Volume 14 Number 3 Article 2 Spring 3-15-1988 The Souls of Animals: Evolution of the Combative Ideal Dee Anne Westbrook Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Westbrook, Dee Anne (1988) "The Souls of Animals: Evolution of the Combative Ideal," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 14 : No. 3 , Article 2. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss3/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Examines two stages in the life of the Northern European hero—initiation, and “end of his career, when he becomes victim.” Associates this with the mythology of animals and the hunter/warrior. Additional Keywords Animals—Religious aspects; Beowulf; Hunting mythology in literature; Initiation in literature; The Mabinogion; Northern European mythology; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol14/iss3/2 MYTHLORE 53: Spring 1988 The Souls of Animals Evolution of the Combative Ideal Dee Anne Westbrook More monsters have been met on the It is only by seeing the Celtic and Germanic moors of that land myths and early literature against such a backdrop Than anywhere else I know of since that one can begin to understand the worldview of earliest times. these ancient men of the North and the legacy of metaphors they have bequeathed us, metaphors in (S ir Gawain and the Green Knight, I, 2, which life is viewed as a scheme of naturally ordained • 22-3) combat and fight to the death, where self and other are mystically one, and each participant plays only a For some of theses, temporary role as killer or killed, hero or adversary, It could not be the place human or animal. It is, without blood. These hunt, as they have done With the insights provided by the mythologies of But with claws and teeth grown perfect, the hunt, we can begin to understand why, among the More deadly than they can believe. Indo-European tribes, it is especially in the North —where hunting as a way of life, together with its (Janes Dickey, "The Heaven of Animals” ) associated mythology, survived long after they ■ had been transformed in the South by agriculture and The ritual and mythology of the great hunt lie myths of the earth —that the combative ideal endures behind the worldview of the North, helping to shape long enough to enter history and literature as an its religions, cultural metaphors, and enduring images. organizing metaphor. It is in the North too that the Early European manifestations of this belief system hunter-become-warrior serves as the measure of man. are to be found in the paleolithic temple caves of And it is in the North that one finds Odin (Woden), Spain and France (17000-12000 b.c.e.) It is a shaman- the Indo-European god of wind and furious leader of istic, phallicist (associating phallus with weapons and the wild hunt, evolved into the chief deity of the horns) system which structured, supported, and cele­ pantheon, the Allfather, leader of souls, god of war­ brated the labor, courage, danger, and life’s progress riors, and selector of heroes for his own exclusive of the hunter, the man whose landscape was the great paradise, Valhalla, the home of the slain. Within the plain and dense forest of the European North, whose societies of the North, the privilege held by the hun­ opponent, mystical guide, brother, and indeed other ter-warrior was not relinquished, even after agricul­ self was the animal whose flesh he survived. This ture and domestication of animals rendered hunting, hunter inhabited a world in which the first law of and the use of weapons for hinting or plundering survival was, as Joseph Campbell says, "to eat or be unnecessary.1 These Northern aristocrats never beat eaten" (1983, p. 51), or, put another way, to eat and their swords into plowshares, for to have done so be eaten. would have been unthinkable: The class of hunter- warriors, the ancient elect whose combative ideal The pictorial and plastic evidence of ancient hunt­ served to define the aristocracy, would find too many ing cultures reveals a system of ritual and, one sup­ cultural pressures to maintain their ways, even poses, accompanying mythic narratives, in which the against Christianity’s and the agriculturist’s espoused central theme was the mysterious and magic hunt in politics of peace. which hunter and hunted were experienced as sharing both a physical and psychological identity. The human A grim but logical progression may be traced in figures in such scenes are typically depicted as par­ the evolution of the paleolithic hunter-nomad (repre­ tially theriomorphic, and the abundant beasts of the sented most prominently by the shamanistic animal- hunt swarm about as their willing victims. Campbell master as priest and leader of the hunt) to hunter- explains: warrior (whose weapons of the hunt are now turned against human foes), to warrior-hunter, the true child In such a context, the hunter and the of the ruthless, doomed, divine leader of the wild hunted beast — in ritual terms, the priest hunt and god of heroes. As the patterns of the and his sacrifice — would have to have been hunter’s ritual and myths survive and evolve, they experienced in some psychological dimension find their way into both literature and history —there as one and the same —• even as the mixed to provide archetypes for heroic life and metaphors form of the presiding presence of the Sanc­ for existence. tuary, the semi-human, semi-animal, dancing Animal Master... suggests." (1983, p. 76) An illustrative (perhaps apocryphal, but no less telling) episode occurs in King's Harald’s Saga, Snorri Here the animal prey is interpreted as "a knowing Sturluson’s biography of an eleventh-century king of participant in a covenanted sacred act wherein the Norway, whose life and career exemplifies the ease mystery of life, which lives on life, is comprehended with which the ancient mythological ideal of the hun­ in its celebration" (76). The shamanistic leader of both ter-warrior is transported into "history." As a three- ritual and hunt demonstrates such identity through year-old, the future king and his two brothers were his donning of animal skins, feathers, masks, and asked by King Olaf, "What would you like to have horns, a practice reflected in much later rites which most of?" The older brothers said that they would like included ritual costuming in bear-skins, wolf-skins, farm land and cattle. Harald, however, replied that he boars’ tusks and so forth. would like to have warriors, "so many that they would MYTHLORE 53: Spring 1988 P a g e 11 eat all of [his brother’s] cattle in one meal." King animalian or semi-human. It is clear that for many Olaf’s response indicates that he recognizes here the centuries — even into historic times — the taxonomic aristocratic ideal when he says to the boy’s mother, barriers of modern science had not yet been erected "That’s a king you’re bringing up...! (31). King Harald between species; and both hero and opponent had fulfilled his childhood ambition and led a life of attributes of beasts; both had, in a sense, the souls unremitting warfare and plundering — on the assump­ of animals. tion, it appears, that such activities are by their nature kingly. He - eventually met his fate in 1066 at A most useful source of information about the Stamford Bridge in England. religions of early peoples of the North in the period of the Great Migrations exists, as Margaret Arent King Harald's Saga reveals the nature of the king, shows, in the pictorial representations on weaponry defined by tradition, and-pronounced as history. The and armor from archaeological finds in Sweden, south kingly nature is given similar expression in the myth­ Germany, and England. She argues persuasively that ological "Lay of Rig," a tale recounted as myth by such depictions focus on and illuminate two crucial Snorri Sturluson. There the genesis of the earls events in the life of the hero, first his initiation rites (yarls), the aristocratic stratum of Northern society, is as a full-fledged member of the adult male group, and shown to have occurred in the birth of the prototypi­ secondly his responsibility and fate. The ritual scenes, cal warrior-hunter. He is the child of the god Rig and in other words, depict the beginning of the hero’s a clearly superior human mother. During his childhood career, when he proves himself as hunter or warrior, Earl displays the attributes of his class. He began to and on the end of his career, when he becomes victim.