Chapter 13

Praecipue sidus celebrant, ope cujus, ubi omnes

defuerant testes, est data Roma Petro,

traditaque injusto Pharaildis virgo labori;

sed sanctifaciunt qualiacunque volunt.

Hac famosus erat felixque fuisset Herodes

prole, sed infelix hanc quoque laesit amor:

haec virgo, thalamos Baptistae solius ardens,

voverat hoc demto nullius esse viri.

Offensus genitor, comperto prolis amore,

insontem sanctum decapitavit atrox.

Postulat afferri virgo sibi tristis, et affert

regius in disco tempora trunca cliens.

Mollibus allatum stringens caput illa lacertis

perfundit lacrimis, osculaque addere avet;

oscula captantem caput aufugit atque resufflat,

illa per impluvium turbine flantis abit.

Ex illo nimium memor ira Johannis eandem

per vacuum coeli flabilis urget iter:

mortuus infestat miseram, nec vivus amarat,

non tamen hanc penitus fata perisse sinunt.

Lenit honor luctum, minuit reverentia poenam,

pars hominum moestae tertia servit herae.

Quercubus et corylis a noctis parte secunda

usque nigri ad galli carmina prima sedet.

Nunc ea nomen habet Pharaildis, Herodias ante

saltria, nec subiens nec subeunda pari.

Conf. Aelfrici homiliae 1, 486. Here we have Herodias described as moesta hera cui pars tertia hominum servit, the reverential homage she receives assuages her bitter lot; only from midnight till first cockcrow she sits on oaks and hazel-trees, the rest of her time she floats through the empty air. She was inflamed by love for John, which he did not return; when his head is brought in on a charger, she would fain have covered it with tears and kisses, but it draws back, and begins to blow hard at her; the hapless maid is whirled into empty space, and there she hangs for ever. (71) Why she was afterwards (in the twelfth century) called Pharaildis, is not explained by the life of a saint of that name in Flanders (Acta sanct. 4 Jan.); nor does anything that the church tells of John the Baptist and Herodias (Acta sanct. 24 Jun.) at all resemble the contents of the above story: Herodias is Herod's wife, and the daughter is named Salome. Pharaildis on the contrary, M. Dutch Verelde, (72) leads us to ver Elde = frau Hilde or frau Hulde, as in a doc. of 1213 (Bodmanns Rheing. alterth. p. 94) there occurs a 'miles dictus Verhildeburg,' and in a Frisian doc. of the 14^th century a Ferhildema, evidently referring to the mythic Hildburg. Still more remarkable seems a M. Dutch name for the milky way, Vroneldenstraet = frauen Hilde or Hulde strasse (street, highway). So that the poet of the Reinardus is entirely in the right, when Herodias sets him thinking of Pharaildis, and she again of the milky way, the sidus in his first line.

There is no doubt whatever, that quite early in the Mid. Ages the christian mythus of Herodias got mixed up with our native heathen fables: those notions about dame Holda and the 'furious host' and the nightly jaunts of sorceresses were grafted on it, the Jewish king's daughter had the part of a heathen goddess assigned her (Ratherius says expressly: into dea), and her worship found numerous adherents. In the same circle moves Diana, the lunar deity of night, the wild huntress; Diana, Herodias and Holde stand for one another, or side by side. Diana is denounced by Eligius (Superst. A); the passage in the decrees of councils (Superst. C) has found its way into many later writings (Superst. D, G): like Herodias, she appears as domina and hera. The life of St. Caesarius Arelatensis mentions a 'daemonium, quod rustici Dianam vocant,' so that the name was familiar to the common people; that statue of Diana in Greg. Tur. 8, 15 I have spoken of on p. 110. But the strongest testimony to the wide diffusion of Diana's cultus seems to be a passage in the life of St. Kilian, the apostle of the East Franks (d. 689): Gozbertus dux Franciae....volens crebra apud se tractare inquisitione, utrum Ejus quem (Kilianus) praedicabet, vel Dianae potius cultus praeferendus esset. Diana namque apud illum in summa veneratione habebatur (Surius 4, 133; Acta sanct. Bolland. 8 Jul. (p. 616). As it is principally in Thuringia, Franconia and Hesse that frau Holda survives, it is not incredible that by Diana in the neighbourhood of Würzburg, so far back as the 7^th century, was meant no other than she.

