ney, that her strength would not serve her to reach the house of her relative. "God," she said, "had been very good to her, and she was now contented to go."

Madame Staubach arrived at Cologne four days after her niece, and was also welcomed at her brother's house. But the welcome accorded to her was not that which had been given to Linda. "She has been driven very nearly to death's door among you," said the one aunt to the other. To Linda Madame Staubach was willing to own that she had been wrong, but she could make no such acknowledgment to the wife of her half-brother,-to a benighted Papist. "I have endeavoured to do my duty by my niece," said Madame Staubach, "asking the Lord daily to show me the way." "Pshaw!" said the other woman. "Your always asking the way, and never knowing it, will end in her death. She will have been murdered by your prayers." This was very terrible, but for Linda's sake it was borne.

There was nothing of reproach either from Linda to her aunt or from Madame Staubach to her niece, nor was the name of Peter Steinmarc mentioned between them for many days. It was, indeed, mentioned but once again by poor Linda Tressel. For some weeks, for nearly a month, they all remained in the house of Herr Grüner, and then Linda was removed to apartments in Cologne, in which all her earthly troubles were brought to a close. She never saw Nuremberg again, or Tetchen, who had been faithful at least to her, nor did she ever even ask the fate of Ludovic Valcarm. His name Madame Staubach never dared to mention; and Linda was silent, thinking always that it was a name of offence. But when she had been told that she must die,-that her days were indeed numbered, and that no return to Nuremberg was possible for her, she did speak a word of Peter Steinmarc. "Tell him, aunt Charlotte, from me," she

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said, "that I prayed for him when I was dying, and that I forgave him. You know, aunt Charlotte, it was impossible that I should marry him. A woman must not marry a man whom she does not love." Madame Staubach did not venture to say a word in her own justification. She did not dare even to recur to the old tenets of her fierce religion, while Linda still lived. She was cowed, and contented herself with the offices of a nurse by the sick bed of the dying girl. She had been told by her sister-in-law that she had murdered her niece. Who can say what were the accusations brought against her by the fury of her own conscience?

Every day the fair-haired cousins came to Linda's bedside, and whispered to her with their soft voices, and looked at her with their soft eyes, and touched her with their soft hands. Linda would kiss their plump arms and lean her head against them, and would find a very paradise of happiness in this late revelation of human love. As she lay a-dying she must have known that the world had been very hard to her, and that her aunt's teaching had indeed crushed her,-body as well as spirit. But she made no complaint; and at last, when the full summer had come, she died at Cologne in Madame Staubach's arms.

During those four months at Cologne the zeal of Madame Stanbach's religion had been quenched, and she had been unable to use her fanaticism, even towards herself. But when she was alone in the world the fury of her creed returned. "With faith you shall move a mountain," she would say, "but without faith you cannot live." She could never trust her own faith, for the mountain would not be moved.

A small tombstone in the Protestant burying-ground at Cologne tells that Linda Tressel, of Nuremberg, died in that city on the 20th of July 1863, and that she was buried in that spot.

CERTAIN adventurous gentlemen have lately been eating the meat hitherto reserved for dogs and starving garrisons, and have taken some credit to themselves for having imperilled their vile bodies for the public weal, but do not seem to have been aware that their exploit may have put soul and estate also in jeopardy. Had the recent horse banquets taken place at an earlier period of English history, every man present would have incurred grave religious, legal, and social disabilities; in fact, in the existing hazy state of English ecclesiastical law it is by no means certain that all these innovators are not ipso esu excommunicate, for the opinion of ancient Christendom is very decided on the point, and the judgment of the medieval Church has been most unmistakably set forth by the voice of Councils, Popes, and Archbishops. "Ignorantia legis neminem excusat," is the stern maxim of the State. The regulations of the Church have always been more elastic; and the canons against the eaters of unclean and forbidden meats imposed mild penances upon ignorant transgressors. This ignorance we propose to remove, and we shall proceed to marshal such an array of hostile authorities in Church and State as will daunt the most thoroughgoing partisan of the right of private judgment.

This is not the first time the English public has tasted horse. Although spoken of with loathing for the last thousand years, in the eighth century it was common, if not fashionable; for St Egbert, Archbishop of York, a friend of Venerable Bede, in a sort of episcopal charge, gives very minute directions what to eat, drink, and avoid. He says, "It is lawful to eat fish that have died a natural death, but not birds or any other animals which have been suffocated

in nets, or have been torn by a hawk. I do not forbid horse-flesh, although many families object to it." He adds the valuable suggestion that boiled herring is good for a fever, and peppered gall excellent for a sore mouth. But the fathers of the English Church soon began to set their faces against the practice, as we see by a decree of the Council of Culcheth in Lancashire, held A.D. 785:

"Let every good Christian fling from him all remains of Pagan customs. The very garments ye wear are those of the heathen whom by God's grace ye have cast out of the land. Ye cast lots, and very many of you eat horses, which is a thing done by no Eastern Christian: refrain from this habit."

