HISTORY OF GERMANY

FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD

FIRST PERIOD

HEATHEN ANTIQUITY

 

PART I

ORIGIN AND MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT GERMANS

I.

The Primitive Forests of Germany

 

BEFORE Germany was peopled, the country appears to have been almost entirely covered with primitive forests. When the Romans, not long before the birth of Christ, became acquainted with these regions, they already contained a numerous population, although at that period but little of the ancient forests seems to have been cleared away; according to their account, the great Hercinian Forest then extended from the Black Forest across the whole of Germany, and the inhabitants, a mere hunter-race, only practiced the arts of husbandry when driven by extreme necessity. The forests were held sacred, and temples were erected on consecrated lakes, hidden in their secluded depths unprofaned by the hand of man. Similar sacred groves were found by Herodotus in the country of the Budini to the north of the Black Sea, and they were introduced by Hyperboreans into Greece; for instance, the sacred grove of Delphi, the famous Grecian oracle. In northern mythology, the ash tree (Ygdrasill) is emblematical of the whole earth, and the first men, esche, ash, and erle, alder, also take their names from the trees; hence prrticulars trees were held sacred throughout Germany, nor has this ancient veneration yet entirely passed away.

The Romans regarded the forests of Germany with superstitious dread. There were said to be gigantic trees which, when hollowed into boats, held thirty men, and through the arches formed by their projecting roots a horseman could ride at full speed. The buffalo, the bison, and the elk, once numerous in these wilds, have now totally disappeared; and the bears, whose skins were the chief article of the dress of our forefathers, the wolves, boars, and innumerable other large game, daily become more scarce. The country possessed neither towns, roads, nor bridges, and it is easily conceivable that, dissatisfied with their meager forest fare, the people continually migrated to and took possession of the fruitful lands of neighbouring nations. Solitude created a desire, or romantic longing, in the breast of the ancient inhabitant of these wilds, for what was distant and unknown, while the habits of the chase rendered him enterprising and hardy. The laws founded upon personal freedom, the virtuous manners and cheerful temperament of the ancient German, originated in those mighty wastes, where, forced to trust to his own resources, man necessarily became independent, and was secure from the corruption incidental to crowded communities. These wild forests also attached an idea of the marvellous, so novel to the Romans, to the character of the German, who, trained to war by the habits of the chase, associated piety with ferocity, and would still listen to the secret voice of Nature in the mysterious whisperings of the forest, now disposing him to deep musings, now creating strange forebodings, which were recognized as true prophetic inspiration in the women and maidens.

When Germany was first Christianized, the monks undertook to clear away the forests and to promote agriculture, and as the migrations had then ceased, those of the inhabitants who had remained in the country were gradually forced by necessity to exchange the life of the hunter for that of the peasant. Yet, notwithstanding this, and the great increase of population during succeeding centuries, a very considerable portion of these primitive forests still remains, and the stranger, who for the first time visits our country, still wonders at their extent; nor have the great union of states and the customs of city life been able to eradicate the ancient forest freedom, the love of nature, and the loyal character of our ancestors.

 

II. Origin of the Germans

Who first trod the sacred forest? who for the first time rested beneath the shade of the German oak? The earliest account of the German people is very obscure. Civilized nations, distinguished by mighty deeds, had already long dwelt on the shores of the Mediterranean, while our northern land was still unknown. History, though still in its infancy, already recorded the vicissitudes of empires, while in our dark forests legendary lore still held its superstitious reign. Already had the sages of the East taught wisdom beneath the palm, the merchants of Phoenicia and Carthage weighed anchor and spread their purple sails on the distant ocean, the Greek beautified the earth with magic art, and the Roman founded his colossal and iron despotism, while the German, ignorant and naked, was still reigning undisturbed over the denizens of the wild. The first authentic account of the Germans dates scarcely a century before the birth of Christ, when the Romans first came in conflict with them. Before this period, their history is mere legendary fable, which, however, a peculiar character pervades. From this epoch the southern nations regarded them as a free and warlike nation. It has been attempted to unravel the genealogy of nations by referring them to the first book of Moses; and sometimes Gomer (Cimbri), with his sons, Ashkenaz (the Saxon Ascan), Riphath (the Frankish Ripuarii), and Togarmah (Germanii); sometimes Aram (Irmin, Hermiones), with his sons, Uz (the Asiatics), Hul or Chul (the Gauls), Gethen (Geten or Goths), and Masch (Massagetae), have been supposed to be the ancestors of the German tribes; but these are mere nomenclatory hypotheses, by which we can arrive at no certainty. To this class also belongs the derivation of the Nibelungen from Niphilim.

There are clearer indications of an eastern origin, and traces of an affinity between our language and that of ancient India are still perceivable. Wodan, who was worshiped by the Germans as the father of the gods, is the Indian Buddha, the father of the twelve Diti, who, for a thousand years, fought against the Indian gods, and were driven into exile. Many are of opinion that Buddha was the most ancient and the only god of the Indians, until the religion of Brahma, together with the division into castes (hereditary privileges), was introduced, and the Brahmins, or caste of priests, usurped the whole authority. It is certain that, after this, the lower castes rebelled against the priests, and chose a new Buddha for their god, who is still worshiped in some parts of India. From the warlike castes, who thence migrated northward, may have sprung those brave and warlike nations met with, at a later period, in the north, as worshipers of Wodan, or Odin, from whom the German tribes trace their descent.

In the oldest records of the German language, the Anten or Inten are often spoken of as an ancient nation, and particular buildings and weapons are mentioned as "works of the Anten". The word is also traceable in the names of places and people—Ant, Ango, Ent, Eng, Int, Intto, Indo—and India, in the German of the Middle Ages, is written Endia. See Mone's Derivations. The Grecian fable of Deucalion. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha alone survived the flood. They threw stones behind them, whence sprang a new race of men, the Heraclidian wanderers, who peopled the country to the west of the Caucasus. To this many German legends bear resemblance. Tacitus heard, from the Germans on the Rhine, that the common ancestor of their people was called Thuisko or Thuisto, and sprang out of the earth. His son, Mammus, had three sons, from whom the principal tribes of Germany, the Ingavones, Hermiones, and Istavones, sprang. According to Pliny, the Cauci, Chaubi, or Chauci (from Caucasus), whom we meet with later as the Saxons, belong to the first. But the ancient Saxons had a legend that their nation, with their first king Ascan (perhaps Asian Khan, or Prince of Asia), originally sprang from the Harz Mountains. According to an old legend of the north. Burl, the father of the Asiatics, was licked out of a rock of salt by the sacred cow. With this agrees the northern legend, mentioned by Snorri, concerning the migration of the Asiatics, whose progenitor, Buri, dwelt at Asgard (Boreas in the Caucasus). His son, Bor, had three sons. Wile, We, and Odin (Wodan). The last, being driven by the gods out of the country, wandered through Gardaric (Russia) and Saxony to Sweden, where he founded Sigtuna (Upsala), as his new seat of government.

Other accounts of migrations seem to own a different origin. The chronicler, Hunibald, describes the Franks as fugitives, who wandered as far as the Rhine after the destruction of Troy, and who there founded Zante (so called from the Trojan river Zanthus). The old Saxon chroniclers ascribe the origin of the Saxons to deserters from the army of Alexander the Great, who fled to the country of Hadel. They have even discovered an affinity between the wanderings of Ulysses and of Aeneas after the fall of Troy and the god Odin, and between his son, the first Saxon leader, Ascan, and Ascanius, the son of Aeneas. The legends of Hercules, who is said to have visited Germany, and to have been honoured there as a god, are even more obscure.

 

III. The Dark Ages

 

Those tribes which at a later period were classed under the general name of "Germans", were formerly known under separate names, and it is now impossible to distinguish them exactly from each other.—According to the earliest accounts of the Greeks, the Scythians, a simple-mannered and brave people, divided into several tribes, dwelt to the north of the Black Sea. It has been supposed that their name signifies "marksmen," and that they were, if not all, at least partly, Germans. Neither the Persian kings, nor Alexander the Great, were able to subdue them. The Greeks named the northern nations, on the other side of the great chain of mountains extending from Caucasus, by Haemus, to the Alps, and dividing the south from the north of Europe, Hyperboreans, i.e., people who dwelt beyond the abode of Boreas (the north wind). They also regarded them as "the most long-lived and the most just among mankind."

Somewhat later we hear of the Celts. They were supposed to dwell to the west of the Scythians, and the intermediate nation was named Celto Scythian. Their name has been sometimes supposed to signify "Heroes," and they are described as being extremely brave. The most remarkable of the Celtic tribes were the Cimmerii or Cimbri, who, migrating from the far west, from England and Denmark, where traces of them have been discovered, invaded Asia Minor and Italy. Their name was supposed to signify "Warrior."

I do not venture to quote the numerous legends of these northern tribes; in the first place, because they are merely a confused heap of religious notions and historical facts; in the second, because they have been only handed down to us by strangers, or by poets, those patrons of the marvellous; and thirdly, because it is impossible to distinguish how much is essentially German in the legends of the Scythians, the Hyperboreans, the Celts, and the Cimbri.

Under the name of Scythian are evidently comprehended not only the German, but also the Slavonian and Tartar races, now dwelling eastward of us.

To the Hyperboreans apparently belonged, not only the German, but also the Finnish races in Lapland, Finland, Courland, Esthonia, Livonia, and Lithuania, who were driven by the Germans to the icy northern cape, and to the rocky inlets of the Baltic.

Although there were many tribes that, notwithstanding their German origin, were generally comprised under the name of Celti, yet this name in reality belongs to another and a perfectly distinct nation, that migrated at an earlier period, and of whose peculiar language slight indications may still be traced in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and Brittany. The Gauls, the Gaelic and Welsh tribes, are the people whom we now commonly designate Welschen, Italians. Along the course of the Danube there are places that still retain their ancient Gallic names, none of which are to be met with further north. The Cimmerii who dwelt in England, the Ambrones on the Rhone, the Umbri in Italy, were all apparently of Gaelic origin; and yet the Cimbri, conjointly with the Teutones, who dwelt at the mouths of the Elbe, and migrated into Italy, were apparently of pure German descent, and the Sicambri are well known to have been German Franks.

The Greeks never distinguished the German tribes from their neighbours by any particular name, and it was not until after the birth of Christ that they are mentioned under the new name of Germani by the Romans. The Latin word Germanus means brother, but the word may also be a German one, and signify a warrior, by which a number of secondary meanings are admissible, for instance, guerre, war; ger, a lance; heer, an army; ehre, honor; gewehr, security.

These Latin names were again lost amid the migrations of nations, when the Roman empire fell. Then innumerable new names appear, but no general designation, so that it is matter of doubt whether several tribes belonged to the German or Slavonian nations. After the great irruptions of the different tribes, many of the lesser ones disappeared, and were comprehended under the common designations of Goths, Franks, Bavarians, Germans, Thuringians, Burgundians, Longobardi, Angli, Saxons, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. It was not until the reign of Charlemagne that all these nations received the general denomination of Germans. The word Thiot, Diet, in the old German tongue, signifies the people. Before the time of Charlemagne, the Germans did not compose one nation, but were divided into distinct communities, allied by common descent, but politically independent of each other; so that they could not be classed under one name until they formed one nation.

 

IV. The Division of the Germans into Separate Tribes

The bond by which the different nations of Germany were united, was formerly, as now, of very frail tenure, and even when drawn closer was ever liable to sever. The reason obviously lies in the national character, which, of too expansive a nature ever to be uniform, displays an infinite variety of striking peculiarities, differing according to the natural bias of the individual; hence, in ancient times, the unalterable love of freedom, and the wild chivalric spirit which animated our forefathers, who, equally independent and regardless of their native country, achieved single-handed the most daring exploits; hence, in our times, the extraordinary variety of talented individuals engaged in intellectual warfare as zealously as the German in times of yore in bodily combat. The consciousness of great physical strength produced a spirit of independence and a native indifference to danger which struck the Romans with astonishment, and which, by inducing a blind reliance on their own strength, caused the Teutons to weaken themselves by internal feuds, or with listless apathy to view each other's destruction. None pitied the vanquished. If nine fell, the tenth was confident of gaining success by the prowess of his single arm. The greater the slaughter of his brethren by the enemy, the fewer the competitors for glory, and so much the greater honour to the victor. Thus, instead of a neighbour being assisted as a friend, he was only regarded as a rival in heroic deeds; so that the action that would now be considered as the vilest perfidy was deemed by our forefathers the height of chivalric virtue; and it was not until the Romans had taken great advantage of this error that they discovered that their safety depended upon their acting in unison. But when danger no longer threatened, their ancient prejudices again produced disunion, and it was only when the evil was universally felt that they could be induced to enter into a bond of mutual protection. The forest life of the primitive Germans was one of the primary causes of this want of union; all intercourse in those immense and savage tracts being restricted to the nearest neighbours, as neither roads nor commerce existed as a means of communication between the more distant tribes.

In the first century after Christ, two Romans, Tacitus the historian, who makes honourable mention of our nation, and Pliny the great naturalist, wrote a genealogical account of the different tribes; which, according to Tacitus, descended from Thuisko, whose son Mammus was the common ancestor of the Ingavones, Hermiones, and Istavones; the first of whom are placed by Pliny on the North Sea; the second, in the interior of Germany; and the third, on the Rhine. He moreover mentions two great German nations, the Vendili on the Baltic, and the Peucini on the island of Peuce, at the mouth of the Danube in Hungary.

