Teutonic Mythology, Volume 3

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TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY

BY

JACOB GRIMM.

THAN SLATED FEOM THE FOUKTH EDITION,

WITH

NOTES AND APPENDIX

JAMES STEVEN STALLYBRASS.

VOL. III.

LONDON : GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK STREET,

CO VENT GABDEN. 1883.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London,

V/, 3

PREFACE

TO THE SECOND EDITION (1844).

Now that I am able to put my germinated sprout of German Mythology into its second leafing, I do it with a firmer confidence in the unimpeded progress of its growth. When the first shy- ness was once overcome, seeking and finding came more quickly together ; and facts, that rebuked any effeminate doubt of the reality of scientific discoveries on a field till then considered barren, started up on every side, till now there is a glut of them. Well, I have got my joists and rafters, drawn some lines, laid some courses, aud yet guarded against pretending to finality; for who would do that, so long as in one place the materials are wanting, and in another the hands are still full with fetching ? I wish to explain all I can, but I am far from being able to explain all I wish.

Criticism, often brilliantly successful on foreign fields, had sinned against our native antiquities, and misused most of the means it had. The immortal work of a Eoman writer had shed a light of dawn on the history of Germany, which other nations may well envy us : not content with suspecting the book's genuineness (as though the united Middle Ages had been capable of such a product), its statements, sprung from honest love of truth, were cried down, and the gods it attributes to our ancestors were traced to the intrusion of Roman ideas. Instead of dili- gently comparing the contents of so precious a testimony with the remnants of our heathenism scattered elsewhere, people made a point of minimizing the value of these few fragments also, and declaring them forged, borrowed, absurd. Such few gods as remained unassailed, it was the fashion to make short work of, by treating them as Gallic or Slavic, just as vagrants are shunted off to the next parish — let our neighbours dispose of the rubbish as they can. The Norse Edda, whose plan, style and substance

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PKEFACE.

breathe the remotest antiquity, whose songs lay hold of the heart in a far different way from the extravagantly admired poems of Ossian, they traced to christian and Anglo- Saxon influence, blindly or wilfully overlooking its connexion with the relics of eld in Germany proper, and thinking to set it all down to nurses and spinning- wives (p. 1230), whose very name seemed, to those unacquainted with the essence of folk-lore, to sound the lowest note of contempt. They have had their revenge now, those norns and spindle-bearers.

One may fairly say, that to deny the reality of this mythology is as much as to impugn the high antiquity and the continuity of our language : to every nation a belief in gods was as necessary as language. No one will argue from the absence or poverty of memorials, that our forefathers at any given time did not practise their tongue, did not hand it down; yet the lack or scantiness of information is thoughtlessly alleged as a reason for despoiling our heathenism, antecedent to the conversion, of all its contents, so to speak. History teaches us to recognise in language, the farther we are able to follow it up, a higher perfection of form, which declines as culture advances ; as the forms of the thirteenth century are superior to our present ones, and those of the ninth and the fifth stand higher still, it may be presumed that German populations of the first three centuries of our era, whose very names have never reached us, must have spoken a more perfect language than the Gothic itself. Now if such inferences as to what is non-extant are valid in language, if its present condition carries us far back to an older and oldest; a like proceeding must be justifiable in mythology too, and from its dry water- courses we may guess the copious spring, from its stagnant swamps the ancient river. Nations hold fast by prescription: we shall never comprehend their tradition, their superstition, unless we spread under it a bed on still heathen soil.

And these views are confirmed by what we know to be true of poetry and legend. If the heathens already possessed a finely articulated language, and if we concede to them an abundant stock of religious myths, then song and story could not fail to

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lay hold of these, and to interweave themselves with the rites and customs. That such was the case we are assured by Tacitus ; and the testimony of Jornandes and Eginhart leaves not the smallest room for doubt respecting later ages. Those primitive songs on Tuisco, on Mannus and the three races that branched out of him, are echoed long after in the genealogies of Ingo, Iscio, Hermino; so the Hygelac of the Beowulf-song, whom a tenth century legend that has just emerged from oblivion names Huglacus Magnus (Haupt 5, 10), is found yet again — as a proof that even poetry may agree with history — in the c Chochilaichus 3 of Gregory of Tours. If in the 12th and 13th centuries our country's hero-legend gleamed up for the last time, poets must have kept on singing it for a long time before, as is plain from the saved fragment of Hildebrand and the Latin versions of Rudlieb and Waltharius ; while not a tone survives of those Low German lays and legends, out of which nevertheless proceeded the Vilkinasaga that mirrors them back. The rise of our Court- poetry has without the slightest ground or necessity been ascribed to the Crusades ; if we are to assume any importations from the Bast, these can more conveniently be traced to the earlier and quieter intercourse of Goths and Northmen with the Greek empire, unless indeed we can make up our minds to place nearly all the coincidences that startle us to the account of a funda- mental unity of the European nations, a mighty influence which is seen working through long ages, alike in language, legend and religion.

I am met by the arrogant notion, that the life of whole cen- turies was pervaded by a soulless cheerless barbarism ; this would at once contradict the loving kindness of God, who has made His sun give light to all times, and while endowing men with gifts of body and soul, has instilled into them the consciousness of a higher guidance : on all ages of the world, even those of worst repute, there surely fell a foison of health and wealth, which preserved in nations of a nobler strain their sense of right and law. One has only to recognise the mild and manly spirit of our higher antiquity in the purity and power of the national

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PBEFACE.

laws, or the talent inherited by the thirteenth century in its eloquent, inspired poems, in order justly to appreciate legend and myth, which in them had merely struck root once more.

But our inquiry ought to Have the benefit of this justice both in great things and in small. Natural science bears witness, that the smallest may be an index to the greatest ; and the reason is discoverable, why in our antiquities, while the main features were effaced, petty and apparently accidental ones have been preserved. I am loth to let even slight analogies escape me, such as that between Bregowine, Freawine, and Gotes friunt (p. 93).

True to my original purpose, I have this time also taken the Norse mythology merely as woof, not as warp. It lies near to us, like the Norse tongue, which, having stood longer undisturbed in its integrity, gives us a deeper insight into the nature of our own, yet not so that either loses itself wholly in the other, or that we can deny to the German language excellences of its own, and to the Gothic a strength superior to both of them together. So the Norse view of the gods may in many ways clear up and complete the German, yet not serve as the sole standard for it, since here, as in the language, there appear sundry divergences of the German type from the Norse, giving the advantage now to the one and now to the other. Had I taken the rich exuberance of the North as the basis of my inquiry, it would have perilously overshadowed and choked the distinctively German, which ought rather to be developed out of itself, and, while often agreeing with the other, yet in some things stands opposed. The case appears therefore to stand thus, that, as we push on, we shall approach the Norse boundary, and at length reach the point where the wall of separation can be pierced, and the two mytho- logies run together into one greater whole. If at present some new points of connexion have been established, more important diversities have revealed themselves too. To the Norse anti- quarians in particular, I hope my procedure will be acceptable : as we gladly give to them in return for what we have received, they ought no less to receive than to give. Our memorials are

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scantier, but older ; theirs are younger and purer ; two things it was important here to hold fast : first, that the Norse mythology is genuine, and so must the German be ; then, that the German is old, and so must the Norse be.

We have never had an Edda come down to us, nor did any one of our early writers attempt to collect the remains of the heathen faith. Such of the christians as had sucked Grerman milk were soon weaned under Roman training from memories of home, and endeavoured not to preserve, but to efface the last impressions of detested paganism. Jornandes and Paulus Diaconus, who must have had plenty of heathen stories still within their reach, made but slight use of the mythical ones. Other ecclesiastics now and then, for a particular purpose, dole out scraps of information which are of great value to us: Jonas (pp. 56. 109), Beda (p. 289), Alcuin (p. 229), Widukind (p. 253), Adam of Bremen (p. 230). As I have said on p. 9, some monk at St. Gall, Fulda, Merseburg or Corvei might have conceived the happy idea of putting pen to the antiquities of his country, gathering up things of which the footprints were still fresh, and achieving for the foreground of our history, just where it begins to disengage itself from legend, a lasting work, such as Saxo Grammaticus accom- plished. Even if German tradition was more blurred and colour- less from the seventh century to the eleventh, than was Danish in the twelfth, if estrangement from native legend had advanced more slowly in the far North ; yet Waltharius and Eudlieb, or the rhyme of the boar in Notker, may shew us that in the very cloisters there was much still unforgotten of the ancient songs. It is likely that scribes continued for some time to add to the collection set on foot by Charles the Great, the destruction of which has proved an incalculable loss, and from which we might have obtained an abundance of materials and pictures of the remotest eld. The Middle High-German poets found themselves already much farther away from all this ; anything they might still unconsciously borrow from it must have been preserved accidentally in traditional forms of poetry or the living idiom of the people. The very book in which heathen names and cha-

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racters might the most innocently have found a place, Albrecht of Halberstadt's translation of the Metamorphoses, is lost to us in its original form ; when Eudolf in his Barlaam from a christian point of view refutes the Grecian gods after the fashion of Chrothilde (see p. 107), he sticks too closely to his text to let any native characteristics come into his head : the age was too entirely absorbed in its immediate present to feel the slightest inclination to look back into its own or other people's distant past. It is not till the 14th or 15th century that sundry writers begin to shew a propensity to this. Gobelinus Persona bestows a mite (p. 254) ; if Bohmer would but soon give us an edition of the Magdeburg Schoppenchronick and the Chronicon Picturatum, both sadly wanted ! Conf. Bohmer's Eeg. ed. 1849, p. xxi, pag. 62 ad ann. 1213 ; Zeuss p. 38. The statements of Botho, uncritical as they are, claim attention, for in his day there may have been accounts still afloat, which have vanished since. A curious one is contained in Joh. Craemer's Chronica sancti Petri in monte crucis ad ann. 1468 : 'Matthaeus Huntler in cella Sancti Martini ad Werram vidit librum Johannis Yanderi, ord. S. Bene- dict monachi in Eeynertsborn, de omnibus gentilium deastris in provincia nostra, quern magna cura conscripsit, et quemlibet deastrum in habitu suo eleganter depinxit cum multis antiquita- tibus, in quibus bene versatus esse dicitur/ Botho drew his de- scriptions from figures of idols that were before his eyes ; and at Reinhartsbrunn in Thuringia there might be similar things extant, or the very same that found their way to Brunswick, if only Paullini, whose Syntagma p. 315 furnishes that passage from the chronicle, were not himself suspicious. The like un- certainty hangs over Joh. Berger (p. 96), over a Conradus Fontanus quoted by Letzner (p. 190), and the Frisian Cappidus whose work Hamconius professes to have used (see my chap. XXI, Lotus). Any one that cared to read straight through Berthold of Regensburg's works, dating from the end of the 13th century, would very likely, where the preacher gets to speak of sorcery and devilry, come upon cursory notices of the super- stitions of his time, as even the later sermons of Johannes

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Herolt (my ch. XXXI, Berchta, Holda), Johannes Nider (d. cir. 1440), and Geiler von Kaisersberg offer some details. And even historians in the 16th and 17th centuries, who rummaged many a dusty archive, such as Aventin, Oeltes, Freher, Spangenberger, Letzner (d. after 1612), Nicolaus Gryse (d. 1614), must have had all sorts of available facts within their reach, though to pick the grain out of the chaff would no doubt come easier to us than to them.

Much then is irrecoverably lost to our mythology ; I turn to the sources that remain to it, which are partly Written Memorials, partly the never resting stream of living Manners and Story. The former may reach far back, but they present themselves piecemeal and disconnected, while the popular tradition of to- day hangs by threads which ultimately link it without a break to ancient times. Of the priceless records of the Eomans, who let the first ray of history fall on their defeated but unsubdued enemy, I have spoken in the fourth and sixth chapters. If among gods and heroes only Tuisco, Mannus and Alx are named in German, and the rest given in ' Romana interpretatio ; 3 on the other hand, the female names Nerthus, Veleda, Tanfana, Huldana (for Hludana), Aliruna, have kept their original form ; and so have names of peoples and places that lead back to gods, Ingaevones, Iscaevones, Herminones, Asciburgium. Christian authors also, writing in Latin, prefer the Roman names, yet, when occasion calls, Wodan, Thunar, Frea, Sahsnot cannot be avoided. The refined language of the Goths, and the framework of their hero-legend, lead us to imagine a very full development of their faith, then just giving way to Christianity, though to us it has sunk into such utter darkness : such expressions as frauja, halja, sibja, unhul)?o, skohsl, anz, fairguni, sauil (as well as sunna), vaihts, alhs, gudja, hunsl, dul]?s, jiuleis, midjun-gards, auhns, a)m, blotan, inveitan, must have heathen notions lying at their base, and these would offer themselves far more abundantly if portions of the Gothic Old Testament had reached us. After the lapse of a few centuries we find the other dialects all more or less corrupted when compared with the Gothic, and as a long

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interval had then passed since the conversion of most of the races, heathenism must have retreated farther from the language also and the poetry. Nevertheless the fragment of Muspilli, the Abrenuntiatio, the Merseburg Lay and a few others, still allow our glances to rove back beyond our expectation ; isolated words occur in glosses, and proper names of men, places, herbs, point to other vestiges ; not only do gods and heroes step out of the mist, as Wuotan, Donar, Zio, Phol, Paltar, Froho, Sin- tarfizilo, Orentil, and goddesses or wise women, as Frouwa, Folia, Sindgund, Wurt; but a host of other words, itis, wiht,- urlac, fuld, haruc, hliodar, paro, sigil, zunkal, etc. are found uneradi- cated. Of course, among the Saxons, who remained heathen longer, especially among the Anglo-Saxons, whose language preserved its warmth better by poetry, such relics are trebly numerous, for beside Woden, Thunor, Frea, Bealdor, Helle, Eastre, Hre^e, and the rich store of names in the genealogies, there add themselves Forneot, Woma, Geofon, Gersunia, Wusc- frea, Bregowine, Earendel, ides, wyrd, wselcyrge, J?yrs, eoten, geola, hleodor, bearo, neorxenawong, hsele^helm, Brosingamene, and many more. What the Middle High German poetry inevi- tably loses by comparison with the older, is compensated by its greater quantity : together with hero-names like Nibelunc, Schiltunc, Schilbunc, Alberich, Wielant, Horant, which fall at once within the province of mythology, it has treasured up for us the words tarnkappe, albleich, heilwac, turse, windesbrut, goltwine and the like, while in oft-recurring phrases about des sunnen haz, des arn winde, des tiuvels muoter, we catch the clear echo of ancient fables. Most vividly, in never-tiring play of colours, the minne-songs paint the triumphal entry of May and Summer : the pining heart missed in the stately march its former god. The personifications of Sselde and Aventiure spring from a deep-hidden root; how significant are the mere names of Wunsch and valant, which are not found in all the poets even, let alone in O.H.German! Yet we cannot imagine other- wise than that these words, although their reference to Wuotan and Phol was through long ages latent, were drawn directly

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and without a break from heathenism. They are a proof of the possibility of traditions lingering only in certain spots, and thus finding their way after all to here and there a poet; totally silenced in places and periods, they suddenly strike up some- where else, though any district, any dialect, can boast but few or comparatively few of these; it is not many arch-mythical terms, like frau, holle, wicht, that our language has constant need of, and has never to this day cast off.

If these numerous written memorials have only left us sundry bones and joints, as it were, of our old mythology, its living breath still falls upon us from a vast number of Stories and Customs, handed down through lengthened periods from father to son. With what fidelity they propagate themselves, how exactly they seize and transmit to posterity the essential features of the fable, has never been noticed till now that people have become aware of their great value, and begun to set them down in collections simple and copious. Oral legend is to written records as the folk-song is to poetic art, or the rulings recited by schoffen (scabini) to written codes.

But the folk-tale wants to be gleaned or plucked with a delicate hand. Grasp it rudely, it will curl up its leaves, and deny its dearest fragrance. There lies in it such a store of rich development and blossom, that, even when presented incomplete, it contents us in its native adornment, and would be deranged and damaged by any foreign addition. Whoever should venture on that, ought, if he would shew no gap in his harness, to be initiated into all the innocence of popular poetry; as he who would coin a word, into all the mysteries of language. Out of elben (elves) to make elfen, was doing violence to our language ; with still less of forbearance have violent hands been laid on the colouring and contents even of myths. They thought to improve upon the folk-tale, and have always fallen short of it : not even where it shews gaps, is any restoration to be dreamt of, which sits upon it as new whitewash on old ruins, con- triving with a couple of dabs to wipe out all the charm. Astonishing are the various shapes its identity assumes,

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additional adornments spring up on ground where we least expect it ; but it is not in every soil that it thrives luxuriantly, here and there it shews scanty or shy ; it is sure to be vigorous where rhymes and spells abound in it. The heaviest crops seem to be realized by those collections which, starting from a district rich in legend, glean cautiously from the surrounding neighbourhoods, without straying far from its limits ; thus Otmar's Harz-sagen found a favourable field, which is probably worth going over a second time within the like modest bounds. Among collections that have lately come to light, I name Borner's Tales of the Orla-gau, which, grown up on rick legendary soil, yield much that is valuable, though the accom- panying discourses fail to realize the true nature of Folk-legend. Bernhard Baader's Tales of Upper Germany afford a rich treasure, in simple suitable language; but in Moneys Anzeiger they are presented in so scattered and inconvenient a form, that they ought to be re-digested in a new edition: the two different versions of the story of Dold (quoted on p. 983), are a good illustration of what I meant just now by f meagre 3 and ' luxuriant/ Bechstein's Thuringian Legends seem to me only in the last two volumes to attain the true point of view, and to offer something worth having. The Legends of Samogitia and the Mark, collected by Reusch and Kuhn, satisfy all requirements ; they furnish most copious material, and put to shame the notion that any district of Germany is poor in popular traditions, which only elude those who know not the right way to approach them. Soon perhaps we shall get collections laid out on the same thoughtful plan from Holstein, Westphalia, Bavaria and Tyrol.

For Denmark too we have a model collection by Thiele, whose last edition has only just reached me, and still remains unused. Many of the finest Swedish legends have been given us in various places, but a still greater number must be lying ungathered : Afzelius's Sago-hafder, welcome as they are, go too much on the plan of extracting the juice from whatever came to hand. Norway can hardly be less stocked with legend than Sweden, it has moreover its popular lays to shew, into which songs of

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the Edda have been transmuted, witness the lay of Thor's hammer (p. 181) and the Solar-lay. In our own day, J. W. Wolf is labouring on the popular traditions of Belgium, and Rob. Chambers on those of Scotland, with zeal and visible success.

The Fairy-tale (marchen) is with good reason distinguished from the Legend, though by turns they play into one another. Looser, less fettered than legend, the Fairy-tale lacks that local habitation, which hampers legend, but makes it the more home- like. The Fairy-tale flies, the legend walks, knocks at your door; the one can draw freely out of the fulness of poetry, the other has almost the authority of history. As the Fairy-tale stands related to legend, so does legend to history, and (we may add) so does history to real life. In real existence all the out- lines are sharp, clear and certain, which on history's canvas are gradually shaded off and toned down. The ancient mythus, however, combines to some extent the qualities of fairy-tale and legend ; untrammelled in its flight, it can yet settle down in a local home.

It was thought once, that after the Italian and French collec- tions of Fairy-tales it was too late to attempt any in Germany, but this is contradicted by fact ; and Molbech's collection, and many specimens inserted in his book by Afzelius, testify also how rich Denmark and Sweden are in fairy-tales not yet extinct. But all collections have wellnigh been overtopt lately by the Norwegian (still unfinished) of Moe and Asbiornsen, with its fresh and full store; and treasures not a few must be lurking in England, Scotland, and the Netherlands, from all of which Mythology may look to receive manifold gain.

To indicate briefly the gain she has already derived from the Folk-tale (legend) : it is plain that to this alone we owe our knowledge of the goddesses Holda, Berhta and Fricka, as also the myth of the Wild Hunt which leads us straight to Wodan. The tale of the old beggar-wife is a reminiscence of Grimnir. Of the wise-women, of swan- wives, of kings shut up in hills we should have learnt little from written documents, did not Legend spread her light over them ; even the myths of the Sin-flood and

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the World's Destruction she has not lost sight of to this day. But what is most fondly cherished in her, and woven into the gayest tissues, is the delightful narratives of giants, dwarfs, elves, little wights, nixies, night-hags and home-sprites, these last being related to the rest as the tame beasts of the fable are to the wild and unsubjugated : in poetry the wild is always superior to the tamed. The legend of the sun-blind dwarfs (pp. 466n., 1247) and that of the blood-vat (pp. 468n., 902) remind us of the Edda.

In the Fairy-tale also, dwarfs and giants play their part: Swan-witchen (Swan-white) and Dorn-roschen (Thorn-rose = Sleeping Beauty), pp. 425, 1204 are a swan-wife and a valkyr ; the three spinning-wives, p. 415, are norns ; the footstool hurled down from^the heavenly seat (p. 136), Death as a godfather (p. 853), the player's throw and Jack the gamester (pp. 818n., 887) reach back to heathen times. Fairy-tales, not legends, have in common with the god-myth a multitude of metamorphoses ; and they often let animals come upon the stage, and so they trespass on the old Animal-epos.

In addition to the fairy-tale and folk-tale, which to this day supply healthy nourishment to youth and the common people, and which they will not give up, whatever other pabulum you may place before them, we must take account of Bites and Customs, which, having sprung out of antiquity and continued ever since, may yield any amount of revelations concerning it. I have endeavoured to shew how ignition by friction, Easter fires, healing fountains, rain-processions, sacred animals, the conflict between summer and winter, the carrying-out of Death, and the whole heap of superstitions, especially about path- crossing and the healing of diseases, are distinctly traceable to heathen origins. Of many things, however, the explanation stands reserved for a minute inquiry devotiug itself to the entire life of the people through the different seasons of the year and times of life; and no less will the whole compass of our law-antiquities shed a searching light on the old religion

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iand manners. In festivals and games comes out the bright joyous side of the olden time; I have been anxious to point out the manifold, though never developed, germs of dramatic representation, which may be compared to the first attempts of Greek or Eoman art. The Yule-play is still acted here and there in the North; its mode of performance in Gothland (p. 43) bears reference to Freyr. The little wights' play is mentioned on p. 441 n. ; on the bear's play (p. 785) I intend to enlarge more fully elsewhere. Sword-dance and giant's dance (p. 301), Berchta's running (p. 279), Whitsun play (p. 785), Easter play (p. 780), the induction of summer or May, the violet- hunt and the swallow's welcome are founded on purely heathen views ; even the custom of the kilt-gang, like that of watch- men's songs (p. 749), can be traced up to the most antique festivities.

Such are our sources, and so far do they still carry us : let us examine what results the study of them hitherto has yielded.

Divinities form the core of all mythology : ours were buried almost out of sight, and had to be dug out. Their footmarks were to be traced, partly in Names that had stubbornly refused to be rooted out, yet offered little more than their bare sound ; partly, under some altered guise, in the more fluid but fuller form of the Folk-tale. This last applies more to the goddesses, the former to the gods. Gods and heroes are found in the very names of runes, the first of which in Old Norse is Freyr, others are Thor, Zio, Eor, Asc, Man, but nowhere goddesses.

The gods that have kept the firmest hold are the three marked in the days of the week as Mercury, Jupiter, Mars ; and of these^ Wuotan stands out the most distinct. Jonas, Fredegar, Paulus Diaconus and the Abrenuntiatio name him, he towers at the head of ancient lines of kings, many places bear the indelible impress of his name. Woedenspanne signified a part of the human hand, as the North named another part 'ulf-lrSr,' wolf-lith, after the god Tfv. Unexpectedly our 13 th century has preserved for us

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one of his names [Wish], which lies in abeyance even in the Norse system, yet is the one that stands in the closest contact with the women that do the god's bidding, with the wand that unlocks his hoard, with the mantle that carries him throngh the air, nay, is the only one that puts all these in the trne light. The Norse name Omi is not quite so clearly explained by the AS. W&ma, though the word marks unmistakably the stormfnl god whom we know more certainly through our legend of the 'furious host': the wide cloak and low hat are retained m the name Hackelbernd, which I venture to trace back to a Gothic Haknl-bairands (p. 146-7). As Longbeard, the god deep-sunk in his mountain-sleep is reproduced in the royal heroes Charles and Frederick : who better than Wuotan, on whose shoulder they sit and bring him thoughts and tidings, was entitled to inquire after the flying ravens ? Kavens and wolves scented his march to victory, and they above all other animals have entered into the proper names of the people. In the Norse sagas the ques- tioner is a blind graybeard, who just as plainly is old OSin again. Father of victory, he is likewise god of blessing and bliss i.e. Wish over again, whose place is afterwards occupied by Salida (well-being). Since he appears alike as god of poetry, of measurement, of the span, of the boundary and of the dice- throw, all gifts, treasures, arts may be regarded as having pro- ceeded from him.

Though a son of Wuotan and yielding to him m power or influence, Donar (Thunar, Thor) appears at times identical with him, and to some extent as an older god worshipped before Wuotan. For, like Jupiter, he is a father, he is grandfather of many nations, and, as grandfather, is a god of the hills, a god of the rocks, a hammer, sits in the forest, throned on the mountain top, and hurls his old stone weapon, the lightning's bolt lo him the oak was sacred, and his hammer's throw measured out land, as did afterwards Wuotan's wand. He rather flies furi- ously at the giants than fights battles at the head of heroes or meditates the art of war. I think it a significant feature, .hat he drives or walks, instead of riding like Wuotan: he never

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presents himself in the wild hunt, nor in women's company. But his name is still heard in curses (Wuotan* s only in protesta- tions, p. 132); and as Bedbeard, Donar might sit in the moun- tain too. The heroes all go to Wuotan's heaven, the common folk turn in at Donar' s ; beside the elegant stately Wuotan, we see about Donar something plebeian, boorish and uncouth. He seems the more primitive deity, displaced in the course of ages (yet not everywhere) by a kindred but more comprehensive one.

If Wuotan and Donar are to be regarded as exalted deities of heaven, much more may Zio, Tius, be accepted as such, whose name expresses literally the notion of sky, while Wuotan signifies the air, and Donar the thunderstorm. And as Wuotan turns the tide of battle, Zio presents himself as the special god of war ; as Donar flings the hammer and Wuotan the spear, he is god of the sword, as exhibited in the names Sahsnot and Heru. But here much remains dark to us, because our legend has lost sight of Zio altogether. Like Wuotan, he also seems to rush down from the sky in the form of tempest.

Two others, though never appearing in the week, must yet be reckoned among the great gods. Froho, a god of hunting, of generation, fertility and summer, had long planted his name in the heart of our language, where he still maintains his ground in the derivatives fron and fronen ; his sacred golden-bristled boar survived in helmet- crests, in pastry, and at the festive meal. Year by year in kingly state Froho journeyed through the lands (p. 213. 760). He is the gracious loving deity, in contrast with the two last-mentioned, and with Wuotan in one aspect ; for, as Wish, Wuotan also seems kindly and creative like Froho.

As to Phol, scarcely known to us till now, I have hazarded so many conjectures that I will not add to their number here. If, as appears most likely, he is synonymous with Paltar (Balder), he must pass for a god of light, but also of fire, and again of tem- pest; under another view he haunted wells and springs. He approximates the higher elemental powers, and could the more easily be perverted into a diabolic being. Equally lost to Ger- many is the name of the Norse Loki, who represents fire in another

xx PEEFACE.

aspect, and was still better qualified to stand for the devil. The stories of his artfulness, his cunning tricks, have reproduced themselves repeatedly in all branches of our race.

I now turn to the Goddesses. A mother of gods, Nerthus, is named to us by Tacitus ; her name is the exact counterpart to that of a Norse god, who confirms her existence, as Freyr would confirm that of Freyja, had she come down to us only as the High German Frouwa, and from the Gothic frauja (m.) we have the same right to infer a fern, fraujd. Say that her name of Nerthus has long ago died out, if it ever extended to all branches of our race; a whole group of beings almost identical with her lives on in fadeless legend : Holde, Berhte, Fricke, Harke, Gaue, Stempe, Trempe. At the first glance none of these names seem to go very high up ; yet, Berhte at all events is introduced in poems of the 14-1 5th century, and the matter begins to wear another look the moment we can set her beside the Carolingian Berhta, beside the Eddie Biort (p. 1149), beside the deeply rooted tradition of the < white lady/ Of dame Holda the legend was never written down till the 17th century; if Holda was in the Venus-mountain, which goes as far back as the 14th, she at once gains in importance ; then further, in the 12th century we can point to Pharaildis (p. 284) ; and if, to crown all, Huldana in the stone inscription is correct (p. 266), we can have but little doubt of a Gothic worship of Hul]?6 (p. 990). Now, as Berhta and Holda are adjective names, I was fain to claim for Nerthus also an adj. basis nairthus, with the sense of mild, gracious, fair. Frigg too (p. 301-2) I interpret by the adj. free, fair, gracious. If Gaue, Gauden, is a corruption of the masc. Woden, it might still have an accessory notion of good. Frouwa is obviously the fern, to Froho, and still asserts her full power in our present frau. Almost all names of the female deities have still a trans- parent meaning ; as compared with those of the male, there is something innocent and inviolable in them, and for that reason they seem to have been treated tenderly or tolerated. The deli- cacy and inoffensive matter of the myth have shielded it longer in popular legend.

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The goddess Hellia has exchanged her personal meaning for a local one, that of hell. Ostara, Eastre, is preserved at least in the name of the high festival ; and Hreda, if my conjecture be sound, in the word for a bride's gerada (outfit), as Zio was in the name of the sword. Folia and Sindgund have only come to light through the latest discoveries.

This muster of divinities is strong enough to support the whole remaining framework of mythology ; where such pillars stand, any amount of superstructure and decoration may be taken for granted. Considered in and for themselves, almost all the indi- vidual deities appear emanations and branches of a single One ; the gods as heaven, the goddesses as earth, the one as fathers, the other as mothers, the former creating, governing, guiding, lords of victory and bliss, of air, fire and water, the goddesses nourishing, spinning, tilling, beautiful, bedizened, loving.

As all the sounds of language are reducible to a few, from whose simplicity the rest can be derived — the vowels by broaden- ing, narrowing, and combination into diphthongs, the mute con- sonants by subdivision of their three groups each into three stages, while particular dialects shift them from one stage to another in regular gradation1 ; — so in Mythology I reduce the long array of divine personages to their unity, and let their multi- plicity spring out of this unity ; and we can hardly go wrong in assuming for deities and heroes a similar coincidence, combina- tion and gradation, according to their characters and particular

1 Thus, to take an example from the Dentals :

T

TH

D

T

TH

Greek.

ta

thugatere

duo

L. Germ.

the

x daughters

v two

H. Germ.

x die

tochter

zwei

It will be seen that the High Germ, is always a stage in advance of Low Germ., and this a stage in advance of Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, &c. The Germ, z is sounded ts ; and s, like h, is a breathing.— Tkans.

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PREFACE.

functions. How Wuotan, Donar, and Zio partly run into one another has been shewn ; Logi (lowe, blaze) becomes Loki (lock, bolt), g becomes \ the sense of fire is exchanged for that of bolts and bars (of hell) , as Ham ar and Hern came to signify the im- plements they used. We have seen Wnotan reappear in long- bearded Charles, in red-bearded Frederick. On comparing the Norse hero-legend with the German, we see remarkable instances of this shifting and displacement of names and persons. Gudrun in the Edda occupies the place of our Krimhilt, while Grimhildr is her mother's name ; in the Vilkinasaga Mimir is the smith and Eeginn the dragon, in the Yolsungasaga Reginn is the smith and Fafnir the dragon. If these changes took place at haphazard, there would be nothing in them ; but they seem to proceed by regular gradation, without leaps.

Among all branches of the Teutonic race there shew them- selves innumerable varieties of dialect, each possessing an equal right ; so likewise in the people's religion we must presuppose a good many differences : the difficulty is to reconcile in every case the local bearings of the matter with the temporal. If the more numerous testimonies to Wuotan in Lower Germany would lead us to infer that he was held in higher esteem by Saxons than by Alemanns or Bavarians, we must remember that this (apparent) preference is mainly due to the longer continuance of heathenism in the north ; that in the first few centuries after conversion the south too would have borne abundant witness to the god. Upper Germany has now scarcely a single name of a place compounded with Wuotan (p. 158), Wuotan's day has there given place to < midweek/ and just there the legend of his f wiitende heer 9 is found more alive than elsewhere ! It would be a great thing to ascertain whereabouts— whether among Goths— the designation Fairguneis prevailed above that of Thunrs. Any conclusion drawn from the proximity of the Lithuanian Perkunas, the Slavic Perun, may seem bold, though it is precisely to these two nations that the Gothic and High German incline more than the Low German, even in language: witness Hruodo and Kirt (p. 248). It seems an easier matter to trace the distinction between Zio

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XX111

and Eru, and follow it up to Swabia and Bavaria ; yet, if my conjecture be right, the Cheruscans must of all races have had the best claim to Eru. Even the name of the plant Ziolinta (p. 1193) is worth taking into account. Sahsnot, Seaxneat, was assuredly an eponymous deity of the Saxons. How do Paltar and Phol stand to one another, as regards the nations that were devoted to them ? Phol appears to point, now eastward, now westward. An important mark of distinction is the change of gender in the same name of a god among different tribes. In Gothic the masc. frauja (lord) was still current as a common noun, in O.H. German the fern, frouwa, in 0. Saxon only the masc. froho, fro, A.S. frea, so that Goths and Saxons seem to have preferred the god, High Germans the goddess ; in the North both Freyr and Freyja are honoured alike. But the North knows only the god NiorSr, and the Germans living on the opposite side of the Baltic only the goddess Nerthus. The relation of Zio to Zisa, perhaps Isis (p. 293), demands further explanation. No doubt the numerous aliases of that female deity, who is not yet forgotten in modern legend, are due to differences of race : Holda shews herself in Hesse, Thuringia, and North Franconia, Berhta in Vogtland, East Franconia and sundry tracts of Swabia, where likewise a male Berhtold encounters us. There is no trace of either goddess in Lower Germany, but a dame Freke now turns up in the Mark, and dame Gaue haunts Meck- lenburg between Elbe and Weser. Yet in ancient times Holda, as Huldana, must have reached far westward to the Ehine, and, if the Ver-hilden-straet (p. 285) was named after her, into the Netherlands, reminding us of the kinship between Chatti and Batavi ; while the Carolingian Berhta Pedauca and the Biort of the Edda would betoken a similar extension of Berhta's worship. We must pay regard to the almost universal rash of nations toward the West : even Isis and her Suevian ship we managed to

trace as far as the Ardennes. But, beside the deities, other

portions of mythology must also have their say. Him ins and himil, himel and heven are discussed on p. 698, the lapse of Himil into Gimill on p. 823 ; in Hesse is the borderland between Wights

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PREFACE.

and Elves, the one belonging to Franconian, the other to Saxon soil : the Low Saxon hiine is out of use in High Germany, even in O.H. German the huni seem to be only Huns, not giants, and the M.H. German hiune had a very limited circulation, being never heard now in Hesse, Swabia or Bavaria, unless we are to look for it in the name of the disease (p. 1163).

Such investigations and similar ones capable of indefinite expansion, some of them not even dreamt of at present, may gradually become important to the internal aspect of our own Mythology : a still more urgent task is, to establish its relation to the Religions of Other Nations j nay, this is really the hinge on which mythological study in general turns. But seldom have their mutual influences or differences been so successfully explored, as to educe therefrom a safe standard for the treats ment of any one mythology.

Every nation seems instigated by nature to isolate itself, to keep itself untouched by foreign ingredients. Its language, its epos feel happy in the home circle alone ; only so long as it rolls between its own banks does the stream retain its colour pure. An undisturbed development of all its own energies and inmost impulses proceeds from this source, and our oldest language, poetry and legend seem to take no other course. But the river has not only to take up the brooks that convey fresh waters to it from hill and mountain, but to disembogue itself at last in the wide ocean : nations border upon nations, and peaceful inter- course or war and conquest blend their destinies in one. From their combinations will come unexpected results, whose gain deserves to be weighed against the loss entailed by the suppres- sion of the domestic element. If the language, literature and faith of our forefathers could at no time resist at all points the pressure of the Foreign, they have one and all undergone the most disruptive revolution by the people's passing over to Christianity.

We had long plagued ourselves to derive all languages from the far-off Hebrew ; it was only by closely studying the history

PBEFACE.

XXV

of the European idioms near at hand, that a safe road was at length thrown open, which, leaving on one side for the moment the Semitic province, leads farther on into the heart of Asia. Between the Indian and Zendic languages and the majority of those which spread themselves over Europe there exists an immediate tie, yet of such a kind as makes them all appear as sisters, who at the outset had the same leading features, but afterwards, striking into paths of their own, have everywhere found occasion and reason to diverge from each other. Amongst all languages on earth points of contact are to be found, any discovered rule compels us to admit exceptions, and these ex- ceptions are apt to be misleading ; but the rule teaches us to fix upon fundamental distinctions, for which we can only expect a very slow resolution into a higher unity. While there is every appearance of Europe not having contained any aborigines, but received its population gradually from Asia, yet the figures in our chronologies do not reach back to the actual descent of all human speech from one original source; and the strata of our mountains bear witness to a higher prehistoric age, whose im- measurable breadth no inquirer can penetrate. Then, over and above the original kinship necessarily underlying the facts taught by comparative philology, we must also assume in the history of European tongues some external, accidental and manifest inter- changes of influence between them, which, powerful and resultful as they may have been, are to be carefully distinguished from that more hidden agency : we have only to call to mind the former influence of Latin and the later of French on almost all the other languages, or the origin of English from a mixture of Teutonic and Komance elements. The difference between the two kinds of likeness shews itself especially in the fact that, while the originally cognate elements of a language remain flexible and intelligible, the borrowed ones, because they are borrowed, shew an indistinctness of form and a crippling of movement. Hence all cognate words are rooted in the essential life of a language, about which the borrowed ones mostly tell us nothing : how lifeless, for example, has our adj. rund become I

xxvi

PREFACE.

whereas the French rond, from which it comes, can still carry us back to roond, reond, the Span, redondo, It. rotondo, and so to rotundus, and therefore rota. Again, cognate forms are seldom confined to one stem or branch, but run impartially through several : e.g. our numerals ; our ist, Goth, ist, Lat. est, Gr. earl, Skr. asti; the Goth, sa, so, )?ata, AS. se, seo, ]?a3t, ON. sa, su, ]?at, Gr. 6, rj, to, Skr. sa, sa, tad ; all of them consonances which did not arise, like that ' rund/ at some definite assignable period, but were there from time immemorial.

These examples are well known, and are here chosen merely to make good for Mythology also a distinction between material that was common from the first and that which was borrowed and came in later. Our scholarship, disloyal to its country, inured to outlandish pomp and polish, loaded with foreign speech and science, miserably stocked with that of home, was prepared to subordinate the myths of our olden time to those of Greece and Rome, as something higher and stronger, and to overlook the independence of German poetry and legend, just as if in grammar also we were free to derive the German ist from est and ecrrl, instead of putting the claims of these three forms perfectly on a par. Giving the go-by to that really wonderful and de- lightful consonance, whose origin would have had to be pushed far back, they struggled, however much against the grain, to hunt up any possible occasions of recent borrowing, so as to strip their country of all productive power and pith. Not content even with handing over our mythology to foreign countries, they were eager, with as little reason, to shift its contents into the sphere of history, and to disparage essentially unhistoric elements by expounding them as facts.

Why hold our tongues about the mischief and the caprices of this criticism ? Mone, an honest and able explorer, whose strenuous industry I respect, will often come half-way to meet the truth, then suddenly spring aside and begin worrying her. By hook or by crook the Reinhart of our apologue must be re- solved into a historical one, the Siegfried of our heroic lay into Arminius, Civilis and Siegbert by turns, Tanhauser into Ulysses.

PBEFACE.

XXV11

In all that I had gathered by a careful comparison of original authorities on sorcery and witches, he of course can see neither circumspectness nor moderation, who gravely imagines that witchcraft was once a reality, who from the minutes of a single trial in 1628 jumps at once to the Greek Dionysia, makes the devil Dionysus, and warms up again the stale explanation of hexe (witch) from Hecate. This is allowing the devil a great antiquity in comparison with those heroes ; to me Reinhart and Isengrim seem to reach up far higher than the ninth century, and Siegfried even beyond Arminius, therefore a long way before the time when the term devil first came into our language. Several designations of the giants are unmistakably connected with the names of surrounding nations ; Moneys view applies them to Indians, Frisians, Persians, according as the words ent and wrise suit his purpose; let no one be startled to find that Caucasus comes from our Gouchsberg (cuckoo's hill) !

A later work, whose merits I acknowledge on p. 1070n., comes in not unseasonably here. Soldan agrees in my opinion on the atrocity and folly of the witch-persecutions, but he would dispute the connection of witches with German mythology, and derive all our magic and demonology from the Greeks and Romans again. The resemblance of the mediaeval notions to classical antiquity strikes him so forcibly, that he seems to think, either that Germany and all barbarian Europe till their early contact with the Romans were without any magic or belief in ghosts, or that such belief suddenly died out. The Walburgis-night, it seems, was suggested by Roman lares praestites, even the practice of bidding for fiefs by floralia and averruncalia, and the cutting of henbane by the fruges excantare : why may not our es also come from id, our auge from oculus, our zehn from decern ? At that rate Wuotan might without more ado be traced back to Jupiter, Holda to Diana, the alp to the genius, all German mythology to Roman, and nothing be left us of our own but the bare soil that drank in the foreign doctrine.

When two nations resemble each other in . language, manners, and religion, such agreement is welcome in proof of their age,

xxviii

PEEFACE.

and is not to be perverted to conclusions in favour of borrowing or influence which any peculiarity in them may suggest. But the stamp of authority will be given to research, when side by side with the string of consonances there also runs an inevitable string of divergences and transpositions.

In our book of heroes the adventures of Wolfdieterich and Orendel have in their several ways a striking similarity to features in the Odyssey, especially does the angel's mission to shaggy Els and to lady Breide resemble that of Hermes to Calypso, when she is commanded to let Odysseus go. But such wanderings of heroes and encounters with wise women and giants seem to be a common epic property prevailing everywhere, while the very absence here of all the other main motives of the Greek myth ex- cludes the supposition of borrowing. We may surely give their due weight to the many resemblances of Wuotan to Zeus and Apollo, of Zio to Zeus and Ares, we may recognise Nerthus in Demeter, Erigg and Freyja in Hera and Aphrodite, Wieland in Hephsestus and Deedalus, without the whole swarm of Grecian gods needing therefore to be transported to our soil, or all that this produced having to be looked for in Greece. Must ' honum hlo hugr i briosti' have somehow got into the Edda from Homer's eyekaaae Be oi (f>t\ov rjrop ? The distinction, drawn in Homer as well as the Edda, between the speech of gods and of men may signify something to us, and yet be no harder to explain than the identity of Zio with Zeus, or of Zev? irarrjp with All- father. It is beautiful how Venus and venustus are made in- telligible by the ON. vaonn and vaenstr, and even by the 0. Sax. superlative wanumo. What is true of the Greek and Eoman mythologies, that with all their similarity they are yet far from identical, has to be asserted with still more emphasis of the relation between the Eoman and German, inasmuch as Greek literature left an infinitely deeper dint on the Roman, than Latin literature was ever able to produce on our antiquity. If in ch. XXXV and XXXVII many things are quoted which appear to spring out of Roman superstition, it is fully justified by the poverty of native information compelling me to seek a support for it from abroad :

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I do not suppose that the old German fancies about beasts crossing one's path, or about the virtues of herbs, were in them- selves any poorer than the Roman.

What I claim for Teutonic nations as compared with the Greeks and Romans, must also hold good of them as regards the Celts, Slavs, Lithuanians and Finns, whose paganism was similar to ours or not so similar. Here however the quantity of coinci- dences is still more damaging to the theory of plagiarisms, which would else encumber every nook and corner.

In favour of the study of Celtic languages and legends a whole- some reaction has set in, insisting that this downtrodden race, which once occupied wide tracts of Germany, shall receive its due. By no means poor in memorials, it has an auxiliary resource in several living tongues, the Armoric, Welsh, Irish and High- land Scotch. But the paths still lie uncertain and slippery, and what we concede to the Celts ought not in the zeal of discovery to be turned against ourselves; in cases of resemblance what is genuinely German must put in its claim too. Now Heinrich Schreiber's interesting studies of grave- mounds, weapons and fays appear to me at times to stray beyond the true line : surely the horses' heads on roof-gables in Mecklenburg and Holstein are more undoubtedly German than the similar ones in Switzerland are Celtic ; and so far as our elfins and white ladies extend, they have their justification, as the fays have on the other side. Some obscure names of animals Leo has, I think, succeeded in inter- preting as Celtic ; so long as he is obliged to leave the main characters in the fable German, as Reginhart and Isangrim, I have no fear for the genuineness of our epos ; and the foreignness of subordinate characters tends to throw farther back the date of the entire poem. Also what he contributes to Nerthus and muspell (Haupt 3, 226) demands attention. Beside the fays, who answer to our swan-maidens, wish- wives and norns, beside Abundia, who resembles Folia (fulness), I attach importance to Taranis = Donar, to Gwydion = Wuotan, to Beal = Phol or Balder, and I am not sure but that Hesus is the same as Cheru, and that Segomon (p. 371) ought not to be overlooked. Needfires and May-offerings

XXX

PKEFACE.

are subjects for consideration. It would greatly advance our knowledge of Wuotan's true nature, if we could ascertain how far the Celtic worship of Mercury differed from the Roman ; to all appearance that deity was greater to the Celts and Germans than Hermes-Mercury was to the Greeks and Romans ; to Tris- megistus and Tervagan I allude on p. 150. All that is left us of the Celtic religion, even in stray fragments, bespeaks a more finished mental culture than is to be found in German or Norse mythology; there comes out in it more of priestly lore. But in respect of genius and epic matter our memorials are incom- parably superior.

As the Celts enclose us on the west, so do the Slavs on the east ; and Slavic writers, like the Celtic, are rather fond, wherever their ancient faith coincides with ours, of interpreting things from a Slavic point of view, which can just as well be explained from a German. The affinity of the two races can be perceived at once by such old cognate words as the Gothic sunus (son), O.H. German sunu, Slavic syn; Goth. Hubs (dear), OHG. Hop, Boh. Hby, Russ. liubo ; Goth. lau]?s (people), OHG. Hut, Slav. Hud j Goth, hlaifs (loaf), OHG. hleip, Slav, khleb. And the mythic resemblances are no less significant, Radegast must stand for Wuotan, Perun for Fairguneis, Fiorgunn, but Svatovit for Zio ; between Radegast the god of bliss (rad glad, radost joy), and our Wish, the harmony is yet stronger. Kroto reminds us of Kirt, Molnia of Miolnir (pp. 1221. 813). How near the badniak of the Servians comes to our Christmas fire! their cuckoo-pole to the Langobardic dove-pole (p. 1135n.), their dodola to the fetching-in of rain (p. 594), the carrying-out of death to the fight of summer and winter, the vila to our wise-women ! If the elf and dwarf legends appear less polished than they are among Celts and Germans, our giant legend on the other hand has much more in common with the Slavic and Finnic. No doubt Slav mythology altogether is several degrees wilder and grosser than German, yet many things in it will make a different figure when once the legends and fairy tales are more fully and faithfully gathered in, and the gain to German research also will be great.

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From similar collections of Lithuanian, Samogitian and Lettish myths revelations no less important are impending, as we may anticipate from the remarkable connexion between the lan- guages.

More results have already been attained in Finland, whose people, comparable in this to the Servians alone, have in their mouths to this day a most wonderful store of songs and tales, though in Servian poetry the heroic legend predominates, and in Finnic the myth. Merely by what Ganander, Porthan and now Lonnrot have published, an immense deal is bridged over between the German, Norse, Slav, Greek and Asiatic mythologies. Rask (in Afhand. 1, 96) had already derived some Norse names of giants from Finnic. And further, the distinction we made be- tween legend and fairy-tale does not at all apply as yet to this Finnic poetry : it stands at an older stage, where the marvels of the fairy-tale without any sense of incongruity mingle with the firmer basis of the folk-tale, and even the animal fable can be admitted. Wainamoinen (Esth. Wannemunne) can be compared to Wuotan both in general, and particularly in his character of Wish : the Finnic waino and wainotem signify desiderium, wainok cupidus, wainotet desiderare : the Swedish Lapps, with a kindred language, have waino (wish, desire), and the Norwegian Lapps vaimel cupidus. Thus Wish, Radegast and Wainamoinen seem to be getting nearer to each other. This last is a god of poetry and singing (p. 907), he is constantly called Wanha, the old one, as the thunder-god Ukko likewise is called father or old, and his wife Akka mother or old. With the Lapps, Atia means both grandfather and thunder (see f old daddy/ p. 168). As Thor's minni was drunk, so full bowls were emptied in honour of Ukko. Wainamoinen wakes Wipune out of her grave (Rune 10), as OSinn does Yola. Ilmarinen, the smith-god of the Finns, re- minds us of Hephaestus and Yolundr, but makes a deeper im- pression than either ; he fashioned a wife for himself out of gold (conf. p. 570 n.). To the Lapps, Sarakka means creatress, from saret to create, a goddess of fortune.

All Finnish nations use Yumala as a general name for the

xxxii

PREFACE.

Supreme Being in the sense of our God or the Slavic Bogh, to which corresponds the Swed. Lapp, yupmel, Norw. Lapp, ibmel; but the Syrian have also yen (gen. yenlon), the Permians en, the Votiaks inmar, the Tcheremiss yumn. Along the northern edge of Europe and over the Ural into northern Asia extends this widespread group of nations of the Finn kind, their languages and myths shewing everywhere a common character. The Votiaks, like the Slavs and Germans, hold the woodpecker sacred (p. 765) ; but what I lay special stress upon is the bear-worship of these nations, which has left its traces in Sweden and Norway, and betrays the earliest stage of our Teutonic beast-legend (p. 667). Poetic euphemisms designate the sacred beast, and as soon as he is slain, solemn hymns are struck up as by way of atonement. Eunes 28 and 29 in Kalewala describe such a hunt with all its ceremonial. Ostiaks in taking an oath kneel on a bearskin, in heathen sacrifices they covered the victim with a bearskin (p. 1010), and long afterwards they hung bearskins about them in the service of the devil (p. 1018). As the bear was king of all beasts, the terms applied to him of ' old one 3 and ' grandfather I suggest those of the thunder-god. The constellation of the Great Bear (p. 725) would of itself seem an evident trace of his worship even among the Greeks.

Coming down from northern Asia to the tribes of the Caucasus, we again meet with the most remarkable coincidences. The Tcherkesses (Circassians) keep up a worship of the boar (p. 215), as did the ancient Aestyi and Germani. Both Tcherkesses and Ossets glorify the same Elias (p. 173-4, conf. p. 185) who is such a sacred personage to the Slav races. Even the ancient Alani and Scythians seem to be linked with the heathen Germans by their worship of the sword (p. 204) ; Attila means grandfather, and is among Huns as well as Germans a name for mountains. The same inspection of shoulder-blades that Jornandes relates of Huns goes on to this day among Kalmuks (p. 1113). A good many Mongolian customs agree with those of Celts and Germans : I will only instance the barleycorn's being the unit of all mea- surement of land (see my account of it in Berl. Jahrb. for 1842,

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XXXI 11

pp. 795-6) ; conf. the Finnic ohrasen yivea=hordei granum, Kal. 17, 625. 27, 138.

A still closer agreement with our antiquities than exists among Finns and Mongols is to be looked for in the more cognate Zendic and Indian mythologies. That of India is finely wrought like the Greek, but I think the Greek has the same advantage over it that I awarded to the German as compared with the Celtic : a certain theosophic propensity betrays itself in the In- dians as well as Celts, which in the fulness of Greek and German myth falls more into the background. It seems worthy of notice, that to the Indian gods and goddesses are assigned celestial dwellings with proper names, as in the Edda. Among the gods themselves, Brahma's creative power resembles Wuotan's, Indra is akin to Donar, being the wielder of lightning and the ruler of air and winds, so that as god of the sky he can also be compared to Zio. The unison of our Wish with the notion embodied in manoratha (p. 870) deserves attention. Nerthus answers to Bhavani (p. 255), Halja to Kali, and Mannus to Manus (p. 578), the last two examples being letter for letter the same; but one thing that must not be "overlooked is, that the same myth of man's creation out of eight materials (pp. 564 — 7) which has already turned up five times, appears in a portion of the Yedas, the Aitareya Aranya, from which an excerpt is given in Cole- brooke's Misc. Essays, Lond. 1837, vol. 1, p. 47 seq. ; here also eight ingredients are enumerated : fire, air, sun, space, herb, moon, death, and water. Naturally the details vary again, though even the five European accounts are not without a certain Indian colouring. Still more interesting perhaps is an echo that reaches the very heart of our hero-legend. Putraka (in Somadeva i. 19) comes upon two men who are fighting for some magic gifts, a cup, a staff, and a pair of shoes; he cheats them into running a race, steps into the shoes himself, and flies up into the clouds with the cup and staff. With the same adroitness Siegfried among the dwarfs manages the division of their hoard, upon which lies the wishing-rod (p. 457) ; and our nursery tales are full of such divisions (Altd. bl. 1, 297. KM. ed. 5, no. 193.

VOL. III. c

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2, 502. Bechstein's Marchen p. 75). The same trick decides the quarrel in Asbiornsen, no. 9, p. 59, and in the Hungarian tale, Gaal p. 166.

Now whence can these details have been imported into the homespun fairy-tale? Every country has them at its fingers' ends. To take another striking instance : the story of the three cousins (p. 415) who had spun till the nose of one grew long, another's eyes red, and another's fingers thick, is told still more vividly in Norway (Asb. and Moe, no. 13), and most vividly in Scotland (Chambers, p. 54-5). Or the changeling's unfailing formula (pp. 469. 927), was that conveyed from Denmark to Scotland, from Ireland to Hesse ? Was the legend of the willow that has never heard a cock crow (p. 1243) handed over by the Eomans to the Poles; and the myth of the thunder-bolt by the Greek to the Slav, by the Slav to the German ? Did a little bird always pick up the legendary seed, and lug it over hill and dale to other lands ? I believe Myth to be the common property of many lands, that all its ways are not yet known, but that it is properest to that nation with whose gods it closely coalesces, as a word common to several languages may best be claimed by that one which can explain its root. The legend of Tell relates no real event, yet, without fabrication or lying, as a genuine myth it has shot up anew in the bosom of Switzerland, to embellish a transaction that took hold of the nation's inmost being.

I do not deny for a moment, that beside this mysterious diffusion of myths there has also been borrowing from without, nay, that they could be purposely invented or imported, though it is a harder matter than one would imagine for this last sort to take root among the people. Koman literature has from early times spread itself over other European lands, and in certain cases it may be quite impossible to strike the balance between its influence and that inner growth of legend. And nowhere is extrinsic influence less a matter of doubt than where, by the collision of christian doctrine with heathenism among the

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converted nations, it became unavoidable to abjure the old, and in its place to adopt or adapt what the new faith introduced or tolerated.

Oftentimes the Church — and I have specified sundry instances — either was from the outset, or gradually became, tolerant and indulgent. She prudently permitted, or could not prevent, that heathen and christian things should here and there run into one another ; the clergy themselves would not always succeed in marking off the bounds of the two religions ; their private lean- ings might let some things pass, which they found firmly rooted in the multitude. In the language, together with a stock of newly imported Greek and Latin terms, there still remained, even for ecclesiastical use, a number of Teutonic words previously employed in heathen services, just as the names of gods stood ineradicable in the days of the week ; to such words old customs would still cling, silent and unnoticed, and take a new lease of life. The festivals of a people present a tough material, they are so closely bound up with its habits of life, that they will put up with foreign additions, if only to save a fragment of festivities long loved and tried. In this way Scandinavia, probably the Goths also for a time, and the Anglo-Saxons down to a late period, retained the heathenish Yule, as all Teutonic Christians did the sanctity of Eastertide ; and from these two the Yule-boar and Yule-bread, the Easter pancake, Easter sword, Easter fire and Easter dance could not be separated. As faithfully were perpetuated the name and in many cases the observances of Midsummer. New christian feasts, especially of saints, seem purposely as well as accidentally to have been made to fall on heathen holidays. Churches often rose precisely where a heathen god or his sacred tree had been pulled down, and the people trod their old paths to the accustomed site : sometimes the very walls of the heathen temple became, those of the church, and cases occur in which idol-images still found a place in a wall of the porch, or were set up outside the door, as at Bamberg cathe- dral there lie Slavic-heathen figures of animals inscribed with runes. Sacred hills and fountains were re-christened after saints,

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to whom their sanctity was transferred ; sacred woods were handed over to the newly-founded convent or the king, and even under private ownership did not altogether lose their long- accustomed homage. Law-usages, particularly the ordeals and oath-takings, but also the beating of bounds, consecrations, image- processions, spells and formulas, while retaining their heathen character, were simply clothed in christian forms. In some customs there was little to change : the heathen practice of sprinkling a newborn babe with water (vatni ausa p. 592, dicare p. 108, line 5) closely resembled christian baptism, the sign of the hammer that of the cross, and the erection of tree-crosses the irmensuls and world-trees of paganism. Still more significant must appear that passage where Voluspa and the Bible coincide (p. 811) ; in the far later S61ar-lio$ traces of christian teaching are discernible.

In a conflux of so many elements it could not but happen, even where the mental conceptions and views of a simple populace un- able to do without myths had felt the full force of the revolution, that in its turn the Old, not wholly extinct, should half un- consciously get interwoven with the irrepressible New. Jewish and christian doctrine began to lean towards heathen, heathen fancies and superstitions to push forward and, as it were, take refuge in all the places they found unoccupied by the new reli- gion. Here we find christian material in a heathen form, there heathen matter in a christian disguise.

As the goddess Ostara was converted into a notion of time, so was Hellia into one of place. The beliefs of our forefathers about elves and giants got intensified and expanded into angels and devils, but the legends remained the same. Wuotan, Donar, Zio, Phol put on the nature of malignant diabolic beings, and the story of their solemn yearly visitation shaped itself into that of a wild rabble rout, which the people now shunned with horror, as formerly they had thronged to those processions.

Veiled under the biblical names of Cain, Elias, Enoch, Anti- christ, Herodias, there come into view the same old myths about moon-spots, giants' buildings, a god of thunder and of storm, the

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gracious (holde) night-dame and the burning of the world. And what arrests our attention still more is, that to the Virgin Mary we apply a whole host of charming legends about Holda and Frouwa, norns and valkyrs, as the Romans did those about Venus, J uno and the parcae ; nay, in the fairy-tale, dame Holle and Mary can usurp the place of gray-hatted Wuotan. What a tender fragrance breathes in those tales of Mary, and what has any other poetry to put by the side of them ? To the kindly heathen traits is superadded for us that sense of superior sanctity which encompasses this Lady. Herbs and flowers are named after Mary, her images are carried about, and, quite in accord- ance with the heathen worship, installed on forest trees. She is a divine mother, she is a spinning-wife, she appears as maid of mercy (vierge secourable) to whosoever calls upon her. To the country folk in Italy, Mary stands well in the foreground of their religion ; the Madonnas of several churches in Naples are looked upon as so many different divine beings, and even as rivals, and a Santa Venere by their side gives no offence. Three Marys together (p. 416, note) resemble the three norns and three *fays; Mary carries stones and earth in her apron (p. 537) like Athena or the fay. The worship of Mary altogether, being neither founded on Scripture nor recognised by the first cen- turies, can only be explained by the fact of those pretty and harmless but heathen fancies having taken such deep root in the people that the Church also gradually combined with them a more daintily devised and statelier devotion (attentio) which we find woven into numerous legends and sermons.

But Mary does not stand alone by a long way. Immediately at her side there has grown up in the Catholic and Greek churches an interminable adoration of Saints, to make up for heathen gods of the second or third rank, for heroes and wise- women, and to fill the heart by bridging the gulf between it and pure Deity. Dogma may distinguish between Deity and inter- cessors ; but how many a pious lip, moving in prayer before the sacred image, must be unaware of this distinction, or forget it ! And further, among the saints themselves there are various

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PEEEACE.

grades, and the particular troubles under which they can be of service are parcelled out among them like so many offices and lines of business, so that almost every disease and its remedy are called by the name of their saint; this division of tasks has the strongest analogy to the directions given in Norse and Lithuanian mythology for the invocation of the several deities (p. 335). The victorious hero who had slain the dragon made room for Michael or George; and the too pagan Siegberg (p. 198), which may have meant the same as Eresberg (p. 201), was handed over to Michael, as the mons Martis in France was turned into a mons martyrum, Montmartre. It is remarkable that the Ossets have converted the dies Martis into Georgeday, and dies Veneris into Mary's day (Pott 1, 105. 2, 802). The places of OSinn and of Freyja in minni-drinking are taken by John and by Gertrude, a saint who in other ways also has changed places with the goddess (pp. 61. 305. 673); but we can easily see why the heathen counterpart to a saint's legend is oftener to be found in the Roman than in our German mythology. The Church in her saints and canonizations had not the wit to keep within bounds, and the disproportion comes out most glaringly in the fact that the acts and miracles of the Saviour and his apostles are in some cases outdone by those of the saints. Whoever would push these investigations further, as they deserve to be pushed, will have to take particular notice, what saints are the first to emerge in the popular faith of any country, and which of them in poems and in forms of benediction have gradually slipt into the places of the old gods.

Here let me illustrate the more or less thorough interpene- tration and commingling of Christian and heathen legend by two examples, which seem to me peculiarly important.

It must be regarded as one of the original possessions common to our mythologies, that the God, or two gods, or three, descend from heaven to earth, whether to prove men's works and ways (p. 337), or in search of adventures. This does violence to the christian belief in God's omnipresence and omniscience ; but it

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is a very pleasing fancy, that of the gods in person walking the earth unrecognised, and dropping in at the houses of mortals. Even the Odyssey 17, 485-7 alludes to such wanderings, in which is found the loftiest consecration of hospitality : a man will be loth to turn away a stranger, under whose guise a celestial god may ba visiting him. A Greek myth with details appears in the story of Orion : three gods, Zeus, Poseidon, Hermes (some say Zeus, Ares, Hermes = Donar, Zio, Wuotan) take lodging with Hyrieus, and after being feasted, give him leave to ask a favour ; he wishes for a son, and they create him one much in the same way as Kvasir was engendered (p. 902, conf. 1025 n.). Ovid's Fasti 5, 495 — 535. Hyginus 195 relates the same fable of the Thracian Byrseus. In the beautiful legend of Philemon and Baucis (Ovid's Met. 8, 626 — 721), Jupiter and Mercury are travel- ling, and reward their kind entertainers by saving them from the impending deluge (p. 580) ; a fable of Phaedrus makes the divine messenger alone, the god of roads and highways, pass the night with mortals (Mercurium, hospitio mulieres olim duae illiberali et sordido receperant) . But Demeter also is at times represented as travelling and associating with men, as would be natural for all mothers of gods ; Aesop in Fab. 54 makes Demeter travel with a swallow and an eel, but when they came to a river the bird flew up, the fish slipt into the water, and what did Demeter do ? With the Indians it is principally Brahma and Vishnu that visit the earth. In a Lithuanian legend Perkunos walks the earth at the time when beasts yet spoke ; he first met the horse, and asked his way. ' I have no time to shew thee the way, I have to eat.* Hard by was an ox grazing who had heard the traveller's request : ' Come, stranger/ he cried, ' I will shew thee the way to the river Then said the god to the horse : f As thou couldst not for eating find time to do me a turn of kind- ness, thou shalt for a punishment be never satisfied ; 3 then to the ox: 'Thou good-natured beast shalt conveniently appease thy hunger, and after chew the cud at thine ease, for thou wert ready to serve me/ This myth likewise inculcates kindness to the stranger, and for Perkunos subsequent narrators could without

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PEE FACE.

scruple substitute the Saviour. In the Edda it is always OSinn, Loki and Hcenir that go on journeys together, the same three Ases that also co-operate in creating (p. 560), for Lo$r and Loki are apparently one (p. 241), and in this connexion Loki has nothing base or bad about him. Hcenir is called in Sn. 106 sessi, sinni, mali OSins (sodalis, comes, collocutor Odini). These three Ases set out on a journey, and at night seek a lodging ; in the stories preserved to us no mention is made of a trial of hospitality. In a later saga OSinn with Loki and Hcenir rides to the chase (Miiller's Sagabibl. 1, 364) ; and a remarkable lay of the Faroe Isles (Lyngbye pp. 500 seq.) presents the same three, Ouvin, Honer and Lokkji, not indeed as travelling, but as succouring gods, who when called upon immediately appear, and one after the other deliver a boy whom giant Skrujmsli is pursuing, by hiding him, quite in fairy-tale fashion, in an ear of barley, a swan's feather, and a fish's egg. There were doubtless many more stories like this, such as the Norwegian tale in Asbiorn. no. 21, conf. p. 423. As bearing upon their subsequent transfer- ence, it must not be overlooked that in Fornm. s6g. 9, 56. 175 OSinn on horseback calls one evening at a blacksmith's, and has his horse shod ; his identity with Hermes becomes quite startling in these myths. At other times however it is Thorr with his heavy hammer (p. 180) that seeks a lodging, like Zeus, and when he stays the night at the peasant's, Loki accompanies Thorr (Sn. 49) ; then again Heimdallr, calling himself Kigr, traverses the world, and founds the families of man. The Finnish legend makes Wainamoinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkainen travel (rune 23), quite on a par with OSinn, Loki, and Hcenir.

If now we look from these heathen myths to those in a christian dress and of a later time, the connexion between them can be no enigma : that of Perkunos changing into the Saviour has already set us the key. Either Christ and Peter journey out together, or one of the two alone ; the fable itself turns about in more than one direction. Antique above all sounds the visit of these godlike beings, like that of OSinn, to the blacksmith, and here the rewarding of hospitality is not left out. In the Norw.

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tale no. 21, the Saviour, after he has far surpassed his host in feats of skill, yet places three wishes at his disposal, the very- same that were allowed the smith of Jiiterbok : compare also Kinderm. no. 147, the Netherl. story of Smeke in Wolfs Wodana p. 54 seq., and H. Sachs iv. 3, 70. But in Kinderm. 82, though the player, like the smith, asks for the tree from which one cannot get down, the main point with him is the dice, and the bestowal of them cannot but remind us of Wuotan the inventor of dice (p. 150. 1007), and again of Mercury. In H. Sachs ii. 4, 114 it is only Peter that bestows the wishing-die on a lands- knecht at work in the garden. But the Fabliau St. Pierre et le jongleur (Meon 3, 282) relates how the juggler fared after death in hell; though nothing is said of travelling or gift-giving, yet Peter coming down from heaven in a black beard and smug moustaches and with a set of dice, to win from the showman the souls entrusted to his keeping, has altogether the appearance of Wuotan, who is eager, we know, to gather souls into his dwell- ing ; and that tailor who hurled the leg of a chair out of heaven (p. 136) had been admitted by Peter. Then another group of legends betrays a new feature, full of significance to us. The Saviour and Peter are travelling together, Peter has to dress the dinner, and he bites a leg off the roast chicken (Wolfs Wodana, p. 180) ; in the Latin poem of Heriger, belonging to the tenth century, Peter is called in so many words head-cook of heaven, and a droll fellow secretly eats a piece of lung off the roast, as in Marchen no. 81 brother Lustig, travelling with Peter, steals the heart of the roast lamb, and elsewhere the landsknecht or the Swabian steals the liver. This seems to be all the same myth, for the circumstance that Peter plays by turns the culprit and the god whose attendant is in fault, may itself be of very old date : even the heathen stories may have made (Mnn and Loki change places. Loki is all the more a cook, a roast-stealer, and there- fore on a line with Peter, as even the Edda imputes to him the eating of a heart (the suspected passage in Seem. 118b I emend thus : 'Loki athiarta lundi brenda, fann hann halfsvrbmn hugstein konu/ Lokius comedit cor in nemore assum, invenit semiustum

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mentis-lapidem mulieris), and in our ancient beast-fable the sly fox (Loki still) carries off the stag's heart half-roasted (Reinh. xlviii. lii) . — Nor does this by any means exhaust the stock of such tales of travel. Hans Sachs 1, 492 made up a poem in 1557 (and Burc. Waldis 4, 95 before him in 1537) how Peter journey- ing with Christ wished in the pride of his heart to rule the world, and could not so much as manage the goat which the Lord had given into his hands for one day; again 1, 493 how they arrived at a parting of the roads, and asked their way of a lazy workman lying in the shade of a peartree, who gave them a gruff answer; then they came upon a maidservant, who was toiling in the sweat of her brow, but, on being asked, immedi- ately laid her sickle down, and saw the Lord into the right road : ' be this maid/ said the Saviour to Peter, ' assigned to none other but that man/ (in Agricola, Spr. 854, the maid is idle and the man industrious). This recalls not only Perkunos with the horse and ox, but the norns or fays passing through the land in the legend quoted on p. 409. Old French poems give the jDart of short-sighted Peter to the hermit who escorts an angel through the world (Meon, Nouv. rec. 2, 116, and pref. to tome 1) ; from Mielcke's Lith. sprachl. p. 167 I learn that the same ver- sion prevails in Samogitia, and the Gesta Romanor. cap. 80 tell of the angelus et eremita. As the gods lodged with Philemon and Baucis, so does a dwarf travelling in the Grindelwald with some poor but hospitable folk, and protects their little house from the flood (DS. no. 45) ; in Kinderm. 87 God Almighty lodges with the poor man, and allows him three wishes ; to Biigen comes the old beggar-man ( = Wuotan), gets a night's lodging from a poor woman, and on leaving in the morning lets her dabble in the wishing business, which turns out ill for the envious neighbour. Thiele (Danmarks folkesagn 2, 306) finds the very same myth in Fiinen, and here the traveller is Peter again : the Norwegian tale makes the Lord God and Peter come to dame Gertrude and turn the stingy thing into a bird (p. 673). There is a popular joke about Christ and Peter being on a journey, and the Saviour creating the first Bohemian; and a Netherl. tale

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(Wodana p. xxxvii) about their putting up at an ogre's house in a wood, and being concealed by his compassionate wife, an incident that occurs in many other tales.

Afzelius (Sagohafder 3, 1 55), while he proves the existence of these legends of Christ and Peter in Sweden also, is certainly wrong in pronouncing them mere fabricated drolleries, not founded on popular belief. They are as firmly grounded as any- thing can be on primitive traditions, and prove with what fidelity the people's memory has cared for our mythology, while MHG. poets despise these fables which they could have sung so admir- ably, just as they leave on one side dame Berhte and Holde and in general what is of home growth. Yet a couple of allusions may prove, if proof it needs, that this dressing up of the old myth was in vogue as early as the 13th century : Kumelant (Amgb. 12a) relates of Christ and Peter, how they came to a deep rivulet into which a man had fallen, who was doing nothing to help him- self; and a nameless poet (Mone's Anz. 5, 192) tells of a wood- cutter whom Peter was trying to hoist into heaven by his mallet, but when on the topmost rung, the mallet's handle came off, and the poor man dropt into hell. The pikeman or blacksmith in the fairy-tale got on better by flinging his knapsack or apron (sledge- hammer in Asbiornsen p. 136 is still more archaic) into heaven. Of course these wanderings of the Saviour and one of his disciples have something in common with the journeys of Jesus and his apostles in Judea, the dwarf visitor might be compared to the angels who announced God's mercies and judgments to Abraham and Lot, as Philemon and Baucis have a certain resemblance to Abraham and Sarah ; but the harmony with heathen legend is incomparably fuller and stronger. The angels were simply mes- sengers ; our mythology, like the Greek and Indian, means here an actual avatara of Deity itself.

Another example, of smaller compass, but equally instructive as to the mingling of christian with heathen ideas, may be drawn from the old legend of Fruoto. The blissful birth of the Saviour, the new era beginning with him, were employed in drawing pic- tures of a golden age (p. 695. 793 n.) and the state of happiness

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and peace inseparable from it. The Roman Augustus, under whom Christ was born, closed the temple of Janus, and peace is supposed to have reigned all over the earth. Now the Norse tradition makes its mythic FroSi likewise contemporary with Augustus, FrcVSi whose reign i's marked by peace and blessed- ness, who made captive giantesses grind heaps of gold for him (p. 531. 871), and had bracelets deposited on the public high- way without any one laying hands on them. The poets call gold ' miol Fro^a/ Fruoto's meal (Sn. 146), to explain which phrase the poem Grottasaungr is inserted in the Edda; and in Sasm. 151a occurs: ' sleit Fro3a frr§ fianda a milhV Rymbegla says, in his time the fields bore crops without being sown (it is the blessed Sampo-period of the Finns), and metal was found every- where in the ground; nature joined in extolling the prince, as she does in lamenting his death (p. 591). When Helgi was born, eagles uttered a cry, and holy waters streamed down from the hills of heaven (Saem. 149a) ; in the year of Hakon's election the birds, we are told, bred twice, and twice the trees bore, about which the Hak. Hakonarsaga cap. 24 has some beautiful songs. Hartmann, a monk of St. Gall, sings on the entry of the king : ' Haec ipsa gaudent tempora, noreque verno germinant, adventus omni gaudio quando venit optatior.' So deep a feeling had the olden time for a beloved king. And Beda 2, 16 thus describes king Eadwine's time : ' Tanta eo tempore pax in Britannia fuisse perhibetur, ut, sicut usque hodie in proverbio dicitur, etiamsi mulier una cum recens nato par- vulo vellet totam perambulare insulam a mari ad mare, nullo se laedente valeret. Tantum rex idem utilitati suae gentis con-. suluit, ut plerisque in locis, ubi fontes lucidos juxta publicos viarum transitus construxit, ibi ob refrigerium viantium erectis stipitibus aereos caucos suspendi juberet, neque hos quisquam nisi ad usum necessarium contingere prae magnitudine vel timoris ejus auderet vel amoris vellet.'' And of several other kings the tale is told, that they exposed precious jewels on the public road. Mildness and justice were the highest virtues of rulers, and ' mild ' signified both mitis and largus, munificus. Fr63i was

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called the femildi (bountiful) ; ' fro^i 3 itself includes the notion of sagacity. When the genealogies and legends make several kings of that name follow one another, they all evidently mean the same (conf. p. 348). Saxo Gramm. 27 makes his first Frotho sprinkle ground gold on his food, which is unmistakably that f Fro^a miol 3 of Snorri ; the second is called ( frcekni/ vegetus ; it is not till the reign of the third, who fastens a gold bracelet on the road, that the Saviour is born (p. 95).

But this myth of the mild king of peace must formerly have been known outside of Scandinavia, namely, here in Germany, and in Britain too. For one thing, our chroniclers and poets, when they mention the Saviour's birth, break out, like Snorri and Saxo, in praises of a peaceful Augustan age ; thus Godfrey of Yiterbo p. 250 :

Fit gladius vomer, fiunt de cuspide falces, Mars siluit, pax emicuit, miles f uit auceps ; nascentis Christi tempore pax rediit.

Wernher's Maria, p. 160 :

D6 wart ein chreftiger fride, Then befel a mighty peace,

diu swert versluogen die smide, smiths converted their swords,,

bediu spieze und sper ; both pikes and spears ;

d6 ne was dehein her then was there no army

daz iender des gedashte that anywhere thought

daz ez s trite oder vashte, of striving and fighting,

do ne was niht urliuge then was no war

bi des meres piuge, by the sea's margin,

noch enhein nitgeschelle. nor any sound of hate.

Mit grozer ebenhelle In great unison

und harte fridliche and right peacefully

stuonden elliu riche. stood all kingdoms.

And p. 193 : Aller fride meiste

mit des keisers volleiste

der wart erhaben und gesworn

do Christ was geborn.

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Compare En. 13205—13, and Albrecht of Halberstadt's Prologue, which also says that Augustus

machte so getanen fride (perfect peace) daz man diu swert begunde smide in segense (scythes), und werken hiez zuo den sicheln den spiez.

It is true, none of these passages make any reference to Fruoto 3 but how could the ' milte Fruote von Tenemarke 3 have got so firm a footing in our heroic lays of Gudrun and the Raben- schlacht, and in the memory of our Court-poets (MS. 2, 22 lb, 227b, Conr. Engelhart, and Helbl. 2, 1303. 7, 366. 13, 111) without some express legend to rest upon ? This I had a pre- sentiment of on p. 532 from our proper names Fanigolt, Mani- golt (fen-gold, bracelet- gold) ; conf. Haupt's pref. to Engelh. p. x. And what is more, the Austrian weisthumer (3, 687. 712) require by way of fine a shield full of ground gold ; and filling shields with gold meant being liberal. The folk-song in Uhland l3 76-7 makes the mill grind gold and love. How else to explain gold- grinding and gold-meal I cannot divine.

I could multiply such examples ; I could also, if the task were not reserved for others or another occasion, shew in detail that the same mythic basis, which must be assumed for our own heroic lays, was not foreign either to the Carolingian poetry, the product mainly of a German tribe, or even to the British. Arthur belongs to the 'wild host' and the 'heaven's wain/ Morgana coincides with norns and elfins. A great deal nearer still stands Charles with his heroes : he is the Long-beard that sleeps in the mountain and rides on the Karl-wain, his Karl- stone is the same as the Woden-stone (p. 155), Roland stands on the pillar, Froberge reminded us of Fro (p. 216), and Gralans, who plies the forge for these Frankish heroes, is Wayland, Wielant, Volundr. Berthe with the foot, progenitress of Charles, is our Berhta (p. 429) ; and, attached to her, stand Flore and Blanchefleur with their elvish names (p. 1063). Charles's loved one was an elfin (p. 435), Auberon is Elberich and elf-king; and

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Maugis, Malagis=Madalgis, borders on the elvish. Charles's hall resembles that of Asgard (p. 1133n.).

If these investigations have not been a sheer waste of time (and to me it seemed worth the trouble to look into the affairs of our antiquity from all sides), I may now at length attempt an answer to questions, or some of them at least, as to what is the true fundamental character of Teutonic mythology.

Judged by the standard of those mythologies that completed their career from beginning to end, notably the Greek (with which nevertheless it has so many important features in common), it will bear no comparison, if only for the reason that it was interrupted early, before it had produced all that it could have produced. As to our language and poetry, they were sensibly disturbed and hindered too, but they lived on, and could acquire a new impetus ; the heathen faith was cut down to the root, and its poor remains could only save themselves by stealth under a new guise. Crude, unkempt it cannot but appear, yet the crude has its simplicity, and the rough its sincerity.

In our heathen mythology certain ideas stand out strong and clear, of which the human heart especially has need, by which it is sustained and cheered. To it the highest god is a father (p. 22), a good father, gofar (p. 167), gaffer, grandfather, who grants salvation and victory to the living, and to the dead an entrance to his dwelling. Death is a going home, a return to the father (p. 839). By the side of the god stands the highest goddess as a mother (p. 22), gammer, grandmother, wise and white ancestress. The god is exalted, the goddess beaming with beauty ; both go their rounds and appear in the land, he instructing in war and weapons, she in spinning, weaving, sowing of seed ; from him comes the poem, from her the tale. The same paternal authority is deeply stamped on our ancient law, the father taking the newborn son on his lap and acknow- ledging him ; but what we read in some only of our ancient codes, may have been the rule everywhere, namely, that the composition paid to women was originally a higher, a double

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one. The German reverence for woman was already known to Tacitus (p. 397), and history vouches for it in the Mid. Ages : in the heroic lays a greater stress is laid on Mother Uote than on the father of the heroes, as Brunhild towers even above Siegfried (see Suppl.). By the side of the beautiful description of mother's love in the Vita Mahthildis (Pertz 6, 298) we can put this touch by Eudlieb 1, 52 : ' Ast per cancellos post hunc pascebat ocellos Mater/ as her son was departing. Whenever in dry old Otfried I come to the lines iv. 32 : wir sin gibot ouh wirken, inti b! unsa muater thenken (we his bidding also do, and of our mother think), it moves me to melancholy, I don't know whether he meant the church, or her that bore him, I think of my own dear mother (Dorothea Grimm, b. 20 Nov. 1755, d. 27 May 1808). Another thing also we learn from the oldest history of our people, that modesty and virtue had never fled from the land; beside Tacitus, we may rely on Salvian (5th cent.) as the most unimpeachable of witnesses. Befined grace might be wanting, nay, it has often retired before us, and been washed out of remembrance; to the Greeks Apollo, Pallas, Aphrodite stood nearer, their life was brighter like their sky. Yet Fro and Frouwa appear altogether as kind and loving deities, in Wuotan I have produced the god of song, and as Wish he may have been a god of longing and love. However many blossoms of our old mythology and poetry may lie undisclosed and withered, one thing will not escape the eye of a judge, that our poesy still has virgin forms and unlaboured adornment at her command, which, like certain plants, have disappeared from hotter climes.

When the plastic and poetic arts have sprung out of a people's faith, they adorn and protect it by imperishable works ; yet another fact must not be overlooked, that both poets and artists insensibly deviate from the sanctity of the old type, and adopt an independent treatment of sacred subjects, which, in- genious as it may be, mars the continuity of tradition. The tragedians will alter for their own ends what epic had handed down entire; the sculptors, striving after naked forms of beauty,

PEE FACE. xlix

will, in favour of it, sacrifice if need be the significant symbol ; as they can neither bring in all the features of the myth, nor yet find the whole of them sufficient, they must omit some things and add others. Sculpture and the drama aim at making the gods more conceivable to the mind, more human; and every religion that is left free to unfold itself will constantly fall back upon man and the deepest thoughts he is capable of, to draw from them a new interpretation of the revealed. As in statues the rigid attitude unbent itself and the stiff folds dropt away, so devotion too in her converse with deity will not be needlessly shackled. In the same way language, even in the hands of poets, declines from the sensuous perfection of poetry to the rational independence of prose.

The grossness that I spoke of would have disappeared from the heathen faith had it lasted longer, though much of the ruggedness would have remained, as there is in our language something rough-hewn and unpolished, which does not unfit it for all purposes, and qualifies it for some. There goes with the German character a thoughtful earnestness, that leads it away from vanity and brings it on the track of the sublime. This was noticed even by Tacitus, whose words, though discussed in the book (p. 70-1, 104-5), will bear repeating: 'Ceterum nec cohibere parietibus deos, neque in ullam humani oris speciem assimilare, ex magnitudine coelestium arbitrantur. Lucos ac nemora consecrant, deorumque nominibus appellant secretum lllud, quod sola reverentia vident.' This is no empty phrase, this ' arbitrantur 9 and ' appellant 9 must have come of inquiries, which a Roman, if he wished to understand anything of the Germani, had first of all to set a-going. That is how it actually was in Germany at that time, such answer had German men given, when asked about the temples and images of their gods. Temples are first built to hold statues : so long as these were not, neither were those. Anything mentioned in later centuries, or occurring by way of exception among particular tribes, seems to have been corruption and confusion, to which there was no want of prompting. All the Scandinavian temples and idols

d

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PREFACE.

fall into this later time, or they have their reason in the difference of race.

That notable piece of insight shows us* the whole germ of Protestantism. It was no accident, but a necessity, that the Reformation arose first in our country, and we should long ago have given it our undivided allegiance, had not a stir been made against it from abroad. It is remarkable how the same soil of Old-German faith in Scandinavia and Britain proved receptive of Protestant opinion; and how favourable to it a great part of France was, where German blood still held its ground. As in language and myth, so in the religious leanings of a people there is something indestructible.

Gods, i.e. a multiplication of the one supreme incomprehen- sible Deity, could only be conceived of by Germans as by others under a human form (p. 316), and celestial abodes like earthly houses are ascribed to them. But here comes a differ- ence, in this reluctance to exhibit the immeasurable (that magni- tudo coelestium) in visible images, and confine it between earthly walls. To make a real portrait of Deity is clean impossible, therefore such images are already prohibited in the Old Test, decalogue; "Ulphilas renders ecBcoXov by galiug or galiuga-gu3 (lie-god), meaning that any representation of a god was a lie; and the first christian centuries abhorred image-worship, though it gradually found its way into the church again. The statues of Greek gods, we know, proceeded originally from a sacred type, which only by degrees became more secular ; the paintings of the Mid. Ages, and even Raphael's great soul-stirring com- positions, for want of such a type, were obliged to invent their figures, the legend from which artists chiefly drew their subjects being already song or story ; accordingly these pictures stand lower than the works of Greek art, and the spirit of Protestant- ism insists on their being bundled out of the churches. But if our heathen gods were imagined sitting on mountains and in sacred groves, then our medieval churches soaring skyward as lofty trees, whose sublime effect is unapproached by any Greek pediments and pillars, may fairly be referable to that Old

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li

German way of thinking. Irmansul and Yggdrasill were sacred trees, rearing their heads into the breezes : the tree is the steed (drasill, the snorter) on which Wuotan, the bodeful thrill of nature, stormfully ' careers : Yggr signifies shudder, thrill of terror (p. 120, and Suppl.). By the Old German forest-worship I also explain the small number of the priests, who only begin to multiply in temples entrusted to their charge.

Of all forms of belief, the Monotheistic is at once the most agreeable to reason and the most honouring to Deity. It also seems to be the original form, out of whose lap to a childlike antiquity Polytheism easily unfolded itself, by the loftiest attributes of the one God being conceived first as a trilogy, then as a dodecalogy. This arrangement comes out in all the mythologies, and especially clear, I think, in ours : almost all the gods appear unequal in rank and power, now superior, now subordinate, so that, mutually dependent, they must all at last be taken as emanations of a highest and only One. What is offensive in polytheism is thereby diminished (p. 176). For even in the heathen breast a consciousness of such subordination could hardly be quite extinct, and the slumbering faith in a highest god might wake up any moment.

To point out these groups of deities from our half dried-up sources was beyond my power, but the threes and twelves of the Edda are indicated, p. 335. The Greeks however differ in hav- ing only one twelve, consisting of six gods and six goddesses, while of the ases and asynjas there are twelve each, making to- gether twice as many deities as the Greek. Twelve chairs are set for the gods sitting in council (p. 858). Sometimes the highest god has twelve inferiors added to him, which raises the total by one : Loki is called the thirteenth among the gods, and Gna among the goddesses. Snorri 21 lb names thirteen ases, and even more asynjas. These triads and twelves of the gods are reflected again in the heroes and wise-women : Mannus begot three sons, heads of races (p. 345. 395), Heimdall founded three orders, the Ynglinga saga 2, 7 calls OSin's fellow-gods his twelve princes (hofdingjar) ; Westmar has twelve sons (Saxo

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PREFACE.

Gram. p. 68); there were thirteen valkyrs (p. 421), and three norns. In Welfs retinue are twelve heroes (p. 395); king Charles's twelve might indeed be traced to the twelve apostles, and the poem itself points to that, but the same thing is found in numberless myths and legends. The might of the godlike king flashes forth yet again in his heroes.

To my thinking, Polytheism almost everywhere arose in in- nocent unconsciousness: there is about it something soft and agreeable to the feelings; but it will, when the intellect is roused, revert to the Monotheism from which it started. No one taunts the Catholic doctrine with teaching many gods, yet one can see in what respect Catholics stand in the same relation to heathens as Protestants do to Catholics. Heathenism bowed before the power of pure Christianity ; in course of time heathen- ish movements broke out in the church afresh, and from these the Preformation strove to purify it. The polytheistic principle, still working on, had fastened on two points mainly, the worship of saints, of which I have spoken, and that of relics (conf. GDS. p. 149). A stifling smell of the grave pervades the medieval churches and chapels from an adoring of dead bones, whose genuineness and miraculous power seem rarely well attested, and sometimes quite impossible. The weightiest affairs of life, oath- takings, illnesses, required a touching of these sanctities, and all historical documents bear witness to their widely extended use, a use justified by nothing in the Bible, and alien to primitive Christianity (conf. p. 1179) . But in idololatria and saint-worship the dominion of the priesthood found its main stay.

Of Dualism proper I have acquitted our heathenism (pp. 895-6. 984). Unlike Polytheism, it seems to me to take its rise, not in gradual corruption, but in conscious, perhaps moral, reflexion, and at a later time. Polytheism is tolerant and friendly ; he to whom all he looks at is either heaven or hell, God or devil, will both extravagantly love and heartily hate. But here again let me repeat, that to the heathen Germans the good outweighed the bad, and courage faintheartedness : at death they laughed. Between deifying much and deifying all, it is hard to draw the

PREFACE.

liii

line, for even the most arrant Pantheism will admit some excep- tions. The limit observed by the Greek and even the Norse religion appears in those sets of twelve ; Personification indeed, on which I have inserted a chapter, seems to dip into the domain of Pantheism ; yet when elements and implements are thought of as divine, they scarcely mean more than our old acquaintances, the gods, presented in a new form : the air melts into Wuotan, the hammer into Donar, the sword into Eor, and Saslde (fortune) into Wuotan again. The human mind strives to conceive the unfathomable depth of Deity in new and ever new ways. Some would give our heathenism Fetishism for a foundation (p. 104); the truth is, hammer, spear, flint and phallus were but symbols of the divine force, of which there were other types, both material and moral, equally valid. From thing to person, or from person to thing, was in this matter but a step. As the gods change into heroes and are born again, so they sink even into animals ; but this precipitate of them would require certain explanations, which I mean to complete once for all in a new treatment of the Beast- fable. The faster the brood of deities multiplies, the sooner is faith likely to topple over into denial and abuse of the old gods ; striking evidences of such atheistic sentiment Scandinavia itself supplies, both in undisguised mockery, and in reposing con- fidence in one's own strength and virtue (p. 6). The former is expressed in 0. Norse by goftga (irrisio deorum), O.H. Germ, kotscelta (blasphemia). And this revolt of heathens against heathenism increased as Christianity came nearer: thus the Nialssaga cap. 105 says of Hialti, that he was charged with scoffing at the gods, ' varS sekr a J?mgi urn goftga ' \ conf . Laxd. p. 180. Kristnisaga c. 9.

An element [aTQi^elov, vTroaraaL^) is firm ground, basis, for which the Goth still has a good Teutonic name ' stabs ' ( = staff, whence the Romance stoffa, etoffe, and so our stuff again), or 'stoma' (whence our ungestiim, OHG. ungistuomi, unquiet). It meets the eye of man in all its glory, while deity remains unseen : how tempted he must feel to give it divine honours ! But his senses and his mind link every exhibition of nature's forces with

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subjective impressions bodily and mental, the promptings of language teach him to connect. How came Zio to unite in him- self the ideas of sky and war ? The Gothic veihan meant pug- nare, vaihjo pugna, veihs sacer, veiha sacerdos (p. 68), the OHG-. wig pugna and Mars (p. 203) ; the hallowed, the holy was at the same time the bright, the beaming. To the Gothic hveits cor- responds the Skr. svetas (albus), to this the Slav, svety, sviatyi (sanctus), and svet, swiat, svetlo signify mundus, coelum, lux. But again Svetovit, Swantowit, is Ares and bellum, and the parallelism of Wuotan, Donar, Zio to Eadigast, Perun, Svetovit stands unquestionable : the god of victory shines in the battle. To the Indians Suryas denotes the sun, light, day, and he re- sembles Zio ; when Suryas is taking hold of a victim, it bites his hand off, and a golden one has to be put on : is not this Tyr, whose hand the wolf bit off (p. 207) ? and who knows but the like was told of the Slavic Svetovit ? It was beautiful to derive the eye from the sun, blood from water, the salt flow of tears from the bitter sea, and the more profound seem therefore the myths of SiPs hair, of FreyjVs tears ; earth and heaven reflect each other. But as even the ancient cosmogonies are inversions of each other (pp. 568. 570, man made of world, world made of man), we have no right to refer the heathen gods exclusively either to astrology and the calendar, or to elemental forces, or to moral considerations, but rather to a perpetual and unceasing interaction of them all. A pagan religion never dropt out of the clouds, it was carried on through countless ages by the tradition of nations, but in the end it must rest on a mysterious revelation which accords with the marvellous language and the creation and propagation of mankind. Our native heathenism seems not to have been oppressed by gloomy fancies about the misery of a fallen existence (like the Indian doctrine of emanation), it favoured a cheerful fatalism (p. 860-1), and believed in a paradise, a renovated world, deified heroes ; its gods resemble more those of Greece, its superstition more that of Eome : ' tanta gentium in rebus frivolis plerumque religio est.'

The question has been gravely asked, whether the heathen

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PEEFACE. lv

gods really existed ; and I feel disgust at answering it. Those who believe in a veritable devil and a hell, who would burn a witch with a will, may feel inclined to affirm it, thinking to support the miracles of the church by the evidence of this other miracle, that in the false gods she had crushed actual fiends and fallen angels.

Having observed that her Language, Laws and Antiquities were greatly underrated, I was wishful to exalt my uative land. To me one labour became the other : what was evidence there was also a confirmation here, what furnished a foundation here served there as a prop. Perhaps my books will have more in- fluence in a quiet happy time which will come back some day ; yet they ought to belong to the Present too, which I cannot think of without our Past reflecting its radiance upon it, and on which the Future will avenge any depreciation of the olden time. My gleanings I bequeath to him who, standing on my shoulders, shall hereafter get into full swing the harvesting of this great field.

JACOB GRIMM.

Bbelin, 28th April, 1844.

CONTENTS.

VOL. III.

XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII.

Poetry Spectres Translation Devil . Magic . Superstition Sicknesses . Herbs and Stones Spells and Charms Index , . " .

PAGES

899—912 913—950 951—983 984—1030 1031—1104 1105—1147 1148—1189 1190—1222 1223—1249 1251—1276

CHAPTER XXX.

POETRY.

Maere however means not only fama, but fabula; and here some other and more interesting personifications present them- selves.

We perceive that the existence, organization and copiousness of poetry, as of language itself, reach back to a remote antiquity, that the resources and beauties of both gradually decay, and have to be recruited in other ways. Ancient poetry was a sacred calling, which bore a direct reference to the gods, and had to do with soothsaying and magic.

Before our modern names dichter (Ducange sub v. dictator) and poet were imported from abroad, we had no lack of native ones more beautiful. At first the inditing and uttering of poetry seem to have gone together, the Sanger (OHG. sangari, MHG. senger and siuger) was likewise the poet, there was no question as to who had made the song. Ulphilas calls the aScov liupareis (OHG. liodari ?) ; and perhaps would distinguish him from the saggvareis (praecentor) . Again, aotSo? comes from aelSa), as olSa from elSco, the digamma, ascertainable from video and Goth, vait, being dropt; we must therefore assume an older dfelBco and a/'otSo?,1 the singer and the godlike seer ([mclvtls, Lat. vates) are one. With this I connect the Goth, inveita (adoro, p. 29) ; from the sense of celebrating in festive song, might proceed that of worshipping. In the Slavic tongues slava is gloria, slaviti venerari, slavik [0. Slav, slaviy, Russ. solovey] the glorifying jubilant bird, as arjhcov is from aelBco, and Our nahtigala from galan, canere. If dotSo? means a seeing knowing singer, poet, soothsayer, why may not a Goth, invaits, supposing there was such a word, have expressed the same ?

When the creative inventive faculty, as in iroi^rr)^, i.e., faber

1 That el'Sw I see, and deidoj I sing, both change et into oi proves no connexion between them, the change being common to many verbs (\e17rw \ot7rds, /cet^cu Koirrj) ; vates, at once seer and singer, is an important link. — Tbans.

VOL. III. 899 B

900 POETEY.

(and our smid equally stood for the framer of the lied or lay, ON. lioSa-smiSr), was to be specially marked, this was done by the OHG-. scuof, OS. AS. scop (p. 407-8 n.), which reminds at once of the supreme Shaper of all things and of the shaping norn. The ON. has no skopr 1 that I know of, but instead of it a neuter skald, which I only grope after dubiously in OHG. (pp. 94. 649), and whose origin remains dark;2 skaldskapr, AS. sc6pcrczft = poesis. The Romance poetry of the Mid. Ages derived the name of its craft from the Prov. trobar, It. trovare, Fr. trouver,3 to find, invent, and trobaire, trovatore, trouvere is inventor, as scuof is creator. A word peculiar to AS. is gid, gidd (cantus, oratio); Beow. 2124. 3446. 4205-12. 4304. 4888, or giedd, Cod. exon. 380. 25 [yeddynges, Chauc.]; giddian (canere, fari), Csedm. 127, 6. Cod. exon. 236, 8. Beow. 1253; gidda (poeta, orator) : < gidda snotor/ El. 419. 'giedda snotor/ Cod. exon. 45, 2. 293, 20. Leo has traced it in the Ir. hat cit, git (carmen dictum).4

A far-famed word is the Celtic bard, Ir. bard, pi. baird, Wei. bardh, occurring already in Festus: 'bardus Gallice, cantor qui virorum fortium laudes canit.' Lucan's Phars., 1, 447 : < plurima securi fudistis carmina bardi ; ' the lark was called bardaea or bardala (Ducange sub v.), songstress like arjBcop, nahtigala and slavik. No old authority gives a hint that such bards were known to the language or customs of Germany (see SuppL).

i Biorn gives a neut. skop (ironia, jocus), skoplegr (ridiculus, almost (tk^tttikU), winch might make one sceptical of the long vowel in AS. scop, but this is used of a IZ it poet in Beow. 179. 987. 2126, though sometimes of a comicus, sc em- eus The OHG. sahnscof = psalmista, and the spelling scof scoffes (beside scaffan scuofi) in Isidore does not disprove the long vowel, as the same document puts blomo bTostar for bluomo, .bluostar. An OHG. no in scuof would remove all doubt, but this I cannot lay my hand on. The gloss ' scof, nubilar yel poesis seems to connect two unrelated words which disagree in quantity, scop tugurmm (our schop-

Ven)^%S%L%k.^ Dan.skolde,Dut. schouden = glabrare ; with this agrees the Fr. eschauder, echauder, M. Lat. excaldare (Ducange sub v ) to scald the hfir off So that sk&ld would be depilis, glaber (Engl, scald) bald-head whether it meant aged minstrel, or that poets shaved their heads ? Even scaldeih may have sio-nified an oak stript of foliage. r^^i»i ■ Is there is no Latin root, we may suggest our own trefien, ON drepa [drub] lit to ftrike, hit, but also (in antreffen) to hit upon, find. The Gothic may have been drupan as treten was trudan, which would account for the Romance o

4 S gl. p. 49, conf. Ir. ceat = canere, carmine celebrare The question is whether in spite of his Celtic affinity, the word is not to be found in other Tent dt cts.' We might consider ON. ge« (mens, animus), OHG ket, kett keti, ke tti (Graff 4 144), the doubling of the lingual bemg as m AS. bed, bedd, OHG petti Goth bail or AS. biddan? OHG. pittan (Goth, bidjan). The meaning would be KdhS riemembering; ge«speki in Sa.ni. 33" is the wisdom of yore, inseparable Lm poefr'y ■ " <£d, gydd an' seems a faulty spelling : giedd shews the vowel broken.

SCOP. SKALD. GLEOMAN. GLEOCBiEFT. 901

Song, music and dance make glad (repTrovai) the heart of man, lend grace to the banquet (avadrj/jLara &hto?, Od. 1, 152. 21, 430), lulling and charming our griefs (ISpoT<ov OeX/cTrjpia, Od. 1, 337). God himself, when ailing, comes down from heaven, to get cheered by the minstrel's lay (p. 331). Hence poetry is called the joyous art, and song joy and bliss. We know the gai saber of the trobadors ; and joculator, joglar, jongleur, is derived from jocus, joc, jeu, play and pleasantry. Even the Anglo- Saxons named song and music gleo (glee, gaudium), wynn (our wunne, wonne), or dream (jubilum) : 'scop hwilumsang Mdor on Heorote, J>a wges hsele'Sa dream/ Beow. 987 ; ' gidd and gleo 3 are coupled 4025; the song is called 'healgamen' (aulae gaudium), the harp ' gamenwudu, gleobeam/ playing and singing fgamen- wudu gretan/ to hail, to wake the frolic wood, Beow. 2123. 4210; 'gleobeam gretan/ Cod. exon. 42, 9. c hearpan gretan 3 and 'hearpan wynne gretan' 296, 11. Beow. 4029. Then, beside gretan, there is used wrecan (ciere, excitare) : ' gid wrecan/ to rouse the lay, Beow. 2123. 4304. 4888. ' gid awrecan' 3445. 4212. ' wordgid wrecan 3 6338. 'geomorgidd wrecan/ Andr. 1548. The gleoman, gligman, is a minstrel, gleocrosfb the gay science of music and song. In Wigaloisp. 312 six fiddlers scrape ail sorrow out of the heart ; if one could always have them by ! And Fornald. sog. 1, 315, says: "leika horpu ok segja sogur sva at gaman ]?aetti at." I will quote a remarkable parallel from Finnish poetry. It is true, the lay is called runo, the poet runolainen, and runoan to indite or sing, the song is laulu, the singer laulaya, and laulan I sing; but in the epic lays I find ilo (gaudium) used for the song, and teen iloa (gaudium cieo) for singing1 (see Suppl.).

A thing of such high importance cannot have originated with man himself, it must be regarded as the gift of heaven. Inven- tion and utterance are put in the heart by the gods, the minstrel is god-inspired : tfeWt? clolS?], Od. 1, 328. 8, 498. aoiSrj deaTrealr), II. 2, 600. #eo-7Ti? aotSo? 6 fcev repTrrjaiv aevScov, Od. 17, 385. Gods of the highest rank are wardens and patrons of the art divine, Zeus and Apollo among the Greeks, with us Wuotan

1 1 Tehessii isan iloa,' Kalew. 22, 236. 29, 227, the father (the god Wainamoi- nen) was making (waking) joy = he sang ; « io kawi ilo iloUe ' 22, 215, joy came to joy = the song resounded, struck up.

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and Bragr, Wainamoinen with the Finns. Saga was Wuotan's daughter (p. 310), as the Muse was Zeus' s ; Freyja loved the minnesong : ( henni likaSi vel mansongr/ Sn. 29.

On the origin of poetry the Younger Edda (Sn. 82—87) gives at full length a myth, which the Elder had alluded to in Havamal, (Sasm. 12. 23-4). Once upon a time the Aesir and Vanir made a covenant of peace, and in token of it each party stept up to a vessel, and let fall into it their spittle,1 as atonements and treaties were often hallowed by mingling of bloods (RA. 193-4) ; here the holy spittle is equivalent to blood, and even turns into blood, as the sequel shews. The token of peace (grrSamark) was too pre- cious to be wasted, so the gods shaped out of it a man named Kvdsir, of all beings the wisest and shrewdest.2 This Kvasir travelled far in the world, and taught men wisdom (frceSi, OHG. fruoti). But when he came to the dwelling of two dwarfs, Fialar and Galar (OHG. Filheri, Kalheri ?), they slew him, and let his blood run into two vats and a cauldron, which last was named OShrcerir, and the vats Son and Bo$n. Then the dwarfs mixed the blood with honey, and of this was made a costly mead,3 whereof whosoever tasted received the gift of poesy and wisdom : he be- came asMld or a froe$a-ma&r (sage). We came upon a trace of this barrel of blood and honey among the dwarfs, p. 468.

Fialar and Galar tried to conceal the murder, giving out that Kvasir had been choked by the fulness of his wisdom ; but it was soon reported that they were in possession of his blood. In a quarrel they had with giant Suttungr, they were forced to give up to him the precious mead, as composition for having killed his father. Suttungr preserved it carefully in Hnitbiorg, and made his daughter the fair Gunnl6$ keeper of it.

The gods had to summon up all their strength to regain possession of the holy blood. OSinn himself came from heaven to earth, and seeing nine labourers mowing hay, he asked them if their scythes wanted sharpening. They said they did, and he

1 Hraki, better perh. hraki, is strictly matter ejected from the rachen (throat), OHG. hracho, as the AS. hraca is both guttur aM tussis, sputum; coni. UilU. hrachison screare, Fr. cracher, Serv. rakati, Euss. kharkat'.

• Creating out of spittle and blood reminds one of the snow and blood m fairy- tales, where the wife wishes for children ; of the snow-child in the Modus Liebmc ; of the giants made out of frost and ice (pp. 440. 465) ; Aphrodite's being generated out of sea-foam is a part of the same thing.

3 The technical term 1 inn dyri mioSr ' recurs in Sam. 23b. 2ba.

A DEINK. OD-HBCEEI.

903

pulled a whetstone 1 out of his belt, and gave them an edge j they cut so much better now, that the mowers began bargaining for the stone, but OSinn threw it up in the air, and while each was trying to catch it, they all cut one another's throats with their scythes.2 At night OSinn found a lodging with another giant, Suttung's brother Baugi, who sorely complained that he had that day lost his nine men, and had not a workman left. OSinn, who called himself Bolverkr, was ready to undertake nine men's work, stipulating only for a drink of Suttung' s mead.3 Baugi said the mead belonged to his brother, but he would do his best to obtain the drink from him. Bolverkr accomplished the nine men's work in summer, and when winter came demanded his wages. They both went off to Suttung, but he would not part with a drop of mead. Bolverkr was for trying stratagem, to which Baugi agreed. Then Bolverkr produced a gimlet named Rati,4 and desired Baugi to bore the mountain through with it, which apparently he did ; but when Bolverkr blew into the hole and the dust flew back in his face, he concluded that his ally was no honester than he should be. He made him bore again, and this time when he blew, the dust flew inwards. lie now changed himself into a worm, and crept in at the hole ; Baugi plunged the drill in after him, but missed him. In the mountain Bolverkr passed three nights with Grunnlo^, and she vowed to let him have three draughts of the mead : at the first draught he drained OShroerir, at the second Bo$n, at the third Son, and so he had all the mead. Then he took the shape of an eagle, flew his fleetest, and Suttungr as a second eagle gave chase. The Aesir saw 03inn come flying, and in the courtyard of AsgarS they set out vats, into which OSinn, hard pressed by Suttung, spat out the mead, and thus it turned into spittle again, as it had been at first.5 The mead is given by OSinn to the ases, and to men

1 Hein, AS. han, Engl, hone, Swed. hen, Sskr. s'ana.

2 Like Dr. Faust fooling the seven topers into cutting each other's noses off.

3 Here OSinn plays the part of Strong Hans (Kinderm. 90), or of Siegfried with the smith.

4 Mentioned also in Saem. 23V, evidently from ' rata ' permeare, terebrare, Goth, vratdn, so that it would be Vrata in Gothic.

5 It is added : ' en honum var >a sva naer komit at Suttungr mundi na honum, at hann sendi aptr (behind) suman mid d 'inn, ok var >ess ecki gaett : hafSi J>at hverr er vildi, ok kollum ver J>at skaldfifla lut (malorum poetarum partem) ' ; or, as another MS. has it : 'en sumum roepti hann aptr, hafa J>at skaldfifl, ok heitir arnar

904 POETET.

that can skill of poesy. This explains the fluctuating names of the poetic art : it is called Evdsis bloff (Kv. sanguis) ; dverga drecha, fylli (nanorum potus, satietas) ; O&hroeris, Boffnar, Sonar laug (0., B., S. aqua) ; Hnitbiarga laug (Hn. aqua) ; Suttungs miocfr (S. mulsum) ; OVins fengr, fundr, dryckr (0. praeda, in- ventio, potus) ; Odins gibf (0. donum) ; dryckr Asanna (Asarum potus).

Some of these names are well worth explaining minutely. Bo&n is rendered oblatio, Son reconciliatio : neither of them, at all events when first used by the dwarfs, can have had any such meaning yet. We can easily connect boftn with AS. byden, OHG. putin (Graff 3, 87) ; son certainly agrees with the OHG. suona (emendatio), not with Goth, saun (lytrum). Sa3m. 118b. 234a has ' Sonar dreyri 3 in the sense of e sonar dreyri/ atonement- blood (conf. sonar goltr, p. 51). More meaning and weight at- taches to the cauldron's name, which occurs also in Ssem. 23b. 28a. 88% the last time spelt correctly. To explain the word, I must mention first, that a Goth. adj. vobs, dulcis, answers to OHG. wuodi, OS. wothi, AS. we$e, which is used alike of sweet smell and sweet sound ; ' sweg hses weftan sanges/ sonus dulcis canti- lenae. And further, that an AS. noun wo$ (masc.) is carmen, facundia : 6 wo$a wynsumast/ carmen jucundissimum, Cod. exon. 358, 9. ' woSa wlitegast,' carmen pulcherrimum, El. 748. ' w63 wera/ prophetia virorum, Cajdm. 254, 23. ' woSbora \ (carmen ferens), both as poeta, Cod. exon. 295, 19. 489, 17 and as orator, propheta 19, 18. 346, 21. 'witgena woSsong/ cantus prophe- tarum 4, 1. fw6$cra3it,' poesis 234, 30. 360, 7 synon. with the scopcrseft and gleocrseft above. ' wynlicu wo^giefu/ jocun- dum poeseos donum 414, 10 alluding at once to the gay art and to Woden's gift. Now, whether the sense of c sweet, gentle/ tef

leir (habent id mali poetae, et dicitur aquilae latum),' because OSinn flew in eagle's* shape In Mart. Capella, before Athanasia will band the immortahtatis poculum to Philologia, ' leniter dextera cordis ejus pulsum pectusque pertractat, ac nescio qua intima plenitudine distentum magno cum turgore respiciens, Nisi haec inquit, quibus plenum pectus geris, coactissima egestione vomuens forasque diffuderis, immortalitatis sedem nullatenus obtinebis. At ilia omni nisu magnaque vi quic- quid intra pectus senserat evomebat. Tunc vero ilia nausea ac vomitio laborata in

omnigenum copias convertitur litterarum Sed cum taha virgo undanter

evomeret, puellae quam plures, quarum artes aliae, ahae dictae sunt disciplmae, subinde quae virgo ex ore diffuderat colligebant, in suum unaquaeque illarum neces- sarium usum facultatemque corripiens.' What seemed too gross as yet for immor- tality becomes here, when thrown up by the bride of heaven, the foundation ot human science. Conf. Aelian's Var. hist. 13, 22.

SONG-KAISEB? INSPIRATION.

905

in the noun woft itself, or was first developed in the derived adj. (which seems nearer the truth, as w6$ in some passages of Cod. exon. 118, 4. 125, 31. 156, 8 means only a loud sound, clamor, without any reference to song) ; it is plain that to it corresponds the ON. oftr (also masc), which denotes as well poema as in- genium, facundia. In the former sense its agreement with the Lat. oda, Gr. cphrj (contr. from aoihrj), is purely accidental, as the difference of gender sufficiently shews. It is remarkable that at the creation of Askr and Embla, Ssem. 3b, Hcenir is said to have imparted to them the lacking 6ft, which on p. 561 I translated ' reason 3 : perhaps ' speech, gift of speech 3 would be more cor- rect ? 1 Be that as it may, O&hroerir seems clearly to be ( poesin ciens, dulcem artem excitans/ which is in striking harmony with the AS. f gid wrecan 3 and Finn. ' teen iloa 3 above ; hroera, OHGr. hruoran, MHGr. riieren, means tangere, ciere, and the cauldron would have been in OHGr. Wuodhruori, AS. Wofthrere. Freyja's husband Ocfr (Saem. 5b. Sn. 37), whom she sought through the world and bewept with golden tears, may have been a personifi- cation of poetic art ; 2 was he the same as Kvasir, who traversed the world, and was murdered by the dwarfs ?

Thus Ofthrcerir contained the sweet drink of divine poesy, which imparted immortality ; and from the exertions made by the gods, particularly Oftinn, to regain possession of it when it had fallen into the hands of dwarfs and giants, follows its identity with amrita, ambrosia and nectar (p. 317-9) ; the ichor in the veins of gods is like the limpid spittle of the Ases and Vanes.

The pure bee, which has survived from Paradise,3 brings the honey of song to the lips of the sleeper, p. 696 (see Suppl.).

I cannot resist the temptation to add some more legends, of how the inspiration of song came to great poets overnight in their sleep : the story of Pindar is told again of Homer and Aeschylus under another form.

Helen is said to have appeared to Homer : Xeyov&i, Si nves /cal

1 Here, as elsewhere, the ON. dialect becomes unsafe for comparison, because it confounds middle and final d with

2 The difficulty noticed in the preceding note forbids my inquiring whether this Oftr be related to OSinn ; the AS. Woden and wod (rabies) stand apart from w6"S (poesis), conf. supra p. 131-2.

3 Anc. laws of Wales 1, 739 : bees draw their origin from Paradise, which they left through man's transgression, but God gave them his blessing; therefore mass cannot be sung without wax. Leoprechting's Lechrain, p. 80.

906

POETEY.

T&vVfirjp&av ft)? im&raaa (EXevij) rfjs WKrbsVfirjptp irpoarira^ iroielv irepl twv crrparevaafjuevcov eVl Tpoiav, fiovXofievr) tov eicelvwv Odvarov ^rjXayrorepov rj tov filov twv aXXcov KaraaTrjo-ai. Kal fjuepo? fiev n Bio, Trjp'Oprjpov re^v?^, fjuakiara Be Bed Tavrnv ovrm i-irafypoBiTov Kal irapa nraaiv bvofxaarrjv avrov yeveaQai rrjv iroLrjcriv [Some of the Homeridae say, that Helena appeared to Homer by night, and bade him sing of those who warred against Troy, she wishing to make their deaths more enviable than other men's lives. And that partly by Homer's art, but chiefly by her, his poetry was made so lovely and world-renowned]. Isocr. 'EX. iy/cw/jLiov in Oratt. Att. ed. Bekker 2, 245.

Bacchus revealed himself to Aeschylus : efa Be ^4tV%uXo? fieipd- kiov wv /cadevBeiv ev aypw fyvXaaawv ara^vXa^ Kal oi Aibvvaov iirio-Tavra KeXevaat rpaypBiav iroielv. m Be rjv rj/xepa (irelOeaOaL <yap eOeXeiv) paara tjBtj ireipwpLevo^ iroielv. ouro? p,ev ravra eXe- ryev [Aesch. said, that when a boy he fell asleep in the field while watching grapes, and Dionysus appeared to him and bade him write tragedy. In the morning, wishing to obey, he composed quite easily as soon as he tried]. Pausan. i. 21, 2 ; paara, as pela is said of the gods (p. 320).

As Aeschylus was watching the vineyard, Teutonic herdsmen were pasturing sheep or oxen when the gift of Wuotan came to them.

Hallbiorn had long wished to sing the praise of a dead minstrel Thorleif, but could not, until Thorleif appeared in the hush of night, unloosed his tongue, and, just as he was vanishing, dis- played his shoulder (p. 326). Fornm. sog. 3, 102.

The heathen myth was still applicable to christian poets. A poor shepherd in his sleep hears a voice urging him without delay to put the Scriptures into Saxon verse ; previously unskilled in song, he understood it from that moment, and fulfilled his commission, Opusc. Hincmari remensis (Par. 1615), p. 643. The like is told in fuller detail of the famous AS. poet Caedmon, Beda's Hist. eccl. 4, 24 (Frau Aventiure p. 28-9). All these poets, on awaking in the morning, succeed. in a task untried before (see Suppl.).

Not only does the poetic faculty itself proceed from the gods ; they invent the very instruments by which song is accompanied.

Apollo, who in Homer plays the phorminx, is said by Calh-

INSTRUMENTS INVENTED.

907

machus to have strung the lyre with seven chords ; yet the in- vention of the lyre is ascribed to Hermes, who gave it to Apollo. This is important for us, as in Wuotan there is much of Hermes and of Apollo, with a preponderance of the former. Ingenuity is characteristic of Mercury, and I can scarcely doubt that in our antiquity, as Wuotan was the inventor of writing and rhythm, so he was of some instrument to accompany singing.

A confirmation of this is the five-stringed harp (kantelo) of the Finns, an invention of their highest god Wainamoinen, who everywhere represents our Wuotan. First he made kantelo of the bones of a pike, and when it fell into the sea, he made it again of birchwood, its pegs of oak bough, and its strings of a mighty stallion's tail. In the same way Hermes took the tortoise (chelys) out of its shell, and mounted this with strings (Hymn to Merc. 24 seq.). Swedish and Scotch folksongs relate, that when a maiden was drowned, a musician made a harp of her breastbone, the pegs of her fingers, the strings of her golden hair, and the (first) stroke of the harp killed her murderess, Sv. folk v. 1, 81. Scott's Minstr. 3, 81. In one kinderm. no. 28 a bone of the slain brother is made into a shepherd's whistle, and every time it is blown, it publishes the crime ; and a Swiss legend tells the same of a flute (Haupt's Zeitschr. 3, 36). The power of music and song was explained by giving the instruments a supernatural origin, and doubtless a remoter antiquity did not leave gods out of the reckoning.

When Wainamoinen touches his harp, the whole of nature listens, the four-footed beasts of the wood run up to him, the birds come flying, the fish in the waters swim toward him ; tears of bliss burst from the god's eyes, and fall on his breast, from his breast to his knees, from his knees to his feet, wetting five mantles and eight coats, Kalew. rune 22-9. Such tears are shed by Freyja (gratfogr, p. 325), her that well liked song, and was wedded to 0$r in fairytales lucky maidens have the power to laugh roses and weep pearls.

The stromharl also breaks into weeping when he sings to the harp (p. 493). But as all nature, animate and inanimate, betrays her sympathy with human lamentations, so at the sound of the bewitching albleich (elf-lay, p. 470), we are told, the rushing river stayed its roar, the fish in the wave clicked with their

908

POETRY.

tongues, the birds of the forest twittered. Next to the gods, it is elves and watersprites that seem the most initiated into the mysteries of music, and Hniharr the teacher of song stands for OSinn himself (p. 489) .

But from gods the gift of poesy passed to particular heroes, and similar effects are ascribed to their minstrelsy. Two heroes of Teutonic legend are eminent as minstrels : Horant (Herrant, AS. Heorrenda, ON. Hiarrandi, conf. Gramm. 1, 352. Z. f. d. a.

2, 4), of whom it is said in Gudr. 388-9 that by his songs he chained all men whole and sick, and that

diu tier in dem walde ir weide liezen sten, die wiirme di da solten in dem grase gen, die vische die da solten in dem wage vliezen, die liezen ir geverte ;

beasts let be their grazing, creeping things and fishes forsook their wonted ways. The saga Herrau^s ok Bosa (Fornald. sog.

3, 323) couples the Hiarranda-hlioft with the enchanting gygjar slagr (giantess's harp- stroke). Then the hero VoTker (Folhheri) plays the fiddle to the Nibelungs 1772 :

under die tiire des huses saz er uf den stein,

kiiener (bolder) videlasre wart noch nie dehein :

do klungen sine seiten (strings), daz al daz hus erdoz (rang),

sin ellen zuo der fuoge (art) diu warn beidiu groz.

siiezer unde senfter gigen er began :

do entswebete er an den betten vil manegen sorgenden man ;

he lulled to sleep in their beds full many an anxious man. In Greek mythology Orpheus and Amphion bear mastery in song. When Amphion sang, the stones obeyed his lyre, and fitted them- selves into a wall. Rocks and trees followed after Orpheus, wild beasts grew tame to him, even the Argo he lured from dry land into the wave, and dragons he lulled to sleep (entswebete) . As HermoSSr, like him, made the descent to Hades [to fetch Balder back], and as it is for this same Balder that all beings mourn, we may fairly suppose that HerincVSr too had worked upon them by music and song, though nothing of the kind is recorded in the Edda (see Suppl.).

Now if poetry was a joint possession of men and gods, if by

HEKO-MINSTBELS.

909

gods it had been invented and imparted, it necessarily follows that antiquity would regard it as a function and business of the priest and that the notions of priest, prophet and poet would meet and touch. Aud here I attach some weight to our finding the AS. word bregowine (pp. 93. 235), which seems to indicate a follower and friend of the poet-god Bragi, as we at the present day call the minstrel a friend or favourite of the Muses. In lands and times that looked kindly on the tuneful art, we may even suppose that minstrels, especially those of courts, had like priests a peculiar garb ; particularly instructive on this point is the information furnished by the Welsh Laws as to the position and privileges of bards at the king's court, and the Norse sagas are unanimous on the estimation in which skalds were held. Poets of the Mid. Ages enjoyed a like distinction at princely courts, both Teutonic and Romance ; and a close investigation of this interesting subject might bring out much in our modern customs, that has its source in the very oldest time 1 (see Suppl.).

I call attention to utterances of MHGr. poets, which repre- sent the art of song as something not acquired, but inborn, i.e. inspired by God (a sentiment as old as Homer, Od. 22, 347 : avToBiSaicTOS 8' el/xt, #eo? Be fiat, iv fipealv ol/^a? ttclvtolcis evecpvcre). Heinr. von Morunge 1, 53a says : fwan ich durch sane (for song) bin ze der werlte geborn/ it is a burden laid on him, his mission. Walther 26, 4, referring to God : ' sit ich von dir beide wort han unde wise.' The Wartb. kr. jen. 102: 'gab iu Got sinne und sanges site/ Even the later Meistersanger speak to the same purpose : c es trieb der Heilig Geist zwolf manner froh, die fiengen an zu dichten.'' Why should not heathen poets in like manner have traced back their gifts to Wuotan's mead ?

The singing -matches also seem to have sprung out of the simplest nature of poetry itself. As the wise men of old ques- tioned one another on their knowledge, as heroes proved on each

1 Niebuhr in Pref. to Merobaudes says : 1 quern morem coronandorum poetarum cum poesi ipsa, cui semper aliquis honos mansit, etiam rudibus, quae secutae sunt, saeculis perdurasse arbitror.' But why go back to the Eomans for what seems to have been the usage of our own antiquity, when kings, judges, priests, heroes and minstrels wore garland and fillet, and even the people's poets used to elect a king of their own ? ' Au pui ou on corone les biaus discour,' Kenars 1677.

910

POETET.

other the prowess of their arms, so shehperds and poets sang for the prize of poetry. OSinn wishes to sound the wisdom (orSspeki) of the sage giant, Vinghorr that of the sage dwarf, the blind guest1 that of king HerSrekr ; then lays are sung and riddles pro- pounded, Vaf]?ru3nir expressly stipulating ' hoffti veSja vi$ scolom hollo i, gestr, urn geSspeki,' Saem. 33b; they are to wager heads, as in the contests between cunning smiths or chess-players. Lives are staked also in the Wartburg war of minstrels : ' nu wirt gesungen ane vride . . . stempfel muoz ob uns nu beiden stan alhie mit sinem swerte breit, er rihte ab unser eime in roubes site, dem man valles jehe ! ' we'll sing and give no quarter . . . over us two shall stempfel stand with his broad sword, and despatch as an outlaw him that gets the fall. This transaction is of legend, not history, but it shews in what a serious light the poetic art was viewed.

And here let me mention the widely circulated myth of the poet who sees his property imperilled, because another's memory has mastered his songs. What passed between Yirgil and Bathyllus is related, with alterations, of Arnoldo Daniello and a jongleur (Diez's Leben der troub. p. 352), but so it is of the Indian Kali- dasa, whose poem four Brahmans had learnt by heart. The same Kalidasa and Yalmiki were held to be incarnations of Brahma himself; what could more firmly establish a poet's reputation than to pass for an avatara of the sublime divinity ?

The gods share their power and influence with goddesses, the heroes and priests with wise women. Of the asynjor, Saga is named next after Frigg in Sn. 36, and together with Sol in 212 ; her residence is Sokqvaheckr, sinking beck, a large and roomy place ; Sagones (Saga's ness) in Saem. 154b seems also to take its name from her. In Saem. 41a Socqvabechr is described as a place where cool waters rush : there O&inn and Saga day by day drink gladly out of golden cups. This is the drink of immortality, and at the same time of poesy. Saga may be taken as wife or as daughter of 03inn ; in either case she is identical with him as god of poetry. With the Greeks the Musa was a daughter of Zeus, but we often hear of three or nine Muses, who resemble our wise women, norns and schopferins (shapers of destiny), and dwell

1 0$inn himself ; whose blindness fits in with that of the ancient poets. The loss of eyes strengthens the memory, it lends the capacity and impulse to sing.

SAGA.

911

beside springs or wells.1 The cool flood well befits the swan- wives, daughters of Wish. Saga can be no other than our sage (saw, tale), the 'maere' of p. 897 personified and deified.

Our 13th cent, poets personify ' aventiure/ making a frau Aventiure, like the norn, foot it overland to the minstrel's hut, knock and demand admission.2 To this day, when people take turns in telling stories, they say c the marlein goes round from house to house/ Suchenwirth no. xxv describes an apparition of dame Aventiure on a blooming ea in the forest; she has travelled through the land to kings and princes as frau Wire's messenger, and now presents her report ; putting a gold ring on her finger, she disappears. I have one thing more to mention, that M.Nethl. poets make a person of ' aventure 3 in the sense of our MHGr. frau Sselde : ' die Aventure wacht/ Maerl. 2, 14. 'dat rat (rota) van Aventuren/ Rein. 6183, just like t diu Sselde wacht' and 'Sselden rat' (p. 863-8). I am not aware that in this they followed the pattern of any Romance poetry (see Suppl.).

That ' passing round ' or alternate telling of myth and marchen was already a Greek and Roman custom, as we may see by Ovid's Met. lib. iv, where the Minyads during their spinning and weaving beguile the time by telling tales, 39 :

c Utile opus manuum vario sermone levemus, jperque vices aliquid, quod tempora longa videri non sinat, in medium vacuas referamus ad aures.' dicta probant, primamque jubent narrare sorores.

167 : Desierat, mediumque fuit breve tempus, et orsa est dicere Leuconoe, vocem tenuere sorores.

274: Poscitur Alcithoe, postquam siluere sorores.

But it was the festival of Bacchus, the priest had bidden them keep it, ' immunes operum dominas famulasque suorum,' and the god avenged himself by turning their web into a tissue of vines and ivy, and the Minyads into owls and bats. (The song of women at the loom is also mentioned by Agathias, p. 29.) Holda and Berhta are often angry at spinning which desecrates their

1 0. Boh. glosses in Hanka 55b : * wodna=mu$a, ' (Jungm. 5, 147). Is this water-wife, spring-wife ?

