SACRIFICE.
The word opfer, a sacrifice, was introduced into German by
Christianity, being derived from the Latin offero. Everywhere the original heathen terms
disappeared. The oldest term, and one universally spread, for the notion to
worship (God) by sacrifice, was Blôtan. It is plain that here the word has more of a
heathen look, and wasn’t at that time used of Christian worship; with the
thing, the words for it soon die out. But its universal use in Norse heathendom
leaves no doubt remaining, that it was equally in vogue among Goths, Alamanni,
Saxons, before their conversion to Christianity.
We shall besides have to separate more exactly the ideas vow
and sacrifice, closely as they border on one another: the vow is, as it were, a
private sacrifice.
Sacrifice rested on the supposition that human food is
agreeable to the gods, that intercourse takes place between gods and men. The
god is invited to eat his share of the sacrifice, and he really enjoys it. Not
till later is a separate divine food placed before him. The motive of
sacrifices was everywhere the same: either to render thanks to the gods for
their kindnesses, or to appease their anger; the gods were to be kept gracious,
or to be made gracious again. Hence the two main kinds of sacrifice: thank-offerings
and sin-offerings.
When a meal was eaten, a head of game killed, the enemy
conquered , a firstling of the cattle born, or grain harvested, the
gift-bestowing god had a first right to a part of the food, drink, produce, the
spoils of war or of the chase (the same idea on which tithes to the church were
afterwards grounded).
If on the contrary a famine, a failure of crops, a
pestilence had set in among a people, they hastened to present propitiatory
gifts. These sin-offerings have by their nature an occasional and fitful
character, while those performed to the propitious deity readily pass into
periodically recurring festivals.
There is a third species of sacrifice, by which one seeks to
know the issue of an enterprise, and to secure the aid of the god to whom it is
presented . Divination however could also be practiced without sacrifices.
Besides these three, there were special sacrifices for
particular occasions, such as coronations, births, weddings and funerals, which
were also for the most part coupled with solemn banquets.
The great anniversaries of the heathen coincide with popular
assemblies and assizes. In the Ynglinga saga chap. 8 they are specified thus: “On winter day there should be blood-sacrifice for a good
year, and in the middle of winter for a good crop; and the third sacrifice should
be on summer day, for victory in battle. “
Halfdan the Old held a great midwinter sacrifice for the
long duration of his life and kingdom. But the great general blot held at Uppsala
every winter included sacrifices.
Easter-fires, Mayday-fires, Midsummer-fires, with their
numerous ceremonies, carry us back to heathen sacrifices; especially such customs
as rubbing the sacred flame, running through the glowing embers, throwing
flowers into the fire, baking and distributing large loaves or cakes, and the
circular dance. Dances passed into plays and dramatic representations. Afzelius
describes a sacrificial play still performed in parts of Gotland, acted by
young fellows in disguise, who blacken and rouge their faces. One, wrapped in
fur, sits in a chair as the victim, holding in his mouth a bunch of
straw-stalks cut fine, which reach as far as his ears and have the appearance
of sow bristles: by this is meant the boar sacrificed at Yule.
The great sacrificial feast of the ancient Saxons was on
Oct. 1, and is traced to a victory gained over the Thuringians in 534; in
documents of the Mid. Ages this high festival stills bears the name of the
gemeinwoche or common week. Zisa’ s day
was celebrated on Sept. 29, St. Michael s on the 28th; so that the holding of a
harvest-offering must be intended all through. In addition to the great
festivals, they also sacrificed on special occasions, particularly when famine
or disease was rife; sometimes for long life: or for favour with the people.
Human Sacrifices are from their nature and origin purging; some
great disaster, some heinous crime can only be purged and blotted out by human
blood. With all nations of antiquity they were an old-established custom; the
following evidences place it beyond a doubt for Germany: “Of all the Gods, Mercury is he whom they worship most. To
him on certain stated days it is lawful to offer even human victims.” (Tacitus
Germ. 9)
“Of all the Suevians,
the Semnones recount themselves to be the most ancient and most noble. The
belief of their antiquity is confirmed by religious mysteries. At a stated time
of the year, all the several people descended from the same stock, assemble by
their deputies in a wood; consecrated by the idolatries of their forefathers,
and by superstitious awe in times of old. There by publicly sacrificing a man,
they begin the horrible solemnity of their barbarous worship.” (Tacitus Germ.
