If, indeed, the laws of the empire could have been supposed to have had
any influence over those fierce barbarians, who conceived that the
empire itself lay before them as a spoil, they might have been told that
Constantine, taking the offence of alleged magicians and sorcerers in
the same light in which it was viewed in the law of Moses, had denounced
death against any who used these unlawful enquiries into futurity. "Let
the unlawful curiosity of prying into futurity," says the law, "be
silent in every one henceforth and for ever.[11] For, subjected to the
avenging sword of the law, he shall be punished capitally who disobeys
our commands in this matter."

[Footnote 11: "Codex," lib. ix. tit. 18, cap. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8.]

If, however, we look more closely into this enactment, we shall be led
to conclude that the civil law does not found upon the prohibitions and
penalties in Scripture; although it condemns the _ars mathematica_ (for
the most mystic and uncertain of all sciences, real or pretended, at
that time held the title which now distinguishes the most exact) as a
damnable art, and utterly interdicted, and declares that the
practitioners therein should die by fire, as enemies of the human
race--yet the reason of this severe treatment seems to be different from
that acted upon in the Mosaical institutions. The weight of the crime
among the Jews was placed on the blasphemy of the diviners, and their
treason against the theocracy instituted by Jehovah. The Roman
legislators were, on the other hand, moved chiefly by the danger arising
to the person of the prince and the quiet of the state, so apt to be
unsettled by every pretence or encouragement to innovation. The reigning
emperors, therefore, were desirous to place a check upon the mathematics
(as they termed the art of divination), much more for a political than a
religious cause, since we observe, in the history of the empire, how
often the dethronement or death of the sovereign was produced by
conspiracies or mutinies which took their rise from pretended
prophecies. In this mode of viewing the crime, the lawyers of the lower
empire acted upon the example of those who had compiled the laws of the
twelve tables.[12] The mistaken and misplaced devotion which Horace
recommends to the rural nymph, Phidyle, would have been a crime of a
deep dye in a Christian convert, and must have subjected him to
excommunication, as one relapsed to the rites of paganism; but he might
indulge his superstition by supposing that though he must not worship
Pan or Ceres as gods, he was at liberty to fear them in their new
capacity of fiends. Some compromise between the fear and the conscience
of the new converts, at a time when the church no longer consisted
exclusively of saints, martyrs, and confessors, the disciples of
inspired Apostles, led them, and even their priestly guides, subject
like themselves to human passions and errors, to resort as a charm, if
not as an act of worship, to those sacrifices, words, and ritual, by
which the heathen, whom they had succeeded, pretended to arrest evil or
procure benefits.

[Footnote 12: By this more ancient code, the punishment of death was
indeed denounced against those who destroyed crops, awakened storms, or
brought over to their barns and garners the fruits of the earth; but, by
good fortune, it left the agriculturists of the period at liberty to use
the means they thought most proper to render their fields fertile and
plentiful. Pliny informs us that one Caius Furius Cresinus, a Roman of
mean estate, raised larger crops from a small field than his neighbours
could obtain from more ample possessions. He was brought before the
judge upon a charge averring that he conjured the fruits of the earth,
produced by his neighbours' farms, into his own possession. Cresinus
appeared, and, having proved the return of his farm to be the produce of
his own hard and unremitting labour, as well as superior skill, was
dismissed with the highest honours.]

When such belief in a hostile principle and its imaginations was become
general in the Roman empire, the ignorance of its conquerors, those wild
nations, Franks, Goths, Vandals, Huns, and similar classes of unrefined
humanity, made them prone to an error which there were few judicious
preachers to warn them against; and we ought rather to wonder and admire
the Divine clemency, which imparted to so rude nations the light of the
Gospel, and disposed them to receive a religion so repugnant to their
warlike habits, than that they should, at the same time, have adopted
many gross superstitions, borrowed from the pagans, or retained numbers
of those which had made part of their own national forms of heathenism.

Thus, though the thrones of Jupiter and the superior deities of the
heathen Pantheon were totally overthrown and broken to pieces, fragments
of their worship and many of their rites survived the conversion to
Christianity--nay, are in existence even at this late and enlightened
period, although those by whom they are practised have not preserved the
least memory of their original purpose. We may hastily mention one or
two customs of classical origin, in addition to the Beltane and those
already noticed, which remain as examples that the manners of the Romans
once gave the tone to the greater part of the island of Britain, and at
least to the whole which was to the south of the wall of Severus.

The following customs still linger in the south of Scotland, and belong
to this class: The bride, when she enters the house of her husband, is
lifted over the threshold, and to step on it or over it voluntarily is
reckoned a bad omen. This custom was universal in Rome, where it was
observed as keeping in memory the rape of the Sabines, and that it was
by a show of violence towards the females that the object of peopling
the city was attained. On the same occasion a sweet cake, baked for the
purpose, is broken above the head of the bride; which is also a rite of
classic antiquity.

