Chapter 7

The whole fable bears the stamp of high antiquity; it has even been related by others before Paul, and with variations, as in the Hist. Francor. epitomata, which has for its author, though not Fredegar, yet some writer of the seventh century. Here Chuni (Huns) are named instead of Vandals:---Cum a Chunis (Langobardi) Danubium transeuntes fuissent comperti, eis bellum conati sunt inferre. Interrogati a Chunis, quare gens eorum terminos introire praesumeret ? At illi mulieribus suis praecipiunt, comam capitis ad maxillas et mentum ligare, quo potius virorum habitum simulantes plurimam multitudinem hostium ostenderent, eo quod erant mulierum comae circa maxillas et mentum ad instar barbae valde longae: fertur desuper utraeque phalangae vox dixisse: 'hi sunt Langobardi!' quod ab his gentibus fertur eorum deum fuisse locutum, quem fanatici nominant Wodanum (al. Wisodano, a mere copyist's or reader's error for Wuodano). Tunc Langobardi cum clamassent, qui instituerat nomen, concederet victoriam, in hoc praelio Chunos superant. (Bouquet 2, 406; according to Pertz., all the MSS. read Wodano.) In this account, Frea and her advice are nowhere; the voice of the god, giving the name, is heard up in th air.

It was the custom for any one who bestowed a name, to follow it up with a gift. (8) Wodan felt himself bound to confer the victory on those for whom he had found a new national name. In this consisted the favour of fortune, for the people, in dressing up their wives as men, had thought nothing but swelling the apparent numbers of their warriors. I need scarcely remind the reader, that this mythical interpretation of the Lombard name is a false one, for all the credit it found in the Mid. Ages. (9)

There is one more feature in the legend that must not escape our notice. Wodan from his heavenly dwelling looks down ont he earth through a window, which exactly agrees with ON. descriptions. Oðinn has a throne named Hliðskialf, sitting on which he can survey the whole world, and hear all that goes on among men: þar er einn staðr er Hliðscialf heitir, oc þaer Oðinn settiz þar i hâsæti, oc þâ sâ hann of alla heima, oc vissi alla luti, þâ er hann sâ (there is a stead that H. hight, and when O. sat there on high-seat, then saw he over all countries, and wist, &c.), Sn. 10. oc þâ er Allföðr sitr î þvî sæti, þâ ser hann of allan heim, Sn. 21. hlustar (listens) Oðinn Hliðscialfo î, Sæm. 89. When Loki wanted to hide, it was from this seat that Oðinn espied his whereabouts, Sn. 69. Sometimes also Frigg, his consort, is imagined sitting by his side, and then she enjoys the same prospect: Oðinn ok Frigg sâto î Hliðscialfo, ok sâ um heima alla, Sæm. 39. The proem to the Grimnismâl bears a strong resemblance to the legend in Paul; for, just as Frea pulls her favourites the Winili through, in opposition to Wodan's own resolve, so Frigg brings to grief Geirröðr whom Oðinn favoured.----Sensuous paganism, however, makes the god-like attribute of overseeing all things depend on the position or structure of a particular chair, and as the gift forsakes the god when he does not occupy the seat, others can enjoy the privilege by taking his place. This was the case when Freyr spied the beautiful Gerðr away down in Iötunheim; Freyr hafði setsc î Hliðskialf, oc sâ um heima alia, Sæm. 81. Sn. 39. The word hliðscialf seems to mean literally door-bench, from hlið (ostium, conf. Engl. lid), and skialf (scamnum), AS. scylfe, Cædm. 79, 4. Engl. shelf (see Suppl.). Mark the language in which the OS. poet describes the Ascension of Christ: sôhta imo thena hêlagon stôl, sitit imo thar an thea suîdron (right) half Godes, endi thanan all gisihit (seeth) waldandeo Crist, sô huat sô (whatso) thius werold behabêt, Hel. 176, 4- 7, conf. Cædm. 265, 16.

