Asgard and the Gods
The Tales and Traditions of Our Northern Ancestors
In the Black Forest, a few miles from Lake Mummel, whither we have once already led our reader, lay a village; the inhabitants were wont to delight themselves on the merry Maydays with joyous game and dance.
To these festivities there often came a strange maiden, who joined in the gay country dance. A string of pearls bound up her hair, and another hung round her neck; a green silken robe draped her graceful figure. Her features were so exquisitely lovely, that the hearts of the young fellows beat higher in their breasts as they led the maiden to the dance.
She seemed to favour one Michael Stauf more than all the rest. He was the strongest lad in wrestling and in boxing, and the most expert dancer. The old folk, who watched the games of the young people, said they had never seen a more comely pair upon the dancing green; however, when the clock struck eleven, the young girl always left the dancers, and although many a lad followed her eagerly, she had disappeared into the darkness of the forest before he could come up with her.
Yet once, as Michael followed her, he discovered traces of her footsteps; he hastened after her, and overtook her. They walked on together side by side, until she led him by a path which he had never seen before, although the wood was fully known to him, since he had been born in it.
After a while, they reached the lake. He asked her, if she would return with him to his farm, and be his wife. She answered, she would ask her father, who was a strict and severe man, but she feared he would not allow such a union.
With these words she sprang into the water and disappeared from his sight.
Michael now saw that she was a water-nixie; but his heart still clung to her, and all his thoughts were how he should make her his own.
The merry day of festivity was over; work in the fields began, and left Michael little time for pondering on marriage. But when winter came, and his leisure hours were many, his imagination was constantly engaged in picturing to himself how happy he would be if he could only make the lovely maid in the green robe the mistress of his farm. Day and night he dreamed of her, and all the pleasure that he once had taken in games of cards and dice forsook him, and he never now visited the noisy company in the village inn, where formerly he had rarely failed. And in the spinning room he was never seen, and the spinsters were greatly troubled in their minds why the rich Michael no more visited them.
Anxiously, full of longing, he awaited the month of May, and when at last it came round he was the first upon the dancing-green. His hopes were not deceived, the maiden of the lake appeared as before, and danced and chatted with him; when the hour of eleven sounded from the bell, she accepted his company on the homeward road. Yet when he spoke of his marriage plans she became sad.
"My father," she said, "will allow of no union with mortals, and he is very strict; he allows no disobedience."
"A woman shall leave father or mother, and cleave unto her husband," he cried; "if thou wilt, we will at once return, get married, and when thou art in my home, we will see who can take thee away against both our wills."
"Hush," she said, frightened, "lest my father hear thy words. Dost thou not see the springs and brooks around us? They are all in his service; they would swell up to furious torrents, and overwhelm us, if he bade them. Do not arouse his anger. He will have no connection with mortal men, for they have nicknamed him Duck-bill, because he has a nose of horn, like all men with us. Yet he is friendlily disposed towards thee, and sends thee this ring, with a great carbuncle in it, which will indicate to thee where all the treasures of the earth lie hid."
With these words she put the jewel on his finger. The stone flashed like the rays of the sun, and when he turned it towards the ground, he saw in the depths below his feet veins of gold and silver, which ran through the earth like frozen brooks.
"A wonderful sight," he said, "but I desire no other treasure than thee; I am rich enough already for us two to live in peace and plenty."
They had come to the shore of the lake, and after a hurried farewell, she disappeared into the flood.
Michael was a bold and fearless lad. If he got an idea into his head, nothing could get it out again. He would have liked to have had the water-king before him, that he might fell him to the ground. As this was not possible, however, he had to content himself with brooding on his way home over a plan by which he might bring the beautiful girl to fall in with his ideas.
On the following day she came at the usual time, and was more beautiful and more friendly to him than ever. Towards evening he slunk away from the dancing-green and climbed up the church spire, and there put the hands of the clock a whole hour back. When he returned he hurled a young fellow away who was leading the lake-damsel to the dance, and carried her off himself, as though he would dance his life away. He did not become tired, and she too seemed of like mood; the pipers grew blue in the face, the fiddlers' arms grew weary, but they dared not cease: he threatened as he rushed past them, he promised a threefold reward.
At last the clock struck eleven. Then the maiden escaped from his arms, and started off for the wood. He followed her, and they had hardly gone a few paces when they heard the clock in a neighbouring village strike twelve.
The maiden was horrified, and trembled in all her limbs. He told her what he had done, and vowed that she should be his that very night. Yet all his pressure, all his arguing, was in vain; she only hurried her steps, weeping and lamenting.
At length they stood on the bank of the watery mirror, over which the full moon played. It was in vain that he sought to hold her back; she whispered only softly, -
"Take heed what happeneth; if a milk-white flood ariseth from the lake, I am saved, and will be thine; but if a blood-stained one, then I am lost."
Scarcely had she said these words than she sprang forward, and sank beneath the waters. Where she had disappeared a funnel-shaped cavity remained, from the edge of which wave-rings extended over the whole lake.
Michael looked upon the surface of the water in breathless expectation, and now, now there rises up from the cavity not milk-white but a blood-red stream, and a cry strikes his ear, entering his heart like the thrust of a dagger.
"Fiendish Neck!" he cried. "Murderer of thy child! take back thy magic ring, thou wicked Duck-bill!"
