Chapter 15

This is all very true, but there is nothing to prevent Irmino or Irmin having had a personal preference in previous centuries: have we not seen, side by side with Zeus and Týr, the common noun deus and the prefix tý-, tîr- (p. 195-6)? conf. p. 339. If Sæteresdæg has got rubbed down to Saturday, Saterdach (p. 125), so may Eritac point to a former Erestac (p. 202), Eormenleáf to Eormenes leáf, Irmansûl to Irmanessûl; we also met with Donnerbühel for Donnersbühel (p. 170), Woenlet for Woenslet, and we say Frankfurt for Frankenfurt [Oxford for Oxenaford, &c.]. The more the sense of the name faded out, the more readily did the genitive form drop away; the OHG. godes hûs is more literal, the Goth. guþhûs more abstract, yet both are used, as the OS. regano giscapu and regangiscapu, metodo giscapu and metodgiscapu held their ground simultaneously. As for geormen = eormen, it suggests Germanus (Gramm. 1, 11).

It is true, Tacitus keeps the Hermino that lies latent inhis Herminones apart from Arminius with whom the Romans waged war; yet his famous 'canitur adhuc barbaras apud gentes,' applied to the destroyer of Varus, might easily arise through simply misinterpreting such accounts as reached the Roman ear of German songs about the mythical hero. Granted that irmansûl expressed word for word no more than 'huge pillar,' yet to the people that worshipped it it must have been a divine image, standing for a particular god. To discover who this was, we can only choose one of two ways: either he was one of the three great divinities, Wôdan, Thonar, Tiu, or some being distinct from them.

But here we must, above all things, ponder the passage partly quoted on p. 111 from Widukind, himself a Saxon; it says, a heathen god was worshipped, whose name suggested Mars, his pillar-statue Hercules, and the place where he was set up the sun or Apollo. After that, he continues: 'Ex hoc apparet, aestimationem illorum utcumque probilem, qui Saxones originem duxisse putant de Graecis, quia Hirmin vel Hermes graece Mars dicitur, quo vocabulo ad laudem vel ad vituperationem usque hodie etiam ignorantes utimur'. From this it follows, that the god to whom the Saxons sacrificed after their victory over the Thuringians was called Hirmin, Irmin, and in the 10th century the name was still affixed in praise or blame to very eminent or very desperate characters. (22) Apollo is brought in by the monk, because the altar was built ad orientalem portam, and Hercules, because his pillar called up that of the native god; no other idol can have been meant, than precisely the irminsûl (pp. 115-118), and the true form of this name must have been Irmines, Irmanes or Hirmines sûl. The Saxons had set up a pillar to their Irmin on the banks of the Unstrut, as they did in their own home.

The way Hirmin, Hermes and Mars are put together seems a perfect muddle, though Widukind sees in it a confirmation of the story about the Saxons being sprung from Alexander's army (Widuk. 1, 2 Sachsensp. 3, 45). We ought to remember, first, that Wôdan was occasionally translated Mars instead of Mercurius (pp. 121, 133), and had all the appearance of the Roman Mars given him (p. 133); then further, how easily Irmin or Hirmin in itself is connected with Eres- burg (p. 116). What the Corvei annalist kept distinct (p. 111), the two images of Ares and of Hermes, are confounded by Widukind. But now, which has the better claim to be Irmin, Mars or Mercury? On p. 197 I have pronounced rather in favour of Mars, as Mülenhoff too (Haupt 7, 384) identifies Irmin with Ziu; one might even be inclined to see in it the name of the war-god brought out on p. 202, 'Eru, Heru,' and to dissect Irman, Erman into Ir-man, Er-man, though, to judge by the forms Irmin, Eormen, Ermun, Iörmun, this is far from probable, the word being deprivative indeed, yet simple, not compound; we never find, in place of Ertag, dies Martis, any such form as Ermintac, Irminestac. On behalf of Mercury there would speak the accidental, (23) yet striking similarity of the name Irmansûl or Hirmensûl to Ermhj and erma = prop, stake, pole, pillar (p. 118), and that it was preciesely Herme's image or head that used to be set up on such ermata, and further, that the Mid. Ages referred the irmen-pillars to Mercury (p. 116). In Hirmin the Saxons appear to have worshipped a Wôdan imaged as a warrior.

If this view be well grounded, we have Wôdan wedging himself into the ancient line of heroes; but the question is, whether Irmin is not to be regarded as a second birth or son of the god, whether even an ancestral hero Irmino is not to be distinguished from this god Irmin, as Hermino in Tacitus is from Arminius? So from thiod, regin, were formed the names Thiodo, Regino. It would be harder to show any such relation between Ing and Ingo, Isc and Isco; but I think I can suggest another principle which will decide this point: when races name themselves after a famous ancestor, this may be a deified man, a demigod, but never a purely divine being. There are Ingaevones, Iscaevones, Herminones, Oescingas, Scilfingas, Ynglîngar (for Ingîngar), Völsûngar, Niflûngar, (24) as there were Heracleidae and Pelopidae, but no Wôdeningas or Thunoringas, though a Wôdening and a Kronides. The Anglo-Saxons, with Wôden always appearing at their head, would surely have borne the name of Wôdeningas, had it been customary to take name from the god himself. Nations do descend from the god, but through the medium of a demigod, and after him they name themselves. A national name taken from the highest god would have been impious arrogance, and alien to human feeling.

As Lower Saxony, especially Westphalia, was a chief seat of the Irmin-worship, we may put by the side of Widukind's account of Hirmin a few other traces of his name, which is not even yet entirely extinct in that part of Germany. Strodtmann has noted down the following phrases in Osnabrück: 'he ment, use herre gott heet Herm (he thinks our Lord is called H., i.e., is never angry); use herre gott heet nich Herm, he heet leve herre, un weet wal tóte-gripen (knows how to fall on)'. Here there seems unconcealed a slight longing for the mild rule of the old heathen god, in contrast to the strictly judging and punishing christian God. In Saxon Hesse (on the Diemel), in the districts of Paderborn, Ravensberg and Münster, in the bishopric of Minden and the duchy of Westphalia, (25) the people have kept alive the rhyme:

Hermen, sla dermen,

sla pipen, sla trummen,

de kaiser wil kummen

met hamer un stangen, (26)

wil Hermen uphangen.



ENDNOTES:

22. Much as we say now: he is a regular devil, or in Lower Saxony hamer (p. 182). The prefix irmin- likewise intensifies in a good or bad sense; like 'irmingod, irminthiod,' there may have been an irminthiob = 'meginthiob, reginthiob'. Back

23. To the Greek aspirate corresponds a Teutonic S, not H: o, h, sa, sô; epta sibun; alj salt. [There are exceptions: o, h, oi he, her, hig; oloj whole, hela; elw haul, holen]. Back

24. A patronymic suffix is not necessary: the Gântôs, Gevissi, Suâpâ take name from Gáuts, Gevis, Suâp, divine heroes. Back

25. Rommel's Hessen. 1. p. 66 note. Westphalia (Minden 1830) i. 4, 52 The tune is given in Schumann's Musical. zeitung for 1836. Back

26. Variants: mit stangen und prangen (which also means staves); mit hamer un tangen (tongs). Back