Chapter 11: Paltar (Balder)
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The myth of Balder, one of the most ingenious and beautiful in the Edda, has happily for us been also handed down in a later form with variations: and there is no better example of fluctuations in a god-myth. The Edda sets forth, how the pure blameless deity is struck with Mistiltein by the blind Höðr, and must go down to the nether world, bewailed by all; nothing can fetch him back, and Nanna the true wife follows him in death. In Saxo, all is pitched in a lower key: Balder and Hother are rival suitors, both wooing Nanna, and Hother, the favoured one manages to procure a magic sword, by which alone his enemy is vulnerable; when the fortune of war has wavered long between them, Hother is at last victorious and slays the demigod, to whom Hel, glad at the near prospect of possessing him, shews herself beforehand. But here the grand funeral pile is prepared for Gelder, a companion of Balder, of whom the account in the Edda knows nothing whatever. The worship of the god is attested chiefly by the Friðþiofssaga, v. Fornald. sög. 2, 63 seq. (see Suppl.).
Baldr, gen. Baldrs, reappears in the OHG. proper name Paltar (in Meichelbeck no. 450. 460. 611); (1) and in the AS. bealdor, baldor, signifying a lord, prince, king, and seemingly used only with a gen. pl. before it: gumena baldor, Cædm. 163, 4. wigena baldor, Jud. 132, 47. sinca bealdor, Beow. 4852. winia bealdor 5130. It is remarkable that in the Cod. exon 276, 18 mæða bealdor (virginum princeps) is said even of a maiden. I know of only a few examples in the ON.: baldur î brynju, Sæm. 272b, and herbaldr 218b are used for a hero in general; atgeirs baldr (lanceae vir), Fornm. sög. 5, 307. This conversion from a proper name to a noun appellative exactly reminds us of fráuja, frô, freá, and the ON. týr. As bealdor is already extinct in AS. prose, our proper name Paltar seems likewise to have died out early; heathens songs in OHG may have known a paltar = princeps. Such Gothic forms as Baldrs, gen. Baldris, and baldrs (princeps), may fairly be assumed. (2)
This Baldrs would in strictness appear to have no connexion with the Goth. balþs (bold, audax), nor Paltar with the OHG. pald, nor Baldr with the ON. ballr [[dangerous, dire]]. As a rule, the Gothic ld is represented by ON. ld and OHG. lt: the Gothic lþ by ON. ll and OHG. ld. (3) But the OS. and AS. have ld in both cases, and even in Gothic, ON. and OHG. a root will sometimes appear in both forms in the same language; (4) so that a close connexion between balþs and Baldrs, (5) pald and Paltar, is possible after all. On mythological grounds it is even probable: Balder's wife Nanna is also the bold one, from nenna to dare; in Gothic she would have been Nanþô from nanþjan, in OHG. Nandâ from gi-nendan. The Baldr of the Edda may not distinguish himself by bold deeds, but in Saxo he fights most valiantly; and neither of these narratives pretends to give a complete account of his life. Perhaps the Gothic Balthae (Jornandes 5, 29) traced their origin to a divine Balþ or Baldrs (see Suppl.).
Yet even this meaning of the 'bold' god or hero might be a later one: the Lith. baltas and Lett. balts signify the white, the good; and by the doctrine of consonant-change, baltas exactly answers to the Goth. balþs and OHG. pald. Add to this, that the AS. genealogies call Wôden's son not Bealdor, Baldor, but Bældæg, Beldeg, which would lead us to expect an OHG. Paltac, a form that I confess I have nowhere read. But both dialects have plenty of other proper names compounded with dæg and tac: OHG. Adaltac, Alptac, Ingatac, Kêrtac, Helmtac, Hruodtac, Regintac, Sigitac; OS. Alacdag, Alfdag (Albdag, Pertz 1, 286), Hildidag, Liuddag, Osdag, Wulfdag; AS. Wegdæg, Swefdæg; even the ON. has the name Svipdagr. Now, either Bældæg simply stands for Bealdor, and is synonymous with it (as e.g., Regintac with Reginari Sigitac with Sigar, Sigheri) (6); or else we must recognise in the word dæg, dag, tac itself a personification, such as we found another root undergoing (p. 194-5) in the words div, divan, dina, dies; and both alike would express a shining one, a white one, a god. Prefixing to this the Slavic bièl, bèl, we have no need to take Bældæg as standing for Bealdor or anything else, Bæl-dæg itself is white-god, light-god, he that shines as sky and light and day, the kindly Bièlbôgh, Bèlbôgh of the Slav system (see Suppl.). It is in perfect accord with this explanation of Bæl-dæg, that the AS. tale of ancestry assigns to him a son Brond, of whom the Edda is silent, brond, brand, ON. brandr [[fire brand or blade of a sword]], signifying jubar, fax, titio. Bældæg therefore, as regards his name, would agree with Berhta, the bright goddess.
