OUR ANCESTORS.
To the Aryan of the West not merely the heavenly bodies, the
sun, moon and stars, or the earth with its trees and springs,
its fountains, or the sea with its storms and calms, but all
things visible, as organs and instruments of Deity, were
deserving of reverent adoration. Nothing was too trifling. The
quivering leaf, the crackling flame, the falling thunderbolt,
the flight or song of birds, the neighing of horses, man’s
dreams and visions, even the movements of his pulse, all claimed
attention, all might give some sign from the other world. All
nature had a voice for the imaginative Teuton. The skies, the
woods, the springs, the well, the lake, the hill, were his
books, his oracles, his divinities.--G. F. MACLEAR.
It sounds strange to us, who have been so long a Christian people, to
speak of a pagan ancestry. We can hardly realize that the condition in
which we find the Japanese, or Chinaman, or Hindu of to-day, is the
condition in which our forefathers were to be found not many centuries
ago. Yet all traces of their heathenish belief and practices are not
yet extinct. In our language, especially in many of our names, do we
preserve the relics of the heathenish life of our forefathers.
It is not easy to learn of the earliest religion of Britain, as the
records are still greatly beclouded. But recent investigations of the
mounds and relics of old England and of the origin of English names,
together with the bringing to light of some valuable old records, have
helped greatly to clear up the subject. Before passing to consider more
particularly the ancient religious life of Great Britain, let us fasten
in our minds a few prominent facts in the early history of that land.
ANCIENT BRITAIN.
Let us note several prominent parts in the early history of Britain.
First, the earliest inhabitants and their religion, known as Druidism.
Secondly, the invasion of Britain by the Romans and the introduction
of the invaders’ religion. Thirdly, the introduction of Christianity.
Fourthly, the coming of the Saxons and the extinguishing of
Christianity by the Saxon religion. Fifthly, the coming again and final
victory of Christianity. By fixing these points in mind, we can without
difficulty trace the religious history of our ancestors.
In early times we find that the Greeks had intercourse with Britain.
The time when this trade was carried on is fixed by different authors
at periods varying from 500 B.C. to 200 B.C. Before even the first of
these times, by some hundreds of years, the Phœnicians of Tyre visited
Britain to purchase tin. These allusions to visits of Greeks and
Phœnicians are found in ancient Welsh traditions handed down by the
Druids. Indeed, some of these traditions go back to a period shortly
after the dispersion of the nations, even beyond Abraham’s day. Other
traditions are found which relate even to the deluge itself, as follows:
“There were three awful events in the Isle of Britain. The first was
the bursting of the Lake of Floods, and the rushing of an inundation
over all the lands, until all persons were destroyed, except Dwyvan
and Dwyvack, who escaped in an open vessel and from them the Isle of
Britain was re-peopled.
“The three primary and extraordinary works of the Isle of Britain: The
ship of Nwydd nav Neivion, which brought in it a male and female of all
living things, when the Lake of Floods burst forth; the large horned
oxen of Au the Mighty, that drew the crocodile from the lake of the
land, so that the lake did not burst forth any more; and the stone of
Gwyddon Ganhedon, upon which all the arts and sciences of the world are
engraven.”
All this bears such striking similarity to the traditions preserved
among the most ancient nations in the eastern part of the world, that
we cannot conceive the possibility of its having been invented in any
period of the dark ages; it therefore strengthens our confidence in
the general teaching of the Triads. In early Britain there were only
two classes of British citizens, “the nobles and the villains,” (_i.
e._, villagers). All below these were slaves. The people possessed
a considerable knowledge of astronomy, of geometry and of mechanics.
They were an eloquent people; an ancient historian says that their
orators “sometimes step between two hostile armies, who are standing
with swords drawn, and spears extended, ready to fight; and, by their
eloquence, as by an irresistible enchantment, they prevent a shedding
of blood.”
