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To obtain however a clear conception of the Teutonic religious system at this era, is not easy. Tacitus, our authority respecting the earliest German races, "has painted them," to quote the words of Guizot, "as Montaigne and Rousseau the savages, in a fit of ill humour against his country;" and the missionaries of the Middle Ages seldom supply that accurate information regarding the religious faith of the pagan tribes, amongst whom they laboured, which we desire. Selecting then such points as appear to admit of least dispute, we may conclude that a distinction must be drawn between that simpler and purer faith, which the Teuton brought with him from his home in the far distant East', and that which afterwards, owing to settlement in strange lands, intermixture with other races, and such like causes, modified the original form.

CHAP. I.

belief.

The earliest Teutonic doctrine, then, appears to have Early Teutonic recognised one Supreme Being, whom it represents as Master of the Universe, whom all things obey2.

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'Who

is first and eldest of the gods?" it is asked in the Edda, and the answer is, "He is called Allfadir in our tongue.

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11

Northern is one of pure action; ac-
cording to the first, the gods are to
be reconciled by work of atonement,
according to the second, by battle.'
Thorpe's Northern Myth. 1. 135.

2 Such seems to have been the
sublime conception above, if not an-
terior to, what may be called the
mythology of Teutonic religion."—
Milman's Latin Christianity, I. 258.

3 The Semnones, a tribe of the Suevi, claimed for their territory the honour of being the original seat of the worship of Allfadir. See Perry's Franks, p. 22. Tacit. Germania, cap. 39: "Vetustissimos se nobilis. simosque Suevorum Semnones memorant. Fides antiquitatis religione confirmatur... Eo omnis superstitio respicit, tanquam inde initia gentis, ibi regnator omnium deus, cetera subjecta atque parentia."

CHAP. I.

He lives from "all ages, and rules over his realm, and sways all things great and small. He made heaven and earth, and the lift, that is, the sky, and all that belongs to them, and what is most, he made man, and gave him a soul that shall live and never perish, though the body rot to mould, or burn to ashes1." In other places he is spoken of, as the "Author of every thing that exists," the "Eternal," the “Ancient," the "living and awful Being," the "Searcher into concealed things," the "Being that never changes." His is an infinite power, a boundless knowledge, an incorruptible justice. He cannot be confined within the enclosure of walls, or represented by any likeness to the human figure. He has neither sex nor palpable form, and can only be worshipped in the awful silence of the boundless forests, and the consecrated grove. Such appears to have been the primitive faith, more developed subsequently in the Scandinavian Eddas, but resting on elemental ideas common to all the Germanic tribes. Allfadir would be a name naturally dear to a people which as yet had hardly passed the limits of the patriarchal state, amongst whom every father of a family was at once a priest and king in his own house. But the idea of pure spirit was too refined to retain a lasting hold on the mind and conscience; it lost its original distinctness, and retired more and more into the back ground, surviving only as the feeble echo of an older and purer revelation. Just as the Aryan' in crossing the Hindu Alps, was spell-bound by the new and beauteous world

1 Dasent's Norsemen in Iceland, p. 187. Oxford Essays, 1858. Comp. also Milman's Latin Christianity, I. 258; Thorpe, I. 229.

2 "Nec cohibere parietibus deos, neque in ullam oris humani speciem assimulare, ex magnitudine cælestium arbitrantur, lucos ac nemora consecrant, deorumque nominibus ap

pellant secretum illud quod sola reverentia videt." Tac. Germ. 9.

3 Taciti Germania, 10: "Si publice consuletur, sacerdos civitatis, sin privatim, ipse pater familiæ, precatus deos." Compare Grimm, D. Myth. p. 80.

