mm 8 11 wmm ll§§ mm 4.2-1.2-Z, 1 LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PRINCETON, N. J. n. . . DLbbO JJivision «- ■K.2.4 PBIMITIVE BELIEF LONDOX : PIIINTEI) BY SPOTTI8WOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET «QCAUB A>D TAllLlAilliXT BTKIiET OUTLINES OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF AMONG THE INDO-EUROPEAN RACES CHARLES FRANCIS KEARY, M.A. LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1882 All rights rrserveU A. M. K. AND E. H. K. PREFACE There are two roads along which students are now travelling towards (we may reasonably hope) the same goal of fuller knowledge touching Prehistoric Belief. One way is that of Comparative Mythology, which has become so favourite a pursuit with the present generation. In this method the myth is taken for the centre-point of the enquiry, and — just as a specimen in natural history may be — it is traced through all the varieties and sub-species that are to be discovered in various lands. The other method, which is an historical rather than a scientific one, may be called the study of the History of Belief. In it our eyes are for the time being fixed upon a single race of men ; and it is the relationship of these joeople to the world by which they are surrounded that we seek to know. The following outlines of early Aryan belief belong to the class of studies, which are dis- tinctly historical in character. They are not designed to establish any new theory of the origin of belief among mankind ; nor are they meant to deal with theories which relate to creeds other than the Indo- European. They are essentially a record of facts ; viii PREFACE. for the facts of early Aryan belief are of a kind as surely ascertainable as the laws of marriage or of primitive society among the Aryan races. That the pictures which are here held up are blurred and im- perfect I am well aware. But some indulgence may be claimed for what are, owing to the necessities of the case and to the incompleteness of our present knowledge, mosaics and not paintings. The active discussion which has of late arisen over some of the secondary questions of Indo-Euro- pean mythology has tended to obscure our actual attainments in this field of enquiry. This must neces- sarily have been the case with the general reader, who cannot be expected to keep the science constantly in view nor to register its slow advance. By such a reader a whole system of mythological interpretation is supposed to stand or fall upon the question whether certain stories can be proved to have sprung out of ' sun myths,' or certain other tales to have been called into existence through an ' abuse of language.' But still more has this discussion tended to throw into the background the historical method of enquiry into the early history of belief, and to hide altogether the results which it has reached. To this field of research some matters of high im- portance in comparative mythology are only of secondary consequence, and therefore some difficulties which have stood in the way of the one study do not impede the other. One of the subjects, for instance, which has been most eagerly debated among mytho- PREFACE. ix logists is the question as to what are and where we are to look for the originals, the actual first forms of those tales which go to make up any system of mythology ; and it is upon the answer which should be given to that question that schools are at present most divided. The difficulty does not press with the same insistence upon him who seeks merely to get a clear notion of belief in some of its particular phases. He can find out who are the beings that people the myth system upon which he is engaged, and what are the stories related of them, without troubling himself to discover whether the same stories were once told concerning beings of another order. It is with the members of the Aryan pantheon as it is with such half-mythic beings as the Charles of the Carlovingian or the Arthur of the Arthurian ro- mance. The tales told of the two may have won- derful points of resemblance, but we can distinguish between the legend of the Frankish emperor and the legend of the British king. Or, again, that which is recounted of Charles and Arthur may with varia- tions have been told of Eed Indian heroes or of Zulu gods ; but this does not affect the fact that for the particular times and places under consideration the stories attach to Charles and his paladins or to Arthur and his knights. We are not compelled to trace the myths to their remotest origin to under- stand the nature of the two