Waarom at men vroeger vaak gevogelte?

Geschreven door Dyami Millarson

Gemak dient de mens. Men at vroeger vaak gevogelte omdat het makkelijk is. Vogels zijn overal en het vlees is zacht waardoor het makkelijk te verteren is. Men moet aan de kust leven of in de buurt van wateren om te kunnen vissen. Groot wild is niet bepaald makkelijk te vangen, het is juist een hele uitdaging. Vogels vangen en braden is een relatief makkelijke bron van vlees/voedsel.

Vandaar zullen de Germanen ook dikwijls gevogelte gegeten hebben. Zij zullen waarschijnlijk ganzen gehouden hebben om te slachten en zij zullen zeker ook wilde vogels gevangen en opgegeten hebben. Dit geeft ons een beeld van het eetpatroon van de Germanen en dit is zeker belangrijk voor ons begrip van hun geloofsopvattingen:

Voor de Germaan was het moeilijk om aan groot wild te komen, waardoor hij dit een waardig offer achtte voor de Goden. Het vereiste moed van hem om zulk een dier te vangen en slachten. Heldhaftigheid werd dus beschouwd als een wijze om de Goden eer te doen oftewel de Goden te (ver)eren.

Het slachten van een vogels was meer alledaags, waardoor het algauw beschouwd zou zijn als een klein offer voor de minder grote Goden. Ik zou mij goed kunnen voorstellen dat men een vogel juist aan de Álfar geofferd zou hebben.

De bronmaterialen lijken er namelijk op te duiden dat de grootheid van de godheid in verband stond met de grootheid van het offer. Er was waarschijnlijk sprake vand it grondbeginsel in de Germaanse religie: hoe groter de God, hoe groter het offer.

Islands Were Sacred in Germanic Folk Religion

Written by Dyami Millarson

The names Helgoland, Halligen and Fositeland are linguistic reminders that islands were considered sacred by the polytheistic Germanic-speaking ancestors. It is not hard to imagine why islands were considered sacred. Islands feel separated from the rest of the world. One can find the spiritual peace of nature on islands. The isolation is what makes islands attractive for religious purposes. The phenomenon of isolation in nature is what the Germanic peoples considered sacred; for they considered such areas chosen, favoured or preferred by the Gods for religion. Blood sacrifices were usually made in enclosed spaces in nature, which are natural sanctuaries or vé in Old Norse. Special rules applied to those enclosed spaces called vé, akin to how the spaces around Shinto shrines are treated by Japanese today. Those spaces had to be kept pure. Any defilement of the space was considered desecration; the purity of nature had to be maintained, thus man’s impurity had to be kept away, otherwise the designated place would lose its sanctity.

The places that were designated by the Gods were made apparent to man by their unusual separation from the world around them; those places were realities of their own, they allowed man to enter into an ideal yet parallel reality. They were essentially gateways into another world. They bring man closer to the Gods; for man is allowed to experience the pristine, peaceful mood of nature. I have experienced such when I was in Hong Kong in 2017 and visited the various Chinese temples there; they allowed me to retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city. The temples allowed me to recharge; they gave me much needed rest. The Chinese temples were usually surrounded by elements of nature and they were separated from the rest of the city as nature around them had been left alone. Seeing nature in a pristine state is what gave me peace of mind; I know from experience that the purity of nature in such places in Hong Kong has a positive psychological effect on humanity, and the Germanic vé, which had a religious atmosphere about it thanks to being situated in nature and naturally demarcated, would have had a similarly positive effect on man.

While I was quite sick and was looking for a way to heal, I was on a spiritual quest in Hong Kong and I found many answers as I listened to my instinct; I did whatever felt right or good for my body and mind, this is what kept me healthy and well in Hong Kong. Not only was it my hobby to visit Chinese temples in Hong Kong in order to recharge, but it was one of my hobbies in Hong Kong to visit islands. I was quite sick at the time and did not have much energy, so I needed to recharge frequently. Islands had a similar function for me as Chinese temples. They gave me my much needed rest; they helped me to recover from my physical and mental exhaustion. Islands have a healing effect on the mind and body; they are spiritual healers. One may perceive islands as living beings, they are their own Gods. In addition, giving credence to the notion that islands are enclosed areas designated or created by the Gods is the tale of Gefjon ploughing the land and creating the island of Zealand. Islands may not only be regarded as spiritual entities, but they are also divine creations; whatever is God-created is, on principle, God-favoured while its essence or spirit reflects an aspect of the Gods and is therefore godlike (i.e., like the Gods). Being endowed with features of the Gods could mean being inhabited by the Gods, or at least being very attractive to being inhabited by a divine being. It is, thus, not so strange that the Germanic peoples deemed islands to be God-inhabited. In conclusion, islands may be regarded as temples of Germanic nature religion.

