Chapter XII: Heathendom (2)

Footnote 672:

Germ. xlv.

Footnote 673:

Beów. l. 4299 _seq._

Footnote 674:

Beów. l. 604 _seq._

Footnote 675:

Ibid. l. 2895.

Footnote 676:

Mythol. p. 195.

Footnote 677:

Edited in 1839 by the Rev. J. Stevenson for the members of the
Bannatyne and Maitland Clubs.

-----

Fourteen years later a similar fact is stated to have occurred in a neighbouring district, at Inverkeithing, in the present county of Fife.

“Insuper hoc tempore apud Inverchethin, in hebdomada paschae [Mar. 29-Ap. 5], sacerdos parochialis, nomine Johannes, Priapi prophana parans, congregatis ex villa puellulis, cogebat eas, choreis factis, Libero patri circuire; ut ille feminas in exercitu habuit, sic iste, procacitatis causa, membra humana virtuti seminariae servientia super asserem artificiata ante talem choream praeferebat, et ipse tripudians cum cantantibus motu mimico omnes inspectantes et verbo impudico ad luxuriam incitabat. Hi, qui honesto matrimonio honorem deferebant, tam insolente officio, licet reverentur personam, scandalizabant propter gradus eminentiam. Si quis ei seorsum ex amore correptionis sermonen inferret, fiebat deterior, et conviciis eos impetebat.”

It appears that this priest retained his benefice until his death, which happened in a brawl about a year later than the events described above; and it is very remarkable that the scandal seems to have been less at the rites themselves than at their being administered by a person of so high a clerical dignity. Grimm had identified Freyr or Frowo with Liber: it will be observed that his train of reasoning is confirmed by the name Liber Pater, given in the chronicler’s recital. The union of the _Needfire_ with these Priapic rites renders it proper to devote a few words to this particular superstition.

The needfire, nýdfýr, New-german nothfeuer, was called from the mode of its production, _confrictione de lignis_, and though probably common to the Kelts[678] as well as Teutons, was long and well known to all the Germanic races at a certain period. All the fires in the village were to be relighted from the virgin flame produced by the rubbing together of wood, and in the highlands of Scotland and Ireland it was usual to drive the cattle through it, by way of lustration, and as a preservative against disease[679]. But there was another curious ceremony connected with the lighting of fires on St. John’s eve,—probably from the context, on the 23rd of June. A general reference for this may be made to Grimm’s Mythologie, pp. 570-592, under the general heads of Nothfeuer, Bealtine and Johannisfeuer; but the following passage, which I have not seen cited before, throws light on Grimm’s examples, and adds some peculiarities of explanation. It is found in an ancient MS. written in England and now in the Harleian collection, No. 2345, fol. 50.

-----

Footnote 678:

See Jamieson’s Scottish Dictionary, voc. _Beltane_, and Boucher’s
Glossary by Stevenson.

Footnote 679:

In the Mirror of June 24th, 1826, there is the account of this having
been done in Perthshire, on occasion of a cattle epidemic. “A wealthy
old farmer, having lost several of his cattle by some disease very
prevalent at present, and being able to account for it in no way so
rationally as by witchcraft, had recourse to the following remedy,
recommended to him by a weird sister in his neighbourhood, as an
effectual protection from the attacks of the foul fiend. A few stones
were piled together in the barnyard, and woodcoals having been laid
thereon, the fuel was ignited by _will-fire_, that is fire obtained by
friction; the neighbours having been called in to witness the
solemnity, the cattle were made to pass through the flames, in the
order of their dignity and age, commencing with the horses and ending
with the swine. The ceremony having been duly and decorously gone
through, a neighbouring farmer observed to the enlightened owner of
the herd, that he, along with his family, ought to have followed the
example of the cattle, and the sacrifice to Baal would have been
complete.” The _will-fire_ has been used in Devonshire for the same
purpose, within the memory of man.

-----

“Eius venerandam nativitatem cum gaudio celebrabitis; dico eius nativitatem cum gaudio; non illo cum gaudio, quo stulti, vani et prophani, amatores mundi huius, accensis ignibus, per plateas, turpibus et illicitis ludibus, commessationibus, et ebrietatibus, cubilibus et impudicitiis intendentes illam celebrare solent.... Dicamus de tripudiis quae in vigilia sancti Johannis fieri solent, quorum tria genera. In vigilia enim beati Johannis colligunt pueri in quibusdam regionibus ossa, et quaedam alia immunda, et insimul cremant, et exinde producitur fumus in aere. Faciunt etiam brandas et circuunt arva cum brandis. Tercium de rota quam faciunt volvi: quod, cum immunda cremant, hoc habent ex gentilibus. Antiquitus enim dracones in hoc tempore excitabantur ad libidinem propter calorem, et volando per aera frequenter spermatizabantur aquae, et tunc erat letalis, quia quicumque inde bibebant, aut moriebantur, aut grave morbum paciebantur. Quod attendentes philosophi, iusserunt ignem fieri frequenter et sparsim circa puteos et fontes, et immundum ibi cremari, et quaecumque immundum reddiderunt fumum, nam per talem fumum sciebant fugari dracones.... Rota involvitur ad significandum quod sol tunc ascendit ad alciora sui circuli et statim regreditur, inde venit quod volvitur rota.”