legends. There can, in truth, be little doubt that in some crude form most of the myths of the Indo-European system existed among human beings at a date much X PREFACE. earlier than the era in which we first distinguish the Aryan races. I hardly suppose that the most ardent hunter after histories which tell of the loves of the Sun and the Dawn would maintain that it was from the observation of the Sun and of the Dawn that mankind first gained its idea of two lovers. The tales come to attach themselves to those mythic beings whom at any particular stage of culture the people have most in their thoughts. What was once related of a tree or of an animal maj7 come to be told of the sun and of the earth. Wherefore it is only after a complete study of the belief in question that we can form a judgment as to the nature of the existences to which such tales are likely to relate. When we have settled this point we can compare the myths of systems which belong to the same stage of thought, with a reasonable assurance that like stories Avill attach to like individualities. Now concerning the creed of the primitive Aryas : Comparative Mythology has made it possible for us to reconstruct this in outline for a time which pre- cedes the historical age. The process whereby we arrive at our knowledge in this case is precisely the process whereby we gain almost all the knowledge which we possess concerning the prehistoric life of the Aryas, their laws of marriage, their social con- ditions, their advance in arts or in agriculture. As to the principal result of this enquiry all, or almost all, who have entered upon it are agreed. It has been established that this primitive Aryan creed rested upon a worship of external phenomena, such PREFACE. xi as the sky, the earth, the sea, the storm, the wind, the sun — that is to say, of phenomena which were appreciable by the senses, but were at the same time in a large proportion either abstractions or gene- ralisations. It is this form of creed which I have throughout the present volume distinguished as Nature Worship, and of necessity it is the one with which we shall be almost exclusively concerned. Therefore, seeing that concerning the character of this early Aryan belief all those are agreed who have made a critical study of the Indo-European mythologies, it is obvious that it stands in quite a different category from the disputed questions of comparative mythology. To me individually, after a study of certain among the Indo-European systems, the presence of this nature worship at the root of them seems incontrovertible. But, what is of infi- nitely more importance, I find that the specialists in every field — Vedic, Persian, Greek, Eoman, Teutonic, Celtic — have believed themselves to discover this nature worship at the back of the historic creeds they knew so well ; and I cannot persuade myself that all their judgments are mistaken, or that there should be such a coincidence of error coming from so many different sides. For, whether we ask Vedic scholars, as Benfey, Max Miiller, Kuhn, Roth, Breal, Grassmann, Guber- natis, Bergaigne, students of Greek mythology, as Welcker, Preller, Maury, of German, as Grimm, Simrock, we find that those who are first in each of the several branches of research, or those who have xi l PREFACE. studied them all, are alike agreed upon this parti- cular question. However in minor matters they may differ, upon this matter their judgment is uniform. This at least must be res judicata, a question no longer admitting of dispute. The sources of our information touching the pre- historic beliefs of the Indo-Europeans are sufficiently well known not to need a recapitulation here. The most important which I have made use of in this volume may be roughly divided into four classes. (1) The Vedas, and chiefly the Rig Veda; (2) the Greek literature of mythology, especially the pre- historic poets, Homer and Hesiod ; (3) the Icelandic Eddas and Sagas ; (4 ) mediaeval legends and epics, together with modern popular tales and traditions, almost all of which preserve some relics of ancient heathenism. In the case of the Vedas I have been obliged to avail myself of translations. Of the Rig Veda there now exist two almost complete transla- tions into German, those of H. Grassmann and Ludwig. The beautiful metrical rendering of H. Grassmann is the one to which I have been most indebted. C. F. K London, 1882. CONTENTS. PAGE vii CHAPTER I. NATURE OP BELIEF AS HERE DEALT "WITH. § 1. Limits of the Enquiry. Primitive Beliefs can be studied in a strictly historical fashion — The aid which