The Britons were also acquainted with the useful arts. The houses in
which they dwelt, their chariots of war, as well as a great variety
of other works, prove this beyond the possibility of doubt. We notice
the chariots: “Their cars were admired by the Romans, adopted by
individuals for their journeys, and introduced by the public into
their races. And we have a picture of one of them, sketched by a
British hand, and engraven on a coin. There we see the charioteer
mounted on his carriage before us, a quiver of arrows peeping over
his left shoulder, and a spear protended from his left hand, his feet
resting upon the pole or foot-board annexed to it, and his body
leaning over the horses, in the act of accelerating their motion. And
we have the description of another in Ossian, very similar in one or
two particulars, and more circumstantial. It is the car of a British
monarch, bending behind, drawn by a pair of horses, and embossed
with sparkling stones. Its beam is of polished yew, its seat of the
smoothest bone, and the sides of it are replenished with spears.
Persons who could construct such vehicles, build houses and make
furniture, as well as all the various offensive and defensive weapons
of war, must have had no inconsiderable mechanical knowledge and skill.”
THE DRUIDS. WONDERFUL RESEMBLANCE.
We have reason to believe that the Britons inhabited England not long
after the days of Noah. We might therefore expect to find resemblances
between their religion and the religions of other ancient peoples; and
we are not disappointed. There is a striking correspondence between the
system of the ancient Britons and those of the Hebrew patriarchs, the
Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia and the Greek priests. It was
one system that was finally conveyed to these different parts of the
globe. Take, as a single instance of the many points of comparison,
their idea of God. Among their names for the supreme God which they
had in use before the introduction of Christianity were terms which
have been literally translated, “God,” “Distributor,” “Governor,”
“the Mysterious One,” “the Eternal,” “He that pervadeth all things,”
“the Author of Existence,” “the Ancient of Days.” These expressive
appellations sufficiently indicate their views of the moral character
and attributes of God. The opinion of the Druids as to the nature of
God is comprehensively explained by the following bold and remarkable
aphorism: “Nid Dim Ond Duw, Nid Duw Ond Dim.” It defies translation so
as to convey its force and beauty; but William Owen has furnished a
version sufficiently plain to convey the idea: “God cannot be matter;
what is not matter must be God.” These were the attributes of the God
of the early Druids. They believed that the Deity was the source of
life, and the giver of good. They defined His duration as eternal,
and ascribed to Him omnipotence as the measure of His power. And as
they found nothing in the animal creation or in man which had any
proportion or resemblance to God, they had neither statues nor pictures
to represent Him; from which we infer that they regarded God as a pure
spirit, as disengaged from matter as He was exalted above all created
things and above all resemblance to them.
WORSHIP OF THE DRUIDS.
The Druids offered sacrifices and observed particular days for
religious worship. Their sacrifices were carefully selected, and they
appear to have had clear views of their propitiatory character. Pliny,
describing the gathering of the mistletoe, observes: “After they have
well and duly prepared their festival cheer under the tree, they bring
thither two young bullocks, milk-white, such as never drew in yoke at
plow or wain, and whose heads were then and not before bound by the
horns; which done, the priest, arrayed in a white vesture, climbeth up
into the tree, and, with a golden hook or bill, cutteth it off, and
they beneath receive it in a white cassock or coat of arms. Then they
fall to and kill the beasts aforesaid for sacrifice, praying devoutly
that it would please God to bless this gift of His to the good and
benefit of all those to whom He had vouchsafed to give it.” These
sacrifices were offered with very solemn rites, the common people
remaining at a distance, while the priests approached with trembling
awe the bloody victims, which were carried around the omen-fire.
There is no branch of this subject which presents itself in a more
interesting aspect than that which relates to the sacred places of this
people, and the peculiar manner of their worship. They worshiped in the
open air; it being a maxim with them, that it was unlawful to build
temples to the gods, or to worship them within walls and under roofs.
Their favorite place was a grove of oaks, or the shelter of a majestic
tree of this kind. Here they would erect stone pillars in one or two
circular rows; and in some of their principal temples, as particularly
that of Stonehenge, they laid stones of prodigious weight on the tops
of these perpendicular pillars, which formed a kind of circle aloft in
the air. Near to these temples they constructed their sacred mounts,
their cromlechs or stone tables for their sacrifices, and every other
necessary provision for their worship. These sacred places were
generally situated in the centre of some thick grove or wood, watered
by a consecrated river or fountain, and surrounded by a ditch or mound,
to prevent intrusion.