3 Eefs. given in my little work quoted above, p. 310. To these add, from Ulr. von Turheim's Wh. 192c, a dialogue of the poet with frau Aventiure.

912

POETEY.

holy day (pp. 270-4), though otherwise they favour and reward it. The norns making visitations have spindles, and they sing at their spinning : the wise women and divine mothers of our antiquity may be regarded as teachers of song, story and spindle.

CHAPTER XXXI.

SPECTRES.

A preceding chapter has treated of Souls in their state of separation from the body and passage to another dwelling-place : these are the souls that have found their rest, that have been taken up into hades or heaven. Thenceforward they sustain only a more general connexion with earth and the living ; their memory is hallowed by festivals, and in early times probably by sacrifices.1

Distinct from these are such spirits as have not become par- takers, or not completely, of blessedness and peace, but hover betwixt heaven and earth, and in some cases even return to their old home. These souls that appear, that come back, that haunt, we call spectres (ghosts) .

The Roman expression for peaceful happy spirits of the dead was manes, for uncanny disquietiug apparitions lemures or larvae; though the terms fluctuate, for ' manes 3 can denote spectral beings too, and ' lemures ' can have a general meaning (Creuzer's Symb. 2, 850 — 866). Larva betrays its affinity to lar (p. 500), and the good kindly lares were often held to be manes or souls of departed ancestors. So in our German superstition we find instances of souls becoming homesprites or kobolds,2 and still oftener is there a connexion between unquiet spirits and spec- tres 3 (see Suppl.).

1 Between the christian All-souls' day (Nov. 2), on which the people visit churchyards and hang garlands on graves, and the three Eoman holidays when the under world opened (mundus patet) and the ' manes ' ascended (Creuzer 2, 865. 0. Miiller's Etrusk. 2, 97), there is a manifest connexion. On the night of Nov. 2 the Esthonians set food for the dead, and rejoice when they find any of it gone in the morning. In the Fellin district near Dorpat the departed souls are received in the bath-room, and bathed one after the other, Hupel's Nachr. p. 144, conf. Possart's Estland p. 172-3 ; exactly as food is set before angels and homesprites (p. 448).

2 I confine myself here to one Hessian folktale. Kurt, a farmer at Hachborn, would not quit the farm even after his death, but lent a hand in the field work as a good spirit. In the barn he helped the labourer to throw sheaves from the loft : when the man threw one, Kurt would throw another. But once, when a strange servant got up into the loft, he would not help ; at the cry 1 You throw, Kurt ! ' he seized the man and flung him on the thrashingfloor, breaking his legs.

3 Isengrim changes into Agemund (p. 511).

913

914

SPECTEES.

For the quiet spirits and their condition, our language has a beautiful adj., OHG. hiuri laetus, mitis, AS. heoru, Beow. 2744, ON. hyr, MHG. gehiure, our geheuer when we say 'es ist geheuer/ all is quiet, happy, peaceful. The contrary is ex- pressed by OHG. and OS. unhiuri dims, saevus, AS. unheoru, Beow. 1967 (unhiore 4822. unlike 4236. Casdm. 138, 5), ON. ohyr, MHGr. ungehiure, our ungeheuer : ' es ist ungeheuer/ there's something wrong. But both words go further, God is called hiuri, the devil unhiuri ; ungeheuer is monstrum, portentum in general The Gothic form would be hiuris, which seems nearly allied to hauri (pruna, ember), ON. hyr ignis, and is therefore the shining, the bright; if an OHG. gloss in Graff 4, 1014 be correct, even the non-negative hiuri may signify dirus, viz. fiery in a bad sense, such as we shall find presently in connexion with ignes fatui. Much the same in meaning with hiuri and unhiuri are holdo and unholdo (pp. 266. 456), though these are applied more to spirits and daemons than to human souls; yet Notker renders < manes' by unholdon, so that holdo and unholdo also appear svnonymous here.

The OHG. kispanst fern, (our gespenst n., spectre) meant properly suggestio (from spanan, suggerere) ; but as the forms of confession dealt much with devilish suggestion and entice- ment, 1 men came to use it habitually of ghostly delusion and illusion. Boner 94, 54 has fdiu gespenst9 (why not gespanst?) for phantom, apparition. The neuter is found in the MBere vom schretel und wazzerber 92 quite in the above connexion: <des tiuvels valant und sin gespenste9 ; even earlier, Herbort 3500 couples gespenste and getwas. Keisersperg (Omeiss 39) has des teufels gespenst (praestigium) : not till recent centuries did the term become really common, and some spelt it gespengst.

We also say spuk ; it is a LG. word, which first occurs m the Chron. saxon. (Eccard p. 1391) in the form spokne ; Detmar 1, 136 has spuk, and 2, 206 vorspok praesagium. Nowadays spok, Nethl. spook, spookzel, Swed. spoke, Dan. spbkenis a.d. 1618, spogelse spectrum, spog jocus; we should therefore expect a MHG. spuoch, Mod. spuch, but it is nowhere to be found.

i < Von des teufels gespenste,' instigation, Oberlin's Blhtebuoch 36. Frisch 2, 302* ; but he thinks it conn, with Lat. spectrum.

SPECTEES.

915

Gespuc indeed stands in Berthold, Cod. pal. 35, fol. 27b (see SuppL).

More precise is the ON. aptrgdnga fern., Laxd. saga p. 224, as if anima rediens, Dan. gienfdrd, gienganger, Fr. revenant, Saxo Gram. 91 says redivivus ; conf. our phrase ' es geht urn,' some- thing haunts (lit. goes about) ; ' at hann gengi eigi dauSr/ that he walk not when dead, Fornald. sog. 2, 346. To haunt is in L. Sax. dwetern, on the Harz walten (Harry's Volkss. 2, 46).

The regular word in ON. is draugr, Fornm. sog. 3, 200: OSinn is styled ( drauga drottinn/ Yngl. saga cap. 7, and a gravemound draugahus, Saem. 169a. The word is lost in Sweden and Denmark, but lives in the Norweg. drou, droug (Hallager 20c). It seems to be of one root with OHG. gitroc, MHG. getroc, delusive apparition, phantom, used of elvish and fiendish beings (p. 464) ; but our verb triegen, OHG. triokan troc (fallere) has no corresponding driuga in the Northern lan- guages.1 The Edda uses the analogous svik (fallacia, fraus) likewise in the sense of a ghostly jugglery, Seem. 166b. 167a. And that is also the meaning of the terms gisdn and sdnleih quoted p. 482 ; they can refer to spectres as well as to wood- sprites (see SuppL).

The glosses yield a number of old words for the Lat. larva. To begin with the earliest, the Florent. 982b gives talamasga, and the later M.Nethl. coll. (Diut. 2, 220) talmasge, Kilian too has talmasche larva, talmaschen larvam induere; it is the O.Fr. talmache, tamasche in Roquefort, who explains it as masque, faux visage, and c talmache de vaisseau 3 is a figure fixed on a ship.2 Other glosses have flattie, and scraz, scrat (p. 478). Mummel is both larva and kobold (p. 506). Anything uncanny and alarm- ing, monstrum, prodigium, portentum, praestigium, acquires the meaning of spectre too. Again, getwds (p. 464), Herbort 842. 12856. <ein bose getwds, Vom gelouben 530; the M.Nethl. ghedwaes, Hor. belg.* 6, 249 agrees with the Lith. dwase, spectre [v. the LS. verb dwetern above]. In Martina 10 we read ' daz

1 AS. dreogan dreah, though answering letter for letter, never means fallere but lagere, patrare, tolerare, to dree ; agreeing with ON. driugr, frequens.

Ducange sub. v. talamasca, wirfia, delusio imaginaria ; the author, cited are Mmcmar m capit. ad presb. dioec. cap. 14; Eegino 1, 213 ; Burchardus wormat. 2, 101, who says: 'larvas daemonum, quas vulgo talamascas dicunt, ante se ferri cor sentiat. Extr. from Concil. namnetense cap. 10 ; conf. Schmeller 2, 640.

VOL. III.

916

SPECTRES.

geschrudel; 3 and in Staid. 2, 27. 59. 64 das nachthuri, das ghiidi. The ON. vofa is spectrum, from vofa ingruere, imminere; the draugr is also called a dolgr, foe, Fornald. sog. 2, 368. Fornm. sog. 3, 200, and from this perhaps comes the Upland dodoljor, manes defunctorum (Ihre's Dial. lex. 32b), if not from dylja (celare), Sw. dolja (see Suppl.).

Now it is remarkable that even the ON. draugar are described as begirt with fire : ' hauga eldar brenna/ Fornald. sog. 1, 434. 'lupu upp hauga eldarnir' 1, 518. Loha dann (p. 242) is the Icel. name of a fiery exhalation. To this day it is the popular belief all over Germany, that souls which have not attained heavenly peace roam at night like bewildered birds, in fiery shape,1 on field and meadow, conf. wiesenhilpfer p. 829. The traveller, who takes them for village lights, they lure out of his way, now approaching, now retiring : they perch on his back like kobolds (Superst. I, 611), and flap their wings together over him (Deut. sag. no. 276) ; they lead into bogs, on deceptive devious tracks, hirrlig-spor (St. 2, 45), exactly like the butz, p. 507. The pedestrian tries to keep one foot at least in the carriage-rut, and then he gets on safely, for ignes fatui have power on foot- paths only. According to Villemarque's Barzasbreiz 1, 100 the spirit is a child with a firebrand in his hand, which he whirls round like a flaming wheel ; now he appears as a sick horse, and when the herdsman would lead him into the stable, hurls the brand at his head ; now as a bleating goat gone astray, that after sundown shews itself on the pond, and tempts the traveller into the water, then scampers off to tease him. In Etner's Unwiird. doctor p. 747, ' fire-men and frisking goats ' are coupled together. The phenomenon has a vast variety of names. Our com- monest one is irlicht (err-light) and, from its resemblance to a burning wisp of straw, irwisch and on the Ehine heerwisch ; in Austria feuriger mann and fuchtelmann (Hofer 1, 251) from fuchteln to burnish or jerk to and fro, viz. the fiery blade.2 In

1 In Lausitz the ignis lambens that plays about the tops of forest trees is called feuermann, Laus. monatsschr. 1797. p. 749. - _

2 These fiery exhalations also settle on the masts of ships, Manenleg. 87, 9b, or the spears of warriors. The former kind the ancients named after the Dio. curi, Pliny 2, 37, the moderns call it 'feu de St. Elme.' For the flaming spears I have old authorities : ' signa (also, pila) militum arsere,' Tac. Ann. 12, 64. 15, 7. ' duae puerorum lanceae, emissis flammis, lumen euntibus praebuerunt, ibantque ful- gurantes hastae,' Greg. tur. mirac. Mart. 1, 10. And a modem instance in ZeiTer's

WILL O' THE WISP.

917

Pictorius p. 524 zeusler from zeuseln, ziiseln to toy with fire ; other- wise ziinsler, zundler, and in Fischarfs Garg. 231 zunsel-gespenst, conf. Hofer sub v. zinserl. In Low Grerm. gloiniger (glowing) man; tiickebold, tukkebode, not from tiicke malice, but from tuk a quick movement (Reinh. p. 109) or kzucken to dart to and fro,

;. conf. HGr. ziebold butterfly ; in Westph. smalgenfilr, which I can hardly make out. More generally known are dwerlicht (whirl- ing flame) ; elflicht ; dwellicht (from dwelen, dwalen to stray) ; Nethl. dwaallicht ; droglicht (deceptive again), drogfackel, and in Nassau druckfackel, Kehrein's Nas. 31-2. Dan. lygtemand

i (lantern-man), blaasmand (Molbech/s Dial. 39) and vcitte-lys

j (light of wights, sprites) ; Swed. lys-eld, lyktguhbe ; Eugl., with that fondness for christening which we noticed under home- sprites (p. 504), Will with a wisp, Jack in a lantliorn. Lat.

1 ignis fatuus (Ann. corbei. an. 1034) ; Fv.feufollet (follis, p. 508), fifollet (Pluquet's Contes p. 13), farfadet, sauterai, also, acc. to Mem. des ant. 4, 406, a guela incomprehensible to me. Sloven. vezha (butterfly, witch), shkopnik, -niak (straw-man, from shkopa, MHG. schoup), smotava (from smota, error), slep ogeni (blind fire) ; svetylko (light, dim.), bludicka (from blud, error) ; Pol. blednica ; Laus. bludne swieczke ; Russ. bludiashchiy ogoni. I do not know any very old names even in Teutonic languages, unless it be irreganc and girregar in a Konigsberg MS. (Grundr. 345) ; but Irreganc in Ls. 2, 314 is the name of a wandering scholar, and irrefogel in Haupt's Zeitschr. 1, 438 means the same, conf. Schm. 3, 588; the Titurel 576 has f ein irregengel vor allem valsche/ The two words vatte-lys and elf-licht, shewing a close connexion with wights and elves, are perhaps the oldest we have. Sindri (scintilla), a dwarfs name in the Edda, Saem. 7b, suggests the Slav homesprite Iskrzycki (iskra spark, p. 513). A story is told of an irwisch getting caught, and a great many more coming soon after to claim him back : this represents them as an elvish people, who stick to one another.1

Miscell. (Niirnb. 1661) p. 143-4. Deut. sag. no. 279. None of these refer to souls, they are rather happy omens of victory, as will be shewn in ch. XXXV. Shooting stars indeed pass for souls (p. 722), even with the Grreenlanders (Majer's Myth, lex. 2, 240) and Mongols (Bergmann 3, 42).

1 Ad. Kuhn (Pref. to Mark, sagen p. ix) is for regarding all kobolds as orig. fire-divinities, and the domestic hearth-fire as the foundation of their worship. Both kobolds and will o' wisps are called follet (p. 508-14), and kobolds, like fiery dragons (p. 691), bring money or corn; but the adder too is of kobold nature (p. 691), and the dominae bring gifts (p. 287), and so do devils.

918

SPECTEES.

Will o' wisps had once, no doubt, a wider meaning, which has now been narrowed down mainly to two classes of unblessed spirits, the souls of unchristened babes} and those of men who in their lifetime dealt wrongly by the cornfield, who respected not the sacredness of landmarks.2 Unrighteous land-surveyors (Swed. skiall-vrangare) may be seen hovering up and down the furrows with a long fiery pole, as if re-measuring the wrongly measured ; whoso has ploughed of his neighbour's land, whoso has moved the mark-stone, on him falls the curse of wandering as a will o' wisp. Hence about ploughing debatable strips, one hears the people say : f ik mag niit spiiken gan/ conf. Deut. sag. nos. 284-5. Thiele 1, 58 (see Suppl.).

Another class of spectres will prove more fruitful for our investigation : they, like the ignes fatui, include unchristened babes, but instead of straggling singly on the earth as fires, they sweep through forest and air in whole companies5 with a horrible din. This is the widely spread legend of the furious host, the furious hunt, which is of high antiquity, and interweaves itself, now with gods, and now with heroes. Look where you will, it betrays its connexion with heathenism.

The Christians had not so quickly nor so completely renounced their faith in the gods of their fathers, that those imposing figures could all at once drop out of their memory. Obstinately clung to by some, they were merely assigned a new position more in the background. The former god lost his sociable cha- racter, his near familiar features, and assumed the aspect of a dark and dreadful power, that still had a certain amount of influ- ence left. His hold lost upon men and their ministry, he wan- dered and hovered in the air, a spectre and a devil.

I have already affirmed on p. 132 a connexion between this icutende heer and Wuotan, the god being linked with it in name

1 Braunschw. anz. 1760 no. 86, 35. Praetorii Weltbeschr. 1, 262-9. Laus. monatss. 1797 p. 747. So far back as the Anegenge 180a. 190b : 'wa mit din armen chindelin daz fiwer haben geschoufet, diu da ungetoufet an ir schulde scheident von hinne ; ' but here the fire of purgatory is meant.

2 Ungerechte siebner, Moser's Patr. phant. 3, 309. ifurig marcher,'' will o' wisps, in Hebel's poem. Mone's Anz. 1835, 408. 1838, 223. Westendorp p. 511.

3 Yet there are some brausende geister (blustering spirits) that go singly too, as * jungfer Eli' in the Davert, Deut. sag. no. 121. Their name of ■ braus. g.' is vouched for by Plitt's Nachr. von Wetter p. 42.

FUEIOUS HOST : WUOTAN.

919

as in reality. An unprinted poem of Riidiger von Munir con- tains among other conjuring formulas 'hi Wuotunges her Wuotunc and Wuotan are two names of one meaning. Wuotan, the god of war and victory, rides at the head of this aerial phenomenon ; when the Mecklenburg peasant of this day hears the noise of it, he says ' de Wode tut (zieht)/ Adelung sub v. wiithen ; so in Pomerania and Holstein, ' Wode jaget/ W. hunts (p. 156). Wuotan appears riding, driving, hunting, as in Norse sagas, with valkyrs and einheriar in his train ; the procession resembles an army. Full assurance of this hunting Wode's identity with the heathen god is obtained from parallel phrases and folktales in Scandinavia. The phenomenon of howling wind is referred to OSin's waggon, as that of thunder is to Thor's. On hearing a noise at night, as of horses and carts, they say in Sweden t Oden far forbi.' 1 In Schonen an uproar produced perhaps by seafowl on November and December evenings is called Odens jagt.2 In Bavaria they say nacht-gejaid or nacht- gelait (processio nocturna), Schm. 2, 264. 514; in German Bohemia nacht-goid = spectre, Rank's Bohmerwald pp. 46. 78. 83. 91. In Thuringia, Hesse, Franconia, Swabia, the traditional term is c das wutende heer,' and it must be one of long standing : the 12th cent, poet of the Urstende (Hahn 105, 35) uses ' daz wuetunde her ' of the Jews who fell upon the Saviour ; in Rol. 204, 16 Pharaoh's army whelmed by the sea is ' sin wotigez her/ in Strieker 73b ' daz wiietunde her ' ; Reinfr. v. Brnswg. 4b f daz wuetende her'; Mich. Beheim 176, 5 speaks of a e crying and whooping (wufen) as if it were das wutend her 3 ; the poem of Henry the Lion (Massm. denkm. p. 132) says, e then came he among daz woden her, where evil spirits their dwelling have.'* Greiler v. Keisersperg preached on the wutede or wutische heer? H. Sachs has a whole poem on the wutende heer, Agricola and Eiering relate a Mansfeld legend. It is worth noticing, that acc.

1 Loccenii Antiq. sveog. cap. 3. Geijer Sv. hafd. 1, 268.

2 Nilsson's Skandinavisk fauna 2, 106.

3 Omeiss 36 seq. ; his description deserves a place here : ' And they that so run, run mostly at the fron-fasts, and chiefly at the fron-fast before Christmas, that is the holiest tide. And every one runneth as he is in his raiment, the peasant as a peasant, the knight as a knight, so run they in a string, and one beareth the kros before him, another his head in his hand, and one runneth before, that crieth, Flee out of the way, that God give thee thy life ! Thus speak the meaner sort thereon. I know nought thereof.'

920

SPECTRES.

to Keisersperg all who die a violent death ' ere that God hath set it for them/ and acc. to Superst. I, 660 all children dying un- baptized, come into the furious host to Holda (p. 269), Berhta and Abundia (p. 288), just as they turn into will o' wisps (p. 918) : as the christian god has not made them his, they fall due to the old heathen one. This appears to me to have been at least the original course of ideas (see Suppl.).

While in this conuexion the meaner sort long cherished the thought of Wuotan, or conveniently stowed him away in a cog- nate verb; it was quite in the regular course of things that the more cultivated should from an early time put the devil in his place. ' Si bliesen unde gull en, vreisliche si hull en, so daz diu helle wagete, alse der tuvel da jagete/ says Veldeck in En. 3239. Caesarius heisterb. 12, 20 tells of a vain woman, who had herself buried in fine new shoes, and whose soul was therefore hunted by the infernalis venator : ' ex remoto vox quasi venatoris terribiliter buccinantis, necnon et latratus canum venaticorum praecedentium audiuntur.-' 1 ' der tiuwel hat uz gesant sin geswarme und sin her,' Eol. 204, 6. ' der tiuvel und sin her,3 Renn. 2249. 2870. The people in Bavaria say that on Ash- Wednesday the devil chases the little wood-wife, Superst. I, 914b. With the devil is associated the figure of an enormous giant, who can stand for him as well as for Wuotan ; and this opinion prevails in Switzerland. There the wild hunt is named dursten-gejeg (see durs, ]?urs, p. 521) : on summer nights you hear the durst hunting on the Jura, cheering on the hounds with his hoho ; heedless persons, that do not get out of his way, are ridden over.2 Schm. 1, 458 quotes an old gloss which renders by duris durisis the Lat. Dis Ditis, and plainly means a subterranean infernal deity.

In Lower Saxony and Westphalia this Wild Hunter is identified with a particular person, a certain semi-historic master of a hunt. The accounts of him vary. Westphalian traditions call him

1 Joach. Camerarii Horae subsec. cent. 2. cap. 100 p. 390 : Ceterum negari non potest, diabolum varia ludibria cum alias turn praesertim in venatione leporum saepenumero exercere, cum nonnunquam appareant tripedes claudicantes et igneis oculis, illisque praeter morem dependentibus villis, atque venatores insequentes abducere student vel ad praecipitia vel ad paludosa aliaque periculosa loca. Imo visa sunt phantasmata et in terra et in nubibus integras venationes cum cambus, retibus, clamoribus raucis tamen, aliisque instrumentis yenaticis instituere, prae- ferentia formas hominum longe ante defunctorum.

2 Ildef. v. Arx, Buchsgau p. 230. Staid. 1, 208.

FUBIOUS host: hackelbebnd.

921

Eackelbarend, Eackelbernd, Eackelberg, Eackelblock. This Eackel- barend was a huntsman who went a hunting even on Sundays, for which desecration he was after death (like the man in the moon, p. 717) banished into the air, and there with his hound he must hunt night and day, and never rest. Some say, he only hunts in the twelve nights from Christmas to Twelfth-day ; others, whenever the storm-wind howls, and therefore he is called by some the jol-jager (from yawling, or Yule?).1 Once, in a ride, Eackelberg left one of Ms hounds behind in Fehrmann's barn at Isenstadt (bpric. Minden) . There the dog lay a whole year, and all attempts to dislodge him were in vain. But the next year, when Hackelberg was round again with his wild hunt, the hound suddenly jumped up, and ran yelping and barking after the troop.2 Two young fellows from Bergkirchen were walking through the wood one evening to visit their sweethearts, when they heard a wild barking of dogs in the air above them, and a voice calling out between ' hoto,hoto ! ' It was Eackelblock the wilcl hunter, with his hunt. One of the men had the hardihood to mock his ( ho to, ho to/ Hackelblock with his hounds came up, and set the whole pack upon the infatuated man ; from that hour not a trace has been found of the poor fellow.2 This in Westphalia. The Low Saxon legend says, Eans von Eackelnberg was chief master of the hounds to the Duke of Brunswick, and a mighty woodman, said to have died in 1521 (some say, born that year, died 1581), Landau's Jagd 190. His tombstone is three leagues from Goslar, in the garden of an inn called the Klepperkrug. He had a bad dream one night ; he fancied he was fighting a terrific boar and got beaten at last. He actually met the beast soon after, and brought it down after a hard fight ; in the joy of his victory he kicked at the boar, crying 4 now slash if you can ' But he had kicked with such force, that the sharp tusk went through his boot, and injured his foot.3 He thought little of the wound at first, but the foot swelled so that the boot had to be cut off his

1 Weddigen's Westfal. mag. vol. 3, no. 18.

2 Bedeker's Westfal. sagen, nos. 48 and 47.

3 « SigurSr iarl drap MelbrigSa Tonn, ok batt hofuS hans viS slagolar ser oc slaut kykqva voftva sinom a tonnina, er skafti or hofSino, kom }>ar iblastr i fotinn, oc feck hann af J>vi bana,' Har. saga ens harf. cap. 22. Gundarich the son of Thassilo dies of a wound in his calf inflicted by a boar, MB. 13, 504-5. Conf. Orion's fate, end of this chapter.

922

SPECTEES.

leg, and a speedy death ensued. Some say he lies buried at Wiilperode near Hornburg.1 This Hackelnberg 'fatsches' in storm and rain, with carriage, horses and hounds, through the Thiiringerwald, the Harz, and above all the Rachel (a forest between Halberstadt, Groningen and Derenburg, conf. Praet. weltb. 1, 88). On his deathbed he would not hear a word about heaven, and to the minister's exhortations he replied : e the Lord may keep his heaven, so he leave me my hunting ; ' whereupon the parson spoke : ' hunt then till the Day of Judgment ! ' which saying is fulfilled unto this day.2 A faint baying or yelping of hounds gives warning of his approach, before him flies a night- owl named by the people Tutosel (tut-ursel, tooting Ursula). Travellers, when he comes their way, fall silently on their faces, and let him pass by ; they hear a barking of dogs and the hunts- man's ' huhu 1 ' Tutosel is said to have been a nun, who after her death joined Hackelnberg and mingled her tuhu with his huhu? The people of Altmark place a wild hunter named Hakke- berg in the Dromling, and make him ride down by night with horses and hounds from the Harz into the Dromling (Temme, p. 37). Ad. Kuhn no. 17 calls him Hachenberg and Hackelberg : he too is said to have hunted on Sundays, and forced all the peasants in his parish to turn out with him ; but one day a pair of horsemen suddenly galloped up to him, each calling to him to come along. One looked wild and fierce, and fire spirted out of his horse's nose and mouth; the left-hand rider seemed more quiet and mild, but Hackelberg turned to the wild one, who galloped off with him, and in his company he must hunt until the Last Day. Kuhn has written down some more stories of the wild hunter without proper names, nos. 63. 175. There are others again, which tell how Hackelberg dwelt in the Soiling, near Uslar, that he had lived in the fear of God, but his heart was so much in the chase, that on his deathbed he prayed God, that for his share of heaven he might be let hunt in the Soiling till the Judgment-day. His wish became his doom, and oft in that forest one hears by night both bark of hound and horrible blast of horn.

1 Otmar's Volkssagen 249. 250.

2 Like Diimeke's desire to drive his waggon for ever (p. 726).

3 Otmar 241. Deut. sag. no. 311. Conf. Goth. >iutan (ululare), >ut-haum (tuba).

fueious host: hackelbeknd.

923

His grave is in the Soiling too, the arrangement of the stones is minutely described ; two black hounds rest beside him.1 And lastly, Kuhn's no. 205 and Temme's Altmark p. 106 inform us of a heath-rider Baren, whose burial-place is shewn on the heath near Grimnitz in the Ukermark; this Baren3 s dream of the stump f- schwanz (bobtail, i.e. boar) points unmistakably to Hackelbarend.

The irreconcilable diversity of domiciles is enough to shew, in the teeth of tombstones, that these accounts all deal with a mythical being : a name that crops up in such various localities must be more than historical. I am disposed to pronounce the Westpb. form Hackelberend the most ancient and genuine. An OHG. hahhul [Goth, hakuls], OK hokull m. and hekla f., AS. hacele f., means garment, cloak, cowl, armour ; 2 hence hakol- berand is OS. for a man in armour, conf. OS. wapanberand (ar- miger), AS. 93scberend, garberend, helmb., sweordb. (Gramm. 2, 589). And now remember Odin's dress (p. 146) : the god ap- pears in a broad-brimmed hat, a blue and spotted cloak (hekla bla, flekkott) ; hakolberand is unmistakably an OS. epithet of the heathen god Wodan, which was gradually corrupted into Hackel- berg, Hackenberg, Hackelblock. The name of the Hackel-wood may be an abbrev. of Hakelbernd's wood. The ' saltus Eakel ' in Halberstadt country is mentioned first in the (doubtful) Chron. corbeieuse ad an. 936 (Falke p. 708) ; a long way off, hard by Hoxter in the Auga gau, there was a Haculesthorp (Wigand's Corv. giiterb. p. 94. Saracho 197. Trad. corb. 385) and afterwards a Hackelbreite ; then in L. Hesse, a Hackelsberg near Yolkmarsen, and a Hackelberg by Merzhausen (bailiw. Wit- zenhausen). But if a hakel = wood can be proved, the only trace of a higher being must be looked for in berand, and that may be found some day; in ch. XXXIII. I shall exhibit Hakol in the OK Hekla as mountain, hence wooded heights, woodland. In any case we here obtain not only another weighty testimony to Woden -worship, but a fresh confirmation of the meaning I attach to the 'wutende heer'; and we see clearly how the folktale of Hackelberg came to be preserved in Westphalia and L. Saxony

1 Kirchhof's Wendunmut no. 283, p. 342. Deut. sag. no. 171. The Braun- schw. anz. 1747, p. 1940 says the wild hunter Hackelnberg lies in the Steinfeld, under a stone on which a mule and a hound are carved.

2 OHG. missa-hahul (casula),St. Gall gl. 203 ; misse-hachil, Gl. herrad. 185b is mass-weed, chasuble, Graff 4, 797.

924

SPECTRES.

(where heathenism lasted longer) rather than in South Germany (yet see Habsberg, Eagelberg, Mone's Anz. 4, 309. Eachilstat, Graff 4, 797).

That the wild hunter is to be referred to Wodan, is made per- fectly clear by some Mecklenburg legends.

Often of a dark night the airy hounds will bark on open heaths, in thickets, at cross-roads. The countryman well knows their leader Wod, and pities the wayfarer that has not reached his home yet ; for Wod is often spiteful, seldom merciful. It is only those who keep in the middle of the road that the rough hunter will do nothing to, that is why he calls out to travellers: ' midden in den weg ! '

A peasant was coming home tipsy one night from town, and his road led him through a wood ; there he hears the wild hunt, the uproar of the hounds, and the shout of the huntsman up in the air : ' midden in den weg ! ' cries the voice, but he takes no notice. Suddenly out of the clouds there plunges down, right before him, a tall man on a white horse. ' Are you strong ? 3 says he, ' here, catch hold of this chain, we'll see which can pull the hardest/ The peasant courageously grasped the heavy chain, and up flew the wild hunter into the air. The man twisted the end round an oak that was near, and the hunter tugged in vain. ' Haven't you tied your end to the oak ? ' asked Wod, coming down. ' No,' replied the peasant, ' look, I am holding it in my hands/ ' Then you'll be mine up in the clouds/ cried the hunter as he swung himself aloft. The man in a hurry knotted the chain round the oak again, and Wod could not manage it. ' You must have passed it round the tree,' said Wod, plunging down. ( No,' answered the peasant, who had deftly disengaged it, ' here I have got it in my hands.' ' Were you heavier than lead, you must up into the clouds with me.' He rushed up as quick as lightning, but the peasant managed as before. The dogs yelled, the waggons rumbled, and the horses neighed overhead ; the tree crackled to the roots, and seemed to twist round. The man's heart began to sink, but no, the oak stood its ground. ' Well pulled ! ' said the hunter, 'many's the man I've made mine, you are the first that ever held out against me, you shall have your reward.' On went the hunt, full cry : hallo, holla, wol, wol ! The peasant was slinking away, when from unseen heights a stag fell groaning at

FUKIOTJS HOST : WUOTAN.

925

bis feet, and there was Wod, who leaps off his white horse and cuts up the game. ' Thou shalt have some blood and a hind- quarter to boot/ ' My lord/ quoth the peasant, 'thy servant has neither pot nor pail/ ' Pull off thy boot/ cries Wod. The man did so. 'Now walk, with blood and flesh, to wife and child/ At first terror lightened the load, but presently it grew heavier and heavier, and he had hardly strength to carry it. With his back bent double, and bathed in sweat, he at length reached his cottage, and behold, the boot was filled with gold, and the hind- quarter was a leathern pouch full of silver.1 Here it is no human hunt-master that shows himself, but the veritable god on his white steed : many a man has he taken up into his cloudy heaven before. The filling of the boot with gold sounds antique.

There was once a rich lady of rank, named frau Gauden ; so passionately she loved the chase, that she let fall the sinf ul word, e could she but always hunt, she cared not to win heaven/ Four- and-twenty daughters had dame Gauden, who all nursed the same desire. One day, as mother and daughters, in wild delight, hunted over woods and fields, and once more that wicked word escaped their lips, that 'hunting was better than heaven/ lo, suddenly before their mother's eyes the daughters' dresses turn into tufts of fur, their arms into legs, and four-and-twenty bitches bark around the mother's hunting-car, four doing duty as horses, the rest encircling the carriage ; and away goes the wild train up into the clouds, there betwixt heaven and earth to hunt un- ceasingly, as they had wished, from day to day, from year to year. They have long wearied of the wild pursuit, and lament their impious wish, but they must bear the fruits of their guilt till the hour of redemption come. Come it will, but who knows when ? During the twolven (for at other times we sons of men cannot perceive her) frau Gauden directs her hunt toward human habitations ; best of all she loves on the night of Christmas eve or New Year's eve to drive through the village streets, and where- ever she finds a street-door open, she sends a dog in. Next morn- ing a little dog wags his tail at the inmates, he does them no other harm but that he disturbs their night's rest by his whining. He is not to be pacified, nor driven away. Kill him, and he turns

1 Lisch, Mecklenb. jahrbuch. 5, 78—80.

926

SPECTEES.

into a stone by day, which, if thrown away, comes back to the house by main force, and is a dog again at night. So he whimpers and whines the whole year round, brings sickness and death upon man and beast, and danger of fire to the house ; not till the twolven come round again does peace return to the house. Hence all are careful in the twelves, to keep the great house-door well locked up after nightfall ; whoever neglects it, has himself to blame if frau Gauden looks him up. That is what happened to the grandparents of the good people now at Bresegardt. They were silly enough to kill the dog into the bargain ; from that hour there was no ' sag und tag 3 (segen bless, ge-deihen thrive), and at length the house came down in flames. Better luck befalls them that have done dame Gauden a service. It happens at times, that in the darkness of night she misses her way, and gets to a cross-road. Cross-roads are to the good lady a stone of stumbling : every time she strays into such, some part of her carriage breaks, which she cannot herself rectify. In this dilemma she was once, when she came, dressed as a stately dame, to the bedside of a labourer at Boeck, awaked him, and implored him to help her in her need. The man was prevailed on, followed her to the cross-roads, and found one of her carriage wheels was off. He put the matter to rights, and by way of thanks for his trouble she bade him gather up in his pockets sundry deposits left by her canine attendants during their stay at the cross-roads, whether as the effect of great dread or of good digestion. The man was indignant at the proposal, but was partly soothed by the assurance that the present would not prove so worthless as he seemed to think ; and incredulous, yet curious, he took some with him. And lo, at daybreak, to his no small amazement, his earnings glittered like mere gold, and in fact it was gold. He was sorry now that he had not brought it all away, for in the daytime not a trace of it was to be seen at the cross-roads. In similar ways frau Gauden repaid a man at Conow for putting a new pole to her carriage, and a woman at Gohren for letting into the pole the wooden pivot that supports the swing-bar : the chips that fell from pole and pivot turned into sheer glittering gold. In particular, frau Gauden loves young children, and gives them all kinds of good things, so that when children play at/rw Gauden, they sing :

FUBIOUS HOST : WUOTAN.

927

fru Gauden hett mi'n lammken geven, darmitt sail ik in freuden leven.

Nevertheless in course of time she left the country ; and this is how it came about. Careless folk at Semmerin had left their street-door wide open one St. Silvester night ; so on New-year's morning they found a black doggie lying on the hearth, who dinned their ears the following night with an intolerable whining. They were at their wit's end how to get rid of the unbidden guest. A shrewd woman put them up to a thing : let them brew all the house-beer through an f eierdopp/ They tried the plan ; an egg- shell was put in the tap-hole of the brewing-vat, and no sooner had the ' worp 3 (fermenting beer) run through it, than dame Gaudeiv 's doggie got up and spoke in a distinctly audible voice : f ik bun so old as Bohmen gold, awerst dat heff ik min leder nicht truht, wenn man 't bier dorch 'n eierdopp bruht/ after saying which he disappeared, and no one has seen frau Gauden or her dogs ever since1 (see Suppl.).

This story is of a piece with many other ancient ones. In the first place, frau Gauden resembles frau Holda and Berhta, who likewise travel in the ( twelves/ who in the same way get their vehicles repaired and requite tjie service with gold, and who finally quit the country (pp. 268, 274-6). Then her name is that of frau Gaue,frau Gode,frau Wode (p. 252-3) who seems to have sprung out of a male di vinity fro Woden (p. a matter which is placed beyond doubt by her identity with Wodan the wild hunter. The very dog that stays in the house a year, Hakelberg's (p. 921) as well as frau Gauden's, is in perfect keeping. The astonishment he expresses at seemingly perverse actions of men, and which induces him, like other ghostly elvish beings, to speak and begone, is exactly as in the stories given at p. 469.

At the same time the transformation of the wild hunter into goddesses appears to be not purely arbitrary and accidental, but accounted for by yet other narratives.

E. M. Arndt2 tells the tale of the wild hunter (unnamed) in the following shape : In Saxony there lived in early times a rich and mighty prince, who loved hunting above all things, and sharply

1 Lisch, Meckl. jb. 8, 202 — 5. In the Prignitz they tell the same story of frau Gode, Ad. Kuhn no. 217.

2 Marchen und jugenderinnerungen 1, 401 — 4.

928

SPECTEES.

punished in his subjects any breach of the forest laws. Once when a boy barked a willow to make himself a whistle, he had his body cut open and his bowels trained round the tree (RA. 519-20. 690) ; a peasant having shot at a stag, he had him fast riveted to the stag. At last he broke his own neck hunting, by dashing up against a beech-tree ; and now in his grave he has no rest, but must hunt every night. He rides a white horse whose nostrils shoot out sparks, wears armour, cracks his whip, and is followed by a countless swarm of hounds : his cry is ' wod wod, hoho, hallo I'1 He keeps to forests and lonely heaths, avoiding the common highway ; if he happens to come to a cross-road, down he goes horse and all, and only picks himself up when past it ; he hunts and pursues all manner of weird rabble, thieves, robbers, murderers and witches.

A Low Saxon legend of the Tilsgraben or devil's hole between Dahlum and Bokenem (Harrys 1, 6) says, the wild knight Tils was so fond of the chase that he took no heed of holidays, and one Easter Sunday he had the presumption to say ' he would bring a beast down that day if it cost him his castle.' At evening the cock crew out that the castle would sink before night ; and soon after it sank in the lake with all that was in it. A diver once on reaching the bottom of the lake, saw the ritter Tils sitting at a stone table, old and hoary, with his white heard grown through the table.

In the Harz the %ild chase thunders past the Eichelberg with its ' hoho ' and clamour of hounds. Once when a carpenter had the courage to add to it his own ' hoho/ a black mass came tumbling down the chimney on the fire, scattering sparks and brands about the people's ears : a huge horse's thigh lay on the hearth, and the said carpenter was dead. The wild hunter rides a black headless horse, a hunting-whip in one hand and a bugle in the other ; his face is set in his neck, and between the blasts he cries 'hoho hoho ; ' before and behind go plenty of women, huntsmen and dogs. At times, they say, he shews himself kind, and comforts the lost wanderer with meat and drink (Harrys 2, 6).

In Central Germany this ghostly apparition is simply called the wild huntsman, or has some other and more modern name

1 • Hoho, woit gut ! ' AW. 3, 144-5. Both wod and ivoit seem to me to refer to W6dan, Wuotan, as exclamations are apt to contain the names of gods.

FUEIOUS HOST.

929

attached to him. By Wallrod near Schliichtern in Hanau country are seen tall basaltic crags standing up like ruins : there in former times was the wild man's house, and you may still see his grey gigantic figure make its rounds through the forest, over heath and field, with crashing and uproar (conf. 432. 482). A Thuringian story contains (and in a clearer form) that Bavarian chase after the holzweiblein. The wild hunter pursues the moss-folk, the little wood-wives 1 ; he remains unseen, but you hear him bluster in the air, so that it ' crickles and crackles/ A peasant of Arntsch- gerente near Saalfeld had the impudence, when he heard shouting and the bark of dogs in the wood, to put in his tongue and mimic the huntsmen's cry : the next morning he found the quarter of a little moss-wife hung up outside his stable door, as if to pay him for his share in the hunt.2 c Dixerunt majores nostri, tempore melioris et probioris aevi, concubinas sacerdotum in aire a daemonibusj non aliter quam feras sylvestres a canibus venaticis, agitari atque tandem discerptas inveniri : quod si hominum quis- piam haec [hanc ?] audiens venationem suo clamore adjuverit, illi partem vel membrum concubinae dissectum ad januam domus mane a daemonibus suspensum/ Bebelii Facetiae (Tub. 1555) p. lla. Here the wood- wives are replaced by priests' wives, but the same may already have been done in the 13th cent, folktale. Our German tradition says nothing about the reason why the airy hunter pursues the wood-wife;3 among the people o£ Upper Germany the wild women themselves play a leading part in the ( twelve nights/ and in Lent they are part and parcel of this

1 These moosleute and holzweibel belong to the class of wood-sprites (p. 483), forming a link between them and dwarfs ; it is Voigtland legend that knows most about them. They look like three-year old children, keep on friendly terms with men, and make them presents. They often help at haymaking, feed cattle, and sit down to table with men. At flax-harvest the countryman leaves three handfuls of flax lying in the field for the holziveibel (conf. pp. 448. 509) ; and in felling trees, dur- ing the brief time that the noise of the falling tree lasts, he marks three crosses on the trunk with his axe : in the triangle formed by these crosses the holzweibel sit and have respite from the wild hunter, who at all times is shy of the cross (conf. Deut. sag. no. 47). But Voigtland tradition makes the wild hunter himself have the figure of a small man hideously overgrown with moss, who roamed about in a narrow glen a league long (Jul. Schmidt 140). In the Eiesengebirg the night-spirit is said to chase before him the riittelweibchen, who can only find protection under a tree at the felling of which the words ' Gott wait's ! ' (not • wait's Gott ! ') were uttered, Deut. sag. no. 270.

2 Deut. sag. no. 48. Jul. Schmidt p. 143 ; conf. no. 301, where the dwarf hangs a chamois before the huntsman's door.

3 See below, the story from Boccaccio and that of Gronjette.

930

SPECTRES.

heathenish spectredom. Even among the Yicentine and Veronese Germans, the keenest sportsman will not venture on the track of game at the seasons just mentioned, for fear of the wild man and the wood-wife. No herdsman will drive cattle out, the flocks and herds are watered in the stable, children fetching the water in earthen vessels from the nearest spring. For the wood-wife the women spin a portion of hair (flax) on their distaffs, and throw it in the fire as a peace-offering to her (Hormayr's Tyrol 1, 141). The legend of the wild hunt extends to the Ardennes, and Wolf in his Niederl. sagen nos. 516-7 (conf. p. 706) justly lays stress on the fact that the object hunted is usually the boar, that a wood- cutter who had taken part in the hunt was a whole fortnight salt- ing boar's flesh ; which reminds us of the boar of the einheriar (pp. 318, 386), the caro aprina, and the roast boar in the legend of Walther (Waltharius p. 105) ; and Hackelb erg's dream (p. 921) is about the boar (see Suppl.).

The people dread having to do with these powerful spirits, and whoever breaks through this backwardness pays for it heavily. The Westphalian peasant (p. 921) fared worse than he of Saalfeld; so did a tailor in the Miinsterland. When the wild hunt swept over his house, he mocked the hunter by repeating his huJm, ~klif- Jclaf after him ; then a horse's foot came through the window, and knocked him off his table, while a terrible voice rang out of the air : f willstu mit mir jagen, sollst du mit mir knagen (gnaw) ! 3 DS. no. 309. A girl at Delligsen by Alfeld (Hildesheim country) tells the tale : Mine mutter vertelle, dat de helljdger dorch de luft ejaget herre (had been hunting) un jimmer eraupen ' ha ha ! tejif, tejaf, tejaf ! 3 De knechte (labourers) tau Hohne ut'n ganzen dorpe keimen eins avens to hope, un brochten alle de hunne (dogs) ut'n dorpe mit, umme dat se den helljdger wat briien wollen. Da kumte ok dorch de luft en ejaget, un wie hei ropt ' ha ha ! 3 sau raupt de knechte ok ' ha ha ! 3 un wie de hunne in'r luft jilpert, sau jilpert un bleft de hunne ut'n dorpe ok alle ; do smitt de helljdger on wat heruimer (somewhat down to them) un schriet : f wil ji mit jagen, so konn ji ok mit gnagen ! ' Ans se den annern (next) morgen tau seien dauet (went to see), wat on de helljager henne smetten herre, da ist'n olen per- schinken (an old gammon of boar)/ An Austrian folktale in Ziska's Marchen p. 37 tells of another fellow who, when the

FUKIOUS HOST.

931

wilde gjoad swept past, had the audacity to beg for a piece of game to roast ; the same in a Nethl. story, Wolf no. 259. On the other hand, a W. Preussen tale in Tettau and Temme no. 260 says, on the Bullerberg in the forest of Skrzynka, Stargard circuit, the wild hunter carries on his operations on Bartholomew's night, and once he flung a man's thigh out of the air into the head forester's carriage, with the words : ' Something for you out of our hunt ! 3

A Meissen folk-tale calls the spectre Hans Jagenteufel and pictures him as a man booted and spurred, in a long grey coat, with a bugle over his back, but no head, riding through the wood on a grey horse, DS. no. 309. They also tell of a wild hunter named Mansherg, of what district I do not know. Swabian stories about Elbendrotsch's1 hunting, about the Muotes heer 2, I should like to know more fully ; the castle of junker Marten, a wild hunter of Baden, stood at the village of Singen by the Pfinz, and his tombstone is shewn in a chapel on the way to Konigsbach ; the people in the Bahnwald see him at night with his dogs (Mone's Anz. 3, 363). Johann Hiibner the one-eyed, rides at midnight on a black horse, DS. no. 128. Other tales of S. Germany give no names, but simply place at the head of the wild host a white man on a white horse (Mone's Anz. 7, 370. 8, 306) ; an old lord of a castle rides a white horse, which may be seen grazing the meadows, ibid. 3, 259, just as Oden pastured his steed (p. 155n.). Even Michel Beheim (born 1416) made a meister-song on Eberhart, count of Wirten- berg, who hears in the forest a f sudden din and uproar vast/ then beholds a spectre, who tells him the manner of his damna- tion. When alive he was a lord, that never had his fill of hunting, and at last made his request unto the Lord to let him hunt till the Judgment-day ; the prayer was granted, and these 500 years all but 50, he has hunted a stag that he never can overtake; his face is wrinkled as a sponge.3 This is only another form of the L. Saxon legend of Hackelberg (see Suppl.)

1 Grater's Iduna 1813, p. 88 : 1814, p. 102. Conf. « elbentrotsch' p. 461.

2 Wagner's Madame Justitia p. 22. Schmid's Wortb. 391 * stiirmet wia 's Muthesheer ' ' seia verschrocka wia wenn (scared as if) 's Muathesheer anen vor- beizoga war,' Neflen's Vetter aus Schwaben (Stutg. 1837), pp. 154, 253. Is it a corrup. of ' Wuotes hor,' Schm. 4, 202, like potz,%otz (p. 15)? or is it muot (ira)=* wuot ? Conf. Fromuot, p. 891.

3 Von der Hagen's (etc.) Sammlung (etc.) 1, 43-4.

VOL. III. -n,

932

SPECTRES.

But in the same Swabia, in the 16th cent, (and why not earlier?) they placed a spectre named Berchtold at the head of the wutende heer, they imagined him clothed in white, seated on a white horse, leading white hounds in the leash, and with a horn hanging from his neck.1 This Berchtold we have met before (p. 279) : he was the masculine form of white-robed Berhta, who is also named Prechtolterli (Grat. Iduna 1814, p. 102).

Here we get a new point of view. Not only Wuotan and other gods, but heathen goddesses too, may head the furious host: the wild hunter passes into the wood-wife, Wodan into frau Gaude. Of Perchtha touching stories are known in the Orla-gau. The little ones over whom she rules are human children who have died before baptism, and are thereby become her property (pp. 918. 920). By these weeping babes she is sur- rounded (as dame Gaude by her daughters), and gets ferried over in the boat with them (p. 275-6). A young woman had lost her only child ; she wept continually and could not be comforted. She ran out to the grave every night, and wailed so that the stones might have pitied her. The night before Twelfth-day she saw Perchtha sweep past not far off; behind all the other children she noticed a little one with its shirt soaked quite through, carrying a jug of water in its hand, and so weary that it could not keep up with the rest ; it stood still in trouble before a fence, over which Perchtha strode and the children scrambled. At that moment the mother recognised her own child, came running up and lifted it over the fence. While she had it in her arms the child spoke : ' Oh how warm a mother's hands are ! but do not cry so much, else you cry my jug too full and heavy, see, I have already spilt it all over my shirt/ From that night the mother ceased to weep : so says the Wilhelmsdorf account (Borner p. 142-3). At Bodelwitz they tell it somewhat differ- ently : the child said, { Oh how warm is a mother's arm/ and followed up the request ' Mother, do not cry so ; with the words ' You know every tear you weep I have to gather in my jug/ And the mother had one more good hearty cry (ib. 152). Fairy

1 Historie Peter Leuen des anderu Kalenbergers, von Achilles Jason Wid- man (aus schwabisch Hall), NUrnb'. 1560. Reprinted in Hagen's Narrenbuch, p. 353. Peter Leu here plays a trick on peasants, p. 394, by disguising himself as Berch- told.

FUBIOUS HOST BEECHTA, HOLDA, POSTEELI. 933

tales have the story of a little shroud drenched with tears (Kinderm. 109. Reusch no. 32. Thorn. Cantipr. p. 501, conf. Wolfs Wodana p. 153), and the Danish folktale of Aage and Else makes flowing tears fill the coffin with blood; but here we have the significant feature added of the children journeying in Perhta's train. The jug may be connected with the lachry- matories found in tombs 1 (see Suppl.).

With Berahta we have also to consider Holda, Diana and Hero- dias. Berahta and Holda shew themselves, like frau Gaude (p. 925), in the c twelves 3 about New-year's day. Joh. Herolt, a Dominican, who at the beginning of the 15th cent, wrote his Sermones discipuli de tempore et de Sanctis, says in Sermo 11 (in die Nativ.) : Sunt quidam, qui in his xii. nocfcibus subsequen- tibus multas vanitates exercent, qui deam, quam quidam Dianam vocant, in vulgari ' die frawen unhold,3 dicunt cum suo exercitu ambulare. The same nocturnal perambulation is spoken of in the passages about Diana,2 Herodias and Abundia p. 283 seq. It is exactly the Vicentine wood-wife, who acts along with the wild man, and to whom the people still offer up gifts. And as Berhta- worship in the Salzburg country became a popular merrymaking (p. 279), so a Posterli-hunt, performed by the country-folk them- selves on the Thursday before Christmas, is become an established custom in the Entlibuch. The Posterli3 is imagined to be a spectre in the shape of an old woman or she-goat (conf. p. 916). In the evening the young fellows of the village assemble, and with loud shouts and clashing of tins, blowing of alp-horns, ring- ing of cow-bells and goat-bells, and cracking of whips, tramp over hill and dale to another village, where the young men receive them with the like uproar. One of the party represents the

1 Infantum animae fientes in limine primo, quos dulcis vitae exsortes et ab ubere raptos

abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo. Virg. Aen. 6, 427. In the Introd. to the Pentameron the revival of a dead man depends on a cruse hung upon his tomb being wept full.

2 With Diana agrees the Pol. Dzieioanna, Dziewina (Linde 1, 599^), Dziewica ; Liebusch has the foil, story about a Dziwitza in Up. Lausitz : she was a beautiful young knenye or princess, who roamed in the woods, armed with the zylba (a jave- lin) ; the finest of hounds accompanied, scaring both game and men who were in the thick forest at midday. The people still joke any one that spends the hour of noon alone in the fir-woods : ' are you not afraid Dziwitza will come to you ? ' But she also hunts of a moonlight night.

3 Is it synon. with frau Faste (p. 782 n.) , and taken from the Slavic « post ' = fast, jejunium ?

934

SPECTEES.

Posterli, or they draw it in a sledge in the shape of a puppet, and leave it standing in a corner of the other village ; then the noise is hushed, and all turn homewards (Staid. 1, 208). At some places in Switzerland the Straggele goes about on the Ember- night, Wednesday before Christmas, afflicting the girls that have not finished their day's spinning (ib. 2, 405). Thus Posterli and Straggele resemble to a hair both Berhta and Holda.1 At Neu- brunn (Wiirzburg country) the furious host always passed through three houses, each of which had three doors directly behind one another, street-door, kitchen-door, and back-door; and so wherever it finds three doors in a line, the furious host will drive through them. If you are in the street or yard when it passes, and pop your head between the spokes of a cart-wheel, it will sweep past, else it will wring your neck. Old people at Massfeld tell you, it used to come down the Zinkenstill by the cross-road near Reumes bridge, and go over the hills to Dreissigacker. Many will swear by all that is sacred, that they have seen it (Bechstein's Frank, sag. no. 137). In Thuringia the furious host travels in the train of frau Holla (DS. no. 7). At Eisleben and all over the Mansfeld country it always came past on the Thurs- day in Shrove-tide ; the people assembled, and looked out for its coming, just as if a mighty monarch were making his entry. In front of the troop came an old man with a white staff, the trusty Eckhart, warning the people to move out of the way, and some even to go home, lest harm befall them. Behind him, some came riding, some walking, and among them persons who had lately died. One rode a two-legged horse? one was tied down on a wheel which moved of itself, others ran without any heads, or carried their legs across their shoulders. A drunken peasant, who would not make room for the host, was caught up and set upon a high rock, where he waited for days before he could be helped down again.3 Here frau Eolda at the head of her spirit-host produces quite the impression of a heathen goddess making her royal pro-

1 Conf. the nightly excursions of the Scottish elf -queen (Scott's Minstr. 2, 149, 161), and of the fays (Keightley 1, 166).

2 Hel rides a three-legged one, p. 844.

3 Agricola's Spr. 667. Eyering 1, 781—6. Headless figures, "beasts two-legged, three-legged, redhot, are in many ghost stories ; a headless wild hunter runs riot in the Wetterau (Dieffenbach's Wett. p. 280), in Pomerania a headless horseman (Temme no. 140).

STEAGGELE, ECKHART, VENUS' MOUNT.

935

gress : the people flock to meet and greet her, as they did to Freyr (p. 213) or Nerthus (p. 251). Echhart with his white staff discharges the office of a herald, a chamberlain, clearing the road before her. Her living retinne is now converted into spectres (see Suppl.).

Echhart the trusty, a notable figure in the group of Old-Teutonic heroes (Heldensage 144. 190, reeve of the Harlungs, perhaps more exactly Eckewart, Kriemhild's hammerer, Nib. 1338, 3) gets mixt up with the myths of gods. The appendix or preface to the Heldenbuch makes him sit outside the Venus-mount to warn people, as here he warns them of the furious host ; so much the plainer becomes his vocation here, as well as the meaning of the Venusberg. Echhart goes before the furious host with Holda, he is also doomed to abide till the Judgment- day at the mount of Venus : the identity of Holda and Venus is placed beyond ques- tion. That mountain (some say the Hoselberg or Horselberg near Eisenach) is dame Holle's court, and not till the 15-1 6th cent, does she seem to have been made into dame Venus ; 1 in subter- ranean caves she dwells in state and splendour like the kings of dwarfs ; some few among men still find their way in, and there live with her in bliss. The tale of the noble Tanhduser, who went down to view her wonders,2 is one of the most fascinating fictions

1 Conf. p. 456. Venusberg in the Nethl. chapbook Margareta van Limburg c. 56. 82-4, also in the Morin. Keisersperg (Omeiss 36) makes witches fare to frau Fenusberg. There must have been a good many of these Venusbergs, particularly in Swabia : one near Waldsee, another by Ufhausen near Freiburg, in which the Schnewburger takes up his lodging, like Tanhauser, H. Schreiber's Tagb. 1839, p. 348. Doubtless the original M. Nethl. poem of Marg. van Limburg (a.d. 1357) also had Venusberg, as the later chapbook and Johan von Soest's paraphrase have (Mone's Anz. 4, 168), so that its earliest occurrence is rather to be placed in the 14th cent. A Dresden MS. of the 15th cent. (Hagen's Grundr. 336) contains a still unprinted poem on the Venusberg, prob. composed in the 14th cent. Joh. v. Soest wrote in 1470, Herm. von Sachsenheim 1453, and before them Joh. Nider (d. 1440) in his Formicarius names the Venusberg. Joh. Herolt speaks, as we saw, of Diana and frau Unhold ;, and next of kin is the mount that houses Felicia and Juno (p. 961). There may have been similar stories in Italy, for Paracelsus (Strasb. 1616) 2, 291° informs us : ' And by the same pygmaei was the Venusberg in Italia occupied, for Venus herself was a nympha, and the Venusberg hath been likened unto her realm ; but she also is past away, and her realm hath departed with her and ceased. For who now heareth tell of them, as in the old time when Dann- hauser and others were therein ? And the same is no fabled song of him, but a true history.' Again, in the Chirurg. schriften (Strasb. 1618) p. 332b - ' Some that be very great thereat, do secretly practise nigromancia, as campisirer (strollers) that come straight out of the Venusberg, who have dipped their art in the Veltliner, and have said matins with brother Eckart, and eaten a black-pudding with DanhauserJ' Afzelius 2, 141 tells of a bridegroom who was 40 years among the elves. All the legends place Venus and Holda in elf -mountains.

2 Deut. sag. no. 170. As the pope by the dried up stick cuts off Tanhauser

936 SPECTHES.

of the Mid. Age : in it the hankering after old heathenism, and the harshness of the christian clergy, are movingly portrayed. EcWiart, perhaps a heathen priest, is conrtier and conductor of the goddess when she rides out at a stated season of the year. I might even make him with his Kijpviceiov the psychopompos of the mounted host of the dead (conf . the waggon of souls creaking m the air, p. 833) ; only he conducts, not the departing, but rather the returning dead.

As we can also prove Dietrich von Bern's participation in the wild hunt (and Eckhart was one of his hero-band), he may stand as our second native hero in this group. Now the Lausitz people name the wild hunter Berndietrich, Dietrich Bemhard, or Diterhenada; the older Wends have many a time heard him hunt, and can tell of unsavoury joints that he gives away for roasting.1 Berndietrich too is the wild hunter's name m the Orlagau (Borner pp. 213-6. 236), where his dogs rouse and chase the wood-wives. Nay in the Harz, at the Bode-kessel (-crater) over the Eos-trappe (horse's footmark), stands the wild hunter turned into stone : 'we call him Bernhart ' was a boy's account, and the father of the Brunhild that leapt across the Bodethal on her steed is called by the people < he of Baren' (von Bern) ; this is the more significant, as Gibicho also (p. 137) is placed m the same mountains (Z. f. d. a. 1, 575). But from Fichte, himself a Lausitz man, we derive the information that knecht Rujprecht (p. 504) is there called Dietrich von Bern (Dent, heldensage p. 40). The two interpretations admit of being harmonized. Knecht Ruprecht makes his appearance beside frau Berhta, as her ser- vant and companion (p. 514-5), sometimes her substitute, and like

from all hope so in Swed. tradition the priest says to the nmsical <neck : ' Af S 156 But this myth of Tanhauser accords with many others, esp_ Celtic £ trTll Xt, it is told in Sweden of the

14.U and in the kinderm. of frau Fortuna, Altd. bl. 1, 297. And so does, stay ^hCaK^th Circe; but who would ^J^^? ^ °f Tanhauser from that of Ulysses or Orpheus as Mone does ; ( An d ^

i Joh. Hortzschansky's Sitten u. gebr. der Wenden ,P^t 3 (Des sau and uon. 1782) 3 258. Laus. monatsschr. 1797 p. 749. Liebusch's Skythika p. 287.

FUBIOUS HOST I DIETEICH BEEN.

937

her a terror to children. Add to this, that both Buprecht and Berhta appear at Christmas ; and, what is most decisive of all, Wode in Mecklenburg, like Berhta in Swabia, runs through the flax on the distaff, and Wode, like Ruprecht and Niclas, apportions good or evil to infants.1 So that Dietrich von Bern, like trusty Eckhart, is entitled to appear in Wuotan's, Holda's, Berhta' s train, or to fill their place. Then, in another connexion, Dietrich the fire-breathing, painted superhuman, is in poems of the Mid. Age fetched away, on a spectral fire-spirting steed, to hell or to the wilderness, there to fight with reptiles till the Judg- ment-day (D. heldensage 38 — 40). This agrees with our Altmark story of Hackelberg (p. 922) ; and in the compound Hackel-berend, the second half seems plainly to have led to Berend Bernhart and Dietrich- bern, as indeed the dreams of Hackelberg and Berend were identical (p. 923). Lastly, perhaps the Nethl. Berk met den beer (p. 213-4) ought to be taken into account here, not that I would derive his epithet from a misapprehension of Dietrich von Bern (see Suppl.).

We have come to know the wild host in two principal lights : as a nocturnal hunt of male, and as a stately progress of female, deities ; both, especially the last, occurring at stated seasons. The precise meaning of the word ' host 3 calls for a third explan- ation : it marches as an army, it portends the outbreak of war.

Wuotan (the old father of hosts, p. 817), Eachelbernd} Berhtolt, bestriding their white war-horse, armed and spurred, appear still as supreme directors of the war for which they, so to speak, give licence to mankind. There is more than one legend of enchanted mountains, in whose interior becomes audible, from time to time, drumming, piping and the clash of arms : an ancient host of spirits and gods is shut up inside, and is arming to sally out. I do not know a finer, a more perfect legend in this respect than that of the Odenberg in Lower Hesse, which stands too in the immediate neighbourhood of a Gudensberg (i.e Wodansberg), but distinct from it, so that f Odenberg 3 cannot be explained by the ON. form 03inn; it may come from 6d (felicitas), perhaps from odi (desertus). This long while the people have connected Odenberg not with the heathen deity, but

1 Franke's Alt und neu Meckl. 1, 57. In Silesia children are stilled with the night-hunter, Deut. sag. no 270.

938

SPECTEES.

with. Charles the great hero-king, and even with Charles Y.1 This emperor, owing to his treatment of Landgrave Philip, has left a lasting impression in Hesse : Karle Quintes with his soldiers is lodged in the Odenberg j and as the Swabian mother threatens her infant with the iron Berhta (p. 277), ' Be still, or the Prech- tolterli will come/ and the Bavarian with ' Hush, there's Prechte coming to cut your belly open/ the Hessian of this district stills it by the exhortation ' Du, der Quinte kommt !
But in earlier times they meant Charles the Great, as is suffi- ciently proved by the legend of the thirsting army, known to the annalists (pp. 117. 153), and itself a deposit of still older heathen myths. Charles had moved his army into the mountains of the Gudensberg country, some say victorious, others in flight, from the east (Westphalia). His warriors pined with thirst, the king sat on a snow-white steed ; then the horse stamped with his foot on the ground, and broke away a piece of rock; out of the opening gushed a bubbling spring (pp. 226. 584), and the whole army was watered. Glisborn is the name of the spring, to whose clear cold waves the country-folk impute a higher cleans- ing power than to common wafer, and women from surrounding villages come to wash their linen there. The stone with the hoof-mark may still be seen, let into the wall of Gudensberg churchyard. After that, king Charles fought a great battle at the foot of the Odenberg : the streaming blood tore deep furrows in the ground (they have often been filled up, but the rain always washes them open), the red waves rolled (wulchen) together, and poured down all the way to Bessa. Charles won the victory : in the evening the rock opened, took him and his exhausted soldiery in, and closed its walls. Here in the Odenberg the king rests from his valiant deeds ; but he has promised to come out every seven (or every 100) years, and when that time is past, you hear a rattling of arms in the air, neighing of horses and tramp of hoofs ; the procession passes by the Glisborn, where the steeds are watered, then goes on its way till, having finished its round, it returns at last into the mountain again. Once people were going past the Odenberg, and heard the roll of drums, but

1 At Broterode they shew a fann (flag) of Karles quintes, and connect with it the bloody assize held at the place, really the MHG. ' Karles reht ' or ' lot,' Bechstein's Thiir. sag. 2, 95.

FUBIOUS HOST : CHABLES, WUOTAN.

939

saw nothing. A wise man bade them look, one after another, through the ring formed by his arm held a-Umbo : immediately they saw a multitude of soldiers, engaged in military exercises, go in and out of the mountain.1 This looking through the arm gives assurance of the genuine primitive legend. Saxo Gram, p. 37 relates, that Biarco was unable to see Othin, who, mounted on white steed and covered with white shield, was aiding the hostile army of Swedes. Quoth Biarco to Ruta :

At nunc ille ubi sit qui vulgo dicitur Othin armipotens, uno semper contentus ocello ? die mihi, Ruta, precor, usquam si conspicis ilium ? Ruta : Adde oculum propius, et nostras jprosjpice chelas, ante sacraturas victrici lumina signo, si vis praesentem tuto cognoscere Martem? Biarco : Si potero horrendum Friggce spectare maritum, quantumcunque albo clyjpeo sit tectus et album flectat equum, Lethra nequaquam sospes abibit. fas est belligeram bello prosternere divam.

Looking through the rounded arm (chela, x^v) enables one to see spirits (Altd. blatter 1, 290), so does looking over the right shoulder (p. 459n., Superst. I, 996) or between a horse1 s ears. And this the Hessian folktale has preserved. Plainly as Wuotan is indicated on the whole, the story seems at times to shift itself to Donar, for we are also told of a red rider on a red horse and with heron's plume of red wool, who on certain days of the year gallops round the wooded fringe of the Odenberg : it is the ghost of Garolus quintus. The description would better fit "Frederic Barbarossa who sits entranced in the Kifhauser, and red-haired Donar (see Suppl.).

Similar to this Odenberg host are the excursions of the Bothen- thaler in Aargau,3 of the Bodensteiner to Schnellerts,4' of the grey man over the Bockenstul near Geisa in the Fulda country (Bechst.

1 For this and other stories faithfully taken down from the lips of the peasantry, I am indebted to a kind communication from Herr Pfister, artill. officer of Electoral Hesse.

2 As there can be no doubt about Othin, it is singular that Saxo should call him Mars. It serves to establish the original nearness of Wuotan to Zio (p. 197).

3 Wyss's Eeise ins Berner Oberland 2, 420.

4 Deut. sag. no. 169. Schnellerts = house of Schnellert, Snelhart. A mon- strous spirit named Snellaart in Marg. van Limb. 7b.

940

SPECTEES.

Frank, sag. 1, 68), and of others in other parts, see Moneys Anz. 3, 259. 8, 806 ; as the host passed over Wolfartsweiler, one of them shouted down : f If thou suffer harm, bind thee with red yarn ! ' 8, 307. We read in Heimreich's Nordfries. chron. 2, 93 that outside Tondern in 1637 armies were seen mustering in the air and fighting, in clear weather.1 An Irish folktale gives an account of the ancient chieftain O'Donoghae, who yearly on the first of May, mounted on a milkwhite steed t rises from the waters of a lake, to revisit his realm. On an August night, an earl of Kildare shews himself armed, on a splendid war-horse, and reviews the shades of his warriors (Elfenm. 192-3. 233). Strikingly similar to the ' duris, durst 3 on pp. 521. 920 is a Finnic Turisas, god of war and at the same time a giant (turras, turrisas, tursas), who, when a war is imminent, has his drum beaten high up in the clouds. To the Lettons johdi or murgi means ghosts, souls of the dead ; when the northern lights flicker, they say ' johdi kaujahs/ ghosts are fighting, or ' karru lauschu dwehseles kaujahs/ the souls of fallen warriors fight.2 They connect the ghostly tumult with a shining phenomenon, as we do with a sounding one ; it reminds one also of the war stirred up by our landsknechts in heaven itself, and still more of the ON. name for war and battle, ' Hiadnmga vedr e$a el,3 Hedaningorum tempestas vel procella, Sn. 163. In a lengthened fight the heroes had fallen, when Hildur the valkyrja came to the battle- field at night, waked them all up, and let them fight it over again, and so every day till the end of the world they shall do battle by day and lie dead at night. This, I think, is the very earliest example of an army warring in the clouds, which was a way of explaining the natural phenomenon, as we see by the words f ve$r, el.3 Of a battle between Swedes and Croats the Thuringians have a story, that on its anniversary, at 11 o'clock at night, all the buried soldiers start up and begin to fight afresh till the clock strikes one, then they sink into the ground and lie quite still again for a year, Bechst. 4, 231 (see Suppl.).

1 Guicciardini's Hist, d'ltalia (1583) p. 22: 'Bisuonava per tutto la fama, essere nel territorio d' Arezzo passati visibilmente molti di per Varia infiniti huomini armati, sopra grossissimi cavalli e con terribile strepito di suoni di trombe e di tamburi: Conf. the Dan. legend of Klintekonig's or Ellekdnig's trooping out, Thiele, 1, 98. 3, 55. Even children marching with pike and flag portend war, Superst. I, 106.

2 Stender's Lett. gram. (1783) p. 262-6. Bergmann p. 145.

fueious host: dues, hedanings, hellequin. 941

But the Romance nations have no less their own traditions of this aerial host, which on some points agree exactly with the German.

In France snch an air -picture of contending spirits goes by the name of Hellequin, Eielehin (Bosqnet 70—77), and in Spain of exerc ito antiguo.1 Guilielm. Alvernus (d. 1248) p. 1037 : ' de equitibus vero nocturnis, qui vulgari gallicano Hellequin, et vul- gari hispanico exercitus antiquus vocantur, nondum tibi satis- f eci, quia nondum declarare intendo qui sint ; nec tamen certum est eos malignos spiritus esse,, loquar igitur tibi de his in sequen- tibus/ P. 1065 : ' de snbstantiis apparentibus in similitudine equitantium et hellatorum, et in similitudine exercituum innumera- bilium, interdum autem et paucorum equitum.3 P. 1067 : ' nar- ra^fcur quo que, quod quidam videns hujusmodi exercititm (at a parting of roads) terrore percussus a via publica declinavit in agrum contiguum, ubi quasi in refugio, trans eunte juxta ilium toto illo exercitu, illaesus permansit et uihil mali passus est ab illis. propter quod opinio inolevit apud multos, agros gaudere pro- tectione Creatoris propter utilitatem horninum, et hac de causa non esse accessum malignis spiritibus ad eos, neque potestatem nocendi propter hanc causam hominibus existentibus in eis. Gens autem idolatrarum tutelam istam et defensionem, si earn vel cre- deret vel audiret, numinibus arvorum illam attribueret. opinor autem, quod Gererem deam, quae agris praeest, hujnsmodi homi- nem protexisse crederent, exercitumque ilium intra fines regnum- que Cereris nemini posse nocere/ P. 1073: fnec te removeat aut conturbet ullatenus vulgaris ilia Hispanorum nominatio, qua malignos spiritus, qui in armis ludere ac pugnare videri con- sueverunt, exercitum antiquum nominant, magis enim anilis et delirantium vetularum nominatio est quam veritatis/ Radulfus de Presles ad libr. 15 cap. 23 De civ. Dei : ' la mesgnee de Helle- quin, de dame Habonde (p. 286), et des esperis quils appellent fees/ Ducange sub v. In the Jeu d'Adan, the maisnie Hielehin is heard approaching with tinkling bells, the three fays (p. 411) accompanying, and a sires Hellequins is named. Reiffenberg's Renseign. p. 94. Vincent, bellov. lib. 30 cap. 118, and after him Keisersp. (Omeiss 37-8) mention a certain Natalis, Alle quinti,

1 I.e. the vast throng of the dead (p. 847) : ' he geit in 't olde heer ' = he dies, Narragonia 84X ' dem alien haufen zuschicken,' Keisersp. serm. on Brant, p. m. 43.

942

SPECTEES.

Karoli quinti, who when dead appeared again, and, being ques- tioned on the furious host, reported that it had ceased ever since Carolus quintus performed his penance. To the furious host is here given the name Caroliquinti, some say Allequinti, obviously the same thing as Hellequin and our Hessian Karlequinte in the Odenberg, p. 938. Nevertheless it seems a false interpretation of the older Hellequin, whose mesnie is mentioned several times in poems of the 13th cent.1 as well as by Guil. Alvernus, and who cannot therefore be the French king Charles V. of the latter half of the 14th cent. That in France too they connect Charles the Great with the furious host, appears from a Burgundian poem of the 17th cent., in which Charlemagne bestrides his horse at the head of the airy apparition, and Boland carries the standard (Journ. des savans 1832, p. 496). But what if Hellequin were after all the German helle (underworld) or its diminutive hellekin, personified and made masculine ? 2 At Tours they say chasse briguet (briguet is hound), and le carosse du, roi Hugon,2, who rides round the city walls at night, and beats or carries off all that encounter him. Here also king Hugo Capet's carriage represents that of a heathen god ; in Poitou they call it chasse- • gallerie. In the forest of Fontainebleau le grand veneur is supposed to hunt.

In Gervase of Tilbury's time the British woods already rang with king Arthur's mighty hunt (Ot. imp. 2, 12): 'narrantibus nemorum custodibus, quos forestarios vulgus nominat, se alternis diebus circa horam meridianam et in primo noctium conticinio sub plenilunio luna lucente saepissime videre militum copiarm, venantium et canum et cormtum strepitum, qui sciscitantibus se de societate et familia Arturi esse affirmant/ The Complaynt of Scotland p. 97-8 says : c Arthour knycht he raid on nycht with gyldin spur and candillycht/ The elf -queen and the fays have already been spoken of (p. 934n.). Shakspeare (M. Wives of W. iv, 4. v, 5) tells how ' Heme the hunter doth all the winter time at still midnight walk round about an oak/ 4

1 E.g. in Bichard sans peur, in the Koman de Fauvel ; conf. Jubinal's Contes 1, 284. Michel's Theatre fr. pp. 73—76.

2 Kausler's Chron. v. Flandern 8049 : 1 ten HalleMne,' at little hell (name of a place).

3 Mem. des antiq. 8, 458. Noei bourguignons p. 237. Thuanus lib. 24 p. 1104.

4 Heme too, if a myth, had got localized : ' sometime a keeper here in Windsor, forest.'— Trans.

FUEIOUS HOST : AETHUE, WALDEMAE.

943

Boccaccio (Decam. 5, 8) has the story of a ghost who, having been done to death by his false mistress, chases her naked through the wood every Friday, and has her torn to pieces by his hounds : every time she is slain, she rises again, and the grue- some hunt begins anew. Manni says the tale is taken out of Helinand; it may afford some solution of the wild hunter's pursuit of the wood-wife (p. 929), even if we are bound, as is fair, to trace the novelist's plot in the first instance to the simple basis of a folktale. In the poem on Etzel's court, the Wunderer shews himself almost exactly such a wild man and hunter : he chases frau Soelde with his dogs, and threatens to devour her, as the hunter does the fleeing wood-wife, or the infernalis venator a departed soul (see Suppl.). Far more important is a story in the Eckenlied : Fasolt hunts with hounds a wild maiden in the forest, just as the wild hunter does the holzweiblein, Lassberg's ed. 161—201, Hagen's 213—54, conf. 333. This becomes of moment to our understanding of Fasolt, who was a storm-giant (pp. 530. 636), and here turns up like Wuotan in the wild host.

Between the Norse legends and ours the links are not so far to seek. The Danes have made a wild hunter of their famous and beloved king Waldemar. The Zealand fable represents him, like Charles the Great (p. 435n.), as irresistibly drawn, by a magic ring, to a maiden, and after her death to a woodland district. He dwells in the forest of Gurre, and there hunts night and day ; 1 like Hackelberg, he uttered the presumptuous wish : ' God may keep his heaven, so long as I can hunt in Gurre for evermore !' So now he rides from Burre to Gurre every night; as soon as the ear can catch his ' hoho ' and the crack of his whip, the people slink aside under the trees. Foremost in the train run coal-black hounds, with fiery red-hot tongues hanging out of their throats ; then appears Wolmar on a white horse, some- times carrying his head under his left arm (conf. Superst. I, 605). If he meets any men, especially old men, he gives them hounds to hold. He follows one particular route, doors and locks fly open before him, and his track is named Wolmar 's street, Volde- mars-vej (Antiqvariske annaler 1, 15) ; here one cannot help thinking of Irmingstrset and Eriksgata (p. 356 — 361). Those

1 In hunting he practises cruelties on the peasantry ; he also chases a mermaid, Thiele 1, 46. 52.

944

SPECTRES.

who have held his hounds he presents with seeming trifles, which afterwards turn into gold : he will give a ducat for a horse-shoe (Thiele 1, 89 — 95). These stories are alike suggestive of Charles the Great, of Hackelberg, and of frau Holla or Perhta; conf. MullenhofFs Schlesw. hoist, sag. nos. 485-6.

In the I. of Moen is a wood named Griinewald : there every night the Gronjette hunts on horseback, his head tuclced under his left arm, a spear in his right, and a pack of hounds about him. In harvest time the husbandmen leave him a bundle of oats for his horse, that he may not trample their crops that night ; by this one circumstance we recognise Wuotan (p. 155), and perhaps Frey (p. 212). 1 He is here ajette, as in Switzerland he is a durst (p. 940). The ' gron/ I would explain, not by the green colour of his hunting dress, but by the ON. gron (barba), Gr6njette= ON. graniotunn, bearded giant ; and Grani (barbatus) is a name of Oftinn (p. 858). Gronjette, like Wolmar, makes the peasants hold his dogs ; he also hunts the mer woman (conf. wood- wife) . One man saw him return with the dead merwoman laid across his horse : ( seven years have I chased her, now in Falster I have slain her/ He made the man a present of the band with which he had held the hounds, and the longer he kept it, the richer he grew (Thiele 1, 95-97).

In Fiinen the hunter is Palnejdger, i.e. the ON. Pdlnatoki (Fornm. sog. 11, 49—99. Thiele 1, 1 10) : a far-famed hero (p. 381).

In some parts of Denmark, instead of naming Wolmar, they say e den fly vende j tiger,' flying huntsman, or 'den flyvende Mar- kolfus in Kail undb org district the hunt is transferred to a later king : Christian the Second rides on a white horse and with black hounds (Thiele 1, 187).

In Schleswig hunts king Abel: ( in eo loco ubi sepultus est . . . venatoris cornu inflantis vocem et sonum exaudiri, multi fide digni referunt, et affirmant usque adeo similem, ut venatorem ibivenari quis diceret, idque saepe a vigilibus qui Gottorpii nocte

1 Still closer comes the statement in Thiele p. 192 : in olden days it was the custom in the I. of Moen, when they were harvesting, and had tied the last sheaf of oats, to throw it on the field with the words : 'this for the jode of Vpsala, this let him have for his horse on Yule-eve ! ' and if they did not do it, their cattle died. The ' jotunn of Upsala ' is a christian euphemism for Wodan or Oftmn, whose divine image is set up at Upsala. The phraseology might originate at a period when Denmark was converted and Sweden remained heathen.

FUBIOUS HOST : GEONJETTE.

945

vigilare solent audiri : sed et Abelem niultis nostra aefcate ap- paraisse et visum esse constans omnium est rumor, ore et cor pore atrum, equo pusillo vectum, comitatum cauibus tribus venaticis, qui et saepe specie ignea et ardere visi sunt/ Oypraei Ann. episo. slesvic. p. 267; Conf. Thiele 2, 63. 142. Dahlrnann's Dan. gesch.

1, 408. Miillenhoff nos. 487-8.

With Swedish traditions of the wild hunter I am imperfectly acquainted, but they may safely be inferred from what is told of the stromkarls-lag (p. 492), that its eleventh variation is reserved for the use of the night spirit and his host ; and we found a point of agreement between the ' neck ' and our elf-natured Tanhauser (p. 936n.). Sweden retains too the primitive fashion of referring the natural phenomenon to the god (p. 919). Tales are told of two ardent sportsmen, Nielus Hog and Jennus Maar (Arwidsson

2, 71). _

One Norwegian story offers rich material. Souls that have not done so much good as to win heaven, nor yet harm enough to merit hell, drunkards, scoffers, tricksters, are doomed to ride about until the end of the world. At the head of the cavalcade comes Gurorysse or Reisarova 1 with her long tail, by which you may know her from the rest ; she is followed by a great multitude of either sex. Rider and steed have a stately appearance in front ; from behind you see nothing but Guro's long tail. The horses are coal-black, have glowing eyes, and are governed with fiery rods and iron reins : the noise. of the troop is heard from afar. They ride over water as over land, their hoofs scarce skimming the surface. When they throw a saddle on a roof, some person will presently die in that house; where they expect drunken revelry, rioting and murder, they come and sit over the door ; 2 they keep still so long as no crime is committed, but when it is, they laugh out loud,3 and rattle their iron rods. They make their journeys at Yule-tide, when there is much carousing. If you hear them come, you must get out of the way, or throw yourself flat on the ground4' and feign sleep, for there have been cases of

1 ' Guro rysserova=Gudrun horse-tail.' — Suppl.

2 ' Quia Mors secus introitum delectationis posita est.' Regula Benedict!, cap. 7.

3 Conf. ' manes ridere videns ' in the Waltharius 1040.

4 As on p. 922 : a precaution prescribed in all the folktales (Bechstein's Thiir. sag. 4, 234 and Frank, sag, 1, 57). It is practised in Italy when hot winds blow.

946

SPECTEES.

living men being dragged along with the moving mass. An up- right man, who takes that precaution, has nought to fear, save that each of the company spits upon him ; when they are gone, he must spit out again, or he will take harm. In some parts, this ghostly array is called aaskereia, aaslcerej, aaskereida, in others hoshelreia; the former corrupted from dsgard-reida, -reid, the Asgard march, whether as a passage of souls to heaven, or as a journey of gods, of valkyrs, visiting earth ; or may it not be more simply explained by aska (lightning) and reid (thunder) ? in which case it would be confined more to a manifestation of Thor. Sometimes you do not see the procession, but only hear it rush through the air. Whoever does not make the sign of the cross on his stable-doors the three nights of Yule, will in the morning find his horses blown and dripping with sweat (p. 661), because they have been taken and ridden (Faye 70 — 72).

Guro is apparently the same as gwrri, ON. gifr (giantess, p. 526) s but gurri is also huldra (Faye 10), who is described as a beautiful woman with a hideous tail (ib. 25. 39). Huldra maybe likened to our Holda all the more, because she takes unchristened infants with her. Guro, as a leader of the furious host, answers perfectly to the description given of all the others1 (see Suppl.).

If we now review the entire range of German and Scandinavian stories about the Furious Host, the following facts come to the front. The myth exhibits gods .and goddesses of the heathen time. Of gods : Wuotan, and perhaps Fro, if I may take ' Berh- tolt ' to mean him. We can see Wuotan still in his epithets of the cloaked, the bearded, which were afterwards misunderstood and converted into proper names. Saxo Gram. p. 37 says of Othin : c albo dypeo tectus, album (s. 1. pro 'altum') fiectens equum.' Sleipnir was a light gray horse (Sn. 47), what was called apple-gray (pommele, AS. seppelfealo) . Then we see both the name and the meaning [m. or f.] fluctuate between fro Wodan and frowa Gode. A goddess commanding the host, in lieu of the god, is Eolda, his wife in fact. I am more and more firmly con- vinced, that { Holda ' can be nothing but an epithet of the mild

1 Can the ' Gurre wood ' in the Waldemar legend have arisen, like ' Hakel wood,' out of the personal name ? Conf. Halja and heU. In Schmidt's Fastelabend- saroml. p. 76 we find the combination ' der Moor, die Goor, der wildejager.

pueious host: gueo.

947

f gracious > Fricha; oonf. Sommer's Thiir. sag. 165-6. And Berhta, the shining, is identical with her too ; or, if the name applies more to Frouwa, she is still next-door to her, as the Norse Freyja was to Frigg. It is worth noting, that here Norweg. legend also names a < Huldra/ not Frigg nor Freyja. The dogs that surround the god's airy chariot may have been Wuotan's wolves setting up their howl. A Scand. story not well authen- ticated 1 makes Odinn be wounded by a boar, like Hakelbernd, and this wounding seems altogether legendary (p. 921-2) ; when the boar sucked the blood out of the sleeping god, some drops fell on the earth, which turned into flowers the following spring.

These divinities present themselves in a twofold aspect. Either as visible to human eyes, visiting the land at some holy tide, bringing welfare and blessing, accepting gifts and offerings of the people that stream to meet them. Or floating unseen through the air, perceptible in cloudy shapes, in the roar and howl of the winds (p. 632), carrying on war, hunting or the game of ninepins, the chief employments of ancient heroes : an array which, less tied down to a definite time, explains more the natural phenomenon (conf. Haupt's Zeitschr. 6, 1291. 131). I suppose the two exhibitions to be equally old, and in the myth of the wild host they constantly play into one another. The fancies about the Milky Way have shewn us how ways and waggons of the gods run in the sky as well as on the earth.

With the coming of Christianity the fable could not but undergo a change. For the solemn march of gods, there now appeared a pack of horrid spectres, dashed with dark and devilish ingredients. Yery likely the heathen themselves had believed that spirits of departed heroes took part in the divine procession; the christians put into the host the unchristened dead, the drunkard, the suicide (conf. p. 822), who come be- fore us in frightful forms of mutilation. The ' holde ' goddess turns into an ' unholde/ still beautiful in front, but with a tail behind.2 So much of her ancient charms as could not be stript off was held to be seductive and sinful : and thus was forged the legend of the Yenus-mount. Their ancient offerings too the

1 Wassenberg p. 72. Creuzer's Symb. 2, 98. I fear Eudbeck bad the boldness to adapt the legend of Adonis (p. 949n.) to Oden.

2 Conf. « frau Welt,' dame World, in Conrad's poem p. 196 seq.

VOL. III. E

94Q SPECTRES.

old character nndimmed. lhus we see sio-nincantly Ok*, ffato, ^^^^f^Th sh ^htest detri- incorporated in the roving -W-JJJ ^ tte same ment to their dignity or repute among the ^peop e

time its due ™f™^°^l^> ^ "*

°ldThe last lodgment .und ^ by f^j^» individual hunters and lovers « jfartel) Jfan*^

even monuments of stone were °°^t«L th in Scandi-

The similar course taken by he J^tory offlw ^ navia and in Germany is a fresh guarant e tha the - faith prevailed there and here Saxony e j ^ ^

burg, Hesse have stdl several features m c

jtT i=S3LX^3 ^ of Svantovit (, 662)

seems to prove the Ugh antiquity of that ^ n o g 7 , „ To the Greeks, Orion was a gigantic (7reA,a>/H0?j hunter, lo tne met^s, , -, the quarry on

;I ^trC^S « «. »»» M - *— ■ — **

i 0. Miiller on Orion (Bhein. mus. f. philol. 2, 12).

FUBIOUS HOST : OBION.

949

the same group of stars with their myth of the wild hunt ? I have left it doubtful on p. 727. We might, for one thing, see such a connexion in Orion's AS. name of boar-throng (eoforhryng) ; and secondly add, that the three stars of his belt are called the distaff of Fricka, who as ' Holda ' heads the furious host, and looks after her spinsters just at the time of his appearing at Christmas. Can it be, that when the constel- lation takes name from Fricka, her spindle is made prominent ; and when Wuotan or a giant-hero lends his name, the herd of hunted boars is emphasized ? The Greek fable unfolds itself yet more fully. Orion is struck blind, and is led to new light by Kedalion, a marvellous child who sits on his shoulders. Might not we match this blind giant with our headless wild hunter ? 1 A feature that strikes me still more forcibly is, that Artemis (Diana) causes a scorpion to come up out of the ground, who stings Orion in the ankle, so that he dies :2 when the sign Scorpio rises in the sky, Orion sinks. This is like Hackelberend's foot being pierced by the wild boar's tusk, and causing his death (pp. 921. 947). Orion's [cosmic] rising is at the summer, his setting at the winter solstice : he blazes through the winter nights, just when the furious host is afoot. Stormy winds attend him (nimbosus Orion, Aen. 1, 535) ; the gift is given him of walking on the sea (Apollod. i. 4, 3), as the steeds in the aaskereia skim over the wave. Orion's relation to Artemis is not like tha.t of Wuotan to Holda, for these two are never seen together in the host ; but Holda by herself bears a strong resemblance to Artemis or Diana (p. 267. 270), still more to the nightly huntress Hecate, at whose approach dogs whimper (as with frau Gaude), who, like Hel, is scented by the dogs (p. 66 7), 3 and for whom a paltry pittance was placed (as for Berhta and the wild woman, p.

1 A malefactor, whose crime is not divulged before bis death, is doomed to wander with his head under his arm (Superst. I, 605). Can the being- struck (or growing) blind be meant to express ghostly wandering?

2 Aratus Pbaenom. 637. Ov. Fast. 5, 541. Lucan Phars. 9, 832. Adonis got his death-wound from the boar. Nestor (Jos. Miiller 101) tells us, it was prophesied to Oleg that he would die of his horse ; he still had it fed, but would not see it again. Five years after, he inquired about it, and was told it was dead. Then he laughed at soothsayers, and went into the stable, where the horse's, skeleton lay, but when he trod on the skull, a snake darted out of it and stung him in the foot, whereof he sickened and died (see SuppL).

3 Apparently a slip ; for that was Athena. — Trins.

SPECTEES.

4321 at to Iriri™ (OHO. Sriwikki),' corf. Theoer. 2, 15 iml %2Lf£. 43 to. a.-ibe. to H.rii, . pe.pl. «< N*

Sri, «.«!. e«p«, — - p;«* »»'•■ 'xtr: I.

oorte.- ieitie vere eon.el.t. M.rii d> A«™» «' Totattoi ^S..'. e~ «..!««. * «<• «>™ " pulsis quae ab occasu erant.'

.. ,^5S« cx: » watt « - ~" "b

CHAPTER XXXII.

TRANSLATION.

An idea specially characteristic of our mythology is that of Entruchung (removal), which, while extending to the subjects of the foregoing chapter, has a wider range besides.

Verwunschen (ill- wishing) is the uttering of a curse or ban, maledicere, diris devovere, Goth. fraqviMn, OHG. farwazan, MHGr. verwdzen; as I do not find verwunschen in our older speech, I explain it simply as the opposite of wiinschen (fausta apprecari), and refrain from supposing in it a reference to the old ( wunsch/ the perfection of felicity.1

This banning differs from metamorphosis, inasmuch as it does not transform, but rather throws a spell upon things in their natural shape, only removing them into a new position ; though common parlance calls whatever is transformed 'verwunscht' (banned). Further, what is metamorphosed remains^ till the moment of its emancipation, in the new shape given it, visible to all eyes, e.g. the stone or tree into which a man has been changed ; whereas, when a thing is banned, in the sense^ in which I use the word, it seems to me essential that it be with- drawn from our senses, and only re-appear from time to time, and then in the same shape as before. In other words : what is metamorphosed remains corporeal, what is banned becomes im- perceptible, and can only on certain conditions become corporeal again, in the same way as invisible spirits can at will assume grosser material shapes. Vanishing* is therefore voluntary trans- lation (to another sphere), a prerogative of gods (p. 325) and spirits, also of some heroes that are possessed of a magic mask (grima) or concealing helmet; translated men are spirit-like,

1 Note the 0. Fr. antithesis between souhait (wish) and dehaU (verwiinschung) ; both words are wanting in the other Eomance tongues, they have their root m OHG. heiz, ON. heit (votum).

2 « Frau Sa3lde verswant,1 vanished, Etzel's hofh. 210.

951

952 TEANSLATION.

and another expression for it is : ' they sleep,' they only wake from time to time1 (see Suppl.).

And not only persons, but things, are translatable. Persons that vanish and re-appear are precisely in the condition of the spectres dealt with in the last chapter : just as souls of dead men there got identified with heroes and gods, so here we come upon the same gods and heroes again. Vanished gods get confounded with enchanted spell-bound heroes.

With our people a favourite mode of representing translation is to shut up the enchanted inside a mountain, the earth, so to speak, letting herself he opened to receive them.2 More than one idea may be at work here together : motherly earth hides the dead in her bosom, and the world of souls is an underground world; elves and dwarfs are imagined living inside mountains, not so much in the depths of the earth as in hills and rocks that rise above the level ground ; but popular forms of cursing choose all manner of phrases to express the very lowest abyss.3 The Swed. bergtagen (taken into mountain) means sunken, bergtagning

i See the famous legends of the Seven Sleepers (Greg. Tur mirac 1, 95. Paul Diac 1 3) and of Endymion, who lies in eternal sleep on Mt. Latmos. Ooni. Plinv 7 52 • Puerum aestu et itinere fessum in specu septem et qumquagmta dormisse annis, rerum faciem mutationemque mirantem, velut postero experrectum die- hinc pari numero dierum senio ingruente, ut tamen in septimum et qum- quaeesimum atque centesimum vitae duraret annum ; ' and the German story of the three miners. Shepherds slept in caves 7 years, or 7 times 7 (Mone s Anz.

?' 6 ^ An impatient longing to disappear we express by the phrases ' I should like to creep into the earth,' and 'jump out of my skin,' the same thing that is called at the end of the Lament (Nib.) : ' sich versliefen und uz der hiute trie fen m lochei de? steinwende,' trickle away! so to speak. 0. iv 26, 43 has - < ruafeUhesen bergov, bittet sie thaz sie fallen ubar iuih, joh bittet ouh thie buhila thaz sie mih theken obana ir biginnet thanne innan erda sliafan, joh suintet filu thrato Hel. lbb, 3 : •than gi so gerna sind, that in hier Uhlidan hoha bergos diopo bxdelban, be-lid and deep be-delve you. Much of this language is Biblical (Isa. 2, 19 ; Hos. 10. 8 ; Tmke 23 30- Rev. 6, 15, 16), but the sentiment of many nations will run alike m wrh matter's Nib. 867, 2 : ' mir troumte, wie obe dir ze tal vielen zwene berge, I dreamt two mts fell on thee. That jumping out of one's skin, like a snake casting Ss sTough, may also come of joy and anger, O.Fr. <a poi n» ist de sa pel,' is well nigh out of his skin, Ogier 6688. Nethl. <het is om uitzijn vel te spnngen. So tn our EHs. von Orleans, ed. Schiitz p. 223; 'for joy,' Ettn.'s Unw. doctor 856. Not unlike is that jumping into stone spoken of on p. 552; as early as Alb. von Halb 143b • ' at one leap he turned into stone.'

s Thev wish you ' 100,000 fathom under ground ; ' « as far down as a hare can run in two years ' (p. 179) ; ' so low, that no cock crows after (or to) thee, and the Ske. What does the last formula mean ? that the cock's crow can no longer even in the hush of night, reach the sunken man? or that those above ground cannot hear the cry of the fowl that has sunk with him to the subterranean dweUing ^ In Kinderm 2 32 it is said of the princesses : ' se versunken alle drei so deip unner I etl iat kien haan mer danach krehet^ ■ So kreet doch kein han nach but,' and 'kein han fort da nach krehen thut,' H. Sachs m. 2, 178* 213'.

HEEOES INSIDE HILLS. 953

translation, Sv. visor 1, 1. Afz. 1, 28. 33. In Asbiornsen and Moeno. 38 < indtagen i bierget and Faye 35-6 quotes striking instances of this < indtages i hoie og fjelde/ being taken into height and fell. ON. ganga inn ifiallit, Nialss. cap. 14. 13a (see

Suppl.). _ .

We understand now, why frau Holda, frau Venus and their following dwell in mountains : they are sequestered there, till the time come for holding their progress among men. So live W6dan and king Charles in the Odenberg.

Here and there a man has gained entrance into such mountains ; Tanhauser sojourned many years at the court of Venus. A black- smith was looking in the underwood on the Odenberg for a haw- thorn to make his hammer-helve, when suddenly he saw a gap he had never noticed before in the face of the cliff ; he stept m, and stood in a new world of wonders. Strong men were bowling balls of iron, they challenged him to play, but he declined, the iron balls, he said, were too heavy for his hand. The men were not offended, they told him to choose what present he would have. He begged for one of their balls, took it home, and put it among his stock of iron. Afterwards, wanting to work it, he made it red hot, but it burst in pieces on the anvil, and every piece was sheer gold.1 He never again found the opening in the Odenberg ; he had happened that time to hit the day when it stands open to men, as it does on certain days of the year to Sunday children. . They see an old man with a long beard, holding in his hand a metal goblet (as Charles in Romance epic always has the epithet < a la barbe florie/ and OSinn too was called Langbar&r, HarbarVr, SiVslceggr). Inside the mountain they have presents given them, as in the Kifhauser.

In the Guckenberg* near Erankischgemiinden, a kaiser dis- appeared with all his army a long time ago ; but when his beard has grown three times round the table at which he sits, he will come out again with all his men. Once a poor boy, who went about the neighbourhood selling rolls, met an old man on the ' mountain, and complained that he could not sell much. < I will

i This skittle-playing sounds like rolling thunder (p. 167). They say in N. Germ, when it thunders, ' the angels are playing at bowls. wftaPTiitor

• Not Gouchsberg nor Kaukasus (p. 681) ; but rather the ml of the proge mtor Guogo (guggani, Z. f. d. a. 1, 23), or of the beetle (guegi, p. 183). Meichelb. 1182 ad Guoginhusun ; Trad. fuld. 2, 33 in Gougeleibu.

954 TRANSLATION.

shew thee a place,' said the man/ where thou canst bring thy rolls every day, but thou must tell no man thereof.' He then led the boy into the mountain, where there was plenty of life and bustle, people buying and selling; the kaiser himself sat at a table, and his beard had grown twice round it. The lad now brought his rolls there every day, and was paid m ancient coin, which at last the people in his village would not take; they pressed him to tell how he came by it, then he confessed all that had taken place. Next day, when he wished to go into the mountain, he could not so much as see it, let alone find the entrance (Mone's Anz. 4. 409, and thence in Bechst. Frank, sag. p 103) So between Niirnberg and Fiirt stands kaiser Carls berg out of which in former times came the sound of singing, and' of which a similar tale is told about carrying bread ; in a vaulted chamber the baker's boy saw men in armour sitting (Mone's Anz. 5, 174).

In Westphalia, between Liibbecke and Holzhausen, above Mehnen village on the Weser, stands a hill called die Babilonie, in which Wedekind (Weking) sits enchanted, waiting till his time come; favoured ones who find the entrance are dismissed with gifts (Redeker's Westf. sag. no. 21).

An older myth is preserved in the Chron. nrsbergense (Auersperg) ad an. 1223 (Pertz 8, 261) : In page Wormaciens! videbantur per aliquot dies non modica et armata nmlhtudo equitum enntium et redeuntium, et quasi ad placitnm colloquium nunc hie nunc illic turbas facere, circa nonam vero horam cmdam raonti, quo et exnsse videbantur, se reddere. Tandem quidam de incolis regionis Alius, non sine magno timore hujusmodi tarn pro- digiosae concioni, crucis signaculo munitus appropmquat. Mox quandamexillisoccurrentem sibi personam per nomen omnipo- tent Domini nostri, manifestare causam populi qui sic apparuerit, adiurat. Cui ille inter cetera 'Nonsumus' inquit, 'utputatis, fantasmata, nec militum, nt vobis cernimnr, turba, sed animae rnilUum interfectorum, arma vero et habitus et equi, quia nobis prius fuerant instrumenta peccandi, nunc nobis sunt materia tormenti, et vere totum ignitum est quod in nobis cermtis, quamvis id vos corporalibus oculis discernere non possitis.' In hujusmodi

i Several times in MHG. poems ' diu wueste Babilone.'

HEEOBS INSIDE HILLS. 955

comitate dicta etiam Emicho comes ante paucos annos an. 1117) occisus apparuisse, et ab hac poena oratiombus et elee- mosynis Se posse redimi docuisse.' Donnersberg, Tonnerre (p. 170) was then in the Wormazfeld, it mnst therefore be the mountain in and out of which the ancient ghosts kept nding: souls of fallen and resuscitated heroes (p. 940), but by the christian eye seen here in hell-fire.

In the old mountain castle of Geroldseck Siegfried and other heroes are supposed to dwell, and thence they will appear to the German nation in its time of utmost need, Deut. sag ^no. - 21. A cleft in a rock by the L. of Lucerne, some say on the Gruth, holds in sleep the three founders of the Swiss Federation; they will wake when their country wants them, ibid. no. 297. At the Kifhauser in Thnringia sleeps Frederic Barbarossa : he sits at a round stone table, resting his head on his hand, nodding with blinking eyes; his beard grows round the table, it has already made the circuit twice, and when it has grown round the tUrd hme, the king will awake. On coming out he will hang Us slneld on & withered tree, which will break into leaf, and a better time will dawn. Yet some have seen him awake: a shepherd haying piped a lay that pleased him well, Frederick asked him : fit the ravens round the mountain still V the shepherd said yes : then must I /sleep another 100 years.'^ The shepherd was led into

i «;i;i„r mixtions are But by the Mind giant in a Swed. folktale which. I fase t HalCd (Ueborg 1818) 2 p. 801:

hum deVulle efterkomma den gamle blinde FfT^X^tJ^^ i en spanna bfeltet omkring en bjork, och bjarken for i luften och at satta asfam p&^ en Lie (grajye-mound), oeh straxt .idr Wlm. <Hman The bygd der ^len blinde mannen hade sitt gethus har hen f&tt nf™^?'luB°' g^f • Mind giint ' banished to the island is a spec ral heathen god (conf Orion p. a«b the ' white woman ' a christian church or an image of Mary ; had they fastened the

956

TRANSLATION.

the king's armoury, and presented with the stand of a hand- basin, which the goldsmith found to be sheer gold (ib. nos. 23. 296) } Others make Frederick sit in a cave of the rock near Kaiser •slautern (ib. no. 295), or at Trifels by Anweiler, or else in the Unterberg near Salzburg (ib. no. 28), though some put Charles the Great here, or Charles V. ; the growing of the beard round the table is related just the same. When the beard has for the* third time reached the last corner of the table, the end of the world begins, a bloody battle is fought ou the Walserfeld, Antichrist appears, the angel -trumpets peal, and the Last of Days has dawned. The Walserfeld has a withered tree, which has been cut down three times, but its root has always sprouted and grown into a perfect tree again. When next it begins to leaf the terrible fight is near, and will open when the tree bears fruit. Then shall Frederick hang his shield on the tree, all men shall flock to it, and make such a slaughter that the blood will run into the warriors' shoes, and the wicked men be slain by the righteous (ib. nos. 24. 28). In this remarkable tradition may be recognised things old and very old. — A religious poem of the 16th cent. (Grater's Odina p. 197) speaks of duke Frederick, who is to win back the H. Sepulchre, and hang his shield on a leafless tree ; and Ante- christe is brought in too.— A fragment of an older la^y of the 14th cent, (Cod. Pal. 844) says of Emp. Frederick : ' )kn dem gejaid er verschwant (in the hunt he disappeared), das rhaan den

edeln keiser her sind gesach (saw) nyemer mer ; also wjard der

]

silver belt round it, it would have shot up into the air as the birch did. — I— Another account makes the blind giant ask the sailors if the jingling-cow by tHie church (meaning the bell or belfry) were still alive ? They answered yes, and he Challenged one of them to hold out his hand, that he might see if the inhabitant^, had any strength left. They handed him a boat-bar made redhot, which hh crushed together, saying there was no great strength there (Faye p. 17). A stchry in 6d- man's Bahuslan 153-4 has similar variations : A ship's crew, driven ouf; of their course to an out-of-the-way coast, see a fire burning at night, and go on sfyiore. By the fire sits only one old man, who asks a sailor : ' Whence be ye ? ' Fro; m Hisin- gen in Safve pastorate. ' Ken ye Thorsby too ? ' Ay, that I do. ' W<ht ye the whereabout of Ulfveberg ? ' Ay, it's many a time I've passed it, going froijn Gothe- borg to Marstrand by way of Hisingen. ' Stand the great stones and bar rows there yet unremoved ? ' Ay, but one stone leans and is like to fall. ' Wot j ye where Glosshed-altar is, and whether it be well kept up ? ' I know nothing a / bout that. • Say to the folk that dwelleth now at Thorsby and Thorsbracka, that thky destroy not the stones and mounds on Ulfveberg, and that they keep in good ^condition Glosshed-altar, so shalt thou have fair weather for thy home-return.' lnhe sailor promised, but asked the old man his name. « My name is Thore Brack, iUnd there dwelt I of yore, till I was made to flee : in the great mounds of Ulfvebe: rg lies all my kin, at Glosshed-altar did we sacrifice and serve our gods.'

1 The Kifhauser legends now stand collected in Bechst. 4, 9 — 54.

DRY TREE TURNING GREEN.

hochgeporn heiser Frederick do verlorn. Wo er darnach ye to kam, oder ob er den end da nam, das knnd nyemaiid gesagen mir oder ob yne die wilden tir (beasts) vressen habn oder zenssen (eaten or torn), es en kan die warheit nyemand wissen oder ol , «■ noch lebendig sy (be yet alive) / der gewiszen sin wir fry nnd der rechten warheit; iedoeh ist nns geseit von pawren (yet we are told bV peasants) solh mer, das er als ein waler (pilgrim) sich oft by ynehablassen sehen (seen by tbem) nnd bab yne offenbeb veriehen (declared), er siill noch gewaltig werden (be should yet become master) alter romischen erden, er siill noeh die pfaffen storen, nnd er woll noch nicbt nf horen, noch mit inchten lassen abe, nur er pring (nor rest till he bring) das heihge grabe nnd darzu das heilig lant wieder in der Christen hant, und wol «*» scMldes last hahen an den dorren ast (his shield's weight hang on the withered bongh); das ich das fur ein warheit sag, das die pauren haben geseit, das nym ich mich nicht an, wan ich sin nicht gesehen han, ich han es auch zu kein stunden noch nyndert geschribn funden, was das ichs gehort ban van den a ten pauren an wan.'-A poem of about 1350 (Aretin's Beitr. 9, 1134) says : « So wirt das vrlewg also gross (war so great), nymand kan ez gestillen, so kumpt sich hayser Fridrich der her (high) vnd auch der milt, er vert dort her durch Gotes willen, an emen durren pawm (withered tree) so henkt er semen sehilt, so wirt die vart bin Tiber mer . er vert dort hin zum durren pawm an alles

widerhap, dar an so henkt er seinen sehilt, er grunet unde pirt (bears) : so wirt gewun daz heilig grap, daz nymmer swert damp gezogen wirt.'-Again, in Sibylle's prophecy, composed in Ger- Ln rhyme soon after the middle of the 14th cent. : 'Es knmet noch dar zno wol, das Got ein keiser geben sol, den hat er be- balten in siner gewalt und git (gives) im kraft mamgvalt, er wirt genant Fridrich, der usserwelte fiirste rich, vnd sament daz Christen volgan sich vnd gewinnet daz helge grap nber mer do Stat ein dor bourn vnd ist gros, vnd sol so lange stan bios, bicz ': der heiser Fridrieh dar an sinen sehilt gehenken mag vnd kan, so

verswunden, daz en-hat niemen noh erfunden.

958

TRANSLATION.

wirt der bourn wieder gruen gar, noch kument aber guete jar, vnd wirt in aller der welt wol stan, der Heiden glouben muos gar zergan' (Wackern. Basel MSS. p. 55).1

That the common people disbelieved the death of Emp. Fred- erick, and expected him to come back, is plain from the passages which expressly refer to f old peasants 3 ; it had most likely been the same in the preceding (13th) cent., and was long after. Impostors took advantage of the general delusion ; one chronicle (Bohmer 1, 14) relates: fEcce quidam truphator surrexit in medium, qui dixit se esse Fridericum quondam imperatorem, quod de se multis intersignis et quibusdam prestigiis scire volentibus comprobavit.' King Budolf had him burnt on a pile in 1285. Yet Detmar has under the year 1287 : fBy der tid quam to Lubeke en olt man, de sprak, he were Jceiser Vrederic, de vor- drevene. Deme beghunden erst de boven (lads) nnd dat mene volk to horende sines tusches (fraud), unde deden erne ere (honour). He lovede en (promised them) grote gnade, oft he weder queme an sin rike ; he wart up eneme schonen rosse voret de stat umme to beschowende ... darna cortliken (shortly after) quam de man van steden, dat nenman wiste, wor he hennen vor (fared). Seder (later) quam de mer (news), dat bi deme Bine en troner (trickster) were, de in dersulven wise de lude bedroch, de ward dar brand in ener kopen.'' A more exact account in Ottocar cap. 321 — 6, and the chron. in Fez 1, 1104. The legend may also confound the two Fredericks, I and II (see Suppl.).2

1 In the MS. ' Historia trium regum ' by Job., von Hildesbeim (d. 1375) Is mentioned a temple of the Tartars. Behind walls, locks and bolts stands & withered tree, guarded by men at arms : whatever prince can manage to hang his shield on the tree, becomes lord of all the East ; the Great Khan did succeed, and is therefore irresistible (Goethe's Eunst u. alt. ii. 2, 174-5. Schwab's Account of the book p. 181-2). The tree stands at Tauris, form. Susa. On the other hand, Montevilla reports that ' in the vale of Mambre, as one journeys from Ebron to Bethlehem, stands the wo ful withered tree that they call Trip, but we name it tree of victory ; 'tis an oaktree, and thought to have stood from the beginning of the world ; and before Our Lord suffered, 'twas green and well-leaved, but when God died on the cross, it withered up . . . 'Tis found written in prophecies, Out of Netherland shall come a prir-ce with many christians, he shall win these lands, and let sing the mass under the dry tree, then shall it gather green leaves again, and be fruitful, and Jew and Heathen all turn Christian. Therefore do they shew it great honour, and over it keep good ward.' This is from the transl. by Otto von Diemeringen ; the Nethl. edition names the tree Drip, the Latin one Dirp, and has nothing about the pre- dicted singing of mass. Was this a German interpolation, and is the whole a Western legend transported to the East ? Or are the German popular traditions due to reports of Eastern travel? In 0. Fr. the tree is called le sec-arbre,Varbre sech or supe ; see passages quoted in Theatre Fr. au moyen age, p. 171.

3 There is a remarkable phrase : ' auf den alien kaiser hinein dahin leben,' to

HEEOES INSIDE HILLS.

959

As Charles's white beard points to Wuotan, so does Frederick's red to Donar, and the like mythic meaning has been put on Olaf's red beard (p. 548) in Norway.

Frederick Kedbeard in the Kifhauser and Unterberg, Charles Longbeard in the Unterberg and Odenberg, Holda in the Horsel- berg, all express one mythic idea, but with a different story tacked to it in every case. Charles fights a stupendous battle, and is then gathered up in the Odenberg, whence he will issue one day to new war and victory. Frederick is coming out of the Unterberg to fight such a battle. In the 13- 14- 15th centuries the people associated with it the recovery of the H. Sepulchre : the heroes of Odenberg and Kifhauser have no such purpose set before them. The older programme is, that upon their awaking comes the great world-battle, and the Day of Judgment dawns : of this the mention of Antichrist leaves no doubt. Here we see connexion with the myth of the world's destruction (p. 810-2). The suspended shield may signify the approaching Judge (RA. 8-51) j even the sign of the tree turning green again looks to me more heathen than christian. It might indeed be referred to Matth. 24, 32. Mark 13, 28. Luke 21, 29-30 (Hel. 132, 14), where the omens of the Great Day are likened to the budding fig- tree as a sign of approaching summer ; but to apply the simile to the Judgment-day would clearly be a confusion of thought. I prefer to think of the newly verdant earth after Muspilli (Sa3m. 9b), or of a withered and newly sprouting World-tree, the ash (p. 796-9) ; we might even find in this of the withered tree1 some support to my interpretation of muspilli, mudspilli as = arboris perditio (p. 809). And what if Frederick's asking after the flying ravens should be connected even with the eagle flying over the new world (Sasm. 9b), or the one sitting on the ash-tree ? It might also suggest the cranes which at the time of the great over- throw come flying through the bread-stalls (Deut. sag. no. 317).

live in hope of the old k., Simplic. 3, 20. 4, 11; ' auf den alten kaiser hinein stehlen,' Springinsf. cap. 6 ; i.e. reckoning on a possible change in the nature of things.

1 In other cases too the withering or greening of a tree is bound up with the fate of a country. In Dietmarsen stood a marvellous tree, that flourished before the conquest, and withered on the loss of liberty. There goes a prophecy that ' when a magpie builds on it and hatches five white chickens, the country will be free again,' Neocorus 1, 237, conf. 562.

960

TEANSLATION.

In the same way Fischart (Garg. 266-7) couples the enchanted king's return with the coming of the cranes.1

The myth of the sprouting tree and the battle near it is set before us with important variations in a Low Saxon legend (Miillenhoffnos. 509—512. 605; Pref. L.). An ash, it is believed, will one day grow up in the churchyard of Nortorf in the middle of Holstein : no one has seen anything of it yet, but every year a small shoot comes up unnoticed above the ground, and every New- year's night a white horseman on a white horse comes to cut the young shoot off. At the same time appears a black horseman on a black horse to hinder him. After a long fight, the black rider is put to flight, and the white one cuts the shoot. But some day he will not be able to overcome the black one, the ash tree will grow up, and when it is tall enough for a horse to be tied under it (R A. p. 82; conf. the Dan. legend of Holger, Thiele 1, 20), the king with mighty hosts will come, and a terribly long battle be fought. During that time his horse will stand under the tree, and after that he will be more powerful than ever. In this story one can hardly help recognising the World-tree and the battle at the world's destruction : the white horseman seems to be Freyr, or some shining god, struggling with Surtr the black, and striving to delay the approaching end of the world by lopping off the sprout. Heathen gods the two champions are for certain, even if they be not these. The king, whose horse stands tied up under the tree, is the same as he whose shield is hung upon the tree, a future judge of the world.

As the past and the future, the lost paradise and the expected, do in the people's imagination melt into one,2 they come to believe in a re-awaking of their loved kings and heroes out of their mountain- sleep : of Frederick and Charles, of Siegfried and doubtless Dietrich too. This is the true hall-mark of the epos, to endow its leading characters with a lasting inextinguishable life. But Siegfried is also Wuotan (pp. 26n. 134), Dietrich is Wuotan

1 Other signs that the end of the world is at hand : when the sioan drops the ring from his bill (p. 429) ; when the gianfs rib, from which a drop falls once a year, has all trickled away (Deut. sag. no. 140) ; when the tongue of the balance stands in (ib. 294) ; when, says a Swed. song, the stone in the green valley falls; when the ship made of men's nails is built (p. 814).

2 P. 822-3-; even the particles ever, once, one day, olim, apply to both states of being.

HEROES INSIDE HILLS.

961

future. In the castle-cellar of Salurn, in the Silesian Zobtenberg, (p. 937), Charles is Wuotan (p. 394) ; and Wuotan, after Mus- pilli, rises on the world anew, a god alive and young again. Once before, Obmn had departed out of the land to Go^heim (Yngl. saga, c. 10) ; they supposed him dead, and he came back. And with long-bearded Wuotan the older legend of a red-bearded Donar may have started into consciousness again.

Arthur too, the vanished king, whose return is looked for by the Britons,1 is believed, riding as he does at the head of the nightly host, (p. 942), to be lodged in a mountain with all his massenie : Felicia, the daughter of Sibylle, and the goddess J uno live in his fellowship, and his whole army lack neither food nor drink, horses nor raiment.3 That Gralent continues to live, we are assured at the end of the Lais de Graelent. In a vaulted chamber near Kronburg in Denmark, mail-clad men sit round a stone table, stooping down, resting their heads on their crossed arms. When Holger danske, sitting at the end of the table, raised his head, the table, into which his beard had grown, went to pieces, and he said : ' we shall return when there are no more men in Denmark than there is room for on a wine-butt/ (Thiele 1, 23. 168). The Danes applied every myth to Olger, who does not belong to them at all, but to the Netherlands ; he is the same Ogier (Otger, perh. Otacher) that haunts the Ardennes forest, and is to come back some day.3 The Slavs too believe in the return of their beloved Svatopluk (Sviatopolk), and some parts of Moravia still keep np the custom of going in solemn procession to seek Svatoplule (Palacky 1, 135). With this I couple Svegdir's going forth ' at leita Odin,' to look for 0., Yngl. saga 15. The 'seeking God' on p. 145 was another thing' (see Suppl.).

Often the banished one bears no name at all : the shepherd from the Ostenberg found in the cavern of the Willberg a little man sitting at a stone table, which his beard had grown through (Deut. sag. no. 314) ; and a grizzled man conducted the shepherd of Wernigerode to the treasures of the mountain cave (ib. no. 315), The beard's growing round or into the stone expresses forcibly the long duration of the past time, and the slow advance of the

1 ' Et prius Arturus veniet vetus ille Britamms,' Henr. Septimell. in Leyser, p. 460. • cujus in Arturi tempore fructus erit,' ib. p. 477.

2 Wartb. kr. jen. hs. 99. 100 (Docen 1, 132-3). s Barrois, preface p. xii. Pulci 28. 36.

962

TBANSLATION.

were found three men sitting at the table (ib.- nos. 15. 143) , who are represented as malefactors enchanted. It is easy -to trace the step from heroes shut up in mountains to such as, having died naturally, sleep in their tombs of stone, and visibly appear at sundry times. At Steinfeld, in the Bremen Marschland, a man had disturbed a hiine-grave, and the following night three men appeared to him, one of them one-eyed (an allusion to Wuotan), and conversed in some unintelligible language ; at last they hurled threatening looks at him who had rummaged their tomb, they said they had fallen in their country's cause, and if he broke their rest any more, he should have neither luck nor star (Harrys Nieders. sag. 1, 64).

But as Holda is spell-bound in the mountain, so it is preemi- nently to white women, white-robed maidens, (pp. 288. 412-8) that this notion of mountain banishment becomes applicable : divine or semi-divine beings of heathenism, who still at appointed times grow visible to mortal sight ; they love best to appear in warm sunlight to poor shepherds and herd-boys. German legend everywhere is full of graceful stories on the subject, which are all substantially alike, and betray great depth of root.

On the Lahnberg in Up. Hesse sat a white maiden at sunrise ; she had wheat spread out on sheets to dry in the sun, and was spinning. A baker of Marburg was passing that way, and took a handful of grains with him ; at home he found nothing but grains of gofd in his pocket. And the like is told of a peasant near Friedigerode.

A poor shepherd was tending his flock at the Boyneburg , when he saw a snow-ivhite maiden sit in the sunshine by the castle- door ; on a white cloth before her lay pods of flax ready to crack open. In astonishment he steps up, says ' oh what fine pods ! 3 takes up a handful to examine, then lays them down again. The maiden looks at him kindly, but mournfully, without a word of reply. He drives his flock home, but a few pods that had fallen into his shoe, gall his foot ; he sits down to pull off the shoe, when there roll into his hand five or six grains of gold (Deut. sag. no. 10; conf. Wetterauische sagen p. 277. Moneys Anz. 8, 427).

In the Otomannsberg near Geismar village, a fire is said to burn at night. Every seven years there comes out a maiden in

WHITE LADIES IN HILLS, ETC.

963

snowy garments, holding a hunch of keys in her hand. Another white woman with a bunch of keys appears on the castle-rock at Baden at the hour of noon (Moneys Anz. 8, 310).

In the castle- vault by Wolfartsweiler lies a hidden treasure, on account of which, every seventh year when may-lilies are in bloom, a white maiden appears ; her black hair is plaited in long tails, she wears a golden girdle round her white gown, a bundle of keys at her side or in one hand, and a bunch of may-lilies in the other. She likes best to shew herself to innocent children, to one of whom she beckoned one day from beside the grave below, to come over to her : the child ran home in a fright, and told about it; when it came back to the place with its father, the maiden was no longer there. One day at noon, two of the goose- herd's girls saw the white maiden come down to the brook, comb and plait up her tails, wash her face and hands, and walk up the castle hill again. The same thing happened the following noon, and though they had been told at home to be sure and speak to the maiden, they had not the courage after all. The third day they never saw the maiden, but on a stone in the middle of the brook they found a liver- sausage freshly fried, and liked it better than they ever did another. Another day two men from Grriin- wettersbach saw the maiden fill a tub with water from the brook, and carry it up the hill; on the tub were two broad hoops of pure gold. The way she takes, every time she goes up and down, was plainly to be distinguished in the grass (Moneys Anz 8, 304).

At Osterrode, every Easter Sunday before sunrise, may be seen a white maiden, who slowly walks down to the brook, and there washes ; a large bunch of keys hangs at her girdle. A poor linen-weaver having met her at that season, she took him into the castle ruins, and of three white lilies she plucked him one which he stuck in his hat. When he got Home, he found the lily was pure gold and silver, and the town of Osterrode had not the money to buy it of him. The Easter-maiden's marvellous flower was taken by the Duke in return for a pension to the weaver, and placed in his princely coat of arms (Harrys 2, no. 23).

One Christmas night, when all lay deep in snow, a waggoner walked home to his village by a footpath. He saw a maiden in a

VOL. III. F

964

TRANSLATION.

summer bonnet stand not far off and turn over with a rake some pods of flax that lay spread out on the ground. ' I say., lass, is that the way ? ' he cried, and took a handful of the pods ; she made no answer, but cut him over the hand with the rake. The next morning, when he remembered what he had brought home, the flax-pods had all turned into gold. He then hurried back to the spot, where he could see his footprints of the night before deep in the snow, but damsel and flax had disappeared (Mone's Anz. 5, 175).

On a hil] near Langensteinbach in the forest is the long-ruined church of St. Barbara, where the white woman walks by buried treasures. One leap-year in the spring a young girl went into it, and saw her step out of the choir, she cried sh ! and beckoned the girl to her : her face and hands were white as snow, her raven hair was thrown back, in the hand she beckoned with she held a bunch of blue flowers, on the other were ever so many gold rings, she wore a white gown, green shoes, and a bunch of keys at her side. The terrified girl ran out of the church, and fetched in her father and brother who were at work outside, but they could not see the white woman till they asked the girl, who pointed and said ' there ! ' Then the woman turned, her hair hung over her back to the ground, she went toward the choir, and then vanished (Moneys Anz. 5, 321).

Into the convent garden of Georgenthal a maid was going about the hour of noon to cut grass ; suddenly, high on the wall there stood a little woman as white as lawn, who beckoned till the clock struck twelve, then disappeared. The grass-girl sees on her way a fine cloth covered with flax-pods, and wondering she pockets two of them. When she gets home, they are two bright ducats (Bechst. Thiir. sag. 2, 68).

About the underground well near Atterode many have seen in the moonlight the white maiden dry either washing or wheat (ib. 4, 166).

At the deserted castle of Frankenstein near Klosterallendorf, a maiden clothed in white appears every seven years, sitting over the vault and beckoning. Once when a man wished to follow her, but stood irresolute at the entrance, she turned and gave him a handful of cherries. He said ' thank you/ and put them in his pouch; suddenly there came a crash, cellar and maiden had dis-

WHITE LADIES IN HILLS, ETC.

965

appeared, and the bewildered peasant, on examining the cherries at home, found them changed into gold and silver pieces (ib. 4, 144) .

A fisherman in the neighbourhood of the Highwayman's hill near Feeben was throwing out his nets, when* he suddenly saw the white woman stand on the bank before him with a bunch of leys. She said, < thy wife at home is just delivered a of a boy, go fetch me the babe, that I may kiss him«and<be saved/ The fisherman drove home, and found everything as she had said, but he durst not take his child out at once, the clergyman advised him to have it christened first ; after which, when he repaired to the hill, the white woman sat weeping and wailing, for it was one of the set conditions that her redemption should be wrought by an infant unbaptized. So ever and anon she still appears on the hill, and waits the deliverer's coming (Ad. Kuhn no. 67).

By Hennikendorf not far from Luckenwalde, two shepherds pastured their sheep. A woman half white, half black, shewed herself on the mountain, making signs to . them. One of them tardily went up, and she offered him all the gold in the mountain, if he would come in and set her free.. When this entreaty failed to move him, she said that if he did not release her, there would not be another born for a hundred years that could; but the shepherd did not get over his fear till the hour of deliverance was past, and the woman sank into the mountain, whence he could for a long time hear heartrending plaints and moans (ib. no. 99). V

A peasant who kept watch on the bleaching-floor near the ruins of Chorin monastery, saw the white woman (known there as the utgebersche, housekeeper, from her carrying a large bunch of leys) step in suddenly, and was not a little frightened. Next morning he told the other men, one of whom asked him if he had noticed her feet. He said no : < then' said the other, ' let's all go to-night and have a look.' At midnight they sat down in the floor, and watched : before long the white woman came slowly striding, they all looked at her feet, and observed that they were in yellow (some say, green) slippers. Then the other man called out, laughing, 'why, she has yellow slippers on . ' She fled in haste, and was never seen again (ib. no. 199).

Beside the brook of the Biitow castle hill, a peasant was

966 TRANSLATION.

ploughing, and often noticed a maiden draw water from it in a golden bucket and wash herself. At length he summoned up courage to ask her, and was told that she was a king's daughter, and had sunk with the mountain-castle into the ground; she could only be saved by one who, without halting or looking round, would carry her to the Wendish burial-ground at Eiitow, and there throw her down with all his might. The ploughman ventured on the enterprise, and had safely got to the church- yard, but before he could fling her off his shoulders, something clutched his hair from behind, and he was so startled that he looked round and let his burden fall. The maiden flew up into the air, complaining ' that she must suffer more severely now, and wait another hundred years to be saved by a steadier hand/ Since then she has not as yet appeared again (Tettau and Temme no. 267).

The Pillberg is a castle that was banned. In the evil hour from 11 to 12 at noon a woman used to shew herself on it, smoothing her hair in the sunshine, and begging the shepherds to lay hold of her : no harm should come to whoever did so, only let him hold her tight and not say a word. A man of thirty, who was still employed as a cowboy, mustered up all his courage for once, and grasped the hand of the castle-dame; while he held, all sorts of jugglery were played upon him, dogs were just going to bite him, horses to run over him, still he held fast ; but anguish forced from his breast the moan < herr Gott, herr Jesus !' In a moment the dame was loose from his hand, sobbed out that she was lost for ever, and vanished (Reusch's Sagen d^s Sam- lands no. 8).

