СНАР. the final coming of the powers of the world of fire to destroy all things, and even the deities themselves. The mixture of materialism, atheism, and superstition visible in these notions, shows the divergency of the human mind from its first great truths, and its struggles to substitute its own phantoms and perverted reasonings instead. All polytheism and mythology seem to be an attempted compromise between scepticism and superstition: the natural process of the mind beginning to know, resolved to question, unattending to its ignorance, and solving its doubts by its fancies, or concealing them by its allegories; and shaping its faith to suit its inclinations. The most formidable feature of the ancient religion of the Anglo-Saxons, as of all the Teutonic nations, was its separation from the pure and benevolent virtues of life, and its indissoluble union with war and violence. It condemned the faithless and the perjured; but it represented their Supreme Deity as the father of combats and slaughter, because those were his favourite children who fell in the field of battle. To them he assigned the heavenly Valhall and Vingolfa, and promised to salute them after their death as his heroes. 63 This tenet sanctified all the horrors of war, and connected all the hopes, energies, and passions of humanity with its continual prosecution. As the nation advanced in its active intellect, it began to be dissatisfied with its mythology. Many indications exist of this spreading alienation, which prepared the Northern mind for the reception of the nobler truths of Christianity, though at first averse from them. Edda, Hist. Duod, p. 304. 64 Bartholin has collected some instances which are worth the attention of those who study the history of human nature. One warrior says, that he trusted more to his strength and his arms than to Thor and Odin. Another exclaims: "I believe not in images and dæmons. I have travelled over many places, and have met giants and monsters, but they never conquered me. Therefore I have hitherto trusted to my own strength and courage." To a Christian who interrogated him, one of these fighters boasted, that he knew no religion, but relied on his own powers. For the same reason a father and his sons refused to sacrifice to the idols. When the king of Norway asked Gaukathor of what religion he was, he answered, “I am neither Christian nor heathen; neither I nor my companions have any other religion than to trust to ourselves and our good fortune, which seem to be quite sufficient for us." Many others are recorded to have given similar answers; despising their idols, yet not favouring Christianity. Another is mentioned as taking rather a middle path. "I do not wish to revile the gods; but Freya seems to me to be of no importance. Neither she nor Odin are any thing to us. 39 See Bartholin de Caus. p. 79.-81. CHAP. IV. On the Menology and Literature of the PAGAN SAXONS. IN their computation of time, our ancestors reckoned by nights instead of days, and by winters instead of years. Their months were governed by the revolution of the moon. They began their year from the day which we celebrate as Christmas-day', and that night they called Moedrenech, or mother night, from the worship or ceremonies, as Bede imagines, in which, unsleeping, they spent it. In the common years, they appropriated three lunar months to each of the four seasons. When their year of thirteen months occurred, they added the superfluous month to their summer season, and by that circumstance had then three months of the name of Lida, which occasioned these years of thirteen months to be called T-Lidi. The names of their months were these: Liul, or æftepa Leola, answering to our January. CHAP. Bloth monath Liuli, or æppa Leola (before Leol) November. December. They divided the year into two principal parts, summer and winter. The six months of the longer days were applied to the summer portion, the remainder to winter. Their winter season began at their month pyntýn fýlleth, or October. The full moon in this month was the era or the commencement of this season, and the words pyntyp fylleth were meant to express the winter full moon. 1 The Francs began the year in the autumnal season; for Alcuin writes to Charlemagne: "I wonder why your youths begin the legitimate year from the month of September." Oper. p. 1496. СНАР. IV. The reason of the names of their month of Sol monath, Rehd monath, Єortup monath, Halig monath, and Bloth monath, we have already explained. Bede thus accounts for the others: Tri-milchi expressed that their cattle were then milked three times a day. Lida, signifies mild or navigable, because in these months the serenity of the air is peculiarly favourable to navigation. Wenden monath implies that the month was usually tempestuous. The months of Leola was so called because of the turning of the sun on this day, and the diminution of the length of the night.2 One of the months preceded this change, the other followed it. It has been much doubted whether the Anglo-Saxons had the use of letters when they possessed themselves of England. It is certain that no specimen of any Saxon writing, anterior to their conversion to Christianity, can be produced. It cannot, therefore, be proved that they had letters by any direct evidence, and yet some reasons may be stated which make it not altogether safe to assert too positively, that our ancestors were ignorant of the art of writing in their pagan state. 1st. Alphabetical characters were used by the Northern nations on the Baltic before they received Christianity 3, and the origin of these is ascribed to Odin, who heads the genealogies of the ancient Saxon chieftains as well as those of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark; and who is stated to have settled in Saxony before he advanced to the North.