Germanic Mythology, a very Brief Introduction

8/9/2019 Germanic Mythology, a very Brief Introduction

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OCKWORK

SHOWCASE

GERMANIC


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JOSEPH S.HOPKINS

So you've heard of Zeus theThunderer, presiding over MountOlympus. And perhaps you'veread a thing or two about one ofhis daughters, the virginal, owl-eyed Athena, or her half-brother,the willowy, ferocious Dionysus.Maybe you pass a statue of hat-ted Hermes every day, or perhapsnow and then you see a paint-ing of nude Aphrodite. It is likelythat you have heard a fair amountabout these gods and their doings,and something or another about

the synthesis of Greek deities intothe empire of Rome. Much are theGreek gods celebrated in west-

ern culture; they are so ingrainedin modern Western Culture thatthe word mythology often simplyrefers to the deities of the Greeksand Romans.

But what about the gods nativeto the Germanic peoples, thosepeoples so greatly responsiblefor shaping modern Europe, thosethat were just as responsible forthe foundation of what we nowknow as the Western world? Whowere these deities native to the

linguistic ancestors of such impor-tant modern languages as English,German, and the languages of

Germanic

Mythology.

A (Very)

Brief Intro-

duction


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Scandinavia? And what role dothese gods play today?

In this short paper I will very brisklyoutline the major surviving sourc-es on and key concepts relatingto Germanic mythology, the my-thology of the Germanic peoples.This category includes the betterknown Norse mythology, the my-thology of the North Germanicpeoples. I will conclude this articlewith a brief discussion on the on-going inuence that these topicshave on modern Western society,including their place in modernpopular culture and the revival of

their appearance in a sacral con-text among modern Germanicheathen groups. This paper is byno means comprehensive; consid-er it a key to an overgrown door.

Language and MythologyBut before we go any further, itis important that we are clear ona few key terms. Because of itsdouble meaning, the adjective

Germanic is a confusing one forEnglish speakers. To be perfectlyclear, the adjective Germanic asused in this article does not referto the modern nation of Germany.Rather, Germanicin increasinglyantiquated works often referredto as Teutonicrefers to a fam-ily of languages that stem from acommon ancestor, reconstructedby linguists and usually knownas Proto-Germanic [z]. The Ger-manic language family includesnumerous living languages, suchas English, German, Dutch, Swed-ish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic,and several others. Germaniclanguages may be divided intovarious branches, such as NorthGermanic, West Germanic, andEast Germanic. The latter, East

Germanic, a branch that includedGothic (yes, that's a language!), isnow extinct.

Ultimately, the Germanic languagefamily descends from the samesource as a group of numerousother language families, families

such as Italic, Indo-Iranian, Celtic,Hellenic, Baltic, and Slavic. Their

common ancestor is known asProto-Indo-European, a languagewhich arrived in Europe some-

WE NOWKNOW THAT

WE HAVE

A WHOLELOT MORE

IN COMMONWITH MANY

OF OURNEIGHBORS

THANWAS ONCETHOUGHT

time during the middle to lateEuropean Neolithic. The precisedetails and origins of the Proto-Indo-Europeans remain a matterof debate and extensive researchand reconstruction among ar-chaeologists and linguists. Likethe Germanic languages, Ger-manic mythology sprung from aProto-Indo-European origin, andlike other facets of their culture,the mythology of the Proto-Indo-Europeans is undergoing recon-struction. However, one thing isperfectly clear; we now know thatwe have a whole lot more in com-mon with many of our neighbors

than was once thought.

Our working denition of mythol-ogy is considerably less complex.For our purposes, mythology issimply a body of tales about adeity (or deities). In this case, werefer to the mythology native tothe Germanic peoples prior toChristianization and the memoryand records which have thereaf-ter lived on. This includes folk-lore reaching up until and afterindustrialization. Numerous talesof heroes also appear throughoutthe Germanic record, but theywill not be handled in this work.All in all, this time period stretch-es from the end of the NordicBronze Age up until widespreadliteracy less than 100 years ago.

