The lord rade,and the foal slade;He lightedand he righted;set joint to jointand bone to bone,sinew to sinew.Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name[684]!
The lord rade,and the foal slade;He lightedand he righted;set joint to jointand bone to bone,sinew to sinew.Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name[684]!
The lord rade,and the foal slade;He lightedand he righted;set joint to jointand bone to bone,sinew to sinew.Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name[684]!
The lord rade,
and the foal slade;
He lighted
and he righted;
set joint to joint
and bone to bone,
sinew to sinew.
Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name[684]!
It will be admitted that this is something more than a merely curious coincidence, and that it leads to an induction of no little value. Now it appears to me that we have reasonable ground to believe our version quite as ancient and quite as heathen as the German one which still retains the heathen names, and that we have good right to suppose that it once referred to the same god. Howthen was this god named in England? Undoubtedly Pol or Pal[685]. Of such a god we have some obscure traces in England. We may pass over the Appolyn and Apollo, whom many of our early romancers number among the Saxon gods, although the confused remembrance of an ancient and genuine divinity may have lurked under this foreign garb, and confine ourselves to the names of places hearing signs of Pol or Pal. Grimm has shown that the dikes called Phalgraben in Germany are much more likely to have been originally Pfolgraben,and his conclusion applies equally to Palgrave, two parishes in Norfolk and Suffolk:—so Wódnes Díc, and the Devil’s Dike between Cambridge and Newmarket. Polebrooke in Northamptonshire, Polesworth in Warwickshire, Polhampton in Hants[686], Polstead in Suffolk, Polstead close under Wanborough (Wódnesbeorh) in Surrey,—which is remarkable for the exquisite beauty of its springs of water,—Polsden in Hants, Polsdon in Surrey, seem all of the same class. To these we must add Polsley and Polthorn, which last name would seem to connect the god with that particular tree: last, but not least, we have in Poling, in Sussex, the record of a race of Polingas, who may possibly have carried up their genealogy to Bældæg in this form.
The myth of Baldr in the North is one of the most beautiful and striking in the whole compass of their mythology: it is to be lamented that no trace of it remains in our own poems. Still Baldr’s lay may not have been entirely without influence upon the progress of Christianity among the Saxons, if, as is probable, it resembled in its main features the legend of the Scandinavians. For them he was the god of light and grace, of splendour, manly excellence and manly beauty. A prophecy that Baldr would perish afflicted the gods; Frigga took an oath from all created nature that no individual thing would harm the pride of the Æsir, the darlingof the Asyniar. A sprig of mistletoe, at that time too young to enter into so solemn an obligation, was alone, and fatally, excepted. The invulnerability of the god induced him to offer himself as a mark for the practice of his relatives and friends. Maces, axes and spears fell innocuous from his sacred frame; but Loki placed a sprig of mistletoe in the hand of the blind Haudr[687], and with this, the sole thing that could not be forsworn, he slew his brother. An effort still remained to be made. Oþinn himself descended to the abode of Hel, in hopes of persuading the goddess of the dead to relinquish her prey. He was successful, and returned with the joyful intelligence that Baldr would be restored to the gods, if all created nature would weep for him. All nature did weep for the loss of the god of beauty, save one old crone. When called upon to do her part in his restoration she answered, “What have the gods done for me, that I should weep for Baldr? Let Hel keep her dead!” It is thought that it was Loki who had assumed the old woman’s form. Thus Baldr’s fate was sealed. The faithful Nanna[688]would not survive her beautiful lord, and the gods and goddesses attended round the pile on which their two cherished companions were reducedto dust together. But the slain god could hope for no resurrection: his throne was placed in the shadowy realm of Hel, and weeping virgins spread the eternal pall that was to give dreary honour to the god of light in the cold kingdom of darkness and the invisible. The posthumous son, or more likely re-birth, of the god, avenged his father upon the wretched instrument of Loki’s wiles. Yet those who had fathomed the deeper mysteries of the creed knew well enough that Baldr was to rise again in triumph: after the twilight of the gods and the destruction of the ancient world, he was to return in glory and joy, and reign in a world where there should be neither sin nor sorrow, nor destruction.
Of these details, the Anglosaxon mythology knows nothing, in the forms which have survived: and perhaps in this peculiar myth we may recognize something of an astronomical character, which can certainly not be attributed to other Northern legends. However this may be, we must content ourselves with the traces here given of Pol, as one form of Baldr, and with the genealogical relation which has been noticed. Meagre as these facts undoubtedly are, they are amply sufficient to prove that the most beloved of the Northern gods was not altogether a stranger to their children in this island. Perhaps the adoption of another creed led to the absorption of this divinity into a person of far higher and other dignity, which, while it smoothed the way for the reception of Christianity, put an end for ever to even the record of his sufferings.
