Vol. 3 Preface

In our book of heroes the adventures of Wolfdieterich and Orendel have in their several ways a striking similarity to features in the Odyssey, especially does the angel's mission to shaggy Els and to lady Breide resemble that of Hermes to Calypso, when she is commanded to let Odysseus go. But such wanderings of heroes and encounters with wise women and giants seem to be a common epic property prevailing everywhere, while the very absence here of all the other main motives of the Greek myth excludes the supposition of borrowing. We may surely give their due weight to the many resemblances of Wuotan to Zeus and Apollo, of Zio to Zeus and Ares, we may recognise Nerthus in Demeter, Frigg and Freyja in Hera and Aphrodite, Wieland in Hephæstus and Dædalus, without the whole swarm of Grecian gods needing therefore to be transported to our soil, or all that this produced having to be looked for in Greece. Must 'honum hlô hugr î briosti' have somehow got into the Edda from Homer's egelasse de oi filon htor? The distinction, drawn in Homer as well as the Edda, between the speech of gods and of men may signify something to us, and yet be no harder to explain than the identity of Zio with Zeus, or of Zeuj pathr with All-father. It is beautiful how Venus and venustus are made intelligible by the ON. vænn and vænstr, and even by the O. Sax. superlative wânumo. What is true of the Greek and Roman mythologies, that with all their similarity they are yet far from identical, has to be asserted with still more emphasis of the relation between the Roman and German, inasmuch as Greek literature left an infinitely deeper dint on the Roman, than Latin literature was ever able to produce on our antiquity. If in ch. XXXV and XXXVII many things are quoted which appear to spring out of Roman superstition, it is fully justified by the poverty of native information compelling me to seek a support for it from abroad: I do not suppose that the old German fancies about beasts crossing one's path, or about the virtues of herbs, were in themselves any poorer than the Roman.

What I claim for Teutonic nations as compared with the Greeks and Romans, must also hold good of them as regards the Celts, Slavs, Lithuanians and Finns, whose paganism was similar to ours or not so similar. Here however the quantity of coincidences is still more damaging to the theory of plagiarisms, which would else encumber every nook and corner.

In favour of the study of Celtic languages and legends a wholesome reaction has set in, insisting that this downtrodden race, which once occupied wide tracts of Germany, shall receive its due. By no means poor in memorials, it has an auxiliary resource in several living tongues, the Armoric, Welsh, Irish and Highland Scotch. But the paths still lie uncertain and slippery, and what we concede to the Celts ought not in the zeal of discovery to be turned against ourselves; in cases of resemblance what is genuinely German must put in its claim too. Now Heinrich Schreiber's interesting studies of grave-mounds, weapons and fays appear to me at times to stray beyond the true line: surely the horses' heads on roof-gables in Mecklenburg and Holstein are more undoubtedly German than the similar ones in Switzerland are Celtic; and so far as our elfins and white ladies extend, they have their justification, as the fays have on the other side. Some obscure names of animals Leo has, I think, succeeded in interpreting as Celtic; so long as he is obliged to leave the main characters in the fable German, as Reginhart and Isangrim, I have no fear for the genuineness of our epos; and the foreignness of subordinate characters tends to throw farther back the date of the entire poem. Also what he contributes to Nerthus and muspell (Haupt 3, 226) demands attention. Beside the fays, who answer to our swan-maidens, wish-wives and norns, beside Abundia, who resembles Folla (fulness), I attach importance to Taranis = Donar, to Gwydion = Wuotan, to Beal = Phol or Balder, and I am not sure but that Hesus is the same as Cheru, and that Segomon (p. 371) ought not to be overlooked. Needfires and May-offerings are subject for consideration. It would greatly advance our knowledge of Wuotan's true nature, if we could ascertain how far the Celtic worship of Mercury differed from the Roman; to all appearance that deity was greater to the Celts and Germans than Hermes-Mercury was to the Greeks and Romans; to Trismegistus and Tervagan I allude on p. 150. All that is left us of the Celtic religion, even in stray fragments, bespeaks a more finished mental culture than is to be found in German or Norse mythology; there comes out in it more of priestly lore. But in respect of genius and epic matter our memorials are incomparably superior.