The Nature of the SourcesAlthough the Germanic peoplesdeveloped a native scriptthevarious runic alphabetstheir so-ciety was predominantly oral, withgreat emphasis on traditional,technically complex poetry. Sur-viving runic inscriptions tend tobe short and to the point. Some-times these inscriptions invoke

deities, often they are perfectlymundane messages for this orthat, and sometimes they can only


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be described as cryptic gibberish.As a result, most information thatwe have about the mythology of

the Germanic peoples comesfrom either post-ChristianizationScandinavian sources or from the

comments and records from out-side observers. It is these sourc-es, combined with the science of

linguistics and comparative ma-terial from other Indo-Europeancultures, that are used to make

sense of earlier works that pro-vide little detail. The quantity andquality of sources on Germanic

mythology therefore varies great-ly from time and place.


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Early SourcesIt was towards the end of the rstcentury when Roman historianTacitus wrote our single most im-portant and informative sourcedescribing the ancient Germanicpeoples. In this source, Germania,Tacitus produces a generally posi-tive picture of Rome's northernlyneighbors from largely unknownsources. However, where it may beconrmed, Tacitus's work is oftenstartlingly accurate.

Tacitus, like authors writing in Lat-in before and after him, frequentlyemploys a process known as in-

terpretatio romana, a process inwhich a non-Roman god is equatedwith a Roman god. For example, byway of interpretatio romana, theGermanic god * Wodanaz (the as-terisk means that the word is no-where written but has been recon-structed by way of its descendantsby linguists) handily becomes Mer-cury. This is due to apparent simi-larity observed in more descrip-tive later sources. However, it isvery possible that the position of*Wodanazthe god who we nowknow most commonly as Odinmay have been in most ways quiteunlike that of Mercury at Tacitus'stime of writing. Tacitus also men-tions a Jupiter , Mars, an Isis, anda Castor and Pollux. These deitynames may respectively be trans-lated as Proto-Germanic formsof who we may later recognize asThor, Tyr, Freyja (or perhaps Friggit's complicated), and the brothersHengist and Horsa.

Fortunately for us, Tacitus alsoprovides Germanic names in pass-ing, such as the god name Ing andthe semi-Latinized goddess nameNerthus. Unfortunately, Tacitusprovides little in terms of myth;while he mentions that the Ger-manic peoples sing much about

their mythology, Tacitus only brief-ly outlines a potential creationmyth involving a being named Tu-isto. According to Tacitus, this Tu-isto is the earth-born ancestor ofthe Germanic peoples, and fromhis son, Mannus, came the threeprimeval Germanic tribes.

Beginning at around the sametime, from 100 to 500 CE, nu-

merous altars depicting females,often in trios, were erected alongthe borders of Roman-controlled

UNLIKE THECONTINENTAL

CELTS,THE ROMAN

EMPIRE

NEVERMANAGEDTO CONSUME

ITSGERMANIC

NEIGHBORS

territories reaching into the re-gion that Roman authors refer toas Germania. These Latin inscrip-tions refer to these females asmatres (mothers) and matronae(ladies). About half of these in-scriptions contain Latinized Ger-manic names. No doubt extensivemythology existed about thesecelebrated deities, but it hassince been long lost. However,like the rest of the deities men-tioned in this section, this won'tbe the last we hear about thesedivine gures.

Christianize

or be ChristianizedUnlike the continental Celts, theRoman Empire never managed toconsume its Germanic neighbors.Indeed, it was Germanic peopleswho formed England after theRomans left Britain, who owedinto previously mainly RomanizedCeltic areas such as the Alps, andsurged into the Roman Empire,eventually conquering it. Howev-er, the Roman Empire remainedresilient in its ability to absorb,and so in time these Germanicpeoples who worked within Ro-man borders themselves oftenbecame Romans. Yet in the 4 th century CE, Rome wasn't what itused to be. That century, Chris-tianity had been given govern-mentally favored status underConstantine I. Later that centuryRome saw traditional Roman reli-gion's last official stand in the em-peror Julian's attempt to reviveit. Outside of traditional Romanreligion, Julian sought generalreligious tolerance in the empire,returning bishops exiled by previ-ous Christian emperors and mak-ing it a point to reach out to otherreligious groups, such as Rome's

Jews. Julian died a few years intooffice from wounds sustained inbattle.


