Book 1 — CHAPTER XII. HEATHENDOM.

An account of the Saxons which should entirely exclude the peculiarities of their heathendom, would be deficient in an important degree. Religion and law are too nearly allied, particularly in early periods, for us to neglect either, in the consideration of national institutions. The immediate dependence of one upon the other we may not be able to show in satisfactory detail; but we may be assured that the judicial forms are always in near connexion with the cult, and that this is especially the case at times when the judicial and priestly functions are in the hands of the same class.

The Saxons were not without a system of religion, long before they heard of Christianity, nor should we be justified in asserting that religion to have been without moral influence upon the individual man in his family and social relations. Who shall dare to say that the high-thoughted barbarian did not derive comfort in affliction, or support in difficulty, from the belief that the gods watched over him,—that he did not bend in gratitude for the blessings they conferred,—that he was not guided and directed in the daily business of life by the conviction 328of his responsibility to higher powers than any which he recognized in the world around him? There has been, and yet is, religion without the pale of Christianity, however dim and meagre and unsatisfactory that religion may appear to us whom the mercy of God has blessed with the true light of the Gospel. Long before their conversion, all the Germanic nations had established polities and states upon an enduring basis,—upon principles which still form the groundwork and stablest foundation of the greatest empires of the world,—upon principles which, far from being abrogated by Christianity, harmonize with its purest precepts. They who think states accidental, and would eliminate Providence from the world, may attempt to reconcile this truth with their doctrine of barbarism; to us be it permitted to believe that, in the scheme of an all-wise and all-pervading mercy, one condition here below may be the fitting preparation for a higher; and that even Paganism itself may sometimes be only as the twilight, through which the first rays of the morning sun are dimly descried in their progress to the horizon. Without religion never was yet state founded, which could endure for ages; the permanence of our own is the most convincing proof of the strong foundations on which the massive fabric, from the first, was reared.

The business of this chapter is with the heathendom of the Saxons; not that portion of it which yet subsists among us in many of our most cherished superstitions, some of which long lurked in the ritual of the unreformed church, and may yet 329lurk in the habits and belief of many Protestants; but that which was the acknowledged creed of the Saxon, as it was of other Germanic populations; which once had priests and altars, a ritual and ceremonies, temples and sacrifices, and all the pomp and power of a church-establishment.

The proper subjects of mythological inquiry are the gods and godlike heroes: it is through the latter—for the most part, forms of the gods themselves—that a race connects itself with the former. Among the nations of our race royalty is indeed iure divino, for the ruling families are in direct genealogical descent from divinity, and the possession of Wóden’s blood was the indispensable condition of kingship. In our peculiar system, the vague records of Tuisco, the earth-born god^[608], and Man, the origin and founders of the race, have vanished; the mystical cosmogony of Scandinavia has left no traces among us^[609]; but we have nevertheless a mythological scheme which probably yielded neither in completeness nor imaginative power to those of the German or the Norwegian.

In the following pages I propose to take into consideration, first the Gods and Goddesses, properly so called: secondly, the Monsters or Titanic powers of our old creed: thirdly, the intermediate 330and as it were ministerial beings: and lastly the god-born and heroic personages of the epopoea.

The prudence or the contempt of the earliest Saxon Christians has left but sparing record of what Augustine and his brother missionaries overthrew. Incidental notices indeed are all that remain in any part of Teutonic Europe; and on the continent, as well as in England, it is only by the collation of minute and isolated facts,—often preserved to us in popular superstitions, legends and even nursery tales,—that we can render probable the prevalence of a religious belief identical in its most characteristic features with that which we know to have been entertained in Scandinavia. Yet whatsoever we can thus recover, proves that, in all main points, the faith of the island Saxons was that of their continental brethren.

It will readily be supposed that the task of demonstrating this is not easy. The early period at which Christianity triumphed in England, adds to the difficulties which naturally beset the subject. Norway, Sweden and Denmark had entered into public relations with the rest of Europe, long before the downfall of their ancient creed: here, the fall of heathendom and the commencement of history were contemporaneous: we too had no Iceland^[610] to offer a refuge to those who fled from the violent course of a conversion, preached sword 331in hand, and coupled with the loss of political independence; still the progress of the new faith seems to have been on the whole easy and continuous amongst us; and though apostasy was frequent, history either had no serious struggle to record, or has wisely and prudently concealed it.

In dealing with this subject, we can expect but little aid from the usual sources of information. The early chroniclers who lived in times when heathendom was even less extinct than it now is, and before it had learnt to hide itself under borrowed names, would have shrunk with horror from the mention of what to them, was an execrable impiety: many of them could have possessed no knowledge of details which to us would be invaluable, and no desire to become acquainted with them: the whole business of their life, on the contrary, was to destroy the very remembrance that such things had been, to avoid everything that could recall the past, or remind their half-converted neophytes of the creed which they and their forefathers had held. It is obvious that, under such circumstances, the greater and more powerful the God, the more dangerous would he continue to be, the more sedulously would all mention of him be avoided by those who had relinquished his service or overthrown his altars. But though this may be the case with the principal deities, there are others whose power, though unacknowledged, is likely to be more permanent. Long after the formal renunciation of a public and national paganism, the family and household gods retain a certain habitual influence, 332and continue—often under other names, nay perhaps engrafted on another creed—to inform the daily life of a people who are still unconsciously acted upon by ancient national feelings. A spell or a popular superstition may yet recall some traces of the old belief, even as the heathen temple, when purified with holy water and dedicated in another name, retained the holiness which had at first been attached to the site of its foundation.

What Paulus Diaconus, Jonas of Bobbio, Jornandes, Adam of Bremen, Alcuin, Widukind, and the monks of St. Gall, assert of other German races, Beda asserts of the Anglosaxons also, viz. that they worshiped idols^[611], idola, simulacra deorum; and this he affirms not only upon the authority of his general informants and of unbroken tradition, but of Gregory himself. Upon the same authority also he tells us that the heathen were wont to sacrifice many oxen to their gods^[612]. To 333Beda himself we owe the information that Hréðe and Eostre, two Saxon goddesses, gave their names to two of the months; that at a certain season cattle were vowed, and at another season cakes were offered to the gods^[613]. From him also we learn that upon the death of Sǽbeorht in Essex, his sons restored the worship of idols in that kingdom^[614]; that Eádwini of Northumberland offered thanks to his deities for the safe delivery of his queen^[615]; that Rǽdwald of Eastanglia sacrificed victims to his gods^[616]; that, on occasion of a severe pestilence, the people of Essex apostatized and returned to their ancient worship^[617], till reconverted by Gearoman, under whose teachings they destroyed or deserted the fanes and altars they had made; that incantations and spells were used against sickness^[618]; that certain runic charms were believed capable of breaking the bonds of the captive^[619]; that Eorcenberht of Kent was the first who completely put down heathendom in his kingdom, and destroyed 334the idols^[620]; lastly that at the court of Eádwini of Northumberland there was a chief priest^[621], and, as we may naturally infer from this, an organized heathen hierarchy.

