
 thereby. In the compounds, without which it would have perished 
 altogether, the OHG. virgun, AS. firgen may either bear the simple 
 sense of mountainous, woody, or conceal the name of a god. — Be that 
 as it may, we find fairguni, virgun, firgen connected with divinely- 
 honoured beings, as appears plainly from the ON. Fiorgyn, gen. 
 Fiorgynjar, which in the Edda means Thor's mother, the goddess 
 Earth : Thorr Jarffar burr, Seem. 70* 68^ Offins son, Ssem. 73* 74''. 
 And beside her, a male Fiorgynn, gen. Fiorgyns, Fiorgvins, appears 
 as the father of OSin's wife Frigg, Sn. 10, 118. Ssem. 63*. In all 
 these words we must take fairg, firg, fiorg as the root, and not divide 
 them as f air-guni, fir-gun, fior-gyn. Now it is true that aU the Anzeis,' 
 all the Aesir are enthroned on mountains (p. 25), and Firgun might 
 have been used of more than one of them; but that we have a right 
 to claim it specially for Donar a7id his mother, is shewn by Perun, 
 
 1 Matt. 8, 1. Mk 5, 5. 11. 9, 2. 11, 1. Lu. 3, 5. 4, 29. 9, 37. 19, 29. 37. 
 1 Cor. 13, 2. Bairgahei (^ opeivrj) in Lu. 1, 39, 65 ; never the simple bairgs. 
 
THUJNAK. J. 7 
 
 Perkun, and will be confirmed presently by the meaning of mount and 
 rock whicli lies in the word hamar. As Zeus is called evaKpiof, so is 
 his daughter Pallas aKpCa, and his mother opearepa Ta, /j,aTep avrov 
 Aio'i (Sophocl. Philoct. 389) ; the myth transfers from him to his 
 mother and daughter. Of Donar's mother our very marchen have 
 things to tell (Pentam. 5, 4) ; and beyond a doubt, the stories of 
 the devil and his bath and his grandmother are but a vulgarization 
 of heathen notions about the thundergod. Lasicz 47 tells us : Per- 
 cuna tete mater est fulminis atque tonitrui quae solem fessum 
 ac pulverolentum balneo excipit, deinde lotum et nitidum postera 
 die emittit. It is just matertera, and not mater, that is meant by 
 teta elsewhere. 
 
 Christian mythology among the Slav and certain Asiatic nations 
 has handed over the thunderer's business to the prophet Elijah, 
 who drives to heaven in the tempest, whom a chariot and horses of 
 fire receive, 2 Kings 2, 11. In the Servian songs 2, 1. 2, 2 he is 
 expressly called gromovnik Iliya} lightning and thunder (munya and 
 grom) are given into his hand, and to sinful men he shuts up the 
 clouds of heaven, so that they let no rain fall on the earth (see 
 SuppL). Thislast agrees with the O.T, too, 1 Kings 17, 1. 18,41-5, 
 conf. Lu. 4, 25, Jam. 5, 17 ; and the same view is taken in the 
 OHG. poem, 0. iii. 12, 13 : 
 
 Quedent sum giw^ro, Helias sis ther mdro, 
 ther thiz lant s6 tharta, then himil so hisparfa, 
 ther iu ni liaz in notin regonon then liutin, 
 thuangta si giwtiro harto filu suElro.^ 
 
 But what we have to note especially is, that in the story of Anti- 
 christ's appearance a little before the end of the world, which was 
 current throughout the Mid. Ages (and whose striking points of 
 agreement with the ON. mythus of Surtr and MuspeUsheim I shall 
 speak of later), Helios again occupies the place of the northern 
 thundergod. Thdrr overcomes the great serpent, but he has 
 scarcely moved nine paces from it, when he is touched by its 
 venomous breath, and sinks to the ground dead, Sn. 73. In the 
 
 ^ Udri gromom, gromovit Iliya I smite with tlmnder, thunderer Elias, 
 1, 17. 
 
 ^ Greg, tur., pref. to bk 2 : Meminerit (lector) sub Ileliae tempore, qui 
 pluvias cum voluit abstuUt, et cum libuit arentibiis terris infudit, &c. 
 
174 THUNAE. 
 
 OHG. poem of Muspilli 48 — 54, Antichrist and the devil do indeed 
 fall, but Elias also is grievously wounded in the fight : 
 
 Doh wanit des vilu gotmanno^ 
 
 daz Elias in demo wige arwartit : 
 
 sar s6 daz Eliases pluot 
 
 in erda kitriufit, 
 
 so inprinnant die perga ; 
 
 his blood dripping on the earth sets the mountains on fire, and the 
 Judgment-day is heralded by other signs as well. Without 
 knowing in their completeness the notions of the devil. Antichrist, 
 Elias and Enoch, which were current about the 7th or 8th 
 century,^ we cannot fully appreciate this analogy between Elias 
 and the Donar of the heathens. There was nothing in christian 
 tradition to warrant the supposition of Elias receiving a wound, 
 and that a deadly one. The comparison becomes stiU more sug- 
 gestive by the fact that even half-christian races in the Caucasus 
 worship Elias as a god of thunder. The Ossetes think a man lucky 
 who is struck ly lightning, they believe Ilia has taken him to 
 himself; survivors raise a cry of joy, and sing and dance around 
 the body, the people flock together, form a ring for dancing, and 
 sing : Ellai, Ellai, eldaer tchoppei ! (0 Elias, Elias, lord of the 
 rocky summits). By the cairn over the grave they set up a long pole 
 supporting the skin of a black he-goat, which is their usual manner 
 of sacrificing to EUas (see Suppl.). They implore EUas to make 
 their fields fruitful, and keep the hail away from them.* Olearius 
 already had put it upon record, that the Circassians on the Caspian 
 sacrificed a goat on Elias's day, and stretched the skin on a pole 
 with prayers.* Even the Muhammadans, in praying that a thunder- 
 storm may be averted, name the name of Ilya.^ 
 
 Kow, the Servian songs put by the side of Elias the Virgin 
 3fary ; and it was she especially that in the Mid. Ages was invoked 
 for rain. The chroniclers mention a rain-procession in the li^e 
 
 1 Gotman, a divine, a priest 1 Conf. supra, pp. 88-9. 
 
 2 The Rabbinical legend likewise assumes that JElias wUl return and slay 
 the malignant Sammael ; Eisenmenger 2, 696. 851, 
 
 ' Klaproth's travels in the Caucasus 2, 606. 601. 
 * Erman's archiv fiir Eussland 1841, 429. 
 ' Ad. Olearius reiseschr. 1647, pp. 522-3. 
 
THUNAR. 175 
 
 ^country about the year 1240 or 1244 ;i three times did priests and 
 people march round (nudis pedibus et in laneis), but all in vain, 
 because in calling upon all the saints they had forgotten the Mother 
 of God ; so, when the saintly choir laid the petition before God, 
 Mary opposed. In a new procession a solemn ' salve regina ' was 
 sung : Et cum serenum tempus ante fuisset, tanta inundatio pluviae 
 facta est, ut fere omues qui in processione aderant, hac illacque 
 dispergerentur. With the Lithuanians, the holy goddess (dievaite 
 sventa) is a rain-goddess. Heathendom probably addressed the 
 petition for rain to the thundergod, instead of to Elias and Mary.^ 
 Yet I cannot call to mind a single passage, even in ON. legend, 
 where Thorr is said to have bestowed rain when it was ashed for ; 
 we are only told that he sends stormy weather when he is angry, 
 Olafs Tryggv. saga 1, 302-6 (see Suppl.). But we may fairly take 
 into account his general resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter (who are 
 expressly uerto?, 2'^Mi'ws, II. 12, 25 : ve Zeii^ a-vvex^'s), and the pre- 
 valence of -votis irribrem vocare among all the neighbouring nations 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 A description by Petronius cap. 44, of a Eoman procession for 
 rain, agrees closely with that given above from the Mid. Ages : 
 Antea stolatae ibant nudis pedibus in clivum, passis capillis, menti- 
 bus puris, et Jovem aquam exorabant ; itaque statim urceatim (in 
 bucketfuls) pluebat, aut tunc aut nunquam, et omnes ridebant, uvidi 
 tanquam mures. M. Antoninus (ei? eavrov 5, 7) has preserved the 
 beautifully simple prayer of the Athenians for rain : ev'xri 
 ^AdrivaCwv, v(Tov, vcrop, & (j>i\e Zev, Kara rr}? apovpa^; Trji; A Srjvalcov 
 Kol Twv TreSiav (see Suppl.). According to Lasicz, the Lithuanian 
 prayer ran thus : Fercune devaite niemuski und mana dirvu (so I 
 emend dievu), melsu tavi, palti miessu. Cohibe te, Percune, neve 
 in meum agrum calamitatem immittas (more simply, strike not), 
 ego vero tibi banc succidiam dabo. The Old Prussian formula is 
 said to have been : Dievas Perkunos, absolo mus ! spare us, = lith. 
 apsaugok mus ! To all this I will add a more extended petition in 
 Esthonian, as Gutslaff^ heard an old peasant say it as late as the 
 
 1 Aegidius aureae vallis cap. 135 (Chapeauville 2, 267-8). Chron. belg. 
 magn. ad ann. 1244 (Pistorius 3, 263). 
 
 ^ Other samta also grant rain in answer to prayer, as Ft Mansuetus in 
 Pertz 6, 512'>. 513* ; the body of St Lupus carried about at Sens in 1097, 
 Pertz 1, 106-7. Conf. infra, Eain-making. 
 
 3 Joh. Gutslaff, kurzer bericht und unterricht von der falsch heilig ge- 
 
176 THXIN'AE. 
 
 17th century : ' Dear Thwnder (woda Picker), we offer to thee an 
 ox that hath two horns and four cloven hoofs, we would pray thee 
 for our ploughing and sowing, that our straw he copper-red, our 
 gi-ain be golden-yellow. Pv^h elsewhither all the thick black clouds, 
 over great fens, high forests, and wildernesses. But unto us 
 ploughers and sowers give a fruitful season and sweet rain.. Holy 
 Thunder (poha Picken), guard our seedfield, that it bear good straw 
 below, good ears above, and good grain within.' Picker or Picken 
 would in modem Esthonian he called Pitkne, which comes near 
 the Pinnic piilxiinen = thunder, perhaps even Thunder ; Hlipel's 
 Esth. Diet, however gives both pikkenne and pikne simply as 
 thunder (iqapersonal). The Finns usually give their thimdergrxl 
 the name UHco only, the Esthonians that of Turris as well, 
 evidently from the Xorse Thorr (see SuppL).^ 
 
 As the fertility of the land depends on thunderstorms and 
 rains, Fitkdinen and Zev^ appear as the oldest divinity of agri- 
 cultural nations, to whose bounty they look for the thriving of 
 their cornfields and fruits (see SuppL). Adam of Bremen too attri- 
 butes thunder and lightning to Thor expressly in connexion with 
 dominion over weather and fruits : Thor, inquiunt, praesidet in aere, 
 qui tonitrua et fulmina, ventos imbresque, serena et fruges gubernat. 
 Here then the worship of Thor coincides with that of Wuotan, to 
 whom likewise the reapers paid homage (pp. 154 — 7), as on the other 
 hand Thor as well as OSinn guides the events of war, and receives 
 his share of the spoils (p. 133). To the Xorse mind indeed, Thor's 
 victories and his battles with the giants have thrown his peaceful 
 office quite into the shade. Nevertheless to Wuotan's mightiest 
 son, whcse mother is Earth herself, and who is also named Per- 
 kunos, we must, if only for his lineage sake, allow a direct relation 
 to Agriculture.^ He clears up the atmosphere, he sends fertilizing 
 
 nandten baehe in Liefland WoKhanda. Dorpt. 1644, pp. 362-4. Eren in his 
 time the language of the prayer wa.5 hard to Tinderstand ; it is given, corrected, 
 in Peterson's Finn, mvthol. p. 17, and Eosenplanter's beitr., heft 5, p. 157. 
 
 * Uldx is, next to Yumala (whom I connef:t with "Wuotan), the highest 
 Finnish god. Pitkainen literally means the long, tall, high one. 
 
 ' Uhland in his essay on Thorr, has penetrated to the heart of the 0^. 
 myths, and ingeniously worked out the thought, that the very conflict of the 
 summer-god with the \rintc-r-giants, itself sigiufifc? the business of bringing land 
 under cultivation, that the crashing rock-splitting force of the thtmderbolt 
 prepares the hard stony soU. This is most happily expounded of the Hrungnir 
 and Orvandill sagas ; in some of the others it seems not to answer so well 
 
THUNAE. 177 
 
 showers, and his sacred tree supplies the nutritious acorn. Thor's 
 minni was drunk to the prosperity of cornfields. 
 
 The German thundergod was no doubt represented, like Zeus 
 and Jupiter, with a long heard. A Danish rhyme still caUs him 
 ' Thor med sit lange skiag' (F. Magnusen's lex. 957). But the ON. 
 sagas everywhere define him more narrowly as red-hearded, of 
 course in allusion to the fiery phenomenon of lightning : when the 
 god is angry, he blows in his red beard, and thunder peals through 
 the clouds. In the Fornm. sog. 2, 182 and 10, 329 he is a tall, 
 handsome, red-bearded youth : Mikill vexti (in growth), ok iingligr, 
 friSr synum (fair to see), ok raud'skeggjad'r ; in 5, 249 maSr rmiff- 
 skeggjaSr. Men in distress invoked his red beard : Landsmenn 
 toko ]jat r§,S (adopted the plan) at heita Jjetta hit rauffa shegg, 2, 
 183. When in wrath, he shakes his beard : EeiSr var J)l, scegg 
 nam at hrista, scor nam at dyja (wroth was he then, beard he took 
 to bristling, hair to tossing), Ssem. 70*. More general is the 
 phrase : let slga brynnar ofan fyrir augun (let sink the brows over 
 his eyes), Sn. 50. His divine rage (asm6Sr) is often mentioned : 
 Th6rr varS reiSr, Sn. 52. Especially interesting is the story of 
 Thor's meeting with King Olaf 1, 303 ; his power seems half broken 
 by this time, giving way to the new doctrine ; when the christians 
 approach, a follower of Thorr exhorts him to a brave resistance : 
 Jjeyt ]pu i mot Jjeim skeggrodd Jjina (raise thou against them thy 
 beard's voice). Jja gengu Jjeir ut, ok ties Thorr fast i kampana, ok 
 Jjeytti skeggraustina (then went they out, and Th. blew hard into 
 his beard, and raised his beard's voice), kom Jja Jjegar andviSri moti 
 koniingi svS, styrkt, at ekki matti vi?5 halda (immediately there came 
 iU-weather against the king so strong, that he might not hold out, 
 ie.,at sea). — This red beard of the thunderer is stUl remembered in 
 curses, and that among the Frisian folk, without any visible connex- 
 ion with Norse ideas: 'diis ruadhiiret donner regiir!' (let red-haired 
 thunder see to that) is to this day an exclamation of the North Fris- 
 ians.i And when the Icelanders call a fox holta.pdrr, Th6rr of the 
 holt,^ it is probably in allusion to his red fur (see Suppl.). 
 
 The ancient languages distinguish three acts in the natural 
 
 ^ Dergeizhalz auf Silt, Flensburg 1809, p. 123 ; 2nd ed. Sonderburg 1833, 
 p. 113. 
 
 ' Nucleus kt. in usum scholae schalholtinae. Hafniae 1738, p. 2088. 
 
 12 
 
178 THUNAE. 
 
 phenomenon: the ^a.sh,fidgur,ua-Tpairri, the sound, tonitrus, /S/joitij, 
 and the stroke, fulmen, Kepavv6<; (see SuppL). 
 
 The lightning's flash, which we name ilUz, was expressed in our 
 older speech both by the simple plih, Graff 3, 244, MHG. Uic, Iw. 
 649. WigaL 7284, and by plechazunga (coruscatio), derived from 
 plechazan,^ a frequentative of plechin (fulgere), Diut. 1, 222-4; 
 they also used plechunga, Diut. 1, 222. Fleccateshem, Pertz 2, 383, 
 the name of a place, now Blexen ; the MHG. has hlikze (fiilgur) : 
 die hlikzen und die donerslege sint mit gewalte in siner pflege, MS. 
 2, 1&&^. — Again lohazan (micare, coruscare), Goth, lauhatjan, pre- 
 supposes a lohen, Goth, lauhan. From the same root the Goth 
 forms his Iduhmuni {oaTpanrrj), while the Saxon from blic made a 
 Uicsmo (fulgur). AS. leoma (jubar, fulgur), ON. liomi, Swed. 
 Ijungeld, Dan. lyn. — A Prussian folk-tale has an expressive phrase 
 for the lightning : ' He with the Hue whip chases the devil,' i.e. the 
 giants; for a Hue flame was held specially sacred, and people 
 swear by it. North Fris. ' donners hlosken (blue sheen) help ! ' in 
 Hansens geizhals p 123 ; and Schartlin's curse was Mau feuer I 
 (see SuppL). 
 
 Beside donar, the OHG. would have at its command caprSh 
 (fragor) from prehhan (frangere), Gl. hrab. 963'', for which the 
 MHG. often has Mac, Troj. 12231. 14693, and krach from krachen, 
 (crepare) : mit krache gap der doner duz, Parz. 104, 5 ; and as 
 krachen is synonymous with rizen (strictly to burst with a crash), 
 we also find wolkenHz fern, for thunder, Parz. 378, 11. Wh. 389, 
 18 ; gegenrfo, Wartb. kr. jen.. 57 ; reht als der wilde dunrslac von 
 himel kam gerizzen, Ecke 105. der chlafondo doner, N. Cap. 114 ; 
 der chlajleih heizet toner ; der doner stet gespannen, ApoUon. 879. 
 I connect the Gothic fieihvo tern, with the Finnic teuhaan (strepo), 
 teuhaus (strepitus, tumultus), so that it would mean the noisy, 
 uproarious. Some L. Geim. dialects call thunder grummel, Strodtm. 
 Osnabr. 77, agreeing with the Slav, grom, hrom (see SuppL). 
 
 For the notion of fulmen we possess only compounds, except 
 
 ' Wiile -writing plechazan, I remember pleckan, plahta (patere, irndari ; 
 l.'leak), MHG. blecken, blacte, Wigal. 4890 ; which, when used of the sky, 
 means : the clouds open, heaven opens, as we still say of forked and sheet 
 lightning ; con£ Lohengr. p. 125 : reht alsam des himmels bliz von doner sich 
 erblecket. If this plechan is akin to plih (fulgur), we must suppose two verbs 
 plihhan pleih, and plehhan plah, the second derived from the first. Slav, blesk, 
 bli.'fk, but Boh. bozhi posel, god's messenger, lightning-flash. Russ. molni^ 
 Ber\'. munya, iem. (see Suppl.). 
 
THUNAE. 179 
 
 when the simple donner is used in that sense : sluoc alse ein doner, 
 Eoth. 1747. hiure hkt der scliiXr (shower, storm) erslagen, MS. 3, 
 223"; commonly donnerschlag, Uitzschlag. OHG. Uig-scuz (-shot, 
 fulgurum jactus), N. cap. 13; MHG. Uickeschoz, Barl. 2, 26. 253, 27, 
 and Wzcscte, Martina 205"; fiurin donerstrdle, Parz. 104, 1; don- 
 reslac, Iw. 651; ter scue tero fiurentUn donerstrdlo (ardentis fulminis), 
 erscozen mit tien doner strdldn, N. Bth. 18. 175; MHG. ivettersfrahl, 
 hlitzstrahl, donnerstrahl. MHG. wilder donerslac, Geo. 751, as 
 lightning is called wild fire, Eab. 412, Schm. 1, 553, and so in ON. 
 villi-eldr, Sn. 60 (see Suppl.). 
 
 So then, as the god who lightens has red hair ascribed to him, 
 and he who thunders a waggon, he who smites has some weapon 
 that he shoots. But here I judge that the notion of arrows being 
 shot {wilder pfil der uz dem donre snellet, Troj. 7673. doners ffile, 
 Turnei von Nantheiz 35. 150) was merely imitated from the KrfKa 
 Alo^, tela Jovis ; the true Teutonic Donar throws wedge-shaped 
 stones from the sky : ' ez wart nie stein geworfen dar er enkseme von 
 der schiXre,' there was never stone thrown there (into the castle 
 high), unless it came from the storm, Ecke 203. ein vlins (flint) 
 von donrestralen. Wolfram 9, 32. ein herze daz von vlinse ivie donre 
 gewahsen wsere (a heart made of the flint in thunder), Wh. 12, 16. 
 schHrestein, Bit. 10332. schawerstein, Suchenw. 33, 83. s6 slahe 
 mich ein donerstein ! Ms. H. 3, 202*. We now call it donnerfei?, 
 Swed. ask-vi^^ (-wedge) ; and in popular belief, there darts out of 
 the cloud together with the flash a hlack wedge, which buries itself 
 in the earth as deep as the highest church-tower is high.^ But every 
 time it thunders again, it begins to rise nearer to the surface, and 
 after seven years you may find it above ground. Any house in 
 which it is preserved, is proof against damage by lightning ; when 
 a thunder-storm is coming on, it begins to sweat.^ Such stones are 
 also called donnerdxte (-axes) donnersteine, donnerhammer, albschosse 
 (elfshots), strahlsteine, teufelsfinger, Engl, thunder-holts, Swed. Thors 
 vigge, Dan. tordenkile, tordenstraale (v. infra, ch. XXXVII),^ and stone 
 hammers and knives found in ancient tombs bear the same name. 
 Saxo Gram. p. 236 : Inusitati ponderis malleos, quos Joviales voca- 
 
 \ This depth is variously expressed in curses, &c. e.g. May the thunder strike 
 you into the earth as far as a hare can run in a hundred years ! 
 
 ^ Weddigens westfal. mag. 3, 713. Wigands archiv 2, 320, has nine years 
 instead of seven. 
 
 ' The Grk name for the stone is /SfXf/iyirijs a missile. 
 
180 THUNAE. 
 
 bant, . . . prisca viroram religione cultos ; . . . cupiens 
 enim antiquitas tonitruomm causas usitata rerum similitudine com- 
 prehendere, malleos, quibus coeli fragores cieri credebat, ingenti aere 
 complexa fuerat (see SuppL). To Jupiter too the silex (flins) was 
 sacred, and it was held by those taking an oatL From the mention 
 of ' elf-shots ' above, I would infer a connexion of the elf-sprites 
 with the thundergod, in whose service they seem to be employed. 
 
 The Norse mythology provides Thorr with a wonderful hammer 
 named Miolnir (mauler, tudes, contundens), which he hurls at the ' 
 giants, Ssem. S?** C?*" GS*" ; it is also called Jrru&hamar, strong 
 hammer, Ssem. 67'' GS**, and has the property of returning into the 
 god's hand of itself, after being thrown, Sn. 132. As this hamma- 
 flies through the air (er hann kemr a lopt, Sn. 16), the giants know 
 it, lightning and thunder precede the throwing of it : Jjvi nast sa 
 hann (next saw he, giant HrungnirJ ddingccr oc heyrSi }>rwmur 
 storar, sS, hann J>^ Thor i asmoSi, for hann akaflega, oc reiddi hamarin 
 oc hastaSi, Sn. 109. This is obviously the crushing thunderbolt, 
 which descends after lightning and thunder, which was nevertheless 
 regarded as the god's permanent weapon ; hence perhaps that 
 rising of the bolt out of the earth. Saxo, p. 41, represents it as a 
 dub (clava) withoiit a handle, but informs us that Mother in a battle 
 with Thor had knocked off the manubium clavae ; this agi-ees with 
 the Eddie narrative of the manufacture of the hammer, when it 
 was accounted a fault in it that the handle was too short (at 
 forskeptit var heldr skamt), Sn. 131. It was forged by cunniog 
 dwarfs,^ and ia spite of that defect, it was their masterpiece. In 
 Saxo p. 163, Thor is armed with a torrida chalyhs? It is noticeable, 
 how Trauenlob MS. 2, 214'' expresses himself about God the Father: 
 der smit uz Oberlande warf sinen hamer in mine schoz. The ham- 
 mer, as a divine tool, was considered sacred, brides and the bodies 
 of the dead were consecrated with it, Ssem. 74^ Sn. 49. 66 ; men 
 blessed with the sign of the hammer,^ as christians did with the sign 
 of the cross, and a stroke of lightning was long regarded in the 
 
 ^ As Zeus's lightning was by the Curetes or Cyclopes. 
 
 ' That in ancient statues of the thundergod the hammer had not been for- 
 gotten, seems to he proved by pretty late evidence, e.g. the statue of a darper 
 mentioned ia connexion with the giants (ch. XVIII, quotation from Fei^t). 
 And in the AS. Solomon and Saturn, Thunor wields & fiery axe (ch. XXV, Mns- 
 pilli). 
 
 ^ In the Old Germ, law, the throw'mg of a hammer ratifies the acquisition 
 of property. 
 
THUNAE. 181 
 
 Mid. Ages as a happy initiatory omen to any undertaking. Thorr 
 with his hammer hallows dead bones, and makes them alive again, 
 Sn. 49 (see Suppl.). — But most important of all, as vouching for 
 the wide extension of one and the same heathen faith, appears to 
 me that beautiful poem in the Edda, the Hamars heimt (hammer's 
 homing, mallei recuperatio),^ whose action is motived by Thor's 
 hammer being stolen by a giant, and buried eight miles underground: 
 'ek hefi HlorriSa hamar umfolginn ^tta rostom for iorS nedan,' 
 Ssem. 71^ This unmistakably hangs together with the popular 
 belief I have quoted, that the thunderbolt dives into the earth and 
 takes seven or nine years to get up to the surface again, mounting 
 as it were a mile every year. At bottom Thrymr, Jjursa drSttinn, 
 lord of the durses or giants, who has only got his own hammer 
 back again, seems identical with Th6rr, being an older nature-god, 
 in whose keeping the thunder had been before the coming of the 
 §,se3; this is shown by his name, which must be derived from 
 jjruma, tonitru. The compound Jprumketill (which Biorn explains 
 as aes tinniens) is in the same case as the better-known ]?6rketill 
 (see Suppl.). , 
 
 Another proof that this myth of the thundergod is a joint pos- 
 session of Scandinavia and the rest of Teutondom, is supplied by 
 the word hammer itself. Hamar means in the first place a hard 
 stone or rock,^ and secondly the tool fashioned out of it ; the ON. 
 hamarr still keeps both meanings, rupes and malleus (and sahs, seax 
 again is a stone knife, the Lait. saxum). Such a name is particularly 
 well-suited for an instrument with which the mountain-god Donar, 
 our 'Fairguneis,' achieves aU his deeds. Now as the god's hammer 
 strikes dead, and the curses 'thunder strike you' and 'hammer strike 
 you' meant the same thing, there sprang up in some parts, especially 
 of Lower Gemany, after the fall of the god Donar, a personification 
 of the word Hamar in the sense of Death or Devil : ' dat die de 
 Hamer ! i vor den Earner ! de Eamer sla ! ' are phrases still 
 
 ' No other lay of the Edda shows itself so intergrown with the people's 
 poetry of the North ; its plot survives in Swedish, Danish and Norwegian songs, 
 which bear the same relation to that in the Edda as our folk-song of Hilde- 
 brand arjd Alebrand does to our ancient poesy. Thor no longer appears as a 
 god, but as Thorkar (Thorkarl) or Thord af Hafsgaard, who is robbed of his 
 golden hammer, conf. Iduna 8, 122. Nyerups udvalg 2, 188. Arvidsson 1, 3. 
 Schade's beskrivelse over oen Mors, Aalborg 1811, p. 93. Also the remarkable 
 legend of Thor meSf twngitm hamri in Faye's norske sagn. Arendal 1833, p. 5, 
 where also he loses and seeks his hammer. 
 
 ' Slav. Icwmen gen. kamnia, stone ; Lith. ahm'ti, gen. akmens ; Team = ham. 
 
182 THUNAB. 
 
 current among the people, in which you can exchange Hamer for 
 Duvel, hut which, one and all, can only be traced back to the god 
 that strikes with the hammer. In the same way : ' dat is en 
 Hamer, en hamersken kerl,' a rascally impudent cheat.^ de Hamer 
 kennt se all ! the devil may know them aU, Schtitze 2, 96. Hem- 
 merlein, meister Hdmmerlein, signified the evil spirit. Consider also 
 the curses which couple the two names ; donner und teufel ! both 
 of which stood for the ancient god. By gammel Thor, old Thor, the 
 common people in Denmark mean the devil ; in Sweden they long 
 protested by Thore gud. The Lithuanians worshipped an enormous 
 hammer, Seb. Frankes weltbuch 55* (see Suppl.). 
 
 It must have been at an earlier stage that certain attributes 
 and titles of the Saviour, and some Judeo-christian legends, were 
 transferred to the heathen god, and particularly the myth of Leviathan 
 to lormungandr. As Christ by his death overmastered the monster 
 serpent (Bail. 78, 39 to 79, 14), so Th6rr overcomes the miSgarSs- 
 orm (-worm, snake that encircles the world), and similar epithets 
 are given to both.^ Taking into account the resemblance between 
 the sign of the cross and that of the hammer, it need not seem 
 surprising that the newly converted Germans should under the 
 name of Christ still have the lord of thunder and the giver of rain 
 present to their minds ; and so a connexion vrith Marj/ the Mother 
 of God (p. 174) could be the more easily established. The earUest 
 troubadour (Diez p. 15. Eaynouard 4, 83) actually names Christ 
 stOl as the lord of thunder, Jhesus del tro. 
 
 A Neapolitan fairy-tale in the Pentamerone 5, 4 personifies 
 thunder and lightning (truone e lampe) as a beautiful youth, brother 
 of seven spinning virgins, and son of a wicked old mother who 
 knows no higher oath than ' pe truone e lampe '. Without assert- 
 ing any external connexion between this tradition and the German 
 
 1 Brem. wtb. 2, 575. dat di de lunner sla ! Strodtm. p. 80, conf. Schm. 2, 192. 
 the hammer, or a great hammer strike you ! Abeles kiinstl. tmordii. 4, 3. Ge- 
 richtsh. 1, 673. 2, 79. 299. 382. verhcimert diir, kolt, Schiitze 2, 96=verdonnert, 
 verteufelt, blasted, cursed, &c. How deeply the worship of the god had taken 
 root among the people, is proved by these almost ineradicable curses, once 
 solemn protestations : donner ! donnerwetter ! heUiges gevntter (holy thunder- 
 storm) ! And, adding the christian symbol : kreuz donnerwetter ! Then, 
 euphemistically disguised : bim (by the) dmmner, potz dummer ! dummer 
 auch ! Slutz 1, 123. 2, 161-2. 3, 56. bim dummer hammer 3, 51. bim dumstig, 
 dunnstig ! as in Hesse : donnerstag ! bim Jmmer ! In Flanders : bi Vids morkel 
 hamer! Willem's vloeken, p. 12. 
 
 ^ Finn Magnueen lex. 484-5. 
 
THUNAE. 183 
 
 one/ \re discover in it the same idea of a kind and beneficent, not 
 a hostile and fiendish god of thunder. 
 
 The large beetle, which we call stag-beetle or fire-beetle, lucanus 
 cervus, taurus (ch. XXI, beetles), is in some districts of South Ger- 
 many named donnergueg, donnergv/je, donnerpuppe (gueg, guegi, 
 beetle), perhaps because he likes to live in oak-trees, the tree sacred 
 to thunder. For he also bears the name eichochs, Swed. ekoxe (oak- 
 ox); but then again feuerschroter, fiirboter (fire-beeter, ie. kindler),^ 
 borner or haus-brenner (-burner), which indicates his relation to 
 thunder and lightning. It is a saying, that on his horns he carries 
 redhot coals into a roof, and sets it alight ; more definite is the 
 beHef mentioned in Aberglaube, p. xcvi, that lightning wiE strike a 
 house into which this beetle is carried. In Swed. a beetle is still 
 named horntroU (see SuppL). 
 
 Among herbs and plants, the following are to be specially noted : 
 the donnerhart, stonecrop or houseleek, semper vivum tectorum, 
 which, planted on the roof, protects from the lightning's stroke' : 
 larha Jovis vulgari more vocatur (Macer Ploridus 741), Fr. Joubarbe 
 (conf. Append, p. Iviii); — the donnerhesen (-besom), a shaggy tangled 
 nest-like growth on boughs, of which superstition ascribes the gen- 
 eration to lightning ; otherwise called alpruthe ; — the donnerkraut, 
 sedum; — the donnerfiug, fumaria bulbosa; — the donnerdistel, eryng- 
 ium campestre; — the Dan. tordemlcreppe, burdock. — The South Slavs 
 call the iris perunik, Perun's flower, while the Lettons call our 
 
 ' How comes the Ital. to have a trono (Neap, truono, Span. triwTw) by the 
 side of tuono ? and the Proven9al a trons with the same meaning ? Has the R 
 sliptin from oui donar, or still better from the Goth, drunjus, sonus, Rom. 10, 
 18 (conf. dronen, 'cymbal's droning sound' of Dryden)? or did the Lat. thromis 
 pass into the sense of sky and thunder ? ' forchst nicht, wanns tonnert, ein 
 tnn werd vom himmel fallen ? ' Garg. ISl*". The troubadour's ' Jhesus del tro ' 
 might then simply mean lord of the firmament. 
 
 ' ' 1 wol don sacrifice, and fyres beete,' Chaucer. Hence beetle itself ? AS. 
 byt«l.— Trans. 
 
 ' A Provencal troubadour, quoted by Eaynouard sub v. barbajol, says : e da- 
 QUel erha tenon pro li vilan sobra lur maiso. Beside this hauswurz (hauswurzel, 
 Superst. 60), the hawthorn, alba-spina, is a safeguard against lightning (Mem. 
 del' acad. celt. 2, 212), as the laurel was among the ancient Romans, or the 
 white vine planted round a house; conf. brennessel (Superst. 336) ; 'palm branches 
 laid upon coals, lighted caudles, a fire made on the hearth, are good for a 
 thunderstorm,' Braunschw. anz. 1760, p. 1392. The crossbill too is a protector 
 (Superst. 335) ; because his beak forms the sign of the cross or hammer ? but 
 the nest-making redbreast or redstart appears to attract lightning (ch. XXI, 
 redbreast ; Superst. 629. 704) ; was he, because of his red plumage, sacred to 
 the redbearded god 1 (see Suppl.). 
 
184 THUNAE. 
 
 hederich (ground-ivy? hedge-mustard?) pehrJcones; Perunika is also, 
 like Iris, a woman's name. The oak above all trees was dedicated 
 to the Thunderer (pp. 67, 72) : quermis Join plaeuit, Phaedr. 3, 17 ; 
 magna Jovis antiquo robore quercus, Virg. Georg. 3, 332. At 
 Dodona stood the 8pv<; inlriKofio^ Ail's, Od 14, 327. 19, 297, but at 
 Troy the heech often named in the IMad: ^7770? vyjnjXrj .Jio? alyioj^oio, 
 5, 693. 7, 60. A particular kind of oak is in Servian grm, and 
 grmik is quercetum, no doubt in close connexion with grom 
 (tonitrus), grmiti or gmJieti (tonare). The acorn is spoken of 
 above, p. 177. 
 
 Apparently some names of the snipe (scolopax gallinago) have 
 to do vrith this subject : cUmnerziege (-goat), donnerstagspferA 
 (Thursday horse), MmTnelsziege (capella coelestis) ; because he seems 
 to bleat or whinny in the sky ? But he is also the weatherMrd, 
 stormbird, rainbird, and his flight betokens an approaching thunder- 
 storm. Dan. myrehest, Swed. horsgjok, Icel. hrossagaukr, horsegowk 
 or cuckoo, from his neighing; the first time he is heard in the year, 
 he prognosticates to men their fate (Biom sub v.) ; evidently 
 superstitious fancies cling to the bird. His Lettish name pehrixma 
 kasa, pehrkona ahsis (thunder's she-goat and he-goat) agrees exactly 
 ^vith the German. In Lithuanian too, Mielcke 1, 294. 2, 271 
 gives Perhufio ozhys as heaven's goat, for which another name is 
 tikkutis. — Kannes, pantheum p. 439, thinks the name donnerg- 
 iagspferd belongs to the goat itself, not to the bird ; this would be 
 welcome, if it can be made good. Some confirmation is found in 
 the AS. firgemjcBt (ibex, rupicapra, chamois), and firgimhv.cca (capri- 
 comus), to which would correspond an OHG. virgungeiz, yiigun-. 
 pocch; so that in these the analogy of fairguni to Donar holds 
 good. The wild creature that leaps over rocks would better become 
 the god of rocks than the tame goat. In the Edda, Thorr has 
 Jie-goais yoked to his thunder-car : between these, and the weather- 
 fowl described by turns as goat and horse (always a car-drawing 
 beast), there might exist some half-obscured link of connexion (see 
 Suppl.). It is. significant also, that the devH, the modem repre- 
 sentative of the thunder god, has the credit of having created goats, 
 both he and she ; and as Thorr puts away the bones of his goats 
 after they have been picked, that he may bring them to life again 
 (Sn. 49. 50),^ so the Swiss shepherds believe that the goat has 
 
 1 The myth of the slaughtered goats brought to life again by hammer-conse- 
 
THUNAT?. 185 
 
 something of the devil in her, she was made by him, and her feet 
 especially smack of their origin, and are not eaten, Tobler 214*. 
 Did the German thundergod in particular have he-goats and she- 
 goats sacrificed to him (supra, p. 52) ? The Old Eoman or Etruscan 
 Udental (from bidens, lamb) signifies the place where lightning had 
 struck and killed a man : there a lamb had to be sacrificed to 
 Jupiter, and the man's body was not burned, but buried (Plin. 2, 
 54). If the Ossetes and Circassians in exactly the same way offer 
 a goai over the body killed by lightning, and elevate the hide on a 
 pole (supra, p. 174), it becomes the more likely by a great deal that 
 the goat-offering of the Langobards was intended for no other than 
 Donar. For hanging vp hides was a Langobardish rite, and was 
 practised on other occasions also, as will presently be shown. In 
 Carinthia, cattle struck by lightning are considered sacred to God ; 
 no one, not even the poorest, dares to eat of them (Sartoris reise 2, 
 158). 
 
 Other names of places compounded with that of the thundergod, 
 besides the numerous Donnersbergs already cited, are forthcoming 
 in Germany. Near Oldenburg lies a village named Donnerschwee, 
 
 eiation, and of the loar Ssehrimnir (Sn. 42) being boiled and eaten every day 
 and coming whole again every evening, seems to re-appear in more than one 
 shape. In Wolfs Wodana, p. xxviii, the following passage. on witches in 
 Ferrara is quoted from Barthol. de Spina (f 1546), quaestio de strigibus : 
 Dicunt etiam, quod postquam coraederunt aliquem pinguem bovem vel aliquam 
 vegetem, vino vel arcam seu cophinum panibus evacuarunt et consumpserunt 
 ea vorantes, domina ilia percutit awea virga quam nianu gestat ea vasa vel loca, 
 et statim ut prius plena sunt vini vel panis ac si nihil inde fuisset assumptum. 
 Similiter congeri jubet ossa mortui lovis super corium ejus extensum, ipsumque per 
 quatuor partes super ossa revolvens virgaque percutiens, vivum bovem reddit ut 
 prius, ac reducendum jubet ad locum suum. The diabolical witches' meal 
 very well matches that of the thundergod. But we are also told in legends, 
 that the saint, after eatiiv/ up a cock, reanimated it eut of the bones ; and so 
 early as parson Amis, we find the belief made use of in playing-off a deception 
 (1. 969 seq.). Folk-tales relate how a magician, after a fish had been eaten, threw 
 the hones into water, and the fish came alive again. As with these eatable 
 creatures, so in other tales there occurs the reanimation of persons who have 
 been cut to pieces : in the marchen vom Machandelbom (juniper-tree) ; in the 
 myth of Zeus and Tantahis, where the shoulder of Pelops being devoured by 
 Demeter (Ovid 6, 406) reminds us of the he-goat's leg-bone being split for the 
 mairow, and remaining lame after he came to life again ; in the myth of Osiris 
 and St Adalbert (Temme p. 33) ; conf. DS. no. 62, and Ezekiel 37. Then in 
 the eighth Finnish rune, Lemminkaimen's mother gathers all the limbs of his 
 dismembered body, and makes them live again. 'The fastening of heads that 
 have been chopped off to their trunks, in Waltharius 1157 (conf. p. 93) seems 
 to imply a belief in their reanimation, and agrees with a circumstance in 
 ISIorske eventyr pp. 199, 201. 
 
18G THUMAE. 
 
 formerly Donerswe,^ Donnerswehe, Donnerswede (Kohli handb, von 
 Oldenb. 2, 55), which reminds us of OSinsve, Wodeneswege (p. 151), 
 and leaves us equally in doubt whether to understand wih a 
 temple, or weg a way. The Norwegian folk-tale tells us of an 
 actual Thors vej (way, Faye p. 5). A village Vonnersrevt is to be 
 found in Franconia towards Bohemia, a Donnersted in Theding- 
 hausen bailiwick, Brunswick, a Thunresfeld [Thurfield] in Ai>. 
 documents, Kemble 2, 115. 195. 272, &c. &c. — Many in Scan- 
 dinavia, 6.g., in Denmark, Torslunde (Th6rs lundr, grove), Tosingo 
 (Thors engi, ing) f several in Sweden, Tors inase (gurges) in a 
 boundary-deed of Ostergbtland, Broocman 1, 15, Thorsborg in Goth- 
 land, Gutalag p. 107. 260. Thorsbiorg (mountain) and Th&rshofn 
 (haven) in Norway, Fomm. sog. 4, 12. 343 ; Thorsmork (wood; a 
 holy one 1 ), Nialss. cap. 149. 150.^ ThSrs Ties (nose, cape), Saem. 
 155* and Eyrb. saga cap. 4 (see SuppL). Thors bro (Thors brft, 
 bridge) in Schonen, like the Norwegian Thor's-way, leads us to 
 that prevalent belief in devil's bridges and other buildings, which 
 is the popular way of accounting for peculiarly shaped rocks, 
 precipices and steep mountain paths : only God or the devil could 
 have burst them so. 
 
 As a man's name, Donar in its simple form is rarely found ; one 
 noble family on the Ehine was named Bonner von Lorheim, Sieb- 
 mach. 5, 144. Its derivatives and compounds are not common in 
 any High Germ, dialect ; a Carolingian doc. in the Cod. lauresh. 
 no. 464 has Donarad, which I take to be the ON. Th&r&r ; and the 
 Trad. fuld. 2, 23 Albthonar, which is the ON. Thordlfr inverted 
 Such name-formations are far more frequent in the North, where 
 the service of the god prevailed so long : Thorarr (OHG. 
 Donarari ? ), TMrir, Thdrffr, Th&rhallr, Thordlfr (OS. Thunerulf in 
 Calend. merseb. Septemb.), Th&roddr, and the feminines TMra, 
 Thorun, Thdrarna (formed like dioma, Gramm. 2, 336), Thorhiila, 
 Thdrhildr, ThSrdis, &c. I cannot see why the editors of the Fom- 
 manna sogur deprive such proper names as Th&rgeirr, Thorbiom, 
 
 ' ' to DoTierswe, dar heft de herscup den tegenden (teind, tithe),' Land- 
 register of 1428. 
 
 " Others specified in Suhm, krit. hist. 2, 651. 
 
 ' The settlers in Iceland, when they consecrated a district to Thoir, named 
 it Thdrsmork, Landn. 5, 2. ed. nova p. 343. From Domursmark (Zschotor 
 tokely) in the Hungarian county of Zips, comes the Silesian family of Henkel 
 von Donnersmark. Walach. manura : die Donnersmarkt. 
 
THUNAR. 187 
 
 Thdrsteinn, Thdrketill, ThSrvaldr, Thdrfinnr, Th&rgerd'r, &c. of their 
 long vowel ; it is not the abstract J)or, audacia, that they are com- 
 pounded with, and the Nialssaga, e.g. cap. 65, spells I'Adrgeirr, 
 Th6rk3i\&. — The frequent name Thdrketill, abbrev. Thorkell, Dan. 
 Torkild, AS. Turketulus, Thurkytel (Kemble 2, 286, 349. v. supra, 
 p. 63), if it signifies a kettle, a vessel, of the thundergod, resembles 
 Wuotan's sacrificial cauldron (p. 56). The Hymisqvi?5a sings of 
 Th6rr fetching a huge cauldron for the ases to brew ale with, and 
 wearing it on his head, Sasm. 57 ; which is very like the strong 
 man Hans (ans, §,s ? ) in the nursery-tale clapping the church bell 
 on his head for a cap. — The coupling of Alp (elf) with Donar in 
 Albthonar and Th6r§,lfr is worthy of notice, for alpgescJwss (elf-shot) 
 is a synonym for the thunderbolt, and Alpruthe (elf-rod) for the 
 donnerkraut [donnerbesen ? see p. 183]. An intimate relation must 
 subsist between the gods and the elves (p. 180), though on the part 
 of the latter a subordinate one (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 It is observable that in different lays of the Edda Thorr goes 
 by different names. In Lokaglepsa and HarbardslioS he is ' Thorr, 
 AsaJ)6rr,'but in Hamarsheimt ' Vingjjorr, HlorriSi' (yet Thorr as well), 
 in Alvismll always 'Vingjjorr,' in HymisqviSa 'Veorr, HlorriSi,' not 
 to mention the periphrases vagna verr (curruum dominus), Sifjar verr, 
 OSins sonr. Hldrri&i was touched upon in p. 167, note. Vingihdrr 
 they derive from vaengr, ala ; as if Wing-thunder, the winged one, 
 aera quatiens ? This appears to be far from certain, as he is else- 
 where called fostri Vingnis, Sn. 101, and in the genealogies this 
 Vingnir appears by the side of him. Especially important is 
 Veorr, which outside of HymisqviSa is only found once, Saem. 9% 
 and never except in the nom. sing. ; it belongs doubtless to ve, 
 wih, and so betokens a holy consecrated being, distinct from the 
 Ve, gen. Vea on p. 163 ; the OHG. form must have been Wihor, 
 Wihar ? (see SuppL). 
 
 As OSinn was represented jonrneying abroad, to the Eastern land 
 (p. 163), so is Thorr engaged in eastward travels : Thorr var 1 
 austrvegi, Ssem. 59, §, austrvega 68'^ ; for or austrvegi, 75 ; ec var 
 austr, 78*'*' ; austrforom ]?inom scaltu aldregi segja seggjom fra, 68*. 
 In these journeys he fought vnth and slew the giants: var hann 
 
 ' To the Boriat Mongols beyond L. Baikal, fairy-rings in grass are "where 
 the sons of the lightning have. da:nced." — Trans. 
 
188 THUNA.R. 
 
 farinn i austerreg at berja troll, Sn. 46. And this again points to 
 the ancient and at that time still unforgotten connexion of the 
 Teutonic nations with Asia ; this ' faring east- ways ' is told of 
 other heroes too, Sn. 190. o63 ; e.g., the race of the Skilflngar is 
 expressly placed in that eastern region (su kynsloS er i austrve- 
 gum), Sn. 193 ; and lotunheim, the world of the giants, was there 
 situated. 
 
 TMrr was considered, next to OSinn, the mightiest and strongest 
 of all the gods ; the Edda makes him OSin's son, therein differing 
 entirely from the Eoman view, which takes Jupiter to be Mercury's 
 father ; in pedigrees, it is true, Thorr does appear as an ancestor of 
 OSinn. Thorr is usually named immediately after OSinn, some- 
 times before him, possibly he was feared more than OSinn (see 
 Suppl.). In Saxo Gramm., Eegner confesses : Se, Thor deo excepto, 
 nullam monstrigenae virtutis potentiam expavere, cujus (sc. Thor) 
 ^-irium magnitudini nihil humanarum divinarumque rerum digna 
 possit aequalitate conferri. He is the true national god of the 
 Norwegians, landds (patrium numen), Egilss. p. 365-6, and when 
 dss stands alone, it means especially him, e.g., Ssem. 70*, as indeed 
 the very me0,ning of ans (jugum mentis) agrees with that of Fai'r- 
 guneis. His temples and statues were the most numerous in 
 Norway and Sweden, and dsviegin, divine strength, is understood 
 chiefly of him. Hence the heathen religion in general is so 
 frequently expressed by the simple Thdr hldta. Seem. 113*, h&, 
 (called) a Thdr, Landn. 1, 12, trMi (beHeved) d Thdr, Landn. 2, 12. 
 He assigns to emigrants their new place of abode : Thdrr visaffi 
 honum (shewed him), Landn. 3, 7 3, 12. From the Landnamabok 
 we could quote many things about the worship of Thorr: Ipnv 
 stendr enn ThSrs steinn, 2, 12. g^nga til fretta viS Thdr, 3, 12. 
 Thorr is worshipped most, and Freyr next, which agrees with the 
 names Thorvi&r and Freyvidr occurring in one family line 2, 6 ; 
 ^aSr is wood, does it here mean tree, and imply a priestly function? 
 OSinviSr does not occur, but Tyvi&r is the name of a plant, eh. 
 XXXVII. It is Thor's hammer that hallows a mark, a marriage, 
 and the runes, as we find plainly stated on the stones. I show in 
 ch. XXXIII how Thorr under various aspects passed into the 
 devil of the christians, and it is not surprising if he acquired 
 some of the clumsy boorish nature of the giant in the process, for 
 the giants likewise were turned into fiends. The foe and pursuer 
 
THtlNAE. 189 
 
 of all giants in the time of the Ases, he himself appeared a lubber 
 to the christians ; he throws stones for a wager with giants (conf. 
 ch. XVIII). But even in the Eddie ThrynisqviSa, he eats and 
 drinks immoderately like a giant, and the Norwegian folk-tale 
 makes him take up cask after cask of ale at the wedding, Faye p. 4; 
 conf. the proverb : mundi enginn Asathor afdrecka (outdrink). 
 Conversely, the good-natured old giant Thrymr is by his very name 
 a Donar (conf. ch. XVIII). The delightful story of the hobergs- 
 gubbe (old man of the mountain, giant) was known far and wide in 
 the North : a poor man invites him to stand godfather to his child, 
 but he refuses to come on hearing that Thor or Tordenveir is also a 
 bidden guest (conf ch. XVIII) ; he sends however a handsome 
 present (conf. Afzelius 2, 1 58. Molbech's eventyr no. 62, P. Magn. 
 p. 935). In spite of all divergences, there appears in the structure 
 of this fable a certain similarity to that of Gossip Death, ch. XXVII, 
 for death also is a devU, and consequently a giant ; conf Miillen- 
 hoff, schl. hoist, p. 289. That is why some of the old tales which 
 still stood their ground in the christian times try to saddle him 
 with all that is odious, and to make him out a diabolic being of a 
 worse kind than OSinn; conf. Gautrekssaga p. 13. Pinnr drags 
 the statue of Thorr to King Olafr, splits and burns it up, then 
 mixes the ashes in furmety and gives it to dogs to devour ; ' 'tis 
 meet that hounds eat Thorr, who his own sons did eat,' Fornm. sog. 
 2, 163. This is a calumny, the Edda knows of no such thing, it 
 relates on the contrary that M6?Si and Magni outlived their father 
 (see SuppL). Several revived sagas, like that of the creation of 
 wolves and goats, transform Wuotan into the good God, and Donar 
 into the devil 
 
 From the time they became acquainted with the Eoman 
 theogony, the writers identify the German thundergod with 
 Jupiter. Not only is dies Jovis called in AS. Thunresdieg, but 
 Latona Jovis mater is Thunres modur , and capitolium is trans- 
 lated Tlidrshoi by the Icelanders. Conversely, Saxo Gram. p. 236 
 means by his ' Jupiter ' the Teutonic Thor, the Jupiter ardens above 
 (p. 110) ; did that mean Donar? As for that Thorr devouring his 
 children, it seems [a mere importation, aggravated by] a down- 
 right confusion of Jupiter with his father Saturn, just as the Norse 
 genealogy made Thorr an ancestor of OSinn. The ' presbyter Jovi 
 
190 THUNAE. 
 
 mactans/ and the ' sacra ' and ' feriae Jovis ' (in IndicuL pagan.) 
 have been dealt with above, p. 121. 
 
 Letzner (hist. Caroli magni, Hildesh. 1603, cap. 18 end) relates: 
 The Saturday after Laetare, year by year, cometh to the little 
 cathedral-close of Hildesheim a farmer thereunto specially ap- 
 pointed, and bringeth two logs of a fathom long, and therewith two 
 lesser logs pointed in the manner of skittles. The two greater he 
 planteth in the ground one against the other, and a-top of them 
 the skittles. Soon there come hastily together all manner of lads 
 and youth of the meaner sort, and with stones or staves do pelt the 
 skittles down from the logs ; other do set the same up again, and 
 the pelting beginneth a-new. By these skittles are to be under- 
 stood the devilish gods of the heathen, that were thrown down by 
 the Saxon-folk when they became christian. 
 
 Here the names of the gods are suppressed,^ but one of them 
 must have been Jupiter then, as we find it was afterwards.^ Among 
 the farmer's dues at Hildesheim there occurs doAvn to our own 
 times a Jupitergeld. Under this name the village of Grossen- 
 Algennissen had to pay 12 g. grosch. 4 pfen. yearly to the sexton 
 of the cathedral ; an Algermissen farmer had every year to bring to 
 the cathedral close an eight-cornered log, a foot thick and four 
 feet long, hidden in a sack. The schoolboys dressed it in a cloak 
 and crown, and attacked the Jupiter as they then called it, by 
 throwing stones first from one side, then from the other, and at 
 last they burnt it. This popular festivity was often attended with 
 disorder, and was more than once interdicted, pickets were set to 
 carry the prohibition into effect; at length the royal treasury 
 remitted the Jupiter's geld. Possibly the village of Algermissen 
 had incurred the penalty of the due at the introduction of Christi- 
 anity, by its attachment to the old religion.* Was the pelting of 
 
 ^ In the Corhei chion., Hamb. 1590, cap. 18, Letzner thinks it was the god 
 of the Irmen.siil. He refers to MS. accounts by Con. Fontanns, a Helmers- 
 haus Benedictine of the 13th century. 
 
 ^ A Hildesheim register drawn up at the end of the 14th century or 
 beginn. of the 15th cent, says : ' De abgotter (idols), so sunnabends vor laetare 
 (Letzn. ' sonnab. nach laet.') von einem hausmann von Algermissen gesetzet, 
 davor (for which) ihm eine hofe (hufe, hide) landes gehort znr sankmeisterie 
 (chantry ?), und wie solches von dem hausmann nicht gesetzt worden, gehort 
 Canton de hove landes.' Hannoversche landesblatter 1833, p. 30. 
 
 3 Liintzel on farmers' burdens in Hildesheim 1830, p. 205. Haimov. mag. 
 1833, p. 693. Protocols of 1742-3 in an article ' On the Stoning of Jupiter, 
 Hannov. landesbl., ubi supra. 
 
THONAE. 191 
 
 the logs to express contempt ? In Switzerland the well-known 
 throwing of stones on the water is called Heiden werfen, heathen- 
 pelting ; otherwise : ' den Herrgott losen, vater irnd mutter losen,' 
 releasing, ransoming ? Tobler 174^ (see SuppL). 
 
 I do not pretend to think it at all established, that this Jupiter 
 can be traced back to the Thunar of the Old Saxons. The custom is 
 only vouched for by protocols of the last century, and clear evidence 
 of it before that time is not forthcoming; but even Letzner's account, 
 differing as it does, suggests a very primitive practice of the people, 
 which is worth noting, even if Jupiter has nothing to do with it. 
 The definite date ' laetare ' reminds one of the custom universal in 
 Germany of ' driving out Death,' of which I shall treat hereafter, 
 and in which Death is likewise set up to be pelted. Did the 
 skittle represent the sacred hammer ? 
 
 An unmistakable relic of the worship paid to the thunder-god 
 is the special observance of Thursday, which was not extinct 
 among the people till quite recent times. It is spoken of in quite 
 early documents of the Mid. Ages : ' nuUus diem Jovis in otio 
 observet,' Aberglaube p. xxx. 'de feriis quae faciunt Jovi vel 
 Mercuric,' p. xxxii. quintam feriam in honorem Jovis honorasti, 
 p. xxxviL On Thursday evening one must neither spin nor hew ; 
 Superst, Swed. 55. 110. and Germ. 517. 703. The Esthonians 
 think Thursday holier than Sunday.^ Wliat punishment overtook 
 the transgressor, may be gathered from another superstition, which, 
 it is true, substituted the hallowed day of Christ for that of Donar : 
 He that shall work on Trinity Sunday (the next after Pentecost), 
 or shall wear anything sewed or knitted (on that day), shall be 
 strichen ly thunder ; Scheffer's Haltaus, p. 225 (see Suppl.). 
 
 If Jupiter had these honours paid him in the 8th century, if 
 the Capitulare of 743 thought it needful expressly to enjoin an ' ec 
 forsacho Thunare' and much that related to his service remained 
 uneradicated a long time after ; it cannot well be doubted, that at 
 a still earlier time he was held by our forefathers to be a real god, 
 and one of their greatest. 
 
 If we compare him with Wuotan, though the latter is more 
 intellectual and elevated, Donar has the advantage of a sturdy 
 material strength, which was the very thing to recommend him to 
 
 1 Etwas uber die Ehsten, pp. 13-4. 
 
192 THUNAK. 
 
 the peculiar veneration of certain races ; prayers, oaths, curses 
 retained his memory oftener and longer than that of any other 
 god. T3ut only a part of the Greek Zeus is included in him. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 ZIO, (TIW, TYE). 
 
 The OiST. name for dies Martis, Tysdagr, has the name of the 
 Eddie god Tyr (gen. Tys, ace. T^) to account for it. The AS. 
 Tiwesdajg and OHG. Ziestac scarcely have the simple name of the 
 god left to keep them company, but it may be safely inferred from 
 them : it must have been in AS. Tiw} in OHG. Zio. The runic 
 letter Ti, Ziu, will be discussed further on. The Gothic name for the 
 day of the week is nowhere to be found ; according to all analogy 
 it would be Tivisdags, and then the god himself can only have been 
 called Tins. These forms, Tiu-s, Tiw, Ty-r, Zio make a series like 
 the similar Jjiu-s, Jjeow (J^iw), ]?y-r, dio = puer, servus. 
 
 If the idea of our thundergod had somewhat narrow limits, that 
 of Zio lands us in a measureless expanse. The non-Teutonic 
 cognate [Aryan] languages confront us with a multitude of terms 
 belonging to the root div, which, while enabling us to make up 
 a fuller fornmla div, tiv, zio, yield the meanings ' brightness, sky, 
 day, god '. Of Sanskrit words, dyaus (coelum) stands the closest 
 to the Greek and German gods' names Zev<;, Tins. 
 
 Greek. Gothic. 
 
 Zev^ Tius 
 
 ZeD Tiu 
 
 Jifa, Aia Tiu 
 
 Jtfo9, Ai.o'i Tivis 
 
 AiFi, Alt Tiva 
 
 To the digammated and older form of the Greek oblique cases 
 there corresponds also the Latin Jovem, Jovis, Jovi, for which we 
 
 ' It might have been Teow, from the analogy of J>eow to fijr. Lye quotes, 
 without references : Tiig, Mars, Tiiges- vel Tiis-daeg, dies Martis. The Epinal 
 glosses brought to light by Mone actually furnish, no. 520 (Auzeiger 1838, p. 
 145), Tiig, Mars ; also Oehler p. 351 . The change of letters is like that of briig, 
 .lusculiim, for brlw ; and we may at least infer from it, that the vowel is long, 
 
 13 
 
 
 Sanskrit. 
 
 Worn. 
 
 dyaus 
 
 Voc. 
 
 dyaus 
 
 Ace. 
 
 divam 
 
 Gen. 
 
 divas 
 
 Dat. 
 
 divg 
 
194 zio. 
 
 must assume a nom. Ju, Jus, though it has survived only in the 
 compound Jupiter = Jus pater, Zeiiv irarrjp. For, the initial in 
 Jus, Jovis [pronounce j as y] seems to be a mere softening of the 
 fuller dj in Djus, Djovis, which has preserved itself in Dijovis, jus|i 
 as ^eu? presupposes an older Aev<; which was actually preserved in 
 the .^lic dialect. These Greek and Latin words likewise contain 
 the idea of the heavenly god, i£., a personification of the sky. 
 Dium, divum is the vault of heaven, and Zeus is the son of heaven, 
 Ovpavov vlo^, ovpavio<;, Zei/'s aWkpi vaiwv (see SuppL). 
 
 But apart from 'dyaus, Zeus and Jupiter,' the three common nouns 
 devas (Sansk.), 0eo? and deiis express the general notion of a 
 divinity ; they are related to the first three, yet distinct from them. 
 The Lat. deus might seem to come nearest to our Tins, Zio; but 
 its u, like the o in Beos, belongs to the flexion, not to the root, and 
 therefore answers to the a in dSvas.^ Nevertheless deus too must 
 have sprung from devus, and ^eo's from 0eF6<;, because the very d 
 instead of S in the Greek word is accounted for by the reaction of 
 the digamma on the initial. In the shortness of their e they both 
 differ from devas, whose % (=ai) grew by guna out of i, so that the 
 Lith. dievas comes nearer to it.^ But the adjectives Stos (not from 
 8ilo<;, but rather for SiFo<;) and diviis correspond to dSvas as dives 
 divitis (p. 20) to devatas (deus). This approximation between divus 
 and deus serves to confirm the origin of deus out of devus or divus 
 with short i (see Suppl.)*, Still more helpful to us is the fact that 
 the Edda has a plur. tivar meaning gods or heroes, Saem. 30" 41*j 
 rikir tivar (conf. rich god, p. 20), Ssem. 72* 93»; valtivar, 52>; 
 sigtivar, 189'' 248* ; the sing, is not in use. This tivar, though not 
 immediately related to Tyr, yet seems related to it as Bm, Bern, 
 6elo<; are to Zev<; ; its i is established by the fact that the ON. 
 dialect contracts a short iv into y ; thus we obtain by the side of 
 tiv a tiv, in Sanskrit by the side of div a dev, and in Latin by the 
 side of deus a divus, these being strengthened or guna forms of the 
 
 » Kuhn, in Zeitschr. f. d. alt. 2, 231, has rightly pointed out, that Zio can 
 be immediately related only to dyaus and Zeur, not to deus and 6e6s ; hut he 
 ought to have admitted that mediately it must be related to these last also. 
 That div was the root of Zeus, had already been shown by O. Miiller in Gott 
 anz. 1834, pp. 795-6. 
 
 ' Conf. piemu ttoi/i^v, and kiemas Kutjir) haims. 
 
 ' If, as hinted on p. 26, hlos deus were conn, with biai, the notion of bind- 
 ing must have arisen first out of the divine band, which is hardly conceivaUe. 
 
zio. 195 
 
 root div, tiv (splendere).^ If the eartliborn Tuisco, the ancestral 
 god of our nation, stands (as Zeuss p. 72 has acutely suggested) for 
 Tivisco, Tiusco, it shews on its very face the meaning of a divine 
 heavenly being, leaving it an open question whether we wiU choose 
 to understand it of Wuotan or any other god, barring always Tius 
 himself, from whom it is derived (see Suppl.). 
 
 The light of day is a notion that borders on that of heaven, and 
 it was likewise honoured with personification as a god : Lucetium 
 Jovem appellabant, quod eum lucis esse causam credebant ; Festus 
 sub V. To begin with, dies (conf. interdiu, dio) is itself connected 
 with deus and divus ; Jupiter was called Diespiter, ie.,diei pater, 
 for the old gen. was dies. Then the word in the sing, fluctuates 
 between the masc. and fem. genders; and as the masc. Ju, Dju with 
 the sufi&x n, is shaped into the fem. forms Jiino for Jovino, Djovino, 
 and Diana, just so the Lith. name for day, diena, is fem., while the 
 Slav, den, dzien, dan, is masc. The Teutonic tongues have no word 
 for sky or day taken from this root, but we can point to one in 
 G-reek : Cretenses Aia rfjv rjfiepav vocant (call the day Zeus), ipsi 
 quoque Romani Diespitrem appellant, ut diei patrem ; Macrob. 
 Sat. 1, 15. The poetic and Doric forms Zrjva, Zrjvo^, ZrjvL, and 
 Zava, Zav6<;, Zavi, for Ala, Aiov, Ait, correspond to the above 
 formations f and the Etruscans called Jupiter Tina, i.e. Dina ; 0. 
 MiiUer 2, 43 (see Suppl.). 
 
 , A derivative from the same root with another suffix seems to 
 piresent itself in the ON. tivor (deus % ),^ Saem. 6^ AS. tir, gen. tires 
 (tiir. Cod. exon. 331, 18 gloria, splendor), and OS. tir, gen. tiras, tireas; 
 With which I connect the OHG. ziori, ziari, zieri (splendidus), and 
 the Lat. decMS, decor, decerns. The AS. poets use the word tir only 
 to intensify other words : tirmetod (deus gloriae, summus deus), 
 Csedm. 143, 7 ; eesctlr wera (hasta gloriosa virorum), 124, 27 ; sesca 
 tir, 127, 10 ; tlrwine, Boeth. metr. 25, 41 ; ttrfruma. Cod. exon. 13, 
 21 ; ttrmeahtig (potentissimus), 72, 1 ; tireadig (felicissimus), 
 Caedm. 189, 13. 192, 16; tirftest (firmissimus), 64, 2. 189, 19; 
 
 1 Sometimes, though rarely, we find another ON. dAar, Saem. 91». Sn. 176. 
 Yngl. saga cap. 2 ; it agrees with 6eas more than with SIos. 
 
 ^ We know to what shifts Socrates is driven in trying to explain the forms 
 Z^i/a and Ai'a (Plato's Cratylus p. 29, Bekker) ; 6ios he derives from Bilv, 
 currere (p. 32). 
 
 'Or must we read it tivor, and connect it with the AS. tifer, tiber, OHG. 
 zepar 1 
 
196 zio. 
 
 much in the same way as the AS. eormen, OHG.' irman is prefixed. 
 Now when a similar prefix ^^ meets us in the ON. writings, e.g. 
 tyhraustr (fortissimus), tyspakr (sapientissimus), Sn. 29, it confirms 
 the affinity between tlr and Ty-r. 
 
 These intricate etymologies were not to be avoided : they 
 entitle us to claim a sphere for the Teutonic god Zio, Tiw, Ijv, 
 which places him on a level with the loftiest deities of antiquity. 
 Eepresented in the Edda as Ot5in's son, he may seem inferior to 
 him ia power and moment ; but the two really fall into one, inas- 
 much as both are directors of war and battle, and the fame of 
 victory proceeds from each of them alike. For the olden time 
 resolved all glory into military glory, and not content with Wuotan 
 and Zio, it felt the need of a third war-god Hadu ; the finer distinc- 
 tions in their cultus are hidden from us now. — It is not to be over- 
 looked, that OSinn is often named Sigt^r, Hroptatyr, Gautatyr, 
 hangatyr, farmatyr (Sajm. 30. 47. 248^ Sn. 94-6), bodvartyr, quasi 
 pugnae deus, geirtyr (Forum, sog. 9, 515-8) ; and that even Thorr, 
 to whom Jupiter's lightning has been handed over, appears as 
 EeiSartyr, Eeidityr (Sn. 94), i.e. god of the waggon.^ In aU these 
 poetical terms, we see that tyr bears that more general sense which 
 makes it suitable for aU divinities, especially the higher ones. Tyr 
 has a perfect right to a name identical with Zeus. Add moreover, 
 that the epithet of father was in a special degree accorded, not 
 only to Jupiter, Diespiter, but to victory's patron Marspiter.^ 
 
 Further, this lofty position is claimed for Zio by the oldest 
 accounts that have reached us. Mars is singled out as a chief god 
 
 ■' I do not reckon Angant^r among this set of words. It occurs frequently, 
 both in the Hervararsaga and in Saem. 114'' 119*' 9''; this last passage calls 
 OOinn ' Friggjar angantjr '. The true form is doubtless Anganpyr, as appears 
 from the OHG. Angandeo (Trad. fuld. 1, 67), and the AS. Ongenpeow, Ongenpio 
 (Beow. 4770. 4945-67. 5843-97. 5917-67) ; -tyr would have been in AS. -teow, in 
 OHG. -zio. Graff gives an Agandeo 1, 132. 5, 87, which seems to be amis- 
 sjielling, though the Trad, wizenb. no. 20 have a woman's name Agathiu (for 
 Ajiganthiu), to which add the ace. Agathien, Agacien (Walthar. 629). The 
 meaning of angan, ongen, is doubtful ; ' angan illrar brildhar' is said to he 
 ' deliciae malae mulieris,' but Eiorn interprets it pedisequa, and OSinn might 
 fitly be called Friggae pedisequus. That some proper names in the Edda are 
 corrupt, is plain from Hamdir, which ought everywhere to he Ham]j5'r, OHG. 
 llamadio, Hamideo (Schannat no. 576. Cod. lauresh. 2529), MHO. Hamdie 
 (MsH 3, 213^'). This much I am sure of, that neither Anganji^r nor Hamji^r 
 can contain a tfv, which is almost always compounded with genitives in a 
 figurative sense. 
 
 ^ Gellius 5, 12. 
 
zio. 1C7 
 
 of all the Germanic nations, and mentioned side by side with Mer- 
 cury. The evidence is collected on p. 44.^ Tacitus, in Hist. 4, 64, 
 makes the Tencteri say right out : Communibus dels, et prae- 
 cipuo deonim Marti grates agimus ; we have no occasion to apply 
 the passage to Wuotan, to whom the highest place usually belongs^ 
 as particular races may have assigned that to Zio. The still clearer 
 testimony of Procopius 12, 15 to the worship of Ares among the 
 dwellers in the ISrorth,^ which says expressly : ewel 6eov avrov 
 vojxi^ovcri fieyia-Tov elvai, ought to be compared with the statements 
 of Jornandes on the Gothic Mars ; in both places human sacrifices 
 are the subject, and therefore Zeuss, p. 22, is for understanding it 
 of Wuotan again, because to him Tacitus says that men were 
 sacrificed ; but he does not say to him alone, — on the contrary, 
 anent the Hermundurian offering, Ann. V-i, 57, where ' viri ' were 
 also slain, Ma7's stands mentioned before Mercury. And Jornandes, 
 who identifies the ' Gradivus pater ' of the Getae in Virg. Aen. 3, 
 35 with the Ifars of the Goths, must have been thinking of the 
 special god of war, not of a higher and more general one, intimately 
 as they interpenetrate one another in name and nature. All in 
 favour of this view are the Scythian and Alanic legends of the 
 war-sword, which will be examined by and by : if the Getic, 
 Scythian and Gothic traditions meet anywhere, it is on this of 
 i/ars-worship. N"either can we disregard Widukind's representa- 
 tion at a later time (Pertz 5, 423) of the Saxon Mars set up on 
 high. Donar and Wuotan, with whom at other times he is combined 
 in a significant trilogy, appear, like Jupiter and Mercury, to retire 
 before him. But it is quite conceivable how the glossist quoted on 
 p. 133 could render Wuotan by Mars, and Widukind glide easily 
 from Mars to Hermes, i.e., Wodan, particularly if he had in his 
 mind the analogy of those prefixes irman- (of wliich he is speaking) 
 and tir-. The GIST, writers, while they recognise OSin's influence 
 on war and victory, speak no less distinctly of Tyr, who is em- 
 
 ^ A passage in Florus 2, 4 : 'mox Ariovisto dtice vovere <ie nostronim mili- 
 tum praeda Marti suo torquera : intercepit Jupiter votum, nam de torquibiis 
 eorum aureum tropaeum Jovi Flaminius erexit,' speaks of the Insubrian Gauls, 
 who were beaten in the consulship of Flaminius B.C. 225. But these Galli 
 are both in other respects very like Germani, and the name of their leader is 
 that of the Suevic (Swabian) king in Caesar. 
 
 ^ eovKirai (men of Thule) is their generic name, biit he expressly includes 
 among them the Tavroi, whom he rightly regards as a different people from the 
 rdr(9oi, conf. Gott. anz. 1828, p. 553. 
 
198 zio. 
 
 phatically their Vigagucf (deus proeliorum), Sn. 105, and again: 
 hann er diarfastr ok best hugaSr, ok hann rcecfr mioc si^ri i orostqm, 
 Sn. 29 (see SuppL). 
 
 No doubt there were mountains hallowed to Zio, as well as to 
 Wuotan and Donar; the only difficulty is, to know which god, 
 Wuotan or Zio, was meant by a particular name. May we place 
 to his credit the name of the abbey of Siegburg in the Lower 
 Ehine, which was founded in 1064 on a mountain where the 
 ancient assize of the people was held? From that time the moun- 
 tain was to have been called Mons sancti Michaelis after the 
 christian conqueror, but the hesAhen Sigeberg could not be dislodged, 
 it was only distorted into Siegburg ;^ or are we to explain the name 
 by the river Sieg, which flows through the district ? The ON. 
 Sigtysberg (OS. Sigu-tiwis-berag?), Saem. 348* might belong to OSinn 
 or to Tyr. The Weimar map has in section 38 a Tisdorf, and in 
 section 48 a Ziesberg, both in Lower Saxon districts on the Elbe. 
 A place in Zealand, about which there are folk-tales, is TyUerg 
 (Thiele 2, 20) ; also in Zealand are Tisvelde (Ti's well), Tysting ; in 
 Jutland, Tystathe, Tiislunde. In Sweden : Tistad, Tisby, Tisjo, 
 Tyved. Zierberg in Bavaria (Cirberg, Zirberc, MB. 11, 71-3-5-6) 
 and Zierenberg in Lower Hesse may be derived from the collateral 
 form (see SuppL). The mons Martis at Paris (Montmartre), of 
 which even Abbo de bell. Par. 2, 196 makes mention, has to do 
 with the Gallic Mars, whom some take to be Belus, others Hesus. 
 With far better right than the Parisian mons Martis (yet conf. Waltz's 
 SaUc law, p. 52), we may assign to Zio the fanum Martis, now 
 Pamars in Hainault (p. 84), according to Herm. Miiller the Old 
 Prankish ' Disbargum (or Disbargus) in termino Toringorum' of 
 Greg. tur. 2, 9, Chlodio's castellum. Dis- would be a Latinized form 
 of Tis = Tives, perhaps recalling Dispiter, Diespiter ; there is no 
 Gallic word like it looking towards Mars, and the district is thor- 
 oughly Prankish, with Liphtinae close by, where we have Saxnot 
 named by the side of Thunar and Wodan. As for Eresberg and 
 Mersberg (3 or 4 pp. on), I have compared the oldest documents in 
 Seibertz: no. 11 (anno 962) gives us Eresburg; no. 25 (1030) already 
 Mersburg ; 1, 98 (1043) mons Eresburg; no. 51 (1150) mons Eres- 
 berg; no. 70 (1176) mons Eresberch; no. 85 (1184) Heiesburg; 
 
 1 Docum. in Lacomblet, no. 203-4. 
 
zio. 199 
 
 no. 115 (1201) mons Martis; no. 153 (1219 Mersberch; no. 167 
 (1222) Eresberch; no. 179 (1228) mons Martis; no. 186 (1229) 
 mons Heresberg; no. 189 (1230) mons Martis and Mersberg. 
 Mons Martis was the learned name, Mersberg the popular, and 
 Eresberg the oldest. As mons and casteUum are used by turns, 
 berg and burg are equally right. Widukind 2, 11 and Dietmar 2, 1 
 speU Heresburg and Eresburch, when they describe the taking of 
 the place in 938. According to the Ann. Corb. (Pertz 5, 8), they 
 are sacred to both Ares and Hermes (Mars and Mercury). 
 
 The names of plants also confess the god : ON. Tyfifiola, I dare- 
 say after the Lat. viola Martis, march- violet; Tyrhialm (aconitum), 
 otherwise Thorhialm, Thorhat (helmet, hat), conf. Germ, sturmhut, 
 eisenhut, Dan. troldhat, a herb endowed with magic power, whose 
 helmet-like shape might suggest either of those warlike gods Tyr and 
 Thorr; Tyviffr, Ty's wood, Dan. Tyved, Tysved (daphne mezereum), 
 in the Helsing. dial, tis, tistbast, the mezereon, a beautiful poison- 
 flower (see Suppl.). 
 
 WhUe these names of places and plants sufficiently vouch for 
 the wide-spread worship of the god, we must lay particular stress 
 on one thing, that the name for the third day of the week, which 
 is what we started with, bears living witness to him at this moment, 
 not only in Scandinavia and England (ON. Tysdagr, Swed. Tisdag, 
 Dan. Tirsdag, AS. Tiwesdaeg), but among the common people in 
 Swabia and Switzerland (Ziestag, Tiestag, diestik, beside our uni- 
 iversal Dienstag); Schm. 4, 214 brings all the forms together. And 
 there is yet one more testimony to the high antiquity of Zio- worship 
 in Swabia, which we may gather from an old Wessobrunn gloss 
 ' Cyuvari = Su§,pa,' MB. 7, 375 and Diut. 2, 370 ; which I take to 
 be not Teutpnoari, as Zeuss does, pp. 146-9, but Ziowari Martem 
 colentes, warian expressing, like Lat. colere, both habitare and 
 Bepaireveiv, so that the Suevi are 6epd'rrovTe<s "Aprjo^. 
 
 But that is not all : further and weighty disclosures on the 
 name and nature of the war-god await us at the hands of the Eunic 
 alphabet. 
 
 It is known that each separate rune has a name to itself, and 
 these names vary more or less according to the nations that use them, 
 but they are mostly very ancient words. The OHG. runes having 
 to bestow the name dorn on D, and tac on T, require for their 
 aspirate Z which closes the alphabet the name of Zio. In the ON. 
 
200 zio. 
 
 and AS. alphabets, dag stood for D, T§r and Tiw for T, Jjorn for ];, 
 being the same three words, only in different places ; occasionally 
 the Anglo-Saxons wrote Tir or Tis. Whenever a list of runes 
 keeps thorn for Th, and dag for D, it is sure to have Ti for T (as 
 the Cod. Isidori paris. and bruxelL); so it is in the St Gall cod. 
 260 and the Brussels 9565, except that dorn is improperly put for 
 thorn, and tag for dag, but Ti stands correctly opposite T. The 
 Paris cod. 5239 has dhron (dhorn), tac, Ziu, that of Salzburg dhorn, 
 Ti, daeg : everywhere the form Ziu shows the High Germ, accepta- 
 tion, and the form Ti (once, in Cod. vatic. Christinae 338, spelt Tu, 
 perh. Tii) the Low Germ., the Saxon. The u in Ziu seems to he 
 more archaic than the o of Zio, which has kept pace with the 
 regular progress of the OHG. dialect, and follows the analogy of 
 dio, servus ; this relation between u and o may perhaps be seen 
 stni more in its true light, as we go on. But what is very remark- 
 able, is that in the Vienna cod. 140 the name Tyz is given to T in 
 an alphabet which uses the Gothic letters, for Tyz comes very near 
 to our conjectural Goth. Tins. As well the retention as the unavoid- 
 able alterations of this divine name in the runes of the various races, 
 may be taken as proofs of the antiquity and extent of Zio-worship. 
 How comes it that no rune has taken its name from Wuotan or 
 0?5inn, the inventor of writing itself ? ' E = reiS, rad,' i.e., waggon, 
 may indirectly at least be referred to the god of the Thunder-car; 
 and F according to one interpretation signifies Freyr. Anyhow, 
 'T=Tyr' appears to have been a supremely honoured symbol, and 
 the name of this god to have been specially sacred : in scratching 
 the runes of victory on the sword, the name of Tyr had to be twice 
 inserted. Seem. 194''. The shape of the rune f has an obvious 
 resemblance to the old-established symbol of the planet Mars when 
 set upright -J-, and an AS. poem on the runes expressly says : tir 
 biS t&cna sum (ttr is one of the tokens, is a certain sign) ; where 
 again the derivative form tir is employed to explain the the simple 
 Tiw or TI. Occasionally the poets speak of ' tire tacnian,' to mark 
 with tir (El. 753. Jud. 137, 18), and'th-es to tacne,' as mark of tir 
 (Beow. 3306) ; we may expound it as ' gloria, decore insignire, in 
 gloriae signum,' and stiU think of the heathen symbol of the god, 
 pretty much as we saw it done at the solemn blessing of the ale- 
 cups (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 > Conf. note to Elene 155-6. 
 
EOR. 201 
 
 Thus far we have dealt with the runic name Tfr, Tiw, Zio, and 
 no other. But here the same alphabets come out with a sharp dis- 
 tinction between two names of the selfsame god. First, in the AS. 
 Usts, in addition to ^ Tir, we come upon a similar arrow with two 
 barbs added ^ and the name Ear attached to it.^ Then the OHG. 
 alphabets, after using '^ for tac, find a use for that very symbol ^ 
 to which some of them give the name Zio, others again Uo, Eor, 
 Aer. And there are AS. alphabets that actually set down by ^ 
 the two names Tir and Ear, though Tir had already been given to t" ■ 
 It is evident then, that Tir and Ear — Zio and Eo, Eor — were two 
 names for one god, and both must have been current among the 
 several races, both Low German and High. 
 
 Evidence as regards Low Germany is found both in the rune 
 Ear occurring in Anglo-Saxon, and in the remarkable name of 
 Eresburg, Aeresburg being given to a notable seat of pagan worship 
 in a district of Westphalia, in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
 Irmansul (v. supra, p. 116). That it was strictly 'E-ce.sberg (as Sieg- 
 burg was originally Sigberg, p. 198), follows both from the Latin 
 rendering mons Martis, and from its later name Mersberg^ whose 
 initial M could be explained by the contraction of the words ' in 
 dem Eresberge, Aresberge,'* or it may be an imitation of the Latin 
 name. There was a downright Marsberg in another district of West- 
 phalia.* This Ereshero then is a Ziesberc, a Sig-tiwes-berg, and yet 
 more closely an Areopagus, Mars' hiU, Apeioirwyos; irkrpa •irdyo<s t' 
 Mpeto? (Aeschyl. Eum. 690). 
 
 Still more plainly are High German races, especially the 
 Bavarian (Marcomannic) pointed to by that singular name for the 
 third day of the week,Ertag, lertag, Irtag, Eritag, Erchtag, Erichtag, 
 which answers to the rune Eor, and up to this moment lives to part 
 off the Bavarians, Austrians and Tyrolese from the Swabians and 
 Swiss (who, as former Ziowari, stick to Ziestag) ; along the boundary- 
 line of these races must also have run formerly the frontier between 
 Eor-worship and Zio-worship. True, the compound Ertac lacks 
 
 1 In one poem, Cod. exon. 481, 18, tlie rune contains simply the vowel 
 sound ea. 
 
 2 This Eresburg or Mersberg stands in the pagus Hessi saxonicus (registr. 
 Sarachonis p. 42, 735) ; conf. Wigands archiv I. 1, 36-7. II. 143. 268. 
 
 " So : Motgers = in dem Otgers hove [and, the nonce = then once, &c.]. 
 *In the pagus Marstem, Marshem, Marsem (close to the "Weser, near 
 Marklo), reg. Sarachonis 42, 727. 
 
202 ao. 
 
 the genitive ending -s which is preserved in Ziestac, and I have not 
 been so fortunate as to hunt up an Erestac^ in the older records of 
 the 13-14th centuries ; nevertheless the coincidence of the double 
 names for the day and for the rune should be conclusive here, and 
 we must suppose an OHG. Erestac, to match the Eresberg. One 
 might be led to imagine that in Ilrtag the Earth (Erde according 
 to the forms given at the beginning of eh. XIII) was meant. But 
 the ancient way of thinking placed the earth in the centre of the 
 world, not among the planets ; she cannot therefore have given 
 name to a day of the week, and there is no such day found in any 
 nation, unless we turn Venus and Ereyja into the earth. — To bear 
 this Ertag company, there is that name of a place Eersel, quoted 
 p. 154 from Gramaye, in which neither Sra honor, nor its personifii 
 cation Era (ch. XVI, XXIX) is to be thought of, but solely a god 
 of the week. It is worth noticing, that Ertac and Erdag occur as 
 men's names; also, that the Taxandrian Eersel was but a little way 
 off the Tisberg or Fanmars in Hainault (see SuppL). — Now comes 
 something far more important. As Zio is identical with Zeus as 
 director of wars, we see at a glance that Eor, Er, Ear, is one with 
 M/3J7? the son of Zeus ; and as the Germans had given the rank of 
 Zeus to their Wuotan, Tyr and consequently Eor appears as the son 
 of the highest god. Have we any means now left of getting at the 
 sense of this obscure root Eor ? 
 
 The description of the rune in the AS. poem gives only a slight 
 hint, it runs thus : 
 
 Ear bi?5 egle eorla gehwilcum, 
 
 ]?onne feestlice flsesc onginneS 
 
 hraew c61ian, hrusan ceosan 
 
 bl§,c to gebeddan. blseda gedreosaS, 
 
 wynna gewitaS, wera geswlcaS ; 
 i.e., Ear fit importunus hominum cuicumque, quum caro incipit 
 refrigescere, pallidumque corpus terram eligere conjugem. tunc 
 enim gloriae dilabuntur, gaudia evanescunt, foedera cessant. The 
 description is of death coming on, and earthly joys dropping off; 
 but who can that be, that at such a time is burdensome (egle, ail-some) 
 to men ? The ordinary meaning of ear, spica, arista, can be of no use 
 here ; I suppose that approaching dissolution, a personified death 
 
 ' In a passage from Keisersberg quoted by Schm. 1, 97, it is spelt Eristagi 
 apparently to favour the derivation from ' dies aeris.' 
 
EOR, SAXNOT, CHERU. 203 
 
 is to be understood, from which a transition to the destructive god 
 of battles, the ^poTo\oiy6<;, ij,iai(f)6vo<; "Aprj^ is easy to conceive.'^ 
 "Apr]^ itself is used abstractly by the Greeks for destruction, murder, 
 pestilence, just as our Wuotan is for furor and belli impetus,^ and 
 the Latin Mars for bellum, exitus pugnae, furor bellicus, conf. 'Mars 
 =cafeht,' gefecht, fight, in Gl. Hrab. 969^ ; as conversely the OHG. 
 wig pugna, bellum (Graff 1, 740) seems occasionally to denote the 
 personal god of war. ' Wicgch quoque Mars est ' says Ermoldus 
 Nigellus (Pertz 2, 468), and he is said to farneman, AS. forniman, 
 carry off, as Hild (Bellona) does elsewhere : dat inan wic fornam, 
 Hildebr. Hed ; in AS. : wig ealle fornam, Beow. 2155 ; wig fornom, 
 Ood. exon. 291, 11. Do we not still say, war or battle snatched 
 them all away ? A remarkable gloss in the old Cod. sangall. 913, 
 p. 193, has 'turbines = ziu ' (we have no business to write zui), which 
 pay mean the storm of war, the Mars trux, saevus, or possibly the 
 literal whirlwind, on which mythical names are sometimes bestowed; 
 so it is either Zio himself, or a synonymous female personification 
 Ziu, bearing the same relation to Zio as diu (ancilla) to dio 
 (servus). 
 
 Here comes in another string of explanations, overbold as some 
 of them may seem. As Eresburg is just as often spelt Heresburg 
 by the Frankish annalists, we may fairly bring in the Goth, hairus, 
 AS. heor, OS. Jieru, ON. Tiiorr, ensis, cardo, although the names of 
 the rune and the day of the week always appear without the 
 aspirate. For in Greek we already have the two unaspirated words 
 Mpjj? and aop, sword, weapon, to compare with one another, and 
 these point to a god of the sword. Then again the famous Abre- 
 nuntiatio names three heathen gods, Thunar, WSden, SaxnSt, of 
 whom the third can have been but little inferior to the other two 
 in power and holiness. Salisnot is word for word gladii consors, 
 ensifer [Germ, genoss, sharer] ; who else but Zio or Eor and the 
 Greek Ares P The AS. genealogies preserve the name of Sasmedf 
 
 ' Or, without the need of any transition, Ear might at once be Ares : ' war 
 is burdensome in old age '. — Tbansl. 
 
 ' The notions of raving (wiiten) and insanire are suitable to the blustering 
 stormful god of war. Homer calls Ares 6ovpos the wild, and at^pav the 
 insensate, 6r o^nva o'Se Beiiwra, II. 5, 761. But ixaiperat is said of other gods 
 ttto, particularly Zeus (8, 360) and Dionysos or Bacchus (6, l.'J2). 
 
 ' One might think of Fro, Freyr (ch. X), but of course glittering swords 
 were attributed to more than one god ; thus Poseidon (Neptune) wields a Seiv6v 
 aop, II. 14, 385, and Apollo is called xpva-dopos, 5, 509. 15, 256. 
 
204 zio. 
 
 as the son of Woden, and it is in perfect accordance with it, that 
 'J yr was the son of. OSinn, and Ares the son of Zeus (see Suppl.). 
 But further, as the Sctxons were so called, either because they 
 wielded the sword of stone (saxum), or placed this god at the head 
 of their race, so I think the Cheruscans of Tacitus, a people 
 synonymous, nay identical with them, were named after Glum, 
 Heru = Eor, from whom their name can be derived.^ After this 
 weighty consonance of facts, which opens to us the meaning of the 
 old national name, and at the same time teaches that ' heru ' was 
 first of all pronounced ' cheru,' and last of all ' eru, er,' I think we 
 may also bring in the Gallic war-god Hesus or Esus (Lucan 1, 440) 
 and state, that the metal iron is indicated by the planetary sign of 
 Mars, the AS. ' tires ticen,' and consequently that the rune of Zio 
 and Eor may be the picture of a sword with its handle, or of a 
 spear.^ The Scythian and Alanic legends dwell stiU more emphati- 
 cally on the god's sword, and their agreement with Teutonic ways 
 of thinking may safely be assumed, as Mars was equally prominent 
 in the faith of the Scythians' and that of the Goths. 
 
 The impressive personification of the sword matches well with 
 that of the hammer, and to my thinking each confirms the other. 
 Both idea and name of two of the greatest gods pass over into the 
 instrument by which they display their might. 
 
 Herodotus 4, 62 informs us, that the Scythians worshipped 
 Ares under the semblance or symbol of an ancient iron sword 
 {atavdK7)<;), which was elevated on an enormous stack of brushwood 
 [' three furlongs in length and breadth, but less in height '] : eiri 
 TOVTOV Or) Tov oyKOv aK IV aKT]^ trtSjJpeo? Xhpvrai ap')(a,io<> 
 eKaa-Toicn • koI tovt^ ean Tov"Ap7)os to ayaX/ia. Ammianus 
 Marcellinus 31, 2 says of the Alani : Nee templum apud eos visitur 
 aut delubrum, ne tugurium quidem culmo tectum cerni usquam 
 ■ potest, sed gladius barbarico ritu humi figitur nudus, eumque id 
 Martem, regionum quas circumcircant praesulem, verecundius 
 colunt. And he had previously asserted of the Quadi also, a 
 decidedly German people, 17, 12 (a.d. 358): Eductis mucronibus,quos 
 pro numinibus colunt, juravere se permansuros in fide. Perhaps aU 
 
 1 The siiffix -ak would hardly fit with the material sense of heru, far better 
 with a personal Heru. 
 
 2 Does the author overlook, or deliberately reject, the ON. or, gen. dnm, 
 AS. arwe, arrow ? Among the forms for Tuesday occur Erigtag, Ergetsxg ; erge 
 is to arwe, as sorge to sorwe, morgen to morwen, &c. — Trans. 
 