And he threw the jewel against a rock in the lake, so that it flew into a thousand pieces.
As soon as the fragments touched the water it began to foam and bubble, as if a subterranean fire were causing it to seethe. It swelled and swelled, higher and higher, and in the middle a monstrous crested wave rose frothing up. The lake heaved, and its depths raged fiercely. It overflowed its banks; the monster wave bore the struggling youth along with it, in spite of his frantic efforts. Far and wide did the growing waters work devastation, and never were either the rich Michael or the Maiden of the Lake seen again.
Like this story, there are very numerous others, whose scenes are laid by springs, brooks, rivers, and lakes. They are told in England, Germany, in the Slavonic, and in the Romance lands. Also from classic antiquity we have received the Naiads, River-gods, Sirens, etc.
Another legend, very popular in Germany, we give, translated into verse. Every one who has travelled up the Rhine has been shown the Loreley Rock, and been told the superstitions connected with it.
LEGEND OF THE LORELEY
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Unearthly music floats upon the air, That is the siren-song of Loreley; See yonder bark by nervous arm impelled, That strange, weird melody enchains his soul, More swiftly glides the bark, the rock is near, The reef-rocks rise, alas! he sees them not, |
The story of the "Old Man of the Sea" is perhaps a recollection of the Northern Ögir, who, if not the king was at least the highest and greatest of the water spirits.
Ögir, i.e. the Terrible, like his brothers Kari, ruler of the air, and Logi, ruler of fire, was a son of the old giant Forniot. Judging from the etymology of the word, he seems to be identical with the Grecian Okeanos, but possessing a more distinct personality, for the Greeks probably only knew the ocean from the stories of Phoenician sailors, while the Northern skippers boldly faced the mighty sea and its terrors in their weak vessels, which they called dragons or snakes. Dreadful Ögir was married to Bar, who, like her husband, used to drag men down into the deep and bury them in the sand, or who, according to other accounts, received the souls of those who died at sea, as Hel did of those who died a "straw death" on land. They had nine daughters who afterwards became the mothers of Heimdal. The name of the Ögishelm, i.e. Helmet of Terror, comes from the King of the ocean. It was believed that the very sight of it filled the beholder with such terror that he would let his weapons fall as though he were paralyzed by magic art. The front of this helmet was adorned with a boar's head which yawned open-mouthed at the enemy. The Anglo-Saxons and Esthonians of the Baltic wore helmets of this sort, and the latter people believed that these head-pieces made the wearer either invisible or impervious to wounds. This reminds us of the dusk cap in the Nibelungen Lay, whilst the boar's head puts us in mind of Freyer's Gullinbursti. The Ögishelm, judging from the formation of the word and from its meaning, seems to have been identical with the Ögis shield of Zeus, for this was by no means a goat's skin as people said later on, but was a weapon arousing feelings of terror. Zeus sometimes lent it to his son Apollo, who showed it to the enemy and made them fly in fear. The shield of Pallas Athene with the Medusa's head had much the same effect.
Ögir, the terrible king of the ocean, did not appear armed with the boar's helmet in the northern poems, but he must have worn it in the old days, the records of which are lost. He was milder of aspect than of yore, and although of giant race, he lived in friendship with the Ases. He was also represented as sitting on a rock, playing on a harp or a shell. No sooner was Ögir's music heard than the waves piled themselves mountain high, and flung themselves against each other with a wild roar, so that the earth trembled and the heavens threatened to split in twain.
The vassals of Ögir were numerous, mermaids and sprits of all kinds were subject to him, and there are a great many interesting tales regarding them in every land. The stories of the magical music of the Necks are probably founded on the melodious sounds made by the water when falling over rocks or by the waves of the sea when confined within some cavern, such as Fingal's cave, etc. Nixies also sought the love of man, for thus and thus alone could they obtain the object of their desire, a loving immortal soul. The tragic turn which these stories generally take, almost seems to show that the possession of a soul was not happiness. Fouqué's "Undine" is one of the most beautiful of these tales.
Although the water spirits had no souls, they yet were filled with a longing for redemption and resurrection. There is a Christian tale which is a good illustration of this idea. Two children were once playing upon the sea-shore. A merry Neck was seated on a rock in front of them surrounded by water, and as he sat, he played on his harp so cheerily that it seemed to the children as if the very waves were dancing to his tune.
Then the elder boy called out to him jestingly: "Play on, merry sprite, play on; thou hast no hope of redemption or of resurrection."
"No hope!" wailed the Neck, beginning to play such sad music out of his sorrowful heart that the waves ceased to dance and the children felt quite miserable.
They went home and told their father, who was a Christian priest, what had happened. He chid them for their forwardness, bade them at once return to the Neck and tell him that there was hope of redemption and resurrection for him, for the Saviour had said: "I am not come into the world to judge the world, but that the world through me might be saved."
The boys did as their father told them. They found the Neck still weeping bitterly. But when he heard the message of glad tidings, he smiled through his tears and touched the strings of his harp making them play mighty chords, and it seemed as though the heavenly hosts were singing to the music.
"The Saviour did not come to judge the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."
In this simple legend we see the triumph of Christianity over heathenism. It is sad that this aspect of Christianity is not always recognised by those who are called upon to teach its principles. But Charlemagne's Saxon war, the Inquisition, and other more recent events show how much the fundamental idea of its teaching has been misunderstood.