TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

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THUNAR.
perhaps with reference [not so much to the old Roman, as] to the
Gallic or even German sense which had then come to be attached
to the god s name. Remember that German isarnodori on the Jura
mountains not far off (p. 80). 1
Such names of mountains in Germany itself we may with
perfect safety ascribe to the worship of the native deity. Every
one knows the Donnersberg (mont Tonnerre) in the Rhine palatinate
on the borders of the old county of Falkenstein, between Worms,
Kaiserslautern and Kreuznach ; it stands as Thoneresberg in a doc.
of 869, Schannat hist, wormat. probat. p. 9. Another Thuneresbery
situate on the Diemel, in Westphalia, not far from Warburg, and
surrounded by the villages of Wormeln, Germete and Welda, is
first mentioned in a doc. of 1100, Schaten mon. paderb. 1, 649 ;
in the Mid. Ages it was still the seat of a great popular assize,
originally due, no doubt, to the sacredness of the spot : comes ad
ThuneresberJic (anno 1123), Wigands feme 222. comitia de Dunrisberg
(1105), Wigands arch. I. 1, 56. a judicio nostro Thonresberch
(1239), ib. 58. Precisely in the vicinity of this mountain stands the
holy oak mentioned on p. 72-4, just as the robur Jovis by Geismar
in Hesse is near a Wuotansberg, p. 152. To all appearance the two
deities could be worshipped close to one another. The Kniillgebirge
in Hesse includes a Donnerkaute. In the Bernerland is a
DonnerluM (doc. of 1303, Joh. Miiller 1, 619), called Tonrbul in
Justingers Berner chron. p. 50. Probably more Donnersbergs are
to be found in other parts of Germany. One in the Regensburg
country is given in a doc. of 882 under the name of Tuniesberg,
Ried, cod. dipl. num. 60. A Sifridus marschalcus de Donnersperch
an Otto de
is named in a doc. of 1300, MB. 33, pars 1, p. 289 ;
Donersperg, MB. 4, 94 (in 1194), but Duonesberc, 4, 528 (in 1153),
and Tunniesberg 11, 432. In the Thuringer wald, -between Stein-
1 This mons Jovis must be distinguished from mons gaudii, which the
"by
Mid. Ages meant a height near Rome : Otto frising 1. c. 2, 22 the ; Kaiserchr.
88 d translates it verbally mendelberc. In Romance poems of the 12- 13th
centuries, monjoie is the French battle-cry, generally with the addition of St
Denis, e.g. monjoya, monjoya sant Denis ! Ferabras 365. monjoie enseigne S.
Denis ! Garin 108. Ducange in his llth dissertation on Joinville declares
monjoie inadmissible as a mere diminutive of mont, since in other passages
(Roquefort 2, 207) it denotes any place of joy and bliss, a paradise,
so that we
can fairly keep to the literal sense ; and there must have been mountains of
this name in more than one region. It is quite possible that monjoie itself
came from an earlier monjove (mons Jovis), that with the god s hill there
associated itself the idea of a mansion of bliss (see Suppl.).