Thuisko is evidently an epithet derived from Thuit, Thiot, the people; like Mannisko, from Mann, a man; and nothing further is discoverable beyond the subdivision of these great nations into tribes. Whether Thuisko was also honoured as a god, and was identical with Wodan, is not of much import with regard to the genealogy of these nations. He has been supposed to be the same as the Egyptian god Thoth-Hermes, to whom Odin bears much resemblance in his works of invention, and the Romans in fact assimilate him with Mercury or Hermes, a name resembling that of the German deity Irmin, and that of the Hermiones.

About AD 1100, the monk Nestor, the earliest Russian chronicler, divided the Veragri or Scandinavians, who conquered Russia, into Suiones, Urmanni, Inglani, and Gothi. Could he have intended under these names to designate the Swedes, the Normans, the inhabitants of Ingermanland and Gothland, or did he refer to the yet earlier division of all the German tribes, as recorded by Tacitus and Pliny? An old manuscript in the Vatican library mentions Ermenius, Ingo, and Esco as the ancestors of the Germans, who in the sixth century are named by Nennius, the Englishman, Hisicio, Armeno, and Mugio.

These ancient names were soon lost amid the migrations of the tribes. In the north, the Ingavones gave place to the Saxons; in the west, the Istavones to the Franks; in the east and south, the Hermiones to the Goths, who, being the most considerable of the migratory tribes, gained the upper hand, and were consequently at enmity with each other. The hatred existing between the brother-nations is recorded in our old warlike legends, in which the Franks are called the Nibelungen; the Saxons, the Hegelingen; and the Goths, the Walfinger.

Gaupp has very ingeniously sought to refer all the German tribes to two original sources, the Suevi and the Non-Suevi, or High and Low Dutch. Under the denomination of Suevi he comprehends Suevi, Alemanni, Bavarians, Burgundians, Goths, Alani, Vandals, Gepidae, originally wandering shepherd tribes attracted by the superiority of. the country, and consisting of nobles, freemen and slaves, who, when converted to Christianity, embraced Arianism, which formed a still stronger bond between them, and more broadly distinguished them from the Non-Suevi, under which denomination he classes the Franks, Saxons, Lombards, Thuringians, and Frieslanders, who first practiced husbandry, had settled dwellings, and were divided into only one class of freemen, and two classes of bondsmen, Lazzi and Slavi or Servi, and who professing Catholicism were united, by a common faith, against the Arian Suevi. The whole of these divisions are apparently correct, nor are they contradictory. The Suevi collected into enormous masses, while the Non-Suevi separated, on account of their having fixed habitations, into numerous and much smaller tribes, of which the Romans have specified an enormous number, which, taken in the aggregate, may formerly have simply belonged to two great sources, the Istavones and Ingavones, who, at a later period, subdivided in a similar manner in Franconia and Saxony. Among the Hermiones, Tacitus first mentions the Suevi, to whom the Vendili or Peucini of Pliny doubtless belonged as Gothic tribes in the east. Thus the old account perfectly coincides with the modern mode of division. Many of the tribes were totally exterminated by intestine wars or during migration; many, on the contrary, raised themselves by their bravery from insignificance to considerable power; some incorporated themselves with nations to which they did not originally belong, as, for instance, the Lombards, who, severing themselves from the Suevi, united with the Saxons; finally, an intermixture of races took place, as in the case of the Few Thuringians, who were some of Frankish, others of Suevian (Varini) origin.

The German tribes may with great justice be compared to a swarm of bees. The mere love of fighting occasioned continual wars between them, either on the pretext of defending their frontiers from the aggressions of their neighbours, or for the purpose of extending them; and they had the custom of sending the young men, whenever the population became too numerous for the soil, annually forth to seek an existence in foreign lands, so that the surplus of their warlike population was unceasingly pouring across the frontiers. The earliest and numerous migratory hordes, traveling from north to south, were apparently also German adventurers, such as the Cimmerii, Boii, and Senones; and in later times, the Cimbri and Teutones; the Suevi, under Ariovistus; the Marcomanni, Quadi, Getae, and Bastarnae. The opposition they met with from the Romans appears to have turned them eastward; a circumstance which perhaps reveals the origin of the immense empire founded by the Goth, Hermanarich, between the Baltic and the Black Sea. These fierce nations again poured with irresistible fury from the north to the south and west; opposition proved unavailing, and Goths, Alani, Vandals, Burgundians, Longobardi, Alemanni, Franks, Angli, and Saxons, spread like a torrent over the whole Roman empire. It was some time after this migration of these enormous multitudes before a large mass could again collect for a similar purpose in Germany, where they began to congregate into cities; when the surplus population again took possession of the Slavonian countries, which were conquered in the times of the crusades, and colonized the shores of the Baltic. Since that period the destructive religious wars prevented a too great increase of population, and filled Holland and the distant colonies with thousands, who fled thither from persecution at home; and within the last century several hundred thousands of German adventurers have gradually settled in America, on the Wolga, and in other parts of the world.

In their native country, the Ancient Germans were dis­tinguished by the epithet of "Free", from the bondsmen, who apparently were not of German origin. These Sclavi (Slavi, Slavonians or Servi, Serbi or Servii) were doubtless prisoners taken from our Slavonian neighbours in the east. The other bondsmen, who rented their property from and were protected by a freeman, were called Lazzi, Lati, or Liti, in Germany, and Aldi, among the Longobardi in Italy. It is still uncertain whether, like the Sclavi or Servi, they were originally a conquered people, or whether the name is derived from the word lassen, to let (freigelassenen, those let free), or from laz, the last or lowest. The Longobardian Aldi evidently signifies the ancient (alten) and conquered inhabitants of the country. 

 

V. The Suevian Tribes

 

Snorki Sturleson, the earliest historian of the north, who wrote in the German (Icelandish) tongue, divides the ancient world into three parts, Asia, Suithiod, and Europe. Tacitus also says that the Suevi possessed by far the greater part of Germany. Greek ships that visited the shores of the Baltic for the purpose of collecting amber, about three centuries BC, brought back accounts of the Suiones in modern Sweden, of the mountain Sewo between Sweden and Norway, and of the Suevian Sea, the Baltic. The ancient name is still preserved in those of Swabia and Switzerland. The Hungarians call all Germans Swabians. It is impossible to discover whether the name was taken from see, the sea, or from schweifen, to roam about; on account of their nomad mode of existence, or from the long hanging haar schweifen, tails of hair, worn by them tied together behind the head, and which formed part of their national costume.

Fifty years BC, when Julius Caesar for the first time led his legions to the Rhine, he found the western Germans (Non-Suevi) under great apprehension on account of the numerical superiority of their eastern neighbours, the Suevi. From them he learned that they were divided into a hundred districts, each of which annually sent forth a thousand warriors, who migrated in one vast horde. A century later, Tacitus mentions these hundred districts, but says that the Semnones, the most ancient and the most considerable tribe of the Suevi, was the only one so divided, exclusively of the numerous other Suevian tribes.

The Semnones, and their allies the Boii, overran Greece and Italy at a much earlier period, settled in the north of Italy, and after a long and difficult struggle (the wars of the Samnites) were vanquished by the Romans. Their name resembles that of the royal race of Saming, the son of Odin, the Samingri, in Norway. The same may be said of Samland. Perhaps the name may also be traced in that of the Cenni (Sens, Senn, shepherds in the Alps), who, Anno Domini 300, joined the Catti and Hermunduri and opposed the Romans.

A remarkable accordance exists between the names of the places and of the nations situated on the extreme verge of the north and the south of ancient Suithiod. In the north, the Suiones or Swedes, the Samingri and Samlanders, with the Guttones or Goths, Danes and Cimbri. In the south, the Swabians and the Swiss, the Semnones and Cenni, with the Getae as far as the Danube; the Cimmerii, Umbri, etc. Besides these, there are the Gaelic names which are evidently anterior to the German migrations. Snorri relates, that Odin found Norway already peopled, and that a nation called the Vani gave place to the German Vandali, who in their turn were replaced by the Slavonian Vendi. Again, we find in the south the names of Noricum (which may perhaps be also traced in those of Nordlingen and Nuremberg), and Vindelicia, in Augusta Vindelicorum, now Augsburg; also in Venice, the Vendian boundary. In the north, we find the worship of Thor, who was held in peculiar reverence by the Gaelic and Finnish tribes, and who is anterior to Odin; and in the south, we meet with the Taurisci in the Alps, the Thurgau, etc. There also exists some similarity in name and language between the Lettish tribes in the north, and the Latins (whence the Latin or Roman tongue) in the south.

Tacitus mentions all the Suevian nations by the general name of Hermiones, a name that again appears in that of the Hermunduri, who dwelt in modern Thuringia, and in that of Ariminum (Rimini), a city founded by the Samnites in Italy. The German deity, Irmin, and the celebrated column of Irmen, a relic of paganism, destroyed by Charlemagne, show the same connection, and again call to mind the similarity between Hermes, Thoth, and Thuisko.

Besides the Hermunduri, other nations were said to belong to the Hermiones; the Cherusci in the Harz Mountains, the Catti in Hesse, the Longobardi on the Middle Elbe, the Marcomanni and Quadi on the Danube, besides several petty tribes in the direction of the Oder and the Baltic, who are buried in complete obscurity.

Pliny distinguished the numerous Gothic tribes by the generic names of Vendili on the Baltic, and Peucini on the Danube, from the more westerly Hermiones. The Peucini lay nearest to Asia, their native land, and took their name from an island supposed to have been held sacred, and which possibly may have had some connection with that of Samothrace, where the religions of the north and of Greece intermingled, or with the oracle of Delphi in Greece, which was founded by Hyperboreans in the earlier ages of antiquity. Zamolxis, the sage, who first taught the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, dwelt, at a very remote period, among the Getae, the principal nation of the Peucini. These German tribes on the Danube were first subdued by Darius, the Persian king, and afterward by Alexander the Great. They consisted of Getae, Daci, and Bastarnae, and were in alliance with the Marcomanni in Bohemia, Bohmen, or Bojenheim, the ancient birthplace of the Boii.

The Quadi and Cenni defended the shores of the Danube against the Romans, who, at an earlier period, met with similar opposition from the Boii, and their constant allies, the Senones.

When the northern Vendili, consisting of Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Alani, Gepidae, Heruli, Rugii, etc., migrated to the south, overspread the ancient Roman empire, gave new inhabitants to Italy, France, Spain, and even to the north of Africa, the whole of ancient Suithiod, from the Elbe to the Vistula, was left bare, until repeopled by fresh Slavonian settlers.

The Suevi, who remained in Upper Germany, received the name of Alemanni, which is still preserved in that of the Swabian Almanden, public property, and evidently means all, or all sorts of men. The French call the Germans Allemands. The Bavarian Hessians, and a part of the Thuringians, were also originally Suevi, and Austria, when retaken by them from its Slavonian settlers, was again Germanized. Thus the whole of modern southern Germany is Suevian, and still makes use of the common High German or Dutch (oberdeutsch) tongue, though the long separation has rendered it very different to that spoken in the north of Sweden, with which it was once nearly allied.
 

VI. The Tribes of Lower Germany

 

The Istavones were the Franks on the Rhine; the Ingavones, the Saxons on the North Sea; they always remained in their ancient dwelling-places, although they also sent forth immense hordes, which some centuries before Christ, under the name of Cimbri and Teutones, spread terror throughout Italy, and, at a later period, repeopled France and England. To the Istavones, who afterward appear as the Franks, belonged, most particularly, the Sicambri, Tencteri, Usipetea, Ubii, Marsi, Ampsibari, Angrivarii, Chamavi, Mattiaci, etc., on the Lower Rhine. The other small tribes on the Upper Rhine, the Nemetes, Vangiones, Triboci, Latobrigi, Rauraci; and on the Moselle and in the Netherlands, the Nervii, Treveri (Treves) and Belgae (Netherlands), to which the Menapii, Marini, Gugemi, Eburones, Caninefates, and Batavians also belonged; all of which were certainly not of Suevian origin.

To the Ingavones belonged the Cimbri and Teutones, who migrated to the south; the Chauci, who afterward appear as the Saxons; the Frisii, Fasi, Dulgibines, Ambrones, Tubantes, etc.

Snorri says that Odin successively visited Saxony and Sweden. The most celebrated of his sons was Yngwy-Freyr, from whom the royal Swedish race, the Ynglinger, descended. According to this writer, Odin first founded in Sweden the sacred city of Sigtuna (Upsala), from Sigge, one of his own names, which leads us to the Sicambri, and to the legendary Frankish hero, Siegfried, who is also famous in the legends of the north, which in fact have generally originate d from the Rhine. Odin is perhaps Ulysses, of whom Tacitus says that he founded Asciburgium (Odin’s Asgard), on the Lower Rhine. Perhaps we must go back yet further. The Ambrones and Sequani dwelt on the Rhone and Saone, where, according to the Gaelic legend, King Ambigat reigned, and sent the two sons of his sister forth at the head of immense armies; Bellovesus to Italy, where he founded Milan; and Sigovesus across the Rhine, where, together with the Tectosagae, he settled in the until then unpeopled Hercynian forest.

The Frankish-Saxon Odin-Sigge is probably Sarnote (Saxon Odin), who, in the form of abjuration anciently prescribed to the German pagans on their conversion to Christianity, is particularly mentioned after Wodan. In the temple at Upsala, the statue of the warlike Odin stood before a great golden sun, which was perhaps symbolical of the still more ancient Suevian-Gothic deity, Wodan (Guodan, God). The great annual festival in the north was called Sunarblot, Sonnenblut (blood of the sun), Sonnen-opfer (sacrifice of the sun). Among the ancient Persians, Thaout meant sacred fire. Perhaps a more simple Suevian-Gothic adoration of the sun (of the ancient Wodan) preceded the more polished worship of Odin. Perhaps the Franks learned image worship in temples from the more civilized Gauls, or from the Grecian and Phoenician merchantmen, who visited those northern coasts. The twelve Drotlar, whom Odin appointed supreme judges over the Swedes, call to mind the Druids or Gallic priests.

