Chapter 26

Procopius's Brittia lies no farther than 200 stadia (25 miles) from the mainland, between Britannia and Thule, oposite the Rhine mouth, and three nations live in it, Angles, Frisians and Britons. By Britannia he means the NW. coast of Gaul, one end of which is still called Bretagne, but in the 6^th century the name included the subsequent Norman and Flemish-Frisian country up to the mouths of Scheldt and Rhine; his Brittia is Great Britian, his Thule Scandinavia.

Whereabouts the passage was made, whether along the whole of the Gallic coast, I leave undetermined. Villemarqué (Barzas breiz 1, 136) places it near Raz, at the farthest point of Armorica, where we find a bay of souls (baie des âmes, boé ann anavo). On the R. Treguier in Bretagne, commune Plouguel, it is said to be the custom to this day, to convey the dead to the churchyard in a boat, over a small arm of the sea called passage de l'enfer, instead of taking the shorter way by land; besides, the people all over Armorica believe that souls at the moment of parting repair to the parson of braspar, whose dog escorts them to Britain: up in the air you hear the creaking wheels of a wagon overloaded with souls, it is covered with a white pall, and is called carr an ancon, carrikel an ancou, soul's car (Mém. de l'acad. celt. 3, 141). Purely adaptations to suit the views of the people. As christians, they could no longer ferry the dead to the island: well, they will take them to the churchyard by water anyhow; and in their tradition they make the voyage be performed no longer by ship, but through the air (as in the case of the Furious Host), and by wagon. Closer investigation must determine whether similar legends do not live in Normandy, Flanders and Friesland. Here I am reminded once more of old Helium and Hel-voet, pp. 315 n. 804.

Procopius's account is re-affirmed by Tzetzes (to Lycoph. 1204) in the 12^th century; but long before that, Claudian at the beginning of the 5^th (in Rufinum 1, 123-133) had heard of those Gallic shores as a trysting place of flitting ghosts:

Est locus, extremum qua pandit Gallia littus,

oceani praetentus aquis, ubi fertur Ulixes

sanguine libato populum movisse silentem.

Illic umbrarum tenui stridore volantum

flebilis auditur questus: simulacra coloni

pallida, defunctasque vident migrare figuras;
and not far from that region are Britain, the land of the Senones, and the Rhine. This faint murmur of the fleeting shades is much the same thing as the airy wagon of the Bretons. The British bards make out that souls, to reach the underworld, must sail over the pool of dread and of dead bones, across the vale of death, into the sea on whose shore stands open the mouth of hell's abyss (17) (see Suppl.). A North English song, that used to be sung at lykewakes, names 'the bridge of dread, no brader than a thread,' over which the soul has to pass in the underworld (J. Thoms' Anecd. and trad. pp. 89. 90). The same bridge is mentioned in the legend of Tundalus (Hahn's ed. pp. 49. 50): the soul must drive a stolen cow over it. (18)

The same meaning as in the voyage of souls over the gulf or river of the underworld appears to lie in their walking the bridge that spans the river. The bridge-keeper's words to (the living) Hermôðr are remarkable: 'my bridge groans more beneath thy single tread, than under the five troops of dead men who yesterday rode over it,' Sn. 67. I see in this a very strong resemblance to the soft patter of the dwarfs' feet on the bridge when quitting the country, as also their ferrying over by night (pp. 275. 459); and the affinity of souls with elvish beings comes out very plainly. When the dwarfs moved out of Voigtland, they were a whole night crossing the Elster (Jul. Schmidt p. 143-8). At their departure from the Harz, it was agreed that they should pass over a narrow bridge at Neuhof, each dropping his toll-money in a vessel fixed upon it, but none of the country folk were to be present. Prying people hid under the bridge, and heard for hours their pit-a-pat, as though a flock of sheep were going over (Deut. sagen no. 152-3). The bridge-toll brings to mind the ferry-money of souls. With all this compare the story of the elf making his passage in a boat by night (D.S. no. 80). Then again 'the bridge of dread no brader than a thread' is a kindred notion, which moreover connects itself with the iron sword-bridge crossed by the soul that has crept out of a sleeping man (see Suppl.).