The poenitentials of the church and the acts of the witena-gemóts are full of prohibitions directed against the open or secret practice of heathendom^[622]; from them we learn that even till the time of Cnut, well-worship and tree-worship, the sanctification of places, spells, philtres and witchcraft, were still common enough to call for legislative interference; and the heavy doom of banishment, proclaimed against their upholders, proves how deeply rooted such pagan customs were in the minds of the people. Still in the Ecclesiastical History of Beda, in the various works which in later times were founded upon it and continued it, in the poenitentials and confessionals of the church, in the acts of the secular assemblies, we look in vain for the sacred names in which the fanes were consecrated, or for even the slightest hint of the attributes of the gods whose idols or images had been set up. Excepting the cursory mention of the two female divinities already noticed, and one or two almost equally rapid allusions in later chronicles, we are left almost entirely without direct information respecting the tenants of the Saxon Pantheon. There are however other authorities, founded on traditions more ancient 335than Beda himself, from which we derive more copious, if not more definite accounts. First among these are the genealogies of the Anglosaxon kings: these contain a multitude of the ancient gods, reduced indeed into family relations, and entered in the grades of a pedigree, but still capable of identification with the deities of the North and of Germany. In this relation we find Wóden, Bældæg, Geát, Wig, and Frea. The days of the week, also dedicated to gods, supply us further with the names of Tiw, Ðunor, Fricge and Sætere; and the names of places in all parts of England attest the wide dispersion of their worship. These, as well as the names of plants, are the admitted signs by which we recognize the appellations of the Teutonic gods.

1. WÓDEN, in Old-norse OÞINN, in Old-german WUOTAN.—The royal family of every Anglosaxon kingdom, without exception, traces its descent from Wóden through some one or other of those heroes or demigods who are familiar to us in the German and Scandinavian traditions^[623]. But 336the divinity of Wóden is abundantly clear: he is both in form and in fact identical with the Norse Oþinn and the German Wuotan, the supreme god of all the northern races, whose divinity none will attempt to dispute^[624]. Nor was this his character unknown to our early chroniclers; Malmesbury, speaking of Hengest and Hors, says: “They were the great-great-grandsons of that most ancient Wóden, from whom the royal families of almost all the barbarous nations derive their lineage; whom the nations of the Angles madly believing to be a god, have consecrated unto him the fourth day of the week, and the sixth unto his wife Frea, by a sacrilege which lasts even unto this day^[625].” Matthew of Westminster^[626] and Geoffry of Monmouth^[627] repeat this with characteristic variations, both adding, apparently in the words of Tacitus^[628], “Colimus maxime Mercurium, quem Wóden lingua nostra appellamus.” Æðthelweard, an Anglosaxon nobleman of royal blood, and thus himself a descendant of Wóden, had previously stated the same thing after the fashion of his own age,—the tenth century; 337he says of Hengest and Hors: “Hi nepotes fuere Uuoddan regis barbarorum, quem post, infanda dignitate, ut deum honorantes, sacrificium obtulerunt pagani, victoriae causa sive virtutis^[629].” Again, he says: “Wothen, qui et rex multarum gentium, quem pagani nunc ut deum colunt aliqui.” Thus, according to him, Wóden was worshiped as the giver of victory, and as the god of warlike valour. And such is the description given by Adam of Bremen of the same god, at Upsala in Sweden: “In hoc templo, quod totum ex auro paratum est, statuas trium deorum veneratur populus, ita ut potentissimus eorum Thór in medio solum habeat triclinium, hinc et inde locum possident Wódan et Fricco. Quorum significationes eiusmodi sunt: Thór, inquiunt, praesidet in aere, qui tonitrus et fulmina, ventos imbresque, serena et fruges gubernat. Alter Wódan, id est Fortior, bella regit, hominumque ministrat virtutem contra inimicos. Tertius est Fricco, pacem voluptatemque largiens mortalibus. Cuius etiam simulachrum fingunt ingenti Priapo. Wódanem vero sculpunt armatum, sicuti nostri Martem sculpere solent. Thór autem cum sceptro Jovem exprimere videtur.” The Exeter book names Wóden in a similar spirit:

Hǽðnum synne

Wóden worhte weohs,

wuldor alwealda

rúme roderas^[630],

that is, “For the heathen Wóden wrought the sin 338of idolatry, but the glorious almighty God the spacious skies:” and an early missionary is described to have thus taught his hearers: “Wóden vero quem principalem deum crediderunt et praecipuum Angli, de quo originem duxerant, cui et quartam feriam consecraverant, hominem fuisse mortalem asseruit, et regem Saxonum, a quo plures nationes genus duxerant. Huius, inquit, corpore in pulverem resoluto, anima in inferno sepulta aeternum sustinet ignem^[631].”

To Wóden was dedicated the fourth or mid-day of the week, and it still retains his name: this among other circumstances tends to the identification of him with Mercurius^[632]. The Old-norse Rúnatale þáttr which introduces Oþinn declaring himself to be the inventor of runes^[633], is confirmed by the assertion in the dialogue of Salomon and Saturn, which to the question “Who invented letters?” answers, “I tell thee, Mercury the giant”—that is, “Wóden the god:” and this is further evidence 339of resemblance. A metrical homily in various collections, bearing the attractive title De falsis diis, supplies us with further proof of this identification, not only with Wóden, but with the Norse Oþinn: it says,

Sum man was geháten Mercurius on life, se was swíðe fácenful and swícol on dǽdum, and lufode eác stala and leásbrednysse: ðone macodon ða hǽðenan him tó mǽran gode, and æt wega gelǽtum him lác offrodon, and tó heágum beorgum him bróhton onsægdnysse. Ðæs god wæs árwurða betwux callum hǽðenum, and he is Oþon geháten óðrum naman on Denisc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ðone feorðan dæg hí sealdon him tó frófre ðám foresædan Mercurie heora mǽran gode^[634]. A man there was, called Mercury during life, who was very fraudulent and deceitful in deeds, and eke loved thefts and deception: him the heathen made a powerful god for themselves, and by the road-sides made him offerings, and upon high hills brought him sacrifice. This god was honourable among all the heathen, and he is called Odin by another name in Danish.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The fourth day they gave for their advantage to the aforesaid Mercury their great god.

340Thus we have Mercurius, Wóden and Oþinn sufficiently identified. A careful investigation of the inner spirit of Greek mythology has led some very competent judges to see a form of Hermes in Odysseus. This view derives some corroboration from the Teutonic side of the question, and the relation in which Wóden stands to Mercurius. Even Tacitus had learnt that Ulixes had visited Germany, and there founded a town which he called Asciburgium^[635]; and without insisting on the probability that Asciburgium grew out of a German Anseopurc or a Scandinavian Asgard, it seems not unreasonable to suppose that some tales of Wóden had reached the ears of the Roman, which seemed to him to resemble the history of Odysseus and his wanderings. Such a tale we yet possess in the adventures of Thorkill on his journey to Utgardaloki, narrated by Saxo Grammaticus, which bears a remarkable likeness to some parts of the Odyssey^[636]; and when we consider Saxo’s very extraordinary mode of rationalizing ancient mythological traditions, we shall admit at least the probability of an earlier version of the tale which would be much more consonant with the suggestion of Tacitus, although this earlier form has unfortunately not 341survived. Wóden is, like Odysseus, preeminently the wanderer; he is Gangradr, Gangleri, the restless, moving deity. Even the cloak, hood or hat in which Oþinn is always clad^[637] reminds us both of the petasus of Hermes and the broad hat which Odysseus generally wears on ancient gems and pottery. That Wóden was worshiped æt wega gelǽtum, and that he was the peculiar patron of boundaries, again recalls to us this function of Hermes, and the Ἔρμαια. When we hear that offerings were brought to him upon the lofty hills, we are reminded that there was an ἄκριος, or Mountain Hermes too, though little known; and the Ἑρμῆς προμάχος, perhaps as little known as his mountain brother, answers to the warlike, victory-giving deity of our forefathers in his favourite form.

From the godlike or heroic sons of Wóden descend all the races qualified to reign, and some of those whose names are found in the Anglosaxon genealogies may be easily recognised in the mythological legends of the continent. In some one or other of his forms he is the eponymus of tribes and races: thus, as Geát or through Geát, he was the founder of the Geátas; through Gewis, of the Gewissas; through Scyld, of the Scyldingas, the Norse 342Skjoldungar; through Brand, of the Brondingas; perhaps through Bætwa, of the Batavians^[638]. It seems indeed not wholly improbable that every name in the merely mythical portion of the genealogies represents some particular tribe, under the distinctive appellation of its tutelar god or hero; and that we may thus be led in some degree to a knowledge of the several populations which coalesced to form the various kingdoms.

