The "household gods" are minor deities that are responsible for the family's well-being and the farm's success. These creatures can take many forms; they can be completely abstract; they can live within the house or outside in nature at a place of prayer, hunting, or fishing. In any case, they are tethered to the family or to individual members of the family, and they accompany them everywhere they go. We only consider benevolent spirits based on northern European beliefs. These spirits do not constitute a single entity and can be separated into two categories: men folk's deities and their economic activities, and women folk's deities and their activities. These also have a medicinal purpose in the traditions they entail.
These deities were passed down through the generations, with
the son inheriting his father's and the daughter inheriting her mother's. They are not so different to ancestor worship in a pan Indo-European cultural context. The
paternal spirit is the only one that plays a major part. This differentiation,
of course, applies to the patriarchal aspect of the society in question, but it
also corresponds to the sex assigned to the soul, as we can see. Lauri Honko
clarifies something significant in his research of german land folk traditions:
“Every hut has its spirit; everywhere there is a heated space (a hearth), there
is a spirit.”
Since fire is a sign of habitation, such spirits tend to
reside in homes, earning them the moniker "domestic" in comparison to
those found in nature, which are known as "earth spirits,"
"spirits of place," or "local deities." Ancient times
Domestic gods were under the control of the familial cult in antiquity. Zeus,
the Greeks claimed, was the house's father and protector; after the farm was
encircled by an enclosure, he was given the name Herkeios, and his altar was
built in the yard inside that enclosed area. Since he distributed resources and
maintained the deposits, he was also known as Ktesios, or "the Acquirer."
He was offered food-filled pitchers as sacrifices in a
ceremony known as panspermia, which means he was given seeds of all kinds. Zeus
Melichios, or "Healthy, Favorable One," took on a serpentine
appearance. He carried wealth and was portrayed on a throne with a bountiful
bell. At feasts, Zeus Soter, "the Savior," offered the first and last
offerings. He was also known as Agathos Daimon, which means "good
ghost." At the end of the meal, he was served pure water, and he, too, was
a snake.
The Dioscuri, Zeus' sons, had a meal cooked for them and
foods given to them; they, too, were portrayed as serpents guarding the house.
It's worth noting how often reptiles feature in mythologies about domestic
gods. In the Romans, we even come across several deities. The Lar familiaris,
for example, was not initially a domestic deity, and his worship derived from
the rural cult of the compita, in which the Lares were revered as protectors
and guardians of the lands (agro custodies) surrounding the home.
They were worshipped at the hearth, rather than in the
fields, where they had originally received their offerings. The Lar familiaris
was given a part of the meals that he was acquainted with in the past. At
family feasts, he was presented with wreaths, champagne, incense, vegetables,
cakes, and honey, as well as a lamb in the event of a death. This god was
linked to the destiny of the entire family. The Lararium, which contained their
effigies and had two snakes drawn on its walls, was the home of all the
household gods.
The goddess of the hearth, Hestia, was next, to whom wine
was given at the start and end of the meal. Her altar is the focus of the
domestic cult oversaw by the woman who prepares the offering (far pium) for
her, which is thrown into the flames. She coincides with Vesta, the
personification of the hearth that is her headquarters; her altar is the centerpiece
of the domestic cult overseen by the woman who prepares the offering (far pium)
for her, which is cast into the fire. During the dinner, the fire set a plate
of food meant for her on fire.
Vesta was associated with the Penates, a collective term for
all household gods worshipped near the hearth. They were served foods that were
either thrown into the fire or placed on a plate; if a piece dropped on the floor,
it was picked up, placed on the counter, and then thrown into the fire. All of
these rites relate to a fire cult whose presence among Indo-Europeans has been
proven. Finally, we have Limentinus and Limentina, Forculus and Forcula, the
gods who guard doors and thresholds.
In his play Aulularia, Plautus gives us a clear
representation of the views of his day. A deceased ancestor left his heir a
sizable inheritance hidden underneath the hearth, but the heir's son paid no
attention to the deceased man and avoided leaving food offerings. He fell into
debt after his tutelary ancestor abandoned him. Only the daughter continued to
look after the elder, giving him the customary offerings of wine, incense, and
other items every day.
This integration of a deceased person into a position spirit
is something that can be remembered, and it can occur more than once in the
centuries to come. These cults were battled with all of Christianity's might,
and they were outlawed by Emperor Theodosius' rule, but they persisted, often
in the Roman colonies' rural areas. The names of the deities disappeared, but
not their functions, and it was these unnamed beings that guarded the hearth
and the entrance to the building from then on.
