Chapter 20

In later times I find no mention of this cloud-ship, except in H. Sachs, who in his schwank of the Lappenhäuser ii. 4, 89c relates how they made a ship of feathers and straw, and carried it up the hill, with the view of launching out in it when the mist should fall. Fischer in Garg. 96ª introduces quite unconnectedly the nebelschiffs segel of Philoxenus (the guestfriend or Zeus?) in a passage that has nothing in Rabelais answering to it.

In the latter part of the Mid. Ages there went a story of the wind-selling inhabitants of Vinland, which I give from a work composed towards 1360 by Glanvil or Bartholomaeus Anglicus, 'De proprietatibus rerum' 15, 172: 'Gens (Vinlandiae) est barbara, agrestis et saeva, magicis artibus occupata. Unde et navigantibus per eorum litora, vel apud eos propter venti defectum moram contrahentibus, ventum venalem offerunt atque vendunt. Globum enim de filo faciunt, et diversos nodos in eo connectentes, usque ad tres nodos vel plures de globo extrahi praecipiunt, secundum quod voluerint ventum habere fortiorem. (117) Quibus propter eorum incredulitatem illudentes, daemones aërum concitant et ventum majorem vel minorem excitant, secundum quod plures nodos de filo extrahunt vel pauciores, et quandoque in tantum commovent ventum, quod miseri talibus fidem adhibentes justo judicio submerguntur.'---This selling of wind in Wilandia (as he calls it) is likewise mentioned in Seb. Frank's Weltbuch 60ª, without any description of the method. By Vinland is to be understood a part of the Greenland coast which had been early visited by Norwegians and Icelanders, and in ON. tales is by turns called Vînland and Vindland; (118) the latter form might have suggested the whole story of raising the wind, on which the ON. writings as well as Adam of Bremen are silent. Others however tell the same story of the Finns (Ol. Magnus 3, 15): it seems to me a tradition spread all over the North (119) (see Suppl.).

The Norse legends name wind produced by magic görnînga-veðr. Ogautan (like Aeolus) had a veðr-belgr (-bellows, or leathern bag); when he shook it, storm and wind broke out (Fornald. sög. 2, 412); the same with Möndull (3, 338). The Swedish king Eirîkr, son of Ragnar Lodbrok, bore the surname of veðrhattr (ventosi pilei): whichever way he turned his hat, from there the wished for wind would blow (Saxo Gram. 175. Ol. Magnus 3, 13. Gejer's Häfder 582). One of our nursery-tales even, no. 71, tells of a man who can direct the weather by setting his hat straight or askew. There is an expression in the Edda, vindhiâlmr (Sæm. 168b), which reminds me of the OHG. name Windhelm, Trad. fuld. 2, 167 (see Suppl.).

That is a beautiful fancy in the Edda, of seven-and-twenty valkyrs riding through the air, and when their horses shake themselves, the dew dropping out of their manes on the deep valleys, and hail on the lofty trees: a sign of a fruitful year, Sæm. 145. So morning-dew falls on the earth each day from the foaming bit of the steed Hrîmfaxi (dew-mane), Sn. 11. The ON. meldropi [[foam from a horse's bit]], AS. meledeáw, OHG. militou (Gl. Jun. 225), MHG. miltou (Ms. 2, 124ª), all take us back to mel (lupatum equi); conf. note on Elene p. 164, where mel is derived from midl, mittul, and supra p. 421. Antiquity referred all the phenomena of nature to higher powers. The people in Bavaria call a dark rain-cloud 'anel mit der laugen,' granny with her ley (Schm. 1, 63); in Bohemia light clouds are babky, grannies. When mountain mist is rising, the Esthonians say 'the Old one is putting his fire out'; our people ascribe it to animals at least: 'the hare is boiling [his supper], the fox is bathing, brewing,' Reinh. ccxcvi. When shapes keep rising in the mists on the seashore, the Italians call it fata morgana, p. 412 (see Suppl.).

The Scythians explained drifting snow as flying feathers (Herod. 4, 31), and our people see in the flakes the feathers out of the goddess's bed, or goose (p. 268). Those snow-women Fönn, Drîfa, Miöll (p. 631) appear to touch one side of Holda. The Lettish riddles, 'putns skreen, spahrni pîll,' and 'putns skreen, spalwas putt' (120) mean a rain-cloud and a snow-cloud. In Switzerland vulgar opinion looks upon avalanches as ravening beasts, on whom (as on fire) you can put a check (see Suppl.).

