Teutonic Mythology Part 3

Staatsverwalt_, 295). To Illyric.u.m belonged the Roman provinces Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia, and the Pannonians were an Illyrian tribe. In Pannonia Gregorius of Tours had located the Franks in early times. Thus Antenor, with his Trojans, on their westward journey, traverses the same regions from which, according to Gregorius, the Franks had set out for the Rhine.

Virgil also says that Antenor extended his journeys to the Liburnian kingdoms (_regna Liburnorum_). From Servius' commentary on this pa.s.sage, the middle age knew that the Liburnian kingdoms were Rhetia and Vindelicia (_Rhetia Vindelici ipsi sunt Liburni_). Rhetia and Vindelicia separate Pannonia from the Rhine. Antenor, accordingly, takes the same route toward the West as the Franks must have taken if they came from Pannonia to the Rhine.

Virgil then brings Antenor to a river, which, it is true, is called Timavus, but which is described as a mighty stream, coming thundering out of a mountainous region, where it has its source, carrying with it a ma.s.s of water which the poet compares with a sea, forming before it reaches the sea a delta, the plains of which are deluged by the billows, and finally emptying itself by many outlets into the ocean. Virgil says _nine_; but Servius interprets this as meaning _many_: "_finitus est numerus pro infinito_."

We must pardon the Frankish scribes for taking this river to be the Rhine; for if a water-course is to be looked for in Europe west of the land of the Liburnians, which answers to the Virgilian description, then this must be the Rhine, on whose banks the ancestors of the Franks for the first time appear in history.

Again, Virgil tells us that Antenor settled near this river and founded a colony--Patavium--on the low plains of the delta. The Salian Franks acquired possession of the low and flat regions around the outlets of the Rhine (_Insula Batavorum_) about the year 287, and also of the land to the south as far as to the Scheldt; and after protracted wars the Romans had to leave them in control of this region. By the very occupation of this low country, its conquerors might properly be called Batavian Franks. It is only necessary to call attention to the similarity of the words _Patavi_ and _Batavi_, in order to show at the same time that the conclusion could scarcely be avoided that Virgil had reference to the immigration of the Franks when he spoke of the wanderings of Antenor, the more so, since from time out of date the p.r.o.nunciation of the initials _B_ and _P_ have been interchanged by the Germans. In the conquered territory the Franks founded a city (Ammian.

Marc., xvii. 2, 5).

Thus it appears that the Franks were supposed to have migrated to the Rhine under the leaders.h.i.+p of Antenor. The first Frankish chiefs recorded, after their appearance there, are Markomir and Sunno. From this the conclusion was drawn that Sunno was Antenor's son; and as Markomir ought to be the son of some celebrated Trojan chief, he was made the son of Priam. Thus we have explained Fredegar's statement that Virgil is his authority for the Trojan descent of these Franks. This seemed to be established for all time.

The wars fought around the Moeotian marshes between the emperor Valentinia.n.u.s, the Alamanni, and the Franks, of which _Gesta_ speaks, are not wholly inventions of the fancy. The historical kernel in this confused semi-mythical narrative is that Valentinia.n.u.s really did fight with the Alamanni, and that the Franks for some time were allies of the Romans, and came into conflict with those same Alamanni (Ammian. Marc., libs, x.x.x., x.x.xi.). But the scene of these battles was not the Moeotian marshes and Pannonia, as _Gesta_ supposes, but the regions on the Rhine.

The unhistorical statement of Gregorius that the Franks came from Pannonia is based only on the fact that Frankish warriors for some time formed a _Sicambra cohors_, which about the year 26 was incorporated with the Roman troops stationed in Pannonia and Thracia. The cohort is believed to have remained in Hungary and formed a colony, where Buda now is situated. _Gesta_ makes Pannonia extend from the Moeotian marshes to Tanais, since according to Gregorius and earlier chroniclers, these waters were the boundary between Europe and Asia, and since Asia was regarded as a synonym of the Trojan empire. Virgil had called the Trojan kingdom Asia: _Postquam res Asiae Priamique evertere gentem_, &c., (_aeneid_, iii. 1).