Philology brings to this enquiry, both in supplying facts and in supplying principles of research — Impossibility of finding agreement as to the definition of Religion — Necessity for a Definition of Belief — Material character of primitive ideas demonstrated from the history of language — The transition from concrete to abstract terms — Relationship between material and metaphysical or ethical notions which is shown by this change — This relationship also explains the nature of belief — Which implies a sense of moral or metaphysical ideas underlying the physical ones— Definition of belief as the capacity for worship — Belief and poetic creation — Mr. Herbert Spencer's definition of religion, how far applicable to belief as here considered — Mr. Matthew Arnold's definition of religion — Distinction between religion and mythology ........ § 2. Early Phases of Belief The phases of thought shown in the growth of language are likewise traceable in the growth of belief — Various senses in which the words ' fetich ' and ' feticliism ' have been used — Fetichism under- stood as a form of magic does not describe a definite phase of belief — For it may coexist with many different phases — Fetichism understood as a worship of individual and concrete inanimate V CONTENTS. PAGE objects does constitute a definite phase of belief — The next dis- tinct phase is Nature AVorship, which is the worship of external phenomena, as the sky, the earth, the sea, the storm, &c. — The decisive evidences of nature worship which are furnished by comparative philology — 'Method of comparative philology in gain- ing a knowledge of prehistoric times— Instanced in the words go (cow), duhitar (daughter)— Dyaus the sky god of the proto-Aryas — Nature worship the cause of henotheism, and an explanation of polytheism — Change to a personal god — Zeus and theos — Our enquiries stop short before the full development of the personal god — Influence of the passions and of strong emotion on belief . 20 CHAPTER II. THE EARLY GROWTH OF BELIEF. Abundant traces of a primitive fetichism in the Aryan creeds — The three chief fetiches were trees, rivers, and mountains — The house tree — Odysseus' chamber — The roof tree of the Norsemen — From the house tree to the world tree — Yggdrasill — Tanema- huta of the Maoris — Saci'edness of birds — Prophetic power of birds — Wise women who change themselves into birds — Winged animals, how they arose — Prophetic power which remains with the fetich after it has ceased to be a god — With trees — With moun- tains and with rivers — The tree ancestor — Greek and Persian houses descended from trees — Ask and Embla (Ash and Elm) the universal parents in the Edda — Mediaeval legend touching the Tree of Life — From the tree ancestor comes the tree of the tribe or the village tree, so well known to the German races — The patrician and plebeian trees in Home — Passage of the soul into a tree — Philemon and Baucis, Myrrha, &c. — Mountain gods — Piver gods — Oceanus compared to Yggdrasill — Fetichism gave the first impulse to a love of country — Animal worship — Serpent worship — Its connection with worship of rivers — Symbolical ser- pents— Jormungandr — The Python — Worship of stocks and stones a relic of fetichism — Worship of unshapen agalmata in Greece — Sculptured trees — Influence of fetich worship on the beginnings of art — Survivals of fetichism — Vitality of the belief in magic — Transition from fetich worship to nature worship — The intermediate stage — The dryads, nymphs, fauns, apsaras, centaurs, &c. — Music born of streams — The contest between the newer and the older gods ........ 63 CONTENTS. XV CHAPTER III. THE AKYAS. I'AGE Agni'a birth — He devours his parents — Significance of this incident as showing the religious condition of the Vedic worshipper — The idealisation to which Agni attains — Other nature gods are more dependent upon climatic influences — It is necessary, there- fore, to enquire to what climatic influences the ancestors of the Indo-European races were exposed — The cradle of the Aryan race in Bactria — Nature of that land — Contrasted with Egypt and Obaldea — The villaye community — Diversities of creed — Migra- tions of the Aryas — Fetich gods had to he left behind — The Vedas — Religious rather than mythological — The pre- Vedic creed of Eastern Aryas — Dyaus, Prithivi — Active and passive gods — Rivalry between Dyaus and Indra, and between Varuna and Indra — Hymn to Indra and Varuna — The god of the lower heaven and the god of the upper heaven — Indra as a supreme god — His might — His combats — Ahi, Vritra, and Sambara — Relationship of Agni to Indra— Traces of fire worship in other Indo-European creeds — Agni as a hero — Prometheus — How the nature gods lose their distinct individualities — Mitra and Varuna — Originally personified the day and night skies — Then the meeting of day and night, the horizons at morning and evening — Hymn to Varuna and Mitra — Hymn to Mitra alone — The Asvin — The mythic day : the white dawn, the red dawn (Ushas) — Hymn to Ushas — The sim (Surya) — Hymn to Surya— The storm winds (the Maruts) — Hymn to the Maruts — Meeting of Indra and the Maruts — The midday battle — Sunset — Hymn to Savitar as the setting* sun ......... 