In like manner, the Scottish, even of the better rank, avoid contracting
marriage in the month of May, which genial season of flowers and breezes
might, in other respects, appear so peculiarly favourable for that
purpose. It was specially objected to the marriage of Mary with the
profligate Earl of Bothwell, that the union was formed within this
interdicted month. This prejudice was so rooted among the Scots that, in
1684, a set of enthusiasts, called Gibbites, proposed to renounce it,
among a long list of stated festivals, fast-days, popish relics, not
forgetting the profane names of the days of the week, names of the
months, and all sorts of idle and silly practices which their tender
consciences took an exception to. This objection to solemnize marriage
in the merry month of May, however fit a season for courtship, is also
borrowed from the Roman pagans, which, had these fanatics been aware of
it, would have been an additional reason for their anathema against the
practice. The ancients have given us as a maxim, that it is only bad
women who marry in that month.[13]

[Footnote 13: "Malæ nubent Maia."]

The custom of saying God bless you, when a person in company sneezes,
is, in like manner, derived from sternutation being considered as a
crisis of the plague at Athens, and the hope that, when it was attained
the patient had a chance of recovery.

But besides these, and many other customs which the various nations of
Europe received from the classical times, and which it is not our object
to investigate, they derived from thence a shoal of superstitious
beliefs, which, blended and mingled with those which they brought with
them out of their own country, fostered and formed the materials of a
demonological creed which has descended down almost to our own times.
Nixas, or Nicksa, a river or ocean god, worshipped on the shores of the
Baltic, seems to have taken uncontested possession of the attributes of
Neptune. Amid the twilight winters and overpowering tempests of these
gloomy regions, he had been not unnaturally chosen as the power most
adverse to man, and the supernatural character with which he was
invested has descended to our time under two different aspects. The Nixa
of the Germans is one of those fascinating and lovely fays whom the
ancients termed Naiads; and unless her pride is insulted or her jealousy
awakened by an inconstant lover, her temper is generally mild and her
actions beneficent. The Old Nick known in England is an equally genuine
descendant of the northern sea-god, and possesses a larger portion of
his powers and terrors The British sailor, who fears nothing else,
confesses his terror for this terrible being, and believes him the
author of almost all the various calamities to which the precarious life
of a seaman is so continually exposed.

The Bhar-guest, or Bhar-geist, by which name it is generally
acknowledged through various country parts of England, and particularly
in Yorkshire, also called a Dobie--a local spectre which haunts a
particular spot under various forms--is a deity, as his name implies, of
Teutonic descent; and if it be true, as the author has been informed,
that some families bearing the name of Dobie carry a phantom or spectre,
passant, in their armorial bearings,[14] it plainly implies that,
however the word may have been selected for a proper name, its original
derivation had not then been forgotten.

[Footnote 14: A similar bearing has been ascribed, for the same reason,
to those of the name of Fantome, who carried of old a goblin, or
phantom, in a shroud sable passant, on a field azure. Both bearings are
founded on what is called canting heraldry, a species of art disowned by
the writers on the science, yet universally made use of by those who
practice the art of blazonry.]

The classic mythology presented numerous points in which it readily
coalesced with that of the Germans, Danes, and Northmen of a later
period. They recognized the power of Erictho, Canidia, and other
sorceresses, whose spell could perplex the course of the elements,
intercept the influence of the sun, and prevent his beneficial operation
upon the fruits of the earth, call down the moon from her appointed
sphere, and disturb the original and destined course of Nature by their
words and charms and the power of the evil spirits whom they invoked.
They were also professionally implicated in all such mystic and secret
rites and ceremonies as were used to conciliate the favour of the
infernal powers, whose dispositions were supposed as dark and wayward as
their realms were gloomy and dismal. Such hags were frequent agents in
the violation of unburied bodies, and it was believed, by the vulgar at
least, that it was dangerous to leave corpses unguarded lest they should
be mangled by the witches, who took from them the most choice
ingredients composing their charms. Above all, it must not be forgotten
that these frightful sorceresses possessed the power of transforming
themselves and others into animals, which are used in their degree of
quadrupeds, or in whatever other laborious occupation belongs to the
transformed state. The poets of the heathens, with authors of fiction,
such as Lucian and Apuleius, ascribe all these powers to the witches of
the pagan world, combining them with the art of poisoning, and of making
magical philtres to seduce the affections of the young and beautiful;
and such were the characteristics which, in greater or less extent, the
people of the Middle Ages ascribed to the witches of their day.

But in thus adopting the superstitions of the ancients, the conquerors
of the Roman Empire combined them with similar articles of belief which
they had brought with them from their original settlements in the North,
where the existence of hags of the same character formed a great feature
in their Sagas and their Chronicles. It requires but a slight
acquaintance with these compositions to enable the reader to recognize
in the Galdrakinna of the Scalds the _Stryga_ or witch-woman of more
classical climates. In the northern ideas of witches there was no
irreligion concerned with their lore. On the contrary, the possession of
magical knowledge was an especial attribute of Odin himself; and to
intrude themselves upon a deity, and compel him to instruct them in what
they desired to know, was accounted not an act of impiety, but of
gallantry and high courage, among those sons of the sword and the spear.
Their matrons possessed a high reputation for magic, for prophetic
powers, for creating illusions; and, if not capable of transformations
of the human body, they were at least able to impose such fascination on
the sight of their enemies as to conceal for a period the objects of
which they were in search.

