( 218 )
“I know a Song, of such virtue, that were I caught in a storm, I can hush the winds, and render the air perfectly calm.”
One may remark upon this last
prerogative of the verses known to Odin, that
among all the ‘Gothic and’ Celtic nations,
the Magicians claimed a power over the
Winds and Tempests. Pomponius Mela
tells us, that in an island on the coast of
Bretagne (he probably means the Isle of
Saints, opposite to Brest) there were
priestesses, separated from the rest of the
people, who were regarded as the Goddesses
of Navigation, because they had the winds
and tempests at their disposal. There are
penal statutes in the Capitularies of
Charlemagne, in the canons of several councils,
and in the ancient laws of Norway, against
such as raise storms and tempests;
Tempestarii is the name there given them. There
were formerly of these impostors on the
coasts of Norway, as there are at present
on those of Lapland, to whom fear and
superstition were long tributary. Hence
silly travellers have, with much gravity,
given us ridiculous accounts of witches who
sold wind to the sailors in those seas. It is
no less true, that the very Norwegian
