About the year 1650, the then reigning Duke of Brunswick, afterward also Elector of Hanover, married the granddaughter of King James the First of England. Their eldest son was named George Louis. When, on the death of Queen Anne, the English were in want of a successor, they looked about among those nearest of kin to the royal family, and decided to choose this great-grandson of King James I. Thus it was that George Louis Guelph—a Saxon-German—came to be King George the First of England, and this was how the "lion-and-horse" arms of Brunswick and Hanover came to be also part of the arms of Great Britain. His successors were George the Second, George the Third (against whose rule the American colonies rebelled), George the Fourth, William, and lastly Victoria, the present queen, who is granddaughter to George the Third. Thus you understand how Queen Victoria is descended from the princes of Brunswick,—how she happens to be of German instead of English blood,—and why her name is Guelph.
Now, whenever you look upon "The lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown," you will reflect how strange it is that this great and enlightened Christian nation should bear on its proud standard a symbol of pagan superstition. You will think of the bold Crusader, Henry the Lion; of Wittikind, the brave Saxon duke who, after a twenty years' resistance, was finally conquered and baptized into Christianity; of the wild, half-clad Saxons, with their bloody horse-head ensign; of the Druid priests, who sacrificed human beings as well as white horses; and so, far back to the god Woden himself, who was probably merely some great hero or warrior who lived in a period so remote that we have no record of it in history.
And yet, while you are wondering at England and her relic of Woden-worship, shall I tell you that here, in America, we too possess relics of this very pagan god to which some people accord a superstitious regard? Look on the threshold, or above the door of some cottage or cabin, and you will see nailed there a common horse-shoe as a protection against evil. Examine your grown-up sister's watch-chain, and you will find attached to it a tiny gold horse-shoe, studded with diamond nail-heads, which some friend has given her as a "charm" to secure "good luck." These are simply remnants of the old pagan Woden-worship which we inherit from our English ancestors, who are partly descended from the Saxons, as you have probably learned from your school history. And the word Wednesday is a corruption of Woden's-Day, a name given by our Saxon ancestors to the fourth day of the week in honor of their god.
When I was recently in Germany, I noticed upon the gable-end of every cottage and farm-house in Brunswick and Hanover a curious ornament, consisting of two horses' heads, roughly carved in wood, mounted upon poles, and placed above the entrance-doors, in the form of a cross. This was first done by order of Wittikind, who, upon professing Christianity, changed the pagan symbols above the doors of dwellings to the sign of Christianity—the cross. The ignorant peasants do not know the origin of the custom, but will tell you that the crossed-heads are placed there "to keep out evil spirits, and to bring good luck to the house."
ENTRANCE GATE TO THE OLD CASTLE OF THE DUKES OF BRUNSWICK.
I saw in Brunswick the great stone lion which Henry Guelph placed there seven hundred years ago; and in Hanover, the old palace in which George the First was born, with the lion and the horse above the entrance. Once, too, in the Hartz mountains, I visited a grand-looking ancient castle of the old dukes of Brunswick, in which was born the wife of George the Second of England. It stood on the summit of a lofty precipice, up which we had to climb; then crossing a deep moat by a narrow bridge, we entered through a great arched gate-way, surmounted by the Brunswick coat-of-arms, cut in the stone wall. The moat was dry, and ivy and tall trees growing in it far below, thrust the tips of their branches over the walls. I stopped and took a sketch of the old gate-way, which I here present my young readers.