Chapter 3

About other sacrificial beasts we cannot be certain, for of Dietmar's dogs and hawks and cocks, hardly any but the last are to be depended on (see Suppl.). But even then, what of domestic poultry, fowls, geese, pigeons? The dove was a Jewish and christian sacrifice, the Greeks offered cocks to Asklepios, and in Touraine a white cock used to be sacrificed to St. Christopher for the cure of a bad finger (Henri Estienne cap. 38, 6). Of game, doubtless only those fit to eat were fit to sacrifice, stages, roes, wild boars, but never bears, wolves or foxes, who themselves possess a ghostly being, and receive a kind of worship. Yet one might suppose that for expiation uneatable beasts, equally with men, might be offered, just as slaves and also hounds and falcons followed the burnt body of their master. Here we must first of all place Adam of Bremen's description (4, 27) of the great sacrifice at Upsala by the side of Dietmar's account of that at Hlethra (see p. 48):---Solet quoque post novem annos communis omnium Sveoniae provinciarum solennitas celebrari, ad quam nulli praestatur immunitas; reges et populi, omnes et singuli sua dona ad Ubsolam transmittunt, et, quod omni poena crudelius est, illi qui jam induerunt christianitatem ab illis ceremoniis se redimunt. Sacrificium itaque tale est: ex omni animante quod masculinum est. Corpora autem suspenduntur in lucum qui proximus est templo. Is enim lucus tam sacer est gentilibus, ut singulae arbores ejus ex morte vel tabo immolatorum divinae credantur. Ibi etiam canes, qui pendent cum hominibus, quorum corpora mixtim suspensa narravit mihi quidam christianorum se septuaginta duo vidisse. Ceterum naeniae, quae in ejusmodi ritibus libatoriis fieri solent, multiplices sunt et inhonestae, ideoque melius reticendae.---The number nine is prominent in this Swedish sacrificial feast, exactly as in the Danish; but here also all is conceived in the spirit of legend. First, the heads of victims seem the essential thing again, as among the Franks and Langobards; then the dogs come in support of those Hlethra 'hounds and hawks,' but at the same time remind us of the old judicial custom of hanging up wolves or dogs by the side of criminals (RA. 685-6). That only the male sex of every living creature is here to be sacrificed, is in striking accord with an episode in the Reinardus, which was composed less than a century after Adam, and in its groundwork might well be contemporary with him. At the wedding of a king, the males of all quadrupeds and birds were to have been slaughtered, but the cock and gander had made their escape. It looks to me like a legend of the olden time, which still circulated in the 11-12th centuries, and which even a nursery-tale (No. 27, the Town musicians) knows something of. (44) Anyhow, in heathen times male animals seem to be in special demand for sacrifice. (45) As for killing one of every species (and even Agathias's kai alla atta muria does not come up to that), it would be such a stupendous affair, that its actual execution could never have been conceivable; it can only have existed in popular tradition. It is something like the old Mirror of Saxony and that of Swabia assuring us that every living creature present at a deed of rapine, whether oxen, horses, cats, dogs, fowl, geese, swine or men, had to be beheaded, as well as the actual delingquent (in real fact, only when they were his property); (46) or like the Edda relating how oaths were exacted of all animals and plants, and all beings were required to weep. The creatures belonging to a man, his domestic animals, have to suffer with him in case of cremation, sacrifice or punishment.

Next to the kind, stress was undoubtedly laid on the colour of the animal, white being considered the most favourable. White horses are often spoken of (Tac. Germ. 10. Weisth. 3, 30l. 311. 831), even so far back as the Persians (Herod. 1, 189). The friscing of sacrifice was probably of a spotless white; and in later law records snow-white pigs are pronounced inviolable. (47) The Votiaks sacrificed a red stallion, the Tcheremisses a white. When under the old German law dun or pied cattle were often required in payment of fines and tithes, this might have some connexion with sacrifices (48); for witchcraft also, animals of a particular hue were requisite. The water-sprite demanded a black lamb, and the huldres have a black lamb and black cat offered up to them (Asb. 1. 159). Saxo Gram. p. 16 says; rem divinam facere furvis hostiis; does that mean black beasts?---We may suppose that cattle were garlanded and adorned for sacrifice. A passage in the Edda requires gold-horned cows, Sæm. 141; and in the village of Fienstädt in Mansfeld a coal-black ox with a white star and white feet, and a he-goat with gilded horns were imposed as dues. (49) There are indications that the animals, before being slaughtered, were led round within the circle of the assembly---that is how I explain the leading round the benches, and per circuitum currere, pp. 51, 52---perhaps, as among the Greeks and Romans, to give them the appearance of going voluntarily to death (50) (see Suppl.). Probably care had to be taken also that the victim should not have been used in the service of man, e.g., that the ox had never drawn plough or waggon. For such colts and bullocks are required in our ancient law-records at a formal transfer of land, or the ploughing to death of removers of landmarks.