An ancient marginal note has _bonfires_, intending to explain that word by the bones burnt on such occasions. Grimm seems to refer this to the cult of Baldr or Bældæg, with which he connects the name Beltane; but taking all the circumstances into consideration, I am inclined to attribute it rather to Freá, if not even to a female form of the same godhead, Fricge, the Aphrodite of the North. Freá seems to have been a god of boundaries; probably as the giver of fertility and increase, he gradually became looked upon as a patron of the fields. On two occasions his name occurs in such boundaries, and once in a manner which proves some tree to have been dedicated to him. In a charter of the year 959 we find these words: “ðonne andlang herpaðes on Frigedæges treów,”—thence along the road to Friday’s (that is Frea’s) tree[680]; and in a similar document of the same century we have a boundary running “oð ðone Frigedæg.” There is a place yet called Fridaythorpe, in Yorkshire. Here Frigedæg appears to be a formation precisely similar to Bældæg, Swæfdæg, and Wægdæg, and to mean only Freá himself.

-----

Footnote 680:

Cod. Dipl. No. 1221.

-----

BALDÆG, in Old-norse BALDR, in Old-german PALTAC.—The appearance of Bældæg among Wóden’s sons in the Anglosaxon genealogies, would naturally lead us to the belief that our forefathers worshiped that god whom the Edda and other legends of the North term Baldr, the father of Brand, and the Phœbus Apollo of Scandinavia. Yet beyond these genealogies we have very little evidence of his existence. It is true that the word _bealdor_ very frequently occurs in Anglosaxon poetry as a peculiar appellative of kings,—nay even as a name of God himself,—and that it is, as far as we know, indeclinable, a sign of its high antiquity. This word may then probably have obtained a general signification which at first did not belong to it, and been retained to represent a king, when it had ceased to represent a god. There are a few places in which the name of Balder can yet be traced: thus Baldersby in Yorkshire, Balderston in Lancashire, Bealderesleah and Baldheresbeorh in Wiltshire[681]: of these the two first may very likely have arisen from Danish or Norwegian influence, while the last is altogether uncertain. Save in the genealogies the name Bældæg does not occur at all. But there is another name under which the Anglosaxons may possibly have known this god, and that is Pol or Pal.

-----

Footnote 681:

Cod. Dipl. No. 1059, 92.

-----

In the year 1842 a very extraordinary and very interesting discovery was made at Merseberg upon the spare leaf of a MS. there were found two metrical spells in the Old-german language: these upon examination were at once recognized not only to be heathen in their character, but even to contain the names of heathen gods, perfectly free from the ordinary process of Christianization. The one with which we are at present concerned is in the following words:

Phol endi Wódan Phol and Wódan vuorun zi holza, went to the wood, da wart demo Balderes volon then of Balder’s colt sin vuoz birenkit; the foot was wrenched; thu biguolen Sinthgunt, then Sinthgunt charmed him, Sunná era suister, and her sister Sunna, thu biguolen Frúá, then Frua charmed him, Vollá era suister, and her sister Folla, thu biguolen Wódan, then Wóden charmed him, só he wola conda: as he well could do: sosé bénrenki, sóse bluotrenki, both wrench of bone, and wrench of sosé lidirenki; blood, bén zi béna, and wrench of limb; bluot zi bluoda, bone to bone, lid zi geliden, and blood to blood, sóse gelímida sín. limb to limb, as if they were glued together.

The general character of this poem is one well known to us: there are many Anglosaxon spells of the same description. What makes this valuable beyond all that have ever been discovered, is the number of genuine heathen names that survive in it, which in others of the same kind have been replaced by other sanctions; and which teach us the true meaning of those which have survived in the altered form. In a paper read before the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Grimm identified Phol with Baldr[682], and this view he has further developed in the new edition of his Mythology[683]. It is confirmatory of this view that we possess the same spell in England, without the heathendom, and where the place of the god Baldr is occupied by that of our Lord himself. The English version of the spell runs thus:

The lord rade,
and the foal slade;
He lighted
and he righted;
set joint to joint
and bone to bone,
sinew to sinew.
Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name[684]!

-----

Footnote 682:

“Ueber zwei entdeckte Gedichte aus der Zeit des deutschen Heidenthums.
Von Jacob Grimm.” Vorgelesen in der Königl. Akademie der
Wissenschaften, am 3 Febr. 1842, pp. 10, 11.

Footnote 683:

Deut. Mythol. p. 205.

Footnote 684:

Chalmers’s Nursery Tales.

-----

It will be admitted that this is something more than a merely curious coincidence, and that it leads to an induction of no little value. Now it appears to me that we have reasonable ground to believe our version quite as ancient and quite as heathen as the German one which still retains the heathen names, and that we have good right to suppose that it once referred to the same god. How then was this god named in England? Undoubtedly Pol or Pal[685]. Of such a god we have some obscure traces in England. We may pass over the Appolyn and Apollo, whom many of our early romancers number among the Saxon gods, although the confused remembrance of an ancient and genuine divinity may have lurked under this foreign garb, and confine ourselves to the names of places hearing signs of Pol or Pal. Grimm has shown that the dikes called Phalgraben in Germany are much more likely to have been originally Pfolgraben, and his conclusion applies equally to Palgrave, two parishes in Norfolk and Suffolk:—so Wódnes Díc, and the Devil’s Dike between Cambridge and Newmarket. Polebrooke in Northamptonshire, Polesworth in Warwickshire, Polhampton in Hants[686], Polstead in Suffolk, Polstead close under Wanborough (Wódnesbeorh) in Surrey,—which is remarkable for the exquisite beauty of its springs of water,—Polsden in Hants, Polsdon in Surrey, seem all of the same class. To these we must add Polsley and Polthorn, which last name would seem to connect the god with that particular tree: last, but not least, we have in Poling, in Sussex, the record of a race of Polingas, who may possibly have carried up their genealogy to Bældæg in this form.