Thus we have exhibited the seed out of which the fable about the Trojan descent of the Franks grew into a tree spreading its branches over all Teutonic Europe, in the same manner as the earlier fable, which was at least developed if not born in Sicily, in regard to the Trojan descent of the Romans had grown into a tree overshadowing all the lands around the Mediterranean, and extending one of its branches across Gaul to Britain and Ireland. The first son of the Britons, "Brutus," was, according to Galfred, great-grandson of aeneas, and migrated from Alba Longa to Ireland.

So far as the Gauls are concerned, the incorporation of Cis-Alpine Gaul with the Roman Empire, and the Romanising of the Gauls dwelling there, had at an early day made way for the belief that they had the same origin and were of the same blood as the Romans. Consequently they too were Trojans. This view, encouraged by Roman politics, gradually found its way to the Gauls on the other side of the Rhine; and even before Caesar's time the Roman senate had in its letters to the aeduans, often called them the "brothers and kinsmen" of the Romans (_fratres consanguineique_--Caesar, _De Bell. Gall._, i. 33, 2). Of the Avernians Luca.n.u.s sings (i. 427): _Averni ... ausi Latio se fingere fratres, sanguine ab Iliaco populi_.

Thus we see that when the Franks, having made themselves masters of the Romanised Gaul, claimed a Trojan descent, then this was the repet.i.tion of a history of which Gaul for many centuries previously had been the scene. After the Frankish conquest the population of Gaul consisted for the second time of two nationalities unlike in language and customs, and now as before it was a political measure of no slight importance to bring these two nationalities as closely together as possible by the belief in a common descent. The Roman Gauls and the Franks were represented as having been one people in the time of the Trojan war.

After the fall of the common fatherland they were divided into two separate tribes, with separate destinies, until they refound each other in the west of Europe, to dwell together again in Gaul. This explains how it came to pa.s.s that, when they thought they had found evidence of this view in Virgil, this was at once accepted, and was so eagerly adopted that the older traditions in regard to the origin and migrations of the Franks were thrust aside and consigned to oblivion. History repeats itself a third time when the Normans conquered and became masters of that part of Gaul which after them is called Normandy. Dudo, their chronicler, says that they regarded themselves as being _ex Antenore progenitos_, descendants of Antenor. This is sufficient proof that they had borrowed from the Franks the tradition in regard to their Trojan descent.

12.

WHY ODIN WAS GIVEN ANTENOR'S PLACE AS LEADER OF THE TROJAN EMIGRATION.

So long as the Franks were the only ones of the Teutons who claimed Trojan descent, it was sufficient that the Teutonic-Trojan immigration had the father of a Frankish chief as its leader. But in the same degree as the belief in a Trojan descent spread among the other Teutonic tribes and a.s.sumed the character of a statement equally important to all the Teutonic tribes, the idea would naturally present itself that the leader of the great immigration was a person of general Teutonic importance.

There was no lack of names to choose from. Most conspicuous was the mythical Teutonic patriarch, whom Tacitus speaks of and calls _Mannus_ (_Germania_, 2), the grandson of the G.o.ddess Jord (Earth). There can be no doubt that he still was remembered by this (Mann) or some other name (for nearly all Teutonic mythic persons have several names), since he reappears in the beginning of the fourteenth century in Heinrich Frauenlob as Mennor, the patriarch of the German people and German tongue.[5] But Mannus had to yield to another universal Teutonic mythic character, Odin, and for reasons which we shall now present.

As Christianity was gradually introduced among the Teutonic peoples, the question confronted them, what manner of beings those G.o.ds had been in whom they and their ancestors so long had believed. Their Christian teachers had two answers, and both were easily reconcilable. The common answer, and that usually given to the converted ma.s.ses, was that the G.o.ds of their ancestors were demons, evil spirits, who ensnared men in superst.i.tion in order to become wors.h.i.+pped as divine beings. The other answer, which was better calculated to please the n.o.ble-born Teutonic families, who thought themselves descended from the G.o.ds, was that these divinities were originally human persons--kings, chiefs, legislators, who, endowed with higher wisdom and secret knowledge, made use of these to make people believe that they were G.o.ds, and wors.h.i.+p them as such.

