1 This reading consists of Chapter 1, “Introduction,” together with the bibliography, from the book Barbarian Rites: The Spiritual World of the Vikings and the Germanic Tribes by Hans-Peter Hasenfratz, Ph.D. (Prof. Emeritus in History of Religions, University of Bochum, Germany) Translated by Michael Moynihan ISBN 978-1-59477-421-8 $16.95 This is a pre-publication version of this material, with permission granted by the publisher solely for classroom use. All rights reserved; this document may not be distributed in any other context. The above book title is forthcoming in spring 2011 from: Inner Traditions, One Park St., Rochester, Vermont 05767 www.innertraditions.com [Note: The designation TN in the footnotes indicates “translator’s note.” All other notes are by the author.] 2 Chapter 1: Introduction A. What is “Germanic”? It would be nice if we could “discover some of our own history” by studying Germanic religion—assuming that we ourselves are “Germanic people” or live in an area “settled by the Germanic peoples.” It would be nicer still if by doing so we could “recover some of our own identity”—assuming that we feel our identity has been lost. In order to do this we would first have to know what “Germanic” means and who the Germanic peoples were. Were they the ethnic groups whom the authors of classical antiquity bestowed with the name Germani, and were all of these groups really Germanic peoples? Were the legendary “Teutons,” who harried the Romans tooth and nail, actually a Germanic group? The phonological form of their tribal name (Teutoni, Teutones) mentioned in the classical sources actually shows no specifically Germanic linguistic features and could well be Celtic (compare the Celtic term teuto ‘people, folk’). And were the bearers of the early Iron Age Jastorf culture in Lower Saxony “Germanic”? What about the early Bronze Age Jutish Single-Grave Culture that preceded them? Should the latter be considered Germanic simply due to the fact that modern settlement archeology or ethnographical research is incapable of demonstrating any breaks in “cultural continuity” for this “cultural region” up through to the “Germania” of the Imperial Roman period? And if that is the case, then what are the “typically Germanic” features of this cultural continuity?1 If it is hard enough to say for sure who the Germanic peoples were, it is even more difficult to know what is “Germanic.” There have been those who thought that they knew what it meant, and their “knowledge” caused worldwide catastrophe. Were “genetic purity,” “bravery,” “love of freedom and honor,” “straightforwardness and loyalty,” and “stern morality” the hallmarks of the “Germanic type,” as is implied by the description of the Roman historian Tacitus (circa 100 CE)? And is the “Germanic world” therefore, as Hegel claimed, the fourth “world epoch”—following the Oriental, Greek, and Roman ages that preceded it—in which the “World Spirit” (Weltgeist) expresses itself most fully, the age of the highest level of historical human development as determined by the Germanic peoples? Or were, as Alfred Rosenberg assumed, “honor and duty” the “highest values” of the “Aryan (Indo-European) racial soul” most 1 In this regard, see Kilian 1988, who provides a good overview of the problem but whose views I do not incidentally share. 3 typically embodied in the “Germanic race,” so that dominion over “less worthy” peoples must in some way be an inherent entitlement of the Germanic human being?2 Although we may barely know who the Germanic peoples were—and those who thought they knew what the “Germanic essence” was may have failed in their claims of such “knowledge”—we can nevertheless be sure of one thing. We can define “Germanic” in terms of language, as the linguistic branch that differentiated itself from its earlier Indo-European predecessor through a specific set of phonological changes that are termed the “Germanic sound shift.” The Germanic peoples can therefore be defined as those who spoke a Germanic language. This language branch—and those who spoke it—are probably attested since the second century BCE with the so-called Negau helmet found in northern Slovenia. This bears the Germanic inscription HARIGASTITEIVA (“[dedicated] to the god Harigast” or “[dedicated] to the god Teiva by Harigast”).3 B. What is “Germanic Religion”? We are now in a position to specify what we mean by the term “Germanic religion.” It comprises the religious practices of Germanic-language speakers before their Christianization (and which continue after their Christianization to some degree in the form of folk beliefs). Although this external designation of “Germanic religion” may be relatively easy to formulate, it remains much more difficult to describe what it consisted of internally. This is due to the nature of the sources. The most detailed textual sources relating to the religion of the