Epitome of German Mythology (Excerpt 7)
...from "Northern Mythology: compromising the principal popular traditions and superstitions of Scandanavia, North Germany, and the Netherlands" (1851)
“The foregoing are the principal memorials of heathen divinities that have been preserved in Christian times. Together with them we find traces of that living conception of nature, which is perceptible among the Germans from the remotest period. The sun and moon were always regarded as personal beings, they were addressed as Frau and Herr (Domina and Dominus), and enjoyed a degree of veneration with genuflexions and other acts of adoration. To certain animals, as cats, the idea of something ghostly and magical was attached; to others as the cuckoo was ascribed the gift of prophecy; while others as snakes had influence on the happiness of men or are accounted sacred and inviolable. Trees also even to a much later period were regarded as animated beings on which account they were addressed by the title Frau; or it was believed that personal beings dwelt in them to whom a certain reverence was due'.
Of processions and festivals which have pretensions to a heathen origin, we can give only a brief notice.
As, according to Tacitus, the goddess Nerthus was drawn in a carriage in a festive procession, through the several districts, so in Christian times, particularly during the spring, we meet with customs, a leading feature of which consists of a tour or procession. Such festive processions are either through a town, or a village, or through several localities, or round the fields of a community, or about the mark or boundary. On these occasions a symbol was frequently carried about, either an animal having reference to some divinity, or else some utensil. A procession may here be cited which, in the year 1133, took place after a complete heathenish fashion, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the clergy. In the forest near Inda, a ship was constructed, and furnished beneath with wheels; this was drawn by weavers (compelled to the task), harnessed before it, through Aix-la-Chapelle, Maestricht, Tongres, Looz and other localities, was everywhere received with great joy, and attended by a multitude singing and dancing. The celebration lasted for twelve days. Whosoever, excepting the weavers who drew the ship -an office they regarded as ignominious- touched the same, must give a pledge, or otherwise redeem himself. This custom maintained itself to a much later period in Germany, as by a protocol of the council of Ulm, dated on the eve of St. Nicholas, 1330, the procession with a plough or a ship is prohibited. A connection between the above custom and the worship of the Isis of Tacitus, whose symbol was a ship, seems in a high degree probable; it had, at least, reference to a goddess, as, according to the original narrative, the women took part in it with bacchanalian wantonness.
Mention also occurs of a procession with a plough, about Shrovetide, in other parts of Germany, viz. on the Rhine, in Upper Saxony and Franconia, with the remarkable addition, that young unmarried women were either placed on the plough, or were compelled to draw it.
Another procession, called The driving, or carrying, out of Death (winter), took place formerly about Midlent, usually on the Sunday Laetare (the fourth in Lent), and sometimes on the Sunday Oculi (the third in Lent), in Franconia and Thuringia, also in Meissen, Yoigtland, Lusatia and Silesia. Children carried a figure of straw or wood, or a doll in a box, or stuck on a pole, through the place, singing all the time, then cast the figure into the water or burnt it. In its stead a fir-tree was brought back to the place. K the procession met any cattle on their return they beat them with sticks believing that they thereby rendered them fruitful.
In other places the beginning of the beautiful season is represented as the entrance of a benignant divinity into the country. In Thuringia on the third day of Whitsuntide, a young peasant, called the green man or lettuce-king is in the forest enveloped in green boughs, placed on a horse, and amid rejoicings conducted into the village, where all the people are assembled. The Schulze (Bailiff or Mayor) must then guess thrice who is concealed under the green covering. If he does not guess, he must forfeit a quantity of beer and even if he does guess, he must, nevertheless, give it. Of the same class is the procession of the Maigraf (Count of the May), (called also the King of the May, or King of Flowers), which formerly, usually on the first of May, took place with great rejoicings, not only in Lower Germany, but in Denmark and Sweden. Attended by a considerable company, and adorned with flowers and garlands, the Count of the May paraded through the several districts, where he was received by the young girls, who danced round him, one of whom he chose for Queen of the May.
We shall conclude this sketch of the festive processions with a short notice of some other heathen customs.
