1843.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



10.9 



THE WALHALLA. 



Description of the Walhalla, read at the Institute of British Architects, 



By John Woollet, Fellow. 



( With tno Engravings, Plates IV and V. ' J 



The idea of raising a monument to the great men of Germany 

 originated with the present king of Bavaria. While he was Crown 

 Prince, and only 20 years of age, he conceived the plan of raising a 

 vast edifice for the reception of busts of illustrious men of every state 

 in Germany, whether Bavarian, Prussian, or Austrian, without dis- 

 tinction, beginning from the earliest records of German history, and 

 including princes, philosophers, warriors, poets, artists, and learned 

 men, — all who might have distinguished themselves by their virtues 

 or their genius. It was in 1804, according to the inscription upon the 

 pavement of the temple, that this noble project was first contemplated 

 by the prince; and though delayed and interrupted at that period, and 

 for some years subsequently, by the disturbed state of his country, 

 his design was never abandoned ; but, conceived as it was in youthful 

 ardour, it has been prosecuted with manly energy and constancy, and 

 at length, in the summer of last year, received completion in the 

 magnificent edifice, the Walhalla, which now adorns the banks of the 

 Danube at Ratisbon. 



The character given 'to the building by its mythological appellation, 

 is carried out by the sculpture which adorns the interior, and Klenze 

 has made this " voice of architecture," as Mr. Cockerell terms it, an 

 organ to awaken among artists an interest in a mythology which has 

 been most undeservedly neglected. The adaptation of the national 

 fables of the early Germans to a building so entirely national in its 

 conception as the Walhalla, is most appropriate, and certainly the 

 most original feature of the design. Except merely to state that the 

 name received the consideration of many learned men, the architect 

 Las offered no remark upon this employment of the Gothic mythology: 

 probably because the subject is much more familiar to Germans than 

 to Englishmen. For this reason 1 shall offer no apology for prefacing 

 the description of the Walhalla by a brief account of its mythological 

 prototype, and by a few words upon the northern mythology. 



The study of mythology has always held a foremost place in 

 modern education, because the knowledge of the religion professed 

 by the early inhabitants of a country is so essential to the understand- 

 ing the works of ancient authors, and in order to aid the investiga- 

 tions of the customs and monuments of antiquity. But why the Pagan- 

 ism — called, by way of excellence, classic — should have engrossed so 

 much attention, to the exclusion of a mythology which has so much 

 more claim upon our national sympathy, has been frequently asked, 

 but remains still to be answered. As long ago as the year 1800, the 

 University of Copenhagen considered the matter of sufficient import- 

 ance to give, as the subject of a prize essay, the question, " Whether 

 the Northern mythology is worthy of equal rank with the Grecian." 

 The question was decided in the affirmative by all the candidates, and 

 Midler, Ohlenschliiger, Dalins, and others in their subsequent illustra- 

 tions of the subject, have fully justified their decision. Without dis- 

 cussing the degree of merit to which each is entitled, it will be 

 readily granted that the Scandinavian mythology, independent of any 

 intrinsic beauty it may possess, has this one great claim upon our 

 attention over the Paganism of Greece and Rome : namely, that we, 

 as well as the other countries of Northern Europe, may esteem these 

 magnificent superstitions as having been the religion of our fore- 

 fathers; for while the worship prescribed by the Greeks extended 

 itself in Europe no farther than Greece and Italy, the major part of 

 Gaul, Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain, cultivated a mythology and 

 literature peculiarly their own, — a mythology which gives a striking 

 picture of our northern ancestors, and to which our customs, antiqui- 

 ties, and language make perpetual reference. 



Upon the conquest of England by the Saxons, the ancient Britons 

 were driven to seek refuge, the principal part of them in that part of 

 France then called Armorica, to which they gave the Dame of Brit- 



1 [We are obliged to postpone Plate V, a perspective view of the interior, 

 until next month. — Ed.] 

