Chapter 5

On the clothing of the Norse priests, I have not come across any information. Was there a connexion between them and the poets? Bragi the god of song has nothing to do with sacrifices; yet the poetic art was thought a sacred hallowed thing: Oðinn spoke in verse, he and his hofgoðar are styled lioðasmiðir (song-smiths), Yngl. saga cap. 6. Can Skáld (poeta, but neut.) be the same as the rare OHG. sgalto [[[holy]]] (sacer)? Diut. 1, 183. Gl. ker. 69, scaldo. Even of christian minstrels soon after the conversion one thing and another is told, that has also come down to us about heathen skâlds.

Poetry borders so closely on divination, the Roman vates is alike songster and soothsayer, and soothsaying was certainly a priestly function. Amm. Marcell. 14, 9 mentions Alamannian auspices, and Agathias 2, 6 manteij or crhsmologoi Alamannikoi.
      Ulphilas avoids using a Gothic word for the frequently occuring profhthj, he invariably puts praufêtus [[[prophet]]], and for the fem. profhtij praúfêteis [[[prophetess]]], Lu. 2, 36; why not veitaga [[[wise man]]] and veitagô [[[wise woman]]]? The OHG. and AS. versions are bolder for once, and give wîzago [[[fortune-teller]]], wîtega [[[wise man, soothsayer]]]. (9) Was the priest, when conducting auguries and auspices, a veitaga [[[wise man]]]? conf. inveitan [[[to pay homage to, worship]]], p. 29. The ON. term is spâmaðr (spae-man [[seer]]), and for prophetess spâkona (spae-woman, A.S. witegestre). Such diviners were Mîmir and Grîpir. In old French poems they are devin (divini, divinatores), [[seers (the same in Latin - should be divinatoris?)]] which occasionally comes to mean poets: uns devins, qui de voir dire est esprovez, [[the seers, whose truthfulness is confirmed]] Méon 4, 145. ce dient li devin, [[this says the seers]] Ren. 7383; so Tristr. 1229: li contor dient [[the tale-tellers say]] (see Suppl.).

We have now to speak of the prophetesses and priestesses of antiquity.---The mundium (wardship) in which a daughter, a sister, a wife stood, apears in old heathen time not to have excluded them from holy offices, such as sacrificing (see Suppl.), or from a good deal of influence over the people. Tacitus, after telling us how mightily the German women wrought upon the valour of their warriors, and that the Romans for greater security demanded noble maidens from particular nations, adds: Inesse quin etiam sanctum et providum (feminis) putant (10), nec aut consilia earum aspernantur, aut responsa negligunt. And before that, Caesar 1. 50: Quod apud Germanos ea consuetudo esset, ut matres fam. eorum sortibus et vaticinationibus declararent, utrum proelium committi ex usu esset, necne; eas ita dicere: non esse fas Germanos superare, si ante novam lunam proelio contendissent (see Suppl.).

While history has not preserved the name of one German vates, it has those of several prophetesses. Tac. Germ. 8: Vidimus sub divo Vespasiano Veledam (as a prisoner in his triumph) diu apud plerosque numinis loco habitam. Hist. 4, 61: Ea virgo nationis Bructerae, late imperitabat, vetere apud Germanos more, quo plearasque feminarum fatidicas, et augescente superstitione arbitrantur deas. Tuncque Veledae auctoritas adolevit; nam 'prosperas Germanis res et excidium legionum' praedixerat. In 4, 65, when the people of Cologne were making an alliance with the Tencteri they made the offer: Arbitrum habebimus Civilem et Veledam apud quos pacta sancientur. Sic lenitis Tencteris, legati ad Civilem et Veledam missi cum donis, cuncta ex voluntate Agrippinensium perpetravere. Sed coram adire, alloquique Veledam negatum. Arcebantur aspectu, quo venerationis plus inesset. Ipsa edita in turre; delectus e propinquis consulta responsaque ut internuntius numinis portabat. 5, 22: Praetoriam triremen flumine Luppia donum Veledae traxere. 5, 25; Veledam propinquosque monebat. Her captivity was probably related in the lost chapters of the fifth book. (11) This Veleda had been preceded by others: Sed et olim Auriniam (hardly a translation of any Teutonic name, such as the ON. Gullveig, gold-cup; some have guessed Aliruna, Ölrûn, Albruna) et complures alias venerati sunt, non adulatione nec tamquam facerent deas, Germ. 8. A later one, named Ganna, is cited by Dio Cassius, 67, 5; (12) and in the year 577 Guntheramnus consulted a woman 'habentem spiritum phitonis, ut ei quae erant eventura narraret,' Greg. Tur. 5, 14 (in Aimoin 3, 22 she is mulier phytonissa, i.e. puqwnissa). One much later still, Thiota, who had come to Mentz out of Alamannia, is noticed in the Annals of Fulda, anno 847 (Pertz 1, 365). (13) As Cassandra foretold the fall of Troy, our prophetesses predict the end of the world (v. infra); and Tacitus Ann. 14, 32 speaks of British druidesses in these words: Feminae in furore turbatae adesse exitium canebant; conf. 14, 30. But we have the sublimest example before us in the Völuspâ (see Suppl.).

