Common Germanic Deities
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Common Germanic Deities
Proto-Germanic folklore is the folklore of the speakers of Proto-Germanic and includes topics such as the Germanic mythology, legendry, and folk beliefs of early Germanic culture. By way of the comparative method, Germanic philology, Germanic philologists, a variety of Historical linguistics, historical linguist, have proposed reconstructions of entities, locations, and concepts with various levels of security in early Germanic folklore (reconstructions are Asterisk#Historical linguistics, indicated by the presence of an asterisk). The present article includes both reconstructed forms and proposed Motif-Index of Folk-Literature#Terminology, 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, especially Celtic languages, Celtic and Baltic languages, Baltic, comparison with borrowings into neighbouring language families such as Uralic lan ...
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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 from traditional building styles common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, the forms and rituals of celebrations such as Christmas and weddings, folk dances and initiation rites. Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact or traditional cultural expression. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain in a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts. Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstr ...
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Aušrinė
Aušrinė ("dawning", not to be confused with ''Aušra'', "dawn") is a feminine deity of the morning star (Venus) in the Lithuanian mythology. She is the antipode to "Vakarinė", the evening star. Her cult possibly stems from that of the Indo-European dawn goddess Hausōs and is related to the Latvian Auseklis, Greek Eos, Roman Aurora and Vedic Ushas. Aušrinė is the goddess of beauty, love and youth, linked with health, re-birth and new beginnings. After the Christianization of Lithuania, the cult merged with Christian images and the symbolism of the Virgin Mary. Historical attestation Aušrinė was first mentioned by 16th-century Polish historian Jan Łasicki as ''Ausca''. He described a "goddess of the rays of the sun that descend and rise above the horizon". Folkloric role According to folklore, each morning Aušrinė and her servant Tarnaitis (possibly Mercury) prepare the way for Saulė (the Sun). In the evening, Vakarinė prepares the bed for Saulė. The relations ...
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Freyr
Freyr (Old Norse: 'Lord'), sometimes anglicized as Frey, is a widely attested god in Norse mythology, associated with kingship, fertility, peace, and weather. Freyr, sometimes referred to as Yngvi-Freyr, was especially associated with Sweden and seen as an ancestor of the Swedish royal house. According to Adam of Bremen, Freyr was associated with peace and pleasure, and was represented with a phallic statue in the Temple at Uppsala. According to Snorri Sturluson, Freyr was "the most renowned of the æsir", and was venerated for good harvest and peace. In the mythological stories in the Icelandic books the ''Poetic Edda'' and the ''Prose Edda'', Freyr is presented as one of the Vanir, the son of the god Njörðr and his sister-wife, as well as the twin brother of the goddess Freyja. The gods gave him Álfheimr, the realm of the Elves, as a teething present. He rides the shining dwarf-made boar Gullinbursti and possesses the ship Skíðblaðnir which always has a favorable ...
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Algiz
Algiz (also Elhaz) is the name conventionally given to the "''z''-rune" of the Elder Futhark runic alphabet. Its transliteration is ''z'', understood as a phoneme of the Proto-Germanic language, the terminal ''*z'' continuing Proto-Indo-European terminal ''*s''. It is one of two runes which express a phoneme that does not occur word-initially, and thus could not be named acrophonically, the other being the ''ŋ''-rune Ingwaz . As the terminal ''*-z'' phoneme marks the nominative singular suffix of masculine nouns, the rune occurs comparatively frequently in early epigraphy. Because this specific phoneme was lost at an early time, the Elder Futhark rune underwent changes in the medieval runic alphabets. In the Anglo-Saxon futhorc it retained its shape, but it was given the sound value of Latin ''x''. This is a secondary development, possibly due to runic manuscript tradition, and there is no known instance of the rune being used in an Old English inscription. In Proto-Nors ...
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Divine Twins
The Divine Twins are youthful horsemen, either gods or demigods, who serve as rescuers and healers in Proto-Indo-European mythology. Like other Proto-Indo-European divinities, the Divine Twins are not directly attested by archaeological or written materials, but scholars of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies generally agree on the motifs they have reconstructed by way of the comparative method. Common traits Scholar Donald Ward proposed a set of common traits that pertain to divine twin pairs of Indo-European mythologies: * dual paternity; * mention of a female figure (their mother or their sister); * deities of fertility; * known by a single dual name or having rhymed/alliterative names; * associated with horses; * saviours at sea; * of astral nature; * protectors of oaths; * providers of divine aid in battle; and * magic healers. Name Although the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) name of the Divine Twins cannot be reconstructed with certainty based on the available lin ...
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Dioscuri
Castor; grc, Κάστωρ, Kástōr, beaver. and Pollux. (or Polydeukes). are twin half-brothers in Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri.; grc, Διόσκουροι, Dióskouroi, sons of Zeus, links=no, from ''Dîos'' ('Zeus') and ''Kouroi, koûroi'' ('boys'). Their mother was Leda (mythology), Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who raped Leda in the guise of a swan. The pair are thus an example of heteropaternal superfecundation. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. In Latin the twins are also known as the Gemini (literally "twins") or Castores, as well as the Tyndaridae or Tyndarids.. Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality with his twin to keep them together, and they were transformed into the con ...
