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XXIV.—On the Legend of Weland the Smith. By THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq. F.S.A.
Bead 11th March, 1847.
MY LORD, The interest which, at the last meeting of your Society, you appeared to take in the traditions connected with the cromlech known as that of Wayland Smith, described in the paper by Mr. Akerman, has encouraged me to offer a few remarks on the subject, which, though not possessing much novelty, have not hitherto been, I think, laid before English readers in a connected form. As Mr. Akerman has observed, the Antiquaries of former days have treated with too much contempt the local legends connected with the monuments of our early forefathers; and through their neglect we have lost irretrievably a large portion of the valuable materials which connected the popular belief of our peasantry hardly a hundred years ago with the mythology of our forefathers at a remote period, when it differed comparatively little from the other branches of the same primeval stock which are now so widely separated. During a century these materials, the popular legends and traditions of the peasantry have been rapidly disappearing before the march of modern improvements; and I would earnestly impress upon the members of this Society the utility of collecting and preserving as many of them as still exist. When our forefathers came into this island, they found it covered with Roman towns and buildings, as well as with monuments of an earlier population, in the shape of cromlechs, vast entrenchments, and other similar works. With the character and uses of the Roman buildings they were perfectly well acquainted; but they looked with greater reverence on cromlechs, and barrows, and indeed on all earthworks of which the origin was not very apparent, because their own superstitions had taught them to attribute such structures to the primeval giants of their mythology, who were objects of dread even to the gods themselves. They believed that the spots on which they stood were under the immediate protection of beings of a higher order than humanity, who frequented them at the silent hour of night, and whose anger it was perilous to provoke. The Saxons brought with them a multitude of mythic traditions and stories relating to their gods and heroes, which they had preserved through ages of which we have no historical account, and the scene of which had been successively placed in every country where they had made a settlement. 316 On the Legend of Weland the Smith.
Many of their stories had thus become located in England, when the introduction of Christianity worked a sudden change in people's belief, and what were merely mythic personages were looked upon either as the real heroes of former days, or as so many devils and evil spirits. The mythic legends were still current as romances, and continued to exist under altered forms as romances of chivalry, and under various subsequent degradations, until they were at last hawked about the streets in the still humbler form of penny chap-books and nursery tales. It was in this manner, and by such gradations, that the mighty deeds of the god Thor against the giants of Jotenheim became transformed into the exploits of Jack the Giant-killer. But the peasantry were unacquainted with all these literary vicissitudes. With them the earlier legends were intimately connected with localities, and the names of Woden, and Thor, and Weland, and the rest, were often preserved when they had been long forgotten in more cultivated society, and their stories were as often handed down traditionally with very little transformation. When John Leland made his antiquarian tours in the reign of Henry VIII., these local legends appear to have been extremely numerous, and he has alluded to several of a very interest- ing description. The topographical antiquaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also make frequent allusions to them; but unfortunately they looked upon them with contempt, and seldom condescend to do more than barely mention them. I will cite an example from the Itinerary of Leland, who (vol. v. p. 101), speaking of Corbridge in Northumberland, says, " By this broke, as emong the ruines of the olde town, is a place caullid Colecester, wher hath beene a forteres or castelle. The peple there say that ther dwellid yn it one Yoton, whom they fable to have beene a gygant." The giant race of the Northern and Teutonic mythology were termed Jotens or Yotens, in Anglo-Saxon Eotenas. To them the early Anglo-Saxon poetry attributes works of immense power or antiquity—the mounds and earthworks of ancient days, as well as the weapons and other articles found within them. The wonderful sword which Beowulf found in the den of the Grendel's mother was thus a weapon of Eotonish make.
Ge-seah ^a on searwum Then saw he among the weapons sige-eadig bil, a bill fortunate in victory, eald sweord eotenisc, an old sword constructed by the Eotens, ecgum Jjyhtig, doughty of edge, wigena weor5-mynd, the glory of warriors, f waepna cyst, the costliest of weapons,
god and geato-lic, good, and ready for use, giganta ge-weorc. the work of giants. On the Legend of Weland the Smith. 317 In a curious fragment of the Exeter book (p. 476), the poet is introduced solilo- quising over an ancient ruin, of which he says,—
Wraetlic is |>es weal-stan, Wondrous is this wall-stone, wyrde ge-brsecon, the fates have broken it, burg-stede burston. have burst the burgh-place. Brosna8 enta ge-weorc, The work of giants perishes, hrofas sind ge-hrorene, the roofs are fallen, hreorge torras, the towers tottering, hrim geat-torras berofen, the hoary gate-towers despoiled, hrim on lime, hoaryness on the lime, scearde scur-beorge, shattered the battlements, scorene, ge-drorene; riven, fallen ; aeldo under Eotene, ancient under the Eotenish race eorS-grap hafaS the earth-grave hath waldend-wyrhtan, its powerful workmen, for-weorone, ge-leorone. decayed, departed. In the same manner, the antique vessels of gold found by Wiglaf in the cave in the mound of the dragon slain by Beowulf, are described as " ancient work of the giants," enta ser-ge-weorc. At a later period, Layamon, who breathes a pure Saxon spirit, describes the giants who (according to the fable) first inhabited Albion, as being Eotens,—
Wunia1?) in j>on londe There dwell in that land Eotantes swrSe stronge : Eotens (or giants) very strong : Albion hatte )>at lond. Albion is the land named. Layamon, vol. i. p. 53.