98 CHAPTER IV. ZEUS, APOLLO, ATHENE. Complexity of Greek belief — Necessity of comparing it with the Vedic and Teutonic creeds — Lack of individuality of Greek gods in the historic age — Zeus, Apollo, and Athene stand out from among the rest — Relics of nature origin shown in their charac- ters— The Zeus of Pheidias— The migration of the European nationalities— The Yavanas — Thelonians — The two routes taken by those who came to form the Greek nationality — The Ionians crossed the yEgsean — The Pelasgians went round by the Helles- ■i CONTEXTS. PAGE pont — The oldest Greek divinities — Zeus as the storm — The Pelasgic Zeus — Combat with a still older fetich worship — The gods and the Titans — The wives of Zeus — Nearly all originally earth goddesses — Hera distinct from the others — Poseidon and Hades-Pluton divinities of the older pantheon — So also Ares and Heracles, who were sun gods. Worship of Apollo and Athene softened the natures of the other Greek gods— The Dorians — Spread of their influence — The birth of Apollo — Apollo at Delphi— His fight with the Python — His wanderings — His relationship to Heracles — Death of the sun god — Of Heracles — Of Apollo, implied in one myth — The narrowing of hell — Apollo and Zeus. Goddesses born of water — Aphrodite, Athene Tritogeneia ■ — Earth and cloud goddesses — Athene's virgin nature as Pallas, Parthenos — Shows her essential identity with Artemis — Athene's second birth — Hymn to Athene — Athene Polias — Polybulos — Polymetis — Athene and the Gorgon — Athene in the Iliad — In the Odyssey — Apollo and Athene the mediators — Zeus the highest Greek ideal of God 155 CHAPTEK V. MYSTERIES. Position of the earth divinities in every creed — These are always honoured by rustic dances and processions — Antiquity of Greek mysteries — Universality of mysteries — Their original intention was to celebrate the return of spring — The myth of Demeter and Persephone, from the Homeric hymn — Mysteries must have existed before the use of agriculture — Changes which that use introduced into them— Triptolemus— Peasant festivals— The Lupercalia — Emotional element in mysteries — The orgy — The use of music in the Eleusinia — Comparison with a mystic drama prepared by St. Francis— Original meaning of the wanderings of Demeter— Image of the earth-goddess dragged from place to place — The ceremonial of the Eleusinia— Older and newer ele- ments in it— A processional chaunt— The resurrection of the seed — Mysteries became associated with thoughts about the other world— The decay of the Homeric religion— Growth of the hope of immortality— Aristophanes' picture of the under- world— Growing moral sense — Neoplatonism — Worship of Serapis and Isis in Greece— In Rome — Romans adopted mysteries of Serapis and Isis — Plutarch's version of the story of Osiris and Isis— His explanation of it — Last stage of the mysteries . .21- CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. THE OTHER WORLD. § 1. The Under World, the River of Death, mid the Bridge of Sends. PACE Alternations of belief and unbelief touching the other world traceable at all times — In the Middle Ages as in Greece — Interpretations from nature have not differed greatly from age to age — The soul as the breath — The ' unseen place' — The nether kingdom — The funeral feast — Remains of, in Stone Age grave mounds — Reappearance of the ghost through the mouth of the grave — Personification of grave as animal (e.g. Cerberus, Fenrir) or as human being (e.g. Hades, Hel) — Journey of the soul to the West — The Egyptian notions concerning this journey — The Aryas by the Caspian — The Caspian became their Sea of Death, or, earlier still, River of Death — Oceanus succeeded to the same place — Separation between myths of River of Death and of Sea of Death — The former became more characteristic of Eastern Aryas, the latter of Western — Journeys to seek the Earthly Paradise — Svegder Fiolnersson — The Indian streams Yijaranadi and Vaiterawi — Introduction of the custom of burning the dead — The soul and the smoke of the pyre— The heavenly Bridge of Souls — The Milky Way in Vedic mythology — The Sarameyas the guardians of the bridge — The -fiTinvarf — Sirat — Asbru or Bifrbst— The Winter Street 201 § 2. The Sea of Death. Among the Indo-Europeans the Greeks firot became familiar with the sea — So among them sprang up the great epic of the Sea of Death, the Odyssey — Contrast between the Iliad and the Odyssey in respect of the worlds with which they deal — Though Homer does not consciously relate fables, the old imagery of the Sea of Death had become associated with the Mediterranean, and is thus reproduced in the Odyssey — Odysseus' voyage — Sleep Home (the Lotophagi) — Giant Land (the Cyclopes) — Wind Home (iEolus' island) — The Laestrygonians — Circe a Goddess of Death — Can only waft Odysseus to Hades — Odysseus in the kingdom of Hades — Calypso another Goddess of Death — She sends Odysseus to Paradise, i.e. the Land of the Phaeacians — The palace and garden of Alcinoiis — Odysseus' return 295 xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTEE VII. THE BELIEFS OF HEATHEN GERMANY. § 1. The Gods of the Mark. General uniformity of German heathenism wherever found— The climatic influences under which it was matured — The German village community — Life beneath trees — Worship in the forest— The mark— Description of a holy grove at Upsala in the eleventh century— Celtic worship beneath trees— The gods of the mark, Odhinn (Wuotan), Thorr (Donar), and Tyr (Zio)— Odhinn the wind— Tyr (Dyaus) superseded by Odhinn— Odhinn as the All-father— As the god of wisdom— The Counsellor (Gagnrad) and the Terrible (Yggr)— As the storm wind— The god of battles— Odhinn and the Valkyriur— Nature origin of the Valky- rie— Description of, from the lay of Volund — Brynhild or Sigrdrifa — Her first meeting with Sigurd — German gods less immortal than those of Greece and Rcuie — Preparations against the Gods'. Doom (Ragnarok)— The Urdar fount— Picture of the Norseman's world : Asgard — Yggdrasill — Heimdal — The Mid- gard Sea — The Iron Wood — Jotunheimar — Thorr 's journeys to Jotunheim — His visit to the hall of Utgar'Sloki — To Hymir — To Thrymr — We have better means of testing the Teutonic belief about the giant race than any that are afforded us in the Eddas; namely, in the poem of Beowulf — Hrothgar's palace — De- scription of Grendel — Beowulf's fight with him, and with the mother of Grendel 325 § 2. The Gods of the Homestead. There was also a peaceful side to German belief — Represented by Balder and Freyr among gods, and by the goddesses Nerthus, Frigg, Freyja — Freyr and Gerfi, the story of the anodos — Freyja and Odhur, the story of the kathodos — The image of Nerthus dragged from place to place — Elements of a mystery in this ceremonial — Traces of its survival in the Middle Ages — Rustic rites which have descended from heathen times — Easter fires— May fires — The maypole — Description of May-day fes- tivities in Stubbs' ' Anatomie of Abuses' — Witches and the Walpurffisnaoht — Dragging the plough on Shrove Tuesday or Plough Monday — The Twelve Days — The Three Kings — Super- stitions connected with Yuletide 3G8 CONTENTS. xix CHAPTER VIII. THE SHADOW OF DEATH. PAGE § 1. Visits to the Under World. The Death of Balder. Fatalism of the Teutonic creed — Frequent images of death in its mythology — Loki the personification of the funeral fire — His double nature — His giant wife, Angrbofta — His children, Fenrir, Jormungandr, and Hel, who are three personifications of death — Jotunheimar- — The out-world fire — Fire surrounding the House of Death — The ghost of Helgi Hundingsbane — SMrnir in Jotunheim — Fiolsvith and Svipdag — Odhinn's Hel-ride — The Vala at the gate of the under world — Utgar'Sloki — Thorr's visit to him in reality a descent to Helheim — Meaning of the three contests — The death of Balder — His funeral — Hernioor's ride to Helheim — Hope of Balder's returning from the Land of Shades — Norse funeral rites imitated those of Balder — Ibn Hau- kal's description of the funeral rites of the Buss — The St. John's fires in the twelfth century — At the present day, in Germany — In Brittany — In England — Reflection of the mythology of the under world in epics and popular tales — Brynhild on the Hin- darfjoll — Sigurd's leap over the flame — The Sleeping Beauty . 