Footnote 685:

Though little fond of modern Anglosaxon verses, of modern Latin
hexameters or modern Greek iambics, I shall give a translation of
these two spells, for the purpose of comparison:

Pol and Wóden
tó wuda fóron
Bealdres folan wearð
fót bewrenced;
ða hine Síðgúð begól,
Sunne hire sweoster,
ðá hine Frýe begól,
Folle hire sweoster,
ðá hine Wóden begól
swá he wel cúðe:
swá sý bánwrence, swá sý blodwrence,
swá sý liðwrence;
bán tó báne,
blód tó blóde,
lið tó liðe,
swá swá gelímede sýn.

And thus the English one:

Dryhten rád,
fola slád;
se lihtode
and rihtode;
sette lið tó liðe
eác swá bán to báne,
sinewe tó sinewe.
Hál wes ðú, on ðæs Hálgan Gástes naman!

Footnote 686:

Polhǽmatún. Cod. Dipl. Nos. 642, 752, 1136, 1187. Polesleáh in Wilts.
Cod. Dipl. No. 641. Polstede in Suffolk. Cod. Dipl. No. 685. Polþorn
in Worcester. Cod. Dipl. No. 61. Pollehám, No. 907.

-----

The myth of Baldr in the North is one of the most beautiful and striking in the whole compass of their mythology: it is to be lamented that no trace of it remains in our own poems. Still Baldr’s lay may not have been entirely without influence upon the progress of Christianity among the Saxons, if, as is probable, it resembled in its main features the legend of the Scandinavians. For them he was the god of light and grace, of splendour, manly excellence and manly beauty. A prophecy that Baldr would perish afflicted the gods; Frigga took an oath from all created nature that no individual thing would harm the pride of the Æsir, the darling of the Asyniar. A sprig of mistletoe, at that time too young to enter into so solemn an obligation, was alone, and fatally, excepted. The invulnerability of the god induced him to offer himself as a mark for the practice of his relatives and friends. Maces, axes and spears fell innocuous from his sacred frame; but Loki placed a sprig of mistletoe in the hand of the blind Haudr[687], and with this, the sole thing that could not be forsworn, he slew his brother. An effort still remained to be made. Oþinn himself descended to the abode of Hel, in hopes of persuading the goddess of the dead to relinquish her prey. He was successful, and returned with the joyful intelligence that Baldr would be restored to the gods, if all created nature would weep for him. All nature did weep for the loss of the god of beauty, save one old crone. When called upon to do her part in his restoration she answered, “What have the gods done for me, that I should weep for Baldr? Let Hel keep her dead!” It is thought that it was Loki who had assumed the old woman’s form. Thus Baldr’s fate was sealed. The faithful Nanna[688] would not survive her beautiful lord, and the gods and goddesses attended round the pile on which their two cherished companions were reduced to dust together. But the slain god could hope for no resurrection: his throne was placed in the shadowy realm of Hel, and weeping virgins spread the eternal pall that was to give dreary honour to the god of light in the cold kingdom of darkness and the invisible. The posthumous son, or more likely re-birth, of the god, avenged his father upon the wretched instrument of Loki’s wiles. Yet those who had fathomed the deeper mysteries of the creed knew well enough that Baldr was to rise again in triumph: after the twilight of the gods and the destruction of the ancient world, he was to return in glory and joy, and reign in a world where there should be neither sin nor sorrow, nor destruction.

-----

Footnote 687:

In Anglosaxon, Heaðo, which however has almost always the abstract
sense of _war_.

Footnote 688:

In Anglosaxon, Nóð: this occurs rarely save in composition, where it
seems to denote bravery or courage. But it is to be observed that nóð
is the name of a ship or large boat; and it is worth inquiry whether
the Teutonic goddess Zíza, probably in Anglosaxon Táte, may not have
been identical with this Nanna, instead of Frouwa. The dragging about
a boat or ship was peculiar to Zíza’s worship. Deut. Myth. p. 237,
_seq._

-----

Of these details, the Anglosaxon mythology knows nothing, in the forms which have survived: and perhaps in this peculiar myth we may recognize something of an astronomical character, which can certainly not be attributed to other Northern legends. However this may be, we must content ourselves with the traces here given of Pol, as one form of Baldr, and with the genealogical relation which has been noticed. Meagre as these facts undoubtedly are, they are amply sufficient to prove that the most beloved of the Northern gods was not altogether a stranger to their children in this island. Perhaps the adoption of another creed led to the absorption of this divinity into a person of far higher and other dignity, which, while it smoothed the way for the reception of Christianity, put an end for ever to even the record of his sufferings.

GEÁT, in Old-norse GAUTR, in Old-German KÓZ.—A cursory allusion has already been made to Geát, probably only another form of Wóden, since in the mythology of the North, Oþinn is Gaútr, but certainly the eponymus of the Geátas, that tribe of whom Beówulf was the champion and afterwards the king. Geát appears in the Westsaxon genealogy as a progenitor of Wóden, but this collocation is unimportant in mythological inquiries. It is probable that Gapt, whom Jornandes places at the head of the Gothic genealogy, is only a misreading of Gavt, which is the equivalent Gothic form of Geát, and that Sigegeát, Angelgeát, Waðelgeát, which occur in other Anglosaxon genealogies, are identical with him[689]. His love for Maðhild, a legend unknown to all the nations of the North, save our own forefathers, is noticed in the Exeter Book: it is there said,

We ðæt Mæðhilde To Mǽðhild, we the tale have
monge gefrunon heard, that endless was the
wurdon grundleáse love of Geat, so that the pain
Geátes frige of love took all sleep from
ðæt him seó sorglufu him[690].
slǽp ealle binom.