We have to consider a few more circumstances bearing on this point. Baldr's beauty is thus described in Sn. 26: 'Hann er svâ fagr âlitum ok biartr svâ at lysir af honum, oc eitt gras er svâ hvitt, at iafnat er til Baldrs brâr, þat er allra grasa hvîtast oc þar eptir mâttu marka hans fegurð bæði â hâri ok lîki'; he is so fair of countenance and bright that he shines of himself, there is a grass so white that it is evened with Baldr's brows, it is of all grasses whitest, and thereby mayest thou mark his fairness both in hair and body. This plant, named Baldrsbrâ after the god's white eyebrow, (7) is either the anthemis cotula, still called Barbro in Sweden, Balsenbro, Ballensbra in Schonen, and Barbrogräs in Denmark, or the matricaria maritima inodora, which retains the original name in Iceland (see Suppl.). (8) In Skåne there is a Baldursberg, in the Öttingen country a Baldern, and in the Vorarlberg, east of Bregenz, Balderschwang; such names of places demand caution, as they may be taken from men, Baldar or Baldheri, I therefore withhold the mention of several more. But the heavenly abode of the god was called Breiðablik, nom. pl. (Sæm. 41b, Sn. 21-7), i.e. broad splendors, which may have reference to the streaks of the milky way; a place near Lethra, not far from Roeskild, is said to have borne the name of Bredeblick. (9) This very expression re-appears in a poem of the twelfth century, though not in reference to a dwelling- place, but to a host of snow-white steeds and heroes advancing over the battlefield: Dô brâhte Dietherîches vane zvencik dûsint lossam in breither blickin uber lant, Roth. 2635. In Wh. 381, 16: 'daz bluot über die blicke flôz, si wurdn almeistic rôtgevar,' did the blood flow over the paths of the field, or over the shining silks?
ENDNOTES:
1. Graff 1, 432 thinks this name stands for Paltaro, and is a compound of aro (aar, aquila), but this is unsupported by analogy; in the ninth and tenth centuries, weak forms are not yet curtailed, and we always find Epuraro (eberaar, boar-eagle), never Epurar.
2. Baldrs, Paltar, must be kept distinct from the compound Baldheri (Schannat no. 420. 448), Paldheri (Trad. patav. no 35), AS. Baldhere. This Paldheri is the same as Paldachar (Trad. patav. no. 18).
3. Goth. -----kalds \ /vilþeis---------hulþs-------gulþ.
ON.--------kaldr | but | villr----------hollr --------gull.
OHG.-------chalt / \ wildi---------hold--------kold.
[[cold]] [[wild, false or perplexed]] [[faithful, loyal]] [[gold]]
4. Conf. Gothic alþan and alþs aldis, also aldrs; Goth. falþan and OHG. faldan, afterwards faltan. As þ degenerates into d, and d into t, any d put for þ, or t for d, marks a later form: the Goth. fadr stands for faþr, as we see by pater [the AS. 'fæder, módor,' after a usurpation of 1000 years, must have given place to the truer 'father, mother' again]. In the ON. valda [[to wield, to rule, to cause]] pret. olli, we must regard the ll as older than the ld, in spite of the Goth. valdan and OHG. waltan [some would prefer to call valda an archaism].
5. Baldr may be related to balþ, as tîr to tý, and zior to zio.
6. The cases are hardly analogous: Bæld-æg and Regin-tac.----Trans.
7. Homer emphasizes the dark brows of Zeus and Hera, ÑfrÝj kuanša. Conf. leukÒfruj and Artemis leukofrÚnh, white-browed Diana.