Of the goddess, and her various names, we have spoken already: Nerthus p. 251, Erda p. 250, Faírguni p. 172. 256, Erce p. 253, Hludana p. 256, and others; in which the ideas of the ancients about Terra, Gaia, Ops, Rhea, Cybele, Ceres repeat themselves. On p. 303 the Indian Prithivî was compared with Freyja, and the closest kinship exists between Freyr and Niörðr (the male Nerthus). But also the bare element itself, the molte (mould, pulvis) p. 251, was accounted holy: it is the cqwn poluboteira, out of its teeming lap rise fruits and trees, into it the dead are laid, and decay or fire restores them to dust and ashes. (121) To die was 'to sink to the earth,' 'til iarðar (til moldar) hnîga,' 'to kiss the earth,' still more prettily in ON. 'î môðurœtt falla' [[to maternal inheritance fell]] (Nialss. cap. 45), in maternum genus cadere, to fall back into the womb of terra mater. (122) They also said 'iarðar megin kiosa' (vim telluris eligere, i.e. invocare), Sæm. 27b; and as the Greeks made the falling giant acquire new strength the moment he touched the ground, the Edda has 'aukinn iarðar megni' (auctus vi telluris), 118b, 119ª. (123) One who had been long away from home kissed the earth on treading it once more; in O. Fr. poems 'baiser la terre' is a sign of humility, Berte pp. 35. 43. 58. Renart 14835. As the pure stream rejects the malefactor, so neither will the earth endure him: 'uns solt diu erde nicht tragen,' Troj. 491 [conf. 'art cursed from the earth,' Gen. 4. 10-12]. Secrets were entrusted to the earth, as well as to fire and oven, p. 629 (see Suppl.).

It is more especially earth grown over with grass, the greensward, that has a sacred power; such grass the Sanskrit calls khusa, and in particular durva, to which correspond the AS. turf, ON. torf [[turf, sod]], OHG. zurba: 'holy earth and haulms of durva,' Sakuntala (Hirzel pp. 51. 127). I have also accounted for the famous chrene crud of the Salic law by our 'reines kraut,' clean herb; and explained 'chreneschruda (dat.) jactare' by the Roman 'puram herbam tollere,' as the Hel. 73, 7 has hrêncurni, an OHG. gloss reincurnes = frumenti, MHG. 'daz reine gras,' Iw. 6446, and grass and 'der melm,' dust, are coupled together, Wh. 24, 28. The purport of the law is, that earth or dust must be taken up from the four corners of the field, and thrown with the hand over the nearest kinsman. It was a solemn legal ceremony of heathen times, which the christian Capitulars abolished. Against my interpretation, however, Leo has now set up a Celtic one (cruinneach collectus, criadh terra), (124) and I cannot deny the weight of his arguments, though the German etymology evidently has a stronger claim to a term incorporated in the text itself than in the case of glosses [because the Latin text must be based on a Frankish original]. The mythic use made of the earth remains the same, whichever way we take the words.

The ON. language of law offers another and no less significant name: the piece of turf [under which an oath was taken] is called iarðmen, iarðar men; now 'men' is literally monile, OHG. mani, meni, AS. mene, as we saw in the case of Freyja's necklace 'Brîsînga men.' But 'iarðar men' must once have been Iarðar men', Erda's necklace, the greensward being very poetically taken for the goddess's jewlery. The solemn 'gânga undir Iarðar men' (RA. 118-9) acquires its true meaning by this. In other nations too, as Hungarians (RA. 120), and Slavs (Böhme's Beitr. 5, 141), the administration of oaths took place by the person who swore placing earth or turf on his head (see Suppl.).