Those grayhaired, barefooted Cimbrian priestesses in Strabo (v. supra, p. 55) in white robe and linen doublet, begirt with brazen clasps, slaughtering the prisoners of war and prophesying from their blood in the sacrificial cauldron, appear as frightful witches by the side of the Bructerian Maid; together with divination they exercise the priestly office. Their minutely described apparel, we may suppose, resembled that of the priests.

While in Tac. Germ. 40 it is a priest that attends the goddess, and guides the team of kine in her car; in the North conversely, we have handmaids waiting upon gods. From a remarkable story in the Olaf Tryggv. saga (Fornm. sög. 2, 73 seq.), which the christian composer evidently presents in an odious light, we at all events gather that in Sweden a virgin attended the car of Freyr on its travels among the people; Frey var fengin til þionosto kona ung ok frið (into Frey's service was taken a woman young and fair), and she is called kona Freys. Otherwise a priestess is called gyðja, hofgyðja, corresponding to goði, hofgoði; (14) see Turiðr hofgyðja, Islend. sög. 1, 205. þorlaug gyðja, Landn. 1, 21. Steinvör and Fridgerðr, Sagabibl. 1, 99. 3, 268.

But the Norse authorities likewise dwell less on the priestly functions of women, than on their higher gift, as it seems, of divination: Perita augurii femina, Saxo Gramm. 121. Valdamarr konûngr âtti môður miök gamla ok örvasa, svâ at hun lâ î rekkju, en þo var hun framsýn af Fîtons anda, sem margir heiðnir menn (King V. had a mother very old and feeble, so that she lay in bed, and there was she seized by a spirit of Python, like many heathen folk), Fornm. sög. 1, 76.----Of like import seems to be a term which borders on the notion of a higher and supernatural being, as in the case of Veleda; and that is dîs (nympha, numen). It may be not accidental, that the spâkona in several instances bears the proper name Thôrdîs (Vatnsd. p. 186 seq. Fornm. sög. 1, 255. Islend. sög. 1, 140. Kormakkss. p. 204 seq.); dîs however, a very early word, which I at one time connected with the Gothic filudeisei [[[craftiness, cunning]]] (astutia, dolus), appears to be no other than our OHG. itis [[[woman]]], OS. idis [[[wife, woman]]], AS. ides [[[woman, wife]]] (femina, nympha).---As famous and as widely spread was the term völva, (15) which first denotes any magic-wielding soothsayeress (Vatnsd. p. 44. Fornm. sög. 3, 214. Fornald. sög. 2, 165-6. 506), and is afterwards attached to a particular mythic Völva, of whom one of the oldest Eddic songs, the Völuspâ, treats. Either völu stands here for völvu, or the claim of the older form Vala may be asserted; to each of them would correspond an OHG. Walawa or Wala, which suggests the Walada above, being only derived in a different way. In the saga Eiriks rauða we come upon Thorbiörg, the little Vala (Edda Sæm. Hafn. 3, 4).----Heiðr is the name not only of the völva in the Edda (Sæm. 4, conf. 118) but also of the one in the Orvarodssaga (conf. Sagabibl. 3, 155).---Hyndla (canicula) is a prophetess that rides on wolves, and dwells in a cave.----I guess also that the virgins Thorgerðr and Irpa (Fornm. sög. 2, 108. 3, 100. 11, 134-7. 142. 172), to whom all but divine honours were paid, and the title of hörgabrûðr (nympha lucorum) and even the name of guð (numen) was accorded, Nialss. cap. 89, are not to be excluded from this circle. So in the valkyrs, beside their godhood, there resides somewhat of the priestly, e.g. their virginity (see ch. XVI and Suppl.).

