TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

214 FRO.
leer (Theoderic, Derrick with the boar) goes his round on Christmas-
eve night, and people are careful to get all implements of husbandry
within doors, else the boar will trample them about, and make
them unfit for use. 1 In the same Christmas season, dame Holda or
Berhta sallied out, and looked after the ploughs and spindles,
motherly goddesses instead of the god, Frouwa instead of Fr6.
With this again are connected the formae aprorum worn as charms
by the remote Aestyans, who yet have the ritus habitusque
Suevorum . Tacitus Germ. 45 says, these figures represent the
worship of the mater deum/ of a female Fro, i.e., of Freyja ; and,
what is conclusive on this point, the Edda (Ssem. 114 a
) assigns the
Gulliribursti to Freyja, though elsewhere he belongs to Freyr (see
Suppl.). Anglo-Saxon poetry, above all, makes mention of these
loar-badges, these gold
swine. When Constantine sees a vision in
his sleep, he is said to be eoforcumble be]?eaht (apri signo tectus
El. 76 ; it must have been fastened as an auspicious omen over th
head of the bed. Afterwards again, in the description of Elene
to the east :
stately progress J?eer waes on eorle eSgesyne grimheli
manig, cenlic eoforcumlul (tune in duce apparuit horrida cassis, ex
cellens apri forma), El. 260. The poet is describing a decoration o
the old heathen time, cumbul is the helmet s crest, and the king*
helmet appears to be adorned with the image of a boar. Severa
passages in Beowulf place the matter beyond a doubt : coforlfa
scionon ofer hleor beran gehroden golde, fan and f^rheard ferhwearde
heold (apri formam videbantur supra genas gerere auro comptam
quae varia igneque durata vitam tuebatur), 605 ; het Jm inberaD
eofor hedfodsegn, heaSosteapne helm (jussit afferri aprum, capitis
sivin ofer helm(
signum, galeam in pugna prominentem), 4300 ;
(sus supra galea), 2574 ;
swin ealgylden, eofor irenheard (sus aureus
aper instar ferri dums), 2216, i.e., a helmet placed on the funera
pile as a costly jewel ; helm befongen Fredwrdsnum ( OHG. Fro-
reisanum), swa hine fyrndagum worhte waepna smi5, besette swinlicum,
j?eet hine siSJmn no brond ne beadoinecas bitan ne meahtan
(galea ornata Frohonis signis, sicut earn olim fabricaverat armorum
faber, circumdederat earn apri formis, ne gladius ensesve laedere
earn possent), 2905 ;
as a sacred divine symbol, it was to protect in
1
Staring, in the journal Mnemosyne, Leyden 1829. 1, 323 ; quoted thence
in Westendorp s Noordsche mythologie, Dordrecht 1830. p. 495.