BY HENRY COLLEY MARCH, M.D., F.S.A. O treat of the myriad divinities that once filled the place of what we now call "the forces" of Nature is to deal with the very beginnings of conceptual thought. Before all other personages they were. They nourished the youth and growth of the great gods to whom cosmogonic powers were afterwards assigned. From the rock that sat with "furrowed brow and wrinkled loins" to the fountain that burst forth into movement and song; from celestial stillness and beauty to the waves and winds of disaster; all phenomena were wrought by the spirits whose energy was never at rest. Could it only have been possible for man to link himself to those divine beings, to place himself on the side of those angels; to float on the stream that they moved, with the gale that they fanned; to learn the wisdom of birds, and follow the strategy of animal cunning; to be happy with the flowers, and know the forest for a friend; to call the mountains by name, and seek in their caverns a refuge and a home. Could it only have been possible to secure some sign, some token, a feather even, a black stone, a tuft of hair, a translucent pebble; any totemistic proof of divine companionship, any warrant for the beatific vision that might some day gladden human eyes, the sight of nymph, or sylph or mother goddess; and any warning of the fate that befalls the unworthy when dire agents drag him to destruction. The Dwarfs dwelt everywhere in the caves. They were scarcely thought of otherwise than as epicene, though they became masculine or feminine, as their varied tasks implied. The Northmen knew their designations, and accounted Mótsogni to be the mightiest of them all and Durin to be the second. And the Dactyls of Mount Ida were also known by name. There was Acmon the Anvil and Celmis the Smelter. They were well denominated “Fingers,” their industry was so fertile and unflagging; and they were five in number, or ten, and then half of them were male and half were female. They discovered fire and the use of bronze and iron (τοῦ χαλκοῦ καὶ σιδήρου). * The Telchines, too, invented useful arts, and were workers in bronze and iron. In their feminine aspect, as Telchiniæ, they were the Nymphs to whom Rhea entrusted the nurture of Poseidon. And they were thought to be able to control storms and to transform themselves into other shapes.t Et tandem antiquis Curetum allabimur oris.‡ The Curetes, at first, were nine in number. Some were the offspring of the Earth, and some were descended from the Idæan Dactyls. They dwelt in the mountains, under the shade of thick trees, and in caves; and they discovered many profitable things.§ They were called Curetes from their nurture (KоvρоTрopýσavτes) || of the Cretan Zeus. They took charge of him and lodged him in a grotto, and the Nymphs, Adrasteia and Ida, fed him with milk and honey; whilst another, Amalthæa, suckled him, though some say his foster-mother was a goat.* The Epeirian Zeus was brought up by Dodonæan Nymphs; the Zeus of Arcadia by the Nymphs Theison, Neda, and Hagno; and the infant Bacchus was entrusted to the fruitful Nymphs of Rain, Philia, Coronis, and Cleis.† Through Cabeira Vulcan had three grandsons, the Cabeiri, and three granddaughters, the Nymphs Cabeirides. They were protectors of the fruits of the field, and their effigies, Herodotus takes care to say, were no bigger than dwarfs or pigmies. Their impersonators took part in reproductive pageants, and in the mysteries of Samothrace.§ Dionysus classes them with the Roman Penates, whose statues, of small size, were placed in sacred recesses. In Lemnos and Imbros, and in the Troad, the Cabeiri were the objects of divine worship, but their temples were built in uninhabited places.|| Corybas was a son of Cybele,¶ and the Corybantes were adored as ministers of the gods, whilst their impersonators performed orgiastic rites. Hinc mater cultrix Cybelæ, Corybantiaque æra.1 But by some the Corybantes were regarded as the dæmon children of Minerva and the Sun, whilst others considered that the Corybantes, Cabeiri, Idæan Dactyls, and Telchines were all the same beings as the Curetes.2 This apparent confusion arises partly from religious overlapping and partly from an attempt to give locality * Diod., v. 70. || Strabo, x. 3. Herod, iii. 37. ↑ Ibid, v. 52. Ovid, Fast., v. 166, 172. ¶ Diod., v. 49. iii. 37. § Ibid, ii. 51. 1 Æneid, iii. III. 2 Strabo, x. 3. or nationality, and even personality, to what were only general ideas. This tendency may be observed even in the prayers of the Avesta, "We worship this earth which bears us, together with thy wives, O Ahura-Mazda . . . and you, O ye waters, we worship, you that are showered down, and you that stand in pools, ye female Ahuras, that serve us in helpful ways."* The mysterious beings that existed before man, that discovered fire and the metals, that invented arts and implements, that are busy in solitary places and dance where human feet never tread, that pour out perpetual streams from the hollows in which they live, without whose aid even the gods were not nurtured; these creatures of the imagination must be individualised and distinguished by names, and must be endowed with the sex that better befits their specialised functions, of which not the least important concerned the birth and nutrition of a child. Thus Daphnis, a son of Mercury, was not only brought up by Nymphs, but a Nymph was his mother, Ερμοῦ μὲν καὶ Νύμφης υίον ὑπω Νύμφων τραφέντα; and the mountain-dwelling, deep-bosomed Nymphs, BaúKoλTαι Núμpaι, who ate ambrosial food, were nurses of Aphrodite.‡ If we turn now to the nations of the north, we find the Norns, the weird sisters, who were Urd, the Past; Verdande, Present or Becoming; and Skuld, the Future. How inseparable is the number three from religious beliefs! These Destinies resemble the Moira, and yet are not identical with Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, though three Norns were present at the birth of every man and cast the weird of his life. There is frequent mention of them in the sagas. "Night lay over the house when the Norns came, when Helgi was born. They twisted the strands of fate for Borghild's son." "The Norns have sent me a terrible dream, their forebodings of evil have awakened me.”+ "Alas!" said Angantheow, who, through a malevolent intrigue, had fought against and slain his brother, "there is a curse upon us, evil was the Norns' doom."‡ "No man can live over the evening that the Norns foretold."§ But there were many other Norns, for some of them were descended from the gods and some from the elves, whilst some were the daughters of the dwarfs.|| The elves dwelt in the fields flooded with light and air, and Weyland, the Smith, was their lord. But the dwarfs abode in caves, for the sun was death to them. This distinction is manifest in the names they gave to things, for whilst the elves called the earth "growing" and heaven "fair-roof" and the moon "year-teller," for they had no better use for her, the dwarfs on the contrary called earth "clay" and heaven "drip-hall" and the moon "brightness," for she was their only light.1 But the Norns resemble the Nymphs in their attachment to fountains. Deep down in a cave a spring flows from beneath one of the roots of Yggdrasil, the Holy Ash, and there three maidens obtain the water with which they continually sprinkle the leaves of the Tree. The stream is Urðar brunn, Urd's burn, the fountain of past things. We are fortunate enough to be able to see what these words describe. A sculptured stone was found adjacent *Helgi and Segrún, i. 5. 1 Alviss Mal § Hamtheow's Lay, 135. |