8. Germ. names of the camomile: kuhauge, rindsauge, ochsenauge (ox-eye. Dalecarl. hvitet-oja (white eye), in Båhuslän hvita-piga (white girl).
9. Suhm. crit. hist. 2, 63.
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If Bældæg and Brond reveal to us that the worship of Balder had a definite form of its own even outside of Scandinavia, we may conclude from the general diffusion of all the most essential proper names entering into the main plot of the myth there, that this myth as a whole was known to all Teutons. The goddess Hel, as will be more fully shown in ch. XIII, answers to the Gothic impersonal noun halja, OHG. hella. Höðr (acc. Höð, gen. Haðar, dat. Heði), pictured as a blind god of tremendous strength (Sn. 31), who without malice discharges the fatal arrow at Baldr, is called Hotherus in Saxo, and implies a Goth. Haþus, AS. Heaðo, OHG. Hadu, OFrank. Chado, of which we have still undoubted traces in proper names and poetic compounds. OHG. Hadupraht, Hadufuns, Hadupald, Hadufrid, Hadumâr, Hadupurc, Hadulint, Haduwîc (Hedwig), &c., forms which abut close on the Catumêrus in Tacitus Hadumâr, Hadamâr). In AS. poetry are still found the terms heaðorinc (vir egregius, nobilis), Cædm. 193, 4. Beow. 737. 4927; heaðowelm (belli impetus, fervor), Cædm. 21, 14. 147, 8. Beow. 164. 5633; heaðoswât (sudor bellicus), Beow. 2919. 3211. 3334; heaðowæd (vestis bellica), Beow. 78; heaðubyrne (lorica bellica), Cod. exon. 297, 7; heaðosigel and heaðogleám (egregium jubar), Cod. exon. 486, 17 and 438, 6; heaðolâc (pugnae ludus), Beow. 1862. 3943; heaðogrim (atrocissimus), Beow. 1090. 5378; heaðosioc (pugna vulneratus), Beow. 5504; heaðosteáp (celsus), Beow. 2490. 4301. In these words, except where the meaning is merely intensified, the prevailing idea is plainly that of battle and strife, and the god or hero must have been thought of and honoured as a warrior. Therefore Haþus, Höðr, as well as Wuotan and Zio, expressed phenomena of war; and he was imagined blind, because he dealt out at random good hap and ill (p. 207).---Then, beside Höðr, we have Hermôðr interweaving himself in the thread of Balder's history; he is dispatched to Hel, to demand his beloved brother back from the underworld. In Saxo he is already forgotten; the AS. genealogy places its Heremôð among Wôden's ancestors, and names as his son either Sceldwa or the Sceáf renowned in story, whereas in the North he and Balder alike are the offspring of Oðinn; in the same way we saw (p. 219) Freyr taken for the father as well as the son of Niörðr. A later Heremôd appears in Beow. 1795. 3417, but still in kinship with the old races; he is perhaps that hero, named by the side of Sigmundr in Sæm. 113ª, to whom Oðinn lends helm and hauberk. AS. title-deeds also contain the name Kemb. 1, 232. 141; and in OHG. Herimuot, Herimaot, occurs very often (Graff 2, 699 anno 782, from MB. 7, 373. Neugart no. 179. 214. 244. 260. annis 809-22-30-34. Ried. no. 21 anno 821), but neither song nor story has a tale to tell of him (see Suppl.).
So much the more valuable are the revelations of the Merseburg discovery; not only are we fully assured now of a divine Balder in Germany, but there emerges again a long-forgotten mythus, and with it a new name unknown even to the North.
When, says the lay, Phol (Balder) and Wodan were one day riding in the forest, one foot of Balder's foal, 'demo Balderes volon,' was wretched out of joint, whereupon the heavenly habitants bestowed their best pains on setting it right again, but neither Sinngund and Sunna, nor yet Frûa and Folla could do any good, only Wodan the wizard himself could conjure and heal the limb (see Suppl.).