* Either the pagan Saxons were acquainted with the Runic characters, or they were introduced in the North after the fifth century, when the Saxons came to Britain, and before the middle of the sixth, when they are mentioned by Fortunatus, which is contrary to the history and traditions of the Scandinavian nations, and to probability. We may remark, that Run is used in Anglo-Saxon 5, as Runar in the 2 This valuable account of the Saxon year is in Bede, de Temporum Ratione, in the second volume of his works, in the edition of Cologne, p. 81. Other Saxon menologies may be seen in Wanley, 185. and 109.; and a comparative one of the Anglo-Saxons, Francs, Icelanders, Danes, and Swedes, is in Hickes's Gram. AngloSax. p. 214. 3 I would not attribute to the Runic letters an extravagant antiquity, but the inscriptions on rocks, &c. copied by Wormius in his Literaturæ Runica, and by Stephanius, in his notes on Saxo, proved that the Northerns used them before they received Christianity. 4 Snorre, Ynglinga Saxa. 5 So Cedmon uses the word, pun bith gerecenod, p. 73.; hpæt reo pun bude, p. 86.; that he to him the letters should read and explain, bræt reo pun bude, p. 90.; he had before said, in his account of Daniel and Belshazzar, that the angel of the Lord prat tha in page poɲda genỳnu barpe bocstafas, p. 90. Icelandic, to express letters or characters. It is true that Odin used the run for the purpose of magic, and that in Saxon pun-cɲæftig, or skilled in runæ, signifies a magician 7; but the magical application of characters is no argument against their alphabetical nature, because many of the foolish charms which our ancestors and other nations have respected, have consisted, not merely of alphabetical characters, but even of words.8 2d. The passage of Venantius Fortunatus, written in the middle of the sixth century, attests that the Runic was used for the purpose of writing in his time. He says, The barbarous Runæ is painted on ashen tablets, Now, as the Anglo-Saxons were not inferior in civilisation 10 3d. Though it cannot be doubted that the letters of our Saxon MSS. written after their conversion are of Roman origin, except only two, the th and the w, P, p, the thorn and the wen, yet these two characters are allowed by the best critics to be of Runic 11 parentage; and if this be true, it would show that the Anglo-Saxons were acquainted with Runic as well as with Roman characters when they commenced the handwriting that prevails in their MSS. 4th. If the Saxons had derived the use of letters from the Roman ecclesiastics, it is probable that they would have 6 Schilter's Thesaurus, vol. iii. p. 693. 7 Thus Cedmon says, the pun-craftige men could not read the handwriting till Daniel came, p. 90. 8 One passage in a Saxon MS. confirms this idea: "Then asked the caldorman the herzling, whether through dnýcpest, or through pỳnstarep, he had broken his bonds; and he answered that he knew nothing of this craft." Vesp. D. 14. p. 132. Now pynrtarer means literally ryn letters. We may remark, that the Welsh word for alphabet is coel bren, which literally means the tree or wood of Omen; and see the Saxon description of the northern Runæ, in Hickes's Gram. Ang. Sax. p. 135. 9 Ven. Fortun. lib. vi. p. 1814. Ed. Mag. Bib. tom. viii. 10 There are various alphabets of the Runæ, but their differences are not very great. I consider those characters to be most interesting which have been taken from the ancient inscriptions remaining in the North. Wormius gives these, Lit. Run. p. 58. Hickes, in his Gram. Anglo-Isl. c. 1. gives several Runic alphabets. 11 The Saxons used three characters for th, Ð, ð, and þ. Of these the two first seem to be Roman capitals, with a small hyphen. Astle, in his History of Writing, p. 7. and 8. gives these d's. The other, b, is the Runic d. See Wormius, p. 58. The Runic d, in some dialects, was pronounced th: so dus, a giant, or spectre of the woods, as given by Wormius, p. 94., is by other writers written thus. I consider the p to be taken from the p. СНАР. IV. CHAP. IV. taken from the Latin language the words they used to express them. Other nations so indebted, have done this. To instance from the Erse language: For book, they have leabhar, from liber. liter 12, γράφω [leagham,} legere. But nations who had known letters before they became acquainted with Roman literature would have indigenous terms to express them. The Saxons have such terms. The most common word by which the Anglo-Saxons denoted alphabetical letters was ræf; plural, stæra. Elfric, in his Saxon Grammar, so uses it, 13 The copy of the Saxon coronation oath begins with, "This writing is written, rtær be rτæfe (letter by letter), from that writing which Dunstan, archbishop, gave to our lord at Kingston." 14 In the same sense the word is used in Alfred's translation of Bede 15, and in the Saxon Gospels. 16 It is curious to find the same word so applied in the Runic mythology. In the Vafthrudis-mal, one of the odes of the ancient edda of Semund, it occurs in the speech of Odin, who says "fornum stavfom" in the ancient letters.17 The numerous compound words derived from ræf, a letter, show it to have been a radical term in the language, and of general application. the art of letters. TE Stof-creft, to teach letters. a game at letters. the head of the letters. 12 In the Erse Testament, Greek letters are expressed by litrichibh Greigis. Luke, xxiii. 38. 13 Cotton. Lib. Julius, A. 2. 15 Bede, 615. 633. 14 Cotton. Lib. Cleop. B. 13. 16 John, vii. 15. Luke, xxiii. 38. 17 Edda Semund, p. 3. In the Icelandic Gospels, for Latin and Hebrew letters we have Latiniskum and Ebreskum bokstefum. Luke, xxiii. 38. The Francotheotisc, for letters, has a similar compound word, bok-staven. |