Balder the Beautiful Part 35

[783] E. Meier, _op. cit._ pp. 191 _sq._, No. 215. A similar story of the shoeing of a woman in the shape of a horse is reported from Silesia.

See R. Kuhnau, _Schlesische Sagen_ (Berlin, 1910-1913), iii. pp. 27 _sq._, No. 1380.

[784] R. Kuhnau, _Schlesische Sagen_ (Berlin, 1910-1913), iii. pp. 23 _sq._, No. 1375. Compare _id._, iii. pp. 28 _sq._, No. 1381.

[785] See for example L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. pp. 328, 329, 334, 339; W.

von Schulenburg, _Wendische Volkssagen und Gebrauche aus dem Spreewald_ (Leipsic, 1880), pp. 164, 165 _sq._; H. Prohle, _Harzsagen_ (Leipsic, 1859), i. 100 _sq._ The belief in such things is said to be universal among the ignorant and superst.i.tious in Germany. See A. Wuttke, _Der deutsche Volksaberglaube_*[2] (Berlin, 1869), p. 150, -- 217. In Wales, also, "the possibility of injuring or marking the witch in her a.s.sumed shape so deeply that the bruise remained a mark on her in her natural form was a common belief" (J. Ceredig Davies, _Folk-lore of West and Mid-Wales_, Aberystwyth, 1911, p. 243). For Welsh stories of this sort, see J. Ceredig Davies, _l.c._; Rev. Elias Owen, _Welsh Folk-lore_ (Oswestry and Wrexham, N.D., preface dated 1896), pp. 228 _sq._; M.

Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London, 1909), p. 214.

[786] L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 361, -- 239.

[787] Marie Trevelyan, _Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales_ (London, 1909), p. 210.

[788] L. Strackerjan, _Aberglaube und Sagen aus dem Herzogthum Oldenburg_ (Oldenburg, 1867), i. p. 358, -- 238.

[789] L. Strackerjan, _op. cit._ i. p. 360, -- 238e.

[790] "The 'Witch-burning' at Clonmell," _Folk-lore_, vi. (1895) pp.

373-384. The account there printed is based on the reports of the judicial proceedings before the magistrates and the judge, which were published in _The Irish Times_ for March 26th, 27th, and 28th, April 2nd, 3rd, 6th, and 8th, and July 6th, 1895.

[791] John Graham Dalyell, _The Darker Superst.i.tions of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1834), p. 185. In this pa.s.sage "quick" is used in the old sense of "living," as in the phrase "the quick and the dead." _Nois_ is "nose," _hoill_ is "hole," _quhilk (whilk)_ is "which," and _be_ is "by."

[792] J.G. Dalyell, _op. cit._ p. 186. _b.e.s.t.i.a.ll_=animals; _seik_=sick; _calling_=driving; _guidis_=cattle.

[793] John Ramsay, of Ochtertyre, _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, edited by Alexander Allardyce (Edinburgh and London, 1888), ii. 446 _sq._ As to the custom of cutting off the leg of a diseased animal and hanging it up in the house, see above, p. 296, note 1.

[794] (Sir) Arthur Mitch.e.l.l, A.M., M.D., _On Various Superst.i.tions in the North-West Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1862), p.

12 (reprinted from the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, vol. iv.).

[795] _County Folk-lore_, vol. v. _Lincolns.h.i.+re_, collected by Mrs.

Gutch and Mabel Peac.o.c.k (London, 1908), p. 75, quoting Rev. R.M.

Heanley, "The Vikings: traces of their Folklore in Marshland," a paper read before the Viking Club, London, and printed in its _Saga-Book_, vol. iii. Part i. Jan. 1902. The wicken-tree is the mountain-ash or rowan free, which is a very efficient, or at all events a very popular protective against witchcraft. See _County Folk-lore_, vol. v.

_Lincolns.h.i.+re_, pp. 26 _sq._, 98 _sq._; Mabel Peac.o.c.k, "The Folklore of Lincolns.h.i.+re," _Folk-lore_, xii. (1901) p. 175; J.G. Campbell, _Witchcraft and Second Sight in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland_ (Glasgow, 1902), pp. 11 _sq._; Rev. Walter Gregor, _Notes on the Folk-lore of the North-East of Scotland_ (London, 1881), p. 188. See further _The Scapegoat_, pp. 266 _sq_.

CHAPTER V

THE INTERPRETATION OF THE FIRE-FESTIVALS

-- 1. _On the Fire-festivals in general_

[General resemblance of the European fire-festivals to each other.]