Legends describing the adventures of Wóden either in a godlike or heroic form were probably not wanting here, or in Germany; it is only in Scandinavia that a portion of these have been preserved, unless the tales of Geát and Sceaf, to be hereafter noticed, are in reality to be referred to him. Equally probable is it that he had in this country temples, images and religious rites, traces of which we find upon the continent^[639]; and that 343trees, animals and places were consecrated to him^[640]. So numerous indeed are the latter, so common in every part of England are names of places compounded with his name, that we must admit his worship to have been current throughout the island: it seems impossible to doubt that in every quarter there were localities (usually rising ground) either dedicated to him, or supposed to be under his especial protection; and thus that he was here, as in Germany, the supreme god whom the Saxons, Franks and Alamans concurred in worshiping. The following names of places may all be unhesitatingly attributed to this cause, and they attest the general recognition and wide dispersion of Wóden’s influence.

Wanborough, formerly Wódnesbeorh, in Surrey, lat. 51° 14´ N., long. 38´ W., placed upon the water-shed which throws down streams to north and south, 344and running from east to west, divides the county of Surrey into two nearly equal portions, once perhaps two petty kingdoms; the range of hills now called the Hog’s-back. It is a little to the north of the ridge, nearly on the summit; the springs of water are peculiarly pure and never freeze. In all probability it has been in turn a sacred site for every religion that has been received in Britain. Wanborough, formerly Wódnesbeorh in Wiltshire, lat. 51° 33´ N., long. 1° 42´ W., about 3½ miles S.E. of Swindon, placed upon the watershed which throws down the Isis to the north, and Kennet to the south. Woodnesborough, formerly Wódnesbeorh, in Kent, lat. 51° 16´ N., long. 1° 29´ E., throwing down various small streams to north and south, into the Stour and the sea. Wonston (probably Wódnesstán) in Hampshire, lat. 51° 10´ N., long. 1° 20´ W., from which small streams descend to north and south, into the Test and Itchen. Wambrook (probably Wódnesbróc) in Dorsetshire. Wampool (probably Wódnespól) in Cumberland. Wansford (probably Wódnesford) in Northamptonshire. Wansford in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Wanstead (probably Wódnesstede) an old Roman station in Essex. Wanstrow, formerly Wódnestreów Wanborough or Warnborough, formerly Wódnesbeorh, two parishes in Hampshire. Wembury, formerly Wódnesbeorh, in Devonshire. Wonersh (probably Wódnesersc), a parish at the foot of the Hog’s-back, a few miles from Wanborough. Wansdike, formerly Wódnesdíc, an ancient dike or fortification, perhaps the boundary between different kingdoms: it 345extended in a direction from east to west through more than one of our southern counties. Its remains are visible three or four miles W.S.W. of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, and it crosses the northern part of Somerset from the neighbourhood of Bath to Portshead on the Bristol Channel, where it ends in lat. 51° 29´ N., long. 2° 47´ W.

In addition to these references, which might be made far more numerous, if necessary, we have many instances in the boundaries of charters, of trees, stones and posts set up in Wóden’s name, and apparently with the view of giving a religious sanction to the divisions of land. In this, as in other respects, we find a resemblance to Hermes. It is also to be borne in mind that many hills or other natural objects may in fact have been dedicated to this god, though bearing more general names, as Ósbeorh, Godeshyl and so forth.

One of the names of Odin in the Old-norse mythology is Osk, which by an etymological law is equivalent to the German Wunsch, the Anglosaxon Wisc, and the English Wish. Grimm has shown in the most convincing manner that Wunsch may be considered as a name of Wuotan in Germany^[641]; and it is probable that Wúsc or Wísc may have had a similar power here. Among the names in the mythical genealogies we find Wúscfreá, the lord of the wish, and I am even inclined to the belief that Oisc, equivalent to Ésk, the founder of the Kentish line of kings, may be a Jutish name of Wóden in this form,—ésc, or in an earlier form óski, i. e. 346Wunsch, Wýsc^[642]. In Devonshire to this day all magical or supernatural dealings go under the common name of Wishtness: can this have any reference to Wóden’s name Wýsc? So again a bad or unfortunate day is a wisht day: perhaps a diabolical, heathen, accursed day. There are several places which appear to be compounded with this name; among them: Wishanger (Wíschangra or Wóden’s meadow), one, about four miles S.W. of Wanborough in Surrey, and another near Gloucester; Wisley (Wíscleáh) also in Surrey; Wisborough (probably Wíscbeorh) in Sussex; Wishford (probably Wíscford) in Wiltshire.

2. ÞUNOR, in Old-norse ÞORR, in Old-german DONAR.—The recognition of Ðunor in England was probably not very general at first: the settlement of Danes and Norwegians in the ninth and following centuries may have extended it in the northern districts. But though his name is not found in the genealogies of the kings, there was an antecedent probability that some traces of his worship would be found among the Saxons. Thunar is one of the gods whom the Saxons of the continent were called upon to renounce, and a total abnegation of his authority was not to be looked for even among a race who considered Wóden as the supreme god. That the fifth day of the week was called by his name is well known: Thursday 347is Ðunres dæg, dies Jovis; and he is the proper representative of Jupiter, inasmuch as he must be considered in the light of the thundering god, an elemental deity, powerful over the storms, as well as the fertilizing rains^[643]. His peculiar weapon, the mace or hammer, seems to denote the violent, crushing thunderbolt, and the Norse myth represents it as continually used against the giants or elemental gods of the primal world. In a composition whose antiquity it is impossible to ascertain, we may still discover an allusion to this point: in the Christian Ragna Ravk, or Twilight of the Gods, it was believed that a personal conflict would take place between the divinity and a devil, the emissary and child of Satan: in the course of this conflict, it is said: “se Ðunor hit þyrsceð mid ðǽre fýrenan æxe,” the thunder will thresh it with the fiery axe^[644]; and I am inclined to see a similar allusion in the Exeter Book, where the lightning is called rynegiestes wæpn, the weapon of Avkv Ðórr, the car-borne god, Thunder^[645].

