The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Two, the Germanic Earth Mother

 This essay should be read in conjunction with The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part One, the Germanic Sky Father and Erce, Anglo-Saxon Mother Goddess of the Earth . This will help to save me from going over the same ground that I have covered in my recent posts.

The earliest reference that we have to a Germanic earth goddess is to be found in Tacitus's Germania:

Next come the Reudigni, the Aviones, the Anglii, the Varini, the Eudoses, the Suardones, and Nuithones who are fenced in by rivers or forests. None of these tribes have any noteworthy feature, except their common worship of Ertha, or mother-Earth, and their belief that she interposes in human affairs, and visits the nations in her car. In an island of the ocean there is a sacred grove, and within it a consecrated chariot, covered over with a garment. Only one priest is permitted to touch it. He can perceive the presence of the goddess in this sacred recess, and walks by her side with the utmost reverence as she is drawn along by heifers. It is a season of rejoicing, and festivity reigns wherever she deigns to go and be received. They do not go to battle or wear arms; every weapon is under lock; peace and quiet are known and welcomed only at these times, till the goddess, weary of human intercourse, is at length restored by the same priest to her temple. Afterwards the car, the vestments, and, if you like to believe it, the divinity herself, are purified in a secret lake. Slaves perform the rite, who are instantly swallowed up by its waters. Hence arises a mysterious terror and a pious ignorance concerning the nature of that which is seen only by men doomed to die. This branch indeed of the Suevi stretches into the remoter regions of Germany. (Book 40, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, 1876).

In this translation, the earth goddess is named Ertha. However, this is a mistranslation of the Latin Nerthus. I have selected this translation as it is out of copyright and to illustrate the following point: the original Latin text that mentions Nerthus is as follows: Nerthus, id est Terra Mater. In other words, 'Nerthus, that is Mother Earth.' 'Ertha' was a Victorian construction, based on the assumption (not without merit) that Erce=Nerthus/Ertha, assumed to be reflexes of the same deity.  'Ertha' also looks suspiciously like the Old High German Erda, which was a personification of the earth but not an actual, named goddess. No doubt, my readers will point to the reference to 'Erda' in Wagner's Das Rheingold and Siegfried but this is merely 'poetic licence' on the part of Wagner and is not based on any surviving mythology or folklore. Wagner's 'Erda' is a synthesis and a mytho-poetic reconstruction of various Germanic earth mother traditions. Wagner based his character on the following sources:

. Old Norse Jörð, a giantess-goddess hybrid who was named as the mother of Thor. She is a cthonic and primordial deity.

. Nerthus of Tacitus's Germania.

.Anglo-Saxon Erce from the Æcerbot charm.

. The Old High German noun Erda, a personification of the earth, which is directly cognate with the Gothic airþa, the Old English eorþe and the Old Norse jörð.

. Frau Holle, the name of a continental Germanic deity which has survived in German folklore, who has cthonic and maternal characteristics.

Thus 'Erda' may be considered a reflex of the Germanic earth mother. The noun is derived ultimately from the Proto-Germanic *erþō and the Proto-Indo-European *h₁er- / *h₁erth₂‑ ('earth/ground').

It may be helpful at this stage for me to construct a Germanic Earth Mother 'family tree' to trace the evolution and development of this divine archetype:

PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN/PROTO-INDO-GERMANIC

The reconstructed goddess: *Dhéǵhōm.Meaning: Earth, the ground, the soil, the world beneath the sky and the wife of *Dyēus ph₂tēr, the Sky Father. As a primordial being, She was older than the male gods, was cthonic and thus concerned with the dead, maternal and associated with oaths. Being responsible for the fertilility of the earth, She received libations, poured into the ground. Being associated with the concept of fate, She was concerned with the care of the dead and the ancestors.

