Part 11 (1/2)
[249] _Taboo and the Perils of the Soul_, pp. 1 _sqq._
[250] For a similar reason, perhaps, ancient Hindoo ritual prescribed that when the hair of a child's head was shorn in the third year, the clippings should be buried in a cow-stable, or near an _udumbara_ tree, or in a clump of _darbha_ gra.s.s, with the words, ”Where Pushan, Brihaspati, Savitri, Soma, Agni dwell, they have in many ways searched where they should deposit it, between heaven and earth, the waters and heaven.” See _The Grihya-Sutras_, translated by H. Oldenberg, Part ii.
(Oxford, 1892) p. 218 (_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. x.x.x.).
[251] Petronius, _Sat._ 48; Pausanias, x. 12: 8; Justin Martyr, _Cohort ad Graecos_, 37, p. 34 c (ed. 1742). According to another account, the remains of the Sibyl were enclosed in an iron cage which hung from a pillar in an ancient temple of Hercules at Argyrus (Ampelius, _Liber Memorialis_, viii. 16).
[252] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _Nord-deutsche Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche_ (Leipsic, 1848), p. 70, No. 72. i. This and the following German parallels to the story of the Sibyl's wish were first indicated by Dr. M.R. James (_Cla.s.sical Review_, vi. (1892) p. 74). I have already given the stories at length in a note on Pausanias, x. 12. 8 (vol. v.
pp. 292 _sq._).
[253] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ pp. 70 _sq._, No. 72. 2.
[254] A. Kuhn und W. Schwartz, _op. cit._ p. 71, No. 72. 3.
[255] Karl Mullenhoff, _Sagen, Marchen und Lieder der Herzogthumer Holstein und Lauenburg_ (Kiel, 1845), pp. 158 _sg._, No. 217.
CHAPTER III
THE MYTH OF BALDER
[How Balder, the good and beautiful G.o.d, was done to death by a stroke of the mistletoe.]
A deity whose life might in a sense be said to be neither in heaven nor on earth but between the two, was the Norse Balder, the good and beautiful G.o.d, the son of the great G.o.d Odin, and himself the wisest, mildest, best beloved of all the immortals. The story of his death, as it is told in the younger or prose _Edda_, runs thus. Once on a time Balder dreamed heavy dreams which seemed to forebode his death.
Thereupon the G.o.ds held a council and resolved to make him secure against every danger. So the G.o.ddess Frigg took an oath from fire and water, iron and all metals, stones and earth, from trees, sicknesses and poisons, and from all four-footed beasts, birds, and creeping things, that they would not hurt Balder. When this was done Balder was deemed invulnerable; so the G.o.ds amused themselves by setting him in their midst, while some shot at him, others hewed at him, and others threw stones at him. But whatever they did, nothing could hurt him; and at this they were all glad. Only Loki, the mischief-maker, was displeased, and he went in the guise of an old woman to Frigg, who told him that the weapons of the G.o.ds could not wound Balder, since she had made them all swear not to hurt him. Then Loki asked, ”Have all things sworn to spare Balder?” She answered, ”East of Walhalla grows a plant called mistletoe; it seemed to me too young to swear.” So Loki went and pulled the mistletoe and took it to the a.s.sembly of the G.o.ds. There he found the blind G.o.d Hother standing at the outside of the circle. Loki asked him, ”Why do you not shoot at Balder?” Hother answered, ”Because I do not see where he stands; besides I have no weapon.” Then said Loki, ”Do like the rest and shew Balder honour, as they all do. I will shew you where he stands, and do you shoot at him with this twig.” Hother took the mistletoe and threw it at Balder, as Loki directed him. The mistletoe struck Balder and pierced him through and through, and he fell down dead. And that was the greatest misfortune that ever befell G.o.ds and men. For a while the G.o.ds stood speechless, then they lifted up their voices and wept bitterly. They took Balder's body and brought it to the sea-sh.o.r.e. There stood Balder's s.h.i.+p; it was called Ringhorn, and was the hugest of all s.h.i.+ps. The G.o.ds wished to launch the s.h.i.+p and to burn Balder's body on it, but the s.h.i.+p would not stir. So they sent for a giantess called Hyrrockin. She came riding on a wolf and gave the s.h.i.+p such a push that fire flashed from the rollers and all the earth shook.
Then Balder's body was taken and placed on the funeral pile upon his s.h.i.+p. When his wife Nanna saw that, her heart burst for sorrow and she died. So she was laid on the funeral pile with her husband, and fire was put to it. Balder's horse, too, with all its trappings, was burned on the pile.[256]
[Tale of Balder in the older _Edda_.]