Both answers could, as stated, easily be reconciled with each other, for it was evident that when these proud and deceitful rulers died, their unhappy spirits joined the ranks of evil demons, and as demons they continued to deceive the people, in order to maintain through all ages a wors.h.i.+p hostile to the true religion. Both sides of this view we find current among the Teutonic races through the whole middle age. The one which particularly presents the old G.o.ds as evil demons is found in popular traditions from this epoch. The other, which presents the old G.o.ds as mortals, as chiefs and lawmakers with magic power, is more commonly reflected in the Teutonic chronicles, and was regarded among the scholars as the scientific view.

Thus it followed of necessity that Odin, the chief of the Teutonic G.o.ds, and from whom their royal houses were fond of tracing their descent, also must have been a wise king of antiquity and skilled in the magic arts, and information was of course sought with the greatest interest in regard to the place where he had reigned, and in regard to his origin.

There were two sources of investigation in reference to this matter. One source was the treasure of mythic songs and traditions of their own race. But what might be history in these seemed to the students so involved in superst.i.tion and fancy, that not much information seemed obtainable from them. But there was also another source, which in regard to historical trustworthiness seemed incomparably better, and that was the Latin literature to be found in the libraries of the convents.

During centuries when the Teutons had employed no other art than poetry for preserving the memory of the life and deeds of their ancestors, the Romans, as we know, had had parchment and papyrus to write on, and had kept systematic annals extending centuries back. Consequently this source _must_ be more reliable. But what had this source--what had the Roman annals or the Roman literature in general to tell about Odin?

Absolutely nothing, it would seem, inasmuch as the name Odin, or Wodan, does not occur in any of the authors of the ancient literature. But this was only an apparent obstacle. The ancient king of our race, Odin, they said, has had many names--one name among one people, and another among another, and there can be no doubt that he is the same person as the Romans called Mercury and the Greeks Hermes.

The evidence of the correctness of identifying Odin with Mercury and Hermes the scholars might have found in Tacitus' work on Germany, where it is stated in the ninth chapter that the chief G.o.d of the Germans is the same as Mercury among the Romans. But Tacitus was almost unknown in the convents and schools of this period of the middle age. They could not use this proof, but they had another and completely compensating evidence of the a.s.sertion.

Originally the Romans did not divide time into weeks of seven days.

Instead, they had weeks of eight days, and the farmer worked the seven days and went on the eighth to the market. But the week of seven days had been in existence for a very long time among certain Semitic peoples, and already in the time of the Roman republic many Jews lived in Rome and in Italy. Through them the week of seven days became generally known. The Jewish custom of observing the sacredness of the Sabbath, the first day of the week, by abstaining from all labour, could not fail to be noticed by the strangers among whom they dwelt. The Jews had, however, no special name for each day of the week. But the Oriental, Egyptian, and Greek astrologers and astronomers, who in large numbers sought their fortunes in Rome, did more than the Jews to introduce the week of seven days among all cla.s.ses of the metropolis, and the astrologers had special names for each of the seven days of the week. Sat.u.r.day was the planet's and the planet-G.o.d Saturnus' day; Sunday, the sun's; Monday, the moon's; Tuesday, Mars'; Wednesday, Mercury's; Thursday, Jupiter's; Friday, Venus' day. Already in the beginning of the empire these names of the days were quite common in Italy. The astrological almanacs, which were circulated in the name of the Egyptian Petosiris among all families who had the means to buy them contributed much to bring this about. From Italy both the taste for astrology and the adoption of the week of seven days, with the above-mentioned names, spread not only into Spain and Gaul, but also into those parts of Germany that were incorporated with the Roman Empire, Germania superior and inferior, where the Romanising of the people, with Cologne (_Civitas Ubiorum_) as the centre, made great progress. Teutons who had served as officers and soldiers in the Roman armies, and were familiar with the everyday customs of the Romans, were to be found in various parts of the independent Teutonic territory, and it is therefore not strange if the week of seven days, with a separate name given to each day, was known and in use more or less extensively throughout Teutondom even before Christianity had taken root east of the Rhine, and long before Rome itself was converted to Christianity. But from this introduction of the seven-day week did not follow the adoption of the Roman names of the days. The Teutons translated the names into their own language, and in so doing chose among their own divinities those which most nearly corresponded to the Roman. The translation of the names is made with a discrimination which seems to show that it was made in the Teutonic border country, governed by the Romans, by people who were as familiar with the Roman G.o.ds as with their own. In that border land there must have been persons of Teutonic birth who officiated as priests before Roman altars. The days of the sun and moon were permitted to retain their names. They were called Sunday and Monday. The day of the war-G.o.d Mars became the day of the war-G.o.d Tyr, Tuesday. The day of Mercury became Odin's day, Wednesday. The day of the lightning-armed Jupiter became the day of the thundering Thor, Thursday.

