Chapter 15

Hermen is challenged, as it were, to strike up his war-music, to sound the catgut, pipe and drum; but the foe draws nigh with maces and staves, and will hang up Hermen (see Suppl.). It is not impossible that in these rude words, which have travelled down the long tradition of centuries, are preserved the fragments of a lay that was firstheard when Charles destroyed the Irmensûl. They cannot so well be interpreted of the elder Arminius and the Romans. (27) The striking and the staves suggest the ceremony of carrying out the Summer.

In a part of Hesse that lies on the Werra, is a village named Ermschwerd, which in early documents is called Ermeswerder, Armeswerd, (28) Ermeneswerde (Drouke's trad. fuld. p. 123), = Irmineswerid, insula Irmini, as other gods have their isle or eas. This interpretation seems placed beyond a doubt by other such names of places.

Leibn. scr. 1, 9 and Eccard, Fr. or. 1, 883, De orig. Germ. 397 gives Irmineswagen for the constellation arctus, plaustrum coeleste, I do not know on what authority: this wain would start beside Wuotanswagen, Donnerswagen, and even Ingswagen.

Some of the later AS. and several O. Engl. authorities, in specifying four great highways that traverse England, name amongst them Ermingestrete, running from south to north of the island. (29) But we may safely assume the pure AS. form to have been Eormenstræt or Eormenes-strœt, as another of the four ways, Wœtlingastrœt, occurs in the Saxon Chron. (Ingr. 190. Thorpe's anal. p. 38), and in the Treaty of Ælfred and Guthrun (Thorpe, p. 66), and 'andlang Waetlinga straet' in Kemble 2, 250 (an. 944). Lye has Irmingstrœt together with Irmingsûl, both without references. The conjectural Eormenstræt would lead to an OHG. Irmanstrâza, and Eormenesstræt to Irmanesstrâza, with the meanings via publica and via Irmani.

Now it is not unimportant to the course of our inquiry, that one of the four highways, Wætlingastræt, is at the same time translated to the sky, and gets to look quite mythical. A plain enough road, extending from Dover to Cardigan, is the milky way in the heavens, i.e., it is travelled by the car of some heathen god.

Chaucer (House of Fame 2, 427), describing that part of the sky, says:

Lo there, quod he, cast up thine eye,

se yondir, lo, the galaxie,

the whiche men clepe the milky way

for it is white, and some parfay

ycallin it han Wattlingestrete,

that onis was brente with the hete,

whan that the sunnis sonne the rede,

which hite Phaeton, wolde lede

algate his fathirs carte and gie.

In the Complaint of Scotland, p. 90, it is said of the comet: 'it aperis oft in the quhyt circle callit circulus lacteus, the quhilk the marynalis callis Vatlanstreit'. In Douglas's Virgil, p. 85:

Of every sterne the twynkling notis he

that in the still hevin move cours we se,

Arthurys house, and Hyades betaikning rane,

Watlingestrete, the Horne and the Charlewane,

the feirs Orion with his goldin glave.

Wætlinga is plainly a gen. pl.; who the Wætlings were, and how they came to give their name to an earthly and a heavenly street, we do not know. Chaucer perhaps could still have told us, but he prefers to harp at the Greek mythus. Phaëthon, also the son of a god, when he presumed to guide his father's sun-chariot, burnt a broad streak in the sky, and that is the track we call the milky way. The more common view was, that Here, indignant at the bantling Hermes or Herakles being put to her breast, spilt her milk along the sky, and hence the bright phenomenon. No doubt, among other nations also, fancy and fable have let the names of earthly and heavenly roads to run into one another. (30)

A remarkable instance of this is found in one of our national traditions; and that will bring us round to Irmin again, whom we almost seem to have lost sight of.