 

VII. The Germans

 

The character common to all the nomad tribes, or tribes of wandering hunters and shepherds, at the period of their settlement in Germany, soon obliterated all trace of difference in descent. There is an authentic account of the division of the land, by the Suevi, into Almenden (public property), belonging to whole tribes or communities, not to single families, which, in course of time, was exchanged for the Allodium, or private property, a mode of division which had been introduced at an earlier period among the lower Germans. This gradual transition, however, does not prove the existence of any essential difference between the German tribes, in which man, not property, was the chief consideration. All the Germans were warriors. Irman, in the Persian tongue, signifies a guest or companion in arms; Germanus, in Latin, a brother. They were all freemen and equal, united by a strong fraternal bond. The whole of the German tribes were early distinguished by their spirit of equalization from the other hordes to the north of the Caucasus, the Slavi and Tartars, as well as from those to the south, in Persia, Afghanistan, and Arabia, all of which, with the patriarchal reverence of children to their father, submitted to a single supremacy, and when, through increase of population or by conquest, they had attained considerable power, always erected magnificent palaces for their sovereigns, whose magic splendour was the astonishment of the world, and realized the fairy dreams of eastern imagination in the wonders of Babylon, Delhi, Bagdad, Ispahan and Stamboul. The Germans, on the contrary, regarded each other as brethren and equals, and even when they had become numerous and powerful, and were united under great leaders, always asserted their equality, and defended their free constitution. Everyone enjoyed personal freedom, and had an exclusive right over his own property. In the popular assemblies of each district, the eldest man present presided, and the majority decided. It was only during war that they obeyed a leader, whom they selected by raising him on their shields. Even after the great migration, when the Germans, for nearly a thousand years, had, with various fortune, struggled against the Romans, and incessant warfare had consolidated the power of their leaders, we still find, wherever the German tongue was spoken, from Iceland and Norway to the Gothic settlements in Italy and Spain, their ancient division into districts and their free constitution, which continued to exist long after the birth of Christ, and gave rise to the modem brotherhoods and societies of different orders of knighthood, and to the guilds and corporations of citizens. In England, Switzerland and Holland, ancient German freedom reigned almost uninterruptedly up to the present times, and in most of the other originally German or Germanized countries it has been revived under new constitutions.

The free intercourse between citizens, possessed of equal privileges and bound by the same duties, was the soul of the ancient German communities, and the foundation on which their whole history rests. Their liberty is of more ancient date than their servitude, for it owed its existence to the national character of the German, and though seemingly withered, still springs forth anew. "Liberty," said the Roman poet Lucanus, "is the German's birth right." "It is a privilege," wrote the Roman historian Florus, "which nature has granted to the Germans, and which the Greeks, with all their art, knew not how to obtain." Hume, the great English historian, says, "If our part of the world maintain sentiments of liberty, honour, equity and valour superior to the rest of mankind, it owes these advantages to the seeds implanted by those generous barbarians." "Liberty," observed Montesquieu, "that lovely thing, was discovered in the wild forests of Germany."

 

VIII. Ancient German Heroism

 

The Germans were distinguished from all other nations by their blue eyes, light hair, and gigantic stature. They are said to have been generally seven feet in height, far overtopping the Gauls and Romans. Bones of an enormous size have been found in the ancient burial-places of the Huns, and people of extraordinary stature are even now to be met with on the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic, and among the German Alps. The gigantic shepherd of Sens braving the Alpine regions of Berne and Unterwalden presents the truest image of our forefathers, whose strength was a national inheritance. Caesar said that the Gauls fled at the sight of the Germans, and the emperor Titus, when commending them, said, "Their bodies are great, but their souls are still greater!"

In the remotest ages, it was customary among the Germans to destroy weakly, sickly, or deformed children, to drown in the morasses men whose bodies had been mutilated (corpore infames), and when become useless from old age, voluntarily to deprive themselves of life. An existence devoid of strength and beauty appeared to them to be worthless, and according to their religion, the joys of heaven were only granted to those who fell by the sword. Valerius Maximus relates that they sorrowed when dying on their beds, and rejoiced while expiring on the field of battle.

In the north, the sick were, at their own request, pierced with a lance, in order that a wound, and not disease, might be the cause of their death. In Norway there was a rock from which the old men threw themselves into the sea, after dividing their wealth among their children at a parting feast.

The bodily vigour with which the Germans were endowed was probably the result of the simplicity and purity of their manners, added to their continual exercise in the open air. War, the chase, and sometimes, though rarely, agriculture, were their only occupations. They despised, as effeminate, the refinements of civilized life; and as every wall appeared to them a prison, they built no cities, and destroyed those of the countries they invaded. To the south of the Danube, in Switzerland and in Gaul, the Romans had built splendid cities, communicating with each other by means of military roads, all of which were razed to the ground by the Franks and the Alemanni, and before long replaced by the low hut of the freeborn German, and the forest in which he loved to dwell. No towns, with the exception of a few sacred places, known by the name of Asenburgen, were to be found in Germany before the tenth century after Christ; the frontier towns of the Boii, in the Southern Tyrol, which are mentioned two centuries before Christ, having been merely built for defense during the wars, in imitation of those constructed by the Romans. "With a mind free and bold, and a body inured to fatigue, the natural results of his wild forest life, the German was ever inspired with the almost hereditary ambition of distinguishing himself by heroic deeds: no danger could appal, no opposition deter him. A chivalric and unbending spirit pervaded the whole nation. "Who," asks Seneca, "is braver than the German?" And Sidonius says, "Death alone subdues them, not fear; they threaten even in death; their courage survives them!" They were, consequently, continually in arms. According to Libanius, they sat down to their meals in full Armor, and slept helmeted. Weapons were the usual marriage gift between a bridal pair, for the women also learned to use them. They were even held so sacred that it was customary to swear by them. They are often mentioned in treaties of peace, and the old song of Wieland in the Northern Edda has the words, "Thou shalt swear to me by the deck of the ship, and by the rim of the shield, by the withers of the horse, and by the point of the sword." They were also considered as proofs of illus­trious descent, and were handed down from one generation to another.

Over-population and famine, but still oftener their war­like propensities and thirst for adventure, seem to have been the causes that induced the Germans to abandon their forests; and if we compare the expedition of Brennus to Delphi, with the crusades; the irruption of Crocus, the destroyer of cities, with the venturous expeditions of the Normans to Winland (America) and Greenland, they will all be found to have been inspired by the same enthusiasm. In all, warlike customs preponderated over peaceful arts; the people were always armed, carried on private feuds, and preferred the trial by single combat to the decision of the law.

A malady, caused by superabundant health and strength, and unknown among other nations, was common among the Germans, and in the north was called the Berserkerwuth. Ber or bar signifies without. Serk, like the Scotch sark, a gown or frock. In the mountainous Rhone country, a frock is still called sarg. This malady, or rather madness, seized them when at the height of their strength, more particularly when excited by anger, when they spared neither friend nor foe, and would even rave against themselves. Hence arose the legend of the werewolf, or of men who at certain hours were changed into wolves.

IX. Ancient Fellowship in Arms

  The civil institutions, the customs and superstitions of ancient Germany, arose from the peculiar and warlike form of government necessary for the guidance of a nation of free warriors, who owned no laws save those of chivalry and honour. This chivalric feeling is by no means sufficiently explained by ascribing it to the character common to all the wandering robber hordes, as it never rose in those of Asia to such a degree of sublimity. The cause must then be sought in the traits peculiarly characteristic of our race, which probably descended at a very remote period from some warrior caste of Northern India, from which they, in a degree, inherited a spirit of equality and fraternization which, strengthened by the lapse of centuries, became at length indelibly stamped on the national character.

The youthful warriors (Huns) generally took a mutual pledge as brethren in arms, and elected a leader from among their number by raising him on their shields, being guided in their choice by superior skill or courage, instead of high birth. It sometimes happened that a chief, already famous for mighty deeds, collected the young men into an army and placed himself at their head. The most implicit obedience, was rendered to the chief, whom they were bound not to forsake even if lie fell on the field, and if vanquished, to die with him. It was a common custom for the survivors to kill themselves, instead of seeking safety by flight, and it is authentically recorded that they even caused themselves to be buried alive in the tombs of their chieftains.

Many proofs of the severity of the laws by which these barbarians were governed were afforded during their wars with the Romans, and are still recorded by the traditionary chroniclers of the North. The same severity is also perceptible in the chivalric regulations of the knights of the Middle Ages, for the lists and in the field. The Cimbri, in their contempt for every stratagem of war, and for the Romans who defended themselves behind their intrenchments, always informed their opponents of the place and hour fixed for battle, exactly as was in later times the custom when a feudal combat took place, or as is now customary in dueling. The Germans rode without saddles and ridiculed the Romans for making use of them. By an ancient Danish law, whoever fled from fewer than four foes forfeited his honour, and the Norman laws were still more severe. The Jomsvikinger band was only allowed to make use of blunted swords an ell long, with which they were expected to overcome every foe. There was an association of pirates in the north, who were obliged by their laws to hoist their sails on the open sea during storms, in defiance of the elements, even when shipwreck was the sure result; and daring courage, allied with spotless honour and good faith, form the chief characteristics of all the heroes in the ancient legendary accounts; in the old song of the Nibelungen, for instance. Every one was declared infamous who made use of stratagem or took advantage of weakness; all dishonourable and cowardly artifices, such as falling on the enemy's rear, lying treacherously in ambuscade, making use of poisoned weapons, in short, whatever might render the contest unequal, was condemned as Nidingswerk, and forbidden under a heavy penalty.

Before iron and steel were used by the Germans for the manufacture of coats of mail, they covered themselves with the skins of wild animals, wearing on their heads those of the bear, the horned buffalo or the antlered stag, whence arose the custom of placing horns, wings, and other symbols on iron helmets and escutcheons. The shields, generally made long and narrow in order to guard the whole person, were either painted, ornamented with figures, inlaid with gold or silver, adorned with armorial bearings, or, when highly finished, with a representation of some battle or famous exploit. The colours of the dresses worn by the warriors varied according to those on their escutcheon. Iron rings placed round the body seem to have been the first approach to the use of Armor, which is, however, of very ancient date, and was called Brinne, from brehen, to shine. The name of Brennus, so common among the Boii, apparently signifies "a man in armor." The Cimbri had numerous troops of mailed cavalry.

Warriors who fell on the field of battle were burned on funeral piles, together with their arms and the bodies of their enemies, and immense mounds, known as the tombs of the Huns, were raised over them. Naval chiefs were consumed with their ships either on shore or on the open sea. One of the heroes of the north, who had been brought on shore mortally wounded, ordered all the booty and the dead bodies of his enemies to be piled on the deck of his ship, placed himself on the summit as on a throne, and sailed into the midst of the ocean, where the whole was consumed.

Warlike deeds were celebrated in verse at every public festival; around every hearth resounded the praises of the fallen brave; and song alone preserved the memory of past deeds. The singers, who accompanied this legendary verse with the music of the harp, were in the south called bards, in the north scalds. Their songs were the forerunners of the more elaborate productions of the Nibelungen, the German legendary ballads, and the northern sagas.

In the popular religion war was regarded as a sacred and imperative duty; the gods were even supposed to ride daily on the plain of Ida, and to battle with each other, after which they held a joyous carousal in Walhalla, or "the hall of the dead," where the souls of warriors who had fallen honourably by the sword were received and permitted, under the name of Einheriar, to join in the battles and drinking feasts of the gods. Thus a warrior's death was the aspiration of every German, as that alone could unlock for him the gates of that blessed abode.

 

X. Armed Communities

 

In the early German settlements, the customs of war were preserved even during peace time. The land was considered as lawful booty, and equally partitioned among the people, who nevertheless preferred the sports of the chase to agriculture. At stated times they assembled (in the open air and armed, as if encamped in a foreign land) in order to deliberate on their public affairs. The place of assembly was called Malstatt (from mal, time, and zeichen, a signal), or the Thing, or Dingstatt (from dingen, to counsel), and was generally distinguished by a great tree, either a sacred oak, ash, or lime, or by enormous stones, which were sometimes used as sacrificial altars, and sometimes as seats for the audience and rostra for the orators. According to the popular belief the gods held council (Thing), mounted on horseback, beneath the ash Ygdrasill. Even in the dark records of antiquity it is observable that the center of union in the great alliances between nations was not a king, but a popular assembly on some sacred spot. The different tribes appear to have been held together by a very frail federative system, and their chiefs seem to have merely represented our modem committee. As the authority was never vested in one individual, a plurality always existed, and the numbers three, four, and twelve, are generally found to predominate. In the north, Odin founded the government of the twelve Drottars; a number which may have arisen from the Asiatic idea of the twelve months or gods. It is certain that the people had, either at the same time the right of deliberating on the public affairs, or very soon gained it; for the same Ynglinga-saga which speaks of the twelve Drottars also records the meeting of the Swedish Bonden (free German peasantry) at Upsala, which decided all public questions, and was the exact counterpart of the meetings in the interior of Germany as described by Tacitus. The free Norwegians held similar assemblies at Throndheim. When the Galatae, or Gallo-graeci, who, 276 B.C., invaded Greece under Brennus, settled in Asia Minor, they chose a place of general assembly called Drynaimet, and divided their nation into twelve tetrarchies, over each of which was set a tetrarch who possessed either hierarchical or civil authority, a judge and a war chief, exactly as, in the interior of Germany, the civil and military authority was in later times divided between the landgrave and the duke. The Salic law was drawn up by four counsellors chosen for that purpose out of a convocation of the whole Frankish nation, who even when ruled by kings and emperors retained the right of assembling in the Maifeld (Mayfield) in order to counsel the government. At the time of the Frankish conquest, the Saxons were divided into three tribes, in Westphalia, Enger, and Eastphalia; each tribe numbering twelve districts. They were also divided into three classes, the nobles, the freeborn, and the freedmen. Each class in each of these districts sent a representative, altogether six and thirty, to the general assembly held at Marklo, who, during peace, deliberated for the public weal. In time of war a duke was elected, who enjoyed unlimited power until peace was again concluded, when he resigned his authority. The Frisii were also divided into several districts, and held their annual popular assemblies at Upstalesbome (Obergerichtsbaum, tree of judgment), beneath a sacred tree. Until a very late period, the twelve freely elected representatives of the districts formed the deliberative assembly in Saterland, The number ten is elsewhere found predominant. The Suevi, or Semnones, had a hundred districts, each of which annually sent forth a thou­sand warriors; and sixty thousand freeborn Nervii annually elected a committee of six hundred, which managed all their affairs.