My fascination with islands has only increased over the years as I have become acutely aware of the fact they are ideal places for unique languages and cultures. They attract such languages and cultures, house them and nurture them; islands may be regarded as parental guardian figures for this reason. Unique languages and cultures can be preserved on islands as they are protected by the enclosed nature of islands; precisely the characteristics that made islands attractive to the Germanic-speaking polytheists of yore are what makes them perfect for small languages and cultures. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the existence of the communities of such languages and cultures that emerge on the islands has a guardian function for the islands as well; they feel naturally responsible for the protection of the island through their language and culture which bestows them with unique knowledge of the natural environment of the island. Namely, the island’s nature becomes interwoven with people’s language and culture and philosophy.

It feels like the divine islands have called or attracted human guardians to the themselves in order to aid them and protect them from harm, and the locals who live on such islands seem to take that role seriously as their continued existence is deeply tied to the well-being of the islands; the islanders have merged with the island through their identity, language and culture. This symbiosis is mutually beneficial; the islands benefit and the islanders benefit from this close relationship. When I studied the Frisian island peoples, I noticed that the island is their life, it is their nurturing parent, it is their divinity; the feel one or merged with the island. The ancient Germanic polytheists who would have been naturally charged with protecting the sacred Germanic islands as they were living on them would have felt the same way as these modern-day Frisian linguistic and cultural communities do; the guardian role of the ancestors has been passed on to the Frisian descendants. I find this a very inspiring idea, as the present-day situation among the communities of small languages and cultures is not that different from that of the ancients, and this credence to the idea that these indigenous communities are the heirs of the land on which they live, as they act and have always acted as its protectors; they feel naturally drawn to fulfil that role since it is their raison d’être, the land is what made them unique and of course they will feel indebted to the land, which they usually approach in an animistic way as being spiritually inhabited.

The Metamorphosis of Germanic Folk Religion

Written by Dyami Millarson

When the indigenous faith of the Germanic peoples was displaced by an alien faith, the old faith did not suddenly disappear; people neither stopped believing in a diversity of spirits, nor suddenly forgot their old beliefs. Especially considering the fact that almost everyone was illiterate in the Middle Ages and oral tradition was still very strong at the time, it is preposterous to suppose that medieval people would suddenly have forgotten their ancient ways. Germanic polytheism took the new form of a more “hidden” animism that became embedded in the new faith; the old beliefs became indistinguishable from the new faith. Germanic polytheism thus underwent a metamorphosis that made it adopt a form that was acceptable to pious Christian authorities and thus managed to survive; Germanic polytheism survived in the subtle forms that slipped under the radar of Christian authorities, it became what would later be known as folklore, the knowledge or wisdom of the common folk.

The Middle Ages were not as Christian as we suppose; implicit polytheism syncretised with explicit monotheism. Even though Christianity was the official ideology of Medieval Europe, medieval people in Europe were polytheist; they had strong beliefs in a multiplicity of spirits, they did not doubt that there were multiple spirits. They may not have explicitly called them Gods, but they were implicitly Gods. There can be no doubt that medieval people were very animistic; only a very thin layer of monotheism was covering a thick and hard core of polytheism. To summarise, people were monotheist in theory only, they were expressing explicit allegiance to monotheist ideals, but they were polytheist in practice. This situation was perpetuated by a combination of widespread illiteracy and oral tradition. As people became more literate and started forgetting the old tales that had been passed on orally for generations, they became less folk religious; they began to stop believing in what they had come to regard as “old superstitions.” Literacy started increasing with the advent of the printing press. The Middle Ages may be characterised as highly folk religious, yet the ages that followed may be characterised as decreasingly so.

Why is the metamorphosis of polytheism such a relevant topic for our analysis? The shape-shifting nature of polytheism is what makes it adaptable. We should analyse polytheism as a system that changes and responds to threats that endanger its survival. When Christianity became the dominant and official ideology of Europe, polytheism did not magically disappear with disavowals of the old gods, but what happened is that Christianity moved to the foreground and polytheism moved to the background; Europe had acquired a Christian mask, yet it still had a polytheist body. As a result, we may say Christianity was a foreground religion in Medieval Europe, yet polytheism was an ever present background religion. What had truly changed is that polytheism was no longer in any position of power, the elite was no longer openly polytheist and thus it was no longer longer in the foreground where it once had been. Christianity had became the central figure on the theatre stage, whereas polytheism had became a character hiding behind the stage. As the elite no longer thought in a polytheist manner, explicit polytheist philosophy and theology had ceased to develop in elite circles; but the elite was still deeply inspired by the great polytheist thinkers of yore.