The day of the G.o.ddess of love Venus became that of the G.o.ddess of love Freyja, Friday. Saturnus, who in astrology is a watery star, and has his house in the sign of the waterman, was among the Romans, and before them among the Greeks and Chaldaeans, the lord of the seventh day. Among the North Teutons, or at least, among a part of them, his day got its name from laug,[6] which means a bath, and it is worthy of notice in this connection that the author of the Prose Edda's Foreword identifies Saturnus with the sea-G.o.d Njord.

Here the Latin scholars had what seemed to them a complete proof that the Odin of which their stories of the past had so much to tell was--and was so recognised by their heathen ancestors--the same historical person as the Romans wors.h.i.+pped by the name Mercury.

At first sight it may seem strange that Mercury and Odin were regarded as identical. We are wont to conceive Hermes (Mercury) as the Greek sculptors represented him, the ideal of beauty and elastic youth, while we imagine Odin as having a contemplative, mysterious look. And while Odin in the Teutonic mythology is the father and ruler of the G.o.ds, Mercury in the Roman has, of course, as the son of Zeus, a high rank, but his dignity does not exempt him from being the very busy messenger of the G.o.ds of Olympus. But neither Greeks nor Romans nor Teutons attached much importance to such circ.u.mstances in the specimens we have of their comparative mythology. The Romans knew that the same G.o.d among the same people might be represented differently, and that the local traditions also sometimes differed in regard to the kins.h.i.+p and rank of a divinity. They therefore paid more attention to what Tacitus calls _vis numinis_--that is, the significance of the divinity as a symbol of nature, or its relation to the affairs of the community and to human culture. Mercury was the symbol of wisdom and intelligence; so was Odin. Mercury was the G.o.d of eloquence; Odin likewise. Mercury had introduced poetry and song among men; Odin also. Mercury had taught men the art of writing; Odin had given them the runes. Mercury did not hesitate to apply cunning when it was needed to secure him possession of something that he desired; nor was Odin particularly scrupulous in regard to the means. Mercury, with wings on his hat and on his heels, flew over the world, and often appeared as a traveller among men; Odin, the ruler of the wind, did the same. Mercury was the G.o.d of martial games, and still he was not really the war-G.o.d; Odin also was the chief of martial games and combats, but the war-G.o.d's occupation he had left to Tyr. In all important respects Mercury and Odin, therefore, resembled each other.

To the scholars this must have been an additional proof that this, in their eyes, historical chief, whom the Romans called Mercury and the Teutons Odin, had been one and the same human person, who had lived in a distant past, and had alike induced Greeks, Romans, and Goths to wors.h.i.+p him as a G.o.d. To get additional and more reliable information in regard to this Odin-Mercury than what the Teutonic heathen traditions could impart, it was only necessary to study and interpret correctly what Roman history had to say about Mercury.

As is known, some mysterious doc.u.ments called the Sibylline books were preserved in Jupiter's temple, on the Capitoline Hill, in Rome. The Roman State was the possessor, and kept the strictest watch over them, so that their contents remained a secret to all excepting those whose position ent.i.tled them to read them. A college of priests, men in high standing, were appointed to guard them and to consult them when circ.u.mstances demanded it. The common opinion that the Roman State consulted them for information in regard to the future is incorrect.

