Chapter 31

But in the same Swabia, in the 16^th cent. (and why not earlier?) they placed a spectre named Berchtold at the head of the wütende heer, they imagined him clothed in white, seated on a white horse, leading white hounds in the leash, and with a horn hanging from his neck. (36) This Berchtold we have met before (p. 279): he was the masculine form of white-robed Berhta, who is also named Prechtölterli (Grät. Iduna 1814, p. 102).

Here we get a new point of view. Not only Wuotan and other gods, but heathen goddesses too, may head the furious host: the wild hunter passes into the wood-wife, Wôdan into frau Gaude. Of Perchtha touching stories are known in the Orla-gau. The little ones over whom she rules are human children who have died before baptism, and are thereby become her property (pp. 918. 920). By these weeping babes she is surrounded (as dame Gaude by her daughters), and gets ferried over in the boat with them (p. 275-6). A young woman had lost her only child; she wept continually and could not be comforted. She ran out to the grave every night, and wailed so that the stones might have pitied her. The night before Twelfth-day she saw Perchtha sweep past not far off; behind all the other children she noticed a little one with its shirt soaked quite through, carrying a jug of water in its hand, and so weary that it could not keep up with the rest; it stood still in trouble before a fence, over which Perchtha strode and the children scrambled. At that moment the mother recognised her own child, came running up and lifted it over the fence. While she had it in her arms the child spoke: 'Oh how warm a mother's hands are! but do not cry so much, else you cry my jug too full and heavy, see, I have already spilt it all over my shirt.' From that night the mother ceased to weep: so says the Wilhelmsdorf account (Börner p. 142-3). At Bodelwitz they tell it somewhat differently: the child said, 'Oh how warm is a mother's arm,' and followed up the request 'Mother, do not cry so' with the words 'You know every tear you weep I have to gather in my jug.' And the mother had one more good hearty cry (ib. 152). Fairy tales have the story of a little shroud drenched with tears (Kinderm. 109. Reusch no. 32. Thom. Cantipr. p. 501, conf. Wolf's Wodana p. 153), and the Danish folktale of Aage and Else makes flowing tears fill the coffin with blood; but here we have the significant feature added of the children journeying in Perhta's train. The jug may be connected with the lachrymatories found in tombs (37) (see Suppl.).

With Berahta we have also to consider Holda, Diana and Herodias. Berahta and Holda shew themselves, like frau Gaude (p. 925), in the 'twelves' about New-year's day. Joh. Herolt, a Dominican, who at the beginning of the 15^th cent. wrote his Sermones discipuli de tempore et de sanctis, says in Sermo 11 (in die Nativ.): Sunt quidam, qui in his xii. noctibus subsequentibus multas vanitates exercent, qui deam, quam quidam Dianam vocant, in vulgari 'die frawen unhold,' dicunt cum suo exercitu ambulare. The same nocturnal perambulation is spoken of in the passages about Diana, (38) Herodias and Abundia p. 283 seq. It is exactly the Vicentine wood-wife, who acts along with the wild man, and to whom the people still offer up gifts. And as Berhta-worship in the Salzburg country became a popular merrymaking (p. 279), so a Posterli-hunt, performed by the country-folk themselves on the Thursday before Christmas, is become an established custom in the Entlibuch. The Posterli (39) is imagined to be a spectre in the shape of an old woman or she-goat (conf. p. 916). In the evening the young fellows of the village assemble, and with loud shouts and clashing of tins, blowing of alp-horns, ringing of cow-bells and goat-bells, and cracking of whips, tramp over hill and dale to another village, where the young men receive them with the like uproar. One of the party represents the Posterli, or they draw it in a sledge in the shape of a puppet, and leave it standing in a corner of the other village; then the noise is hushed, and all turn homewards (Stald. 1, 208). At some places in Switzerland the Sträggele goes about on the Ember-night, Wednesday before Christmas, afflicting the girls that have not finished their day's spinning (ib. 2, 405). Thus Posterli and Sträggele resemble to a hair both Berhta and Holda. (40) At Neubrunn (Würzburg country) the furious host always passed through three houses, each of which had three doors directly behind one another, street-door, kitchen-door, and back-door; and so wherever it finds three doors in a line, the furious host will drive through them. If you are in the street or yard when it passes, and pop your head between the spokes of a cart-wheel, it will sweep past, else it will wring your neck. Old people at Massfeld tell you, it used to come down the Zinkenstill by the cross-road near Reumes bridge, and go over the hills to Dreissigacker. Many will swear by all that is sacred, that they have seen it (Bechstein's Fränk. sag. no. 137). In Thuringia the furious host travels in the train of frau Holla (DS. no. 7). At Eisleben and all over the Mansfeld country it always came past on the Thursday in Shrove-tide; the people assembled, and looked out for its coming, just as if a mighty monarch were making his entry. In front of the troop came an old man with a white staff, the trusty Eckhart, warning the people to move out of the way, and some even to go home, lest harm befall them. Behind him, some came riding, some walking, and among them persons who had lately died. One roade a two-legged horse, (41) one was tied down on a wheel which moved of itself, others ran without any heads, or carried their legs across their shoulders. A drunken peasant, who would not make room for the host, was caught up and set upon a high rock, where he waited for days before he could be helped down again. (42) Here frau Holda at the head of her spirit-host produces quite the impression of a heathen goddess making her royal progress: the people flock to meet and greet her, as they did to Freyr (p. 213) or Nerthus (p. 251). Eckhart with his white staff discharges the office of a herald, a chamberlain, clearing the road before her. Her living retinue is now converted into spectres (see Suppl.).