It is much to be regretted that this is all we learn on this subject, which becomes very interesting when we remember how little trace there is of phallic gods in the Northern mythology. But that Geát was a god, and not merely a hero, is not left entirely to inference: it is distinctly asserted by various and competent authorities: Nennius has declared him to have been _filius dei_, not indeed the God of Hosts, and God of Gods, but of some idol[691]. But Asser, who was no doubt well acquainted with the traditions of Ælfred’s family, says[692], “Quem Getam dudum pagani pro deo venerabantur,” which is repeated in the same words by Florence of Worcester[693] and Simeon of Durham[694], and is contained in a Saxon genealogy preserved in the Textus Roffensis, “Geáta, ðene ða hǽðenan wurðedon for God.” We can therefore have no scruple about admitting his divinity; and a comparison of the Gothic and Scandinavian traditions proves the belief in it to have been widely held. The name, which is derived from _geotan_, to pour, most probably denotes only the special form in which Wóden was worshipped by some particular tribes or families; and the occurrence of it in the genealogies, only the fact that such tribes or families formed part of the national aggregates, to whose royal line it belongs. But nevertheless we must admit the personality attributed to him by those tribes, and the probability of his having been, at least for them, the national divinity. The circumstance of his name having left such deep traces as we perceive in the quotations given above, proves not only the especial divinity of the person, but perhaps also the political power and importance of the worshippers[695].

-----

Footnote 689:

And see Geijer, Gesch. Schwed. i. 30. Gaut, Gautrek, Algaut,
Gauthilld. Yngl. Sag. cap. 38.

Footnote 690:

Cod. Exon. p. 378. If Geát really be Wóden, this is another
approximation to Hermes in his phallic character. Altogether the myth
of the ἱερός γάμος, so constant in Greek mythology, is scarcely
traceable in the North. The Wóden worship, at least, may have had
something more of the character of the Apollo worship among the
Dorians.

Footnote 691:

Nennius, § 31. Huntingdon follows Nennius, Hist. Angl. bk. ii.

Footnote 692:

De Reb. Gest. Ælfredi, an. 849.

Footnote 693:

Flor. Wig. Chron. an. 849.

Footnote 694:

De Reb. Gest. Regum, an. 849.

Footnote 695:

See the author’s edition of Beówulf, vol. ii. Postscript to the
Preface. Leo’s Beówulf, etc.; and Ettmuller’s Beówulf, etc., with the
last of whom, upon the maturest consideration, I find it impossible to
agree.

-----

SÆTERE.—Among the Gods invariably mentioned as having been worshipped by our forefathers is one who answered to the Latin Saturnus, at least in name. From the seventh week-day we may infer that his Anglosaxon name was Sætere, perhaps the _Placer_ or _Disposer_[696]; for Sæteresdæg seems a more accurate form than Sæternesdæg which we sometimes find. There are both names of places and of plants formed upon the name of this god: as Satterthwaite in Lancashire, Satterleigh in Devonshire and Sæteresbyrig[697] in the same county, of which there appears to be no modern representative; while among plants the _Gallicrus_, or common crowfoot, is called in Anglosaxon Satorláðe. The appearance of Saturnus as an interlocutor in such a dialogue as the Salomon and Saturn[698] is a further evidence of divinity; so that, taking all circumstances into account, it is probable that when Gregory of Tours, Geoffry of Monmouth and others, number him among the Teutonic gods, they are not entirely mistaken. Now there has been a tradition, in Germany at least, of a god Chródo, or Hruodo, whose Latin name was Saturn, and whose figure is said to have been that of an old man standing upon a fish, and holding in one hand a bundle of flowers, while the other grasps a wheel. Grimm imagines herein some working of Slavonic traditions[699], and following the Slavonic interpreters connects this Chródo with Kirt or Sitivrat, and again with some Sanskrit legend of a Satjavrata[700]. But the reasoning seems inconclusive, and hardly sufficient to justify even the very cautions mode in which Grimm expresses himself about this Slavo-Germanic godhead[701]. More than this we cannot say of the Anglosaxon Sætere, whose name does not appear in the royal genealogies; nevertheless we cannot doubt the existence of some deity whom our forefathers recognized under that name.

-----

Footnote 696:

Grimm seems rather to imagine _insidiator_. Myth. p. 226.

Footnote 697:

Cod. Dipl. No. 813.

Footnote 698:

An edition of the Anglosaxon dialogues on this subject has been put
forth by the author for the Ælfric Society. To this reference may be
made for full details respecting Saturnus.

Footnote 699:

It is with no disrespect to the unrivalled powers of Scott that I
enter my protest here against the false _costume_ of Ivanhoe; a far
more serious objection no doubt is the way in which his brilliant
contrast, necessary to the success of a romance, has misled the
historian. Had Ivanhoe not appeared, we should not have had the many
errors which disfigure Thierry’s Conquête de l'Angleterre par les
Normands. But when Scott makes Ulrica (Ulrica a Saxon female name!)
calling upon Zernebock, as a god of her forefathers, he makes her talk
absolute nonsense. Some Mecklenburg or Pomeranian Saxons, in the
immediate neighbourhood of Slavonic populations, or mingled with them,
may possibly have heard of _their_ god Czerny Bog, (_the black god_)
contrasted with Bjala Bog, (_the white god_), but assuredly no
Anglosaxon ever heard the name of any such deity; nor does the chaunt
of the vindictive lady bear one single trace of Saxon character. In
every matter of detail, the romance is only calculated to mislead; and
this is to be regretted, inasmuch as the beauty of the whole work
renders it a certain vehicle of error;—has rendered it already a snare
to one estimable author. M. Thierry has related the effect produced
upon his mind by Ivanhoe. See his Dix Ans d'Études Historiques:
Preface.

Footnote 700:

Deut. Myth. p. 227.

Footnote 701:

See Salomon and Saturn, p. 129.