4 Hardwick's Christ and other Masters, II. p. 11, 12.

into which he was transplanted, so the Teuton in the CHAP. I. course of his migrations towards colder climes, bowed down. before "the wild and overbearing powers of nature;" but nature-worship not sufficing, as it never has sufficed, there arose, secondly, an elaborate form of hero-worship, the adoration of the conquerors of nature, that is, of man himself, his virtues, and his vices.

ship.

i. First, we say, there was the worship of the ele-i Nature-Worments; from the invisible One emanates, so thought the Teuton, an infinite number of inferior deities, whose temple is every part of the invisible world. Hence the veneration. of nature; of nature in all her forms and manifestations; of the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon, which was regarded as of the male sex, the stars; the earth itself, the Herthus of Tacitus', with its trees and springs, its fountains and hills; the sea, with its storm and calm; the falling snow, and the bristling ice. And since entire nature was but an organ or instrument of Deity, it was of the utmost importance, to pay attention even to the most indifferent phenomena. Nothing was too trifling. The quivering leaf, the crackling flame, the falling thunderbolt, the flight or singing of birds, the neighing of horses, man's dreams and visions, even the movements of his pulse, all needed atten

1 "The Herthus of Tacitus (Germ. c. 40) was, doubtless, Hertha the mother Earth, or impersonated nature, of which he describes the worship in language singularly coincident with that of the Berecynthian goddess of Phrygia." Milman's Lat. Christianity, I. 260. Turner's AngloSaxons, I. 217. Kemble's Saxons in England, 1. 337-344. Döllinger, II. 15. The insula oceani, in which Tacitus represents her worship to have its seat, has been identified by some writers with the island of Rügen, and the district of Mecklenburg and Pomerania; by others with Zealand, or Oesel. Latham's Tac. Germ. II. c. 40.

2 Comp. Taciti Germania, cap. 10: "Et illud quidem etiam hic notum, avium voces volatusque interrogare: proprium gentis equorum quoque præsagia ac monitus experiri. Publicè aluntur iisdem nemoribus ac lucis candidi et nullo mortali opere contacti; quos pressos sacro curru sacerdos ac rex vel princeps civitatis comitantur hinnitusque ac fremitus observant. Nec ulli auspicio major fides, non solum apud plebem, apud proceres, apud sacerdotes: se enim ministros deorum, illos conscios putant." On similar Slavonic customs see below.

CHAP. I.

ii. Hero-Worship.

tion, all might give some sign from the other world. Hence amongst all the Teutonic nations, Gothic, Saxon, Scandinavian, the peculiar regard that was paid to oracles and divinations, to auspices, presages, and lots1; hence the functions of the prophetess and the sibyl, the enchanter, the interpreter of dreams, the diviner by offering cups, or the entrails of animals, or human sacrifices, the raisers of storms, the Runic sticks, and all the usual instruments for exploring the secrets either of the past or future. Upsal was the Teutonic Delphi, as famous for its oracles, as for its sacrifices. Here, as in other places, might be found diviners, both male and female, who could supply runes to secure victory in the battle, to preserve from poison, to heal bodily infirmities, to chase away melancholy, or to soften the heart of a cruel mistress. Thus all nature had a voice for the imaginative Teuton, the skies, the woods, the waters, were his books, his oracles, his divinities. Again and again, the records of missionary labour will disclose the worship of the spring and the well, the belief in spirits of the hill and of the lake.

ii. But nature-worship does not satisfy. Man ceases to quail before her mighty powers, he learns to defy the wind and storm, the frost and cold, and nature-worship is blended with a complicated system of human gods. The first and eldest of the gods, we saw, was Allfadir, Odin,

1 The Indiculus Superstitionum and the lives of medieval missionaries afford an insight into the various kinds of Teutonic sorcery. We find sortilegi, diviners by lot; incantatores, enchanters; somnium conjectores, interpreters of dreams; cochlearii, diviners by the offering-cup; haruspices, consulters of entrails; immissores tempestatum, raisers of storms. Thorpe, V.M.p.242. Boniface writing to Cuthbert in 745, informs him that by a decree of a recent Council, "Sta

tuimus ut singulis annis unusquisque episcopus parochiam suam sollicitè circumeat, populum confirmare, et plebem docere, et investigare, et prohibere paganas observationes, divinos vel sortilegos, auguria, phylacteria, incantationes, vel omnes spurcitias gentilium." Ep. Ixiii. ed. Migne. Compare also the Appendix to Kemble's Saxons in England, Vol. I.