The whole incident is as little known to the Edda as to other Norse legends. Yet what was told in a heathen spell in Thuringia before the tenth century is still in its substance found lurking in conjuring formulas known to the country folk of Scotland and Denmark (conf. ch. XXXVIII, Dislocation), except that they apply to Jesus what the heathens believed of Balder and Wodan. It is somewhat odd, that Cato (De re rust. 160) should give, likewise for a dislocated limb, an Old Roman or perhaps Sabine form of spell, which is unintelligible to us, but in which a god is evidently invoked: Luxum si quod est, hac cantione sanum fiet. Harundinem prende tibi viridem pedes IV aut V longam, mediam diffinde, et duo homines teneant ad coxendices. Incipe cantare in alio S.F. motas vaeta daries dardaries astataries Dissunapiter! usque dum coeant. What follows is nothing to our purpose.
The horse of Balder, lamed and checked on his journey, acquired a full meaning the moment we think of him as the god of light or day, whose stoppage and detention must give rise to serious mischief on the earth. Probably the story in its context could have informed us of this; it was foreign to the purpose of the conjuring spell.
The names of the four goddesses will be discussed in their proper place; what concerns us here is, that Balder is called a second and hitherto unheard-of name, Phol. The eye for our antiquities often merely wants opening: a noticing of the unnoticed has resulted in clear footprints of such a god being brought to our hand, in several names of places.
In Bavaria there was a Pholesauwa, Pholesouwa, ten or twelve miles from Passau, which the Traditiones patavienses first mention in a document drawn up between 774 and 788 (MB. vol 28, pars 2, p. 21, no. 23), and afterwards many later ones of the same district: it is the present village of Pfalsau. Its composition with aue quite fits in with the suppostion of an old heathen worship. The gods were worshipped not only on mountains, but on 'eas' inclosed by brooks and rivers, where fertile meadow yielded pasture, and forest shade. Such was the castum nemus of Nerthus in an insula Oceani, such Fosetesland with its willows and well-springs, of which more presently. Baldrshagi (Balderi pascuum), mentioned in the Friðþiofssaga, was an enclosed sanctuary (griðastaðr), which none might damage. I find also that convents, for which time-hallowed venerable sites were preferred, were often situated in 'eas'; and of one nunnery the very word used: 'in der megde ouwe,' in the maids' ea (Diut. 1, 357). (10) The ON. mythology supplies us with several eas named after the loftiest gods: Oðinsey (Odensee) in Fünen, another Oðinsey (Onsöe) in Norway, Fornm. sög. 12, 33, and Thôrsey, 7, 234. 9, 17; Hlêssey (Lässöe) in the Kattegat, &c., &c. We do not know any OHG. Wuotanesouwa, Donarsouwa, but Pholesouwa is equally to the point.
ENDNOTES:
10. So the Old Bavarian convent of Chiemsee was called ouwa (MB. 28ª, 103 an. 890), and afterwards the monastery there 'der herren werd,' and the nunnery 'der nunnen werd'. Stat 'zo gottes ouwe' in Lisch. mekl. jb. 7, 227, from a fragment belonging to Bertholds Crane. Demantin 242.
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Very similar must have been Pholespiunt (MB. 9, 404 circ. 1138. Pfalspiunt, 5, 399 anno 1290), now Pfalzpoint on the Altmühl, between Eichstädt and Kipfenberg, in a considerable forest. Piunt means an enclosed field or garden; (11) and if an ea could be consecrated to a god, so could a field. Graff 3, 342 has a place called Frawûnpiunt, which, to judge by the circumstances, may with like reason be assigned to the goddess Frouwa; no doubt it also belongs to Bavaria (see Suppl.).