TEMPLE OF THE HANGING STONES.
One of the most extraordinary monuments of ancient England, is that
called Stonehenge. This is an Anglo-Saxon term, meaning the hanging
stones. This monument is situated on a small hill in the midst of a
barren plain. All around it funeral mounds are grouped. These mounds
are called “barrows,” and within three miles of Stonehenge there
are over three hundred and fifty of these that have been recently
discovered. The stones that constituted this Druid temple are many
of them lying prostrate on the ground, a few only remaining upright
with the gigantic stone slabs across their tops. Yet enough remains to
indicate the general design of the structure as it originally stood.
It consisted of an outer circle, about three hundred feet in diameter,
of thirty upright stones sustaining as many others laid horizontally
on their tops. Within this was another circle of upright ones, smaller
than those in the outer circle, and without any stones on their tops.
These stones are so large that it cannot be imagined how they were
raised to their lofty position. It is very evident that Stonehenge
was a place of worship, and from the number of grave-mounds, each
containing the remains of a number of bodies, it is evident that it was
a place of great sanctity. It has been supposed that serpent-worship
found a place here.
[Illustration: ANCIENT DRUIDIC WORSHIP AT STONEHENGE,
ENGLAND.]
HUMAN SACRIFICES.
Cæsar gives a very careful account of the Druids. In the century just
preceding the coming of Christ, Cæsar conquered the Britons. His
account of their condition is the more reliable because this conquest
put him in possession of the means of knowing the people who were in
the future to form a part of his empire. His testimony can best be
given in a translation of his own words. He says:
“All the Gallic nations are much given to superstition; for which
reason, when they are seriously ill, or are in danger from their wars
or other causes, they either offer up men as victims to the gods, or
make a vow to sacrifice themselves. The ministers in these offerings
are the Druids, and they hold that the wrath of the immortal gods can
only be appeased, and man’s life be redeemed, by offering up human
sacrifice, and it is a part of their national institutions to hold
fixed solemnities for this purpose. Some of them make immense images
of wicker-work, which they fill with men, who are thus burned alive
in offering to their deities. These victims are generally selected
from those who have been convicted of theft, robbery, or other crimes,
in whose punishment they think the immortal gods take the greatest
pleasure; but if there be any scarcity of such victims they do not
hesitate to sacrifice innocent men in their place. If there be a
super-abundance of cattle taken in war the surplus is offered up in
sacrifice; the rest of the spoil is collected into one mass. In many
of their tribes large heaps of these things may be seen in their
consecrated places, and it is a rare occurrence for any individual
sacreligiously to conceal part of the booty, or to turn it to his
own use; the severest punishment, together with bodily torture, is
inflicted on those who are guilty of such an offense.”
He further speaks of the Druids in another place: “The Druids act in
all sacred matters; they attend to the sacrifices, which are either
offered by the tribe in general or by individuals, and answer all
questions concerning their religion. They always have a large number of
young men as pupils, who treat them with the greatest respect; for it
is they who decide in all controversies, whether public or private, and
they judge all causes, whether of murder, of a disputed inheritance, or
of the boundaries of estates. They assign both rewards and punishments;
and whoever refuses to abide by their sentence, whether he be in a
public or private station, is forbidden to be present at the sacrifices
of the gods. This is, in fact, the most severe mode of punishment,
and those who have been thus excommunicated are held as impious and
profane; all avoid them; no one will either meet them or speak to them,
lest they should be injured by their contagion; every species of honor
is withheld from them, and if they are plaintiffs in a lawsuit justice
is denied. All the Druids are subject to one chief, who enjoys the
greatest authority among them. Upon the death of the chief Druid, the
next in dignity is appointed to succeed him; and if there are two whose
merits are equal, the election is made by the votes of the whole body,
though sometimes they dispute for pre-eminence by the sword.