There is a remarkable story in the Eyrbiggia Saga ("Historia
Eyranorum"), giving the result of such a controversy between two of
these gifted women, one of whom was determined on discovering and
putting to death the son of the other, named Katla, who in a brawl had
cut off the hand of the daughter-in-law of Geirada. A party detached to
avenge this wrong, by putting Oddo to death, returned deceived by the
skill of his mother. They had found only Katla, they said, spinning flax
from a large distaff. "Fools," said Geirada, "that distaff was the man
you sought." They returned, seized the distaff, and burnt it. But this
second time, the witch disguised her son under the appearance of a tame
kid. A third time he was a hog, which grovelled among the ashes. The
party returned yet again; augmented as one of Katla's maidens, who kept
watch, informed her mistress, by one in a blue mantle. "Alas!" said
Katla, "it is the sorceress Geirada, against whom spells avail not."
Accordingly, the hostile party, entering for the fourth time, seized on
the object of their animosity, and put him to death.[15] This species of
witchcraft is well known in Scotland as the _glamour,_ or _deceptio
visus_, and was supposed to be a special attribute of the race of
Gipsies.

[Footnote 15: Eyrbiggia Saga, in "Northern Antiquities."]

Neither are those prophetesses to be forgotten, so much honoured among
the German tribes, that, as we are assured by Tacitus, they rose to the
highest rank in their councils, by their supposed supernatural
knowledge, and even obtained a share in the direction of their armies.
This peculiarity in the habits of the North was so general, that it was
no unusual thing to see females, from respect to their supposed views
into futurity, and the degree of divine inspiration which was vouchsafed
to them, arise to the degree of HAXA, or chief priestess, from which
comes the word _Hexe_, now universally used for a witch; a circumstance
which plainly shows that the mythological system of the ancient natives
of the North had given to the modern language an appropriate word for
distinguishing those females who had intercourse with the spiritual
world.[16]

[Footnote 16: It may be worth while to notice that the word Haxa is
still used in Scotland in its sense of a druidess, or chief priestess,
to distinguish the places where such females exercised their ritual.
There is a species of small intrenchment on the western descent of the
Eildon hills, which Mr. Milne, in his account of the parish of Melrose,
drawn up about eighty years ago, says, was denominated _Bourjo_, a word
of unknown derivation, by which the place is still known. Here an
universal and subsisting tradition bore that human sacrifices were of
yore offered, while the people assisting could behold the ceremony from
the elevation of the glacis which slopes inward. With this place of
sacrifice communicated a path, still discernible, called the
_Haxell-gate_, leading to a small glen or narrow valley called the
_Haxellcleuch_--both which words are probably derived from the Haxa or
chief priestess of the pagans.]

It is undeniable that these Pythonesses were held in high respect while
the pagan religion lasted; but for that very reason they became odious
so soon as the tribe was converted to Christianity. They were, of
course, if they pretended to retain their influence, either despised as
impostors or feared as sorceresses; and the more that, in particular
instances, they became dreaded for their power, the more they were
detested, under the conviction that they derived it from the enemy of
man. The deities of the northern heathens underwent a similar
metamorphosis, resembling that proposed by Drawcansir in the
"Rehearsal," who threatens "to make a god subscribe himself a devil."

The warriors of the North received this new impression concerning the
influence of their deities, and the source from which it was derived,
with the more indifference, as their worship, when their mythology was
most generally established, was never of a very reverential or
devotional character. Their idea of their own merely human prowess was
so high, that the champions made it their boast, as we have already
hinted, they would not give way in fight even to the immortal gods
themselves. Such, we learn from Cæsar, was the idea of the Germans
concerning the Suevi, or Swabians, a tribe to whom the others yielded
the palm of valour; and many individual stories are told in the Sagas
concerning bold champions, who had fought, not only with the sorcerers,
but with the demigods of the system, and come off unharmed, if not
victorious, in the contest. Hother, for example, encountered the god
Thor in battle, as Diomede, in the Iliad, engages with Mars, and with
like success. Bartholsine[17] gives us repeated examples of the same
kind. "Know this," said Kiartan to Olaus Trigguasen, "that I believe
neither in idols nor demons. I have travelled through various strange
countries, and have encountered many giants and monsters, and have never
been conquered by them; I therefore put my sole trust in my own strength
of body and courage of soul." Another yet more broad answer was made to
St. Olaus, King of Norway, by Gaukater. "I am neither Pagan nor
Christian. My comrades and I profess no other religion than a perfect
confidence in our own strength and invincibility in battle." Such
chieftains were of the sect of Mezentius--

"Dextra mihi Deus, et telum, quod missile libro,
 Nunc adsint!"[18]

And we cannot wonder that champions of such a character, careless of
their gods while yet acknowledged as such, readily regarded them as
demons after their conversion to Christianity.

[Footnote 17: "De causis contemptæ necis," lib. i. cap 6.]

[Footnote 18: "Г†neid," lib. x. line 773.]

To incur the highest extremity of danger became accounted a proof of
that insuperable valour for which every Northman desired to be famed,
and their annals afford numerous instances of encounters with ghosts,
witches, furies, and fiends, whom the KiempГ©, or champions, compelled to
submit to their mere mortal strength, and yield to their service the
weapons or other treasures which they guarded in their tombs.

