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SOLSTICE. SUNSET. 721
had it not seemed credible that such accounts may not have
reached the Romans from Germany itself, but been spread among
them by miscellaneous travellers tales. Strabo 3, 1 (Tsch. 1,
368) quotes from Posidonius a very similar story
of the noise
made by the setting sun in the sea between Spain and Africa :
yu-6/f&) &vvLv TOV rjXiov eV rfj Trapw/ceaviTiSi i^era tyo<pov 7rapa7r\7]-
CTL^OVTOS TOV 7re\dyovs Kara arftecnv avrov Sia TO
<7/o>?, tovavel
efjUTTiTrreiv et? TOV (BvOov. But the belief may
even then have
prevailed among Germans too ; the radiant heads, like a saint s
glory, were discussed at p. 323,, arid I will speak of this mar
vellous music of the rising and setting sun in the next chapter.
Meanwhile the explanation given of the red of morning and
evening, in the old AS. dialogue
between Saturn and Solomon
(Thorpe s Anal. p. 100), is curious : Saga me, forhwan by$ seo
sunne read on cefen ? Ic ]?e secge, for]?on heo locaiS on helle/
Saga me, hwf seined heo swa rcdde on morgene ? Ic ]?e secge,
forj^on hyre twynaS hwaaiSer heo ma3g oiSe [orig. J?e] ne mseg
]?isne middaneard eondiscinan swa hyre beboden is/ The sun
is red at even,, for that she looketh on hell ; and at morn, for
that she doubteth whether she may complete her course as she is
bidden.
Not only about the sun and moon, but about the other stars,
our heathen antiquity had plenty of lore and legend. It is a very
remarkable statement of Jornandes cap. 11, that in Sulla s time
the Goths under Dicenaeus, exclusive of planets and signs of the
zodiac, were acquainted with 344 stars that ran from east to west.
How many could we quote now by their Teutonic names ?
The vulgar opinion imagines the stars, related to each individual
man as friend or foe. 1 The constellation that shone upon his birth
takes him under its protection all his life through ; this is called
being born under a good or lucky star. From this guidance, this
secret sympathy of dominant constellations, fate can be foretold.
Conversely, though hardly from native sources,
it is said in the
Renner 10984 that every star has an angel who directs it to the
place whither it should go.
1 Swem die sternen werdent gram,
dem wirt der maue lihte alsam. Frid. 108, 3.