we have a sense of something wild and pre-Homeric. Euripides has Antigone
swear on her sword (Phoen. 1677). The Laws of Manu (8. 113) state that a
ks
̇
atriya, a man of the warrior class, should swear by his chariot and weapons,
and there are instances of such oaths in the Maha ̄bha ̄rata (5. 73. 14; 8. 50. 9).
Ammianus Marcellinus (17. 12. 21) describes the Quadi as swearing an
oath by their drawn swords, ‘which they worship as numina’. Volund makes
the Swedish king Nidud swear an oath ‘by ship’s sides, shield’s rim, horse’s
withers and sword’s edge’ (Vo ̨lundarkviða 33). The Bohemian war-leader
Vlaztislav in a bellicose speech swears by Mars, Bellona, and his sword-hilt.^53
Cú Chulainn swears tar mó sciath 7 tar mó cloidim, ‘by my shield and by my
sword’ (Fled Bricrenn 99).
The Quadi were not alone in their weapon cult. The mythical warrior
Kaineus worshipped his spear as a god, as do Mezentius and Turnus in
Virgil and Capaneus in Statius.^54 The Scythians, according to Herodotus,
worshipped the war-god in the form of an old iron scimitar,^55 while at Rome
Mars was worshipped as a spear.^56 The author of an Irish mythical narrative
avers that weapons used to be worshipped in olden times.^57
There are various stories in which the same weapon is used successively by
two or more heroes in different generations. But there are others in which a
hero’s weapon is so far identified with him that there can be no question of
anyone else using it after him, and it has to be removed from the scene.
Arjuna at the end of his career is instructed to throw his bow into the sea
(MBh. 17. 1. 37–40). The sword of the Nart Batradz is dragged to the Black
Sea after his death and sunk there; it rises up sometimes and causes light-
ning.^58 Arthur has to throw his sword Excalibur back into the lake from which
it came in the first place. There is much evidence from Bronze and Iron
Age Europe for weapons being thrown into lakes, rivers, springs, and bogs, as
if they were prime prestige offerings.^59
(^53) Cosmas of Prague, Chronica Boemorum 1. 10 (C. H. Meyer (1931), 19. 6).
(^54) Acusilaus, FGrHist 2 F 22 line 72 (?), sch. Ap. Rhod. 1. 57–64a, sch. D Il. 1. 264; Virg. Aen.
- 773, 12. 95–100; Stat. Theb. 3. 615, 9. 549.
(^55) Hdt. 4. 62. 2; cf. Eudoxus fr. 303 Lasserre, Mela 2. 15, Amm. Marc. 31. 2. 23 (Alans); further
references in Grimm (1883–8), 1351. At Wolin in Pomerania a rusty old lance, alleged to be that
of Julius Caesar, was still venerated in the twelfth century: C. H. Meyer (1931), 35. 14, 40. 24;
Vánˇa (1992), 168.
(^56) Plut. Rom. 29. 1; Georges Dumézil, L’héritage indo-européen à Rome (Paris 1949), 57 f.; id.,
Les dieux des Indo-Européens (Paris 1952), 111–17.
(^57) Cath Maige Tuired 782 Gray. On the cult of weapons cf. Christopher Blinkenberg,
The Thunderweapon in Religion and Folklore (Cambridge 1911), 39 f.; de Vries (1956), i. 95 f.;
Gelling–Davidson (1969), 31–9.
(^58) Georges Dumézil, Loki (2nd edn., Darmstadt 1959), 129.
(^59) M. Green (1986), 139–44, 148.
464 12. Arms and the Man