We have now to consider the complications arising from a combination of
skeuomorphs and biomorphs.
Again I have recourse to Dr. Colley March’s suggestive essay. He
points out that in the north of Europe animals were strangled by
the withy-band, as occurs on an incised stone from Gosforth (Plate
VII., Fig. 3). Mr. Hildebrand endeavours to show that the so-called
Scandinavian sun-snake was produced by the breaking down into
curves of the figure of a lion rampant, copied by a succession of
artificers, all ignorant of the appearance of a lion. But in the
first place, points out Dr. March, the Norse Wurm is found long ago
in prehistoric rock-sculptures. In the next place, the serpent of the
north was symbolic of the sea and not of the sun. And then, it was
not the unfamiliar lion that alone broke up into serpentine forms;
the skeuomorph assailed the stag, as on King Gorm’s stone in Denmark
(Plate VII., Fig. 2). Eikthysnir, the stag of the sun, who was an
attendant and attribute of Frey, is here seen being strangled by the
“laidly worm” of Scandinavia. Dr. March suggests that perhaps we may
recognise the walrus in rock-sculptures at Crichie in Scotland (Plate
VII., Figs. 6, 7). That the walrus was well known to the Northmen, and
highly prized both for its hide, from which ships’ ropes were made
(Plate IV., Fig. 4), and for its tusks, which were a source of ivory,
is proved by the Orosian story (I. Orosius, i. 14). “He went thither
chiefly for walruses, because they have noble bone in their teeth, and
their skin is very good for ships’ ropes.” The Earl of Southesk,[112]
however, brings forward a considerable body of evidence in favour of
the view that this “elephant” symbol, as it has been absurdly termed,
is the sun-boar—a symbol of Frey. No animal held a higher place in
Scandinavia, and at an early period it was adopted as the national
emblem in Denmark, and borne on the standard.
[112] _Origins of Pictish Symbolism_, 1893.
One frequently finds on early Christian sculptured stones that the
field on each side of the central cross is occupied by a writhing
animal; of these numerous examples occur in the Isle of Man, where
they are undoubtedly due to Scandinavian influence. This animal may
be recognised in some cases as being a wolf, as on a cross at Michael
(Plate VII., Fig. 5).
Two skeuomorphs attack the wolf. The influence of thong-work is seen in
Plate VII., Fig. 1; this may be compared with Plate IV., Fig. 4, which
is copied from a sculptured stone at Malew, also in the Isle of Man.
The latter is one of several Manx skeuomorphs of leather or strap-work.
The withy-band is even more frequently depicted, and on a cross at
Gosforth (Plate VII., Fig. 3) the wolf is being strangled by it.
The serpent or dragon also is frequently represented, indeed it seems
as if the wolf and the serpent passed insensibly into one another, and
nothing is easier than to confound the latter with twisted bands. So
the animal fades away, till finally the skeuomorph triumphs, and only
the ghost of a zoomorph remains in what, to ordinary eyes, is only an
entwisted fibre (Plate VII., Fig. 11).
What then is the significance of this remarkable cycle? The explanation
must be sought in the pagan-Christian overlap, at the time when the
symbols of Norse mythology were being homologised with those of the
Christian faith.
“Three mighty children to my father Lok
Did Angerbode, the giantess, bring forth—
Fenris the wolf, the serpent huge, and me.
Of these the serpent in the sea ye cast,
Who since in your despite hath wax’d amain,
And now with gleaming ring enfolds the world.
Me on this cheerless nether world he threw,
And gave me nine unlighted realms to rule.
While, on his island in the lake, afar,
Made fast to the bored crag, by wile not strength
Subdued, with limber chains lives Fenris bound.”
So, in the words of Matthew Arnold, spoke Hela to Hermod on his quest
for the restoration of the slain Balder.
At the crack of doom, the Ragnaroks, Frey, Woden, Thor, and Tyr, are
predestined to perish. A wolf shall devour the sun, and another shall
swallow the moon, and the stars shall vanish out of heaven. Woden shall
go first, and shall encounter Fenriswolf, but the wise, one-eyed god
shall die. The hammer of the “friend of man” shall not avail against
the sea-dragon, and though Thor fights Midgarthsorm, and shall slay
him, he himself shall fall dead from the serpent’s venom. Garm, the
hell-hound, shall fasten upon the one-handed Tyr, and each shall kill
the other. Frey shall fall before Swart, the giant with the flaming
sword. Then shall Vidar spring forward, the mighty son of the Father
of Victory, and shall rend the wolf asunder. “Vidar shall inhabit the
city of the gods when all is over,” as the giant said to Woden. “Vidar,
who outlived the earth-fall, became,” says Professor Stephens,[113] “a
fitting emblem for that Almighty Lord who overcame Sin and Death,” and
he is represented on some sculptured stones as a divine Hart, trampling
on Fenriswolf and Midgarthsorm.
