Now the gyden, the elf-queen, Our Lady, hath a kindly and an unkindly side even as Mahadevi/Durga is said in the East (Robert Graves The White Goddess, chap. 25 lf. 445 - ):
“There are two sides to the worship of the Indian Goddess Kali: her right side as benefactress and universal mother, her left side as fury and ogress.”
I would read Mahadevi for Kali काली here, as Kali is truly the name for the “left side”. To show this we find that she is young and fair, and old and loathly as she willeth. Androw Man in his law-day for witchcraft said: “...the quene is verray plesand, and wil be auld and young quhen scho pleissis; ...”. And in the tale of Thomas the Rhymer, the Elf-queen doth do this. In Sörla þáttr in Flateyjarbók we find Freyja as Göndul is sometimes young, then old or loathly. And also Ragnell in The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell, which tale Chaucer brooketh in his tale of the Wife of Bath.
Jacob Grimm Teutonic Mythology (1883), third deal, chap. 17, lf. 474:
“Popular belief in the last few centuries, having lost the old and higher meaning of this spiritual being, has retained, as in the case of the alb, of Holla and Berhta, only the hateful side of its nature: a tormenting terrifying spectre, tangling your hair and beard, cutting up your corn, it appears mostly in a female form, as a sorceress and witch.”
In her loathliest anseen she is the night-mare. Thus Robert Graves:
“The Night Mare is one of the cruellest aspects of the White Goddess.”
And in saying this he belike had in mind old writings like Drayton's Nymphidia, THE COURT OF FAIRY:
Hence Oberon him sport to make,
Their rest when weary mortals take, 50
And none but only fairies wake,
Descendeth for his pleasure ;
And Mab, his merry Queen, by night
Bestrides young folks that lie upright
(In elder times, the mare that hight),
Which plagues them out of measure.
And Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act I, scene IV where we have Queen Mab and her “other I” “angry Mab” or “Hag”:
"O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife, ...
...
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court'sies straight,
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O’er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are:
...
... This is that very Mab
That plaits the manes of horses in the night,
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes:
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage:
This is she—"
John Milton's Paradise Lost, Book 2 linketh the Hag-anseen to witches and our Lady's play:
Nor uglier follow the Night-Hag, when call'd
In secret, riding through the Air she comes
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland Witches, while the labouring Moon [ 665 ]
Eclipses at their charms.
In secret, riding through the Air she comes
Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland Witches, while the labouring Moon [ 665 ]
Eclipses at their charms.
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
Mare or Night-mare is an old word linked to night going wights and elves:
Wið feóndes costunga and nihtgengan and maran, Thomas Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England (1864) ii. 306, 12.
Wyrc sealf wið nihtgengan, th'ilk 342, 1.
Wið ælfcynne and nihtgengan and ðám mannum ðe deófol mid hǽmþ, th'ilk 344, 7.
Gif men hwylc yfel costung weorþe oððe ælf oððe nihtgengan, th'ilk 344, 16.
Hió (betony ) hyne scyldeþ wið unhýrum nihtgengum and wið egeslícum gesihþum and swefnum, th'ilk i. 70, 5.
Mera ł satyrus incuba, Epinal Gloss
Mark that the word could be werely mara, and wifely mare.
In the Southern English Legendary (Laud 108) under Seynt Miȝhel þe Archaungel we find the night-mare linked to elf-women and fallen angels.
¶ For ten ordres of Aungles : þare weren i-makede þo,
And þe teoþe ordre ful a-doun : In-to pine and wo: 212
And ȝeot þare beot ordres Nyne : and þare-fore man is i-wrouȝt,
SOne so man was i-wrouȝt : sunne he bi-gan to do
And fur-gulte þe murie Ioie : þat he was i-maket to: 216
In helle he was with lucifer : and with oþure luþere fode,
For-to ore louerd it bouȝte : In flesch and in blode.