Widukind of Corvei is the first who gives us out of of old songs the beautiful and truly epic story of the Saxons' victory over the Thuringians, (31) which Ruodolf before him (Pertz 2, 674) had barely touched. Irmenfried, king of the Thuringians, being oppressed by Dieterich, king of the Franks, called the Saxons to his aid: they appeared, and fought valiantly. But he began to waver in his mind, he secretly negotiated a treaty with the Franks, and the two nations were about to unite against the formidable Saxon host. But the Saxons, becoming aware of the treachery, were beforehand; led by the aged Hathugât, they burst into the castle of the Thuringians, and slew them all; the Franks stood still, and applauded the warlike renown of the Saxons. Irmenfried fled, but, enticed by a stratagem, returned to Dieterich's camp. In this camp was staying Irmenfried's counsellor Iring, whose prudent plans had previously rendered him great services. When Irmenfried knelt before Dieterich, Iring stood by, and having been won by Dieterich, slew his own lord. After this deed of horror, the Frankish king banished him from his sight, but Iring said, 'Before I go, I will avenge my master,' drew his sword, stabbed Dieterich dead, laid his lord's body over that of the Frank, so that the vanquished in life might be the victor in death, opened a way for himself with the sword (viam ferro faciens), and escaped. 'Mirari tamen non possumus' adds Widukind, 'in tantum famam praevaluisse, ut Iringi nomine, quem ita vocitant, lacteus coeli circulus usque in praesens sit notatus.' Or, with the Auersberg chronicler: 'famam in tantum praevaluisse, ut lacteus coeli circulus Iringis nomine Iringesstrâza usque in praesens sit vocatus' (sit notatus in Pertz 8, 178).




ENDNOTES:

27. This explanation has of course been tried: some have put Hermann for Hermen, others add a narrative verse, which I do not suppose is found in the people's mouth: 'un Hermen slaug dermen, slaug pipen, slaug trummen, de fürsten sind kummen met all eren mannen, hebt Varus uphangen'. Back

28. The same vowel-change is seen in Ermensulen (deed of 1298 in Baring's Clavis dipl. p. 493 no. 15), a Westphalian village, now called Armenseul. Back

29. IIII cheminii Waltingestrete, Fosse, Hickenildestrete, Ermingestrete (Thorpe's Anc. laws, p. 192); conf. Henry of Hunt. (Erningestreet), Rob. of Glouc., Oxf. 1742, p. 299 (also Erning., after the preceding). Ranulph Highden's Polychr., ed. Oxon. p. 196. Leland's Itinerary, Oxf. 1744. 6, 108-140. Gibson in App. chron. Sax. p. 47. Camden's Britannia, ed. Gibson, Lond. 1753, p. lxxix. In the map to Lappenberg's Hist. of Engl., the direction of the four roads is indicated. Back

30. I limit myself to briefly quoting some other names for the milky way. In Arabic it is tarik al thibn (via straminis); Syriac schevil tevno (via paleae); Mod. Hebrew netibat theben (semita palea); Pers. rah kah keshan (via stramen trahentis); Copt. pimoit ende pitoh (via straminis); Ethiop. hasare zamanegade (stipula viae); Arab. again derb ettübenin (path of the chopped-straw carriers); Turk. saman ughrisi (paleam rapiens, paleae fur); Armen. hartacol or hartacogh (paleae fur); all these names run upon scattered chaff, which a thief dropt in his flight. More simple is the Arabic majerra (tractus), nahr al majerra (flumen tractus), and the Roman conception of path of the gods or to the gods; also Iroq. path of souls, Turk. hadjiler juli (pilgrims' path), hadji is a pilgrim to Mecca and Medina. Very similar is the christian term used in the Mid. Ages, 'galaxias via sancti Jacobi' already in John of Genoa's Catholicon (13th century); camino di Santiago, chemin de saint Jaques, Jacobsstrasse, Slov. zesta v' Rim (road to Rome), from the pilgrimages to Galicia or Rome, which led to heaven [was there no thought of Jacob's ladder?] This Jame's road too, or pilgrim's road, was at once on earth and in heaven; in Lacomblet, docs. 184 and 185 (an. 1051) name a Jacobswech together with the via regia. ON. vetrarbraut (winterway). Welsh caer Gwydion (p. 150), and Arianrod (silver street? which comes near Argentoratum). Finn. linnunrata (birdway), Lith. paukszcziû kielés, perhaps because souls and spirits flit in the shape of birds; Hung. Hadakuttya (via belli), because the Hungarians in migrating from Asia followed this constellation (see Suppl.). Vroneldenstraet (p. 285) and Pharaildis fit intelligibly enough with frau Holda and Herodias, whose airy voyages easily account for their giving a name to the milky way, the more so, as Wuotan, who joins Holda in the nightly hunt, shows himself here also in the Welsh appellation caer Gwydion. Even the fact of Diana being mixed up with that chase, and Juno with the milky way, is in keeping; and gods or spirits sweep along the heavenly road as well as in the heavenly hunt. Back

31. Conf. the differing but likewise old version, from a H. German district, in Goldast's Script. rer. Suev. pp. 1-3, where Swabians take the place of the Saxons. The Auersberg chron. (ed. Argent. 1609, pp. 146-8) copies Widukind. Eckehard, in Pertz 8, 176-8. Back