It is a wide-spread custom in Germany to kindle bonfires on certain days, viz. at Easter and St. John’s (Mid- summer) day, less usually at Christmas and Michaelmas. In Lower Germany the Easter-fires are the most usual, which are generally lighted on hills ; while in the south of Germany the St. John^s fires are the commonest, and were formerly kindled in the market-places, or before the gates of the town. The ceremonies connected with these fires are more and more forgotten. In former times old and young, high and low regarded the kindling of them as a great festival. These customs had apparently an agrarian object as it is still believed that so far as the flame of the Easter-fire spreads its light will the earth be fertile and the com thrive for that year. These fires, too, were, according to the old belief, beneficial for the preservation of life and health to those who came in contact with the flame. On which account the people danced round the St. John's fire, or sprang over it, and drove their domestic animals through it. The coal and ashes of the Easter-fire were carefully collected and preserved as a remedy for diseases of the cattle. For a similar reason it was a custom to drive the cattle when sick over particular fires called need-fires (Notfeuer), which, with certain ceremonies, were kindled by friction; on which account the St. John's fire is strictly to be regarded as a need-fire kindled at a fixed period. Fire is the sacred, purifying and propitiating element, which takes away all imperfections. A similar salutiferous power is, according to the still existing popular belief, possessed by water, particularly when drawn in silence on certain holiday nights as St. John's or Christmas from certain springs that were formerly sacred to some divinity. To wash in such water imparts health and beauty for the whole year.
On Death, and the condition of souls after deaths a few words are necessary. Even in Christian ideas of hell the remains of pagan belief are here and there discernible. Among these may be reckoned that the devil has his habitation in the north % as in the Scandinavian belief the nether world lies in the north. According to some traditions the entrance to hell leads through long, subterranean passages to a gate ; in the innermost space lies the devil fast bounds as Utgarthilocus is chained in the lower world. According to another tradition the emperor Charles, when conducted to hell by an angel, passed through deep dells full of fiery springs, as, according to the Scandinavian belief, the way to HeFs abode led through deep valleys, in the midst of which is the spring Hvergelmir. The popular tales also relate how a water must be passed before arriving at Hell.
According to all appearance, the idea was very general in the popular belief of Scandinavia, that the souls of the departed dwelt in the interior of mountains. This idea at least very frequently presents itself in the Icelandic Sagas, and must have been wide-spread, as it is retained even in Germany to the present day. Of some German mountains it is believed that they are the abodes of the damned. One of these is the Horselberg near Eisenach, which is the habitation of Frau HoUe; another is the fabulous Venusberg, in which the Tanhauser sojourns, and before which the trusty Eckhart sits as a warning guardian. Of other mountains it is also related that heroes of ancient times have been carried into them. Thus the emperor Frederic Barbarossa sits in the Kyfhauser at a stone table; his beard has already grown twice round the table; when it has grown thrice round he will awake. The emperor Charles sits in the Odenberg, or in the Unterberg, and an emperor not named in the Guckenberg near Frankishgemunden.
Almost all the descriptions of the sojourn of souls after death have this in common that the nether world was thought to be in the bowels of the earth, that is, in the interior of mountains or at the bottom of waters, and that its aspect was that of a spacious habitation, in which a divine being received the departed. That it was, at the same time, also a belief that the dead in their graves, in a certain manner, continued to live, that they were contented or sad, and heard the voices of those who called — a subject to which we shall presently return — is strictly in contradiction to the other ideas; but, in the first place, heathenism easily tolerated such inconsistencies, and, secondly, the depth of the grave became confounded with the nether world in the bowels of the earth. Thus while on the one hand it was thought that the dead preserved their old bodily aspect and appeared just as when they sojourned on earth although the freshness of life had departed; on the other hand there is no lack of passages according to which a particular form is ascribed to the soul when separated from its body.
As mountains according to the heathen popular belief were supposed to be the sojourns of the dead so it was imagined that in the bottom of wells and ponds there was a place for the reception of departed souls. But this belief had special reference to the souls of the drowned, who came to the dwelling of the Nix, or of the sea-goddess Ran. The depths of the water were, however, at the same time, conceived in a more general sense, as the nether world itself. For which reasons persons who otherwise, according to the popular traditions, are conveyed away into mountains, are also supposed to be dwelling in wells and ponds; and the numerous tales current throughout the whole of Germany of towns and castles that have been sunk in the water, and are sometimes to be discerned at the bottom, are probably connected with this idea. It is particularly worthy of notice that beautiful gardens have been imagined to exist under the water. Yet more widespread is the tradition that green meadows exist under water, in which souls have their abode. In an old German poem it is said that these meadows are closed against suicides, according to which they would appear to be a detached portion of the nether world.