“The Druidic system is thought to have had its origin in Britain,
from whence it was introduced into Gaul.... Among the most important
doctrines of the Druids is that of the immortality of the soul, which
they believe passes after death into other bodies; they hold this to
be a great inducement to the practice of virtue, as the mind thus
becomes relieved from the fear of death. Their other doctrines concern
the motions of the heavenly bodies, the magnitude of the earth and the
universe, the nature of things, and the power and attributes of the
immortal gods.” Certainly Cæsar’s testimony is clear, and he writes as
one who had actually gazed upon the strange and striking scenes which
he describes.
THE DESTRUCTION OF DRUIDISM.
The religion of the Druids was handed down by tradition from father
to son, and consisted in the proper performance of certain rites and
ceremonies. It has been stated that the Druids worshiped Bel or Baal,
though this is sometimes questioned. On the eve of May-day fires were
lighted on their altars in honor of their Supreme God. They had a set
of doctrines which were publicly taught, and another set which were
made known only to the initiated. The Druids were not gross idolaters,
though they regarded the oak, the symbol of God, with superstitious
awe. But the time for the death of Druidism had come. Fifty-five years
before Christ, the great conqueror, Julius Cæsar, landed in Britain.
The skillful and courageous Britons gave him a great deal of trouble,
and prevented his penetrating far from the shore. Emperor after emperor
sought to subjugate the Island during the years that followed, but
it was not until 130 years had passed away that Briton was really
conquered by the Romans. Agricola was sent in A.D. 78 to be governor of
Britain. By his wise policy the whole life of the Britons was changed
wherever it came under Roman influence.
The dwellings of the Britons were very rude and simple in the early
ages, being mostly constructed of hurdle or wicker-work, and afterward
of large stones without mortar. Their houses were generally round,
having the roof thatched, with a hole left in the centre for the escape
of smoke. The Romans, on the contrary, had long been accustomed to
commodious and elegant dwellings, well built of masonry, and adorned in
the richest manner with statues, pictures, elegant drapery and handsome
furniture.
It was not while the Romans were engaged in conquering Britain that
their religion gained a foothold there, but after they had come to
power and peace. The Druid priests were destroyed, and the people, left
thus without religious teachers, gradually accepted to some extent the
then-existing forms of Roman faith.
WHO FIRST BROUGHT CHRISTIANITY TO BRITAIN?
While the Romans were busily seeking to conquer Britain, an event
of unparalleled importance took place. It was the birth of Jesus,
the Christ. Very nearly every one of the early preachers who by any
possibility could have gone to Britain with the Gospel message,
has been declared to be the founder of Christianity there. The
Apostle Peter is declared, so says an old chronicle, “to have stayed
some time in Britain; where having preached the word, established
churches, ordained bishops, priests and deacons, in the twelfth year
of Nero he returned to Rome.” But this, for many reasons, is not to
be believed. Joseph of Arimathea is also said to have first taken
the Gospel to Britain. But the whole narrative of his mission is
fabulous. A King Lucius is said to have sent about 164 A.D. to Rome
for missionaries, but this too is questionable. One more question
remains to be considered. Did the Apostle Paul plant Christianity in
Britain? Tertullian, about the year 200 A.D., wrote that the Gospel had
spread “also to the boundaries of the Spaniards, to all the different
nations of Gaul, and to those parts of Britain inaccessible even to the
Romans.” But more ancient than this is the testimony of Clement, Bishop
of Rome, 102 A.D. “St. Paul preached righteousness through the whole
world; and, in doing this, went to the utmost bounds of the West.”
A learned writer thus sums up all the evidence of Paul’s being the
first to give the Gospel to Britain: “That St. Paul did go to Britain
we may collect from the testimony of Clemens Romanus, Theodoret and
Jerome, who relate that, after his imprisonment, he preached the Gospel
in the western parts; that he brought salvation to the islands that
lie in the ocean, and that, in preaching the Gospel, he went to the
utmost bounds of the West. What was meant by _the West_ and the
islands that lie in the ocean, we may judge from Plutarch, Eusebius
and Nicephorus, who call the British Ocean the western; and again from
Nicephorus, who says that one of the apostles ‘went to the extreme
countries of the ocean and the British Isles;’ but especially from the
words of Catullus, who calls Britain the utmost island of the West;
and from Theodoret, who describes the Britons as inhabiting the utmost
parts of the West. When Clement, therefore, says that Paul went to the
utmost bounds of the _West_, we do not conjecture, but are sure,
that he meant Britain, not only because Britain was so designated,
but because Paul could not have gone to the utmost bounds of the
West without going to Britain. It is almost unnecessary, therefore,
to appeal to the express testimony of Venantius, Fortunatus and
Sophronius, for the apostle’s journey to Britain.”