[113] G. Stephens, _Studies on Northern Mythology_, 1883,
p. 167.
These strangled wolves and writhing snakes of Scandinavian art
represent the portentous struggle of the powers of darkness with the
gods when “the Wolf shall devour the Sire of Men; but Vid shall avenge
him, and shall rend the cold jaws of the Beast.” But the new religion
possessed a somewhat analogous imagery, and the symbolism of the one
readily passed into that of the other. Whether pagan or Christian, the
symbolic animal was attacked by the plaited thong or twisted fibres,
and the secular handicraft choked the religious idea. Such a hold had
this technique on the mind of the people that it predominated all their
art, and even led to the extinction of religious symbolism.
There was, however, another means by which the pagan dragon crept into
Christian art. I refer to the legend of Sigurd and Fafni, which was
introduced into sepulchral and ecclesiastical carving as late as the
fourteenth century by followers of the new faith. I cannot now detail
the foundation story of the Nibelungen Lied; the point which at present
concerns us is the slaying of Fafni in the form of a dragon or serpent
by Sigurd with his magic sword.
This and other incidents of the legend are carved on wooden portals or
door-pillars of churches, on fonts, and on Christian crosses of stone
in many parts of Sweden and Norway, and also in some parts of England,
as on the Hatton Cross in Lancaster.
Fafni is often seen passing into a maze of beautiful scroll-work, and
in the Hatton Cross he is solely represented by a twisted knot.
Under monkish influence, no doubt, the whole story came by degrees to
be looked upon as containing types and proofs of the younger religion.
Sigurd became the Christian soldier, forging the sword of the spirit,
and his defeat of the serpent could readily be adopted into Christian
symbolism.[114]
[114] For a more detailed treatment the reader is referred to
Dr. H. Colley March’s essay on “The Pagan-Christian Overlap in
the North,” _Trans. Lanc. and Cheshire Antiquarian Soc._, ix.,
1892.
“When the Anglo-Saxon had almost forgotten Midgarth’s Orm, and the
ancient Egyptian snake-symbol, as old as the Rameside period, had
been introduced as a new design (Plate VII., Fig. 8), this itself fell
a prey to the dominant skeuomorph, and was doubled and entangled in
obedience to the over-mastering expectancy of the day.”
[Illustration: FIGS. 110, 111.—Modified human figures on the shaft of a
cross at Ilam, near Ashbourne; after Browne.]
“It must be clear,” continues Dr. Colley March, “that such
transformations as these were due to something more than the
successive copying of a copy by ignorant and slovenly artificers,
as in those degenerate changes wrought by Gaulish imitators of the
stater of Philip of Macedon. In that case the original coin was not
before them; they had no artistic impulse or intention, their only
object was to fabricate passable pieces of money. But the men whose
‘taste’ is disclosed by the work we have just considered were swayed
by an influence they could not have understood. The expectancy that
controlled them they inherited. The withy-band had wrapped itself
round all their conceptions.” But the result was enrichment and not
degradation, and the curious designs their art produced show us the
only portal through which the animal form can enter into ornament,
by resolving itself, namely, into the angles, curves, and scrolls of
symmetrical repetition.
“Many pauses took place ere the process was completed. Now one part
of the body was surrendered to the skeuomorph and anon another.
Conventionalism established a temporary truce, but the war of structure
against nature broke out afresh, and the grotesque appeared. We look
upon the death-grasp of a writhing quadruped, the knotted convolutions
of a serpent, the spectral gleam of a vanishing face. And then, when
all was over, when the battle on the ornamental field was lost and won,
nothing was left but a zoomorph of contrasted curves and symmetrical
scrolls.”
The human form is not exempt from the skeuomorphic inroad. The two men
in Fig. 4, Plate VII., which is taken from an illuminated page of the
Gospel of Mac Regol, at Oxford, are suffering from but a mild attack,
but the men on the Pre-Norman font at Checkley, near Uttoxeter, and
similar figures (Figs. 110, 111) on a cross at Ilam, five miles from
Ashbourne, have all but succumbed.