TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

WODAN. 151
It is therefore not without significance, that also the wanderings
of the Herald of gods among men, in whose hovels he now and
those of
then takes up his lodging, are parallelled especially by
OSinn and Hcenir, or, in Christian guise,
of God and St. Peter,
Our olden times tell of Wuotan s wanderings, his waggon, his
way, his retinue (duce Mercuric, p. 128). We know that in the
very earliest ages the seven stars forming the Bear in the northern
sky were thought of as a four-wheeled waggon, its pole being formed
by the three stars that hang.
downwards :
"ApKTOV 0\ TfV KCLL afJUa^CLV 67Ti/C\r)(rLV Ka\OV(Tt,V. II. 18, 487.
Od. 5, 273. So in OHG-. glosses : ursa wagen, Jun. 304 ; in MHG.
Jiimelwagen, Walth. 54,
3. 1
lierwagen Wackern. Ib. 1. 772, 26.
The clearest explanation is given by Notker cap. 64 : Selbiu ursa
1st pi demo norde mannelichemo zeichenhaftiu fone dien siben
glaten sternon, die aller der liut wagen heizet, unde nan einemo
gloccun joche 2
gescaffen sint, unde ebenmichel sint, ane (except)
des mittelosten. The Anglo-Saxons called the constellation wcenes
pisl (waggon s thill, pole), or simply fiisl, but carles ween also is
quoted in Lye, the Engl. charles wain, Dan. karlsvogn, Swed.
Jearlwagn. Is carl here equivalent to lord, as we have herrenwagen
in the same sense ? or is it a transference to the famous king of
Christian legend ? But, what concerns us here, the constellation
appears to have borne in heathen times the full name of Wuotanes
wagan, after the highest god of heaven. The Dutch language has
evidence of this in a MS. of as late as 1470 : ende de poeten in
heure fablen heetend (the constell.) ourse, dat is te segghene
Woenswaghen. And elsewhere : dar dit teekin Arcturus, dat wy
heeten Woonswaglien, up staet ; het sevenstarre ofde Woenswaghen
conf. Huydec. proeven 1, 24. I have nowhere met with plaustrum
Mercurii, nor with an ON. 05ins vagn ; only vagn d himnum.
It is a question, whether the great open highway in heaven to
which people long attached a peculiar sense of sacredness, and
perhaps allowed this to eclipse the older fancy of, a milky way
(caer Gwydion, p. 150) was not in some districts called Wuotanes
wee or strdza (way or street). Wodenesweg, as the name of a place,
stood its ground in Lower Saxony, in the case of a village near
Magdeburg, Ch. ad ann. 973 in Zeitschr. fur archivk. 2, 349 ; an
Roman de Ron.
1
Septentrion, qne nos char el del apelon ;
2
Crossbeam, such as bells (glocken) are suspended on; conf. ans, as, p. 125.