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Grimm's TM - Chap. 26 Chapter 26
Procopius's Brittia lies no farther than 200 stadia (25 miles)
from the mainland, between Britannia and Thule, oposite the Rhine mouth, and
three nations live in it, Angles, Frisians and Britons. By Britannia he means
the NW. coast of Gaul, one end of which is still called Bretagne, but in the
6th
century the name included the subsequent Norman and Flemish-Frisian
country up to the mouths of Scheldt and Rhine; his Brittia is Great Britian, his
Thule Scandinavia. Whereabouts the passage was made, whether along the whole of the
Gallic coast, I leave undetermined. Villemarqué (Barzas breiz 1, 136) places
it near Raz, at the farthest point of Armorica, where we find a bay of souls
(baie des âmes, boé ann anavo). On the R. Treguier in Bretagne, commune Plouguel,
it is said to be the custom to this day, to convey the dead to the churchyard
in a boat, over a small arm of the sea called passage de l'enfer, instead of
taking the shorter way by land; besides, the people all over Armorica believe
that souls at the moment of parting repair to the parson of braspar, whose dog
escorts them to Britain: up in the air you hear the creaking wheels of a wagon
overloaded with souls, it is covered with a white pall, and is called carr an
ancon, carrikel an ancou, soul's car (Mém. de l'acad. celt. 3, 141). Purely
adaptations to suit the views of the people. As christians, they could no longer
ferry the dead to the island: well, they will take them to the churchyard by
water anyhow; and in their tradition they make the voyage be performed no longer
by ship, but through the air (as in the case of the Furious Host), and by wagon.
Closer investigation must determine whether similar legends do not live in Normandy,
Flanders and Friesland. Here I am reminded once more of old Helium and Hel-voet,
pp. 315 n. 804. Procopius's account is re-affirmed by Tzetzes (to
Lycoph. 1204) in the 12th
century; but long before that, Claudian at the beginning of the 5th
(in Rufinum 1, 123-133) had heard of those Gallic shores as a
trysting place of flitting ghosts:
Est locus, extremum qua pandit Gallia littus,
oceani praetentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulixes
sanguine libato populum movisse silentem.
Illic umbrarum tenui stridore volantum
flebilis auditur questus: simulacra coloni
pallida, defunctasque vident migrare figuras; The same meaning as in the voyage of souls over the gulf or river
of the underworld appears to lie in their walking the bridge that spans the
river. The bridge-keeper's words to (the living) Hermôðr are remarkable: 'my
bridge groans more beneath thy single tread, than under the five troops of dead
men who yesterday rode over it,' Sn. 67. I see in this a very strong resemblance
to the soft patter of the dwarfs' feet on the bridge when quitting the country,
as also their ferrying over by night (pp. 275. 459); and the affinity of souls
with elvish beings comes out very plainly. When the dwarfs moved out of Voigtland,
they were a whole night crossing the Elster (Jul. Schmidt p. 143-8). At their
departure from the Harz, it was agreed that they should pass over a narrow bridge
at Neuhof, each dropping his toll-money in a vessel fixed upon it, but none
of the country folk were to be present. Prying people hid under the bridge,
and heard for hours their pit-a-pat, as though a flock of sheep were going over
(Deut. sagen no. 152-3). The bridge-toll brings to mind the ferry-money of souls.
With all this compare the story of the elf making his passage in a boat by night
(D.S. no. 80). Then again 'the bridge of dread no brader than a thread' is a
kindred notion, which moreover connects itself with the iron sword-bridge crossed
by the soul that has crept out of a sleeping man (see Suppl.). A minute examination of the various funeral ceremonies of European
nations, which is no part of my purpose here, would throw some more light on
the old heathen views as to the nature of the soul and its destiny after death.
Thus the dead, beside the passage-money and the boat, had a particular shoe
called todtenschuh, ON. hel-skô, given them for setting out on their journey,
and tied on their feet. The Gisla Surssonarsaga says: 'þat er tîðska at binda
mönnum helskô, sem menn skulo â gânga til Valhallar, ok mun ek Vesteini þat
giöra' (conf. Müller's Sagabibl. 1, 171). Sir W. Scott in Minstr. 2, 357 quotes
a Yorkshire superstition: 'They are of beliefe, that once in their lives it
is good to give a pair of new shoes to a poor man, forasmuch as after this life
they are to pass barefoote through a great launde full of thornes and furzen,
except by the meryte of the almes aforesaid they have redeemed the forfeyte;
for at the edge of the launde an oulde man shall meet them with the same shoes
that were given by the partie when he was lyving, and after he hath shodde them,
dismisseth them to go through thick and thin, without scratch or scalle.' The
land to be traversed by the soul is also called whinny moor, i.e. furzy bog
(Thoms 89). In Henneberg, and perhaps other places, the last honours paid to
the dead are still named todtenschuh (Reinwald 1, 165), though the practice
itself is discontinued; even the funeral feast is so denominated. Utterly pagan
in character, and suited to the warlike temper of old times, is what Burkard
of Worms reports p. 195c: Quod quidam faciunt homini occiso, cum sepelitur:
dant ei in manum unguentum quoddam, quasi illo unguento post mortem vulnus sanari
possit, et sic cum unguento sepeliunt. (19)
For a similar purpose, slaves, horses, dogs were burnt with a dead man, that
he might use them in the next world. King Ring had king Harald buried in a great
barrow, his horse killed that he had ridden in Bråvalla fight, and his saddle
buried with him, so that he could ride to Walhalla. It was thought that to convey
the corpse by any road but the traditional one (the hellweg, p. 801) was bad
for the soul of the deceased, Ledebur's Archiv 5, 369 (see Suppl.). The poems of the Mid. Ages occasionally describe a conflict of
angels and devils round the parting soul, each trying to take possession of
it. At the head of the angels is an archangel, usually Michael, who, as we shall
see in chap. XXVIII, has also the task of weighing souls; sometimes he is called
Cherubim: 'vor dem tievel nam der sêle war der erzengel Kerubîn,' he saw the
soul first, Wh. 49, 10.
Lâzâ lâzâ tengeln!
dâ wart von den engeln
manec sêle empfangen
é der strît was zegangen.
Daz weinete manec amie:
von wolken wart nie snîe
alsô dicke sunder zal
beidu ûf bergen und ze tal,
als engel unde tievel flugen,
die dô ze widerstrîte zugen
die sêle her und widere, d´einen ûf, die ander nidere.Geo. 1234.
Der engelfürste Michahêl
empfienc des marcgrâven sêl,
und manec engel liehtgevar
die kâmen mit gesange dar
und fuorten in vrœlîche
inz schœne himelrîche.
Gebt mir eine gâbe,
daz des küniges sêle
von sante Michahêle hiute gecondwieret sî.Gute frau 2674; And even so early as the 8-9th cent. we find quite at the beginning
of the Muspilli fragment:
Wanta sâr sô sih diu sêla in den sind arhevit (rises)
enti sî den lîhhamun likkan lâzit (leaves the body lying),
sô quimit ein heri (comes one host) fona himilzungalon,
daz andar fona pehhe (pitch, hell); dar pâgant siu umpi. An Irish fairytale makes the spirits of the Silent Folk maintain
a violent contest for three nights at the cross-roads, as to which churchyard
a human corpse shall be buried in, Ir. elfenm. p. 68. So that elves and dwarfs,
as they steal live children and maidesn, (p. 386-8), would seem also to have
a hankering for our bodies and souls. The souls of the drowned the water-nix
keeps in his house. (p. 496). All this leads up to a more exact study of the
notions about Death. << Previous Page Next Page >>
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