They were consulted only to find out by what ceremonies of penance and propitiation the wrath of the higher powers might be averted at times when Rome was in trouble, or when prodigies of one kind or another had excited the people and caused fears of impending misfortune. Then the Sibylline books were produced by the properly-appointed persons, and in some line or pa.s.sage they found which divinity was angry and ought to be propitiated. This done, they published their interpretation of the pa.s.sage, but did not make known the words or phrases of the pa.s.sage, for the text of the Sibylline books must not be known to the public. The books were written in the Greek tongue.

The story telling how these books came into the possession of the Roman State through a woman who sold them to Tarquin--according to one version Tarquin the Elder, according to another Tarquin the Younger--is found in Roman authors who were well known and read throughout the whole middle age. The woman was a Sibylla, according to Varro the Erythreian, so called from a Greek city in Asia Minor; according to Virgil the c.u.maean, a prophetess from c.u.mae in southern Italy. Both versions could easily be harmonised, for c.u.mae was a Greek colony from Asia Minor; and we read in Servius' commentaries on Virgil's poems that the Erythreian Sibylla was by many regarded as identical with the c.u.maean. From Asia Minor she was supposed to have come to c.u.mae.

In western Europe the people of the middle age claimed that there were twelve Sibyllas: the Persian, the Libyan, the Delphian, the Cimmerinean, the Erythreian, the Samian, the c.u.maean, the h.e.l.lespontian or Trojan, the Phrygian and Tiburtinian, and also the Sibylla Europa and the Sibylla Agrippa. Authorities for the first ten of these were the Church father Lactantius and the West Gothic historian Isodorus of Sevilla. The last two, Europa and Agrippa, were simply added in order to make the number of Sibyllas equal to that of the prophets and the apostles.

But the scholars of the middle ages also knew from Servius that the c.u.maean Sibylla was, in fact, the same as the Erythreian; and from the Church father Lactantius, who was extensively read in the middle ages, they also learned that the Erythreian was identical with the Trojan.

Thanks to Lactantius, they also thought they could determine precisely where the Trojan Sibylla was born. Her birthplace was the town Marpessus, near the Trojan Mount Ida. From the same Church father they learned that the real contents of the Sibylline books had consisted of narrations concerning Trojan events, of lives of the Trojan kings, &c., and also of prophecies concerning the fall of Troy and other coming events, and that the poet Homer in his works was a mere plagiator, who had found a copy of the books of the Sibylla, had recast and falsified it, and published it in his own name in the form of heroic poems concerning Troy.

This seemed to establish the fact that those books, which the woman from c.u.mae had sold to the Roman king Tarquin, were written by a Sibylla who was born in the Trojan country, and that the books which Trojan bought off her contained accounts and prophecies--accounts especially in regard to the Trojan chiefs and heroes afterwards glorified in Homer's poems.

As the Romans came from Troy, these chiefs and heroes were their ancestors, and in this capacity they were ent.i.tled to the wors.h.i.+p which the Romans considered due to the souls of their forefathers. From a Christian standpoint this was of course idolatry; and as the Sibyllas were believed to have made predictions even in regard to Christ, it might seem improper for them to promote in this manner the cause of idolatry. But Lactantius gave a satisfactory explanation of this matter.

The Sibylla, he said, had certainly prophesied truthfully in regard to Christ; but this she did by divine compulsion and in moments of divine inspiration. By birth and in her sympathies she was a heathen, and when under the spell of her genuine inspirations, she proclaimed heathen and idolatrous doctrines.

