Chapter 15

This proposition can the more readily be demonstrated from the popular faiths of Greece and Germany, which commit themselves to no systematic doctrine of emanation and avatâra, as in these religions the full-blooded animalism of herohood developed itself the more richly for that very reason. While the Indian heroes are in the end reabsorbed into the god, i.e., Krishna becomes Vishnu, there remains in Greek and German heroes an irreducible dross of humanism, which brings them more into harmony with the historical ingredients of their story. Our hero- legend has this long while had no consciouness remaining of such a thing as incarnation, but has very largely that of an apotheosis of human though god-descended virtue.

Herakles can never become one with Zeus, yet his deeds remind us of those of his divines sire. Some traits in Theseus allow of his being compared to Herakles, others to Apollo. Hermes was the son of Zeus by Maia, Amphion by Antiope, and the two brothers, the full and the half-bred, have something in common.

In Teutonic hero-legend, I think, echoes of the divine nature can be distinguished still more frequently; the Greek gods stood unshaken to the last, and heroes could be developed by the side of them. But when once the Teutonic deities encounted christianity, there remained only one of two ways open to the fading figures of the heathen faith, either to pass into evil diabolic beings, or dwindle into good ones conceived as human. The Greek heroes all belong to the flowering time of paganism; of the Teutonic a part at least might well seem a poverty-stricken attenuation and fainter reproduction of the former gods, such as could still dare to shew its face after the downfall of the heathen system. Christian opinion in the Mid. Ages guided matters into this channel; unable to credit the gods any longer with godhood, where it did not transform them into devils, it did into demigods. In the Edda the æsir are still veritable gods; Jornandes too, when he says, cap. 6: 'mortuum (Taunasem regem) Gothi inter numina populi sui coluerunt'---be this Taunasis Gothic or Getic---assumes that there were Gothic gods, but the anses he regards as only victorious heroes exatled into demigods; and in Saxo, following the same line of thought, we find that Balder (who exhibits some Heraklean features, v. supra p. 226-7), and Hother, and Othin himself, have sunk into mere heroes. (78) This capitis deminutio of the gods brought them nearer to heroes, while the heroes were cut off from absolute deification; how much the two must have got mixed up in the mist of legend! Yet in every case where bodily descent from the gods is alleged of a hero, his herohood is the more ancient, and really of heathen origin.

Among the heroes themselves there occur second births, of which a fuller account will be given further on, and which shew a certain resemblance to the incarnation of gods. As a god renews himself in a hero, so does an elder hero in a younger.

Beings of the giant brood, uniting themselves now to gods and now to heroes, bring about various approximations between these two.

We have seen how in the genealogy of Inguio, first Oðinn, then Niörðr and Freyr interweave themselves: Niörðr and Hadding seem identical, as do Heimdall and Rîgr, but in Niörðr and Heimdall the god is made prominent, in Hadding and Rîgr the hero. Irmin appears connected with Wuotan and Zio, just as Ares and Herakles approach each other, and Odysseus resembles Hermes. Baldr is conceived of as divine, Bældæg as heroic. In Siegfried is an echo of Baldr and Freyr, perhaps of Oðinn, in Dietrich of Thôrr and Freyr. Ecke oscillates between the giant and the hero. Even Charles and Roland are in some oftheir features to be regarded as new-births of Wuotan and Donar, or of Siegfried and Dietrich. As for Geát, Sceáf, Sceldwa, for lack of their legends, it is difficult to separate their divine nature from their heroic.

One badge of distinction I find in this, that the names of gods are in themselves descriptive, i.e,. indicating from the first their inmost nature; (79) to the names of half-gods and heroes this significance will often be wanting, even when the human original has carried his name over with him. Then, as a rule, the names of gods are simple, those of heroes often compound or visibly derived. Donar therefore is a god from the first, not a deified man: his appellation expresses also his character. The same reason is decisive against the notion of Wuotan having made his way out of the ranks of men into those of the gods.

Demigods have the advantage of a certain familiarness to the people: bred in the midst of us, admitted to our fellowship, it is they to whom reverence, prayers and oaths prefer to address themselves: they procure and facilitate intercourse with the higher-standing god. As it came natural to a Roman to swear 'mehercle! mecastor! ecastor! edepol!' the christians even in the Mid. Ages swore more habitually by particular saints than by God himself.

We are badly off for information as to the points in which the Hero-worship of our forefathers shaped itself differently from divine worship proper; even the Norse authorities have nothing on the subject. The Grecian sacrifices to heroes differed from those offered to gods: a god had only the viscera and fat of the beast presented to him, and was content with the mounting odour; a deified hero must have the very flesh and blood to consume. Thus the einherjar admitted into Valhöll feast on the boiled flesh of the boar Sæhrîmnir, and drink with the Ases; it is never said that the Ases shared in the food, Sæm. 36. 42. Sn. 42; conf. supra, p. 317. Are we to infer from this a difference int he sacrifices offered to gods and to demigods?

Else, in the other conditions of their existence, we can perceive many resemblances to that of the gods.

