Germanic mythology

Germanic mythology consists of the body of myths native to the Germanic peoples, including Norse mythology, Anglo-Saxon mythology, and Continental Germanic mythology.^[1]^[2]^[3] It was a key element of Germanic paganism.

Origins

As the Germanic languages developed from Proto-Indo-European language, Germanic mythology is ultimately a development of Proto-Indo-European mythology. Archaeological remains, such as petroglyphs in Scandinavia, suggest continuity in Germanic mythology since at least the Nordic Bronze Age.^[1]^[2]

Sources

The earliest written sources on Germanic mythology include literature by

Vita Ansgari by Rimbert, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum by Adam of Bremen, and Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus.^[1]

Merseburg Charms, the Nibelungenlied,^[2] and various pieces of Old English literature, particularly Beowulf.^[1] The most important sources on Germanic mythology, however, are works of Old Norse literature, most of which were written down in the Icelandic Commonwealth during the Middle Ages; of particular importance is the Poetic Edda.^[1]

Archaeological evidence, Runic inscriptions and place-names are also useful sources on Germanic mythology.^[1]

Mythology

The myths of the Germanic peoples feature narratives focused on Germanic deities and a variety of other entities.

Cosmology

The beginning and end of the world is told in Völuspá, the first and best known poem in the Poetic Edda. The seeress in Völuspá tells of how the world began with a great magical nothingness called Ginnungagap, until Odin and his two brothers raised the Earth from the sea. They came across the tree trunks Ask and Embla, whom they created into the first human couple.^[1]

The accounts of Völuspá are contrasted with those in

Indo-Iranian religion, testifying to the ancient Indo-European origins of Germanic mythology.^[1]

A central point in the Germanic cosmos is the tree Yggdrasil.^[3] Germanic mythology prophesises the end of the world in a coming Ragnarök.^[1]

Deities

A number of Germanic gods are mentioned in Old Norse literature and they are divided into the Æsir and the Vanir. The Æsir are primarily gods of war and dominate the latter, who are gods of fertility and wealth.^[1]

The chief god of the Æsir is Odin, a god associated with war, seiðr (witchcraft), and wisdom. He was probably worshipped primarily by kings and noblemen rather than the common people. Odin is the lord of Asgard, the abode of the gods, which includes the majestic hall Valhalla, where warriors who died a heroic death in battle (Einherjar) were admitted in order to prepare them to help Odin in the coming Ragnarök.^[1]

Odin's wife was

Heimdallr, who is reported in Rígsþula to have fathered the three classes of men; and Týr, a god associated with war and who lost his hand to the wolf Fenrir, who some scholars have proposed on linguistic evidence may have been a central deity in the Germanic pantheon in earlier times.^[1]

In Old Norse literature, the Æsir and Vanir are described as being in conflict. Through this conflict, certain Vanir gods, such as

Hel, who oversees an underworld location of the same name.^[3]