The Danes in Lancashire and Yorkshire

by S. W. Partington

Mythical Gods.

Bragi was the son of the wave maidens and the god of poetry. He was married to the blooming Induna, who accompanied him to Asgard, where she gave the gods every morning the apples of eternal youth.

Tyr, the god of war, was tall, slender as a pine, and bravely defended the gods from the terrible Fenris-Wolf. In doing so he lost his hand, and was held in high honour by the people. Baldur, the holy one, and the giver of all good, was the son of Odin. His mother Frigga entreated all creatures to spare the well-beloved, but she overlooked the weak mistletoe bough. The gods in boisterous play threw their weapons at Baldur, and the dart made of the fatal bough was thrown by the blind Hödur with deadly effect.

Forseti, the son of Baldur, resembled his father in holiness and righteousness, was the upholder of eternal law. The myth shows him seated on a throne teaching the Norsemen the benefits of the law, surrounded by his twelve judges.

Loki, the crafty god, was the father of the Fenris-Wolf, and the snake. He was the god of warmth and household fire, and was held to be the corrupter of gods, and the spirit of evil. It was Loki who formed the fatal dart, which he placed in the hands of the blind Hödur, which caused the death of Baldur. After the murder of Baldur, Loki conceals himself on a distant mountain, and hides himself under a waterfall. Here the avengers catch him in a peculiar net which he had invented for the destruction of others. They bind him to a rock, where a snake drops poison upon his face, which makes him yell with pain. His faithful wife, Sigyn, catches the poison in a cup; but still it drops upon him whenever the vessel is full. From this myth it is supposed that Shakspere derived the story of his greatest drama and tragedy, "Hamlet," of the Prince of Denmark. Our forefathers notion of the last battle, the single combats of the strong, the burning of the world, are all to be read in ancient traditions, and we find them described in the poems of the Skalds. The Norse mythology makes amends for the tragic end of the divine drama by concluding with a description of the renewal of the world. The earth rises fresh and green out of its ruin, as soon as it has been cleansed from sin, refined and restored by fire. The gods assemble on the plains of Ida, and the sons of Thor bring with them their father's storm-hammer, a weapon no longer used for fighting, but only for consecrating what is right and holy. They are joined by Baldur and Hödur, reconciled and united in brotherly love.

Uller is recorded in the Edda as the cheery and sturdy god of winter, who cared nothing for wind and snowstorm, who used to go about on long journeys on his skates or snow-shoes. These shoes were compared to a shield, and thus the shield is called Uller's Ship in many places. When the god Uller skated over the ice he carried with him his shield, and deadly arrows and bow made from the yew-tree. He lived in the Palace Ydalir, the yew vale. As he protected plants and seeds from the severe frosts of the north, by covering the ground with a coating of snow, he was regarded as the benefactor of mortal men, and was called the friend of Baldur, the giver of every blessing and joy. Uller meant divine glory, as Vulder, the Anglo-Saxon god, was also characterised. This was probably because the glory of the northern winter night, which is often brilliantly lighted by the snow, the dazzling ice, and the Aurora-borealis, the great northern light. The myths exist in the present like the stately ruins of a past time, which are no longer suitable for the use of man. Generations come and go, their views, actions, and modes of thought change:

"All things change; they come and go;
The pure unsullied soul alone remains in peace."

Thousands of years ago our ancestors prayed to Waruna, the father in heaven; thousands of years later the Romans entered their temple and worshipped Jupiter, the father in heaven, while the Teutonic races worshipped the All-father. After the lapse of centuries now we turn in all our sorrow and adversities to our Father which is in heaven. In the thousands of years which may pass we shall not have grown beyond this central point of religion.

"Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith; we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from Thee,
A beam in darkness, let it grow!"

In his masterly work on "Hero-Worship," Carlyle traces the growth of the "Hero as Divinity" from the Norse Mythology in the following words: "How the man Odin came to be considered a god, the chief god? His people knew no limits to their admiration of him; they had as yet no scale to measure admiration by. Fancy your own generous heart's love of some greatest man expanding till it transcended all bounds, till it filled and overflowed the whole field of your thought.

Then consider what mere Time will do in such cases; how if a man was great while living, he becomes tenfold greater when dead.

What an enormous 'camera-obscura' magnifier is Tradition! How a thing grows in the human memory, in the human imagination, when love, worship, and all that lies in the human heart, is there to encourage it. And in the darkness, in the entire ignorance; without date or document, no book, no Arundel marble: only here and there some dumb monumental cairn. Why! in thirty or forty years, were there no books, any great man would grow 'mythic,' the contemporaries who had seen him, being once all dead: enough for us to discern far in the uttermost distance some gleam as of a small real light shining in the centre of that enormous camera-obscura image: to discern that the centre of it all was not a madness and nothing, but a sanity and something.