The Norsemen were the more prone to these superstitions, because it was
a favourite fancy of theirs that, in many instances, the change from
life to death altered the temper of the human spirit from benignant to
malevolent; or perhaps, that when the soul left the body, its departure
was occasionally supplied by a wicked demon, who took the opportunity to
enter and occupy its late habitation.

Upon such a supposition the wild fiction that follows is probably
grounded; which, extravagant as it is, possesses something striking to
the imagination. Saxo Grammaticus tells us of the fame of two Norse
princes or chiefs, who had formed what was called a brotherhood in arms,
implying not only the firmest friendship and constant support during all
the adventures which they should undertake in life, but binding them by
a solemn compact, that after the death of either, the survivor should
descend alive into the sepulchre of his brother-in-arms, and consent to
be buried alongst with him. The task of fulfilling this dreadful compact
fell upon Asmund, his companion, Assueit, having been slain in battle.
The tomb was formed after the ancient northern custom in what was called
the age of hills, that is, when it was usual to bury persons of
distinguished merit or rank on some conspicuous spot, which was crowned
with a mound. With this purpose a deep narrow vault was constructed, to
be the apartment of the future tomb over which the sepulchral heap was
to be piled. Here they deposited arms, trophies, poured forth, perhaps,
the blood of victims, introduced into the tomb the war-horses of the
champions, and when these rites had been duly paid, the body of Assueit
was placed in the dark and narrow house, while his faithful
brother-in-arms entered and sat down by the corpse, without a word or
look which testified regret or unwillingness to fulfil his fearful
engagement. The soldiers who had witnessed this singular interment of
the dead and living, rolled a huge stone to the mouth of the tomb, and
piled so much earth and stones above the spot as made a mound visible
from a great distance, and then, with loud lamentation for the loss of
such undaunted leaders, they dispersed themselves like a flock which has
lost its shepherd.

Years passed away after years, and a century had elapsed ere a noble
Swedish rover, bound upon some high adventure and supported by a gallant
band of followers, arrived in the valley which took its name from the
tomb of the brethren-in-arms. The story was told to the strangers, whose
leader determined on opening the sepulchre, partly because, as already
hinted, it was reckoned a heroic action to brave the anger of departed
heroes by violating their tombs; partly to attain the arms and swords of
proof with which the deceased had done their great actions. He set his
soldiers to work, and soon removed the earth and stones from one side of
the mound, and laid bare the entrance. But the stoutest of the rovers
started back when, instead of the silence of a tomb, they heard within
horrid cries, the clash of swords, the clang of armour, and all the
noise of a mortal combat between two furious champions. A young warrior
was let down into the profound tomb by a cord, which was drawn up
shortly after, in hopes of news from beneath. But when the adventurer
descended, some one threw him from the cord, and took his place in the
noose. When the rope was pulled up, the soldiers, instead of their
companion, beheld Asmund, the survivor of the brethren-in-arms. He
rushed into the open air, his sword drawn in his hand, his armour half
torn from his body, the left side of his face almost scratched off, as
by the talons of some wild beast. He had no sooner appeared in the light
of day, than, with the improvisatory poetic talent, which these
champions often united with heroic strength and bravery, he poured forth
a string of verses containing the history of his hundred years' conflict
within the tomb. It seems that no sooner was the sepulchre closed than
the corpse of the slain Assueit arose from the ground, inspired by some
ravenous goule, and having first torn to pieces and devoured the horses
which had been entombed with them, threw himself upon the companion who
had just given him such a sign of devoted friendship, in order to treat
him in the same manner. The hero, no way discountenanced by the horrors
of his situation, took to his arms, and defended himself manfully
against Assueit, or rather against the evil demon who tenanted that
champion's body. In this manner the living brother waged a preternatural
combat, which had endured during a whole century, when Asmund, at last
obtaining the victory, prostrated his enemy, and by driving, as he
boasted, a stake through his body, had finally reduced him to the state
of quiet becoming a tenant of the tomb. Having chanted the triumphant
account of his contest and victory, this mangled conqueror fell dead
before them. The body of Assueit was taken out of the tomb, burnt, and
the ashes dispersed to heaven; whilst that of the victor, now lifeless
and without a companion, was deposited there, so that it was hoped his
slumbers might remain undisturbed.[19] The precautions taken against
Assueit's reviving a second time, remind us of those adopted in the
Greek islands and in the Turkish provinces against the vampire. It
affords also a derivation of the ancient English law in case of suicide,
when a stake was driven through the body, originally to keep it secure
in the tomb.

[Footnote 19: See Saxo Grammaticus, "Hist. Dan.," lib. v.]