What was the effect of the elite being no longer polytheist? This created a huge rift between the elite and common folk; the elite had to be constantly focused on rooting out “superstition” in order to stay in power, they constantly felt their power being under threat, and they always dreaded the possibility that polytheism might return. This concern was very real, in my view, because it was impossible for them, with the low literacy rate and strong oral tradition, to ever extinguish polytheism. While the Christian elite was completely paranoid about any “relapse into polytheism,” it was definitely the elite’s mission to extinguish polytheism, but they had to make peace with the reality that was never going to be possible. The Christian elite had to accept the status quo, yet they had to resort to oppression of the people in order to maintain their power. While the gap between the elite and common folk ever only widened, this type of government was under the constant threat of peasant uprisings. The disconnect was very real and dangerous to the ruling elite.

The polytheist leaders of Europe had been representatives of the people’s popular beliefs, but the Christian leaders had constantly been trying to change the people’s beliefs and stop them from “reverting to polytheism.” This was impossible, however, because the people were inevitably animistic, yet due to their Christian ideology they were not able to allow humans to revert to their natural state of openly worshipping a multitude of spirits/deities. The inflexibility of Christian ideology was the biggest threat to the ruling elite’s power; it was a war on inborn human nature that weakened the Christian governments of the Middle Ages. Polytheism is able to adapt to any situation because it answers to an inborn desire of humanity; for religious humans, believing in a host of spirits is inescapable, and so there is no way to stop being polytheist. However, one can be in denial of this fact and wreak havoc on humanity with a war on human nature, which will result in severe forms of oppression and other violations of human dignity. The other option is to accept human nature and to let humans explore their spirituality; this will naturally lead them to develop polytheist belief systems that are in harmony with their needs. Humans have lost this harmony due to the denial of human spirituality.

Basic human nature cannot be changed; trying to change what it means to be human will result in disaster. Social engineering is absolutely not in tune with polytheism; for polytheism is about the acceptance of human nature, and by extension, it is the acceptance of nature, the world as it is. Similarly to the failed centuries-long Christian project of extinguishing polytheism, the now century-old communist project of imposing atheism was no less unsuccessful; contrary to the intolerant atheist’s beliefs, humans are theistic, and contrary to the intolerant monotheist’s beliefs, humans are polytheistic. Unlike those who wish to change human nature, a polytheist is content with being human, and with the world being natural; we cannot stop being human and the world can’t stop being natural, we can achieve greatness by accepting what is and only through acceptance of what is inevitable, we can achieve our full potential. In essence, the point of polytheism is achieving our full potential. We cannot rise to our potential if we deny ourselves the possibility to be who we truly are; medieval people could not explicitly acknowledge human nature, and so they had to live under the yoke of oppression. The Germanic polytheists were free and they loved freedom; they were free to be human, and that is what it means to experience true freedom. Nothing human was forbidden to them, they could achieve their potential. Had Europe remained polytheist, rapid progress would have continued; the denial of human nature leads to philosophical stagnation, and the creativity of philosophy is what man needs for great innovation.

The Semiotics of Sacrifice in Germanic Folk Religion

Written by Dyami Millarson

My theological research aim on this blog is studying the interpretation of blood sacrifice in the philosophical or psychological context of Germanic folk religion.

Semiotics is generally defined as the study of signs and symbols (*1). I do, however, not see the point of distinguishing signs and symbols in the context of Germanic folk religion, but rather I define the semiotic object of study as the Dutch word tekens, which could mean three things: 1) signs, 2) symbols, 3) omens. The reason I prefer to use this Dutch concept to explain what I am studying with semiotics is that I do not wish to distinguish signs, symbols and omens, whilst I see the advantage of lumping them together in one single concept as is done in the Dutch language.

The do ut des principle certainly applies to the semiotics of blood sacrifice in Germanic folk religion: Germanic peoples generally made blood sacrifices in order to receive favours from the Gods. Namely, when Germanic peoples made blood sacrifices, they asked for peace, victory, longevity, good harvest and fair wind. The formula of making a sacrifice for a specific purpose was encoded into the language: blóta til friðar sacrifice for peace, blóta til sigrs sacrifice for victory, blóta til langlífis to sacrifice for longevity, blóta til árs to sacrifice for good harvest, blóta til byrjar to sacrifice for fair wind. This is how I memorised the expressions listed under the entry blóta in Zoëga’s Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. The formula, underlying structure, of those sacrificial expressions is: sacrificial verb + preposition til + genitive case. The semantic function of til + gen. is to denote the purpose.

