Page images
PDF
EPUB

common land lay between the various towns of the tribe. In modern times the progress of England from an agricultural to an industrial community is marked by the gradual inclosure of these common lands and their absorption into private property.

Though the early Teutonic warriors fought fiercely for their personal freedom, they recognized certain families of noble descent, or earls, distinguished from the carls (freemen) by being ordinarily chosen as leaders in war and peace. The right of private property was held sacred; the holdings of the freeman, consisting of plough-land and meadow-land, surrounded a moot-hill or sacred tree, where rude laws were framed and justice was dispensed. In such fashion primitive parliamentary life commenced, and this tradition of government by will of the people has lasted as the basis of what is usually called the British Constitution, a loose body of customs and laws safeguarding and guaranteeing the liberties of every freeborn Englishman. Later, as the English settlements increased in numbers, the Witan or wise men of the tribe confirmed the greater lords in their privileges, and a fairly stable system of lords and commons came into existence. With the development of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, properly constituted authorities established more fixed laws as a basis for an organized society.

полисе

The religion of the first Englishmen had its origin in the form of various myths 1 which they had carried with

1

1 The Standard Dictionary has the following definition of myth: "a traditional story about supernatural beings or supernatural actions of animate or inanimate objects; specifically, among primitive peoples, the philosophy of creation and nature expressed in narrative form, in which the activities of the universe are pictured as the conduct of personal beings and the forms and objects of nature are personified, usually as gods, demons, giants, etc."

them from their former home in Scandinavia, and these were supplemented by numerous hero-"sagas," or tales of the deeds of the leaders of the race, often scarcely to be distinguished from purely mythical stories. These myths probably grew out of an early conception of the good and evil forces in nature, which defenseless man propitiated or worshiped. They tell of how Woden, or Odin, the war god, Thor the thunderer, Tiw the god of mystery and terror, bound the Jötun Loki, and for a short time ruled the earth. At last the evil forces conquered, and the beneficent deities went down to destruction.

"In the beginning, say the old Icelandic legends, there were two worlds, Niflheim the frozen, and Muspell the burning. From the falling snowflakes was born the giant Ymir. "There was in times of old, where Ymir dwelt, nor sand nor sea, nor gelid waves; earth existed not, nor heaven above; 'twas a chaotic chasm, and grass nowhere.' There was but Ymir, the horrible frozen ocean, with his children, sprung from his feet and his armpits; then their shapeless progeny, terrors of the abyss, barren mountains, whirlwinds of the north, and other malevolent beings, enemies of the sun and life; then the cow Andhumbla, born also of melting snow, brings to light, while licking the hoar-frost from the rocks, a man Bur, whose grandsons kill the giant Ymir. From his flesh the earth was formed, and from his bones the hills, the heaven from the skull of the ice-cold giant, and from his blood the sea; but of his brains the heavy clouds are all created.' Then arose war between the monsters of winter and the luminous fertile gods, Odin the founder, Baldur the mild and benevolent, Thor the summer-thunder, who purifies the air and nourishes the earth with showers. Long fought the gods against the frozen Jötuns, against

the dark bestial powers, the wolf Fenrir, the great serpent, whom they drown in the sea, and treacherous Loki, whom they bind to the rocks, beneath a viper whose venom drops continually on his face. Long will the heroes, who by a bloody death deserve to be placed 'in the halls of Odin, and there wage a combat every day,' assist the gods in their mighty war. A day will, however, arrive when gods and men will be conquered. Then

'trembles Yggdrasil's ash yet standing; groans that ancient tree, and the Jötun Loki is loosed. The shadows groan on the ways of Hel (the goddess of death, daughter of Loki), until the fires of Surt have consumed the tree. Hrym steers from the east, the waters rise, the mundane snake is coiled in Jötun-rage. The worm beats the water, and the eagle screams; the pale of beak tears carcasses; (the ship) Naglfar is loosed. Surt from the south comes with flickering flame; shines from his sword the Val-god's sun. The stony hills are dashed together, the giantesses totter; men tread the path of Hel, and heaven is cloven. The sun darkens, earth in ocean sinks, fall from heaven the bright stars, fire's breath assails the all-nourishing tree, towering fire plays against heaven itself.'

"The gods perish, devoured one by one by the monsters; and the celestial legend, sad and grand now like the life of man, bears witness to the hearts of warriors and heroes." 2

Those who are interested may turn to the Icelandic Eddas, which contain the early Scandinavian mythology and the hero legends closely related to the myths, and, if familiar with modern opera, may study Wagner's Twilight of the Gods (Götterdämmerung) and his poetic rendering of Die Walküre. The Valkyries were the immortal women who after a battle chose from the slain the heroes destined to find their bliss in the hall Valhalla, where they might fight and carouse forever with the gods.

2 Translated from Taine's History of English Literature.

The first essay in Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship is a sympathetic treatment of these stories.

The coming of Christianity to the island more than a century after its occupation by the Anglo-Saxons did much to soften the fierce spirit of the heathen conquerors. The first Christian message to Britain came in 563 when Saint Columba brought over a band of missionaries from Ireland, which had long been Christianized and already possessed a flourishing civilization. They landed upon the island of Iona, off the western coast of Scotland, where the remains of their primitive chapels are still to be seen. In 597 Saint Augustine, commissioned by Rome to convert the heathen, arrived in Kent and began the labors which were to terminate in the conversion of the whole land. After monastic rule had been introduced, great monasteries and abbeys became centers of whatever discipline could be enforced upon these fierce barbarians.

ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE

EARLY HEATHEN POETRY

The earliest written expression of the rude Teutonic conquerors was a natural outgrowth of their gradual settlement upon the soil of their newly adopted country. As the superstitious farmer sowed his seed, he looked up at the sky in the hope that propitious spirits would favor the crops as they matured under his hand. And so he uttered Charms for the preservation of these crops, a kind of absit omen over himself and his family. Likewise, he composed Riddles about various things and events of common observation. The Charms and Riddles, preserved as they are in the most fragmentary fashion, afford us the first glimpse of the manner in which our

ancestors arranged their lives Those, however, which we know have received a Christian twist through the confusion which the sudden introduction of a new religion brought to the older culture.

[ocr errors]

One of the earliest poems of which we have record, Widsith, or Far-Traveler, is a narrative poem recounting the travels of a singer in many lands; it reveals the extent of the wanderings of a minstrel during the Dark Ages. In character the poem is not a lyric, which usually gives expression to personal emotion, but has more of the wide sweep and objective nature of an epic relation of racial experience. The minstrel must have traveled far and in many ages for he tells us of the Huns, the Goths, the Greeks, the Hebrews, and the Carthaginians!

Other poems, brief and reflective, are characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon nature, particularly in the peculiar racial melancholy arising from the perception of how impotent is man before the mighty goddess Wyrd, or Fate. A deep sense of the powerlessness of the human will before the doom of death that overtakes all men pervades their gentle, elegiac strains. The Wanderer, one of the finest of these poems, is a lament for lost kinsmen, as man is "hurled from change to change unceasingly, his soul's wings never furled." It breathes the spirit of sorrow for what has passed forever but gives utterance to unconquerable will to meet one's fate as a hero should. Other poems, The Seafarer and The Ruined City, tell the author's grief for lost ones in a similar vein of fatalistic brooding. Deor's Lament is a minstrel's lament for having been displaced by another. He comforts himself by recalling past distresses. The Husband's Message and The Wife's Lament strike a more personal note

« PreviousContinue »