þe luþere gostes beoth a-boute : with heore luþere pouwer
To bi-traye wrechche men : and bringue into heore paunter; 220
And þe guode beoth al-so a-boute : with power þat heore is
For-to witien men fram sunne : þat huy ne wurchen a-mis.
Boþe þe luþere and þe guode : a-liȝteth ofte a-doun
And to men in hore slepe comieth : ase In a visioun, 224
And scheowieth in metingue : mani a wounder dede,
Þe guode of guode þingues : and þe luþere euere of quede,
And deriez men in heore slep : and bodieth seoruwe and care,
And ofte huy ouer-liggez [men] : and [al. þat] men cleopiet þe niȝt-mare— 228
For þat is al heore deliiȝt : ȝwane huy mowen don men wo.
Ase þeoues huy cheoseth þe niȝt : a-boute to fleo and go.
Mest huy greuieth selie men : ȝwane huy liggez upriȝt;
heuie huy liggez on heom i-nov : nere heom erore so lijȝt: 232
huy liggez ase an heui stok : þat wolde ane Man a-stoffe,
þat he ne may him wawie fot ne hond : ne vnneþes ani-þing poffe.
¶ Daþeheit a swuch luþer Caumberleyn : þat a-wakez men so sore,
And god him ȝiue sorewe I-nouȝ : and euere so leng þe more, 236
And alle þat louiez is compaygnie! : for he nas neuere hende.
Ȝif ani man him louez wel : ore louerd hyne him sende.— [folio 135]
þe schrewene wollez also ofte : mankun to bi-traiȝe,
A-liȝte a-doun in mannes forme : bi niȝte and bi daye, 240
And liggez ofte bi wommen : ase huy weren of flesch and of blode—
Ake þulke bi-ȝete þat huy bi-ȝitez : neuere ne cometh to guode.
And ofte in fourme of womman : a-day and eke a-nyȝt
huy latez men ligge heom bi : and bi-trayez heom ouȝt-riȝt— 244
for huy wutez wel ȝwuche beoz þe men : þat to folie habbeth wille:
Al-one in some deerne stude : huy stondez þanne wel stille,
And Mani fol heom lijth so bi : In wodes and in mede.
Ake þare nis non þat deth so : þat huy ne acoriez þe dede: 248
heore membres to-swellez sone : and some a-scapieth onneþe,
More wonder it is, for-soþe : hov ani a-scapiez a-liue—
for a swiþe attri þing it is : to lefman oþur to wyue. 252
And ofte in fourme of wommane : In many derne weye
grete compaygnie men i-seoth of heom : boþe hoppie and pleiȝe,
þat Eluene beoth i-cleopede : and ofte heo comiez to toune,
And bi daye muche in wodes heo beoth : and bi niȝte ope heiȝe dounes.
þat beoth þe wrechche gostes : þat out of heuene weren i-nome, 257
Promptorium Parvulorum:
“Mare, or nygth-mare: Epialtes, -tis. fem., 3.
Mare or wych: Magus, -i; Masc., 2: Maga, -e; fem., prime: Sagana, -e; fem., prime.”
And we might bethink here also:
“Elf, spyryt: Lamia”
Catholicon Anglicum (British Bookhoard Additional handwrit 15562) hath this odd gloss:
“Þe Bychdowȝhter: Epialtis, Epialta, Noxa.”
John Trevisa's awending of Bartholomaeus Anglicus's De Proprietatibus Rerum hath:
“Somtime is melancolik þe cause, and siche falliþ into þe iuel þat hat incubus or ephialtes þe mare.”
The namecouth Greek leach Galen nameth the nightmare ἐφιάλτης "ephialtes" ἐπιάλτης (ἐπι ἄλλομαι "leaping on (you)").
Lamia might be thought of here, although some might say this is to go beyond what the old books bear witness to. Yet I would uphold it nevertheless. And it may become more swuttle to the reader that this is rightly said as we go on. A gloss on the Book of the Witie Isaiah in a Bible by John Wycliffe or his followers (Roy 1.C.8)
34.14 hath:
“Lamya is a wondirful beest, lijk a womman aboue, and hath horse feet bynethe, and sleeth hir owne whelpis, as the glos seith.”