Interestingly, the verb for sacrifice in Old Norse uses the accusative to denote the recipient of the sacrificial gift and the dative to denote the sacrificial gift itself. We may deduce from this that sacrificing in Germanic times worked more like “honouring someone with something” than “giving something to someone.” The Roman formula is as follows: “sacrifice gift Y to deity X.” However, the Germanic formula is: “sanctify deity X with gift Y.”

So, the Germanic concept of sacrificing would rather have been the equivalent of “sanctify a God with a sacrificial gift” than “sacrificing a sacrificial gift to a God.” In other words, “making a God sacred with a gift” (sanctify = make sacred with) rather than “making a gift sacred to the God” (sacrifice = make sacred to). The Germanic sacrificial concept falls into the same category as the following verbs: praise, please, honour, feed, heal, bless. Consequently, one may interpret the Germanic sacrificial verb as “praising, pleasing, honouring, feeding, healing, blessing a God with a gift.”

What does this have to do with semiotics? For our semiotic study of blood sacrifice, we are interested in blood sacrifice as a teken and the use and interpretation of this teken. The interpretation of the sacrificial act itself is important for improving our understanding of blood sacrifice, and the sacrificial act is reflected in the verb that is used for sacrificing. The Germanic verb that is used for sacrificing gives us a linguistic clue about what to expect with regards to the Germanic conception of the sacrificial act. Of course, it is also important to consult the written source materials for getting a picture of the semiotics of blood sacrifice in Germanic folk religion, but that is beyond the scope of this article, which is merely to introduce the aim of the semiotic study of Germanic folk religious blood sacrifice to the readers.

Parallel Worlds in Germanic Folk Religion

Written by Dyami Millarson

There are nine worlds in Nordic folk religion. We may safely assume that there were multiple worlds in the other strands of Germanic folk religion as well. Mithgarth, Asgarth, Alfheim, Svartalfheim and Jötunheim are all worlds that exist parallel to each other. So the Germanic peoples believed in parallel worlds: the Álfar are parallel humans, so are the Æsir, so are the Jötnar, so are the Dvergar, so are the Vanir. The worlds they inhabit are alternate worlds that are reflections of the same human, spiritual or divine condition; they reflect the same reality essentially.

Parallelism is a quintessential characteristic of Germanic folk religion; Parallelism is the truth underlying the structure of the Germanic universe (Germanic religion may be termed Germanic universism as it encompasses the Germanic understanding or view of the universe, though one should not confuse universism with universalism). The following synecdoche rings true for Germanic folk religion: divinity mirrors humanity, and humanity mirrors divinity. Natural parallelism as a structural feature of Germanic folk religion is the reason for the principle of divine diversity; the Germanic peoples believed in many deities, because they believed in parallelism as reflected in nature.

Germanic folk religion is, doubtlessly, a reflection of nature, and hence it may be termed nature religion. Nature is what inspired the Germanic peoples; for they lived in nature. The boundary between the Germanic village and nature was very small and arbitrary; the Germanic peoples lived very close to nature like other indigenous people around the globe who built their villages in nature. The home of the Germanic peoples was nature, so it is not surprising that nature informed their religious worldview.

The multiplicity of any kind of living organism is a given in nature; it is necessary for any species in nature to not be the only and last individual of their kind. For divinity to be one would mean to the Germanic mind that the Gods are a dying breed. If there were only one human being, that would mean the human race is dying. The fertility of the divine races was seen as reflective of their vitality; nature always reproduces, and reproduction is an imperative in nature. Multiplicity and multiplication were fully embraced in Germanic religion, hence fertility was always seen as an important factor in religious rite and story.

Human beings, spiritual beings and divine beings are all quintessentially belonging to the same man-like prototype with natural imperfections and moral defects; humanity, spirituality and divinity are overlapping in Germanic religion, hence I could speak of the human/spiritual/divine condition in this article as being the template or blueprint for the various mirror reflections of reality that are presented to us in Germanic folk religion.

One may superficially say that there are multiple realities or truths in Germanic folk religion, but these are actually multiple copies of the same reality or truth. These parallel realities are simply reflecting that there are universal laws governing the world, regardless of what reality one finds oneself in. The philosophical implications of this are huge; the grass is not greener elsewhere, but everyone is subject to the same fate, ørlög, primordial law.

The other worlds being replicas or replications of our human world is highly engaging and appealing from a philosophical perspective; the Germanic peoples would have looked at the other worlds and realised that the other man-like beings had it no better than them; this gave them hope automatically, as it meant that they were already living in utopia and had to make the best of life in the world they lived in. This is a very natural way to view the world; for this natural worldview helps one to deal with the harsh realities of the world.

