[4]
[Footnote 1: Rise and Influence of Rationalism, i. p. 31.]
[Footnote 2: Maury, p. 244, et seq.]
[Footnote 3: Scot, book vii. ch. i.]
[Footnote 4: Middleton's Letter from Rome.]
26. The Church carried out exactly the same principles in her missionary
efforts amongst the heathen hordes of Northern Europe. "Do you renounce
the devils, and all their words and works; Thonar, Wodin, and Saxenote?"
was part of the form of recantation administered to the Scandinavian
converts;[1] and at the present day "Odin take you" is the Norse
equivalent of "the devil take you." On the other hand, an attempt was
made to identify Balda "the beautiful" with Christ--a confusion of
character that may go far towards accounting for a custom joyously
observed by our forefathers at Christmastide but which the false
modesty of modern society has nearly succeeded in banishing from amongst
us, for Balda was slain by Loke with a branch of mistletoe, and Christ
was betrayed by Judas with a kiss.
[Footnote 1: Milman, History of Latin Christianity, iii. 267; ix. 65.]
27. Upon the conversion of the inhabitants of Great Britain to
Christianity, the native deities underwent the same inevitable fate, and
sank into the rank of evil spirits. Perhaps the juster opinion is that
they became the progenitors of our fairy mythology rather than the
subsequent devil-lore, although the similarity between these two classes
of spirits is sufficient to warrant us in classing them as species of
the same genus; their characters and functions being perfectly
interchangeable, and even at times merging and becoming
indistinguishable.
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