Epitome of German Mythology (excerpt 2)
...from "Northern Mythology: comprising the principal popular traditions and superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany, and the Netherlands" (1851)
“Although the similitude of language and manners speaks forcibly in favour of a close resemblance between the German and Northern mythologies, yet the assumption of a perfect identity of both religions is, on that account, by no means admissible; seeing that the only original authorities for German heathenism, the Merseburg poems, in the little information supplied by them, show some remarkable deviations from the religious system of the North.
The question here naturally presents itself, by what course of events did the Odinic worship become spread and filling the heart, because they mediate between it and a higher, severer Godhead. Among the saints also, both male and female, there were many classes, and the several cases in which they are helpful are distributed among them like offices and occupations for the hero who slew the over the larger portion of Germany and the Netherlands?
By Faulus Diaconos (De Gestis Langobard. i.8) we are informed that Wodan was worshiped as a god by all the Germanic nations. And Jonas of Bobbio (Vita S. Columbani in Act. Bened. sec.2. p.26) makes mention of a vessel filled with beer as an offering to Wodan among the Suevi (Alamanni) on the Lake of Constance. Hence it is reasonable to conclude that his worship prevailed especially among those tribes which according to their own traditions and other historic notices wandered from north to south. Whether Wodan was regarded as a chief divinity by all the German tribes is uncertain, no traces of his worship existing among the Bavarians; and the name of the fourth day of the week after him being found chiefly in the north of Germany, but in no High German dialect.
The following is Snorri’s account of Odin’s course from the Tanais to his final settlement in Sweden:
“... The country to the east of the Tanais (Tanaqvisl) in Asia was called Asaheim ; but the chief city (borg) in the country was called Asgard. In this city there was a chief named Odin (Wodan), and there was a great place of sacrifice (offersted), etc. At that time the Roman generals were marching over the world and reducing all nations to subjection; but Odin being foreknowing and possessed of magical skills knew that his posterity should occupy the northern half of the world. He then set his brothers Ve and Vili over Asgard but himself with all the diar and a vast multitude of people, wandered forth, first westwards to Gardariki, and afterwards southwards to Saxland . He had many sons; and after having reduced under his subjection an extensive kingdom in Saxland he placed his sons to defend the country. He afterwards proceeded northwards to the sea, and took up his abode in an island which is called Odins-ey in Fyen. But when Odin learned that there were good tracts of land to the east in Gylfi's king- om, he proceeded thither, and Gylfi concluded a treaty with him .... Odin made his place of residence by the Malar lake, at the place now called Sigtuna. There he erected a vast temple.”
The worship of Thunaer or Donab, the Northern Thor, among the Germans appears certain only from the Low German formula of renunciation and the name of the fifth day of the week.
The god Zio, who is identical with the Northern T (Tyr) is nowhere directly named; but as he has given his name to the third day of the week his right to a place in the host is established. His name seems to be preserved in some local appellations in the south of Germany.
Baldur appears in the Mersebui poem under the name of Phol.
The Frisic god Fosite is, according to all probability, the Scandinavian Forseti. Of him it is related that a temple was erected to him in Heligoland, which formerly bore the name of Fositesland. On the island there was a spring, from which no one might draw water except in silence. No one might touch any of the animals sacred to the god, that fed on the island, nor anything else found there. St. Wilibrord baptized three Frisians in the spring, and slaughtered three of the animals, for himself and his companions, but had nearly paid with his life for the profanation of the sanctuary, a crime which, according to the belief of the heathen, must be followed by madness or speedy death. At a later period, as we are informed by Adam of Bremen, the island was regarded as sacred by pirates.
Besides the above-named five gods, mention also occurs of three goddesses, viz. Frigg, the wife of Wodan, who is spoken of by Paulus Diaconus (i.8) under the name of Frea. In the Merseburg poem, where she is called Frua or Friia, she appears as a sister of Volla, the Northern Fulla. The sixth day of the week is named either after her or after the Northern goddess Freyia, but who in Germany was probably called Frouwa; and the goddess Hludana, whom Thorlacius identifies with Hlodyn. Of the god Saxnot nothing occurs beyond the mention of his name in the renunciation which we have just seen. In the genealogy of the kings of Essex a Seaxneat appears as a son of Woden.