GEÁT, in Old-norse GAUTR, in Old-German KÓZ.—A cursory allusion has already been made to Geát, probably only another form of Wóden, since in the mythology of the North, Oþinn is Gaútr, but certainly the eponymus of the Geátas, that tribe of whom Beówulf was the champion and afterwards the king. Geát appears in the Westsaxon genealogy as a progenitor of Wóden, but this collocation is unimportant in mythological inquiries. It is probable that Gapt, whom Jornandes places at the head of the Gothic genealogy, is only a misreading of Gavt, which is the equivalent Gothic form of Geát, and thatSigegeát,Angelgeát,Waðelgeát, which occur in other Anglosaxon genealogies, are identical with him[689]. His love forMaðhild, a legend unknown to all the nations of the North, save our own forefathers, is noticed in the Exeter Book: it is there said,
It is much to be regretted that this is all we learn on this subject, which becomes very interesting whenwe remember how little trace there is of phallic gods in the Northern mythology. But that Geát was a god, and not merely a hero, is not left entirely to inference: it is distinctly asserted by various and competent authorities: Nennius has declared him to have beenfilius dei, not indeed the God of Hosts, and God of Gods, but of some idol[691]. But Asser, who was no doubt well acquainted with the traditions of Ælfred’s family, says[692], “Quem Getam dudum pagani pro deo venerabantur,” which is repeated in the same words by Florence of Worcester[693]and Simeon of Durham[694], and is contained in a Saxon genealogy preserved in the Textus Roffensis, “Geáta, ðene ða hǽðenan wurðedon for God.” We can therefore have no scruple about admitting his divinity; and a comparison of the Gothic and Scandinavian traditions proves the belief in it to have been widely held. The name, which is derived fromgeotan, to pour, most probably denotes only the special form in which Wóden was worshipped by some particular tribes or families; and the occurrence of it in the genealogies, only the fact that such tribes or families formed part of the national aggregates, to whose royal line it belongs. But nevertheless we must admit the personality attributed to him by those tribes, and the probability of his having been, at least for them, the national divinity. The circumstance of hisname having left such deep traces as we perceive in the quotations given above, proves not only the especial divinity of the person, but perhaps also the political power and importance of the worshippers[695].
SÆTERE.—Among the Gods invariably mentioned as having been worshipped by our forefathers is one who answered to the LatinSaturnus, at least in name. From the seventh week-day we may infer that his Anglosaxon name wasSætere, perhaps thePlacerorDisposer[696]; forSæteresdægseems a more accurate form thanSæternesdægwhich we sometimes find. There are both names of places and of plants formed upon the name of this god: as Satterthwaite in Lancashire, Satterleigh in Devonshire and Sæteresbyrig[697]in the same county, of which there appears to be no modern representative; while among plants theGallicrus, or common crowfoot, is called in Anglosaxon Satorláðe. The appearance of Saturnus as an interlocutor in such a dialogue as the Salomon and Saturn[698]is a further evidence of divinity; so that, taking all circumstances into account, it is probable that when Gregory of Tours, Geoffry of Monmouth and others, number him among the Teutonic gods, they are not entirely mistaken. Now there has been a tradition,in Germany at least, of a god Chródo, or Hruodo, whose Latin name was Saturn, and whose figure is said to have been that of an old man standing upon a fish, and holding in one hand a bundle of flowers, while the other grasps a wheel. Grimm imagines herein some working of Slavonic traditions[699], and following the Slavonic interpreters connects this Chródo with Kirt or Sitivrat, and again with some Sanskrit legend of a Satjavrata[700]. But the reasoning seems inconclusive, and hardly sufficient to justify even the very cautions mode in which Grimm expresses himself about this Slavo-Germanic godhead[701]. More than this we cannot say of the Anglosaxon Sætere, whose name does not appear in the royal genealogies; nevertheless we cannot doubt the existence of some deity whom our forefathers recognized under that name.
From the Gods we pass to the Goddesses: of these we have indeed but scanty record in England. Of the great and venerable goddess Fricge, Wóden’s wife, we are only told that she gave her name to the sixth day of the week; and we must admit that this is all we know of her, unless she be implied under some other name, which is possible.