We shall return to these 'gleg' and 'wise' women (and they have other names besides), who, in accordance with a deeply marked feature of our mythology, trespass on the superhuman. Here we had to set forth their connexion with sacrifice, divination and the priesthood.



ENDNOTES:

9. This î is become ei in our weissager [[[prophet]]], MHG. wissage for wîzege [[[soothsayer]]]; equally erroneous is our verb weissagen [[[to soothsay, prophecy]]], MHG. wîssagen [[[to soothsay]]], Iw. 3097 (OHG. wizagôn [[[to prophecy]]], AS. wîtegian [[[to prophecy, predict]]]).  (back)

10. A wild force of phantasy, and the state called clairvoyance, have shown themselves preeminently in women.  (back)

11. Statius silv. I. 4, 90: Captivaeque preces Veledae; he scans the first two syllables as short, which seems more correct than Dio's Belhda. Zeuss 436 thinks Beleda, Belida = Vilida. Graff has a n. prop. Wallodu 1, 800. I would suggest the Gothic fem. name Valadamarca in Jornandes cap. 48, and the Thuringian name of a place Walada in Pertz I. 308.  (back)

12. Ganna (al. Gauna) parwenoj meta thn belhdan en th Keltikh Qeiazousa. conf. the masc. name Gannascus in Ann. 11, 18. 19; the fem. Ganna, dat. Gannane, in a Lothr. urk., as late as 709, Don Calmet, ed. 1728, tom. 1. preuves p. 265.  (back)

13. Traditions, which Hubertus Thomas of Lüttich, private secretary to the Elector Palatine, according to his book De Tungris et Eburonibus 1541, professes to have received from an antiquary Joan. Berger out of an old book (libello vetustissimis characteribus descripto), and which he gives in his treatise De Heidelbergae antiquitatibus, relate as follows: Quo tempore Velleda virgo in Bruchteris imperitabat, vetula quaedam, cui nomen Jettha, eum collem, ubi nunc est arx Heidelbergensis et Jetthae collis etiam nunc nomen habet, inhabitabat, vetustissimumque phanum incolebat, cujus fragmenta adhuc nuper vidimus, dum comes palatinus Fridericus factus elector egregiam domum construxit, quam novam aulam appellant. Haec mulier valiciniis inclyta, et quo venerabilior foret, raro in conspectum hominum prodiens, volentibus consilium ab ea petre, de fenestra, non prodeunte vultu, respondebat. Et inter cetera praedixit, ut inconditis versibus canebat, suo colli a fatis essu datum, ut futuris temporibus regiis viris, quos nominatim recensebat, inhabitaretur et templis celeberrimis ornaretur. Sed ut tandem fabulosae antiquitati valedicamus, lubet adscribere quae is liber de infelici morte ipsius Jetthae continebat. Egressa quondam amoenissimo tempore phanum, ut deambulatione recrearetur, progrediebatur juxta montes, donec pervenit in locum, quo montes intra convallem declinant et multis locis scaturiebant pulcherrimi fontes, quibus vehementer illa coepit delectari, et assidens ex illis bibebat, cum ecce lupa famelica cum catulis e silva prorupit, quae conspectam mulierem nequicquam divos invocantem dilaniat et frustatim discerpsit, quae casu suo fonti nomen dedit, vocaturque quippe in hodiernum diem fons luporum ob amoenitatem loci omnibus notus. It is scarcely worth while trying to settle how much in this may be genuine tradition, and how much the erudition of the 16th century foisted in, to the glorification of the new palace at Heidelberg (= Heidberg); the very window on the hill would seem to have been copied from Veleda's tower, though Brynhild too resides upon her rock, and has a high tower (Völs. saga, cap. 20, 24, 25; conf. Menglöð, OHG. Maniklata?) on the rock, with nine virgins at her knees (Sæm. 110. 111). If the enchantress's name were Heida instead of Jettha, it would suit the locality better, and perhaps be an echo of the ON. Heidðr.  (back)

14. Can our götte [[[godmother]]], goth for godmother (taufpathin [[[godmother]]], susceptrix e sacro fonte) be the survival of an old heathen term? Morolt 3184 has gode [[god-child]] of the baptized virgin.  (back)

15. The Slavic volkhv magus.----Trans.  (back)