On the hill near Kleinteich a castle is said to have stood, which has long been swallowed up. The people say their forefathers still saw with their own eyes a king's daughter come up every day between 11 and 12, and comb her golden locks over a golden trough (ib. no. 12).

. The Hiinenberg by Eckritten was once a holy mount, whereonl the Prussians sacrificed to their gods ; there a dame shews herself now. A peasant, having heard a good deal about her, rode up the bill to see her. He did see her too, combing her hair, but turned tail directly, and was only prevailed on by her prayer* to turn back again. She addressed him kindly, and gav<

WHITE LADIES IN HILLS, ETC. 967

him what she had combed out of her hair. f[e felt so daunted that he thanked her, popped the present into his p^ket, and rode off; but when he was out of her sight, he threw it Lvay. He had better have kept it, for at home he found a few grains oj gold still, which had stuck in the corners of his pocket (ib no. 13).

I could fill sheets with this kind of stories : with all their similarity, they differ in details, and I had to pick out what was characteristic.1 Then, as to locality, they occur not only in Alamannian, Franconian, Hessian or Thuringian districts, but I believe all over Germany, notably in Westphalia, L. Saxony, the Marks, and further East ; no doubt also in Switzerland, Bavaria and Austria. Schmeller 1, 33 mentions the Loferer jungfrau of Salzburg country, and remarks that the story has spread far into Bavaria. And the people of Friesland, Drenthe and the Nether- lands have just as much to tell of their witten wijven or juffers in hills and caverns (J. W. Wolf no. 212), though here they get mixed up with elvish personages. Thiele's Danske folkesagn 4, 33 cites a white woman, ' den hvide qvinde ' of Flensburg, who watching a treasure waits for deliverance; and 4, 96 a gold -spin- ning dame in black dress near Veilefjord in North Jutland. The Swed. hvita qvinna above, p. 955n,, seems to be of another kind.

Sometimes the narrative becomes fuller and like a fairytale : e.g. that in Bechstein 4, 221 no. 39 of the couple who had set down their child of five years in the forest while they gathered wood, but could not find it again, and looked a long time, till the child came running up with flowers and berries which the white maid had given it out of her garden. The parents then set off to see this garden : it was all out in bloom, though the time of the year was cold ; the white maid beckoned to them, but they were afraid. The child wished every day to go to her, wept and moped, sickened and died : it was forfeited to the sky-folk, the elves (conf. Kinderlegenden no. 3). Again, a man who puts up at a lonely huntingbox, hears at midnight a scuffing of shoes, the white woman comes to his bedside, bewails her woe, and craves

1 See further D. Sag. nos. 11. 12. 316. Mone's Anz. 3, 149. 258-9. 4 162 7 370. 476. 8, 313. Bechst. 1, 121-5. 2, 51. 93. 164. 3, 180-1-7. 4, 157-8 "l87 209. 221-4-9. Frank, sag. 157. 285. Tettau and Temme 166. 189. Harrys 1 19* 30. 2, 19. 23. Kuhnnos. 64. 119. 206. *

j

968 TRANSLATION.

deliverance, ** Ocwrfwtrtmftrs did of Parzival (Moneys Anz. 6, 396—8; esriSmppl.).

Pet-tie origin of these White Women we need not go to the Celtic matrons and fays (pp. 410-7) who are closely related to them; our own antiquity brings us to beings nearer still. Elfins and swan- wives appear in white shining garments; among god- desses may be named three in particular, of whom the ' white woman' and finally the 'nun' might be the outcome: Holda, who in the very same way combs and bathes in the midday sun, Berhta, white by her very name, who spins and weaves, Ostara (pp. 290. 780), to whom the people offered up may-lilies (p. 58). Holda and Berhta bestow trifling gifts, which turn into gold; the white women are fond of gold rings and wands (Mone 7,476), heaps of gold lie on their laps (8, 185), they give away boxfuls of gold sand (5, 414). Berhta as the white ancestress appears when a death is at hand (p. 280); so does the white maid (Bechst. 4, 158). Berhta' s misshapen foot (p. 280) lies at the root of the white maiden's goat-foot, her long nails (Mone 7, 476), her green or yellow slippers (p. 965) ; else why should these have seemed so strange ? The woman half-white, half-black, resembles Bel (p. 312), unless one would trace them to the garb of a nun (Mone 3, 259). Even the white man's occasionally displacing the white dame (6, 69) is like Berhtolt by the side of Berhta. Allegoric females like those in chap. XXIX evidently have in their manner of appearing much in common with white women.

Now the pervading thought in all this of being banned and longing for release I take to be just this, that the pagan deities are represented as still beautiful, rich, powerful and benevolent, but as outcast and unblest, and only on the hardest terms can they be released from the doom pronounced upon them. The folk- tale still betrays a fellow feeling for the white woman's grief at the attempted deliverance being always interrupted and put off to some indefinitely distant date.

The traditional mode of expressing this is peculiar and assuredly ancient : He that shall some day speed in achieving the deed and upheaving the hoard (his predestined reward), must be rocked as a babe in the cradle made of the wood of the tree that now, but a feeble twig, shoots out of the wall of a tower : should the sapling wither or be cut away, the hope of release is put off till it sprout

WHITE LADIES : KEDEMPTION.

969

anew and be grown a tree (D. sag. nos. 107, 223). Other con- ditions aggravate the difficulty : The cherry-stone, out of which the seedling is to sprout, must be carried into the chink of the wall by a little bird (Bechst. Franken 191) ; among the stones a double firtree must spring out of one root, and when it is 100 years old, two unmarried persons must hew it down on St. Wunibald's day, the stouter stem shall slide down the hill in a sledge on St. Dagobert's day, and out of its planks the deliverer's cradle be made (Mone's Anz. 3, 91) ; the walnut-tree is now but a finger high, whose planks are to form the cradle in which the future deliverer must lie (7, 365). Sometimes it is merely said, the tree is yet unplanted, the timber unhewn (6. 397. 7, 476. 8,63). In Ad. Kuhn no. 94 the formula runs thus : A lime-tree shall be planted, that will throw out two plantschen (boughs) above, and out of their wood is a poie (buoy) to be made : the first child that therein lies is doomed to be brought from life to death by the sword, and then will salvation ensue. In all these tales the ar- rival of the future event is linked with the germinating of a tree, just as the World-fight was made to depend on the sprouting of the ash (p. 960), or on the dry tree breaking into leaf (pp. 955-7).

Another difficulty put in the way of deliverance is, that the maiden in some disgusting shape, as a snake, dragon, toad or frog, has to be hissed three times (D. sag. no. 13. Mone's Anz. 3, 89. 7, 476). Already in the poem of Lanzelot we have this kissing of the dragon's mouth, who after that turns into a fair lady (7881. 7907-90).

Now and then the apparition of the white dame basking in the sun, beaming and bathing, melts into the notion of a water-holde and nixe (p. 491), a Scand. hafs-fru (Afzelius 2, 150), spirits that likewise need redemption (p. 493). Twelve white sea-maids come and join in the dancing of men (Mone's Anz. 5, 93) ; add the Romance legend of Melusina. But such mer-women generally assume, wholly or in part, the shape of a fish or snake ; and some white women have & fish's tail, a snake's tail imputed to them : a king's daughter was immured in the golden mount as a snake, and only once in three nights recovered her human form (Kin- derm, no. 92) ; in the Oselberg by Dinkelsbiihl dwells a snake with woman's head and a bunch of keys about the neck (D. sag. no. 221 ; and Suppl.).

970 TRANSLATION .

With the notion of mountain-banishment is commonly asso- ciated that of an enchanted, yet recoverable treasure. Where the ancient hero or god sits in his mountain cavern, just as in the hero's grave or barrow, lies hidden a huge hoard ; and the white woman, the snake woman, or simply snake and dragon, are they that guard it.

The Goth, huzd, OHG. liort, AS. heord, ON. hodd, seems to be letter for letter the Lat. cust in custos, custodia, and this from euro (for cuso), so that our hus (what harbours, shelters) and the Lat. curia (house and court) will come under the same root j thus huzd already contained the notion of keeping watch and ward. From thesaurus, It. Sp. tesoro, Fr. tresor, was taken the OHGr. treso, dreso. The Goth, skatts, OHG. scaz meant simply numus, and has only gradually acquired the sense of our schatz, thesaurus, gaza; as late as the 13th cent, schatz had simply the meaning of money, wealth (Flore 7749. Troj. 2689. 3171. MS. 2, 146a), not of depositing and guarding.

The generally diffused belief that treasures sleep in the bosom of the earth causes 0. v. 4, 23, in speaking of the earthquake at the Saviour's resurrection, to say : ' sih scutita io gilicho thiu erda kraftlicho, ioh si sliumo thar irgab thaz dreso thar in iru lag/ gave up the treasure that in her lay.

The treasure being buried deep down, it follows, that whoever would gain possession of it, must dig it up (heben, heave). It is supposed that the treasure moves of itself, i.e. slowly but steadily strives to come to the surface, it is commonly said, at the rate of a cock's stride every year (D. sag. no. 212). We saw how the thunderbolt, Donar's priceless hammer, after plunging far into the ground, pushed its way up in seven years (p. 179). At an appointed time the treasure is up, and waiting to be released ; if then the required condition fails, it is snatched away into the depths once more. Its nearing the surface is expressed by the phrase ' the treasure blossoms' (as fortune blossoms, p. 366), it gets ripe'; then 'it fades3 (Simpl. 2, 191), has to sink again. This may refer to the blowing of a flower above or beside it. In MHG. they spoke of the treasure coming forth: ' wenne humt herviir der hort, der mich so riche mohte machen ? ' MS. 1, 163 . It ripens in most cases every seven years, in some only every hundred, and that especially under a full moon, or during the

HOAED LIFTED : WUNDER-BLUMB.

971

Twelves. Another plirase is, 'the treasure suns itself: on the Fridays in March it is said to rise out of the ground to sun itself (MoneVAnz. 8, 313), and that spreading-out of the wheat and the flax-pods (p. 962-4) was this kind of sunning j the treasure heaves itself up in cauldrons, and then indicates its presence by a clear blaze shining on it, as fire flickers over a ghost's barrow (p. 915-6) ; a blue flame is seen upon it (Reusch no. 46) ; it has the appearance of glowing embers, of a brewing -copper full of red gold (nos. 7. 25-6) ; when a fire burns over it, they say f the treasure airs itself.' Nevertheless many treasures do not move toward the surface at all, but have to be sought in the cavern itself.

Two requisites for raising the treasure are silence and innocence. Holy divine tasks endure no babble : thus, heilawac must be drawn in silence (pp. 229. 586), in silence herbs of magic power be picked ; cry out over a treasure, 'twill sink that moment out of sight (Superst. 214). The harmless hand of childhood is fit to lay hold of it, as it is to draw lots ; poor village boys, shepherd lads, are they that find it (D. sag. 7. 157-8) ; he that is stained with vice can never come near it (ib. 13).

Whoever spies the treasure should hasten to throw something on it, both as taking possession, and to ward off danger. It is recommended to throw quickly over the treasure either bread, or a piece of clothing worn next the skin, or a three-halfpenny piece (Superst. I, 218. 224. 612). See the passages on fire, quoted p. 602-3.

But the hoard is indicated and guarded. Indicated by the re-appearance of those vanished heroes and white dames ; indi- cated and watched by dogs, snakes, dragons. Also the flickering flame (waver-lowe, p. 602) or the flower in bloom bewrays it, and swarming beetles (p. 694) are a sign of it (see Suppl.).

To get into the mountain in which it is concealed, one usually needs a plant or root to clear the way, to burst the door.

The folktales simply call it a beautiful wonderflower, which the favoured person finds and sticks in his hat : all at once entrance and exit stand open for him to the treasure of the mountain. If inside the cavern he has filled his pockets, and bewildered at the sight of the valuables, has laid aside his hat, a warning

972

TRANSLATION.

voice 1 rings in his ear as he departs : ' forget not the best ! 9 but it is then too late, the iron door shuts with a bang, hard upon his heel, in a twinkling all has disappeared, and the road is never to be found again. The same formula comes up regularly every time in the legends of the Odenberg, of the Weser mountains and the Harz, and in many more (D. sag. nos. 9. 303. 314. Bechst. 1, 146. 3, 16. 4, 210-1. Dieffenbach's Wetterau pp. 284-5. 190) ; it must be very old.2 The flower is commonly said to be blue, the colour most proper to gods and spirits, yet also I find 'purple flower' and ( white flower' mentioned. Sometimes it is called schlusselblume (key-flower), because it locks the vault, and as symbol of the key-wearing white woman, whom the bunch of keys befits as old mistress and housekeeper, and who has likewise power to unlock the treasure; also luck-flower (Bechst. 3, 212), but most frequently wunderblume. When three wonderflowers are named, it seems to mean three on one stalk (ib. 1, 146. 4, 209). The sudden violent springing-to of the door is remarkably like the Edda's 'hrynja honom )?a d heel ]>eygi hlunnblick hallar/ Seem. 226a; <>egar laukst hurSin d hcela honum/ Sn. 2 ; ' eigi fellr honum ]>a hurS a hcela,' Fornald. sog. 1, 204; and twice of the slamming of hell's door (p. 315). A shepherd boy has the heel of his shoe carried away (D. sag. 157), as another who hastens away has his heel cut off (Kinderm. 3, 75). When a shepherd mistook the order, the vault broke down, the door closed behind him with a crash, but caught him by the heel of one foot and smashed it, he was long a sufferer, and spent the money he had brought away on the cure of his foot (Bechst. 4, 211); or, he rushes out, the door slams behind him, and both his heels are cut away (Harrys 2, 14). I set some value on the recurrence of these formulas, and should like to trace them m MHG. poems. A 13th cent, phrase, ' die berge sint nu ndeh mir zuo 3 (mountains closed behind me now), MS. 2, 145% seems to mean that former chances are now forfeited.

i As if that of the flower itself. Several flowers, esp. the germander (speed- well) and myosotis, are popul. called forget-me-not, clearly with reference to their miraculous power. The sentimental explanation arose later.

m ToTerTrmulas : < je mehr du zerstreust, je mehr du bereust ! or, < je mehr du veriest, je minder L hettest ! • esp. when the gold given or gathered has he appearance of foliage or charcoal. In the cavern, where gold lies on the table, the S old men sitting by it cry to the astonished visitor: < greif einen grif, streich einen strich, und packe dich ! '

HOAED LIFTED : SPEING-WUEZEL.

973

Instead of wonderflower or keyflower, other stories name the spring wurzel (explosive root), a herb that can be procured in the following manner : The nest of a green or black woodpecker, while she has chicks, is closed tight with a wooden bung ; the bird, on becoming aware of this, flies away, knowing where to find a wonderful root which men would seek in vain. She comes carrying it in her bill, and holds it before the bung, which im- mediately flies out, as if driven by a powerful blow. Now if you are in hiding, and raise a great clamour on the woodpecker's arrival, she is frightened, and lets the root fall. Some spread a white or red cloth under the nest, and then she will drop the root on that, after using it. Mone's Anz. 8, 614 gives a pretty old passage out of Conrad von Megenberg : ' Ain vogel haist ze latin merops, und haist ze tutsch bomheckel (tree-hacker), und nist in den holen bomen, und wenn man im sinii kint verslecht (nails up) mit ainem zwickel, so bringt er ain krut (herb) und halt das fur den zwickel, so vert (starts) der zwickel her dan. Das krut haist fherba meropis/ daz spricht bdmheckelkrut, und haist in der zoberbuch ' chora/ und wer nit guet daz man es gemainklich erkant, wan es gant sloss gegen im ufT (not good to be generally known, for locks fly open before it), damit smidet nieman, wan der gevangen lyt uf den lip/ The pecker was esteemed a sacred and divine bird (p. 673); even Pliny 10, 18 reports the myth : ' Adactos cavernis eorum a pastore cuneos, admota quadam ab his herba, elabi creditur vulgo. Trebius auctor est, clavum cuneumve adactum quanta libeat vi arbori, in qua nidum habeat, statim exsilire cum crepitu arboris, cum insederit clavo aut cuneo/ 1 That the woodpecker specially is acquainted with the magic virtues of herbs, appears from other tales : he guards them, and flies at the eyes of the man that would pull them up. Thus Pliny says 25, 4, 10 of the paeony : ' praecipiunt eruere noctu, quoniam si picus martins videat, tuendo

1 Conf. Aelian De nat. an. 3, 25, on the hoopoe. Eabbinic legend mentions the rock-splitting shamir, which Solomon procured in the following way [to get stone] for his buildings. He had search made for the nest of a woodcock (grouse?) with chicks in it, and had it covered over with white crystal. The woodcock came, and finding it could not get at its young fetched the shamir, and was placing it on the glass, when Solomon's messenger set up a loud cry that startled the bird and made it drop the shamir, and the man took it with him (Majer's Myth. wtb. 1, 121). The G-esta Eoman. tells nearly the same story of the ostrich and his fetching the blaster worm thumare (Grass's transl. 2, 227).

974

TEANSLATION.

in oculos impefcum faciat and 27, 10, 60: 'tradunt nocta efFodiendas, quoniam pico martio impetum in ocnlos faciente, interdiu periculosum "sit/ That root of explosive power is supposed to be the euphorbia lathyris, which the Italians call sferracavallo, because its power over metals is so great, that a horse stepping on it has to leave the shoe behind (see Suppl.).

But, beside these plants that make doors fly open, another very ancient means of discovering and obtaining the gold or treasure buried in the earth is the wishing-rod. Why should an OHGr. gloss at once render ' caduceus' by wunscili-gerta (Gramm. 2, 540. Graff 4, 257), but that this term was thought to come nearest the sense of Mercury's magic wand ? The Latin name carried nothing on the face of it about wish or wishing (Notker in Cap. 16. 37 translates it fluge-gerta, virga volatilis). The notion then of a magic rod with a German name of its own was of very old standing, and that name moreover is one connected with the meaning I have more than once mentioned of the word

< wunsch/ which, like sselde, signified both the sum total of hap- piness and a personal being Wunsch or Sselde. The diminutive form of it in wunscilUgerta, leads me to see in this compound no reference to a person, but to a thing : it is the gerta (yard, rod) by possessing which a man becomes partaker of all earthly bliss. The bestowal of that bliss proceeds from Wuotan the supreme (p. 419).

The 13th century poets also use the term. Conrad in his Schmiede 664 (614), comparing the Virgin to the rod of Moses :

< du bist diu wunschel-gerte, dar mit (wherewith) uz einem steine wazzer wart geslagen ; 3 and 1306 (1261) : 'du saelden (Saelden?) wunschelgerte ; ' in his Troj. 19888, of Helena: 'schoene als ein wunschelgerte kam sie geslichen (gliding) ufreht/ as Danish folk-songs use lilje-vaand (lily-stalk) in a like sense ; Troj. 2215 : 'alles heiles ein ivunschel-rts (-spray).' Gotfried in a minnesong 2, 9 : ' der gnade ein wiinschel-ruote (-rod).' Nithart in Rosenkr. 3 : ' gespalten nach der wiinschelruote stam/ cleft like the w/s stem. Albr. Titur. has more than once ivunschelgerte, wiinschel- ruote 4146, and ' wiinschel-same des varmen' 4221, because varm, our farn (the fern, filix), is a healing plant. But the weightiest passage is that in Nib. 1064 (even if the stanza be an interpola- tion), just where the hoard of the Nibelungs is described :

HOARD LIFTED : WISHING-ROD.

975

Der wunsch lac (lay) dar under, von golde ein ruetelin, der (whoso) daz het erkunnet, der mohte meister sin wol in al der werlte iiber islichen (every) man.

Among the gold and gems of the hoard lay a rod, whose miracu- lous virtue (wunsch) included every good, every joy ; and he that knows its worth (I put only a comma after ruetelin, and make ' daz ' refer to it, not to the whole sentence) has power given him over all men ; the wishing-rod not only made treasures come, it intensified and continually increased their value.

Here the wishing-rod is called golden. It was commonly picked off a hazel-bush; according to Yintler it is 'that year's shoot (sumer-late) of a wild hazel-tree.' To have it, one must cut by right-hand moonlight (crescent moon) a bough with a zwisele, zwispel (furca), and twist it three times round itself.1 Others demand a white shoot of hazel or holy-thorn, one that has a twiele or fork, has shot up in one year, and has not a speck of old wood in it ; it must stand so that the sun from east and west shines through the .fork, else it is no good. He that would gather it walks in silence to the shoot, between 3 and 4 in the morning of a Sunday in full moon, turns his face to the east, bows three times to the shoot, and says : ' God bless thee, noble spray and summer's bough ! ' Then follow seven spells, given in the Meckl. jb. 5, 1 10 — 7. That simile of Conrad's makes us imagine a single slender rod. Several sorts were distinguished, at least in later times : fire-rod, burn-rod, burst-rod, strike-rod, quake- rod. The hazel was not used for all, some were made of brass wire, and perhaps of gold. In Lower Germany they say wicke- rode, from wicken, to play the witch, tell fortunes. It is all- important to hold the rod correctly in the hand (grasping the two tips, so that the stem out of which they spring shall look ' upwards) ; it will answer then, the stem will turn toward the objects it has to point out, and if there are none at hand, it will keep still. Some say that one point of the fork is held up firmly in each hand, and if nevertheless one of them bends with irresist- ible force to the ground, a bed of ore is not far off. There were also spells to be spoken during the process : ' Bod, rod, I ask of

1 Ettner's Unwiird. doctor pp. 3—8. Conf. the forked fir and lime (p. 969), and the three flowers on one stalk (p. 972) ; a twig with nine tips (Superst. I, 950), a lime bongh with nine branches (Rhesa dainos 30).

976

TRANSLATION.

thee, where may the best treasure lie ? ' By means of the wish- ing-rod men thought they could discover hidden treasures, veins of ore, springs of water (hence in Switzerland they call it spring- taster, Tobler 80a), nay, even murderers and thieves.1

In Anshelm's Bern, chron. 2, 8, I find the name glucks-stablin, as we had a flower of luck above. The French name is baguette divinatoire : acc. to the Mem. de l'acad. Celtique 4, 267 < de coudrier, fourchue d'un coteV

Does the ON. gamhanteinn, Saem. 77b, 85b contain a similar notion ? Teinn is ramus, virga (Goth, tains, OHGr. zein, AS. tan, OS. ten),2 gamban resists all interpretation hitherto. In the last- named passage gambanteinn is gathered in the forest :

Til holtz ec gecc (I went) oc til hras vrSar gambantein at geta. gambantein ec gat.

Another passage Saem. 60b deals with a ' gamban-sumbl umgeta/ which might very well mean a wishing-banquet of the gods. I would adopt the variant ( gaman-sumbl/ and explain gaman as bliss, just as wunsc seems to belong to wunna. Yet in AS. we find gomban gyldan, Beow. 21, a distinct word from gomen (gaudium) . Again ' tarns vendi ec J>ic drep/ with wand of taming I thee smote, Saem. 84b, is worth weighing : tarns vondr is un- doubtedly a rod of magic influence.

A story in full detail of a wishing-staff that St. Columban gave away to a poor man, and which he smashed at the bidding of his wife, may be found in Adamanni Scoti vita S. Columbae cap. 24 (Canisii Lect. antiq., torn. 5).

And now our surest guide to the original meaning of the wish- ing-rod is the fcrjpvfcetov of Hermes (the caduceus of Mercury) : a staff with two snakes twining round it. But these snakes appear to have been first formed by the boughs of the olive, so that the older pdfiSos (Od. 24, 2) probably had the forked figure of our wishing-rod [' three times twisted/ p. 975] . The Hymn to Merc. 527 calls it o/3ov Ka\ ttXovtov pafthov, ^pvaeiTjv, rpiTrirTjXov golden (as in the Nib. Lay), three-leaved, bringing luck and

1 Literary history of the wishing-rod in the New Lit. Anz. 1807, pp. 345—477; conf. Braunschw. Anz. 1752, p. 1625 ; Goth, taschenb. 1809, pp. 1 — 19. The asser- tion that it has only come into use in Germany since the 11th cent, seems false.

2 It might also mean sagitta, which recalls Martin von Amberg's 4 nach schatze mit pfilen suocben.'

HOARD GUARDED I DOG.

977

wealth. Now, seeing' that Mercury wears the winged petasus too, as Wuotan was recognisable by his pilei umbraculum, that in this again there dwells* the idea of a wishing -hat (p. 869), and that the bliss-bestowing Lishing-rod must be referred to a personal Wish, consequently to/ Wuotan ; I think, in the concurrence of all these resemblances tiiere lies an incontrovertible proof of the primitive unborrowed identity of Wuotan with Mercury. Eudolf in his Barl. 274, 25 may ;very well have meant ' des Wunsches bluome,' as the numerous examples from his Gerhart (p. 140) shew how familiar this personification was to him. So in Tit. 5161-9 : ' gezwiet vil der wunschetyrise ' and ' wunschel-berndez ris' (see Suppl.).

The myta;hical aspect of mountain-prisoned treasures, as of mountain-prisoned heroes and gods, has led us to Wuotan the supreme^ maker and giver of all things, 'to whom are known all hidden treasures/ Yngl. saga, cap. 7. If Some other things, beside flowers, herbs and rods, are helpful to the lifting of treasure. Thus a black he-goat that has not a light hair on him is to be sought out and tied to the spot where money lies hidden, like a sacrifice to the spirit who guards it (Mone's Anz. 6, 305). Some prescribe a black fowl without even the smallest white feather, else the devil breaks the lifter's neck for him (Bechst. 4, 207). Enchanted money has had the curse pronounced on it, that he alone shall find it who ploughs it out with a pair of black cocks; one man carved himself a tiny plough for the purpose, and accomplished the lifting, Reusch's Samland p. 29 (see Suppl.) .

But on the hoard lie dogs, snakes, dragons to guard it, DS. no. 13.159. Schm. 2, 209.

In Annales Corbej. ad an. 1048 (Paullini p. 386) : ' Aiunt in Brunsberg magnum thesaurum absconditum esse, quern niger canis custodit cum oculis igneis ; 3 and in the Carmen de Bruns- bergo (Paullini p. 599) :

Horrendus canis est tenebrosum vinctus ad antrum,

thesauri custos, qui latet imus ibi ; igneus est visus, color atque nigerrimus illi,

os patulum, et cunctis halitus usque gravis.

Under the pear-tree men saw burning coals, and at night a

978 TBANSLATION.

black poodle lying (Moneys Anz. 7, 227). On one chest in the vault lay a toad, on the other a white dog : when the peasant s wife struck about with a rod she had got from the white woman, the dog turned black as coal, at which the woman was so fright- ened she broke silence, and the deliverance came to nothing

(ib. 5, 320). ^ .

No beast has more to do with gold and treasures than the snake, which coils itself down on the gold-heap (pi 689), shakes off sparkles (p. 690-1), wears gold crowns (p. 686). : We saw the white woman herself appear half or wholly in serpent shape. By the water outside the gold cavern a huge hissing \snake keeps watch: hit him boldly on the head, he will arch himself into a bridge over the water for you, and you may step over it with a stout heart, and bring away as much golden earth as fou will (Bechst. 4, 174). Fani-gold seems to be gold that has la;z? W fens with the snakes and dragons (p. 531).

Our earliest antiquity has famous legends of snakes and dragons on the gold (p. 689-90). It is worth noting, that men were fond of givino- the shape of the snake to costly golden ware in the way of ornaments and weapons. A heap of gold glittered in the sun, and a black worm lay coiled around it, yet so that he did not reach quite round, and a span's breadth was left open : at this spot the labouring man who had spied the hoard stept in and gathered gold. When he had crammed his pockets full and even the smock he had pulled off, it came into his head to call up a companion and bid her load herself with the rest of the treasure ; but his voice was drowned in the terrible roar that suddenly arose : < out with the coin, out with the coin ! 9 was the cry, and the terrified man flung all the money away, and began to flee ; in a moment worm and treasure sank into the mountain, and the earth closed up again, the uproar was over and the sun shone sweetly ; only a few coins remained, which when thrown away had fallen outside the serpent ring (Reusch's Samland no. 3).

The great hoard on which Fdfnir lay was made up of gold that the gods had been obliged to hand over for the covering and cramming of Otter, but which Loki had previously taken from the dwarf Andvari. Signer, having got it into his power after slaying the dragon, conveyed it all safely away on Gram's back, hence gold was named byrcfr Grana (Granonis sarcina, OHG.

NIBELUN&S' HOAED. 979

would be Kranin purdi), Sn. 1^9. It is remarkable that in a Swed. folksong (Arvidsson 2, /193) the maiden awaiting her betrothed says : J

Vore det den ungersven (wer/e he the swain) som jag skulle ha,

sa forde han det guldet pa g?(ingarens bak !

According to our lay of the ,Hurnen (horny) Sifrit/ though the hero still wins the hoard by flaying the dragon of Drachenstein, and loads it on his steed (166/ 4), the origin of the gold is related differently. It is the Nibelintftes hort, and Nibling king of dwarfs leaves it to his three sons (V3, 4. 14, 3. 134, 3. 168, 2), two of whom, when their mountain began to move (in an earthquake ?) and threatened to fall, in, carried it away without telling their brother Eugel,3 ancL- 'hid it in a cave under the ' dragon-stone/ where Siegfried afterwards found it (133, 4. 134, 3. 135, 1). A

feful princess, a white woman, whom Siegfried set free together with the treasure.

/ Some things are left obscure in this account, which are cleared (up in the epic of the Nibelungs itself. Siegfried acquires the pwrt Niblunges not when he kills the lintrache (lithe-dragon), but when Schilbunc and Niblunc asked him to divide the treasure, a thing they could not manage themselves and neither could he (94, 5) . The hoard is carried f uz eime holn berge ; ' apparently it belonged to dwarfs, so that Schilbunc and Niblunc were of the elf kindred. Thus in both lays the hoard originates with dwarfs, and in the Edda with dwarf Andvari ; as elvish beings they are by nature collectors and keepers of subterranean treasure, haunt- ing the mountains as they do (pp. 448. 452), and they delude (pp. 464. 915) like spectres. Then the wishing-hat is brought to mind by the cover-capes and mist-mantles of dwarfs (p. 915) ; the dwarf race, like the dragons,4 cherishes and guards treasures,

1 The Seifriedsburg in the Khon mts (Weisth. 3, 535) is another place about which the hero-legend is told among the common people (Mone's Anz. 4, 410, and thence Bechst. Franken 144).

2 Eugel's prophecy and his conversation with Siegfried (159—164) leave no doubt of his identity with Gripir in the Edda, but in point of name with Gripi's father Eylimi. This Eylimi (insulae, prati ramus, almost a Laufey reversed p. 246) con- tains ey = OHG. ouwa, augia, which must be in Eugel too.

3 Ein tac in der helle hat leng ein ganzez jar 28, 2.

4 Mountain-sprites guarding treasure are found in the Schenkofen cavern, in the Keichenspitz, in the Ziller valley. Muchar's Gastein p. 145.

VOL. III. G

980 TRANSLATION.

and as Dame Holda travels with the Furious Host and sits locked up in the mountain, she too is connected with the elves (p. 452). Entrance into the caves of dwarfs is found as into enchanted mountains, and men are carried dff to spend some time m the society of elvish sprites (p. 494) A as they do in Dame Venus mount (p. 935). v , ,

That Nibelung and Schilbung wished to have their lather s property divided, is asserted also m Bit. 80a ; that they could not divide the treasure, is a highly n\iythic feature, which I shall illustrate further on, when I come to Wat of Wishing-gear.

As a union with goddesses, wise-wome\u, white-women, results in danger to heroes, so does their winning" of the hoard turn to their misfortune. He that has lifted the treasure must die soon (Mone's Anz. 7, 51-3). Because Andvari laid curse upon the ring that Loki extorted from him, the same ring brbBgl^68^^^ tion upon HrerSmar and his sons, who insisted on having it, anc upon Siguro and Brynhild, whose betrothal was accomplished by it (Sn. 140). ? \

An ON. name for gold is ' orms be$r ' or ' Fafnis bceli/ worm's bed, dragon's couch, who lies brooding on it, so to speak. Bui turns into a worm, and lies on his gold-chests, Fornm. sog. 11, 158. draco thesauri custos, Saxo Gram. 101. 'incubas gazae ut magnus draco, custos Scythici luci/ Martial 12, 53; miser and dragon have little joy of their wealth.

Dragons guarding treasure were also known to the Orientals and Greeks. The hundred-headed sleepless one guarded the golden apples of the Hesperian grove (Scythici luci), Photius, Bekk. 150, 6. 16. The ancients were equally familiar with the notion of griffins watching over gold : ' grifen golt/ Parz. 71, 17 seq.

Sometimes, on the spot where treasures sparkle, a calf is said to lie (Reusch no. 47), not in my opinion as keeper, but as part, of the treasure. For treasure-diggers profess to look for the golden calf, and for the golden hen and twelve chickens,,1 by which plainly something mythical is meant (see Suppl.).

A statement in the Renner 5100 deserves attention, that all buried, i.e. unlifted unredeemed treasures will one day be Anh-

1 Plnquet's Contes populates de Bayenx. Eouen 1834 p. 21.

ENCHANTED CASTLE. SUNKEN HOAED.

981

christ's, whose coming we have already seen mixing itself up in many ways with the fable of the Furious Host and mountain- prisoned heroes.

The legends largely run over into each other : what is told of the doings of elves and dwarfs in mountain-clefts is also related of noisy sprites haunting deserted houses (p. 514). In one enchanted castle a maiden with her treasures waits deliverance (Kinderm. no. 4), another is possessed with devils (ib.no. 81). And here again comes up the feature, that the spirit unblest carries his head under his arm (ib. 3, 15) like the leader of the Furious Host, and that he gets his beard shaved by the stranger who is to take off the ban (ib. 3, 9. Mone's Anz. 7, 365. Baader's Bad. sagen no. 275) ; conf. the well-known fairytale in Musseus, and Simpliciss. 1713. 1, 617, who also knows the legend of the waste castle and the beard-shaving (see Suppl.). The old fable of the water-bear lodges schrats (night-hags) in the forsaken house, and Beowulf rids the royal hall of GrendePs nightly visits. A house like this, in which all is not right, seems to be called in MHGr. wunder-burc: fich sunge ouch wie der (trache ?) lit, der manigen in der w underbuy c verslunden hat dur sin en git/ MS. 2, 177a.

Similar to removal into mountains or banishment into the ground, and proceeding from like causes, there is also a sinking into the waters. What the elves get hold of in one case, nixes and sea-sprites do in the other. Holla dwells not only in the hollow mountain, but in the fountain and the lake.

Accordingly, to spirits of heroes and to treasures we shall see a residence assigned in water as well as in a mountain. King Charles sits in the fountain at Niirnberg, with his beard grown into the table (Deut. sag. no. 22). 1 The Nibelungs' hoard lies sunk in the Rhine : ' Bin skal ra3a rogmalmi, i veltanda vatni tysaz valbaugar/ Ssem. 248\ In the Siegfried's Lay 167, 4 the hero himself spills it into the stream, that it may not work the ruin of his Eecken, as Eugel has foretold ; the Epic however makes Hagen destroy it, and not till after Siegfried's murder 1077, 3 :

er sancte in da ze Loche alien in den Bin ; 1 Conf. Ettner's Unwurd. doctor 1720-1.

982

TRANSLATION.

this lie did secretly, without the knowledge of Chriemhilde, who to the last supposes it to be in his hands, till he answers 2308, 3 :

den schatz weiz nu nieman wan (but) Got unde min. No doubt there were other legends which placed it in moun- tains : the account given by a woman living in Nerike was, that it lay inside the Kilsberg there, and the key to the cavern was kept under a rosebush (Iduna 10, 269). The Ms. 2, 169b has : der Imelunge hort lit in dem Burlenberge in bi (by them, i.e. the Rhine-folk) ; but the MsH. 2, 241a reads ' der Nibelunge hort ' and ' in dem Lurlenberge.' Imelunge may be corrupt for Nibe- lunge, as Imelot for Nibelot (p. 385 n.), and Lurlenberg shall have its due, if such be the reading, though I had taken Burlen- berc for Burglenberg, Biirglenberg, OHG. Burgilunberc on the Rhine near Breisach (Dumbeck p. 339), where the Harlungs, per- haps Amelungs, dwelt with their treasure (Heldens. p. 186—8). One of the Venus-hills in the Breisgau and Eckart may also have to do with it. But the Harlunge golt (Dietr. 7835) enters into Gothic Amelung legends, and there might be an < Amelunge hort' like the famous 'Ermenriches hort' of which so much is told. Again, the Vilk. saga cap. 381 makes Etzel the avaricious first get at Siegfried's gold which is locked in a mountain, and then significantly die of hunger, so that the Niflunga skattr drags him also to destruction ; while Danish lays have it, that Gremild, immured in the mountain, pines to death in presence of Noglings (i.e. Nibelung's) pelf (Heldens. p. 306) . So many conflicting yet connected accounts may justify us in conceding even to that far older aurum Tolosanum, which the Tectosages sunk in the lake of Tolosa, some influence on old Gothic legend.1

Stories of submerged castles are found in abundance. When the waters are at rest, you may still descry projecting pinnacles of towers, and catch the chiming of their bells. Scarcely can enchanted men be dwelling there ; all life is grown dumb beneath the waves. Three legendary features I will single out. The approaching doom is commonly announced by talking beasts : the enormity of the crime whose punishment impends has lent them speech, or some magic has opened to man the meaning of their

Justinus 32, 3 ; conf. Duncker's Origines Germanic®, p. 31.

SUBMEEGED CASTLE.

933

tones. The serving-man tastes a piece off a silver-white snake, and immediately knows what the fowls, ducks, geese, doves and sparrows in the yard are saying of the speedy downfall of the castle (DS. no. 131). This is told of Isang's castle near Seeburg, a similar story of Tilsburg near Dahlum (p. 774), and no doubt in other neighbourhoods as well. Another thing we come across is, that a good man who is sick sends his son out to observe the weather, and is told first of a clear sky, next of a tiny cloudlet on the mountain's edge, and by degrees of a cloud as big as a hat, as a washtub, as a barn-door ; then the old man has himself carried in all haste up a hill, for the judgments of God are now let loose on the Suggenthal, Sunkenthal (Mone's Anz. 8, 535 ; conf. Schreiber's Tagb. for 1840, p. 271). That is a forcible description of the swift advance of an unforeseen calamity. The same legend presents us with yet a third feature full of meaning. When the water had wrecked and swamped all the houses in Suggenthal, there remained alive only that old man and his son, and one small infant. This child, a boy , floated in his cradle all through the flood, and with him was a cat. Whenever the cradle tilted to one side, the cat jumped to the other, and restored the equilibrium ; in this way the cradle safely arrived below Buch- holz, and there stuck fast in the dold or crown of a tall oak. When the water had subsided, and the tree was accessible again, it was fetched down, and child and cat were found alive and un- hurt. As nobody knew who the boy's parents had been, they named him after the tree-top Dold, and the name is borne by his descendants to this day (Moneys Anz. 6, 69 and more completely 8, 535) . The story perfectly tallies with that Welsh one quoted p. 580, where, in spite of all difference of detail, the main thing, the child's being saved in the cradle, is related just as it is here ; which also seems to me to confirm the sense I ascribed to the ON. hVSr p. 559n. A pretty adjunct is the companionship of the auxiliary cat, who together with cock and dog was required by simple-minded antiquity to give evidence (BA. 588). From the name of this foundling Dold (OHGr. Toldo, i.e. summit-born) I understand now what the common people mean by being born on an oak or walnufc-tree (p. 572n.) ; how exactly the myths of Crea- tion and Deluge fit in together, is past doubting (see Suppl.).

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DEVIL.

The notion of the Devil and of devilish spirits, which has by degrees acquired so wide a compass and struck such deep root even in the popular religion, was unknown to our heathenism.

It seems a general rule, that a Dualism dividing the Supreme Being into opposites, where it is not [already] based on the earliest profound thought of a system, (such as the Zendic), never gets established at a later period except by abstract philosophizings. To the sensuous mythologies lying in the great middle it is ill-adapted.

An all-pervading idealistic distinction between a good and an evil spirit, Ormuzd and Ahriman,1 is known neither to the Indian and Greek theologies, nor to the Teutonic. Before the might of the one all-governing God the kakodaemon's power fades away. Then out of this unity there grow up trilogies (Brahma, Vishnu, Siva; Zeus, Poseidon, Pluto; Wuotan, Donar, Fro; Har, Iafnhar, ThrrSi), dodecalogies, and the plenitude of pantheism. But it is to my mind a fundamental feature of polytheism, that the good and beneficent principle in the Divine preponderates ; only some isolated deities, subordinate to the whole, incline to the evil or hurtful, like the Norse Loki, whose nature even then is more on a par with that of Hephaestus (Vulcan) than of the christian Devil. Goodness predominates even in elvish sprites : to the nix, the homesprite, nay the giant, it is but partially that cruelty and malice are attributed. In harmony with this is the mild way in which our antiquity pictures death and the underworld.

But for all that, amid the vast variety of character and colour- ing in these mythologies, the Dualistic antagonism need not altogether be silent: it does break out in individual features, without greatly affecting the whole. Under this head come, e.g.

1 The genuine forms are Ahur6mazdao and Agromainyus, but the former is often called Cpentomainyus, dyadbs daLfxwv, in contrast to Agromamyus the Kcu-os oa.ifj.wi>. Eurnouf's Comm. sur le Yacna pp. 90. 92.

981

OBIGIN.

985

tlie myths of Day and Night, of Elves light and dark (p. 444), of Summer and Winter.1

The Jewish monotheism accorded to its Satan only the

subordinate part of a tempter and traducer, as is plainly shewn in the book of Job, and confirmed by the Greek term 8t,df3o\o<; which the LXX and New T. use alternately with aarav, aarava^ (Arabic shaitan) or haipoviov (usually for Hebr. shed lV)y After the Captivity the Jews were more familiar with the idea of Dualism, and in N.T. times their whole demonology had largely expanded ; Beelzebub is spoken of as prince of all evil spirits, whom the O. T. knows merely as a heathen idol : so that, even as early as that, false gods come to mean demons or devils.

It pertains to the history of Christianity to explain how there came to be added the notion of Lucifer,2 a rebel spirit of light who took up arms against God, and with his adherents (in Matth. 25, 41 the devil has already 'his angels ') was banished into darkness. Luke 10, 18 : idecopovv rov aaravav ft>? aorrpairrjv iic tov ovpavov ireaovra, as the lightning darts into the ground, whereas a falling star usually affords a pleasing image (p. 722). At the same time, this revolt of the Devil and his companions must be supposed to have had a higher antiquity. Thus arose the doctrine of a satanic empire in rivalry with the celestial, a doctrine that daily met with more acceptance: the evil spirits may be the weaker side and suffer defeat, but they go about enlisting wicked men, and seek thereby to replenish their host. Compacts are made with the Devil, and he aids his confederates even during their earthly life.

From another side, the conversion of the Heathen itself con- tributed to expand and diversify the prevailing conception of the Devil's agency. It has been remarked more than once, that the deserted heathen deities were declared vanquished and shorn of their strength, yet not downright powerless : their once kindly benignant sway had turned into a fierce fiendish one. Thus what the Christians believed about the Devil received at the

1 The old faith of the Slavs set up a white and a black god : Belbogh and Chernibogh. But this dualism seems to me neither thoroughgoing nor primitive.

2 It arose out of Isa. 44, 12 : £ how art thou fallen from heaven, fair Morning- star V But it appears first in Eusebius (Demonstr. evang. 4, 9), not in Tertullian, nor Irenaeus nor Lactantius. Even Jerome and Augustine never call the devil Lucifer.

986

DEVIL.

hands of the Heathen a twofold enlargement : heathen gods and spirits already malign and gloomy in themselves readily dropt into the christian category of devilish beings ; with greater diffi- culty and more resistance from public opinion, was effected nevertheless the transmutation of the good gods of old into spectres and demons. In this process names for the most part got suppressed or disguised; myths and stories were not so easily to be abolished.

In not a few cases the Devil may be regarded as a parody or aping of the true God; as the left or wrong-side (taken mildly, the foil p. 515) of the Divine Being1: he wants to have the same power, enjoy the same honour, and mimic God in every- thing • but his contrivances miscarry and come to nought. So the idea of a DevilVmother might have arisen as counterpart to Mary the mother of God, though she had an earlier prototype in the giant's-mother (see Suppl.) .

All these influences so diverse in kind have joined to produce such popular notions of the Devil's being and character, as have existed from the N. T. to our own times. The Devil is Jewish, Christian, Heathen, a false god, an elf, a giant, a spectre, all in one. By the addition of him, Christianity could not but receive, just as heathen Polytheism was expiring, a visible bent towards Dualism, which afterwards philosophy tried to resolve into a general principle of good and another of evil. When we compare the cheerful tone of Greek myths with the harshness and grimness imparted to the legends of our Mid. Ages by the intrusion of an ail-too positive Devil, we see that the contrast comes out not so much in the original texture of the popular beliefs, which is everywhere the same or similar, as in the colour laid upon it ; and therefore our inquiry is entitled to resolve a whole mass of devil-phenomena back into the milder forms of ancient spirits and gods.

Before I attempt to isolate so much of these traditions as

is due to our Teutonic paganism, or at least that of our next

neighbours, it is even more than usually necessary to make sure

of the various names employed.

i Gotfried of Viterbo 1, 23 propounds the query : ' Quare creavit Deus diabo- lum, cum sciret eum malum esse futurum ? Eespondeo, quia propter operis sui ornatum, sicut pictor nigrum colorem substernit, ut albus apparentior fiat, sic per praevaricationem malorum justi clariores fiunt.'

THE , "WORD DEVIL.

987

The word teufel, devil, is un-Teutonic, being simply 8m/3o\o? retained.1 Ulphilas, following the Greek text,# distinguishes diabaulus-, satana and unhulpo, translating Saifjuoviov by the last, to which I shall have to come back. In OHG. satanas is kept unaltered, but the diabolus of the Yulgate is cut down to tiubil, tieval, or to diuval (T.), diufal (0. ii. 4, 101), neut. pi. diufilir (iii. 14, 53), which likewise renders the Lat. daemonium (Fragm. theot. ii. 14) . By this extension of meaning and contraction of form, we see that the word was getting naturalized and gradually driving the others out of the field : MHG. tievel, tiuvel, tivel, our teufel; AS. deofol, Eng. devil; M. Nethl. duvel, now duivel ; Icel. djbfull, Sw. djefvul, Dan. djavel. It spread through nearly all Europe : It. diavolo, Sp. diablo, Fr. diable, O.Fr. deable ; Pol. djabel, Boh. d}abel, Russ. diavol, Serv. diavo ; the Lettish and Finnish nations, the last to be converted, have alone forborne the appellation. And, as in the case of God (p. 15), there occur euphemisms : HG. deichcl, deixl, deigel, deiker, deuker, 2 Swiss dyggelij tuggeli (Staid. 1, 325) ; Nethl. duker ; Swed. djakul, knakul, knafvel (Hire's Prov. lex. 93a), also Westph. knilvel for diivel ; Fr. diacre, Pol. djachel, djasek, djablko and many more.3 Noticeable is N. ps. 90, 13: 'urtiefel, chuninch anderro tiefelo/ diab. rex daemoniorum.4 Satan is used rarely in MHG., very often in modern German; in the Anegenge 218b and in Strieker I find ' der satanat,' the later MLG. Zeno often repeats satanas. O.Fr. goufre de satenie, satemie, Ken. 20224, 28429, the last form stretching out a hand to Saturn (p. 249, and Suppl.). ^ All other names for the Devil can be brought under three points of view, according as they are drawn from his Character, his Figure, or his place of Abode. And to these may be added Disguised forms of name.

I. From his intrinsic nature the Devil is called the evil, hostile,

1 So is our engel, angel borrowed, both name and thing. Mone, who thinks

• teufel ' is unborrowed, and identifies both it and diabolus with Dionysus (Anz. 6,

354. 8, 449), will hardly boggle over the Germanness of ' engel ' either. It is true 5iix/3o\os (the slanderer), which the LXX does not yet have, might in the N. T. spring out of an Oriental word allied to Pers. div and Lat. divus (p. 161).

2 And even 'der deutscher? as the Poles say Niemiaszek ( = German) of the Devil, which may really go back to the Slav deity Nemisa ?

3 Zabulus, zabolon, which Mid. Age dictionaries and glosses give for diabolus, and render ' contrarius, arena,' is the same word , ' zabul6nes buoch,' Ms. 2, 13a.

4 Notker's interpretations of diabolus, ' niderrts, niderfal, chuning widerfluzze,' turn upon the fall, the down-rush, of the devils, Gramm. 2, 763

988

DEVIL.

unlovely (unholde), as antithesis to the good kind gracious God. The thought ^s often expressed in roundabout phrases or in adjectives, often enshrined in appropriate appellatives : ' der nie guot geriet/ who never counselled good, Dietr. 40a ; 'der ie tugende storte/ ever thwarted virtue, Kolocz. 254 ; like the Edda's < si er flestu illu rseSr ' of Loki, Sn. 46, or the epic periphrase in Reinh. xxxii. xxxvi to describe the fox and wolf as beasts^ of devilish nature. fdich hat niht guotes iiz gelan/ 'twas nothing good (= the devil) that left us you, Dietr. 8347 ; as we still say ' I have looked for him like nothing good.3 der iibele tiuvel, Iw. 4676. Nib. 215, 4. 426, 4. 1892, 4. Ms. 1, 59b der ubel vient, Gregor 2849. The evil foe, evil spirit, evil one ; der ubile geist, Fundgr. 102, 34. 105, 2. der Use geist 105, 7. Nethl. de booze vyand. ' The croohed devils' in Kinderm. 1, 422 means the unrighteous, evil ones. A sermon in MHG. has ' der ubile human der tivel/ Grief shaber 277. It is remarkable that in ON. we even come upon ' hinn Mi Omnn,' Fornm. sog. 5, 172. 10, 171. The O.Fr. poets often put rnaufez, malfez, maufes (pi. maufe, malfe) for devil; later maufais, maufaiteur, which leaves no doubt as to the sense being evildoer, evildoing.1 As early as 585 we have adversarius boni operis (Pertz 3, 3), It. aversiera* O.Fr. aversiers, devil. OS. the balowiso, malus, dirus, Hel. 33, 2 ; conf. ON. bolvis, Ssem. 77b.93a (bolvisar konor 197b are witches); Goth, balvavesei, i.e. balvaveisei Kaicia, 1 Cor. 5, 8; but our pilwiz on p. 472 can hardly be connected. Then OS. the ledo, invisus, dirus, Hel. 33, 9, Veda wihti, maligni spiritus 48, 14; M. Nethl. de lede duvel3; OHG. der leidige tiefal, Diut. 3, 59; AS. se la&a. Again, OS. the hatola, odiosus, Hel. 110, 9; hetteand herugrim 142, 12, cruel hater and persecutor. AS. se grimma gcest, M.Nethl. lede gast, Eein. 2841. Of special im- portance here are names denoting a hostile being, resisting God

1 Here belongs particularly the Slav. Mes, les (devil), from which even OHG. pdsi, O. Fris. Use seems to have come, being unknown to other Tent, tongues ,; nd Slav, zli, zly, zlo (evil), Boh. zley-duch (evil spirit), Sloven, slodi (zlodi . Glagoh a xxxix), slo-dey (evil-doer), slom, slomik, to which again our schlimm (OGH. shmb, Graff 6, 793 obliquus) may be allied ; Sloven, hudizh hudir (from hud mains, Pol. chudy, miser), &c. &c. [Are not two roots confounded here : zol, zlo=bad, and s lorn, iz-16m, raz-lom = dis-ruptio, from lomiti, to break ? And is zlodi conn, with Goth, sleidja fierce, sleiftan to hurt ?] w dplla

2 Muratori's Antiq. 2, 1090, and la Versiera m Pulci 5, 42. 21, 27 (Vocab. della Crusca sub v.), arusaria Biondelli 249.

3 Eein. 1280 intslets duvels name = in des lets (leden) duvels.

NAMES TAKEN FEOM HIS NATTJKE.

989

and persecuting men. The Latin Fathers favour the use of the term antiquus ho&tis (Greg. MagDi opp., ecL.Bened. Paris 1705. 1, 1019; his Moral. 31, 50 and Dial. 2, 30. Bonif. epist. 6, anni 723. Jonas Bobbiens. p. 5 ; Vita S. Eomani 744a. Capi- tulare in Georgisch 795, and many later records, e.g. one of 1121 in Kremer's Beitr. 3, no. 24) . And this our OHG. authorities imitate : alt-fiant (Muspilli 49) ; ftant entrislc (Hymn 24<, 9), but here we cannot help thinking of the AS. for giant, ent (p. 524), as giants in general are supposed to be old, stone-old (p. 529) . AS. se ealda deofol, se ealda, Casdm. 267, 5. So ' then altan satanasan wilit er gifahan .(he wants to catch) 0. i. 5, 52. der satanas altist, Musp. 25. In MHG. : der alte, Geo. 3376-85 • der elteste 3368. In N. Friesland to this day 1 de ual (old) diiivel/ Geizh. p. 112; in England 'old Nick, old Davy;'' in Den- mark 'gammel Erich 3 (Holberg's Uden hoved oghale, sc. 5), which it would be allowable to trace back even to the divine Erik of heathen times (p. 361) ; Norweg. gammel Sjur (Hallager 102a) ; ON. kolski, both senex and diabolus. In the same way God is called the old (p. 21). Beside ' antiquus hostis ' we also find persequutor antiquus, Vita S. Rom. 743, and callidus hostis, Jon. Bobb. p. 5. hostis generis humani (fiant mannaskines chunnes), Hymn 24, 3. A simple hostis I find but rarely used, and the Goth, fijands is never anything but i%0p6<? : in OHG., fiant by itself can be devil; so AS. feond (of Grendel), Beow. 202. 1444- 89 ; MHG. vient, En. 2525 ; M.Nethl. viant, Huyd. op St. 3, 38; O.Fr. ennemi ; OS. craftag fiund, Hel. 142, 12, unhiurifiund 32, 1. 164, 14; MHG. der leidige vient, Fundgr. 66, 4. der boese vient, Geo. 345, like our hose feind [while Engl, fiend is nothing but devil] . gerfiund, Hel. 32, 2 seems to be a strengthened form (ger =jaculum, hasta). Out of the ON. fiandi, taken in the sense of devil, arose the Dan. fanden, Sw. fanen, fan1-, but in ON. itself andshoti was both hostis and diabolus. A word whose meaning approaches that of hostis is the OHG. scado (homo nocivus, latro), which in earlier times was also applied in a good sense to heroes (p. 342). AS. scea'Sa, OS. skatho, not standing alone, but in such compounds as AS. hellsceafta, Caadm. 56, 24. Thorpe's Anal. 126, 28, leodsceacfa, Casdm. 56, 24, freodsceafta,

1 Conf. p. 916 dolgr for spectre, devilish spirit.

990

DEVIL.

Beow. 4550, uhtscea&a 4536, mansceaSa 1417-68, and OS. men- scaclo, HeL 32, 1. 33, 15. 142, 15, wamscado 31, ] 7. 164, 4, liudscado 32, 14. thiodscado 33, 1, it designates the Devil. Now this hostile, hating, harmful being the Goths named the ' unhold/ ungracious one, by which Ulphilas translates, not as a rule Sta/3o\o?, but SaifwvLov, yet with a vacillation of gender that claims attention. A masc. unhidfia stands for SaifiovLov, hai^wv in Luke 4, 35. 8, 29. 9, 42 ; for aaravd^ in 1 Cor. 5, 5 ; for Sm/3o\o? in Eph. 4, 27. and prob. ought to be so in Matt. 9, 33. A fern. unliulj?6 occurs, always for haifioviov, in Mk. 7, 26-9. 30. Lu. 4,33. 7,33. John 7, 20. 8,48-9.52. 10,20-1. The plur. Saifiovca is only once rendered by masc. unhulfians, Lu. 8, 33, and everywhere else by fern. unhulj?6ns, Mat. 7, 22. 9, 34. Mk. 1, 32- 4-9.3,15. 5,12. 6,13. 9,38. 16,9. Lu.4,41. 8,27.30-5-8. 9,1. 49. The inference is, that the notion of female demons was the favourite one with the Goths, and very likely with other Germans, for in Hymn. 24, 3 the word for diabolus is the OHG. fern. unlwldd.1 If as heathens they had worshipped a goddess Holda, how natural, in contrast with her mildness, to regard a malignant being as a female unholda ! Thus Ulphilas's preference for the term goes far to prove a Gothic worship of Hulho ; and the trans- lation of Diana by Holda and unlwldd (p. 267) is worth noting.— Again, the notion of malice and ill-will carries with it that of fierceness and wrath : so the Devil is in AS. ' se wrdcTa/ Casdm. 39, 24, in OS. f the wretha,' Hel. 106, 3. 164, 4 ; AS. ' se reffa' (trux, saevus), Casdm. 271, 12, the OS. would be < the ruodho' ; AS. fse grama/ OS. 'the gramo,3 Hel. 32,16; also prob. AS. ' se modega,' OS. 'the muodago,' conf. ' muodaga wihti' for evil spirits in Hel. 120, 9; and all four of these epithets denote the wrathful, furious.2 It should not be overlooked, first, that they are found only in Saxon poets, never in OHG. writers; secondly, that they express, especially in the plural, more the idea of demonic spirits than of the Devil : ' J?a graman gydena/ Bth. 35, 6 (dira numina) are the Parcae : gromra (gramra), Cod. Exon. 49, 5 = diabolorum ; gramono hem (daemonum habitatio) in Hel.

1 O. Slav, nepriyezn' (fern.) the ungracious = diabolus ; even Sotond himself occurs as a fern. • • ,

2 Our MHGr. poets never give their Tmvel the epithets ' grimrn, gnmmig, these they reserve for Death (p. 849). But in AS. I find Grendel called 4 se gnmma gast,' Beow. 204.

NAMES TAKEN FEOM HIS NATUEE.

991

103, 10 stands for hell. Of Judas at the Last Supper receiving the sop and taking it into his mouth, the Hel. 141, 11 says; ' so afgaf ina tho thiu Godes craft, gramon in-gewitun an thene licha- mon, Uda wihti,3 so forsook him then the strength of God, demons and devils lodged themselves in his body ; 1 ' gramon habdun thes mannes hugi undergripan,' demons had got the mastery over his mind 157, 19; ' gramo(no) barn, fiundo barn' are the devils' household 161, 23. 157, 18; ' gramono3 or ' wretharo willio,' devils' will and pleasure 106, 3 ; ' modaga wihti ' are unholdd 120, 8, conf. modage 157, 18.

This application of gram? wreth, muodag to daemons is, to my mind, a relic of heathen times, which clung to the converted Saxons as unhulj?6 had done to the Goths before them. Grendel is called gram, Beow. 1523, and yrremod 1445 ; an ON. impreca- tion was ' ]?ic hafi allan gramir ! ' Ssem. 80b, and e gramir hah Gunnnar!' 208b, gramir being daemonia and exactly equiv. to the AS. gramon. Another time Saem. 255a has ' eigi hann iotnar ! 3 where the prose Vols, saga (Fornald. sog. 1, 214) gives gramir, so that here again comes up the affinity of devils to giants. The use of modag (iratus) for diabolic spirits rather confirms an ex- planation of ' Muotes her' suggested on p. 931n.

One name, which I have held back till now, is of frequent occurrence in MHG. poets of the 12-13th cent. : ' der volant,' S. Uolrich 54a. 69b. 74a. Anegeuge 218b. 219a, 220b. Tundal 56, 31; <diu vdlantinne Herodia ' (see p. 283), Fundgr. i. 139, 6; fder volant,' ii. 109, 42. Eoth. 3106; ' valandes man,' Roth. 3227. 3366; volant, Eol. 289, 7; 1 vdlantes man' 111, 5. 189, 16; ' der iibel volant; Nib. 1334, 1 ; valandinne (she-devil) 1686, 4; vdlentinne 2308, 4. Gudr. 629, 4; f der volant,3 Nib. Lam. 625. . Er. 5555. Herbort 7725. Eilhart's Trist. 2837 ; volant, Wigal. 3994. 6976. 7022 ; er het gehoeret den volant, er (the sentry) sprach : ' seht, bi der mure (wall) da hort ich in schrien hit, owe ! er fuor die rise als6 zetal (down), daz im die stein vast walgten nach (stones rolled after him), ich weiz nicht war im ist so gach (hasty),' Frauend. 375, 12—24; 'daz in der volant riten sol,' Welsch. gast 67a ; fbi siner stimme (voice) ich han erkant, daz ez wsere der volant/ ibid. (Reinh. 384, 50) ; ' der leide volant; Trist. 8909; f des valandes rat' 11339; ' valandes man' 6217. 1 ' Aftar themo muase, so kleib er Satanase,' 0. iv. 12, 39.

992

DEVIL.

6910. 16069 j ' vdlandes barn' 15965 j ' tiuvels volant, schrat und wazzerber } 92 ; ' do geriet in der valant/ Moneys Anz. 8, 52 ; vdlant, Ottoc. 453V Certain poets abstain from the word : Wolfram, Rudolf, Conrad. In Mod. Germ, it still lives as a proper name (Faland, Phaland, Foland, Volland), otherwise it rarely occurs : ' der bose volant/ Chr. Weise's Comodienprobe 219; 'junker Volland.' Berthold's Tageb. p. 54. In Henneberg they say ' der bose fahl' or 'fahl/ Reinw. 1, 30, at Frankfort ' der fold, j %dd. 2 In MLG. once only in Zeno 1166 : ' du arge volant ! ' and nothing like it in M. Netlil. But neither do I find falant, vdlant in OHG., even as a proper name; yet one can hardly doubt its having existed, for the participial ending, as in viant, heilant, wigant, etc., points to an early formation. A MHG. verb valen, vaelen, occurs only in the Martina 145. 177. 215 and Alb. Titurel, and there it means to fail, err, conf. Schm. 1, 519. Falant must either have meant the same as the adj. ' irri/ iratus, infensus, or else misleading, seducens (Goth, airz- jands, uslutonds) ; the AS. fselian or fselan is scandalizare, seducere, and its partic. faelend would answer to valant. Some such meaning may lie in the ON. fala (Saam. 143b. 210b gigas f emina) and the verb fasla (terrere) ; in that case it would be credible that falant also referred originally to giants. But now that Phol (pp. 224 — 9. 614) has come upon the scene, he must not be left out of sight in attempting to explain a word so incorpor- ated with our language : the change of a, o into d does occur in some instances, e.g. talanc, tolanc, and the popular forms ' voland, fold, fuld 3 are in its favour ; the participial ending must remain an open question till further light be thrown on the obscure name of this ancient god. Even the fierce Unfalo in Teuerdank may be taken into the reckoning, as the ' un-' seems merely a prefix added to intensify the ill-repute of the word ; an Unfahl occurs elsewhere too as a proper name.3 Compare what is said of the pfahl-mauer (stake-wall) further on4 (see Suppl.).

1 Hagene was known as the valant aller kiinige, Gudr. 168, 2. 196, 4 ; all kings feared him like a devil. Mone in Ndrl. volkslit. 67 makes it mean ' vaillant de tous les rois ' !

2 In the Mehlwardein, a local farce 1837, p. 16 : ' ei der Fuld ! ' = devil ; so in another, the Bernemer Kerb p. 13.

8 In the Nordlingen witch-trials p. 47 an Apollonia Unfahlin. 4 I fear some will take it into their heads to explain phol, phal by aphasresis of the first syllable in deofol, diufal, pretty much as Eblis is derived from diabolus.

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II. Many names of the Devil turn upon his outward Form. The most striking feature is his lame foot : hence the Mnkende teufel (diable boiteux), hinke-bein (limping-leg) ; the fall from heaven to the abyss of hell seems to have lamed him, like Hephgestus hurled down by Zeus (p. 241). 1 He further re- sembles that god and the lame smith Wieland (Volundr p. 376) by his skill in working metals and in building, as also by his dwelling in a sooty hell. Here the antithesis to clear shining white Deity demands a dingy black hue, as the dark elves were opposed to the light. We may therefore balance the white Baltac (p. 228), the radiant Berhta (p. 272) against the gloomy powers, light-elves against black-elves, though the two principles touch, and even generate one another. The word alp seems to contain the notion of white, night and day come out of one another, Night was the mother of Day (p. 735), Halja, Demeter, Diana, Mary (p. 312-3 n.) present themselves half black or wholly darkened.2 The dark diabolic principle may be regarded as one not original, as a falling away from divine light.

The Devil is called the black : OS. mirki (tenebrosus), Hel. 31, 24. der swarze, Renner 36d. Satan exit ore torvus colore tanquam corvus, S. Gallenlied, 11, 3. er was swarz als ein rabe, Tund. 51, 17. diabolus in effigie hominis nigerrimi, Caesar Heisterb. 7, 17. der swarze hellewirt, Ms. 2, 254a. der hellewirt der ist swarz , Parz. 119, 26. der helle-mor, Walth. 33, 7. der helsce more, Fundgr. 1, 25. der helle-grave, Anegenge 39, 46. As a dark colour hides, the evil spirit gets the name of the hidden, the secret : OS. dernea wihti (spiritus latentes), Hel. 31, 20. 92, 2. But in our folktales he is also indicated as gray man, gray manikin, conf. graa told, Dan.Y. 1, 169. 180, which reminds of Wuotan and of Berhtold ; I therefore lay stress on the fact, that as Berhta and Berhtolt hand empty spindles (pp. 274-9), the Mark legend tells exactly the same of the Devil : ' You must not spin of a Thursday evening, for the evil one would throw an empty spindle into your room, and call out, Spin that full as well!5 Ad. Kuhn p. 379. Of shapes of animals, some are ascribed to the Devil chiefly on the ground of their black colour (see Sup pi.).

1 II. 1, 592. Thor threatens to lame Loki, Sn. 130, and the lightning-flash has a maiming power.

2 The Romans called Pluto Jupiter niger, the black god. Silius Ital. 8, 116.

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Such animal shape was often not made complete, but merely indicated by some addition to a configuration mainly human, much as the Greeks and Romans represented their satyrs, fauns or Pan, and to Dionysus, Actseon or Io simply added horns. The Devil then approximates to those wood- sprites, skrats and pilosi treated of in p. 478 seq. ; shaped like a man in the rest of his limbs, he is betrayed by his goat's ear, his horn, tail or horse's foot. A valant is thus described in Tund. 51, 33 : ' er het vil der hende,1 an des libes ende einen vreislichen zagel (tail), der het manigen isnin nagel (iron nail), manigen haken chrumben, damit er die tumben cholt unde stichet.' Even in heathen times the gods and ghostly beings could imitate beasts in some parts of their body : the Triglav of the Slavs had three goat's-heads, and a mixture of human with animal forms is extremely common in the Indian mythology; in the Greek and Teutonic it is rare, and then but barely hinted at. Huldra comes before us with a tail (p. 271), Berhta with the goose-foot (p. 281), the nix with a slit ear, and the nixie with wet skirt (p. 491), the hero with a swan's wing (p. 428) like Hermes with his winged feet, the water-wife with a snake's or fish's tail ; even the giant has [only] a finger and toe above the common (p. 52 7n.). The Devil's horse-foot may suggest the semi-equine centaurs, as well as the ON. nennir (p. 490).

Conversion into complete animal form might easily arise out of this ; or it might be regarded as a prerogative of the higher being to transform himself into an animal for a time.

The Devil in retiring is compelled unawares to let his horse- foot be seen (p. 326) ; a kobold (home-sprite) is also horse footed (p. 511). To the water-sprite the whole or half of a horse's figure is attributed ; that is why horses are sacrificed to rivers. A British demon Grant, possibly connected with Grendel (p. 243), shewed himself as a foal, Gerv. Tilb. in Leibn. 980. Loki changed himself into a mare, and bore Sleipnir to Sva^ilfori, Sn. 46-7. The Devil appears as a horse in the stories of Zeno and of brother Rausch, and in legends (Zappert pp. 68—71) ; black steeds

1 This many -handedness agrees with that of giants, but I do not remember to have seen the Devil represented with more heads than one, except m the shape of a dragon. Antichrist however was pictured with seven heads and a horse's foot, conf. Zappert ubi supra 73-4.

NAMES TAKEN FROM HIS FIGURE.

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fetch away the damned, and even convey heroes like Dieterich to hell, Yilk. saga 393. Otto Frising 5, 3 (see Suppl.).

The representation of the Devil in the shape of a he-goat goes back to a remote antiquity?; what can have given it such a vigorous growth among heretics and witches ? The witches all imagine their master as a Mack he-goat, to whom at festal gather- ings they pay divine honours ; conversely, the white goat atoned for and defeated diabolic influence (Haupt's Zeitschr. 3, 35). In oaths and curses of the 15-1 6th cent, the he-goat apes the true God : ( dass in der jpock schend ! Ms a frequent formula in Hans Sachs; they swore f bei hocks schedel/ skull, fbei hocks lid/ limbs, as by the limbs of saints, ' bei hocks hulde/ grace.1 Or can hocks here be a mere variation of ' botz, potz, kotz 9 for Gotts (p. 15) ? It does seem singular that the 13th cent, poets never use bock in such a sense; only Martina 156b. 184b has helleboc clearly for the Devil. According to Schm. 1, 151, hock- schnitt means that bilwez-schnitt [cut through a neighbour's corn, p. 475-6], which the people ascribe to spirits and the Devil. Now the he-goat was the sacred beast of Donar, whom the modern notions of the Devil so often have in the background. In Switzerland the people will not eat goats' feet, because the Devil appears with such, or you see them when he pulls his boots off (Tobler 214) ; it might equally well be explained by. Donar's he-goats, whom he served up for dinner, then brought the bones to life again, and was angry when one of them was broken. But in fairy-tales the Devil himself appears as a Heating goat, and already in Gregory the Great's Dial. 2, 30 as ' cornu* et trepidi- cum ferens/ which I interpret, in the shape of a three-legged goat and horned ; three-legged animals being spectral and diabolic (pp. 920. 934) . The posterli also shewed itself as a goat (p. 933). May it not be that the figure of the he-goat sacrificed by the heathen (p. 52) was afterwards by the christians transferred to

1 Appenzeller reimchr. 14. 37-9. 51. 72. 95, and Senkenberg sel. 1, 46. bocks angst und gut ! Er. Alberus 21. bocks marter ! 33. dass dich bocks esel schend ! t a i a ^ Sners schende ! Schreiber's Freib. urk. 2, 67. durch bocks

2 'm bocks lid answers to ' tiufel und sin lit,' Mone's Anz. 8, 41.

ooo '-n° c?rse.one le9 off the devil's body, and the left horn off his head,' Garg. w People still say: 'he'll deny one of the devil's ears off him and on again,' Maupt 3, 368; i.e. to curse and lie so hardily as to do the very devil's figure a damage. But what means the expression: 'ir lieget dem tiuvele an daz bein' (±toth. 3137) ? you swear falsely ? (p. 1008).

VOL. III. H

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the false god ? In the goat-hallowing of the ancient Prussians 1 the victim was lifted up high.

Next to the goat the boar, which was sacred to Fro among the ancient gods, which affords food to the heroes in Walhalla, and moreover, far from irrelevantly, mingles in the stormful march of the Wild Host (p. 921-3), is a deviPs animal; hence in the roar of the whirlwind, people cry su-stert and sau-zagel (sow-tail), rebuking the Devil by that name (p. 632). In devils' buildings the sow plays another and perhaps more prominent part. The Evil One appears as a grunting soiv (Schweinichen 1, 31). But the main point is, that here we again stumble on the name Phol : the MHG. fol, fal, ful in the compound urful signifies a boar, as is clear from the Schwabensp. 315 Wack., 204 Lassb., where the readings ' erfaul, urfaul, urfol, urval, wurffel 9 are all against ' ursul,' which makes no more sense than 'halpswuol' in Nib. 878, 3, the variants 1 halbfwol, halpfuol, helfolen ' shutting us up to the combination hal/p-ful, halp-fol, i.e. half-swine as opposed to the full swine ur-fol, the old boar of five years.2 Not that the god's name is to be explained by the beast's ; on the contrary, in both the compounds it has been transferred to the beast, and so preserved ; and as Phol is Paltar, it may now appear less venturesome to bring in as belonging here Baiter o the boar's name in Reinardus.

A soul-snatching wolf the Devil was already to the Fathers (Greg. M. opp. 1, 1486). In the Laws of Cnut he is fse wod- freca iverewulf (Schmid. p. 148) ; Ditmar of Merseb. p. 253 calls him lupus vorax, and Loki's son is Fenris ulfr; out of MHG. poets I have not noted down a hellewolf, but I hardly doubt their having used it, as Simplic. 2, 72 still does hollenwolf. And a Slavic name for the Devil, Pol. wrog, Boh. wrak, Serv. Slov. vrag, Russ. mag, vorog, though it means malefactor, enemy, latro, is the same as the OHG. warg (lupus), Reinh. xxxvii. The Devil has monstrous jaws and throat in common with the wolf and hell : ' des tiuvels Jciuwe/ Warnunge 540.

A canine conformation of the Devil is supported by many authorities : hellehunt in the old lay on Georio, Fundgr. 1, 13 ;

1 Luc. David 1, 87. 98. Joh. Voigt 1, 616.

3 In MSS. it is hard to distinguish the long f from f.

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des.hellehundes list (cunning), Hartm. Greg. 163. Eenner 289. ivint (greyhound) in des tiuvels biunt, hunt in der helle grunt, Ls. 3, 124. hellerude, Martina 32a (Dint. 2, 143), and hellewelf 111% as the Edda already supposes a hveljpr in hell, Seem. 94a, and the Greek religion a Cerberus (p. 814n.). A fight with the hell-hound is described in Fundgr. 178, and as a dog the Devil guards treasures (p. 977). black dog, Superst. Denm. no. 149. des tiuvels ruden, Eenner 23343. H. Sachs iv. 3, 31c provides him with a quail-hound (pointer, setter, to catch souls for him ?) .1 May not the Latin latro (robber) have come from the barking animal, like our warg from the wolf ? It makes the Devil re- semble both animals more (see Suppl.).

Foremost among birds comes the raven, whose form the Devil is fond of assuming, Ls. 3, 256. 'der ungetriuwe hellerabe,' Ottoc. 298b. 803b. ' volgen wir niht dem swarzen raben ! ' Eol. 33, 23. ' volget dem swarzen raben niht V Karl 19b. ' c'est uns deables, uns corbiax,' Een. 28284. The black raven sent out by Noah is called the foe (feond), Csedm. 87, 11. Not only the bird's colour, cunning and quickness, but his old connexion with Wuotan (p. 671) might, as in the case of the wolf, confirm the notion. In Caedm. 188, 6 the full Odinic epithet wcelceosig (stragem eligens), pertaining to the god's messenger-maidens (p. 417), seems archaically applied to the raven; it is true, even Jerome's commentary on Job 38, 41 had already in a far-fetched way made the (black) raven mean the Devil. In Danish folk- songs the vilde ravn, vilde val-ravn (the corvus stragis, OHG. walahraban) takes exactly the place of the diabolic trold, DV. 1, 186-7. In the puppet-play of Dr. Faust, it is remarkable that the raven, who is bearer of the written covenant with the Devif is called the bird of Mercury, which would be exactly right of Wuotan. Within the last few centuries only I find the vulture (geier) put for the Devil,2 still more frequently the cuckoo, whose connexion with magic was spoken of, p. 679. Another bird

WaUelbein (quail-bone, decoy- whistle) des tiuvels,' Berth. 225. 1 sust verir-

ret (so misleads) ez als ein wahtelbein; Jiingl. 1210. ' in korne wart ein kiindic

wahtel me sd sanfte erbeinet,' was ne'er a quail so neatly boned, Ms. 2, 206b

2 ' The vulture take you ! ' Gryphius p. m. 746. « Where the vulture . ? 1

?QQori sU*w-doctor 335- '<*ass dich der geier schende!' Wackern. Lesebuch 788, 21. Fundgr. 2, 320.

998 DEVIL.

whose figure is assumed is the cock : chauticleer and swine build together at the devil's dike (p. 1023), and from under the cloak of the human-shaped Devil peep out cock's claws in the same way as the cloven hoof.

Incomparably older and more widely diffused is the manifesta- tion of the Devil as a snake, worm, or dragon. The serpent that beguiled in Paradise was taken for the Devil himself. _ Beside antiquus hostis, he is antiquus anguis, anguifer hoshs, letijer anguis, serpens (Greg. M. opp. 1, HI. Jonas Bobfc , pp. 5. 15. Vita Bnrgundofarae p. 427. Vita S. Komam p. 743), serpens antiquus, Caes. Heisterb. 7, 35, the old dragon, AS. draca, El. 765 The belief is founded chiefly on Bev. 20, 2, and on the interpretations the Fathers gave of Leviathan. A dragon is mentioned in Bev. 12, 4, who with his tail drew the third part of the stars from heaven.* It is in this Biblical sense that our old poets call the Devil slange, hellewurm, Lohengr. 141, helletracke, Mart 141* j but there also went with it an inkling of the native superstition about venomous fire-spitting worms, treasure-guard- ing dragons (p. 978) and wonderful serpents (?. 684)^ As a dragon the Devil appears in numberless folktales, e.g. Deutsche sacr nos. 520. 858. Here I draw particular attention to that fairytale, in which it is variously the Devil, or the dragon, or the bird griffin, that has feathers plucked out of his tail m his sleep, Kinder! nos. 29. 57. 165. Norske folkev. 1, 31-33. Mailath s Ma-yar. m. 1, 179. The dragon of misfortune dogs mankind and one whom everything goes against will say, « On all my luck the Devil puts his tail.' To the dragon also may be traced the Devil's wings, 0. Pr. diables enpanez, Meon's Nouv. rec. 1, 250, like angres enpanez 1, 272. When the church represented Leviathan as an enormous whale, whose cheek Christ pierced with his hook (Greg. M. 1, 110 ; conf. supra p. 182), that was an echo of the huge hostile world-serpent whom Thorr fished up from the bottom of the sea (p. 689). As snake or dragon the Devil has enormous jaws and throat (MHG. kewen, Ms. 2, 166 ), like hell itself (pp. 314. 806-7. 996).

Flu-shape. The LXX translates Baal-zebub, the name of the god of Bkron, by BdaK pria, Ay-god (2 Kings 1, 2). Ahriman m

. Der aUe slange mit sinen gen6zen von himel wart her abe gestozen, sins libes wesen teilt er endriu (divides in three), etc. Kenner 3100 seq.

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the shape of a fly pervaded all nature. Lith. mussu birbiks, fly- god (Mielke 231), birbiks usu. blowing, buzzing. Fairytales have diabolic spirits imprisoned in phials as flies.1 Loki turns into a fly (fluga), when he wants to defraud Freyja of the brismga-men. Connect with this a Lombard story in Paul Diac. 6, 6 of the c malignus spiritus 3 who settles on the window as a fly } and gets a leg chopped off ; and one in Acta Bened. sect. 1, p. 238 of a devil being cast out: fin muscae similitudinem prorumpens cum sanguine de naribus egressus est inimicus.' As a fly, Loki finds his way into locked rooms through the keyhole, he can slip even through a needle's eye (Norske folkev. no. 31), which puts me in mind of his insinuating mother (p. 246) . The Devil, like the giant (p. 555), has the power to make himself great or small, 1ST. folkev. 1, 134. 192. Of the elvish nature of butterflies, which as psyches (p. 829) may be spirits of good or evil, we have more to say in the sequel. When stagbeetles and dungbeetles are taken as devils, it gives assurance of a heathen point of view (see Suppl.).

But also, and that from early times, the Devil has been likened to two implements, the hammer and the bolt, in which I have pointed out (pp. 180. 243) the reference to heathen gods. We have still to consider here what countenance they receive from the Bible or the Church. Malleus is reckoned among names of the Devil already in Jerome's epistle to pope Damasus (366 — 384), where he expounds the parable of the prodigal son ; Jerome may have picked up the expression from heathens in Dalmatia, Italy or Gaul ; and he had been on the Ehine. Greg. M. (d. 603) opp. 1, 1125) : ' in scriptura sacra mallei nomine aliquando diabolus designatur, per quern delinquentium culpae feriuntur, aliquando vero percussio coelestis accipitur . . . nam quia in appellatione mallei antiquus hostis exprimitur, propheta testatur, dicens : quomodo confractus est et contritus malleus universae terrae ! ' (Jerem. 50, 23. conf. 51, 20). The two notions of a chastising God and of a hostile heathen power seem here to meet. In Donar's hand the hammer was at once a consecrating and a crushing tool : stormwind, whirlwind, phenomena which old heathenism ascribed to the lord of thunder, and later superstition

Danish story of a devil shut up in a box, Thiele 1, 18. KM. no. 99.

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DEVIL.

to giants or devils (p. 635-6. Superst. I, 522, and Esth. 100), are in some parts of Germany called hammer, either from then- violent destructive action, or because the Devil is imagined to have stirred them up.1 In Rhenish Westphalia, when the wind suddenly throws the doors open, or whistles through the house by fits, they say : ' do es cler aul van terjohren ! ' there goes the old one of last year, you know who, we need not mention names. As the name hamer for devil never occurs to my knowledge m poets of the Mid. Ages, I hesitate to derive those imprecations of the vulgar (p. 181-2) from the malleus of the Fathers ; I would rather believe in an original connexion between the heathen and Jewish beliefs. And the same might be the case with riegel (bolt) : vectis is not only a thing to fasten doors with, but to shove and thump with, lever, pole, almost malleus over again. Leviathan is called vectis, quia usque ad necem percutit (Greg. M. 1, 111). The MHG. hellerigel, AS. grendel (p. 243) might be an imitation of this vectis, and also have an older relation to Loki.

I think I have often noticed that the Devil unwinds himself out of a ball of yam. One fairytale makes him roll down the mountain as a millstone, Altd. bl. 1, 297. This displays his affinity to giants, for Swedish legend tells of giants who, when frightened at Thor's lightning darting through the air, come rolling down the mountain into the meadows in various shapes, mostly as bundles of thread or balls, and seek shelter with the mowers ; but these, well knowing the danger, keep them back with their scythes, and it is said to have often happened that the lightning came down and shivered the scythes, whereupon the giants with rueful moans rushed back into the mountain (Afzelius 1, 10). It Tecalls to my mind the windball of the demons,2 p. 640 (see Suppl.).

III. From the Devil's abode in hell, whence he has dislodged

1 The Moravian peasant calls the whirlwind hammer (Meinert in the Vienna Jahrb. vol. 48. Anz. bl. p. 55), which may refer to Donar as well as the Devil, and thus agree with the fancies unfolded on p. 632 ; the Devil is described as ventus urens and aquilo, Greg. M. 1, 547. 570, and the Mod. Greeks call him avefios, Gramm. 3, 736. It is odd that the Priscillianists ascribed storms to the Devil, thunder to his roaring, rain to his sweat, which sounds very heathenish. The Manicheans too explained thunderstorms by the fury of the chained Devil.

2 Witches confessed they had been converted into balls, and gone bobbing round stark naked on tables and benches. Weng's Nordl. hexenprocesse p. 54.

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the heathen goddess, are borrowed his frequent names of helle- warte (-ward), Sumerl. 7, 9. Cod. pal. 361, 71c; hellehirte, Parz . 316, 24; hellegrubel, Mart. 4b. 10b. 72b; hellewirt, Ms. 2, I75a, and the like. Lohengr. 70, calling him hellescherge (-constable), says f er las die sine an sich/ ne gathered his own unto him, just as Wuotan receives the souls of his heroes.

His dwelling lies in the North, which at once agrees with the view explained p. 34. ' Leit % nor&r (looked to N.) 3 occurs in the singing of a valgaldr (ferale carmen), Seem. 94a; ' diabolus sedet in lateribus aquilonis, Greg. M. 1, 1186 ; he claims to rule 6 on norfflcele,' Cgedm. 3, 8 ; sets his throne nordernhalp, Diut. 3, 40. Fundgr. 2, 11 : ' nrSr ok norftr liggr helvegr 3 (p. 802) . The Esthonian also shuns the north side, Superst. N, 43 ; and the daemon's waterfall runs north (p. 493).

I will here insert a few terms not touched upon at p. 804, because I am not sure if they originally belonged more to Hell or to the Devil. In the old play of Theophilus, after he has sold himself to Satan, he is conducted to a castle, where it is cold, but high feasting is kept up: 'up de Ovelgunne3 (ill-favour). This name, aptly expressing the envy and malice of the fiendish nature, is borne by several places in Lower Germany : an Ovelgunne in the Magdeburg country, one in the Miinster, near Hortsmar, and one in the Osnabriick between Witlage and Diimmersee; an Ovel- gunne by Werben in the Altmark, an Ovelgdnne in Oldenburg, an Ovelgunne estate in Eidighausen parish, Minden country, an Ubelgunne by Warburg, Paderborn country, and four or five more in L. Germany. Probably other localities have the same name, which makes one think of the equally well chosen Ubelloch (Malpertuis) in our ' Reinhart.' Whether they were so named in allusion to the Devil, or, as I rather think, to their bleak northerly aspect, is a point to be determined; in the latter case the name is fitly transferred to the Devil's dwellingplace, which is directly opposed to heaven's blessed and blissful hall of joy (p. 820). — Again, they say in L. Saxony: f na Hekelvelde varen/ fare to H., Sam. Meiger ccciiia ; in Denmark : ' gaa du dig til HaTckenfeldt ! 3 Lyngbye's Ear. qv. p. 549. Thiele 3, 71 spells it ' til Hekkenfjalds 3 ; what if the allusion be to Hakelberg, Hakelbernd (p. 923) ? Yeld is not our feld, but the ON. fiall (fell, mons), as the Dan. form fjald shews; and Hakelberg may

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DEVIL.

be the furious hunter's and therefore the Devil's abode, nay, it is evidently Mount Helria in Iceland, sometimes called Heklu- fiall, a rendezvous of witches; and Fischart Garg. 119b calls it Meckelberg. Hekla itself is apparently named from the shape of the cloak or cowl (cucullus), as Wodan is the cloaked one, hacol-berand ; so that there are many points of contact. — Abyssus,1 whence our nobis, I have spoken of, p. 805, and only wish now to give fuller examples of the latter form. Kilian has : nobisse (daemon, nanus, cacodaemon), nobisgat (orcus), nobis- Jcroech (orcus). I dare say there are even more Nobiskrugs in L. Germany than Ovelgunnes, the name is often given to border taverns [krug=jug, alehouse], where you get as it were into anew country; thus you find a nobiskrug on the Frisian and Saxon frontier in Ostringien bailiwick, Oldenburg, another between Altona and Hamburg ; by Kiel, by Miinster, out of the way publi chouses receive the name, which does not convey quite the bad sense of our hell, but rather the ancient one of death and the underworld: 'he is na nobs-kroge3 means no more than he is dead. Nobiskrug is also used by HG. writers of the 16- 17th cent., usually for hell, devil's tavern, he being a helle-ivirt (-landlord): ' in nobiskrug faren/ Luther's Table-talk, ed. 1571, 418a. ' the rich man's soul in nobiskrug/ Fisch. Garg. 53b. e that he die not thus unshriven, and fare perchance to nobis-haus 3 Eulensp. 277. f daraufF sie sagt, sie wird dalent me in Nobis- krug sein 3 ( = be dead), L. Thurueisser's Nothgedr. ausschr. 1584, iii. 85. ' dein seel fahr hin in nobiskrug/ Cursus Cleselianus. ' fehrst in nobiskrug,3 Ayrer 76b. ' the Devil builds alway his chapel and nobiskrug, where God his church hath set,' Andr. Musculus's Hosenteufel 1630, p. 16. ' to have been in nobiskrug,3 Chr. Weise's Floretto p. 74. nobishaus, Burc. Waldis 191a. 303b. According to Staid. 2, 240 nobiskratten are the place where unbaptized children go.

More beautiful is Walther's (123, 38) expression for hell, fdaz verlorne tal,3 recalling Dante's ' citta dolente ' and his ' per me si va tra la jperduta gente3 (see Suppl.).

i Provencal abis, Eayn. 1, 14a, conf. 1, 184b baratro, baratrum; but even the Italian has by the side of abisso formed a nabisso (from in-abisso). In Eol. 195, 1 a heathen standard-bearer is called Abisse, but the O. Fr. poem has Abismes, as if hell's abyss. The Brem. wtb. 3, 254 gives the older form obiskroog, obskroog.

OTHEE NAMES.

1003

IV. Obscure names. On the Goth, skohsl for lai^oviov a con- jecture was hazarded p. 487, which is strengthened or weakened by the AS. scocca (also spelt sceocca, scucca,1 therefore hardly scocca) ; with skohsl as it is spelt, the root skaka (quatio) would agree, while skiuha (timeo) would require skuhsl. Still nearer perhaps is the ON. skass (femina gigas), for which in Seem. 154b the MS. reads skos. There is one expression for devil now largely diffused in Germany, but nowhere used except as a diminutive : L. Sax. stopke, stopke in der helle, on the Main stebchen, stabchen, in thieves' slang steppche, stepches, U. Sax. stebgen, stopgen, Thur. stopfel, Baden steubel ; what is meant by it is particularly the flying fiery dragon, who calls at the homes of his devotees, bringing them money and corn; a fiery man, a will o' wisp (Superst. I, 611), and the will o' wisp was called dolgr, foe, fiend (p. 916) : all this throws no light on the origin of the word. A L. Saxon and Westphalian name already touched upon p. 521 n., is dros, de dros in der helle, dross ; people swear ' bi'm dros,3 and curse ' dat di de dros sla ! 3 Brem. wtb. 1, 257. The HG. drus, truos, drus appears to correspond, but is only used impersonally of pestilence, ch. XXXYI. There is a host of provincialisms besides, and I can neither quote nor explain them all : in Swit- zerland they say kuhni, kueni, Staid. 2, 142, perhaps the bold, reckless one; in Eavensberg district kramberend (conf. Brem. wtb. under krambeer, krambeker), bramberend (from bram, broom, genista?), hanax, etc. ; the M. Nethl. barlebaen, barlibaen (Huyd. op St. 3, 38. Eein. 5184. Fergut 1754. 2372. 3763), occurs pretty often, but is unintelligible, and the Epmance languages aiford no light ; the only thing like it is the 0. Eng. barlibak (acc. to Massinger 1, 80 the name of an evil spirit), and barlibreak, barleybreak is a play in which hell is represented (Nares sub v.); a MHG. fboeser frimurc,3 Turl. Wh. 136a, said to be spelt femurc in Cod. Pal., seems to contain mure (putridus), Wh. 23, 5, and the ON. myrkr, AS. myrce (tenebrosus) p. 830 ; lastly, ' ein tiuvel der hiez oggewedel, der ie die ersten luge vant/ invented lies, Ms. 2, 250b : wedel is flabellum, and occurs in other names for the devil, Griinwedel, Strauss wedel, ch. XXXI Y, and

1 Beow. 1871 laftum scuccum and scinnum (invisis daemonibus et praestigiis) conf. scmna >eaw (praestigiorum mos), Cod. exon. 362, 4; sceuccum onssecgan (daemomis immolare), Ps. 105, 27 ; sceuccgyldum (sculptilibus), ib. 26.

1004 DEVIL.

harmonizes with flederwisch, whisk; and if ogge be the same as ocke, ecke, noke (p. 237), the OHG. form would be UoUwedel, flabellum horrendum.

Several appellations are proper names of men, bestowed on the evil spirit either as euphemisms or in good-natured pity just as on homesprites (p. 504) and will o' wisps (p. 917) Such are the Engl, old Davy, old Nick (Nares sub v. Nicholas), though

• • " 1 '- Aom - the Dan.

here there may also be an allusion to Hnikar (p. gammel Erik (p. 989) ; the Swiss kueni above may mean Euem (Conrad, as the noisy ghost was called Kurt, p. 918n.) ; and is Bmm (in Keisersb. teufel, Oberl. sub v.) Benno ? [Burns s Nickie Ben ?1 • a Bavar. Muchsel might come from Nepomuk, unless we prefer Schmeller's interp. 'sly sneak' 2 546 [mugger, s-muWe?] ; but hardly Stepchen from Stephen? Velten (Val- entin? often stands for devil (< potz Velten ! '), I suppose with an allusion to valant, p. 991; so does 'meister Peter, Peterchen, Peterle' Ettn. unwiird. doctor 672, and this recalls nicknames for a thief-taker or constable, who is likewise called meister Peter or Hemmerlm, RA. 883, so that he lends a name to and borrows one from the devil, for the devil is 'hell's constable, he binds and torments sonls, and is called henker, diebhenker [Burns s auld Hangie]. Now, as soldiers give their provost-marshal the nickname 'stepchen' too, it is worth considering whether stepfil may not come from the MHG. stempfel, Ms. 2, 2\ which again brings up the question of frau Stamps'* spectral nature (p. 278). A record of 1177 (no. 71 in Seibertz) has Stempel as a proper

name (see Suppl.). . . . .

Such grafting of the Devil on older native beliefs in spirits and semi-divine beings was altogether natural, as christian opinion held these to be diabolic, and the people tried to domes- ticate the outlandish Devil. Hence Fischart could call him batze (p. 506); 'may I become the very butze 's if, etc. Garg. 224 , j and the same in Altd. bl. 1, 55. The skratti (p. 478 of ON superstition hovers somewhere between woodsprite, devil and giant, and so is troll (p. 526) a 'daemon' in this more compre- hensive sensed In the cursing formulas ' troll hafi £k ! or U oll hafipinavini!' Nkl. cap. 38, • troll hafi ]>ik allan ! Kormakss.

i ZWI ok (Mdr. Fornald. sog. 2, 248 ; troll ok Hgi maSr, Firmbogas pp. 264. 292. 3-40.

MIXED UP WITH OLD GODS.

1005

188, { troll taki hann ! ' Orvarrodss. cap. 9, ' fara i trblla hendr ! ' Laxd. p. 230, it answers exactly to our Devil, yet also to the older and more pagan one : ( eigi '<k gramir 3 or ' iotnar ! ' (p. 990-1). In Saem. 39 we read : c farjm nu )?ar pmyl hafi j?ic ! 3 It seems that Scandinavian sorceresses call the Devil urdar mdni (luna saxeti, Biorn sub v.) , which I know of nothing to compare with. And as Loki is next of kin to Hel (p. 312), we find the Devil in close contact with Death (p. 854) : ' den tiuvel and den tot viirhten/ Frid. 67, 9.

So far our survey of a great variety of names (from which how- ever all merely Jewish ones, like Beelzebub, Asmodi, Belial etc., had to be excluded) has already shewn an admixture of heathen ingredients, or betrayed a still older identity or similarity of christian and pagan beliefs. Apparently words like gram, un- sold, and perhaps scado, can only have been applied to the newly adopted Devil because they already -signified to the heathens i hostile hateful spirit. Old was already said of giants, and could the more readily be used of the Devil. Wolf, raven, goat called to mind the animals that escorted heathen gods or were sacrificed to them. The designations hammer and bolt, and the northerly residence were, to say the least, in accord with heathen notions.

Let us try whether these results are likewise supported by the substance of the tales and traditions.

To the new converts the heathen gods were one and all trans- formed, not only into idols, i.e. false lying gods (galiuga-gu]?, as Ulphilas advisedly renders idola), but into devils, i.e. fellows and partners in a rival kingdom, whose dominion was broken down, but yet even under retreat, put forth some power. Whoever clung to the ancient gods and sacrificed to them in secret, was a devil's servant, and his idolatry a downright diobol-geld (p. 38-9) ; formulas of abjuration were imposed, which quote in one category the devil and the once honoured gods.1 In the AS. Laws deoflum geldan means simply to serve the old gods. This mode of think- ing, which gave the ancient deities more than their due, could not

1 ' Forsachistu diobole (dat.) ? ' ' Ec forsacho diabole end allum diobolgelde end allem dioboles wercum end wordum, Thuner ende Woden ende Saxnote ende all§m them unholdum the hiro gendtas sint.

1006

DEVIL.

always be avoided, so long as a belief in the reality of those gods was undestroyed in the hearts of men : the new doctrine could more easily take root and germinate by representing the old as odious and sinful, not as absolutely null ; the christian miracles looked more credible when something supernatural was allowed to time-honoured heathenism too. This view found a precedent in the New Test, itself: the god Beelzebub of the O.T. had dropt into the class of devils. Long in the habit of regarding Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Venus as diabolic beings, how could the converters, preaching Christianity to our forefathers, have set Donar, Wuotan, Zio, Frouwa and the rest in any other point of vie w ?

What is said and sung of the breaking of heathen images of gods entirely confirms the fact that the false gods were credited with some degree of diabolic activity. When thrown down, they complain, as demons, of the violence of the intruders (p. 498-9) : # Perun's image, which the men of Novgorod dragged through their streets and flung into the Volkhov, broke into wailings on the faithlessness of his former adorers. Olaf talk^to the statue of Freyr (p. 657), and with Thorr he has to stand h -egular con- test (p. 177). St. George compels Apollo's imag3r jo walk and speak, Geo. 33—35. Mars, a 'lugeliche got/ hacftrophesied at Rome the Saviour's birth, and when it took plaie, his image suddenly crumbled down: ' als der tievil do verdolte den slac (tholed, suffered the blow) von himel so grozen, er fuor ze sinen genozen (fared to his comrades) sa verstozen in die helle, da ist er gebunden sere, daz er niemer mere her uz mac gereichen/ Maria 191-3. Darius writes to Alexander: if thou get the better of me, f so mugen von himele mine gote zo der helle wesen bote/ Alex. 2542, i.e. they have belied my confidence, and are devils. Medieval poetry is full of such statements. I have shewn in ch. XXXI the way in which Wuotan, distorted into a Wuotunc and wiitende (furious) hunter, appearing at the head of the Wild Host, was made a devil of (p. 920). That is why the Devil is called helle-jager, Mart. 62d. 174d: < er ruscUe als der tiuvel in dem rore/ MsH. 3, 187a ; fals in (him) der tiuvel jagete,' Livl. chr. 96\ Our folktales make him either ride a black steed, or drive in a magnificent car (Mone's Anz. 8, 184) like Wuotan and like Donar.

devil's geandmothee.

1007

Wuotan was known as the god and inventor of gaming, and of dice in particular (pp. 150. 160) : it was lie that gave the all- winning die to Player Jack in the fairytale. But very commonly dice-playing is ascribed to the devil, in folktales he looks on at the game, especially if played during divine service on Sunday, and he plays with men, who have to stake their own souls j1 in witch-trials he is called Schenzerlein,2 dicer, from schanzen to throw dice, Schm. 3, 374; and he lies in wait for gamblers, Renn. 11316 seq.

Judaism has devils, but knows nothing of she-devils ; all power for good or evil it places in the hands of male beings (p. 396) . To put it still more generally : gods are altogether the older, and a strict Monotheism or Dualism recognises gods alone ; it is in the mellower fulness of Polytheism that goddesses first emerge. The Teutonic paganism, like others, is fond of female deities and elves : even the Goth, vaihts (genius) is feminine (p. 439) . Divine mothers, bright benignant dames, norns, valkyrs, wood- wives, water-maidens, formed a main part of the religion : only kobolds and home -sprites are exclusively male; the very giantesses are often lovely in mien and manners, and the world of the dead is ruled by a goddess.

Following this general tendency, as a negative must run on the lines of the positive, it was Teutonic to the core for Ulphilas to translate Sai/juoviov by unhulfio, and not to form a neuter, which would have been just as easy. To the converted Goths this feminine unholda fills the place of what their fathers had believed in as Holda.

It is no slight confirmation of the diabolic nature of Grendel in Beowulf, that he has a mother at his elbow, one with even more of the giant in her than he ; that she tries to avenge his death, and the hero's exploit is not complete until her discomfiture : Grendel' s modor 2517-64. 3076. It is a very ancient feature in our nursery-tales, that in the Devil's dwelling sits likewise his grandmother (mother, or sister), and when the hero turns in for shelter, she takes pity on him and befriends him against the monster, Kinderm. 1, 152. 2, 188 devil's grandmother (eller- mutter, great-grandm.) . Oftinn taunts the Vala with being

1 E.g. in Tettau and Temme's Preuss. sagen 197-9. 200-212.

2 Nordlinger hexenprocesse, p. 46.

1008

DEVIL.

'briggja Jmrsa mdcfir/ Saem. 95b. The human guests usually arrive while the devil is out, they are then concealed by her, and smelt out by the son on his return. So Thorr and Tyr come into giant Hy-mir's house, where they find his 900-headed grandmother (amma) and another female, his sweetheart, who hides them under the cauldron, Saem. 53a. The Indian giant too has a soft- hearted sister living with him (p. 459). Now those stories of the devil were known here in the 13th cent. ; a poem of the Cod. Vindob. 428 no. 154 contains the words: ' der donr slahe uns beide ! der tiuvel brahte mich zuo dir, und dich sin muoter her ze mir/ his mother brought you to me; ( mit des tiuvels muoter wette loufen/ run a race with; Wahtelmasre 108: 'ist diz der tufel daz hie vert (rides), oder sin muoter, oder sin sun? 3 Herb. 7729 ; f der tufil adir sin eldwmuoter3 Altd. bl. 1, 264 ; f des teufels muoter,3 01. Hatzl. 219, 16 j and in Margareta v. Limburg she plays an important part (Mone's Anz. 4, 166). We see that she is by turns represented as all that is bad, outdoing even her son, and again as of a gentler disposition : ( a widower a widow wedded, the devil to his dam was added 3 (things got worse) says Burc. Waldis 138a ; ' kam nicht der Mansfelder, der teufel mit seiner mutter 3 (omnia mala simul), Berl. kal. 1844 p. 298: fto swear one of the hangman3s grandam3s legs off/ Simplic. 2, 254; ' I fear me not, were it the devil and his dam.31 — And this sub- ject again contributes popular explanations of natural phenomena : a sure indication of old myths in the background. When rain and sunshine rapidly succeed each other, it is said as a proverb, ' the devil bleaches his grandmother (de diivel blekt sin m6m), : in Switzld. ' the devil beats his mother,3 Tobler 294a (also, the heathen hold a hightide) ; of a brown complexioned man, ( he's run out of the devil's bleaching ground (he is dem diivel ut der bleke lop en) ' ; if it thunders while the sun shines, the devil beats his mother till the oil comes/2 In Nethl., ' de duivel slaat zyn wyf/ and ' 'tis kermis in de hel (nundinae sunt in inferno)/ In Fr., ' le diable bat s&femme,3 when it rains amid sunshine (Tuet's Proverbes no. 401). In connexion with this ought to be taken

1 Conf. Felner's Flores philol. cap. 7 p. 103. Names of the devil or his grand- mother were given to cannon (Eommel 4, 180) ; ' Huck vor die holle ' = D.'s mother (Stender's Lett. wtb. 2, 337a).

2 Praetorii Blocksbergverr. 2, 113. Brem. wtb. 1, 97.

devil's offerings.

1009

the explanation of crackling fire (p. 242) and of earthquake (p. 816-7). The last quotation names the wife instead of the mother, like the iotun's frilla in H$inis-qvr3a; and Hagene says of Brunhild, who made him feel uncomfortable, fja sol si in der helle sin des iibelen tiuvels brut (bride) Nib. 426, 4. A Greek, seeing giant Asprian grind fire out of stones, cries out, 'heir veret des tuvelis brut/ Roth. 1054 ; just as another giant's (the Wind's) bride fares along (p. 632). Percuna tete (p. 173) washes her son the Thunder-god in a bath : this is the Bavarian ' anel with her ley ' (p. 641). In Austria they tell (Ziska pp. 14 — 16), of the devil's franel (= ver anel), how she felt dull in hell, and came for a change to the Highlands (Up. Austria), where she got her son to build her a castle near the Danube, imagining the people would worship her as much, as the virgin Mary ; but as no one wanted her and the people laughed at her, she was enraged, and threw a huge piece of rock with a part of her castle into the Danube, at the spot now called wirbel and strudel, and the ruins of her house are still named the devil's tower ; conf. p. 592 on whirlpools. I suppose no one can doubt that all these notions date from heathen times1 (see Suppl.).

Private sacrifices, intended for gods or spirits, could not be eradicated among the people for a long time, because they were bound up with customs and festivals, and might at last become an unmeaning harmless practice. We have seen how a clump of ears was left standing in the field for Wuotan or dame Gaue, and a bushel of oats was presented to Death or the Wild Hunter. This the clergy of an older time would at once have set down as deoflum geldan (Leges Wihtrsedi 13). It is certain that the centuries immediately following the conversion still witnessed lighted candles beside holy waters (p. 584). In Norway lambs and kids} mostly black ones, were offered to the watersprite (p. 493) ; and similar sacrifices were in use among the Lettons and Lithuanians in modern times. Whirlpools and rivers de- manded goats and horses (p. 592), Hecate black lambs. In a Hessian folktale the Devil guards a treasure, and will allow no one to lift it unless he offer to him a black he-goat exactly a year and a day old. This is an almost invariable incident in

1 Mone in Anz. 8, 450 interprets the devil's mother as Demeter, who in the Eleusinian mysteries is made the mother of Dionysus.

1010

DEVIL.

treasure-lifting, and must have been deeply stamped on the people's imagination. To the examples given at p. 977 I will add one from the mouth of the peasantry in L. Saxony. Whoever goes into the forest on Shrove Tuesday and sits down under a har- row, may look on at everything, the beasts rushing through the wood, the king on his car with foxes [sorrel horses ?] going be- fore him, and whatever there is to be seen that night. A shepherd who knew this and wished to try it, went and sat under the harrow in the wood, and looked through the holes; then, when the devilry was over, he tried to creep out again from under the harrow, but he sat fast, and the Devil stood beside him, shewing his teeth : ' have you got a black sheep/ said he, f one that is coalblack all over ? Give it me, and you'll get loose/ The shepherd lay there till daylight, then some people passing through the wood tried to set him free, but could not, so he had his black sheep fetched, the Devil took it and flew up in the air with it, and the shepherd got loose. Black cocks were also sacrificed (Dieffenbach's Wetterau 279), but there must not be a white feather on them, Bechst. 4, 207. Little men of the mountain can also be conjured up, if you place a new table for them, and set two dishes of milk, two of honey, two plates and nine knives upon it, and kill a black hen, DS. no. 38. Guibertus (vita 1, 24) speaks of a cock-sacrifice that was still in use in France : ' diabolo gallo litare, ita ut ovum de quo concretus est, die Jovis, mense Martio, in gallina constet ex- positum ; ' the cock was roasted, and carried to the pond (i.e. to a watersprite again). In H. Sachs iii. 3, 13° a man says he will cover two old women with bear skins, stick them all over with green lozenges, and give them to the Devil on new-year's day. In Burcard Waldis 150a we read of ' sending the soul stuck over with may (or birch) to the Devil.' 1 To light a candle to the Devil (Schweinichen 2, 54) is preserved to this day as a proverbial phrase. Drink-offerings to the highest gods of heathenism must after the conversion have appeared devilish. At p. 56 was men- tioned the kufe (cask, bowl ? ) out of which our ancestors drank

1 These must be thoroughly popular phrases. In Christ. Weise's Drei erznar- ren, Lp. 1704 p. 426 : ' if she were my wife, I'd have her gilded and stuck over with rosemary, put an orange in her mouth, and sell her to the hangman for a sucking- pig.' In hisKKigste leute, Augsb. 1710 p. 124 : ' ay, you should stick him over with rosemary, gild his snout, and squeeze a Borstorf apple between his teeth, you could invite the Devil to dine off him then.' That is how old-fashioned cookery used to garnish its roast.

devil's offerings.

1011

Wuotan's minne; perhaps even ( Saturni dolium 3 (pp. 126. 247) was no bath, but a drinking vessel. It seems worth noting, that in an AS. sermon the words in 1 Cor. 10, 20 'non potestis calicem Domini bibere et calicem daemoniorum/ which Ulphilas renders verbally (ni rnagu]? stikl Fraujins drigkan jah stikl skohsle), are thus expressed : ( ne mage ge samod drincan ures Drihtnes calic and ]?a3s deofles cuppan,3 so that e cuppe ' was the technical name of the heathen vessel. People still say, if you leave anything in your glass,, that you are sacrificing to the Devil (Grarg. 43b). But there is also ground for maintaining that a devil's or hell's bath was believed in, as we saw before: fze telle baden/ Welsch. gast 105a; ' to get into the Devil's bathroom 3 (Sastrow's Life 1, 11) means the height of distress. Popular legend often speaks of devil's baths (see Suppl.).

As in that passage of Wernher's Maria (p. 1006) which describes the Devil as chained in hell, so through the Mid. Ages iu general he seems to have been imagined as lying bound till the dawn of the Judgment- day ; then he will get loose, and appear in company with Antichrist. His liberation from bonds therefore marks also the time of general confusion and the world's destruction. One popular tradition makes him lie tightly bound under the table at which two virgins (evidently norns) are spinning, Deut. sag. no. 9. In other tales a noose of bast is slipt over his head, which like the chained wolf he is unable to break, and in that state is mauled on the anvil with a hammer, which leaves him lamed (Mahrische sagen, Briinn 1817, pp. 69. 72. 123); still better known is the story of the blacksmith, who gets him to creep through the key- hole into a sack, and then hammers him to pieces. I hold these pictures to be heathenish and Eddie (see p. 244) ; as Prometheus is chained, so Ahriman lies fettered for 1000 years, so Loki is bound ; not only in Germany, but in Scandinavia the expression 'the Demi is loose,3 Nethl. ' de duivel is los,' has been handed down through many hundreds of years in the people's mouth.1 With this we must connect that of fire breaking loose (pp. 245. 602), and of rubbing fire out of wood to break the devil's strength (pp. 606-7). What there is at the bottom of another saying, ' The Devil3 s dead, and any one can get to heaven un-

1 Swed. ' mi ar Fan los,' Hallman's Skrifter, Stockh. 1820, p. 224. VOL. III. t

1012 DEVIL.

hindered ' (Meinert's Kuhlandchen 215), I do not rightly know ; it can hardly mean the devil's defeat in the christian sense. The Msere von der wibe list 368 already has a protestation ' durch des tiuvels tot' I incline to identify it with the exclamation quoted p. 453 n., 'the king is dead! ' namely of the dwarf s or elves.1 The Renner 17982 says: 'waeren die teufel tot, miinche und pfaffen ksemen in not/ be in a bad way (see Suppl.) .

To Wuotan, as the war-loving god, were imputed the setting up and sowing of strife and enmity (p. 145 n.). So Ahriman sows- discord, Death sows his seed (p. 848), and Werre or Discordia hers (p. 273-4 n.). Shall we set it all down to the sowing of the devil's tares in Matth. 13, 39, or allow to the notion a more universal character ? ' Sathanas seminavit semen suum/ Bohmer's Fontes 1, 47. ' den samen kan der tiuvel geben/ Freid. 67, 25. 'des tiefels same; Walth. 31, 34. 'der tievel hat gescet den sinen samen in diu lant/ Ms. 2, IIP. 'warp de duvel sin sat dar in/ Detm. 2, 217.

It is remarkable that in Beow. 348 seq. the devil is called gdstbona, soul-killer, and 3485 bona, shooting with fiery bow ; as indeed we find in Mod. German ' the murderer from the first ' (Sieben ehen p. 394), 'the cruel hangman of souls' (in Erasm. Francisci) ; conf. the Serv. stari krvnik (p. 21). To him, as well as to Death, are ascribed bands, ropes, bridle and steed : ' diufeles gi-benti,' 0. i. 10, 22. 'mit des tievels bande geseilet/ tied, Karl 33a. ' der tievel hat mich gestricket,3 snared, 17a. ' in des tivels zoumheften (bridle-fastenings) sitzen/ Tod. gehugde 782. 'an des tiuvels sUn/ cords, Renner 21232 ; ' bridles and saddles the devil's horse 3 14429. ' tiuvels seil/ MsH. 3, 218.

To deepen the impression of something horrible, we still say, the very Devil would shudder and shrink at it, used as he is to horrors. As early as the 12th cent., it is said (Diut. 3, 59) of

i In many other cases it is difficult or impossible to trace the origin of the Devil's connexion with certain superstitious beliefs and modes of speech People say • when the shaft is out of your hand, it belongs to the devil (he can steer it to where it will do mischief). Who runs behind himself (not so fast as he could), runs Into the devil's arms, makes the deviVs bed, Superst. I, 604 659 Idleness is the deviVs lounge, Nethl. luiheid is duivels oorkussen (pillow). Take the plough off the dra*. or the devil sleeps under it, ib. 819. When you can't find a thing, the devil holds his hand or tail over it 256. The devil's plough and cushwn appear already in Eenner 15597. 15938. ' richtuom ist des tivels wetzestein, Welsch gast 125 ' des tiuvels dorn,' Eenner 1748. What does < des tiuvels zite hden' (Walth. 107, 28) mean ? his festivals ? zite (pi.), OHG. ziti, ON. ti'Sir, festa.

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monsters with flashing teeth : e swenne si si lazent plecchen, so mahten sie ioch (eke) den tiufel screcchen3 And MsH. 3, 293a : ' so luog ich herviir, ich nioht den tiuvel uz der helle erschrecken, swenne ich den minen kolben uf enbiir 9 (see Suppl.) .

Our common folk, when the disagreeable is suddenly brought forward, or is bound to befall them, are apt, in outcry or curse, to bring in the Devil or some baneful being that does duty for him : ' has the devil brought you here again ? 3 Platers leben p. 77. ' whence brings him the devil ? 3 ' hat dich der tiuvel har getragen ! 3 Meyer and Mooyer 48a; 'hat dich der tiuvel also balde (so soon) getragen har?'27b. ' der tiuvel hat in dar getragen/ Reinh. 1544. 'der tiuvel braht in hiure her/ Grute frau 783. So in M. Nethl. : ' galghenere, die lede duvel bracht u here/ Ferg. 4735 j ' die lede duvel droech u hier 3 520. ' deable li ont amene/ Ren. 5051. 8171. ' dise hat der tiuvel gesendet in min lant/ Bit. 30b. fder tievel sande mich an die stat/ Reinh. 311. 551. fsus (so) kam er her geriieret, als den der tiuvel fiieret/ Trist. 6855. ' quis te maleficus hie adduxit ? 3 Vita Joh. Gorziensis, before 984, in Mabillon's Ann. Bened. sec. 5, p. 401. 'does the ritt (pestis) bring you here now ? 3 H. Sachs iv. 3, 5b ; equivalent to the Westphalian ' wo ford di de suke her ? 3 for diseases were looked upon as demonic beings. But what means that in Schmidts Schwab, wtb. 544, tfhas the zauch brought you back already t3 I suppose, the hellish hound (tyke, OHGr. zoha, bitch). Westph. ' fort juw de kiwitt (peewit) nu weer her ? ' instead of the more usual cuckoo, vulture, which, like the peewit, are magical birds. fhat mich der guckguck hergebracht/ Grobianus 97a. And curses go through the same variations : e daz dich der tiuvel hin fiiere ! 3 Sifrit 74, 2. ( var du dem tiuvel in die hant ! 3 Reinh. 952. fle diable t'emporte ! 3 'the geier (vulture) take you ! ' Gryphius 746. ' the cuckoo and his clerk fetch him ! 3 Dan. ' var satan i void ! 3 ' die leide ride (mala pestis) miieze in vellen ! 3 Karlmeinet, Meusebach 162. In the same way are to be judged the formulas about becoming and being the devil's, i.e. falling due to him, where again cuckoo, vulture and the rest can be substituted. A devil's carl, devil's child, des tuvelis kint, Rol. 2, 31 mean those taken possession of by him : curiously Lamprecht makes Porus exclaim 4452 : dirre tubilis Alexander stellet michel f wunder/ this hero is bold as the devil.

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These quotations will not appear superfluous, if we will observe that they fit themselves to the Devil chiefly in those respects m which he is a product of heathen god-notions. As we hear it said just as much : ' what (ill) weather sends you here ? what tempest (or thunderstorm) has brought you this way ? what, has the hail beaten you here too? where does the hail beat you from ? 3 in Simplic. 5, 2, "Til be the weather's if . . ./ f M be thunder's first ! 3 1 and even ' where does the Lord send you here again from V; can anything be plainer, than that such phrases properly refer to the heathen Donar, lord of the weather, conse- quently that by the Devil afterwards put in his place we are to understand him ? Or we may, if we please, summon up some storm-breeding giant, a Blaster, Yader or Fasolt (pp. 549. 630). We know that thunderbolts are also devil's fingers (p. 179).— And here some other points can be made good. Donar had a red beard, and our proverb runs : red of beard, devil's weird, f rode baert duivels aert (= kind)/ We good-naturedly pity in the words poor devil; in the 17th cent, they still said poor thunder, Weise's Drei erzn. pp. 14. 335 ; and thunder's child is synony- mous with devil's child, ibid. 285. 425. The author of Simplicis- simus writes both teufelsgeld p. 480, and donnersgeld p. 481, in the sense of accursed pelf. The curse ' zum donner' still means exactly the same as 'zum teufel' ; and our 1 fahr zum teufel I' answers in effect to the ON. < far til Odins ! Offinn eigi >ic ! ' as well as to <}?ik hafi gramir, ibtnar,' p. 991, and to ' dat die de Earner I Hamer sla V p. 1 81. To the benediction < Gott wait's (God guide it) ! ' corresponds in the mouth of the vulgar the curse < des walte der teufel I der donner ! ' Nor be it forgotten, that in exclamations and curses, of no matter what language, names of old gods get hardened and fixed; conf. p. 783-4, and Gramm. 3, 297 (see Suppl.).

Again, the Devil stands connected, not only with the gods of heathenism, but with its dsemons, its spirits ; and a good deal of what was ascertained in ch. XVII. will apply to him. Thus he is called the wicht, the bosewicht, the hellewicht (p. 441) in the harshest sense ; the alp, whose spell binds men, may stand for

1 < Ik sen dormers ! ' Hansen's Geizhals p. 120. In Pruss. Natangen, Pikullis (p. 672, surely not akin to Picken p. 176 ?) takes the place of it : < hat mich heute der Pakulls gedragen ? ' Firmenich's Volkerst. 1, 108.

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him. Like elves lie lias the power of appearing, disappearing, and transforming himself, only the more sportful mischief of these sprites becomes grim earnest when applied to him. Like the alp, the Devil or valant is said to ride men, p. 464: in a poem of Heinr. von Miiglein (Mus, 2, 196) God destines him to ride a wicked woman ' over hill and dale/ It is a remarkable thing, that the notions of wind, wight, thing, and no less those of devil and valant, are used to strengthen a negative, Gramm. 3, 734-6 (see Suppl.).1 Now, as the word tropf (drop, ibid. 730) was used in the same sense, it explains how the expressions e armer tropf (poor wretch, fool), armer wicht, armer teufel 3 all came to have one meaning. We either attribute to spirits and the Devil the swiftness of wind, of the Wild Host rushing in storm, or we imagine the wind itself a spirit and devil (p. 999) ; hence the following are synonymous turns of speech : ' sam sie der tievel vuorte/ as though the d. carried her, Rab. 749. Dietr. 8854, and e as if the wind drove her/ c she rushed past me like the zauch (tyke, p. 1013)/ Schmid's Schwab, wtb. 544.

That morbid imbecile condition of one whom the elves are said to have touched (p. 461) is undoubtedly analogous to possession by devils. The difference lies in this, that the Heathen view makes the spirits operate purely from without, while in Jewish, Oriental and Christian doctrine the devils take up their abode in a man's body, and for the abnormal condition to cease, they must be formally cast out. An actual incarnation took place (p. 338), and we speak of devils incarnate. Saul is possessed by the evil spirit. When Nalas had denied himself, the demon Kalis entered into him, but retired at length, and passed into a tree (Bopp's Nalas pp. 234. 267. 196-8). Even our early Mid. Ages furnish examples : Carl, son of king Ludwig, was a demoniac (Pertz 1,

1 Nib. 1682 : ' ich bringe iu den tiuvel ' means I bring you none at all, as we say ' the devil a bit,' etc. But also the simple indefinite pronoun is intensified by the addition of devil : ' welcher teufel ? ' who ? [quisnam, ris irore] Phil. v. Sittew. 1, 30. ' besehen, welchen tiuvel sie mit im wellen ane-vahen,' see what d. they will do with him, Morolt 2650. ' zuo welchem tiuvel bin ich geschart ? ' Bit. 7766. ' von ivelchem tiuvel si sint komen ? ' Dietr. 81b. ' welchen tiuvel hfflte ein wip an dir ersehen ? ' = who in the world, Hartm. erst, biichl. 818. Cries of surprise : ! was teufel; what (the) devil, Dan. ' hvad fanden ' (intens. ' hvad i f andens skind og been,' skin and bone), ' drink then you and the devil ! ' (Schlampampe p. 17) are still common among the people. The meaning of the last is ' you and whoever it may be ' ; but the combination is also a counterpart of the ' God and I ' explained on p. 16. ' daz weiz er und der tiuvel wol,' Helbl. 7, 125. Curiously in Kenner 1745 : ' dem tiuvel von erst und darnach Gote,' the d. first, and then God.

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495. For elves to steal men's children and put their own changelings in their place, is heathenish (p. 468) ; for the Devil to lie hid in the ckangeliug, is not (Zeno 58 seq.). Again, the devil-possessed are like those houses and tenements where racketing sprites have made themselves fixtures (pp. 514. 892). 2 An early instance of this is that Grendel in Beowulf, who disturbs the royal hall by his nightly visits. For ( possessed ' (arreptitius, daenioniacus), having the devil in one's body, the OHG. has the following terms : firnoman, taken up, 0. iii. 14, 107 (MHG. ' vil gar vernomen ich do lac/ I lay insensible, Fragm. 46b) ; f ther diufal ist iru inne,' 0. iii. 10, 12; 'gramon in-gvwitun' p. 991 (0. Fr. ' mans esperis li est el cors entres,3 Garin p. 280); tiauol- winnic, tiuvolwinnanti, Gl. mons. 337. 391. Doc. 239, as well as tiuvolsioh, AS. deofolseoc (-sick) ; in 0. iii. 14, 63 ' thie mit diufele wunnun, who had to contend with the devil ; and that is the meaning of H. Sachs's ' wiitig und icinnig3 1, 481b. iv. 3, 16a. In the 13th cent, our ( possessed' was already a current phrase : 'besaz sie der valant,' Uolrich 1510. fnu var hin, daz hiute der tievel uz dir leal ! 3 holla out of thee, Ben. 440. ' der tiuvel var im in den munt ! 3 pop into his mouth, Eeinh. 1642. ' var du dem tievel in die hard ! ' 852. ' der tiuvel var dir in den bale ! 3 into thy skin, Morolt 1210. ' der tufil muez im durch daz lierze varn ! ' Grundr. 314. f tusent tiuvel uz dir bellen ! 3 bark, MsH. 3, 259b (we still say, ' an evil spirit spoke out of Mm3), 'ich wasn der tiuvel uz beiden luge3 Reinh. 309. 520 (see Suppl.).

The words last quoted bring us to his mendacity. The Scrip- ture calls him a ' father of lies ' ; c tievellichen gelogen3 lied like

1 Vita S. Godebardi (d. 1038) : In civitate Eatisbona quodam tempore sanctus Godebardus niorabatur, pro negotio forsan sui monasterii; ubi quaedam obsessa a daemonio ad eum ducebatur, ut sanaretur ab eo. Quam vir Dei inspiciens ait : ' responde mibi, immrmde spiritus, ad ea quae a te quaero. quid bic agis in cre- aturaDei?' At daemon ait : 'pleno jure est anima ipsius mea, quod incantatrix est, et per earn rnultas animas lucratus sum.' Et ait vir sanctus : ' quare propter incantationem tua est?' Et daemon ait: ' nonne legisti quia Dominus pithones, divinos et incantatores jussit exterminari? quid enim tales faciunt, nisi quod mibi meisque principibus deseryiunt ? idololatrae enim sunt, vix enim aliquos tanto jure possidere possumus quanto bujusmodi vitiis irretitos ; numquid ignoras quod inter mille incantatrices aut divinos vix una invenitur quae vel qui vebt boc vitium confiteri ? sic enim ora ipsorum claudimus, ut de talibus loqui nibil valeant quovis modo.' Tbe bisbop casts out tbe demon. Et sic spiritus ille malignus abscessit, et mulier ut mortua cecidit. Sed vir sanctus subito earn erexit, erecta vero publice vitium incantationis, quod dudum multoties perfecerat, cum lacrymis est confessa, quam et vir sanctus solvit.

2 A deserted castle possessed by tbe devil, Greg. Mag. dial. 3, 4. Like tormenting sprites, tbe devil ows stones, conf. Greg. Tur. vitae patr. 1, vita Heimeradi cap. 21.

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a devil, says Nib. 2167, 3. What if the corrupt Dan. ' Locke lojemand, lovmand' p. 246 had an allusion to lyve (mentiri) pret. loi, or if a kinship could even be established between luge (men- dacium) and logi (blaze, blast) ? Wind means to us a false allegation, windbag a humbug, liar. A Dan. proverb says : 'logn er et skadeligt uveir ' (mendacium est tempestas nociva), Saxo Gram., ed. Mull. p. 200. A liar is also a mocker, hence <des tievels spot/ Nib. 2182, 2. f daz sinen spot der tuvel mit den sinen habe,' Gr. Rud. 1, 9. In Mod. Nethl. ' de vyand heeft my beet gehad/ hostis me ludibrio habuit (see Suppl.) .

GrendeVs diabolic nature resembles that of bloodthirsty water- sprites (p. 494) ; he lives too in moors and fens, and comes up at night to haunt sleeping mortals : ' com of more gangan/ Beow. 1413; he flies f under fen-hleo$u' 1.632. He drinks men's blood out of their veins 1478, like vampires whose lips are moist with fresh blood. An ON. saga has a similar demon, called Grimr oegir because he can walk in water as on land, he spits fire and poison, suds the blood out of man and beast (Fornald. sog. 3, 241-2).

