Chapter 22

Twice in the year the sun changes his course, in summer to sink, in winter to rise. These turning-points of the sun were celebrated with great pomp in ancient times, and our St. John's or Midsummer fires are a relic of the summer festival (p. 617 seq.). The higher North, the stronger must have been the impression produced by either solstice, for at the time of the summer one there reigns almost perpetual day, and at the winter one perpetual night. Even Procopius (ed. Bonn. 2, 206) describes how the men of Thule, after thier 35 days' night, climb the mountain-tops to catch sight of the nearing sun. Then they celebrate their holiest feast (see Suppl.).

Tacitus tells us (cap. 45), that the sun after setting shoots up such a radiance over the Suiones, that it pales the stars till morning. 'Sonum insuper audiri, formas deorum et radios capitis aspici, persuasio adjicit.' I would have turned this passage to account in Chap. VI., as proving the existence of Germanic gods, had it not seemed credible that such accounts may not have reached the Romans from Germany itself, but been spread among them by miscellaneous travellers' tales. Strabo 3, 1 (Tsch. 1, 368) quotes from Posidonius a very similar story of the noise made by the setting sun in the sea between Spain and Africa: meizw dunein ton hlion en th parwkeanitidi meta yofou paraplhsiwj, wsanel sizontoj tou pelagouj kata sbesiv auton dia to empiptein eij ton buqon. But the belief may even then have prevailed among Germans too; the radiant heads, like a saint's glory, were discussed at p. 323, and I will speak of this marvellous music of the rising and setting sun in the next chapter. Meanwhile the explanation given of the red of morning and evening, in the old AS. dialogue between Saturn and Solomon (Thorpe's Anal. p. 100), is curious: 'Saga me, forhwan byð seo sunne reád on œfen ?' 'Ic þe secge, forþon heo lôcað on helle.' 'Saga me, hwî scîneð heo swâ reáde on morgene?' 'Ic þe secge, forþon hyre twynað hwæðer heo mæg oðe [orig. þe] ne mæg þisne middaneard eondiscînan swâ hyre beboden is.' The sun is red at even, for that she looketh on hell; and at morn, for that she doubteth whether she may complete her course as she is bidden.

Not only about the sun and moon, but about the other stars, our heathen antiquity had plenty of lore and legend. It is a very remarkable statement of Jornandes cap. 11, that in Sulla's time the Goths under Dicenaeus, exclusive of planets and signs of the zodiac, were acquainted with 344 stars that ran from east to west. How many could we quote now by their Teutonic names?

The vulgar opinion imagines the stars related to each individual man as friend or foe (48) The constellation that shone upon his birth takes him under its protection all his life through; this is being born under a good or lucky star. From this guidance, this secret sympathy of dominant constellations, fate can be foretold. Conversely, though hardly from native sources, it is said in the Renner 10984 that every star has an angel who directs it to the place whither it should go.

There is a pious custom of saluting the celestial luminaries before going to bed at night (Sup. I, 112), and among the Mod. Greeks, of offering a prayer when the evening star is on the rise.

According to the Edda, all the stars were sparks of fire from Muspells-heim, that flew about the air at random, till the gods assigned them seats and orbits, Sn. 9. Sæm. 1.

Ignited vapours, which under a starry sky fall swiftly through the air like fiery threads---Lat. trajectio stellae, stella transvolans, Ital. stella cadente, Fr. étoile filante, Span. estrella vaga, Swed. stjernfall, Dan. stiernskud (star-shoot), what the Greeks call diagein trajicere----are by our people ascribed to a trimming of the stars' light; they are like the sparks we let fall in snuffing of a candle. We find this notion already in Wolfram's Wh. 322, 18:

 Dehein sterne ist sô lieht,

No star so bright

 ern fürbe sich etswenne. (49) but trims itself somewhen.

Hence our phrase of 'the stars snuffing themselves,' and our subst. sternputze, sternschnuppe. These falling stars are ominous, (50) and whoever sees them should say a prayer (Sup. I, 595): to the generous girl who has given away her all, they bring down with them [or turn into] gold-pieces (Kinderm. 153); nay, whatever wish you form while the snuff is falling, is fulfilled (Tobler 408b). The Lithuanians beautifully weave shooting stars into the fate-mythus: the verpeya (spinneress) begins to spin the thread of the new-born on the sky, and each thread ends in a star; when a man is dying, his thread snaps, and the star turns pale and drops (Narbutt, 1, 71).