This light kindled in the great dark vortex of the Norse mind, dark but living, waiting only for the light, this is to me the centre of the whole. How such light will then shine out, and with wondrous thousand-fold expansion spread itself in forms and colours, depends not on it, so much as in the National Mind recipient of it. Who knows to what unnameable subtleties of spiritual law all these Pagan fables owe their shape! The number twelve, divisiblest of all, which could be halved, quartered, parted into three, into six, the most remarkable number, this was enough to determine the Signs of the Zodiac, the number of Odin's sons, and innumerable other twelves.

Odin's Runes are a significant feature of him. Runes, and the miracles of "magic" he worked by them, make a great feature in tradition. Runes are the Scandinavian alphabet; suppose Odin to have been the inventor of letters as well as "magic" among that people. It is the greatest invention man has ever made, this of marking down the unseen thought that is in him by written characters. It is a kind of second speech, almost as miraculous as the first.

You remember the astonishment and incredulity of Atahaulpa the Peruvian king; how he made the Spanish soldier, who was guarding him, scratch Dios on his thumb nail, that he might try the next soldier with it, to ascertain whether such a miracle was possible. If Odin brought letters among his people, he might work magic enough! Writing by Runes has some air of being original among the Norsemen; not a Phœnician alphabet, but a Scandinavian one.

Snorro tells us farther that Odin invented poetry; the music of human speech, as well as that miraculous runic marking of it.

Transport yourself into the early childhood of nations; the first beautiful morning light of our Europe, when all yet lay in fresh young radiance, as of a great sunrise, and our Europe was first beginning to think,—to be!

This Odin, in his rude semi-articulate way, had a word to speak. A great heart laid open to take in this great universe, and man's life here, and utter a great word about it. And now, if we still admire such a man beyond all others, what must these wild Norse souls, first awakened with thinking, have made of him! The rough words he articulated, are they not the rudimental roots of those English words we still use? He worked so, in that obscure element. But he was as a light kindled in it, a light of intellect, rude nobleness of heart, the only kind of lights we have yet: he had to shine there, and make his obscure element a little lighter, as is still the task of us all.

We will fancy him to be the type Norseman; the finest Teuton whom that race had yet produced. He is as a root of many great things; the fruit of him is found growing, from deep thousands of years, over the whole field of Teutonic life. Our own Wednesday, is it not still Odin's day? Wednesbury, Wansborough, Wanstead, Wandsworth: Odin grew into England too, these are still the leaves from that root. He was the chief god to all the Teutonic peoples; their pattern Norsemen.

The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan mythologies, we found to be recognition of the divineness of nature; sincere communion of man with the mysterious invisible powers, visibly seen at work in the world around him.

Sincerity is the great characteristic of it. Amid all that fantastic congeries of associations and traditions in their musical mythologies, the main practical belief a man could have was of an inflexible destiny, of the valkyrs and the hall of Odin, and that the one thing needful for a man was to be brave. The Valkyrs are choosers of the slain, who lead the brave to a heavenly hall of Odin: only the base and slavish being thrust elsewhere, into the realms of Hela, the Death goddess. This was the soul of the whole Norse Belief. Valour is still valour. The first duty of a man is still that of subduing Fear. Snorro tells us they thought it a shame and misery not to die in battle; and if a natural death seemed to be coming on, they would cut wounds in their flesh that Odin might receive them as warriors slain. Old kings about to die had their body laid into a ship, the ship sent forth with sail set and slow fire burning in it; that once out at sea, it might blaze up into flame, and in such a manner bury worthily the old hero, at once in the sky and in the ocean."

THE DESCENT OF ODIN.
(From the Norse Tongue.)
By Thomas Gray.