Germanic folk religion is an acceptance of the state of the world, an acceptance of the state of nature; the natural parallelism found in Germanic religion shows us the Germanic understanding of utopia, the world in which they lived was already ideal to them because the natural world, which they inhabited, was their eternal ideal to which they aspired. The Germanic peoples could not imagine a better world than the natural world which they inhabited; they saw nature as perfect, and this is a sentiment we can certainly relate to in modern times.

Furthermore, it is important that the Germanic peoples did not fully perceive the other worlds as distinct from their own; there was always overlap. The worlds were all interconnected, and there were frequent interactions between them. Therefore, the boundaries between the worlds are blurred; the distinctions are arbitrary rather than absolute. While the worlds are part of one underlying reality, they are governed by the same universal laws, and this means that their distinction is, fundamentally, not that relevant. In other words, while one may say they are copies or replicas of the same prototype, they are actually an interconnected web; the worlds are part of the same system, and that is why they display parallelism that makes one realise they are essentially the same. The best way to think about the worlds is that they are parallel threads in a web as they belong to the same natural systemic structure and they are subject to the same natural dynamics of evolution.

In conclusion, one may understand the parallelism of the multiple worlds in Germanic religion to be a confirmation of the idea there is only one world. The Germanic peoples did not call these parallel worlds ‘worlds’, but they spoke of only one ‘world’ (age of man) and all the other realms, which I previously called worlds, were simply alternate kingdoms of man that were part of the same age of man; these realms existed parallel to each other in perpetuity. All realms being part of the same ‘age of man’ is important; they exist at the same time, they do not exist within another timeframe. Therefore, these worlds or realms are not parallel worlds in the sense they belong to other timeframes, but time runs the same in all of these worlds and therefore they exist in the same reality.

Moral Engineering: Does Germanic Folk Religion Assume Man Can and Must Be Changed?

Written by Dyami Millarson

Can man be socially engineered according to Germanic religion? Is the goal of Germanic religion to change man?

To answer this question, we need to understand the moral ambiguity that pervades Germanic folk religion.

Although there is a moral code (code of honour) inherent in Germanic folk religion as it is considered worthy to live an honourable life, the moral code of Germanic folk religion is about self-acceptance (being oneself), and therefore it is an acceptance of moral intuition (wisdom) and in-born human conscience.

There is no clear path towards what is moral in Germanic folk religion as the world is not seen through a black-and-white lens; evil and good are intertwined, and morality is thus an acceptance of both good and evil, creating moral ambiguity.

In other words, the morality of Germanic folk religion is moral ambiguity. Germanic folk religion is about man and fate; man will become what he is meant to become, and he will find, by his own intuition, what he is meant to be.

The flow of life is whatever it is; and Germanic religion is the acceptance of that. A Germanic polytheist is thus fate-accepting, life-accepting; amor fati, the love of fate, is the slogan that characterises his life.

All in all, Germanic folk religion is not about changing man or creating a mankind that is better, but it is about man finding himself, accepting himself for what he is meant to be. The goal of Germanic folk religion is not change (social engineering), but acceptance; and therefore its central message is finding peace with one’s fate whatever it may be and this requires one to embrace moral ambiguity.

The goal of Germanic folk religion is the self-actualisation of man; for man ought to find his own potential in life. Germanic folk religion seeks to get out of man whatever is already inside of him; and nothing but that which is already present in man is what concerns the goal of Germanic folk religion.

Germanic folk religion is thus about helping mankind to realise its potential; it is about maintaining man as he is, and letting him become whatever he is meant to become. As a force of maintaining the order of the universe, Germanic folk religion is a device that helps man achieve whatever he is meant to achieve in his lifetime.

Germanic folk religion is like a wise old man who is meant to help a young hero on his perilous journey; Germanic folk religion provides the young hero with wise council, and the young hero may ignore that advice at his own peril.

While Germanic folk religion helps the hero on his way to victory, it takes a passive role in the background; Germanic folk religion is a philosophy that adopts the moral indifference of a wise old man who has seen too much, has come to accept moral ambiguity as a fact of life due to his many worldly experiences and has seen the survival benefit of letting moral ambivalence be his moral compass (guiding philosophy of ethics) in life.

Germanic folk religion does interfere with the life of the protagonist in the sense that it seeks to nudge him in the right direction in accordance with his destined potential; but it does not interfere with the right or wrong choices of the protagonist, as he is free to choose to accept or neglect the prudent councils of the ancient old ones who are responsible for maintaining the order of the universe.