384 § 2. Ragnarok. Formation of the world — Ginnungagap, Hvergelmir, Muspell's-heim — The end of the world — The Fimbul-winter of three years' duration — The three cocks who proclaim the dawning of Rag- narok— The giant ships which steer across the Midgard Sea — Surt (Swart) rides over Asbru to join the giants — The opposing powers meet on Vigrid's plain — The three great combats — Burning of the world, which afterwards sinks in the sea — The rise of a new world, over which Balder is to rule — Muspilli — Helheim survived in the mediaeval purgatory — Visions of purga- tory— By St, Fursey — By Drihthelm — By Charles the Fat— St. Patrick's purgatory — Vision of Tundale ..... 410 CHAPTER IX. THE EARTHLY PARADISE. Effect of Christianity in changing men's belief concerning the other world — The Earthly Paradise, however, continued to exist rather in spite of than through its influence — Prejudice in favour : CONTENTS. PAGE of a Paradise in the West — The Western Sea still the Sea of Death — England the home of souls — Procopius' story concerning Brittia— Claudian alludes to the same myth — The ghost of Grimvald — The ferry of Carnoet — Ireland the home of souls — The Island of Saints — St. Brandan's Isle — Dante's accoimt of Ulysses' last voyage — Dante bears witness to the belief in an Earthly Paradise in the West- — Voyage of Gorm the Wise to farther Biarmia — Voyage of St. Brandan — The Island of Sheep — The Paradise of Birds — Avalon — Arthur's voyage thither — Ogier the Dane in Avalon — He revisits earth and again returns to Paradise — The Paradise Knight — Sceaf — Lohengrin . . 433 CHAPTEE X. HEATHENISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES. The heathenism of Northern Europe cannot be studied in heathen literature or heathen times alone — It is therefore desirable to give a glance at some of its lingering effects in the Middle Ages, though this can be no more than a glance— The Middle Ages ages of mythology rather than of history — The age of the Teutonic conquests in Roman territory was that which gave birth to the great German epic, the Nibelungen — The germ of the story to be traced in the second part of Beowulf, in the Volsung Saga, and iu the Nibelungen- Lied — This germ is the slaving of a dragon (worm), and thereby winning a hoard of gold — Afterwards over- laid with the story of the loves and jealousies of Brynhild (Brunhild) and Godrun (Kriemhild) — In the histories of Sigurd and Siegfried are combined the characteristic elements in the histories of Thorr and Balder — The low morality of the Nibelun- gen due to the special era in which it had its birth — The fatal enchantment of wealth which fell upon the victorious Germans — Rustic mythologies which probably existed contemporaneously with this great epic— The vitality of folk lore — Heroic myth of Arthur — The Legends of the Saints — Relics of popular mytho- logy in them — The Beast Epic—' Reineke Fuchs' — The inaugu- ration of the Middle Ages by the crowning of Charles the Great as Emperor — The establishment of German influence upon mediaeval thought was symbolised by the same event — The ' Chansons de Geste ' — Points of likeness between Charlemagne and Odhinn — Reappearance of the Valkyriur — Berchta — Roland compared to Thorr — To Siegfried — To Heimdal — His horn — Ragnarok and Roncesvalles — The last home of German heathenism now the CONTENTS. XXI PAGE home of German popular tales — The Wild Huntsman— The Stretmann — The Pied Piper of Hamelin — Van der Dekken — The real meaning of the punishment in every case — The Wandering Jew — The world of the Middle Ages — Growth of castles- Change in the character of convents — Feudalism and Catholi- cism— Feudalism had some of its roots in the ancient German village community — Catholicism likewise had some of its roots in the same distant past — But in both feudalism and Catholicism a living organism was turned to stone — The Gothic cathedral and the holy grove — Witchcraft — Transformation of Odhinn into Satan and of the Valkyriur into witches — The wood maidens in Saxo's story of Balderus and Hotherus — Witchcraft was a dis- tinct cult, originally probably of the ancient divinities — It also included a certain social organisation, and thus was opposed both to Catholicism and to feudalism — Dawn of the Renaissance era — Eifect of the crusades — Want of coined money— Mercenary soldiers — Rise of the burghers — The fabliaux — Mendicant orders — Dante the last voice of mediaeval Catholicism . . . 461 Ixdex 521 Corrigenda On page 75, lines 10 and 15, for Vrita read Witra „ „ 166, note (1), line 1 „ pathi „ patha „ „ 175, line 21, for r\yiya.To read iiydyero Add full stops to the three following lines, and after line 25 insert yeivar ap ai'710'xo'o Aibs