Germanic mythology

• ·         Early Germanic tribes- mythology that was written comes from sources written down centuries

Later

• ·         6^th century onward writing became more common with the spread of Christianity and Roman conquest
• ·         Northern Germanic tribes converted later and recorded more
• ·         First written account of German religion comes from Julius ceaser
• ·         Next major source- tacitus- notes worship to roman gods (mercury), prominent god was woden, which didn’t show up till 3^rd century
• ·         Connections between gods named days of week, ie Wednesday, wodensday
• ·         Conducted ceremonies in forests and woods, casting lots to determine will of gods, future, etc. Called hlotum, hlot, then lot
• ·         Cast from old norse to throw away, cast lots
• ·         Word lot lead to words like lottery and lotto, games of chance
• ·         Words that described methods of predicting future with nature lead to words such as spectate, latin words from watch
• ·         Aster-astrology/ con-stella- constellation watching stars used to determine fate
• ·         Du-aster= disaster, when bad fate was seen in stars
• ·         Early germans had own pantheon of gods
• ·         Eul marked the 12 day winter festival, eul log, eul time.
• ·         Sinter claus, st Nicholas, then santa claus- based off odens wild hunt through the sky on an eight legged horse
• ·         Each of the three tribes comes from the sons of german “sky god”, tiu, tier.
• ·         Thursday is thors day, thunder god, thor=thunder
• ·         Friday is named after a Germanic goddess, friga or frea, possibly eastra
• ·         East comes from direction of suns rise, eastra and fertility can connect to easter
• ·         Bunnys and eggs represent fertility and fertility with eastra
• ·         Loki-father of hel, daughter banished to cold dark world of evil dead, name borrowed by Christianity became name of Christian concept of hell
• ·         Secured in kings james bible to describe hades
• ·         Germanic tribes had split belief of land of the dead (Viking funeral) burial at sea in ship
• ·         Soul can be traced back to place where the dead went
• ·         Original version of hell was an underwater kingdom of souls
• ·         Cella- sella- cell= place where person is contained
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