-----

From the Gods we pass to the Goddesses: of these we have indeed but scanty record in England. Of the great and venerable goddess Fricge, Wóden’s wife, we are only told that she gave her name to the sixth day of the week; and we must admit that this is all we know of her, unless she be implied under some other name, which is possible.

Beda in acquainting us with the ancient names of the Anglosaxon months tells us of four which were called from their especial reference to the gods: these are Solmónað or February; Hréðmónað, March; Eóstermónað, April; and Blótmónað, November. Solmónað he says received its name from the cakes which were offered to the gods at that time[702]; Blótmónað from the victims (cattle) that were vowed for sacrifice; of the others he says[703], “Hréðmónað is called from a goddess of theirs,—Rheda, to whom they sacrificed in that month. Eóstermónað, which is now interpreted by the ‘Paschal month,’ had its name of old from a goddess of theirs named Eostre, to whom in this month they offered celebrations.”

-----

Footnote 702:

Can this word _sol_ (perhaps _sól_) be a contracted form of _sufl_? If
not, I cannot offer an explanation of it.

Footnote 703:

De Natura Rerum, cap. xv.

-----

The Scandinavian and German mythology are alike destitute of these names; although among the many goddesses they recognize some two may perhaps be identical with ours. The name Hréðe may possibly mean _severe_, _fierce_, and denote a warlike goddess; but still I am more inclined to connect it with the adjective Hróð, glorious, famous, and to see in it the meaning of the _great_ or _glorious_ goddess, that is, in some form or other, Fricge, Wóden’s wife: it is however not to be forgotten that the German Chrodo, in Anglosaxon Hróð or even Hréðe, is now admitted, and that this god was in fact Saturn. It is true that we have more than one fragmentary legend in which the name of Saturn survives, but in a heroic rather than a godlike form, and this may have been the cause of its preservation: the Church found Saturn useful, and kept him; nor is it at all surprising that a change of sex should have taken place: the same thing happened with the German goddess Nerthus, who reappears in the Norse god Niördr, and the classical scholar will at once remember the god Lunus, as well as the goddess Luna[704]. Whatever explanation we may attempt to give of Hréðe, it is clear that she was a Saxon goddess to whom at stated periods sacrifice was offered. The same thing may be said of Eóstre or Eástre, whose name must be etymologically connected with Eást, _oriens_, and who therefore was in all probability a goddess of brightness and splendour, perhaps also a Beorhte or Bright goddess: she may have been a goddess of light, of the morning beams, of the newly awakening year, when the sun first begins to recover power after the gloom and darkness of winter. That she was deeply impressed upon the mind and feelings of the people follows from her name having been retained for the great festival of the church: it may also be fairly argued that she was a mild and gentle divinity, whom the clergy did not fear thus to commemorate.

-----

Footnote 704:

The name of Nerthus stands in all the best MSS. of Tacitus’ Germania,
and the change of it into Herthus, though very plausible, was
unnecessary. One easily sees the cause of error: it was thought that
Herthus, _terra mater_, was the Gothic Airthus, in Old-german Erdu, in
Anglosaxon Eorðe. But there is no H in these words; if there were we
should have had a Teutonic Vesta. The goddess’s name was Nairthus,
Nerdu, Nerðe, and her corresponding form in Old-norse, Niördr.

-----

Lye’s dictionary cites another goddess, Ricen, with the translation Diana, which he seems to have taken from some Cotton MS. It stands too isolated for us to make any successful investigation, but I may be excused for calling to mind the fact that Diana is mentioned by the versifying chroniclers as among the Saxon gods, and also that the superstition known in Germany as the “Wild Hunt,” and which is properly connected with Wóden, goes very generally among us by the name of Ludus Dianae. This, which became the foundation of many a cruel persecution, under the name of witchcraft, is spread over every part of Germany in one form or another: sometimes it is [the daughter of] Herodias who is compelled for ever to expiate her fatal dancing; at other times we have Minerva or Bertha, Holda, Habundia, Dame Abonde, Domina, Hera—the Lady, and so on. It is true that our fragmentary remains of Saxon heathendom do not contain any immediate allusions to this superstition, but yet it can scarcely be doubted that it did exist here as it did in every part of the continent[705], and one therefore would not willingly decide at once against there having been some deity who might be translated by Diana in the _interpretatio Romana_.

-----

Footnote 705:

“In contrariam partem est auctoritas decreti xxvi. 9. y. c. epi. Ita
ibi legitur. Illud non est obmittendum, quod quedam scelerate mulieres
retro post Sathan converse, demonum illusionibus et fantasmatibus
seducte, credunt se et profitentur cum Diana nocturnis horis dea
paganorum, vel cum Herodiade et innumera multitudine mulierum,
equitare super quasdam bestias et multa terrarum spatia intempeste
noctis silentio pertransire, eius iussionibus obedire veluti domine,
et certis noctibus ad eius servitium evocari.” Hieronymi Vicecomitis
opusculum Lamiarum vel Striarum. Mediol. 1490. John of Salisbury
notices this in his Polyczaticus, and Henry More in his Mystery of
Godliness. See Salom. Sat. p. 125, _seq._