In our critical century all this may seem like mere fancies. But careful examinations have shown that an historical kernel is not wanting in these representations. And the historical fact which lies back of all this is that the Sibylline books which were preserved in Rome actually were written in Asia Minor in the ancient Trojan territory; or, in other words, that the oldest known collection of so-called Sibylline oracles was made in Marpessus, near the Trojan mountain Ida, in the time of Solon. From Marpessus the collection came to the neighbouring city Gergis, and was preserved in the Apollo temple there; from Gergis it came to c.u.mae, and from c.u.mae to Rome in the time of the kings. How it came there is not known. The story about the c.u.maean woman and Tarquin is an invention, and occurs in various forms. It is also demonstrably an invention that the Sibylline books in Rome contained accounts of the heroes in the Trojan war. On the other hand, it is absolutely certain that they referred to G.o.ds and to a wors.h.i.+p which in the main were unknown to the Romans before the Sibylline books were introduced there, and that to these books must chiefly be attributed the remarkable change which took place in Roman mythology during the republican centuries. The Roman mythology, which from the beginning had but few G.o.ds of clear ident.i.ty with the Greek, was especially during this epoch enlarged, and received G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses who were wors.h.i.+pped in Greece and in the Greek and h.e.l.lenised part of Asia Minor where the Sibylline books originated. The way this happened was that whenever the Romans in trouble or distress consulted the Sibylline books they received the answer that this or that Greek-Asiatic G.o.d or G.o.ddess was angry and must be propitiated. In connection with the propitiation ceremonies the G.o.d or G.o.ddess was received in the Roman pantheon, and sooner or later a temple was built to him; and thus it did not take long before the Romans appropriated the myths that were current in Greece concerning these borrowed divinities. This explains why the Roman mythology, which in its oldest sources is so original and so unlike the Greek, in the golden period of Roman literature comes to us in an almost wholly Greek attire; this explains why Roman and Greek mythology at that time might be regarded as almost identical. Nevertheless the Romans were able even in the later period of antiquity to discriminate between their native G.o.ds and those introduced by the Sibylline books. The former were wors.h.i.+pped according to a Roman ritual, the latter according to a Greek.

To the latter belonged Apollo, Artemis, Latona, Ceres, Hermes, Mercury, Proserpina, Cybile, Venus, and Esculapius; and that the Sibylline books were a Greek-Trojan work, whose original home was Asia Minor and the Trojan territory, was well known to the Romans. When the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter was burned down eighty-four years before Christ, the Sibylline books were lost. But the State could not spare them. A new collection had to be made, and this was mainly done by gathering the oracles which could be found one by one in those places which the Trojan or Erythreian Sibylla had visited, that is to say, in Asia Minor, especially in Erythrae, and in Ilium, the ancient Troy.

So far as Hermes-Mercury is concerned, the Roman annals inform us that he got his first lectisternium in the year 399 before Christ by order from the Sibylline books. Lectisternium was a sacrifice: the image of the G.o.d was laid on a bed with a pillow under the left arm, and beside the image was placed a table and a meal, which as a sacrifice was offered to the G.o.d. About one hundreds years before that time, Hermes-Mercury had received his first temple in Rome.

Hermes-Mercury seemed, therefore, like Apollo, Venus, Esculapius, and others, to have been a G.o.d originally unknown to the Romans, the wors.h.i.+p of whom the Trojan Sibylla had recommended to the Romans.

This was known to the scholars of the middle age. Now, we must bear in mind that it was as certain to them as an undoubted scientific fact that the G.o.ds were originally men, chiefs, and heroes, and that the deified chief whom the Romans wors.h.i.+pped as Mercury, and the Greeks as Hermes, was the same as the Teutons called Odin, and from whom distinguished Teutonic families traced their descent. We must also remember that the Sibylla who was supposed to have recommended the Romans to wors.h.i.+p the old king Odin-Mercurius was believed to have been a Trojan woman, and that her books were thought to have contained stories about Troy's heroes, in addition to various prophecies, and so this manner of reasoning led to the conclusion that the G.o.ds who were introduced in Rome through the Sibylline books were celebrated Trojans who had lived and fought at a time preceding the fall of Troy. Another inevitable and logical conclusion was that Odin had been a Trojan chief, and when he appears in Teutonic mythology as the chief of G.o.ds, it seemed most probable that he was identical with the Trojan king Priam, and that Priam was identical with Hermes-Mercury.