The number ten also predominated in the great English Anglo-Saxon Wittenagemot, or assembly of wise or aged men. These assemblies were common to all the German nations, the Suevi and Alemanni, the Danes, Burgundians, Boii, Vandals, the Ostro and VisiGoths, and an additional proof of their primitive nature is furnished by their having continued to exist, long after the introduction of Christianity, under a monarchical and feudal form of government. During the great migrations, the name of the leader is often the only one mentioned, so that the relation in which he stood to the people has become a matter of uncertainty; but whenever his authority has been more fully spoken of, it is described as having been dependent on the will of the people: and even among those nations who wandered far and wide for many years, the power of whose chiefs became consequently more deeply rooted, as, for instance, among the Goths, the ancient division into districts and the free assembly of the people reappeared, as soon as they were permanently settled in any of the countries conquered by them. The only points of union in these federative states, in which each of the districts was independent, consisted in the meeting of the representatives in the general state assembly, and in the election of a common leader in time of war. It is not unusual to find many very small tribes completely independent; and even in the great states, the small district assemblies were co-existent with the diets.

 

XI. Public Offices and Popular Assemblies

 

The present representative assemblies of Schwyz, Unterwalden, Uri, Glarus, and Appenzell, give the truest idea of the ancient German mode of government, the clerk and treasurer being the only modern additions. The Landamman, or magistrate, and the Landeshauptman, or captain-general of the country, correspond with the representatives of the primordial districts; and the accounts of Tacitus and Snorri prove that the power of the ancient rulers of the people did not surpass the limited authority of the modern Landamman and Landhauptman. Tacitus says, "Germanos non juberi, non regi, sed cuncta ex libidine agere"; and he makes Ambiorix, the leader of the Lower Germans, say, that among them the government was so arranged that he had no more power over the people than they had over him. Snorri relates that a Swedish king was forced, by the popular assembly, whose decisions he had opposed, to desist from an unjust war which he was carrying on against a neighbouring nation; and that they threatened to throw him into a morass, where many of his predecessors had already been cast, on account of their opposition to the will of the people. Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop, who, in the fourth century, translated the Bible into German, says that these people were governed by a Reiks, or judge, during peace, and by a Thiudans, or leader, in time of war, the former being chosen on account of his high birth, the latter on account of his illustrious deeds; which agrees with the account given by Tacitus, "reges ex nobilitate, duces ei virtute sumunt; nec regibus infinita et libera potestas"; the people, however, always retaining the highest authority and the power of revoking their choice. The Reiks were always priests belonging to an ancient race held sacred on account of its supposed descent from the gods; as in the north, where many families derived their origin from Odin. The pre-eminence was always ceded to the hereditary high priest, whose duty it was to preside over the public sacrifices and ordeals, but whose authority merely rested on the superstition of the people, who, during war, always elected the bravest man as their chief, while every freeborn man stated his opinion unreservedly and without respect to rank in the public council. The Burgundians called their high priest, Sinist, or eldest, and their war-chiefs, Hendini. Other names have a similar origin. Fürst, prince, princeps; Hersog, from heer, an army, and ziehen, to lead; dux, a leader, duke. The word king is of later origin. The German König is derived from Chun, race, lineage, and was first used when families, distinguished from one generation to another by their illustrious deeds, united the double authority of judge and war-chief in themselves. The northern Lagman, or lawyer; the English Alderman, alter man, or old man; the Swiss Amman, or magistrate; the Belgian Ruwart, from ruhe, peace, and wahren, to preserve, denote the officers of a peaceful civil government. There are probably also titles still extant that bear traces of the ancient form of government during war. The state assemblies were generally convoked on the great festivals, and were attended by all the members of the confederated provinces; besides this, on every fourteenth night, the customary unconvoked meeting was regularly held in each district, but when any urgent affair rendered a sudden convocation necessary, an arrow (the symbol of war) was sent from house to house, or one neighbour either shouted to the other or sounded the horn through the wide forests. This meeting extraordinary was called a bidden council (Ding), or a cried council (Schreygeding). These assemblies were held at night, the moon, or Mana, being the protecting divinity of the council (Things). From Mana is derived the word man, which originally signified not only the male sex, but also the privileges of an acting citizen. Hence also the word mahnen, to cite before the tribumal; Montag, Monday, or rather moonnight, followed by Dienstag, or day of council (Thing), Tuesday. The assemblies were held in the open air during the crescent moon, when the people, armed aa if for battle, offered sacri­ices of oxen, on which they also feasted, drank beer, mead, or wine, and gave their opinions with perfect freedom. But it was not until the morning that those who remained sober formed themselves into a circle, and deliberated over the councils of the night, "deliberant dum fingere nesciunt, constituunt dum errare non possunt." Every man had an equal right to speak, and the priest alone had the power of commanding silence, in the name of the gods, whenever the noise became overpowering; as at the present day in the Swiss assemblies, the waihel, or beadle, dressed in the colors of the country, calls out, "Peace by your oath!". Applause, rattling of arms, or groaning, accompanied the words of the speaker: the majority decided. The affairs of the state were here debated upon, war was declared, peace concluded, and judgment given. When no affairs of importance had to be transacted, the people only feasted and drank, while they sang the praises of fallen heroes.

 

XII. Public Property, Meres and Guilds

The Germans only gradually exchanged their restless nomad existence (in the Slavonic tongue they are still called the Nemez, from ne mesa, without a boundary) for permanent habitations. The Suevi, with their division into a hun­dred Gauen or districts, were also comprehended in this change, and notwithstanding their subsequent migrations, this mode of division was retained; and even after their adoption of the Alemannic mode of subdividing the land into Allods (allodium), or private freehold estates, a considerable tract of common land (almanden) always re­mained for the benefit of the community. These tracts are at the present day frequent in Swabia, where they are in general used as sheep-runs. Meres were common to all the German tribes, and their origin is intimately connected with their free and military institutions. The largest tribes were divided into communities of a hundred men each, which were subdivided into tens. The whole of these communities were mutually bound by an offensive and defensive alliance, while the smaller divisions and the tens (Zehnmannerzahl, tien manna tola) were yet more closely united, by an obligation to assist each other in their private affairs as if they were their own. Owing also to these communities being obliged to become sureties for each other, they were called Freiburgschaften, from frei, free, and burgen, to bail; corporations or guilds for mutual security, the members of which were called Gildebruder, Congildones, Eidhelfer, from Eid, an oath, and helfen, to help, conjuratores, who by law were accounted one and the same individual, whenever the actual criminal could not be discovered. The confederation of ten times ten, or of every hundred freeborn men, stood between the Friborg and the great community, and often held a particular assembly, as, for instance, the Hundredisthing in Nor­way. The chief man or president of a hundred was named by the Franks, Tunginus, by the Longobardi, Sculdais, and by the Anglo-Saxons, Hundredarius. In Swabia, the Hundreda appears at a later period under the name of Zent (decania). Even when the larger districts belonging to the Alemanni fell under the jurisdiction of the Frankish counts, many of the Zents in the mountainous country retained their freedom; among others, the peasantry of Leutkirch. As ten denoted a Mere, and Zent a canton, a thousand evidently stood for a district or Gau (pagus). The Suevi had a hundred Gauen, each containing a thousand men. The division into tens is most easily traced in the nation of the Visigoths, who named the president over tens, Taichunfath; over hundreds, Hundafath; and over thousands, Tiufath. The population of the Meres doubtless increased. The Allods, at first large, sufficed for the maintenance and settlement of the different families, which gradually became more and more numerous, and finally outgrew the land, especially in countries remarkable for fertility, or favourable for commerce. Each individual possessed a freehold within the limits of his Mere; but highway and byway, forest and fell, fish and fowl, wood and water, were the equal right of all. These common tracts, however, have no connection with those that surround our modern villages, which in general grew out of some enor­mous private estate. The ancient Germans, whose institu­tions were always founded on the principle of fraternization, possessed several other free guilds, besides the armed band of warriors already mentioned, who, like young swarms of bees, were driven forth from the parent hive, in search of a country wherein to settle; for instance, the Opfer guilds, consecrated to the service of some particular god (like the present Catholic brotherhoods, consisting of different gradations, from the superior to the servant, devoted to the service of some particular saint); the Singer guilds, scalds or bards; the soothsayers, Wahrsagergilden or Seidmanner, in the north. Probably also guilds of miners, armorers, and salt manufact­urers (Halloren). The women also formed religious associations among themselves, connected with the worship of the gods, and with prophesying. They also held festivals, at which no man was allowed to be present, which gave rise to the legend of the assembly of witches on the Blocksberg on May-day eve (Walpurgisnacht). There were also bands of female warriors; and accounts of Amazons, or warrior-maids, called in the north Schildjungfrauen, or maidens bearing shields, are frequently met with in the ancient records of Germany.

 

XIII. The Allod or Freehold Property

 

In whatever country the victorious Germans settled, the land was always equally divided among the freeborn warriors. The hereditary estates held by their descendants were termed Allods, from Od, an estate, and were so highly prized that, in later times, small freeholders have been known to refuse to part with their property in exchange for a large fief, which obliged them to render feudal service to the king. These hereditary estates were usually called Sonnenlehen, because they were said to have been originally granted to their possessors by the sun, whence the formula of later times, "This estate received from God and the glorious element of the suns."

As every freeborn man dwelt within the limits of his Al­lod, the habitations lay at scattered distances, and neither towns nor villages existed. The houses were built of wood, and usually consisted of one large apartment, called the hall or Saal, in the center of which stood the hearth, the house­wife's seat of honour. Had a separate house, the Frauenhaus (Frauenzimmer, Schrein, a shrine; Gadem, a chamber); there were also a house for sacrifice, dwellings for attendants and slaves, cellars, barns, and stables. These houses were surrounded by gardens, cornfields, meadows, and forests. The boundaries of the Allods were carefully marked, and it was customary at the setting of a landmark, which was either a stone or a tree, to assemble all the children in the neighbourhood on the spot, and to box their ears, in order to impress the circumstance and the locality more deeply on their minds. An Allod could only be alienated with the consent of the family. Whatever the crimes of a freeborn man, the government could not deprive him of his estate, which was regarded as sacred, and as inseparable from the possessor, whose freedom, being derived from it, was alienable only with his property. It was illegal for anyone to enter an Allod without the permission of the owner, who, if abused or maltreated by a stranger in his own house, or within his own limits, received double or treble indemnification. The state had no right to seize the person of any individual, or that of his guest, in his own house, a spot more sacred in the eyes of the ancient Germans than our churches are in ours. Even if the culprit had become the object of public vengeance by his crimes, and had been declared out of the pale of the law, no one ventured to cross his threshold, but the house was set fire to from without. England now alone preserves this an­cient privilege, and realizes the saying, "Every man's house is his castle." The Allods were only hereditary in the male line, females being excluded from the succession on account of their being unable to exercise the privileges and duties of a freeholder, but every member of the family had a right to live in the house, and to be maintained on the produce of the Allod, nor could a father disinherit his children. When the eldest son took sole possession of the estate, he was obliged to give to each of the other kinsfolk a portion of the personal property, and to apply part of his revenues to their mainte­nance. A family was called a Sippe, Sippschaft, or Magschaft, and was divided into Schwertmagen, kinsmen who carried swords, and Spillmagen, kinswomen who busied themselves in spinning. The father being the legal repre­sentative of the whole family, the slaves included, spoke for them before the tribunal, and was their guardian, Mund, mouth—mundium, to whom they owed implicit obedience, being under his jurisdiction, bann—bannum; the kinsmen remaining under his bann until they entered foreign service, or married, when they became selbstmundig, independent, and were freed from the bann; hence the word freien, to marry. The property received on these occasions was called Abban, appanage. Those who remained unmarried always continued under the bann of the paternal estate, the limits (Gehage) of which they were not permitted to quit; hence the word Hagestolzer, old bachelor, from hag, hedge, and stolz, proud. The Spillmagen were always under tutelage; the bridegroom purchasing the right of guardianship from the parents of the bride, who henceforward submitted to his authority.