On the actual procedure in a sacrifice, we have scarcely any information except from Norse authorities. While the animal laid down its life on the sacrificial stone, all the streaming blood (ON. hlaut) was caught either in a hollow dug for the purpose, or in vessels. With this gore they smeared the sacred vessels and utensils, and sprinkled the participants. (51) Apparently divination was performed by means of the blood, perhaps a part of it was mixed with ale or mead, and drunk. In the North the bloodbowls (hlautbollar, blôtbollar) do not seem to have been large; some nations had big cauldrons made for the purpose (see Suppl.). The Swedes were taunted by Olafr Tryggvason with sitting at home and licking their sacrificial pots, 'at sitja heima ok sleikja blôtbolla sîna, [[so that sitting at home and licking their sacrificial bowls]]' Fornm. sög. 2, 309. A cauldron of the Cimbri is noticed in Strabo 7, 2: eqoj de ti twn Kimbrwn dihgountai toiouton, oti taij gunaixin autwn sustrateuousaij parhkolouqoun promanteij iereiai poliotricej, leuceimonej, karpasinaj efaptidaj epipeporphmeiai, zwsma calkoun ecousai, gumnopodej. toij oun alcmalwtoij dia tou stratopedou sunhntwn xifhreij. katasteyasai dautouj hgon epi krathra calkoun, oson amforewn eikosi. eicon de anabaqran, hn anabasa (h mantij) iperpethj tou lebhtoj elaimotomei ekaston metewrisqenta. ek de tou proceomenou aimatoj eij ton krathra, manteian tina epoiounto. (52) Another cauldron of the Suevi, in the Life of St. Columban: Sunt etenim inibri vicinæ nationes Suevorum; quo cum moraretur, et inter habitarores illius loci progrederetur, reperit eos sacrificium profanum litare velle, vasque magnum, quod vulgo eupam vocant, quod viginti et sex modios amplius minusve capiebat, cerevisia plenum in medio habebant positum. Ad quod vir Dei accessit et sciscitatur, quid de illo fieri vellent? Illi aiunt: deo suo Wodano, quem Mercurium vocant alii, se velle litare. Jonas Bobbiensis, vita Columb. (from the first half of the 7th cent. Mabillon ann. Bened. 2, 26). Here we are expressly told that the cauldron was filled with ale, and not that the blood of a victim was mixe with it; unless the narrative is incomplete, it may have meant only a drink-offering.
 



ENDNOTES:

45. The Greeks offered male animals to gods, female to goddesses, Il. 3, 103: a white male lamb to Helios (sun), a black ewe lamb to Gê (earth). The Lithuanians sacrificed to their earthgod Zemiennik utriusque sexus domestica animalia; Haupt's zeitschr. 1, 141.  (back)

46. Reyscher and Wilda zeitschr. für deutsches recht 5, 17, 18.  (back)

47. RA. 261. 594. Weisth. 3, 41. 46. 69. conf. Virg. Aen. 8, 82: candida cum fætu concolor albo sus; and the Umbrian: trif apruf rufru ute peiu (tres apros rubros aut piceos), Aufrecht und Kirchh. umbr. sprachd. 2, 278-9.  (back)

48. RA. 587. 667. Weisth. 1, 498. 3, 430. White animals hateful to the gods; Tettan and Temme preuss. sag. 42.  (back)

49. Neue mitth. des thür. sächs. vereins V. 2, 131, conf. II. 10, 292. Od. 3, 382: soi d au egw boun hnin, eurumetwpon, admhthn, hn oupw upo zugon hgagen anhr. thn toi egw rexw, cruson kerasin periceuaj.  (back)

50. Oc eingu skyldi tortýna hvarki fê ne mönnum, nema sialft gengi î burt. Eyrb. saga, p. 10. And none should they kill (tortima?) neither beast nor man, unless of itself it ran a-tilt.  (back)

51. Saga Hâkonar gôða, cap. 16. Eyrb. saga p. 10. rauð hörgin, reddened the (stone) altar, Fornald. sög. 1, 413. stalla lâta rioða blôði, 1, 454. 527. Sæm. 114 rioðuðu blôðinu blôttrê, Fornald. sög. 1, 512. the Grk aima tw bwmw periceein.conf. Exod. 24, 8.  (back)

52. 'They say the Cimbri had this custom, that their women marching with them were accompanied by priestess-prophetesses, gray-haired, white-robed, with a linen scarf buckled over the shoulder, wearing a brazen girdle, and bare-footed; these met the prisoners in the camp, sword in hand, and having crowned them, led them to a brass basin as large as 30 amphoræ (180 gals); and they had a ladder, which the priestess mounted, and standing over the basin, cut the throat of each as he was handed up. With the blood that gushed into the basin, they made a prophecy.'  (back)