Teutonic mythology

“ TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY In the mythology of Germany proper, the name of Odin appears as Wotan; Freya and Frigga are regarded as one and the same divinity, and the gods are in general represented as less warlike in character than those in the Scandinavian myths. As a whole, however, Teutonic mythology runs along almost identical lines with that of the northern nations. The most notable divergence is due to modifications of the legends by reason of the difference in climatic conditions. The more advanced social condition of the Germans is also apparent in their mythology. ”

“ The mythology of the Teutons, like that of the Rigveda-Aryans, has had gods of both kinds—gods who particularly represent that order in the physical and moral world which became fixed in creation, and which, under normal conditions, remain entirely uniform, and gods who particularly represent the powerful temporary interference for the purpose of restoring this order when it has been disturbed, and for the purpose of giving protection and defence to their worshippers in times of trouble and danger. ”

“ All this, though done for purposes to benefit gods and men, demands and receives in the mythology its terrible retribution. It is a trait peculiar to the whole Teutonic mythology that evil deeds, with a good purpose, even when the object is attained, produce evil [Pg 661] results, which develop and finally smother the fruits of the good purpose. ”

“ Although the Teutonic gods are in a constant, more or less violent conflict with the powers of frost, still winter, when it observes its limits of time, is not an evil but a good divinity, and the cold liquids of Hvergelmer mixed with those of Urd's and Mimer's fountains are necessary to the world-tree. Still less could night be referred to the domain of demons. Mother Nat never transgresses the borders of her power; she never defies the sacred laws, which are established for the order of the universe. ”

“ But it is best not to relax the severity of the rules even when we compare the myths of peoples who, like the Teutons, the Iranians, and the Rigveda-Aryans, have the same origin and same language; who through centuries, and even long after their separation, have handed down from generation to generation similar mythological conceptions and mythical traditions. ”

“ This caution is the more important for the reason that an examination of Gylfaginning very soon shows that the whole cosmographical and eschatological structure which it has built out of fragmentary mythic traditions is based on a conception wholly foreign to Teutonic mythology, that is, on the conception framed by the scholars in Frankish cloisters, and then handed down from chronicle to chronicle, that the Teutons were descended from the Trojans, and that their gods were originally Trojan chiefs [Pg 397] and magicians. ”

“ Artists who produce fertility, ornaments, and weapons for the gods, know how to brew the strength- and inspiration-giving mead, and are closely connected with dises of vegetation, who, as we shall show, appear as swan-maids, not only in the Teutonic mythology but also in the Hindooic; the myths telling how this harmony was frustrated by a judgment in a competition, the contending parties being on the one hand he who in the Hindooic mythology made Indra's thunderbolt, and in the Teutonic Thor's thundering Mjolner ”

“ The venom drink which the damned person has to empty deprives him of that image of the gods in which he was made, and of the spirit which was the noble gift of the Asa-father. Changed into a monster, he goes to his destiny fraught with misfortunes.
The idea of a regeneration was not foreign to the faith of the Teutonic heathens. To judge from the very few statements we have on this point, it would seem that it was only the very best and the very worst who were thought to be born anew in the present world. ”

“ Loder also gave at the same time another gift, litr goda. To understand this expression (hitherto translated with "good complexion") , we must bear in mind that the Teutons, like the Hellenes and Romans, conceived the gods in human form, and that the image which characterises man was borne by the gods alone before man's creation, and originally belonged to the gods. To the hierologists and the skalds of the Teutons, as to those of the Greeks and Romans, man was created in effigiem deorum and had in his nature a divine image in the real sense of this word, a litr goda. ”

“ In some cases the scholars have resorted to text-changes in order to make the contents intelligible, and this was necessary on account of the form in which our mythology hitherto has been presented, and that for good reasons, since important studies of another kind, especially of accurate editions of the Teutonic mythological texts, have claimed the time of scholars and compelled them to neglect the study of the epic connection of the myths and of their exceedingly rich and abundant synonymics. ”

“ What the Aryan-Asiatic myth here given has in common with the Teutonic one concerning the subterranean persons in Mimer's grove can be summarised in the following words:
The lower world has a ruler, who does not belong to the group of immortal celestial beings, but enjoys the most friendly relations with the godhead, and is the possessor of great wisdom. In his kingdom flow inexhaustible fountains, and a tree grown out of its soil spreads its foliage over his dwelling, where he serves the mead of inspiration, which the gods are fond of and which he was the first to prepare. ”

“ A day was to come when Odin and Thor would fall in conflict with the wolf and the world-serpent, when the abode of the gods would be destroyed by fire and the earth sink into the sea. But the destruction was not to be final; in the future the gods of a younger generation would govern a better world. How far these beliefs were common to the Teutonic peoples as a whole cannot be determined with certainty. Some scholars hold that they were peculiar to the mythology of Norway and Iceland and that they arose at a late period, largely through Christian influence. ”

“ The heathen Teutonic conception of human nature, and of the factors composing it, is most like the Aryan-Asiatic as we find the latter preserved in the traditions of Buddhism, which assume more than three factors in a human being, and deny the existence of a soul, if this is to mean that all that is not corporal in man consists of a single simple, and therefore indissoluble, element, the soul. ”

“ Wilhelm Grimm, in the comparative notes which he added to successive editions of the Mährchen up to 1859, drew attention to many of these parallels and especially emphasized the resemblances of different incidents to similar ones in the Teutonic myths and sagas which he and his brother were investigating. Indeed it may be said that the very considerable amount of attention that was paid to the collection of folk tales throughout Europe for the half century between 1840 and 1890 was due to the hope that they would throw some light upon the origins of mythology. ”