A comet is called tail-star, hair-star in Aventin 74b. 119b, peacock-tail (Schm. 1, 327); and its tail in Detmar 1, 242 schinschove, from schof a bundle of straw. Its appearing betokens events fraught with peril, especially the death of a king (Greg. tur. 4, 9): 'man siht an der zît einen sterren, sam einen pfawen zagel wît (wide as a peacock's tail), sô müezen siben sachen in der werlt ergân,' MsH. 3, 468h (see Suppl.).

Our old heathen fancies about the fixed stars have for the most part faded away, their very names are almost all supplanted by learned astronomic appellations; only a few have managed to save themselves in ON. legend or among the common people.

Whether the planets were named after the great gods, we cannot tell: there is no trace of it to be found even in the North. Planet-names for days of the week seem to have been imported, though very early, from abroad (p. 126 seq.) Other reasons apart, it is hardly conceivable that the heathen, who honoured certain fixed stars with names of their own, should not have distinguished and named the travelling stars, whose appearances and changes are so much more striking. The evening and morning Venus is called eveningstar, morningstar, OHG. âpantsterno, tagasterno, like the Lat. vesper and lucifer. (51) The tunkelsterne in Ms. 1, 38b seems to be vesperugo, the eveningstar beginning to blaze in the twilight, conf. Gramm. 2, 526. An OHG. uhtosterno morningstar, N. Bth. 223, is from uhtâ, Goth. uhtvô crepusculum. Gl. Trev. 22b have stelbôm hesperus; can this be stellbaum, the bird-catcher's pole? But in Rol. 240, 27 'die urmâren stalboume' stands for stars in general, and as every star was provided with stool or stand (p. 700-1), we may connect stellboum, stalboum with this general meaning. There is perhaps more of a mythic meaning in the name nahtfare for eveningstar (Heumanni opusc. 453. 460), as the same word is used of the witch or wise-woman out on her midnight jaunt. The Anglo-Saxons called the eveningstar swâna steorra (bubulcorum stella), because the swains drove their herd home when it appeared. Again, in O. iv. 9, 24 Christ is compared to the sun, and the apostles to the eleven daystars, 'dagasterron' here meaning not so much luciferi as the signs of the zodiac. There are no native names for the polar star (see Suppl.).

Twice the Edda relates the origin of particular stars, but no one knows now what constellations are meant. The legend of Orvandils-tâ and the AS. Earendel, OHG. Orentil, has been cited, p. 374; this bright luminary may have meant the morningstar. Then the âses, having slain the giant Thiassi, had to atone for it to his daughter Skaði. Oðinn took Thiassi's eyes and threw them against the sky, where they formed two stars, Sn. 82-3. These augu Thiassa are most likely two stars that stand near each other, of equal size and brightness, perhaps the Twins ? This is another instance of the connexion we found between stars and eyes; and the toe translated to heaven is quite of a piece with the 'tongues' and the correspondence of the parts of the body to the macrocosm, p. 568 (see Suppl.).

The milky-way and its relation to Irmin I have dealt with, pp. 356-8.

Amongst all the constellations in our sky, three stand prominent to the popular eye: Ursa major, Orion and the Pleiades. And all of them are still known by native names; to which I shall add those in use among the Slavs, Lithuanians and Finns, who give them the same place of honour as we do.

The Great Bear was doubtless known to our ancestors, even before their conversion, as waggon, wain; which name, unborrowed, they had in common with kindred [Aryan] nations, and therefore it is the common people's name for it to this day: they say, at dead of night the heavenly wain turns round with a great noise, conf. p. 745. So the Swiss (Tobler 264ª): when the herra-waga stands low, bread is cheap, when high, it is dear. O. v. 17, 29 uses the pl. 'waganô gistelli,' meaning at once the greater waggon and the less; which last (Ursa minor) Berthold calls the wegelîn. (52) So 'des wagenes gerihte,' Wackern. lb. 772, 26. It comes of a lively way of looking at the group, which circling round the polar star always presents the appearance of four wheels and a long slanting pole, deichsel (temo), on the strength of which the AS. sometimes has þîsl alone: wœnes þîsla (thill), Boeth. Rawlins. 192b. References are given at p. 151, also the reasons for my conjecture that the waggon meant is that of Wuotan the highest god. True, an O. Swed. chronicle connects the Swed. name karlwagen with Thôrr, who stepping into his chariot holds the seven stars in his hand (Thor statt naken som ett barn, siu stjernor i handen och Karlewagn), which I will not absolutely deny; but it is Wôden stories in particular that are transferred to the Frankish Charles (p. 153). When in Gl. Jun. 188 'Arturus' is rendered wagan (though Gl. Hrab. 951b has 'arctus' the bear = wagan in himile), that is explained by the proximity of the star to the Great Bear's tail, as the very name arktouroj shows.(53) I have to add, that Netherland cities (Antwerp, Gröningen) have the stars of the Great or the Lesser Bear on their seals (Messager de Gand 3, 339), and in England the Charles-wain is painted on the signboards of taverns.