Now, as the ancestors of the Romans were supposed to have emigrated from Troy to Italy under the leaders.h.i.+p of aeneas, it was necessary to a.s.sume that the Romans were not the only Trojan emigrants, for, since the Teutons wors.h.i.+pped Odin-Priamus-Hermes as their chief G.o.d, and since a number of Teutonic families traced their descent from this Odin, the Teutons, too, must have emigrated from Troy. But, inasmuch as the Teutonic dialects differed greatly from the Roman language, the Trojan Romans and the Trojan Teutons must have been separated a very long time.

They must have parted company immediately after the fall of Troy and gone in different directions, and as the Romans had taken a southern course on their way to Europe, the Teutons must have taken a northern.

It was also apparent to the scholars that the Romans had landed in Europe many centuries earlier than the Teutons, for Rome had been founded already in 754 or 753 before Christ, but of the Teutons not a word is to be found in the annals before the period immediately preceding the birth of Christ. Consequently, the Teutons must have made a halt somewhere on their journey to the North. This halt must have been of several centuries' duration, and, of course, like the Romans, they must have founded a city, and from it ruled a territory in commemoration of their fallen city Troy. In that age very little was known of Asia, where this Teutonic-Trojan colony was supposed to have been situated, but, both from Orosius and, later, from Gregorius of Tours, it was known that our world is divided into three large divisions--Asia, Europe, and Africa--and that Asia and Europe are divided by a river called Tanais.

And having learned from Gregorius of Tours that the Teutonic Franks were said to have lived in Pannonia in ancient times, and having likewise learned that the Moeotian marshes lie east of Pannonia, and that the Tanais empties into these marshes, they had the course marked out by which the Teutons had come to Europe--that is, by way of Tanais and the Moeotian marshes. Not knowing anything at all of importance in regard to Asia beyond Tanais, it was natural that they should locate the colony of the Teutonic Trojans on the banks of this river.

I think I have now pointed out the chief threads of the web of that scholastic romance woven out of Latin convent learning concerning a Teutonic emigration from Troy and Asia, a web which extends from Fredegar's Frankish chronicle, through the following chronicles of the middle age, down into Heimskringla and the Foreword of the Younger Edda.

According to the Frankish chronicle, _Gesta regum Francorum_, the emigration of the Franks from the Trojan colony near the Tanais was thought to have occurred very late; that is, in the time of Valentinia.n.u.s I., or in other words, between 364 and 375 after Christ.

The Icelandic authors very well knew that Teutonic tribes had been far into Europe long before that time, and the reigns they had constructed in regard to the North indicated that they must have emigrated from the Tanais colony long before the Franks. As the Roman attack was the cause of the Frankish emigration, it seemed probable that these world-conquerors had also caused the earlier emigration from Tanais; and as Pompey's expedition to Asia was the most celebrated of all the expeditions made by the Romans in the East--Pompey even entered Jerusalem and visited its Temple--it was found most convenient to let the Asas emigrate in the time of Pompey, but they left a remnant of Teutons near the Tanais, under the rule of Odin's younger brothers Vile and Ve, in order that this colony might continue to exist until the emigration of the Franks took place.

Finally, it should be mentioned that the Trojan migration saga, as born and developed in antiquity, does not indicate by a single word that Europe was peopled later than Asia, or that it received its population from Asia. The immigration of the Trojans to Europe was looked upon as a return to their original homes. Darda.n.u.s, the founder of Troy, was regarded as the leader of an emigration from Etruria to Asia (_aeneid_, iii. 165 ff., Serv. Comm.). As a rule the European peoples regarded themselves in antiquity as autochthones if they did not look upon themselves as immigrants from regions within Europe to the territories they inhabited in historic times.

[Footnote 5:

"Mennor der erste was genant, Dem diutische rede got tet bekant."

Later on in this work we shall discuss the traditions of the Mannussaga found in Scandinavia and Germany.]

[Footnote 6: Sat.u.r.day is in the North called Loverdag, Lordag--that is, Laugardag=bathday.--TR.]

13.

THE MATERIALS OF THE ICELANDIC TROY SAGA.