This English (?) or Norwegian Runic Calendar is dated about A.D. 1000–1100.
What distinguishes this piece is that seemingly from its great age and its having been made in England, it has preserved in the outer or lower lines several of the olden Runes. These are the "Notae Distortae" spoken of by Worm. Some of these as we can plainly see are provincial English varieties of the old northern Runes.
The Calendar before us is of bone, made from the jaw-bone of the porpoise. We know nothing of its history. Worm says, "Probably to this class must be assigned the peculiar Calendar carved on a concave bone, part of the jaw-bone of some large fish." Although it shows three rows of marks the signs of Festivals, the Solar Cycle and the Lunar Cycle, this last is here very imperfect and has even some distorted marks as we see in the engraving.
Each side, the concave as well as the convex, bears near the edge its girdling three rows of marks, so that every series comprehends a quarter of a year, beginning with the day of Saint Calixtus. As Worm has only given one side of this curious Rune-blade, we cannot know the peculiarities of the other half, which contained the Solar Cycle, and the three sign lines for two quarters.
On the side given, the Runes on the right hand are reversed and read from top to bottom; those on the left hand are not retrograde. It may often have been carried on the person, being only 18 inches long. The clog calendars range in length from 3 to 4 feet, to as many inches.
Whenever we light upon any kind of Runic pieces, we are at once confined to the north, Scandinavia and England. Though so numerous in the Northern lands, no Runic Calendar has ever yet been found in any Saxon or German province, except a couple bought or brought by modern travellers, as curiosities from Scandinavia.
Stephens says this whole class of Antiquities has never yet been properly treated. It offers work for one man's labours during a long time and many journeys. It would produce a rich harvest as to the signs and symbols, and Runes as modified by local use and clannish custom. All the symbol marks should be treated in parallel groups. The various and often peculiar Runes should be carefully collected and elucidated. All this is well worthy of a competent Rune-Smith, Computist, and Ecclesiologist. On many of the old Runic Calendars, especially in Sweden, we find a "lake" or game long famous all over Europe, but now mostly known to children, called "the Lake" or game of Saint Peter. This is an ingenious way of so placing 30 persons, that we may save one half from death or imprisonment, by taking out each ninth man as a victim, till only one half the original number is left. These 15 are thus all rescued. Of course the man thus taken must not be counted a second time.
Formerly the favoured 15 were called Christians and the other Jews. Carving this in one line, we get the marks so often found on Rune-clogs:
xxxx|||||xx|xxx|x||xx|||x||xx|
The story about it is this: Saint Peter is said to have been at sea in a ship in which were 30 persons, the one half Christians and the other half Jews. But a storm arose so furious that the vessel had to be lightened, and it was resolved to throw overboard half the crew. Saint Peter then ranged them in the order we see, every ninth man was taken out. The crosses betoken the Christians and the strokes the Jews. In this way all the Jews were cast into the deep while all the Christians remained. Herewith the old were wont to amuse themselves.
Folk-lore of children in rhyme and ritual. The child is surrounded by an ancient circle of ritualism and custom. Visitors to see the infant must take it a threefold gift. In some districts in Yorkshire the conditions are a little tea, sugar, and oven-cake. Another Yorkshire practice is to take an egg, some salt, and a piece of silver. The child must not be brought downstairs to see the visitor, for to bring it downstairs would be to give it a start in life in the wrong direction. The form of this idea is to be found in certain (Japanese) customs. The child's finger-nails must not be cut with scissors, for iron had such close association with witchcraft. The nails must be bitten off with the teeth. This practice survives in some adults, much to the disgust of their friends.
Of children's games, that known as "Hopscotch" was originally a religious rite practised at funerals. It was symbolical of the passage of the soul from the body to heaven or the other place to which the ancients gave various names. The pattern which is drawn for the purpose of this game has been found on the floor of the Roman Forum.
Another game called "Cat's Cradle" was played by the North American Indians, and has recently found on an island north of Australia. When children could not play on account of the rain they recited a little rhyme which is still known to-day by the people of Austria and in the wilds of Asia. The game of "Ring o' Roses" is the survival of an old incantation addressed to the Corn Spirit. When the wind rippled across the cornfield the ancient harvesters thought the corn god was passing by, and would recite the old rhyme, closing with the words, "Hark the cry! hark the cry! all fall down!" Sometimes the corn spirit was supposed to become incarnated in the form of a cow, hence the line in the nursery jingle, "Boy Blue! the cow's in the corn." When the boy donned his first pair of breeches he must pass through a ritual. He must be nipped. The significance of the nip was a test to see whether the boy in the new breeches was the same boy, or whether he had been changed by the fairies or evil spirits. This idea of a change by evil spirits might seem far-fetched, but so recently as 1898, in the records of the Irish courts there was a case in which an Irishman was tried for accusing his wife of not being the same person as when he married her, and of the woman being branded in consequence. Superstitions as to the cure of certain childish complaints survive in the cure for whooping cough, to take the sufferer "over t' watter." That is the only medicinal use of the river Aire, near Leeds.
[Memorials]
[CHAPTER XI.]
Memorials.
At the time of the Conquest the population in some of the largest and most important cities is said to have been almost exclusively of Scandinavian extraction.
In the north the Norwegian saint, "St. Olave," has been zealously commemorated in both towns and country. This proves that churches were built and Christian worship performed during the Danish dominion, and that these Northmen continued to reside here in great numbers after the Danish ascendancy ended.