-----

FIENDS and MONSTERS.—The community of belief, between the Germans of this island, of the continent, and their Scandinavian kinsmen, does not appear to have been confined to the beneficent gods of fertility or warlike prowess. In the noble poem of Beowulf we are made acquainted with a monstrous fiend, Grendel, and his mother, supernatural beings of gigantic birth, stature and disposition, voracious and cruel, feeding upon men, and from their nature incapable of being wounded with mortal weapons. The triumph of the hero over these unearthly enemies forms the subject of one half the poem. But Grendel, who, from the characteristics given above, may at once be numbered among the rough, violent deities of nature, the Jotnar[706] of the North and Titans of classical mythology, is not without other records: in two or three charters we find places bearing his name, and it is remarkable that they are all connected more or less with water, while the poem describes his dwelling as a cavern beneath a lake, peopled with Nicors and other supernatural beings of a fiendish character. The references are Grindles pyt[707], Grindles bece[708], and Grendles mere[709]. Grimm, by a comparison of philological and other data, identifies Grendel with the Norse Loki, the evil-bringer, and in the end destroyer of the gods[710]. The early converted Anglosaxons who possessed another devil to oppose to the Almighty in the Ragnaravkr[711], could easily reconcile themselves to the destruction of Grendel by an earthly hero; although the ancient heathendom breaks out in the supernatural powers attributed to the latter, and which placing him very near the rank of the gods, induce a belief that Beówulf contains only the shadow of an older myth which may have been current far beyond the limits of this island[712]. It will be sufficient to call attention to the many German tales in which the devil’s mother figures as a principal actor, nay to our own familiar expression, _the devil’s dam_, to show how essential this characteristic of the fiend was: the devil of the Church had certainly no mother; but the old Teutonic evil spirit had, and Loki and Grendel are alike in this. Even the religious view, which naturally shaped itself to other influences, could not escape the essential heathendom of this idea: the devil who is so constant an agent in the Anglosaxon legends, has, if not a mother, at least a father, no less than Satan himself; but Satan lies bound in hell, as Loki lies bound, and it is only as his emissary and servant that the devil his son[713] appears on earth, to tempt and to destroy. In Cædmon, the legend of St. Andrew, Juliana, Gúðlác, etc., it is always the devil’s son and satellite who executes his work on earth, and returns to give an account of his mission to him that sent him.

-----

Footnote 706:

In Beówulf he is continually called Eoten.

Footnote 707:

Cod. Dipl. No. 59.

Footnote 708:

Ibid. No. 570.

Footnote 709:

Ibid. No. 353.

Footnote 710:

Mythologie, p. 222.

Footnote 711:

The Devil and the Pater Noster were to contend together at Doomsday:
each was to assume fifteen different forms. Sal. Sat. p. 145.

Footnote 712:

See Beówulf, ii. Postscript, and the Stammtafel der Westsachsen.

Footnote 713:

In the legend of Juliana, the subordinate devil speaks of Satan as his
father and king. Cod. Exon. pp. 261, 273. And so also in Salomon and
Saturn (p. 141), he is called Satan’s thane. Again, in the same
composition, Satan is called the devil’s father: “The Pater Noster
will shoot the devil with boiling shafts; and the lightning will burn
and mark him, and the rain will be shed over him, and the thick
darkness confuse him, and the thunder thrash him with the fiery axe,
and drive him to the iron chain wherein his father dwelleth, Satan and
Sathiel.” p. 149. In the legend of St. Andrew, Satan himself appears,
which may be owing to its Greek origin. See Vercelli Poems, Andr. l.
2388: still, in another passage Satan sends his children. Ibid. l.
2692.

-----

Thus throughout the strange confusion which besets all Anglosaxon compositions in which the devil is introduced either as a tempter or a persecutor of the holy and just, we may perceive a ray of ancient heathendom, gloomy enough, no doubt, but far less miserable than the vile materialism of the notions with which it has been mixed up. The rude _Eoten_ or Titan is not nearly so repugnant to our Christian ideas as the gross corporeal fiends who have grown out of him, and who play so conspicuous a part in Anglosaxon hagiology or purgatorial legends: nor is it easy to conceive any superstition more degrading than that which Eastern or perhaps even Roman traditions thus engrafted upon the ancient creed. With these we are not called upon to deal in any further detail, for though they have no claim whatever to be called Christian, they certainly have nothing to do with Anglosaxon heathendom. The Grendels and Nicors of our forefathers were gods of nature, the spirits of the wood and wave: they sunk into their degraded and disgusting forms only when the devils of a barbarous superstition came to be confounded and mixed up with them. There is still something genuine and poetical in the account which a monk of St. Gall gives of the colloquy between the ancient gods when the missionaries settled on the shores of the lake of Constance; when in the dead of night, the holy anchoret watching at his nets,

Heard how the spirit of the flood
Spake to the spirit of the hill:

“Volvente deinceps cursu temporis, electus Dei Gallus retia lymphae laxabat in silentio noctis, sed inter ea audivit demonem de culmine montis pari suo clamantem, qui erat in abditis maris. Quo respondente, ‘Adsum!’ montanus e contra: ‘Surge,’ inquit, ‘in adiutorium mihi! Ecce peregrini venerunt, qui me de templo eiecerunt;’ nam Deos conterebant, quos incolae isti colebant; insuper et eos ad se convertebant; ‘Veni, veni, adiuva nos expellere eos de terris!’ Marinus demon respondit: ‘En unus illorum est in pelago, cui nunquam nocere potero. Volui enim retia sua ledere, sed me victum proba lugere. Signo orationis est semper clausus, nec umquam somno oppressus.’ Electus vero Gallus haec audiens, munivit se undique signaculo crucis, dixitque ad eos: ‘In nomine Jesu Christi praecipio vobis, ut de locis istis recedatis, nec aliquem hic ledere praesumatis!’ Et cum festinatione ad littus rediit, atque abbati suo, quae audierat, recitavit. Quod vir Dei Columbanus audiens, convocavit fratres in ecclesiam, solitum signum tangens. O mira dementia diaboli! voces servorum Dei praeripuit vox fantasmatica, cum heiulatus atque ululatus dirae vocis audiebatur per culmina [montium[714]].”

-----

Footnote 714:

Vit. Anon. Sci. Galli. Pertz, Monum. ii. 7. Pertz has justly called
attention to the metrical form of this colloquy. It is deeply to be
lamented that we no longer possess it in its earliest shape, and in
the language of its earliest composition.

