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CEEATION. 567
Godfrey,, educated at Bamberg, and chaplain to German kings,
must have heard in Germany the doctrine of the eight parts he
;
brings forward only a portion of it, such as he could reconcile
with his other system of the four elements ; he rather compares
particular parts of the body with natural objects, than affirms
that those were created out of these.
Not one of the four compositions has any direct connexion
with another, as their peculiarities prove; but that they all rest
on a common foundation follows at once from the ocfco pondera,
achta wendem, aht teilen/ among which the alleged correspond
ences are distributed. They shew important discrepancies in
the details, and a different order is followed in each. Only three
items go right through the first three accounts, namely, that lime
(loam, earth) was taken for the flesh, dew for the* sweat, clouds
for the mind. But then the MHG. and Frisian texts travel much
further together ;
both of them make bone spring out of stone,
hair (locks) from grass, eyes from the sun, blood from the sea
(water), none of which appear in the AS. Peculiar to the MHG.
poem is the derivation of the veins from herbs (wiirzen), and to
the AS. writer that of the blood from fire, of tears from salt, of
the various colours in the eye from flowers, 1 of cold breath from
wind, and of sense from grace; which last, though placed
beyond doubt by the annexed translation, seems an error not
withstanding, for it was purely out of material objects that
creation took place ; or can the meaning be, that man s will is
first conditioned by the grace of God ? Fitly enough, tears are
likened to salt (salsae lacrimae) ; somewhat oddly the colours of
the eye to flowers, though it is not uncommon to speak of an
opening flower as an eye. The creation of hearts out of wind
is found in the Frisian account alone, which is also the only one
that adds, that into this mixture of eight materials God blew his
holy breath, and out of Adam s rib created his companion Eve
[the MHG. has :
(
imparted his breath ] .
2
1
Variegated eyes are the oculi varii, Prov. vairs huelhs (Kayn. sub v. var),
O.Fr. vairs iex (Eoquef. sub v.). We find in OHG. bluom/e/t, and gevehet nah
tien bluomon, Graff 3, 426 ; the AS. fdgung above.
2
Well, here is already our fifth version, from a Paris MS. of the 15fch century
(Paulin Paris, MSS. francais de la bibl. du roi 4, : 207) Adam fu forme ou champ
damacien, et fu fait si comme nous trouvons de huit parties de choses : du lim-m de
la terre, de la mer, du soleil, des nues, du vent, des pierres, du saint esprit, et de la
clarte du monde. De la terre fu la char, de la mer fu le sang, du soleil furent les
VOL. II. TT