This root gives us:

• Sanskrit Pṛthvī (Mother Earth)

• Greek Chthōn, Chthonia, Gaia (via related roots)

• Latin humus, homo (earthling)

• Old Irish du (earth)

• Germanic *erþō

PROTO-GERMANIC

Branching off from the PIE we have the Proto-Germanic *erþō. Meaning: earth, soil, land.

GERMANIC

From this we get:

• Old Norse Jörð (a goddess)

• Old English eorþe (noun) and Erce (goddess)

• Old High German erda (noun)

• Gothic airþa

• Tacitus’ Nerthus (likely a cult title)

• German folklore Frau Erde / Holle

Like the reconstructed PIE goddess, the Germanic *erþō is primordial, older than the male gods, cthonic, maternal, a witness of oaths, fertile and the receiver of the dead. Unlike Anglo-Saxon Erce, She is the earth itself, not just a goddess who presides over it. In essence, She combines the functions of both Erce and *erþō. Her divine husband is the Proto-Germanic *Tiwaz. From what we can deduce from the Æcerbot, She brings fertility to the fields, receives offerings of grain, milk, honey and ale, and is associated with ploughing rites and healing of the soil. She also brings peace and prospeity to Her devotees: this is made clear in the passage from Germania Book 40 with reference to Nerthus. She is the goddess of lineage and the ancestors who dwell in Her embrace. The act of inhumation symbolises the return of the dead to the 'womb' of the earth mother. 

As She is the divine witness of all oaths, any breaking of such oaths would 'defile' Her and pollute the earth. The use of 'heofon and eorþe' in Old English legal oaths ('heaven and earth') and 'himil enti erda' in Old High German oaths is an indication of the Germanic tradition, traceable to pre-Christian times, of swearing by the name of the Sky Father and the Earth Mother. Other examples of this custom are evident in the following Old High German legal formulas: 'Erda zi uuizzoni' ('Earth as witness'), 'Daz erda inimo ni scal helfan' (May the earth not help him'). The earth is invoked in Old English boundary charters, homilies and oaths. Examples of such include: 'Ic swerige be heofone and be eorþan.' ('I swear by heaven and by earth.') and 'Se þe þis brice, eorþe hine forswelge.' ('Whoever breaks this oath, may the earth swallow him.'). Some boundary charters also contain curse formulas: 'ne hæbbe he nanne dæl on þære eorþan.' ('May he hath no share in the land').

When invoking the earth as a witness to an oath, the Anglo-Saxons ritually touched the earth, often by lifting some earth with the hand, thus entering into a direct contract with the one who receives the oath and She who witnesses it. Bearing in mind that these are clearly heathen practices, it is astonishing that they were preserved well into post-conversion times. One could define these as 'earth contact rituals'. Wulstan (died 1023), Archbishop of York, wrote several homilies in which he condemned perjury, such as sermo lupi ad Anglos (The Sermon of the Wolf to the English) in 1014, Homily XIX ( be swicolum aðum-Concerning False Oaths) and Institutes of Polity (No Latin title) and viewed it not merely as a personal matter but a collective one, in which the Christian god's vengeance would be visited on the people as a whole and upon the fruits of the earth. Many ecclesiatics at the time viewed the Viking raids and invasions as a judgement upon the English people for their 'sins', perjury being one of them. In the Germanic world of both heathen and post-conversion times, there was the view that society was held together by the swearing and keeping of oaths, by the King, the Church and the People, and perjury would result in the moral collapse of society and the social order as well as material disaster with invasion, plague and famine.

The Norse goddess Jörð is the same as the physical earth, jörð, not merely a symbolic or metaphoric representation of it. She is thus a cosmic substance and a divine personage, which is typical of Indo-European myth. She is one of the jötnar (giantesses) and counted among the ásynjur (goddesses), revealing her primordial origins as part of a much earlier race of gods, who precede the Aesir and Vanir. With the Norse Sky Father, Odin she conceived Thor, the son of a Sky Father and Earth Mother. This relationship in part mirrors the relationship between the Olympian Zeus and Gaia, the latter also belonging to a primordial race of gods. However, there was no union between Zeus and Gaia but they represent the cosmic order. Thor as the son of sky (Odin) and earth (Jörð) is the Norse expression of the Indo-European formula of Sky Father + Earth Mother ->Thunder God. The thunder god fertilises the earth with His rains, brought by the storms produced by the blows of His hammer: Thor is thus the protector of farmers and the guardian of man.

