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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.
The god Baldr is attested from Scandinavia, England, and Germany; except for the Old High German Second Merseburg Charm (9th century CE), all literary references to the god are from Scandinavia and nothing is known of his worship. [233] The god Freyr was the most important fertility god of the Viking Age. [234]
Ancient Germanic paganism was a polytheistic religion practised in prehistoric Germany and Scandinavia, as well as Roman territories of Germania by the first century AD. It had a pantheon of deities that included Donar/Thunar, Wuotan/Wodan, Frouwa/Frua, Balder/Phol/Baldag, and others shared with northern Germanic paganism. [13]
After the nominal Christianisation of Anglo-Saxons and Saxons in the 7th and 8th centuries, many heathen practices centered on trees such as worship and giving of gifts were made punishable crimes. [18] [19] Despite this, 11th century accounts describe the continuation of votive offering deposition at trees in England and worship in groves in ...
Many of the deities found in Germanic paganism appeared under similar names across the Germanic peoples, most notably the god known to the Germans as Wodan or Wōden, to the Anglo-Saxons as Woden, and to the Norse as Óðinn, as well as the god Thor – known to the Germans as Donar, to the Anglo-Saxons as Þunor and to the Norse as Þórr.
Figure carved on the Frankish grave stele called the Niederdollendorf stone (seventh century), known as the earliest material witness of Christian presence in the German Rhineland; the figure is presumably a depiction of Christ as a heroic warrior wielding a lance, with a halo or crown of rays emanating from his head.
Thor's Fight with the Giants (Tors strid med jättarna) by Mårten Eskil Winge (1872).. Thor (from Old Norse: Þórr) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism.In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, and fertility.
According to Herbert Schutz, most of their gods were "worldly", possessing form and having concrete relation to earthly objects, in contradistinction to the transcendent God of Christianity. [3] Tacitus also mentioned a goddess Nerthus being worshipped by the Germanic people, in whom Perry thinks the Franks may have shared a belief. [ 6 ]