TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

SACRIFICE.
his share home with him. That priests and people really ate the
food, appears from a number of passages (conf. above, p. 46). The
Capitularies 7, 405 adopt the statement in Epist. Bonif. cap. 25
(an. 732) of a Christian presbyter Jovi mactans,
57
et immolatitias
carnes vescens, only altering it to diis mactanti, et immolatitiis
carnibus vescenti . We
may suppose that private persons were
allowed to offer small gifts to the gods on particular occasions, and
consume a part of them ; this the Christians called more gentilium
offerre, et ad honorem daemonum eomedere/ Capit. de part. Sax. 20.
It is likely also, that certain nobler parts of the animal were
assigned to the gods, the head, liver, heart, tongue}- The head and
skin of slaughtered game were suspended on trees in honour of
them (see Suppl.).
Whole ~burnt offerings, where the animal was converted into
ashes on the pile of wood, do not seem to have been in use. The
Goth, allbrunsts Mk 12., 33 is made merely to translate the Gk.
o\oKavrwfJia, so the OHG. albrandopher, N. ps. 64, 2 ; and the AS.
Irynegield onhredft rommes bloSe, Caedni. 175, 6. 177, 18 is meant
to express purely a burntoffering in the Jewish sense. 2
Neither were incense-offerings used ; the sweet incense of the
Christians was a new thing to the heathen. Ulphilas
retains the
Gk. thymiama Lu. 1, 10. 11 ; and our weih-rauch (holy-reek), O.
Sax. wiroc Hel. 3, 22, and the OK reykelsi, Dan. rogelse are
formed according to Christian notions (see SuppL).
While the sacrifice of a slain animal is more sociable, more
universal, and is usually offered by
community ;
the collective nation or
fruit or flowers, milk or honey is what any household,
or even an individual may give.
These Fruit-offerings are therefore
more solitary and paltry ; history scarcely mentions them, but they
have lingered the longer and more steadfastly in popular customs
(see Suppl.).
When the husbandman cuts his corn, he leaves a clump of ears
standing for the god who blessed the harvest, and he adorns it with
KOL xotXia (tongue and entrails) iepciov SmTreTrpayjue i/ov, Plutarch,
Phoc. 1. yXcoo-o-ay Tapvfiv and eV .
TTV/H fiuXXeiv, Od. 3, 332. 341. conf. De
lingua usu in sacrifices, Nitzsch ad Horn. Od. 1, 207. In the folk-tales, who
ever has to kill a man or beast, is told to bring in proof the tongue or heart,
apparently as being eminent portions.
2
Sl&v.pdliti obiet, to kindle an. offering, Koniginh. hs. 98.