So, Germanic folk religion is both interference and non-interference; it does not seek to change the hero (or villain) fundamentally so as to make him a better human being, but it seeks to help the hero (or villain) to become whatever he needs to become in order to fulfil his destined role in life. Everyone has their role to play and Germanic folk religion does not interfere with the order of things; it accepts man’s nature as it is, regardless of whatever that may be, and it helps man on his way, giving him wise council so that he may achieve his full potential.

Man will ultimately be judged, by men and Gods alike, on the basis whether his actions were worthy or not; an honourable name or good reputation is what ultimately matters according to the Germanic folk religious worldview. In other words, one has to maintain one’s face throughout one’s life and one should not lose face; and even if one loses face, one should try to regain one’s face, thus use actions in order to restore one’s lost honour. Germanic society is a society based on reputation, and man’s reputation is regulated by one’s actions.

A First Outline of Germanic Religion With Frisian Characteristics

Written by Dyami Millarson

In this article, which may be regarded as a tentative religious treatise, I will treat Germanic religion as an uncountable concept just like one may treat Germanic polytheism as uncountable. Therefore, I will view the Frisian strain of Germanic religion as Germanic religion with Frisian characteristics.

What is Germanic religion or polytheism with Frisian characteristics? What are those Frisian characteristics? What we should look at first are the Frisian Gods and then we should take a quick glance at the lesser spirits, for all these bigger and smaller Wights (supernatural beings) define Germanic religion.

The following Gods of the Frisians, who were also Vikings (cp. the Estonians who had adopted Viking culture), come to mind:

The Frisian Viking God Fosite, which was adopted among the Norse Vikings as Forseti and to whom the island Fositesland was dedicated, which had sacred cattle grazing on the island, and a sacred spring, from which one had to draw water in silence (this is perhaps equivalent to the water-cleansing rites performed before entering a Japanese Shinto shrine), and is nowadays often equated with Heligoland (see here), and whose name has been theorised by Grimm and others to be connected with Poseidon, making him the aquatic God of the sea-faring Frisians which dwelled along the North Sea coast, and with whom the sacrifice of those found guilty of robbery may be connected, for it was deemed fit according to the Frisian law that thieves be given to the sea;
Baduhenna, whose sacred grove has been mentioned by Roman historian Tacitus in his ethnographic treatise of Germania;
Hludana, who was apparently worshipped in Frisia as an inscription dedicated to her was uncovered in 1888 during an excavation in the village Beetgum, which is located in Fryslân, the Frisian-speaking region of the Netherlands;
The Frisian equivalent of Othin, whose name has been preserved in the weekday woansdei, which is the Frisian name for Wednesday, and who was assigned a prominent place in the Germanic religious belief system by the Frisians, Saxons and Franks in the region that would become the Netherlands;
Stavo, which is a deity in Frisian folklore and may be seen as an epithet of Othin, although one may also consider Stavo a folkloristic fiction of later date while it could be argued with equally convincing vigour that there might be some truth to the Frisian folklore and that Stavo was a distant memory of Othin or some covert reference to him that was meant not to upset the Church;
Thingsus, who may also be called Mars Thingsus or simply Mars and whom the Frisians of Twente worshipped as probably their equivalent of the sky deity Tyr, whose name has been preserved in the Frisian weekday tiisdei (Tuesday), although Thingsus may also have been a latinised early epithet of Fosite;
The Frisian equivalent of Ingvi or Frey, who was worshipped among the Ingaevones, from which the Anglo-Saxons, Frisians and Saxons have sprung;
The Frisian equivalents of Thor and Frigg/Freyja, who are remembered in the weekdays tongersdei (Thursday) and freed (Friday) coming after Othin’s day (woansdei) and thus making the ancient Germanic family trinity complete;
The sun and the moon, which are also said by the ancient historians and chroniclers to have been worshipped by the Frisians, which is made plausible by the fact that the sun and moon were personified and seen as deities among the ancient Norse and are also preserved in the Frisian weekdays moandei (Monday) and sneon (Sunday), inherited from Common Germanic, and Eligius, who had preached among the Frisians, said in his anti-pagan sermon that pagans swore their oaths by sun and moon and called them their lords, waited for a particular phase of the moon to begin something and shouted at the lunar eclipse.

The family of the Gods in the Frisian strand of Germanic folk religion may be assumed to be generally the same as that of other strands, and thus although the Frisians may have had their own religious characteristics, they would generally have worshipped the same divine entities as the other Germanic folk religionists of that time, for all tribal strands of Germanic religion had a common descent, which was definitely noticeable in the choice of deities. The various strands were thus interchangeable; hence Fosite, who was worshipped among the Frisians as one of the principal or chief deities, could be easily adopted by the Norse.

