Chapter 21

But in the case of the heathen Livonians the Slav custom admits of proof. The Chronicon livonicum vetus relates ad an. 1192 (in Gruber p. 7): 'Colligitur populus, voluntas deorum de immolatione (fratris Theoderici cisterciensis) sorte inquiritur. Ponitur lancea, calcat equus; pedem vitae deputatum (the right foot) nutu dei praeponit. Orat frater ore, manu benedicit. Ariolus deum Christianorum equi dorso insidere et pedem equi ad praeponendum movere asserit, et ob hoc equi dorsum tergendum, quo deus elabatur. Quo facto, dum equus vitae pedem praeponit ut prius, frater Theodoricus vitae reservatur.' Here a heathen and a christian miracle met.

This worship was also an Old Prussian one: 'Prussorum aliqui equos nigros, quidam albi coloris, propter deos suos non audebant aliqualiter equitare.' Dusburg 3, 5 (see Suppl.). (36)

The sacrificing of horses, and the eating of horseflesh inseparable from it, have been noticed (pp. 47-49). Strabo reports, that the Veneti offered a white horse to Diomed (v. 1, 9. Siebenk. 2, 111. Causaub. 215. Kramer 1, 339). The Indians get up grand horse-sacrifices with imposing ceremonies. What is told of the Kalmuks appears worthy of notice. Among them you see numbers of scaffolds erected, bearing horses' hides and heads, the remains of former sacrifices. By the direction of the horses's head to east or west, you can tell if the sacrifice was offered to a good or evil spirit. (37) On the one hand it suggests that sacrificial fixing of horses' heads in a particular direction in Germany, which under Christianity was treated as wicked sorcery; and on the other hand the 'pira equinis sellis constructa' in Jornandes, and the shma of the Scythian kings in Herodotus (see RA. 676, and Suppl.). (38)

Of honours paid to oxen I have not so much to tell, though they are not at all a matter of doubt, if only because bullocks were sacrificed, and bulls drew the car of the Frankish kings, RA. 262. War-chariots continued to have oxen till late in the Mid. Ages: 'capto ducis (Lovaniensis) vexillo, dicto gallice standart, opere plumario a regina Angliae ei misso, quod fastu superbiae quadriga boum ferebat,' Chapeaville 2, 69 (an. 1129). A chariot drawn by four white oxen in Lorraine occurs in Scheffer's Haltaus, p. 251. In Plutarch's Marius cap. 23 is the well-known story of the Cimbrians swearing over a brazen bull, by which the Mecklenburgers account for the bull's head in their arms (Mascov 1, 13). At Hvîtabær the people worshipped an ox (Fornald. sög. 1, 253), at Upsal a cow (1, 254. 260-6. 270-2; see Suppl.).

Whilst among horses the stallion is more honoured than the mare, among neat the cow seems to take the lead. Kine were yoked to the car of Nerthus [and two milch-kine to the ark of Jehovah]. The Edda speaks of a cow named Auðumbla, which plays a great part in the origin of men and gods (p. 559), and was no doubt regarded as a sacred beast. By the side of that faith in horses (p. 656) we find an 'âtrûnaðr â kû.' King Eysteinn of Sweden put faith in a cow called Sîbilja: 'hun var svâ miök blôtin (so much worshipped), at menn mâttu eigi standast lât hennar'; they used to lead her into battle, Fornald. sög. 1, 254. 260. King Ögvaldr carried sacred cow with him everywhere, by sea and by land, and constantly drank of her milk (Fornm. sög. 2, 138. 10, 302). (39)

The horns of cows, like the manes of horses, were adorned with gold: 'gullhyrndar kýr,' Sæm. 73ª. 141ª; and the herdsman of the Alps still decks the horns of his cattle with ribbons and flowers. Oxen for sacrifice are sure not to have lacked this decoration.