PAGANISM OF THE SAXONS.
The religion of our Saxon ancestors was the same as that of the whole
German family. Christianity, which had by this time brought about the
conversion of the Roman Empire, had not penetrated as yet among the
forests of the North. The common god of the English people, as of
the whole German race, was Woden, the war-god, the guardian of ways
and boundaries, to whom his worshipers attributed the invention of
letters, and whom every tribe held to be the first ancestor of its
kings. Our own names for the days of the week still recall to us the
gods whom our English fathers worshiped in their Sleswick homeland.
Wednesday is Woden’s day, as Thursday is the day of Thunder, or, as
the Northmen called him, Thor, the god of air, and storm, and rain.
Friday is Freya’s day, the goddess of peace, and joy, and fruitfulness,
whose emblems, borne aloft by dancing maidens, brought increase to
every field and stall they visited. Saturday commemorates an obscure
god, Soetere; Tuesday, the Dark god, Tiw, to meet whom was death;
Eostre, the goddess of the dawn, or the spring, lends her name to the
Christian festival of the Resurrection. Behind these floated the dim
shapes of an older mythology--“Wyrd,” the death-goddess, whose memory
lingered long in the “weird” of northern superstition, or the Shield
Maidens, the “mighty women,” who, an old rhyme tells us, “wrought on
the battle-field their toil, and hurled the thrilling javelins.”
Nearer to the popular fancy lay the deities of wood and fell, or the
hero-gods of legend and song, “Nicor,” the water-sprite, who gave us
our water Nixes, and “Old Nick,” “Weland,” the forger of mighty shields
and sharp-biting swords, at a later time, in his Berkshire, “Weyland’s
Smithy,” or Ægil, the hero archer, whose legend is that of Cloudesly or
Tell. A nature-worship of this sort lent itself ill to the purposes of
a priesthood, and, though a priestly class existed, it seems at no time
to have had much weight in the English society. As every freeman was
his own judge and his own legislator, so he was his own house priest;
and the common English worship lay in the sacrifice which he offered to
the god of his hearth. The religion of Woden and Thor supplanted, for
the time being, the religion of Christ. The new England was once more a
heathen land under the gods of its conquerors.
[Illustration: GODS OF OUR SAXON ANCESTORS.
1. Sun-god; 2. Moon-god; 3. God Tiw; 4. Woden; 5. Thor; 6.
Goddess Freya; 7. Soetere.]
SAXON GODS.
The first of all the gods was _Woden_ or Odin. He is the
All-father, like Dyans of the early Hindus, Zeus of the Greeks and Jove
of the Romans. In the Volsung Saga, Woden is revealed as follows: King
Volsung had made preparation for an entertainment. Blazing fires burned
along the hall, and in the middle of the hall stood a large tree, whose
green and fair foliage covered the roof. It was called Woden’s tree.
Now, as the guests sat around the fire in the evening, a man entered
the hall whose countenance they did not know. He wore a variegated
cloak, was barefooted, his breeches were of linen, and a wide-brimmed
hat hung down over his face. He was very tall, looked old, and was
one-eyed. He held in his hand a sword. He went to the tree, stuck his
sword into it with such a powerful blow that it sunk into it even up to
the hilt. No one dared greet him. It was Woden. Woden’s dwelling was
called Walhal. The Edda, the poem of the gods, thus describes Walhalla:
“Easily to be known is,
By those who to Odin come,
The mansion by its aspect.
Its roof with spears is held,
Its hall with shields is decked,
With corselets are its benches strewed.
