THE ANCIENT SAXONS.
"The stupendously holy gods considered these things:
They gave names to the night and to the twilight;
They called the morning and mid-day so.
There sat an old man towards the east in a wood of iron,
Where he nourished the sons of Fenris.
Every one of these grew up prodigious--a giant form,--
The sons of the two brothers inhabit the vast mansions of the winds.
A hall stands brighter than the sun,
Covered with gold in Gimle."--THE VOLUPSA.
The Saxons were a German or Gothic race, possessing an entirely
different language to that of the Celts or ancient Britons; and
although they do not appear to have attracted the same attention as
the other tribes, they were, doubtless, settled at a very early period
in Europe. At the time when they begin to stand forth so prominently
in the pages of history, they occupied the peninsula of Jutland, now
a portion of Denmark, with two or three neighbouring islands, known
by the names of North Strande, Busen, and Heligoland, all situate
near the mouth of the Elbe. As they, however, consisted of three
tribes--namely, the Jutes, the Angles, and the Saxons--they probably,
at a former period, stretched over a much larger surface of country,
the boundaries of which it is now difficult to define. As early as the
time of Ptolemy, a branch of this ancient Scythian race was denominated
the Saxons. They claimed their descent from Odin, probably some old and
celebrated warrior, whose deeds grew up under magnified traditions,
until at last he was dignified with the title of their god. Like the
Britons, they were a brave and fearless race, delighting in plunder
and slaughter, ever choosing the most dangerous and perilous paths,
loving the roll of the wave, and the roar of the storm, and generally
landing under a gloomy and tempestuous sky, to surprise and attack the
enemy. Their arms were a sharp sword, a keen-pointed dagger, a tall
spear, and a ponderous battle-axe, all made of good iron. But the most
dreaded weapon they wielded seems to have been a large heavy hammer,
from which projected a number of sharp-pointed spikes. This fearful
instrument was the terror of their enemies, and no helmet was proof
against its blows. Their chiefs wore a kind of scaly armour, which
appears to have been formed of iron rings, locked together upon a
tight-fitting coat, or leathern doublet. The rims and bosses of their
shields were of iron, while the body was sometimes formed of wood,
and covered with leather. Many of these shields were large enough to
protect the whole form, and as they were convex, no doubt the point of
the enemy's weapon would glide off, unless it was struck firmly into
the centre; thus they formed a kind of moveable bulwark, behind which
the warrior sheltered himself in battle. They believed that the souls
of those who bravely perished on the hard-fought field were at once
wafted into the halls of Valhalla, and the terrible heaven which they
pictured in a future state consisted in those dreadful delights so
congenial to their brutal natures while on earth--being made up of a
succession of conflicts and struggles, cleaving of helmets and hacking
of limbs; and that when the twilight deepened over those awful halls,
every warrior was again healed of his wounds; that they then sat down
to their grim and hideous banquet, where they fed upon a great boar,
whose flesh never diminished, however much they ate, and when they had
satiated themselves with these savoury morsels, which they cut off with
their daggers, they washed them down with deep draughts of mead, which
they drank out of the skulls of their cowardly enemies. Into those
halls the brave alone were admitted--the craven, and the coward, and
those who fell not in the red and reeking ranks of battle, were doomed
to dwell in the dark regions of Niflheim, where Hela, the terrible,
reigned; where gaunt Famine stalked like a shadow beneath the vaulted
dome; where Anguish ever writhed upon her hard bed, and dark Delay
kept watch against the sombre doors which she never opened. Such were
the eternal abodes those barbarians believed they should enter after
death--the realms which their stormy spirits would soar into, when they
could no longer guide their barks over the shadows of the overhanging
rocks--when the tempestuous sea no longer bore them upon the thunder
of its billows, and cast them upon some distant coast, to revel in
carnage and slaughter;--it was then that they turned their dying eyes
to the coveted halls of Valhalla, and that huge banquet-table on which
the grisly boar lay stretched, surrounded by drinking-cups formed of
human skulls.