Up rose the king of men with speed,
And saddled straight his coal black steed.
Down the yawning steep he rode
That leads to Hela's drear abode.
Him the Dog of Darkness spied;
His shaggy throat he opened wide,
While from his jaws with carnage fill'd,
Foam and human gore distill'd;
Hoarse he bays with hideous din,
Eyes that glow and fangs that grin,
And long pursues with fruitless yell
The father of the powerful spell.
Onward still his way he takes,
(The groaning earth beneath him shakes)
Till full before his fearless eyes
The portals nine of Hell arise.
Right against the eastern gate
By the moss grown pile he sate,
Where long of yore to sleep was laid
The dust of the prophetic maid,
Facing to the northern clime,
Thrice he traced the Runic rhyme,
Thrice pronounced in accents dread,
The thrilling verse that wakes the dead.
Till from out the hollow ground
Slowly breathed a sullen sound.
What call unknown, what charms presume
To break the quiet of the tomb?
Who thus afflicts my troubled sprite
And drags me from the realms of night?
Long on these mouldering bones have beat
The winter's snow, the summer's heat.
The drenching dews, and driving rain,
Let me, let me sleep again.
Who is he with voice unbless'd
That calls me from the bed of rest?
Odin: A traveller to the unknown Is he that calls; a warrior's son,
Thou the deeds of light shall know;
Tell me what is done below.
For whom yon glittering board is spread,
Dress'd for whom yon golden bed?
Proph: Mantling in the goblet see The pure beverage of the bee,
O'er it hangs the shield of gold:
'Tis the drink of Balder bold:
Balder's head to death is given:
Pain can reach the sons of heaven!
Unwilling I my lips unclose:
Leave me, leave me to repose.
Odin: Once again my call obey; Prophetess! arise and say
What dangers Odin's child await,
Who the author of his fate?
Proph: In Hoder's hand the hero's doom; His brother sends him to the tomb,
Now my weary lips I close,
Leave me, leave me to repose.
Odin: Prophetess! my spell obey; Once again arise and say
Who th' avenger of his guilt,
By whom shall Hoder's blood be spilt?
Proph: In the caverns of the west, By Odin's fierce embrace compress'd,
A wondrous boy shall rind a bear,
Who ne'er shall comb his raven hair,
Nor wash his visage in the stream,
Nor see the sun's departing beam,
Till he on Hoder's corpse shall smile,
Flaming on the funeral pile.
Now my weary lips I close,
Leave me, leave me to repose.
Odin: Yet awhile my call obey; Prophetess awake and say
What virgins these in speechless wo,
That bent to earth their solemn brow,
That their flaxen tresses tear,
And snowy veils that float in air?
Tell me whence their sorrows rose,
Then I leave thee to repose.
Proph: Ha! no traveller art thou: King of Men I know thee now:
Mightiest of a mighty line.
Odin: No boding maid of skill divine, Art thou, no prophetess of good,
But mother of a giant brood!
Proph: Hie thee hence, and boast at home, That never shall enquirer come
To break my iron sleep again,
Till Lok his horse his tenfold chain,
Never till substantial Night,
Has re-assumed her ancient right,
Till wrapped in fumes, in ruin hurl'd,
Sinks the fabric of the world.

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[Superstitions]

[CHAPTER XIV.]
Superstitions.

The most remarkable instance of the tenacity of superstitions is the survival of the practice of "bringing in the New Year." Not only does it exist among the poor and uneducated, but even amongst educated people at this festive season. It is considered an omen of misfortune if the first person who enters your house on New Year's morning has a fair complexion or light hair. This popular prejudice has never been satisfactorily accounted for, says the late Mr. Charles Hardwick, in his "Traditions and Superstitions." He says: "I can only suggest that it most probably arose from the fact that amongst the Keltic tribes, who were the earliest immigrants, dark hair prevailed. This dark characteristic still prevails amongst the Welsh, Cornish, and Irish of the present day. When these earlier races came in contact with the Danes and Norse as enemies, they found their mortal foes to possess fair skins and light hair. They consequently regarded the intrusion into their houses, at the commencement of the year, of one of the hated race, as a sinister omen. The true Kelt does not only resent, on New Year's Day, the red hair of the Dane, but the brown and flaxen locks of the German as well." An old writer, Oliver Matthew, of Shrewsbury, writing in the year 1616, at the age of 90 years, says it was the custom of the Danes to place one of their men to live in each homestead of the conquered race, and this was more resented than the tribute they had to pay. This affords another proof that these fair-haired men were the cause of this present superstition. It is also considered unlucky to allow anything to be taken out of the house on New Year's Day, before something had been brought in. The importation of the most insignificant article, even a piece of coal, or something in the nature of food, is sufficient to prevent this misfortune, which the contrary action would render inevitable. This sentiment is well expressed in the following rhyme:—

Take out, and then take in,
Bad luck will begin.
Take in, then take out,
Good luck comes about.

It would be rash to speculate how long superstitions of this kind will continue to walk hand in hand with religion; how long traditions from far-off heathen times will exercise this spell not only in our remote country places but in enlightened towns. In the realms of folk-lore, many were firm believers in witchcraft, in signs and omens, which things were dreaded with ignorant awe, while the romantic race of gipsies look upon occult influences from the inside, as a means of personal gain.

The prophetic character of the weather during this period is a superstition common to all the Aryan tribes. So strongly is this characteristic of the season felt in Lancashire at the present day, that many country people may be met with who habitually found their "forecast" on the appearances of the heavens on Old Christmas Day. The late Mr. T. T. Wilkinson relates a singular instance of this superstition, which shows the stubbornness of traditional lore, even when subjected to the power and influence of legislative enactments. He says: "The use of the old style in effect is not yet extinct in Lancashire. The writer knows an old man of Habergham, near Burnley, about 77 years of age, who always reckons the changes of the seasons in this manner. He alleges the practice of his father and grandfather in support of his method, and states with much confidence that 'Perliment didn't change t' seasons wen they chang'd day o't' month.'" A work named "The Shepherd's Kalender," published in 1709, soberly informs us that "if New Year's Day in the morning opens with dusky red clouds, it denotes strife and debates among great ones, and many robberies to happen that year."