9 1

sometimes they made allusion to other Germanic deities in explaining the origin of the names of the days of the week, for example. Thus Bede (d. 735), in his Historia Ecclesiastica, says that Hengist and Horsa “erant autem filii Uictgilsi, cuius pater Uitta, cuius pater Uecta, cuius pater Uoden, de cuius stirpe multarum prouinciarum regium genus originem duxit."! The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has several records of a like character.2

In the eighth (?) century Nennius, Historia Britonum, derives the kings of Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia, Deira, and Kent from Odin. Odin himself is traced back to “Geta, qui fuit, ut aiunt, filius Dei. Non ipse est Deus Deorum, Amen, Deus exercituum, sed unus estab idolis eorum quæ ipsi colebant,” he adds quaintly."

In the tenth century we find Asser, in his Annales Rerum Gestarum Ælfredi Magni, ann. 849, tracing Alfred's ancestry through Woden to Geat, “quem Getam jamdudum pagani pro Deo venerabantur: cuius Sedulius poeta mentionem facit in Paschali metrico carmine." 5 In a like manner Æthelwerd's Chronicle makes Æthelbyrht a descendant of “Wothen.”' 6

Other chroniclers of the twelfth century give similar information with regard to various Anglo-Saxon rulers : Florence of Worcester, Simeon of Durham, William of Malmesbury,' Henry of Huntingdon, 10 and Geffrei Gaimar. 11

a

1 Lib. i, cap. 15, ed. Plummer, Oxford, 1896.

2 For example, under the years 547, 597, 755,855 (where the ancestry of Æthelwulf is traced to Woden, who is said to have descended from Geat, who in turn was a descendant of Sceaf, son of Noah), and 449 (“ Fram þam Wodne awoc eall ure cyne-cynn and suðan-hymbra eac”).

8 98 57 ff.

4 § 31.

5 On the authenticity of this work, see Plummer, Life and Times of Alfred the Great, Oxford, 1902, pp. 14 ff.

6 Lib. ii, cap. 2 (cf. also cap. 3).
7 Sub ann. 450, 547, 849.
& Sub ann. 849, Opera, Rolls Series, II, 69.
9 De Gestis Regum Anglorum, Savile's ed., London, 1596, p. 3 verso.
in Savile's ed., London, 1596, p. 178.
11 L'Estoric des Engles, vv. 841 f.

In the thirteenth century we have Layamon putting these lines into the mouth of Hengist :

We habbed godes gode :
Þe we luuiet an ure mode.
þa we habbed hope to:
& heorey heom mid 1 mihte.
Þe an hæhte Phebus :
þe oder Saturnus.
Þe bridde hæhte Woden

þæt is an weoli godd.2 In the fourteenth century we find “ Matthew of Westminster and Ralph Higden * following the lead of the earlier annalists.

In the fifteenth century John Hardyng in his Chronicle writes of Hengist's followers :

Peynemis they were, and trowyd of Mercury,
And on Venus theyr goddes of Payanie.
That Mercurie Woden, in their language,
Was called so by his propre name,
For whome they honoured of olde (usage),
The fourth daye in euery weke at hame,
[And so of Mercury geuing it a name ;]
And of Wodē called it Wednisdaye,

Of olde custome as they haue vsed alwaye. Four writers of the sixteenth century may be mentioned in this connection. Robert Fabyan's Chronicle traces the “God named Woden” whom "ye Saxons .. worshipped at that dayes” back to “Geta, yt was the sone of Minos, yt is next in honour to Pluto, god of hell, & chefe iudge of his infernall iurisdiccion. Therefore," adds the chronicler, humorously, –

“ Therefore ye Welshe men here after nurture lere?
And dispyse not Saxons that ben to God so nere."

6

7

5 Ed. London, 1812, p. 109. 2 Brut, ed. Madden, vv. 13,897 ff. Hengist also mentions Frea. The substance of this passage is to be found in Geoffrey of Monmouth, Hist. Regum Britanniæ, vi, 10.

3

Richard Grafton's Chronicle 1 and Raphael Holinshed's Historie of Englandbear further witness to the distinguished ancestry of the Saxon rulers. Camden's Britannia mentions : wiccingi — “ Wiccinga

– enim Saxonica lingua, teste Alfrico, Piratam denotat" - and Thur. Camden gets his information with regard to the Danes from Dudo of S. Quentin, whose book he says he has seen in the library of the learned John Stowe in London.4

Of the historians writing in the seventeenth century, John Speed cites in his History of Great Britain (London, 1611), Verstegan, Adam of Bremen, Dudo, and other authorities on Danish antiquities; Edmund Howes repeats, in his Continuation of Stowe's Chronicle (London, 1615), some of the Saxon genealogies; Milton writes in his History of England 5 of “ Hengist and Horsa descended in the fourth degree from Woden; of whom, deify'd for the fame of his acts, most Kings of those Nations derive thir pedigree,” and James Tyrrell discusses in his General History of England (London, 1697), the migration of Odin,ế the Eddas, and the Saxon genealogies, on the authority of Saxo, Sheringham, Cluverius, Verstegan, Jornandes, Hickes, Arngrim Jonsson, and Worm.

With mention of William Guthrie, whose General History of England appeared at London in 1744, and who drew his information with regard to Scandinavian mythology from many of Tyrrell's sources, we may discontinue the list. Most of the later English historians make some mention of the heathen gods worshiped by the Saxons and the Danes, though of course they discredit the reputed pedigree of the Saxon kings.?

