The plunder of the gallows was sought in the first days of Christianity in England by those who were still Pagans at heart, and desired to put themselves under the protection of the old gallows god, Woden, but the original meaning of this robbery of the dead soon faded away, and the practice remained without explanation.
Our word gallows is compound. The old word is galz, and gallows means the low or mound of the gibbet, and we speak of the gallow-tree, or the wood on the gibbet hill. When we remember that the gallows on which Odin hung is called Ogre’s horse, it is interesting to note a popular riddle asked children in Yorkshire. “What is the horse that is ridden that never was foaled, and rid with a bridle that never had bit?” The answer is—The Gallows. A German name for it is the raven’s stone, not only, perhaps, because ravens come to it, but because the raven was the sacred bird of Odin.
Now let us turn to the wheel.
On the Continent, in Germany and in France, breaking on the wheel was a customary mode of execution. The victim was stretched on the wheel, and with a bar of iron his limbs were broken, and then a blow was dealt him across the breast. After that the wheel was set up on a tall pole, with the dead man on it, and left to become the prey to the ravens.
This was a survival of human sacrifices to the sun-god, as hanging is a survival of human sacrifices to the wind-god.
Fig. 40.—THE SUN-GOD, AFTER GAIDOZ.
With regard to the solar-wheel, a great deal of very interesting information has been collected by M. Gaidoz.[40] He points out that in the museums of France there are a good many monuments that represent the sun-wheel along with the thunderbolt as the symbol of Jupiter, that is to say, the old Gaulish solar-god identified with the Roman deity, Jupiter. Gaulish warriors wore a wheel on their helmets—a wheel was a favourite symbol as a personal ornament, or perhaps as an amulet. The wheel-window in a Gothic minster derives from the solar-wheel.
