TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

NORNI. WALACHURIUN. 417
the fatae seem apt to run into that sense of matres and matronae, 1
which among Teutons we find attaching more to divine than to
semi-divine beings. In this respect the fays have something
higher in them than our idises and norns, who in lieu of it stand
out more warlike.
4. WALACHUEIUN (VALKYRJOR).
Yet, as the fatae are closely bound up with fatum the pro
nouncing of destiny, vaticination the kinship of the norns asserts itself all the same.
fays to the
Now there was no sort of destiny
that stirred the spirit of antiquity more strongly than the issue of
battles and wars: it is significant, that the same urlac, urlouc
expresses both fatum and bellum also (Graff 2, 96. Gramm. 2, 790),
and the idisi forward or hinder the fight. This their office we have
to look into more narrowly.
From Caesar (De B. Gall. 1, 50) we already learn the practice
of the Germani, ut matresfamilias eorum soriibus et vaticinationibus
declararent, utruin proelium committi ex usu esset, necne . Mis
tresses of families practised augury, perhaps women selected for the
purpose, of superior and godlike repute like Veleda.
Let us bear in mind, which gods chiefly concerned themselves
with the event of a battle : O&inn and Freyja draw to themselves
all those who fall in fight, and Oolnn admits them to his heavenly
abode (pp. 133, 305). This hope, of becoming after death members
of the divine community, pervades the religion of the heathen.
Now the ON. valr, AS. wcel, OHG. wal t denotes the carnage of the
battle-field, the sum of the slain : to take possession of this val,
to gather it in, was denominated kiosa, kiesen, to choose ;
this verb
seems a general technical term for the acceptance of any sacrifice
made to a higher being. 2 But OSinn, who has the siges kilr (choosing
die ander schnatzelt chride, the other cards . . . . ?
die drit schnit haberstrau. the third cuts oaten straw.
bhiiet mer Gott mis chindli an ! God keep my childie too !
Schnatzeln is, I suppose, to wind ? = [snast wick ? snood ? In the marchen
of the Goosemaid, schnatzen is apparently to comb]. The seventh line sometimes
runs : di dritte schneidt den fade* (cuts the thread). Conf. Vonbun p. 66.
jFirmenich 2, 665b . Mannhardt pp. 388. 392. The nursery-song in the
Wunderhorn p. 70-1 has three spinning tocken, i.e. nymphs, fays.
1
Lersch in the Bonn Annual 1843, pp. 124 7.
2
Chief passage, Ssem. 141 a . Conf. Gramm. 4, 608, and AS. wig cwrot?,
Caedm. 193, 9; MHG. sige kiesen, Iw. 7069, sig erkiesen, Wh. 355, 15. So,
|den tot kiesen.
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