 No. 67.— Vol. VI.— Amu., IS 13. 



tany, and the few that remained in this country in the remote corners 

 of Wales and Cornwall. With their language and their customs the 

 victorious Saxons introduced their fables and their sagas, and the 

 worship of Odin was established throughout the heptarchy. 



Hume speaks of the religion of the Saxons as "consisting of super- 

 stitions of the grossest and most barbarous kind, as one of which little 

 is known, and which, compared with the systematic and politic insti- 

 tutions of the Druids, made little impression upon its votaries, and 

 which accordingly gave place to the new doctrine" (of Christianity). 

 This is not true ; the worship of Odin was one of all others calculated 

 to dazzle and captivate the imagination of a warlike race like the 

 Northmen; and that the laws of that great conqueror took deep root 

 wherever they were propagated, — that is to say, throughout the 

 north, — is beyond all question. Christianity eventually triumphed, 

 not easily, or because it met with no opposition, as Hume supposes; 

 but because truth must prevail over superstition and error. But even 

 Christianity and the lapse of more than eleven centuries have failed 

 to eradicate altogether the traces of this worship : of which fact the 

 names of the days of the week in almost all the languages of Northern 

 Europe is the most familiar instance. The rites of the Druids were 

 the most terrible ever known: their barbarous wicker idol immola- 

 tions were unknown among the Gothic nations. And another princi- 

 pal feature of their institutions was the profound ignorance which it 

 was the policy of their priests to maintain ; for they most carefully 

 concealed their doctrines from the vulgar, forbidding that they should 

 ever be committed to writing : and on this account they had not so 

 much as even an alphabet of their own. The institutions of Odin 

 were entirely the reverse of this. No barbarous people were ever so 

 addicted to writing, as appears from the innumerable quantity of 

 Runic inscriptions scattered all over the north, not excepting England 

 and Scotland. The invention of letters was considered the offspring 

 of Divine intellect, and ascribed to their chief deity; and the charac- 

 ters themselves were supposed to be possessed of magic virtues. 

 The Edda, the Voluspa, and the sagas of this heathen period are still 

 preserved, and are written in a language which is the parent of all the 

 Gothic dialects. The Havamaal, or sublime discourse, ascribed to 

 Odin himself, in which he has delivered admirable precepts to his 

 followers, is the only thing of the kind iu existence, and contains pro- 

 found maxims of wisdom : 



" Which skalds of old have spoken since, in lays of Hcvamaal : 

 From race to race descended deep, those sayir.gs fraught with doom, 

 And Norway still reveres the same, as voices from the tomb." 



The religion of Odin carried with it an innumerable quantity of 

 mythic poems and sagas, and the skalds, or scops, who sung and chro- 

 nicled these traditions, thus possessed of a mythology so propitious to 

 poetic fiction and ornament, were celebrated throughout the north of 

 Europe : they visited other countries, resided amidst the splendour of 

 courts, and were enriched and caressed by the greatest monarchs of 

 their time. The dawn of northern literature — the only literature 

 which Enrope can boast anterior to the adoption of Christianity — is, 

 in short, inseparably connected with the northern superstitions, and 

 the sagas in which they are preserved, must ever remain the earliest 

 monuments of Gothic intellect. So rich a mine has not been neg- 

 lected by modern writers among the Danes, Swedes, and Germans ; 

 many a beautiful creation of genius owes its existence to this source, 

 as the German reader well' knows, and the works of Gray, Cottle, 

 Sayers, and especially Herbert, prove that the English are not insensi- 

 ble of the beauties of the northern mythology.' But for the artist, to 

 whom these remarks are addressed, it remains an almost unexplored 

 region of magnificent and poetic fable, which may challenge competi- 

 tion with any which the ingenuity of man has invented. As an 

 instance, it would be impossible to select a more poetical creation of 

 fiction than that of the Walkyriae, — those beautiful, but terrible emis- 

 saries of Odin, seen bv the dying Scandinavian hero only during his 

 last agonies upon the field of battle, and there upholding his courage 



* Among these should be mentione 1 aHo 'hi' translations of Tegneris 

 Frithoff, especially that by Mr. Latham. 



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