In the folk-lore of Scotland, as representing the primitive traditions of Western Europe, there are illustrations of the idea that the blood of the gods was communicated to earthly organisms. Thus, a scientific antiquarian of Scotland records in this line: “There was a popular saying that the robin”—the robin red-breast—“had a drop of God’s blood in its veins, and that therefore to kill or hurt it was a sin, and that some evil would befall any one who did so; and, conversely, any kindness done to poor robin would be repaid in some fashion. Boys did not dare to harry a robin’s nest.” On the other hand, the yellow-hammer and the swallow were said, each “to have a drop of the Devil’s blood in its veins”; so the one of these birds—the yellow-hammer—was “remorselessly harried”; and the other—the swallow—“was feared, and therefore let alone.”[291] A similar legendary fear of the swallow, and the guarding of his nest, accordingly, exists in Germany and in China.[292]
Another indication of the belief, that human blood has a vital connection with its divine source, and is under the peculiar oversight of its divine Author, is found in the wide-spread opinion that the blood of a murdered man will bear witness against the murderer, by flowing afresh at his touch; the living blood crying out from the dead body, by divine consent, in testimony of crime against the Author of life. Ancient European literature teems with incidents in the line of this “ordeal of touch.”
Thus it was, according to the Nibelungen Lied, that Kriemhild fastened upon Hagan the guilt of murdering her husband Siegfried; when Hagan and his associates were gathered for the burial of the hero.
“Firmly they made denial; Kriemhild at once replied,
‘Whoe’er in this is guiltless, let him this proof abide.
In sight of all the people let him approach the bier,
And so to each beholder shall the plain truth appear.’
It is a mighty marvel, which oft e’en now we spy,
That, when the blood-stain’d murderer comes to the murder’d nigh,