ON

THE SUPERNATURAL BEINGS

OF THE

Middle Ages.

HE similarity in the developement of the imaginative or poetical faculty, amongst nations the most widely separated by circumstances both of time and place, cannot fail to strike the most ordinary inquirer although it has been asserted that this is the natural result of the formation of the human mind, it may fairly be doubted whether other causes have not also tended to such a conclusion; above all, the recent examinations into the religious systems of western and northern Europe, have shewn the strong probability, that as they are at present preserved to us in the Edda of the Scandinavians, and the poems and triads of Wales, they are the fragments of some earlier and more united whole and the Teuton, the Northman, and the Celt, the farther back we are enabled to trace them, the less is their diversity of character. It must be recollected too, that the religion of these several races entered peculiarly and in a singular manner into the ordinary affairs of life and social intercourse; and a strange and mysterious power was believed

B

:

to lie hid in the rude lay of the Scald, and the wild Runic rhyme of the Drött. Specimens of this primitive poetry have fortunately been preserved, although they have of course undergone alteration, and even re-formation, as the language changed. Such are some of the grants of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs: King Athelstane's, for instance, to the Minster of Beverley :

"Als fre, mak Y the, as hert may thinke, or eye may se.'

And again, of William King' to Powlen Royden, of

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My hop and my hop lands, With all their bounds, Both up and down, From heaven to erth, From erth to hell, For thee and thine, Therein to dwell, From me and mine, to thee and thine, By a bow and a broad arrow, When I come to hunt upon Yarrow."

This language yields in elegance to the charter which commemorates the gift made by the Confessor to

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Ranulph Peperkyng and his kindlyng, Of the hundred of Chelmer and Daneing, With Hart and Hind, Doe and Buck, Fox and Cat, Hare and Brock, Wild fowl with all his flock, Partrich, fesant, hen and cock, Green and wild, Stub and stock, To Keepen and to Yeemen with all hire might, Both by day and eke by night, And houndes for to hold, Good, swifte and bolde, Four greyhounds and six braches, For hare and fox and wild cattes."

When the Doomsters met beneath the sacred ash, or the Godordsmen in the wild mountain hollows of Iceland, their decisions were given in rhyme, and in a similar manner, the most ancient laws of the Stannary Courts of Devon and Cornwall, decreed by the judge, who sat on the summit of one of the wild tors of Dartmoor, "with his back to the sun and the storm," are highly poetical. Of the same nature is that remarkable feature in the religion of the North, the belief, viz. that to attack the "wolf of

the wold" or the "griesly bear" without first challenging them, as to a duel, was illegal, and indeed unholy:a on some occasions, it was even necessary to summon a Tynewald court, and pronounce them liable to punishment in due form. If a beaver was killed, by the laws of Haco the Good, a fine of three marks was paid to the owner of the soil, "for bloodwite and hamesuken." Arising from this belief are the curious sentences passed by the courts of the middle ages for the banishment of rats, mice, and similar animals. "Three hogs," says the Burgundian Chronicle, "were hung for killing a child," and the Lord of Tilchatel required letters patent of Philip le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy, for the purpose of being allowed to set up a gallows to hang a sow, guilty of crime, and detained for judgment above five years. In the diocese of Autun the rats were excommunicated for the destruction they had committed, although they were allowed counsel and were fairly tried. Between 1522 and 1530 there were similar cases: even the caterpillars and snails of Grenoble were proceeded against with legal forms; and Gaspart Bailly, in the sixteenth century wrote a treatise, “Of the Proceedings to be taken against Animals," wishing to have them defended by Curators. An examination of the Eyrbiggia and Hervarar Sagas, will shew how completely, in that early stage of society, the most ordinary events of life were considered as surrounded in some peculiar way with mystery, and looked on with awe. On all occasions of any importance, as at marriages, births, funerals, the setting out on a voyage, or the return home, the sorceress,' or wise woman,' had her own place at the board, attended with all the appropriate ceremony, and regarded with all the dread accompanying those who were believed to have

a Saga of Finboga hinom Rama.

b Chronicon Burgundiense.-Tristan le Voyageur.

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direct communication with an unseen world. One of the mort remarkable instances occurs in the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefn; at a great yule feast of Thorkell's, a person of considerable consequence at Herjulfsness, in Greenland, a certain sorceress, named the "lïtel völva" was sent for to declare the fortunes of those who next summer were to set out on exploring expeditions to Newfoundland and those parts of North America which had recently been discovered by the Northmen. A lofty seat was prepared for her, having a cushion stuffed with hen's feathers. On her arrival, late in the evening, she was dressed in a blue kirtle with fillets hanging down, having a border of small stones; she had small balls of glass hung round her neck, and on her head a black cap of lambskin lined with white catskin; in her hand was a staff, with a brass top, set with stones; she had a girdle of dry bark, from whence a large purse of skins depended, in which she kept her magical utensils: there was prepared for her pottage of goat's milk, and the hearts of the different animals killed for supper; like the fierce sorceress Maimuna, she sung

"A low, sweet, unintelligible song.”

wherewith to charm the spirits of the air, or tutelary genii, "vast numbers of them," says the Saga, "crowded around to hear," and by their aid she gave answers to the questions proposed.

These instances have been brought forward for the purpose of shewing how completely the religion of the North was bound up with the ordinary habits and modes of thinking of its votaries. At first sight, therefore, it would not appear improbable, that such thoughts, feelings, and creeds

c Historia Thorfinni Karlsefnii:-Antiq. Americ. p. 111.

should continue to exercise strong influence long after Christianity had been introduced, and that the origin of the

"Elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves."

is to be sought in the airy train which came over the

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hazy sea" with Hu the mighty, and the "crowned phantoms" which thronged the illimitable halls of Valhalla. The first point therefore to be observed will be the remnants of these mythologies which are to be traced in the Legends and Superstitions of the Middle Ages. "And first," as Master John Heywood saith, "first of the fayërie, and of them some briefe stories."

The descriptions which we have recorded of the "pleasaunt londe of faërie," are at best indistinct and unsatisfactory; they are sufficient, however, to identify it with the famous "Flathinnis," or "Green Isle of the West" of the Celts, and perhaps the Asgard of the Northern nations. Long and difficult was the journey to these shadowy regions; but one remarkable peculiarity constantly recurs, the passing, namely, through a dark and narrow cavern or hole of a rock. Thus when Elidorus, a monk of Swansea, as we are told by Giraldus Cambrensis, when a child, was once in a dark hollow, overhung by the bank of a river, he suddenly perceived two little men, of pigmy stature, who offered to lead him to a country full of pleasures and delights he assented, and followed them through a long subterraneous passage into a most beautiful country, adorned with rivers and meadows, woods and plains, but obscure, and not illuminated with the full light of the sun all the days were cloudy and the nights extremely dark, on