Chapter 35

Other things, without any augury or sorcery being founded on them, are considered wholesome or hurtful: particularly things found, begged or stolen. Thus the finding of a four-leaved clover, of three whole grains in a baked loaf (Sup. I, 685), of a nail or tooth off a harrow 539. 636, which enable the possessor to discern witches (p. 1078), inventio acus vel oboli reservati (E, 11 r. b.), of a needle (K, 46) according as it turns head or point toward you (I, 235), of a felloe off a wheel 351, of a horseshoe 129. 220 (Hone's Yrbk 1600); a begged loaf 13, a ring made of begged silver pennies 352; a stolen duster 431, tie of a meal-sack 216, loaf 183-8, timber 1000 (Firmenich 2, 33), fishing-tackle (K, 48), weaver's knots. In finding things the favour of fortune comes into play; to things begged the labour, to things stolen the risk of acquisition lends additional value: three gulps of begged wine drive away the hiccup. And not only stolen property in a particular case, but a thief's hand (p. 1073n.), a spur made out of a gibbet-chain (I, 385), the gallows-rope itself (386. 921. G, 1. 217), possess a peculiar virtue; conf. the origin of the gallows-mannikin, Deut. sag. no. 83 (see Suppl.).

A wheel placed over the gateway brings luck (I, 307); is the notion of fortune's wheel (p. 866) or the sun's wheel (pp. 620. 701) at work here? Splinters of a tree struck by lightning, coffin-splinters are of use (I, 171. 208). The bridal bed must have only dry wood, but off living trees; (44) other fancies about the bridal bed 486-7. No picked up feathers, no hen's feathers should be put in a bed 281. 346. 593.

Choosing of days prevailed among the Jews (Levit. 19, 26. Deut. 18, 10), Greeks, and probably all heathens. Hesoid distinguishes between mother-days and stepmother-days, he goes over all the good days of Zeus, and all the bad, Erya k. Hm. 765 (710) seq. Even if our names for the days of the week were imported from abroad (p. 127), yet native superstitions may have been mixt up with them from a very early time. 'Nullus observet' so preached Eligius, 'qua die domum exeat, vel qua die revertatur, nullus ad inchoandum opus diem aut lunam attendat.' Hincmar 1, 656: 'sunt et qui observant dies in motione itineris et in inchoatione aedificandae domus.' Sueton. in Oct. 92: 'observabet et dies quosdam, ne aut postridie nundinas quoquam proficisceretur, aut nonis quidquam rei seriae inchoaret.' Pliny 28, 5: 'ungues resecari (45) nundinis Romanis tacenti, atque a digite indice, multorum pecuniae religiosum.' Even amongst us the superstition survives, that the nails should be cut on a particular day, Friday especially. A day that will bring misfortune is called verworfen, castaway, accursed (Sup. G, i. 51). (46) The ancient Germans appear to have kept Wednesday and Thursday holy above all, after their chief gods Wôdan and Thunar: the Indiculus has a section 'de feriis quas faciunt Jovi vel Mercurio.' Later on I find no day more superstitiously observed than Thursday, p. 191; also by the Esthonians, M, 59. One should not move to a new dwelling on Thursday, for birds carry nothing to their nests that day. On the other hand, Wednesday and Friday are counted accursed witch-days, I, 613. 658. 745; separately, Wednesday 567, Friday 241. 800. M, 59. 60. In records of witch-trials (see the Quedlinburg), the devils mostly appear on a Thursday or Tuesday. Monday too is a bad day for a fresh beginning (I, 771. 821). Tuesday is the time to begin journeys, to form marriage contracts. (47) Fat Tuesday, Swed. fet-tisdag, Fr. mardi gras favours enterprises (K, 79. 84). Sunday is lucky (I. 243. 634). The christians had, beside the great festivals, many days in the year marked by something special, above all St. John's; and almost every holy day stood in a particular relation to sowing, planting, cattle-breeding and the like. The Dan. skjer-torsdag in K, 168-9 is Maundy Thursday. Hardly ever was a nation so addicted to day-choosing as the christians in the Mid. Ages. The old heathen yule-days and solstices coincided with Christmas and St. John's (see Suppl.).

