Northern Antiquities/Chapter 13

by Paul Henri Mallet

having entirely extinguiſhed the tafte for piracy, and thus reftored to the land one half of its inhabitants, laid them under a neceffity of deriving from thence all their fubfiftence. But the other arts were ftill depreffed under the influence of this prejudice, and were for a long time confidered as abject occupations befitting none but flaves; which not only difhonoured the prefent profeffors, but even fixed a ftain on all their pofterity*. The Gauls, the Germans, and the Scandinavians never employed in any of their domeftic and handicraft trades other than flaves, freed-men, women or fuch miferable old men as preferred a dif- honourable life to death. They were of courfe ignorant of all the pleafing conve- niences and ornaments of life, excepting fuch as they either acquired by violence in their piratical excurfions, or gained to them- felves by foreign fervice. Their wives- fpun themfelves the wool which made one part of their cloathing, and fkins fupplied

• The Greeks and Ro-

mans did not think more philofophically on this fubject than thefe rude uncivilized nations: if indeed it can be called Philofophy, and not ra- Chap. XIII. ther Common Senfe, to eftimate things in pro- portion to their utility, and to be fenfible that we owe to the Arts moft of the comforts we enjoy. First Edit. the (350) the reft. Their habits fat clofe to their bodies, and were fhort and neat like thofe of all the Gothic*' nations: not wide, long and flowing like thofe of the Sarma- tians and eaftern people. They were per- haps ftill lefs luxurious in their manner of lodging. In the time of Tacitus, the Germans had not yet built themſelves cities, or even towns: " Every one," fays that author, places his houfe on whatever fpot he "chufes, near a fpring, a wood or open «field, at a diftance from any neighbour, " either from ignorance in the art of 66 building, or for fear of fire +." When religion permitted temples to be erected to the Gods, the concourfe of thofe who came to offer oblations, engaged them to build round about them, and towns infenfibly arofe. The fame thing happened near the caftles of their kings, princes and great

• (Celtic. Orig.) In

the habits of the ancient Gothic nations we fee evidently the rudiments of the modern European drefs: They confifted of a kind of waiftcoat, and breeches, or rather a kind of trowfers which came down to the feet, and were connected with the fhoes; whereas the an- cient Romans were naked knee'd. Upon the pillars of Trajan and Antonine the dreffes of fuch nations as were of Gothic race bear a great refemblance to thofe of our common failors and peasants. T. † Tac. Germ. c. 16. men; Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/426 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/427 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/428 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/429 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/430 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/431 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/432 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/433 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/434 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/435 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/436 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/437 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/438 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/439 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/440 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/441 were settled in Moesia and Thrace, translated the Bible into the Gothic language. But

we know from other authorities, that the character in which this version was written, was either Runic, or one nearly resembling it. Several authors say, that Ulphilas invented it; but is it probable that any man should form a new alphabet for a nation which had one already? If the Goths of Mœsia and Thrace had not before his time had any knowledge of letters, would it not have been better to have taught them the use of the Greek character, already understood? Befides, Ulphilas neither wrote the Gospels on wood nor on stone, but on parchment; he would not therefore be under the necessity of disfiguring the alphabet of other nations for the sake of strait lines, which it is alledged gave birth to the Runic

ters. At moft it could not be the Roman alphabet that was altered; but if any it muft have been the Greek, for Ulphilas was at that time in a country where the Greek language was fpoken. Nor is it dif- ficult to difcover what it was that led hifto- rians into the miſtake of fuppofing Ul- philas to have been the inventor of thefe characters. The Greeks had probably never heard any mention of them before he came among them: The introducer of a novelty eafily paffes for the author of it; and when we compare the Runic letters, taken from the infcriptions fcattered up and down on the rocks in the North, with the alphabet of Ulphilas, it is eafy to fee that the bishop has added diverfe characters un- known to the ancient Scandinavians. It was doubtlefs the tranflation of the Bible which obliged him to make thefe addi- tions. The ancient alphabet being com- pofed only of fixteen letters^[1], could not exprefs many founds foreign to the Gothic language, that neceffarily occurred in that work. Thefe additional letters might ea- fily confer on Ulphilas the credit of invent- ing the whole. This is one of thofe in- accuracies which every day happen. It is no lefs probable that before Ulphilas, the (370) Goths, even while they were involved in the thickeft darkneſs of paganifm, had fome knowledge of letters*.

