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A scene from one of the Merseburg Incantations: gods Wodan and Balder stand before the goddesses Sunna, Sinthgunt, Volla, and Friia (Emil Doepler, 1905). In Germanic paganism, the indigenous religion of the ancient Germanic peoples who inhabit Germanic Europe, there were a number of different gods and goddesses.
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 .
The following section first includes some information on the gods attested during the Roman period, then the four main Germanic gods *Tiwaz (Tyr), Thunraz (Thor), *Wodanaz (Odin), and Frijjō (Frigg), who are securely attested since the early Middle Ages but were probably worshiped during Roman times, [155] and finally some information on other ...
In his Germania, Tacitus says that the Germanic peoples "consecrate woods and groves and they apply the name of gods to that mysterious presence which they see only with the eye of devotion", [9] Tacitus describes the grove of the Semnones and refers to a castum nemus ('chaste grove') in which the image of the goddess Nerthus was hallowed, and ...
This category includes the most important and best-known gods of the Germanic world. For more, see the categories Anglo-Saxon gods , Æsir and Vanir . See also Category:Germanic goddesses .
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Compared to North Germanic and, to a lesser extent, Anglo-Saxon mythology, examples of Continental Germanic paganism are extremely fragmentary. Besides a handful of brief Elder Futhark inscriptions the lone, genuinely pagan Continental Germanic documents are the short Old High German Merseburg Incantations.
Scholars have proposed a variety of figures in the ancient Germanic record as extensions of this motif. Tacitus (Germania), mentions twin deities, the Alcis (PGmc *alhiz ~ *algiz), who he compares to the Greek Dioscuri. The deities are generally seen as a reflex of the Proto-Indo-European Divine twins. Their name either means 'elk' or 'protector'.