37β
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[hooκ I.
gloom and darkness of winter. That she was deeply
impressed upon the mind and feelings of the peo-
ple follows from her name having been retained for
the great festival of the church : it may also be
fairly argued that she was a mild and gentle di-
vinity, whom the clergy did not fear thus to com-
memorate.
Lye’s dictionary cites another goddess, Ricen,
with the translation Diana, which he seems to have
taken from some Cotton MS. It stands too iso-
lated for us to make any successful investigation,
but I may be excused for calling to mind the fact
that Diana is mentioned by the versifying chroni-
clers as among the Saxon gods, and also that
the superstition known in Germany as the “Wild
Hunt,” and which is properly connected with Wo-
den, goes very generally among us by the name of
Ludus Dianae. This, which became the founda-
tion of many a cruel persecution, under the name
of witchcraft, is spread over every part of Germany in
one form or another: sometimes it is [the daughter of]
Herodiaswho is compelled for everto expiate her fatal
dancing ; at other times we have Minerva or Bertha,
Holda, Habundia, Dame Abonde, Domina, Hera—
the Lady, and so on. It is true that our fragmentary
remains of Saxon heathendom do not contain any
immediate allusions to this superstition, but yet it
can scarcely be doubted that it did exist here as it
did in every part of the continent ɪ, and one there-
ɪ “ In Contrariam partem est auctoritas decreti xxvi. 9. у. c. epi. ɪtɑ
ibi Iegitur. Illud non est Obmittendum, quod quedam scélérate nɪuli-
eres retro post Sathan converse, demonum illusionibus et fantasma-
CH. x∏∙]
HEATHENDOM. MONSTERS.
377
fore would not willingly decide at once against there
having been some deity who might be translated by
Diana in the interpretatio Romana.
FIENDS and MONSTEflS.—The community of
belief, between the Germans of this island, of the
continent, and their Scandinavian kinsmen, does
not appear to have been confined to the beneficent
gods of fertility or warlike prowess. In the noble
poem of Beowulf we are made acquainted with a
monstrous fiend, Grendel, and his mother, super-
natural beings of gigantic birth, stature and dispo-
sition, voracious and cruel, feeding upon men, and
from their nature incapable of being wτounded with
mortal weapons. The triumph of the hero over
these unearthly enemies forms the subject of one
half the poem. But Grendel, who, from the cha-
racteristics given above, may at once be numbered
among the rough, violent deities of nature, the
Jotnar1 of the North and Titans of classical my-
thology, is not without other records : in two or
three charters we find places bearing his name, and
it is remarkable that they are all connected more
or less with water, while the poem describes his
dwelling as a cavern beneath a lake, peopled with
tɪbus seducte, credunt se et profitentur cum Diana nocturnis horis dea
paganoruɪn, vel cum IIerodiade et innumera DiuItitudine mulierum,
eQuitare super quasdam bestias et multa terrarum spatia intempeste
noetɪs Siientio pertransire, eius iussionibus obedire veluti domine, et
eertɪs noctibus ad eius servitium evocari.” Hieronymi Vicecomitis
Opusculum Lamiarum vel Striarum. Mediol. 1490. John of Salisbury
notices this iu his Polyczaticus, and Henry More in his Mystery of
odliness. See Salom. Sat. p. 125, seq.
In Beowulf he is continually called Eoten.