river of the underworld appears to lie in their walking the bridge. that spans the river. The bridge-keeper's words to (the living) Hermoor 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 ferrymoney 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-skó, 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. 195: 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.1 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 1 The Lithuanians bury or burn with the dead the claws of a lynx or bear, in the belief that the soul has to climb up a steep mountain, on which the divine judge (Kriwe Kriweito) sits: the rich will find it harder to scale than the poor, who are unburdened with property, unless their sins weigh them down. A wind wafts the poor sinners up as lightly as a feather, the rich have their limbs mangled by a dragon Wizunas, who dwells beneath the mountain, and are then carried up by tempests (Woycicki's Klechdy 2, 134-5. Narbutt 1, 284). The steep hill is called Anafielas by the Lithuanians, and szklanna gora (glass mountain) by the Poles, who think the lost souls must climb it as a punishment, and when they have set foot on the summit, they slide off and tumble down. This glass mountain is still known to our German songs and fairytales, but no longer distinctly as an abode of the deceased, though the little maid who carries a huckle-bone to insert (like the bear's claw) into the glass mountain, and ends with cutting her little finger off that she may scale or unlock it at last, may be looked upon as seeking her lost brothers in the underworld (Kinderm. no. 25). manec sêle empfangen d' einen ûf, die ander nidere. Geo. 1234. empfienc des marcgrâven sêl, und fuorten in vrolîche inz schoene 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 Michahéle hiute gecondwieret sî. Gute frau 2674; Michael having taken upon him the office of Mercury or the Walchure. A record of the 13th 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. by where three troops are introduced, the black, white and pale: ́den strît mahtu gerne schouwen, dens umb die sêle suln hân.' 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,1 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 maidens, (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. 1 The passage is supposed to be founded on a lost book named "Aváßaois Moyses', conf. Grotius ad S. Judae ep. 9, and Fabricii Cod. pseudepigr. V. T. p. 839. CHAPTER XXVII. DEATH. To the olden time Death was not a being that killed, but simply one that fetched away and escorted to the underworld. Sword or sickness killed; Death came in as messenger of a deity, to whom he conducted the parting soul. Dying is announced, not caused, by his arrival. So to that child in the fairytale the angel of death had given a flower-bud: when it blossomed, he would come again. 1 And the Jewish notion, which Christianity retained, is in harmony with this. The soul of the beggar is fetched away by angels of God, and carried into Abraham's bosom, Luke 16, 22; or, as the Heliand 103, 5 expresses it: Godes engilôs andfengon is ferh, endi lêddon ine an Abrahâmes barm'; 1 and it completes the picture of the rich man's fate by adding the counterpart (103, 9): lêtha wihti bisenkidun is sêola an thene suarton hel,' loathly wights (devils) sank his soul into swart hell. A sermon in Leyser 126 has: 'wane ir ne wizzit niht, zu welicher zît der bote (messenger) unsers herren Gotis zu ture clopfe (may knock at the door). Welich ist der bote? daz ist der Tôt (death)'; and 161: 'nu quam ouch der gemeine bote (general messenger), der nieman ledic lât (lets alone), wie lange im maniger vorgât, daz ist der gewisse tôt.' 'Dô der Tôt im sîn zuokunft enbôt (announced), sô daz er in geleite,' he might escort him, Greg. 20. There is no substantial difference between this and the older heathen view. Halja, Hel, the death-goddess, does not destroy, she receives the dead man in her house, and will on no account give him up. To kill a man is called sending him to her. Hel 1 It is a beautiful image, that the dying return to God's bosom, children to that of their father, whence they had issued at birth. But the same thing was known to our heathenism, which called newborn and adopted children bosom-children, wishchildren,' RA. 455. 464, and interpreted dying as departing to Wuotan, to Wish (p. 145). To heathens then, as well as christians, to die was to fare to God, to enter into God's rest and peace, Metod seon,' Beow. 2360, fêran on Freán wære,' the Lord's peace 52. So, to be buried is to fall into the mother's bosom (p. 642); mother and father take their children into their keeping again. VOL. II. ་ |