REVIEWS.
The Cult of Othin : an Essay in the Ancient Religion OF THE North. By H. M. Chadwick, Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. London : Clay. 1899.
It is perhaps in the direction of monographs such as the present that the first series of attacks upon the complicated questions of Northern mythology can best be delivered. Mr. Chadwick has given full and thoughtful consideration to his subject in this handy, neatly printed, but unindexed little book.
Starting with a good general acquaintance with the texts and with what has been written upon them of real value, from Grimm to Petersen and Bugge, he has arrived at the following conclu- sions : "(i) The cult of Othin was in all probability known in the North at the beginning of the sixth century ; there is no reason for supposing that it was then new. (2) The cult does not seem to have been practised by the Swedes in the first half- century of the present era. (3) If the adoption of cremation was due to the cult of Othin, the cult can hardly have been introduced into Sweden later than the end of the first century." Further, he (like Vigfusson) takes the name Woden to be akin to Lat. udtes, O. Ir. faith, and would explain the words *wo6anaz, *woSenaz, as participial and probably meaning " inspired." As to the inter- pretation of Havamal in the famous passage —
I know that I hung on the gallowstree or Wodenstree,
Nine whole nights ; Wounded with the spear and offered to Woden,
Self to myself, With loaf they stayed me not, nor with the horn,
I peered down, I caught up runes,
- * *
Whooping I caught them. I fell back thence —
- * *
Mr. Chadwick considers that the explanations given by Dr. Bugge and his follower. Dr. Golther, are not decisive of their theory that
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