The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser].

  • Wilfrid Bonser
Date:
1963
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The medical background of Anglo-Saxon England : a study in history, psychology, and folklore / [Wilfrid Bonser]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pagan character, though it is known that many such pagan invoca tions did exist in manuscripts, and have been deliberately erased. The version quoted is that found in the Harleian collection, but there are other cognate versions, dating from the sixth century onwards, in manuscripts at Breslau, 1 Florence, Montpellier, and Vienna. Closely connected in spirit is the early eleventh-century prayer, in Anglo-Saxon, from one of the Cotton manuscripts 3 which begins: ‘Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother [of ?] Earth. May the All- Wielder, ever Lord, grant thee acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing, plenteous in strength, productive of bright millet, 3 productive of broad barley and productive of white wheat.’ It ends with a prayer against sorcerers and witches, ‘Grant the owner, God Almighty ... that his farm . . . may be embattled round against baleful blastings every one which sorcerers may through a land sow.’ The Romans dreaded the actual removal of their crops by the sorcerers, and not merely injury by them, for Servius, commenting on Virgil’s line 4 ‘atque satas alio vidi traducere messes’, writes: ‘magicis quibusdam artibus hoc fiebat, unde est in XII Tabb. “Neve alienam segetem pellexeris”.’ There has been much discussion over the name Erce, but without much result. Singer suggests that possibly the Irish ere (heaven) is connoted. Possibly she represents Nerthus (‘vectam bubus feminis’), despite the phonetic difficulties. The Erce charm has much pagan feeling in it, despite its Chris tian veneer. Its setting is the most important relic that has survived to show what an ancient Teutonic agricultural rite was like. 5 The 1 Breslau University Library Codex III. F. 19, fo. 21 a-b. This version is printed by J. Klapper in Mitteil. d. schlesischen Gesells. f. Volksk., 1907, Heft xviii, p. 15, ‘Precacio terre’ followed by ‘Precacio omnium herbarum’. 2 MS. Cotton Caligula A. VII, fo. ijia-i73a. Printed by Cockayne, Leech- doms, vol. i, pp. 402-4. See on this ceremonial the comment of Storms in his Anglo-Saxon Magic, pp. 178-87. He stresses the essentially pagan elements and points out that the first half consists of the blessing of the grassland with the sun-god, and the second of the blessing of the arable land, when the goddess Mother Earth takes his place. 3 Reading (with Hoops and Kluge) scira herse wsestma, and not (with the MS. and as printed by Cockayne) henre scira wsestma. The former say that herse (cf. modern German Hirse, millet) was not found outside Upper Germany, and was not cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons. Schlutter, however, thinks that this passage is evidence that they did grow it, together with barley and wheat. See O. B. Schlutter, ‘Anglo-Saxonica’, in Anglia, 1907, xxx. 125-7. 4 Virgil, Eclogues, viii. 99. 5 Cockayne, vol. i, pp. 398-405. Also Gummere, Germanic Origins, pp. 405-8.