Chapter 25

Ein edel boum gewahsen ist

in eime garten, der ist gemacht mit hôher list;

sîn wurzel kan der helle grunt erlangen,

sîn tolde (for 'zol der') rüeret an den trôn

dâ der süeze Got bescheidet vriunde lôn,

sîn este breit hânt al die werlt bevangen:

der boum an ganzer zierde stât und ist geloubet schœne,

dar ûfe sitzent vogelîn

süezes sanges wîse nâch ir stimme fîn,

nâch maniger kunst sô haltents ir gedœne.

(A noble tree in a garden grows, and high the skill its making shows; its roots the floor of hell are grasping, its summit to the throne extends where bounteous God requiteth freinds, its branches broad the wide world clasping: thereon sit birds that know sweet song etc.) This is very aptly interpreted of the Cross and the descent into hell. Before this, O. v. 1, 19 had already written:

Thes krûzes horn thar obana zeigôt ûf in himila,

thie arma joh thio henti thie zeigônt worolt-enti,

ther selbo mittilo boum ther scowôt thesan worolt-floum,

.......................theiz innan erdu stentit,

mit thiu ist thar bizeinit, theiz imo ist al gimeinit

in erdu joh im himile inti in abrunte ouh hiar nidare.
(The cross's top points to heaven, the arms and hands to the world's ends, the stem looks to this earthly plain, ............stands in the ground, thereby is signified, that for it is designed all in earth and heaven and the abyss beneath.) It matters little if the parallel passage quoted by Schilter from cap. 18 de divinis officiis comes not from Alcuin, but some later author: Otfried may have picked up his notion from it all the same. (17) It says: 'Nam ipsa crux magnum in se mysterium continent, cujus positio talis est, ut superior pars coelos petat, inferior terrae inhaereat, fixa infernorum ima contingat, latitudo autem ejus partes mundi appetat.' I can never believe that the myth of Yggdrasil in its complete and richer form sprang out of this christian conception of the Cross; it were a far likelier theory, that floating heathen traditions of the world-tree, soon after the conversion in Germany, France or England, attached themselves to an object of christian faith, just as heathen temples and holy places were converted into christian ones. The theory would break down, if the same exposition of the several pieces of the cross could be found in any early Father, African or Oriental; but this I doubt. As for the birds with which the 13^th cent. poem provides the tree, and which correspond to the Norse eagle and squirrel, I will lay no stress on them. But one thing is rather surprising: it is precisely to the ash that Virgil ascribes as high an elevation in the air as its depth of root in the ground, Georg. 2, 291:

Aesculus in primis, quae quantum vortice ad auras

aetherias, tantum radice in tartara tendit;
upon which Pliny 16, 31 (56) remarks: 'se Virgilio credimus, esculus quantum corpore eminet tantum radice descendit.' (18) So that the Norse fable is deeply grounded in nature; conf. what was said, p. 696, of the bees on this ash-tree.

Another and still more singular coincidence carries us to Oriental traditions. In the Arabian 'Calila and Dimna' the human race is compared to a man who, chased by an elephant, takes refuge in a deep well: with his hand he holds on to the branch of a shrub over his head, and his feet he plants on a narrow piece of turf below. In this uneasy posture he sees two mice, a black and a white one, gnawing the root of the shrub; far beneath his feet a horrible dragon with its jaws wide open; the elephant still waiting on the brink above, and four worms' heads projecting from the side of the well, undermining the turf he stands on; at the same time there trickles liquid honey from a branch of the bush, and this he eagerly catches in his mouth. (19) Hereupon is founded a rebuke of man's levity, who in the utmost stress of danger cannot withstand the temptation of a small enjoyment. Well, this fable not only was early and extensively circulated by Hebrew, Latin and Greek translations of the entire book, (20) but also found its way into other channels. John Damascenus (circa 740) inserted it in his Barlaam kai Iwasaf , (21) which soon became universally known through a Latin reproduction. (22) On the model of it our Rudolf composed his Barlaam and Josaphat, where the illustration is to be found, p. 116-7; in a detached form, Stricker (Ls. 1, 253). No doubt a parable so popular might also reach Scandinavia very early in the Mid. Ages, if only the similarity itself were stronger, so as to justify the inference of an immediate connection between the two myths. To me the faint resemblance of the two seems just the main point; a close one has never existed. The ON. fable is far more significant and profound; that from the East is a fragment, probably distorted, of a whole now lost to us. Even the main idea of the world-tree is all but wanting to it; the only startling thing is the agreement in sundry accessories, the trickling honey (conf. p. 793 n.), the gnawed root, the four species of animals.