The heathens referred to are of course the Danes, who are rather prematurely said to have been expelled, for they had only just come and virtually never went away. Why all orthodox Christians are said to abstain from this food, and how it came to be spoken of as a Danish abomination, are interesting questions for all intending horseeaters to consider.

It was on account of the very prominent part assigned to the horse by the Danes in their public worship, and further because of strange magical powers inherent in him, not derived from the old religion or in any way recognised by it. The scruples excited by these associations received most of their weight from a feeling with which at the present day we have little sympathy, that the soul of man can be stained by uncleanness, in which we should be disposed to say the body only has taken part.

The Danes, like the English of an earlier time, and the Norsemen for centuries afterwards, were adherents of the old faith of Odin and Thor, once held by the com

mon ancestors of them all in the forests of Germany. It excited the curiosity of the Romans and the indignation of the early Christians; but we should know little of its nature were we obliged to depend only on the narratives of missionaries and invaders. We have to sketch an outline from half-adozen lines of Tacitus and a few notices scattered about in the letters of bishops in partibus, far too busy taming their unruly flocks to care about preserving their uncouth features for the amusement of posterity; but for colour and expression we must go to the songs and sagas of the north, many of which are the work of heathen authors, and most of which are full of the spirit of Paganism. Nearly all of these have been preserved in Iceland, and sometimes an enthusiastic German antiquarian will hint a tender regret that little far-away Iceland was not allowed to remain longer undisturbed by intruding Christianity. Enough, however, has been saved from the wreck to give us a very good idea of the old religion, and, in particular, to make us understand why its adherents ate horse, and why its perverts did not.

These old gods were not thought to be careless of mankind, but were always roaming over the earth putting down goblins and witchcraft, causing war or peace, and making corn to grow. They delighted in the brave and true; but what pleased them as much as anything, was liberality in bloody sacrifices. "I am bound to aid him," says the goddess Freya. "He has raised me an altar, and made it red and slippery with the blood of cattle." We are told of Leif, one of the discoverers of Iceland, that he never would offer sacrifices, and we know he came to a bad end. They accepted every kind of living offering, but delighted most in the costliest; sheep, oxen, horses, captives, the king's son, or the king himself. When Earl Hako was sorely pressed by the rovers

of Jom, he cried for aid to his favourite goddess, but she made no answer. Then he offered a thrall, but she would not listen. At last he offered the blood of his son, which she graciously accepted, and, descending in a bodily shape, sate on the prow of his vessel, with arrows darting from every finger. And we hear of an atrocious old king who sacrificed one son after another to prolong his own life, and died when his subjects would not permit him to kill any more. If there was a famine, it was usual with the Swedes to sacrifice the king, just as we turn out a ministry in times of disaster.

But human sacrifices were made only on very great occasions, such as the defeat of the Romans under Varus, or the threatened introduction of Christianity into a country. The usual offering was sheep, oxen, or horses. Herds of these holy animals were usually fed apart in sacred places until their time was come; "nemoribus ac lucis candidi et nullo mortali opere contacti," says Tacitus. They were treated with the utmost respect, and we are expressly told that to pull their tails was an act of daring impiety: "Jubæ aut caudæ pilos convellere nefarium." - Sax. G. Probably every temple had a sacred enclosure, within which grazed the horses or cattle of the god. The particulars of one or two of these are very interesting. St Willibrod, an English saint of the eighth century, came to Heligoland in the course of his missionary labours. Here he found a meadow, in the midst of which was a spring so holy that men durst not speak while they drew water: it was not lawful for a layman so much as to touch the cattle that were feeding around it. The saint polluted the spring by baptising three men in it, and killed and ate the holy cattle, to the horror of the heathens, who thought to see him smitten with frenzy or sudden death.

Olaf Tryggvason is said to have found a similar holy meadow in

honour of Frey at Drontheim, where were kept sacred horses for the god himself to feed on. (We find other stories of Frey's kindliness in eating and drinking with men. At Upsal he even condescended to espouse a mortal maiden.) Olaf mounted one of the horses and rode on him to the temple, where he defied the god and hewed off his limbs.

Many of these sacred animals have individual histories of their own. The following account of one of them is taken from a somewhat rare Icelandic saga :

"Hrafnkell loved Frey best of the gods, and gave him half share in all the best things that he had. What he loved best was a bay horse, half of which he gave to his friend Frey, calling it Freysteed. He loved the horse so dearly, that he swore an oath he would be the death of him who should mount him without his leave." He had fifty sheep and thirteen horses, which he gave in charge to one Einar, bidding him beware of mounting Freysteed, or he would be the death of him; but adding, he might ride any one of his remaining twelve horses he pleased. One morning the sheep were missing, and Einar, being in a hurry, rode after them on the sacred horse, and when he came home "the horse was all wet with sweat, and dripping from every hair, and he was mightily tired: then he turned round twelve times and neighed loudly, and ran down the valley to Hrafnkell's house, where he sat at table when the horse came to the door he neighed aloud. Then said Hrafnkell to the woman that was waiting, 'Go to the door, for a horse neighed, and it is like the neighing of Freysteed.' So she told him he was outside, in very evil condition. Then out he went and saw Freysteed, and said, 'Ill usage hast thou received, my fosterchild, but thou hadst thy wits about thee in coming to tell me : it shall be avenged; so now go home to thy mates."" With that

