King Eric and the Outlaws, Vol. 2
Page 17
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: The word Runes is here used in its originalsignification,--that of mystery or secret. Each letter of the Runicalphabet was supposed to possess a mysterious and magical power. In theScandinavian mythology, each Rune was originally dedicated to somedeity; it also denoted some natural quality or object: their Asiaticorigin is now proved beyond doubt. There is a remarkable poem in theelder Edda--the Song of Brynhilde, in which mention is made of severalkinds of Runes. Among them may be classed numerous amulets of most ofthe Asiatic tribes, as well as of the Egyptians, Greeks, &c., on whichthese characters were cut or traced. The custom among sailors ofmarking their skins with letters and devices may clearly be traced toRunic origin, and the tattooing among savage tribes is evidentlysimilarly derived. In Wilson's account of the Pelew Islands, King AbbaThule is represented as tattooed with two crosses on the breast and twoon one shoulder, with a snake, and these distinct northern Runes[Illustration of rune]. In the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenthcenturies, when superstition dragged her victims to the stakethroughout all Christian Europe, the use of Runes became an especialobject for the persecutions exercised by the authorities and clergy ofIceland,--the word Rune there signifying a mysterious and magicalcharacter. The songs of the Finns and Laps, which are supposed by themto possess magic powers, are still called Runes.--_Translator_. Vide_Professor Finn Magnussen's Notes to the Elder Edda_, vol. iii.]
[Footnote 2: King Eric the Sixth of Denmark, surnamed Plough Penny, theson and successor of Valdemar the Victorious, was murdered by thecommand of his brother, Junker Abel, Duke of Slesvig, undercircumstances of peculiar atrocity, on the 4th of August, 1250. Abelhad frequently rebelled against his brother; but at last finding thathis forces were unequal to the contest, he had recourse to stratagem,and made overtures of friendship to Eric, who gladly accepted them, andhesitated not to visit his brother at one of his palaces in Slesvig.After an apparently cordial reception, however, the duke contrived toturn the conversation on their former feuds, and reproached the kingwith having devastated his territories, saying, "Dost thou not rememberhow thou didst plunder my town of Slesvig, and compel my daughter tofly barefoot to a place of shelter? Thou shalt not do so twice." Ericwas then seized and led to the river Slie, where he was placed in aboat, beheaded, and his body sunk by stones into the deepest part ofthe stream. In order to cover this crime, Duke Abel and twenty-four ofhis knights, according to the usage of those times, endeavoured toclear themselves of suspicion, by solemnly affirming that the king hadmet with his death by the upsetting of the boat, but two monthsafterwards the headless trunk floated to the river side, and the murderbecame known. The body was deposited in St. Benedict's church atRingsted, where the Translator not long ago was shown one of the bonesthrough an aperture of the walled-up niche.]
[Footnote 3: The placing runes upon the tongue was employed in Runicmagic to waken the dead priestess, and compel her to give a propheticanswer to the magician whose spells had aroused her from the sleep ofdeath. In the song of Vegtam, in the Elder Edda, known to the Englishreader in our poet Gray's fine translation, "The Descent of Odin," theScandinavian bard describes the magic power of runes traced on theground towards the north, and repeated as incantations, in callingforth the prophetic response from the tomb.
"Right against the eastern gate, By the moss-grown pile he sate, Where long of yore to sleep was laid The dust of the prophetic maid; Facing to the northern clime, Thrice he traced the Runic rhyme; Thrice pronounced in accents dread, The thrilling verse that wakes the dead, Till from out the hollow ground, Slowly breathed a sullen sound."
_Translator's Note_.]
[Footnote 4: Baldur, the son of Odin, was slain by Hother, a Danishwarrior, his rival in the affections of Nanna, a Norwegian princess.]
[Footnote 5: Fragment of an old Danish ballad entitled "Agnete and theMerman."]
[Footnote 6: One of the most ancient and characteristic ballads of thenorth. It is the subject of one of M. Ohlenschlager's most populartragedies.]
[Footnote 7: The superstitious belief in the existence of mermen,prevailed in Denmark at no very remote period. It seems probable thatthe pirates or Vikings of the north availed themselves of thissuperstition, by assuming the disguise of mermen to scare theinhabitants from those coasts it was important they should possess. Theadventures of some Scandinavian pirate and maiden probably gave rise tothe curious old ballad of Agnete and the Merman. See the Danish "KjaempeViser."--_Translator_.]
[Footnote 8: Fragment of an heroic ballad.]
[Footnote 9: Varulve (Manwolf) according to ancient superstition, a manwho had been metamorphosed for a certain time into a wolf. Thesuperstitions of the Scandinavians, as handed down in the Sagas andKempe Vise (heroic ballads), partake so much of the character ofEastern fable, that there can be little doubt of their Asiaticorigin.--_Translator_.]
[Footnote 10: Nidaros, the ancient name of Drontheim in Norway.]
[Footnote 11: "Vola's qvad," or "The Song of the Prophetess," is one ofthe most imaginative poems in the Elder Edda. It opens with an accountof the springing forth of creation from chaos, and after announcingdeath as the final doom of all physical nature, ends by foretelling therise of a better and brighter world, from the ocean in which the firsthad been engulphed.--_Translator_.]
[Footnote 12: The name of the ancient castle of Copenhagen, built byBishop Absalon in the thirteenth century as a defence against pirates.]
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
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