• An evident proof that

the RUNIC were not imi- tated from the ROMAN letters, arifes not only from their form which have fo little refemblance to thefe, but from their number, (being but fix- teen) and their order and names, which have no- thing in common with the ROMAN, GREEK or Go- THIC characters of Ul- philas: Let the reader truft to his own eyes. The RUNIC Alphabet. Name, Fie Ur Dufs Oys Ridhur Kaun Hagl Figure, V n b 1 RP X Power, F. U. D. O. R. K. Nandur Jis Aar Sol Tyr Biarkan B N. I. A. S. T. B. Lagur Madur Yr P L. M. YR. The GOTHIC Alphabet by ULPHILAS. Figure, BraЄk Ghi Power, A. B. G. D. E. F. I or Y. H. I. KA MN Q&ПOKS K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R. S. ΤΨΗΝ YXN T. TH. U. QU. W or U. CH. Z. What Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/446 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/447 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/448 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/449 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/450 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/451 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/452 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/453 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/454 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/455 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/456 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/457 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/458 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/459 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/460 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/461 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/462 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/463 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/464 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/465 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/466 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/467 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/468 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/469 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/470 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/471 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/472 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/473 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/474 Page:Northern Antiquities 1.djvu/475 It is not easy to discover wherein consisted the mechanism and harmony of those ancient verses which were not in rhime. The learned who have made the northern languages their study, fancy they discover in some of them the Saphic measure, which many Greek lyric poets and Horace in Latin so frequently chose^[2]. In others the poet seems to have tied himself up to begin the two first lines of each strophe with the same letters, and to confine his verse within six syllables. Others think they observe that the initial letters of the lines correspond in many different respects, either in the fame or in different strophees. The most skilful investigators of this subject assure us, that the poets perpetually invented new measures, and reckon up one hundred and thirty-six kinds^[3]. The explication of them we must leave to the assiduity of those who have reckoned them up.

This taste for the abstruse and complicated, could not fail of running them into allegories and enigmas of every kind: We often meet with princes and great warriors in the ancient chronicles, proposing riddles and affixing penalties on such as could not unravel them. In the first interview king Regner had with the beautiful shepherdess before mentioned, he tried by enigmas to discover whether her wit was answerable to her beauty. Another king, named Eric, rendered himself famous for being able to give immediate answers to thirty riddles, which Odin himself had come to propose to him, having assumed the appearance of one Gest, a man extremely well versed in this art. These are still extant in an old Icelandic romance^[4]. But excepting some few, which are tolerably ingenious, they are either totally unintelligible, or built on verbal equivocations. The poets were not limited to this kind only. There is mention made from the earliest ages of Logogryphs^[5], and other still more trifling species of wit, for which we happily want even names. Some of them must have cost much labour, and all imply such an acuteness and patience in the inventors, as would hardly be expected from a nation of warriors.

In regard to the old poems, all that is most needful to be known about them, is the peculiar genius, manner and taste that runs through them. Some of them present us with the faithful and genuine mode of thinking of those times, but they are often difficult to understand, and still more to translate. Nevertheless, to satisfy the curiosity of those readers who like to view the original manners and spirit of a people, I have endeavoured to translate such fragments of ancient northern poetry as would best answer this purpose. These translations, together with a few explanatory notes, will be thrown to the end by way of sequel, and as affording vouchers to this little work.