ZIO. 205 
 
 the Teutonic nations swore by their weapons, with a touching of 
 the weapon/ just as the Scythians and Eomans did fcr Martis 
 frameam, Juvenal 13, 79. So Arnobius 6, 11 : Pddetis temporibus 
 priscis coluisse acinacem Scythiae nationes, . . . pro Marte 
 Eomanos hastam, ut Varronis indicant Musae ; this framea and 
 hasta of the Eomans is altogether like the Scythian sword.^ 
 Jomandes, following Prisons 201, 17, tells of the Scythian sword, 
 how it came into the hands of Attila, cap. 35 : Qui (Attila), 
 quamvis hujus esset naturae ut semper confideret, addebat ei tamen 
 confidentiam gladius Martis inventus, apud Scytharum reges semper 
 habitus. Quern Prisons historicus tali refert occasion e detectum, 
 quum pastor, inquiens, quidam gregis unam buculam conspiceret 
 claudicantem (noticed one heifer walking lame), nee causam tanti 
 vulneris inveniret, sollicitus vestigia cruoris insequitur, tandemque 
 venit ad gladium, quem depascens herbas bucula incaute calcaverat, 
 effossumque protiaus ad Attilam defert. Quo ille munere gratu- 
 latus, ut erat magnanimus, arbitratur se totius mundi principem 
 constitutum, et per Martis gladium potestatem sibi concessam esse 
 heUorum. — But the sword degenerated into an unlucky one, like 
 some far-famed northern swords. Lanibert relates, that a queen, 
 Solomon of Hungary's mother, made a present of it to Otto, duke 
 of Bavaria, that from this Otto's hands it came by way of loan to 
 the younger Dedi, margrave Dedi's son, then to Henry IV., and lastly 
 to Lupoid of Mersburg, who, being thrown by his horse, and by 
 the same sword transpierced, was buried at Mertenefeld. It is a 
 question whether these local names Mersburg and Mertenefeld can 
 have any reference to the sword of Mars. A great while after, the 
 duke of Alba is said to have dug it out of the earth again after the 
 battle of Muhlberg (Deutsche heldensage p. 311). We see through 
 what lengthened periods popular tradition could go on nourishing 
 itself on this world-old worship (see SuppL). 
 
 With the word "Aprj'i the Lat. 3fars appears to have nothing to 
 do, being a contraction of Mavors, and the indispensable initial 
 being even reduplicated in Mamers ; so the fancied connexion 
 between Eresburg and Marsberg will not hold. 
 
 In the Old Eoman worship of Mars a prominent place is given 
 
 1 Conf. EA. 896 ; and so late as Wigal. 6517 : ' Swert, uf dlnem knopfe ich 
 des swer,' Sword, on thy pommel I swear it. 
 
 '^ Juro per Dianam et Martem, Plant. Mil. glor. 5, 21. 
 
206 zio. 
 
 to the legend of Picus, a son of Saturn, a wood-spirit wEo helped 
 to nurse the babes Eemus and Romulus ; certain features in our 
 antiquities seem to recall him, as will be shown later. Eomuliis' 
 consecrated the third month of the year to Mars, his progenitotj 
 our ancestors also named it after a deity who may perhaps be 
 identified with Mars. That is to say, the Anglo-Saxons called 
 March Hreffemdnad', which Beda without hesitation traces to a 
 goddess Hride; possibly other races might explain it by a god' 
 Hri&al These names would come from hroS gloria, fama, ON. 
 hroSr, OHG. hruod, OFrank. chrod, which helped to form many 
 ancient words, e.g. OHG. Hruodgang, Hruodhilt, OFrank. Chr6do' 
 gang, Chrodhild ; did Hruodo, Chrddo express to certain races the 
 shining god of fame V- The Edda knows of no such epithet for Tyr 
 as HroSr or HrcefJi (see Suppl.). 
 
 To these discoveries or conjectures we have been guided simply 
 by the several surviving names of one of the greatest gods of our 
 olden time, to whose attributes and surroundings we have scarcely 
 any other clue left. But now we may fairly apply to him in the 
 main, what the poetry of other nations supplies. Zio is sure to 
 have been valiant and fond of war, like Ares, lavish of glory, but 
 stern and bloodthirsty (aiixaroa aaai, "Apija, II. 5, 289. 20, 78. 22; 
 267); he raves and rages like Zeus and Wuotan, he is that 'old 
 blood-shedder ' of the Servian song, he gladdens the hearts of 
 ravens and wolves, who follow him to fields of battle, although 
 these creatures again must be assigned more to Wuotan (p. 147); the 
 Greek phrase makes them olcovoi and Kvves (birds and dogs), and 
 
 ^ In this connexion one might try to rescue the suspicious and discredited 
 legend of a Saxon divinity Krodo ; there is authority for it in the loth century, 
 none wliatever in the earlier Mid. Ages. Bothe's Sassenchronik (Leibn. 3, 286) 
 relates under the year 780, that King Charles, during his conquest of the East 
 Saxons, overthrew on the Hartesburg an idol similar to Saturn, which the 
 jjeople called Krodo. If such an event had really happened, it would most^ 
 likely have been mentioned by the annalists, like the overthrow of the 
 Irmansiil. For all that, the tradition need not he. groundless, if other things 
 would only correspond. Unfortunately the form Crodo for ChrSdo, Hrodo, 
 Rodo [like Catti, aiterw. Chatti, Hatti, Hessen] is rather too ancient, and I can 
 find no support for it in the Saxon speech. A doc. of 1284 (Langs reg. 4, 247) 
 has a Waltherus dictus Krode, and a song in Nithart's MsH. 3, 208" a Krotol^^ 
 which however has no business to remind us of Hruodolf, Euodolf, being not 
 a proper name, but a nickname, and so to be derived from krote, a toad, to 
 which must be referred many names of places, Krotenpful, &c., which have 
 been mistakenly ascribed to the idol. The true form for Upper Germanj^ 
 would not tolerate a Kr, but only Hr or R (see Suppl.). 
 
zio. 207 
 
 the fields of the slain, where the hounds hold revel, are called kvvSiv 
 jikX-irnepa, II. 13, 233. 17, 255. 18, 179. Battle-songs were also 
 sure to be tuned to the praises of Zio, and perhaps war-dances 
 executed (jiiXireadai "Ap-ql, II. 7, 241), from which I derive the 
 persistent and widely prevalent custom of the solemn sword-dance, 
 exactly the thing for the god of the sword. The Edda nowhere 
 lays particular stress on the sword of war, it knows nothing of 
 Sahsnot, indeed its sverSas is another god, HeimfSallr ;' but it sets 
 T^r before us as one-handed, because the M'olf, within whose jaws 
 he laid his right hand as a pledge, bit it off at the joint, whence 
 the wrist was called ulfliSr, wolf-lith, Ssem. 65^ Sn. 35-6. This 
 incident must have been well-known and characteristic of him, for 
 the ON. exposition of runes likewise says, under letter T : Tyr er 
 einhendr Asa ; conf Sn. 105. The rest of Teutonic legend has no 
 trace of it,^ unless we are to look for it in Walther's onehandedness, 
 and find in his name the mighty ' wielder of hosts '. I prefer to 
 adopt the happy explanation,^ that the reason why Tyr appears 
 one-handed is, because he can only give victory to one part of the 
 combatants, as Hadu, another god who dispenses the fortune of 
 war, and Plutos and Fortuna among the Greeks and Eomans, are 
 painted blind, because they deal out their gifts at random (see 
 Suppl.). Now, as victory was esteemed the highest of all fortune, 
 the god of victory shares to the full the prominent characteristics 
 of luck in general, partiality and fickleness. And a remoter period 
 of our nation may have used names which bore upon this.* 
 
 Amongst the train of Ares and Mars there appear certain 
 mythic beings who personify the notions of fear and horror. AeifjLO's 
 and #o/3o9 (11. 4, 440. 11, 317. 15, 119) answer to the Latin Pallor 
 
 ' Conf. Apollo xp^<raopos above, p. 203, note. 
 
 ' Cod. pal. 361, 65=' tells of Julian, that he was forced to put his hand 
 into the mouth of Mercury's statue : Die hant stiez er im in den munt 
 dar, darinne uobte sich der valant (devil), er clemmete im die hant, yiui 
 gehahete sie im so vaste, daz er sich niht irlosen mohte (could not get loose). 
 Besides, the wolfs limb has a likeness to the Wuotan's limb, Woens-let, p. 160. 
 
 ' Wackernagel's, in the Schweiz. mus. 1, 107. 
 
 * The Greek epos expresses the changefulness of victory {viicrj irepaXKrjs, H. 
 8, 171. 16, 362 ; vUri ina/jiei^eTai Mpas, 6, 339) by an epithet of Ares, 
 ^XoTrpoo-aXXoj 6, 831. 889. A certain many-shaped and all- transforming 
 being, with a name almost exactly the same, Vilanders (Ls. 1, 369-92), Bald- 
 anderst, Baldander (H. Sachs 1, 537. Simpliciss. bk 6, c. 9), has indeed no visible 
 Connexion with the god of war, but it may have been the name of a god. The 
 similarity of this Vilanders to the name of a place in the Tyrol, VUIanders 
 near Brixen (Velunutris, Vulunuturusa, ace. to Steub. p. 79. 178) is merely 
 accidental. 
 
208 zio. 
 
 and Favor ; it is the two former that harness the steeds of Ares, 
 $6/3os is called his son (13, 299), and in Aeschylus he is provided 
 with a dwelling (jxekaOpov tectum), out of which he suddenly leaps. 
 So in the old Bohemian songs, Tfas (tremor) and Strakh (terror) 
 burst out of forest shades on the enemy's bands, chase them, press 
 on their necks and squeeze out of their throats a loud cry (Koniginh. 
 hs. 84. 104) ; they are ghostly and spectral. This borders upon 
 V6ma, Omi and Yggr (pp. 119, 120), terms which designate the 
 god himself, not his companions, sons or servants, yet they again 
 bear witness to the community there was between Wuotan and 
 Zio. Thorr was called 6tti iotna, terror gigantum. When in our 
 modern phraseology fear 'surprises, seizes, shakes, deprives of sense,' 
 personification is not far off; in the Iliad also 17, 67 -xkwpov Seo? 
 (neut.) alpel, pale fear seizes ; but masculine embodiments hke 
 Se2/jio<;, <^6^o<i, pallor, pavor, tras, strakh, bring it more vividly before 
 us, and pavor was weakened by passing into the fem. paura, peur 
 of the Eomance. AS. ])k hine se broga ongeat (terror eum invasit), 
 Beow. 2583. OHG. forhta cham mih ana, N. ps. 54, 5 ; forhta 
 anafiel ubar inan, T. 2, 4 ; conf. MHG. diu sorge im was s6 veire 
 entriten, sie mohte erreichen niht ein sper, fear was fled so far from 
 him, a spear could not reach it, Wh. 280, 10 (see Suppl.). But 
 further on, we shall get acquainted with a female Hilta, comparable 
 to the Lat. Bellona and the Gr. Enyo and Eris, who is really one 
 with war and the war-god. 
 
 Tyr is described in Sn. 105 as a son of OSinn, but in the 
 HymisqviSa as a kinsman of the giants. His mother, whose name 
 is not found, but whose beauty is indicated by the epithet all-guUin, 
 all-golden, Ssem. 53^ must have been a giant's daughter, who bore 
 to OSinn this immortal son (see Suppl.). 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 FEO, (FEEYE). 
 
 The god that stands next in power and glory, is in the Norse 
 mythology Freyr (Landn. 4, 7) ; with the Swedes he seems even to 
 have occupied the third place. His name of itself proclaims how 
 widely his worship prevailed among the other Teutonic races, a 
 name sacred enough to be given to the Supreme Being even in christ- 
 ian times. There must have been a broad pregnant sense underlying 
 the word, which made it equally fit for the individuality of one 
 god, and for the comprehensive notion of dominion, whether sacred 
 or secular : to some nations it signified the particular god, to others 
 the soverain deity in general, pretty much as we found, connected 
 with the proper names Zio, Zeus, the more general term deus, ^eo?. 
 While the names of other heathen gods became an abomination to 
 the christians, and a Gothic Vodans or Thunrs would have grated 
 harshly on the ear; this one expression, like the primitive guj? itself, 
 could remain yet a long time without offence, and signify by turns 
 the heavenly lord and an earthly one. 
 
 It is true, the names do not correspond quite exactly. The ON. 
 Fnyr gen. Freys, which Saxo gives quite correctly in its Danish 
 form as Fro gen. Fros (whence Froso, Fro's island), the Swed. like- 
 wise Fro, ought to be in G-othic Fraus or Fravis,^ instead of which, 
 every page of UlphUas shows frduja gen. fraujins, translating Kvpia; 
 on the other hand, the ON. dialect lacks both the weak form (Freyi, 
 ■^'^syja), and the meaning of lord. The remaining languages all 
 hold with the Gothic. In OHG. the full form frouwo was already 
 lost, the writers preferring truhtin; it is only in the form of address 
 'M min ! ' (0. i. 5, 35. ii. 14, 27. v. 7, 35. Ludw. Ued) that the 
 
 ' Frey = Fravi, as hey = havi (hay), mey = mavi (maid), ey = avi (isle), 
 &c. 
 
 14 
 
210 FKO. 
 
 word for a divine or earthly lord was preserved, just as that antique 
 sihora and sire (p. 27) lasted longest in addresses. In the Heliand 
 too, when the word is used in addressing, it is always in the short- 
 ened form fr6 min ! 123, 13. 140, 23. fr6 min tlie g6do ! 131, 6. 
 134, 15. 138, 1. 7. waldand fr6 min ! 153, 8. drohtin fr6 mtn ! 
 15, 3 ; but in other cases we do find the complete /rd/io gen. frohon 
 3, 24 ; froilio 119, 14, gen. frahon 122, 9, fraon 3, 24. 5, 23 ; fr6io 
 93, 1. 107, 21. Still the OS. poet uses the word seldomer than the 
 synonyms drohtin and herro, and he always puts a possessive with 
 it, never an adjective (like mari drohtin, rlki drohtin, craftag drohtin, 
 liob herro), still less does he make compounds with it (like sigi- 
 drohtin) : all symptoms that the word was freezing up. The AS. 
 fred, gen. frean (for fre§,an, fre^wan) has a wider sweep, it not only 
 admits adjectives (frea selmihtig, Caedm. 1, 9. 10, 1), but also forms 
 compounds: agendfrea, Csedm. 135, 4. aldorfrea 218, 29. folcfrea 
 111, 7 ; and even combines with dryhten : freadryhten, Csedm. 54, 
 29, gen. freahdrihtnes, Beow. 1585, dat. freodryhtne 5150. — But 
 now by the side of our OHG. fr6 there is found a rigid (indecL) 
 frono, which, placed before or after substantives, imparts the notion 
 of lordly, high and holy ; out of this was gradually developed a 
 more flexible adj. of like Kaeaning/rdw, and again an adj. frdrdsc 
 (pulcher, mundus, inclytus, arcanus), OS. froni&k, frdnisk. In 
 MHGr. and even modern German we have a good many compounds 
 with vron, as also the adj. in the above sense,wh.i\e frohnen,fr6h7ienk 
 to do service to one's lord, to dedicate. The Frisian dialect contri- 
 butes afrdn, dominicus, andfrdna, minister publicus. The added 
 -M in all these derivatives can be explained by the Gothic frdujinon 
 dominari, though there was probably no Gothic fraujinisks, as 
 fronisc seems not to have been formed tUl after the contraction fro 
 and frono had set in. 
 
 But even the Gothic frduja does not present to us the simple 
 stem, I look for it in a lost adj. fravis (like navis veKpoi, Eom. 7, 2), 
 the same as the OHG. frS gen. frouwes, OS. fra gen. frahes, MHG. 
 vrd, and our froh [frbhlich, frolic, &c.], and signifying mitis, laetus, 
 blandus ; whence the same dialects derive frouwi, gaudium, frouwan, 
 laetum reddere, frouwida, laetitia, &c. (see Suppl.). 
 
 I do not mean to assert that a god Frauja, Frouwo, Fraho was 
 as distinctly worshipped by the Goths, Alamanns, Franks and 
 Saxons in the first centuries of our era, as Freyr was long after in 
 
FRO. 211 
 
 Scandinavia; it is even possible that the form frauja already- 
 harboured a generalization of the more vividly concrete Travis = 
 Freyr, and therefore seemed less offensive to the christians. But 
 in botli words, the reference to a higher being is unmistakable, and 
 in the Mid. ages there still seems to hang about the compounds 
 with wdn something weird, unearthly, a sense of old sacredness; this 
 may account for the rare occurrence and the early disappearance 
 of the OHG. fro, and even for the grammatical immobility of 
 frono ; it is as though an echo of heathenism could be still detected 
 in them. 
 
 A worship of Fro may be inferred even from the use of certain 
 proper names and poetic epithets, especially by the Anglo-Saxons. 
 The Goths even of later times use Frdvja as a man's name, to which 
 we can hardly attribute the sense of lord simply : an envoy from 
 king Hadafus to Charles the Great is called Froia (Pertz 1, 184. 
 2, 223), perhaps Froila (Fraujila) ; an OHG. Frewilo occurs in a 
 document in Neugart no. 162. The AS. genealogies contain 
 W'Ascfred; the name is often found elsewhere (Beda 138, 19. 153, 
 5), and seems suitable to Woden the god or lord of wishing (p. 144). 
 Equally to the point is the poetic fredwine (freawine folca) in 
 Beow. 4708. 4853. 4871, where it is a mere epithet of divine or god- 
 loved heroes and kings. But the Wessex pedigree can produce its 
 Fredwine, whom Saxo Gram, calls Frowinus (better Frowinus) ; 
 OHG. documents likewise have the proper name Frdwin (Trad, 
 juvav. p. 302, Cod. lauresh. 712, but Friowini 722), and in several 
 noble families, e.g., the distinguished one of the Von Huttens, it has 
 been kept up till modern times. What is remarkable, the Edda 
 uses of a hero Freys vinr (Ssem. 219^), like the AS. freawine, only 
 uncompounded : SigurSr is Frey's friend and prot^gd, or perhaps 
 his votary and servant, in the way shown on p. 93. Here again frea, 
 fr6, freyr, cannot have merely the general meaning of lord, any lord. 
 The Swedish heroes in the Bravalla fight, who boast their descent 
 from Fro, are in Saxo, p. 144, called Fro dei necessarii, which is 
 exactly our Freys vinar. In the same way the AS. and ON. poetries, 
 and consequently the myths, have in common the expression 
 
 , fred Ingwina (gen. pi.), Beow. 2638, Ingvinar (gen. sing.) freyr, 
 Ingunnar/reyr, Ssem. 65'', Ingifreyr (Thorlac. obs. bor. spec. 6, p. 43), 
 
 , by which is to be understood a hero or god, not 'junior dominus,' 
 as Thorlacius, p. 68, supposes. YagVifreyr is called 0?5in's son, Sn. 
 
212 FRO. 
 
 211*. I shall come tack to this mysterious combination of two 
 mythical names, when I come to speak of the hero Ingo. The ON. 
 skalds append this freyr to other names and to common nouns, e.g., 
 in Kormakssaga, pp. 104 122, 'fiornis freyr, myMfreyr' mean no 
 more than hero or man in the heightened general sense which we 
 noticed in the words irmin, tir and t^r. In the same way the fern. 
 freyja means frau, woman, lady, Kormakss. p. 317. 
 
 All that I have made out thus far on the name and idea of the 
 god, will receive new light and confirmation when we come to ex- 
 amine his divine sister Freyja.. The brother and sister are made 
 alike in all theu' attributes, and each can stand for the other. 
 
 Pro does not appear in the series of gods of the week, because- 
 there was no room for him there ; if we must translate him by a 
 Eoman name, it can scarcely be any other than that of Liber, whose 
 association with Libera is extremely like that of Fro with Frowa 
 (Freyr with Freyja). As Liber and Libera are devoted to the 
 service of Ceres or Dem^t^r, Fro and Frowa stand in close union 
 with Nerthus. Fro's godhead seems to hold a middle place between 
 the notion of the supreme lord and that of a being who brings about 
 love and fruitfulness. He has Wuotan's creative quality, but 
 performs no deeds of war ; horse and sword he gives away, when 
 consumed with longing for the fair GerSr, as is sung in one of the 
 most glorious lays of the Edda. Snorri says, rain and sunshine are , 
 in the gift of Freyr (as elsewhere of Wuotan and Donar, pp. 157. 
 175) ; he is invoked for fertility of the soil and iai peace (til drs oe 
 frid'ar, Sn. 28 ; conf Yngl. saga cap. 12). The Swedes revered 
 him as one of their chief gods, and Adam of Bremen saya that at 
 Upsal his statue stood by those of Thor and Wodan (see Suppl). 
 Also in Seem. 85'' he is named next to OSinn and Thorr (§,sabragr) 
 as the third god. Adam calls him Fricco}- which is precisely parallel 
 to the frequent confusion of the two goddesses Freyja and Frigg, 
 which I shall deal with at a future time. But he paints him as a 
 god of peace and love : Tertius est Fricco, pacem voluptatemque 
 largiens mortalibus, cujus etiam simulachrum fingunt imjenti 
 
 ' Whicli occurs elsewhere as a man's name, e.g., Friccheo in Schamiat, Trad.. 
 fuld. 386. 
 
t'KO. 213 
 
 priapo i^ si nuptiae celebrandae sunt, (sacrificia offerunt) Fricconi. 
 Then there is the story, harmonizing witli this, though related from 
 the christian point of view and to the heathen god's detriment, of 
 Frey's statue being carried round the country in a waggon, and of 
 his beautiful young priestess, Fornm. sog. 2, 73-8. This progress 
 takes place, ' ]>% er hann skal gera monnum drhSt,' when he shall 
 make for men year's boot; the people flock to meet the. car, and 
 bring their offerings, then the weather clears up and men look 
 for a fruitful year. The offerings are those which Saxo, p. 15, names 
 Frobldt; live animals were presented, particularly oxen (Vigagl. 
 saga, p. 56. Islend. sog. 2, 348), which seems to explain why 
 Freyr is reckoned among the poetic names for an ox, Sn. 221*; in 
 like manner, horses were consecrated to him, such a one was 
 called Freyfaxi and accounted holy, Vatnsd. p. 140 ; and human 
 victims feU. to him in Sweden, Saxo Gram. 42. Freyr possessed 
 a boar named Oulliiibursti, whose ' golden bristles ' lighted up 
 the night like day, who ran with the speed of a horse and drew the 
 deity's car, Sn. 66. 132. It is therefore in Frey's worship that the 
 atonement-boar is sacrificed (p. 51) f in Sweden cakes in the shape 
 of a boar are baked on Yule-eve. — And here we come upon a good 
 many relics of the service once done to the god, even outside of 
 Scandinavia. We hear of the clean gold-hog {-ferch, whence dimin. 
 farrow) in the popular customs of the Wetterau and Thuringia 
 (p. 51). In the Mid. Dutch poem of Lantsl6t ende Sandrin, v. 
 374, a knight says to his maiden : ' ic heb u liever dan en everswtn, 
 al waert van finen goude ghewracM' I hold you dearer than a boar- 
 swine, all were it of fine gold y- wrought ; were they still in the 
 habit of making gold jewels in the shape of boars ? at least the 
 remembrance of such a thing was not yet lost. Fr6 and Ms boar 
 may also have had a hand in a superstition of Gelderland, which 
 however puts a famous hero in the place of the god : Derk met den 
 
 ^ With priapus irpiairos I would identify the ON. friof semen, friofr 
 foecundus ; conf. Goth, fraiv, seed. The statement of Adamus Bremensis looks 
 hetter, since Wolf in his Wodana xxi. xxii. xxiii brought to light the festivals 
 and images of Priapus or Ters at a late period in the Netherlands. This ters 
 is the AS. tears, OHG. xers, and Herbert 4054 is shy of uttering the name 
 Xerses. Phallus-worship, so widely spread among the nations of antiquity, 
 must have arisen out of an innocent veneration of the generative principle, 
 which a later age, conscious of its sins, prudishly avoided. After all is said, 
 there is an inkling of the same in Phol too and the avoidance of his name 
 (eh. XI), though I do not venture exactly to identify him with (j)a\X6s. 
 
 ' Not only Demeter, but Zeus received loar-ojferings, II. 19, 197. 251. 
 
214 FEO. 
 
 leer (Theoderic, Derrick with the boar) goes his round on Christmas- , 
 eve night, and people are careful to get all implements of husbandry ' 
 within doors, else the boar wOl trample them about, and make 
 them unfit for use.^ In the same Christmas season, dame Holda or 
 Berhta sallied out, and looked after the ploughs and spindles^' 
 motherly goddesses instead of the god, Prouwa instead of Frfi. 
 With this again are connected the formae aprorum worn as charms 
 by the remote Aestyans, who yet have the 'ritus habitusque 
 Suevorum'. Tacitus Germ. 45 says, these figures represent the 
 worship of the ' mater deiim,' of a female Fro, i.e., of Freyja ; and, 
 what is conclusive on this point, the Edda (Ssem. 114'-) assigns the 
 Gullinhursti to Freyja, though elsewhere he belongs to Freyr (see 
 SuppL). — Anglo-Saxon poetry, above all, makes mention of these 
 hoar-hadges, these gold swine. When Constantine sees a vision in 
 his sleep, he is said to be eoforcumble bejjeaht (apri signo tectus), 
 El. 76 ; it must have been fastened as an auspicious omen over the 
 head of the bed. Afterwards again, in the description of Elene's. ., 
 stately progress to the east : Jpser woes on eorle eSgesyue grimhehn 
 manig, mnlic eoforcumhid (tunc in duce apparuit horrida cassis, ex- 
 cellens apri forma). El. 260. The poet is describing a decoration of 
 the old heathen time, cumbul is the helmet's crest, and the king's 
 helmet appears to be adorned with the image of a boar. Several 
 passages in Beowulf place the matter beyond a doubt : eoforlic 
 scionon ofer hleor beran gehroden golde, fah and f^rheard ferhwearde _ 
 heold (apri formam videbantur supra genas gerere auro comptam, ^ 
 quae varia igneque durata vitam tuebatur), 605 ; h§t Ipa. inberani j 
 eo/or hedfodsegn, heaSosteapne helm (jussit afferri aprum, capitis , 
 signum, galeam in pugna prominentem), 4300 ; swtn ofer helme 
 (sus supra galea), 2574; swin ealgylden, eofor irenheard (sus aureus, 
 aper instar ferri durus), 2216, i.e., a helmet placed on the funeral 
 pile as a costly jewel ; helm befongen Fredwrdsnum {= OHG. Fro- 
 reisanum), sw^ hiae fyrndagum worhte wsepna smiS, besette swiri- 
 Itcum, )78et hine siSJ^an no brond ne beadomScas bitan ne meahtan 
 (galea ornata Frohonis signis, sicut earn olim fabricaverat armorum 
 faber, circumdederat earn apri formis, ne gladius ensesve laedere 
 eam possent), 2905 ; as a sacred divine symbol, it was to protect in 
 
 ' Staring, in the journal Mnemosyne, Leyden 1829. 1, 323 ; quoted thence 
 in Westendorp's Eoordsche mythologie, Dordrecht 1830. p. 495. 
 
FRO. 215 
 
 battle and affright the foe.^ The OHG. proper name Epurhelm, 
 Eparhelm (eber, eofor, aper), placed by the side of Frdhelm (both 
 occur in the Trad, patav. no. 20; MB. 28^ 18) acquires thus a special 
 and appropriate meaning. Such boar-crests might still serve as 
 ornaments even to christian heroes, after the memory of Fro was 
 obliterated, and long continue to be wrought simply as jewels (see 
 Suppl.). — Some other traces of boar consecration have lasted still 
 later, especially in England. The custom of the hoar-vow I have 
 explained in EA. 900-1. As even at the present day on festive 
 occasions a wild boar's head is seen among the other dishes as a 
 show-dish, they used in the Mid. Ages to serve it up at banquets, 
 garnished with laurel and rosemary, to carry it about and play all 
 manner of pranks with it : ' Where stood a loar's head garnished 
 With bayes and rosemarye,' says one ballad about Arthur's Table ; 
 when three strokes have been given with a rod over it, it is only 
 the knife of a virtuous man that can carve the first slice. At other 
 times, even a live boar makes its appearance in the hall, and a bold 
 hero chops its head off. At Oxford they exhibit a hoar's liea.d on 
 Christmas day, carry it solemnly round, singing: Caput apri defero, 
 Reddens laudes Domino (see Suppl.). Those Aestyans may prove 
 a link of fellowship between the Germanic nations and the Finnish 
 and Asiatic ; it is well worth noticing, that the Tcherkass (Circas- 
 sians) worship a god of woods and hunting, Mesitch by name, who 
 rides a wild hoar with golden bristles} To most of the other gods 
 tame animals are sacred, to Fro the daring dauntless boar, as well 
 befits a god of the chase. Perhaps also a huge hoar with white 
 tusks,^ who in Slavic legend rises foaming out of a lake, is that of 
 a kindred deity. 
 
 The Edda attributes to Freyr a sword of surpassing virtue, which 
 could put itself into motion against the brood of giants, Ssem. 82. 
 His giving it away when in straits, proved his ruin afterwards ; it 
 was held to be the cause of his death, when at the Eagnarokr he 
 had to stand single combat with Surtr (swart), and missed his 
 
 ' On this point again, the statement of Tacitus about the Aestyans agrees 
 so exactly, that it seems worth quoting in full : Aestyorum gentes. . . . 
 quibus ritus habitusque Suevorum. . . Matrem deum venerantur : 
 
 insigne superstitionis, formas aprorura gestant.; id pro arrais oinniumque tutek 
 securum deae cultorem etiam inter hostes praestat. — Teans. 
 
 ^ Erman's archiv fur wissenschaftl. kunde Russlands 1842, heft 1, p. 118. 
 
 ' AfVKov oSoVra, U. 11, 416. (ris \evKm oSovn, Od. 19. 465. 
 
216 FEO. 
 
 trusty blade. Sn. 73. There appear to have been other traditions 
 also afloat about this sword ;^ and it would not seem far-fetched, if 
 on the strength of it we placed the well-known trilogy of ' Thunar, 
 Wodan, Saxnot' beside Adam of Bremen's 'Wodan, Thor and 
 Fricco ' or the Eddie ' OSinn, Asabragr, Freyr,'^ that is to say, if we 
 took Freyr, Friceo = Frd to be the same as Sahsndt the sword- 
 possessor. Add to this, that the Edda never mentions the sword of 
 Tyr. ^Nevertheless there are stronger reasons in favour of Sahsnfiz 
 being Zio : tliis for one, that he was a son of Wuotan, whereas 
 Freyr comes of NiorSr, though some genealogies to be presently 
 mentioned bring him into connexion with Woden. 
 
 For the brilliant Freyr, the beneficent son of M6r?Sr, the 
 dwarfs had constructed a wonderful shijp SklSblaSnir, which could 
 fold up like a cloth, Seem. 45^ Sn. 48. Yngl. saga cap. 7 (see 
 Suppl.).» 
 
 Besides the Swedes, the Thrsendir in Norway were devoted to 
 Freyr above all other gods, Fornm. sog. 10, 312. Occasionally 
 priests of his are named, as ThorSr Freys godi (of the 10th century), 
 Landn. 4, 10 and Nialss. cap. 96 ; Flosi appears to have succeeded 
 his father in the office ; other Freysgy&lingar are cited in Landn. 
 4, 13. The Vigaglumssaga cap. 19 mentions Freys hof at Upsala, 
 and cap. 26 his statue at ThverS, in Iceland, though only in a night- 
 vision : he is pictured sitting on a chair, giving short and surly 
 (stutt ok reiSuliga) answers to his supplicants, so that Glumr, who 
 in cap. 9 had sacrificed an old ox to him, now on awaking from his 
 dream neglected his service. In the Landn. 3, 2 and Vatnsd. pp. 
 44. 50 we are told of a Freyr giorr af silfri (made of silver), which 
 was used in drawing lots ; conf. Verlauffs note, p. 362. In the 
 Landn. 4, 7 is preserved the usual formula for an oath : IIiS,lpi mar 
 svl Freyr ok Niorcfr ok hinn alrndttki ds (so help me F. and N. and 
 that almighty ds) ! by which last is to be understood Thorr rather 
 
 ^ In old French poetry I find a famous sword wrought by Galant himself 
 ("Wielant, Wayland), and named Froberge or Floberge (Garin 1, 263. 2, 30-8) ; 
 the latter reading has no discoverable sense, though our later Flamberge seems 
 to have sprung from it. Froberge might very well be either a mere fro-bergende 
 (lord-protecting) weapon, or a reminiscence of the god Fro's sword ; conf. the 
 word-formations quoted in my Gramm. 2, 486. There are townships called in 
 OHG. Helidberga, Marahaberga (horse-stable). The ON. has no Freybioig 
 that I know of, though it has Thorbiorg fem., and Thorbergr niasc. 
 
 3 Also in Sn. 131, OiSirm, ThCrr, Freyr are speakers of doom. 
 
 ' Pliny N. H. 5, 9 mentions Ethiopian ' naves plioatiles humeris transktas.' 
 
NIKDU. 217 
 
 than OSinn, for in the Egilssaga p. 365, Freyr, Mordr and the 
 landds (Th6rr) are likewise mentioned together. In the same 
 Egilss. p. 672, Freyr ok Niordr are again placed side by side. The 
 story of the Brlstnga-men (-monile ; append, to Sn. 354) says, OSinn 
 had appointed both Freyr and Niorffr to be sacrificial gods. Hall- 
 freSr sang (Fornm. sog. 2, 53, conf. 12, 49) : 
 
 Mer skyli Freyr oc Freyja, fiarS Iset ek aSul NiarSar, 
 liknist grom viS Grimni gramr ok ThSrr enn rammi ! 
 
 That Freyr in these passages should be brought forward with 
 Preyja and NiorSr, is easy to understand (see SuppL). 
 
 Of Nidr&r our German mythology would have nothing to tell, 
 any more than.Saxo Gram, ever mentions him by that name, had 
 not Tacitus put in for us that happy touch of a goddess Nerthus, 
 whose identity with the god is as obvious as that of Fro with 
 Frouwa. The Gothic form Na{r}ms would do for either or 
 even for both sexes ; possibly Frauja was considered the son 
 of the goddess Nairjjus, as Freyr is of the god MorSr, and in 
 the circuit which the goddess makes in her car, publishing peace 
 and fertility to mortals, we can recognise that of Freyr or of his 
 father NiorSr. According to Yngl. saga cap. 11, these very bless- 
 ings were believed to proceed from NiorSr also : ' auSigr sem 
 NidrSr ' (rich as IST.) was a proverbial saying for a wealthy man, 
 Vatnsd. p. 202. Snorri, in Formali 10, identifies him with Saturn, 
 for he instructed mankind in vine-dressing and husbandry; it 
 would be nearer the mark to think of him and Freyr in connexion 
 with Dionysus or Liber, or even with Noah, if any stress is to be 
 laid on NiorS's abode being in Noatun. As ' freyr ' was affixed 
 to other names of heroes (p. 211-2), I find geirniorffr used for a hero 
 in general, Ssem. 266'' ; conf. geirmimir, geirniflangr, &c. The 
 name itself is hard to explain ; is it akin to north, AS. norS, ON. 
 norSr, Goth, naurjjs? In Ssem. lOQ*" there is niarSlas for sera 
 firma, or pensUis ? I have met with no Nirdu, Nerd, Nird among 
 OHG. proper names, nor with a NeorS in the AS. writings. 
 Irminon's polyptych 222=' has Narthildis (see SuppL). 
 
 Mordr appears to have been greatly honoured: hofum oc 
 horgum hann raeSr hundmorgum, Ssem. 36* ; especially, no doubt, 
 among people that lived on the sea coast. The Edda makes him 
 rule over wind, sea and fire, he loves waters and lakes, as Nerthus 
 in Tacitus bathes in the lake (Sn. 27) ; from the mountains of the 
 
218 FEO. 
 
 midland he longs to be away where the swans sing on the cool 
 shore; a water-plant, the spongia marina, bears the name of Niardar, 
 vottr, NiorS's glove, which elsewhere was very likely passed on to, 
 his daughter Freyja, and so to Mary, for some kinds of orchis 
 too, from their hand-shaped root, are called Mary's hand, lady-hand, 
 god's hand (Dan. gudshaand). 
 
 As Dionysus stands outside the ring of the twelve Olympian 
 gods, so NiorSr, Freyr and Freyja seem by rights not to have been 
 reckoned among the Ases, though they are marshalled among, 
 them in Sn. 27-8. They were Vanir, and therefore, according to . 
 the view of the elder Edda, different from Ases ; as these dwelt in 
 AsgarS, so' did the Vanir in Vanaheim, the Alfar in Alfheim, the 
 lotnar in lotunheim. Freyr is called Vaningi, Ssem. SG''. The 
 Vanir were regarded as intelligent and wise, Ssem. 36* ; and they, 
 entered into intimate fellowship with the Asen, while the 
 Alfs and lotuns always remained opposed to them. Some have . 
 fancied that the Alfs and lotuns stand for Celtic races, and the ^ 
 Vanir for Slav; and building chiefly on an attempt in the Yngl. 
 saga cap. 1 to find the name of the Tanais in Tanaqvlsl (or Vana- 
 qvisl !), they have drawn by inference an actual boundary -line 
 between Aesir and Vanir = Germani and Slavi in the regions 
 formerly occupied by them (see Suppl.). And sure enough a 
 Eussian is to this day called in Finnish Wenailainen, in Estk,, 
 Wennelane ; even the name of the Wends might be dragged in^;;) 
 though the Vandili of Tacitus point the other way. Granting that > 
 there may be some foundation for these views, still to my mind>, 
 the conceptions of Aesir, Vanir, Alfar in the Edda are sketched on,: 
 a ground altogether too mythical for any historical meaning to be 
 got out of them ; as regards the contrast between Ases and Vanir, 
 I am aware of no essential difference in the cultus of the several 
 gods ; and, whatever stress it may be right to lay on the fact that 
 Frouwa, Freyja answers to a Slavic goddess Priye, it does not at 
 all follow that Fro, Frouwa and Nerthus were in a less degree 
 Germanic deities than the rest. Tacitus is silent on the German :j 
 Liber, as he is on our Jupiter, yet we are entitled to assume a 
 universal veneration of Donar, even though the Gothic fai'rguni is 
 better represented in Perkunas or Periin ; so also, to judge by whafcii 
 clues we have, Frauja, Fro, Freyr appears so firmly established, 
 that, considering the scanty information we have about our 
 
FRO. 219 
 
 antiquities, no German race can be denied a share in him, though 
 some nations may have worshipped him more than others ; and 
 even that is not easy to ascertain, except in Scandinavia.^ 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that the AS. and ON. genealogies bring 
 Fred into kinship with Wdden, making Finn the father of a Frealaf 
 (FritSleifr), and him again of WSden ; some of them insert two more 
 hnks, FriSuwulf and FriSuwald, so that the complete pedigree 
 stands thus : Finn, Fridicvmlf, Fredldf, Fri&uwald, Wdden (or, in 
 the place of Freallf, our old acquaintance Freawine). Here 
 evidently FriSuwulf, Frealllf, FrifSuwald are all the same thing, a 
 mere expansion of the simple Frea. This follows even from a quite 
 different ON. genealogy, Fornald. sog. 2, 12, Avhich makes Burr 
 (= Finn; conf. Eask, afh. 1, 107-8) the immediate progenitor of 
 OSinn, and him of Freyr, MorSr and a second Freyr. The double 
 Freyr corresponds to the AS. FriSuwulf and FriSuwald, as the 
 wOrds here expressing glad, free and fair are near of kin to one 
 another. Lastly, when the same AS. genealogies by turns call 
 Finn's father Godwulf and Folcwald, this last name is supported by 
 the 'Fin Folcwalding' (-ing = son) of Cod. exon. 320, 10 and of 
 Beow. 2172, where again the reference must be to Frea and his 
 race, for the Edda (Ssem. 87% conf 10^) designates Freyr ' folcvoddi 
 (ah folcvaldr) go5a'. Now this folkvaldi means no other than 
 dominator, princeps, i.e. the same as frea, fr8, and seems, like it, to 
 pass into a proper name. On the linking of Freyr and NiorSr with 
 OSinn, there will be more to say in ch. XV (see SuppL). If 
 Snorri's comparison of NiorSr with Kronos (Saturn) have any 
 justification, evidently Poseidon (Neptune) the son of Kronos would 
 conte nearer to our Teutonic sea-god ; and TloaethSiv might be 
 referred to Troo-ts (lord, Lith. pats, Sansk. patis, Goth. fa]js), which 
 means the same as Fro. Only then both Fr6 and Niidu would 
 again belong to the eldest race of gods. 
 
 ■" Wh. Miiller, Nibelungensage pp. 136 — 148, wishes to extend the Vanir 
 gods only to the Sueves and Goths, not to the western Germans, and to draw a 
 distinction between the worship of Freyr and that of AVuotan, which to ine 
 looks very doubtful. As little can I give up the point, that Ni6rt5r and Nerthus 
 were brother and sister, and joint parents of Freyr and Freyja ; this is grounded 
 not only on a later representation of Snorri in the Yngl. saga cap. 4, where yet 
 the female NiorS is nowhere named, as Tacitus conversely knows only a female 
 Nerthus and no god of that name ; but also on Bsem. 65» : ' viS systor thinni 
 gaztu slikan mog,' with thy sister begattest thou such brood, though here again 
 the sister is left unnamed. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 PALTAE (BALDER). 
 
 The myth of Balder, one of the most ingenious and beautiful in 
 the Edda, has happily for us been also handed down in a later 
 form with variations : and there is no better example of fluctuations 
 in a god-myth. The Edda sets forth, how the pure blameless deity 
 is struck with Mistiltein by the blind HoSr, and must go down to 
 the nether world, bewailed by all ; nothing can fetch him back, and 
 Nanna the true wife follows him in death. In Saxo, all is pitched 
 in a lower key : Balder and Hother are rival suitors, both wooing 
 Nanna, and Hother the favoured one manages to procure a magic 
 sword, by which alone his enemy is vulnerable ; when the fortune 
 of war has wavered long between them, Hother is at last victorious 
 and slays the demigod, to whom Hel, glad at the near prospect, of 
 possessing him, shews herself beforehand. But here the grand 
 funeral pile is prepared for Gelder, a companion of Balder, of whom 
 the account in the Edda knows nothing whatever. The worship of 
 the god is attested chiefly by the EriSJjiofssaga, v. Eornald. sog. 2, 
 63 seq. (see Suppl.). 
 
 Baldr, gen. Baldrs, reappears in the OHG. proper name Pdtar 
 (in Meichelbeck no. 450. 460. 611) -^ and in the AS. healdor, baldor, 
 signifying a lord, prince, king, and seemingly used only with a gen. 
 pi. before it: gumena baldor, Csedm. 163, 4. wlgena baldor, Jud. 
 132, 47. sinca bealdor, Beow. 4852. winia bealdor 5130. It is 
 remarkable that in the Cod. exon. 276, 18 mtegSa bealdor (virginuffl 
 princeps) is said even of a maiden. I know of only a few examples 
 in the OK : baldur 1 brynju. Seem. 272^ and herbaldr 218" are 
 used for a hero in general ; atgeirs baldr (lanceae vir), Fornm. sog. 
 0, 307. This conversion from a proper name to a noun appellative 
 
 1 Graff 1, 432 thinks this name stands for Paltaro, and is a compoilnd,iof- 
 aro (aar, aquila), but this is unsupported by analogy ; in the ninth and tenth 
 centuries, weak forms are not yet curtailed, and we always find Epuraro 
 Ceberaar, boar-eagle), never Epurar. 
 
PAlTAR. . 221 
 
 exactly reminds us of frauja, fro, fred, and the OF. t^r. Asbealdor 
 is already extinct in AS. prose, our proper name Paltar seems 
 likewise to have died out early ; heathen songs in OHG. may have 
 known a paltar = princeps. Such Gothic forms as Baldrs, gen. 
 Baldris, and baldrs (princeps), may fairly be assumed.^ 
 
 This Baldrs would in strictness appear to have no connexion 
 with the Goth, baljjs (bold, audax), nor Paltar with the OHG. paid, 
 nor Baldr with the ON", ballr. As a rule, the Gothic Id is represented 
 by OK Id and OHG. It: the Gothic IJj by OF. 11 and OHG. Id.^ 
 But the OS. and AS. have Id in both cases, and even in Gothic, OF. and 
 OHG. a root will sometimes appear in both forms in the same lan- 
 guage;^ so that a close connexion between balj^s and Baldrs,* paid and 
 Paltar, is possible after all. On mythological grounds it is even 
 probable : Balder's wife Nanna is also the bold one, from nenna tO' 
 dare; in Gothic she would have been NctJiJjo from nan]?jan, in 
 OHG. Fandd from gi-nendan. The Baldr of the Edda may not 
 distinguish himself by bold deeds, but in Saxo he fights most 
 valiantly ; and neither of these narratives pretends to give a 
 complete account of his life. Perhaps the Gothic Balthae (Jor- 
 nandes 5, 29) traced their origin to a divine Bal]9s or Baldrs (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 Yet even this meaning of the ' bold ' god or hero might be a 
 later one : the Lith. laltas and Lett, halts signify the white, the 
 good; and by the doctrine of consonant-change, baltas exactly 
 answers to the Goth, baljjs and OHG. paid. Add to this, that the 
 AS. genealogies call Woden's son not Bealdor, Baldor, but Boeldceg, 
 Bddeg, which would lead us to expect an OHG. Paltac, a form that 
 Lconfess I have nowhere read. But both dialects have plenty of 
 other proper names compounded with dseg and tac : OHG. Adaltac, 
 
 ' Baldrs, Paltar, must be kept distinct from the compound Baldheri 
 
 (Scliannat no. 420. 448), Paldheri (Trad, patav. no. 35), AS. Baldhere. This 
 Paldheri is the same as Paldachar (Trad, patav. no. 18). 
 
 ' Ooth. kalds ) ( viljjeis huljja S^^V- 
 
 ON. kaldr >- but ■< villr hollr gull 
 
 OHG. chaltj (wildi hold kold. 
 
 ' Conf. Gothic aljjan and alj)s aldis, also aldrs ; Goth. fal]jan and OHG. 
 faldan, afterwards faltan. As ]> degenerates into d, and d into t, any d put for 
 ]>, or t for d, marks a later form : the Goth, fadr stands for fa]jr, as we see by 
 pter [the AS. 'fseder, modor,' after a usiupation of 1000 years, must have 
 given place to the truer ' father, mother ' again]. In the ON. valda pret. olli, 
 *e must regard the 11 as older than the Id, in spite of the Goth, valdan and 
 OHG. waltan [some would prefer to call valda an archaism]. 
 * Biildr may be .related to bal}>, as tir to t^, and zior to zio. 
 
222 PALTAR. 
 
 Alptac, Ingatac, Kertac, Helmtac, Hruodtac, Eegintac, Sigitac; 
 OS. Alacdag, Alfdag (Albdag, Pertz 1, 286), Hildidag, Liudd% 
 Osdag, Wulfdag ; AS. Wegdajg, Swefdseg ; even the ON. has the 
 name Svipdagr. Now, either Bseldseg simply stands for Bealdor, 
 and is synonymous with it (as e.g., Eegintac with Eeginari, Sigitac 
 with Sigar, Sigheri)^ ; or else we must recognise in the word dceg, 
 dag, tac itself a personification, such as we found another root 
 undergoing (p. 1 94-5) in the words div, divan, dina, dies ; and both 
 alike would express a shining one, a white one, a god. Prefixing to 
 this the Slavic hiel, bel, we have no need to take Bteldaeg as standing 
 for Bealdor or anything else, Bcel-dceg itself is white-god, light-god, 
 he that shines as sky and light and day, the kindly BiUhdgli, BU- 
 I6gh of the Slav system (see SuppL). It is in perfect accord with 
 this explanation of Bael-dseg, that the AS. tale of ancestry assigns 
 to him a son Brand, of whom the Edda is silent, brond, brand, ON. 
 brandr, signifying jubar, fax, titio. Bseldseg therefore, as regards 
 his name, would agree with Berhta, the bright goddess. 
 
 We have to consider a few more circumstances bearing on this 
 point. Baldr's beauty is thus described in Sn. 26: ' Hann eTsv&fagr 
 alitum ok hiartr svd at lysir af honum, oc eitt gras er svk hvitt, at 
 iafnat er til Baldrs hrdr, Jjat er allra grasa hvitast oc ]jar eptir mattu 
 marka bans fegurS bsetJi k hari ok liki ' ; he is so fair of countenance 
 and bright that he shines of himself, there is a grass so white that it 
 is evened with Baldr's brows, it is of all grasses whitest, and thereby 
 mayest thou mark his fairness both in hair and body. This 
 plant, named Baldrsbrd after the god's white eyebrow,^ is either the 
 anthemis cotula, still called Barhro in Sweden, Balsenshro, Ballensbra 
 in Schonen, and Barhrogrds in Denmark, or the matricaria maritima 
 inodora, whi"h retains the original name in Iceland (see Suppl.).^ 
 In Skane there is a Baldursherg, in the Ottingen country a 
 Baldern, and in the Vorarlberg, east of Bregenz, Balderschwdrig ; 
 such names of places demand caution, as they may be taken from 
 men, Baldar or Baldheri, I therefore withhold the mention of 
 several more. But the heavenly abode of the god was called 
 Breiffablik, nom. pi. (Ssem. 4p, Sn. 21-7), i.e. broad splendofe, 
 
 ,r 
 
 1 The cases are hardly analogous : Bteld-aj and Eegin-toc. — Tbans. 
 
 " Homer emphasizes the dark brows of Zeus and Hera, o<j>pvs laimiii. 
 Conf. XevKo^pvs and Artemis XevKo^pvvi], white-browed Diana. 
 
 ' Germ, names of the camomile : kuhauge, rindsauge, ochsenauge (ox-eye). 
 Dalecarl. hvitet-pia (white eye), jn BShuslan hvita-piga (white girl). 
 
HADU. 223 
 
 which may have reference to the streaks of the milky way ; a place 
 near Lethra, not far from Eoeskild, is said to have borne the name 
 of BredeUick} This very expression re-appears in a poem of the 
 twelfth century, though not in reference to a dwelling-place, but to 
 a host of snow-white steeds and heroes advancing over the battle- 
 field : Do brahte Dietherlches vane zvencik diisint lossam in 
 h-eithcr Uickin uber lant, Eoth. 2635. In Wh. 381, 16 : ' daz 
 bluot liber die hliche floz, si wurdn almeistic rotgevar,' did the 
 blood flow over the paths of the field, or over the shining silks ? 
 
 If Bmldceg and Brond reveal to us that the worship of Balder 
 had a definite form of its own even outside of Scandinavia, we 
 may conclude from the general diffusion of all the most essential 
 proper names entering into the main plot of the myth there, that 
 this myth as a whole was known to all Teutons. The goddess Hel, 
 as will be more fully shown in ch. XIII, answers to the Gothic im- 
 personal noun halja, OHG. hella. Hodr (ace. HoS, gen. HaSar, dat. 
 HeSi), pictured as a blind god of tremendous strength (Sn. 31), 
 who without malice discharges the fatal arrow at Baldr, is called 
 Hotlierus in Saxo, and implies a Goth. Hapits, AS. Headb, OHG. 
 Hadu, OFrank. Gliado, of which we have still undoubted traces in 
 proper names and poetic compounds. OHG. Hadupraht, Hadufuns, 
 Hadupald, Hadufrid, Hadumar, Hadupurc, Hadulint, Haduwic 
 (Hedwig), &c., forms which abut close on the CatumSrus in Tacitus 
 (Hadumar, Hadam§,r). In AS. poetry are still found the terms 
 heaSorinc (vir egregius, nobilis), Csedm. 193, 4. Beow. 737. 4927 ; 
 heaSowelm (belli impetus, fervor), Csedm. 21, 14. 147, 8. Beow. 164. 
 5633; heaSoswat (sudor bellicus), Beow. 2919. 3211. 3334; heaSowad 
 (vestis bellica), Beow. 78 ; heaSubyrne (lorica bellica). Cod. exon. 
 297, 7 ; heaSosigel and heaSogleam (egregium jubar), Cod. exon. 
 486, 17 and 438, 6; heaSolac (pugnae Indus), Beow. 1862. 
 3943 ; heaSogrim (atrocissimus), Beow. 1090. 5378 ; heaSosioc 
 (pugna vulneratus), Beow. 5504 ; heaSosteap (celsus), Beow. 2490. 
 4301. In these words, except where the meaning is merely intensi- 
 fied, the prevailing idea is plainly that of battle and strife, and the 
 god or hero must have been thought of and honoured as a warrior. 
 Therefore HaJ?us, Hodr, as well as Wuotan and Zio, expressed 
 phenomena of war ; and he was imagined blind, because he dealt 
 out at random good hap and ill (p. 207). — Then, beside HoSr, we 
 
 " Suhm. crit. hist. 2, 63. 
 
224 PALTAE. 
 
 have Hermdcfr interweaving himself in the thread of Balder's 
 history ; he is dispatched to Hel, to demand his beloved brother 
 back from the underworld. In Saxo he is already forgotten ; the 
 AS. genealogy places its HeremSd' among Woden's ancestors, and 
 names as his son either Sceldwa or the Sceaf renowned in story, ; 
 whereas in the IvTorth he and Balder alike are the offspring of OSinn ;' 
 in the same way we saw (p. 219) Freyr taken for the father as well • 
 as the son of NiorSr. A later HeremSd appears in Beow. 1795. 
 3417, but still in kinship with the old races ; he is perhaps that 
 hero, named by the side of Sigmundr in Ssem. 113% to whom OSinn 
 lends helm and hauberk. AS. title-deeds also contain the name; 
 Kemb. 1, 232. 141 ; and in OHG. Herimuot, Herimaot, occurs very 
 often (Graff 2, 699 anno 782, from MB. 7, 373. Neugart no. 
 170. 214. 244. 260. annis 809-22-30-34. Eied. no. 21 anno 
 821), but neither song nor story has a tale to tell of him (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 So much the more valuable are the revelations of the Merseburg 
 discovery ; not only are we fully assured now of a divine Balder in 
 Germany, but there emerges again a long-forgotten mythus, and 
 with it a new name unknown even to the Worth. 
 
 When, says the lay, Pliol (Balder) and Wodan were one day 
 riding in the forest, one foot of Balder's foal, ' demo Balderes volon,' 
 was wrenched out of joint, whereupon the heavenly habitants 
 bestowed their best pains on setting it right again, but neither 
 Sinngund and Sunna, nor yet Frfta and Folia could do any good, 
 only Wodan the wizard himself could conjure and heal the hmb 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 The whole incident is as little known to the Edda as to other 
 Norse legends. Yet what was told in a heathen spell in Thuringia 
 before the tenth century is still in its substance found lurking 
 in conjuring formulas known to the country folk of Scotland 
 and Denmark (conf. ch. XXXIII, Dislocation), except that they 
 apply to Jesus what the heathen believed of Balder and Wodan. 
 It is somewhat odd, that Cato (Dere rust. 160) should give, likewise ' 
 for a dislocated limb, an Old Eoman or perhaps Sabine form of 
 spell, which is unintelligible to us, but in which a god is evidently 
 invoked: Luxum si quod est, hac cantione sanum fiet. Harundinem 
 prende tibi viridem pedes IV aut V longam, mediam difiBnde, et 
 duo homines teneant ad coxendices. Incipe cantare in alio S.F.' 
 
HERIMUOT. PHOL. 225 
 
 motas vaeta daries dardaries astataries Dissunapiter ! usque dum 
 coeant. What follows is nothing to our purpose. 
 
 The horse of Balder, lamed and checked on his journey, acquires 
 a full meaning the moment we think of him as the god of light or 
 day, whose stoppage and detention must give rise to serious mis- 
 chief on the earth. Probably the story in its context could have 
 informed us of this ; it was foreign to the purpose of the conjuring- 
 spell. 
 
 The names of the four goddesses wUl be discussed in their 
 proper place ; what concerns us here is, that Balder is called by a 
 second and hitherto unheard-of name, Phol. The eye for our 
 antiquities often merely wants opening: a noticing of the unnoticed 
 has resulted in clear footprints of such a god being brought to our 
 hand, in several names of places. 
 
 In Bavaria there was a Pholesauwa, Pholesouwa, ten or twelve 
 miles from Passau, which the Traditiones patavienses first mention 
 in a document drawn up between 774 and 788 (MB. vol. 28, pars 
 2, p. 21, no. 23), and afterwards many later ones of the same district: 
 it is the present village of Pfalsau. Its composition with aue quite 
 fits in with the supposition of an old heathen worship. The gods were 
 worshipped not only on mountains, but on ' eas ' inclosed by brooks 
 and rivers, where fertile meadows yielded pasture, and forests shade. 
 Such was the castum nemus of Nerthus in an insula Oceani, such 
 Fosetesland with its willows and weU-springs, of which more 
 presently. Baldrshagi (Balderi pascuum), mentioned in the FriS- 
 ))iofssaga, was an enclosed sanctuary (griSastaSr), which none might 
 damage. I find also that convents, for which time-hallowed vener- 
 able sites were preferred, were often situated in ' eas ' ; and of one 
 nunnery the very word is used : ' in der megde OMwe,' in the maids' 
 ea (Diut. 1, 357).^ The ON. mythology supplies us with several eas 
 named after the loftiest gods : OSinsey (Odensee) in Piinen, another 
 OSinsgy (Onsoe) in Norway, Fomm. sog. 12, 33, and Thorsey, 7, 234. 
 9, 17; Hlessey (Lassoe) in the Kattegat, &c., &c. We do not know 
 any OHG. Wuotanesouwa, Donaresouwa, but Pholesouwa is equally 
 to the point. 
 
 Very simUar must have been Pholespiunt (MB. 9, 404 circ. 1138. 
 
 ^ So the Old Bavarian convent of Chiemsee was called ouwa (MB. 28% 103 
 an. 890), and afterwards the monastery there 'der herren werd,' and the nunnery 
 'der nunnen werd'. Stat 'zo gottes ouwe' in Lisoh, meld. jb. 7, 227, from a 
 fragment belonging to Bertholds Crane. Demantiu 242. 
 
 15 
 
226 PALTAE. 
 
 Pfalspiunt, 5, 399 anno 1290), now Pfalzpoint on the AltmiiH, 
 between Eichstadt and Kipfenberg, in a considerable forest. Piunt 
 means an enclosed field or garden ;'^ and if an ea could be conse- 
 crated to a god, so could a field. Graff B, 342 has a place called 
 TvebwAnpiunt, which, to judge by the circumstances, may with like 
 reason be assigned to the goddess Frouwa; no doubt it also belongs 
 to Bavaria (see Suppl.). 
 
 In the Fulda Traditions (Schannat p. 291, no. 85) occurs this 
 remarkable passage: Widerolt comes tradidit sancto Bonifacio 
 quicquid proprietatis habuit in Pholesbrunnen in provincia Thur- 
 ingiae. To this Pholesbnmno, the village of Phulsborn has the first 
 claim, lying not far from the Saale, equidistant from the towns 
 Apolda, Dornburg and Suiza, and spelt iu Mid. Age documents 
 Phulsborn and Pf olczbom ; there is however another village, Fals- 
 hrunn or Falsbronn, on the Eauhe Eberach in the Franconiali 
 Steigerwald. Now Pfolesbrunno all the more plainly suggests a 
 divinity (and that. Balder), as there are also Baldersbrunnen : a 
 Baldebrunno has been produced from the Eifel mts, and from the 
 Ehine Palatinate,^ and it has been shown that the form ought to be 
 corrected into Baldersbrunno as well as the modern Baldenhain to 
 Baldershain (Zeitschr. f. d. alt. 2, 256) ; and Bellstadt ia the Khngen 
 district of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. was formerly Baldersteti, 
 Schannat dioec. Puld. p. 244, anno 977 (see Suppl.). Prom the 
 Norse mythus of Balder, as given by Saxo, we learn that Balder in 
 the heat of battle opened a fountain for his languishing army: 
 Victor Balderus, ut affiictum siti militem opportuni liquoris beneficio 
 recrearet, novos humi latices terram altius rimatus aperuit, quorum 
 erumpentes scatebras sitibundum agmen hianti passim ore captabat. 
 Eorundem vestigia sempiterna firmata vocabulo, quamquam pristina 
 admodum scaturigo desierit, nondum prorsus exolevisse creduntur. 
 This spot is the present Baldershrond near EoeskUd (note to Muller's 
 Saxo, p. 120). But the legend may be the same as old German 
 legends, wliich at a later time placed to king Charles's account (p. 
 117, and infra. Furious host) that which heathendom had told of 
 
 > A Salzburg doc. of the tenth cent., in Kleinmaym p. 196 : Curtilem 
 locum cum duobus pratis, quod piunti dicimus. 
 
 2 Conf. Schopflin's Alsat. dipl. no. Y48, anno 1285 : in villa Baldeburne. 
 A Westphal. doc. of 1203 (Falke trad. corb. p. 566) names a place Balderbrot, 
 which might mean palus, campus Balderi. 
 
PHOL. 227 
 
 Balder ; in that case the still surviving name has itself proved a 
 fountain, whence the myth of Balder emerges auew.^ 
 
 But the name of Phol is established more firmly stUl. A 
 Heinricus de Pholing frequently appears in the Altach records of 
 the 13th century, MB. part 11, a Eapoto de Pholingen, Phaling, in 
 MB. 12, 56. 60 ; this place is on the left bank of the Danube below 
 Straubingen, between the two convents of Altach. I doubt if the 
 Polling in other records (and there are several Pollings in the 
 Ammer country) can be the same word, as the aspirate is wanting 
 and the liquid doubled. Pfullendorf or FoUendorf near Gotha is 
 in docs, of the 14th century Phiilsdorf A Pholenheim in Schannat, 
 Vind. lit. coll. 1, 48. 53. Not far from Scharzfeld, between the 
 Harz mts and Thuringia, is an old village named Polde, called in 
 early records and writings Polidi, Palidi, Palithi, Pholidi (Gramm. 
 .2, 248), the seat of a well-known convent, which again may have 
 been founded on the site of a heathen sanctuary. If a connexion 
 with the god can be established in this case, we at the same time 
 gather from it the true value of the varying consonant in his name. 
 > Of Phol so many interpretations crowd upon us, that we should 
 be puzzled if they could all be made good. The Ghaldaic hel or hal 
 seems to have been a mere title pertaining to several gods : bel=: 
 Uranus, bel=Jupiter, bel=Mars. The Finnish palo means fire, the 
 ON. IM, AS. had, rogus, and the Slav, 'pdliti to burn, with which 
 connect Lat. Pales and the Palilia. Of phallus we have already 
 Spoken. We must first make sure of the sounds in our native 
 names for a divinity of whom as yet we know nothing but the 
 Ijare name (see Suppl.). On the question as to the sense of the word 
 itself, I set aside the notion one might stumble on, that it is merely 
 a fondling form of Paltar, Balder, for such forms invariably preserve 
 the initial of the complete name ; we should expect Palzo, Balzo, 
 but not Phol.2 ISTor does the OHG. Ph seem here to be equivalent 
 
 ^ Greek tradition tells of Herakles and Zeus : ^ao-i tov 'KpaKXia 8i\|cei irore 
 'HaraxivTa eil^acrOm to A'il Trarpl cmtel^ai avra fiiKpav Xi/3aSa. 6 8e jiiij 6i\u>v 
 avTQv Kararpvx^o'do.i', p'-'^as Kcpavvov dvedojKe p.iKpav Xi^dSa, r^v deaa-dpevos 6 
 Hpa^X^y nal {TKd-\f/as ety to 7r\ovata>T£pov eTrotTjtre <^ip€iT6ai (Scholia in II. 20, 74). 
 Thia spring was Scamander, and the Xt(3as 'HpaA^os may be set by the side of 
 ■Pfolesbrunno as well as Pt'olesouwa, XcfidStov being both mead and ea ; and 
 does not the Grecian demigod's pyre kindled on Oeta suggest that of Balder ? 
 
 '' So I explain the proper name Fols from Folbreht, Folrat, Folmar, and 
 the like ; it therefore stands apart from Phol. [The Suppl. qualifies the sweep- 
 ing assertion in the text ; it also takes notice of several other solutions, as 
 Apollo, Pollux, foal, &c.] 
 
228 PALTAE. 
 
 to the ordinary F which corresponds to the Saxon F, but rather to 
 he an aspirate which, answering to the Saxon tenuis P, represents 
 an Old- Aryan media B. But we know that a Saxon initial P:=OHG. 
 Ph is found almost exclusively ia foreign words^ (porta, phorta ; 
 putti, phuzi ; pMa, pheit) ; it follows that for Phol, in case the Sax. 
 form Pol is really made out, we must either look for such a foreign 
 P, or as a rare exception, in which the law of consonant-change 
 does assert itself, an Old- Aryan B. I incline to this last hypothesis, 
 and connect Phol and Pol (whose o may very well have sprung 
 from a) with the Celtic Beat, Beul, Bel, Belenus, a divinity of light 
 or fire, the Slav. BiUldgh, BUMgh (white-god), the adj. biM, bel 
 (albus), Lith. baltas, which last with its extension T makes it pro- 
 bable that Bseldseg and Baldr are of the same root, but have not 
 undergone consonant-change. Phol and Paltar therefore are in their 
 beginning one, but reveal to us two divergent historical develop- 
 ments of the same word, and a not unimportant difference in the 
 mythology of the several Teutonic races.^ 
 
 So far as we can see, the god was worshipped under the name 
 of Phol chiefly by the Thuringians and Bavarians, i.e. according to 
 ancient nomenclature the Hermunduri and Marcomanni, yet they 
 seem to have also known his other name Paltar or Balder, while 
 
 ^ That is, really borrowed words, aa port, paternal, palace, in which the Low 
 Germ, makes no change (like that in firth, father), and therefore the Hi"h 
 Genn. stands only one stage instead of two in advance of Latin : Pforte, Pfalz, 
 &c. Such words stand outside the rule of consonant-change. — Trass. 
 
 ^ I have thus far gone on the a.ssumption that Phol and Balder in the 
 Merseberg spell designate one and the same divine being, which is strongly 
 supported by the analogy I have pointed out between Pholesouwa and Baldrshagi, 
 Pliolesbrunno and Baldrsbrunnr ; and his ciiltus must have been very famihar 
 to the people, for the jioem to be able to name him by different names in suc- 
 cession, without fear of being misunderstood. Else one might suppose by the 
 names, that Phol and Balder were two different gods, and there would be 
 plenty of room left for the question, who can possibly be meant by Phol ! If 
 PH could here represent V = W, which is contrary to all analogy, and is almost 
 put out of court by the persistent PH, PF in all those names of places ; then 
 we might try the 0:X . Ullr, Ollerus in Saxo, p. 45, which (Uke ull, OHG. woUa, 
 wool) would be in OHG. Wol, so that'Wol endi Wodan (UUr ok OOiim/ 
 made a perfect alliteration. And Ullr was connected with Baldr, who in Sxm. 
 93^^ is called 'Ullar sefi,' sib to U., Ulli cognatus (see Suppl.). But the gen. 
 would have to be WoUes, and that is contradicted by the invariably single L 
 in Pholes. The same reason is conclusive against Wackemagel's proposal to 
 take Fol for the god of fulness and plenty, by the side of the goddess FoUa ; I 
 think the weak form Folio would be demanded for it by an OHG. Pilnitis ; T. 
 Haupts zeitschr. 2, 190. Still more does the internal consistency of the song 
 itself rer[«ire the identity of Phol and Balder ; it would be odd for Phol to be 
 named at the beginnini', and no further notice to be taken of hun. 
 
FOSITE. 229 
 
 Baldag, Bmldceg prevailed among the Saxons and Westphalians, 
 and the AS. bealdor had passed into a common noun. Now as the 
 Bavarian Eor stood opposed to the Alamannic Zio, we ought to find 
 out whether Phol was in like manner unknown to the Alamanns 
 and the races most akin to them.^ 
 
 Lastly, from eastern Germany we are transported to the north- 
 west by a name appertaining closely to the Balder cultus, and again 
 linking itself with the Edda. The Edda cites among the Ases a 
 son of Baldr and Nanna, Forseti, who like his father dwelt in a 
 shining hall Glitnir (gUt, nitor, splendor, OHG. kliz) buUt of gold 
 and silver, and who (as Baldr himself had been called the wisest, 
 most eloquent and mildest god, whose verdicts are final, Sn. 27) 
 passed among gods and men for the wisest of judges; he settled all 
 disputed matters (Stem. 42\ Sn. 31. 103), and we are told no more 
 about him (see Suppi). 
 
 This Forseti is well entitled to be compared with the Frisian 
 god Fosite, concerning whom some biographies composed in the 
 ninth century gives us valuable information. The vita sancti 
 WHibrordi (f 739), written by the famous Alcuin (f 804), relates 
 as follows, cap. 10 : Cum ergo plus verbi Dei praedicator iter agebat, 
 pervenit in confinio Fresonum et Danorum ad quamdam insulam, 
 quae a quodam deo suo Fosite ab accolis terrae Fositesland appella- 
 tur, quia in ea ejusdem dei fana fuere constructa. qui locus a 
 paganis in tanta veneratione habebatur, ut nil in ea, vel animalium 
 ibi pascentium, vel aliarum quarumlibet rerum, gentilium quisquani 
 tangere audebat, nee etiam a fonte qui ibi ebuUiebat aquam haurire 
 nisi iacens praesumebat. Quo cum vir Dei tempestate jactatus est, 
 mansit ibidem aliquot dies, quousque sepositis tempestatibus 
 opportunum navigandi tempus adveniret. sed parvipendens stultam 
 
 ' The inquiry, how far these names reach back into antiquity, is far from 
 exhausted yet. I have called attention to the P/o%raben (-ditch), the P/aZhecke 
 (-hedge, -fence), for which devil's dyke is elsewhere used ; then the raising of 
 the whirlwind is ascribed in some parts to the devil, in others to Herodias 
 [meaning H.'s daughter the dancer], in others again to Pfol. Eastern Hesse 
 on the Werra has a ' very queer ' name for the whirlwind, beginning with Bull- 
 or Boil- ; and in the neighbouring Eichsfeld PulloineJce is pronounced with 
 shyness and reluctance (Miinchner gel. anz. 1842, p. 762). A Niddawitz 
 ordinance of the same district (3, 327) contains the family name £oi/&perg 
 (Polesherc ?), Pfoylsperg. The spelling Bull, Boil, would agree with the con- 
 jecture hazarded above, but I do not connect with this the idol Biel in the 
 Harz, for Bielstein leads back to bilstein, i.e. beilstein. Schmid's westerw. id. 
 145 has pollecker, bolkcker for spectre, bugbear (see Suppl.). 
 
230 PALTAE. 
 
 loci illius religionem, vel ferocissimum regis animum, qui violatores 
 sacroram illius atrocissima morte damnare solebat ; tres homines 
 in eo fonte cum invocatione sanctae Trinitatis baptizavit. sed et 
 animalia in ea terra pascentia in cibaria suis mactare praecepit. 
 Quod pagani intuentes, arbitrabantur eos vel in furorem verti, vel 
 etiam veloci morte perire ; quos cum nil mali cernebant pati, 
 stupore perterriti, regi tamen Eadbodo quod viderant factum 
 retulerunt. Qui nimio furore succensus in sacerdotem Dei vivi 
 suorum injurias deorum ulcisci cogitabat, et per tres dies semper 
 tribus vieibus sortes suo more mittebat, et nunquam damnatorum 
 sors, Deo vero defendeute suos, super servum Dei aut aliquem ex 
 suis cadere potuit ; nee nisi unus tantum ex sociis sorte rmnstratm 
 martyrio coronatus est. — Eadbod feared king Pippin the Frank, 
 and let the evangelist go unhurt.^ What Wilibrord had left 
 unfinished, was accomplished some time after by another priest, 
 as the vita sancti Liudgeri, composed by Altfrid (-f 849), tells of 
 the year 785: Ipse vero (Liudgerus) .... studuit/ama destruere, 
 et omnes erroris pristini abluere sordes. curavit quoque ulterius 
 doctrinae derivare flumina, et consUio ab imperatore accepto, trans- 
 fretavit in confinio Fresonum atque Danorum ad quandam insulam, 
 quae a nomine dei sui falsi Fosete Foseteslant est appellata .... 
 Pervenientes autem ad eandem insulam, destruxerunt omnia ejus- 
 dem Fosetis fana, quae Ulic fuere constructa, et pro eis Christi 
 fabricaverunt ecclesias, cumque habitatores terrae illius fide Christi 
 imbueret, baptizavit eos cum invocatione sanctae Trinitatis in fonte, 
 qui ibi ebulliebat, in quo sanctus Willibrordus prius homines tres 
 baptizaverat, a quo etiam fonte nemo prius haurire aquam nisi 
 tacens praesumebat (Pertz 2, 410). — Altfrid evidently had the work 
 of Alcuin by him. Prom that time the island took the name of 
 helegland, Helgoland, which it bears to this day; here also the 
 evangelists were careful to conserve, in the interest of Christianity, 
 the sense of sacredness already attaching to the site. Adam of 
 Bremen, in his treatise De situ Daniae (Pertz 9, 369), describes 
 the island thus : Ordinavit (archiepiscopus episcopum) in Finne 
 (Fiihnen) Eilbertum, quem tradunt conversum (I. captum) a piratis 
 Farriam insulam, quae in ostio fluminis Albiae longo secessu latet 
 in oceano, primum reperisse constructoque monasterio in ea fecisse 
 habitabilem. haec insula contra Hadeloam sita est. cujus longi- 
 
 ^ Acta sanctor. Bened., sec. 3. pars 1, p. 609. 
 
rosiTE. 231 
 
 tudo vix VIII milliaria panditur, latitudo quatuor; homines stramine 
 fragmentisque navmm pro igne utuntur. Sermo est piratas, si 
 quando praedam ivde ml minimam tulerint, aut mox perisse nau- 
 fragio, aut occisos ah aliqiio, nullum redisse -iwtf ewipwem ; quapropter 
 solent heremitis ibi viventibus decimas praedarum qfferre cum magna 
 devotione. est enim feracissima frugum, ditissima volucrum et 
 pecudum nutrix, collem habet unicum, arborem nullam, scopulis 
 includitur asperrimis, nullo aditu nisi uno, ubi et aqua dulcis (the 
 spring whence they drew water in silence), locus veneraiilis omnibus 
 nautis, praecipue vero piratis, unde nomen accepit ut Heiligeland 
 dicatur. banc ia vita sancti Willebrordi Fosetidand appellari 
 dicimus, quae sita est in confinio Danorum et Fresonum. sunt et 
 ahae insulae contra Fresiam et Daniam, sed nulla earum tam memo- 
 rabiUs. — The name Farria, appearing here for the first time, either 
 arose from confounding the isle of Fohr with Helgoland, or we must 
 emend the passage, and read ' a piratis Farrianis.' By the customs 
 of these mariners and vikings even of christian times, we may 
 assure ourselves how holy the place was accounted in. the heathen 
 time (see SuppL). 
 
 In an island lying between Denmark, Friesland and Saxony, we 
 might expect to find a heathen god who was common to all three. 
 It would be strange if the Frisian Fosite were unknown to the 
 Norsemen ; and stranger stiU. if the Eddie Forseti were a totally 
 different god. It is true, one would have expected a mention of this 
 deity in particular from Saxo Gram., who is quite silent about it ; 
 but then he omits many others, and in his day Fosite's name may 
 have died out amongst the Frisians. 
 
 There is some discrepancy between the two names, as was 
 natural in the case of two nations : ON. Forseti gen. Forseta, Fris. 
 Fosite gen. Fosites. The simplest supposition is, that from Forsite 
 arose by assimilation Fossite, Fosite, or that the R dropt out, as in 
 OHGr. mosar for morsar. Low Germ, mosar; so in the Frisian 
 Angeln, according to Hagerup p. 20, fost, foste = forste, primus. 
 Besides, there is hardly any other way of explaining Fosite. In 
 GE. forseti is praeses, princeps, apparently translatable into OHG. 
 forasizo, a fitting name for the god who presides over judgment, and 
 arranges aU disputes. The Gothic failragaggja bears almost the 
 same sense, which I also find, even in much later writings, attached 
 to our word vorgdnger (now = predecessor). More complete AS. 
 
232 PALTAE. 
 
 genealogies would perhaps name a Forseta or Forsete as Bseldaeg's 
 
 ,1 
 
 son/ 
 
 Forseti, Fosite are a proof of the extent of Balder's worship. If 
 we may infer from Pholesouwa and Baldrshagi that the god loved 
 isles and ' eas/ Helgoland is a case in point, where the flocks of his 
 son grazed; and so is perhaps the worship of the Hercules-pillars, 
 which, following Tacitus, we might fix on some other island near it.^ 
 
 1 Later writers have turned Fosete into a goddess Foseta, Phoseta, Fosta, to 
 approximate her to the Roman Vesta ; maps of Helgoland, in which are found 
 marked a ' templum Fostae vel Phosetae ' of the year 768, and a ' templum 
 Vestae' of 692, were made up in Major's Cimbrien (Plon, 1692), conf. Wiebel's 
 programm iiber Helgoland, Hamb. 1842. The god Foste and Fosteland could 
 easily find their way into the spurious Vita Suiberti cap. 7. 
 
 ' Another thought has struck my mind about Fosete. In the appendix to 
 the Heldenbuch, JEcke, Vasat, Abentrot are styled brothers. The form Fasat 
 instead of the usual Fasolt need not be a mistake ; there are several QHG. 
 men's names in -at, and OS. in -ad, -id, so that Fasat and Fasolt can hold their 
 ground side by side. Now Fasolt (conf. ch. XX. Storm) and Ecke were known 
 as god-giants of wind and water, Abentrot as a deemon of light. As Eoke-Oegir 
 was worshipped on the Eider and in Lassoe, so might Fosite be in Helgoland. 
 The connexion with Forseti must not be let go, but its meaning as For-seti, 
 Fora-sizo becomes dubious, and I feel inclined to explain it as Fors-eti from 
 fors [a whirling stream, ' force ' in Cumbld], Dan. fos, and to assume a daemon of 
 the whirlpool, a Fossegri/mm (conf. ch. XVII. Nichxis), with which Fosit^s 
 sacred spring would tally. Again, the Heldenbuch gives those three brothers 
 a father Nentiger (for so we must read for Mentiger) = OHGr. NandgSr; and 
 does not he suggest Forseti's mother Nanna = NanM 1 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 OTHEE GODS. 
 
 In addition to the gods treated of thus far, who could with 
 perfect distinctness be pointed out in all or most of the Teutonic 
 races, the Norse mythology enumerates a series of others, whose 
 track wiU be harder to pursue, if it does not die out altogether. To 
 a great extent they are those of whom the North itself has little or 
 nothing to tell in later times. 
 
 1. (Heimdall.) 
 Heimffallr, or in the later spelling Heimdallr, though no longer 
 mentioned in Saxo, is, like Baldr, a bright and gracious god : 
 hvitastr §,sa (whitest of ^ses, Ssem. 72^),^ sver54s hvita, Saem. 90% 
 hviti as, Sn. 104 ; he guards the heavenly bridge (the rainbow), and 
 dwells in Himiribiorg (the heavenly hUls). The heim in the first 
 part of his name agrees in sound with himinn ; Jjallr seems akin to 
 ]5oll, gen. JjaUar (pinus), Swed. tall, Swiss dale, Engl, deal (Staid. 1, 
 259, conf. Schm. 2, 603-4 on mantala), but JjoU also means a river, 
 Sn. 43, and Freyja bears the by-name of MardoU, gen. MardaUar, 
 Sn. 37. 154. AU this remains dark to us. No proper name in the 
 other Teutonic tongues answers to HeimSallr; but with Himin- 
 Uorg (Seem. 41'' 92'') or the common noun himinfioU (Saem. 148" 
 Yngl. saga cap. 39), we can connect the names of other hills : a 
 Eimilinlcrg (mons coelius) haunted by spirits, in the vita S. Galli, 
 Pertz 2, 10 ; Himelberc in Lichtenstein's frauend. 199, 10 ; a Himi- 
 lesberg in the Fulda country, Schannat Buchon. vet. 336 ; several in 
 
 1 When this passage says further, ' vissi hann vel fram, sem Vanir aSrir,' 
 Hter. ' he foreknew well, like other Vanir,' his wisdom is merely likened to 
 that of the Vanir (Gramm. 4, 456 on ander), it is not meant that he was one of 
 them, a thing never asserted anywhere [so in Homer, ' Greeks and other Trojans' 
 means ' and Trojans as weW], The Fornald. sog. 1, 373 calls him, I know not 
 why, ' heimskastr allra asa,' heimskr usually signifying ignorant, a greenhorn, 
 what the MHG. poets mean by tump. 
 
234 OTHER GODS, 
 
 Ilesse (Kuchenb. anal. 11, 137) near Iba and Waldkappel (Niederhp 
 wochenbl. 1834 pp. 106, 2183); a Himmelsberg in Vestgotland, and 
 one, alleged to be Heimdall's, in Halland. At the same time, 
 Himinvdngar, Ssem. 150% the OS. hebanwang, hebeneswang, a 
 paradise (v. oh. XXV), the AS. Heofenfeld coelestis campus, Beda 
 p. 158, and the like names, some individual, some general, deserve 
 to be studied, but yield as yet no safe conclusion about the god. 
 
 Other points about him savour almost of the fairy-tale : he is 
 made out to be the son of nine mothers, giantesses, Ssem. 118*'''. 
 Sn. 106. Laxd. p. 392 ; he wants less sleep than a bird, sees a 
 hundred miles off by night or day, and hears the grass grow on the 
 ground and the wool on the sheep's back (Sn. 30).^ His horse is 
 Gulltoppr, gold-tuft, and he himself has golden teeth,^ hence the 
 by-names Oullintanni and Mallinskidi, ' tennur HallinsklSa-' 
 Fornm. sog. 1, 52. It is worthy of remark, that HallinskiSi and 
 Heimdali are quoted among the names for the ram, Sn. 221. 
 
 As watchman and warder of the gods (vorSr goSa, Saem. 41), 
 Heimdali winds a powerful horn, Giallarhorn, which is kept under 
 a sacred tree, Ssem. S^ 8^ Sn. 72-3. What the Voluspa imparts, 
 must be of a high antiquity (see Suppl.). 
 
 Now at the very outset of that poem, all created beings great 
 and small are called Tnegir Heimd'allar, sons or children of the god; 
 he appears therefore to have had a hand in the creation of the 
 world, and of men, and to have played a more exalted part than is 
 assigned to him afterwards. As, in addition to Wuotan, Zio pre- 
 sided over war, and Fro over fruitfulness, so the creative faculty! 
 seems to have been divided between OSinn and HeimSallr. 
 
 A song of suggestive design in the Edda makes the first 
 arrangement of mankind in classes proceed from the same Heim- 
 ffallr, who traverses the world under the name of Bigr (see Suppl.). 
 There is a much later German tradition, very prevalent in the last 
 few centuries, which I have ventured to trace to this heathen one, 
 its origin being difficult to explain otherwise.* As for the name Bigr, 
 it seems to me to have sprung, like dis from idis, by aphseresis 
 from an older form, which I cannot precisely determine, but would 
 connect with the MHG. Irinc, as in ON. an n before g or k ofteii 
 
 1 Conf. KM. 3, 125. 
 
 2 Li diente d' oro, Pentam. 3, 1. Of a certain Haraldr : teimr voni mMor 
 ok gulls litr A. Fornald. sog. 1, 366. 
 
 3 Zeitschrift f. d. alt. 2, 257—267. Conf. ch. XIX. 
 
HEIMDATL. BEAGI. 235 
 
 drops out (conf. stinga stack, J^acka ]?anki), and, as will be shown 
 later, Iringes straza, Iringes wee answers to a Swedish Eriksgata.^ 
 The shining galaxy would suit extremely well the god who descends 
 from heaven to earth, and whose habitation borders on Bifrost. 
 
 Norwegian names of places bear witness to his cultus : Heim- 
 dallarvattn, a lake in Guldbrandsdalen (GuSbrandsdalr), and 
 Heimddlshouff, a hill in Nummedalen (Naumudak) ; neither is 
 mentioned in the ON. sagas. 
 
 2. (Beagi, Beego.) 
 
 Above any other god, one would like to see a more general 
 veneration of the ON. Bragi revived, in whom was vested the gift 
 of poetry and eloquence. He is called the best of all skalds, Sjem. 
 46*. Sn. 45, frumsmiSr bragar (auctor poeseos), and poetry itself is 
 hagr} In honour of him the Bragaiull or hragar^vll was given 
 (p. 60) ; the form appears to waver between bragi gen. braga, and 
 bragr gen. bragar, at all events the latter stands in the phrase 
 'Iragr karla ' = vir facundus, praestans, in ' §,sa hragr ' deorum 
 princeps = Thorr (Ssem. SS''. Sn. 211% but Bragi 211''), and even 
 ' bragr qvenna ' femina praestantissima (Saem. 218*).^ 
 
 Then a poet and king of old renown, distinct from the god, 
 . himself bore the name of Bragi hiym gamli, and his descendants 
 were styled Bragningar. A minstrel was pictured to the mind as 
 old and long-bearded, siSskeggi and skeggbragi, Sn. 105, which 
 recalls OSinn with his long beard, the inventor of poetry (p. 
 146) ; and Bragi is even said to be OSin's son, Sn. 105 (see Suppl.). 
 
 In the AS. poems there occurs, always in the nom. sing., the 
 term Irego or breogo, in the sense of rex or princeps : bregostol in 
 Beow. '4387 and Andr. 209 is thronus regius; bregoweard in Csedm. 
 140, 26. 166, 13 is princeps.* Now, as gen. plurals are attached to 
 
 ^ Der gammel Erik, gammel Erke (old E.), has now come to mean old Nick 
 in Swedish ; conf. supra p. 124, on Erchtag. 
 
 ^ Saem. 11.3'', of OSinn : gefr hann brag skaldom (dat carmen poetis). 
 
 ' Does not the Engl, hrag, Germ, prahlen (gloriari) explain everything ? 
 Showy high-flown speech would apply eq^ually to boasting and to poetry. 
 Then, for the other meaning, ' the boast, glory, master-piece (of men, gods, 
 Women, angels, bears),' we can either go back to the more primitive sense 
 (gloria) in prcmgen, prunk, praclit, bright, or still keep to Irag. ' Beauty is 
 natm'e's hrag, and must be shewn,' says Comu.?. — Trans. 
 
 * In Beda 4, 23 (Stevens, p. 304) a woman's name Bregosuid, BregoswiS ; 
 in Kemble 5, 48 (anno 749) BregesvdSestdn, and 1, 133-4 (anno 762), 5, 46 (anno 
 747), 5, 59 (anno 798) a man's name Bregowine. In Beow. 3847 bregoruf is 
 clarissimus. 
 
236 OTHER GODS. 
 
 it : brego engla, Caedm. 12, 7. 60, 4. 62, 3 ; brego Dena, Beow. 
 848 ; haeleSa brego, Beow. 3905 ; gumena brego, Andr. 61 ; beorna 
 brego, Andr. 305 (conf. brego moncynnes. Cod. exon. 457, 3) ; there 
 grows up an instructive analogy to the above-mentioned ' bragr 
 karla,' and to the genitives similarly connected with the divine 
 names Tyr, Frea and Bealdor (pp. 196, 211, 220). The AS. hrego 
 equally seems to point to a veiled divinity, though the forms and 
 vowel-relations do not exactly harmonize.^ 
 
 Their disagreement rather provokes one to hunt up the root 
 under which they could be reconciled: a verb briga brag would 
 suit the purpose. The Saxon and Frisian languages, but not the 
 Scandinavian or High German, possess an unexplained term for 
 cerebrum : AS. bregen (like regen pluvia, therefore better written 
 so than brsegen), Engl, brain, Fris. brein. Low Sax. bregen ; I think 
 it answers to the notions ' understanding, cleverness, eloquence, 
 imitation,' and is connected with <f>p-^v, ^pevo^, -(ppcov, -(fipovoi;. Now 
 the ON", bragr, beside poesis, means also mos, gestus, and ' braga 
 eftir einum ' referre aUquem gestu, imitari. OHG. has nothing like 
 it, nor any such proper name as Prako, Brago, Brego. 
 
 But, as we detected among the Saxons a faint trace of the god 
 or god's son, we may lay some stress on the fact that in an OS. 
 document of 1006 Bumacker occurs as the name of a place, v. 
 Liinzel's Hildesheim, p. 124, conf. pre£ v. (see Suppl.). Now Bragi 
 and his wife ISunn dwelt in Brunnakr, Sn. 121% and she is called 
 ' Brunnakrs beckjar gertSr,' Brunnakerinae sedis ornatrix, as Sk 
 Thorlacius interprets it (Spec. 6, pp. 65-6). A well or spring, 
 for more than one reason, suits a god of poetry ; at the same time a 
 name like ' springfield ' is so natural that it might arise without any 
 reference to gods. 
 
 Bragi appears to have stood in some pretty close relation to 
 
 Oegir, and if an analogy between them could be established, which 
 
 however is unsupported hitherto on other grounds, then by the 
 
 side of ' briga brag ' the root ' braga brog ' would present itself, and 
 
 the AS. br6ga (terror), OHG. pruoko, bruogo, be akin to it. The 
 
 connexion of Bragi with Oegir may be seen by Bragi appearing 
 
 prominently in the poem Oegisdrecka, and by his sitting next to 
 
 Oegir in Sn. 80, so that in intimate converse with him he brings 
 
 out stories of the gods, which are thence called Bragarcedur, 
 
 ' The Irish breitheam, brethemb (judex) is said to be pronounced almost 
 as ' brehon,' Trans, of Irish acad. 14, 167. 
 
AKI, UOKI, OEGIE. 237 
 
 speeches of Bragi. It is with great propriety, no doubt, that these 
 narratives, during whicli Oegir often interrupts him witli questions 
 (Sn. 93), as Gangl^ri does Har when holding forth in the first part 
 of the Edda, were put in the mouth of the patron of poetry. 
 
 3. Aki, TJoki (Oegie, HlSe). Fifel, G-eofon. 
 
 This Oegir, an older god of the giant kind, not ranked among 
 the Ases, but holding peaceable intercourse with them, bears the 
 name of the terrible, the awful. The root ' aga 6g ' had given birth 
 to plenty of derivatives in our ancient speech: Goth, agis ^0^09, 6g 
 ^o/3eo/^at, OHG. akiso, egiso, AS. egesa horror, OHG. aki, ekt, AS. 
 ege (ege ? awe) terror, ON. cegja terrori esse, which can only be 
 spelt with oe, not se. To the proper name Oegir would correspond 
 a Goth. Ogeis, AS. Ege, OHG. Uogi, instead of which I can only 
 lay my hand on the weak form Uogo, Oago. But cegir also signifies 
 the sea itself : sol gengr i ceginn, the sun goes into the sea, sets ; 
 cegi-sior pelagus is like the Goth, mari-saivs; the AS. eagor and 
 egor (mare) is related to ege, as sigor to sige. I attach weight to 
 the agreement of the Greek wiceavo^, 'n,Keav6<; and ''H'^rjv, whence 
 the Lat. oceanus, Oceanus was borrowed, but aequor (mare placi- 
 dum) seems not cognate, being related to aequus, not to aqua and 
 Goth, ahva (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 The boisterous element awakened awe, and the sense of a god's 
 
 ^immediate presence. As Woden was also called Woma (p. 144), 
 and OSinn Omi and Yggr, so the AS. poets use the terms woma, 
 
 : sweg, broga and egesa almost synonymously for ghostly and divine 
 phenomena (Andr. and El. pp. xxx — xxxii). Oegir was therefore a 
 highly appropriate name, and is in keeping with the notions of fear 
 and horror developed on p. 207-8. 
 
 This interpretation is strikingly confirmed by other mythical 
 conceptions. The Edda tells us of a fear-inspiring helmet, whose 
 name is Oegishialmr : er oil qvikvendi broeSast at sia, Sn. 137; 
 such a one did HreiSmar wear, and then Eafnir when he lay on the 
 gold and seemed the more terrible to all that looked upon him, 
 Ssem. 188^; vera (to be) undir Oegishialmi, bera Oegishialm yfir 
 
 ' Oegir is also called Gymir, Ssem. 59. G4mir, Sn. 125. 183 possibly 
 epulator ? but I know no other meaning of the ON. ganmr than cura, attentio, 
 though the OHQ. goiuna, OS. goma means both cura and epulae, the AS. 
 gaming both cura and nuptiae. 
 