About when in the Mid. Ages did the idea spring up of formal covenants and treaties which the Devil concludes with men ? To the unfortunate, the desperate, he promises temporal blessings for a number of years, but bargains for their souls at the expira- tion of the term, and insists on a written bond usually signed with the men's blood. This sounds not heathen, but rather as if invented after the Eoman mode of writing had become general in Europe. The Norse devil 1 tries to strike profitable bargains too, but never in writing. The most famous and variously told 2 tale is that of the vicedominus Theophilus. It is known that Gerbert, afterwards pope Silvester 2 (d. 1003), was said to have

1 The iotunn p. 547. The transaction is called a purchase.

2 The event itself is placed at the beginn. of the 6th cent. ; the oldest work I know of, that relates it, is Hroswitha's poem Lapsus et conversio Theophili vice- domini (Opp. ed. Schurzfleisch pp. 132-145), of the latter half of the 10th cent. Not long after comes the mention of it by Fulbertus Carnofcensis (d. 1029), Opp. Paris 1608, p. 136. A Historia Theophili metrica is attrib. to Marbod (d. 1123), and stands in his Works (ed. Beaugendre pp. 1507-16). The story occurs m Hart- mann's poem (12th cent.) Von dem gelouben, 11. 1927-98. Berceo (d. 1268) merely alludes to it in Milagros de Maria str. 276, and in Duelo de Maria str. 194 ; so does a MHG. poet, Altd. bl. 1, 79. Widest diffusion given it by Vincentius Bellovac. m Spec. hist. 22, 69. Dramatized by Eutebeuf (Legrand 1, 333 ; now publ. m Jubmal's ed. 2, 79-105, and Michel's Theatre Fran?, 136-156 with notes on its liter, history) ; and aft. by a Low Germ, poet (Bruns p. 389).

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sold himself to the devil (Anon. Leobiens. in Pez 1, 763). In the Annolied str. 46-7 is the story of one Volprecht, who gives himself to the devil; another in Ottocar cap. 335. In most legends of this kind the Devil misses his prey after all, and is made to give up the damning document. The man may have denied God, but has never renounced the heavenly Virgin, so she lends a helping hand. In a Swiss folktale the devil bargains that the contracting party shall never say the gospel of John any more (de Hanseler uf der lalle ummedriillen), but he comes to grief nevertheless, for the poor shepherd lad ivhistles it from beginning to ' end. Another time the Evil one is promised payment of the sum advanced, at the falling of the leaf ; but when at fall- time he presents himself, and presses the bargain, he is shown trees in the church, that were cut with the leaves on (Kinderm. no. 148), or else firs and pines (Woycicki's Klechdy 1, 149). On the whole there are ways more than one, to cheat the poor devil of his legal due. One who has bound himself to him, but who for seven years long neither washes nor combs, is rid of him again ; or he need only have demanded that the devil shall make a sapling grow, a thing beyond his power (Superst. I, no. 626). The former is the story of Bearskin -(Simplic. 3, 896. Kinderm. no. 101), and of Brother Sooty (KM. no. 100) : Bear- skin has to remain seven years in the devil's service, wrapt in a bear's hide by way of cloak, i.e. leading a lazy inactive life (conf. p. 1010, the bearskin offered to the devil). Almost every case contains this stipulation of seven years to be spent in his service and lore.1

What has a more direct bearing on our investigation is, that some of the ON. legends speak of a gefaz 0(?ni (giving oneself to O.) exactly as the christian Mid. Ages do of writing or vowing oneself into the Devil's hands. Indeed ' gefa ' seems the most genuine expression, because the free man, who of his own accord enters into service and bondage, gives, yields himself: giafj?rael, servus dedititius (BA. 327); 'begeben' is used in MHGr. of maidens giving themselves up to the church. The Olaf Trygg- vas. saga tells how king Eirikr of Sweden gave himself to

1 Mone's Anz. 5, 176. In a MHG. poem (Fragm. 20c) an old man is addressed : 4 din hundert jar sint nu komen zuo siben jdren tiz erwegen, daz din der tiufel miieze pflegen.'

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OSinn (at hann gafsc O&ni) in return for his lending him victory for ten years long, Fornm. sog. 5, 250 and 10, 283; and this last account calls Oddiner a devil (so in 10, 303 a ' diofull me$ asionu OSins,' looking like O.). That the ancient god of victory here sinks into the Enemy of good, is, from the legend's point of view, quite in order. The only question is, whether the loan for ten years, and after that, the king's forfeiture to the god, were taken over from christian stories of the devil, or had their ground in heathen opinion itself. In the latter case it may have been these heathen traditions that first suggested to christians the wild fiction of a league with the devil. It is true the Norse authorities say nothing about a bond signed in blood, nor about fetching away upon forfeiture (see Suppl.) .

How to call to the Devil, when one wishes to have dealings with him, we learn from a Dan. superstition (no. 148) : Walk three times round the church, and the third time stand still in front of the church-door, and cry ' come out ! ' or whistle to him through the keyhole. That is exactly how spirits of the dead are summoned up (Superst. G, line 206 seq.). The hiss, by which homage was rendered to the devil, does not occur till we come to heretics and the • later witches ; it seems either copied from the secular homagium, or a parody of the christian kiss of peace during Adoration.

The devil in some stories, who brings money or corn to his friends and favourites, approximates to good-natured homesprites or elves ; and in such cases nothing is said about a bond or about abjuring God. He is usually seen as a fiery dragon rushing through the air and into chimneys (Superst. I, nos. 6. 253. 520-2-3. 858). The Esthonians say, red streaks of cloud shew the dragon is flying out, the dark that he is returning with booty (Superst. M, no. 102) ; so the Lithuanians about the red alb and the blue (N, no. 1). In Lausitz they tell of a corn-dragon (zitny smij) who fills his friend's thrashing floor, a milk-dragon (mlokowy smij) who purveys for the goodwife's dairy, and a penny-dragon (penezny smij) who brings wealth. The way to get hold of such a one is the following : you find a threepenny piece lying some- where to-day ; if you pick it up, there'll be a sixpenny piece in the same place to-morrow, and so the value of what you find will keep rising till you come to a dollar. If you are so greedy as to

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take the dollar too, you get the dragon into your house. He demands respectful treatment and good fare (like a homesprite) ; if goodman or goodwife neglect it, he sets the house on fire over their heads. The only way to get rid of him is to sell the dollar, but below its price, and so that the buyer is aware and silently consents.1 It is the same with the alraun and the gallows- mannikin (p. 513 n.). If given away, these breeding -dollars always come back (Superst. I, no. 781).

But nowhere does the Devil savour so much of heathenism as where he has stept into the place of the old giant (pp. 999. 1005. 1023-4) . Both of them the thunder-god pursues with his hammer; as the sleeping giant is struck by Thorns miolnir, so is the devil by the blacksmith's hammer (p. 1011) ; 2 the devil with three golden hairs (KM. no. 29) has already been likened to the ON. Ugarthi- locus (p. 244) . And more especially is he giant-like, where the people credit him with stupendous feats of building and stone- throwing : here he puts on completely the burly, wrathful, spiteful and loutish nature of the iotunn (pp. 534. 543-54) ; stupid devil is used like stupid giant (p. 528). The building of christian churches is hateful to him, and he tries to reduce them to ruins ; but his schemes are sure to be foiled by some higher power or by the superior craft of man. Like the giant, he often shews him- self a skilful architect, and undertakes to build a castle, bridge or church, only bargaining for the soul of him who shall first set foot in the new building.

What was once told of the giant is now told of the devil, but a harsher crueller motive usually takes the place of milder ones. The giant in building has commonly some sociable neighbourly purpose (pp. 535-54), the devil wishes merely to do mischief and entrap souls. Norway has many legends of giant's bridges. The jutul loves a huldra on the other side of the water ; to be able to visit her dryshod, he sets about building a bridge, but the rising sun hinders its completion (Faye 15. 16). Another time two jutuls undertake the work to facilitate their mutual visits. Over

1 Lausitz. monatsschr. 1797, p. 755-6. Conf. the Mem. oorem, Haupt's Zeitschr. 7, 532.

2 It is no contradiction, that in other stories the Devil has the opposite part of Donar with his hammer and bolt handed over to him, or again that of the smith, the limping Hephsestus. A preacher of the 14th cent. (Leyser 77, 10) speaks of the evil devil's blow-bellows.

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the Main too the giants propose to build a bridge (p. 547), though the motive is no longer told. When the Devil builds the bridge, he is either under compulsion from men (Thiele I, 18), or is hunting for a soul (Deut. sag. nos. 185. 336) ; but he has to put up with the code or chamois which is purposely made to run first across the new bridge.1 A Swiss shepherd in a narrow glen, finding he could not drive his flock over the brook, wished the devil would bridge it over for him ; instantly the fiend appeared, and offered to do the work on condition that the first thing that crossed should be his : it was a goat that led the way (Tobler 214a)\ In one French story, having reserved for himself every thirteenth creature that should cross the bridge, he has already clutchyed numbers of men and beasts, when a holy man, being a thi/rteenth, confronts and conquers him (Mem. de Pacad. celt. 5, 8/84). 3 The church-building devil also having bargained for the 'Jul of the first that should enter, they make a wolf scamper 'through the door (Deut. sag. no. 186) ; he in a rage flies up through the roof, and leaves a gap that no mason can fill up (the last incident is in nos. 181-2). On mountains he builds mills , and destroys them again (nos. 183. 19 5). 3 His wager with the architect of Cologne cathedral is remarkable : that he will lead a rivulet from Treves to Cologne,4 before the other can finish his church (no. 204). In the same way a giantess wagers to throw a stone bridge over a strait of the sea, before St. Olaf shall have brought his church-building to an end ; but the bridge was not half done, when the bells pealed out from the sacred pile. She in vexation hurled the stones she was building with at the church- tower, but never once could she hit it ; then she tore off one of her legs, and flung it at the steeple. Some accounts say she knocked it down, others that she missed ; the leg fell in a bog,

1 Before entering a new house, it is safest to let a cat or dog run in first, Superst. I, 499.

2 The devil is shut up in a tower, where he may get out at the top, hut only by mounting one stair a day, and there "being 365 of them, the journey takes him a whole year.

3 A mountain called Teufelsmulin at the source of the rivulet Alp is ment. in Dnmbek's Geogr. pagor. p. 79 ; and a mill Buvelmolen near Soest in Seibertz 1, 622. Bechst. Franken p. 107. Baader's Bad. sag. no. 487.

4 By this was meant the oldKoman aqueduct (Gelenius de admir. Col. p. 254), of which an equally fabulous account stands in the Annolied 510 : ' Triere was ein burg alt, si zierte Bomare gewalt, dannin man undir der erdin den win santi verre, mit steinin rinnin, den herrin al ci minnin, di ci Colne warin sedilhait.'

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which is still named Giograputten (Faye p. 119). Bell-ringing is hated by dwarfs (p. 459), giants (Faye p. 7. 17. Thiele 1, 42), and devils,1 who keep retiring before it : these legends all signalize the triumph of Christianity. Out of some churches the devil drags the bells away (Deut. sag. 202) : at first he does not know what the new structure is for, and is pacified by evasive answers (no. 181) ; but when it stands complete, he tries to batter it down with stones. Devil's stones are either those he has dropt as he bore them through the air for building, or those he carried up the hills when undoing some work he had begun, or those he has thrown at a church (nos. 196-8-9. 200. 477). Scan- dinavian stories of stones hurled by the giant race at the first christian church are in Thiele 2, 20. 126-7. Faye pp. 16. 18; a Shetland one in Hilbert p. 433. Frequently such fragments of rock have the fingers of the devil's hands imprinted on them; a stone on which he has slept shews the mark of his ear, DeV- sag. 191. At Limburg near Tiirkheim in the Palatinate is a stone, which the Evil one was bringing to fling at the church ; but being only a young devil, he tired of the heavy load, and lay down to sleep on it ; his figure printed itself on the rock, and he overslept the time during which the throw ought to have been made. In the vale of Durbach, on a hill of the Stollenwald, stand eleven large stones; the twelfth and largest one the devil was carrying off, to batter down the Wendels-kirk with ; he had got across the Eappenloch with it, and halfway up the Schiehald, when he laid his burden down, and had a rest. But after that he could no longer lift the heavy stone, its pointed end stuck fast in the mountain, and you may still see the round hole made in it by the devil's shoulder-bone. So the church was spared, but the devil still drives about the place now and then with six he-goats, and at midnight you hear the crack of his whip (Mone's Anz. 3, 91)._ Devil's Dikes* are explained by the people as built by the Devil to mark the boundary of his kingdom (Deut. sag. 188) ; he is imagined then as the ruler of a neighbouring and hostile kingdom (a Iotunheimr), nay, as disputing with God the possession

1 In the Mid. Ages bells were rung to keep off lightning (the heathen Donar) and the^evil.^ ^ d(ml)Ie gense of ditch and earth-wall, both being made by digging ; hence also any wall. The Germ, graben, ditch, bas in some old words the meaning of wall.— Trans.

DEVIL.

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of the earth, till at last they agree to divide it, and the Devil builds the boundary- wall (no. 189). But these devil's walls and devil's ditches alike gather additional significance for us. The people call the Roman fortifications in Bavaria, Swabia, Fran- conia and the Wetterau, not only devil's walls, but pfalgraben, joohlgraben, pfahltdbel (-mounds), and even simply pfal, pi. pfale, which is explained as our pfahl, pale or stake, a word early borrowed from Lat. palus (Graff 3, 331). But these walls have no stakes in them, only stones and bricks ; it seems more correct to trace the name to our old friend Phol ; the form Wulsgraben, which occurs in the Av"etterau (Dieffenb. A^ett. p. 142) and is merely a softened pronunciation of Phulsgraben, is clearly in favour of it ; and we have seen several instances in which Phol, Pfal, Pful interchange. What is more, in various places the devil's wall is also called the schweingraben (swinedike), and a remarkable Swabian folktale says it was scratched up and rooted up out of the ground in the night by a chanticleer and a hog.1 Does not that unmistakably point to pfol the boar (p. 996) ? I have scarcely a doubt that popular tradition and local names will yield some further confirmations. On this devil's wall the devil is said to come driving on Christmas night (Abh. der Miinchn. acad. 1, 23, conf. 38), as nearly all the heathen gods are astir from then to Twelfthday. Nor ought we to overlook, that in such districts we also come across teufelsgraben, diihersgraben, e.g. in Lower Hesse, where Roman walls never came : any rocks and walls that strike the eye are traced back by popular imagina- tion either to giants and devils, or to Romans (p. 85) and Hel- lenes (p. 534). One piece of rock the Devil puts on as a hat, to shew his enormous strength ; then comes the Saviour, and slips the same on his little finger (Deut. sag. no. 205), just as Thorr keeps outdoing the giant (p. 545) : doubtless a fiction of primitive times. But when footprints of the Saviour and the Devil are pointed out on high cliffs, from which the tempter shewed and offered to his Lord the landscape invitingly spread out below (DS. 184. 192), that seems to be founded on the Bible.3 Pro-

1 Prescher's Hist, bl., Stnttg. 1818, p. 67. Where the wall runs over the Kochersberg to the E. Murr, the country people all call it schweingraben.

2 Ulrichs in his Journey through Greece 1, 44 gives the story of a devil's stone (logari) from which the Devil preached (\6yos).

1024

DEVIL.

jecting crags are called devil's pulpits (Staid. 2, 85, kanzeli, fluhkanzel), whence he is said to have preached to the assembled people (DS. 190. Bechst. 3, 222); perhaps in olden times a heathen priest stood there, or a divine image ? or are they simply ancient Woden's hills ? The devil's beds may be placed by the side of the Brunhilde beds and the like (see Suppl.).

Here I will make room for a few detailed narratives. The Devil is represented as a masterful giant who will have his tithe and toll : sometimes he appropriates the first who crosses the bridge, at other times the last. So from the wheel of fortune (p. 868) he every year made the last pupil drop off,1 and took him to himself. A Spanish legend has it, that there was a cave at Salamanca, where he constantly maintained seven scholars, on condition that when they had finished their studies, the seventh should pay the lawing. Once, when a set of students were taking their leave, and the last was ordered to stay, he pointed to his shadow, saying ' he is the last ! 9 So the devil had to take the shadow, and the pupil escaping remained without a shadow all his life. Jamieson gives the details of a Scotch superstition : ' Losing one's shadow arrives to such as are studying the art of necromancy. When a class of students have made a certain progress in their mystic studies, they are obliged to run through a subterraneous hall, where the devil literally catches the hind- most in the race, unless he crosses the hall so speedily that the Arch-enemy can only apprehend his shadow. In the latter case the person of the sage never after throws any shade, and those who have thus lost their shadow always prove the best magicians.' The devil is cheated of his prey, and has to put up with the bare shadow, like the dishonest man in the sham penance (HA. 678) 2 (see Suppl.).

That significant Norrland story of the giant Wind and Weather (p. 548), whose connexion with the Devil is placed beyond a doubt by the observations on pp. 1000-14, is related by Thiele 1, 45 in the following shape. Esbern Snare wished to build Kallundborg church, but his means not sufficing, a trold

1 ' Da nu einer ins teufels reder sesse, oder gar in sumpf gefallen were, oder des tods schwaden hette ihn ergriffen,' Mathesius 140b.

2 Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl rests, no doubt, on a legend substantially the same. Of the homesprite Vollmar, on the contrary, nothing was seen but tha shadow, p. 509.

DEVIL.

1025

offered his assistance on condition that, when the church was finished, Esbern should be able to tell the trold's name, or else forfeit to him his heart and eyes. The work went rapidly for- ward, and only half a pillar was wanting, when Esbern began to be alarmed, because he knew not yet the trold's name. Anxious and sad he wandered in the fields, when at the top of a rock he heard the voice of a trold-wife : ' hush, hush, my child, to-morrow comes thy father Fin bringing thee Esbern Snare's heart and eyes to play with/ Esbern came home comforted ; he stept into the church, the trold was just bringing up the stone shaft that was still wanting, when Esbern hailed him by the name of Fin ! In a rage the trold shot up into the air with the half-pillar : that is why the church stands on three pillars and a half only. Finnr is the name of a dwarf in the Edda. — The German legend on p. 549 is told thus in Lower Hesse : A peasant on the Ellenbach (by the Sandershauser mt. near Oassel) had so much corn to gather in, that he knew not how to house it all : his barn was too small, and he had not the money to build a larger. As, thought- ful and anxious, he paced his fields, a gray old mannihin stept up to him, and asked the reason of his sadness. When the peasant had told him the plight he was in, Gray mannihin smiled and said : ' a barn I would doubtless build for thee, so roomy that thou canst garner all thy crop therein, and ere to-morrow's dawn shall it stand ready in thy yard, if thou wilt make over to me whatso- ever hidden property thou ownest.' 1 The peasant thought of treasures underground, which could do him no good till they were lifted, and he closed with the stranger's offer : not till he turned to leave did he notice a cow's foot and horse's foot peep out from under the gray coat. He went home, and told his wife what had happened to him in the field : ' my God ! what hast thou done ? I have a child unborn, and thou hast signed it away to the Evil one/ The moment it was dark, a tremendous din arose in the farmyard, carters, carpenters, masons working away to- gether, the Devil as architect directing the whole business, which advanced with incredible speed : a few hours more, and the barn

1 Hottr (hat, gray hat), i.e. Ocfinn (p. 146), after giving Geirhildr his spittle to be the barm of the ale she was brewing (conf. p. 902), demands what is between her and the vat, viz. her unborn child, Fornald. sog. 2, 26. The wilde walrabe (p 997) requires of the queen ' det du haver under belte dit,1 DV. 1, 187. If only for this one incident, I hold the Hessian tale to be of heathen origin.

V

1026 DEVIL.

stood ready built, the roof was thatched, the walls filled up, only a square or two stood open in the gable. Then the cunning wife, dressed in her husband's clothes, crept across the yard to the henhouse, clapt her hands} and mimicked the crow of a cock, and all the cocks set up a crowing one after the other. The evil spirits scuttled away with a great uproar, leaving but one gable- square of the new barn empty: one carter had just come up with a large stone drawn by four chestnuts, when the Devi cauo-ht him up and smashed him, cart and steeds and all, against the barn ; his figure was printed on that same stone for a remem- ■ brance, and may be seen there now. The barn-gab e no human hand has ever been able to close up; what was built in by day would always fall out again at night* The hill where the gray » first appeared to the peasant is called Tmfehbwrg.Sot far

man iir»u appear ^ ™ r - , .,, - *

from Bomhild stand the Gleichberge, high basaltic hills, one ot which has its top encircled by a double ring of stones irregularly piled Here the Devil once carried a wall round the castle ot a knio-ht, having bargained for the hand of his lordship's daughter. But°before daybreak the young lady's nurse slapped her knees loudly with her hands, the cocks began to crow, and the devil lost his bet. Exasperated he destroyed his own work, therefore yon see only ruins of the wall. Another version of the story (Bechst Franken p. 261) is, that the nurse, having overheard the compact, stole out at early morn with a dark lantern to the hen-roost; the cock, suddenly seeing the light, thought it was day and crowed with all his might?-K mill at Coslitz being badly off for water, the Devil undertook to provide it with plenty by daybreak before the cock should crow; the miller in return bound himself to give up his handsome daughter. In one night therefore the devil had nearly finished cutting the conduit from the E be to Coslitz, when the miller repented, and, some say by imitating the cock's cry, others by knocking his leather apron made the cock crow before his time, whereupon the devil departed m anger, and the trench remained unfinished, Mitth. des Sachs, verems,

""i In any church the hole at which the ae.il has flown out can never he closed, s Same incident in a Thuringian story, Bechst. 3, 224.

DEVIL.

1027

Dresd. 1835. 1, 11. — At Geertsbergen in W. Flanders there goes a similar story of a devil's barn (duivel schuer), and here too the farmer is saved by the cunning of his wife : lang voor dat de haen gewoon is te kraeyen, sprong zy het bed nit, en liep naer buiten, waer zy een onnoemlyk getal werklieden bezig zag met de schuer op te maken, aen dewelke nog slechts een gedeelte van den zymuer ontbrak. Zy plaetste haven mond tusschen hare handen, en schreeuwde zoo schel als zy maer kon : ' koekeloren haen ! ' en alle de hanen in de rondte lieten hun eerste morgen- geschrei hooren. Het werkvolk was verdwenen, en de schuer stond er, doch met dien onvoltrokken gevel ; men heft herhaelde malen beproefd het gat te stoppen : telkens komt Satan het's nachts openbreken, uit weerwraek dat de ziel van den boer hem zoo loos ontsnapt is.1

The Esthonians call a farm-servant who has charge of the barns and grains ' riegenkerl/ Once a riegenkerl sat casting metal buttons, when the Devil walked up to him, said good day, and asked, ' what are you doing there V 'I am casting eyes/ ' Eyes ? could you cast me a new pair V ' Oh yes, but I've no more left just now.' < But will you another time ? ' < Yes, I can/ said the riegenkerl. ' When shall I come again ? ' ' When you please/ So the devil came next day to have eyes cast for him. The riegenkerl said, < Do you want them large or small ? ' < Very large indeed/ Then the man put plenty of lead over the fire to melt, and said, ' I can't put them in as you are, you must let me tie you down/ He told him to lie down on his back on the bench, took some stout cords, and bound him very tight. Then the devil asked, ' what name do you go by ? ' ( Issi (self) is my name/ < A good name that, I never heard a better/ By this time the lead was melted, and the devil opened his eyes wide, waiting for the new ones. < Now for it ! 3 said the riegenkerl,' and poured the hot lead into the devil's eyes; the devil sprang up with the bench on his back, and ran away. He was running past some ploughmen in the fields, who asked him, 'who's done that to you?' He answered, e issi teggi' (self did it). The men laughed and said, < self done, self have/ But he died of his new

^•i1 Ku+nS- en- letter^a/> Ghen* 1840. p. 7; and from it Wolf no. 187, who gives similar stories m no. 186 and note p. 686.

VOL. III.

1028 DEVIL.

eyes, and nobody has ever seen the devil since.1 In this tale the Devil is more a blundering giant than the malignant Foe of mankind; his blinding and the name Issi reminds us of Homer's Polyphemus and OZtis, as well as of the oriental Depeghoz (p. 554). In our nursery-tale (KM. 2, 481, conf. Altd. bl. 1, 122) the giant's eyes are scalded out with oil, and in Lith. the devil is called aMatis, the blind, blinded. When other Esthonian tales explain thunder by saying the devil is pursued by God, and fleeing for refuge to the rocks, is smitten down (Superst. M, 61. 04) ; here also God resembles the Scand. Thorr, and the Devil a ibtunn whom he slays (see Suppl.).

It is a vital part of the machinery of medieval poetry, for heroes to be transported by the Devil through the air from distant countries to their home, when there is urgent need of their presence there : some marriage is contemplated, that would rob them of wife or lover. Thus king Charles (in the Spagna, canto xxi) rides a devil, converted into a horse, from the East to France in one night; later legends make an angel appear to him instead, and shew him a strong horse, DS. no. 439. The angel visits the gentle Moringer in like distress (no. 523). Bub Henry the Lion and Gerhart (Caes. Heisterb. 8, 59) travel with the devil's aid. The mere fact that angel and devil can change places here, shews that no evil spirit was originally meant; it is no other than Wuotan carrying through the clouds his foster-son (p. 146) ; and so we get at the real meaning of the question, what devil brings you he°re ? A devil carries a belated canon from Bayeux to Rome in time for pontifical mass; and by the same magic Klinsor and Ofterdingen get from Hungary to the Wartburg.

There is no surer test of the mythic element having a deep foundation, than its passing into the Beast-fable. The Esthonian tale of the man and the bear going halves in the cultivation and produce of a field (Reinh. cclxxxviii), which turns on the same distinction of upper and under growth that we saw at p. 715, is told in our KM. no. 189 of a peasant and the devil, and m this form we find it as early as Rabelais bk 4, cap. 45-47. Riickert's Poems p. 75 (Godeke 2, 416) give it from an Arabian tradition, the source of which I should like to learn; while the Dan. story

i Kosenplanter's Beitrage, part 6, p. 61. The devil's being buried by beasts is not in point here.

DEVIL.

1029

in Thiele4, 122 relates it of a peasant and a trold. The common folk in Normandy have to this day a legend of their Mont St. Michel, how Michael and the Devil disputed which could build the finer church. The devil builds one of stone, Michael con- structs a handsomer one of ice; when that melts, they both agree to till the soil, the devil choosing the upper herbs, and Michael keeping what hides in the ground. In all these tales, the bear, giant, troll or devil is the party outwitted, like the giant who built the castle for the gods (see Suppl.).

Lastly, the old-heathen nature of the Devil is proved by animals' and plants being named after him, as they are after gods and giants (p. 532). The libellula grandis, dragonfly, a delicate slender-limbed insect, is called both enchanted maid and devil's horse, devil's bride, devil's nag, Da,n.fande?is ridehest ; in the I. of Mors a beetle, meloe proscarabaeus, fannens riihejst (Schade p. 215) ; in Switz. the libellula, devil's needle, devil's hairpin, and the caterpillar devil's cat.1 In the vale of Rimella the black snail, tiufulsnaMe, and a tiny black beetle s' bozios ajo, the evil one's mother, Albr. Schott pp. 275. 334, a counterpart to the Marienkafer, p. 694, but also suggestive both of ' devil's needle 9 and of Loki's mother Nal, p. 246; so that T*on&-nadel (p. 490 n.) may be correct, as the name of an evil river-sprite. In Holland some herb, I know not which, is called duivels naai-garen (sewing yarn). The alcyonium digitatum or palmatum is devil's hand, manus diaboli, thief's hand, Engl, devil's hand or deadman's hand, Nethl. doode mans hand, oude mans hand, Fr. main de diable, main de ladre, de larron, conf. Forneotes folme, p. 240. Lycopodium clavatum, devil's claw ; euphorbia, devil's milk ; clematis vitalba, devil's thread ; scabiosa succisa, devil's bite, Boh. cert-hus ; adonis, devil's eye ; convolvulus arvensis, devil's gut, etc., etc.2 Probably the folktales of an earlier time knew the exact reasons of such names, conf. Superst. I, nos. 189. 190. 476. The thunderbolt, the elf-shot, was also called devil's finger, pp. 179. 187 (see Suppl.).

1 Caterpillars, through shedding their skins, becoming pupae, and gradually changing from creeping and dead-like creatures into flying ones, have something uncanny, ghostly in them.

2 Hypericum perforatum, deviVs flight, because it drives him away: ' dosten, harthun, weisse heid, thun dem teufel vieles leid. '

1030 DEVIL.

In such various ways lias a Being who, taken altogether, was unknown to the heathen, pushed himself into the place of their gods, spirits and giants, and united in himself a number of similar or conflicting attributes. He resembles Wuotan as the grayman and the cloaked wild hunter, who rides and carries through the air; as sowing discord, playing dice, and ^ taking into his service men that vow themselves to him. His red beard his hammer and bolt recall Donar. Phol and Zio are connected with the storm-wind, and the former with devil's buildings. As for giants, their whole being has most things in common with that of the Devil.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MAGIC.

mracle wundern) . M the salutary, magic (zaubern) the hurtful dev S. fU:ilSUPe™atural P°-ers : miraele is divine, magic

imputed to to,.' Beings midway betwixt them and man, sage giants, artful elves and dwarfs practise magic; only their skill seems mere innate, stationary, not an acquired art Man can heal or poison, by directing natural forces to good or to cvT sememes he even shares the gift of miracle, but when he pushes' the beneficent exercise of his powers to the supernatur/point, he learns to conjure. Miracle is wrought by honest means mag,c by unlawful; the one is geheuef (blessed, ZZZl', p. 914), the other nngeheuer. At the same time the origin of ^conjunng must be traced directly to the most sacred caLgs, which contained in themselves all the wisdom of heathendom viz. rebgmus worshlp and the art of song. Sacrificing ani rrofTe t0ra\C0^-> thepries/and the poetfeonfi- nexl i a Partl0iP^ts of divine inspiration, stand

next-door to the fortune-teller and magician (see Suppl.)

the J °°t nati°nS' WaS 80 With our -asters : by

the side of divme worship, practices of dark sorcery, by way of exception, not of contrast. The ancient Germans knew Zg c

S fnTtT Tr ;sfoundation first do 811 the later

cate^ 1 t WaS necessarily strengthened and compli-

cated when, upon the introduction of Christianity, all heathen

dem wonder, daz der wundSLe JZl^?«f ' Says" Ms' 2- I5*b : ' ™>1

Ms. 2, 17lb TrSf lnmTlt ^ ,fn d<VJ sUezen-' God is the mirabilis Deus, Helbl 7 12 „♦ ? ' "? °f ^U.w011^rS hath control, Parz. 43, 9 ;

the name of w'unZrll) in Etels tlLhnl T? "°dBto ^ e'g" Erek- ea™ savage devilish man, p. 943 hofhaltung it is even applied, less fitly, to a

• fors^ffioligi amftakes Lim ?S£ T* Sn0rri CalIs

Gram. p. 13 ascribes to h?m • ™thriL' fn« • s^ c/P- 5. 7. Saxo

mathematicijsee Foreelhni?ubfHntf?L t- T°U?ly dmdes a11 "^"dans (p. 9) ; conf. his statements (t ™1031 or "t^ rSu?' Vlz' glants' and

the Ohronieon Erici (circ 1288) repreSe nts oZ „? ' Ca! "rtis imbuti-' S° v x^ooy xepresents Odin as ' incantator et magus.'

1032 MAGIC.

notions and practices were declared to be deceit and sinful delusion : the old gods fell back and changed into devils, and all that pertained to their worship into devilish jugglery. Presently there sprang up tales of the Evil one's immediate connexion with sorcery ; and out of this proceeded the most incredible, most cruel jumbling up of imagination and reality. Magic tricks per- formed, and those merely imagined, so ran into one another, that they could no longer be distinguished either in punishing or even in perpetrating them.

Before proceeding with our inquiry, we have to examine the several terms that designated witchcraft in olden times. It seems worth noting, that several of the more general names have simply the sense of doing or preparing, and therefore mark an imperceptible lapse of right doing into wrong. The OHG. Icarawan, AS. gearwian, had only the meaning of facere, parare, praeparare, ornare, but the same word in ON. gbra approxi- mates to that of conjuring, Dan. forgiore ; gbrning is maleficium, gbmingar artes magicae, much in the same way as facinus is both deed and misdeed. Our thun, to do, passes into anthun, to inflict (by sorcery); and the ON. fordwfta (malefica), Sasrn. 64a. 197b comes from da$ (facinus).1 Now the Greek and Latin words Zpoeiv, pe&iv, facere (p. 41n.), mean not only to do, but to sacrifice, without requiring the addition of lepd or sacra, and epSetv tivL tl is to bewitch; the ON. biota, beside its usual sense of sacrificare, consecrare, has that of maledicere; whether fornceskja, sorcery, can be connected with /dm, sacrifice, has been discussed, p. 41. — A difficult word to explain is the OHG. zoupar divinatio, maleficium, zouparari hariolus, zouparon hariolari ; Notker spells zoufer in Ps. 57, 6, zouver in Boeth. 29, zouferlih, zouverlih in Cap. 45. 99; the MHG. zouber, zoubern answers exactly to the strict OHG. forms with p, to LG. tover, toveren, and the same in Nethl. both Mid. and Mod. (conf. toverie, Maerl. 1, 260-3, toverare 1, 266. 2, 176-7, toeverie is a faulty spelling) ; 0. Fris. tawerie, Richth. 401. 21. The Icelandic has tqfur instrumenta magica, tofrar incantamenta, tofra fascinare,

i M. Lat. factura (sortilegium), facturare (fascinare), affacturatrix (incantat- rix); Iial.fattura (incantatio), fattucchiero, -ra, soroera, -ress; Ptoy. /acAumr, faiturar, to conjure, fachilieira, faitileira, sorceress; 0. Fr. faiture ^rene sorcery ; Span, hecho (facinus), hechizo (incantatio), hechizar conjure, hechicero, -ra, sorcerer, -ress.

ZATJBEK. WITCHCRAFT.

1033

tofrari magus, tofranorn saga, Fornald. sog. 3, 205 ; with, which the ISTorw. tougre fascinare (Hallager 131b) and Swed. tofver in- cantatio, tofverhaxa saga, agree ; we may safely suppose a modern importation of all these Scand. words from Germany, as they do not occur in ON. writings.1 I am in doubt whether an AS. tedfor is to be connected with zoupar ; it signifies minium, color coccineus, and Lye gives (without ref.) tifran depingere, which ought perhaps to be t^frian. The addition of the adj. red in redd tea/or (rubrica) favours the conjecture that tedfor was a general term for the colours employed in illuminating manuscripts, and thus may stand for rune, mystic writing, hence our zauber (magic).2 To identify zoupar with zepar (p. 40), AS. tedfor with tiber, is forbidden by the difference of vowel, though it would bring the notion of magic very near that of sacrifice again. One would much rather trace zoupar to zouwan, Goth, taujan, AS. tawian (facere, parare), and assume the operation of some anoma- lous change of the w into v, b} p? Even the Lith. daryti, Lett, darriht (facere), and the Slav, tvoriti (facere, creare, fingere) are worth considering. — Another term no less perplexing is one peculiar to the Saxon branch of our race. In L. Saxony they still say for conjuring or soothsaying, wikhen, wicken (Ssp. 2, 13. Homeyer p. 117 var. x) and wigelen (wichelen), for fortune-teller wikker, wichler, for witch wikkerske, for sorcery wichelie. So in Nethl. both wikhen and wichelen, wikkerij and wichelarij ; M. Nethl. wikelare ariolus, Maerl. 2, 323. 348, wigelare, Kastner's Bruchst. 42b, wigelinge vaticinium 12b. The AS. also has the two forms : both wiccian fascinare, wicce saga, wiccungdom (Csedm. 223, 17) or wiccancrceft ars magica; and wiglian ariolari, wigelere augur, wigelung augurium, incantatio ; while the Fris. transposes the letters, wiliga incantatio, Richth. 401, 21. The Engl, has witch = wicce ; from the AS. verb has survived its partic. wicked (perversus, maledictus), and 0. Engl, had an adj. wikke meaning the same ; add wizard, but all the L-forms have

1 So the Luneburg Wendic toblatsch sorcerer (Eccard p. 291), tobalar sorcerer, towlatza, toblarska sorceress (Jugler's Wtb.), seem borrowed from German, as other Slavic dialects have nothing similar ; for the Sloven, zoper magic, zoprati to conjure, zopernik, -nitza sorcerer, -ress, are certainly the Germ, zauber, etc.

2 Is the derivation of our ziffer, Engl, cipher, Fi.chiffre, It. cifra, cifera (secret writing) from an Arabic word a certainty ? Ducange sub v. cifrae has examples from the 12th cent. The AS. word has a striking resemblance.

3 Our gelb, farbe, gerben, miirbe, all have w in MHG.

1034

MAGIC.

disappeared. The word is unknown to any HG. dialect, old or new ; 1 yet I believe it springs from a root common to all Teutonic tongues, viz. veihan (no. 201), which again had originally the sense of facere, conficere, sacrare, and from which came the adj. veihs (sacer), OHG. win, and the noun vaihts (res), conf. Slav, tvar, tvor (creatura, ktigls). We know that vaihts, wight, acquired the sense of daemon (p.440-1), and the ON. vcettr (orm vaettr, poor wight) means a witch in Seem. 214b. I treat the kk in wikken as I did that in Ecke from the root agan (p. 237), and this is supported by the g in wigelen and ch in wichelen (evidently a ch = h). — Near in meaning, though unrelated in origin, seems the OHG. wizago, AS. witega, witga, Caedm. 218, 18. 224, 13, our weissage, prophet, soothsayer, but in a good, not in a bad sense ; the ON. form vitlci, Saem. 63a. 118a, stands for vitugi (conf. vitug 94a), as ecki, eitki does for eitgi (Gramm. 3, 738), and vaetki for vaetgi. This vitki has been wrongly identified with AS. wicce : never does an AS. cc result from tg, though it becomes tch in English.2 The corresponding verb is OHG. wizagon, AS. wite- gian, M. Nethl. witegen, Diut. 2, 202b. — Equivalent at first to witega and vitki were the ON. spamacfr, spakona, spadis (pp. 94. 402) : but from signifying the gift of wisdom and prediction as it resides in priest and poet,3 they gradually declined into the sense of noxious wizard and witch. Even Snorri's for-spar and fibl-kunnigr (p. 1031 n.) had already acquired the bad secondary sense. Fidlkunnigr (multiscius) came to mean magician, and fidl-kunndtta fidlkyngi, and even the simple kyngi ( = kunnugi) sorcery. This kyngi was learnt as a profession : e Rognvaldr nam fidlkyngi/ Har. Harf. saga cap. 36. Walther 116, 29 says of a lady wondrous fair : ' daz si iht anders kiinne (that she was up to other tricks, knew too much), daz soli man ubergeben (you are not to imagine) / Hans Sachs calls an old sorceress by turns ' die alt unhuld 3 and • die weise frau ' iv. 3, 32-3 (see Suppl.).

1 Vegius in the Lex Burg. 16, 3 and OHG. 1, 8 has been taken to mean magician ; but, as the rubric ' viator ' in the last passage shews, it is one who fetches and carries, index, delator.

2 Of like meaning are: weiser maim, weise frau, Mug e frau ; ON. visindamacfr, sage, natural philosopher, Fornald. sog. 1, 5 ; Serv. vietcht peritus, vietchtats, -titsa veneficus, -ca; Pol. wieszczka sorceress, fortune-teller, wieszczyka night-hag, lamia ; Sloven, vezha witch.

3 Analogous is the 0. Fr. devin, divin, magician, diviner.

WITEGA. SPA. GALDOR.

1035

Inasmuch as spying is foreseeing and seeing, there is another word for conjuring that I can connect with it. Without any bodily contact, things may be acted upon by mere looking, by the evil eye : this in our older speech was called entselien (p. 461).

But as the vates, beside seeing and knowing, has also to sing the mystic strain and speak the spell, there must from the earliest times have been words to express conjuring, like our present beschreien, beschwatzen, berufen, iiberrufen, beschwdren [from cry, call, talk, swear]. The OHG. kalan, AS. galan, ON, gala, was not only canere, but incantare, a recital with binding power, a singing of magic words. Such spoken charm was called in ON. galdr, AS. galdor, OHG. kalstar (not to be confounded with kelstar, sacrifice, p. 38-9), MHG. galsterie, Schwanr. 813 ; we find galsterweiber for witches even in Mod. German ; galdr in itself seems not to have meant anything criminal, for meingaldr (wicked spell) is particularized, Fornm. sog. 2, 137. ON. galdra fascinarej galdr ama^r incantator, galdr ahona saga; AS. galdor- crceft magia, galdere magus ; OHG. Jcalstarari incantator, ' Medea diu handega galsterard/ N. Cap. 100. In like manner the Fr. charme, charmer come from carmen, and enchanter incantare from cantus, canere. The M. Lat. carminare, to enchant, gave birth to an OHG. garminari, germinari incantator, germinod incantatio, Diut. 2, 326b. Gl.Doc. 213a. germenod, N. Cap. 100 ; which after- wards died out of the language. The MHG. already used segen [blessing, from signum] for a magic formula, segenaerinne for enchantress. Chap. XXXVIII. will go more deeply into this necessary connexion of magic with the spoken word, with poetic art; but, as the mystery of language easily passes into that of symbol, as word and writing get indissolubly wedded, and in our idiom the time-honoured term rune embraces both tendencies ; it throws some light on the affinity of zoupar with teafor (p. 1033), and also on the method of divination (p. 1037) by rune- staves.

The Goth, afhugjan, to deprive of one's senses, bewilder, stands in Gal. 3^ 1 for fiaaicaiveiv = fascinare ; 1 AS. dyderian, bedyder- ian illudere, incantare, perhaps conn, with our HG. tattern, dot- tern (angi, delirare) ; we now say verblenden} daze, dazzle. That ON. troll (p. 526), which stood for giants and spirits, is also

1 Is this, or is the Ital. fasciare, the source of Fr. facher, formerly fascher, irritare, Span, enfadar ?

1036 MAGIC.

applied to magicians, trblUkapr is sorcery, the Sw. trolla, Dan. trylh incantare, trolldom, trolddom witchcraft; the Gulahmgslag r, 137 has 'at vekja troll' for conjuring, which reminds us oi 'veckja hildi' and 'waking the Saelde,' p. 864. The Frists say Uyoene fascinare, tsyoen-er, -ster sorcerer, -ress, which (as initial ts before i or y often stands for k) is no donbt to be ex- plained by the ON. kyu in its collateral sense of monstrnm cont. MHG knnder. I cannot satisfactorily account for an O.bw. vibSh:,pli,nse&m the Vestgotalag for magic, not of the worst kind, but what can be expiated by penance: 'far kona me> viJ>sk!plum,'V.l§S; 'vaiTer taken mep mfcJappUm, p. Uk !; < convictus de widskiplum,' p. 321 ; it is plainly the present vid- skepelse superstitio ; skipa is ordinare, facere, and the wrongness must lie in the vid ; conf. beginn. of ch. XXXV

We find seifr meaning magic already in the Edda : »tf hon kunni,' said of a vala or volva, Seem. 4 ; seiffberendr 118* are magicians, who stand on a par with volur and vitkar ; and the word becomes commoner in the sagas. If we might spell it seyffr (as one poem has it in Fornald. sog. 2, 130), we should get both an easy derivation from sioSa to seethe, and another point ot contact with Goth, saups, p. 40. Seiffma&r is magician, seiSkona, sevSkona a wise woman, one that skills to seethe and cook magic remedies.1 Meanwhile serSr occurs clearly as a vowel-change from siffa, Tngl. saga cap. 16-7, Loki reproaches OSmn with having practised sorcery : ' bik siSa koSo/ Saem. 63% and I have never seen si63a put for it; so the two words, even if cognate must remain apart, or find their justification in an exceptional shifting from the' 4th to the 5th series of vowel-change. _

The OHG. puozan, AS. Utan, is emendare, but also meden, to remedy, heal; in Westphalia boten* still expresses the action ot old-fashioned charms as opposed to scientific medicme, Superst. I, 873 ; the Teutonista gives boiten as synon. with conjuring, and the M. Nethl. ut boeten is sanare (Reinh. 5394). 3

. Seyffr or sauSr is a poetic word for a fire to cook by: ■ a seySi bera,' S*m. 54-, to set on the fire, take to cook, make to boil.

< der list von nigrdmm*,* Parz. 453, 17. 617, 12 M m. answ g which Snorri uses of magic ; nigromancie, Maerl. 2, ZbL. aei swa/se

SEID-MAN. JUGGLER.

1037

Now, as the concocting of remedies and that of poisons easily fall into one, the OHG. luppi, AS. lyf3 MHG. liippe, is used of poisoning and bewitching : e liippe und zouber triben/ Berth. 12, and liippcerinne 58 is sorceress, exactly as veneficium and venefica stand related in Latin; and the Goth, lubjaleisei, Gal. 5, 20 is (fyap/jLarceia, sorcery, and leisei is like list in zouberlist, Iw. 1284. Even the Goth, lekeis, OHG. lahhi (leech, medicus in the good honest sense), and lahhinon (rnederi), lahhan (remedium) lie at the root of the words lachencerinne enchantress, Oberl. bihteb. 46, lachsnen quackery, conjuring, lachsnerin witch, Staid. 2, 150.

In Hessian witch- trials of the 16th cent., the usual, nay the only term for bewitching is derren, prop, nocere ; as even OHG. taron acquired, beside nocere, the meanings fraudare, officere, illudere (see Suppl.).

A part of the diviner's craft consisted in casting and inter- preting lots. Like the Lat. sortilegium and sortilegus (M. Lat. sortiarius, whence Fr. sorrier), our old German words hliozan (Graff 4, 1122), MHG. liezen (augurari, Diut. 3, 107-8. Er. 8123), and hliozari, liezcere (augur, divinator) are applicable to sorcery. Then from the customary phrase ' mittere, jactare sortem 9 seems to have been borrowed the expression zouber werfen, to throw a spell, Wolfd. 515. 520. 533, jeter un sort, ' maleficium super jactare/ Lex Sal. 22, 4 ; zouber leg en, to lay a spell, Walth. 115, 32. 116, 23-5. The Swed .tjusa to conjure is, I think, for kjusa, ON. kiosa, choose, spy (Gramm. 4, 848), pick, eligere sortem; but also the e vala/ the wise woman and enchant- ress, is one that ' wales ' or chooses, a valkyrja.

One species of divination was performed with the drinking-cup (Genesis 44, 5). From the Lat. caucus (for scyphus) are sup- posed to have sprung cauculator, Capitul. an. 789, § 63 capit. 1, 62. 6, 373, and coclearius, ib. § 18 capit. 5, 69, and from these the OHG. coucalari scenicus, magicus, Gl. Mons. 377, gougulari,

Troj. 7411. ' suochen an den swarzen buochen,'' Martina 20a. ' nu ler etz in sin swarzez buoch, daz ime der hellemor hat gegeben,' Walth. 33, 7. Black art, black artist, not till a later time. All this came of misunderstanding the Gr. ve/cpo/uavreta. In the Ulm Vocab. of 1475 we read : ' nigramansia dicitur divinatio facta per nigros, i.e. mortuos, vel super mortuos, vel cum mortuis.' A curious statement in Bit. 79 about Toledo : ' ein berc lit nahen da bi, d& der list nigromanzi von erste wart er- funden (first invented) ; ' another opinion propounded in Herbort 9372. Our Mid. Ages saddled the Saracens in Spain and Apulia with its invention: ' ein pullisch zouber,' Ms. 2, 133b.

1038

MAGIC.

0 iv 16, 33, kouMari, Georgsl.25, goucaltuom magia, Gl. Mens. 375, gouTcel praestigium, N. ps. 65, 3 ; MHG. gougel gougelvre Welti 37, 34, our gaukel, juggle ; ON. huhl praeshgmm, kuklan nraoms ; M. Nethl. cokelere hariolus, Dint. 2, 217*. Others derive gauklerfrom joculator, aud cue thing that seems to be m its Lour is the mild meaning, of mere sleight-of-hand, which still clings to gauklerei (jugglery), i.e. harmless tricks performed by way of game and recreation; conf. gougel-huhse (-box), Walth. 38,6. Renn. 2244. gougelstok (-stick) Martina^ gouge - fuore (-cart), MsH. 3, 166*. 186*. gougelspil (-play) 438 gouke Metlin (-cap), Renn. 16719, conf. Walth. 37 34 So the Nethl. auinhelen, gochelen, goghelsn, guichelaar : ' gokelt onder den hoet TW 2772 ; the form gaichelen is very like wMm (p. 10dd), and there actually occurs an AS. hweohre, hweoUere (suggesting hweohl, *tou«, rota) as another way of spellm g w,gelere *o that one might really conjecture an 0. Prankish chuigalan and from it get cauculator, were not everything else against it. I will just mention also the Boh. kaudo magic, kauzUU to conjure, Pol. gusla magic, guslar, conjurer ; this g form we might be tempted to refer to the Serv. gusle, Rnss. gusli, psaltery as he bew,tch- ing instrument, but that the Pol. gesle, Boh. hausle, does not

a°ree (see Suppl.)- , °The varions ways of naming magic have led ns to the notions of doing, sacrificing,1 spying, soothsaying, singing, sign-making (secret writing), bewildering, dazzling, cooking, healing, casting

10 Thev shew that it was practised by men as well as women. Yet even our earliest antiquities impute it preeminently to women. More influential, more expert than the zouparari, wigelere, spamaSr, galdramaSr, appears the zouparara, W^ce w^Urshe lutarart qaUrakona, spakona; and to these must be added some appellations hardly applicable to any but female witchery.

For the reason of this I look to all the circumstances external and internal. To woman, not to man, was assigned the culling aud concocting of powerful remedies, as well as the cookmg of food Her lithe soft hand could best prepare the salve, weave the lint and dress the wound; the art of writing and reading is in

. Even where the vowel resists, the coincidence is remarkable : forn and torn, gglstar and galstar, sauS and seiS, zepar and zoupai.

HEXE.

1039

the Mid. Ages ascribed chiefly to women. The restless lives of men were filled up with war, hunting, agriculture and handi- crafts ; to women experience and convenient leisure lent every qualification for secret sorcery. Woman's imagination is warmer and more susceptible, and at all times an inner sacred power of divination was revered in her (pp. 95. 397). Women were priestesses, prophetesses (56n. 94—8), their names and fame are embalmed alike in Old -Germ an and Norse tradition ; and the faculty of somnambulism still shews itself most of all in women. Then again, looked at from one side, the art of magic must have been chiefly monopolized by old women, who, dead to love and labour, fixed all their thoughts and endeavours on hidden science.1 Snorri in his curious account of the origin of magic (Yngl. s. cap. 7) says, that to males (karlmonnum) it seemed un- dignified to dabble in a doubtful art, so they taught it the god- desses or priestesses, for gyftjur can mean either. According to differences of national sentiment, the norns and volvas (p. 403), the valkyrs and swan-maids approximate to divine beings or sorceresses. On all this put together, on a mixture of natural, legendary and imagined facts, rest the medieval notions about witchcraft. Fancy, tradition, knowledge of drugs, poverty and idleness turned women into witches, and the last three causes also shepherds into wizards (see Suppl.).

To the Latin words saga,2 strix, striga} venefica, lamia, furia answers our hexe, by which is meant sometimes an old, sometimes a young woman, and a beauty can be complimented by being called a perfect witch. The OHG. form of the word is hazns [pron. hatsus], hazusa, hazasa, Graff 4, 1091 ; hazzuso (eumeni-

1 ' Where one man is burnt, there be well ten women burnt ' says Keisersp. Om. 46 . ' ein wunderaltes wip bescheidet den troum,' unravels the dream, Walth. 95, 8. A1 kerltng frocf ok framsyn ' foretells of a log that is to perish in the fire, Nialssaga 194-9. Very early times impute to old women more craft and malice than to the devil himself, as we see by the pretty story of the hag who set a loving couple by the ears when the devil could not, for which he handed her a pair of shoes cautiously on a peeled stick, being afraid of her touch, Morolt 917 — 1007. Haupt's Altd. bl. 2, 81. H. Sachs ii. 4, 9. Melander's Jocoseria 2, 53. Conde Lucanor cap. 48. No witchcraft comes into the story, though the first account calls her a zouberin.

2 « Sagire sentire acute est ; ex quo sagae anus, quia multa scire volunt,' Cic. de Divin. 1, 31.

3 Lex Sal. 22. 67. Lex Alam. add. 22 stria; O.Fr. estrie (seep. 287 dame Habonde) ; Ital. strega, stregona (whence perh. the Swiss strdggele p. 934), a wizard being stregone. Orig. strix, arpiy^, was bird of night, owl: « striges ab avibus ejusdem nominis, quia maleficae mulieres volaticae dicuntur,' Festus sub v.

1040

MAGIC.

dum), Diut. 2, 350% is gen. pi. of hazus, hazes 2, 346a ; hezesusun (furiis) 2, 33 7b apparently a corruption of hegezusun ? The Gl. Flor. 21 give hegezisse, and that the genuine form in full was hagazus or hagazusa (p. 1045n.) we are assured by the AS. hwgtesse, M. Nethl. hagetisse, Diut. 2, 229b, haghedisse, Hor. Belg. 1, 119 : the contraction of the first two syll. (as in talanc for taga-lank) speaks for its age and frequent use ; we must therefore prefer the spell- ing hdzus with long a, and in N. Cap. 105 it does seem to be Mzessa, Wackern. lb. 153, 36 in spite of Graff's hazessa. Earely do we find a MHG. hegxse, hexse, Martina 90c. 106b, hecse, Oberl. bihteb. 46 ; the Swiss say hagsch, haagsch, Staid. 2, 10; at Ulm, says Schmid's Schwab, id. 156, they call a stingy old woman heMds, only another way of writing hexe. But as the AS., be- side hcegtesse, has also hcegesse, Engl, hag, MHG. hdchel, Ls. 2, 638, Swiss hdggele (conf. straggele), the suffixed letters seem to have added little to the simple root hag. The ON. adj. hagr means dexter, artificiosus, and might have had the full sense of sagus : our hexe is a deep sly woman. Still the ON. never does useamasc. noun hagr or a fern, hog in such away; and the Swed. hexa, Dan. hex, in their very spelling' betray their Mod. German extraction. For hexen, to bewitch, Up. German dialects furnish hechsnen, which agrees with an O. Fris. verb hexna (Eichth. 159, 25, one MS. has hoxna); the Dalecarlian is hagsa, hugsa [hoax, hocus?]. Down to the 16-1 7th cent., instead of the rare MHG. forms given above, the preference was given to unholde (which properly means she-devil, p. 266), as diu unholde in Martina 170c. 172c, occasionally backed by a masc. unholdcere; in Keisersberg and Sachs unholde is still the usual word, not till the 17-18th cent, did hexe become general instead of it. Here and there the people use a masc. hex for conjurer; in Swabia der hengsi (Schmid 273), in Switz. haagg, hagg, hah for cheat, jug- gler; even the OHG. hdzus strio (masc. to stria? hardly for histrio ?) might mean a male. Many have been caught by the obvious resemblance of the Gr. Hecate, 'Ekcltt), but the letters agree too closely, contrary to the laws of change, and the Mid. Ages would surely have had an unaspirated Ecate handed down to them ; no Ecate or Hecate appears in M. Lat. or Eomance writings in the sense of witch, and how should the word have spread through all German lands ? About the M. Nethl. haghe-

HEXE.

1041

disse, strix, there is this to be said, that the Mod. Nethl. eghdisse, egdisse, haag disse is lacerta, our eidechse, OHGr. egidehsa, AS. a'Sexe : the lizard does seem to have played a part in magic, and witch-trials actually speak of witches giving birth to a lizard in- stead of the traditional elf, Mark, forsch. 1, 260 (see Suppl.). In the Span. hechicero, -ra I see again only an accidental likeness (p. 1032 n.) ; the Span, bruxa, South Fr. bruesche, means a bane- ful nightbird, but, like strix, it has passed into the sense of witch. Brut, drude is often found as an equivalent for witch, though strictly it denotes the tormenting oppressive nightmare ; out of what heathen being this drut arose, was shown on p. 423, it was so easy for elvish sprites of the olden time to be after- wards mixt up with human sorceresses ; in the same way bihviz, belewitte (p. 473) will now and then occur in witch-affairs.

Another set of names, presented to us in the ON. remains, merits particular attention : here we see the notion of mao-ic women stand next door to that of giantesses. Troll is the gene- ral term including at once beings of the elf or giant brood and those of magic kind (p. 526), yet so that at first the giant character predominates, and afterwards the diabolic. Trollahals, trollaskogr, trollatunga occur in the Landnamabok ; trollskapr may be taken to mean, first the iotunmoftr p. 530, secondly our witchcraft and magic. But while scarcely any mention is made of a trollmaftr, there is plenty about the trollkona, and names for a giantess like flagff, sfcass, skessa (p. 526) are applied without scruple to witches. Snorri 210 gives a long string of names, some hard to interpret, which will be a task to the student for some time to come. Others, archaic and poetically conceived, are told by one who is a trollkona to Bragi, who meets her at eventide, Sn. 175. The copiousness of this nomenclature implies the great antiquity of magic in the North, and its deep-rooted oneness with the systems of magic all over Europe : the most significant of these names I shall take up and explain in the course of discussion.

On such etymological groundwork, of the more general terms that come under question, may now follow an examination of the subject itself.

And this time I will commence with Scandinavian sorcery,

1042 MAGIC.

whose more antiquated and to my thinking unadulterated cha- racter proves above all things that the leading part in it was taken by women, not by men.

It is true the Edda classifies magicians as volar, vitkar and semerendr, S»m. 118% of whom only the first are female, the other two male; nay, all three are traced up to ViMlfr, Vilmei&r and SvarthofSi, alleged inventors of magic, about whom there is nothing conclusive to be said. Svari-hofiTi, Blackhead, may come of the black art, and black as the fiendish colour m general (p 993) Vilmei&r, compounded of vil (favor, beneplacitum) and merSr (arbor), ought rather to claim kinship with the pleasing art of poesy (p 901). Vi&olfr would seem to be the ' Vitolfus me- dendi peritus' mentioned in Saxo Gram. 122. To me however the first named, the volur, seem to throw the rest into the shade : that poetic dialogue with Bragi gives the witch a vilsmn volu (better perh. vilsinni, acc. vilsinna), i.e. a friend and comrade of the vala. Vitkar, vitkar, are the OHG. wlzagon, soothsayers, vates, which supports my interpretation of Vilmeror. Safr has no right to be monopolized by men : we saw above (p. 106b), and shall soon make out more exactly, that it pertains to women too that seiSkonor shew themselves no less than seiSberendr. Both must have been forthcoming in great numbers in some districts : in Harald Mrf. saga" cap. 36, king Eirikr causes his brother Eoo-nvald and 80 serSmenn to be burnt. The vala or volva is a prophetess, priestess, norn, a most holy being of the olden time (pp 97 408), and at the same time a sei&kona. Even of the Eddie vala it is said : <sei3 hon kunni/ Sa3m. 4b. Such magic women are Eei&r, Eamqlom, Skuld, etc., all originally air-riding valkyrs (p. 421) ; in Seem. 154b volva, skass, valkyrja stand side by side. Weighty evidence shall be brought by and by of their wanderings in the wood at even and by night. They roam through the country with their retinue (me$ sitt liS), are reverently invited in by men, entertained, and called upon to say sooth. This they do, sitting on a four-legged stool, the seicrhiallr. The performance is called efla seiS (fixing, instituting magic), Fornald. sog. 2, 72. 3, 318; setja sei$ 1, 97; < seiSrinn verSr erfi&r, is wrought 1, 12 ; foera a hiallinn is to conduct to the stool 2, 72. The later sagas evidently throw in contemptible features. In the company of Skuld, says Fornald. sog. 1, 97, might be seen ekes,

SBIDE.

1043

norns and other such, fry (alfar ok nornir ok annat Hei&r may still come riding with 15 youths and 15 maids (2, 165. 506), but Oddr sets little store by her, addresses her as ' ailra kellinga ormust,' poorest (wretchedest) of old women 168. 508. So when the Fornm. 3, 212 mentions these vagrants, who tell people's fortunes, the same word is used 214 : ( vol van arma,' miserable witch, like 'usleh&vfrxie' in the Dan. folksong (DV. 1, 110).1 King FroSi wished to get a prophecy out of the volva Hei&r, Fornald. sog. 1, 10: ' giorfti hann J?a gilda veizlu i moti henni, ok setti hana a seifthiall emu haan . . . ok svara mer sem skiotast, sei&hoYia ! ' When she falters, and will not say all, he threatens to use force : ' J?ik skal pina til sagna' (11. 12).2 It is worth noting, that the serSr is performed at night, when men are asleep, by the volvas, who sally out with their company : ' menn foru at sofa, en volva for til ndttfars sei&s meff sitt lid"3 2, 166 ; and the parallel passage 2, 507 says : ' gekk hun J?a ut meft UcH sinu, er aftrir gengu til svefns, ok efldi seift.' Ketill was roused at night by a great uproar in the wood, he ran out and saw a sorceress with streaming hair (sa trollkonu, ok fell fax a herftar henni) ; being questioned, she begged him not to balk her, she was bound for a magic mote, to which were coming Skelking king of sprites from Dumbshaf, Ofoti (unfoot) from OfotansfirS, ThorgerSr Horgatroll and other mighty ghosts from the northland (ek skal till tr6llaj?ings, bar kemr Skelkingr, norSan or Dumbshafi, konungr trolla, ok Ofoti ur Ofotansfirfti, ThorgerSr Horgatroll ok a$rar stor-vsettir norSan ur landi), Fornm. sog. 1, 131, conf. 3, 222. The riding out by night to do magic was called sitja uti (Biorn 2, 251a explains it : sub dio nocturnis incantationibus operam dare) ; the Norw. Laws name these jaunts uti-setor to wake up the magic-working sprites : ' spafarar allar oc utisetor at vekja troll upp, oc fremja me$ pvi heidni/ Gulath. p. 137. Of the objects of Scand. sorcery I will give a specimen or two. Fees were given to sorceresses, to raise up storms: f sendu eptir serSkonum, tveimr, Heroi ok Hamglom, ok gafu )?aim fe til, at peer sendi ve&r . . . baer

1 Arm poor, slight, miserable. I named poverty as a cause of sorcery, p. 1039 : ' armer warsage, wissage,' Freidank 124, 1. Ms. 2, 176% and note to Freid. p. 372. 1 armer bleicher (wan) wissage ! ' Herb. 2266.

2 ' J>a let hann taka Finn, einn er margfroftr var, oc vildi neySa hann til saftrar sogu (force him to a sooth saw), oc pindi hann, oc feck >b ecki af honum,' Sa<?a Halfdanar svarta cap. 8. °

VOL. III. r

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MAGIC.

efldu seictinn, ok fcerSust a hiallinn me$ goldrum ok giorningum/ Fornald. sog. 2, 72. Magic made men proof against weapons, invulnerable : ' var seidt at Haraldi, at hann skyldi eigi Uta iarn,3 iron should not bite him 1, 374. fJ?eir letu serSa at Ogmundi, sva at hann skyldi engi iarn bita atkvaeSalaus 3 2, 241.

Certain features, that agree with the descriptions to be given by and by of witches' doings, might be thought plagiarisms. I doubt it. True, the nocturnal gathering before Skelking, Ofoti and ThorgerS is not altogether in the spirit of ON. religion, but it may have arisen in Scandinavia itself by the gradual deterioration of older beliefs. Nowhere is the Devil mentioned, though the ' footless one 3 may remind us of the horse-footed. This Norse trolla-fiing is more like the meetings of our night-women, whom I take to have sprung out of wise-women and volvas ; and this is fully borne out by the nightly excursion of HerSr with her party of 30 persons, and that of Skuld with elves and norns. ThorgerS, Skuld and HerS are, like Hulda and Berhta, purely pagan half- goddesses, round whom gathers the magic ring- dance ; they stir up storm and tempest, they make invulnerable, they prophesy. Their seift-hiallr with four props or prongs (stolpar, stiklar), Fornald. sog. 1, 12. 3, 319 (see Suppl.), finds nothing to match it in the German witch-world ; it does remind us of the Delphian pythia's tripod, and possibly further inquiry may allot a three- legged stool to German night- excursionists as well, especially as that article has a sacredness belonging to it from of old, KA. 80. 189. 208; conf. in Superst. F, 59. 60 the sitting on the tripod, and I, 111 the caution against setting an empty trivet on the fire. Skuld queens it here, does her spiriting in a black tent, sits on her magic stool : ' sat i sinu svarta tialdi. a seiShialli sinum, skip- tir mi sva um, sem dimm nott komi eptir biartan dag/ Fornald. 1, 105. With the Norse enchantresses the power and obligation to prophesy is still predominant, which in German witches and night-women falls into the background. Other features of the Norse faith in magic I can better weave into the account, now to follow, of our own antiquities.

Christianity found a heathen belief in magic- wielding women existing among Celts and Germans as well as Greeks and Romans, but has largely modified it ; views held by heretics or imputed to

WITCHES.

1045

them got mixt up with it, and out of everything put together witchcraft has to be explained. Down to the latest period we perceive in the whole witch-business a clear connexion with the sacrifices and spirit-world of the ancient Germans. This of itself proves the gross unfairness and grotesque absurdity of witch- burning in later times.

A world-old fancy, that has penetrated all nations, finds in sorcery the power to hide or change one's figure. Enchanters would turn into wolves, enchantresses into cats ; the wolf was the sacred beast of Wuotan, the cat of Frouwa, two deities that had most to do with souls and spirits. The adept in magic assumed a mask, grima (p. 238) } a trolls-ham, by which he made himself unrecognisable, and went rushing through the air, as spirits also put on grimhelms, helidhelms (p. 463) ; often we see the notion of sorceress and that of mask 3 meet in one, thus the Leges Both. 197. 379 have c striga, quod est masca/ ' striga, quae dicitur masca.3 On this last term I shall have more to say by and by *-4see Sup pi.).

But sorceresses have also at their command a bird's shape, a feather-garment, especially that of the goose, which stands for the more ancient swan, and they are like swan- wives, valkyrs, who traverse the breezes and troop to the battle. Inseparable from the notion of magic is that of flying and riding through air (p. 427), and the ancient ThruSr becomes a drut (p. 423), and Holda tmunholdm. Like the 'holde' sprites, 'unholde'now float in the air with the Furious Host. They assemble in troops to fulfil a common function.

From this subject, then, heathen sacrificial rites are by no means to be excluded. Our very oldest Laws, esp. the Salic, mention gatherings of witches for cooking, and I remind the reader of those Gothland sucTnautar (p. 56) at a sacrifice. The Lex Sal. cap. 67 specifies it as the grossest insult to call a man witches' kettle-hearer: 'si quis alteram chervioburgum, hoc est strioportium clamaverit, aut ilium qui inium dicitur portasse ubi

i ON. Grima, name of a sorceress ; also Gryla (horrific), Sn. 210a. Can hagebart, larva, Gl. Herrad. 189a be conn, with hag in hagezusa > A mask is sometimes called schembart, of which more hereafter : bearded masks were worn m masquerades. I am even tempted to explain the latter half of hagazusa by (cirrus} irl' FmS m^™' stroPMum)' Graff 5> 711 5 cent MHG. zuse

1046 MAGIC.

strias (for striae) codnanV In my KA. 645 I have tried to explain chervioburgus.1 He that demeans himself to carry witches' utensils becomes contemptible to men; he may also be called simply strioportius, witches' carrier, being hired by them to do it. Now this kettle-bearer is never named in the later stories of witches, but these often take a piper to their meetings, whose business is to play to their feasting and dancing, without being exactly an accomplice in the conjuring; and he maybe likened to that menial. The words ubi striae cocinant (some MSS. coquinant, cucinant; Lex. emend, incorrectly concinunt) imply a cooking and seething (seySr p. 1036) by several witches m com- mon. In Macbeth three witches— but they are < weird-sisters too (p. 407), and so suggest the old meaning of drut— meet on a heath and in a cave, to boil their cauldron. They are not^ so much enchantresses in league with the Devil, as fate -announcing wise- women or priestesses, who prophesy by their cauldron, p. 56

(see Suppl.). .

It may seem over-bold to name Shakspeare's witches m the same breath with ancient Cimbrian prophetesses, with strigas of the Salic Law; but here we have other links between the oldest times and the recent.

Speaking of heilawac (healing waters) in chap. XX, I on purpose omitted all mention of salt springs, that I might here bring their sacredness into immediate connexion with the witch- craft of a later time. Tacitus, in a passage of importance in many ways, Annals 13, 57, tells us: < Eadem aestate inter Her- munduros Chattosque certatum magno praelio, dum flumen gignendo sale foecundum et conterminum vi trahunt; super libidinem cuncfca armis agendi religione insita, eos maxime locos propinquare coelo, precesque mortalium a deis nusquam propius audiri. Inde indulgentia numinum illo in amne illisque silvis salemprovenire}non ut alias apud gentes eluvie maris arescente, sed unda super ardentem arborum struem fusa, ex contrarns inter se elementis, igne atque aquis, concretum.' 2 Burgundians and

i Leo now explains from the Celtic, that burgius is th%tr^^a^^ attendant, and chervio wise-woman, from gear ?^d>

<sagae minister.' Also, that strioportius may be the Welsh ystryws wise, and

sam aciem Marti ac Mercurio sac£vere : quo veto equi, vm, ^«

dantur. Et minae quidem hostiles in ipsos vertebant.' The sense of these remark

salt. 1047

Alamanns also fought for salt- springs : 'Burgundii salinarum imiumque causa Alamannis saepe jurgabant/ Amm. Marc. 28, 5. That not only in Germany, but in Gaul, salt was obtained 'by pouring water on burning wood, we know from Pliny 31. 7} 39 : ^GalliaeGermaniaequeardentibuslignis aquam salsam infundunt;' hence the ritual that hallowed it may have been common to Celts and Teutons. Now of streams charged with salt there was doubtless a good number in Germany, then as now, and it is hardly possible to say which in particular was meant by Tacitus.1 They rose on mountains, in sacred woods, their produce was deemed the direct gift of a near divinity, possession of the spot seemed worth a bloody war, the getting and distributing of salt was a holy office; would not there be very likely sacrifices and festivals connected with salt-boiling ? (see Suppl.) .

Suppose now that the preparation of salt was managed by women, by priestesses, that the salt-kettle, saltpan, was° under their care and supervision ; there would be a connexion established between salt-boiling and the later vulgar opinion about witch- craft : the witches gather, say on certain high days, in the holy wood, on the mountain, where the salt springs bubble, carrying

of tW w 11 aS^1- °Wn- , We need not suPP°se th*t both sides vowed least of all that the Hermunduri vowed to Mars, the Chatti to Mercurv for Th^ nfo closing words would have no point. Besides, I think the verTSliaritv o? th£ cruel vow consists in its being made to both dispensers of viZl (pp 134 197 8 at once he men falling may be, to Wuotan's share, the women%h lTef and animal to Zio s ; none were to escape alive. Had the vow been to one god [ alonTh TwTld

/Z^ b^hSHTr.Sw The passage proves that Zio and Wuotan were wor- S Z £ 5 Hermunduri ; the Eoman conceptions of Mars and Mercurv

?^ ^ ' ' Hei^ ¥ <«* aPart)^ni ^al^et^r

Hnln^Z 1? f'^t the Salza in Bavaria, Rail and ifaZtetadt in Austria meaning wonld ant almost any village thaTnas work slell ' ' Beomi

1048 MAGIC.

with them cooking-vessels, ladles and forks; and at night their saltnan is a-elow.1 These conjectures are countenanced by a pol ice Vienna MS. 428, 154* either by Strieker or one of his countrymen and contemporaries, which I quote m full :

Ich bin gewesen ze Portigal

und ze Dolet sunder twal (Toledo, I assure you),

mir ist kunt (ken'd) Kalatra daz lftnt,

da man di besten meister vant (found) ;

ze Choln (Cologne) und ze Paris,

da sint di pfaffen harte wis (exceeding wise),

di besten vor alien richen (realms).

Dar fuor ich weerlichen (travelled I truly)

niwan durch diu maere (merely to ascertain)

waz ein unholde waere (what a witch was) ?

Daz gehort ich nie gelesen (never heard it read),

waz ein unholde miige wesen (might be).

Daz ein wip ein chalp rite (should ride a calf),

daz wsere'n wunderliche site (fashion),

ode rit uf einer dehsen (wand),

ode uf einem huspesem (besom, broom)

ndch salze ze Halle fuere (fare to H. for salt) ;

ob des al diu welt swiiere (if all the world swore it),

doch wolde ich sin nimmer gejehen (say yea to it),

ich en-hete (unless I had) ez mit minen ougen gesehen

wand (for) s6 wilrde uns nimmer tiure (dear, scarce)

daz salz von dem ungehiure.

Ob ein wip einen ovenstap iiber schnte (bestride)

und den gegen Halle rite

iiber berge und iiber tal,

daz si tsete deheinen val (make no fall),

daz geloube ich niht, swer daz seit (whoever says it),

und ist ein verlorniu arbeit (lost labour) ;

und daz ein wip ein sib tribe (drive a sieve)

sunder vleisch und sunder ribe,

da niht inne wsere (wherein was nought),

daz sint allez gelogniu msere (all a lying tale).

Daz ein wip ein man iiber schrite

und im sin herze uz suite (cut out his heart),

wie z*me daz (how were that possible) einem wibe,

daz si suite uz einem libe (body) m

ein herze, und stieze dar in str6 (stuff straw therein),

wie moht' er (how could he) leben ode werden fro ?

ein mensche muoz ein herze haben,

ez habe saf od si beschaben.

Ich wil iu sagen msere (give you information), waz sin rehte unholdcere (who real sorcerers are) •

but, loi^mlie coctura,' read 1 talis coctura.

SALT. HORSE-FLESH. 1049

daz sint der herren ratgeben (counsellors of lords) di ir ere furdern solden und leben, di siflent in zuo den oren (whisper in their ears) und machent sie ze toren (make fools of them), si niezent (profit by) ir erbe und ir lant und lazent och si ze hant (make them very soon) scheiden von eren (part with their honour) und von guote, von vrouden (joy) und hohem muote. Ditz ist ein warez masre (true tale) : di selben (these same) unholdcere die sougent uz (suck out) herze und bluot, daz vil mangem (full many a) herren schaden tuot.

This Halle is probably the one in Austria or Bavaria, so that in those parts there still prevailed at that time the vulgar belief that the 'unholden' rode on broomstick, oven- stick or twig (Schm. sub. v. dachsen, conf. diesse p. 270 n.) over hill and dale to Halle'. Was it imagined that they fetched their supply of salt home from there? which seems almost to be implied in the words, 'were it so, tiiey would not make salt scarce to their neighbours (abstract it).' As Christians equally recognised salt as a good and needful thing, it is conceivable how they might now, inverting the matter, deny the use of wholesome salt at witches' meetings, and come to look upon it as a safeguard against every kind of sorcery (Superst. I, no. 182). For it is precisely salt that is lacking 1 in the witches' kitchen and at devil's feasts, the Church having now taken upon herself the hallowing and dedication of salt. Infants unbaptized, and so exposed, had salt placed beside them for safety, RA. 457. The emigrants from Salzburg dipped a wetted finger in salt, and swore. Wizards and witches were charged with the misuse of salt in baptizing beasts. I think it worth mentioning here, that the magic-endowed giantesses in the Edda knew how to grind, not only gold, but salt, Sn. 146-7 : the one brought peace and prosperity, the other a tempest and foul weather.

Equally significant seems to me the use of horseflesh and of the horse altogether among wizards and witches. It was shewn, p. 47, that the heathen sacrificed horses to their gods, and any inclination to eat their flesh was denounced for a long time as a hankering after heathen ways; it is only in these days

fh01v\A1S° b? ad,l ?n°th?I necessary of life ; yet of course the heathen baked for their banquets and sacrifices exactly as the christians did.

1050

MAGIC.

that the prejudice against eating so clean an animal begins to give way. Well, the witches were accused of indulging in this food at their assemblies, i.e. of still keeping up heathen sacrifices. Henry Boguet in his Discours execrable des Sorciers, Rouen 1603, p. 82-3 asserts, not only < qu'il y avoit une grande chaudiere sur le feu, dans laquelle chacun alloit prendre de la chair/ and ' mais il n'y a iamais du sel,3 but also expressly ' que la chair n'est autre chair que de cheual3 If to this we add, that the nailing up of horses' heads (p. 47)1 must be identified with those sacrifices, that horses' heads are thrown into Midsummer fires (p. 618), that the piper at witches' meetings (p. 1046) or other ghostly beings (p. 849) play on horses3 heads,2 that the devil appears with horse's feet, and drinking is done out of horse-hoofs; the whole thing assumes a still more antique ap- pearance of heathen sacrificial rites (see Suppl.) .

But if in heathen times the preparation and distribution of hallowed salt, and the eating of horseflesh stood connected with sacrifices and popular assemblies (and these were often com- bined), such connexion is equally proved or confirmed by all the remaining characteristics of witches' jaunts. Their Times and Places can in no other way be accounted for.

We know that all over Germany a grand annual excursion of witches is placed on the first night in May (Walpurgis), i.e. on the date of a sacrificial feast and the old May- gathering of the people. On the first of May, of all days, the periodical assizes continued for many centuries to be held, RA. 822-4; on that day came the merry May-ridings, p. 775, and the kindling of the sacred fire, p. 603 : it was one of the highest days in all heathenism.3 Or if two or three witch-

i On this fixing-up Festus has passages in striking accord : * October equus appellatur, qui in Campo Martio mense Oct. immolatur. De cujus capite non leyis contentio solebat esse inter Subnranenses et Sacravienses ut hi in regiae panete illi ad turrim Mamiliam i&figerent ; ejusdemque coda tanta celeritate perfertur in regiam, ut ex ea sanguis destillet in focum participandae rei divmi gratia. And : 'Panibus redimibant caput equi immolati idibus Oct. m Campo Martic > quia id sacrificium fiebat ob frugum eventum, et equus potms quam bos immolabatur, quod hie bello, bos frugibus pariendis est aptus.' .

• Musicians piping or fiddling on a horse's head, Tnerer acten p. 206. bieg- burger pp. 228. 239. Death's head for cithern, Eemigms 145.

3 A comparison of our witches' dances on May-night with the Floraha, which lasted from April 28 to May 1 (Hartung's Relig. d. Rom. 2, 142), and from which all men wereP excluded (Creuzer's Symb. 4, 608) may be allowed, provided no borrowing of the Teutonic and Celtic custom from the Roman be inferred. Rightly understood, the Greek Dionysia also present many points of comparison.

witches' jaunt.

1051

festivals be enumerated, as 'in Whitsuntide and Autumn/ or ' on St Walburg's, St John's and St Bartelemy5s/ we have still the usual holidays and assize-days of the Mid. Ages. Danish witch-trials name e Valdborg aften, S. Hans aften, Maria besogelsesdags aften.' The people would never have given up their venerated season of justice to the witches, had not these been long in prescriptive possession (see Suppl.).

Still more plainly do the Localities coincide. The witches invariably resort to places where formerly justice was ad- ministered, or sacrifices were offered. Their meeting takes place on the mead, on the oak-sward, under the lime, under the oak, at the peartree; on the boughs of the tree sits that piper whose help they need in the dance. Sometimes they dance at the place of execution, under the gallows-tree, in the sand-pit. But for the most part mountains are named as their trysting- places, hills (at the three biiheln, knolls, three kopchen, peaks), in fact, the highest points of a neighbourhood. We must not forget how elves and bilweises are housed in hills (p. 474), nor that the Servian vilas and Romance fays dwell on mountains : a notable passage about magic wrought on a mount (puegau, pueg, puy, Lat. podium) was quoted p. 411. The fame of particular witch-mountains extends over wide kingdoms, in the same way as high mountains are named after gods, sacrifices, courts of justice. Almost all the witch-mountains were once hills of sacrifice (p. 58), boundary-hills (malberge, RA. 801-2), or salt-hills. A exenbukel is pointed out on the Hirschau boundary-line by Rothenburg on Neckar, and an unholdenberg near Passau; but most of them have proper names of their own. North Germany nows the Brocken, Brocks- or Blocks-berg,1 the highest point of he Harz Mts, as the head meeting-place of witches. A con- fessional of the 15th cent, speaks of sorceresses f die uf den Brockisberg varen/ Hoffm. zeitschr. 753; that is the earliest documentary evidence I know of a superstition that doubtless reaches to a far older time. Seats of justice the Harz must have

1 1 Hons Bructerus ' / Only the Bructeri never lived there, but on the West- phalian Lippe ; some without any reason connect the name Melibocus with the Brocken. What is the oldest documentary form of the name ? Stieler 160 writes Brockersb. ; others Prockelsb. (Proculus), Brockelsb., Blockersb. ; Blocksb. (Brem. wtb. sub v. bloksbarg) may have arisen by mere softening of r into I, and can hardly have anything to do with the Swed. Blakulla.

1052 MAGIC.

had more than one in the Mid. Ages; a salt spring it has still at Juliushall in Neustadt domain. But the name seems to cover a much wider area, as several hills in Mecklenburg (and no doubt in other parts of N. Germany) are called blocksbergs Mekl. iahrsber 2 114. 3, 189; also in Prussia (Tettau and Temme p 264) Other trysts of witches I can only enumerate incom- pletely The Huiberg near Halberstadt is still spoken of; in Thuringia they flock to Eorselberg by Eisenach, or Inselbei-g by Schmalkalden; in Hesse to Bechelsberg or Bechtelsberg by Ottrau, an old Ziegenhain seat of justice; in Westphalia to Koterberg bv Oorvei, to Weckingsstein (Wedigenstein, where Wittekmd or Wittich dwells) by Minden; in Swabia to the Black Forest, to Kandel in Breisgau, or to Heuberg' by Balingen, which is noticed as a witches' monnt as early as 1506, and resembles the > Hmberg above; in Franconia to Kreidenberg by Wiirzburg, and b taflel- stein by Bamberg ; and probably the Fichtelberg and the Silesian Biesengebirge have witches' haunts of their own In Alsace are named Bischenberg, Bilchelberg (conf. Bechelsb.), Schauenberg and KnUUss (knee-biting, from the steepness, elsewhere Kme- brecher) ; in the Vosges, Hupella. The Swedish meeting-places are Bl&kulla (Ihre says, an island rock between Smaland and Oland, liter, black monnt, a name it prob. shares with other heights),2 and Nasafjdll in Norrland. The Norwegian witches also repair to Blaakolle, further to Bovrefjeld, Lyderhom by Bergem ffiam* in Tvedsogn, to Vardo and Domen in Pinmarken; all such trysting-places are called baholM camp« malus) In Denmark they say 'fare til Hekkelftelds (p. 1001), ie to Mt Hekla in Iceland, Heklufiall; also 'ride til Trums, fare til Troms,' meaning Trommenfjeld, a mountain on the ISorw. island Tromso, high up ofi the Pinmark. The Neapolitan streghe hold their tryst under a walnut-tree near Benevento, which the people call the Beneventine wedding; on that very spot stood the holy tree of the Langobards (pp. 101. 649 so here again witchcraft stands clearly connected with old heathen worship. Witches' hills in Italy are the Barco di Ferrara, Paterno di Bologna, Spinato della Mirandola, Tossale di Ber-

makinfn^rwoman was called Blakulla , Arnkiel 1 85 sets up a sea-goddess Blakylle, SrYidsson 2, 302-5 has berget M, the black mount.

witches' jaunt.

1053

gamo, and one, f la croce del pasticcio/ whose situation I do not know. In France the Puy de Dome near Clermont in Auvergne is renowned, and other districts have their hills. The Spanish hechizeras hold their dance on the heath of Baraona, in the sand of Sevilla, on the plain of Cirniegola ; in Navarre on Aquelarre, said to mean in Basque ' goat's meadow/ The Servian witches dance f na pometno guvno,' on the swept thrashingfloor, pro- bably on a high mountain; those of Hungary on Kopasz teto (the bald crown), a peak of the Tokay #wine-hills,1 with which the fna Jjysagore' of the Polish witches (Woycicki 1, 17. 2, 77) agrees. A part of the Carpathians between Hungary and Poland is called in Pol. babia gora, old wives' mountain ; I cannot say if witch-festivals are placed there. The Kormakssaga pp. 76. 204. 222 has a similar Spakoiiufell, wise-woman's mount. The Lithuanians say, on the eve of St. John all the magicians come flying to Mt Szatria, where a mighty sorceress Jauterita entertains them.2 It is singular, how all over Europe the heathen's pilgrimages to feasts and sacrifices are by christians converted into this uniform sorcery, everywhere alike. Did the notion take shape in each nation by itself ? or, what is less credible, was the fashion set in one place, and followed every- where else?3 (see Suppl.)

That the heathen in old Scandinavia already had the notion of enchantresses riding or driving out at evening and night, is clear from the Edda. As Heftinn roamed the forest alone in the evening, he fell in with a trollkona, who offered him her fylgft (attendance, like a guardian valkyrja), but he declined it, Sasm. 146a. A legend fraught with meaning is but slightly touched upon in Sn. 175 : As Bragi the old (p. 1041) drove through a forest late in the evening, he met a trollkona, who addressed him in a song and asked, who rideth there ? She names to him her troll names, and he, answering in song, tells her his poetic names. Hence an enchantress is called qveld-ri&a, evening-rider, Ssem.

1 Szirmai's Notitia comitatus Zempleniensis, Budae 1803. p. 3 ; and Hungaria in parabolis p. 158-9.

2 Court. Society's Communic, Mitau 1840. 1, 47b.

_ 3 Nocturnal meetings on mountains can also be conn, with other heathen notions : giants and elves reside on mountains. Pliny 5, 1 says of Mt Atlas : | incolarum neminem interdiu cerni, silere omnia . . . noctibus micare crebris ignibus, Aegipanum Satyrorumque lascivia impleri, tibiarum ac fistularum cantu, tympanorum et cymbalorum sonitu strepere.'

1054 MA<na

143", and myrk-riffa 77% by which monstrous mischievous giant- women are meant, wild women, waldminnes, iarnviSjur (p. 483), whom the heroes are bent on putting down: 'hen ec qvaldar qveldrrSor,' I have quelled the witches, says Atli. Their riding is called gandreiff, vectura magica, Nialss. p. 195 ; gandr is pro- perly wolf, they are said to have ridden wolves and bridled them with snakes: 'faun trollkono, sn rmtS vargi ok hafSi orma i tan- mom,' Stem. 146s. ' Hyrrokin reiS vargi ok hafSi hbggorm at taumum,' Sn. 66. A Bfcne figure (bautil 1157) represents a troll riding a wolf, using a bent twig for reins. A Swed. folksong makes her ride on a bear, and use the wolf as a saddle, the snake as a whip : 1 bjornen den sa red hon uppa, ulfven den hade hon till sadel derpa, och ormen den hade hon till piska,' Sv. vis. 1, 77. Nor must we overlook, that the Servian vila, who has much more of the elf about her, rides a stag, and bridles him with a snake. Among names of enchantresses Sn. 210b has Munnriffa, mouth- rider, perhaps holding the snake-bridle in her mouth ? Another is Munnharpa (Bibrn says, rigor oris ex gelu); both demand a more precise explanation, but anyhow -rrSa must refer to night- riding One poet, Sn. 102, uses the circumlocution qyeldrunmn oven, femina vespere excurrens. The Vestgota-lag, like the Salic (p 1045), speaking of insulting accusations, instances that ot sorcery, p. 38 : ' iak sa at ret a quiggrindu, losharafi ok i trols- ham, fa alt var iam rift nat ok dagher/ and p. 153 has almost the same words, with losgiurfi added to loshareb : I saw thee ride on the hurdle, loose-haired, loose-girt, in troll's garb, where day and night divide (in twilight) ; if we might read gvtgml* it would be 'ride on the calf,' as in the MHG. poem, p. 1048. Neither this Law nor the Bdda tells us of sorceresses assembling in troops at appointed places, yet the valkyrs ride together by twelves and twenties. But the idea of night-ndmg itself may be derived even from goddesses: the Hyndlu-lioS has for its groundwork, that Freyja seated on her boar, whose bristles glow in the gloom of night, and her sister Hyndla (canicula) on a wolt, ridenptoholy Valholl1 (see Suppl.).

In Germany proper, successive stages can be pointed out. Before Christianity, the old giantesses (etenins) may well have

A marieian who was kveldWr (evening-sleeper), bears the name KvOd&fr Egilss P 38;?Ustte the OHG. NoMoZ/by whieh H. renders Necturnus.

witches' jaunt.

1055

been sorceresses amongst us also, as we still find such a one in our Heldenbuch (see p. 556) , and a giant plays the host on a witches' hill, Lisch 5, 83. After the conversion, sorcery links itself with the discredited gods both foreign and domestic ; not at once with the Devil yet, whose idea had scarce begun to take root among the people. The witches are of the retinue of former goddesses, who, hurled from their thrones, transformed from gracious adored beings into malign and dreaded ones, roam rest- less by night, and instead of their once stately progresses can only maintain stolen forbidden conferences with their adherents. Even when the bulk of the people was won over to the new doctrine, individual men would for a time remain true to the old faith, and perform their heathen rites in secret; but soon these pagan practices would cease as real facts, and abide in the memory and shaping fancy of mankind, and the more enduringly if they were connected with popular feasts and the permitted or pro- hibited usage about healings and poisonings. Performance, tradi- tion, fancy were mixt up together, and no single century can possibly have been without the notion of illicit idolatrous magic, even if we are unable to specify the shape in which it entertained it. Amongst all christians the report of it lasted ineradicable, assuming a looser or firmer consistency, according as the Church indulged popular beliefs, or sought more sternly to suppress them. What she was determined to punish and exterminate, must gradually have been withdrawn from the mild realm of fancy, and assumed the harsh aspect of a horrible reality.

Enchanters and enchantresses (I will start with that) attach themselves to the spectral train of deities, to that Furious Host with which elvish and all manner of evil beings got associated : in the Vilk. saga cap. 328-9 the wild host of Ostacia (Ostansia, or whatever the genuine form may be) shews a significant con- nexion. But enchantresses would be ranged specially with god- desses, out of whom the christian teachers might make up a Koman Diana, a Jewish Rerodias, but the populace never entirely dropt the traditional native names. How natural then, if dame Holda, if that Freyja or Abundia (whether she be Folia p. 308, or a Celtic deity) had formerly led the round dance of elves and holden, that she herself should now be made an unholde and be escorted by unholden (p. 926) ! In the Norw. fairytale no. 15

1056 MAGIC.

the troldUaring takes quite the place of dame Holda. In the Jen d'Adans (supra p. 412 n.) the three fays assemble on a meadow, where the old women of the town await them : 1 or tost allons ent par illeuc, les vielles femes de le vile nous i atendent.' There did exist a fellowship then between fays and witches.

It perfectly agrees with the view propounded, that the Thuring. Horselberg is at once the residence of Holda and her host (pp. 456. 935. 959), and a trysfcing-place of witches (p. 1052). Keisers- berg in Omeiss 36. 40 makes the night-faring wives assemble no otherwhere but in the Venusberg (p. 953), whereat is good living, dancing and hopping. Still more decisive are the passages quoted° in the Appendix (Superst. C, int. 44; 10, 1; p. 194a. D, 140 r.), by which it appears, that down into the tenth and into the 14th cent., night-women in the service of dame Holda rove through the air on appointed nights, mounted on beasts ; her they obey, to her they sacrifice, and all the while not a word about any league with the Devil. Nay, these night-women, shining mothers, dominae noctumae, bonnes dames (p. 287-8), in Hincmar < lamiae sive geniciales feminae3 were originally daemonic elvish beings, who appeared in woman's shape and did men kindnesses; Holda, Abundia, to whom still a third part of the whole world is subject (pp. 283-8), lead the ring of dancers, and on the goddess's itinerant ship dances were trod (p. 260). It is to such dancing at heathen worship, to the airy elf-dance (p. 470), to the hopping of will-o3 -wisps (p. 916),1 that I trace primarily the idea of witches3 dances ; though festive dances at heathen May- meetings can be reckoned in with the rest. To christian zealots all dancing appeared sinful and heathenish, and sure enough it often was derived from pagan rites, like other harmless pleasures and customs of the common people, who would not easily part with their diversion at great festivals. Hence the old dancings at Shrovetide (p. 770n.), at the Easter fire and May fire, at the solstices, at harvest and Christmas ; a minuter examination than has yet been made of the proceedings at these holidays would bring out many things more clearly. Afzelius 2, 5 informs us, that to this day stories are afloat in Sweden of dances and reels performed by the heathen round holy places of their gods : so

» The ignis fatuus is called hexentanz (Schm. 2, 148), Sloven, vezha, prop, witch ; even the dead were made to carry on dances.

witches' jaunt.

1057

wanton were they, yet so enticing, that the spectators at last were seized with the rage, and whirled along into the revelry. When chronicles of our Mid. Ages occasionally record the dese- cration of holy days by wild dancing, and that the penalty imposed was, to keep it up without ceasing for a whole year, DS. no. 231, this again expresses the disgust of the christians at the relics of heathenism, and resembles the perversion of Wuotan's march into the ' everlasting hunter's ' chase.1 Why Herodias was dragged into the circle of night- women, was just because she flayed and danced, and since her death goes booming through the air as the ' wind's bride.' In this ghostly band, then, popular fancy placed human sorceresses too, i.e. women of ill repute who clung to heathenism, fantastic old wives : ' Et si aliqa&femina est, quae se dicat cum daemonum turba, in simili- tudinem mulierum transformata, certis noctibus equitare super quasdam bestias, et in eorum (daemonum) consortio annumeratam- esse ; 3 and : f Quaedam sceleratae mulieres retro post Satanam conversae, daemonum illusionibus seductae, credunt se 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 servi- tium evocari.' — Such was the earlier way of thinking about witches' rides ; 3 and the names naht-fard, naht-frouwd, naht-riid, dating doubtless from the heathen time, agreed exactly with the ON. qveldrrSa, myrkrrSa on p. 1053-4. I cannot indeed produce

w 1 The clergy represented dancing as a mimicry of the priestly procession, and likened it to the Jewish idolatry with the golden calf.

2 The extract from Burchard, Superst. C (conf. Pref. to my First Ed. p. xxiv) can neither have been derived from the Council of Ancyra a.d. 314, which has no such passage in print or MS. ; nor from Augustine, though it occurs in the Tract, de spiritu et anima pap. 28 (opp. ed. Bened. Antv. 1706. 6, 525) with ' et Minerva' added after Herodiade, for this is a spurious work, yet of so early a date (6th cent., thinks Biener, Zeitschr. f . gesch. rechtsw. 12, 123)' that it is but little inferior in value for our purpose. Begino too (ed. Waschersl. 2, 371), the oldest genuine authority, has prob. drawn from it ; then come Burchard in the 11th, and Ivo (11, 30) and Gratian in the 12th century. Albertus Mag. in Summa theol. 2, 31 (opp.' 18, 180) has : « cum Diana pag. dea, vel Herodiade et Minerva.' The passage is said to be also in an unpubl. Vita Damasi papae, and there to refer back to a Synod of Rome of 367 (Soldan p. 75). To me it makes no difference if both Ancy- ran council and Soman synod already mention the night-faring Diana and Herodias; for Diana, who even to the ancient Romans ruled the woods, the chase and the night, must no doubt have appeared to christian converts of the first centuries as a goddess of magic.

1058 MAGIC.

them from earlier than the 13th century, as Wh. 1, 82": <wil der (Machmet) helfe sparn, so helfen in die naht-varn ; daz sint alter wlbe troume/ if M. grudge help, the night-farers help them. Ls 3 10 • ' ez konde niemen bewarn, ich miles eine (alone) uz fa'rn Lit der naU-frouwen (i.e. with the goddess) ; do sprach ich zuo mime gesellen : als schiere so (as soon as) ez naht wirt, dm vart mich niht verbirt, ich sol llden groze not, bezzer ware mir der t6t. 1st aber daz mir wol ergat, so kum ich umb die han- krat, des enweiz ich aber niht. Min triu, du solt mir em heht kleiben hin an etewaz, daz ich kunne dester baz komen her wider hein : kleib' ez an einen stein, oder kleiV ez an die want. Notice that to the simple-minded man the woman represents her alleged expedition as a painful necessity.1 In Vintler (Superst G 1 274) it is said : < so farent etlich mit der {nacht) far aut kelbern und auf pecken (bocken) durch stain and durch stecke.' So calves and he-goats are those ' quaedam bestiae. At p. 116 we saw the word nacUfare fittingly applied even to a star travel- ling in the sky. John of Salisbury, who lived in England and France (d 1182), and believed in demonic influence, has a re- markable statement in his Poller, ii. 17 : < Quale est quod noeh- culam (nocticolam? noctilucam?) quandam, vel Herodiadem, vel praesidem noctis dominant, consilia et conventus de node asserunt convocare, varia celebrari convivia, ministeriorum species diversis occupationibus exerceri, et nunc istos ad poonam trahi pro mericis, nunc illos ad gloriam sublimari; praeterea mfantes exponi Umiis, et nunc frustatim discerptos edaa ingluvie m ventrem trajectos congeri, nunc praesidentis miserahone rejectos in cunas reponi. Quis vel caecus hoc ludificantium daemonum non videat esse nequitiam ? quod vel ex hoc patet, quod muher- cvdis et viris simplicioribus et infirmioribus in fide ista provenmnt. I will add some equally conclusive testimonies from various parts of France, and all of the 13th cent., to the character of these night excursions; their analogy to the preceding will not fail to°be perceived. The Acta sanct. 32 Jul. p. 287* draw from a parchment MS. of the 13th cent, the following, which has also -ot into the Legenda Aurea cap. 102, though wanting m the older biographies of Germanus: ' Hospitatus (S. Germanus

. By nightmare (mar=hoise) is meant not the wtteh who rides out, but an elfin who rides, i.e. presses, on the sleeper, Superst. I, 878.

witches' jaunt.

1059*

Autissiodor.) in quodam loco, cum post coenam iterum mensa jmraretur, admiratus interrogate cui denuo praepararent ? Cui cum dicerent, quod bonis illis mulieribus, quae de node incedunt}' praepararetur, ilia nocte statuit S. Germanus vigilare. Et ecce, videt multitudinem daemonum in mensa, in forma hominum et mulierum venientem. Qui eis praecipiens ne abirent, cunctos de familia excitarit, inquirens, si personas illas cognoscerent ? qui cum omnes vidnos suos et vicinas esse dicerent, misit ad domos singulorum, daemonibus praecipiens ne abirent. Et ecce,, omnes in suis lectulis sunt inventi. Adjurati igitur se daemones esse

dixerunt, qui sic hominibus illudebant/- Guilielmus Alvernus

p. 1066: 'Idem et eodem modo sentiendum est tibi de aliis malignis spiritibus, quos vulgus stryges et lamias vocant, et apparent de node in domibus in quibus parvuli nutriuntur, eosque de cunabulis raptos laniare vel igne assare videntur : 2 apparent autem in specie vetularum. Vetularum autem nostrarum desipi- entia opinionem istam mirabiliter disseminavit et provexit, atque animis mulierum aliarum irradicabiliter infixit. Similiter et de dominabus nocturnis} quod lonae mulieres sint, et magna dona domibus quas frequentent per eas praestentur, mulieribus potis- simum persuaserunt ; et, ut ad unum dicam, pene omnes reliquias idololatriae retinuit et reservavit et adhuc promovere non cessat

anilis ista fatuitas.' Yincentius Bellovac. in Spec. mor. iii. 3,

27 : 1 Cum in quadam parochia homines talibus crederent, quidam ribaldi transfiguraverunt se in similitudinem mulierum, earum assumto habitu, et domum cujusdam rustici cum tortiis (torches) intrantes et choreas ducentes suppressa voce canebant Gallice ' un en prenes, cent en rendres/ Latine : unum accipite, centum reddite ! et sic in oculis rustici domum ejus evacuaverunt omnibus bonis, dicentis uxori suae : tace, et claude oculos, divites erimus, quia bonae res sunt/ et centuplicabunt bona nostra/ And further on : < Cum quaedam vetula volens blandire suo sacerdoti

going IlouU01IG' d9mgUn' lamiae' Diut- 2' 174> to be explained by this nightly h. L^11 Deme+telr anointed the child Demophoon with ambrosia by day, fanned h? SW+\6t b.reath.' laid Mm in the fire at ^ to consume all that was Wi , m +im' b°? thf0ve' tm his mother watched and saw and burst into a w 7 I ' • Gf ?? ^racle Was inter™pted, Hym. to Ceres 236-63. So Thetis anoints her mf ant Achilles and hides him in the fire. Conf. however the vapa^pTv ra pPe<pv dia rVs cpXoyos, and ponerejuxta ignem, p. 625.

Guotiu wihtir, p. 442 ; conf. unrighteous things, p. 1031, sorcery. VOL. III. J ^

M

1060 ' MAGIC.

diceret ei in ecclesia: domine, multum me debetis diligere, quia liberavi vos a morte : quia cum ego vadeham cum bonis rebus, media node intravimus domum vestram cum lummanbus, ego videns vos dormientem et nudum, cooperui vos, ne dominae nostras viderent nuditatem vestram, quam si vidissent, ad mortem vos flagellari fecissent. Quaesivit sacerdos, quomodo mtraverant domum ejus et cameram, cum essent fortiter seratae ? Tunc ait ilia, quod bene intrabant domum januis clausis. Sacerdos autem vocans earn intra cancellum, clauso ostio verberavit earn cum baculo crucis, dicens : exite bine, domina sortilega ! Et cum non posset exire, emisit earn sacerdos dicens : niodo videtis quam fatuae estis, quae somniorum creditis vanitatem/ This priest goes very sensibly to work with the sorceress, and never dreams ot

baiting ber as a criminal. Gervase of Tilbury 3, 85 : < Lamiae

dicuntur esse mulieres quae noctu domos momentaneo discursu penetrant, dolia vel cophinos, cantbaros et ollas perscrutantur, infantes ex cunis extrabunt, luminaria accendunt, et nonnunquam dormientes* affligunt.' At 3, 93 be assures us be bad known women wbo declared < se dormientibus viris suis cum coetu lamiarum celeri penna mare transire, mnndum percurrere, et si quis aut si qua in tali discursu Cbristum nominaverit, statim, m quocunque loco et qnantovis periculo fecerit, corruere; ' and one woman bad fallen into tbe Khone tbat way. < Scimus quasdam m forma cattorum a furtive vigilantibus de nocte visas ac vulneratas

in crastino vulnera truncationesque ostendisse.' So tben tbe

witcbes travel in tbe nightly train of gracious dames,1 for whom men spread tables, as tbey do for visitant fays and elves (pp. 409. 411 Superst. C, 198d), because tbey bring luck or multiply it, scrutinize tbe house-gear, bless the babes in tbe cradle, lleatbenish tbe superstition was, for the name of Christ might not be uttered ; but it did not pass for devilish yet. True, the notion of kidnapping (of which elves also were accused, p. 468) already mingles with it, and rises to the barbarous height of roasting and devouring ; but this also hangs on myths about elves and goddesses, and had always been laid at the door of sorceresses. One passage even celebrates the compassion of tbe president and

i The Maid of Orleans, indicted for sorcery, was asked: < si elle scait rien de

ceux qui vont avecq les fees' I

WITCHES. 1061

directress of the feast, she has the stolen sucklings carried back to their cradles (see Suppl.).

Crescentia, who had devoted herself to the nurture of children, is addressed as an unholde : < Waz huotes du d&se, ubele horn- blase ? du soldes billecher da ce hohe varn, dan die megede hie bewarn ; du bist ein unholde, und sizist hie behangen mit golde/ She answers: < Got weiz wol die sculde, ob ich bin ein unholde, oder ie dicheinis (any) zouberes gephlac/ Kaiserchr. 12199. • Diemer p. 373 (imitated, Kolocz. 261-2). They believed then in the 12th cent, that unholden f fared to the woods/ to the Wild Host, and ' blew horns/ like Tvtosel, who as a tooting hooting owl, i.e. strix, travels in the Furious Host (p. 922) ; can < hor- tuta/ a word of insult in the Yestgotalag p. 38, have been hornjmta, homfiyta ? ON. }?iota, ululare, Goth. J?ut-haurn adXiri^ . The precise meaning of ddse, unless it be for dwase, twase, getwas (spectre, p. 915), escapes me (see Suppl.). Such unholden are much more night-dames, bonae dominae, than deviPs partners. The < faring to woods and forests' expresses the sentence pronounced on banished outlawed men, whose dwelling is in the wilderness, among wolves, RA. 733, to whom the forest be- comes mother (shuma ti mati !), conf. saltibus assuetus (p. 482). Vulgar opinion in Sweden to this day suspects old women, who live alone in the woods, of harbouring and sheltering wolves when they are hunted: they are called vargamodrar, wolf- mothers, and such a one is meant in the song of Sdmung (Ssemingr p. 305) : < inde satt gamla djuramor, rorde med nasa i brande/ within sat the old beasts5 -mother, stirred with her nose the coals (Afzel. sagohafder 1, 38. 43). The long-nosed hag here evidently melts into the notion of the alrune who mingles with wood-schrats, p. 404, and of the wild wood-wife, p. 432 ; she is like the ON. iamviftja, p. 483.

But what to my mind completely establishes this milder explanation of witches' doings, which leaves the Devil out of the reckoning, is the collection of conjuri?ig spells quoted in the Appendix, vol. 3. Taken mostly from witch-trials of the last few centuries, when the link between witch and devil was a long" established thing to the popular mind, they refer not to devilish doings at all, but everywhere to elvish or even christian. Some of them seem to be of high antiquity, of heathen origin, and to

1062

MAGIC.

have been handed down through a long course of oral tradition. Their power to hurt or heal is founded on faith in elves and sprites, whose place is afterwards filled by angels and holy names. As elf and elfin, dwarf and she-dwarf, Ulwvz and bilwizin are invoked (p. 472), so in the old AS. formula (App. spell i.) ( esa gescot (ases' shot), ylfa gescot, hcegtessan gescot' all stand side by side. Such formulas, whose words must long ago have become unin- telligible to witches of the 16-17th cent., at once prove the injustice of the charge brought against them. It is to me a • significant fact, that the imagination of the tortured witches still expressly owns to a journey ' auf Yenesberg und in das paradis ' (Mone's Anz. 7, 426), meaning therefore the ancient elvish or even christian abode of bliss, and not a devilish one.

The gradual intrusion of the Devil by whom, according to the Church's belief, men were possessed (p. 1015), is easily accounted for. The conception was radically foreign to the Teuton mmd, which tried at first to naturalize it by transferring it to a fe- male being (p. 990). But when in course of time the christian notion of a male devil got the upper hand, then all that had been told of Holda had in its turn to be applied to him. From their service and attendance on that unhold dame of night, the witches passed into the Devil's fellowship, whose sterner keener nature aggravated the whole relationship into something more wicked, more sinful. Those magic rides by night had merely rested on the general allegiance due to the people's ancient goddess, in whose train the women rode ; but now that the Devil came to fetch the women, and carried them over hill and dale (pp. 1013. 1028), there grew up the idea of an amorous alliance between him and every single witch.

Connecting links may be found in abundance. Ghostly beings could form close and intimate ties with men; a long line of neighbourly elves links its destiny to the good or ill fortunes of a human family, home-sprites devote themselves to a man's service, and cling to him with obstinate and troublesome fidelity (p. 513) ; only these attachments are neither founded on formal compact, nor are they pernicious to man. An equally tender and an innocent relation subsists between him and the attendant guardian spirit given him at birth, p. 875.

The witches' devils have proper names so strikingly similar m

witches' devils.

1063

formation to those of elves and kobolds, that one can scarcely think otherwise than that nearly all devils' names of that class are descended from older folk-names for those sprites. A collection of such names, which I have culled out of witch- trials, may afford us a welcome glimpse into old elvish domestic economy itself. Some are taken from healing herbs and flowers, and are certainly the product of an innocent, not a diabolic fancy : Wolgemut (ori- ganum), Schone (bellis minor, daisy), Luzei (aristolochia) , Wege- tritt (plantago), Blumchenblau (conf. the marvelous flower, p. 971), Peterlein (parsley) ; exactly such are the names of two fairies in Midsum. N. Dr., Peasehlossom and Mnstardseed. Names equally pretty are borrowed from the forest life of the sprites : Orunlauh (-leaf), Griinewald, Lindenlaub, Lindenzweig (-twig), Eichenlaub (oak), Birnhaum (pear), Birnbaumchen, Rautenstrauch (rue), Buchsbaum (box), Holderlin (elder), Krdnzlein (garland), Spring -ins-f eld, Hurlebusch, Zum-wald-fliehen ; clad in green (as the devil is in Kinderm. 101) appear the Scotch elves (Minstrelsy 2, 152-4. 160-4) and Norse huldre (Faye p. 42) ; foliage garlands must have been largely used in ancient sacrifices as well as in sorcery, oak-leaves in particular are enjoined on witches, and are used in brewing storms (Mone's Anz. 8, 129). As the Devil often presents himself in fair angelic guise (' in young man's sheen' occurs already in Ls. 3, 72), he receives such names as Mingling, Junker, Schdnhans, and feather- ornaments or wings are a favourite ascription, hence the names Feder, Federhans, Federling, Federhusch, Weissfeder (white-f.), Straussfeder (ostrich- f.), Strausswedel (-plume), Grunwedel. Of all the names confessed by witches, none is commoner than Flederwisch (Voigt's Abh. 62-8-9. 105-9. 113. 129), but folktales give that name to ko- bolds (Jul. Schmidt 158), and carousers in their cups used to drink fto all flederwischen ! ' (Franz. Simpl. 1, 47. 57): by flederwisch we mean the end limb of a (goose) wing, used for the purpose of dusting, hence Kehrwisch also occurs as a devil's name, aptly denoting the rapid whisking to and fro of a spirit. Then again proper names of men are in great request, especially in the familiar fondling form which is also used for kobolds (p. 504) : Hans, Hdnschen, junker Hans (squire Jack), Grauhans (conf. Gray man, p. 993), Grunhans, Hans vom busch ; Heinrich, Grau- heinrich, Hinze ; Kunz, Kunzchen (conf. Kueni, p. 1003), Konrad ;

1064

MAGIC.

Nickel, Grossnickel ; Martin (p. 931), Merten ; Kaspar, Kasparle ; Bewes, Bupel, Bilppel (p. 504), Bausch (p. 51 7n.), Wendel (p. 375 last 1.), Hemmerlin (p. 182), Stophel, junker Stof (Christoph, the first syll. shortened with a purpose? conf. Stopchen, p. 1003), some few of them equally savouring of the heathenish and the devilish ; Perlebitz (in some Hessian trials Berlewitzchen, -witchen), probably the same as pilwitz (p. 472). 1 The following begin to look suspicious : Leidenoth, Machleid, Ungluck, Beiclieher, Hintenhervor, Allerlei-wollust (perh. a flower's name), Schwarzburg, Dreifuss, Kuhfuss, Kuhdhrnchen, Bickbauch ; yet they may also turn upon the satyr-like shape of the schrats, or upon the weird and worrying nature of any intercourse with the demonic world. The old Easter-play supplies the following names, belonging at latest to the beginning of the 15th century: Kottelrey, Rosen- kranz, Krezlin, Federwisch, Baffenzan, Binkebank, Spiegelglanz, Schorbrant, Schojppenstak, Hellekrug, 2 Schorzemage ; they are easy to explain from what has gone before. Italian streghe call their devil Martinello, Martinetto, and again Fiorino ; French trials furnish maistre Persil, Verdelet, Verdjoli, Jolibois, Saute- buisson. Two more fairies in Mids. N. Dream, Moth and Cobweb, are worth remembering. All these names have nothing in com- mon with the names of the Jewish or Christian devil, except with those quoted pp. 988-9. 1003, and they are kobolds' names.3 Some of the names in my list appear to belong equally to the witches themselves, just as elves have several common to both sexes. Thus the feminine names of plants and flowers are more suitable to sorceresses (see Suppl.).

Love-affairs between spirits and men arise out of their familiar intercourse. She-kobolds are nowhere mentioned, and we are never told of kobolds having designs upon women ; elves on the contrary do carry off maidens, and men live in secret intimacy with elfins ; thus Helgi became the father of Skuld by an alfkona, Fornald. sog. 1, 32. 96. Bat except that Elberich having made himself invisible overpowers Otnit's mother, and an dlfr does the

1 The Hessian dialect often inserts an r: at Cassel they call bellevue berlevue.

2 Mone's Schausp. p. 131 has hellekruke for witch.

3 A few times the hellish wooer is called Lucifer or Belzebok, Trier, act. 114 ; where the name jamer is also given, which I do not quite understand : is it jammer unpleasant [as in jammer schade, a sad pity] , or jammer ailment, epilepsy?

devil's bkide.

1065

like to king Aldrian's wife and begets Hogni, I cannot tlaink of any instance of such amours as lie at the bottom of all the witch- stories. The notions of incubus and succubus seem to me not of German origin, though afterwards they got mixed up with those of elf and night- spirit. An AS. manuscript in Wanley, either of the 12th, 11th, or some earlier cent., speaks of i monnom, ]?e deofol mid hseurS.' In the later doctrine about witches their prostitution is an essential feature, it seals the compact, and gives the Devil free control over them : in a pure maid he can have no part.1 Without this abomination we never come across a witch at all.2

It is a question, at what period witches* covenants and amours are first mentioned in Germany. No doubt the first impulse to them was given by the persecution and consequent spread of heresies, which after the middle of the 13fch cent, came from Italy and France into Germany. However guilty or innocent the heretics may have been, report, magnifying and distorting, charged their assemblies with idolatrous excesses, whose affinity to witches'' doings is beyond dispute. Among the heretics them- selves, with their seclusion, reserve, and constantly repeated success in attaching new disciples and adherents, some ancient departures from orthodox faith and ritual kept stubbornly reproducing themselves ; as persistently did calumnies start up against them. They were accused of adoring a beast or beast's head, which presently turned into the Devil, who became visible, now as a black spirit, now as a bright beguiling angel, his fa- vourite animal shape being that of a he-cat, or else a toad. At their meetings, it was said, they slaughtered children and kneaded their blood in flour or ashes, and after extinguishing the lights, practised together the lusts of the flesh. Newly admitted mem- bers were marled by the prick of a needle, the while they cursed their Maker, and signified their faith and homage to the Evil one, as to worldly rulers, by a kiss.3 Even in the less offensive teach -

1 ' Le demon ne peut faire pacte avec une vierge,' Mich. Hist, de Fr. 5, 68. 159.

2 Greek antiquity had its fables about the intercourse of gods with mortals (p. 343), and so had our heathenism about the union of heroes with swan- wives and elfins ; at last the far grosser conception could find credence, of a literal commerce of the Devil with mankind !

3 Soldan's Geschichte der Hexenprocesse pp. 103—146.

1066 MAGIC.

ing and practice of some heretics there could not fail to be a mixture of heathen things with christian; the church's zeal had to bestir itself at once against new errors of doctrine and against remnants of heathenism that were combined with them. Along with heretic-prosecutions went rumours of diabolic compacts and conferences, which the populace connected with their ancient be- lief in dsemonic beings. Traditions of certain men being leagued with the Devil had already circulated in the West, at all events from the 10th cent. (p. 1017) ; the more readily would they now be extended to women. The earliest certain mention of an in- trigue between witch and devil is of the year 1275 under an inquisitor at Toulouse (Soldan p. 147) ; the first half of the 14th cent, seems to have established more firmly, especially in Italy, the belief in a diabolic sisterhood (secta strigarum). Bartolus (d. 1357) delivered a judgment on a witch of Ortha and Riparia m Novara bpric.,1 the charge was novel to him, and he appeals to theologians as to the nature of the crime; from the whole tenor of his sentence we may assume that seldom or never had a witch been tried in the Milanese before. Amongst other things he says : < Mulier striga sive lamia debet igne cremari, confitetur se crucem fecisse ex paltis et talem crucem pedibus conculcasse . . . se adorasse diabolum, Mi genua fledendo . . . pueros tactu stricasse et fascinasse, adeo quod mortui fuerunt. Audivi a sacris quibusdam theologis, has mulieres quae lamiae nuncupantur tactu vel visu posse nocere etiam usque ad mortem fascinando homines seu pueros ac bestias, cum habeant animas infectas, quae daemoni

voverunt.> Between 1316 and 1334 pope John XXII had issued

a bull without date, ordering the property of convicted sorcerers to be confiscated like that of heretics. What was then done by inquisitors and judges Soldan has subjected to a minute investi- gation (pp. 160—210), and I need only single out one or two facts. Alfonsus de Spina in his Fortalitium fidei (written about 1458) lib. 5 informs us : ' Quia nimium abundant tales perversae mulieres in Delphinatu et Gaschonia, ubi se asserunt concurrere de nocte in quadam planitie deserta, ubi est aper quidam in rupe, qui vulgariter dicitur el boch de Biterne, et quod ibi convemunt cum candelis accensis, et adorant ilium aprum, osculantes eum m

i Printed in Joh. Bapt. Ziletti consilior. select, in criminal, causis, Francof. 1578 fol., torn. 1, consil. 6.

devil's beide.

1067

ano suo ; ideo captae plures earum ab inquisitoribus fidei, et con- victae, ignibus comburuntur ; signa autem combustarum sunt depicta, qualiter scilicet adorant cum candelis praedictum aprum, in domo inquisitoris Tholosani in magna multitudine camisearum,

sicut ego propriis oculis aspexi.' -Read throughout caper for

aper, as bock, boc, bouc evidently means the former. Adoring and kissing of the he-goat or he-cat was just the charge brought against heretics, whose very name (ketzer, cathari) some derived from that circumstance.1 This parody of divine worship may either be connected with goat-sacrifices of the heathen (p. 52) and the sacredness of that animal, or explained by the goat's feet ascribed to the devil from of old (p. 995). Kissing the toad (Soldan p. 133-6) is wonderfully like those conditions necessary to the release of ' white women 3 (p. 969) ; here heretical opinions coincide with superstition. In 1303 a bishop of Coventry was accused at Rome of a number of heinous crimes, amongst others c quod diabolo homagium fecerat} et eum fuerit osculatus in tergo 3 ; Boniface 8 acquitted him (Rymer 2, 934 old ed.). The same charge is commonly brought against the later witches. Dr. Hartlieb in 1446 mentions e abjuring God and giving oneself up to three devils/ Superst. H, cap. 34.

For four centuries, beginning with the 14th ; what with the priestly Inquisition, with the formality of the Canon and Civil law process simultaneously introduced in the courts, and to crown all, with Innocent 8's bull of 1484 (MB. 16, 245-7), as well as. the Malleus Maleficarum3 and the tortures of the criminal court j the prosecutions and condemnations of witches multiplied at an unheard-of rate, and countless victims fell in almost every part of Europe. The earlier Mid. Ages had known of magicians and witches only in the milder senses, as legendary elvish beings, peopling the domain of vulgar belief, or even as demoniacs, not

• 1 ' Catari dicuntur a cato, quia osculantur posteriora cati, in cujus specie, lit dicunt, apparet eis Lucifer,' Alan, ab Insulis (d. 1202) contra Valdenses, lib. 1. A better name for heretics was boni homines, bons hommes (Soldan p. 131), not, I think, because so many were of good condition, but in harmony with other meanings of the term (conf. supra p. 89). At the same time it reminds us of the ghostly good women, bonae dominae, p. 287, as ' francs hommes ' does of the franches puceles, p. 410 n. Even the gute holden are not to be overlooked.

2 Composed 1487 by the two inquisitors appointed by Innocent, Heinr. Insti- toris in Alemannia and Jac. Sprenger at Cologne, with the help of Joh. Gremper, priest at Constance. Soon followed by episcopal mandates, e.g. at Kegensburg 1491-3 (MB. 16, 241-3). 5 5

1068

MAGIC.

as actual apostates from God and malefactors arraigned before a court of justice. A good deal has been made of the Annales Corbeienses, which do expressly state under the year 914, f multae sagae combustae sunt in territorio nostro 3 ; but these Annals were not written till 1464, and have of late been totally dis- credited. Several ancient Codes lay penalties on sorcery ; 1 but all the cases that occurred had for their basis real crimes, murder, poisoning ; the stria is a ( herbaria/ i.e. venefica ; 2 for alleged storm-raising few can have forfeited their lives. Especially worthy of note are the punishments denounced against precisely those persons who from a vain belief in sorcery have burnt or put to death either man or woman ; 3 not sorcery, but the slaying of supposed sorcerers is what the enlightened law pronounces heathenish and diabolic. On the mere ground of a night-excur- sion with 'unholden' nobody dreamt of bringing a criminal charge against women; that father confessor of the 13th cent, (p. 1060) refutes the confessions of his c domina sortilega5 by rational argument.4 But when once, by a fatal confusion of

1 Lex Sal. 22. Lex Rip. 83. Lex Visigoth, vi. 2, 2. 3, 4. Lex Alam. add. 22. Capital, a.d. 789 cap. 18. Capit. ii. a.d. 805.

2 Meichelbom no. 683 : a.d. 853, a girl at Freising, venefica ; a.d. 1028, 1 malefica mulier artes maleficas cum tribus aliis mulieribus exercens,' Pertz 6, 146 ; a.d. 1074 at Cologne, 'mulier homines plerumque magicis artibus dementare infamata,' Lamb, schafn. p. 375.

3 Capit. Caroli de part. Sax. 5 : ' si quis adiabolo deceptus crediderit secundum morem Paganorum, virum aliquem aut feminam strigam esse, et homines comedere, et propter hoc ipsam incenderit, vel carnem ejus ad comedendum dederit, capitis sen- tentia punietur.1 Lex Eoth. 379 : ' nullus praesumat aldiam alienam aut ancillam quasi strigam occidere, quod christianis mentibus nullatenus est credendum nec possibile est ut hominem mulier vivum intrinsecus possit comedere.' How the wisdom of Charles and Rothar shines by the side of Innocent's blind barbarous bull ! Those ' sagae combustae ' in Westphalia, if the statement be worth believing, were hardly condemned by the courts, but more likely sacrificed by the mob to such heathenish superstition as the laws quoted were trying to stem. In our own day the common folk in England, France and Belgium take it upon themselves to throw suspected witches into fire or the pond(Horst's Zauberbibl. 6, 368. 372-4). White's Selborne p. 202 : 1 the people of Tring in Hertfordshire would, do well to remember that no longer ago than 1751 they seized on two superannuated wretches, crazed with age and overwhelmed with infirmities, on a suspicion of witchcraft ; and by trying experiments drowned them in a horsepond.' The Gazette des tribunaux no. 3055, June 4, 1835 relates a trial of supposed magicians, whose family had the hereditary faculty of charming lice away.

4 It is true the Sachsensp. ii. 13, 7 has : ' svelk kerstenman ungelovich (un- believing) is, unde mit tovere umme gat oder mit vorgiftnisse (poisoning), unde des verwunnen wirt, den sal man upper hort bernen.1 Schwabensp. 149. Wackern. 174. Lassb. Gosl. stat. 38, 20. The words ' oder wif ' standing after ' kerstenman ' in Homeyer, are a later insertion : they are wanting in other laws, and are contra- dicted by the pron. ' den,' him, which follows. That these docs, speak of wizards, not yet of witches, seems to fit better their age and spirit ; yet it must be noted, that they already link apostacy with witchcraft, conf. Soldan 172 — 4. Biener, in

WITCH-TEIALS.

1069

sorcery with heresy, the notion gained a footing that every witch renounces God and becomes the DeviTs, everything assumed a new aspect : as the Devil5 s ally, apart from any crimes she might have committed, she was deserving of death, and her sin was one of the greatest and horriblest. But from that time the earlier notion of possession by the devil almost entirely ceased : imagination had taken a new direction.

Witch-trials of the 16-17-1 8th centuries have been amply made known, of the 15th few completely.1 One need only have read two or three of them : everywhere an unaccountable uni- formity of procedure, always the same result. At first the accused deuies ; tortured? she confesses what all those doomed before her have confessed, and without delay she is condemned and burnt (inciuerata, as the Malleus expresses it). This agreement in depositions of imaginary facts is to be explained by the traditional illusions that filled the popular fancy. I will here attempt to summarize all the essential points (see Suppl.) .3

Zeitschr. f. gesch. rechtsw. 12, 126, would limit the penal fire of the Sachsensp. to cases where the spiritual court hands the sinner ewer, as impenitent, to the secular.

1 Little can be gleaned from a Tractatus de phitonico contractu fratris Thomae Murner, Friburgi Brisg. 1499. Murner tells how in childhood he was crippled by a witch.

3 The hangman's formula ran : ' thou shalt be tortured so thin that the sun will shine through thee ! ' EA. 95. Diut. 1, 105.

