Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

HOESES. 661
hedge-stakes; also that if at night their horses were ridden
to exhaustion by the night-hag or leeton, they put a horse s head
among the fodder in the crib, and this would curb the spirit s
power over the beast. Very likely the superstitious burying of
a dead head in the stable (I, 815) means that of a horse, 1 conf.
Chap. XXXVIII,, Nightmare. In Holland they hang a horse s
head over pigstyes (Westendorp p. 518), in Mecklenburg it is
placed under a sick man s pillow (Jahrb. 2, 128). We saw
the horse s head thrown into the Midsummer fire with a view to
magical effects (p. 618) .
2
Praetorius s account is enough to shew that Slavs agreed with
Germans in the matter o horse- worship. But older and weightier
witnesses are not wanting. Dietmar of Merseburg (6, 17. p. 812)
reports of the Luitizers,
i.e. Wilzes :
infodiunt, quo sortibus emissis [imm. ?]
( Terram cum tremore
rerum certitudinem du-
biarum perquirant. Quibus finitis, cespite viridi eas operientes,
equum, qui maximus inter alios habetur et ut sacer ab his veneratur,
super fixas in terram duorum cuspides hastilium inter se
transmissorum supplici obsequio ducunt, et praemissis sortibus
quibus id explicavere prius, per hunc quasi
divinum denuo
augurantur ; et si in duabus his rebus par omen apparet, factis
completur ; sin autem, a tristibus populis hoc prorsus omittitur/
The Vita beati Ottonis episcopi bambergensis, composed by an
unknown contemporary (Canisius iii. 2, 70), relates more fully of
the Pomeranians, whom Otto converted A.D. 1124: Habebant
caballum mirae magnitudinis, et pinguern, nigri coloris, et acrem
valde. Iste toto anni tempore vacabat, tantaeque fuit sanetitatis
ut nullum dignaretur sessorem ; habuitque unum de quatuor
sacerdotibus templorum custodem diligentissimum. Quando ergo
itinere terrestri contra hostes aut praedatum ire cogitabant,
eventum rei hoc niodo solebant praediscere. Hastae novem dis-
ponebantur humo, spatio unius cubiti ab invicem separatae.
Strato ergo caballo atque frenato, sacerdos, ad quern pertinebat
custodia illius, tentum freno per jacentes hastas transversum
ducebat ter, atque reducebat. Quod si pedibus inoffensis hastisque
1 Conf. Fornald. sog. 2, 168. 300, what is said of Faxi s hross-haus.
2 Why should the monks in the abbey have a caput caballinum ? EeinharJus
3, 2032. 2153. Does the expression span oat of a dead horae s head in Burcaid,
Waldis 4, 2, mean enchanted ?