THere remains now but one word to add by way of conclusion. When the truth of facts is once solidly established, we may safely reason concerning their causes. From a representation of such facts, (which are here only brought together and left to speak for themselves) a picture has been given of the ancient northern nations. But having thus informed ourselves concerning the manners of this people; why may not we proceed a step farther, to consider the general caufes of their character. It does not seem impossible here to discover and persue the path which nature hath taken. A great abundance of blood and humours, strong and rigid fibres, together with an inexhaustible vigour, formed the constitutional temperament of the Scandinavians and Germans, as they do indeed of all savage people who live under a like climate^[6].

Hence proceeded that impetuofity and violence of their paffions when they were once roufed; and hence in their calmer moments that ferious, phlegmatic and in- dolent turn. The exercifes of war and the chace, which are great fatigues to a lefs robuft people, were to them only amufe- ments, the means of fhaking off their lethargy, and of giving an agreeable and even neceffary motion to the body. Their relifh for this kind of life, the effect of constitution, strengthened in its turn the caufe that produced it. Thus ftrongly moulded by the hand of nature, and ren- dered hardy by education, the opinion they entertained of their own courage and ftrength muft have given the peculiar turn to their character. A man who thinks he has nothing to fear, cannot endure any fort of conftraint; much lefs will he fubmit to any arbitrary authority, which he fees only fupported by human power, or fuch as he can brave with impunity. As he thinks himfelf not obliged to court any one's favour or deprecate his refentment, he fcorns diffimulation, artifice or falfhood. He regards thefe faults, the effects of fear, as the moft degrading of all others. He is always ready to repel force by force; hence he is neither fufpicious nor diftruftful. A declared enemy to his enemy, he attacks openly; he confides in and is true to others; generous and fometimes in the higheſt de- gree magnanimous, becaufe he places his deareft intereft in the idea he entertains and would excite of his courage. He does not willingly confine himfelf to fuch occu- pations as require more affiduity than ac- tion, more application of mind than body; becaufe moderate exercife is not fufficient to put his blood and fibres into such a degree of motion as is necessary to his own ease.

which Ulphilas had translated. The leaves are of vellum of a violet colour; all the letters are of silver, except the initials, which are of gold. These letters (which are all capitals) appear not to have been written with the pen, but stamped or imprinted on the vellum with hot metal types^∗, in the same manner as the book-binders at present letter the backs of books. This copy is judged to be near as ancient as the time of Ulphilas, or at least not later than a century or two after; yet so near was the copyist to the discovery of printing, that if he had but thought of combining three or four of these letters together he must have hit upon that admirable invention; whereas he only imprinted each letter singly. ——— This curious fragment has been several times printed in 4to, first by Junius in 1665; and lately in a very elegant manner at Oxford by the learned Mr. Lye in 1750. —Another fragment of this curious version (containing part of the Epistle to the Romans) has been since discovered in the library at Wolfenbottle, and was published a few years ago in a very splendid volume in 4to by the Rev. F. A. Knitell, archdeacon of Wolfenbottle.

It must not be concealed that Mr. Michaelis and one or two other learned men^† have opposed the current opinion, that the Silver Book contains part of Ulphilas’s Gothic version; and have offered arguments to prove that it is rather a venerable fragment of some very ancient Fancic Bible but they have

been confuted by M. Knitell and others; and the Gothic claim has been further confirmed by a curious relic of the same language lately discovered in Italy, plainly written by one of the same Goths, being evidently of their time. The explanation of this we owe to the reverend Mr. Lye: See his Notes on the Gothic Gospels, &c.

To conclude; The letters used in the Gothic Gospels, being 25 in number, are formed with slight variations from the capitals of the Greek and Latin alphabet, and are extremely different from the Runic. The invention of them may therefore be very safely attributed to Bp. Ulphilas (as the ancients expressly assert); who might not chuse to employ in so sacred a work as the translation of the Bible, the Runic characters, which the Goths had rendered infamous by their superstitious use of them. T.

∗. See this fully proved in some late curious Tracts written by the learned Dom. Johan. Ihre, and other Swedish Literati. (Vid. vol. II. p. 355.)