3 Witch-trials at Mainz of 1505-11, in Horst's Zauberbibl. 4, 210—8 ; at Frei- burg of 1546 and 1627— 35, ed. H. Schreiber, Freib. 1836 ; at Quedlinburg of 1569 —78, in G. C. Voigt's Gemeinmitz. abh. Leipz. 1792 pp. 59—160 ; at Trier of 1581, in Trier, chronik 1825, 10. 196 seq., and of 1625 ib. 108 seq. ; at Nordlingen of 1590 —4, ed. Weng, Nordl. 1838 ; in Elsass of 1615—35, in Lit. bl. der borsenh. Hamb. 1835 nos. 1092-3 ; at Eichstatt of 1590 and 1626—37, repr. Eichst. 1811 ; at Wem- dingen of 1620, in Mone's Anz. 7, 425—7 ; at Dieburg of 1627, in Steiner's Gesch. von Dieb. , Darmst. 1820, 67—100; at Buhl of 1628-9, in Mone's Anz. 8, 119— 132 ; at Siegburg of 1636, in P. E. Schwabe's Gesch. v. Siegb. , Col. 1826, 225— 241 ; in Brandenburg of the 15-18thcent., in Mark, forsch. 1, 238—265 ; at Cammin of 1679, in Pommer. provinzialbl. Stettin 1827, 1, 332—365 ; at Freising of 1715—7, in Aretin's Beitr. 4, 273 — 327. Useful extracts from Swabian trials of the 15th cent, are in the notorious Malleus malefic, (first printed 1489) ; from Lorrainian of 1583 — 90, in Nic. Bemigii daemonolatria ; and from Burgundian (en la terre de sainct Oyan de Joux) of 1588-9, in Henry Bogvetfs Disc, execrable des sorciers, Bouen.1603, repr. Lyon 1610. Less important is S. Meiger de panurgia lamiarum, Hamb. 1587. 4. On Scandinavia : Nyerup's Udsigt over hexeprocesserne i Norden (Skand. Lit.-selskabs skrifter 19, 339—394. 20, 1-42), in which an extr. from Lem on Norweg. sorcery (19, 385) is specially instructive ; Trollvasendet i Dalarna, aren 1668— 73, in J. M. Bergman's Beskrifning om Dalarne, Fahlun 1822. 1, 208—19. I have also read Girol. Tartarotti del congresso notturno delle lamie, Kover. 1749. 4 ; and C. F. de Cauz de cultibus magicis, Vindob. 1767. 4 : two painstaking books, the first revelling in Ital. prolixity ; D. Tiedemann's prize essay De artium magicarum origine, Marb. 1787 was of less use to me. On the Netherl. : Scheltema's Geschie- denis der heksenprocessen, Haarl. 1829 I had not at hand ; Cannaert's Bydragen

1070 MAGIC.

The Devil appears in the shape of a fine young man, gaily plumed and amorous; not till too late does the witch observe the horsefoot or goosefoot (wilde pnotte fiisse, Nordl. hexenpr. 35). He then compels her to abjure God (p. 818), baptizes her over again, making her choose sponsors, gives her a new name, and reveals his own. A mark is printed on her body (p. 1077), and the place has no feeling ever after ; in some cases hair is plucked out from the front of the head. He comes sometimes as a mouse, goat, crow or fly, but soon changes into human shape. Even after repeated dalliances the witch receives but small presents of money; what he gave as glittering coin is by daylight muck and dirt.1 The main thing is, that on certain days the Devil fetches her, or appoints her to go, to nightly feasts, which are held in company with other witches and devils. After anointing her feet and shoulders with a salve* or tying a girdle round her, she bestrides a stick, rake, broom, distaff, shovel, ladle or oven-fork, and muttering a spell, flies up the chimney, and away through the air over hill and dale.3 A dehselrite, Helbl. 1, 1196 (p. 1049), a fork-rider, besom-rider all mean a witch, so does quosten- pinderin, sash-binder, Clara Hatzl. W> (quaste = perizoma, cingulum). A 14th cent, story told in Herm. von Sachsenheim (Wackern. lb. 1005-6) makes an old woman at Urach anoint with salve the calf on which she is to ride. If the hellish wooer comes to fetch the witch, his seat on the stick is in front, and hers behind ; or he is a goat, and she mounts him ; or she drives

tot het oude strafregt in Vlaenderen, Bruss. 1829, repr. Gend 1835 has interesting extrs 475-917 some fresh facts are collected in Schaye's Essai historique, Louv ?oo? i?« 9A9 ThPrp is a crowd of other books: Horst's Damonomagie, iMsS ^Zautab Zi^ZL 1821-6, and Walter Scott's Demonol. and witchcraft I have hardly used at all ; both, based on diligent compilation, lack Jme ™"and scholarship ; besides, Horst's work is turgid and irmraet and careless. Most of the above are far surpassed by Soldan s tresenicnte der T^pSsse, Stattg. 1843, a work of whose value I give a fuller estimate in my Preface divine the devil turns topsyturvy, p. 986: his gold turns into filth • whereas when gods or benignant beings bestow leaves, chips, or pods, these furn into sheer gold pgp. 268. 275 8 Hence, when the devil sits, when witches stand

cathedral.

INITIATION.

1071

horses that come out of the ground. Older accounts have it, that the devil takes her inside his cloak, and carries her through the air, whence she is called mantelfahre, mantelfahrerin. At the trysting-place arejnany more witches, each with her demon lover ; they are mostly neighbour women, often such as have long been dead, some (the superior sort) muffled and masked. But their wooers are mere servants of the Chief Devil, who in goat-shape, but with black human face, sits silent and solemn on a high chair or a large stone table in the midst of the ring, and all do him reverence by kneeling and kissing. When the Chief Devil takes a particular fancy to one woman, she is named the witches3 queen, and ranks above all the rest,1 answering to that Norse trolla konungr, p. 1043. The undelightful meal is illumined by black torches, all kindled at a light that burns between the horns of the great goat. Their viands lack salt and bread,9, they drink out of cows' hoofs and horses' heads. Then they relate what mischief they have wrought, and resolve on new : if their misdeeds fail to satisfy the Devil, he beats them. After the feast,3 that neither fills nor nourishes, the dance begins : up in a tree sits the musician, his fiddle or bagpipe is a horse's head (p. 1050), his fife a cudgel or a cat's tail. In dancing the partners face outwards, turning their backs to each other : in the morning you may see a circular track in the grass, shewing the print of cows' and goats' feet. The dance, according to Hessian trials of 1631, is like that of the sword-dancers (p. 304) ; we often hear of one of the women wearing the guldne schuh on her right foot, would she be queen or commandress ? Martin von Amberg speaks of ' making red shoes (schuechel) for the trut'; to dance in? When the ring-dance is over, they beat each other with swingle-staves and mangle-bats, and practise lewdness. At last the great goat bums himself to ashes, and these are distributed among the witches to work mischief with. A young untried witch is not at once admitted to the feast and dance, but set on one side to tend toads with a white wand ; 4 at home also they breed and maintain these

1 Laffert's Kelationes criminales, Celle 1721. pp. 52-4. Horst's Damonom. 2, 376-7.

2 Yet they eat bread baked on a Sunday, meat salted on Sunday ; and drink wine put in cask on Sunday.

3 Distinction of ranks is kept up too : the rich sit down to table first, and drink out of silver goblets, then the poor out of wooden bowls or hoofs.

4 O. Fr. poets also put peeled wands in the hands of witches : ' une vielle

1072

MAGIC.

animals : the Hatzlerin lxviiia already chides a witch as f inhitzige hrotensack ! 3 Such a novice witch the Devil inverts, and sticks a candle in a part of her person, Thiir. mitth. vi. 3, 69. They go home the same way as they came : the husband, who all the while has mistaken a staff laid in the bed for his sleeping spouse, knows nothing of what has passed. Whoever happens to get sight of a witches' dance, need only utter the name of God or Christ : it all stops in a moment, and disappears.1 The harm that witches do is chiefly to the cattle and crops of their neigh- bours. They know how to drain other people's cows of every drop of milk, without coming near them, Superst. G, line 132 : they stick a 'knife in an oaken post, hang a string on it, and make the milk flow out of the string (Keusch's Samland p. 66) ; or they drive an axe into the doorpost, and milk out of the helve ; they draw milk out of a spindle, out of a suspended handkerchief.2 They turn good milk blue, or bloody-colour ; their compliments on entering your house are bad for the milk : if you were just going to churn, the butter will not come, Sup. I, 823. Hence any witch is called milch-diebin (as the butterfly is a milk or butter thief), milch-zauberin, molken-stehlerin, molken-toversclw, whey- bewitcher.3 Here again comes to light the connexion between witches, elves and butterflies, for vulgar opinion blamed dwarfs also for drawing milk from the udders of kine : ON. dverg-speni means papilla vaccarum vacua. If your milk is bewitched, whip it in a pot, or stir it about with a sickle : every lash or cut makes the witch wince, Sup. I, 540. A Wetterau superstition takes this shape : when a beast is bewitched, they set the frying-pan on, and chop into it with the grass-chopper behind bolted doors ; the first person who comes after that is the witch. The power of witches to draw milk and honey from a neighbour's house to their own is already noticed by old Burchard, Sup. C, p. 199d. Lashing the brooks with their brooms, squirting water up in the air, shooting gravel, scattering sand toward sunset, witches

barbelee, qui porte a verge pelee plus de qatre vingts ans,' Kenart 28286 ; conf . Meon 4 478, ' remest ausi monde com la verge qui est pelee:

1 DS no 251. Wolf's Niederl. sagen 245. 381-2. Wodana xxxvi.

2 So, by magic, wine is struck out of the post, Superst. G, line 262 ; conf. the legend of Doctor Faust. .

3 on the eve of S. Philip and S. James, i.e. May 1, people in the I. of Kugen run about the fields with large fire-bladders : this they call molkenfoverschen brennen Kugian. landgebr. cap. 243. 1 milchdiebin und unhold,' H. Sachs hi. 3, 5d.

witches' doings.

1073

bring on storm and hail (p. 909) , to beat down their neighbour's corn and fruit. For the same purpose they are said to boil bristles or else oak-leaves in pots, or strew some of those deviVs- ashes on the fields. These are the lightning or weather witches, whose doings will come to be treated more fully hereafter. It is said they stroke or strip the dew off the grass, and with it do harm to cattle, Sup. I, 1118 ; also that early before sunrise they skim the dew off other people's meadows, and carry it to their own, to make the grass grow ranker ; hence they may be recog- nised by their large clumsy feet, and are called thau- stretcher (in E. Friesland dau- striker) , though other suspicious characters, even men, are called the same bad name. This clearly hangs together with the dew-brushing after the nightly elf-dance, and the dew the valkyrian steeds shake out of their manes ; only here it is perverted to evil. A witch, by binding up the legs of a footstool, can heal the broken bones of: one who is „ absent. If she is present at a wedding, just as the blessing is pronouncing, she snaps a padlock to, and drops it in the water : this is called tying up the laces ; until the padlock can be fished up and un- locked, the marriage proves unfruitful. Witches can kill men by dealing pricks to images or puppets ; in churchyards they dig up the bodies of young children, and cut the fingers off ; 1 with the fat of these children they are supposed to make their salve. This seems to be their chief reason for entrapping children ; to the sorceress of older times kidnapping was imputed far more freely (p. 1059). From the Devil's commerce with witches pro- ceeds no human offspring, but elvish beings, which are named dinger (things, conf. wihtir, p. 440), elbe, holden, but whose figure is variously described : now as butterflies, then as humble- bees or queppen (quab, burbot), and again as caterpillars or worms. Even an OHGr. gloss in Graff 1, 243 has : alba, brucus, locusta quae nondum volavit. The enigmatic beetle and larva shape is very appropriate to such beings.2 They are called by turns good

1 Fingers of a babe unborn are available for magic : when lighted, they give a flame that keeps all the inmates of a house asleep ; equally useful is the thumb cut off the hand of a hanged thief. Conf. Schamberg de jure digitor. p. 61-2, and Praetorius on thieves' thumbs, Lips. 1677. The Coutume de Bordeaux § 46 treats of magic wrought with dead children's hands. Thief's hand was the name of a plant, p. 1029.

2 The caterpillar is also called deviVs cat (p. 1029), and a witch, like the dragon- fly, deviVs bride, deviVs doxy. The Finn. Ukon koira (Ukkonis canis) means papilio

1074 MAGIC.

and bad things, good and bad elves, good1 and bad holden, holder- chen, holdiken. Witches nse them to produce illness and swel- lings in man and beast, by conjuring them into the skin and bones. But they also make them settle on forest-trees, they dig them in under elder-bushes : the f elves/ in gnawing away the wood of the aspen, waste away the man at whom they are aimed. The same witch as set the ' holden 9 on a man must take them off again ; when she wants them, she goes into the wood and shakes them off the trees, or digs them out from under the elder (the elves' grave). You may know a man into whom holden have been charmed, by there being no manikin or baby {/copr), pupa) visible in his eyes, or only very faintly (Voigt pp. 149. 152). This is like the devil's drawing a toad on the pupil of a witch's left eye. -The nine species of holden I shall specify in the chap, on Diseases. But not unfrequently the demon lover himself appears in the form of an elf or butterfly. Their daughters born in human wedlock the witches have to promise to the devil at their birth, and to bring them up in his service ; at great assemblies they present to him any children they have, lifting them up backwards. Sometimes they sacrifice black cattle to him. They love to gather where roads divide; 3 like the devil (p. 999), they can pop in and out of houses through the keyhole (Sup. G, line 106-7. Tobler 146a) ; where three lights burn in a room, the witch has power ; ringing of bells they cannot bear. Before the judge they must not be allowed to touch the bare ground, or they will change themselves in a moment ; they are incapable of shedding a tear ; thrown into water, they float on the top* upon which fact the

or larva papilionis, tuonen koira (mortis canis) and suden korendo (lupi vectis) butterfly and Ukon lehma (U. vacca) another insect. Swed. trollstanda(dzemoms fusus) butterfly. In the Grisons they call a caterpillar baluise, m Switz (acc. to Stalder) palause, which is our old acquaintance pelewise, P^weise, p . 472-5. A mythic meaning also lurks in the OHG. huntes-satul (eruca), Graff 6, 167, as m

°N' f Called rqutTholden even when harmful magic is wrought with them, Braun- schw anz. 1815, p. 726 seq. In the Malleolus I find : ' vermes nocivi-qm vulgariter dicuntur iuqer ' and ' Alemannico nomine juger nuncupantur, sunt albi colons et nigri capitis, sex pedum, in longitudine medii digiti.' Is jug the same thing as miea fm> 183 692) ? Many other designations of the phalaenae overlap those ot will o' wisps or of wichtels, as zunsler, from fluttering round a light, land-surveyors, (p. 918), night-owls, etc.

2 At cross-roads the devil can be called up, so can the Alraun.

3 Plinv 7 2 of sorcerers : « eosdem praeterea non posse mergi ne veste quidem deeravatos.' We are told several times, that the devil, after promising to bring the witches in the water an iron bar to make them sink, brings them only a line needle.

MISERY.

1075

ancient usage of the witches' bath (ducking) was founded, once a divine ordeal, EA. 925. If at the beginning of the action they contrive to catch the judge's eye, he' turns soft-hearted, and has not the power to doom them.

Now it is a characteristic fact, that witches, with all their cunning and the devil's power to boot, remain sunk in misery and deep poverty : there is no instance to be found of one growing rich by sorcery, and making up for the loss of heavenly bliss by at least securing worldly pleasure, a thing that does occur in tales of men who sign themselves away to the fiend (p. 1017). These hook-nosed, sharp- chinned, hang-lipped, wry-toothed, chap- fingered beldams1 practise villainy that never profits them, at most they may gratify a love of mischief. Their dalliance with the devil, their sharing in his feasts, never procures them more than a half-enjoyment 2 (see Suppl.).

This one feature might have opened people's eyes to the basis of all sorcery. The whole wretched business rested on the imagination and compulsory confessions of the poor creatures. Of fact there was none, save that they had a knowledge of medi- cines and poisons, and quickened their dreams 3 by the use of salves and potions. Called upon to name their confederates, they often mentioned dead persons, to shield the living or to evade inquiry; any vile thing they stated was set down as gospel truth. We read of witches confessing the murder of people who turned out to be alive.4 It never occurred to the judges to consider, how on earth it happened that innumerable meetings of witches, all at well-known accessible places, had never been surprised by witnesses whom their road must have taken that way. By what special licence from God in those times should a pack of miscreants previously unheard of nestle down all of a sudden in towns and villages all over the country !

Long before witches were tortured, great criminals had been

i1! ^ro™?d nose and P°inted chin> took to find the fiend therein ! ' I find a parallel m ON. names, Hengikepta, Grottintanna, Loftinnfingra, Sn. 220-1

Berthold p. 58 : 'so gent eteliche mit bcesem zouberlehe umb, daz si wament ems geburen (boor's) sun oder einen kneht bezoubern. pfl du rehte tcerin ! war umbe bezouberstdu emen graven oder einen kiinec niht (fool, why not bewitch a count, a king) ? so wasrestu ein kuneginne ! ' They say a witch gets three farthing richer every seven years, Simplic. 625.

3 Alter wibe troume, Wh. 1, 82\ kerlinga villa, S»m. 169. 3 chap I'llimann de fascinatione P- 850' Montaigne notices the same fact, livre fOL. III.

1076

MAGIC.

put to bodily sufferings intended to wring from them a confession of their guilt. The Lex Visig. iii. 4, 10-11 already speaks of ( torquere' ; and the triangular beam on which the accused had to ride was called equuleus, poledrus, whence comes our falter, Fr. poultry poutre. That ON. extortion of a full declaration, e pina til sagna' p. 1013, need not have been borrowed from witch-trials.

The signing away to the devil, abjuring of God and adoring of the goat in witch-stories seems to be of heretic origin ; at the same time the abjurer parodies the Abrenuntiatio Diaboli enjoined on catechumens;1 in every other point the heathen element preponderates. Even the goat, and the offering of black beasts (pp. 52. 493. 1009), cannot but remind us of the old worship of gods ; it is remarkable that a Dalecarlian tradition makes the devil not occupy the chair of state, but lie under the table, bound with a chain (just as with those spinsters in German legend, p. 1011). The witches there have much to tell about this chain : when its links wear out, an angel comes and solders them to again, Bergm. 217-9. Various witcheries were wrought by the efficacy of salt, Sup. I, 713. 846 ; it seems almost as if we might assume a connexion between the salt-boiling , salt-grinding , salt- strewing, salt-burning , salt-fetching at p. 1047, and the burning of the goat, the carrying away and strewing of his ashes? Equally heathen we found the consumption of horseflesh p. 1049. The witches' flights were usually performed on May-night, St. John's night, and at Christmas, but also at Shrovetide, Easter and other seasons ; these were the days of great heathen festivals, of Easter-fires, May-fires, Solstitial and Yule fires, and there is no occasion to see in them a parody of the christian feasts. The riding by night, the torchlight procession, the penetrating of locked-up houses, are exactly as in the case of Holda's host ;

1 In the formulas : 1 ik fate an (grasp) disen witten stock, und verlate (forsake) unsen lierre G-ott (Cathol. : Marien son und Got) ! ' or ' her trede ik in din nist (nest), und verlate unsen herre Jesum Christ ! ' In Hessian records of 1633 : 'hie stehe ich uf dieser mist, und verleugne (deny) des lieben herrn J. Christ ! In abjuring, she stands on the dunghill, which begins to burn round her, and with a white stick she stabs a toad (iitsche). The standing on dung is also in conjuring- spells. The white staff is a symbol of surrender, and after being grasped is thrown into the water.

• Shepherds reputed to be sorcerers were accused of baptizing their sheep with salt. Factums et arrest du parlem. de Paris contre des berges sorciers executez depuis peu dans la prov. de Brie sur l'imprime a Paris 1695. 8, p. 57.

HEATHEN OBIGIN OF DUCKING-, ETC.

1077

the seducers' names, the spells, the brood of ' holden,' the round dance, all this is elvish.1 A witch's being strengthened by touching the bare ground (iarftar-megin p. 642) may remind us of the heathen belief about giants. An application of the Old- German ducking to witches sprang out of the early practice of courts which had long used it against sorceresses who committed actual crimes. I do not know that the blood-mark imprinted on witches (p. 1070) on forming their hellish compact is necessarily to be traced to the practice of heretics (p. 1065). Mingling of blood in oaths and covenants was ancient and widely spread, B A. 192-3; the stigma was known in Germany long before witches were prosecuted,2 the regular name for it being anamali (Graff 2, 715). The corresponding auiseli in ON. I find only in the ethical sense of nota==vituperium ; but when heroes of old Scandinavia found themselves dying the stra-dau$i in bed, they used first to consecrate themselves to 03inn, who would only take a bleeding hero, by scratch of spear, even as he before dying gave himself a gash with Gungnir (p. 147) ; this they called marka sik geirs oddi, marka sik 0$ni, Yngl. saga cap. 10. 11. And I incline moreover to connect the f tires tacen/ p. 200, and even the < T6des zeichen/ p. 847 ; about all this there was not a thought of criminal sorcery (see Suppl.) .

The details of witchcraft, the heart-eating, the storm-raising, the riding through air, are all founded on very ancient and widely scattered traditions, which I will now examine more minutely.

Let a glance at Servian superstitions lead the way. The veshtitsa is possessed by an evil spirit : when she falls asleep, he comes out of her, and then takes the form of a butterfly or a hen, but he is essentially one with the witch. As soon as he is out, the witch's body lies as if dead, and then always turns its head about to where the feet lay ; in that state she cannot be awaked. The witch tries to catch people, to eat up, especially

/ • T^e honeysuc^le> or Perh. another plant, is in Lr. Germany called alf-ranke (elt-vme), hexen-schlinge (Eitter's Mekl. gram. p. 107. Arndt's March, p. 404) Any creepers, climbers, or intertwined branches, are named hexen-schlupf, because a witch ox elf, when pursued, can always slip through them.

ha „ • if • P\381' of the devil : they that fal1 into capital sin make him glad, escu?h Jpamts hls mark on them> and will fain have honour by their bearing his

1078 MAGIC.

young children. If she finds a man asleep, she pushes a rod through his left nipple, opens his side, takes out the heart and eats it, and the breast closes up again. Some of the people thus ' eaten out' die directly, others live on for a time. A witch will eat no garlic ; and at Shrovetide many people smear themselves with garlic on the breast, soles and armpits as a safeguard, believing that she eats more people in Lent than at other times. Young and handsome women are never suspected of sorcery, witches are always old women,1 but there goes a proverb : 1 mlada kurva, stara veshtitsa/ young wanton makes old witch. If once the witch has confessed and criminated herself, she can never eat people or practise witchcraft any more. When witches fly out by night, they shine like fire, their meeting-place is a thrashing floor (guvno), and each when starting from her kitchen anoints herself with a salve, and repeats a spell which will be quoted further on. If many children or other people die in a village, and suspicion falls on some old woman, they bind and throw her in the water : if she sinks, she is pulled out and let go ; if not, she is put to death, for witches cannot sink in water. Whoever kills a snake before Lady-day, and ties a piece of garlic in its head, and on Lady-day goes to church with the snake's head stuck on a cap, can tell what women are witches by their congre- gating round him and trying to filch the snake or a piece of it (Vuk sub v. vjeschtitza, pometno, blagovjest).

This remarkable account opens the way to explanations. We too had similar means of recognising witches. He that has about him a harrow's tooth he has picked up, or grains of corn found laked into the loaf, or a Maundy Thursday's egg, will see the witches at church with milking -pails on their heads, Sup. I, 636. 685. 783. Just the same in Denmark, Sup. 169. Bergman p. 219 says, in Dalarne the witches rarely come to church : it is really a sheaf of straw or a swine-trough that occupies their place, only no one is the wiser but they of the Blakulla sisterhood. I do

i It is chiefly in Sweden that even innocent children, boys as well as girls, are drawn into the web of sorcery. The devil requires every witch to bring some children with her ; she wakes them out of sleep with the words ' Devil s brat, come to the feast ! ' sets them on the roof till her number is full, then carries them through the air to the Fiend, who asks them if they will serve him, and writes them down in his book. He endows them with wisdom, and they are called vis-gassar, wise lads. Conf. the children piped out of Hameln. In our Freising records are some poor bejgar boys seduced by the devil. •

MEANS OF EE COGNITION.

1079

not know if this pail or trough has to do with their bewitching the milk, or with the Norse belief that giantesses, ellekoner and huldre- wives carry a trough on their hacks (Faye 118. Mull, sagabibl. 1, 367. Molb. dial. lex. 98). Keisersberg in Omeiss 36° tells of a night-faring woman who sat down in a dough-trough, anointed herself with oil, spoke magic words and slipt away (?). So early as in Sn. 210a we find among names of sorceresses a Bakrauf, riven-backed, fissura dorsi. In Dan. ' ellekone bagtil huul som et deigtrug,' Thiele 4, 26. All these resemblances are important. In the Appendix I quote a spell, ' where the alb is thus addressed : ' with thy bach like a dough- trough ! 3 Both elf and witch are beautiful only in front, behind they are disgustingly deformed, like Gurorysse p. 945, or dame World in Conrad's poem. Out of the Maundy Thursday egg, when hatched, comes a fowl of gay plumage, which changes colour every year : take such an egg with you to church on Easter Sunday morning, and in sunshine you can tell all the women who belong to the devil ; but they smell it out, and try to crush the egg in your pocket, so you must be careful to carry it in a little box, for if they succeed in crushing it, your heart will be broken too. Tobler 102a informs us of the Swiss super- stition : f weme ma n' am Sonntig vor sonna nufgang e nubblatU lets chlee (clover) ine schue ina thued, ond mit dem schue i d'chi- lacha god (goes to church), so sieht ma's, wenn e hax d'inen ist : die wo honder for sitzid (sit hind foremost) sond haxa/ Also, whoever at Christmas matins stands on a footstool of nine sorts of wood, can tell all the witches in the congregation : they all turn their backs to the altar. But the witches can see him too, and woe to him if they get hold of him after service ; he is a dead man, unless he has provided himself with something to tempt their cupidity, which he must keep throwing out bit by bit (as in ancient legend the pursued scatter rings and gold before the pursuing foe), and while they are picking it up, run as fast as he can, till his home receives him. A parchm. MS. of the 14th cent, at Vienna (Cod. bibl. graec. 39/63 bl. 133a) gives a simpler recipe : ' wil du, daz di vnholden zu dir chomen, so nym em leffel an dem fassangtag, vnd stoz in in gesoten prein, vnd behalt in also vntz in die drey metten in der Yasten (3 matins in Lent), vnd trag den leffel in dy metten, so wird ez dir chunt, wor

1080 MAGIC.

sew sinV Much the same in Moneys Anz. 4, 310 : He that on the first 'knopflein' day shall pull the spoon out of the dough unseen, and on the second and third day shall again put it in and pull it out unperceived, so that at length some dough from each day sticks to it, and shall then take it to church with him on Christmas day, will there see all the witches facing the wrong way (or, upside down?) ; but he must get home before the bene- diction is pronounced, or it may cost him his life. It is only upon going to church that any of these recognitions can take place ; but they seem also to depend on your being the first to see, as m meeting a wolf or basilisk. Another means of recognising a witch is, that when you look into her eyes, you see your image reflected upside down.1 Eunning at the eyes is a mark of old witches, Sup. I, 787 (see Suppl.).

One thing that in our tales of witches has dropt into the rear, their eating men's hearts out of their bodies, stands in the fore- front of the more primitive Servian way of thinking. Vuk has a song no. 363, in which a shepherd boy, whom his sister cannot wake, cries in his sleep : ' veshtitse su me iz-yele, maika mi srtse vadila, strina yoi luchem svetlila,' witches have eaten me out, mother took my heart, cousin lighted her with a torch. Fortis cap. 8 relates, how two witches took a young man's heart out in his sleep, and began to fry it; a priest had looked on without being able to hinder, and the spell was not broken till the youth awoke; then, when the priest approached the witches, they anointed themselves out of a mug, and fled. He took the heart half-cooked off the fire, and bade the youth gulp it down quick, by doing which he was completely restored. To me this Servian witch, making her appearance at Shrovetide and cutting open people's breasts, looks uncommonly like our periodical Berhta, who cuts open the lazy workman's body and stuffs it with chopped straw, p. 273 ; out of the goddess was made the hideous bugbear. In many villages, we are told, there are wicked wives that have a white liver, whose husbands waste away and die. Passages in the Codes prove that the same delusion prevailed among the ancient Germans : Lex. Sal. 67, <si stria hominem comederit/ and what was quoted p. 1068 from the Lex Roth. 379 and the

1 Pliny 7, 2 notices a similar test for magicians : « in altero oculo gemmam pupillam, in altero equi effigiem.' Conf. the people possessed by holden, p. 1074.

HEART-BATING.

1081

Capit. de parte Sax. 5. Also the Indie, paganiarum : ( quod feminae possint corda hominum tollere juxta paganos;' and Bur- chard : ( ut oredas, te januis clausis exire posse,, et homines inter- ficere et de coctis carnibus eorum vos comedere, et in loco cordis eorum stramen aut lignum aut aliquod hujusmodi ponere, et comestis iterum vivos facere et inducias vivendi dare.-5 Notker's Cap. 105, speaking of ambrones and anthropophagi (man-ezon), adds : ' also man chit, taz ouh Mzessa hier im lande tuen.3 1 The tenth, the eleventh century had not given up the heathen notion, nay, it lingers later still. It lies at the root of Diomed's words in Herbort 9318: 'si hat mvn herze mit ir . . . ich han niht in dem libe, da mm herze solde wesen, da trage ich eine lihte vesen, ein stro, oder einen wisch ; ' only here it is not an old witch, but his lady-love that has run away with his heart, in which sense lovers in all ages talk of losing their hearts.3 The poem given p. 1048 speaks of the unholde striding over a man, cutting his heart out, and stuffing straw in, and his still remaining alive. Says Berthold (Cod. pal. 35 fol. 28a) : < pfei ! gelawbestu, das du ainem man sein herz auss seinem leib nemest, und im ain stro hin wider stossest ? 3 So in the North they speak of a fern, mann- cetta (not a masc. mann-astti), and the word is even used for male magicians: ' troll ok manncetta/ Fornm. sog. 3, 214. A Polish story in Woycicki makes the witch pull the heart out and put a hare's heart in its place. Child- devouring f striges' in Altd. bl. 1, 125. Our present fairy-tales represent the witch as a wood- wife, who feeds and fattens children for her own consumption (KM. no. 15) ; if they escape, she goes after them in league- boots (nos. 51. 56. 113). Grimly the witch in the tale of Frau Trude throws a girl into the fire as a log of wood, and snugly warms herself thereby. That the Eomans believed in witches consuming particular parts of a man who still lived on, is proved by the following passages. Petronius cap. 134: ' quae striges comederunt nervos tuos ? ' cap. 63 : ' strigae puerum involaverunt,

1 To this he appends his well-known statement as to the Weletabi or Wilze, who were accused of eating their aged parents, EA. 488. That the national name Volot, , Velet passed into that of giant, hence ogre (as in the analogous cases on p. 527), bchafank has ably expounded in his Slav. stud. 1, 877 ; but he had no business to mix up (1, 882) our Welisungs (supra p. 371) with those Wilzen.

1 Bubacuori, che il cor m'avete tolto ; del petto mio cavasti il cuore ' Tom- maseo's Canti pop. 1, 88—90.

1082

MAGIC.

et supposuerunt stramentum.' Plautus in Pseud, iii. 2, 31 : e sed strigibus vivis convisis intestina quae exedint.' The Atellamc ghost, the manducus, from mandere, manducare, is a munching voracious bogie (butz p. 507), a bugbear to children. Masca p. 1045, Ital. maschera, may be referred to macher, mascher, or masticare, and the witch is called mask because she consumes children. The Indian sorceresses also try to get human flesh to eat, Lomad. 2, 62 (see Suppl.).

Equally ancient is the opinion that the spirit passes out of a sleeping witch in butterfly shape. Souls in general were likened to butterflies, p. 829 ; to the Slovens vezha is will o' wisp, but- terfly and witch. The alp appears as a butterfly or moth, pha- laena {nacht-toggeli, Staid. 1, 287), as a devil's beast p. 1029 ; the witches' holden and elves are butterflies. But our native legend speaks of other animals too, that issue from the mouths of sleepers. King Gunthram, spent with toil, had gone to sleep on a faithful follower's lap : then the henchman sees a little beast like a snake run out of his lord's mouth, and make its way to a streamlet, which it cannot step over. He lays his sword across the water, the beast runs over it, and goes into a hill on the other side. After some time it returns the same way into the sleeper, who presently wakes up, and relates how in a dream he had crossed an iron bridge and gone into a mountain filled with gold (Aimoin 3, 3. Paul. Diac. 3, 34, whence Sigebert in Pertz 8, 319). Later writers tell of a sleeping landsknecht, and how a weasel came running out of him, Deut. sag. no. 455. But in more recent accounts it is applied to devil's brides, out of whose mouth runs a cat or a red mouse, while the rest of the body lies fixed in slumber (ibid. nos. 247— 9). 1 A miller, cutting firewood iu the Black Forest, fell asleep over the work, and his man saw a mouse creep out of him and run away; everybody searched, but could not find it, and the miller never awoke. Is all this con- nected with the witches' mouse-making p. 1090, and the narrow thread-bridge to be crossed by the soul on its way to the under world p. 834 ? It is stated, exactly as with the Servians, that if you turn the sleeper's body round, the beast on returning

i < For the mouse that runneth out (=matrix) lay a sword across the stream,' F.ttner's Hebamme p. 194. In Fischart's Plays no. 216 : ' there runs a white mouse up the wall.'

FOEMS OF EXIT. BEOOMSTICK.

1083

cannot find its way in, and death ensues, Sup. I, 650. That state of internal ecstasy, in which the body lies in a rigid sleep, our old speech designates by irjorottan (raptus), i.e. tranced.1 But ON. myth has already acquainted us with the greatest of all possible examples: 'OSinn skipti homum (changed his shape), la J>a bukrinn sem sofinn e$a dauSr, enn hann var \kfugl e$a dyr, fishr e$a ormr, ok for a einni svipstund a fiarlseg lond, at sinum erindum e$r annara manna/ Yngl. s. cap. 7 ; his body lay asleep or dead, and he as bird, beast, fish or snake, fared in a twinkling to far-lying lands (see Suppl.).

Again, the Servian starting- spell, e ni o trn ni o grm, vetch na pometno guvno ! ' (not against thorn nor against oak, but to swept barnfloor), agrees with German ones. Usually the word is: fauf und davon ! hui oben hinaus und nirgend an!3 out on high, and (strike) against nothing ; or ' wol aus und an, stoss nirgend an ! 3 or ' fahr hin, nicht zu hoch, nicht zu nieder ! ' and in England : e tout, tout, throughout and about ! 3 But if the witch is pursuing people : ( before me day, behind me night ! ' Dan. ( lyst foran, og morkt bag ! ' A Norse magician took a goatskin, wrapt it round his head, and spoke : ' ver&i J?oka, oh vercPi skripi, ok undr mikil ollum J?eim sem eptir ]?er soekja ! 3 be there mist and magic and much wonder to all that seek after thee, Nialss. cap. 12. A formula used by Fr. magicians on mounting the stick is given, but not completely, by Boguet p. Ill : 'baston blanc, baston noir, etc.3 Of Indian sorceresses we are likewise told, that they repeat a formula for flight : Kalaratri said it and immediately, with her disciples and the cow-stall on whose roof she stood, she flew aloft and along the path of cloud, whither she would ; a man, having overheard her, made use of the same spell to go after her (Somad; 2, 58-9), exactly as in our tales of witches men get acquainted with their salves and spells, and pursue them (see Suppl.).

Where is the first mention of stick and broom riding to be found ? Actually I can only produce a tolerably old authority for riding on reeds and rushes, and even these turn into real horses. Guilielm. Alvernus, p. 1064: ' Si vero quaeritur de equo quern advectigationes suas facer e se credunt malefici, credunt,

1 The hinbriiten (ecstasis) of sorceresses, Ettn. Hebamme p. 226. Martin von Amberg : ' die henpreUgen,' the entranced.

1084

MAGIC.

inquam, facere de carina per cliaracteres nefandos et scrip turas quas in ea inscribunt et impingunt; dico in hoc, quia non est possibile rnalignis spiritibus de carina verum equum facere vel for mare; neque cannam ipsam ad hanc ludificationem eligunt, quia ipsa aptior sit ut transfiguretur in equum, vel ex ilia generetur equus, quam multae aliae materiae. Forsitan autem propter planitiem superficiei et facilitatem habendi earn alicui videatur ad hoc praeelecta. . . . Sic forsan hac de causa ludificationem istam efficere in canna sola et non alio ligno permittuntur maligni spiritus, ut facilitas et vanitas eorum per cannam hominibus insinuetur. ... Si quis autem dicat, quia canna et calamus habi- tations interdum malignorum spirituum sunt 1 . . . ego non im- probo.' — More intelligible is the Irish tale of the rushes and corn- stalks that turn into horses the moment you bestride them, Ir. elfenmar. 101. 215. Of such a horse, after the first time, you need only lift the bridle and shake it when you want him, and he comes directly (Sup. H, cap. 31. Spell xvi.). In Hartlieb (Sup. H, cap. 32) the unholden are represented riding on rakes and oven-forks, in the older Poem given at p. 1048 on brooms, dehsen, oven-sticks and calves, in the Ackermann aus Bohmen p. 8 on crutches and goats, but in the Tkadlezek p. 27 on distaffs (kuzly). Dobrowsky in Slavin p. 407 mentions the Bohem. summons ' stare baby, na pometlo t 3 old wives, on to your stove- broom. — Of more importance is what we find in the story of Thorsteinn boearmagn, which Miiller 3, 251 assigns to the 15th century: As the hero lay hid in the cane-brake, he heard a boy call into the hill, ' Mother, hand me out crook-staff and band- gloves, I wish to go the magic ride (gand-rerS, p. 1054), there is wedding in the world below'; and immediately the krokstafr was handed out of the hill, the boy mounted it, drew the gloves on, and rode as children do. Thorsteinn went up to the hill, and shouted the same words : out came both staff and gloves, he mounted, and rode after the boy. Coming to a river, they plunged in, and rode to a castle on a rock, where many people sat at table, all drinking wine out of silver goblets ; on a golden

i 1 Mennige narrinnen (many a she-fool) mid ock mennigen dor (fool) bindet de duvel up sin ror (the d. ties on to his cane),' Narragonia 14b (nothing like^itin Brant). Does it mean devil's horses? And does that explain Walther's « uz lm (the black book) leset siniu ror ' (33, 8) ? A Servian proverb says : ' lasno ye dyabolu u ritu svirati,' 'tis easy piping on the devil's reed.

BK00MST1CK. DISLIKE OF BELLS.

1085

throne were the king and queen. Thorsteinn, whom his staff had made invisible, ventured to seize a costly ring and a cloth, but in doing so he lost the stick, was seen by all, and pursued. Happily mV invisible fellow-traveller came by on the other stick, Thorsteinn mounted it as well, and they both escaped (Fornm. sog. 3, 176—8). If the poem has not the peculiar stamp of Norse fable, it teaches none the less what notions were attached to these enchanted rides in the 14th or 15th century : no devil shews his face in it. Sticks and staves however seem to be later expedients of witchery : neither night-wives nor Furious Host nor valkyrs need any apparatus for traversing the air; night- wives had already calves and goats attributed to them, p. 1058. There is a very curious phrase, fto wake a hedge-stick/ which has to become a he-goat and fetch the loved one to her lover ; originally perhaps no other sticks were meant but such as, on bestriding, immediately turned into beasts (see Suppl.) .

As witches slip through keyholes and cracks in the door, p. 1074, they are able to squeeze themselves into the narrowest space, even betwixt wood and bark (conf. Suppl. on p. 653). Thus in H. Sachs ii. 4, 10 the devil first peels the hazel-rod on which he hands the old woman the stipulated shoes, for fear she might creep to him 'twixt wood and bark. In Iw. 1208 the utmost secresy is expressed by : ' sam daz hoh under der rinden, alsam sit ir verborgen.' When a Lithuanian convert began to bark the trees in a holy wood, he said : ' Yos me meis anseribus gallisque spoliastis, proinde et ego nudas vos (sc. arbores) faciam. Crede- bat enim deos rei suae familiari perniciosos intra arbores et cortices latere.9 The Swed. song makes enchanting minstrels charm the bark off the tree, the babe out of the mother, the hind from the forest, the eye from out the socket (Arvidsson 2, 311-2-4-7).

Again, the witches' dislike of bells is heathenish : the elves have it, and the giants, p. 459. Pious prayer and ringing of bells put their plans out: they call the bells 'yelping dogs/ In a Swed. folktale (Odm. Bahusl. beskrifn. p. 228) an old heathen crone, on hearing the sound of the christian bell from Tegneby, exclaims in contempt : < nu ma tro, Eulla pa Rallehed har fadt bjalra,' R. the christian church has got a tinkler. As yet there is no thought of witchery. But it is told of Swed. witches too, that they scrape the bells loose up in the belfry : in their airy

1086

MAGIC.

flight when they come to a steeple, they set the kidnapped children (p. 1078) down on the church-roof, who are then mere jackdaws to look at ; in the meantime they scrape the bell loose, and lug it away, and afterwards let the metal drop through the clouds, crying : ' never let my soul draw near to God, any more than this metal will be a bell again ! 9 (see Suppl.) .

The raising of hailstorms and spoiling of crops by magic reaches back to the remotest antiquity of almost every nation. As benignant gods make the fruits to thrive, as air-riding valkyrs from the manes of their steeds let life-giving dew trickle down on the plain (p. 421) ; so baneful beings of magic power strive to annihilate all that is green. The Greek Thumenides (a word that even our oldest glosses translate by hazasa) spoil the crops with their slaver , and the fruit with hailstones, Aesch. Eum. 753-68-77- 95. The Roman Twelve Tables imposed a penalty on him ( qui fruges excantassit . . . sive . . . alienam segetem pellexerit.' 1 In the 8-9th cent. ' weather-making 9 was alleged against sorcerers rather than sorceresses; the passages given at p. 638 name only tempestarii, not tempestariae. So in Ratherius p. 626: ' contra eos qui dicunt quod homo mains vel diabolus 3 tempestatem faciat, lapides grandinum spergat, agros devastet, fulgura mittat, etc. Those magicians in Burchard are called immissores tempestatum, Sup. C, 10, 8; p. 194a. Yet in the North, ThorgerSr and Irpa, who stir up storm and tempest, are women (p. 637), and the salt- grinders Fenja and Menja giantesses ; their ship is like the mist- ship of the clouds. How magicians set about their weather- making, is nowhere specified. In much later authorities we find them using a tub or a pitcher, p. 593. In Ls. 2, 314 Master Irreganc says (G. Abent. 3, 90) :

und ksem ein wann (tub) in min hant,

der hagel sliieg (hail would beat) uber allez lant.

In the Apollon. von Tyrland (9183. 10970. 11010 seq.) are mentioned pitchers, the emptying of which was followed by showers and hail : one jug engendered lightnings and thunder- bolts, another hail and shower, a third one rain and nipping

1 'Kudis adhuc antiquitas credebat et attrahi imbres cantibus, et repelli,' Seneca Nat. quaest. 4, 7.

2 The devil brings on gales and thunderstorms, p. 1000 ; so does the giant, p. 636.

EAISING OF STOEMS.

1087

winds. A woodcut in Keisersberg's Omeiss (ed. 1516, 36b) por- trays three naked unholden sitting on footstools, distaffs and horses' heads, holding up pots, out of which shower and storm mount up. A passage in the Eudlieb is worth quoting : the repenting culprit begs (6, 48),

post triduum corpus tollatis ut ipsum et comburatis, in aquam citfier.es jaciatis, nejubar abscondat sol, aut aer neget imbrem, ne per me grando dicatur laedere mundo.

Let her body be taken off the gallows and burnt, and the ashes be strown on water, lest, being scattered in air, it should breed clouds, drought and hail. Just so the devil's ashes are strown to awaken storm and tempest, p. 1071-3; the Chronicon S. Bertini states that Bichilde, before her fight with Eobert the Frisian, threw dust in the air against the Frisians with formulas of imprecation, but it fell back on her own head in token of her speedy overthrow. She meant, like ThorgerSr and Irpa, to destroy tlve enemy by tempest. Justinger's Chron. of Bern p. 205 relates how a woman, secretly sent for by a Count of Kyburg, who promised not to betray her, stood on the battlements of his castle, and uttering hidden words, raised clouds, rain and storm, which scattered his foes (a.d. 1382). The witches of Norway still proceed exactly as the Vinlanders were said to do (p. 640) : they tie up wind and foul weather in a bag, and at the proper moment undo the knots, exclaiming ' wind, in the devil's name ! ' then a storm rushes out, lays waste the land, and overturns ships at sea. By Hartlieb's account (Sup. H, cap. 34), old women sacri- fice to devils, that they may make hail and shower. According to German records of the 16-17 cent., witches assemble in crowds by waterbrooks or lakes, and flog the water with rods, till a fog rises, which gradually thickens into black clouds ; on these clouds they are borne up, and then guide them toward the spots to which they mean mischief. They also place magic pots in the water, and stir them round.1 The windsack is mentioned a few times (Voigt 131). They make blue lights trickle into the water, throw flintstones into the air, or trundle barrels whose bursting begets tempest. They gather oak-leaves in a man's shirt, and

1 Conf. p. 596-7 on storm-raising by throwing stones and pouring out water.

1088

MAGIC.

when it is full, hang it on a tree : a wind springs up directly, that drives all rain away, and keeps the weather fine. Out of a small piece of cloud a witch made a deal of bad weather (Arx Buchsgau p. 103). A violent thunderstorm lasted so long, that a huntsman on the highway loaded his gun with a consecrated bullet, and slot it off into the middle of the blackest cloud ; out of it (as out of the ship, p. 638) a naked female fell dead to the ground, and the storm blew over in a moment (Mone's Anz. 4, 309). In Carinthia the people shoot at storm-clouds, to scare away the evil spirits that hold counsel in them. The parson being credited with power to charm the weather, the women bring apronf uls of hailstones into his house : ' there, that's his rightful tithe of the weather, as he did not see good to keep it away'; Sartori's Journ. in Austria 2, 153-4. In some parts of France whole families are suspected of having the hereditary power to raise a storm: they meet on the lake-side, not less than three 'at a time, and lash the water up with horrible cries ; this is done at night before sunrise, and a violent storm is the immediate consequence, Mem. de l'acad. celt. 2, 206-7. Such people are called meneurs des nue'es, Mem. des antiq. 1, 244. In Germany witches were commonly called, by way of insult, wetter- macherin, wetterhexe, wetterkatze, donnerkatze, nebelhexe, strahl- hexe, blitzhexe, zessenmacherin (from the old zessa, storm), and earlier, wolkengusse, cloud-gushes, Ms. 2, 140 . The OHG. Wolcliandrut, a woman's name in Trad. Fuld. 2, 101, need have had none but perfectly innocent associations : the valkyr either rides in the clouds or sprinkles from them fertilizing dew; so even the strewing of ashes on the field may originally have in- creased their fertility. Occasionally feldfrau and feldspinnerin are used of a witch; is it because she passes over field and meadow, or spins magic threads? (conf. p. 1099). Who knows but that the popular saying, when it snows, f the old wives are shaking their coats out ' (de aule wiver schiiddet den pels ut, Strodtm. p. 336), is, properly understood, identical with that on p. 268 : 'dame Eolle is making her bed' ? Goddess, valkyr, witch : the regular gradation of such myths. To the Greeks Zeus himself was still ve^eXrjyepera, to the Serbs the vila gathers clouds. In Scandinavia too, hail and hurricane proceed from those half-goddesses Thorgercfr and Irjpa, not as injurious to

BEWITCHING OF CKOPS. 1089

crops, but perilous to armies ;i Sn. 175 makes a sorceress bear the very name El, procella2 (see Suppl.).

But sometimes the aim of sorcery is not so much to destroy the produce, as to get possession of it, to carry it off the field, either to one's own garner, or that of a favourite.3 Even the Eomans speak of this : ' satas alio traducere messes/ Virg. Eel. 8, 99 ; ' cantus vicinis fruges traducit ab agris/ Tibull. i. 8, 19. People fancied, that when unholden walked through a vineyard and shook the vines, the grapes came out of the neighbour's plot into theirs (Hartm. segenspr. 341). An old dalesman gave his granddaughter a staff, and told her to stick it in the corn at a certain spot in a field; the girl on her way was overtaken by a shower, took refuge under an oak, and left the staff standing there : when she got home, she found a great heap of oak-leaves in her grandfather's loft (ibid. p. 342). We also hear of vme-shoots being boiled in a pot, probably to spoil the vineyard. The poison-herbs of witches boil and evaporate under the open sky.

We are told of witches bathing naked in the sand41 or in com; I know not for what purpose ; Superst. I, 519 speaks of rolling naked in the flax. Three witches were seen going to a field of rye, laying aside their garments, and bathing in the corn with their hair hanging loose. When witnesses approached, two vanished suddenly, leaving their clothes behind, the third hud- dled her smock on (Voigt 130—2). Has this to do with corn- wives and rye-aunts p. 477 ?

Witches and sorcerers use various implements, of which for the most part no exact description is given. Of the wand with which the old magicians are usually armed, I find no mention in our tales, for when the wishing-rod is named, it is as a higher and noble instrument ; yet the staff or stick that witches are said

i

As the whirlwind is ascribed to the devil (p. 1008) so it is to witches (Sup. I 1 48). Kihan 693 remarks, that it is also called varende wif, travelling woman' i.e. air-riding sorceress ; conf. wind's bride p. 632, and ' rushing like a wind's-bride through the land,' Simplic. 2, 62.

2 Is she called solar bol, sun's bale, because she darkens the sun with her storm-cloud ? Or may we go farther back to heathen times, and impute to the witch as to the wolf, a swallowing of sun and moon ? To me it looks the more likely Irom the name hvel-svelg himins, swallower of heaven's wheel. z Conf. the convenient corn-dragon (p. 1019) and home-sprite. k Fowls are said to ' bathe in sand ' : Lith. kutenas' wisztos ziegz'drosa • Lett pernnatees ; Pol. kury sie. w piasku ka,pia, ; Serv. leprshatise.

1090

MAGIC.

to ride may originally have been earned in the hand. I also find the stick spoken of as the wizard's third leg (Mone's Anz. 7, 426). In Bavarian records the so-called making of mice or pigs (fackel for ferkel) is often mentioned : the witch has a four- legged implement, dark-yellow, hard and stiff; this she holds under a figure of a mouse or pig that she has made out of a napkin, and says ' Eun away, and come back to me ! 9 the figure becomes a live animal, and runs away ; probably to fetch her something of other people's. Hence a witch is called maus- schlagerin, mouse-beater, and a wizard maus-schlagel. In North German trials the expression is muse-maker, and the process is different: the witch boils magic herbs, then cries, ' Mouse, mouse, come out in devil's name!' and the beasts come jump- ing out of the pot (Laffert's Kelat. crim. p. 57-9). It reminds one of the destructive mice created by Apollo Smintheus in his wrath, and the devastations of lemings in Lapland; so that this plague may with perfect right take its place with the desolating storm and hail, although our witch-trials say hardly anything of the damage done by the magic beasts (conf. Klausen's Aeneas p. 73—5). One Nethl. story in Wolf no. 401 relates how a young girl flung two pellets of earth one after the other, and in a moment the whole field swarmed with mice. Swedish tradition tells of a bjaraan or bare, which (says Ihre, dial. lex. 18a) was a milking-pail made by tying together nine sorts of stolen weaver's knots. You let three drops of blood fall into it out of your little finger, and said :

pa jorden (on earth) skai tu for mig springa, • i Blakulla skal jag for thig brinna !

The name comes from the vessel conveying (bara) milk and other things to the houses of the devil- worshippers. Hiilphers (Fierde saml. om Angermanland. Yesteras 1780, p. 310) describes it as a round ball made of rags, tow and juniper, etc., and used in several magic tricks : it ran out and brought things in. It starts off the moment the sender cuts his left little finger and lets the blood fall on it :

smor och ost (butter and cheese) skal du mig bringa, och derfor (skal jag) i helfvetet brinna (in hell-fire burn) !

APPAEATUS : MICE, WAX FIGUEES.

1091

Who can help thinking of Goethe's Magician's Apprentice with his water-fetching broom ?

Of the same kind seems to have been the Icelandic snackr, which commonly means a weaver's spool. It is made, says Biorn, of a dead man's rib in the shape of a snake, and wrapt in gray wool ; it sucks at the witch's breast, after which it can suck other people's cattle dry, and bring their milk home 1 (see Suppl.).

Of wider diffusion is sorcery with the sieve, which I shall speak of by and by; and with wax figures, to which if you did anything while uttering secret words, it took effect on absent persons. The 'wax figure (atzmann) was either hung up in the air, plunged in water, fomented at the fire, or stabbed with needles and buried under the door-sill : the person aimed at feels all the hurts in- flicted on the figure (Sup. G, line 28; H, cap. 79).2 In Aw. 2, 55 a travelling student says :

Mit wunderlichen sachen

ler ich sie (I teach her) denne machen

von wahs einen hoholt,

wil sie daz er ir werde holt (he grow kind to her), und touf ez3 in den brunnen, und leg in an die sunnen ;

but counter-agencies make the danger recoil on the conjuror himself.4 Magic figures can also be baked of dough or lime, and

1 The Lapps have a magic vessel quobdas (Leem p. 421 spells govdes), cut out of fir, pine or birch with the grain running from right to left ; it is open under- neath, but covered with a skin at the top. The Lapl. adepts drum on this skin with a hammer.

2 Conf. Dsemonomanie, Fischart's transl., Strasb. 1591 fol. p.143-4.

3 I.e. tauche es, dip it into the fountain ; if we took it as taufe, baptize, we should have to read ' in dem brunnen.'

4 Schimpf und ernst cap. 272 tells the following story : A certain man went to Eome, for to seek S. Peter and S. Paul ; and when he was gone, his wife loved another, that was what men call a scholar-errant, and did covet her to wife. The woman saith, ' my good man is departed unto Eome, were he dead, or couldst thou take away his life, then would I have thee of all men.' He said, ' yea truly I can take his life ; ' and buyeth wax about six pound, and maketh an image thereof. Now when the good man was come to Eome into the city, there came one to him and spake : ' 0 thou son of death, what goest thou up and down? If none help thee, this day shah see thee alive and dead.' The man asked, ' how should that be ? ' And he said, ' come to my house, and I will shew it thee.' And having brought him home, he prepared for him a waterbath, and set him therein, and gave him a mirror, saying, 4 look thou therein,' and sat beside him, reading in a book, and spake unto him, 1 behold in the glass, what seest thou therein ? ' The man in the bath said, ' I see one in mine house, that setteth up a waxen image on the wall,

VOL. III.

0

1092

MAGIC.

wrought out of metal, but wax made by the sacred bee (p. 696) appears the most appropriate ; their manufacture is a mimicry of divine creation (p. 570), but it succeeds only up to a certain point. In Peer's Morgante 21, 73 a witch possesses an image made of the pure wax of young bees (delle prime api), and having every limb except one rib : 1 the witch's own vitality is bound up with the figure, and when Malagigi melts it at a slow fire, she dwindles away. That such figures were sometimes baptized, is shewn by a sermon of Berthold's (Cod. pal. 35 fol. 27b) : ' so nimpt diu her und taufl ein wachs, diu ein holz, diu ein totenpein (dead man's bone) , allez daz sie domit bezouber ; ' 2 and this proves the connexion of magical appliances with superstitious healing appliances. As the sick and the restored used to conse- crate and hang up in churches an image or a limb of wax, so by images the witch maimed and killed. No doubt this kind of conjuring goes back to the oldest times; we find it in Ovid, Amor. iii. 7, 29 :

Sagave punicea defixit nomina cera, et medium tenues in jecur egit acus ?

and goeth and taketk his crossbow, and having bent it, will shoot at the image.'' Then said the other, ' as thou lovest thy life, duck thee under the water when he shall shoot.' And the man did so. And again he read in the book, and spake ' behold, what seest thou ? ' The man said, ' I see that he hath missed, and is ex- ceeding sorry, and my wife with him ; the scholar-errant setteth to, and. will shoot the second time, and goeth the half way toward.' ' Duck thee when he shall shoot.' And he ducked. Saith the other, ' look, what seest thou ? ' The man said, ' I see that he hath missed, and is sore troubled, and speaketh to the woman, If now I miss the third time, I am [a man] of death ; and setteth to, and aimeth at the figure very near, that he may not miss.' Then spake he that read in the book, ' duck thee ! ' And the man ducked from the shot. And he said, ' look up, what seest thou ? ' ' I see that he hath missed, and the arrow is gone into him, and is dead, and my wife bestoweth him in the basement below.' Then said he, ' arise now, and go thy way.' And the man would have given him much, but he would take no- thing, and said, ' pray God for me.' When the citizen was come home again, and his wife would have kindly received him, he would take no pity on her, but sent to bid her friends, and spake to them, what manner of wife they had given him, and shewed them everything, how she had borne herself. The woman steadfastly denied it ; then led he the friends to the place where she had dug him in, and dug him out again. And the people took the woman, and burned her, the which was her just reward. — The story comes from the Gesta Eom. (ed. Keller cap. 102 ; transl. ed. Keller p. 160) ; but one ought to compare the fresh story from Finnish Lapland in Afzelius 1, 48.

1 As the rib serves for further creation (p. 562), and for making miraculous apparatus (pp. 907. 1091), imperfect creation is destitute of it.

2 Quidam (Judaeorum) ad similitudinem episcopi (Eberhardi Treverensis, in 11th cent.) ceream imaginem lycnis interpositam facientes, clericum ut earn bap- tizaret pecunia corruperunt, quam ipso sabbato accenderunt ; qua jam ex parte media consumpta, episcopus coepit graviter infirmari, et obiit (Hist. Trev.).

WAX FIGUEE. WEEEWOLF. 1093

Compare Horace, Epod. 17, 76: 'movere cereas imagines.' Theocritus 2, 28 has the wax-melting very plainly : go? tovtov top fcapbv eyo) avv haifiovo rd/cco, o>? tclkoiV vir e>o)ro?, but not that it was an image. In Virgil, Bel. 8, 74 seq., a magic figure (terque haec altaria circum effigiem duco) seems to be made of lime and wax (see Suppl.).

An ancient custom, very similar to this of hanging up and thawing the atzmann, was to cut out the earth or turf on which had rested the foot of one whom you wish to destroy. This erd- schnitt as Vintler calls it (Sup. G, 1. 92) is hung in the chimney, and as it begins to wither or dry up, the man too shall waste away (I, 524. 556). It was already known to Burchard (C, p. 200a). To fetch up a comrade from a foreign land, you boil his stockings ; or you put his shoes in a new pot, and with it draw water against the current, then boil the shoes in the pot four days long; when they are past, he will come, says Hessian superstition (see Suppl.). You can lame a horse by driving a nail into his recent footprint, and discover a thief by putting tinder in his (I, 978). Pliny 28, 20 says: ' vestigium equi excussum ungula (ut solet plerumque) si quis collectum reponat, singultus remedium esse recordantibus quonam loco id reposuerint ; 3 a cure for hic- cough if you remember where you put it.

Our magicians have also, in common with those of Greece and Rome, the power of assuming an animal shape (in itself a divine 'attribute, p. 326) : the men prefer changing into a wolf or hawk, the women into a cat or swan ; to translate it into the language of our heathen time, they addict themselves to the service of Wuotan, of Frouwa. These metamorphoses are either voluntary or compulsory : the higher being in his might puts on the animal shape that suits him, or he dooms a man to wear it in punish- ment or vengeance. In the stories it is often a mother-in-law or stepmother that transforms children, ON. stiupmoftur shop, Forn- ald. sog. 1, 31. 58.

Herodotus 4, 105 says of the Neuri, that among Scythians and Greeks settled in Scythia they pass for magicians (yorjTes), be- cause once a year every Neurian becomes a wolf for a few days, and then resumes the human form (cJ>? Ireo? ifedcrrov dira^ tu'v Nevpcov gKaaTos {,Ko^ yiverai ^epa^ oXiya?, teal adrts oiriaw e'? tcovto KaTLGTarai). Similar accounts are in Pliny 8, 34. Pomp.

1094

MAGIC.

Mela 2, 1. Augustine Civ. Dei 18, 17: 'his ego saepe lupum fieri et se condere silvis Moerin . . . vidi/ Yirg. Eel. 8, 97. A man distinguished by this gift or malady was called \vfcdv0p (ottos,1 a word-formation to which the AS. wereiuulf (Leges Canuti, Schmid 1, 148), Engl, werewolf, exactly corre- sponds; Goth, vairavulfs? OHG. werawolf? MHG. poets have no werewolf. The ON. nses vargr alone (RA. 733. Reinh. xxxvii), verulfr in Sn. 214b is a sword's name, the Swed. Dan. varulf, varulv, seem formed on a Romance or German model. I find werwolf first in Burchard (Sup. 0, p. 198c) ; though Bouiface before him couples ' strigas et fictos lupos credere ' (Serm., in Mart, et Dur. 9, 217). The Fr. loup-garou (ivarou in 0. Fr. poems) might seem a distortion of warulf ; garulf (Gervase of Tilb. writes gerulphus), but then the Breton dialect has also its bleiz-garou, -garo (fr. bleiz, wolf), and den-vleiz, man-wolf (fr. den, man), grek-vleiz (femme-loup) ; bisclaveret in Marie de France 1, 1 78 is apparently a corruption of bleizgarv, as the Norman garwal is of guarwolf. The Pol. wilkolak, wilkolek, Boh. wlkodlak, strictly means wolf-haired, and suggests the hairy wood-sprite, p. 480. The Serv. vukodlae signifies a vampire. From wilks (wolf) the Letton forms wilhats (werewolf), Wilkascha radda ds. 1644.

Our oldest native notions make the assumption of wolf- shape depend on arraying oneself in a wolf-belt or wolf-shirt (ulfa-hamr), as translation into a swan does on putting on the swan-shift or swan-ring (p. 427-8). 2 One who wears a wolf-belt, ulfhamr, is called in OHG. wolfhetan, ON. ulfhecfinn (the repres. an orig. d) ; especially do raging berserkir become ulfheftnir : ' J>eir hofSu vargstakkar fyrir brynjur/ Vatnsdcela saga 36. 'berserkir ]?eir varu kallaftir ulfhiedar (r. ulfhe^Snir)/ Grettissaga 32a. We also find a man's name Zflfhedinn, and OHG. Wolfhetan, MB. 28, nos.

1 Among the iEsopian Fables is a merry gest (Cor. 425. Fur. 423) : A thief pretends to his host, that when he has yawned three times, he becomes a werewolf (otclv odi> xa<TyU,?7#c3 rpeis /SoXds, yivofxcu Xvkos eadiwv avdp&Tovs) ; the timid host runs away, and the rogue gets possession of his garment. Petronius in Sat. 62 mentions a peculiar method of metamorphosis : 1 i^le circumminxit vestimenta sua, et subito lupus factus est ; vestimenta lapidea fact^ sunt.' Conf. cap. 57 : ' si circumminxero ilium, nesciet qua fugiat.' I

2 The girdle was an essential article of dress, and early ages ascribe to it other magic influences : e.g. Thor's divine strength lay in his girdle (niegmgiorS, fern.), Sn. 26.

WEREWOLF.

1095

52. 246. Apart from wolves, we have biarnhe^inn, geithe^inn, i.e. dressed in a bearskin, goatskin; as a proper name, both. Biarnhe&inn, Landn. 45, and a simple Hecfmn, ancestor of the Hiadhingar, AS. Heodeningas fr. Heden or Heoden. The vowel is therefore e (not e), and we must suppose a lost verb OHG. hefcan, hat, pi. hatum, Groth. hidan, had, hedum. Lye quotes a ' heden, casla/ meaning prob. casula, robe ; and an ON. geithe- ffinn is supposed to be 'pallium e pelle caprina'; but I prefer to take Wolfhetan as a participle. We see then, that the trans- formation need not be for a magical purpose at all : any one that puts on, or is conjured into, a wolf- shirt, will undergo metamor- phosis, remain a wolf nine days, and only on the tenth be allowed to return to human shape1; some stories make him keep the wolf-body for three, seven or nine years. With the appearance, he acquires also the fierceness and howling, of the wolf: roaming the woods, he rends to pieces everything that comes in his way.2 Fornald. sog. 1, 50 speaks of a 'liosta me3 ulfhandska/ striking with wolfs glove, by which a person is turned into a bear, and wears the animal form by day, the human at night. In a similar way the notion of werewolves also gets mixed up with that of outlaws who have fled to the woods. A notable instance is that of Sigmund and Sinfiotli (ibid. 2, 130-1) : when they sleep, their wolf-shirts hang beside them.

Werewolves thirst for youthful blood, and carry off children and maidens with reckless audacity. Out of many stories in Woycicki 1, 101—113. 152—8 I select only this : A witch twisted her girdle together, and laid it on the threshold of a house where there was a wedding ; when the newly married pair stepped

. 1 I* is also believed, that every ninth day the seal (selr) doffs his fishy skin, and is for one day a man (Thiele 3, 51). In medieval Germany the nine years' wolf was supposed to give birth to adders, Ms. 2, 234b ; to which may be compared Loki's begetting the wolf Fenrir and the snake Iormungandr (p. 246), and that gandr again means wolf.

2 A married couple lived in poverty ; yet, to the man's astonishment, his wife contrived to serve up meat at every meal, concealing for a long time how she obtained it; at length she promised to reveal the secret, only, while she did so, he must not pronounce her name. They went together to the fields, where a flock of sheep was grazing, the woman bent her steps toward it, and when they were come near, she threw a ring over herself, and instantly became a werewolf, which fell upon the flock, seized one sheep, and made off with it. The man stood petrified; but when he saw shepherd and dogs run after the wolf, and his wife in danger, he forgot his promise, and cried ' ach Margareit ! ' The wolf disappeared, and the woman stood naked in the field (Hess. Folktale).

1096

MAGIC.

over it, the bride, bridegroom and six bridesmen were turned into werewolves. They fled from the cottage, and for three years ran howling round the witch's house. At length the day of their deliverance came. The witch brought a pelisse with the fur turned outwards, and as soon as she covered a werewolf with it, his human shape returned ; the covering reached over the bride- groom's body, all but the tail, so he became a man again, but kept the wolfs tail. Schafarik (Slow. st. 1, 167) observes, that in a very marked degree these wolf- stories are native to Volhynia and White Russia, and thence draws an argument for his opinion that the Neuri were a Slavic race.

According to the French Lai de Melion pp. 49. 50, the man, when undressed,1 must be touched with a magic ring : forthwith he turns into a wolf, and runs after game. Marie de Fr. I, 182 makes a knight become a bisclaveret three days every week, and run about naked in the wood ; if the clothes he has laid aside be removed, he has to remain a wolf.2 Pluquet (Cont. pop. 15) remarks, that he can only be delivered by being beaten with a key till he bleeds.

The common belief among us is, that the transformation is effected by tying a strap round the body ; this girth is only three fingers broad, and is cut out of human skin. Such a werwolf is to be distinguished from natural wolves by his truncated tail. From the witch-records of Lorrain we learn, that when stalks of grass were pulled up, blessed and thrown against a tree, wolves sprang forth, and immediately fell upon the flock; Remigius pp. 152. 162 leaves it doubtful whether the men that threw the grass themselves turned into wolves, but from p. 261 we can think no otherwise. Bodin's Daemonomanie (Fischart's transl. p. 120 seq.) has several werewolf stories. Rhenish and Westphalian superstition makes men alone become wolves ; maids and matrons change into an iitterbock (uddered buck, hermaphrodite ? ) : an uncanny old hag is called ' the cursed iitterbock ! ' According to a peculiar Danish superstition (K, 167), if a bride uses a certain specified charm to secure painless labour, her sons become vbir-

1 But he begs people to keep his clothes safe for him : 'ma despoille me gardez,' as in the Aesopian fable: deo/xal aov, 'Lva (pvXd^rjs rd i^dnd ^ov.

2 I have not read the O.E. tale of William and the Werewolf in Hartshorne's Anc. metr. tales.

WOLF. BEAR. CAT.

1097

illve, her daughters marer (nightmares). Thiele 1, 133 remarks, that the werewolf goes in human shape by day, yet so that his eyebrows grow together over the nose,1 but ,at a certain time of night he turns into a three-legged dog, and can only be set free by some one calling him f werewolf/ Burchard's account also seems to make lycanthropy something innate to man (see Suppl.)

That a change of the human form into that of the bear should also be familiar to Norse antiquity, is no surprising thing, as that animal was considered rational (Reinh., app. on p. lvi), and held in high esteem, p. 667. Finnbogi talks to him, and calls him bessi, Finnb. saga p. 246. A Danish song makes the trans- formation take place by tying an iron collar round one's neck, DV. 1, 184. In Norway it is believed that the Laplanders turn into bears : of a bear that is uncommonly daring and destructive they say, 'this can't be any christian bear/ An old bear in Ofoden's prastegjeld, who had killed six men and over sixty horses, had the same reputation, and when at last he was slain, a girdle is said to have been found on him (Sommerfelt Saltd. prasteg. p. 84).

Conversion into the cat has most of all to do with the works and ways of home-sprites (pp. 503-9) : there is nowhere the slightest hint of donning any belt or shirt. It is a common saying, that a cat of twenty years turns witch, and a witch of a hundred turns cat again. Yintler (Sup. Gr, 1. 232) notices the assumption of cat-shape. As was the case with night-wives (p. 1060) , examples occur in almost every witch- trial, and particu- larly common is the story of the wounded cat, whom you after- wards recognise in a bandaged woman. Oats meeting you are of double meaning, Sup. I, 643. One should never hurt a strange cat ; the witch might serve you out. A farmer took on to ail from the day of his wedding : on that day he had shied a stone at a cat that walked into his yard with a saddle on her. The saddled cat is a kind of Puss-in-boots, KM. 3, 259. Wolfs Wodana pp. 123. 131 has stories of magic cats. But the cat is also to be spared because she was Frouwa's favorite beast (p. 305) : if it rains on your wedding-day, they say in the Wette- rau e you have starved the cat,' and so offended the messenger or

1 Otherwise a mark of the witch or wizard who can set the alb on other men : he comes out of their eyebrows in butterfly shape, Deut. sag. 1, 132.

1098 MAGIC.

handmaid of the love-goddess. Now night-wives and witches apparently travel in the train of that divinity.

The goose too is a magic beast, and easily referable to the nobler swan of older legend. A sportsman shot at some wild geese and hit one, which fell into the bushes; when he came up to the place, there sat a naked woman unhurt, whom he knew very well, and who begged hard that he would not betray her, but get some clothes sent her from her house. He threw her his handkerchief to cover herself with, and sent the clothes (Moneys Anz. 6, 395). Niclas von Wyle,in the Dedication to his translation of Apuleius, tells us of a different case, which he had heard from the lips of Michel von Pfullendorf, clerk to the Imp. treasury: An innkeeper had through a woman's witcheries (gemecht, conf . make = conjure, p. 1032) been a wild goose for more than a year, and flown about with other such geese, till one day a goose that he was quarrelling and snapping with, happened to tear f rom off Us neck the little kerchief in which the enchantment was knit up : again therefore a swan-ring, except that the witch does not wear it herself, but has changed an innocent man into the beast, just as werewolves are by turns enchanters and enchanted. In Kinderm. 193 white strips of cloth take the place of the swan- shift. _ . .

As the raven stands on a par with the wolf, we may lairiy assume transformations of magicians into ravens, though I can think of no example : trolds in Dan. songs often appear as ravens, p. 993. Perhaps witches may be found turning into crows rather, as we already hear of an 6skmey (wish-maid, Vols. cap. 2) : < hun bra ft sik kraku ham, ok fl^gr ; 3 and Marpalie in Wolfdietrich doffs her garments, claps her hands (p. 1026 n.) and turns into a crow (see Suppl.).

If the cast-off clothing, human or animal, be removed (p. a re-assumption of the former shape becomes impossible; hence in legend and fairytale the practice of secretly burning the beast's hide when stript off.1 Yet the human shape may be restored on this condition, that a spotless maid keep silence for seven years, and spin and sew a shirt to be thrown over the enchanted person, KM. 1, 53. 246. 3, 84. And such a shirt not only undoes the

• Aw. 1, 165. KM. 2, 264. Straparola 2, 1. Pentam. 2, 5. Vuk 1, xxxix Beq. Fornald. sog. 2, 150-1.

GOOSE. EAVEN. CEOW. EVIL EYE.

1099

charm, but makes one spell-proof and victorious (Sup. I, 656. 708) ; 1 in the last passage, victory in a lawsuit has taken the place of the old victory in battle. In the Mid. Ages it was called St. George's shirt, and was spun on a Saturday (Vintler ; conf. Sup. I, 333 the thread spun on Christmas night) ; Wolfdietrich receives it from Siegminne, i.e. from a wise spinning norn or valkyr (p. 434) : obviously the old heathen idea was afterwards transferred to the conquering saint of the christian church. Not unlike are the golden shirt that defends from drowning, Beow. 1095, and the frid-hemede (App. Spells x) ; a woven flag of victory will be mentioned p. 1112. To me these famous shirts of fate seem connected with the threads and webs of the norns and dame Holda. A magic weaving and spinning was probably ascribed to witches, who in Sup. I, 824 are called field- spins ters ; and Bur- chard's allusions to the superstition ' in lanificiis et ordiendis telis 3 are worth comparing, Sup. C, int. 52, and p. 193d. Hincmar of Eheims (Opp. 1, 656) speaks of sorceries ( quas superventas feminae in suis lanificiis vel textilibus operibus nominant ' ; again p. 654 : ' quidam etiam vestibus carminatis induebantur vel co- operiebantur/ 2 A similar thing is the magic and spell in the case of swords, conf. p. 687-8 (see Suppl.).

There may be magic in the mere look, without bodily contact, what our old speech called entsehen (p. 1035), Ital. gettare gli sguardi, Neapol. jettatura, fascino dei malvagi occhi. The bleared, envious, evil eye 3 of a witch who walks in (Sup. I, 787), let alone her breath and greeting, can injure in a moment, dry up the mother's milk, make the babe consumptive, spoil a dress, rot an apple, visu fascinare (p. 1066 and Sup. 0, p. 199d) : f the coat is so handsome, the apple so red, no evil eye (onda oga, Sup. Swed. 57) must look upon it ; 3 hurtful look, Sup. I, 874 ; obliquus oculus, Hor. Epist. i. 14, 37. Of sick cattle especially they say :

1 This shirt of victory reminds us of the child's shirt of luck (p. 874), which in Denmark is likewise called a victor's shirt (seyers-hue, -hielm, -serk). If we may ascribe high antiquity to the phrase ' born with helmet on,' such seyers-hielm fore- tells the future hero. Conf. Bulenger 3, 30 on amniomantia, i.e. divinatio per amnium seu membranam tertiam embryonis.

2 Disenchanting or defensive shirts have their counterpart in bewitching baneful ones. In a Servian song (Vuk 3, 30, 1. 786) a gold shirt is neither spun nor woven, but knitted, and a snake is worked into the collar. The shirt sent to Herakles, drenched in dragon's blood, is well known.

3 iibel ougen, Parz. 407, 8 are spiteful eyes ; whereas « ein bozsez ouge ' 71, 16 is a weak, sore eye.

1100

MAGIC.

' some evil eye has been at it ' ; to look at a beast with sharp eyes. In Virgil's Eel. 3, 103 : f nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos.' The Renner 18014 says, the glance of the eye kills snakes, scares wolves, hatches ostrich-eggs, breeds leprosy. Kadulfi ardentis Homil. 42a : ' cavete ab illis qui dicunt, quosdam oculis urentibus alios fascinare.' Persius 2, 34 has urentes oculi ; tmdfascinare, fiaaicaLveiv with the ancients meant chiefly this kind of sorcery. The ON. expression is sion-hverfing , look-throwing : f sundr stauk sula for sion iotuns/ asunder burst the pillar at the look of the giant, Seem. 53\ Stigandi can by his look destroy anything ; when taken prisoner, they pull a bag over his head (dreginn belgr a hofut honum) : he peeps through a hole in the sack, and with one look spoils a field of grass, Laxd. p. 152-6. Different and yet similar are the sharp eyes of certain heroes (p. 391) and maids, e.g. Svanhildr being bound is to be kicked to death by horses : ' er hun (when she) bra % sundr augum^ ]?a ]?orSu eigi (dared not) hestarnir at spora hana ; ok er Bikki sa ]?at, mselti hann, at belg skyldi draga a hofuS henni/ Fornald. sog. 1, 226. And of one SigurSr we are told in Fornm. sog. 2,°174: fat hann hefSi snart augnabragft, at allir hundar hurfu fra honum, ok var enginn sva grimmr at )?yr$i a hann at ra^a, er hann hvesti augun imot ^eim/ as dogs cannot endure the look of spirits and gods (p. 667). Any one possessed of this perilous power, who is evil-eyed, can prevent its baneful operation by directing his looks to a lifeless object. The phrase < no one shall say black is your eye' means, no one can exactly report any harm of you (Brockett p. 66). Has that peculiar conformation of the witch's eye-pupil (p. 1080) anything to do with her evil eye ? As a safeguard against its influence, the paw of the blind mole is worn 1 (see Suppl.) .

But as great beauty enchants by the radiant glance of the eye, it has also magic power in the smiling of the lips. In a Mod. Greek song, when the charming maid laughs, roses fall into her apron {ottov yeXa, teal irtyrovve ra p68a \ rrjv iroBidv T179), Fauriel 2, 382. In Heinr. von Neuenstadt's Apollonius of Tyre, composed about 1400, it is asked 1. 182 : fwa sach man

1 It is another thing for conjurors to blind the eyes of men by jugglery : ' sunt et praestigiatores, qui alio nomine obstrigilli vooantur, quod praestringant vel obstringant humanorum aciem oculorum,' Hincm. Rem. ed. 1645. 1, b5o.

LOOKS. LAUGHING. KISSING. DEINKS. 1101

rosen lachen ? 3 and then follows a tale abont a man who laughs roses :

e der lachetj daz ez vol rosen was, perg nnd tal, laub und gras.'

A Nethl. proverb (Tuinman 1, 306) says : ' als hy lacht, dan sneuwt het rozen3 The myth must have been very popular, as I frequently find in records (e.g. Bohmer's Cod. francof. 1, 185), and even at the present day, the names Rosenlacher, Rosenlachler, Blumlacher. The same poem of Apollonius has at 1. 2370 :

er kuste sie wol dreissig stunt (30 times) an iren rosenlachenden munt (mouth) ;

other passages to the point are quoted Aw. 1, 74-5. Gifted children of fortune have the power to laugh roses, as Freyja wept gold; probably in the first instance they were pagan beings of light, who spread their brightness in the sky over the earth, ' rose-children, sun-children/ Georg 48-9, laughing daybreaks (p. 747), rose-strewing Eos (p. 749). Mart. Cap. says, a silver urn fquee prseferebat serena fulgentia et vernantis coeli temperie renidebat 3 was called risus Jovis (see Suppl.) .

The hissing mouth has even greater power than the smiling. It is a recurring feature in our nursery-tales, that a hiss makes one forget everything (KM. 2, 168. 508), yet also that it brings back remembrance (2, 463). The unbinding of a spell hangs upon a hiss (p. 969). In the Norse legends oblivion is produced by a potion called ominnis-dl (-ale), ominnis-drychr, the opposite of minnis-dl (p. 59) : such an ominnisol Grimhild hands to SigurS, who thereupon forgets Brynhild ; and Go^run, before she could forget Sigurd and choose Atli, had to drink an ominnis-veig, whose magical concoction the poem describes, Ssem. 223b. 234a. So valkyrs, elfins and enchantresses offer to heroes their drinking- horns (p. 420), that they may forget all else and stay with them; conf. the Swed. tale in Afzelius 2, 159. 160 and the song in Arvidsson 2, 179. 282, where the miner makes the maiden drink of the glomshans horn and forget father and mother, heaven and earth, sun and moon. Now, seeing that minna in the Swed. folksongs and minde in the Dan. signify to kiss (minna uppa munnen, Sv. vis. 3, 123-4. D. vis. 1, 256. 298), as ‹j›i\elv is amare and osculari, and with us in the 16th cent. fto set the seal

1102

MAGIC.

of love ' is roundabout for kissing ; there must be a close connec- tion between kissing and the minne- drinking at sacrifices and in sorcery.1 But magic potions are of various kinds and extreme antiquity, their manufacture trenches on the healing art and poison- mixing (see SuppL). Love-drinks have love-calces to keep them company. Burchard describes how women, after rolling naked in wheat, took it to the mill, had it ground against the sun (ON. andscelis, inverso ordine), and then baked it into bread. Popular superstition in Samland makes out, that when a wife perceives her husband growing indifferent toward her, she lays aside a piece of the raw dough from nine successive bakings of bread or scones, then bakes him a scone out of the pieces, on eating which his former love returns. The Esthonians have a karwakak (hair-bread), a loaf into which hairs have been baked as a charm. The love-apples, in which symbols were inscribed (Hoffm. Schles. monatschr. p. 754), are to the same purpose (see SuppL).

There are certain safeguards in general use against magic. One should not answer a witch's question (Sup. I, 59), not thank her for her greeting (568) ; for certain kindnesses and gifts, if they are to do you good, it is advisable not to thank any one (398. Swed. 35. 52. Esth. 94). A witch may be known by her thank- ing you for lending things (I, 566) ; she never answers three times (563). — Whatever she praises will turn out ill, unless you promptly reply with railing, reviling, wishing f the same to you I (696), or spitting. To praise one to his face does harm, Pliny 28, 2. ' Si ulto-a placitum laudarit, baccare frontem cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro/ Virg, Eel. 7, 27; hence in prais- ing oneself a ' praefiscini ' (prae fascino ?) was added, Plaut. Asin. ii. 4, 84. Insult and imprecation the ancients turned aside with the words : eh Ke‹j›a\rjv aoi, on thy head may it fall ! — The Mod. Greeks and Slavs are shy of praise, and try to save themselves by spitting : a B/Ussian nurse directly spits in the face of one who cracks up her baby without putting in the precautionary ' God save the mark ! ■ Before a witch's house you spit three times (Sup. I, 756), the same in crossing a haunted water by night

1 Minna = to kiss may indeed seem a corruption of my nna (to give mouth), ON. mynnaz, conf. mundes minne, MsH. 1, 45a; still the other explanation has its weight too.

SAFEGUARDS.

no3

(Swed. 40) ; the Greeks at sight of a madman spat thrice into their bosom, Theocr. 6, 39. 21, 11. f <cr dictis despue carminibus/ Tibull. i. 2, 55. Home-sprites cannot bear spitting (p. 514) ; conf. Sup. I, 317. 453. To the same effect, and worth reading, is what Pliny 28, 4 says on despuere, adspuere, inspuere, exspuere. — In case of need you may without scruple strike a suspected witch, and draw blood (p. 1096), or throw a firebrand at her (Sup. Swed. 96).— Bread, salt and coals are a protective against magic (I, 564. 713), as witches abstain from bread and salt (p. 1071). I fancy that pipping of the loaf, so distasteful to the wood-wives (p. 484), was a sacred magic- averting symbol; conf. 'placenta digito notata3 in Lasicz 49.— Throw a steel over enchanted beasts, and they are bound to resume their natural shape (Sup. I, 886) ;l throw a knife marked with the cross over a witch, and you re- cognise her (554) ; when a man threw steel between the elfin and the hill, it prevented her going into it (p. 467) ; steel insures the child in the cradle from being changed. Instances of magic thus averted by steel we find in Faye 20. 24-5-6. 51. 141 ; conf. Sup. Swed. 71.— Witches and devils shun the sign of the cross : that is why we see so many crosses on the doors the first night in May. The peasant ploughs a cross into each corner of his field. On the cradles of infants before they were christened, the cross was lavishly employed to guard against elf or devil; just so the heathens .used their hammer, and there is a remarkable vestige of it forthcoming still : f malleum, ubi puerpera decumbit, obvolvunt candido linteo3 (Gisb. Yoetii sel. disput. theol. Ultraj. 1659, pars 3 p. 121.)— No less do evil spirits hate and shun the sound of bells (pp. 1022-74) ; it disturbs their dance at the cross-road, Sup. I, 542.— To this must be added the methods mentioned p. 1078 of recognising witches and guarding against them (see Suppl.).

These are the most distinctive phenomena in the world of Magic. Many, indeed most magic appliances run over into Superstition, between which and magic proper it is impossible to draw a fixed boundary. I have indeed put forward, as a dis- tinguishing mark of sorcery, the malicious design to do mischief,

1 A peasant was driving his waggon one night, when a werewolf approached. To disenchant him, the man had the presence of mind instantly to tie his fire-steel to the lash of his whip, and fling it over the wolf's head, keeping the whip in his hand. But the wolf caught the steel, and the peasant had to save himself by speedy flight.

1104

MAGIC.

and it does seem to have resulted from inverting the wholesome use of occult forces in nature (pretty much as the devil from an inversion of God, p. 986); but particular applications of the true and the false art cannot always be kept apart. As a herb, a stone, a spell proves a source of healing, so may it also act perniciously too ; the use was proper and permissible, the abuse abhorred and punished. A poisoner as such is not a witch, she becomes one in the eyes of the people the moment she uses pre- ternatural means. A wise woman, healing sickness and charming wounds, begins to pass for a witch only when with her art she does evil ; her means are as natural as the poison of the mur- deress. To higher antiquity, witches were priestesses, physi- cians, fabulous night- wives, whom men honoured, feared, and at last made light of, but never dreamt as yet of persecuting and executing. Maidens might turn into swans, heroes into were- wolves, and lose nothing in popular estimation. In course of time, when the Devil's complicity with every kind of sorcery came to be assumed, the guilt of criminality fell upon all personal relations [with him] ; but the people for the most part continued to practise their long-accustomed charms in the innocent sense of superstition, though a suspicion of sorcery was more likely to overshadow it now than before.

CHAPTER XXXV.

SUPERSTITION.

By Superstition is to be understood, not the whole body of heathen religion, which we think of as a delusion, a false belief, but the retention of particular heathen practices and principles. The christian convert rejected and loathed the gods of the hea- then, but still there lingered in his heart notions and habits, which having no obvious reference to the old faith, seemed not directly opposed, to the new. Wherever Christianity has left a vacuum, where its spirit could not at once penetrate the ruder minds, there superstition or over-belief grew rank. In Low Ger- man they say bi-glove by-belief, in Nethl. overgelof, bygeldf, Dan. overtro, Icel. liiatru, all modelled on the Latin super stitio, which itself is traceable to superstes (surviving), and denotes a persist- ence of individual men in views which the common sense of the majority has abandoned. A fortune-teller was to the Romans ' superstitiosus homo/ And the Swed. term vidshepelse seems primarily to mean a sort of magic, not superstition (p. 1036; see Suppl.).1

There are two kinds of superstition, an active and a passive, one being more the augurium, sortilegium, the other more the omen of the ancients.2 If, without man's active participation, some startling sign be vouchsafed him by a higher power, he prog- nosticates from it good hap or ill. If the sign did not arise of itself, if he elicits it by his own contrivance, then there is posi- tive superstition. Naturally Christianity succeeded better in combating the positive superstition that was mixed up with hea- then rites, than the negative and involuntary, which swayed the mind of man as the fear of ghosts does.

1 Also Swed. skrok, skrak, superstitio ; the ON. skrok, figmentum. OHG. gameitheit superstitio, vanitas, Graff 2, 702. In Mod. Germ. I find zipfel-glaube, Schmid's Schwab, id. 547. Lett, blehnu tizziba, faith in idle things (blehnas).

2 Divine omnipotence produces miracles (p. 1031), a chance phenomenon mere presages, omina, portenta, in which sense Ulphilas renders r^para by fauratanja, Mk. 13, 22. John 6, 26. 1 Cor. 12, 12. With tani I can hardly connect anything but ON. teningr, talus, or OHG. zeno, provoco, Graff 5, 673 (see Suppl.).

1105

1106

SUPERSTITION.

The usages of active superstition always have some practical aim. A man wants to escape a present evil, to throw off a sick- ness, to get rid of his enemy, or he wishes to know and secure his future luck. And here we must not overlook how often, according to a difference of period or nationality, the same cus- toms acquire a new relation and meaning,1 being often torn away from their connexion, e.g. what had a distinct reference to sacri- fice will, standing by itself, be unintelligible ; and the same was the case with the objects of sorcery. What our forefathers hoped or feared had reference more to war and victory ; the farmer of today cares about his corn and cattle. If the heathen sorceress with her hail destroys the host of the enemy, the modern witch makes foul weather for her neighbour's field. So the farmer promises himself a plenteous crop on the strength of an omen that in olden time betokened victory. Yet farming and cattle- breeding have a long history too, and a number of superstitious rites connected with them stretch without a break through many centuries. Likewise all the superstitions that look to domestic life, to birth and death, wooing and wedding, are rooted in nature, and almost unchangeable through the lapse of ages ; superstition constitutes a kind of religion for all the lower kind of household wants.

Divinations form a leading feature of superstition. Man would fain lift the veil that time and space have cast over his weightiest concerns; by the use of mysterious means he thinks he can arrive at the truth. Divination lawful and unlawful has always been a function of the priest (or head of a family) and of the magician (p. 862-3) : the one belongs to religion, the other to superstition.

Various words for divining and soothsaying were given at the beginning of last chapter, when we had to settle the meaning of magic. I have now to add an OHG. heilison augurari (AS. halsian) ; heilisod omen, augurium ; heilisari augur (AS. halsere), heilisara auguratrix. In MHGr. these words had died out. One

1 It is conceivable that remnants of the old Roman divinatio were still in vogue at the time of the Lombards : ' habebat tunc Agilulf quendam de suis aruspicem rjuerum, qui per artem diabolicam, quid futurum portenderent ictus fulminum in- telligebat,' Paul. Diac. 3, 30. The Etruscan haruspicia were especially directed to fulgura, 0. Mull. 2, 32.

DIVINATION.

HOT

must distinguish them from OHGr. heilizan salutare, AS. haletan (see Suppl.).

The sacred priestly divination appears, like the priestly office itself (p. 93), to have been hereditary in families. A female fortune-teller declared that the gift had long been in her family, and on her death the grace would descend to her eldest daughter (Sup. H, cap. 107) : from mother to daughter therefore, and from father to son ; by some it is maintained that soothsaying and the gift of healing must be handed down from ivomen to men, from men to women. To this day there are families that have the peculiar gift of foreseeing what will happen, especially fires, deaths and corpses : in L. Germany they call such people vorkie- hers, fore-peepers. It is also said they can quad sehn, i.e. see or scent any coming misfortune, nay, the power is even allowed to horses, sheep and dogs : horses prophesy (p. 658), hounds can see spirits (p. 667). And notice in particular, that such men can impart their gift to him that treads on their right foot and looks over their left shoulder ; this was apparently a very ancient, even a heathen posture, it was a legal formality in tak- ing possession of cattle (RA. 589), and may have been tolerated among christians in other cases, e.g. one who is doing penance has to step on the right foot of the hermit, Ls. 1, 593. The first child christened at a newly consecrated font receives the power to see spirits and coming events, until some one shall from idle curiosity tread on his left foot and look over his right shoulder, when the gift will pass away to him, Sup. I, 996 ; on the other hand, he that looks through the loop of the wise man's arm (p. 939) becomes a seer of spirits, he beholds the natural and preternatural : even to the dog the gift descends, if you tread on his right foot and make him look over your right shoulder, Sup. I, 1111. Again, children born with the helmet can see spirits, ghosts or witches (p. 874n.). In all this we see the last quiverings of life in practices of the heathen priest- hood, before they pass into mere conjuring and witchcraft (see SuppL).

Divination is directed mainly to the discovery of future things, they being the most uncertain. The past is done and known, or can be ascertained in many ways ; what goes on in the present, at a distance, we seldom feel any temptation to find out; an

VOL. III. p

1108

SUPERSTITION.

instance occurred at p. 109 In., where the pilgrim is enabled by magic to see what is going on at his home. Yet the present has its puzzles too, when methods have to be decided on, especially property to be divided.

When events and deeds of the past were wrapt in obscurity, antiquity had a thrice-hallowed means of discovery, the ordeals or judgments of God, a retrospective divination of sure and infallible success, such as judicial procedure demanded. But to every German ordeal it is essential that the accused should perform its ritus himself ; in no case could it be placed in the judge's hands. This fact distinguishes it from the sieve-driving or sieve-turning practised since the Mid. Ages, which was per- formed by wise women, witches, conjurors, and even by respect- able persons, to bring concealed criminals to light : the woman held a sieve that was an heirloom between her two middle fingers, uttered a spell, and then went over the names of suspected persons ; when she came to that of the culprit, the sieve began to sway and tilt over.1 The plan was adopted against thieves, and such as in a tumult had inflicted wounds ; and sometimes to reveal the future, e.g. who should be a girl's sweetheart. I find the first mention of it in the poem cited on p. 1048 : c und daz ein wip ein sib tribe, sunder vleisch und sunder ribe, da niht inne wasre/ this I take to be a lie, says the author ; his in- credulity seems to rest on the tilting over, the sieve is void, has neither flesh nor bone. The sieve was also laid on a pair of tongs, which were held up between the two middle fingers. In Denmark the master of the house himself took the trial in hand, balancing the sieve on the point of a pair of scissors, Sup. Dan. 132. This sieve-running (sieve- chasing, sieve-dance) must have been very common in France and Germany in the 16-1 7th

i Sieve-running is described differently in the Meckl. jahrb. 5, 108 : A sieve inherited from kinsfolk is set np on its edge, an inherited pair of scissors is opened and its points stuck into the sieve's edge deep enough to lift it by. Then two persons of different families take it to a perfectly dark place, put the middle finger of the right hand under the scissors' ring, and so raise the sieve. At the slightest movement of course the ring will slip off the finger, and the sieve fall, as in the dark it does not hang quite perpendicular. Then one begins to ask the other : ' I ask thee in the name of G., etc., tell me truth and lie not, who stole so and so ? did Hans, Fritz, Peter ? ' At the name of the guilty party the ring slips off, the sieve falls to the ground, and the thief is known. In all the other descriptions I have read, the thing is done in daylight, and the sieve does not fall, but spins round.

SIEVE-TURNING-. KEY-SPINNING.

1109

cent., many books mention it, and couple together sieve-turners and spell-speakers ; 1 it may here and there be still in use, conf. Stender sub v. 'seetinu tezzinaht/ and his Gram. p. 299; it seems the Lettons stick it on a pair of shears. But it was already known to the Greeks, Theocritus 3, 31 mentions a KocrKivo/xavr^, and Lucian (Alex. 7) speaks of tcoaiclvw fiavreveaOaL among the Paphlagonians; Potter 1, 766 thus describes the process of fcoa- /cLvofiavreia : they held up the sieve by a string, prayed to the gods, then ran over the names of the suspects ; at that of the doer the sieve set off spinning (see Suppl.).

In the same way people stuck a hereditary key in th e Bible (at the first chap, of John),2 or a cleaver in a wooden ball, which began to move when they came to the right name, Sup. I, 932. I surmise that the revolution of the lotter-wood worn by spruch- sprecher (lotter-buben, frei-harte, H. Sachs iv. 3, 58a) was also for divining purposes; in the early Fragm. 15° we find: 'louf umbe lotterholz, louf umbe gedrate ! 3 On this I shall be more explicit in another place.

It may be regarded as a relic of the judicium offae or casei (RA. 932), that those suspected of a theft were made to eat of a consecrated cheese : the morsel sticks in the throat of the real thief (Sup. H, cap. 51). 3

1 Fischart's Damonom. p. 71. Hartm. on Spells 99. Simplic. 2, 352. Ettner's Apoth. 1187. J. Praetorius on Sieve-running. Curiae Varisc. 1677. 4. Bommel's Hess, gesch. 6, 61. In Burgundy 4 tonai le taimi,' Noels Borg. p. 374 ; taimi is the Fr. tamis, Nethl. teems, in Teutonista tempse, but in Diut. 2, 209 tempf. If Graff has not misread this, we might make of Tamfana (pp. 80. 257. 278) a goddess named after the sieve she held in her hand ; that would look heathenish.

2 H. Stahl's Westfal. sagen, Elberf. 1831. p. 127 gives a fuller account : The hered. key is put inside a hered. Bible, so that the ward part of the key lies on the words « In the beginning was the Word,' and the ring stands out of the book. They tie it up tight with string, and hang it up by the end of the string to the ceiling. Then two people hold their fingers under the ring, touching it gently, and the injured party asks : « has there been a witch at my cow ? ' The other must say No, and the complainant answer Yes, and this they keep up for some time. If the cow be really bewitched, the Bible begins to turn round, and then more questions are asked. If there has been no witchery, or the wrong witch is named, the Bible remains still. The turnings of sieve and key resemble those of the wishing-rod, p. 975.

3 The Observationes ad Ivonis epistolas p. 157 have the following : ' Formulae m codicibus monasteriorum, quibus ad detegenda furta jubebatur oratio dominica scribi in pane et caseo, postea fieri cruces de tremulo, quarum una sub dextero pede, alia super caput suspecti viri poneretur, deinde post varias numinis invocationes imprecari, ut lingua et guttur rei alligaretur, ne transglutire posset, sed eorum [coram?] omnibus tremeret, nec haberet quo requiesceret. Cf. formulam Dunstani Cantuar. editam a Pitthoeo in glossario capitulariorum.' Against crossing cheeses (de caseis cruce non signandis) several ordinances were issued in the 15th cent. (docs, of 1430, '48, '70, '77 in Monum. boic. 16. 50. 55. 58. 61).

1110

SUPEESTITION.

Other methods of forecasting the future were likewise available for detecting thieves or any malefactors.

The lot (OHG. hloz, Goth, hlauts, AS. hieat, ON. hlutr) was the venerablest and fairest of all kinds of divination. A difficult and doubtful matter was to be raised thereby above human caprice and passion, and receive the highest sanction, e.g. in dividing an inheritance, in ascertaining the right victim (conf. p. 230), and so forth. Lot therefore decides a present uncertainty, but it may also extend to the future. Originally placed in the hands of a priest or judge, it afterwards became an instrument of sorcery (p. 1034-7), and sortilegus, sortiarius, sorcier are all derived from sors. Our OHG. hliozan seems in like manner to have passed out of the meaning sortiri into that of augurari, incantare, which it retains in its MHG. form liezen, Hoffm. fundgr. 2, 67. Er. 8123.

It was managed in two ways : the priest or the paterfamilias cast the lot, and interpreted it when fallen, or he held it out to the party to draw ; the first was for indicating the future, the last for adjusting the present.

Let Tacitus describe the first kind: < Sortium consuetudo simplex. Virgam, frugiferae arbori decisam, in surculos ampu- tant} eosque notis quibusdam discretos super candidam vestem temere ac fortuitu spargunt. Mox si publice consuletur, sacerdos civitatis, sin privatim ipse pater familiae, precatus deos coelumque suspiciens, ter singulos tollit, sublatos secundum impressam ante notam interpretatur. Si prohibuerunt, nulla de eadem re in eundem diem consultatio; sin permissum, auspiciorum adhuc

fides exigitur/ Germ. 10. Here the lots are but preliminary to

the entire transaction, and if they prove unfavourable, further divination is not proceeded with. I need not transcribe the important explanations my Brother has given in his work on Runes pp. 296—307. A connexion there certainly is between these lots and the runes and ciphers ; lot-books are mentioned as early as the 13th cent., Ls. 3, 169. Kolocz. 70 (see Suppl.).

The Armenians prophesied from the movement of cypress boughs : f quarum cupressorum surculis ramisque seu leni sive violento vento agitatis Armenii flamines ad longum tempus^in auguriis uti consueverunt/ as Moses Chorenensis (ed. 1736, p. 54) tells us in the 5th cent.

LOTS. WATER IN A SIEVE. 1111

A long array of divinations seems to have been diffused over Europe by the Greeks and Romans ; 1 from this source come Hartlieb's accounts of hydromantia, pyromantia (the fiur-sehen of Altd. bl. 1, 365), chiromantia (MHG. the tisch in der hant, Er. 8136), on which see more inHaupt's Zeitschr. 3, 271 (see Suppl.). The crystal-gazing of the pure child, Sup. H, cap. 90, is the ' gastromantia ex vase aqua pleno, cujus meditullium (belly of the jar) vocabatur ydarpy.3 2

More to the purpose are customs peculiar to certain nations, and not traceable to the above source: in these we either find a different procedure, or the forecasts are gathered from natural objects by lying in wait, listening, looking.

Our ancestors (acc. to Tac. Germ. 3) contrived to foresee the issue of a battle by the spirited or faltering delivery of the war-song.

The ancient Poles reckoned on victory if water drawn in a sieve was carried before the army without running through. I quote the words of the Chronicon Montis Sereni (Menken 2, 227. Hoffm. script, rer. lus. 4, 62) : Anno 1209 Oonradus, orientalis marchio, Lubus castrum soceri sui Wlodislai ducis Poloniae, propter multasquas ab eo patiebatur injurias, obsedit. Wlodis- laus vero, obsidionem vi solvere volens, collecto exercitu copioso, marchioni mandavit, se ei altera die congressurum. Vespere autem diei praecedentis Oderam fluvium cum suis omnibus trans- gressus, improvisus supervenire hostibus moliebatur. Unus vero eorum qui supani dicuntur vehementer ei coepit obsistere, monens ne tempus pugnae statutum praeveniret, quia hoc factum nullius rectius quam infidelitatis posset nomine appellari. Quern dum dux timiditatis argueret, et fidelitatis qua ei teneretur commoneret, respondit: < ego quidem ad pugnam pergo, sed scio me patriam meam de cetero non visurum.' Habebat autem (sc. Wlodislaus) ducem belli pythonissam quandam, quae deflumine cribro haustam nec defluentem, ut ferebatur, ducens aguam exercitum praecedebat, et hoc signo eis victoriam promittebat. Nec latuit marchionem

508^^ 3Ha^ "AO,, 4 PP.

2 Melber de Geroltzhofen says in Vocabularius predicantium (sheet E 4) • 'Nigromantia. schwartz kunst die do ist mit vffsehung der dotten, mit den der mgromanticns za ubert , oder mit den dry en erstenschollen, die der pfaff^Mt ynsZ grab Oder mit den wydhopffen, die do lauffen by den grebem." The passage is also quoted from Melber in Jod. Eychman's Vocab predic!, Niirnbg ^8e3paSSage 18 also

1112 SUPERSTITION.

adventus eoruin, sed mature suis armatis et ordinatis occurrens, forti congressu omnes in fugarn vertit, pythonissa primitus inter- fecta. Ille etiani supanus viriliter pugnans cum multis aliis inter-

fectus est. What is here an omen of success is elsewhere a

test of innocence : a true-hearted boy carries ivater in a sieve, and not a drop runs out, KM. 3, 254; according to Indian belief the innocent can take water up in a lump like a ball.^ £ Exstat Tucciae vestalis incestae precatio, qua usa aqnam in cribro tuht/ Pliny 28, 3; a witch sets a girl the task of fetching ivater in the sieve, Norske ev. 1, 88; the vestal had also to carry fire in a brazen sieve (supra p. 611), and a Dan. fairytale in Molbech's Ev. p. 22 actually speaks of carrying the sun in a sieve. The sieve comes before us as a sacred old-world vessel with miraculous properties. What the myth imports the proverb treats as sheer impossibilities : < er schepfet wazzer mit dem sibe, swer ane vrie milte mit sper und mit schilte ervehten wil ere und lant/he draws water in a sieve, who by brute force, etc., Troj. 18536. < Lympham infundere cribro/ Eeinard. 3, 1637 (see Suppl.).

By AS. accounts, the Northmen had a wonderful standard borne before their army, from whose indications they inferred victory or defeat. In Asser's Yita Alfredi p. 33 ad an. 878 : < . . . vexillum quod reafan (for raefan, hraefen, ON.hrafn) vocant. Dicunt enim quod tres sorores Hungari et Habbae, filiae videlicet Lodebrochi illud vexillum texuerunt, et totum paraverunt illud uno meridiano tempore} Dicunt etiam quod in omni bello, ubi praecederet idem signum, si victoriam adepturi essent, appareret in medio signi quasi corvus vivus volitans ; sin vero vincendi in futuro fuissent, penderet directe nihil movens : et hoc saepe pro-

batum est/ The Encomium Emmae (Duchesne's Script. Norm.

169. says, the flag was of plain white silk, but in war-time there became visible in it a raven, with open beak and flutter- ing wings whenever victory smiled on them, but sitting still with drooping feathers when it eluded their grasp. Ailredus Rieval- lensis p. 353 declares this raven to have been the devil himself, who does at times assume the shape of that bird (p. 997) ; we more naturally see in it the bird of the heathen god of victory (p. 671) : OSinn might give the victorious host this sign that he

i The thread spun between 11 and 12 (Sup. I, 841) corresponds wonderfully.

FLAG. NEIGHING-. SHOULDEKBLADE.

1113

was sending down his messenger. Yet no Scand. story alludes to such a flag of victory.

Prophesying from the auspicious neighing of horses has been dealt with, p. 658. Dempster in Antiq. Eom. 3, 9 says : ( equos hinnitu alacriore et ferociore fremitu victoriam ominari etiamnunc militibus persuasum est/ At twelve o'clock on Christmas night the superstitious listen at crossroads, at boundary- stones : if they can hear swords rattle and horses neigh, there will be war the coming spring (so war is foretold by the neighing in the Furious Host, p. 938). At the same season maids listen at the stable door for the neighing of stallions,, and if they hear it, make sure of a suitor presenting himself by Midsummer (Liebusch's Sky- thika p. 143). Others lie down in the horse-manger at Christmas, to learn future events (Denis Lesefriichte 1, 128). Misfortune is near when the steed stumbles, e.g. the Servian Sharats (Vuk 1, 240).

Sjpatulamancia in Hartlieb (Sup. H, cap. 115) is a corruption of scapulimantia, an art that seems not solely derived from Eomans or Byzantines. Lambeck 7, 224 says the Vienna library has a treatise by Michael Psellus (I know not which one) irepl wHoirXaroaicoirlas. Vintler too (Sup. G, 1. 126) mentions the inspection of shoulder -bones. ' Divinationes sculterren-blat,' Altd. bl. 1, 365. Jornandes cap. 37: 'Attila diffidens suis copiis, metuens inire conflictum, statuit per aruspices futura inquirere. Qui more solito nunc pecorum fibras, nunc quasdam venas in abrasis ossibus intuentes, Hunnis infausta denuntiant/ 1 Among the Kalmuks are sorcerers called dalatchi, because they predict from the shoulderblade (dala) of sheep, swans and stags. They let these bones burn in the fire for a time, then report the aspect of the streaks and lines that have arisen on them. If the fire have left many black marks on the blades, the dalatchi holds out hopes of a mild winter; many white marks indicate snow (Bergm. Nomad, streifer. 3, 184). The Cherkesses too have soothsaying from shoulderblades, conf. Erman's Archiv 1842. 1, 123 (see Suppl.).

1 Such extispicia were performed on beasts slain for sacrifice ; but animals were also killed for the mere purpose of divination : 4 Eecluso pectore (of a goose), extraxit f ortissimum jecur, et inde mini futura praedixit,' Petron. 137. • Quis invenit Jissamjecoris ? ' Cic. de Nat. D. 3, 6.

1114

SUPERSTITION.

This comes very near the forecasting by the goose-bone (ex anserino sterno), Sup. H, cap. 121, which appears among the people in later times, probably even now, conf. Sup. I, 341 ; K, 163 ; Meckl. Jahrb. 9, 219 no. 46. I have marked a few passages for extraction. Ettner's Ungew. apoth. p. 1144: 'And what prognostica must not the breastbones of capon, goose and duck yield ! If the same be red, they ordain an abiding coldness ; or if white, clear and transparent, then shall the winter's weather be endurable/ Martinsgans by Joh. Olorinus variscus (Magdeb. 1609. 8), p. 145 : ' Good old ladies, I present to you the breast- bone, that ye learn thereby to foretell true as the almanack, and become weather-prophets. The fore part by the throat signifies the fore-winter, the hinder part the after-winter, white is for snow and mild weather, the other for great cold.-' Ganskonig by Lycosthenes Psellionoros (Wolfg. Spangenberg) Strasb. 1607, ciii: 'The breastbone which they call the steed (made into a prancing horse for children) ; and well can many an ancient dame, prognosticating by the same, tell by the hue infallibly, how keen the winter's cold shall be.' Ehythmi de ansere (in Dornau 1, 403) : ' Then in my breast the merrythought, I trow it lies not there for nought, for men therein may plainly see what winter weather it shall be, and many a man holds fast thereto, accounting me a prophet true.'

Those who thus looked after the weather were called weter- sorgoere, Er. 8127 (weter-wiser man 7510), or weter-kiescere, -chooser, whence the surname Kiesewetter, Gramm. 4, 848 ; in Eauch's Script. 1, 430 I find a place ' bei der weterkiesen/ as if certain spots were favourable to weather- choosing.

The Esthonians foretold weather and fruitfulness from bownets. Gutslaff says in his book on Wohhanda p. 209 : 'I am told that on this beck the husbandmen of old had their augurium respect- ing weather, which they managed thus. They set in the beck three baskets in a row, and not heeding the two outer, gave their mind wholly to the midmost, what kind of fish would come into the same. For if into this basket were gotten a scaleless fish, as crab, quab or the like, they had ill weather and unfruitful year to dread, and were fain to sacrifice an ox for to obtain good weather. Whereupon they set the baskets in as before, and if again a scaleless fish were found therein, then a second time did they

MEEEYTHOTJGHT. BOWNET. COEN. CEOSS-WAY. 1115

sacrifice an ox, and set the baskets in for the third time. If once more they found a scaleless fish, then this third time they sacrificed a child, in hope to get good weather and a plenteous season. And if yet again fishes not scaly were come into the middle basket, they rested therewith content, and with patience abided it. But when scaly fish were found therein, they cast them to have fair weather and fruitful year, whereat they rejoiced greatly .' — — A different thing altogether was the Greek IxOvofiavrei'a from fish's entrails (Potter's Archaol. 1, 703).

As horses' neighing was watched for (p. 1113), so there was listening at night in the growing cornfields : going into the winter-crop on Christmas night to overhear the future, or on May-night into the green corn, Sup. I, 420. 854. The cereals were a sacred thing, ' der heilego ezesg,3 N. ps. 140, 7 (Goth, atisks), f das liebe korn,' Gramm. 3, 665. So then, sitting in the corn, one might hear the sound of voices, hear spirits conversing on coming events. They listened also at cross-ways, Sup. I, 854. 962, where boundaries touched : the partings of roads 1 were accounted meeting- places of sprites and witches (p. 1074 and Sup. I, 647), conf. the ON. ']?ar sem gotur (roads) moetast,' Forn. sog. 3, 22. Did images of heathen gods stand where the roads forked ? We are told of people praying, sacrificing and lighting candles ad bivia, Sup. C, p. 193d ; and just before that, p. 193°, we hear of them sittiug at the cross-way,2 without the corn being mentioned : ' in bivio sedisti supra taurinam cutem, ut ibi futura tibi intelligeres ? ' To me the bull's hide, like the bearskin (p. 1010, conf. Reinh. p. lvi), indicates heathen sacrifice. And here a Gaelic rite described by Armstrong seems to furnish a valuable clue : A man is wrapt in the warm shin of an animal just hilled, he is then laid down beside a waterfall in the forest, and left alone ; by the roar of the waves, it is thought, the future is revealed to him, and this kind of divination is called taghairn. The ' forse ' too was a sacred spot, as well as the forking of roads :

1 A Persian superstition : ' sitting down at the junction of four cross-roads on a Wedn. night, and applying to yourself every sentence spoken by the passers and considering it as a good or bad omen,' Atkinson, p. 11. 12.

2 If after supper on Christm. eve a girl shakes out the tablecloth at a crossivay, a man will meet her, and give her good even. Of the same height and figure will her future husband be. The shaken cloth has taken the place of the spread, or, of the animal's hide. Divination by sowing basilicum is known to Vuk 1, 22. no. 36 (Wesely p. 58).

111G

SUPEESTITION.

this last is mentioned in the Edda, fopt bolwisar konor sitja brauto ncer, J?aer er deyfa sverS ok sefa/ Sasm. 197b. Some people on New-year's day would sit on the house-roof, girt with a sword, and explore the future. Sup. C, p. 193c. This again must have been a holy place, for sick children were also set on the roof to be cured, Sup. C, 10, 14 ; p. 195c. Does this explain why, when a person cannot die, some shingles in the roof are turned, or taken right out (I, 439. 721) ? Also when a child has convulsions, a plank is turned, J. Schmidt 121. A peculiar practice is, to listen while you dangle out of window a ball of thread fastened to a hereditary key, Sup. I, 954.

Sneezing {irraipeiv, sternuere) has from the earliest times been fraught with meaning. Some take it for a mild form of apoplexy, a momentary palsy, during which one loses the free use of his limbs, Sup. H, c. 74. The Greeks saluted the sneezer with £fj0i, Zev acocrov ! conf. Anthol. Gr. ii. 13, 11. ' Cur sternumentis salutamus ? quod etiam Tiberium Caesarem, tristissimum (ut constat) hominum, in vehiculo exegisse tradunt/ Plin. 28, 2. ' Giton ter continuo ita sternutavit, ut grabatum concuteret, ad quern motum Eumolpus salvere Gitona jubet/ Petron. sat. 98.1 The Arabs too salute at sneezing (Riickert's Hariri 1, 543). In our Mid. Age poets I find: ' die Heiden nicht endorften niesen, da man doch sprichet, helfiu Got ! 9 durst not sneeze, though etc. Turk Wit. 35. ' Christ iu helfe ! so sie niesen,9 Ms. 2, 169
' durch daz solte ein schilt gesellen kiesen, daz im ein ander Jieiles wunschte, ob dirre schilt kunde niesen,9 Tit. 80. ' so wunsch ich dir ein niesen,9 Ms. 2, 217b. ' wir sprechen, swer niuset, Got helfe dir !' Renn. 15190. f Deus te adjuvet' (a.d. 1307), Pistor. script. 1, 1024 ; conf. Konigshoven p. 302. Enchanted sprites sneeze under a bridge, that some one may call out God help ! and undo the spell, DS. no. 224-5-6. Moneys Anz. 4, 308. f dir hat din katze niht genorn,' Helbl. 1, 1393. To the Greeks there seemed something divine in sneezing : tov irrapiibv 6ebv rjyov/j,e0a, Arist. probl. 33, 7; conf. 11, 33. Xen. Anab. iii. 2, 9. Theocr. 7, 96. 18, 16. Words confirmed by sneezing come true, Od. 17,

1 1 Sterrratantibus salvere dictum antiquior mos quam putatur,' Valesius in Valesiana p. 68. ' Pourquoi on fait des souhaits en faveur de ceux qui eternuent,' Morin in Mem. de l'acad. des inscr. 4, 325. J: Geih. Meuschen de antique- et mo- demo ritu salutandi sternutantes, Kilon. 1704. Gesch. der formel ' Gott lielf dir ! ' beim niesen, publ. by Wieland, Lindau 1787.

SNEEZING. EAES, EYES, NOSE. LOVER. 1117

541-5. t sternutationes nolite observare,' Sup. A. Whoever sneezes during a narrative is bound to prove its truth. In the Christmas nights do not sneeze, and the cattle will not die. The passage in Hartlieb, Sup. H, c. 73, is curious; conf. Sup. I, 186. 266. 437 and M (Esthon.) 23 (see Suppl.).

Hinging in the ears, garrula auris, /36ytt/3o?, is lucky when in the right ear. c Absentes tinnitu aurium praesentire sermones de se receptum est/ Plin. 28, 2, conf. Sup. I, 82. 802; booming

in the ear, F, 27. Quivering of the eye : aXkerai o^daXfjuos

fjboi 6 Se^o?, Theocr. 3) 37. Itching of brows and cheeks, Sap. I, 141. D, 38 r. 140 v. ' si vibrata salitione insuetum alter oculorum, dexter vel sinister palpitaret, si concuterentur ac veluti exsilirent aut trepidarent musculi, humeri aut femora etc., mali erant ominis,' Dempster's Antiq. Eom. 3, 9 ; conf. Suidas sub v. oitoviGTiKY). The Indians thought twitching of the right eye a bad omen (Hirzel's Sakuntala p. 65). Itching in the right eye has

a good meaning, in the left a bad, says Tobler 30. Bleeding of

the nose : unlucky if on the left side, Sup. I, 825. If in going out you catch against the door, or stumble on the threshold, you are warned to turn back (248. 895). If your right hand itches, you will part with money, if your left, you will take money. Itching of the right eye betokens crying, of the left, laughing. If your soles itch, you are going to dance, if your nose, to hear news. Whoever gets a yellow finger has lost a relation (see Suppl.).

The many ways of finding out one's lover or suitor that is to be are, so far as I see, unconnected with Roman or Greek super- stition. The girl hearkens to the cackling of the cock (Sup. I, 101), or she throws her wreath of flowers (848. 1093; conf. 867), or some particular night in the year she pulls a billet of wood out of the stack or a stick out of the hedge (I, 109. 958 ; F, 7. 49), walking to it back foremost ; or on a dark night she clutches at the flock in hopes of pulling out a ram (I, 952). Walking backwards or standing naked is a usual requisite in this, as in other cases (I, 506-7. 928; G, 1. 207). Another way is, being naked, to throw one's shift out through the door (I, 955), or to grasp backwards through the door at the lover's hair (I, 102), or to spread the table for him (as for norns), and then he is bound to appear and eat his supper off it. Harrys in Volkss. 2, 28 de- scribes the so-called nappel-jpfang : in a vessel full of clean water

1118

SUPEESTITION.

you set afloat little pots of thin silver plate marked with the names of those whose fate is in question ; if a young man's pot comes up to a girl's, it will be a match. The same is done in some parts with simple nutshells.1

Like the discovery of one's future husband, it was an important matter to ascertain the sex of a child before it was born. This could be gathered from the persons one met in going to church, Sup. I, 483, from previous children (677. 747), from sneezing (M, 23). That a woman would have none but daughters, was to be learnt by other signs (I, 678. M, 22). An 0. Fr. poem in Meon 3, 34 has the following :

voire est que je sui de vous grosse, si m'enseigna l'on a aler entor le mostier sans parler trois tors, dire trois patenostres en l'onor Dieu et ses apostres, une fosse au talon feisse, et par trois jors i revenisse : s'au tiers jorz overt le trovoie, c'etoit unfits qu' avoir devoie, et s'il etoit clos, c'etoit fille.

Throwing shoes over one's head, and seeing which way the points look, reveals the place where one is destined to stay longest, Sup. I, 101 ; G, 1. 220. The Sermones disc, de tempore mention, among superstitious Christmas customs, that of calceos super caput j 'act are ■, Sermo xi.

They also speak of some e qui cumulos satis ponunt3 et per hoc futura pronosticant.' Sup. I, 1081: f on Christmas eve put a little heap of salt on the table; if it melts overnight, you die next year ; if not, not.' Again, in a house where one lies dead, they make three heaps of salt (I, 846) . This has to do with the sacred nature of salt (pp. 1046. 1076). Apparently of Greek origin is the widely received custom of pouring out lead (I, 97; H, cap. 96) ; even Ihre (de superst. p. 55) mentions it, conf.

1 Divining by filberts was another thing : ' infra manus meas camellam vini posuit, et cum digitos pariter extensos porris apioque lustrasset, avellanas nuces cum precatione mersit in vinum ; et sive in summum redierant, sive subsederant, ex hac conjectura dicebat,' Petron. 137.

BOY OE G-IKL ? SHOES. SALT. AN-GANG-. 1119

e molybdomantia ex plumbi liquefacti diversis motibus/ Potter's Arch. 1, 339 (see Suppl.).

But no species of superstition had more deeply penetrated the entire Mid. Ages than the presages known under the names of aneganc (an-gang, coming upon), widerganc, widerlouf. A beast, a man, a thing, that you unexpectedly encountered on stepping out of doors or setting out on a journey at early morn, while yet the day is fresh, betokened weal or woe, and admonished you to go on with what you had begun, or to give it up. When Saxo Gram. p. 84 says ' congressionum initia/ what was the Norse word he had in his mind? perhaps vrSr-gangr, or still better mot (meeting) ? As the beginning of any business is critical (omina principii3 inesse solent, Ov. Fasti 1, 178), as the first stepping into a new house, on to a new bridge, is cautiously set about (p. 1021), and the god or daemon claims the first he meets (see below) ; so men took note of every sign that attended a purposed ride or journey. The M. Latin term for it is superventa (sc. res), what surprises, supervenit (Fr. survient)1; or even, taking it literally, what floats above us in the air, though that indeed would only apply to the flight of birds. Hincmar de divortio Lotharii (supra, p. 1099) says: fad haec ... pertinent, quas superventas feminae in suis lanificiis vel textilibus operibus nomi- nant.'' These the Greeks called ivoBta avfju^oXaj and we have most of them in common with them, with the Romans, nay with Oriental nations. In view of the almost universal diffusion of these ' angange/ it is hardly credible that they first came to the Germans in the wake of Latin literature : they rest on the older kinship of all European nations, and the very earliest observer of our kindred, Tacitus, remarked this mode of divination among them : t auspicia sortesque, ut qui maxime, observant . . . et illud quidem etiam hie notum, avium voces volatusque interrogare.' And of horses, p. 658. Many of our old myths lay a stress on the primitiae : we need only mention Wodan's promising the victory to those whom he should first set eyes upon at sunrise, p. 134 (see Suppl.).

I will first take passages that group several things together, and then elucidate particulars.

1 [' And overcome us like a summer's cloud.' — Macbeth.]

1120

SUPEKSTITION.

To begin with Xenophon's Memorab. i. 1, 4 : aW oi fiev TrXelaroL $aa\v vtto re twv opviOcov teal rcov aTravrcovrayv airorpe- ireadaC re teal irporpeireaOai. And, i. 1, 14: tou? $e koX XlOovs kclI %v\a /cal ra TvyovTa 0r)pla crejBeaOaL, i.e. ( obvia animalia/ not, as some have taken it, ' vulgaria, ubivis obvia/

The earliest evidence from our own Mid. Ages, but one that speaks very generally, is found in St. Eligius, Sup. A: 'nullus observet egrediens aut ingrediens domum, quid sibi occurrat, vel si aliqua vox reclamantis fiat, aut qualis avis cantus garriat, vel quid etiam portantem videat.' Greg. Turon. 7, 29 : * et cum iter ageret, ut consuetudo est barbarorum, auspicia intendere coepit, ac dicere sibi esse contraria^ We find more detail in John of Salisbury's Polycraticus sive de nugis curial. 1, 13, which how- ever I do not quote in full : e Si egrediens limen calcaveris aut in via offenderis, pedem contine . . . Cum processeris, abscondita futurorum aves quas ominales vocant tibi praenunciabunt. Quid comix loquatur diiigenter ausculta, situmque ejus sedentis aut volantis nullo mo do contemnas. Refert etenim plurimum, a dex- tris sit an a sinistris, qua positione respiciat cubitum gradientis, loquax sit an clamosa, an silens omnino, praecedat an sequatur, transeuntis expectet adventum, an fugiat, quove discedat. Corvus vero, quern non minori diligentia observabis, rebus majoribus auspicatur, et usquequaque cornici praejudicat. Porro cygnus in auguriis ales gratissima nautis, utpote quae aquarum domestica quadam gratia familiaritatis eorundem secreta praenoverit. Si avis quae vulgo dicitur albanellus (see below) praetervolans viam a sinistris feratur ad dextram, de hospitii hilaritate ne dubites, si contra, contrarium expectabis. Leporis timebis occursum, lupo obvio congratulaberis ; ovibus gratanter obviam gradieris, dum capram vites. Bobus triturantibus, libentius tamen arantibus obviabis ; nec displiceat si viam ruperint, quia mora itineris hospitii gratia compensabitur. Mulus infaustus est, asinus inutilis, equus quandoque bonus est; habet vero jurgiorum et pugnae significationem, interdum tamen ex colore et visu miti- gatur. Locusta itinerantium praepedit vota, econtra cicada via- toris promovet gressum. Aranea dum a superioribus filum ducit, spem venturae pecuniae videtur afferre. Sacerdotem obvium aliumve religiosum dicunt esse infaustum ; feminam quoque, quae capite discooperto incedit, infelicem crede, nisi publica sit/

AN-GANG : PATH-CKOSSING.

1121

Petrus Blesensis (d. about 1200) epist. 65 : ' Somnia igitur ne cures, nec te illorum errore involvas, qui occursum leporis timent, qui mnlierem sparsis crinibus, qui hominem orbatum oculis, aut mutilatum pede} aufc cuculatum habere obvium detestantur; qui de jucundo gloriantur hospitio, si eis lupus occursaverit aut columba, si a sinistra in dexteram avis 8. Martini volaverit, si in egressu suo remotum audiant tonitrum, si hominem gibbosum obvium habuerint aut leprosum.'1 Hartmann makes his daunt- less Erek defy the danger :

8122. Keins swachen glouben er phlac (cherished),

er wolt der wibe liezen (lot-casting) engelten noch geniezen (pay for, nor partake), swaz im getrownen (dream) mahte dar uf het er kein ahte (took no heed) ; er was kein weter-sorgazre (no weather- watcher) : er sach im als mgere des morgens uber den wee varn die iuweln (owls) sam den musarn ouch hiez er selten machen dehein fiur uz der spachen daz man in dar an sashe, er phlac deheiner spaehe. ez was umbe in so gewant, im was der tisch in der hant als msere enge so wit, und swaz ungelouben git (gibfc, gives) dane kerte er sich nicht an.

This is imitated by Wirnt, whose Wigalois also goes forth : 6182. dehein ungeioube in muote (no superstition in mind) in dem hu.se noch uf dem wege, er lie (liez, left) ez allez an Gotes pflege (care) . Swaz im des morgens wider lief (ran against), oder swie vil diu lira gerief (how the crow cried), swie vil der musdre umbe geflouc (how the m. flew round), der ungeioube in niht betrouc (deluded) :

1 Conf. Chrysostom (b. 354 d. 407) ad popul. Antioch. homil. 21 (Opp. Etonae 1612. 6, 610) : IIoAAd/as e£e\diov tls tt]v oltiav ry\v eavrov eWev avBpwirov €rep6<pda\p.ov i) x^Xe^ra, Kai oiuvLtjaro . . . iav diravTrjarj irapdevos, (prjaiv, airpaKros rj rj/xepa yiyverac. cow de diravT-Qay irbpviq, detjea Kai XPV^tt} Kai ttoAAtjs ifX7ropias ye/xovaa.