238 OTHER GODS. 
 
 einum, means to inspire with fear or reverence, Laxd. saga, p. 130, 
 Islend. sog. 2, 155 ; ek bar Oegishialm yfir alia folki, Fornald. sog. 
 1, 162 ; hafa Oegishialm 1 augum, ibid. 1, 406, denotes that terrible 
 piercing look of the eyes, which others cannot stand, and the 
 famous basilisk-glance, ormr 1 auga, was something similar.^ Now 
 I find a clear trace of this Norse helmet in the OHG-. man's name 
 Egihelm (Trad. fuld. 1, 97 ; in Schannat no. 126, p. 286 Eggihelm), 
 i.e. ^^iAeZm, identical with the strengthened- vowel form Uogihelm, 
 which I am unable to produce. But in the Eckenlied itself Ecke's 
 costly magic helmet, and elsewhere even Ortnit's and Dietrich's, 
 are called Hildegrim, Hildegrin ; and the ON. grima mask or 
 helmet (in Ssem. 51"^ a name for night) has now turned up in a 
 Eulda gloss, Dronke p. 15 : ' scenici = crimiln ' presupposes a sing. 
 krimd larva, persona, galea ; so we can now understand KrimhUt 
 (Gramm. 1, 188) the name of a Walkurie armed with the helmet of 
 terror, and also why ' daemon ' in another gloss is rendered by 
 egisgrimolt. The AS. egesgrime is equally a mask, and in El. 260 
 the helmet that friglitens by its figure of a boar is called a grim" 
 helm. 1 venture to guess, that the wolf in our ancient apologue 
 was imagined wearing such a helmet of dread, and hence his name 
 of Isangrim, iron-mask, Eeinh. ccxlii (see Suppl.). Nor have we 
 yet come to the end of fancies variously playing into one another : 
 as the god's or hero's helmet awakened terror, so must his shield 
 and sword ; and it looks significant, that a terrific sword fashioned 
 by dwarfs should likewise be named in the two forms, viz. in the 
 Vilkinasaga Eckisax, in Veldek's Eneit Uokesahs (not a letter may 
 we alter), in the Eckenlied Ecken sahs, as Hildegrin was Ecken 
 helm, Eckes helm, In the Greek 01719 I do not look for any verbal 
 affinity, but this shield of Zev<; aiyLoxo<s (H. 15, 310. 17, 593), 
 wielded at times by Athena (2, 447. 5, 738) and Apollo (15, 229. 
 318. 361. 24, 20), spreads dismay around, like Oegishialmr, 
 Hildegrim and Eckisahs ; Pluto's helmet too, which rendered 
 invisible, may be called to mind. — That ancient god of sea, Oceanus 
 and Oegir (see Suppl), whose hall glittered with gold, Ssm. 59,^ 
 
 1 Fomm. sog. 9, 513 : gekk alvalclr und Ygishialmi. The spelling with f 
 goes to confirm our CD, and refute Be, as an y can only stand for tne former, not 
 for tlie latter ; conf. mor and the deriy. myri = moeri, Gramm. 1, 473. 
 
 '' In the great feast which he gave to the gods, the ale came up of itself (sialft 
 barso Tpar 61, iS;em. 59), as Hephfestus's tripods ran avToixaroi in and out of the 
 Belov dySiva, II. 18, 376. Even so Freyr had a sword er sialft vegiz (that swings 
 itself), Srem. 82=^, and Thor's Miolnir comes back of itself everytime it is thrown. 
 
AKi, uoKi, OKGiE, fIfel, geofon, hl£e. 239 
 
 would of all others wear the glittering helmet which takes its 
 name from him. From all we can find, his name in OHGr. must 
 have been AM or Uohi ; and it requires no great boldness to 
 suppose that in the Ecke of our heroic legend, a giant all over, we 
 see a precipitate of the heathen god. Ecke's mythical nature is 
 confirmed by that of his brothers Fasolt and Abeutr6t, of whom 
 more hereafter. As the Greek Okeanos has rivers given him for 
 sons and daughters, the Norse Oegir has by Ean nine daughters, 
 whose names the Edda applies to waters and waves. We might 
 expect to find that similar relations to the seagod were of old 
 ascribed to our own rivers also, most of which were conceived of as 
 female [and still bear feminine names]. 
 
 And there is one such local name in which he may be clearly 
 ■recognised. The Eider, a river which divides the Saxons from the 
 Northmen, is called by the Prankish annalists in the eighth and 
 ninth centuries Egidora, Agadora, Aegidora (Pertz 1, 355-70-86. 
 2, 620-31) ; Helmold 1, 12. 50 spells Egdom. The ON. writers 
 more plainly write Oegisdyr (Fornm. sog. 11, 28. 31, conf. Geogr. of 
 a Northman, ed. by Werlauff p. 15), i.e., ocean's door, sea-outlet, 
 ostium, perhaps even here with a collateral sense of the awful. 
 Again, a place called Oegisdyr is mentioned in Iceland, Landn. 5, 
 2, where we also find 3, 1 an Oegissi&a, latus oceani. Further, it 
 comes out that by the AS. name Fifeldor in Cod. exon. 321, 8 and 
 by the Wieglesdor in Dietmar of Merseb. ad ann. 975, p. 760 is 
 meant the Eider again, still the aforesaid Oegisdyr ; while a various 
 reading in Dietmar agrees with the annalist Saxo ad ann. 975 iu 
 giving Heggedor = 'EjggB6.ov, Egidor. Now, seeing that elsewhere 
 the AS. poems use Fifelstream, FifelwKg (Boeth. 26, 51. El. 237) 
 for the ocean, and Fifelcynnes eard (Beow. 208) for the land of the 
 ocean-sprites, we may suppose Fifel and its corruption Wiegel to be 
 another and an obsolete name of Oegir. 
 
 The same may hold good of the AS. Geofon, OS. Gcban, a being 
 whose godhead is sufficiently manifest from the ON. Gefjun, who is 
 reckoned among the Asynior, though she bore sons to a giant. 
 .The Saxon Geban however was a god ; the Heliand shows only the 
 compound Gebenesstrom 90, 7. 131, 22, but the AS. poets, in 
 addition to Geofenes begang, Beow. 721, Geofenes staS, Ceedm. 215, 
 8, and the less personal geofonhus (navis), Cfedm. 79, 34, geofonfl6d, 
 Cod. exon. 193, 21, have also a Geofon standing independently in 
 
240 OTHER GODS. 
 
 the nom., Cisdm. 206, 6, and gifen geotende, Beow. 3378. An 
 OHG. Kepan is nowhere found, even in proper names, though 
 Stahlin 1, 598 gives a Geleneswtlare. I know not whether to take 
 for the root the verb giban to give, in which case Gihika (p. 137) 
 and Wuotan's relation to l^eptune (pp. 122, 148) would come in 
 here ; or to look away to the Greek xitov fem. [x^iFcov, hib-ernus ?] 
 and the notion of snow and ice giants. 
 
 And the North itself furnishes some names which are synony- 
 mous with Oegir. In the Fundinn ISToregr (Sn. 369. Fornald. sog. 
 2, 17) we read : Forniotr atti 3 syni, hett einn Hler, er ver kollum 
 Ocgi (one hight Hler, whom we call Oegir), annarr Logi, ]?ridji Kari 
 (Rask, afh. 1, 95 : K§,ri). Hlir, gen. Hies, appears from this to have 
 been the older name, in use among the giants, by which Oegir is 
 spoken of in Sn. 79, and after which his dwelling-place was named 
 Hles-ey (Stem. 78" 159" 243"), now Lassoe in the Cattegat. 
 
 4. (Forniote). 
 Of this HMr I have nothing more to tell (see Suppl.), but his 
 father Forniotr has left a notable trace of himself behind ; he 
 belongs even less than Oegir to the circle of Ases, beiag one of the 
 older demonic giants, and proving that even these demigods or 
 personified powers of nature must also have borne sway among the 
 Teutonic races outside of Scandinavia. Forniotr is to be explained, 
 not as for-niotr primus occupans, but rather as forn-iotr, the ancient 
 lotr (Eask, afhand. 1, 78), a particularly apt expression for those 
 giants, and closely connected with iotunn itself, AS. eoton, as will 
 be shown further on. Now in the AS. Liber medicinalis, from 
 which Wanley, pp. 176 — 80 gives insufficient extracts, there is 
 according to Lye's dictionary a plant of healing virtue spoken of 
 (twice apparently, from the various spelling) by the name of 
 Fomeotes folme, Forrietes folme {i.e. Forneoti manus). As none of 
 the ON", writings allude to this herb, its name must be a remnant 
 of the Saxon people's own mythology. In OHG. the giant may 
 have been called Firnez, and the plant Firnezes folma. We 
 remember how, in Beow. 1662, Grendel has torn off the hand of a 
 water-sprite, and presents it as t§,cen of his victory, just as Tristan 
 chops off the giant Urgan's hand, and takes it with him to certify 
 the deed, 16055-65-85. The amputation of the huge giant-hand 
 seems therefore part of an ancient myth, and to have been fitly 
 
LOKI, GRENDELj SATUKN. 241 
 
 retained in the name of a broad-leaved vegetable ; there is also a 
 plant called devil' s-liand, and in more than one legend the Evil on^ 
 leaves the print of his hand on rocks and walls. 
 
 If these last allusions have led us away from the beneficent 
 deities rather to hurtful demons and malignant spirits, we have here 
 an easy transit to the only god whom the teaching of the Edda repre- 
 sents as wicked and malevolent, though it still reckons him among 
 the Ases. 
 
 5. (LoKi, Grendel), Satuen. 
 
 Logi, as we have seen, was a second son of Forniotr, and the 
 three brothers HUr, Logi, Kari on the whole seem to represent 
 water, fire and air as elements. Now a striking narrative (Sn. 54. 
 60) places Logi by the side of Loki, a being from the giant province 
 beside a kinsman and companion of the gods. This is no mere play 
 upon words, the two really signify the same thing from different 
 points of view , Logi the natural force of fire, and Loki, with a 
 shifting of the sound, a shifting of the sense : of the burly giant 
 has been made a sly seducing villain. The two may be compared 
 to the Prometheus and the Hephfestus (Vulcan) of the Greeks ; 
 Okeanos was a friend and kinsman of the former. But the two get 
 mixed up. In Loki, sa er flestu illu rseSr (Sn. 46), who devises the 
 most of ill, we see also the giant demon who, like Hephaestus, sets 
 the gods a-langhing ; his limping reminds us of Hephsestus and the 
 lame fire (N. Cap. 76), his chaining of Prometheus's, for Loki is put 
 in chains like his son Fenrir. As Hephsestus forges the net for 
 Ares and Aphrodite, Loki too prepares a net (Sn. 69), in which he 
 is caught himself. Most salient of all is the analogy between 
 Hephsestus being hurled down from Olympus by Zeus (II. 1, 591-3) 
 and the devil being cast out of heaven into hell by God (ch. XXXIII, 
 Bevil), though the Edda neither relates such a fall of Loki, nor sets 
 him forth as a cunning smith and master of dwarfs ; probably the 
 stories of Loki and Logi were much fuller once. Loki's former 
 fellowship with OSinn is clearly seen, both from Ssem. 61'', and 
 from the juxtaposition of three creative deities on their travels, 
 OSinn, Hcenir, Lodr, Ssem. 3% instead of which we have also Odinn, 
 Hcenir, Loki, Ssem. 180, or in a different order OSinn, Loki, Hcenir, 
 Sn. 80, 135 (conf. supra, p. 162). This trilogy I do not venture to 
 identify with that of Hl^r, Logi, Kari above, strikingly as OSiim 
 corresponds to the U Avifioio ; and though from the creating OSinn 
 
 16 
 
242 OTHER GODS. 
 
 proceed breath and spirit (ond), as from Lo&r (blaze, glow) come 
 blood and colour (la ok litr), the connexion of Hcenir, who imparts 
 sense (6S), with water is not so clear : this Hoenir is one of the 
 most unmanageable phenomena of the Norse mythology, and with 
 us in Germany he has vanished without leaving a trace. But the 
 fire-god too, who according to that gradation of sounds ought 
 either to be in Goth. Laiiha and OHG. Loho, or in Goth. Luka and 
 OHG. Locho, seems with the loss of his name to have come up 
 again purely in the character of the later devil. He lasted longer 
 in Scandinavia, and myths everywhere show how nearly Loki the 
 as approaches Logi the giant. Thorlacius (spec. 7, 43) has proved 
 that in the phrase ' Loki fer yfir akra ' (passes over the fields), and 
 in the Danish ' Locke dricker vand ' (drinks water), fire and the 
 burning sun are meant, just as we say the sun is drawing water, 
 when he shines through in bright streaks between two clouds. 
 Loka daun (Lokii odor) is Icelandic for the ignis fatuus exhaling 
 brimstone (ibid. 44) ; Lokahrenna (Lokii incendium) for Sirius ; 
 Loka sposnir are chips for firing. In the north of Jutland, a weed 
 very noxious to cattle (polytrichum comm.) is caUed Lokkens havre, 
 and there is a proverb ' Nu saaer Lokken sin havre,' now Locke 
 sows his oats, i.e., the devil his tares ; the Danish lexicon translates 
 Lokeshavre avena fatua, others make it the rhinanthus crista gaUi. 
 When the fire crackles, they say ' Lokje smacks his children,' Faye 
 p. 6. Molbech's Dial. lex. p. 330 says, the Jutland phrase ' Lokke 
 saaer havre idag (to-day),' or what is {equivalent ' Lokke driver idag 
 med sine geder (drives out his goats)-,' is spoken of vapours that 
 hang about the ground in the heat of the sun. When birds drop 
 their feathers in moulting time, people say they ' gaae i Lokkis arri 
 (pass under L.'s harrow ?) ' ; 'at hore paa Lockens eventyr 
 (adventures) ' means to listen to lies or idle tales (P. Syv's gamle 
 danske ordsprog 2, 72), According to Sjoborg's Nomenklatur, there 
 is in Vestergotland a giant's grave named Lokehcdl. All of them 
 conceptions well deserving notice, which linger to this day among 
 the common people, and in which Loki is by turns taken for a bene- 
 ficent and for a hurtful being, for sun, fire, giant or devil. Exactly 
 the same sort of harm is in Germany ascribed to the devil, and the 
 kindly god of light is thought of as a devastating flame (see Suppl.). 
 
 On this identity between Logi and Loki rests another vestige 
 
LOKI, GEENDEL, SATURN. 243 
 
 of the Norse daemon, which is found among the other Teutonic 
 races. If Logi comes from liuhan (lucere), Lolci will apparently 
 fall to the root lukan (claudere, conf. claudus lame) ; the ON. lok 
 means finis, consummatio, and loka repagulum, because a bolt or 
 bar closes. In Beowulf we come upon an odious devUish spirit, a 
 thyrs (Beow. 846) named Grendel, and his mother, Grendeles m6dor 
 (4232-74), a veritable devil's mother and giant's mother. An AS. 
 document of 931 in Kemble 2, 172 mentions a place called 
 Ch-endles mere (GrendeU palus). Now the AS. griTidel, OHG. 
 krintil, MHG. grintel is precisely repagulum, pessulus ; so the name 
 Orendel seems related to gi'indel (obex) in the same way as Loki to 
 loka ; the ON. grind is a grating, which shuts one in like bolt and 
 bar. Gervase of Tilbury (in Leibn. 1, 980) tells of an English fire- ' 
 demon named Grant. It is very remarkable, that we Germans have 
 stiU in use a third synonymous expression for a diabolic being, its 
 meaning heightened no doubt by composition with ' hell'; hollriegel 
 vectis infernalis, hell-bar, a hell-brand, devil or the devil's own ; a 
 shrewish old hag is styled hollriegel or the devil's grandmother ; 
 and Hugo von Langenstein (Martina 4'') already used this hellerigel 
 as a term of abuse. Now hell was imagined as being tightly bolted 
 and barred ; when Christ, says Fundgr. 1, 178, went down to Hades 
 in the strength of a lion, he made 'die grintel brechen'. Lastly, 
 we may even connect the OHG. dremil (pessulus, Graff 5, 531) with 
 the ON. trami or tremill, which mean both cacodaemon and also, it 
 seems, clathri, cancelli : ' tramar gneypa Jsik skulo ! ' Stem. 85^ ; 
 and in the Swedish song oi Torkar, trolltram is an epithet of the 
 devil who stole the hammer. As this is the Thrymr of the Edda, 
 one might guess that trami stands for Jjrami, with which our dremil 
 would more exactly accord. Thus from several sides we see the 
 mythical notions that prevailed on this subject joining hands, and 
 the merging of Logi into Loki must be of high antiquity. Foersom 
 (on Jutl. superstit. p. 32) alleges, that the devil is conceived of in 
 the form of a lassetra, i.e., the pole with which a load is tied down. 
 Beside Loki the as, Snorri sets another before us in the Edda, 
 UtgarffaloM, as a king whose arts and power deceive even godlike 
 Thdrr; it was one of his household that outdid the other 
 Loki himself, Sn. 54 seq.'- Saxo, who in the whole of his work 
 
 1 ' Thorlaciiis's theory, of an older nature-worship supplanted by the Ases, 
 rests mainly on the antithesis of an Okufiorr to Asaporr, of Logi to Loki, and 
 probably of Hler to Oegir, each pair respectively standing for thunder, fire, 
 
244 OTHER GODS. 
 
 never once names the Eddie Loki, tells wonderful things of this 
 ' Ugarthilocus,' pp. 163-6 : he paints him as a gigantic semi-divine 
 monster, who dwells in a distant land, is invoked in a storm like 
 other gods, and grants his aid. A vaUant hero, named Thorkill, 
 brooks the adventurous journey to Ugarthilocus : all this is hut 
 legendary variation of the visit which, in Snorri, Thorr pays to 
 UtgarSaloki. Still it is worth noticing, that Thorkill plucks out one 
 of Ugarthilocus's huge spear-like hairs, and takes it home with him 
 (Saxo 165-6). The utgar^ar were the uttermost borders of the 
 habitable world, where antiquity fixed the abode of giants and 
 monsters, i.e., hell; and here also may have been present that 
 notion of the bar, closing up as it were the entrance to that 
 inaccessible region of ghosts and demons. 
 
 Whether in very early times there was also a Saxon Ldko and 
 an Alamannic Lohho, or only a Grendil and Krentil ; what is of 
 capital importance is the agreement in the myths themselves. To 
 what was cited above, I will here add something more. Our 
 nursery-tales have made us familiar with the incident of the hair 
 plucked off the devil as he lay asleep in his grandmother's lap 
 (Kinderm. 29). The corresponding Norwegian tale makes three 
 feathers be pulled out of the dragon's tail, not while he sleeps, but 
 after he is dead. 
 
 Loki, in punishment of his misdeeds, is put in chains, like 
 Prometheus who brought fire to men; but he is to be released 
 again at the end of the world. One of his children, Fenrir,^ i.e., 
 himself in a second birth, pursues the moon in the sJmjoe of a wolf, 
 and threatens to swallow her. According to Sn. 12. 13, an old 
 giantess in the forest gave birth to these giants in wolfskin girdles, 
 the mightiest of them being Managarmr (lunae canis) who is to 
 devour the moon ; but in another place, while Skoll chases the sun, 
 Hati, JlrSSviinis sonr (Saem. 45^) dogs the moon. Probably there 
 were fuller legends about them all, which were never written 
 down ; an old Scotch story is stiU remembered about ' the tayl of 
 
 water. To the elder series must be added Sif= earth, and the mitSgarSsormr 
 (world-snake). But what nature-god can 06inn have taken the place of? 
 None ? And was his being not one of the primeval ones ? ' &o. [Quoted from 
 SuppL, vol. iii.] 
 
 '^ Goth. Fanareis? OHG. Fanari, Feniri ? can it be our fahnentrager, 
 pannifer 1 But the early Norse does not seem to have the word answering to 
 the Goth, fana, OHG. fano (flag). [Has the fox holding up his tail as a 
 standard, in the unrighteous war of beasts against birds, anytliing to do with; 
 tliis?] 
 
LOKI, GKENDEL, SA.TUKN. 245 
 
 the wolfe and the warldis end' (see Suppl.). But the popular 
 belief seems to have extended generally, and that from the earliest 
 times, all over Germany, and beyond it. We still say, when 
 baneful and perilous disturbances arise, ' the devil is broke loose,' as 
 in the North they used to say ' Loki er or bondum ' (ch. XXIII). In 
 the Life of Goz von Berlichingen, p. 201 : ' the devil was every- 
 where at large ' ; in Detmar's chronik 1, 298 : ' do was de duvel los 
 geworden,' i.e., disorder and violence prevailed. Of any one who 
 threatened from a safe distance, the folk in Burgundy used the 
 ironical phrase : ' Dieu garde la lune des loups ! '^ meaning, such 
 threats would not be fulfilled till the end of the world ; in the same 
 way the French popular song on Henry IV. expresses the far end 
 of the future as the time when the wolf's teeth shall get at the 
 moon : jusqu' k ce que Ton prenne la lune avec les dents.^ Fischart 
 in several places speaks of this ' wolf des mons' and most fully in 
 his Aller practik grossmutter : ' derhalben dorft ihr nicht mehr fur 
 ihn betten, dass ihn Gott vor den viSlfen wolle lehiiten, denn sie 
 werden ihn diss jahr nicht erhaschen ' (need not pray for the moon, 
 they won't get her this year). * In several places there circulate 
 among the people rhymes about the twelve hours, the last two 
 bemg thus distinguished : ' um elfe kommen die wolfe, um zwolfe 
 bricht das gewolbe,' at 11 come the wolves, at 12 bursts the vault, 
 i.e., death out of the vault. Can there be an echo in this of the old 
 behef in the appearing of the wolf or wolvres at the destruction of 
 the world and the bursting of heaven's vault ? In a lighted candle, 
 if a piece of the wick gets half detached and makes it burn away 
 too fast, they say ' a wolf (as well as thief) is in the candle ; ' this 
 too is like the wolf devouring the sun or moon. Eclipses of sun or 
 moon have been a terror to many heathen nations ; the incipient 
 and increasing obscuration of the luminous orb marks for them the 
 moment when the gaping jaws of the wolf threaten to devour it, 
 and they think by loud cries to bring it succour (ch. XXII, Eclipses). 
 The breaking loose of the wolf and the ultimate enlargement ot 
 Loki from his chains, who at the time of the Eagnarokr will war 
 against and overcome the gods, is in striking accord with the release 
 of the chained Prometheus, by whom Zeus is then to be overthrown. 
 
 ' Lamonnaye, glossaire to the noei bourguignon, Dijon 1776, p. 242. 
 2 Conf. Ps. 72, 7 ; donee auferetur luna. 
 
 ' May we in this connexion think of the fable of the woJf who goes down 
 the well to eat up the moon, which he takes for a cheese ? 
 
246 OTHER GODS. 
 
 The formula, ' unz Loki verSr lauss ' (= unz riufaz regin, till the gods 
 be destroyed), answers exactly to the Greek "Trplv av in Sea-fi&v 
 XaXdady Ilpofirjdei"; (Aesch. Prom. 176. 770. 991) ; the writhings of 
 the fettered Loki make the earth to quake (Ssem. 69. Sn. 70), just 
 as %^a)i^ aea-aXevrai in the case of Prometheus (Aesch. 1081). 
 Only the Greek Titan excites our noblest sympathy, while the 
 Edda presents Loki as a hateful monster. 
 
 Loki was fair in form, evil in disposition ; his father, a giant, 
 was named Farbauti (boatman ?), his mother Laufey (leaf-ea) and 
 Ndl (needle ; thin and insinuating, mi6 ok au8]?reifiig, 355), all of 
 them words easy to translate into OHG. as Farpozo (remex), 
 Loupouwa, NMala, though such names are nowhere found. He is 
 never called Farbauta sonr, but always after his mother, Loki 
 Laufeyjar sonr (Ssem. 67* 72^ 73*), which had its origin in 
 alliteration, but held its ground even in prose (Sn. 64) and in the 
 Locke Loje, Loke Lovmand, Loke Lejemand of the later folk-songs. 
 This Laufey (Swed. Lofo) is first of all the name of a place, which 
 was personified, and here again there is doubtless reference to an 
 element. By his wife Sigyn Loki had a son Nari or Narvi, and by 
 a giantess AngrloSa three children, the aforesaid Fenrir, the serpent 
 lormungandr and a daughter Hel. It is worthy of notice, that he 
 himself is also called Laptr (aerius), and one of his brothers Hel- 
 Uindi, which is likewise a name of OSinn. I just throw out these 
 names, mostly foreign to our German mythology, in the hope of 
 enlisting for them future inquiry. 
 
 Once again we must turn our attention to a name already 
 brought forward among the gods of the week (pp. 125-6), for which 
 a rare concurrence of isolated facts seems almost to secure a place 
 in our native antiquities. The High German week leaves two days, 
 one in the middle and one at the end, not named after gods. But 
 sambaztag for Saturday, as well as mittwoch for Wuotanstag, was a 
 sheer innovation, which the church had achieved or gladly accepted 
 for those two days at all events. The first six days were called after 
 the sun, the moon, Zio, Wuotan, Donar and Fria ; what god was 
 entitled to have the naming of the seventh day ? Four German 
 deities were available for Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Yenus, but how 
 was Saturn to be put into German ? The Mid. Ages went on 
 explaining the seventh day by the Eoman god : our Kaiserchronik, 
 
LOKI, GEENDEL, SATUKN, 247 
 
 which even for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth days names no 
 German gods, but only Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, expresses 
 itself thus clumsily : 
 
 An dem sameztage sS. Tlien on the Saturday 
 
 einez heizet rotundS,, Is a thing named rotunda 
 
 daz was ein h^rez betehils. That was a lofty temple, 
 
 der got hiezSaturnds, The god was named Saturnus, 
 
 damdch was iz aller tiuvel ^re. Thereafter was it to aU devils' 
 
 honour. 
 
 Here the worship of Saturn is connected with the pantheon built 
 in honour of all the gods or devils, which Boniface converted into 
 a church of St. Mary. The Anglo-Saxons, English, Frisians, Dutch 
 and Low Saxons have left to the ' dies Saturni ' the god's very 
 name : Sceteresday or Sceternesdasg, Saturd&j, Saterdei, Saterd&ch, 
 Satend&g, and even the Irish have adopted dia Satuirn or Satarn ; 
 whereas the French samedi. Span, sabado, Ital. sabato, agrees with 
 our High Germ, samstag. Here is identity, not only of idea, as in 
 the case of the other gods, but of name, and the absence of conson- 
 ant-change seems to betray downright borrowing: or may the 
 resemblance have been accidental, and a genuine German name 
 have been modified in imitation of the foreign one ? In OHG 
 neither a Seitarnes- nor a Slzarnestac can be found ; but in AS. 
 scetere means insidiator (OHG. sazari, conf. saza, MHG. saze insidiae, 
 a sitting in wait, as laga, Mge is lying in wait) ; and what is still 
 more remarkable, a document of Edward the Confessor (chart, 
 antiq. rot. M. no. 1. Kemble 4, 157) supplies us with the name of 
 a place Smteresbyrig, quite on a par with WSdnesbyrig ; further, the 
 plant gaUicrus, our hahnenfuss, Engl, crowfoot, was in AS. sdtorldffe 
 Saturni taedium as it were (-loathing, OK leiSi, OHG. leidi).^ I 
 call to mind, that even the ancient Franks spoke of Saturnus (p. 88) 
 as a heathen god, and of Saturni dolium, though that may have 
 referred to the mere planetary god (see Suppl.). 
 
 The last name for the ' sabbath ' brings us to the ON. laugar- 
 
 ' In the AS. are preserved various dialogues between Saturn and Solomon, 
 similar to those between Solomon and Marculf in continental G-ermany, but 
 more antique and, apart from their christian setting or dressing up, not unlike 
 the questions and discourses carried on in the Edda between OSinn and Vafjirfl??- 
 nir, between Vlngjiorr and Alviss, between Har and Gangleri. Here also the 
 name Saturn- seems to make for my point, and to designate a god of Teutonic 
 paganism. 
 
248 , . OTHER GODS. 
 
 dagr, Swed. logerdag, Dan. Ipverdag, by which in later times' ho 
 doubt washing or bathing day was nieant, as the equivalent 
 Jjvottdagr shows ; but originally Zo^adagr, Zo^adagr may have 
 been in use,^ and Logi, Loki might answer to the Latin Saturnus/ as 
 the idea of devil which lay in Loki was popularly transferred to the 
 Jewish Satan and [what seemed to be the same thing] the heathen 
 Saturn, and Lochi in OK is likewise seducer, tempter, trapper. 
 We might even take into consideration a by-name of OSinn in 
 Ssem. 46% Sa&r or perhaps SiSr, though I prefer to take the first 
 form as equivalent to Sannr (true) and Sanngetall. 
 
 But that AS. Scetereshyrig from the middle of the 11th century 
 irresistibly recalls the ' burg ' on the Harz mts, built (according to 
 bur hitherto despised accounts of the 15th century in Bothe's 
 Sachsenchronik) to the idol Saturn, which Saturn, it is added, the 
 common people called Krodo ; to this we may add the name 
 touched upon in p. 206 (Hr^Se, Hr^fSem6naS), for which an 
 older Hrtcodo, ChrSdo was conjectured.* We are told of an image 
 of this Saturn or Krodo, which represented the idol as a man 
 standing on a great fish, holding a pot of flowers in his right hand, 
 and a wheel erect in his left ; the Eoman Saturn was furnished 
 with the sickle, not a wheel (see Suppl.).* . ' 
 
 Here some Slav conceptions appear to overlap. Widukind 
 (Pertz 5, 463) mentions a brazen simulacrum Saturni among the 
 Slavs of the tenth century, without at all describing it ; but Old 
 Bohemian glosses in Hanka li? and 17°' carry us farther. In the 
 first, Mercurius is called ' Eadihost vnuk Kirtov ' (Eadigast grand- 
 son of Kirt), in the second, Picus Saturni fihus is glossed ' ztracec 
 
 1 Conf. Finn Magnusen, lex. pp. 1041-2, dagens tider p. 7. 
 
 2 I suppose tlie author had in Ms mind Homer's constant epithet, KpoVos 
 ayKv\ofii]Tr)s wily, crooked-counselled Kronos. — Tbans. 
 
 ^ To Hrddo might now be referred those names Roysel (later spelling 
 Reusel) and Roydadi in Gramaye, who understands them of Mars ; ancient 
 documents must first place it beyond doubt, which day of the week is meant; 
 There is an actual Hruodtac, a man's name in OHG. (Graflf 5, 362), and an OSi 
 HrSddag is found in Trad, cork § 424, ed. Wigand ; these may be related to 
 Hruodo, Hrodo as Baldag to Balder, and the contraction Eoydag, Rodag would 
 be like Eoswith for Hr6dsuith. If Eoydag should turn out to be the seventh 
 day of the week, it would be a strong testimony to the worship of Chrodo ; if 
 it remain the third, we have to add, that the third month also was sacred to 
 Mars, and was called HrS&eiaona^ by the Anglo-Saxons. 
 
 * ' The Kaiserchr. 3750 says, to Saturn we offer quicksilver ; whereas now 
 Saturn's symbol signiiies lead. In Megenberg, Saturn is called Satidr. The 
 Saxon Saturn is supported by Hengest's reference to that god '. (Extracted 
 from SuppL, vol. iii.) . 
 
LOKI, GEENDEL, SATUEN. 249 
 
 Sitivratov zin' (woodpecker, Sitivrat's son); and in a third 20% Saturn 
 is again called Sitivrat. Who does not see that Sitivrat is the 
 Slavic name for Saturn, which leads us at the first glance to sit = 
 satur ? Eadigast= Mercury (p. 130n.) is the son of Stra(!ec=:Picus ; 
 and in fact Greek myths treat Picus (ITko?) as Zeus, making him 
 give up the kingdom to his son Hermes. Picus is Jupiter, son of 
 Saturn ; but beside Sitivrat we have learnt another name for 
 Saturn, namely Kirt, which certainly seems to be our Krodo and 
 Hruodo. Sitivrat and Kirt confirm Saturn and Krodo ; I do not 
 know whether the Slavic word is to be connected with the Boh. 
 krt, Pol. kret, Euss. krot, i.e., the mole.^ I should prefer to put 
 into the other name Sitivrat the subordinate meaning of sito-vrat, 
 sieve-turner, so that it would be almost the same as kolo-vrat, 
 wheel-turner, and afford a solution of that wheel in Krodo's hand ; 
 both wheel (kolo) and sieve (sito) move round, and an ancient spell 
 rested on sieve-turning. Slav mythologists have identified Sitivrat 
 with the Hindu Satydvrata, who in a great deluge is saved by 
 Vishnu in the form of a fish. Krodo stands on a fish ; and Vishnu 
 is represented wearing wreaths of flowers about his neck, and hold- 
 ing a wheel (chakra) in his fourth hand.^ All these coincidences 
 "are still meagre and insecure ; but they suffice to establish the 
 high antiquity of a Slavo-Teutonic myth, which starts up thus 
 from more than one quarter. 
 
 ^ Hardly with. Crete, where Kronos ruled and Zeiis was born. 
 
 2 Edw. Moore's Hindu Pantheon, Lond. 1810, tab. 13 and 23.— ' Sitivrat, 
 who corresponds to Saturn, is the Indian Satyavrata, i.e., according to Kuhn, 
 he that hath" veracious (fulfilled) vows; so Dhritavrata, he that hath kept-vows 
 = Yarunas, Ouranos.' (Quoted from Suppl., vol. ui.) 
 
CHAPTEE XIII. 
 GODDESSES. 
 
 In treating of gods, the course of our inquiry could aim at 
 separating the several personalities ; the goddesses ^ it seems 
 advisable to take by themselves and all at one view, because there 
 is a common idea underlying them, which will come out more 
 clearly by that method. They are thought of chiefly as divine 
 mothers who travel rouTid and visit houses, from whom the human 
 race learns the occupations and arts of housekeeping and husbandry: 
 spinning, weaving, tending the hearth, sowing and reaping. These 
 labours bring with them peace and quiet in the land, and the 
 memory of them abides in charming traditions even more lastingly 
 than that of wars and battles, from which most goddesses as well 
 as women hold themselves aloof. 
 
 But as some goddesses also take kindly to war, so da gods on the 
 other hand favour peace and agriculture ; and there arises an inter- 
 change of names or ofiices between the sexes. 
 
 1. Ekda, Niedu, Gaub, Fiegunia, Hluodana.. 
 In almost all languages the Earth is regarded as female, and 
 (in contrast to the father sky encirling her) as the breeding, teem- 
 ing fruit-bearing mother: Goth, airpa, OHG. erada, erda, AS. ecyrSe, 
 ON. i6r&, Gr. 'ipa (inferred from epat/e) ; Lat. terra, tellus, humus 
 = Slav, zem^, ziemia, zemHa, Lith. zieme, Gr. x''-M (' whence 
 ■yaiiaXe), ala, yaia, yrj : the ' mother ' subjoined in Arjfjbr^Tqp, Zema 
 mate, indicates the goddess. The form airjja, erda (also herda) is 
 itself a derivative ; the simpler OHG. ero (in the Wessobr. prayer : 
 ero noh ufhimil, earth nor heaven) and hero (in a gloss, for solum, 
 
 1 OHG. in Notker has only the strong form gutin gen. gutinno, MHG. 
 gotinne, Trist. 4807. 15812. Barl. 246-7. seldomer gutinne, MS. 2, 65^ ; AS. 
 gyden pi. gydena, but also weak gydene pi. gydenan, Mones gl. 4185 Proserpi- 
 nam = to gidenan (1. togydenan, additional goddess) ; ON. gySja (which might 
 be dea or sacerdos fern,), better dsynja (see Suppl.). 
 
ERDA, NIRDU, GAUE, FIKGUNIA, HLUODANA. 251 
 
 Graff 4, 999) might be masc. (like herd = solum, Graff 4, 1026) or 
 fern. still.i The Goth, mulda, OHG. molta, AS. 7nolde, ON. mold, 
 contain only the material sense of soil, dust ; equally impersonal is 
 the OS. folda, AS. folde, ON. fold, conf. feld, field, Finn, peldo 
 (campus). Hung, fold (terra). But the ON. lord' appears in the 
 flesh, at once wife and daughter of OSinn, and mother of Thorr 
 (Sn. 11. 39. 123), who is often called larSar burr. Distinct from 
 her was liindr, another wife of OSinn, and mother of Vali (Ssem. 
 91^ -95* 97''), called JRinda in Saxo, and more coarsely painted ; her 
 name is the OHG. rinta, AS. rind = cortex, hence crusta soli vel 
 terrae, and to crusta the AS. Jiruse (terra) is closely related. As 
 this literal sense is not found in the North, neither is the mythical 
 meaning in Germany (see Suppl.). 
 
 But neither in lorS nor in Eindr has the Edda brought out in 
 clear relief her specially maternal character ; nowhere is this more 
 purely and simply expressed than in the very oldest account we 
 possess of the goddess. It is not to all the German! that Tacitus 
 imputes the worship of Nerthus, only to the Langobardi (?), Eeudigni, 
 Aviones, Angli, Varini, Eudoses, Suardones and Vuithones (Germ. 
 40): Nee quicquam notabile in singulis, nisi quod in commune 
 Nerthum^ id est Terram matrem colunt, eamque intervenire rebus 
 hominum, invehi populis, arbitrantur. Est in insula oceani castum 
 nemus, dicatumque in eo vehiculum, veste contectum, attingere uni 
 sacerdoti concessum. Is adesse penetrali deam intelligit, vectamque 
 lulus feminis multa cum veneratione prosequitur. Laeti tunc dies, 
 festa loca, quaecunque adventu hospitioque dignatur. Non bella 
 ineunt, non arma sumunt ; clausum omne ferrum : pax et quies 
 tunc tantum nota, tunc tantum amata : donee idem sacerdos satia- 
 tam conversatione mortalium deam templo reddat. Mox vehiculum 
 et vestes, et, si credere velis, numen ipsum secreto lacu abluitur. 
 Servi ministrant, quos statim idem lacus haurit.^ Arcanus hinc 
 
 * The two forms ero and hero remind one of the name Eor, Cheru, attri- 
 buted to Mars (supra, pp. 203-4). 
 
 ^ The MSS. collated have this reading, one has nehertuvi (Massmann in 
 Aufsess and Monee anzeiger, 1834, p. 216); I should prefer Nertus to Nerthus, 
 because no other German words in Tacitus have TH, except Gothini and 
 Vuithones. As for the conjectural Herthus, though the aspirate in herda 
 might seem to plead for it, the termination -us is against it, the Gothic having 
 aSrpa, not airjjus. Besides, Aventin already (Frankf. 1580, p. 19") spells Nerth. 
 
 ' The lake swallows the slaves who had assisted at the secret bathing. 
 More than once this incident turns up, of putting to death the servants em- 
 ployed m any secret work ; as those who dug the river out of its bed for 
 
252 GODDESSES. 
 
 terror sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit illud, quod tantum perituri 
 vident (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 This beautiful description agrees with what we find in other 
 notices of the worship of a godhead to whom peace and fruitfulnesS 
 were attributed. In Sweden it was Freyr, son of Fiorffr, whose 
 curtained car went round the country in spring, with the people 
 aU. praying and holding feasts (p. 213) ; but Freyr is altogether 
 like his father, and he again like his namesake the goddess Nerthus. 
 The spring-truces, harvest-truces, plough-truces, fixed for certain 
 seasons and implements of husbandry, have struck deep roots in 
 our German law and land-usages. Wuotan and Donar also make 
 their appearance in their wains, and are invoked for increase to the 
 crops and kindly rain; on p. 107, anent the car of a Gothic god 
 whose name Sozomen withholds, I have hinted at Nerthus. 
 
 The interchange of male and female deities is, luckily for us 
 here, set in a clear light, by the prayers and rhymes to Wuotan as god 
 of harvest, which we have quoted above (p. 155 seq.), being in other 
 Low German districts handed over straight to a goddess. When 
 the cottagers, we are told, are mowing rye, they let some of the 
 stalks stand, tie flowers among them, and when they have finished 
 Work, assemble round the clump left standing, take hold of the ears 
 of rye, and shout three times over : 
 
 Fru Gaue, haltet ju fauer. Lady Gaue, keep you some fodder, 
 dut jar up den wagen. This year on the waggon, 
 
 dat ander jar up der kare ! ^ Next year on the wheelbarrow. 
 Whereas Wode had better fodder promised him for the next year, 
 Dame Gaue seems to receive notice of a falling off in the quantity 
 of the gift presented. In both cases I see the shyness of the 
 christians at retaining a heathen sacrifice : as far as words go, the 
 old gods are to think no great things of themselves in future. 
 
 In the district about Hameln, it was the custom, when a reaper 
 in binding sheaves passed one over, or left anything standing in the 
 
 Alaric's funeral (Jomand. cap. 29), or those who have hidden a treasure, Landn. 
 5, 12 (see Suppl.). 
 
 1 Speaking of Nerthus, we ought to notice Ptolemy's NerUreans, though he 
 places them in a very different locality from that occupied by the races who 
 revere Nerthus in Tacitus. 
 
 ^ Braunschw. anz. 1751, p. 900. Hannov. gel. anz. 1751, p. 662 [is not 
 ' haltet ' a mistake for ' hal ' and something else f] In the Altenburg country 
 they call this harvest-custom b%ilding a bam. Arch, des henneb. vereins 2, .91.. 
 
EEDA, NIEDU, GATJE, FIEGUNIA, HLUODANA. 253 
 
 field, to jeer at him by calling out: 'sclioll diit dei gaue fru& {p-i,- 
 dtufru Gauen) hebben (is that for dame G.) ? '^ 
 
 In the Prignitz they say fru Gode, and call the bunch of ears , 
 left standing in each field vergodendeelsstr4,ss, i.e., dame Gode's 
 l^ortion bunch.^ Ver is a common contraction for frau [as in 
 jungfer] ; but a dialect which says fauer instead of foer, foder, wUl 
 equally have Gaue for Gode, Guode. This Guode can be no other 
 than Gwode, Wode ; and, explaining fru by the older fro, fro Woden 
 or fro Gaue (conf. Gaunsdag for Wonsdag, p. 125) will denote a lord 
 and god, not a goddess, so that the form of prayer completely 
 coincides with those addressed to "Wuotan, and the fruh Wod sub-; 
 joined in the note on p. 156 (see Suppl.)- If one prefer the notion 
 of a female divinity, which, later at all events, was undoubtedly 
 attached to the term fru, we might perhaps bring in the ON". Goi, 
 (Sn. 358. Fornald. sbg. 2, 17), a mythic maiden, after whom 
 February was named. The Greek Faia or Pjj is, I consider, out of 
 the question here. 
 
 In an AS. formulary for restoring fertility to fields that have 
 been bewitched, there occur two remarkable addresses ; the first is 
 ' eree, erce, erce, eorpan mSdor ! ' by which not the earth herself, but 
 her mother seems to be meant; however, the expression is still 
 enigmatical. Can there lie disguised in erce a proper name Erce gen. 
 Ercan, connected with the OHG. adj. erchan, simplex, genuinus, 
 germanus ? it would surely be more correct to write JEJorce I ought 
 it to suggest the lady Erclie, Herhja, Herclie, Helche renowned in 
 our heroic legend ? The distinct traces in Low Saxon districts of a, 
 divine dame, Herke or Harke by name, are significant. In Jessen, 
 a little town on the Elster, not far from Wittenberg, they relate of 
 frau Eerke what in other places, as will be shown, holds good of 
 Freke, Berhta and Holda. In the Mark she is called frau Harke, 
 and is said to fiy through the country between Christmas and 
 Twelfth-day, dispensing earthly goods in abundance ; by Epiphany 
 the maids have to finish spinning their flax, else frau Harke gives 
 
 ' Hannov. gel. anz. 1751, p. 726. More pleasing to the ear is tte short 
 prayer of the heathen Lithuanians, to their eartli-goddess, wlien in drinking 
 tbey spilt some of the ale on the ground : Zemenyle ziedekle, pakyleb mvisu 
 ranku darbus ! blooming Earth, bless the work of our hands. 
 
 ' Adalb. Kuhns markische sagen, pp. 337. 372, pref. p. vii. Conf. in. cli. 
 XXII the cry of the dwarfs ; ' de gaue fru is nu dot (dead) '. 
 
254 GODDESSES. 
 
 them a good scratching or soils their distaff (see Suppl.).^ In 
 earlier times a simpler form of the name was current ; we find in 
 Gobelinus Persona (Meibom 1, 235) the following account, which 
 therefore reaches back beyond 1418 : Quod autem Hera colebatur a 
 Saxonibus, videtur ex eo quod quidam vulgares recitant se audivisse 
 ab antiquis, prout et ego audivi, quod inter festum nativitatis Christi 
 ad festum epiphaniae Domini domino, Hera volat per aera, quoniam 
 apud gentiles Junoni aer deputabatur. Et quod Juno quandoque 
 Hera appellabatur et depingebatur cum tintinnabulis et alis, 
 dicebant vulgares praedicto tempore : vrowe Hera sen comipto 
 nomine vro Here de vlughet, et credebant illam sibi conferre rerum 
 temporalium abundantiam. Have we here still extant the old Uro, 
 "Epa, Hero meaning earth ? and does "Hpa belong to it ? If the 
 AS. Urce also contains the same, then even the diminutive form 
 Herke must be of high antiquity. 
 
 The second address in the same AS. ritual is a call to the earth : 
 ' h9,l wes thu folde, fira mSdor ! ' hale (whole) be thou earth, mother 
 of men ; which agrees with the expression terra mater in Tacitus. 
 
 The widely extended worship of the teeming nourishing earth 
 would no doubt give rise to a variety of names among our fore- 
 fathers, just as the service of Gaia and her daughter Ehea mixed 
 itself up with that of Ops mater, Ceres and Cybele.^ To me the 
 resemblance between the cultus of Nerthus and that of the Phrygian 
 mother of gods appears well worthy of notice. Lucretius 2, 597 — 
 641 describes the peregrination of the magna deilm mater in her 
 lion-drawn car through the lands of the earth : 
 
 Quo nunc insigni per magnas praedita terras 
 horrifice fertur divinae matris imago . . . 
 Ergo quom primum magnas invecta per urbeis 
 munificat tacita mortaleis muta salute, 
 acre atque argento sternunt iter omne viarum, 
 largifica stipe ditantes, ninguntque rosarum 
 iloribus, umbrantes matrem comitumque catervam. 
 The Eomans called the VI. kal. Apr. lavatio matris deHbm, and kept 
 it as a feast, Ovid. fast. 4, 337 : 
 
 1 Adalb. Kuhn in the Markisclie forschungen 1, 123-4, and Mark, sagen 
 pp. 371-2 ; conf. Singularia magdeburg. 1740. 12, 768. 
 
 ^ Ops mater = terra mater ; Ceres = Oeres, quod gerit frtiges, antiquis enim 
 quod nunc G ; Varro de ling, lat., ed. 0. MUller p. 25. Her Greek appella- 
 tion A?)/ijJTi7/) seems also to lead to yrf ixriTrjp (see Suppl.). 
 
EEDA, NIEDU, GAUE, FIEGUNIA, HLUODAIfA. 255 
 
 Est locus, in Tiberin qua lubricus influit Almo, 
 et nomen magno perdit ab amne minor ; 
 
 illic purpurea canus cum veste sacerdos 
 Almonis dominam sacraque lavit aquis. 
 Ammian. Marcell. 23, 3 (Paris 1681, p. 355) : Ad Callinicum, — ubi 
 ante diem sextum kal. quo Eomae matri deorum pompae celebrantur 
 annales, et carfentum quo vehitur simulacrum Almonis undis ablui 
 perbibetur. Conf. Prudentius, bymn. 10, 154 : 
 
 Nudare plantas ante carpentum scio 
 
 proceres togatos matris Idaeae sacris. 
 
 Lapis nigeUus evebendus essedo 
 
 muliebris oris clausus argento sedet, 
 
 quem dum ad lavacrum praeeundo ducitis 
 
 pedes remotis atterentes calceis 
 
 Almonis usque pervenitis rivulum. 
 
 Exactly in the same way Nerthus, after she bas travelled round the 
 
 country, is bathed in the sacred lake in her waggon ; and I find it 
 
 noted, that the Indian Bhavani, wife of Shiva, is likewise driven 
 
 round on her feast-day, and bathed in a secret lake by the Brahmans 
 
 (see Suppl.).! 
 
 Nerthus's 'island in the ocean' has been supposed to mean 
 
 Eiigen, in the middle of which there is actually a lake, called the 
 
 Schwarze see, or Burgsee. What is told as a legend, that there in 
 
 ancient times the devil was adored, that a maiden was maintained 
 
 in his service, and that when he was weary of her, she was drowned 
 
 ^ Gregor. Turon. de glor. conf. cap. 77 compares or confounds with the 
 Phrygian Cybele some Gallic goddess, whose worship he describes as follows : — 
 'Ferunt etiam in hac urbe (Augustoduno) simulachrum fuisse Berecynthiae, siciit 
 sancti martyris Symphoriani passionis declarat historia. Hanc cum in 
 ca/rpento, pro salvatione agrorum et vinearwrn suarum, misero gentilitatis more 
 deferrent,, adfuit supradictus Simplicius episcopus, hand procul adspiciens 
 cantantes atgue psallentes ante hoc simulachrum, gemitumque pro stultitia plebis 
 ad Deum emittens ait : illumina quaeso, Domine, oculos hujus poprui, ut 
 cognoscat, quia simulachrum Berecynthiae nihil est ! et facto signo crucis contra 
 protinus simulachrum in terram ruit. Ac defixa solo animalia, quae plaustrum 
 hoc quo vehebatur trahebant, moveri non poterant. Stupet vulgus innumermn, 
 et deam laesam omnis caterva conclamat ; immolantur mctimae, animalia 
 verberantur, sed moveri non possunt. Tunc quadringenti de ilia stulta 
 multitudine viri conjuncti simiil ajunt ad invicera : si virtus est ulla deitatis, 
 erigatur sponte, jubeatque boves, qui telluri sunt stabiliti, prooedere ; certe si 
 moveri nequit, nihil est deitatis in ea. Tunc accedentes, et immolantes unum 
 de pecoribus, cum viderent deam suam nuUatenus posse _ moveri, relicto 
 gentilitatis errore, inquisitoque antistite loci, conversi ad unitatem ecclesiae, 
 cognoscentes veri Dei magnitudinem, sancto sunt baptismate consecrati.' 
 Compare the Legenda aurea cap. 117, where a festum Veneris is mentioned. 
 
2S6 GODDESSES. 
 
 in the black lake,^ must have arisen, gross as the perversion may, 
 be, out of the account in Tacitus, -who makes the goddess, when 
 satiated with the converse of men, disap;pear in the lake with her 
 attendants. But there are no other local features to turn the scale 
 in its favour f and the Danish islands in the Baltic hate at lea^t 
 as good a claim to have been erewhile the sacred seat of the 
 goddess. 
 
 We have yet more names for the earth-goddess, that demand 
 investigation : partly Old Norse, partly to be gathered from the 
 Eomans. In the Sk^ldskaparmS,!, p. 178, she is named both 
 Fiorgyn and Hldd'yn. 
 
 Of Fiorgyn I have treated already, p. 172 ; if by the side 
 of this goddess there could stand a god Fiorgynn and a neuter 
 common noun fairguni, if the idea of ThSr's mother at the same 
 time passes into that of the thundergod, it exactly parallels and 
 confirms a female Nerthus (Goth. Kairjpus, gen. Nair]?aus) by the 
 side of the masculine Nior&r (Nerthus), just as Freyja goes with 
 Freyr. If it was not ■ wrong to infer from Perkunas a mountain- 
 god Fairguneis, Lithuanian mythology has equally a goddess 
 Perhunatele. 
 
 Hldd'yn is derived in the same way as Fiorgyn, so that we may 
 safely infer a Goth. Hldpunja and OHG. Hluodunia. In Voluspst 
 56 Thorr is called 'mogr El6&ynjar,' which is son of earth again; 
 and Fornald. sog. 1, 469 says : i Hlo&ynjar skaut. In the OK 
 language M6& is a hearth,^ the goddess's name therefore means 
 protectress of the fireplace; and our OHG. herd (p. 251), beside solum * 
 or terra, also denotes precisely focus, arula, fornacula, the hearth 
 being to us the very basis of a human habitation, a paternal Lar, so 
 to speak, corresponding to the mother earth. The Eomans also 
 worshipped a goddess of earth and of fire under the common name 
 of Fornax, dea. fornacalis* But what is still more important to us, 
 there was discovered on Low Ehenish ground a stone, first kept at 
 Cleve and afterwards at Xanten, with the remarkable inscription : 
 
 ' Deutsche sagen, mam. 132. 
 
 " Of Hertha a proverb is said to be current in Pomerania : ' de HerOia gift 
 gras, und fullt scbiin und fass (barn and vessel),' Hall. allg. lit. z. 1823, p. 375). 
 But the un-Saxon rhyme of gras with fass (for fat) sufficiently betrays the 
 workmanship. It is clumsily made up after the well-known rule of the farmer : 
 ' Mai kuhl und nass fiillt scheunen und fass ' (see Suppl.). 
 
 » I/iter. strues, ara, from hlaSan hloS, struere, Gramm. 2, 10, num. 83. 
 
 * Ovid. fast. 2, 513. 
 
ISIS. 257 
 
 DEAE HLUDANAE SACEVM C. TIBEEIVS VERVS. Hludana 
 is neither a Eoman nor a Celtic goddess, but her name answers 
 perfectly to that of the Norse divinity, and Sk. Thorlacius has the 
 merit of having recognised and learnedly proved the identity of the 
 two.^ In this inscription I see striking evidence of the oneness of 
 Norse and German mythology. Thorlacius, not without reason, 
 compares the name with Ariro) and Latona. Might not Hldrricfi, 
 an epithet of Thorr the son of HloSyn, be explained as HlodriS'i ? 
 
 2. Tanfana. Nehaleknia. 
 
 Another goddess stands wrapt in thicker darkness, whom 
 Tacitus calls Tanfana, and a stone inscription Tamfana (TAM- 
 FANAE SACEUM, p. 80). We are sure of her name, and the 
 termination -ana is the same as in Hludana and other fern, proper 
 names, Bertana, Eapana, Madana. The sense of the word, and 
 with it any sure insight into the significance of her being, are 
 locked up from us. 
 
 We must also allude briefly to the Belgian or Frisian dea 
 Nehalennia, about whose name several inscriptions of like import^ 
 remove all doubt ; but the word has also given rise to forced and 
 unsatisfying interpretations. In other inscriptions found on the 
 lower part of the Ehine there occur compounds, whose termination 
 • {-nehis, -nehahis, dat. plurals fern.) seems to contain the same wbrd 
 that forms the first half of Nehalennia ; their plural number 
 appears to indicate nymphs rather than a goddess, yet there also 
 hangs about them the notion of a mother (see ch. XVI, the 
 Walachuriun). 
 
 3..(Isis). 
 The account in Tacitus of the goddess Isis carries us much 
 farther, because it can be linked with living traditions of a cultus 
 that still lingered in the Mid. Ages. Immediately after mentioning 
 the worship of Mercurius, Hercules, and Mars, he adds (cap. 9) : 
 Pars Suevonim et Isidi sacrificat. Unde causa et origo peregrine 
 
 ' Antiq. bor. spec. 3, Hafn. 1782. Conf. Fiedler, gesch. unci alt. des imtern 
 Germaniens, 1, 226. Steiner's cod. inscr. Rheni no. 632. Gotfr. t-chiitze, in his 
 essay De dea Hhidana, Lips. 1748, perceived the value of the stone, but could 
 not discern the bearings of the matter. 
 
 ' Montfaucon ant. expl. 2, 443. Vredii hist. Flandr. 1, xliv. Mem. de 
 I'acad. celt. 1, 199—245. Mone, heidenth. 2, 346. 
 
 17 
 
258 GODDESSES. 
 
 sacro, parum comperi, nisi quod signum ipsum, in modtcm libumae 
 Jiguratum, docet advectam religionem. The importation from 
 abroad can hardly consist in the name Inis, seeing that Mercury, 
 Mars, Hercules, names that must have sounded equally un- 
 German, raised no difficulty ; what looked foreign was the symbol, 
 the figure of a ship, reminding the' writer of the Eoman navigium 
 Isidis. 
 
 When spring had set in, and the sea, untraversed during winter, 
 was once more navigable, the Greeks and Eomans used to hold a 
 solemn procession, and present a ship to Isis. This was done on 
 the fifth of March (III non. Mart.), and the day is marked in the 
 kalendarium rusticum as Isidis Tiavigium} The principal evidence 
 is found in Apuleius and Lactantius,^ two writers who are later 
 than Tacitus, but the custom must have reached back to a much 
 older date. On Alexandrian coins Isis appears walking by the side 
 of Pharus, unfurling a sail. 
 
 Say that from Egypt the worship of Isis had penetrated to 
 Greece, to Eome, how are we to imagine, that in the first century, or 
 before, it had got itself conveyed to one particular race inhabiting 
 the heart of Germany ? It must have been a similar cultus, not 
 the same, and perhaps long established amongst other Germans as 
 well. 
 
 I will here draw attention to a strange custom of a much later 
 time, which appears to me to be connected with this. About the 
 year 1133, in a forest near Inda (in Eipuaria), a ship was built, set 
 Upon wheels, and drawn about the country by men who were yoked 
 to it, first to Aachen (Aix), then to Maestricht, where mast and sail 
 were added, and up the river to Tongres, Looz and so on, every- 
 where with crowds of people assembling and escorting it. Where- 
 ever it halted, there were joyful shouts, songs of triumph and dancing 
 
 ^ Gesner, script, rei rust., ed. Lips. 1773. 1, 886 ; so also ia the Calend. 
 vallense, and in the Cal. lambec. (Graevii thes. 8, 98). 
 
 ^ Apuleii met. lib. 11 (Euhnken p. 764-5) : Diem, qui dies ex ista nocte 
 nascetur, aeterna mihi nuneupavit religio ; quo sedatis hibernis tempestatibus 
 et lenitis maris procellosis fluctibus, navigabili jam pelago rudem dedicantet 
 carinam primitias commeatus libant mei sacerdotes. Id sacrum sollicita nee 
 profana mente debebis operiri ; nam meo monitu sacerdos in ipso procinetu 
 pompae roseam manu dextra sistro (Egyptian timbrel) cohaerentem gestabit 
 coronam. Incontanter ergo dimotis turbulis alacer continuare pompam nieam, 
 volentia fretus ; ■ et de proximo dementer velut maniim sacei-dotis deosculabiui- 
 dus rosis decerptis, pessimae mihique detestabilis dudum belluae istius corio te 
 protinus exue. Lactantius, instit. 1, 27 : Certus dies habetur in fastis, quo 
 Isidis naviyiuvi celebratur, quae res docet illam non tranasse, sed navigasse. 
 
ISIS. 259 
 
 rmmd the ship kept up till far into the night. The approach of the 
 ship was notified to the towns, which opened their gates and went 
 out to meet it. 
 
 We have a detailed, yet not complete, report of it in Eodulfi 
 chronicon abhatiae S. Trudonis, lib. xi., which on account of its 
 importance I will here insert, from Pertz 12, 309 seq.: 
 
 Est genus mercenariorum, quorum officium est ex lino et lana 
 texere telas, hoc procax et superbum super alios mercenaries vulgo 
 reputatur, ad quorum procacitatem et superbiam humiliandam et 
 propriam injuriam de eis ulciscendam pauper quidam rusticus ex 
 villa nomine Inda^ hanc diabolicam excogitavit technam. Accepta 
 a judicibus iiducia et a levibus hominibus auxilio, qui gaudent jocis 
 et novitatibus, in proxima silva navem composuit, et earn roiis 
 mppositis affigens vehibilem super terram effecit, obtinuit quoque a 
 potestatibus, ut injectis funihis textorum humeris ex Inda Aquis- 
 granum traheretur.^ Aquis suscepta cum utriusque sexus grandi 
 hominum processione: nihilominus a textoribus Trajectum [Maes- 
 tricht] est provecta, ibi emendata, Tnalo veloque insignita Tungris 
 [Tongres] est inducta, de Tungris Los [Looz]. Audiens abbas 
 (sancti Trudonis)* Eodulfus navim illam infausto omine compactam 
 malaque solutam alite cum hujusmodi gentilitatis studio nostro 
 oppido adventare, praesago spiritu hominibus praedicabat, ut ejus 
 susceptione abstinerent, quia maligni spiritus sub hac ludificatione 
 in ea traherentur, in proximoque seditio per eam moveretur, unde 
 caedes, incendia rapinaeque fierent, et humanus sanguis multus 
 funderetur. Quem ista declamantem omnibus diebus, quibus 
 malignorum spirituum illud simulacrum loci morabatur, oppidani 
 nostri audire noluerunt, sed eo studio et gaudio excipientes, quo 
 perituri Trojani fatalem equum in medio fori sui dedicaverunt, 
 statimque proscripfionis sententiam accipiunt villae textores, qui ad 
 pro/anas hujus simulacri excubias venirent tardiores. Pape ! Quia 
 vidit unquam tantam (ut ita liceat latinisare) in rationalibus 
 animahbus brutitatem ? quis tantam in renatis in Christo gentili- 
 
 ■" Inden in the Jiilich country, afterwards Comeliniunster, not far from 
 Aix ; conf. Pertz 1, 394. 488. 514. 592. 2, 299. 489. 
 
 ^ This of ships being built in a wood and carried on men's shoulders reminds 
 one of Saxo Gram. p. 93, and of the ' Argo humeris travecta Alpes ' (Pliny N.H. 
 3, 18 •, their being set on wheels, of Nestor's story about Oleg ; conf. the ship 
 of Fro above. [An inadvertence on the author's part : the ship is not ' carried,' 
 but ' drawn by ropes thrown over the weavers" shoulders '.] 
 
 ° St. Tron between Liege and Louvain. 
 
'260 GODDESSES. 
 
 totem ? Cogebant sententia proscriptionis textores, nocte et die 
 navim stipare omni armaturae genere, solicitasque ei excubias nocte 
 et die continuare. Mirumque fuit, quod non cogebant eos ante 
 navim Nepf.uno hostias immolare, de cujus naves esse solent regione, 
 sed Neptunus eas Marti reservabat, quod postea multipliciter fac- 
 tum est. 
 
 Textores interim occulto sed praecordiali gemitu Deum justum 
 judicem super eos vindicem invocabant, qui ad banc ignominiam 
 eos detrudebant, cum juxta rectam vitam antiquorum Christianorum 
 et apostolicorum virorum manuum suarum laboribus viverent, nocte 
 et die operantes, unde alerentur et vestirentur, liberisque suis 
 idipsum providerent. Quaerebant et conquerebantur ad invicem 
 lacrymabiliter, unde illis magis quam aliis mercenariis haec 
 ignominia et vis contumeliosa, cum inter Christianos alia plura 
 essent officia suo multum aspernabiliora, cum tamen nullum 
 dicerent aspernabile, de quo Christianus posset se sine peccato 
 condacere, illudque solum esset vitabile et ignobile quod immun- 
 ditiam peccati contralieret animae, meliorque sit rusticus textor et 
 pauper, qiiam exactor orphanorum et spoliator viduarum urbanus 
 et nobilis judex. Cumque haec et eorum similia secum, ut dixi, 
 lacrymabiliter conquererentur, concrepabant ante illud, nescio cujus 
 potius dicam, Bacclii an Veneris, Neptuni sive Martis, sed ut verius 
 dicam ante omnium malignorum spiritioum execrabile domicilium 
 genera diversorum musicorum, turpia cantica et religion! Christianae 
 indigna concinentium. Sancitum quoque erat a judicibus, ut praeter 
 textores, quicumque ad tactuni navi appropinquareni, pignus de coUo i 
 eorum ereptum textoribus relinquerent, nisi se ad libitum redim'erent. , 
 Sed quid faciam ? loquarne an sileam ? utinam spiritus mendacii 
 stillaret de labiis meis : sub fugitiva adhuc luce diei imminente - 
 luna matronarum catervae abjecto femineo pudore audientes strepi- 
 tum hvjus vanitatis, passis capillis de siratis suis exiliebant, aliae 
 seminudae, aliae siiRplice intum clamide circumdatae, cTiorosque du- 
 centihus circa navim impudenter irrumpendo se admiscehant. Videres 
 ibi aliquando mille hominum animas sexus utriusque prodigiosum 
 et infaustum celeusma usque ad noctis medium celebrare. Quando 
 vero execrabilis ilia chorea rumpebatur, emisso ingenti clamore vo- 
 cum inconditarum sexus uterque hac illacque bacchando ferebatur ; 
 quae tunc videres agere, nostrum est tacere et deflere, quibus niodo 
 contingit graviter luere. Istis tam nefandis factis plus quam duo- 
 
ISIS. 261' 
 
 decim diehiis supradicto ritu celebratis, conferebant simul oppidani" 
 quid agerent amodo de dediicenda a se navi. 
 
 Qui sanioris erant cousilii, et qui earn susceptam fuisse do- 
 lebant, timentes Deum pro his quae facta viderant et audierant, 
 et sibi pro his futura conjiciebant, hortabantur ut comburatur 
 (combureretur) aut isto vel illo modo de medio toUeretur; sed 
 stulta quorundam coecitas huic salubri consilio contumeliose re- 
 nitebatur. Nam maligni spiritus, qui in ilia ferebantur, disse- 
 minaverant in populo, quod locus ille et inhabitantes probroso 
 nomine amplius notarentur, apud quos remansisse inveniretur. Dedu- 
 cendam igitur eam ad villam, quae juxta nos est, Leugues decre- 
 verunt. Interea Lovaniensis dominus audiens de daemonioso navis 
 illius ridiculo, instructusque a religiosis viris terrae suae de illo 
 vitando et terrae suae arcendo monstro, gratiam suam et amicitiam 
 mandat oppidanis nostris, commonefaciens eos humiliter, ut pacem 
 illam quae inter illos et se erat reformata et sacramentis confir- 
 mata non infringerent, et inde praecipue illud diaboli ludibrium 
 viciniae suae inferrent ; quod si ludum esse dicerent, quaererent 
 ahum cum quo inde luderent. Quod si ultra hoc mandatum 
 committerent, pacem praedictam in eum infringerent et ipse vin- 
 dictam in eos ferro et igne exseqUeretur. Id ipsum mandaverat 
 Durachiensibus dominis, qui et homines ejus fuerant manuatim, et 
 interpositis sacramentis et obsidibus datis sibi confoederati. Hoc 
 cum jam tertio fecisset, spretus est tam ab oppidanis nostris quam 
 Durachiensibus dominis. Nam propter peccata inhabitantium vo- 
 lebat Dominus mittere super locum nostrum ignem et arma Lo- 
 vaniensium. Ad banc igitxiv plebeiamfatuitatem adjunxit se dominus 
 Gislebertus (advocatus abbatiae S. Trudonis) contra generis sui 
 nobilitatem, trahendamque decrevit navem illam terream usque 
 Leugues ultra Durachiensem villam, quod et fecit malo nostro 
 omine cum omni oppidanorum nostrorum multitudine et ingenti 
 debacchantium vociferatione. Leuguenses, oppidanis nostris pru- 
 dentiores et Lovaniensis domini mandatis obsequentes, portas 
 suas clauserunt et infansti ominis monstrum intrare non fer- 
 miserunt. 
 
 Lovaniensis autem dominus precum suarum et mandatorum 
 contemptum nolens esse inultum, diem constituit comitibus tanquam 
 suis hominibus, qui neque ad primum, neque ad secundum, sed 
 nee ad tertium venire voluerunt. Eduxit ergo contra eos et contra 
 
262 GODDESSES. 
 
 nos multorum multitudinis exercitum armatorum tain peditum 
 quam militum. l^ostro igitur oppido seposito, tanquam firmius 
 munito et bellicosorum hominum pleno, primum impetum in Dura- 
 chienses fecit, qnibus viriliter resistentibus castellum, nescio quare, 
 cum posset non obsedit, sed inter Leugnes et Durachium pernocta- 
 vit. Cumque sequenti die exercitum applicare disponeret et ex 
 quatuor partibus assultum faceret, habebat enim ingentem multi- 
 tudinem, supervenit Adelbero Metensium primicerius filiorum Lo- 
 vaniensis domini avunculus, cujus interventu, quia comitissa Dura- 
 chiensis erat soror ejus, et Durachiense erat castellum sancti 
 Lamberti, Lovaniensis dominus ab impugnatione cessavit et ab 
 obsidione se amovit, promisso ei quod Durachienses paulo post ei 
 ad justitiam suam educerentur. Et cum ista et alia de dominis 
 et inter dominos tractarentur, pedites et milites per omnia nostra 
 circumjacentia se diffuderunt, villas nostras, ecclesias, molendina 
 et quaecumque occurrebant combustioni et perditioni tradentes, 
 recedentes vero quae longe a nobis fuerant prout cuique adjacebant 
 inter se diviserunt. 
 
 Obviously, throughout the narrative everything is put in an 
 odious light ; but the proceeding derives its full significance from 
 this very fact, that it was so utterly repugnant to the clergy, and 
 that they tried in every way to suppress it as a sinful and 
 heathenish piece of work. On the other hand, the secular power 
 had authorized the procession, and was protecting it ; it rested with, 
 the several townships, whether to grant admission to the approach- 
 ing ship, and the popular feeling seems to have ruled that it would 
 be shabby not to forward it on its way. 
 
 Mere dancing and singing, common as they must have been on 
 all sorts of occasions with the people of that time, could not have 
 so exasperated the clergy. They call the ship 'maUgnorum 
 spirituum simulacrum ' and ' diaboli ludibrium,' take for granted it 
 was knocked together ' inf austo online ' and ' gentilitatis studio,' 
 that ' maligni spiritus ' travel inside it, nay, that it may weU be 
 called a ship of Neptune or Mars, of Bacchus or Venus ; they must 
 burn it, or make away with it somehow. 
 
 Probably among the common people of that region there still 
 survived some recollections of an ancient heathen worship, which, 
 though checked and circumscribed for centuries, had never yet been 
 entirely uprooted. I consider this ship, travelling about the 
 
ISIS. 263 
 
 country, welcomed by streaming multitudes, and honoured with 
 festive song and dance, to be the car of the god, or rather of that ' 
 goddess whom Tacitus identifies with Isis, and who (like Nerthus) 
 brought peace and fertility to mortals. As the car was covered up, 
 so entrance to the interior of the ship seems to have been denied 
 to men ; there need not have been an image of the divinity inside. 
 Her name the people had long ago forgotten, it was only the 
 learned monks that. still fancied something about Neptune or Mars, 
 Bacchus or Venus : but to the externals of the old festivity the 
 people's appetite kept returning from time to time. How should 
 that ' pauper rusticus ' in the wood at Inden have lighted on the 
 thought of bmlding a ship, had there not been floating in his mind 
 recollections of former processions, perhaps of some in neighbour- 
 ing districts ? 
 
 It is worthy of note, that the weavers, a numerous and arrogant 
 craft in the Netherlands, but hateful to the common herd, were 
 compelled to draw the ship by ropes tied to their shoulders, and to 
 guard it ; in return, they could keep the rest of the people from 
 coming too near it, and fine or take pledges from those who did so.^ 
 
 Eodulf does not say what became at last of the ' terrea navis,' 
 after it had made that circuit ; it is enough for him to relate, how, 
 on a reception being demanded for it and refused, heats and quarrels 
 arose, which could only be cooled in open war. This proves the 
 warm interest taken by contemporaries, fanned as it was to a flame 
 for or against the festival by the secular and the clerical party. 
 
 There are traces to be found of similar ship-processions at the 
 beginning of spring in other parts of Germany, especially in Swabia, 
 which had then become the seat of those very Suevi of Tacitus (see 
 Suppl.). A minute of the town-council of Ulm, dated St. Nicholas' 
 eve, 1530, contains this prohibition: ' Item, there shall none, by day 
 nor night, trick or disguise him, nor put on any carnival raiment, 
 moreover shall keep him from the ffoing about of the plough and 
 with ships on pain of 1 gulden '.^ The custom of drawing the 
 plough about seems to have been the more widely spread, having 
 
 1 Does the author imply that the favour of the peasantry, as opposed to 
 artizans, makes it likely that this was a relic of the worship oi Earth? 
 Supposing even that the procession was that of the German Isis ; Tacitus 
 nowhere tells us what the functions of this Isis were, or that she ' brought 
 peace and fertility'. — Trans. 
 
 " Carl Jttger, Schwab, stadtewesen des MA. (Mid. Ages), 1, 525. 
 
264 GODDESSES. 
 
 originally no doubt been performed in honour of the divinity from 
 ■whom a fruitful year and the thriving of crops was looked for. 
 Like the ship-procession, it was accompanied by dances and bon- 
 fires. Sebast. Frank, p. .51" of his Weltbuch : 'On the Rhine, 
 Franconia and divers other places, the young men do gather all the 
 dance-maidens and 'put them in a plough, and draw their piper, who 
 sitteth on the plough piping, into the water ; in other parts they 
 draw a fiery plough kindled with a fire very artificial made thereon, 
 until it fall to wrack.' Enoch Wiedemann's chronik von Hof tells 
 how ' On Shrove-Tuesday evil-minded lads drove a plough about, 
 yoking to it such damsels as did not pay ransom ; others went 
 behind them sprinkling chopped straw and sawdust.' (Sachs, 
 provinz. bl. 8, 347.) Pfeiffer, chron. lips. lib. 2, § 53 : 'Mos erat 
 antiquitus Lipsiae, ut liberalibus (feast of Liber or Bacchus, i.e., 
 carnival) personati juvenes per vicos oppidi aratriim circiim 
 ducerent, pueUas obvias per lasciviam ad illius jugum accedere' 
 etiam repugnantes cogerent, hoc veluti ludicro poenam expetentes 
 ab iis quae innuptae ad eum usque diem mansissent '} On these 
 and similar processions, more details will be given hereafter; I only 
 wish at present to shew that the driving of the plough and that of 
 the ship over the country seem both to rest on the same old- 
 heathen idea, which after the dislodgement of the gods by Chris- 
 tianity could only maintain itself in unintelligible customs of the 
 people, and so by degrees evaporate : namely, on the visible mani- 
 festation of a beneficent benign divinity among men, who every- 
 where approached it with demonstrations of joy, when in springtime 
 the soil was loose again and the rivers released from ice, so that 
 agriculture and navigation could begin anew.^ In this way the 
 
 1 Scheffer's Haltaus, 202. Hans Sachs also relates I. 5, 508", how the 
 maids who hod not taken men, were forced into the plough (see Suppl.). 
 
 "^ To this day, in the churches of some villages of Holstein, largely inha- 
 bited by seamen, there hang little ships, which in springtime, when navigation 
 re-opens, are decorated with ribbons and flowers : quite the Roman custom in 
 the case of Isis (p. 258). We also find at times diver ships hung up in churches, 
 which voyagers in stress of weather have vowed in case of a safe arrival home ; 
 an old instance of this I will borrow from the Vita Godehardi Hildesiensis : 
 Puit tunc temporis in Trajectensi episcopatu vir quidam arti mercatoriae dedi- 
 tus, qui frequenter mare transiret ; hie quodam tempore maxima tempestate ia 
 medio mari deprehenditur, ab omnibus conclamatur, et nil nisi iiltinuis vitae 
 terminus timetur. Tandem ftnito aliquanto tempore auxilium beati Godehardi 
 implorabant, et argenteam navim delaturos, si evaderent, devoverunt. Hos in ' 
 ecclesia nostra navim argenteam deferentes postea vidimus (in King Lothair's ' 
 time). In a storm at sea, sailors take vows : E chi dice, una wive vo far fare, e 
 poiportarla in Vienna al gran barone ; Buovo d'Antona 5, 32. The Lapps at 
 
HOLDA, HOLLE. 265 
 
 Sueves of Tacitus's time must have done honour to their goddess 
 hy carrying her ship about. The forcing of unmarried young 
 women to take part in the festival is like the constraint put upon 
 the weavers in Ripuaria, and seems to indicate that the divine 
 mother in her progress at once looked kindly on the bond of love 
 and wedlock, and punished the backward ; in this sense she might 
 fairly stand for Dame Venus, Holda and Frecke. 
 
 The Greeks dedicated a ship not only to Isis, but to Athene. 
 At the PanatheniBa her sacred peplos was conveyed by ship to the 
 Acropolis : the ship, to whose mast it was suspended as a sail, was 
 built on the Kerameikos, and moved on dry land by an under- 
 ground mechanism, first to the temple of Demeter and all round it, 
 past the Pelasgian to the' Pythian, and lastly to the citadel. The 
 people followed in solemnly ordered procession.^ 
 
 We must not omit to mention, that Aventin, after transforming 
 the Tacitean Isis into a frmi, Eisen, and making iron (eisen) take 
 its name from her, expands the account of her worship, and in 
 addition to the little ship, states further, that on the death of her 
 father (Hercules) she travelled through aU countries, came to the 
 German king Schwab, and staid for a time with him ; that she 
 taught him the forging of iron, the sowing of seed, reaping, grinding, 
 kneading and baking, the cultivation of flax and hemp, spinning, 
 weaving and needle work, and that the people esteemed her a holy 
 woman.^ We shall in due time investigate a goddess Zisa, and her 
 claims to a connexion with Isis. 
 
 4. Holda, Holle. 
 Can the name under which the Suevi worshipped that goddess 
 
 yule-tide offer to their javdoherra small ships smeared with reindeer's blood, and 
 naijg them on trees ; Hosstrom, efterretninger om Lapland, p. 511. These 
 votive gifts to saints fill the place of older ones of the heathen time to gods, 
 as the voyagers to Helgoland continued long to respect Fosete's sanctuary 
 (p. 231). Now, as silver ploughs too were placed in churches, and later in the 
 Mid. Ages were even demanded as dues, these ships and ploughs together lend 
 a welcome support to the ancient worship of a maternal deity (see SuppL). 
 
 ' Philostr. de vitis sophist, lib. 2 cap. 1, ed. Paris. 1608, p. 549. 
 
 " So Jean le Maire de Beiges in his Illustrations de Gaulle, Paris, 1548, bk. 
 3 p. xxviii : ' Au temps duquel (Hercules Allemannus) la deesse Isis, royne 
 d'^ypte, veint en AUemaigne et montra au rude peuple I'usaige de mouldre la 
 farine et faire du pain.' J. le Maire finished his work in 1512, Aventin not 
 till 1522 ; did they both borrow from the spurious Berosus that came out in 
 the 15th century 1 Hunibald makes a queen Cambra, who may be compared 
 ■R'lth the Langobardic Gambara, introduce the arts of building, sowing and 
 ■weaving (see Suppl.). 
 
266 GODDESSES. 
 
 whom the Romans identified with Isis — may not at least one of her 
 secondary names — ^have been Holda ? The name has a purely 
 Teutonic meaning, and is firmly grounded in the living traditions 
 of our people to this day. 
 
 Holdd is the kind, benignant, merciful goddess or lady, from 
 hold (propitius), Goth. hnVps (Luke 18, 13 ; root, hiljjan haljj 
 hul]?un, to bend, bow), ON. hoUr ; the Gothic form of it would be 
 HulfiS. For the opposite notion of a malignant diabolic being, 
 Ulphilas employs both the fem. unlmlj?6 and the masc. unhulpa, 
 from which I infer a hulj^a by the side of hulpd : one more confir- 
 mation of the double sex running through the idea of these 
 divinities. It is true, such a by-name could be shared by several 
 gods or spirits. Notker in the Capella 81 renders verus genius by 
 ' min w^re holdo '. And in MHG. parlance, holde (fem. and masc) 
 must have been known and commonly used for ghostly beings. 
 Albrecht of Halberstadt, in translating Ovid's Metamorphoses, 
 uses wazzerliolde (gen. -en) for nymph ; rhyme has protected the 
 exact words from corruption in Wikram's poetic paraphrase.^ In 
 the largely expanded Low German version of the Ship of Fools 
 (Narragonia, Eostock 1519 ; 96*) we find the following passage 
 which is wanting in the HG. text : ' Mannioh narre lovet (be^ 
 lieveth) an vogelgeschrei, und der guden hollen (bonorum geniorum) 
 gunst '. Of more frequent occurrence is the MHG. unholde (fem.), 
 our modern unJwld (masc), in the sense of a dark, malign, yet 
 mighty being. 
 
 The earliest example of the more restricted use of the name 
 Holda is furnished by Burchard, bp. of "Worms, p. 194°' : ^ Credidisti 
 
 1 Frankf. 1631 ; 4, 171» von einer wazzerlioldeii, rh. solden ; 176* wazzer- 
 holde, rh. solde. 
 
 ^ If, in the inscription 'deae Hludanae' quoted p. 257, we might by a 
 slight transposition substitute Huldanae, this would be even more •welcome 
 than the analogy to ON. HloSyn, it would be the most ancient evidence for 
 Hulda, supported as she already is by the Goth. unhulpS and the OHG. female 
 name Holda, a rare one, yet forthcoming in Schannat, trad. fuld. no. 445 ; also 
 Holdasind in Graft 4, 915. Schiitze's treatise De dea Hludana first appeared 
 Lips. 1741 ; and when Wolf (in Wodana, p. 50) mentions a Dutch one De dea 
 Huldea, Traj ecti 1 746, if that be really the title, this can be no other than a very 
 tempting conjecture by Cannegieter founded on our 'Hulda' which occurs ^ia 
 Eccard. A Latin dative Huldanae would mean our weak form, OHG. Holdun, 
 AS. Holdan, just as Berta, Hildegarda are in Latin docs, inflected Bertanae, 
 Hildegardanae ; though there may also have sprung up a nom. Bertana, 
 Huldana. So the dat. Tanfanae too would lead us to at all events a German 
 nom. Tanfa, and cut short all the attempts to make out of -fana a Celtic word 
 or the Latin fanum. Tanfa su<^gest3 an ON. man's name JDanpr, or the OHG. 
 
HOLDA, HOLLE. 267 
 
 ut aliqua femina sit, quae hoc facere possit, quod quaedam a diabolo 
 deceptae se affirmant necessario et ex praecepto facere debere, id 
 est cum daemonum turba in similitudinem mulierum transformata, 
 quam vulgaris stultitia Holdam (al. unholdam) vocat, certis 
 noctibus equitare debere super quasdam bestias, et in eorum se 
 consortio annumeratam esse. The remarkable varia lectio 
 ' uThlwlda ' is taken from the Cod. vindob. univ. 633. Burchard has 
 here put the German word in the place of the more usual ' Diana 
 paganorum dea/ who in other passages is named in a like sense and 
 ia the same connexion. [A still earlier notice of Holda is found 
 in Walafrid Strabo, see Suppl.] 
 
 In popular legends and nursery-tales, frau Holda (Hulda, 
 Holle,^ Hulle, frau HoU) appears as a superior being, who manifests a 
 kind and helpful disposition towards men, and is never cross 
 except when she notices disorder in household affairs. None of 
 the German races appear to have cherished these oral traditions so 
 extensively as the Hessians and Thuringians (that Worms bishop 
 was a native of Hesse). At the same time, dame HoUe is found as 
 far as the Voigtland,^ past the Ehon mts in northern Franconia,^ in 
 the Wetterau up to the Westerwald,* and from Thuringia she 
 crosses the frontier of Lower Saxony. Swabia, Switzerland, 
 Bavaria, Austria, North Saxony and Friesland do not know her by 
 that name. 
 
 From what tradition has still preserved for us,° we gather the 
 following characteristics. Frau Hoik is represented as a being of 
 the sky, begirdling the earth : when it snows, she is making her 
 
 root damph ; granted a change of F into CH or TH [/ has loecome ch in sachte, 
 nichte, achter, ruchtbar or ruchbar, &c.], there would arise yet further possi- 
 bihties, e.g. a female name Tancha (grata) would correspond to the OHQ. masc. 
 Dancho (gratus) Graff 5, 169 ; conf. Dankrat= Gibicho, Haupt's zeitschr. 1, 
 573. — I am not convinced of Huldana, and confess that Hludana may also 
 maintain itself, and be explained as HlAda (clara, praeclara) ; the weight of 
 other arguments must turn the scale. Among these however, the use of gute 
 hoVkn and hollar vajttir (Sajm. 240'') for spirits, and of holl regin (Saem. 60*) 
 for gods, is especially worthy of notice. In ON. the adj. holb? had undergone 
 assimilation (Goth. hul]js, OHG. hold), while the proper name Huldr retained 
 the old form ; for to me the explanation huldr = occultus, celatus, looks very 
 dubious. 
 
 ^ HoUe from Hulda, as FoUe from Fulda, 
 
 ' Jul. Schmidt's Eeichenfels p. 152. 
 
 ' Eeinwald, Henneb. id. 1, 68. 2, 62. Schmeller 2, 174. 
 
 « Schmidt's Westerwald. idiot. 73. 341. 
 
 ' Kinderm. no. 24. Deutsche sagen, nos. 4 — 8. Falkenstein's Thur. 
 chronica 1, 165-6 (see Suppl.). 
 
263 GODDESSES. ; 
 
 bed, and the feathers of it fly.^ She stirs up snow, as Donar does 
 rain : the Greeks ascribed the production of snow and rain to their 
 Zeus : Aioi ofj.^po';, II. 5, 91. 11, 493 as well as w^aSes Jto'?, II. 19; 
 357 ; so that Holda comes before us as a goddess of no mean rank.^ 
 The comparison of snowflalf es to feathers is very old ; the Scythiana 
 pronounced the regions north of them inaccessible, because they 
 were filled with feathers (Herod. 4, 7. conf. 31). Holda then must 
 be able to move through the air, like dame Herke. 
 
 She loves to haunt the laJce and fountain ; at the hour of noon 
 she may be seen, a fair white lady, lathing in the flood and 
 disappearinff ; a trait in which she resembles ISTerthus. Mortals^ 
 to reach her dwelling, pass through the well ; conf. the name 
 wazzerholde.^ 
 
 Another point of resemblance is, that she drives about in a 
 waggon. She had a linchpin put in it by a peasant whom she 
 met ; when he picked up the chips, they were gold.* Her annual 
 progress, which, like those of Herke and Berhta, is made to faU 
 between Christmas and Twelfth-day, when the supernatural has 
 sway,^ and wild beasts like the wolf are not mentioned by their 
 names, brings fertility to the land. Not otherwise does ' Derk with 
 the boar,' that Freyr of the Netherlands (p. 214), appear to go his 
 rounds and look after the ploughs. At the same time Holda, hke 
 Wuotan, can also ride on the winds, clothed in terror, and she, like 
 the god, belongs to the ' wutende heer ', From this arose the 
 fancy, that witches ride in HoUa's company (ch. XXXIV, snow- 
 
 1 Dame Holle shakes her bed, Modejourn. 1816, p. 283. They say in 
 Scotland, when the firet flakes fall : The men o' the East are pyking their 
 geese, and sending their feathers here awa' there awa'. In Prussian Samland, 
 when it snows : The angels shake their little bed ; the flakes are the down- 
 feathers, but many drop past, and get down to oxa earth. 
 
 ^ As other attributes of Holda have passed to Mary, we may here also 
 bring into comparison the Maria ad nives, notre dame aux neiges, whose feast was 
 held on Aug. 6 ; on that day the lace-makers of Brussels pray to her, that their 
 work may keep as white as snow. In a folk-song of Bretagne : Notre dame 
 Marie, sur votre trone de ndge ! (Barzas breiz 1, 27). May not the otherwise 
 unintelligible Hildesheim legend of Hillesuee (DS. no. 456) have arisen out of 
 a Holde svJ 1 
 
 ' If the name hrunnenhold in the Marchenbuch of Alb. Ludw. Grimm 1, 
 221 is a genuine piece of tradition, it signifies a fountain-sprite. [Newborn 
 babes are fetched by the nurse out of dame Holle' s pond ; Suppl.] 
 
 * A similar legend in Jul. Schmidt's Eeiohenfels p. 152. 
 
 ' This must be a purely heathen view. I suppose the christian sentiment 
 was that expressed by Marcellus in Hamlet i. 1 : 'no spirit dares stir abroad, 
 the nights are wholesome, &c. '. — Trans. 
 
HOLDA, HOLLE. 269 
 
 wives) ; it was already known to Burcliard, and now in Upper 
 Hesse and the Westerwald, Holle-riding, to ride with Holle, is 
 equivalent to a witches' ride.'- Into the same 'furious host,' 
 according to a wide-spread popular belief, were adopted the souls 
 of infants dying unhaptized ; not having been christian'd, they 
 remained heathen, and fell to heathen gods, to Wuotan or to 
 Hulda. 
 
 The next step is, that Hulda, instead of her divine shape, 
 assumes the appearance of an ugly old woman, long-nosed, big- 
 toothed, with bristling and thick-matted hair. ' He's had a jaunt 
 with Holle,' they say of a man whose hair sticks up in tangled 
 disorder ; so children are frightened with her or her equally hideous 
 train :^ 'hush, there's Hulle-betz (-bruin), Hulle-popel (-bogie), 
 coming.' Holle-peter, as well as Hersche, Harsche, Hescheklas, 
 Euprecht, Eupper (ch. XVII, house-sprites), is among the names 
 given to the muffled servitor who goes about in HoUe's train at the 
 time of the winter solstice. In a nurs3ry-tale (Miirchen no. 24) 
 she is depicted as an old witch with lon^ teeth ; according to the 
 difference of story, her kind and gracious aspect is exchanged for a 
 dark and dreadful one. 
 
 Again, Holla is set before us as a spinning--wiie ; the cultivation 
 of flax is assigned to her. Industrious maids she presents with 
 spindles, and spins their reels full for them over night ; a slothful 
 spinner's distaff she sets on fire, or soils \\,? The girl whose spindle 
 dropt into her fountain, she rewarded bountifully. When she 
 
 1 Estor's oberh. idiot., sub v. 
 
 ''■ Erasm. AlberuSj fable 16 : ' Es kamen atich zu diesem heer Viel weiber 
 die sich forcliten sehr (were sore afraid), Und trugen sicheln in der hand, Fraw 
 Hulda hat sie ausgesandt.' Luther's Expos, of the Epistles, Basel 1522 fol. 
 69" ; ' Here cometh np dame Hulde with the snout (potziiase, botch-nose), to 
 wit, nature, and goeth about to gainsay her God and give him the lie, hangeth 
 her old ragfair about her, the straw-harness (stroharnss) ; then falls to work, 
 and scrapes it featly on her fiddle.' He compares nature rebelling against God 
 to the heathenish Hulda with the frightful nose (Oberlin, sub v. potzmann- 
 chen), as she enters, muifled up in straw and frippery, to the fiddle's playing. 
 
 ' Bruckner, Contrib. to the Henneberg idioticon, p. 9, mentions a popular 
 belief in that part of Franconia : ' On the high day comes the HoUefrau 
 (HoUefra, HuUefra), and throws in reels ; whoever does not spin them full, she 
 breaks their necks,' (conf. infra Berhta and Berhtolt and the Devil). ' On the 
 high day she is burnt,' which reminds one of 'Carrying Death out' in 
 Teutonic and Slav countries, and ' Sawing the old woman' in Italy and 
 Spain. By the addition of -frau after the name (conf. gaue fru, p. 253) 
 we perceive its originally adjective character. Cod. pal. 3.55'' : ' ich wen, 
 kain sdiusel in kaim rocken wart nie als hesslich als du bist,' I ween no scare- 
 crow on a distaff was ever as- ugly as thou. 
 