While I have elaborated on the chief deities or spirits, I should also give an overview of the lesser spirits. All of the water-based and land-based Frisian wights (i.e., spirits) that I am going to discuss reflect the common beliefs of the Germanic polytheists. It should therefore be borne in mind that all of the following ancient numinous beings that the Frisians have believed in since time immemorial have equivalents or clear matches in other Germanic belief systems:

The Frisians have believed in spirits (geasten in Clay Frisian) and souls (sielen in Clay Frisian) since ancient times; both aforementioned spiritual concepts are universal among all Germanic-speaking peoples.
- Frisians – whilst judging from their folk stories called mearkes – believe in various ghostly appearances; ghosts (spoeken in Frisian) may take animal forms or more anthropomorphic (human-like or man-like) forms. An interesting mix of the two is the Frisian belief in werewolves (wjerwolven or wearwolven in Clay Frisian); it ought to be noted that the belief in the werewolf is universal among the speakers of Germanic languages. Equally universal is the belief in helhounds among the Germanic peoples and as far as I can recall, there are Frisian tales of canine ghostly apparitions (i.e., ghostly dogs); as the concept of helhûn (hellhound) exists in Frisian, the belief in the hellhound traditionally exists among the Frisians (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here) and it is as prevalent as among the neighbouring indigenous people of Groningen where the ghostly dog is known as Borries or Barries (see here, here and here), which, along with the Frisian folk religious conceptions of the hellhound, may be regarded as an equivalent of the Nordic hellhound Garmr (cp. the Greek hound Cerberus guarding Hades). Another instance of a ghostly apparition in Frisian folktales is the ghostly horse featured in the German novel Der Schimmelreiter which is set in 19th-century North Frisia, a traditionally Frisian-speaking region situated in Northwest Germany. Somewhat similar to the lindworm we will discuss later in a commentary that is placed between brackets, the Frisians traditionally believe in a ghostly ‘worm’ (see here), being the Anguis fragilis, which I have caught on a few occasions. It is said in Frisian folklore that this animal can heal itself and this self-healing is believed to be proof of its virulency (somewhat like the Hydra dragon that Hercules had to fight).
- There is linguistic evidence that the ancient Frisians believed in elves (alven or elven in Clay Frisian, the latter form being the result of Dutch/English influence and the former being the original heritage word from Old Frisian) and dwarfs (dwergen in Clay Frisian). These have generally survived in modern Frisian folklore as ierdmantsjes (gnomes, kobolds) and tsjoensters (witches). There are also many Frisian folk tales about folk healers called wûnderdokters (which are also featured in folk stories relating to lintwjirmen, tapeworms, see commentary below) and this may be regarded as a genuine remnant of folk medicine among the Frisians, reminding one of the Mersenburg charms where uuodan (Othin) says miraculous words to magically heal the foal of balder (Baldur).
- The Frisians of yore also believed in the Germanic incubus or mare (nachtmerje in Clay Frisian) as well as the nixie (bûzehappert in Clay Frisian) which is common to all Germanic peoples. The mermaid (seewiif in Clay Frisian) is a being that is akin to the nixie. Additionally, in ancient times, the Frisians believed in giants (reuzen in Clay Frisian) which are the Germanic anti-Gods and they also believed in dragons as Germanic anti-heroes (the Germanic heritage word for dragon is wjirm in Clay Frisian and by the way, wurm in Middle Dutch also meant dragon, but the Latin-derived term draak has completely replaced the equivalent Germanic heritage word wjirm; the word lintwjirm, which is a cognate of the English lindworm, is nowadays used chiefly to mean tapeworm, a kind of worm, and does generally not refer to a Germanic type of dragon anymore, as lintwjirm is used to mean tapeworm even in folk tales, see here and here, yet the cognate word lindeworm/lendeworm is used in a Groningen Low Saxon folk story of the early 19th century to mean a Germanic dragon).

Oaths (i.e., the Germanic equivalent of contracts) may be seen as the natural basis of the legal system, for the law is built on verbal agreements (or written agreements as in modern society). The Frisian polytheists can be presumed to have sworn oaths at sanctuaries, sacred stones, trees, wells, enclosures and cross-roads. The sanctuaries may have been man-built structures or they may have been natural structures in nature that were seen as dwelling-places of the spiritual or divine. The aforementioned locations are also the ancient Frisian locations of worship.

Germanic Cultural Religion

Written by Dyami Millarson

The Germanic peoples practised a cultural religion, where culture and religion were blended. While we have established this, we should immediately ask: what were their priorities from the perspective of their cultural-religious worldview?

Food was way more prominent in the Germanic cultural-religious worldview than many in the modern world may realise. Food was way up the list of priorities in the ancient Germanic world. Famines were a common occurrence back then.