 

XIV. The Division into Classes

 

The Suevian nations, when in their half nomad state, recognized but one description of slaves, viz., the prisoners taken in war, who were bound to serve them. But when the allodial system was introduced, many of the slaves were manumitted by the Frankish Saxon tribes, and furnished with houses and land, on condition of performing certain services, and of paying a certain tribute to their lord; it also sometimes happened that the inhabitants of a conquered country were permitted to retain a part of their landed property, for which they engaged to perform certain duties; thus a new class of bondsmen was created, distinct from the real slave, by, their being merely dependent by their vassalage on the feudal lords. They were called by the Saxons, Lazzi; by the Franks, Liti; whence the German Leute, people; and their property, in contradistinction to the Allod (freehold), was called a Feod, or fief (feod, transferable property). The word fe comes from Vieh, cattle, as the Latin pecunia, from pecus, the only transferable property at first consisting of cattle; hence also the people were called Feodales, Vassi, Vasalli, and thus simply originated the feudal system, which spread so widely at a later period.

Tacitus speaks commendably of the treatment of the slaves in Germany. It is true that they were sometimes killed by their masters in moments of irritation, but it was illegal to strike or to ill-treat them. These slaves, at first few, gradually increased in such number as at length, to necessitate the division of the large estates into numerous fiefs, and the feudal system became general. The freeborn man was named Germanus, Arimannus, Herimannus, Baroj and, among the Saxons, was distinguished by the designation of Friling from the Edeling or nobleman. It is not very clear in what nobility consisted in the pagan times; that there were two kinds is however certain, one derived from mythical descent, which naturally was restricted to a few families; the other, gained by conquest. When whole nations migrated, every man of whatever class received an Allod as his share of the newly conquered land; or when a horde overran a country, whose inhabitants they either could or would not completely reduce to submission, they tolerated them as subordinates, manumitted their former slaves, and promoting the freeborn to the rank of noble, created a purely political class of nobility far outnumbering that of the hereditary nobles. It is remarkable that the name Edeling, in the north, Oedling, is derived from Od, Allod, and therefore simply means the possessor of an estate. For the same rea­son, the Visigothic noble was entitled Garding, from the word Gards, which, according to Ulphilas, signifies an es­tate, as well as a garden. Perhaps the nobles were origi­nally only the firstborn sons, or heirs to the estates, while the Frilinge denoted the portionless younger sons; but no sooner did the word Friling denote a separate class, than pride of birth asserted its claims, and even the poor younger sons of the nobility were called Edelinge. Yet it is nowhere to be found that the Frilinge were oppressed or domineered over by the Edelinge; among the Saxons, on the contrary, Edelinge, Frilinge, and even Lazzi, in equal numbers, and with equal right, conducted the public affairs; and when the Franks declared a war of extirpation against the Saxons, the Edelinge attempted, by betraying the Frilinge and Lazzi, to make friends of the Franks, and to get the whole of the formerly equally divided power into their own hands.

Among the Germans, who acknowledged no law as binding, in the framing of which they had not either assisted or to which they did not voluntarily and individually assent, there always existed men, who, naturally fierce and stubborn, resisted every law, and were unfettered by any moral obligation. These men were called Wildfange (wild animals), and were treated as wolves or outlaws. They were in the north Barserkers, ravishers, or lawless Huns, whose wild daring caused them to be eagerly taken into foreign service. The owner of an Allod who, through caprice, remained at home and took no part in the state, was called Biesterfrei, Verbiesterte, bestialized (or Versessen, possessed by a demon), and was considered beyond the pale of the law, inasmuch as he recognized none; and if he committed a crime, he was delivered up to public vengeance; his well was choked up, his house destroyed by fire or unroofed, and then razed to the ground, but no one ventured to break open the door.

 

XV. Single Combat and Fines (Wergeld)

 

It is a remarkable fact that the ancient Germans had no public, but only a private law; all their oldest laws merely referring to the mutual rights of the freeborn, and to those of the freeborn over the unfree; the state assembly taking cognizance of and deciding all public and private affairs: beyond these decisions there was no law.

The laws chiefly aimed at providing security and indemnity. To every individual they secured his life, his liberty, his honour, and his property; or in case of injury and deprivation, an indemnity or commutation, of which there were only two kinds, single combat and fines. In the earliest times, every one avenged himself as he could, and it was the especial duty of a family, a member of which had been injured or murdered, to avenge him to the uttermost. Single combat, according to law (and the ancient laws were very strict in this particular), seems to have been intended as a check upon a custom conducing to so much disorder and bloodshed. According to the regulations, the advantages of ground, light, sun, and weapons, were to be equal on both sides; no Nidingswerk or underhand means were to be used, and no further vengeance was to be sought, however the combat, which was regarded as the judgment of God, might terminate. The Wergeld or fine seems to have been introduced at a later period, as, for instance, in cases where no single combat could take place, or for lesser injuries, when the injured person was compensated by the offender in cattle or weapons, according to the value of the injured object; for this purpose he could be deprived of all he possessed, except of his Allod, which, under all circumstances, was inalienable. There were even cases where the offender, unable to make full restitution, was obliged to serve the person he had injured for twenty years, and yet was never deprived of his Allod. In course of time, this system became more definite, and the value of the injured object was estimated in eight different degrees.

In the first place, according to the sex of the injured person. Injuries offered to women were not only estimated doubly or trebly higher than those offered to men, but the law in this respect also permitted private vengeance to be taken, and the offender to be deprived of his liberty or of his life.

Secondly, according to the rank of the injured person. The head-man of a district was estimated very highly, on account of the duties he had to perform. The noble was valued higher than the freeborn, the freeborn higher than the people, and they higher than the slaves.

Thirdly, according to the value of the injured object. Honora and liberty were valued higher than life, person, or property. Also all attacks on the property or person of an individual, which in any way entailed dishonour, received a much higher compensation. Rape, injuries to guests, ambassadors, hostages, and especially to strangers, besides theft, robbing and insulting the dead, were doubly and trebly, nay, sometimes nine times more severely punished. In bodily injuries, every limb and every devisable sort of wound had its fixed value; toes and teeth were especially and individually prized; and injuries done to property were as definitely regulated; every article that could come under the head of goods and chattels having its comparative value.

Fourthly, according to the sex of the offender. A woman was punished more severely than a man, because she was considered less capable of the commission of a crime, and because, when injured, she received a higher indemnity.

Fifthly, according to the rank of the offender. When a Friling committed a crime, he paid more than a Laz, and a Laz more than a slave, according to the principle that he who enjoys higher privileges has higher duties to perform.

Sixthly, according to the intention of the offender. An unintentional injury was only lightly rated, and sometimes, according to the circumstances, completely passed over, on which account the mere intention of committing an injury was almost as severely punished as if the injury had in reality been committed.

Seventhly, according to the mode of injury. For instance, whoever killed another with an iron weapon was held less criminal than he who murdered another with a piece of, wood or, with his hands,

Eighthly, according to the place. Whoever injured another in his own house, had to pay doubly or trebly higher than he had injured him elsewhere; and the offense was considered equally bad when committed on holy ground, in the assembly of the people, or on the highroad. During war time the Wergeld was trebled; discipline and good order being then of still higher importance.

However, notwithstanding the introduction of the Wergeld, single combat remained in full force in matters of honour and in doubtful cases; when, by ordinary means, the truth could not be discovered, the decision was left to God. Besides the ordeal by single combat, customary between freeborn men, there was also that by fire and water, to which women and slaves were subjected; the hand or the foot being held upon red-hot iron, or in boiling water.

The mundium or guardianship of the free owner of an Allod over his family, his people (the conditionally unfree) and his slaves (the personally unfree), whose reciprocal obligations have already been explained, was also regulated by the laws.

 

XVI. Courts of Justice and Laws

 

  The Germans had the axiom, "Where there is no accuser there is no judge." If the fine enforced by law were voluntarily paid, the case was not brought before the court. The master of a house, or a whole Sippschaft (kinsfolk), or two, in cases in which both were concerned, judged all family matters. The Friborg, Hundreda or Guild, took cognizance of all matters relating to Meres and Guilds, and all affairs of higher importance came before the great general assembly, and were decided by the freeborn members. It was not until a much later period, when the Christian monarchs increased in power, that the people were deprived of the right of holding open courts of justice, and the judges (Schoppen), who were bound by oath to administer justice, were restricted, to a limited number.

In ancient times these courts were held in the open air, where all transactions were conducted by word of mouth, and they formed a principal part of the business of each community. The priestly judge of peace sat in a chair, staff in hand, with his legs crossed in sign of impartiality and tranquillity of mind, and his face turned toward the east during the new moon, in order to imply that the administration of justice was as sure as the increase of that orb. On the right hand stood the accuser, on the left the accused, encircled by the armed community, who pronounced the ver­dict ; the kinsfolk and confederates of the Mere or Guild, to which the accused belonged, standing around him, as conjuratores; i.e., they swore that they knew him to be an honourable man, and believed what he said. If the truth could not be discovered, the ordeal decided the point; but if it were proved by witnesses, the sentence was pronounced and executed. Corporeal punishment was unheard of among them, "neque vincire ne verberare quidem permissum," Tac. Adam Von Bremen says of the ancient Saxons, "decollari malunt, quam verberari." Prisons were equally unknown, all injuries being expiated by the Wergeld, except such as were considered irreparable, which were punished by death. The priest alone had the power of passing sentence on the criminal in the name of God. Capital punishment was awarded to all traitors, deserters, thieves, and adulterers; in a word, all crimes against man's honour or dignity and against female chastity. Beyond the sentence of being burned alive in his house or decapitated, passed upon men, and that of being hanged, drowned, or buried alive, passed upon women and cowards, there was no other mode of public punishment of death, and these were only awarded in extreme cases. The laws appear to have been, like other ancient customs, originally handed down by word of mouth; and in order the more easily to retain them in the memory, they were usually arranged in assonance and rhythm. Frag­ments of ancient versified laws are still extant, and a num­ber assonances are still made use of in our laws, such as Bank und Bett, bed and board; Bausch und Bogen, in the lump; braun und blau, brown and blue; Dach und Fach erhalten, to keep in repair; dick und dünn, thick and thin; Erb und Eigen, heir and inheritance; frank und frei, frank and free; gang und gdbe, current; Gut und Blut, property and person; Haus und Hof, house and land; Haut und Haar, hide and hair; Herz und Hand, heart and hand; los und ledig, free and single; Hulle und Fülle, plenty; Kind und Kegel, child and toy; Land und Leute, land and peo­ple; Mann und Maus, man and mouse; Nacht und Nebel, night and mist; Eath und That, word and deed; Ruh und East, rest and repose; richten und schlichten, to judge and adjust; Schut und Schirm, shelter and defense; Stein und Bein, stone and bone; Stock und Block, stock and block; Weg und Steg, highway and byway; weit und breit, far and wide; Wind und Wetter, wind and weather, etc. To these also belong the significant numbers, to summons three times, four roads, twelve confederates, fourteen nights, thirty days' respite; besides a number of signs, as, for instance, the right of fishing in a river extended as far as one could cast a hammer (the symbol of the god Thor) from the bank; an­other right extended as far as one could see a white horse, or hear the blast of the huntsman's horn. Indemnity for a wound was according to the distance the sound caused by the splintered bone taken from it, when thrown into a hol­low shield, could be heard. The priestly judge held in his hand a staff (hence the scepter of a king), while adjudicaing, which he broke asunder when passing sentence of death. Grass and earth were emblematical of submission. Whoever was charged with the debt of a deceased kinsman, which it was out of his power to pay, cleared himself by going to the four comers of his house and throwing dust behind him. A form of oath among men was by touching their beards; and among women, by touching their breast or plaited hair. A bargain was concluded by shaking hands, which was so commonly in use that "the German shake of the hand" has become the proverbial sign of loyal cordiality.

 

XVII. Hospitality

 

This virtue of ancient times was greatly esteemed by our forefathers, who regarded as a crime the dismissal of the peaceful wayfarer from their doors. A stranger no sooner appeared than he was invited to take shelter beneath their lowly roof, and offered food and a night's lodging; and it was considered disgraceful first to inquire of him who he was, whence he came, or whither he was going. As long as he remained in the house he was a guest, and any injury committed against him was severely punished by the law, even though he were a fugitive criminal; the master of the house was bound to defend him to the death, and as he was indemnified for every injury offered to his guest as if it were offered to himself, he was also liable to be punished in his stead if his guest committed a crime while dwelling beneath his roof; no one could dismiss a guest unless forced to do so by poverty, when it was incumbent on him to accompany him to the nearest dwelling, and there procure for him the comforts which it was not in his own power to bestow. The guest was presented on his departure with a parting gift, and if able gave something in return. In later times, hospi­tality and many other good customs fell into disuse, although attempted to be enforced by law, by which it was ordained that no one was obliged to harbour a guest longer than three days, whence arose the saying, "A three days' guest is everywhere cursed," for there is no doubt that, in later times, this good old custom was very much abused. The injurious treatment of a peaceful wayfarer on the public road was punished with double severity than when the offense was committed on a native. Every foreign way­farer might pluck, as he went along, three fruits from a tree, or take three sheaves from a field, or three fish from a pond, if driven by necessity; whence came the saying, "Three are free." To deliver a man, who had fled for protection to a neighbouring tribe, to his pursuers, was considered an indelible disgrace, and was unheard of among the Germans. The Gepidae preferred total destruction to the commission of such an execrable crime as the violation of the rights of hospitality. A Norwegian queen once fled for safety to Sweden. The Norwegians demanded her surrender, and the Swedish king even sent his warriors to take her by force; but Hakon, one of his subjects, a wealthy peasant, with whom she had taken refuge, opposed them sword in hand, until she had reached a safer retreat.