In the older or poetic _Edda_ the tragic tale of Balder is hinted at rather than told at length. Among the visions which the Norse Sibyl sees and describes in the weird prophecy known as the _Voluspa_ is one of the fatal mistletoe. ”I behold,” says she, ”Fate looming for Balder, Woden's son, the b.l.o.o.d.y victim. There stands the Mistletoe slender and delicate, blooming high above the ground. Out of this shoot, so slender to look on, there shall grow a harmful fateful shaft. Hod shall shoot it, but Frigga in Fen-hall shall weep over the woe of Wal-hall.”[257] Yet looking far into the future the Sibyl sees a brighter vision of a new heaven and a new earth, where the fields unsown shall yield their increase and all sorrows shall be healed; then Balder will come back to dwell in Odin's mansions of bliss, in a hall brighter than the sun, s.h.i.+ngled with gold, where the righteous shall live in joy for ever more.[258]
[The story of Balder as related by Saxo Grammaticus.]
Writing about the end of the twelfth century, the old Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which professes to be historical. According to him, Balder and Hother were rival suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now Balder was a demiG.o.d and common steel could not wound his sacred body. The two rivals encountered each other in a terrific battle, and though Odin and Thor and the rest of the G.o.ds fought for Balder, yet was he defeated and fled away, and Hother married the princess. Nevertheless Balder took heart of grace and again met Hother in a stricken field. But he fared even worse than before; for Hother dealt him a deadly wound with a magic sword, which he had received from Miming, the Satyr of the woods; and after lingering three days in pain Balder died of his hurt and was buried with royal honours in a barrow.[259]
[Balder wors.h.i.+pped in Norway.]
Whether he was a real or merely a mythical personage, Balder was wors.h.i.+pped in Norway. On one of the bays of the beautiful Sogne Fiord, which penetrates far into the depths of the solemn Norwegian mountains, with their sombre pine-forests and their lofty cascades dissolving into spray before they reach the dark water of the fiord far below, Balder had a great sanctuary. It was called Balder's Grove. A palisade enclosed the hallowed ground, and within it stood a s.p.a.cious temple with the images of many G.o.ds, but none of them was wors.h.i.+pped with such devotion as Balder. So great was the awe with which the heathen regarded the place that no man might harm another there, nor steal his cattle, nor defile himself with women. But women cared for the images of the G.o.ds in the temple; they warmed them at the fire, anointed them with oil, and dried them with cloths.[260]
[The legendary death of Balder resembles the legendary death of the Persian hero Isfendiyar in the epic of Firdusi.]
It might be rash to affirm that the romantic figure of Balder was nothing but a creation of the mythical fancy, a radiant phantom conjured up as by a wizard's wand to glitter for a time against the gloomy background of the stern Norwegian landscape. It may be so; yet it is also possible that the myth was founded on the tradition of a hero, popular and beloved in his lifetime, who long survived in the memory of the people, gathering more and more of the marvellous about him as he pa.s.sed from generation to generation of story-tellers. At all events it is worth while to observe that a somewhat similar story is told of another national hero, who may well have been a real man. In his great poem, _The Epic of Kings_, which is founded on Persian traditions, the poet Firdusi tells us that in the combat between Rustem and Isfendiyar the arrows of the former did no harm to his adversary, ”because Zerdusht had charmed his body against all dangers, so that it was like unto bra.s.s.” But Simurgh, the bird of G.o.d, shewed Rustem the way he should follow in order to vanquish his redoubtable foe. He rode after her, and they halted not till they came to the sea-sh.o.r.e. There she led him into a garden, where grew a tamarisk, tall and strong, and the roots thereof were in the ground, but the branches pierced even unto the sky. Then the bird of G.o.d bade Rustem break from the tree a branch that was long and slender, and fas.h.i.+on it into an arrow, and she said, ”Only through his eyes can Isfendiyar be wounded. If, therefore, thou wouldst slay him, direct this arrow unto his forehead, and verily it shall not miss its aim.” Rustem did as he was bid; and when next he fought with Isfendiyar, he shot the arrow at him, and it pierced his eye, and he died. Great was the mourning for Isfendiyar. For the s.p.a.ce of one year men ceased not to lament for him, and for many years they shed bitter tears for that arrow, and they said, ”The glory of Iran hath been laid low.”[261]
[The myth of Balder was perhaps acted as a magical ceremony. The two chief incidents of the myth, namely the pulling of the mistletoe and the death and burning of the G.o.d, have perhaps their counterparts in popular ritual.]
Whatever may be thought of an historical kernel underlying a mythical husk in the legend of Balder, the details of the story suggest that it belongs to that cla.s.s of myths which have been dramatized in ritual, or, to put it otherwise, which have been performed as magical ceremonies for the sake of producing those natural effects which they describe in figurative language. A myth is never so graphic and precise in its details as when it is, so to speak, the book of the words which are spoken and acted by the performers of the sacred rite. That the Norse story of Balder was a myth of this sort will become probable if we can prove that ceremonies resembling the incidents in the tale have been performed by Nors.e.m.e.n and other European peoples. Now the main incidents in the tale are two--first, the pulling of the mistletoe, and second, the death and burning of the G.o.d; and both of them may perhaps be found to have had their counterparts in yearly rites observed, whether separately or conjointly, by people in various parts of Europe. These rites will be described and discussed in the following chapters. We shall begin with the annual festivals of fire and shall reserve the pulling of the mistletoe for consideration later on.
Notes:
[256] _Die Edda_, ubersetzt von K. Simrock*[8] (Stuttgart, 1882), pp.