Chapter 21

Lombard legend has more to tell of snakes, and those expressly small ones. The Heldenbuch describes the combat of a small fire-spitting beast on the Gartensee (L. di Garda) with Wolfdietrich and a lion, to both of whom it gives enough to do:

Nun hörent durch ein wunder, wie das tierlein ist genant:

es heisst zu welsch ein zunder, zu teutsch ein saribant,

in Sittenland nach eren ist es ein vipper genant;
and it is added, that there are but two such vipers alive at once, for the young ones soon after birth eat up their parents. This agrees closely with the statements in the Physiologus (Diut. 3, 29, 30. Hoffm. fundgr. 28). I cannot explain zunder from any Italian dialect; saribant is the MHG. serpant, Trist. 8994. Sittenland I take to be the canton Valais, from its capital Sitten (Sion); there the Romance vipera might easily remain in use (Grisons vipra, vivra). In the Jura a never-dying winged snake with a diamond eye is called vouivre, Mém. des antiq. 6, 217. In Switzerland this snake is called stollenwurm (Wyss's Reise ins Berner Oberland, p. 422), and in Salzburg birgstutze, Schm. 1, 196 (see Suppl.).

Plenty of old tales are still told of home-snakes and unkes. (74) On meadows and pastures, and even in houses, snakes come to children when alone, sip milk with them out of their bowl, wear golden crowns, which in drinking they take off from their heads and set on the ground, and often forget and leave them; they watch infants in the cradle, and to bigger children they show treasures: to kill them is unlucky. Every village has its own snakes to tell of. So goes the story in Swabia. Some Hessian stories are collected under Kinderm. no. 105, and one from Austria in Ziska's Volksmärchen (Vienna 1822, p. 51); nearly all bring in the milk-drinking (75) and the golden crown. If the parents surprise the snake with the child, and kill it, the child begins to fall away, and dies before long (Temme's Pomm. sagen no. 257). Once, when a woman lay asleep, a snake crept into her open mouth, and when she gave birth to a child, the snake lay tightly coiled round its neck, and could only be got away by a milk-bath; but it never left the baby's side, it lay in bed with it, and ate out of its bowl, without doing it any harm (Mone's Anz. 8, 530). Then other accounts speak of a multitude of snakes filling house and yard, whose king was distinguished by a glittering crown on his head. When he left the yard, all the rest would accompany him; in the stable where he lived, they swarmed so plentifully, that the maids feeding the cattle would take them out of the crib by armfuls. They were friendly to the cattle and the people; but a new farmer shot their king, and they all departed, and with them vanished wealth and prosperity from the estate (ibid. 6, 174). (76) Here also comes in the queen of snakes (Deut. sagen no. 220), and a remarkable story in the Gesta Romanorum (Keller p. 152). To a dairymaid at Immeneich there came a great snake into the cowshed every morning and evening at milking-time, and wore a great crown on its head. The girl everytime gave it warm cow's milk to sup. She suddenly left the place in a tiff, and when the new maid went for the first time to milk, there lay the golden crown on the milking.stool, with the inscription: 'a token of gratitude.' She brought the crown to her master, who gave it to the girl it was intended for; but from that time the snake was never seen again (Mone's Anz. 8, 537). The adder's crown (atternkrönlein) makes any one that wears it invisible (Schm. 2, 388) and immensely rich as well. In some districts they say every house has two snakes, a male and a female, but they never show themselves till the master or mistress of the house dies, and then they undergo the same fate. This feature, and some others, such as the offering of milk, bring the home-snakes near to the notion of good helpful home-sprites (see Suppl.).

The snake then comes before us as a beneficent inviolable creature, perfectly adapted for heathen worship. A serpent twined round the staff of Asklepios, and serpents lay beside healing fountains (p. 558n.). The ancient Prussians maintained a large snake for their Potrimpos, and the priests guarded it with care; it lay under ears of corn, and was nourished with milk. (77) The Lettons call snakes milk-mothers (peena mahtes); they were under the protection of one of the higher goddesses named Brehkina (crier), who cried out to all that entered to leave her 'peena mahtes' unmolested in the house (Mag. der lett. gesellsch. 6, 144). There is milk set for them in pots. The Lithuanians also revered snakes, harboured them in their houses, and offered them sacrifices. (78) Egyptian snake-worship was witnessed by Herodotus 2, 74. 'Nullus locus sine genio, qui per anguem plerumque ostenditur,' Serv. ad Aen. 5, 95.

