TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

CHAPTEE VL
GODS.
Now, I think, we are fully prepared for the inquiry, whether
real gods can be claimed for Germany in the oldest time. All the
branches of our language have the same general name for deity,
and have retained it to the present day ; all, or at any rate most of
them, so far as the deficiency of documents allows the chain of
evidence to be completed, show the same or but slightly varying
terms for the heathen notions of worship, sacrifice, temples and
priesthood. Above all there shines forth an unmistakable analogy
between the Old Norse terminology and the remains, many cen
turies older, of the other dialects : the Norse sesir, biota, horgr,
gool were known long before, and with the same meanings, to the
Goths, Alamanns, Franks and Saxons. And this identity or
the words to the customs themselves :
similarity extends beyond
in sacred groves the earliest human and animal victims were
offered, priests conducted sacrifices and divinations, wise women
enjoyed all but divine authority.
The proof furnished by the sameness of language is of itself
sufficient and decisive. When the several divisions of a nation
speak one and the same language, then, so long as they are left to
their own nature and are not exposed to violent influences from
without, they always have the same kind of belief and worship.
The Teutonic race lies midway between Celts, Slavs, Lithu
anians, Finns, all of them populations that acknowledge gods,
and practise a settled worship. The Slav nations, spread over
widely distant regions, have their principal gods in common ; how
should it be otherwise in Teutondom ?
As for demanding proofs of the genuineness of Norse mythology,
we have really got past that now. All criticism cripples and anni
hilates itself, that sets out with denying or doubting what is trea
sured up in song and story born alive arid propagated amongst an
entire people, and which lies before our eyes. Criticism can but
collect and arrange it, and unfold the materials in their historical
sequence.