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WATEK. 583
speaking of a worship of nature by our ancestors, which, is indeed
supported by early testimonies, but these are often perverted
into an argument against the heathen having had any gods.
The gods stood and fell from other causes.
Water the limpid, flowing, welling up or running dry ; Fire
the illuminating, kindled or quenched ; Air unseen by the eye,
but sensible to ear and touch ; Earth the nourishing, out of
which everything grows, and into which all that has grown dis
solves; these, to mankind from the earliest time, have appeared
sacred and venerable ; ceremonies, transactions and events in
life first receive their solemn consecration from them. Working
as they do with never-resting activity and force on the whole of
nature, the childlike man bestows on them his veneration, without
any particular god necessarily intervening, though
he too will
commonly appear in combination with it. Even to-day the
majesty and might of these eldest born of things
awakes our
how could antiquity have forborne its astonishment
admiration ;
and adoration ? Such a worship is simpler, freer and more dig
nified than a senseless crouching before pictures and idols.
All the elements are cleansing, healing, atoning, and the proof
by ordeal rests mainly upon them ; but man had to secure them
in their purest form and at the most seasonable times.
We will consider them one by one.
1. WATER. 1
Passages proving that the Alamanns and Franks worshipped
rivers and fountains are cited at pp. 100-1 and in the Appendix. 3
1 Goth, vato, ON. vatn, OHG. wazar, OS. watar, AS. water, Dan. vand, Slav.
vodd, Lith. wandu, Lett, uhdens, Gr. vdwp ; then, corresp. inform to Lat. aqua, but
meaning fluvius, Goth, ahva, OHG. aha, AS. ed, ON. a ; the Goth, vegs, OHG.
wdc wages = fluctus, flow.
2 When here and elsewhere I use Bp. Burchard s Coll. of Decrees as authority
for German superstitions, I do not forget that in most cases (not all)
it is drawn
from councils not held in Germany, but in Gaul, Italy or Spain. Yet, if we con
sider that German nations had been spreading themselves all over those countries
down to the 8-9th cent., that the AS. and Lombard Laws, to say nothing of
Capitularies, declaim equally with those Decrees of Council against water, tree and
stone worship, that Agathias and Gregory of Tours expressly charge the Alamanns
and Franks with such worship these ; superstitions are seen to be something com
mon to the Italian, Gallic and German nationalities, of which none of them can be
acquitted. Some have tried to make out from Agathias, that our forefathers had
a mere nature-worship, and no gods. It would be about as uncritical to do what
is to some extent the reverse, and suspect Agathias and Gregory of having adopted
their assertions out of church-prohibitions that were never meant for Germany at
VOL. II. L