At many Heathen gatherings, when the time comes for symbel, a woman is asked to carry the horn. Sometimes this is the most honored office of the evening. Sometimes it is a way of making sure the drinks get around. The difference lies in whether anyone remembers what the horn-bearer was.
The queen in the hall
The fullest picture is in Beowulf. On the night the hero arrives at the Danish court, the queen, Wealhtheow, comes forward into the hall. The poet describes her carefully: mindful of custom, adorned with gold. She greets the company. She carries the cup first to the king, her husband, and bids him be glad. Then she goes through the hall, to the old retainers and the young, offering the cup to each in turn, until she comes to Beowulf.
She greets him and gives thanks that her wish has been granted and a champion has come. He takes the cup from her hand. And then, holding it, he makes his vow: he will kill the monster or die in the attempt. He says this to her. The poet tells us that the words pleased the queen, and she went to sit beside her lord.
Look at what has happened. By the order in which she carries the cup, she has declared before everyone who stands where. By bringing it to the stranger, she has received him into the company. And she is the one to whom the formal oath is sworn. Without her there is no rite.
Later in the poem she speaks again, cup in hand, on the most delicate political question of the court, the succession of her sons, and tells the hall plainly what she expects of them: "Here every man is true to the other... the warriors, having drunk, do as I bid."
Not only one poem
An Old English poem of proverbs sets the same thing down as a general rule. A noblewoman, it says, should be generous and keep counsel, and at the mead-drinking she should always and everywhere greet the lord first, place the cup promptly in his hand, and know what is wise for them both.
The Norse sources carry the image into myth. In Valhalla it is the Valkyries who bear the horn to Odin and to the chosen dead. When the Valkyrie Sigrdrifa is woken by Sigurd, her first act is to bring him a horn of mead, which she says is blended with strength and glory, and with it comes all her teaching. When Loki has insulted every god at a feast, it is the goddess Sif who steps forward with a crystal cup to offer him peace.
The image is in the archaeology too. Small silver figures of a woman in a trailing gown, holding out a horn, have been found across Scandinavia. On the carved picture stones of Gotland, a woman with a horn stands to greet a rider arriving at a hall, and most scholars take the scene for a welcome into the next world.
What the office was
Put together, the evidence suggests something more than hospitality. The woman who carried the cup made the bonds of the hall visible. She established order and precedence, welcomed the stranger, received oaths, and spoke words that carried weight because of the cup in her hands. Old English poetry has a word for a noblewoman that fits: freothuwebbe, peace-weaver.
A caution
These are portraits of queens in heroic poetry, written by Christian poets about an idealized past. We should be slow to claim that every woman at every feast held such a role. But the picture is consistent across languages and centuries, and it is plainly a picture of authority.
At symbel today
Many kindreds have revived the custom of a horn-bearer, and I am glad of it. I would only ask that we revive the whole of it. If a woman carries the horn in silence while the men make speeches, we have kept the gown and lost the queen.
Here is what my own kindred does, offered for what it is worth.
- The horn-bearer opens the rite. She blesses the drink and speaks the first words.
- She governs the horn. She decides the order in which it passes, and she may withhold it from anyone who is breaking the frith of the gathering.
- She receives the oaths. Anyone who means to swear at symbel tells her beforehand, and she may counsel against a rash oath.
- She speaks when she chooses. The cup gives her the floor.
- The office rotates. It is held by different members through the year, and it is not confined to women. A man who has carried the horn with care listens differently afterward.
- There are always two vessels. One holds mead and one holds something without alcohol, and they are equal in honor, as the Frith Standard asks.
The horn-bearer is one of the best-attested religious roles for women that we have. It deserves to be treated as what it was: a seat of honor, with a voice.