TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

122 GODS.
Saxo Grammaticus, though he writes in Latin, avoids applying
the Eoman names of gods, he uses Othinus or Othin, never
Mercurius instead ; yet once, instead of his usual Thor (pp. 41,
103), he has Jupiter, p. 236, and malleus Jovialis ; Mars on p. 36
seems to stand for Othin, not for Tyr, who is never alluded to in
Saxo. Ermoldus Nigellus, citing the idols of the Normanni, says 4, 9
(Pertz 2, 501), that for God (the Father) they worshipped Neptune,
and for Christ Jupiter ; I suppose Neptune must here mean OSin,
and Jupiter Thor ;
the same names recur 4, 69. 100. 453-5.
Melis-Stoke, as late as the beginning of the 14th century, still
remembers that the heathen Frisians worshipped Mercury (1, 16.
I cannot indicate the Latin authority from which no doubt he
17) ;
drew this. 1
If the supposition be allowed, and it seems both a justifiable
and almost a necessary one, that, from the first century and during
the six or eight succeeding ones, there went on an uninterrupted
transfer of the above-mentioned and a few similar Latin names of
gods to domestic deities of Gaul and Germany, and was familiar
to all the educated ; we obtain by this alone the solution of a
remarkable phenomenon that has never yet been satisfactorily
of the heathen
explained : the early diffusion over half Europe
nomenclature of the days of the week.
These names are a piece of evidence favourable to German
heathenism, and not to be disregarded.
The matter seems to me to stand thus. 2 From Egypt, through
the Alexandrians, the week of seven days (e/SSo/^a?), which in
Western Asia was very ancient, came into vogue among the Eomans,
but the planetary nomenclature of the days of the week apparently
not till later. Under Julius Caesar occurs the earliest mention
of dies Saturni in connection with the Jewish sabbath, Tibull. 1,
r
Ep/*ov
3, 18. Then fjKiov ^epa in Justin Mart, apolog. 1, 67.
and A^poSLT?)? in
rjfjiepa Clem. Alex, strom. 7, 12. The institution
fully carried out, not long before Dio Cassius 37,. 18, about the close
1 Our MHG. poets impart no such information ; they only trouble their
heads about Saracen gods, among whom it is true Jupiter and Apollo make
their appearance too. In Rol. 97, 7 are named Mars, Jovinus, Saturnus.
2 I can here use only the beginning, not the conclusion, which would be
more useful for my investigation, of a learned paper by Julius Hare on the
names of the days of the week (Philolog. Mus., Nov. 1831). Conf. Idelers
handb. der chronol. 2, 177-180, and Letronne, observations sur les repre sentations
zodiacales, p. 99.