In the Fulda Traditions (Schannat p. 291, no. 85) occurs this remarkable passage: Widerolt comes tradidit sancto Bonifacio quicquid proprietatis habuit in Pholesbrunnen in provincia Thuringiae. To this Pholesbrunno, the village of Phulsborn has the first claim, lying not far from the Saale, equidistant from the towns Apolda, Dornburg and Sulza, and spelt in Mid. Age documents Phulsborn and Pfolczborn; there is however another village, Falsbrunn or Falsbronn, on the Rauhe Eberach in the Franconian Steigerwald. Now Pfolesbrunno all the more plainly suggests a divinity (and that, Balder), as there are also Baldersbrunnen: a Baldebrunno has been produced from the Eifel mts, and from the Rhine Palatinate, (12) and it has been shown that the form ought to be corrected into Baldersbrunno as well as the modern Baldenhain to Baldershain (Zeitschr. f. d. alt. 2, 256); and Bellstadt in the Klingen district of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen was formerly Baldersteti, Schannat dioec. Fuld. p. 244, anno 977 (see Suppl.). From the Norse mythus of Balder, as given by Saxo, we learn that Balder in the heat of battle opened a fountain for his languishing army: Victor Balderus, ut afflictum siti militem opportuni liquoris beneficio recrearet, novos humi latices terram altius rimatus aperuit, quorum erumpentes scatebras sitibundum agmen hianti passim ore captabat. Eorundem vestigia sempiterna firmata vocabulo, quamquam pristina admodum scaturigo desierit, nondum prorsus exolevisse creduntur. This spot is the present Baldersbrönd near Roeskild (note to Müller's Saxo, p. 120). But the legend may be the same as old German legends, which at a later time placed to king Charle's account (p. 117, and infra, Furious host) that which heathendom had told of Balder; in that case the still surviving name has itself proved a fountain, whence the myth of Balder emerges anew. (13)
But the name of Phol is established more firmly still. A Heinricus de Pholing frequently appears in the Altach records of the 13th century, MB. part 11, a Rapoto de Pholingen, Phaling, in MB. 12, 56. 60; this place is on the left bank of the Danube below Straubingen, between the two convents of Altach. I doubt if the Polling in other records (and there are several Pollings in the Ammer country) can be the same word, as the aspirate is wanting and the liquid doubled. Pfullendorf or Follendorf near Gotha is in docs. of the 14th century Phulsdorf. A Pholenheim in Schannat, Vind. lit. coll. 1, 48. 53. Not far from Scharzfeld, between the Harz mts and Thuringia, is an old village named Pölde, called in early records and writings Polidi, Palidi, Palithi, Pholidi (Gramm. 2, 248), the seat of a well-known convent, which again may have been founded on the site of a heathen sanctuary. If a connexion with the god can be established in this case, we at the same time gather from it the true value of the varying consonant in his name.
Of Phol so many interpretations crowd upon us, that we should be puzzled if they could all be made good. The Chaldaic bel or bal seems to have been a mere title pertaining to several gods: bel = Uranus, bel = Jupiter, bel = Mars. The Finnish palo means fire, the ON. bâl [[fire, flame, funeral pyre]], AS. bael rogus, and the Slav. páliti to burn, with which connect Lat. Pales and the Palilia. Of phallus we have already spoken. We must first make sure of the sounds in our native names for a divinity of whom as yet we know nothing but the base name (see Suppl.). On the question as to the sense of the word itself, I set aside the notion one might stumble on, that it is merely a fondling form of Paltar, Balder, for such forms invariably preserve the initial of the complete name; we should expect Palzo, Balzo, but not Phol. (14) Nor does the OHG. Ph seem here to be equivalent to the ordinary F which corresponds to the Saxon F, but rather to be an aspirate which, answering to the Saxon tenuis P, represents an Old-Aryan media B. But we know that a Saxon initial P = OHG. Ph is found almost exclusively in foreign words (15) (porta, phorta; putti, phuzi; pêda, pheit); it follows that for Phol, in case the Sax. form Pol is really made out, we must either look for such a foreign P, or as a rare exception, in which the law of consonant-change does assert itself, an Old- Aryan B. I incline to this last hypothesis and connect Phol and Pol (whose o may very well have sprung from a) with the Celtic Beal, Beul, Bel, Belenus, a divinity of light or fire, the Slav. Bièlbôgh, Bèlbôgh (white-god), the adj. bièl, bèl (albus), Lith. baltas, which last with its extension I makes it probable that Bældæg and Baldr are of the same root, but have not undergone consonant-change. Phol and Paltar therefore are in their beginning one, but reveal to us two divergent historical developments of the same word, and a not unimportant difference in the mythology of the several Teutonic races. (16)
So far as we can see, the god was worshipped under the name of Phol chiefly by the Thuringians and Bavarians, i.e. according to ancient nomenclature the Hermunduri and Marcomanni, yet they seem tohave also known his other name Paltar or Balder, while Baldag, Bældæg prevailed among the Saxons and Westphalians, and the AS. bealdor had passed into a common noun. Now as the Bavarian Eor stood opposed to the Alamannic Zio, we ought to find out whether Phol was in like manner unknown to the Alamanns and the races most akin to them. (17)
Lastly, from eastern Germany we are transported to the northwest by a name appertaining closely to the Balder cultus, and again linking itself with the Edda. The Edda cites among the Ases a son of Balder and Nanna, Forseti, who like his father dwelt in a shining hall Glitnir (glit, nitor, splendor, OHG. kliz) built of gold and silver, and who (as Baldr himself had been called the wisest, most eloquent and mildest god, whose verdicts are final, Sn. 27) passed among gods and men for the wisest of judges; he settled all disputed matters (Sæm. 42ª. Sn. 31. 103), and we are told no more about him (see Suppl.).
