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Gods, Heroes, & Kings: the Battle for Mythic Britain

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Gods, Heroes, & Kings: the Battle for Mythic Britain Gods, Heroes, & Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain Christopher R. Fee OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS gods, heroes, & kings This page intentionally left blank Gods, Heroes, & Kings The Battle for Mythic Britain Christopher R. Fee with David A. Leeming 1 2001 3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2001 by Oxford University Press Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 First published as an Oxford University Press paperback in 2004 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fee, Christopher R. Gods, heroes, and kings: the battle for mythic Britain / by Christopher R. Fee with David A. Leeming. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index. ISBN 0-19-513479-6; 0-19-517403-8 (pbk.) 1. Mythology, British. 2. Christianity and other religions—Great Britain. 3. Literature, Medieval—History and criticism. 4. British literature—History and criticism. I. Leeming, David Adams, 1937– II. Title. BL980.G7 F44 2001 820.9′15—dc21 00-068156 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper for emma and morgan This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks are due to the Provost’s Office of Gettysburg College, which provided me with paid leave for a semester at a crucial time. Both Ian Clarke and the English Department reading group at Gettysburg offered valuable comments concerning the introduction, and Mark Drew, Cinda Gibbon, and Mindy Wilson tackled indexing chores with gusto. Finally, many thanks to the stu- dents of my medieval literature, British mythology, and Scandinavian studies courses, who were enthusiastic about this material and helpful in their criti- cism of our methodology. Christopher Fee This page intentionally left blank PREFACE Lo! The spear of Wodan One-Eye clashes against that of Shining Lugh! Lis- ten! The strains of Heimdalr’s trumpet blast call the hosts of the dead to bat- tle as Thunor and Sucellus—hammer-gods both—struggle for supremacy. The Isles of Britain have been a battleground for gods for thousands of years, and those who know how to listen may yet hear the echoes of the thun- derous conflicts of old. in more prosaic terms, the central premise of this book is that one may view medieval British literature not only as an assertion of dominant Christian tra- ditions but often also as a complex and vibrant confluence of mythic influ- ences: in the medieval literary traditions of Britain, the voices of the gods of the Celts, Romans, Saxons, and Vikings combine in a chorus that can seem chaotic and confused, but one that also offers us a rich and distinctly British melody. Although we have attempted to avail ourselves of the most up-to-date scholarship concerning the literatures and mythologies we have discussed, our primary goal has been to render a readable examination of our topic aimed for a general audience. We have collated as many source materials as possible, and wherever practical we have indicated where we have had to make substantive or stylistic choices among a number of options. Further- more, we have tried to remain true to the spirit and the flavor of the narra- tives and the mythic archetypes they represent, and thus in some cases we have taken the liberty of conflating material from a number of sources in order to tell the best story possible; we have attempted, however, to stay as much as possible within the parameters of the range of available records. We hope that our work will prove a useful general reference tool to nonspecialist scholars and an engaging introduction for students. Much of the present work is based on our classroom treatment of the myths, sagas, texts, and concepts at hand, and is then, we hope, more user-friendly than more academic works on the same theme. Selected, approachable sources for further reading are noted at the end of the book, and are divided into subject areas. All the works con- sulted in the completion of this book are included in the general bibliography. x preface Our treatment of the myths and sagas, as well as our choice of medieval works, is meant to be suggestive in theme rather than comprehensive (or even representative) in scope. It would be beyond the pale of a book of this length—and, indeed, beyond that of one designed for a general readership— to attempt to deal with every identifiable myth or mythic element that could be associated with medieval British literature. Moreover, mythic material en- ters the medieval British narrative traditions through a great many sources, many of them continental, quite a few of which are themselves medieval. That said, our goal has been to attempt to outline the general lines of a rela- tionship between medieval British literatures and the rich mythic traditions that preceded the medieval period on these islands. Celtic and Germanic influences abound in medieval British literature, but it is an ironic paradox that we can—in one breath—acknowledge that we have much more to say about Germanic myth than about Celtic myth, and— in the next—still allow that the Celtic Arthurian tradition is by far the best- known, most often replicated, and longest-lived mythic source for British lit- erature. This has to do with both the origin and the nature of the Celtic material that informed the British literary tradition; this is to say that our knowledge of the pre-Christian Celts is largely limited to the archeological and classical literary records, and it is difficult to know how much of this ear- lier cultural system filtered down to the medieval Christian Irish, Breton, and Welsh, or indeed to the French and then the English, both of whom later co- opted the Arthurian tradition. Moreover, much of the medieval Arthurian tradition in Britain was focused through a continental lens, and it is only by examining English, Irish, Welsh, Breton, and French sources side by side that one can begin to understand the relationship of this material to older Celtic mythic systems and beliefs. It should be said, then, that this is not a book fo- cused upon Arthuriana: we examine a handful of works containing Arthurian material, including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” in the light of what we know about Celtic culture and the Irish and Welsh mythic traditions. We leave a more thorough examination of all things Arthurian, however, to the many, many books dedicated to that subject. Much of what one can say about Germanic mythology in general comes from the Scandinavian sources, and the Germanic tradition in Britain is no exception. We attempt to sketch for the reader an outline of the relationships among older Germanic, Scandinavian, British Germanic, and medieval Ger- man mythic elements, but it is easy to confuse so many similar gods, sagas, and heroes. This ease of confusion underscores the reason for including these closely related traditions: it is our belief that the medieval Germanic materi- als (that is, the Scandinavian, Middle High German, and Anglo-Saxon) all reflect similar preliterate Germanic mythic traditions, and we have included as much material as practicable in order to give the reader the fullest sense of the most important elements and archetypes of these traditions that survive into medieval British literature. We also discuss a number of English folk tra- preface xi ditions and place names, current well into the modern period, that have an ancient Germanic mythic provenance; such elements perhaps most vividly il- luminate the resilience of British myth. In all cases we attempt to amplify the voices of the ancient pagan gods of Britain that speak to us yet through the words of their medieval Christian children. This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS Introduction, 3 the myths 1. The Pantheons, 13 2. Deity Types, 75 3. Sacred Objects and Places, 111 4. Heroes and Heroines, 117 5. Creation and Apocalypse, 139 6. The Sagas, 147 Conclusion: Five Reflections of the Face of the Hero in the Medieval English Romance—Trials, Tribulations, and Transformative Quests, 191 Further Reading, 223 Bibliography, 227 Index, 231 This page intentionally left blank gods, heroes, & kings This page intentionally left blank INTRODUCTION The islands of Britain have been a cross- roads of man, myth, and god for thousands of years. Massive standing stone circles such as that at Stonehenge, ancient Stone Age villages such as Skara Brae, and impos- ing chambered tombs (also known as cairns or barrows) like Maes Howe all provide mute testimony to the civilizations that ex- isted in Britain at least five thousand years ago. These monuments—some older than the pyramids in Egypt—provide tantalizing clues to the religious beliefs and rituals of the peoples who left them. Some scholars have suggested a religious system based on myths and rites of fertility and of sun wor- ship. In fact, historical and literary records reveal little before the arrival of the Celts from mainland Europe. The Celts, a group of related tribes who by early in the third century bce were a significant presence in Europe from the Balkans all the way to Greece and Asia Minor, sacked Rome in 387 bce; later, as every student of Latin knows, Celts fought Julius Caesar as Gauls in lands now called France and Germany.
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