S
YMPATHETIC magic in runic amulet texts was not confined to rhetorical‘just as . . ., so too . . .’ inscriptions or even to metaphors (or metonyms) like the charm word ‘hail’, but also extended to more nuanced and complex symbolic expressions. A common place where sympathetic magic was used in Germanic tradition was in customary medicines which often feature certain types of vegeta-bles, animal stuffs, flowers or herbs chosen because of the beneficial attributes associated with them. Leeks, for instance, were widely used in medieval medicine in order to revive and heal, and they are recorded both in curative recipes preserved in Old Norse literature as well as in Anglo-Saxon medical works. But this property connected with the leek clearly developed out of its association with male sexuality – the leek was the phallic herb in old Germanic tradition. This is not always made clear in medieval descriptions of the leek, however, because describing explicitly this aspect of its nature appears to have been regarded as slightly too embarrassing for many Christian authors. Thankfully, though, not all medieval writers proved so bashful. The most direct description of the phallic nature of the leek derives from a late medieval German source. In the middle of the fourteenth century, Konrad von Megenberg recorded the following about the leek in his Book of Nature:
it brings urine and the intimacy of womankind and brings lack of chastity and most of all its seed . . .1
This sexual aspect of the leek can also be seen peeping through in some medieval English sources. In the Prologue to Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale, for example, it is recounted of old men that:
We hoopen ay, whyl that the world wol pype For in oure wil ther stiketh ever a nayl, To have an hoor heed and a grene tayl, As hath a leek; for thogh our might be goon, Our wil desireth folie ever in oon.2
1 K. von Megenberg, Buch der Natur, Von dem pforren 63. A comprehensive survey of leeks in Germanic tradition is due to appear in a forthcoming study by T.L. Markey, though cf. also W.
Heizmann, ‘Lein(en) und Lauch in der Inschrift von Fløksand und im V›lsa þáttr’, in H. Beck (ed.), Germanische Religionsgeschichte (Berlin 1992), pp. 365–95.
2 Chaucer, Canterbury Tales, lines 3878–79.
Perhaps the earliest reference of this sort appears, however, in an Anglo-Saxon herbal, the Old English Herbarius, whose authorship was ascribed by medieval authors to Apuleius of Madaurus, a second-century writer who was famously persecuted in Roman times for his magical beliefs. The Anglo-Saxon Herbarium glosses a herb called satyrion as the ‘raven’s leek’ and comments further that:
This is the herb which some call temolum and others sengreen (i.e. houseleek) . . . and its root is full of sin and evil, much like that of the leek.3
The ancient Germanic peoples, in contrast, held the leek in high esteem and as we have already seen its name was widely used in amulet inscriptions as a charm word. The early German word for leek, although highly abbreviated, seems to appear in an amatory context in the runic leading charm from Bülach. On the other hand, in the earlier pendant legends it usually appears to have no specific purpose apart from indicating a generally helpful sort of magic. Given the charm words of a military nature, though, this may be a reflection of other qualities ascribed to the plant: Old Norse sources, after all, sometimes use the leek as a metaphor for virility, for example describing the Eddic hero Sigurd in the Second Lay of Gudrun (GuDrúnarkviDa in forna) as ‘a green leek grown from the grass’.
There are some instances, however, where the name of the leek is obviously being used in another context. The clearest early example is in a runic inscription on a bone instrument for preparing meat, a meat-scraper, from Fløksand, Norway, which reads:
linalauka<7®
L†na, laukaz, f(ehu).
‘Linen, leek, wealth.’
This text, first uncovered in the 1860s, comes from a mid-fourth-century woman’s cremation grave, making it contemporary with the earliest pendant or medallion-imitation texts and over two centuries older than the Bülach brooch.
The appearance of laukaz ‘leek’ along with the word l†na ‘linen’ here, though, at first seems to suggest just a series of generic charm words. Yet this combination is also known from a much later Norse story, Volsi’s Tale (V›lsa Þáttr), a title which might also be rendered as the Tale of the Prick.
This early-fourteenth-century story recounts how a farmer’s wife in northern Norway prepared a fetish by covering a horse’s penis with leeks and then wrap-ping both in linen. Each evening in the autumn she passed the fetish around the meal table, and each person who received it was required to say a strophe over it, one of which was:
You’re distended, Volsi, and picked up.
Endowed with linen and supported by leeks.