Those who had not courage enough to win an entrance into these envied
realms by their own bravery, put one of their slaves to death,
considering that such a sacrifice was acceptable to Odin, and a sure
passport into this ideal world. They, however, believed that Valhalla
would at last pass away; Odin himself perish; that the good and the
brave would inhabit another heaven, called Gimle; and the evil and the
cowardly be consigned to a more awful place of punishment than that
over which Hela reigned; that the gods would sit in judgment; that
Surtur, the black one, would appear; and an evil spirit be liberated
from the dark cave in which he had been for ages bound with chains of
iron. That for three years increasing snow would fall from all quarters
of the world, and during this long winter there would be no interim
of summer, neither would any green thing grow, but all mankind would
perish by each other's hands. That two huge monsters would appear; one
of which would devour the sun, the other, the moon; that mountains
and trees would be torn up, and the earth shaken to its deepest
foundations. That the stars would be blotted out of heaven, and one
wide shoreless sea cover the whole world, over which a solitary ship
would float, built of the nails of dead men, and steered by the tall
giant Hrymer. Then would the huge wolf Fenris open his enormous mouth,
the lower jaw of which would touch the earth, the upper the heaven,
over which a serpent would breathe poison, while the sons of Muspell
rode forward, led by the black Surtur. A blazing fire, spreading out
its myriad tongues of flame, would burn before and behind him; his
sword would glitter like the sun, and the bridge which spanned across
heaven, be broken. Towards a large plain would these terrible forces
move, followed by Fenris, the wolf. The brazen trumpet of Heimdal would
ring out such a startling peal, as would awaken the gods, and cause the
mighty ash of Ygdrasil to tremble. Odin would put on his golden helmet,
and all the gods rise up in arms, and after the wolf had devoured him,
and its jaws had been rent asunder by Vidar, the whole universe would
be destroyed.
Such a creed as this was calculated to nourish and keep alive the
most benighted superstitions amongst its believers. Thus we find them
drawing omens from the flight and singing of birds, placing their trust
in good and evil days, and considering the full or new moon as the most
favourable seasons in which to put into operation any important plan.
They were influenced by the moving of the clouds, and directed by the
course of the winds; and from the entrails of the victims sacrificed,
they drew their auguries. The breastplates they wore were imperfect,
unless the smith who forged them muttered a charm while he wielded his
ponderous hammer. Even the graves of dead men were frequented, and
those who slept their last sleep were intreated to answer them. They
judged of the fate of a battle by seizing an enemy, and compelling
him to fight with one of their own race. From the branches of the oak
they cut short twigs, marked them, then scattered them at random upon
a white garment, and while the priest looked upward, he took those on
which his hand chanced to alight, and if they proved to be those on
which the favourite mark was impressed, it was considered a good omen.
They rode out the perilous tempest on the deep with better heart if,
on the departure of their bark from the stormy beach, some priestess,
with her hair blown back, stood upon the giddy headland, and chaunted
the mystic rhyme which they believed would waft them, more safely than
the most favourable breeze, to the distant shore. Even through the
long night of time we can picture her standing upon the dizzy edge of
the rock, while the white-winged sea-gull wheeled and screamed above
her head; with the subdued thunder of the hoarse waves ever rolling at
her feet--her drapery blown aside, and her wan thin lips moving; while
they, tugging at the long oar with their brawny arms and bowed heads,
sent up a silent prayer to the god of the storm.