The Northern people also acknowledged a kind of ghosts, who, when they
had obtained possession of a building, or the right of haunting it, did
not defend themselves against mortals on the knightly principle of duel,
like Assueit, nor were amenable to the prayers of the priest or the
spells of the sorcerer, but became tractable when properly convened in a
legal process. The Eyrbiggia Saga acquaints us, that the mansion of a
respectable landholder in Iceland was, soon after the settlement of that
island, exposed to a persecution of this kind. The molestation was
produced by the concurrence of certain mystical and spectral phenomena,
calculated to introduce such persecution. About the commencement of
winter, with that slight exchange of darkness and twilight which
constitutes night and day in these latitudes, a contagious disease arose
in a family of consequence and in the neighbourhood, which, sweeping off
several members of the family at different times, seemed to threaten
them all with death. But the death of these persons was attended with
the singular consequence that their spectres were seen to wander in the
neighbourhood of the mansion-house, terrifying, and even assaulting,
those of the living family who ventured abroad. As the number of the
dead members of the devoted household seemed to increase in proportion
to that of the survivors, the ghosts took it upon them to enter the
house, and produce their aГ«rial forms and wasted physiognomy, even in
the stove where the fire was maintained for the general use of the
inhabitants, and which, in an Iceland winter, is the only comfortable
place of assembling the family. But the remaining inhabitants of the
place, terrified by the intrusion of these spectres, chose rather to
withdraw to the other extremity of the house, and abandon their warm
seats, than to endure the neighbourhood of the phantoms. Complaints were
at length made to a pontiff of the god Thor, named Snorro, who exercised
considerable influence in the island. By his counsel, the young
proprietor of the haunted mansion assembled a jury, or inquest, of his
neighbours, constituted in the usual judicial form, as if to judge an
ordinary civil matter, and proceeded, in their presence, to cite
individually the various phantoms and resemblances of the deceased
members of the family, to show by what warrant they disputed with him
and his servants the quiet possession of his property, and what defence
they could plead for thus interfering with and incommoding the living.
The spectres of the dead, by name, and in order as summoned, appeared on
their being called, and muttering some regrets at being obliged to
abandon their dwelling, departed, or vanished, from the astonished
inquest. Judgment then went against the ghosts by default; and the trial
by jury, of which we here can trace the origin, obtained a triumph
unknown to any of the great writers who have made it the subject of
eulogy.[20]

[Footnote 20: Eyrbiggia Saga. See "Northern Antiquities."]

It was not only with the spirits of the dead that the warlike people of
the North made war without timidity, and successfully entered into suits
of ejectment. These daring champions often braved the indignation even
of the superior deities of their mythology, rather than allow that there
existed any being before whom their boldness could quail. Such is the
singular story how a young man of high courage, in crossing a desolate
ridge of mountains, met with a huge waggon, in which the goddess, Freya
(_i.e._, a gigantic idol formed to represent her), together with her
shrine, and the wealthy offerings attached to it, was travelling from
one district of the country to another. The shrine, or sanctuary of the
idol, was, like a modern caravan travelling with a show, screened by
boards and curtains from the public gaze, and the equipage was under the
immediate guidance of the priestess of Freya, a young, good-looking, and
attractive woman. The traveller naturally associated himself with the
priestess, who, as she walked on foot, apparently was in no degree
displeased with the company of a powerful and handsome young man, as a
guide and companion on the journey. It chanced, however, that the
presence of the champion, and his discourse with the priestess, was less
satisfactory to the goddess than to the parties principally concerned.
By a certain signal the divinity summoned the priestess to the
sanctuary, who presently returned, with tears in her eyes and terror in
her countenance, to inform her companion that it was the will of Freya
that he should depart, and no longer travel in their company. "You must
have mistaken the meaning of the goddess," said the champion; "Freya
cannot have formed a wish so unreasonable as to desire I should abandon
the straight and good road, which leads me directly on my journey, to
choose precipitous paths and by-roads, where I may break my neck."
"Nevertheless," said the priestess, "the goddess will be highly offended
if you disobey her commands, nor can I conceal from you that she may
personally assault you." "It will be at her own peril if she should be
so audacious," said the champion, "for I will try the power of this axe
against the strength of beams and boards." The priestess chid him for
his impiety; but being unable to compel him to obey the goddess's
mandate, they again relapsed into familiarity, which advanced to such a
point that a clattering noise within the tabernacle, as of machinery put
in motion, intimated to the travellers that Freya, who perhaps had some
qualities in common with the classical Vesta, thought a personal
interruption of this tГЄte-Г -tГЄte ought to be deferred no longer. The
curtains flew open, and the massive and awkward idol, who, we may
suppose, resembled in form the giant created by Frankenstein, leapt
lumbering from the carriage, and, rushing on the intrusive traveller,
dealt him, with its wooden hands and arms, such tremendous blows, as
were equally difficult to parry or to endure. But the champion was armed
with a double-edged Danish axe, with which he bestirred himself with so
much strength and activity, that at length he split the head of the
image, and with a severe blow hewed off its left leg. The image of Freya
then fell motionless to the ground, and the demon which had animated it
fled yelling from the battered tenement. The champion was now victor;
and, according to the law of arms, took possession of the female and the
baggage. The priestess, the divinity of whose patroness had been by the
event of the combat sorely lessened in her eyes, was now easily induced
to become the associate and concubine of the conqueror. She accompanied
him to the district whither he was travelling, and there displayed the
shrine of Freya, taking care to hide the injuries which the goddess had
received in the brawl. The champion came in for a share of a gainful
trade driven by the priestess, besides appropriating to himself most of
the treasures which the sanctuary had formerly contained. Neither does
it appear that Freya, having, perhaps, a sensible recollection of the
power of the axe, ever again ventured to appear in person for the
purpose of calling her false stewards to account.