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Not long after Julian's short reign,the emperor Theodosius I came topower. Theodosius I had the tem-ples of the gods razed and the tra-ditional polytheism of the Romansoutlawed. With his reign religioustolerance in Rome was dead. Allnon-Catholics were now targets forconquest; there was no room forthose whose beliefs did not fall inline. Theodosius I was the last em-peror to rule over both the Easternand Western Roman Empires.

By way of political alliance andmissionary work aimed at nobility,

Christianity very slowly began tocreep northward from Rome. Re-sistance was eventually met withrepression and persecution, and attimes a choice between death andconversion; under Charlemagne's785 (likely biblically-inspired) legalcode Capitulatio de partibus Sax-oniae, execution was authorizedfor those conquered Saxons thatrefused to abandon their ancestralbeliefs and convert. Scholar Britt-Mari Nsstrm comments thatChristianity oscillated betweenregarding the native gods as life-less idols and malevolent demons.Freyja [an important Old Norsegoddess associated strongly withsexuality who we will discuss later]became an easy target for the newreligion, in which an asexual virginwas the ideal woman [y]. Indeed,some of our scant continentalsources on the gods, such as theOld Saxon Baptismal Vow , out-right refer to them as demonsand Scandinavian material at timesshows a particular hostility towardsfemale deities. The songs that Taci-tus once glowingly described byTacitus were now targeted for ex-termination.

When deities are mentioned in anon-demonized context, it is usu-

ally by way of a process known aseuhemerization. Under this pro-cess, which is named after the 4 th century BCE Greek writer Euhem-

CHRISTIA-NITY

OSCILLATED

BETWEEN REGARDING

THE

NATIVEGODS ASLIFELESS

IDOLS ANDMALEVOLENT

DEMONS

erus, a god is presented as a his-

torical gure who has come to bedeied by way of human folly (per-haps a convenient compromise

between half-heathen royalty andanxious monastery!). As a result,formerly venerated gods, such asWoden (the Old English form ofthe god we now most popularlyknow as Odin), appear in royal ge-nealogies as the ancestors of rul-ers of Christian kingdoms.

That said, this isn't always the case,as we shall see.

Englandand the European ContinentOver half a millennium after Taci-tus's time, often in areas where

royalty had declared themselvesChristianized a few hundred yearsprior, a smattering of referencesto Germanic deities begin to ap-pear on record. In Anglo-SaxonEngland, mentions of native dei-tiessuch as the aforementionedgod Ing, the once widely venerat-ed Mothers, the goddess ostre (the namesake of modern Easter ),the god Woden, the horse broth-ers Hengist and Horsa, and anapparent barley being named Be-owaare made in passing, usuallyas briey as possible. Nowhere inthe Old English record are hea-then myths transparently record-ed. Yet there are tantalizing hints;for example, Woden is mentionedas a serpent-slaying, charm-wield-ing healer in the half-heathen NineHerbs Charm, and, in the knowl-edge poem Solomon and Saturnpresented as the father of an al-phabet.

Perhaps the rst straightforwardmyth about Germanic gods to ap-pear in the body of records thatwe have today is that of the Lan-gobards, who, according to tra-dition, ultimately migrated from

Scandinavia and ruled over a king-dom in Italy between the 6 th and8th centuries. In this myth, record-


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man and known collectively as theMerseburg Charms ( die Merse-burger Zaubersprche), a scenariois recounted in which the godsWodan and Pholare riding througha wood. The horse on which Bald-er apparently the same gure asPholis riding wrenches his foot.The goddesses Sinthgunt, Sun-na, Frija, and Volla all magicallyheal the horse alongside the godWoden. The charm ends with therefrain bone to bone, blood toblood, joint to joints, so be mend-ed! (Ben zi bena, bluot si bluoda,lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin!).Sinthgunt is an otherwise unknown

goddess but is here said to be thesister of the goddess Sunna, thepersonied Sun, and Frija is in OldNorse sources known as the god-dess Frigg, the wife of Odin. Hereshe is the sister of Volla, a goddessalso associated with Frigg in OldNorse sources (Old Norse Fulla).