Beda in acquainting us with the ancient names of the Anglosaxon months tells us of four which were called from their especial reference to the gods: these areSolmónaðor February;Hréðmónað, March;Eóstermónað, April; andBlótmónað, November.Solmónaðhe says received its name from the cakes which were offered to the gods at that time[702];Blótmónaðfrom the victims (cattle) that were vowed for sacrifice; of the others he says[703], “Hréðmónaðis called from a goddess of theirs,—Rheda, to whom they sacrificed in that month.EóstermónaðEóstermónað, which is now interpreted by the ‘Paschal month,’ had its name of old from a goddess of theirs named Eostre, to whom in this month they offered celebrations.”
The Scandinavian and German mythology are alike destitute of these names; although among the many goddesses they recognize some two may perhaps be identical with ours. The name Hréðe may possibly meansevere,fierce, and denote a warlike goddess; but still I am more inclined to connect it with the adjectiveHróð, glorious, famous,and to see in it the meaning of thegreatorgloriousgoddess, that is, in some form or other, Fricge, Wóden’s wife: it is however not to be forgotten that the German Chrodo, in Anglosaxon Hróð or even Hréðe, is now admitted, and that this god was in fact Saturn. It is true that we have more than one fragmentary legend in which the name of Saturn survives, but in a heroic rather than a godlike form, and this may have been the cause of its preservation: the Church found Saturn useful, and kept him; nor is it at all surprising that a change of sex should have taken place: the same thing happened with the German goddess Nerthus, who reappears in the Norse god Niördr, and the classical scholar will at once remember the god Lunus, as well as the goddess Luna[704]. Whatever explanation we may attempt to give of Hréðe, it is clear that she was a Saxon goddess to whom at stated periods sacrifice was offered. The same thing may be said of Eóstre or Eástre, whose name must be etymologically connected with Eást,oriens, and who therefore was in all probability a goddess of brightness and splendour, perhaps also a Beorhte or Bright goddess: she may have been a goddess of light, of the morning beams, of the newly awakening year, when the sun first begins to recover power after thegloom and darkness of winter. That she was deeply impressed upon the mind and feelings of the people follows from her name having been retained for the great festival of the church: it may also be fairly argued that she was a mild and gentle divinity, whom the clergy did not fear thus to commemorate.
Lye’s dictionary cites another goddess, Ricen, with the translation Diana, which he seems to have taken from some Cotton MS. It stands too isolated for us to make any successful investigation, but I may be excused for calling to mind the fact that Diana is mentioned by the versifying chroniclers as among the Saxon gods, and also that the superstition known in Germany as the “Wild Hunt,” and which is properly connected with Wóden, goes very generally among us by the name of Ludus Dianae. This, which became the foundation of many a cruel persecution, under the name of witchcraft, is spread over every part of Germany in one form or another: sometimes it is [the daughter of] Herodias who is compelled for ever to expiate her fatal dancing; at other times we have Minerva or Bertha, Holda, Habundia, Dame Abonde, Domina, Hera—the Lady, and so on. It is true that our fragmentary remains of Saxon heathendom do not contain any immediate allusions to this superstition, but yet it can scarcely be doubted that it did exist here as it did in every part of the continent[705], and one thereforewould not willingly decide at once against there having been some deity who might be translated by Diana in theinterpretatio Romana.
FIENDS and MONSTERS.—The community of belief, between the Germans of this island, of the continent, and their Scandinavian kinsmen, does not appear to have been confined to the beneficent gods of fertility or warlike prowess. In the noble poem of Beowulf we are made acquainted with a monstrous fiend, Grendel, and his mother, supernatural beings of gigantic birth, stature and disposition, voracious and cruel, feeding upon men, and from their nature incapable of being wounded with mortal weapons. The triumph of the hero over these unearthly enemies forms the subject of one half the poem. But Grendel, who, from the characteristics given above, may at once be numbered among the rough, violent deities of nature, the Jotnar[706]of the North and Titans of classical mythology, is not without other records: in two or three charters we find places bearing his name, and it is remarkable that they are all connected more or less with water, while the poem describes his dwelling as a cavern beneath a lake, peopled withNicors and other supernatural beings of a fiendish character. The references are Grindles pyt[707], Grindles bece[708], and Grendles mere[709]. Grimm, by a comparison of philological and other data, identifies Grendel with the Norse Loki, the evil-bringer, and in the end destroyer of the gods[710]. The early converted Anglosaxons who possessed another devil to oppose to the Almighty in the Ragnaravkr[711], could easily reconcile themselves to the destruction of Grendel by an earthly hero; although the ancient heathendom breaks out in the supernatural powers attributed to the latter, and which placing him very near the rank of the gods, induce a belief that Beówulf contains only the shadow of an older myth which may have been current far beyond the limits of this island[712]. It will be sufficient to call attention to the many German tales in which the devil’s mother figures as a principal actor, nay to our own familiar expression,the devil’s dam, to show how essential this characteristic of the fiend was: the devil of the Church had certainly no mother; but the old Teutonic evil spirit had, and Loki and Grendel are alike in this. Even the religious view, which naturally shaped itself to other influences, could not escape the essential heathendom of this idea: the devil who is so constant an agent in the Anglosaxon legends, has, if not a mother, at least a father, no less than Satan himself; but Satan liesbound in hell, as Loki lies bound, and it is only as his emissary and servant that the devil his son[713]appears on earth, to tempt and to destroy. In Cædmon, the legend of St. Andrew, Juliana, Gúðlác, etc., it is always the devil’s son and satellite who executes his work on earth, and returns to give an account of his mission to him that sent him.