“ This new earth will produce its fruits without labor or care; perpetual spring will reign, and sin and misery will be unknown. In this blissful abode, gods and men are to dwell together in a peace which the powers of evil can never again disturb.
Germany.
The Mythology of the Teutonic or Germanic race is neither so picturesque nor so well defined [Pg 256] as that of Scandinavia. Odin and other Scandinavian divinities were worshipped by the tribes who dwelt along the borders of the Northern Ocean ”

“ The distinguished commentator himself is bound to admit that the belief in their need of human help is entwined in the very roots of the Teutonic myths. It is, indeed, nothing but the mediæval and Teutonic form of tenets common to all the nations upon earth. The changeling superstition and the classic stories of children and adults beloved by gods of high and low degree are consistent with this belief, and inseparable from it. ”

“ It is now, however, admitted that, whatever influence the one may have from time to time exercised on the other, Teutonic myth and Teutonic heroic legend were developed on independent lines. The Teutonic heroes are, in the main, historical personages, never gods; though, like the Greek heroes, they are sometimes endowed with semi-divine attributes or interpreted as symbolical representations of natural forces. ”

“ A similar mode of explaining such objects is seen in the mythologies of northern Europe. In Scandinavia we constantly find rocks which tradition accounts for by declaring that they were hurled by the old gods at each other, or at the early Christian churches.
In Teutonic lands, as a rule, wherever a strange rock or stone is found, there will be found a myth or a legend, heathen or Christian, to account for it. ”

“ Varying as it does from age to age in historic value, it remains the first vernacular history of any Teutonic people, and save for the work of Ulfilas who found no successors among his Gothic people, the earliest and most venerable monument of Teutonic prose. ”

“ Among those whose Aryan descent is generally recognized as beyond dispute are the Teutons, to whom the Angles and Saxons belonged.
The Teutonic or Germanic people, after dwelling together in a body, appear to have scattered in various directions, their language gradually breaking up into three main groups, which can be already clearly distinguished in the 4th century A.D., North Germanic or Scandinavian, West Germanic or Low and High German, and East Germanic, of which the only important representative is Gothic. ”

“ We have always been taught to regard the Teutonic peoples—the Goths, Lombards, and Saxons—as tawny-haired, "large-limbed giants." History is filled with observations to that effect from the earliest times. ”

“ It is the Teutonic mystery which has us in its grip, a thing as readily recognizable as the Celtic glamour or the Egyptian gloom—a thing of the shadows of eld, stern, ancient, of a ponderous fantasy, instinct with the spirit of nature, of dwarfs, elves, kobolds, erlkings, the wraiths and shades of forest and flood, of mountain and mere, of castled height and swift whirlpool, the denizens of the deep valleys and mines, the bergs and heaths of this great province of romance, this rich satrapy of Faëry. ”

“ In so far as the practical-philosophical side of the folklore is concerned, the two invading: communities stood on much the same plane of culture, and there is little ground for asserting that their beliefs and practices differed sensibly. They were Teutonic if found among Teutons, Celtic if found among Celts, but in themselves of almost the same nature. ”

“ Side by side with the splendid achievement of the German mysticism, the Teutonic race has always been apt to give practical proof of its individualism by endless petty quarrels and by splittings into numerous cliques. ”

“ By the end of the eighth century, when other Teutonic races such as the Franks and the Bavarians had yielded to the civilizing influence of Christianity, they still cherished their old beliefs in the gods of nature and offered sacrifices to spirits dwelling in groves and fountains. ”

“ Among other Teutonic peoples, however, he seems at one time to have been a deity of considerable importance. In Anglo-Saxon he was called Tī (Ti, Tiig, gen. Tīwes, whence “Tuesday”) and equated with the Roman Mars. He is also identified with the German god mentioned more than once by Tacitus, as well as in inscriptions, by the name Mars. His Teutonic name is the same as the word for “god” in several other Indo-European languages (e.g. Lat. dīuus, Lith. dēvas, Skr. devas) , and even in Old Norse the plural tīvar was still used in the same sense. (See Teutonic Peoples § Religion, ad fin.) ”

“ On the whole it appears that those elements in the Homeric poems which may quite safely be derived from myth or folk-tale resemble the corresponding elements in Teutonic heroic poetry very closely. We may perhaps doubt whether the gods ever figured so conspicuously in Teutonic poetry as they do in the Iliad and Odyssey ”

“ Large ships containing human remains have sometimes been found in barrows of the viking age. Arms and ornaments are frequently met with, sometimes also horses and human remains which may be those of slaves, the belief being that the dead would have all that was buried with him at his service in the life beyond. Usage, however, seems to have varied a good deal in this respect at different times and in different districts.
6. Religion. - The conversion of the Teutonic peoples to Christianity was a gradual process, covering some seven centuries. ”

“ The Teutons loved personal freedom. They never called any man master, but followed their chosen leader as companions and equals. They could not even bear to have the houses of their villages set close together. And again we see the same independent spirit expressed in their assemblies of freemen, in which meetings, all matters of public interest were debated and decided. In this trait of the Teutonic disposition lay the germ of representative government and of Protestant, or Teutonic Christianity. ”

“ Our first glimpse of the Teutons shows them in their central German land, already occupying both sides of the Rhine, though seemingly not very old settlers on its left bank. The long wanderings of the various Teutonic and Slavonic tribes over all parts of central Europe, their settlements in the southern and western lands, are all matters of history. So is the great Teutonic settlement in the British islands, which partly exterminated, partly assimilated, their Celtic inhabitants, so as to leave them as mere a remnant, though a greater remnant, as they themselves had made the Basques. ”