The goddess Nerthus. Other Deities

485

by Tacitus is generally regarded as a rain-charm. From the similarity of this cult to that of goddesses of fertility all over Europe, we may assume that Nerthus, like Frey, partook of this character. Amongst other Teutonic races the earliest parallel to her peregrinations is recorded by the Byzantine historian Sozomen, in the fifth century, who states that the Goths lead round a statue in a covered vehicle. From the ninth century we have the item: "concerning the images which they carry about the fields," in a list of prohibited superstitions. But ample evidence for these practices is afforded by the ceremonies, common up to twenty years ago, connected with Plough Monday in England and with Frau Holle in Germany.

It is to be noted that the names Nerthus and Njörd are identical in all but gender, and it seems that in Scandinavia Nerthus has changed her sex and has subsequently been partly ousted by Frey; Njörd, however, still rules over fishery and wealth two very closely allied ideas among the Norwegians, to whom a sea teeming with fish was quite as important as the fertility of the land. It is just possible that it is Njörd to whom a ninth century Latin poem refers, under the name of Neptune, as a chief god of the Normans. Frey seems also to have partially ousted his sister Freyja. One of the Edda poems is concerned with a certain Ottar, who sacrifices oxen to Freyja, and whom she on one occasion declares to be her husband - a parallel case to that of Frey and the priestess mentioned above, but with the sexes reversed.

Of the numerous other gods mentioned in our sources some may be either tribal deities, or better-known gods under other names. Such are the Frisian god Fosite: the twins whom Tacitus equates with Castor and Pollux, and who are worshipped by the Nahanarvali: the god Saxnot, or Saxneat, forsworn with Wodan and Thunor in an Old Saxon formula for converts, and claimed as an ancestor by the English East Saxon royal family. Other gods, such as Balder and Loki, of whom we only hear in Scandinavia, have been occasionally regarded as mere mythological figureheads. Of the evil-disposed Loki there is indeed no trace of any sort of cult. It has been suggested that he was a Finnish god. Balder is the subject of much controversy, some scholars dismissing him from the rank of deity altogether, while Dr Frazer maintains that the story is a survival of tree worship, and of the ritual sacrifice of the god. In any case the only reference to an actual cult of Balder occurs in a late and doubtful saga. Tyr, who seems to have been a war-god, stands in a different category. It is likely that he had once been an important deity all over Teutonic Europe, though his cult was already overshadowed by that of Odin at the dawn of historical times. Some modern authorities place his cult in close connexion with that of Nerthus- for which view certain local groups of place-names afford support - and regard him as being originally a god of the sky. A reference by Procopius to Ares, in his account of the inhabitants of Thule, and by Jornandes to Mars, both of

the sixth century, and both in connexion with human sacrifice, are usually held to indicate Tyr, as is also the important god Mars of Tacitus. The identity of Mars and Tyr is established by glossaries which equate Mars with "Tiw," "Tiig," as in Tuesday. In Scandinavia the word Tyr originally means "god," and in compounds is applied to Odin.

There is evidence that Frigg, in Northern mythology Odin's wife, was also widely known among Teutonic nations, but she seems in part to have been ousted from her place by Freyja, and in part to have suffered that general decline which must have overtaken the Germanic goddesses since the time of Tacitus, in whose day female divinities appear to have been in the ascendancy - we think of his Veleda, Isis, Ausinia, Nerthus. It is noteworthy that Bede knows of several important goddesses in England, though all other trace of them has vanished.

One class of female divinities however still held a place in Scandinavian belief at least. It seems likly that the term dísir-" (supernatural) female beings"-covered both the valkyries and the norns. The valkyries in the North were Odin's handmaidens in war, and some trace of such beings survives in Anglo-Saxon glossaries, where walcyrge is used to translate" Bellona,"" Gorgon," etc., though in the laws the word is merely equivalent to "sorceress.' The norns seem to have been hereditary tutelary spirits: they are thought of as causing good or evil fortune to their owner, and appear in dreams to him, frequently in threes, to warn him of impending danger. When there is only one attendant spirit she is called hamingja, or "Luck." Such a being appears to the dying Hallfred the Unlucky Poet, and to her the Saga-writer evidently ascribes the ill-luck first of Hallfred and later of his son. It seems possible to discern an original distinction between these beings and the fylgja or "associate,” which appears as a mere materialisation, as it were, in animal form, of the chief characteristic of its owner;-his soul, perhaps, though it is not the immortal part of him, as it dies on his death. It is probably closely connected with the werewolf beliefs, and that the conception was common to all Teutonic races is indicated by the Song of Roland, which makes Charles the Great dream before Roncesvalles of a fight between a bear and a leopard. The disir are however too capricious to be called guardian spirits. Those of one family, provoked at the coming change of faith, are credited with having killed one of its representatives. We see the reasonableness of the attitude taken up by a would-be convert, who stipulates that the missionary shall guarantee him the mighty archangel Michael as his “attendant angel” (fylg ju-engill).