39)
“In the neighbouring groves stood the savage altars at which
they had slaughtered the tribunes and chief centurions.” (Tacitus Ann. 1, 61)
The same summer a great battle was fought between the
Hermunduri and the Chatti, (…) The war was a success for the Hermunduri, and
the more disastrous to the Chatti because they had devoted, in the event of
victory, the enemy's army to Mars and Mercury, a vow which consigns horses,
men, everything indeed on the vanquished side to destruction. And so the
hostile threat recoiled on themselves. (Tacitus Ann. 13, 57)
“the (kings of the Goths), One Eadagaisus. . . Attacking
Italy, and during the ferocity of the war, he promised that the blood of the
Christians would be used to make offering, worshiping their gods, if he should conquer
the country.” (Isidori chron. Goth., aera 446)
“On the god Mars of the Goths, who has always cruel rites
and culture, his victims were prisoners of war. Offers of human blood are more
readily accepted.” (Jornandes ch. 5)
“It is their usage (…) to abandon every tenth captive to the
slow agony of a watery end, casting lots with perfect equity among the damned
crowd in execution of this iniquitous sentence of death. These men are bound by vows which have to be
paid in victims, they conceive it as a religious act to perpetrate this
horrible slaughter (…). Masters were allowed to sell slaves, and Christians
sold them to heathens for sacrifice.” (Sidonius Apollinaris 8, 6 of the Saxons)
The first fruits of war, the first prisoner taken, was
supposed to bring luck. In folk-tales we find traces of the immolation of
children ; they are killed as a cure for leprosy, they are walled up in
basements; and a feature that particularly points to a primitive sacrificial
rite is, that toys and victuals are handed in to the child, while the
roofing-in is completed. Among the Greeks and Romans likewise the victims fell
amid noise and flute-playing, that their cries might be drowned, and the tears
of children are stilled with caresses. (Epist. Bonif. 25)
Extraordinary events might demand the death of kings sons
and daughters, nay, of kings themselves. Thoro offers up his son to the gods;
King Oen the Old sacrificed nine sons one after the other to Odin for his long
life; Ynglinga saga ch. 29: Of King On, Jorund's Son.
On or Ane was the name of Jorund's son, who became king of
the Swedes after his father. He was a
wise man, who made great sacrifices to the gods; but being no warrior, he lived
quietly at home. In the time when the
kings we have been speaking of were in Upsal, Denmark had been ruled over by
Dan Mikellati, who lived to a very great age; then by his son, Frode Mikellati,
or the Peace-loving, who was succeeded by his sons Halfdan and Fridleif, who
were great warriors. Halfdan was older
than his brother, and above him in all things.
He went with his army against King On to Sweden, and was always
victorious. At last King On fled to
Wester Gotland when he had been king in Upsal about twenty-five years, and was
in Gotland twenty-five years, while Halfdan remained king in Upsal. King Halfdan died in his bed at Upsal, and
was buried there in a mound; and King On returned to Upsal when he was sixty
years of age. He made a great sacrifice,
and in it offered up his son to Odin. On
got an answer from Odin, that he should live sixty years longer; and he was
afterwards king in Upsal for twenty-five years.
Now came Ole the Bold, a son of King Fridleif, with his army to Sweden,
against King On, and they had several battles with each other; but Ole was
always the victor. Then On fled a second
time to Gotland; and for twenty-five years Ole reigned in Upsal, until he was
killed by Starkad the Old. After Ole's
fall, On returned to Upsal, and ruled the kingdom for twenty-five years. Then he made a great sacrifice again for long
life, in which he sacrificed his second son, and received the answer from Odin,
that he should live as long as he gave him one of his sons every tenth year,
and also that he should name one of the districts of his country after the
number of sons he should offer to Odin.
