Sabine Baring-Gould

“ Rügen and Heligoland in the sea were sacred from a remote antiquity, and probably lakes had as well their sacred islets, to which the victim was rowed out, his back broken, and on which he was left to become the prey of the rats.
We find rats and mice regarded as sacred animals in other Aryan mythologies. Thus the mouse was the beast of the Indian Rudra. ”

“ It seems probable to me that the manner in which an offering was made for plenty, was by exposure to rats, just as M. Du Chaillu tells us, an African tribe place their criminals in the way of ants to be devoured by them. The peculiar death of Ragnar Lodbrog, who was sentenced by Ella of Northumberland to be stung to death by serpents in a dungeon, was somewhat similar. Offerings to rats and mice are still prevalent among the peasantry in certain parts of Germany, if we may credit Grimm and Wolf ”

“ Martinus Gallus, who wrote in 1110, says that King Popiel, having been driven from his kingdom, was so tormented by mice, that he fled to an island whereon was a wooden tower, in which he took refuge; but the host of mice and rats swam over and ate him up. The story is told more fully by Majolus [7] . When the Poles murmured at the bad government of the king, and sought redress, Popiel summoned the chief murmurers to his palace, where he pretended that he was ill, and then poisoned them. After this the corpses were flung by his orders into the lake Gopolo. ”

“ During a famine, he collected the poor of his territory into a great barn, and there consumed them, mocking their cries by exclamations of “Hark! how the rats and mice are squeaking.” Shortly after, he was attacked by an army of mice, and fled to his castle of Güttingen in the waters of the Lake of Constance ”

“ In the article on the Piper of Hameln, I mentioned that Prætorius gives a story of a woman’s soul leaving her body in the shape of a red mouse. According to Bohemian belief, one must not go to sleep thirsty, or the soul will leave the body in search of drink. ”

“ Snorro Sturlesson (d. 1241) gives us an instance of the Swedes offering their king to obtain abundant crops [12] .
“Donald took the heritage after his father Visbur, and ruled over the land. As in his time there was a great famine and distress, the Swedes made great offerings of sacrifice at Upsala. The first autumn they sacrificed oxen, but the succeeding season was not improved by it. The following autumn they sacrificed men, but the succeeding year was rather worse. The third autumn, when the offer of sacrifices should begin, a great multitude of Swedes came to Upsala ”

“ In the tenth century Iceland suffered severely from a bad year, so that there was a large amount of destitution throughout the country; and, unless something were done by the wealthy bonders to relieve it, there was a certainty of many poor householders perishing during the approaching winter. ”

“ Therefore they made five golden mice as an offering to the Lord [23] . This indicates the mouse as having been the symbol among the Philistines of a deity whom they identified with the God of Israel.
Original footnotes
↑ Wolfii Lect. Memorab. Centenarii xvi. Lavingæ, 1600, tom. i. p. 343.↑ Id. tom. i. p. 270. See also Königshofen’s Chronik. Königshofen was priest of Strasbourg (b. 1360, d. 1420) . His German Chronicle contains the story of Bishop Widerolf and the mice.↑ San-Marte, Germania, viii. 77.↑ Zeitschrift f. Deut. Myth. iii. p. ”