Nerthus (1905) by Emil Doepler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nerthus_by_Emil_Doepler.jpg

The Ysby Thor's Hammer and its Striking Resemblance to the Hedeby Thor's Hammer

 Please examine the photograph of a newly discovered Thor's Hammer pendant from the site of an archaeological excavation at Ysby in Halland, Sweden in 2022, which was widely reported in professional journals and the Miami Herald in October of that year.

                                                     Image courtesy of Radio Sweden

The photograph shows the hammer after it had been cleaned up. It is approximately 3cm in height and cast from lead. Although made from the most humble of metals it may have very well been gilded in silver or gold.

I would now like you to see an image of a Thor's Hammer discovered in modern day Hedeby in Germany. I am unable to glean exactly when it was discovered but I am led to believe that it was either in the 1950s or the 1970s. I have owned a bronze version of this hammer since the late 1990s and currently wear a stainless steel version, manufactured in Germany, and purchased by me well over 5 years ago.

The original, as pictured, was cast in silver. Modern reproductions of this hammer are available in gold, silver, bronze, pewter, stainless steel and zinc alloy.

Below is a photograph I have taken of my stainless steel version, which shows the detail with far more precision than my bronze copy.

My readers will note that this is one of the few historical hammers which depict a human face, which by process of deduction must be assumed to be that of the god, Thor, not Odin as some sellers on 'Etsy' have incorrectly suggested! This adds an extra layer of sacrality to the amulet. On the head of the hammer is found an 'infinity knot' with three circles. The design is the same on both sides on the original and on modern reproductions.

My question is this: why do we find the same design of hammer in both Germany/Denmark and Sweden? Are there any other original examples in existence? I would appear to be the very first researcher to have publicly identified the similarity in design of both hammers.

During the 8th to the 11th centuries Hedeby, or to give it its Danish name, Haithabu was an important trading centre on the southern end of the Jutland peninsula. It is now part of the German Land of Schleswig-Holstein in the most northern part of Germany. The issue of German or Danish ownership of this territory became an inflamed question during the 19th century. After the second Schleswig War in 1864 it became a permanent part of Germany but it has been fought over for many centuries prior to that. The official language of the Land is German but the languages of Low German, Danish and North Frisian are also recognised. Its culture is a mix of those three elements, making it an intriguing Germanic 'melting pot'. As an aside, I have recently learned that I am genetically related to a number of human burials from post Viking Age Hedeby, four males and one female, which makes the Hedeby hammer that much more special for me.

The Hiddensee Amulet

 In this article, I am going to discuss the 'Hiddensee amulet', a little about its background, and some of my own thoughts and speculations on its symbolism. The Hiddensee amulet was discovered as part of a hoard of  Viking-age gold treasure in 1873 on the German island of Hiddensee, which is situated in the Baltic Sea. Its discovery came about as the result of flooding in the area.

Experts date the hoard to the last quarter of the 10th century and it consists of 10 cross-like pendants, 4 small spacer pendants, a broach and a neck ring. The total weight of the hoard is 598g, a very substantial weight in gold! It is generally considered that all 14 pendants were worn as part of a single necklace. If that is the case then many of the spacer pendants are surely missing? It should also be noted that the cross-like pendants vary in size and weight, the smallest weighing just 20.2g and the largest, 40.4g (Armbruster, Eilbracht). If they were intended to be worn as a single item, as suggested, then it would have felt very heavy indeed, especially if the wearer was a woman. A closer examination of the pendants shows that there are at least two different styles. That fact, along with the large variations in size and weight of the pendants, gives me the feeling that this was not intended to be worn as a single necklace.

