DISCOVERY OF ODINIC SONGS IN SHETLAND. I. AN essay of mine on Yggdrasil, or the Teutonic Tree of Existence, had just been published, when from far-off Shetland I received a most striking bit of folk-lore, containing a strange relic of the grand old myth. It is a fragment, in poetical garb, showing both the staff-rime and the ordinary rime. The text comes remarkably close to the first verse in Odin's Rune Song,' which I had quoted in connection with the Germanic idea of the World-Tree, the symbol of the Universe and of all its varied and wondrous manifestations of life. I believe the discovery of this waif-somewhat distorted as it is— of an Eddic creation-lay on the lips of a living person to be unique in its kind. The discovery was made in Unst, the northernmost part of the cluster of Shetland isles where the Norse race once ruled for a long time and made a deep imprint by its blood, its speech, and its laws. To this day the Shetlanders, lying midway between Norway and Scotland, look upon themselves as a people quite apart. Historically, it may be remembered, they were given in pledge by Denmark to the Scottish Crown. In character and tradition a good deal of their Scandinavian origin still clings to them. Their stormtossed country is as a stepping-stone to that land of snow and fire which gave us the Edda and the Heims-Kringla. And even as, in distant Iceland, the old saga spirit is fully alive, so there are yet tales and bits of rimes current among the common Shetland folk, in which, with fuller research, strange echoes from the Germanic world of Gods may be recognised. Only those who have worked with loving steadfastness for the clearing up of moot points in our forefathers' weird and charmful creed, can perhaps feel the full delight of a discovery like the one made in Unst. With a Folk-lore Society being at last founded in England we may hope that similar cases of unearthing treasures of ancient tradition will oftener occur. It is not to be expected that they will be as frequent as they have been in Germany, where the brothers Grimm gave a great start to work of this kind. Yet, now and then, an important link, hitherto missing, may be brought to light on the soil of this country, whether from Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, or Scandinavian source. After these few fore-words I will first quote from the letter with which Mr. Arthur Laurenson, of Leog House, Lerwick, who made the remarkable communication to me, accompanied the text of the fragmentary Unst Lay. He wrote: I send you what I think will be found a rare and valuable specimen of a 'survival.' It is evidently a Christianised version of the Rune Rime of Odin from the Háva-mál, and is curious for the way in which the Rootless Tree of the Northern mythology is confounded with the Cross. The second line is quite Christian, the fifth purely Pagan. The old woman who recited this was quite aware that the verses could not strictly apply to Christ. She knew in what points they differed from the Gospel, but she repeated them as she had learned them. Do you know if any similar version exists in the North? I am afraid this fragment is all we can now recover of the Unst Lay. No doubt there was more, which, by time's attrition, has been rubbed away. 6 II. Odin's Rune Song, in The High One's Lay, to which the above note refers, speaks of the chief deity as hanging during nine long nights in the wind-rocked tree, of which none knows from what root it springs. Odin hangs there, with a spear wounded, offering himself to himself.' In suffering and distress he applies himself to the thinking out of runes, when he drops from the Tree as a fruit from the twig. From one of the Giants-who are the representatives of the great but untamed forces of Nature-he learns the first chapters of wisdom. His knowledge is increased by an ambrosian drink. The runic study on which he had been bent is, in the following verses, shown to constitute henceforth Odin's strength of charm. By their spell he enchants men, gets rid of foes, disperses wraiths, and raises the dead. The runes, the ancient Teutonic art of writing, are his means of making Thought victorious. I have shown elsewhere that the interpretation of this myth is: the Evolution or Emancipation of Mind from Matter. The nine long nights' represent nine maturing months, or nine cosmogonic periods. Though it is said of the Tree in which Odin hung during that time, that none knows of what root it springs, there can be no doubt that it is but another form of Yggdrasil, the three-rooted Middle Tree, which, in the words of Grimnir's Song, bears a heavier burden than men can think.' The very name of Yggdrasil signifies, perhaps, the Bearer of the Deep Thinker,' or the 'Bearer of Thought.' Odin, the representative of Thought, seems to be Man and God at one and the same time; he offers himself to himself.' He is the fruit of a Tree the origin of which none can fathom. In this tale, then, we have a poetical rendering of the evolution of mind from matter—an The evolution which, after long periods, brings out, from the grosser elements of existence, a spiritual personality that projects itself, anthropomorphically, into the transcendental form of a Godhead. whole, together with some passages in Grimnir's Song, reminds us of the deep mystery of grief,' which, Luther said, 'underlies all life.' The first, second, and fourth verses of Odin's Rune Song read thus in a translation in which I have endeavoured to preserve the staffrime as much as possible : 3. Then I began to thrive, and began to think. word by word rose to me from the word; For the sake of better comparison, I will add at least the first verse of the Icelandic original :— Veit ek at ek hékk Vindga meiði á, Naetr allar níu, A peim meiði, Er mannigi veit, Hvers hann af rótum renn. Now, the Unst Lay, in Shetland speech, runs thus: Nine days he hang pa da rütless tree; Bit idders gret. I may first point out that, even as in Icelandic, Norse, Old German, Anglo-Saxon, and even later English poetry, so also in this Shetland song there is a