All the three sacrifices to dísir on record occur in the autumn, and of one it is stated that it took place at night. It is noteworthy that the term disa-thing is used as late as 1322 to denote a festival at Upsala. A "dísar-hall" appears to be an old name for a temple. From Germany we have a charm which seems rather to invoke the aid of friendly

Fate.

Cult of the Dead

487

valkyries, idisi, than of tutelary spirits, but we find many references to a personified "Luck," the "Fru Sælde," in medieval German poems, and we are told of a poor knight accosted by a gigantic being who declares itself to be his "ill-luck." He shuts it up in a hollow tree and enjoys good fortune ever after.

Northern mythology preserves a memory of three Norns who rule men's destinies, like the Parcae of the Romans, but the words used for Fate Anglo-Saxon Wyrd, Old German Wurth, "Weird," literally "that which happens," Old Norse sköp or örlög, "things shaped" or "laid down of yore" - shew that Fate was not personified, was rather thought of as a force shaping the destinies of the world to unknown ends. It was a mystery ever present to the consciousness of the heathen Germanic races, and their deepest religious conceptions centre round it. The old Greek idea, that a man might unwittingly be forced by a retributive Fate to shameful deeds, never haunted the Northern races, who would have claimed for mankind the completest moral freedom, but in the physical world the decree of Fate was beyond appeal. A man might defy Odin, and even fall upon him with mortal weapons, and gain only a keener tribute of admiration from posterity, but after he had striven to the utmost against all odds, his world required of him that he should accept the ruling of Fate without bitterness, and even, if we read the old tales rightly, with a certain dim recognition of vaster issues at stake than his own death and defeat.

Of ancestor-worship or worship of the dead there are clear traces both in Scandinavia and on the Continent. From Scandinavia we hear how when the god Frey died the Swedes would not burn his body, lest he should leave them, so they buried him in a barrow and sacrificed to him ever after. The case of the quite historical Swedish king Erik, of the ninth century, whom the gods themselves raised to their rank shortly after his death, may also be quoted. Again, a somewhat legendary king Olaf who flourished in South Norway in the first half of the ninth century, is made to say before his death that in his case he does not want people to act as they sometimes do, to sacrifice to dead men in whom they trusted while alive. But after he was buried at Geirstad there was a famine, so they sacrificed to Olaf for plenty and called him the “elf” (álfr) of Geirstad. And there was competition for the corpse of the contemporary king Halfdan the Black among the four chief districts of his kingdom: "it was thought that there was a prospect of plenty for whichever got it," and the matter was only settled by dividing the remains into four parts. So much for kings. But ordinary mortals could also enjoy worship after death. An Icelandic source tells us of one Grim, the first settler in the Faroe Islands, who had sacrifices made to him after death. It was the custom at sacrificial feasts to drink to one's dead kinsmen, those who had been buried in barrows. Such toasts are called minni, and are paralleled on the Continent by the "drinking to the soul of the dead"

forbidden by a ninth century Church capitulary. But there is more definite evidence than this. The Norwegian laws expressly forbid worship at barrows, a custom remembered by the saga of the island of Gotland, and Charles the Great forbids burial in them. Almost every Capitulary and Church Council in Germany (though not in England) forbids sacrilege at sepulchres, "laying food and wine on the tumuli of the dead," or partaking of food offered at such places. Among the Saxons, and probably among other tribes, the festival for the dead was celebrated in the autumn. At the beginning of the fifth century the poet Claudian speaks of worship of ancestors among the Getae.

