Proto-Germanic folklore is the
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging fro ...
of the speakers of
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic branc ...
and includes topics such as the
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. It was a key element of Germanic paganism.
Origins
As the Germanic language ...
,
legend
A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess ...
ry, and
folk belief
In folkloristics, folk belief or folk-belief is a broad genre of folklore that is often expressed in narratives, customs, rituals, foodways, proverbs, and rhymes. It also includes a wide variety of behaviors, expressions, and beliefs. Examples of ...
s of
early Germanic culture
Early Germanic culture refers to the culture of the early Germanic peoples. Largely derived from a synthesis of Proto-Indo-European and indigenous Northern European elements, the Germanic culture started to exist in the Jastorf culture that de ...
. By way of the
comparative method
In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards t ...
,
Germanic philologists, a variety of
historical linguist
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
, have proposed reconstructions of entities, locations, and concepts with various levels of security in early Germanic folklore (reconstructions are
indicated by the presence of an asterisk). The present article includes both reconstructed forms and proposed
motifs from the early Germanic period.
Linguistic reconstructions can be obtained via comparison between the various Germanic languages, comparison with related words in other
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
, especially
Celtic and
Baltic, comparison with borrowings into neighbouring language families such as
Uralic, or via a combination of those methods. This allows linguists to project some terms back to the Proto-Germanic period despite their attestation in only one Germanic language; for instance, ''*saidaz'' ('magic') is only attested in Old Norse ''seiðr'', but has parallels in Proto-Celtic ''*soytos'' and Lithuanian ''saitas''.
Deities
Entities
Locations
Other
See also
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Sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology
Trees hold a particular role in Germanic paganism and Germanic mythology, both as individuals (sacred trees) and in groups (sacred groves). The central role of trees in Germanic religion is noted in the earliest written reports about the Germanic ...
*
Proto-Celtic folklore
Notes
References
* Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989). ''Íslensk orðsifjabók''. Orðabók Háskólans.
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{{Germanic peoples
European folklore