-----

But words are hardly strong enough to express the feeling with which an educated mind contemplates the fantastical, filthy and hideous images which gross fanaticism strove to force into the service of a religion whose end and means are love; the material terrors which were substituted for the sanctions of the most spiritual, pure and holy creed; the vulgar, degrading and ridiculous phantasmagoria devised to destroy the essential selfishness and impurity of men, and startle them into justice and righteousness of life! The Teutonic Titans, though terrible from their rude strength, and dangerous even to the gods themselves, are neither disgusting nor degrading: they are like Chronos and Saturn, full of power and wisdom; they are in constant warfare with the gods, because the latter are the representatives of a more humane order; because the latter was more civilised: but as the giant race were mighty at the beginning, so are they to triumph at the end of the world; and it is only when they shall have succeeded in destroying the gods of Oþinn’s race, that they will themselves vanish from the scene, and the glorious reign of Allfather commence. Loki alone has something mean and tricksey in his character, something allied to falsehood—a slight spice of the Mephistopheles. But it is not probable that this belongs to his earliest form, and it appears rather to mark the deterioration of a myth becoming popular, and assuming traits of the popular, humorous spirit, which takes delight in seeing power counteracted by cunning, and revenges itself for the perfection of its heroes by sometimes exposing them to ludicrous defeat. But even Loki was at first the friend and associate of the gods: he was united with them by the most sacred bonds of brotherhood, and his skill and wisdom secured them victory in many a dangerous encounter. Like Lucifer, he had been a tenant of heaven: why he and the gods ultimately parted in anger we are not told; but we find him pursuing them with the utmost malice, till at length he causes the death of Baldr. He is then bound and cast beneath the worlds, the poisonous snake hangs over him distilling torturing venom: his faithful wife sits by and catches the drops as they fall, but when the vessel in which she receives them is full and she turns for a moment to empty it, the deadly juice reaches the prostrate god, and in his agony he trembles in every limb. This convulsion is known to men as the earthquake. It is only in the twilight of the gods that he will break his chain and lead the sons of Muspel to avenge him upon the race of Oþinn.

But Loki is no devil in the Anglosaxon sense of Satan and his son; he is no deceiver or persecutor of men; least of all is he their torturer in another world. He suffers indeed, but like Prometheus, or Entelechus, or Ægeon, and his hour of triumph is to come. There is in his genuine character nothing mean or little,—much indeed that is terrible, gloomy and vague, but nothing ridiculous or disgusting. The Saxon devil with horns, tail, cloven feet, sulphur and pitch, torches, red-hot tongs, pincers and pitchforks is less creditable to the imagination, and more dangerous to the moral being, of his inventors.

Nor are the occupations of such a fiend less vulgar than his form: he blasts the corn, wounds the cattle, fetters the hands of the doomed, enters the mouth of those who have not guarded it by the sign of the cross, and in a future state becomes the torturer—in the most material and mechanical way—of those whose life has been spent in the service of sin. The coarse fancy of Marlowe himself halts after the descriptions of the Anglosaxon divines and poets, revelling in this fruitful theme. Unpleasant as such records are, and revolting to our sense of right, it is necessary that we should know what was taught or permitted by the clergy, if we are to know anything of the mode of life and mode of belief of our forefathers.