The sacrifices given to these supernatural creatures have
survived, sometimes in the same way, and we will see them again. During the
Middle Ages, there were no real deities in the Middle Ages; they had evolved
into ghosts, or beings that were responsible for the family's well-being as
well as the prosperity of their agricultural practices. I'll distinguish
between direct accounts and indirect statements. Direct accounts leave no
question about the identity of the character portrayed. For example, in fictional
literature, house spirits are transformed into simple dwarves of vague
existence.
The Indiculus superstitionum pointed to dough numbers, known as de simulacro consparsa farina, in which scholars identified household spirits. Although we only come across accounts on a rare occasion, they are very instructive until one can discern what lies under the words of their characters, the majority of whom wrote in Latin. Burchard, Bishop of Worms, for example, uses the words "faun" and "satyr" to refute a propitiatory ritual at the beginning of the eleventh century, but the meaning explicitly shows that the monsters described have little in common with the ancient Roman beings.
You've made little funny bows and children's shoes and
thrown them into your cellar or attic for fauns and satyrs to play with so they
can show you other people's things and make you wealthier. Legends tell us that
a household spirit gives fodder taken from a stranger to your livestock,
explaining the enigmatic expression "give you the products of others"
many centuries later. This may also be milk from a neighbor's pigs, and in
Scandinavia, there is a spirit known as the troll cat, milk hare, trollkat, or
mjlkhare.
This ghost, working for a witch, takes other people's milk
and spits it back into the troughs by the house's entrance. Notker the
Stammerer (died) tells a strange tale in his Gesta Caroli Magni (Charlemagne's
Deeds). A ghost or spirit who played tricks on people and mocked them was known
to enter the smithy and play with his hammers and anvils all night long. “Hey
mate, if you don't stop me from haunting your smithy, put your pitcher over
there and find it full every day,” the Hairy One (pilosus) told the blacksmith
as he tried to defend himself and his property with the sign of the cross of
Salvation.
The wretched guy, who was more afraid of physical pain than
of losing his immortal soul, took his adversary's counsel. To fill the smith's
pitcher, the "Hairy One" (the name is a Latin term for what was a
local reality) stole wine from a miser. We can see that this entails the conclusion
of a contract between a spirit and a man by contrasting Notker's tale to more
recent texts. It’s not uncommon for the household spirit to rob other people's
property (such as fodder or food) and give it to the person he's adopted.
As a result, the Latvian pukys robs his neighbors of money,
butter, wheat, and other valuables and gives them to his owner. Thietmar of
Merseburg (died) chastised the people of Delitzsch, near Leipzig, for
worshipping their house spirits in the eleventh century. “Evil spirits often
engage in their games in the stables, bearing candles whose wax drops into the
manes and necks of the animals, and the manes of these horses are closely
braided,” William of Auvergne wrote in his treatise De Universo (On the Universe),
written between and in the thirteenth century.
We see ghosts attached to these creatures, who either care
about them or bother them, hidden within this Christian meaning that demonizes
the intruders. The domestic spirit is usually hidden behind the common name of
dwarf in Germanic nations, which is the Latin version of the word
"pygmy." The word "dwarf" covers a wide range of
characters, most prominently the schrat, which glosses before CE referred to as
fauns, satyrs, furry ones, sylvan ones, and other catchall names.
“Many people assume that every house has its own Schrat,”
according to Michael Beheim, “who will make the wealth and boost the reputation
of whoever shows him honor,” which is very clear. Penates was replaced by
schrat in a Latin-German dictionary. Gervase of Tilbury wrote the following in
the thirteenth century. Spirits perpetrate their jokes in human bodies made of
air, which they put on with God's approval, just as nature creates such marvels
in the human universe.
For example, England has demons (though I'm not sure whether
I should call them demons or strange spirits of unknown origin), whom the
French refer to as neptunes and the English refer to as portunes. It's in their
essence for them to enjoy the beauty of happy peasants. When peasants sit up
late at night to finish their household chores, they appear out of nowhere,
warming themselves at the first and eating little frogs that they drag out of
their pockets and roast over the coals.
They have wrinkled skin and a short stature, reaching less
than half a thumb, and they dress in tiny rags sewn together. If there is
something in the house that needs to be transported or a hard job that needs to
be completed, they get right to work and complete it faster than humans will.
It is a law of nature that they can be beneficial but not harmful. This is the
first mediaeval text to describe the physical characteristics and attire of
house spirits.
The picture would last for a long time. “The Little Schrat
and the Polar Bear,” a German fable from the thirteenth century, told the
following tale. A Norwegian and a bear slept at a peasant's house for the
night, but the house was haunted by a sprite who was just three spans tall but
had immense power and wearing a red hat. He had a habit of tossing everything,
including furniture and utensils, about. This sprite emerged from his hiding
position in the middle of the night, entered the oven to warm up, and saw the
bear asleep by the hearth.
