The effects of such a consummation as is above declared to be possible would by no means be limited to the simple benefit of an increased supply of home produce, great as that would be. The use in the country of the large amount of capital now sent out of it for foreign food would have results which are simply incalculable and barely imaginable. Most obvious is the advantage that would accrue to farm labourers, country tradesmen, and town shopkeepers, and the increased prosperity of these members of the community would react upon the people at large. The whole commerce of the kingdom would share in the benefit, and even the decline of exports, if it should continue, would then be a matter of comparative indifference. The workmen of our towns would no longer have their bread taken out of their mouths by a constant and excessive influx of starved-out country labourers who underbid them in the wage market. migration there still might be, but it would be more moderate in extent and more regular in its incidence than it is under a recurrence of seasons of periodical panic. But it is needless to enlarge upon the advantages that would result from the supposed development of our agricultural resources, since no one who admits that development to be possible will question the vastness of its benefits.

A

If I have not used the facts with which I have dealt very ineffectively, I have written enough to convince the most shoppy of shopkeepers of the transcendent importance of the public interest in agricultural reform. The serious condition of our agricultural industry is now more fully recognised than it has been at any time within the last forty years, because that industry is passing through a crisis of almost unprecedented severity. Few who have given their attention to the subject deny that something must be done if we are not to resign ourselves in despair to a permanent agricultural decline. But the efficacy of the remedies at which I have merely hinted in the preceding remarks is stoutly denied by many and regarded with scepticism by more people still. It remains, therefore, to point out more definitely the directions which agricultural reform should take, and to give reasons for confidence in the result of each proposed alteration of existing conditions. This task I must reserve for a future article.

WILLIAM E. BEAR.

DISCOVERY OF ODINIC SONGS IN

SHETLAND.

I.

An essay of mine on Yggdrasil, or the Teutonic Tree of Existence, had just been published, when from far-off Shetland I received a most striking bit of folk-lore, containing a strange relic of the grand old myth. It is a fragment, in poetical garb, showing both the staff-rime and the ordinary rime. The text comes remarkably close to the first verse in Odin's Rune Song,' which I had quoted in connection with the Germanic idea of the World-Tree, the symbol of the Universe and of all its varied and wondrous manifestations of life.

I believe the discovery of this waif-somewhat distorted as it is— of an Eddic creation-lay on the lips of a living person to be unique in its kind. The discovery was made in Unst, the northernmost part of the cluster of Shetland isles where the Norse race once ruled for a long time and made a deep imprint by its blood, its speech, and its laws. To this day the Shetlanders, lying midway between Norway and Scotland, look upon themselves as a people quite apart. Historically, it may be remembered, they were given in pledge by Denmark to the Scottish Crown. In character and tradition a good deal of their Scandinavian origin still clings to them. Their stormtossed country is as a stepping-stone to that land of snow and fire which gave us the Edda and the Heims-Kringla. And even as, in distant Iceland, the old saga spirit is fully alive, so there are yet tales and bits of rimes current among the common Shetland folk, in which, with fuller research, strange echoes from the Germanic world of Gods may be recognised.

Only those who have worked with loving steadfastness for the clearing up of moot points in our forefathers' weird and charmful creed, can perhaps feel the full delight of a discovery like the one made in Unst. With a Folk-lore Society being at last founded in England we may hope that similar cases of unearthing treasures of ancient tradition will oftener occur. It is not to be expected that they will be as frequent as they have been in Germany, where the brothers Grimm gave a great start to work of this kind. Yet, now and then, an

important link, hitherto missing, may be brought to light on the soil of this country, whether from Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, or Scandinavian source.

After these few fore-words I will first quote from the letter with which Mr. Arthur Laurenson, of Leog House, Lerwick, who made the remarkable communication to me, accompanied the text of the fragmentary Unst Lay. He wrote:

I send you what I think will be found a rare and valuable specimen of a 'survival.' It is evidently a Christianised version of the Rune Rime of Odin from the Háva-mál, and is curious for the way in which the Rootless Tree of the Northern mythology is confounded with the Cross. The second line is quite Christian, the fifth purely Pagan. The old woman who recited this was quite aware that the verses could not strictly apply to Christ. She knew in what points they differed from the Gospel, but she repeated them as she had learned them. Do you know if any similar version exists in the North? I am afraid this fragment is all we can now recover of the Unst Lay. No doubt there was more, which, by time's attrition, has been rubbed away.

II.

Odin's Rune Song, in The High One's Lay, to which the above note refers, speaks of the chief deity as hanging during nine long nights in the wind-rocked tree, of which none knows from what root it springs. Odin hangs there, with a spear wounded, offering himself to himself.' In suffering and distress he applies himself to the thinking out of runes, when he drops from the Tree as a fruit from the twig. From one of the Giants-who are the representatives of the great but untamed forces of Nature--he learns the first chapters of wisdom. His knowledge is increased by an ambrosian drink. The runic study on which he had been bent is, in the following verses, shown to constitute henceforth Odin's strength of charm. By their spell he enchants men, gets rid of foes, disperses wraiths, and raises the dead. The runes, the ancient Teutonic art of writing, are his means of making Thought victorious.

