259 



The clironicler Ditmar, Bishop of Merseburg, about the year 1010, 

 has the following passage (Pertz, vol. iii., lib. iii., p, 858) : — 



^'JN^on est admirandum quod in hiis partibus tale ostentatur prodi- 

 gium (a portentous noise) nam traditores illi raro ad ecclesiam venientes 

 de suorum yisitatione custodum nil curant. Domesticos colunt Deos, 

 multumque sibi prodesse eosdem sperantes, hiis immolant. Audivi de 

 quodam haculo in cujus summitate manus erat unum in se ferreum ferens 

 circulum quod cum pastore illius villae in quo is fuerat per omnes 

 domes has singulariter ductus, in prime introitu a portitore suo sic sa- 

 lutaretur ^Vigila, Minnil, Vigila,'' sic enim rustica vocabatur lingua, 

 et epulantes ibi delicate de ejusdem se tueri custodia stulti autumabant, 

 ignorantes illud Daviticum : simulacra gentium opera hominum, &c." 



The Latinity of the good Bishop is universally given up, and we 

 know not whether it be owing to the obscurity of his language, or to 

 the imperfection of the verbal report he had received, that his commen- 

 tators are completely at fault on the passage. TJrsinus and Wedekind 

 (p. 242, note), seem to think that Henil in the passage has been gene- 

 rally but erroneously taken for a household deity — ''l^^omine Hennil 

 non Penates intellexerunt whilst Jacob Grimm (in Deutsche Mytho- 

 logie," 2ter Ausgabe, p. 710), contrary to his usual wont, hesitates in his 

 deduction from a Bohemian word and practice to bring it in conformity 

 with the morning dawn, and construes the three words— aurora est 

 (erumpet) Yigila, Yigila." Yet he had before him, in the following 

 note quoted from AYedekind, probably the true explanation — Ego vero 

 longe aliam rem, sub hoc baculi ritu, arbitror latere, ut scilicet genius 

 rusticorum illius setatis tulit. Baculus iste, ut ego quidem reor, signum 

 erat quod pro cohvocmida condone pagana ostiatim mittehant. l^omine 

 Henil non Penates sed quidlibet proximum sibi vicinum allocutus est 

 familiariter ut excubiarum vigiliarumque vices in pago servaret ; hinc 

 acclamatio ' Yigila ! Hennil Yigila !' (auf die wache ! nachbar ! auf die 

 wache !) conservant passim consuetudinem banc incolse pagorum nos- 

 trorum ad hunc usque diem, ut quando prcetor paganus convocare velit, 

 hastam vel laculim vel malleum ostiatim mittat, quo incola vicini cujusque 

 fores pulsat donee ex ultimi manu ad prcstorem redeat In quibusdam 

 pagis ad concionem convocandum ex ordine in unum annum eligitur 

 paganus quem vocant Heimhurgen. Ditmari setate illud convocationis 

 symbolum pastori pecoris tuendum tradebant." 



Had TJrsinus, the writer of this note, extended the sign and scene of 

 convocation from a town or village to a hundred or county, he would 

 have described exactly the practice so well established for Scotland in 

 sending round the fiery cross (to which we shall again revert), after find- 

 ing there conformities in judicial practices explained by Lord Londes- 

 borough's Irish ring, a combination of dispersed localities, which the 

 authority mentioned at the commencement of the paper explains and 

 justifies. 



In the Cyrmogea of the learned Icelander, Arngrim Jonas, (p. 71), we 

 have the same intimation for his native island, and an indigenous name 

 for the staff that has much verbal conformity, and a satisfactory expla- 