Eckhart the trusty, a notable figure in the group of Old-Teutonic heroes (Heldensage 144. 190, reeve of the Harlungs, perhaps more exactly Eckewart, Kriemhild's kämmerer, Nib. 1338, 3) gets mixt up with the myths of gods. The appendix or preface to the Heldenbuch makes him sit outside the Venus-mount to warn people, as here he warns them of the furious host; so much the plainer because his vocation here, as well as the meaning of the Venusberg. Eckhart goes before the furious host with Holda, he is also doomed to abide till the Judgment-day at the mount of Venus: the identity of Holda and Venus is placed beyond question. That mountain (some say the Hoselberg or Horselberg near Eisenach) is dame Holle's court, and not till the 15-16^th cent. does she seem to have made into dame Venus; (43) in subterranean caves she dwells in state and splendour like the kings of dwarfs; some few among men still find their way in, and there live with her in bliss. The tale of the noble Tanhäuser, who went down to view her wonders, (44) is one of the most fascinating fictions of the Mid. Age: in it the hankering after old heathenism, and the harshness of the christian clergy, are movingly portrayed. Eckhart, perhaps a heathen priest, is courtier and conductor of the goddess when she rides out at a stated season of the year. I might even make him with his khrukeion the psychopompos of the mounted host of the dead (conf. the waggon of souls creaking in the air, p. 833); only he conducts, not the departing, but rather the returning dead.

As we can also prove Dietrich von Bern's participation in the wild hunt (and Eckhart was one of his hero-band), he may stand as our second native hero in this group. Now the Lausitz people name the wild hunter Berndietrich, Dietrich Bernhard, or Diterbenada; the older Wends have many a time heard him hunt, and can tell of unsavoury joints that he gives away for roasting. (45) Berndietrich too is the wild hunter's name in the Orlagau (Börner pp. 213-6. 236), where his dogs rouse and chase the wood-wives. Nay in the Harz, at the Bode-kessel (-crater) over the Ros-trappe (horse's footmark), stands the wild hunter turned to stone: 'we call him Bernhart' was a boy's account, and the father of the Brunhild that leapt across the Bodethal on her steed is called by the people 'he of Bären' (von Bern); this is the more significant, as Gibicho also (p. 137) is placed in the same mountains (Z. f. d. a. 1, 575). But from Fichte, himself a Lausitz man, we derive the information that knecht Ruprecht (p. 504) is there called Dietrich von Bern (Deut. heldensage p. 40). The two interpretations admit of being harmonized. Knecht Ruprecht makes his appearance beside frau Berhta, as her servant and companion (p. 514-5), sometimes her substitute, and like her a terror to children. Add to this, that both Ruprecht and Berhta appear at Christmas; and, what is most decisive of all, Wode in Mecklenburg, like Berhta in Swabia, runs through the flax on the distaff, and Wode, like Ruprecht and Niclas, apportions good or evil to infants. (46) So that Dietrich von Bern, like trusty Eckhart, is entitled to appear in Wuotan's, Holda's, Berhta's train, or to fill their place. Then, in another connexion, Dietrich the fire-breathing, painted superhuman, is in poems of the Mid. Age fetched away, on a spectral fire-spirting steed, to hell or to the wilderness, there to fight with reptiles till the Judgment-day (D. heldensage 38-40). This agrees with our Altmark story of Hackelberg (p. 922); and in the compound Hackel-berend, the second half seems plainly to have led to Berend Bernhart and Dietrich-bern, as indeed the dreams of Hackelberg and Berend were identical (p. 923). Lastly, perhaps the Nethl. Derk met den beer (p. 213-4) ought to be taken into account here, not that I would derive his epithet from a misapprehension of Dietrich von Bern (see Suppl.).

We have come to know the wild host in two principal lights: as a nocturnal hunt of male, and as a stately progress of female deities; both, especially the last, occuring at stated seasons. The precise meaning of the word 'host' calls for a third explanation: it marches as an army, it portends the outbreak of war.