But if there be any truth in these concords of the Eddic myth with old Eastern tenets, as well as with the way the Christians tried to add portions of their heathen faith to the doctrine of the Cross; then I take a further step. It seems to me that the notion, so deeply rooted in Teutonic antiquity, of the Irminsûl, that 'altissima, universalis columna, quasi sustinens omnia' (p. 115-7), is likewise nearly allied to the world-tree Yggdrasil. As this extended its roots and boughs in three directions (standa â þria vega), so did three or four great highways branch out from the Irminsûl (pp. 356. 361); and the farther we explore, the richer in results will the connection of these heathen ideas prove. The pillars of Hercules (p. 364), of Bavo in Hainault, and the Thor and Roland pillars (p. 394) may have had no other purpose than to mark out from them as centre the celestial and terrestial direction of the regions of the world; and the sacred Yggdrasil subserved a very similar partition of the world. The thing might even have to do with ancient land-surveying, and answer to the Roman cardo, intersected at right angles by the decumanus. To the ashtree we must also concede some connection with Asciburg (p. 350) and the tribal progenitor Askr (p. 571-2). Another legend of an ashtree is reserved for chap. XXXII (see Suppl.).

Niflheimr, where Nîðhöggr and other serpents (named in Sæm. 44b. Sn. 22) have their haunt round the spring Hvergelmir, is the dread dwelling-place of the death-goddess Hel (p. 312), Goth. Halja ('or heljo,' Sæm. 94ª, 'î heljo' 49. 50. 51, is clearly spoken of a place, not a person), it is gloomy and black, like her; hence a Nebelheim, cold land of shadows, abode of the departed, (23) but not a place of torment or punishment as in the christian view, and even that was only developed gradually (p. 313). When Ulphilas uses halja, it is always for adhj (Matt. 11, 23. Luke 10, 15. 16, 23. I Cor. 15, 55), the infernus of the Vulg.; whenever the text has geenna, Vulg. gehenna, it remains gaíaínna in Gothic (Matt. 5, 29. 30. 10, 28), it was an idea for which the Gothic had no word. The OHG. translator T. renders 'infernus' by hella (Matt. 11, 23), 'gehenna' (24) by hellafiur (5, 29. 30) or hellawîzi (-torment 10, 28), and only 'filium gehennae' by hella sun (23, 15), where the older version recently discovered is more exact: quâlu sunu, son of torment. When the Creed says that Christ 'niðar steig zi helliu' (descendit ad inferna), it never meant the abode of souls in torment. In the Heliand 72, 4 a sick man is said to be 'fûsid an helsîd', near dying, equipped for his journey to Hades, without any by-thought of pain or punishment. That AS. poetry still remembered the original (personal) conception of Hel, was proved on p. 314, but I will add one more passage from Beow. 357: 'Helle gemundon, Metoð ne cuðon,' Helam venerabantur, Deum verum ignorabant (pagani). So then, from the 4^th cent. to the 10^th, halja, hella was simply Hades or the death-kingdom, the notion of torment being expressed by another word or at any rate a compound; and with this agrees the probability that as late as Widekind of Corvei (1, 23) Saxon poets, chanting a victory of Saxons over Franks, used this very word hella for the dwelling-place of the dead: 'ut a mimis declamaretur, ubi tantus ille infernus esset, qui tantam multitudinem caesorum capere posset?' (25) A Latin poem on Bp. Heriger of Mentz, of perhaps the 10^th cent., (26) describes how one that had been spirited away to the underworld declared 'totum esse infernum accinctum densis endique silvis,' meaning evidently the abode of the dead, not the place of punishment. Even in a poem of the 12^th cent. (Diut. 3, 104) Jacob says: 'sô muoz ich iemer cholen, unze ich sô vare ze der helle,' until I fare to hell, i.e. die. The 13^th cent. saw the present meaning of helle already established, the abode of the damned; e.g. in Iw. 1472: 'God bar thee out of helle!' take thee to heaven, not guard thee from death, for the words are addressed to a dead man (see Suppl.).