Although a historic explanation may be offered for the prominence of food in the Germanic worldview, it would be incorrect to overlook the fact that there is also a timeless aspect to this perception, because food is still essential today.

We live in a world of abundance, but we are still biological beings that need food in order to sustain their biological bodies. In this biological regard, we are no different from our Germanic forebears who dwelled in these Northwest European lands.

As food was an all-important topic that pervaded the Germanic worldview, the Germanic ritual of blood sacrifice should be seen in this light. No doubt, the Germanic peoples of yore practised blood sacrifice on a regular basis.

However, what many fail to understand is the context of blood sacrifice. We may define blood sacrifice, particularly animal sacrifice, as a ritualised act of slaughter. In the ancient times, there were no slaughterhouses which would do the work for us.

The way for the Germanic peoples to get meat was to slaughter the animals themselves and they did so in a ritualised manner. They called in the help of the Gods to assist them in pacifying the angry soul of the sacrificial animal.

Killing an animal was not an act that humans ever took lightly. As intelligent beings, humans have always been acutely aware that they took a life. In the past, they didn’t have mechanised systems to make the slaughter a distant affair.

In fact, the slaughter of an animal for obtaining its meat was a very intense affair in the Germanic past, and that made it all the more harrowing when a hungry community had to resort to slaughtering an animal to feed its members.

While the Germanic peoples needed the meat, the sacrificial rite was a magical affair where the Gods were invoked to assist in dealing with the animal’s soul. The entire local community was involved in this affair as it was crucial to their well-being.

Blood sacrifice was thought of as a way to bring good luck to the community. This is quite understandable because if the rite were not performed properly, the Gods would not be pleased or the angry soul of the animal would come to haunt them.

To the Germanic peoples, sacrificial blood was holy. After all, blood was and still is the substance of life; to the Germanic peoples, it had magical and spiritual properties, because when a creature was bleeding to death, its spirit was leaving.

The sanctity of blood is related to the correct observation that it is linked to life. This is why blood plays such an important role in blood sacrifice. After the animal had been slaughtered, Germanic priests caught the blood in a sacrificial bowl.

The blood was not wasted. In fact, this holy substance was smeared on the tree sanctuaries or the idols of the Gods that were carved into the wood of trees. The holy blood was also sprinkled on the witnesses of the blood sacrifice.

This is the manner in which the God idols and the witnesses were sanctified. The power of the spirit of the animal was conferred to them and would protect them. The blood had protective magical properties, warded off disease, and so on.

So, while slaughter was not a mechanised process in the Germanic times, the Germanic peoples had to get intimate with their sacrificial victim. They ascribed a spirit to their victim and they treated their victim with due respect.

This cannot be said of modern slaughterhouses where the spiritual aspect of slaughter is sorely neglected, the souls of animals are not tended to. The Gods of the Germanic peoples had the role of guiding the animal souls in the afterlife.

While the Germanic Gods, also called höpt (fetters) and bönd (bonds) in Old Norse, are not invoked in the slaughterhouses nor are the animals brought before sacrifice trees before meeting their end, the animal souls receive no proper guidance.

The spiritual guidance that is offered to the animal spirits is inherent in the sacrificial rite of the Germanic peoples and required no second thought. It was an obvious aspect of the rite that they performed, it required no elaboration.

We have now come to grasp how the Germanic cultural religion is properly associated with blood sacrifice, which is contextually related to food. We may ask: did blood sacrifices occur with any regularity and so when may we expect it?

Blood sacrifices occurred in cycles every year. It is not like Germanic peoples would slaughter animals every single day. A community could live off the meat of a slaughter animal for a long time and so there was no need for excessive slaughter.

Sacrifice was done in moderation. This is highly understandable because the Germanic peoples had to be careful with their scarce resources. It is even recommended in the Poetic Edda that one should not sacrifice too much.

The sacrificial cycles that occurred in the Germanic religion were entirely related to the cycles of food and slaughter. Major cycles of slaughter occurred in midsummer and midwinter, which fall on the summer and winter solstices respectively.

The Germanic peoples sacrificed for peace, victory, longevity and good harvest. Such were their general concerns in life. One ought to understand that personal concerns were linked to those of the community; everything was communal.

Similarly as in folk religions in East Asia, the Germanic folk religious prayers were simple and they were focused on the common good (of the tribe or clan). The topics of the prayers were highly stylised and would be pretty much the same every time.

The content of the prayers may thus be regarded as quite fossilised throughout the ages, for the concerns expressed therein would be timeless. The Germanic peoples desired peace, victory, longevity and good harvest in all ages.