TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

252 GODDESSES.
terror sanctaque ignorantia, quid sit illud, quod tantum perituri
vident (see Suppl.). 1
This beautiful description agrees with what we find in other
notices of the worship of a godhead to whom peace and fruitfulness
were attributed. In Sweden it was Freyr, son of Niordr, whose
curtained car went round the country in spring, with the people
all praying and holding feasts (p. 213); but Freyr is altogether
like his father, and he again like his namesake the goddess Nerthus.
The spring-truces, harvest-truces, plough-truces, fixed for certain
seasons and implements of husbandry, have struck deep roots in
our German law and land-usages. Wuotan and Doiiar also make
their appearance in their wains, and are invoked for increase to the
crops and kindly rain ; on p. 107, anent the car of a Gothic god
whose name Sozomen withholds, I have hinted at Nerthus.
The interchange of male and female deities is, luckily for us
here, set in a clear light, by the prayers and rhymes to Wuotan as god
of harvest, which we have quoted above (p. 155 seq.), being in other
Low German districts handed over straight to a goddess. When
the cottagers, we are told, are mowing rye, they let some of the
stalks stand, tie flowers among them, and when they have finished
work, assemble round the clump left standing, take hold of the ears
of rye, and shout three times over :
Fru Gaue, haltet ju fauer, Lady Gaue, keep you some fodder,
diit jar up den wagen,
dat ander jar up der kare !
This year on the waggon,
2 Next year on the wheelbarrow.
Whereas Wode had better fodder promised him for the next year,
Dame Gaue seems to receive notice of a falling off in the quantity
of the gift presented. In both cases I see the shyness of the
Christians at retaining a heathen sacrifice : as far as words go, the
old gods are to think no great things of themselves in future.
In the district about Hameln, it was the custom, when a reaper
in binding sheaves passed one over, or left anything standing in the
Alaric s funeral (Jornand. cap. 29), or those who have hidden a treasure, Landn.
5, 12 (see Suppl.).
1
Speaking of Nerthus, we ought to notice Ptolemy s Nertereans, though he
places them in a very different locality from that occupied by the races who
revere Nerthus in Tacitus.
2 Braunschw. anz. 1751, p. 900. Hannov. gel. anz. 1751, p. 662 [is not
haltet a mistake for hal and something else ?] In the Altenburg country
they call this harvest-custom building a barn. Arch, des henneb. vereins 2, 91.