270 GODDESSES. 
 
 enters the land at Christmas, all the distaffs are well stocked, and 
 left standing for her ; by Carnival, when she turns homeward, all 
 spinning must be finished off, and the staffs are now kept out of 
 her sight (Superst. 683) ; if she finds everything as it should be, 
 she pronounces her blessing, and contrariwise her curse; the 
 formulas ' so many hairs, so many good years ! ' and ' so many 
 hairs, so many bad years ! ' have an oldworld sound. Apparently 
 two things have been run into one, when we are also told, that 
 during the ' twelve-nights ' no flax must be left in the diesse, or 
 dame Holla will come.^ The concealment of the implements 
 shows at the same time the sacredness of her holiday, which ought 
 to be a time of rest.^ In the Rhon mts, they do no farm- work on 
 Hulla's Saturday, neither hoe, nor manure, nor ' drive the team a- 
 field '.- In the North too, from Yule-day to New-year's day, neither 
 wheel nor windlass must go round (see Superst., Danish, 134; SuppL). 
 This superintendence of agriculture and of strict order in the 
 household marks exactly the office of a motherly deity, such as we 
 got acquainted with in Nerthus and Isis. Then her special care of 
 flax and spinning (the main business of German housewives, who 
 are named after spindle and distaff,^ as men are after sword and 
 spear), leads us directly to the ON. Frigg, OSin's wife, whose being 
 melts into the notion of an earth-goddess, and after whom a 
 constellation in the sky, Orion's belt, is called Friggjar rockr, 
 Friggae colus. Though Icelandic writings do not contain this 
 name, it has remained in use .among the Swedish country-folk 
 (Ihre, sub v. Friggerock). The constellation is however called 
 Maridrock, Dan. Marirock (Maghusen, gloss. 361. 376), the 
 christians having passed the same old idea on to Mary the 
 heavenly mother. The Greeks put spindle and distaff in the hands 
 of several goddesses, especially Artemis {■)(pvari\dKaro'i, II. 20, 70) 
 and her mother Leto, but also Athene, Amphitrite and the Nereids. 
 All this fits in with Holda, who is a goddess of the chase (the wild 
 host), and of water-springs. 
 
 ^ Braunsohw. anz. 1760, no. 86 ; the diesse is the bundle of flax on the 
 dis-staff. ' ,, 
 
 ^ This makes one think of Gertrude. The peasants' aunanacks in 
 Carniola represent that saint by two little mice nibblitis at the thread on a 
 spindle (vreteno), as a sign that there ought to be no ginning on her day. The 
 same holds good of the Russian piatnitsa, Friday (Kopitars rec. von Strahls 
 gel. Eussland). 
 
 ^ BA. 163-8. 470. "Women are called in AS. friSowebban, peace-weavers. 
 
HOLDA, HOLLE. 271 
 
 One might be tempted to derive dame Holda from a character 
 in the Old Testament. In 2 Kings 22, 14 and 2 Chron. 34, 22 we 
 read of a prophetess mSn Huleddah, Huldah, for which Luther 
 puts Hidda ; the Septuagint has 'OxBd, the Vulgate Olda, but the 
 Lat. Bible Viteb. 1529 (and probably others since) Hvlda, 
 following Luther, who, with the German Holda in his mind, thus 
 domesticated the Jewish prophetess among his countrymen. 
 Several times in his writings he brings up the old heathen life ; we 
 had an instance a page or two back.^ I do not know if any one 
 before him had put the two names together; but certainly the 
 whole conception of a dame Holda was not first drawn from the 
 'Olda' of the Vulgate, which stands there without any special 
 significance; this is proved by the deep-rootedness of the name 
 in our language, by its general application [as adj. and com. 
 noun] to several kinds of spirits, and by the very ancient negative 
 unholda. 
 
 Were it only for the kinship of the Norse traditions with our 
 own, we should bid adieu to such a notion as that. True, the 
 Eddie mythology has not a Holla answering to our Holda; but 
 Snorri (Yngl. saga c. 16. 17) speaks of a wise woman (volva, 
 seiSkona) named Huldr, and a later Icelandic saga composed in 
 the 14th century gives a circumstantial account of the enchantress 
 Hulda, beloved of OSinn, and mother of the well-known half- 
 goddesses ThorgerSr and Irpa.^ Of still more weight perhaps 
 are some Norwegian and Danish folk-tales about a wood or 
 mountain wife Sulla, Huldra, Huldre, whom they set forth, now 
 as young and lovely, then again as old and gloomy. In a blue garment 
 and white veil she visits the pasture-grounds of herdsmen, and 
 mingles in the dances of men ; but her shape is disfigured by a tail, 
 which she takes great pains to conceal. Some accounts make her 
 beautiful in front and ugly behind. She loves music and song, her 
 lay has a doleful melody and is called huldreslaat. In the forests 
 you see Huldra as an old woman clothed in gray, marching at the 
 head of her flock, milkpail in hand. She is said to carry off 
 people's unchristened infants from them. Often she appears, not 
 alone, but as mistress or queen of the mountain-sprites, who are 
 
 ' I believe Luther followed the Hebrew, merely dropping the final h, as 
 he does in Jehova, Juda, &c. — Trans. 
 ,. = Muller's sagabibl. 1, 363—6. 
 
272 GODDESSES. 
 
 called huldrefolk} In Iceland too they know of this Huldufdlh, of 
 the Huldmmnn ; and here we find another point of agreement 
 with the popular faith of Germany, namely, that by the side of our 
 dame Holde there are also holden, i.e., friendly spirits, a silent 
 subterranean people, of whom dame Holde, so to speak, is the 
 princess (see SuppL). For this reason, if no other, it must be more 
 correct to explain the Norse name Hulla, Huldra from the ON. 
 hollr (fidus, fidelis, propitius) which is huld in Dan. and Swed., and 
 not from the ON. hulda (obscuritas) as referring to the subterranean 
 abode of the mountain-sprites. In Swedish folk-songs I find 
 ' huldmoder, hulda moder ' said of one's real mother in the same 
 sense as kara (dear) moder (Sv. vis. 1, 2, 9) ; so that huld must 
 have quite the meaning of our German word. It is likely that the 
 term huldufolk was imported into the Icelandic tongue from the 
 Danish or Norwegian. It is harder to explain the E inserted in 
 the forms Huldra, Huldre ; did it spring out of the plural form 
 hulder (boni genii, hollar vsettir) ? or result from composition ? 
 
 The German Holda presides over spinning and agriculture, the 
 Norse Hulle over cattle-grazing and milking. 
 
 5. Peeahta, Berchte. 
 A being similar to Holda, or the same under another name, 
 makes her appearance precisely in those Upper German regions 
 where Holda leaves off, in Swabia, in Alsace, in Switzerland, ia 
 Bavaria and Austria.^ She is called frau Berchte, i.e., in OHG. 
 Perahta, the bright,' luminous, glorious (as Holda produces the 
 glittering snow) : by the very meaning of the word a benign and 
 gladdening influence, yet she is now rarely represented as such ; as 
 a rule, the awe-inspiring side is brought into prominence, and she 
 
 ' Details to be found in MuUer's sagab. 1, 367-8. Hallager p. 48. Faye 
 pp. 39-43 and 10. 15. 2j. 26. 36. Frigge, nytaarsgave for 1813, p. 85. Strom's 
 Sondmor 1, 538-59. Vilses Spydeberg 2, 419. Villes Sillejord. p. 230. 
 Asbiornsen, passim. 
 
 2 A portion of Franconia and Thuringia knows botb Berchta and Holda, 
 there at all events is the boundary between the two. Matthesius, in his 
 Exposition of the gospels for feastdays, p. 22, names dame Hulda and old 
 Berchte side by side. 
 
 3 Among the celebrated maidens of MengloS is a Biort (Seem. Ill"), 
 MengloS herself is called 'su in solbiarta' (111''), and the father of her 
 betrothed Svipdagr Solbiartr (sun-bright, 112"). A Mengl6?S in a later story 
 appears to some one in a dream (Fornm. sog. 3, 222-3), and leaves him a 
 marvellous pair of gloves. 
 
PEUAHTA, BEKCHTE. 273 
 
 appears as a grim bugbear to frighten children with. In the 
 stories of dame BerclUa the bad meaning predominates, as the good 
 one does in those of dame Holda; that is to say, the popular 
 christian view had degraded Berchta lower than Holda. But she 
 too is evidently one with Herke, Freke and some others (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 Where their identity comes out most plainly is in the fact that 
 they aU go their rounds at the same time, in the so-called ' twelfths' 
 between Christmas and New-year. Berchta however has a 
 particular day assigned her at the end of that period, which I never 
 find named after Holda. And no less similar are their functions. 
 
 Berchta, like Holda, has the oversight of spinners; whatever 
 spinning she finds unfinished the last day of the year, she spoils 
 (Superst. 512). Her festival has to be kept with a certain tradi- 
 tional food, gruel and fish. Thorr says he has had sildr ok hafra 
 (herrings and oats) for supper, Ssem. 75'^ ; our white lady has pre- 
 scribed the country folk a dish of fish and oat-grits for evermore, 
 and is angry whenever it is omitted (Deutsche sagen, no. 267). 
 The Thuringians in the Saalfeld country wind up the last day of 
 the year with dumplings and herrings. Fish and farinaceous food 
 were considered by christians the proper thing for a fast.^ 
 
 The revenge taken by the wrathful Berchta, when she misses the 
 fish and dumplings, has a quaint and primitive sound : whoever has 
 partaken of other food on her day, she cuts his belly open, fills it 
 with chopped straw, and sews up the gash with a phuglishare for 
 a needle and an iron chain by way of thread (Superst. 625).^ 
 
 • The Braunschw. anz. 1760, p. 1392, says no legvmiinous plants are to be 
 eaten when dame Holla is going round in the ' twelve-nights '. Eitlier a 
 mistake, or to be understood of particular kinds of pulse. 
 
 " Almost the same is told in the Voigtland of the Wem or da/me Hoik. 
 The H'erre, oa the holy eve of the high New-year, holds a strict inq^uiry 
 whether all the distaffs are span off; if they are not, she defiles the flax. And 
 on that evening you must eat poise, a thick pap of flour and water prepared in 
 a peculiar way ; if any one omits it, she rips his body open, Jul. Schmidt, 
 Reichenfels, p. 152. The name Werra (from her 'gewirrt,' tangled shaggy 
 hair?) is found in Thorn. Eeinesius, Lect. var., Altenbg 1640, p. 579 (in the 
 critical notes on Rhyakinus's, i.e. Andr. Rivinus or Bachmann's Liber Kirani- 
 dilm Kirani, Lips. 1638) : Nostrates hodie<iue petulantioribus et refraotariis 
 manducum aliquem cum ore hiante frendentem dentibus, aut furibundam 
 silvescente coma, facie lurida, et cetero liabitu terribilem cum coniitatu maena- 
 dum Werram interminantur. Eeinesius (1587-1667) came from Gotha, but 
 lived at Hof in the Voigtland. A werre is also a noisome chirping insect of 
 ^he cricket kind (Popowitsch 620). In MHG. : 'sxjetdiu Werre (Discordia) 
 irsamen dar,'fiows her seed, Ms. 2, 251'', conf. Troj. 385 (see Suppl.),; and in 
 
 18 
 
27d GODDESSES. 
 
 And the same threat is held out in other districts also (see 
 SiippL). 
 
 Borner's Folk-tales of the Orlagau (between the Saale and the 
 Orle) furnish abundant details. At p. 153 : The night before 
 Twelfthday, Perchtha always examines the spinning-rooms of the 
 whole neighbourhood, she brings the spinners empty reels, with 
 directions to spin them full within a very brief time, and if aU she 
 demands cannot be delivered, slie punishes them by tangling and 
 befouling the flax. On the same occasion she cuts open any one's 
 body, that has not eaten zemvicde ^ that day, takes out any other 
 food he has had, and fills the empty space with hay or straw wisps 
 and bricks, and at last sews his body up again, using a ploughshare 
 for a needle, and for thread a rohm chain. — P. 159 : At Oppurg, the 
 same night of the year, Perchtha found the spinning-room fuU of 
 merrymaking guests, and in a towering rage she handed in through the 
 luindow tioelve empty reels, which were to be spun full to the rim within 
 an hour, when she would come back ; one quarter of an hour had 
 passed after another in fearful expectation, when a saucy girl ran 
 up to the garret, reached down a roll of tow, and wrapped it round 
 the empty reels, then they spun two or three thicknesses of thread 
 over the tow, so that the reels looked full. Perchtha came, they 
 handed over to her their finished work, and she walked off with it, 
 shaking her head. (Conf. the similar story of the white manikin in 
 Bader, p. 369). — P. 167 : At Langendembach lived an old spinning- 
 wife, who swiftly wound the thread all the winter through, and did 
 not so much as leave off on Twelfthday-eve, though son and 
 daughter-in-law warned her : ' If Perchtha comes, it will go hard 
 with you '. ' Heyday ! ' was her answer, ' Perchtha brings me no 
 shirts, I must spin them myself.' After a while the window is 
 pushed open, Perchtha looks into the room, and throws some empty 
 
 Selpliartes regel (Wackemapel's lb. 903), there ia exhibited, together with 
 bruocler Zornli and bruoder Brgerli, a bruoder Werra, ' der sin herze mit welt- 
 lichen dingen also beworren hat (has so entangled his heart with worldly things),, 
 daz da niht mfi in mag '. And that notion of tangled thread and hair, which 
 prevails abont Bertha and Holda, may after all be akin to this. On L. ZuricTi. 
 she is called de Chlungere, because she puts chlungel (knots, lumps) in the un- 
 finished yarn of slothful maidens, Alb. Schott, Deutsche colonien in Piedmont,, 
 p. 282. In Bavaria and German Bohenxia, Berrhta is often represented by St. 
 Lucia, though her day comes on Dec. 13. Frau Lutz cuts the belly open, 
 Schmeller 2, 532. Jos. Rank, Bohmerwald, p. 137. Conf. the LvMe in Sweden,. 
 Wieselgren. 386-7. 
 
 1 Made of flour and milk or water, and baked in a pan : fasting fare,; 
 evidently. 
 
PEEAHTA, BEECHTE. 275 
 
 spools to her, ■wliich she must have bade, spun full, in an hour's 
 time. The spinner took heart of grace, spun a few rounds on each 
 spool for dear life, and threw them, one and all, into the hroolc that 
 ran past the house (and by that, Perchtha seems to have been 
 appeased). — P. 173 : As a miner was returning from Bucha to 
 Konitz on Perchtha's night, she came up to him at the cross-roads, 
 and demanded with threats, that he should 2)ut a wedge in her 
 waggon. He took his knife, cut the wedge as well as he could, and 
 fitted it into Perchtha's waggon, who made him a present of the 
 fallen chips. He picked them up, and at home he drew gold out of 
 every pocket in which he had put Perchtha's gifts. — P. 182 : Two 
 peasants of Jiidewein, after stopping at the alehouse in Kostriz till 
 late on Perchtha's eve, had gone but a little way, when Perchtha, 
 came driving in a waggon, and called to them to put a peg in the 
 pole of her waggon. One of the men had a knife, and Perchtha 
 supplied him with wood, the peg was let in, and the handy man 
 carried home several pieces of money in his shoe as a reward. — 
 P. 113 : Between Bucha and Wilhelmsdorf in the fruitful vale of 
 the Saale, Perchtha queen of the heimchen had her dwelling of old ; 
 at her command the heimchen had to water the fields of men, 
 while she worked underground with her plough. At last the 
 people fell out with her, and she determined to quit the country ; 
 on Perchtha's eve the ferryman at Altar village received notice to 
 be ready late in the night, and when he came to the Saale bank, 
 his eyes beheld a tall stately dame surrounded by weeping children, 
 and demanding to be ferried, over. She stept into the craft, the 
 little ones dragged a. plough and a number of other tools in, loudly 
 lamenting that they had to leave that lovely region. Arrived at 
 the other side, Perchtha bade the boatman cross once more and 
 fetch the heimchen that had been left behind, which under compul- 
 sion he did. She in the meantime had been mending the plovgh, 
 she pointed to the chips, and said to the ferryman, ' There, take 
 that to reward thy trouble '. Grumbling, he pocketed three of the 
 chips, and at home flung them on the window-shelf, and himself, 
 ill at ease, into bed. In the morning, three gold-pieces lay where 
 • he had thrown the chips. The memory of Perchtha's passage is also 
 preserved at Kaulsdorf on the Saale, and at Kostriz on the Elster, 
 ■ not far from Gera. — P. 126 : Late one night, the master wheel- 
 wright at Colba was coming home from Oppurg, where he had 
 
276 GODDESSES. 
 
 been to work ; it was the eve of the Three-kings (Twelfthday), and 
 on the bank of the rivulet Orla he came upon PercJitha, her broken 
 plough surrounded by weeping heimchen. ' Hast thou a hatchet 
 with thee, so help me mend ! ' she cried to the terrified traveller. 
 He gave what help he could, but the fallen chips offered him for 
 wages he would not touch : ' I have plenty of them at home,' says he. 
 When he got home, he told what had happened to him, and while 
 his people shook their heads incredulously, he pulled off one of his 
 shoes, which something had got into, that hurt his foot, and out 
 rolled a bright new gold-piece. A twelvemonth passed, and oue of 
 his men, who had heard him tell the tale, set out on Perchtha's 
 night, and waited by the Orla, just where his master had met 
 Perchtha ; in a little while, on slifi came with her infant train : 
 ' What seekest thou here at this hour ? ' she cried in anger, and 
 when he stammered out an answer, she continued : ' I am better 
 provided with tools this time, so take thou thy due ! ' and with 
 those words she dug her hatchet into the fellow's shoulder. The 
 same story is repeated near Kaulsdorf at a part of the brook which 
 is called the water over the way, at Presswitz near the Saal-house, 
 and on the sandhill between Possneck and the forester's lodge of 
 Keichenbach. Below the Gleitsch, a curiously shaped rock near 
 Tischdorf, the story varies in so far, that there Perchtha along with 
 the heimchen was driving a waggon, and had just broken the axle, 
 when she fell in with a countryman, who helped her out with a 
 makeshift axle, and was paid in chips, which however he disdained, 
 and only carried a piece home in his shoe. — P. 133 : A spinniug- 
 girl walked over from the Neidenberg during that night, she had 
 done every bit of her spinning, and was in high spirits, when 
 Perchtha came marching up the hill towards her, with a great troop 
 of the heimchenfolk, all children of one sort and size, one set of 
 them toiling to push a heavy plough, another party loaded with 
 farming-tools ; they loudly complained that they had no longer a 
 home. At this singular procession the spinner began to laugh out 
 loud, Perclitlia enraged stept up to the giddy thing, Uew upon Jier, 
 and struck her blind on the spot. The poor girl had a trouble to 
 find her way into the village, she led a wretched life, could no 
 longer work, but sat mournful by the wayside begging. When the 
 year was past and Perchtha visited Altar again, the blind one, not 
 knowing one from another, asked an alms of the high dame as she 
 
JfEKAHTA, BEECHTE. 277 
 
 swept by ; Perchtha spoke graciously : ' Here last year I blew a 
 pair of lights out, this year 1 will blow them in agaiu'. With these 
 words she blew into the maid's eyes, which immediately began to 
 see again. The same legend is found in the so-called Sorge, near 
 Neustadt on the Orla. Touching stories of the weeping children, 
 who tramp along in Perchtha's great troop, will be given when we 
 come to treat minutely of the ' wiitende heer '. (See SuppL). 
 
 To these significant traditions of Thuringia, others can be added 
 from Bavaria and Austria. In the mountain district about Trauen- 
 stein (Up. Bavaria, opposite Salzburg) they tell the children on the 
 eve of Epiphany, that if they are naughty, Berclie will come and cut 
 their bellies open. Greasy calces are baked that day, and the 
 workmen say you must grease your stomach well with them, so 
 that danu BcrcJie's knife may glance off (Schm. 1, 194). Is that the 
 reason why she is called wild Bertha, iron Bertha ? Crusius, Ann. 
 Suev. p. 2, lib. 8, cap. 7, p. 266, relates, as his explanation of the 
 origin of the name, that Henry IV. bestowed privileges on the city 
 of Padua : Inde, in signa libertatis, armato carrocio uti coeperunt in 
 bello, Bertha nominato. Hinc dictum ortum puto^ quo terrentur 
 inquieti pueri, ' Schweig, oder die eiserne Bertlm konnnt ! ' ^ In 
 other places, Pranconian and Swabian, she is named Hildaberta 
 (apparently a combination of the two names Holda and Berta), and 
 Bildaberta; with hair all shaggy she walks round the houses at 
 night, and tears the bad boys to pieces (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 Dame Precht with the long nose is what Vintler calls her : and 
 even a MHG. poem, which in one MS. is entitled ' daz msere von 
 der Stempen,' has in another the heading ' von Berchten mit der 
 langen nas' (Haupt's Altd. bl. 1, 105). It is only from the former 
 (with corrected spelling) that I am able to extract what has a 
 bearing on our subject : 
 
 nu merket rehfe-waz (ich) iu sage : Now mark aright what I you tell : 
 nS,chwihennaht amzwelften tage, after Christmas the twelfth day, 
 n^ch dem heilgen ebenwihe ^ after the holy New-year's day 
 
 (gotgeb, daz er uns gedihe), (God grant we prosper in it), 
 
 do man ezzen solt ze nahte, when they should eat supper 
 
 ' Conf. Crusius p. 1, lib. 12, cap. 6, p. 329, where Berfha the mother of 
 Cliarles is meant. The Lombards called a carrocium Berta and Berteciola 
 (Ducange sub v.), perhaps the carriage of the travelling goddess or queen ? 
 
 ' Joach. Camerarius, chronol. Nicephori, p. 129. 
 
 ' Even-holy, equally-holy day, Scheffer's Haltaus, p, 68. 
 
278 GODDESSES. 
 
 Tind man ze tische br^hte and had to table brought 
 
 allez daz man ezzen solde, all that they should eat, 
 
 swaz der wirt geben wolde whatso the master would give, 
 
 do sprach er zem gesinde then spake he to his men 
 
 und zuo sin selbes kinde : and to his own child : 
 
 ' ezzet hinte fast durch mln bete, ' eat fast (hard) to night, I pray, 
 daz nich die Stempe niht entrete! that the Stempe tread you not.' 
 daz kintlin do von forhten az. The child then ate from fear, 
 
 er sprach: 'veterlin, waz ist daz, he said : ' father, what is this 
 daz du die Stempen nennest ? that thou the Stempe callest ? 
 
 sag mir, ob dus erkennest.' tell me, if thou it knowest.' 
 
 der vater sprach : 'daz sag ich dir, The father said : ' this tell I thee, 
 du solt ez wol gelouben mir, thou mayest well believe me, 
 
 ez ist so griuwelich get^n, there is a thing so gruesome done, 
 
 daz ich dirz niht gesagen kan : that I cannot tell it thee : 
 wan swer des vergizzet, for whoso forgets this, 
 
 daz er nicht fast izzet, so that he eats not fast, 
 
 4/" den Jmmt ez und trit in' on him it comes, and treads him.' 
 
 Here also children and servants are warned by the master of the 
 house to eat up clean all that is brought on the table, and are 
 threatened with a trampling from Stempe. This cognomen of 
 Berchte must have come from stamping (step, tap, thump, &c.), and 
 perhaps it ought to be spelt Stemffe (German stampfen, to stamp) ; 
 but in Bavaria there is a proper name Stempo (MB. 2, 280, anno 
 11.30), not Stempho, and both stampen and stampfen seem to be 
 correct for trampling and squeezing, Ital. stampare : she is the 
 night hag, similar to alp and schrat [old scratch ?]. Add to this, 
 that in the Nordgau of Franconia, dame Holda is called the Trempe 
 (Doderlein, Antiq. nordg. 41), i.e., the trampling racketing one ; 
 Stalder defines trampeln as walking with short, measured steps 
 (tripping), and the Drut (night-goblin) approaches with soft foot- 
 fall ; at the same time, trampel, trampelthier, is a heavy clumsy 
 woman. Now, as S is occasionally added before an initial T, it is 
 surely not going too far, to connect Stempe with the more ancient 
 Tawfand, Tanfana, p. 257 (see Suppl.). 
 
 Martin of Amberg ^ calls her Fercht mit der eisnen nasen (with 
 
 ' His Gewissensspiegel (mid. of 14tli cent.) is in two MSS. at Vienna 
 (Hoffm. pp. 335-6) ; conf. Schm. 4, 188. 216, and tlie Jahrb. der Berliner 
 gesellsch. I'iir deutsche spr. 2, ti3 — 65. 
 
PEUAHTA, BERCHTE. 279 
 
 iron nose), and says that people leave meat and drink standing for 
 her; which means a downright sacrifice. 
 
 In the mountains of Salzburg there is kept up to this day, in 
 honour of the terrible Perclitel, a so called Perchta-running, Perchta- 
 leapinj at the time of the rauchniiclite [incense-nights lY ^^ the 
 Pinzgau, from 100 to 300 young fellows (styled the Berchten) wiU 
 roam about in broad daylight in the oddest disguises, carrying cows' 
 bells, and cracking whips.^ In the Gastein valley the procession, 
 headed by from 50 or 100 to 300 stout fellows, goes hopping and 
 skipping from village to village, from house to house, all through 
 the valley (Muchar, Gastein pp. 145-7). In the north of Switzer- 
 land, where in addition to Berchtli the softened form Bechtli or 
 Bechteli is in use, Bechteli's day is the 2nd (or, if New-year's day 
 falls on a Saturday, the 3rd) of January, and is honoured by the 
 young people in general with social merrymakings ; they call the 
 practice berchleln, bechteln. In the 16th century it was still the 
 custom at Zurich, for men to intercept and press one another to 
 take wine ; this was called ' conducting to Berchtold ' (Staid. 1, 150- 
 6). There was thus a masculine Berclit or Berchtolt, related to 
 Wuotan, as Berhta was to Freke ; and from this again there arose 
 in Swabia a new feminine, Brechtolterin, Preclitolterin (Schmid, 
 Schwab, wtb. 93). In Alsace the bechten was performed by pren- 
 tices and journeymen running from one house or room to another, 
 and keeping up a racket (see passages in Oberlin, sub. v. Bechten). 
 Cunrat of Dankrozheim says in his Namenbuch, composed 1435 : * 
 darnauch so komet die milde Behte, 
 die noch hat sin gar gross geslehte (great kindred). 
 He describes her as the mild, gracious to men, not as the terrible. 
 Berchtolt however is in Swabian legend the white mannikin, who 
 brings spools to be jBlled with spinning (Mone's anz. 8, 179), 
 exactly like Berchta, p. 274 (see Suppl.). 
 
 And as a kind benevolent being she appears in many other 
 descriptions, which undoubtedly reach far back into the Mid. Ages. 
 The white lady, by her very name, has altogether the same meaning, 
 
 * This Perchtmspringen is like the hexentusch in the Bohmerwald, which, 
 Jos. Bank p. 76-7 says,' is performed at Whitsuntide, when young men and 
 boys provide themselves with loud cracking whips, and chase all the witches 
 out of houses, stables and bams. 
 
 '^ Journev through Upper Germany, p. 243. Schm. 1, 195. 
 
 ' Ad. Walt. Strobel's beitr., Strasb. 1827, p. 123. 
 
280 GODDESSES. 
 
 for peraht, berlit or breclit, signifies briglit, light, wliite. This 
 white lady usually attaches herself to particular families, but even 
 then she keeps the name of Berfa, e.g., Berta of Eosenberg. In 
 snow-white garments she shows herself by night in princely houses, 
 she rocks or dandles the babies, while their nurses sleep : she acts 
 the old grandmother or ancestress of the family (see Suppl.). 
 
 There is a good deal in the fact, that several women of that 
 name, who are famed in our national traditions, stand connected 
 with the ghostly Berhta ; they have been adopted out of the divine 
 legend into the heroic legend. In Italy and France, a far distant 
 past is expressed by the phrase : 'nel tempo ove Berta filava' when 
 B. span (Pentamerone. Liebrecht 2, 259), ' au terns que la reine 
 Berthe filait : ' the same idea stiU, of the spinning matron.^ Berta, 
 the daughter of king Flower and of Whiteflower, afterwards the 
 wife of king Pippin and mother of the great hero Charles, 
 she who in the MLG. poem of Flos is called both Vredeling and 
 Brehte (1555. 7825), does not belie her mythic origin.^ She is 
 called Berhte mit demfuoze (foot), Flore 309; in French, Berthe au 
 grand pied ; and ace. to the Eeali di Franza 6,1:' Berta del gran 
 pie, perche ella aveva un pie un poco maggior dell altro, e quelle 
 era il pie destro,' had the right foot larger. The French poet Adenez 
 tries apparently to extenuate the deformity by making both her 
 ■ feet large, he calls her 'Berte as grans pies' (Paris ed. LII. 78. 104); 
 so the Mid. Dutch, ' Baerte met ten breden voeten,' Floris 3966. 
 But the one big foot is more genuine, as may be seen by the far 
 
 ' I can produce another spinning Bertha. The Vita S. Bertliae Avenna- 
 censia in dioecesi Eemensi (conf. Flodoardus 4, 47) says (Acta Sanctor., Maiip. 
 114'') : Quae dum lustraret situs loci illius, pervenit ad quendam hortum, in 
 quo erat fons mirae pulcritudinis. Quern ut vidit Deo devota femina, minima 
 concupivit, sed possessoribus ipsius praedii sic locufa est : fratres, hunc 
 fontem praedii vestri vendite mihi, et accepta digna pecunia cedite usibus 
 nostris. Cui sic aiunt : En praesto sumus, si taiuen detur pretium a nobis 
 taxatmn. Sancta autem, videntibus qui aderant, libram unam denarionun 
 posuit super lapidem qui erat super os ejusdem fontis, domini vero ac vendi- 
 tores receperunt aes. Tunc sancta mater, Deo plena, colo quam mami tenebat 
 coepit terram fodere, et in modum sulci rigam facere, orans ac dicens : Ostende 
 nobis, Domine, misericordiam tuam, et salutare tuum da nobis ! Eevertens 
 namque monasterium, colum eadem post se trahebat, tantaque abundantia 
 aquae earn sequebatur, ut ad usus omnes hominibus pertinentes sufficeret, sicut 
 usque hodie apparet. Nomen quoque sancta mater fluviolo ipsi composuit, 
 dicens : Libra vocaberis, quia una libra pro emptione tua data est. 
 
 '' How firmly she is rooted, may be seen by her being the link that joins 
 the Carolingian legend to the Langobardic : she is mother of Carl, wile of 
 Pippin the son of Rother (4789), and daughter of Flore and Blancheflor, whose 
 name again contains the notion of whiteness. 
 
PEUAHTA, BEKCHTE. 281 
 
 more ancient tradition of a ' reine PMauque, regina pede aucae,', 
 wliose figure stands carved in stone on old churches.^ It is appar- 
 ently a swan-maiden's foot, which as a mark of her higher nature 
 she cannot lay aside (any more than Huldra her tail, or the devil 
 his horse hoof) ; and at the same time the spinning- woman's splay- 
 foot that worked the treadle, and that of the trampling dame 
 Stempe or Trempe. If we had older and minuter descriptions of 
 ' frau Eerhta ' in Germany, perhaps this foot would also be 
 mentioned in them (see Suppl). 
 
 It still remains for us to explain her precise connexion with a 
 particular day of the year. It is either on Dec. 25 (dies riatalis), or 
 twelve days after Christmas, on Jan. 6, when the star appeared to 
 the Three Kings (magi), that the christian church celebrates the 
 feast of the manifestation of Christ under the name of epiphania 
 (v. Ducange, sub v.), hethphania or theophania (0. Tr. tiephaine, 
 tiphagne). In an OHG. gloss (Emm. 394), theophania is rendered 
 giperahta naht, the bright night of the heavenly vision that 
 appeared to the shepherds in the field.^ Documents of the Mid. 
 Ages give dates in the dative case : ' perchtentag, perhtennaht ' 
 (for OHG. zi demo perahtin taga, zi deru Perahtun naht) ; again, 
 ' an der berechtnaht,' M. Beham (Mone, anz. 4, 451) ; ' ze perh- 
 nahten,' MB. 8, 540 (an. 1302); 'unze an den ahtodin tac nah der 
 Perhtage,' till the eighth day after the Perht's (fern.) day, Fundgr. 
 110, 22 ; ' von dem nehsten Berhtag,' MB. 9, 138 (an. 1317) ; ' an 
 dem Prehentag,' MB. 7, 256 (an. 1349); — these and other contracted 
 forms are cited with references in Soheffer's Ilaltaus p. 75, and 
 Schm. 1, 194.^ Now from this there might very easily grow up a 
 personification, Perchtentac, Perchtcnnaht, the bright day becoming 
 Bright's, i.e., dame Bright's, day. (Conrad of Dankrotsheim, p. 123, 
 puts his milde Behie down a week earlier, on Dec. 30.) * 
 
 Two hypotheses present themselves. Either the entire fabulous 
 existence of a Perhta first arose accidentally and by misunderstand- 
 ing, out of such personification ; or the analogy of the ' bright ' day 
 was tacked on to a previously existing Perhta. Now it is true we 
 
 ' AM. w. 3, 47-8 ; Paris too connects this Pedauque with Berte, iii. iv. 
 198 ; reim Perlauque, Midielet hist, de France 1, 496-8. 2, 152. 
 
 ' Luke 2, 9. 0. i. 12, 3. 4. Hel. 12, 8. Maria 182. 
 
 'The OHG. 'yimntac = parasceve (Graff 5, 360) is Good Friday, and 
 distinct from Prehenta;?, Perchtentag. 
 
 * Dec. 28 is Innocents', 29 St. Thomas's, 31 St. Silvester's. 
 
282 GODDESSES. 
 
 cannot point out a dame Perhta before the IStli or 14th century, 
 or at earliest the 13th ; but the first supposition need not bre^ 
 down, even if we did manage to hunt up her personal name in 
 older authorities : even in the 9th century the expression 'perahtftn, 
 naht ' might have developed into ' Perahtiin naht '. Still the char- 
 acteristics we have specified of a mythical Berta, and above all, her 
 identity with Holda, seem to me to decide the matter the other 
 way. If, independently of the christian calendar, there was a 
 Holda, then neither can Perahta be purely a product of it ; on the 
 contrary, both of these adjective names lead up to a heathen deity, 
 who made her peregrination at that very season of yule, and whom 
 therefore the christians readily connected with the sacredness of 
 Christmas and New-year. 
 
 I will here group together the features which unmistakably 
 make Holda and Bertha appear in this light. They drive about in 
 waggons, like mother Earth, and promote agriculture and navigation 
 among men ; a plough, from which there fall chips of gold, is their 
 sacred implement. This too is like the gods, that they appear 
 suddenly, and Berhta especially hands her gifts in at the vjindow. 
 Both have spinning and weaving at heart, they insist on diligence 
 and the keeping of festivals holy, on the transgressor grim penalties 
 are executed. The souls of infant children are found in their host, 
 as they likewise rule over elves and d.warfs, but night-hags and 
 enchantresses also follow in their traiu : — all this savours of 
 heathenism. 
 
 It is very remarkable, that the Italians too have a mis-shapen 
 fairy Befana, a terror to children, who has sprung out of epiphani^_ 
 (befania) : on that day the women and children set a doll made of 
 old rags in the window ; she is black and ugly, and brings presents. 
 Some say, she is Herod's daughter ; Eanke's hist, zeitschr. 1, 717. 
 ' La Befania ' (Pulci's Morg. 5, 42). Berni says : ' il di di Befania 
 vo porla per Befana alia fenestra, perche cLualcun le dia d' una 
 ballestra '} It would be astonishing, if twice over, in two different 
 nations, a name in the calendar had caused the invention of a 
 supernatural being; it is more likely that, both in Italy, and among 
 us, older traditions of the people have sought to blend themselves 
 with the christian name of the day. 
 
 ^ Franc. Berni, rime 105. Crusca sub v. befana. 
 
heeodias, diana, abundia, 283 
 
 6. (Heeodias. Diana. Abundia). 
 
 Herodias, of whom we have just been reminded by Befana, will 
 illustrate this even better. The story of Herod's daughter, whose 
 dancing brought about the beheading of John the Baptist, must 
 have produced a peculiarly deep impression in the early part of the 
 Mid. Ages, and in more than one way got mixed up with fables. 
 Keligious poets treat the subject in full, and with relish (Hel. 83-5) ; 
 Otfried seems to leave it out designedly. It was imagined, that on 
 account of her thoughtless rather than malicious act (for the 
 proposal came from her revengeful mother), Herodias (the daughter) 
 was condemned to roam about in company with evil and devilish 
 spirits. She is placed at the head of the ' furious host ' or of 
 witches' nightly expeditions, together with Diana, with Holda and 
 Perahta, or in their stead. In Burcard of Worms 10, 1 we read : 
 lUud etiam non omittendum, quod quaedam sceleratae mulieres 
 retro post Satanam conversae, daemonum illusionibus et phantas- 
 matibus seductae, credunt se et profitentur nocturnis horis cum 
 Diana paganorum dea vel cum Herodiade et innumera multitudine 
 mulierum equitare super quasdam bestias, et multa terrarum spatia 
 intempestae noctis silentio pertransire, ejusque jussionibus velut 
 dominae obedire, et certis noctibus ad ejus servitium evocari.— 
 Joh. Sahsberiensis (f 1182) in Polycr. 2, 17 : Quale est, quod noc- 
 tilucam quandam, vel Herodiadem vel praesidem noctis dominam, 
 concilia et conventus de nocte asserunt convocare, varia celebrari 
 eonvivia, &c. — Angerius, episcopus Conseranus (an. 1280) : Nulla 
 mulier de nocturnis equitare cum Diana dea paganorum vel cum 
 Herodiade seu Bensozia^ et innumera mulierum multitudine pro- 
 fiteatur. — Similar statements have passed into later writings, such 
 as those of Martin von Amberg, and Vintler. It is worth noticing, 
 that to the worship of this Herodias, one third of ths whole world is 
 ceded, and so a most respectable diffusion allowed. Eatherius 
 (bishop of Verona, but a Frank, b. at Lobi near Cambray, d. 974) in 
 his Praeloquia (Martene and Durand 9, 798. opp. edit. Ballerini 
 pp. 20. 21) : Quis enim eorum, qui hodie in talibus usque ad per- 
 ditionem animae in tantum decipiuntur, ut etiam eis, quas (Ball. 
 
 ' Diicanf;e sub v. Diana spells Benzoria, but has the true meaning under 
 IJensozia itself ; it seems to mean bona socia, friendly propitious being. Bona 
 Y v't°^° Cass. 37, 35. 45. Conf. oh. XXVIII, dobra sretia, bona Fortuna ; ch. 
 AVI, good wife, under Wood-women. 
 
284 GODDESSES. 
 
 de quibus) ait Gen.'-, Ilerodiam illam baptistae Christi interfectri- 
 cem, quasi reginam imo deam proponant ; asserentes, tertiam totiiis 
 mundi partem illi traditam : quasi haec merces fuerit prophetae 
 occisi, cum potius sint daemones, talibus praestigiis infelices mulier- 
 culas, bisque multum vituperabiliores viros, quia perditissimos, 
 decipientes. — A full and remarkable account of the medieval' 
 tradition, that was tacked on to Herodias, is contained in the Eei- 
 nardus 1, 1139—1164: : 
 
 I'raecipue sidus celebrant, ope cujus, ubi omnes 
 
 defuerant testes, est data Koma Petro, 
 traditaque injusto Fharaildis virgo labori ; 
 
 sed sanctifaciunt qualiacunque volunt. 
 Ilac famosus erat felixque fuisset Herodes 
 
 prole, sed infelix banc quoque laesit amor; 
 haec virgo, thalamos Baptistae solius ardens, 
 
 voverat hoc demto nuUius esse viri. 
 Offensus genitor, comperto proHs amore, 
 
 iiisontem sanctum decapitavit atrox. 
 Postulat afferri virgo sibi tristis, et affert 
 
 regius in disco tempora trunca cliens. 
 MoUibus allatum stringens caput ilia lacertis 
 
 perfundit lacrimis, osculaque addere avet ; 
 oscula captantem caput aufugit atque resujfflat, 
 
 ilia per impluvium turbine flantis abit. 
 Ex illo nimium memor ira Johannis eandem 
 
 per vacuum coeli flabilis urget iter : 
 moituus infestat miseram, nee vivus amarat, 
 
 non tameu banc penitus fata perisse sinunt. 
 Lenit honor luctum, minuit reverentia poenam, 
 
 pars hominum moestae tertia servit herae. 
 Quercuhus et corylis a noctis parte secunda 
 
 usque nigri ad galli carmina prima sedet. 
 Nunc ea nomen habet Fharaildis, Herodias ante 
 
 saltria, nee subiens nee subeunda pari. 
 Conf. Aelfrici homiliae 1, 486. Here we have Herodias described 
 as moesta liera cui pars tertia hominum servit, the reverential 
 homage she receives assuages her bitter lot ; only from midnight 
 
 1 Eallerini cannot understand this Gen. ; is it Gennadius (MassUiensis), a 
 wTiter at tke end of the fifth century 1 
 
HERODIAS, DIANA, ABUNDI.V, 285 
 
 till first cockcrow she sits on oaks and hazel-trees, the rest of her 
 time she floats through the empty air. She was inflamed by love 
 for John, which he did not return ; when his head is brought in on 
 a charger, she would fain have covered it with tears and kisses, but 
 it draws back, and begins to blow hard at her ; the hapless maid is 
 whirled into empty space, and there she hangs for ever.' Why she 
 was afterwards (ia the twelfth century) called Pharaildis, is not 
 explained by the life of a saint of that name in Flanders (Acta 
 sanct. 4 Jan.) ; nor does anything that the church tells of John the 
 Baptist and Herodias (Acta sanct. 24 Jun.) at all resemble the 
 contents of the above story : Herodias is Herod's wife, and the 
 daughter is named Salome. Pharaildis on the contrary, M. Dutch 
 Verelde,^ leads us to ver Elde = fraii Hilde or frau ITulde, as in a 
 doc. of 1213 (Bodmanns Eheing. alterth. p. 94) there occurs a 
 'miles dictus Verhildehurg,' and in a Frisian doc. of the 14th 
 century a Ferhildema, evidently referring to the mythic Hildburg. 
 Still more remarkable seems a M. Dutch name for the milky way, 
 Vroneldenstraet = frauen Hilde or Hulde strasse (street, highway). 
 So that the poet of the Eeinardus is entirely in the right, when 
 Herodias sets him thinking of Pharaildis, and she again of the 
 mUky way, the sidus in his first line. 
 
 There is no doubt whatever, that quite early in the Mid. Ages 
 .the christian mythus of Herodias got mixed up with our native 
 heathen fables : those notions about dame Molda and the ' furious 
 host ' and the nightly jaunts of sorceresses were grafted on it, the 
 Jewish king's daughter had the part of a heathen goddess assigned 
 her (Eatherius says expressly : imo dea), and her worship found 
 numerous adlierents. In the same circle moves Diana, the lunar 
 deity of night, the wild huntress ; Diana, Herodias and Holda 
 
 ' This reference to the turho (the whirlwind of his blast), looks mythical 
 and of high antiquity. Not only did Ziu or Zio, once a deity, become with the 
 christians a name for the whirlwind, p. 'IQZ (and Pulloineken too may have to 
 do with Phol, p. 229) ; but to this day such a wind is accounted for in Lower 
 Saxony (about Celle) by the dancing Herodias whirling about in the air. Else- 
 where the raising of it is ascribed to the devil, and ofi^ensive epithets are 
 hurled at him, as in the Saalfeld country : ' Schweinezahl fahret,' there goes 
 swine-tail (Praetorius, Rtibezahl 3, 120), and on the Ebon mts. : ' Sauzagel,' 
 80w-tail (Schm. 4, 110), to shew contempt for the demon, and abate his fury 
 (see Suppl.). I shall bring in some other stories, when treating of the wind- 
 sprites. 
 
 * Ganneart, strafrecht 153-5. Bjig. mus, 6, 319. Conf. Vergode for frau 
 Gaude. 
 
286 GODDESSES. 
 
 stand for one another, or side by side. Diana is denounced by 
 Eligius (Superst. A) ; the passage in the decrees of councils 
 (Superst. C) has found its way into many later writings (Superst. 
 D, G) : like Herodias, she appears as domina and hera. The life of 
 St. Caesarius Arelatensis mentions a ' daemonium, quod rustici 
 Bianam vocant,' so that the name was familiar to the common 
 people ; that statue of Diana in Greg. Tur. 8, 15 I have spoken of 
 on p. 110. But the strongest testimony to the wide diffusion of 
 Diana's cultus seems to be a passage in the life of St. EliHan, the 
 apostle of the East Franks (-f 689) : Gozbertusdux Franciae . . . 
 volens crebra apud se tractare inquisitione, utrum Ejus quem 
 (Kilianus) praedicabat, vel Dianae potius cultus praeferendus esset. 
 Diana namque apud ilium in summa veneratione habebatur 
 (Surius 4, 133 ; Acta sanct. BoUand. 8 JuL (p. 616). As it is 
 principally in Thuringia, Franconia and Hesse that frau Holda 
 survives, it is not incredible that by Diana in the neighbourhood 
 of Wiirzburg, so far back as the 7th century, was meant no other 
 than she. 
 
 Lastly, the retrospective connexion of this Herodias or Diana 
 with personages in the native paganism, whether of Celtic or 
 Teutonic nations, receives a welcome confirmation from the legend 
 of a domina Ahundia or dame Haionde, supplied by French 
 authorities of the Mid. Ages. A bishop of Paris, Guihehnus 
 Alvemus (Guillaume d' Auvergne), who died 1248, speaks thus of 
 nymphs and lamiae (opera. Par. 1 674, fol. 1. 1036) : ' Sic et daemon, 
 qui praetextu mulieris, cum aliis de nocte domos et cellaria dicitur 
 frequentare, et vocant eam Satiam a satietate, et dominam 
 Ahundiam pro abundantia,^ quam eam praestare dicunt domibus, 
 quas frequentaverit : hujusmodi etiam duemones; quas dominas 
 vocant vetulae, penes quas error iste remansit, et a quibus sobs 
 creditur et somniatur. Dicunt has dominas edere et bibere de escis 
 et potibus, quos in domibus inveniunt, nee tamen consumptionem 
 aut imminutionem eas facere escarum et potuum, maxime si vasa 
 escarum siut discooperta et vasa poculorum non obstructa 
 eis in nocte relinquantur. Si vero operta vel clausa inveniunt 
 seu obstructa, inde nee comedunt nee bibunt, propter quod 
 infaustas et infortunatas reUnquunt, nee satietatem nee ahurir 
 
 • The Romans also personified Abundaniia as a superior being, but she 
 only appears on coIbh, she had neither temples nor altars. 
 
HEEODIAS, DIANA, ABUNDIA. 287 
 
 dantiam eis praestantes.' The lilfe is repeated on p. 1068, but 
 on p. 1066 we read : ' Sunt et aliae ludificationes malignorum 
 spirituum, quas faciunt interdum in nemoribus et locis amoenis 
 et fi'ondosis arboribus, ubi apparent in similitudine puellarum aut 
 matronarum ornatu muliebri et candido, interdum etiani in stabulis, 
 cum luminaribus cereis, ex quibus apparent distillationes in comis 
 et collis equorum, et comae ipsorum dUigenter tricatae, et audies 
 eos, qui talia se vidisse fatentur, dicentes veram ceram esse, quae 
 de luminaribus hujusmodi stUlaverat.^ De illis vero substantiis, 
 quae apparent in domibus, quas dominas nocturnas, et frincipem 
 earum vocant dominam Abundiam, pro eo quod domibus, quas 
 frequentant, abundantiam bonorum temporalium praestare putan- 
 tur, non aliter tibi sentiendum est, neque aliter quam quemadmo- 
 dum de Ulis audivisti. Quapropter eo usque invaluit stultitia ho- 
 minum et insania vetularum, ut vasa vini et receptacula ciborum 
 discoc perta relinquant, et omnino nee obstruant neque claudant eis 
 noctibus, quibus ad domos suas eas credunt adventuras, ea de 
 causa videlicet, ut cibos et potus quasi paratos inveniant et eos 
 absque dif&cultate apparitionis pro beneplacito sumant. 
 The Eoman de la rose (Meon 18622 seq.) informs us : 
 
 qui les cine sens ainsinc deqoit 
 par les fantosmes, quil reqoit, 
 dont maintes gens par lor folie 
 cuident estre par nuit estries 
 errans auecques da7ne Habonde, 
 et dient, que par tout le monde 
 li tiers enfant de nacion 
 sunt de ceste condidon. 
 I- qu'il vont trois fois en la semaine, 
 
 si cum destinee les maine, 
 et par tous ces ostex se boutent, 
 ne cles ne barres ne redoutent, 
 ains sen entrent par les fendaces, 
 par chatieres et par crevaces, 
 et se partent des cors les ames 
 et vont aveo les bonnes dames 
 par leus forains et par maisons, 
 et le pruevent par tiex raisons : 
 
 ' Conf. Deutsche sagen, no. 122. 
 
238 GODDESStS. 
 
 que les diversitcSs veues 
 ne sunt pas en lor Hz venues, 
 ains sunt lor ames qui laborent 
 et par le monde ainsinc sen corent, &c, 
 18G86. Dautre part, que li tiers du monde 
 aille ainsinc avec dame ffabond-e, 
 si cum voles vielles le pruevent 
 par les visions que truevent, 
 dont convient il sans nule faille 
 que trestous li mondes i aille. 
 
 As Eatherius and the Eeinardus represent a third part of the world 
 as given up to the service of Herodias, the same statement is here 
 applied to dame Habonde ; Hercdias and Ahuridia are therefore 
 one. A connexion between Abundia and our native Folia, Fidla 
 (fulness) will presently be made apparent. The term enfans may- 
 refer either to the uncliristened lobes above, or to the great 
 multitude of heathen, who remained shut out of the christian 
 community. It had long been the custom to divide the known 
 world into three parts.^ The domina clothed in white reminds one 
 of Perahta the bright, the bona domina or bona socia^ of Holda the 
 gracious, and Herodias haunting the oaks by night of the Old 
 German tree-worship. They are originally benignant beings all, 
 whose presence brings prosperity and plenty to mankind ; hence to 
 them, as to friendly spirits or gods, meat and drink are set for a 
 sacrifice in the night season. Holda, Berhta and Werra seem to 
 love a particular kind of food, and look for it on their feast-day. 
 
 7. Heuoda (Hrede). Ostaea (Eastee). 
 
 Thus far we have got acquainted with the names and worship 
 of several goddesses, who were honoured under different names by 
 particular tribes of Teutondom (Nerdu, Hludana, Tanfana, Holda, 
 Berhta), and others resembling them have only become known to 
 us under foreign appellations (Isis, Diana, Herodias, Abundia) : of 
 aU these (so long as I consider still doubtful the connexion of 
 
 1 Agitur pars tertia niiiiidi. Ovid. met. 5, 372 ; tertia pars mnndi fuinans 
 perit Africa ilammis, Coripp. 1. 47 : tertia pars orbia Europa vocatur, Wal- 
 tliar. 1. 
 
 ■■? Is the name socia connected with the Satia in Guilielmus Alvernus ? 
 
HEUODA, OSTARA. 289 
 
 ' Erce ' with our Herke) not one is to be found among the Anglo- 
 Saxons. 
 
 On the other hand, the Anglo-Saxon historian tells 'us the 
 names of two beings, whom he expressly calls ancient goddesses of 
 his people, but of whose existence not a trace is left amongst other 
 Germans. A clear proof, that here as well as there, heathenism 
 was crowded with divinities of various shape and varying name, 
 but who in their characteristics and cultus corresponded to one 
 another. Why this multiplicity of form should prevail more in the 
 case of the female deities than of the male, can be fairly explained, 
 I think, by the greater respect paid to the chief masculine 
 divinities: they were too famous and too highly thought of, for 
 their principal names not to have penetrated all branches of the 
 nation. 
 
 The two goddesses, whom Beda (De temporum ratione cap. 13) 
 cites very briefly, without any description, merely to explain the 
 months named after them, are Hrede and Edstre, March taking its 
 Saxon name from the first, and April from the second : ' Bhedmo- 
 nath a dea Ulorum Rheda, cui in iUo sacrificabant, nominatur.' — 
 'Antiqui Anglorum populi, gens mea . . . apud eos Aprilis 
 Esturinonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a 
 dea iUorum, quae Eostra vocabatur et cui in iUo festa celebrantur 
 (?), nomen habuit ; a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cogno- 
 minant, consueto antiquae dbservationis vocabulo gaudia novae 
 solennitatis vocantes.' ^ 
 
 It would be uncritical to saddle this father of the church, who 
 everywhere keeps heathenism at a distance, and tells us less of it 
 than he knows, with the invention of these goddesses. There is 
 nothing improbable in them, nay the first of them is justified by 
 clear traces in the vocabularies of other German tribes. March is 
 in OHG. lenzinmauot, named after the season lenzo, lengizo 
 [lengthening of days] f but it may have borne other names as weU. 
 Oberlin quotes^ from Chorion's Ehrenkranz der teutschen sprach, 
 Strassb. 1644, p. 91, Retmonat for March; and a doc. of 1404 
 
 ' One MS. (Kolmesen opusc. p. 287 ; this ref. given in Rathlef s Hoya and 
 Piepholz 3, 16) reads : Veteres Anglican! populi vocant Estormonath paschalem 
 mensem, idque a dm, quadam cui Teutonici populi in paganismo sacrificia 
 fecerunt tempore mensis Aprilis, quae Eostra est appellata. 
 
 ' Gramm. 2, 510. Langez. Diut. 3, 88. 
 
 19 
 
290 GODDESSES. 
 
 (WeistL 1, 175) has liediinonet, it is not clear for what mouth. 
 When we find in the Appenzeller reimchronik p. 174 : 
 
 In dem Bedimoriet 
 
 die puren kamen donet, 
 
 do der merzenmonat gieng herzu 
 
 an ainem morgen fru 
 
 do zundentz Eorschach an ; 
 
 here Bedimonet seems, by the displacement so common in the 
 names of months, to be the month before March, as Choiion uses 
 his Betmonat for February as well Von Arx explains the word 
 quite differently, and I think untenably, by a mountain. Apart 
 from the Swiss term altogether, I believe the AS. name was 
 really Rreff or Hrecfe = OHG. Hruod or Uruodd, and derived, 
 as I said on p. 20G, from hruod gloria, fama ; so that we get the 
 meaning of a shining and renownful goddess. The Trad. fuld. 2, 
 196, furnish a female name HruadS., gen. Hruadun, and in 1, 42. 2, 
 26, another nom. Hruadun, this last apparently formed like ON. 
 Fiorgyn and Hlodyn. The AS. adj. hreS or hreSe means crudelis 
 (Caedm. 136, 21. 198, 2), perhaps victoriosus ? I am in doubt 
 about hreS, sigehrgS, guShreS, Beow. 5146. 974. 1631 ; they waver 
 between an adj. and a subst. sense, and in the last passage, 
 ' Beowulfe wearS guShreS gifeSe,' victoria is evidently meant. 
 When the AS. Monologue, line 70, translates Martius by reSe, this 
 may stand for hrSSe. 
 
 We Germans to this day call April ostermonai, and Sstarmdnoth 
 is found as early as Eginhart (temp. Car. Mag.). The great 
 christian festival, which usually falls in April or the end of March, 
 bears in the oldest of OHG-. remains the name Sstard gen. -<in -^ it 
 is mostly found in the plural, because two days (ostartaga, 
 aostortag^,, Diut. 1, 266*) were kept at Easter. This Ostard, like 
 the AS. Edstre, must in the heathen religion have denoted a higher 
 being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the christian 
 teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own 
 grandest anniversaries.^ All the nations bordering on us have 
 retained the Biblical 'pascha'; even Ulphilas writes paska, not 
 
 1 T. 157, 1. 3. 5. O. i. 22, 8. iii. 6, 16. iv. 9, 8. Hymn. 21, 4. Fragm. 
 tlieol. xiv. 17. 
 
 ^ Conf. Ideler's clironologie 1, 516. 
 
ziSA. 291 
 
 austro, though he must have known the word ; ^ the ITorse tongue 
 also has imported its p§,skir, Swed. pask, Dan. paaske. The OHG. 
 adv. dstar expresses movement toward the rising sun (Gramm. 3, 
 205), likewise the ON. austr, and probably an AS. eastor and Goth, 
 austr. In Latin the identical auster has been pushed round to the 
 noonday quarter, the South. In the Edda a male being, a spirit of 
 light, bears the name of Austri, so a female one might have been 
 called Austra ; the High German and Saxon tribes seem on the 
 contrary to have formed only an Ostard, Edstre (fem.), not Ostaro, 
 Eastra (masc).^ And that may be the reason why the Norsemen 
 said paskir and not austrur : they had never worshipped a goddess 
 Austra, or her cultus was already extinct. 
 
 Ostara, Edstre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the 
 radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and 
 blessing,' whose meaning could be easily adapted to the resurrec- 
 tion-day of the christian's God. Bonfires were lighted at Easter, 
 and according to a popular belief of long standing, the moment the 
 sun rises on Easter Sunday morning, he gives three joyful leaps, he 
 dances for joy (Superst. 813). Water drawn on the Easter 
 morning is, like that at Christmas, holy and healing (Superst. 775. 
 804) ; here also heathen notions seems to have grafted themselves 
 on great christian festivals. Maidens clothed in white, who at 
 Easter, at the season of returning spring, show themselves in clefts 
 of the rock and on mountains, are suggestive of the ancient goddess 
 (see Suppl). 
 
 \ 8. ZiSA. 
 
 Beda's account of Hrede and Eastre* shall be followed now by 
 a statement reaching back to the 11th century, and deserving 
 attention if only for its great age, concerning a goddess Zisa 
 worshipped at Augsburg in the heathen time. 
 
 ' For oriens he chooses urruns, for occidens sagqs, i.e., rising and sinking of 
 the sun, not that he did not know viatr (versus occidentem), root vis (repose, 
 stiUness, evening). 
 
 ' Composite proper names : Ostroberht, Austroberta, Austregisil, Ostro- 
 gotha (like Visigotha, Vistrimund, Westeralap, Sundarolt, Nordberaht, &c. &e.) 
 
 ' In the Basque language ostara means May. the budding leafing time, 
 from ostoa, leaf, foliage : a mere accidental resemblance. 
 
 ^ I might introduce into the text an AS. Blcen, if I knew any more about 
 her than what Lye's glossary quotes from Cod. Cot. 65, 87 : liicenne Diana. It 
 19 formed like }/inen (ancilla), wylpen (bellona), &c. 
 
292 GODDESSES. 
 
 The Cod. Monach. Lat. 2 (of 113.5), and the Cod. Emmeran. F. 
 IX. fol. 4* (of 12-1 3th cent.) contain identic ' Excerpta ex Gallica 
 lustoria '} 
 
 ' Dum hec circa renum geruntur, in noricorum (interlined 
 bawariorum, Cod. Vind. CII. pauwarioram) finibus grave vulnus 
 romanus populus accepit. quippe germanorum gentes (interlined 
 siiem), que retias occupaverant, non longe ab alpibus tractu pari 
 patentibus campis, ubi duo rapidissimi amnes [interlined licvs et 
 werthaha (CII vuerdaha)] inter se confluunt, in ipsis rwricis finibus 
 (interlined terminis 'bawariorum et suevorum) civitatem non quidem 
 muro sed vallo fossaque cinxerant, quam appellabant zizarim (fill. 
 cizarim) ex nomine dee cize^ quam religiosissime eolebant. cujus 
 templiun quoque ex lignis harbarico ritu constrictum, poatquam eo' 
 colonia romana, deducta est, inviolatum permansit, ac vetustate 
 collapsum nomen* colli servavit. banc urbem titus annius pretor 
 ad arcendas barbarorum excursiones kal. sextilibus (interhned 
 exacta jam estate) exercitu circumvenit. ad meridianam oppidi 
 partem, que sola a continenti (interlined Kttoribus) erat, pretor ipse 
 cum legione mariia castra operosissime communivit. ad occiden- 
 tem vero, qua barbarorum adventus erat, dvar, bSgudis regis filius, 
 cum equitatu omni et auxiliaribus viacedonum copiis inter flumen et 
 vaUum loco castris parum amplo infeUci temeritate extra flumen 
 (interlined werthaha) consedit. pulchra indoles, non minus romanis 
 quam greets disciplinis instructa. igitur quinquagesimo none die, 
 qua eo ventum est, cum is dies dee cize (CII. de^ ciz§) apud barbaros 
 celeberrimus, ludum et lasciviam magis quam fonnidinem ostentaret, 
 immanis barbarorum (interlined suevorum, CII. svivorum) multitude, 
 ex proximis sUvis repente erumpens ex improviso castra irrupit, 
 equitatum omnem, et quod miserius erat, auxilia sociorum delent. 
 avar,^ cum in hostium potestatem regie babilu vivus venisset, [sed 
 
 1 I owe their conununication to Schmeller's kindness. The same piece \i 
 found at Vienna in two forms : in the Cod. Lat. CII (olim hist. prof. 652) sec. 
 xi. inenntis fol. 79. 80 ; and in the Cod. CCXXVI (olim univ. 237) Eec. xii. 
 In hoth it stands between Jom. De reb. get. and De regn. succ. CII has 
 interlinear glosses and marginal notes (exactly like the Munich ilSS^ by a 
 scarcely later hand, which also writes the heading ' Excerptum ex Gallica 
 historia '. CCXXVI adopts the interlinears into the text, but otherwise agrees. 
 
 * On margin : ' Queni male poUuerat cultura nefaria dudum 
 gallus monticulum hunc tibi ciza tulit '. 
 
 ' On margin : ' post conditam nrbeni avgustnm a roftnanis '. 
 
 ' Marg. note : 'nt usque hodie ab incolis cizunberc nominetur'. 
 
 ' Murg. note : ' ex cujus vocabulo, quia ibi mactatus ct tumulatus est 
 chrHcesaveron (CII chrekasaverj nomen acctpit. grecus enim erat '. 
 
ziSA. 293 
 
 que apud barlaros reverentia ?J more pecudis ibidem mactatur.^ 
 oppidani vero non minori fortuna sed maiori virtute pretorem iu 
 auxilium sociis properantem adoriuntur. romani haud segniter 
 resistunt. duo principes oppidanorum habi7io^ et coccus^ in prijnis 
 pugnantes cadunt. et inclinata jam res oppidanorum esset, ni 
 maturassent auxilium ferre socii in altera ripa jam victoria potiti. 
 denique coadunatis viribus castra irrumpunt, pretorem, qui paulo 
 altiorem tumulum (interlined perleih) frustra ceperat, romana vi 
 resistentem obtruncant. legionem* divinam (interlined martiam), 
 ut ne nuncius cladis superesset, funditus delent. Verres solus 
 tribunus militum amne transmisso in proximis paludibus se 
 occultans' honestam mortem subterfugit. nee multo post sicilie 
 proconsul immani avaricia turpem mortem promeruit. nam cum se 
 magistratu abdicaret, judicio civium damnatus est.' 
 
 The same fragment, only without the interlined words and 
 without marginal additions, stands in Goldast's Eerum suev. script, 
 .aliquot veteres, Ulm 1727 fol. p. 3 under the rubric : ' Velleii Galli 
 fragmentum de victoria Suevorum contra Eomanos ' (conf. Haupts 
 zeitschr. 10, 291). It has the readings ' dea Gisa ' and ' Oisara,' 
 and for Caccus ' Cacus,' but agrees in the other names. Further, 
 for loco parum amplo, 1 find the better reading apto. The paren- 
 thesis ' sed — reverentia ' is wanting, so is the concluding sentence 
 • nam — damnatus est '. I should believe that Goldast had borrowed 
 it all from Wolfg. Lazius's Eeip. Eom. libri xii. Francof. 1591 p. 
 52, if this copy had not some variations too ; the heading runs : 
 ' Velleii excerpta ex Gallica historia ' ; it has Cisara, but Ciz^, also 
 ' Habbino, Caccus, amplo,' and concludes with promeruit. Lazius 
 
 ' On margin : 
 
 ' Hoc nomen terris bogudis dat regia prolea 
 grecavar (UII grecus auar), pecudis de suevis more litatus.' 
 2 On margin : 
 
 ' Prefectus habeno se -victum hicque sepultum 
 perpetuo mentis nomine notificat. 
 qui jnxta montem occisus et sepultus nomen monti habenonberch dedit, quern 
 rustici havenenberch (CII havenonperch) dicunt.' 
 
 ' CII : ' a cujus nomine putamus iekingen nominari.' 
 
 * On margin : ' de hac ibi perdita legione adhuc perleich nominatUT.' 
 Then in smaller but contemporaneous ^vriting : 
 
 ' Indicat hie coUis romanam nomine cladem 
 
 martia quo legio tota simul periit. 
 subdidit hunc rome prepes victoria petro, 
 hoc sibimet templum qui mode constituit.' 
 ' On margin : ' hie quia in paludibus adjacentibus latuit, laciu iierisse hue 
 usque nomen dedit '. 
 
294 GODDESSES. 
 
 says : ' quam nos historiam in pervetusto codice memlDran. literis 
 antiquissimis scriptam reperimus ' ; that would be the sixth MS. 
 known hitherto, and copies must have been pretty numerous in the 
 ll-12th centuries. The one that Goldast had belore him may 
 probably have been the oldest. 
 
 Either one or the other of them, both Otto von Freisingen and 
 the author (or continuator) of the Auersberg chronicle seem to have 
 had before them. The former tries to connect the story with 
 QuintUius Varus (instead of Verres), and after relating his over- 
 throw, adds (chron. 3, 4) : ' Tradunt Augustenses banc caedem ibi 
 factam, ostenduntque in argumentum collem ex ossibus mortuorum 
 compactum, quern in vulgari perleieh (Mone, anz. 1, 2.56), eo quod 
 legio ibi perierit, usque hodie vocant, vicumque ex nomine Vari ap- 
 pellatum monstrant '. The Auersberg chronicler's account, though 
 he almost verbally adopts the older fragment, I hold it needful to 
 insert here, because the marginal glosses are curiously interwoven 
 with the text, and referred to ' discovered inscriptions on stone '} 
 
 De Augusta Vindelicorum vel Ehetiae. sicut ex scriptis veterum 
 colligitur haec ci vitas tria nomina accepit. Germanorum quippe 
 gentes primum considentes in partibus Ehetiae, quae nunc est pars 
 Sueviae, non longe ab alpibus in planitie, loco tamen munito propter 
 coneursum duorum rapidorum fluminum, banc urbem construxerunt, 
 et non muris sed fossatis eam firmaverunt, et ex nomine deae Zizae, 
 quam religiosissime colebant, Zizerim eam nominabant. hujus 
 quoque deae templum ex lignis barbarico ritu constructum, etiam 
 postquam Romani eam incolere coeperunt, inviolatum permansit. 
 at vetustate collapsum nomen colli servavit, in quo postmodiun in 
 lapide exsculpti hi versus sunt reperti : 
 
 quern male poUuerat cultura nefaria dudum 
 gallus monticulum hunc tibi Ziza tulit. 
 unde usque in praesens ab incoUs idem monticulus Zizenberg no- 
 minatur. apud banc urbem Eomani deleti sunt magna caede. 
 nam Titv^ Annius praetor ad arcendas barbarorum excursiones 
 cum exercitu in kaL August! eam circundedit, ipseque ad meri- 
 dianam oppidi partem, quae sola patebat, castra sua cum legione 
 Martia operosissime communivit. ad occidentem vero ultra 
 fluvium, ubi Suevis aut barbaris aditus patebat, Avar Bogudis regis 
 
 1 Chron. Conradi ursperg. Argent. 1532, p. 308. ed. 1609, p. 225. 
 
ziSA. 295 
 
 filius cum omni equitatu et auxilio macedonico consedit. igitvir 
 quiuquagesimo nono die, quam eo ventum est, cum is dies deae Ziz^ 
 apud barbaros celeberrimus esset, ludum et lasciviam magis quam 
 formidinem cives ostentarunt. tunc etiam immanis barbarorum 
 multitude, quae de partibus Sueviae illuc convenerat, de proximis 
 silvis repente erumpens ex improvise castra irrupit et Avaris 
 exercitum delevit. ipsum quoque Avar regio habitu indutum 
 vivum comprehendentes crudeliter in modum pecoris mactaverunt. 
 a quo in loco, ubi mactatus est, vicus usque hodie appellatus est 
 Criechesaveron, in quo hi versus reperti sunt : 
 
 his nomen terris Bogudis dat regia proles 
 
 Graecus Avar, pecudis de Suevis more litatus. 
 oppidani vero non minori fortuna sed majori virtute praetorem 
 in auxilium sociis properantem invadunt, quibus Romani hand 
 segniter resistunt. in quo conflictu duo principes oppidanorum 
 Eabino et Caccus in primis pugnantes cadunt, et inclinata jam res 
 esset oppidanorum, ni maturassent auxilium ferre Sioevi in altera 
 ripa victoria jam potiti. de nominibus autem iUorura principum 
 interfectorum exstant adhuc loca denominata, nam rustici de Ila- 
 binone vocant monticulum Eabindberg, in quo hi versus reperti 
 sunt: 
 
 praefectus ffabino se victum atque sepultum 
 perpetuo mentis nomine notificat. 
 a Cacco vero dicunt Gegginen denominari. denique coadunatis 
 Suevis et oppidanis castra irrumpunt, et praetorem, qui paulo al- 
 tiorem tumulum frustra ceperat, romana vi resistentem obtruncant, 
 legionemque divinam, ut nee nuncius cladis superesset, funditus 
 delent. de hac perdita legione adhuc perlaich, quasi perdita legio, 
 nominatur, ubi postmedum hi versus sunt reperti : 
 
 indicat hie coUis remanam nomine cladem, 
 martia quo legio tota simul periit. 
 
 solus Verres tribunus militum amne transmisso in proximis palu- 
 dibus se occultans honestam mortem subterfugit, lacui Vernse 
 hucusque nomen dedit. versus : 
 
 das nomen lacui Verres quo tu latuisti. 
 hie tamen non multo post Siciliae proconsul effectus turpem mor- 
 tem promeruit. nam cum se magistratu abdicaret judicio civium 
 damnatus est. propter hunc Veri-em tradunt Augustenses banc 
 caedem fuisse eandem, quam sub Augusto factam quidam descri- 
 
296 GODDESSES. 
 
 bunt, sed Varum ilium nominant his verbis : ea tempestate Varus, 
 romano more, superbe et avare erga subditos se gerens a Germanig 
 deletus est. 
 
 Some later writers also mention the tradition. About 1373 — 
 91, an ecclesiastic, Kiichlin, composed in rhyme a history of 
 Augsburg ^ for the burgomaster Peter Egen the Young, who wished 
 to have his house painted with illustrations from it. Cap. 2, fol. 
 99 says of the Swabians : 
 
 Sie bawten einen tempel gross darein 
 zu eren (in honour of) Zise der abgottin, 
 die sie nach heidnischen sitten (after heathen ways) 
 anbetten zu denselben zeiten (adored in those days). 
 Die stat ward genennt (city got named) auch Zisaris 
 nach der abgottin (after the goddess), das was der pris. 
 Der tempel als lang stund unversert (stood uninjured), 
 bis im von alter was der val beschert (its fall decreed), 
 und da er von alter abgieng (as from age it passed away), 
 der berg namen von im empfieng (the hill took name), 
 daruf gestanden was (whereon had stood) das werck, 
 und haist noch hilt (hight still to-day) der ZisenhercJc. 
 Oonf. Keller's Fastn. sp., p. 1361. Sigism. Meisterlin, in his Augs- 
 burg chronicle ^ (which is in print from the 8th chap, of bk 1), 
 treats of this Oisa in chaps. 5-6 of bk 2. In the unprinted chap. 4 
 of bk 1, he unmistakably refers to Kiichlin, and again at the end of 
 chap. 7 : ' das er auch melt (tells) von der gottin Cisa, die auch 
 genent wird Cizais, das sy geert habend (they honoured her) die 
 doch aus Asia warend ; dawider seind die andern, die von Cysa 
 schreibent, die sprechent, das sy die VindeUci habend nach 
 schwebischen sitten angebettet. von der gottin wirst du herriach 
 mer haben, ob got wil (buch 3. cap. 5. 6).' (See SuppL) 
 
 Hopeless contradictions lie on the face of that fragment. 
 Bogud, a Punic ship's-captain, who lived in the year 494 of Eome, 
 or 260 B.C.,^ is here turned into a Macedonian king ; and his son 
 Avar is made contemporary with the Ciceronian Verres of 200 
 years after, or even of the still later Varus. Yet Bogudes and 
 Varus do occur as contemporaries of Pompey in Dio Cassius 41, 42. 
 
 1 Cod. Monach. Lat. 61 ; likewise sent me by Schmeller. 
 
 " Augsb. 1522 fol. Meisterlin wrote it in 1456, and died about 1484. 
 
 3 Niebuhr's Eom. Hirft. 3, 677. 
 
zisA. 297 
 
 What Titus Annius was meant by the ' praetor,' I cannot guess ; 
 there is a consul of that name A.U.C. 601 and 626, or B.C. 153, 128. 
 Velleius Paterculus can never have written this sort of thing.^ 
 
 But all the rubbish it contains does not destroy the value of 
 the remarkable story to us. The comparatively pure Latinity is 
 enough to show that it was not composed so late as the twelfth 
 century ; Lazius and Velser ^ are inclined to place it in the Caro- 
 hngian period, and it looks like the work of a foreigner, to whom 
 the Germans are heathens and barbarians. The glosses confirm the 
 local connexion of the whole tradition with Augsburg and its 
 neighbourhood ; and not only the Latin verses, but the German 
 forms werthaha (E. Wertach), cizunberc, habino, habinonberc, look 
 too old for the 12th century. Habino (Hepino), Habinolf, is an 
 authentic OHG. man's name : C'acus is unknown to me, Cacan, 
 Cagan would seem more vernacular, and the derived local name 
 Geginen leads up to it. Some of the names quoted are preserved 
 to this day: the eminence in the middle of the city, next the senate- 
 house, is still called Perlach, on which the monastery and church 
 of St. Peter were founded in 1064 ; so the verse ' subdidit hunc 
 (coUem) Eomae praepes victoria Petro ' was composed after that ? 
 The name perleih, which the legend derives from periens or perdita 
 legio, suggests the OHG. eikileihi, aigilaihi (phalanx), Gl. ker. 124. 
 Diut. 1, 223 ; and in other compounds we find leih in a variety of 
 senses.* Zisenberg and Havenenberg are names no longer heard, 
 while Pfersen (Veris-sg) MB. 33^ 108 an. 1343, and Kriegshaber 
 are well known villages. Whatever may be the explanation of the 
 older and corrector form Criechesaveron, it is very plain that the 
 name of the place Criahhes (graeci) avard (imago, conf. pp. 86, 95, 
 yet also avaro proles) first suggested ' Graecus Avar,' as well as 
 Habinonberc the hero ' Habino '. The Auersberg chronicler's state- 
 ment, that the Latin verses were found carved in aU those places, 
 must be rejected. 
 
 We find then, that tradition, true to her wont, has mixed up 
 
 1 G. Jo. Vossius, De hist. Lat. 1, 24. 
 
 2 Marci Velseri rer. Augustanar. libri 8. 1594 fol. p. 45. 
 
 ' Henisoh p. 293 explains ' berlach ' at Augsburg ' ab ursis in publica 
 cayea ibi altis,' a thing whicb was done in other towns, e.g. Bern. On the 
 Perlach tower there was fixed a figure of St. Michael, which came into view 
 every time the clock struck on Michaelmas-day ; in earlier times a wooden 
 temple of Isis (p. 294, ex lignis) is said to have stood on the spot ; Fischart's 
 geschichtkl. 30* : ' der amazonischen Augspurger japetisch fraw Uysen '. 
 
298 GODDESSES. 
 
 fact and fiction ; the great point is, that she brings ns tidings of a 
 Suevic goddess. Cisa seems the older and better spelling, and Ciza 
 would be harder to explain. Now from this name of the goddess 
 we can hardly derive that of the town Cisara, supposing it to be a 
 purely German derivative ; names of places are never formed with 
 such a termination from male or female proper names. It seems 
 more likely that Cisara = Cisae ara, from the altar and temple of 
 the goddess : and later writers might corrupt Cisaram into Zizarim, 
 Zizerua We read that she was most devoutly (religiosissime) 
 honoured by the Suevi, her aimiversary is a grand festival devoted 
 to games and merrymaking, the day is precisely defined as the 
 fifty-ninth after Aug. 1, it fell therefore on Sept. 28. At such a 
 season might be held a feast of the divinity who had prospered the 
 harvest just gathered in. On Sept. 29 the christians kept one of 
 their grandest days, that of St. Michael, who often had to replace a 
 heathen god of war and victory. It seems worthy of notice, that 
 the Saxons had their great feast of victory about the same time, 
 viz., the beginning of October; WiduMnd pp. 423-4 With the 
 firet Sunday after Michaelmas the holy common-week was considered 
 in the Mid. Ages to begia ; Scheffer's Haltaus, pp. 141-2. na der 
 hilligen meinweJcen, Weisth. 3, 240. In the handing down of a 
 precise and doubtless genuine date, I feel the credibility of the story 
 confirmed. 
 
 Now who is dim ? One naturally thinks first of that Suevic 
 Ibis (p. 257) in Tacitus, whose name even is not unlike Cisa, Zisa, 
 if we make allowance for the mere dropping of the initial, an 
 omission which the Roman might be prompted to make by the 
 similarity of the Isis that he knew. But even if Zisa be totally 
 different from Isis, she can with aU the better right be placed by 
 the side of our Zio, in whom also was displayed a thoroughly 
 Swabian deity (p. 199) ; nay, together with our supposed feminine 
 Ziu (p. 203) there may have been a collateral form Zisd, so that her 
 ZisH/nherg would exactly correspond to the god's Ziewesbei^, Zisbeig 
 (see SuppL). Shall I bring forward a reason for this guess, which 
 shall be anything but far-fetched ? The Mid. Dutch name for the 
 third day of the week harl the curious form Disendach (p. 125), which 
 being of course a corruption of Tisendach brings tis at once to Tise 
 = Zisa. It is a matter for further researches to demonstrate,^ but 
 
 * Down in the Riess between the rivers Lech and Wertach, in the midst of 
 Sueves, at a time sunnosed to be before even the Komans settled in the i^oiii' 
 
FEIKKA. FEOUWA. 299 
 
 that three divinities, Zio, Zisa and Isis, are assigned to the Suevi, is 
 already abundantly clear. 
 
 8. Feikka (Feigg). Feouwa (Feeyja). 
 
 Our inquiry turns at length to the goddesses of the Norse 
 religious system, of whom unequivocal traces are forthcoming in 
 the rest of Teutondom. 
 
 Foremost of these are Frigg the wife of OSinn, and Freyja the 
 sister of Freyr, a pair easy to confound and often confounded 
 because of their similar names. I mean to try if a stricter etymo- 
 logy can part them and keep them asunder. 
 
 The name of Freyja seems the easier : it is motived no doubt 
 by the masculine Freyr (Gramm. 3, 33-5). Now as we recognised 
 Freyr in the Gothic frauja (p. 209), Freyja leads us to expect a 
 Gothic frauj6, gen. fraujons, both in the general sense of domina 
 mistress, and in the special one of a proper name FrdujS. The 
 notion of mistress, lady, never occurs in Ulphilas. To make up 
 for it, our OHG. remains express it very frequently, by fricwd, 
 frSwd; the MHG. frouwe, frou and our modern frau have preserved 
 themselves purely as common nouns, while the masc. frS has 
 vanished altogether. In meaning, frouwe and frau correspond 
 exactly to herre, herr, and are used like it both in addressing and 
 otherwise.^ Our minnesangers are divided as to the respective 
 superiority of frouwe (domina) and wlp (femina),^ wip expressing 
 more the sex, and frouwe the dignity ; to this day we feel frau to 
 be nobler than weib, though the French femme includes a good deal 
 of what is in our frau. It seems worthy of notice, that the poets 
 
 no Slav gods need be looked for ; neither does the Slav mythology know any- 
 thing at all certain about a Ziza, alleged to be Ceres mammosa (Boh. cic, cec, 
 Pol. eye, Enss. titi, mamma), in support of whom forsooth our Cisa lavst be 
 wronged ; see Hanusch 278. It were better to think of the MHG. name for 
 the zeisig (zeis-ohen, siskin) diu ztse, ein kleiniu zUe, Ms. 1, IQl*. Wh. 275, 
 30 ; which can scarcely have arisen from cicindela (glow-worm, Graflf 5, 711) ; 
 however, no connexion has come to light between the goddess and the form of 
 , a bird, though some little birds, the woodpecker, the titmouse, were held 
 sacred. 
 
 ' Like our frd, the Fr. dame (dominus) is now lost ; dame (domina) 
 remains, like our frau. The Span, keeps both don and dona, the Ital. only 
 donna. The Romance tongues express the masc. notion by two other words, 
 sm-e, sieur (p. 27) and seigneur, signore, senor, i.e., senior, out of which an Ital. 
 signora, a bpan. senora have sprouted, but no Fr. feminine. 
 
 " Walth. 4S-9. 57. Amgb. 45'' 46". Ms. 2, 182^ 216^ Doeen misc. 2, 
 278-9. froiiwe unde wlp, Parz. 302, 7 (see Suppl.). 
 
300 GODDESSES. 
 
 harp on thfe connexion of frau with frdh glad (fro-lic) and freudt 
 joy ; conf. Fridank 106, 5—8. Tit. 15, 35. 
 
 The AS. and OS. languages have done the very reverse : whUe 
 their masc. frea, fraho is used far more freely than the 0H6. 
 frouwo, they have developed no fem. by its side. The M. Dutch 
 dialect has vrauwe, vrouwe in addressing and as title (Huyd. op St. 
 1, 52. 356. Eein. 297. 731. 803. 1365. 1655. 2129. 2288. 2510- 
 32-57-64, &c.), seldomer in other positions, Eein 2291 ; the modem 
 vrouvj has extended its meaning even beyond the limits of our 
 frau. 
 
 All the above languages appear to lack the fem. proper name, 
 in contrast to the OX. which possesses Frcyja almost solely as the 
 goddess's name, and no freyja = hera. Yet we find hljisfreyja house- 
 wife, Ssem. 212'', and Snorri is still able to say that freyja is a 
 tignamafn (name of honour) derived from the goddess,^ that grand 
 ladies, rikiskonur, are freyjur, Sn. 29. Yngl. saga c. 13. The 
 readings fi'iir, fruvor here are corrupt, for the IceL form fr'A has 
 evidently slipped in from the Dan. frue, Swed. fru, and these from 
 (iermany. The goddess should be in Swed. Froa, Dan. i''ro«, which 
 I have never met with ; the Swed. folk-song of Thor's hammer 
 calls Freyja Frcnjenlorg (the Dan. Fridlefsborg), a Danish one has 
 already the foreign Fru. Saxo is silent about this goddess and 
 her father altogether ; he would no doubt have named her Froa. 
 Our Merseburg poem has now at last presented us with Frud — 
 Fr6wa, as the proper name of the goddess.* 
 
 Frigg gen. Friggjar, daughter of Fiorgynn and wife of OSinn, is 
 kept strictly apart from Freyja, gen. Freyju : in the Vafjirudnismal 
 and the beginning of the Grimnism3,l, O&inn and Frigg are plainly 
 presented as husband and wife ; and as Hroptr and Svafnir are 
 also names of OSinn, ' Hroptr ok Frigg, Svafnir ok Frigg ' in Seem. 
 
 1 As fraujo from Frauj6, and freyja from Freyja, a song of Frauenlob's, 
 Ettm. p. 1 12 makes w'tp come from a Frankish king Wippeo. Is this an echo 
 of a mythical Vvippo, Wibba (geneal. of Mercia, end of ch. VII) 1 Ths expla- 
 nation is as false as when the Edda derives vif from ve£a, for all a woman s 
 being practically a weaver and a peace-weaver ; we should have to assume two 
 roots, viban and veiban, side by side. The OX. proper name Vefreyja is also 
 worthy of note, Fomald. sbg. 2, 459. 3, 250. o94 
 
 ' The reasons why we may not take frdd here for a mere title (and so a 
 noun com.) are set forth in the Zeitschr. f. d. a. 2, 189. As for the u in the 
 MS., it looks to me quite plain, else Wackemagel's proposal to read Friia = 
 Frija, Friga, Fria, would be acceptable (friiu does occur in T. 93, 3). Friia 
 and Fria are alike welcome and suitable for my explanation. 
 
FRIKKA. rUOUWA. 301 
 
 91'' 93* express the same relation. Saxo Gram., p. 13, has correctly 
 ' Ffigga Othini conjux '. In prayers the two goddesses even stand 
 side by side : ' sva hialpi ther hollar vsettir, Frigg ok Freyja, ok 
 fleiri goS (more gods), sem Jifl. feldir mer f3,r af hondom!' Ssem. 
 240^ So they do at the burning of Baldr's body, Sn. 66, conf. 37. 
 And that Danish folk-song has likewise ' Frigge, Fru og Thor '. 
 
 The ON. usually has gg where the AS. has eg and OHG. cc or 
 kh, namely, where a suffix i had stood after g or k : thus, ON, 
 egg (acies), AS. ecg, OHG. ekki ; ON. bryggja (pons;, AS. brycge, 
 OHG. prukka; ON. hryggr (dorsum), AS. hrycg, OHG. hrukki. 
 In the same way we get an AS. Fricg, OHG. Frikka, Frikkia, even 
 farther away from Frouwd, than Frigg from Freyja. 
 
 It is the confounding of these two beings that will explain how 
 Adam of Bremen came to put Fricco instead of Fro for Freyr (supra, 
 p. 212) ; he would equally have said Fricca for Freyja. Fricco, 
 Friccho, Friccolf were in use as proper names in OHG. 
 
 And now it seems possible to explain, what is otherwise 
 unaccountable, why the sixth day of the week, dies Veneris, should 
 be called in ON. both Freyjudagv and also i^^r^adagr, in OHG. 
 never Frouwuntac, but Friatac, Frtgei&c, now Freita,^, in AS. 
 FrigediBg (for Fricgedseg ?), v. supra, pp. 123-6, and in Faroese 
 Frujggjadek (Lyngbye 532). 
 
 Among these forms the AS. presents no difficulty : in the OHG. 
 and ON. names we are puzzled by the absence of the guttural I 
 believe a solution is offered by that most important passage in 
 Paulus Diac. 1, 8 where Wodan's consort is named Frea, which can 
 only mean Frigg, not Freyja, as Saxo Gram, too, while expressly 
 grounding on Paulus, makes use of the form Frig : ' Paulo teste 
 auctore Frig dea '} 
 
 This Langob. Frea accords with the OHG. Frta, I take it to be 
 not only identical with Frigg, but the original form of the name ; 
 it has less to do with Freyja and the AS. masc. frea. As an ON. 
 hrii (pons) stands related to bryggia, so will fri to frigg. The 
 Langob. Frea is = Frea, Fria, Frija, Frea. Its root is suggested by 
 
 •* The AS. chroniclers (p. 128) borrow Frea from Paulus. "With Frea we 
 must above all connect the frea of the Laws of Liutpran.d 6, 40 and 67, and 
 this means uxor, domina, not libera, ingenua. Paulus therefore, in assigning 
 Frea to Wodan as his wife, has put her in the place of the Norse Frigg. The 
 substitution is often luade : thus, when Fornald. sbg. 2, 25-6 has ' heita a 
 Freyju ok k Hott (OSinn),' it is Frigg that should have been associated with 
 03inn, a^ is done in the Grimnisnial (see Suppl.). 
 
302 GODDESSES. 
 
 such words as: Goth, freis, frijis (liber), OHG. M; Goth, frijon 
 (amare), OHG. frion ; especially may we take into account the OS. 
 neut. M (mulier), Hel. 9, 21. 13, 16. 171, 21. 172, 1, the AS. 
 freo (mulier), Csedm. 29, 28. freolic cwSn (pulcra femina), Beow., 
 1275. freolicu meowle. Cod. exon. 479, 2. freolJc wif, Beow. 1222. 
 freoltc femne, Caedm. 12, 12. 54, 28.^ Now, as fri (liber) and our 
 frech, ON. frekr (protervus, impudens), fri (mulier formosa) and 
 ON. friSr (formosus), friSr (pax) seem to be aU related, even the 
 adjectival forms betray the shifting sense of the substantival.^ 
 
 We gather from all this, that the forms and even the meanings 
 of the two names border closely on one another. Freyja means the 
 gladsome, gladdening, sweet, gracious goddess, Fngg the free, 
 beautiful, loveable ; to the former attaches the general notion of 
 frau (mistress), to the latter that of fri (woman). Holda, from hold 
 (sweet, kind), and Eerhtu from berht (bright, beautiful) resemble 
 them both. The Swedish folk-song, in naming Froijenborg, calls 
 her ' den vana solen,' the beautiful sun. 
 
 Hence the mingling of their myths becomes the more con- 
 ceivable. Saxo, p. 13, relates how Frigga, to obtain gold for her 
 ornaments, violated conjugal fidelity; more minutely told, and 
 differing much in the details, the tale about Freyja in Sn. 356 
 appears to be the same adventure. On quite another ground 
 however the like offence is imputed to Frigg too (Ssem. 63. Yngl. 
 saga cap. 3). In Sn. 81 the valshamr of Freyja is spoken of, but in 
 113-9 that of Frigg ; the former is supported by Srem. 70. 
 
 Hence the variations in the name for the day of the week. The 
 OHG. Friatac ought clearly to be Friggjardagr in ON., and the 
 ON. Freyjudagr should be Frouwiintac in OHG. Hence too the 
 uncertainty in the naming of a constellation and of several plants. 
 Orion's belt, elsewhere named Jacob's staff and also spindle (coins 
 rfKaKarq), is called by the Swedish people Friggerock (colus Friggae, 
 Ihre, p. 663) or Frejeroch (Finn Magnusen 361"), as we noticed 
 before, or Frojas rock (Wieselgren. 383). The orchis odoratissima, 
 satyrium albidum, a plant from which love-potions are brewed, Icel. 
 Friggjargras, otherwise hionagras (herba conjugalis) ; the later 
 
 1 Conf. the MHG. wlplich wlp, Parz. 10, 17. MS. 1, 50" 202>. 2, 42" 
 182i> 258". wibln wip, MsH. 1, 359" ; similarly BriXinpai yvvaiKes, Od. 11, 
 386. 434. 15, 422. Hesiod scut. 4. 
 
 ^ We might connect Venus with the Goth, qino, qens, as venire with 
 qiman ; the Wei. given would answer to Qvenus for Venus ; the Ir. dia 
 oeine, Friday, from bean, hen (lady) = Venus = AS. cwin. 
 
FKIKKA. FEOUWA. 303 
 
 ohristian way of thinking has substituted Marij for the heathen 
 goddess. And the labouring man in Zealand speaks of the above 
 constellation also by the name of MariaroTc, Mariroh. Several 
 kinds of fern, adiantum, polypodium, asplenium, are named lady's 
 hair, maidenhair, Mariengras, capillus Veneris, Icel. Freijjuhdr, Dan. 
 Fruehaar,.Venussfraa, Venusgrds, Norweg. Marigras, &c. Even if 
 the Norse names here have sprung out of Latin ones, they show 
 how Venus was translated both by Frigg and Freyja and Mary. 
 As for Mary, not only was the highest conception of beauty carried 
 over to her, (frio sc6ni6sta, idiso sconiost, Hel. 61, 13. 62, 1), but 
 she was pre-emiaently our lady, frau, domina, donna. Conf. infra 
 /raMflschueli, ladycovr, Marienkalblein. In the nursery-tales she sets 
 the girls sewing and spinning like Holda and Berhta, and Holda's 
 snow appears to mean the same as Mary's snow (p. 268). 
 