The custom of conquered nations presenting earth and water in token of submission reaches back to remote antiquity: when the Persians declared war, they sent heralds to demand the two elements of those whose country they meant to invade, (125) which again reminds us of the Roman 'pura.' Our landsknechts as late as the 16^th century, on going into battle, threw a clod of earth (like him that threw chrenechruda) in token of utter renunciation of life. (126) Among the Greeks too, grasping the sod signified taking possession of land, especially in the case of emigrants. As Euphamos sits on the prow of the Argo, Triton appears in human form and presents him with a clod of earth as a gift of hospitality. Euphamos takes the symbolic earth (bwlaka daimonian), and gives it to his men to keep, but they drop it in the sea, and it melts away. Had it been preserved and deposited at Tainaros, the descendents of Euphamos would have won the promised land (Cyrene) in the fourth generation. As it was, they only got it in the 17^th (see Suppl.). (127)

In an AS. spell which is elsewhere given, four pieces of turf are cut out, oil, honey, yeast and the milk of all cattle are dropt on them, and thereto is added some of every kind of tree that grows on the land, except hard trees, (128) and of every herb except burs; and then at length the charm is repeated over it. With their seedcorn people mix earth from three sorts of fields (Superst. I, 477); on the coffin, when lowered, three clods are dropt (699); by cutting out the sod on which footprints [of a thief or enemy] are left, you can work magic (524. 556; and see Suppl.).

Of holy mountains and hills there were plenty; yet there seems to have been no elemental worship of them: they were honoured for the sake of the deity enthroned upon them, witness the Wôdan's and Thunar's hills. When Agathias, without any such connexion speaks of lofoi and faraggej (hills and gullies) as objects of worship (p. 100); possibly his knowledge of the facts was imperfect, and there was a fire or water worship connected with the hill. It is among the Goths, to whom faírguni meant mountain (p. 172), that one would first look for a pure mountain worship, if the kinship I have supposed between that word and the god's name be a matter of fact. Dietmar of Merseburg (Pertz 5, 855) gives an instance of mountain worship among the Slavs: 'Posita autem est haec (civitas, viz. Nemtsi, Nimptch) in pago silensi, vocabulo hoc a quodam monte, nimis excelso et grandi, olim sibi indito: et hic ob qualitatem suam et quantitatem, cum execranda gentilitas ibi veneraretur, ab incolis omnibus nimis honorabatur.' The commentators say it is the Zobtenberg in Silesia (see Suppl.).

Here and there single stones and rocks, or several in a group, sometimes arranged in circles, were held in veneration (Append. 'vota ad lapides,' especially 'lapides in ruinosis et silverstribus locis venerari;' AS. stânweorðung, 'bringan tô stâne,' Thorpe pp. 380. 396). This worship of stones is a distinguishing characteristic of Celtic religion, (129) less of Teutonic, though amongst ourselves also we meet with the superstition of slipping through hollow stones as well as hollow trees, Chap. XXXVI. Cavities not made aritificially by human hand were held sacred. In England they hang such holy-stones or holed-stones at the horses' heads in a stable, or on the bed-tester and the house-door against witchcraft. Some are believed to have been hollowed by the sting of an adder (adderstones). In Germany, holy stones were either mahlsteine of tribunals or sacrificial stones: oaths were taken 'at ursvölum unnar steini,' 'at enom hvîta helga steini,' Sæm. 165ª. 237b. heilög fiöll 189 b. Helgafell, Landn. 2, 12; conf. espec. Eyrbygg. saga c. 4. Four holy stones are sunk to cleanse a profaned sea (supra p. 87 note). A great number of stones which the giant or devil has dropt, on which he has left the print of his hand or foot, are pointed out by popular legend, without any holy meaning being thereby imparted to them (see Suppl.).

As giants and men get petrified (p. 551), and still retain, so to speak, an after-sense of their former state, so to rocks and stones compassion is attributed, and interest in men's condition. Snorri 68 remarks, that stones begin to sweat when brought out of the frost into warmth, and so he explains how rocks and stones wept for Baldr. It is still common to say of bitter anguish: 'a stone by the wayside would feel pity,' 'it would move a heart of stone.' (130) Notice the MHG. phrase: 'to squeeze a stone with straps, till its veins drop blood,' MsH. 2, 235b, suggested no doubt by the veins which run through some stones (see Suppl.).

In closing this chapter, I will group together the higher gods who more immediately govern the four elements. Water, springs, rain and sea are under Wuotan (Nichus), Donar, Uogi, Holda. Fire, lightning under Donar, Loki. Air, wind under Wuotan, Frô. Earth under Nerthus and many others, mentioned on p. 641-2.