ENDNOTES:
11. A Salzburg doc. of the tenth cent., in Kleinmayrn p. 196: Curtilem locum cum duobus pratis, quod piunti dicimus.
12. Conf. Schöpflin's Alsat. dipl. no. 748, anno 1285: in villa Baldeburne. A Westphal. doc. of 1203 (Falke trad. corb. p. 566) names a place Balderbroc, which might mean palus, campus Balderi.
13. Greek tradition tells of Herakles and Zeus: fasˆ tÕn `Hraklša d…yei pot katacšta eÜxasqai tÕ D ˆ patrˆ ™pide‹xai aÙtù mikran lib£da. Ð d mh qšlwn aÝtÕn katatrÚcesqai, ·…yaj keraunÕn ¢nšdwke mikran lib£da, ¼n qeas£menoj Ð \HraklÁj kaˆ sk£yaj eˆj tÕ plousièteron ™po…hse fšresqai (Scholia in Il. 20, 74). This spring was Scamander, and the libaj 'HraklÁoj may be set by the side of Pfolesbrunno as well as Pfolesouwa, lib£dion being both mead and ea; and does not the Grecian demigod's pyre kindled on Oeta suggest that of Balder?
14. So I explain the proper name Folz from Folbreht, Folrât, Folmâr, and the like; it therefore stands apart from Phol. [The Suppl. qualifies the sweeping assertion in the text; it also takes notice of several other solutions, as Apollo, Pollox, foal, &c.]
15. That is, really borrowed words, as port, paternal, palace, in which the Low Germ. makes no change (like that in firth, father), and therefore the High Germ. stands only one stage instead of two in advance of Latin: Pforte, Pfalz, &c. Such words stand outside the rule of consonant-change.-----Trans.
16. I have thus far gone on the assumption that Phol and Balder in the Merseberg spell designate one and the same divine being, which is strongly supported by the analogy I have pointed out between Pholesouwa and Baldrshagi, Pholesbrunno and Baldrsbrunnr; and his cultus must have been very familiar to the people, for the poem to be able to name him by different names in succession, without fear of being misunderstood. Else one might suppose by the names, that Phol and Balder were two different gods, and there would be plenty of room left for the question, who can possibly be meant by Phol? If PH could here represent V = W, which is contrary to all analogy, and is almost put out of court by the persistent PH, PF in all those names of places; then we might try the ON. Ullr, Ollerus in Saxo, p. 45, which (like ull, OHG. wolla, wool) would be in OHG. Wol, so that 'Wol endi Wôdan (Ullr ok Oðinn)' made a perfect alliteration. And Ullr was connected with Baldr, who in Sæm. 93ª is called 'Ullar sefi,' sib to U., Ulli cognatus (see Suppl.). But the gen. would have to be Wolles, and that is contradicted by the invariably single L in Pholes. The same reason is conclusive against Wackernagel's proposal to take Fol for the god of fulness and plenty, by the side of the goddess Follâ; I think the weak form Follo would be demanded for it by an OHG. Pilnitis; v. Haupts zeitschr. 2, 190. Still more does the internal consistency of the song itself require the identity of Phol and Balder; it would be odd for Phol to be named at the beginning, and no further notice to be taken of him.
17. The inquiry, how far these names reach back into antiquity, is far from exhausted yet. I have called attention to the Pfolgraben (-ditch), the Pfalhecke (-hedge, -fence), for which devil's dyke is elsewhere used; then the raising of the whirlwind is ascribed in some parts to the devil, in others to Herodias [meaning H.'s daughter the dancer], in others again to Pfol. Eastern Hesse on the Werra has a 'very queer' name for the whirlwind, beginning with Bull- or Boil-; and in the neighbouring Eichsfeld Pulloineke is pronounced with shyness and reluctance (Münchner gel. anz. 1842, p. 762). A Niddawitz ordinance of the same district (3, 327) contains the family name Boylsperg (Polesberc?), Pfoylsperg. The spelling Bull, Boil, would agree with the conjecture hazarded above, but I do not connect with this the idol Biel in the Harz, for Bielstein leads back to bîlstein, i.e. beilstein. Schmid's westerw. id. 145 has pollecker, bollecker for spectre, bugbear (see Suppl.).