Thus throughout the strange confusion which besets all Anglosaxon compositions in which the devil is introduced either as a tempter or a persecutor of the holy and just, we may perceive a ray of ancient heathendom, gloomy enough, no doubt, but far less miserable than the vile materialism of the notions with which it has been mixed up. The rudeEotenor Titan is not nearly so repugnant to our Christian ideas as the gross corporeal fiends who have grown out of him, and who play so conspicuous a part in Anglosaxon hagiology or purgatorial legends: nor is it easy to conceive any superstition more degrading than that which Eastern or perhaps even Roman traditions thus engrafted upon the ancient creed. With these we are not called upon to deal in any further detail, for though theyhave no claim whatever to be called Christian, they certainly have nothing to do with Anglosaxon heathendom. The Grendels and Nicors of our forefathers were gods of nature, the spirits of the wood and wave: they sunk into their degraded and disgusting forms only when the devils of a barbarous superstition came to be confounded and mixed up with them. There is still something genuine and poetical in the account which a monk of St. Gall gives of the colloquy between the ancient gods when the missionaries settled on the shores of the lake of Constance; when in the dead of night, the holy anchoret watching at his nets,
Heard how the spirit of the floodSpake to the spirit of the hill:
Heard how the spirit of the floodSpake to the spirit of the hill:
Heard how the spirit of the floodSpake to the spirit of the hill:
Heard how the spirit of the flood
Spake to the spirit of the hill:
“Volvente deinceps cursu temporis, electus Dei Gallus retia lymphae laxabat in silentio noctis, sed inter ea audivit demonem de culmine montis pari suo clamantem, qui erat in abditis maris. Quo respondente, ‘Adsum!’ montanus e contra: ‘Surge,’ inquit, ‘in adiutorium mihi! Ecce peregrini venerunt, qui me de templo eiecerunt;’ nam Deos conterebant, quos incolae isti colebant; insuper et eos ad se convertebant; ‘Veni, veni, adiuva nos expellere eos de terris!’ Marinus demon respondit: ‘En unus illorum est in pelago, cui nunquam nocere potero. Volui enim retia sua ledere, sed me victum proba lugere. Signo orationis est semper clausus, nec umquam somno oppressus.’ Electus vero Gallus haec audiens, munivit se undique signaculo crucis, dixitque ad eos: ‘In nomine Jesu Christi praecipio vobis, ut de locis istis recedatis, nec aliquem hicledere praesumatis!’ Et cum festinatione ad littus rediit, atque abbati suo, quae audierat, recitavit. Quod vir Dei Columbanus audiens, convocavit fratres in ecclesiam, solitum signum tangens. O mira dementia diaboli! voces servorum Dei praeripuit vox fantasmatica, cum heiulatus atque ululatus dirae vocis audiebatur per culmina [montium[714]].”