ENDNOTES:

117. This globus resembles the Lat. turbo, a top or teetotum used in magic: 'citum retro solve, solve turbinem,' Hor. Epod. 17, 7. [Back]

118. Fornm. sög. 2, 246. Isl. sög. 1, 9. 100. 151. Conf. Torfaeus's Hist. Vinlandiae antiquae, Hafn. 1705. [Back]

119. The Esthonians believed that wind could be generated and altered. In the direction whence you wish it to blow, hang up a snake or set an axe upright, and whistle to make it come. A clergyman happened to see some peasants making a great fuss round three stones, eating, drinking and dancing to the sound of rustic instruments. Questioned as to the object of the feast, they replied that by means of those stones they could produce wet weather or dry; dry, if they set them upright, wet if they laid them along (Ueber die Ehsten, p. 48); supra pp. 593-7. [Back]

120. Bird flies, wings drip. Bird flies, feathers drop. Stender's Gramm. 260. [Back]

121. Irstantent (they rise again) fon themo fûlen legare, ûz fon theru asgu, fon theru falawisqu, fon themo irdisgen herde, O.v. 20, 25-8. [Back]

122. Ancient tombs have been discovered, in which the bodies neither lie nor sit, but crouch with the head, arms and legs pressed together, in receptacles nearly square. M. Fréd. Troyon of French Switz., who has carefully explored and observed many old graves, expressed to me his opinion, that by this singular treatment of dead bodies it was prob. intended to replace man in the same posture that he maintained in the womb before birth. Thus the return into mother earth would be at the same time an intimation of the coming new birth and resurrection of the embryo. [Back]

123. The Servians, by way of protesting, say 'tako mit zemlie!' so (help) me earth. A Gaelic saw (Armstrong sub v. coibhi, priest, supra, p. 92 note) declares: 'ged is fagus clach do 'n lar, is faigse na sin cobhair choibhi,' near as a stone is to the ground, the coibhi's help is nearer still, which seems to imply the earth's prompt assistance as well as the priest's. [Back]

124. Zeitschr. f.d. alterth. 2, 163 seq. Malb. gl. 2, 149. 150. [Back]

125. Brissonius De regno Pers. 3, 66-71. Herod. 4. 127. 5, 18. Curtius iii. 10, 108. Aristotle Rhet. ii. 22, 37. Also Judith 2, 7: etoimazeln ghn kai udwr (Cod. alex. ed. Augusti). [Back]

126. Barthold's Frundsberg p. 58-9. In the Mid. Ages, when a nun was consecrated, her kinsmen, as a sign that she renounced all earthly possessions, threw earth over the maiden's arm; conf. Svenska visor 1, 176:

det voro så många grefvar båld,

som hade deraf stor harm (great sorrow),

der de nu kastade den svarta mull (black mould)

allt öfver skön Valborg's arm. [Back]

127. Pindar's Pyth. 4, 21-44. O. Müller's Orchom. 352, and proleg. 142 seq.; his Dorier 1, 85. 2, 535. [Back]

128. 'Only of soft wood, not hard,' RA. 506. [Back]

129. Conf. Armstrong sub v. carn and clachbrath; O'Brien sub v. carn; H. Schreiber's Feen, p. 17 on the menhir and pierres fites, p. 21 on the pierres branlantes. Of spindle-stones I have spoken, p. 419. [Back]

130. This mode of expression is doubtless very old; here are specimens from MHG.: ez erbarmet einem steine, Hart. erst. büchl. 1752. wær sîn herze steinen, swer (whoso) si weinen sæhe, ze weinen im geschæhe, Herb. 68d; ir klage mohte erbarmen einen stein 89b. erbarmen ein steinhertez herze, Flore 1498. ir jâmer daz moht einen vels erbarmen, Lohengr. p. 16. ez moht ein stein beweinet hân dise barmunge, Dietr. 48ª. Mark, the stones did not weep of themselves, but were moved to sympathy by the weeping and wailing of the hapless men, which as it were penetrated their ears. So in Holberg (Ellefte juni 4, 2): hörte jeg en sukken og hylen, som en steeu maatte gräde ved. And Ovid (Met. 9, 303): moturaque duras Verba queror silices. Luke 19, 40: oi liqoi kekraxontai [Habak. 2, 11: the stones shall cry out of the wall]. [Back]