The names of places which retain a record of Ðunor are not very numerous, but some are found: among them Thundersfield, Ðunresfeld, in Surrey^[646]; Thundersley, Ðunresleáh, in Essex, near Saffron Walden; Thundersley, Ðunresleáh, also in Essex, near Raylegh, and others in Hampshire^[647]. Near 348Wanborough in Surrey is Thursley, which may have been a Ðunresleáh also: it is unlikely that it was ever Ðóresleáh, from Ðórr (the Norse form of Ðunor), but it might have been Ðyrsleáh, the meadow of the giant or monster. Very near Thursley is a hill called Thunder hill, probably Ðunres hyl. A similar uncertainty hangs over Thurleigh in Bedfordshire, Thurlow in Essex, Thursby in Cumberland, Thursfield in Staffordshire, and Thursford in Norfolk^[648]. The name of Ðunor was, to the best of my knowledge, never borne by any man among the Anglosaxons, which is in some degree an evidence of its high divinity. The only apparent exception to this assertion is found in an early tale which bears throughout such strong marks of a mythical character as to render it probable that some legend of Ðunor was current in England; especially as its locality is among the Jutish inhabitants of Kent. According to this account, Ecgbert the son of Eorcenberht, the fourth Christian king of Kent, had excluded his cousins from the throne, and fearing their popularity determined on removing them by violence. The thane Thuner divined and executed the intentions of his master. Under the king’s own throne were the bodies concealed; but a light from heaven which played about the spot revealed the crime: the king paid to their sister the wergyld of 349the slain princes: a hind, let loose, defined the boundaries of the grant which was to make compensation for the murder: forty-eight hides of land thus became the property of Domneva, and the repentant king erected upon them a monastery. The assassin Thuner, however, added to his guilt the still higher atrocity of sneering at the king’s repentance and its fruits: the earth suddenly opened beneath his feet and swallowed him; while the church placed the names of his victims, Æðelred and Æðelberht, on the list of its martyrs. Any comment upon this, as a historical transaction, would be perfectly superfluous, but it may possibly contain some allusion of a mythological nature; for it seems that the very fact of Ðunor’s not being a god generally worshiped in England, would render him likely to form the foundation of heroic stories. I will not absolutely say that the dragon-slaughter of Beówulf is a direct reference to the myth of Ðunor, though this is possible. Another hero of Anglosaxon tradition bears the name of the “Wandering Wolf;” he slew five-and-twenty dragons at daybreak, “on dæg-ræd;” and fell dead from their poison, as Thórr does after slaying Midgard’s orm, and Beówulf after his victory over the firedrake. The wolf however is a sacred beast of Wóden, and these names of Wandering wolf, Mearcwulf, etc. may have some reference to him, especially as we learn from Grimm that in some parts of Denmark the wild huntsman, who is unquestionably Wóden, bears the name of the flying Marcolf^[649]. The heathen character of the 350whole relation is proved by the fact of the “famous sailor on the sea,” the “wandering wolf” being represented as the friend of Nebrond, probably Nimrod^[650].

One of the names by which Ðunor is known in Germany is Hamar^[651], which was perhaps originally derived from his weapon. This has become almost synonymous with devil. Perhaps the same allusion lurks in one or two names of places in England: in the immediate neighbourhood of Thursley in Surrey, and at a short distance from Thunderhill, are some ponds known by the name of the Hammer-ponds. It is remarkable that within two or three miles of Thursley and the Hammer-ponds, three singular natural mounds which form most conspicuous objects upon a very wild and desert heath, should bear the name of the Devil’s Jumps, while at a short distance a deep valley is known by that of the Devil’s Punchbowl, probably at some early period, the Devil’s Cup, Ðunres-cup or the Hamar-cup. The word Hamarden occurs in the boundaries of charters^[652]; and other places recall the same name: thus Hameringham in Lincoln, Hamerton in Huntingdon, Homerton in Middlesex (hardly Hammersmith in Middlesex), Hamerton Green in Yorkshire, Hamerton Kirk in Yorkshire, Hammerwick in Staffordshire.

3. TIW, the Old-norse TYR, and Old-german ZIU.—The third day of the week bears among us 351the name of the god Tíw, the Old-norse Týr. In like manner we find him also giving his name to places. In the neighbourhood so often referred to in this chapter, and which seems to have been a very pantheon of paganism^[653], not far from Thursley or from Wanborough, we find Tewesley, which I have no scruple to pronounce the ancient Tíwesleáh. Tísleáh^[654] seems to denote the same name, and it is probable that even a race acknowledged this god as its founder,—the Tiwingas, who gave their name to Tewing in Herts. Tiwes mére^[655] seems to be the mere or lake of Tiw, and in another charter we have also Teówes þorn^[656], which goes far towards substantiating the German form Ziu.

The Anglosaxon glossaries are perfectly accurate when they give the rendering Mars for Tíw^[657], and Tíwesdæg is rightly dies Martis. It cannot be doubted that our forefathers worshiped this god, as a supreme giver of victory, and especially a god of battle, in some parts of Scandinavia and Germany; whether or not in England appears doubtful. In the mythology of the North he is the bravest of the gods, the one who did not scruple to place his 352hand in the mouth of the wolf Fenris, when he demanded a pledge that the gods would unbind the chain they had forged for him, and on their breach of faith Týr paid the penalty^[658]. The Roman historian tells of the Hermunduri having vowed to sacrifice the beaten Catti to Mercury and Mars, by which vow the whole of the horses and men belonging to the defeated force were devoted to slaughter. Jornandes says of the Goths, “Martem semper asperrima placavere cultura; nam victimae ejus mortes fuere captorum, opinantes bellorum praesulem aptius humani sanguinis effusione placatum^[659].” Procopius tells the same tale of his Θουλίται, that is the Scandinavians: τῶν δὲ ἱερείων σφίσι τὸ κάλλιστον ἄνθρωπος ἐστιν, ὅνπερ ἂν δοριάλωτον ποιήσαιντο πρῶτον· τοῦτον γὰρ τῷ Ἄρει θύουσιν, ἐπεὶ θεὸν αὐτὸν νομίζουσι μέγιστον εἶναι^[660]. The Norse traditions, although they acknowledge Oþinn as the giver of victory, are still very explicit as to Týr: he is particularly Wígaguð, deus praeliorum, and an especial granter of success in battle, “rǽðr miöc sigri í orostom^[661].” Perhaps the Tencteri may be added to the number of those who paid an especial honour to Týr (in German Ziu), since Tacitus makes them say, “communibus deis et praecipuo deorum Marti grates agimus^[662],” where it is not at all necessary to suppose Wóden is meant; and Grimm has good reason 353to number the Suevi among the worshipers of Ziu^[663].

The Anglosaxon runic alphabet, which in several letters recalls the names or attributes of the ancient gods, uses Tír for T: the German runes wanting a Z = T, apply Ziu: there is however another rune, similar in shape to the runic T, but having the power of EA; this bears the name of Ear, but sometimes also in MSS. that of Tír: there are etymological grounds on which the word Tír, gloria, must be connected with Tíw, and we are hence led to the supposition that Ear may have been another name for that god. This gains a great importance when we bear in mind that in some parts of south Germany, the third day of the week is called, not Zistag, but Ertag, Eritag, Erichtag, for which we should indeed have expected Erestag: and when we find in Saxon Westphalia an undeniably heathen spot called Eresburg, Mons Martis, now Mersberg, i. e. Eresberg, the hill of Er, Ziu or Mars.

Now the Anglosaxon poem on the runic characters has something to tell us of Ear. It says of him,

Ear bið égle

eorla gehwylcum,

ðonne fæstlíce

flǽsc onginneð

hrá cólian,

hrúsan ceósan

blác to gebeddan.

Blǽda gedréosað,

wynna gewítað,

wera geswícað^[664].

354that is, “Ear is a terror to every man, when fast the flesh, the corpse beginneth to become cold and pale to seek the earth for a consort. Joy faileth, pleasure departeth, engagements cease.” It is clear that Ear, spica, arista, will not explain this, and we may believe that our forefathers contemplated the personal intervention of some deity whose contact was death. This may have been Tíw or Ear, especially in the battle-field, and here he would be equivalent to the Ἄρης βροτολοιγός μιαιφόνος of Homer.