As the Celts enclose us on the west, so do the Slavs on the east; and Slavic writers, like the Celtic, are rather fond, wherever their ancient faith coincides with ours, of interpreting things from a Slavic point of view, which can just as well be explained from a German. The affinity of the two races can be perceived at once by such old cognate words as the Gothic sunus (son), O.H. German sunu, Slavic syn; Goth. liubs (dear), OHG. liop, Boh. liby, Russ. liubo; Goth. láuþs (people), OHG. liut, Slav. liud; Goth. hláifs (loaf), OHG. hleip, Slav. khlêb. And the mythic resemblances are no less significant. Radegast must stand for Wuotan, Perun for Faírguneis, Fiörgunn, but Svatovit for Zio; between Radegast the god of bliss (rad glad, radost joy), and our Wish, the harmony is yet stronger. Kroto reminds us of Kirt, Molnia of Miölnir (pp. 1221. 813). How near the badniak of the Servians comes to our Christmas fire! their cuckoo-pole to the Langobardic dove-pole (p. 1135n.), their dodola to the fetching-in of rain (p. 594), the carrying-out of death to the fight of summer and winter, the vila to our wise-women! If the elf and dwarf legends appear less polished than they are among Celts and Germans, our giant legend on the other hand has much more in common with Slavic and Finnic. No doubt Slav mythology altogether is several degrees wilder and grosser than German, yet many things in it will make a different figure when once the legends and fairy tales are more fully and faithfully gathered in, and the gain to German research also will be great.

From similar collections of Lithuanian, Samogitian and Lettish myths revelations no less important are impending, as we may anticipate from the remarkable connexion between the languages.

More results have already been attained in Finland, whose people, comparable in this to the Servians alone, have in their mouths to this day a most wonderful store of songs and tales, though in Servian poetry the heroic legend predominates, and in Finnic the myth. Merely by what Ganander, Porthan and now Lönnrot have published, an immense deal is bridged over between the German, Norse, Slav, Greek and Asiatic mythologies. Rask (in Afhand. 1, 96) had already derived some Norse names of giants from Finnic. And further, the distinction we made between legend and fairy-tale does not at all apply as yet to this Finnic poetry: it stands at an older stage, where the marvels of the fairy-tale without any sense of incongruity mingle with the firmer basis of the folk-tale, and even the animal fable can be admitted. Wäinämöinen (Esth. Wannemunne) can be compared to Wuotan both in general, and particularly in his character of Wish: the Finnic waino and wainotem signify desiderium, wainok cupidus, wainotet desiderare: the Swedish Lapps, with a kindred language, have waino (wish, desire), and the Norwegian Lapps vaimel cupidus. Thus Wish, Radegast and Wäinämöinen seem to be getting nearer to each other. This last is a god of poetry and singing (p. 907), he is constantly called Wanha, the old one, as the thunder-god Ukko likewise is called father or old, and his wife Akka mother or old. With the Lapps, Atia means both grandfather and thunder (see 'old daddy,' p. 168). As Thor's minni was drunk, so full bowls were emptied in honour of Ukko. Wäinämöinen wakes Wipune out of her grave (Rune 10), as Oðinn does Völa. Ilmarinen, the smith-god of the Finns, reminds us of Hephæstus and Völundr, but makes a deeper impression than either; he fashioned a wife for himself out of gold (conf. p. 570 n). To the Lapps, Sarakka means creatress, from saret to create, a goddess of fortune.