†. Viz. M. de la Croze; see the Latin Dissertation at the end of Chamberlayn’s “Oratio Dominica, &c.” Amst. 1714, 4to.

1. Verel. Runogr. Scand. cap. vii.
2. Dalin. Suea. Rik. Hist. lib. viii. ——— [This resemblance to the Sapphic meafure, will I am afraid be found only imaginary. It may with with more certainty be affirmed that the vast variety of metre used by the ancient Scalds may chiefly, if not altogether be reduced to different kinds of Alliteration. In Wormius we have an exact analysis of one of these sorts of metre in which it was requisite that the stanza or strophe should consist of four distichs, and each verse of six syllables. In each distich three words at least were required to begin with the same letters, (that is, two words in one verse, and one in the other), that there should besides this be two correspondent syllables in each verse, and that none of the correspondences ought immediately to follow each other; &c. as in the following Latin couplet:
   ChrisTus Caput noSTrum
    CorONet te bONis.
   
   

   This appears to us at present, to be only a very laborious way of trifling; however we ought not to decide too hastily: every language has its own peculiar laws of harmony; and as the ancient Greeks and Romans formed their metre of certain artful distributions of their long and short syllables: so the northern Scalds placed the structure of theirs in the studied repetition and adaptation of the vowels and consonants. ——— The same mode of versification was admired by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and hath not wholly been laid aside much more than two centuries among our English poets; see “Reliques of ancient Engl. poetry,” Vol. II. p. 260. ——— It may not be amiss to add, that the metre of the Welsh bards is altogether of the alliterative kind, and full as artificial as that of the ancient Scandinavians: Yet those who thoroughly understand that language, assert that this kind of metre is extremely pleasing to the ear, and does not subject the poet to more restraint than the different sorts of feet did the Greek and Roman poets.

   Perhaps it will not be difficult to find the difference between the metre of the ancient Classics, and that of the Gothic and Celtic bards, in the different genius of their respective languages. The Greek and Latin tongues chiefly consisted of polysyllables, of words ending with vowels, and not overburdened with consonants: their poets therefore (if they would produce harmony) could not but make their metre to consist in quantity, or the artful disposal of the long and short syllables; whereas the old Celtic and Teutonic languages being chiefly composed of monosyllables, could have had hardly any such thing as quantity, and on the other hand abounding in harsh consonants, the first effort of their bards to reduce it to harmony must have been by placing these consonants at such distances from each other, so intermixing them with vowels, and so artfully interweaving, repeating and dividing these several founds, as to produce an agreeable effect from their structure. T.

3. Worm. App. Litt. Run. p. 165. rec. edit.
4. Vid. Hervarer Saga. c. xv.
5. A Logogryph is a kind of enigma, which consists of taking, in different senses, the different parts of the same word. See instances of this species of false wit in Ol. Wormii Literat. Runic. p. 183, 185, &c. T.
6. Sub Septentrionibus nu- triuntur gentes immani- bus corporibus, candidis co- loribus, fanguine multo, quoniam ab humoris pleni- tate, clique refrigera- tionibus funt confirmati. Sanguinis abundantia ferro refiftunt fine timore. Qui refrigeratis nafcuntur regionibus ad armorum ve- hementiam paratiores funt, magnifque viribus ruunt fine timore, fed tarditate animi refringuntur. Vi- truv. lib. vi. The an- cients bear witness to thefe affertions; The fentiments of Vitruvius are here nothing more than their general opi- nion. [Let the reader caft his eye over the following passages. Septen- trionales populi largo fan- guine redundantes. Veget. I, 2. Gothi confcientia virium freti, robore cor- poris validi, manu prompti. Ifidor. Chronic. p. 730. Germanica nationes, fa- viffimis durata frigoribus, mores ex ipfo cceli rigore traxerunt. Ifid. Orig. lib. ix. cap. 2. Scythe gens laboribus et bellis af- pera: vires corporum im- menfa. Juftin. lib. ii. cap. 3. Firft Edit.]