TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

IRMINO, IRMIN. 353
a particular god. To discover who this was, we can only choose
one of two ways : either he was one of the three great divinities,
Wodan, Thonar, Tin, or some being distinct from them.
But here we must, above all things, ponder the passage partly
quoted on p. Ill from Widukind, himself a Saxon; it says, a
heathen god was worshipped, whose name suggested Mars, his
pillar-statue Hercules, and the place where he was set up the sun
or Apollo. After that, he continues : Ex hoc apparet, aestima-
tionem illorum utcumque probabilem, qui Saxones originem duxisse
putant de Graecis, quia Hirmin vel Hermes graece Mars dicitur,
quo vocabulo ad laudem vel ad vituperationem usque hodie etiam
ignorantes utimur . From this it follows, that the god to whom
the Saxons sacrificed after their victory over the Thuringians was
called Hirmin, Irmin, and in the 10th century the name was still
affixed in praise or blame to very eminent or very desperate
characters. 1
Apollo is brought- in by the monk, because the altar
was built ad orientalem portam, and Hercules, because his pillar
called up that of the native god; no other idol can have been
meant, than precisely the irmin&til (pp. 115 118), and the true form
of this name must have been Irmines, Irmanes or Hirmines sul.
The Saxons had set up a pillar to their Irmin on the banks of the
Unstrut, as they did in their own home.
The way Hirmin, Hermes and Mars are put together seems a
perfect muddle, though
Widukind sees in it a confirmation of the
story about the Saxons being sprung from Alexander s army
(Widuk. 1, 2. Sachsensp. 3, 45). We ought to remember, first,
that Wodan was occasionally translated Mars instead of Mercurius
(pp. 121. 133), and had all the appearance of the Eoman Mars
given him (p. 133); then further, how easily Irmin or Hirmin in
this case would lead to Hermes, and Ares to Mars, for the Irminsul
itself is connected with Eres-burg (p. 11G). What the Corvei
annalist kept distinct (p. Ill), the two images of Ares and of
Hermes, are confounded by Widukind. But now, which has the
1
better claim to be Irmin, Mars or Mercury } On p. 197 I have
pronounced rather in favour of Mars, as Miillenhoff too (Haupt 7,
384) identifies Irmin with Ziu ;
one might even be inclined to see
1 Much as we say now : he is a regular devil, or in Lower Saxony hamer
(p. 182). The prefix irmin- likewise intensifies in a good or bad sense like
;
*
irmingod, irminthiod, there may have been an irminthiob = meginthiob,
reginthiob .
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