In the city of Chester there is a church and parish which still bears the name of St. Olave, and by the church runs a street called St. Olave's Lane. This is opposite the old castle and close to the river Dee. In the north-west part of York there is a St. Olave's Church, said to be the remains of a monastery founded by the powerful Danish Earl Sieward, who was himself buried there in the year 1058. Long before the Norman Conquest, the Danes and Northmen preponderated in many of the towns of the North of England, which they fortified, and there erected churches dedicated to their own sainted kings and warriors. Olave is derived from "Olaf the White," who was a famous Norse Viking. He subdued Dublin about the middle of the ninth century, and made himself king of the city and district. From this time Ireland and the Isle of Man were ruled by Norwegian kings for over three centuries.
It may therefore be inferred, by a natural process of deductive reasoning, that during this period the Danes were founding their settlements in Lancashire. Although we have no distinct traces of buildings erected by them, the names given by them to many places still survive. In these compound names the word "kirk" is often met with. This must establish the fact that the Danes erected many other churches besides St. Olave's at Chester and York. From Chester and West Kirby, in the Wirral district, to Furness, in the North, we have abundant evidence in the name of Kirk, and its compound forms, that many Christian churches were erected. At Kirkdale, Ormskirk, Kirkham, Kirkby Lonsdale, Kirby Moorside, and Kirkby Stephen Norman churches have superseded Danish buildings. Kendal was known formerly as Kirkby-in-Kendal, or the "Church-town in the valley of Kent." And further memorials here survive in the names of streets, such as Stramongate, Gillingate, Highgate, and Strickland-gate.
The name Furness is distinctly Scandinavian, from "Fur" and "Ness," or Far promontory. The abbot of Furness was intimate with the Danish rulers of Manxland, for he got a portion of land there in 1134 to build himself a palace. He was followed by the Prior of Whithorn and St. Bede. In 1246 the monks of Furness obtained all kinds of mines in Man, and some land near St. Trinian's. By the industry and ability of these monks Furness became one of the wealthiest abbeys in England, and thus were laid the foundations of one of the greatest industries in Lancashire, viz., the smelting of iron ore.
[Literature]
[CHAPTER XII.]
Literature.
During that period when the Danes were making their conquests and settlements in the North of England, art and literature did not hold any high position in Europe. The fall of the Roman Empire gave a shock to the pursuits of learning which had not recovered when Christian art was in its infancy. The Northmen early distinguished themselves in the art of shipbuilding, and also in the manufacture of ornaments, domestic utensils, and weapons. This taste had arisen from the imitation of the Roman and Arabesque articles of commerce which they brought up into the North. Some Scandinavian antiquities have been discovered belonging to the period called "the age of bronze," and also the later heathen times, known as "the iron age." The Sagas record that the carving of images was skilfully practised in the north, and the English Chronicles provide records of richly carved figures on the bows of Danish and Norse vessels. The Normans from Denmark who settled in Normandy were first converted to Christianity, and early displayed the desire to erect splendid buildings, especially churches and monasteries.
Long before the Norman Conquest, the Danes devoted themselves to peaceful occupations. Several of the many churches and convents were erected by Danish princes and chiefs, in the northern parts of England, which have now been re-built, or disappeared; but their names survive to distinguish their origin. It has been said that these early buildings were composed of wood. This is proved from the work recently issued by Mr. J. Francis Bumpus, in his "Cathedrals of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark." The touching life story of the martyred Saint Olaf is there told. A wooden chapel was built over his grave about the year 1047. This became the centre of the national religion, and the sanctuary of the national freedom and independence. Trondhjem, says Mr. Bumpus, is the eloquent expression in stone of Norway's devotion to the beloved St. Olaf. Despoiled of much of its ornamentation by Protestant zeal, it retains in the octagon of its noble choir a true architectural gem, equal in delicate beauty to the Angel Choir of Lincoln.
Example of Danish Carved Wood-work, with Runes, from Thorpe Church, Hallingdal, Denmark.
The phrase "skryke of day" is common to South Lancashire, and is the same as the old English "at day pype," or "peep of day." "There is a great intimacy," says Dr. Grimm, "between our ideas of light and sound, of colour and music, and hence we are able to comprehend that rustling, and that noise, which is ascribed to the rising and setting Sun." Thomas Kingo, a Danish poet of the seventeenth century, and probably others of his countrymen, make the rising of the Sun to pipe (pfeifen), that is to utter a piercing sound.
Tacitus had long before recorded the Swedish superstition, that the rising Sun made a noise. The form in which our skryke of day has come down to us is Scandinavian. Grimm says, "Still more express are the passages which connect the break of day, and blush of the morning, with ideas of commotion and rustling." Goethe has in "Faust" borrowed from the Pythagorean and Platonic doctrine of the harmony of the spheres, and illustrated Grimm's proposition of the union of our ideas of light and sound by describing the course of the Sun in its effulgence as a march of thunder. Jonson regarded noise as an essential quality of the heavenly bodies—
"Come, with our voices let us war,
And challenge all the spheres,
Till each of us be made a star,
And all the world turned ears."
The noise of daybreak may be gathered from the fracture of metal, and applied to the severance of darkness and light, may well have sound attributed to it. The old meaning of "peep (or pype) of day" was the joyful cry which accompanied the birth of light. "Peep," as sound is most ancient, and a "nest of peepers," that is, of young birds, is now almost obsolete English. Milton, in "Paradise Lost," shows the setting Sun to make a noise from its heated chariot axles being quenched in the Atlantic. Once, at Creation, the morning stars sang for joy; but afterwards moved in expressive silence.