Closely connected with angang and day-choosing is another widely diffused superstition. As a prosperous day's work depended on a favourable encounter at early morning, as the escort of wolf or raven augured victory; so a tribe on its travels was guided to its place of settlement by a divinely missioned beast. Under such guidance colonies were founded, towns, castles, churches built; the rise of new establishments and kingdoms is hallowed by beasts, which to all human ends, reveal the higher counsels of the gods.

Greek and Roman story teems with examples. A raven leads Battus and his emigrants to Cyrene (korax hghsato. Callim. Hymn to Apollo 66). The Irpini are so called from irpus, the wolf that led them (Strabo 2, 208). (48) Flôki sacrificed for three ravens to show him the way: 'hann fêkk at blôti miklu, ok blôtaði hrafna þriâ, þâ er honum skyldu leið vîsa, þvîat þâ höfðu hafsiglîngarmenn engir leiðarstein î þann tîma î Norðrlöndum,' Islend. sög. 1, 27; the divine bird supplied the place of a loadstone to seafaring men. It can hardly be a mere accident, that the guides oftenest named are just the raven and wolf, Wuotan's favourites, who presaged victory and weal. (49) In the Vita Severini c. 28 the bear acts as guide. The hart and hind also show the way, as Procopius 4, 5 makes the hind do to Cimmerian hunters. So in Jornandes of Hunnish huntsmen: 'dum in ulteriori Maeotidis ripa venationes inquirunt, animadvertunt quomodo ex improviso cerva se illis obtulit, ingressaque palude, nunc progrediens nunc subsistens, indicem se viae tribuit.........mox quoque, ut Scythica terra ignotis apparuit, cerva disparuit.' Here, instead of the hunter story, Sozomen (Hist. eccl. 6, 37) has one about a herdsman, though he knows the other one too: 'forte fortuna bos œstro percitus lacum transmittit, sequitur bubulcus; qui cum terram trans lacum vidisset, tribulibus suis nuntiat. Sunt alii qui dicunt cervum quibusdam Hunnis venantibus, cum per lacum ab illis fugeret, monstrasse viam.' Hunters the stag leads, herdsman the ox, heroes the wolf. But christians, even warriors, will rather have the deer for guide than the heathenish wolf: a doe showed the Franks the ford of safety over the Main, Ditm. Merseb. ed. Wagn. 245; conf. Otto Fris. de gestis Frid.1, 43 (and a white hart over the Vienne). A raven the christians would have taken for a messenger of the devil. Flodoardus in Hist. Remens. 1, 24 (ed. Duac. p. 145) relates one instance of the eagle: 'conscenso silvosi montis vertice, dum circumferentes oculorum aciem de monasterii corde volutant positione, subito sublimi coelorum mittitur aliger index a culmine, per quem coelos scansuro locus in terris beato depromeretur Theoderico. Nam mysticus ales aquila spatiando gyrans et gyrando circumvolans locum monasterii capacem secans aëra designavit. Et ut expressius ostenderet quid Dominus vellet, unius fere horae spatio supra ubi ecclesia construi debuit lentis volatibus stetit; et ne hoc ab incredulis casu contigisse putaretur, ipso natali Domini die quadriennio continuo supervolando monasterium circumire, mirantibus plurimis, eadem aquila cernebatur.' A flying hen indicates the site of the future castle, Deut. sag. no. 570. Boundaries are hallowed by the running or walking of a blind horse, of a crab, RA. 86. Where the fratres Philaeni had won the new frontier by running, they let themselves be buried alive (hic se vivos obrui pertulerunt), Pomp. Mela 1, 7; the true reason of this ratification by burial will be made clearer presently. Remus had seen six, and Romulus twelve vultures fly auspicious at the founding of their city, Nieb. 1, 248 (see Suppl.).

We know how the old Northmen conducted their migrations and settlements under convoy of the gods. They threw overboard the öndvegis-sûlur or set-stokkar they had brought with them from the old country, and wherever these drifted to, there they landed. On such wooden posts was carved an image of the god in whom they trusted, and he pointed them to their new habitation; see esp. the Isl. sög. 1, 76-7. 234.