The foregoing survey of the popular fire-festivals of Europe suggests some general observations. In the first place we can hardly help being struck by the resemblance which the ceremonies bear to each other, at whatever time of the year and in whatever part of Europe they are celebrated. The custom of kindling great bonfires, leaping over them, and driving cattle through or round them would seem to have been practically universal throughout Europe, and the same may be said of the processions or races with blazing torches round fields, orchards, pastures, or cattle-stalls. Less widespread are the customs of hurling lighted discs into the air[796] and trundling a burning wheel down hill;[797] for to judge by the evidence which I have collected these modes of distributing the beneficial influence of the fire have been confined in the main to Central Europe. The ceremonial of the Yule log is distinguished from that of the other fire-festivals by the privacy and domesticity which characterize it; but, as we have already seen, this distinction may well be due simply to the rough weather of midwinter, which is apt not only to render a public a.s.sembly in the open air disagreeable, but also at any moment to defeat the object of the a.s.sembly by extinguis.h.i.+ng the all-important fire under a downpour of rain or a fall of snow. Apart from these local or seasonal differences, the general resemblance between the fire-festivals at all times of the year and in all places is tolerably close. And as the ceremonies themselves resemble each other, so do the benefits which the people expect to reap from them. Whether applied in the form of bonfires blazing at fixed points, or of torches carried about from place to place, or of embers and ashes taken from the smouldering heap of fuel, the fire is believed to promote the growth of the crops and the welfare of man and beast, either positively by stimulating them, or negatively by averting the dangers and calamities which threaten them from such causes as thunder and lightning, conflagration, blight, mildew, vermin, sterility, disease, and not least of all witchcraft.

[Two explanations suggested of the fire-festivals. According to W.

Mannhardt, they are charms to secure a supply of suns.h.i.+ne; according to Dr. E. Westermarck they are purificatory, being intended to burn and destroy all harmful influences.]

But we naturally ask, How did it come about that benefits so great and manifold were supposed to be attained by means so simple? In what way did people imagine that they could procure so many goods or avoid so many ills by the application of fire and smoke, of embers and ashes? In short, what theory underlay and prompted the practice of these customs?

For that the inst.i.tution of the festivals was the outcome of a definite train of reasoning may be taken for granted; the view that primitive man acted first and invented his reasons to suit his actions afterwards, is not borne out by what we know of his nearest living representatives, the savage and the peasant. Two different explanations of the fire-festivals have been given by modern enquirers. On the one hand it has been held that they are sun-charms or magical ceremonies intended, on the principle of imitative magic, to ensure a needful supply of suns.h.i.+ne for men, animals, and plants by kindling fires which mimic on earth the great source of light and heat in the sky. This was the view of Wilhelm Mannhardt.[798] It may be called the solar theory. On the other hand it has been maintained that the ceremonial fires have no necessary reference to the sun but are simply purificatory in intention, being designed to burn up and destroy all harmful influences, whether these are conceived in a personal form as witches, demons, and monsters, or in an impersonal form as a sort of pervading taint or corruption of the air. This is the view of Dr. Edward Westermarck[799] and apparently of Professor Eugen Mogk.[800] It may be called the purificatory theory.

Obviously the two theories postulate two very different conceptions of the fire which plays the princ.i.p.al part in the rites. On the one view, the fire, like suns.h.i.+ne in our lat.i.tude, is a genial creative power which fosters the growth of plants and the development of all that makes for health and happiness; on the other view, the fire is a fierce destructive power which blasts and consumes all the noxious elements, whether spiritual or material, that menace the life of men, of animals, and of plants. According to the one theory the fire is a stimulant, according to the other it is a disinfectant; on the one view its virtue is positive, on the other it is negative.

[The two explanations are perhaps not mutually exclusive.]

Yet the two explanations, different as they are in the character which they attribute to the fire, are perhaps not wholly irreconcilable. If we a.s.sume that the fires kindled at these festivals were primarily intended to imitate the sun's light and heat, may we not regard the purificatory and disinfecting qualities, which popular opinion certainly appears to have ascribed to them, as attributes derived directly from the purificatory and disinfecting qualities of suns.h.i.+ne? In this way we might conclude that, while the imitation of suns.h.i.+ne in these ceremonies was primary and original, the purification attributed to them was secondary and derivative. Such a conclusion, occupying an intermediate position between the two opposing theories and recognizing an element of truth in both of them, was adopted by me in earlier editions of this work;[801] but in the meantime Dr. Westermarck has argued powerfully in favour of the purificatory theory alone, and I am bound to say that his arguments carry great weight, and that on a fuller review of the facts the balance of evidence seems to me to incline decidedly in his favour.

