“Jok tuk Jynny be the hand,
And cryd ane feist, and slew ane cok,
And maid a brydell up alland;
Now haif I gottin your Jynny, quoth Jok.”[420]
Among the ancient Romans, as also among the Greeks, the outpouring of sacrificial blood, and the mutual drinking of wine, were closely linked, in the marriage ceremony. When the substitute victim was ready for slaying, “the soothsayer drank wine out of an earthen, or wooden, chalice, called in Latin, simpulum, or simpuvium. It was in fashion much like our ewers, when we pour water into the basin. This chalice was afterward carried about to all the people, that they also might libare, that is, lightly taste thereof; which rite hath been called libation.” The remainder of the wine from the chalice was poured on to the victim, which was then slain; its blood being carefully preserved. And these ceremonies preceded the marriage feast.[421] The wedding wine-drinking is now, however, all that remains of them.
Indeed, it would seem that the common custom of “drinking healths,” or of persons “pledging” each other in a glass of wine, is but a degenerate modification, or a latest vestige, of the primitive rite of covenanting in a sacred friendship, by means of commingled bloods shared in a wine-cup. Certainly this custom prevailed among the old Norsemen, and among the ancient Romans and Greeks. That it originally included an idea of a possible covenant with Deity, and of a spiritual fellowship, is indicated in the fact that “the old Northmen drank the ‘minni’ [the loving friendship] of Thor, Odin, and Freya; and of kings, likewise, at their funerals.” So again there were “such formulas as ‘God’s minnie!’ [and] ‘A bowl to God in heaven!’”[422]
The earlier method of this ceremony of pledging each other in wine, was by all the participants drinking, in turn, out of a common bowl; as Catiline and his fellow-conspirators drank their blood and wine in mutual covenant; and as the Romans drank at a wedding service. In the Norseland, to-day, this custom is continued by the use of a drinking-bowl, marked by pegs for the individual potation; each man as he receives it, on its round, being expected to “drink his peg.” And even among the English and the Americans, as well as among the Germans, the touching of two glasses together, in this health-pledging, is a common custom; as if in symbolism of a community in the contents of the two cups. As often, then, as we drink each other’s healths, or as we respond to any call for a common toast-drinking, we do show a vestige of the primeval and the ever sacred mutual covenanting in blood.
8. BLOOD-COVENANT INVOLVINGS.
And now that we have before us this extended array of related facts, concerning the sacred uses and the popular estimates of blood, in all the ages, it will be well for us to consider what we have learned, in the line of blood-rights and of blood-customs, and in the direction of their religious involvings. Especially is it important for us to see, where and how all this bears on the primitive and the still extant ceremony of covenanting by blood, with which we started in this investigation.