But not only did beasts point out a place for building on, it was often thought necessary to immure live animals, even men, in the foundation on which the structure was to be raised, as if they were a sacrifice offered to Earth, who bears the load upon her: by this inhuman rite they hoped to secure immovable stability or other advantages. Danish traditions tell of a lamb being built in under the altar, that the church might stand unshaken; and of a live horse being buried in every churchyard, before any corpse was laid in it (p. 844). Both lamb and horse occasionally show themselves in church or churchyard, and the apparition betokens a death (Thiele 1, 136-7). Even under other houses swine and fowls are buried alive (1, 198). Superst. I, 472 says, a long spell of good weather can be brought on by walling-in a cock; and 755 a cow's 'running' be prevented by bricking up a blind dog alive under the stable-door. In time of murrain, the Esthonians bury one head of the herd under the stable-door, that Death may have his victim (M, 69). (50) When the new bridge at Halle, finished 1843, was building, the common people fancied a child was wanted to be walled into the foundations. To make Liebenstein Castle impregnable, there was walled-in a child, whom its mother for base gold had parted with; while the masons were at work, says the story, it sat eating a roll and calling out, 'Mother, I can see you,' then, 'Mother, I see a little of you still,' and when the last stone was let in, 'Mother, I see nothing of you now' (Bechst. Thür. sag. 4, 157; conf. 206). In the outer wall of Reichenfels Castle a child was built in alive: a projecting stone marks the spot, and if that were pulled out, the wall would tumble down at once (Jul. Schmidt p. 153). Similar stories in Spiel's Archiv. 1, 160 with the addition, that latterly, by way of symbol, empty coffins were built in. A rampart had to be raised round Copenhagen, but every time it was begun, it sank down again: so they took a little innocent maiden, set her on a chair before a table, gave her toys and things to eat; then, while she amused herself with eating and play, twelve master-masons built a vault over her, and amid music and loud minstrelsy threw up the wall, which hath stood unshaken to this day (Thiele 1, 3). Why they kept the child playing and happy, and prevented her crying, I have explained at p. 46. It is the vulgar opinion in Greece, that whoever first goes by, where they are laying the foundation-stone of a new building, shall die within a year; the builders, to avert the calamity, kill a lamb or a black cock on the stone, just as at Frankfort they made a cock run across the new-made bridge, DS. no. 185. At Arta a thousand masons wrought at a bridge: all that they raised in the day rushed down at night. Then sounded the archangel's voice from heaven: 'unless ye dig thereinto a child of man, the masonry shall not stand; yet no orphan nor stranger shall ye bury, but the master-builder's wife.' When the wife came to the workmen, the master pretended his ring had dropt into the foundation, and the woman offered to fetch it out, then swiftly they set to work to wall her in; dying, she pronounced a curse on the bridge, that it should tremble like a flower-stalk (Tommaseo's Canti pop. 3, 178). Still more touching is a Servian legend on the building of Scutari: For three years 300 masons laboured in vain to lay the foundations of the fortress; what they built by day, the vila tore down at night. At last she made known to the kings, that the building would never hold till two born brothers (or sisters) of like name were put into the foundation. Nowhere could such be found. Then the vila required, that of the three wives of the kings she that carried out food to the masons the next day should be walled up in the ground. When the consort of the youngest king, not dreaming of such a decree, brings out some dinner, the 300 masons drop their stones around her, and begin to wall her in; at her entreaty they left a small opening, and there she continued for some time to suckle her babe, who was held up to her once a day (Vuk 2, 5). Once, when the Slavs on the Danube purposed founding a new city, the heads of the people, after the old heathen wont, sent out men early before sunrise, to take the first boy they met and put him into the foundation. From this child (Serv. diete, Boh. djte, Russ. dityá pl. deti, Pol. dziecie) the town took its name of Detinets (Popov's Slav. myth. p. 25). And the history of Merlin pp. 66-72 relates how, king Vortigern casting to build him a strong tower, it did alway crumble down or it were accomplished; and the wizards spake sentence, that the tower should in no wise be achieved, ere that the groundstone were wet with a child's blood, that was of woman born, but of no man begotten. May not we also connect with this superstition some words in a sermon of Berthold p. 167? 'und wizze, wanne dû kint gewinnest, daz der tiuvel, reht einen forn mit den kindern hât ûf dich gemûret,' has with the children reared a very tower on thy back (see Suppl.).




Notes: