TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

GODS. 1 17
Ann. Lauriss. : Et inde pen-exit partibus Saxoniae prima vice,
Aeresburgum castrum cepit, ad Ermensul usque pervenit, et ipsum
fanum destruxit, et aurum et argentum quod ibi repperit abstulit.
Et fuit siccitas magna, ita ut aqua deficeret in supradicto loco ubi
Ermensid stabat, &c. (Pertz 1, 150). Einhardi Ann. : Ferro et igni
cuncta depopulatus, Aeresburgum castrum cepit, idolum quod Irmin-
sul a Saxonibus vocabatur evertit (Pertz 1, 151) ; repeated
in Ann.
Tilian., and Chron. Eegin.,with spelling Ormensul (Pertz 1, 220, 557). 1
And Dietmar of Merseburg (Pertz 5, 744) further tells us, in connex
ion with later events: Sed exercitus capta urbe (Eresburch) ingressus,
juvenem praefatum usque in ecclesiam S. Petri, ubi prius ab antiquis
Irminsul colebatur, bello defatigatum depulit. Taking all these
passages together, Irminsul passes through the very same grada
tions of meaning we unfolded in ch. IV, and signifies now fanum,
now lucus, now idolum itself. It can scarcely be doubted, that vast
woodlands extended over that region : what if Osning? the name of
the mountain-forest in which the pillar stood, betokened a holy-
wood ? The gold and silver hoard, which Charles was supposed to
have seized there, may well be legendary embellishment. 3 Kuodolf
of Fuld goes more into detail about the Irminsul ;
after his general
statement on the heathen Saxons, that frondosis arboribus fonti-
on: Truncum
busque venerationem exhibebant (p. 101), he goes
quoque ligni non parvae magnitudinis in altum erectum sub divo
colebant, patria eum lingua Irminsid appellantes, quod Latine
dicitur universalis columna, quasi sustinens omnia (Pertz 2, 676),
1
Poeta Saxo 1, 65 :
(Bouquet 5, 137)
Gens eadem coluit simulacrum quod vocitabant
Irminstil, cujus factura simulque columna
Non operis parvi fuerat, pariterque decoris.
2 6s is the Sax. form for ans (p. 25), which denoted a god, and also a moun
tain ; in High G. the name would be Ansninc, Ensninc. But, beside this
mons Osnengi near Theotmelli, i.e. Detmold (Pertz 2, 447), there stood also a
silva Osning not far from Osnabriick (Moser urk. no 2), and a third in Ripuaria
on the Lower Rhine (Lacomblet no 310. 343. 354), which seems to have ex
tended towards the Ardennes as far as Aachen (Aix la Chap.), mentioned in
Vilkinasaga cap. 40 ; and according to Barsch on Schannat s Eiflia, illustr. 1,
110, and HattemerS, 602% the Ardennes itself was called Ominka, Oseninch.
By the Osnabriick charter above, the forest there appears even to have been
modelled on the Osning of Aachen (ad similitudinem foresti Aquisgranum pertinentis).
That Osning is met with in several places, speaks for a more general
meaning [than that of a mere proper name] ; like as, ans, and fairguni, it is
the sacred mountain and forest. Ledebur takes the Teutoburgiensis saltus to
be Osning. ^
Os?iabrtick, Asnebruggi (bridge of the ases) seems nearly related.
3 Is this Ermen-pillar hoard an allusion to the legend of Ermenrich s hoard?
(Saxo Gram. 156. Reinh. fuchs CLII.)