But words are hardly strong enough to express the feeling with which an educated mind contemplates the fantastical, filthy and hideous images which gross fanaticism strove to force into the service of a religion whose end and means are love; the material terrors which were substituted for the sanctions of the most spiritual, pure and holy creed; the vulgar, degrading and ridiculous phantasmagoria devised to destroy the essential selfishness and impurity of men, and startle them into justice and righteousness of life! The Teutonic Titans, though terrible from their rude strength, and dangerous even to the gods themselves, are neither disgusting nor degrading: they are like Chronos and Saturn, full of power and wisdom; they are in constant warfare with the gods, because the latter are the representatives of a more humane order; because the latter was more civilised: but as the giant race were mighty at the beginning, so are they to triumph at the end of the world; and it is only when they shall have succeeded in destroying thegods of Oþinn’s race, that they will themselves vanish from the scene, and the glorious reign of Allfather commence. Loki alone has something mean and tricksey in his character, something allied to falsehood—a slight spice of the Mephistopheles. But it is not probable that this belongs to his earliest form, and it appears rather to mark the deterioration of a myth becoming popular, and assuming traits of the popular, humorous spirit, which takes delight in seeing power counteracted by cunning, and revenges itself for the perfection of its heroes by sometimes exposing them to ludicrous defeat. But even Loki was at first the friend and associate of the gods: he was united with them by the most sacred bonds of brotherhood, and his skill and wisdom secured them victory in many a dangerous encounter. Like Lucifer, he had been a tenant of heaven: why he and the gods ultimately parted in anger we are not told; but we find him pursuing them with the utmost malice, till at length he causes the death of Baldr. He is then bound and cast beneath the worlds, the poisonous snake hangs over him distilling torturing venom: his faithful wife sits by and catches the drops as they fall, but when the vessel in which she receives them is full and she turns for a moment to empty it, the deadly juice reaches the prostrate god, and in his agony he trembles in every limb. This convulsion is known to men as the earthquake. It is only in the twilight of the gods that he will break his chain and lead the sons of Muspel to avenge him upon the race of Oþinn.
But Loki is no devil in the Anglosaxon sense of Satan and his son; he is no deceiver or persecutor of men; least of all is he their torturer in another world. He suffers indeed, but like Prometheus, or Entelechus, or Ægeon, and his hour of triumph is to come. There is in his genuine character nothing mean or little,—much indeed that is terrible, gloomy and vague, but nothing ridiculous or disgusting. The Saxon devil with horns, tail, cloven feet, sulphur and pitch, torches, red-hot tongs, pincers and pitchforks is less creditable to the imagination, and more dangerous to the moral being, of his inventors.
Nor are the occupations of such a fiend less vulgar than his form: he blasts the corn, wounds the cattle, fetters the hands of the doomed, enters the mouth of those who have not guarded it by the sign of the cross, and in a future state becomes the torturer—in the most material and mechanical way—of those whose life has been spent in the service of sin. The coarse fancy of Marlowe himself halts after the descriptions of the Anglosaxon divines and poets, revelling in this fruitful theme. Unpleasant as such records are, and revolting to our sense of right, it is necessary that we should know what was taught or permitted by the clergy, if we are to know anything of the mode of life and mode of belief of our forefathers.
As early even as the eighth century, we find so great a man as Beda condescending to admit into his ecclesiastical history, such melancholy evidence of Manichæan materialism as the vision of Drihthelm.He tells how such a man in Northumbria, lying at the point of death, had fallen into a trance, recovering from which and being restored to health, he had entered the monastery of Melrose, in which he continued till his death. During his trance he had seen visions which he afterwards communicated to Hamgisl a priest, Aldfríð king of the Northumbrians, and others. He related that on being released from the body his soul had been led by one, bright of aspect, gloriously clothed, towards the east, into a valley wide and deep and of a length that seemed infinite: one side glowed terribly with flames, the other was filled with furious hail and freezing snow. Either side was full of human souls which were tossed from left to right as by a tempest. For when they could not bear the violence of the immense heat, they rushed wretchedly into the midst of the dreadful cold; and when they could find no rest there, they sprung back again, again to burn in the midst of inextinguishable flames. When Drihthelm saw them thus eternally tormented by a crowd of deformed demons, he thought within himself, “This is surely hell, of whose intolerable tortures I have often heard tell!” But his companion said, “This is not the hell thou thinkest!” and proceeding further, he beheld how the darkness began to thicken around and fill the whole space before him. Suddenly in this deep night he perceived globes of dusky fire cast up from what seemed to be a vast well, into which they fell again, without intermission. In the midst of these horrors his conductor left him. On lookingmore