2 Adami Bremensis Gesta PP. Hammaburg. Migne's Patrologia Latina, T. CXLVI. p. 642.

or Wotan1.
But this Monotheism quickly fades away.
The Great Father is resolved into his attributes, his
power is divided amongst a number of inferior divinities,
sprung from himself, to each of whom he imparts a portion.
of his greatness. Hence the twelve Æsir, and the twelve
Asyniar. And as in the Hindû mythology Brahm is
almost forgotten before Vishnu, or the more terrible Siva
and Kali, so Odin shares the worship of his votaries with
Thor', the Thunderer, the "chief of the gods in strength
and might;" with Tŷr3, the Teutonic Mars, the "bravest
of all the gods, the giver of victory, and god of battle;”
with Freyr, the god of fertility, of seed-time and harvest,

1 Woden, Norse Odinn, old German Wuotan (whence Wodnes-dæg, Odinsdagr, Wednesday); to him the royal families of all the Teutonic races traced their lineage, and he is identified by Tacitus (Germ. c. 9), though for what reason is not quite clear, with Mercury. "Woden sane, quem adjecta litera Gwodan dixerunt, ipse est, qui apud Romanos Mercurius dicitur, et ab universis gentibus ut deus adoratur." Pauli Diac. I. 9. "Woden, id est, Fortior, bella regit hominumque ministrat virtutem contra inimicos." Adami Bremensis Gesta PP. Hammaburg, IV. 26. On his worship among the Suevi on the Lake of Constance, see Jonæ Vita S. Columbani, II. 26. Kemble, Saxons, I. 343, remarks, "So common in every part of England are names of places compounded with his name, that we must admit his worship to have been current throughout the island."

Thor= Donar, "qui præsidet in aere, qui tonitus et fulmina, ventos imbresque serena et fruges gubernat." Adam Bremensis, Gesta PP. Hammaburg, IV. 26. The prevalence of the worship of this deity (after whom comes Dunres-dæg, Thunresdæg, dies Jovis) is attested by the Low German formula of renunciation, "Ec forsacho allum diaboles

uuercum and uuordum thunaer ende
uuoden ende Sarnote ende allem them
umholdum the hira genotas sint."
Thorpe, N. Myth. 1. 230 n.

3 Tyr-Tiu (whence Tiwes-dag
Tuesday) = Ziu= Mars, the "Apns Вpo-
τολοιγός, μιαιφόνος, of Homer, wor-
shipped chiefly amongst the Hermun-
duri, Tencteri, Suevi, and Scandina-
vians.

See Grimm, D. M. 180, 181. Of his worship Jornandes says, "Martem semper asperrima placavere cultura; nam victimæ ejus mortes fuere captivorum, opinantes bellorum præsulem aptius humani sanguinis effusione placatum." Hist. Goth. cap. v. Kemble (Saxons, I. 353) traces the presence of this deity in Eresburg in Saxon Westphalia, Mons Martis, now Mersberg, the hill of Er, Ziu, or Mars.

4 Freyr Fred Old German Fro, one of the chief gods of the Swedes, the seat of whose worship was at Upsala. "Fricco pacem voluptatem. que largiens mortalibus cujus etiam simulacrum fingunt cum ingenti priapo." Adam Brem. IV. 26. "Si nuptiæ celebrandæ sunt sacrificia offerunt Fricconi." IV. 27. Thorpe's N.Myth. 27 n. He enjoyed an extensive worship in all parts of Europe. His sacred animal was the boar. On the connection of his worship with the needfire so often forbidden by the

CHAP. I.

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