In the same poem, Corineus, boasting of the services he had rendered to Brut, says,— for his luve moni eotend for his love many a Eoten, or giant, ic leide dead a )>ene grund. I laid dead on the ground. The same writer, with true Saxon feeling, translates the name chorea gigantum, which Geoffrey of Monmouth gives to Stonehenge, by the ring of Eotens,—
hit his a swij>e sellich ]>ing, it is a very wonderful thing, hit hat )>e Eatantes Ring. it is called the ring of Eotens or giants, vol. ii. p. 296.
It was this mythic name which was preserved in the legend alluded to by Leland; and how interesting would it be to us to know the story or " fable" which the " people " of Corbridge then told relating to the " one Yoton" who dwelt in the VOL. XXXII. 2 T 318 On the Legend of Weland the Smith, ancient castle or earthwork, for such it appears to have been ! It would probably have made us acquainted with some stray fragment of the mythology of our Teutpnic forefathers. The legend of Weland is a remarkable example in which the mythic traditions were thus preserved, because we can trace it through the various transformations incident to the medieval literature, as well as in the popular local stories of the peasantry. The story of Weland (which bears a close analogy with that of the Grecian "H$a»
On-send Hige-lace, If the war take me, gif mec hild nime, send to Higelac beadu-scruda betst, the best of war-coverings, ];aet mine breost wereS, the most precious of clothing, hrsegla selest; that which guardeth my breast; >aet is Hrasdlan laf, it is the legacy of Hradla, Welandes ge-weorc. the work of Weland. Beow. 1. 898.
In the Exeter Book there is a curious poem, of apparently a very early date, to which Mr. Thorpe gives the title of " The Complaint of Deor the Scald." The bard, who appears to have fallen into some misfortunes, cites the examples of some of the famous personages of Teutonic fable who had supported great calamities, and at length recovered from them, as an encouragement to himself to show patience On the Legend of Weland the Smith. 319 under his grief. He begins with Weland, and his story of the smith appears to have been a more ancient form of the myth than that in the Edda:—
Weland him be wurman Weland in himself the worm wrajces cunnade, of exile proved, anhydig eorl the firm-soul'd chief earfofa dreag, hardship endured, hisfde him to ge-sij>]>e had for his company sorge -j longa^, sorrow and weariness, winter-cealde wrace, winter-cold exile, wean oft onfond, affliction often suffered, sipj>an hine NrShad on after on him Nithhad nede legde, constraint had laid, swoncre seono-bende, with a tough sinew-band, onsyllan mon. the unhappy man. Daes ofereode, That he surmounted, }>isses swa mseg. so may I this. The next example shows us how apt our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were to apply the legends of their mythology to things which they did not understand. Boethius, in the seventh metre of the second book of his treatise De Consolatione Philosophies, a work extremely popular in the Middle Ages, lamenting over the transitory cha- racter of human greatness, asks— Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii manent ? Quid Brutus, aut rigidus Cato ? King Alfred, translating this passage into Anglo-Saxon, was led by the sound of the word into the singular supposition that Fabricius, instead of being a proper name, meant some famous smith, and this bringing to his mind the celebrity of Weland; he paraphrased his author—Hwset sint nu J>ses foremaeran and J?aes wisan goldsmiSes ban Welondes ? . . . hwser sint nu J>ses Welondes ban ? o$8e hwa wat nu hwaer hi waeron ?—" Where are now the bones of the celebrated and wise goldsmith Weland ? . . . Where are now the bones of Weland P or who knows now where they were ?" The Saxon who turned Alfred's prose version of the metres into verse (for I have given reasons in the Article on Alfred in the Biographia Literaria of the Royal Society of Literature, for believing that it was not Alfred who composed this metrical version,) gives the following turn to this passage :— Hwaer sint nu J>ass wisan Where are now the bones Welandes ban, of the wise Weland, J>ses gold-smij>es the goldsmith, \>e wees geo mserost ? who was formerly most famous ? 320 On the Legend of Weland the Smith.