intently, he now perceived that the tongues of fire were all full of human souls, tossed aloft like sparks in smoke, and then dragged back into the abyss. And an incomparable stench, which bubbled up with the vapours, filled all those abodes of darkness. Around him sounded the shouts and taunts of fiends, like a vulgar mob exulting over a captive enemy: suddenly a host of evil spirits dragged through the darkness five souls, one of a laic, one of a woman, one tonsured like a cleric, and plunged them into the abyss amidst a confused roar of lamentation and laughter. Then certain malignant spirits ascending from the deep, surrounded the trembling spectator, terrifying him with their flaming eyes and the fire which burst from their mouths and noses, and threatening to seize him with fiery pincers which they held in their hands. From this danger he was rescued by the return of his companion, who conducted him to two corresponding regions of eternal bliss, every one of whose details is in the strongest contrast to those already described, but just as material, as gross and sensual. The moral of this is too important to be given in any but Beda’s own words. “And when, on our return, we had reached those happy mansions of spirits clothed in white, he said unto me, ‘Knowest thou what all these things are which thou hast beheld?’ I answered, ‘No.’ Then said he, 'The valley which thou sawest, horrible with its boiling flames and its stiff cold, that is the place where shall be tried and chastised the souls of those men, who delaying to confess and to amend theirsins, yet fly to penitence in the hour of death, and thus leave the body: yet since they had confession and penance even in death, shall all, at the day of judgment, reach the kingdom of heaven. But many, both the prayers of the living, and their alms and fasts, and most of all the celebration of masses, assist, so that they shall be freed even before the day of judgment. But that flame-belching, putrid well which thou hast seen is the mouth of hell itself, into which whoever shall fall, shall never be set free for ever and ever. And that flowery place in which thou sawest those most beauteous youths enjoy themselves in splendour, is that wherein are received the souls of those who indeed leave the body in good works, but yet are not of such perfection that they may at once enter the kingdom of heaven; who yet shall all, in the day of judgment, enter into the sight of Christ, and the joys of the heavenly kingdom. For they who are perfect in every word and act and thought, immediately on leaving the body shall reach the heavenly kingdom; to whose precincts that place belonged, where thou heardest the sound of pleasant singing, together with the smell of sweetness and the splendour of light[715].'” Having thus seen and heard, Drihthelm was allowed to return to the body, where no doubt he became a powerful champion of Purgatory. But Beda is not satisfied with this tale: he goes on to tell of a Mercian noble, who would not go to confession. At the point of death, he sees twoangels enter his room, bearing the record of his good deeds, which fill but a small roll: having caused him to read this, they make way for a crowd of fiends, black and foul, who bear the enormous tale of his sins of word, work and thought, which also he is compelled to read. Then the leader of the fiends turning to the sons of light exclaims, “Why sit ye here, knowing assuredly that he is ours?” to which they reply, “Ye say truly: take him, and lead him with you into the accumulation of your own damnation!” Upon this the good spirits vanish, and two demons, a sort of Occidental Munkir and Nekir, smite him with ploughshares on the head and feet, and creep into him; when they meet within him, he dies and passes into everlasting torments[716]. This tale, which Beda heard from the venerable bishop Pecthelm[717], he refines upon, explains, and finishes by declaring that he relates it simply for the salvation of those who shall read or hear it. No doubt the distempered ravings of monks, made half mad by inhuman austerities, unnatural restrictions, and wretched themes of contemplation, would in themselves be of little worth: we can comprehend the visions of a Saint Francis de Salis, an Ignatius Loyola, a Peter the Hermit, a Santa Theresa, and even more readily those of a Drihthelm or a Madame Guyon: but how shallwe understand the record of them by a Beda or a Fenelon?
Such authority as this was likely to be followed with zeal; once open, the career of unbridled fancy was sure to find no limit; the more sure, since then, as now, the fears and miseries of the mass were sources of profit to the few. Then, as now, there were rogues found who dared to step between man and God, to clothe themselves in the coat without seam, to make themselves the mediators between eternal mercy and the perishing sinner. Accordingly in later times we find variation upon variation in the outline already so vigorously sketched; William of Malmesbury furnishes an ample field for collectors of this kind of literature. I shall content myself here with citing from the so often quoted Salomon and Saturn two passages, which to me are redolent of heathendom, disguised after the fashion which has been described.
Again we are told, in the same composition: “And when the devil is very weary he seeketh the cattle of some sinful man, or an unclean tree; or if he meeteth the mouth and body of a man that hath not been blessed with the sign of the cross, then goeth he into the bowels of the man who hath so forgotten, and through his skin and through his flesh departeth into the earth, and from thence findeth his way into the desert of hell[720].”