Thus, their stature is enormous. As Ares covered seven roods, Herakles has also a body of gigantic mould. When the godlike Sigurðr strode through the full-grown field of corn, the dew- shoe (80) of his seven-span sword was even with the upright ears (Völs. saga cap. 22. Vilk. saga cap. 166); a hair out of his horse's tail was seven yards long (Nornag. saga cap. 8).---One thing hardly to be found in Teutonic gods, many-handedness, does occur in an ancient hero. Wudga and Hâma, Witege and heime, are always named together. This Heimo is said to have been by rights called Studas, like his father (whom some traditions however name Adelgêr, Madelgêr); not till he had slain the worm Heima, (81) did he adopt its name (Vilk. saga cap. 17). To him are expressly attributed three hands and four elbows, or else two hands with three elbow (Heldens. 257. Roseng. p. xx, conf. lxxiv); the extra limbs are no exaggeration (Heldens. 391), rather their omission is a toning down, of the original story. And Asprian comes out with four hands (Roseng. p. xii). Starkaðr, a famous godlike hero of the North, has three pairs of arms, and Thor cuts four of his hands off (Saxo Gram., p. 103); the Hervarasaga (Rafn p. 412, 513) bestows eight hands on him, and the ability to fight with four swords at once: âtta handa, Fornald. sög. 1, 412. 3, 37. In the Swedish folk-song of Alf, originally heathen, there is a hero Torgnejer (roaring like thunder?), 'han hade otta händer (Arvidss. 1, 12). (82) Such cumulation of limbs is also a mark of the giant race, and some of the heroes mentioned do overlap these; in the Servian songs I find a three headed hero Balatchko (Vuk 2, no. 6, line 608); Pégam too in the Carniolan lay has three heads (tri glave).---Deficiency of members is to be found in heroes as well as gods: Oðinn is one-eyed, Týr one-handed, Loki (= Hephæstus?) lame, Höðr blind, and Viðar dumb; (83) so is Hagano one-eyed, Walthari one-handed, Gunthari and Wielant lame, of blind and dumb heroes there are plenty.




ENDNOTES:

78. In the AS. Ethelwerd p. 833 we read: 'Hengest et orsa, hi nepotes fuere Woddan regis barbarorum, quem post infanda dignitate ut deum honorantes, sacrificium obtulerunt pagani victoriae causa sive virtutis, ut humanitas saepe credit hoc quod videt'. Wm. of Malmesbury's similar words were quoted above, p. 128; he also says 'deum esse delirantes'. Albericus tr. font. 1, 23 (after A.D. 274) expresses himself thus: 'In hac generatione decima ab incarnatione Domini regnasse invenitur quidam Mercurius in Gottlandia insula, quae est inter Daciam et Russiam extra Romanum imperium, a quo Mercurio, qui Woden dictus est, descendit genealogia Anglorum et multorum aliorum'. Much in the same way Snorri in the Yngl. saga and Form. 13. 14 represents Oðinn as a höfðingi and hermaðr come from Asia, who by policy secured the worship of the nations; and Saxo p. 12 professes a like opinion: 'ea tempestate cum Othinus quidam, Europa tota, falso divinitatis titulo censeretur,' &c. conf. what he says p. 45. What other idea could orthodox christians at that time form of the false god of their forefathers? To idolatry they could not but impute wilful deceit or presumption, being unable to comprehend that something very different from falsified history lies at the bottom of heathenism. As little did there ever exist a real man and king Oðinn (let alone two or three), as a real Jupiter or Mercury.---But the affinity of the hero nature with the divine is clearly distinct from a deification arising out of human pride and deceit. Those heathen, who trusted mainly their inner strength (p. 6), like the Homeric heroes pepoiqotej bihfi (Il. 12, 256), were yet far from setting themselves up for gods. Similar to the stories of Nebucadnezar (er wolte selbe sîn ein got, would himself be god, Parz. 102, 7. Barl. 60, 35), of Kosroes (Massmann on Eracl. p. 502), of the Greek Salmoneus (conf. N. Cap. 146), and the Byzantine Eraclius, was our Mid. Age story of Imelôt aus wüester Babilônie, 'der wolde selve wesen got' (Rother 2568) = Nibelôt ze Barise 'der machet himele guldîn, selber wolt er got sin' (Bit. 299), just as Salmoneus imitated the lightning and thunder of Zeus. Imelôt and Nibelôt here seem to mean the same thing, as do elsewhere Imelunge and Nibelunge (Heldens. 162); I do not know what allusion there might be in it to a Nibelunc or Amelunc (see Suppl.). Back

79. Something like the names of the characters in the Beast-apologue. Back

80. Döggskôr, Sw. doppsko, the heel of the sword's sheath, which usually brushes the dew: so the Alamanns called a lame foot, that dragged through the dewy grass, toudregil. This ride through the corn has something in it highly mythic and suggestive of a god. Back

81. Heimo appears to mean worm originally, though used elsewhere of the cricket or cicada (Reinh. cxxv), for which our present heimchen (little worm) is better suited. A renowned Karling hero was also named Heimo (Reinh. cciv). We find again, that Madelgêr is in Morolt 3921 a dwarf, son of a mermaid, and in Rol. 58, 17 a smith. Back

82. In the prophecies of the North Frisian Hertje (A.D. 1400) the tradition of such monstrosities is applied to the future: 'Wehe den minschen, de den leven, wen de lüde 4 arme kriegen und 2 par schö över de vöte dragen und 2 höde up den kop hebben!' Heimreichs chron., Tondern 1819; 2, 341. It may however refer merely to costume. Back

83. Goth. háihs, hanfs, halts, blinds, dumbs. Back