Hwa wat nu }>aes wisan Who knows now the bones Welandes b an, of the wise Weland, on hwelcum in hlaewa under what mound (or barrow) hrusan j>eccen ? they are concealed ?
The earliest allusion to Weland by a German writer is found in the Latin metrical romance of Walthere (Waltharius), composed apparently in the tenth century on the banks of the Rhine. In it the armour of Walthere, being the work of Weland, is proof against the weapons of his Frankish assailants—
Ecce repentino Randolf athleta caballo Prasvertens reliquos, hunc importunus adivit, Et mox ferrato petiit sub pectore conto. Et nisi duratis Wielandia fabrica gyris Obstaret, spisso penetraverit ilia ligno.
At a subsequent period the story of Weland, his skilful works, and especially his famous sword Mimung, are frequently and distinctly alluded to in the German romances, such as the Nibelungen Lied, Dietrich von Bern, Biterolf, and others. The name of Weland was also well known among the Franks ; and it occurs by no means unfrequently under the French form Galand or Galant, in that important class of early French poetry known as the Chansons de Geste. Most of the passages of early French writers on this subject have been collected by MM. Depping and Michel, in their pamphlet on Ve'land le Forgeron. In the romance of Raoul de Cambrai, the hero's sword was forged by Galans in a dark cavern:—
Li rois li caint l'espee fort et dure ; D'or f'u li pons et toute la heudure, Et fu forgie en une combe oscure : Galans lajist, qui toute i mist sa cure. In the romance of Ogier le Danois, one of the heroes, Sadoyne, bears a sword which was from the forge of Galant,—
Sadoines s'arme bel et cortoisement; II vest l'aubert, lace l'elme ensement, II chaint Fespee de la forge Galant. Brehus, another hero .of this romance, has also a sword which was made by Galans in the isle of Mascon, and against which no armour was proof,—
Galans lajist en 1' ille de Mascon ; Contre Fachier n'a nule arme foison. On the Legend of Welcmd the Smith. 321 Charlemagne is said, in the romance of Fierabras, to have possessed three swords by Galans, and named respectively Floberge, Hauteclere, and Joiouse :— Et Galans fist Floberge a l'acier atempre, Hauteclere, et Joiouse, ou molt ot dignete; Cele tint Karlemaine longuement en certe. Several swords made by Galant are mentioned in the romance of Godefroi de Bouillon, on one of which the name of the maker was written— Letres i ot escrites qui dient en Romans Que Galans le forga, que par fu si vaillans. The same romance speaks of armour made by Galand. A sword figures in the romance of Huon de Bordeaux, on which was similarly inscribed the name of its maker, Galand— Hue le prant, dou fuer l'ait geter, De l'une part se trait lez ung pillier. Se dit la lettre qui fuit en brant lettrez : Elle fuit suer Durandau au poing cler, Gallant la fist, ung an mist a souder, Xx. fois la fist en fin aicier coller. Galand is mentioned in several of these romances as the maker of Charlemagne's famous sword Durendal. The name of this celebrated smith occurs in several other of these romances or chansons de geste, but those already quoted will be enough to show its popularity. It may be remarked that, in the much more ancient Anglo- Saxon romance of Beowulf, we find mention of a sword with a Runic inscription on the hilt; and that Mr. Rolfe of Sandwich has now in his possession a silver hilt of a sword found in an Anglo-Saxon barrow with Runic letters inscribed on it. In a manuscript written in England about the time of Edward I., and now I believe in the possession of Mr. Hudson Gurney, we find a pretended description of the sword of Gauvain, one of the most celebrated of the Knights of Arthur's " Round Table," also made by Galant, which is stated to have had the following lines inscribed in canello gladii:— Jeo su forth trenchant e dure ; Galaan me fyth par mult grant cure ; Catorse anz [out] Jhesu Cristh, Quant Galaan me trempa e fyth. i.e. "I am very sharp and hard; Galaan made me with very great care; Jesus Christ was fourteen years old when Galaan tempered and made me."* This sin- gular statement shows how entirely the real character of Weland had been lost sight * This description of Gawayn's sword is printed in Michel's Notes to Tristan, vol. ii. p. 181. 322 On the Legend of Weland the Smith. of in his passage into the French romances, which, however, vary much in their accounts of the date at which he flourished. In the romance of the Chevalier ati Cygne, a sword made by Galand is said to have been possessed by Julius Caesar* and to have been the chief instrument of his mighty conquests. The romance of Godefroi de Bouillon mentions a sword made by Galand which had been in the possession of Alexander the Great, and had subsequently passed successively through the hands of Ptolemy, Judas Maccabseus, and the emperor Vespasian. The pretended inscription from Mr. Gurney's manuscript seems to prove that, in the thirteenth century, the smith had been made known in England through the French romances by the name of Galand. Proof, however, is not wanting, that he continued to be well-known and popular under his old Anglo-Saxon name of Weland. In a Latin poem, which belongs, perhaps, to the earlier half of the thir- teenth century, the Life of Merlin, which has been ascribed to Geoffrey of Mon- mouth, a king of Cumberland is made to produce cups sculptured by the hand of Weland. Afferrique jubet vestes, volucresque, canesque, Quadrupedesque citos, aurum, gemmasque micantes, Pocula quce sculpsit Guielandus in urbe Sigeni. Vita Merlini, 1. 