Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 11, 1900.djvu/95

 Reviews. 85

cocks and peacocks, that were introduced from the South of Europe. The parallel between Biarca-Mal —

No dim and lowly race, no low-born dead,

no base souls are Pluto's prey, he weaves

the dooms of the mighty and fills Phlegethon with noble shapes —

and Harbard's Lay —

Woden owns the gentleborn that fall in battle, But Thor owns the thrall-born —

(with which one may also compare the Celto-Scandic eleventh cen- turyDarrada-li6d), is to the point, and shows Woden as the god of the new Wiking aristocracy. The contrast between him and Thor amused the poet whom we have taken leave to call the Western Aristophanes, who burlesqued the swaggering god of the new generation in contrast to the sturdy yeoman deity of the older days.

The " bloodeagle " custom may very possibly have nothing to do with Woden at all, but be an old sacrificial rite proper to an older cult than his. Mr. Chadwick's whole account of the con- nection of Woden with the " stabbing and hanging " death is excellent and suggestive, and very little material has escaped his research. There are but few slips. It would have been better to have cited Saxo from Holder's edition. Rostarus, p. 8 (Saxo, iii. 79, ix. 304), is obviously Roftarus = Hr6ptr, and this might have been noted. It is well to mark the date 970, when Egil in Sonatorrec talks of Ygg's gallows as the world-tree (if Vigfusson's emendation be right, cf. Grimnismal) —

Mioc es torfyndr sa-es trua cnegim, Af al-HoS Yggjar galga —

and shows us Woden as God of Poetry as well as Lord of Hosts and King of Death.

I was friendly with the Lord of Spears.

And I put my trust in him believing in his plighted peace,

till he broke, the Master of the Wain,

the Judge of Victory, his friendship with me.

Wherefor I worship not Wile's brother the Prince of the Gods, nor look yearningly on him yet hath Mini's friend bestowed on me recompense for wrongs, if I reckon the good [as well as the evil].