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Alcis (gods)
The Alcis (Proto-Germanic *') were a pair of young brothers worshipped by the Naharvali, an ancient Germanic tribe. Name and origin According to some scholars, the name ''Alcis'' should be interpreted as a Latinized form of Proto-Germanic ''*'' (or ''*''), meaning 'elk (''Alces alces'')' (cf. Old Norse ''elgr,'' Old English ''eolh'', Old High German ''elaho''). This would make the Alcis brothers the elk- or stag-gods. Other scholars propose to link *' to the Germanic root *''alh''- (cf. Goth. ''alhs'' 'temple', Old English ''ealgian'' 'to protect'; further Lith. '' alkas'' 'holy grove'), and thus to interpret the Alcis as 'protective' deities. The Alcis are generally regarded as a reflex of the Divine Twins, a pair of Indo-European youthful horsemen. This may give support to the interpretation of the Alcis as elk-shaped or elk-gods, even though the widespread description of the Divine Twins as rescuers, healers and protectors in other Indo-European mythologies does not rule ...
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Hengist And Horsa
Hengist and Horsa are Germanic brothers said to have led the Angles, Saxons and Jutes in their invasion of Britain in the 5th century. Tradition lists Hengist as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent. Most modern scholarly consensus now regards Hengist and Horsa to be mythical figures, and much scholarship has emphasised the likelihood of this based on their alliterative animal names, the seemingly constructed nature of their genealogy, and the unknowable quality of the earliest sources of information for their reports in the works of Bede.Halsall (2013:60-62). Their later detailed representation in texts such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle can tell us more about ninth-century attitudes to the past than anything about the time in which they are said to have existed.Yorke (1993).Harland (2021:32). According to early sources, Hengist and Horsa arrived in Britain at Ebbsfleet on the Isle of Thanet. For a time, they served as mercenaries for Vortigern, King of the Britons, but lat ...
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Baldr
Baldr (also Balder, Baldur) is a god in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, Baldr (Old Norse: ) is a son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, and has numerous brothers, such as Thor and Váli. In wider Germanic mythology, the god was known in Old English as , and in Old High German as , all ultimately stemming from the Proto-Germanic theonym ('hero' or 'prince'). During the 12th century, Danish accounts by Saxo Grammaticus and other Danish Latin chroniclers recorded a euhemerized account of his story. Compiled in Iceland during the 13th century, but based on older Old Norse poetry, the ''Poetic Edda'' and the ''Prose Edda'' contain numerous references to the death of Baldr as both a great tragedy to the Æsir and a harbinger of Ragnarök. According to ''Gylfaginning'', a book of Snorri Sturluson's Prose Edda, Baldr's wife is Nanna and their son is Forseti. Baldr had the greatest ship ever built, Hringhorni, and there is no place more beautiful than his hall, Breidablik ...
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Aurvandill
Aurvandill (Old Norse) is a figure in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the god Thor tosses Aurvandill's toe – which had frozen while the thunder god was carrying him in a basket across the Élivágar rivers – into the sky to form a star called ' ('Aurvandill's toe'). In wider medieval Germanic-speaking cultures, he was known as ' in Old English, ' in Old High German, ' in Lombardic, and possibly as ' in Gothic. An Old Danish Latinized version, ''Horwendillus'' (Ørvendil), is also the name given to the father of ''Amlethus'' (Amleth) in Saxo Grammaticus' ''Gesta Danorum''. Comparative studies of the various myths where the figure is involved have led scholars to reconstruct a Common Germanic mythical figure named ', which seems to have personified the 'rising light' of the morning, possibly the Morning Star (Venus). However, the German and – to a lesser extent – the Old Danish evidence remain difficult to interpret in this model. Name and origin Etymology The Ol ...
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Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never far from the Sun, either as morning star or evening star. Aside from the Sun and Moon, Venus is the brightest natural object in Earth's sky, capable of casting visible shadows on Earth at dark conditions and being visible to the naked eye in broad daylight. Venus is the second largest terrestrial object of the Solar System. It has a surface gravity slightly lower than on Earth and has a very weak induced magnetosphere. The atmosphere of Venus, mainly consists of carbon dioxide, and is the densest and hottest of the four terrestrial planets at the surface. With an atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface of about 92 times the sea level pressure of Earth and a mean temperature of , the carbon dioxide gas at Venus's surface is in the ...
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Aurvandil
Aurvandill (Old Norse) is a figure in Germanic mythology. In Norse mythology, the god Thor tosses Aurvandill's toe – which had frozen while the thunder god was carrying him in a basket across the Élivágar rivers – into the sky to form a star called ' ('Aurvandill's toe'). In wider medieval Germanic-speaking cultures, he was known as ' in Old English, ' in Old High German, ' in Lombardic, and possibly as ' in Gothic. An Old Danish Latinized version, ''Horwendillus'' (Ørvendil), is also the name given to the father of ''Amlethus'' (Amleth) in Saxo Grammaticus' ''Gesta Danorum''. Comparative studies of the various myths where the figure is involved have led scholars to reconstruct a Common Germanic mythical figure named ', which seems to have personified the 'rising light' of the morning, possibly the Morning Star (Venus). However, the German and – to a lesser extent – the Old Danish evidence remain difficult to interpret in this model. Name and origin Etymology The O ...
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