The customs of hospitality greatly conduced to sociability, friendship, and marriage; and it was from the wayfarers, who carried intelligence of the occurrence of remarkable events from one district to another, that the people gained information of the changes that took place in distant countries.

 

XVIII. Customs and Arts

 

As a numerous ofifspring was considered honourable, celi­bacy was consequently a mark of disgrace. As soon as the children were born, they were plunged into cold water; their education was severe and hardy; they were taught swimming, wrestling, endurance of hunger, heat, and cold, the arts of the chase, and the use of weapons. It is recorded of a leader of the Teutones that he was able to leap, with the greatest ease, over six horses. A favourite amusement of the Germans was the sword dance, in which the young men danced naked, with the most expert and curious movements, between sharp swords and the points of lances, without receiving the slightest injury. As soon as a young man attained sufficient strength, he was allowed to take part in military expeditions, and was solemnly declared capable of bearing arms. Among the Catti, every boy wore an iron ring on his arm, which he durst not take off until he had slain an enemy.

Tillage was performed by the slaves, and the domestic concerns were managed by the women, while the freeborn men thought only of war and wild adventure, which, in time of peace, were, in some degree, replaced by the chase, of which they were passionately fond, and for which their enormous forests, well stocked with game, afforded free scope. They tried their strength in the rough encounter with the bear and the wild buffalo; and early introduced the more gentle art of falconry. The white falcon was held sacred, and was esteemed by its owner as his chiefest treasure. At home, the warrior slept on the bearskin; hence, whoever remained at home so long as to acquire a distaste for exertion was termed a Barenhauter (Haut, a skin). Tacitus expressly mentions that they whiled away their leisure hours with gambling, which they carried to such a pitch that, in the delirium of excitement, they would stake their property and their persons on a throw of the dice. From the earliest down to the present times, the Germans have been reputed the greatest topers in the world. The present fashion of toasting arose from an ancient pagan cus­tom. At every public banquet, the great Bragabecher was first drained, in honour of fallen heroes; then the Minnebecher, in honour of deceased kinsmen and ladye loves. Passing the cup round, drinking to a person or for a wager, trials of su­periority in the power of drinking, etc., are ancient customs of guilds, that met for the purpose of carousing. Beer and mead were first made in Germany, where the use of wine was, nevertheless, early introduced. When Helico for the first time brought grapes across the Alps, the people rose en masse, and resolved to migrate to the land where grew this golden fruit, and many thousand Germans, on reaching Italy, fell victims to excess.

The mother of the family ruled the entire household, and was treated with the greatest deference by the women, slaves and children. She superintended the cleanliness of the house, the kitchens, the cellars, the table, and the beds; the making of the she was also acquainted with surgery, and busied herself with the preparation of balsams for the wounds of the men; and finally, she was the family prophetess, and on important occasions held communication with the gods, by means of mysterious signs, and the casting of lots. Whatever the Germans did, had merely reference to the present moment; even their arts aimed no further, and all their care was ex­pended on their clothing and armour. Noble warriors fabricated costly weapons, and noble ladies spun and wove cloth for themselves and their households, an art brought by them to a high degree of perfection. In the earlier ages, the armour, weapons, shields, and war attire, drinking horns, and other articles, were skilfully and curiously ornamented with colours and various ingenious devices. In the north, the ships were built in the form of different animals, generally in that of dragons, and were adorned with golden images. Wealthy monarchs are said to have sometimes used purple sails. All these arts, however, merely conduced to temporary grandeur, and the Germans were totally un­acquainted with works, such as public edifices, magnificent temples, and lordly palaces, calculated to immortalize their name.

 

XIX. honour of Women

 

In pagan times women were generally despised, and re­garded as beings of an inferior order, but among the Germans, even in the earliest ages, they were considered as standing equal in point of honour to the men, and in many respects were even acknowledged to be superior. The honour in which women were held exercised so great an influence over the customs and character of the Germans, and consequently over their arts and poetry, as to produce the romance by which their productions are mainly distinguished from those of the East, the Graeco-Roman or antique.

The reverence in which women were held depended on the purity of, their lives; hence by custom and by law, they were judged not only by the outward honour they received, but also by their inward innocence. Tacitus, when extolling the unbending severity of German manners, and the sanctity attached to chastity, says, "that much as the German merits praise, his morality, as being the foundation of all his other virtues, deserves the highest commendation; nec ullam morum partem magis laudaveris.''

Young maidens were brought up in the retirement of their homes, where they busied themselves in domestic em­ployments, and only associated with the men whenever a guest arrived at the paternal abode. They did not marry so early, nor did their constitutions develop so rapidly, as those of the more luxurious inhabitants of southern climes; and it is still a fact, that the people of the north, especially those of the mountainous regions who have remained faithful to the hardy customs of their forefathers, do not arrive at puberty so soon as the inhabitants of cities. A German maiden seldom married before her twentieth year, or a man before his thirtieth, and it was to this custom that the Romans attrib­uted the blooming health and robust strength of our hardy ancestors.

An insult offered to female modesty or honour was deemed an unpardonable crime, and punished with death. The virginal wreath, worn by the bride on her wedding-day, was apparently an ancient German custom; no maiden could wear it whose honour was not spotless. Slander, if proved, was punished with unusual severity; rape, under whatever circumstances, was punished by the most degrading death, and even late in the Middle Ages, we find decreed (in Schwabenspiegel's collection of laws), that in the house in which such a crime had been committed, all it contained, even down to the cattle, should be deprived of life, and the house itself razed to the ground. The untamable ferocity of the men often occasioned the commission of this crime, for that reason the more strictly guarded against by the laws; and the more ancient their date, the more certainly is the punishment of death decreed by them. But among the Frisii, the woman, was placed between her parents and her ravisher; if she turned toward the latter, the crime was forgiven; but if she turned to the former, the criminal was condemned to death.

One of the best and wisest customs was that of daugh­ters being portionless, so that a woman's attraction was her virtue and beauty, and not her wealth. Tacitus relates that the bride only brought some weapons, as a sign to the bride­groom that he must in future protect her; and that he, on his part, paid to her father, brother or guardian, a simi fixed by law, upon which the right of guardianship, or that em­powering him to appear in her stead before the tribunal, was handed over to him. The affianced pair shook hands, and exchanged kisses and rings. In pagan times it was usual to place a drawn and sharp sword for three nights, between a newly married pair, from a religious superstition. The Hochzeit, or wedding (from hohezeit, high time), was regarded, as its name denoted, as the highest point in life, and was celebrated as publicly as possible, amid the shouts of the guests. The day after the wedding, the husband presented his wife with a gift, called the morning gift, of which she could not be deprived; and if any one disputed her right, she proved it by placing her hand on her breast, and swear­ing it was her morning gift. It was also customary after the wedding for the bride to exchange the virginal wreath for a cap.

Marriages between Frilings and Lazzi were illegal, and if they took place, the children lost caste, and were declared bondmen. A freeborn man could marry his slave after having given her her freedom; but a freeborn woman who united herself to a slave, being unable, on account of being herself always under guardianship, to give him his freedom, became a slave; and in order to render this dishonourable act impossible, it was punished with death.

  Adultery was deemed another inexpiable crime. If the husband did not kill the guilty wife with his own hand, she was turned, naked and with shorn head, out of the house, and whipped by the women from village to village, until she sank from fatigue; a custom highly commended by Tacitus, and which, until a very late period, was in force among the Saxons. The ancient Germans did not think the indulgence of these so-called weaknesses of the heart so urgent, as, for their sake, to relax public morals, and to cause the disorder of a whole nation. When better known to the Romans, and invariably told that their laws against adultery were much too severe, and a sign of barbarism, the Burgundian legislators took notice of this reproach, by adding to the decree in which this crime was then, as formerly, un­sparingly denounced as worthy of capital punishment; and it was even said of the Goths and Vandals, that they not only retained their own purity, but also reformed the corrupt manners of the Romans.

The women were indeed held in such esteem that the fine or Wergeld for any injury committed against them was much higher than one committed against the men; among the Alemanni and Bavarians it was double the amount; among the Franks and Thuringians treble, and still higher if the injured woman were pregnant; among the Saxons, maidens and not married women were guarded against injury by a double fine. Every woman, possessed of sufficient strength, was free to carry arms. Women were also allowed to speak in council, and those noted for capacity and skill often headed great and important enterprises.

Fidelity unto death was vowed in marriage, and, according to Tacitus, a woman never took a second husband; "She can have but one husband, as she can have but one body and one life. Wela says of the Getae, and Procopius of the Heruli, that the women killed themselves on their husbands' bodies; similar cases, but not as of common occurrence, are met with in the legends of the north, and it is a historical fact, that after bloody battles, the German women killed themselves in great numbers on the bodies of their slaughtered husbands.

 

XX. Wolen and Walkyren

 

The immense strength and vigorous nature of the German people, which in the men produced an intense desire to distinguish themselves by bold and daring exploits, and, when stimulated to excess, engendered the Beserkerwuth, a species of wolf-like madness, aroused in the maidens and women that wonderful sort of inspiration, by which they became involuntarily intimate with the mysteries of nature. This inspiration, known in our times as animal magnetism, was, in all probability, of common occurrence in those ancient times, and evinced itself in a much higher degree. In the Middle Ages, this singular faculty was deemed witchcraft, and was condemned as a diabolical art, on account of the inability to explain it by natural means. There is now no doubt of its being caused by a peculiarly irritable condition of the nervous system, which sometimes appears in persons whose powers have been extremely reduced by sickness, sometimes in those possessed of a superabundance of health and strength. Clairvoyance, or the power possessed by a person in a mesmeric state of examining the whole of the internal organs of the body, and of involuntarily discovering the proper remedy, was, at that period, frequent among women, who were hence reputed to be possessed of the gift of healing. This faculty also extended to that of seeing what passed in remote places, and of foretelling approaching events, and altogether bore a close resemblance to modem mesmerism; hence the German women were believed to possess the gift of prophecy, and were regarded as sacred, from a belief of their being inspired by the gods.

The temple at Delphi, and, in fact, all the Grecian oracles, originated from these prophetesses, who, at a later period, were frequently met with by the Romans in the interior of Germany; the most celebrated among whom, Velleda, was worshiped as a divinity by the whole German nation, whom she unceasingly excited against the Romans.

These prophetesses were called Wolen, and when they foretold, or by their magic arts caused, evil, Hexen, in the north, Trollen, witches, who practiced sorcery by means of certain songs and drugs. These songs or incantations were in existence long after the introduction of Christianity, and were known by the name of Neitharte. It was believed that by means of them the witch had the power of raising storms, and of causing plagues. Caracalla, the Roman emperor, is said to have been deprived of his senses by these German incantations. These rhymes were so well known and so numerous, that in later times the repetition of them was strictly and repeatedly forbidden by the Church. Magic drugs or potions, especially love potions, were equally prohibited.

The Walkyren, or celestial women (from Wal, a dead man, and küren, to choose), were believed to be heavenly maidens, who hovered over every field of battle, and chose expiring heroes for their companions in the eternal joys of Walhalla; a belief which caused German warriors to look upon death as a nuptial festival in the skies. Earthly maidens were also regarded as Walkyren, when they girded on the sword and took part in the battle.

The poetical relation between the pagan warrior and his celestial bride changed, in course of time, to that between the Christian knight and his ladye-bright, who also was not always an earthly dame, but the Holy Virgin or some saint. Thus the romantic love, the enthusiastic service, vowed by knights in honour of a celestial being, or of an unknown, haughty, or eternally ungrateful dame, the Minnedienst and gallantry (in its noble sense) of the Middle Ages, all originated from the beautiful fable of the Walkyren.

 

XXI. Ancient German Poesy

 

In writing, the Germans made use of singularly shaped letters, called Runic, that resembled little crossed bits of wood, or broken twigs thrown one upon the other; which, in fact, they were originally intended to represent. It was, at first, customary to augur from the position of such bits of wood, each of which bore a different meaning, which was retained by the Runic characters when used in writing, with which magic was always associated.

Paper being at that period unknown, the Runic characters were either engraved on stone or cut in wood. One of the Danish kings had a Runic writing, thirty ells in length, cut on a rock. Even in the present times, tombstones bearing Runic inscriptions are often met with. These characters were commonly cut in soft wood, particularly beech-wood (Buche, whence is derived the word Buch, a book, and Buchstahen—stab, a stick—letters), an art generally practiced by the women, on account of their superior dexterity. Many of these pieces of inscribed wood or Runic sticks have been preserved. The laws were also inscribed upon wood in these characters, and, on account of their lengthy contents, sometimes covered whole beams (Balken); and, at the pres­ent day, the books containing the laws are, in the north, called Balken.

Poetry was highly esteemed by the Germans, who, by reciting the noble deeds of their ancestors, kept up the national love of war and adventure. The bards, inspired by martial enthusiasm, transformed the fabled enterprises of the gods into legends recounting heroic exploits, in which the elements, the stars, and all the powers of nature bore a part. Descriptions of great battles, prophecies of pending destruc­tion, the triumph of the victor, or the lament of the conquered, form the subject of almost all the songs that have descended to us from days of eld.

