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 silvestribus locis venerari;' AS. stânweordung, 'bringan tô stâne,' Thorpe pp. 380. 396). This worship of stones is a distinguishing characteristic of Celtic religion, 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 artificially 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 hvíta helga steini,' Sæm. 165. 237. heilög föll 1896. 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.' 2 Notice the MHG. phrase: 'to squeeze a stone with 1 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. 2 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 geschahe, Herb. 68a; 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. 48. 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 straps, till its veins drop blood,' MsH. 2, 235", 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. were penetrated their ears. So in Holberg (Ellefte juni 4, 2): hörte jeg en sukken og hylen, som en steen maatte gräde ved. And Ovid (Met. 9, 303): moturaque duras Verba queror silices. Luke 19, 40: oi Xíloɩ keкpážovтaι [Habak. 2, 11: the stones shall cry out of the wall]. CHAPTER XXI. TREES AND ANIMALS. 1 As all nature was thought of by the heathen mind as living; as language and the understanding of human speech was allowed to beasts, and sensation to plants (see Suppl.); and as every kind of transition and exchange of forms was supposed to take place amongst all creatures: it follows at once, that to some a higher worth may have been assigned, and this heightened even up to divine veneration. Gods and men transformed themselves into trees, plants or beasts, spirits and elements assumed animal forms; why should the worship they had hitherto enjoyed be withheld from the altered type of their manifestation? Brought under this point of view, there is nothing to startle us in the veneration of trees or animals. It has become a gross thing only when to the consciousness of men the higher being has vanished from behind the form he assumed, and the form alone has then to stand for him. We must however distinguish from divinely honoured plants and animals those that were esteemed high and holy because they stood in close relationship to gods or spirits. Of this kind are beasts and vegetables used for sacrifice, trees under which 1 The way it is expressed in the Eddic myth of Baldr is more to the point than anything else: To ward off every danger that might threaten that beloved god, Frigg exacted oaths from water, fire, earth, stones, plants, beasts, birds and worms, nay from plagues personified, that they would not harm him; one single shrub she let off from the oath, because he was too young, Sn. 64. Afterwards all creatures weep the dead Baldr, men, animals, plants and stones, Sn. 68. The OS. poet of the Heliand calls dumb nature the unquethandi, and says 168, 32: 'that thar Waldandes dôd (the Lord's death) unquethandes sô filo antkennian scolda, that is endagon ertha bivôda, hrisidun thia hôhun bergos, harda sténos clubun, felisos after them felde.' It is true these phenomena are from the Bible (Matth. 27, 51-2), yet possibly a heathen picture hovered in the author's mind (as we saw on pp. 148. 307), in this case the mourning for Baldr, so like that for the Saviour. Herbort makes all things bewail Hector: if (says he, 68a) stones, metals, chalk and sand had wit and sense, they would have sorrowed too. As deeply rooted in man's nature is the impulse, when unfortunate, to bewail his woes to the rocks and trees and woods; this is beautifully expressed in the song Ms. 1, 3b, and all the objects there appealed to, offer their help. VOL. II. 647 P higher beings dwell, animals that wait upon them. The two. classes can hardly be separated, for incorrect or incomplete accounts will not allow us to determine which is meant. 