The “horse feet” I may etch are, and are not, a mistake. They are mistaken in so much as the Greek draught wrongly awendeth the Hebrew Lilith, as ὀνοκένταυροι ass-centaurs, whilst the Vulgate more rightly hath lamia. But they are not mistaken in so much as an ass is not a horse. Is it playing on the word mare meaning horse? Michael Psellus is meant to have linked Lilith with the γελλώ gellou or gello known in his time, but Leo Allatius linketh the gellou with the Roman striges (see Ovid Fasti VI, lines 131 to 168 and line 139 “est illis strigibus nomen”; and lines 131 to 132 linketh them to the Harpies). Hesychius of Alexandria glosseth:
A work called the Cyranides would have the aetites, a kind of holed stone, as good against the gellou. The Greeks, Armeni and Slavs also know a Saint Sisinnius who is meant to be good against her. On warding tokens, it would seem Sisinnius is shown as a horseman bearing down with his spear on the gellou, a woman who hath fish- or snake-likeness below the girdle-stead. [see Sarah Johnston, Restless Dead (1999) lf. 195, note 91] And if this maketh some to think of Saint George, then I do not think that they would be the first to do so (see below).
- <Γελλώ>· εἴδωλον Ἐμπούσης τὸ τῶν ἀώρων, τῶν παρθένων
- Gellou the dwimmerlake Empousa the untimely, the maiden.
- <Γελλώ> δαίμων, ἣν γυναῖκες τὰ νεογνὰ παιδία φασὶν ἁρπάζειν
- Gellou a dæmon who they say snatcheth the newborn children of women.
A work called the Cyranides would have the aetites, a kind of holed stone, as good against the gellou. The Greeks, Armeni and Slavs also know a Saint Sisinnius who is meant to be good against her. On warding tokens, it would seem Sisinnius is shown as a horseman bearing down with his spear on the gellou, a woman who hath fish- or snake-likeness below the girdle-stead. [see Sarah Johnston, Restless Dead (1999) lf. 195, note 91] And if this maketh some to think of Saint George, then I do not think that they would be the first to do so (see below).
The best forebisening of a nightmare that I can think of is in Heimskringla eða Sögur Noregs konunga, Ynglinga saga 16, Frá Vanlanda:
"Vanlandi hét son Svegðis, er ríki tók eptir hann ok réð fyrir Uppsala auð; hann var hermaðr mikill, ok hann fór víða um lönd. Hann þá vetrvist á Finnlandi með Snjá hinum gamla, ok fékk þar dóttr hans Drífu. En at vári fór hann á brott, en Drífa var eptir, ok hét hann at koma aptr á þriggja vetra fresti; en hann kom eigi á 10 vetrum. Þá sendi Drífa eptir Huld seiðkonu, en sendi Vísbur, son þeirra Vanlanda, til Svíþjóðar. Drífa keypti at Huld seiðkonu, at hon skyldi síða Vanlanda til Finnlands, eða deyða hann at öðrum kosti. En er seiðr var framiðr, þá var Vanlandi at Uppsölum; þá gerði hann fúsan at fara til Finnlands, en vinir hans ok ráðamenn bönnuðu honum, ok sögðu at vera mundi fjölkyngi Finna í farfýsi hans. Þá gerðist honum svefnhöfugt, ok lagðist hann till svefns. En er hann hafði lítt sofnat, kallaði hann ok sagði, at mara trað hann. Menn hans fóru til ok vildu hjálpa honum; en er þeir tóku uppi til höfuðsins, þá trað hon fótleggina, svá at nær brotnuðu; þá tóku þeir til fótanna, þá kafði hon höfuðit, svá at þar dó hann. Svíar tóku lík hans, ok var hann brendr við á þá er Skúta heitir. Þar váru settir bautasteinar hans. Svá segir Þjóðólfr:
En á vit
Vilja bróður
vitta vættr
Vanlanda kom;
þá tröllkund
um troða skyldi
liðs grímhildr
ljóna bága;
ok sá brann
á beði Skútu
menglötuðr,
er mara kvaldi."