strongly marked, albeit not quite systematic, alliteration. Though wont to trace out vestiges of the staff-rime, my attention was at first not aroused by this fact. Our ears are so trained that, where the musical jingle of an end-rime strikes them, they will pay but little attention to other structural peculiarities of the verse. As soon, however, as it occurred to me to test the lay-fragment on the alliterative principle, I could scarcely understand that this characteristic should have failed to rivet my attention for a single moment after the first perusal of the song. The staff-rime, which I have marked with bolder type, runs through the whole Shetland text -even as in its Eddic counterpart. Thus the ancient Teutonic origin of the Shetland poem comes out powerfully, in spite of the slightly deceptive addition of the end-rime. It should be stated here that the combination of the staff-rime with full rimes, half-rimes, line-rimes, and assonances, though rare in Anglo-Saxon poetry, was a special delight of Icelandic poets.' And as the Shetland fragment may, in all likelihood, have come by way of Iceland, the threefold peculiarity of the staff-rime, the end-rime, and the vowel harmony of assonances, which occurs throughout the above in a most remarkable manner, is a very strong proof of the ancient character of the Unst Lay. The following is a translation into ordinary English, in which, however, something of the vowel harmony is necessarily lost : Nine days he hung on the Rootless Tree; For bad was the folk, and good was he. A bloody mark was in his side Made with a lance-that would not hide (heal). Nine long nights, in the nipping rime, Hung he there with his naked limb. The only doubtful point, in the interpretation of the Shetland text, might seem to be in the words: ''at wid na hide.' However, I am informed by Mr. Arthur Laurenson that 'hide'-like the German Haut-is still used in Shetland for the skin of man as well as beast, but in the former case now only in proverbial expressions or forms of speech. Thus, a native of those northern isles would say: I am wet to the hide;' that is, soaked through. Again, the word is used as a verb. When a wound is beginning to heal or 'skin over, it is said to hide,' or hide over. I think, from this use of the word, there can be no doubt of the meaning in the Unst Lay; and I have made a punctuation after the words side' and 'lance,' which corresponds to this meaning. III. In cases like the present, it is, of course, necessary to establish the authenticity of such a remarkable relic beyond the possibility of 1 See An Essay on Alliterative Poetry,' by Mr. W. W. Skeat, in Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, vol. iii. cavil. I therefore held it to be desirable to go as close as possible to the source. Mr. Laurenson, who takes a deep, searching, and most thoughtful interest in Germanic mythology, was kind enough to reply to my wish by referring me to Mr. George Sinclair, a young, well-read working-man, a native of Shetland, who, in the beginning of last year, lived at Glasgow. Mr. Sinclair afterwards came to London, when I repeatedly had occasion to converse with him, at my house, on matters of folk-lore concerning his own country. In answer to my inquiry, Mr. Sinclair wrote to me from Glasgow:- The woman who repeated the rune rime to me was called Russlin. Her house was in, or near, the village of Norwich, in Unst; and as nearly as I can remember, the conversation took place in the summer of 1865. I was not very old at that time; and I regret very much I did not make some attempt, however runic, to take notes.' Mr. Sinclair, who from having seen Mallet's Northern Antiquities and other works of a similar kind-understood the connection between the Unst fragment and the Eddic Lay, added: Few now take any interest in this sort of lore; and these "old wives' fables" will all very soon be "interred with their bones."" : Those who know how the brothers Grimm gathered from the lips of the people the tales in which so many precious relics of ancient belief are embedded, or survive in a transfigured form, can easily imagine how desirable it is to find out the last depositaries of such 'old wives' fables' as the one which the woman Russlin told. It was through one of those happy chances (so the brothers Grimm wrote in 1819) that we came to make the acquaintance of a peasant woman of the village of Nieder-Zwehrn, near Cassel, who told us the greater part of the Mährchen of the second volume, and the most beautiful ones too. Frau Viehmännin was still very active, and not much over fifty years of age. Her features had something strong, intelligent, and pleasing; and from her great eyes she looked out with keen clearness. She held the old tales firmly in her memory, and would sometimes say that this gift was not granted to every one, and that many a one could not keep anything in its proper connection. She told her tales deliberately, firmly, and with uncommon liveliness; taking herself much pleasure in it. First she spoke with rapid freedom; then, if one wished it, she told the whole once more slowly-so that, with some practice, one could write it down. . . . Any one inclined to believe that tradition is easily corrupted, or carelessly kept, and that therefore it could not possibly last long, should have heard how strictly she always abided by her record, and how she stuck to its accuracy. She never altered anything in repeating it, and, if she made a slip, at once righted herself as soon as she became aware of it, in the very midst of her tale. The attachment to tradition among people living on in the same kind of life with unbroken regularity, is stronger than we, who are fond of change, can understand. I myself can bear witness, in some way, to this statement of the Grimms, which, I think, sheds some light on the preservation of the Unst Lay. Having been brought up, in childhood, on the fullest Mährchen fare, through peasant girls serving as housemaids in town, I was, in later years, astounded when first reading Grimms' Tales, VOL. V.--No. 28. 4 C |