Wuotan (the old father of hosts, p. 817), Hackelbernd, Berhtolt, bestriding their white war-horse, armed and spurred, appear still as supreme directors of the war for which they, so to speak, give license to mankind. There is more than one legend of enchanted mountains, in whose interior becomes audible, from time to time, drumming, piping and the clash of arms: an ancient host of spirits and gods is shut up inside, and is arming to sally out. I do not know a finer, a more perfect legend in this respect than that of the Odenberg in Lower Hesse, which stands too in the immediate neighbourhood of a Gudensberg (i.e. Wôdansberg), but distinct from it, so that 'Odenberg' cannot be explained by the ON. form Oðinn; it may come from ôd (felicitas), perhaps from ôdi (desertus). This long while the people have connected Odenberg not with the heathen deity, but with Charles the great hero-king, and even with Charles V. (47) This emperor, owing to his treatment of Landgrave Philip, has left a lasting impression in Hesse: Karle Quintes with his soldiers is lodged in the Odenberg; and as the Swabian mother threatens her infant with the iron Berhta (p. 277), 'Be still, or the Prechtölterli will come,' and the Bavarian with 'Hush, there's Perchte coming to cut your belly open,' the Hessian of this district stills it by the exhortation 'Du, der Quinte kommt!' But in earlier times they meant Charles the Great, as is sufficiently proved by the legend of the thirsting army, known to the annalists (pp. 117. 153), and itself a deposit of still older heathen myths. Charles had moved his army into the mountains of the Gudensberg country, some say victorious, others in flight, from the east (Westphalia). His warriors pined with thirst, the king sat on a snow-white steed; then the horse stamped with his foot on the ground, and broke away a piece of rock; out of the opening gushed a bubbling spring (pp. 226. 584), and the whole army was watered. Glisborn is the name of the spring, to whose clear cold waves the country-folk impute a higher cleansing power than to common water, and women from surrounding villages come to wash their linen there. The stone with the hoof-mark may still be seen, let into the wall of Gudensberg churchyard. After that, king Charles fought a great battle at the foot of the Odenberg: the streaming blood tore deep furrows in the ground (they have often been filled up, but the rain always washes them open), the red waves rolled (wulchen) together, and poured down all the way to Bessa. Charles won the victory: in the evening the rock opened, took him and his exhausted soldiery in, and closed its walls. Here in the Odenberg the king rests from his valiant deeds; but he has promised to come out every seven (or every 100) years, and when that time is past, you hear a rattling of arms in the air, neighing of horses and tramp of hoofs; the procession passes by the Glisbon, where the steeds are watered, then goes on its way till, having finished its round, it returns at last into the mountain again. Once people were going past the Odenberg, and heard the roll of drums, but saw nothing. A wise man bade them look, one after another, through the ring formed by his arm held a-kimbo: immediately they saw a multitude of soldiers, engaged in military exercises, go in and out of the mountain. (48) This looking through the arm gives assurance of the genuine primitive legend. Saxo Gram. p. 37 relates, that Biarco was unable to see Othin, who, mounted on white steed and covered with white shield, was aiding the hostile army of Swedes. Quoth Biarco to Ruta:

At nunc ille ubi sit qui vulgo dicitur Othin

armipotens, uno semper contentus ocello?

dic mihi, Ruta, precor, usquam si conspicis illum?

Ruta:

Adde oculum propius, et nostras prospice chelas,

ante sacraturas victrici lumina signo,

si vis praesentem tuto cognoscere Martem. (49)

Biarco:

Si potero horrendum Friggœ spectare maritum,

quantumcunque albo clypeo sit tectus et album

flectat equum, Lethra nequaquam sospes abibit.

fas est belligeram bello prosternere divam.




ENDNOTES:

36. Historie Peter Leuen des andern Kalenbergers, von Achilles Jason Widman (aus schwäbisch Hall), Nürnb. 1560. Reprinted in Hagen's Narrenbuch, p. 353. Peter Leu here plays a trick on peasants, p. 394, by disguising himself as Berchtold. Back

37. Infantum animae flentes in limine primo,

quos dulcis vitae exsortes et ab ubere raptos

abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo. Virg. Aen. 6, 427.

