THE ANGLO-SAXON HERBALS 39 



Acres a-waxing, upwards a-growing 



Pregnant [with corn] and plenteous in strength ; 



Hosts of [grain] shafts and of glittering plants ! 



Of broad barley the blossoms 



And of white wheat ears waxing, 



Of the whole earth the harvest ! 



Let be guarded the grain against all the ills 



That are sown o'er the land by the sorcery men, 



Nor let cunning women change it nor a crafty man." 



And that other ancient verse : 



" Hail be thou, Earth, Mother of men ! 

 In the lap of the God be thou a-growing ! 

 Be filled with fcJder for fare-need of men ! " 



It is of these two invocations that Stopford Brooke (whose 

 translations I have used) writes : " These are very old heathen 

 invocations used, I daresay, from century to century and from 

 far prehistoric times by all the Teutonic farmers. Who ' Erce ' 

 is remains obscure. But the Mother of Earth seems to be here 

 meant, and she is a person who greatly kindles our curiosity. 

 To touch her is like touching empty space, so far away is she. 

 At any rate some Godhead or other seems here set forth under 

 her proper name. In the Northern Cosmogony, Night is the 

 Mother of Earth. But Erce cannot be Night. She is (if Erce 

 be a proper name) bound up with agriculture. Grimm suggests 

 Eorce, connected with the Old High German ' erchan ' = 

 simplex. He also makes a bold guess that she may be the 

 same as a divine dame in Low Saxon districts called Herke or 

 Harke, who dispenses earthly goods in abundance, and acts in 

 the same way as Berhta and Holda an earth-goddess, the 

 lady of the plougher and sower and reaper. In the Mark she is 

 called Frau Harke. Montanus draws attention to the appearance 

 of this charm in a convent at Corvei, in which this line begins 

 ' Eostar, Eostar, eordhan modor/ . . . The name remains 

 mysterious. The song breathes the pleasure and worship of 

 ancient tillers of the soil in the labours of the earth and in the 

 goods the mother gave. It has grown, it seems, out of the 

 breast of earth herself; earth is here the Mother of Men. The 