 Before so close a contact of the two names I pause, doubting with 
 which of them to connect the strong and incontestable similarity of 
 certain divine names in the non-Teutonic [Aryan] languages. 
 First of all, an OBoh. gloss gives Priye for Aphrodite ; taking into 
 account the Goth, frijon, the OHG. friudil (lover), MHG. vriedel, 
 and the Slav, priyatel (friend), Boh. pijtel, Pol. przyiaciel, it must 
 have meant either Freyja the goddess of love and fruitfulness, or 
 Frigg the divine mother and patroness of marriage. In Sanskrit 
 also prt is to love, priyas a friend, Eamapriya dear-to-Lakshmi = 
 lotus, Yamapriya pleasing-to-Yama = ficus indica, priya in names 
 of gods = husband or wife. Pott's forsch. 2, 424-7. Then prithivi 
 is the earth, and matd Prithvi Terra mater, from whom comes fruit 
 and increase (conf Wei. pridd terra, Bopp's gloss. 223'') ; and the 
 word, though next of kin to prithus (TrXari;? latus), the earth being 
 named the broad and wide, seems nevertheless connected with 
 Fria, Frigg and fridu. 
 
 Frigg the daughter of Fiorgynn (p. 172), as consort of the highest 
 godji takes rank above all other goddesses : she knows the fates of 
 men (Ssem. 63''. Sn. 23. 64), is consulted by OSinn (Ssem. 31"), 
 administers oaths, handmaids fulfil her best, she presides over 
 
 1 Some of the AS. genealogies have ' Woden et Fredldf ejus uxor,' so that 
 Frigg = Frealaf (OHG. Froleip t) which fits in with that Fridlefshorg in the 
 Danish song, p. 300 ; others make Frealaf Woden's father. But in lieu of him 
 we have also Fri<SuM and FriSuwnlf, a freah confirmation of the connexion 
 between friS and the goddess's name. 
 
304 GODDESSBS. 
 
 marriages, and her aid is implored by the childless (Fornald. sog. 1, 
 117) ; hence hionagras is also Friggjargras. We may remember 
 those maidens yet unmarried (p. 264) being yoked to the plough of 
 the goddess whose commands they had too long defied. In some 
 parts of northern England, in Yorkshire, especially HaUamshire, 
 popular customs show remnants of the worship of Frieg. In the 
 neighbourhood of Dent, at certain seasons of the year, especially 
 autumn, the country folk hold a procession and perform old dances, 
 one called the giant's dance : the leading giant they name Woden, 
 and his wife Frigga, the principal action of the play consisting in 
 two swords being swung and clashed together about the neck of a 
 boy without hurting him.^ Still more remarkable is the clear 
 vestige of the goddess in Lower Saxony, where to the common 
 people she is fru Frehe,^ and plays the very parts which we saw 
 assigned to /raw Hoik (pp. 267-8): a strong argument, by the way, for 
 the divine nature of this latter. Then in Westphalia, legend may 
 derive the name of the old convent Freckenhorst, FricJcenhorst, from 
 a shepherd Frickio, to whom a light appeared in the night {like the 
 fall of snow by night at Hildesheim, p. 268) on the spot where the 
 church was to be built ; the name really points to a sacred hurst or 
 grove of Frecka fern., or of Fncko masc, whose site Christianity was 
 perhaps eager to appropriate ; conf. Frcecinghyrst, Kemble 1, 248. 
 2, 265. There is a Vreheleve, Fricksleben, not far from Magdeburg 
 (see SuppI). 
 
 Freya is the goddess most honoured after or along with Frigg ; 
 her worship seems to have been even the more prevalent and 
 important of the two, she is styled ' agsetuz af Asynjum,' Sn. 28, 
 and ' blotgySja,' Yngl. saga cap. 4, to whom frequent sacrifices were 
 offered. HeiSrekr sacrificed a boar to her, as elsewhere to Freyr, 
 and honoured her above all other gods.^ She was wedded to a 
 
 ^ Communicated by J. M. Kemble, from tbe mouth of an ' old Yorkshire- 
 man '. I account for the sword, by the ancient use of that weapon at weddings ; 
 conf. BA. 426-7. 431 ; esp. the old Frisian custom pp. 167-8, conf. Heimreich's 
 Nordfries. chron. 1, 63-4. In Swabia, as late as the 18th century, the brides- 
 men carried large swords with fluttering ribbons before the bride ; and there 
 is a striking similarity in the Esthonian custom (Superst. M. 1 3). 
 
 ^ Bccard de orig. Germ. p. 398 : Celebratur in plebe Saxonica fru Freh, 
 cui eadem munia tribuuntur, quae superiores Saxones Holdae suae adscribunt. 
 Fru Freke has just been unearthed again by Ad. Kuhn, namely in the Uker- 
 mark, where she is called Fruike, and answers to fru Harke in the Mittelmark 
 and fru Gode in the Prignitz. 
 
 ' Hei-vararsaga, ed. Verel. p. 138, ed. 1785 p. 124. By the editors of the 
 Fornald. sog. 1, 463 the passage is banished into the notes as an unsupported 
 reading;. 
 
FEKKA. FROUWA. 305 
 
 man (not a god, at least not an As), named Ocfr, but he forsook her, 
 and she sought him all over the world, among strange peoples, 
 shedding tears. Her name Syr (Sn. 37) would perhaps be Saurs in 
 Gothic : WUh. MiiUer has detected the very same in the Syritha of 
 Saxo Gram. p. 125, who likewise goes in search of Oihar. Freyja's 
 tears were golden, gold is named after them, and she. herself is 
 'grS,tfagr,' fair in greeting (weeping), Sn. 37. 119. 133; in our 
 nursery-tales pearls and flowers are wept or laughed out, and dame 
 Holla bestows the gift of weeping such tears. But the oldest 
 authorities make her warlike also ; in a waggon drawn by two cats 
 (as Tliorr drives two goats)^ she rides to the battlefield, 'rlSr til 
 vlgs,' and goes shares with OSinn in the slain (supra p. 133, conf. 
 Saem. 42^ Sn. 28. 57). She is called ' eigandi valfaUs ' (quae 
 sortitur caesos in pugna), Sn. 119; «aZ/re2(;'a, mistress of the chosen, 
 Nialss. p. 118, and of the valkyrs in general ; this seems to be 
 in striking accord with Holda or Berhta (as well as Wuotan) 
 adopting the 6a6«s tliat die unchristened into their host, heathen 
 goddesses the heathen souls. Freyja's dwelling is named Fdlk- 
 vdngr or FSlkvdngar, the plains on which the (dead ?) folk troop 
 together ; this imparts new credibility to the connexion of St. 
 Gertrude, whose minne is drunk, with Frowa, for the souls of the 
 departed were supposed to lodge with Gertrude the first night (p. 61). 
 Freyja's haU is Sessrymnir, the seat-roomy, capacious of much/o^/;; 
 dying women expect to find themselves in her company after death. 
 ThorgerSr in the Egilss., p. 103, refuses earthly nourishment, she 
 thinks to feast with Freyja soon : ' ok engan (n§,ttverS) mun ek 
 fyrr enn at Freyju '. Yet love-songs please her too, and lovers do 
 wen to call upon her : ' henni llkaSi vel mansongr, k hana er gott 
 at heita til asta,' Sn. 29. That the cat was sacred to her, as the 
 wolf to Wuotan, will perhaps explain why this creature is given to 
 night-hags and witches, and is called donner'aas, ivetteraas (-carrion). 
 When a bride goes to the wedding in fine weather, they say ' she 
 has fed the cat well,' not offended the favourite of the love-goddess. 
 The meaning of a phrase in Walther 82, 17 is dark to me :. ' weder 
 ritest gerner cine guldin katze, aid einen wunderlichen Gerhart 
 Atzen ? ' In Westphalia, however, the weasel was named froie, 
 
 ' Freyja has a waggon like Nerthus (mother of Freyr?), like Holda and 
 Freyr himself, Wuotan and Donar (pp. 105-7, 251-2-4, 275) ; the kingly waggon 
 is proper only to great exalted deities. 
 
 20 
 
306 GODDESSES. 
 
 Eeinli. clxxii, which I suppose means frau, fraulein (froiken), as 
 that ghostly creature was elsewhere called muhmlein (aunty), 
 fraulein, donna, donnola, titles sure to be connected with myths, 
 and these would doubtless point in the first place to our goddess 
 and her worship. The Greeks said Galinthias was turned into a 
 weasel or cat (yaXiri), Ovid, metam. 9, 306 (see Suppl.). 
 
 In so far as such comparisons are allowable, Frigg would stand 
 on a line with Here or Juno, especially the pronuba, Jupiter's 
 spouse ; and Freyja with Venus,^ but also with Isis who seeks 
 Osiris. Freyr and his sister Freyja, are suggestive of Liber and 
 Libera (Dionysus and Proserpina, or even her mother Demeter ; of 
 sun and moon). Mary could replace the divine mother and the 
 goddess of beauty ; verbally Frigg agrees better with Libera, and 
 Adam of Bremen's Fricco, if he was god of love, answers in name to 
 Liber, in character to Freyr. 
 
 The passage quoted from Paul Diac. is one of the clearest and 
 most convincing testimonies to the harmony between the German 
 and Norse mythologies. An author of Charles the Great's time 
 tells us that the Langobards named Wodan's wife Frea, and she is 
 called Frigg in the Edda. He cannot have drawn this from Norse 
 tradition, much less can his narrative through Saxo's intermediacy 
 have become the source of the northern faith. 
 
 But in favour of Freyja too we possess a weighty piece of 
 external evidence. The Edda makes her the owner of a costly 
 necklace named Brisinga men (Brisingorum monile) ; she is called 
 ' eigandi Brlslngamens,' Sn. 37. 119. How she acquired this 
 jewel from the dwarfs, how it was cunningly stolen from her by 
 Loki, is fully narrated in a tale by itself, Sn. 354 — 357. In the 
 poets therefore Loki is Brisings Jjiofr (Thorl. obs. 6, 41. 63) ; a lost 
 lay of the Edda related how Heimdallr fought with Loki for this 
 ornament, Sn. 105. When Freyja pants with rage, the necklace 
 starts from her breast (stauk Jjat it micla men Brisinga), Saem. 71''. 
 When Thorr, to get his hammer back, dresses up in Freyja's gar- 
 ments, he does not forget to put her famous necklace on: 'hafi 
 
 ' In the Tanhanser, as sung in Switzerland (Aufsess. anz. 1832, 240-2 ; 
 Uhland'a volksl. p. 771), instead of the usual dame Venus we find precisely 
 frau Frene, and aco. to Staid. 1, 395 frein is there a collateral form oifrd free, 
 A woman's name Vreneli is known from Hebel. Vrene may be Verena the 
 martyr, or Veronica, v. Vrene, Ben. 328. 
 
FKIKKA. FltOUWA. 307 
 
 hann (have he) it mikla men BAsinga ! ' Srein. 72. — Now this very 
 trinket is evidently known to the AS. poet of Beowulf 2399, he 
 names it Brosinga mene, without any allusion to the goddess ; I 
 would read ' Brtsinga mene,' and derive the word in general from a 
 verb which is in MHG. brtsen, breis (nodare, nodis constringere, 
 Gr. KevTelv to pierce), namely, it was a chain strung together of 
 bored links. Yet conf cb. XX, brising St. John's fire : perhaps 
 the dwarfs that forged it were called Brisingar ? The jewel is so 
 closely interwoven with the myth of Freyja, that from its mention 
 in AS. poetry we may safely infer the famUiarity of the Saxon race 
 with the story itself ; and if the Goths worshipped a goddess 
 Praujo, they too would doubtless know of a BreisiggS mani.'- 
 Conf. ch. XX, lard'ar men, Earth's necklace, i.e., turf in the ON. 
 legal language. 
 
 We cannot but feel it significant, that where the gospel simply 
 speaks of to 07101; sacrum (Matt. 7, 6), the OS. poet makes it a 
 helag halsmeni (holy necklace), Hel. 52, 7 ; an old heathen remin- 
 iscence came over him, as once before about doves perching on 
 shoulders (p. 148). At the same time, as he names only the swine, 
 not the dogs, it is possible that he meant halsmeni to be a mere 
 amplification of ' merigrioton,' pearls. 
 
 But this legend of the goddess's necklace gains yet more in im- 
 portance, when we place it by the side of Greek myths. Brisinga 
 men is no other than Aphrodite's opfi,o<; (Hymn to Venus 88), and 
 the chain is her girdle, the icecrTO'i i/xaf woiKiXo'; which she wears 
 on her bosom, and whose witchery subdues all gods and mortals. 
 How she loosens it off her neck (aTro crr'^deacfjiv) and lends it to 
 Fere to charm her Zeus with, is told in a lay that teems with 
 world-old myths, II. 14, 214-8. As the ifj,d<; is worn in turn by 
 Here and by Aphrodite, the Norse fable gives the jewel now to 
 Frigg and now to Freyja, for that ' gold of Frigg ' in Saxo is the 
 same as Brisinga men. Then there is another similarity : the same 
 narrative makes Freyja possess a beautiful chamber, so strong that, 
 when the door is locked, no one can enter against her will : ' hun 
 
 ' Just as from Freyja proceeded the general notion of a freyja froiiw4, so 
 necklace-wearing serves to describe a beautiful wife or maiden. In Saem. 97" 
 menglb^ (monili laeta, rejoicing in a necklace) means simply femina, but in 
 108" 111" Menglo(S is a proper name (see p. 272 note) ; in 222" menslcogul is 
 used of Brynhildr. Women are commonly named from their ornaments of 
 gold or precious stones, Sn. 128 (see Suppl.). 
 
308 GODDESSES. 
 
 atti ser eina skemmu, er var bseSi fogr ok sterk, svS. at ]?at segja 
 menu, ef hurSin var leest, at eingi matti komast i skemmuna §,n 
 (without) vilja Freyju,' Su. 354. We are told the trick by which 
 Lold after all got in, and robbed her of the necklace ; ^ Homer says 
 nothing about that, but (II. 14, 165-8) he knows of Here's ddXa/j.o';, 
 
 TOP ol (f)i\o^ v(o? erev^ev 
 " Hcpaiaro^, ■iruKiva'; he dvpa<i crTaO/Molaiv iTrfjpcre 
 kXtjiSi KpvTTTfj, TTjv S' ov 6eo<; aXXo'i avSyev. 
 What can be more exactly in accordance with that inaccessible 
 apartment of Freyja, especially as the tyaa? is spoken of directly 
 after ? Hephaistos (Vulcan), who built his mother the curiously 
 contrived bedchamber, answers to the dwarfs who forged the neck- 
 lace for Freyja. The identity of Frigg and Freyja with Here and 
 Aphrodite must after this mythus be as plain as day. 
 
 10. FOLLA. SiNDGUND. 
 
 Another thing that betrays the confusion of Frigg with Freyja 
 is, that the goddess Folld, now proved by the Merseburg poem to 
 belong to our German mythology, is according to it a sister of Fr&S., 
 while the ON. Fulla again is handmaid to Frigg, though she takes 
 rank and order among the Asynjor themselves (Sn. 36-7).^ Her 
 office and duties are sufficiently expressed in her name ; she justi- 
 fies our reception of the above-mentioned Abundia or dame Hdbo7id.e 
 into German mythology, and corresponds to the masculine god of 
 plenty Pilnitis, Pilnitus, whom the Lettons and Prussians adored. 
 Like dame Herke on p. 253, she bestowed prosperity and abundance 
 on mortals, to her keeping was intrusted the divine mother's chest 
 (eski), out of which gifts were showered upon them. 
 
 It may be, that FullS, or FolR was at the same time thought 
 of as the full-moon (Goth, fullijjs, Lith. Pilnatis, masc), as another 
 heavenly body, Orion, was referred to Frigg or Freyja : in the Mer- 
 seburg MS. she is immediately followed by Sunnd with a sister 
 Sindgund, whose name again suggests the path of a constellation. 
 The Eddie S6l ranks with the Asynjor, but Sindgund (OK Sinn- 
 
 1 He bored a hole and crept through as a fly, then as a flea he stung the 
 sleeping goddess till she shook off the ornament : an incident still retained in, 
 nursery-tales. Conf. the stinging fly at the forging, Sn. 131. 
 
 2 If we read Fria for Friia, then Folia would stand nearer to her as in the 
 Norse, whether as attendant goddess or as sister. Yet, considering the insta- 
 bility of those goddesses' names, she may keep her place by Frouwa too. 
 
GAHT. SIPPIA. SUNIA. WAEA. SAGA. NANDA. 309 
 
 gunnr ?) is unknown to the Edda. In ch. XXII. on the constella- 
 tions I shall come back to these divinities (see Suppl.). 
 
 11. GrAKT. SiPPIA. SUNIA. WAEA. SaGA. NaNDA. 
 
 From surviving proper names or even impersonal terms, more 
 rarely from extant myths, we may gather that several more 
 goddesses of the North were in earlier times common to the rest of 
 Teutondom. 
 
 Prey's beloved, afterwards his wife, was named Ger&r, she 
 came of the giant breed, yet in Sn. 79 she is reckoned among the 
 Asynjor. The Edda paints her beauty by a charming trait : when 
 Freyr looked from heaven, he saw her go into a house and close th6 
 door, and then air and water shone with the brightness of her arms 
 (Saem. 81. Sn. 39). His wooing was much thwarted, and was 
 only brought to a happy issue by the dexterity of his faithful 
 servant Sklrnir. The form of her name GerS'r, gen. GerSar, ace. 
 Ger6i (Ssem. 117''), points to a Goth. Gardi or Gardja, gen. Gardj6s, 
 ace. Gardja, and an OHG. Gart or Garta, which often occurs in the 
 compounds Hildigart, Irmingart, Liutkart, &c., but no longer alone. 
 The Latin forms Hildegardis, Liudgardis have better preserved the 
 terminal i, which must have worked the vowel-change in GerSr, 
 Th6rgerSr, ValgerSr, HrimgerSr. The meaning seems to be cingens, 
 muniens [Gurth ?], Lat. Cinxia as a name of Juno (see Suppl.). 
 
 The Goth, sibja, OHG. sippia, sippa, AS. sib gen. sibbe, denote 
 peace, friendship, kindred; from these I infer a divinity Sibja, Sippia, 
 Sib, corresponding to the ON". Sif gen. Sifjar, the wife of Thorr, for 
 the ON. too has a pi. sifjar meaning cognatio, sifi amicus (OHG. 
 sippio, sippo), sift genus, cognatio. By this sense of the word, Sif 
 would appear to be, like Frigg and Freyja, a goddess of loveliness 
 and love ; as attributes of OSinn and Thor agree, their wives Frigg 
 and Sif have also a common signification. Sif in the Edda is called 
 the fair-haired, ' it harfagra goS,' and gold is Sifjar haddr (Sifae 
 peplum), because, when Loki cut off her hair, a new and finer crop 
 was afterwards forged of gold (Sn. 119. 130). Also a herb, poly- 
 trichum aureum, bears the name haddr Sifjar. Expositors see in 
 this the golden fruits of the Earth burnt up by fire and growing up 
 agaia, they Uken Sif to Ceres, the ^avdr) ATjjjLrjTtjp (II. 5, 500) ; and 
 with it agrees the fact that the Slav. Siva is a gloss on 'Ceres dea 
 
310 GODDESSES. 
 
 framenti ' (Hanka's glosses 5* 6^'') ; only the S in the word seems 
 to be the Slav, zhivfete = Zh, and V does not answer to the Teut. 
 F, B, P. The earth was Th6r's mother, not his wife, yet in Sn. 
 220 we do find the simple Sif standing for earth. To decide, we 
 ought to have fuller details about Sif, and these are wholly want- 
 ing in our mythology. Nowhere amongst us is the mystic relation 
 of seed-corn to Demeter, whose poignant grief for her daughter 
 threatens to bring famine on mankind (Hymn to Cer. 305 — 315), nor 
 anything like it, recorded. 
 
 The Gothic language draws a subtle distinction between sunja 
 (Veritas) and sunjd (defensio, probatio veritatis) ; in OHG. law, 
 sunna, sunnis means excusatio and impedimentum. The OK law 
 likewise has this syn gen. synjar, for excusatio, defensio, negatio, 
 impedimentum, but the Edda at the same time exhibits a personi- 
 fied Syn, who was to the heathen a goddess of truth and justice, 
 and protected the accused (Sn. 38). To the same class belongs Vor 
 gen. Varar, goddess of plighted faith and covenants, a dea foederis 
 (Sn. 37-8), just as the Eomans deified Tutela. The phrase ' vlgja 
 saman Varar hendi,' consecrare Tutelae manu (Saem. 74''), is Hke 
 the passages about Wish's hands, p. 140. As in addition to the 
 abstract wish we saw a Wish endowed with life, so by the side of 
 the OHG. wara foedus there may have been a goddess Wara, and 
 beside sunia a Sunid (see Suppl.), 
 
 In the same way or sage (saw, tale) is intensified into a heathen 
 goddess Sagd, daughter of Wuotan ; like Zeus's daughter the Muse, 
 she instructs mankind in that divine art which Wuotan himself 
 invented. I have argued in a separate treatise (Kleine schr. 1, 83 — 
 112), that the frou Aventiure of the Mid. Ages is a relic of the 
 same. 
 
 Nanna the wife of Baldr would be in Goth. Nan])6, OHG. 
 Nandd, AS. N6&e, the bold, courageous (p. 221), but, except in ON., 
 the simple female name is lost ; Procopius 1, 8 has Gothic ©euSe- 
 vdvOa, ON. ThioSnanna (see Suppl.). 
 
 Inferences like these, from dying words to dead divinities, 
 could be multiplied ; to attempt them is not unprofitable, for they 
 sharpen the eye to look in fresh quarters [for confirmation or con- 
 
EAHANA. HELLIA. 311 
 
 futation]. The discovery from legend or elsewhere of a harmony 
 between myths may raise our guesses into demonstrations.^ 
 
 12. Eahana (Ran). Hellia (Hel). 
 
 My survey of the gods closed with Oegir and Loki ; and the 
 goddesses akin to these shall be the last mentioned here. 
 
 To correspond to the ON. Gefjon the Old Saxons had, as far as 
 we know, not a female but a male being, Geban, Geofon (sea, p. 239). 
 With four giant oxen, according to Sn. 1, Gefjon ploughs Zealand 
 out of the Swedish soil, and a lake arises, whose inward bend exactly 
 fits the projecting coast of Zealand. She is described as a virgin, 
 and aU maidens who die virgins wait upon her, Sn. 36. Her name 
 is called upon when oaths are taken : sver ek viS Gefjon, F. Magn. 
 lex. 386 (see Suppl.). Gefn, a name of Freyja (Sn. 37 and Viga- 
 glumss. cap. 27) reminds one of Gefjon. 
 
 Ran was the wife of the seagod Oegir, they had nine daughters 
 who are cited by name in the Edda, and called Ednar (or Oegis) 
 dcetr.^ Men who are drowned fall to the share of Ran, which of 
 itself attests her divinity : fara til Ranar is to get drowned at sea, 
 Fornald. sog. 2, 78 ; and sitja at Bdnar to be drowned, Fornm. sog. 
 6, 376. Those who were drowned she drew to her in a net, and 
 
 ' It seems almost as if the MHG. poets recognised a female personage fr3 
 Fuoge or Gefiwge (fitness), similar in plastic power to the niasc. Wish, a per- 
 sonified compages or dpiiovta. Lachmann directs me to instances in point. Er. 
 7o3i-40 (conf. Iwein, p. 400) : 
 
 So hete des meisters sin So had the master's thought 
 
 gepriievet ditz gereite turned out this riding-gear 
 
 mit grozer wisheite ; with great wisdom ; 
 
 er gap dem helfenheine he gave the ivory 
 
 und da bi dem gesteine and withal the jewelry 
 
 sin gevellige stat, each its proper place, 
 
 als in diu Gevuoge bat. as him dame Fitness bade. 
 
 (Conf. Er. 1246 : als in min ware schulde bat).— Parz. 121, 11 : 
 
 Wer in den zwein landen wirt, Whoso in the two lands thrives, 
 Gefucge ein wunder an im birt ; Fitness a wonder in him bears ; 
 he is a miraculous birth of Fitness, her child, her darling. — Conversely, Wal- 
 ther 64, 38 : 
 
 Frd Unfuoge, ir habt gesiget. Dame Unfitness, thou hast triumphed. 
 
 And 65, 25 : 
 
 Swer Ungefuoge swigen bieze Whoso bade Indecorum hush, 
 
 und sie abe den biirgen stieze ! and hurled her from her strongholds. 
 
 It is true, the prefixes ge-, un-, argue a later and colder allegory. And the 
 weak fem. form (ace. in -en) would be preferable, OHG. Fuoga, gen. Fuogun, 
 as in N. cap. 135 hifuogiln, sotigenam (see Suppl.). 
 
 2 Ssem. 79'' 144^ 153" 180. Sn. 124-9. 185. Eyrbygg. saga p. 274, and in- 
 dex sub V. Ban. Egilssaga p. 616. 
 
312 GODDESSES. 
 
 carried them off, whence the explanation of her name : r6/n, neut. is 
 rapina, raena rapere, spoliare (see Suppl.). 
 
 On the discovery of the rare word rahanen (spoliare) in the 
 Hildebr. Hed 57, 1 build the supposition that other Teutonic lands 
 had also a subst. rahan (rapina, spolium) and a goddess Bahana 
 (conf. Tanfana, Hluodana), as well as an Uogi = Oegir.^ 
 
 As we passed from Oegir (through Forniot and Logi) to Loki, 
 so we may from Ean to Hel, who is no other than Loki's daughter, 
 and like him a dreadful divinity. EIn receives the souls that die 
 by water, Hel those on land, and Preyja those that fall m. battle. 
 
 The ON". Hel gen. Heljar shows itself in the other Teutonic 
 tongues even less doubtfully than Frigg and Freyja or any of the 
 above-mentioned goddesses : Goth. Halja gen. Halj6s, OHG-. Mellia, 
 Hella gen. Hellia, Hella, AS. Eell gen. Helle ; only, the personal 
 notion has dropt away, and reduced itself to the local one of halja, 
 hellia, hell, the nether world and place of punishment. Originally 
 Hellia is not death nor any evil being, she neither kills nor 
 torments ; she takes the souls of the departed and holds them with 
 inexorable grip. The idea of a place evolved itself, as that of cegir 
 oceanus out of Oegir, and that of geban mare from Geban ; the 
 converted heathen without any ado applied it to the christian 
 underworld, the abode of the damned ; all Teutonic nations have 
 done this, from the first baptized Goths down to the Northmen, 
 because that local notion already existed under heathenism, 
 perhaps also because the church was not sorry to associate lost 
 spirits with a heathen and fiendish divinity.^ Thus hellia can be 
 explained from Hellia even more readily than ostara from Ostara. 
 
 In the Edda, Hel is Loki's daughter by a giantess, she is sister 
 to the wolf Fenrir and to a monstrous snake. She is half Hack and 
 half of human colour (J)ld half, en h§,lf meS horundar lit), Sn. 33, 
 after the manner of the pied people of the Mid. Ages ; in other 
 
 ^ The Trad, patav. pp. 60-2 assure us of a man's name Eaan, Rhaan 
 (Rahan ?). An OHG. Eahana rests on a very slender fomidation. 
 
 - Hel has no affinity at all with ON. hella petra, hellir antrum, as the 
 Goth, hallus petra shows (from hillan sonare, because a rock resounds) : a 
 likelier connexion is that with our hole antrum, OHG. holi, more frequent in 
 neut. hoi, for which we should expect a Qotliic hul, as in fact a fem^ hulundi 
 is caverna, for a cave covers, and so does the nether world (both therefore from 
 hilan celare). Only, the vowels in hole (= huli) and holle (= halja) do not 
 
EA.HANA. HELLIA. 313 
 
 passages her blackness alone is made a subject of comparison : hldr 
 sem Sd, Nialss. 117. Fornm. sog. 3, 188 ; conf. Heljarskinn for 
 complexion of deathly hue, Landnamab. 2, 19. Nialss. cap. 96. 
 Fornald. sog. 2, 59. 60 ;^ death is black and gloomy. Her dweUing 
 is deep down in the darkness of the ground, under a root of the 
 tree YggdrasiU, in Niflheim, the innermost part of which is there- 
 fore called Niflhel, there is her court (rann), there her halls, Ssem. 
 gb 44a g4a_ gQ_ 4_ f£gj. platter is named h-Angr, her knife svltr, 
 synonymous terms to denote her insatiable greed. The dead go 
 down to her, fara til Heljar, strictly those only that have died of 
 sickness or old age, not those fallen in fight, who people Valhalla. 
 Her personality has pretty well disappeared in such phrases as i 
 hel sla, drepa, berja i hel, to smite into hell, send to Hades ; i helju 
 vera, be in Hades, be dead, Fornald. sog. 1, 233. Out of this has 
 arisen in the modern dialects an altogether impersonal and distorted 
 term, Swed. ihjdl, Dan. ihiel, to death.^ These languages now 
 express the notion of the nether world only by a compound, Swed. 
 helvete, Dan. helvede, i.e., the ON. helvtti (supplicium infernale), 
 OHG. hellawizi, MHG. hellewize. One who is drawing his last 
 breath is said in ON. liggja miUi heims oc heljar (to lie betwixt 
 home and hell), to be on his way from this world to the other. 
 The unpitying nature of the Eddie Hel is expressly emphasized ; 
 what she once has, she never gives back : haldi Hel ])vi er hejlr, Sn. 
 68 ; hejir nu Hel, Ssem. 257% like the wolf in the apologue (Eein- 
 hart xxxvi), for she is of wolfish nature and extraction ; to the 
 wolf on the other hand a hellish throat is attributed (see Suppl.). 
 Two lays in the Edda describe the way to the lower world, the 
 
 ' The ancients also painted Demeter, aa the wrathful earth-goddess, black 
 (Paus. 8, 42. 0. Mflller's Eumenides 168, conf. ArchjEol. p. 509 the black 
 Demeter at Phigalia), and sometimes even her daughter Persephone, the fair 
 maid doomed to the underworld : 'furva Proserpina, Hor. Od. 2, 13 (Censorin. 
 De die nat. c. 17). Black Aphrodite (Melanis) ia spoken of by Pausanias 2, 2. 
 8, 6. 9, 27 and by Athenseus bk. 13 ; we know the blach Diana of Ephesus, 
 and that in the Mid. Ages blach Madonnas were both painted and carved, the 
 Holy Virgin appearing then as a sorrowing goddess of earth or night ; such at 
 Loretto, Naples, Einsiedeln, "Wiirzburg (Altd. W. 2, 209. 286), at Oettingen 
 (Goethe's Corresp. with a child 2, 184), at Puy (Biisching's Nachr. 2, 312-333), 
 Marseilles and elsewhere. I think it specially significant, that the Erinnys or 
 Furia dwelling in Tartarus is also represented both as black and as half white 
 half black. 
 
 ' Swed. has more, correctly ihail, i.e., ihal (Fred, af Nonnandie 1299. 
 1336. 1400. 1414). In Ostgotalagen p. 8, one reading has abeady ihiiiell for 
 ihail ; they no longer grasped the meaning of the term. 
 
314 GODDESSES. 
 
 HelreiS Brynliildar and the VegtamsqviSa ; in the latter, OSin's 
 ride on Sleipnir for Baldr's sake seems to prefigure that which 
 HermoSr afterwards undertakes on the same steed in Sn. 65-7. 
 But the incidents in the poem are more thrilling, and the dialogue 
 between Vegtamr^ and the vala, who says of herself : 
 var ek snifin sniofi (by snow), ok slegin regni, 
 ok drifin doggo (by dew), dauS (dead) var ek leingi, 
 is among the sublimest things the Edda has to shew. This vala 
 must stand in close relationship to Hel herself. 
 
 Saxo Gram. p. 43 very aptly uses for Hel the Latin Proserpina, 
 he makes her give notice of Balder's death. In the Danish popular 
 belief Hel is a three-legged horse, that goes round the country, 
 a harbinger of plague and pestilence ; of this I shall treat further 
 on. Originally it was no other than the steed on which the goddess 
 posted over land, picking up the dead that were her due ; there is 
 also a waggon ascribed to her, in which she made her journeys. 
 
 A passage in Beowulf shows hiw the Anglo-Saxons retained 
 perfectly the old meaning of the word. It says of the expiring 
 Grendel 1098 : ' feorh §,legde, hseSene sS.wle (vitam deposuit, 
 animam gentilem), Jiser hine Hd onfing', the old-heathen goddess 
 took possession of him. 
 
 In Germany too the Mid. Ages still cherished the conception of 
 a voracious, hungry, insatiable Hell, an Onus esuriens, i.e., the man- 
 devouring ogre : ' diu Helle ferslindet al daz ter lebet, si ne wirdet 
 niomer sat,' N. Cap. 72. ' diu Helle und der arge w§,n werdent 
 niemer sat,' Welsch. gast. It sounds still more personal, when she 
 has gaping yawning jaws ascribed to her, Hke the wolf ; pictures in 
 the MS. of Csedmon represent her simply by a wide open mouth. 
 Der tobende vnioterich The raging tyrant 
 
 der was der Hellen gellch, he was like the Hell 
 
 diu daz abgrunde who the chasm (steep descent) 
 
 legenit mit ir munde be-yawneth with her mouth 
 
 unde den himel zuo der erden. from heaven down^ to earth, 
 unde ir doch niht ne mac werden,And yet to her it cannot hap 
 
 1 OSinn calls himself Vegtamr (way-tame, broken-in to the road, ^arus 
 viae), son of Valtamr (assuetus caeclibus), as in other places gtogtamr (itineri 
 assuetus) is used of the horse, Ssem. 265'' , but OSinn himself is GangraSr or 
 Gangleri. Vegtamr reminds one of the holy priest and minstrel Wechtam in 
 Hunibald. 
 
 " I have supposed that ' unde den ' is a slip for ' abe dem'. — Trans. 
 
KAHANA. HELLIA. 315 
 
 daz si imer werde vol ; that she ever become full ; 
 
 si ist daz ungesatliche hoi, she is the insatiable cavern, 
 
 daz weder nu noch nie ne sprah : that neither now nor ever said 
 ' diz ist des ih niht ne mac' ' this is what I cannot (manage).' 
 Lampr. Alex. 6671-80. Old poems have frequent allusions to the 
 abgrund (chasm, abyss) and the doors of hell : helligraoba, hella- 
 grunt, helliporta, &c. Gramm. 2, 458 ; der abgrunde tunc, der tiefen 
 heUe tunc (the deep hell's dinge, darkness), Mart. SS*" 99°. 
 
 Of course there are Bible texts that would in the first instance 
 suggest much of this, e.g., about the insatiableness of hell, Prov. 27, 
 20. 30, 16 (conf. Freidank Ixxiv), her being uncovered, Job 26, 
 6, her opening her mouth, Isaiah 5, 14. But we are to bear in 
 mind, that all these have the masc. aZr)'i or infernus, with which 
 the idea of the Latin Orcus also agrees, and to observe how the 
 German language, true to its idiosyncrasy, was obliged to make use 
 of a feminine word. The images of a door, abyss, wide gaping 
 throat, strength and invincibility (fortis tanquam orcus, Petron. 
 cap. 62), appear so natural and necessary to the notion of a nether 
 world, that they will keep recurring in a similar way among 
 different nations (see SuppL). 
 
 The essential thing is, the image of a greedy, unrestoring, female 
 deity.i 
 
 But the higher we are allowed to penetrate into our antiquities, 
 the less hellish and the more godlike may Halja appear. Of this 
 we have a particularly strong guarantee in her af&nity to the Indian 
 Bhavani, who travels about and bathes like Nerthus and Holda 
 (p. 268), but is likewise called Kdli or Mahakdli, the great llach 
 goddess. In the underworld she is supposed to sit in judgment on 
 souls. This ofi&ce, the similar name and the black hue (k9,la niger, 
 conf. caligo and KeKawoi) make her exceedingly like Halja. And 
 Halja is one of the oldest and commonest conceptions of our 
 heathenism. 
 
 ^ In the south of Holland, where the Meuse falls into the sea, is a place 
 named Helvoetsluis. I do not know if any forms in old documents confirm the 
 idea contained in the name, of Hell-foot, foot of HeU. The Romans have 
 a Helium here : Inter Helium ao Flevum, ita appellantur ostia, in q^uae effusus 
 Bhenus, ab septentrione in lacus, ab ocoidente in amnem Mosam se spargit, 
 medio inter haec ore modicum nomine suo custodiens alveum, Plin. 4, 29. 
 Tac. also says 2, 6 : immenso ore. Conf. supra p. 198 on Oegisdyr (see SuppL). 
 
CHAPTEE XIV, 
 
 CONDITION" OF GODS. 
 
 Now that we have collected all that could be found concerning 
 the several divinities of our distant past, I will endeavour to survey 
 their nature as a whole ; in doing which however, we must be 
 allowed to take more frequent notice of foreign and especially 
 Greek mythology, than we have done -in other sections of this 
 work : it is the only way we can find connecting points for many a 
 thread that otherwise hangs loose. 
 
 All nations have clothed their gods in human shape, and only 
 by way of exception in those of animals ; on this fact are founded 
 both their appearances to men, or incarnation, their twofold sex, 
 their intermarrying with mankind, and also the deification of 
 certain men, i.e., their adoption into the circle of the gods. It 
 follows moreover, that gods are begotten and born, experience pain 
 and sorrow, are subject to sleep, sickness and even death, that Hke 
 men they speak a language, feel passions, transact affairs, are 
 clothed and armed, possess dwellings and utensils. The only 
 difference is, that to these attributes and states there is attached a 
 higher scale than the human, that all the advantages of the gods 
 are more perfect and abiding, aU. their ills more slight or transient. 
 
 This appears to me a fundamental feature in the faith of the 
 heathen, that they allowed to their gods not an unhmited and 
 unconditional duration, but only a term of life far exceeding that 
 of men. All that is born must also die, and as the omnipotence of 
 gods is checked by a fate standing higher than even they, so their 
 eternal dominion is liable at last to termination. And this reveals 
 itself not only by single incidents in the lives of gods, but in the 
 general notion of a coming and inevitable ruin, which the Edda 
 expresses quite distinctly, and which the Greek system has 
 in the background : the day will come when Zeus's reign shall end. 
 
CONDITION OF GODS. 317 
 
 But this opinion, firmly held even by the Stoics,^ finds utterance 
 only now and then, particularly in the story of Prometheus, which 
 I have compared to the Norse ragnarokr, p. 245-6. 
 
 In the common way of thinking, the gods are supposed to be 
 immortal and eternal. They are called 0eol alev iovre';, II. 1, 290. 
 494, aleiyeverai 2, 400, aedvaroi 2, 814, aedvaTO<; Zev'i 14, 434 ; 
 and therefore /ia«:ape9 1, 339. 599 in contrast to mortal man. They 
 have a special right to the name ap,/3poToi, inimortales, while men 
 are ^poToi mortales ; dix^porof; is explained by the Sansk. amrita 
 immortalis, the negative of mrita mortalis (conf. Pers. merd, homo 
 mortalis) ; in fact both amrita and aij,0p6aio<;, next neighbour to 
 a/i/3/30T09, contain a reference to the food, by partaking of which 
 the gods keep up their immortality. They taste not the fruits of 
 the earth, whereby the /Sporot live, ot dpovpri<; Kapirov eSovcriv, II. 6, 
 142. With /SpoTo? again is connected fip6To<; thick mortal blood, 
 whereas in the veins of thegods flows Ix^P (H- 5, 340. 416), a light 
 thin liquid, in virtue of which they seem to be called a^poroi, — 
 
 dfl^pOTOl. 
 
 Indian legend gives a full account of the way amrita, the elixir 
 of immortality, was brewed out of water clear of milk, the juice of 
 herbs, liquid gold and dissolved precious-stones f no Greek poem 
 teUs us the ingredients of ambrosia, but it was an d/i^pocror] Tpocjii^ 
 (food), and there was a divine drink besides, yXvKv vsKTap, II. 1, 
 598, of a red colour 19, 38, its name being derived either from vt] 
 and KToxrOai, or better from veic-Tap necem avertens. Where men 
 take bread and wine, the gods take ambrosia and nectar, Od. 5, 
 195, and hence comes the 
 
 dfi^poTov al/xa Oeolo, 
 tX'^P' "^o? ""^P ■''^ P^^' fJ-dKapecrcn deolaiv • 
 ou yap (TiTov eSova, ov ttIvovct' aWoira olvov ■ 
 Tovvex' dvaifiovi^ elai koX dQdvaTOi KoXeovrai. 
 
 —II. 5, 339. 
 Theirs is no thick glutinous alfxa (conf. our seim, ON. seimr, slime), 
 nor according to the Indians do they sweat; and this dvaip-wv 
 (bloodless) agrees with the above explanation of a^poTo<}. The 
 
 * Atque omnes pariter deos perdet mors aliqua et chaos. Seneca in Here. 
 1014. 
 
 ' Cleopatra had costly pearls melted in her -wine, and it is said to be still a 
 cu-stoni with Indian princes ; conf. Sueton. Calig. 37. 
 
318 Condition of gods. 
 
 adjectives al3poTo<;, afi^poToi, dfi^p6<no<;, veKTo.peo'i are passed on 
 from the food to other divine things^ (see Suppl.). Plainly then 
 the gods were not immortal by their nature, they only acquired and 
 secured this quality by abstaining from the food and drink of men, 
 and feasting on heavenly fare. And hence the idea of death is not 
 always nor as a matter of course kept at a distance from them ; 
 Kronos used to kill his new born children, no doubt before nectar 
 and ambrosia had been given them,^ and Zeus alone could be saved 
 from him by being brought up secretly. Another way in which 
 the mortality of certain gods is expressed is, that they fall a prey 
 to Hades, whose meaning borders on that of death, e.g., Perse- 
 phone. 
 
 If a belief in the eternity of the gods is the dominant one 
 among the Greeks, and only scattered hints are introduced of their 
 final overthrow ; with our ancestors on the contrary, the thought of 
 the gods being immortal seems to retire into the background. 
 The Edda never calls them eylifir or odauSligir, and their death is 
 spoken of without disguise : \>k er regin deyja, Ssem. 37*, or more 
 frequently : regin riufaz (solvuntur), SB*" 40* 108^ One of the 
 finest and oldest myths describes the death of Balder, the burning 
 of his body, and his entrance into the lower world, like that of 
 Proserpine ; OSin's destined fall is mentioned in the VoluspS, 9*, 
 OSins hani (bane), Sn. 73, where also Thorr falls dead on the 
 ground ; Hr^ngnir, a giant, threatens to slay all the gods (drepa 
 gu?5 oil), Sn. 107. Yet at the same time we can point to clear 
 traces of that prolongation of life by particular kinds of food and 
 drink. AVhile the einherjar admitted into ValhoU feast on the 
 boiled flesh of a boar, we are nowhere told of the Ases sharing in 
 such diet (Seem. 36. 42. Sn. 42); it is even said expressly, that 
 OSinn needs no food (onga vist J^arf hann), and only drinks wine 
 [vin er honum baeSi dryckr ok matr, both meat and drink) ; 
 with the viands set before him he feeds his two wolves Geri and 
 Freki. ViS vln eitt vsipngofugr OSinn se lifir (vino solo armipotens 
 semper vivit), Saem. 42'' ; se lifir can be rendered ' semper vescitur, 
 
 1 Both nectar and ambrosia, like the holy grail of the Mid. Ages, have 
 miraculous powers : poured into the nose of a corpse, they prevent decay, II. 
 19, 38 ; they ward off hunger, II 19, 347. 353. 
 
 ''As human infants may only be exposed before milk and honey have 
 moistened their lips, conf. EA. pp. 458-9. When Zeus first receives in the 
 assembly of the gods the son whom Leto bore him, he hands him nectar in a 
 golden bowl : by this act he recognised him for his child. 
 
IMMOETAUXy. 319 
 
 nutritur,' or ' immortalitatem nanciscitur,' and then the cause of his 
 immortality would be found in his partaking of the wine. Evi- 
 dently this wine of the Norse gods is to the beer and ale (olr) of 
 men, what the nectar of the Greek gods was to the wine of mortals. 
 Other passages are not so particular about their language ; ^ in 
 Seem. 59 the gods at Oegir's hall have ale set before them, conf. ol 
 giora, 68^; Heimdall gladly drinks the good mead, 41''; verSar 
 nema oc sumbl (cibum capere et symposium) 52, leaves the exact 
 nature of the food undefined, but earthly fare is often ascribed to 
 the gods in so many words.^ But may not the costly Odhrmris 
 drecJcr, compounded of the divine Qv^sir's blood and honey, be 
 hkened to amrita and ambrosia ? * Dwarfs and giants get hold of 
 it first, as amrita fell into the hands of the giants ; at last the 
 gods take possession of both. OShroeris dreckr confers the gift of 
 poesy, and by that very fact immortality : OSinn and Saga, goddess 
 of poetic art, have surely drunk it out of golden goblets, gladly and 
 evermore (um alia daga, Ssem. 41^). We must also take into 
 account the creation of the wise Qv§,sir (conf. Slav, kvas, convivium, 
 potus) ; that at the making of a covenant between the Aesir and 
 Vanir, he was formed out of their spittle (hraki) ; the refining of 
 his blood into a drink for gods seems a very ancient and far- 
 reaching myth. But beside this drink, we have also notices of a 
 special food for gods : ISunn has in her keeping certain apples, by 
 eating of which the aging gods make themselves young again (er 
 go8in skulo &bita, pk er J^au eldaz, oc verSa ]>n, allir ungir, Sn. 30^). 
 This reminds one of the apples of Paradise and the Hesperides, of the 
 guarded golden apples in the Kindermarchen no. 57, of the apples 
 in the stories of Fortunatus and of Merlin, on the eating or biting 
 of which depend Ufe, death and metamorphosis, as elsewhere on a 
 draught of holy water. According to the Eddie view, the gods have 
 a means, it is true, of preserving perpetual freshness and youth, 
 
 1 As Homer too makes Ganymede olvoxofieiv, II. 20, 234, and of Hebe it is 
 even said, vexrap eavoxoei 4, 3. 
 
 ' Zeus goes to' banquet (/cara Saira) with the Ethiopians, II. 1, 423 ; orav 
 irpAf SaiTo Koi iirX dotvrjv "taxri, Plato's Phadr. 247, as Thorr does with the Nor- 
 wegians ; even when disguised as a bride, he does not refuse the giants' dishes, 
 Saem. 13^ ; and the Ases boiled an ox on their journey, Sn. 80. 
 
 ' In Sanskrit, sndlui nectar is distinguished from amrita ambrosia. Every- 
 where there is an eagle in the business : Garuda is called sudhahara, or amrita- 
 harana, nectar-thief or ambrosia-thief (Pott, forsch. 2, 451) ; it is in the shape of 
 an eagle that OSinn carries off OShrcerir, and Zeus his cupbearer Ganymede 
 (see ch. XXXV and XXX, Path-crossing and Poetry). 
 
320 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 but, for all that, they are regarded as subject to the encroach- 
 ments of age, so that there are always some younfj and some old 
 gods ; in particular, Odinn or "Wuotan is pictured everywhere as an 
 old greybeard (conf. the old god, p. 21), Thorr as in the full 
 strength of manhood. Balder as a blooming youth. The gods grow 
 hdrir ok gamlir (hoar and old), Sn. 81. Freyr has ' at tannfS ' 
 (tooth-fee) presented him at his teething, he is therefore imagined 
 as growing up. In like manner Uranos and Kronos appear as old, 
 Zeus (like our Donar) and Poseidon as middle aged, Apollo, Her- 
 mes and Ares as in the bloom of youth. Growth and age, the 
 increase and decline of a power, exclude the notion of a strictly 
 eternal, immutable, immortal being ; and mortality, the termination, 
 however long delayed, of gods with such attributes, is a necessity 
 (see SuppL). 
 
 Epithets expressing the power, the omnipotence, of the reigning 
 gods have been specified, pp. 21-2. A term peculiar to ON. poetry 
 is ^'wregin, Ssem. 28^ 50* 51* 52^ .^-mheUog goS 1* ; it is of 
 the same root as gina, OHG. kiuan, hiare, and denotes numina 
 ampla, late dominantia, conf. AS. ginne grund, Beow. 3101. Jud. 
 131, 2. ginne rice, Csedm. 15, 8. ginfsest, firmissimus 176, 29. 
 ginfsesten god, terrae dominus 211, 10. girsecges gin, oceani 
 amplitudo 205, 3. 
 
 The Homeric pela (= ^aStaj?, Goth, rajjizo) beautifully ex- 
 presses the power of the gods ; whatever they do or undertake 
 comes easy to them, their life glides along free from toU, while 
 mortal men labour and are heavy laden : deol pela ^wovre^, H. 6, 
 138. Od. 4, 805. 5, 122. When Aphrodite wishes to remove her 
 favourite Alexander from the perils of battle, top 8' e^i^pira^' 
 ^A(j>poBlTT] pela iiaX\ wcrre ^ eo'?, H. 3, 381 ; the same words are 
 applied to Apollo, when he snatches Hector away from AchiUes 20, 
 443. The wall so laboriously built by the Greeks he overturns pela 
 fiaXa, as a boy at play would a sand-heap 15, 362. With a mere 
 breath {irvoifj), blowing a little {rjKa p,aXa ■>^v^a<ra), Athene turns 
 away from Achilles the spear that Hector had thrown 20, 440 (see 
 SuppL). Berhta also blows (p. 276), and the elves breathe (ch. 
 XVII), on people. 
 
 The sons of men grow up slowly and gradually, gods attain 
 their full size and strength directly after birth. No sooner had 
 
STRENGTH. PRECOCITY. SIZE. 321 
 
 Themis presented nectar and ambrosia (a/x^poaitjv epaTeivrjv) to 
 the newborn Apollo, than he leapt, ^-are/S/jco? afjbfipoTov, out of his 
 swathings, sat down among the goddesses, began to speak, and, 
 unshorn as he was, to roam through the country (Hymn, in Ap. 
 Del. 123—133). Not unlike Vali, whom Eindr bore to OSinn ; 
 when only one night old (einnfettr), unwashen and unkempt, he 
 sallies forth to avenge Baldr's death on HoSr, Saem. 6^ 95''. Here 
 the coincidence of aKepcreKo/xTji; with the Edda's ' ne hofuS kembr ' 
 is not to be disregarded. Hermes, born at early morn, plays the 
 lute at mid-day, and at eve drives oxen away (Hymn, in Merc. 17 
 seq.). And Zeus, who is often exliibited as a child among the 
 Kuretes, grew up rapidly {KapTraXLfia><; fiiva koI cfiaiSi,/j.a yv2a 
 iji^ero Toio avaKTa), and in his first years had strength enough to 
 enter the lists with Kronos (Hes. theog. 492). The Norse mytho- 
 logy offers another example in Magni, Thor's son by the giantess 
 larnsaxa : when three nights old Q?rln£ettr), he flung the giant 
 Hrungni's enormous foot, under whose weight Thorr lay on the 
 ground, off his father, and said he would have beaten the said giant 
 dead with his fist, tin. 110 (see SuppI). 
 
 The sJiape of the gods is like the human (p. 105), only vaster, 
 often exceeding even the gigantic. When Ares is felled to the 
 ground by the stone which Athene flings, his body covers seven 
 roods of land (eTrra S' eirea-xe ireXedpa ireamv, H. 21, 407), a size 
 that with a slight addition the Od. 11, 677 puts upon the titan 
 Tityos. When Here takes a solemn oath, she grasps the earth 
 with one hand and the sea with the other (II. 14, 272). A cry 
 that breaks from Poseidon's breast sounds like that of nine or even 
 ten thousand warriors in battle (14, 147), and the same is said of 
 Ares when he roars (5, 859) ; Here contents herself with the voice of 
 Stentor, which only equals those of fifty men (5, 786). By the side 
 of this we may put some features in the Edda, which have to do 
 with Thorr especially : he devours at a wedding one ox and eight 
 ' salmon, and drinks three casks of mead, Sjem. X2>*' ; another time, 
 through a horn, the end of which reaches to the sea, he drinks a 
 good portion of this, he lifts the snake that encircles the whole 
 world off one of its feet, and with his hammer he strikes three deep 
 valleys in the rocky mountain, Sn. 59, 60. Again, Teutonic 
 mythology agrees with the Greek in never imputing to its gods the 
 deformity of many heads, arms or legs ; they are only bestowed 
 
 21 
 
322 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 on a few heroes and animals, as some of the Greek giants are 
 6«aT07^eip69. Such forms are quite common in the Hindu and 
 Slav systems : Vishnu is represented with four arms, Brahma with 
 four heads, Svantovit the same, while Porevit has five heads and 
 Eugevit seven faces. Yet Hecate too is said to have been three- 
 headed, as the Eoman Janus was two-faced, and a Lacedsemonian 
 Apollo four-armed.^ Khuvera, the Indian god of wealth, is a 
 hideous figure with three legs and eight teeth. Some of the Norse 
 gods, on the contrary, have not a superfluity, but a deficiency of 
 members : OSinn is one-eyed, T^r one-handed, H66r blind, and 
 Logi or Loki was perhaps portrayed as lame or limping, like 
 Hephfestus and the devil. Hel alone has a dreadful shape, black 
 and white ; the rest of the gods and goddesses, not excepting Loki, 
 are to be imagined as of beautiful and noble figure (see Suppl.). 
 
 In the Homeric epos this ideally perfect human shape, to which 
 Greek art also keeps true, is described in standing epithets for gods 
 and especially goddesses, with which our ruder poetry has only a 
 few to set in comparison, and yet the similarity of these is signi- 
 ficant. Some epithets have to serve two or three divinities by 
 turns, but most are confined to individuals, as characteristic of 
 them. Thus Here is XevKcokevoi or ^ocottk; (the former used also 
 of Helen, II. 3, 121,^ the latter of a Nereid 18, 40), Athene r/XavKa- 
 iri,<! or rjvKOfio'; (which again does for Here), Thetis apyvpoTre^a, 
 Iris aeWoTTO';, -TroSrjvefj.o';, j^pvcroTTTepo';, Eos poSoBaKTvKo^, Demeter 
 (Ceres) ^av6i] 5, 500, and «a\\t7r\6/ta/io? 14, 326, just as Sif is 
 harfogr (p. 309), in allusion to the yellow colour of the waving 
 com. As the sea rolls its dark waves, Poseidon bears the name 
 KvavoxaiTL'i, II. 14, 390. 15, 174. 20, 144. Zeus could either be 
 called the same, or Kvav6<f>pv<s (a contrast to Baldr brS,hvltr, brow- 
 white p. 222), because to him belong afi^poaiai •)(avrai, II. 1, -528, the 
 hair and locks of Wish (p. 142), and because with his dark brows 
 he makes signs. This confirmatory lowering of the brows or 
 nodding with the head (veveiv, Karaveieiv Kvaveycnv iir 6j>p6<7i II. 
 1, 527. 17, 209) is the regular expression of Zeus's will: Ke<paXrj 
 KaraveixTOfiai, adavdroio'i /iiyiarov reK/iiop, II. 1, 524. In refusmg, 
 he draws the head back (avavevei). Thor's indignant rage is shown 
 by sinking the eyebrows over the eyes (siga brynnar ofan fyrir 
 
 1 0. Mijller's arohsBol. p. 515. 
 
 '' And Aphrodite throws her irrixfe Xfuxm round ^neas. — Tbans. 
 
SHAPE. ANGER. 323 
 
 augim, Sn. 50), displaying gloomy brows and shaking the beard. 
 Obviously the two gods, Zeus and Donar, have identical gestures 
 ascribed to them for expressing favour or anger. They are the 
 glowering deitie.s, who have the avenging thunder at their command ; 
 this was shown of Donar, p. 177, and to Zeus is given the grim 
 louring look {Seivh S' inroSpa IScov, II. 15, 13), he above all is the 
 fiiy 6xOyi<Ta<; (1, 517. 4, 30), and next to him Poseidon of the 
 dingy locks (8, 208. 15, 184). Zeus again is distinguished by 
 beaming eyes (r/jeVei' oWe <f>aeiva> 13, 3. 7. 14,236. 16, 645), 
 which belong to none else save his own great-hearted daughter 21, 
 415 ; Aphrodite has ofifiara fiap/xalpovra, 3, 397, twinkling, 
 shimmering eyes (see SuppL). 
 
 Figures of Greek divinities show a circle of rays and a nimbus 
 round the head ;^ on Indo-Grecian coins Mithras has commonly a 
 circular nimbus with pointed rays,^ in other representations the 
 rays are wanting. Mao (deus Lunus) has a halfmoon behind his 
 shoulders ; Aesculapius too had rays about his head. In what century 
 was the halo, the aureole, first put round the heads of christian 
 saints ? And we have also to take into account the crowns and 
 diadems of kings. Ammian. Marc. 16, 12 mentions Chnodomarius, 
 cujus vertici flammeus torulus aptabatur. IST. Cap. 63 translates 
 the honorati capitis radios of the Sol auratus by houbetskimo (head- 
 sheen), and to portray the sun's head surrounded with flames is 
 extremely natural. In ON". I find the term rd&a for caput radiatum 
 sancti, which I suppose to be the OHG. ruota rod, since virga also 
 goes off into the sense of flagellum, radius, ON. geisli. A likening 
 of the gods to radiant luminaries of heaven would at once suggest 
 such a nimbus, and blond locks do shine like rays. It is in con- 
 nexion with the setting sun that Tac. Germ. 45 brings in formas 
 deorum and radios capitis. Around Thor's head was put, latterly at 
 all events, a ring of stars (Stephanii not. ad Saxon. Gram. p. 139). 
 According to a story told in the G alien restor^ a beam came out of 
 Charles the Great's mouth and illumined his head.^ What seems 
 more to the purpose, among the Prilwitz figures, certain Slavic 
 idols, especially Perun, Podaga and Nemis, have rays about their 
 
 ^ 0. Mijller's archaeol. p. 481. 
 5 Getting, anz. 1838, 2:^9. 
 
 ' This beam from Charles's mouth is like the one that shines into his 
 beloved's mouth and lights up the gold inside (see ch. XVI., Menni). 
 
324 CONDITION OF GOBS; 
 
 heads ; and a head in Hagenow, fig. 6, 12 is encircled with rays, so 
 is even the rune E when it stands for Eadegast. Did rays originally 
 express the highest conception of divine and lustrous beauty ? 
 There is nothing in the Homeric epos at all pointing that way (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 It is a part of that insouciance and light blood of the gods, that 
 they are merry, and lavgh. Hence they are called bliS regia 
 (p. 26), as we find ' froh ' in the sense of gracious applied to gods 
 and kings,'- and the spark of joy is conveyed from gods to men. 
 Frauja, lord, is next of kin to froh glad (p. 210). It is said of the 
 Ases, teitir viro, Ssem. 2" ; and of Heimdall, dreckr gla&r hinn g6Sa 
 mioS 41''. And ' in svdso guS ' 33'^ contains a similar notion. In 
 this light the passages quoted (pp. 17-8) on the Uithe and dieerful 
 God gather a new importance : it is the old heathen notion still 
 lurking in poetry. When Zeus in divine repose sits on Olympus 
 and looks down on men, he is moved to mirth {ppowv (ppiva repyjro- 
 fiai, II. 20, 23), then laughs the blessed heart of him {iyeXaa-ae Se 
 oi ipiXov rjTop, 21, 389) ; which is exactly the Eddie 'hlo honum 
 hugr i briosti, hlo HlorriSa hugr 1 briosti,' laughed the mmd in his 
 breast : a fresh confirmation of the essential oneness of Zeus and 
 Thorr. But it is also said of heroes : ' hl& ]>k Atla hugr i briosti,' 
 Seem. 238^. ' hlo ]?§. Brynhildr af ollum hug,' with all her heart 
 220^ OS. ' hugi ward fromod,' Hel. 109, 7. AS. ' mod ahl6h,' 
 Andr. 454. Later, in the Eudlieb 2, 174. 203. 3, 17 the king in 
 his speech is said suhridere ; in the Nibel. 423, 2 of Brunhild : 
 ' mit smielinden munde si iiber ahsel sah,' looked over her shoulder. 
 Often in the song of the Cid: ' sonrisose de la boca,' and ' alegre era'.^ 
 01//AO9 IdvOrj, II. 23, 600 ; conf. dv/xov tawov, Hymn, in Cer. 435. 
 Half in displeasure Here laughs with her lips, not her brows : 
 iyeXacrcre 'X^eiXea-iv, oiiSe ixeTWirov 67r' 6(ppvcn KvaveyaLV tdv9r], II. 
 15, 102 ; but Zeus feels joy in sending out his lightnings, he is 
 called Te/jTTi/cepawo? 2, 781. 8, 2. 773. 20, 144. So Artemis 
 (Diana) is lo-xeaipa, rejoicing in arrows, 6, 428. 21, 480. Od. 11, 
 198. At the limping of Hephaestus, the assembly of gods bursts 
 into aa^earo^ yeXco<;, uncontrolled laughter, II. 1, 599; but a gentle 
 smile {fieiBav) is peculiar to Zeus, Here and Aphrodite. As 
 
 ' Andreas and Elene p. xxxvii. 
 
 ^ Helbl. 7, 518 : diu w^rheit des erlacliet, truth laughs at that. 
 
MIKTH. GAIT. PACE. 325 
 
 Aplirodite's beauty is expressed by ^iXo/i/net8?y?, smile-loving fll. 4, 
 10. 5, 375), so is Freyja's on the contrary by ' gratfogr,' fair in 
 weeping (see SuppL). 
 
 We have to consider next the manner in which the gods put 
 themselves in motion and become visible to the eyes of mortals. 
 We find they have a gait and step like the human, only far mightier 
 and svi^ifter. The usual expressions are /Sr), ^t) i/xeu, j3rj levai, II. 
 1, 44. 2, 14. 14, 188. 24, 347, ^e/S/y/cei 1, 221, e^v 14, 224, ^drriv 
 5, 778, ^r/TTji' 14, 281, -n-oal 7rpo/3(/3a9 13, 18, irpoaejSweTO 2, 48. 
 14, 292, icaTe^rjaeTO 13, 17, aire^riaero 2, 35 ; and in the Edda 
 gengr, Ssem. 9% gek 100*, g^ngo 70* 71*, gengengo 1* 5*, or eh&fdr 
 31* 31* 53* 75% this fara meaning no more than ire, proficisci, and 
 OSinn v^as even called Gangleri, Ssem. 32. Sn. 24, i.e., the walker, • 
 traveller ; the AS. poets use gewat (evasit, abiit) or siSode of God 
 returning to heaven, Andr. 118. 225. 977. El. 94-5. But how 
 enormously the walk of the gods differs from the common, we see 
 in the instance of Poseidon, who goes an immense distance in three 
 steps, II. 13, 20, or that of the Indian Vishnu, who in three paces 
 traverses earth, air and sky. Erom such swiftness there follows 
 next the sudden ap'pearance and disa/ppearance of the gods ; for 
 which our older speech seems to have used Goth, hvairban, OHG. 
 huerban, AS. hweorfan (verti, ferri, rotari) : ' liwearf him to 
 heofenum halig dryhten ' says Caedm. 16, 8 ; and ' OSinn hvarf Ipa.,' 
 vanished, Ssem. 47. Homer employs, to express the same thing, 
 either the verb dtaao} (impetu feror), or the adverbs KapiraXifiwi 
 (as if apiraXi/j.co'i raptim) and Kp^-rrvm raptim. Thus Athene 
 or Here comes dt^aca, Od. 1, 102. II. 2, 167. 4, 74. 19, 114. 
 22, 187 ; Thetis, the dream, Athene, Here, all appear KapiraXlp.a^, 
 11.1,359. 2,17.168. 5,868. 19,115. Od. 2, 406 ; Poseidon 
 and Here Kpanrvd, /cpanrvS)';, II. 13, 18. 14. 292 ; even Zeus, when 
 he rises from his throne to look on the earth, aTtj dvat^ai 15, 6. 
 So Holda and Berhta suddenly stand at the window (p. 274). Much 
 in the same way I understand the expression used in Seem. 53* of 
 Thorr and Tyr : foro driugom (ibant tractim, raptim, iXKrjBov), for 
 driugr is from driuga, Goth, driugan trahere, whence also Goth, 
 draiihts, OHG. truht turba, agmen, OK draugr larva, phantasma, 
 OHG. gitroc fallacia, because a spectre appears and vanishes 
 quickly in the air. At the same time it means the rush and din 
 
326 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 that betoken the god's approach, the woma and omi above, froni; 
 which O'Sinn took a name (p. 144-5). The rapid movement of 
 descending gods is sometimes likened to a shooting star, or the 
 flight of birds, II. 4, 75. 15, 93. 237 ; hence they often take even 
 the form of some bird, as Tharapila the Osilian god flew (p. 77). 
 Athene flies away in the shape of a apirt) (falcon ?), II. 19, 350, an 
 6pvL<i bird, Od. 1, 320, or a jtrjvr} osprey, 3, 372 ; as a swallow she 
 perches (efer' avat^aad) on the house's /j,e\a6pov 22, 239. The 
 exchange of the human form for that of a bird, when the gods are 
 departing and no longer need to conceal their wondrous being, 
 tallies exactly with OSin's taking his flight as a falcon, after he 
 had in the shape of Gestr conversed and quarrelled with HeiSreckr: 
 viSbrast 1 vals liki, Fornald. sog. 1, 487 ; but it is also retained in 
 many stories of the devil, who assumes at departure the body of a 
 raven or a fly (exit tanquam corvus, egressus est in muscae 
 similitudine). At other times, and this is the prettier touch of the 
 two, the gods allow the man to whom they have appeared as his 
 equals, suddenly as they are going, to become aware of their divine 
 proportions : heel, calf, neck or shoulder betrays the god. When 
 Poseidon leaves the two Ajaxes, one of them says, II. 13, 71 : 
 'i'Xyca yap fieroTTiade iroSav ^8e Kvrj/xdwv 
 pet' eyvcov air lovr o<;' dpiyvcoToi Be deoi irep. 
 So, when Venus leaves Aeneas, Virg. 1, 402 : 
 
 Dixit, et avertens rosea cervice lefulsit 
 et vera incessu patuit dea. Ille ubi matrem 
 agnovit, tali fugientem est voce secutus. 
 So, II. 3, 396, Alexander recognises the 
 
 dea'i ireptKaXXea heiprjv, 
 a-Trj6ea 6' ifiepoevTa koI ajj^ixara fMapfiaipovra. 
 And in ON. legend, Hallbiorn on awaking sees the shoulder of a 
 figure in his dream before it vanishes : ]?ykist si^ k hertJar honum, 
 Fornald. sog. 3, 103 ; as is likewise said in Olaf the saint's saga 
 cap. 199. ed. Holm., while the Fornm. sog. 5, 38 has it : si§, svip 
 mannsins er a brutt gekk ; conf os humerosque deo similis, Aen. 1, 
 589. This also lingers in our devil-stories: at the Evil one's 
 departure his cloven hoof suddenly becomes visible, the ix"''''' °^ 
 the ancient god. 
 
 As the incessus of Venus declared the goddess, the motion (^iOfia) 
 of Here and Athene is likened to that of timorous doves, II. 5, 778. 
 
FLIGHT. VEHICLES. HOKSES. 327 
 
 But the gliding of the gods over such immense distances must have 
 seemed from first to last like flying, especially as their departure 
 was expressly prepared for by the assumption of a bird's form. It 
 is therefore easy to comprehend why two several deities, Hermes 
 and Athene, are provided with peculiar sandals (ireBiXa), whose 
 motive power conveys them over sea and land with the speed of 
 wind, II. 24, 341. Od. 1, 97. 5, 45 ; we are expressly told that 
 Hermes Jlew with them (TreVeTo, II. 24, 345. Od. 5, 49) ; 
 plastic art represents them as winged shoes, and at a later time adds 
 a pair of wings to the head of Hermes.^ These winged sandals 
 then have a perfect right to be placed side by side with the feather- 
 shift (fiaSrhamr) which Preyja possessed, and which at ThSr's 
 request she lent to Loki for his flight to lotunheim, Ssem. 70'^'' ; 
 but as Freyja is more than once confounded with Frigg (p. 302), 
 other legends tell us that Loki flew off in the ' valsham Friggjar,' 
 Sn. 113. I shaU. come back to these falcon or swan coats in 
 another connexion, but their resemblance to the Greek pedlla 
 is unmistakable; as Loki is here sent as a messenger from the 
 gods to the giants, he is so far one with Hermes, and Freyja's 
 feather-shift suggests the sandals of Athene. Sn. 132-7 : ' Loki 
 atti sJcAa, er hann rann d lopt ok log] had shoes in which he ran 
 through air and fire. It was an easy matter, in a myth, for the 
 investiture with winged hamr or sandals to glide insensibly into 
 an actual assumption of a bird's form : GeirrotJr catches the flying 
 Loki as a veritable bird, Sn. 113, and when Athene starts to fly, 
 she is a swallow (see Suppl.). 
 
 The mighty gods would doubtless have moved whithersoever it 
 pleased them, without wings or sandals, but simple antiquity was 
 not content with even these : the human race used carriages and 
 horses, and the gods cannot do without them either. On this point 
 a sensible diffference is to be found between the Greek and German 
 mythologies. 
 
 All the higher divinities of the Greeks have a chariot and pair 
 ascribed to them, as their kings and heroes in battle also fight in 
 chariots. An oxvfJ'd' for the god of thunder would at once be 
 suggested by the natural phenomenon itself ; and the conception of 
 the sun-chariot driven by Helios must also be very ancient. The 
 
 ' 0. Miiller's archaeol. 559. 
 
328 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 car of Here, and how she harnesses her steeds to it, mounts it in 
 company with Athene, and guides it, is gorgeously depicted in II. 
 5, 720.-76 ; so likewise Demeter and Kora appear seated in a 
 carriage. Hermes is drawn by rams,^ as the Norse ThSrr [by he- 
 goats]. The Okeanides too have their vehicle, Aesch. Prom. 135. 
 But never are Zeus, Apollo, Hermes or any of the most ancient 
 gods imagined riding on horseback ; it is Dionysos, belonging to a 
 diiferent order of deities, that first rides a panther, as Silenus does 
 the ass, and godlike heroes such as Perseus, Theseus, and above all, 
 the Dioscuri are mounted on horses. Okeanos bestrides a winged 
 steed. Prom. 395. It seems worth remarking, that modern Greek 
 legend represents even Charon as mounted. 
 
 In Teutonic mythology the riding of gods is a far commoner 
 thing. In the Merseburg poem both Wuotan and Phol ride in the 
 forest, which is not at all inconsistent with the word used, ' faran ' ; 
 for it is neither conceivable that Wuotan drove while Balder rode, 
 nor that Balder drove a one-horse carriage. Even Hartmann von 
 Aue still imagines God riding a horse, and contented with Enit for 
 his groom (p. 18). Among those that ride in the Edda are OSinn 
 (who saddles his Sleipnir for himself, Ssem. 93=^), Baldr and 
 HermoSr ; in Saem. 44* and Sn. 18 are given the names of ten other 
 horses as well, on which the Ases daily ride to council, one of them 
 being Heimdall's GuUtoppr, Sn. 30. 66 ; the owners of the rest are 
 not specified, but, as there were twelve Ases and only eleven horses 
 are named, it follows that each of those gods had his mount, except 
 Thorr, who is invariably introduced either driving or walking (p. 
 167), and when he gets GuUfaxi as spoil from Hrungnir, gives him 
 away to his son Magni, Sn. 110. OSin's horse leaps a hedge seven 
 ells high, Fornm. sog. 10, 56. 175. Even the women of the gods 
 are mounted : the valkyrs, like OSinn, ride through air and water, 
 Sn. 107, Freyja and Hyndla on a boar and a wolf, as enchantresses 
 and witches are imagined riding a wolf, a he-goat or a cat. Night 
 (fem.) had a steed Hrlmfaxi, rimy-mane, as Day (masc.) had 
 iSktnfaxi, shiny-mane. 
 
 At the same time carriages are mentioned too, especially for 
 goddesses (p. 107). The sacred car of Nerthus was drawn by cows, 
 that of Freyja by cats, Holda and Berhta are commonly found 
 driving waggons which they get mended, the fairies in our nursery- 
 
 ' 0. Miiller's archaeol. 5C3. 
 
VEHICLES. HORSES. 329 
 
 tales travel through the au- in coaches, and Brynhildr drives in her 
 waggon to the nether world, Ssem. 227. The image of a Gothic 
 deity in a waggon was alluded to on p. 107; among the gods, 
 Freyr is expressly described as mounted on his car, while Thorr 
 has a waggon drawn by he-goats : on Woden's waggon, conf. p. 
 151 (see SuppL). 
 
 When we consider, that waggons were proper to the oldest 
 kings also, especially the Frankish kings, and that their riding on 
 horseback is nowhere mentioned ; it seems probable that originally 
 a similar equipage was alone deemed suitable to the gods, and their 
 riding crept in only gradually in the coarser representations of later 
 times. From heroes it was transferred to gods, though this must 
 have been done pretty early too, as we may venture to allow a 
 considerable antiquity to the story of Sleipuir and that of Balder's 
 horse or foal. The Slavs also generally furnished their god 
 Svantovit with a horse to ride on. 
 
 Some few divinities made use of a shi^, as may be seen by the 
 stories of Athene's ship and that of Isis, and Frey's SktSblaSnir, 
 the best of all ships, Saem. 45''. 
 
 But whichever way the gods might move, on earth, through air 
 or in water, their walk and tread, their riding and driving is 
 represented as so vehement, that it produces a loud noise, and the 
 din of the elements is explained by it. The driving of Zeus or 
 Thorr awakens thunder in the clouds ; mountains and forests 
 tremble beneath Poseidon's tread, II. 13, 18 ; when Apollo lets 
 himself down from the heights of Olympus, arrows and bow clatter 
 (exkay^av) on his shoulder 1, 44, Bewrj Se KXa/yyt] yiver^ dpyvpioio 
 ^ioh, dreadful was the twang of his silver bow 1, 49. In the lays 
 of the Edda this stirring up of nature is described in exactly the 
 same way, while the AS. and OHGr. writings, owing to the earlier 
 extinction of heathen notions, have preserved no traces of it : 
 'framm reiS OSinn, foldvegr dundi,' forth rode 0., earth's way 
 thundered, Ssem. 94^ ; ' bibrg brotnoSo, brann iorS loga, ok OSins 
 sonr 1 lotunheima,' . mountains crumbled, earth blazed, when rode, 
 &c. 73*; 'flo Loki, fiaSrhamr dundi,' the wing-coat whirred, 70" 
 71" ; ' iorS bifaz (quaked), enn allir for scialfa garSar Gymis ' when 
 Sklmir came riding 83^ The rage and writhing of gods who were 
 bound produced equally tremendous efl'ects (p. 246). 
 
330 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 On the other hand, delightful and salutary products of nature 
 are also traced to the immediate influence of the gods. Flowers 
 spring up where their feet have strayed ; on the spot where Zeus 
 clasped Here in his arms, shot up a thick growth of sweet herbs 
 and flowers, and glittering dewdrops triclded down, II. 14, 346 — 51. 
 So, when the valkyrs rode through the air, their horses' manes 
 shook fruitful dew on the deep vales below, Ssem. 145'' ; or it falls 
 nightly from the bit of Hrimfaxi's bridle 32'' (see Suppl.). 
 
 Of one thing there is scarcely a trace in our mythology, though 
 it occurs so often in the Greek : that the gods, to screen themselves 
 from sight, shed a mist round themselves or their favourites who 
 are to be withdrawn from the enemy's eye, II. 3, 381. 5, 776. 18, 
 205. 21, 549. 597. It is called •^epi KaXirTrreiv, rjkpa p^ew, a)(\vv or 
 i/e^o? are^euv, and the contrary a'^Xiiv a-KeSd^etv to scatter, chase 
 away, the mist. We might indeed take this into account, that the 
 same valkyrs who, like the Servian vily, favour and shield their 
 beloved heroes in battle, were able to produce clouds and hail in 
 the air ; or throw into the reckoning our tarnkappes and helidhelms, 
 whose effect was the same as that of the mist. And the Norse 
 gods do take part with or against certain heroes, as much as the 
 Greek gods before Ilion. In the battle of Bravik, OSinn mingled 
 with the comljatants, and assumed the figure of a charioteer Bruni ; 
 Saxo Gram., p. 146. Fornald. sbg. 1, 380. The Grimnismal makes 
 GeirroSr the prot(5g6 (fostri) of OSinn, Agnarr that of Frigg, and 
 the two deities take counsel together concerning them, Ssem. 39; in 
 the Vols, saga cap. 42, OSinn suggests the plan for slaying the sons 
 of lonakr. The Greek gods also, when they drew nigh to counsel 
 or defend, appeared in the form of a human warrior, a herald, an 
 old man, or they made themselves known to their hero himself, 
 but not to others. In such a case they stand before, beside or 
 behind him (irapd, II. 2, 279. ^771;^*, Od. 1, 120. 07x00, II. 2, 172. 
 3, 129. 4, 92. 5, 123. irpoaeev 4t, 129. oTndev 1, 197) ; Athene leads 
 by the hand through the battle, and wards the arrows off 4, 52 ; 
 she throws the dreadful segis round Achilles 18, 204; Aphrodite 
 shields Aeneas by holding her veil before him 5, 315; and other 
 heroes are removed from the midst of the fray by protecting 
 deities (p. 320). Venus makes herself visible to Hippomenes alone, 
 Ovid Met. 10, 650. Now they appear in friendly guise, Od. 7, 201 
 
SLEEP. SICKNESS. LAUGHTER. 331 
 
 seq. ; now clothed in terror : ■^^aXeirol Be 6eol ^aivecQaL ivapyei';, 
 II. 20, 131 (see SuppL). 
 
 The Iliad, 14, 286 seq., relates how"T7ri'o? (sleep), sitting in the 
 shape of a song-bird on the boughs of a fir-tree on Mt. Ida, over- 
 powers the highest of all the gods ; other passages show that the 
 gods went to their beds every night, and partook like men of the 
 benefit of sleep, II. 1, 609. 2, 2. 24, G77. Still less can it be 
 doubted of the Norse gods, that they too slept at night : Thorr on 
 his journeys looks out for night-lodging, Sn. 50 ; of Heimdall alone 
 is it said, that he needs less sleep than a bird, Sn. 30. And from 
 this sway of sleep over the gods follows again, what was maintained 
 above, that of death : Death is the brother of Sleep. Besides, the 
 gods fell a prey to diseases. Freyr was sick with love, and his 
 great hugsott (mind-sickness) awakened the pity of all the gods. 
 OSinn, NiorSr and Freyr, according to the Yngl. saga 10. 11. 12, all 
 sink under sicknesses (sottdauSir). Aphrodite and Ares receive 
 wounds, II. 5, 330. 858 ; these are quickly healed [yet not without 
 medical aid]. A curious story tells how the Lord God, having 
 fallen sick, descends from heaven to earth to get cured, and comes 
 to Arras ; there minstrels and merryandrews receive commands to 
 amuse him, and one manages so cleverly, that the Lord hursts out 
 laughing and finds himself rid of his distemper.^ This may be very 
 ancient; for in the same way, sick daughters of kings in nursery- 
 tales are made to laugh by beggars and fiddlers, and so is the 
 goddess SkaSi in the Edda by Loki's juggling tricks, when mourning 
 the death of her father, Sn. 82. lambe cheered the sorrowing 
 Demeter, and caused her, iroXkci irapaaKcoirTovaa, fieiBiicrai /yeXdcrat, 
 re, Kal 'iXaov crxeiv 6v/i6v, Hymn, in Cer. 203 (see SuppL). 
 
 Important above all are the simUar accounts, given by Greek 
 antiquity and by our own, of the language of the gods. Thus, 
 passages in the Iliad and the Odyssey distinguish between the 
 divine and human names for the same object : 
 
 ov Bpidpeccv KoXiovcn 6eoi, dvBpe<i Be re TrdvTev 
 
 Alyalcov. II. 1, 403. 
 
 TTjv TjToi dvBpe<i Barmav KLKKrjo-KovaLv, 
 
 ' De la vefiue de Dieu ^ Arras, in Jubinal'a Nouveau recueil de contes 2, 
 377-8. 
 
332 COKDITION OF GODS, 
 
 aBdvaroi Se re a-fjfia TroX.vcrKapdfioio Muptvr]^, 2, 813. 
 
 ^oX«:t'Sa KiKKrjaKovcTi 6eoi, dvSpev Be KU/xivSiv. 14, 291. 
 
 ov 'EavOov KaXeovai Oeol, avhpe<; Se SKafiavSpov. 20, 74.^ 
 
 fiaiXv Be /.uv KoXiovai deal. Od. 10, 305. 
 A whole song in the Edda is taken up with comparing the languages, 
 not only of gods and men, but of Vanir, elves, dwarfs, giants and 
 subterraneans, and that not in a few proper names and rare words, 
 but in a whole string of names for the commonest objects. At the 
 very outset it surprises us, that while goS and sesir are treated as 
 synonymous, a distinction is drawn between goS and ginregin. In 
 13 strophes are given 78 terms in all: on examining these, it soon 
 appears that the variety of names (six) for each thing simply comes 
 of the richness of the Teutonic tongue, and cannot possibly be 
 ascribed to old remnants or later borrowings from any Finnic, 
 Celtic or Slavic languages. They are synonyms or poetic names, 
 which are distributed among six or eight orders of beings endowed 
 with speech, according to the exigencies of alliteration, not from 
 their belonging to the same class, such as poetical or prose. I will 
 illustrate this by quoting the strophe on the names for a cloud : 
 sc§ heitir mefJ monnom, en scArvdn me?5 goSom, 
 kalla vindflot Vanir, 
 'Arv&n iotnar, alfar ve&rmegin, 
 kalla 1 heljo Malm huliz. 
 Everything here is Teutonic, and still the resources of our language 
 are not exhausted by a long way, to say nothing of what it may 
 have borrowed from others. The only simple word is sky, still 
 used in the Scandinavian dialects, and connected with skuggi umbra, 
 AS. scuwa, scua, OHGr. scuwo. The rest are all appropriate and 
 intelligible periphrases. Sciirvan [shower-weening] pluviae expec- 
 tatio, from sklir imber, Germ, schauer ; ^rvan just the same, from 
 fir pluvia, with which compare the literal meaning of Sanskr. 
 abhra nubes, viz. aquam gerens.^ Vindflot is apparently navigium 
 venti, because the winds sail through the air on clouds. VeSrmegin 
 transposed is exactly the OHG. maganwetar turbo ; and hiS.lmr 
 
 1 Perhaps we ought also to reckon aUros and nepKvos 24, 316, which is no 
 mere e7riKXj;o-is as in 7, 138. 18, 487 (Od. 5, 273). 22, 29. 506, though 'Ao-ruwa^ 
 in this last passage happens to have Sxa/iacdpior (6, 402) answering to it, as 
 SavBos has ^KUfiavSpos. 
 
 " Bopp, gloss, sanskr. 16" 209". 
 
LANGUAGE. 333 
 
 huliz appears elsewhere as hulizhiMmr, OS. lielitli-helm, a tarn- 
 helmet, grlma, mask, which wraps one in like a mist or cloud. Of 
 course the Teutonic tongue could offer several other words to stand 
 for cloud, beside those six ; e.g., nifl, OHG. nebal, Lat. nebula, Gr. 
 ve(j)e\T] ; Goth, milhma, Swed. moln, Dan. mulm ; Sansk. m^gha, 
 Gr. ofii'xXr], ofii-)(\.7), Slav, megla ; OHG. wolchan, AS. wolcen, which 
 is to Slav, oblako as miluk, milk, to Slav, mlelco ; ON. }joka nebula, 
 Dan. taage ; M.Dut. swerk nubes, OS. gisuerc, caUgo, nimbus ; AS. 
 hoSma nubes, Beow. 4911. And so it is with the other twelve 
 objects whose names are discussed in the Alvismal. Where simple 
 words, like s61 and sunna, mani and skin, or lord and fold, are 
 named together, one might attempt to refer them to different 
 dialects : the periphrases in themselves show no reason (unless 
 mythology found one for them), why they should be assigned iu 
 particular to gods or men, giants or dwarfs. The whole poem 
 brings before us an acceptable list of pretty synonyms, but throws 
 no light on the primitive affinities of our language. 
 
 Plato in the Cratylus tries hard to understand that division of 
 Greek words into divine and human. A duality of proper names, 
 like Briareos and Aigaion, reminds us of the double forms Hler and 
 Oegir (p. 240), Ymir and Oergelmir, which last Su. 6 attributes to the 
 Hrim]jurses ; ISunn would seem by Ssem. 89* to be an Elvish 
 word, but we do not hear of any other name for the goddess. In 
 the same way Xanthus aud Skamander, Batieia and Myrina might 
 be the different names of a thing in different dialects. More 
 interesting are the double names for two birds, the ^aX/ci? or 
 Kviuvhit (conf. Plin. 10, 10), and the aleT6<; and irepKvov. XaXKit 
 is supposed to signify some bird of prey, a hawk or owl, which does 
 not answer to the description opvi's Xiyvpci (piping), and the myth 
 requires a bird that in sweet and silvery tones sings one to sleep, 
 like the nightingale. HepKvo'i means dark-coloured, which suits 
 the eagle ; to imagine it the bird of the thundergod Perkun, would 
 be too daring. Poetic periphrases there are none among these 
 Greek words. 
 
 The principal point seems to be, that the popular beliefs of 
 Greeks and Teutons agree in tracing obscure words and those 
 departing from common usage to a distinction between divine and 
 human speech. The Greek scholiasts suppose that the poet, 
 holding converse with the Muses, is initiated into the language of 
 
334 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 gods/ and where he finds a twofold nomenclature, he ascrihes the 
 older, nobler, more euphonious (to KpeiTTov, ev^avov, nrpoyeveff- 
 Tepov ovo/jLo) to the gods, the later and meaner (to eXarrov, fiera- 
 yeviarepov) to men. But the four or five instances in Homer are 
 even less instructive than the more numerous ones of the Norse 
 lay. Evidently the opinion was firmly held, that the gods, though 
 of one and the same race with mortals, so far surpassed living men 
 in age and dignity, that they still made use of words which had 
 latterly died out or suffered change. As the line of a king's 
 ancestors was traced up to a divine stock, so the language of gods 
 was held to be of the same kind as that of men, but right feeling 
 would assign to the former such words as had gradually disappeared 
 among men. The Alvismal, as we have seen, goes farther, and 
 reserves particular words for yet other beings beside the gods ; 
 what I maintained on p. 218 about the impossibility of denying the 
 Vanir a Teutonic origin, is confirmed by .our present inquiry. — That 
 any other nation, beside Greeks and Teutons, believed in a separate 
 language of gods, is unknown to me, and the agreement of these 
 two is the more significant. When Ovid in Met. 11, 640 says : 
 Hunc Icelon superi, mortale Phobetora vulgios nominat, this is 
 imitated from the Greeks, as the very names show (see Suppl.). 
 The Indians trace nothing but their alphabet (devanagari, deva- 
 writing), as our forefathers did the mystery of runes (p. 149), to a 
 divine origin, and the use of the symbol may be connected with 
 that of the sound itself ; with the earliest signs, why should not 
 the purest and oldest expressions too be attributed to gods ? 
 Homer's e-rrea inepoevTa (winged words) belong to heroes and other 
 men as well as to gods, else we might interpret them strictly of the 
 ease and nimbleness with which the gods wield the gift of speech. 
 
 Beside language, the gods have customs in common with men. 
 They love song and play, take delight in hunting, war and banquets, 
 and the goddesses in ploughing, weaving, spinning ; both of them 
 keep servants and messengers. Zeus causes all the other gods to be 
 summoned to the assembly (ayopj], II. 8, 2. 20, 4), just as the Ases 
 
 ^ as iiov(TOTpa(jirig Koi ras irapa BeoXs cirl(TTaTat Xe'^eis, oiSe Tfjv T&v aeav 
 SiaXfKTOv, oldf TCI Tap Se&v (oi/o/AOTa), as vir^ fiovaav KaraTTveofievos. oeKav o 
 jroirjTrjs dei^at oTi fjLovtroKrjirTos ea-Tiv, oi fiovov ra rav avSpaitav ovopLara cTray- 
 yiWfTai eldevaif dX\* atnrep Koi oi deol Xcyovo'i. 
 
GRADES. OFFICES. 335 
 
 attend at the Jitng (Soem. 93^), on the rokstola, and by the Yggdra- 
 sill (Ssem. 1'' 2=* 44*), to counsel and to judge. Hebe, youth, is 
 cupbearer of the gods and handmaid to Here (II. 5, 722), as Fulla 
 is to Frigg (Sn. 36) ; the youth Ganymede is cupbearer too, and so 
 is Beyla at the feast of the Ases (Ssem. 67*); Skirnir is Frey's 
 shoemaker (81) and messenger, Beyggvir and Beyla are also called 
 his servants (59). These services do no detriment to their own 
 divine nature. Beside Hermes, the goddess Iris goes on errands 
 for the Greek gods (see Suppl.). 
 
 Among the gods themselves there is a difference of rank. Three 
 sons of Kronos have the world divided among them, the sky is 
 allotted to Zeus, the sea to Poseidon, hell to Hades, and the earth 
 they are supposed to share between them (II. 15, 193). These 
 three tower above all the rest, like Har, lafnhar and ThriSi in the 
 Norse religion, the triad spoken of on p. 162. This is not the same 
 thing as ' Wuotan, Donar, Ziu,' if only because the last two are not 
 brothers but sons of Wuotan, although these pass for the three 
 mightiest gods. Then, together with this triad, we become aware 
 of a circle of twelve (p. 26), a close circle from which some of the 
 gods are excluded. Another division, that into old and new gods, 
 does not by any means coincide with this : not only OSinn and his 
 Ases, but also Zeus and his colleagues, appear as upstarts^ to have 
 supplanted older gods of nature (see Suppl,). 
 
 All the divinities, Greek and Norse, have offices and functions 
 assigned them, which define their dominion, and have had a marked 
 influence on their pictorial representation. In Sn. 27 — 29 these 
 offices are specified, each with the words : ' hann rasSr fyrir (he 
 looks after),' or ' S, hann skal heita til, er gott at heita til (to him 
 you shall pray for, it is good to pray for) '. Now, as any remnants 
 of Greek or Teutonic paganism in the Mid. Ages were sure to 
 connect themselves with some christian saints, to whom the 
 protection of certain classes or the healing of certain diseases was 
 carried over, it is evident that a careful classification of these 
 guardian saints according to the offices assigned them, on the 
 strength of which they are good to pray to,^ would be of advan- 
 tage to our antiquities. And the animals dedicated to each 
 
 ^ Aesch. Prom. 439 dio'uri toIs veois, 955 pe'ov vioi KpaTeWf, 960 tovs peovs 
 Beois. Eumen. 156. 748. 799 oi i/eirfpoi 5fo/. Conf. Otfr. Miiller, p. 181. 
 2 Conf. Haupt's zeitschr. fur d. alt. 1, 143-4. 
 
336 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 deified saint (as once they were to gods) would liave to be specified 
 too. 
 
 The favourite residence of each god is particularly pointed out 
 in the Grimuismal ; mountains especially were consecrated to the 
 Teutonic, as to the Greek deities : Sigt,9sberg, Himinbiorg, &c. 
 Olympus was peculiarly the house of Zeus (Jtos Swfio), to which 
 the other gods assembled (II. 1, 494) ; on the highest peak of the 
 range he would sit apart (arep aXXcov 1, 498. 5, 753), loving to take 
 counsel alone (dirdvevOe dewv 8, 10). He had another seat on Ida 
 (11, 183. 336), whence he looked down to survey the doings of men, 
 as OSinn did from HliSscialf. Poseidon sat on a height in the 
 wooded range of Samos (13, 12). Valholl and Bilskirnir, the 
 dwellings of 03inn and Thurr, are renowned for their enormous 
 size ; the one is said to have 540 doors, through any one of which 
 800 einheriar can go out at once, and Bilskirnir has likewise 540 
 ' golfe ' [ON. golfr, floor] (see SuppL). 
 