The harmony of two consonants, or alliteration: or of two vowels, or assonance; or that of the last syllable in a verse, or rhythm; were peculiar to German poetry. All the ancient songs are also as remarkable for their proud and daring spirit as for their sublime and graphic brevity, which may be particularly observed throughout the northern Edda. Metaphor was so general, that a ship was commonly desig­nated by a snake or a bird, a sword was termed fire, and vice versa. Diodorus mentions the bold figures and hyperboles in use among the northern Catti, as he designates the Scandinavians. Tacitus also speaks of the poetical genius of the Germans. The northern Saga describe the extraordi­nary influence exercised by song over the sympathies of the ancient warriors. The Danes formerly thought the composer of the best poem alone worthy of the throne, and the whole nation assembled, in order to judge of its merits. The Icelanders once composed a song in ridicule of the Danes, who felt the insult so deeply that a naval expedition was the result. Poetry was so all-powerful in exciting or in allaying the passions that a cruel Swedish king is. said to have been suddenly transformed, by a single song, from a depraved and licentious despot into a just and valiant ruler. Love and hatred, grief and joy, were alternately swayed by the power of song. A celebrated Troll arriving at the court of a Swedish king sang before him and his assembled nobles. The first song excited such excessive delight that they danced and shouted for joy; when he. sang the second they began to sorrow and weep; but scarcely had he sang the third than, frantic with rage, they drew their swords and slew one another.

Although the ancient melodies of Germany and Sweden were essentially of a martial character, they possessed great force and variety of sentiment, as may be seen in the Edda, in which violent anger, heartrending grief, and jocose de­light, follow in rapid succession.

 

XXII. Public Worship

 

The gods were generally worshiped in sacred groves and forests, or on heaths, whence, zum Walde fahren, to go to the wood, wallfahren, to go on a pilgrimage, and the name of "heathen", applied to unbelievers in Christianity. Tacitus relates that, at certain periods, all the tribes of the Semnones made a pilgrimage to a sacred grove, where human sacrifices were offered, and that whoever entered the groves wore chains in sign of submission to the deity.

Public worship was also solemnized beneath the shade of gigantic and solitary trees, on whose branches trophies and the heads of sacrificed horses were hung. The Upstalesboom, the point of reunion for the whole of Friesland; an aged nut tree at Benevento, held sacred by the Longobards; the great oak at Geismar, in Hesse, which Saint Bonifacio cut down; and the pear tree on the Malserheath; were once sacred to the gods. The names of Altaich (old oak), Eichstadt (oak city), Dreieich (three oaks), Sieben eichen (seven oaks), etc., have a similar origin; and, even at the present day, there is scarcely a village throughout Germany without its large tree, around which it was the custom, not long ago, for the young people to dance. The trees of liberty introduced during the French Revolution were merely fantastical repetitions of the long-forgotten customs of antiquity.

The gods were also worshiped on holy mountains, and, when Christianity was introduced, churches were generally built on heights. Even in our days, the mass is annually read, at the top of the Alps, to the assembled Senn shepherds. The procession of witches on the Blocksberg, the highest summit of the Harz Mountains, is probably a superstition derived from the ancient worship formerly offered on that spot to the god of spring. Not very long ago, the Johannisfeuer, or fires of St. John, were still commonly lighted on the tops of hills. Ancient altars have been found on the Odilienberg in Alsace. There are several Donnersberge, mountains so called from the god of thunder. One of the highest points of the Priesengehirge, famous in story, the Reiftrager or Ringbearer, is quite bare, and surrounded with a regular circle of enormous stones. The Groteberg at Detmold is encircled with two great stone rings, and is the same as the ancient Teutoburg in the wood, the burial place of the legions of Varus.

Lakes, rivers, and springs were also held sacred. Tacitus mentions a grove with a sacred lake in an island to the north of Germany, apparently Zeeland. The image of the goddess Hertha, in a chariot drawn by cows, was brought in solemn procession to this lake, and there washed by slaves, who, immediately after the ceremony, were drowned. There were also places of sacrifice on the Bodensee, in the vicinity of the falls of the Rhine, and near to Bregenz. Petrarch, the celebrated Italian poet, relates, that so late as the fourteenth century, the female inhabitants of Cologne bathed in the Rhine on St. John's day, in order to wash away their sins; and that the superstitious custom of drawing water at midnight from holy wells was still practiced. The custom of the Swiss, at a yet later period, of dipping their colours before battle into running water, and of unfurling them before they were dry, was without doubt an ancient heathen ceremony.

The erection of temples is of later date; they were only known in the northern countries; as, for instance, the great temples at Upsala in Sweden, and at Lethra in Denmark. The worship of images also dates later, and was only partial, although it extended to Upper Germany, as has been already seen in respect to the Bodensee.

There were three high festivals in the year, which were held peculiarly sacred. On these occasions the whole nation assembled in order to offer sacrifice. They were all called Sunarblut, Sonnenopfer, sacrifice to the sun, or Suhnopfer, sacrifice of atonement, whence came the word Sinist, the title of the Burgundian high priest. But by far the holiest time was that answering to our Christmas, and the twelve darkest nights of the whole year, those during the winter solstice, after which the sun again approaches our hemisphere: during this period, the gods and spirits were supposed to descend upon the earth, while Wodan himself (Hermes, who, according to the Greeks, was the conductor of the souls of the dead), or in his place the chief goddess, Frau Hexe or Holle, led the midnight procession of spirits hovering in the air. Hence originated the legend of the wild huntsman. The great festival, held at this time throughout the northern countries, was called the Yule feast, traces of which are still to be met with in Scotland. The second festival was celebrated in the spring; in the north, during Easter; in the south, at Whitsuntide or on St. John's day. The Franks held theirs at different times, having the great annual assembly, first in March, and at a later period in May. Great fires were lit (Easter fire in the north; St. John's fire in the south), through which the cattle were driven by way of purification, and in order to guard them against the powers of evil. A festival was instituted in honour of the first violet, around which they danced; there were also a feast of flowers, the president of which was, in Sweden, called the Flower-king; in Denmark, the May-king, etc. The image of Death or Winter was borne in solemn procession to the river. Many of these customs of olden times exist at the present day.

The third festival was held in the autumn, at the time of our Kirchweih, or church consecration, and appears to have been particularly dedicated to Thor, by whose horn it is designated bn Runic stones. On this day wheaten cakes, in the shape of horns, were baked in honour of the god, which now, in some parts of northern Germany, are baked on the same day, in honour of St. Martin. St. Martin's goose also appertains to these ancient superstitions.

The Swedes every nine years celebrated a peculiarly sol­emn feast, which lasted nine days, during which 99 men, 99 dogs, 99 cocks, and 99 hawks were sacrificed. A similar sacrifice was customary in Denmark, which, a.d. 926, was abolished by the Emperor Henry the First.

That these festivals were bloody, is at once proved by the name Sonnenblut, and by the appellation of the priests, who throughout the north were called Blutmanner, men of blood. Warriors were held in high estimation who were also good Blutmanner, and could sacrifice beasts, a duty incumbent on every' head of a family when no priest happened to be present. The Blutmanner, whose office it was to assist the king while offering sacrifices, were always twelve freeborn men, chosen from the people. They killed the beast, and sprinkled the sacred tree, the place of sacrifice, and all the bystanders with the blood; the flesh was then cooked and served at the banquet, the head of the animal being hung upon the tree. As they generally sacrificed and ate horses, the eating of horse-flesh became a mark of distinction between the heathen and the Christian. A Christian king was forced by the pagan Swedes to eat horseflesh in sign of apostasy, and, at a later period, every one who ate horseflesh was regarded as a heathen, and was put to death.

It is equally certain that human sacrifices, though of rare occurrence, were nevertheless offered. The great Swedish and Danish sacrifices have already been mentioned. Tacitus also speaks of human sacrifices. The Cimbri sacrificed their Roman prisoners; and in times of dearth the Swedes sacrificed their king; but these were extraordinary cases.

Besides the great feasts and sacrifices, there were occa­sionally a number of other religious observances. During a storm the Swedes shot arrows into the air, in order to assist the god of thunder in his combats with the giants. During an eclipse of the sun the people crowded together and shouted, in order to scare the wolf attempting to eat the gun, which was supposed to be symbolical of the destruction of the world, when Odin would be devoured by the wolf Fenrir. In harvest time, a bunch of ears, tied up with ribbons, was left standing in the field for Odin's horse. On all important occasions divine counsel was sought by the examination of favourable or unfavourable omens. Jacob Grimm has, in his German Mythology, collected a number of these omens which were superstitiously observed long after the introduction of Christianity.

 

XXIII. Pagan Superstitions

 

The learned Grimm has, with his usual laborious research, proved that the religion of southern Germany was, in the time of Tacitus, essentially the same as that of Scandinavia shortly before the time of Snorri, and that all the German nations, before their conversion to Christianity, called their superior gods by the same names, and had the same idea of nature, and consequently the same superstitions, fables, and legends.

The religion of the north, however, appears to have been, at a later period, of a higher and more polished order, and certain religious differences seem to have attached themselves to various localities and tribes. The German religion, like all those of ancient times, gradually fell from the simple adoration of one invisible Deity to the worship of the sun, moon, stars, elements, and other powers of nature, which, when the human race became more polished, were ingeniously and poetically humanized; a progression of the human imagination common to most nations, as may be proved by closely investigating the religions of Greece, Rome, and Asia.

The worship of the stars and of the elements was com­mon to the Swabian nations, while that of the heroes, in which gods were represented under the form of men, was already practiced by the Frankish, Saxon, and particularly by the Scandinavian tribes. When Christianity, advancing step by step, uprooted pagan superstition, the worship of the heroes took refuge with the fugitive Norwegians in Iceland, where were preserved the sacred books of the Edda, in which the purer natural religion, and even the first doctrine of the existence of one invisible God, are again recognizable, among the ingenious fables of the heroes. According to these books, the most ancient god is Allfadur (Allfater, Father of all), the indivisible and eternal Creator and Preserver, the Father of the universe and of the inferior gods, whom he will survive, and who will one day destroy both them and the present world, and create a new one in its stead. The three Nornen, or goddesses of fate, the past, the present, and the future (beneath whose rule all temporal concerns stand fixed, and come but to pass away), are regarded as continually proceeding from him; while the whole of nature's creations, both gods and men, are regarded as merely temporary effluences from the one great and supreme being.

  Allfater reigned alone over boundless void, which, by the power of his glance, split into two halves; one, Muspelheim, the world of light; the other, Nilfheim, or the abode of darkness. The spirit of Light was Surtur; the spirit of Night, Hela. Then Allfater commanded them to mingle, in order to produce a third and middle world, and a fiery shower of sparks fell from Muspelheim into the damp, cold Nilfheim, and fire and water battled together, fizzing and boiling, until from this fearful ferment two monsters sprang; first, from the dark and evil genius of Night came the giant Ymer, the symbol of brute force; then, from the light and good spirit of fire, the divine cow, Audhumla, the symbol of nourishing and preserving power. Ymer looked upon himself as the monarch of the world, and from his right and left foot issued a six-headed son, the father of the Hrymthursen, or wicked ice-giants, who inherited the cold nature of their progenitor, Night. The cow licked the good god, Buri, out of a rock of salt, from whose son, Bor, descended the three brothers, Odin, Wile, and We. These good gods slew the wicked Ymer, and, tearing his body into pieces, created the earth out of it. The giant's skull formed the vault of heaven; his brains, the clouds; his hair, the forests; his bones, the mountains; and his blood, the sea. But the gods made the first man and woman out of two trees, the oak and the alder. Henceforth men dwelt in the world, and good gods ruled over it; but the bad giants of the race of Ymer still existed, and the gods, foolishly intermingling with them, allowed Loki, one of the sons of the giants, to take his seat among them as the god of evil, who was one day destined to allure them to destruction. Thus the principle of evil was not entirely subdued by the death of Ymer, but still continued to struggle throughout all nature against the spirit of good.

 

XXIV. The Ancient Idea of Nature

 

  Although the whole of nature was thus supposed to have been created out of the body of the giant Ymer, it was regarded as originally proceeding from the primary worlds of light and darkness, still existing beyond its limits. Muspelheim, the empire of Surtur, hung far above the heavens, and the sun, moon and stars were merely streams of light flowing downward from it. Far beneath the earth lay ancient Nilfheim, the kingdom of Hela, or hell, whose abode was Helheim; whose palace was Misery; whose table, Hunger; whose servant, Delay; whose threshold, Ruin; whose bed, Sorrow; and whose colour was Decay. Nine long nights must the dead ride through dark valleys, when they reached Gioll, the river of hell, and rode over the bridge into Nilfheim, where all went who, instead of falling by the sword, died like cowards on their beds; all those also who had been thieves, or liars, or had acted dishonourably; but the deepest pit in Nilfheim was Huergelmir, completely built of snakes' heads, unceasingly spitting poison on the damned.

Between the middle world and Muspelheim lay another, inhabited by the good spirits of nature (Liosalfarheim, Lichtalfheim), born of the elves of light; the wise and tender genii of the elements, Fylgien, or guardian spirits; and the Walkyren, who were also the clouds, the messengers of Odin. Hence came the countless legends of elves and fairies, beneficent toward mankind, especially toward the poor, and children; hence also the stories of wood and water Nixen or nymphs; of the fantastical loves of sylphs and Undinen, and of river and tree elves.

The stars were sparks out of Muspelheim, directed by Odin: thus the sun was called Odin's eye; the constellation of the Great Bear, Odin's chariot; and Jacob's Staff, the distaff of the goddess Freya. Odin also created day and night, and gave to the former, the horse Skinfari, the golden-maned; and to the latter, the horse Hrinfari, the mane of dew.

