TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

PRIESTESSES. 97
their blood in the sacrificial cauldron, appear as frightful witches by
the side of the Bructerian Maid ; together with divination they
exercise the priestly office. Their minutely described apparel, we
may suppose, resembled that of the priests.
While in Tac. Germ. 40 it is a priest that attends the goddess,
and guides the team of kine in her car ; in the North conversely,
we have handmaids waiting upon gods. From a remarkable story
in the 01 af Tryggv. saga (Fornm. sog. 2, 73 seq.), which the
Christian composer evidently presents in an odious light, we at all
events gather that in Sweden a virgin attended the car of Freyr on
its travels among the people : Frey var fengin til j?ionosto Jcona
ung ok MS (into Frey s service was taken a woman young and
fair), and she is called kona Freys. Otherwise a priestess is
called gyffja, Jiofgy&ja, corresponding to goSi, hofgoSi ;
l see TuriSr
hofgyoja, Islend. sog. 1, 205. ]?orlaug gyftja, Landn. 1, 21.
Steinvor and FridgerSr, Sagabibl. 1, 99. 3, 268.
But the Norse authorities likewise dwell less on the priestly
functions of women, than on their higher gift, as it seems, of
divination: Perita augurii femina, Saxo Gram. 121. Valdamarr
konungr atti moftur miok gamla ok orvasa, sva at hun la 1 rekkju,
en J?o var hun framsyn af Fitons anda, sem margir heiftnir menn
(King V. had a mother very old and feeble, so that she lay in bed,
and there was she seized by a spirit of Python, like many heathen
folk), Fornm. sog. 1, 76. Of like import seems to be a term which
borders on the notion of a higher and supernatural being, as in the
case of Veleda ; and that is dis (nympha, numen). It may be not
accidental, that the spakona in several instances bears the proper
name Thordis (Vatnsd. p. 186 seq. Fornm. sog. 1, 255. Islend. sog.
1, 140. Kormakkss. p. 204 seq.) ; dis however, a very early word,
which I at one time connected with the Gothic filudeisei (astutia,
dolus), appears to be no other than our OHG. itis, OS. idis, AS.
ides (femina, nympha). As famous and as widely spread was the
term volvo, 2 which first denotes any magic-wielding soothsayeress
(Vatnsd. p. 44. Fornm. sog. 3, 214. Fornald. sog. 2, 165-6. 506),
and is afterwards attached to a particular mythic Volva, of whom
one of the oldest Eddie songs, the Voluspd, treats. Either volu
1 Can our gotte, gothe, goth for godmother (taufpathin, susceptrix e sacro
fonte) be the survival of an old heathen term 1 Morolt 3184 has gode of the
baptized virgin.
a The Slavic volkhv magus. TRANS.
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