TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

GODS. 121
ab universis Germaniae gentibus ut deus adoratur. Just so his
older countryman Jonas of Bobbio, in that account of the sacrificing
Alamanns, declares : Illi aiunt, deo suo Vodano, quern Mercurium
vocant alii, se velle litare ; upon which, a gloss inserted by another
hand says less correctly : Qui apud eos Yuotant vocatur, Latini
autem Martem ilium appellant ; though otherwise Woden greatly
resembles Mars (v. infra).
Gregory of Tours (supra, p.107) makes Saturn and Jupiter, and
again Mars MercuriusquQ the gods whom the heathen Chlodovich
adored. In 1, 34 he expresses himself in more general terms: Pri-
vatus, Gabalitanae urbis episcopus. . . . daemoniis immolare compellitur
a Chroco Alamannorum rege (in the third cent.). Widekind
of Corvei names Mars and Hercules as gods of the Saxons (see
p. Ill); and that little addition to the Corvei Annals (see p.lll)
couples together the Greek and Latin denominations Aris and Mars,
Ermis and Mercurius.
The Indiculus paganiarum
Mercurii vel Jovis
reckons up, under 8: De sacris
1
feriis quae faciunt Jovi vel
; under 20 : De
Mercurio. So that the thunder-god, of whom Tacitus is silent, is
in other quarters unforgotten ; and now we can understand Wili-
bald s narrative of the robur Jovis (see p. 72), and in Bonifac.
epist. 25 (A.D. 723) the presbyter Jovi mactans (see Suppl.).
In the Additamenta operum Matthaei Paris, ed. W. Watts,
Paris 1644, pp. 25-6, there is an old account of some books which
are said to have been discovered in laying the foundation of a church
at Verlamacestre (St Albans) in the tenth century, and to have been
burnt. One of them contained invocationes et ritus idololatrarurn
civium Varlamacestrensium, in quibus comperit, quod specialiter
Phoebum deum solis invocarunt et coluerunt, secundario vero Mer
curium, Voden anglice appellatum, deum videlicet mercatorum,
quia cives et compatriotae . . . fere omnes negotiatores
et institores fuerunt. Evidently the narrator has added somewhat
out of his own erudition; the invocations and rites themselves
would have given us far more welcome information.
Passages which appear to speak of a German goddess by the
name of Diana, will be given later. Neptune is mentioned a few
times (supra, p. 110).
1 Had these been Roman gods, Jupiter would certainly have been named
first, and Mercury after.