Hell is represented as a lodging, an inn, as Valhöll, where those who die put up the same evening (p. 145): 'ver skulum â Valhöll gista î qveld,' Fornald. sög. 1, 106; 'við munum î aptan Oðin gista' 1, 423; singularly Abbo 1, 555 (Pertz 2, 789), 'plebs inimica Deo pransura Plutonis in urna.' No doubt, people used to say: 'we shall put up at Nobis-haus-to-night!' The Saviour's words, shmeron met emou esh en tw paradeisw , Luke 23, 43 have 'this day,' but not 'to-night' (see Suppl.).

Here and there in country districts, among the common people helle has retained its old meaning. In Westphalia there are still plenty of common carriage-roads that go by the name of hellweg, now meaning highway, but originally death-way, the broad road travelled by the corpse. My oldest example I draw from a Record of 890, Ritz 1, 19: 'helvius sive strata publica.' Later instances occur in Weisth. 3, 87. 106, in Tross's Rec. of the feme p. 61, and in John of Soest (Fichard's Arch. 1, 89). (27) In the plains of Up. Germany we sometimes find it called todtenweg (Mone's Anz. 1838. pp. 225, 316). The ON. poetry makes the dead ride or drive to the underworld, 'fara til heljar' or 'til Heljar,' to the death-goddess: Brynhildr, after she is burnt travels to Hel in an ornamental car, 'ôk með reiðinni â helveg,' and the poem bears the title Helreið, Sæm. 227. In our Freidauk 105, 9. 151, 12 it is the christian notion that is expressed by 'zer helle varn' and 'drî strâze zer helle gânt.' For the rest, a hellweg would normally bring with it a hellwagen (p. 314), just as we meet with a Wôden's way and waggon both (p. 151). Nay, the Great Bear is not only called himelwagen and herrenwagen, but in the Netherlands hellewagen (Wolf's Wodana i. iii. iv.); see a 'Wolframus dictus hellewagen,' MB. 25, 123 A.D. 1314 (see Suppl.).

The O. Saxons at first, while their own hellia still sounded too heathenish, preferred to take from the Latin Bible infern, gen infernes, e.g. Hel. 44, 21, and even shortened it down to fern, Hel. 27, 7. 103, 16. 104, 15. 164, 12; so that the poet cited by Widekind may actually have said infern instead of hellia. (28)

The heathen hellia lay low down toward the North; when Hermôðr was sent after Baldr, he rode for nine nights through valleys dark and deep (dökva dala ok diupa), the regions peopled by the dark elves (p. 445); he arrived at the river Giöll (strepens), over which goes a bridge covered with shining gold; a maiden named Môðguðr guards the bridge, and she told him that five fylki of dead men (29) had come over it the day before, and that from this bridge the 'hellway' ran ever lower and northwarder: 'niðr ok norðr liggr helvegr.' This I understand of the proper hall and residence of the goddess, where she is to be met with, for all the country he had been crossing was part of her kingdom. This palace is surrounded by lofty railings (hel-grindr), Sn. 33. 67. The hall is named Eliuðnir (al. Elvîðnir), the threshold fallanda forad (al. the palisade is fallanda forad, the threshold þolmôðnir), the curtain blîkjandi böl, Sn. 33. It is probably a door of this underworld (not of Valhöll, which has 540 huge gates) that is meant in Sæm. 226ª and Fornald. sög. 1, 204, where Brynhildr wishes to follow Sigurð in death, lest the door fall upon his heel: a formula often used on entering a closed cavern. (30) But Hel's kingdom bears the name of Niflheimr or Niflhel, mist-world, mist-hell, (31) it is the ninth world (as to position), and was created many ages before the earth (p. 558); in the middle of it is that fountain Hvergelmir, out of which twelve rivers flow, Giöll being the one that comes nearest the dwelling of the goddess, Sn. 4. From this follows plainly what I have said: if Hvergelmir forms the centre of Niflheimr, if Giöll and the other streams pertain exclusively to hell, the goddess Hel's dominion cannot begin at the 'hel-grindr,' but must extend to those 'dank dales and deep,' the 'dense forests' of the Latin poem. Yet I have nothing to say against putting it in this way: that the dark valleys, like the murky Erebos of the Greeks, are an intermediate tract, which one must cross to reach the abode of Aïdes, of Halja. Out of our Halja the goddess, as out of the personal Hades, the Roman Orcus (orig. uragus, urgus, and in the Mid. Ages still regarded as a monster and alive, pp. 314, 486) there was gradually evolved the local notion of a dwelling-place of the dead. The departed were first imagined living with her, and afterwards in her (it). In the approaches dwelt or hovered the dark elves (see Suppl.).




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