However, the case is not so clear as to justify us in dismissing the solar theory without discussion, and accordingly I propose to adduce the considerations which tell for it before proceeding to notice those which tell against it. A theory which had the support of so learned and sagacious an investigator as W. Mannhardt is ent.i.tled to a respectful hearing.

-- 2. _The Solar Theory of the Fire-festivals_

[Theory that the fire-festivals are charms to ensure a supply of suns.h.i.+ne.]

In an earlier part of this work we saw that savages resort to charms for making suns.h.i.+ne,[802] and it would be no wonder if primitive man in Europe did the same. Indeed, when we consider the cold and cloudy climate of Europe during a great part of the year, we shall find it natural that sun-charms should have played a much more prominent part among the superst.i.tious practices of European peoples than among those of savages who live nearer the equator and who consequently are apt to get in the course of nature more suns.h.i.+ne than they want. This view of the festivals may be supported by various arguments drawn partly from their dates, partly from the nature of the rites, and partly from the influence which they are believed to exert upon the weather and on vegetation.

[Coincidence of two of the festivals with the solstices.]

First, in regard to the dates of the festivals it can be no mere accident that two of the most important and widely spread of the festivals are timed to coincide more or less exactly with the summer and winter solstices, that is, with the two turning-points in the sun's apparent course in the sky when he reaches respectively his highest and his lowest elevation at noon. Indeed with respect to the midwinter celebration of Christmas we are not left to conjecture; we know from the express testimony of the ancients that it was inst.i.tuted by the church to supersede an old heathen festival of the birth of the sun,[803] which was apparently conceived to be born again on the shortest day of the year, after which his light and heat were seen to grow till they attained their full maturity at midsummer. Therefore it is no very far fetched conjecture to suppose that the Yule log, which figures so prominently in the popular celebration of Christmas, was originally designed to help the labouring sun of midwinter to rekindle his seemingly expiring light.

[Attempt of the Bushmen to warm up the fire of Sirius in midwinter by kindling sticks.]

The idea that by lighting a log on earth you can rekindle a fire in heaven or fan it into a brighter blaze, naturally seems to us absurd; but to the savage mind it wears a different aspect, and the inst.i.tution of the great fire-festivals which we are considering probably dates from a time when Europe was still sunk in savagery or at most in barbarism.

Now it can be shewn that in order to increase the celestial source of heat at midwinter savages resort to a practice a.n.a.logous to that of our Yule log, if the kindling of the Yule log was originally a magical rite intended to rekindle the sun. In the southern hemisphere, where the order of the seasons is the reverse of ours, the rising of Sirius or the Dog Star in July marks the season of the greatest cold instead of, as with us, the greatest heat; and just as the civilized ancients ascribed the torrid heat of midsummer to that brilliant star,[804] so the modern savage of South Africa attributes to it the piercing cold of midwinter and seeks to mitigate its rigour by warming up the chilly star with the genial heat of the sun. How he does so may be best described in his own words as follows:--[805]

"The Bushmen perceive Canopus, they say to a child: 'Give me yonder piece of wood, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that I may point it burning towards grandmother, for grandmother carries Bushman rice; grandmother shall make a little warmth for us; for she coldly comes out; the sun[806] shall warm grandmother's eye for us.' Sirius comes out; the people call out to one another: 'Sirius comes yonder;'

they say to one another: 'Ye must burn a stick for us towards Sirius.'

They say to one another: 'Who was it who saw Sirius?' One man says to the other: 'Our brother saw Sirius,' The other man says to him: 'I saw Sirius.' The other man says to him: 'I wish thee to burn a stick for us towards Sirius; that the sun may s.h.i.+ning come out for us; that Sirius may not coldly come out' The other man (the one who saw Sirius) says to his son: 'Bring me the small piece of wood yonder, that I may put the end of it in the fire, that I may burn it towards grandmother; that grandmother may ascend the sky, like the other one, Canopus.' The child brings him the piece of wood, he (the father) holds the end of it in the fire. He points it burning towards Sirius; he says that Sirius shall twinkle like Canopus. He sings; he sings about Canopus, he sings about Sirius; he points to them with fire,[807] that they may twinkle like each other. He throws fire at them. He covers himself up entirely (including his head) in his kaross and lies down. He arises, he sits down; while he does not again lie down; because he feels that he has worked, putting Sirius into the sun's warmth; so that Sirius may warmly come out. The women go out early to seek for Bushman rice; they walk, sunning their shoulder blades."[808] What the Bushmen thus do to temper the cold of midwinter in the southern hemisphere by blowing up the celestial fires may have been done by our rude forefathers at the corresponding season in the northern hemisphere.