1122 STJPEBSTITION.

wancV er (for he) niht dar uf ahte (heeded). Wir haben maneger slahte (many a sort) bosheit unde gelouben (sin and superstition), da mit wir uns nu rouben (whereby we rob us) aller unser saelecheit (bliss), ez ist vil manegem manne leit (loth, painful) swenne im ein imp daz swert git (gives) ; daz lie der riter ane nit (W. took no offence), era' ahtet niht dar uf ein har, ez wsere gelogen (false) oder war : er het in Gotes gnade gegeben beidiu sele unde leben.

swaz im des morgens wider gie (ging ; met him), daz engefloch (shunned) der riter nie, wan (for) guoten gelouben het er ie (ever) . Berthold p. 58 : f So gloubent eteliche an boesen aneganc (evil meeting) : daz ein ivolf guoten aneganc habe, der aller der werlte schaden tuot, und ist halt so unreine daz er die liute an stinket (infects), daz nieman bi im genesen mac ; und daz ein gewihter priester boesen aneganc habe, an dem aller gloube lit (faith lies) ... So gloubent eteliche an den miusearn ; so ist dem der hase (hare) iiber'n wee geloufen. Als ist ir unglouben als (so) vil, daz sin nieman ze ende komen mac/ Conf. Sup. I, 128. The word ' aneganc ' is supported by Rudolfs Weltchron. (Cod. Zeisb. 114 ), in speaking of Moses :

er verbot alien aneganc, vogel-vluc, stimme oder sane, daz da geloupte nieman an ; and Walth. 118, 16 says of a wretched man : ' wizzet, swem der anegenget an dem morgen fruo, deme get ungeliicke zuo/ whom he on-gangeth at early morn, on him shall come misfortune. The Nethl. Reinaert 1055 expresses the notion by ' tekin ende ghemoet; token and meeting ; 1 Reineke, ed. Hakemann p. 52, by

gemote, and people still say ' to mote komen/ The ON. heill

(omen) is a more general expression ; but one lay of the Edda (Seem. 184b) mentions three signs favourable to the warrior at

1 Bein. 1107 : sulc mochte ons daer ghemoeten,

hi soude ons quedden ende gioeten, die ons nemmerme dade goet.

PATH-CROSSING. 1123

the swinging of swords (at sverSa svipon) : the first is, if the dark raven follow him (fylgja ens deyqva hrafns),1 which calls to mind the raven in the flag of fortune (p. 1112) ; the other two are clearly < angange/ for it says : < ef ]>n ert ut umhominn, ok ert a braut huinn,3 if thou hast gone out and art on thy road; then the second sign is : < tva J?u lltr a tai standa hroffr/Usa hali,' thou seest two fame-thirsty men (warriors) stand on the start;2' and the third sign : < ef }?u Jnota heyrir 41/ und ask-limom, heilla au«it ver$r efjri ser J?a fyrri far a/ if thou hear a wolf howl under ash-boughs, good hap is destined thee if then3 thou see him run forwards. It is Hnikarr (OBinn) that puts Sigurd up to these omens. But against the three signs of luck are set two of misfortune : one is, if the hero have to fight toward set of sun (srS-skmanSi systor mana) ; another, if in going forth to battle

he trip with the foot (ef J><1 foeti drepr). Then in the Gesellen-

spriiche I see notable instances of angang in the frogs of the pool, the ravens, the three old women, the maiden with the goat (A. w. 1, 91. 107. 111). Again, Ihre de superst. p. 82 : ' Ejusdem indolis est, quod tradunt nostrates de occursu hominum et animalium, e.g. si cui domo sua mane egredienti occurrat mendi- cus, vetula, claudus, aut falis, canis, vwlpes, lepus, sciurus, is dies inauspicatus habetur. Observant haec prae aliis sagittarii et piscatores, qui ejusmodi ominibus oblatis haud raro domum rever- tuntur et a proposito abstinent/ Lasicz 48 : f Quin ipse quoque rex Wladislaus, gente Lituanus, has a matre sua superstitiones didicerat, ut eum diem infaustum sibi futurum crederet, quo primum calceum sinistrum fortuito accepisset. Ad hoc movebat se interdum in gyrum stans pede uno, foras e cubili proditurus. Quorum similia multa observantur a Samagitis ; quidam infeliciter se venaturos sibi persuadent si domo egressis mulier occurrat, seu quis certum numerum capiendorum leporum, vulpium, luporum nominet.' Lucas David's Chron. i. 146-7 says of the ancient

tutiti rh^fn'^' 8 aJengers.of bl00d have luck, because two ravens accom- Pcmlt Z a %Way /hrafnar tveir flug° ™« teirn alia lei) : do they attend as ?l fZT7eiSi^T^%thej SCent the cominS carcase? P^sages frk 1,2 at m'1^1 ¥f* kalla*i,' S»m. 208b ; ■ hrafn flygr austan af hameiSi, ok eptir honum orn i sinni,' Fornald. sog. 1, 428.

§3i *he exjct meaning of < a tdi standa, sitja (SaBm. 266b), spretta (269a) ' ?

« LTnf y 6 Dat' SmgV 0r Acc- PL of the fem- ta (toe) i " seems rather to be a case of a masc. noun, and to contain a notion of place. 1 take H as = turn, eo momento. VOL. III.

1124

SUPEKSTITION.

Prussians, that they regarded an encounter with a sick man as bad, with a mounted man as good, with a fox or hare as bad (see SuppL).

It is hard to get at the meaning of all these divers prognostics.

First, of human angang. Ill-luck is supposed to follow that of an old woman, of a woman with dishevelled hair, or what comes to the same thing, loosened headband (decouverte, discooperta, It. scoperta). If an old wife meet you in the morning, if you have to pass between two old wives, your day is unlucky, Sup. I, 58. 380. 791. 976. When a huntsman in the morning comes upon an old woman, he lies down and makes her step over him, to ward off mischief (Hessian pop. cust.). In Switzerland to meet a woman is unlucky, at least on New-year's day (Tobler 447b). Swedish superst. K, 53 holds all meeting with woman-folk bad, unless it be a lon-hora, as the irapOevos in Chrysostom betokened an unlucky day, and the iropvn a lucky. So in Sup. I, 177 : the virgin or priest is an evil sign, the prostitute a good.1 But Ihre speaks expressly of a vetula, so does Arndt's Journey to Sweden 1, 44, and a Finnish song (Schroter's Runen p. 67) : ' go forth by early morn, lest ancient crone with crooked chin do squint at thee/ This last hint plainly sets before us the notion of a witch, still more does the loose flying hair (p. 1089) that of a night-wife (Sup. I, 878), fortune-teller, heathen priestess, conf. the Cimbrian 7ro\i66pL^ p. 55. Yeldek 21b paints his Sibylla as andfas (hor- rida crinibus), ( daz mies lockehte hienc ir uz den oren 3 (non comptae mansere comae 6, 48). And this view is confirmed by the approach of a woman spinning being hurtful (Sup. 1, 135), for a witch is a field- spinster, i.e. a norn, a fate (p. 1088). So early as Pliny 28, 5 : 'pagana lege in plerisque Italiae praediis cavetur ne mulieres per itinera ambulantes torqueant fusos, aut omnino detectos ferant, quoniam adversetur id omnium spei, praecipueque frugum/ This again looks remarkably like the scrutinies held by our goddesses as to whether spindles were spun full or not, pp. 269. 274.

And it becomes to my mind doubly clear by the clergyman

1 Not true of Theodora at any rate, a bird who boded ill to the Byzantines : fp> yap rots 6pQ‹rt.i› aXXws re /cat apxo/J-eprjs i]/xepas j3\da(p7)pLos oiuvos, Procop. Hist, arc. 9 (ed. Bonn, p. 63).

PATH-CKOSSING.

1125

being put in the like case : a consecrated priest, says Berthold, is accounted of ill omen to such as meet him. I can produce another pretty old proof from Hincmar 1, 656 : ' sunt etiam qui dicant, quando in venationem pergunt, quod obviam sibi non debeant habere clericum ; 3 and more modern ones from Reginald Scott's Witchcraft (Lond. 1665 fol.) p. 114: ' if any hunters, as they were a hunting, chanced to meet a frier or a priest, they thought it so ill luck, as they would couple up their hounds and go horn, being in dispair of any further sport that day ; ' and from Pauli's Schimpf und Ernst (1555) cap. 358 : ' there went an old dame to church betimes o' the day, and & parson meeting her, did cross herself some six times privily. Wherefore ,sign you yourself so at sight of me ? quoth the priest ; I hope I be not the devil. The woman answered, It hath never failed, an I came upon a parson betimes of a morning, but some untoward thing befell me the same day/

When a company of people suddenly fall silent, they say I there's a priest passing/ Nethl. ' er gaat een predikant voorby 3 ; every one feels confounded at the omen. And in a better sense also it is said ' an angel flew across the room/ 'Ep/uLr)? eireiariXOe. In Switzerland they say, there is bad weather when a clergyman walks out (Tobler 436b).

The sudden appearance of a holy man interrupts and breaks up worldly business. Those who met him were bound to shew respect ; paganism may have prescribed in such a case the im- mediate performance of a certain formality. Christians would transfer the omen from' the pagan to the christian priest • that of the heathen priestess or wise woman must have passed over to night-wives and witches, as the clerus admitted no women into its ranks.

Why should the meeting of a blind (or one-eyed) man, a lame man, a beggar be considered bad, and that of a hunchback or leper good ? why that of a walker be interpreted less favourably than that of a rider (Sup. K, 129 Dan.), and that of a water-bearer also unfavourably (I, 257)? The blind man, the cloaked [rider] suggest Wuotan. It seems more intelligible why a man did not care to have his sword handed him by a woman, and why in the Edda the sight of two warriors is a pledge of victory.

To lovers the sight of the loved one must have been the

1126

SUPEESTITION.

welcomest of signs : ' swer si des morgens angesiht, den tac im niemer leit geschiht/ who upon her at morn doth look, that day no manner harm shall brook, Ms. 2, 23b (see Suppl.).

Animal encounters have their origin in pastoral and hunting life, they are based on contemplation of nature and on fabulous opinions about the habits of beasts. Under this head there must be a vast deal in Slavic, Esthonian, Finnic and Lithuanian tradi- tion waiting to be collected, which at present I must do without. Even Norse tradition seems not to have been accurately noted down in this respect. Saxo Gram. p. 321 says of Slavs, not of North- men : ' ad varia quoque negotia profecturi ex primo anirnalis occursu Votorum auspicia capiebant; quae si laeta fuissent, coeptum alacres iter carpebant, sin tristia, reflexo cursu propria repetebant.' The animals in question he omits to name. Im- portant above all is that omen in the Edda of the wolf howling and going onwards, whom we may fairly take for the victory- boding beast of OSinn (p. 668). All other evidence agrees with it, even the superstitions of to-day. Everywhere the brave un- daunted wolf, the sight of whom awakens heart and hope, is set off against the timid cowardly hare, the type of faint heart and failure. Sigeb. gembl. ad an. 1143: 'obiit etiam Fulco rex Hierosolymorum ; qui dum venationi insistens leporem insequitur ex improviso sibi apparentem, equus cui insidebat se super ipsum praecipitem dedit, ipsumque vita et regno privavit;' conf. Vintler, Sup. G, 11. 52—55. Again : f on the way there chanced a hare to run across their road ; the driver was troubled, and spake, This betokeneth no good. If contrariwise a wolf had crossed the road, it were a good sign/ Ettner's Unw. doctor 575-6 ; conf. Simplic. 2, 74. In Pauli's Schimpf u. E. cap. 138 (ed. 1550 cap. 135) : < in the morning they set forth, and being come wellnigh unto the wood, Master, quoth the man, there ran a wolf before us. The master said he had seen him well enough, it meant sheer luck.' In Albertini's Narrenhatz, Munich 1617. p. 96 : ' superstitious numskulls are affrighted if a hare cross the path whereon they shall walk or ride, supposing that they shall on that day abide a misadventure.' Goz von Berlichingen in his Life p. 179 : ' and as we came on, behold, a shepherd feeding his flock hard by, and for a token, there fell five wolves upon the sheep,

PATH-CKOSSING.

1127

that laid hold of them roundly, the which I gladly heard and saw, and wished them luck, and us too, and said to them, Good luck to you, good fellows, good luck everywhere, and I deemed it luck, for even so should we lay hold one of another/ 1 Here we have no angang proper described, but we can see the meaning that warlike nations at first put into it. Wolf, stag, hoar and hear all stand exactly on a par in respect of their meaning, Sup. % 128. The Norwegian thinks it a bad sign to meet a hare, a good one to meet a hear or a wolf (Danske's Eeiseiagtagelser 1799. 2, 297): here the hear, whom the lay of the Kaven's wedding calls the < ypperste karl i skoven/ is justly placed before the wolf.3 Eoman accounts take no notice of the bear, but they do of the wolf ; Pliny 8, 22 (34) : < inter auguria ad dexteram com- meantium praeciso itinere, si pleno id ore lupus fecerit, nullum omnium praestantius.' Pliny also tells us the effect of a footprint of the wolf, if a horse treads on it : e tanta vis est animalis, ut ves- tigia ejus calcata equis afferant torporem 3 28, 10 (44) ; and ' rumpi equos, qui vestigia luporum sub equite sequantur' 28, 20 (81). Both J ohn of Salisbury and Peter of Blois have ' occursum lejooris timere.' In addition to Berthold and Hartlieb (Sup. H, cap. 67), the Cod. pal. 341. 163a has a passage in point. Feldbauer 240 :

Dar zuo sah wir einen hasen (hare), der widerfuor uns (met us) an dem weg ; do daht ich deiz niht eben lseg : er tet uns den ersten aneganc, wan daz er snelle fur mich spranc.

To Greeks and Romans apparently it could under favourable circumstances be a good omen (aUto?) .3 The weasel {ya\f}) had a bad name among them : when it ran across the road, a public assembly was postponed (Potter 1, 746). Theophrastus in

; 1 Goethe recognised the poetic effect of these words, and incorporated them in his play. *

2 To Turkish travellers too the wolf is a grateful, the hare an unwelcome sign • Vienna Lit. zeitung 1816. p. 1257.

3 Dio Cass. 62, 2 (Keim. 1006-7) : ravra elirovra, fih iK rod k6\ttov rporiKaro (v Bowdovtica, a Britoness) fiavreig. nvl XP^evrj, Kal iireidt) iv aiaico tdpcL/Ae, t6 re TXrjOos vtojiadiv avep6r)cre. Otherwise in Suidas : Ravels 6 \aTd>s dwrvxeu voiei Tpi^ous. When the Germans under king Arnulf started a hare and chased it, they took Home (Lmtpr. 1, 8), but hare-hunting Danes were put to flight (Neocorus 1, 3o3 ; here Detmar puts a eat, 1, 164). To be licked by the hare was considered lucky : he weened a hare had licked him,' Trodelfrau 1682 p. 71

1128

SUPEESTITION.

Charact. 16 says, if a weasel run past you, you must not go on till some one else has paced the road, or you have picked up three stones from it. So Centonovelle cap. 31 : 1 quando Puomo trova la donnola 1 nella via/ The fox's angang is interpreted variously : as bad in that passage from Ihre, as good by Lithuanian Superst. N, 9. Domestic animals, such as the traveller keeps on his own premises, and does not meet for the first time in the woods, are hardly available as omens : they are too common, too tame and dependent on man, to become significant to him. Yet they say, if on setting out early you meet swine, you will not be welcome where your steps are taking you ; if sheep, you will. According to some, the wayfarer is a welcome guest if the sheep present themselves on his right hand, and unwelcome if on his Left. The Etruscans, when a new magistrate rode into his province, observed what horses and oxen he fell in with (0. Miiller 2, 118). Compare the prophesying by horses (p. 662-4), where it is true there is no chance meeting of the beast, yet stress is laid on his planting of the right foot or the left. An instance in Procop. de b. Pers. 2, 5 p. 172 ought to be added.

The observation of birds was even more minutely carried out than the encounter of quadrupeds, their free unhindered motion through the air being of itself enough to invest them with some- thing marvellous and spirit-like. The Greeks had a comprehen- sive olcovLCTTifcrj (Suidas sub v.), the Komans reduced auspicia and auguria to a system.2 Boh. ptako-prawiti augurari, ptako-westec augur, Pol. ptaszo-wieszczek. And heathens of the Teuton race equally regarded birds as messengers of the gods and heralds of important tidings (pp. 672, 763). ' What bird has brought that to your ears ? ' means : who made you believe that, put it into your head ? 3 ' A bird sang that to me : jag horde en fogel sa sjunga, enfogel var har, och sade for mig det eller det/ said so and so, Ihre de superst. p. 51. Mod. Greek and Servian folksongs not unfrequently open with birds on the wing wheeling this way and

1 Our fraulein, Bav. muemelein, auntie, Schm. 2, 576, schdnthierle, pretty beastie 3, 369 ; Span, comadreja (Eeinh. ccxxiv), Dan. den kjdnne, pulcra : all these names attest the sacredness of the animal. The Servians call her lazitsa, but address her by the caressing form laza : « lazo lazitchitse ! '

2 Jul. Caes. Bulenger de auguriis (Graevii thes. 5).

3 Westphal. « wecker vaugel heft dik dat inner auren ehangen ? ' Slennerhmke

p. 8.

PATH-CEOSSING.

1129

that, holding a conversation, Wh. Miiller's Saml. 1, 66. 102. 2, 164. 178. 200. Vuk 3, 326. Two black ravens (dva vrana ga- vrana) caw from the white tower, Vuk. 2, 151. The prophetic call of the cuckoo has been dealt with, p. 675 seq. ; he too belongs to angang, his voice in the wood falls unexpected on the traveller's ear, a good sign if on the right hand, a bad if on the left. Pliny 30, 10 (25) : e aliud est cuculo miraculum, quo quis loco primo audiat alitem illam, si dexter pes circumscribatur ac vestigium id effodiatur, non gigni pulices, ubicunque spargatur; 3 conf. p. 1093 on cutting out footmarks. The Indie, superst. xiii. touches on auguria avium. Eligius, Sup. A: 'nec in itinere positi aliquas aviculas cantantes attendatis/ Birds whose encounter is pro- phetic are called wegvogel, way-fowl, Sup. I, 600, but by far the best qualified for the purpose were the krimmende raubvogel (rapaces aves) that won victories over other birds, and could pre- dict the same happy event to heroes ; 1 accordingly birds of prey play the foremost part in dreams. An anecdote in Procop. de b. G-oth. 4, 20 (ed. Bonn. 2, 560-1) shews how early this superstition was domiciled among German nations : Hermigiscl king of the Warni, riding over field, noticed a bird (of what kind, is not said) on a tree, and heard him caw (so prob. a raven or crow). Under- standing the song of birds, the king informed his followers that his death in forty days was foretold.2 It is igftor up in the trees that prophesy to SigurSr (p. 672) ; it is not settled whether they were swallows, or perhaps she-eagles ? Dagr has a sparrow of understanding, Ingl. saga cap. 21. Several passages in the O. Span. Cid prove the observation of birds : 867 al exir de Salon mucho ovo huenas aves ; 2376 con Dios e con la vuestra auce ; 2379 con la buen auce (see Suppl.).

And as it was a principal point with the ancients whether the flight was from right or left, Hartlib also (Sup. H, cap. 67) pro- nounces flying on the right hand lucky, on the left unlucky. He says the eagle must fly pouch-side of the traveller, i.e. on the side where his travelling-pouch hangs. Nowhere else do I find the

2 F?d* (?u*1, Schwarz de antiquiss. Apollinis natura, Berol. 1843, p. 16.

bpviv^ tlv d eirl dtvdpov re Kadrjfxevrjv eWe Kai iroWd Kpibfovaav. e'fre di r^s 6pvi6os rrjs (piovrjs^vvels eire &\o fxev n e^ina-Tdfievos, %vveiuai 5t rrjs Spvidos ixavTevo^iv^ reparevo-d- fievos, tols irapovcnv eMis Zcpaaicev ws Tedv^erai recraapdicovTa. ij^pais iiarepov ...Trj TeacrapaKoaTrj dirb tt)s Trpopprjo~e(as v^pcx voarjaas ire7rpufxeP7]p dveir\r]cre.

1130

SUPERSTITION.

' ar 3 mentioned, but often the musar, in Hartman, Wirnt, Bert- hold ; which Benecke's Diet, to the first-named makes a small bird of prey, the same that Bur chard (Sup. C, p. 198c) calls muriceps and explains as mouser. The poem of the Uebel wip says 297—301 :

Swenne ich nach gewinne var, so ist durft daz mir der musar iiber die strdze vliege und mich des niht entriege, ob ich ir niht enbringe ;

1. e. when I bring her nothing home, I have to make that my excuse. This bird's flying over the road is a favourable sign. In the Iliad 10, 274 a heron (epto&o?) flying on the right brings luck. The raven, a bird of victory to the heathen, is spoken of in the Norse quotations p. 1123 as ' accompanying/ but nowhere else in connexion with angang ; of the croiv we hear plenty. It was lucky fsi cornicula ex sinistra in dexteram cantaverit/ Sup. C, p. 198c; the same in Petr. Bles., except volaverit for cantaverit ; Kolocz. 146 says of children brought up in luxury, who never felt the heavy hand of fate : ' si enwizzen wannen die Tcrdn sint gevlogen,' they never knew whence the crows flew. Walth. 94, 39 : ' ein unsceligiu (unblest) hrd begonde schrien.' MS. 2, 80 : e ez hab ein swerziu hrd gelogen/ told lies. On the other hand : ' alba solet comix affectum scire tacentis/ Reinard.

2, 657. With the crow some would identify the Martin' s bird, whose flight is so fraught with meaning in Peter of Blois and in Renart 10472, Reinaert 1047, Reineke 942. ' Sant Martins vogel, wol iiber her ! daz ist nu gar der niuwe hant,' Liederb. der Hatzlerin 241b; i.e. such careless calling upon St. Martin's bird is all the fashion now (conf . ' diu niuwe hant, alte hant/ Renner 2087 — 2111). A similar invocation in Reinaert : f al heil, edel voghel, kere herwaert dinen vloghel ! ' But Nemnich would make the falco cyaneus, a small bird of prey, the Martin's bird, Nethl. Martens vogel, Fr. Poiseau S. Martin, Span, pajaro S. Martin; and this would fit in with John of Salisb.'s albanellus (Fr. haubereau), which expressly points to good hospitium, like Martin's bird in Reinhart [and Petr. Bles.] . I find no clue in the ordinary legends of the saint, to whom the bird must have

PATH-CKOSSING.

1131

brought something.1 Again, in Yintler (Sup. G, 1. 158) sant Martis-vogel betokens luck ; this spelling would almost lead to the supposition that Martinsvogel was a corruption of ' Martis avis/ which would be the woodpecker, the Marzafulli (p. 673). In Ls. 3, 543 we read: e sant Martins vogalin diu machent mangen umbecreiz ; 3 while another passage (which even Reinh. cxxvii borrows) in a Pal. MS. (Altswert 77, 19) has again ( Mertiss vogelin/ and we are told it points the way to the Venus mount, which adds to its mythical character. Our nursery rhymes give sunte Martens vogelken a red coat or golden wing, but they are sung on Martinmas-eve, and bring us back to the saint. So I can come to no certain conclusion about this bird. Coming back to the crow, we have yet more credentials, old and new. Virg. Eel. 9, 15 : c ante sinistra cava monuisset ab ilice comix.3 Poema del Cid 11. 12: ' ovieron la corneia diestra3 and c siniestra.3 Renart 10473, speaking of the oiseau S. Martin: fassez si le hucha a destre, et li oisiax vint a senestre.3 The ancients do not leave out the raven, as Plaut. Aul. iv. 3, 1 : { non temere est, quod corvus cantat mihi nunc ab laeva manu, semel radebat pedibus terram, et voce crocibat sua/ Olaf Tryggvason, though a christ- ian, noticed whether the krdka (crow) stood on her right or left leg, believing it to bode good or evil to him ; whence his enemies nicknamed him krdkubein. The ON. hungr-krdka foretold famine, and illvi&ris-kraka ill weather. Cento nov. ant. 32 : f segnor, je vit una cornacchia in uno cieppo di salice.' ' Or mi di, donna, verso qual parte teneva volta la coda? 3 ' Segnor, ella avea volta verso il cul.' 2 Conf. the charadrius or galadrot p. 853n.

The woodpecker too was a sacred bird, p. 673-5; in Lindenblatt's Chron. p. 31 : f ir speht hatte nicht recht geflogen/ i.e. not from the right hand. To the Romans the screeching parra (green- pecker ? peewit ?) boded mischief : ' impios parrae recinentis omen ducat/ Hor. Od. iii. 27, 1 ; ' picus et cornix est ab laeva, corvus, parra ab dextera/ Plaut. As. ii. 1, 12. In Sweden the flight of the lorn (a sort of heron, says Ihre) is presignificant, Sup. K, 94. To see the magpie from the front is a good sign, from behind a bad, I, 158. When you hear the first swallow in

1 ! ^lie,story of.s/ Martin and the martin is in Bosquet 219. 220.'— Suppl. m 2 ' Me F ha vaticinato la cornacchia, che la mia bella donna m' infinocchia,' is fooling me, Tommaseo 1, 224.

1132 SUPEESTITION.

spring, stop at once (on your road), and from under your left foot dig a coal out of the ground, I, 217. Gr, 1. 98 ; just as one cut out the footmark on the spot where one heard the cuckoo (p. 1129).1 Ms. 2, 118b. 208b : ' nu jarlanc stet vil hoch mm muot, ich horte den siiezen sane von einer swalwen da si fluoc,' as she flew. Servants in Denmark notice whether they see the stork for the first time flying or standing, Sup. K, 130. With the frog, all depends on where you see him hop first, on land or in water, I, 237. To meet a bald or plucked hen was reckoned bad :

Enmi sa voie a encontree

une geline pielee,

qui pasturoit en la charriere ;

a poi ne sen retorne arriere,

por ce quil i entendoit sort ;

a ses piez trueve un baston tort,

a la geline lest aler,

et ele sen prist a voler,

en son gelinois le maudist

' honte li viegne ! ' et il si fist.

Passages in Provencal poetry bearing upon angang are collected in Diez's Lives of the Troub. p. 22-3 ; they relate to the raven, crow and varieties of the falcon tribe (albanel, gavanh), the criteria being their right or left flight, their going or coming, their crying or keeping silence :

Los destres e'ls senestres, los anans e'ls venens, d'albanel, de gavanh, d'autras auzels ferens, del corjp e de la gralha, los cridans, los tacens. Poes. der troub. p. 221. One would like to have fuller accounts of this bird-interpreting as practised in the Mid. Ages (see Suppl.).2

1 Quum primo hirundinem videris, hoc die ter : 1 rogo te, hirundo, ut hoc anno oculi mei non lippeant,' Fundgr. 1, 325.

2 The heathen Arabs watched the flight of birds : zeger and Ijavet are almost synonymous terms [meaning to expound], zeger being used when you throw a stone at the bird and shout to it ; if then he fiies to your right hand, it is a good sign, if to your left, bad: ijavet is in general the interpretation of the names, the alighting and the cries of birds that you encounter. The science seems to culmi- nate in the knowledge of bird-language, which from the time of Solomon has never fallen into oblivion in the East. The raven is reckoned a herald of misfortune (Eiickert's Hariri 1, 591-2). Of Indian augury many examples might be given, for instance in the Eamayana: 'hae aves tibi declarant horrendum periculum im- minere,' Schlegel's Ind. bibl. 2, 225. A shepherd ascribed the discomforts that had

PATH-CEOSSING.

1133

Our early ages appear also to have seen a meaning in the over- flight of certain birds. Ms. 2, lb on the lord of the Durings : e ob ime ein adelar (over him an eagle) z'allen ziten ist mit hohen flilgen gewesen.' Eagles spread their wings over famous heroes to shade them from the sun : when the heathen deputies came to Charles's hall/ they saw f daz die adelaren dar zu gewenit waren, daz sie scate baren,' Kol. 21, 20. This evidently stands connected with the eagle over Charles's palace (p. 633) , perhaps even with that in OSin's hall, Saem. 41b. The dove hovering above was mentioned p. 148 ; supervenire and adumbrare are even Biblical language. By the side of f drupir iorn yfir ' I place an important stanza of the Havamal, Seem. 12b :

ominnis hegri, sa er yfir orSrom brumir, hann stelr ge$i guma ; j?ess fugls fio'Srom ec fiotraftr varc i garSi Gunnlaftar

(oblivionis ardea, qui super symposiis stridet mentemque hominum furatur; ejus avis pennis captus sum in domo Gunnladae). It is OSinn that speaks, who, after intoxicating himself with full draughts of nectar at the house of Gunnlo^ (p. 903-5), flies away in eagle's shape, ' dminnis hegri 3 being a circumlocution for the divine bird. Hegri stands for hegri, hregri, AS. hragra, OHG. heigiro, hreigiro, e^wSto?, one large bird instead of another. When OSinn swilled the drink he had longed for, and enjoyed the favour of the fair giantess, he was fettered in eagle's feathers, i.e. put on the form of an eagle. How like the myth of Zeus, when, transformed into an eagle, he carries off Ganymede, and makes him pour out nectar for him ! (see Suppl.).2

The Romans framed a system of augury of their own, not based on the flight of wildfowl, but on the domestic breed of poultry. The Greeks practised an aXeKrpvofiavreia by laying

dogged him all day long to the single circumstance, that early in the morning a snake had crawled across his path.

1 The description of this hall, and the impression its splendour must have made on the strangers, is wonderfully like what goes on in Asgard during G-ylfi's visit, Sn. 2. Conf. the similar Lombard story in the Chron. Salern. by Arichis (Pertz 5, 479).

2 Those words in the H&vam&l, portraying the sublime rapture of immortality and likewise the art of poesy, Scand. commentators have taken for a description of ordinary drunkenness, against whose consequences we are warned in an Icel. poem entitled ' Ominnis hegri.'

1134

SUPERSTITION.

grains of corn on the letters of the alphabet, and letting a cock pick them off. The Roman divination was simpler, according to the eager or sluggish eating } or refusing to eat, of young fowls ; every legion had its pullarius, who bred, fed and guarded the fowls, and the consul held the augurium in his own house or tent : ' pullis regitur imperium Romanum, hi jubent acies 3 says Pliny 10, 24 ; and Procopius 1, 316 gives examples.1 Yet they also observed the cries of the cock and hen : ( gallina cecinit 3 is named amongst other bad omens for the bridegroom, in Terence's Phormio iv. 4, 30 ; the gloss of Donatus makes it mean ' superi- orem marito esse uxorem.' And in our own superstition (I, 83 ; L, 23) a hen that crowed like a cock was held in horror. If a listener under the henroost heard the cock crow, the omen was happy, if the hen cried, it was sad (1, 105. 1055) ; the same thing applies to droppings of the cock and hen (I, 230). The gander too was supposed to prophesy (I, 847). The Esthonians dis- tinguish between birds of bare and those of shaggy foot (M, 95) .

Often it is neither the flight of wayside fowl, nor the chance encounter of a quadruped, but their appearing, their residing in the dwellings of men that bodes them weal or woe. The swallow (L, 9) and the stork are birds of luck (p. 672), one is glad to see storks build on one's roof (I, 215). He that first sees the stork fly in spring, is sure to go on a journey. To the Lettons the titmouse foretokened good, its name is sihle, and sihleht is to foretell (p. 683). A weasel or snake on the roof boded ill (Suidas sub v. Xenocrates) ; ' anguis per impluvium decidit de tegulis/ Ter. Phormio iv. 4, 29. So does a mouse nibbling at your clothes, Sup. I, 184. Raven, crow or magpie on a sick house is unlucky, or of double meaning, I, 120. 158. 496 (see Suppl.).

There were corpse-birds, birds of dole, whose appearing signi- fied actual or impending death. I suppose the turtle-dove with her melancholy wail to have been such to the Goths, by their calling her hrdivadubo (corpse-dove) ; neither rpvycov nor turtur conveys this collateral sense, the bird merely mourns her lost mate ; 2 tales about her are coll. in Aw. 3, 34. One of the way-

1 Eecord of 788 in Marini no. 56, p. 94 : 1 et alia multa de vestra infidelitate cognovimus ad pullorum comtum ' (r. cantum).

2 The Langobards used to erect, among the graves in their churchyards, poles (perticas) in memory of their kinsfolk who had fallen in war or in foreign parts : on

COCK AND HEN. COEPSE-BIEDS.

1135

birds, the owl, is also, and preeminently, in place here (Sup. I, 789 ; L, 8). Hartmann contrasts her flight across one's path with that of the musar, hers appears to have been baleful, as his was wholesome : Ms. 2, 174 says ' der iuweln flue' ne'er profited the world. Ovid Met. 5, 550 :

foedaque fit volucris, venturi nuntia luctus, ignavus bubo, dirum mortalibus omen.

Here metamorphosis strikes in : the owl was an enchanted person, and strixj strinx (' e tectis strix violenta canat/ Tibull. i. 5, 52), bruxa signify at once the bird and the witch that fly by night (p.l039n.) : ' ululae, upupae, bubones toto anno in tectis funebria personantes/ p. 481 n. ; f male ominatos cantus ulularum/ Chron. S. Trudonis p. 379. The OHG. holz-runa, holz-miwja, hoh-muwo (Gl. Flor. 988\ 996b. Sumerl. 10, 65. 27, 44. 29, 74) translate lamia, but they rather express wailing bodeful birds, or sprites (of both sexes), who are heard whispering and muttering (rounding, mooing) in the wood, p. 433. Hence also their name of Mag-muhme (wailing aunt), Mag -mutter , Mage-weib ; 1 in the Ackerman v. Bohmen, ed. Hag. p. 38, 'klagmut' should be amended f klagmuoter.' In the Upper Harz hlagmutter, Mag- weib, Magefrau mean a spectral yet winged being (Spiel's Archiv 2, 247) ; elsewhere it is called weh-klage (Sup. I, 863), leich-huhn (lich-hen), grab-eule, todten-vogel, and in Brunswick the lapsch, because of its lazy lingering flight (Brauns. anz. 1746. p. 236), ' ign avus bubo/ which again calls up the old sense of feig (fey, moribundus) . Other prognostics of death are, when the raven belches. Sup. G, 1. 166, when a cock or hen trails straw, M, 77,

the top of the pole was fixed the wooden image of a dove, whose head or beak pointed in the direction where the loved one lay buried ; Paul. Diac. 5, 34 (not unlike the gyrating eagle on the palace-roof, p. 634), The dove represented the sorrowing kinsman who set up the pole. Precisely so the Servians of to-day make the cuckoo mourn for them (p. 682) : on a wooden cross 6 feet high are carved as many cuckoos as there are survivors, esp. sisters, to mourn the dead. A girl who has lost a brother can never hear the cuckoo sing without breaking into a flood of tears ; kukumene ! is an interjection of grief, Montenegro, Stuttg. 1837. pp. 99. 100 All this setting up of doves and cuckoos brings to mind that of horses' heads on poles and roofs (p. 659), of eagles on roofs (p. 633-4).

1 The Lausitz Wends call our wehklage boze sedlesko, God's little chair [saddle?] : it appears either as a white hen, or as a beautiful white child, whose piteous wailing and weeping announces impending misfortune. In Bohemian too sedlisko is a seat and also the nightmare, perhaps because the demon mounts and rides (incubus).

1136

SUPERSTITION.

when the galadrot (charadrius) turns his head away from the sick man (see Suppl.).

In the same way other animals give notice of a death : when a priest is called in, and his horse lowers his head, Sup. M, 35 ; when a black ox or cow has been killed in the house, I, 887, which points right back to ancient sacrifices. Also the mole burrowing in a human habitation 555. 601. 881, the cricket chirping 555. 600. 930,1 the woodworm ticking 901, and mice nibbling at the clothes of a sleeper (see Suppl.).

Prophetic ants, Sup. K, 88 ; M, 99. A spider running toward you early in the morning is unlucky, but there are luck-spinners too, I, 134. Bosquet 219. A swarm of bees settling on a house betokens fire, I, 160 or some disaster,2 from those in Drusus's camp downwards (Pliny 11, 18. Dio Cass. 54, 33. Jul. Obse- quens de prodig. 1, 132). To Leopold of Austria they foretold the loss of Sempach fight in 1386 : ' da kam ein imb geflogen, in d'linden er genistet hat, an's herzogen waffen er flog als do der selbig herzog wol fur die linden zog : das diutet frombde geste, so redt der gemeine man/ Wackern. leseb. 708. It is usually a flight of grasshoppers that announces stranger guests (Justinger p. 160, conf. 271), or else a good take of salmon, ib. 379. Other intimations of coming guests in Sup. I, 71-2-3. 889. 1028 ; K, 63 (see Suppl.).

Lifeless things, especially elements, can furnish omens. Flames standing on the helmets or spears of warriors were a prognostic of victory (vlktj^ avfjufioXov). Ssem. 110a,b mentions a fire of this kind, but not what it signified : ' hyrr leingi man a brodds oddi bifaz'; and more plainly 151b : ' of geirom geislar (rays) stofto/ Tac. Ann. 12, 64: ' signa militum arsere'; 15, 7 : e pila militum arsere.' Procop. de b. Yand. 2, 2 : tojv Sopdrwv auTot? tcl aicpa irvpl TToWoy KareXafMirero, koX avrcov at al^fMal KaleaOat eirl irkeidTov a(j)L(Tiv ehoKovv. Greg. Tur. mirac. Mart. 1, 10: cdum haec agerentur, duae puerorum lanceae emissis flammis lumen euntibus praebuerunt, ibantque fulgurantes hastae.' Before the battle of Prague in 1620 a will o' wisp settled on the general's

1 Sometimes these ' heimen or grillen ' mean prosperity to the house, Sup. I, 313. 609.

2 ' Examen apum in arbore praetorio imminente consederat,' Livy 21, 46. ' fastigium Capitolii examen apium insedit,' Tac. Ann. 12, 64.

BEES. FLAMES. THINGS FOUND.

1137

flag, and was taken for a pledge of victory. This too is the Dioscuri' s flame, that shone on the masts of ships, a saving sign under stress of storm. Further, a candle that sneezes (spits), a brand that snaps over (Sup. I, 889) betoken guests again; a candle that goes out, death (150) ; one that burns roses (forms wick- heads), good luck (252). To spill oil or wine, to pour water under the table, were signs to the ancients, one good, the other bad. The table squeaking, the rafters creaking, justified the gloomiest auguries (Dempster 3, 9). Water sinking away or rising indicated a death or famine (p. 590). When the fire crackles, or salt is spilt, it is a sign of strife, Sup. I, 322. 534-5. 64. Connect with this the mythic interpretation of the bickering flame, p. 242 : the god is present in the flame as in the bodeful thunder. Gaps formed by earth tumbling in (gropar) prognosti- cate a death (M, 95) ; from the sound of the first three clods thrown into a grave, you can tell if others will die soon. A splinter splitting off the floor is a sign of guests (I, 71, 1032), a hoop bursting off a barrel, of death (I, 149) 1 (see Suppl.).

The custom of sprinkling barleycorns on the hot fireplace, and watching if they leap up or lie still, I find in Burchard alone, Sup. 0, p. 195d, not in later authors; the Greek Kpidofiavrela was different.

If in time of war two ears of corn were found on one stalk, it was thought to prefigure the return of peace;3 on the contrary, for the cherry-tree to blossom twice in the year is a sign of war, Sup. I, 1116 (see Suppl.).

Other things, without any augury or sorcery being founded on them, are considered wholesome or hurtful : particularly things found, begged or stolen. Thus the finding of a four-leaved clover, of three whole grains in a baked loaf (Sup. I, 685), of a nail or tooth off a harrow 539. 636, which enable the possessor to discern witches (p. 1078), inventio acus vel oboli reservati (E, 11 r. b.),

< 1 Sueton. in Octav. 92 : 4 auspicia quaedam et omina pro certissimis observabat : si mane sibi calceus perperam ac sinister pro dextero induceretur, ut dirum (like Wladislaus, p. 1123) ; si terra marive ingrediente se longinquam profectionem forte rorasset, ut laetum, maturique et prosperi reditus.

2 Elisab. Charlotte of Orleans writes July 17, 1695 : ' I am well weary of the war ; pray, dear Louise, acquaint yourself if it be true that near Giessen they have found a stalk, which the Landgraf of Darmstatt hath in safe keeping, whereon are II ears, and if the like was found at the end of the 30 years' war.' It is also believed that lightning will not strike a house where a stalk with two ears is kept

1138

SUPEESTITION.

of a needle (K, 46) according as it turns head or point toward you (I, 235), of a felloe off a wheel 351, of a horseshoe 129. 220 (Hone's Yrbk 1600) ; a begged loaf 13, a ring made of begged silver pennies 352 ; a stolen duster 431, tie of a meal-sack 216, loaf 183-8, timber 1000 (Firmenich 2, 33), fishing-tackle (K, 48), weaver's knots. In finding things the favour of fortune comes into play \ to things begged the labour, to things stolen the risk of acquisition lends additional value : three gulps of begged wine drive away the hiccup. And not only stolen property in a particular case, but a thief's hand (p. 1073n.), a spur made out of a gibbet-chain (I, 385), the gallows-rope itself (386. 921. G, 1. 217), possess a peculiar virtue ; conf. the origin of the gal- lows-mannikin, Deut. sag. no. 83 (see Suppl.)./

A wheel placed over the gateway brings luck (I, 307) ; is the notion of fortune's wheel (p. 866) or the sun's wheel (pp. 620. 701) at work here? Splinters of a tree struck by lightning, coffin-splinters are of use (I, 171. 208). The bridal bed must have only dry wood, but off living trees ; 1 other fancies about the bridal bed 486-7. No picked up feathers, no hen's feathers should be put in a bed 281. 346. 593.

Choosing of days prevailed among the Jews (Levit. 19, 26. Deut. 18, 10), Greeks, and probably all heathens. Hesiod dis- tinguishes between mother-days and stepmother-days, he goes over all the good days of Zeus, and all the bad, "Epya tc. 'Hp. 765 (710) seq. Even if our names for the days of the week were imported from abroad (p. 127), yet native superstitions may have been mixt up with them from a very early time. f Nullus ob- servet ' so preached Eligius, e qua die domum exeat, vel qua die revertatur, nullus ad inchoandum opus diem aut lunam attendat.' Hincmar 1, 656 : ' sunt et qui observant dies in motione itineris et in inchoatione aedificandae domus.' Sueton. in Oct. 92 : ' ob- servabat et dies quosdam, ne aut postridie nundinas quoquam proficisceretur, aut nonis quidquam rei seriae inchoaret.' Pliny 28, 5: ' ungues resecari2 nundinis Romanis tacenti, at que a

1 Odofredus in I. legata digest, de supellect. leg. : 4 mulieres quando nubunt, volunt lectum de lignis siecis, sed de arbore vivente. sed in omnibus opinionibus suisfatuae sunt.'

2 Tbe nails in general are carefully watched : when they blossom, i.e. have specks of white, luck blossoms too. Much depends on which hand and what finger the blossoms are on (Keusch). Pliny touches more than once on the

LUCKY DAYS. GUIDING- BEASTS.

1139

digito in dice, niultoruni pecuniae religiosUTn.-' Even amongst us the superstition survives, that the nails should be cut on a par- ticular day, Friday especially. A day that will bring misfortune is called verworfen, castaway, accursed (Sup. G, 1. 51).1 The ancient Germans appear to have kept Wednesday and Thursday holy above all, after their chief gods Wodan and Thunar : the Indiculus has a section < de feriis quas faciunt Jovi vel Mercurio.' Later on I find no day more superstitiously observed than Thurs- day, p. 191 ; also by the Esthonians, M, 59. One should not move to a new dwelling on Thursday, for birds carry nothing to their nests that day. On the other hand, Wednesday and Friday are counted accursed witch-days, I, 613. 658. 745; separately, Wednesday 567, Friday 241. 800. M, 59. 60. In records of witch-trials (see the Quedlinburg), the devils mostly appear on a Thursday or Tuesday. Monday too is a bad day for a fresh beginning (I, 771. 821). Tuesday is the time to begin journeys, to form marriage contracts.2 Fat Tuesday, Swed. fet-tisdag, Fr. mardi gras favours enterprises (K, 79. 84). Sunday is lucky (I, 243. 634). The christians had, beside the great festivals, many days in the year marked by something special, above all St. John's; and almost every holy day stood in a particular relation to sowing, planting, cattle-breeding and the like. The Dan. shjer-torsdag in K, 168-9 is Maundy Thursday. Hardly ever was a nation so addicted to day-choosing as the christians in the Mid. Ages. The old heathen yule-days and solstices coincided with Christmas and St. John's (see Suppl.).

Closely connected with angang and day-choosing is another widely diffused superstition. As a prosperous day's work de- pended on a favourable encounter at early morning, as the escort of wolf or raven augured victory; so a tribe on its travels was guided to its place of settlement by a divinely missioned beast. Under such guidance colonies were founded, towns, castles,

resegmma unguium 28, 23 : ' e pedibus manibusque cera permixta ante solis ortura anenae januae affigi jubent . . . digitorum resegmina unguium ad cavernas iorniicarum abuci jubent, eamque quae prima coeperit trahere, correptam subnecti coiio. inis significance of nail-parings is worth dwelling on, as our heathenism ^p 814 Naglfar) m ^ * §reater' makinS the world's end dePend upon them 500-1 paSSag6S in a Homily of the 8th cent, on this superst., Pertz's Archiv 6,

2 So in Bohemia and Moravia. Lowe's Denkw. u. reisen 72. VOL III.

H40 SUPERSTITION.

churches built; the rise of new establishments and kingdoms is hallowed by beasts, which, alien to all human ends, reveal the higher counsels of the gods.

Greek and Roman story teems with examples. A raven leads Battus and his emigrants to Cyrene (topag vJWctro, Callim. Hymn to Apollo 66). The Irpini are so called from irpus, the wolf that led them (Strabo 2, 208) } F16ki sacrificed for three ravens to shew him the way: 'hann f£kk at bl6ti miklu, ok bl6ta$i hrafna J?ria, J>a er honum shyldu lei$ visa, )mat ]?a hofSii hafsiglmgarmenn engir lerSarstein i hann tima i NorSrlondum, Islend. sog. 1, 27 ; the divine bird supplied the place of a load- stone to seafaring men. It can hardly be a mere accident, that the guides oftenest named are just the raven and wolf, Wuotan s favourites, who presaged victory and weal.2 In the Yita Severmi c. 28 the hear acts as guide. The hart and hind also shew the way, as Procopius 4, 5 makes the hind do to Cimmerian hunters. So in Jornandes of Hunnish huntsmen : < dum in ulteriori Maeo- tidis ripa venationes inquirunt, animadvertunt quomodo ex lm- proviso cerva se illis obtulit, ingressaque palude, nunc progrediens nunc subsistens, indieem se viae tribuit . . . niox quoque, ut Scythica terra ignotis apparuit, cerva disparuit.' Here, instead of the hunter story, Sozomen (Hist. eccl. 6, 37) has one about a herdsman, though he knows the other one too : < forte fortuna hos oestro percitus lacum transmittit, sequitur bubulcus; qui cum terram trans lacum vidisset, tribulibus suis nuntiat. Sunt alii

• A bird admonished the Aztecs in Mexico to emigrate by calling down from the tree « tihui ! ' i.e. let us go ! Majer's Myth, taschenb. 1813. p 63.

2 A name of happiest augury for a hero must have been the OHG. Wolf-hraban Wolfram, to whom the two animals jointly promised victory. A ^ I noface that no animal's name but the wolf's is ever compounded with gang ' : Wolfgang (Lup- ambulus a.d. 1000, Act. Bened. sect. 6 pars 1 p. 3) designates a ^er° before ^ whom goes the wolf of victory ; a similar presage may he in Wisant gan [jG^;^Hrith Lidalareis, Procop. de b. Goth. 1, 18 Mfcrnrte B«,8aMp«»). The heathen fa^ alone opens to us the meaning of old names, which are no product of pure chance. There may be good reason for supposing that m the quaint old Spell ^Martin and Wolfgang s invoked as shepherds' saints : one had sway over ^e crow (raven), the other over the wolf. Servian mothers name » ™ ^ have longed for, Vuk, wolf: then the witches can't eat him up. So Greeks and E™s"nt Artro. Lyciscus a lucky name, OHG.

(the animal) wolfbizo, and there may have been a man's name WolfUzo one bitten by the wolf and thereby protected. Vuk sub v •juko-yedma ' says, if one m he family way eats of a lamb or goat that the wolf has bitten to de^'^7eobab^^ gives birth to will shew a wound, which they call vukoyedzna i.e. wfc They also cut the wolf's bite out of a lamb or goat, smoke-dry it, and preserve it as a sanative (see Suppl.).

GUIDING BEASTS. BUEIED ALIVE.

1141

qui dicunt cervum quibusdam Hunnis venantibus, cum per lacum* ab illis fugeret, monstrasse viam.' Hunters the stag leads, herds- man the ox, heroes the wolf. But christians, even warriors, will rather have the deer for guide than the heathenish wolf : a doe shewed the Franks the ford of safety over the Main, Ditm. Merseb. ed. Wagn. 245 ; conf. Otto Fris. de gestis Frid. 1, 43 [and a white hart over the Vienne]. A raven the christians would have taken for a messenger of the devil. Flodoardus in Hist. Eemens. 1, 24 (ed. Duac. p. 145) relates one instance of the eagle : ' conscenso silvosi montis vertice, dum circumferentes oculorum aciem de monasterii corde volutant positione, subito sublimi coelorum mittitur aliger index a culmine, per quern coelos scansuro locus in terris beato depromeretur Theoderico. Nam mysticus ales aquila spatiando gyrans et gyrando circumvolans locum monasterii capacem secans aera designavit. Et ut ex- presses ostenderet quid Dominus vellet, unius fere horae spatio supra ubi ecclesia construi debuit lentis volatibus stetit ; et ne hoc ab incredulis casu contigisse putaretur, ipso natali Domini die quadriennio continuo supervolando monasterium circumire, mirantibus plurimis, eadem aquila cernebatur.' A flying hen indicates the site of the future castle, Deut. sag. no. 570. Boun- daries are hallowed by the running or walking of a blind horse, of a crab, EA. 86. Where the fratres Philaeni had won the new frontier by running, they let themselves be buried alive (hie se vivos obrui pertulerunt), Pomp. Mela 1, 7; the true reason of this ratification by burial will be made clearer pre- sently. Remus had seen six, and "Romulus twelve vultures fly auspicious at the founding of their city, Nieb. 1, 248 (see SuppL), We know how the old Northmen conducted their migrations and settlements under convoy of the gods. They threw over- board the ondvegis-sulur or set-stolhar they had brought with them from the old country, and wherever these drifted to, there they landed. On such wooden posts was carved an image of the god in whom they trusted, and he pointed them to their new habitation; see esp. the Isl. sog. 1, 76-7. 234.

But not only did beasts point out a place for building on, it was often thought necessary to immure live animals, even men, in the foundation on which the structure was to be raised, as if they were a sacrifice offered to Earth, who bears the load upon

1142 SUPEESTITION.

her: by this inhuman rite they hoped to secure immovable stability or other advantages. Danish traditions tell of a lamb being built in under the altar, that the church might stand un- shaken ; and of a live horse being buried in every churchyard, before any corpse was laid in it (p. 844). Both lamb and horse occasionally shew themselves in church or churchyard, and the apparition betokens a death (Thiele 1, 136-7). Even under other houses swine and fowls are buried alive (1, 198). Superst. I, 472 says, a long spell of good weather can be brought on by walling-in a cock; and 755 a cow's ' running 3 be prevented by bricking up a blind dog alive under the stable-door. In time of murrain, the Esthonians bury one head of the herd under the stable-door, that Death may have his victim (M, 69) -1 When the new bridge at Halle, finished 1843, was building, the common people fancied a child was wanted to be walled into the founda- tions. To make Liebenstein Castle impregnable, there was walled-in a child, whom its mother for base gold had parted with ; while the masons were at work, says the story, it sat eating a roll and calling out, 'Mother, I can see you/ then, 'Mother, I see a little of you still/ and when the last stone was let in, < Mother, I see nothing of you now' (Bechst. Thiir. sag. 4, 157; conf. 206). In the outer wall of Reichenfels Castle a child was built in alive : a projecting stone marks the spot, and if that were pulled out, the wall would tumble down at once (Jul. Schmidt p. 153). Similar stories in Spiel's Archiv. 1, 160 with the addition, that latterly, by way of symbol, empty coffins were built in. A ram- part had to be raised round Copenhagen, but every time it was begun, it sank down again : so they took a little innocent maiden, set her on a chair before a table, gave her toys and things to eat ; then, while she amused herself with eating and play, twelve master-masons built a vault over her, and amid music and loud minstrelsy threw up the wall, which hath stood unshaken to this day (Thiele 1, 3). Why they kept the child playing and happy, and prevented her crying, I have explained at p. 46. It is the vulgar opinion in Greece, that whoever first goes by, where they

i Und hadden de delver sich mit groten unkosten a* ^VolL'n s edet (brushwood) daran versocht, den ort to dempen, konden mcht ; de olden seden, rln^Ztleri, men scholde ein kat edder hunt darin drenken* .Als diser ■ gebleven, wert it mit der lichte togeslagen (easily stopt upj, Neocor. 2, 340. Conf. m cnap. XXXYI. inserting the shrewmouse into the ash.

BUILT IN ALIVE.

1143

are laying the foundation-stone of a new building, shall die within a year ; the builders, to avert the calamity, kill a lamb or a black cock on the stone, just as at Frankfort they made a cock run across the new-made bridge, DS. no. 185. At Arta a thousand masons wrought at a bridge : all that they raised in the day rushed down at night. Then sounded the archangel's voice from heaven : ( unless ye dig thereinto a child of man, the masonry shall not stand ; yet no orphan nor stranger shall ye bury,, but the master-builder's wife/ When the wife came to the workmen, the master pretended his ring had dropt into the foundation, and the woman offered to fetch it out, then swiftly they set to work to tuall her in ; dying, she pronounced a curse on the bridge, that it should tremble like a flower-stalk (Tommaseo's Canti pop. 3, 178). Still more touching is a Servian legend on the building of Scutari : For three years 300 masons laboured in vain to lay the foundations of the fortress ; what they built by day, the vila tore down at night. At last she made known to the kings, that the building would never hold till two born brothers (or sisters) of like name were put into the foundation. Nowhere could such be found. Then the vila required, that of the three wives of the kings she that carried out food to the masons the next day should be walled up in the ground. When the consort of the youngest king, not dreaming of such a decree, brings out some dinner, the 300 masons drop their stones around her, and begin to wall her in; at her entreaty they left a small opening, and there she continued for some time to suckle her babe, who was held up to her once a day (Yuk 2, 5). Once, when the Slavs on the Danube purposed founding a new city, the heads of the people, after the old heathen wont, sent out men early before sunrise, to take the first boy they met and put him. into the foundation. From this child (Serv. diete, Boh. djte, Euss. ditya pi. deti, Pol. dziecie) the town took its name of Detinets (Popov's Slav. myth. p. 25). And the history of Merlin pp. 66—72 relates how, king Vortigern casting to build him a strong tower, it did alway crumble down or it were accomplished ; and the wizards spake sentence, that the tower should in no wise be achieved, ere that the grounds-tone were wet with a child's blood, that was of woman born, but of no man begotten. May not we also connect with this superstition some words in a sermon of Berthold p. 167 ? ' und wizze, wanne

1144

SUPERSTITION.

■du kint gewinnest, daz der tiuvel reht einen torn mit den Idndern 'hat uf dich gemuret/ lias with the children reared a very tower on thy back (see Suppl.) .

Sect. 23 of the Indiculus superst., ' de sulcis circa villas/ leads us to infer that round newly founded cities they ploughed fur- rows, whose sacredness was a safeguard against the entrance of evil. Precisely such was the Etruscan usage acc. to Yarro : ' oppida condebant in Latio, Etrusco ritu, multa, id est, junctis bobus, tauro et vacca, interiore aratro circumagebant sulcum. Hoc faciebant religionis causa die auspicato, ut fossa et muro essent munita ; terram unde exscalpserant fossam vocabant, et introrsum factum murum, postea quod fiebat orbis, urbs/ The bull and cow were white, Ov. East. 4, 825 on the pomoerium of Romulus ::

Inde premens stivam signavit moenia sulco, alba juguin niveo cum bove vacca tulit.

In the Comitium a vaulted chamber was built, and stocked with the firstlings of all natural products that sustain man's life, Eest. sub v. mundus. Nieb. 1, 251.

Some superstitious rites, apparently of great antiquity, are practised on such different occasions in early and in recent times, that- it is hard to make out their meaning. In Burchard, Sup. C, 195c, a ivaggon is divided in two, and a corpse on the bier is carried between ; in I, 929 a girl suspected of pregnancy is made to pass through a harvest-wain so divided. Waggon and plough are reckoned holy implements, in the midst of which no cheating or juggling can subsist.

About walking through a cutting in the ground and the cleft of a tree, see next chap., under Remedies. It is with a different view that women creep through the stretched membrane in which a newborn foal has lain, or through a horse-collar, Swed. sela, Sup. K, 167.

Again, one is not to stride over another person (Sup. I, 45), nor slip through under the pole of a vehicle 618 ; nor should women in a certain condition mount across the pole or shafts 729. 925; they should also avoid having anything hanging or tangled above them 688. 933. This resembles the rule, not to turn wood in the Christmas week (Sup. K, 134), nor beat cattle with turned

DB AWING A FUBBOW. DEEAM INTEBPBETING. 1145

wood 58, lest it cause similar twistings and convulsions in man or beast.

I close with a few words on interpretation of dreams. To the A. Saxons dream meant jubilum, ecstasy (p. 901) ; so is the OS. ' Drohtines drorn3 = heaven, Hel. 54, 11. 63, 14. 85, 21 to be taken as ' Dei jubilum, gaudium/ as opposed to ' manno, liudo drom' (p. 795), the transitory dream of this world. For somnium stood the AS. swefen, OS. suebhan ; the ON. svefn is simply somnus, and sofna to fall asleep, MHG. entsweben is sopire, lull to sleep, which again has to do with OHG. suep (aer), so that sleeping and dreaming properly mean trance or ecstasy, the spirit's soaring away into the air (conf. arprettan, p. 1083). This is closely conn, with Lat. sopor, and sompnus, somnus, somnium. Both OHG. and ON. seem to confine their troum, draumr to the sense of somnium. The Gothic word for oveipos (dream) is lost to us. Instead of our proverb ' traume sind schdume,' dreams are foams, I have found a more truly rhym- ing ' traume sind gdume 3 (Ettner's Chemiker 469 and Apoth. 132), i.e. observations (MHG. goume, troume, but schume).1 Even antiquity did not believe in all dreams, only in difficult ones, dreamed at particular times or places. To interpret dreams is iu OHG. antfriston, N. Boeth. 51, more simply sceidan, MHG. scheiden, Diut. 3, 97, bescheiden, Walth. 95, 8. Nib. 14, 2. 19, 2 ; traumsclieider meant soothsayer. The AS. had swefn reccan, ON. draum rd&a (see Suppl.).

Dreams are foretokenings of the future, rising out of images and impressions of the past ; they and the figures in them might be called a writing or rune of destiny (p. 406 n.), as Wolfram finely says of Parzival 245, 8 : ' sus wart gesteppet im sin troum mit swertslegen umbe den soum/ so was embroidered his dream with sword- strokes round the border. Like the birds, they are messengers of the gods, and publish their commands ; but other daemonic beings send them too : ' ir boten kiinftigiu leit (coming sorrows) sanden im slafe dar/ *Parz. 245, 4. On p. 905-6 we had examples of the inspiring gift of poesy being imparted in a

1 Yet even in Diut. 3, 96 : ' waz iuwe ware gescumet,'' i.e. dreamt. And schaum is backed by a still worse rhyme : ' traume sind faume ' (Kirchhofer's Sprichw. 842) for feime.

1146

SUPERSTITION.

dream. As birds play the leading part in angarig, as dreams themselves are birds and come flying, we can understand why even the subject-matter of a dream is so commonly a vision of Mrds; in some few dreams of this kind we may perhaps detect an echo of ancient myths. Kriemhild dreamt that two eagles caught and mangled (erkrummen) before her eyes the wild falcon she had reared; so ISiinn (the swallow?) was seized by the eagle Thiassi, and OSinn the divine heron pursued by the eagle Suttungr. Such images filled the fancy of the olden time : a couple of dancers in the Rudlieb 8, 49 are thus elegantly de- scribed : fille velatfalco se girat, et haec ut hirundo.' In Koth. 3845 : ' mir troumite nahte von dir, wie ein valke qua me gevlogin, und vuorte dich widir over mere/ In Sv. forus. 2, 64: fjag dromte att min herres falfcar, de spande mig med sina klor, de togo mitt hjerta utur mitt brost, och gjorde sig deraf ett bo/ And there are disquieting dreams of bears, ivolvcs, boars p. 921-3 (see Suppl.).

Much depends on the time when and the place where dreams are dreamt. They are truest after midnight, toward morning : ' post noctem mediam, quando sunt somnia vera/ Ecbas. 227. Eracl. 3723 ; ghosts appear just before dawn (a case on p. 894). Yet Herzeloide dreams ' umbe einen mitten tac/ Parz. 103, 25.

As it is a grave question with newly married folk, whose light shall burn longest at the wedding feast, which shall first fall asleep on the wedding night, or get up from the bridal bed (Sup. I, 15. 485. 717; M, 17); so the dreams and visions of the wedding night are prophetic (see Child erich's in Aimoin 1, 8). Such a dream of Hvitastierna in Gothland, which ac- quaints her with her posterity, is mentioned in the Gutalag p. 106. No less important is the first dream in a new house (Sup. I, 123; K, 61), but you must have counted all the rafters before going to sleep. King Gorm is admonished to build a house on a spot where none had stood before, and therein to sleep and dream (Fornm. sog. 11, 4-6; conf. Saxo Gram. 1 79) 1 ; whereas Halfdan the black (Saga cap. 7) is advised to dream in a pigstye, and the dream will come true. Of dreaming in a new bed, Fornald. sog. 1, 367. Again, a dream on New-year's night

1 ' You've ideas like an old house ' we say on the contrary to one whose remarks are not to the point.

DREAM INTERPRETING.

1147

comes true (Sup. I, 528). In Reinh. 88, when Chantekler has told his ingeniously constructed dream, it is added : c manec troum erscheinet sich iiber siben jar/ comes to pass in 7 years' time. A great many dream-interpretations, which the common people hold firmly to this day, are to be found in the very earliest times (see Suppl.).

Certain dreams are so deeply rooted in Teutonic legend, that we must place their origin far back, e.g. that of the treasure which one is to be informed of on the bridge 1 (see Suppl.) .

Like dreams and augang, some other of the customs we have noticed evidently rest on the strength of first and fresh impressions.

We are glad to be rid of this heap of superstition ; yet, while it filled the lives of our forefathers with fear, it ministered some comfort also.

1 Agricola's Sprichw. 623. Praetorius's Wiinschelr. 372. Abrah. a S. Clara's Jndas 1, 4. Ettner's Ung. Apoth. p. 132. Musaus's Volksm. 4, 65. R. Chambers's Fireside stories p. 12, which prove the legend rife in various parts of Scotland.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SICKNESSES.

By the auger of the gods diseases are decreed, yet also their mercy reveals healing remedies to man. All deities can be healers, they seem to give their names to the herbs and flowers whose healing virtues they make known. With the Greeks it is chiefly Apollo and his sister Artemis from whom this knowledge is derived ; our Wuotan, where he touches Apollo rather than Hermes, represents him in the capacity of healer too (p. 149) ; with Artemis and Athena skilled in leechcraft, we may here match our Holda and Frouwa, replaced by Mary in later legend. A special god of physic, AsUepios or Aesculapius, is Apollo's son and a mere emanation of him. Of divine heroes, those who practised this art were Herakles, Prometheus the giver of whole- some fire, and Chiron : to set by the side of these, we have the Norse Mimir, our own Wate and Wieland, after whom a healing plant Wielands-wurz is named, and whose skill in smith-work resembles that of Prometheus ; conf . chap. XXXVII.

As Homer celebrates Paeon's and Machaon's knowledge of medicines and wounds, so the Gudrunlied says of Wate :

Si hseten in langer zite da vor wol vernomen (long known),

daz Wate arzet wasre von einem wildeii wibe :

Wate, der vil msere, gefrumete manegem an dem libe.

The wild wife, who doctored (made a doctor of) this far-famed Wate, might well be a wise-woman, a half-goddess (p. 431-2). So in Scotch tradition (R. Chamb. p. 34) the mermaid points out healing herbs. Several such women appear in the Edda. Eir belongs altogether to the circle of goddesses: fhon er Iceknir heztr,' best of leeches, Sn. 36. I connect her name with the Goth, aims nuncius, AS. arian, ON. eira parcere, and OHG. Irinc (Goth. Eiriggs?); Eir would be the indulgent helpful goddess and errand- woman. Bat another passage, Ssem. IIP,

ins

WISE WOMEN.

1149

significantly places her among the handmaidens of wise Mengloff (p. 423-4) :

Hlif heitir, onnur HUfpursa, ]?rr3ja ThiocPvarta, Biort ok Bl%$, BMar, Fri&, Eir oc Orbo&a.

Some of them seem to be giantesses, Hlifjmrsa and Orbofta, who in Sn. 39 is wife to Gryrnir, and these fit in with the notion of wild wife ; but the majority are transparent personifications of moral ideas, Fdcf the mansneta or parca (Goth, f reidian parcere) , JIUf tutela or parca, from hlifa parcere, which comes to the same thing as Eir, and throws a welcome light on the Latin parca itself. All the more right have we now to place Biort in immediate connexion with Berhta, as I conjectured on p. 272 n., and BU& with Holda : these healing women lead us on to wise women, divine women. And that the gift of healing is in ques- tion here, is plain from the preceding and not less important strophe :

Hyfjaberg J?at heitir, en ]?at hefir leingi verit

siukom ok sari gaman :

heil verSr hver, J?6tt hafi ars sott,

ef ]?at klifr kona.

I translate it : Hyfjaberg this rock is called, and has long been to the sick and to wounds a solace ; whole becomes any woman, though she have a year's sickness, if she climbs it. So that the rock is a holy place, dedicated to Mengloft and her maidens, where every sick woman that climbed it has found relief. The exact meaning of Hyfjaberg, or as some read it, Hyfvja-, Hyfara- berg, I cannot yet determine ; enough for us, that such mount of healing accords admirably with the conception one has to form of the wise -women of olden time : prophetesses, Parcae, Muses, all are imagined dwelling on mountains. Mengldcf may without more ado be taken to mean Freyja (p. 306-7), in attendance on this highest goddess would stand the other maidens of like nature ; and to the art of healing we have a right worshipful origin assigned. Now too it is conceivable, why Brynhildr, the valkyr dwelling on her mountain, had flif me3 lgeknmg' (pharmaca cum medela) ascribed to her in Seem. 147b :

1150 SICKNESSES.

she is a wise woman skilled in magic, a pharmaceutria, herbaria, and moreover understands the binding up of wounds (undir dreyrgar yfir binda, Ssem. 220b), like Eiltgund in Walthar. 1408. Oddmn lends her aid to women in travail, Saam. 239, and the Tristan has made Isote's knowledge of physic famous. At medicinal springs, by mineral waters, appears the white lady with the snake (p. 588 n.), the beast of sovereign' st healing power, servant to Aesculapius himself. The Servian vila too is a physician, and heals wounds for a high fee, Yuk no. 321 [so the Bulgarian yuda or samodiva, Aug. Dozon's Bolgarski pesni no. 3, etc.] .

We see from all this, that medical science in heathen times was half priestly, half magical. Experience and higher culture gave the priests a knowledge of healing powers in nature, from the sacredness of their office proceeded salutary spells, the use of remedies was backed by sacrifice, nay, great cures and the avert- ing of pestilence could only be effected by sacrifice. Thus all through the Mid. Ages we find the christian priests also possess- ors, above other men, of medicine and the art of using it. Yet- some part of the old pagan science passed into the hands of wise men and women, who by retaining superstitious rites, and mis- using real remedies, incurred the reproach of sorcery. Like witchcraft (p. 1038-9), and for the same reasons, the old ways of healing fell mainly into the hands of women (see Suppl.) .

A physician was called in Goth, lekeis, OHG. lahM, AS. Icece, ON. Icehnir, Icehnari,1 Swed. lalcare, Dan. lage ; the Engl, leech has sunk into the sense of peasant or cattle doctor. The MHG. lachenceve, lachencerinne meant sorcerer, sorceress (p. 1037), though still perhaps implying the use of remedies, as in ' lachenen und fiirsehen/ Superst. D, 38 r., and lechen = healing, Quedlinb. witch- trials p. 77. From Teutonic nations the word must in very early times have spread to Slavs, Lithuanians, Finns : O.S1., Boh., Buss. Velar', Serv. liehar, Pol. leharz, Lith. lehorus, Fin. Idakarii or can we have got it from the Slavs ? I have tried to shew a Teutonic root for it no. 300, a Slavic might be harder to find : to SI. liek, lek (remedium) answers our OHG. lahhan. Other

1 ' Lffiknis heudur ' ; ' lselmir vera, ok Imnna sar at sia,' Sasm. 194-5a.

LEECH, PHYSICIAN.

1151

names are taken from the notion of helping, bettering, as betan, boten (mederip. 1036) ; ON. grcefta (sanare) , grce^ari (chirurgus, medicus), from gr6(5 (growth, getting on, gain) ; MHGn. heilaare (medicus), Karl 45. Our arzt appears already in OHGr. as arzat, 0. iii. 14, 11, MHG. arzet, M.Nethl. ersetre, Diut. 2, 223a; O.Fr. artous, art ox ; the root seems to be the Lat. ars, though arzat cannot come straight from artista.1 The Prov. metges, Ferabr. 547. 1913, mege (Raynouard 3, 173), O.Fr. mires, mirre are from medicus.2 The ON. fliF imputed to Brynhild is better spelt lyf, being the Goth, lubi (which I infer from lubja-leisei, herb-leasing = (pap/ia/ceta, Gal. 5, 20), OHG. Iwpjpi, MHG. luppe ; from the sense of permissible, healing (frappa/cov, arose that of poisonous, magical, just as our gift meant at first donum, then venenum. The luppari (veneficus) has a luppara (venefica) to match him, the herb-man his herb-woman, herbaria, jpharmaceu- tria. In Saxo Gram. 16 a maiden cures wounds, at 25 he calls Wecha medico, ; and Thorlacius in Obs. 4, 279 has collected other instances of women healers.3 Amongst our peasantry there are old women still who profess ( boten/ stroking, pouring, and charm- ing by spells (Sup. I, 515. 865). It is remarkable that healing spells can only be handed down from women to men, or from men to women (I, 793 ; conf. p. 1107) : we have seen how so ancient a worthy as Wate had learnt his art of a woman. It is principally shepherds that now pass for cunning mediciners (Sup. L, 35 French); formerly any kind of herdsmen and hunters: ' bubulcus, subulcus, venator/ 0, int. 43. In the Mid. Ages itinerant leeches went about the country cheapening their drugs and skill to the people, usually attended by a man who played amusing tricks ; for proofs see Rutebeuf's Diz de l'erberie (Meon nouv. rec. 1, 185—191 ; oeuvres 1, 250-9; simil. in 1, 468—477), and the Easter play in Hoffm. Fundgr. 2, and in O. Boh. in Hanka 7, 198. These vagrant herbalists, quacks, lithotomists,

1 ' Temperie (medicine) uz wiirze kraft,' Parz. 643. 23. ' Lahhinonto temperan- do,' conf. Mous. 393. [Arz-at, ers-etre are prob. from apx-iarpos : the Greek prefix arch- becomes erz- in German words.— Trans.]

2 The Ed. of the Garin 2, 89 would derive mire from the Arabic emir ; but a Fr. r is often developed out of d, t, as lerre latro, beurre butyrum [these by assimil. with an r already present] .

3 Pomp. Mela 3, 6 of Gaulish women : ' putabantur ingeniis singularibus praeditae, et sanare quae apud alios insanalilia sunt^ ; whereas at Home we find women forbidden to treat certain diseases. '

1152

SICKNESSES.

are a mine of information on the methods of popular leechcraft. Greg. Tur. 9, 6 mentions a conjuror and doctor Desiderius, who wore a coat of goat's hair; the 0. Slav, ball means physician, but strictly conjuror, Glagolita 67b (see Sup pi.) .

Crescentia, a pious persecuted saint, receives from Peter or Mary, who fill exactly the place of pagan gods, the gift of healing all diseases, Kolocz. 267, or acc. to the 0. Fr. poem (Meon n. r. 2, 71-3) only leprosy. She herself might pass perfectly for a wise woman, and is actually charged with being a sorceress. Queens too in ancient times are credited with power to quench certain maladies by their touch : in Bother 32b. 33a the queen strokes the lame and crooked with a stone; and a similar virtue was ascribed to hereditary sovereigns of France and England (Hone's Yrbk p. 799). If a woman has had seven sons in succession, the seventh can heal all manner of hurt (Sup. I, 786) ; by Ettner's Hebamme 906, Maulaffe 699, his touch cures wens at the throat. French Sup. L, 22 makes it the fifth son. There is no end of superstitions about this seventh or fifth son : in E. Friesland they say he becomes a walrider ; does that mean one who rides to the foughten field? conf. wel-recke, p. 418n. What seems a counter- part of it is, that when 7 girls running are born of one marriage, one of them becomes a werwolf, I, 1121. A child that has never known its father is able to disperse tumours (fondre les loupes), L, 21. A firstborn child, that has come into the world with teeth, can cure a bad bite, K, 29. 37. All this borders closely on the power to bequeath or transfer the gift of prophecy and the art of weather-making, pp. 1088. 1107: the healing art was as much sacerdotal as the business of fortune-telling (see Suppl.).

The distinction between sacrifice and healing would perhaps be stated most correctly by saying, the one was aimed at sickness threatened, the other at sickness broken out. Preventive sacri- ficial rites have no doubt been preserved longest in pastoral life : herdsmen made their cattle run through the flames, once a year,1

i One Soman rite I quote from Cato de re rust. 83 : Votum pro bubus, ut vale- ant sic facito. Marti Silvano in silva interdius, in capita singula bourn votum facito f arris adorei libras iii. et lardi p. iv s. et pulpae iv s., vim sextarios tres. Id in unum vas liceto conjicere, et vinum item in unum vas liceto conjicere. Lam rem divinam vel servus vel liber licebit faciat. Ubi res divma facta ent, statira ibidem consumito. Mulier ad earn rem divinam ne aclsit, neve videat quomodo nat. Hoc votum in annos singulos, si voles, licebit vovere.

HUMAN DISEASES.

1153

or whenever pestilence approached. But sacrifices were also performed in severe cases of actual sickness.

Our medical learning of today, as it did not proceed from the people, has by degrees banished nearly all our native names for diseases, and replaced them by Greek or Latin words. But as those names often bring us face to face with old-world notions about sickness and its cure, it will be needful to present at any rate the most important.

In the Mid. Ages krank has only the sense of debilis, infirmus, OHG. wana-heil, not of aeger, for which the term was siech, Goth. siuhs, OHG. sioh ; hence morbus was expressed not by krankheit, but by sucht, Goth, sauhts, OHG. suht, ON. sott, whereas now we attach to sucht the moral notion of hankering, and only retain its old meaning in a few compounds such as schwindsucht, gelbsucht, etc. There is the same relation between the OK J>ra (desiderium, aegritudo animi) and likpra (lepra), conf. Sw. tra, helletra, Dan. traa, helletraa, DV. 2, 180. General words, expressing also the bodily pain of sickness, are OHG. suero, MHG. swer, and OHG. MHG. we, wetago, wetage (like our siechtage) . But a sick man is also called in OHG. bettiriso (clinicus), O. iii. 14, 67; MHG. betterise, Parz. 502, 1. 813, 16 ; AS. beddrida bedridden: a term specially used of men enfeebled by age, ' der alte betterise/ who can no longer rise out of bed. In Scand. this painless ailment of great age was called Ana sott, from king On or Ani, who had secured long life by sacrificing his sons (p. 46), and at last lived on milk like a child again, Yngl. saga cap. 29 (see Suppl.) .

It was christian to hold sickness a dispensation of God, heathen- ish to see in it the handiwork of sprites, and something elvish. Accordingly it is personified : it comes upon, surprises, attacks, seizes, takes hold of, overpowers man : Sat/jbcov iire^pae, arvyepbs Be ol expae Saificov, Od. 5, 396 [the daemon afflicts ; in the next line the gods heal]. In the Hel. 92, 1 : 'mid suhtium bifangan, bedrogan hebbiad sie dernea wihti. thea wredon habbiad sie giwittiu benumune;' and in Versus Hartmanni (Canisius ii. 3, 203 : ' fugit pestis ab homine, quam daemon saevus miserat/ No wonder that in the Edda an oath is exacted from diseases, as from living creatures, to do no harm to Balder, Sn. 64. Like death or destiny (p. 406), pestilence carries off : • suht farnam/

1154 SICKNESSES.

Hel 125, 20 ; in the Swed. oath <tra mig!' we must supply <ta^e' take: ita me morbus auferat ! In the Cod. Yindob. th. 49 8° no 94 I find the phrase 'eine suht ligen, zwo suht ligen/ to lie one sickness, two s. ; < sich in die suht legen/ lay oneself (he down) into, Reinh. 302. 320.

This daemonic nature of diseases makes people call them by friendly flattering names to keep them away, just as they do to horrible uncanny beasts, and avoid uttering their right name ; they call a disease the good, the blessed, Schm. 2, 87. 3, 212. 222, and the pestilence is addressed as gossip. There will be more examples to quote in speaking of particular diseases (see SuppL).

Fever, OHG. fiebar, AS.fefor; Goth, heito, Mat. 8, 15 and hrinno, Mk 1, 31. Lu. 4, 38, both for wvpeTos, and both fern.; OHG. has no corresp. hiza, prinna. The Swiss have hitz and brand (Tobler 74a), and the AS. Ml, Beow. 3469. 3692 seems to be burning fever, from ad ignis, so that the OHG. would be eital. An OHG. rito masc, Gl. Mons. 391, from ritan to ride, not from ridan to writhe, as fever does not twist like the cramp ; and the AS.- word should be spelt rida, not wriSa ; Lye has nderoff febris. It is imagined as an elf who rides the man with rein and spur: < der alp zoumet dich/ bridles thee; 1 der mar rUet dich/ P- 464; ON. ' mar a ^racfhann/ Yngl. s. cap. 16 ; < der rite bestuont in/ stood upon him, Alex. 2208. In Em 10834 and Eracl. 3166 suht, fieber, rite are named side by side, are therefore distinct; in En. 10350 'suht und rite1; 9694 < suht un&fieber'; 9698 ' diu minne tuot kalt und heiz mer dan der viertage rite/ love makes hot and cold like the quartan ague. In curses : ' habe den riden und die suht umb dinen hals ! ' about thy neck, Morolt 715. ' die suht an iwern losen kragen ! 3 your unruly neck, Reinh. p. 302-12. ' nu muoze der leide ride vellen V sore fever fell him, Karlmeinet 110. Bide seems to be especially ague, which is sometimes called frorer, Sup. I, 183; though we also hear of ' ritten frost * and ' ritten hitze.' Imprecations com- mon in the 15-16th cent, are : < may the ritt shake you, the jarritt (yearlong fever), the gcehe rite (swift r.) be at you ! ' < May the ritt shake you to your bones/ Garg. 96a. ' Ins ritts namen habt rhu/ H. Sachs iii. 3, 10c. They said : < whence brings him the ritt?' the same as the devil, p. 1113. Boner's well-told Fable 48 deserves attention : the rite appears in person (in what shape ?),

HUMAN DISEASES.

1155

and holds a dialogue witli the flea. It is plainly [not ?] of Mid. Age invention ; Petrarch epist. 3, 13 relates it of the spider and the gout, and calls it anilis fabella. In Bavaria fever is personi- fied as leutelmann, shaker, Schm. 1, 219 ; a spell against fever speaks of 72 fevers. Eussian superstition supposes nine sisters who pJague mankind with fevers ; they lie chained up in caverns, and when let loose, pounce upon men without pity (Gotze's Buss, volksl. p. 62). My explanation acquires certainty from the Esthonian phrase ' ay an walged, ay an halli,' I ride the white, I ride the gray, i.e. I have the ague (Rosenplanter's Beitr. 12, 42-3).

The Greek eVtaXr?;?, ifyiaXrris, literally on-leaper, was a dae- monic incubus, an alp, elf, who causes the feverish oppression of nightmare ; and rj-iriaXns, rjirioXns nightmare, and rjiriaXo^, r/Tr/oXo? fever, fever-chill, meant the same thing, though gram- marians tried to separate them by difference of accent. Add to this, that in Aristot. hist. an. 8, 26 rjirloXo^ turns up in the sense of butterfly, and the notions of spirit, elf and butterfly constantly run into one another (pp. 829. 917). In Lith., drugis is butterfly and fever-bird, in Lett., drudsis flying moth and fever. Lith. druggis kreczia, Lett, drudsis kratta; the fever shakes (one).

An AS. manuscript on diseases and remedies quoted by Wanley pp. 176—180 (conf, supra p. 140) has at p. 180 celf-ddle Wdom, cure for elf-burn, celfcynne-sealf, elf-salve, nihtgengean sealf, night-wives' salve.1 Elsewhere I find an ailment celf-sidenne.

By the red and the white dog in Ettner's Unw. doctor 436 we prob. are to understand measles or rose-rash; red dog again in the Leipz. avanturier 1, 86. The Persians call scarlet-fever al, and picture it as a rosy maid with locks of flame, Atkinson p. 49. 50 (see SuppL).

By gout (gicht f.) we understand a pain in the limbs, arthritis ; in older Germ, it was neuter : ' daz gegihte brichet (breaks) sie/ a. Heinr. 886. Ulr. Trist. 1461. < daz gegihte brach ir hend und frieze/ Bab. 1060; hence our ' gicht-bruchig,' palsied. ' daz wiietende gihte/ Renner 9904. As we also find darm-gicht (in- testinal g.) for colic, and ' sun-giht 3 on p. 61 7n. meant the sun's

mia \lh3, f ^nnesealf and wiS nihtgengan, and Jrffcm monnom > deofol

Bor1S)"wl' (s^p 89^ the men the devil honfes (coV

VOL. III.

b

1156 SICKNESSES.

gait, going, turning, I think gicht was a general term denoting the shooting, twisting and tugging of pain in the body ; and a derivative corresp. to the Goth, gahts (innagahts, Gramm. 3, 518) . M. Nethl. jicht, Icel. %H, Bw. gikt, Dan. gigt. The Gothic renders irapaXvTiKos by us-UJ>.a, as if beside one's limbs, having no use of them; an OHG. urlido is not found. <Ein siechtuom heizet pogrdt' = leme, a lame palsied state, Parz. 501, 26 is a corruption of podagra, which was also twisted into podagram. More Teut. are fuoz-suht, AS. fot-ddl (podagra); zipperlein I do not find before the 16th cent. M. Nethl. fledersin, fledercine (arthritis), Leven van Jesus p. 52, and <fl. in vote ende in lede/ Doctrinale 3, 1030; in D'Arsy's Woordenboeck, Amst. 1699, <fiedecvjn,flerecijn, la goutte (chiragra)' ; did the word mean a moth or butterfly that brought on the disease ? (see Suppl.) .

The flying gout that shifts from one part to another (arthritis vaga) was cllled in N. Germany (Holstein, the Baltic coast), at least as late as the 17th cent., ' dat varende, lop ende deer/ and in some parts of L. Sax. and Westph. < de varen, de varende, de lopende varen,3 the faring, running (sprites or things). ^ So that this disease again was regarded as a spiritual- animal being winch had been conjured into the body. Still plainer are the names 'die fliegenden elbe/ 'die gute hinder en' (Brunswk), fdie gute holds' (abt Gottingen), exactly what the elvish ( things 3 were called that witches conjured into people (p. 1074). And they likewise were imagined in the form of butterflies or worms, which caused gnawing pains and swellings in the joints of the hands and feet.1 The disease being an obstinate one, and often hard to cure, the common people set it down as the work of witches. It is also called the hair-worm, and in the Netherlands jumping gout. A spell classifies gouts as running, staying, trembling, evening, and growing gegicht.

But the operations of the holden must have been far more extensive, and concerned in many more diseases. The Hollenzopf, Wichtelzopf (plica polon.) was spoken of, pp. 464. 474. In Russ. the plica is volosets, which borders on Volos p. 625n., but comes from volos, vlas, hair. A witch confessed (Voigt's Abh. p. 122)

i Joh. Weyer's Arzneibuch (J. Wier, Piscinarius, b. at Grave in Brab. 1515, d. at Tecklenb. 1588), Frkft 1583, p. 27. Henr. Meibom de arthritide vaga scorbutma, Helmest. 1668. 1, cap. 1.

HUMAN DISEASES. 115?

that there were nine sorts of holdichen : the riding, splitting, blowing, wasting, flying, swelling, deaf, dumb, blind.

The Poles also call ivorms that breed diseases in man Maze ludzie, white folk, i.e. elves (Biester's Neue Berl. mon. schr 1802. 8, 230).

We apply the term fluss (rheuma) to several morbid affections, some slight, others dangerous to life, as stichfluss catarrh, schlag- fluss apoplexy. The latter is said to touch, hit, strike ; MHG. der Gotes slac (stroke) ; later, die geivalt (might) Gottes, die hand Gottes, Ettn. unw. doct. 224. <traf mich Gottes gewaW = 1 had a stroke, Brunsw. anz. 1745. p. 2022 (from Life of Mat. Schwarz, an. 1547) ; conf. supra p. 19n. Yet the < stroke of God'1 ex- presses also the quickness and ease of this mode of death (mors lenis repentina), compared with those that chain us long to a bed of pain: hence another name for apoplexy was 'das selig,' the blessed. We may compare the dwarf-stroke, dverg-slagr, palsy, p. 461. The Bohemians distinguish Bozj moc (God's might) epilepsy, from Bozj ruka (God's hand) apoplexy (see Suppl.).

The term falling sickness for epilepsy occurs as early as Diut. 2, 193b, 'valjandia suht (caducum morbum)'; <daz fallende ubei; Fundgr. 325 ; < fallender siechtag/ Hutten 5, 171. Other- wise : the sorrow, the misery, the sore trouble, the evil being, the scourge, the weed (Jul. Schmidt p. 136). M. Nethl. vallende evel Mod. Netnl. vallende zieMe, Sint Jans evel, grot evel, gramschap Goods, wrath of God, Huyd. op St. 1, 569. In Melander's Joco- ser. 1, 434: ' may the gnucken touch you!' gnuk being LG for knock. 'The tropf has touched him/ Erasm. Alberus 39* i.e. the stroke [apoplexy?] ; M. Lat. gutta, gutta cadiva, 0. Fr la goute: 'cheent de gote/ Een. 25203, brought on by holding the plompe (lotus, p. 654) in the hand. A particular species of the drop occurs under the name of nesch or nesch-tropf Schmid's Swab. Diet, gives from a MS. nasch as hiccough, singultus, which (like sneezing, p. 1116) seems to have been regarded as a mild case of apoplexy; Popowitsch p. 511 quotes noschtn as hiccough, and in OHG. we find nescazan as well as fnescazan smgultire, Graff 3, 782. I derive them all from the Goth, hnasqus

i

1 Atbs ndanyt, II. 12, 37. 13, 812 ; but not meaning a disease.

1158 SICKNESSES.

mollis, delicate, AS. hnesc [Engl, nest, SI. nezhno], to which also belongs OHG. hnascou, nascon, our naschen, to have a sweet tooth. Mone's anz. 6, 463 pronounces nosch-tropf to be flying goat, and gives a nosch-segcn (-charm) : ' I command thee nosch with all thy fellows, for with thee are the stech and the krampj gespat, geschoss, geicht and gesicht.' A further charm speaks ot 77 noschen: 'we will go into the man's house, and suck his blood and gnaw his bones and eat his flesh'; but they get conjured into a withered tree. A severer, longer ailment than hiccough seems to be meant ; Mone connects nosch with nesso in the OS. spell, but a LG. ss answers to a HG. hs, not to sk sch; to me the connexion of the word with naschen, explain it how you will, seems indisputable: <s6 dich din suht benascbe (nibble at), daz dir hut und Mr abe ge !' skin and hair come off

(see Suppl.). . .

Krampf, spasm, convulsion, in children usually freise, freisig gefrais, Sup. I, 474. 722, frdsel, Jul. Schmidt p. 121. 137. ScMuerchen, LG. schiirhm (jumping toothache, tic douloureux), liter, little shiver, twitch. But freis, frais often stands for epilepsy too (Abele's Gerichtsh. 2, 429. 4, 218. 311).

Leib-weh, grimmen (krimmen, Nethl. krimpen), gripes, belly- ache; die obere grimme, manm-mutter (Wier 107') ; hachmutter, barmund,barmutter, Staid. 1,136; 'the bermutter has bit me, Ibave the colic, Schm. 1, 217; Anstr. bervater bermutter (HSfer 1, 77-8) ; tvdrmund, Staid. 1, 334; tribe, Fundgr. 321, 9

also means colic acc. to Hoffm. Ruhr (dysentery), durchlauj,

darmgicht (acc. to Gloss. Flor. 984*) uzsuht, Gl. Flor. 984' zuzsuht; further, in Staid, aussncht (diarrh.). Bothe ruhr (bloody flux), <der rothe schaden' (Aushelm 3, 236).

Lungensueht, AS. lungenadl (pneumonia); ' schwt-nge. odep luno-e-sucht ' in Schweinichen 2, 256 is surely for schwmde- ? in Austria < der sckwund,' our schwind-sucht consumption ; Abele s Gerichtsh. 2, 303 says it seizes an ell's length of gut every year

Sdten-deehen (plexitis), OHG. stechido ; M. Nethl. lanc-evd, Rein. 5401. Huyd. op St. 1, 569, from lane, Fr. flanc, OHG lancha = ilia, lumbus, but I have not found an OHG. lanch-ujnl morbus ilium.

Wasser-sucht, dropsy. OHG. has also wazar-chalp (water-ca t) hydrops, Dint. 2, 181. Mone 8, 494; couf. mond-kalb (mola

HUMAN DISEASES. 1159

moon-

caroinutero nascens), Melander's Joe. ii. no. 450, Engl. calf, misbirth, about which there must be some floating mythical notions, for we also find a proper name Sonnenkalb, and aber- kalb, afterkalb or eberkalb means an illegitimate child (see Suppl.).

For abortus we have misgeburt, fehlgeburt, miskram; verbs: to upset, tip over, spill, etc. 'zy heft de kar omgeworpen/ Tumman's Spreekw. 1, 88; 'tis gone wrong with her, Schwein. A 314, conf. 321 ; not straight, Kantzow 2, 30; Dan. 'at giore omslag'; of proper birth: to bring to the (right) place. Esth. tuyad nurgad (empty corners), mooncalf; ' ulle katte minnema/ slip out of (miss) the hands, opp. to 'last polwede pealet tostma/ get (lift) the child on the. knee. We have: 'there's a row > ' the house cracks ' (the birth is near), 'the house has tumbled' (it is over), Sachs, prov. blatt. 14, 127 ; ' the oven breaks down > Schm. 1, 33. In MHG. ' diu kamer wart entlochen/ unlocked, Mar. 46. Bermutter, which is used of colic, strictly denotes the hysterica passio, and is represented not only as a toad, Schm. I, 188, but as a mouse that runs out of the body, and has a sword laid across the stream for it, Ettn. hebamme p. 194-5, as in the superstition described above, p. 1082 (see Suppl.).

JLerz-gesjpan, tension of heart (cardialgia), herz-spann, Sup. I, 873. 949, otherwise herz-weh, herz-kulk (ventriculi colica): ' some- thing hes and stands before my heart/ MHGr. herze-swer ; swer- mage, Diut. 2, 273. This is not the same thing as the heart- worm, of which it is vulgarly supposed that every man has one m him, and would die if it crept out of his mouth (Ettn. hebamme p. 890), or got on his tongue, Chr. Weise's Drei kliigste leute pp. 8. 9. The ancients called a swelling of the tongue fidrpayos and rana. The heiss-hunger (hot-), /3ovXcfio,, appetitus caninus, was also accounted for by an animal: 'vermis lacertae similis in stomacho hominis habitat/ Gl. Jun. 381. ' wir suln uns alle broeten, den zadelwurm toeten (kill) der uns dicke hat gen&gen ' oft has gnawed us, Seifr. Helbl. 3, 247.

Headache, houbit-we, Eundgr. 320-1 ; houbitsuht, Diut. 270- farren, Sup. I, 865. perh. the < faren 3 of p. 1156. Tobe-suU (amentia), Iw. 3233, brain-sickness. Wirbel-sucht, vertigo I 436. & 3 3

OHG. huosto, cough, MHG. huoste, our huste (in Zurich wueste),

1160 SICKNESSES.

OK Iwsti, AS. hwosta, Engl, whoost A cold in the head : schnupfe, schnaube, schnuder, in Switz. pfniisel; Hildegard has naseboz, coryza. MHG. struche, Fundgr. 321, 1. Ls. 1, 403-4, Hoarseness : hximme, Fdgr. 322. Catarrh : OHG. tampho, Graff 5, 142, cfa^/zo in Hildeg. St. Anthony's fire (because healed in his hospitals?) : rothlauf, in Switz. wolken, fliegende wolhe, flying cloud, Staid. 2, 456 (see Suppl.).

Gelbmht, elephantiasis in Gl. Mons. 384 ; our gelbsucU is the jaundice. ' To fasten yellow smocks on folk/ is that to conjure the jaundice into them ? Gelesuht and fich are ficus morbus, piles, AS.fic-ddl; in AM. bl. 2, 199 < der rot vich> for haemor- rhoids ; in Helbl. 2, 1190 ' der rote siechtuom und daz vie macht

iuch bleich unde gel.' OHG. misal-suht (lepra), Graff 2, 875 ;

Goth. Pruts-fill, which in Gramm. 2, 20 I traced correctly to ]?riutan [to trouble, tease, our driessen, verdruss], and 2, 598 recognised ]?ruts as anom. Gen. for ]?rutis. pruts is torment, vexation, and applied to sickness, leprosy ; the OHG. form would be druzis-fel. In Slavic languages trud is trouble and illness, the Boh. trud having exactly the two meanings of dolor and lepra, Pol. trad eruption. OHG. hriupi (scabies), ruda (impetigo), Gl. Flor. 988b, zittarlus, tetter-louse, ringworm (impetigo), Diut. 1, 496b. A modern slang term is schneider-courage (Adelung v. kratze), schneider-kurzweil, tailor's pastime (Ettn. ^ unw. doct. 349). The AS. gicffa (scabies, impetigo), Engl, itch, is the OHG. juehido, Graff 1, 593. The rose (erysipelas), running fire, ignis sacer (Ivonis epist. p. 85a. 1 84*), OHG. omo, AS. oma, ON. dma. Of red spots on a child's face they say 'the Jiidel has burnt him/ Sup. I, 473. AS. J?eor,fieomveorc is inflammation, fieorwyrm impetigo vermicularis 1 (see Suppl.).

Stone, gravel, calculorum dolor : in Gotz. v. Berlich. 103, ' der reissende (tearing) stein/

A sort of excrescence or fungus (suam) was called mal-annus (das libel jar), Spell VII; in Ratherii opp. ed Ballerini p. 15: < carbunculi vel malae pustulae, quern malum vulgo dicunt malampnum.' And the plant used in healing it bore the name oimalannus too, OHG. achalm, Graff 1, 132 (see Suppl.).

i The Greeks too fancied the impetigo was caused by a small beetle. Pliny 27, 11 (75) • lapis vulgaris juxta flumina fert museum siccum, canum ; hie fricatur altero lapide addita hominis saliva; illo lapide tangitur impetigo. Qui tangi dici t, ^yere, KavdaplSes, \6kos &yPcos tw* 5c^ec, beetles begone, the wild wolf chases you.

HUMAN DISEASES.

1161

Many other names of diseases I suppress; a still greater number must have eluded my research. My design was, out of this neglected mine of wealth in our language to bring specimens that should prove what mythical fancies the people associated with the origin of diseases. Like other evils, they seemed to be destined and devised by gods, spirits, magicians ; nay, to become themselves malign living agents (p. 1153). Much remains obscure : what is meant by iilfheit, that plague of plagues (p. 442 n.)? what by the hawpt-geschem which is exorcized in Ayrer's Fastn. sp. p. 148-9, and turns up in other stories too (Schm. 3, 366) ? Now in Eenner 12180 we find ' ir habt daz houbt-geschide 3 (rh. vermide), meaning apparently folly, infatuation. If < head- sheen ' be right, I would explain it by the OHG. houbet-skimo (capitis radii), N. Cap. 63 : for it is an ailment that throws a nimbus or nebula round one's head, and makes one see everything double; H. Sachs names it ' der plerr, augenplerr,' ii. 2, 27b. iii. 3, 9d. iv. 3, 13a-b, and we still say ' die blerr kriegen/ to be lost in amazement [blurred ?] . Bating chervil is supposed to produce this doubleness of vision, Fragm. 37b,c. Garg. 148a.

A Finnic song makes an old woman, Launawatar (Schroter p. 48 seq.) or Louhiatar (Kalev. 25, 107) become the mother of nine sons (like the nine holden above) : werewolf, snake, risi (?), lizard, nightmare, joint-ache, gout, spleen, gripes. These mala- dies then are brothers of baneful monsters ; and in the song the last-named disorder is singled out for exorcism.

The Mod. Greeks picture the smallpox as a woman frightful to children, and euphemistically name her avyxcope/Aevr) indulgent, exorable (conf. ON". Eir), or more commonly evXoyla one to be praised and blest (Fauriel's Disc. prel. lxxxv).

One more disease has to be noticed, which from quite the early part of the Mid. Ages was ascribed to demonic diabolic agency. I begin with a passage in the Yita Caesarii Arelatensis (d. 542), said to have been written by his pupils Cyprianus, Messianus and Stephanus, lib. 2 cap. 14 (Acta Bened. sec. 1, p. 673) : c Ille autem, quid infirmitatis haberet ? interrogavit. Dixerunt, dae- monlum quod rustici Bianam appellant; quae sic affligitur, ut paene omnibus noctibus assidue caedatur, et saepe etiam in ecclesiam ducitur inter duos viros ut maneat, et sic flagris dia- bolicis occulte fatigatur, ut vox continua ejus audiatur.

1162

SICKNESSES.

Oculis meis vidi plagas, quas ante aliquos dies in dorsum et m scapulas acceperat, in sanitatem venire, pridianas autem et in ipsa nocte impressas recentes inter illas intextas, quas prius perpessa

fUerat/ Greg. Tur. mir. 5, Mart. 4, 36: ' Cum de cultura

rediret, subito inter manus delapsa comitantium terrae corruit, ligataque lingua nullum verbum ex ore potens proferre, obmutuit. Interea accedentibus accolis ac dicentibus earn meridiani daemonis incursum pati, ligamina herbarum atque incantationum verba

proferebant.' Ducange has other passages sub v. daemon rneri-

dianus j the name seems to have arisen out of Ps. 91, 6, where Notker translates ' mittetagigo tiefel/ whom Greek writers also call ixearipPpLVos Safacov : the disease must have been of an epileptic nature. The Bohemians name it polednice (meridiana), but the Poles Dziewanna (p. 993n.), which is Diana again, and as Diana often means the same thing as Holda, it is essential to remember that this goddess also loves to appear at the hour of noon (Praetor, weltbeschr. 1, 476), and that white ladies are seen at the same season (p. 963-4-6), whose original is Berhta the bright. So that the malady can safely be traced to the operation of deities and elves. That here Holda and Berhta do strike in, has already been inferred on other grounds, p. 477-8, in speaking of the aunt in the rye, the woman in the wheat, who passes through the corn at noontide, like the Wendic pshi-polnitsa : some call her pshi- polontsa, she appears between 12 and 1 to labourers in heathy districts, especially to women weeding flax, she is clothed in white, and talks of flax-raising, how it is planted, reared, worked and spun ; she is said to have wrung the necks of women that would not answer her ; the people dread her, and are glad she has not shown herself this long while past. Observe, that in Gregory too the demon appeared to the woman at her field labour, and she falls to the ground, as the Russian peasants do before the < weeping widow ' who breaks their bones : in Gaul it was taken for a mental disorder. But in all these shapes of terror we can- not fail to recognise the motherly divinity of the heathens.

Of course, spirits have equally to do with animal diseases. An OS. formula adjures the nesso and his nine young ones to depart out of the flesh and skin of the spur-lamed horse. Dog's mad- ness is said to come of a worm seated under the tongue, and this ' tollwurm 3 can be cut out. One ailment of horses is called the

ANIMAL DISEASES.

1163

tlowing worm (Spell XV), which reminds of the blowing holden, p. 1157. Another, of horses or of oxen, is the hunsche : Staid. 2, 61 makes it burning of the spleen or cold tumour, otherwise called f the evil wind/ Tobl. p. 70; in Lower Hesse it is swollen udder in a cow, and the charm there muttered against it is :

Die hunsche und der drache (dragon) die giengen iiber die bache (beck) ;

die hunsche die vertrank (was drowned, al. verschwank

vanished), der drache der versank.

A charm in Mone's Anz. 465 begins : ' there went three blessed virgins over a hilntschen hill, the hilntschen meets them, and one says, here is the hilntsche.3 Certainly the word seems to contain the OHGr. adj. hunisc, MHG. hiunisch, and may refer to giants or to Huns (p. 523) ; the 'hiinische berg ' tells in favour of the first, in case a giant's mount is meant. Adelung writes ' der Idntsch,' and explains it as asthma. A LG. formula substitutes for hunsche slie, i.e. schleihe, tench (see Suppl.). In popular belief a witch can charm her elves or holden alike into man and beast. The Servians call an incurable disease in sheep metil They say, once the Germans having caught the Devil, asked him what was a cure for the metil? He answered, when all the sheep were dead but one, they must carry the remaining one round the pen, and then no more would die but that one (Yuk sub v.). In other cases the first head of cattle that falls is to be buried, and a willow shoot be planted on the mound.

As the several diseases and plagues were ordained and sent by gods or daemons, there were also special remedies and cares that proceeded from such higher beings first of all. In the Catholic superstition of the later Mid. Ages there had grown up a regular system, as to which particular saint, male or female, was to be invoked for the several pains and sorrows of almost every limb in the body 1 (see Suppl.) .

Out of a mass of superstitious modes of healing, I select the following.

A very ancient custom was, to measure the patient, partly by 1 Haupt's Zeitschr. 1, 143-4. Eoquefort sub v. xnal.

1164 SICKNESSES.

way of cure, partly to ascertain if the malady were growing or abating. We might even quote the Bible under this head, 1 Kgs 17, 21. 2 Kgs 4, 34, where Elijah and Elisha measure them- selves over the lifeless child, and thereby restore him to life. And the practice of measuring the limbs when handing tapers up to the altar (Diut. 2, 292) is worth considering, though it is supposed rather to keep away coming evils. In the Bihtebuoch p. 46 the question is asked : ' ob du ie geloubetost an hecse und an lachenerin und an segenerin, und ob du taste daz si dir rieten (got them to advise thee) ? und ob du ie gesegnet oder gelachent wurde oder gemezen wurde, und ob du ie bekort wurde ? 9 In Ls. 3, 9 a woman, wishing to fool her husband, says : ' tuo dich her, la dich mezzen/ come and be measured ; then f also lang ich in maz, unz er allez vergaz/ I measured him till he forgot every- thing. Another, who wants to persuade her husband that he is 'niht guoter sinne/ not of sound mind, says to him, Cod. kolocz. 141:

' So habt her, und lat iuch mezzen, ob ihtes (aught) an iu si vergezzen.' Sie was ungetriuwe, sie nam ir risen (rods) niuwe, sie maz in ndch der lenge, do was ez im ze enge, sie maz im twerhes (across) iiber houpt : ' swaz ich spriche, daz geloupt, blaset dar durch (blow thro' these) mit gewalt/ sie nam die risen zwivalt, ' und tret mir uf den rehten fuoz,

so wirt iu iuwer siihte buoz ('twill boot your sickness) ;

ir suit iuch in daz bette legen

und suit iuch niergen regen (not stir),

biz daz ir derhitzet (till you get warm)

und ein wenc (a little) erswitzet,

so ezzet drithalp rockenkorn (2J grains of rye),

so wirt iuwer suht gar verlorn.'

Renn. 12183: ' strecket iuch nider, und lat iuch mezzen.' This measuring is also quoted among sorceries (Sup. E>, 38 r. 140 r.).

MEASUEING-. STEEWTNG ASHES.

1165

Pregnant women measure a wick the length of the saint's image, and tie it round their body (F, 31). Wier's Arzneibuch p. 31-3 mentions a disease called in the Treves country nacht-grif (brought on by the grip of a night- spirit ?) ; to ascertain its presence, you proceed thus : draw the sick man's belt about his naked body, lengthwise and breadthwise, then take it off, and hang it on a nail with the words ' 0 God, I pray thee by the three virgins Margarita, Mariamagdalena and Ursula, be pleased to vouchsafe a sign upon the sick man, if he have the nightgrvp or no ' ; then measure again, and if the belt be shorter than before, it is a sign of the said sickness. By the Schles. prov. bl. 1798. 27, 16 — 20, scarce a village in the Liegnitz country but has its messerin, always an old woman. When she is asked to say whether a person is in danger from consumption, she takes a thread and measures the patient, first from head to heel, then from tip to tip of the outspread arms ; if his length be less than his breadth, then he is consumptive: the less the thread will measure his arms, the farther has the disease advanced (conf. p. 1158) ; if it reaches only to the elbow, there is no hope for him. The measuring is repeated from time to time : if the thread stretches, and reaches its due length again, the danger is removed. The wise woman must never ask money for her trouble, but take what is given. The Mark, forschungen 1, 247 says a woman is stript, and measured with a piece of red yam spun on a Sunday. Compare the measuring of corn and water, Sup. I, 258. 953, and supra p. 491-7 (see SuppL).

Much can be done by stroking and binding. A patient's body is commonly stroked with the hand or sleeve or the back of a knife ; often a thread is also tied round the part affected, or the medicine tied on by it. Of this binding more hereafter.

In Poland, when the white folk (biate ludzie, p. 1157) torment a sick man, a bed of pease-halm is made, a sheet spread over it, and the patient laid thereon ; then a person walks round him, carrying a sieve-ful of ashes on his back, letting the ashes run out, till the floor all round the bed is covered with them. The first thing in the morning they count all the lines in the ashes, and some one goes silently, greeting no one on the way, and reports the same to the wise woman, who prescribes accordingly (Biester's Mon. schr. as above). The spirits leave their tracks in

1166 SICKNESSES.

the ashes, which are strewn as for the earth-mannikin p. 451 n. ; conf. Sup. M, 40 (see Suppl.).

On the drawing and pouring of water by the wise woman, see Sup. I, 515. 865. Charming of apoplexy by a hatchet on the threshold, G, line 70.

The efficacy of fire and flame was proved on envenomed wounds, by burning them out ; Ssem. 27b already mentions < eldr vr5 sottum/ fire against sicknesses. On erysipelas they struck fire [out of flint], Sup. I, 71 0. To insure cattle against fire, they drove them over the holy needfire, p. 604 seq. (see Suppl.).

An old cure for fever was, to lay the child on the oven or the roof : ( mulier si qua filium suum ponit supra tectum (conf. p. 1116) aut in fornacem pro sanitate febrium/ Sup. C, 10, 14. ' posuisti infantem tuum juxta ignem,' C, p. 200a. If a child does not get bigger, it has the elterlein (elderling) ; push it into the baking - oven a few times, and the elterlein will leave it, I, 75. This mode of cure follows the plan of goddesses and night-wives in laying children by the flame, p. 1059.

A salutary process for children and cattle was to make them walk or creep through tunnelled earth, hollow stones or a cloven tree. This either prevented or neutralized all magic, or worked homeopathically. So early as the Canones Edgari, acc. to the AS. version in Thorpe p. 396: ' treow-wurSunga and stan- wur$unga and )?one deofles crseft, J>aer ma J>a did J?urh J?a eor&an iih$: 'Mulieres, quae habent vagientes infantes, effodiunt terrain et ex parte pertusant earn, et per illud foramen pertrahunt infantem/ Sap. A. Nurses take a new-born babe and thrust it through a hole, G, line 137; a child that will not learn to walk is made to crawl under blackberry-vines fixed in the soil at both ends, I, 818. Sheep, when sick, have to creep through the cleft of a young oak : 'nullus praesumat pecora per cavam arborem aut per terram foratam transire/ A.

Perforated stones' are occasionally mentioned in early records : 'from Pyrelan stane/ Kemble 2, 29 (an. 847); e durihiUn stein/ MB. 2, 296 (an. 1130). Ital. pietra pertusa. Some are called needles' eyes, one of which stood between Hersfeld and Yacha near Friedewald; and they seem to have been placed on the former site of hollow trees, which were held in high esteem, but had died: ' Nadel-ohr est lapis perforatus, in locum arboris

CREEPING THROUGH EARTH OR TREES.

1167

excasratae, in media silva venatoribus ob ferarum silvestriuni copiam frequente, a Mauritio Hassiae landgravio ad viam positus, per quem praetereuntes joci et vexationis gratia proni perrepere solent.'' 1 This handseling of huntsmen and travellers went on long after all faith in the healing power had evaporated. In Graul it seems to have kept a firmer hold, and taken a wider range ; e.g. in Poitou : ' les enfants trop faibles reprennent des forces, lorsqu'ils ont ete assis dans le trou de la pierre saint Fesse ; cette pierre informe placee au milieu d'un champ est respectee par les laboureurs, et la charrue laisse un espace libre a l'entour/ Mem. des antiq. 8, 455 ; similar traditions ib. 1, 429. 430.

This creeping through a gap in oak, earth or stone seemingly transferred the sickness or sorcery to the genius of the tree or soil.2 From Magdeburg country I have heard the following: Let two brothers (if twins, the better) split a cherry-tree in the middle, and pull any sick child through, then bind the tree up again ; as the tree heals up, so will the child. Near Wittstock in the Altmark stood a stout gnarled oak, whose boughs had grown into and made holes in each other : the afflicted who crept through these holes recovered; all round the tree lay numbers of crutches that convalescent cripples had thrown away (Temme p. 116-7). In Sweden these round openings in intertwisted boughs are called elf -bores, and women in labour are forced through them. We are not always told what diseases were cured by this method; here is a passage proving that as late as last century the English peasantry still practised it for ruptures: fIn a farmyard near the middle of Selborne (Hants) stands at this day a row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly shew that in former times they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children stript naked were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that by such a process the poor.babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree in the suffering part was plastered with loam, and care-

1 Pauli Hentzneri itinerar. (an. 1598-9), Breslau 1617. p. 5. *i A5,B-,Jn the °-Fr- Tristan 1321—34 when the dwarf Frocine confides to the blackthorn the secret of king Mark having horse's ears, he first puts his head under the holloio root, and then speaks. His secret thus passes on to the thorn

1168 SICKNESSES.

fully swathed up. If the part coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out where the feat was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual. We have several persons now living in the village, who in their childhood were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived down perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion to Christianity.

At the south corner of the area near the church, there stood

about twenty years ago a very old grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrewmouse over the part affected. For it is supposed that a shrewmouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus : 1 into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrewmouse was thrust in alive and plugged in, no doubt with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor or hundred. As to that on the area, the late vicar stubbed and burnt it when he was waywarden, regardless of the remonstrances of the bystanders, who interceded in vain for its preservation 3 3 (see Suppl.).

1 Bob. Plot's Nat. hist, of Staffordshire, Oxf. 1686. p. 222: 'A superstitious custom they have in this county, of making nursrow trees f or 'the cure of unaccount- able swellings in their cattle. For to make any tree, whether oak, ash or elm, a nursrow tree, they catch one or more of these nursrows or fi^1,06^ fancy bite their cattle and make them swell, and having bored a hole to the center in the body of the tree, they put the mice in, and then drive a peg m after them of the same wood, where they starving at last communicate forsooth such a virtue to the tree, that cattle thus swoln being wiped with the boughs of it presently recover: of which trees they have not so many neither, but that at some places they go 8 or 10 miles to procure this remedy.' , ^ _ . ono .

2 White's Nat. hist, and antiq. of Selborne, Lond. 1/8J. 4, p. 2U^-4.

PLUGGING- UP. BURYING.

1169

This superstition of the mouse- ash holds together with some things we have already touched upon. Thus, plugging the mouse in is very like shutting up one's ill-luck in the hollow oak, p. 878 ; and we are helped out by a statement in Luther's Table-talk (ed. 1571. fol. 53b) : fa hole is bored in a tree, the soul placed therein, and a plug driven in after, that it may stay in.3 We know that on other occasions, when soul or spirit quits the body, it takes the shape of a mouse, p. 1082.

Raibiht is what the Lettons call a fancied cure for headache : the sufferer is measured a few times round the head with the inner bark of the lime, and then has to crawl through this bast. We also find that through holes bored in this healing tree water is poured and drunk.1

It partakes of angang, that the first three com or sloe blossoms one sees in the year should furnish a remedy for fever, Sup. I, 695. 718. 784. 1018 ; conf. the 2 J grains of rye, p. 1164.

At the Vogelsberg gouty persons wear on the ring-finger of the right hand iron rings made out of nails on which men have hung themselves. Gout-charms are worn on the breast, wrapt in unbleached linen, with flaxen threads without a knot. Both fall under the head of amulets and adligatio. Healing girdles were already known to Marcellus, AS. horn. 2, 28.

Diseases and remedies are also buried in the ground : in the ant-hill, Sup. I, 864. Of this class is a cure of epilepsy per- formed in the 10th cent, by burying peachblossoms, which Ratherius in Praeloquiis lib. 1 (ed. Mart, et Dur. p. 808. ed. Bailer, p. 31) relates doubtingly : Factum sit, infectum sit, narratum est quod refero. Cujusdam divitis Alius gutta quam cadivam dicunt laborabat. Medicorum omne probatissimorum erga eum inefncax ingenium ad desperationem salutis paternum atque maternum deduxerat animum, cum ecce unus servorum suggerit, ut flores arboris persicae optime mundatos primo lunis

1 Physica Hildegardis 3, 10 de cupresso : Quod si aliquis homo a diabulo vel per magica irretitus est, praefatum lignum, quod cor dicitur, cum terebro perforet, et m fictili vase aquam vivi fontis tollat, et earn per idem foramen in aliud fictile vas fundat, et cum jam infundit dicat : ' ego fundo te, aqua, per foramen istud in virtuosa virtute, quae Deus est, ut cum fortitudine quae tibi adest in natura tua fluas m hominem istum qui in sensu suo irretitus est, et omnes contrarietates in eo_ destruas, et eum in rectitudinem in quam Deus eum posuit, in recto sensu et scientia reponas.' Et aquam istam per novem dies jejunus bibat, et etiam tociens hoc modo benedicatur, et melius habebit.

1170 SICKNESSES.

(i.e. lunae) die Aprilis mensis in vase vitreo colligerent, quod sub radice ejusdem arboris, insciis omnibus, ab imo quo vellent suffoderetur, eodem die reversuro ipso a quo positum est, anno vergente, si fieri posset hora quoque eadem, et effosso vase flores in oleum converses, arborem siccatam inventuro, quod sub altare positum presbytero quoque ignorante, novem missis super eo celebratis sanctificaretur, et statim post accessum ejusdem morbi novem vicibus in haustum diatim scilicet aegro daretur, cum oratione Dominica, ita duntaxat ut post ( libera nos a malo 9 a dante diceretur ' libera Deus istum bominem (nomine ill.) a gutta cadiva/ et quibus novem diebns missam quotidie andiret, azymum panem cibumque quadragesimalem post jejunium caperet, atque ita Deo miserante convalesceret. Si tamen factum est, ille con- valuit, servus emancipates est, etiam beres adscriptus, medicina ab innumeris adprobata multis quoque salutis contulit remedia.

The elder-tree is good for toothache and ague : for the former the sufferer sticks an elder-branch into the ground with the words

< begone, bad spirit in the case of ague he puts it in without saying a word, but his fever sticks to the elder, and then fastens on the first person who comes to the spot unawares, Dan. Sup. K, 162. Specially wholesome is an elder that grows over bee- hives (op bjintjekoven) ; the bast is peeled off upwards (not down), and a decoction of it is given the patient to drink (Lapekoer fen Gabe scroar. p. 31-2).

It is wortb noticing bow the sickness is transferred to a tree, i.e. to the spirit wbo inhabits it. Spell no. xxvi begins with the words : < bough, I bend thee, so fever leave me ' ; another has :

< Lift thee up, elder bough ! Antony's fire, sit on it now ! I've had thee a day, thou have it alway!' One that has the gout must go three successive Fridays after sunset under zfirtree : 'firtree, I complain to thee, the gout torments me sore, etc. ' ; the fir withers, and the gout leaves off. ' Deus vos sal vet, sambuce, panem et sal ego vobis adduce, febrem tertianam et quotidianam accipiatis vos, qui nolo earn/ Westendorp p. 518 reports a Nethl. custom: to be rid of ague, one goes early m the morning (in der uchte) to an old willow, ties three knots in a bough, and says to it : < goe morgen, olde, ik geef oe de kolde, goe morgen, olde ! ' then he turns, and runs away fast without looking round. Sup. 7, 1071: he that has < fever-frost 9 shall go in silence, and

PASSING IT ON". SWATHING.

1171

across no water, to a hollowed willow, thrice breathe his breath into it, quicMy block up the hole, and hasten home, neither look- ing behind nor speaking a word ; and the fever shall keep away. In Spell xliv the gout is handed over to a young pinetree with a courteous ( good morrow, dame Tine ! '

Diseases can likewise be transferred to animals. c Praecordia vocamus uno nomine exta in homine, quorum in dolore cujus- cunque partis si catulus lactens admoveatur apprimaturque his partibus, transire in eum morbus dicitur, idque in exenterato perfusoque vino deprehendi, vitiato viscere illo quod doluerit hominis; et obrui tales religio . est,' Pliny 30, 4 [14]. f Sunt oc- culti interaneorum morbi, de quibus mirum proditur : si catuli, priusquam videant, applicentur triduo stomacho maxime ac pectori, et ex ore aegri suctum lactis accipiant, transire vim morbi, postremo exanimari, dissectisque palam fieri aegri causas ; mori et humari debere eos obrutos terra... Quod praeterea traditur in torminibus mirum est : anate apposita ventri, transire morbum, anatemque emori/ 30, 7 [20]. So, even within the last few centuries, people have put young whelps to the human breast, and let them suck. That a corn (clavus, ^Xo?) should be called by us hen's eye (Boh. kufj oko), magpie's eye (Nethl. exter-6g), and crow's eye, arose out of a belief in the possibility of these transfers. Tobler 18b tells us, if a Swiss calls out on the spot where a magpie has sat, < zigi, zigi, agest, i ha dreu auga (Pve 3 eyes), ond du gad zwa,' he gets rid of his magpie's eye.

The flying gout is cured by the patient being completely swathed in clean flax : when he lies in it snug as a bug in a rug, & sheepskin is spread over him, and the sweating medicine administered. This envelopment is a remedy renowned in the old Beast-fable. The lion taken with a fever is to wrap himself in the hide of a wolf of 3J years who has been flayed alive, and to sweat; this we have already in the Aesopic fable (Reinh. cclx). Our old German poem goes more into minutise : the lion's illness was caused by an ant having crept into his brain ; Reynard pre- scribes wrapping the hide of an old wolf about him, putting a bearskin on him, and a catskin hat on his head : when the cat's fur is warmed, the ant creeps out into it. Such wrapping in the newly stript hide of an animal was really practised in the Mid. Ages on various emergencies, for puny infants prematurely born,

VOL. III.

1172 SICKNESSES.

for those cat out unborn (p. 388), for a bad fall. In a Nethl. comedy of the 16th century, fDe bose frouwens/ they sew up the sick woman in a page's skin, ' in eine vrishe pagenhut benei- jen.' Schmidt on the East Mongols p. 229 remarks, that these tribes also, to cure a disease, put their feet in the opened breast of a horse fresh killed. The application of warm flesh is several times mentioned : ' vivum gallinaceum pullum per medium divi- dere, et protinus calidum super vulnus imponere sic ut pars interior corpori jungatur/ Celsus 5, 27 ; ' cut open a black hen, and lay it on the shaven head/ Ettn. hebamme 795 ; fresh-killed flesh on a ivound, Belg. mus. 7, 446 (see Suppl.).1

Again, the hirzm rieme, hart-strap, cut out of Randolt's hide for the sick lion (Reinh. 1951), is found actually prescribed as a remedy, Bresl. MS. of the 14th century in Fundgr. 1, 325 : ' Fur daz vallende ubel. Du salt warten, swenne iz en an-ge (attacks him), so nim einen hirzinen riemen, unde bint im den umbe den hals (round his neck) di wile im we si, unde sprich, " In nomine, etc. so binde ich hie den sichthum dises menschen in disem knopfe," unde nim den selbem riemen denne, unde knupfe (tie) einen knoten dar an; den selben riemen sal man denne binden dem siechen umbe den hals ; unde derselbe mensch sal sich enthalden (abstain) von dem wine unde von dem fleische, biz (till) daz er kume da (where) man einen toten man begrabe (burying), da sal man den riemen losen dem siechen von dem halse, unde sal den selben riemen begraben mit dem toten manne, wan der selbe rieme sal dem toten geleget werden under die schulter (laid under the dead man's shoulder), unde sal einer sprechen, der den riemen leget, etc. der sichthum gewirret im nimmer mere.' Elsewhere it is prescribed for epilepsy, to gird oneself -with a wolfskin, Belg. mus. 6, 105 (see Suppl.).

The modern pharmacopoeia is almost confined to vegetable and mineral medicines ; the ancient comprised all manner of animal

1 » His diebus occulto Dei judicio idem Eraclius (episc. Leodiensis, d. 971) morbo, qui lupus dicitur, miserabiliter laborabat. Patiebatur autem m natibus erat ieitur videre miseriam ; tain graviter enim vis valetudims grassabatur, ut mirum in modum carnes viri lupino modo consuineret, corroderet, devoraret ; solurnque solatium, non quidem spes evadendae aegritudinis, sed saltern dilatio mortis erat, quod quotidie duo pulli gaffinarum eplumes et eviscerati inane, duoque vespere vice carnium viri consumendi morbo, ac si lupinae rabiei, apponebantur. The chickens were fastened on with bandages, Chapeaville 1, 191-4. Skin inflam- mation and eating ulcers are called wolf: one walks, rides, till he gets the wolf, Lat. intertrigo, Gr. mpdrptfifw.. [Sheepskin proposed for Prince of WalesJ .

SWATHING. SYMPATHY. CHAEMS. 1173

stuffs. The hearts of certain birds, the flesh, blood and fat of certain beasts possessed a peculiar healing power.1 Monkey's flesh does the sick lion good (Reinh. cclx), though the ignorant wolf recommends that of the goat and ram.3 The blood of birds and of the fox heals wounds, Pentam. 2, 5. Crow's blood be- witches, Sup. G, 1. 202. Blood from the cock's comb, brains of the female hare are of service, Ettn. hebamme 875. Of a piece with this is the superstitious healing of leprosy by the blood of innocent boys and pure maids, that of the falling sickness by the blood of slain malefactors, Sup. I, 1080. Spittle, and even mere breath, are medicinal 3 (see SuppL).

A great many appliances heal or hurt by sympathy. Thus jaundice is rendered incurable by a yellow-footed hen flying over the patient, Sup. I, 549; it is cured by looking into black carriage-grease (66). Spanning a pot or bowl with the hand brings on tension of the heart (11. 949) ; twisting osiers gives a wry neck or the gripes (373 ; conf. p. 1146). Fever is abated or laid by laying a field under flax while repeating a charm : as the seed comes up, the fever goes off (Hofer 3, 131). On rose or red rash (erysipelas) you are to strike sparks with stone and steel (I, 383. 710) ; to make evil bounce off your body, as water off the millwheel (p. 593) ; to break a loaf over the head of a tongue- tied child (I, 415) ; to knock a tooth that is pulled out into the bark of a young tree (630). The people have many such specifics for hiccough, earache, toothache, etc., I, 151. 211 280 581-4. 722. 950 (see SuppL).

