TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY VOL. I

HEROES. 385
them nearer to heroes, while the heroes were cut off from absolute
deification ;
how much the two must have got mixed up in the
mist of legend Yet in every case where bodily descent from the
!
gods is alleged of a hero, his herohood is the more ancient, and
really of heathen origin.
Among the heroes themselves there occur second births, of
which a fuller account will be given further on, and which shew a
As a god renews
certain resemblance to the incarnations of gods.
himself in a hero, so does an elder hero in a younger.
Beings of the giant brood, uniting themselves now to gods and
now to heroes, bring about various approximations between these
two.
We have seen how in the genealogy of Inguio, first OSinn, then
NiorSr and Freyr interweave themselves : NiorSr and Hadding
seem identical, as do Heimdall and Eigr, but in NiorSr and Heimdall
the god is made prominent, in Hadding and Eigr the hero.
Irmin appears connected with Wuotan and Zio, just as Ares and
Herakles approach each other, and Odysseus resembles Hermes.
Baldr is conceived of as divine, Basldseg as heroic. In Siegfried is
above, p. 128 he also ; says denm esse delirantes\ Albericus tr. font. 1, 23
(after A.D. 274) expresses himself thus In hac : generatione decima ab incarnutione
Domini regnasse invenitur quidam Mercurius in Gottlandia insula, quae
est inter Daciam et Russiam extra Romanum imperium, a quo Mercuric, qui
Woden dictus est, descendit genealogia Anglorum et rnultoruin aliorum . Much
in the same way Snorri in the Yngl. saga and Form. 13. 14 represents 0<5inn
as a liofftinc/i
and herma&r come from Asia, who by policy secured the
worship of the nations and Saxo
; p. 12 professes a like opinion ea tempestate
cum Othinus quidam, Europa tota, falso divinitatis titulo censeretur, &c.
:
conf. what he says p. 45. What other idea could orthodox Christians at that
time form of the false god of their forefathers To ?
idolatry they could not but
impute wilful deceit or presumption, being unable to comprehend that some
thing very different from falsified history lies at the bottom of heathenism.
As little did there ever exist a real man and king OSinii (let alone two or
three), as a real Jupiter or Mercury. But the affinity of the hero nature
with the divine is clearly distinct from a deification arising out of human
pride and deceit. Those heathen, who trusted mainly their inner strength (p.
6), like the Homeric heroes TrenoidoTes &ij)<l>i (II. 12, 256), were yet far from
setting themselves up for gods. Similar to the stories of Nebucadnezar (er wolte
selbe sin ein got, would himself be god, Parz. 102, 7. Barl. 60, 35), of Kosroes
(Massmann on Eracl. p. 502), of the Greek Salmoneu-s (conf. N. Cap. 146), and
the Byzantine Eraclius, was our Mid. Age story of Imelot aus wiiester Babilonie,
cler wolde selve wesen = got (Bother 2568) Nibelot ze Barise * der machet
himele guldin, selber wolt ergot sin (Bit. 299), just as Salmoneus imitated
the lightning and thunder of Zeus. Imelot and Nibelot here seem to mean
the same thing, as do elsewhere Imelunge and Nibelunge (Heldens. 162) I
;
do not know what allusion there might be in it to a Nibelunc or Amelunc (see
Suppl.).
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