[The burning wheels and discs of the fire-festivals may be direct imitations of the sun.]

Not only the date of some of the festivals but the manner of their celebration suggests a conscious imitation of the sun. The custom of rolling a burning wheel down a hill, which is often observed at these ceremonies, might well pa.s.s for an imitation of the sun's course in the sky, and the imitation would be especially appropriate on Midsummer Day when the sun's annual declension begins. Indeed the custom has been thus interpreted by some of those who have recorded it.[809] Not less graphic, it may be said, is the mimicry of his apparent revolution by swinging a burning tar-barrel round a pole.[810] Again, the common practice of throwing fiery discs, sometimes expressly said to be shaped like suns, into the air at the festivals may well be a piece of imitative magic. In these, as in so many cases, the magic force may be supposed to take effect through mimicry or sympathy: by imitating the desired result you actually produce it: by counterfeiting the sun's progress through the heavens you really help the luminary to pursue his celestial journey with punctuality and despatch. The name "fire of heaven," by which the midsummer fire is sometimes popularly known,[811]

clearly implies a consciousness of a connexion between the earthly and the heavenly flame.

[The wheel sometimes used to kindle the fire by friction may also be an imitation of the sun.]

Again, the manner in which the fire appears to have been originally kindled on these occasions has been alleged in support of the view that it was intended to be a mock-sun. As some scholars have perceived, it is highly probable that at the periodic festivals in former times fire was universally obtained by the friction of two pieces of wood.[812] We have seen that it is still so procured in some places both at the Easter and the midsummer festivals, and that it is expressly said to have been formerly so procured at the Beltane celebration both in Scotland and Wales.[813] But what makes it nearly certain that this was once the invariable mode of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the a.n.a.logy of the need-fire, which has almost always been produced by the friction of wood, and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel. It is a plausible conjecture that the wheel employed for this purpose represents the sun,[814] and if the fires at the regularly recurring celebrations were formerly produced in the same way, it might be regarded as a confirmation of the view that they were originally sun-charms. In point of fact there is, as Kuhn has indicated,[815] some evidence to shew that the midsummer fire was originally thus produced. We have seen that many Hungarian swineherds make fire on Midsummer Eve by rotating a wheel round a wooden axle wrapt in hemp, and that they drive their pigs through the fire thus made.[816] At Obermedlingen, in Swabia, the "fire of heaven," as it was called, was made on St. Vitus's Day (the fifteenth of June) by igniting a cartwheel, which, smeared with pitch and plaited with straw, was fastened on a pole twelve feet high, the top of the pole being inserted in the nave of the wheel. This fire was made on the summit of a mountain, and as the flame ascended, the people uttered a set form of words, with eyes and arms directed heavenward.[817] Here the fixing of a wheel on a pole and igniting it suggests that originally the fire was produced, as in the case of the need-fire, by the revolution of a wheel. The day on which the ceremony takes place (the fifteenth of June) is near midsummer; and we have seen that in Masuren fire is, or used to be, actually made on Midsummer Day by turning a wheel rapidly about an oaken pole,[818] though it is not said that the new fire so obtained is used to light a bonfire. However, we must bear in mind that in all such cases the use of a wheel may be merely a mechanical device to facilitate the operation of fire-making by increasing the friction; it need not have any symbolical significance.

[The influence which the fires are supposed to exert on the weather and vegetation may be thought to be due to an increase of solar heat produced by the fires.]