1. TREES. The high estimation in which Woods and Trees were held by the heathen Germans has already been shown in Chap. IV. To certain deities, perhaps to all, there were groves dedicated, and probably particular trees in the grove as well. Such a grove was not to be trodden by profane feet, such a tree was not to be stript of its boughs or foliage, and on no account to be hewn down. Trees are also consecrated to individual dæmons, elves, wood and home sprites, p. 509. Minute descriptions, had any such come down to us, would tell us many things worth knowing about the enclosure and maintenance of holy woods, about the feasts and sacrifices held in them. In the Indiculus paganiarum we read ' de sacris silvarum, quae nimidas vocant.' This German word seems to me uncorrupted, but none the easier to understand: it is a plur. masc. from the sing. nimid, but to hit the exact sense of the word, we should have to know all the meanings that the simple verb neman was once susceptible of. If the German nimu be, as it has every appearance of being, the same as véμw, then nimid also may answer to Gr. véuos, Lat. nemus, a woodland pasture, a grove, a sacrum silvae (p. 69).3 Documents of 1086 and 1150 1 Sacrum nemus, nemus castum in Tacitus. Ovid, Amor. iii. 1, 1: Stat vetus et multos incaedua silva per annos, fons sacer in medio, speluncaque pumice pendens, et latere ex omni dulce queruntur aves. Lucan, Phars. 3, 399: Lucus erat longo nunquam violatus ab aevo. So the Semnonian wood, the nemus of Nerthus, the Slav lucus Zutibure, the Prussian grove Romowe. Among the Esthonians it is held infamous to pluck even a single leaf in the sacred grove: far as its shade extends (ut umbra pertingit, RA. 57. 105), they will not take so much as a strawberry; some people secretly bury their dead there (Petri Ehstland 2, 120). They call such woods hio, and the I. of Dagö is in Esth. Hiomah, because there is a consecrated wood near the farmhouse of Hiohof (Thom. Hiärn.). 2 Like helid (heros), gimeinid (communio), frumid, pl. frumidas (AS. frymðas, primitiae), barid (clamor, inferred from Tacitus's baritus). Can nimid have been a heathen term for sacrifice? Abnemen in the 13th cent. meant mactare, to slaughter (used of cattle), Berthold p. 46, as we still say abthun, abschneiden, Ulph. ufsneipan; Schmid's Schwäb. wtb. 405 abnehmen to kill poultry. This meaning can hardly lie in the prefix, it must be a part of the word itself: name a place Nimodon, Nimeden (Möser's Osnabr. gesch., urk. 34. 56. 8, 57. 84); the resemblance may lead to something further (see Suppl.). There can be no doubt that for some time after the conversion the people continued to light candles and offer small sacrifices under particular holy trees, as even to this day they hang wreaths upon them, and lead the ring-dance under them (p. 58). In the church-prohibitions it is variously called: 'vota ad arbores facere aut ibi candelam seu quodlibet munus deferre; arborem colere ; votum ad arborem persolvere; arbores daemonibus consecratas colere, et in tanta veneratione habere, ut vulgus nec ramum nec surculum audeat amputare.' It is the AS. treow-weordung (cultus arborum), the ON. blôta lundinn (grove), Landn. 3, 17. The Acta Bened. sec. 2 p. 841 informs us: 'Adest quoque ibi (at Lutosas, now Leuze) non ignoti miraculi fagus (beech), subter quam luminaria saepe cum accensa absque hominum accessu videmus, divini aliquid fore suspicamur.' So the church turned the superstition to account for her own miracles: a convent was founded on the site of the tree. About Esthonians of the present day we are told in Rosenplänter's Beitr. 9, 12, that only a few years ago, in the parish of Harjel, on St. George's, St. John's and St. Michael's night, they used to sacrifice under certain trees, i.e. to kill, a black fowl. Of the Thunder-god's holy oak an account has been given, pp. 72-3-4. 171. 184; and in Gramm. 2,997 the OHG. scaldeih (ilex) is compared with the AS. names of plants scaldhyfel, scaldþyfel and the scaldo quoted above, p. 94. All this is as yet uncertain, and needs further elucidation. Among the Langobards we find a worship of the so-called blood-tree or holy tree (p. 109). The Vita S. Barbati in the Acta sanctor. under Febr. 19, p. 139. The saint (b. cir. 602, d. cir. 683) lived at Benevento, under kings Grimoald and Romuald; niman, neman would therefore be to cut, kill, divide, and nimidas the victims slain in the holy grove, under trees? Conf. what is said in the text of the Langobardic tree of sacrifice. Celtic etymologies seem rather out of place for this plainly Saxon Indiculus. Adelung already in Mithrid. 2, 65.77 had brought into the field Nemetes and nemet (templum); Ir. naomh is sanctus, neamh (gen. nimhe) coelum, niemheadh land consecrated, belonging to the church. 1 The superstition of the Lausitz Wends holds that there are woods which yearly demand a human victim (like the rivers, p. 494); some person must lose his life in them: 'hohla dyrbi kojzde ljeto jeneho czloweka mjecz,' Lausitz mon. schr. 1797, p. 748. |