 If now we take in one view the relations of gods and men, we 
 find they meet and touch at all points. As the created being is 
 filled with a childlike sense of its dependence on the creator, and 
 prayers and offerings implore his favour, so deity too delights in its 
 creations, and takes in them a fatherly interest. Man's longing 
 goes forth towards heaven ; the gods fix their gaze on the earth, to 
 watch and direct the doings of mortals. The blessed gods do 
 commune with each other in their heavenly abodes, where feasts 
 and revels go on as in earthly fashion ; but they are more drawn to 
 men, whose destinies enlist their liveliest sympathy. It is not true, 
 what Mart. Cap. says 2, 9 : ipsi dicuntur dii, et caelites alias 
 perhibentur . . . nee admodum eos mortalium curarum vota 
 sollicitant, aTra^etyque perhibentur. Not content with making 
 their will known by signs and messengers, they resolve to come 
 down themselves and appear to men. Such appearance is in the 
 Hindu mythology marked by a special name : avatdra, i.e., de- 
 scensus.'^ 
 
 Under this head come first the solemn car-processions of deities 
 heralding peace and fruitfulness or war and mischief, which for the 
 most part recur at stated seasons, and are associated with popular 
 festivals ; on the fall of lieathenism, only motherly wise-women 
 
 ' Eopp's glos3. sansk. 21», 
 
DWELLINGS. INCAENATION. 337 
 
 still go their rounds, and heroes ride through field or air. More 
 rarely, and not at regular intervals, there take place journeys of 
 gods through the world, singly or in twos or threes, to inspect the 
 race of man, and punish the crimes they have noticed. Thus 
 Mercury and OSinn appeared on earth, or Heimdall to found the 
 three orders, and Thorr visited at weddings ; OSinn, Hoenir and 
 Loki travelled in company; medieval legend makes God the 
 Father seek a lodging, or the Saviour and St. Peter, or merely 
 three angels (as the Servian song does, Vuk 4, no. 3). Most 
 frequent however are the solitary appearances of gods, who, invoked 
 or uninvoked, suddenly bring succour to their favoured ones in 
 every time of need ; the Greek epos is quite full of this. Athene, 
 Poseidon, Ares, Aphrodite mingle with the warriors, warning, 
 advising, covering ; and just as often do Mary and saints from 
 heaven appear in christian legends. The Lithuanian Perkunos also 
 walks on earth (see Suppl.). 
 
 But when they descend, they are not always visille ; you may 
 hear the car of the god rash by, and not get sight of him bodily ; 
 like ghosts the blessed gods flit past the human eye unnoticed, till 
 the obstructive mist be removed from it. Athene seizes Achilles 
 by the hair, only by him and no other is she seen, II. 1, 197 ; to 
 make the succouring deities visible to Diomed, she has ' taken the 
 mist from his eyes, that was on them before ' 5, 127 : 
 
 d'xXw S' ail Toi air 6(p6a\fiS>v eXov, rj irplv eTrrjev, 
 o^p'' ev 'Yiyvd)crKri<; ^fiev 6eov rjhe Kal dvSpa, 
 
 Just so Biarco, in Saxo Gram., p. 37, is unable to spy Othin riding 
 a white steed and aiding the Swedes, till he peeps through the ring 
 formed by the arm of a spirit-seeing woman : a medium that 
 elsewhere makes the elfin race visible to the bleared eyes of man. 
 In another way the gods, even when they showed themselves 
 bodily, concealed their divine nature, by assuming the form of a 
 human acquaintance, or of an animal. Poseidon stept into the 
 host, disguised as Kalchas, II. 13, 45, Hermes escorted Priam as a 
 Myrmidon warrior 24, 397, and Athene the young Telemachus as 
 Mentor. In the same way Othin appeared as the chariot-driver 
 Bruno (p. 330), or as a one-eyed old man. Metamorphoses of gods 
 into animals in Teutonic mythology take place only for a definite 
 momentary purpose, to which the character of the animal supplies 
 the key ; e.g., OSinn takes the shape of a snake, to slip through a 
 
 22 
 
338 CONDITION OF GODS. 
 
 hole he has bored (Sn. 86), and of an eagle, to fly away in haste 
 (86), Loki that of a fly, in order to sting (131), or to creep through 
 a keyhole (356) ; no larger designs are ever compassed hy such 
 means. So, when Athene flies away as a bird, it expresses the 
 divinity of her nature and the suddenness of her departure. But 
 the swan or buU, into which Zeus transformed himself, can only be 
 explained on the supposition that Leda too, and lo and Europa, 
 whom he was wooing, were thought of as swan-maidens or kine. 
 The form of animal would then be determined by the mythus, and 
 the egg-birth of the Dioscuri can be best understood ia this way 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 In the Asiatic legends, it seems to me, the manifestations of 
 deity are conceived deeply and purely in comparison, and nowhere 
 more profoundly than in those of India. The god comes down and 
 abides in the flesh for a season, for the salvation of mankind. 
 Wherever the doctrine of metempsychosis prevailed, the bodies of 
 animals even were eligible for the avat§,ra; and of Vishnu's ten 
 successive incarnations, the earlier ones are animal, it was in the 
 later ones that he truly ' became man ' (see Suppl.). The Greek 
 and Teutonic mythologies steer clear of all such notions ; ia both 
 of them the story of the gods was too sensuously conceived to have 
 invested their transformations with the seriousness and duration of 
 an avatara, although a belief in such incarnation is in itself so 
 nearly akin to that of the heroes being bodily descended from the 
 gods. 
 
 I think that on all these lines of research, which coidd be 
 extended to many other points as well, I have brought forward a 
 series of undeniable resemblances between the Teutonic mythology 
 and the Greek. Here, as in the relation between the Greek and 
 Teutonic languages, there is no question of borrowing or choice, 
 nothing but unconscious affinity, allowing room (and that inevit- 
 ably) for considerable divergences. But who can fail to recognise, 
 or who invalidate, the surprising similarity of opinions on the 
 immortality of gods, their divine food, their growing up overnight, 
 their journeyings and transformations, their epithets, their anger 
 and their mirth, their suddenness in appearing and recognition at 
 parting, their use of carriages and horses, their performance of all 
 natural functions, their ilhiesses, their language, their servants and 
 
CONDITION OF GODS. 339 
 
 messengers, offices and dweUings ? To conclude, I think I see a 
 further analogy in the circumstance, that out of the names of living 
 gods, as T^r, Freyr, Baldr, Bragi, Zeus, grew up the common nouns 
 tyr, frauja, baldor, bragi, deus, or they bordered close upon 
 them (see SuppL). 
 
CHAPTER XT. 
 HEEOES. 
 
 Between God and man there is a step on which the one leads 
 into the other, where we see the Divine Being brought nearer to 
 things of earth, and human strength glorified. The older the epos, 
 the more does it require gods visible in the flesh ; even the younger 
 cannot do without heroes, in whom a divine spark stUl bums, or 
 who come to be partakers of it. 
 
 Heroism must not be made to consist in anything but battle 
 and victory : a hero is a man that in fighting against evU achieves 
 immortal deeds, and attains divine honours. As in the gradation 
 of ranks the noble stands between the king and the freeman, so 
 does the hero between God and man. From nobles come forth 
 kings, from heroes gods, tj/jw? icnlv i^ avOpm-rrov ri kuX 6eov 
 avvOerov, o firjTe avOpmiro'; ian, firjre 6eb<;, koI crvvafii^oTepov icFTi 
 (Lucian in Dial, mortuor. 3), yet so that the human predominates : 
 ' ita tamen ut plus ab homine habeat,' says Servius on Aen. 1, 200. 
 The hero succumbs to pains, wounds, death, from which even the 
 gods, according to the view of antiquity, were not exempt (p. 318). 
 In the hero, man attains the half of deity, becomes a demigod, 
 semideus : tj p, id eco v <yevo<; avBpcov, II. 12, 23 ; avSpayv rjpaxov deiov 
 761/09, oi KaXeovrai, ri p, id eo i, Hes. epy. 159. Jornandes applies 
 semidei to the anses (supra p. 25), as Saxo Gram, pronounces 
 Balder a semideum, arcano superftm semine procreatum. Otherwise 
 in ON. writings we meet with neither halfgoS nor halftls -^ but N. 
 Cap. 141 renders hemithei heroesque by ' halbkota unde erdkota 
 (earthgods) '. 
 
 Heroes are distinct from daemonic beings, such as angels, elves, 
 giants, who fill indeed the gap between God and man, but have not 
 a human origin. Under paganism, messengers of the gods were 
 
 iHalftroll, halfrisi are similar, and the OHG. halpdurinc, halpwalah, 
 halpteni (ON. halfdan) as opposed to altdurino, altwalah. 
 
HEKOES. 341 
 
 gods themselves ;^ the Judeo-christian angel is a dsemon. Eather 
 may the hero be compared to the christian saint, who through 
 spiritual strife and sorrow earns a place in heaven (see Suppl.). 
 
 This human nature of heroes is implied in nearly all the titles 
 given to them. For the definite notion of a divine glorified hero, 
 the Latin language has borrowed heros from the Greek, though its 
 own vir (=Goth. vair ON. ver,^ AS. OHG-. wer, Lett, wihrs, Lith. 
 wyras) in the sense of vir fortis (Tac. Germ. 3) so nearly comes up 
 to the Sanskr. vira heros. Heros, rypo)?, which originally means a 
 mere fighter, has been identified with rather too many things : herus, 
 "Hfyr], 'HpaKkfji;, even "Aprj'i and apeTt] = virtus, so that the Goth, 
 airus, OK ^r, §,ri=nuntius, minister, might come in too, or the 
 supposed digamma make a connexion with the aforesaid vira look 
 plausible. More undeniably, our held is a prolongation^ of the 
 simple ON. hair, AS. haele vir : the name Halidegastes (like 
 Leudogastes) is found so early as in Vopiscus ; and a Goth, halips, 
 OHG. halid, helid may be safely inferred from the proper names 
 HeUdperaht, Helidcrim, Helidgund, Helidniu, Helidberga,* though 
 it is only from the 12th century that our memorials furnish an 
 actual helit pi. helide ; the MHG. helet, belt, pi. helde, occurs often 
 enough. Of the AS. heeled' I remark that it makes its pi. both 
 haeleSas and haleS {e.g., Beow. 103), the latter archaic like the 
 Goth, m^nojjs, whence we may infer that the Gothic also had a pL 
 halijis, and OHG. a pi. helid as well as helida, and this is confirmed 
 by a MHG. pi. held, Wh. 44, 20. In OS. I find only the pi. 
 helid6s, helith6s ; in the Heliand, helithcanni, helithocunni mean 
 simply genus humanum. M.Dut. has helet pi. helde. The ON. 
 holdr pi. holdar (Saem. 114'' 115^ Sn, 171) implies an older 
 holuSr (like mInuSr = Goth. men6]?s) ; it appears to mean nothing 
 but miles, vir, and holdborit (hold-born) in the first passage to be 
 something lower than hersborit, the holdar being free peasants, 
 biiendr. The Dan. helt, Swed, hjelte (OSwed. halad) show an 
 anomalous t instead of d, and are perhaps to be traced to the 
 
 1 At most, we migM feel some doubt about Skirnir, Frey's messenger and 
 servant ; but he seems more a bright angel than a hero. 
 
 2 With this we should have to identify even the veorr used of Thorr (p. 
 187) in so far as it stood for viorr. 
 
 ' Portbildung : thus staff, stack, stall, stem, stare, &c. may be called 
 proloMations of the root sta. — Trans. 
 
 * In early does, the town of Heldburg in Thuringia is already called 
 Helidiberga, MB. 28* 33. 
 
342 HEROES. 
 
 German rather than the ON", form. If we prefer to see both in 
 hair and in halijjs the verb haljan occulere, defendere, tueri, the 
 transition from tutor to vir and miles is easily made; even the 
 Lat. celer is not far from celo to conceal. 
 
 Beside this principal term, the defining of which was not to be 
 avoided here, there are several others to be considered. Notker, 
 who singularly avoids heleda, supplies us in Cap. 141 with : ' heroes, 
 taz chit, hertinga aide chmniga '. This hertinga suggests the AS. 
 heardingas, Elene 25. 130, whether it be a particular line, or heroes 
 in general that are meant by it ; and we might put up with the 
 derivation from herti, heard (hard), viri duri, fortes, exercitati, as 
 hartunga in E". ps. 9, 1 means exercitatio.' But as we actually find 
 a Gothic line of heroes Azdingi, Astingi, and also an ON. of 
 Haddtngjar, and as the Goth, zd, ON. dd, AS. rd, OHG. rt corres- 
 pond to one another, there is more to be said for the Gothic word 
 having dropt an A in the course of transmission, and the forms 
 hazdiggs, haddingr, bearding, hartinc being all one word.^ Now, if 
 the ON. haddr means a lock of hair (conf. p. 309), we may find in 
 haddingr, hazdiggs, &c. a meaning suitable enough for a freeman 
 and hero, that of crinitus, capillatus, cincinnatus ; and it would be 
 remarkable that the meaning heros should be still surviving in the 
 tenth century. No less valuable to us is the other term ehuenig, 
 which can hardly be connected with chuning rex, as N. always 
 spells it ; it seems rather to be ^ chuonig, derived either from 
 chuoni audax, fortis (as fizusig from fizus callidus), or from its still 
 unexplained root.^ Other terms with a meaning immediately 
 bordering on that of hero are: OHG. d'egan (mUes, minister) 5 
 wigani ^ugil) ; chamfio, chempho (pugil), AS. cempa, ON. kappi ; 
 the ON. hetja (bellator), perhaps conn, with hatr odium, bellum ; 
 and skati, better skatfi, AS. sceaSa, scaSa, properly nocivus, then 
 prsedator, latro, and passing from this meaning, honourable in 
 ancient times, into that of heros ; even in the Mid. Ages, Landscado, 
 scather of the land, was a name borne by noble families. That 
 lieri (exercitus), Goth, harjis, also meant miles, is shown by OHG. 
 
 1 The polypt. Irminon 170'' has a proper name Ardingus standing for 
 Hardingus. 
 
 * Graff 4, 447 places chuoni, as well as chuninc and chunni, under the all- 
 devouring root chan ; but as kruoni, AS. grene viridis, comes from iruoan, 
 AS. growan, so may chuoni, AS. cene, from a lost chuoan, AS. c6wan poUere 1 
 vigere 1 
 
HEROES. 343 
 
 glosses, Graff 4, 983, and by names of individual men compounded 
 with heri; conf. ch. XXV, einheri. The OHG. tcrecchio, hvecchio, 
 reecho, had also in a peculiar ■way grown out of the sense of exsul, 
 profugus, advena, which predominates in the AS. wrecca, OS. 
 wrekio, into that of a hero fighting far from home, and the MHG. 
 reeke, ON. reckr is simply a hero in general.^ Similar develop- 
 ments of meaning can doubtless be shown in many other words ; 
 what we have to keep a firm hold of is, that the very simplest 
 words for man (vir) and even for man (homo) adapted themselves 
 to the notion of hero ; as our mann does now, so the ON. hair, the 
 OHG. gomo (homo), ON. gumi served to express the idea of heros. 
 In Diut. 2, 314^, heros is glossed by gomo, and gumnar in the Edda 
 has the same force as skatnar (see SuppL). 
 
 Now, what is the reason of this exaltation of human nature ? 
 Always in the first instance, as far as I can see, a relation of bodily 
 kinship between a god and the race of man. The heroes are 
 epigoni of the gods, their line is descended from the gods : eettir 
 guma er fra goSom komo, Ssem. 114^ 
 
 Greek mythology affords an abundance of proofs ; it is by 
 virtue of all heroes being directly or indirectly produced by gods 
 and goddesses in conjunction with man, that the oldest kingly 
 families connect themselves with heaven. But evidently most of 
 these mixed births proceed from Zeus, who places himself at the 
 head of gods and men, and to whom all the glories of ancestors are 
 traced. Thus, by Leda he had Castor and Pollux, who were called 
 after him Dios-curi, Hercules by Alcmena, Perseus by Danae, 
 Epaphusby lo, Pelasgus by Niobe, Minos and Sarpedon by Europa; 
 other heroes touch him only through their forefathers : Agamemnon 
 was the son of Atreus, he of Pelops, he of Tantalus, and he of Zeus; 
 Ajax was sprung from Telamon, he from Aeacus, he from Zeus and 
 Aegina. Next to Zeus, the most heroes seem to proceed from Ares, 
 Hermes and Poseidon : Meleager, Diomedes and Cycnus were sons 
 of Ares, Autolycus and Cephalus of Hermes, while Theseus was a 
 son of Aegeus, and Nestor of Neleus, but both Aegeus and Neleus 
 
 ^ Some Slavic expressions for hero are worthy of notice : Euss. vitian, 
 Serv. vitez; Russ. boghatyr, Pol. hoJiater, Boh. bohatyr, not conn, either with 
 bogh dens, or boghat dives, but the same as the Pers. behddir, Turk, balicidyr, 
 Mongol, baghdtor, Hung, bdtor, Manju bdtura, and derivable from b'adra lively, 
 merry ; Schott in Erman's zeitschr. 4, 531 [Mongol, baghd is force, ffia, and 
 -tor, -tur an adj. suffix]. 
 
344 HEROES. 
 
 were Poseidon's children ty Aethra and Tyro. Achilles was the 
 son of Peleus and Thetis, Aeneas of Anchises and Venus.^ These 
 examples serve as a standard for the conditions of our own heroic 
 legend (see SuppL). 
 
 Tacitus, following ancient lays, places at the head of our race as 
 its prime progenitor Tuisco, who is not a hero, but himself a god, as 
 the author expressly names him ' deum terra editum '. Now, as 
 Gaia of herself gave birth to Uranos and Pontes, that is to say, sky 
 and sea sprang from the lap of earth, so Tuisco seems derivable 
 from the word tiv, in which we found (pp. 193-4) the primaiy 
 meaning to be sky; and Tuisco, i.e., Tvisco, could easUy spring 
 out of the fuller form Tivisco [as Tuesday from Tiwesdseg]. Tvisco 
 may either mean coelestis, or the actual offspring of another divine 
 being Tiv, whom we afterwards find appearing among the gods : 
 Tiv and Tivisco to a certain degree are and signify one thing. 
 Tvisco then is in sense and station Uranos, but in name Zeus, 
 whom the Greek myth makes proceed from Uranos not directly, 
 but through Kronos, pretty much as our Tiv or Zio is made a son 
 of Wuotan, whUe another son Donar takes upon him the best part 
 of the office that the Greeks assigned to Zeus. Donar too was son 
 of Earth as well as of Wuotan, even as Gaia brought forth the great 
 mountain-ranges (ovpea fiaKpd, Hes. theog. 129 = Goth, fairgunja 
 mikila), and Donar himself was called mountain and fairguneis (pp. 
 169. 172), so that ovpav6<i sky stands connected with ovpo^ opo<; 
 mountain, the idea of deus with that of ans (pp. 25. 188). Gaia, 
 Tellus, Terra come round again in our goddesses Fiorgyn, lorS and 
 Eindr (p. 251) ; so the names of gods and goddesses here cross one 
 another, but in a similar direction. 
 
 This earth-bom Tvisco's son was Mannus, and no name could 
 sound more Teutonic, though Norse mythology has as little to say 
 of him as of Tvisco (ON. Tyski ?). No doubt a deeper meaning 
 once resided in the word ; by the addition of the suffix -isk, as in 
 Tiv Tivisco, there arose out of mann a mannisko = homo, the 
 
 1 In the Roman legend, Eomulus and Eemus were connected tlirongh 
 Silvia with Mars, and through Amulius with Venus ; and Eomulus was taken 
 up to heaven. The later apotheosis of the emperors differs from the genuine 
 heroic, almost as canonization does from primitive sainthood ; yet even 
 Augustus, being deified, passed in legend for a son of Apollo, whom the god in 
 the shape of a dragon had by Atia ; Sueton. Octav. 94. 
 
iNGUio. 345 
 
 thinking self-conscious being (see p. 59) ; both forms, the simple 
 and the derived, have (like thr and tivisko) the same import, and 
 may be set by the side of the Sanskr. Manus and manushya. 
 Mannus however is the first hero^ son .of the god, and father of all 
 men. Traditions of this forefather of the whole Teutonic race 
 seem to have filtered down even to the latter end of the Mid. Ages : 
 in a poem of meister Frauenlob (Ettm. p. 112), the same in which 
 the mythical king Wippo is spoken of (see p. 300), we read : 
 Mennor der 6rste was genant, Mennor the first man was named 
 dem diutische rede got tefc to whom Dutch language God 
 
 bekant. made known. 
 
 This is not taken from Tacitus direct^ as the proper name, though 
 similar, is not the same {see SuppL). 
 
 As aU Teutons come of Tvisco and Mannus, so from the three 
 (or by some accounts five) sons of Mannus are descended the three, 
 five or seven main branches of the race. Prom the names of 
 nations furnished by the Eomans may be inferred those of their 
 patriarchal progenitors. 
 
 1. Inguio. Iscio. Irmino. 
 
 The threefold division ^of all the German! into Ingaevones, 
 Iscaevones and Herminones^ is based on the names of three heroes, 
 Ingo, Isco, Hermino, each of whom admits oi being fixed on yet 
 surer authority.. 
 
 Ing, or Ingo, Inguio has kept his place longest in the memory 
 of the Saxon and Scandinavian tribes. Eunic alphabets in OHG. 
 spell Inc, in AS. Ing, and an echo of his legend seems still to ring 
 in the Lay of Eunes : 
 
 Ing wses serest mid Eastdenum 
 
 gesewen secgum, oS he sltSSan east 
 
 ofer wseg gewat. wsen aefter ran. 
 
 }3us Heardingas ]?one haele nemdon. 
 Ing first dwelt with the East Danes (conf. Beow. 779. 1225. 1650), 
 then he went eastward over the sea,^ his wain ran after. The wain 
 
 ^ Proximi oceano Ingaevones, medii Herminones, ceteri Istaevones vocan- 
 tur, Tac. Germ. 2. 
 
 ^ Csedm. 88, 8 says of the raven let out of Noah's ark : gewat ofer wonne 
 
346 ~ HEROES, 
 
 is a distinctive mark of ancient gods, but also of heroes and kings ; 
 its being specially put forward here in connexion with a sea- 
 voyage, appears to indicate some feature of the legend that is 
 unknown to us (see Suppl.). Ing's residence in the east is 
 strikingly in harmony with a pedigree of the Ynglings given in the 
 Islendingabok (Isl. sog. 1, 19). Here at the head of all stands 
 ' Yngvi Tyrkja konungr,' immediately succeeded by divine beings, 
 NiorSr, Freyr, Fiolnir (a byname of OSkm), Svegdir, &c. In the 
 same way OSinn was called Tyrkja konungr (Sn. 368) from his 
 residing at Byzantium (p. 163 note).^ The Ynglinga saga on the 
 other hand begins the line with NiorSr, after whom come Freyr, 
 Fiolnir and the rest; but of Freyr, whom the wain would have 
 suited exactly, it is stated that he had another name Yngvi or 
 Yngvifreyr (p, 211-2), and the whole race of Ynglingar were named 
 after him.^ Ingingar or Ingvingar would be more exact,- as is 
 shown by the OHG. and AS. spelling, and confirmed by a host of 
 very ancient names compounded with Ing or Ingo : InguiomSrus 
 (Ingim§,rus, IngumS,r, or with asp. Hincmarus), Inguram, Ingimund, 
 Ingiburc, Inginolt, &c. Even Saxo Gram, writes Ingo, Ingimarus. 
 As for Ynglingar, standing for Ingltngar, it may be formed from 
 the prolongation Ingil in Ingelwin, Ingelram, Ingelberga and the 
 Norse IngeUus, unless it is a mere confusion of the word with 
 yngltngr juvenis, OHG. jungilinc, AS. geongling, from the root 
 <ing, June, geong, which has no business here at all (?). — The main 
 point is, that the first genealogy puts Ingvi before NiorSr, so that 
 he would be Frey's grandfather, while the other version makes him 
 be bom again as it were in Freyr, and even fuses his name with 
 Frey's, of which there lurks a trace likewise in the AS; 'frea 
 Ingwina' (p. 211). This Ingwina appears to be the gen. pi. of 
 Ingwine, OHG. Inguwini, and 'dominus Ingwinorum' need not 
 necessarily refer to the god, any hero might be so called. But with 
 perfect right may an Ingvi, Inguio be the' patriarch of a race that 
 
 1 Snorri sends him to Turkland, Saxo only as far as Byzantium. — Teans. 
 
 ''As the ON. genealogies have Yngvi, NiorSr, Freyr, the Old Swedish 
 tahlea in Qeijer (hafder 118. 121. 475) give Inge, Neorch, Fro; some have 
 Neoroch for Neorch, both Being corruptions of Neorth. Now, was it by 
 running Ingvi and Freyr into one, that the combination Ingvifreyr (transposed 
 into AS. iiek Ingwina) arose, or was he cut in two to make an additional 
 link ? The SkElldskaparmal in Sn. 211" calls Yngvifreyr OtSin's son, and from 
 the enumeration of the twelve or thirteen Ases in Sn. 21 1* it cannot be doubted 
 that Yngvifreyr was regarded as equivalent to the simple Freyr. 
 
INGUIO. HASTUNG. 347 
 
 bears the name of Ingvingar = Yngllngar. And then, what the 
 Norse genealogy is unable to carry farther up than to Ingvi, Tacitus 
 kindly completes for us, by informing us that Inguio is the son of 
 Mannus, and he of Tvisco; and his Ingaevones are one of two 
 
 ■ igs, either the OHG. pi. Inguion (from sing. Inguio), or Ingwini 
 
 3r the AS. Ingwine. 
 Thus pieced out, the line of gods and heroes would run : 
 
 rlsco, Mannus, Ingvio, Nerthus, Fravio (or whatever shape the 
 
 othic Frauja would have taken in the mouth of a Koman). The 
 irth-born Tvisco's mother repeats herself after three intermediate 
 jiks in Nerthus the god or hero, as a Norse Ingui stands now 
 jefore NiorSr, now after ; and those Vanir, who have been moved 
 iway to the east, and to whom NiorSr and his son Freyr were held 
 mainly to belong (pp. 218-9), would have a claim to count as one 
 and the same race with the Ingaevones, although this associa- 
 tion with Mannus and Tvisco appears to vindicate their Teutonic 
 character. 
 
 But these bonds draw themselves yet tighter. The AS. lay 
 informed us, that Ing bore that name among the Heardings, had 
 received it from them. This Heardingas must either mean heroes 
 and men generally, as we saw on p. 342, or a particular people. 
 Hartung is still remembered in our Heldenbuch as king of the 
 Eeussen (Riis, Eussians), the same probably as 'Hartnit' or 
 ' Hertnlt von Eeussen ' ; in the Alphart he is one of the "Wolfing 
 heroes.^ Eartunc and his father Immune (Eudlieb 17, 8) remain 
 dark to us. The Heardingas appear to be a nation situated east of 
 the Danes and Swedes, among whom Ing is said to have lived for 
 a time ; and this his sojourn is helped out both by the Turkish 
 king Yngui and the Eussian Hartung. It has been shown that to 
 Hartunc, Hearding, would correspond the ON. form Haddingr. 
 Now, whereas the Danish Hne of heroes beginning vsdth 0?5inn 
 arrives at TroSi in no more than three generations, OSinn being 
 followed by Skioldr, FriSleifr, ProfSi; the series given in Saxo 
 Gram, stands thus : Humbl, Dan, Lother, Skiold, Gram, Hading, 
 Frotho. But Hading stands for Hadding, as is clear from the 
 spelling of ' duo Haddingi ' in Saxo p. 93, who are the Haddingjar 
 often mentioned in the Edda; it is said of him, p. 12 : ' orientalium 
 
 1 Hemit = Hai-ding in the Swedish tale of Dietrich (Iduna 10, 253-4. 
 284). 
 
348 HEROES. 
 
 robore debellato, Suetiani reversus,' which orientals again are 
 Eutheni ; but what is most remarkable is, that Saxo p. 17-8 puts 
 ill the mouth of this Danish king and his wife Eegnilda a song 
 which in the Edda is sung by Niord'r and Skad'i (Sn. 27-8).^ We 
 may accordingly take Haddiug to be identical with NiorSr, i.e., a 
 second birth of that god, which is further confirmed by FriSleifr 
 ( = Fredlaf, whom we have already identified with the simple Frea, 
 p. 219) appearing in the same line, exactly as Freyr is a son of' 
 NiorSr, and Saxo says expressly, p. 16, that Hadding offered a 
 Froblot, a sacrifice in honour of Freyr. Whether in Fr6&i (OHG. 
 Fruoto, MHG. Fruote), the hero of the Danish story, who makes 
 himself into three, and whose rule is praised as peaceful and bliss- 
 ful, we are to look for Freyr over again, is another question. 
 
 In the god-hero of Tacitus then there lingers, stm recognisable, 
 a Korse god ; and the links I have produced must, if I mistake 
 not, set the final seal on the reading ' Nerthus '. If we will not 
 admit the goddess into the ranks of a race which already has a 
 Terra mater standing at its very head, it is at all events no great 
 stretch to suppose that certain nations transferred her name to the 
 god or hero who formed one of the succeeding links in the race. 
 
 There are more of these Norse myths which probably have to 
 do with this subject, lights that skim the deep darkness of our 
 olden time, but cannot light it up, and often die away in a dubious 
 flicker. The Formali of the Edda, p. 15, calls OSinn father of 
 Yngvi, and puts him at the head of the Yngllngar : once again we 
 see ourselves entitled to identify OSinn with Mannus or Tvisco. 
 Nay, with all this interlacing and interchange of members, we 
 could almost bear to see OSinn made the same as NiorSr, which is 
 done in one manuscript. But the narrative ' fri Fornioti ok bans 
 settmonnum ' in Fornald. sog. 2, 12 carries us farther : at the top 
 stands Burri, like the king of Tyrkland, followed by Burr, O&inn, 
 Freyr, Niord'r, Freyr, Fiolnir ; here then is a double Freyr, the 
 first one taking Yngvi's place, i.e., the Yngvifreyr we had before ; 
 but also a manifold OSinn, Fiolnir being one of his names (Ssem. 
 10" 46'' 184=^. Sn. 3). Burri and Burr, names closely related to 
 
 1 So Wh. Mailer (Haiipt's zeitsohr. 3, 48-9) has justly pointed out, that 
 SkaSi's choice of the mufHed bridegroom, whose feet alone were visible (Sn. 
 82), agrees with Saxo's ' eligendi mariti libertas curiosiore corporiim attrecta- 
 tione, bi^t here to find a ring that the flesh has healed over. SkaSi and 
 Eagnhild necessarily fall into one. 
 
iNGaio, POEO. iscio. 349 
 
 each other like Folkvaldi and Folkvaldr, and given in another list 
 as Burri and Bors, seem clearly to be the Buri and Borr cited by 
 Sn. 7. 8 as forefathers of the three brothers OSinn, Vili, Ve (see p. 
 162). Now, Buri is that first man or human being, who was 
 licked out of the rocks by the cow, hence the §ristporo (erst-born), 
 an OHG. Poro, Goth. Ba'dra ; Borr might be OHG. Fcmi, Goth. 
 Barus or whatever form we choose to adopt, anyhow it comes from 
 hairan, a root evidently weU chosen in a genealogical tale, to denote 
 the first-born, first-created men.^ Yet we may think of Byr too, 
 the wish-wind (see Oskabyrr, p. 144). Must not Buri, Borr, Odinn 
 ha parallel, though under other names, to Tvisco, Manmis, Inguio ? 
 Inguio has two brothers at his side, Iscio and Hermino, as OSinn 
 has Vili and Ve ; we should then see the reason why the names 
 T^ski and MaSr^ are absent from the Edda, because Buri and Borr 
 are their substitutes ; and several other things would become 
 intelligible. Tvisco is ' terra editus,' and Buri is produced out of 
 stone ; when we see OSinn heading the Ynglingar as weU aS' 
 Inguio the Ingaevones, we may find in that a confirmation of the 
 hypothesis that Saxons and Cheruscans, preeminently worshippers- 
 of Wodan, formed the flower of the Ingaevones. These gods and 
 demigods may appear to be aU running into one another, but always- 
 there emerges from among them the real supreme divinity, 
 Wuotan. 
 
 I go on expounding Tacitus. Everything confirms me in the 
 conjecture that Inguio's or Ingo's brother must have been named 
 Iscio, Isco, and not Istio, Isto. There is not so much weight to be 
 laid on the fact that sundry MSS. even of Tacitus actually read 
 Iscaevones : we ought to examine more narrowly, whether the st 
 in Pliny's Istaevones be everywhere a matter of certainty ; and 
 even that need not compel us to give up our sc ; Iscaevo was 
 perhaps liable to be corrupted by the Romans themselves into Istaevo, 
 as Vistula crept in by the side of the truer Viscula (Weichsel). But 
 what seem irrefragable proofs are the Uscio and Hisicion^ of 
 
 ^ So in the Eigsmal 105% Bwr is called the first, Barn the second, and lotS 
 (conf. AS. eaden) the third child of FaSir and MoSir. 
 
 * ON. for man : sing. matSr, mannis, manni, mann ; pi. menn, manna, 
 monniim, menn. 
 
 s In Nennius § 17, Stevenson and Sanmarte (pp. 39. 40) have adopted tlie 
 very worst reading Hisitio. 
 
350 HEROES. 
 
 Nennius, in a tradition of the Mid. Ages not adopted from Tacitus, 
 and the Isiocov} in a Gaelic poem of the 11th century (see Suppl.). 
 If this will not serve, let internal evidence speak : in Tuisco and 
 Mannisco we have been giving the suffix -isc its due, and Tuisto, a 
 spelling which likewise occurs, is proof against all attempt at 
 explanation. Now Isco, as the third name in the same genealogy, 
 would agree with these two. Tor Tvisco and Mannus the Norse 
 legend substitutes two other names, but Inguio it has preserved in 
 Ingvi ; ought not his brother Iscio to be discoverable too ? I fancy 
 I am on his track in the Eddie Askr, a name that is given to the 
 first-created man again (Saem. 3. Sn. 10), and means an ash-tree. 
 It seems strange enough, that we also come across this ash (let 
 interpretation understand it of the tree or not) among the Eunic 
 names, side by side vrith ' inc, ziu, er,' all heroes and gods ; and 
 among the ON. names for the earth is Eskja, Sn. 220^ And even 
 the vowel-change in the two forms of name, Iscio and Askr, holds 
 equally good of the suffix -isk, -ask. 
 
 Here let me give vent to a daring fancy. In our language the 
 relation of lineal descent is mainly expressed by two suffixes, 
 ING and ISK. Manning means a son the offspring of man, and 
 mannisko almost the same. I do not say that the two divine 
 ancestors were borrowed from the grammatical form, stUl less that 
 the grammatical form originated in the heroes' names. I leave the 
 vital connexion of the two things unexplained, I simply indicate it. 
 But if the Ingaevones living ' proximi oceano ' were Saxon races, 
 which to this day are addicted to deriving with -ing, it may be 
 remarked that Asciburg, a sacred seat of the Iscaevones who dwelt 
 ' proximi Eheno,' stood on the Ehine.^ Of Askr, and the relation 
 of the name to the tree, I shall treat in ch. XIX ; of the Iscae- 
 vones it remains to be added, that the Anglo-Saxons also knew a 
 hero Oesc, and consequently Oescingas. 
 
 Zeuss, p. 73, gives the preference to the reading Istaevones, 
 connecting them with the Astingi, Azdingi, whom I (p. 342) took for 
 Hazdingi, and identified with the ON. Haddingjar, AS. Heardingas, 
 OHG. Herting^,. The hypothesis of Istaevones = Izdaevones would 
 require that the Goth. zd=z AS. rd, OHG. rt, should in the time of 
 
 1 Pointed out by Leo in tlie zeitschr. f. d. alt. 2, 534. 
 
 " Conf. Askitun (Ascha near Amberg), Askiprunno (Eschbom near Frank- 
 fort), Askipah (Eschbach, Escbenbach) in various parts ; Ascarlh, a man's 
 name (see Suppl.). 
 
ISCIO. lEMINO. 351 
 
 Tacitus have prevailed even among the Rhine Germans ; I have never 
 yet heard of an OHG. Artinga, ErtingS,, nor of an OK Addingar, 
 Eddingar. According to this conjecture, ingenious anyhow and 
 worth examining further, the ancestral hero would be called Istio= 
 Izdio, Izdvio, OHG. Erto, ON. Eddi, with which the celebrated 
 term edda proavia would agree, its Gothic form being izd6, OHG. 
 ertl Izdo, Izdio proavus would seem in itself an apt name for the 
 founder of a race. The fluctuation between i and a would be common 
 to both interpretations, 'Iscaevones = AskingS, ' and ' Istaevones= 
 Artinga'. 
 
 The third son of Mannus will occupy us even longer than his 
 brothers. Ermino's posterity completes the cycle of the three main 
 races of Germany : Ingaevones, Iscaevoiies, Herminones. The order 
 in which they stand seems immaterial, in Tacitus it merely follows 
 their geographical position ; the initial vowel common to them 
 leads us to suppose an alliterative juxtaposition of the ancestral 
 heroes in German songs. The aspirate given by the Eomans to 
 Herminones, as to Hermunduri, is strictly no part of the German 
 word, but is also very commonly retained by Latin writers of the 
 Mid. Ages in proper names compounded with Irmin, In the name 
 of the historical Arminius Tacitus leaves it out. 
 
 As with Inguio and Iscio, we must assign to the hero's name 
 the otherwise demonstrable weak form Irmino} Ermino, Goth. 
 Airmana : it is supported by the derivative Herminones, and even 
 by the corruptions ' Hisicion, Armenon, Negno ' in Nennius (see 
 Suppl.). Possibly the strong-formed Irman, Innin, Armin may 
 even be a separate root. But what occurs far more frequently than 
 the simple word, is a host of compounds with irman-, irmin-, not 
 only proper names, but other expressions concrete and abstract : 
 Goth. Ermanaricus (Ai'rmanareiks), OHG. Irmanrih, AS. Eormenrlc, 
 ON. lormunrekr, where the u agrees with that in the national 
 name Hermundurus ; OHG. Irmandegan, Irmandeo, Irmanperaht, 
 Irmanfrit, Irminolt, Irmandrfit, Irmangart, Irmansuint, &c. Atten- 
 tion is claimed by the names of certain animals and plants : the 
 ON. lormungandr is a snake, and lormunrekr a bull, the AS. 
 Eormenwyrt and Eormenleaf is said to be a maUow, which I also 
 
 > Pertz 1, 200. 300. 2, 290. 463. 481 ; the abbas Irmino of Charles the 
 Great's time is known well enough now ; and a female name larmin is met 
 with in deeds. 
 
352 ■ HEKOES. 
 
 find written geormenwyrt, geormenleaf. Authorities for irmangdt, 
 irmandiot, OS. irminthiod, irminman, irmansul, &c., &c., have been 
 given above, p. 118. A villa Irmenld, i.e., a wood (in ilia silva 
 scaras sexaginta) is named in a deed of 855, Bondam's charterbook, 
 p. 32. silva Irminlo, Lacombl. 1, 31. 
 
 In these compounds, especially those last named, irman seems 
 to have but a general intensifying power, without any distinct 
 reference to a god or hero (conf. Woeste, mittheU. p. 44) ; it is 
 like some other words, especially got and diot, regin and megin, 
 which we find used in exactly the same way. If it did contain 
 such reference, Eormenleaf would be Eormenes leaf, like rorneotes 
 folme, Wnotanes wee. Irmandeo then is much the same as 
 Gotadeo, Irmanrih a,s Diotrih ; and as irmangot means the great 
 god, irmandiot the great people, iormungrund the great wide earth, 
 so irmansul cannot mean more than the great pillar, the very sense 
 caught by Eudolf in his translation universalis columna (p. 117). 
 
 Tliis is all very true, but there is nothing to prevent Irmino or 
 Irmin having had a personal reference in previous centuries : have 
 we not seen, side by side with Zeus and Tyr, the common noun 
 deus and the prefix ty-,tJr- (p. 195-6) ? conf. p. 339.. If Saeteresdseg 
 has got rubbed down to Saturday, Saterdach (p. 125), so may Eritac 
 point to a former Erestac (p. 202), Eormenleaf to Eormenes leaf, 
 IrmansM to IrmanessM ; we also met with Donnerbiihel for 
 Donnersbiihel (p. 170), Woenlet for Woenslet, and we say 
 Frankfurt for Erankenfurt [Oxford for Oxenaford, &c.]. The more 
 the sense of the name faded out, the more readUy did the genitive 
 form drop away ; the OHG. godes hus is more literal, the Goth, 
 gujjhiis more abstract, yet both are used, as the OS. regano giscapu 
 and regangiscapu, metodo giscapu and metodgiscapu held their 
 ground simultaneously. As for geormen = eormen, it suggests 
 Germanus (Gramm. 1, 11). 
 
 It is true, Tacitus keeps the Hermino that lies latent in his 
 Herminones apart from Arminius with whom the Komans waged 
 war ; yet his famous ' canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes,' appUed 
 to the destroyer of Varus, might easily arise through simply 
 misinterpreting such accounts as reached the Eoman ear of 
 German songs about the mythical hero. Granted that irmans&l 
 expressed word for word no more than ' huge pillar,' yet to the people 
 that worshipped it it must have been a divine image, standing for 
 
IRMIKO, lEMIN. 353 
 
 a particular god. To discover who this was, we can only choose 
 one of two ways : either he was one of the three great divinities, 
 Wodan, Thenar, Tin, or some being distinct from them. 
 
 But here we must, above all things, ponder the passage partly 
 quoted on p. Ill from Widukind, himself a Saxon; it says, a 
 heathen god was worshipped, whose name suggested Mars, his 
 piUar-statue Hercules, and the place where he was set up the sun 
 or Apollo. After that, he continues : ' Ex hoc apparet, aestima- 
 tionem illorum utcunique probabilem, qui Saxones originem duxisse 
 putant de Graecis, quia Eirrnin vel Hermes graece Mars dicitiir, 
 quo vocabulo ad laudem vel ad vituperationem usque hodie etiam 
 ignorantes utimur '. From this it follows, that the god to whom 
 the Saxons sacrificed after their victory over the Thuringians was 
 called Hirmin, Irmin, and in the 10th century the name was still 
 affixed in praise or blame to very eminent or very desperate 
 characters.! Apollo is brought in by the monk, because the altar 
 was built ad orientalem portam, and Hercules, because his pUlar 
 called up that of the native god; no other idol can have been 
 meant, than precisely the irmins4l (pp. 115 — 118), and the true form 
 of this name must have been Irmines, Irmanes or Hirmines sM. 
 The Saxons had set up a pillar to their Irviin on the banks of the 
 Unstrut, as they did in their own home. 
 
 The way Hirmin, Hermes and Mars are put together seems a 
 perfect muddle, though Widukind sees in it a confirmation of the 
 story about the Saxons being sprung from Alexander's army 
 (Widuk. 1, 2. Sachsensp. 3, 45). We ought to remember, first, 
 that Wodan was occasionally translated Mars instead of Mercurius 
 (pp. 121. 133), and had all the appearance of the Eoman Mars 
 given him (p. 133) ; then further, how easily Irmin or Hirmin in 
 this case would lead to Hermes, and Ares to Mars, for the Irminsul 
 itself is connected with Eres-burg (p. 116). What the Corvei 
 annalist kept distinct (p. Ill), the two images of Ares and of 
 Hermes, are confounded by Widukind. But now, which has the 
 better claim to be Irmin, Mars or Mercury ? On p. 197 I have 
 pronounced rather in favour of Mars, as Miillenhoff too (Haupt 7, 
 384) identifies Irmin with Ziu ; one might even be inclined to see 
 
 ^ Much as we say now : he is a regular devil, or in Lower Saxony hamer 
 (p. 182). The prefix irmin- likewise intensifies in a good or bad sense ; like 
 ' irmingod, imunthiod,' there may have been an irminthiob = ' meginthiob, 
 regintluob '. 
 
 23 
 
354 HKBOE& 
 
 in it the name of the war-god brought out on p. 202, ' Eru, Heru/ 
 and to dissect Irman, Erman into Ir-man, Er-man, though, to judge 
 by the forms Irmin, Eormen, Ermun, lormun, this is far from 
 probable, the word being derivative indeed, yet simple, not com- 
 pound ; we never find, in place of Ertag, dies Martis, any such 
 form as Ermintac, Irminestac. On behalf of Mercury there would 
 speak the accidental,^ yet striking similarity of the name IrmansM 
 or Hirmensftl to 'EpiMrj^ and epfia = prop, stake, pole, pillar (p. 
 118), and that it was precisely Hermes's image or head that used 
 to be set up on such epfiara, and further, that the Mid. Ages 
 referred the irmen-piUars to Mercury (p. 116). In Hirmin the 
 Saxons appear to have worshipped a Wddan imaged as a warrior. 
 
 If this view be well grounded, we have Wodan wedging himself 
 into the ancient line of heroes ; but the question is, whether Irmin 
 is not to be regarded as a second birth or son of the god, whether 
 even an ancestral hero Irmino is not to be distinguished from this 
 god Irmin, as Hermino in Tacitus is from Arminius ? So from thiod, 
 regin, were formed the names Thiodo, Eegino. It would be harder 
 to show any such relation between Ing and Ingo, Isc and Isco; but I 
 think I can suggest another principle which will decide this point : 
 when races name themselves after a famous ancestor, this may be a 
 deified man, a demigod, but never a purely divine being. There are 
 Ingaevones, Iscaevones, Herminones, Oescingas, Scilfingas, Ynglin- 
 gar (for Ingingar), Volsftngar, Skioldiingar, Nifldngar,^ as there were 
 Heracleidae and Pelopidae, but no W6deningas or Thunoringas, 
 though a WSdening and a Kronides. The Anglo-Saxons, with 
 Woden always appearing at their head, would surely have borne 
 the name of Wodeningas, had it been customary to take name 
 from the god himself. Nations do descend from the god, but 
 through the medium of a demigod, and after him they name them- 
 selves. A national name taken from the highest god would have 
 been impious arrogance, and alien to human feeling. 
 
 As Lower Saxony, especially Westphalia, was a chief seat of 
 the Irmin-worship, we may put by the side of Widukind's account 
 of Hirmin a few other traces of his name, which is not even yet 
 
 1 To the Greek aspirate corresponds a Teutonic S, not H : <5, ^ sa, so ; 
 iirrd sibun ; aXs salt. [There are exceptions ; 6, f], oi he, her, hig ; SKos whole, 
 hela ; e\S> haul, holen]. 
 
 ^ A patronymic sulBx is not necessary : the Gautos, Gevissi, Su&p^ take 
 name from Gauts, Gevis, Sujip, divine heroes. 
 
IRMIN. 355 
 
 entirely extinct in that part of Germany. Strodtmann has noted 
 down the following phrases in Osnabriick : ' he ment, use herre 
 gott heet Rerm (he thinks our Lord is called H., i.e. is never angry) ; 
 use herre gott heet nich Hervi, he heet leve herre, un weet wal to- 
 te-gripen (knows how to fall on) '. Here there seems unconcealed 
 a slight longing for the mild rule of the old heathen god, in 
 contrast to the strictly judging and punishing christian God. In 
 Saxon Hesse (on the Diemel), in the districts of Paderborn, Eavens- 
 berg and Miinster, in the bishopric of Minden and the duchy of 
 Westphalia,^ the people have kept alive the rhyme : 
 
 Hermen, sla dermen, 
 
 sla pipen, sla trummen, 
 
 de kaiser wil kummen 
 
 met hamer un stangen,^ 
 
 wil Hermen uphangen. 
 Hermen is challenged, as it were, to strike up his war-music, to 
 sound the catgut, pipe and drum ; but the foe draws nigh with 
 maces and staves, and wiU hang up Hermen (see Suppl.). It is not 
 impossible that in these rude words, which have travelled down the 
 long tradition of centuries, are preserved the fragments of a lay 
 ■that was first heard when Charles destroyed the Irmensul. They 
 cannot so well be interpreted of the elder Arminius and the Eomans.* 
 The striking and the staves suggest the ceremony of carrying out 
 the Summer. 
 
 In a part of Hesse that lies on the Werra, is a village named 
 Ermschwerd, which in early documents is called Ermeswerder, 
 Armeswerd,* Ermeneswerde (Dronke's trad. fuld. p. 123), Ermenes- 
 werethe (Vita Meinwerci an. 1022. Leibn. 1, 551), = Irmineswerid, 
 insula Irmini, as other gods have their isles or eas. This interpre- 
 tation seems placed beyond a doubt by other such names of places. 
 Leibn. scr. 1, 9 and Eccard, Fr. or. 1, 883, De orig. Germ. 397 
 
 ' Eommel's Hessen 1. p. 66 note. Westphalia (Minden 1830) i. 4, 52. 
 The tune is given in Schumann's Musical, zeitung for 1836. 
 
 ^ Variants : mit stangen und prangen (which also means staves) ; mit 
 hamer un tangen (tongs). 
 
 ' This explanation has of course been tried : some have put Hermann for 
 Hermen, others add a narrative verse, which I do not suppose is found in the 
 people's mouth : ' un Hermen slaug dermen, slaug pipen, slaug tnmimen, de 
 tureten sind kummen met all ereu mannen, hebt Varus uphangen '. 
 
 * The same vowel-change is seen in Ermensulen (deed of 1298 in Baring's 
 Clavis dipl. p. 493 no. 15), a Westphalian village, now called Armemeul. 
 
356 HEROES. 
 
 give Irmineswagen for the constellation arctus, plaustrum coeleste, 
 I do not know on what authority : this wain would stand beside 
 Wuotanswagen, Donnerswagen, and even Ingswagen. 
 
 Some of the later AS. and several 0. Engl, authorities, iu 
 specifying four great highways that traverse England, name 
 amongst them JErmingestrete, running from south to north of the 
 island.^ But we may safely assume the pure AS. form, to have 
 been Eormenstraet or Eormenes-strtet, as another of the four ways, 
 Wcetlingccstrcet, occurs in the Saxon Chron. (Ingr. 190. Thorpe's 
 anal. p. 38), and in the Treaty of ,i551fred and Guthrun (Thorpe, p. 
 66), and ' andlang WaetliTiga straet ' in Kemble 2, 250 (an. 944). 
 Lye has Irmingsircet together with IrmingsiU, both without refer- 
 ences. The conjectural Eormenstrtet would lead to an OHG. 
 Irmanstr§,za, and Eormenesstreet to Irmanesstr^za, with the mean- 
 ings via publica and via Irmani. 
 
 Now it is not unimportant to the course of our inquiry, that 
 one of the four highways, Wtetlingastrset, is at the same time 
 translated to the sky, and gets to look quite mythical. A plain 
 enough road, extending from Dover to Cardigan, is the mUhy way 
 in the heavens, i.e., it is travelled by the car of some heathen god. 
 
 Chaucer (House of Eame 2, 427), describing that part of the 
 sky, says : 
 
 Lo there, quod he, cast up thine eye, 
 
 se yondir, lo, the galaxie, 
 
 the whiche men clepe the milky way 
 
 for it is white, and some parfay 
 
 ycallin it han Watlingestrete, 
 
 that onis was brente with the hete, 
 
 whan that the sunnis sonne the rede, 
 
 which hite Phaeton, wolde lede 
 
 algate his fathirs carte and gie. 
 In the Complaint of Scotland, p. 90, it is said of the comet : ' it 
 aperis oft in the quhyt circle callit circulus lacteus, the quhUk the 
 marynalis callis Vatlanstreit ', In Douglas's Virgil, p. 85 : 
 
 ^ ini clieminii Watlingestrete, Fosse, Hickenildestrete, Ermingestrete 
 (Thorpe's Ano. laws, p. 192) ; conf. Henry of Hunt. (Erningestreet), Hob. of 
 Glouc, Oxf. 1742, p. 299 (also Erning., after the preceding). Eanulph 
 Highden's Polychr., ed. Oxon. p. 196. Leland's Itinerary, Oxf. 1744. 6, 108— 
 140. Gibson in App. chron. t-'ax. p. 47. Camden's Britannia, ed. Gibson, 
 Lond. 1753, p. Ixxix. In the map to Lappenberg's Hist, of Engl., the direction 
 of the four roads is indicated. 
 
lEMIN. 357 
 
 Of every steme tlie twynkling notis he 
 that in the still hevin move cours we se, 
 Arthurys house, and Hyades betaikning rane, 
 Watlingestrete, the Home and the Charlewaue, 
 the feirs Orion with his goldin glave. 
 Wsetlinga is plainly a gen. pi. ; who the Wsetlings were, and how 
 they came to give theii- name to an earthly and a heavenly street, 
 we do not know. Chaucer perhaps could stDl have told us, but he 
 prefers to harp at the Greek mythus. Phatithon, also the son of a 
 god, when he presumed to guide his father's sun-chariot, burnt a 
 broad streak in the sky, and that is the track we call the milky 
 way. The more common view was, that Here, indignant at the 
 bantling Hermes or Herakles being put to her breast, spilt her 
 milk along the sky, and hence the bright phenomenon. No doubt, 
 among other nations also, fancy and fable have let the names of 
 earthly and heavenly roads run into one another.^ 
 
 A remarkable instance of this is found in one of our national 
 traditions ; and that wiU bring us round to Irmin again, whom we 
 almost seem to have lost sight of. 
 
 * I limit myself to briefly quoting some other names for the nhilhj way. 
 In Arabic it is tarilc al thibn (via straminis) ; Syriac schevil tevno (via paleae) ; 
 Mod. Hebrew netibat theben (semita paleae) ; Pers. rah kah keshan (via stramen 
 trahentis) ; Copt, pimoit ende pitoh (via straminis) ; Ethiop. hasare zamanegade 
 (stipula viae) ; Arab, again d&rb ettiibenin (path of the chopped-straw carriers) ; 
 Turk, samcire ughrisi (paleam rapiens, paleae fur) ; Armen. hartacol or hartacogh 
 (paleae fur) ; all these names run upon scattered chaff, which a thief dropt in 
 nis flight. More simple is the Arabic majerra (tractus), nahr al majerra, 
 (flumen tractus), and the Eoman conception of path of the gods or to the gods ; 
 ako Iroq. path of souls, Turk, hadjiler juU (pilgrims' path), hadji is a pilgrim to 
 Mecca and Medina. Very similar is the christian term used in the Mid. Ages, 
 ' galaxias via sancti Jacobi ' already in John of Genoa's Catholicon (13th cent.) ; 
 camino di Santiago, chemin de saint Jaques, Jacohsstrasse, Slov. zesta v' Rim 
 (road to Rome), from the pilgrimages to Clalicia or Rome, which led to heaven 
 [was there no thought of Jacob'.s ladder ?] This James's road too, or pilgrim's 
 road, was at once on earth and in heaven ; in Lacomblet, docs. 184 and 185 
 (an. 1051) name a Jacobswech together with the via regia. ON. vetrarhaut 
 (winterway). Welsh caer Gwydion (p. 150), and Arianrod (silver street? which 
 comes near Argentoratum). Finn, linnunrata (birdway), Lith. paukszcziH 
 hides, perhaps because souls and spirits flit in the shape of birds ; Hung. Hada- 
 kuttya (via belli), because the Hungarians in migrating from Asia followed 
 this constellation (see Suppl.). Vroneldenstraet (p. 285) and Pharaildis fit 
 intelligibly enough with frau Holda and Herodias, whose airy voyages easily 
 account for their giving a name to the milky way, the more so, as Wuotan, 
 who joins Holda in the nightly hunt, shows himself here also in the Welsh 
 appellation caer Gwydion. Even the fact of Diana being mixed up with that 
 chase, and Juno with the milky way, is in keeping ; and gods or spirits sweep 
 along the heavenly road as well as in the heavenly hunt. 
 
358 HEROES. 
 
 Widukind of Corvei is the first who gives us out of old songs 
 the beautiful and truly epic story of the Saxons' victory over the 
 Thuringians/ which Euodolf before him (Pertz 2, 674) had barely 
 touched. Irmenfried, king of the Thuringians, being oppressed by 
 Dieterich, king of the Franks, called the Saxons to his aid : they 
 appeared, and fought valiantly. But he began to waver in his 
 mind, he secretly negotiated a treaty with the Franks, and the two 
 nations were about to unite against the formidable Saxon host. 
 But the Saxons, becoming aware of the treachery, were beforehand ; 
 led by the aged Hathug^t, they burst into the castle of the Thurin- 
 gians, and slew them all ; the Franks stood still, and applauded the 
 warlike renown of the Saxons. Irmenfried fled, but, enticed by a 
 stratagem, returned to Dieterich's camp. In this camp was 
 staying Irmenfried's counsellor Iring, whose prudent plans had 
 previously rendered him great services. When Irmenfried knelt 
 before Dieterich, Iring stood by, and having been won by Dieterich, 
 slew his own lord. After this deed of horror, the Frankish king 
 banished him from his sight, but Iring said, ' Before I go, I will 
 avenge my master,' drew his sword, stabbed Dieterich dead, laid his 
 lord's body over that of the Frank, so that the vanquished in Hfe 
 might be the victor in death, opened a way for himself with the 
 sword (viam feiro faciens), and escaped. ' Mirari tamen non 
 possumus ' adds Widukind, ' in tantum famam- praevaluisse, ut 
 Iringi nomine, quern ita vocitant, lacteus coeh circulus usque in 
 praesens sit notatus.' Or, with the Auersberg chronicler : ' famam 
 in tantum praevaluisse, ut lacteus eoeli circulus Iringis nomine 
 Iringesstrdza usque in praesens sit vocatus ' (sit notatus in Pertz 
 8, 178). 
 
 In confirmation, AS. glosses collected by Junius (Symb. 372) 
 give ' via secta : Iringes uuec' from which Somner and Lye borrow 
 their ' Iringes weg, via secta '. Cent via sexta iringesuuec, Haupts 
 zeitschr. 5, 195. Unpubl. glosses of the Amplonian libr. at Erfurt 
 (10-llth cent. bl. 14^) have 'via secta: luuaringes mteg ' ; which 
 luwaring agrees very remarkably with the later form Euring in 
 Euringsstrass, Aventin 102^ 103\ 
 
 ' Conf. the differing but likewise old version, from a H. German district, 
 in Goldast's Script, rer. Suev. pp. 1—3, where Swabians take the place of the 
 Saxons. The Auersberg chron. (ed. Argent. 1609, pp. 146-8) copies Widu- 
 kind. Eokehard, in Pertz 8, 176-8. 
 
lEMIN. IRING. 259 
 
 In the Nibelungenlied 1285. 1965 — 2009, these heroes appear 
 again, they are the same, but differently conceived, and more akin 
 to the H. German version in Goldast : ^ Trnwit of Diiringen and 
 Irinc of Tenemarke, one a landgraf, the other a markgraf, both 
 vassals of Etzel (Attila). The lied von der klage (threnody) adds, 
 that they had fallen under the ban of the empire, and fled to 
 Hunland ; here we see a trace of the banishment that Dieterich 
 pronounced on Iring. In the poems of the 13th century, however, 
 Iring is not a counsellor, still less a traitor and a murderer of 
 Irmenfried: the two are sworn friends, and both fall before the 
 irresistible Hagene and Volker. 
 
 Add to all this,- that the Vilk. saga cap. 360, though silent on 
 Imfried, tells of Irung's last combat with Hogni, and makes him 
 sink against a stone wall, whidi is still called lr4,ngs veggr in 
 memory of the hero. The Norse redactor confounded vegr (via) 
 with veggr (murus) ; his German source must have had Iringes vec, 
 in allusion to the ' cutting his way ' in Widukind. 
 
 So now the road is paved to the conclusions we desire to draw : 
 German legend knew of an Iringes wee on earth and in heaven, so 
 did AS. legend of a double Wsetlinga-strset, and so was the road 
 to Rome and St. James set in the fiiTaament as well. These 
 fancies about ways and wains, we know, are pagan, and indicate 
 god-mythSi The Thuringian Irnvrit, originally Irmanfrit, it is 
 reasonable to suppose, is the same as Irman, Irmin (conf. Sigfrit, 
 Sigmunt, Sigi), and the Hermunduri = Irman-duri are plainly con- 
 nected with the Burings (Thuringians) : so that Irman assumes a 
 peculiar significance in Thuringian tradition. If this would but 
 teU us of an Irmines wee, all would come right. 
 
 It does tell, however, in three or four places, of an Iringes wee. 
 The names Irine and Irmin, apart from the alliteration which 
 doubtless operated in the ancient lay, have nothing in common; the 
 first has a long i,^ and of themselves they cannot have represented 
 
 ' As already quoted, Deutsch. heldens. p. 117. 
 
 ' Or iu, as some roots shift from the fourth to the fifth vowel-series (like 
 hirat and hiurat, now both heirat and heurat ; or tir and tyr, p. 196), so lurinc 
 (expanded into luwarinc, as the OHG. poss. pron. iur into iuwar) ; so in the 
 16-17th cent. Firing alternates with Euring. A few MSS. read Hiring for 
 Iring, like Hirmin for Irmin, but I have never seen a Heuring for Euring, or 
 it might have suggested a Saxon hevenring, as the rainbow is called the ring of 
 heaven. An old AS. name for Orion, EburSrung, EbirSring, seems somehow 
 connect.ed, especially with the luwaring above. 
 
360 HEROES. 
 
 one another. Now, either the legend has made the two friends 
 change places, and transferred Irmin's way to Iring, or Iring (not 
 uncommon as a man's name too, e.g^TiaA. Fuld. 1, 79) is of him-, 
 self a demigod grown dim, who had a way and wain of his own, as 
 well as Irmin. Only, Irmin's worship seems to have had the 
 deeper foundations, as the image of the Irmansdl sufficiently 
 shows. As the name of a place I find Iringes pure (burg), MB. 7, 
 47. 157. 138. 231. Iringispere (berg) 29, 38. 
 
 Up to this point I have refrained from mentioning some Norse 
 traditions, which have a manifest reference to the earthly hero- 
 path. It had been the custom from of old, for a new king, on as- 
 suming the government, to travel the great highway across the 
 country, confirming the people in their privileges (EA. 237-8). 
 This is called in the 0. Swed. laws ' JErilcsgatu ridha,' riding Eric's 
 road.^ Sweden numbers a host of kings named Erik (ON. Eirikr), 
 but they are all quite historical, and to none of them can be traced 
 this custom of the Eriksgata. With the royal name of Erik the 
 Swedes must from very early times have associated the idea of a 
 god or deified king ; the vita Anskarii written by his pupil Eim- 
 bert, has a remarkable passage on it (Pertz 2, 711). When the 
 adoption of Christianity was proposed to king Olef about 860, a 
 man of heathen sentiments alleged, ' Se in conventu deorum, qui 
 ipsam terram possidere credebantur, et ab eis missum, ut haec regi 
 et populis nunciaret : Vos, inquam,^ nos vobis propitios diu habuis- 
 tis, et terram incolatus vestri cum multa abundantia nostro 
 adjutorio in pace et prosperitate longo tempore tenuistis, vos quo- 
 que nobis sacrificia et vota debita persolvistis, grataque nobis vestra 
 fuerunt obsequia. At nunc et sacrificia solita subtrahitis, et vota 
 spontanea segnius offertis,^ et, quod magis nobis displicet, alienura 
 deum super nos intro ducitis. Si itaque nos vobis propitios habere 
 vultis, sacrificia omissa augete et vota majora persolvite, alterius 
 quoque dei culturam, qui contraria nobis doeet, ne apud vos reci- 
 piatis et ejus servitio ne intendatis. Porro, si etiam plures deos 
 
 1 The venerable custom still prevailed in the 15-16th cent. : 'statuta pro- 
 vincialium generose confirmavit et sigillavit in eqnitatu qui diqitur Eriksgata,' 
 Diarium Vazstenense ad an. 1441 (ed. Benzel, Ups. 1721) p. 86. 'Rex 
 Christoferus Sueciae et Daciae equitatum fecit qui dicitur Eriksgata secundum 
 leges patriae,' ibid, ad an. 1442. Even Gustavus Vasa rode his Eriksgata. 
 
 ^ For inquimus, as elsewhere inquit for inquiunt. 
 
 ' Votum, what an individual offers, as opposed to the sacrificium presented 
 publicly and jointly ; oouf. supra, p. 57. 
 
IRMIN. lEING. 361 
 
 habere desideratis, et nos vobis non sufficiraus, Uricum, quondam 
 regem vestrum, nos unanimes in collegium, nostrum asciscimus} ut 
 sit unus de numero deorum.' — I have transcribed the whole passage, 
 because it aptly expresses the attitude of the pagan party, and the 
 lukewarmness already prevailing towards their religion : the 
 heathen priests thought of adding a fresh hero to their throng of 
 gods.^ This seems to exclude all later Erics from any claim to the 
 Eriksgata ; probably there were mixed up even then, at least in 
 liimbert's mind, traditions of a divine Erik. 
 
 It can no longer remain doubtful now, what god or divine hero 
 lies hidden in this Erik. I had at one time thought of Er (Mars), 
 because the form Erctag is met with a few times for Ertag (p. 124), 
 hut the short vowel in Er, and the long one in Irinc, Eirikr, are 
 enough to warn us off. Instead of Eriksgata we also meet with 
 Riksgata, and this points decidedly to Rigr, the earthly name of 
 the god Heimdallr, who in the Edda walks the green roads (groenar 
 brautir) of earth, to beget the three races of men. In the green 
 earthly roads are mirrored the white and shining paths of heaven.^ 
 Then the problem started on p. 234, whether the ON", form Bigr 
 arose out of Iringr by aphseresis and syncope, now finds a solution 
 approaching to certainty. Heimdallr dwells in Himinbiorg on the 
 quaking roost (Bifrost), the rainbow, which is the bridge or path by 
 which the gods descend from heaven to earth. The rainbow is the 
 celestial ring, as the galaxy is the celestial road, and Heimdallr 
 keeper of that road, Heimdallr is Etgr = Iring, walking the earth 
 and translated to tlifi skies ; now we comprehend, why there lived 
 among the nations many a various tale of Eriksgata, Iringeswec, 
 Iringesstrdza, and was shifted now to one and now to the other 
 celestial phenomenon. Iring, through luioaring, borders on Ebur- 
 ffnmg the old name of Orion (see SuppL). And if our heroic 
 legend associates Irmenfrit, i.e., Irmin with Iring, and Irmin-street 
 alternates with Iring-street, then in the god-myth also, there must 
 have existed points of contact between Irmin = OSinn and Iring = 
 Heimdallr: well, Heimdallr was a son of OSinn, and the Welsh milky 
 way was actually named after Gwydion, i.e., W6den. From the 
 IrminsM four roads branched out across the country, Erilvsgata 
 
 ^ So king Hakon is admitted into the society of gods, HermoSr and Bragi 
 go to meet him : ' siti Hakon me?S hei(5in goS ' (Hakonarmal). 
 ^ Dahlmann guesses it may be the Upsal Erik (d. 804}. 
 ' Altd. blatter 1, 372-3. 
 
362 HEROES. 
 
 extended in four directions, four such highways are likewise known 
 to English tradition, though it gives the name of Ermingestret' to 
 only one, and bestows other mythic titles on the rest. Of Irmin 
 and of Iring, both the divine personality and the lapse into hero- 
 nature seem to be made out. 
 
 2. Maeso. Gambaeo. Suapo. 
 
 Now that I have expounded the primeval triad of Germanic 
 races, I have to offer some conjectures on the sevenfold division. 
 Pliny's quintuple arrangement seems not so true to fact, his Viudili 
 are Tacitus's Yandilii, his Peucini not referable to any founder of a 
 race. But Tacitus to his first three adds four other leading races, 
 the Marsi, Gambrivii, Suevi and Vandilii, in whose names there 
 exists neither alliteration nor the weak form as a mark of deriva- 
 tion. 
 
 The Marsi between Ehine and Weser, an early race which soon 
 disappears, in whose country the Tanfana sanctuary stood, lead up 
 to a hero Marso, whom we must not mix up with the Eoman Mars 
 gen. Martis, nor with Marsus the son of Circe (who in like manner 
 gives name to an Italian people, Gellius 16, 11. Pliny 7, 2. 
 Augustine in Ps. 57). The Marsigni =: Marsingi, a Suevic .people, 
 acknowledged the same name and origin. The proper name Marse 
 occurs in Mabillon no. 18, in a deed of 692, also in the polypt. 
 Irminonis p. 158" 163*", but seldom elsewhere, jlfemburg and 
 Iforseburg, Pertz 8, 537. 540, seem to belong here, while some 
 other names given above, p. 201, are open to doubt; I do not 
 know if a MHG. phrase, obscure in itself, is at all relevant : ' zuo 
 alien marsen varn,' MS. 1, 25% which may signify, to go to all the 
 devils, expose oneself to every danger ; conf. ' einen marsen man,' 
 Crane 2865. The Gothic marzjan (impedire, offendere) might seem 
 allied to the root, but that would have been merrian,. merran 
 in OHG. 
 
 The name of the Gambrivii I assign ta the r-oot gambar, 
 kambar strenuus, from which also is derived the name of Gamhara, 
 ancestress of the Langobards. There may have been, likewise a 
 hero Gambaro. And the forest of Gambreta (instead of Gabreta). 
 is worth considering. Gambara's two sons are called Ihor = OHG. 
 Epur, AS. Eofor, ON. lofur, i.e. aper, boar, and Ajo : all the three 
 names appear to be corrupt in Saxo Gram. 
 
MAESO. SUAPO. 363 
 
 Ought -we to assume for the Suevi, OHG. Sua,pa, an eponymous 
 hero Suevo, Su§,po, and perhaps connect with him an old legend of 
 a mountain ? Pliny 4, 13 places in the land of the ' gens Ingae- 
 vonum, quae est prima Germaniae,' a certain 'Sevo mons immensus' 
 reaching to the Sinus Codanus ; and Solinus, following him, says 
 22, 1 : • Mons Sevo ipse ingens . . . initium Germaniae facit, 
 hunc Inguaeones tenent ; ' but Isidor (Orig. 10, 2) makes out of it : 
 ' dicti autem Suevi putantur a monte Suew, qui ab ortu initium 
 Germaniae facit '. From this evidently is taken the account of the 
 immigrating SwS,ben in the Lay of Anno 284 : ' si sluogen in 
 gecelte (pitched their tents) ane dem berge Sucho (so several read 
 for Suedo), dannin wurdin si geheizin Suabo '} In the Low 
 German psalms 57, 17 mons coagulatus is rendered ' berg sueuot,' 
 which is perhaps to be explained by the legend of the lebirmer 
 [hver-sea, Tacitus's mare pigrum ? Germ. 45. Agr. 10]. It seems 
 more to the point, that in Stem. 164-8 the Sefa fioll (fells, moun- 
 tains, of the Sevs) are mentioned in those very Helga-songs, one of 
 which sings of Svafaland, king Svafnir and the valkyr Svava. A 
 V after s is frequently dropped, and the readings Sevo, Suevo can 
 thus be reconciled. Suapo then would be a counterpart to Etzel 
 and Fairguns (pp. 169, 172) ? The AS. Sweppa, or rather Swjef- 
 daeg, can hardly be brought in here. 
 
 Tacitus's Vandilii and Pliny's Vindili stand in the same relation 
 to each other as Arminius and Irmin, Angrivarii and Inguiones ; 
 both forms come from winding and wending, out of which so many 
 mythic meanings flow. Wuotan is described under several names 
 as the wender, wanderer [Germ, wandelu ambulare, mutare]. 
 
 On the slight foundation of these national names, Marsi, 
 Gambrivii, Suevi and Vandilii, it is unsafe as yet to build. Tacitus 
 connects these with Mannus, but the heroes themselves he does not 
 even name, let alone giving any particulars of them. 
 
 3. (Hercules). (Ulysses). Alois. 
 
 Clear and definite on the other hand are the historian's notices 
 of another famous hero : Fuisse apud eos et Herculem, memorant, 
 primumque omnium virorum fortium ituri in proelia canunt, Germ. 
 
 ' Kaiserchr. 285 : sin gecelt hiez er slahen do ilf einin berc der heizit 
 Swero, von dem berge Swero sint sie alle geheizen Swabo. For Swero read 
 Swevo (see Suppl.). 
 
364: HEROES. 
 
 3. Speaking of sacrifices in cap. 9, after mentioning ^lercurius 
 fii'st, he immediately adds : JETerculeni ac Martem concessis animali- 
 bus placant, the demigod being purposely put before even Mars. 
 Chapter 34 tells us of the ocean on the coast of the Frisians, then 
 says : Et superesse adhuc Herculis columnas fama vulgavit, sive 
 adiit Hercules, seu quidquid ubique magnificum est, in claritatem 
 ejus referre consensimus. JSTec defuit audentia Druso Germanico, 
 sed obstitit oceanus in se simul atque in Herculem inquiri. Mox 
 nemo tentavit, sanctiusque ac reverentius visima de actis deorum 
 credere quam scire. The Annals 2, 12 name a ' silva Serculi 
 sacra,' between the Weser and Elbe in the land of the Cheruscans ; 
 ■while the Peutinger Table puts a ' castra Herculis ' near Novio- 
 magus (Nimwegen). All this means something, it all points to 
 some demigod who is identified, not unadvisedly, with that of the 
 Eomans. Hercules, whose deeds were accomplished in countries 
 widely remote, is thought to have visited Germany also, and the 
 (iaditanian pillars at one end of Europe have a counterpart in the 
 Frisian ocean on another side of it. In the German battle-song 
 the praise of Hercules is sounded first, victims are slain to him as 
 to the highest gods, to him a wood is consecrated. Of pUlars, 
 even Widukind still knows something, by his speaking of Hirmin's 
 effigies columnarum (pi), not columnae. Was the plural irman- 
 suli (p. 115) more exact than irmansul, and had the image several 
 pillars ? Did the Roman in his Hermin and Herminones think of 
 Herakles and Hercules, whose name bore plainly on its face the 
 root "Hpa, Hera ? was that why he retained the aspirate in Her- 
 minones and Hermunduri, and not in Arminius ? An approxima- 
 tion of sound in the names of the two heroes, Eoman and German, 
 may surely be presupposed. The position of Herculis silva and 
 columnae does not indeed agree with that of the Herminones, but 
 the worship of such a hero was sure to spread far and not to be 
 confined to the particular race to which he gave his name. In 
 tlie German Irman, Irmin, it seems correct for the aspirate to 
 be wanting, as in Arminius ; in Cherusci it is indispensable, and 
 tlierefore the Eomans never wrote Herusci. 
 
 If in this ' Hercules ' we wish to see one of the gi'eat gods 
 themselves, we must apparently exclude ilercury and Mars, from 
 whom he is distinguished in cap. 9, i.e., Wuotan and Zio. And for 
 supposing him to mean Donar, i.e., Jupiter (as Zeuss does, p. 25), I 
 
HERCULES. ULYSSES. • 365 
 
 see no other ground . than that the Norse Thorr, like Hercules, 
 performs innumerable heroic deeds, but these may equally be 
 placed to the credit of Irmin, and Irmin and the thundergod have 
 nothing else in common. Yet, in favour of 'Hercules' being Donar, 
 we ought perhaps to weigh the AS. sentences quoted on p. 161, 
 note ; also, that Herakles was a son of Zeus, and a foe to giants. 
 
 I had thought at one time that Hercules might stand for 
 Sahsnot, Seaxneat, whom the formula of renunciation exalts by the 
 side of Thunar and Wodan ; I thought so on the strength of 
 ' Hercules Saxamis,' whose surname might be explained by saxum 
 = sahs. But the inscriptions in which we meet with this 
 Hercules Saxanus extend beyond the bounds of Germany, and 
 belong rather to the Eoman religion. Our Sahsndt has with more 
 justice been assigned to Zio (p. 20.3), with whom Hercules cannot 
 be connected. I now think the claims of Irmin are better founded: 
 as Hercules was Jupiter's son, Irmin seems to have been Wodan's ; 
 and he must have been the subject of the battle-songs (ituri in 
 proelia canunt), even of those which Tacitus understood of Ar- 
 minius (canitur adhuc) ; though they would have suited Mars too, 
 p. 207 (see Suppl.). 
 
 It is a harder matter to form an opinion about the ' Ulysses ' : 
 Ceterum et ULixem quidam opinantur longo illo et fabuloso errore 
 in hunc oceanum delatum adisse Germaniae terras, Asciburgium- 
 que, quod in ripa Eheni situm hodieque incolitur, ab illo consti- 
 tutum nominatumque ; aram quin etiam Ulixi consecratam, adjecto 
 Laertae patris nomine, eodem loco olim repertam ; Tac. Germ. 3. 
 In Odysseus people have seen OSinn, in Asciburg Asburg ; but if 
 Woden stood for the god Mercury, it cannot here mean the hero, 
 still less can Askiburg be traced to the §,ses, a purely Norse form, 
 which in these regions would have been anses. When Tacitus 
 makes Ulixes the founder of Ascihurg, nothing is simjDler than to 
 suppose him to have been Isco, Escio, Aslco (p. 350) ; and if it was 
 Isco that set the Komans thinking of Ul-ixes, how it helps to esta- 
 blish the sc in Iscaevones ! Mannus the father of Isco may have 
 suggested Laertes, inasmuch as \a6<i people, and Xao'^ stone, are 
 mixed up in the creation of the first man (the origo gentis) out of 
 stoTie or rock (see ch. XIX) ; in the same way Asco grew up out of 
 the tree (ash), and Zpui and irerpT] stand together in the mythus, 
 
366 HEROES. 
 
 not without meaning. As Hut from liotan, \ao'9 seems to come 
 from the same root as \ao<!, Xda';} 
 
 The interpretatio Romana went more upon, analogies of sense 
 than of sound ; so, in dealing with Castor and Pollux, I wUl not 
 take them for the brothers Hadu and Phol = Baldr (see Suppl.). 
 These Gemini, however, are the very hardest to interpret; the 
 passage about them was given on p. 66, and an attempt was made 
 to show that alx referred to the place where the godlike twins were 
 worshipped : I confess it does not satisfy me. Our antiquity has 
 plenty of hero brothers to show, but no twins with a name like 
 Aid, if this plural of Alcus is the true form. It occurs "to me, that 
 one of OSin's names is Idlkr (Ssem. 46'' A'7'^), and jott: in the 
 Vermland dialect means a boy.^ This comes more home to us than 
 the Samogitic Algir (angelus est summorum deorum, Lasicz, p. 47), 
 towards which the dictionaries offer nothing but alga, Reward. 
 Utterly untrustworthy is any comparison with the Slav deities 
 Lei and Polel, themselves as yet unsupported by, authority (see 
 Suppl.).* 
 
 4. Beowulf, Sigfeit, Amalo, Eemeneioh, Dieteeich, &c. 
 
 From the above specimens in Tacitus we may conclude that all 
 the Teutonic races had a pretty fully developed Heroology ; and if 
 our ancient stores of native literature had been still accessible to us, 
 we might have gained a much closer insight into its nature and its 
 connexion as a whole. As it is, we are thrown upon dry ge^iedlogies, 
 dating from many centuries after, and touching only certain races, 
 namely the Goths, Langobards, Burgundians, but above all, the 
 Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. We may learn from them the 
 connexion of the later kings with the ancient gods and heroes, but 
 not the liviiig details of their myths. Yet we could be content, if 
 even such pedigrees had also been preserved of the Franks and 
 other nations of continental Germany. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon genealogies seem the most important, and the 
 
 1 " Ulixes = Loki, Sn. 78. For Laertes, whose name Pott 1, 222 explains 
 as protector of the people, conf. Ptolemy's AaKi^ovpywv." Extr. from Suppl., 
 vol. iii. 
 
 a Almqvist, Svensk sprSklara, Stockh. 1840, p. SSS". 
 
 » In Lith. lele is pupa, akies lele pupilla, leilas butterfly. ' 
 
GOZ. FKOGER. 367 
 
 Appendix gives them in full [but see above, p. 165]. All the 
 families branch out from Wdden, as most of the Greek do from 
 Zeus ; it was a proud feeling to have one's root in the highest of 
 all gods. Prominent among his sons are Saxnedt and Bmldmg, "who 
 were themselves accounted divine; but several other names can 
 claim a place among the earliest heroes, e.g., Sigegedt and Wddel- 
 gedt^ (both akin to the Gothic Gduts), Fredwine, Wuscfred, Soefugd, 
 Westerfalcna ; and many are fallen dim to us. Gdsere, which in 
 other AS. writings is used for cyning,^ seems to be a mere 
 appellative, and to have acquired the character of a proper name 
 after the analogy of the Eoman ctesar (?). All these genealogies 
 give us barely the names of the god's sons and grandsons, never 
 those of their mothers or grandmothers; and the legend, which 
 ought like the Greek ones to give life to the relationship, is the 
 very thing we miss. 
 
 Some of the Norse traditions gain in value, by being taken with 
 the genealogies. The Volsiingasaga sets out with OSin's being the 
 father of Sigi, but all particulars of the relationship are withheld ; 
 Berir the son of Sigi is in the immediate keeping of the highest 
 gods, and so on. Another time, on the contrary, we are informed, 
 Sn. 84 — 86, how OSinn under the name of Bolverkr (OHG. Palo- 
 wurcho ?) became servant to the giant Baugi, in order to get at the 
 divine drink, which the giant's brother Suttungr kept, guarded by 
 his daughter Gunnloo; between her and the god took place sundry 
 passages of love, dimly hinted at by Ssemund also 12'' 23*''' 24% 
 but we are nowhere told What licroes were begotten in the three 
 nights that OSinn passed with the giant's daughter. Gunnld& 
 belongs to the race of giants, not of men, which is also the case 
 with Gerffr whom Freyr wooed, and perhaps with others, who are 
 not reckoned among the §,synjor. The Greeks also held that from 
 the union of gods with titans' daughters might spring a hero, or 
 even a god (like Tyr, p. 208). — Only Saxo, p. 66, and no other 
 authority, tells us of a Norwegian king and hero ' Frogenis, ut 
 quidam ferunt, Othino patre natus,' to whom the gods gave to be 
 invincible in fight, unless his adversary could grasp the dust from 
 
 1 OHG. Wuotilgdz (Zeitschr. f. d. alt. 1, 577), conf. wiieteln above, p. 132, 
 and Wodel-beer, p. 156 (see Suppl.). 
 
 ' In Boeth. 38, 1 Agamemnon is styled cEisere, and Ulysses cyning [in the 
 Pref., Eajdgot, Ealleric, Theodric are cyningas, the emperor always casere] ; in 
 a doc. in Kemble 2, 304 Eldred is ' cyning and casere '. 
 
3G8 HEROES. 
 
 under liis feet,* wliicli the Danish king Protho by ii&ivl contrived to 
 do. Can this Froger be the AS. FreoSegdr, FreSegar in the Wessex 
 genealogy, who had Brond for father, BaeldsBg for grandfather, 
 Woden for great-grandfather ? The ON. table of lineage seems to 
 mix up FrioSegar with FroSi, his adversary.^ According to the 
 FormaH of the Edda, x^. 1 5, and the Yngl. saga c. 9, Norway traced 
 her eldest line of kings to Swmingr, the son of OSinn by SkatJi, 
 previously the wife of NiorSr ; some write Semingr, which means 
 pacificator, and would lead to FriSgeir again. SkaSi was daughter 
 to the iotunn Thiassi, and the SigurSardrapa (-killing) calls 
 SigurSr LaSaiarl ' afspringr Thiassa/ (Th. progenies). — The Her- 
 rauSssaga cap. 1 makes Hringr s] ring from Gauti, and him from 
 OSinn : this Gautr or Gauti (conf. Ing and Ingo, Irmin and Irmino), 
 GotL Gauts, OHG. Koz, AS. Geat, whether surname, son or 
 ancestor of Oc5inn, cannot belie liis divinity (conf. p. 367) ; and his 
 son Godwulf too, confounded by some with Folcwalda (p. 165, last 
 table), looks mythical It is from Gduts that the Gautos (Koza, Tav- 
 roi) professed to be descended, these being other than the GuJ^ans 
 (Tac. Gothones, roTOoi), but related to them nevertheless, for the 
 Gothic genealogy starts with the same Gauts at the head of it. — 
 Again, Sigrlami is called OSin's son, Fomald. sog. 1, 413. But who 
 can ' B(ni.s (gen. Boi), Othini ex Einda fdius ' be in Saxo Gram. 46 ? 
 Possibly Biar, Biaf, Beav = Beowulf, to whom we are coming (see 
 Suppl.).* 
 
 Another OSinsson, SJcioldr, is the famed ancestral hero of the 
 Danes, from whom are derived all the Skioldiingar (Sn. 14C) ; he 
 may have been most nearly related to the people -of Schonen, as in 
 the Fomm. sog. 5, 239 he is expressly called Skanfinga goS (see p. 
 161), and was probably worshipped as a god. In Saxo Gram, he 
 does not take the lead, but follows after Humblus, Dan* and 
 Lotlier ; Skiold himself has a son Gram,* from whom come Hadding 
 
 • A token of %dctory ? as the vanquished had to present such dust (EA. 
 111-2). 
 
 '^ The AS. name Frodheri stands yet farther away (Beda 2, 9 § 113). 
 
 ' Saxo 122 mentions one hero Ijtgotten by Thorr : Haldanus Biarggrammui 
 apud Sueones magni Thorfilius existimatur. And I know of no other but this 
 one. 
 
 * Dan, in Saxo's view the true ancestor of the Danes, is called in the 
 Rigsjuil Danr, and placed together with Danpr, SKffl. lOS*". 
 
 ' Elsewhere Gramr is the jiK-per name of a particular sword, while the 
 appellative (jramr denotes hiij^'. 
 
GEAT. HCILD. BEOWULF. 369 
 
 and then Frotlio ; but the AS. genealogy places its Scild after 
 Scedf, and singularly makes them both ancestors of OSinn. From 
 Scedf descends Sceldiva, from him consecutively Beaw, Tcetwa, Gedt, 
 and after several more generations comes WSden last. The ON. 
 version of the lineage is in harmony with this ; and even in the 
 Gothic pedigree, which only begins with Gduts, we may suppose a 
 Skaufs, Skildva, Taitva to have preceded, to'whom the OHG. names 
 Scoup, Scilto, Zeizo would correspond. — None however is so 
 interesting as Sceldwa's son, the Anglo-Saxon Beaw, called by the 
 Scandinavians Biar, Biaf, but in the living AS. epos Beowulf. It 
 is true, the remarkable poem of that name is about a second and 
 younger Beowulf, in whom his forefather's name repeats itself ; but 
 fortunately the opening lines allude to the elder Beowulf, and call 
 his father Scild (Goth. Skildus, agreeing with Skioldr) a ScSfing, i.e., 
 son of Scedf. Beaw is a corruption of Beow, and Beow an abbrevia- 
 tion of Beoimdf: it is the complete name that first opens to us a 
 wider horizon. Beowulf signifies bee-wolf (OHG. Piawolf f), a.nd 
 that is a name for the woodpecker, a bird of gay plumage that hunts 
 after bees, of whom antiquity has many a tale to tell.^ Strange to 
 say, the classical mythus (above, pp. 206, 249) makes this Pious a 
 son of Saturn, inasmuch as it either identifies him with Zeus who 
 is succeeded by a Hermes, or makes him nourisher of Maris sons 
 and father of Faunus. We see Picus (Picumnus) interwoven into 
 the race of Kronos, Zeus, Hermes and Aies, the old Bohemian 
 Stra&c = picus into that of Sitivrat, Kirt and Eadigost, as Beowulf 
 is into that of Gedt and Wdden. If the groups differ in the details 
 of their combination, their agreement as wholes is the more 
 trustworthy and less open to suspicion. And just as the footprints 
 of Saturn were traceable from the Slavs to the Saxons and to 
 England, but were less known to the Northmen, so those of the 
 divine bird in Stracec and Beowulf seem to take the same course, 
 and never properly to reach Scandinavia. The central Germans 
 stood nearer to Eoman legend, although no actual borrowing need 
 have taken place. 
 
 What a deep hold this group of heroes had taken, is evidenced 
 by another legend. Scedf {i.e., manipulus frumenti) takes his name 
 
 ' Can the name in Upper Germany for the turdus or oriolus galbula, 
 Birolf, Pirolf, brother Pirolf (Frisch 1, 161), possibly stand for Biewolf (or 
 Biterolf) ? The Serbs call it Urosh, and curiously this again is a hero's name. 
 Conf. the Finn, uxos [with heros ?], p. 341. 
 
 24 
 
■"370 HEROES. 
 
 from the circumstance, that when a boy he was conveyed to the 
 country he was destined to succour, while asleep'- on a sheaf of com 
 in the boat. The poetry of the Lower Ehine and Netherlands in 
 the Mid. Ages is fuU of a similar story of the sleeping youth whom 
 a swan conducts in his ship to the afflicted land ; and this swan- 
 knight is pictured approaching out of paradise, from the grave, aa 
 Helios, whose. divine origin is beyond question. Helias, Gerhart or 
 Loherangrin of the thirteenth century is identical then with a Sc6f 
 or Seoup of the seventh and eighth, different as the surroundings 
 may have been, for the song of Beowulf appears to have transferred 
 to Scild what belonged of right to his father Seedf. The beautiful 
 story of the swan is founded on the miraculous origin of the swan- 
 brothers, which I connect with that of the Welfs ; both however 
 seem to be antique lineage-legends of the Franks and Swabians, to 
 which the proper names are mostly wanting. Had they been 
 preserved, many another tie between the heroes and the gods would 
 come to light.^ — Further, to Sceldwa or Skioldr belongs obviously 
 the name Schiltunc in the Tirol and Parzival,* as the name Schil- 
 hmc, Nib. 88, 3, points to a race of Scilpungd, corresponding to the 
 AS. Scilfingas, ON. Scilfingar, of whom Skelfir, Scilfe, Scilpi is to 
 be regarded as the ancestor. This Skelfir the Fomald. sog. 2, 9 
 makes the father of Skioldr, so that the SkUfinga and SMoldinga 
 sett fall into one. Either Scelf is here confounded with Scef, or 
 ScSf must be altered to Scelf, but the frequent occurrence of the 
 form Sceaf, and its interpretation (from sheaf), seem alike to forbid 
 this (see Suppl.). 
 
 As the Skioldftngar descend from Skioldr, so do the GiuMingar 
 from Giuki = Gibika, Kipieho, with whom the Burgundian line 
 begins : if not a god himself (p. 137), he is a divine hero that carries 
 us back very near to Wuotan. The GiMchensteire (-stones) more- 
 over bear witness to him, and it is to the two most eminent women 
 of this race that Grimhildensteine, Brunhildensteine are allotted.* 
 
 ' Umborwesende ? Beow. 92. 
 
 ' The ship that brought Scegif and the swan-knight carries them away 
 again at last, but the reason is disclosed only in Liter legend : it was forbidden 
 to inquire into their origin, Parz. 825, 19. Conr., Schwanritter 1144-73. 
 
 ' Zeitschr. fiirdeut. alterth. 1, 7. 
 
 * Brunehildestein, lectulus Bninihilde, Kriemhiltenstein, Criemildespil 
 (Heldensage p. 155) ; KrimhUte gitiben (Weisth. 1, 48) ; in loco Qrimhiltapeig 
 nomiuato (Juvavia p. 137) ; de (Simhilteperc, MB. 7. 498. 
 
SCEAF. GIBIKA. WELIS. SIGOFEID. 371 
 
 Frau UoU however appears as ancestress of the stock.^ It has not 
 been so much noticed as it ought, that in the Lex Burg. Gislahari 
 precedes G'undahari by a whole generation, whilst our epic 
 (Nibelungen) makes Glselhere Gunthere's younger brother, and the 
 Edda never names him at all. The Law makes no mention of any 
 brothers, and Glselher the young has merely the name of his elder 
 kinsman. Girndt (from g^r = gais) and Giselher seem to be 
 identical (conf. Gramm. 2, 46). But the Norse Guttormr can 
 hardly be a distortion of Godomar, for we meet with him outside of 
 the legend, e.g., in Landn. 1, 18. 20, where the spelling GuSormr 
 (Guntwurm) would lead us to identify him with Gunthere, and in 
 Saxo Gram, are found several Guthormi (see Suppl.). Then Hagano 
 the one-eyed, named from hagan (spinosus, Waltharius 1421), is 
 ' more than heroic '? 
 