Awending Samuel Laing:
"Vanlande, Swegde's son, succeeded his father, and ruled over the Upsal domain. He was a great warrior, and went far around in different lands. Once he took up his winter abode in Finland with Snae the Old, and got his daughter Driva in marriage; but in spring he set out leaving Driva behind, and although he had promised to return within three years he did not come back for ten. Then Driva sent a message to the witch Huld; and sent Visbur, her son by Vanlande, to Sweden. Driva bribed the witch-wife Huld, either that she should bewitch Vanlande to return to Finland, or kill him. When this witch-work was going on Vanlande was at Upsal, and a great desire came over him to go to Finland; but his friends and counsellors advised him against it, and said the witchcraft of the Finn people showed itself in this desire of his to go there. He then became very drowsy, and laid himself down to sleep; but when he had slept but a little while he cried out, saying that the Mara was treading upon him. His men hastened to him to help him; but when they took hold of his head she trod on his legs, and when they laid hold of his legs she pressed upon his head; and it was his death. The Swedes took his body and burnt it at a river called Skytaa, where a standing stone was raised over him. Thus says Thjodolf: --
"And Vanlande, in a fatal hour,
Was dragg'd by Grimhild's daughter's power,
The witch-wife's, to the dwelling-place
Where men meet Odin face to face.
Trampled to death, to Skytaa's shore
The corpse his faithful followers bore;
And there they burnt, with heavy hearts,
The good chief killed by witchcraft's arts."
Huld is truly for Our Lady, not any earthly witch.
Benjamin Thorpe in his Northern Mythology, Deal 3, lvs. 154 to 155 hath this to say which I deem most worthwhile:
"THE
MÂRT—MÂRTE—MÂRTEN—NACHTMÂRT
(THE NIGHTMARE).
Under all these
denominations is designated that spectral being which places
itself on the breast of the sleeping, depriving them of the
powers of motion and utterance.
...
The Murraue creeps up
the body of the sleeper. Its
weight is first felt on
the feet, then on the belly, and lastly on the breast, when the
sufferer can no longer move a limb. ... Teupitz."
The Nightmare was thought to have had a nest. Thorpe again (lf. 154):
"In the pines branches are often found quite curledtogether, having almost the appearance of nests. When it rains, persons should be careful not to pass under such branches ; for whoever is touched with a rain-drop from one of these nests will in the night be oppressed with the 'Murraue' [The Wendish Name for the nightmare.]"
And this from Robert Graves The White Goddess, chapitle 1, lvs. 25 to 26:
"And what is a mare’s nest? Shakespeare hints at the answer, though he substitutes St. Swithold for Odin, the original hero of the ballad:
Swithold footed thrice the wold.
He met the Night Mare and her ninefold,
Bid her alight and her troth plight,
And aroynt thee, witch, aroynt thee!
A fuller account of Odin’s feat is given in the North Country Charm against the Night Mare, which probably dates from the fourteenth century:
Tha mon o’ micht, he rade o’ nicht
Wi’ neider swerd ne ferd ne licht.
He socht tha Mare, he fond tha Mare,
He bond tha Mare wi’ her ain hare,
Ond gared her swar by midder-micht
She wolde nae mair rid o’ nicht
Whar aince he rade, thot mon o’ micht.
The Night Mare is one of the cruellest aspects of the White Goddess. Her nests, when one comes across them in dreams, lodged in rock-clefts or the branches of enormous hollow yews, are built of carefully chosen twigs, lined with white horse-hair and the plumage of prophetic birds and littered with the jawbones and entrails of poets. The prophet Job said of her: ‘She dwelleth and abideth upon the rock. Her young ones also suck up blood.’...".