When he had sacrificed the seventh of his sons he continued to live; but
so that he could not walk, but was carried on a chair. Then he sacrificed his eighth son, and lived
thereafter ten years, lying in his bed. Now he sacrificed his ninth son, and
lived ten years more; but so that he drank out of a horn like a weaned
infant. He had now only one son
remaining, whom he also wanted to sacrifice, and to give Odin Upsal and the
domains thereunto belonging, under the name of the Ten Lands, but the Swedes
would not allow it; so there was no sacrifice, and King On died, and was buried
in a mound at Upsal. Since that time it
is called On's sickness when a man dies, without pain, of extreme old age.
Thjodolf tell of this:
"In Upsal's
town the cruel king
Slaughtered his
sons at Odin's shrine --
Slaughtered his
sons with cruel knife,
To get from Odin
length of life.
He lived until he
had to turn
His toothless
mouth to the deer's horn;
And he who shed
his children's blood
Sucked through
the ox's horn his food.
At length fell
Death has tracked him down,
Slowly, but sure, in Upsal's town."
And the Swedes in a grievous famine, when other great
sacrifices proved unavailing, offered up their own king Domaldi; Ynglinga saga ch. 18:
Of Domald,
Visbur's Son.
Domald took
the heritage after his father Visbur, and ruled over the land. As in his time there was great famine and
distress, the Swedes made great offerings of sacrifice at Upsal. The first autumn they sacrificed oxen, but
the succeeding season was not improved thereby.
The following autumn they sacrificed men, but the succeeding year was
rather worse. The third autumn, when the
offer of sacrifices should begin, a great multitude of Swedes came to Upsal;
and now the chiefs held consultations with each other, and all agreed that the
times of scarcity were on account of their king Domald, and they resolved to
offer him for good seasons, and to assault and kill him, and sprinkle the
stalle of the gods with his blood. And
they did so. Thjodolf tells of this:
"It has happened oft ere now,
That foeman's weapon has laid low
The crowned head, where battle plain,
Was miry red with the blood-rain.
But Domald dies by bloody arms,
Raised not by foes in war's alarms --
Raised by his Swedish liegemen's hand,
To bring good seasons to the land."
I.e., with animals
suitable for the purpose and only those animals were suitable, whose flesh
could be eaten by men. It would have been unbecoming to offer food to the god, which
the sacrificer himself would have disdained. At the same time these sacrifices
appear to be also banquets; an appointed portion of the slaughtered beast is
placed before the god, the rest is cut up, distributed and consumed in the
assembly. The people thus became partakers in the holy offering, and the god is
regarded as feasting with them at their meal . At great sacrifices the kings
were expected to taste each kind of food, and down to late times the
house-spirits and dwarfs had their portion set aside for them by the
superstitious people. The heathen Langobards permitted or expected the captive
Christians to share their sacrificial feast.
In the earliest period, the horse seems to have been the favorite
animal for sacrifice; there is no doubt that before the introduction of
Christianity its flesh was universally eaten. There was nothing in the ways of
the heathen so offensive to the new converts, as their not giving up the
slaughter of horses (hrossa-slâtr) and the eating of horseflesh. The Christian Northmen
reviled the Swedes as hross-æturnar (horseflesh-eaters), King Hakon, whom his subjects suspected of Christianity,
was called upon at hann skyldi eta hrossaslâtr; to eat horseflesh. From Tacitus
ann. 13, 57 we learn that the Hermunduri sacrificed the horses of the defeated
Catti. As late as the time of Boniface the Thuringians are strictly enjoined to
abstain from horseflesh. Later, witches also are charged with eating horseflesh
.
Here we must not overlook the cutting off of the head, which
was not consumed with the rest, but consecrated by way of eminence to the god.
When Caecina, on approaching the scene of Varus’s overthrow, saw horses heads fastened
to the stems of trees (Tacitus ann. 1, 61), these were no other than the Roman horses,
which the Germans had seized in the battle and offered up to their gods.
But on horse-sacrifices among the heathen Norse we have
further information of peculiar value. The St. Olaf s saga, ch. 113 , says:“that
cattle and horses had been slain, and the altars sprinkled with their blood,
and the sacrifices accompanied with the prayer that was made to obtain good
seasons.” A tail-piece at the very end of the Hervararsaga mentions a similar
sacrifice offered by the apostate Swedes at the election of king Svein (second half
of 11th century):
“then was led forward a horse into the Thing, and hewed in
sunder, and divided for eating, and they reddened with the blood the blot-tree,
(…)”
Among all animal sacrifices, that of the horse was
preeminent and most solemn. Our ancestors have this in common with several Slavic
and Finnish nations, with Persians and Indians: with all of them the horse
passed for a specially sacred animal.