As the common ancestor of the German nation Tacitus on the authority of ancient poems, places the hero or god Tuisco who sprang from the earth; whose son Mannus had three sons after whom are named the three tribes, viz. the Ingsevones, nearest to the ocean; the Herminones, in the middle parts ; and the Istsaevones. After all it is, perhaps, from the several prohibitions, contained in the decrees of councils or declared by the laws, that we derive the greater part of our knowledge of German heathenism. Of these sources one of the most important is the Indiculus Superstitionum et Paganarium, at the end of a Capitulary of Carloman (a.d. 743), contained in the Vatican MS. No. 577, which is a catalogue of the heathen practices that were forbidden at the council of Lestines (Liptinae), in the diocese of Cambrai. In the manuscript this catalogue is preceded by the formula of renunciation already given.
From the popular traditions and tales of Germany a sufficiently clear idea of the nature of the giants and dwarfs of Teutonic fiction may be obtained. As in the Northern belief the giants inhabit the mountains so does German tradition assign them dwellings in mountains and caverns. Isolated mounts sand-hills or islands have been formed by the heaps of earth which giant-maidens have let fall out of their aprons when constructing a dam or a causeway. Scattered fragments of rock are from structures undertaken by them in ancient times; and of the huge masses of stone lying about the country for the presence of which the common people cannot otherwise account it is said that they were cast by giants, or that they had shaken them out of their shoes like grains of sand Impressions of their fingers or other members are frequently to be seen on such stones. Other traditions tell of giants that have been turned into stone and certain rocks have received the appellation oi giants clvba. Moors and sloughs have been caused by the blood that sprang from a giant's wound as from Ymir's. In Germany, too, traces exist of the turbulent elements being considered as giants. A formula is preserved in which Fasolt is conjured to avert a storm; in another, Mermeut, who rules over the storm, is invoked. Fasolt is the giant who figures so often in German middle-age poetry; he was the brother of Ecke, who was himself a divinity of floods and waves. Of Mermeut nothing further is known.
In the German popular tales the devil is frequently made to step into the place of the giants. Like them he has his abode in rocks, hurls huge stones, in which the impression of his fingers or other members is often to be seen, causes moors and swamps to come forth, or has his habitation in them and raises the whirlwind. According to a universal tradition compacts are frequently made with the devil, by which he is bound to complete a building, as a church, a house, a barn, a causeway, a bridge or the like within a certain short period; but by some artifice, through which the soul of the person, for whom he is doing the work, is saved, the completion of the undertaking is prevented. The cock, for instance, is made to crow; because, like the giants and dwarfs, who shun the light of the sun, the devil also loses his power at the break of day. In being thus deceived and outwitted, he bears a striking resemblance to the giants, who, though possessing prodigious strength, yet know not how to profit by it, and therefore in their conflicts with gods and heroes always prove the inferior
While in the giant-traditions and tales of Germany a great degree of uniformity appears, the belief in dwarfs displays considerable vivacity and variety; though no other branch of German popular story exhibits such a mixture with the ideas of the neighbouring Kelts and Slaves. This intermingling of German and foreign elements appears particularly striking on comparing the German and Keltic elf-stories, between which will be found a strong similitude, which is hardly to be explained by the assumption of an original resemblance independent of all intercommunication.
Tradition assigns to the dwarfs of Germany, as the Eddas to those of the North, the interior of the earthy particularly rocky caverns, for a dwelling. There they live together as a regular people, dig for ore, employ themselves in smithe’s work, and collect treasures. Their activity is of a peaceful, quiet character, whence they are distinguished as the still folk (the good people, the guid neighbours); and because it is practised in secret, they are said to have a tarncap, or tarnmantle or mistmantle, by which they can make themselves invisible. For the same reason they are particularly active at night.
The dwarfs in general are, as we have seen, the personification of the hidden creative powers, on whose efficacy the regular changes in nature depend. This idea naturally suggests itself both from the names borne by the dwarfs in the Eddas, and from the myths connected with them. These names denote for the most part either activity in general, or individual natural phenomena, as the phases of the moon, wind, etc.