The Sanskrit gaus (bos and vacca), root gô, acc. gâm, Pers. ghau, gho, corresponds to Lett. gohw, OHG. chuo, AS. cû, ON. kýr [[cow]]. What is more important, 'gô' likewise means terra and plaga (Bopp's Gram. § 123. Gloss. p. 108b), so that it touches the Gr. ga, gh. Taking with this the presence of Auðumbla in the Norse history of creation, we can perhaps connect rinta (the earth) and Rindr (p. 251) with our rind armentum; it is true this 'rind' originally began with hr (Graff 4, 1171), and is the AS. hryðer, hroðer, but who can tell whether 'rinde' cortex was not once aspirated too? Eurwph, the name of one quarter of the earth, must surely also mean earth (eureia the broad), and on p. 338 I made a guess that Europa, whom Zeus courted in the shape of a bull, must herself have been thought of as a cow, like Io; it was not the earth took name from her, but she from the earth. On the worship of cows and oxen by the Indians, Egyptians and Romans, I refer to A. W. Schlegel's learned treatise. (40) The Israelites also made burnt-offering of 'a red heifer (Goth. kalbô) upon which never came yoke,' Numb. 19, 2 (see Suppl.).

The boar and the he-goat were holy sacrificial beasts (p. 50-1-2), the boar (41) dedicated to Freyr (p. 213), he and she goats to Thôrr (p. 185), as goats are even yet considered devil's creatures (42). To that divine boar's account I think we are also entitled to set down the old song out of which Notker has preserved a passage (he whose foreign learning so seldom suffers him to put down anything he knew of his own country):

Imo sint fuoze fuodermâze,

imo sint burste ebenhô forste,

unde zene sîne zuelif-elnîge;
her bristles are even-high with the forest, and his tusks twelve ells long. A reason for the veneration of the boar has been found in the fact that he roots up the ground, and men learnt from him to plough. The Slavs also seem to have worshipped boars: 'Testatur idem antiquitas, errore delusa vario, si quando his saeva longae rebellionis asperitas immineat, ut e mari praedicto (near Riedergost) aper magnus et candido dente e spumis lucescente exeat, seque in volutabro delectatum terribili quassatione multis ostendat,' Ditm. merseb. p. 812 (see Suppl.).

None but domestic animals were fit for sacrifice, and not all of them, in particular not the dog, though he stands on much the same footing with his master as the horse; he is faithful and intelligent, yet there is something mean and unclean about him, which makes his name a handle to the tongue of the scorner. It seems worthy of notice, that dogs can see spirits (Sup. I, 1111), and recognise an approaching god while he is yet hidden from the human eye. When Grîmnir entered the house of Geirröðr, there was 'eingi hundr svâ ôlmr, at â hann mundi hlaupa,' the king bade seize the dark-cloaked giant, 'er eigi vildo hundar ârâða,' Sæm. 39. 40. So when Hel prowls about, the dogs perceive her. The Greeks had exactly the same notion: at Athena's approach, no one espies her, not even Telemachos, only Odysseus and the dogs, Od. 16, 160:

oud ara Thlemacoj iden antion, oud enohsen,

ou gar pw pantessi qeoi fainontai enargeij,

all Oduseuj te kunej te idon, kai r ouc ulaonto, (43)

knuzhqmw eterwse dia staqmoio fobhqen,
(they did not bark, but fled whining through the tent).---The howling of dogs is omnious (Sup. I, 493), and gives notice of fire. Oðinn is provided with dogs, 'Viðris grey,' Sæm. 151ª; so are the norns (p. 410), 'norna grey,' 273ª. But whence arose the story in the early Mid. Ages, of St. Peter and his dog? In the AS. Saturn and Solomon (Kemble p. 186), one asks: 'saga me, hwilc man êrost wære wið hund sprecende?' and the other answers: 'ic þe secge, sanctus Petrus.' The Nialss. cap. 158 p. 275 contains a spell to save from the power of the watersprite: 'runnit hefr hundr þinn, Petr 'postoli, till Rôms tysvar (twice), ok mundi (would) renna it þriðja sinn, ef þû leyfdir' (see Suppl.).