In Iceland some families are said to have believed that after death they entered into a hill, which they accordingly worshipped. In this connexion "elf" is again used, and it seems reasonable to assume that whatever other signification this word may have had later, it must also have meant the spirit of a dead man. Now in Sweden the cult of the forgotten dead may be said to live on to this day, for the peasants still place offerings in the saucer-shaped depressions on some megalithic graves, and here, in heathen times, we find mention of sacrifice to elves, not at a festive gathering, but offered by each household within its own four walls. It took place in the late evening or night, a circumstance which strongly reminds us of Greek sacrifices to "heroes."

There is yet another class of Scandinavian deities, who may be classed as chthonic. These are the landvættir, guardian spirits of the land. That they were highly esteemed is evident from the beginning of the Icelandic heathen laws, which enacted that no ship was to approach land with a figure-head on its prow, lest the "landvættir" should be alarmed thereat. In Saxo men are warned not to provoke the guardian gods of a certain place, and that it was perilous to do so transpires from the fear with which a certain spot in Iceland was regarded "because of the landvættir," since a murder had been committed there. The nearest approach to worship of these beings appears in a curious story of the Icelander Egill in Norway, in the year 934. He sets up a horse's head on a stake (a common insult to an enemy) and utters what appears to be a formula: "I turn this mark of contumely against the landvættir who inhabit this land, that all of them may go astray: none find nor happen upon her home, till they have driven King Erik and Gunnhild out of the land." It has been suggested that the "Matronae" or "Matres" with German names, monuments to whom were erected by German soldiers in the service of Rome, were guardian spirits of their native land. Northern mythology tells us further of a female daemon of the sea, Rán, who claims the drowned. We know of no direct sacrifices to her, but there are traces of prophylactic sacrifice to some daemonic being of the sea. The Frisians sacrificed human victims before expeditions by sea, as did also the Normans, according to Dudo, though he attributes the sacrifice to Thor. In Norway there are references to

Inanimate Objects of Worship. Festivals

489

the placing of a human victim on the rollers of a ship about to be launched.

Of inanimate objects of worship, besides sacred groves, which will be discussed later, there are sacred springs. Close to the temple at Upsala was a sacred spring, in which we are told that human victims were drowned, and the story should not be too hastily dismissed, since sacred springs are found within the precincts of many old churches all over Germany and England. The occasional practice of Germanic tribes, mentioned by Classical authors, of throwing conquered enemies and valuables into rivers, was probably a recognised form of worship of some god possibly of Odin. From the frequency of holy springs, wells, and lakes, bearing names compounded with Ás (heathen god), Thor, or Odin, we may assume that they were sometimes sacred to the greater gods, as were probably the sacred salt springs mentioned by Tacitus. On the other hand, Procopius in the sixth century says that the Scandinavians worship, besides other gods, minor spirits in the waters of springs and rivers. Knut's Laws in England, and Church Edicts on the Continent, refer to the worship of rivers and water-wells, and further mention the worship of stones, also known in Scandinavia.

Having now passed in review, however briefly, the chief objects of worship among the Germanic races, it behoves us to consider the manner of that worship. In the North there were three main sacrificial festivals. One, in the autumn, is said to have been "for peace and plenty," the second, at Yule, "for growth," the third, at the approach of summer, was for victory. On the Continent the autumn festival and that at midwinter appear, as in Scandinavia, to have been the most important. We hear very little of a midsummer festival, but its existence is vouched for by the widespread festivities in all Teutonic countries on that day. In Denmark and Sweden special festivals appear to have taken place at Lejre and Upsala respectively every nine years, at which a great number of animals and even men were sacrificed.

The ritual of sacrifice is mainly known to us from the North. The officiating priest fills the sacrificial bowl and reddens the altar with the blood of the victim, scattering some of its contents over the worshippers and the walls of the temple by means of sacrificial twigs. The blood is in fact offered to the gods, or cements a bond between them and the worshippers: the flesh is cooked and eaten. In Scandinavia horses were much valued as sacrifices, so that to eat horse-flesh was regarded as a heathen practice, and Tacitus also knows of sacrifice of horses. Excavations of Icelandic temples, however, reveal a preponderance of the bones of other domestic animals. In England and on the Continent cattle were frequent offerings. Gregory the Great decided to allow the English to eat oxen ad laudem Dei, just outside their churches, since they had been accustomed to sacrificing them "to demons." Human sacrifice seems to have persisted in Sweden till quite a late period. In 1026 a little