More than this we shall hardly succeed in rescuing: but there yet remains a name to consider, which may possibly have tended to banish the more heathen one of Tíw. Among all the expressions which the Anglosaxons used to denote a violent death, none is more frequent than wíg fornam, or wíg gesceód, in which there is an obvious personality, Wíg (War) ravished away the doomed: here no doubt war was represented as personally intervening, and slaying, as in other similar cases we find the feminines Hild, Gúð, which are of the same import, and the masculines Swylt, Deáð, mors. The abstract sense which also lay in the word wíg, and enabled it to be used without offence to Christian ears, may have been a reason for its general adoption in cases where at an earlier period Tíw would have been preferred. Old glossaries give us the rendering Wíg Mars, and Hild, Bellona: it is therefore not at all improbable that these words were purposely selected to express what otherwise must have been referred to a god of perilous influence: Wíg was a more general, and therefore less dangerous name than Tíw, to recallrecall to the memory of a 355people prone to apostasy. That the latter survived in the name of a weekday serves only to show that it was too deeply grounded to be got rid of; perhaps its very familiarity in that particular relation rendered it safe to retain the name of any deity, as was done by five out of the seven days. But Christianity was tolerant of heathen names in other than heathen functions, and in the genealogy of the kings of Wessex, Wíg is the father of Gewis, the eponymus of the race. I have already expressed my belief that this name represented either Wóden or Tíw, and think it very likely that it was the latter, inasmuch as the paganism of the Gewissas seems to have been remarkable, beyond that of other Anglosaxon tribes: “Sed Britanniam perveniens, ac primum Gewissorum gentem ingrediens, cum omnes ibidem paganissimos inveniret,” etc.^[665] “Intrante autem episcopo in portum occidentalium Saxonum, gentem qui antiquitus Gewisse vocabantur, cum omnes ibidem paganissimos inveniret,” etc.^[666] The events described are of the year 634. We find that Tíw enters into the composition of the names of a few plants^[667]; on the other hand it is never found in the composition of proper names, any more than Tír; although now Tírberht or Tírwulf would seem quite as legitimate compounds as Eádberht, Sigeberht, Eádwulf, Sigewulf.

FREÁ, in Old-norse FREYR, in Old-german FRO.—The god whom the Norse mythology celebrates 356under the name of Freyer must have borne among us the name of Freá. It is probable that he enjoyed a more extensive worship in all parts of Europe than we can positively demonstrate. At present we are only enabled to assert that the principal seat of his worship was at Upsala among the Swedes. In general there is not much trace in the North of phallic gods; but an exception must be made at once in the case of Freyr. One of the most beautiful poems of the Edda^[668] tells how Freyr languished for desire of the beautiful Gerdr; it was for her love that he lost the sword, the absence of which brings destruction upon him in the twilight of the Gods. The strongest evidence of his peculiar character is found in the passage already cited from Adam of Bremen^[669], and what he says of the shape under which Frea was represented at Upsala: “Tertius est Fricco, pacem, voluptatemque largiens mortalibus; cujus etiam simulachrum fingunt ingenti Priapo.” The fertilizing rains, the life-bringing sunshine, the blessings of fruitfulness and peace were the peculiar gifts of Freyr^[670]; and from Adam of Bremen again we learn that he was the god of marriage: “Si nuptiae celebrandae sunt, sacrificia offerunt Fricconi.” In his car he travelled through the land, accompanied by a choir of young and 357blooming priestesses^[671], and wherever he came plenty and peace abounded. The beast sacred to Freyr was the boar, and it is not improbable that various customs and superstitions connected with this animal may have had originally to do with his worship. It is not going too far to assert that the boar’s head which yet forms the ornament of our festive tables, especially at Christmas, may have been inherited from heathen days, and that the vows made upon it, in the middle ages, may have had their sanction in ancient paganism. But it is as an amulet that we most frequently meet with the boar in Anglosaxon. Tacitus says of the Æstyi, that, in imitation of the Suevish custom, “Matrem deum venerantur; insigne superstitionis, formas aprorum gestant. Id pro armis omnium que tutela; securum deae cultorem etiam inter hostes praestat^[672].” The relation between Freá and the Mater deorum is a near one. Now the Anglosaxon poems consider a boar’s form or figure so essential a portion of the helmet, that they use the word eofor, aperpart of the armour:

hét ðá inberan eofor heáfordsegn, heaðosteápne helm. he commanded them to bring in the boar (i. e. helmet) the ornament of the head, the helmet lofty in battle^[673].

And still more closely, with reference to the virtues of this sign:

eoforlíc scionon ofer hleor beran gehroden golde, fáh and fýrheard ferhwearde heóld. the forms of boars they seemed above their cheeks to bear adorned with gold, various and hardened in the fire it held the guard of life^[674].

358And again:

ac se hwíta helm hafelan werede, . . . . . . . . . since geweorðad, befongen freawrásnum, swá hine fyrndagum worhte wæpna smið, wundrum teóde, besette swínlícum, ðæt hine syððan nó brond né beadomecas bítan né meahton. but the white helmet guarded the head, . . . . . . . . . adorned with treasure, set about with lordly signs, as it in days of yore the armourer made, wondrously produced, set it about with shapes of boars, that afterwards neither brand nor warknife might penetrate it^[675].

Grimm citing this passage goes so far as even to render “freá wrasnum” by Frothonis signis, and thus connects it at once with Frea^[676]; and we may admit at all events the great plausibility of the suggestion. But though distinct proof of Freá's worship in England cannot be supplied during the Saxon period, we have very clear evidence of its still subsisting in the thirteenth century. The following extraordinary story is found in the Chronicle of Lanercost^[677], an. 1268. “Pro fidei divinae integritate servanda recolat lector quod, cum hoc anno in Laodonia pestis grassaretur in pecudes armenti, quam vocant usitate Lungessouth, quidam bestiales, 359habitu claustrales non animo, docebant idiotas patriae ignem confrictione de lignis educere et simulachrum Priapi statuere, et per haec bestiis succurrere. Quod cum unus laicus Cisterciencis apud Fentone fecisset ante atrium aulae, ac intinctis testiculis canis in aquam benedictam super animalia sparsisset, ac pro invento facinore idolatriae dominus villae a quodam fideli argueretur, ille pro sua innocentia obtendebat, quod ipso nesciente et absente fuerant haec omnia perpetrata, et adiecit, et cum ad usque hunc mensem Junium aliorum animalia languerent et deficerent, mea semper sana erant, nunc vero quotidie mihi moriuntur duo vel tria, ita quod agricultui pauca supersunt.”

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

“Insuper hoc tempore apud Inverchethin, in hebdomada paschae [Mar. 29-Ap. 5], sacerdos parochialis, nomine Johannes, Priapi prophana parans, congregatis ex villa puellulis, cogebat eas, choreis factis, Libero patri circuire; ut ille feminas in exercitu habuit, sic iste, procacitatis causa, membra humana virtuti seminariae servientia super asserem artificiata ante talem choream praeferebat, et ipse tripudians cum cantantibus motu mimico omnes inspectantes et verbo impudico ad luxuriam incitabat. Hi, qui honesto matrimonio honorem deferebant, tam insolente officio, licet reverentur personam, scandalizabant propter gradus eminentiam. Si quis ei seorsum ex amore correptionis 360sermonen inferret, fiebat deterior, et conviciis eos impetebat.”

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

The needfire, nýdfýr, New-german nothfeuer, was called from the mode of its production, confrictione de lignis, and though probably common to the Kelts^[678] as well as Teutons, was long and well known to all the Germanic races at a certain period. All the fires in the village were to be relighted from the virgin flame produced by the rubbing together of wood, and in the highlands of Scotland and Ireland it was usual to drive the cattle through it, by way of lustration, and as a preservative against disease^[679]. 361But there was another curious ceremony connected with the lighting of fires on St. John’s eve,—probably from the context, on the 23rd of June. A general reference for this may be made to Grimm’s Mythologie, pp. 570-592, under the general heads of Nothfeuer, Bealtine and Johannisfeuer; but the following passage, which I have not seen cited before, throws light on Grimm’s examples, and adds some peculiarities of explanation. It is found in an ancient MS. written in England and now in the Harleian collection, No. 2345, fol. 50.