As early even as the eighth century, we find so great a man as Beda condescending to admit into his ecclesiastical history, such melancholy evidence of Manichæan materialism as the vision of Drihthelm. He tells how such a man in Northumbria, lying at the point of death, had fallen into a trance, recovering from which and being restored to health, he had entered the monastery of Melrose, in which he continued till his death. During his trance he had seen visions which he afterwards communicated to Hamgisl a priest, Aldfríð king of the Northumbrians, and others. He related that on being released from the body his soul had been led by one, bright of aspect, gloriously clothed, towards the east, into a valley wide and deep and of a length that seemed infinite: one side glowed terribly with flames, the other was filled with furious hail and freezing snow. Either side was full of human souls which were tossed from left to right as by a tempest. For when they could not bear the violence of the immense heat, they rushed wretchedly into the midst of the dreadful cold; and when they could find no rest there, they sprung back again, again to burn in the midst of inextinguishable flames. When Drihthelm saw them thus eternally tormented by a crowd of deformed demons, he thought within himself, “This is surely hell, of whose intolerable tortures I have often heard tell!” But his companion said, “This is not the hell thou thinkest!” and proceeding further, he beheld how the darkness began to thicken around and fill the whole space before him. Suddenly in this deep night he perceived globes of dusky fire cast up from what seemed to be a vast well, into which they fell again, without intermission. In the midst of these horrors his conductor left him. On looking more intently, he now perceived that the tongues of fire were all full of human souls, tossed aloft like sparks in smoke, and then dragged back into the abyss. And an incomparable stench, which bubbled up with the vapours, filled all those abodes of darkness. Around him sounded the shouts and taunts of fiends, like a vulgar mob exulting over a captive enemy: suddenly a host of evil spirits dragged through the darkness five souls, one of a laic, one of a woman, one tonsured like a cleric, and plunged them into the abyss amidst a confused roar of lamentation and laughter. Then certain malignant spirits ascending from the deep, surrounded the trembling spectator, terrifying him with their flaming eyes and the fire which burst from their mouths and noses, and threatening to seize him with fiery pincers which they held in their hands. From this danger he was rescued by the return of his companion, who conducted him to two corresponding regions of eternal bliss, every one of whose details is in the strongest contrast to those already described, but just as material, as gross and sensual. The moral of this is too important to be given in any but Beda’s own words. “And when, on our return, we had reached those happy mansions of spirits clothed in white, he said unto me, ‘Knowest thou what all these things are which thou hast beheld?’ I answered, ‘No.’ Then said he, 'The valley which thou sawest, horrible with its boiling flames and its stiff cold, that is the place where shall be tried and chastised the souls of those men, who delaying to confess and to amend their sins, yet fly to penitence in the hour of death, and thus leave the body: yet since they had confession and penance even in death, shall all, at the day of judgment, reach the kingdom of heaven. But many, both the prayers of the living, and their alms and fasts, and most of all the celebration of masses, assist, so that they shall be freed even before the day of judgment. But that flame-belching, putrid well which thou hast seen is the mouth of hell itself, into which whoever shall fall, shall never be set free for ever and ever. And that flowery place in which thou sawest those most beauteous youths enjoy themselves in splendour, is that wherein are received the souls of those who indeed leave the body in good works, but yet are not of such perfection that they may at once enter the kingdom of heaven; who yet shall all, in the day of judgment, enter into the sight of Christ, and the joys of the heavenly kingdom. For they who are perfect in every word and act and thought, immediately on leaving the body shall reach the heavenly kingdom; to whose precincts that place belonged, where thou heardest the sound of pleasant singing, together with the smell of sweetness and the splendour of light[715].'” Having thus seen and heard, Drihthelm was allowed to return to the body, where no doubt he became a powerful champion of Purgatory. But Beda is not satisfied with this tale: he goes on to tell of a Mercian noble, who would not go to confession. At the point of death, he sees two angels enter his room, bearing the record of his good deeds, which fill but a small roll: having caused him to read this, they make way for a crowd of fiends, black and foul, who bear the enormous tale of his sins of word, work and thought, which also he is compelled to read. Then the leader of the fiends turning to the sons of light exclaims, “Why sit ye here, knowing assuredly that he is ours?” to which they reply, “Ye say truly: take him, and lead him with you into the accumulation of your own damnation!” Upon this the good spirits vanish, and two demons, a sort of Occidental Munkir and Nekir, smite him with ploughshares on the head and feet, and creep into him; when they meet within him, he dies and passes into everlasting torments[716]. This tale, which Beda heard from the venerable bishop Pecthelm[717], he refines upon, explains, and finishes by declaring that he relates it simply for the salvation of those who shall read or hear it. No doubt the distempered ravings of monks, made half mad by inhuman austerities, unnatural restrictions, and wretched themes of contemplation, would in themselves be of little worth: we can comprehend the visions of a Saint Francis de Salis, an Ignatius Loyola, a Peter the Hermit, a Santa Theresa, and even more readily those of a Drihthelm or a Madame Guyon: but how shall we understand the record of them by a Beda or a Fenelon?

-----

Footnote 715:

Beda, H. E. v. 12.

Footnote 716:

Beda, H. E. v. 13.

Footnote 717:

The first Bishop of Whiterne in Galloway, who died in 737. Any one who
desires to learn more of the miserable superstitions which Beda could
recommend, may see the account of Fursæus (H. E. iii. 19), and the MS.
lives of the saint of which Mr. Stevenson has given a notice in his
edition of Beda, pp. 197, 199, notes.

-----

Such authority as this was likely to be followed with zeal; once open, the career of unbridled fancy was sure to find no limit; the more sure, since then, as now, the fears and miseries of the mass were sources of profit to the few. Then, as now, there were rogues found who dared to step between man and God, to clothe themselves in the coat without seam, to make themselves the mediators between eternal mercy and the perishing sinner. Accordingly in later times we find variation upon variation in the outline already so vigorously sketched; William of Malmesbury furnishes an ample field for collectors of this kind of literature. I shall content myself here with citing from the so often quoted Salomon and Saturn two passages, which to me are redolent of heathendom, disguised after the fashion which has been described.

Mæg simle se Godes cwide Ever may the God’s word[718] gumena gehwylcum, for every man, ealra feónda gehwone every fiend fleónde gebringan, put to flight, ðurh mannes múð, through mouth of man, mánfulra heáp the troop of evil ones, sweartne geswencan; the black troop, oppress; næfre híe ðæs syllíce let them never so strangely bleóum bregdað change their colours æfter báncofan, in their body, feðerhoman onfóð. or assume plumage. Hwílum flótan grípað, Sometimes they seize the sailor, hwílum híe gewendað sometimes they turn on wyrmes líc into the body of a snake scearpes and sticoles, sharp and piercing, stingað nýten they sting the neat feldgongende, going about the fields, feoh gestrúdað; the cattle they destroy; hwílum híe on wætere sometimes in the water wicg gehnǽgað, they bow the horse, hornum geheáwað with horns they hew him oððæt him heortan blód, until his heart’s blood, fámig flódes bæð, a foaming bath of flood, foldan geséceð. falls to the earth. Hwílum híe gefeterað Sometimes they fetter fǽges monnes handa, the hands of the doomed, gehefegað ðonne he they make them heavy when he æt hilde sceall is called upon in war, wið láðwerud against a hostile troop lifes tiligan: to provide for his life: áwrítað híe on his wæpne they write upon his weapon wælnóta heáp. a fatal heap of marks[719].

-----

Footnote 718:

That is, the Paternoster.

Footnote 719:

Sal. Sat. pp. 143, 144.

-----

Again we are told, in the same composition: “And when the devil is very weary he seeketh the cattle of some sinful man, or an unclean tree; or if he meeteth the mouth and body of a man that hath not been blessed with the sign of the cross, then goeth he into the bowels of the man who hath so forgotten, and through his skin and through his flesh departeth into the earth, and from thence findeth his way into the desert of hell[720].”

-----

Footnote 720:

Ibid. p. 149.

-----