The activity of the dwarfs, which popular tradition symbolically signifies by smith's work, must be understood as elemental or cosmical. It applies particularly to the thriving of the fruits of the earth. We consequently frequently find the dwarfs busied in helping men in their agricultural labours, in getting in the harvest, making hay and the like, which is merely a debasement of the idea that, through their efficacy, they promote the growth and maturity of the fruits of the earth. Tradition seems to err in representing the dwarfs as thievish on such occasions as stealing the produce from the fields or collecting the thrashed-out com for themselves; unless such stories are meant to signify that evil befalls men if they offend those beneficent beings and thereby cause them to suspend their efficacy or exert it to their prejudice.
The same elemental powers which operate on the fruits of the earth also exercise an influence on the well-being of living creatures. Well-known and wide-spread is the tradition that the dwarfs have the power by their touch, their breathings, and even by their look to cause sickness or death to man and beast. That which they cause when they are offended they must also be able to remedy. Apollo who sends the pestilence is at the same time the healing god. Hence to the dwarfs likewise is ascribed a knowledge of the salutary virtues of stones and plants. In the popular tales we find them saving from sickness and death; and while they can inflict injury on the cattle they often also take them under their care. The care of deserted and unprotected children is also ascribed to them and in heroic tradition they appear as instructors. At the same time it cannot be denied that tradition much more frequently tells a widely different tale, representing them as kidnapping the children of human mothers and substituting their own changelings, dickkopfs or kielkropfs. These beings are deformed, never thrive, and, in spite of their voracity, are always lean, and are, more-over, mischievous. But that this tradition is a misrepresentation, or at least a part only, of the original one, is evident from the circumstance, that when the changeling is taken back the mother finds her own child again safe and sound, sweetly smiling, and as it were waking out of a deep sleep. It had, consequently, found itself very comfortable while under the care of the dwarfs as they themselves also declare that the children they steal find better treatment with them than with their own parents. By stripping this belief of its mythic garb we should probably find the sense to be that the dwarfs take charge of the recovery and health of sick and weakly children.
Hence it may also be regarded as a perversion of the ancient belief when it is related that women are frequently summoned to render assistance to dwarf-wives in labour; although the existence of such traditions may be considered as a testimony of the intimate and friendly relation in which they stand to mankind. But if we reverse the story and assume that dwarf-wives are present at the birth of a human child, we gain an appendage to the Eddaic faith- “that the Noms” who appeared at the birth of children, were of the race of dwarfs. In the traditions it is, moreover, expressly declared that the dwarfs take care of the continuation and prosperity of families. Presents made by them have the effect of causing a race to increase, while the loss of such is followed by the decline of the family; for this indicates a lack of respect towards these beneficent beings, which induces them to withdraw their protection. The anger of the dwarfs, in any way roused, is avenged by the extinction of the offender's race.
We have here made an attempt, out of the numerous traditions of dwarfs, to set forth, in a prominent point of view, those characteristics which exhibit their nobler nature, in the supposition that Christianity may also have vilified these beings as it has the higher divinities. At the same time it is not improbable that the nature of the dwarf, even in heathen times, may have had in it something of the mischievous and provoking which they often display in the traditions.
Among the wicked tricks of the dwarfs one in particular deserves notice- that they lay snares for young females and detain them in their habitations, herein resembling the giants, who, according to the Eddas, strive to get possession of the goddesses. If services are to be rendered by them, a pledge must be exacted from them, or they must be compelled by force; but if once overcome, they prove faithful servants and stand by the heroes in their conflicts with the giants, whose natural enemies they seem to be, though they are sometimes in alliance with them.