Remedies are very often tied on, are worn fastened round the arm, neck, or waist These the writers of the early Mid. Ages call ligamenta, ligaturae, phyladeria. ^vXa/crypta are preserva- tives, protective pendants, amulets, often of thin metal plate (blech), so that OHG. glosses render them pleh, plehhir, but also of glass, wood, bones, herbs, silver and gold; ligaturae ap- parently mere ties of thread. The later word is an-gehenke,

quadri^eSbus1'' ?5 (C°nf* 220) dteS a ' tractatus IdParti fabulosus.' : Medicina ex

K64 2 'Mlt ^ belchen (fulicae atrae)* fiiezen wirt dem man mazleide buoz,' Ls. 3,

3 Herodptus 2, 111 speaks of a blind man recovering sight yvmticbs otpu viyanevos rovs o<pda\p.ovs, jjru Trapd rbv iuvrijs avbpa ^ovvov Tre‹poiTVKe, &pdpu›v eovaa aireipos. r

1174 SICKNESSES.

appendage, I, 869. 870. Cipher-writing and runes were also appended, not always for healing, but contrariwise to bewitch and injure. Here are testimonies to both kinds : ' Ut clerici vel laici phyladeria vel falsas scriptiones aut Ugaturas, quae impru- dentes pro febribus aut aliis pestibus adjuvare putant, nullo modo ab illis vel a quoquam Christiano fiant, quia magicae artis in- signia sunt/ Capitul. 6, 72. ' Admoneant sacerdotes non liga- turas ossium vel herbarum cuiquam adhibitas prodesse, sed haec esse laqueos et insidias antiqui hostis/ Capit. add. 3, 93. In Greg. Tur. mirac. 2, 45 we read of a sick boy to whom the wizard (ariolus) was fetched: 'Ille vero venire non different accessit ad aegrotum, et artem suam exercere conatur, incanta- tiones immurmurat, sortes jactat, Ugaturas collo suspendit.'^ In Lex Yisig. vi. 2, 4 : ' Qui in hominibus vel brutis animalibus, seu in agris sen in vineis diversisque arboribus, maleficium aut diversa ligamenta aut etiam scripta in contrarietatem alterius excogitaverit facere.' In Lex Sal. 22, 4 : < Si quis alteri aliquod maleficium superjactaverit, sive cum Ugaturis in aliquod loco miserit.' The Indiculus (Sup. B ; C int. 43 and p. 195b) speaks of such ligaturae and nefaria ligamenta, both healing and hurt- ful; Kopp's Palaeogr. 3, 74 seq. gives other passages on amulets and ligatures. Hincmar 1, 654 says : < Turpe est fabulas nobis notas referre, et longum est sacrilegia computare, quae ex hujusmodi de ossibus mortuorum atque cineribus carbonibusque extinctis (supra p. 621) ... cum filulis colorum multi- plicium, et herbis variis ac cocleolis, et serpentum particuhs composita, cum carminibus incantata deprehendentes comperi- mus.5 These particoloured threads remind one of Yirgil's verse : < terna tibi haec primum triplici diversa colore licia circumdo/ and 'necte tribus nodis terms, Amarylli, colores3 (Eel. 8, 73-7) -1 If it was the Romans that taught our fathers the use of amulets, they must have done it very early, for what says Boniface? Epist. 51 (an. 742) : ' Dicunt quoque se vidisse ibidem mulieres pagano ritu phylacteria et Ugaturas in brachiis et cruribus ligatas habere, et publice ad vendendum venales ad com-

i Among the Lettons the bride on her way to church must throw a bunch of coloured threads and a coin into every ditch and pond she sees, and at each corner of the house, as an offering to the water and home sprites. Merkel s Letten, p. ou ; conf. Sup. M, 11.

CHAEMS. LOCKING- UP.

1175

parandum aliis offerre.' And Beda 4, 27: f Nam et multi . . . ad erratica idolatriae medicamina concurrebant, quasi missam a Deo conditore plagam per incantationes vel jphylacteria . . . cohibere valerent.' A phylactery with relics from neck to breast in Sigeb. Gembl. 828. In Bonaventurae centiloq. 1, 29 (Opp. ed. Venet. 5, 130): 'Maleficium est peritia per quam mulieres faciunt aliquas ligaturas in damnum vel in commodum ahcujus, ut de crista galli et de rana et de imagine cum eis.' Even Pliny 30, 1 [30] speaks of tying beetles on. The fiili-zant, foal's tooth, Ms. 2, 160b I have noticed p. 658n.; Pliny 28, 19 [78] alludes to this custom also : e denies qui equis primum cadunt facilem dentitionem praestant infantibus adalligati.' The godfather mentioned with 'fiilizant' is, I suppose, to put it round the godchild with his own hands ? The tying-on of simples is treated more fully in the next chap, (see Suppl.).

Bewitching a newly-married couple was alluded to, pp. 1073-96. The witch, by merely muttering a spell during the wedding, if she be present, can incapacitate both husband and wife for having children. Hincmar 1, 654 relates a case, and states the composition of the material employed as a charm ; on his state- ment is founded a passage in Gratian's decree ii. 33, 1 §"4. Such sorcery is named tying the senhel or nestel, turning the lock, binding, because it is accompanied by the secret tying of a knot or locking of a padlock.1 Nestel means a tie (ligula) ; it is a senkel when the ends, are tipped with metal, to make it sink faster. It is also called tying up the breach, tying the tippet or nether garment, Fr. nouer Vaiguilette. There are said to be fifty sorts of these ties, and a vast number of unintelligible tie-spells.2 The lock when fastened, the knot when tied, was thrown away, not hung on the bewitched.

Many forms are observed in pregnancy and childbirth, Sup. I. 41. 176. 293. 337. 364. 489. 561. 654. 673-4. 688. 691. 702. 724— 732. 817. 859. 924-5. 933. M, 12. 18-23. If the woman put her husband's slippers on, if on the wedding-day the bridegroom tie the bride's garters, she will have easy labours. Does this account for the custom, whose antiquity. I shall presently prove, of the bride on the wedding-night exchanging her shift for the

l Antidotes in Ettn. hebamme p. 294-6. Wegner's Schauplatz p. 625 seq. Bodm, transl. by Fischart, p. 74-5. [Tie as many knots as one has warts, etc.]

1176 SICKNESSES.

bridegroom's shirt ? Yintler says, Sup. G, 1. 170 : da sind dan etlich briute (some brides), die legent ir hemd an irs mannes ort (place)/ More clearly in Turliu's Wh. 148 : < dm kiinigm wart gebriset in ein liemede ;

als er dir si gelegen bi (lain down beside thee),

und er dar nach entslafen si (gone to sleep),

so lege tongen (stealthily) sin hemede an ;

und ob din sin gesuochen kan (wit can contrive),

daz ez werde heimlich getan (be secretly done),

sich (see), daz dich iht verdrieze (fail not),

din hemde sin houpt beslieze (envelop his head) ;

daz sol an dinem vlize sten (depend on thy pains) :

dar nach soldu liber in gen

an sime hemde, daz wirt dir vromen (profit thee).

Among the Greeks a birth was forwarded or checked by superior divine beings, the eileithyiai, handmaids of Hera, who were gradually merged in a single Mleithyia, the Eoman Lucma. In our Edda Oddrun the sister of Atli has skill in childbirth, she posts over land to the expectant mother, flings the saddle off her steed and strides into the hall (S»m. 239), kneels down before the maid, and speaks her charm. They spoke of < Uosa misBr fra moo-urn' (exsolvere matres a pueris), Saem. 187b, and gave the office to norns. There must have been from the earliest times sympathetic means of delivering and of obstructing, which are practised to this day: to cross the legs, to fold the hands before the woman in labour was obstructive, to leave loose or disengage was helpful; probably the energetic unsaddling of the steed had this meaning. Ovid's Met. 9, 298 :

Dextroque a poplite laevum pressa genu, digitis inter se jpedine jundis sustinuit nixus ; tacita quoque carmina voce dixit, et inceptos tenuerunt carmina partus.

g-j Q Divam residentem vidit in ara,

brachiaque in genibus digitis connexa tenentem.

314. Exsiluit, junctasque manus pavefacta remisit

diva potens uteri : vinclis levor ipsa remissis.

BINDING, LOOSING. DEOPPING-WELLS.

1177

e Assidere gravidis, vel cum remedium. alicui adhibeatur, digitis pectinatim inter se implexis veneficium est, idque compertum tradunt Alcmena Hercalem pariente. Pejus si circa unum ambove genua; item poplites alternis genibus imponi/ Pliny 28, 6 [1 7] . ' Ferunt difficiles partus statim solvi, si quis tectum in quo sit gravida transmiserit lapide vel missili ex his qui tria animalia singulis ictibus interfecerint, hominem, aprum, ursum. Probabilius id facit hasta velitaris, evulsa e corpore hominis, si terram non attigerit/ 28, 4 [6], (see Suppl.).

A poisoning case was sometimes met by forcible remedies : the man was hung up by the heels, and after a time one of his eyes pulled out, in hopes of the venom oozing out at that aperture : ' tamen intoxicatus Albertus in Austria, et diu per pedes sus- pensus, oculum perdens evasit/ Alb. Argent, (ed. Basil. 1569) p. 167 (see Suppl.) .

Water, springs, fire (pp. 1166. 1173) have power to preserve health or restore it (pp. 586-8. 605-6. 618-9. 621—4) ; especially a spring that has burst out of the rock at the bidding of a god or saint. The snake that lies coiled round the holy well, or is seen be- side it (p. 585-8n.), maybe likened to the serpent-rod of Aescula- pius. Healing water or oil trickles out of rocks and walls. The mother that was walled in (p. 1143) continued for a time to nourish her babe through a hole in the wall, till at last she died. At that hole there is a continual dropping, women whose milk has run dry go there to get healed : the mother's milk had streamed so long that it sets other breasts flowing too. I know of a similar story in Italy : c est quoque non procul ab hoc oppido (Verona) , in valle quadam Policella dicta, loc'us Negarina nomine, ubi saxum durissimum visitur, in quo mammae ad jus tarn muliebrium formam sculptae sunt, ex quarum papillis perpetuae stillant aquae, quibus si lactans mulier papillas asperserit et laverit, exsiccatus aliquo (ut fit) vel morbo vel alio casu illi lacteus humor revocatur/ Hentzneri itinerar. p. 201. A rock which drops milk is mentioned in Fel. Faber's Bvagator. 1, 449 ; and the Lith. Laumes papas (teat) is the name of a hard stone.

To the tombs of saints a direct healing power was ascribed in the Mid. Ages, everything in contact with them brought help, even a draught of the water poured over bones, garments, splinters and earth. Turf and dew off the grave can heal (Greg.

1178 SICKNESSES.

Tur. vitee patr. 6, 7).1 Beda 3, 9 tells of St. Oswald : < In loco ubi pro patria dimicans a paganis interfectus est, usque hodie sanitates infirmorum et hominum et pecorum celebrari non desmunt. Unde contigit ut pulverem ipsum, ubi corpus ejus in terram cor- ruit, multi auferentes et in aquam mittentes suis per haec infirm is multum commodi afferrent : qui videlicet mos adeo increbuit, ut paulatim ablata exinde terra fossam ad mensuram staturae virilis reddiderit.' 3, 1 1 : ' De pulvere pavimenti in quo aqua lavacri illius effusa est, multi jam sanati infirmi.9 3, 13: 'Habeo quidem de ligno in quo caput ejus occisi a paganis infixum est . . . tunc benedixi aquam, et astulam roboris praefati immittens obtuli aegro potandam : nec mora, melius habere coepit.' 4, 3 of St. Ceadda (d. 672): 1 Est autem locus idem sepulcri tumba in modum domunculi facta coopertus, habente foramen in pariete, per quod solent hi qui causa devotionis illo adveniunt manum suam immit- tere, ac partem pulveris inde assumere, quam cum in aquas mise- rint atque has infirmantibus jumentis sive hominibus gustandas dederint, mox infirmitatis ablata molestia, cupitae sanitatis gaudia redibunt.' 4, 61 of Earconwald : ' Etenim usque hodie feretrum ejus caballarium, quo infirmus vehi solebat, servatum a discipulis ejus, multos febricitantes vel alio quolibet incommodo fessos sanare non destitit. Non solum autem suppositi eidemferetro vel appositi curantur aegroti, sed et astulae de illo abscissae atque ad

infirmos allatae citam illis solent afferre medelam.'' Relics not

only heal, but bring fortune, peace and fruitfulness, pretty much as the jewels of elves and dwarfs did in particular families: ' ubicunque hae reliquiae fuerint, illic pax et augmentum et lenitas aeris semper erit ' (Pertz 1, 71). 2

1 Greg Tur. mirac. 1, 21 takes from Eusebius 7, 18 the tale of a metal image of the Saviour and the woman of Caesarea, whose issue of blood was stanched: ' Hums ad pedem statuae in basi herba quaedam nova specie nascitur. quae cum exorta fuerit crescere usque ad stolae illius aereae indumenti fimbriam solet. quam cum summo vertice crescens herba contigerit, vires inde ad depellendos omnes marbos laneuoresque conquirit ; ita ut quaecunque fuerit ilia mfirmitas corporis, haustu esiguo madefacta salutaris graminis depellatur; nihil omnino vmum gerens, si antequam aereae fimbriae summitatem crescendo contigent, decerpatur. hanc statuam ad similitudinem vultus Jesu tradebant, quae permansit etiam ad nostra (Eusebii) usque tempora, sicut ipsi oculis nostris mspeximus.'— The beautiful myth is also copied by Agobardus (Opp. ed. Baluze, Par. 1666. 2, 248-9). It was essential for the plant to have grown up to the hem of the garment, it was only by touching it that it acquired healing efficacy.

2 Les reliques sunt forz, Deus i fait grant vertuz, iloc juit un coutrait, set anz out ke ue se mut,

EELICS. LIMBS HUNG UP. 1179

The legends are full of the marvellous deliverances vouchsafed to pilgrim patients at the tombs of saints. An incredible number of sick had recourse to this method ; but it is cleverly parodied in our Beast-apologue (Reinh. pp. cv. cxxvi) : the hare with his fever, the wolf with his earache, are cured the moment they lie down on the grave of the martyred hen. From such delusion the heathens were free : I nowhere find it stated that they sought healing from relics or at the mounds of their kings and giants. They resorted however to sacred woods, p. 72-4 (see Suppl.).1

In Greece, particularly in Boeotia, it was customary for patients, on recovery, to set up in the temple a metal model of the part of the body which had been affected. Amongst avaOrjfjLara an in- scription mentions irpoaomov, tltOos, alSolov, ^e^, &c. ; 2 these votive offerings were afterwards melted down to make sacred vessels. The custom of votive tablets with limbs depicted on them may indeed have been imported into Germany by the Eomans while yet heathens, unless we will admit that our fathers themselves had known them before. The passage from Gregory given p. 81 says expressly: 'membra, secundum quod unumquem- que dolor attigisset, sculpebat in Ugno,' and farther on, ' visi enim m eo barbari gentili superstitione, modo auri argentique dona, modo fercula ad potum vomitumque ebrii offeree, cultumque quo nihil insanius, istic simulacrum inanis dei, ac ut quemque affecti membri dolor presserat, sculpebat in Ugno suspendebatque opitu- laturo idolo.' This was done in Ripuaria in the 6th cent. Eligius refers to the same thing, Sup. A: 'pedum similitudines , quos per bivia ponunt, fieri vetate, et ubi invenerit igni cremate; per nullam aliam artem salvari vos credatis nisi per invocationem et crucem Christi ! 3 and the Indiculus § 29, c de ligneis pedibus

tut li os li crussirent, li ners li sunt estendut :

ore sailt sus en peez, unkes plus sain ne fud. Eom. de Charlem. 192—5.

Les reliques sunt forz, granz vertuz ifait Deus, que il ne venent a ewe, nen partissent les guet, nencuntret aveogle ki ne seit reluminet, les cuntrez i redrescent, e les muz funt parler. 255-8.

1 The origin of relic-worship I shall investigate in another place. Corp mscript. 1, 750 no. 1570, where Bockh says : ' Donaria medicationis causa Amphiarao oblata. qui ex oraculo per somnium dato restituti in sanitatem erant, n partim membri quo laborarant effigiem dicabant (p. 474 no. 497-8), partim alia donaria, quern admodum etiam infontem Amphiarai deiicere nummos solebant.' Conf. Pausan. 1, 3.

1180 SICKNESSES.

vel manibus pagano ritu'; a woman with a palsied arm is ad- monished in a dream ' ut instar semivivae manum ceream for- mando exprimeret, et ad sanctae Idae tumulum deferret ' (begin, of 10th cent., Pertz 2, 573). At the same time even these au- thorities teach us an important distinction : the Greek brought his avaO^ixa out of gratitude, when the malady was healed ; the German hung up the limb in the temple or at the cross-roads, with a view to obtain relief thereby, ' opitulaturo idolo/ and ' per nullam aliam artem salvari vos credatis.' And for this purpose a wooden or perhaps waxen image sufficed, which would have been a paltry present to the succouring deity ; conf. another pas- sage from Gregory in my KA. 674, and Kuinart's note thereon. So° that this German heathenry is of a piece with the sorcery by wax images (p. 1091), and with heathen sacrifices, which kept up an analogy between the thing prayed for and the thing offered : those who wished for children presented a child of wax, ivood or silver, while conversely a figure of wax or silver served as penance for slaying the body. But what shocked the early teachers as sheer paganism was afterwards humoured and licensed by the church. A votive tablet at Alt-ottingen represents an unhappy man with an arrow passing through his eyebrow into the eye-pupil (Schm. 1, 242).1 At places famed for pilgrimages we find hands, feet, etc. of wood or wax fastened to the walls ; outside the church were hung ujp the crutches on which the sick had come, and which they needed no longer in going away healed: ' ut incredibilis materies scabellorum atque oscillorum post perceptam sanitatem a redeuntibus ibi remaneret/ Acta Bened. sec. v, p. 102 ; conf. Pertz 2, 574. Among the Greeks the sick often slept in the temple of the deity in whom they put their trust, and received in a dream instructions as to cure ; 2 much the same occurs in medieval legends, e.g. that passage in the Life of St. Ida. Put together with this the first dream in a new house or stable, p. 1146 (see Suppl.).

There were superstitious signs, by observing which you could

1 Diseases also were hung up pictorially : thus, before miraculous images in Bavaria and Austria, among the waxen hands and feet you may see a crab- or toad-like figure, understood to be the 'ber-mutter' that crawled about m the body, Schm. 1, 188. Hofer 1, 78. Wolf's Deutsche sagen p. 491.

2 Jac. Phil. Tomasini de donariis ac tabellis votivis, Patavn 16o4, 4, cap. d4, p. 214—26 vota pro aegrotantium salute.

SIGNS OF DEATH. PLAGUE.

1181

tell whether one dangerously ill would fall a prey or get well : the cries, the flight, the wheeling of birds have been noticed on p. 1135. Burchardt (Sup. C, 195d) instances the lifting up of stones to see if any live beast were underneath ; which is like snatching up a handful of earth and looking for a living creature in it (F, 9). The look of the bird Galadrot, and the position of Death, whether at the patient's head or feet (p. 853) were sig- nificant omens. That standing at the feet was an advantage we find already in Pliny 30, 10 [24] : 'Eundem (ricinum, tick) in augurio vitalium habent : nam si aeger ei respondeat qui intu- lerit, a pedibus stanti interrogantique de morbo, spem vitae cer- tain esse : moriturum nihil respondere. Adjiciunt, ut evellatur (ricinus) ex aure laeva canis cui non sit alius quam niger color.''

It is believed in Scotland to this day, that if you cannot

see the mannikin in the sick man's eye, he is sure to die : the bystander's image is no longer mirrored in the lustreless pupil of the breaking eye. And as far back as the AS. dialogue between Adrian and Ritheus (Thorpe p. 48) : ' Saga me, on hwam meeig man geseon mannes de&<5 ? Ic J?e secge, twege manlican beo$ on mannes edgum : gif ]?u ]?a ne gesihst, ]?onne swilt (dies) se m.an, and br3 gewiten (gone) ser J?rim dagum.' Put by the side of this, that the Koprj is not to be seen in a bewitched man's eyes either, and in a witch's eye it is seen . upside down, or double (pp. 1074-80). When a dying man can- not get his release, a shingle of the roof is to be turned (Sup. I, 439), three tiles taken up (721), or any hollow house- utensil inverted (664). The like means are adopted in convul- sions (853) and childbirth (561) : ' if it go hard with her in travail, the husband shall take three shingles out of the roof, and put them in again wrong side up,' Ettn. hebamme p. 663 ; conf. supra p. 1116.

I have kept to the last what I had to say of the 'plague and the numerous traditions based on its appearing. After great floods, when heavy fog and sultry mist poison the air, it suddenly breaks out and spreads resistless over the earth.

To the Gr. \oi/jlos (p. 888) correspond, in gender as well, our OHG. sterpo, scelmo (MHG. schelme), GL jun. 219 scalmo, fihu- sterbo, ON. skelmis-drep or drep alone; OHG. wuol} Diut. 1,

1182 SICKNESSES.

501% AS. wol, gen. woles. The Latin names pestis, lues are fern., so are the Serv. kuga, moriya ; but masc. again the Boh. Pol. mor, Lith. maras, Lett, mehris. The Serv. Slov. kuga is the M. Nethl. Jeoghe (Detmar 1, 81. 113. 127. 148. 377), and even a MHG. poem (Meyer and Mooyer, p. 46a) has koge. MHG. usually ' der gdhe tot/ swift death, Wigal. 3726 (Nethl. gd-dot, Maerl. 1, 230. 293) ; but also ' der grosse tod/ great death, Swed. diger-ddden (ON. digr crassus, tumidus) ; ON. svarti daucfi, Dan. ' den sorfe docZ/ black death, perhaps even in allusion to Surtr (p. 809). 1

To the Greeks the whizzing shafts of wrathful Apollo brought the plague : a man dying suddenly is slain by Apollo's artillery, a woman by that of Artemis ; conf. the destroying angel, 2 Sam. 24, 16. Hermes, protector of the flock, carries round it the ram, to ward off murrain ; afterwards he carries it round the city also, Kpiofyopos? Virgins were sacrificed to stay the ravages of pes- tilence. Pliny 26, 9 [60] says a maiden can cure boils (panos) by laying verbascum on them : Expert! affirmavere plurimum referre, si virgo imponat nuda, jejuna jejuno, et manu supina tangens dicat, f Negat Apollo pestem posse crescere, cui nuda virgo restinguat ! ' atque retro rsa manu ter dicat, totiesque despuant ambo. The ceremony was transferred from the heavy scourge to lighter ones : the disrobing of the maiden was required for allay- ing drought (p. 593-4), and in many other cases (see Suppl.).

That a.ngel of death means Death himself, who comes to gather his own. A Lombard legend speaks of two angels, a good and a bad, who traverse the land : 'Pari etiam modo haec pestilentia Ticinum quoque depopulata est, ita ut cunctis civibus per juga montium seu per diversa loca fugientibus, in foro et per plateas civitatis herbae et fructeta nascerentur. Tuncque visibiliter multis apparuit, quia bonus et malus angelus noctu per civitatem pergerent, et ex jussu boni angeli malus angelus, qui videbatur venabulum manu ferre, quotiens de vendbulo ostium cujuscunque

1 Paul. Diac. 2, 4, paints a desolating plague in colours that recall the vivid picture Boccaccio has sketched by way of Introd. to his Decameron. How Sweden and Norway were wasted during the Great Plague, is described in Afzelius 4, 179. 180 and especially in Faye, pp. 135 — 148, after beautiful folk-tales.

2 ' Massilienses quoties pestilentia laborabant, unus se ex pauperioribus oferebat alendus anno integro publicis et purioribus cibis. Hie postea ornatus yerbenis et vestibus sacris circumducebatur per totam civitatem cum exsecrationibus, ut in ipsum reciderent mala civitatis, et sic projiciebatur,' Petron. cap. 141.

PLAGUE.

1183

iomus percussissets tot de eadem domo die sequenti homines interirent. Tunc per revelationem cuidam dictum est, quod pestis ipsa prius non quiesceret quam in basilica beati Petri, quae ad vincula dicitur, sancti Sebastiani martyris altarium poneretur. Factum est, et delatis ab urbe Koma b. Sebastiani reliquiis, mox ut in jam dicta basilica altarium constitutum est, pestis ipsa quievit/ Paul. Diac. 6, 5. In the year 589, when the Tiber had overflowed, and a plague had arisen which carried off many men, St Gregory ordered a solemn procession of the Cross ; 80 people in the church dropped down ' alien gahes ' at his feet and died ; then, rising from prayer, ' sach er sten uf dem Dietriches huse einen engel mit pluotigem swerte, der wiskete daz selbe swert durch sinen geren (wiped it on his skirt), do verstuont (understood) der heilige man, daz der ewige Yater sines zornes hin ze den liuten erwinden wolte/ would turn from his anger.1

Like such an angel of death, the Norse Hel rides about on her steed (pp. 314. 844), which is no other than the dead-horse seen in churchyards, p. 1142 (see Suppl.).

A Voigtland tradition makes the plagae come on as a blue vapour, shaped like a cloud, Jul. Schmidt p. 158. By this is meant the sultry mist that precedes a pestilence ; ' blue vapour 3 suggests the fire of the Thunder-god, p. 178. A plague that raged in the Odenwald shewed itself in the shape of a little blue flame in the sacristy of the town- church at Erbach ; and they walled it in. In Amm. Marcel. 23, 6 (a.d. 363) : ' Fertur autem quod post direptum hoc idem figmentum (Apollinis simulacrum), incensa civitate (Seleucia), milites fanum scrutantes invenere foramen angustum : quo reseraio ut pretiosum aliquid invenirent, ex adyto quodam concluso a Chaldaeorum arcanis lobes primor- dialis exsiluit} qua3 insanabilium vi concepta morborum, ejusdem Veri Marcique Antonini temporibus ab ipsis Persarum finibus ad usque Bhenum et Gallias cuncta contagiis polluebat et mortibus.'

Again, in the year 1709 the plague at Conitz in Prussia was

charmed into a hole of the lime-tree in the churchyard, then a plug kept ready for the purpose, and fitting exactly, was driven

1 Deutsche predigten ed. by K. Both p. 76 ; conf. Hoffm. fundgr. 1, 77. Greg. V11"'1^-1'2" Dietrich,s house is the moles Hadriani, named St. Angelo's castle after this very angel who shewed himself to the praying processionists. Our legends like to name large Eoman buildings after Theoderic, notably the amphi- theatre of Verona, Deut. heldensage pp. 40, 203.

1184

SICKNESSES.

in ; since which she has never contrived to shew her face in the country again (Tettau and Temme p. 222). This agrees with the blocking-up of Unsselde and the shrewmouse (pp. 878. 1168), but also with the general notion of diseases being transferable to trees. The immuring of the plague in church and temple is based on its having issued from the divinity (see SuppL).

Augustine's De verbo apostol. 168 pictures the plague as a woman that prowls about, and can be bought off with money : ' Proverbium est Punicum, quod quidem Latine vobis dicam, quia Punice non omnes nostis; Pun. enim prov. est antiquum: Numum vult Pestilentia ? duos illi da, et ducat se.*

During the great pestilence under Justinian, men saw brazen barks on the sea, and black men without heads sitting in them : wherever they sailed to, the plague at once broke out. In a city of Egypt the only inhabitants left alive were seven men and a boy ten years old j they were escaping with their valuables, when in a house near the town-gate all the men dropped down dead, and the boy alone fled ; but under the gate a spectre seized him, and dragged him back into the house. Soon after, a rich man's steward came to fetch goods out of the house, and the boy warned him to haste away : at the same instant both man and boy fell dead to the ground. So says bishop John (Assemanni biblioth. orient. 2, 86-7).

The Mod. Greeks think of the plague as a blind woman that wanders through the towns from house to house, killing all she can touch. But she goes groping and feeling round the wall, and if you are wise enough to keep in the middle of the room, she can't get at you. According to one folk-tale, it is three terrible women that traverse the towns in company, one carrying a large paper, another a pair of scissors, the third a broom. Together they walk into the house where they mean to find victims : the first enters .their names on her list, the next wounds them with her scissors, the last sweeps them away (Fauriel's Disc. prel. lxxxiii). Here are the three Fates (p. 410) or Furies and Eumenids converted into death-goddesses.

There is a beautiful Breton lay in Yillemarque 1, 46—51, called Bosen Mliant, the Elliant plague. A miller, so goes the tale, saw a woman robed in white sitting, staff in hand, at the ford of the river, wishing to be carried over. He took her on his

PLAGUE. 1185

horse, and set her down on the other side. Then she said, ' Young man, and knowst thou whom thou hast put across ? I am the Plague; and now having ended my journey round Bretagne, I will go to mass in Elliant church ; every one whom I touch with my staff, shall speedily die, but thee and thy mother no harm shall befall/ And so it came to pass : all the people in that bourg died, save the poor widow and her son. Another folksong makes him convey her on his shoulders : nine children are carried out of one house, the churchyard is filled up to the walls : ' beside the churchyard stands an oak, to its top is tied a white kerchief, for the Plague has snatched away all the people/ She was banished at last by songs being sung about her : when she heard herself called by her name, she withdrew from the land, and never came back. The request to be carried across is exactly like those of the goddess Berhta and beings of elf kind.

Of the Lithuanian Giltine, plague or death-goddess, I should like to know fuller accounts. ' She massacres without mercy : e kad tawe Giltine pasmaugtu (plague choke thee) ! ' is a familiar imprecation (Mielcke sub v. Donaleitis 141). The plague is also named Magila [SI. mogila, a grave], or simply diewe (goddess), and they say in cursing ' imma ji Magilos, imma ji diewai ! 3 From Polish Lithuania, Adam Mickiewicz 1 reports as follows on the morowa dziewica, plague-maiden : —

Kiedy zaraza Litwe. ma uderzyd, jej przyjseie wieszcza odgadnie z'rzenica ; bo jesli sljuszna waidelotom wierzyc, nieraz na pustych smejarzach i bljoniach staje widomie morowa dziewica w bieliznie, z wiankiem ognistym na skroniach, czoljem przenosi bialjowieskie drzewa • a w reku chustkq, skrwawiona, powiewa. Dziewica sta,pa kroki zljowieszczemi na siolja, zamki i bogate miasta ; a ile razy krwawe chustka, skinie, tyle palac6w zmienia sie, w pustynie ; gdzie noga, sta,pi, swiezy gr6b wyrasta. 2

1 Konrad Wallenrod's Poezye, Warszawie 1832. p. 96. m 2 ' When a plague smites Lithuania . . . then, if we may believe the waidelots m lone burial-grounds and fields stands visible the plague-maiden in white raiment with fiery wreath about her temples, bears on her brow divining-rods (?), and in her hand a blood-stained kerchief waves. The maiden steps with deliberate pace into villages, castles and wealthy towns ; whenever she spreads out her gory kerchief palaces turn into wildernesses ; where with her foot she steps, a fresh grave grows

1186

SICKNESSES.

Woycicki, 1, 51, calls her Powietrze, which properly means air, vapour (p. 1183), but also plague. Clothed in white, she stalks along on stilts, tells her name to a man she meets, and wants to be carried on his shoulders through all the Russias : amidst the dead and dying he shall go unhurt. Well, he carries her through thorp and town : where she waves her kerchief , every- body dies, and all men flee before them. Arrived at the Pruth, he thought to drown her, and jumped into the river, but up she floated light as a feather, and flew to the woodland, while he sank to the bottom.

In another story 1, 127 she is called Dzuma (Russ. Serv. chuma) : while she prevails, the villages stand deserted, the cocks are hoarse and cannot crow, the dogs no longer bark, yet they scent the Plague from afar (p. 666), and growl. A peasant saw her, in white garb and waving hair, clear a high fence and run up a ladder, to escape the howling dogs : he hurries up to the ladder and pushes it over, so that the Plague fell among the dogs ; then she disappeared, still threatening vengeance.

Sometimes the Dzuma rides through the wood in a waggon, attended by owls and uhus (great horned owl) : this ghostly procession is named Homen, Woyc. 1 ,130 — 3. 159 — 163. But the Plague could only last till New-year's day ; then those who have fled troop back to their homes, taking care however not to walk in through the door, but to climb in at the window.

A tale narrated by a Wendish peasant, Joh. Parum Schulze,1 falls somewhere in the middle of the 17th century : So it came to pass, that a man, as I have always heard tell, that was Niebuhr by name, where now Kuffalen dwell, that was afterward Luchau, as he rideth home from town, there comes a man alongside, and begs that he may ride a little in the cart, for that he was right weary. This Hans Niebuhr asks him in Wendish, as that tongue was then commonly used, ' whence, and whither away ? ' and takes him up on the cart. At first he will not declare himself, but this Niebuhr, being somewhat drunken, begins to question more sharply. Then he declared himself, saying, ' I will to thy

up.' I am not sure that I have rightly rendered ' bialjowieskie drzewa,' nor whether the adj. can be conn, with ' bialowieszcka ' p. 474 n.

1 Of Siiten village, Kiisten parish, Liineburg. About 1740 he composed a chronicle, Ann. der Br. Liineb. churlande, jahrg. 8, Hanover 1794. p. 282-3.

PLAGUE. H87

village with thee, where I have not yet been; for I am der Pest (m.y Then did Niebuhr intreat for his life, and the Plague gave him this lesson, that he should leave him in the cart outside the village, and strip naked and have no clothing at all on his body, but [going home,] take his pot-hook, and coming out before his house, run all round his homestead with the sun, and then bury it under the doorstep: 'if one but carry me not in' quoth the Pest, 'in the smell that hangs about the clothes.' Now this Niebuhr leaves him in the cart a good piece from the village, for it was night ; takes the pot-hanger, runs naked out of the village and all round it, then sticks the iron under the bridge, which iron I myself saw in the year 1690 when the bridge was mended, but nigh eaten away with rust. When this Niebuhr came back for his horse and cart, quoth the Plague : 'had I known this, I had not declared myself to thee, this device whereby thou hast locked me out of the whole village.3 When they were come up to the village, Niebuhr takes his horses out of the cart, and leaves him sitting thereon. Neither was any sickness from pestilence per- ceived in that village ; but in all the villages around the plague did mightily rage. * °

So far Schulze's homely narrative. Eemoving the pot-hook off the hearth seems to stand for leaving the house open : from a deserted house death has nothing to take. As the retiring house- holder symbolically 'lets down the haal on the hearth/ the new one on taking possession must 'tuck it up' again.1 Running round the house or village resembles that carrying of the ram round the city, and the undressing agrees with the Roman custom.

Then, as the Plague is slow of foot, she gets herself driven into the village in a cart, or lugged in pickaback, like homesprites and will o' wisps that jump on men's shoulders, pp. 512-3. 916.

Swedish stories make the Plague enter a village from the south, and stand still before the first homestead, looking like a pretty little boy with a rasp or grater (rifva) in his hand, and rasping with it. When he did that, there still remained one or two alive in a house, as the grater could not take everything along with it. But when he got to the next village, there came after him the Plague-damsel (pestflicka), she swept with a broom outside the 1 Wulfter's Deduction, beil. nos. 4. 5. 135.

VOL. Ill,

U

1188 SICKNESSES.

gate, then all in the village died. Bat she was very seldom seen, and never except at daybreak (Afzelius 4, 179).

In Vestergotland they had decreed a human sacrifice to stay the f digerdod/ and two beggar children having just then come in, were to be buried alive in the ground. They soon dug the pit open, gave the hungry children cake spread with lard, and made them sit down in the pit : while they ate, the people shovelled up the earth. ' Oh/ cried the younger child, when the first spadeful was thrown over it, 'here's some dirt fallen on my bread and lard/ A mound was quickly thrown up over them, and nothing more was heard of them (Afz. 4, 181). Compare the walling up of children in the foundation of a new building, p. 1142, and the offering of a young heifer in the holy fire during cattle-plague, p. 608.

In Norway the Testa is imagined as a pale old woman who travelled about the country with a grater (rive, a toothed instru- ment for tearing up sods or hay and com) and a broom (lime) : when she used the grater, some few got off with their lives, but where the besom came into play, there perished every born soul. A man having rowed her over a piece of water, and demanding his fare, she said, < you'll find your quittance on the bench at home ; ' and no sooner was he home, than he sickened and died. She often appears in red clothing, and whoever beholds her falls into a great fear (Faye p. 135).

The Servians say their Kuga is a real woman, who goes wrapt in a white veil : many have seen her so, and some have carried her. She came to one man in the field, or met him on the road, and said, < I am the Kuga, carry me to such a place ! 3 He took her up pickaback, and without any trouble carried her whither she would. The Kugas (plagues) have a country of their own by the sea, but God sends them when people do wickedly ana sin much. While the plague rages they never call her kuga, but huma (cummer, gossip), to make her friendly. And during that time they dare not leave any vessels unwashed at night, lor she will pass through the kitchen, and if she spy any such, will scour and polish all the spoons and dishes (which detains her m the house) ; at times she even makes away with the bacon out of the loft, Wtb. sub v. Kuga j and new ed. of Serv. songs 1, 149 note. Here again she comes out in the fashion of ancient goddesses,

PLAGUE.

1189

Holda and Berhta, who cannot abide disorder in the house, pp. 268. 274.

Among the Slovens, cattle-plague (kuga) is a spotted caZ/ that kills sheep and oxen by its cry (Murko p. 74).

The devil is reported to have said, there was but one cure for the kuga, that was mattock and hoe, meaning burial (Vuk sub v. metil) .

A Finnic song (Schroter 60) adjures the Plague to take herself away to steely mountains in the gloomy North : saddle-horse and carriage-horse shall be given her for the journey. She is called rutto, the sudden, like our MHG. gahe tot.

In L. Germany they have folktales about the Eeidmann (heath man) who peeps in at your window at night : any one he looks at then, must die within year and day ; just so does Berhta look in at the window (p. 274), so does Death (p. 772). In Tyrol too they tell of a ghost that goes about at the time of one's death : whatever window he loohs into, people die in that house, DS. no. 266.

In the Lausitz Smertnitsa in white array prowls about the villages : to whatever house she directs her step, a corpse will soon be there. In the house itself she announces her presence by thumping and turning the boards up. Convulsions in the dying are signs that Smertnitsa is getting the better of them, Laus. mon. schr. 1797. p. 756.

There cannot be the slightest doubt left, that all these various personifications of the plague are to be viewed as effluences of superior divinities of antiquity, whose might, merciful and awful, they display by turns. Veiled in white they stride along, like Berhta, and like the mother that walks in the corn at noon. Plague-maiden and fate-maiden meet and touch, morowa dziewica with Marena, Morena (p. 771), the harmful goddess with the healing pitying Eir (see SuppL).

CHAPTER XXXVII.

HERBS AND STONES.

Pliny has thrown a peculiar charm over his Natural History by not disdaining to record minutely even the superstitious views of the vulgar about animals and plants. How his reverence for antiquity, his elegance* of exposition, stand out against the dry gravity of our present students of nature, who never waste a glance on the customs of their country, and to whom all the force and grace of Teutonic idiom is but small beer (see SuppL).

<Er4t, steine unde wort Mnt an kreften gr6zen hort' (herb and stone and wholesome word have of healing powers rich hoard) , says our Freidank 111, 6 ; and as there lies in dwarfs a special acquaintance with the healing virtues hidden in herbs (pp. 450-1 n. 457), it is worth noticing, that in the mouth of a king of that race, Goldemar (pp. 453. 466. 509) is placed the dictum, < Christianos fidem in verbis, Judseos in lapidibus pretiosis, et Paganos in herbis ponere/ Meiboin's Script. 1, 186. Paganism does present a rich store of mythical notions on the origin and manifold virtues of these plants.

1. Herbs.

As among men, so among Herbs, the noble tower above the base : they were created by gods in some secluded sacred spot, they sprouted up where innocent blood had been shed, they were brought over by birds, and so on. Under the goddess's footfall the flower springs up, as all growth withers where sorrowing lovers part. On the mountain's top, to which the lover had carried up his dying love, and poured out her last reviving draught, grew healing herbs that blessed the land at large (Marie de Fr. 1, 268). Mountains foster what is rarest in the realm of plants. Zeus and Hera laid them down on Ida's top (II. 14, 347) :

T0ldL 8' V7TO %0O)V Sid <pV€V V€O07]Xea TTOlV,

Xcotov 6' epcr^evra ISe icpoicov rj$' vclklvOov, ^ TTV/cvbv koI jidkaicov, o? airb X0ovb<; vfoa' eepye'

1190

herbs: origin, names.

1191

(under them bountiful earth teemed up a new vegetation, dew- sprinkled clover and saffron and hyacinth, thick and soft, etc.) . A similar bed of flowers still haunts the imagination of our Minnesingers (Walth. 39. 40. Hadloub 2, 194-5), but men have to gather the grass and flowers for that amid singing of birds. To the Medieval way of thinking it was most natural to make healing herbs grow out of the graves of holy men, as we plant flowers on the tomb and pick some for remembrance. Even on the huorco's barrow grows wound-healing rosamarina, the pluck- ing of which turns men into doves, Pentam. 4, 8. The saint's grave nourishes a peartree, whose fruit cures the sick forthwith (Greg. Tur. mirac. 1, 47). We have seen p. 1178n. how at the foot of a holy statue a nova species (quite the Homeric veodrjXtfs above) grew up to .the skirt of the robe, and then became a healing plant1; with this I connect what Pliny tells us 24, 19 [106] : 'herba in capite statuae nata, collectaque alicujus in vestis panno et alligata in lino rufo, capitis dolorem confesfcim sedare traditur' (see Suppl.).

Many herbs and flowers are named after gods, but as we are seldom told the occasion of a name being given, it admits of more than one explanation. The god produced the plant, or he uses it, he loves it, loathes it, in shape or colour it resembles some part of his person, his raiment, arms, and so forth. Thus the names Baldrs bra (p. 222, conf. super cilium Yeneris), Freyju hdr (p. 303) come from the beaming lustre of the flower ; Forneotes folme (p. 240), Niarcfar vottr (p. 218) from the leaves lying like five fingers side by side. Bonner-rebe (-vine) is the Lett. Pehrkones. Donnerkraut, Donnerbesen (p. 183) may, like barba Jovis, be accounted for by the bushy tanglement of their tendrils; but how Peruniha (p. 183) stands related to Perun, I do not know. Devil3 s-bit is from the marks of teeth supposed to be visible in its root, and due to diabolic agency. A great many names are taken from beasts, especially those of our native fable, and fancy has been equally busy on them.

Of flowers and herbs the Sanskrit distinguishes the wholesome by the adjunct c friend/ the hurtful by { foe/ as Ramapriya, dear

1 The healing power imparted by the skirt of the garment was very likely suggested by the Biblical ' touching of the hem,' Matt. 9, 20. 14, 36. Mk 6, 56. Luke 8, 44.

1192 HE BBS AND STONES.

to Lakshmi = lotus, Yamapriya, dear to Yama = ficus indica, conf. Pott's Etym. for. 2, 424—7. This agrees with OHG. gota- fargezzan, marrubium album (Graff 4, 279), MLG. got-vorghstene (Brunts Beitr. p. 48) and the phrase ' ergaz im Got/ Gramm. 4, 175 (supra p. 21) ; the herb is our andorn (horehound).

Other plants beyond a doubt derive their divine names from their healing power being first made known to mortals by the gods. With the Greeks, Athena and Artemis appear to have been active in this line; and I think they are represented amongst our goddesses by Frigg and Freyja, or whoever took their place afterwards, St. Mary above all. The artemisia was apparently discovered or revealed by Artemis [Pliny 25, 36, 25], the proserpinaca by Proserpine 27, 12 [104] . The irapOevtov was shown by the divine Ilap0evo<;, as Pliny relates, 22, 17 [20] : < verna carus Pericli Atheniensium principi, cum in arce templum aedificaret repsissetque super altitudinem fastigii et inde cecidisset, hac herba dicitur sanatus, monstrata Pericli somnio a Minerva, quare parthenium vocari coepta est, assignaturque ei deae.' Of the lappa he says, 24, 18 [116] : 'medetur et suibus, effossa sine ferro ; quidam adjiciunt et fodientem dicere oportere, Haec est herba argemon, quam Minerva reperit, suibus remedium qui de ilia gustaverint;' apyefiov = albugo in the eye. Hermes pulls out of the ground for Odysseus the ‹j›dpfiaKov mighty against magic: ^Xv Si fitv Ka\iovai deoi, Od. 10, 305 (p. 369). Does the Iris owe its name to the messenger of the gods, or the white hue of the lily, or other causes? In christian times an angel reveals the angelica in a dream, Aw. 1, 159 (see Suppl.).

The names borrowed from animals may gain much in meaning by the animals themselves being connected with the service of gods. Thus there need only a myth underlie such names as baren-klaue, wolfs-milch, OHG. wolves-zeisala, AS. wulfes-taesel, and AS. hrEefnes-leac, to bring to light some relation m which the herb stands to dawn (p. 743-4), to the hero suckled by the she- wolf, to the cordial conveyed by the god's messenger. We find a convincing example in the spechts-wurzel, pecker's root, brought by the sacred bird (p. 673), who probably gave his name to one of the grand woods of our olden time, Spehtes-hart (Spessart) : not only does it serve to burst open the plug, but he protects the peony especially from being plucked (p. 973). The healmg

HE BBS : NAMES.

1193

irauovla was associated with Ilaicbv the divine physician, and it is precisely the wounded Ares that he doctors (II. 5, 900) ; in which I see a new point of connexion between Ares and Roman Mars, whose bird the woodpecker was. Athena too was named Haiwvia. Now I think it is not without a bearing on this matter, that our Zio himself has a herb named after him : ON. Ty-vidr, Dan. Tys-ved, daphne mezereum (p. 199), which might have been in OHG. Zio-witu, Ziowes-witu, i.e. Martis arbor, lig- num, frutex ; but instead of exactly this name, we find a cor- responding one, which I believe I can explain more correctly now than at p. 428, note 2. I then thought of Sigelint, but as the spelling Cigelinta, i.e. Zige-linta, preponderates (Graff 5, 627), as ZUant (659) seems synonymous, and as beside Zeiland we have in Austria to this day Zillind, Zwilind, Zwilinde meaning the same daphne,1 the real old spelling comes to light, Zio-linta, answering in form and substance to Tj)vr<5r. For linta is not only lime-tree, but also liber, bast, and we call the plant in- differently seidel-baum and seidel-bast (for zeilinde-baum, -bast), and it is commonly applied as a healing drug (Hofer 3, 135). An AS. Tiwes-wudu, Tiges-wudu, Tiges-lind is readily inferred. Now whether daphne and pseonia be related or distinct, matters nothing to their mythical analogy ; Pliny says the peony was also called pentorobon, irevropofiov, from its bearing four or five peas; its Boh. name is wlci lyko, i.e. wolfs hast, Fr. garou, i.e. loup-garou, werewolf. I will now pick out a few remarkable names of plants from F. Magnusen's Lex. 758-9. The viola Martis, Fr. violette de Mars, is in Iceland called Ti/s-nola, ^Tt/rs- fiola : this may be a mere translation of the Latin name, which alludes more to the month than the god, like our own marz-viole. There is more in the Norw. Tyri-hialm or Thor-hialm, Thoralm, Thor-hat for aconitum or monk's-hood, to which answers our eisen-hutlein (iron hat), Swed. Dan. storm-hat, apparently from the flower resembling in shape a helmet or hat ; but the same plant is called wolfs-kraut, wolfs-wurz, Dan. ulve-urt, Engl, wolfs bane, Dan. ulve-bane, ulve-ddd, which may be understood of T$r's fight with the wolf, and moreover likened to the wolfs bast and garou

1 This too in districts that say Er-tag and not Zis-tag for Tuesday (pp. 124. 201) ; so that in the plant's name Zio-worship took a wider range.

1194

HEEBS AND STONES.

above, as several other names waver between daphne and aconi- tum. And wolfs bast may even suggest the three bands laid on the Fenris-ulfr, ' lading 9 (Dan. leding, Molb. dial. lex. p. 317), f dromi 9 and ' gleipnir/ S. 33-4-5. There was yet another name for daphne given on p. 377: Wieland's berry, together with a Scand. Velands urt for the medicinal valerian ; names which carry ns back, if not to a god, to one of our greatest heroes of old, whose father was the wise leech Wate (see Suppl.).

But there is only a small number of herbs named after gods or heroes, compared with those referable to goddesses and wise women. Most of these are now given to Mary, who in this case, as in that of pretty little beetles (p. 694) and brilliant stars (p. 726), replaces the elder Frouwa. Frauen-schuhli is trefolium melilotus, whose flower resembles a shoe, in some places Marien- pantoffelchen ; was Cyjprijpedium calceolus Veneris formed in imitation ? Fraua-menteli, bsa (our) fraua-menteli (Tobler 204b), alchemilla vulg., from its leaves being folded mantle-wise. Fraua- seckeli (-satchel), geum rivale, ibid. Freyju-hdr stands for several kinds of fern (supra p. 303) ; does it independently answer to herba capillaris, capillus Veneris in Apuleius's Herb. 47, or was it borrowed from it ? Frauen-trdn, Marien-thrane, orchis mascula (Staid. 1, 296), reminds of 'helenium e lacrimis Helenae natum/ Pliny 21,10 [33], still more of FreyjVs golden tears, f gratr Freyju/ Sn. 128. 132 (conf. p. 325), and the flowers and precious stones that drop when goddesses laugh or weep (p. 1101) ; a costly wine is called wiser liebfrauen-milch. How a flower came to be called Mother -of- Go d9s mirror, is told in the nursery-legend. Frauen-sclilbssli, frauen-schliissel, primula veris, Staid. 1, 124, otherwise himmels-schlussel (heaven's key), schhissel-blume ; because it unlocks the spring, or opens treasure ? it has yet more names, and is the medicinal betonica, of which more anon. As these plants are all natives of our meadows, it is not likely that their names were drawn from Latin, and only came into vogue in the last few centuries; though in OHGr. glosses we find no herb compounded with frouwa. It were too daring to trace the oster-blume (oster-gloie, Ms. 2, 61a) back to Ostard, Edstre, as the form of name can, like maiblume, be explained by the season of its blossoming ; these maybells were offered in sacrifice (p. 58), were borne by white-women (p. 963), and to

HE BBS : TIME OF CULLING.

1195

pick them before sunrise is recommended in Sup. I, 1075 (see Suppl.).

Flowers are a feminine adornment, young maidens twine the wreath, sage matrons cull the herb. Marner says prettily, Ms. 2, 174a : f ez riuchet (smells) - als ein edel hrut iiz einer megde hant/ Why should not the wise women of even our earliest eld have been skilled in herb- lore ? it is ascribed to witches and old women still, and apparently it is not without a meaning that from healing herbs the witches select names for themselves or their admirer (p. 1063). All witches' herbs may most appropriately be called beschrei-kr&ut, beruf-k.mut (speak ill, becall, be- witch), though the names have also been applied to particular plants.

The culling and fetching of herbs had to be done at particu- lar times, and according to long-established forms (see Suppl.) .

Mostly before sunrise, when the day is young: fherba qua- cunque a rivis aut fluminibus ante solis ortum collecta, ita ut nemo colligentem videat,' Pliny 24, 19 [107]. 'praecipiunt ali- qui effossuris (anagallida), ante solis ortum, priusquam quidquam aliud loquantur, ter salutare earn, turn sublatam ezprimere ; ita praecipuas esse vires/ 25, 13 [92]. 'aiunt, si quis ante solis ortum earn (chamelaeam) capiat, dicatque ad albugines oculorum se capere, adalligata discuti id vitium ' 24, 14 [82] . ' et hanc (Samolum herbam) sinistra manu legi a jejunis} 24, 11 [63]. ( radicem (pistolochiae) ante solis ortum erutam involvunt lana ' 20, 4 [14] . The viscus was gathered at new moon, prima luna 24, 4 [6] ; the verbenaca ' circa Canis ortum, ita ut ne luna aut sol conspiciat 3 25, 9 [59] . Unseen by man or heavenly body, silent and fasting, shall the collector approach the sacred herb. Lilies of the valley are to be culled before sunrise, deviPs-bit at midnight of St. John's eve, Sup. I, 190. 1075.

Pliny 25, 3 [6] tells of a plant called by the Eomans herba Britannica, because brought from the isles between Germany and Britain (ex oceani insulis extra terras positis 27, 1) : ' Florem vibones vocant, qui collectus priusquam tonitrua audiantur (is not that between lightning and thunder ?) et devoratus, securos a fulminibus in totum reddit. Frisii, qua castra erant, nostris demonstravere illam ; mirorque nominis causam, nisi forte con- fines oceano Britanniae velut propinquae dicavere ; non enim

1196

HEEBS AND STONES.

inde appellatam earn quoniam ibi plurima nasceretur certum est, etiamnum Britannia libera/ Here we have a plant held in esteem by the ancient Germans themselves, and the injunction to gather ifc before hearing thunder (that year ?) sounds quite Teutonic. It protected from lightning, was therefore sacred to the Thunder-god, like the house-leek, which is also called donner-wehr. AS. glosses render the Britannica by hcewen- hycFele ; hsewen is glaucus, the second word may come from hu$ praeda, or hffte portus ; in the latter case it would mean some- thing like blue sea-flower. Anyhow it was a water-plant, hydrolapathum it is thought. I would gladly recognise in it the seeblatt so sacred to the Frisians and Zealanders (p. 654), whose flower is said to be white or yellow ; its names nixblume and mummel call to mind the Indian names for the lotus, Bama- priya, dear to Bama or Lakshmi, and Srivasa, Srfs house = Lakshmi's, who came up out of the sea (see Suppl.).

In digging up a herb, the Boman custom was, first to pour mead and honey round it, as if to propitiate the earth, then to cut round the root with a sword, looking toward the east (or west), and the moment it is pulled out to lift it on high without letting it touch the ground. ' Favis ante et melle terrae ad piamentum datis, circumscriptam ferro (verbenacam) eflodi sinistra manu et sublime tqUi/ Pliny 25, 9 [59]. ' et fossuri (iridem), tribus ante mensibus mulsa aqua circumfusa, hoc veluti placa- mento terrae blandiuntur, circumscripta mucrone gladii orbe triplici, et cum legerint earn protinus in coelum attollunt} 21, 7 [19]. ' nigrum elleborum melampodion vocant, quo et domos suffiunt purgantque, spargentes et pecora, cum precatione solemni ; hoc et religiosius colligitur : primum enim gladio circumscribitur, dein qui succisurus est ortum spectat} et precatur ut liceat sibi concedentibus Diis facere ; observatque aquilae vqlatus (fere enim secantibus interest), et si prope advolavit, moriturum illo anno qui succidat augurium est' 25, 5 [21]. 'cavent effossuri (man- dragoram) contrarium ventum, et tribus circulis ante gladio cir- cumscribunt, postea fodiunt ad occasum spectantes 3 25, 13 [94]. In some cases, when the root had been dug out and made use of, it was put in again, that it might live on: ' hanc (sene- cionem) si ferro circumscriptum effodiat aliquis, tangatque ea dentem et alternis ter despuat, ac reponat in eundem locum ita

HEEBS : MODE OF CULLING.

1197

id vivat herba, aiunt dentem eum postea non doliturum' 25, 13 [106].

A great point was to guard against cold iron touching the root (hence gold or redhot iron was used in cutting), and against the herb pulled up, or the branch cut off, touching the ground i1 'radicem (pistolochiae) ante solis ortum erutam involvunt lana coloris quern nativum vocant. quidam auro effodiendam censent, cavendumque ne terram adtingat3 20, 4 [14]. < (viscum) collec- tum e robore sine ferro, si terram non attigit, comitialibus mederi (putant)' 24, 4 [6]. ' virgam e myrice defractam, ut negue terram negue ferrum attingeret 3 24, 9 [41] . ' cavendum ne avulsa herba terram tangat 3 25, 13. ' herba juxta quam canes urinam fundunt, evulsa ne ferro attingatur, luxatis celerrime medetur ' 24,19 [111].

In picking or pulling up, the operator used the left hand ; in certain cases he had to do it unbelted and unshod, and to state for whom and for what purpose it was done : ' si quis unum ex his (pomis Punici mali), solutus vinculo omni cinctus et calceatus atque etiam anuli, decerpserit duobus digitis, pollice et quarto sinistrae manus} atque ita lustratis levi tactu oculis, mox in os additum devoraverit, ne dente contingat, affirmatur nullam ocu- lorum imbecillitatem passurus eo anno 3 23, 6 [59] . ' praecipitur ut sinistra manu ad hos usus eruatur (iris rufa), colli gentesque dicant cujus hominis utique causa eximant' 21,20 [83]. fpar- thenium . . . magi contra tertianas sinistra manu evelli earn jubent, dicique cujus causa vellatur, nec respicere 3 21, 30 [104]. ' pseudanchusa . . . folium ejus sinistra decerpi jubent magi, et cujus causa sumatur dici' 22, 20 [24]. ' praecipitur ut qui colligit (thlaspi) dicat sumere se contra inguina et contra omnes collectiones et contra vulnera, unague manu tollat3 27, 13 [113]. ' autumnalis urticae radicem alligatam in tertianis, ita ut aegri nuncupentur cum eruitur ea radix, dicaturgue cui et quorum filio eximatur, liberare morbo tradiderunt' 22, 14 [16]. 'buglosso inarescente, si quis medullam e caule eximat, dicatque ad guem liberandum febre id faciat 3 26, 11 [71]. So Columella 6, 5 of the radicula, quam pastor es consiliginem vocant ; ea in Marsis montibus plurima nascitur, omnique pecori maxime est salutaris :

1 As they would not let witches touch the ground (p. 1074) : the iarSar megin.

1198

HERBS AND STONES.

laeva manu effoditur ante soils ortum} sic enim lecta majorem vim creditur habere.

Ia our native tradition, now so scant and faded, I can find but little to match full accounts like these. An important statement is that of Burcard on the bilisa (hyoscyamus, henbane) , c quam virgin em nudam minimo digito dextrae manus eruere faciunt, et radicitus erutam cum ligamine aliquo ad minimum digitum dextri pedis ligare ' ; the object has been stated p. 593. The nudity of the person pulling it up answers to the above-mentioned laying aside of belt and shoes, but the right hand and right foot are at variance with the Eoman preference for left limbs. The whole ceremony however seems to have been equally known in Gaul, where the Romans, as will appear by and by, found a herb- ritual ready organized. An AS. Herbal prescribes thus for sore eyes., wrS eagena sare : ' cer sunnan upgange oftfte hwene cer heo fullice gesigan onginne (begin to sink), ga to J?aere ylcan wyrte Proserpinacam, and bewrit hi abutan mid dnum gyldenum hringe, and cwe$ (say) ]>ddt >u hi to eagena laacedome niman wille (wilt take it for cure of eyes) ; asfter }>rim dagon ga asft ]?8er-t6 aer sunnangancge, and genim hi and hoh (take and hang it) onbutan ]>a3S mannes swyran (neck) ; heo frama'S wel/ For aelf-adle : ' gang on Bunrescefen, ]?onne sunne on setle sie, ]?33r J>u wite fflenan standan ; sing ]?onne benedicite et pater noster, and sting ]?in seax on ]?a wyrte. last stician eft to ]wnne daeg, and niht furdum scaVSe on ]?am ilcan ahte, gang aerest to ciricean and ]?e gesena and Gode bebeod. gang ]?onne swigende, and }?eah J?e hwaet-hwega egeslices ongean cume, oftSe man, ne cwe^ ]?u him genig word to, aer jm cume to J>8ere wyrte, )?e ]>u on aefen aer gemearcodest ; sing )>onne benedicite and pater noster, adelf J?a wyrt, Icet stician fiost seax j?aeron. gange eft swa ]?u raftost maege to ciricean, and lege under weofod mid ]?aui seaxe, laat licgean o^ftaat sunne uppe sie. awaesc srSSan, do to drence and bisceopwyrt and Cristes maeles ragu, awyl )?riwa on meolcum, geot ]?riwa halig waster on ; sing on pater noster and credan etc. and nine eac ymbwrit mid sweorde on iiii healfa on cruce, and drince ]?one drenc, sr&San him br3 sona sash' Here I think a Latin groundwork, with admixture of christian rites, is self- evident. Thiers in his Traite des superstitions says: fQuelques uns pour se garantir de malefices ou de charmes vont cueillir de

HEEBS: TIME AND MODE. TYING ON.

1199

grand matin, a jeun, sans avoir lave lews mains , sans avoir prie Dieu, sans parler a personne et sans saluer personne en leur chemin, une certaine plante, et la mettent ensuite sur la personne maleficiee ou ensorcelee. lis portent sur eux une racine de chicoree, quails ont touchee a genoux avec de Vor et de V argent le jour de la nativite de saint Jean baptiste, un peu avant le soleil leve, et qu'ils ont ensuite arrachee de terre avec un f erre- ment et beaucoup de ceremonies, apres l'avoir exorcizee avec Vepee de Judas Machabee.' This again seems to be Celtic, and yet resembles the Koman practices, warlike Judas' patriot sword doing duty for the circle -drawing ( ferrum.' In Superst, I, 581, the lopping is also done with gold instead of iron. When Renart finds in the meadow the wished-for plant, and cautiously pulls it up, it is said : ' ne l'a triblee n'esquachie, encois la menja sanz tribler} del remanant ala froter trestotes les plaies qu'il ot, et li cuir maintenant reclot et fu gariz et trestoz sains' 25105 — 11. The herb was neither to be fretted nor squashed ; conf. Michel's Trist. 2, 50. In Thurneisser's Erkl. der archidoxen, Berl. 1575, when it says fol. 76 : ' Yerbeen, agrimenia, modelger Charf rey- tags graben hilfft dich sehr Das dir die frawen werden holdt, Doch brauch Jcein eisen, grab's mil goldt3 ; I think it must be drawn from Latin sources. Much more significant is what a song in the Hatzler book says of the 'herb Hope' 137. 294: f Daz ist gar ein edel krut, Grab ez stille, nicht ze lut, Schutzen sind daruber gesetzt, Begrif man dich, du wurdst geletzt An diner sselden hohstem pfant ' ('tis a priceless herb, I trow, dig it deftly, soft and slow : o'er it are set guards to watch thee ; thou wouldst forfeit, should they catch thee, thy dearest pledge of happiness). These warders and watchers of the herb are on a par with that woodpecker that guards the peony : one would like to know more particulars about them (see Suppl.).

About the tying-on (alligare, usu. adalligare 1) of herbs when picked or dug up, Pliny imparts the following precepts : ' herba adalligata laevo brachio, ita ut aeger quid sit illud ignoret3 24, 19 [107]. ' magi heliotropium quartanis quater, in tertianis ter alli-

1 A curious compound = ad-ad-ligare : they must have ceased to feel the origin of the assimilation U before they could add a second ad. It is matched, imper- fectly 'tis true, by our past part, gegluckt (fr. gegeliickt), and perfectly by the 0. Fr. concueillir = concolligere, con-con-legere, and the Goth, gagamainjan to profane, gagavair>jan to reconcile.

1200

HEEBS AND STONES.

gari jubent ab ipso aegro, precarique soluturum se nodos libera- tum, et itafacere non exempta herba' 22, 21 [29]. ( sunt qui genicula novem vel unius vel e duabus tribusve her bis ad hunc articulorum riumerum involvi lana succida nigra jubeant ad remedia strumae panorumve. jejunum debere esse qui colligat, ita ire in domum absentis cui medeatur, supervenientique ter dicere jejuno jejunum medicamentum dare, atque ita adalligare, triduoque id facere. quod e graminum genere septem internodia habet, efficacissime capiti intra dolores adalligatur' 24, 19 [118]. 'alliget ei septem folia' 26, 11 [71]. ' verbenaca jumentorum febribus in vino medetur, sed in tertianis a tertio geniculo incisa, quartanis a quarto/ ibid.1 Or, instead of being tied, it was put under the patient's pillow : f sedum, si involutum panno nigro ignorantis pulvino subjiciatur 3 26, 10 [69] . ' absinthium somnos allicit olf actum, aut inscio sub capite positum ' 27, 7 [28]. As a rule, the sufferer was not to know what was tied on or laid under him; knots and joints in the herb bore a reference to the manner of tying and its repetitions. Often it sufficed if the protecting plant were held in the hand or worn in the girdle : ( virgam populi in manu tenentibus intertrigo non metuatur 3 24, 8 [32]. ' virgam (viticis) qui in manu habeant aut in cinctu, negantur intertriginem sentire ' 24, 9 [38] . ' intertrigines negat fieri Cato absinthium Ponticum secum habentibus 3 26, 8 [58]. Yet if you fall, holding in your hand the nymphsea, you become epileptic (p. 654).

But in many parts of Germany herbs of power used to be suspended up in the loft, on the main rafter, or over door and gate ways, and left there all the year round, till they were re- placed by fresh ones.

The Eomans had a strange custom of laying a sieve in the road, and using the stalks of grass that grew up through it for medical purposes: ' cribro in limite adjecto, herbae intus ex- stantes decerptae adalligataeque gravidis partus accelerant 3 24, 19 [109]. The sieve was a sacred utensil (p. 1108-12) : exstare is extra stare, prominere. This reminds me of our old Weis- thiimer, which determine the fineness of a tissue by the stalks

1 WiS heafod-ece (headache) : adelf wegbrcedan (plantago) butan isene aer sunnan upgange, bind }?a moran (berries, seed) ymb J>aet heafod mid wrastereade braede. sona him biS sel.

HE BBS : TYING- ON. WONDEBFLOWEB.

1201

piercing through it, 1, 12 : f item, es sprechint ouch die hofliit, das si hundert und sibentzig eln huobtuochs gebint dem von Hiinwil, das selb huobtuoch solli so swach sin, wenn man das spreit uf ein wasen, das gens gras und bollen durch das tuoch mugint essen/ And 1, 254: 'the said cloth shall be spread over turf and be of such substance that geese can eat grass through it, and not starve/ This has nothing to do with heal- ing, but the mode of thought is similar.

Having made these general observations, I will now take up one by one the herbs most renowned for healing. Yet some of them seem purposely to have no distinct name given them ; among these is the herb that kept birds away from millet and panic : ' pestem a milio atque panico, sturnorum passerumque agmina, scio abigiherba cujus nomenignotumest, in quatuor angulis segetis defossa, mirum dicfcu, ut omnino nulla avis intret,' Pliny 18, 17 [45]. A poem in Ls. 1, 211— <8 tells of a maiden that was pick- ing flowers for a garland, and by chance got hold of a herb she did not know ; no sooner was it in her hand than she saw all her lovers before her, heard their talk, and knew all their thoughts. At length one of her companions knocked the miraculous plant out of her hand, it fell into a brook that ran past, and floated away; and all the prophetic power was gone. Again, the nameless blue wonderflower (p. 964), that suddenly opens the shepherd's eyes who has unconsciously stuck it in his hat, and discloses the hitherto concealed entrance to the treasure (p. 971), comes before us the more mysteriously, as it cannot in the least be identified.1 The name forget-me-not, which it may be said to assume to itself, is supposed to express no more than its senti- ment, and seems not to have been applied to myosotis till a later time. A herb with an equally imperative name is reported by Pliny 27, 12 [106] : f circa Ariminum nota est herba quam resedam vocant, discutit collectiones inflammationesque omnes. qui curant ea, addunt haec verba : " Reseda, morbos reseda ! scisne, scisne quis hie pullos egerit ? radices nec caput nec pedes habeant ! " haec ter dicunt, totiesque despuunt.' Collectio is a

1 In Polish quarries grows a beautiful blue starflower with a long stalk (conf. trojzielep. 1216), which the peasantry make war upon, because they think old women and gipsies use it in bewitching the cows, that they may suck up all the milk themselves (Pott's Zigeuner p. viii).

1202

HEEBS AND STONES.

gathering, and ' pullos agere ' must refer to this or the inflamma- tion. What we now call reseda (odorata) is apparently a differ- ent herb (see Suppl.) .

Of roots, the Alrune stands first in fame. OHG. glosses already have alruna, alrun for mandragora (Graff 2, 523. Schm. 3, 97), and I have on fair grounds (p. 404) identified the name of the personified plant with that of wise-women in our remotest antiquity. H. Sachs iv. 3, 34 still pictures the Alraun as a god- dess who meets you at the crossways.1 Besides, the root itself has the shape of a man, and the process of pulling it up is described as follows : If a hereditary thief that has preserved his chastity gets hung, and drops water or seed from him, there grows up under the gallows the broad-leaved yellow-flowered mandrake. If dug up, she groans and shrieks so dismally, that the digger would die thereof. He must therefore stop his ears with cotton or wax, and go before sunrise on a Friday, and take with him a black dog that has not a white hair on him ; make three crosses over the mandrake, and dig round her till the root holds by thin fibres only ; these he must tie with a string to the dog's tail, hold up a piece of bread before him, and run away. The dog rushes after the bread, wrenches up the root, and falls dead, pierced by her agonizing wail. The root is now taken up

1 This personality of the Alraun comes out plainly in a merry tale handed down by a MS. of the 15th cent. : Dicitur de quadam muliere, quae habuit virum nimis durum, quae quandam vetulam in sortileghs famosam consuluit. vetula vero, experta in talibus valde, dixit ' se optima sibi scire et posse (sub-) venire, si suum vellet con- silium imitari.' et dum ipsa promitteret ' se velle imitari,' vetula adjecit : ' habesne in horto tuo canapum spissum et longum ? ' quae ait ' habeo valde optatum. ' cui vetula ' vade ' inquit ' tribus noctibus successive in crepusculo serotino ad ipsum hortum tali modo et forma, prima namque nocte accipe unam libram lardi spiss- issimi et optimi quampoteris habere, secunda nocte duas, tertia vero tres, et semper ponas dextrum pedem ad canapum, ac projiciendo lardum usque ad medium canapi, vel citra, haec dices verba : " Alrawn du vil giiet, Mit trawrigem miiet Kuef ich dich an, Dastu meinen leidigen man Bringst darzue, Das er mir kein leid nimmer tue." ' Tertia igitur nocte cum mulier haec verba replicaret, vetula abscondita in canapo jacebat. prius autem informaverat praedictam mulierem, quod attentissime auscultaret quae sibi tertia nocte dicta Alrawn insinuaret. unde in haec verba sub voce rauca et valde aliena abscondita in canapo respondebat : " Fraw, du solt haim gan, Und solt giieten miiet han, Und solt leiden, meiden, sweigen (bear and forbear and hold thy peace) ; Thuest du das von alien deinen sinnen, So machtu wol ein giieten man gewinnen." et sic mulier illius vetulae verba imitabatur, et viri amari- tudo in dulcedinem et mansuetudinem vertebatur.— The same story in Paulli's Schimpf u. Ernst 1555 cap. 156 ; a similar in a MHG-. poem (Altd. wald. 3, 160—3) and a nursery-tale (KM. no. 128), where the man, not the wife, consults the hollow tree or spindletree in the garden (p. 652). The form of address ' Alrun, du vil guote ' reminds me of ' si vil guote,' said to fro Scelde when she cuts out and clothes, Walther 43, 7.

MANDEAKE, ALEAUN.

1203

(Pliny's in sublime tolli), washed with red wine, wrapt in silk red and white, laid in a casket, bathed every Friday, and clothed in a new little white smock every new-moon. When questioned, she reveals future and secret things touching welfare and increase, makes rich, removes all enemies, brings blessings upon wedlock, and every piece of coin put to her overnight is found doubled in the morning, but she must not be overloaded. When her owner dies, she goes to the youngest son, provided he puts a piece of bread and a coin in his father's coffin. If he dies before his father, the mandrake passes to the eldest son, who must in like manner with bread and money bury his brother. All these provisions sound ancient, and may date from a long way back. Our OHG. glosses have 'alruna' for the mandr agora occur- ring several times in the Vulgate,1 Gen. 30, 14 seq., where the Hebrew text reads dudaim; but the poetized version in MHG. translates it erd-ephil, Diut. 2, 79. Now the mandragoras (masc, Gr. fiavSpayopas) is thus described in Pliny 25, 13 [94] : e man- dragoram alii Circaeum vocant ; duo ejus genera, candidus qui et mas, niger qui femina existimatur . . . cavent effossuri (album) contrarium ventum, et tribus circulis ante gladio circumscribunt, postea fodiunt ad occasum spectantes.' I find more to my pur- pose this time in two lines of Columella 10, 19 :

quamvis semi-hominis vesano gramine foeta mandr agorae pariat nores, moestamque cicutam.

' Semi-human mandrake ' goes very well with our legend, and even ' vesanum gramen 3 may agree with it more closely than appears from the words. Hildegard also in Phys. 2, 102 says : ' mandragora de terra de qua Adam creatus est dilatata est, et propter similitudinem hominis suggestio diaboli huic plus quam aliis herbis insidiatur. et ideo, cum de terra effoditur, mox in salientem fontem per diem et noctem ponatur.' As the French mandagloire stands for mandragore, I conjectured (p. 402) that the fee Maglore may have sprung from Mandagloire ; if so, it offers an exact analogy to our Alruna the wise-woman and alruna the mandrake, and is not to be despised. I close with an AS. de- scription in Thorpe's Anal. p. 94, probably of the 10-1 1th cent., which confirms the dog's participation in the act of gathering :

1 As a fern. pi. mandragorae ; the LXX has ,107X0 fj.avdpayop<2v, earth-apples. VOL ur. x

1204

HEEBS AND STONES.

f j?eos wyrt, ]>e man mandragoram nemneS . . . ]?onne ]?u to hire cymst, ]?onne ongist j?u hi bi J?am (wilt know her by this) ]?e heo on nihte seined ealswa leoht-fset (as a lamp). honne j?uhire Aei/od serest geseo (first see her head), )?onne bewrit ]?u hi wel hra$e mid iserne, )?y lses heo be setfleo (lest she flee thee) . hire msegen (main, might) is swa micel and swa msere, Ipset heo un- clsenne man, honne he to hire cymeft, wel hraSe forfleon wile. forSy )?u hi bewrit, swa we 93r cwasdon, mid iserne, and swa )?u scealt onbutan hi delfan, swa )?u hire mid ]?am iserne na 8et-hrine (touch) : ac )?u geornlice scealt mid ylpenbsenenon (ivory) stsefe J?a eorban delfan, and honne ]?u hire handa and hire fet geseo, }>onne fomde* gewriS )?u hi (tie her to a dog), nim bonne )?one oSerne ende, and gewri^ to anes swiran (neck), swa baet se hund hungrig si, wurp (throw) him srSSan mete to foran, swa beet he hine ahrascan (reach) ne maage, buton he mid him b& wyrte up- abrede/ She shines by night like a lamp, has head, hands and feet, must be bewritten with iron lest she escape, is not to be touched with iron, but dug up with an ivory wand : several things betray a Latin origin (bewritan circums crib ere). It is to be fastened to the dog's neck instead of his tail ; conf . Belg. mus. 5, 114 [Josephus Wars 7, 6, 3 : root Baaras pulled up by dog]. Pliny ascribes a 'vim somnificam ' to mandragoras.

Seem. 194a speaks of a svefn-pom (sleep-thorn) with which OSinn pricks Brynhild, and she goes to sleep, as Dorn-roschen does in the nursery- tale from the prick of a spindle (p. 419). The thorn-rose has a meaning here, for we still call a mosslike excre- scence on the wild rosebush or the whitethorn schlaf-apfel and schlaf-kunz ; so that the very name of our sleeping beauty con- tains a reference to the myth. We also use the simple kuenz (Schm. 2, 314), which can hardly be Kunz the dimin. of Konrad, but is rather conn, with kiienzel, kiienzen (gathering under the chin). When placed under a sleeper's pillow, he cannot wake till it be removed 1 (see Suppl.) .

This ' sleep-apple ' is supposed to be produced by a wasp sting- ing the thorn ; equally rootless, the prophetic gall-nut on oaks

i Stinga svefnfiorn occurs in Fornald. sog. 1, 18-9. 3 303-6. In Tristan sleep is caused by a mere MlsseUn (cushion), Ulr 1672-93 ; < der zoubenere ^ssehn, Heinr. 4911. In a fairy-tale (Altd. bl. 1, 145) by writing and letters (i.e. runes) or by feathers off the wildshaggy folk (pp. 433. 486), whom fancy must have pictured as having wings or feathers.

SLEEP-THOEN. MISTLETOE.

1205

originates in such a puncture, Sup. I, 968 ; Ital. gallozza, Neap. gliantra, Pentam. 2, 1 : ' tre gliantre mascole.' Growths that could not be traced to seed and root, as probably that bird's nest on p. 973, seemed miraculous and endued with magic power : gall-nuts are hung on the kitchen roofbeam to protect the house.

The mistel (mistletoe) was accounted specially sacred, being supposed to have fallen from heaven on the boughs of magnificent trees like the oak and ash. OHG. mistil (not fern, mistila), Graff 2, 890; MHG. mistel, < jamers mistel/ Martina 161d. With a shoot of this plant the god Baldr was shot dead : when Frigg was exacting an oath from all other plants, this seemed to her too young : f vex vrSar teinungr einn fyrir austan Valholl, sa er Mis- tilteinn kallaftr, sa J?6tti mer ungr at krefja erSsins,' Sn. 64 ; and* the Voluspa sings of it thus, Saem. 6b :

stoft umvaxinn vollom haerri mior ok miok fagur Mistilteinn ;

grown high above the field stood the delicate fair mistle-shoot ; teinn is a branch shot up, Goth, tains, OHG. zein, and we may safely assume a Goth, mistilatains, OHG. mistilzein. Now in AS. we find it mistilta, which may easily be a corruption of mistiltdriy and the agreement of this with the Eddie mistilteinn would be welcome and weighty ; yet ( ta ' may be right after all, and is supported by the Engl, being mistletoe [but also misseldine] . In Sweden this evergreen parasite is said to be usually a foot or two feet long, but sometimes to reach the length of three ells (Geijer's Hafd. 1, 330). F. Magn. lex. 512 says, in Yestergotland it is called ve-spelt, holy spelt, triticum sacrum. A plant associated with the death of one of their greatest and best-beloved gods must have been supremely sacred to all of Teutonic blood ; and yet this opinion of its holiness was shared by Celtic nations. Pliny 16, 44 [95] assures us of the Celtic belief : 'Non est omit- tenda in ea re et Galliarum admiratio. Nihil habent druidae (ita suos appellant magos) visco, et arbore in qua gignatur (si modo sit robur), sacratius. Jam per se roborum eligunt lucos, nec ulla sacra sine ea fronde conficiunt, et inde appellati quo que interpre- tatione Graeca possint druidae videri. Enimvero quidquid adnas- catur illis, e coelo missum putant, signumque esse electae ab ipso deo arboris. Est autem id rarum admodum inventu, et repertum

1206

HERBS AND STONES.

magna religione petitur, et ante omnia sexta lana (quae principia mensium annorumque his facit) et seculi post tricesimum annum, quia jam virium abunde habeat nec sit sui dimidia. Omnia sanan- tem appellantes suo vocabulo, sacrificiis rite sub arbore praeparatis, duos admovent candidi coloris tauros, quorum cornua tunc primum vinciantur.1 Sacerdos Candida veste cultus arbor em scandit, falce aurea demetit, candido id excipitur sago. Turn deinde victimas im- molant, precantes ut suum donum deus prosperum faciat bis quibus dederit. Foecunditatem eo poto dari cuicunque animalium sterili arbitrantur, contra venena omnia esse remedio. Tanta gentium in rebus frivolis plerumque religio est/ This elegant description is preceded by other statements, of which I will select one here and there : 'Visci tria genera. Namquein abiete ac larice stelin dicit Euboea nasci, hyphear Arcadia, viscum autem in quercu, robore, pruno silvestri, terebintho, nec aliis arboribus adnasci, plerique. Copiosissimum in quercu, quod dryos hyphear . . . Adjiciunt discrimen, visco in his quae folia amittant et ipsi decidere, contra inhaerere nato in aeterna fronde.2 Omnino autem satum nullo modo nascitur, nec nisi per alvum avium redditum, maxime palumbis ac turdis : haec est natura, ut nisi maturatum in ventre avium non proveniat. Altitudo ejus non excedit cubitalem, semper frutectosi ac viridis. Mas fertilis, femina sterilis ; aliquando non fert.'_With us too a thrush is called mister, Schm. 2, 645 (MHG. mistel^re ?), Engl, mistlebird ; and in some other of our myths the conveyance of the seed by birds enhances the holiness of the virgin plant (p. 969) : there is no human hand at work, and the finger of God is manifest. Viscum is the Fr. gni, and to this day the veneration for the plant is preserved in the New-year's gratu- lation aguilanneuf (p. 755). In Wales they hang mistletoe over the doors at Christmas, and call it (says Davies) pren awyr, merry tree, pren uchelvar, tree of the high summit, pren pur aw, tree of pure gold ; the second name recalls the 1 vollum haerri ' of the Edda. But the usual names given for mistletoe are Wei. olhiach, Bret, ollyiach, Ir. uileiceach, Gael, uil&ice, i.e. all-healing

1 Steers never yoked' as yet, steeds never harnessed, KA. 547: a sacred use demands that everything be new.

5 Virg. Aen. 6, 205 : Quale solet silvis brumah fngore viscum

fronde virere nova, quod non sua seminat arbos, et croceo fetu teretes circumdare truncos ; talis erat species auri frondentis opaca ilice, sic leni crepitabat bractea vento.

MISTLETOE. VALEEIAN.

1207

[Pliny's omnia sanans], from c ol, uile/ universal (p. 1213). A Breton lay (Barzas breiz 1, 58. 100) makes Merlin at early morn go fetch the high branch on the oak (warhuel, huelvar ann der- wen) . Our old herbals divide mistletoes into those of the oak, hazel and peartree (eichen-mistel, heselin-m., birnbaumin-m.), and none of them must be let touch the ground ; some, set in silver, they hang round children's necks. In Prussian Samland it is called wispe (which looks like viscum, gui, but mistel itself is often confounded with mispel = medlar) ; it is common on birch, cherry and lime trees, on the hazel it is rare and wonderful. It grows in a straight line out of the trunk, and between its smooth evergreen willow-like leaves it bears berries silvery-white, like peas or small nuts. Where the hazel has a wispe, there is sure to be a treasure hidden (Reusch no. 10). Among Slavs I find the names Boh. melj, gmelj, omeli, Russ. omela, PoL iemiel ; Lith. amalai, Lett, ahmals ; but no legends (see Suppl.).

To viscum may be added two other druidical herbs. Pliny 24, 11 [62-3] : c Selago legitur sine ferro, dextra manu per tunicam, qua sinistra exuitur velut a fur ante, Candida veste vestifco pureque lotis nudis pedibus, sacro facto priusquam legatur pane vinoque; fertur in mappa nova: hanc contra omnem perniciem habendam prodidere druidae Gallorum. — Iidem Samolum her$am nominavere nascentem in humidis, et hanc sinistra manu legi a jejunis contra morbos suum boumque, nee respicere legentem, nec alibi quam in canali deponere, ibique conterere poturis/ The mode of gathering selago is peculiar : it is to be picked with the right hand, not bare, but covered with the tunic (conf. p. 971), then to be drawn out stealthily with the left. In Davies's Br. myth. 280 it is said to be the herb the Welsh call gras Duw (gratia Dei). Villemarque thinks it is the aowr geoten (aurea herba) of Breton songs 1, 58. 96, which you must pull up in the meadows before sunrise, barefoot and bareheaded ; it shines far off like gold. It is rarely to be found, and only by holy persons. Some take it for our barlapp (lycopodium) . Samolus is said to be anemone pulsatilla; Davies p. 274 gives its Welsh name as gwlydd.

Our baldrian is a corruption of Valeriana, and has nothing to do with Baldr, after whom a very different herb, the anthemis cotula, was named Baldrs bra (brow), Sw. Baldersbra, abbrev.

1208

HEEBS AND STONES.

Barbro. But the valerian has a mythical name too, Yelands-urt, Wayland's wort (p. 377), and its healing virtues are in high repute. The Servians call it odolidn (from odolieti to overpower), Boh. odolen; and among the Servian ' Vilinen piesme' (songs taught by the vila herself) is a saw (Vuk, new ed. 1, 149) : fDa zna zhenska glava, Shto zh> odolian trava, Svagda bi ga brala, U pas ushivala, I za se nosila 9 ; if woman but knew what is herb odolian, she would always get it, in her girdle sew it, and about her wear it. The vila warns us not to neglect this precious herb (see Suppl.).

Henbane (bilsen-Tcraut) , OHG. pilisa, bellsa (hyos-cyamos), see pp. 593. 1198, and Suppl.

Sowthistle (eberwurz, boarwort), OHG. epurwurz, the carlina acaulis, Carls-distel ; growing on hills, close to the ground with- out a stalk, with silver- white unfading leaves. During a pestilence, Charles the &reat had gone to sleep laden with care, when an angel appeared to him in a dream, and bade him shoot an arrow in the air : whatever herb it lighted upon was sovereign against the plague. Charles in the morning shot the arrow, and its point stuck in a sowthistle : they used it for medicine, and the plague disappeared. He that carries this plant about him, let him run ever so long, will never tire ; and he can take all the strength out of a companion that walks with him, hence they used to tie some to their horses in a race ; when the same was done unperceived to one of a married couple, the other was sure to waste away and die. Sowthistle was also nailed inside the swine-trough, that the pigs might eat over it, whence its name is supposed to have come (W. Menzel's Literaturbl. 1844. pp. 9. 10). The name 'eberwurz' probably rests on other grounds, but 1 carlina 3 seems to be formed on the legend. King Charles often had things told him by angels in dreams, and bad dreams come of fighting with boars ; the herb may have healed the gash inflicted by the tusk of a boar (see Suppl.).

Betonica. Pliny 25, 46 : ' Yettones in Hispania earn quae Vettonica dicitur in Gallia, in Italia autem serratula, a Graecis cestros aut psycho-morphon [-trophon?], ante cunctas laudatis- sima. Exit anguloso caule, cubitorum duum, a radice spargens folia fere lapathi, serrata, semine purpureo . . . tantum gloriae habet, ut domus in qua sata sit tuta existimetur a piaculis omnibus

SOWTHISTLE. BETONY. MADKLGEB. FEBN. 1209

. . . Morsibus imponitur vettonica, cui vis tanta perhibetur, ut inclusae circulo ejus serpentes ipsae sese interimant flagellando.' Fr. betoine, MHGr. batonie : ' altiu wip grabent patSni/ MsH. 3, 193b. fs6 gent eteliche mit boesen batanien umb/ Berth. 58. 'ettlich kundent patoniken graben/ Superst. G, 1. 41. 'die ler ich batonien graben/ Aw. 2, 56. An Italian proverb recom- mends the purchase of betony at any price : 'venda la tonica, e compra la bettonica.' A description in Martina 27a (Diut. 2, 129), ' diu gelwe batenie hoi/ seems to contradict the aforesaid purple (of the seed only ?) . In Switzerland badonihli is our fluhblume, cowslip, and herdsmen bring it home for their sweethearts off the Alp, Staid. 1, 124. 386. Apparently several kinds are to be distinguished : Pol. bukwica, Boh. brkwice, is by turns betonica, plantago and primula. The Anglo-Saxons called betonica biscop- wyrt, from which its sacredness may be inferred (see Suppl.).

Madalger stands in OHGr. glosses for basilicum, in herbals for senecio as well. The proverb ran, ( Modelgeer ist aller wurzel ein eer.' In the Westerrich, when a disease breaks out among swine, they chop some of this root in with the pigs' wash, muttering a short prayer : it keeps the schelm from attacking them. As Heime's father in our heroic legend is called Madelger (p. 387), likewise a mermaid's son who puts on a cloak of dark- ness (Morolt 40- 1); a mythic significance in the plant's name becomes credible (see Suppl.).

In the same way I connect Mangold, lapathum, beet, with that ancient name of the giant-maiden who could grind gold (p. 531).

OHG. faram filix, MHGr. varm, vam, AS. fearn, 'Engl.fern. Pliny 27, 9 [55] tells nothing mythical of the filix. Hildegard's Phys. 2, 91 : ' in loco illo ubi crescit, diabolus illusiones suas raro exercet ; et domum et locum in quo est, diabolus evitat et abhorret, et fulgura et tonitrua et grando ibi raro cadunt.' A Herbal says : ' farnkraut is hard to destroy, without ye stub it up on the day of John's beheading, then doth fam perish. It seems to bear neither flower nor seed ; he that will gather fern- seed must be bold and able to daunt the devil. He shall go after it on St John's night before daybreak, light a fire, and spread cloths or broad leaves under the same, so may he take and keep of the seed.' Many fasten fresh fern over the house-door, then all goes well as far as the whip on the waggon reaches (about five

1210

HE BBS AND STONES.

paces), Sup. I, 988. In Kedeker's Westf. sagen no. 46 we find some details : Fernseed makes one invisible, but is difficult to get at : it ripens only between 12 and 1 on Midsummer night, and then falls off directly, and is gone. A man, who on that night happened to be looking for a lost foal, passed through a field where fernseed was ripening, and some fell in his shoes (like the flax-pods, p. 962). Coming home in the morning, he walked into the house, and sat down : he thought it strange that his wife and family took no notice of him. . ' Well/ says he, ' I have not found the foal/ All those in the room looked startled : they heard the man's voice, but nothing of him could they see. The wife began calling him by name, so he came and stood in the middle of the room, and said, f What are you shouting for, when here I stand before you ? ' The terror was now greater than before ; till the man, feeling something hurt his feet, as if shingle had got in his shoes, pulled them off and shook them out ; and there he stood visible to every eye. This is the wiinschel-sdmen des varmen (p. 974). Conrad of Wiirzburg in a song, MsH. 3, 453a :

Het ich sdmen von dem varn, den wiirfe ich dar den scheiden,

daz si 'n versliinden, e min dienest von ir solde scheiden.

'scheiden ' are large fish, shad, siluri, and often used punningly (Schm. 3, 324. Hofer 3, 65). Had I seed of the fern, says the lover, I would fling it to yon shadfish to devour, ere my service should fall away from her ; apparently the seed might have made his fortune elsewhere, but he gives ifc up to keep faith with her : there is no reference to invisibility. In Thiers the fougere (filix) ' cueillie la veille de la St Jean justement a midi ' is said to bring luck in play to him that wears it.

In the Thiiringer-wald fern is called irr -kraut (stray herb), and by some atter-kreutich (adder- herb) : if you step over it without seeing it, it so bothers and bewilders you, that you no longer know your whereabouts even in the most familiar parts of the forest. To prevent or correct your straying, you must sit down and put your shoes on the wrong feet, or if a woman, untie your apron and turn it wrong side out ; immediately you know your way again (Haupt's Zeitschr. 3, 364. Bechstein's Franken

FEKN. MUGrWOKT.

1211

pp. 269. 286.) No doubt the puzzle-seed had got into the shoe or cincture, and fell out when these were taken off. It is said also, if you have adder-herb about you, you will be pursued by adders till you have thrown it away. In some parts they call it Walbiirgis -kraut. Its Slavic name is Russ. pdporot, Pol. paproe, 0. Boh. paprutj now papradj, kapradj, Sloven, praprat, praprot
Lith. papartis, Lett, papardi. Woycicki 1, 94 also says it blossoms exactly at midnight of St John's eve, and it is a hard matter to get hold of the flower (kwiat paproci), for the picking is attended by storm and thunder; but whoever gets possession of it becomes rich, and can prophesy (see SuppL).

OHG. pipoz, artemisia (Graff 3, 22, but misplaced and mis- spelt), MHG. bibdz (rhy. groz), Ls. 2, 526; its corruption into our meaningless beifuss, Nethl. bivoet, is as early as Gl. Jun. 406 bifuz. The word seems pure German, formed from pozan cudere, like anapoz incus, anvil, MHG. aneboz, our amboss; and we ought to pronounce and spell it beiboss. The meaning must be something like that of beischlag (by-blow), which in the Logau. district means a bastard. In OS. it would be bibot, which resembles its Lett, name bihbotes. Our LG. buk, bucke seems an abbrev. dimin. of endearment (but-ke) ; 1 Dan. bynke, but Sw. grabo, gray nest. Whoso hath beif ass in the house, him the devil may not harm ; hangs the root over the door, the house is safe from all things evil and uncanny. On St John's day they gird themselves with beifuss, then throw it in the fire, while spells and rhymes are said (p. 618) ; hence the names Johannis- giirfel, sonnenwend-gurtel, gilrtel-kraut , Fr. herbe' de S. Jean. They dig the root up solemnly, twine it into wreaths, hang it about them, and each flings it into the flame along with any griefs he may chance to have about him. He that has beifuss on him wearies not on his way (Megenberg 385, 16) : this is imitated from Pliny 26, 89 : ' artemisiam alligatam qui habet viator negatur lassitudinem sentire ; ' also the 'Epfinvelau iraXaiai (ed. Sillig p. 212):

top Kdfxarov. The AS. name is mucgwyrt3 Engl, mugwort, muggon : ' wr8 miclum gonge ofer land, J?ylges he teorige, mucg- wyrt nime him on hand^oftfte do on his sco J?ylaes he medige; and

J Or is it related to Finn, puyo, Esth. poio, puiyo ?

1212

HEEBS AND STONES.

J?onne he niman wille asr sunnan upgange, cwe$e )?as word asrest : tollam te, artemisia, ne lassus sim in via. gesegna hie, )?onne ]?u upteo.' R. Chambers p. 34 gives some Scotch stories of its healing power. A girl in Galloway was near dying of consump- tion, and all had despaired of her recovery, when a mermaid, who often gave the people good counsel, sang :

Wad ye let the bonnie may die i' your hand, And the mug wort flowering in the land ! They immediately plucked the herb, gave her the juice of it, and she was restored to health. Another maiden had died of the same disease, and her body was being carried past the port of Glasgow, when the mermaid raised her head above the water, and in slow accents cried :

If they wad drink nettles in March,

And eat muggons in May, Sae mony braw maidens Wad na gang to the clay. Why should not the Goths already have possessed a bibauts too ? That they had significant names of their own for herbs and shrubs, is plain from Ulphilas's translations of the Greek term by a native one : /3aT09, rubus, becomes aihvatundi, Mk 12, 26. Luke 6, 44. 20, 37, which apparently contains aihvus equus, tundi fomes (tinder, OHG. zuntara) ; avfcdfjuvos b&inabagms, Luke 1 7, 6, i.e. bone-tree, and to this day we call privet (hartriegel, OHG. hartrugil, harttrugil ? Graff 5, 501) bonewood. The rea- sons of the names are lost to us now (see Suppl.).

Eederich is not an old German word, being formed from the Latin hedera, only instead of ivy it means ground-ivy, Linne's glechoma hederacea, a weed with small blue flowers. Its native name is gunde-rebe, gundel-rebe, donner-rebe, gunder-mann, OHG. gunder-reba, ' acer ' (Graff 2, 354), which cannot mean maple, for it is always classed among herbs. It was reckoned sanative, and a safeguard against sorcery; when cows are first driven out to pasture, they are milked through a wreath of gundermann, and whoever wears this on his head can tell who are witches, Sup. I, 462-3. Ound points to the ancient valkyr (p. 422) ; don- ner to the flower's blue colour, and to the Thunder-god. The Lettons too have named it pehrhones from the god Pehrkon.

GEOUND-IVY. DEVIL' S-BIT. GOOD HENKY.

1213

The Boh. ohnica (from ohen, fire) stands for the yellow hederich (hedge- mustard ? ) that overspreads whole fields : if you call out ' hederich 3 to peasant women weeding it, they scold you (see Suppl.).

One kind of scabiosa is named succisa, or morsus diaboli, Teu- fels-biss or -abbiss, Engl, devil's bit, Dan. diavels bid, Boh. cert- kus, certuw kus, Kuss. diavolskoye ukushenie [and cherto-gryz, chertov ogr^zok] ; but also Russ. chertov palets, devil's thumb, Pol. czartowe zebro, devil's rib. The root is stumpy at the end, as if bitten off. Oribasius says, the devil was doing such mis- chief with this herb, that the Mother of God took pity, and deprived him of the power; he out of spite bit the end of the root off, and it grows so to this day. The man that has it about him, neither devil nor hag has power to hurt. Some say the devil bit it off because he grudged men the use of its healing power. If dug up at midnight of St John's eve, the roots are yet unbitten, and chase the devil away. Thrown under the table, it makes the guests fall out and fight (see Suppl.).

Some herbs are called by men's names. Bertram, though found even in OHG. as Perhtram (Graff 3, 349), MHG. BerchU ram, Ls. 2, 526, is merely pyrethrum altered to give it a German sound. What seems more remarkable is e herba boni Henrioi 3 (chenopodium), or simply bonus Henricus, gut Heinrich ; stoh Heinrich, proud H. (atriplex) ; roth Heinrich, red H., Superst. I, 1 002. I account for it by the old beliefs in elves and kobolds, for whom Heinz or Heinrich was a favourite name (pp. 503-4), which was afterwards transferred to devils and witches, and to such demonic beings was ascribed the healing virtue of the herb. Even the legend of Poor Henry, whose origin has never been explored, may have to do with a herb that cured leprosy ; and the ' herba boni Henrici ' is said to have been used as a remedy for that very disease.

When a universal power to heal all sicknesses was attributed to a herb, the Greeks called it to iravaices, r\ iravaKeia (as the Celts named the mistletoe olhiach, uileiceach), which got person- ified itself into a daughter of Asklepios, UavaKGia. In our lan- guage we find no plant named all-heil, all-heila, but there is a selp-heila (euphrasia), Graff 4, 864, and the herbs heiUaller-welt (Achillea, millefolium), heil-aller-schaden (supercilium Veneris), as

1214

HE BBS AND STONES.

well as aller-mann-harnisch and neun-manns-hraft, 9 man power. The significance of the number nine shews itself no less in gar- lands being made of nine sorts of flowers. Heil-houbito, heal- head, Graff 4, 759, is hermodactylus, whatever that may be, and another name for it is hunt-louch, dog-leek 2, 143 (see Suppl.).

Two herbs commonly coupled together by alliteration are doste and dordnt (origanum, antirrhinum). OHG. dosto (Graff 5, 232) is our real native word for what we now call wilde majoran, thymian (marjoram, thyme), or wolgemut (well of mood), Boh. dobrd-mysl. For dorant we have sometimes or ant ; some think it is not antirrhinum, but marrubium, OHG. Got-fargezzan. Both herbs are shunned by the little-wights and nixes; hence the speeches put in their mouths : ' If ye hadn't dordnt and dosten here, I'd help ye the sooner to sip that beer ' ' Up with your skirts, ye merrimen all, Lest into dost and dordnd ye fall ! ' f See that ye bump not against durdnt, Or we sha'n't get back to our fatherland.' DS. no. 65. Jul. Schmidt p. 132. Bedeker no. 45 (see Suppl.).

Along with doste, hart-heu (hypericum, St John's wort), other- wise called hart-hun (p. 1029n.), will often scare spirits away: f Marjoram, John's wort, heather white, Put the fiend in a proper fright.' Hypericum perforatum, fug a daemonum, devil's flight (see Suppl.).

Widertdn (adiantum), formed with the past part, of tuon, to do, afterwards corrupted into widerthon, widertod : the genuine form is retained by G. Frank (Schm. 4, 34). The Herbal says : Therewith be many pranks played, this we let be as foolery and devilry. 'Tis called maidenhair also, and is of fair golden hue. The old wives have many a fancy touching herbs, and say the red steinbrechlin (saxifraga) with small lentil leaves is indeed abthon, but the naked maidenhair is widerthon, and with these two they can both f abthon ' and ' widerthon ' as it please them. Does this mean, remove and restore virility ? in that case abet an and widertdn would be opposites, like ' set on' and 'take off' on p. 1074. Frisch 1, 5b has abthon trichomanes, polytrichon, and 2, 446b widerthon lunaria, thora salutifera (see Suppl.).

Some herbs, plantago and proserpinaca, take their names from growing on the wayside (proserpere) and being exposed to the tread (plantae) of passengers : OHG. wegarih (Graff 1, 670), our

DOSTB. WAYBKEAD. LEEK.

1215

wegerich ; OHG. wegapreita, our wegebreit, AS. wegbrcede, Engl. waybrede [broad, not ' bread'], Dan. veibred ; OHG. ivegaspreiti, -spreading (Graff 6, 395). Again, OHG. wegatreta, umbitreta (Graff 5, 552), our wegetritt ; OHG. wegawarta, our wegewarte (ward, watch, wait), a name also given to cichorium, succory. There are some myths about it : the herb was once a maiden that on the wayside awaited her lover (p. 828), like Sigune in Tit. 117-8. Paracelsus observes (Opp. 1616. 2, 304), that the flowers of the wegwarte turn to the sun, and their strength is greatest in sunshine, but after seven years the root changes into the form of a bird (see Suppl.).

Lauch, OHG. louh, AS. leac (leek), ON. laukr, is a general designation of juicy herbs ,* some species appear to have been sacred : e allium (gar-leek) caepasque inter deos in jurejurando habet Aegyptus/ Pliny 19, 6 [32]. When Helgi was born, and his father Sigmundr returned from the battle, it is said in Seem. 150a :

sialfr geek visi or vigrymo ungom foera itrlauk grami.

In Vols, saga cap. 8 : ' Sigmundr var ]?a kominn fra orrostu, ok gekk mecf einum lauh imot syni sinum, ok herme^S gefr hann honum Helga nafn.' The Ur -laukr is allium praestans, allium victoriale : it is not clear whether the king bore it as home- returning victor, or whether it was usual to wear it in giving names. Antiquity sheds no light on either custom.1 When the drinking-cup was blessed, a leek was thrown into it, Sasm. 195b (see Suppl.).

The sorbus or service-tree is in ON. reynir, Sw. rbnn, Dan. ronne (rowan ?) : it is a holy shrub, for Thorr in the river clutched it to save himself, hence it is said : ' reynir er biorg Thors/ sorbus auxilium Thori est, Sn. 114. In Sweden they still believe that a staff of this ronn defends you from sorcery, and on board ship the common man likes to have something made of ronn- wood, as a protection against storms and watersprites ; flogronn is of use in occult science, Afzel. 1, 19 (see Suppl.).

In Servian, samdokaz and okolochejp are herbs which, put in a love-potion, compel the lover to come to his mistress. Ustuk is

1 The Welsh associate their national leek with victory. — Trans.

1216 HEEBS AND STONES.

both a herb and the charm repeated by a sorceress to make a disease depart (ustuknuti), Vuk sub vv.

The Pol. trojziele (three-herb) is a marvellous plant with blue leaves and red flowers : it inspires love, makes you forget, and transports you whither you please 1 (see Suppl.).

In the poem of Elegast 763 seq. there occurs a nameless herb, which one need only put in the mouth to understand what the cocks crow and the dogs bark. Yillemarque says, whoever acci- dentally steps on the golden herb (p. 1207), falls asleep directly, and understands the speech of dogs, wolves and birds. In another case the knowledge of birds' language comes of eating a white snake (p. 982), in the Edda by eating of the dragon's heart. A fairytale makes some one be three years learning what it is that the dogs bark, the birds sing, and the frogs croak 2 (see Suppl.).

2. Stones.

Stones are far less mythical than herbs, though among them also the noble are distinguished from the base. Stones neither grow so livingly, nor are they so accessible, as plants : whilst any shepherd or traveller can approach the flower in field or wood, precious stones are not produced on the surface of our soil, they are wrung from the bowels of the earth, and imported from dis- tant lands. There was a meaning therefore in calling herb-lore heathen, and stone-lore Jewish (p. 1190) : Jewish and Moorish merchants fetched the gem from the far East. The miraculous and medicinal power of precious stones was known early in the Mid. Ages, but never was naturalized amongst us, hence also the

1 Volkslieder der Polen, coll. by W. P., Leipzig 1833, p. 90.

2 AS herb-names, when once critically edited from the MSS., promise rich gleanings' for mythology, of which I have given several specimens. I will here add t few obscure names : dweorges dwostle, dwosle, dwysle (pulegium, pennyroyal), was quoted p. 448, and if conn, with ON. ' dustl,' levis opera, perh. quisquihae, and < dustla ' everrere, it is dwarf's sweepings ; collan-crog is achillea or nymphaea, and as ' collen-ferhS ' in the poems is proud-hearted, so proud crocus (OHG. kruogo) or crock, pitcher, whichever we take cr6g to mean ; ‹zlf-J›one, OHG. alb-dono, our alp- ranke (bittersweet?) ; wulfes comb, chamaelea ; foxes gWfa, buglossa, OHG. hrmdes- zunga, ox-tongue [or, digitalis?] ; hind-hele&e, paeoma, Engl, hind hele, appar. 'cervam celans, defendens,' conf. 'heletfe, heolatf ' (it is spelt both ways) with heolotf-helm p. 463, and beah-heolo$e quoted by Lye ; cneow-holen now mscus, now victoriale, i.e. herba victorialis, idaea daphne, Engl. kneehoUy, kneeholm ; hw&tend, iris illyrica, suggestive of 'hwatunga/ omina auguna ; geormen -U af, eormen-ledf, geor man-leaf a, hoc-leafa (Haupt's Zeitschr. 9 408), : malva would m OHG. be irman-loup (p. 351-2). The OHG. names m Graff 1, 1050-1. 3, 863—72 are less interesting, and less perfectly preserved (see Suppl.).

stones: oephan.

1217

very few Teutonic names for them, or legends about them : a fact which goes to confirm the home character of our plant- myths. The widely circulated works of Marbod, Evax, Albertus Magnus and others on precious stones have left as little of last- ing legend among the people as Walahfried or Macer Floridus, who in the dry learned fashion of physicians treat of herbs. Even Pliny's account in his 36th book seems to have had no effect at all on our superstitions.1

Yet a few time-honoured myths there are. The Edda names a holy iarKna-stdnn, Sa3m. 137b. 139a. 213 a. 238d, which in the Cauldron-raid was thrown into the hot water, and which the cunning smith Volundr could manufacture out of children's eyes. The AS. eorcan-sidn glosses both 'margarita' and 'topazion'; in Cod. Exon. 73, 27. 238, 12. 478, 7 it has the general sense of precious-stone (eorcnan-stan is appar. a corruption). A cor- responding Goth, airhna-stdins, OHG. erchan-stein may safely be assumed, as fairknis' actually means genuine, holy, and 'erchan' survives in similar compounds (Graff 1, 468). But it seems to be the oval milk-white opal, otherwise called orphanus, pupillus, MHG. weise (orphan), and so precious that it graced the crown royal of Germany. Albertus M. says : ' Orphanus est lapis qui in corona Romani imperatoris est, neque unquam alibi visus est, propter quod etiam orphanus vocatur. Est autem colore vinosus, subtilem habens vinositatem, et hoc est sicut si candidum nivis candens seu micans penetraverit in rubeum clarum vinosum, et sit superatum ab ipso. Est autem lapis perlucidus, et traditur quod aliquando fulsit in nocte, sed nunc tempore nostro non micat in tenebris. Fertur autem quod honorem servat regalem.' If the OHG. weiso had already had the sense of the stone, it would hardly fail to appear in the glosses. We find it in full play in the MHG. poets, ever since the tale was told of how in distant land Duke Ernst with his sword cut it out of the living rock, and presented it as a gift to the king (11. 3604 — 23 and 5543 of the Lay, and in Odo's Latin poem 6, 357). ( Philippe setzen weisen uf ! 9 Walth. 9, 15. 1 schouwe wem der weise ob sime nacke ste, der stein ist aller fiirsten leitesterne/ Walth. 19, 3 ; conf.

1 Look at the lifeless inventories in Parz. 791 and Fragm. 45c. More inter- esting is a poem by Strieker (in Halm 44 — 52) ; and Eracliuswas deep in stone-lore, Massm. pp. 468 — 73. •

1218

HERBS AND STONES.

Helbl. 2, 881. ' der kunec also den weisen hat/ Ms. 1, 15a. ' wie si durch den berc har wieder kamen, da sie der krone weisen inne namen/ Ms. 2, 138a. 'den weisen ie vil hohe wac (prized) der keiser und daz riche, dur daz (because) nie sin geliche wart unter manigem steine/ Troj. 20. fich stich im abe den weisen/ Otto bart. 314; see also passages in Heinr. von Krolewiz V. U., coll. in Lisch p. 208. Albert and Conrad account for the name, by the stone having no equal, and standing like an orphan cut off from kin ; so the gloss on Sspgl 3, 60. The Spanish crown once had a magnificent pearl, which was likewise named huerfana or sola, and perished at the burning of the palace in 1734. A diamond mounted by itself is in French solitaire. But a deeper, a mythical meaning becomes apparent, which Haupt in his Zeitschr. 7, 278 disputes. Pupillus means first a little one, a boy under age, a ward, and then acquires the sense of orphan. Pu- pilla and Kopv signify a girl and the pupil of the eye, in which a child's, image is supposed to be seen (p. 1080). Now as Volundr fashions the iarknasteinn of the eyes of slain children, the stone might be called either pupilla or pupillus, and so agree with our f orphanus/ thus erchanstein comes to be ' weise/ Of Thiassi's eyes were made shining stars, all stars are gems of the sky ; from this the transition to the sparkling stone was easy enough. Heinr. von Krolewiz, describing the sky as a house, again brings the eyes into connexion with the orphan, 11. 1194. 1203-16 (see Suppl.).

The pearl, already in dreams a prognostic of the tear, is made in the myth to spring out of Venus's tear, as FreyjVs tears turned into drops of gold (p. 1194)1 ; and Wainamoinen's tears fall into the sea as pearls, Kalew. rune 22. The pearl then is either metal or stone. Our ancestors regarded it as a stone found in the sea, hence eorcanstan too may have meant pearl, and even the Latin name unio approaches that notion of the incomparable orphan : 1 in tantum ut nulli duo reperiantur indiscreti, unde nomen unionum Eomanae imposuere deliciae/ Pliny 9, 35 [56] . ' ideo

1 Not only does Freyja's tear turn into gold, but a Greek myth makes rfkenrpov arise from the tears of Phaethon's sisters, daughters of the Sun, be that substance gold or amber, succinum. For amber, Tacitus and Pliny already know a German word glesum, Gramm. 1, 58 ; an ON. name is rafr, Sn. 156, Sw. raf, Dan. rav ; AS. glosses have eolhsand (in Mone 1106 eolcfang) ; conf. Werlauff's learned treatise on amber (bernstein), Schlesw. 1840 (see Suppl.).

PEAEL.

1219

uniones dictos quia nunquam duo simul reperiantur/ Isid. or. 16, 10. Pliny goes on : f nam id (nomem unionum) apud Graecos non est, ne apud barbaros quidem inventores ejus aliud quam mar y aritae. 3 If margarita, /mapyaplrT]^ was the word commonly used by barbarian pearl-fishers, the Greeks and Romans may have this time borrowed a word from Teutonic races, in whose lan- guage the OHG. marigreoz, MHG. mergriez, OS. merigriota, AS. meregreot, meregrot is perfectly intelligible, meaning grit or pebble of the sea. It is true we now find the Goth, markreitus, 1 Tim. 2, 9, imitated from /uLapyaplrr]^, and that with consonant-change ; and to correspond to this the OHG. should have been marchriz. Either OHG., OS. and AS. all strove to accommodate the foreign word to our idiom (which usually happens in one dialect, not in three at once), or the Goth had no 'marigriuts' in his own language, or did not choose to write it, and so imitated the outlandish term, which is now stowed away in our female name Gret-chen. The OHG. perala, berala, AS. pearl, is appar. from beryllus, and again transfers the notion of gemmula to the growth in the shellfish. We might also put by the side of mar- garita the Skr. marakata, though that signifies, and is directly allied to, cr/ndpaySo^, /jidpayho^ (emerald).

As erchanstein sprang out of the human eye, and the pearl out of the oyster, the medieval fancy seems to have been excited by some other precious stones which grew in or out of animals. What Marbod cap. 24 tells of the lyncurius may be read at greater length in Rudlieb 3, 101—127 : these brilliant lynx-stones likewise befit the finger- ring of the queen, the crown of the king. Some legends speak of stones of power engendered in the head of the cock, the adder, the toad. Inside the body of a castrated cock of three years grows the alectorius, Marbod cap. 3 : f Invic- tum reddit lapis hie quemcunque gerentem, Extinguitque sitim patientis in ore receptus/ The MHG. poem fixes the capon's age at seven, Albertus at nine years. But a poem in the Vienna Cod. 428 no. 136 (Hahn's Strieker p. 48) names the snake-stone as the right one to bestow victory : ich hoere von den steinen sagen,

die natem und kroten tragen (adders and toads bear), daz groze tugend dar an lige (great virtue therein lies), swer si habe, der gesige (who has them, conquers) ;

VOL. III. y

1220 HEEBS AND STONES.

mohten daz sigesteine wesen (if these be victory- stones) , so solt ein wurm vil wol genesen, der's in sinem libe triiege, daz in nieman ersliiege (the reptile itself ought to live long, and never get killed) ; and the cock-stone as that which allays thirst : man sagt von hanensteinen, swer ir in munt nem' einen, daz er guot viir den durst im si. The sacred snake, the adder, who wears crowns of gold (p. 686) and jewels (Gesta Rom. ed. Keller pp. 68. 152), seems to have a better right to the stone of victory than the cock. Albertus mentions a stone borax, which the toad wears on its head, but he says nothing about its procuring victory : < borax lapis est qui ita dicitur a bufone, quod in capite ipsum portat/ Otnit, Mone 557-8. In Ettm. p. 91 the toad is characterized as Hebrew : ez ist uz dem garten ein Abrahemsche krot (conf. p. 1241), swenne diu gewehset, sie bringet einen stein daz diu sunne M erden niht bezzers iiberschein.

The Dresden poem says more explicitly, that the stone grows on him, and is of all stones the highest. The Pentameron 4, 1 says, the preta de lo gallo grows in the cock's head, and is a wishmg-stone, by which you can obtain anything. The Oriental fable of the three lessons taught by the captive bird (Remn. cclxxxi Ls. 2, 655) alludes to such a stone growing m the heart or crop of a lark or nightingale. The daughter of Signer gnkr steals the stone of victory out of his pocket while he sleeps and gives it to Dietleib (Vilk. s. cap. 96-7) ; such a one had king Nidung too (cap. 25), but neither passage specifies the kind oi stone Yintler (Sup. G, 1. 89) does not describe his sigelstem, but we find elsewhere that it could artificially, and in secret, be blown like glass, cast like metal; Seifr. Helbl. 4, 124 says of conspirators : < ze samen si do sazen, sam (as if) sie einen sigstem bliesen'; and Mich. Behaim 22, 11: 'gar taugenlichen vor dem rat zusamen giengen fru und spat, pis sy gussen am sigelstam. Acc. to Hagen's Coiner chron. 1003 the stone wherewith to con- quer means the diamond. When the poets tell of fingerrmgs

THUNDER-STONE .

1221

that lend victory, that make invisible (e.g. Troj. 9198), their power always comes of the stone set in them. Marbod cap. 27 on gagathromeus : ' Quern qui gestarit dux pugnaturus in hostem, Hostem depulsum terraque marique fugabit' (see SuppL).

The ceraunius (fcepavviasi) that falls from heaven is mentioned hj Marbod cap. 28: ' Qui caste gerit hunc, a fulmine non ferietur, Nec domus aut villae quibus affuerit lapis ille/ What he adds : f Crystallo similem Germania mittere fertur, Coeruleo tamea in- fectum rutiloque colore ' is derived from Pliny 37, 9, 51 : ' est inter Candidas et quae ceraunia vocatur, fulgorem siderum rapiens, ipsa crystallina, splendoris coerulei, in Germania nascens/ though the received text has Carmania. There can be no question about the thunderstone being German (p. 179); and Miolnir 3 like the hein (p. 903 n.) that Oftinn hurled, or that which lodged in Thor's head (p. 375), is sure to have been hallowed above all stones. Miolnir sounds remarkably like the Slavic names for light- ning, molniya, munya; this last the Servian songs personify into Munya, and represent as sister to Thunder (Grom), and bride of the Moon (Miesets, masc, Vuk 1, 151-4 new ed.), which jumps with our personification of Hammer (p. 181. 999). So much the more is Molniya identical with Miolnir. The Eomans too must have regarded the thunderbolt, silex, as a ' Jovis lapis ' : Lapidem silicem tenebant juraturi per Jovem, haec verba dicentes, 'Si sciens fallo, turn me Dispiter, salva urbe arceque, bonis ejiciat, ut ego hunc lapidem ! ' Those about to take an oath fetched out of the temple of Juppiter Feretrius a staff and ' lapidem silicem quo foedus ferirent/ exactly as covenants were hallowed by Thor's hammer. Acc. to Livy 1, 24, when a swine was sacrificed, it was struck with this stone : ' Tu illo die, Jupiter, populum Eomanum sic ferito, ut ego hunc porcum hie hodie feriam, tantoque magis ferito, quanto magis potes pollesque ' : id ubi dixit, porcum saxo silice percussit. This is like our malediction, 'Hammer strike thee ! 3 The Finns in like manner called the thunderbolt Ukon- Mvi, stone of Ukko the progenitor ; the Indians Mr a, Mr aha, Indra's thunderstone (Pott's Etym. for. 2, 421) or vajra, which means at once thunderbolt and diamond. As this makes it par- take the nature of the brightest of stones, our fathers saw in it the hard flint, the Eomans the silex ; myth and superstition alike accord to it the noblest powers : ' malleum aut silicem aerium,

1222

HERBS AND STONES.

ubi puerpera decumbit, obvolvunt candido linteo contra infesta- tionem fearum, albarum feminarum, strygum, lamiarum/ Gisb. Yoetii sel. disput. theol., Ultraj. 1651. 3, 121 (see Suppl.).

As there is supposed to be a philosopher's stone (lapis sapien- tum), that imparts wisdom, or the art of making gold and pro- longing life (oska-steinn, wishing-stone, p. 144), Scandinavia also had its legend of the Uf-steinn. In Kormakssaga cap. 12, p. 116-8 Bersi wears one on his neck, which brings him succour in swimming (see Suppl.).

Only large stones, such as mountains and rocks, are named after gods, heroes or giants, who dwell upon them, or have hurled them ; rarely particular species of stone, at all events no healing ones. A certain slate indeed was called giant's bread, jyvrikling (p. 546), a tufa nackebrod (p. 489), a coal-stone Sur- tarbrandr (p. 809).

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

SPELLS AND CHARMS.

A yet stronger power than that of herb or stone lies in the spoken word, and all nations nse it both for blessing and cursing.1 Bat these, to be effective, must be choice, well knit, rhythmic words (verba concepta), must have lilt and tune; hence all that is strong in the speech wielded by priest, physician, magician, is allied to the forms of poetry.

Expressions for ' saying, singing 9 pass into the sense of ' conjuring 3 : aoiSrj (p. 899) becomes eiraoihrj, Od. 19, 457, iircpSrj, our f sprechen, singen 3 become besprechen, besingen, schworen (Goth, svaran = respondere) beschwdren (Goth, bisvaran 6p/cl£eiv) ; so jurare conjurare, cantare incantare. The OHG. galstar, AS. galdor, gealdor, ON. galdr (incantatio) have sprung out of galan = canere ; the AS. spell, strictly dictum, fabula, Goth, spill, was tortured into meaning magic spell [and charm, Fr. charme is from carmen].

Opposed to blessing is cursing, to the wholesome the hurtful. For the former the Goth still nsed his native word Jnupeins €v\o<yia, from ]?ru)?jan evXoyelv; the OHG. segan dicatio, dedicatio, benedictio, comes from Lat. signum, the AS. segen meant merely signum in the sense of flag ; MHG. segen, like our own, stands for magic as well. Ka/coXoyelv is in Ulph. ubil-qi)?an maledicere, but flekan simply plangere, while the OHG. fluochon (MHG. vluochen, our fluchen) is already maledicere, imprecari, and fluoh maledictio (masc, quite distinct from fern, fluoh, rapes). OS. farflocan maledicere, harm-quidi maledictum. Another word is OHG. farhudzan, MHG. verwdzen 3 detestari, condemnare, appar.

1 Pliny 28, 2 [3—5] examines the force of ' verba et incantamenta carminum ' in many striking examples,

2 ' Var hin verwdzen (begone, with a curse to you), vil gar verteilter sn@ ! ' Ms. 1, 23a. ' nu var von mir verwdzen ' and ' e'weclich verlorn ! ' Ls. 3, 77. 1 var von mir verstozen ! ' MsH. 3, 441b.

1233

1224 SPELLS AND CHAEMS.

allied to AS. 'hwatung divinatio/ Poenit. Ecgb. 2,23. 4,19. AS. wergan (misspelt wirgan, wyrgan) maledicere, detestan, strictly damnare, Goth, vargjan, OS. waragian. AS. cursian, Engl, curse. The ON. bam precatio, AS. ben (p. 31) both border on imprecatio (see Suppl.).

Cursing, ' becrying, becalling/ may indeed be done aloud, but as a rule both blessing and cursing require soft murmured whispered speech. OHG. huispalon sibilare, Graff 4, 1239, AS. hwistlian, as whistling and hissing are imputed to the serpent who fascinates; MHG. winpeln : 'wispeln wilde vogel zemt, hunde ez letzet und lemt/ Kenn. 22370 ; the asp will hear no wispelwort, Ms. 2, 202b; 'aller wiirmel (insects') wispel unde miirmei; Mart. 74c, for murmeln is the same thing too, OHG. murmulon, murmuron, our mummeln, mompeln, to mumble. Paul. Diac. 1, 13 in describing manumissio per sagittam, adds : ' im- murmurantes, ob rei firmitatem, quaedam patria verba/ a Lango- bardic hallowing spell.1 Similar expressions are OHG. mutilon, Graff 2, 707, and our protzeln, pretzeln, propeln, signifying first the sound of water simmering, and then very appropriately the muttering of a spell : ' protzeln and wispeln over the sick man' is to mutter a charm or blessing ; in some parts prebeln, Nethl. preevelen; Pranke's Weltb. 134a has pretzeln (see Suppl.).

But the most legitimate and oldest word of all is the Goth. runa, commonly the equivalent for fAvo-rrjpiov, sometimes for PovXri, avfjufiovXiov. I believe it meant in the first place what is spoken softly and solemnly, then secondly a mystery : av^ovktov is secret counsel. From secret speech to secret writing is but a step, as the ON. mal means both speech and sign. For ypacjir}, ypdfjufia Ulph. always puts niel, not runa, because none of the passages happen to speak of secret writing ; one might wager that runa was the familiar term for this, as the early Franks had runa = litera. OHG. runa, AS. run, character magicus, mys- terium, Csedm. 211, 12. 250, 6. 262, 9, this last with an obvious reference to 'bocstafas' in 262, 7. ON. run litera, but runa linea, which coexistence of 4 and u assures us of a strong verb < riilna, raun, runum/ whence also raun (tentamen, experiment), reyna (tentare), perh. reynir (service or ronn tree, p. 1215). Thf>

1 Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore, Ov. Met. 14, 57.

KUNES.

1225

OHG. runen susurrare, runazan murmurare, MHG. runen, our raunen, AS. runian, Engl, round, keep the original meaning of secret whispering, and OHG. 6r-runo is a confidant, one who rounds things in your ear. The ON. transitive r^na is secretum scrutari, literas scrutari, and supplies the link to raun above. In Ben. 378 sanfie runen stands opposed to public singing. Finn. runo is a song (p. 901). And now a term that has often come before us becomes perfectly clear, and what is more, proves a good fit all round : the wise-woman of the ancient Germans is called Aliruna, because she is alja-runa, and speaking secret words not understood of the common folk, has skill at once in writing and in magic ; hers is the Gothic runa, hers the AS. mncrseft. Ali can only mean ( other (than common), strange, not vulgar and profane/ and thus heightens the meaning of runa. And this name of the heathen priestesses could easily be transferred to the holy herb (p. 1202) which perhaps pertained to their ritual.

The olden time divided runes into many classes, and if the full import of their names were intelligible to us, we might take in at one view all that was effected by magic spells. They were painted, scratched or carved, commonly on stone or wood, 6 run- stones, runstaves'; reeds served the same purpose (p. 1083-4). The OHG. hahalruna, isruna, lag or una are named after the letters ' hahal, is, lago 3 ; clofruna and stofruna remain doubtful, the latter appar. the mere tip (stupf, apex). Helliruna means necromancy, death-rune, and plainly refers to Halja, Hella; I connect with it our hollen-zwang, control over hell, by which is understood the mightiest of magic spells, such as Doctor Faust possessed. Hohruna is to be taken not of a thing, but of a person, the wood-wife, lamia (p. 433), not without some allusion to her moaning and muttering. The OHG. women's names Kundrun, Hiltirun, Sigirun, Fridurun, Paturun, are properly those of valkyrs, but also traceable to a non-personal kundruna, hiltiruna, sigiruna, friduruna, jpaturuna \ and it is worth noti- cing, that the personal names lack the final -a, and are consigned to a different declension. From the MHG. knierunen (to croon over one's knee), MS. 2, 137% may be inferred a subst. knierune. The AS. beadorun, Beow. 996 is litera belli =bellu in, rixa ; while helrune 324 and burgrune (p. 404 n.) are a personal furia, parca, death's messenger ; a gloss in Lye puts it for pythonissa. In

1226

SPELLS AND CHARMS.

Ssem. 194-5 Sigrdrifa, i.e. Brynhildr, herself a valkyr, enumerates to Sigurd the runes which it was most needful for her to know : the goblet she hands him is ' fullr lio&a ok Uhistafa, g6$ra galdra ok gamanruna/ full of lays and leech-staves, good spells and runes of bliss. She goes on to name sigrunar, olrunar, biargrunar, brimrunar, mdlrunar, hugriinar, runes of victory, of ale, of the rock, the sea, speech and thought. I am only doubtful as to olrun, because the proper name Olrun is evidently the Aliruna of Tacitus ; we can scarcely derive all the alirunes from alus, olr, ale, and I would rather hazard a guess, either that Olrun stands for Elrun, Elirun, having got confounded with olrun, or that the u of the second syllable converted the a of the first into 6 [quite the rule in declension and conjugation, not in composition]. In Sasm. 165b sakrunar contentiones. Danish folksongs often speak of ramme runer, powerful runes 1, 235. 280. 2, 33. 3, 335. 4, 47 (see Suppl.).

OSinn passed for the inventor of all runes (p. 181-2), and in him is lodged the greatest command of words. Yngl. saga cap. 7 : ' ]?at kunni hann enn at gera me$ ordum einum (do by words alone), at slockva eld ok kyrra sia, ok snua vindum. OSinn vissi of allt iarSfe, hvar folgit var (earth-fee, where it was hid), ok hann kunni J?au lioS, er upplaukz fyrir honum (unlocked itself to him) ior^in ok biorg ok steinar ok haugarnir, ok batt (bound) hann me$ ordum einum ]?a er fyrir biuggu (dwelt), ok gekk (went) inn ok tok ]?ar slikt er hann vildi.' Afzelius in Sagoh. 1, 4 mentions, too briefly and indistinctly, a strange Swedish folk- tale of one Kettil Runske of Kettilsas in Alsheda, who stole, Odin's rune-sticks (runekaflar), and with them cast a spell on his hounds and bulls, nay at last on the merwoman that would have come to Odin's aid. By this Odin seems to be meant a shepherd or giant representing the former god ; the surname runslce evidently has to do with the acquisition and possession of the staves.

Songs and runes then can do very great things. They are able to kill and bring to life, as well as prevent from dying ; to heal or make sick, bind up wounds, stanch blood, alleviate pain, and lull to sleep ; quench fire, allay the sea- storm, bring rain and hail ; to burst bonds, undo chains and bolts, open mountains or close them up, and unlock treasures ; to forward or delay a birth ;

ETTNES. CURSES.