He tried to scare it down, which resulted in a brawl. The
sprite appeared to the farmer in the morning and informed him that he was
leaving and would not return until the big cat had departed the home. Even in
the nineteenth century, thankful peasants were said to make new clothes for
these ragged house spirits, which caused them to vanish, which was not at all
what they expected. In this respect, the Zimmern Chronicle, written about –,
tells us the following: A Freising weaver thanked the gnome for his work by
presenting him with a pair of shoes and a black blouse, which he gladly
accepted.
Later, he gave the other a red hat, which he sadly accepted
before leaving, never to return. The color red is responsible for the spirit's
absence in this case, a motif that can be seen in the Germanic countries.
William of Auvergne is the only person I know of who has kept two names for
house spirits, joculatores and joculares, which mean "pranksters," in
his treatise On the Universe. The following is a summary of their conduct. By
hurling stones or turning the bedding inside out, the prankster stops people
from sleeping.
He deceives people by stealing small light items that are
quickly taken away, in plain sight and even from their own hands, and
transporting them to another place. William also references the faunus, who he
refers to as "the common people's fulet in French," which means
"sprite," but is a composite of details from different sources. These
"sprites," he claims, are idolaters who lie and lead men astray.
They're a bunch of knuckleheads with bear horns that are undoubtedly "wives
of incubus devils." Gerald of Wales (Giraldus Cambrensis, –) recounts a
spectacular incident in a related manner.
Unclean ghosts have been in near contact with humans in
these parts of Pembroke in our own days. And if they aren't apparent, their
presence is sensed. They have a habit of manifesting themselves, tossing refuse
all over the place, first in the home of Stephen Wiriet, then later in the home
of William Not, keener perhaps to be a nuisance than to do any actual harm.
Things became much stranger in Stephen's home, since the
spirit there had a way of fighting with humans. When they complained, as they
did often in sports, he would publicly chastise them for any nefarious crime
they have done since their childhood. If you ask me what the origin and reason
of a case like this is, I have no idea, just that it has often been the
forerunner, as they term it, of a sudden transition from poverty to prosperity,
or even more often, from luxury to poverty and absolute desolation.
It strikes me as strange that areas cannot be cleansed of
such visits by sprinkling holy water, which is widely used and should be
administered liberally, or by using high holy water, or by doing some other
religious ritual. This last comment obviously indicates that this isn't about
unclean spirits and "demons"! Gerald of Wales brings up another
intriguing case. A third manifestation happened at the same time, in the
province of Pembroke that I have been mentioning to you, in the home of Elidyr
of Stackpole. It took the role of Simon, a young man with red hair.
He could be seen and touched, but this was a full
incarnation. He took the household keys from the man in charge and assumed the
position of steward with full confidence. He ran the household with great
foresight and attention to detail, or so it seemed, that everything flourished,
and nothing was ever missing in his care. Elidyr and his wife just had to think
about what they wanted for their table or day-to-day use, maybe suggesting it
to each other but not to Simon, and he would automatically retrieve it without
being asked.
He'd say things like, "You ordered this, and I got it
for you." He was well-versed in their family's investments and their
efforts to save money. Everything he decided to do, whether it suited his
master and mistress. He'd go ahead and do it right now, no questions asked. He
never went to church and never said a single Christian word. He never slept in
the house and was still on time for work in the morning.
And, by accident, he was seen conversing with his
fellow-demons near the watermill and the pool one night by a family member. His
master and mistress interrogated him the following morning. He was fired on the
spot and turned over the keys he had been keeping for at least forty days. When
he returned, they interrogated him and demanded to know who he was. He said
that he was fathered on her by an incubus who had arisen in the form of her
husband, and that he was born to some rustic beldame in the same parish.
Insofar as it combines the theme of the incubus, a direct
result of clerical learning, underscored by the color of Simon's hair and his
utter lack of religious sentiments, with that of fairies and domestic spirits,
this account has an abundance of descriptions in its adulterated plot. The
fundamental elements, on the other hand, are readily evident. Simon contributes
to the household's well-being, and his magical existence is shown by his
discovery of all its mysteries. Gerald of Wales also demonstrates the
polymorphism of house ghosts, as the accounts mention little old white-haired
men or a young man.