Such were our forefathers--men who would startle at the stirring of
a leaf, or the shooting of a star, yet brave enough to rush upon the
point of a spear with a flushed cheek and a bright eye, and who could
look death full in the face without a feeling of fear. Nor would it be
difficult to point out, even in our own day, numbers of superstitious
signs and omens, which are as implicitly believed in by the peasantry
of the present age, as they were by the ancient Saxons during this
dark period of our history. The chattering of a magpie, the croaking
of a raven, the howling of a dog in the night, a winding-sheet in the
candle, or a hollow cinder leaping out of the fire upon the hearth,
are even now held amongst our superstitious countrymen as ominous of
ill-luck, sickness, or death. Scarcely an obscure English province
is without its wise-man, or cunning fortune-teller, those lingering
remains of the Wicca of the Saxons, which have descended to us through
the long lapse of nearly two thousand years, in spite of the burnings
and other executions which were so common in our country only two or
three centuries ago, when not to believe in witchcraft would have
been held a crime equal to Atheism, by our more enlightened and
comparatively modern forefathers.
The temple erected to their war-god, in their own country, appears
to have been spacious and magnificent. On the top of a marble column
stood this idol, in the figure of a tall, armed warrior, bearing a
banner in his right hand, on which a red rose was emblazoned, while
in his left he held a balance. His helmet was surmounted with a cock;
on his breastplate a bear was engraven, while on the shield which was
suspended from his shoulder was the image of a lion, upon a ground of
flowers. Here, women divined, and men sacrificed, and into the battle
was this warlike image borne by the priest; for as they could not trust
themselves upon the sea without a charm being first muttered, so in
the field did they require the image of their idol to countenance the
contest. To this grim deity did they offer up their captives, and even
those of their own tribe who had fled, and turned their backs upon the
fight, for they looked upon cowardice as the greatest of crimes amongst
their men, and wantonness in their women they punished with death.
Some of their idols are surrounded by a wild poetry, and an air of
almost classic beauty, recalling to the mind the divinities worshipped
by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Of such was their goddess, called
the Mother of Earth, who was held so sacred, that only the priest
was permitted to touch her. Her temple stood amid the solemn shadows
of a silent grove; her figure was always covered by a white garment,
which was washed in a secret lake; in those waters the slaves who
administered at her shrine were drowned--no one, saving the priest,
was allowed to go abroad, who were once entrusted with her mysteries.
On holy days her image was borne in procession, on the backs of
beautifully marked cows. Nothing but joy and peace then reigned
throughout the whole length and breadth of the land: the bark was
moored upon the beach; the spear and battle-axe hung upon the beam
above the hearth, and Odin himself seemed to sleep. But this lasted
no longer than the days allotted to these processions: when they had
passed, the keel was again launched, the weapons taken from their
resting-place, while "grim-visaged war resumed his wrinkled front."
Even the cattle that fed upon the island where this temple stood were
held so sacred, that it was a crime to touch them, and he who drew
water from the fountain that flowed beside the grove, dared not, even
by a whisper, disturb the surrounding silence. We might almost fancy,
while reading the description of the idol they named Crodus, that we
saw before us the embodiment of one of Spenser's beautiful stanzas, or
that he himself had but turned into verse some old record, in which he
found pictured this image of one of the ancient Saxon gods. It was of
the figure of an old man, stooping through very age: he was clothed
in a white garment; a girdle of linen, the ends of which hung loose,
encircled his waist; his head was grey, and bare. He held in his right
hand a vessel, in which flowers floated in water; his left hand rested
upon a wheel, while he stood with his naked feet upon the back of a
prickly perch. How like Spenser's description is the above, of his "Old
January wrapped well in many weeds, to keep the cold away--of February,
with the old waggon-wheels and fish--of the hand cold through holding
all the day the hatchet keen." Such a resemblance would the eye of a
poet trace, and so would he transform old Crodus, the Saxon idol, into
the personification of one of his months.
Whoever broke into one of their temples, and stole the sacred vessels,
was punished with a slow, lingering, and terrible death. To the very
edge of the sands of the sea-shore was he dragged, when the tide was
low, and there made fast--his ears were cut off, and other parts of his
body mutilated--then he was left alone. Wave after wave came and went,
and washed around him, as the tide came in; he felt the sea rising
every minute, inch by inch--higher still, higher it came--every ripple
that made a murmur on the shore rang his death-knell, until the last
wave came that washed over him--then vengeance was satisfied. A more
awful death can scarcely be imagined.