NICOR.—To the class of elemental gods must originally have been reckoned the Nicor, or water-spirit, whose name has not only been retained in theWater Nixesof our own country, and in theNeckof Germany, but in our own common name for the devil,Old Nick. According to the account given in Beówulf, these were supernatural, elvish creatures haunting the lakes, rivers and seas, ever on the watch to injure the wayfarer, and apparently endowed with the power of creating tempests. In this semi-Christian view they were fiendish and savage enemies of the sailor, whom they pursued with horns and tusks, dragged to the bottom of the waves and then no doubt devoured[721]. Probably, like other supernatural beings dreaded by our forefathers, they were included in the family of ogres and monsters descended from the first homicide. Yet it may be doubted whether this, was the original and heathen sense of the word Nicor. As late as the thirteenth century I find in an old German glossary Neckar translated byNeptunus, the god of the sea; and it is notorious that one of the names borne by Oþinn, whenever he appears as a sea-god is Hnikuþr and Nikuz. Hence it is not unlikely that in their ancient creed, the pagan Saxons recognized Nicor as Wóden. The name Hwala which occurs in the genealogies, and like Geát may be assumed to be only another name of Wóden, confirms this view. Hwala is formed fromHwæl,cetus, just as Scyldwa is from Scyld,clypeus, and was probably only a name of Wóden as a sea-god. The danger attending the whale or walrus fishery[722]made the first at least of these animals an object of superstitiousdread to the Anglosaxon sailor; perhaps, as in the case of the bear, natural peculiarities which are striking enough even to our more scientific eyes, helped to give an exceptional character to the monarch of the Northern seas. Be this as it may, it is not without importance that Hwala should appear in the genealogies among names many of which are indisputably Wóden’s, that in Scandinavia and Germany Nikuz or Necker should be names of the sea-god, and that till a very late period,—when the heathen gods had everywhere assumed the garb of fiends and devils,—the Nicor should appear as the monster of the deeppar excellence. The miraculous power attributed to the Nicor,—in Beówulf he is called “wundorlíc wǽgbora,” a supernatural bringer of the waves,—is in itself evidence of earlier godhead; and in this sense I am disposed to identify him with thedemon marinuswhom St. Gall defeated by his constant watchfulness. In his altered and degraded form we may also recognize the demon of the lines lately cited, who stabs the horse with his horns while crossing the water. The beautiful Nix or Nixie who allures the young fisher or hunter to seek her embraces in the wave which brings his death, the Neck who seizes upon and drowns the maidens who sport upon his banks, the river-spirit who still yearly in some parts of Germany demands tribute of human life, are all forms of the ancient Nicor; but more genuine perhaps,—certainly more pleasing,—is the Swedish Stromkarl, who from the jewelled bed of his river, watches with delight the children gambol in the adjoining meadows, andsinging sweetly to them in the evening, detaches from his hoary hair the sweet blossoms of the water-lily, which he wafts over the surface to their hands.
HEL.—Among the fearful beings whose power was dreaded even by the gods, was Hel, mistress of the cold and joyless under-world. Called, through the fate of battle, to the glories of Wælheal, the Teutonic or Norse hero trembled at a peaceful death which would consign him to a dwelling more desolate and wretched than even that which awaited the fallen warriors of heroic Greece[723], and many a legend tells of those whose own hand saved them from a futurity so abhorred[724]. But Hel was not herself the agent ofdeath; she only received thosewho had not earned their seat in Oþinn’s hall by a heroic fall, and the Wælcyrian or Shieldmays were the choosers of the slain. The realm of Hel was all that Wælheal was not,—cold, cheerless, shadowy; no simulated war wasthere, from which the combatants desisted with renovated strength and glory; no capacious quaighs of mead, or cups of the life-giving wine; no feast continually enjoyed and miraculously reproduced; no songs nor narratives of noble deeds; no expectation of the last great battle where theeinherjarwere to accompany Allfather to meet his gigantic antagonists; no flashing Shieldmays animating the brave with their discourse, and lightening the hall with their splendour: but chill and ice, frost and darkness; shadowy realms without a sun, without song or wine or feast, or the soul-inspiring company of heroes, glorying in the great deeds of their worldly life.
For the perjurer and the secret murderer Nástrond existed, a place of torment and punishment—the strand of the dead—filled with foulness, peopled with poisonous serpents, dark, cold, and gloomy: the kingdom of Hel wasHades, the invisible, the world of shadows[725]: Nástrond was what we callHell. Christianity however admitted no goddess of death, and when it was thought necessary to express the idea of a place of punishment after death, the Anglosaxon united the realm ofHel with Nástrond to complete a hideous prison for the guilty: the prevailing idea in the infernal regions of the Teuton is cold and gloom[726]; the poisonous snakes, which waking or sleeping seem ever to have haunted the Anglosaxon, formed a convenient point of junction between his own traditional hell and that which he heard of from the pulpit, in quotations from the works of the Fathers; and to these and their influence alone can it be attributed when we find flames and sulphur, and all the hideous apparatus of Judaic tradition, adopted by him. In this fact seems to me to lie a very important mark of ancient heathendom, and one which the clergy themselves admitted, a belief in which they shared, and which they did not scruple to impress upon their flocks, even in spite of the contrary tendency of their authorities: it will be sufficient to refer to the description given of hell in the poetic Salomon and Saturn, a composition redolent of heathendom: on the defeat of the rebel angels, it is said, God
Even in their more orthodox descriptions, ecclesiastical poets, though naturally adopting the Judaic notions, cannot always shake off the old, habitual tradition of their forefathers, but recur to the frost, gloom and serpents of Nástrond, and the realm of Hel; of which a passage already quoted from Beda is ample evidence.