  Between the middle world and Nilfheim lay also another world, Schwartalfaheim, belonging to the black elves, who dwelt in the interior of the earth, particularly in mountains. These are the Kobolds, who watch over subterranean treasures and metals, and generally attempt to hurt and to corrupt men. The numerous legends of the Venusberg, Kyfthiauserberg, Untersberg, Zobtenberg, Horselberg, etc., prove that the mountains were supposed to be hollow, and to contain treasures or seductive spirits; and at a later period, to be haunted by the souls of the dead. The legend of the Tannhauser, who entered the Venusberg, and there dwelt in joy and delight with the beauteous and mysterious mountain queen, is very old, and equally so are the stories of the mountain king, Rubezahl, who, under the form of a man, tempted maidens into the interior of the Priesengebirge. The water spirits were also supposed to be generally wicked, though sometimes only sportive. The word necken, to tease, came from Neck, Nickel, Nixe, the appellation of the water spirits; whence the River Neckar also derived its name.

Plants and animals were also connected in various degrees with the bright and black elves, by whom they were animated, and caused good or evil. The middle world, or earth, placed between these double worlds of light and darkness, was called Mannheim, the home of man, and was divided into an upper and a lower part; the former of which was Asgard, the heaven of the gods, with the beautiful Walhalla, whose windows overlooked the paradise destined for pious women and children; and the latter was the earth. The rainbow, the sign of union, was supposed to form a bridge called Bifrost, joining earth to heaven, by means of which the gods descended to the earth and the souls of men mounted to Walhalla. The earth was believed to be round, and to be surrounded by the ocean (Ymer's blood) or by the great Mitgard snake, Jonnungardur; in the ocean dwelt the god Oegir and innumerable sea nymphs. As animals, plants, and metals were inhabited by elves and dwarfs, delicate and diminutive but powerful and cunning spirits, the mountains, seas, and ruder features of nature were naturally the abode of the giant race of Ymer. The extreme north was full of Hrymthursen or ice giants. Niord, the god of the cold air, is especially the god of the north; Uller, the god of winter; Kari, the god of the wind, and his sons, frost, ice, and snow. The manner in which the giants were identified with natural phenomena is visible in the following poetical Saga: When Gerdha, the daughter of the giants, closed her house door, heaven and earth were illumined by the reflection of her beautiful white arms; signifying the Northern Lights. As Hvenilda, the daughter of the giants, carrying earth in her apron, was wading through the ocean, the apron tore, and the earth, falling into the water, formed the island of Hven.

 

XXV. The Gods

 

The polytheism of the Germans arose from the intermixture of this original idea of the cause of natural phenomena, with those borrowed from history and domestic life, or produced by their natural tendencies and lively imaginations. Allfater, primarily the one invisible God, afterward became the visible source of light, the sun, and finally, a demigod, Odin. Thus, in the golden temple at Upsala, the supreme deity of ancient Germany, who, from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Bodensee, was worshiped as the eternal God, in a word, as God, was first imaged as a beaming sun, and was afterward represented standing before this sun under the form of a human hero, Odin-Sigge. The wolf saga in the Edda is also twofold. A wolf swallows the sun, another swallows the hero, Odin, but both are one; hence the name of the year, Wolfgang, i.e., the sun passing before the wolf. The Saga relates much of Odin that merely identifies him with man, and renders him ridiculous, so that the ancient pure belief in Wodan, Guodan, God, was almost forgotten, like the idea of the supreme divinity among the Romans, effaced by the image of the sensual and capricious Jupiter.

The idea of Allfater produced those of light and fire; of Surtur, the sun, the Persian Ormuzd, who was perhaps identical with Irmin; of Mannus, the father of all mankind; of Thaut, Thuisko, peculiarly the god of the Germans; and of Odin, the demigod, who, in the historical records, is spoken of as a man, the founder of kingly races, and from whom the Germans derived their customs, warlike habits, and arts; hence he was the god of victory (Sigge), and especially that of war and weapons; the god of wisdom; the inventor of letters, sciences, and arts. The invention of poetry is also ascribed to his having, in the form of an eagle, devoured the honey containing the poetical inspiration; but when flying back with it to Asgard, he was so closely pursued that he let a part of it drop from behind on the summit of the Asenberg, the tasting of which produced the bad poets, while the good ones were fed upon the honey that issued from his beak on the Himmelsberg. Drollery and sublimity thus go hand in hand throughout the Saga of Odin.

Odin's heavenly palace was the Walhalla, an enormous hall ornamented with golden escutcheons and lances, to which 540 doors led, each so wide that 800 heroes could march through them abreast. Here came all the souls of warriors, Einheriar (einig, ein Heer bildende Waffenbruder, singly composing an army of companions in arms), who daily rode with the gods on the great plains of Ida, and battled with one another, in order to continue, after death, the heroic deeds they joyed in during life, and every evening returned to Walhalla, where, seated in a circle, they drank rich mead from golden goblets, presented to them by the beauteous Walkyren, and fed upon the flesh of the bear, Sahrimnir, which always remained whole, whatever number of steaks were cut from him, and upon the apples of Iduna, which preserved them in eternal youth, while the scalds sang in praise of the gods, of the charms of the Walkyren, and of past glory; Odin presiding over the feast, and rejoicing over his countless armies of heroes. The windows of Walhalla overlooked all the other heavens, which lay round about like beautiful castles, where the gods dwelt singly with their wives, and where the pious wives and children of mortals, who could not enter Walhalla, but might dwell in its vicin­ity, were transferred. Odin belonged to the world of light, his wife Frigga to that of darkness, but she was raised by her union with him to that of light. She was mother Earth, and stands in the same relation to the female black elves and Hela, as the goddesses of the earth, of Greece, Rome, and Egypt, did to the infernal powers; and, in the superstitions of Christian times, she was styled Frau Holle (hell) or Frau Bertha, who, in her amiable character, was the prophetess of housewives and of households, and, in her fearful one, the leader of the night chase. In short, she personated the darkness of earth, and Odin the brightness of heaven; and as Odin was always imagined to be riding on the eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, Frigga is represented as seated in a chariot drawn by cows; horses being sacred to him, and cows to her. The image, washed in the lake, mentioned by Tacitus, was hers. She was also probably identical with Isis, of whom that writer says that she was carried about in a ship. In 1133 a ship was drawn overland, in solemn procession, with dancing and music, from Aix-la-Chapelle to Maestricht, evidently a pagan custom, in which the procession accompanying the chariot or ship was probably intended to represent the early migrations of the Germans.

Freyr and Freya were connected in the same manner as Odin and Frigga. Freyr was the son of Odin, in a stricter sense, the sun; and consequently the guardian of all the white elves. Freya was the daughter of Niord, and therefore belonged to the spirits of damp and darkness; she was the moon, and the goddess of love; and as Freyr, the sun, rode on a golden bear, she rode on a silver one, having in her train, Siofna, the first feelings of love, Lofna, happy-love, Wara, true love, Snotra, shame, and Gefion, innocence; and, although in this manner belonging to light, she appears, from the above-mentioned Saga of the Venusberg concerning love charms and philters, to be in close connection with the black elves, over whom she probably reigned, as Freyr did over the white ones.

Thor or Dunar, the god of thunder, who was supposed to be drawn by black goats through the air, bearing in his hand Miolner, the hammer of destruction, and the great drinking horn with which he once nearly drained the ocean, thus causing the ebb and flow, bears much similarity to Odin, and is apparently a Gaelic divinity of more ancient date, who continued to be worshiped by the Galli under the name of Taranes, and by the Finns and Lapps under that of Tiermes, the supreme god. Tyr, the god of war, is also identical with him, as well as Widar, the god of locomotion, who walked through and crushed everything with his iron shoes.

The rest of the Asen are bright gods of light; Wali, the spring; Balldr, beauty; Braga, the god of poetry; Saga, the goddess of history; Iduna, immortality; Heimdall, the god of the three classes, the nobles, the freeborn, and the slaves; and Forsete, the god of peace and justice. The twelve Asen, Thor, Balldr, Niord, Freyr, Tyr, Braga, Heimdall, Widar, Wali, Uller, Forsete, and Loki, were chosen from among all these various deities, and, assembled around Odin, assisted in governing the world; they also signify the twelve months of the year, and again appear in the seven days of the week: Wednesday, Odin's day; Thursday Thor's day; Friday, Freya's day.

 

XXVI. Historical Ideas

 

As the outward frame of the earth was supposed to have been created out of the body of the giant Ymer, the ash tree, Ygdrasill, was supposed to represent its external growth and internal life. This tree reached from the bottom of Nilfheim far beyond all the heavens; it had three roots, by each of which there was a source; Urdarborn, the source of time; Mimer's well, the source of wisdom; and Huergelmir, the source of poison. Nidhoggur, the dragon, the father of all the snakes in Huergelmir, unceasingly gnawed the roots. The three Nomen or fates, the past, the present, and the future, sat around the source of time. Far above, at the top of the tree, perched an eagle, the symbol of perfection, perhaps as the fire eagle, the self-animating phoenix, while a squirrel ran busily up and down, making mischief between the dragon below and the eagle above. As soon as the dragon gnawed through the roots, the noble tree was to fall, and time and all earthly things were to cease. This beautiful world was not to endure forever; the gods, like men, mere creatures of Allfater, were subject to evil and destruction. All that was earthly would pass away, but Allfater would renovate earth and heaven. The ancient legends of the gods conclude with this doctrine, and this conclusion of the Ed da is in extraordinary agreement with that of the old songs of the Nibelungen; in the former, the gods are de­stroyed; in the latter, men; and both, in the true old German heroic spirit, in expiation of a crime, but courageously despising death and fighting to the last. Thus the heroes and warriors imagined that all things would end in the manner in which they aspired to die, sword in hand on the battlefield. The ancient notions of the Germans, with regard to the intention of history and the moral to be deduced from it, are most clearly expressed by the symbol of the ash tree, the first Saga that speaks of the destruction of gods and men; nor can it be doubted that these ideas were continually present to the imagination of the Germane. The indifference with which they met death, nay, the eagerness with which they sought it, their high estimation of a virtuous and honourable life, and the unfaltering bravery with which they opposed irremediable destruction, are characteristics whose source is easily traced in the spirit of their religion, the fundamental principle of which was to die nobly. To die on the battlefield was sufficient atonement for any crime of which they had been guilty. They allowed their gods to sin, but made them die like heroes, which rendered them worthy of a future and glorious resurrection. But their gods were merely symbolical of themselves. Thus the oldest and first song of the Edda, the Voluspa, commences. A Wale advances into the circle of the gods, and in awful tones announces their fall and the destruction of the lordly Asgard, at the general conflagration of the world. This event will be caused by the gods, who will sin in common with the wicked of Ymer's ancient race and will consequently be abandoned by the inward light which they derived from Muspelheim. However, the golden age is still of long duration; vengeance does not soon overtake their crime. Then the gods gamble in heaven, and, heated by play, do not perceive the approach of three daughters of the giants, who steal their golden Runic tables, upon which Allfater had himself inscribed the laws of the universe. Then the golden age is at an end. Care and anxiety take possession of the gods, who, forgetful of their given word, kill Angurbode, one of the three giantesses. Loki finds her out-torn heart, and falls in love with her; and as until now he was accounted one of the Asen, he goes over to the wicked giants in order to plot the destruction of his former companions. At the same time, a young wolf, Fenrir, which was brought up in Asgard, grows to such an enormous size that the Asen begin to feel uneasy. In vain they bind him; he breaks every chain. At length they try to bind him with a charm, but he does not allow the chain to be placed upon him until they swear that it is not a charm. They forswear themselves, and Tyr has the courage to lay his hand as security in the wolf's mouth, who instantly bites it off on discovering the deception. The gods are no longer worthy of life. Iduna, or immortality, is tempted from them by a giant; however, they still possess Balldr, or enchanting beauty; but the ugly quarrel with him, and his only brother, the blind Hodur, is unwittingly incited to kill him by Loki, and his wife, Nana, burns herself upon his funeral pile. Then the Asen take foul revenge on Loki, and, sinning against sacred nature, bind him with the bowels of his only son to three pointed rocks, and suspend over his head a snake distilling poison. His convulsions produce the earth­quakes. The end of all things is now at hand. The rage of the gods and the wickedness of men increase. Enmity and hate have universal rule; then come fear and woe, the hatchet and sword age, the storm and wolf era. For three years there is unbroken icy winter, the frightful Fimbul weather, during which everything is buried in frozen sleep, before the awful end. The earth begins to shake; the dragon has gnawed through the roots; and the ash tree, Ygdrasill, will fall and crush the whole world. The wolf, Fenrir, madly struggles with his bonds, and bursts them. Loki also breaks away from the rocks. Across the sea come the giants, the Hrymthursen, in the ship Nagelfar, entirely built of the nails of dead men fastened together, a proof of the antiquity of the world. The Mitgard snake rises from the ocean like a gigantic ghost, and they all besiege Asgard from below. The Asen and all the Einheriar are armed and fight their last glorious battle, nor do they despair of success, until Muspelheim opens from above, and Surtur issues in flames at the head of his fiery squadrons, beneath whom the rainbow bridge, the symbol of union, breaks asunder, and everything is lost. Heimdall and Loki kill themselves; Thor slays the Mitgard snake, but dies of his poisoned wounds; Freyr is burned by Surtur; Odin is swallowed alive by the wolf Fenrir, whose open jaws reach from beneath the earth to heaven.Finally, the whole world is destroyed by the flames of Surtur, and becomes Ragnarok, or the incense of the gods. After this, Allfater will create a new world, devoid of evil.