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CHAPTER XXII.
SKY AND STAKS.
The visible heavens have in many ways left their mark on the
heathen faith. Not only do gods, and the spirits who stand
next them, have their dwelling in the sky, and get mixfc up with
the stars, but earthly beings too, after their dissolution, are
transported thither, and distinguished heroes and giants shine
as constellations. From the sky the gods descend to earth,
along the sky they make their journeys, and through the sky
they survey unseen the doings of men. And as all plants turn
to the light of heaven, as all souls look up to heaven, so do the
smoke of sacrifice and the prayers of mankind mount upwards.
Heaven covers earth, and our word himmel comes from
the root hima (tego, involvo, vestio, Gramm. 2, 55 ; conf. Lith.
dangus coelum, from dengiu tego; OHG. himilezi laquear). The
Goths and Old Norsemen agree in preferring the form himins,
Mminn, and most other Teutons himil ; even Swed. Norw. Dan.
have himmel. The Saxon race has moreover two terms peculiar
to itself: one is OS. hebhan, hevan, AS. heofon, Engl. heaven,
and still in Lower Saxony and Westphalia, heben, lieven, haven,
hawen. I have endeavoured to make out the area over which
this name extends (Gramm. I, xiv.). The Frisians did not use
it, for the N. and W. Fris. patois of to-day owns to nothing but
himmel/ 1 Nor does the Netherl. dialect know it; but it is
found in Westphalia, in L. Saxony as far as Holstein, and beyond
the Elbe in Mecklenburg and Pomerania. The AS. and Engl.
are wholly destitute of the word himel ; OS., like the present
LS. and Westph., employs both terms alike, yet apparently so
as to designate by hevan more the visible heaven, and by himil
the supersensual. Alb. of Halberstadt (ed. 1545, 145 b ) uses
1
Himel, Lapekoerfen Gabe scroar, Dimter 1834, p. 101. 103. hemmel, Hansens
Geizhalz, Sonderbg. 1833. p. 148. himel, Friesche wetten 348. himul, As. 274.