The passage from Agathias proves the Alamannic custom, and
that from the Olafssaga the Norse. A letter to Saint Boniface speaks of ungodly
priests: “They sacrifice bulls, goats and civilian victims.”
And one from Gregory the Great affirms of the Angles: “They
slaughter many in the sacrifices to demons.”
The Hack ox and Hack cow, which are not to be killed for the
household, were they sacred sacrificial beasts? I will add a few examples from
the Norse. Ynglinga saga, ch. 18: See above
Egils Saga, ch. 68 - Of Egil's journeyings:
“To the field was led forth a bull, large and old
'sacrificial beast' such was termed, to be slain by him who won the victory.
Sometimes there was one such ox, sometimes each combatant had his own led
forth.”
Boars, Pigs.
In the Salic Law, tit.2, a higher composition is set on the
majalis sacrivus or votivus than
on any other. This seems a relic of the ancient sacrifices of the heathen Franks
; else why the term sacrivus? True, there is no vast difference between 700 and
600 den. (17 and 15 sol.); but of animals so set apart for holy use there must
have been a great number in heathen times, so that the price per head did not
need to be high. Probably they were selected immediately after birth, and
marked, and then reared with the rest till the time of sacrificing. In Frankish
and Alamannic documents there often occurs the word friscing,
usually for porcellus (piglet), but
sometimes for agnus (lamb), occasionally
in the more limited sense of porcinus and agninus; the word may by its origin express
recens natus, new-born, but it now lives only in the sense of porcellus
(frischling, piglet). How are we to explain then, that this OHG friscing in
several writers translates precisely the Latin hostia (sacrifice, offering), victima (victim), holocaustum (a burnt
offering wholly consumed by fire) except as a reminiscence of heathenism?
The Jewish paschal lamb would not suggest it, for in friscing the idea of
porcellus was predominant. In the North, the expiatory boar, sonargoltr,
offered to Freyr, was a periodical sacrifice; and Sweden has continued down to
modern times the practice of baking loaves and cakes on Yule-eve in the shape
of a boar.
This golden-bristled boar has left his track in inland
Germany too. According to popular belief in Thuringia, whoever on Christmas eve
abstains from all food till suppertime, will get sight of a young golden pig,
i.e. in olden times it was brought up last at the evening banquet. A Lauterbach
ordinance (weisthum) of 1589 decreed that unto a court hold on the day of the
Three-kings, therefore in Yule time, the holders of farm-steads should furnish
a clean goldferch (gold-hog) gelded while yet under milk; it was led round the
benches, and no doubt slaughtered afterwards.
Rams, Goats.
As friscing came to mean victima, so conversely a name for animal
sacrifice, Goth. sauðs, seems to have given rise to the ON. name for the animal
itself, sauðr= wether. This species of sacrifice was therefore not rare, though
it is seldom expressly mentioned, probably as being of small value. Only the saga
Hakonar goða ch.16 informs us: About Sacrifices.
Sigurd, earl of Hlader, was one of the greatest men for
sacrifices, and so had Hakon his father been; and Sigurd always presided on
account of the king at all the festivals of sacrifice in the Throndhjem
country. It was an old custom, that when
there was to be sacrifice all the bondes should come to the spot where the temple stood and bring with them all that they required
while the festival of the sacrifice lasted.
To this festival all the men brought ale with them; and all kinds of
cattle, (it seems to include goats) as well as horses, were slaughtered, and
all the blood that came from them was called "hlaut", and the vessels
in which it was collected were called hlaut-vessels. Hlaut-staves were made, like sprinkling brushes,
with which the whole of the altars and the temple walls, both outside and
inside, were sprinkled over, and also the people were sprinkled with the blood;
but the flesh was boiled into savoury meat for those present. The fire was in the middle of the floor of
the temple, and over it hung the kettles, and the full goblets were handed
across the fire; and he who made the feast, and was a chief, blessed the full
goblets, and all the meat of the sacrifice.