Other than these scant few men-tions, the continental mythology islimited to scattered bits and piec-es, small echoes of what once was,such as the Nordendorf I bula;a 6 th or 7 th century brooch foundin a grave all the way down in Ba-varia that features a runic inscrip-tion. The inscription mentions thenames of at least two gods, onar (Thor) and Wodan (Odin), in an un-clear context. Fortunately materialfrom Scandinavia offers far moreinsight.

Scandinaviaand Norse MythologyIn 12th century Denmark, the histo-rian Saxo Grammaticus authored aseries of Latin volumes called Ges-ta Danorum (The History of theDanes). In the early volumes ofthis work, Saxo produces a narra-

tive that includes a handful of dei-ties. Unfortunately, although Saxoclaims to accurately represent his

ed in the anonymous 7 th centuryOrigo Gentis Langobardorum,the gods Godan and Frea havetaken sides among two Germanicpeoples who have come into con-ict, the Vandals and the Winnili.Godan is Langobardic for the de-ity we nowadays popularly knowas Odin, whereas Frea is Lan-gobardic for either Frigg or Freyja (or a combination of bothit'scomplex). After being appealed toby the Winnili leadership for vic-

tory, Frea moves Woden's bed toface Eastward as he sleeps. Uponwaking, Odin sees the assembled

women of the Winnili with theirlong hair tied as if beards. Godan,surprised, asks who are theselong-beards? ( Qui sunt isti longi-barbae? ). Frea comments that hehas now named them and shouldgive them victory. As a result, theWinnili were thereafter known asthe Langobards; the long-beards. Strong mythical allusions arefound in two heathen charms dis-covered in the margin of a 9 th or

10th

century manuscript from Ful-da, Germany. In the rst of the twocharms, written in Old High Ger-


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source material, he seems to havedone anything but; Saxo presentsa heavily moralized narrative forhis own purposes and makes noattempts at objectivity. As a result,Gesta Danorum is a highly prob-lematic source for Norse mythol-ogy.

However, it is when we turn to thetiny island of Iceland that we get areal look at a late form of the my-thology that we are only allowedshort glimpses of in the continen-tal sources. Iceland, apparentlyChristianized by way of pressuredcompromise rather than military

force, had incubated its ancientarts and felt bold enough to putthem to parchment. It is on Ice-land where, in the 13 th century, twoenigmatic Old Norse works wereproduced that are our most im-portant records of Germanic my-thology; the Eddas.

The rst of the Eddas is now pop-ularly known as the Poetic Edda,and, as the name hints, it con-sists of a collection of numerouspoems. These poems almost ex-clusively deal with Norse mythol-ogy. The Poetic Edda was com-piled for unknown reasons by ananonymous individual, by way ofunknown, almost certainly oral in-formants. The second work, gener-ally known nowadays as the ProseEdda, consists of four books thatmainly consist of prose. Written bythe prolic and learned IcelanderSnorri, the Prose Edda is a manualfor skalds, a class of traditionalpoets in Scandinavian society thatincluded both males and females.Poets of this sort were likely oncewidespread throughout all of Ger-manic society. The Prose Edda quotes from and explains material

found in the Poetic Edda and con-tains a large amount of materialunique to it, such as archaic works

by individual skalds reaching hun-dreds of years before Christianiza-tion.

