TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

IMAGES. 115
Frey s statue of silver, (Freyr markaftr af silfri), Vatnsd. p. 44. 50
carried about in a waggon in Sweden, Fornm. sog. 2, 73-7. The
Jomsvikingasaga tells of a temple on Gautland (I. of Gothland), in
which were a hundred gods, Fornm. sog. 11, 40 ; truly a densitas
imaginum/ as Jonas has it (see p. 83). Saxo Gram. 327 mentions
a simulacrum quercu factum, carved in oak ? or an oaktree
worshipped as divine ? (see Suppl.).
Not only three, but occasionally two figures side by side are
mentioned, particularly those of Wuotan and Donar or of Mars and
Mereurius, as we see from the passages cited. Figures of Freyr
and Thor together, and of Frigg and Freyja, occur in Miiller s
sagabibl. 1, 92. Names of places also often indicate such joint
worship of two divinities, e.g. in Hesse the Donnerseiche (Thor s
oak) stood close by the Wodansberg ;
and explorers would do well
to attend to the point.
But neither the alleged number of the statues, nor their descrip
tions in the sagas can pass for historical ; what they do prove is,
that statues there were. They appear mostly to have been hewn
out of wood, some perhaps were painted, clothed, and overlaid with
silver or gold ;
but no doubt stone images were also to be met with,
and smaller ones of copper or ivory. 1
I have put off until now the mention of a peculiar term for
statue, with which some striking accounts of heathen idols connect
themselves.
OHG. glosses have the word irman&Alt, pyramides, Mons. 360.
avar^n, irmansdtt, pyramides, Doc. 203 b . irmansij.l, colossus,
altissima columna, Florent. 987 a , Bias. 86. eolossus est irminsdl,
Gl. Schletst. 18, 1. 28, 1. The literal meaning seems to be statue,
to judge by the synonym avard, which in Gl. Jun. 226 is used for
(Deutsche sagen, no. 347. Tettaus, preuss. sagen, pp. 21 1-5-8). In Reinbot s
Georg the idol Apollo is flogged with rods by a child, and forced to walk away
(3258-69), which, reminds one of the god Perun, whom, according to monk
Nestor, Vladimir the Apostolic caused to be scourged with rods. In an Indian
story I find a statue that eats the food set before it, Polier 2, 302-3. Antiquity
then did not regard these images altogether as lumps of dead matter, but as
penetrated by the life of the divinity. The Greeks too have stories of statues
that move, shake the lance, fall on their kness, close their eyes (Kara/iuo-eij),
bleed and sweat, which may have been suggested by the attitudes of ancient
images ; but of a statue making a movement of the hand, bending a finger, I
have nowhere read, significant as the position of the arms in images of gods
was held to be. That the gods themselves xelpa inrep^xova-iv over those whom
they wish to protect, occurs as early as in Homer.
1 Finn Magnusen ibid. 132-7.