And first Odin's goblet was emptied for victory and power to his king;
thereafter, Niord's and Freyja's goblets for peace and a good season. Then it was the custom of many to empty the
brage-goblet (the brage-goblet, over which vows were made.); and then the
guests emptied a goblet to the memory of departed friends, called the
remembrance goblet.
In the Swedish superstition, the water-sprite, before it
will teach any one to play the harp, requires the sacrifice of a black lamb.
Gregory the Great speaks once of she-goats being sacrificed; he says the
Langobards offer to the devil, i.e., to one of their gods, the head of a goat,
that he ran about a poem dedicated to horror. This head of a she-goat (or
he-goat ?) was reared aloft, and the people bowed before it. The hallowing of a
he-goat among the ancient Prussians is well known. The Slavonian god Triglav is
represented with three goats heads. If that Langobardic poem had been
preserved, we could judge more exactly of the rite than from the report of Gregory
the Great, who viewed it with hostile eyes.
About other sacrificial beasts we cannot be certain. But
even then, what of domestic poultry, fowls, geese, pigeons ? The dove was a
Jewish and Christian sacrifice, the Greeks offered cocks to Asclepios, and in
Touraine a white cock used to be sacrificed to St. Christopher for the cure of
a bad finger. An AS. name for November
is expressly blôtmôneð. The common man at his yearly slaughtering gets up a
feast, and sends meat and sausages to his neighbor’s, which may be a survival
of the common sacrifice and distribution of flesh.
It is remarkable that in Servia too, at the solemn burning
of the badnyak, which is exactly like the yule-log, a whole swine is roasted,
and often a sucking pig along with it.
Of game, doubtless only those fit to eat were fit to
sacrifice, stags, roes, wild boars, but never bears, wolves or foxes, who
themselves possess a ghostly being, and receive a kind of worship. Yet one
might suppose that for expiation uneatable beasts, equally with men, might be
offered, just as slaves and also hounds and falcons followed the burnt body of
their master. Here we must first of all place Adam of Bremen’s description of
the great sacrifice at Uppsala: “It is
usually celebrated at the solemn order of the end of nine years of nature
shared by all Sveoniae of the provinces, to the exemption from taxes which none
are given to the person; their kings, and the people, that all and every one of
her gifts is likewise transmit to the Uppsala, and, more cruel than any
punishment that is to say, those who have already accepted Christianity, and
put on them, from the ceremonies would redeem themselves. The sacrifice,
therefore, such is: the male, out of every living creature, that is to say, the
heads of the nine are offered; their blood will appease the gods with it. But
the bodies are suspended from a pole next to the temple. Every one of the trees
that were believed to be those of the death of the divine (smeared) or with
filth and gore of sacrificial lambs. There also are dogs who can hang with the
human sacrifices, I was told by a certain person of the Christians themselves,
of whom seventy-two hung up, he saw the bodies of a mixture of tar.”
The number nine is prominent in this Swedish sacrificial
feast, exactly as in the Danish; but here also all is conceived in the spirit
of legend. First, the heads of victims seem the essential thing again, as among
the Franks and Langobards; at the same time remind us of the old judicial
custom of hanging up wolves or dogs by the side of criminals . That only the
male sex of every living creature is here to be sacrificed, is in striking
accord with an episode in the Eeinardus, which was composed less than a century
after Adam, and in its groundwork might well be contemporary with him. At the
wedding of a king, the males of all quadrupeds and birds were to have been
slaughtered, but the cock and gander had made their escape. It looks to me like
a legend of the olden time, which still circulated in the 11th-12th centuries.
Anyhow, in heathen times vide animals seem to be in special
demand for sacrifice. As for killing one of every species, it would be such a
stupendous affair, that its actual execution could never have been conceivable
; it can only have existed in popular tradition. It is something like the old Mirror
of Saxony and that of Swabia assuring us that every living creature present at
a deed of rapine, whether oxen, horses, cats, dogs, fowls, geese, swine or men,
had to be beheaded, as well as the actual delinquent (in real fact, only when
they were his property); or like the Edda relating how oaths were exacted of
all animals and plants, and all beings were required to weep. The creatures belonging
to a man, his domestic animals, have to suffer with him in case of cremation,
sacrifice or punishment.