This idea of a seat in the sky, from which God looks on the earth, is not yet extinct among our people. The sitting on the right hand is in the Bible, but not the looking down. The formulas 'qui haut siet et de loing mire, qui haut siet et loins voit' (supra, p. 23) are not cases in point, for men everywhere have thought of the Deity as throned as high and seeing far around. Zeus also sits on Ida, and looks on at mortal men; he rules from Ida's top, ' Idhqen medewn, even as Helios, the eye of the sun, surveys and discerns all things, Il. 3, 277. But a widely-circulated märchen tells us of a mortal man, whom St. Peter admitted into heaven, and who, led on by curiosity, ended by climbing into the chair of the Lord, from which one can look down and see all that is done on the whole earth. He sees a washerwoman steal two lady's veils, and in his anger seizes the footstool of the Lord, which stands before the chair (al. a chair's leg), and hurls it down at the thief. (10) To such lengths has the ancient fable travelled. Can it be alluded to in the MHG. poem, Amgb. 3 ?

Der nû den himel hat erkorn,

der geiselt uns bi unser habe;

ich vürhte sêre, unt wirt im zorn,

den slegel wirft er uns her abe. (11)

In a Servian song (Vuk 4, 9) the angels descend to earth out of God's window (od Bózhieg prozóra; pro-zor (out-look, hence window) reminds one of zora (dawn), prozorie (morning twilight), and of Wodan at early morn looking toward the sunrise. The dawn is, so to speak, the opening in heaven, through which God looks into the world.

Also, what Paulus Diac. 1, 20 tells of the anger of the Lord (supra, p. 18), whereby the Herulian warriors were smitten before their enemies, I am inclined to trace up to Wuotan: Tanta super eos coelitus ira respexit; and again: Vae tibi, misera Herulia, quae coelestis Domini flecteris ira! Conf. Egilssaga p. 365: reiðr sê rögn ok Oðinn! wrathful see the gods and O.; and Fornald. sög. 1, 501: gramr er yðr Oðinn, angry is O. with you.

Victory was in the eyes of our forefathers the first and highest of gifts, but they regarded Wuotan not merely as dispenser of victory; I have to show next, that in the widest of sense he represented to them the god to whose bounty man has to look for every other distinction, who has the giving of all superior blessings; and in this sense also Hermes (Mercury) was to the Greeks pre-eminently dwtwr eawn, giver of good things, and I have ventured to guess that the name Gibika, Kipicho originally signified the same to us. (12)  
 



ENDNOTES:

8. Lâta fylgja nafni, Sæm. 142. 150. Fornm. sög. 3, 182. 203. gefa at nafnfesti (name- feast), Sn. 151. Fornm. sög. 2, 51. 3, 133. 203. Islend. sög. 2, 143. 194. Vocabuli largitionem muneris additione commendare, Saxo Gram. 71.  (back)

9. Longobardi a longis barbis vocitati, Otto fris. de gest. Frid. 2, 13. But Oðinn himself was named Lângbarðr.  (back)

10. Kindermärchen no. 35. First in Bebel, ed. 1, Tub. 1506, p. 6. Frey's gartengesellschaft cap. 109, ed. 1556 p. 106, ed 1590 p. 85. Rollwagenbüchlein 1590, pp. 98-9 (here a golden settle). Mösers vermischte schriften 1, 332. 2, 235. ed. 1842, 4, 5, 39. H. Sachs (1563) v. 381. According to Greek and O. Norse notions, the gods have a throne or chair: thâ gengêngo regin öll â rökstôla ginheilög goð, Sæm. 1. Compare in the Bible: heaven is God's throne, the earth his footstool, Matt. 5, 34-5; and Hel. 45, 11. 12 (see Suppl.).  (back)

11. Also NS. 2, 254: ze hûs wirf ich den slegel dir. MS. 2, 6: mit einem slegel er zuo dem kinde warf. This cudgel-throwing resembles, what meant so much to our ancestors, the hammer's throw, and the OHG. slaga is malleus, sledge-hammer (Graff 6, 773). The cudgel thrown from heaven can hardly be other than a thunderbolt; and the obscure proverb, 'swer irre rite daz der den slegel fünde,' whose astray should ride, that he s. might find, Parz. 180, 10, may refer to a thunder-stone (see ch. VIII, Donar) which points to hidden treasure and brings deliverance, and which only those can light upon, who have accidentally lost their way in a wood; for which reason Wolfram calls trunks of trees, from under which peeps out the stone of luck, 'slegel urkünde und zil,' slegel's document and mark (aim).  (back)

12. Haupts zeitschr. 1, 573. Lasicz. 47 names a Datanus donator bonorum.  (back)