Macalisteh — Temair Breg : Remains and Traditions of Tar a. 375 



" P''ol and Wodan fared to a wood, 

 There was Balder'* foal's foot wrenched. 

 Then charmed Sintbgund, Sunna her sister, 

 Then charmed Frua, Volla her sister, 

 Then charmed Wodan, as he well knew [how]. 

 As bone wrenching, so blood-wrenching, so limb-wrenching, 

 Bone to bone, blood to blood, 

 Limb to limbs, as though they were glued." 



The story alluded to is nob elsewhere recorded ; but its outline is quite 

 clear. Wodan and his companion find Balder in difficulties, owing to his 

 horse's lameness. The obscure goddesses named have vainly tried to charm 

 the injured limb — the tale, like the common motive of the three brothers, 

 narrated two failures to accomplish the task, and the success of the third 

 attempt, made in this case by AVodan. How far the original story entered 

 into the details of the operation, and the reason for the failures, we have no 

 means of knowing. Our present interest is not with these unanswerable 

 questions, but with Wodan's companion. 



His name is unknown elsewhere in the vast range of Teutonic literature. 

 The context shows clearly that he is a god ; but what god ? Grimm would 

 equate him to Balder; 1 but as Chantepiede la Saussaye, in his Religion of ///■■ 

 Teutons, points out, he does not explain why Balder appears under his own 

 more usual name in the following line. To this we may add, that surely the 

 sense of the passage is that Wodan and his companion came to the assistance 

 of Balder, as in the charm previously quoted Notre-Dame came to help 

 St. Peter, and as those who used the charm prayed these supernatural beings 

 to come to their aid. 



Though the god's name is unknown elsewhere, Grimm, with the clue 

 afforded by the charm, has discovered reminiscences of him in certain place- 

 names. Such are Pfalsau in Bavaria, formerly Pholesaiiiva, " Phol's island " ; 

 Pfalzpoint, formerly Pholesptwut, " Phol's enclosed held " ; Phulsborn, formerly 

 Pholesbrimncn, " Phol's spring." He has further discovered from certain legal 

 records of the Palatinate of Upper Rhinelaud that the second day of May 

 was in that region called Pfuhltag or Pulletag, meaning apparently " Phol's 

 day." It is noteworthy that the region where these names occur is the 

 country intercepted between the upper waters of the Rhine and those of the 

 Danube, the country where for other reasons D'Arbois de Jubainville fixed 

 the cradle of the Celts. 



In some other comparisons Grimm hardly appears so happy. The earth- 

 works and other structures, called in modern speech Teufelsgraben, Pfalgraben, 



' Teutonic Mythology, tr. Stallybrass, vol iii. p. xix. 



B.l.A. PKOC, VOL. XXXIV, SECT. C. [51] 