Next to the kind, stress was undoubtedly laid on the color
of the animal, white being considered the most favorable. White horses are
often spoken of: “Certain of these
animals, milk-white, and untouched by earthly labor, are pastured at the public
expense in the sacred woods and groves.” (Tacitus Germ. 10) The friscing of sacrifice was probably of a spotless white;
and in later law records snow-white pigs are pronounced inviolable. The Votiaks sacrificed
a red stallion, the Tcheremisses a white. When under the old German law dun or
pied cattle were often required in payment of fines and tithes, this might have
some connection with sacrifices. For witchcraft also, animals of a particular
hue were requisite. The water-sprite demanded a black lamb, and the huldres have
a black lamb and Hack cat offered up to them. We may suppose that cattle were garlanded
and adorned for sacrifice. A passage in the Edda requires gold-horned cows, (Saem.
141) and in the village of Fienstadt in Mansfeld a coal-black ox with a white
star and white feet, and a he-goat with gilded horns were imposed as dues.
There are indications that the animals, before being slaughtered, were led
round within the circle of the assembly that is how I explain the leading round
the benches, and about to run (Eyrbyggja saga, p. 10. And none should they kill
neither beast nor man, unless of itself it ran a-tilt.), perhaps, as among the
Greeks and Komans, to give them the appearance of going voluntarily to death. Probably care had to be taken also that the
victim should not have been used in the service of man, e.g., that the ox had
never drawn plough or wagon. For such colts and bullocks are required in our
ancient law-records at a formal transfer of land, or the ploughing to death of
removers of landmarks.
On the actual procedure in a sacrifice, we have scarcely any
information except from Norse authorities. While the animal laid down its life
on the sacrificial stone, all the streaming blood (ON. hlauf) was caught either
in a hollow dug for the purpose, or in vessels. With this gore they smeared the
sacred vessels and utensils, and sprinkled the participants. (Saga
Hakonar goða ch.16. (see above)
“On the stall should also stand the
blood-bowl, and therein the blood-rod was, like unto a sprinkler, and therewith
should be sprinkled from the bowl that blood which is called "Hlaut",
which was that kind of blood which flowed when those beasts were smitten who
were sacrificed to the Gods. But round about the stall were the Gods arrayed in
the Holy Place.” Eyrbyggja saga, ch.4. )
Apparently divination was performed by means of the blood,
perhaps a part of it was mixed with ale or mead, and drunk. In the North the
bloodbowls (hlautbollar, blôtbollar) do not seem to have been large; some
nations had big cauldrons made for the purpose. The Swedes were taunted by
Olafr Tryggvason with sitting at home and licking their sacrificial pots. A
cauldron of the Cimbri is noticed in Strabo 7, 2. Another cauldron of the Suevi, in the Life of St. Columban: These are the seeds which it is out of
the neighboring nations of the Suevi and the Vandals; And when he was a long
time there and found them the sacrifice of what was commonly called a strong
liqor, which lasted more or less, and then contain the six measures of, beer in
the middle. To which he asked them to whom they offered. They say their god,
Wotan, whom we call Mercury. (Jonas Bobbiensis, vita Columb.) Here we
are expressly told that the cauldron was filled with ale, and not that the
blood of a victim was mixed with it; unless the narrative is incomplete, it may
have meant only a drink-offering.
Usually the cauldron served to cook, i.e. boil, the victim’s
flesh; it never was roasted. From this seething, according to my conjecture,
the ram was called sauþs, and those
who took part in the sacrifice suđnautar (partakers of the sodden), the boiling, the cauldrons
and pots of witches in later times may be connected with this. The distribution
of the pieces among the people was probably undertaken by a priest ; on great
holidays the feast was held there and then in the assembly, on other occasions
each person might doubtless take his share home with him. They also ate the strong broth and the fat
swimming at the top. The heathen offer
their king Hakon, on his refusing the flesh, drecka soðit and eta flotit. (saga Hakonar goða.)