The whole treasure was manufactured in one workshop and from a single source of metal (Armbruster, Eilbracht). Anyone interested in its manufacture would profit by reading the excellent and detailed analysis by Barbara Armbruster and H. Eilbracht, Technological aspects of the Viking age gold treasure from Hiddensee, Germany.

For a long time there has been speculation that the treasure belonged to the Danish King Harald Bluetooth Gormsson (died 985/986 CE) or a member of his family. The neck so-called ensemble appears to mix heathen and Christian elements which is evident in the 10 cross-like pendants. Bluetooth converted to Christianity at some time in the 960s but the circumstances and details are rather vague and very confusing. Regardless of whom the hoard was commissioned for, the recipient must have been both wealthy and presumably powerful. Due to the dating of the hoard and the location where it was found, the assumption for its ownership by Bluetooth or his family may be valid. It has long been speculated that the hoard was stolen by Slavic pirates, operating at that time in the area. In my opinion, the theft was possibly from a goldsmith's workshop, rather than the Danish royal family, although it could have been commissioned by them.

I have only recently learned that these pendants were not at all unique and other examples have been discovered, one example being a silver version from a hoard in Tolstrup, Denmark and dies from Hedeby, Germany, one being quite elaborate, like the Hiddensee pendants, the other being more simplistic and lacking in filigree ornamentation (Armbruster and Eilbracht). 

Moving on to discuss the symbolism of the cross-like pendants. All 10 cross-like pendants have a suspension loop in the form of a bird, which clearly resembles the Thor's Hammer from Scania, Sweden. I interpret this bird to be a raven, not an eagle as some claim. The raven, as my readers will know, is closely associated with Odin and is thus a heathen, not a Christian symbol. So we have to ask ourselves, what is the the raven doing on these pendants if they belonged to a Christian king? Likewise, what is a wolf's head doing on the suspension loop of the Thor's Hammer from Fossi, Iceland, if it is a cross and not a hammer as I believe? One could argue that in both cases, these were examples of a period of transition from Germanic heathenism to Christianity. I have discussed the wolf hammer before, and I will do so again in a future article.

Another feature of the pendants are the 'eyes' in the lower half of the pendants which give them a mask-like appearance. If you have a reproduction copy and hold it up to the light, you will see this most clearly. Until I read Armbruster and Eilbracht's work I thought that I was probably the only person to have observed this feature. They comment on this on page 38 of their article and quote from Graham-Campbell (2001, p.180), referring to the 'glaring eyes associated with Thor in Eddic tales.' They also compare the body of these pendants with 'the pagan Thor's hammer.' I would encourage anyone who is interested in any aspect of the Hiddensee hoard to read Technological aspects of the Viking age gold treasure from Hiddensee, Germany

 An excellent example of the Tolstrup pendant may be found on the website of Asgard, a Scottish manufacturer of good quality Viking age reproductions: Hiddensee . You will note from this reproduction and the photograph on page 38 of Armbruster and Eilbracht that the Tolstrup pendant lacks the 'eyes' of the Hiddensee ones but they are present on the dies from Hedeby (page 31).

All of the Hiddensee, Tolstrup and Hedeby pendants contain what appear to be three equilateral crosses within their body. Two of the Hiddensee pendants resemble more the cross style featured on the Tolstrup pendant and are less stylised and not so subtle. One can see how the majority of them resemble a series of three Thor's Hammers, rather than Christian crosses and they share this style with the four hammer-shaped spacer pendants.  

The Eyraland Thor and the Icelandic Foss Hammer

"National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavik. Figure of god Thor ( ca. 1000 AD ), made of bronze" by Wolfgang Sauber, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyrarland_Statue The image has not been changed and the image owner does not endorse this blog.