The soul was supposed to bear the form of a bird. Even in Saemund's Edda it is said that in the nether world singed birds fly that had been souls, and in the popular tales similar ideas occur frequently. The ghost of the murdered mother comes swimming in the form of a duck or the soul sits in the form of a bird on the grave; the young murdered brother mounts up as a little bird and the girl when thrown into the water rises in the air as a white duck. The frequent conjurations into swans, doves and ravens originate in the same ideas: these birds are the souls of the murdered, a belief which the popular tale ingeniously softening, represents merely as a transformation. With this belief the superstition must be placed in connection, that, when a person dies, the windows should be opened, that the departing soul may fly out.
From the popular traditions we also learn that the soul has the form of a snake. It is related that out of the mouth of a sleeping person a snake creeps and goes a long distance, and that what it sees or suffers on its way, the sleeper dreams of. If it is prevented from returning, the person dies. According to other traditions and tales it would seem that the soul was thought to have the form of a flower, as a lily or a white rose.
These ideas may be regarded as the relics of a belief in the transmigration of souls, according to which the soul, after its separation from the body, passes into that of an animal, or even an inanimate object. More symbolic is the belief that the soul appears as a light. Hence the popular superstition that the ignes fatui, which appear by night in swampy places, are the souls of the dead. Men, who during life have fraudulently removed landmarks, must, after death, wander about as ignes fatui, or in a fiery form.
According to a well-known popular tale there is a subterranean cavern in which innumerable lights bum: these are the life-tapers of mortals. When a light is burnt out the life of the person to whom it belonged is at an end and he is the property of Death.
How do the souls of the departed arrive at their destined abode? German tradition assigns the office of receiving the souls of mortals at their death to dwarfs.Middle High German poems and also the belief still existing among the people regard Death as a person under various names^ who when their hour arrives, conducts mortals away by the hand, on a level road, dances with them, sets them on his horse, receives them in his train, invites them to his dwelling, lays them in chains, or -which is probably a later idea-fights with them, and with spear, dart, sword or scythe, slays them.
In some parts of Germany it is a custom to place a piece of money in the mouth of a corpse, probably to pay the passage-money, or defray the expenses of the journey.
As the dead in the nether world continue their former course of life, it naturally follows that they are not wholly estranged from earthly life. No obvious draught has been given them, but the remembrance of their earthly doings cleaves to them. Hence they gladly see again the places frequented by them while on earth ; but they are particularly disquieted when anything still attaches them to earthly life. A buried treasure allows them no rest until it is raised; an unfinished work, an unfulfilled promise forces them back to the upper world.
In like manner the dead attach themselves to their kindred and friends. Hence the belief is very general that they will return to their home and visit them, and that they sympathize with their lot. Thus a mother returns to the upper world to tend her forsaken children, or children at their parents' grave find aid, who, as higher powers, grant them what they wish . Slain warriors also rise again to help their comrades to victory . But it disturbs the repose of the dead when they are too much wept for and mourned after. Every tear falls into their coffin and torments them; in which case they will rise up and implore those they have left behind to cease their lamentation.
Hver en Gang Du glaedes, (Every time thou’rt joyful,)
Og i Din Hu er glad, (And in thy mind art glad,)
Da er min Grav forinden (Then is my grave within)
Omhaengt med Rosens Blad (Hung round with roses’ leaves.)
Hver Gang Du Dig grammar, (Every time thou grievest,)
Og i Din Hu er mod, (And in thy mind art sad,)
Da er min Kiste forinden (Then is within my coffin)
Som fuld med levret Blod (As full of clotted blood.)
-Udvagte Danske Viser, i.p. 211
Source:
"Northern Mythology: compromising the principal popular traditions and superstitions of Scandanavia, North Germany, and the Netherlands" Thorpe Benjamin, London, E. Lumley (1851)
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