Because blood, as life, belongs to, and, in a peculiar sense,
represents, the Author of life, blood has been counted a means of
inspiration. The blood of the gods, in myth and legend, and again the
blood of divinely accepted sacrifices, human and animal, in ancient and
modern religious rituals, has been relied on as the agency whereby the
Author of life speaks in and through the possessor of that blood.
The inspiring power of blood, is a thought that runs all through the
early Norseland legends. Thus, Kvaser, according to the Scandinavian
mythology, was a being created by the gods with preternatural
intelligence. Kvaser traversed the world, teaching men wisdom; but
he was treacherously murdered by the dwarfs Fjalar and Gala. The
dwarfs let Kvaser’s blood run into two cups and a kettle. “The name
of the kettle is Odrœrer, and the names of the cups are Son and Bodn.
By mixing up his blood with honey, they composed a drink of such
surpassing excellence, that whoever partakes of it acquires the gift of
song.”[286] And that was the origin of poetry in the world; although
there have been a good many imitations of the real article since that
day.
So, again, in the Elder Edda, the hero Sigurd killed Fafner, at the
instigation of Fafner’s brother Regin. Regin cut out the heart of his
brother, and gave it to Sigurd to roast, while he drank the blood of
the murdered one. Touching the bleeding heart with his fingers, and
then putting his fingers into his mouth, Sigurd found that he was now
able to understand the voice of birds; and thenceforward he was a hero
inspired.[287] Afterwards he gave his bride, Gudrun, “to eat of the
remnant of Fafnir’s heart; so _she_ grew wise and great-hearted.”[288]
Down to the present time, there are those in the far East, and in the
far West, who seek inspiration by blood-drinking. All along the North
Pacific coast, the shamanism of the native tribes shows itself in a
craving for blood as a means and as an accompaniment of preternatural
frenzy. The chief sorcerer, or medicine-man, has his seasons of
demoniacal possession, when he can communicate with the powers of the
air. At such times he is accustomed to spring upon the members of his
tribe, and bite out from their necks or bodies the bleeding flesh, as
a help to inspiration and debauch. None would venture to resist these
blood-thirsty assaults; but the scars which result are always borne
with pride.[289]
Another phase of this universal idea is reported by a recent traveler
in the Himalayan districts of India; where, as he thinks, the forms
of religion ante-date in their origin those of Hindooism, or of
Brahmanism, and “have descended from very early ages.” When a favor is
sought from a local divinity, “it is the _chela_ [or primitive seer]
who gasps out the commands of the _deoty_ [the ‘deity’], as he [the
chela] shivers under the divine afflatus, and [under] the vigorous
application of the _soongul_, or iron scourge.” But before the chela
can have “the divine afflatus” he must drink-in living blood. Thus,
this traveler witnessed an appeal to the snake-god, Kailung Nag, for
fine weather for the sowing of the crops. The sacrificial sheep was
procured by the people; the ceremonies of wild worship, including
music, dancing, incense-burning, and bodily flagellations, proceeded.
“At length, all being ready, the head of the victim was struck off with
an axe. The body was then lifted up by several men, and the chela,
seizing upon it like a tiger, drank the blood as it spurted from the
neck. When all the blood had been sucked from the carcass, it was
thrown down upon the ground, amid yells and shouts of ‘_Kailung Maharaj
ki jai!_’ [‘Victory to the great king Kailung’]. The dancing was
then renewed, and became more violent, until after many contortions,
the chela [now blood-filled] gasped out that the deota accepted the
sacrifice, and that the season would be favorable. This was received
with renewed shouts, and the chela sank down upon the ground in a state
of exhaustion.”[290]
In the folk-lore of Scotland, as representing the primitive traditions
of Western Europe, there are illustrations of the idea that the
blood of the gods was communicated to earthly organisms. Thus, a
scientific antiquarian of Scotland records in this line: “There was
a popular saying that the robin”--the robin red-breast--“had a drop
of God’s blood in its veins, and that therefore to kill or hurt
it was a sin, and that some evil would befall any one who did so;
and, conversely, any kindness done to poor robin would be repaid
in some fashion. Boys did not dare to harry a robin’s nest.” On
the other hand, the yellow-hammer and the swallow were said, each
“to have a drop of the Devil’s blood in its veins”; so the one of
these birds--the yellow-hammer--was “remorselessly harried”; and the
other--the swallow--“was feared, and therefore let alone.”[291] A
similar legendary fear of the swallow, and the guarding of his nest,
accordingly, exists in Germany and in China.[292]
Another indication of the belief, that human blood has a vital
connection with its divine source, and is under the peculiar oversight
of its divine Author, is found in the wide-spread opinion that the
blood of a murdered man will bear witness against the murderer, by
flowing afresh at his touch; the living blood crying out from the dead
body, by divine consent, in testimony of crime against the Author of
life. Ancient European literature teems with incidents in the line of
this “ordeal of touch.”