Among wild beasts of the wood were some that men regarded with awe, and treated with respect: above all, the bear, wolf and fox. I have shown that it was an ancient and widespread custom in Europe to bestow names of honour on these three (Reinh. p. lv. ccvii. 446), (44) and that with our ancestors the bear passed for the king of beasts (p. xlviii. seq. ccxcv.). A doc. of 1290 (Lang's Reg. 4, 467) presents the surname 'Chuonrat der heiligbär'; with this connect the name Halecbern (Trad. corb. Wig. § 268), the ON. Hallbiörn, and the still older names, male and female, ON. Asbiörn, AS. Osbeorn, OHG. Anspero, and ON. Asbirna, OHG. Anspirin (in Walth. Ospirn), Ospirinberg, MB. 28. 2, 123; apparently the legend of the animal's sacredness was still in full swing among the people. Biörn was a side-name of Thôrr, and Welsh legend presents king Arthur as a bear and a god, which is not to be accounted for by the mere resemblance of his name to arktoj: the bear in the sky plays a most dignified part. In the Edda a by-name of the bear is Vetrliði, hiemem sustinens (Sn. 179. 222), because he sleeps through winter, and winter was called biarnar-nôtt; the name was passed on to men, as 'Vetrliði skâld' in Fornm. sög. 2, 202, and a Vetrliði 3, 107 whose name reproduces his father's name Asbiörn. (45) The myth of the white bear and the wee wight was alluded to, p. 479. It is not to be overlooked, that certain beast-fables get converted into human myths, and vice versa: e.g., the parts of bear and fox are handed over to a giant or the devil. Thus, the Esthonian tale of the man who goes partners with the bear in raising turnips and oats (Reinhart cclxxxviii.) is elsewhere told of a man and the devil. Such overlapping of the beast-fable with other traditions is an additional guarantee of the epic nature of the former.---Two wolves, Geri and Freki, were sacred to Oðinn: whatever food was set before him, he gave to them to eat, Sn. 4; they were, so to speak, the hounds of the god (Viðris grey). I should like to know where Hans Sachs picked up that striking notion of the ord God having chosen wolves to be His hunting dogs. (46) A son of Loki, Fenrisûlfr, makes his appearance in wolf's shape among the gods; no metamorphosis occurs more frequently in our antiquities than that of men into were-wolves.---Both wolf and bear are a favourite cognisance in coats of arms, and a great many names of men are compounded with them: neither fact is true of the fox. Hence the dearth of mythical conceptions linked with the fox; a few traces have been pointed out in Reinh. ccxcvi., (47) and the kindermärchen no. 38 has furnished him with nine tails, as Sleipnir had eight legs, and some heroes and gods four arms.




ENDNOTES:

36. Sup. M. 35 shows that Esthonians ascribe prophetic powers to the horse. [Back]

37. Ledebour's Reise nach dem Altai, Berl. 1830. 2, 54-5. [Back]

38. A Sansk. name for the horse is Srîbhrâtri, brother of Srî (Lakshmi), because, like her (and Aphrodite) it rose out of the sea-waves, Pott 2, 407. Still more natural is the identification of horse and ship. [Back]

39. What can the black cow mean in the following phrases? 'the b. c. crushes him' (Hüpel's Livländ. idiot. 131); 'the b. c. has trodden him' (Etner's Apoth. 514). The Hor. Belg. 6, 97. 101 (conf. 223) speaks 'van onser goeden blaren coe, van miere blaren coe'; and Ir. elfenm. cxx. of the blue cow. It is dangerous to kill the black cow, Sup. I, 887. A Slovènic name for the rainbow is mavra = black cow. [Eng. 'the b. c. has trodden on his foot,' of sorrow, esp. bereavement.] [Back]

40. Ind. bibl. 2, 288-295. [Back]

41. He enjoys a double appellation: OHG. epur, AS. eofor; and OHG. pêr, AS. bâr (goth. báis?). [Back]

42. While God (Wuotan) made the wolf (p. 147), the devil (Donar?) produced the goat. In some places they will not eat goat's feet (Tobler p. 214). [Back]

43. In a Dan. folksong 1, 207-9 they bark at a spectre. Barking and not barking are the same thing here. [Back]

44. A striking confirmation appears in V. Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris 2, 272: he states, from a book or from oral tradition, that the Gipsies call the fox piedblue, coureur des bois, the wolf, piedgris, pieddoré, and the bear vieux or grandpère. [Back]

45. The name Weturlit is also found in the Necrolog. augiense (Mone 98b). [Back]

46. Ed. 1558. i. 499d: 'die wolf er im erwelen gund ('gan choose), und het sie bei ihm für jagdhund.' [Back]

47. Klaproth finds in Japanese books, that the people in Japan worship the inari (fox) as a tutelor god: little temples are dedicated to him in many houses, espec. of the commoner folk. They ask his advice in difficulties, and set rice or beans for him at night. If any of it is gone in the morning, they believe the fox has consumed it, and draw good omens from it; the contrary is an unlucky sign (Nouv. annales des voyages, Dec. 1833, p. 298). They take him to be a kami i.e. the soul of a good man deceased (ibid.) [Back]