Volsi is Norse slang for a penis, and horses’ pricks, linen and leeks were obviously
FERTILITY CHARMS 103
3 Old English Herbarium, 16 and 49.
associated with fertility magic.4But it is clear from the tale that the purpose of the fetish was not to encourage sexual fertility in each of the diners who held it and spoke a charm over it. Instead it conveyed a more general sense of fertility – that associated with autumn, the time of harvests and the slaughtering of animals for meat. In fact the Old Norse Seeress’s Prophecy similarly seems to record the leek used allusively to refer to chthonic fertility:
Before Bur’s sons lifted the bottoms, when they Midgard, the mighty, created the sun shone from the south on the stones of the hall, then was the ground grown with green leek.
The upside-down f-rune on the Fløksand knife is apparently a later addition to the inscription. It seems to be an abbreviation of the runic letter-name fehu which meant ‘wealth’ and is related to the Modern English word fee. Wealth was measured in livestock in early Germanic societies, however, and the old Germanic term fehu is also related to words like Modern German Vieh ‘cattle’.
Given that the Fløksand meat-scraper was an implement used to prepare meat (presumably by women), the single f-rune here probably also refers, much like
‘linen’ and ‘leek’ do then, to fertile abundance, an abundance of wealth in live-stock (or meat).
The inscription on the Fløksand scraper also helps to explain another, more difficult inscription on a further bone meat-scraper from Gjersvik, also in Norway. Its damaged runic text reads:
d--fioQillllllllll D--fioþi llllllllll
This inscription, also stemming from a cremation grave, but this time dating to the mid-fifth century, is difficult to restore in its entirety. The damaged sequence seems to be a grammatically feminine form, though, and could represent a woman’s name. Moreover, given the appearance of ‘leek’ earlier at Fløksand and the common appearance of l-abbreviations elsewhere on runic amulets, the ten repeated l-runes seem to represent a tenfold invocation of the power of the leek. In fact the sequence l†na laukaz is 10 letters long and in one medieval Scandinavian source the name of the l-rune is even recorded as ‘linen’ which further suggests that the ‘linen’ and ‘leek’ pairing known from Fløksand was associated with (abbreviation by?) l-runes. The Gjersvik knife was probably also a woman’s fertility amulet, then, one whose purpose was to ensure food in abundance.5
Yet the question remains whether all repetitions of l-runes that appear on Germanic amulets can automatically be associated with fertility magic. A pendant found on Fyn bears the legend nh tbllll with four repeated l-runes. Is it,
4 Krause with Jankuhn, no. 37. The name V›lsi is obviously a derived form of Old Norse v›lr ‘rod’, and is continued today in modern Norwegian volse ‘thick, long muscle, thick figure’, and cf.
Icelandic völstur ‘cylinder’, dialectal Swedish volster ‘bulge’, Old High German wulst ‘bulge’, and the English dialectal word weal ‘penis’.
5 Krause with Jankuhn, no. 38.
then, a fertility bracteate? The other runes here appear to be pairs from the futhark row, the first pair from the third family and the same pair from the second (although reversed). So can a legend like this be safely interpreted as a letter sequence plus the charm word ‘leek’ abbreviated four times? A more recent pendant find from Roskilde, Denmark, bears a legend that reads nhuþullT auþrkf (i.e. nh laþuT fuþark?). This suggests that the l-runes may instead stand for laþu in the legend on the Fyn pendant.6
It is still tempting, though, to extend a similar interpretation to repetitions of other letters found on runic amulets. Most commonly these are z-runes (or their later Norse descendants{ and y). There is some debate, however, as to what the original name of the z-rune actually was. Yet it is hard to see what interpretation we might otherwise give to the following inscription on an antler amulet made in a form reminiscent of the Lindholmen and Ødemotland finds. It stems from Wijnaldum, the Netherlands, and the other side of the piece is decorated with symbols such as crosses, squares and triangles. It is a stray find without a datable context, it is slightly weathered, and the runes are probably of Frisian make:
--- ÊyiÊUyÊy-. ÊyiÊUyÊy-. ÊyiÊUyÊy-.NziNuzNz
The name of theN-rune is Ing (older Inguz or Ingwaz), the old Germanic god of fertility who heads medieval genealogies of the kings of the Angles and Swedes.
He is also associated with Frey (as Ingvi-Frey) in Old Norse sources such as the Saga of the Ynglings, the saga of the descendants of Ing. So if the z-rune can also be linked with fertility magic, then surely the Wijnaldum find can only be a fertility amulet. But it is not always clear in these ‘nonsense’ texts whether we are dealing with abbreviations based on runic letter-names, magical gibberish, incompetent or pseudo-texts, or even different forms of coding derived from other types of runic letter-play. It has been suggested, for instance, that this inscription is essentially a (threefold) elaboration on the divine name Inguz (i.e.
(I)ng(u)z Inguz (I)ng(u)z?) and hence the appearance of the z-runes would have no other special significance. Apart from alu, some of the Nydam arrow-shafts bear only single z and l-runes, though, presumably indicating that there was a magical meaning behind abbreviations of this sort. Nonetheless, the Nydam arrows also suggest that single-rune abbreviations like this, although perhaps originally linked with fertility magic, could readily be employed in a more general decorative or amuletic sense, too, just as charm words like ‘leek’ are on the old Germanic bracteates and the crosses, squares and triangles evidently are also on the Wijnaldum antler amulet.7
The leek was not the only plant or animal associated with old Germanic fertility, however, that came to feature repeatedly in runic amulet texts. The connection between horses and fertility suggested by the Volsi story and the
FERTILITY CHARMS 105
6 K. Hauck and W. Heizmann, ‘Der Neufund des Runen-Brakteaten IK 585 Sankt Ibs Vej-C Roskilde (Zur Ikonologie der Goldbrakteaten, LXII)’, in W. Heizmann and A. van Nahl (eds), Runica, Germanica, Mediaevalia (Berlin 2003), pp. 243–64.
7 Looijenga, p. 325.
Fløksand find has another reflection in runic pendant amulets, those which carry legends that are comprised solely of forms of the old Germanic word ehwaz
‘horse’. None of the pendant legends of this type that are known today have the full form ehwaz, however, but instead show variations such as ehwu, ehw and ehu.8And though horses occasionally appear in bracteate decoration, there is no correlation between the appearance of this term and equine decoration on the golden pendants. Yet this word for ‘horse’ (which is related to Latin equus and English words such as equine and equestrian) does not appear in connection with
‘leek’ or give any other indication what its precise meaning is, so it might be thought merely to be a charm word like hagala ‘hail’ or maga ‘strength’, i.e.
signifying strength or virility rather than fecundity. It was, after all, also the name of the e-rune. But there are several terms for ‘horse’ common to the old Germanic languages, and it is striking that only variations of the eh(w)- form appear on the golden amulet pendants.
There are two old Germanic terms for ‘horse’ that seem to be associated with warriors and martial prowess. One survives today in English words like marshal and the feminine description mare, and appears to have originally represented an imported breed of warhorse. The other served as the name of the early English hero Hengist, and in Modern German and the Scandinavian languages today means ‘stallion’.
Hengist’s brother Horsa was also a man called ‘horse’. But the term which underlies his name was that used most commonly for the common man’s animal.
In contrast, the only modern descendant of ehwaz still employed in a Germanic language is Icelandic jór. Moreover, when it is used in early Norse literature, it usually only signifies horses ridden by kings or describes fantastic mounts such as Odin’s eight-legged steed Sleipnir, or Hrimfaxi, the horse that carried the Moon across the sky in Old Norse mythology.9
Early
Germanic Old Norse Old English Old German
Modern
English Early meaning
ehwaz jór eoh ehu- special horse
marhaz marr mearh marah- mar- warhorse, steed
hanhistaz hestr hengist hengist stallion, steed
hrussan hross hors hros horse common horse
The discovery of the remains of horses sacrificed in prehistoric bogs shows that an association of horses and the divine was very old in the Germanic North. But it was also evidently a long-lasting one too. In the Old Norse Flateyjarbók, for instance, it is recounted that Olaf Tryggvasson destroyed a pagan sanctuary in Trondheim, Norway, where sacred horses were kept in honour of the fertility god
8 For instances, see Nowak, pp. 274–78. Antonsen, no. 57, interprets these forms as feminines (i.e.
ehwu#, putatively equivalent to Latin equa ‘mare’), which though not verifiable might be thought further to bolster the connection with the equine sovereignty rituals elucidated in the next few pages.
9 Markey, ‘Studies in runic origins 2’, pp. 159–76.
Frey. Frey’s horses were kept there to be used in sacrifices, and it was forbidden for anyone to ride them. Another connection between Frey and sacred horses appears in Hrafnkel’s Saga where Hrafnkel is called ‘Frey’s friend’ and has a special stallion named Freyfaxi (i.e. Frey’s mane) who is dedicated especially to the god.
