giant mood, and ground no longer peace and plenty, but fire and war. Then the quern went fast and furious, and that very night came Mysing the searover, and slew Frodi and all his men, and carried off the quern; and so Frodi's peace ended. The maidens the sea-rover took with him, and when he got on the high seas he bade them grind salt. So they ground; and at midnight they asked if he had not salt enough, but he bade them still grind on. So they ground till the ship was full and sank, Mysing, maids, and mill, and all, and that's why the sea is salt."

This wonder-working mill stood once in heaven, for Frodi, its owner, was no other than the sun-god Freyr* (Swedish Frö, German Fro), whom Snorri Sturlason and Saxo Grammaticus converted into an earthly monarch, or found already brought down to that condition, just as the great god Odin figures in Snorri's Edda as a mortal king of Sweden.† The flat circular stone of Frodi's quern is the disk of the sun, and its handle, or möndull, is the pramantha with

* Mannhardt, 243.

+ Ibid. 45.

+ Möndull is an Icelandic word, from the same root as manthami (p. 39), and is defined by Egilsson, in his "Lex. Poët. Antiquæ Ling. Septentrionalis," as "lignum teres, quo mola trusatilis manu circumagitur, mobile, molucrum."

which Indra or the Asvins used to kindle the extinguished luminary. An ancient popular ditty, which still survives in Germany, tells of a mill that grinds gold, silver, and love. The peasants in various parts of Germany call the Milkyway the Mealway, or the Millway, and say that it turns with the sun, for it first becomes visible at the point where the sun has set. It leads therefore to the heavenly mill, and its colour is that of the meal with which it is strewed.*

CHAPTER III.

FIRE AND SOUL BRINGING BIRDS AND INSECTS-BABIES

FOUND IN

FOUNTAINS, TREES, ROCKS, PARSLEY BEDS, ETC.- THE SOULS OF
THE DEAD AS BIRDS.

THE approach of windy weather is often indicated by a peculiar form of light streaming clouds, which in England are very aptly named grey mares' tails. In Northern Germany a modification of the same appearance is called a weather or wind tree (wetterbaum)-a name wherein we may read the original conception out of which grew the Aryan prototype of the Norseman's heavenly ash, Yggdrasil. Among the many curious notions that met together in the primitive Aryan cosmogony, was that of a prodigious tree overspreading the whole world. The clouds were its foliage; sun, moon, and stars were its fruit; lightning lurked in its branches and mingled with their sap. Hence arose a whole order of myths, which accounted accordingly for the descent to earth of fire, soma, and the soul of man, but which were often blended with those that were based upon

the process of extracting fire from wood with the pramantha. Birds that nestled in the fire-bearing tree came down to earth, either as incorporations of the lightning, or bringing with them a branch charged with latent or visible fire. Agni, the god of fire, sometimes appears in the Vedas as a bird— falcon or eagle-engaged in an errand of this kind. Such a bird was Jove's eagle, and such another was its rival the little wren, which is mentioned by both Aristotle and Pliny as disputing with the eagle the sovereignty of the feathered creation.* The pretensions of the wren are not unknown to German tradition, but Celtic memory has best preserved the exalted mythic character of the smallest of European birds. In the legends of Bretagne and Normandy he is spoken of expressly as a fire-bringer. "A messenger was wanted to fetch fire from heaven, and the wren, weak and delicate as it is, undertook the perilous task. It nearly cost the bold bird its life, for its plumage was burned off even to the down. The other birds with one accord gave each of them one of their feathers to the little king, to cover his naked and shivering skin. The owl alone stood aloof, but the other birds were so indignant

*

Tpóxiλos àéтy Toλéμios. Aristotle. Dissident aquila et trochilus, si credimus, quoniam rex appellatur avium. Plin. Hist. Nat. x. 74.

at his unfeeling conduct that they would never more admit him into their society."*

General Vallancey, who in this instance may be quoted with safety, says of the wren: "The Druids represented this as the king of all birds. The superstitious respect shown to this little bird gave offence to our first Christian missionaries, and by their commands he is still hunted and killed on Christmas-day; and on the following (St. Stephen'sday) he is carried about, hung by the leg in the centre of two hoops crossing each other at right angles, and a procession is made in every village, of men, women, and children, singing an Irish catch importing him to be the king of all birds." 't

Sonnini says: "While I was at La Ciotat (near Marseilles) the particulars of a singular ceremony were related to me, which takes place every year at the beginning of Nivôse (end of December). A numerous body of men, armed with swords and pistols, set off in search of a very small bird which the ancients called Troglodytes. When they have found it (a thing not difficult, because they always take care to have one ready) it is suspended on the middle of a pole, which two men carry on their

* Amélie Bosquet, p. 220.

Collectanea de rebus Hibernicis, xiii. p. 97.