Snakes were devised as a charm in swords and on helmets (Sæm. 142b):

liggr með eggjo ormr dreyfâðr,

enn â valbösto verpr naðr hala.
The ormr or yrmlîngr was supposed to run from the sword's hilt (helz, hialt) to the point and back again (Kormakss. p. 82-4. Vilk. s. p. 101). Vitege had the epithet 'mit dem slangen' because of his helmet's crest (Heldensage p. 148). They imparted strength to a helmet, and force to the blade of a sword. It seems much the same thing, when waggoners plait adder's-tongues into their whips, Sup. I, 174 (see Suppl.).

The snake crawls or wriggles along the ground; when provided with wings, it is called drache, a non-German word coming from the Lat. draco, Gr. drakwn , and introduced very early, OHG. traccho, AS. draca, ON. dreki [[dragon; ship of war, i.e. dragon ship]]. The Elder (or Sæmund's) Edda has dreki only once, in the latish Sôlarl. 127b; elsewhere it is ormr, AS. wyrm, OHG. wurm, Goth vaúrms, which in a wider sense includes the snake also. The one encountered by Beowulf comes before us emphatically as a winged snake (serpens alatus); 'nihtes fleogeð' 4541, by night he flies, and hence is called uhtsceaða 4536 (nocturnus hostis, agressor), and lyftsceaða (aëreus hostis), Cod. exon. 329, 24. Also the dragon that keeps Krimhild prisoner on the Drachenstein comes riding through the air, or flying. But the one that young Siegfried had previously killed, when sent out by the smith, lay beside a linde (lime-tree), and did not fly: this is the Fâfnir of the Edda, a man who had assumed the form of a snake; of him the Edda uses skrîða (repere, to stride), Sæm. 186. Sn. 138; and he is the wyrm or draca slain by Sigemund and Fitela in Beow. 1765. 1779. In the Nib. 101, 2 and 842, 2 he is called lintrache, lintdrache, in the Siegfriedslied 8, 2 lintwurm: an expression found also in Mar. 148, 28. En. 2947. Troj. 25199, and to be explained, not from linde (tilia) as misunderstood by later legend, but from the OHG. lint. With this lint (Goth. linþs, AS. lið, ON. linn ? [[linnr - serpent]]) many women's names are formed (Gramm. 2, 505), e.g., Sigilint, ON. Sigrlinn (supra, p. 428), and it may have contained the notion of brightness or beauty, (79) suitable alike to snake and woman; the derivative weak form linni (masc.) in ON. signifies again coluber, serpens. And Limburg = Lintburg, the name of several towns, is more correctly derived from snake than from lime-tree.

About dragons it is a favourite fancy of antiquity, that they lie upon gold, and are illumined by it; gold itself was poetically named worm-bed, ON. ormbeðr [[worm bed or dragon bed]] or ormbeðs-eldr (wormbed's fire). And with this was linked a further notion, that they guard treasures, and carry them through the air by night. That wyrm slain by Sigemund is called 'hordes hyrde,' Beow. 1767; the one that Beowulf fought with receives the epithet 'se hord beweotode' 4420. Fâfnir, formerly a giant, lay 'in (the shape of) a worm,' wearing the Oegis-hialm, over inherited gold (Sæm. 188b. 189b); the expression is 'î lýngvi' (from lýng, heath), and the spot is named Gnîta-heiði; hence in other cases also the word lýngvi, lýngormr (heath-worm) stands for dragon. The Völs. saga c. 17 distinguishes lýngormr a small snake from dreki a large one; so that our OHG. heimo, OS. hêma, AS. hâma, spoken of on p. 387, may be identical with lýngvi; Vilk. saga c. 17, p. 31 expressly calls heima 'allra orma skemstr' (omnium vermium minimus), but as he is venomous, he cannot be the harmless cicada (OHG. muhheimo). Popular belief still dreams of glittering treasures lying on lonesome heaths and guarded by dragons; and hœðen gold in Beow. may mean either aurum tesquorum or ethnicorum, for dragons, like giants, were thought of as old and full of years, e.g., eald uhtsceaða, Beow. 4536; wintrum frôð (wise with years) 4548; þreo hund (300) wintra heold on hrusan (earth) 4550; at the same time they are covetous, envious, venomous, spitting flame: nîðdraca, Beow. 4540; âttorsceaða 5673, fýre befongen 4541, ongan glêdum spîwan 4619, deorcum nihtum rîcsian 4417. It is said of Fâfnir, Sæm. 186: 'screið af gulli, blês eitri, hristi sik ok barði höfði ok sporði,' stept off the gold, blew poison, shook himself, and struck with head and tail; it was noticed on p. 562 that the two notions of eit (fire) and eiter (poison) run into one. Connect with this the description of MHG. poets: the 'trache' has his haunt in a valley, out of his throat he darts flame, smoke and wind, Trist. 8944-74; he has plumage, wings, he spits fire and venom, Troj. 9764. 9817 (see Suppl.).