“Eius venerandam nativitatem cum gaudio celebrabitis; dico eius nativitatem cum gaudio; non illo cum gaudio, quo stulti, vani et prophani, amatores mundi huius, accensis ignibus, per plateas, turpibus et illicitis ludibus, commessationibus, et ebrietatibus, cubilibus et impudicitiis intendentes illam celebrare solent.... Dicamus de tripudiis quae in vigilia sancti Johannis fieri solent, quorum tria genera. In vigilia enim beati Johannis colligunt pueri in quibusdam regionibus ossa, et quaedam alia immunda, et insimul cremant, et exinde producitur fumus in aere. Faciunt etiam brandas et circuunt arva cum brandis. Tercium de rota 362quam faciunt volvi: quod, cum immunda cremant, hoc habent ex gentilibus. Antiquitus enim dracones in hoc tempore excitabantur ad libidinem propter calorem, et volando per aera frequenter spermatizabantur aquae, et tunc erat letalis, quia quicumque inde bibebant, aut moriebantur, aut grave morbum paciebantur. Quod attendentes philosophi, iusserunt ignem fieri frequenter et sparsim circa puteos et fontes, et immundum ibi cremari, et quaecumque immundum reddiderunt fumum, nam per talem fumum sciebant fugari dracones.... Rota involvitur ad significandum quod sol tunc ascendit ad alciora sui circuli et statim regreditur, inde venit quod volvitur rota.”

An ancient marginal note has bonfires, intending to explain that word by the bones burnt on such occasions. Grimm seems to refer this to the cult of Baldr or Bældæg, with which he connects the name Beltane; but taking all the circumstances into consideration, I am inclined to attribute it rather to Freá, if not even to a female form of the same godhead, Fricge, the Aphrodite of the North. Freá seems to have been a god of boundaries; probably as the giver of fertility and increase, he gradually became looked upon as a patron of the fields. On two occasions his name occurs in such boundaries, and once in a manner which proves some tree to have been dedicated to him. In a charter of the year 959 we find these words: “ðonne andlang herpaðes on Frigedæges treów,”—thence along the road to Friday’s (that is Frea’s) tree^[680]; and in a 363similar document of the same century we have a boundary running “oð ðone Frigedæg.” There is a place yet called Fridaythorpe, in Yorkshire. Here Frigedæg appears to be a formation precisely similar to Bældæg, Swæfdæg, and Wægdæg, and to mean only Freá himself.

BALDÆG, in Old-norse BALDR, in Old-german PALTAC.—The appearance of Bældæg among Wóden’s sons in the Anglosaxon genealogies, would naturally lead us to the belief that our forefathers worshiped that god whom the Edda and other legends of the North term Baldr, the father of Brand, and the Phœbus Apollo of Scandinavia. Yet beyond these genealogies we have very little evidence of his existence. It is true that the word bealdor very frequently occurs in Anglosaxon poetry as a peculiar appellative of kings,—nay even as a name of God himself,—and that it is, as far as we know, indeclinable, a sign of its high antiquity. This word may then probably have obtained a general signification which at first did not belong to it, and been retained to represent a king, when it had ceased to represent a god. There are a few places in which the name of Balder can yet be traced: thus Baldersby in Yorkshire, Balderston in Lancashire, Bealderesleah and Baldheresbeorh in Wiltshire^[681]: of these the two first may very likely have arisen from Danish or Norwegian influence, while the last is altogether uncertain. Save in the genealogies the name Bældæg does not occur at all. 364But there is another name under which the Anglosaxons may possibly have known this god, and that is Pol or Pal.

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

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

The general character of this poem is one well known to us: there are many Anglosaxon spells of the same description. What makes this valuable beyond all that have ever been discovered, is the 365number of genuine heathen names that survive in it, which in others of the same kind have been replaced by other sanctions; and which teach us the true meaning of those which have survived in the altered form. In a paper read before the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Grimm identified Phol with Baldr^[682], and this view he has further developed in the new edition of his Mythology^[683]. It is confirmatory of this view that we possess the same spell in England, without the heathendom, and where the place of the god Baldr is occupied by that of our Lord himself. The English version of the spell runs thus:

The lord rade,

and the foal slade;

He lighted

and he righted;

set joint to joint

and bone to bone,

sinew to sinew.

Heal, in the Holy Ghost’s name^[684]!

It will be admitted that this is something more than a merely curious coincidence, and that it leads to an induction of no little value. Now it appears to me that we have reasonable ground to believe our version quite as ancient and quite as heathen as the German one which still retains the heathen names, and that we have good right to suppose that it once referred to the same god. How 366then 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, 367and 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 darling 368of the Asyniar. A sprig of mistletoe, at that time too young to enter into so solemn an obligation, was alone, and fatally, excepted. The invulnerability of the god induced him to offer himself as a mark for the practice of his relatives and friends. Maces, axes and spears fell innocuous from his sacred frame; but Loki placed a sprig of mistletoe in the hand of the blind Haudr^[687], and with this, the sole thing that could not be forsworn, he slew his brother. An effort still remained to be made. Oþinn himself descended to the abode of Hel, in hopes of persuading the goddess of the dead to relinquish her prey. He was successful, and returned with the joyful intelligence that Baldr would be restored to the gods, if all created nature would weep for him. All nature did weep for the loss of the god of beauty, save one old crone. When called upon to do her part in his restoration she answered, “What have the gods done for me, that I should weep for Baldr? Let Hel keep her dead!” It is thought that it was Loki who had assumed the old woman’s form. Thus Baldr’s fate was sealed. The faithful Nanna^[688] would not survive her beautiful lord, and the gods and goddesses attended round the pile on which their two cherished companions were reduced 369to 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.

370GEÁT, in Old-norse GAUTR, in Old-German KÓZ.—A cursory allusion has already been made to Geát, probably only another form of Wóden, since in the mythology of the North, Oþinn is Gaútr, but certainly the eponymus of the Geátas, that tribe of whom Beówulf was the champion and afterwards the king. Geát appears in the Westsaxon genealogy as a progenitor of Wóden, but this collocation is unimportant in mythological inquiries. It is probable that Gapt, whom Jornandes places at the head of the Gothic genealogy, is only a misreading of Gavt, which is the equivalent Gothic form of Geát, and that Sigegeát, Angelgeát, Waðelgeát, which occur in other Anglosaxon genealogies, are identical with him^[689]. His love for Maðhild, a legend unknown to all the nations of the North, save our own forefathers, is noticed in the Exeter Book: it is there said,

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

It is much to be regretted that this is all we learn on this subject, which becomes very interesting when 371we remember how little trace there is of phallic gods in the Northern mythology. But that Geát was a god, and not merely a hero, is not left entirely to inference: it is distinctly asserted by various and competent authorities: Nennius has declared him to have been filius dei, not indeed the God of Hosts, and God of Gods, but of some idol^[691]. But Asser, who was no doubt well acquainted with the traditions of Ælfred’s family, says^[692], “Quem Getam dudum pagani pro deo venerabantur,” which is repeated in the same words by Florence of Worcester^[693] and Simeon of Durham^[694], and is contained in a Saxon genealogy preserved in the Textus Roffensis, “Geáta, ðene ða hǽðenan wurðedon for God.” We can therefore have no scruple about admitting his divinity; and a comparison of the Gothic and Scandinavian traditions proves the belief in it to have been widely held. The name, which is derived from geotan, to pour, most probably denotes only the special form in which Wóden was worshipped by some particular tribes or families; and the occurrence of it in the genealogies, only the fact that such tribes or families formed part of the national aggregates, to whose royal line it belongs. But nevertheless we must admit the personality attributed to him by those tribes, and the probability of his having been, at least for them, the national divinity. The circumstance of his 372name 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 Latin Saturnus, at least in name. From the seventh week-day we may infer that his Anglosaxon name was Sætere, perhaps the Placer or Disposer^[696]; for Sæteresdæg seems a more accurate form than Sæternesdæg which we sometimes find. There are both names of places and of plants formed upon the name of this god: as Satterthwaite in Lancashire, Satterleigh in Devonshire and Sæteresbyrig^[697] in the same county, of which there appears to be no modern representative; while among plants the Gallicrus, or common crowfoot, is called in Anglosaxon Satorláðe. The appearance of Saturnus as an interlocutor in such a dialogue as the Salomon and Saturn^[698] is a further evidence of divinity; so that, taking all circumstances into account, it is probable that when Gregory of Tours, Geoffry of Monmouth and others, number him among the Teutonic gods, they are not entirely mistaken. Now there has been a tradition, 373in 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.

