[437] Tacit. German. ix., x.
[438] Adam. Bremens. IV. 16, 31.—Saxon. Grammat. Lib. I.—Yuglinga Saga, 6, 7 (Laing’s Heimskringla).
The Finns were not behind their neighbors in the powers attributed to spells and incantations. In the Kalevala, Louhi, the sorceress of the North, steals the sun and moon, which had come down from heaven to listen to Wainamoinen’s singing, and hides them in a mountain, but is compelled to let them out again through dread of counter-spells. The powers of magic song are fairly summarized in the final contest between Wainamoinen and Youkahainen:
“Bravely sang the ancient minstrel,
Till the flinty rocks and ledges
Heard the trumpet tone and trembled,
And the copper-bearing mountains
Shook along their deep foundations,
Flinty rocks flew straight asunder,
Falling cliffs afar were scattered,
All the solid earth resounded,
And the ocean billows answered.
And, alas! for Youkahainen,
Lo! his sledge so fairly fashioned,
Floats, a waif upon the ocean.
Lo! his pearl-enamelled birch-rod
Lies, a weed upon the margin.
Lo! his steed of shining forehead
Stands, a statue in the torrent,
And his hame is but a fir-bough
And his collar naught but corn-straw.
Still the minstrel sings unceasing,
And, alas! for Youkahainen,
Sings his sword from out his scabbard,
Hangs it in the sky before him
As it were a gleam of lightning;
Sings his bow, so gayly blazoned,
Into driftwood on the ocean;
Sings his finely feathered arrows
Into swift and screaming eagles;
Sings his dog, with crooked muzzle,
Into stone-dog squatting near him;
Into sea-flowers sings his gauntlets,
And his vizor into vapor,
And himself, the sorry fellow,
Ever deeper in his torture,
In the quicksand to the shoulder,
To his hip in mud and water.”
—Porter’s Selections from the Kalevala, pp. 84-5.
[439] Havamal, 142, 150-63.—Harbarsdliod, 20.—Sigrdrifumal, 6-13, 15-18.—Skirnismal, 36.—Rigsmal, 40, 41.—Grougaldr, 6-14.
[440] Harbardsliod, 20.—Skirnismal, 26-34.—Keyser, op. cit. pp. 270, 293.—Hyndluliod, 43.—Lays of Sigurd and Brynhild.—Gudrunarkvida, II. 21.—Sigrdrifumal, 4.
At the close of the fifteenth century, Sprenger relates (Mall. Maleficar. P. II. Q. i. c. 9) as a recent occurrence in a town in the diocese of Strassburg, that a laborer cutting wood in a forest was attacked by three enormous cats, which after a fierce encounter he succeeded in beating off with a stick. An hour afterwards he was arrested and cast in a dungeon on the charge of brutally beating three ladies of the best families in the town, who were so injured as to be confined to their beds, and it was not without considerable difficulty that he proved his case and was discharged under strict injunctions of secrecy. Gervais of Tilbury, early in the thirteenth century, had already referred to such occurrences as an established fact (Otia Imp. Decis. III. c. 93).
The same belief was current among the Slavs. Prior to the conversion of Bohemia, in a civil war under Necla, a youth summoned to battle had a witch stepmother who predicted defeat, but counselled him, if he wished to escape, to kill the first enemy he met, cut off his ears and put them in his pocket. He obeyed and returned home in safety, but found his dearly beloved bride dead, with a sword-thrust in the bosom and both ears off—which he had in his pocket.—Æn. Sylv. Hist. Bohem. c. 10.
[441] Olaf Tryggvesson’s Saga, 37 (Laing’s Heimskringla).—Volsunga Saga, VII., XXVII.—Sigurdtharkvida Fafnisbana I. 37, 38.
[442] Olaf Haraldsson’s Saga, 204, 240 (Laing’s Heimskringla).—Volsunga Saga, III. 15.—Keyser, op. cit. p. 294.