Symbel
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- See Symbel (band) for the British band.
Symbel (OE) or sumbel (ON) was an important Germanic drinking ritual. Symbel was always conducted indoors, usually in a chieftain's mead hall. Symbel involved a formulaic ritual which was more solemn and serious than mere drinking or celebration. The primary elements of symbel are drinking ale or mead from a horn, speech making (which often included formulaic boasting and oaths), and gift giving. Eating and feasting were specifically excluded from symbel, and no alcohol was set aside for the gods or other deities in the form of a sacrifice.[1]
Accounts of the ritual are preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf (lines 489-675 and 1491-1500), Dream of the Rood and Judith, Old Saxon Heliand, and the Old Norse Lokasenna as well as other Eddic and Saga texts, such as in the Heimskringla account of the funeral ale held by King Sweyn, or in the Fagrskinna.
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[edit] Etymology
Linguistically, the term is derived from the Proto-Germanic *sumlan "banquet", continuing *sm-lo-, i.e. "congregation", (see copulative a). Some variant spellings are sumble, symle and Icelandic sumbl.
[edit] Anglo-Saxon symbel
The host of the symbel was called the symbelgifa. One of the officiants of symbel was the thyle (ON þulr), who challenged and questioned those who made boasts (gielp) or oaths (béot, bregofull), if necessary with taunts or mockery (flytung).
It was the thyle's duty to defend the luck of the community. Oaths said over the symbel-horn were seen as binding and affecting the luck and wyrd of all in attendance. Another role commonly attested for during symbel was that of the scop (ON skald), who ritually recited genealogies, folklore and metrical poetry. The alcoholic drink was served by women or alekeepers (ealu bora "ale bearer"), the first round usually poured by the lady of the house.
[edit] Scandinavian sumbel
The bragarfull "promise-cup" or bragafull "best cup" or "chieftain's cup" (compare Bragi) was in Norse culture a particular drinking from a cup or drinking horn on ceremonial occasions, often involving the swearing of oaths when the cup or horn was drunk by a chieftain or passed around and drunk by those assembled. The names are sometimes anglicized as bragarful and bragaful respectively.
That the name appears in two forms with two meanings makes it difficult to determine the literal meaning. The word bragr 'best, foremost' is a source for its first element. The form bragafull (but not bragarfull) can also be interpreted as 'Bragi's cup', referring to the Bragi, god of poetry, though no special connection to Bragi appears in any of the sources.
[edit] Heimskringla
Snorri Sturluson in his Heimskringla, in the Saga of Hákon the Good, describes the custom of the bragarfull at feasts:
The fire was in the middle of the floor of the temple, and over it hung the kettles, and the full goblets were handed across the fire; and he who made the feast, and was a godi ['chief'], blessed the full goblets, and all the meat of the sacrifice. And first Odin's goblet was emptied for victory and power to his king; thereafter, Njörd's and Freyja's goblets for peace and a good season. Then it was the custom of many to empty the bragafull; and then the guests emptied a goblet to the memory of departed friends, called the minni ['remembrance'].
In Ynglinga saga section of the same work, Snorri relates:
It was the custom at that time that he who gave an heirship-feast after kings or jarls, and entered upon the heritage, should sit upon the footstool in front of the high seat, until the full bowl, which was called the bragafull, was brought in. Then he should stand up, take the bragafull, make solemn vows to be afterwards fulfilled, and thereupon empty the beaker. Then he should ascend the high seat which his father had occupied; and thus he came to the full heritage after his father. Now it was done so on this occasion. When the full bragafull came in, King Ingjald stood up, grasped a large bull's horn, and made a solemn vow to enlarge his dominions by one half, towards all the four corners of the world, or die; and thereupon pointed with the horn to the four quarters.
The Fagrskinna (a 13th century history of the Kings of Norway), has a similar account in respect to Svein Forkbeard, mentioning first ceremonial drinkings dedicated to the greatest of one's kindred, then to Thor or others of the gods. Then the bragarfull was poured out and when the giver of the feast had drunk this, he was to make a vow, to be also sworn by those present with him, and only then to sit himself on throne of the deceased.
[edit] Poetic Edda
A prose passage inserted in the Poetic Edda poem Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar relates:
Hedin was coming home alone from the forest one Yule-eve, and found a troll-woman; she rode on a wolf, and had snakes in place of a bridle. She asked Hedin for his company. "Nay," said he. She said, "Thou shalt pay for this at the bragarfull." That evening the great vows were taken; the sacred boar was brought in, the men laid their hands thereon, and took their vows at the bragarfull. Hedin vowed that he would have Sváva, Eylimi's daughter, the beloved of his brother Helgi; then such great grief seized him that he went forth on wild paths southward over the land, and found Helgi, his brother.
[edit] Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks
Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks relates that Hjörvard, the son of Arngrim, promised at his bragarfull to wed Ingeborg the princess of Sweden, and the legends of Ragnar Lodbrok relate that the Geatish jarl Herraud promised his daughter to anyone who could liberate her from a dragon or talk to her in its presence.
[edit] Germanic Neopaganism
Modern adherents of the reconstructionist religions Theodism and Ásatrú continue to practice the ritual of symbel, which is one of the most important ritual observances of their religion, in addition to Blót.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Bauschatz pp.74-75
[edit] References
- Bauschatz, Paul C.. The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture. Univ of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-352-1.
- Robert E. Bjork, Speech as Gift in Beowulf, Speculum (1994).
- Glosecki, Stephen O. (1989). Shamanism and Old English Poetry. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-8240-5952-2.
- Marie Nelson, Beowulf's Boast Words, Neophilologus vol. 89, nr. 2 / April (2005), 299-310.
- Opland, Jeff (1980). Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry: A Study of the Traditions. Yale Univ Press. ISBN 0-300-02426-6.
- Pollington, Stephen (2003). The Mead-Hall: The Feasting Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England. Anglo-Saxon Books. ISBN 1-898281-30-0.
- Conquergood, Dwight, Boasting in Anglo-Saxon England, Performance and the Heroic Ethos, Literature and Performance, vol. I April 1991
- Enright, M. J. , Lady with a Mead Cup: Ritual, Prophecy, and Lordship in the European Warband, Dublin, 1976
- Pollington, Steven, The Mead-Hall: Feasting in Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon Books; Norfolk, 2003