Thus it was, according to the Nibelungen Lied, that Kriemhild fastened
upon Hagan the guilt of murdering her husband Siegfried; when Hagan and
his associates were gathered for the burial of the hero.
“Firmly they made denial; Kriemhild at once replied,
‘Whoe’er in this is guiltless, let him this proof abide.
In sight of all the people let him approach the bier,
And so to each beholder shall the plain truth appear.’
It is a mighty marvel, which oft e’en now we spy,
That, when the blood-stain’d murderer comes to the murder’d nigh,
The wounds break out a-bleeding; then too the same befell,
And thus could each beholder the guilt of Hagan tell.
The wounds at once burst streaming, fast as they did before;
Those who then sorrowed deeply, now yet lamented more.”[293]
Under Christian II., of Denmark, the “Nero of the North,” early in the
sixteenth century, there was a notable illustration of this confidence
in the power of blood to speak for itself. A number of gentlemen being
together in a tavern, one evening, they fell to quarreling, and “one
of them was stabbed with a poniard. Now the murderer was unknown, by
reason of the number [present]; although the person stabbed accused a
pursuivant of the king’s who was one of the company. The king, to find
out the homicide, caused them all to come together in the stove [the
tavern], and, standing round the corpse, he commanded that they should,
one after another, lay their right hand on the slain gentleman’s naked
breast, swearing that they had not killed him. The gentlemen did so,
and no sign appeared against them. The pursuivant only remained, who,
condemned before in his own conscience, went first of all and kissed
the dead man’s feet. But, as soon as he had laid his hand upon his
breast, the blood gushed forth in abundance, both out of his wound
and his nostrils; so that, urged by this evident accusation, he
confessed the murder, and was by the king’s own sentence, immediately
beheaded.”[294]
A striking example of the high repute in which this ordeal of touch was
formerly held, and of the underlying idea on which its estimate was
based, is reported from the State Trials of Scotland. It was during the
trial of Philip Standsfield, in 1688, for the murder of his father,
Sir James. The testimony was explicit, that when this son touched the
body, the blood flowed afresh, and the son started back in terror,
crying out, “Lord, have mercy upon me!” wiping off the blood, from his
hand, on his clothes. Sir George M’Kenzie, acting for the State, at the
inquest, said concerning this testimony and its teachings: “But they,
fully persuaded that Sir James was murdered by his own son, sent out
[with him] some surgeons and friends, who having raised the body, did
see it bleed miraculously upon his touching it. In which, God Almighty
himself was pleased to bear a share in the testimonies which we
produce: that Divine Power which makes the blood circulate during life,
has oft times, in all nations, opened a passage to it after death upon
such occasions, but most in this case.”[295]
Mr. Henry C. Lea, in his erudite work on Superstition and Force, has
multiplied illustrations of the ordeal of touch, or of “bier-right,”
all along the later centuries.[296] He recalls that “Shakspeare
introduces it, in King Richard III., where Gloster interrupts the
funeral of Henry VI., and Lady Anne exclaims:
‘O gentlemen see, see! dead Henry’s wounds
Open their congealed mouths, and bleed afresh.’”
He refers to the fact that it was an old-time Jewish custom to ask
pardon of a corpse for any offences committed against the living man,
laying hold of the great toe of the corpse while thus asking; and if
the asker had really inflicted any grievous injury on the deceased,
the body was supposed to signify that fact by a copious hemorrhage
from the nose.[297] “This, it will be observed,” he adds, “is almost
identical with the well-known story which relates that, when Richard
Cœur-de-Lion hastened to the funeral of his father, Henry II., and
met the procession at Fontevraud, the blood poured from the nostrils
of the dead king, whose end he had hastened by his disobedience and
rebellion.” Mr. Lea shows that in some instances the bones of a
murdered man are said to have given out fresh blood when handled by a
murderer as long as twenty years, or even fifty, after the murder; and
he gives ample evidence that a belief in this power of blood to speak
for itself against the violator of God’s law, still exists among the
English-speaking people, and that it has manifested itself as a means
of justice-seeking, in the United States, within a few years past.