The Greeks have both names in use, arktoj bear, and amaxa waggon, the Romans both ursa and plaustrum, as well as a septentrio or septentriones from trio, plough-ox. Fr. char, charriot, Ital. Span. carro. Pol. woz (plaustrum), woz niebieski (heavenly wain), Boh. wos, and at the same time ogka (thill, sometimes og, wog) for Boötes; the Illyrian Slavs kola, pl. of kolo wheel, therefore wheels, i.e. wain, but in their kola rodina and rodokola (54) I cannot explain the adjuncts rodo, rodina. Lith. gryzulio rats, gryzdo rats, from ratas (rota), while the first word, unexplained by Mielcke, must contain the notion of waggon or heaven; (55) Lett. ratti (rotae). Esth. wankri tähhed, waggon-stars, from wanker (currus); Hung. göntzöl szekere, from szeker (currus), the first word being explained in 'Hungaria in parabolis' p. 48 by a mythic Göntzöl, their first waggoner. Prominent in the Finnish epos are päiwä the sun, kuu the moon, and otawa, which Castrén translates karla-vagnen, they are imagined as persons and divine, and often named together; the Pleiades are named seulainen.

Never, either in our OHG. remains, or among Slavs, Lithuanians and Finns, (56) do we find the name borrowed from the animal (ursa) though these nations make so much of the bear both in legend and perhaps in worship (p. 668).

The carro menor is called by Spanish shepherds bocina, bugle; (57) by Icelanders fiosakonur â lopti, milkmaids of the sky, Biörn sub v. F. Magnusen's Dag. tid. 104-5 (see Suppl.)




ENDNOTES:

48. Swem die sternen werdent gram, dem wirt der mâne lîhte alsam. Frid. 108, 3. [Back]

49. MS. n. reads 'sûbere sich.' Even OHG. has furban (mundare, expiare). [Back]

50. So with the Greeks (Reinh. fuchs p. lxxii.). In a poem of Béranger: 'mon enfant, un mortel expire, son étoile tombe a l'instant.' [Back]

51. In an old church-hymn Lucifer is provided with a chariot: currus jam poscit phosphorus (reita giu fergôt tagastern), Hymn. 2, 3. [Back]

52. Ich hân den glanzen himelwagen und daz gestirne besehen, Troj. 19062. There may for that matter be several himelwagens, as there were many gods with cars. Cervantes too, in a song of the gitanilla (p. m. 11), says: Si en el cielo hay estrellas, que lucientes carros forman. [Back]

53. [From ouroj keeper, not oura tail]. Arktofulax [bear-ward, or as we might say] Waggoner, is Boötes, of whom Greek fable has much to tell. Arcturus stands in Boötes, and sometimes for Boötes. An OHG. gloss, Diut. 1. 167ª, seems curiously to render Boötes by stuffala, Graff 6, 662. Is this stuphila, stipula, stubble? [Back]

54. Bosnian Bible, Ofen 1831. 3, 154. 223. In Vuk roda is stork, whence the adj. rodin, but what of that? This roda seems to be rota, rad, wheel over again. [Back]

55. Lith. Bible, Königsb. 1816, has in Job. 9, 9 gryzo wezimmas; gryzdas, grizulas is thill, and wezimmas waggon. [Back]

56. Can this be reconciled with the statement, p. 729, that Finn. otawa = bear? The Mongol. for bear is utege.----Trans. [Back]

57. Don Quixote 1, 20 (ed. Ideler 1, 232; conf. 5, 261). [Back]