 Even deeper reaching roots must be allowed to the "Welisungs ; 
 their name brings us to a divine Valis who has disappeared (conf. 
 the ON. Vali, p. 163), but the mere continuance of an OHG. 
 Welisunc is a proof of the immemorial diffusion of the Volsunga- 
 saga itself (see Suppl.). How, beginning with Wuotan, it goes on 
 to Sigi, Sigimunt, Sigifrit, Sintarfizilo, has been alluded to on p. 
 367, and has already been treated of elsewhere.^ With Sigfrit 
 stands connected Helfrich, Chilpericus, ON. Hialprekr. It is 
 worthy of note, that the AS. Beowulf calls Sigfrit Sigemund, and 
 Sigmundr is a surname of OSinn besides.* Such a flood of 
 splendour faUs on Siegfried in the poems, that we need not stick at 
 trifles ; his whole nature has evident traces of the superhuman : 
 brought up by an elf Eegino, beloved by a valkyr Brunhild, 
 instructed in his destiny by the wise man Gripir, he wears the 
 helmet of invisibility, is vulnerable only on one spot in his body, 
 as Achilles was in the heel, and he achieves the rich hoard of the 
 Nibelungs. His slaying of the dragon Fafnir reminds us of TIvdwi>^ 
 
 ' Haupts zeitschr. 1, 21. 
 • '' Lachmaim's examination of the whole Kibelung legend, p. 22. 
 
 ' Haupts zeitschr. 1, 2 — 6. 
 
 * In the Copenh. ed. of the Edda, SsBm. 2, 889 Sigemon, and in Finn 
 Magn. lex. 643 Segemon, is said to have heen a name of the Celtic Mars ; 
 I suppose on the ground of the inscriptt. in Gruter Iviii. 5 : Marti Segomoni 
 sacrum ... in civitate Sequanorum ; and ii. 2 : Diis deabiis omnibus 
 Veturius L.L. Securius (al. Segomanus) pro se quisque (seeSuppL). 
 
 ' Almost the same, granting a change of th into/ (as in Orip, <j)fip) ; of our 
 a standing for Greek v there are more examples : fnasu, blasu = jrvevai, cpXia. 
 
372 HEE0E8. 
 
 ■whom Apollo overcame, and as Python guarded the Delphic oracle, 
 the dying Faf nir prophesies.^ We must take into account LoSfAfnir 
 Seem. 24, 30. Sinfiotli, who, when a boy, kneads snakes into the 
 dough, is comparable to the infant Hercules tested by serpents. 
 
 Through Siegfried the Prankish Welisungs get linked to the 
 Burgundian Gibichungs, and then both are called Nibelungs. 
 
 Among Gothic heroes we are attracted by the Ovida and 
 Cnivida in Jornandes cap. 22, perhaps the same as Offa and 
 Cnebha in the Mercian line. But of far more consequence is the 
 great Gothic family of Amals or Amalungs, many of whose names 
 in the Jomandean genealogy seem corrupt. The head of them all 
 was Gapt, which I emend to Gaut (Gauts), and so obtain an allusion 
 to the divine ofBce of casting [giessen, ein-guss, in-got] and meting 
 (pp. 22. 142) ; he was a god, or son of a god (p. 164), and is even 
 imported into the Saxon lines as Gedt, Wodelgeat, Sigegeat (p. 367). 
 In this Gothic genealogy the weak forms Amala, Isama, Ostro- 
 gotha, Ansila, coniirm what we have observed in Tuisco, Ingaio, 
 Iscio, Irmino ; but those best worth noting are Amala, after 
 whom the most powerful branch of the nation is named, Ermana- 
 ricus and Theodericus. Ermanaricus must be linked with Irmino 
 and the Herminones, as there is altogether a closer tie between 
 Goths and Saxons (Ingaevones and Herminones) as opposed to the 
 Franks (Iscaevones), and this shows itself even in the later epics. — 
 Amongst the Amalungs occur many names compounded with 
 vulf, which reminds us of their side-branch, the "Wulfings ; if it be 
 not too bold, I would even connect Isarna (Goth. Flisama) with 
 Isangrim. To me the four sons of Achiulf seem worthy of 
 particular notice: Ansila, Ediulf, Vuldulf, and HermenricL Of 
 the last we have just spoken, and Ansila means the divine ; our 
 present concern is viiVa. Ediulf and Vuldulf. I find that Jornandes, 
 cap. 54, ascribes to the Scyrians also two heroes Edica and Vulf; 
 the Eugian Odoacer has a father Eticlw and a brother Aonulf; and 
 
 ' The epithet gveinn (Sw. sven, Dan. gvend) given to the Norse SigurtSr 
 apBjara already in Fafnir's address ' gveinn ok sveinn t ' and in the headings to 
 ck 142-4 of the Vilk. saj,'a. The same hero then is meant by the Shard 
 maresvtnd, (fortLs puer) ot the Danish folk-song, who, liding on Grani, 
 accompanies to Askereia (see ch. XXXI), and by 6ve-nd FeUivg or Falling of 
 the Danish folk-tale (Thiele 2, 64-7. Miiller's sagabibL 2, 417-9). He drank 
 out of a horn handed to him by elvi.sh beings, and thereby acquired the strength 
 of twelve men. Swedish songs call him Sven Fiirling or Foiling; Arvid;»son 
 1, 129. 415. 
 
IRMANEIH. ETICHO. DIETRICH. 373 
 
 the legend on the origin of the Welfs has the proper names 
 Isenhart, Irmentrud, Welf and Etico constantly recurring. Now, 
 welf is strictly catulus (huelf, whelp, ON", hvelpr), and distinct from 
 wolf ; natural history tells us of several strong courageous animals 
 that are brought into the world blind; the Langobardic and 
 Swabian genealogies play upon dogs and wolves being exposed ; and 
 as Odoacer, Otacher (a thing that has never till now been accounted 
 for) is in some versions called Sipicho, ON. Bicki, and this means 
 dog (bitch), I suspect a similar meaning in Edica, Eticho, Ediulf, 
 Odacar, which probably affords a solution of the fable about the 
 ' blind Schwaben and Hessen ' : their lineage goes back to the blind 
 Welfs. In the genealogy Ediulf is described as brother to Ermen- 
 rich, in later sagas Bicki is counsellor to lormunrekr ; the Hilde- 
 brandslied has but too little to say of Otacher. Then Vuldulf also 
 (perhaps Vuldr-ulf) will signify a glorious beaming wolf (see 
 Suppl.). — As Siegfried eclipsed all other Welisungs, so did Dieterich 
 aU the Amalungs ; and where the epos sets them one against the 
 other, each stands in his might, unconquered, unapproachable. 
 Dieterich's divine herohood comes out in more than one feature, e.g., 
 his fiery breath, and his taking the place of Wuotan or Pro (p. 
 213-4) at the head of the wild host, as Dietrichhern or Bernhard. 
 The fiery breath brings him nearer to Donar, with whom he can be 
 compared in another point also : Dieterich is wounded in the 
 forehead by an arrow, and a piece of it is left inside him, for which 
 reason he is called the deathless ■} not otherwise did the half of 
 Hrdngnir's hein (stone wedge) remain in Thor's head, and as 
 Groa's magic could not loosen it, it sticks there still, and none shall 
 aim with the like stones, for it makes the piece in the god's forehead 
 stir (Sn. 109 — 111).^ This horn-like stone was very likely shown 
 in images, and enhanced their godlike appearance. 
 
 The renowned race of the Billings or Billungs, whose mythic 
 roots and relations are no longer discoverable, was still flourishing 
 in North Germany in the 10-llth centuries. The first historically 
 certain Billing died in 967, and another, above a hundred years 
 older, is mentioned.^ The Cod. Exon. 320, 7 says : ' Billing weold 
 
 'Simon Keza, chron. Hungaror. 1, 11. 12. Heinr. von Miigleia (in 
 Kovachich p. 8) ; conf. Deutsche heldensage p. 164. 
 
 * Hence the proverb : seint losnar hein i hofSi Thors. 
 
 ' Wedekind's Hermann duke of Saxony, Luneb. 1817, p. 60. , Conf. the 
 milea Billinc, comes Billingus in docs, of 961-8 in Hofers zeitschr. 2, 239. 344, 
 and the OHG. form Billungus iu Zeuss, Trad, wizenb. pp. 274. 287. 305. 
 
374 HEEOES. 
 
 Wemum,' he belongs therefore to the stock of Werina, who were 
 near of kin to the Angles. There was a Billinga hsetJ (heath) near 
 WhaUey, and [London has to this day a Billingsgate. In OHG. we 
 find a man's name BUlunc (Pded nos. 14. 21-3, A.D. 808. 821-2). If 
 we take into account, that a dwarf Billingr occurs in the Edda, Saem. 
 2* 23% a hero PUlunc in EoL 175, 1, and BUlunc and Nldunc coupled 
 together in the Eenner 14126-647, the name acquires a respectable 
 degree of importance (see Suppl.). The derivative Billinc impUes 
 a simple bU. or bUi (lenitas, placiditas), from which directly [and 
 not from our adj. bilhg, fair] are formed the OHG. names Pilidr&t, 
 PUihilt, PiUkart, Pilihelm ; to which add the almost personified 
 BUlich (equity) in Trist. 9374. 10062. 17887. 18027, and the OX. 
 goddess BU, Sn. 39 ; the II in Billung could be explained through 
 Biliung. Just as OSinn in Ssem. 46'' is called both Bileygr (mild- 
 eyed) and Baleygr (of baleful eye), so in Saxo Gram. 130 a Bilvisus 
 (sequus) stands opposed to Bolvisus (iniquus). 
 
 5. Oben'til. Wielaxt. Mhil Tell, &c. 
 
 In addition to the heroes ascertained thus far, who form part of 
 the main pedigree of whole nations, and thence derive weight and 
 durability, there is another class of more isolated heroes ; I can only 
 put forward a few of them here. 
 
 We have still remaining a somewhat rude poem, certainly 
 founded on very ancient epic material, about a king Ormdel or 
 Erentel, whom the appendix to the Heldenbuch pronounces the 
 first of all heroes that were ever bom. He suffers shipwreck on a 
 voyage, takes shelter with a master fisherman Eisen^ earns the 
 seamless coat of his master, and afterwards wins frau Breide, the 
 fairest of women : king JEigd of Trier was his father's name. The 
 whole tissue of the fable puts one in mind of the Odyssey : the ship- 
 wrecked man cUngs to the plank, digs himself a hole, holds a bough 
 before him ; even the seamless coat may be compared to Ino's veil, 
 and the fisher to the swineherd, dame Breide's templars would be 
 Penelope's suitors, and angels are sent often, like Zeus's messengers. 
 Tet many things take a different turn, more in German fashion, 
 and incidents are added, such as the laying of a naked sword 
 between the newly married couple, which the Greek story knows 
 nothing of. The hero's name is found even in OHG. documents : 
 
 1 Who is also found apparently in a version of the Lay of king Oswald. 
 
BILLUNG. OEENTIL. 375 
 
 Orendil, Meichelb. 61 ; OrentU, Trad. fuld. 2, 24. 2, 109 (Scbaimat 
 308) ; Orendil a Bavarian count (an. 843 in Eccard's Fr. or. 2, 367); 
 a village Orendelsal, now Orendensall, in Hohenlolie, v. Haupts 
 zeitschr. 7, 558. — But the Edda has another myth, 'which was 
 alluded to in speaking of the stone in Thor's head. Groa is busy 
 conning her magic spell, when Thorr, tO' requite her for the 
 approaching cure, imparts the welcome news, that in coming from 
 lotunheim in the North he has carried her husband the bold 
 Orvandill in a basket on his back, and he is sure to be home soon ; 
 he adds by way of token, that as Orvandil's toe had stuck out of the 
 basket and got frozen, he broke it off and flung it at the sky, and 
 made a star of it, which is called Orvandils-td. But Groa in her 
 joy at the tiduigs forgot her spell, so the stone in the god's head 
 never got loose, Sn. 110-1. Groa, the growing, the grass-green, is 
 equivalent to Breide, i.e., Berhta (p. 272) the bright, it is only 
 another part of his history that is related here : Orvandill must 
 have set out on his- travels again, and on this second adventure 
 forfeited the toe which Thorr set in the sky, though what he had 
 tO'do with the god we are not clearly told. Beyond a doubt, the 
 name of the glittering star-group is referred to, when AS. glosses 
 render 'jubar ' by earendel, and a hymn to the virgin Mary in Cod. 
 Exon. 7, 20 presents the following passage: 
 
 Eala Uarendel, engla beorhtast, 
 
 cfer middangeard monnum sended, 
 
 and sotSfsesta sunnan leoma 
 
 torht ofer tunglas, ]>n tida gehwane 
 
 of sylfum ]>e symle inlthtes ! 
 i.e., jubar, angelorum spleudidissime, super orbem terrarum 
 hominibus misse, radio vere solis, supra stellas lucide, qui omni 
 tempore ex te ipso luces ! Mary or Christ is here addressed under 
 the heathen name of the constellation. I am only in doubt as to 
 the right spelling and interpretation of the word ; an GHG^ drentil 
 implies AS. earendel, and the two would demand OK aurvendill, 
 eyrvendill; but if we start with ON. orvendill, then AS; earendel, 
 OHG. erentn would seem preferable. The latter part of the 
 compound certainly contains entil = wentil.^ The first part should 
 
 » Whence did Matthesius (in Friscli 2, 439") get his " Pan is the heathens' 
 Wendel and head bagpiper" t Can the word refer to the metamorphoses of the 
 flute-playing demigoel ? In trials of witches, "Wendel is a name for the devil, 
 Mones anz. 8, 124. 
 
376 HEROES. 
 
 be either 6ra, eare (auris), or else ON. or, gen. orvar (sagitta). 
 Now, as there occurs in a tale in Saxo Gram., p. 48, a Horvendilus 
 fiUus Gervendili, and in OHG. a name K^rwentil (Schm. 2, 334) 
 and GSrentU (Trad. fuld. 2, 106), and as geir (hasta) agrees better 
 with or than with eyra (anris), the second interpretation may com- 
 mand our assent -^ a sight of the complete legend would explain the 
 reason of the name. I think OrentU's father deserves attention 
 too .: Eigil is another old and obscure name, borne for instance by 
 an abbot of Fulda who died in 822 (Pertz 1, 95. 356. 2, 366. 
 Trad. fuld. 1, 77-8. 122). In the Ehine-Moselle country are the 
 singular Eigelsteijie, Weisth. 2, 744 (see Suppl.).^ In AS. we find 
 the names Aeyles burg (Aylesbury), Aegles ford (Aylesford), Aegles 
 Jiorp ; but I shall come back to Eigil presently. Possibly Orentil 
 was the thundergod's companion in expeditions against giants. 
 Can the story of Orentil's wanderings possibly be so old amongst 
 us, that in Orentil and Eigil of Trier we are to look for that Ulysses 
 and Laertes whom Tacitus places on our Ehine (p* 365) ? The 
 names shew nothing in common.* 
 
 Far-famed heroes were Wieland and Wittich,^ whose rich 
 legend is second to none in age or celebrity. Vidigoia (Vidugauja) 
 of whom the Goths already sang, OHG. Witugouwo as well as 
 Witicho, MHG. Witegouwe and Witege, AS. Wudga, in either form 
 silvicola, from the Goth, mdus, .OHG. witu, AS. wudu (lignum, 
 silva), leads us to suppose a being passing the bounds of human 
 nature, a forest-god. Frau W§,chilt, a mermaid, is his ancestress, 
 with whom he takes refuge in her lake. At: the head of the whole 
 race is placed king VUkinus, named after iyulcanus as the Latin 
 termination shews, a god or demigod, who must have had another 
 and German name, and who begets with 'the nierwoman a gigantic 
 son Vadi, AS. Wada (Cod. Exon. 323, 1), OHG. Wato, so named I 
 suppose because, like another Christopher, he waded with his child 
 on his shoulder through the Groenasund .where it is nine yards 
 
 * And so Uhland (On Thor, p. 47 seq;) expcranda it : in-Groa he sees the 
 growth of the crop, in Orvandill the sprouting. of the blade. Even the tale in 
 Saxo he brings in. 
 
 ^ The false spelKng Eiehelstein (acom-stcme) "has given rise t to spurious 
 legends, Mones anz. 7, 368. 
 
 ' I have hardly the fece to mention, that some make the right shifty Ulysses 
 father to Pan, our Wendel above. 
 
 ^ The still unprinted M.Dutch poem, De kinderen van Limburg, likewise 
 inentions Wilant, Wedege and Mimminc, 
 
EIGIL. WITICHO. WATE. WIELANT. 377 
 
 deep (between Zealand, Falster and Moen) ; the Danish hero Wate 
 in Gudrun is identical with him ; the AS. Wada is placed toward 
 Helsingen. Old English poetry had much to teU of him, that is 
 now lost : Chaucer names ' Wades boot Guingelot,' and a place in 
 Northumberland is called Wade's gap ; Wffitlingestret could only 
 be brought into connexion with him, if such a spelling as 
 Weedling could be made good. — Now, that son, whom Vadi carried 
 through the sea to apprentice him to those cunning smiths the 
 dwarfs, was Wielant, AS. Weland, Welond, ON. Volundr, but in 
 the Vilk. saga Velint, master of all smiths, and wedded to a swan- 
 maiden Hervar alvitr. The rightful owner of the boat, which 
 English tradition ascribes to Wada, seems to have been Wieland ; 
 the Vilk. saga tells how he timbered a boat out of the trunk of a 
 tree, and sailed over seas. Lamed in the sinews of his foot, he 
 forged for himself a winged garment, and took his flight through 
 the air. His skill is praised on all occasions, and his name coupled 
 with every i costly jewel, Vilk. saga cap. 24. Witeche,, the son he 
 had by Baduhilt, bore a hammer and tongs in his scutcheon in 
 honour of 'his father; during the Mid. Ages his memory lasted 
 among smiths, whose workshops were styled Wieland's houses,'^ and 
 iperhaps ihis likeness was set up or painted outside them.; the 
 ON. '' Volundar hiis ' translates the Latin labyrinth ; .a host of 
 similar associations must :in olden times have been generally 
 diffused, as we learn from the names of places : Welantes gruoba 
 (pit), MB. 13, 59 ; Wielantes heim, MB. 28^ 93 (an. 889) ; Wielan- 
 iis dorf, MB. 29, 54, (an. 1246); Wielantes t&.mxs. {ias),M.B. 28^ 
 188. 471 (an. 1280) ; Wielandes brunne, MB. 31, 41 (an. 817). 
 The multiplication of such names during long centuries does not 
 admit of their being derived from human inhabitants. The Dan. 
 Welandsvat (-wort), Icel. VelantsvLYt, is the valerian, and according to 
 Staid. 2, 450 Wielandh&Qnie the daphne ,!Cneorum. Tradition would 
 -doubtless extend Wieland's dexterity^to Wittich and to Wate, who 
 also gets the credit of the boat, and in -the Gudrun-lay of the 
 healing art. In Ssem. 270% ■ ' bcekur -ofnar volundom ' are strag-ula 
 artificiose contexta, and any artist might be called a volundr or 
 wielant. A gorgeous coat of mail (hr£egel,'OHG. hregil) is in Beow. 
 304 .Welandes geweorc. ^Elfred in Boeth. 2, 7 translates fidelis 
 
 1 Juxta domiun Wclandi-dahn,V}i. afl ann. 1262 in Lang's veg. 3, 181 : 
 joonf. Haiipts zeitschr. 2, 2.48. I find also JFitigo faber, MB. 7, 122. 
 
378 HEEOES. 
 
 ossa Fabricii ' ]?£es wisan goldsmiSea Mn Welondes ' (metrically : 
 Welandes Mn) ; evidently the idea of faber which lay in Fabricius 
 brought to his mind the similar meaning of the Teutonic name, 
 Weland being a cunning smith in general.- For the name itself 
 appears tO' contain the ON^ v^l = viel (ars,- ri)(yv> OHG. list), 
 Gramm. 1, 462, and smiSv^lar meant artes fabriles; the AS. form 
 is wH, or better wil, EngL wile, Fr. guile; the OHG. wiol, wiel (with 
 broken vowel) is no longer to be found. But further, we must pre- 
 suppose a verb wielan, AS. welan (fabrefacere), whose pres. part, wie- 
 lant, weland, exactly forms our proper name, on a par with wigant, 
 werdant,. druoant, &c. ; Graff 2, 234 commits the error of citing 
 Wielant under the root lant, with which it has no more to do than 
 heilant (healer, saviour). The OFr. Galans (Heldens. 42) seems 
 to favour the OK form Volwndr [root val] since Veland would 
 rather have led to a Fr. Guilans; possibly even^ the OK vala 
 (nympha) is a kindred word ? An OHG. name Wieldrud seems 
 the verything for a wise-woman. — This development of an intrinsic 
 significance in the- hero's name finds an unexpected confirmation' 
 in the striking similarity of ihe Greek fables of Hephaestus; 
 Erichthonius and Daedalus. As Weland offers violence to' 
 Beadohild (Vblundr to B6Svildr),.so Hephaestus lays a snare for 
 Athene, when she comes to order weapons of him ; both Hephaestus 
 and Volundr are punished with lameness, Erichthonius too is lame; 
 and therefore invents the four-horse -chariot, as Volundr does the 
 boat and -wings. One with Erichthonius are the later Erechtheus 
 and his descendant Daedalus, who invented various arts, a ring- 
 dance, building, &c.,.and on whose -vdngs his son Icarus was soaring 
 when he fell from the clouds. But AalBaTto^^ is S'alBaXo<!rBaiBaX-' 
 eo9, cunningly -wrought, BaiBaXfia (like aryaX/ia) a worii of art, and 
 SaiBdWeiv the same as our lost -wielan. As our list [like the EngL 
 cunning and craft] has degenerated from its original sense of scientia 
 to that of calliditas and fraus, and v^l has both meanings, it is not 
 surprising that from the skill-endowed god and hero has proceeded 
 a deformed deceitful de-vdl' (p. 241). The whole group of Wate, 
 Wielant, Wittich are heroes, but. also ghostly beings and demigods 
 (see SuppL). 
 
 The Vilkinasaga brings before us yet another saath, Mimir, by 
 
 1 A reduplication like iramdKos, wiuira\.6(ts tortus, etrduus, iraurdKKtiv tar- 
 quere ; conf. \aiKa^, /«it/ui|, &C. 
 
WELAND. MBII. 379 
 
 whom not only is Velint instructed in his art, but Sigfrit is brought 
 up — another smith's-apprentice. He is occasionally mentioned in 
 the later poem of Biterolf, as- Mime the old (Heldensage, pp. 146-8) ; 
 an OHG. Mimi must have grown even more deeply into our 
 language as vf eU as legend ;■ it has formed a diminutive- Mtmilo 
 (MB. 28, 87-9, annis 983-5), and Mimd,Mimidr4f, Mimihilt are 
 women's names (Trad. fuld. 489. Cod. lauresh. 211).; the old name 
 of Miinster in Westphalia was Jf^mtgardiford,, J/^ww'gerneford 
 (Indices to Pertz 1, 2), conf. vMjJiigerdeford in Eichthofen-335 ; the* 
 Westphalian Minden was originally JSfilmtdun. (Pertz 1,368), and 
 Memleben on the Unstrut ifimtleba;- The great number of these 
 proper names indicates a mythic being, to which' Memerolt (Morolt 
 111) may also- be related. — The elder Norse tradition names him 
 just as often, and in several different connexions. In one place, 
 Saxo, p. 40,^ interweaves a Mimingus, a' 'sil varum satyrus' and 
 possessor of a sword^ and jewels, into the myth of Balder and 
 Hother, and this, to my thinking, throws fresh light on- the 
 vidugauja (wood-god) above. The Edda however gives a higher 
 position to its Mimirr he has a' fountain,in which wisdom, and 
 understanding lie hidden ; drinking of it every morning,, he is the 
 wisest, most intelligent of men, and this again reminds us of 
 ' Wielandes brunne '. To Mimisbvaxmr came OSinn and desired a 
 drink, but did not receive it tiU he had given one of his eyes in 
 pledge, and hidden it in the fountain (Saem. 4^ Sn. 17) ; this 
 accounts for OSinn being one-eyed (p. 146). In ttie Yngl. saga 
 cap. 4, the Asessend- Mimir, their wisest man, to the "V-anir, who 
 cut his head off and- send it back- to the Ases. But OSinn spake 
 his spells over the head, that it decayed not, nor ceased to utter 
 speech; and OSimii holds conversation with it,. whenever he needs 
 advice, conf. Yngl. saga cap. 7, and Stem. 8°- 195''. I do not exactly 
 know whom the VoluspS, means by Mimis synir (sons),, Ssem. 8* ; 
 Mmameidr 109* implies a nom. Mimi gen. Mima, and may be 
 distinct from Mimir (conf,- Bragr and Bragi, p. 23&).— Mlmir is no 
 As, but an exalted Jjeing. with whom the Ases hold- converse, of 
 whom they make use,- the sum-total of wisdom, possibly an older 
 nature-god ; later fables degraded him intO' a wood-sprite or clever 
 smith. His oneness with heroes tends to throw a divine splendour 
 
 ' P. E. Miiller's ed., p. 114, folio-wing -which I have set aside the reading 
 Mimringus, in spite of the Danish song of Mimering tand. 
 
380 HEUOES. 
 
 on them. Swedish folk-song has not yet forgotten Mimes k 
 (Arvidsson 2, 316-7), and in Konga harad and Tingaa socken in 
 Smaland there lies a Mimes sjo, inhabited according to the legend 
 by neckar (nixies), ibid. p. 319. Perhaps some of the forms quoted 
 have by rights a short i, as have indisputably the AS. mimor, 
 meomor, gemimor (memoriter notus), mimerian (memoria tenere), 
 our Low German mimeren (day-dreaming), Brem. wtb. 3, 161, and 
 the Memerolt, Memleben above ; so that we might assume a verb 
 meima, maim, mimum. Then the analogy of the Latin memor and 
 Gr. iu.Lfj,eofj,at aUows us to bring in the giant and centaur Mifias, 
 i.e., the wood-sprite again (see Suppl.). 
 
 According to the Edda (Saem. 133), Volundr had two brothers 
 SlagfiSr and Egill, all three ' synir Finnakonfings,' sons of a Finnish 
 king, whereas the saga transplanted to the North from Germany 
 makes its Vilkinus a king of ViLkinaland, Or can Finna be taken 
 as the gen. of Finni, and identified with that Finn Folcwaldansunu 
 on p. 219 ? SlagfiSr might seem = Slagfinnr, but is better 
 explained as SlagfioSr (flap- wing, see ch. XVI, Walachuiiun). AU 
 three brothers married valkyrs, and Egill, the one that chiefly 
 concerns us here, took OMn (AJiorftna). The Vnk. saga, cap. 27, 
 likewise calls Velint's younger brother Eigill : ' ok )jemia kaHa 
 nienn Olriinar Eigil,''^ but the bride is not otherwise aUuded to ; 
 this form Eigill agrees with the OHG. Eigil on p. 376, not with the 
 OK Egill, dat. Agli, for the dat. of Eigill would have been Eigli. 
 Well, this Eigill was a famous archer ; ■ at Mdung's command he 
 shot an apple off the head of his own little son, and when the king 
 asked him what the other two arrows were for, replied that they 
 were intended for him, in case the first had hit the chUd, The tale 
 of this daring shot must have been extremely rife in our remotest 
 antiquity, it turns up in so many places, and always with features 
 of its own. As the Vilkinasaga was imported into Scandinavia in 
 the 13th century, tlie story of Eigill was certainly diffused in 
 Lower Germany before that date. But Saxo Grammaticus iu 
 Denmark knew it in the 12th century, as told of Toko and king 
 Harald Gormsson, with the addition, wanting in Eigill, that Toko 
 
 1 Peringskiold translates ' Egilhis Sagittarius,' and Eafn 'Egil den traf- 
 fende,' but this was merely guessed from the incidents of the story. Arrow is 
 not 61, but or ; Orentil on the contrary, Eigil's son, does seem to have been 
 named from the arrow. 
 
EIGIL. TOKI. IIEMING. TELL. ' SSl 
 
 after the sliot behaved like a hero in the sea-storm. The' Icelanders 
 too, particularly the lomsvikinga saga, relate the deeds of this 
 FMnatSki, but not the shot from the bow, though they agree with 
 Saxo in making Harald fall at last by Toki's shaft. The king's 
 death by the marksman's hand is historical (A.u. 992), the shot at 
 the apple mythical, having gathered round the narrative out of an 
 older tradition, which we must presume to have been in existence 
 in the 10-llth centuries. To the Norwegian saga of Olaf the 
 Saint (f 1030), it has attached itself another way : Olaf wishing to 
 convert a heathen man, EindriSi, essayed his skill against him in 
 athletic arts, first swimming, then shooting; after a few successful 
 shots, the king required that EindriSi's boy should be placed at th& 
 butts, and a writing-tablet be shot off his head without hurting the 
 child. EindriSi declared himself willing, but also ready to avenge 
 any injury. Olaf sped the first shaft, and narrowly missed the 
 tablet, when EindriSi, at his mother's and sister's prayer, declined' 
 the shot (Fornm. sog. 2, 272). Just so king Haraldr SigurSarson 
 (HarSrlSa, -f- 1066) measured himself against an archer Hemingr,, 
 and bade him shoot a hazelnut off his Biorn's head, and Hemingr 
 accomplished the feat (Miiller's sagabibl. 3, 359. Thittr af 
 Hemingi cap. 6, ed. Keykjavik p. 55). Long afterwards, the legend 
 was transferred to a Hemming Wolf, or von Wulfen, of Wewelsflet 
 in the Wilstermarsch of Holstein, where the Elbe empties itself 
 into the sea. Hemming Wolf had sided with count Gerhard in 
 1472, and was banished by king Christian. The folk-tale makes 
 the king do the same as Harald, and Hemming as Toko ; an old 
 painting of Wewelsflet church represents the archer on a meadow 
 with bow unbent, in the distance a boy with the apple on his head, 
 the a,rrow passes through the middle of the apple, but the archer 
 lias a second between his teeth, and betwixt him and the boy 
 stands a wolf, perhaps to express that Hemming after his bold 
 answer was declared a wolf's head.^ Most appropriately did the 
 mythus rear its head on the emancipated soil of Switzerland : In 
 1307, it is said, Wilhehn Tell, compelled by Gessler, achieved the 
 same old master-shot, and made the courageous speech ; but the 
 evidence of chroniclers does not begin till toward the 16th century ,2 
 
 ' ScUeswigholst. prov. berichte 1708, vol. 2, p. 39 seq^. Milllenliof, 
 ScMeswigholst. sagen bo. 66. 
 
 ^ I suspect the genuinenesa of tlie verses, alleged to bs by Ileinricb von 
 
382 HEROES. 
 
 shortly before the first printed edition of Saxo, 1514. Of the 
 unhistorical character of the event there cannot be the slightest 
 doubt. The mythic substratum of the Tell fable shews itself in an 
 Upper Rhine legend of the 15th century (in Malleus malef pars 2 
 cap. 16, de sagittariis maleficis) which immediately preceded the 
 first written record of that of Tell : Fertur de ipso (Punchero), quod 
 quidam de optimatibus, cum artis sue erperientiam capere voluig- 
 set, eidem proprium filiumparvulum ad metam posuit, et pro signo 
 super hirretum pueri denarium, sibique mandavit, ut denarium dve 
 hirreto per sagittam amoveret. Cum autem maleficus id se facturum 
 sed cum dif&cultate assereret; libentins abstinere, ne per diabolum 
 seduceretur in sui interitum; verbis tarn en principis inductus, 
 sagittam unam collari suo circa coUum immisit, et alteram balistae 
 supponens denarium a birreto pueri sine omni nocumento excussit. 
 Quo viso, dunfv Hie maleficum interrogasset, ' cur sagittam collari 
 imposuisset ? ' respondit, 'si deceptus per diabolum puerum 
 occidissem, cum me mori necesse fuisset, subito mm sagitta altera 
 vos tranafacissem, ut vel sic mortem meam vindicassem '. This shot 
 must have taken place somewhere about 1420, and the story have 
 got about in the middle part of the 15th century. — Beside the 
 above-mentioned narratives, Norse and German, we have also an 
 Old English one to shew in the Northumbrian ballad of the three 
 merry men, Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of 
 Cloudesle ; this last, whose christian name, like the surname of the 
 first, reminds one of Tell, offers in the king's presence to set an 
 apple on the head of his son, seven years old, and shoot it off at 
 120 paces. The arrow sped from the bow, and cleft the apple. 
 I suppose that AegeTs skill in archery would be known to the 
 Anglo-Saxons ; and if we may push Wada, Weland and Wudga far 
 up into our heathen time, Aegel seems to have an equal claim. 
 The whole myth shows signs of having deep and widely extended 
 
 Hiinenber" of 1315, which Carl Zay has made known in his book on Groldaii, 
 Zurich 18(T7, p. 41 : 
 
 Diim pater in puerum telum crudele corascat 
 Tellius ex jussu, saeve tyranne, tuo, 
 
 pomum, non natum, figit fatalis arundo : 
 altera mox ultrix te, periture, petet. 
 H. von Hunenberg is the same who, before the battle of Morgarten, shot a 
 warning billet over to the Swiss on his arrow (Joh. Miiller 2, 37), he was 
 therefore a bowman himself. Justinger and Johann von Winterthur are silent 
 about Tell ; Melchior Russ (f 1499) and Petermann Etterlin (completed 1507) 
 were the fiist who committed the story to writing. 
 
TELL. EIGIL. 383 
 
 roots. It partly agrees even with what Eustathius on II. 12, 292 
 tells us, that Sarpedon, a hero of the blood of Zeus, was made 
 when a child to stpjid up and have a ring shot off his breast 
 without injury to him, an action which entailed the acquisition of 
 the Lycian kingdom (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 With these specimens of particular heroes— crumbs from the 
 richly furnished table of our antiquities — I will content myself, as 
 there are still some reflections of a more general kind to be made. 
 
 I started with saying, that in the heroic is contained an exalting 
 and refining of human nature into divine, originally however 
 founded on the affinity of some god with the human race. Now 
 as procreation is a repetition, and the son is a copy of the father 
 (for which reason our language with a profound meaning has avarS, 
 for image and avaro for child) ; so in every hero we may assume 
 to a certain extent an incarnation of the god, and a revival of at 
 least some of the qualities that distinguish the god. In this sense 
 the hero appears as a sublimate of man in general, who, created 
 after the image of God, cannot but be like him. But since the 
 gods, even amongst one another, reproduce themselves, i.e., their 
 plurality has radiated out of the primary force of a single 
 One (p. 164), it follows, that the origin of heroes must be very 
 similar to that of polytheism altogether, and it must be a difficult 
 matter in any particular case to distinguish between the full-bred 
 divinity and the half-blood. If heroes, viewed on one side, are 
 deified men, they may on the other hand be also regarded as 
 humanized gods ; and it comes to the same thing, whether we say 
 that the son or grandson begotten by the god has attained a semi- 
 divine nature, or that the god born again in him retains but a part 
 of his pristine power. We are entitled to see in individual heroes 
 a precipitate of former gods, and a mere continued extension, in a 
 wider circle, of the same divine essence which had already branched 
 out into a number of gods (see Suppl.). 
 
 This proposition can the more readily be demonstrated from the 
 popular faiths of Greece and Germany, which commit themselves 
 to no systematic doctrine of emanation and avat^ra, as in these 
 
 1 Similar legends seem to live in the East. In a MS. of the Cassel library 
 containing a journey in Turkey, I saw the representation of an archer taking 
 aim at a child with an apple on its head. 
 
384 HEROES. 
 
 religions the full-blooded animaHsm of herohood developed itself 
 the more richly for that very reason. While the Indian heroes are 
 in the end reabsorbed into the god, e.g., Krishna becomes Vishnu, 
 there remains in Greek and German heroes, an irreducible dross of 
 humanism, which brings them more into harmony with the 
 historical ingredients of their story. Our hsro-legend has this long 
 while had no consciousness remaining of such a thing as incarna- 
 tion, but has very largely that of an apotheosis of human though 
 god-descended virtue. 
 
 Herakles can never become one with Zeus, yet hi» deeds remind 
 us of those of his divine sire. Some traits in Theseus allow of his 
 being compared to Herakles, others to Apollo. Hermes was the 
 son of Zeus by Maia, Amphion by Antiope, and the two brothers, 
 the full and the half-bred, have something in common. 
 
 In Teutonic hero-legend, I think, echoes of the divine nature 
 can be distinguished still more frequently ; the Greek gods stood 
 unshaken to the last, and heroes could be developed by the side of 
 them. But when once the Teutonic deities encountered Christianity, 
 there remained only one of two ways open to the fading figures 
 of the heathen faith, either to pass into evQ diabolic beings, or 
 dwindle into good ones conceived as human. The Greek heroes 
 all belong to the flowering time of paganism ; of the Teutonic a 
 part at least might well seem a poverty-stricken attenuation and 
 fainter reproduction of the former gods, such as could still dare to 
 shew its face after the downfall of the heathen system. Christian 
 opiaion in the Mid. Ages guided matters into this channel ; unable 
 to credit the gods any longer with godhood, where it did not 
 transform them into devils, it did into demigods. In the Edda the 
 sesir are still veritable gods ; Jornandes too, when he says, cap. 6 : 
 ' mortuum (Tauuasem regem) Gothi inter numina populi sui 
 coluerunt ' — be this Taunasis Gothic or Getic — assumes that there 
 were Gothic gods, but the anses he regards as only victorious 
 heroes exalted into demigods ; and in Saxo, following the same line 
 of thought, we find that Balder (who exhibits some Heraklean 
 features, v. supra p. 226-7), and Hother, and thin himself, have 
 sunk into mere heroes.^ This capitis deminutio of the gods brought 
 
 1 In the AS. Ethelwerd p. 833 we read : ' Hengest et Horsa, hi nepotes 
 fuere Wodian regis barbarorum, quem post infanda dignitate ut deum Twnorantes, 
 sacrificium obtuleruiit pagani victoriae causa sive virtutis, ut humanitas saepe 
 credit hoc quod videt . Wm. of Maliuesbury's similar words were quoted 
 
IIEROKS. 385 
 
 them nearer to heroes, while the heroes were cut off from absolute 
 deification ; how much the two must have got mixed up in the 
 mist of legend ! Yet in every case where bodily descent from the 
 gods is alleged of a hero, his herohood is the more ancient, and 
 really of heathen origin. 
 
 Among the heroes themselves there occur second births, of 
 which a fuller account will be given further on, and which shew a 
 certain resemblance to the incarnations of gods. As a god renews 
 himself in a hero, so does an elder hero in a younger. 
 
 Beings of the giant brood, uniting themselves now to gods and 
 now to heroes, bring about various approximations between these 
 two. 
 
 We have seen how in the genealogy of Inguio, first OSinn, then 
 NicirSr and Freyr interweave themselves : ISTiorSr and Hadding 
 seem identical, as do Heimdall and Eigr, but in NiorSr and Heim- 
 dall the god is made prominent, in Hadding and Eigr the hero. 
 Irmin appears connected with Wuotan and Zio, just as Ares and 
 Herakles approach each other, and Odysseus resembles Hermes. 
 Baldr is conceived of as divine, BseldiEg as heroic. In Siegfried is 
 
 above, p. 128 ; he also says ' deum esse delirantes', Albericiis tr. font. 1, 23 
 (after a.d. 274) expresses himself thus : ' In hac generatione decima ab incar- 
 natione Domini regnasse invenitur quidam Mercurius in Gottlandia insula, quae 
 est inter Daciam et Russiam extra Romanum imperium, a quo Mercurio, qui 
 Woden dictus est, descendit genealogia Anglonun et multorum aliorum '. Much 
 in the same way Snorri in the Yngl. saga and Form. 13. 14 represents OSinn 
 as a hof&infii and hermaSr come from Asia, who by policy secured the 
 worship of the nations ; and Saxo p. 12 professes a like opinion : ' ea tempes- 
 tate cum Othinus quidam, Europa tota, falso divinitatis titulo censeretur,' &c. 
 conf. what he says p. 45. What other idea could orthodox christians at that 
 time form of the false god of their forefathers ? To idolatry they could not but 
 impute wilful deceit or presvimption, being unable to comprehend that some- 
 thing very different from falsified history lies at the bottom of heathenism. 
 As little did there ever exist a real man and king OSinn (let alone two or 
 three), as a real Jupiter or Mercury. — But the affinity of the hero nature 
 with the divine is clearly distinct from a deification arising out of human 
 pride and deceit. Those heathen, who trusted mainly their inner strength (p. 
 6), like the Homeric heroes nenoi-BoTes /Sijc^i (II. 12, 256), were yet far from 
 setting themselves up for gods. Similar to the stories of Kebucadnezar (er wolte 
 selbe sin ein got, would himself be god, Parz. 102, 7. Barl. 60, 35), of Kosroes 
 (Massmann on Eracl. p. 502), of the Greek Salmoneus (conf. N. Cap. 146), and 
 the Byzantine Eraclius, was our Mid. Age story of ImeUt aus wuester Babilonie, 
 ' der wolde selve wesen got ' (Rother 2568) = Nibeldt ze Barlse ' der machet 
 himele guldin, selber wolt er got sin' (Bit. 299), just as Salmoneus imitated 
 the lightning and thunder of Zeus. Imelot and Nibelot here seem to mean 
 the same thing, as do elsewhere Imelunge and Nibelunge (Heldens. 162) ; I 
 do not know wliat allusion there might be in it to a Nibelunc or Amelunc (see 
 Supnh). 
 
 25 
 
386 HIROES. 
 
 an echo of Baldr and Freyr, perhaps of OSinn, in Dietrich of Th6rr 
 and Freyr. Ecke oscillates between the giant and the hero. 
 Even Charles and Eoland are in some of their features to be 
 regarded as new-births of Wuotan and Donar, or of Siegfried and 
 Dietrich. As for Geat, Sceaf, Sceldwa, for lack of their legends, it 
 is dif&cult to separate their divine nature from their heroic. 
 
 One badge of distinction I find in this, that the names of gods 
 are in themselves descriptive, i.e., indicating from the first their 
 inmost nature ; ^ to the names of half-gods and heroes this signi- 
 licance will often be wanting, even when the human original has 
 carried his name over with him. Then, as a rule, the names of 
 gods are simple, those of heroes often compound or visibly derived. 
 Donar therefore is a god from the first, not a deified man: his 
 appellation expresses also his character. The same reason is 
 decisive against that notion of Wuotan having made his way out of 
 the ranks of men into those of the gods. 
 
 Demigods have the advantage of a certain familiamess to the 
 people : bred in the midst of us, admitted to our fellowship, it is 
 they to whom reverence, prayers and oaths prefer to address them- 
 selves : they procure and facilitate intercourse with the higher- 
 standing god. As it came natural to a Roman to swear 'mehercle ! 
 mecastor !' ecastor ! edepol ! ' the christians even in the Mid. Ages 
 swore more habitually by particular saints than by God himself. 
 
 We are badly off for information as to the points in which the 
 Hero-worship of our forefathers shaped itself differently from divine 
 worship proper ; even the Norse authorities have nothing on the 
 subject. The Grecian sacrifices to heroes differed from those 
 offered to gods : a god had only the viscera and fat of the beast 
 presented to him, and was content with the mounting odour; a 
 deified hero must have the very flesh and blood to consume. 
 Thus the einherjar admitted into ValhoU feast on the boiled flesh 
 of the boar SBehrlmnir, and drink with the Ases ; it is never said 
 that the Ases shared in the food. Stem. 36. 42. Sn. 42 ; conf. 
 snpra, p. 317. Are we to infer from this a difference in the sacri- 
 fices offered to gods and to demigods ? 
 
 Else, in the other conditions of their existence, we can perceive 
 many resemblances to that of the gods. 
 
 Thus, their stature is enormous. As Ares covered seven roods, 
 
 ' Something like the names of the characters in the Beast-apologue. 
 
riGUEE. 38T 
 
 Heralfles lias also a body of gigantic motild. When the godlike 
 SigurSr strode through the full-grown field of corn, the dew-shoe ^ 
 of his seven-span sword was even with the upright ears (Vols, saga 
 cap. 22. Vilk. saga cap. 166) ; a hair out of his horse's tail was 
 seven yards long (Nornag. saga cap, 8). — One thing hardly to be 
 found in Teutonic gods, many-handedness, does occur in an ancient 
 hero. Wudga and H&ma, Witege and Heime, are always named 
 together. This Heimo is said to have been by rights called Studas, 
 like liis father (whom some traditions however name AdelgSr, 
 Madelger) ; not till he had slain the worm Heima,^ did he adopt its 
 name (Villc. saga cap. 17). To him are expressly attributed three 
 hands and four elbows, or else two hands with three elbows (Heldens. 
 257. Eoseng. p. xx, conf. Ixxiv) ; the extra limbs are no exaggera- 
 tion (Heldens. 391), rather their omission is a toning down, of the 
 original story. And Asprian comes out with four hands (Eoseng. 
 p. xii). StarkaSr, a famous godlike hero of the North, has three 
 pairs of arms, and Thor cuts four of his hands off (Saxo Gram., p. 
 103) ; the Hervararsaga (Eafn p. 412, 513) bestows eight hands on 
 him, and the ability to fight with four swords at once : dtta handa, 
 Fornald. sog. 1, 412. 3, 37. In the Swedish folk-song of Alf, ori- 
 ginally heathen, there is a hero Torgnejer (roaring like thunder ?), 
 'han hade otta bander (Arvidss. 1, 12).^ Such cumulation of limbs 
 is also a mark of the giant race, and some of the heroes mentioned 
 do overlap these ; in the Servian songs I find a three headed hero 
 Balatchko (Vuk 2, no. 6, line 608) • Pi^gam too in the Carniolan 
 lay has three heads (tri glave). — Deficiency of members is to be 
 found in heroes as well as gods : OSinn is one-eyed, Tj^r one- 
 handed, Loki (= Hephaestus?) lame, HoSr blind, and VicJar dumb;* 
 
 > Doggskor, Sw. doppsko, the heel of the sword's sheath, which usually 
 brushes the dew : so the Alamanns called a lame foot, that dragged through 
 the dewy grass, toudregil. This ride through the corn has something in it 
 highly mythic and suggestive of a god. 
 
 ' Heimo appears to mean worm originally, though used elsewhere of the 
 cricket or cicada (Eeinh. cxxv), for which our present heimchen (little worm) 
 is better suited. A renowned Karling hero was also named Heimo (Reinh. 
 cciv). We find again, that Madelger is in Morolt 3921 a dwarf, son of a mer- 
 maid, and in Rol. 58, 17 a smith. 
 
 3 In the prophecies of the North Frisian Hertje (a.d. 1400) the tradition of 
 such monstrosities is applied to the future : ' Wehe den niinschen, de den 
 leven, wen de lude 4 arme kriegen und 2 par scho over de vote dragen und 2 
 hode up den kop hebben ! ' Heimreichs chron., Tondern 1819 ; 2, 341. It 
 may however refer merely to costume. 
 
 * Goth, haihs, hanfs, halts, blinds, dumbs. ' 
 
388 HEROES. 
 
 so is Hagano one-eyed, Walthari one-lianded, Gunthari and Wie- 
 lant lame, of blind and dumb heroes there are plenty. 
 
 One thing seems peculiar to heroes, that their early years 
 should be clouded by some defect, and that out of this darkness 
 the bright revelation, the reserved force as it were, should suddenly 
 break forth. Under this head we may even place the blind birth 
 of the Welfs, and the vulgar belief about Hessians and Swabians 
 (p. 373). In Saxo Gram., p. 63, Uffo is dumb, and his father 
 Vermund blind ; to him corresponds the double Offa in the line of 
 Mercia, and both of these Offas are lame and dumb and blind. 
 According to the ' vita Offae primi, Varmundi fihi,' he was of hand- 
 some figure, but continued blind till his seventh year, and dumb 
 till his thirtieth ; when the aged Varmund was threatened with 
 war, all at once in the assembly Offa began to speak. The ' vita 
 Offae secundi' says,i the hero was at first called Vinered (so we must 
 emend Pineredus), and was blind, lame and deaf, but when he 
 came into possession of all his senses, he was named Offa secundus. 
 Exactly so, in Saem. 142% HiorvarSr and Sigurlinn have a tall hand- 
 some son, but ' hann var jJOguU, ecki nafn festiz vi5 hann '. Only 
 after a valkyrja has greeted him by the name of ITelgi, does he 
 begin to speak, and is content to answer to that name. Starkadr 
 too was JjoguU in his youth (Fornald. sog. 3, 36), and Hcdfdan was 
 reckoned stupid (Saxo, p. 134) ; just as slow was the heroism of 
 Dietleib in unfolding itself .(Vilk. saga cap. 91), and that of Iliya in 
 the Russian tales. Our nursery-tales take up the character as 
 ascherling, aschenbrodel, asJcefis (cinderel) : the hero-yoiith lives 
 inactive and despised by the kitchen-hearth or in the cattle-stall, 
 out of whose squalor he emerges when the right time comes. I 
 do not recollect any instance in Greek mythology of this exceed- 
 ingly favourite feature of our folk-lore. 
 
 Unborn children, namely those that have been cut out of the 
 womb, usually grow up heroes. Such was the famous Persian 
 Eustem in Ferdusi, as well as Tristan according to the old story in 
 Eilhart, or the Russian hero Dobruna Nikititch, and the Scotch 
 Macduff. But Volsungr concerns us more, who spoke and made 
 vows while yet unborn, who, after being cut out, had time to kiss 
 his mother before she died (VolsAngas. cap. 2. 5). An obscure 
 
 ' These remarkable vitae Offae primi et seoimdi are printed after Watts's 
 Matth. Paris, pp. 8, 9. 
 
AFFLICTED. UNBORN. 389 
 
 pd,ssage in Fafnismdl (Soem. 187*) seems to designate SigurSr also 
 an Sborinn; and in one as difficult (Beow. 92), may not the 'umbor- 
 wesende ' which I took in a different sense on p. 370, stand for 
 wmJor-wesende, to intimate that Sceaf passed for an unborn ? The 
 LandnS-mabok 4, 4 has an Uni hinn oborni (m.), and 1, 10 an 
 Ulfrun in dlorna (f.) ; for wise-women, prophetesses, also come into 
 the world the same way.'- Our Mid. Ages tell of an unborn hero 
 Hoyer (Benecke's Wigalois, p. 452) ; in Hesse, Eeinhart of Dalwig 
 was known as the unborn, being, after the csesarian operation, 
 brought to maturity in the stomachs of newly slaughtered swine.^ 
 As early as the tenth century, Eckhart of St. Gall informs us : 
 Infans excisus et arvinae porci recens erutae, ubi incutesceret, 
 involutus, bonae indolis cum in brevi apparuisset, baptizatur et 
 Purchardus nominatur (Pertz 2, 120) ; this is the Burchardus 
 ingenitus, afterwards abbot of St Gall. One Gebehardus, ex de- 
 functae matris Dietpurgae utero excisus, is mentioned in the Chron. 
 Petershus. p. 302, with the remark : De talibus excisis literae 
 testantur quod, si vita comes fuerit, felices in mundo habeantur. 
 To such the common standard cannot be applied, their extra- 
 ordinary manner of coming into the world gives presage of a higher 
 and mysterious destiny. Not unlike is the Greek myth of Metis 
 and Tritogeneia : the virgin goddess springs out of the forehead of 
 Zeus. The phrase about ' HloSr being horn with helmet, sword and 
 horse ' (above, p. 76), is explained by the Hervararsaga, p. 490, to 
 mean, that the arms and animals which accompany the hero were 
 forged and born at the time of his birth. Schroter's Finnish Eunes 
 speak of a child that was bom armed: this reminds us of the 
 superstition about lucky children being born with hood and helmet 
 (see ch. XXVIII). 
 
 It was noticed about the gods (p. 321), that Balder's brother, 
 when scarcely bom, when but one night old, rushed to vengeance, 
 unwashed and uncombed. This is like the children born of liten 
 Kerstin after long gestation : the newborn son gets up directly and 
 Combs his hair, the new born daughter knows at once how to sew 
 silk. Another version makes her give birth to two sons, one of 
 whom combs his yellow locks, the other draws his sword, both 
 equipped for swift revenge (Svenska fornsinger 2, 254-6). Here 
 
 1 Heimreich's Nordfries. chr. 2, 341. 
 ' Zeitschrift lilr Hess, gesch. 1, 97. 
 
390 HEROES. 
 
 combing and not combing seem to be the same eharacteristia A 
 new born child speaks ; Norske eventyr 1, 139. 
 
 As the hirth of beloved kings is announced to their people by 
 joyful phenomena, and their death by terrible, the same holds good 
 of heroes. Their generosity founds peace and prosperity in the 
 land. Frd&i's reign in Denmark was a period of bliss ; in the year 
 of Hahon's election the birds bred twice, and trees bore twice, 
 about which beautiful songs may be gleaned out of his saga, cap. 24. 
 On the night that Helgi was born, eagles cried, and holy waters 
 streamed from the mountains, Sasm. 149^ " 
 
 Sigurd's walk and manner of appearing was impetuous, like 
 that of a god ; when he first approached the burg of Brynhildr, 
 ' iorS d^lsaSi ok opphimin,' earth shook and heaven, Ssem. Sil** ; 
 and of Brynhild's laughing, as of that of the gods (p. 324), we are 
 told : ' hlo, boer allr dundi,' she laughed and all the castle dinned, 
 Ssem. 208^ A divine strength reveals itself in many deeds and 
 movements of heroes. Dietrich's fiery breath may be suggestive of 
 Donar, or perhaps only of a dragon : ' ob sin atem gtebe fiur als 
 eines wilden trachen,' (Parz. 137, 18). 
 
 A widely prevalent mark of the hero race is their being suckled 
 hy leasts, ov fed hy birds. A hind offers her milk to SigurSr when 
 exposed, Vilk. saga . 142 ; a she-wolf gives suck to the infant 
 Dieterich (like Romulus and Eemus) together with her four blind 
 whelps, hence his name of "Wolfdieterich. The same fellowship 
 with whelps seems imputed to the beginnings of the Goths and 
 Swabians, as to those of the Eomans (p. 373) ; but the woodpecker 
 also, that Bee-wolf, brought food to the sons of Mars, and we have 
 come to know the Swabians as special devotees of Zio (p. 199). 
 The Servian hero Milosh Kobilitch was suckled by a mare (kobUa), 
 Vuk 2, 101 ; does that throw light on the OHG. term of abuse 
 merihAnsun, zagunsun (RA. 643) ? A like offensive meaning 
 lurked in the Latin lupa.'^ But it is not only to sucklings that 
 the god-sent animals appear ; in distress and danger also, swans, 
 ravens, wolves, stags, bears, lions will join the heroes, to render 
 them assistance ; and that is how animal figures in the scutcheons 
 and helmet-insignia of heroes are in many cases to be accounted for, 
 though they may arise from other causes too, e.g., the ability of 
 certain heroes to transform themselves at will into wolf or swan. 
 
 1 Fils de truie : Garin 2, 229. 
 
NUESEB BY ANIMALS. 391 
 
 The swan's wing, the swan's coat, betokens another supernatural 
 quality which heroes share with the gods (p. 326), the power of 
 flying. As Wieland ties on his swan-wings, the Greek Perseus has 
 ivinged shoes, talaria, Ov. met. 4, 667. 729, and the Servian Eelia is 
 called krilat (winged), being in possession of krilo and okrilie 
 (wing and wing-cover), Vuk 2, 88. 90. 100. A piece of the wing 
 remaining, or in women a swan's foot, will at times betray the 
 higher nature. 
 
 The superhuman quality of heroes shines out of their eyes 
 (luminum vibratus, oculorum micatus, Saxo Gram. 23) : ormr i 
 auga. The golden teeth of gods and heroes have been spoken of, p. 
 234. In the marchen sons are born with a star on the forehead, 
 Kinderm. 96. Straparola 4, 3 ;. or a golden star falls on the fore- 
 head, Pentam. 3, 10. The Dioscuri had a star or flame shining on 
 their heads and helmets : this may have reference to the rays 
 encircUng the head (p. 323), or to constellations being set in the 
 sky. In some cases the heroic form is disfigured by animal 
 peculiarities, as Siegfried's by his horny skin, and others by a 
 scaly ; the marchen have heroes with hedgehog spikes. The legend 
 of the Merovings, imperfectly handed down to us, must be founded 
 on something of the kind. When Clodio the son of Faramund 
 with his queen went down to the shore, to cool themselves from 
 the sultry summer heat, there came up a monster (sea-hog ?) out of 
 the waves, which seized and ovei'powered the bathing queen. She 
 then bore a son of singular appearance, who was therefore named 
 Merovig, and his descendants, who inherited the peculiarity, 
 Merovings.^ Theophanes expressly declares, that the Merovings 
 were called Kpio-rarat and Tpi,)(ppa')(aTai, because all the kings of 
 that house had bristles down the backbone {pdxi'i), like swine. 
 We still find in EoL 273, 29, where it is true they are enumerated 
 among heathens, 
 
 di helde von Meres ; 
 
 vil gewis sit ir des, 
 
 daz niht kuoners mac sin : 
 
 an dem rucke tragent si borsten sam swin. 
 The derivation of the name is altogether unknown. Can it possibly 
 have some connexion with the boar-worship of Fro, which may 
 
 " Fredegar's epitome (Bouquet 2, 396), and Conradus Ursperg., Arg. 1609, 
 .p. 92. Per cpntra, MiiUeimoff in Haupt's zeitschr. 6, 432. 
 
392 HEROES. 
 
 have been especially prevalent among the Franks ? Lampn Alex. 
 5368 also has : sin hiit was ime bevangen al mit swtnes hursten (see 
 Suppl.). 
 
 One principal mark to know heroes by, is their possessing 
 intelligent horses, and conversing with them. A succeeding chapter 
 will shew more fully, how heathendom saw something sacred and 
 divine in horses, and often endowed them with consciousness and 
 sympathy with the destiny of men. But to heroes they were indis- 
 pensable for riding or driving, and a necessary intimacy sprang up 
 between the two, as appears by tlie mere fact of the horses having 
 proper names given them. The touching conversation of Achilles 
 with his XantJws and Balios (II. 19, 400 — 421) finds a complete 
 parallel in the beautiful Karling legend of Bayard ; compare also 
 Wilhelm's dialogue with Puzzdt (58, 21—59, 8), in the French 
 original with Baucent (Garin 2, 230-1), and Begon's with the same 
 Baucent (p. 230). In the Edda we have Sklrnir talking with his 
 horse (Ssem. 82'') ; and GoSrun, after SigurS's murder, with Grani 
 (231") : 
 
 ImipnaSi Grani J)^, drap i gras hofSi. 
 Well might Grani mourn, for the hero had bestridden him ever 
 since he led him out of Hialprek's stable (180), had ridden him 
 through the flames (202*), and carried off the great treasure. 
 Swedish and Danish folk-songs bring in a sagacious steed Black, 
 with whom conversation is carried on (Sv. vis. 2, 194. Sv. forns. 
 2, 257. Danske vis. 1, 323). In the poems on Artus the horses 
 are less attractively painted ; but how naively in the Servian, 
 when Mila shoes the steed (Vuk 1, 5), or Marko before his death 
 talks with his faithful Sharats (2, 243 seq. Danitza 1, 109). In 
 Mod. Greek songs there is a dialogue of Liakos with his horse 
 (Fauriel 1, 138), and similar ones in the Lithuanian dainos (Khesa 
 p. 224). The Persian Eustem's fairy steed is well-known (see 
 Suppl.).! 
 
 If many heroes are carried off in the bloom of life, like Achilles 
 or Siegfried, others attain a great age, beyond the limit of the 
 human. Our native legend allows Hildebrand the years of Nestor 
 
 ' A Mongolian warrior's dymg song has : 
 
 My poor cream-coloiired trotter, you will get home alive. 
 
 Then tell my mother, pray : ' full fifteen wounds had he '. 
 
 And tell my father, pray : 'shot through the back was he,' &c. — Traks. 
 
IIOESES. AGE. 393- 
 
 ■with iindiminislied strength, and to the Scandinavian StarkaSr is 
 measured out a life that runs through several generations ; the 
 divinely honoured GoSmundr is said to have numbered near five 
 hundred years, Fornald. sog. 1, 411. 442. In the genealogies that 
 have come down to us, great length of life is given to the first 
 ancestors, as it is in the Bible also. Snaerr hinn gamli, sprung 
 from Kfi,ri and Jokull, is said to have attained 300 years, and 
 Hdlfdan gamli as many, Fornald. sog. 2, 8. The MHG. poem of 
 Dietrich's ancestors (1869 — 2506) gives Dietwart and Sigeher 400 
 years of life each, Wolfdieierich 503, Hugdietericli 450, and Dictmar 
 340 ; Dietrich of Bern is the first that reaches only the ordinary 
 limit, Otnit the son of Sigeher was killed when young.^ The 
 Servian Marko was three hundred years old, almost like the giants 
 of old. On the other hand, the life of heroes is enfeebled by union 
 with goddesses and superhuman females. Examples will be given^ 
 when the valkyrs are discussed ; the belief of the Greeks is 
 expressed in a remarkable passage of the Hymn to Venus 190, 
 where Anchises, after he has embraced Aphrodite, fears that he 
 shall lead a stricken life (afievrjvo^) among men : 
 
 eVet ov ^LO0aX.fj,io<i avrjp 
 <y(iyv€Tai, ocrre Oeai<; evvd^eTUi ddavaTrjai. 
 The goddess does not conceal, that age will come on him apace, and 
 that Zeus's thunderbolt will maim him if he boast of her favours. 
 The story of Staufenberger and the sea-fairy is founded on similar 
 notions. 
 
 Another thing in which the condition of heroes resembles that 
 of gods is, that particular local haunts and dwellings are assigned 
 them. Such abodes seem by preference to bear the name of stone, 
 as Gibichenstein, Brunhildensteiu, Kriemhildenstein, Eigelstein, 
 Waskenstein ; which points to sacred rocks uninhabited by men, 
 
 1 These are undoubtedly geBuine myths, that lose themselves in the 
 deeps of time,, however distorted and misplaced they may be. Sigeher (OHQ. 
 Siguhari) is plainly the ON. Sigarr, from whom the Siglingar or Siklingar 
 take their name ; Sigeher's daughter is called Sigelint, Sigar's daughter Signy, 
 but the two are identical. Hugdieterich, who in woman's clothing woos Hilde- 
 hirg, is one with HagbarSr (Sw. Habor, Dan. Hafbur), who likewise succeeds 
 in his suit for Signj^ (Sw. Signil, Dan. Signild), though here the story has a 
 tragic end, and the names disagree ; but hug and hag, both from one root, 
 support each other. Sigeminne too, the wife of Wolfdieterich, who in the Hel- 
 denbuch is the son of Hugdieterich, comes near to Signy. The part about 
 Hugdieterich in the Heldenbuch is throughout uncommonly sweet, and cer- 
 tainly very ancient. 
 
394 . HEROES. 
 
 and a primeval, firmly rooted ■worship. More rarely we find castle 
 or Jiall connected with a hero (Iringes burc, Orendelsal), a few times 
 ea and hum, oftener way or street ; now, as the notion of a highway 
 lies close to that of a conspicuous column to which the roads led up, 
 we may well connect the ' Herculis columnae,' the Irmansuli, with 
 the Boland-pillars, which we come upon just in those northern 
 parts of Germany where heathenism prevailed latest. As king 
 Charles occupies Wuotan's place in certain legends, especially that 
 of the ' furious host,' Eoland, the noblest hero of his court, who is 
 to him almost exactly what Donar is to Wuotan, seems to replace 
 the divine vanquisher of giants. ^thelstdn-pUlars have been 
 mentioned, p. 119. It is worthy of note, that, while Scandinavia 
 offers nothing else that can be likened to the Irmen-pillars, yet at 
 Skeningen, a town of Ostergotland, there stood erected in the 
 marketplace, just where Eoland-piUars do stand, the figure of a 
 giant or hero, which the people called Tkore lang (Thuro longus), 
 and at which idolatry was practised in former times.^ This figure 
 appears far more likely to belong to the heathen god than to any 
 hero or king ; and probably the column in the market place of 
 Bavais in Hainault, from which seven roads branched off, and 
 which is said to have been reared in honour of a king Bavo, had a 
 similar meaning (see SuppL). 
 
 According to a widely accepted popular belief, examined more 
 minutely in ch. XXXII on Spiriting away, certain heroes have 
 sunk from the rocks and fortresses they once inhabited, into clefts 
 and caverns of the mountains, or into subterranean springs, and are 
 there held wrapt in a seldom interrupted slumber, from which they 
 issue ia times of need, and bring deliverance to the land. That 
 here again, not only Wuotan, . Arminius, Dieterich and Siegfried, 
 but such modern heroes as Charles, Frederick Barbarossa and even 
 Tell are named, may assure us of the mystic light of myth which 
 has settled on them. It was a Norse custom, for aged heroes, dead 
 to the world and dissatisfied with the new order of things, to shut 
 themselves up in a hiU: thus Herlaugr with twelve others goes 
 into the haugr (Egilss. p. 7), and in like manner Eticho the Welf, 
 accompanied by twelve nobles, retires into a mountain in the 
 Scherenzerwald, where no one could find him again (Deutsche 
 
 1 Olaus Magnus 14, 15. Stjernheok, De jure Sveon. vet, p. 326. Brooc- 
 mans beskrifn. ofver Ostergotland, Norrkoping 1760. 1, 190. 
 
ABODES. 395 
 
 sagen, no. 518). Siegfried, Charles and Frederick, like King 
 Arthur of the Britons, abide in mountains with their host. 
 
 Be it be remarked lastly, that the heroic legend, like the divine, 
 is fond of running into triads. Hence, as OSin, Vili, Ve, or Har, 
 lafnhir and ThriSi stand together, there appear times without 
 number three heroic hrothers together, and then also it commonly 
 happens, that to the third one is ascribed the greatest faculty of 
 success. So in the Scythian story of the three brothers Leipoxais, 
 Arpoxais and Kolaxais (Herod. 4, 5) : a golden plough, yoke and 
 sword having fallen from heaven, when the eldest son and the 
 second tried to seize them, the gold burned, but the tliird carried 
 them off. The same thing occurs in many marchen. 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 WISEWOMEN. 
 
 The relation of women to the gods is very different from that of 
 men, because men alone can found famous houses, while a woman's 
 family dies with her. The tale of ancestry contains the names of 
 heroes only ; king's daughters are either not named in it at all, or 
 disappear again as soon as they have been introduced as brides. 
 Eor the same reason we hear of deified sons, but not of deified 
 daughters ; nay, the marriage of mortals with immortals issues 
 almost always in the birth of sons. There are therefore no women 
 to be placed by the side of the heroes, whom in the preceding 
 chapter we have regarded as a mixture of the heavenly and earthly 
 natures : the distaff establishes no claim to immortality, like the 
 sword. To the woman and the bondman, idle in battle, busy in the 
 house, the Anglo-Saxons very expressively assigned the occupation 
 of weaving peace : heroic labours suited men. 
 
 But that which women forfeit here, is amply made up to them 
 in another sphere. In lieu of that distinct individuality of parts 
 given to heroes, which often falls without effect in the story, they 
 have general duties assigned them of momentous and lasting influ- 
 ence. A long range of charming or awful half-goddesses mediates 
 between men and deity : their authority is manifestly greater, their 
 worship more impressive, than any reverence paid to heroes. There 
 are not, strictly speaking, any heroines, but whatever among women 
 answers to heroes appears more elevated and spiritual. Brunhild 
 towers above Siegfried, and the swan-maid above the hero to whom 
 she unites herself (see Suppl.). 
 
 In other mythologies also it is observable, that in the second 
 rank of deities female beings predominate, while the first is reserved 
 almost exclusively for the male, but the divine heroes we have 
 spoken of come only in the third rank. I have on p. 250 partly 
 accounted for the longer duration of the tradition of several goddesses 
 
WISE WOMFX iJ97 
 
 by its having left more abiding, because more endearing, impressions 
 on the mind of the people.. 
 
 There is no harder problem in these investigations, than to dis- 
 tinguish between goddesses and half-goddesses. Every god's wife 
 must ipso facto pass for a real goddess ; but then there are unmarried 
 goddesses ; e.g., Hel. One who cannot be shown to be either wife 
 or daughter of a god, and who stands in a dependent relation to 
 higher divinities, is a half-goddess. Yet such a test will not 
 always serve, where a mythology has been imperfectly preserved ; 
 for the very reason that half-goddesses stand higher than half-gods, 
 the boundary-line between them and the class of great gods is 
 harder to hit. The line may be disturbed, by particular races 
 promoting divine beings of lower rank, whose worship got the 
 upper hand among them, to a higher; it is true the same thing 
 seems to occur in hero-worship, but not so often. 
 
 The mission and functions of half-goddesses then may be 
 roughly defined thus; to the upper gods they are handmaids, to 
 men revealers. 
 
 It is a significant feature in our heathenism, that women, not 
 men, are selected for this office. Here the Jewish and christian 
 view presents a contrast : prophets foretell, angels or saints from 
 lieaven announce and execute the commands of God ; but Greek 
 and Teutonic gods employ both male and female messengers. To 
 the German way of thinking, the decrees of destiny assume a 
 greater sacredness in the mouth of woman, soothsaying and sorcery 
 in a good as well as bad sense is peculiarly a women's gift, and it 
 may even be a part of the same thing, that our language personifies 
 virtues and vices as females. If human nature in general shews a 
 tendency to pay a higher respect and deference to the female sex, 
 this has always been specially characteristic of Teutonic nations. 
 Men earn deification by their deeds, women by their wisdom : 
 ' Fatidicae, augescente superstitione deae' p. 95 (see SuppI). 
 
 This Germanic reverence for woman, already emphasized by 
 Tacitus, is markedly expressed in our old systems of law, especially 
 the Alamannian and Bavarian, by doubling the composition for 
 injury ;EA. 404) : the defenceless one thereby receives protection 
 and consecration, nay, she is to forfeit the privilege the moment 
 she takes up man's weapons. And not only does a worship of 
 woman shew itself in the minne-songs of our Mid. Ages, but in a 
 
398 WISE women: 
 
 remarkable formula of chivalry occurring both in folk-songs and in 
 court-poems : ' durch oiler frouvjen eVe,' by all women's honour, 
 Wolfdiet. 104. Morolt 855. 888. 2834. Morolf 1542. Ecke 105. 
 117. 174. Koseng. 2037. MsH. 3, 200*; 'durch reiner (pure) 
 frouwen Sre,' Ecke 112; 'durch willen (for the sake) aller frouwen;' 
 thus one hero cries to another 'nu beite (stay), Awxch. willen aller 
 meide !' Eab. 922-4 ; ' durch ivillen schcener wibe,' Ecke 61 ; 'durch 
 under maget (other maids') ere,' Gudr. 4863 ; 'durch ellm wtp,' in 
 the name of all women, Parz. 13, 16 ; '^re an mir elliu wi^),' respect 
 in me all women, Erec 957 ; 'Sret an mir elliu wtp ! ' says a woman 
 in Parz. 88, 27, to ensure attention to her prayer ; ' alien meiden 
 tuot ez ze Sren (do it in honour of),' Gudr. 1214, 3; 'ere und minne 
 elliu wtp !' is the injunction on giving a sword, Trist. 5032 ; 'tuon 
 allez daz frouwen vnlle st,' do all that may be woman's will, Bit. 
 7132 ; 'als liep iu aUe/rowioew sin,' as all women are dear to you, 
 Laurin 984. Their worship was placed on a par with that of 
 God : ' Sret Got und diu wip- Iw. 6054 ; ' durch Got und durch der 
 wihe Ion (guerdon)' Wh. 381, 21 ; 'wart so mit riterschaft get§,n, des 
 Got sol danken und diu wip^ may God and the ladies requite it, 
 Wh. 370, 5; 'dienen Got und alle frouwen eren,' Ms. 2,99''; of 
 Parzival it is even said : ' er getruwete loiben baz (better) dan Gote,' 
 Parz. 370, 18. These modes of speech, this faith, can be traced up 
 to a much earlier age, as in 0. i. 5, 13 : ' do sprah er erlicho ubaral, 
 so man zi frowAn skal ' ; and v. -8, 58 : ' ni sit irbolgan wibe,' ye 
 shall not bully a woman, Etzels hofhalt. 92-3 ; ' sprich wiben iibel 
 mit nihte' says the po.;m of the Stete ampten 286. The very word 
 frau is the name of a goddess, conf, p. 299 on the meanings of 
 frau and weib (see SuppI). 
 
 But more than that, when the hero in stress of battle looked upon 
 his love (OHG. triltin.trfitinna, MHG. triutiniflj), tJwugJit of her, named 
 her name, he increased thereby his strength, and was sure of the 
 victory. We might even bring under this head the declaration of 
 Tacitus : memoriae proditur, quasdam acies incHnatas jam et labantes 
 a feminis restitutas constantia precum et objectu pectorum. From the 
 poems of the 13th century I wUl quote the principal passages only : 
 
 und als er dar zuo an sack (on-saw, looked at) 
 
 die schoenen frowen Eniten, 
 
 daz half (holp) im vast;e strlten (fight hard). Er. 933. 
 
 swenne mich der imid't iwer ermant (the thought of you mans), 
 
WISE WOMEN. 399 
 
 s6 ist sigesfelic (victorious) mln hant : 
 
 wand (for) iwer guote minne 
 
 die sterkent mine sinne (nerve my senses), 
 
 daz mir den vU. langen tac (all the long day) 
 
 niht wider gewesen mac (nought can vex). Er. 88G7. 
 
 diu dk gegenwurtic saz (who there present sat), 
 
 diu gehalf ir manne baz (she holp her man better). 
 
 ob im dehein zwivel (if ever a doubt) gescliach, 
 
 swenn (whenever) er si danne wider (again) an sack, 
 
 ir schoene gap im niwe kraft (strength), 
 
 s8 daz er unzagehaft (undismayed) 
 
 sine sterke wider gewan (his strength regained) 
 
 und vaht (fought) als ein geruowet (rested) man. Er. 9171. 
 
 der gedanc (thinlfing) an sin scluene wip 
 
 der kreftigete im den lip (life, body). Er. 9229. 
 
 swenne im diu muoze (opportunity) geschach 
 
 daz er die maget (maid) reht ersach, 
 
 daz gap ir gesellen (to her fellow, lover) 
 
 Gawane manllch ellen ((51an). Parz. 409, 13. 410, 5. 
 
 nu sack er daz si umb in was in sorgen (in fear for him), 
 
 alrgst er niuwe kraft enpfant (felt). Lohengr. p. 54-5. 
 
 den Heiden minne nie verdroz (never wearied), 
 
 des (therefore) was sin herze in strite gr6z. Parz. 740, 7. 
 
 ern welle (if he do not) an minne denken, 
 
 sone mag er niht entwenken (cannot escape). Parz. 740, 15. 
 
 wes siimest (wherefore delayest) du dich, Parzival, 
 
 daz du an die kiuschen liehtgemal (pure-one so bright) 
 
 niht denkest, ich mein din wip, 
 
 wiltu behalten (save) hie den lip ? Parz. 742, 27. 
 
 der getoufte nam (the christian gained) an kreften zuo, 
 
 er ddht (thought), des was im niht ze fruo (none too soon), 
 
 an sin loip die kiiniginne 
 
 unt an ir werden (worthy) minne. Parz. 743, 23. 
 
 swS, ich sider (after) kom in not (difficulty), 
 
 ze hant so ich (the moment I) an si ddhte, 
 
 ir minne helfe brahte. Parz. 768, 27. 
 
 miiede was ir beder lip (weary were both their bodies), 
 
 niuwan daz sie (liad they not) ddhten an diu wip 
 
 sie wjEren bMesamt gelegen (both together fallen). Alt.bl. 1,340. 
 
430 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 In the Carmen de Pliyllide et Flora it is said 31, 4 : ' Ille me com- 
 memorat inter ipsas caedes,' my beloved in the battle breathes my 
 name, to issue therefrom victorious.^ This sounds altogether 
 heathen, for the gods too were at your side the moment you uttered 
 their names^ Snorri, in Yngl. saga cap. 2, says of OSinn : ' svt, var 
 00 um hans menn, hvar sem j^eir urSu 1 nauSum staddic, k si4 eSa 
 §, landi, ]>k Jcdlludu |?eir d nafn hans, oc Jjottiz iafnan tk af ]?wl fr6,' 
 so was it also with his men, wherever they were in trouble, on sea 
 or on land, then called they on his name, and immediately were 
 gladdened by it. When Hriingnir became intolerable to the Ases, 
 ' ])k nefna Jjeir Thor, ])vi nsest kom Thorr i hoUina,' Sn. 108. Kraka, 
 a semi-divine being, admonished Erich: si suprema necessitatis 
 violentia postularet, nominis sui nuncupatione remedium celerius 
 esse quaerendum, affirmans se divina partim virtute subnixam et 
 quasi consortem coelitus insitam numinis gestare potentiam, Saxo 
 Gram., p. 72. So the valkyrja comes to the rescue of her chosen 
 hero, when he calls out her name ; she is become his guardian, as if 
 sent by the gods to bring him aid (see Suppl.). 
 
 The mission of such women then is to announce and prepare 
 good or ill, victory or death to mortal men ; and we have seen that 
 the popular faith retained longest its connexion with fighting and 
 victory. Their own being itself, like that of the heroes, rests on 
 human nature, they seem for the most part to have .sprung from 
 kingly and heroic families, and probably an admixture of divine 
 ancestors is to be presumed in their case too. But to perform their 
 office, they must have wisdom and supernatural powers at their 
 command : their wisdom spies out, nay, guides and arranges com- 
 plications in our destiny, warns of danger, advises in difficulty. At 
 the birth of man they shew themselves predicting and endowing, 
 in perils of war giving help and granting victory. Therefore they 
 are called wise women, ON. spdJconor (conf. sp§,kr, OHG-. spahi, 
 prudens), Scot, spae wife, MHG. tuisiu wip, Nib. 1473. 3. 1483, 4 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
 1. Itis, Ides (Dls). 
 But I will first talje an older word, which appears to me to yield 
 
 > Philander of Sittewald 2,727, Soldatenl. p. 241, still mentions the practice 
 in time of danger ' of commending oneself to the loved one's grace and 
 favour '. 
 
iTis. 401 
 
 exactly the meaning we have just unravelled, and in its generalness 
 to comprehend all the particular beings to be studied more minutely 
 by and by. The OHG. itis pi. itisi, OS. ides, pi. idisi, AS. ides, pi. 
 idesa, denotes femina in general, and can be used of maids or matrons, 
 rich or poor.^ Yet, like tlie Greek vvfKpr;, it seems even in the 
 earliest times to have been specially applied to superhuman beings, 
 who, being considered lower than goddesses and higher than earthly 
 women, occupy precisely that middle rank which is here in 
 question. Tacitus informs us, that a famous battle-field on the 
 Weser was called by the Cheruscans Idisiaviso (so I emend Idis- 
 taviso), i.e., nympharum pratum, women's meadow ; it matters not 
 whether the spot bore that name before the fight with the Eomans, 
 or only acquired it afterwards (v. Haupt's zeitschr. 9, 248). There 
 at one time or another a victory was won under the lead of these 
 exalted dames. The Mersehurg poem sets the idisi before us in 
 fall action : 
 
 STimk hapt heptidun, sumS, heri lezidun, 
 suma clubodun umbi cuniowidi ; 
 Some put a check (on the fighting), as we read in Renner 20132 : 
 dez muoz (therefore must) ich he/ten einen haft 
 an dirre materia an mlnen danc (against my will), 
 wan ich fiirhte (for I fear) sie werde ze lane. 
 Others letted the host (hinder, make late, Goth, hari latidMun) ; 
 others again grasped (clawed) at chains or wreaths, i.e., withs and 
 twigs with which to twist shackles, or to twine garlands for the 
 victor. Here then their business was to bind and check, which is 
 also demanded by the very object of the conjuring-spell ; in striking 
 harmony with this are the names of two Norse valkyrs, mentioned 
 together in Sasm. 45*, Hloch = OHG. Hlancha, i.e., catena, and 
 Herfiotr = OHG. Herifezzara, exercitum vinciens. But it must 
 have been as much in their power to set free and help on, as to 
 shackle and hamper. Compounded with itis we have the female 
 names Itispuruc (Meichelb. no. 162), Itisburg (Trad. fuld. Schannat 
 181), Idisburg (Lacombl. no. 87), and Itislant (Graff 1, 159); which, 
 like Hiltipurc, Sigipurc, Sigilant (MB. 14, 362), are proper to such 
 women of our olden time (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 ' FreoUcu meowle = ides, Cod. exon. 479,2. 'Weras and idesa,' or 'eorlas 
 and idesa ' are contrasted, ibid. 176, 5. 432, 2. 
 
 ^ Here the local meaning coincides vnih the personal ; we may therefore 
 
 26 
 
402 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 But we obtain much fuller information as to their nature from 
 the Norse authorities. It has been overlooked hitherto, that the 
 OHG. itis, AS. ides, is the same as the ON. dis pi. disir ; similar 
 instances of aphseresis are the Eigr for Iring on p. 234, and Sangrim, 
 Singrim for Isangrim, Isingrim (Eeinh. ccviii). Any remaining 
 doubt disappears on comparing the Eddie ' dis Skioldunga,' Saem. 
 169* 209'' with the AS. ' ides Scildinga,' Beow. 2337. The Norse 
 dtsir likewise are sometimes kind protecting beings, sometimes 
 hostile and hindering, Ssem. 185* 195* 254* 273*. An instance of- 
 the latter sort is found in the story of ThiSrandi, whom disir 
 destroyed, 'thann er sagt at disir vaegi,' quem deas interfecisse 
 dicunt (Nialss. cap. 97), though the full narrative (Fornm. sog. 2, 
 195) calls them simply Jeonur, women; so Spddisir, nymphae 
 vaticinantes. Vols, saga cap. 19, means just the same as spdkonur ; 
 and the phrase ' ecki eru allar disir dauSar enn ' in Alfs saga cap. 
 15, means in the most general sense, all good spirits are not dead 
 yet ; ' ySr munu dauSar disir allar,' to you all spirits are dead, 
 Fornald. sog. 2, 47. But the Norse people worshipped them, and 
 offered them sacrifice : the mention of disablSt is very frequent^ 
 Egilss. cap. 44 p. 205; Vigagl. saga cap. 6 p. 30; 'biota kumla 
 disir,' deabus tumulatis sacrificare, Egilss. p. 207. This passage 
 implies a connexion between disir and ghosts, departed spirits, 
 whose reappearance portends something : ' konor hugSak dauSar 
 koma i nott,' dead women, i.e., disir, come at night, Ssem. 254*. 
 Herjans dis (Ssem. 213'') is nympha Odini, a maiden dwelling at 
 ValhoU in the service of 0?5inn ; dis Skioldunga (Ssem. 169* 209*), 
 divine maid sprung from the Skioldung stock, is an epithet both of 
 Sigrun and of Brynhild, conf. AS. ides Scyldinga, ides Helminga, 
 Beow. 1234. But Freyja herself is called Vanadis, nympha 
 Vanorum, Sn. 37; and another goddess, Ska?5i ondurdis (walking 
 in wooden shoes), Sn. 28, which is equivalent to ondur^rjia; Several 
 proper names of women are compounded with dis: Thordis, 
 Hiordts, Asdis, Vigdis, Halldis, Freydis (to which might have 
 corresponded an OHG. Donaritis, &c.) : they prove the pretty high 
 antiquity of the monosyllabic form dis, which even in the Edda 
 invariably alliterates with D. With the orginal form idis the 
 
 compare Magaclaburg with Idisaburg, Idisoburg, and Islant with. Itislant, 
 Itisolant. The Prankish Dispargum on the contrary seems not to be Idisberg, 
 but Tiesberg, fanum Martis (Herm. Miiller, Salic law, p. 33-4). 
 
ITIS. VELEUA. GANNA. 403 
 
 name of the goddess Idunn may possibly be connected (see 
 SuppL). 
 
 2. Veleda. Ganna. Alarun. 
 
 If, as I suppose, the generic term idis was already current in 
 the time of Tacitus, he gives us other more specific appellations as 
 mere proper names, though still a certain general meaning seems 
 to belong to them too. His statements about Veleda, Ganna, and 
 Aurioiia I have already quoted in ch. V, where the connexion 
 between prophetesses and the priestly of6.ce was pointed out. 
 Veleda appears to be almost an appellative, and akin to the ISTorse 
 Vala, Volva (p. 97-8), or even to the masc. Volundr (p. 378), per- 
 haps also to the name valkyrja.^ She lives on a tower, like Jetha 
 (p. 96) and Brynhildr (Vols, saga cap. 24). Treaties were ratified in 
 her presence ; she not only prophesied, but had to settle disputes 
 among the people, and carry out plans. In Saem. 4'' 5^ the Vala, 
 after whom the famous lay Voluspa is named, is also called Heiffr 
 and Gullveig ; and as our female names Adalheid, Alpheid, &c., are 
 formed with -heid, Finn Magnusen p. 416*" would derive Veleda 
 from a supposed Valaheid, which however is nowhere found (see 
 Suppl.). The description given of her is an attractive one : where- 
 ever in the land this vala velspS, (fatidica) came, she worked 
 witchery, she was believed to travel about aud make visitations to 
 houses. This ' til hfisa koma ' reminds us of the ' drepa d vett sem 
 volur,' pulsare aedes sicut fatidicae, Ssem. 63", as in other cases also 
 prophesying, inspiring and boon-bestowing women were always 
 supposed to pass through the country, knocking at the houses of 
 those whom they would bless. 
 
 Ganna (p. 95-6) could be explained with more certainty, if the 
 real meaning of its root ginnan were disclosed to us : a MHG. 
 ginnen is secare, the ON. ginna allicere, seducere ; and in Saem. 21" 
 we are warned not to trust the wheedling words of valas, 'volo 
 vUmffili trli engi maSr ' ; we shall see presently, how the AS. poets 
 use similar expressions about Wyrd. 
 
 When Drusus had crossed the Weser and was nearing the Elbe, 
 
 > I find Waladericua in Trad. corb. p. 364, § 213 ; a wild woman is called 
 in Wolfdieterich 514 ' die wilde waldin,' and 735 ' diu iibel walledein ' ; but this 
 seems a corruption of valandinne, she-devil. 
 
404 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 there met him in the land of the Cheruscaus a superhuman female, 
 '^vv'T] Tt9 /j,eL^o}v rj Kara dvOpcoirov ^vaiv, who forbade his farther 
 advance, and foretold his approaching end (Dio Cass. 55, 1). Species 
 harharae mulieris, humana amplior, victorem tendere ultra, sermone 
 Latino, prohibuit (Sueton. in Claudio 1).^ There may have been 
 German folk-tales about this, which became known to the Eomans. 
 Wise-women of the fatherland, as well as heroes, rose up in their 
 country's need, and by their appearance terrified the foe. 
 
 Aurinia is said (p. 95) to have been famous in Germany before 
 Veleda ; copyists may easily have corrupted ali into ' au,' and runa 
 into 'rinia': we should then have Aliruna, though it would be 
 still more handy if Tacitus had written Alioruna. But anyhow we 
 cannot fail to recognise the agreement (which many have noted) 
 with Jornandes cap. 24, who, in accounting for the origin of the 
 Huns, relates of the Gothic king Filimer : ' Eepperit in populo suo 
 quasdam magas mulieres, quas patrio sermone aliorumnas (al. 
 alyrumnas, aliorunas, aliuruncas) is ipse cognominat, easque habens 
 suspectas de medio sui proturbat, longeque ab exercitu suo fugatas 
 in solitudine coegit errare. Quas silvestres homines, quos faunos 
 ficarios vocant, per eremum vagantes dum vidissent, et earum se 
 complexibus in coitu miscuissent, genus hoc ferocissimum edidere.' 
 Many names of women are formed with -7"iiw, -nina (Gramm. 2, 
 517), and OHG. documents even offer, though sparingly, Alardn 
 Alerdna, MB. 3,416 (an. 1140); 'Gosprecht der Alraunyn sun,' 
 MB. 27, 80 (an. 1.309). I have never seen Elirdn, the form we 
 should expect from ali-.^ But it is significant, that the ON. name 
 Olrdn, Saem. 133-4, belongs precisely to a wise-woman ; and alr'Ana, 
 (Graff 2, 523), now alraun, from its old sense of a prophetic and 
 diabolic spirit, has at length passed into that of the root (mandragora, 
 
 ' A similar tale about Alexander Severus : Mulier Druias eiinti exclamavit 
 Qallioo sermone, ' vadas, nee victoriam speres, nee te militi tuo credas ! ' Ael. 
 Lampridiua in Alex. Sev. cap. 60. And Attila at the passage of the Lech is 
 said to have been scared away by a rune-maiden calling out three times 'back, 
 Attila ! ' Paul of Stetten's Erl. aus der gesch. Augsburgs, p. 25. Of still more 
 weight is the agreement of an ON. tradition in Saxo Gram. p. 15 : ' Hadingum 
 (our mythic Harding, Hartung) obvia feniina hac voce compellat : 
 
 Seu pede rura teras, seu ponto carbasa tendas, 
 
 infestos patiere deos, totumque per orbem 
 
 propositis inimica tuis elementa videbis. 
 ^ It throws some light on the meaning of -run, that in AS. also hurgr&na 
 or hurgrAnan stands for parcae and furiae (Lye sub v., and Gl. epinal. 617). 
 
alaeGn. noejti. 405 
 
 mandrake) out of which he is cut. We now turn to some other 
 names, about which the fountain of tradition flows more freely (see 
 SuppL). 
 
 3. l^ORNi (Fatae). 
 
 The three Fates are the subject of an independent and profound 
 myth in the Edda. Collectively they are called the norni/r, and 
 singly, Urd^r, VerS'andi, Skuld, Ssem. 4". Sn. 18. The term norn 
 (parca) has not been discovered hitherto in any other dialect,^ 
 though undoubtedly it belongs to a genuine Teutonic root, and is 
 formed like thorn, corn, horn, &c., and would have been in OHG-. 
 norn, pi. norni ; but even Swedish and Danish know it no longer 
 (see Suppl.). In the three proper names it is impossible to mistake 
 the forms of verbal nouns or adjectives : Urdr is taken from the 
 pret. pi. of verSa (varS, urSum), to become, Verffandi is the pres. 
 part, of the same word, and Skuld the past part, of skula, shall, the 
 auxiliary by which the future tense is formed. Hence we have 
 what was, what is, and what shall be, or the past, present and 
 future, very aptly designated, and a Fate presiding over eaoh.^ At 
 the same time the very names prove that the doctrine of norns was 
 originally not foreign to any of the Teutonic nations. A Gothic 
 Vaiirfis, VairSandei, Skulds, an OHG-. Wurt, Werdandi, Scult, and 
 so on, must have been known once as personal beings ; in the OS. 
 
 ' Niirnberg (mona Noricus) liaa nothing to do with it, it is no very old 
 town either (in Bohmers regest. first in 1050, no. 1607 ; conf. MB. 29, 102). 
 In the fields at Dauernheim near Nidda is a well called Nornhorn, Nornborn, 
 and its spring is said to flow only when there is war. But I should like to see 
 the name authenticated by an old document. The AS. gen. pi. neorxena, which 
 only occurs in ' neorxena wong ' = paradisus, has been proposed, but the ab- 
 breviation would be something unheard of, and even the nom. sing, neorxe or 
 neorxu at variance with norn ; besides, the Parcae are nowhere found connected 
 with paradise. May we trace norn to niosan (stemutare), whose past part, is in 
 OHG. noran, MHG. norn, because of the prophetic virtue there is in sneezing 
 (ch. XXXV) ? But the special meaning in this verb [conn, with nose] seems 
 older than any such general meaning, and its ON. form hniosa stands opposed. 
 