Lastly, the retrospective connexion of this Herodias or Diana with personages in the native paganism, whether of Celtic or Teutonic nations, receives a welcome confirmation from the legend of a domina Abundia or dame Habonde, supplied by French authorities of the Mid. Ages. A bishop of Paris, Guilielmus Alvernus (Guillaume d' Auvergne), who died 1248, speaks thus of nymphs and lamiae (opera, Par. 1674, fol. I. 1036): 'Sic et daemon, qui praetextu mulieris, cum aliis de nocte domos et cellaria dicitur frequentare, et vocant eam Satiam a satietate, et dominam Abundiam pro abundantia, (73) quam eam praestare dicunt domibus, quas frequentaverit: hujusmodi etiam daemones, quas dominus vocant vetulae, penes quas error iste remansit, et a quibus solis creditur et somniatur. Dicunt has dominas edere et bibere de escis et potibus, quos in domibus inveniunt, nec tamen consumptionem aut imminutionem eas facere escarum et potuum, maxime si vasa escarum sint discooperta et vasa poculorum non obstructa eis in nocte relinquantur. Si vero operta vel clausa inveniunt seu obstructa, inde nec comedunt nec bibunt, propter quod infaustas et infortunatas relinquunt, nec satietatem nec abundantiam eis praestantes.' The like is repeated on p. 1068, but on p. 1066 we read: 'Sunt et aliae ludificationes malignorum spirituum, quas faciunt interdum in nemoribus et locis amoenis et frondosis arboribus, ubi apparent in similitudine puellarum aut matronarum ornatu muliebri et candido, interdum etiam in stabulis, cum luminaribus cereis, ex quibus apparent distillationes in comis et collis equorum, et comae ipsorum diligenter tricatae, et audies eos, qui talia se vidisse fatentur, dicentes veram ceram esse, quae de luminaribus hujusmodi stillaverat. (74) De illis vero substantiis, quae apparent in domibus, quas dominas nocturnas, et principem earum vocant dominam Abundiam, pro eo quod domibus, quas frequentant, abundantiam bonorum temporalium praestare putantur, non aliter tibi sentiendum est, neque aliter quam quemadmodum de illis audivisti. Quapropter eo usque invaluit stultitia hominum et insania vetularum, ut vasa vini et receptacula ciborum discooperta relinquant, et omnino nec obstruant neque claudant eis noctibus, quibus ad domos suas eas credunt adventuras, ea de causa videlicet, ut cibos et potus quasi paratos inveniant et eos absque difficultate apparitionis pro beneplacito sumant.



ENDNOTES:

71. This reference to the turbo (the whirlwind of his blast), looks mythical and of high antiquity. Not only did Ziu or Zio, once a deity, become with the christians a name for the whirlwind, p. 203 (and Pulloineken too may have to do with Phol, p. 229); but to this day such a wind is accounted for in Lower Saxony (about Celle) by the dancing Herodias whirling about in the air. Elsewhere the raising of it is ascribed to the devil, and offensive epithets are hurled at him, as in the Saalfeld country: 'Schweinezahl fähret,' there goes swine-tail (Praetorius, Rübezahl 3, 120), and on the Rhön mts.: 'Säuzagel,' sow-tail (Schm. 4, 110), to shew contempt for the demon, and abate his fury (see Suppl.). I shall bring in some other stories, when treating of the wind-sprites. Back

72. Canneart, strafrecht 153-5. Belg. mus. 6, 319. Conf. Vergode for frau Gaude. Back

73. The Romans also personified Abundantia as a superior being, but she only appears on coins, she had neither temple nor altars. Back

74. Conf. Deutsche sagaen, no. 122. Back