They say the Cimbri had this custom,
that their women marching with them were accompanied by priestess-prophetesses,
gray-haired, white-robed, with a linen scarf buckled over the shoulder, wearing
a brazen girdle, and bare-footed; these met the prisoners in the camp, sword in
hand, and having crowned them, led them to a brass basin as large as 30
amphora? (180 gals); and they had a ladder, which the priestess mounted, and
standing over the basin, cut the throat of each as he was handed up. With the
blood that gushed into the basin, they made a prophecy. The trolds too, a kind
of elves, have a copper kettle, the Christians long believed in a Saturni dolium (Devils bath), and
in a large cauldron in hell.
That priests and people really ate the food: The Capitularies 7, 405 adopt the
statement in Epist. Bonif. cap. 25 of a Christian priest “Jupiter
slaying and eating the flesh victims”, only altering it to: “gods cost, so he
was eating meat sacrificed.” We may suppose that private persons were allowed
to offer small gifts to the gods on particular occasions, and consume a part of
them; this the Christians called “to
offer to both of the Gentiles, and for the glory of the demons” (Capit. de part. Sax. 20.)
It is likely also, that certain nobler parts of the animal
were assigned to the gods, the head, liver, heart, tongue. The head and skin
of slaughtered game were suspended on trees in honor of them .
Whole burnt offerings, where the animal was converted into ashes
on the pile of wood, do not seem to have been in use. Neither were
incense-offerings used ; the sweet incense of the Christians was a new thing to
the heathen.
While the sacrifice of a slain animal is more sociable, more
universal, and is usually offered by the collective nation or community; fruit
or flowers, milk or honey is what any household, or even an individual may
give. These Fruit-offerings are therefore more solitary and paltry; history
scarcely mentions them, but they have lingered the longer and more steadfastly
in popular customs.
When the husbandman cuts his corn, he leaves a clump of ears
standing for the god who blessed the harvest, and he adorns it with ribbons. To
this day, at a fruit-gathering in Holstein, five or six apples are left hanging
on each tree, and then the next crop will thrive. More striking examples of
this custom will be given later, in treating of individual gods. But, just as
tame and eatable animals were especially available for sacrifice, so are
fruit-trees (frugiferae arbores, Tacitus Germ. 10), and grains; and at a formal
transfer of land, boughs covered with leaves, apples or nuts are used as
earnest of the bargain. The MHG. poet (Fundgr. II, 25) describes Cain’s sacrifice
in the words: “A sheaf he took, he would offer it with ears and eke with spikes”:
a formula expressing at once the upper part or beard (arista), and the whole
ear and stalk (spica) as well. Under this head we also put the crowning of the
divine image, of a sacred tree or a sacrificed animal with foliage or flowers;
not the faintest trace of this appears in the Norse sagas, and as little in our
oldest documents. From later times and surviving folk-tales I can bring forward
a few things. On Ascension day the girls in more than one part of Germany twine
garlands of white and red flowers, and hang them up in the dwelling room or
over the cattle in the stable, where they remain till replaced by fresh ones
the next year.
At the village of Questenberg in the Harz, on the third day
in Whitsuntide, the lads carry an oak up the castle-hill which overlooks the
whole district, and, when they have set it upright, fasten to it a large
garland of branches of trees plaited together, and as big as a cartwheel. They
all shout the quest (i.e. garland) hangs, and then they dance round the tree on
the hill top; both tree and garland are renewed every year.
Not far from the Meisner
mountain in Hesse stands a high precipice with a cavern opening under it, which
goes by the name of the Hollow Stone. Into this cavern every Easter Monday the
youths and maidens of the neighboring villages carry nosegays, and then draw
some cooling water. No one will venture down, unless he has flowers with him. The lands in some
Hessian townships have to pay a bunch of mayflowers (lilies of the valley)
every year for rent.
In all these examples, which can easily be multiplied, a
heathen practice seems to have been transferred to Christian festivals and
offerings. Beside cattle and grain,
other valuables were offered to particular gods and in special cases, as even
in Christian times voyagers at sea e.g. would vow a silver ship to their church
as a votive gift; also articles of clothing, e.g. red shoes.
Jacob Grimm,Teutonic mythology (Vol.1)
Jacob Grimm,Teutonic mythology (Vol.1)