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This Forseti is well entitled to be compared with the Frisian god Fosite, concerning whom some biographies composed in the ninth century gives us valuable information. The vita sancti Wilibrordi (d. 739), written by the famous Alcuin (d. 804), relates as follows, cap. 10: Cum ergo pius verbi Dei praedicator iter agebat, pervenit in confinio Fresonum et Danorum ad quamdam insulam, quae a quodam deo suo Fosite ab accolis terrae Fositesland appellatur, quia in ea ejusdem dei fana fuere constructa. qui locus a paganis in tanta veneratione habebatur, ut nil in ea, vel animalium ibi pascentium, vel aliarum quarumlibet rerum, gentilium quisquam tangere audebat, nec etiam a fonte qui ibi ebulliebat aquam haurire nisi tacens praesumebat. Quo cum vir Dei tempestate jactatus est, mansit ibidem aliquot dies, quousque sepositis tempestatibus opportunum navigandi tempus adveniret. sed parvipendens stultam loci illius religionem, vel ferocissimum regis animum, qui violatores sacrorum illius atrocissima morte damnare solebat; tres homines in eo fonte cum invocatione sanctae Trinitatis baptizavit. sed et animalia in ea terra pascentia in cibaria suis mactare praecepit. Quod pagani intuentes, arbitrabantur eos vel in furorem verti, vel etiam veloci morte perire; quos cum nil mali cernebant pati, stupore perterriti, regi tamen Radbodo quod viderant factum retulerunt. Qui nimio furore succensus in sacerdotem Dei vivi suorum injurias deorum ulcisci cogitabat, et per tres dies semper tribus vicibus sortes suo more mittebat, et nunquam damnatorum sors, Deo vero defendente suos, super servum Dei aut aliquem ex suis cadere potuit; nec nisi unus tantum ex sociis sorte monstratus martyrio coronatus est.--- Radbod feared king Pippin the Frank, and let the evangelist go unhurt. (18) What Wilibrord had left unfinished, was accomplished some time after by another priest, as the vita sancti Liudgeri, composed by Altfrid (d. 849), tells of the year 785: Ipse vero (Liudgerus)......studuit fana destruere, et omnes erroris pristini abluere sordes. curavit quoque ulterius doctrinae derivare flumina, et consilio ab imperatore accepto, transfretavit in confinio Fresonum atque Danorum ad quandam insulam, quae a nomine dei sui falsi Fosete Foseteslant est appellata........Pervenientes autem ad eandem insulam, destruxerunt omnia ejusdem Fosetis fana, quae illic fuere constructa, et pro eis Christi fabicaverunt ecclesias, cumque habitatores terrae illius fide Christi imbueret, baptizavit eos cum invocatione sanctae Trinitatis in fonte, qui ibi ebulliebat, in quo sanctus Willibrordus prius homines tres baptizaverat, a quo etiam fonte nemo prius haurire aquam nisi tacens praesumebat (Pertz 2, 410).----Altfrid evidently had the work of Alcuin by him. From that time the island took the name of hélegland, Helgoland, which it bears to this day; here also the evangelists were careful to conserve, in the interest of christianity, the sense of sacredness already attaching to the site. Adam of Bremen, in his treatise De situ Daniae (Pertz 9, 369), describes the island thus: Ordinavit (archiepiscopus episcopum) in Finne (Fühnen) Eilbertum, quem tradunt conversum (l. captum) a piratis Farriam insulam, quae in ostio fluminis Albiae longo secessu latet in oceano, primum reperisse constructoque monasterio in ea fecisse habitabilem. haec insula contra Hadeloam sita est. cujus longitudo vix VIII milliaria panditur, latitudo quatuor; homines stramine fragmentisque navium pro igne utuntur. Sermo est piratas, si quando praedam inde vel minimam tulerint, aut max perisse naufragio, aut occisos ab aliquo, nullum redisse indempnem; quapropter solent heremitis ibi viventibus decimas praedarum offerre cum magna devotione. est enim feracissima frugum, ditissima volucrum et pecudum nutrix, collem habet unicum, arborem nullam, scopulis includitur asperrimis, nullo aditu nisi uno, ubi et aqua dulcis (the spring whence they drew water in silence), locus venerabilis omnibus nautis, praecipue vero piratis, unde nomen accepit ut Heiligeland dicatur. hanc in vita sancti Willebrordi Fosetisland appellari dicimus, quae sita est in confinio Danorum et Fresonum. sunt et aliae insulae contra Fresiam et Daniam, sed nulla earum tam memorabilis.----The name Farria, appearing here for the first time, either arose from confounding the isle of Föhr with Helgoland, or we must emend the passage, and read 'a piratis Farrianis.' By the customs of these mariners and vikings even of christian times, we may assure ourselves how holy the place was accounted in the heathen time (see Suppl.).