They were a tall, big-boned, blue-eyed race of men, and it appears
from an old law made to punish a man who seized another by the hair,
that they at one period wore it so long as to fall upon the shoulders.
The females wore ornaments on their arms and necks. The government
was generally vested in the hands of the aged, and they appear to
have elected their ruler in war by the chiefs assembling and drawing
lots. He on whom it fell, they followed and obeyed; but when the war
was over, they were again all equal. They were divided into four
orders--the Etheling, or noble, who never married below his own rank;
the Free-man, who shared in the offices of government; the Freed-man,
or he who, either by purchase or merit, had obtained his liberty; and
the Serf, or slave. They reckoned their time by the number of nights,
and counted their years by the winters. April they named Easter-month,
after their goddess, Eostre. Thus we still retain a name which, though
commemorating the worship of an ancient idol, has now become endeared
to us by the Resurrection of Christ--a holy time which we can never
forget, for at every return it seems to bring back a spirit of beauty
into the world, whose pathway is strown with the sweetest and earliest
flowers of spring. Bright spots of light every way break through this
age of barbarism, and May, which again hangs the snow-white blossoms
upon the hawthorn, they called milk-month; nor can we now repeat the
name without images of lowing cattle and pleasant pastures springing up
before us, and we marvel how so warlike a race ever came to make use of
such poetical and pastoral names. The sun they worshipped as a goddess;
the moon as a god. A Saxon poet would have called the former, "The
golden lady of the day."
Although they appear to have been ignorant of the use of letters, yet
there is but little doubt that they used certain signs, or characters,
which they were able to interpret. Some of these Runic hieroglyphics
seem to have been engraven upon their swords. Their war-songs were
committed to memory, and it is probable that many a one ranked high
amongst their minstrels, who possessed no other talent than that of
remembering and repeating these ancient lays. It might be that they
were just enabled to form characters clear enough in their resemblance
to some natural object, which, when inscribed upon the rugged
monumental stone, bore some allusion to the name or bravery of the
chief whose memory it perpetuated. Their only books seem to have been
the bark of trees; the rind of the beech their favourite register;
a tablet on which the rustic chronicler of the present day still
makes the mark of his fair one's name, in characters only legible to
himself. In point of civilization, they were at this time centuries
behind the Britons, and an old author, describing them about the fifth
century, says, "You see amongst them as many piratical leaders as you
behold rowers, for they all command, obey, teach, and learn the art
of pillage. Hence, after your greatest caution, still greater care is
requisite. This enemy is fiercer than any other; if you be unguarded,
they attack; if prepared, they elude you. They despise the opposing,
and destroy the unwary; if they pursue, they overtake; if they fly,
they escape. Shipwrecks discipline them, not deter; they do not merely
know, they are familiar with, all the dangers of the sea; a tempest
gives them security and success, for it divests the meditated land of
the apprehension of a descent. In the midst of waves and threatening
rocks they rejoice at their peril, because they hope to surprise."
"Dispersed into many bodies," adds Zosimus, "they plundered by night,
and when day appeared, they concealed themselves in the woods, feasting
on the booty they had gained."[2]
When the Saxons first approached the British coast, they issued out
from the mouth of the Elbe, in wicker boats covered with leather,
which seem to have been but little better than the coracles used by
the ancient Britons. These were so light, that they found but little
difficulty in carrying them overland, from one river or creek to
another, then paddling their way under cover of the banks, wherever
sufficient water was to be found, until at last they came unaware upon
the natives. The chiules or keels which they possessed at the time they
were called upon to aid Vortigern, were capable of containing above
a hundred men each, a wonderful improvement on the frail barks with
which they first ventured into the British seas. Such as we have here
described them, were the tribe destined to overthrow an ancient race,
whom the Romans never wholly subjugated.