HUMANSDWELL IN

MIGARR,WHEREASTHE GODSMAINLY

DWELL INTHE SKY INA REALMCALLED

SGARRTaken together, the Eddas painta picture of a vibrant and com-plex cosmology. At the center ofall is the immense, celestial treeYggdrasill , whose roots reachbeyond comprehension. Upon

this tree lives a variety of beaststhat include four noble stagsand an insult-carrying squirrel,

while around the tree exists NineWorlds. In these worlds dwells avariety of beings, including elves,dwarfs, monsters, j tnar (singular j tunn), mankind, and, yes, gods.According to this scheme, wehumans dwell in Migarr , themiddle-enclosure, whereas thegods mainly dwell in the sky in arealm called sgarr , the god-en-closure. Mankind's relation to thegods is intimate; upon encoun-tering driftwood on a beach, thetrio decided to make from it therst two human beings, Askr andEmbla. The cosmos are made upof abstract personications and

vibrant metaphor. The Sun ( Sl ),a goddess that we met earlier onthe continent, is chased every dayby a wolf, while the Moon ( Mni),

joined by two children, is chasedby another wolf. The Earth ( J r )is personied as a goddess, themother of the god Thor, while theDay (Dagr ) is a shining god dailypassing his dark female counter-part, Night ( Ntt). The world it-self, the sky that surrounds it, andthe clouds that pass above it arecomposed of the elemental piec-es of the fallen ur- j tunn , Ymir , ahermaphroditic, primordial being,a likely echo of the Tuisto men-tioned by Tacitus around 1,200years prior.

Most of the myths center on thedealings and relations betweenthe gods and the j tnar (often in-accurately translated as giants),somewhat god-like beings whointermarry with, are related to, orcome into conict with the gods.While numerous gods are men-tioned in the Eddas and while thenumber of goddesses that appearin the text notably eclipse thenumber of gods, the Old Norse

texts often focus on the exploitsand adventures of the gods Odinand Thor.


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The one-eyed, spear-wielding godOdin ( inn), anked by two ra-vens whose names are Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memo-ry) and two wolves named Geri and Freki(whose names both meandesirous, ravenous), is the sub-

ject of many of the poems foundin the Poetic Edda. Similarly to theOld English Nine Herbs Charm that we visited earlier whereWoden is said to be a founder ofan alphabet, we are told that Odinhung himself from Yggdrasill fornine nights to gain the secret ofthe runic alphabet, which passed

on to mankind. Ever thirsting forknowledge, Odin gave one of hiseyes to the well of knowledge,Mmisbrunnr , and with him carriesthe herb-embalmed head of thewell's namesake owner, Mmir . Thehead speaks to him and tells himsecrets. Often disguised as a long-bearded old man, Odin's thirstfor knowledge leads him to wagerhis own head in verbal battles ofwit. Upon his eight-legged steedSleipnir , this thirst for knowledgeeven brings him beyond the worldof the living; to Hel , the name ofboth a location and goddess thatextends from the same Germanicorigin as our modern word Hell .There he asks from the dead hintsof what will be. It is therefore t-ting that Odin's wife, Frigg, is ableto see into the futureyet she tellsno one what will be.

Described in Old Norse sourcesas the son of Earth and Odin, thegod Thor ( rr ) was the most pop-ular god during the Viking Age, aperiod generally held to have last-ed from 793 to around the 11 th cen-tury. Many personal names andplace names from this period con-

tain his name and inscriptions onrunestones invoke his protection.Representations of his particular-

ly shaped hammer, Mj lnir , werecommonly worn during the VikingAge among believers. With its abil-

WE ARETOLD THATODIN HUNG

HIMSELFFROM

YGGDRASILLFOR NINE

NIGHTS TOGAIN THESECRET OFTHE RUNICALPHABET

ity to crush mountain ranges, Thoruses this hammer to assault hisfoes, yet it may also be used to

give blessings. Thor is a ferociousgod whose anger inspires terrorin those that witness it but is also

good-humored. He protects man-kind and rides a chariot led by thegoats Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjstr (teeth-snarler and teeth-grind-er) and is sometimes accompa-nied by a boy and girl ( Thjl andR skva) who act as his servantsand helpers. Thor's name trans-parently means thunder, and hisearth-associated, gold-haired wife,Sif , has been seen by scholars asembodying elds of golden wheat.In this sense, we are thus providedthe image of storm clouds rollingover vast wheat elds, the show-ers upon the grain resulting in sus-

tenance and health among man-kind.