233. We have here Weland in his Anglo-Saxon character of a goldsmith, which is lost in the French romances ; so that we are justified in considering it as an evidence of the continued existence in England from the Anglo-Saxon period of traditions con- nected with the celebrity of Weland. We have a further proof of this in a passage of one of the English versions of the romance of Horn, written in the fourteenth century, in which " Maiden Rimnild " presents to Horn a sword, " the companion of Miming," and the work of Weland—
Than sche lete forth bring, A swerd hongand bi a ring, To Horn sche it bitaught: " It is the make of Miming, Of alle swerdes it is king, And Weland it wrought. Bitterfer the swerd hight, Better swerd bar never knight, Horn, to the ich it thought. Is nought a knight in Inglond Schal sitten a dint of thine hond, Forsake thou it nought." On the Legend of Weland the Smith. 328
The strictly correct form of the name of the smith, and the mention of the famous sword Miming, which is I believe confined to the Germanic traditions* are sufficient evidence that the allusion in this poem is to a purely national legend, to a tradition which had been preserved from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers. A similar allusion is found in the English metrical romance of Torrent of Portugal, composed probably early in the fifteenth century:— My sword that so wylle ys wrowyt, A better than yt know I nowght Within Crystyn mold. Yt ys so glemyrryng ase the glase, Thorrow Velond wroght yt wase, Bettyr ys non to hold.
We have thus briefly traced the traditions connected with the mythic smith as they ran through the literature of the different peoples of Western Europe. We have^ unfortunately, no means of tracing the same traditions as they were handed down orally by the peasantry and the mass of the population, although there can be no doubt that they were handed down in that manner; and these oral traditions were probably much more correct in themselves, and bore stronger traces of the original myth, than the allusions of the poets or romancers. Oral traditions are the literature of a class which is cut off from the use of written or printed documents; and they disappear very fast, as the persons who had cherished them are made familiar with such documents. The schoolmaster is the great enemy of legendary lore. In other countries, as well as in England, those traditions have always been preserved longest which have become identified with some permanent monument or locality. Such also was the case in ancient Greece ; and, to judge by the numerous local traditions mentioned by Pausanias, the local legends of the Greek peasantry had preserved many traces of a mythology of a much earlier form than that which has been handed down to us moulded and embellished by the refined imaginations of poets and historians. Such also was the case in England, and is now the case perhaps to a greater degree than we imagine, if we could collect together all the still existing local legends of the description of those of which I am speaking. We have already seen an instance in which a circumstance of the early Saxon mythology was preserved in a local tradition of the sixteenth century, in the legend of the giant Yoton : the fable of Weland presents us with an instance in which another such circumstance was similarly preserved to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and appears not to be quite extinct at the present day. I believe the cromlech described by Mr. Akerman was first noticed in a letter from Francis Wise to Dr. Mead, who informs 324 On the Legend of Weland the Smith. us that, " All the account which the country-people are able to give of it is : at this place lived formerly an invisible smith; and if a traveller's horse had left a shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to bring the horse to this place with a piece of money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again and find the money gone, but the horse new shoed. The stones standing upon the Rudgeway, as it is called, I suppose gave occasion to the whole being called Wayland-Smith, which is the name it was always known by to the country-people." I am inclined to believe that this legend, in the identical form in which it was told to Wise, is of extreme antiquity. The Grecian mythology, in its origin, was in a great measure the same as the Teutonic : the peoples and their languages came from the same stock. I have already observed that the Teutonic ham-stringed smith Weland was the same personage as the lame c'H I have the honour to remain, my Lord, with very sincere respect, Your Lordship's very obedient Servant, THOMAS WRIGHT. To the Rt. Hon. Viscount Mahon, &c. &c. &c. President of the Society of Antiquaries.