A figurine depicting what appears to be a seated Thor, grasping a hammer was discovered in 1815 or 1816 when it was unearthed from the soil at the Eyraland farm near Akureyri in Iceland. The figure is made of bronze and is currently housed in the National Museum of Iceland. I have 2 bronze replicas of the Eyraland Thor and they are used as altar items in my worship of Him.

As I have mentioned before (and need to keep reiterating) the type of hammer that 'Thor' is holding is in the typical Icelandic cross shape, almost a duplicate of the 'Wolf's Cross' found at Foss in Iceland, currently also housed in the National Museum. This clear resemblance should once and for all close the argument as to whether the Foss Hammer is a hammer or a cross. This variation of the hammer was clearly local to Iceland and the argument that it is a 'hybrid' between the Christian cross and Thor's Hammer does not hold water in view of the form that the hammer takes in the hands of the Eyraland Thor.

The argument in favour of it being a hybrid is that it could be disguised as a cross by its wearer (to avoid persecution) but as it dates back to the 10th century and thus PREDATES the Christianisation of Iceland this does not make one iota of sense. Even after the Icelandic Althing voted to accept Christianity in the year 1000 heathenism was still tolerated as a private practice on the island. So it begs the question why anyone would seek to disguise his hammer amulet PRIOR to the Christianisation process?

I have several variants of the Foss Hammer in a variety of metals: pewter, bronze and stainless steel and indeed the St Justin (larger size) Foss Hammer was the second Thor's Hammer I ever purchased in the mid 1990s. I particularly recommend their version which is much chunkier than the original and their products do come with a life time guarantee. The chief gothi of the Asatru Association in Iceland, Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson has been photographed wearing a Foss Hammer himself. Surely there can be no higher recommendation than this?

The Felling of Donar's Oak

The felling of the sacred oak of Donar in 723/724 CE (this date is estimated) at Geismar, near Fritzlar, Hesse, Germany reminds me of the felling of the Irminsul by Charlemagne in 778 CE. Both trees or columns were sacred to the ancient Germans and symbolically they remind us of the tree Yggdrasil referred to in the Icelandic Eddas. The destruction of these two sacred things by the genocidal and maniacal Christian Church should not surprise us. Christianity like Islam is a death cult whilst the Irminsul and Donar's Oak represent LIFE!

The felling of Donar's Oak is referred to in Willibald's Life of Saint Boniface, a grossly exaggerated account of what actually occurred. According to Willibald as soon as the Anglo-Saxon Boniface (born Wynfrith) took his axe to the oak tree it began to fall and this 'miracle' caused astonishment amongst the witnesses so that they readily converted to Christianity. In reality it took many hours to chop down the tree as Boniface made known in his letter to Pope Gregory II, making Willibald (like most of his ilk) a bare faced liar. Allegedly oak from this sacred tree was used by Boniface to build an oratory (a small chapel for private worship) and dedicated it to Saint Peter.

I dare say that the Oak of Donar in Hesse was not unique and many such sacred oaks existed in pre-Christian times but the account by Willibald is significant for the 8th century marked a turning point in the Christianisation of Germany and the massacre of 4,500 Saxons at Verden in 772 CE showed how desperate Charlemagne and the Church were to impose their alien religion upon my ancestors. Not content with desecrating our most sacred sites the Church was not above committing genocide in their forceable conversion of the Saxons. The only reason why we do not see this today is because the power of the Church has been broken but we do see the same impulse in modern day Islam.

This vile creature, Boniface became known as the 'Apostle of the Germans'. However ultimately he was to pay the price for his sacrilege. By felling Donar's Oak he had in effect weaved his own wyrd!  In 754 CE he was slain by the heathen Frisians. He dared to challenge our God Donar and 30 years later he paid the consequences for his crime. For those of you who are interested in the association between Donar and the oak I would direct you to chapter 15 (The Worship of the Oak) of The Golden Bough by James George Frazer (1922), a most excellent work on mythology which has in my opinion never been equalled.