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CHAPTER XXVI.
SOULS.
Languages treat the living life-giving soul as a delicate feminine
essence : Goth, sdivala, akin to saivs the sea, an undulating fluid
force, OHG. seola, sela, MHG. sele, NHG. seek, AS. sdwl, ON.
sal, Swed. Dan. sjdl, and hence Finn, sielu; Gr. ^w^r; ;
anima, Fr. dme, 0. Fr. sometimes arme, Span, alma ;
Lat. Ital.
B-uss. Serv.
dusha, Slov. duzha, Boh. dwse, Pol. dusza, Lith. duszia, Lett.
dwelisele. They all distinguish it from the masc. breath and
spirit, ave/jios, which goes in and out more palpably; offcen the
two names are next door to each other, as Lat. animus and
anima, Slav. dukJi and dusha. 1
And this intimate connexion may be recognised in the myths
too. The soul freed from the fetters of the body is made to re
semble those airy spirit forms of chap. XVII (conf. pp. 439.
630). It hovers with the same buoyancy, appears and vanishes,
often it assumes some definite shape in which it is condemned
to linger for a time (see Suppl.).
It is a graceful fancy which makes the departing soul either
break into blossom as a flower, or fly up as a bird. Both these
notions are connected with metamorphosis into plants and animals
in general, and are founded on the doctrine of metempsychosis
so prevalent in early antiquity. Immortality was admitted in this
sense, that the soul still existed, but had to put up with a new
body.
Its passing into a flower I can only infer. A child carries
home a bud, which the angel had given him in the wood ; when
In Rhesas
the rose blooms, the child is dead (Kinder-leg, no. 3).
dainos p. 307, a rosebud is the soul of the dead youth. The Lay
of Kunzifal makes a blackthorn shoot up out of the bodies of slain
heathens, a white flower by the heads of fallen Christians, Karl
] Where soul stands for life, vitality, a neuter word is used, OHG. ferah, MHG.
verch, AS. feorh, ON. Ji or ; but we saw (p. 793), how from vita and plos there arose
the sum total of all that lives, the world, Goth, fairhvus.