362
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
quam faciunt volvi : quod, cum immunda cremant,
hoc habent ex gentilibus. Antiquitu s enim dra-
cones in hoc tempore excitabantur ad Iibidinem
propter calorem, et volando per aera frequenter
Spermatizabantur aquae, et tunc erat Ietalis, quia
quicumque inde bibebant, aut moriebantur, aut
grave morbum paciebantur. Quod attendentes phi-
losophy iusserunt ignem fieri frequenter et spar-
sim circa ρuteos et fontes, et immundum ibi cre-
mari, et quaecumque immundum reddiderunt fu-
mum, nam per talem fumum sciebant fugari dra-
cones .... Rota involvitur ad Significandum quod
sol tune ascendit ad alciora sui circuli et statim
regreditur, inde venit quod volvitur rota.”
An ancient marginal note has bonfires, intending
to explain that word by the bones burnt on such
occasions. Grimm seems to refer this to the cult
of Baldr or Bældæg, with which he connects the
name Beltane; but taking all the circumstances
into consideration, I am inclined to attribute it
rather to Frea, if not even to a female form of the
same godhead, Fricge, the Aphrodite of the North.
Frea seems to have been a god of boundaries ; pro-
bably as the giver of fertility and increase, he gra-
dually became looked upon as a patron of the fields.
On two occasions his name occurs in such bounda-
ries, and once in a manner which proves some tree
to have been dedicated to him. In a charter of the
year 959 we find these words : “ ‰nne andlang
herpa⅞>es on Frigedæges treow,”—thence along the
road to Friday’s (that is Frea’s) tree1; and in a
1 Cod. Dipl. No. 1221.
сн. χ∏∙]
HEATHENDOM. BÆLDÆG.
363
similar document of the same century we have a
boundary running “ o⅞> Sone Frigedæg.” There is
a place yet called Fridaythorpe, in Yorkshire. Here
Frigedaeg appears to be a formation precisely similar
to Bældæg, Swæfdæg, and Wægdæg, and to mean
only Frea himself.
BALDÆG, in Old-norse BALDR, in Old-ger-
man PALTAC.—The appearance of Bældæg among
Woden’s sons in the Anglosaxon genealogies, would
naturally lead us to the belief that our forefathers
worshiped that god whom the Edda and other le-
gends of the North term Baldr, the father of Brand,
and the Phoebus Apollo of Scandinavia. Yet be-
yond these genealogies we have very little evidence
of his existence. It is true that the word bealdor
very frequently occurs in Anglosaxon poetry as a
peculiar appellative of kings,—nay even as a name
of God himself,—and that it is, as far as we know,
indeclinable, a sign of its high antiquity, ɜ'his
word may then probably have obtained a general
signification which at first did not belong to it,
and been retained to represent a king, when it had
ceased to represent a god. There are a few places
in which the name of Balder can yet be traced :
thus Baldersby in Yorkshire, Balderston in Lanca-
shire, Biealderesleah and Baldheresbeorh in Wilt-
shire1 : of these the two first may very likely have
arisen from Danish or Norwegian influence, while
the last is altogether uncertain. Save in the gene-
alogies the name Bældæg does not occur at all.
1 Cod. Dipl. No. 1059, 92.