That Odin, our Woden, is the god binding the mare we will look into anon. But Graves warneth us chapitle 23, lf. 420:
“Let the poet address her as Rhiannon, ‘Great Queen’, and avoid the discourtesy of Odin and St. Swithold, greeting her with as much affectionate respect as, say, Kemp Owyne showed the Laidley worm in the ballad. She will respond with a sweet complaisance and take him the round of her nests.”
From the above, we can see that there was some minning of a galder to be said to withstand her. Karl Blind booked this galder in a slightly unlike shape from Shetland (Saga Book of the Viking Club (1892-6) Deal 1, Shetland Folklore... lvs. 170 to 171):
Arthur Knight
He rade a' night,
Wi' open swird
An' candle light.
He sought da mare;
He fan' da mare;
He bund da mare
Wi' her ain hair.
And made da mare
Ta swear:
'At she should never
Bide a' night
Whar ever she heard
O' Arthur Knight.
But as Graves hath already marked, Shakespeare would seem to have known another telling thereof which is to be found in his King Lear, Act III, scene IV:
EDGAR: This is the foul fiend Flibbertigibbet: he begins
at curfew, and walks till the first cock; he gives
the web and the pin, squints the eye, and makes the
hare-lip; mildews the white wheat, and hurts the
poor creature of earth.
S. Withold footed thrice the old;
He met the night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,
And her troth plight,
And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!
And in the first folio:
Edg. This is the foule Flibbertigibbet; hee begins at
Curfew, and walkes at first Cocke: Hee giues the Web
and the Pin, squints the eye, and makes the Hare-lippe;
Mildewes the white Wheate, and hurts the poore Creature of earth.
Swithold footed thrice the old,
He met the Night-Mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her a-light, and her troth-plight,
And aroynt thee Witch, aroynt thee
The which is akin to an early fifteenth yearhundred galder (Bodley handwrit 15353) which putteth “Seint Jorge” in an odd light:
“For the Nighte Mare:
Take a flint stone that hath an hole thorou of his owen growing, and hange it over the Stabil doore, or ell over horse, an ell write this charme:
‘In nomine patris [et filii et spiritus sancti amen],
Seint Jorge, Our Lady Night,
He walked day, he walked night
Till that he founde that foule wight;
And won that he here founde,
He here bete and he here bounde,
Till trewly there here trouthe sche plight
That sche sholde not come be nighte
Withinne seven rode of londe space
Ther as Seint Jeorge inamed was.
‘St Jeorge, St Jeorge, St Jeorge.
In nomine Patris etc.’
And right this in a bille and hange it in the hors mane.”
And later still John Aubrey marked:
“In the West of England (& I beleeve, almost everywhere in
this nation) the Carters, & Groomes, & Hostlers doe hang a flint
(that has a hole in it) over horses that are hagge-ridden for a
Preservative against it.”
And doth this not something to do with the still unforgotten the might of horseshoes to ward off “witches”? But be this as it may, we do know without any weening that “Seint Jorge” is the foe of “the Nighte Mare” or “hagge” “that foule wight” which “come be nighte” to ride horses. A holed stone moreover, is it would seem in Germany called a Drudenstein, from Drude, this being another name for the nightmare with them, and named for the same inting. And then there is the Drudenfuss, the same with them as our Endless Knot or Pentangle. Our Green Grow the Rushes, O “Five for the symbol at your door.”
 |
| The Weapon of Die Degelin von Wangen, Swabia, from Siebmachers Wappenbuch of 1605 ᛋ |
“The mistletoe is recommended as a remedy for the nightmare; it is, therefore, sometimes called marentakken (mare-branches), or alfranken (elf-tendrils). Thunder-stones are likewise considered a remedy.”