In the Introd. to the Pentameron the revival of a dead man depends on a cruse hung upon his tomb being wept full. Back

38. With Diana agrees the Pol. Dziewanna, Dziewina (Linde 1, 599b), Dziewica; Liebushch has the foll. story about a dziwitza in Up. Lausitz: she was a beautiful young knenye or princess, who roamed in the woods, armed with the zylba (a javelin); the finest of hounds accompanied, scaring both game and men who were in the thick forest at midday. The people still joke any one that spends the hour of noon alone in the fir-woods: 'are you not afraid Dziwitza will come to you?' But she also hunts of a moonlight night. Back

39. Is it synon. with frau Faste (p. 782n.), and taken from the Slavic 'post' = fast, jejunium? Back

40. Conf. the nightly excursions of the Scottish elf-queen (Scott's Minstr. 2, 149, 161), and of the fays (Keightley 1, 166). Back

41. Hel rides a three-legged one, p. 844. Back

42. Agricola's Spr. 667. Eyering 1, 781-6. Headless figures, beasts two-legged, three-legged, redhot, are in many ghost stories; a headless wild hunter runs riot in the Wetterau (Dieffenbach's Wett. p. 280), in Pomerania a headless horseman (Temme no. 140). Back

43. Conf. p. 456. Venusberg in the Nethl. chapbook Margareta van Limburg c. 56. 82-4, also in the Mörin. Keisersperg (Omeiss 36) makes witches fare to frau Fenusberg. There must have been a good many of these Venusbergs, particularly in Swabia: one near Waldsee, another by Ufhausen near Freiburg, in which the Schnewburger takes up his lodging, like Tanhäuser, H. Schreiber's Tagb. 1839, p. 348. Doubtless the original M. Nethl. poem of Marg. van Limburg (A.D. 1357) also had Venusberg, as the later chapbook and Johan von Soest's paraphrase have (Mone's Anz. 4, 168), so that its earliest occurrence is rather to be placed in the 14^th cent. A Dresden MS. of the 15^th cent. (Hagen's Grundr. 336) contains a still unprinted poem on the Venusberg, prob. composed in the 14^th cent. Joh. v. Soest wrote in 1470, Herm. von Sachsenheim 1453, and before them Joh. Nider (d. 1440) in his Formicarius names the Venusberg. Joh. Herolt speaks, as we saw, of Diana and frau Unhold; and next of kin is the mount that houses Felicia and Juno (p. 961). There may have been similar stories in Italy, for Paracelsus (Strasb. 1616) 2, 291c informs us: 'And by the same pygmaei was the Venusberg in Italia occupied, for Venus herself was a nympha, and the Venusberg hath been likened unto her realm; but she also is past away, and her realm hath departed with her and ceased. For who now heareth tell of them, as in the old time when Dannhauser and others were therein? And the same is no fabled song of him, but a true history.' Again, in the Chirurg. schriften (Strasb. 1618) p. 332b. 'Some that be very great thereat, do secretly practise nigromancia, as campisirer (strollers) that come straight out of the Venusberg, who have dipped their art in the Veltliner, and have said matins with brother Eckart, and eaten a black-pudding with Danhäuser.' Afzelius 2, 141 tells of a bridegroom who was 40 years among the elves. All the legends place Venus and Holda in elf-mountains. Back

44. Deut. sag. no. 170. As the pope by the dried stick cuts off Tanhäuser from all hope, so in Swed. tradition the priest says to the musical 'neck:' 'sooner will this cane I hold in my hand grow green and blossom, than thou obtain salvation;' the neck sorrowfully throws his harp away, and weeps. The priest rides on, and presently his staff begins to put forth leaf and flower, he turns back to tell the marvel to the neck, who then plays joyful tunes the whole night long, Afz. 2, 156. But this myth of Tanhäuser accords with many others, esp. Celtic ones. Tanhäuser passes many a year with Holda in the mountain, so does Tamlane with the queen of fays, Thomas of Ercildon with the fairy queen (Scott's Minstr. 2, 193. 3, 181-3), Ogier 200 years with fata Morgana in Avalon: she had pressed a garland on his head, which made him forget everything. But the legend is Teutonic for all that, it is told in Sweden of the elf-king's daughter (p 466 and Afz. 2, 141), and in the kinderm. of frau Fortuna, Altd. bl. 1, 297. And so does Odysseus stay with Calypso and with Circe; but who would think of deriving the story of Tanhäuser from that of Ulysses or Orpheus, as Mone does (Anz. 5, 168)? Back

45. Joh. Hortzschansky's Sitten u. gebr. der Wenden, part 3 (Dessau and Görl. 1782) 3, 258. Laus. monatsschr. 1797 p. 749. Liebusch's Skythika p. 287. Back

46. Franke's Alt und neu Meckl. 1, 57. In Silesia children are stilled with the night-hunter, Deut. sag. no. 270. Back

47. At Broterode they shew a fann (flag) of Karles quintus, and connect with it the bloody assize held at the place, really the MHG. 'Karles reht' or 'lôt,' Bechstein's Thür. sag. 2, 95. Back

48. For this and other stories faithfully taken down from the lips of the peasantry, I am indebted to a kind communication from Herr Pfister, artill. officer of Electoral Hesse. Back

49. As there can be no doubt about Othin, it is singular that Saxo should call him Mars. It serves to establish the original nearness of Wuotan to Zio (p. 197). [Back]