1227

to make weapons strong or soft, dull the edge of a sword ; loop up knots, loose the bark off a tree (p. 1085), spoil a crop (fruges excantare) ; call up evil spirits and lay them, to bind thieves. These wonders lie in the very nature of poesy (p. 907-8). The Kunatal, Ssem. 28 — 30, specifies eighteen effects of runes (see Suppl.).

Curses, imprecations have a peculiar force of their own. Our MHG-. poets have ' tiefe nuochen/ deeply, Ms. 2, 188a; ' swinde fluochen/ vehemently, Helbl. 2, 518 and zom-vluoch, wrath-curse 1, 656. Full of meaning is the phrase : ' ich brach des vluoches herten Jciesel/ I brake yon curse's stubborn flint, MsTI. 2, 339b, its action is hard as pebbles, and not easy to break. "Walther says 73, 29 :

Zwene herzeliche fliieche kan ich ouch,

die fluochent nach dem willen min.

hiure miiezen's beide esel und der gowk

gehceren, e si enbizaen sin.

we in (woe to them) denne, den vil armen !

(two round curses ken I eke, hitting whomso I bespeak ; them both ass and gowk shall hear, ere they baited be this year, etc.). Curses received on an empty stomach are the more effectual. It is the vulgar opinion in Ireland that a curse once uttered must flight on something : it will float in the air seven years, and may descend any moment on the party it was aimed at ; if his guardian angel but forsake him, it takes forthwith the shape of some mis- fortune, sickness or temptation, and strikes his devoted head. So in the Pentam. 2, 7 a curse takes wing, and mounts to heaven : ' mesero W mardettiune dessa vecchia Vascelle, che sagliettero subeto 'n cielo.' When a horse has been cursed, his hair is thought to be luminous: fa cavallo iastemmiato luce lo pilo/ ibid.

Specimens of the most vigorous cursing might be picked out of our old poetry ; one in the Edda, Sa3m. 144%

nio rostom er ]?u skyldir ne^ar vera, ok vaxi J?er a ba^mi barr !

may remind us of the phrases culled from our common people's talk, pp. 181-2. 952n. In a minnesong, Ben. 82 : e der nider schar, daz die vor Icilchen laegen ! * the low set, may they lie out-

1228

SPELLS AND CHARMS.

side of church (in unconsecrated ground),1 ' der bluomen schin sol iemer sin von ir gewalt gescheiden/ put out of their reach. The runes on a tombstone will occasionally end with a curse against him that shall roll away or remove the stone : f at rySi sa ver$i (may he turn to rust) sa stain ]?ansi velti ! 3 So Latin deeds of the Mid. Ages wind up with imprecations on the violator, but scriptural ones pronounced by the church.

Here is a string of curses from a MHG. poem : c God from thee thy wife release ! Fish, fowl, worm, beast and man Storm the stronghold of thy peace ! Where'er thou go, Be grace thy foe ! All good women's greeting shun thee ! Thy seed, thy crop be cankered too, The curse that dried Gilboa's dew Rest upon thee ! ' MsH. 3, 52 (see Suppl.).

Though as a rule sowing is to be accompanied by prayer and blessing, there are some plants that thrive better under cursing : ' Nihil ocimo (basil) foecundius, cum maledictis ac probris seren- dum praecipiunt, ut laetius proveniat, sato pavitur terra. Et cuminum qui serunt, jprecantur ne exeat3 Pliny 19, 7 [36] ,2 \ Napos serere nudum volunt, precantem sibi et vicinis serere se/ 18, 13 [35].

To adjure solemnly is in OHG. munigon inti manon (hortari et monere), AS. mynegian and manian : ' sis bimunigot thuruh then himilisgon Got, bisuoran thuruh thes forahta (fear of Him), ther alia worolt worahta ! 3 0. iv. 19, 47. fih bimuniun dih3 begins the formula in Spell VII. Even in MHG. : ' des wart vil manec wilder geist von ir gemuniet und gemant/ Troj. 10519 (see Suppl.).

Eelliruna, necromania, shews itself in the lays sung after the heathen fashion on graves and barrows, to make the dead speak or send something out. The Indiculus superst. distinguishes between ' sacrilegium ad sepulcra mortuorum 3 and ' sacrilegium super defunctos, id est dadsisas3 Dad is for dod, ded (conf. nedfyr, nodfyr, p. 603-4) j the OS. sisas I take to be the OHG. sisuwd neniae, of which the sing, would be sisu, siso : sisesang is

1 A surname Outkirk must have meant the Excommunicated : Rudolphus de Solodoro cognomine vor chilchun, Hartmannus dictus vor kilchon (a.d. 1260). Solothurner wochenbl. 1827, pp. 128. 16U.

2 Fischart's Garg. 244*> : ' diss fiirmans gebett treibt sehif und wagen, ein hauptmansfluch etzt durch neun harnisch. ich kont dannoch wol basilien, quendel und kressen setzen, dann dieselben vom fluchen gedeien^ darumb wards jenes mannes entschuldigung vor dem richter, warumb er sein weib gereuft nette, nemblich darumb weil er hat rauten setzen mussen ' ; his excuse for thrashing his wife was, he had to plant some rue.

HELLIEUNA. BUKSTING LOCKS.

1229

carmen lugubre, Diut. 2, 283b. Graff 6, 281, and an OS. form of confession has ik gihorda (heard) hetlunnussia endi unhrenia (unclean) sesjpilon/ perh. for sese-spilon, dirge-spells • the same obscure root appears in proper names Sisebutus, Sisenandus, etc., etc., Gramm. 2, 476. Hetlunnussia must mean imprecations, conf. OS. hatol dirus, Hel. 110, Sand OHG. hazzal malitiosus, Gl. Hrab. 95 7a. Neniae are carmina funebria, hymns in honour of the dead ; Britferthi vita Dimstani (b. 925) cap. 1 (Acta sanct. 19 May) says of that saint : 'avitae gentilitatis vanissima didicisse carmina, et historiarum frivolas colere incantationum nenias.3 In the same way Greg. Tur. mirac. 2, 1 : ' ad vicum in quo fanatici erroris naeniae colebantur.' An AS. byrgensang translates epi- taphium, and Mone's Glosses 943-4 give licsang, Mcleod epicedium, byriensang, bergelsleoft, byrgleoff carmen super tumulum. Hros- witha's Proterius says of an adjuration : ' supra gentilis tumulum sub tempore noctis stans, herebi domino suplex/ The ON. expression is val-galdr qvefta, to say corpse-incantation, Ssem. 94a : by it OSinn compelled the vala, on whom snow and rain and dew had fallen (p. 314), to rise from her barrow and answer him. Groa's son and Hervor utter formulas almost identical : ' vaki )?u Groa! vaki ]?u go$ kona ! vek ek ]?ik dauSra dura/ Ssem. 97a; ' vaki ]?u Angantyr ! vekr \ic Hervor einka dottir ykkar Svafii (of thee and Svafa)/ Fornald. sog. 1, 435 ; after a gruesome con- versation with her father, the sword she craves is thrown out of the barrow. In the same way, at the son's adjuration, a sword is handed out of the tomb in the folksong of Orm (Sv. fornsanger 2, 446-7. Danske viser 1, 59. 60-6-7), and in a Faroe song of Yirgar, i.e. Wudga, Witege (Lyngbye p. 369). Wolfdietrich constrains the dead tongue of his buried father to utter seven words, Cod. Dresd. 313 (see Suppl.).

As the spoken spell bursts open the tomb, so do locks and bars give way before it. Ferabras 2759 :

Venc a l'us de la cambra, si la trobat tancada, et a dit son conjur : tota s'es desfermada.

Though the following passage iu Meier Helmbrecht 1205 mentions only the act of approaching, the cattle-stealer must, as he drew near, have uttered some unloosing spell :

Min geselle Wolves-driizzel (-throttle, -throat)

.1230

SPELLS AND CHAEMS.

uf tuot er ane sliizzel (opens without key) alliu sloz und isenhalt (bolts and iron staples) in einem jar han ich gezalt (counted) hundert isenhalte groz,

daz ie daz sloz dannen schoz (aye the bolt shot out of them,

als er von verve gie dar zuo (from far came towards them) ;

ros, ohsen und manic kuo,

die ungezalt sint beliben,

die er uz dem hove hat getriben,

daz ie daz sloz von siner stat (from its place)

schoz, swann er dar zuo trat (when he stept thereto).

Even now some thieves and sharpers have the reputation of being able to c bespeak ' their chains and locks, and make them burst.

Gods and daemons could of their mere might raise wind and storm, magicians did the same by means of song. Saxo Gram . p. 71 has a certain Oddo, f vir magicae doctus, ita ut absque carina altum pererrans hostilia saepe navigia concitatis carmine procellis everteret/ These tempestarii have been dealt with, p. 638. Again : ( carminibus in nimbos solvere coelum/ ibid. 17. But song could turn away storm and hail, as well as draw it on : ' cum averti carmine grandines credant plerique, cujus verba inserere non equidem serio ausim/ Pliny 17, 28 [47].

As the whole of sorcery sank into the hands of old wives, and the faith of bygone times was called kerlinga villa, Ssem. 169, alter ivibe troume, Turl. Wh. 1, 82a, ypacoSeis fiv0ois 1 Tim. 4. 7, in Gothic ' us-al)?anaiz6 spilla'; the healing formulas handed down from the past fared no better. Already in the 12th cent, the Miracula S. Matthiae (by a Benedictine of Treves) expresses itself thus, cap. 34 : ' cujus dolore mater affecta medicinam et anilia adhibuit carmina/ Pez. thes. anec. 2, 3 p. 234 (see Suppl.).

These superstitious formulas are a gain to the history of our mythology, they yield information about deities and practices of heathenism, which but for them would be utterly lost. Even books by churchmen find room for them, because their use in certain cases, diseases of cattle for instance, was still considered lawful and beneficial. A comprehensive collection of them would be sure to lead to discoveries, but the time is hardly ripe for it yet, as they lie scattered, and have to be slowly gathered from

STOKM-KAISING. BOND-SPELL.

1231

the mouth of the people and out of witch-trials.1 Here let a few striking examples place beyond a doubt, not only their value, but their obstinate diffusion through nearly the whole of Europe.

In the Merseburg MS. the first poem is a bond-spell, to be sung while tying or unloosing bands, and this time relating to the release of a prisoner :

Eiris sazun idisi, sazun hera duoder, suma hapt heptidun, suma heri lezidun, suma clubodun umbi cuoniowidi : 1 insprincg haptbandum, invar vigandum ! 3 i.e. Olim sedebant nymphae, sedebant hue illuc (AS. ]?ider, thither), aliae vincula vinciebant, aliae exercitum morabantur, aliae carpebant redimicula : ' exsili e vinculis, elabere hostibus ! ' Wackernagel was the first to penetrate the sense of the last line, by which the last but one is also made clear: the plucking (clawing) at the bonds slackens their hold, and the captive then can slip them off. Of 1 hapt heptian 3 I have spoken p. 401 ; the binding and unbinding is alluded to in our minnesongs. Beda 4, 22 tells of a man who could not be kept bound : ' nec tamen vinciri potuit, nam mox ut abiere qui vinxerant, eadem ejus sunt vincula soluta . . . Interea comes, qui eum tenebat, mirari et interro- gare coepit, quare ligari non posset, an forte liter as solutorias, de qualibus f alulae ferunt, apud se haberet, propter quas ligari non posset? At ill© respondit, nihil se talium artium nosse.' He was sold to a third man : ' sed nec ab illo ullatenus potuit alligari.' Beda's explanation of the marvel is, that his friends, thinking him dead, had had masses said for the deliverance of his soul. The AS. version goes a step farther, which seems worthy of notice : ' and hine acsade, hwseSer he J?a dlysendUcan rune cuSe, and J?a stdnas mid him dwritene hsefde, be swylcum men leas spell secgaS.' What were these stones written over with runes, which the translator had in his mind We have to suppose three sets of women, each plying a separate task (see Suppl.).

The second Merseburg formula is for healing a lamed horse : Phol ende Wodan vuorun zi holza,

do wart demo Balderes volon sin vuoz birenkit (wrenched) ;

1 Horst borrowed for his Zauberbibl. a parchm. MS. of the 15th cent, full of spells, from which he has extracted nothing, and which is missing at Treves ever since.

1232

SPELLS AND CHAEMS.

do biguolen Sinthgunt, Sunnd era suister, do biguolen Fruwa, Folia era suister, do biguolen Wodan, so he wola conda, sose ben-renki, sose bluot-renki,

sose lidi-renki

ben zi bena, bluot zi bluoda, lid zi giliden, sose geliraida sin.

Here is sung an adventure that befell the two gods (p. 224), and how Wodan healed the sprained foot of Balder' s foal by besing- ing it (bigalan) . And now the repetition of the song cures other lame horses too. What the rest of the gods cannot do, Wodan can, just as the Yngl. saga 7 says of him : ' OSinn kunni at gera nieft ordum (words alone) einum at slockva eld ok kyrra sia, ok snua vindum hverja lerS er hann vildi.' He is the greatest magi- cian or wonder-man of all.

Now observe in what shapes the same spell shews itself survi- ving in the popular superstitions of today. In Norway : Jesus reed sig til hede,

da reed han sonder sit fole-been (his foal's leg asunder).

Jesus stigede af, og lagte det :

Jesus lagde marv i marv,

been i been, kjod i kjod,

Jesus lagde derpaa et blad (thereon a leaf),

at det skulde blive i samme stad.

In Sweden, for a horse's ailment flag (our anflug, fit) : Oden star pa berget (stands on the hill), han sporjer (speers, asks) efter sin fole, floget har han fatt. — —

spotta (spit) i din hand, och i hans mun (his mouth), han skall fa bot (get boot) i samma stund (hour).

Whilst another begins thus : Frygge fragade fra : huru skall man bota (heal) den flaget far (sheep) ?

The two Swedish stanzas, evidently incomplete, are given by F. Magnusen in the Dagen 1842 no. 119, from Mimer, Ups. 1839. p. 277. That similar snatches of song still live in the Netherlands, I am informed in a letter from Halbertsma : ' Een mijner boeren gaf my voorleden jaar een rijm, dat de toverdokters prevelden, terwijl zij den verrukten voet van een pard (foot of a horse) met

DISLOCATION-SPELL. 1233

cle hand van boven naar beneden stroken, en alzo genazen.' I wish he had sent me the rhyme itself. ,

What sounds more significant is a Scotch tradition I take out of Chambers's Fireside stories, Edinb. 1842. p. 37: f When a person has received a sprain, it is customary to apply to an individual practised in casting the wresting thread. i^Fhis is w thread spun from black wool, on which are cast nmel[fknots , and tied round a sprained leg or arm. During the time t% operator is putting the thread round the affected limb, he says, wat^jivi such a tone of voice as not to be heard by the bystanders^ nor even by the person operated upon :

The Lord rade, set joint to joint,

and the foal slade ; bone to bone,

he lighted, and sinew to sinew,

and he righted, Heal in the Holy Ghost's name ! '

Here the spell serves for sprains even in the human body, though it set out with the sliding of the foal ; and to the whispered words is added a ligature of woollen thread in nine knots.

How exact the agreement, in these perfectly independent ver- sions, of their f ben zi bena, been i been, bone to bone/ their ' lid zi giliden, kjod i kjod, sinew to sinew 3 ! Those who cannot believe in the faithful preservation of what is entrusted to popular memory, have here an example extending from the 10th cent, to the 19th over Germany, Scotland and Scandinavia. It is certain that the same or similar words have been superstitiously repeated countless times in all the countries of Teutonic tongue. The Cod. Vatic. 4395 has on fol. 83a the following charm : c Gott wurden iiii nagel (God had 4 nails) in sein hend und fuez ge- stagen, da von er iiii wunden enphie, do er an dem heiligen chreuz • hieng (1. hie), die funft wunden im Longinus stach, er west nicht waz er an ihm rach ... an dem dritten tag gepot (bade) Got dem lichnam, der in der erden lag, fleisch zu fleisch, pluet zu pluet, adern zu adern, pain zu pain, gelider zu gelidern, yslichs (each) an sein stat. bei Demselbigen gepeut ich dir (bid I thee) fleisch zu fleisch/ etc.

But what is more, a great deal farther back, among the very oldest Romans, there lingered dislocation-spells full of unintellig- ible words. The one partially quoted p. 224-5 from Cato may as well be inserted in full, as it throws light on the nature of our

1234

SPELLS AND CHAKMS.

German charms. ' Luxum si quod est, hac cantione sanum net. Harundinem prende tibi viridem pedes IV aut V longam. Mediam diffinde, et duo homines teneant ad coxendices. Incipe cantare "in alio. s. f. motas vaetas daries dardaries astataries Dissunapiter/'' usque dum coeant. Ferrum insuper jactato. Ubi coierint et altera alteram tetigerit, id manu prende, et dextra sinistra praecide. Ad luxum aut ad fracturam alliga, sanum net, et tamen quotidie cantato " in alio s. f. vel luxato. Yel hoc modo, huat hanat huat ista pista sista, domiabo damnaustra, et luxato. Yel hoc modo, huat haut ista sis tar sis ardannabon dunnaustra." ' It is of this invocation that Pliny says at the end of book 17: ' Car minis verba inserere non equidem serio ausim, quanquam a Catone prodita, contra luxata membra, jungenda arundinum fissurae/ The words do seem nonsense to us now, and may also be corrupt ; but why should not they belong originally to the Sabine or some neighbouring language of ancient Italy, that we know very little of? The rhymes ista pista sista and the alliteration * domiabo damnaustra 3 (the i dannabon dunnaustra ' that follows is the same over again, and ought to have an ' ista pista sista 9 before it too) remind us of the rhyming spell in Virgil's Eel. 8 : ( Limus ut hie durescit et haec ut cera liquescit Uno eodemque igni, sic nostro Daphnis amore/ Dissunapiter is the god invoked, like the Phol and Wodan of our spells. Marcellus Bmpiricus, a physician of the 4th cent., has in his De Medicamentis a charm for pain of the heart : ' In lamella stannea scribes et ad collum suspendes haec, antea vero etiam cane, Corcu ne mergito, cave corcu ne mergito cantorem, utos, utos, utos, praeparavi tibi vinum lene, libidinem, • discede a nonita, in nomine Dei Jacob, in nomine Dei Sebaoth ! ' (see Suppl.)

In the Cod. Vindob. theol. 259 Latin and G-erman spells are intermixed. f (De eo quo)d spurihalz dicimus.1 si in dextero pede contigerit, in sinistra aure sanguis minuatur; si in sinistro pede, in dextera aure minuatur sanguis. Ad vermes occidendos. Feruina (?) Dei gracia plena, tu habes triginta quinque indices et triginta quinque medicinas. quando Dominus ascendit ad coelos ascendit, memorare quod dixit. Ad apes conformandos. vos

1 MHGL spurhalz, Diut. 2, 140 ; conf. diu spurgalze, MsH. 8, 278b (springhalt?).

HOESE-DOCTOEING-. SHEPHERD'S PRATER.

1235

estis ancille Domini (conf. pp. 579. 755), adjuro vos per nomei] Domini, ne fugiatis a filiis hominum. Ad pullos de nido. crescite et multiplicamini et vivite et implete terrain. Contra sagittam diaboli. palamiasit. palamiasit. calamia insiti per omne corpus meum. per ista tria nomina, per Patrem et Filium et Filium sanctum, aius aius aius, sanctus sanctus sanctus. in Dei nomine cardia cardiani de necessu (recessu ?) propter ilium malannum (p. 1160), quod dominus papa ad imperatorem transmisit, quod omnis homo super se portare debet, amen, tribus vicibus. De hoc quod spurihalz dicunt. primum pater noster.

vise flot aftar themo watare, verbrustun sina vetherun, tho gihelida ina use Druhtin ; the selvo Druhtin thie gehele that hors thera spurihelti ! Contra vermes :

gangut, nesso mid nigun nessiklinon, ut fana themo marge an that ben, fan themo bene an that flesg, ut fan themo fl£sge an thia hud, ut fan thera . . . strala ! Druhtin werthe so.1

The nesso and his nine young ones are the worms to be cast out. 'Petrus, Michahel et Stephanus ambulabant per viam, sic dixit Michahel : Stephani equus infusus, signet ilium Deus, signet

ilium Christus, et erbam comedat et aquam bibat/ Two of

these charms are about lame horses again, and one about a sick horse (Ducange sub. v. infusio, infusus equus). Also the tran- sitions from marrow to bone (or sinews), to flesh and hide, resemble phrases in the sprain-spells (see Suppl.).

The oldest and most beautiful charms of all nations pass into prayers, which were repeated during sacrifice ; the simplest are found in pastoral life. What a fresh innocence breathes in those prayers to the Thunder-god (p. 176) ! When the Cheremisses keep their grand feast of Shurem, and bring quiet offerings of peace, at which no female creature must be seen (conf. p. 1152n.), they speak a prayer, out of which I pick a few sentences : < Who

1 A Cod. Tegerns. 524, 2 at Munich has a more complete version in OHG • ' gang uz nesso mit niun nessinclmon, uz fonna marga in de6 adra, vonna den adrun m daz fleisk, fonna demu fleiske in daz fel, fonna demo velle in diz tulli ter Vonif If ntr. JS? tS in,°5G- t0°- Tulli' like sMa' is an implement, fSSl' rt^' ' i6' Nlb* 891' ? a,nd- HaUpt °n Engelh' 1916' strala is arrow tulle the hole m the arrow-shaft for inserting the head. The disease charmed into your arrow, will pass on to your enemy (?)— Teans.] VOL. III.

1236

SFELLS AND CHAEMS.

to God Lath sacrificed, to him God give health and wealth, bestow- ing on the babes that shall be born store of money, bread, bees and cattle. May he cause the bees to swarm this year and make plenty of honey. When spring draws nigh, 0 God, let the three kinds of cattle set out on their three ways, defend them from deep mire, from bears, wolves and thieves. As the hops are thick and springy, so bless us with good hap and sound mind ! As the light burneth bright, so live we our life ! as the wax daily addeth to itself,1 so be our increase! 3 (from Aleks. Fuks fO Chuvashakh i Cheremisakh/ Kazan 1840, in Erman's Archiv 1841, 2nd no.).

'Dapem pro bubus piro florente facito. Dapem hoc modo fieri oportet. Jovi dapali culignam vini quantum vis polluceto. Eo die feriae bubus et bubulcis, et qui dapem facient. Cum pollucere oportebit, sic facias : Jupiter dapalis, quod tibi fieri oportet, in domo familia mea culignam vini dapi, ejus rei ergo macte hac illace dape pollucenda esto ! macte vino inferio esto ! Vestae, si voles, dato. Daps Jovi assaria pecuina, urna vini Jovi caste. Profanato sine contagione, postea dape facta serito milium, panicum, alium, lentim' (Cato de re rust. 132).

Along with this, take (from Cod. Exon. 5214) an AS. hot, i.e. puoza (bettering) of barren land blasted by magic. 'Her is seo bot, hu. ]m meaht hine ceceras betan, gif hi nellaft wel weaxan, o$3e J?8er hwilc ungedefe ]?ing ongedon br3, on dry cfrSe on lyblace.

c Genim bonne (take then) on niht, cer hit dagige, feower tyrf on feower healfa J?aes landes, and gemearca hu hi aer stodon. nim bonne ele and hunig and beorman, and aelces feos meolc (each cattle's milk) ]?e on j?a3ni lande si, and aelces treowcynnes (tree- kind) dsel, J?e on ]?aem lande si geweaxen, butan heardan teaman, and selcre namcirSre wyrte dsel, butan glappan anon; and do bonne halig waeter ]?aeron, and drype ]?onne ]?riwa (thrice) on ]?one sta'Sol ]>ara turfa, and cwefte ]?onne }>as word : Crescite, weaxe, et multiplicamini, and gemasnigfealde, et replete, and gefylle, terram, J?as eorSan, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti

1 Quidquid tangebam crescebat tanquam favus, Petron. cap. 43. 79 ; alluding to the steady growth of the honeycomb in the hive. When the Servian badniak burns at Yule, the invited polaznik steps up to the log, and strikes it with a shovel, making the sparks fly, and saying : 'As many sheep, as many goats, as many swine, as many oxen, as many god-sends and blessings, as here fly sparks ! ' Vuk's Monte- negro p. 106.

BLESSING THE COBNFIBLD.

1237

benedicti, and Pater noster swa oft swa, peat ofter. And bere sr&San }?a turf to cyrcean, and messepreost asinge feower messan ofer ]?am turfon, and wende man J?cet grene to J?am weofode (altar) . and sr<5"3an gebringe man ]?a turf, ficer M cer wceron, cer sunnan setlgange, and hasbbe him geworht of cwicbedme feower Cristes maalo, and a, write on selcon ende Mattheus and Marcus, Lucas and Johannes, lege ]>eat Cristes masl on ]?one pyt neofteweardne, cwefte ]?onne : Crux Mattheus, crux Marcus, crux Lucas, crux Johannes, nim )?onne J?a turf and sette J?93r ufon on, and cweSe nigon sifton (9 times) ]?as word : Crescite, and swa oft Pater noster. and wende }?e ]?onne eastweard, and onlut (bow) nigon srSon eadmodlice (humbly), and cwe$ J?onne ]?as word :

Eastweard ic stande, arena (favours) ic me bidde,

bidde ic ]?one masran Dryhten, b. i. ]?. miclan Dryhten,

bidde ic ]?one haligan heofonrices Weard.

eorftan ic bidde and upheofon,

and J?a softan sancta Marian,

and heofenes meaht and heahreced,

J>aet ic mote J?is gealdor mid gife Dryhtnes

to$um ontynan ]?urh trumme ge)?anc,

aweccan ]?as waostmas (fruits) us to woruldnytte (our use),

gefyllan }?as foldan (fields) mid fseste geleafan,

wlitigian )?as wangturf swa se witega cwasft,

J?aat se (he) haefde are (honour) on eorSrice se ]?e (who) aalmyssan

daalde domlice Dryhtnes J?ances (for the sake).

Wende }?e ]?onne J?riwa sun-ganges. dstrecce pe ]?onne on andlang, and anm Ipear letanias, and cweS )?onne, Sanctus sanctus sancfcus, o"S ende. sing ]?onne Benedicite dpenedon (outstretched) earmon, and Magnificat and Pater noster III, and bebeod hit Criste and sancta Marian and j?asre halgan rode to lofe and to weorSinga (to the praise and glory of Christ, etc.), and }?am to are (to the benefit of him) }?e j?aet land age, and eallon j?k J?e him under- j?eodde (subject) sint. ponne (when) J?ast eall si gedon, J?onue nime man uncuS seed eat celmesmannum, and selle him twa swyle swylce man eat him nime, and gegaderie ealle his sulhgeteogo (plough-tackle) to gasdere. borige J?onne on ]?am beame stor and finol and gehalgode sdpan and gehdlgod sealt. nim )?onne

1238

SPELLS AND CHAEMS.

j?aet saed, sete on ]?aes sidhes bodig. cweft ]?onne s Erce, erce, erce, eorcfan modor,1

geunne ]?e se alwealda ece Dryhten (God grant thee)

ascera weaxendra and wrrSendra,

eacniendra and elniendra ;

sceaf taece 2 se scira (reaper) waestma,

and bgere bradan bere waestma (barley's fruit),

and J?aere hwitan hwaete waestma,

and ealra eorSan wasstma.

geunne him ece Dryhten

and his halige J?e on heofonum sint,

bast his yr<5 si gefrrSod (spared) wr3 ealra feonda gehwasne, and heo si geborgen (protected) wr§ ealra bealwa gehwylc, ]?ara lyblaca geond land sawen.

nu bidde ic hone Wealdend, se ]?e J?as weoruld gesceop, J?aet ne si nan to J?33s cwidol wif, ne to J?ass craeftig man, J?aet awendan ne masge word bus gecweftene.

bonne man ]?a sidhforb* drife and J?a forman furh onsceote (cleaves the first furrow), cweS bonne :

hal wes ]?u folde, fira modor !

beo \ii growende on Godes fasftme (bosom, lap),

fodre gefylled firum to nytte (for use to men) !

nim ]?onne celces cynnes melo, and dbace man inneweardre handa bradne lildf, and gecned hire mid meolce and mid halig waetere, and lecge under J>a forman furh. cweft bonne :

ful aecer fodres fira-cynne (for mankind) beorht blowende, ]?u gebletsod weorS ]?33S haligan naman, be )?as heofon gesceop and )?as eorSan ]?e we on lifia3.

se God \q ]?as grundas geweorhte geunne us growende gife, ]?33t us coma gehwylc cume to nytte !

cwe$ bonne briwa Crescite in nomine Patris benedicti amen, and Pater noster briwa.

This notable document, notwithstanding that christian cere-

1 The explanation of this line attempted on p. 253 remains a bold guess. Another AS. gealdor, against adder's bite, begins : 4 aerce ssrere sernem nadre sercund bel aernem nibasrn,' etc.

2 MS. sceafltahen. I take it as 1 manipulum capiat.'

BLESSING THE COENFIELD. PLOUGH-CAKE. 1239

monies have crept into it, seems to reach far back to the early times of heathen sacrifices and husbandry. As the daps was spread and the winebowl emptied to Jove, after which the millet, panic, leek and lentils might be sown, so ploughing is here preceded by sacrificial rites. Sods are cut out from the four cor- ners of the field, oil, honey and barm, milk of each sort of cattle, some of every kind of tree (except hard wood, i.e. oak and beech, RA. 506), and of all name-known herbs (save burs) are laid on the sods, and holy water sprinkled ; then the ( four turfs 3 are carried into church, the green side being turned to the altar, four masses are said over them, and before sunset they are taken back to their places in the field. And now the spells are spoken; unknown seed is bought of beggar- men (conf. p. 1138), and placed on the plough, another spell is recited, and the first furrow ploughed with a f Hail Earth, mother of men/ etc. Then meal of every kind is taken, a large loaf kneaded with milk is baked and laid under the first furrow, and one more spell is spoken. We know the Romans offered meal-cakes and fruit in their corn-fields; but it seems to me that our own ordinances (weisthumer) have unconsciously preserved vestiges of the heathen rite : ' when the plower cometh to an end of the furrow, there shall he find a pot of honey, and at the other end a pot of milk, wherewith to refresh him lest he faint ' ( Weisth. 2, 547, ' melts 3 here must be for ' milch/ it cannot be meal or malt). Further : 1 at the plowing shall be brought a loaf so great that one may stick it on the axle of the plow-wheel, and therewith plow a furrow ; if the loaf do break when the furrow is done, and the plower have not another wheel ready to put in its place, then shall he smart (pay a fine) ; if the bread break ere the fur- row be finished, let him fare homeunfined' (2, 356). Sometimes the regulation runs thus : ' if the plower break a wheel, he shall for penance provide a loaf as large round as the plow-wheel, and baken of every grain that the plow doth win ; he shall so softly drive the plow, that a finch can feed her young on the wheel * (2, 179. 180), or, as expressed in 2, 547, 'that, if a grain of oat fall into the wheel, the fowls of the air shall pick it up/ In 2, 120 merely the size of the loaf is determined by that of the plow- wheel ; but at 2, 128 it says again: 'of the grain that the farm beareth and the mill breaketh, shall be baken a cake as great as

1240

SPELLS AND CHARMS.

the plow-wheel, and the plower therewith plow : if the wheel break ere he come to the end, he is finable, if it break not, yet is he finable notwithstanding.'' The c cake of all grain that the mill grinds 3 occurs again at 2, 147 ; and the 6 rye-loaf to be put in place of a plow-wheel that comes off' at 2, 262. 412. 587. What is the drift of these curious regulations ? Was ever ploughman fed on milk and honey ? were loaves and cakes ever stuck on the axle to cut the first furrow ? They are surely the ancient sacrificial loaves, which with milk and honey poured over them were laid in the furrow (ad piamentum, p. 1196), and dis- tributed to the ploughmen, which even the birds were allowed to peck at ; their being made of all sorts of grain, so as to embrace the entire produce of the field, as the brade hlaf in the AS. spell is baked of each kind of meal, goes far to decide.

Yerelius in his Notes to the Hervararsaga p. 139 tells us, that the Swedish peasants, after baking the jula-galt (Yule-boar p. 51), dry it, and keep it till spring ; then they grate a part of it in with the seed-corn and give it to the plough- horses, and another part to the men that hold the ploughtail : ' Verrem fictum siccant, et ad veris tempus, cum semina sulcis sunt credenda, servant. Turn partem ejus comminutam in vas vel in corbem, ex quo semina sunt dispergenda, immittunt, hordeoque permixtam equis aratoribus, alteram servis stivam tenentibus comedendam re- linquunt, spe forte uberioris messis percipiendae/ Here then is another sacrificial cake, which was mixt with the seed, and tasted by the ploughing men and animals ; who knows but that burning the devil, and dividing and scattering his ashes over the cornfields, a deed the witches were accused of (p. 1073), may have arisen out of their baking a sacrificial cake in the shape of an idol ? A cake was also baked at the Bealtine, and distributed among the multitude, p. 613.

The culture of flax is sure not to have been deficient in speeches and ceremonies of blessing : to this day the girls sing all kinds of songs over this work. In some places, at sowing time, the mistress of the house used to get on the table and dance, then jump off backwards : the higher she made this leap, the higher the flax would grow (conf. Sup. I, 519). Lasicz p. 50 says of the Samogits : ( Tertio post ilgas die deum Waizganthos colunt virgines, ut ejus beneficio tarn lini quam cannabis habeant

BLESSING THE FLAX. . WOLF, FOX.

1241

copiara. Ubi altissima illarum, impleto placentitis quas sikies vocant sinu, et starts pede uno in sedili manuque sinistra sursum elata librum prolixuni tiliae vel ulmo detractum, dextera vero craterem cerevisiae haec loquens tenet : Waizganthe, produc nobis tarn altum linum quam ego nunc alta sum, neve nos nudos incedere perniittas ! Post haec craterem exhaurit, impletumque rursus deo in terram effundit, et placentas e sinii ejicit, a deastris, si qui sint Waizgantho, comedendas. Si haec peragens firma perstet, bonum lini proventum anno sequenti futurum in animum inducit; si lapsa pede altero nitatur, dubitat de futura copia, fidemque effectus sequitur.' In the Wetterau, at the sowing of this plant, the dame has to jump up on the fireplace, and cry : 'Heads as big as mine, leaves like my apron, and stalks like my legs ! ' and then the plant will turn out well (see Sup pi.) .

How the Romans kept the wolf out of their fields, we are in- formed by Pliny 28, 20 [81] : 'Lupos in agrum non accedere, si capti unius pedibus infractis cultroque adacto paulatim sanguis circa fines agri spargatur, atque ipse defodiatur in eo loco ex quo coeperit trahi ; aut si vomer em, quo primus sulcus eo anno in agro ductus sit, excussum aratro, focus larium quo familia con- venit absumat; ac lupum nulli animali nociturum in eo agro, quamdiu id fiat/

A herdsman's charm from a MS. of the 15th cent, shews marks of a far remoter origin : ' ich treip heut aus in unser lieben Prauen haus, in Abrahams garten (conf. p. 1220), der lieber herr sant Mertein, der sol heut meines (vihes) pflegen und warten, und der lieber herr sant Wolfgang, der lieb herr sant Peter, der hat den himelischen slussel, die versperrent dem wolf und der vohin irn drussel, dass si weder plut lassen noch bein schroten. Des helf mir der man, der chain ubel nie hat getan (i.e. Christ, conf. 'sinless man/ p. 24, and the contrast p.' 988), und die heiligen V wunden behiiten mein vieh vor alien holzhunden. Y Pater et V Ave Maria.' 1

Here the rhymes peep out fitfully. The wood-hounds are

1 Today my herd I drove Into Our Lady's grove, Into Abraham's garden ; Be good St. Martin This day my cattle's warden, May good St. Wolfgang, good St. Peter (whose key can heav'n unlock), Throat of wolf and vixen block, Blood from shedding, bone from crunching ! Help me the holy one, Who ill hath never done, And his V holy wounds Keep my herd from all wood-hounds !

1242

SPELLS AND CHAEMS.

Wuotan's forest-hounds (p. 147), the AS. ' holtes gehle^an/ silvae latrones, El. 223, the holzinge (Reinh. p. lv) ; and that the fox named with the wolf should be vohe fern., is in harmony with Goth, faiiho, OHG. foha. The Wolfgang who is to fend the flock, is so named either because he gangs against the wolf, or because the wolf met the hero at a lucky moment, p. 1140n.

As I have not met with a German bee-spell, I will give a Latin one in Baluze's Capitul. 2, 663 taken from a St Gall MS.: ' Ad revocandum examen apum dispersum : adjuro te, mater aviorum, per Deum regem coelorum, et per ilium redemptorem Filium Dei te adjuro, ut non te in altum levare nec longe volare, sed quam plus cito potes ad arborem venire (velis) ; ibi te alloces cum omni tuo genere vel cum socia tua, ibi habeo bona vasa parata, ut vos ibi in Dei nomine laboretis, etc.3 Mater aviorum (for apum) is the AS. beomodor (p. 697) ; the steadily waxing comb (p. 1236n.) was beobredd, Cod. Exon. 425, 20, MHG. biebrot (Gramm. 3, 463), but also rdz and wdbe (from weaving, working, p. 697) ; the hive biekar (vas, Goth, kasi), the fly-hole OHG. fiougar (Graff 3, 163). Our forefathers had at their service many more terms in apiculture than we, and prettier (see Suppl.)

As runes were written on bast (limrunar a berki rista ok a ba'Smi vr<5ar, Sasm. 1 95a ; cortex carminibus adnotatus, Saxo Gram. 44), the olden time may have had some runes for detaching the bast from the wood. Incantations have power to release the babe from ante-natal durance, the hard rind from the bast. Among shepherd lads in almost every part of Germany are pre- served rhymes, in singing which they keep time by tapping a piece of billow on their knee with a knife-handle, till they can slip it off unbroken to maize a ivhistle of. The simplest though not oldest version is : ' Fabian, Sebastian, lat mi de ividen-flot afgan ! 3 (Yoss on Idyl 6, 179) or in Ditmarsen : e Fabian, Sebastian, lat den saft ut holt gan V It is believed that on the day of these two saints (Jan. 20) the sap enters the willow. In some places both the names are wanting, but the spell is spun out longer : ' sa sa pipe (prob. for sap-pipe), up'm molen-dike (mill-dam) dar sit en man, de heet Johan, de har dre rode stoveln (3 red shoes) an, de ene horde (belonged) mi to, de anner horde di to, de drudde horde' m papen to, do kam de ole hesse (old witch) mit en blanken meste (knife), sneet den kuken den kop

BEE-SPELL. WHISTLE-MAKING. STITCH.

1243

af, smeet'en in busch, plumps sa de busch, is de. sapipe noch nicht good ? 3 Halbertsma says in the Overyssel Almanack for 1836 : e de twijg riip en gesneden zijnde, slaan (beat) de kinderen met het hecht (haft) van een mesje op een der groene rijsjes, tot dat de bast loslaat, dien zij er dan heel aftrekken (pulled off whole) en als een pijp gebruiken om op te fluiten of er erwten door te blazen. Zoo lang het kind met zijn mesje op den bast tikte, plag het (he used) oudtijds de volgende regelen te zingen : Lange lange pipe, wenneer bistou ripe ? Te Meye, te Meye, as de veugeltjes eyer lekt. 'T ketjen op den dyk zat, sute melk met brokken (crumbs) at. Doe kwam de voele hesse al met de scharpe messe, wold et ketjen et oor (ear) afsnien; it ketjen ging ant lopen to hope, to hope ! de voele hesse ging lopen. Heel of, half of, houwe dijn den kop af, so dood as een piere, kump siin levendage net weer hiere/ Firmenich gives the form as used in the Neumark, p. 121 : ' sipp sapp seepe, moah mi 9ne Hotel — Wovon denn ? — Von meieroan (marjoram), von thymegoau, det se balle (soon) mag afgoahn3 And in Priegnitz, p. 131 : ' sibbe sibbe sibbe saubken, loat mi det kleine fleutken goot afgoahn,

goot afgoahn, bes up (up to) den letzten Jcnoaken ! 3 We can

see how Sebastian got in, from f sap-pipe, sibbe sabbe/ perhaps also ' bast/ In the Bohmerwald the willow or alder twig is thus conjured (Jos. Eank p. 168) : ' pfofferl gei owa, sist schloga do owa ; lei's rintl o drahdo eiz, heargotl pfeiz ! 3 little pipe, come off, else I knock thee off; dear little rind, do draw thee now, my lord god pipe! Woycicki kl. 1, 92. 151 tells us, that to get a marvellous pipe (fuyarka) that can make everybody dance, one must find in the forest's gloom the green willow that never heard the rush of water nor the crow of cock : ' co by nigdy nie slyszaia szuma wody, ni piania koguta.' This detail, expressly picked up among the peasantry on the Pruth and Dniester, strangely coincides with Pliny's statement 16, 37 [71] : fex qua (sambuco) magis canoram buccinam tubamque credit pastor ibi caesa, ubi gallorum cantum frutex ille non exaudiat.3 Of peeling the willow there is nothing said (see Suppl.).

An old AS. spell for fcer-stice, sudden stitch in the side, was communicated to me by Price from the Harley MS. no. 585 foh 186. First, three herbs are to be boiled in butter, feverfew (febrifugia = febrem fugans, Capit. de villis, Pertz 3, 186), red

1244

SPELLS AND CHARMS.

nettle that grows through a fence (conf. p. 1200, through a sieve), and waybread, OHG. wegabreita, plantago : ' Wr5 faarstiee fefer- fuge, and seo redde netele ]?e hurh asm 1 inwyx'S, and wegbrcede, wylle in buteran.

Hlude waeron hi, la hlude, ba hi ofer bone hlasw ridon, waeron anmode, j?a hi ofer land ridon. scyld ]pu be, nu bu bisne ni'S genesan mote.

ut, lytel spere, gif her inne sie ! stod (I stood) under linde, under leohtum scylde, baer ba mihtigan zd/hyra maegen beraeddon (mustered), and hi gyllende garas (whizzing lances) sendon. ic him o'Serne eft wille sendan (I'll send them back another) fleogende flan forane to geanes.

fit, lytel spere, gif hit her inne sie ! saet snrrS, sloh seax lytel (hammered little knife) iserna wund swifte.

ut, lytel spere, gif her inne sie ! sex smrSas saeton, waelspera worhton, utspere, naes (was not) innspere. gif her inne sie isernes dael (any iron), hcegtessan geweorc (witch's work), hit sceal gemyltan (melt), gif >u waere on fell scoten, o'SSe waere on flaesc scoten,

o$*5e waere on bl6d scoten

cSSe waere on lift scoten, naefre ne si >in lif ataesed, gif hit waere esa gescot, oftfte hit waere ylfa gescot, oftfte hit waere hcegtessan gescot, nu ic wille bin helpan : Ms be to bote esa gescotes, bis be to bote ylfa gescotes, bis be to bote hcegtessan gescotes. ic J>in wille helpan.

fleo baer on fyrgen (flee to the desert) . . . ! heafde hal westu, helpe bin Dryhten ! nim bonne bast seax, ado on waetan.'

A few gaps give trouble. The whole is based on the assump- tion that the stitch is caused by the shots of spirits. Loud over land and rock have ridden mighty women, hasgtessan (p. 1040), and have sent whizzing darts, afterwards more narrowly defined as f esa, ylfa and haegtessan gescot/ shot of ases (p. 25), of elves (p. 443) and of witches (though the gen. sing, is used, not pi. haegtessena) . The exorcist, in relating the transaction, calls to the patient to shield himself, that he may get over the attack, 2 and every now and then puts in the refrain { Out, little spear, if herein thou be ! ' He goes on to tell how he stood under

1 1 Should be haern, conf. haernflota, Cod. Exon. 182, 9.'— Suppl.

2 'bisne nift genesan.' In AS. this verb takes the Ace, not the Gen. as in OHG : ba saecee genaes, Beow. 3950. ni5a gehwane genesen haefde 4789. fela ic guftraesa genaes 4848. se ba gfrSe genaes, Caedm. 121, 33.

STITCH IN THE SIDE. ELF-BUBN.

1245

shelter when those women let fly their darts, and means to send them a counter-shot, a knife, whose smiting by a smith is re- ported, as also that of war-spears by six smiths. Every bit of the witches' iron shall melt, wherever it may have been shot, into skin, flesh, blood or limb ; help is nigh. Lastly : flee thou (enchantress) to the wilderness ! be thou (patient) well in thy head, Lord help thee ! At the conclusion of the spell the knife (that forged by the smith ?) is to be dipt in water. Apparently after e scoten 9 there ought to be 1 o$8e waare on ban scoten 9 ; and perhaps after ' fyrgen ' some such words as ' seo ]?one flan sceat (or, sende) 9 (see Suppl.).

For other spells hitherto unprinted I have to thank Mr. Kemble. f CwrS ymbe, nim eor&an, oferweorp mid ]?inre swiftran handa under Jnnum swrSran fot, and cwet :

fo ic under fet, funde ic hit.

hw93t, eorcfe mceg wi& ealra wihta gehwylce,

and wr3 andan, and wr3 gemiude,

and wr§ ]?a micelan mannes tungan.

and wr§ on forweorp ofer greot ]?onne his wirman, and cwe^ :

sitte ge, etc' (here come the verses given at p. 431).

For the water-elf sickness : ' gif mon br<5 on waster celf-adle, ]?onne beo^ him ]?a hand-nasglas wonne, and }>a eagan tearige, and wile locian nrSer. do him ]?is to lsecedome : eoforJ?rote, cassuc, eowberge, elehtre, eolone, mersc-mealwan-crop, fenminte, dile, lilie, attorlaSe, polleie, marrabie, docce, ellen, felterre, wermod, strawbergean leaf, consolde. ofgeot mid eala^S, do halig wseter to, sing ]?is gealdor ofer ]?riwa :

ic benne awra3 betest beado-wrse^a,

swa benne ne burnon ne burston,

ne fundian ne feologan ne hoppettan,

ne wund waxian, ne dolh diopian,

ac him self healde halewsege,

ne ace \q )?on ma, \q eorcfan on eare ace (age ?) .

sing ]?is manegum srSum. eor&e )?e onbere mid eallum hire (i.e. Earth's) mihtum and masgenum. )?as gealdor mon mseg singan on wunde.'

The earth, caught up in the right hand from under the right

1246

SPELLS AND CHARMS.

foot, heals and shelters ; ' might and main' belong to the earth. Halewcege answers to our heilawac, p. 585.

About the elvish mare and nightmare, what was said on p. 464-5 is by no means all : they ride not only men but horses, whose manes in the morning are found dripping with sweat and tangled, conf. Svantevit's horse p. 662. Cannegieter in Epistola de ara ad Noviomagum reperta p. 25 says : ' Abigunt eas nymyhas (matres deas, mairas) hodie rustici osse capitis eguini tectis injecto, cujusmodi ossa per has terras in rusticorum villis crebra est animadvertere (conf. p. 660). Nocte autem ad concubia equi- tare creduntur, et equos fatigare ad longinqua itinera. Illud namque datum deabus illis magisque, si rusticorum fabulis cre- dimus, ut manentes loca peregrina adeant, in equis manentibus, qui tamen viae labores sudore testantur. Nuper confabulatus mecum villicus aegerrime ferebat equos suos proxima nocte exagitatos, defluente per corpora sudore; causam cum quaere- rem, respondit iratus, mairam nocturnam equitasse.' To this maira nocturna, be it akin to matrona (p. 417) or even to jjuolpa, one might be tempted to trace our nachtmar, nightmare, had we not a better derivation at hand. To the OHGr. marah (equus), AS. mear, ON. marr, seems to correspond the AS. fern, meare (surely a better spelling than msere), ON. mara. True, the OHG. meriha means only equa, not ephialtes, and we now dis- tinguish mahre from mahr ; on the other hand, in ON. it is to the fern, mara that the demonic sense attaches, and so early as in the Yngl. saga cap. 16 king Vanlandi is trodden to death in his sleep by a mara : ' mara traiS hann 3 ; when his people rush to his aid, c tra3 hun fotleggina/ and at last ' kafdi hun hofuSit, sva at J?ar do hann/ The image then seems to waver between the ridden beast and the riding trampling one, just as the devil sometimes rides men, sometimes as a horse takes them on his back. Like the mara, we saw p. 278 that the Stempe treads. Wolf (nos. 249 — 254) gives some good mare-stories from the Netherlands ; I lay special stress on a spell-song he has against the sprite, p. 689 :

0 maer, gy lelyk dier (ye loathly beast), komt toch dezen nacht niet weer (again) ! alle waters zult gy waeyen (shall ye wade),

NIGHTMAKE. BLOOD-STANCHING.

1247

alle boomen zult gy blaeyen (disleaf),

alle spieren gerst (spikes of barley) zult gy tellen,

komt my toch dezen nacht niet kwellen !

With this take a Henneberg spell in Haupt's Zeitschr. 3, 360 :

Das wallala alle berge durchtra (-trab, trot), alle wasser durchbat (-bade, bathe), alle bletlich ablat,

onnerdesse word's tah (until it be day) !

Both refer to the spirit's nightly jaunt, it trots over all the hills, wades (or bathes) through the waters, strips the trees, counts the corn-stalks, until the break of day ; then on the maerentakken (mistletoes ?) the mare is said to rest. The name f wallala 9 may come from wallen, wadeln, or be a cry of wail (Gramm. 3, 293), for the night-spirits (Sup. I, 878) appear as wailing- mothers

(p. 432-3, and Schm. 4, 54). A third spell I take from

Schreiber's Tagb. 1839. p. 321 : e Drude' s-head, I forbid thee my house and yard, I forbid thee my bedstead, that not over me thou trostest (trottest ? treadest ?) ; trost to some other house, till over all hills and waters thou climbest, and all the hedge- sticks ehlest (zehlest, tellest ?) ! Then comes dear day into my house again/ Drute is the same thing as mahre, as drutenzopf (plica) is also called marenzopf, alpzopf, and drutenfuss maeren- vpet. I think the most important point is, that the sprite is shy of daylight, and the dawn scares it away (p. 466 n.) ; the Alvis- mal closes exactly like these spells : ' nu scinn sunna % sali 9 ; conf. 'dagr er nu/ Saem. 145b. I hope the spell may yet turn up in other places, and in a purer form.

Healing -spells are fond of beginning with something in the narrative way, some transaction from which the remedy derives its force ; and it is here especially that we find heathen beings left high and dry. When a spell opens with ' Sprach jungfrau Hille, blut stand stille ! ; who can fail at once to recognise the old valkyr Hilda, her that can make blood flow and stanch it again? And even when the opening words are ' Mary fared afield 9 or ' Christ he crossed the land 9 ; when a charm against finger-worm says ' God the Father afield did ride, stoutly the hoe

1 iiraoidfj atiia Kekaivov 'icx^dov, Od. 19, 457.

1248

SPELLS AND CHAEMS.

he plied, stubbed up the worms outright, one was black, another white, the third worm it was red; here lie the worms all dead'; it is clear that such formulas could not have originated in christian times, but might well survive among the people, who had merely to insert new sacred names. The heathen incident that would account for the obscure or senseless words, is mostly hidden from us. On p. 1232-3 'Jesus' and 'the Lord' have taken the place of Wuotan. ' Ghristus in petra sedebat, et virgam manu tenebat/ Moneys Anz. 7, 609; or again, 'Job went over land, had his staff in hand.' When ' Jesus and Peter wanderino-

o

go from country to country to and fro/ it is evidently the same widely diffused notion as at p. 337 ; but it is not always so easy to hit upon the heathen names that lie at the bottom. A favourite way is to start with three personages : as the idisi fall into three sets (p. 1231), so the three Marys look out (p. 416), like three norns or three fays. ' Three brothers went afield ' (Keisersb. ameis 50a; 'three blessed br.,' Spell XXXI.). 'Three virgins come down from heaven to earth, the one Blut-giilpe, the next Blut-stiilpe, the third Blut-stehe- still ,' Mark, forsch. 1, 262 ; the last is the maid Hilda named alone in the other spell. I will only add from Roth, de nominibus vet. Germanorum medic, Helmst. 1735. p. 139 : ' Juvat subnectere incantationis formulam, qua in Marchia Brandenb. atque adjacentibus regionibus in ophthalmia curanda uti solent anus decrepitae, insanos ritus deperientes, quam quidem factis variis gesticulationibus ac digitis ante dolentes oculos ter decussatim motis, rauco susurramine semel atque iterum emutire consuescunt, ita autem habent : Ibant aliquando tres puellae in via virente, prima noverat reme- dium aliquod contra suffusionem oculorum, altera noverat reme- dium aliquod contra albuginem, et tertia profecto contra inflam- mationem, eaeque sanabant una ratione omnia, in nomine Patris, Filii et Spiritus sancti, Amen' (see Suppl.).

Against particular diseases the remedies are pitted as though in mortal strife : ' de ros un de wied, de stan in strid, de ros verswann, de wied gewann'; or, 1 de flecht (scrofula) un de wied, de krakeelten sik, de wied de gewiinn, un de flecht verswiinn,' Meckl. jahrb. 5, 102-3; or again, f de flockasch (flugasche) un de fiechte, de flogen wol over dat wilde meer ; de flockasch de kam wedder, de flechte nimmermehr,' Sup. I, 811 (see Suppl.).

BLOOD-STANCHING. FOEMS OF SPELL. 1249

Spells for the wishing-rod, when it is to strike treasure or a vein of metal, see p. 975. A. formula used in looking for a clay- pit, in whose earth are to be wrapt up the written slips of paper which shall clear up a doubtful matter, in Haupt's Zeitschr. 3, 190.

In addresses to animals whose encounter is prophetic, whose ways are mysterious, we may fairly recognise antique spells, though their language has undergone a great deal of distortion ; such are the rhymes to the swan, p. 429, the stork 672, cuckoo 676, Martin's bird 1130, Mary's chafer 695, and others, whose essential identity among the most various branches of our race is an interesting feature.

In Scandinavia, where the reign of heathenism lasted longest, ought to be found the greatest number of such spells, either in writing or in the mouths of the people ; and from them we could gather most distinctly the connexion, both of the words and of their import, with heathen notions. The spell by which Groa was about to disengage the stone from Thor's head, p. 375, is not preserved in the Edda, but spells quite similar may have been still muttered over men and beasts in recent times. Much to be desired is the speedy publication of a collection set on foot by L. F. Kaaf in Sweden, and containing over 2000 articles, of which a preliminary notice appeared in the monthly Mimer (Ups. 1838 — 40) pp. 271 — 7. Among these spells now reduced to writing, isolated runes can here and there be recognised even yet, and in some cases their use is enjoined ; thus, on the mode of compelling a thief to restore stolen goods on pain of losing his eye, we find the following prescription : Go at sunset on Sunday evening to a place that lies high, bearing a bucketful of water, cut the rune S, and charge the thief within a certain time to bring back what he has stolen, or lose his right eye. The rune S apparently refers to Sunday and sunset, perhaps to syn (sight, eye) ; does it also in connexion with the water- vessel point to the word sa (situla) ? Most likely the water was poured out, and ran down the hill (see Suppl.).

FINIS.

INDEX.

Koman figures refer to the Author's Preface.

Aaskereia 946.

abant, aefen, aptan (evening) 748. abcut, abgott (false god) 14. 106. Abel 944.

Abent-rot 232 n. 239. 748. abis (hell) 805.

Abraham, abrahemsch 1220. 1241. abrenuntiatio 161. 203. 1005 n. Abundia 286. 889. 1056. abyssus (hell) 805. 1002. Adam 565. 575. Adonis 949 n. Adriani moles 1183 n. Mgel, Eigill 376. 380-2. aslf-adl (elf-burn) 1155. 1245. Aeolus 631-4. 640. aer-daeg (dawn) 747. Aesculapius 1148. 1213. iEsir (gods) 815. 902. ^thel-stan 119. 394. Affen-berg 681. age, generation 792-3. Agemund 511. 913 n. a-genggun (lamiae) 500 n. ager-uld (field wool) 871. ages of the world, four 575. a-getroc (trickery) 464. a-gui-lan-neuf 755. 1206. Agro-mainyus, Ahriman 984 n. 1011. Ahuro-mazdao, Ormuzd 984 n. aibr (gift) 40. alyis (aegis) 238.

''Ai'Sos Kwerj (Pluto's helmet) 463. Alva, alza, ehre? 414. Ajo 362.

aKiv&Krjs (sword) 204. Akka xxxi.

alah, alhs (temple) 66-7. 106. alba (elf, etc.) 462. 1073. Alb-donar 186.

alb-dono, aslf-bone, alp-ranke (bitter

sweet ?) 448. 1216. Albe-rich, ^lf-ric 453. alb-leich (elf-lay) 470. 107. alb-schoss (elf-shot) 187. 460. Albunea 496 n. Alcis 66. 71. 366. alder, erle 653 [Erl-kdnig] . alectorius (caponstone) 1219.

VOL. III. 1251

Alf-heimr 444. Al-f6«r 22. alfr, elf 442. Alf-rikr 488.

Aliruna xi. 95. 404. 1225. 'AAAoTrpdo-aAAos 207 n. alo-waldo, al-wealda (almighty) 21 alp, elf 442. 463. Alp-drM, Mli-brjK 423. Alp-ris 465.

alp-ruthe, elf-rod 183-7. Alps 444.

alpt, aelfet (swan) 429. 444 n.

alptar-hamr (swan-garb) 427.

Alraun, Alrune 513 n. 1202 n.

alraun (mandrake) 1202-4.

Al-svrSr 656.

Altanus 162 n.

Al-Hofr 465.

altissimus 21.

altvil (scrat) 479 n.

al-vitr (all -witting) 425.

Alx xi. 66. 366.

Amala 372.

Amaltheia 872.

Amazons 418.

amber 1218 n.

ambro (obor?) 527 n.

ambrosia, amrita 317.

Amphion 908.

Ana sott (second childhood) 1153.

Anar, Onar 735.

Andlangr 808 n.

and-skotti (foe, fiend) 989.

Andvari 488. 592. 978-9.

anel (granny) 641. 1009.

anemos and aetos 634.

Angandeo 196 n.

an- gang (what meets us) 1119.

Angan-tyr (OSinn) 196 n.

angel xliii. 420 n. 449 n. 575. 875-6.

angels' eyes 146 n.

Angr-bo-Sa 246.

animal sacrifices 46.

Anningat (moon) 703. 716.

ans, as, 6s (god) 24-5. 384.

Ans-pirin 25 n. 668.

ant-heiz (vowed offering) 37-8.

Antichrist 810-1. 980-1.

A A

1252

INDEX.

Antilois 449 n. 465.

anti-tago (end-day) 815 n.

Antony's fire 1160.

Aphrodite (Venus) 307. 313 n. 902 n.

Apollo 79 n. 111. 115 n. 149. 161 n. 321.

620 n. 812. 901-7. 1006. 1148. 1182. appearing, disappearing 325-7. 336-8. aptra-ganga (ghost) 915. aquilo and aquila 634. Arakho 707.

aran-scart (crop-lifting) 475. "Apeos kvvt), Tyr-hialm 199. 1193. Ares (Mars) 111. 197. 201-3-4. 321. 343. 1193.

Arian-rod (silver ring, galaxy) 357 n. 412 n.

Arktos (Ursa major) 151. 725. arm-hoop, looking thro' the 939. 337. Artemis (Diana) 270. 949. 1148. 1182. 1192.

artemisia (mugwort) 1192. 1211-2. Arthur xlvi. 668. 672. 942. 961. Ar-vakr 656. arweggers (dwarfs) 454 n. arzat, ersetre (physician) 1151. as, 6s (god) 24-5. As-biorn (ases' bear) 25. As-bru (rainbow) 732. As-gar$r 817. As-ketill 63.

as-megin (divine might) 24-5. 188. Asa-grim (Thorr) 150. Asa-heimr 530. Asa-thorr 166. 187. 243 n. Aschanes 572.

aschen-brodel (cinderella) 388. ases, the (gods) 24-5. Ashkenaz 572 n. ash-tree 571-2. 651. 796. Aski-burg 350. 365. Askr 560. 571-2. Asprian 387. 547. 556. asses sacrificed 49 n.

astrology 721-2.

asylum 85 n.

asynja (goddess) 250 n.

at-bairan (offer, sacrifice) 38.

Athena (Minerva) 265. 326-7. 337-* 537-8. 1148. 1193.

at>n (year) 754.

atisks (corn) 1115.

Atlas 570.

Atli 169.

atonement-boar 51. 213. Atropos 414-5. atzmann (wax figure) 1091. Aucholf 762. AuSumla 559. 665. aue, ouwa, ea, -ey 225. aught, naught 440 n. Aurinia 95. 403-4. Aurora 749.

Austheia 697.

Austri, Vestri, NorSri, SuSri 461.

austr-vegr (east-ways) 187-8.

Avar 292-4-7. 526.

avara (image) 105 n. 115-6. 383.

avatara 336-8.

Ave, Ver (frau Ave) 675.

Aventiure 310. 911.

Avernus 806.

aversiers (devil) 988.

aviliudon (bless) 33.

Aylesbury, Aylesford 376.

Azdingi 342.

baba, babka (granny) 478 n. 641. 784. Babehild424.

babes unchristened27l. 918. 920. 1070w.

Babilone 385 n. 954. 534.

Bacchus, Dionysus 260. 306.

badi (bed, altar) 68 n.

badniak (yule-log) 628.

Baduhenna 71 n.

Badu-hilt, Beado-hild 377.

Bsekheg 165. 221-9. 367. 744.

Bak-rauf (elf, witch) 1079.

Balaam's ass 392.

Bald-ander 207 n.

Balderschwang 222.

Baldr 164. 220. 318. 320. 647. 823.

baldrian (valerian) 1207-8.

Baldrs-berg 222. _ '

Baldrs-bra, Bar-bro (anthemis cotula)

222. 1191. 1207-8. Baldrs-brond 226. Baldrs-hagi 225. Baltero 996.

balvonas, bolvan (image) lOo n.

band (deity) 26.

banning 951.

ban-shi 444 n.

baptizo, chrismo 3w.

bard 900.

bare head, elbow, knee 31-3. 652. Barguest 512 n.

bark 653 ; 'twixt wood and b. 1039??.

barlebaen, barli-bak, -break (devil) 1003, barn -building 252 n. Barthel (goblin) 515 n. barzdukkai, berstuhki (dwarf) 448 n. (3a<ricatvoj, fascino 1100. Baugi 903. Bavo's pillar 394. Bayard 392. 656. Beal xxix. 228. 613-4. bealdor (prince) 220. beal-tine (May fire) 612-4. bear, king of beasts 667. bear-skin 1010. 1018. bear's loaf 783. Beaw, Beow 165. 369. Bechte 278. 281.

INDEX.

1253

bedd, weoh-bed (altar) 68 n.

bee 696. 905 n. 1136.

Beelzebub 998-9.

beetles 183. 691-5.

Befana 282.

beh (pitch, hell) 804-5.

Bel, Belenus 222. 613.

belder (fatted ox) 50 n.

belewitte (homesprite) 473.

Beli 530.

Bellona 208. 435.

Bellovesus 614.

bell-ringing 5. 459. 950. 1085.

Belus, Baal 571. 613.

Benz (devil) 1004.

beo-m6dor (queen-bee) 697. 1242.

Beo-wulf 369. 673. 697.

Berche 277.

Berecynthia 255 n.

berg-bui, -rind, -risi (giant) 533.

Bergelmir 529. 559. 563. 577.

berg-smed (dwarf) 458 n. 471 n.

berg-tagen (-taken) 466. 952-3.

Berhta 222. 272-282. 416. 429. 430 n.

791. 932. 947. 968. Berhtolt 279. 932. Berleih at Augsburg 293-5. Bernhart 373. 936. bertram 1213.

beschaffen, beschert (destined) 862. beta-bur, -hus (temple) 85-6. betan, boten (heal) 1036. 1151. betony 1208-9.

Betphania (Twelfth-day ?) 281. 586.

Bhavani 255.

bianac (blessing) 13371.

Biarki, Biarco 337. 887 n. 939.

bi-boz, beifuss (mugwort) 1211-2.

bidental (struck by lightning) 185.

bidjan (pray) 30.

Bielbogh 222-8. 985 n.

Bif-lrSi, Bif-lindi (OSinn) 149. 882.

Bif-rost (rainbow j 235. 732.

Bil 374. 473 n. (man in moon) 717.

Bildaberta 277.

bildukkas (homesprite) 508.

Bilei 453.

Billion 374. 888.

Billing 373-4. 454.

bilmer-schnitt (crop-lifting) 475.

bilse, bilisa (henbane) 593. 1198. 1208.

bilsen-schnitt (crop-lifting) 476.

Bilskirnir 336.

bilwiz (spectre, witch) 472.

binsen-schneider (crop-lifter) 476.

Biorn 668.

Biort 272ti. 1149.

birds 669-683.

bird's nest 871. 1205.

birds of omen 1128-1136.

birth 874-5.

Biterolf 369.

biudan (offer, sacrifice) 38.

biuds (table, altar) 38. 68 n. 701.

bjara (conveyance) 1090.

black art 103772.

black cow, black ox 665 n.

black goddesses 313?2.

Bla-kulla 1052.

Blanche-fleur 429 n.

Blaserle 461 n.

Blaster 548. 630.

blate-fuoz (blade-foot) 451.

Blicero (death) 849.

Bim, Blitfur 1149.

Blocksberg 1051.

blood-tree 649.

blotan (sacrifice) 34.

blot-lundr (sacrificial grove) 76.

blot-maftr (sacrificer) 93.

blot-risi (giant) 557.

blue fire 178.

bluote-kirl (priest) 37.

Blut-stulpe 1248.

boar-badge 214.

boar- vow, boar's head, 215.

bock-schnitt (crop -lifting) 476-7. 995.

bocks-horn (Easter fire) 616 n.

BoSn 902-4.

Bodrok In.

Bodvar-tyr (OSinn) 196.

boen, ben (boon, prayer) 31. 1224.

boeuf gras 50 n.

b6gh (god) 13 72.

boghatyr (hero) 343 n.

Bogudes 293-5.

Bol-f>orn (born = >urs) 559.

Bolverkr (OSinn) 367. 903.

bom-heckel (wood pecker) 973.

bona dea 283.

bona socia 89 n. 283-8. 500.

bonae mulieres, b. res 1059.

bond (gods) 26.

bonfire 629.

bon homme, bonne femme 89. 526. 1067n.

boni homines (heretics) 89. 106772.

bonne dame 430 n.

bootzi, bogk (bogie, Swiss) 507.

Boreas 631-6.

Borr 349. 530. 559.

bo-tra (goblin's tree) 509. 653.

Bous 368.

bowing 31-2.

Brag 51272.

Braga-full (-bumper) 60. 235. Braga-roeftur (-speeches) 236-7. Bragi 235. 339. 902.

Brahma xxxiii. xxxix. 562 n. 570-1. 578-9.

bramberend (devil) 1003. Brana 532.

Brand, Brond 165. 222. brego (prince) 235-6.

1254

INDEX.

Brego-wine viii. 93. 235. 909. Brei$a-blik 222. 795. Breide xxviii. 374. Bretannia 832-3. Brezeliande 411-2. Bridget 611. brie vara (fate) 406 re. Brimir (sea-god) 561. brirn-wylf (water-demon) 496. brising (Midsum. fire) 622.

Brisinga-men 306. 622. 870.

britannica (water-plant) 1195-6.

Brittia 832-3.

Brocken 1051.

Broga (terror) 208.

brood-penny 871.

broomstick- riding 1083.

Brosinga-mene 307.

brownies 445.

Bmn-hild xlviii. 423. 936.

Bruni 330.

Brun-matin 748.

Brunn-akr 236.

brunnen-hold (fountain-sprite) 268 n. Bryn-hildr 96 re. 145 n. 403. 423-5 re. 427.

551. 820 n. 980. 1149. 1204. Buddha 129 n. 570. 716. Budhuvaras 129 n. built-in alive 1141-4. bu-limus 1159. bulwechs (spectre) 472. burg-runa (fates) 404 re. Buri 349. 559. Burlenberg 982. Burn-acker 236. Burr 219. 349. Burri 348-9. bush-grandmother 484. butte, butze, butz-igel (bogie) 506-7.

butterfly 828. 1028. Bybylus, Babilos 697.

caduceus (Mercury's staff) 976. Csednion 906. Cain 525 n. 719.

calendas, calendeau (yule, yule-log) 627.

Calypso xxviii.

cambio (changeling) 468.

Cambra 265 n.

camp-flori (paradise) 822.

caraway-bread 484-5.

Carl xlvi. lii. 435 n. 938. 953. 1208.

carles-wasn (Ursa major) 151. 724.

carlina (sowthistle) 1208.

Carl-quintes 938.

Carl-stein xlvi.

Casere 165. 367.

Castor 119. 366. 783.

cat 305. 669.

caterpillar 1029 n. 1073 n. census (votive offering) 684.

ceraunius (thunder-stone) 1221.

Cerberus 814 n.

Ceres 254. 309. 941.

Ceridwen's chair (rainbow) 733.

chair of God 136. 733.

changeling 468.

chaos 558.

charadrius 853 n.

Charis 143. 436.

Charles, see Carl.

charm, carmino 1035.

Charon 831. 840-5.

Charos 845-6.

chela (arm hoop) 939.

chelidonisma (swallow song) 763.

Cherusci 204.

chervioburgus (witches' porter) 1045

childbirth 1159. 1175-7.

child's caul 874.

Chimken 503-4.

chirihha, cyrice (kirk) 86.

Chiron 1148.

Chlungere (tangler) 274.

Chochilaichus, Hygelac vii.

choirs, nine 795 re.

chrene-crud (pura herba) 642-3.

chrismation 3w.

Christ xl. 182. 1247-8.

Christopher 529 n. 540-2.

Chrodo 206 n. 248-9.

Cinderel 388.

Cisa, Zisa 298.

Claus, Clobes 505. 515.

Clotho 414-5.

cloud 332-3 ; cloud-ship 638-9. cluricaun (homesprite) 508. 513 n. Cnivida 372.

coboldus (homesprite) 501.

cock, the red (fire) 601. 670.

cock-crowing 670. 952 note3.

cock's bones! 15 n.

coibhi, coifi (priest) 92 n. 642 n.

complices, consentes (gods) 26.

concubinae 929.

Constantine 85 n.

Copia 889.

cornucopia 869. 870.

corn- wife (fieldsprite) 477.

corpse-bird, -dove 828. 1134.

cotinc (man of God) 88.

cow, black 665 re., miraculous 871.

Crescentia 1061. 1152.

crossbill 183 n.

cross-roads 1074. 1113-5.

Ctitel (planet Venus) 130 re.

cuckoo 675-682. 1135 n.

cuckoo- spittle (woodsave) 682.

cudgel jump out 870.

Cura 879 n.

cursing 1227.

cwis (hell) 807.

Cybele's bath 254-5.

INDEX.

1255

cyclop 516 n. 527. 547. cyclopean walls 534. Cypripedium (lady's slipper) 1194.

dad-sisas (adjuring the dead) 1227.

Daedalus 378.

Dseg-hrefn (dawn) 743.

dseg-red, dags-bran (dawn) 747.

daemones (spirits) 439.

Dagr (day) 735-7.

Dainn 453.

Dank-rat 267 n.

Danpr, Danr 266 n. 368 n.

Daphne 827.

dase (goblin, witch?) 1061. Datanus 137 n. daumling (thumbling) 450-1. Davy, Old 989. 1004. day and dies 735 n. day-choosing 1138-9. daylight, dwarfs shy of 466 n. days of the week 122-130. dead, feeding the 913 n. Death 842. 888. 1181.

carried out 766-8.

, dance of 848. 851.

, Gossip xvi. 853.

Decius (dice) 887. decumanus fluctus 600. dehait, souhait 951 n. Dehkla 416 n. 877.

dehsel-rite (witch's ride) 1048-9. 1070. Dellingr 735. Deluge 576-581. 983. Demar-hilt 422 n.

Demeter (Ceres) xxxix. 22. 212. 250-4.

310. 331. 1059 n. deofol-gild (idolatry) 82 n. 102. 1005. Depeghoz 554. 1028. Derk 214. 268. Deucalion 573-6-7. 580. deus, debs 194. 339. devil 984. devil's bit 1213.

bride 1009. 1029. 1073 n.

carl, child (demoniac) 1013.

cat (caterpillar) 1029. 1073 n.

dike 1022-3.

hand 241.

mill 1021.

mother, grandmother 1007-9.

devin (divine, diviner) 471. dew-draggle 387. 786. clew-striker, -skimmer 1073. Dhor, Dor 812. DhruS 423.

Diana 110 n. 195. 283-5-3. 933. 949.

1055-7. 1161-2. Diana, the black 313 n. diar (gods) 195 n. dice 150. 887. 1007. diena (day) 195.

Diespiter 195. Dieterle 717 n.

Dietrich (Theoderic) 373. 531.

Dietrich-bern 213-4. 373. 936.

Dietrich's haus 1183.

dievas, dievaitis (god) 168. 194.

dille-stein (lid of hell) 806.

ding (thing, sprite) 442. 1073.

Dionysus (Bacchus) 306.

Dios-curi (Castor and Pollux) 120.. 343.

391. 463. 560rc. 916rc. Dirp, Drip, Trip 958 n. dis (wise- woman) 97. 402. Disbargum 198. Disen-dach (Tuesday) 125. Dissunapiter 22 n. 225. 1234. dives (rich) 194. Divyaratna 872. Dobra-srichia (fortune) 877 n. Dobro-pan (planet Mercury) 130 n. 150>. dock-alfar (dark elves) 443-4. dodola (rain-maker) 593-4. dogor, dcegr (half-day) 757. dogs named after gods In. dog's saddle (cankerworm) 1074 nr Dold 581. 983. dolgr (spectre) 916. domes-dag, tuomis-tac 815 n. Don 150 nr.

Donanadel 490 n. 1029. Donar (-Thorr) xviii. 122-3. 166. 812. donner (thunder) 11 n. 15 n. donner-aas (cat) 304.

bart, -besen, -kraut 183. 1191.

gueg (beetle) 183.

Donners-berg 170. 186. 955. Donner-schwee, Doners-we 185. donner-ziege (snipe) 184. dorant (snapdragon?) 1214. Dorn-roschen (sleeping beauty) xvi. 1204. dorper (giant) 535. 556 n. DorruSr 426.

doste (wild marjoram) 1029 n. 1214.

dove 148. 848. 1135 n.

dragon 978. 980. 998. 1019.

dragonfly 1029.

draugr (spectre) 915.

Draupnir 561. 871.

dream (dream, bliss) 795. 901. 1145.

dream-interpretation 1145-7.

Drebkulls 817.

Drei-eich 75.

Drifa 631. 641. 883. 890.

dros, drost (giant) 521-2 n. 1003.

drottinn, dryhten, truhtin . (lord) 22.

drugi thing (spectre) 464 n.

druid, drf 1036 n. 1205-6.

drut (goblin) 423. 464. 1041-5.

druten-zopf (plica Polon.) 464. 1247.

dryad (tree-nymph) 480. 653.

Dualism lii. 984.

duck's foot 450-1 n.

1256

INDEX.

duende (goblin) 500.

duesse, divesse (fay) 410 n.

duga (help) 34.

duga, raduga (rainbow) 733.

dumbr (stupid) 528. 543.

dumeke, duming (dwarf) 726.

durihil stein (thirl stone) 1166.

Durinn 561.

durs (giant) 521. 920.

durva (turf) 642.

dusius, duz, duzik (incubus) 481. dutten (lubbers) 544. Dvapara 887. dverg-mal (echo) 452. dvergr (dwarf) 443-7. dverg-slagr (palsy) 1157. dvergs-nat (cobweb) 471. dwarfs 447-472. dwolma (cbaos) 558 n. Dwyvan 581. Dyaus 193. dyrka (worship) 31.

Dziewanna, Dziewica 478 n. 933 n. 1162. Dzuma 1186.

ea, aue, ouwe 225. 600. eagle 633-4 ; — 's shadow 1133. ear, ringing in the 1117. Ear, Eor 202. Earendel 375.

Earth 250-6 ; cutting out earth 1093.

earth-chicken 691.

earth-fire 603.

earth-mannikin 450 n. 454.

earthquake 816.

earth-worm 540. 561.

east, looking to the 34.

Easter cakes, eggs, games 780-1.

fires 43. 615-7.

Eastre 289-291. 616. eblis (devil) 574.

ebur-J?rung (Orion) 359. 727. 949

(Hyades?) 730. echo 452. Ecke 238. 636. Eckhart 934-6. Ecki-sax 238. eclipses 705-7. Eersel 154.

ege (awe), egesa, eges-grime 237-8.

egg origin 560 n.

eggrund (hell) 806 n.

egg-shells 469.

Egi-dora, Eider 239.

Egi-helm 238.

Eigil 374-6. 380. 424.

Eikjjyrnir 818.

Eileithyia 1176.

Eim, Lake 559.

EindrrSi 381.

einheri (hero in heaven) 817. Eir 1148. 1161.

Eisen,Frau 265. 297 n. Eisen-berta 277. 477. Eisen-hutel 505 n. 508. Eis-here 557.

El (tempest, a witch) 1089. ElbeE. 444 n. elbe (elf) 442. 1073. Elbe-gast, Ele-gast 465. Elben-drotsch 443. 461. 931. Elbe -rich xlvi. 453. eld-borg (fire) 628-9. • elder, ellen, ell-horn 651-2. electrum 1218 n.

elf-, see self-, alb-, alf-, alp-, elle-.

elf -bore (knot-hole) 461.

elf-licht (will o' wisp) 917.

elf-queen 934 n.

elf-shot 180-7. 460.

elf-trad (-tree) 653.

elf -worship 448.

Elias 173-4. 811.

EliuSnir 802.

Elivagar 558.

elle-folk, -koner, -kong, -skudt, -vi

443. 460 n. 461. 940 n. Elmo's fire 906. Elohim 576-7. elves 442. elysium 821-2. Em-bach 599 n. 674. Embla 560. 572. enchant, canto 1035. endil-meri (ocean) 601. Endymion 952 n. eniautos, etos (year) 754-5. Enoch 174. 811. enpanez, diables 998. ent (giant), entisk 524. 534. entsehen (evil eye) 461. 1035. 1099. Enyo 208. 435. Enze-mann, Enzen-berc 524. EowSen 161w. 812. eofor-cumbol (boar's figure) 214. Eor 201-2.

eorcnan-stan (orphanus, opal ?) 1217.

eoten (giant) 519.

ephialtes (nightmare) 1155.

epiphania 281.

epur-helm (boar helmet) 215.

Era, Ere (honour) 414 n. 891-5.

Erce 253. 1238.

Erc-tac (Tuesday) 124.

Erculus 161n. 212.

ere (honour, worship) 29 n. 760 n.

Erebus 575.

Eres-berg 198-9. 201.

Eres-burg 116 n. 199.201.

Erichthonius 378. 726.

Erik, Old 989. 1004.

Eriks-gata (-road) 235. 360-1.

Eris 208. 435.

Eri-tac, Er-tag (Tuesday) 124. 201-2.

INDEX.

1257

Ermen-rich 372. 982.

Erming-strete 356.

Ero (Sansk. ira, earth) 250.

esa gescot (gods' shot) 25. 1244.

Escio 349.

Eskja 572.

Essel 520 it.

eteninne (giantess) 519. Eticho 372-3. 394. Etzel 169. Eugel 471. eumenides 1086. Euring 358-9. Europa 338. 343. 666. Eve 574-5. evil eye 1099. Ewald 454.

e-warto (priest, judge) 89. exercitus antiquus 941, feralis 950. eyes, quivering of the 1117. Ey-limi 979 n.

fseece (fetch, fye? ) 464n. Fafnir 371-2. 688. 978. Fairguneis xxii. 172. 256. fairguni (mountain) 172. 644. fairhvus (world) 793-5. 826 n. fairy-rings 187 n. 470. Falada 659. Falant (devil) 992. Fama 897-8. Famars 84. 198. familiaris 514 n. fanatici 83-5.

fani-golt (fen gold) 531. 978.

fantasma 482. 498-9.

fanum (temple) 84-5.

Far-bauti 246.

farfadet (ignis fatuus) 917.

farhuazan, verwazen (curse) 951. 1223.

Farma-t^r (OSinn) 196.

Fasat 232 n.

Fasolt 232 n. 239. 527. 636. 748. 943.

Faste, Frau 782. 933.

fata, fada, fee 405-6 n. 410-3.

fatalism 861.

father 22. 168-9.

faunus 481-2. 673.

faura-tani (portent) 1105 n.

Faxi 656-7.

fays, fees 410-3. 551 n.

feig, fey (marked to die) 856. 861.

Felicia 869. 961.

femurc (devil) 1003.

Fe Murgan 412 n. 820 n.

f engari (luminary) 701 n.

Fenja 531. 864.

Fenrir, Fenris-ulfr 244-6. 667. 814. fern-seed 1209-1211. Feruina 1234.

fetch, fye (double, wraith) 877 n. feuer-mann (ignis fatuus) 916 n.

feverfew 1243-4.

fiaftr-hamr (wing-coat) 329.

Fialar the cock 670.

Fialar the dwarf 453. 468 n. 902.

Fichte, Frau (pine) 653. 1171.

fiefs proclaimed and bid for 787 n.

field-spinster 1088. 1099. 1124.

Fifel-dor (E. Eider) 239.

fimbul 816. 825 w.

Finn 219. 380. 454. 548-9. 1025.

Fiolnir 348. 696.

Fiorgyn 172. 256.

fir-tree 653.

fire, perpetual 611.

fire-beetle, fur-boter 183.

firgin-bucca, firgen-gaet (wild goat) 184.

fitchers-vogel 468 n.

fiur-sehen (pyro-mantia) 1111.

flag of victory 1112.

Fleder-wisch (devil) 1063.

flehen (soothe, implore) 30.

flihtare (guardian angel) 875.

Flore 429 n.

Flosi 831.

flower-offerings 57-8. fly (devil) 998-9. foal's tooth, fiili-zant 658 n. Folc-wald 165. 219. Fold, Fuld (devil) 992 n. Folk-vangr 305.

Folia (copia) 224. 288. 308. 889. 1232.

follet (follis) 508. 917.

fol-mani (full moon) 709.

folter (torture) 1076.

Folz 227.

Fonn 631. 641.

footprint, cutting out the 1093. fordsefta (witch) 1032. forget-me-not 972. 1201. forn (sacrifice) 40-1. Fornax 256. 629.

Forneotes-folme (a plant) 240. 532. 1191.

Forniotr 240. 529- 631-6.

fors (waterfall) 592.

Forseti 229-232.

forst (hurst, grove) 68.

Fortuna 863-6-9. 877.

Fortunatus 869.

Fosete, Fosetes-land 84. 229-231. 600. fosse-grim (watersprite) 232 n. 493. 592. Frank (dog's name) 7 n. fraua-chueli (ladycow) 303. 694-5. frauen-milch (a choice wine) 1194. frauen-schlussel (cowslip) 1194. frauja, frea, frdho (lord) 22. 209. Frea ( = Frigg) 128. 134. 301. Frea (AS. for Freyr) 209. Frea-laf 165. 219. 313 n. Frea-wine viii. 93. 165. 211. 367. Frecken-horst, Frsecing-hyrst 304. Freke, Fru 304. Freki 147. 668.

1258

INDEX.

Frene, Fru 306 n:

fres (cat, bear) 669.

Frey-faxi 213. 655-6.

Freyja (sister of Freyr)liv. 212. 299. 417.

547. 838. 1054. Freyju-har (capillus Veneris) 303.

1191-4. Freyju-hoena (ladybird) 695. Freyr 97. 114. 161-2. 530. 656-7. 790.

Freys-vinr 93. 211. Frey-vrSr 188.

Fricca ( = Frigg, Odin's wife) xv. 301. 947-9.

Fricco ( = Freyr) 113. 161.

FritS (mild) 1149.

frifl-hof (asylum, sanctuary) 85 n.

Friday 123-8. 301-2.

FrrSu-wulf 165. 219.

Friedrich Eedbeard (Barbarossa) 955-9.

friend of God viii. 93.

Frigg (Odin's wife) xx. 270. 300. 647 n.

860 ??. 873-4. 939. 1232. Frigge-rock (Orion's belt) 270. 302. 726. Friggjar-gras (berba conjugalis) 302-4. frl-murc (devil) 1003. friscing (pig, lamb) 50-1. Fro ( = Freyr) 209. 478. 637. Fro ( = Freyr) 209. 211 ; Fro-blot 348. Fro-berge (Frey's sword?) 216 n. Frdfta-mioll (gold) xliv. FroSi xliv. 347-8. 368. 531. 864. 871. Froger 367-8. Fro-belm 215. Froho ( = Freyr) xix. 210. Froja ( = Freyja) 302. fromm (pius) 88. Fr6-muot (mirtb) 891. Fro-win, Frea-wine (F.'s friend) 211. Frua ( = Freyja) xx. 224. 299. 1232. Fruike, Fru 304 n. Fruma (gain) 889. Fruote (=Fr6£i) xliii. Fuld (devil) 992 n. Fulla (copia) 288. 308. 871. 889. fulla-fahjan (worship) 38. fullibs (full moon) 709. funken-tag (Shrove Tuesday) 628. Fuoge, Fro (fitness) 311 n. furious host 918-950. f utter-mannchen (homesprite) 510 n.

513 n.

fylgja (guardian spirit) 874-877.

gade-basse (May king) 776. 785. gade-ild (May fire) 622. gade-lam (May queen) 776. Gaia 250-4. 575.

galadrot, caladrio (a bird) 853 n. 1181. Galar 453. 468 w. 902. galdr (magic spell) 1035. 1223. galiug (false god, idol) 15.

gallicena (prophetess) 425 n. gallows-mannikin 513 n. Gallus 671.

gamban-teinn (wishing-rod ?) 976. Gambara 362.

gand-rerS (witch's jaunt) 1052. Ganges 600. Gang-lati 843.

Gang-leri, -raSr (OSinn) 163 n. 325.

Ganna 95-6. 403.

gap ginnunga (chaos) 558.

Gargantua 542. 554.

Garmr (hell-hound) 814.

garsecg (sea) 601.

Garuda 633-4.

Gauchs-berg 680.

Gauden, Fru xx. 925-7.

Gaue, Fru xx. 252.

Gauta-tyr (OSinn) 196.

Gautr 164. 368.

Gauts 23. 354 n. 367-8. 372. 888.

gavalrbi (peace) 17 n.

Geat 164-5. 372.

Geban 239. 600.

Gefjon 239. 311. 530. 861 n.

Gefn (Freyja) 311.

Gefuoge (fitness) 311 n.

gehenna (hell) 800.

Geilat 739.

Geir-nidrSr 217.

Geir-r63r 529. 531.

geist, ghost, gust 439. 461.

Gelder 220.

gelmir (boisterous ?) 563. gelstar (sacrifice) 38-9. gemein-woche (public week) 43. 298. genesen (get well) 1244. Geofon 239. 600. 565 n. George's shirt 1099. geormen-leaf (mallow) 1216. gepanta (a ship) 877 n. GerSr 212. 309. 530. Geri 147. 668. Ger-not 371. Gersimi 886.

Gertrude xxxviii. 60. 270 n. 305. 423 n. 838.

Gertrude's fowl (woodpecker) 673.

gespenst (spectre) 914.

Gestr (OSinn) 326.

getroc, getwas (spectre) 464. 915.

Gevis 354 n.

Giallar-horn 234.

Gibicho 137. 370. 888.

gid (song) 900-5.

giess-vogel (rainfowl) 674.

giezen (cast, mould) 23. 105 n. 142.

gifr (giantess) 526.

gigant (giant) 525.

gildan (sacrifice) 38-9.

Giltine (plague) 1185.

Gimill (new heaven) 823.

INDEX.

1259

ginnan (yawn, gape) 320. 403. 558 n. 748. ginnunga-gap (chaos) 558. 562. gin-regin (gods) 320. Gioll (river of hell) 802-3. girregar (ignis fatuus) 917. Gisla-hari 371. Giuki 370.

GlaSs-heimr (site of Valholl) 820. Glasis-lundr (-grove) 76. glass-castle, -house 820 n. glass-mountain 820 n. 836 n. Glaucus 696.

gleo, gleo-man, gleo-crgeft 901. Gler 658.

Glis-born (-burn) 938.

Glitnir (Baldr's hall) 229.

Gloggen-sahs, Mount 444.

gluck-henne (Pleiades) 728.

gliicks-haube (child's caul) 874.

Gna 884. 896-7.

gnid-eld (need-fire) 607.

go, go about, walk (haunt) 915.

goat 184-5. 995. 1076.

goat -hallowing 52. 996.

gobelin (homesprite) 502.

God, go«, gu«, got 13.

God and me, welcome to 16.

God's joy 17, industry 17 n., anger 18, hatred 19, goodness 20, power 20-1, fatherhood 22, chair 136. 733, eye 146 »., judgment 1108.

goddess 250.

Gode, Fru 253. 927 n.

god-forgotten (horehound) 1192.

goft-ga (blasphemy) liii. 7 n. 20.

god-gubbe (Thor) 167.

go$i (priest) 88. 93.

GoS-mundr 823 n. 393.

Goftormr, ' Dana go$ ' 161.

gods 99 ; not immortal 316-320.

gods' images 63-4. 105-119.

gods' language 331-4.

gods' vehicles 107. 327-9.

God-wulf 165. 219.

gofar, gaffer (Thor) 167.

Goi 253.

gold-burg (palace) 820. Goldemar 453. 466. 509. 1190. gold-ferch (-hog) 51. 213. golden dame 130 n. gold-horned cows 55. 665. gold-sele (palace) 820. Gondul 420-1. Gontzol 725-6. good-fellow (goblin) 500. good- man (priest) 89. good people, good neighbours 456. good-woman 89 n. 429. 430 n. 1059. goose 1098.

goose-foot 281. 429. 450-1 n. gorninga-veftr (magic wind) 640. gossamer 783-4.

gota-betti (altar) 68 n.

gotes friunt (friend) viii. 93 n.

gotes ouwe (ea) 225 n.

gotewuoto, godow6de (tyrant) 132.

gotinne (goddess) 250 n.

got-man (man of God) 174 n.

gotze (false god, idol) 15.

Goz ( = Gauts) 23. 368.

Grail, the holy 872.

graman, gramir (devils) 990-1.

Grampus (goblin) 515.

grandfather, Atli xlvii. 169.

Grani (OSinn) 147. 392. 944. 978.

Grant 243. 994.

Gratiae 143.

green meadow, vale 822. 830 n. 960 n.

Grendel 243. 496. 1000. 1016.

grey man (devil) 993. 1025.

grey mannikin 449.

Grey-mantle 146 n.

grifta-mark (token of peace) 902.

gri'Sa-sta'Sr (sanctuary) 85 n.

grrSr (giantess) 526.

griffin 998, griffin's gold 980.

grima (mask) 238. 1045.

Grim-hildr, Krim-hilt 238. 423.

Grimme 556.

Grimming 171.

Grimnir (0«inn) xv. 146. 637. 667. Grimr Oegir 1017. grindel (bolt, bar) 243. Gripir 94. 861 n. 979 n. Groa 373-5. 1249.

grom, grummel (thunder) 178. 184.

Gronjette 944.

Grotti (wishing-mill) 531. 871. Grzmilas (dog's name) 7 n. guardian angel 874-7. Giibich 453. 480. Gucken-berg 953. Gudens-berg 152. 938. gudja (priest) 88. giiete (lovingkindness) 760. giietel (goblin) 481. Gull-faxi 655-7. Gullin-bursti 213-4. 871. Gullin-tanni 234. Gull-toppr234.658. Gull-veig 403. Giilpe, Blut-giilpe 1248. Gumir 237 n.

Gunda-hari, Gunnarr 371. 877n. gunde-rebe (ground ivy) 1212. Gundia, Gunnr, Guft 422. 890. Gungnir 147. 846. 870. GunnloS 367. 530. 902. 1133. Guogo 943 n.

guot, vil guot (right gracious) 1202 n. Guro-rysse 945-6. Gustr 461. 630. Gustrat 743 n.

1260

INDEX.

gute holde (elf) 266. 456. 462. 1067 re.

1074. gute Lubbe 526. Gwodan 134.

Gwydion xxix. 150 re. 357 re. 412 re. gvgr (giant) 525. 551. Gyllir 658. Gymir 237 n.

Habonde 286-7.

Hadburc 428. 434.

Haddingr 342-7.

Hades 313. 335. 804 re. 854-5.

Hading 146.

Hadu 196. 207. 223. 888. haeften gold 689.

haegesse, haegtesse (witch) 1040. 1244. hsern 1244 n.

haf-gygr, hafs-fruu (watersprite) 488.

494-7. 652. 869. Hagano, Hagene 371. 424-8. 434. hagazusa, hagetisse (witch) 1040. HagbarSr 393 n. hagebart (mask) 1045 n. hag-ridden, hag-rode 464. hail! 16.

hail-making 1086-7. hainal (dawn) 749. Hakel 593.

Hakel-berend 146. 921-3. Hakel-berg 921-2. 1001-2. Hakel-block 921.

hakula-bairands (cloak-wearing) 147. hale-wsege (holy water) 1246. Half dan the old 393. half-risi (half-giant) 533 n. Halja ( = Hel) 312. 800. 839. halla (temple) 85. Hall-biorn 667. Halle 1047 n. 1048. hall-feuer (Shrove Tuesday) 628. Hallin-skrSi 234. halp-ful (half-grown boar) 996. Hamadio, Hamdir 196. hamadryads 653. Hamar 181. 883-5 re. Ham-glom 637. 1042. naming] a (guardian -spirit) 874-7. hammer 11 re. 180-2. 188. 505. 999. 1221. hampelmann (goblin) 502-8. hands, bear on the (make much of) 891. Hanga-tf r (OSinn) 146. 196. Hans, Jack 515re. 552. -hans, -hansel in goblins' names 506 re. 511.

Hans aftens bluss (Mids. fire) 622.

hant (fashion) : alte, niuwe 1130.

hapt (god) 26.

Har (high) 162.

HarbarSr 147.

Harke, Fran 253.

Harlunge golt 982.

Harthgrepa 555. haruc (temple) 68. harugari (priest) 88. hasehart (chance) 887. haspel-holz (spindle-wood) 652. hatching- dollar 871. Hati 244. 705.

Haule-mannikins (dwarfs) 456.

Haule-mutter (Holle) 456.

hawthorn 183 re.

Hazel, Dame ; hazel-rod 651-9.

head-uncovering 32. 155. 652.

HeaSo, Hadu 223.

Heardingas 342-7.

heart-worm 1159.

hearth-gods 500.

heathen Ire.

heathen-pelting 191.

heaven- scaling, -storming 530.

heben-wang (paradise) 821.

Hecate 949. 1042.

heck-mannchen (homesprite) 513.

HeSinn 424. 1095.

HerSi 637.

HerSr 98. 403. 1042.

HerS-run 818.

heila-wac (holy wave) 585-6. heil-brunnen (healing springs) 587. heiligen-forst, -holt, -loh 74-5. Heiling 453.

heilisari (augur), heilisod (omen) 1106. heimchen (elf) 275-6. 446. 459 it. 851. Heimdallar-vatn 235. HeimSallr xl. 22. 233. 361. 571-4. Heimdalls-houg 235. Heimo 387. 527. 689. 851. Hein, Friend (death) 446. 851. hein (hone, stone wedge) 373. 533-D 903 re.

heinchen (elf) 459 re. 851. heinen-kleed (shroud) 446. Heinz, Heinzelman 503-9. heiss-hunger (dog-hunger) 1159. Hekel-berg, -velde 1001-2. Hekla, Heklu-fiall 923. 1002. 1052. heklu-maSr (OSinn) 146. 223. 246. 31 800.

Hel 839. 844. 1183. Hel-blindi 246.

hel-grind (-grating, -rail) 802.

hel-hest (-horse) 844.

hel-kappe (cloak of darkness) 462.

Hel-rerS (-ride) 802.

hel-sko (death-shoe) 835.

hel-viti (-torment) 313. 805.

Hel-voet (-foot) 315 n. 804. 834.

held (hero) 341.

Helena 560 re. 906. 974. 1194.

Helga-fell 645.

Helgi 388. 818.

Helias 370.

Heligo-land 230.

INDEX.

1261

Helium 315 n. 834.

hell-bar 243. 1000.

hell-constable 1001.

hell-gate 802-3.

hell-goat 995.

hell-hound 996-7. 814 n.

hell-jager (-hunter) 155. 930. 1006.

hell-raven 997.

hell-wagen (death-car) 802.

hell-weg (death -way) 801.

hella-fiur, -wizi (gehenna) 800-5.

helle-grave (devil) 993.

helle-kruke (witch) I064w.

Helle-put (-pit, -well) 804-7.

helle-warc, -wolf (devil) 996.

helle-warte, -wirt (devil) 1001-2.

Hellenes 534.

Hellequin, mesnie de 941.

helli-runa (necromancy) 1225-8.

helot-helm (cap of darkness) 463. 870.

Hemmerlin 181. 1004.

Hemming Wolf 381.

hen and chickens (Pleiades) 728.

henbane, see bilse.

Hennil (dawn) 749.

Henricus, bonus (chenopodium) 1213.

Heofon-feld in Northumbria 234.

Hephsestus (Vulcan) 241. 308. 378. 472.

571. Hera (earth ?) 254. Hera (Juno) 306-8. 321-2-6. 680. Herbout 888.

Hercules 103. 111-9. 121. 161 n. 227 n.

353. 363-4. 516 n. 547 n. 1148. Hercules Saxanus 365. Heremod 164-5. 224. her-faSir (father of hosts) 22. 133. Herfiotr 401. 422.

Herimuot 224.

Herja-foSr, Herjan (OSinn) 22. 817.

Herkja 253.

Herlaugr 394.

Hermen sla dermen 355.

hermae (pillars of Hermes) 118.

Hermes xxviii. 111. 149. 150. 321-7. 343.

354. 516??. 841-3. 869. 906. 976. 1125. Hermino 345. 351.

HermoSr 224. 802.

Hermunduri 118. 359.

Heme the hunter 942.

Herodias 283. 632. 883. 933. 1055-7-8.

heros, hero 341.

herra-waga (Charles-wain) 724.

herre (not her, for God) 22.

Hertha 256 n.

hertinga (heroes) 342.

Heru 204. 885 n.

Her-vor 424-5.

her-wagen (Charles-wain) 151. Hestia 611. Hesus xxix. 204. 663. hevan 698.

heven-ring (rainbow) 359 n. hexe (witch) 1039. hexen-tusch (witches' rout) 279??. HiaSningar 940. 1095. hialm-mey (valkyr) 418. Hickenild 356 n. Hidimbas (a giant) 555. Hilde 285. 422??. 632. Hilde-grim, Grim-hildr 238. Hilden-straet (milky way) 285. 357 n. Hildr, Hiltia 422-4. Hille 1247.

Hille-snee (Holle-sne?) 268 n. 304. Hillegers-berg 537.

Hilta 208. 1247. * Himeles-berg, Himin-biorg 233. 669w. himel-wagen (Charles-wain) 151. 701??. himmel-tatl (-daddy) 168. hinke-bein (devil) 993. Hinze, Hinzelman 503. hiona-gras (conjugalis) 302-4. hirrlig-spor (devious track) 916. Hisi 552.

Hiuki and Bil (man in moon) 717.

hiuri, geheuer (snug, safe) 914.

HlaS-guSr 424-5.

Hladolet (planet Saturn) 130??.

hlaut-bollar (blood-bowls) 55.

Hler 240-1. 631. 883.

H16s-ey 240.

HlrS-skialf 135-6. 817 n.

Hlif, Hlif-bursa 1149.

Hlin 874. 884-9.

Hlock 401. 422. 887.

HloSr 76. 389. 874 n.

HloSyn 167 n. 256.

H16r-ri«i, Eind-rrSi (Th6rr) 167??. 187. 257.

Hludana 256. 266 n. 883. •

Hnikarr, HnikuSr (QSinn) 489. 908.

Hnoss 886.

hoard-lifting 970.

hobgoblin 503??. 504 n.

Hodeken 463. 508, conf. 641.

HoSr 220-3. 823.

Hoenir xl. 151. 162. 241-2. 823.

hof (temple) 85..

Hof-varpnir 896-7.

hogbergs-gubbe (giant) 189. 536-7.

Hogni (Hagano) 424.

hoho ! 928.

Holda xv. xx. 265-272. 285. 456. 487.

596. 883. 911-2. 933-4. 946-7-9. 968.

1055. holden 272. 487. 1073-4. Holgi, Holga-bruSr 637. Holle, Erau 267-8??. 273 n. 456. 840.

934-5. 1088. Holle-frau 269??. Holle-peter, -popel 269. 506. 515. Hollen-zopf (plica Polon.) 464. 1156. Holle's pond 268 n.

1262

INDEX.

holta-t>6rr (fox) 177. Holywell 587. Holywood 74.

holz-frowe (wood-wife) 433. 483. holz-muoja, -runa (wood- wife) 433. 1135.

home-sprite 499-515. Honour, Dame 891. Hood, Eobin 504. hoop-trundling 628. hoopoo 681-2. Hopfen-Mtel 505 n. 508. hopt (gods) 26. Horant 908.

horga-brfrSr, -troll (giantess) 114. 637.

horn-blase, -buta (witch) 1061.

horn of plenty 869-872.

horn-troll (beetle) 183. 692.

horse 392. 655-664.

horse-flesh 47. 1049.

horse-footed 994. 1050.

horse's head 47-8. 618. 659. 660-1.

787n. 841-4-9. 850. 1050. horses' heads on gables xxix. 660-1. horses sacrificed 47-8. Horsel-berg 935. 959. 1052. hors-gok (snipe) 184. Hotherus 180. 220. 431. Hottr (OSinn) 146. 1025 n. household gods 500. houseleek, stonecrop 183. Hrffi-svelgr 633-5. hraiva-dubo (corpse-dove) 1134. HreSa 206. 290. Hrede 289. 885-6. Hrede-monaS (March) 206. 248. Hregg-mimir (heaven) 700. Hrim-faxi 328. 330. 641. 655-6. Hrim-gerftr, Hrimnir 532. hrim-burs (giant) 532. Hrodo 206. 248-9. HroS-vitnir 244. Hromolan 171.

Hropta-tyr, Hroptr (OSinn) 196.

hrossa-gaukr, horse-gowk (snipe) 184.

Hross-hars-grani (OSinn) 858.

Hmngnir 321. 527. 533.

Hruoda 290.

Hruodo 206. 248-9.

Hug-dietrich 393.

Huginn 147. 671.

Hugleich, Hygelac vii.

Huldana xi. xx. 266 n.

huldi (favour, grace) 18.

Huldra 271. 452-3. 946.

Huldre-slat (-lay) 271. 470.

Huldu-folk 272. 452.

human sacrifices 44.

Hunding 696.

hiine (giant) 522-4. 529 n.

Hunger 888.

hunger-spring 590-1.

Huns 523.

hunsl, husel, housel 39. 40.

hunter, the wild, furious (devil) 1006.

huorco (ogre) 486.

husing (homesprite) 500.

Hutchen ( = Hodeke) 508.

Hutt, Frau 533.

huzd (hoard) 970.

Hvergelmir 558. 563. 796. 803.

hvita qvinna (white woman) 955 n.

Hyfja-berg 1149.

Hfmir 529.

Hyndla 98. 813 n. 1054. Hyrieus xxxix.

Hyrrokin (a giantess) 542. 1054.

Iafn-har (co-equal) 162. Ialkr 366.

IarSar-megin (earth's might) 642.

Iar$ar-men (sward) 307. 643.

iarkna-steinn (orphanus, opal ?) 1217.

iarn-greipr (Thor's gloves) 1094 n.

Iarn-haus 528. 533.

Iarn-saxa 321. 530-3.

iarn-vr5ja (wood-wife) 483.

Ibor 362.

Ida 336.

ISavollr 822.

Idisia-viso 401.

idol-pelting 190-1. 782-3.

Kunn 236. 319. 871.

Iliya (Elijah) 166. 173-4.

illumination 630.

Dmarinen xxxi.

image 104-5 n.

images of gods 104-119.

Imeldt 385 n.

Imelunge hort (hoard) 982. incarnation 336-8. incense 57.

incubo, incubus 481. 511. Indra xxxiii. 145. 733. 1221. ineihan (vow an offering) 37-8. infern, 'fern (hades) 802. in-geside (house-god) 500. Ingo 345-9.

in-goumo (homesprite) 500.

Ino 374. 496n.

insaken (sacrifice) 37.

inveitan (worsbip) 29.

Io 338. 343. 666.

Iofur, Ibor 362.

iohdi (ghosts) 940.

iol (yule) 702.

Ior« (earth) 251.

Iormun-gandr 118. 182. 246. 794.

Iormun-grund 118.

iotull (giant) 520.

lotun-heimr 375. 530.

iotun-mo'Sr (giant's rage) 530.

iotun-ox (beetle) 692.

iotunn (giant) 519.

INDEX.

1263

Iring 234-5. 358-362. 1148. Iris 733. 1192.

Irman-sul 101. 115-9. 353. 799.

Irmenfried, Irnvrit 358-9.

irmin 118. 353 n.

Irmino 351-362.

Irpa 98. 113-4. 445. 637. 1088-9.

irprottan (tranced) 1083.

Irre-gang 917.

irr-kraut (fern) 1210.

irr-licht, irr-wisch (ignis fatuus) 916.

Isan-grin (wolf) 238.

Isarna 372.

Isarno-dori 80.

Isco 345-9. 571.

Isis 103. 120. 257-265.

Iskrzycki 513 n. 917.

ispolm 527.

Issi (self) 1027.

Istaevones 350-1.

Istio 351.

Itermon 165.

itis, ides, dis (nymph) 97. 400-1. Iuwaring 358-9 n. I-valdi 454.

i-vi#r (grove, firmament) 483. 795. i-vil5ja (wood-wife) 483.

Jack giant-killer 531 n.

o' lantern 917.

player xvi. xli. 818. 1007.

pudding, Hans-wurst 515.

James's road (milky way) 357 n.

staff (Orion's belt) 727.

Janus 22 n.

Jemshid 872.

Jesus 1248.

Jettha 96 n. 520 n.

John (Baptist) 284. 1209. 1210-1-3.

John's eve 588-590.

fires 43. 604. 612. 617-624.

■ girdle (mugwort) 1211.

head 285. 631.

minne 60-1-2. 628.

wort (hypericum) 1214.

jiidel (goblin) 481. Judgment day 815-6. juger (witch's worm) 1074 n. juggler, gaukler 1038. ju-glans (acorn) 172. Jugula (Orion) 726. jul (yule) 702. jul-bock (goblin) 516. Julius Caesar 85 n. jumping into 55 n., j. out 952 n. jung-brunne (fount of youth) 433. 588. Juniper, Dame 652. Juno 306. 637. 961. 1176. Jupiter 22. 44 n. 72. 107. 121-2. 168-9. 175. 189. 190-1. 859. 1101.

Apenninus 169.

ardens 110.

Jupiter dapalis 1236.

geld (-money) 190.

niger 993.

Juterbock, smith of, xli. Jutes, Jutland 519.

kabout (goblin) 502. kaiser, the old 958-9 n. Kalewa 552. Kali 315. 773w. Kalis 1015.

kalledos (Christmas) 627 n. Kallewepoeg 553. Kamaduh 871.

kamban (human sacrifice ?) 44.

kapel-trete (hypocrite) 35 n.

Kara 423-4-7.

Kari 240. 631-6. 883.

karo, karawi (sacrifice) 41.

kater-man (goblin) 503.

Katzen-veit (wood-sprite) 480. 503.

kelkropf, kielkropf (changeling) 468.

K^p (fate) 426. 435.

KTjpvKetov (Hermes' staff) 976.

Kettil Eunske 1226.

key-turning 1109.

khoda (god) 14.

kidnapping 466-8. 1059. 1073.

kiesen (choose, divine) 1037.

Kifhauser 955.

kilchen, vor (outside of church) 1227-8. kinan (yawn, gape) 320. 558 n. kirke-grim 493 n. kirkonwaki (dwarfs) 457 n. Kirt 248-9. kissing 1101.

klag-mutter (owl, woodwife, witch) 432. 1135.

Klaubauf (goblin) 515. Klinte-konig 940 n. klopfer, knocker (homesprite) 505. kl6-sigi (claw-sinking) 633. klucke, kluck-henne (Pleiades) 728-9. kobolt (homesprite) 500-1. koleda (midwinter) 628. koltki (homesprites) 480 n. korr, korred, korrigan (elf) 447. 455. 469 n.

Kotar (man in moon) 719 n.

kotz ! (for Gottes) 15.

Kralemoc (planet Jupiter) 130 n.

Krampus (goblin) 515.

kres (midsummer) 623.

Krimhilt 238.

Krishna 384.

Krodo 206 n. 248-9.

Kronos (Saturn) 219. 318. 833 n.

Kuga 1188.

kukavitsa (cuckoo) 682. Kullervo 552. kumir (idol) 105 n.

kupalnitsa, kupoles (John's wort) 624.

1264

INDEX.

Kupalo (Midsummer fire) 624.

Kurt 913 n.

kuu (moon) 725-9.

Kuvera (god of wealth) 322.

Kvasir xxxix. 319. 902-5.

kveld-ri$a (witch) 1053-4-7.

Kveld-ulfr 1054 n.

lac (sacrifice) 39.

laces, tying the 1073. 1175.

Lachesis 414-5.

Lada 130 n.

Lady-, see frauen-, Freyju , Mary's.

ladybird, ladycow 303. 694.

LseraSr 818.

Laertes 365-6.

Laima 416«. 877.

lake-herd, see-hirt 480.

Lakshmi 303. 664 n. 1196.

Lamia 500 n. 514.

land-as (national god) 188. 217.

land-vsett (guardian spirit) 877.

Lang-barftr (OSinn) 953;

Lang-bein (giant) 533. 556.

lar (house-god) 500. 913.

larva (mask, spectre) 500 n. 913.

Lauf-ey 246. 483 n.

laughing 1101.

Lauma's girdle (rainbow) 733.

Laurin 448-9 n. 453. 465-6. 470.

lea, leigh 69 n.

lead, pouring melted 1118-9.

league-boots 871.

leber-mer (liver-sea) 363.

Leda 338. 343. 666.

Leiptr 600.

lekeis, leech 1150.

Lei 366. 783.

Lemminkainien 185 n.

Lent, Lenz 754.

Leto (summer) 754. 770-1.

Leucothea 496 n. 747-8.

Leviathan 182. 998.

Liber 212. 306.

Libes, priest of the Catti 91.

Liebinc, Modus 561. 902 n.

liezen (cast lots, divine) 1110.

life restored 184-5 n.

ligaturae 1173-5.

Lilith 575.

lind-wurm (dragon) 688. lios-alfar (light elves) 444. liuflingar (elves) 456. 471. Liumending, Liumet (fame) 898. lock, fastening the 1073. 1175. LoS-fafnir 372. Lotfr 162. 241-2. log pelting 190. 783. Logi 240-3. 631. 883. 1017. Loka-daun (ignis fatuus) 242. 916. Loki xl. xli. 162. 241-6. 308. 327. 338. 547. 883. 1011-7.

Loptr 246. 632. 882.

lot-casting, -drawing 1037. 1110.

love-apple, -cake, -drink 1102.

loving-cup 60 n.

lubbe, lubber 525-6-9.

lubi, lyf (drugs) 1151.

Lucifer 723 n. 985.

Lucina 1176.

lucus, loh, leah 69 n.

ludara, hiSr (ark) 559 n. 580. 983.

ludegheer (man in moon) 720.

ludki (elves) 452-5.

Luna 103 n. 119. 705.

luoti (changeling) 469 n.

Lupus, St 175 n.

Lurlen-berg 982.

rutin (homesprite) 508.

Lutter-born 591 n.

Lutz, Frau (St Lucy) 274 n.

lyncurius (lynx stone) 1219.

lyng-ormr, lyngvi (dragon) 689.

Macabre, danse 851.

rnachandel-boom (juniper) 652.

Macbaon 1148.

Madalger 387. 434. 1209. 'Maere (fame) 897.

• magan-wetar (whirlwind) 332. 632.

magic, magician 1031. 1106.

Magila (plague) 1185.

Maglore 412-3 n. 1203.

Magni 189. 321. 823.

Magonia 638-9.

magpie 675.

mahte, mahmina (mother) 22. maiden-summer, prop. Mattchen-som-

mer (gossamer) 784. mai-kafer (cockchafer) 693. maira nocturna 1246. majalis sacrivus 50. majority, going to the 847. ■ Malagis, Maugis xlvii. malannus (boil ; plant) 1160. 1235. mal-feu (hell-fire ?) 602. malleus (devil) 999. Mallina (sun) 703. 716. mammelainen (dragoness) 691. Mamurienda (death) 771. man in tbe moon 716-720. man, mannisko 344-5. Mana-garmr (moon dog) 244. 705. Mana-golt 531. 1209. Manala (hades) 806 n. 855. mana-se>s (world) 793-5. mandragora 1202-4. manducus (ogre) 514. 1082. manes (ghost) 913. man-ezze (ogre) 520 n. Man-hart (moon wood) 708. mani, men (necklace) 306-8. Mani (moon) 705. 716. Manin-seo (moon lake) 708.

INDEX.

1265

man-leika (image) 104 n. mann-aeta (man-eater, witch) 1081. Mannus vii. xi. 344-5. 579. manon (adjure) 1228. mano-ratha 870-2. Mansuetus, St 175 n. mantel-fahre (witch) 1071. Manus 345. 571-8.

mara, meara, maere (nightmare) 464.

1154. Marena (death) 771. 841. mar-gygr (watersprite) 488. 492. mari-greoz, mer-griez (pearl) 1219. Mari-rok (Orion's belt) 270. 303. 726. mari-saivs (ocean) 601. Marko 392-3. 436. Markolfus (spectre) 944. mar-mennill (watersprite) 434. 487. Marpalie 1026 n. 1098. Mars 84. 103-7. 111-9. 133. 196-9. 204-7.

260. 353. 650. 673. 939 n. 1006. 1046-7.

Marso 362. Marspiter 196.

Martin, St., cattle's guardian 1241. Martin's fowl (martin) 1131-2. Martis fanum, Fa-mars 84. 198. Mary xxxvii. 174. 182. 268 n. 270. 303-6.

416 n. 883. 1148. 1192-4. Mary's chafer (ladybird) 694.

grass (maidenhair) 303.

image 76 n. 114 n. 313 n. 595.

shoe (lady's slipper) 1194.

snow 268 n.

■ thread, yarn (gossamer) 471. 784.

Marzana (death) 771. 841. masca (witch) 1082. mater deum (Cybele) 254. mathematici (magicians) 1031. matres, matronae 417. 1246. Matuta 496 n. mau-fez (devil) 988. May 759-762.

drink 778n.

fires 43. 612-4. 628.

grave, -king 775-7.

pole 614 n. 778.

riding 774-9.

measuring the sick 1163-5.

megin-giarSar (Thor's belt) 1094 n.

megir Heim'Sallar (created beings) 234.

mein-weke (common week) 298.

meisa (titmouse) 683. 897.

Melde, Frau (fame) 898.

mel-dropi, mele-deaw, mil-tou 641.

Meleager 415. 853-4.

mella (giantess) 526.

Mellonia 697.

Melusina 434.

Memerolt 526.

Memnon 742.

Mendel-berg 170 n. 820.

Menelaos 822.

Men-gldS 96 n. 212n. 307 n. 423-4. 1149. Menja 531. 864. Mennor 345.

Mercurius 103-7. 111. 120-2. 128. 132-3.

149. 150-1. 164. 353-4. 385 n. 976. 997.

1046-7. mer-fei (sea fay) 434. meridianus daemon 478 n. 1162. meri-minni (mermaid) 433-5. 487. Merlin 469. 507 n. 1207. Mer-meut 686. Merovings 391. Mers-berg, -burg 198-9. 205. Merseburg Lays 224. 1231. mer-wip, mer-wunder 433. 488. merza-folli (woodpecker) 673 n. 678.1131. Mesitch 215.

metamorphosis, metempsychosis 951. metod, meotod, miotuSr (creator) 22. 26-7.

metten (fate) 408 n. meume-loch (nix's lake) 490. mezzen (to sbape) 22-3. 105 n. 142. Michael 836-8. 859. 876. 1029. 1235. Mr3-gar$r (abode of man) 560. 794. MiftgarSs-ormr (world-snake) 182. 244 n.

601. midjun-gards (world) 794. Midsummer, Midwinter 757.

fires 43. 617-624.

milk-mother (snake) 687. milk-stealer (witch) 1072. Milky way 356-8. millwheel water 592-3. milzinas (giant) 526. Mima-merSr (-tree) 76. 379. 670. Mime 380. Miming 379.

Mimir 94. 378-9. 700-2. 1148. Mimis-brunnr (-fount) 379. 587. 796. Mimminc, 376 n. Minerva 1192. Minne (love) 893. minne-drinking 59-63. minni (nymph) 433-5. minnis-veig (loving-cup) 60. Mioll 631. 641.

Miolnir 180. 238 n. 813. 870. 1221. missere (half-year) 756. Mist (a valkyr) 421. 883. mistil-teinn, mistletoe 220. 1205. Mith-othin 163 n. Mithras 323. mock-piety 35 n. mock-sun 708.

modra-necht (Christmas night) 753. mo'Sur-sett (lap of earth) 642. moirai (fates) 414. 435. molken-toversche (witch) 1072. molniya (lightning) 1221. moly 1192.

1266

INDEX.

monks-hood 1193. month 708.

mont-joie, munt-giow 170 n. 820. moon 700-720. moon's spots 716-720. mora, mura (elf) 464 n. morbleu! 15 n. Morena (death) 771. 841. morgan, morwen 748. Morgana xlvi. 412 n. 641. 820 n. Morgue 412. Mormo 500 n. moss-folk 483-4. 929. mother earth 253-4. 642. 1238. mother of gods 254-5. mountain-wights 454-5. mouse-maker 1090. mud-spelli (fire) 808-9. muemlein, aunty (cat) 1128. mugwort 624. 1211-2. mumhart (goblin) 506. Mumling E. 490.

mummel (water-lily) 489. 506. 654. 915.

Mummel-see 490. 597.

Mundil-fori 703.

Muninn 147. 671.

munion (adjure) 1228.

Munn-harpa, -rifta 1052.

Munya 178 n. 883. 1221.

muome (aunt) 490.

Muotes her (furious host) 15 n. 931.

Musa 902. 910.

Muspell, Muspilli 11. 558. 601. 807-8. myrk-rrSa (witch) 1054-7. myrk-vrSr (-wood) 430.

nack-ros, -blad (water-dock) 489. Nadala 246. 887. nafn-festi (naming feast) 135 n. Nagl-far (nail-ship) 814. Nagl-fari 735.

naht, niht, n6tt (night) 736.

naht-fara, -frowa (witch) 1057-8.

Naht-olf 1054 ??.

nahwe (death) 841.

naiad (fountain-sprite) 435 n.

Nainn (a dwarf) 453. 841.

nair (elves) 445.

m\ 246. 1029.

Nanna 220. 232 n. 310. 490.

Napf-hans (goblin) 511.

nappel-fang (mating method) 1117 8.

Nari 246.

Narren-berg (fool's hill) 681 n. Nascentia 858. nature-worship 243 n. Nauft (necessity) 410. navel-stone, omphalos 806. nebel-kappe (cloak of darkness) 462. Neckar 11. 490. nectar 317. need-fire 603-612.

Nehjea, Nehalennia 257. 419 w. 489. neiges, notre dame aux 268 n. neighing of horses 658. 1113. Nemesis 866. 890. nennir (water sprite) 490. Nentiger 232 n.

neorxena-wong (paradise) 405 v. 821. Neptunus 110. 121-2. 148. 260. 489.

Neri 408. Nertereani 252 n.

Nerthus (Sansk. Nritus) xi. xx. 217.

251-256. 487. 596. nesso (worm) 1162. 1235. Niarftar-vottr (spongia marina) 218. 1191. Nibelot 385 n. Nibelunge 564. 979. Nibelung's hoard 371-2. 979. Nibling 979.

nichus, nicker, nicor (watersprite) 148. 488.

Nick, Old 488. 989. 1004. nickelmann (watersprite) 488. Nicolaus, Niclas (goblin) 505. 514-5. ni$ (old moon) 710. Nideck castle 538. Ni$-h6ggr 796. 800. Ni$i 454. 710.

ni'S-staung (spite-stake) 659. 660. Nielsen 504-5.

Nifl-heimr 558. 564. 800-3-6. Nifl-hel 313. 803. night 736.

night-folk (elves) 470 ; (spectres) 921-3. night-mare, naht-mar 464. 1058 n.

1246-7. night-riding 1053-4. nigromancy 1036 n. 1111 n. nikuz, nix (watersprite) 148. 489. nimbus 323. nimidas (groves ?) 648. nines 48. 421. 602. 641. 795. 1157.

1161-2. 1214. NidrSr 216-9. 252-6. 347. 530. Nissen 504-8. 511. niujibs, niu-mani (new moon) 709. nix, nixe (watersprite) 488. nix-blume (waterdock) 488. Noah's flood 576. Noa-tun 217.

nobis- kratten, -krug (hell) 805-6. 1002. nod-fyr, not-fiur (need fire) 603-4. nonnor OSins (valkyrs) 418. Norna-gest 409. 853-4. norns (fates) 405-417. north 34. 493. 802. 1001. Norvi 735.

' Nott (night) 656. 735-7. novem capita 53. nundinae (week) 123. n^ (new moon) 710. N>ji, N£r 454. 710.

INDEX.

nymphae 415-6. 431-6. 480.

oaks, holy 72-7. 171-2. 651. Ober-land 180.

Oberon, Auberon xlvi. 453. 872.

obor (giant) 526.

Oceanus 237.

October equus 1050 n.

O-dains-akr 823 n.

Odas-hemi (paradise) 821.

Oddiner 15 n.

Oddrun 1150. 1176.

odebero (stork) 672.

Oden (a giant) 543.

Oden-berg 953.

Oden-wald 159 n.

Odens-fors (-fall) 159.

Odens-kalla (-spring) 158.

OS-hrcerir 319. 902-4.

OSinn xl. 131. 318. 320. 347-9. 417-9.

489. 840. 858-9. 873-4. 902-4. 988.

1018-9. 1112-3. 1133/1226: 1232. OSins-ey (-isle) 158.

flisor (-flints) 154ra.

hani (-hen, a waterfowl) 159.

salr (-hall) 158-9. 817. 1133.

sten 155 n.

ve (-temple) 158-9.

Odoacer 373.

odolian (valerian) 1208.

OSr 305. 905.

Oegir 237-240. 311-2. 529. 531. 636. 883. Oegis-dyr (E. Eider) 239. Oegis-hialmr (-helmet) 237-8. 870. Oesc, Oescingas 350. 572. Offa 388. Ofnir 685.

0-f6ti (unfoot) 1043-4. Ogautan 640. Oggewedel (devil) 1003. Ogier, Otger 936 n. 961. ogre 486. 554-5. Ogyges 578. Okkupeernis 637. Oku-J>6rr 166. 243 n. Olaf 531. 548-9. Olafs-kalla (-spring) 588 n. olbrzym (giant) 526. old, the 21-2. 529. 989. 01da271. Oleg 949 n. olgotze (idol) 15. Ollerus 163 n. 228 n. olp (elf) 443.

Olrun 380. 404. 424-5. 1226. -olt in giants' names 502. 527. Olympus 336. Omacmica 500 n. 514. omaya (millwheel water) 593. Omi 144-5. 208. 237. 6minnis-61 (oblivion's ale) 1101. On 46. 1153.

Onar, Anar 735. ondur-dis (wise woman) 402. Ons-angar (Oftin's ings) 156. on-secgan (devote, vow) 37. Onsike 159.

opfer (sacrifice) 35. 41. Ops mater 254. OrboSa 1149.

orcne, orken (woodsprite) 486 n. Orcus 314. 463. 486. ordeal 1108. Orentel xxviii. 374. Orgelmir 529. 532. 559. 563. Orion xxxix. 726. 730. 948-9. 6r-l6g, ur-lac (destiny) 410. 857. ormr i auga (basilisk glance) 238. Ormuzd 984. Orpheus 908.

Orvandils-ta (-toe) 375. 723. Os-beorn, Os-pirin 25 n. 668. oscillum (mask, head?) 78 n. Osen-berg 420. Oska-byr (fair wind) 144-9. Oska-steinn (philosopher's stone) 1 1222.

Oski 138. 144. 419. 888.

Osk-meyjar (valkyrs) 144. 419.

Osk-opnir 144.

Osna-bruck 117 n.

Osning 117.

Ossa (rumour) 896.

Ostacia 1055.

Ostara, Eastre 290-1. 616. 780-1. 968. oster-sahs, -spil, -stuopha 780-1. otawa (bear, Ursa major) 725-9. Othar 305.

Othin 113. 337. 939. 1031 n. Oti-geba, Ead-gifu 890 n. otter-kraut (fern) 1210-1. ouwe, ea 140. 225. 600. Ovelgunne (hell) 1001. oven 629. 883. Ovida 372. owl 1135.

oxen 664, sacrificed 49.

Paeon, pasony 1148. 1193.

paiwa (sun) 725-9.

Pakuls (devil) 1014 n.

Pales, palilia 227. 625.

Pallas (Athena) 173.

Pallor 207-8. 436.

Palna-toki 381. 944.

Paltar (=Baldr) xix. 220. 738. 996.

Pandora 571-5.

Papa-luga 593 n.

par son l'aube (dawn) 745-6.

paradise 821.

parawari (priest) 88.