But the real identification is closer than this. Thus, it is connected with the Valhalla practices already noted by the fact that if an old Norseman becomes too frail to travel to the cliff, in order to throw himself over, his kinsman would save him the disgrace of dying "like a cow in the straw", and would beat him to death with the family club.[1] Mr. Elton, who quotes this passage, adds in a note that one of the family clubs is still preserved at a farm in East Gothland. Aubrey has preserved an old English "countrie story" of "the holy mawle, which (they fancy) hung behind the church dore, which, when the father was seaventie, the sonne might fetch to knock his father in the head, as effœte, & of no more use."[2] That Aubrey preserved a true tradition is proved by what we learn in similar practices elsewhere. Thus, in fifteenth century MSS. of prose romances found in English and also in Welsh, Sir Perceval, in his adventures in quest of the Holy Grail, being at one time ill at ease, congratulates himself that he is not like those men of Wales, where sons pull their fathers out of bed and kill them to save the disgrace of their dying in bed.[3] Keysler cites several instances of this savage custom in Prussia, and a Count Schulenberg rescued ah old man who was being beaten to death by his sons at a place called Jammerholz, or "Woful Wood"; while a Countess of Nansfield, in the fourteenth century, is said to have saved the life of an old man on the Lüneberg Heath under similar circumstances.[4]
Our investigation of barbarous and savage customs which connect themselves with the essential incidents of this Highland tale has at this point taken us outside the framework of the story. The old father in the tale was not killed by the mallet, but he is said to have used it as a warning to others to stop the practice of giving up their property during lifetime. We have already seen that this
- ↑ Geijer, Hist. Sweden, 31, 32.
- ↑ Aubrey, Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, 19.
- ↑ Nutt, Legend of the Holy Grail, 44.
- ↑ Elton, Origins of English History.