While it is Odin and Thor that wehear most about, perhaps due tothe royal associations of the infor-mants or the compiler, membersof a family of deities known as theVanir also receive frequent men-tion. This family of deities includesthe goddess Freyja (the Lady),her brother Freyr (the Lord), andtheir father Nj rr (whose name islinguistically a descendant of theNerthus who we heard about fromTacitus so long ago). Freyja is themost commonly mentioned god-dess and was clearly one of themost important in the mythology. Itis with Freyja that Odin must splithalf of the dead in battle; Odin'sshare goes to the hall Valh ll andFreyja's share goes to her eldFlkvangr . A complex deity, Freyjaowns a cloak of falcon feathers,weeps tears of gold, and owns a fa-mously splendid necklace. Freyjais connected with witchcraft, cats,sex, and death.

Details about the many gods andgoddesses and their associated

mythology require far more thanthe space I am here allotted.Those who delve deeper than


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to tease out details and offer an-swers to these mysteries.

Folklore and ScholarshipAlthough we have no material

nearly as extensive as the OldNorse material on the continent(and doubtlessly the lore was just

as rich), detectable elements ofwhat once was are found in folk-lore, where traces of earlier mythsmay be encountered. As late asthe 11th century, edicts were beingissued against pagan practices inEngland, and deities are still men-tioned by namein some casesquite in line with the functionsdescribed in the pagan periodinfolklore records well as late as the20 th century.

However, it was the continuedcherishing of this mythologyamong the Icelanders that broughtthe myths that we have today to us.

After the 13th

century, manuscriptcopies of the Eddas continued tobe made in Icelandno inexpen-sive laborall the way up until the17th century, when editions wereprinted in Latin and Danish, bring-ing the Eddas to a much wideraudience and sparking a reinvigo-ration in Norse and general Ger-manic mythology in Europe. Thediscovery and translation of textssuch as the Eddas resulted in theacademic discipline of Germanic philology or Germanic studies.

Of the many faces and hands in thiseld, the most notable appearedin the 19th century; the linguist andfolklorist Jacob Grimm (1785-1863),who the reader may best knowas one of the Brothers Grimm. Tosay that Grimm was an importantgure for the study of Germanicmythology would be an under-statement. Due to his scientic in-novations in the area of linguistics,Grimm's inuence reaches wellbeyond the Germanic sphere, andsome scholars consider Grimm tobe to the humanities what CharlesDarwin was to the life sciences.Grimm's four-volume compendi-

um Teutonic Mythology (GermanDeutsche Mythologie) remains animportant work to this day.

this paper will read about how thegod Freyr gave up his self-ghtingsword for the love of the beautiful

j tunn Gerr and thus must facehis inevitable demise; about thearrival of the erce skiing goddessSkai, who comes down from hermountains for vengeance beforechoosing among the gods to marrybased on their feet alone; aboutthe death of the god Baldr (who weearlier met in Old High German),who dies by way of the mistletoearrow of his blind brother H r ,an act engineered by the maliceof the half-god Loki; about the ab-duction of the apple-bearing god-

dess Iunn, whose husband is theskaldic god Bragi; about the norns,valkyries, and the dsir , femalebeings associated with fate whoare much like the mothers andladies we encountered earlier;about the rst war, the sir-Vanir War , which ended in a truce whereall the gods spat into a cauldron,and from this the wisest of beingswas born, Kvasir , who thereaftertraveled the land spreading knowl-edge before he was murdered andhis blood distilled as the Meadof Poetry; and about the foretoldevents of Ragnar k, during whichthe gods and their foes ride to bat-tle, ending in the burning and re-birth of the world, a reinvigoratedworld to be populated by return-ing gods, their descendants, andtwo humans who hid in the woodsof Yggdrasill, Lf and Lfrasir .