Germanic peoples—the Elder and Younger Eddas and the sagas of Icelanders—were first compiled and written down by Christians in the Christian era. These texts do not simply provide us with pre-Christian religious traditions, but rather they are at the same time the (learned) opinions of Christian antiquarians about Germanic religion, or in many cases they offer us a poetic glimpse into relationships from the Christian era (but not necessarily from “heathen prehistory”) in front of a “heathen backdrop.” Authentic pieces of Germanic evidence from the earlier period present us with many problems concerning our understanding of Germanic religion. They often raise more questions than they 2 See Hasenfratz 1989a for a discussion of the metaphysical representation of the Germanic peoples in National Socialist ideology. 3 The Indo-European consonants /k/, /gh/, and /d/ shift respectively to /(c)h/, /g/, and /t/ in Germanic. These sounds can be seen in the Nagau inscription in the forms hari-, gasti-, and teiva. Regarding the inscription, see the entry “Harigast” in Simek 1993, 132, and an opposing view in Ström 1975, 86. 4 answer, or else force us to rely on the aforementioned textual sources from the later (Christian) period in order to interpret their meaning. Someone who really wants to make sense of the Gothic runic inscription gutaniowihailag from Bucharest (Pietroassa) in the third century CE, or someone who expects to gain truly sensational revelations from it with regard to Germanic religion, may take their pick from the following scholarly interpretations: “[dedicated] to the god Jupiter (Donar/Thor) of the Goths, sacrosanct,” or “powerfully protected sacred object of the Gutania (tribal matronae of the Goths?)” or “ancestral property of the Goths, consecrated, holy,” or “ancestral property of the Goths. I am holy!” And what moderately informed person who assesses a Norwegian runic inscription from the fourth century CE (lina laukaR: “linen and leek”) wouldn’t immediately think of the relevant Icelandic story—the historical value of which is highly debatable—from the Christian period (the thirteenth to fourteenth century) about an (alleged) heathen ritual involving linen and leek (and a horse phallus)?4 It sounds even more daring when a Bronze Age Nordic rock carving of a god(?) with two hammers and a giant phallus is interpreted as identical with the Germanic god Thor, whose hammer is well known from the Eddic tales. This doesn’t mean, however, that a prehistoric drawing depicting a god might not be able to help a scholar of religion to reconstruct the mythology of a later Germanic deity named “Thor.” Probably just as good or better as a source is the Roman author Tacitus, who called Donar/Thor “Hercules” (probably because of his club-like weapon) and who was otherwise knowledgeable in reporting all kinds of things about the religion of the Germanic peoples, but whose description of the latter was not actually concerned with Germanic peoples, but rather with his own Roman contemporaries—to whom he held up a mirror with the image of the Germanics to show how Rome once was and how it could be once more: true to itself, brave, free, and chaste. The term “Germanic religion” becomes even more complicated when we realize that there are actually many “Germanic religions” to consider. There is the religion of those who spoke North Germanic languages and from whom we have the most detailed, coherent group of written sources; there is the religion of those who spoke South Germanic (also termed West Germanic) languages, for which the sources are generally more sparse and in any case more disparate; and there is the religion of those who spoke East Germanic languages, about which we factually know nothing. And even within these respective “religions” there are specific 4 On the preceding comments: the inscribed ring is probably an oath-ring; see the entry “Ring oath” in Simek 1993, 266. 5 distinctions relating to social class that should also be taken into account. The religion of the court poets (for example, the skalds at the courts of Norwegian princes) may not automatically correspond to that of the bands of youthful raiders (Vikings), or correspond at all with that of the peasants (or town dwellers)—even if we accept that there was a certain amount of “social mobility” between classes. It’s quite clear after all that a religion connected with a linguistic community and a particular class will change over time, and therefore one cannot speak absolutely about a “single religion” in chronological terms either. But keeping all of that in mind, we can state what a description of “Germanic religion” is capable of. Only in the rarest instances is it possible to show how Germanic religion “really was.” More often, one can simply show how different sources portray it and how the (Christian) authors of these sources saw it in their own time.