he turned about and went home to his herd. Next morning Hrafnkell informed Einar he had the highest regard for him and his family, but for his oath's sake he felt he quite owed it to himself and to Frey to put him to death after what had passed; and he did so forthwith. The result of this scrupulous fulfilment of his vow was a bloody feud, in the course of which Einar's relations-who behaved, we are told, with absurd leniency-hung up Hrafnkell and his family by a rope passed through their ankles, till the blood ran into their eyes, stripped him of all that he had, and finally drowned poor Freysteed as the cause of all the mischief. The death of the sacred beast gave his master's religious principles such a shock, that he left off saying his prayers; "For," said he, "I do not see the use of worshipping the gods after this." But faith in the divine power of the horse survived this blow, and long afterwards we hear of another Freysteed who was worshipped by his fond master, and who was the only horse in Western Iceland that durst draw a sledge through the snow-storm a witch had conjured up. This bold beast had a holy contemporary, whose story shows how these sanctified animals were looked on by Christians. Thorgils, one of the early discoverers of Greenland, was making his first voyage into the unknown icy ocean. He dreamt that Thor appeared to him, and endeavoured by threats and promises to win him back to the old religion. But when he was not able to persuade him, he said, "Albeit thou make me not thy god, yet pay me my own." Thorgils mused on this, and perceived the god must be demanding an ox which he had given him whilst yet a calf. When he awoke he determined to throw the ox overboard. And this he did, although they were short of provisions, in spite of the angry remonstrances of his heathen shipmates. As a proof of the antiquity of the practice, we may remember that

crazy Caligula, who wanted to raise his horse to the consulship, had seen a good deal of the Germans.

The actual sacrifice consisted in

slaughtering the devoted animal; sprinkling his blood over the holy place; cutting off his head and setting it apart for the god; and eating the rest of the flesh in his honour. We have numerous accounts of these banquets in the sagas and Church historians. The most remarkable festival of the kind was held in Denmark every ninth year, when ninety-nine men and ninety-nine horses were sacrificed. The recurrence of the number nine shows the solemnity of the occasion; for there are nine worlds, nine holy trees, and nine fatal maidens who tarry nine years with mortal lovers; the grim mother of the giants has nine hundred heads, and when this world is passing away, Thor shall reel nine paces and die; the wer-wolf is doomed to his unholy shape for nine days; his sister, the nightmare, has nine foals; the blood of a nine-year-old ox is a mighty charm, and a valuable augury is obtained by observing how a horse steps over nine spears. To refuse to partake of the meal which accompanied a sacrifice was to insult the god and his guests; but it is obvious that for a Christian to share in such an entertainment was little short of open apostacy. How such a deed actually was regarded on all hands is best seen in the famous incident in the life of Hako the Good, himself an excellent Christian, but before his age: it has often been told before, but will bear telling again. Snorri writes:

"King Hako was at a great religious banquet at Lade. It had always been his custom to feed apart with a few friends while the sacrifice was being offered, but the landowners clamoured against him because he did not sit on

his seat of honour on this great occasion; so he came and sate there, and when the first bowl was filled Earl Sigurd called upon the name of Odin and drank and passed it on to the King, and he took it and signed over it the sign of the cross.

"Then said one of the guests, 'Why has the King done this thing? does he refuse to offer sacrifice?' But the Earl answered, The King has drunk in honour of Thor, as a strong man should, and he made over it the sign of Thor's hammer.' So the matter passed; but in the morning the guests said he must eat some horse-flesh: he stoutly refused, neither would he drink horsebroth. Then they threatened to fall upon him; but Earl Sigurd strove to pacify them, and bade the King lean open-mouthed over the caldron whence ascended the steam from the horseflesh. So the King bound over the vessel a linen cloth, and did as the Earl bade him; but both parties were illpleased. At Yule was another great festival, and twelve men who had most to do with sacrifices banded themselves together to compel the King to sacrifice. So first they slew three Christian priests and burnt three churches, and then they came to the feast with as many followers as possible. As soon as they were met together they came to the King in warlike fashion and required him to sacrifice, or it should go ill with him. And, by the mediation of Earl Sigurd, it was agreed that the King should eat some mouthfuls of horse-liver and drink all the toasts without making the sign of the cross. But the King was very sad, and went away immediately, threatening to return with more followers and avenge this outrage."

Poor Hako never quite recovered his spirits, and was ashamed even to ask for Christian burial. As an additional outrage a heathen bard sang such verses over his body as might have made him turn in his grave. The poet describes Odin sending for his friend Hako, and all the gods welcoming his arrival at Walhalla, where he shall revel till the day of doom.*

This story makes very intelligible the frequent cautions of popes. and bishops of the eighth and ninth