Читать книгу The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and Modern Times - Alfred Biese - Страница 7

Kukuk vam haven, wo lange sail ik leven?

There were many legends of men and snakes who exchanged shapes, and whom it was unlucky to kill.^[4]

The sun and moon, too, were familiar figures in legends.

Their movement across the sky was a flight from two pursuing wolves, of which one, the Fenris wolf, was fated one day to catch and devour the moon. The German, like the Greek, dreaded nothing more than the eclipse of sun or moon, and connected it with the destruction of all things and the end of the world. In the moon spots he saw a human form carrying a hare or a stick or an axe on his shoulder.

The Solstices impressed him most of all, with their almost constant day in summer, almost constant night in winter. Sun, moon, and stars were the eyes of heaven; there was a pious custom to greet the stars before going to bed. Still earlier, they were sparks of fire from Muspilli, to light the gods home. Night, day, and the sun had their cars--night and day with one horse, the sun with two: sunrise brought sounds sweeter than the song of birds or strings; the rising sun, it was said, rings for joy, murmuring daybreak laughs.^[5]

Day brought joy, night sorrow; the first was good and friendly, the second bad and hostile. The birds greeted daytime and summer with songs of delight, but grieved in silence through night and winter: the first swallow and stork were hailed as spring's messengers. May with greening woods led in beloved summer, frost and snow the winter.

So myth, fable, and legend were interlaced in confusion; who can separate the threads?

At any rate, the point of view which they indicate remained the common one even far into the Middle Ages, and shewed simple familiar intercourse with Nature. Even legal formulæ were full of pictures from Nature. In the customary oath to render a contract binding, the promise is to hold, so it runs, 'so long as the sun shines and rivers flow, so long as the wind blows and birds sing, so far off as earth is green and fir trees grow, so far as the vault of heaven reaches.' As Schnaase says,^[6] though with some exaggeration, such formulæ, in their summary survey of earth and sky, often give a complete landscape poem in a few words. He points out that in northern, as opposed to classic mythology, Nature was considered, not in the cursory Hebrew way, that hurried over or missed detail, but as a whole, and in her relation to man's inner life.

'The collective picture of heaven and earth, of cloud movement, of the mute life of plants--that side of Nature which had almost escaped the eye of antiquity--occupied the Northerner most of all.

'The Edda even represents all Nature together in one colossal form--the form of the giant Ymir, whom the sons of Boer slew, in order to make the mountains from his bones, the earth from his flesh, the skies from his skull.'

A still grander mythical synthesis was the representation of the whole world under the form of the sacred ash tree Yggdrasil. This was the world tree which united heaven, earth, and hell. Its branches stretched across the world and reached up to the skies, and its roots spread in different directions--one toward the race of Asa in heaven, another toward the Hrimthursen, the third toward the underworld; and on both roots and branches creatures lived and played--eagle, squirrel, stag, and snake; while by the murmuring Urdhar stream, which rippled over one root, the Nones sat in judgment with the race of Asa.

Not less significant was the conception of the end of the world, the twilight of the gods (Götterdämmerung), according to which all the wicked powers broke loose and fought against the gods; the sun and moon were devoured by wolves, the stars fell and earth quaked, the monster world-serpent Joermungande, in giant rage, reared himself out of the water and came to land: Loki led the Hrimthursen and the retinue of hell, and Surt, with his shining hair, rode away from the flaming earth across Bifröst, the rainbow, which broke beneath him.

After the world conflagration a new and better earth arose, with rejuvenated gods.^[7]

German mediæval poetry, as a whole, epic and lyric, was interwoven with a hazy network of suggestive myth and legend; and moral elements, which in mythology were hidden by the prominence of Nature, stood out clear to view in the fate and character of the heroes. The germ of many of our fairy tales is a bit of purest poetry of Nature--a genuine Nature myth transferred to human affairs, which lay nearer to the child-like popular mind, and were therefore more readily understood by it.

So, for instance, from the Maiden of the Shield, Sigrdrifa, who was pierced by Odin's sleep thorn, and who originally represented the earth, frozen in winter, kissed awake by the sun-god, came Brunhild, whose mail Siegfried's sword penetrated as the sun rays penetrate the frost, and lastly the King's daughter, who pricked herself with the fateful spindle, and sank into deep sleep. And as Sigrdrifa was surrounded by walls of flame, so now we have a thorny hedge of wild briar round the beautiful maiden (hence named Dornröschen) when the lucky prince comes to waken her with a kiss.^[8]

Not all fairy tales have preserved the myth into Christian times in so poetic and transparent a form as this. Its poetic germ arose from hidden depths of myth and legend, and, like heathen superstitions in the first centuries of Christianity, found its most fruitful soil among the people. It has often been disguised beyond recognition by legends, and by the worship of the Madonna and saints, but it has never been destroyed, and it keeps its magic to the present day.

We see then that the inborn German feeling for Nature, conditioned by climate and landscape, and pronounced in his mythology, found both an obstacle and a support in Christianity--an obstacle in its transcendentalism, and a support in its inwardness.