As far as we can judge from the descriptions which survive, the Anglosaxons represented Hell to themselves as a close and covered dwelling, a prison duly secured as earthly prisons are by locks, bolts and bars[728]. But the popular fancy had probably even then adopted the notion of a monstrous beast whosemouthwas the entrance to the place of torment: this appears not only from the illustrations to Cædmon[729], but from the common expression, so long current, of Hell-mouth. From this peculiar feature however we may believe that a remembrance still lurked among our forefathers of the gigantic or Titanic character of the ancient goddess, who, in Norse mythology, was Loki’s daughter. In nearly every case, the word Hel in Anglosaxon, and especially Anglosaxon prose, has merely the abstract sense we now give it; but here and there a passagemay be found in which we discover traces of the personal meaning: thus perhaps in Beówulf where we find these lines,
However as a death in battle did not consign the warrior to Hel, it is usually Hild or Wig who is represented as ravishing away the doomed hero. Hel was no desired object, to be introduced into the epic as the portion of chieftains and kings.
FATES.—The Northern creed, and, as it now seems established, the German also, admitted the intervention between man and the gods, of subordinate deities or Fates. I call them subordinate from their peculiar position in the fragmentary portions of mythology that survive; in their nature we must believe them to be of a higher order than the gods, who themselves are doomed one day to perish, and who can probably as little avoid their doom as men, the frailer creatures of their power. It may be that in this, different views prevailed among different classes of men; the warlike princes and their followers, who exulted in tales of battle and feasting, may have been willing to see in Oþinn the supreme disposer of events, while a deeper wisdom lurkedin the sacerdotal songs that told how Urðr, Werðandi and Skuld (the Norns of the Past, the Present and the Future) bore inevitable sway over the inhabitants of heaven and earth, and slowly waited for the period which was to confound gods, man and nature in one vast destruction[731]. The Norse view admits however of more than three Norns, though it names those only who have been mentioned; and from the extraordinary relation of those three,it can hardly be doubted that the others are of a different order; moreover it attributes human passions to them which are hardly consistent with the functions of the venerable Fates; in this case it is possible that the Valkyriur, a race of beings whose functions might in some respects be confounded with those of the Nornir, have been so mixed up with them. Man, dealing with the daily affairs of troubled life, thinks more of the past than of the future: to him the present is the child of the past, the past the excuse for or cause of all he does and suffers; his intellect comprehends the events that are completed or in course of completion, but not the indefinite, illimitable probabilities of the undiscoveredto be; hence perhaps Urðr is considered the oldest and most powerful of the Fates; her work is done, the others are doing or yet to do. Through this progress of opinion it became possible for the conception of the older Fate to include and finally supersede those of the others, as soon as the living belief in their personal agency became weakened. I do not know that any certain trace of these Fates can be found in the High-german countries[732], but in the Low-german the eldest Norn still survives long after the introduction of Christianity, in a sense little removed at times from that of Necessity itself. That this should still have been coupled with a lively feeling of personality only proves how deeply rooted the old Heathen creed had been. Inthe following instances from the Oldsaxon Héljand[733], Wurth might almost in every case be replaced bydód,mors: “Thiu Wurth is at handun, dód is at hendi;”—thewierd[734], or death, is at hand, i. e. so near that she might lay hold of the doomed. “ThiuWurthnahida thuo,”—theweirddrew nigh. “Wurthina benam,”Wierd, i. e. the goddess of death, ravished him away; as in Anglosaxon we haveSwylt benam,Deáð benam, and similar expressions.
The Anglosaxon equivalent isWyrd, an expression of the very commonest and most frequent occurrence. It should however be borne in mind that there are two separate uses of this word, one a more abstract one, in which it is capable of being used in the plural, and which may generally be renderedeventus[735], another more personal, similar to the OldsaxonWurth, and in which it never occurs but in the singular[736]. In the following most remarkable passage the heathen and Christian thoughts arestrangely mingled,Wierdbeing placed in actual apposition with God,