In an island lying between Denmark, Friesland and Saxony, we might expect to find a heathen god who was common to all three. It would be strange if the Frisian Fosite were unknown to the Norsemen; and stranger still if the Eddic Forseti were a totally different god. It is true, one would have expected a mention of this deity in particular from Saxo Gram., who is quite silent about it; but then he omits many others, and in his day Fosite's name may have died out amongst the Frisians.
There is some discrepancy between the two names, as was natural in the case of two nations: ON. Forseti gen. forseta, Fris. Fosite gen. Fosites. The simplest suppostion is, that from Forsite arose by assimilation Fossite, Fosite, or that the R dropt out, as in OHG. mosar for morsar, Low Germ. mösar; so in the Frisian Angeln, according to Hagerup p. 20, föst, föste = förste, primus. Besides, there is hardly any other way of explaining Fosite. In ON. forseti is praeses, princeps, apparently translatable into OHG. forasizo, a fitting name for the god who presides over judgment, and arranges all disputes. The Gothic faúragaggja bears almost the same sense, which I also find, even in much later writings, attached to our word vorgänger (now = predecessor). More complete AS. genealogies would perhaps name a Forseta or Forsete as Bældæg's son. (19)
Forseti, Fosite are a proof of the extent of Balder's worship. If we may infer from Pholesouwa and Baldrshagi that the god loved isles and 'eas,' Helgoland is a case in point, where the flocks of his son grazed; and so is perhaps the worship of the Hercules-pillars, which, following Tacitus, we might fix on some other island near it. (20)
ENDNOTES:
18. Acta sanctor. Bened., sec. 3. pars 1, p. 609.
19. Later writers have turned Fosete into a goddess Foseta, Phoseta, Fosta, to approximate her to the Roman Vesta; maps of Helgoland, in which are found marked a 'templum Fostae vel Phosetae' of the year 768, and a 'templum Vestae' of 692, were made up in Major's Cimbrien (Plön, 1692), conf. Wiebel's programm über Helgoland, Hamb. 1842. The god Foste and Fosteland could easily find their way into the spurious Vita Suiberti cap. 7.
20. Another thought has struck my mind about Fosete. In the appendix to the Heldenbuch, Ecke, Vasat, Abentrot are styled brothers. The form Fasat instead of the usual Fasolt need not be a mistake; there are several OHG. men's names in -at, and OS. in -ad, -id, so that Fasat and Fasolt can hold their ground side by side. Now Fasolt (conf. ch. XX. Storm) and Ecke were known as god-giants of wind and water, Abentrot as a dæmon of light. As Ecke-Oegir was worshipped on the Eider and in Lässöe, so might Fosite be in Helgoland. The connexion with Forseti must not be let go, but its meaning as For-seti, Fora-sizo becomes dubious, and I feel inclined to explain it as Fors-eti from for [a whirling stream, 'force' in Cumbld], Dan. fos, and to assume a dæmon of the whirlpool, a Fossegrimm (conf. ch. XVII. Nichus), with which Fosite's sacred spring would tally. Again, the Heldenbuch gives those three brothers a father Nentigêr (for so we must read for Mentiger) = OHG. Nandgêr; and does not he suggest Forseti's mother Nanna = Nandâ?
Heathenry
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