We should bear in mind that the druids thought the best mistletoe grew on oak trees (see Pliny Natural History Book 16, chap. 95), which it but seldom doth do, and that oak trees are holy to the thunder god. Likewise thunder-stones lead us the same way, so that we must understand here that the thunder god is the foe of the loathly anseen of our lady? Is he the thunder-god the god that underlieth “Seint Jorge” “Swithold” “mon o’ micht” or “Arthur knight” ? Graves' “Odin”, our Woden, would then be a mistaken guess of his, although he belike leaneth on Karl Blind who saw in the Shetland verse against the night-mare the tale of Odin finding the wayward valkyrja called Brynhildur and putting her to sleep (see Völsunga saga 20). But as Jacob Grimm in the foreword to the 1844 t'other outlaying of third deal of his Teutonic Mythology (thrutched in English in 1883) well wrote:
“Wuotan, Donar, and Zio partly run into one another...”.
If we can indeed believe that our nightmare is the same as the Greek gellou, and I believe that they are, then some further help is at hand. For Leo Allatius in his De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus ("On certain modern opinions among the Greeks") hath the tale of Saint Sisinnius and the gellou, wherein it is to be seen that Sisinnius alone, is truly short for Sisinnius and Sisynodorus, two brothers. They ward their sister Melitene and her children from the gellou or gellou. But at first they unwittingly help the gellou to get into their sister's tower and steal her child. But they then go after the gellou and make her give the child back and win from her the knowledge of her true name and thus how to keep her away from other mothers in the time to come. [see 'On the Beliefs of the Greeks': Leo Allatios and Popular Orthodox (2004) by Karen Hartnup chap. 4, lf.87; but the legend is also in M. R. James' Apocrypha and Anecdota (1897) lvs. 166 to 167]. What the Greeks only thought of as a baleful thing linked to new born children, our fathers thought of as a baleful thing more widely. I mark here that in Germany the Drudenfuss is to be found on children's cradles. But the tale of saint Sisinnius and the gellou is also to be found in J. Rendel Harris' The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (1906) chap. x, lvs. 82 to 85, who maketh it swuttle that these saints are the old Heavenly Twins in hidlock! So, “Seint Jorge” “Swithold” “mon o’ micht” or “Arthur knight” is in the end then, only one of the Heavenly Twins who the Greeks and Romans knew under more than one lot of names although Castor Κάστωρ and Polydeuces/Pollux Πολυδεύκης are maybe the best known. These are the sons of the thunder-god Διόσκουροι, and his thanes, who, in one tale told by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini in his Europa (see Rendel Harris th'ilk lvs, 84 to 85) from Lithuania, sometimes borrow his hammer to free the sun! From what Rendel Harris writeth, Melitene would be the same as the sun in the Piccolomini tale. Among the Greeks she is none other than Helena Ἑλένη the sister of Castor and Pollux/Polydeuces.
I guess Arthur is twinned so to speak with his foster brother Kay, and our saint George is, in the East at least, often twinned with saint Demetrius, with whom he showed up to help the crusaders at the besetting of Antioch. The Heavenly Twins would seemingly lie behind our own Hengest and Horsa as also the Romans' Romulus and Remus. But for the ásatrúarfólk these may well be behind Móði and Magni, the brothers of Þrúður. For this would outfold why Móði and Magni, will at length have their father's hammer (see Vafþrúðnismál 51) as also why Magni is given Hrungnir's horse by his father (see Skáldskaparmál). But at a stretch Þjálfi and Röskva could also be thought of here.
Now, I would like to leave things there I think, we can see the Heavenly Twins as on the side of the sun and against the gellou, our nightmare. And this is for that the gellou and nightmare are linked to the unkindly mood, the left side as we have said, of our dear lady. All that doth not wish to die must withstand her in this mood. And they must look to the Twins and Apollo to help them. Thus Diana and Apollo, though sister and brother, are often found to be witherward to each other, whence Tatian's words in his To the Greeks, chap. 8, (awending J. E. Ryland):
“Artemis is a poisoner; Apollo heals diseases. ”
Farewell.“Wuotan, Donar, and Zio partly run into one another...”.