“Five hundred doors
And forty more
Methinks are in Walhal,
Eight hundred heroes through each door
Shall issue forth!
Against the wolf to combat.”
The heroes are invited after death to Woden’s hall. That the brave were
to be taken to Walhalla after death was one of the fundamental points,
if not the very heart of the religion of the Northmen. They felt in
their hearts that it was absolutely necessary to be brave. Woden would
not care for them, but would despise and thrust them away from him, if
they were not brave. This made the Northmen think it a shame and misery
not to die in battle. Old kings, about to die, had their bodies placed
in a ship; the ship was sent forth with sails set, and a slow fire
burning in it, so that once out at sea it might blaze up in flame, and
in such a way worthily bury the hero both in the sky and in the ocean.
He lay in the prow of his ship, silent, with closed lips, defying the
wild ocean. As Boyesen has sung:
“In the prow with head uplifted
Stood the chief like wrathful Thor;
Through his locks, the snow-flakes drifted,
Bleached their hue from gold to hoar,
’Mid the crash of mast and rafter
Norsemen leaped through death with laughter
Up through Walhal’s wide-flung door.”
Thor comes next to Woden. His name means thunder. He is the spring-god,
subduing the frost-giants. Longfellow has described the Norseman’s idea
of Thor, thus:
“I am the god Thor, I am the war-god.
I am the Thunderer! here in my Northland,
My fastness and fortress, reign I forever!
“Here amid icebergs rule I the nations;
This is my hammer, Mjolner, the mighty,
Giants and sorcerers cannot withstand it!
“These are the gauntlets wherewith I wield it,
And hurl it afar off; this is my girdle,
Whenever I brace it strength is redoubled!
“The light thou beholdest stream through the heavens,
In flashes of crimson, is but my red beard,
Blown by the night-wind, affrighting the nations.
“Jove is my brother; mine eyes are the lightning;
The wheels of my chariot roll in the thunder,
The blows of my hammer ring in the earthquake!
“Force rules the world still, has ruled it, shall rule it;
Meekness is weakness, strength is triumphant;
Over the whole earth still is Thor’s-day!”
SAXON SACRIFICES.
The sacrifices which were presented to the gods in the early ages were
very simple, and such as a people in the first stages of civilization
would offer--the first fruits of their crops, and the choicest products
of the earth. They also sacrificed animals. They offered to Thor,
during the feast of Jaul, fat oxen and horses; to Frigga, the largest
hog which they could procure; to Odin, horses, dogs and falcons,
sometimes cocks, and a fat bull. They even proceeded at times to shed
human blood. The victims were usually chosen from captives in time of
war, and slaves during peace. After being selected, they were treated
with excessive kindness, until the time of their execution, when they
were congratulated on their happy destiny in a future life. On great
emergencies, however, nobles and kings were immolated on the altars of
the gods. On all these occasions the priests took care, in consecrating
the victim, to pronounce certain words; such as, “I devote thee to
Odin;” “I send thee to Odin;” or, “I devote thee for a good harvest,
for the return of a fruitful season.” The ceremony concluded with
feasting, during which they drank immoderately. First, the kings and
chief lords drank healths in honor of the gods; afterward, every one
drank, making song or prayer to the gods who had been named. After the
victim was slain, the body was burnt, or suspended in a sacred grove
near the temple; part of the blood was sprinkled upon the people, part
upon the sacred grove. With the same they also bedewed the images of
the gods, the altars, the benches and walls of the temple, both within
and without, thus completing their work.
[Illustration: SACRIFICIAL RITES OF THE ANCIENT BRITISH
DRUIDS.]
FAIRY-LORE OF WESTERN EUROPE.
The Saxons and their kindred, the Teutons and the Celts, have a great
mass of fairy tales, legends, hobgoblin stories and the like. These
tales enter more into the life of the people than we are accustomed to
believe. While the stronger men, the soldiers of the race, told their
old Viking tales or recited their Eddas’ poems, the common people told
over and over again the tales of the little beings who haunted hill and
meadow, field and forest, lake and river.