374From the Gods we pass to the Goddesses: of these we have indeed but scanty record in England. Of the great and venerable goddess Fricge, Wóden’s wife, we are only told that she gave her name to the sixth day of the week; and we must admit that this is all we know of her, unless she be implied under some other name, which is possible.

Beda in acquainting us with the ancient names of the Anglosaxon months tells us of four which were called from their especial reference to the gods: these are Solmónað or February; Hréðmónað, March; Eóstermónað, April; and Blótmónað, November. Solmónað he says received its name from the cakes which were offered to the gods at that time^[702]; Blótmónað from the victims (cattle) that were vowed for sacrifice; of the others he says^[703], “Hréðmónað is called from a goddess of theirs,—Rheda, to whom they sacrificed in that month. 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 mean severe, fierce, and denote a warlike goddess; but still I am more inclined to connect it with the adjective Hróð, glorious, famous, 375and to see in it the meaning of the great or glorious goddess, that is, in some form or other, Fricge, Wóden’s wife: it is however not to be forgotten that the German Chrodo, in Anglosaxon Hróð or even Hréðe, is now admitted, and that this god was in fact Saturn. It is true that we have more than one fragmentary legend in which the name of Saturn survives, but in a heroic rather than a godlike form, and this may have been the cause of its preservation: the Church found Saturn useful, and kept him; nor is it at all surprising that a change of sex should have taken place: the same thing happened with the German goddess Nerthus, who reappears in the Norse god Niördr, and the classical scholar will at once remember the god Lunus, as well as the goddess Luna^[704]. Whatever explanation we may attempt to give of Hréðe, it is clear that she was a Saxon goddess to whom at stated periods sacrifice was offered. The same thing may be said of Eóstre or Eástre, whose name must be etymologically connected with Eást, oriens, and who therefore was in all probability a goddess of brightness and splendour, perhaps also a Beorhte or Bright goddess: she may have been a goddess of light, of the morning beams, of the newly awakening year, when the sun first begins to recover power after the 376gloom 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 therefore 377would not willingly decide at once against there having been some deity who might be translated by Diana in the interpretatio 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 with 378Nicors and other supernatural beings of a fiendish character. The references are Grindles pyt^[707], Grindles bece^[708], and Grendles mere^[709]. Grimm, by a comparison of philological and other data, identifies Grendel with the Norse Loki, the evil-bringer, and in the end destroyer of the gods^[710]. The early converted Anglosaxons who possessed another devil to oppose to the Almighty in the Ragnaravkr^[711], could easily reconcile themselves to the destruction of Grendel by an earthly hero; although the ancient heathendom breaks out in the supernatural powers attributed to the latter, and which placing him very near the rank of the gods, induce a belief that Beówulf contains only the shadow of an older myth which may have been current far beyond the limits of this island^[712]. It will be sufficient to call attention to the many German tales in which the devil’s mother figures as a principal actor, nay to our own familiar expression, the devil’s dam, to show how essential this characteristic of the fiend was: the devil of the Church had certainly no mother; but the old Teutonic evil spirit had, and Loki and Grendel are alike in this. Even the religious view, which naturally shaped itself to other influences, could not escape the essential heathendom of this idea: the devil who is so constant an agent in the Anglosaxon legends, has, if not a mother, at least a father, no less than Satan himself; but Satan lies 379bound 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 rude Eoten or Titan is not nearly so repugnant to our Christian ideas as the gross corporeal fiends who have grown out of him, and who play so conspicuous a part in Anglosaxon hagiology or purgatorial legends: nor is it easy to conceive any superstition more degrading than that which Eastern or perhaps even Roman traditions thus engrafted upon the ancient creed. With these we are not called upon to deal in any further detail, for though they 380have no claim whatever to be called Christian, they certainly have nothing to do with Anglosaxon heathendom. The Grendels and Nicors of our forefathers were gods of nature, the spirits of the wood and wave: they sunk into their degraded and disgusting forms only when the devils of a barbarous superstition came to be confounded and mixed up with them. There is still something genuine and poetical in the account which a monk of St. Gall gives of the colloquy between the ancient gods when the missionaries settled on the shores of the lake of Constance; when in the dead of night, the holy anchoret watching at his nets,

Heard how the spirit of the flood

Spake to the spirit of the hill:

“Volvente deinceps cursu temporis, electus Dei Gallus retia lymphae laxabat in silentio noctis, sed inter ea audivit demonem de culmine montis pari suo clamantem, qui erat in abditis maris. Quo respondente, ‘Adsum!’ montanus e contra: ‘Surge,’ inquit, ‘in adiutorium mihi! Ecce peregrini venerunt, qui me de templo eiecerunt;’ nam Deos conterebant, quos incolae isti colebant; insuper et eos ad se convertebant; ‘Veni, veni, adiuva nos expellere eos de terris!’ Marinus demon respondit: ‘En unus illorum est in pelago, cui nunquam nocere potero. Volui enim retia sua ledere, sed me victum proba lugere. Signo orationis est semper clausus, nec umquam somno oppressus.’ Electus vero Gallus haec audiens, munivit se undique signaculo crucis, dixitque ad eos: ‘In nomine Jesu Christi praecipio vobis, ut de locis istis recedatis, nec aliquem hic 381ledere 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 the 382gods 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.