If we can indeed believe that our nightmare is the same as the Greek gellou, and I believe that they are, then some further help is at hand. For Leo Allatius in his De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus ("On certain modern opinions among the Greeks") hath the tale of Saint Sisinnius and the gellou, wherein it is to be seen that Sisinnius alone, is truly short for Sisinnius and Sisynodorus, two brothers. They ward their sister Melitene and her children from the gellou or gellou. But at first they unwittingly help the gellou to get into their sister's tower and steal her child. But they then go after the gellou and make her give the child back and win from her the knowledge of her true name and thus how to keep her away from other mothers in the time to come. [see 'On the Beliefs of the Greeks': Leo Allatios and Popular Orthodox (2004) by Karen Hartnup chap. 4, lf.87; but the legend is also in M. R. James' Apocrypha and Anecdota (1897) lvs. 166 to 167]. What the Greeks only thought of as a baleful thing linked to new born children, our fathers thought of as a baleful thing more widely. I mark here that in Germany the Drudenfuss is to be found on children's cradles. But the tale of saint Sisinnius and the gellou is also to be found in J. Rendel Harris' The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (1906) chap. x, lvs. 82 to 85, who maketh it swuttle that these saints are the old Heavenly Twins in hidlock! So, “Seint Jorge” “Swithold” “mon o’ micht” or “Arthur knight” is in the end then, only one of the Heavenly Twins who the Greeks and Romans knew under more than one lot of names although Castor Κάστωρ and Polydeuces/Pollux Πολυδεύκης are maybe the best known. These are the sons of the thunder-god Διόσκουροι, and his thanes, who, in one tale told by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini in his Europa (see Rendel Harris th'ilk lvs, 84 to 85) from Lithuania, sometimes borrow his hammer to free the sun! From what Rendel Harris writeth, Melitene would be the same as the sun in the Piccolomini tale. Among the Greeks she is none other than Helena Ἑλένη the sister of Castor and Pollux/Polydeuces.
I guess Arthur is twinned so to speak with his foster brother Kay, and our saint George is, in the East at least, often twinned with saint Demetrius, with whom he showed up to help the crusaders at the besetting of Antioch. The Heavenly Twins would seemingly lie behind our own Hengest and Horsa as also the Romans' Romulus and Remus. But for the ásatrúarfólk these may well be behind Móði and Magni, the brothers of Þrúður. For this would outfold why Móði and Magni, will at length have their father's hammer (see Vafþrúðnismál 51) as also why Magni is given Hrungnir's horse by his father (see Skáldskaparmál). But at a stretch Þjálfi and Röskva could also be thought of here.
Now, I would like to leave things there I think, we can see the Heavenly Twins as on the side of the sun and against the gellou, our nightmare. And this is for that the gellou and nightmare are linked to the unkindly mood, the left side as we have said, of our dear lady. All that doth not wish to die must withstand her in this mood. And they must look to the Twins and Apollo to help them. Thus Diana and Apollo, though sister and brother, are often found to be witherward to each other, whence Tatian's words in his To the Greeks, chap. 8, (awending J. E. Ryland):
“μάγος
ἐστίν
Ἄρτεμις,
θεραπεύει
ὁ Ἀπόλλων.”
“magus est Diana, medicus Apollo.” “Artemis is a poisoner; Apollo heals diseases. ”
And Artemis Ἄρτεμις might be thus seen as a wifely shape of the werely word ἄρταμος slaughterer. But the slaughter she overseeth is not rightly to be thought of as an evil, although it will always seem such to those it overgoeth, but rather as a needful fonding of all things. If something is fit and well, and right with the gods, it will be spared. And if it is not, then it is a great milsefulness for it to be put out of its pining; or to be put beyond the doing of any more misdeeds and where it may be given whatsoever these have earned it. This is the sharp wisdom behind our lady's title of ἐλαφηβόλος deer-shooter. For who is it truly that are her deer (οἱ, αἱ
ἔλᾰφοι)?