The tales and superstitions of the early Britons were intimately
related to their religious ideas, and exerted as powerful an influence
on their lives as their belief in the gods. So it is in keeping with
our subject that we proceed to present some of these fairy tales and
legends. Shakespeare has preserved ancient and quaint traditions of the
Fairies and Puck, and of Mab, Queen of the Fairies, from which we quote.
“_Fairy._--Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call’d Robin Good-fellow. Are you not he
That frights the maidens of the villagery,
Skims milk, and sometimes labors in the quern,
And bootless makes the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes makes the drink to bear no harm;
Misleads night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
You do their work, and they shall have good luck,
Are not you he?
_Puck._--Thou speakest aright,
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly-foal;
And sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her withered durlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometimes for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum--down topples she,
And tailor cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laffe,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze and swear,
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
O then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife; and she comes,
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:
Her wagon-spokes, made of long spinner’s legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider’s web;
The collars of the moonshines’ watery beams;
Her whip of cricket’s bone; the lash of film;
Her wagoner, a small gray-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid:
Her chariot is an empty hazel nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies’ coachmakers.
This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night;
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled much misfortune bode.
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them.”
A few of the very many fairy tales once current in Old England and in
Western Europe generally, may well be given here in illustration of
their general character.
AN ELFIN STORY.
There was one time, it is said, a servant girl, who was for her
cleanly, tidy habits, greatly beloved by the Elves, particularly as
she was careful to carry away all dirt and foul water to a distance
from the house, and they once invited her to a wedding. Everything was
conducted in the greatest order, and they made her a present of some
chips, which she took good-humoredly, and put into her pocket. But when
the bride-pair were coming, there was a straw unluckily lying in the
way; the bridegroom got cleverly over it, but the poor bride fell on
her face. At the sight of this, the girl could not restrain herself,
but burst out a-laughing, and that instant the whole vanished from her
sight. Next day, to her utter amazement, she found that what she had
taken to be nothing but chips were so many pieces of pure gold.
THE PENITENT NIS.
It is related of a Nis, who had established himself in a house in
Jutland, that he used every evening, after the maid was gone to bed, to
go into the kitchen to take his groute, which they used to leave there
for him in a large wooden bowl.
One evening, he sat down as usual to eat his supper with a good
appetite, drew over the bowl to him, and was just beginning, as he
thought, to make a comfortable meal, when he found that the maid had
forgotten to put any butter in it for him. At this, he fell into a
furious rage, got up in the height of his passion, and went out into
the cow-house and twisted the neck of the best cow that was in it;
but as he felt himself still very hungry, he stole back again to the
kitchen to take some of the groute, such as it was, and when he had
eaten a little of it he perceived that there was butter in it, but that
it had sunk to the bottom under the groute. He was now so vexed at his
injustice toward the maid that, to make good the damage he had done, he
went back to the cow-house and set a chest full of money by the side of
the dead cow, where the family found it next morning, and by means of
it got into flourishing circumstances.
NIXES.
The Nixes, or Water-people, inhabit lakes and rivers. The man is like
any other man, only he has green teeth. He also wears a green hat. The
female Nixes appear like beautiful maidens. On fine sunny days they may
be seen sitting on the banks, or on the branches of the trees, combing
their long golden locks. When any person is shortly to be drowned the
Nixes may be previously seen dancing on the surface of the water. They
inhabit a beautiful region below the water, whither they sometimes
convey mortals. A girl from a village near Leipsic, as the story goes,
was at one time at service in the house of a Nix. She reported that
everything there was very good; all she had to complain of was that she
was obliged to eat her food without salt. The female Nixes frequently
go to the market to buy meat; they are always dressed with extreme
neatness, only a corner of the apron or some other part of their
clothes is wet. The man also occasionally goes to market. They are fond
of carrying off women, of whom they make wives. From the many tales
of the Nixes we select the following, which are fair specimens of the
whole.
THE PEASANT AND THE WATERMAN.