Now it was the heroes' province to extirpate not only the giants, but (what was in a measure the same thing) the dragons (80) in the world: Thôrr himself tackles the enormous miðgarðs-orm, Sigemund, Siegfried, Beowulf stand forth as the bravest of dragon-quellers, backed by a crowd of others, who spring out of the exhaustless fount of living legend, wherever time and place requires them. Frotho, a second Siegfried, overpowers a venomous dragon that lay reposing on his treasure, Saxo Gram. p. 20. The beautiful Thora Borgarhiörtr had a small lýngorm given her, whom she placed in a casket, with gold under him: as he grew, the gold grew also, till the box became too narrow, and the worm laid himself in a ring all round it; soon the chamber was too small, and he lay round that, with his tail in his mouth, admitting none into the room unless they brought him food, and he required an ox at every meal. Then it was proclaimed, that whoever slew him should get the maiden for his bride, and as much gold as lay under the dragon, for her dowry. It was Ragnar Lodbrok that subdued this dragon, Fornald. sög. 1, 237-8. The rapid growth of the worm has a startling similarity to that of the fish, p. 578. But, beside the hoarded gold which the heroes carry off as prize, the adventure brings them other advantages: eating the dragon's heart gives one a knowledge of beasts' language, and painting oneself with his blood hardens the skin against all injury. Both features enter deeply into the legend of Siegfried (see Suppl.). (81)




ENDNOTES:

74. MHG. unk, gen. unkes, MS. 2, 209b. 206ª: 'from copper one divideth gold with an unke's ashes'; hence an alchymist was called unken-brenner (Felix Malleolus de nobilitate et rusticitate, cap. 30). By unke is properly meant the rana portentosa (bull-frog?), but often snake or reptile in general. Like the weasel, it is called caressingly 'mümelein, müemal,' aunty. Schm. 2, 576. [Back]

75. Down to the recurring formula: 'ding, iss auch brocken!' (thing, eat crumbs too); 'friss auch mocken, nicht lauter schlappes!' (not only slops) Mone's Anz. 8, 530; 'friss auch brocken, nicht lauter brühe!' ibid. 6, 175. [Back]

76. A similar story of the king of snakes from Lübbenau in the Spreewald of Lausitz (Büsching's Wöch. nachr. 3, 342) in Reusch no. 74. [Back]

77. Voigt's Geschichte Preussens 1, 584. [Back]

78. Seb. Frank's Weltbuch 55b. Mone's Heidenth. 1, 98. Adam. brem. de situ Daniae, cap. 24, of the Lithuanians: 'dracones adorant cum volucribus, quibus etiam vivos litant homines, quos a mercatoribus emunt, diligenter omnino probatos ne maculam in corpore habeant.' [Back]

79. Does not the Engl. lithe, pliable, give the most suitable meaning, Germ. gelind soft, lindern to mitigate?----Trans. [Back]

80. The analogy is kept up in the circumstance of the conquered dragon (like the giant's skeleton p. 555n.) being fastened over the town-gate, e.g. Pulci 4, 76. [Back]

81. Which reminds Albrecht in Titurel 3313-17 of a similar tale of Rodolz, conf. Parz. 518, 18 and Diut. 3, 59. [Back]