From the haunting to the humor-ous, many myths await the readerof Norse mythology, well beyondthose that are described here.Still, the myths are at times highlymysterious in what they don't say;for example, why is there no dis-cussion of the thousands of stone

ships from the heathen period thatspeckle the Scandinavian land-scapes? [x] Scholarship continues

RAGNAROK,

DURING

WHICH

THE GODS

AND THEIR

FOES RIDE

TO BATTLE,ENDING IN THE

BURNING AND

REBIRTH OFTHE WORLD


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Since Grimm's time, mountainsof pages have been produced onthe subject of Germanic mythol-ogy, and his work has been muchquestioned, developed, and inno-vated upon. Beyond Grimm, themodern study of Germanic my-thology owes much to the schol-ars Jan de Vries (1890-1964) andGeorges Dumzil (1898-1986), whoinspired new generations of schol-ars and brought the study morein line with an Indo-European andmodern linguistic framework. Abody of works by British scholarsE. O. G. Turville-Petre (1908-1978)and particularly Hilda Ellis David-

son (1914-2006) provided fantas-tic English introductions to Norseand Germanic mythology for theEnglish-speaking general pub-licmyself included!through thepost-World War II period. Nowa-days handbooks by active Englishlanguage scholars Rudolf Simek,Andy Orchard, and John Lindoware only a computer click away,and increasingly quality Wikipediaentries for even the most obscureof topics may be found on the in-ternet free of cost.

The Gods Among UsOutside of modern academia thegods are still with us in many ways.In most Germanic languages, thedays of the week are still namedafter Germanic deities. We allknow Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday, and Friday; in otherwords, the day of the Sun, theMoon, the god Tiw (Tyr), the godWoden (Odin), the god Thunor (Thor), and the goddess Frige (Frigg). Various given names stillcontain the names of deities andother beings; Alfred literally meanself advice, whereas Ingridmeansbeauty of the god Ing, a name

you may remember from Tacitusthat is perhaps the true name ofthe important Norse fertility god

Freyr. The modern Danish formof the name of his beautiful andferocious sister Freyja, Freja, hasremained one of the most popularnames for Danish girls for the pastdecade [w]. And these are only afew examples. References to themythology are all around us.From the translations, ction, andpoetry of the British socialist poly-math William Morris (1834-1896)and the inuence he had on theBritish academic and author J. R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), to the worksof the German composer and con-ductor Richard Wagner (1813-1883),and even up to the American 2011

Marvel comics lm Thor , Ger-manic mythology has proven to bea sporadic wellspring to the arts.With the amount of resources andinformation rapidly available in themodern world, this tradition showsno sign of ending. Gods such asThor are more and more again be-coming household names.

In the religious sphere the godshave also returned. In the last 100years, the veneration of the oldgods has been revived and con-tinues to rapidly grow. In 2009,America's rst openly heathenpolitician, Dan Halloran, came tooffice in Queens, New York underthe Republican ticket. In 2012, thesatrarflagi (Asatru Associa-tion), now the largest non-Chris-tian religious group in Iceland [v],celebrated its 40 th anniversary bydonating 2 million Icelandic krnur(about 16,000 US dollars or about12,800 Euros) to the IcelandicCoast Guard's helicopter fund.

Germanic mythology is alive andwell in 2012.

Text | Joseph S. Hopkins, Univer-sity of Georgia Joseph S. Hopkins would like tothank Haukur orgeirsson, Juli-ana Roost, Dr. Alexander Sager,and Rebecca Brooks for their feedback while writing this ar-ticle.

Illustrations | Arthur Rackham(1867-1939) inspired by RichardWagner's Germanic mythology-inspired opera cycle Der Ringdes Nibelungen . Courtesy of theartist

Sources |

[z] Other terms in regular useinclude Common Germanic orsometimessimply enough Ger-manic .[y] Nsstrm, Britt-Mari (1995).Freyja - The Great Goddess ofthe North , page 21. Lund Studiesin History of Religions: Volume 5.University of Lund, Sweden.[x] For a 2011 article authoredby Haukur orgeirsson and my-self on this topic, see The Shipin the Field as published in TheRetrospective Methods NetworkNewsletter , No. 3, December 2011. The University of Helsinki.ISSN-L: 1799-4497 [w] Statistics Denmark federalwebsite, 2012: http://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/navne/NamesPop.aspx[v] Statistics Iceland federal web-site, 2012: http://www.statice.is/Statistics/Population/Religious-organizations

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Germanic Mythology, a very Brief Introduction