 * ' Fatum dicunt esse quicquid dii effantur. Fatum igitur dictum a fando, 
 i.e., loquendo. Tria autem fata tinguntur in colo, in fuso, digitisque fila ex 
 lana torquentibus, propter trina tempora : praeteritum, quod in fiiso jam 
 netum atque involutum est, praesens, quod inter digitos nentis trahitur, futur- 
 ii/m in lana quae colo imjdicata est, et quod adhuc per digitos nentis ad fusum 
 tanquam praesens ad praeteritum trajiciendum est,' Isidori etym. 8, 11 § 92, a 
 passage pretty extensively circulated in the Mid. Ages (v. Gl. Jun. 398), yet 
 no proof of the Teutonic notion being borrowed from the classical. In § 93 
 Isidore adds : 'quas (parcas) tres esse volueruiit, unam quae vitam hominis 
 ordiatur, alteram quae contexat, tertiam quae ruinpat '. 
 
406 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 and AS. poetry we are able to lay our finger on the personality of 
 the first norn : ' thiu Wurdh is at handun ' says the Heliand 146, 
 2, just as ' dod is at hendi/ 92, 2 : the Fate, or death, stands so 
 near, that she can grasp with her hand ^ the man who is fallen due 
 to her ; we should say just as Concretely ' is at hand, is at the 
 door '. Again : ' thiu Wurth n§,hida thuo,' drew nigh then, Hel. 
 163, 16. ' Wurth ina benam,' the death-goddess took him away 
 66, 18. Ill, 4. Not so living is the term as used in the Hildebr. 
 lied 48, ' we-umrt skihit,' or perhaps separately ' we ! wurt skihit,' 
 because ' geschehen ' to happen is used more of abstract inanimate 
 things. An OHG. gloss also has wurt for fatum (Graff 1, 992). 
 Far more vivid are the AS. phrases : ' me Jjtet Wyrd ^ gewif,' 
 parca hoc mihi texuit. Cod. exon. 355 ; ' Wyrd oft nereS unfsegne 
 eorl, Jjonne his eUen deah,' parca saepe servat virum, donee virtus 
 ejus viget (eUan taoc, Hildeb.), Beow. 1139 ; ' him wses Wyrd un- 
 gemete neah, se Jpone gomelan gr^tan sceolde, s6cean siwlehord, 
 sundur gedaelan lif wiS lice,' 4836 (so, ' deaS ungemete neah ' 5453) ; 
 ' swS. him Wyrd ne gescraf,' ita ei fatum non ordinavit, decrevit, 
 Beow. 5145. El. 1047. conf. Boeth. ed. Eawl. p. 151; 'eaUe 
 Wyrd forsweop,'^ swept all away, Beow. 5624; 'hie seo Wyrd 
 besw&c, forl^olc and forlserde,' eos parca decepit, allexit, seduxit, 
 Andr. 613 ; ' us seo Wyrd sceSeS,' nos fatum laedit, Andr. 1561. 
 The instances in Caedmon are less concrete, yet in 61, 12 the Wyrd 
 is called 'walgrim,' bloodthirsty. — Of the Wyrd then are predicated : 
 gr^tan (excitare, OHG. cruozan), scrifan (ordinare, OHG. scrlpan),* 
 wefan (texere, OHG. wepan), beswtcan (decipere, OHG. pisulchan), 
 forlsecan (fallere, OHG. farleichan), forlseran (seducere, male 
 informare), sceSan (nocere). She is painted powerful, but often 
 cruel and warlike (see Suppl.). We cannot in the same way point 
 out a personal application of the other two names, though the 
 
 1 MHG. 'er hat den tot an der hant,' Eeinh. 1480. 1806. Nib. 1480, 4. 
 Morolt. 29". Dietr. 29^ Pf. Chnonrat 3860. Karl 52". 
 
 2 With D, not Th, because the pret. of weortSan is weartS, pi. wurdon, 
 which supports the derivation I proposed ; so the OHG. Wurt, because werdan 
 has pret. pi. wurtum. 
 
 ^ So I read for the 'forsweof of the editions, conf. forswapen, Gasdra. 25, 9. 
 
 * Conf. note to Elene p. 161, on a similar use of the MHG. schrthen, and 
 Klausen in Zeitsohr. fiir alterth. 1840 p. 226 on the Eoman notion of the 
 Parcae keeping a written record. N. Cap. 50. 55 renders parca by hrievara, the 
 recorder. TertuUian, De anima cap. 39, informs us that on the last day of the 
 first week of a child's life they used to pray to the fata Scribunda. Fleming 
 479 calls the three Pates ' des verhangnis schreiherinnen '. 
 
NOENI. WYED. 407 
 
 third, Skidd, OHG. Seult, AS. Scyld, continued in constant use as 
 an abstract fern, skuld, scult, scyld, in the sense of debitum, delic- 
 tum.^ When Christianity had banished the heathen notions, on6 
 name alone was found sufficient, and soon even that died out, 
 giving place to new fangled terms such as schicksal, verhangnis 
 (destiny) and the like, far more cumbrous and unwieldy than the 
 old simple words. The English and especially the Scotch dialect 
 seems to , have harboured the old word longest : we all know the 
 weird-sisters in Macbeth, which Shakspeare took from HoUinshed ; 
 they are also in Douglas's Virgil 80, 48, and the Complaynt of 
 Scotland (written 1548) mentions, among other fabulous stories, 
 that ' of the thre wewdsystirs' (Leyden's ed. Edinb. 1801, p. 99) ; 
 in Warner's Albions England (first, printed 1616) we have ' the 
 weirdelves,' probably meaning the Parcae of the ancients. More 
 native apparently is 'the weird lady of ilie woods,' who, when 
 asked for advice, prophesies out of her cave, Percy's EeUques 3, 
 220-2.2 
 
 Even in the ITorth, Urffr must have been of more consequence 
 than the other two, for the fountain by the sacred ash is named 
 after her, Ur&arhrunnr,^ and beside it stands the hall from which 
 the three norns issue ; it is also ' TJrffar orS,' word (Ssem. 112*) 
 that is chiefly spoken of, and once ' grimmar ur&ir ' dira fata, is 
 used impersonally, Ssem. 216*. — These three virgins allot to every 
 man his term of life, ' slcapa monnum aldr ; shdp 1 §,rdaga (year- 
 days),' Sn. 18. Saem. 181^ I have elsewhere (EA. 750) shown 
 the technical pertinence of the term shapa to the judicial office of 
 the norns,* to whom for the same reason are ascribed ddmr and 
 
 1 Fornald. sog. 1, 32 SlcuU, daughter of an alfkona ; also in Saxo Gram. p. 
 31, Soulda, n. prop. 
 
 ^ Conf. Jamieson sub v. weird (weerd, weard). Chaucer already substitutes 
 fatal sustrin for weirdsysters (Troil. 3, 733. Leg. of gd worn. 2619). In Engl, 
 dictionaries we find wayward sisters explained by parcae and furiae ; wardsisters 
 would create no difficulty, but wayward means capricious, and was once way- 
 warden, in which the warden suggests the Dan. vorren, vorn (Gramm. 2, 675). 
 What AS. form can there be at the bottom of it? [vk = woe is the usual etym.] 
 
 ' This brunnr deserves attention, for the wayfaring wives and fays of the 
 Mid. Ages also appear habitually at fountains, as the muses and goddesses 
 of song haunted the same, and particular goddesses, esp. Holda, loved wells and 
 springs (p. 268). Altogether it is hard . often to tell which dame Holda 
 resembles more, an ancient goddess or a wise-woman. 
 
 ■ * Conf. AS. wyrda geseeaft, Caedm. 224, 6. wyrda gesceapu, Cod. exon. 420, 
 25. OS. iimrdhgiscapu (decreta fati), Hel. 113, 7 ; and the OHG. term scep- 
 hentd, MEG. schepfe (Ottoc. 119'') and schepfer ; the poet, also a vates, was in 
 
408' -WISE WOMEN. 
 
 qyidr, Ssem. 273'' ; ' liotar nornir skopo oss Isinga ]?r^,' dirae parcae 
 creaverunt nobis longum moerorem 217^ ; ' nornir heita Jpser er 
 nauS skapa, SMldskaparm^l p. 212.* In the same sense 'nomir 
 visa,' Seem. SS'', they give us to wit judgment, and are wise. Hence to 
 them, as to judges, a seat is given : ' k nornM stdli sat ek niu daga ' 
 127^ They approach every new born child, and utter his doom ; 
 at Helgi's birth, it is said in Saem. 149 : 
 
 n6tt var 1 bee, nornir qvamo, 
 J?oer er oSlingi aldr um sk&po : 
 J^ann b&So fylki froegstan verSa, 
 ok BuSlftnga beztan Jjyckja. 
 snero ]pcer af afli orlogpdtto, 
 ]>k er borgir braut i Bralundi : 
 J>oer um greiddo gullinsimo, 
 ok und mlnasal miSjan festo. 
 ]?oer austr ok vestr enda falo, 
 ]?ar dtti lofSfingr land k mOli : 
 brS, nipt Neva k norSrvega 
 einni festi. ey baS hon halda. 
 
 This important passage tells us, that norns entering the castle at 
 night spun for the hero the threads 'of his fate, and stretched the 
 golden cord (pdttr = daht, docht, =: simi) in the midst of heaven ; 
 one norn hid an end of the thread eastward, another westward, a 
 third fastened it northward; this third one is called 'sister of Neri'.^ 
 Their number, though not expressly stated, is to be gathered from 
 the threefold action. All the region between the eastern and 
 western ends of the line was to fall to the young hero's lot ; did 
 the third norn diminish this gift, 'when she flung a band northward, 
 and bade it hold for aye ? (see Suppl.). 
 
 It seems the regular thing in tales of noms and fays, for the 
 advantages promised in preceding benefactions to be partly neutral- 
 ized by a succeeding one. 
 
 The Nornagestssaga cap. 11 says : There travelled about in the 
 
 OHG. scuof, OS. scdjp, from the same root. The AS. word mettm, I connect 
 with metod (creator, see p. 22). In Boeth. p. 101 (Rawlinson) a varia lectio 
 has ' ha graman mettena,' the vinkind fates ; the ' metodo giscapu ' in Hel. 66, 
 19. 67, 11 answer to those 'vryrda gesoeapu,' and the gen. plurals 'metodo, 
 wyida ' imply that not one creator, but several are spoken of. Vintkr -calls 
 them ' diemen, die dem raenschen erteilen,' maids that dole out to man. 
 ^ Conf. n-ipt Nara, Egilssaga p. 440. 
 
NORNI. 409 
 
 land ' volmtr,' who are called ' spdkonur,' who foretold to men their 
 fate, ' sp&Su monnum aldr ' or ' orlog '. People invited them to 
 their houses, gave them good .cheer and gifts. One day they came 
 to Nornagest's father, the babe lay in the cradle, and two tapers were 
 burning over him. When the first two women had gifted him, and 
 assured him of happiness beyond all others of his race, the third 
 or youngest norn, ' hin yngsta nornin,' m'h.Q in the crowd had been 
 pushed off her seat ;and fallen to the gi'ound, rose- up in anger, and 
 cried 'I cause that the child shall only live till the lighted taper beside 
 him has burnt out '. The eldest volva quicldy seized the taper, put 
 it out, and gave it to the mother with the warning not to kindle it 
 again tUl the last day of her, son's life, who received from this the 
 name of Nm'n's-guest. Here volva, spdkona and norn are perfectly 
 synonymous ; ae we saw before (p. 403) that the volur passed 
 through the land and knocked at the houses} the .nornir do the very 
 same. A kind. disposition is attributed to the .first two noms, an 
 evil one to .the third. This third, consequently Skuld, is called 
 'the youngest,' they were of. different ages therefore, Prdr being con- 
 sidered the oldest. Such tales of travelling gifting sorceresses 
 were much in vogue all through the Mid. Ages (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 ■^ Have elsewhere shown in- detail, that thejoumeyinghouse-.visiting Muse 
 dame Aventiiire is an inspiring and prophetic norn, and agrees .to a feature 
 with (the ancient conception ; see my Kleine schriften 1, 102. 
 
 ^ Nigellus Wirekere, in. his Speculum. stultorum. (comp. about .1200), relates 
 a fable (exemplum) : 
 
 Ibant ires honjinum ouras.relevare sorores, 
 quas nos fatales dicimus esse deas. 
 They travil: through the land, to remedy the , oversights of nature. Two of the 
 sisters, soft-hearted and impulsive, want to rush in and help at the first ap- 
 pearance of distress, but are restrained by the third and more intelligent one, 
 whom they address as domina, and .revere as a higher power. First they fall 
 in with a beautiful noble maiden, .who; has all good things at her command, and 
 yet complains, ; . she is not helped, for she can help herself. Then they find in 
 the forest a modest maid laid, up in bed, because sore feet and hips hinder her 
 from walking; she too obtains , no help from the goddesses'; excellently 
 endowed in mind and body,. she imust bear her misfortune patiently. At last 
 in the neighbourhood of ..^a .town the sLsters come upon a poor rough peasant 
 lass. : 
 
 JExiit in.bivium ventrem purgare puella 
 
 rustica, nil reverens inverecvinda dear, 
 
 •vestibus elatis retro nimiumque rejectis, 
 
 poplite deflexo crure resedit humi, 
 -una manus foenum, panis tenet altera frustum-; 
 this one, at the suggestion of the third sister, when the first two have turned 
 ■Uwajy is heaped with the gifts of fortune by the goddesses : 
 
 Haec mea multotiens genitrix narrare solebat, 
 ciyus me certe non meminisse pudet. 
 
410 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 The Edda expressly teaches that there are good and lad norns 
 (goSar ok illar, griinmar, liotar), and though it names only three, 
 that there are more of them ; some are descended from gods, others 
 from elves, others from dwarfs, Sn. 18. 19. Seem. 187-8. Why 
 should the norns be furnished with dogs- 1 grey noma, Ssem. 273*. 
 
 We see, throughout this Eddie description, things and persons 
 are kept clearly apart. Destiny itself is called orlog, or else naudr 
 (necessitas), aWr.(aevum); the norns have to manage it, espy it, 
 decree it, pronounce it (see SuppI). And the other dialects too had 
 possessed the same term : OHG. urlao, AS. orlceg, MHG-. urlovxi 
 (Gramm. 2, 7.- 87. 789.- 790),- OS. orlag, orlegi, cddarlagu (Hel. 103, 
 8. 113, 11. 125, 15) j^ it was only when the heathen goddesses 
 had been cast off, that the meanings of the words came to be con- 
 founded, and the old flesh-and-blood vmrt, wurff, wyrd to pale into 
 a mere impersonal urlac. 
 
 In the same relation as norn< to orlog, stands parca to fatnm 
 (from fari, like qviSr from qveSa qvaS, quoth),, and also alcru, /loipa 
 to avdyKTj (nauSr) or elfiapfievr). But when once the parcae had 
 vanished from the people's imagination, the Eomance language (by 
 a process the- reverse of- that jusfc noticed amongst us) formed out 
 of the abstract noun a new and personal one, out offatum an Ital. 
 fata, Span. Jiada, Prov. fada (Eayn. sub v.), Fr. fee.^ I do not know 
 if this was prompted by a faint remembrance of some female beings 
 in the Celtic faith, or the influence of the Germanic norns.. But 
 these fays, so called at first from their announcing destiny, soon 
 came to be ghostly wives in general, altogether the same as our 
 idisi and volur.^' How very early the name was current in Italy, 
 is proved by Ausonius, who in- his Gryphus ternarii numeri brings 
 forward the ' tres- Charites, tria Fata,l and by Procopius, who 
 
 1 From legan (to lay down, constituere), lite the AS.- lage, ON. log (lex) ; 
 therefore urlac, fundamental law. The forms urlouo, urUuge have significantly 
 been twisted round to the root liugan, louc (celare). 
 
 ^ Conf. nata, nee ;, amata, aimee ; lata, lee. Some MHG.- poets- say feis 
 (Hartm. WoKr.), s'mefeie, Haupt's zeitschr. 2, 182-3, others /erne (Gotfr. Conr.). 
 
 ' OFr. poems call them, in addition to fees,. di-uesscs (Marie de Fr. 2, 385), 
 duesses (Meon 4, 158. 16o), duesse and /iSe ('Wolf,-lai& 61) ;. puceles hien euren 
 (Meon 3, 418), /ranches puceles settles (3,. 419); sapaudes (wise-women, from 
 sapere 1), Marie de Fr. 2, 385. Enchanting beauty, is ascribed to them all : 
 'plus bela que ftida,' Ferabras 2767 ; conf. 16434. A book of H. Schreiber 
 (Die i'een in Eur'opa, Freib. 1842) throws much light on the antiquities of fay-- 
 worship. Hoiises, castles and hills of the fays remind us of the wise- women's 
 towers, of the Venus-hill and HoUa-hiU, and of giant's houses. In Irish, 
 siabrog, sighhrog, is first a fays' house, then the fay commujiity, 
 
NOKNI* FATAE. 411 
 
 mentions (De bello Goth. 1, 25, ed. Bonn. 2, 122) a building in the 
 Eoman rorum called ra Tpia ^ara (supra p. 405, note) with the 
 remark: oinm 'yap 'Peofialoi, ra? fioipa'} vevofiUacri KoXtiv?- At 
 that time therefore still neuter;, but everywhere the number three, 
 in norns, moirai, parcae and fays (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 About the Eomance fays there is a multitude of stories, and 
 they coincide with the popular beliefs of Germany.. Folquet de 
 Eomans sings : 
 
 Ai&sim. fadero tres serors 
 
 en aquella ora qu'ieu sui natz, 
 
 que totz temps fos enamoratz, 
 Guilhdei. Poitou: 
 
 Assi fuy de nueitz /ac^afe sobr'un puegau^ 
 
 (so was I gifted by night on- a mount). 
 Marcabrus ; 
 
 Gentil fada 
 
 vos adastret, quan fas nada 
 
 d'una beutat esmerada.- 
 Trefate go past, laughing, and give good gifts, Pentam. I, 10. 4, 4 ; 
 the first fate bestow blessings, the last one curses 2, 8 ; Pervonto 
 builds a bower for three sleeping fate, and is then gifted 1, 3 ; tre 
 fate live down in a rocky hollow, and dower the children who 
 descend 2, 3. 3, 10 ; fate appear at the birth of children, and lay 
 them on their breast 5, 5 ; Cervantes names 'los siete castillos de 
 las &iete fadas', Don Quix. 4, 50 ;. ' siete fadas v\s, fadaron en brazos 
 de una ama mia/ Eom. de la infantina ; there are seven fays in the 
 land, they are asked to stand godmothers, and seats of honour are 
 prepared at \h& table: six take their places, but the seventh was 
 forgotten, she now appears, and while the others endow with good 
 things, she murmu:rs her malison (La belle au bois dormant) ; in 
 the German kindermarchen (Dornroschen) it is twelve wise women, 
 the thirteenth had been overlooked. So in the famed forest of 
 
 > Accordingly I do not derive fata from (^atK (speecli), or (^ardr spoken, 
 though the Latin verb is of course the same word as <^7;/ii. Conf. Ducange sub 
 V. Fadus, and Lobeck's Aglaoph. 816. Fatuus and fatua are also eonnected. 
 
 '^ Lersch in the Bonner jb. 1843. 2,129 — 1-31 separates the three parcae 
 from the three fata, because in sculptures they have different adjuncts : the 
 Eoman parcae are represented writing (p. 406), the Grecian moirai weaving, the 
 tria fata simply as women with horns of plenty. But almost everything in the 
 dpctrine of fays points to a common nature with our idises and norns, and 
 works of art fall into the background before the fulness of literature. 
 
412 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 Brezeliande, by the fontaine de Barendon, dames faies in white 
 apparel shew themselves, and begift a child, but one is spiteful 
 and bestows calamity (San Marte, Leg. of Arthur p. 157-8. 160). 
 At Olger's birth six wise, women appear, and endow ; the last is 
 named Morgue. In the Children of Limburg (Mones anzeiger 
 1835, 169), when Ectrites falls asleep in a meadow beside a fountain 
 and a lime-tree, three, vjayfaring wives approach, and foretell the 
 future. The OFr. romance of Guillaume au court nez describes 
 how Eenoart falls asleep in a boat, and three fays come and carry 
 him off. In Burchard of Worms they are stUl spoken of as three 
 sisters or parcae, for whom the people of the house spread the 
 table with three plates and three knives ; conf . the ' praeparare 
 mensas cum lapidibus vel epulis in domo'. In the watches of 
 the night the fatuae come to children, wash them and lay them 
 down by the fire (see Suppl). In most of the tales there appear 
 three fays, as well as three norns and three parcae-; occasionally 
 seven and thirteen ; but they also come singly, like that ' weirdlady 
 of the wood,' and with proper names .of their own.^ French 
 
 ^ La fata in Guerino meschino p. m. 223. 234 — 8 ; Morganda fatata,fata 
 Morgana, Morghe la fee (Nouv. Eenart 4810) ; 'diu frouwe de la rosrhe Use 
 (black rock), die gesach nieman, er soMede dan -vto, riche unde wise,' whom 
 none saw but he went away glad, rich and wise, Ben. 144. MsH. 1, 118". 
 Monnier's Culte des esprits dans la Sequanie tells of a fee Ark in Franche- 
 comte, who appears at country (esp. harvest) feasts, and rewards diligent 
 spinners ; she makes the fruit fall off the trees for good children, and 
 distributes nuts and .cakes to them at Christmas, just like Holda and Berhta. 
 I believe her to be identical with the Welsh Arianrod, daughter of Don and 
 sister of Gwydion (Woden), in Croker 3, 195 ; her name contains arian 
 (argentum), so that she is a shining one, and it iis also used of the milky way. 
 A jeu composed in the latter half of the 13th century by Adamde la Halle of 
 Arras (publ. in Theatre frang. au moyen ^.ge, Paris 1839, p. 55 seq.) gives a 
 pretty full account of dame Morgue et sa com/paignie. They rare ibeautiful 
 women (beles dames parees), ^ho at a fixed time of the year seek a night's 
 lodging at a house, where dishes are set on the table for them:; menithait look 
 on must not speak a word. Beside Morgue la sage there appear (p. 76-7) two 
 other fays, Arsile and Maglore, and the last, on sitting down, -notices -that no 
 knife has been laid for her, -n-hile the others 'praise the beauty of theirs. 
 Maglore cries out in anger : ' Suije 'li pire ? peu me prisa qui estavli, -ni avisa 
 que toute seule i coutel faille '. Arsile tries to pacify her, and says, it is fitting 
 that we give a present to those who have arranged this place so prettily. 
 Morgue endows one with riches, Arsile with the poetic art, bu,t Maglore says : 
 
 De mi certes naront il nient ,: 
 
 bien doivent falir k don bel., 
 
 puisque jai fall i, coutel 
 
 honni soit qui riens leur donra ! 
 Morg-ue however insisting on a gift, Maglore bestows on one fellow a bald 
 head, and on the other a calamitous journey : 
 
NOENI. FATAE. 413 
 
 tradition brings to light a close connexion between fays and our 
 giant-maidens : the fays carry enormous blocks of stone on their 
 heads or in their aprons, while the free hand plies the spindle ; 
 when the fay who was doing the building part had finished her 
 task, she called out to her sisters not to bring any more, and these, 
 though two miles off, heard the cry and dropped their stones, which 
 buried themselves deep in the ground; when the fays were not 
 spinning, they carried four stones at once. They were good- 
 natured, and took special care of the children whose fates they 
 foretold. They went in and out of the neighbours' houses by the 
 chimney, so that one day the most careless one among them burnt 
 herself, and uttered a , loud wail, at which all the fays of the 
 neighbourhood came running up. You never could deceive them : 
 once, when a man put his wife's clothes on and nursed the baby, 
 the fay walked in and said directly : ' non, tu n'es point la belle 
 d'hier au soir, tu ne files, ni ne vogues, ni ton fuseau n'enveloppes '. 
 To punish him, she contented herself with making the apples that 
 were baking on the hearth shrink into peas. 
 
 Of such stories there are plenty ; but nowhere in Eomance or 
 German folk-tales do we meet, as far as I know, with the Norse 
 conception of twining and fastening the cord, or the Greek one of 
 spinning and cutting the thread of life. Only one poet of the Mid. 
 Ages, Marner, has it 2, 173'' : 
 
 ewd schepfer flahten mir ein seil, 
 
 da bi diu dritte saz (the third sat by) ; 
 
 diu zerhrachz (broke it) : daz was min unheil. 
 
 But this seems borrowed from the Eoman view of breaking off the 
 thread (rumpat, p. 406, note). Ottokar makes the schepfen 
 
 ains comperront chier le coiitel 
 qu'il ouvlierent clii a metre. 
 Then before daybreak the fays depart to a meadow, their place of meeting, for 
 they shun to meet the eyes of men by day. Here we see plainly enough the 
 close resemblance of these three fays to the three norns. The i?rench editor 
 wrongly understands coutel of a cloth spread for the fay ; the passage in 
 Burchard of Worms removes all doubt. If Maglore be a corruption of 
 Mandaglore, Mandagloire, as the mandragora is elsewhere called, a close 
 connexion may be established with Alrune, Olrun. Morgue is shortened from 
 Morgan, which is ,the Breton for merwoman (from mor, the sea, and gwen, 
 splendens femina). One might be tempted to connect Morgan with that 
 inexplicable ' norn,' as the ON. morni stands for morgni ; but the nom has 
 nothing to do with the morning or the sea (see Suppl.). 
 
 1 H. Schreiber, Feen in Europa pp. 11. 12. 16. 17. Michelet 2, IV. 
 
414 WISE WOMEN." 
 
 (creating) impart all success in good or evil. The ' banun festan ' 
 in Hild. lied is hardly to be explained by the fastening of a thread 
 of death. 
 
 If we compare the Norse niythus with the Greek, each has 
 taken shape in its own independent way. In Homer it is the 
 personified Ala-a} that spins the thread for the newborn : 
 
 aacra oi Aura 
 
 yeivo/iivqi eirevrjo-e Xiva, ore fitv T€Ke fii^rrip. II. 20, 127; 
 ' what things Aisa span for him at birth with her thread '. But in 
 Od. 7, 197 other spinners (two) are associated with her : 
 atraa oi Alcra KaraKXwOe'i re ^apeiat 
 
 ryeivo/xevo) vrjaavro Xlvw, ore fiiv teks fi'^Ttip • 
 ' what Aisa and the Kataklothes unkind span '. Hesiod (aav. 258) 
 makes three goddesses stand beside the combatants, KKcodm, 
 Ad'xeci'i, "ArpoTTO'!, the last small of stature, but eldest and most 
 exalted of all. But in Theog. 218 he names them as 
 
 KKwOq) re Ad')(€(riv re xal "ArpoTrov, aiTe^poTolaiv 
 yeivofievoiai SiEovaiv e^eiv aryaOov re KaKov re • 
 ' who give to mortals at birth to have both good and ill ; ' and in 
 almost the same words at 903. The most detailed description is 
 given by Plato (De republ. 617 Steph. 508 Bekk.) : The three 
 fioipat are daughters of ^Avd<yK7} (necessity), on whose knees the 
 spindle (arpaKTO';) turns ; they sit clothed in white and garlanded, 
 singing the destiny, Lachesis to, jeyovora, Klotho ra ovra, Atropos 
 ra fieXKovra : just the same relation to past, present and future as 
 the norns have, though the Greek proper names do not themselves 
 express it. KXwOai (formed like Av^w, GaWto, Ar]Tu>, Mopfuu, 
 ropydo) spins (from KXccBa spin, twine), Lachesis allots (from 
 Xaxeiv), "ATpo7ro<;, the unturnable, cuts the thread. It must not be 
 overlooked, that Hesiod sets up the last, Atropos, as the mightiest, 
 while with us Wurt the eldest produces the mtjst powerful impres- 
 sion. Latin writers distribute the offices of the parcae somewhat 
 differently, as Apuleius (De mundo p. 280) : Clotho praesentis 
 temporis habet curam, quia quod torquetur in digitis, momenti 
 
 1 I think ala-a is the OHG. era, our ehre, for which we should expect a 
 Gothic &iz&, Sisa (as Siatan is aestimare) : era = honor, decus, dignitas, what 
 is fair and fitting, what is any one's due ; kot alaav, ex dignitate, to each his 
 meed. If this etymology holds, we understand why frau Ere was personified 
 (see Suppl.). 
 
NOENI. 415 
 
 praesentis indicat spatia ; Atropos praeteriti latum est, quia quod 
 in fuso perfectum est, praeteriti temporis habet speciem ; Lacliesis 
 futuri, quod etiam illis quae futura sunt finem suum deus dederit 
 (see Suppl.). Isidore's opinion was quoted on p. 405.^ The Nor- 
 nagestssaga bears a strildng resemblance to that of Meleager, at 
 whose birth three moirai tell his fortune : Atropos destines him to 
 live only till the billet then burning on the hearth be burnt out ; 
 his mother Althaea plucks it out of the fire.^ Our modern tales 
 here exchange the norns or fates for death, Kinderm. no. 44. 
 Another tale, that of the three spinners (no. 14), depicts them as 
 ugly old women, who come to help, but no longer to predict ; they 
 desire to be bidden to the marriage and to be called cousins. 
 Elsewhere three old women foretell, but do not spin.^ A folk-tale 
 (Deutsche sagen no. 9) introduces two maidens spinning in a cave 
 of the mountain, and under their table is the Evil one (T suppose 
 the third nom) chained up ; again we are told of the roof-beam on 
 which a spinning wife sits at midnight.* We must not forget the 
 AS. term which describes a nom as weaving, ' Wyrd gewaf 
 (p. 406) ; and when it is said in Beow. 1386 : ' ac him Dryhten 
 forgeaf wlgspeda gewiofu' (ei Dominus largitus est successuum 
 bellicorum texturas), this is quite heathen phraseology, only 
 putting God in the place of Wyrd. Gottfried (Trist. 4698), in 
 describing Blicker of Steinach's purity of mind, expresses himself 
 thus : 
 
 ich waene, daz mfeinen 
 
 ze wunder haben gespunnen 
 
 und haben in in ir brunnen 
 
 geliutert und gereinet ; 
 
 ' I ween that fays spun him as a wonder, and cleansed him in their 
 fountain '. 
 
 Saxo Gram. p. 102 uses the Latin words parca, nympha, but 
 unmistakably he is describing norns : ' Mos erat antiquis, super 
 
 ^ The Hymn to Mercury 550-561 names individually some other fio'ipm, 
 still three in number, winged maidens dwelling on Parnassus, their heads 
 hesprinkled with white meal, who prophesy when they have eaten fresh divine 
 food (rjSflav eSmSriv) of honey. Otherwise they are called Spmi. 
 
 ' ApoUodorus i. 8, 2. 
 
 3 Altd. wb. 1, ] 07-8-9-10. Norske eventyr no. 13. Rob. Chambers p. 
 54-5. MUllenhofl's Schleswigh. s. p. 410. Pentamer. 4, 4. 
 
 * Jul. Schmidt, Eeichenfels p. 140. 
 
416 WISE WOMEK. 
 
 futuris liberorum eventibus parcarum oracula consultare. Quo 
 ritu Fridlevus Olavi filii fortunam exploraturus, nuncupatis 
 solenniter votis, deorum aedes precabuudus accedit, iibi introspecto 
 sacello^ iernas sedes totidem nymphis occupari cognoscit. Quamm 
 prima indulgentioris animi liberalem puero formam, uberemque 
 humani favoris copiam erogabat. Eidem seeunda benefieii loco 
 liberalitatis excellentiam condonavit. Tertia vero, protervioris 
 ingenii invidentiorisque studii femina, sororum indulgentiorem 
 aspernata consensum, ideoque earum donis officere cupiens, futuris 
 pueri moribus parsimoniae crimen affixit.' Here they are called 
 sisters, which I have found nowhere else in ON. authorities ; and 
 the third nymph is again the illnatured one, who lessens the boons 
 of the first two. The only difference is, that the norns do not 
 come to the infant, but the father seeks out their dwelling, their 
 temple (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 The weaving of the norns and the spindle of the fays give us 
 to recognise donustic Wiotlierly divinities ; and we have already 
 remarked, that their appearing suddenly, their haunting of wells 
 and springs accord with the notions of antiquity about frau Holda, 
 Berhta and the like goddesses, who devote themselves to spinning, 
 and bestow boons on babes and children.^ Among Celts especially, 
 
 1 They had a temple then, in which their oracle was consulted. 
 ' The Lettish Laima, at the birth of a child, lays the sheet under it, and 
 determines its fortune. And on other occasions in life they say, ' taip Laima 
 Icme,' so Pate ordained it ; no doubt Laima is closely connected with lemti 
 (ordinate, disponere). She runs barefooted over the hills (see ch. XVII, 
 Watersprites). There is also mentioned a Dehkla (musing-mother, from deht 
 to suckle). A trinity of parcae, and their spinning a thread, are unknown to 
 the Lettons ; conf. Stender's Gramm. p. 264. Ehesas dainos pp. 272. 309. 
 310. — The Lithuanians do know a Werpeya (spinner). The Ausland for 1839, 
 no. 278 has a pretty Lithuanian legend : The dieves valditoyes Were seven 
 goddesses, the first one spun the lives of men out of a distaff given her by the 
 liighest god, the second set up the warp, the third wove in the woof, the fourth 
 told tales to tempt the workers to leave off, for a cessation of labour spoilt the 
 web, the fifth exhorted them to industry, and added length to the life, the sixth 
 cut the threads, the seventh washed the garment and gave it to the most high 
 god, and it became the man's winding-sheet. Of the seven, only three spin or 
 weave. 
 
 ' Not a few times have Holda and Berhta passed into Mary ; and in the 
 three Marys of a Swiss nuisery-rhyme I think I can recognise the heathen noma 
 or idisi : 
 
 rite, rite rosli, ride, ride a-cock horse, 
 
 ze Bade stot e schlossli, at Baden stands a little castle, 
 
 ze Bade stot e guldi hus, at Baden stands a golden house, 
 
 es liieged drei Mareie drus. tliere look tliree Marys out of it : 
 
 die eint spinnt side, the one spins silk, 
 
NORNI. WALACHUEIUN. 417 
 
 the fatae seem apt to run into that sense of matres and matronae} 
 which among Teutons we find attaching more to divine than to 
 semi-divine beings. In this respect the fays have something 
 higher in them than our idises and norns, who in lieu of it stand 
 out more warlike. 
 
 4. WALACHUEIUN (VaLKYKJOR). 
 
 Yet, as the fatae are closely bound up with fatum — the pro- 
 nouncing of destiny, vaticination — the kinship of the fays to the 
 norns asserts itself all the same. Now there was no sort of destiny 
 that stirred the spirit of antiquity more strongly than the issue of 
 battles and wars: it is significant, that the same urlac, urlouc 
 expresses both fatum and bellum also (Graff 2, 96. Gramm. 2, 790), 
 and the idisl forward or hinder the fight. This their office we have 
 to look into more narrowly. 
 
 From Caesar (Ue B. GaU. 1, 50) we already learn the practice 
 of the Germani, 'ut matresfamilias eorum sortibus et vaticinationibus 
 declararent, utrum proelium committi ex usu esset, necne '. Mis- 
 tresses of families practised augury, perhaps women selected for the 
 purpose, of superior and godlike repute like Veleda. 
 
 Let us bear in mind, which gods chiefly concerned themselves 
 with the event of a battle : O&inn and Freyja draw to themselves 
 all those who fall in fight, and OSinn admits them to his heavenly 
 abode (pp. 133, 305). This hope, of becoming after death members 
 of the divine community, pervades the religion of the heathen. 
 Now the ON. voir, AS. wml, OHG. wal, denotes the carnage of the 
 battle-field, the sum of the slain : to take possession of this val, 
 to gather it in, was denominated Tciosa, kiesen, to choose ; this verb 
 seems a general technical term for the acceptance of any sacrifice 
 made to a higher being.^ But OSinn, who has the siges kur (choosing 
 
 die ander schnatzelt chride, the other cards . . . . 1 
 
 die drit schnit haberstrau. the third cuts oaten straw, 
 
 hhiiet mer Gott mis chindli au ! God keep my childie too ! 
 
 Schnatzeln is, I suppose, to wind ? [snast = wick 1 snood ? In the marchen 
 of the Goosemaid, schnatzen is apparently to comb]. The seventh line sometimes 
 nins : di diitte schneidt den faden (cuts the thread). Conf. Vonbun p. 66. 
 Firmenich 2, 665''. Mannhardt pp. 388. 392. The nursery-song in the 
 Wunderhom p. VO-l has three spinning tocken, i.e. nymphs, fays. 
 ^ Lersch in the Bonn Annual 1843, pp. 124 — 7. 
 
 " Chief passage, Seem. 141^. Conf. Gramm. 4, 608, and AS. wig curon, 
 Cieim. 193, 9; MHG. sige kiesen, Iw. 7069, sig erkiesen, Wh. 355, 15. So, 
 den tot kiesen. 
 
 27 
 
418 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 of victory, p. 133, note), is served in ValhoU by maidens, and them 
 he sends out into every battle, to choose the slain, Sn. 39; 'kiosa er 
 liSnir ero,' Ssem. 164''; vildi J^ik hiosa, Ssem. 254*. 
 
 Hence such a maiden, half divine, is called valkyrja; and 
 it is another most welcome coincidence, that the AS. language 
 has retained the very same term, wcelcyrie (waelcyrge, wselcyrre) to 
 English such Latin words as bellona, erinnys, Alecto, Tisiphone, 
 and employs it even for parca and venefica. The Cott. MS. Vitell. 
 A. 15 has a gloss ' wselcyrigean eagan, gorgoneus': this is translating 
 the Greek idea into an AS. one ; did the eyes of the wselcyrigean 
 instil horror like the Gorgons' heads ? I am quite safe in assuming 
 an OHG. walachurid (walachurrS,) ; valakusjd would be the Gothic 
 form. At the end of the Langobardian genealogy we find a man's 
 name Walcausus} 
 
 Another name of the valkyrjur is ON. valmeyjar (battle-maids), 
 perhaps also the present Norw. vcddoger, which Hallager 140** says 
 is guardian-spirit. Again, they are called skialdmeyjar, hialmmeyjar, 
 because they go forth armed, under shield and helmet (vera und 
 hialmi. Seem. 151* 192'') ; nonnor Herjans, nuns of OSinn 4''. The 
 Edda bestows on the valkyrja the epithets: hvit 168'', hvit uTid hial- 
 mi (alba sub galea) 145^ liort 174'', sdlhiort, sunbright 167'', hiart- 
 litud' 142% Malmvitr 157*, gullvariff 167'', margullin mser 145*, 
 alvitr 164*, all descriptive of beauty or helmet-ornaments. Helm 
 and shield distinguish these helm and shield women as much as 
 heroes, they ride on shield-service, under shield-roof, Ssem. 250'', 
 and are called skialdmeyjar aldrstamar, or young shield-maidens of 
 AtH's court. The legend of the Amazons (Herod. 4, 110 — 117. 
 Jorn. cap. 6.7.8. Paul. Diac. 1, 15) seems to rest on similar yet 
 different notions. A valkyr in Ssem. 167'' is named sudrcen (australis), 
 apparently in the sense of biort, solbicirt 1 Again at 151'', dtsir 
 suSrcenar (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 ^ Of valr, wal itself we might seek tlie root in velja, valjan (eligere), so 
 that it should from the first have contained the notion of choosing, hut heing 
 applied to stragea, and its sense getting blurred, it had to he helped out by a 
 second verb of the same meaning. Our Tit. 105, 4 has a striking juxtaposition : 
 ' Sigiln diu sigehaft id dem wal, da man welt magede kiusche und ir siieze '. It 
 is only in Dietr. 91'' and Rah. 636. 635. 811. 850. 923 that welreclce occurs ; can 
 it have any relationship to walkiire 1 
 
 ^ OSinn has Frigg, the valkyrjur and the ravens in the waggon with him, 
 Sn. 66. For valkyrja I also find the name skorAngr, derivable either from skar 
 siiperbia, or skari agmen. Brynhildr is called in Vols, saga cap. 24 'mestr 
 skSrAngr' (see SuppL). 
 
VALKYEJA, W^LCYRIE. 419 
 
 One name is particularly attractive: dshmeyjar, wish-maidens 
 (Ssem. 212. Vols, saga cap. 2), given them, I think, because they are 
 in OSin's service, and 0?5inn is called OsM, Wunsc. But there is 
 something more : I find a confirmation of my opinion that Wuotan 
 bore the name of Wunsc in his identity with Mercury/, for Mercury 
 carries the magic wand (caduceus), which is like our wishing-rod, 
 OHG. vninsciligerta (-yerde, yard). The likeness will come out 
 more distinctly from a closer inspection of the two rods, which is yet 
 to come ; but if Wuotan and Wunse, O'Sinn and Oski are one, we 
 may suppose that the thorn, the sleeping-thorn, which OSinn put 
 into the dress of the valkyrja BrynhUdr (Ssem. 192*), was likewise 
 a wishing-tJwrn. It throws light on the nature of Brunhild and 
 ChrimhUd, that rocks are named after them, one called spihtein, 
 ChriemhildespiZ (p. 370), which does not find a meaning so well 
 from spil (Indus) as from spille (spindle, fusus). For other stones 
 have the name Jcunhel (distaff), and in French fairy-tales quenouille 
 ^. la bonne dame;^ Dornroschen (thorn-rosekin) pricked her finger 
 with the spindle and fell into a dead sleep, as BrunhUd did with 
 the wishing-thorn. Spindles are an essential characteristic of all the 
 wise-women of antiquity among Teutons, Celts and Greeks.^ The 
 walkiire is a wwnsch-kint, Wunsches hint, pp. 139, 142 (see Suppl.). 
 
 The name wiinschelweib, which lasted down to a late time, shall 
 be produced hereafter; here I call up from the poem of the 
 Staufenberger a being by whom the connexion of valkyrs with fays 
 is placed beyond doubt. To the knight there shews herself a maiden 
 in wJiite apparel (the hvit and biort above), sitting on a stone (line 
 224) ; she has watched over him in danger and war from, his youth 
 Mp, she was about him unseen (332^364); now she becomes his 
 love, and is with him whenever he wishes for her (swenne du einest 
 wunschest n^ch mir, so bin ich endellehen bi dir 474). By super- 
 human power she moves swiftly whither she lists (war ich wil, d^ 
 bin ich, den wunsch h§,t mir Got gegeben 497). Staufenberger, after 
 being united to her in love, may do anything except take a wedded 
 wife, else he will die in three days. 
 
 ' er wilnschte nkdh der frouwen sin, 
 bi im so war din schoene fin.' 
 
 1 H. Schreiber pp. 20. 21. 
 
 ' I like also Schreiber's derivation, pp. 65 — 67, of the name Nehaea, 
 Nehalennia (supra p. 257) from the root nere, neza to spin. 
 
420 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 When lie notwithstanding resolves on another marriage, she drives 
 her foot through the floor, and he has to die (1016. 1066). Accord- 
 ing to this remarkable story, wunschweih or wv/nschdweib is one 
 ■whose presence her lover can procure, by wishing it, whenever he 
 longs for her, 'names her name' as it were (p. 398) : this is, though 
 not a false, yet a later meaning substituted for the original one, 
 which had reference to the god of wishing, the divine Wish. Old 
 ISTorse legend will unfold to us more precisely the nature of these 
 women. 
 
 In Valholl the occupation of the dskmeyjar or valTcyrjur was to 
 hxiTid the drinking-horn to the gods and einherjar, and to furnish 
 the table. Here comes out their peculiar relation to Freyja, who 
 ' chooses val ' like them, is called Valfreyja (p. 306),^ and pours out 
 at the banquet of the Ases (at gUdi Asa), Sn. 108. Exactly in the 
 same way did Gondvl, sitting on a stol i rioSrinu (in the niuriute, 
 clearing), offer the comers drink out of a horn (Fomald. sog. 1, 398. 
 400) ; and with this agree the deep draughts of the modem folk-tale : 
 a beautifully di-essed and garlanded maiden from the Osenberg offers 
 the count of Oldenburg a draught in a silver horn, while uttering pre- 
 dictions (Deutsche sagen, no. 541). Svend Falling drank out of the 
 horn handed him by elf-women, and in doing so, spilt some on his 
 horse, as in the preceding story (Thiele 2, &1) ; I have touched 
 (p. 372) on the identity of Svend FaUing with Siegfried, whose 
 relation to the valkyr Brunhild comes out clearly in the Danish 
 story. In a Swedish folk-song in Arvidsson 2, 301, three mountain- 
 maids hold out silver tankards in their white liands. Quite in 
 harmony are some Norwegian traditions in Faye p. 26-8-9. 30; 
 and additional Danish ones in Thiele 1, 49.55. 3,44 (see SuppL). 
 
 StiH more to the purpose is the ofQce of the valkyrs in war. 
 Xot only 'kiosa val, kiosa feigS,'^ but 'raSa vlgum' or 'sigri,' 
 therefore the deciding of battle and victory, is placed in their hands, 
 Sn. 39. They are said to be 'gorvar (alert) at rtSa grand,' 'gorvar 
 
 ' So, in a FarBese song, Valvfrygv (Finn Magn. lex. p. 805). 
 
 2 The taking possession of souU at the moment of death by OSinn and 
 Freyja, or by their messengers the valkyrs, appears to me so deep-rooted a 
 feature of onr heathenism, that we may well find it lingering even in christian 
 traditions. Of this sort is the scramble of angels and deeiU for the son], des- 
 cribed in the poem MuspiUi, which SchmeUer has hunted up, Greorg 1235-44. 
 60^2—86, and Meon 1, 239. 4, 114-5 ; and a striking passage in the Morolt I 
 shall quote in ch. XVII. Will any one think of tracing this idea to the Epistle 
 of Jude 9, or the apocryphal Book of Enoch ? 
 
WALACHUKIUN. SKULD. 421 
 
 at rlSa til goS]jio?5ar,' Ssem. 4^ Eooted in their being is an irresis- 
 tible longing for this ■warlike occupation ; hence the Edda expresses 
 their most characteristic passion by the verb ']>vt' (desiderant), 
 Ssem. 88^ '>ratSo' (desiderabant) or 'fystoz' (cupiebant), 134^: it 
 is their own longing, striving and wishing that has swung itself 
 round into that wishing for them. Usually nine valkyrjur ride out 
 together, Saem. 142, 162; their lances, helmets and shields glitter 
 151*. This nineness is also found in the story of ThiSrandi (see 
 p. 402), to whom nine dfsir appear first in wliite raiment, then nine 
 others in black. Ssem. 44-5, and after him Sn. 39, enumerate 
 thirteen of them: Hrist, Mist, Skeggold, Skogul, Hildr, Thrdffr, 
 Slock, Herfiotr, Gdll, Geirahoff (al Geirolul), JRandgricf, Rddgriff, 
 Beginleif ; but Seem. 4'' only six : Skuld, Skogul, Gunnr, Hildr, 
 Gondul, Geirskogul} The prose of Sn. 39 distinguishes three as 
 strictly val-choosers and mistresses of victory: Gu&r, Rota and 
 Skuld 'nom en yngzta'. The celebrated battle -weaving song of 
 the Nialssaga names the following : Hildr, Hiorpri^nul, Sangridr (I. 
 EangriSr), Svipul, Gunnr, Gondul; the H^konarmS,!: Gondol, Skogol, 
 Geirskogol; the Kr§,kumal (ed. Eafn, p. 121) only Hlock and Hildr. 
 Several of these names are of extraordinary and immediate value 
 to our investigation, and not one of the remainder ought to be left 
 out of sight in future study (see SuppL). 
 
 Skuld, for instance : we gather from it the affinity of norns and 
 valkyrs, and at the same time the distinction between them. A 
 dis can be both nom and valkyr, but the functions are separate, 
 and usually the persons. The norns have to pronounce the fatum, 
 they sit on their chairs, or they roam through the country among 
 mortals, fastening their threads. Nowhere is it said that they ride. 
 The valkyrs ride to war, decide the issue of the fighting, and 
 conduct the fallen to heaven ; their riding is like that of heroes 
 and gods (pp. 327. 392), mention is made of their horses : skalf 
 Mistar marr (tremuit Mistae equus), Saenx 156" ; wzarguUin maer 
 (aureo equo vecta virgo), 145*; when the steeds of the valkyrs 
 shake themselves, dew drips from their manes into the valleys, and 
 fertilizing hail falls on trees 145"'*, with which compare the ' des- 
 tillationes in comis et coUis equorum ' of the wise-women (p. 287) ; 
 the name Mist, which elsewhere means mist, may have indicated 
 
 ' Unpublished passages in the skalds supply 29 or 30 names (Finn Magn. 
 le.x. p. 803). 
 
422 WISE -WOMEN. 
 
 a like phenomenon. Of the noms, none but SkuM the youngest 
 (p. 405) can be a valkyrja too : were UrSr and VerSandi imagined 
 as too aged or too dignified for the work of war ? did the cutting, 
 breaking, of the thread (if such an idea can be detected in the 
 North) better become the maiden practised in arms ? 
 
 Two other valkyrs, Slock and Herfiotr, have been claimed 
 above (p. 401) as idisi, and interpreted as restrainers of the fight. 
 In the Kormakssaga there also occurs Hlokk gen. Hlakkar, for 
 bellona. 
 
 HiLdr, Gunnr, Thr'ucfr deserve to be studied the more closely, 
 because their personality turns up in other Teutonic tongues as 
 well, and the presence there of some waJachuriun argues that of 
 the whole sisterhood. Even in OXorse, HUdr and Ghinnr (=:Gu5r) 
 got generalized into Mldr and gunnr (pugna, proelium) ; of beUona 
 was made bellum : ' hUdr hefir Jju oss verit,' bellona nobis fuisti, 
 Saem. 164*. Conversely, beside the AS. Mid and ^riid" we stUl 
 find a personal SUd and Guff: gif mec Ilild nime (if H. take me), 
 Beow. 899. 2962 ; Giuiff nimeS 5069 ; GM fomam (carried off) 
 2240 ; as elsewhere we have ' gif mec deaS nimeS,' Beow. 889, wig 
 ealle fomam 2154, guMeaS fomam 4494, Wyrd fomam 2411 (conf. 
 OS. Wurd famimid, Hel. Ill, 11), swylt fomam 2872, Wyrd for- 
 sweop (supra p, 406) ; conf ' Hilde grap ' 5009. And as other 
 beings that do us good or harm are by turns aroused and quieted, 
 it is said picturesquely: Hildi vekja (bellonam excitare), Ssem. 160* 
 246''; elsewhere merely vig vekja (bellum excitare) 105*. The 
 valkyrs, like OSinn (p. 147), are accompanied by eagles and ravens, 
 who alight on the battlefield,* and the waging of war is poetically 
 expressed as ala gogl gunna sysira (aves alere sororum belli), Ssem. 
 160*. The forms in OHG. were HUtia and Gundia (Gudea), both 
 found in the Hild. Hed 6. 60, though already as mere common 
 nouns ; composite proper names have -hilt, -gunt.^ The legend of 
 HUdr, who goes to the val at night, and by her magic wakes the 
 fallen warriors into life again, is preserved both in the Edda (Sn. 
 164-5) and also in the OHG. poem of Gudrun, where she is called 
 Hilde} — Lastly, ThrdSfr, which likewise sinks into a mere appella- 
 
 > Andr. and EL p. xxvi, iivii. Conf. Luke 17, 37 : oirou to a-afia, iicci 
 avvaxdrja-oirrai icaX ol deroi. 
 
 " The Trad, fuld., in Schannat no. 443, have preserved the name, well 
 suited to a valkyr, of Themarhilt (from demar, crepusculum). 
 
 ^ Deutsche heldensage p. 327 seq. Conf. supra p. 2f5, on Hilde and HUd- 
 burg. 
 
HILD. GUND. DKUD. 423 
 
 tive ^r-iidr virgo, and in OHG. occurs in a great many female 
 names {e.g. AlpdrCd [^Ifj^ryS, Elfrida], Wolchandrfid, HimHdrud, 
 Hiddrut, Plihdrllt = Plectrud, K^rdriid = Gertrude, Mlmidriid, 
 Sigidrftd, which naturally suggest ghostly beings), has assumed 
 the general meaning of witch, sorceress, hobgoblin.^ Hans Sachs 
 several times uses ' alte trute ' for old witch, and noisy children are 
 quieted with the words : ' hush, the drui wiU come ! ' ^ so that here 
 she exactly fills the place of frau Holla or Berhta, and can 
 the more appropriately be the ancient valkyr. An AS. wood- 
 maiden, named Dhrycf, comes up in the Vita Offae secundi (supra, 
 p. 388) : she is from France, where she had been sentenced to 
 death for her crimes, exposed in a ship, and cast on the shore of 
 Mercia. Here Offa saw the maiden passing fair, and married her, 
 but she soon committed new transgressions. She is called 9^ Drida, 
 Q*" Petronilla, 15^ Qvendrida (i.e.,cwen ThryS ; conf. Kemble's pre- 
 face to Beow. pp. XXXV. xxxvi, and Backstrom 1, 220 (see Suppl.). 
 
 Beside the valkyrs named, there must have been many others, 
 and the second section of the Seemundaredda names several as 
 lovers or wives of heroes. Such are Svava, Sigrlinn, Kdra, Sigr-An, 
 Sigrdrifa, who are expressly called valkyrjur, Ssem. 142'' 145'' 157, 
 169. 194. It also comes out, that they were of human origin, 
 being daughters of kings, Svava of Eylimi, Sigrlinn of Svafnir, 
 Sigrfin of Hogni, K§,ra of Halfdan, Sigrdrifa of BuSli ; Svava was 
 the lover of Helgi HiorvarSsson, Sigrlinn of HiorvarSr, Sigriin of 
 Helgi Hundingsbani, Kara of Helgi HaddingskaSi, and Sigrdrifa, 
 who is no other than Brynhildr, of SignrSr. Grimhildr (helmet- 
 maiden, p. 238), and above all Brynhildr, Prunhilt, whose very 
 name betokens the mail-clad Hildr, is superhuman: her inaccessible 
 hall stands on a mountain, like those of Veleda and Jetha (pp. 95- 
 6) ; it was a scUldburg (skialdborg), where she herself, bound by 
 the speU, slept under her shield, till Sigur?5r released her. Then 
 she prophesied to him, Ssem. 194^ and before her death she 
 prophesies again, 224. 226''. Her hall was encircled vsdth/M^enw^r 
 flame, ' oc var um sal hennar vafrlogi,' Sn. 139 (see Suppl.), as was 
 also that of Menglocf (OHG. Maniklata, i.e., monUi laetabunda), 
 another valkyr: salr er slunginn er vlsom vafrloga (Stem. 110% conf. 
 
 1 Some people think Gerdrut, Gerdraut, an unchristian name. Frau Trude 
 (Kinderm. 43). 
 
 " Flogel, gesch. des groteskekom. p. 23. 
 
424 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 107*'''). Before this MengloS, nine virgins kneel, sit, and sing; 
 sacrifice is offered to them aU (111*); conf. ch. XXXVI. Then 
 Vehiorg skialdmcer appears in Fornald. sog. 1, 384. And v7-6 
 Bahehilt, whom Dietrich finds at a fountain, asleep (as Sigurd found 
 Brynhild), and who gives him healing salves, and foretells his fate 
 (Ecke 151 — 160), must also be reckoned among norns or valkyrs. 
 The valkyrs bestowed on their favourites, as Staufenberger's lover 
 did on him (p. 419), victory and protection in battle (SigrAn hlifSi 
 honom opt slSan 1 orrostom, Ssem. 142^) ; this relation is technically 
 expressed by verja (tueri 134*); they hide their heroes' ships (Svava 
 145*''', Sigrlin 153^). The above-mentioned Hildr too, the daughter 
 of king Hogni (Hagene), was HeSin's betrothed. The memory of 
 these shield-maidens has filtered down even into modern folk- 
 songs : in Arvidsson 1, 189, Kerstin skoldmo with her 8000 maids 
 redeems her betrothed from captivity ; at other times it is a sister 
 that rescues her brother, by which is not meant a sister by birth, 
 but a valkyr again, for these higher beings are everywhere called 
 sisters, and fraternize with their protdg^s (Arvidsson 2, 120-1-2. 
 Nyerup 4, 38-9). Now those women in our medieval poetry, the 
 sight of whom nerves to victory, whose name need only be uttered 
 to bring them to one's side as quickly as a wish can be formed and 
 accomplished, are evidently shield-women of this kind (see Suppl.). 
 OSinn then admitted into his band of valkyrs mortal maidens 
 of kingly race, deified women standing by the side of the deified 
 heroes ; yet I do not suppose that all valkyrs were of such lineage, 
 but that the oldest and most famous were, like the norns, descended 
 from gods or elves. It is also worth noting, that K^ra and iier 
 Helgi were looked upon as a second birth of Svava and the elder 
 Helgi, Stem. 148^ 169. In 'the VolundarqviSa three other valkyrs 
 make their appearance together : Hla&gu&r svanhvit, Mermr uhitr, 
 and 6lr4n, the first two being daughters .of king LoSver, the third 
 of Kiir ; they unite themselves to SlagfiSr, Volundr and Egill, live 
 with them seven years, and then escape, ' at vitja viga,' to pursue 
 their old trade of war again. On the whole, it seems the -union of 
 these half-goddesses with heroes turned out detrimentally to both 
 parties : the heroes came to an early deatli or other harm, as 
 Staufenberger's example teaches ; and ' Sigr^n var8 skammlif,' she 
 grew scant of life. Seem. 169*. Perhaps we should be right in 
 assuming that promotion to the valkyr's office took place under au 
 
WALACHUEIUN. 425 
 
 obligation oi virginity} which again reminds one of the Amazons. 
 At all events, when 05inn was angry with Sigrdrifa for letting his 
 favourite fall in battle,^ he decreed that now she should be given in 
 marriage, ' qvaS hana giptaz scyldo,' Saem. 194^ HlaSguSr, Hervbr 
 and Olrfl.n had been carried off by the men forcibly and against 
 their will (see Suppl.).^ All these female names are descriptive. 
 Olriin was discussed on p. 404. Hla&gudr is literally bellona 
 stragis; Hervor, like the kindred Gunnvor, alludes to hosts and 
 battles, the adj. alvitr to the gift of prophecy, and svanhvit to the 
 swan-shape. Saxo Gram. 22-3 names another Svanhvita, who has 
 likewise much of the valkyr, is a seer of spirits, and presents a 
 sword to Regner to seal their covenant. As for Slagfi&r (see p. 380), 
 I prefer to explain it not as Slagfinnr, though he is called a son of 
 the Finnakouiingr, but as 8lagfid&r = alatus, penuatus, which goes 
 better with Svanhvit his lover, and is supported by the OHG. 
 word slagifedara, penna. 
 
 How little we are entitled to separate the norns and valkyrs 
 totally from one another, is taught by the tale of these three 
 maidens also. ITot to mention the • prevalence among valkyrs as 
 well as norns of the number three and sisterly companionship, nor 
 Hervor's having the epithet alvitr (omniscia), which better fits a 
 norn than a valkyr ; it is said of all three, that they sat on the 
 sea-beach spinning costly flax, nay, of the same ' all- witting ' one 
 {who is repeatedly called 4,nga, as Skuld is in other places), that 
 she was about to ' orlog drygja', ±0 dree a weird, Saem. 133" 134''. 
 
 II Pompon. Mela 3, -8 : ' Oraciili miminia Gallici anti.stites, perpetua 
 mrginitate sanctae, numero novem esse traduntur. Gallicenas vocant, putautque 
 ingeniis singularibus praeditas maria ac ventos concitare, seque in quae velint 
 animalia vertere, sanare quae apud alios insanabilia sunt, scire ventura et 
 praedicare, sed non nisi deditas navigantibus, et in id tantum ut se consulerent 
 profectas [I. profectis ?] '. The similarity of these nine sooth-telling gallicenae 
 is unmistakable. Some read Galli Cenas, others Barrigenas, conf. Tzschucke, 
 Not. crit. pp. 159—163. 
 
 ^ N.B. against OSin's will, who could therefore be outwitted : destiny stood 
 above the god. 
 
 ' .On p. 406 we saw wise-women represented as acquainted with writing, 
 and as. actually writing ; it will be for similar reasons that valkyrs embroider 
 and paint. The Vols, saga cap. 24 says of Brynhild ; ' hun sat i einni skemmu 
 vi(5.meyjar sinar, hun kunni, meira hagleik enn aSrar konur, hun lagSi sinn 
 borSa metS guUi, ok saumaSi a Jiau stormerki, er SigurSr hafSi giort '. And in 
 this chamber SigurS pojnes to ,her. I place beside this the ppening lines of a 
 .Swedish song.; 
 
 Sven Farling ,h&n rjdqr Jill jungfruns gard, 
 som stickade pH silket det hvita. 
 And this hero is identical with SigurS, 
 
426 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 The award of battle is one part of destiny ; not only norns, but 
 valkyrs also were imagined spinning and weaving. This is placed 
 in the clearest light by the fearfully exciting poem in cap. 158 of 
 the Nialssaga. Through a crevice in the rock DorruSr sees women 
 sit singing over a weh, at which human heads serve them for 
 weights, entrails for warp and weft, swords for spools, and arrows 
 for a comb : in their weird song they describe themselves as 
 valkyrjur, and their web as intended for the spectator DorruSr.^ 
 At length they tear up their work, mount their steeds, and six of 
 them ride to the south, six to the north. Compare with this the 
 weaving Wyrd of the AS. poet (p. 415). The parting of the 
 maidens into two bands that ride in opposite directions, is like 
 those nine in white and nine in black, who came riding up in suc- 
 cession (p. 421). 
 
 I have set norns and fji,olpai side by side ; with equal aptness a 
 comparison can be drawn between valkyrs and Krjpe'i (without any 
 verbal affinity, for no doubt the likeness is only an apparent one) : 
 the K1JP too might be seen on the battlefield in bloody garments, 
 tending the wounded, dragging away the dead. A Ki]p is allotted 
 to the child as soon as it is born ; Achilles had two Krjpe'i between 
 whom he might choose, and Zeus put two in the balance, to decide 
 the death of Hector or Achilles.^ Hesiod (scut. 249 — 254) makes 
 the dingy white-toothed K^/ae? contend over the fallen warriors, 
 each throws her talons round the wounded man, eager to drink his 
 blood, just as he ascribes talons and a thirst for blood to the moirai 
 (p. 414) : a fresh confirmation of the identity of norns and valkyrs. 
 The claws of the moirai and Mres, the wings of the thriai, point to 
 their possession of a lird's shape. The later view [Hesiod's] brings 
 into promkience the sinister side of the Mres.- 
 
 5> SWAN-MAIDENS;- 
 
 But we have now tc make out a new aspect of the valkyrs. 
 We are told that they travel through air and water, ' rlSa lopt ok 
 log,' Ssem. 142'' 1159'' ;; theirs is the power to fly and to swim, in 
 other words, they can assume the body of a swan, they love to 
 
 * So at least we may understand ' vindum, vindum vef Darra&ar,' even if 
 the name and the whole story first arose out of a ' vef darraSSar,' web of the 
 dart, conf. AS. deoreS (jaculiim). We know that the Sturlilngasaga contains a 
 very similar narrative. 
 
 2 II. 8, 70. 9, 411. 18, 535—540. 22, 210- 23, 79. 24, 82. 
 
SWAN-MAIDENS. 427 
 
 linger on the sea-shore ; and the swan was considered a bird of 
 augury} The VolundarqvitSa relates : Three women sat on the 
 shore, spinning fiax, and had their dlptarhamir (swan-shifts) by 
 them, so that any moment they could fly away again as swans : 
 ' meyjar Jlugo,' and ' settuz at hvilaz S, ssevarstrond ' ; one of them 
 has even the surname of svanhvlt (swanwhite), and wears swan's 
 feathers (svanfiaSrar dro). In the Hromundarsaga (Fornald. sog. 
 2, 375-6), the same KAra, who the Edda says was a second birth 
 of Svava, appears as an enchantress in svMn-sliift, (fiolkyngiskona 
 i alftarham), and hovers above the hero, singing.^ By her assist- 
 ance Helgi had always conquered, but it happened in one fight, 
 that he swung his sword too high in the air, and hewed off his 
 lover's foot, she fell to the ground, aud his luck was spent. In 
 Saxo Gram., p. 100, Fridlevus hears up in the air at night 'sonum 
 triwn olorum superne clangentium/ who prophesy to him, and drop 
 ;a girdle with runes on it. Brynhildr is ' like the swan on the 
 wave ' (Fornald. sog. 1, 186-) : the simile betrays at the same time, 
 that she had really the power of changing into the bird. Many 
 tales of swan-wives still live among the JSTorse people. A young 
 man saw three swans alight on the shore, lay their white bird-shifts 
 in the grass, turn into beautiful maidens, and bathe in the water, 
 then take their shifts again, and fly away in the shape of swans. 
 He lay in wait for them another time, and abstracted the garment 
 of the youngest ; she fell on her knees before him, and begged for 
 it, but he took her home with him, and married her. When seven 
 years were gone by, he shewed her the shift he had kept concealed ; 
 she no sooner had it in her hand, than she fieuu out as a stvan 
 through the open window, and the sorrowing husband died soon 
 after. Afzelius 2, 143-5. On the other hand, the swan-hero 
 forsakes his wife the moment she asks the forbidden question. A 
 peasant had a field, in which whatever he set was trampled down 
 every year on St. John's night. Two' years in succession he set his 
 two eldest sons to watch in the field; at midnight they heard a 
 hurtling in the air, which sent them into a deep sleep. The next 
 year the third son watched, and he- saw three maidens come flying, 
 
 1 Es schwant mir, it swans me =e I have a boding. The reference to the 
 bird seeias undeniable, for we also say In the same sense : es wachsen (there 
 grow) mir schwansfedern' (so already in Zesen's Simson). Conf. the Eddie 
 ' BvanfiaSrar dro (wore) '. 
 
 * Eafn has chosen the reading Lara. 
 
428 WISE woMKiir.- 
 
 "vvho laid their wings aside, and then danced up and down the 
 field. He jumped up, fetched the wings away, and laid them under 
 the stone on which he sat. When the maidens had danced till 
 they were tired, they came to him, and asked for their wings ; he 
 declared, if one of them would stay and be his wife, the other two 
 should have their wings back. Prom this point the story takes a 
 turn, which is less within the province of the swan-wife myth ; but 
 it is worth noting, that one of the maidens offers her lover a drink 
 of water out of a golden pitcJier, exactly as elfins and wish-wives do 
 elsewhere (pp. 420, 326). Molbech no. 49. 
 
 These lovely swan-maidens must have been long known to. 
 German tradition. When they bathe in the cooling flood, they lay 
 down on the bank the swan-ring, the swan-shift ; who takes it from 
 them, has them in his power.^ Though we are not expressly told 
 so, yet the three prophetic merwomen whose garments Hagene took 
 away, are precisely such ; it is said (Nib. 1476, 1) by way of simile 
 again : 
 
 sie swebten sam die vogele M der fluot. 
 
 It is true, our epic names only two of them (the Danish story only 
 one), the wisiu wip, Hadburc and Sigelint^ but one of them begins 
 to prophesy, and their garments are described as ' wunderlich,' 
 1478, 3. The myth of Volundr we meet with again in an OHG. 
 poem, which puts doves in the place of swans : three doves fly to a 
 fountain, but when they touch the ground they turn into maidens, 
 Wielant removes their clothes, and will not give them up till one 
 of them consents to take him for her husband. In other tales as 
 widely diffused, young men throw the shift, ring or chain over 
 them, which turns them into swans} When the resumption of 
 human shape cannot be effected -completely, the hero retains a 
 swan-wing ; evidence of the high antiquity of this detail lies in its 
 connexion with the heroic legend of Scoup or Sceaf (p. 370) ; and 
 it has found its way into modern pedigrees.* Especially impor- 
 
 ' Musaeus, Volksmarchen vol. 3 : The stolen veil. 
 
 " There is a plant named, I suppose, from this Sigelint-; Sumerl. 22, 28 
 (conf. 23, 19) has cigelinta fel draoonis, and 53, 48 cigelinde ; Graff 6, 145 has 
 sigdine ; see Sigel, Siglander in Schm. 3, 214. 
 
 3 Kinderm. no. 49. Deutsche sageji 2, 292-5. Adalb. Kukn p. 164, the 
 swan-chain. 
 
 * Conf. Deutsche sagen no. 540 : ' the Schtvanrings of Plesse,' who carry a 
 swan's vnng and ring on their scutcheon. A doc. of 1441 (Wolfs Norten no. 
 48) names a Johannes Swaneflugel, decretorum doctor, decanus ecclesiae 
 majoris Hildesemensis. In a pamphlet of 1617 occurs the phrase: 'to tear 
 the ring and mask off this pseudonym '. 
 
SWAN-MAIDENS. 429 
 
 tant, as placing in a clear light the exact relation of these swan- 
 wives to the walkiiren, is a statement about them in Altd. bl. 1 
 128 : A nobleman hunting in a wild forest saw a maiden bathing 
 in the river, he crept up and took away the gold chain on her 
 hand, then she could not escape. There was peculiar virtue in this 
 chain : ' dor timme (on account of it) werden sillche frowen 
 wiinschelwyhere genant'. He married her, and she had seven 
 children at a birth, they all had gold rings about their necks, i.e., 
 like their mother, the power of assuming a swan-shape. Swan- 
 children then are wish-children. In Gudrun, the prophetic angel 
 comes over the sea-wave in the shape of a wild bird singing, i.e., of 
 a swan, and in Lohengrin a talking sivan escorts the hero in his 
 ship ; in AS. poetry swanrdd (-road) passed current for the sea 
 itself, and alpiz, selfet, alpt (cygnus) is akin to the name of the 
 ghostly alp, self (see Suppl.). 
 
 We hear tell of a sivan that swiriis on the lake in a hollow 
 mountain, holding a ring in his bill : if he lets it fall, the earth 
 comes to an end.^ On the UrSarbrannr itself two swans are 
 maintained (Sn. 20) ; another story of a soothsaying swan is 
 communicated by Kuhn, p. 67, from the Mittelmaik. A young 
 man metamorphosed into a swan is implied in the famiUar West- 
 phahan nursery-rhyme : 
 
 swane, swane, pek up de nesen, 
 wannehr bistu krieger wesen (wast a warrior) ? 
 Another, of Achen, says : 
 
 krune krane, wisse schwane, 
 we wel met noh Engeland fahre ? 
 And the name Ssefugel in the AS. genealogies seems to indicate a 
 swan-hero. 
 
 The spinner Berhta, the goose-footed^ queen, may fairly suggest 
 swan-maidens (p. 280).^ If those prophetic ' galUcenae ' were able 
 
 ' Gottschalk's Sagen, HaUe 1814, p. 227. 
 
 " The pentagram was a Pythagorean symbol, but also a Druidic ; as it goes 
 by the name of elf s foot, elf's cross, goblin-foot, and resembles a pair of goose- 
 feet or swan-feet, semi-divine and elvish beings are again brought together in 
 this emblem ; the valkyr ThruS is next door to a swan-maiden, and Staufen- 
 berger's lover likewise had such a foot. 
 
 ' The beautiful story of the Good Woman, publ. in Haupt's zeitschr. 2, 
 350, is very acceptable as shewing yet another way in which this fairy being 
 got linked with the hero-legend of the KarUngs. The two children born on 
 one day at paske flourie, and brought up in mutual love (77 — 87), are clearly 
 identical with Flore and Bldnchejleur, for these also are not real names, but 
 
430 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 to assume what animal shapes they pleased, why, then the Celts 
 too seem to have known about swan-metamorphosis in very early 
 times, so that in French fay-legends we may supply the omissions ; 
 e.g., in M4on 3, 412 : 
 
 en la fontaine se baignoient 
 trois puceles preuz et senees, 
 qui de biaute sembloient/i^es.- 
 lor robes a tout lor chemises 
 orent desoz une arbre mises 
 du bout de la fontaine en haut. 
 puceles sen&s 3, 419. bien eur^es 418. la plus mestre 413-5. 
 The shifts were stolen, and the maidens detained. In the Lai du 
 Desir^ the knight espies in the forest a swan-maiden without her 
 wimple (sans guimple). The wimple of the white-robed fay 
 answers to the swan-shift. 
 
 6. Wood- Wives. 
 We have seen that the wish-wives appear on pools and lakes 
 in the depth of the forest : it is" because they are likewise wood-wives, 
 and under this character they suggest further reflections. The old 
 sacred forest seems their favourite abode : as the gods sat throned 
 in the groves, on the trees, the wise-women of their train and 
 escort would seek the same haunts. Did not the Gothic aliorunas 
 dwell in the woodland among wood-sprites ? Was not Veleda's 
 tower placed on a rock, that is, in the woods ? The VolundarqviSa 
 opens with the words : 
 
 meyjar flugo sunnan Myrhvi& igognom, 
 
 invented in fairy-tale fashion, to suit the name of their daughter Berhta, the 
 bright, white. Berhta marries Pepin, and gives birth to Charlemagne ; in the 
 Garin le Loherain, Pepin's wife is said to be Blanchefleur of Moriane, but in the 
 story now in question she is the nnnamed daughter of count Euprecht of 
 Barria (Eobert of Berry), spoken of simply as diu guotefrouwe (162. 1130), diu 
 quote (1575), la hone dame (3022), conf. bonadea, bonasocia, p. 283 ; her 
 husband, who steps into the place of the childless last king (Merovingian), is 
 Karehnan (3020), and the only name that can suit herself is Berte, already 
 contained in that of her father Buodbert. The children of this pair are\ 
 ' Pippin der kleine (little) ' and ' Karle der merre (greater) '. The events in the* 
 middle part of the story are quite other (more fully unfolded, if not more 
 pleasing) than those told of Flore and Blanchefleur ; but we plainly perceive 
 how on the new Karling race in the freshness of its bloom were grafted older 
 heathen myths of the swan-wife, of the good wife (p. 253), of the mild woman 
 (p. 280), of the bona socia (p. 283), and of the bonne dame (p. 287) ; Conf. 
 Sommer's pref. to Flore xxvi. xxvii. xxxii. 
 
WOOD-WIVES. 431 
 
 maids flew from south through murky wood to the seashore, there 
 they tarried seven years, till they grew homesick : 
 
 meyjar f;f stoz k myrkvan viff, 
 they could resist no longer, and returned to the sombre wood. 
 Almost all swan-maidens are met with in the forest. The seven 
 years agree with those of the Swedish story on p. 42 7.^ 
 
 As SigriXn, Sigrdrifa, Sigrlinn are names of valkyrs, and our 
 epic stm calls one of the wise-women Sigelint, I believe that the 
 OHG-. siguwip, AS. sigewif, OK sigrvif, was a general designation 
 of all wise-women, for which I can produce an AS. spell com- 
 municated to me by Kemble : 
 
 sitte ge sigewif, slgaS to eorSan ! 
 
 nsef re ge wilde (1. wiUe) tS mida fieogan ! 
 
 beo ge sw^ gemyndige mines godes, 
 
 swa MS manna-gehwylc metes and ^Seles.^ 
 Like noms, they are invited to the house with promise of gifts. 
 
 On this point we wiU consider a passage in Saxo, where he is 
 unmistakably speaking of valkyrs, though, as his manner is, he 
 avoids the vernacular term. In his account of Hother and Balder, 
 which altogether differs so much from that of the Edda, he says, 
 p. 39 : Hotherus inter venandum errore nebulae perductus in 
 quoddam silvestrium virginum conclave incidit, a quibus proprio 
 'nomine salutatus, ' quaenam essent' perquirit. Illae suis ductihus 
 axispiciisque maxime hellorum fortunam gubernari testantur : saepe 
 enim se nemini conspicuas ]proeliis interesse, clandestinisque subsidiis 
 optatos amicis praebere successus: quippe conciliare prospera, adversa 
 infligere posse pro libitu memorabant. After bestowing their advice 
 on him, the maidens with their house (aedes, conclave) vanish 
 before Hother's eyes (see Suppl.). Further on, p. 42 : At Hotherus 
 extrema locorum devia pervagatus, insuetumque mortalibus nemus 
 emensus, ignotis forte virginibus habitatum reperit specum : easdem 
 esse constabat, quae eum insecabili veste quondam donaverant. 
 They now give him more counsel, and are called nynipliae? 
 
 1 In the WaUacliian marclien 201, three wood-wives bathing have their 
 Crowns taken from them. 
 
 2 Sedete bellonae, descendite ad terram, nolite in silvam volare ! Tam 
 memores estote fortunae meae, quam est hominum quilibet cibi atque patriae. 
 
 ' Three other nymphs appear directly after, and prepare enchanted food for 
 Balder with the spittle of snakes, p. 43. A 'femina silvestns et immanis ' is 
 also mentioned by 8axo p. 125. 
 
432 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 This seems no modern distorted view, to imagine the maids of 
 war, that dwelt in OSin's heavenly company, that traversed air and 
 flood, as likewise haunting the woodland cave ; therefore Saxo was 
 right to call them silvestres, and to place their chamber, their cave, 
 in the forest. 
 
 The older stages of our language supply some similar expressions, 
 in which I recognise the idea of wise wood-wives, not of mere elvish 
 wood-sprites. They are called wildiu wip, and the Trad, fuld., 
 p. 544, speak of a place ' ad domum wildero wtho '. Burcard of 
 Worms, p. 198'^, mentions ' agredes feminas quas silvaticas yocwat, et 
 quando voluerint ostendunt se suis amatoribus, et cum eis dicunt 
 se oblectasse, et item quando voluerint abscondunt se et evanescunt'. 
 This ' quando voluerint ' seems to express the notion of wish-life. 
 Meister Alexander, a poet of the 13th century, sings (str. 139, 
 p. 143'') : ' n^ gent si viir in (go they before him) iiber gras in 
 wilder wile wsete (weeds) '. So : ' von einem ivilden wibe ist Wate 
 arzet,' is (i.e. has learnt to be) physician, Gudr. 2117 ; ' das wilde 
 frouwelin,' Ecke 189. In the Gl. monst. 335, wildaz wip stands 
 for lamia, and 333 wildiu wip for ululae, funereal birds, death- 
 boding wives, stni called in later times klagefraven, Magemutter, and 
 resembling the prophetic Berhta (p. 280). In groves, on trees, there 
 appeared dominae, Ttiatronae, puellae clothed in white (pp. 287-8), 
 distinguishable from the more elvish tree-wife or dryad, whose life 
 is bound up with that of the tree. The Vicentina Germans worship 
 a wood-wife, chiefly between Christmas and Twelfthday : the 
 women spin flax from the distaff, and throw it in the fire to pro- 
 pitiate her : ^ she is every bit like Holda and Berhta. As three 
 bunches of corn are left standing at harvest-time for Wuotan and 
 frau Gaue, so to this day in the Frankenwald they leave three 
 handfids of flax lying on the field for the holzweibel (wood- wives, 
 Jul. Schmidt's Eeichenfels, p. 147), a remnant of older higher wor- 
 ship. Between Leidhecken and Dauernheim in the Wetterau stands 
 the high mountain, and on it a stone, der welle fra gestoil (the wild 
 woman's chairs) ; there is an impression on the rock, as of the 
 limbs of human sitters. The people say the wild folk lived there 
 ' wei di schtan noch mell warn,' while the stones were still soft ; 
 afterwards, being persecuted, the man ran away, the wife and chUd 
 remained in custody at Dauernheim until they died. Eolk-songs 
 1 Deutsche sagen no 100. 
 
WOOD-WIVES. MENNI. 433 
 
 make the huntsman in the wood start a dark-brown maid, and hail 
 her: 'whither away, loUd least V (Wunderhorn 2, 154), but his 
 mother did not take to the bride, just as in the tale of the swan- 
 children. We find a more pleasing description in the Spanish 
 ballad De la infantina (Silva p. 259) : a huntsman stands under a 
 lofty oak : 
 
 En una rama mas alta viera estar una infantina, 
 cabellos de su cabeza todo aquel roble cobrian : 
 ' siete fadas (7 fays) me f adaron en brazos de una ama mia, 
 que andasse los siete anos sola en esta montina '. 
 But the knight wants first to take his mother's opinion, and she 
 refuses her consent. When Wolfdieterich sits by a fire in the 
 forest at night, rauhe Els comes up, the shaggy woman, and carries 
 off the hero to her own country ,i where she is a queen and lives on 
 a high rock : at length, bathing in the jungbrunnen, she lays aside 
 her hairy covering, and is named Sigeminne, ' the fairest above all 
 lands '.^ — Synonymous with 'wildaz wip' the glosses have Jiolzmuoja 
 (lamia and ulula), she who wails or moos in the wood ; holzfrowe 
 (lamia) Altd. bl. 2, 195; holzruna (Gl. mons. 335. Doc. 219'') 
 meaning the same, but suggestive of that Gothic aliorumna, AS. 
 burgriine, and the OK Sigr'An (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 7. Menni, Meeimanni. 
 
 One general name for such beings must from very early times 
 have been menni, minni ; it is connected with man (homo), and 
 with the ON. man (virgo), but it occurs only in compounds : meri- 
 manni (neut.), pi. merimanniu, translates sirena or scylla (Eeda umbe 
 diu tier, in Hoffm. fundgr. 19, 18), meriminni, Gl. Doc. 225" mons. 
 333. In the 13th century poets, merminne is equivalent to 
 merwip, merfrouwe, yet also to wildez wip : ' diu wise merminne,' 
 Diut. 1, 38. ' gottinne oder m,erminne, die sterben nUit enmohten 
 (could not die),' Eneit. 8860. In the Wigamur 112. 200. 227 seq., 
 
 ^ Called Trqje, conf. Ecke 81 ; and Msentroje, Deutsche heldensage 198. 
 211 (see Siippl.). 
 
 " In the Wolfdietr. (Dresd. MS. 290 — 7), twelve goddesses go to a mountain, 
 fetch the hero to them, and tend him ; the loveliest wants him for a husband. 
 These beings are more wise-women than elfins. 
 
 ' As the XopiTfy (Graces) and fays spin and weave, so do the wild women 
 also : 'mit wilder w'ibe henden geworht,' Ob. Lanz. 4826 ; Triiikos ov x^-pi^Tes 
 Kdjiov avTOL, II. 5, 338 (see Suppl.). 
 
 28 
 
434 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 there appears a wildez wtp, who dwells in a hollow rock of the sea, 
 and is indifferently termed merwip 168. 338, merfrouwe 134, and 
 Tnerminne 350. AS. merewif, Beow. 3037. M. Dutch maerminne. 
 Those three wisiu wip of the Nibelungen are also called merwip 
 1475, 1. 1479, 1 ; they foretell and forewarn ; their having indi- 
 vidual names would of itself put them on a par with the Norse 
 valkyrs: Hadhurc, Sigelint. The third, whose name the poem omits 
 (p. 428), is addressed by Hague as ' aUer wlseste wip ! ' 1483, 4. 
 Wittich's ancestress (p. 376) is named frouwe Wdchilt, as if Wave- 
 Hnde, she is a merminne, and says sooth to the hero, E§,b. 964 — 974. 
 Morolt also has an aunt a merminne who lives in mount ElsaM and 
 rules over dwarfs ; her name is not given, but that of her son is 
 Madelger, and she likewise gives wise advice to Morolt; Mor. 40'' 41*. 
 The merminne in Ulrich's Lanzelet (lines 196 seq.) is said to be wis 
 (5751. 6182), she has under her 10,000 unmarried women (dern 
 keiniu bekande man noch mannes gezoc), they dwell on a mountaia 
 by the sea, in an ever-blooming land. In the ApoUonius, a bene- 
 volent merminne is queen of the sea (Hnes 5160. 5294) ; here the 
 poet had in his mind a siren in the classical sense, but the Germans 
 must have had a merminne before they ever heard of sirens. The 
 Danish name is maremind (Danske viser 1, 118. 125). Norse legend 
 has preserved for us a precisely corresponding male being, the tacituru 
 prophetic marmennill (al. marmendill, marbendill), who is fished 
 up out of the sea, and requires to be let go into it again ; Halfssaga 
 c. 7 (Fornald. sog. 2, 31—33), and Isl. sog. 1, 33 (Landn. 2, 5)} 
 From him coral is named marmennils smid'i, he cunningly wrought 
 it in the sea. At a later time the word merfei was used in Germany: 
 that lover of Staufenberger, whom he found in the forest, and the 
 ■Fair Melusina (possibly even a tradition of ancient Gaul), are 
 precisely the fairy being that had previously been called merimenni} 
 — But, similar to the merminne, there was also a waltminne, which 
 word equally stands for lamia in old glosses (Diut. 3, 276). 
 Sigeminne, whether the baptized Eauch-els, Wolfdieterich's lover 
 (p. 433), or the wife of Hugdieterich,^ may with perfect right be 
 
 1 Marmennill is extremely like the Greek Proteus, who is also reluctant at 
 first to prophesy, Od. 4, 385 seq. There may have been Proteus-like stories 
 current of our Baldander and Vilander, p. 172 (see Suppl.). 
 
 2 Yet merfiine occurs already in Diut. 1, 38 ; waxzerfeine (Oberl. sub v.), 
 and even merfMn, MS. 2, 63'. 
 
 2 Deutsche heldensage pp. 185. 200-1. 
 
MENNI. MERIMANNI. 435 
 
 regarded as a waltminne or merminne} In the Vilk. saga cap. 17 
 I find sceJwna used of the woman whom Vilkinus found in the wood, 
 and who bore him Vadi. Saxo Gram., p. 15, speaks of a tugurium 
 silvestris immanisque feminae (see SuppL). 
 
 By this array of authorities it is proved to satisfaction, that the 
 wildaz wtp or menni, minni was thought of as a higher, superhuman 
 being, such as can be placed at the side of the Scandinavian norn 
 and valhyr. But in the scanty remains of our tradition the names 
 stand wofully bare, finer distinctions are inevitably lost, and in 
 more than one place the boundary-lines between gods, demigods, 
 elves and giants cross one another. Equally with norns and valkyrs 
 (pp. 413-9. 425), we have goddesses spinning and weaving, as 
 Holda, Berhta, Freyja, and even giantesses, as we shall see by and 
 
 by. 
 
 Among the figures in the Greek and Teutonic mythologies, we 
 have placed side by side the vvfKpai and idist, the fiolpai and nornir, 
 the KTJpe^ and valkyrior. But several isolated names might be 
 compared in the same way, as for instance, NiKrj or Victoria with 
 some Sigrun or Sigrdrtfa, ''Bpi<; and 'Evvco or Bellona with a Hildr 
 and Gunnr. Eris, Uke Iris, is sent forth on an errand by Zeus 
 (II. 11, 3), as Skogul or Gondul by OSinn. I often find these 
 Grecian figures in attendance on individual gods : in II. 5, 333 
 iTToXi'Tropdo'i 'Evvco goes with Athene ; in 5, 592 ttotvi ^Evvd) with 
 
 ^ A Leyden parclim. MS. of tlie 13tli century contains tlie following legend 
 of Charles the Great : Aquisgrani dicitur Ays (Aix), et dicitur eo quod Karolus 
 tenebat ibi quandam muUerem fatatam, sive quandam fatam, que alio nomine 
 nimpha vel dea vel adriades (1. dry as) appellatur, et ad banc consuetudinem 
 habebat et earn cognoscebat, et ita erat, quod ipso accedente ad earn vivebat 
 ipsa, ipso Karolo recedente moriebatur. Contigit, dum quadam vice ad ipsam 
 accessisset et cum ea delectaretur, radius solis intravit os ejus, et tunc Karolus 
 vidit granwn auri linguae ejus affixiun, quod fecit abscindi, et contingenti (1. in 
 continenti) mortua est, nee postea revisit. The grain of gold, on which the spell 
 hung, is evidently to explain the name of the city : later tradition (Petrarcha 
 epist. fam. 1, 3. Aretin's legend of Charlem. p. 89) has instead of it a ring, 
 which archbishop Turpin removes from the mouth of the corpse, and throws 
 into a lake near Aachen ; this lake then attracts the king, and that is why he 
 made the town his favourite residence. There is no further mention of the, 
 maiden's fairy existence. It was a popular belief (applied to the Frankish 
 king and gradually distorted) about the union of a wild-woman or mermaid 
 with a christian hero. Not very differently was Charles's ancestress Berhta, as 
 we saw above (p. 430), made into a ' good woman,' i.e. a fay. [The similarity 
 of names in the heroic line : Pepin of Herstal, Charles Martel, Pepin the Little, 
 Charles the Great, seems to have made it doubtful whether Berhta was Charle- 
 magne's mother or his great-grandmother.] 
 
436 WISE WOMEN. 
 
 Ares ; in 4, 440 and 5, 518 "Epi,<; d/ioTov /lefiavia with Ares, who is 
 also followed by Aelfiov and $o/3o9 (p. 207-8). And lastly, the 
 Charites are nearly allied ; and there was supposed to be a special 
 Charis of victory. Still nearer to our wood-wives stand particular 
 classes of nymphs, especially those whom Theocritus 5, 17 names 
 ra? XifivdBa'i vvfij)a<;, or those called vvfj,^ai ciKol/j,r]Toi, Beival deal 
 dypoi(OTai<; 13, 44. The graceful myth of swan- wives appears 
 indeed to be unknown to the Greeks and Eomans, while we Teutons 
 have it in common with the Celts ; yet a trace of it remains in the 
 story of Zeus and Leda (p. 338), and in the swan's prophetic song, 
 as in the Indian Nalus too the gold-bedizened swan (hansa = anser, 
 goose) finds human speech (Bopp's ed. pp. 6. 7). 
 
 The Slavs have not developed any idea of goddesses of fate.^ 
 The beautiful fiction of the vila is peculiar to Servian mythology : 
 she is a being half fay, half elf, whose name even resembles that 
 of the vala. The relation of valkyrs to christian heroes is suggested 
 by the fraternal bond between the vUa and Marko (Vuk 2, 98. 232. 
 Danitza for 1826, p. 108), as also by the vilas appearing singly, 
 having proper names, and prophesying. In some things they come 
 nearer the German elfins of our next chapter: they live on hills, 
 love the song and the round dance (Ir. elfenm. Ixxxii), they mount 
 up LQ the air and discharge fatal arrows at men : ' ustri^lila ga vUa,' 
 the vila has shot him with her shaft. Their cry in the wood is 
 like the sound of the woodpecker hacking, and is expressed by the 
 word 'kliktati'. The vila has a right to the child whom his mother 
 in heedless language (diavo ye odniyo !) has consigned to the devil 
 (Vuk no. 394), as in similar cases the wolf or bear fetches him away. 
 Vile te odnele! (vilae te auferant) is a curse (Vuks sprichw. p. 36); 
 'kad dot'u vile k otchim' (quando vilae ante oculos veniunt) signifies 
 the moment of extreme distress and danger (ibid. 117). The vUa 
 rides a seven-year old stag, and bridles him with snakes, like the 
 N"orse enchantresses (see Suppl.).^ 
 
 1 The Bohem. sudice translates parca, but it simply means judge (fern.) : 
 the Eussians even adopt the word parka. We must at least notice the 
 lichopled in Hanka's Glosses 21°-, who are said to be three, like the sirens and 
 mermaids. 
 
 ^ The Bulgarian samodiva or samovila corresponds to the Servian vila. 
 When the wounded Pom§,k cries to his 'sister' samodiva, she comes and 
 cures him. The samodivy carry off children ; and mischief wrought by the 
 
WISE WOMEN. 437 
 
 elements, by storms, &c., is ascribed to them. Like tbe Fates, tbey begift tbe 
 newborn : tbree samodivy visit the infant Jesus, one sews him a shirt, another 
 knits him a band, and the third trims a cap for him. Some stories about 
 them closely resemble those of the swan-maids. Stoyan finds three samodivy 
 bathing, removes their clothes, restores those of the two eldest, but takes the 
 youngest (Mariyka) home, and marries her. St. John christens her first 
 child, and asks her to dance as do the samodivy. But she cannot without her 
 'samodlvski drekhi,' Stoyan produces them, she flies away, bathes in the 
 mominski fountain, and recovers her mominstvo (virginity). — Trans. 
 
 End of Vol. I. 
 
 A. KING AND CO., ABERDEEN. 
 
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