The most recent beliefs affirm this, stating that the spirit
is not limited to a particular shape, but may also take on the form of an
entity or item. Finally, according to the chronicles attributed to the Senones
monk Richerus, a completely innocuous house spirit existed in an Epinal house
from the time of the Nativity until the Feast of John the Baptist. In one of
his poems, Konrad von Würzburg mentions a wooden kobold (ein kobolt von buhse),
and another poet known as Der Meissner mentions a silent kobold.
These two examples clearly point to a doll or fetish, which
is a physical manifestation of the domestic spirit. Konrad von Haslau writes at
the end of the thirteenth century that a taterman—another name for the
brilliant domesticus (house spirit)—should never be drawn on a table, although
Hugo von Trimberg (circa ) says it should never be drawn on a wall. The meaning
in both situations suggests that the metaphor in which the word "kobold"
occurs corresponds to a kind of dishonesty.
To unearth a few tidbits of knowledge, one must sift through
an immense number of books, which are more important because they testify to
the belief's presence outside of literature. There are three mediaeval accounts
that are especially moving because they represent different aspects of the
convictions that we're interested in. The first comes from a Silesian clergyman
named Brother Rudolf, who wrote a treatise on The Priesthood's Dignity.
A woman joins after them, shouting, "What are you
carrying?" as they pace across the fire with the newborn. “A sleeping
hare, lynx, and fox,” the stupid woman said. They take the brush that was used
to clean the fireplace and use it to brush the boy. They never send someone
fire from their house, and therefore sin against God during a birth, among
other things. They smash an egg on the threshold with a broom as they carry an
infant back to the house (no doubt after the baptism).
The mother stands with her child behind the front door in
the evening, calling to the wooden woman we name fauness, so that her child
weeps and hers behaves. These women use five stones to determine who will be
their husband. They give each stone a name and put it in the fire; once it has
cooled, they throw it into the sea. They believe the stone that makes a shrill
whistling sound as it enters the water contains the name of the husband they
will marry.
They even throw nettles soaked in urine into the flames,
along with bits of bone, coffin wood, and a variety of other items, to make
their husbands burn with passion for them like the objects in the fire. Others
who consider themselves to be more knowledgeable in the dark arts create
pictures of men out of wax, dough, or other materials. To torment their lovers,
they throw them into a pit or on top of an anthill.
They bury pots filled with different items in some corners
and even behind the stove for the Penates gods known as Stetewaldiu [“Masters
of the premises”] in new buildings or those into which they are going to set up
their households. As a result, they refuse to allow anybody to pour anything
there. They cast a bit of food there now and then to keep the gods benevolent
with the household. They stick hawthorn branches on their roofs to ensure their
livestock offer a lot of milk, and they plant trees in front of their house on
the day of the apostles Philip and James (May).
They cannot access a house from a door that has been
transported with a dead body. The hearth with its accessories, the threshold,
the fence, the corners, and the roof—in other words, the middle of the house
depicted by the fire burning there, the openings, and the covering—are all
instantly visible thanks to Rudolf. Keep these elements in mind and they will
appear in texts dating back to the twentieth century!
The second account is taken from Antonius of Florence's (–)
inventory of beliefs: Have you ever made the mistake of thinking that when the
fire crackles, it means someone is dying? Have you hesitated to allow the fire
to be extinguished for fear of bringing bad luck into the house? Have you saved
the Christmas log and planted it in your yard, or have you blessed your corners
and doors with it?
It is a mortal sin to recite the Our Father while
approaching the window and plugging your ears in order to extract information
from the first words that arrive from outside in order to learn what you want
to hear. Have you ever imagined that anything would happen or that it will have
significance? If you sneeze before leaving your building, what do you do? Have
you ever laid blessed olive branches or a grain of wheat from a manger on your
hearth to see if anyone is going to survive or die? Have you ever hesitated to
give anything away from your house or vowed to give something on the first day
of the calendar year when you thought your earthly possessions would diminish?
During the March calends, have you blessed your door or hung
something in front of your house? Antonius confirms the relevance of the
previously listed places, but his comments are mostly directed at divination
and defense activities. His list, on the other hand, is useful in that it gives
us precise dates for such rites. They are almost the same as those from
classical antiquity as well as those from more modern times.
The last account comes from an anonymous treatise written in
the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries and preserved in an anonymous manuscript
from Saint Florian Monastery: Some people take a pinch of dirt from under the
bench before going to Christmas mass, and if they notice anything alive in it,
they will not die. When they get home from church, they put the branches in the
manger first, then under the shelter, to ensure that the cows will return
without trouble (to the barn). They carry the branches around their houses to
keep foxes away from their chickens. There would be a lot of ice if anyone sits
on a table for Twelve Days.