The national estimation of deities, concerning whom such stories could
be told and believed, was, of course, of no deep or respectful
character. The Icelanders abandoned Odin, Freya, Thor, and their whole
pagan mythology, in consideration of a single disputation between the
heathen priests and the Christian missionaries. The priests threatened
the island with a desolating eruption of the volcano called Hecla, as
the necessary consequence of the vengeance of their deities. Snorro, the
same who advised the inquest against the ghosts, had become a convert to
the Christian religion, and was present on the occasion, and as the
conference was held on the surface of what had been a stream of lava,
now covered with vegetable substances, he answered the priests with much
readiness, "To what was the indignation of the gods owing when the
substance on which we stand was fluid and scorching? Believe me, men of
Iceland, the eruption of the volcano depends on natural circumstances
now as it did then, and is not the engine of vengeance intrusted to Thor
and Odin." It is evident that men who reasoned with so much accuracy
concerning the imbecility of Odin and Thor were well prepared, on
abandoning their worship, to consider their former deities, of whom they
believed so much that was impious, in the light of evil demons.

But there were some particulars of the Northern creed in which it
corresponded so exactly with that of the classics as leaves room to
doubt whether the original Asæ, or Asiatics, the founders of the
Scandinavian system, had, before their migration from Asia, derived them
from some common source with those of the Greeks and Romans; or whether,
on the other hand, the same proneness of the human mind to superstition
has caused that similar ideas are adopted in different regions, as the
same plants are found in distant countries without the one, as far as
can be discovered, having obtained the seed from the others.

The classical fiction, for example, of the satyrs and other subordinate
deities of wood and wild, whose power is rather delusive than
formidable, and whose supernatural pranks intimate rather a wish to
inflict terror than to do hurt, was received among the Northern people,
and perhaps transferred by them to the Celtic tribes. It is an idea
which seems common to many nations. The existence of a satyr, in the
silvan form, is even pretended to be proved by the evidence of Saint
Anthony, to whom one is said to have appeared in the desert. The
Scottish Gael have an idea of the same kind, respecting a goblin called
_Ourisk_, whose form is like that of Pan, and his attendants something
between a man and a goat, the nether extremities being in the latter
form. A species of cavern, or rather hole, in the rock, affords to the
wildest retreat in the romantic neighbourhood of Loch Katrine a name
taken from classical superstition. It is not the least curious
circumstance that from this silvan deity the modern nations of Europe
have borrowed the degrading and unsuitable emblems of the goat's visage
and form, the horns, hoofs, and tail, with which they have depicted the
author of evil when it pleased him to show himself on earth. So that the
alteration of a single word would render Pope's well-known line more
truly adapted to the fact, should we venture to read--

"And Pan to _Satan_ lends his heathen horn."

We cannot attribute the transferrence of the attributes of the Northern
satyr, or Celtic ourisk, to the arch-fiend, to any particular
resemblance between the character of these deities and that of Satan. On
the contrary, the ourisk of the Celts was a creature by no means
peculiarly malevolent or formidably powerful, but rather a melancholy
spirit, which dwelt in wildernesses far removed from men. If we are to
identify him with the Brown Dwarf of the Border moors, the ourisk has a
mortal term of life and a hope of salvation, as indeed the same high
claim was made by the satyr who appeared to St. Anthony. Moreover, the
Highland ourisk was a species of lubber fiend, and capable of being
over-reached by those who understood philology. It is related of one of
these goblins which frequented a mill near the foot of Loch Lomond, that
the miller, desiring to get rid of this meddling spirit, who injured the
machinery by setting the water on the wheel when there was no grain to
be grinded, contrived to have a meeting with the goblin by watching in
his mill till night. The ourisk then entered, and demanded the miller's
name, and was informed that he was called _Myself_; on which is founded
a story almost exactly like that of OUTIS in the "Odyssey," a tale
which, though classic, is by no means an elegant or ingenious fiction,
but which we are astonished to find in an obscure district, and in the
Celtic tongue, seeming to argue some connexion or communication between
these remote Highlands of Scotland and the readers of Homer in former
days, which we cannot account for. After all, perhaps, some Churchman
more learned than his brethren may have transferred the legend from
Sicily to Duncrune, from the shores of the Mediterranean to those of
Loch Lomond. I have heard it also told that the celebrated freebooter,
Rob Roy, once gained a victory by disguising a part of his men with
goat-skins, so as to resemble the _ourisk_ or Highland satyr.

There was an individual satyr called, I think, Meming, belonging to the
Scandinavian mythology, of a character different from the ourisk, though
similar in shape, whom it was the boast of the highest champions to seek
out in the solitudes which he inhabited. He was an armourer of extreme
dexterity, and the weapons which he forged were of the highest value.
But as club-law pervaded the ancient system of Scandinavia, Meming had
the humour of refusing to work for any customer save such as compelled
him to it with force of arms. He may be, perhaps, identified with the
recusant smith who fled before Fingal from Ireland to the Orkneys, and
being there overtaken, was compelled to forge the sword which Fingal
afterwards wore in all his battles, and which was called the Son of the
dark brown Luno, from the name of the armourer who forged it.[21]

[Footnote 21: The weapon is often mentioned in Mr. MacPherson's
paraphrases; but the Irish ballad, which gives a spirited account of the
debate between the champion and the armourer, is nowhere introduced.]