All Finnish nations use Yumala as a general name for the Supreme Being in the sense of our God or the Slavic Bôgh, to which corresponds the Swed. Lapp. yupmel, Norw. Lapp. ibmel; but the Syriän have also yen (gen. yenlon), the Permians en, the Votiaks inmar, the Tcheremiss yumn. Along the northern edge of Europe and over the Ural into northern Asia extends this widespread group of nations of the Finn kind, their languages and myths shewing everywhere a common character. The Votiaks, like the Slavs and Germans, hold the woodpecker sacred (p. 765); but what I lay special stress upon is the bear-worship of these nations, which has left its traces in Sweden and Norway, and betrays the earliest stage of our Teutonic beast-legend (p. 667). Poetic euphemisms designate the sacred beast, and as soon as he is slain, solemn hymns are struck up as by way of atonement. Runes 28 and 29 in Kalewala describe such a hunt with all its ceremonial. Ostiaks in taking an oath kneel on a bearskin, in heathen sacrifices they covered the victim with a bearskin (p. 1010), and long afterwards they hung bearskins about them in the service of the devil (p. 1018). As the bear was king of all beasts, the terms applied to him of 'old one' and 'grandfather' suggest those of the thunder-god. The constellation of the Great Bear (p. 725) would of itself seem an evident trace of his worship even among the Greeks.

Coming down from northern Asia to the tribes of the Caucasus, we again meet with the most remarkable coincidences. The Tcherkesses (Circassians) keep up a worship of the boar (p. 215), as did the ancient Aestyi and Germani. Both Tcherkesses and Ossets glorify the same Elias (p. 173-4, conf. p. 185) who is such a sacred personage to the Slav races. Even the ancient Alani and Scythians seem to be linked with the heathen Germans by their worship of the sword (p. 204); Attila means grandfather, and is among Huns as well as Germans a name for mountains. The same inspection of shoulder-blades that Jornandes relates of Huns goes on to this day among Kalmuks (p. 1113). A good many Mongolian customs agree with those of Celts and Germans: I will only instance the barleycorn's being the unit of all measurement of land (see my account of it in Berl. Jahrb. for 1842, pp. 795-6); conf. the Finnic ohrasen yiveä = hordei granum, Kal. 17, 625. 27, 138.

A still closer agreement with our antiquities than exists among Finns and Mongols is to be looked for in the more cognate Zendic and Indian mythologies. That of India is finely wrought like the Greek, but I think the Greek has the same advantage over it that I awarded to the German as compared with the Celtic: a certain theosophic propensity betrays itself in the Indians as well as Celts, which in the fulness of Greek and German myth falls more into the background. It seems worthy of notice, that to the Indian gods and goddesses are assigned celestial dwellings with proper names, as in the Edda. Among the gods themselves, Brahma's creative power resembles Wuotan's Indra is akin to Donar, being the wielder of lightning and the ruler of air and winds, so that as god of the sky he can also be compared to Zio. The unison of our Wish with the notion embodied in manoratha (p. 870) deserves attention. Nerthus answers to Bhavani (p. 255), Halja to Kâli, and Mannus to Manus (p. 578), the last two examples being letter for letter the same; but one thing that must not be overlooked is, that the same myth of man's creation out of eight materials (pp. 564-7) which has already turned up five times, appears in a portion of the Vedas, the Aitareya Aranya, from which an excerpt is given in Colebrooke's Misc. Essays, Lond. 1837, vol. 1, p. 47 seq.; here also eight ingredients are enumerated: fire, air, sun, space, herb, moon, death, and water. Naturally the details vary again, though even the five European accounts are not without a certain Indian colouring. Still more interesting perhaps is an echo that reaches the very heart of our hero-legend. Putraka (in Somadeva i. 19) comes upon two men who are fighting for some magic gifts, a cup, a staff, and a pair of shoes; he cheats them into running a race, steps into the shoes himself, and flies up into the clouds with the cup and staff. With the same adroitness Siegfried among the dwarfs manages the division of their hoard, upon which lies the wishing-rod (p. 457); and our nursery tales are full of such divisions (Altd. bl. 1, 297. KM. ed. 5, no. 193. 2, 502. Bechstein's Märchen p. 75). The same trick decides the quarrel in Asbiörnsen, no. 9, p. 59, and in the Hungarian tale, Gaal p. 166.