They eat a round loaf of bread and cheese while walking
around their house on the last night of the Twelve Days. In the area, there
will be as many haystacks as mouthfuls. When someone has a dream of the oven
collapsing, the housemaster or his wife will die. No worm will reach a person's
ear if his hands are placed above the fire, and his nails will not turn black.
The people fill a nine-liter container of water on Christmas Eve and leave it
until the next morning, when they weigh the water level. If it is smaller, the
person will be poor for the whole year; if it is constant, nothing will change;
but, if there is more water, the person will be rich.
It is best to bury a piece of steel under the gate and make
the animals cross through it while taking the herd out to pasture. They are not
going to be enchanted. They throw some of the second crop and beaten oats on
the roof and leave it there for the next twelve days. They then use it as feed
for their livestock. The beasts will be fertile, and the storks will not waste
the food. The well-being of the animals and circumambulation rituals are given
considerable status in this collection, but divination and omens are not
completely missing, and the sections of the house listed confirm what we have
seen previously.
As a result, the three accounts we've just looked at tend to
round out and illustrate the core themes of the analysis I'm discussing. On
this point, we should also remember áttr orvalds ens viförla (The Tale of
Thorvald the FarTraveled), a wonderful thirteenth-century text whose details
exactly matches that of the Kristni saga (Saga of Icelandic Christianization).
Thorvald visited his father Kodran in Iceland with the Saxon bishop Fridrek.
He had a stone on his farm in Gilja that he and his family
took offerings to, claiming that it housed their helper spirit (ármar). If he
didn't know who was better, the bishop or the ghost, Kodran declined to be
baptised. Fridrek sung some canticles over the exploding block. Since the
spirit had been vanquished, Kodran allowed himself to be baptized. The plot is
more descriptive, and the information it provides provide us with a
comprehensive overview of how a domestic spirit's action is depicted.
The bishop was known as a seer (spámar) by Kodran, who retorted
to his son that he already had one who was very useful: he forecast the future,
secured his animals, and told him of what he wanted to do and what he could
keep an eye on. As a result, he had immense faith in him and had revered him
for a long time. Since the spirit urged Kodran against converting, Thorvald
proposed that they see if the bishop could send it fleeing, forcing his father
to allow baptism. The proposal was approved by Kodran.
Fridrek prayed and sang canticles while sprinkling holy
water on the ground. In a dream that night, the spirit appeared to Kodran,
terrified and full of reproaches. Fridrek was a thief who tried to evict him
from his house by throwing boiling water on it; his children were crying from
the water's injuries. The next day, the bishop resumed his activities, and the
spirit returned to see Kodran. His pleasant demeanour and fine clothing were no
longer visible; he was wrapped in a dreadful animal hide that was black and
hideous to look at. He pleaded with Kodran to expel the intruders, but Fridrek
began to spray holy water on the pillar, causing the spirit to flee.
“Who will now secure your property like I have?” he asked.
“When I didn't know the real Deity, I honoured you as a strong and useful
father,” Kodran replied. Now that I've discovered you're unreliable and frail,
it's time for us to part ways and for me to put my faith in God, who is smarter
and stronger than you. The text speaks for itself, and the spirit's tutelary
essence is clear. We know where he lives, and a fact reported in the year by
the Chronicle of the Jesuits who converted Lithuania to Christianity
corroborates the two Scandinavian accounts.
The anonymous author writes about the people who live on the
property. Wide stones [lapides non parvi] planted in the earth and put in such
a way that their flat surface is on top and filled not with soil but with straw
are stored elsewhere in the farm's buildings. They are referred to as Deyves
[goddesses] and are revered as protectors of wheat and livestock. Deyves is a popular
name for supernatural beings, especially secondary deities such as the domestic
gods who protect every family and farm.
In this explanation, we see the same elements as in Rome,
where the goddess Ops Consuia, guardian of grain, is buried in the earth and
receives offerings. House spirits may be the hypostases or avatars of ancient
deities, according to the Jesuit Annals and Roman rituals. We'll have to come
back to this stage. Through this way, we get a snapshot of everything that
corresponds to the accounts of Burchard of Worms and Thietmar of Merseburg
through the tales of missionaries.
We must also pay particular attention to the enigmatic
statements in the ancient chronicles that pack into one rushed sentence a
summary of the worship of household gods, which they confuse with the worship
of the great deities. Much of this is paganism, and the Church has thrown it
all together in one pile; now it's up to us to figure it out! In the meantime,
Frijofs saga hins frkna (The Saga of Frijof the Bold) tells us that the
embodiments of domestic gods were warmed by fire and dried with a blanket, as
the Norwegians did with the Brödstainar and Faksar not long before.