A minute examination of the various funeral ceremonies of European nations, which is no part of my purpose here, would throw some more light on the old heathen views as to the nature of the soul and its destiny after death. Thus the dead, beside the passage-money and the boat, had a particular shoe called todtenschuh, ON. hel-skô, given them for setting out on their journey, and tied on their feet. The Gisla Surssonarsaga says: 'þat er tîðska at binda mönnum helskô, sem menn skulo â gânga til Valhallar, ok mun ek Vesteini þat giöra' (conf. Müller's Sagabibl. 1, 171). Sir W. Scott in Minstr. 2, 357 quotes a Yorkshire superstition: 'They are of beliefe, that once in their lives it is good to give a pair of new shoes to a poor man, forasmuch as after this life they are to pass barefoote through a great launde full of thornes and furzen, except by the meryte of the almes aforesaid they have redeemed the forfeyte; for at the edge of the launde an oulde man shall meet them with the same shoes that were given by the partie when he was lyving, and after he hath shodde them, dismisseth them to go through thick and thin, without scratch or scalle.' The land to be traversed by the soul is also called whinny moor, i.e. furzy bog (Thoms 89). In Henneberg, and perhaps other places, the last honours paid to the dead are still named todtenschuh (Reinwald 1, 165), though the practice itself is discontinued; even the funeral feast is so denominated. Utterly pagan in character, and suited to the warlike temper of old times, is what Burkard of Worms reports p. 195c: Quod quidam faciunt homini occiso, cum sepelitur: dant ei in manum unguentum quoddam, quasi illo unguento post mortem vulnus sanari possit, et sic cum unguento sepeliunt. (19) For a similar purpose, slaves, horses, dogs were burnt with a dead man, that he might use them in the next world. King Ring had king Harald buried in a great barrow, his horse killed that he had ridden in Bråvalla fight, and his saddle buried with him, so that he could ride to Walhalla. It was thought that to convey the corpse by any road but the traditional one (the hellweg, p. 801) was bad for the soul of the deceased, Ledebur's Archiv 5, 369 (see Suppl.).

The poems of the Mid. Ages occasionally describe a conflict of angels and devils round the parting soul, each trying to take possession of it. At the head of the angels is an archangel, usually Michael, who, as we shall see in chap. XXVIII, has also the task of weighing souls; sometimes he is called Cherubim: 'vor dem tievel nam der sêle war der erzengel Kerubîn,' he saw the soul first, Wh. 49, 10.

Lâzâ lâzâ tengeln!

dâ wart von den engeln

manec sêle empfangen

é der strît was zegangen.

Daz weinete manec amie:

von wolken wart nie snîe

alsô dicke sunder zal

beidu ûf bergen und ze tal,

als engel unde tievel flugen,

die dô ze widerstrîte zugen

die sêle her und widere,

 d´einen ûf, die ander nidere.Geo. 1234.

Der engelfürste Michahêl

empfienc des marcgrâven sêl,

und manec engel liehtgevar

die kâmen mit gesange dar

und fuorten in vrœlîche

inz schœne himelrîche.
Geo. 6082, conf. Diut. 1, 470. In the Brandan (Bruns p. 192-3) we read: 'de duvele streden umme de sêle mit sunte Michaêle'; conf. Fundgr. 1, 92.

Gebt mir eine gâbe,

daz des küniges sêle

von sante Michahêle

 hiute gecondwieret sî.Gute frau 2674;

Michael having taken upon him the office of Mercury or the Walchure. A record of the 13^th cent. (MB. 7, 371) calls him 'praepositus paradisi et princeps animarum.' A still more important passage, already noticed at p. 446, occurs in Morolt 28ª,b, where three troops are introduced, the black, white and pale: 'den strît mahtu gerne schouwen, dens umb die sêle suln hán.' For similar descriptions in the elder French poets, conf. Méon. 1, 239. 4, 114-5. 3, 284.

And even so early as the 8-9th cent. we find quite at the beginning of the Muspilli fragment:

Wanta sâr sô sih diu sêla in den sind arhevit (rises)

enti sî den lîhhamun likkan lâzit (leaves the body lying),

sô quimit ein heri (comes one host) fona himilzungalon,

daz andar fona pehhe (pitch, hell); dar pâgant siu umpi.
I have questioned (p. 420) whether this 'pâc umpi dia sêla' (tussle for the soul) between the hosts of heaven and hell be traceable to christian tradition. The Ep. of Jude v. 9 does tell of archangel Michael and the devils striving for the body of Moses, (20) and the champion Michael at all events seems borrowed thence. But jealousy and strife over the partition of souls may be supposed an idea already present to the heathen mind, as the Norse Oðinn, Thôrr and Freyja appropriated their several portions of the slain. At pp. 60 and 305 we identified Freyja with Gertrude: 'some say the soul, on quitting the body, is the first night with St. Gerdraut, the next with St. Michael, the third in such place as it has earned,' Superst. F. 24. Now as Antichrist in the great world-fight is slain by Michael (p. 811), while Surtr has for adversaries Oðinn and Thôrr: 'Gêrdrût and Michael' may fairly be translated back into 'Frôwa and Wuotan (or Donar)'. So at p. 198 a 'mons sancti Michaelis' was found applicable to Wuotan or Zio (see Suppl.).

An Irish fairytale makes the spirits of the Silent Folk maintain a violent contest for three nights at the cross-roads, as to which churchyard a human corpse shall be buried in, Ir. elfenm. p. 68. So that elves and dwarfs, as they steal live children and maidesn, (p. 386-8), would seem also to have a hankering for our bodies and souls. The souls of the drowned the water-nix keeps in his house. (p. 496).

All this leads up to a more exact study of the notions about Death.




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