I have shown elsewhere that the interpretation of this myth is: the Evolution or Emancipation of Mind from Matter. The nine long nights' represent nine maturing months, or nine cosmogonic periods. Though it is said of the Tree in which Odin hung during that time, that none knows of what root it springs, there can be no doubt that it is but another form of Yggdrasil, the three-rooted Middle Tree, which, in the words of Grimnir's Song, bears a heavier burden than men can think.' The very name of Yggdrasil signifies, perhaps, the 'Bearer of the Deep Thinker,' or the 'Bearer of Thought.' Odin, the representative of Thought, seems to be Man and God at one and the same time; he offers himself to himself.' He is the fruit of a Tree the origin of which none can fathom. In this tale, then, we have a poetical rendering of the evolution of mind from matter-an

2

evolution which, after long periods, brings out, from the grosser ele-
ments of existence, a spiritual personality that projects itself, anthro-
pomorphically, into the transcendental form of a Godhead. The
whole, together with some passages in Grimnir's Song, reminds us
of 'the deep mystery of grief,' which, Luther said, 'underlies all life.'
The first, second, and fourth verses of Odin's Rune Song read thus
in a translation in which I have endeavoured to preserve the staff-
rime as much as possible :-

1. I wot that I hung on the wind-rocked tree
Nine long nights,

with a spear wounded,

And to odin offered

Myself to myself—

on that Tree of which none knows

From what root it springs.

2. Bread no one gave me, nor a horn of mead.
Netherward I peered.

On runes intent, I learnt them sighing—
Then fell down thence.

3. Then I began to thrive, and began to think.

I

grew, and gained in strength.

word by word rose to me from the word;

Deed after deed rose to me from the deed.

For the sake of better comparison, I will add at least the first verse of the Icelandic original :

Veit ek at ek hékk

Vindga meiði á,

Naetr allar níu,
Geiri undaðr;
Ok gefinn Óðni,
Sjálfr sjálfum mér—

А реіт теібі,
Er mannigi veit,

Hvers hann af rótum renn.

Now, the Unst Lay, in Shetland speech, runs thus :

Nine days he hang pa da rütless tree;
For ill wis da folk, in' güd wis he.
A blüdy maet wis in his side-
Made wi' a lance-'at wid na hide.
Nine lung nichts, i' da nippin' rime,
Hang he dare wi' his naeked limb.

Some, dey leuch;

Bit idders gret.

I may first point out that, even as in Icelandic, Norse, Old German, Anglo-Saxon, and even later English poetry, so also in this Shetland song there is a strongly marked, albeit not quite systematic, alliteration. Though wont to trace out vestiges of the staff-rime, my attention was at first not aroused by this fact. Our ears are so trained

that, where the musical jingle of an end-rime strikes them, they will pay but little attention to other structural peculiarities of the verse. As soon, however, as it occurred to me to test the lay-fragment on the alliterative principle, I could scarcely understand that this characteristic should have failed to rivet my attention for a single moment after the first perusal of the song. The staff-rime, which I have marked with bolder type, runs through the whole Shetland text -even as in its Eddic counterpart. Thus the ancient Teutonic origin of the Shetland poem comes out powerfully, in spite of the slightly deceptive addition of the end-rime. It should be stated here that the combination of the staff-rime with full rimes, half-rimes, line-rimes, and assonances, though rare in Anglo-Saxon poetry, was a special delight of Icelandic poets. And as the Shetland fragment may, in all likelihood, have come by way of Iceland, the threefold peculiarity of the staff-rime, the end-rime, and the vowel harmony of assonances, which occurs throughout the above in a most remarkable manner, is a very strong proof of the ancient character of the Unst Lay.

The following is a translation into ordinary English, in which, however, something of the vowel harmony is necessarily lost :

Nine days he hung on the Rootless Tree;

For bad was the folk, and good was he.

A bloody mark was in his side

Made with a lance-that would not hide (heal).

Nine long nights, in the nipping rime,

Hung he there with his naked limb.
Some, they laughed ;
But others wept.

The only doubtful point, in the interpretation of the Shetland text, might seem to be in the words: 'at wid na hide.' However, I am informed by Mr. Arthur Laurenson that 'hide'-like the German Haut-is still used in Shetland for the skin of man as well as beast, but in the former case now only in proverbial expressions or forms of speech. Thus, a native of those northern isles would say: 'I am wet to the hide;' that is, soaked through. Again, the word is used as a verb. When a wound is beginning to heal or 'skin over, it is said to hide,' or hide over. I think, from this use of the word, there can be no doubt of the meaning in the Unst Lay; and I have made a punctuation after the words 'side' and 'lance,' which corresponds to this meaning.

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III.

In cases like the present, it is, of course, necessary to establish the authenticity of such a remarkable relic beyond the possibility of 1 See 'An Essay on Alliterative Poetry,' by Mr. W. W. Skeat, in Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript, vol. iii.