A Waterman, or Nix, once lived on good terms with a peasant who dwelt
near his lake. He often visited him, and at last begged that the
peasant would make a visit to his house under the water. The peasant
consented, and went down with him. There was everything down under the
water as in a stately palace on the land--halls, chambers and cabinets,
with costly furniture of every description. The Waterman led his guest
over the whole, and showed him everything that was in it. They came at
length to a little chamber, where were standing several new pots turned
upside down. The peasant asked what was in them. “They contain,” was
the reply, “the souls of drowned people, which I put under the pots
and keep them close, so that they cannot get away.” The peasant made
no remark, and he came up again on the land. But for a long time the
affair of the souls continued to give him great trouble, and he watched
to find when the Waterman should be from home. When this occurred, as
he had marked the right way down, he descended into the water-house,
and, having made out the little chamber, he turned up all the pots one
after another, and immediately the souls of the drowned people ascended
out of the water and recovered their liberty.
THE WONDERFUL LITTLE POUCH.
At noon, one day, a young peasant sat by the side of a wood, and,
sighing, prayed the gods to give him a morsel of food. A dwarf
suddenly emerged from the wood, and told him that his prayer should be
fulfilled. He then gave him the pouch that he had on his side, with
the assurance that he would always find in it wherewithal to satisfy
his thirst and hunger, charging him, at the same time, not to consume
it all, and to share with any one who asked him for food. The dwarf
vanished, and the peasant put his hand into the pouch to make a trial
of it, and there he found a cake of new bread, a cheese, and a bottle
of wine, on which he made a hearty meal. He then saw that the pouch
swelled up as before, and, looking in, he found that it was again full
of bread, cheese and wine. He now felt sure of his food, and he lived
on in an idle, luxurious way, without doing any work. One day, as he
was gorging himself, there came up to him a feeble old man, who prayed
him to give him a morsel to eat. He refused in a brutal, churlish tone,
when instantly the bread and cheese broke, and scattered out of his
hands, and pouch and all vanished.
CHRISTIANIZING THE SAXONS.
According to widely-accepted tradition, when but a young deacon,
Gregory the Great had noted the white bodies, the fair faces and the
golden hair of some youths who stood bound in the market-place at
Rome. “From what country do these slaves come?” he asked the traders
who held them. “They are English, Angles!” the slave-dealers answered.
The deacon’s pity veiled itself in poetic humor. “Not Angles, but
angels,” he said, “with faces so angel-like! From what country come
they?” “They come,” said the merchants, “from Deira.” “De irâ!” was
the untranslatable reply; “aye, plucked from God’s ire, and called to
Christ’s mercy! And what is the name of their king?” “Ælla,” they told
him; and Gregory seized on the words as a good omen. “Alleluia shall
be sung there,” he cried, and passed on, musing how the angel-faces
should be brought to sing it.
Years went by, and the deacon become Bishop of Rome, when the Christian
princess, Berctas’ marriage to the King of England gave him the
opening he sought. He at once sent a Roman Abbot, Augustine, at the
head of a band of monks, to preach the Gospel to the English people.
The missionaries landed A.D. 597, on the very spot where Hengest had
landed more than a century before, in the Isle of Thanet; and the
king received them sitting in the open air, on the chalk-down above
Minster, where the eye nowadays catches, miles away over the marshes,
the dim tower of Canterbury. He listened to the long sermon as the
interpreters whom Augustine had brought with him from Gaul translated
it. “Your words are fair,” Æthelberdt replied at last, with English
good sense, “but they are new and of doubtful meaning.” For himself, he
said, he refused to forsake the gods of his fathers, but he promised
shelter and protection to the strangers. The band of monks entered
Canterbury bearing before them a silver cross with a picture of Christ,
and singing in concert the strains of the litany of their church.
“Turn from this city, O Lord,” they sang, “Thine anger and wrath, and
turn it from Thy holy house; for we have sinned.” And then, in strange
contrast, came the jubilant cry of the older Hebrew worship, the cry
which Gregory had wrested in prophetic earnestness from the name of the
Yorkshire king in the Roman market-place--“Alleluia!”
Thus was begun the overturning of the heathen faith of our ancestors,
and the establishment of Christianity among them.