Further, the influence which these fires, whether periodic or occasional, are supposed to exert on the weather and vegetation may be cited in support of the view that they are sun-charms, since the effects ascribed to them resemble those of suns.h.i.+ne. Thus, the French belief that in a rainy June the lighting of the midsummer bonfires will cause the rain to cease[819] appears to a.s.sume that they can disperse the dark clouds and make the sun to break out in radiant glory, drying the wet earth and dripping trees. Similarly the use of the need-fire by Swiss children on foggy days for the purpose of clearing away the mist[820]

may very naturally be interpreted as a sun-charm. Again, we have seen that in the Vosges Mountains the people believe that the midsummer fires help to preserve the fruits of the earth and ensure good crops.[821] In Sweden the warmth or cold of the coming season is inferred from the direction in which the flames of the May Day bonfire are blown; if they blow to the south, it will be warm, if to the north, cold.[822] No doubt at present the direction of the flames is regarded merely as an augury of the weather, not as a mode of influencing it. But we may be pretty sure that this is one of the cases in which magic has dwindled into divination. So in the Eifel Mountains, when the smoke blows towards the corn-fields, this is an omen that the harvest will be abundant.[823] But the older view may have been not merely that the smoke and flames prognosticated, but that they actually produced an abundant harvest, the heat of the flames acting like suns.h.i.+ne on the corn. Perhaps it was with this view that people in the Isle of Man lit fires to windward of their fields in order that the smoke might blow over them.[824] So in South Africa, about the month of April, the Matabeles light huge fires to the windward of their gardens, "their idea being that the smoke, by pa.s.sing over the crops, will a.s.sist the ripening of them."[825] Among the Zulus also "medicine is burned on a fire placed to windward of the garden, the fumigation which the plants in consequence receive being held to improve the crop."[826] Again, the idea of our European peasants that the corn will grow well as far as the blaze of the bonfire is visible,[827] may be interpreted as a remnant of the belief in the quickening and fertilizing power of the bonfires. The same belief, it may be argued, reappears in the notion that embers taken from the bonfires and inserted in the fields will promote the growth of the crops,[828] and it may be thought to underlie the customs of sowing flax-seed in the direction in which the flames blow,[829] of mixing the ashes of the bonfire with the seed-corn at sowing,[830] of scattering the ashes by themselves over the field to fertilize it,[831] and of incorporating a piece of the Yule log in the plough to make the seeds thrive.[832] The opinion that the flax or hemp will grow as high as the flames rise or the people leap over them[833] belongs clearly to the same cla.s.s of ideas. Again, at Konz, on the banks of the Moselle, if the blazing wheel which was trundled down the hillside reached the river without being extinguished, this was hailed as a proof that the vintage would be abundant. So firmly was this belief held that the successful performance of the ceremony ent.i.tled the villagers to levy a tax upon the owners of the neighbouring vineyards.[834] Here the unextinguished wheel might be taken to represent an unclouded sun, which in turn would portend an abundant vintage. So the waggon-load of white wine which the villagers received from the vineyards round about might pa.s.s for a payment for the suns.h.i.+ne which they had procured for the grapes. Similarly we saw that in the Vale of Glamorgan a blazing wheel used to be trundled down hill on Midsummer Day, and that if the fire were extinguished before the wheel reached the foot of the hill, the people expected a bad harvest; whereas if the wheel kept alight all the way down and continued to blaze for a long time, the farmers looked forward to heavy crops that summer.[835]

Here, again, it is natural to suppose that the rustic mind traced a direct connexion between the fire of the wheel and the fire of the sun, on which the crops are dependent.

[The effect which the bonfires are supposed to have in fertilizing cattle and women may also be attributed to an increase of solar heat produced by the fires.]

But in popular belief the quickening and fertilizing influence of the bonfires is not limited to the vegetable world; it extends also to animals. This plainly appears from the Irish custom of driving barren cattle through the midsummer fires,[836] from the French belief that the Yule-log steeped in water helps cows to calve,[837] from the French and Servian notion that there will be as many chickens, calves, lambs, and kids as there are sparks struck out of the Yule log,[838] from the French custom of putting the ashes of the bonfires in the fowls' nests to make the hens lay eggs,[839] and from the German practice of mixing the ashes of the bonfires with the drink of cattle in order to make the animals thrive.[840] Further, there are clear indications that even human fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the fires. In Morocco the people think that childless couples can obtain offspring by leaping over the midsummer bonfire.[841] It is an Irish belief that a girl who jumps thrice over the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the mother of many children;[842] in Flanders women leap over the Midsummer fires to ensure an easy delivery;[843] and in various parts of France they think that if a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry within the year.[844] On the other hand, in Lechrain people say that if a young man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within twelve months:[845] the flames have not touched and fertilized her. In parts of Switzerland and France the lighting of the Yule log is accompanied by a prayer that the women may bear children, the she-goats bring forth kids, and the ewes drop lambs.[846]