Popular tradition designates the dwarfs as heathens, inasmuch as it allows them to have power only over unbaptized children It gives us further to understand that this belief is of ancient date, when it informs us that the dwarfs no longer possess their old habitations. They have emigrated, driven away by the sound of church bells, which to them, as heathenish beings, was hateful, or because people were malicious and annoyed them, that is, no longer entertained the same respect for them as in the time of heathenism. But that this faith was harmless, and could without prejudice exist simultaneously with Christianity, appears from the tradition which ascribes to the dwarfs Christian sentiments and the hope of salvation
The Northern conception of the Norns is rendered more complete by numerous passages in the Anglo-Saxon and Old-Saxon writers. In Anglo-Saxon poetry Wyrd manifestly occupies the place of Urd (Urxor), the eldest Norn, as the goddess of fate who attends human beings when at the point of death; and from the Codex Exoniensis we learn that the influence of the Norns in the guiding of fate is metaphorically expressed as the weaving of a web as the uoipai and parcae are described as spinners. Thus too, does the poet of the Heliand personify Wurth, whom, as a goddess of death, he in like manner makes an attendant on man in his last hour.
We find not only in Germany traditions of Wise Women, who, mistresses of fate, are present at the birth of a child; but of the Keltic fairies it is also related that they hover about mortals as guardian spirits -appearing either three or seven or thirteen together- nurse and tend new-bom children, foretell their destiny, and bestow gifts on them, but among which one of them usually mingles something evil. Hence they are invited to stand sponsors, the place of honour is assigned them at table, which is prepared with the greatest care for their sake. Like the Norns too, they spin.
Let us now endeavour to ascertain whether among the Germans there exist traces of a belief in the Valkyriur. In Anglo-Saxon the word waelcyrige (waelcyrie) appears as an equivalent to necis arbiter, Bellona, Alecto, Erinnys, Tisiphone; the pi. vaelcyrian to parca, venefica; and Anglo-Saxon poets use personally the nouns Hild and Gud words answering to the names of two Northern Valkyriur, Hildr and Gunnr (comp. hildr, pugna ; gunnr, proelium, bellum). In the first Mersehurg poem damsels, or idisi, are introduced, of whom “some fastened fetters, some stopped an army, some sought after bonds,” and therefore perform functions having reference to war; consequently are to be regarded as Valkyriur.
We have still a superstition to notice, which in some respects seems to offer a resemblance to the belief in the Valkyriur, although in the main it contains a strange mixture of senseless, insignificant stories. We allude to the belief in witches and their nightly meetings.
The belief in magic, in evil magicians and sorceresses, who by means of certain arts are enabled to injure their fellow-creatures -to raise storms, destroy the seed in the earth, cause sickness to man and beast- is of remote antiquity. It is found in the East and among the Greeks and Romans; it was known also to the Germans and Slaves in the time of their paganism without their having borrowed it from the Romans. In it there is nothing to be sought for beyond what appears on the surface viz. that low degree of religious feelings at which belief supposes effects from unknown causes to proceed from supernatural agency as from persons by means of spells from herbs and even from an evil glance- a degree which can subsist simultaneously with the progressing religion and therefore, after the introduction of Christianity, could long prevail, and in part prevails down to the present day. Even in the time of heathenism it was, no doubt, a belief that these sorceresses on certain days and in certain places met to talk over their arts and the application of them, to boil magical herbs, and for other evil purposes. For as the sorcerer, in consequence of his occult knowledge and of his superiority over the great mass of human beings, became, as it were, isolated from them, and often harboured hostile feelings towards them, he was consequently compelled to associate with those who were possessed of similar power. It must, however, be evident that the points of contact are too few to justify our seeing the ground of German belief in witch-meetings in the old heathen sacrificial festivals and assemblies. And why should we be at the pains of seeking an historic basis for a belief that rests principally on an impure, confused deisidaimonia, which finds the supernatural where it does not exist? That mountains are particularly specified as the places of assembly, arises probably from the circumstance that they had been the offering-places of our forefathers; and it was natural to assign the gatherings of the witches to known and distinguished localities Equally natural was it that the witches should proceed to the place of assembly through the air, in an extraordinary manner as on he-goats, broomsticks, oven-forks and other utensils…”
Sources:
From "Northern Mythology: comprising the principal popular traditions and superstitions of Scandinavia, North Germany, and the Netherlands" Thorpe Benjamin, London, E. Lumley (1851)
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