The use of the word ehwaz on the ‘horse’ amulets suggests they have some-thing to do with kings, gods and the supernatural, then, rather than warriors, virility or the common man. It is well known, after all, that the horse was a tradi-tional Germanic symbol of sovereignty. In fact in the Saga of Hakon the Good, it is recounted that King Hakon was required to drink from broth made from the flesh of a sacrificed horse as part of a pagan ritual. Moreover, like the Celtic Arthur, Old Germanic kings were also thought to be magically connected with their kingdoms, so much so that a troubled kingdom is represented in sources like Beowulf by means of the sickness or premature ageing of a king. Clearly in old Germanic tradition sovereignty was not just a matter of keeping the peace, but also of ensuring fertility, fecundity and abundance. The Saga of the Ynglings recounts that a failed Swedish king, Olaf Tree-cutter, was even sacrificed to the gods because:
there came hard times and famine, which [the people] ascribed to their king, as the Swedes always used to judge their kings by whether their harvests were good or not. King Olaf was sparing in his sacrifices and this upset the Swedes as they believed that this was the reason for the hard times. The Swedes therefore gathered troops together, marched against King Olaf, surrounded his house and burnt him in it, giving him to Odin as a sacrifice for good crops.
Similarly the Saga also recounts that during the reign of another early Swedish king called Domaldi:
there was great famine and distress in his day, so the Swedes made great offer-ings of sacrifice at Uppsala. The first autumn they sacrificed oxen, but the succeeding season things did not improve. The following autumn they sacri-ficed men, but the next year was even worse. The third autumn, when the offering of sacrifices was due to begin, a great multitude of Swedes came to Uppsala and their leaders . . . agreed that the times of scarcity were the fault of their king Domaldi, and they resolved to offer him up for good seasons, and to assault and kill him, and redden the place with his blood. And so they did.
And as the accompanying Song of the Ynglings further recounts:
It happened before that warriors
reddened the earth with their king’s blood, and the army of the land took the life
of Domaldi with bloody weapons
when the Swedes were to sacrifice
the ruler for good harvest.
A related practice is also reflected in the Saga of Hervor where a Swedish king by the name of Ingi was driven out of his realm because he was a Christian and had banned the old sacrifices. He was replaced by his pagan brother-in-law who
FERTILITY CHARMS 107
became known as Blot-Svein, ‘Sacrifice-Svein’. Blot-Svein quickly reinstituted his people’s ancient sacrifices, the Saga recalling that ‘a horse was led up to the thing and sliced up and shared out for eating, and the sacrifice-tree was reddened with the blood.’ Ingi returned in force three years later, however, killed Blot-Svein, and banned the pagan ceremonies again.
Horses and their sacrifice thus appear to have been connected principally with the maintenance of fertility in pagan Germanic tradition. The horse bracteates were probably thought to guarantee fecundity and abundance, then, much as the distended Volsi was supposed to do in the Norwegian tale of the horse’s prick.
Consequently, it is perhaps not surprising to find that a connection between horses, fertility, sovereignty and kings is common to other early European tradi-tions. In ancient Rome, for example, horses’ blood was smeared about the city in a fertility festival known as October Equus. And not only did some Irish kings perform rituals with horse broth similar to those ascribed to the Norse king Hakon, one early Irish equine sovereignty ritual even featured actual physical consummation between the king and a sacred mare according to one scandalised Christian observer. These Celtic and Roman examples are usually compared with an ancient Indian ritual known as as@vamedha, where a horse was smothered by a woollen or linen blanket, after which the king’s chief wife pretended to mate with the corpse under the blanket. But it is in the North Italian Reitia cult where horses, fertility and leeks seem to have their most striking connection. One of the most common types of votive figurines found in the remains of centres of Reitia
Consequently, it is perhaps not surprising to find that a connection between horses, fertility, sovereignty and kings is common to other early European tradi-tions. In ancient Rome, for example, horses’ blood was smeared about the city in a fertility festival known as October Equus. And not only did some Irish kings perform rituals with horse broth similar to those ascribed to the Norse king Hakon, one early Irish equine sovereignty ritual even featured actual physical consummation between the king and a sacred mare according to one scandalised Christian observer. These Celtic and Roman examples are usually compared with an ancient Indian ritual known as as@vamedha, where a horse was smothered by a woollen or linen blanket, after which the king’s chief wife pretended to mate with the corpse under the blanket. But it is in the North Italian Reitia cult where horses, fertility and leeks seem to have their most striking connection. One of the most common types of votive figurines found in the remains of centres of Reitia