383But 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. 384He tells how such a man in Northumbria, lying at the point of death, had fallen into a trance, recovering from which and being restored to health, he had entered the monastery of Melrose, in which he continued till his death. During his trance he had seen visions which he afterwards communicated to Hamgisl a priest, Aldfríð king of the Northumbrians, and others. He related that on being released from the body his soul had been led by one, bright of aspect, gloriously clothed, towards the east, into a valley wide and deep and of a length that seemed infinite: one side glowed terribly with flames, the other was filled with furious hail and freezing snow. Either side was full of human souls which were tossed from left to right as by a tempest. For when they could not bear the violence of the immense heat, they rushed wretchedly into the midst of the dreadful cold; and when they could find no rest there, they sprung back again, again to burn in the midst of inextinguishable flames. When Drihthelm saw them thus eternally tormented by a crowd of deformed demons, he thought within himself, “This is surely hell, of whose intolerable tortures I have often heard tell!” But his companion said, “This is not the hell thou thinkest!” and proceeding further, he beheld how the darkness began to thicken around and fill the whole space before him. Suddenly in this deep night he perceived globes of dusky fire cast up from what seemed to be a vast well, into which they fell again, without intermission. In the midst of these horrors his conductor left him. On looking 385more intently, he now perceived that the tongues of fire were all full of human souls, tossed aloft like sparks in smoke, and then dragged back into the abyss. And an incomparable stench, which bubbled up with the vapours, filled all those abodes of darkness. Around him sounded the shouts and taunts of fiends, like a vulgar mob exulting over a captive enemy: suddenly a host of evil spirits dragged through the darkness five souls, one of a laic, one of a woman, one tonsured like a cleric, and plunged them into the abyss amidst a confused roar of lamentation and laughter. Then certain malignant spirits ascending from the deep, surrounded the trembling spectator, terrifying him with their flaming eyes and the fire which burst from their mouths and noses, and threatening to seize him with fiery pincers which they held in their hands. From this danger he was rescued by the return of his companion, who conducted him to two corresponding regions of eternal bliss, every one of whose details is in the strongest contrast to those already described, but just as material, as gross and sensual. The moral of this is too important to be given in any but Beda’s own words. “And when, on our return, we had reached those happy mansions of spirits clothed in white, he said unto me, ‘Knowest thou what all these things are which thou hast beheld?’ I answered, ‘No.’ Then said he, 'The valley which thou sawest, horrible with its boiling flames and its stiff cold, that is the place where shall be tried and chastised the souls of those men, who delaying to confess and to amend their 386sins, yet fly to penitence in the hour of death, and thus leave the body: yet since they had confession and penance even in death, shall all, at the day of judgment, reach the kingdom of heaven. But many, both the prayers of the living, and their alms and fasts, and most of all the celebration of masses, assist, so that they shall be freed even before the day of judgment. But that flame-belching, putrid well which thou hast seen is the mouth of hell itself, into which whoever shall fall, shall never be set free for ever and ever. And that flowery place in which thou sawest those most beauteous youths enjoy themselves in splendour, is that wherein are received the souls of those who indeed leave the body in good works, but yet are not of such perfection that they may at once enter the kingdom of heaven; who yet shall all, in the day of judgment, enter into the sight of Christ, and the joys of the heavenly kingdom. For they who are perfect in every word and act and thought, immediately on leaving the body shall reach the heavenly kingdom; to whose precincts that place belonged, where thou heardest the sound of pleasant singing, together with the smell of sweetness and the splendour of light^[715].'” Having thus seen and heard, Drihthelm was allowed to return to the body, where no doubt he became a powerful champion of Purgatory. But Beda is not satisfied with this tale: he goes on to tell of a Mercian noble, who would not go to confession. At the point of death, he sees two 387angels enter his room, bearing the record of his good deeds, which fill but a small roll: having caused him to read this, they make way for a crowd of fiends, black and foul, who bear the enormous tale of his sins of word, work and thought, which also he is compelled to read. Then the leader of the fiends turning to the sons of light exclaims, “Why sit ye here, knowing assuredly that he is ours?” to which they reply, “Ye say truly: take him, and lead him with you into the accumulation of your own damnation!” Upon this the good spirits vanish, and two demons, a sort of Occidental Munkir and Nekir, smite him with ploughshares on the head and feet, and creep into him; when they meet within him, he dies and passes into everlasting torments^[716]. This tale, which Beda heard from the venerable bishop Pecthelm^[717], he refines upon, explains, and finishes by declaring that he relates it simply for the salvation of those who shall read or hear it. No doubt the distempered ravings of monks, made half mad by inhuman austerities, unnatural restrictions, and wretched themes of contemplation, would in themselves be of little worth: we can comprehend the visions of a Saint Francis de Salis, an Ignatius Loyola, a Peter the Hermit, a Santa Theresa, and even more readily those of a Drihthelm or a Madame Guyon: but how shall 388we 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.

389Mæg simle se Godes cwide gumena gehwylcum, ealra feónda gehwone fleónde gebringan, ðurh mannes múð, mánfulra heáp sweartne geswencan; næfre híe ðæs syllíce bleóum bregdað æfter báncofan, feðerhoman onfóð. Hwílum flótan grípað, hwílum híe gewendað on wyrmes líc scearpes and sticoles, stingað nýten feldgongende, feoh gestrúdað; hwílum híe on wætere wicg gehnǽgað, hornum geheáwað oððæt him heortan blód, fámig flódes bæð, foldan geséceð. Hwílum híe gefeterað fǽges monnes handa, gehefegað ðonne he æt hilde sceall wið láðwerud lifes tiligan: áwrítað híe on his wæpne wælnóta heáp. Ever may the God’s word^[718] for every man, every fiend put to flight, through mouth of man, the troop of evil ones, the black troop, oppress; let them never so strangely change their colours in their body, or assume plumage. Sometimes they seize the sailor, sometimes they turn into the body of a snake sharp and piercing, they sting the neat going about the fields, the cattle they destroy; sometimes in the water they bow the horse, with horns they hew him until his heart’s blood, a foaming bath of flood, falls to the earth. Sometimes they fetter the hands of the doomed, they make them heavy when he is called upon in war, against a hostile troop to provide for his life: they write upon his weapon a fatal heap of marks^[719].

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 the Water Nixes of our own country, and in the Neck 390of 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 by Neptunus, 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 from Hwæl, 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 superstitious 391dread 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 deep par 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 the demon marinus whom 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, and 392singing 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 of death; she only received those 393who 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 was there, 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 the einherjar were 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 was Hades, the invisible, the world of shadows^[725]: Nástrond was what we call Hell. 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 of 394Hel 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

395him helle gescóp, wælcealde wíc, wintre beðeahte: wæter insende and wyrmgeardas, atol deór monig írenum hornum; blódige earnas and bláce nædran; þirst and hungor and þearle gewin, eácne egesan, unrótnisse. for them he made hell, a dwelling deadly cold, with winter covered: water he sent in and snake-dwellings, many a foul beast with horns of iron; bloody eagles and pale adders; thirst and hunger and fierce conflict, mighty terror, joylessness^[727].

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 whose mouth was 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 passage 396may be found in which we discover traces of the personal meaning: thus perhaps in Beówulf where we find these lines,

siððan dreámaleás in fenfreoðo feorh álegde, hǽðene sáwle, ðǽr him Hel onfeng. when reft of joy in his fen-refuge he his life laid down, his heathen soul, there Hel received him^[730].

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 lurked 397in 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, 398it 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 undiscovered to 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. In 399the following instances from the Oldsaxon Héljand^[733], Wurth might almost in every case be replaced by dód, mors: “Thiu Wurth is at handun, dód is at hendi;”—the wierd^[734], or death, is at hand, i. e. so near that she might lay hold of the doomed. “Thiu Wurth nahida thuo,”—the weird drew nigh. “Wurth ina benam,” Wierd, i. e. the goddess of death, ravished him away; as in Anglosaxon we have Swylt benam, Deáð benam, and similar expressions.

The Anglosaxon equivalent is Wyrd, 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 rendered eventus^[735], another more personal, similar to the Oldsaxon Wurth, and in which it never occurs but in the singular^[736]. In the following most remarkable passage the heathen and Christian thoughts are 400strangely mingled, Wierd being placed in actual apposition with God,

swá he hyra má wólde

nefne him witig God,

Wyrd forstóde,

⁊ ðæs mannes mód^[737].

“As he would more of them had not wise God, Wierd forstood him, and the man’s courage.” How very heathen the whole would be, were we only to conceive the word God an interpolation, which is highly probable; nefne him witig—Wyrd forstóde^[738]! The following examples will show the use of Wyrd:—“hine Wyrd fornam,”—him Wierd ravished away^[739]: just as in other passages we have guð fornam^[740], Wíg ealle fornam^[741], swylt fornam^[742], deað fornam^[743]. “Wyrd ungemete neáh^[744],”— Wierd was immeasurably near him; as in the Oldsaxon passages above cited, and as Deað ungemete neáh^[745]. “Ac unc sceal weorðan æt wealle, swá unc Wyrd geteóð, métod manna gehwǽs^[746],”—it shall befal us as Wierd decideth, the lord of every man. “Swá him Wyrd ne gescráf^[747],”—Wierd did not appoint. “Ealle Wyrd 401forsweóp^[748],”—Wierd has swept away. “Ús seó wyrd scýðeð, heard and hetegrim^[749],”—us doth Wierd pursue, hard and grim in hate.