From this it will appear that there were originals enough in the
mythology of the Goths, as well as Celts, to furnish the modern
attributes ascribed to Satan in later times, when the object of painter
or poet was to display him in his true form and with all his terrors.
Even the genius of Guido and of Tasso have been unable to surmount this
prejudice, the more rooted, perhaps, that the wicked are described as
goats in Scripture, and that the devil is called the old dragon. In
Raffael's famous painting of the archangel Michael binding Satan, the
dignity, power, and angelic character expressed by the seraph form an
extraordinary contrast to the poor conception of a being who ought not,
even in that lowest degradation, to have seemed so unworthy an
antagonist. Neither has Tasso been more happy, where he represents the
divan of darkness in the enchanted forest as presided over by a monarch
having a huge tail, hoofs, and all the usual accompaniments of popular
diablerie. The genius of Milton alone could discard all these vulgar
puerilities, and assign to the author of evil the terrible dignity of
one who should seem not "less than archangel ruined." This species of
degradation is yet grosser when we take into consideration the changes
which popular opinions have wrought respecting the taste, habits,
powers, modes of tempting, and habits of tormenting, which are such as
might rather be ascribed to some stupid superannuated and doting ogre of
a fairy tale, than to the powerful-minded demon who fell through pride
and rebellion, not through folly or incapacity.

Having, however, adopted our present ideas of the devil as they are
expressed by his nearest acquaintances, the witches, from the accounts
of satyrs, which seem to have been articles of faith both among the
Celtic and Gothic tribes, we must next notice another fruitful fountain
of demonological fancies. But as this source of the mythology of the
Middle Ages must necessarily comprehend some account of the fairy folk,
to whom much of it must be referred, it is necessary to make a pause
before we enter upon the mystic and marvellous connexion supposed to
exist between the impenitent kingdom of Satan and those merry dancers by
moonlight.




LETTER IV.

    The Fairy Superstition is derived from different sources--The
    Classical Worship of the Silvans, or Rural Deities, proved by Roman
    Altars discovered--The Gothic Duergar, or Dwarfs--Supposed to be
    derived from the Northern Laps, or Fins--"The
    Niebelungen-Lied"--King Laurin's Adventure--Celtic Fairies of a
    gayer character, yet their pleasures empty and illusory--Addicted to
    carry off Human Beings, both Infants and Adults--Adventures of a
    Butler in Ireland--The Elves supposed to pay a Tax to Hell--The
    Irish, Welsh, Highlanders, and Manxmen held the same belief--It was
    rather rendered more gloomy by the Northern Traditions--Merlin and
    Arthur carried off by the Fairies--Also Thomas of Erceldoune--His
    Amour with the Queen of Elfland--His re-appearance in latter
    times--Another account from Reginald Scot--Conjectures on the
    derivation of the word Fairy.


We may premise by observing, that the classics had not forgotten to
enrol in their mythology a certain species of subordinate deities,
resembling the modern elves in their habits. Good old Mr. Gibb, of the
Advocates' Library (whom all lawyers whose youth he assisted in their
studies, by his knowledge of that noble collection, are bound to name
with gratitude), used to point out, amongst the ancient altars under his
charge, one which is consecrated, _Diis campestribus,_ and usually
added, with a wink, "The fairies, ye ken."[22] This relic of antiquity
was discovered near Roxburgh Castle, and a vicinity more delightfully
appropriate to the abode of the silvan deities can hardly be found.

[Footnote 22: Another altar of elegant form and perfectly preserved,
was, within these few weeks, dug up near the junction of the Leader and
the Tweed, in the neighbourhood of the village of Newstead, to the east
of Melrose. It was inscribed by Carrius Domitianus, the prefect of the
twentieth legion, to the god Sylvanus, forming another instance how much
the wild and silvan character of the country disposed the feelings of
the Romans to acknowledge the presence of the rural deities. The altar
is preserved at Drygrange, the seat of Mr. Tod.]

Two rivers of considerable size, made yet more remarkable by the fame
which has rendered them in some sort classical, unite their streams
beneath the vestiges of an extensive castle, renowned in the wars with
England, and for the valiant, noble, and even royal blood, which has
been shed around and before it--a landscape ornamented with the distant
village and huge abbey tower of Kelso, arising out of groves of aged
trees--the modern mansion of Fleurs, with its terrace, its woods, and
its extensive lawn--form altogether a kingdom for Oberon and Titania to
reign in, or any spirit who, before their time, might love scenery, of
which the majesty, and even the beauty, impress the mind with a sense of
awe mingled with pleasure. These silvans, satyrs, and fauns with whom
superstition peopled the lofty banks and tangled copses of this romantic
country, were obliged to give place to deities very nearly resembling
themselves in character, who probably derive some of their attributes
from their classic predecessors, although more immediately allied to the
barbarian conquerors. We allude to the fairies, which, as received into
the popular creed, and as described by the poets who have made use of
them as machinery, are certainly among the most pleasing legacies of
fancy.

Dr. Leyden, who exhausted on this subject, as upon most others, a
profusion of learning, found the first idea of the elfin people in the
Northern opinions concerning the duergar, or dwarfs.[23] These were,
however, it must be owned, spirits of a coarser sort, more laborious
vocation, and more malignant temper, and in all respects less propitious
to humanity, than the fairies (properly so called), which were the
invention of the Celtic people, and displayed that superiority of taste
and fancy which, with the love of music and poetry, has been generally
ascribed to their race, through its various classes and modifications.