1 Ed. London, 1809, I, 75.
2 Ed. London, 1574, pp. 195 f.
3 Ed. London, 1600, p. 108.

4 Dudo or Dudon of S. Quentin wrote his De Moribus et Actis Primorum Nor. manniæ Ducum libri tres in the beginning of the eleventh century. The work was published by Duchesne at Paris in 1619. The passage that Camden quotes may be found in Migne, CXLI, cols. 620, 621. Dudo was one of the sources used by Saxo.

6 Bk. iii, Works, ed. Mitford, V, 112. 6 See below, pp. 190 ff.

7 Nyerup mentions (Bragur, II, 365 f.) an early Oxford edition of the account of the settlement of Iceland written by Ari Thorgilsson — “Ari the Wise”: Are

7

A few Englishmen of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries showed their interest in the Scandinavian North by composing, translating, or reprinting accounts of the physical characteristics of that region, or of the manners, customs, and interests of its inhabitants. Samuel Purchas, for example, quotes in Purchas his Pilgrimage (London, 1613), Arngrim Jonsson's Crymogea, Blefken's Islandia, and Olaus Magnus. In Purchas his Pilgrimes (London, 1619-25),' he prints in English Dithmar Blefkens his Voyages, and Historie of Island and Groenland? and Extracts of Arngrim Ionas an Islander, his Chrymogea or Historie of Island.: Purchas also calls attention to Jonsson's "Booke of Island, which M. Haksluyt]. translated and set forth in the first Tome of his Voyages.'

"4 The Extracts treat of “Odinus " and "his notable knowledge in Deuillish Magicke; whereby like another Mahomet, hee affected a Diuinitie after his death,” of “the first Inhabitants of the Northerne World, supposed to be Giants expelled from Canaan,” and other interesting topics.

In 1644 Isaac de la Peyrère, a French scholar afterwards attached to the household of the Prince de Condé, accompanied the French ambassador De la Thuillerie to Copenhagen, and from thence made excursions to Iceland and Greenland. His Relation de l'Islande, first published at Paris in 1663, was several times reprinted. In 1704 it was turned into English for Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels, where it appears in the second volume, followed by the same author's Account of Greenland. La Peyrère quotes Arngrim Jonsson and Saxo, and has a good deal to say about his conversations with

Multiscii Scheda de Islandia. Accedit Commentarius & Dissertatio de Are Mul. tiscii Vita & Scriptis, Oxoniæ .., MDCCXVI. An even earlier attempt seems to have been made in 1696 or 1697 to reprint this work at Oxford. See Bragur, II, 362. For an account of Ari, see Anderson's Horn, pp. 46-49.

1 The Third Part, 1625, bk. iii, chap. xxii.

2 Blefken was a German traveller who made a voyage to the far North in 1563 and published an account of it at Leyden in 1607. Arngrim Jonsson criticised the book severely in his Anatome Blefkeniana quå D. Blefkenii viscera magis præcipua in libello de Islandia, convulsa, per manifestam exenterationem retexuntur . Holum, 1612.

8 In chap. xxiii.
4 I.e. the Brevis Commentarius. See above, p. 3.

“ Dr. Wormius.” On the subject of Icelandic literature he makes this interesting assertion :

The Iselanders were so famous for their Poetry among the Neighboring Nations, that it was generally believed that there was a certain kind of Magick hidden in their Verses, whereby they could Summon the Dæmons from the Infernal Regions, and change the Influence of the Planets. Their Poets are Born, and not made such ; for the most Ingenious Person among them, cannot Write a Verse without his Natural Genius prompts him to it; the Rules of their Poetry being most strict and severe; whereas such as are Endowed with this Qualification by Nature, write them with such Facility, that they can Speak scarce any thing but in Metre. They are commonly seized with this Poetical Frenzy in the New-Moon; when their Faces appear dreadful, with a pale Countenance, and hollow Eyes; not unlike as the Sybil of Cume is described by Vergil: At that time it is very dangerous to Converse with these furious Fellows, the Wound given by a Mad-Dog being scarce more dangerous than their venomous Satyrs.

He also gives a brief account of Norse mythology, as it was explained to him by “ Dr. Wormius ” from “a very Antient Copy”. of the Edda.

Even more famous was the Voyage des Pais Septentrionaux (Paris, 1671), written by Pierre Martin de la Martinière, a French surgeon who took part in an expedition sent by Frederick III of Denmark to the Northern countries in 1653. Several editions of this work were printed in French, and it was translated into German and English. The first English version, A New Voyage into the Northern Countries, was published at London in 1674. Another English version, abridged, may be found in The World Displayed (London, 1761),” and a third in William Mavor's Historical Account of the Most Celebrated Voyages, Travels, etc. (London, 1797).

Among the superstitions mentioned by La Martinière and the other voyagers is the belief of the Icelanders that Hecla was a kind of Hell or Purgatory, and that the peculiar sound given out by the flux of the ice floes along the coast was the cry of lost souls in torment.*

2

3

2

3

2 XX, 103 ff.

XI, 3 ff. * For a study of this superstition, see Konrad Maurer, Die Hölle auf Island, in Zeitsch. des Ver. für Volksk., IV, 256 ff. Saxo appears to have first mentioned this belief in his preface (Müller and Velschow, I, 15). Olaus Magnus published