Chapter 7

Wôld, Wôld, Wôld!

hävenhüne weit wat schüt,

jümm hei dal van häven süt.

Vulle kruken un sangen hät hei,

upen holte wässt (grows) manigerlei:

hei is nig barn un wert nig old.

Wôld, Wôld, Wôld!

If the ceremony be omitted, the next year will bring bad crops of hay and corn.

Probably, beside the libation, there was corn left standing for the venerated being, as the fourth line gives us to understand: 'full crocks and shocks hath he'; and the second strophe may have brought in his horse. 'Heaven's giant knows what happens, ever he down from heaven sees,' accords with the old belief in Wuotan's chair (p. 135); the sixth line touches off the god that ' ne'er is born and ne'er grows old' almost too theosophically. Wôld, though excused by the rhyme, seems a corruption of Wôd, Wôde, (36) rather than a contraction from waldand (v. supra. p. 21). A Schaumburg man pronounced the name to me as Wauden, and related as follows: On the lake of Steinhude, the lads from the village of Steinhude go every autumn after harvest, to a hill named Heidenhügel, light a fire on it, and when it blazes high, wave their hats and cry Wauden, Wauden! (see Suppl.).

Such customs reveal to us the generosity of the olden time. Man has no wish to keep all his increase to himself; he gratefully leaves a portion to the gods, who will in future also protect his crops. Avarice increased when sacrificing ceased. Ears of corn are set apart and offered here to Wuotan, as elsewhere to kind spirits and elves, e.g., to the brownies of Scotland (see Suppl. to Elves, pixy-hoarding).

It was not Wuotan exclusively that bestowed fertility on the fields; Donar, and his mother the Earth, stood in still closer connexion with agriculture. We shall see that goddess put in the place of Wuotan in exacly similar harvest-ceremonies.

In what countries the worship of the god endured the longest, may be learnt from the names of places which are compounded with his name, because the site was sacred to him. It is very unlikely that they should be due to men bearing the same name as the god, instead of to the god himself; Wuotan, Oðinn, as a man's name, does occur, but not often; and the meaning of the second half of the compounds, and their reappearance in various regions, are altogether in favour of their being attributable to the god. From Lower Germany and Hesse, I have cited (p. 151) Wôdenesweg, Wôdenesberg, Wôdenesholt, Wôdeneshûsun, and on the Jutish border Wonsild; from the Netherlands Woensdrecht; in Upper Germany such names hardly show themselves at all. (37) In England we find: Woodnesboro in Kent, near Sandwich: Wednesbury and Wednesfield in Staffordshire; Wednesham in Cheshire, called Wodnesfield in Ethelwerd p. 848. (38) But their number is more considerable in Scandinavia, where heathenism was preserved longer: and if in Denmark and the Gothland portion of Sweden they occur more frequently than in Norway and Sweden proper, I infer from this a preponderance of Odin-worship in South Scandinavia. The chief town in the I. of Funen (Fion) was named Odinsve (Fornm. sög. 11, 266. 281) from ve, a sanctuary; sometimes also Oðinsey (ib. 230. 352) from ey, island, meadow; and later again Odense, and in Waldemar's Liber censualis (39) 530. 542 Othänsö. In Lower Norway, close to Frederikstad, a second Oðinsey (Heimskr. ed. Havn. 4, 348. 398), aft. called Onsö. In Jutland, Othänsäle (-saal, hall, ib. 533), now Onsala (Tuneld's geogr. 2, 492. 504); as well as in Old Norway an Odhinssalr (conf. Woensel in Brabant, Woenssele ?). In Schonen, Othänshäret (Wald. lib. cens. 528); Othenshärat (Bring 2, 62. 138. 142), (40) now Onsjö (Tuneld 2, 397); Onslunda (-grove, Tuneld 2, 449); Othensvara (Bring 2, 46-7, Othenvara 39); Othenströö (Bring 2, 48), from vara, foedus, and tro, fides? In Småland, Odensvalahult (Tuneld 2, 146) and Odenskälla (2, 264), a medicinal spring; Odensåker (-acre, field, 2, 204. 253). In Westmanland, Odensvi (1, 266. conf. Grau, p. 427), (41) like the Odinsve of Fünen; and our Lower Saxon Wodeneswegs may have to do with this ve (not with weg, via), and be explained by the old wig, wih, templum (see p. 67). This becomes the more credible, as there occurs in the Cod. exon. 341, 28 the remarkable sentence:

Wôden worhte weos, wuldor alwealda rûme roderas;

i.e., Wôden construxit, creavit fana (idols), Deus omnipotens amples coelos; the christian writer had in his recollection the heathen sanctuaries assigned to Wôden, and contrasts with them the greater creations of God. The plur. weos is easily justified, as ih is resolved into weoh, and weohas contracted into weos: so that an AS. Wôdenesweoh would exactly fit the OS. Wôdanesweg = Wôdaneswih, and the ON. Oðinsve [[Othinn's Enclosure (holy place)]]. Also in Westmanland, an Odensjö (Grau p. 502). In Upland, Odensala (Tuneld 1, 56); Odensfors (1, 144); Onsike (1, 144). In Nerike, Odensbacke (1, 240), (see Suppl.).

It seemed needful here to group the most important of these names together, and no doubt there are many others which have escaped me; (42) in their very multitude, as well as the similarity or identity of their structure, lies the full proof of their significance. Few, or isolated, they might have been suspected, and explained otherwise; taken together, they are incontestable evidence of the wide diffusion of Odin's worship.

Herbs and plants do not seem to have been named after this god. In Brun's beitr., p. 54, wodesterne is given as the name of a plant, but we ought first to see it in a distincter form. The Icelanders and Danes however call a small waterfowl (tringa minima, inquieta, lacustris et natans) Oðinshani, Odenshane, Odens fugl, which fits in with the belief, brought out on p. 147, in birds consecrated to him. An OHG. gloss (Haupts altd. bl. 2, 212) supplies a doubtful-looking vtinswalwwe, fulica (see Suppl.).  



ENDNOTES:

36. Conf. Dutch oud, goud for old, gold; so Woude, which approximates the form Wôde. Have we the latter in 'Theodericus de Wodestede?' Scheidt's mantissa p. 433 anno 1205.  (back)

37. An Odensberg in the Mark of Bibelheim (now Biebesheim below Gernsheim in Darmstadt) is named in a doc. of 1403. Chmels reg. Ruperti p. 204; the form Wodensberg would look more trustworthy.  (back)

38. If numbers be an object, I fancy the English contribution might be swelled by looking- up in a gazetteer the names beginning with Wans-, Wens-, Wadden-, Weddin-, Wad-, Wood-, Wam-, Wem-, Wom-.-----Trans.  (back)

39. Langebek script. tom 7.  (back)

40 Sven Bring, monumenta Scanensia, vol 2, Lond. goth. 1748. (back)

41. Olof Grau, beskrifning öfver Wästmanland. Wästeras 1754. conf. Dybeck runa I. 3, 41.  (back)

42. There are some in Finn Magnusen's lex. myth. 648; but I do not agree with him in including the H. Germ. names Odenwald, Odenheim, which lack the HG. form Wuotan and the -s of the genitive; nor the Finn. Odenpä, which means rather bear's head.  (back)