[Footnote 23: See the essay on the Fairy Superstition, in the
"Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," of which many of the materials were
contributed by Dr. Leyden, and the whole brought into its present form
by the author.]

In fact, there seems reason to conclude that these duergar were
originally nothing else than the diminutive natives of the Lappish,
Lettish, and Finnish nations, who, flying before the conquering weapons
of the Asæ, sought the most retired regions of the North, and there
endeavoured to hide themselves from their Eastern invaders. They were a
little, diminutive race, but possessed of some skill probably in mining
or smelting minerals, with which the country abounds. Perhaps also they
might, from their acquaintance with the changes of the clouds, or
meteorological phenomena, be judges of weather, and so enjoy another
title to supernatural skill. At any rate, it has been plausibly supposed
that these poor people, who sought caverns and hiding-places from the
persecution of the Asæ, were in some respects compensated for
inferiority in strength and stature by the art and power with which the
superstition of the enemy invested them. These oppressed yet dreaded
fugitives obtained, naturally enough, the character of the German
spirits called Kobold, from which the English goblin and the Scottish
bogle, by some inversion and alteration of pronunciation, are evidently
derived.

The Kobolds were a species of gnomes, who haunted the dark and solitary
places, and were often seen in the mines, where they seemed to imitate
the labours of the miners, and sometimes took pleasure in frustrating
their objects and rendering their toil unfruitful. Sometimes they were
malignant, especially if neglected or insulted; but sometimes also they
were indulgent to individuals whom they took under their protection.
When a miner, therefore, hit upon a rich vein of ore, the inference
commonly was, not that he possessed more skill, industry, or even luck,
than his fellow-workmen, but that the spirits of the mine had directed
him to the treasure. The employment and apparent occupation of these
subterranean gnomes or fiends, led very naturally to identify the Fin,
or Laplander, with the Kobold; but it was a bolder stretch of the
imagination which confounded this reserved and sullen race with the
livelier and gayer spirit which bears correspondence with the British
fairy. Neither can we be surprised that the duergar, ascribed by many
persons to this source, should exhibit a darker and more malignant
character than the elves that revel by moonlight in more southern
climates.

According to the old Norse belief, these dwarfs form the current
machinery of the Northern Sagas, and their inferiority in size is
represented as compensated by skill and wisdom superior to those of
ordinary mortals. In the "Niebelungen-Lied," one of the oldest romances
of Germany, and compiled, it would seem, not long after the time of
Attila, Theodorick of Bern, or of Verona, figures among a cycle of
champions over whom he presides, like the Charlemagne of France or
Arthur of England. Among others vanquished by him is the Elf King, or
Dwarf Laurin, whose dwelling was in an enchanted garden of roses, and
who had a body-guard of giants, a sort of persons seldom supposed to be
themselves conjurers. He becomes a formidable opponent to Theodorick and
his chivalry; but as he attempted by treachery to attain the victory, he
is, when overcome, condemned to fill the dishonourable yet appropriate
office of buffoon and juggler at the Court of Verona.[24]

[Footnote 24: See an abstract, by the late learned Henry Weber, of "A
Lay on this subject of King Laurin," complied by Henry of Osterdingen.
"Northern Antiquities," Edinburgh, 1814.]

Such possession of supernatural wisdom is still imputed by the natives
of the Orkney and Zetland Islands to the people called _Drows_, being a
corruption of duergar or _dwarfs_, and who may, in most other respects,
be identified with the Caledonian fairies. Lucas Jacobson Debes, who
dates his description of Feroe from his Pathmos, in Thorshaven, March
12, 1670, dedicates a long chapter to the spectres who disturbed his
congregation, and sometimes carried off his hearers. The actors in these
disturbances he states to be the _Skow_, or _Biergen-Trold_--_i.e._, the
spirits of the woods and mountains, sometimes called subterranean
people, and adds, they appeared in deep caverns and among horrid rocks;
as also, that they haunted the places where murders or other deeds of
mortal sin had been acted. They appear to have been the genuine northern
dwarfs, or Trows, another pronunciation of Trollds, and are considered
by the reverend author as something very little better than actual
fiends.

But it is not only, or even chiefly, to the Gothic race that we must
trace the opinions concerning the elves of the middle ages; these, as
already hinted, were deeply blended with the attributes which the Celtic
tribes had, from the remotest ages, ascribed to their deities of rocks,
valleys, and forests. We have already observed, what indeed makes a
great feature of their national character, that the power of the
imagination is peculiarly active among the Celts, and leads to an
enthusiasm concerning national music and dancing, national poetry and
song, the departments in which fancy most readily indulges herself. The
Irish, the Welsh, the Gael, or Scottish Highlander, all tribes of Celtic
descent, assigned to the Men of Peace, Good Neighbours, or by whatever
other names they called these sylvan pigmies, more social habits, and a
course of existence far more gay, than the sullen and heavy toils of the
more saturnine Duergar. Their elves did not avoid the society of men,
though they behaved to those who associated with them with caprice,
which rendered it dangerous to displease them; and although their gifts
were sometimes valuable, they were usually wantonly given and
unexpectedly resumed.