TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

1 TEMPLES.
stand in the forest, heads of animals (ferarum imagines) hang on
the boughs of trees. There divine worship is performed and
sacrifice offered, there is the folk-mote and the assize, everywhere a
sacred awe and reminiscence of antiquity. Have not we here
alak, wih, paro, haruc faithfully portrayed
technical terms, unless they described an organized national
? How could such
worship presided over by priests, have sprung up in the language,
and lived ?
During many centuries, down to the introduction of Christianity,
this custom endured, of venerating deity in sacred woods and trees.
I will here insert the detailed narrative given by Wilibald
(t 786) in the Vita Bonifacii (Canisius II. 1, 242. Pertz 2, 343) of
the holy oak of Geismar (on the Edder, near Fritzlar in Hesse). 1
The event falls between the years 725 and 731. Is autem (Bonifacius)
... ad obsessas ante ea Hessorum metas cum consensu
Carli ducis (i.e. of Charles Martel) rediit. turn vero Hessorum jam
multi catholica fide subditi ac septiformis spiritus gratia confirmati
maims impositionem acceperunt, et alii quidem, nondum animo
confortati, intemeratae fidei documenta integre percipere renuerunt,
alii etiain linguis et faucibus clanculo, alii vero aperte sacrificdbant,
alii vero auspicia et divinationes, praestigia atque incantationes
occulte, alii quidem manifesto exercebant, alii quippe auspicia et
auguria intendebant, diversosque sacrificandi ritus incoluerunt, alii
etiam, quibus mens sanior inerat, omni abjecta gentilitatis pro-
phanatione nihil horum commiserunt. quorum consultu atque
consilio arborem quandam mirae maynitudinis, qu&Q prisco Paganorum
vocdbulo appellatur robur Jovis, in loco, qui dicitur Gaesmere,
servis Dei secum astantibus, succidere tentavit. cumque mentis
constantia confortatus arborem succidisset, magna quippe aderat
copia Paganorum, qui et inimicum deorum suorum intra se diligentissime
devotabant, sed ad modicum quidem arbore praecisa
confestim immensa roboris moles, divino desuper flatu exagitata,
palmitum confracto culmine, corruit, et quasi super! nutus solatio
in quatuor etiam partes disrupta est, et quatuor ingentis magnitudinis
aequali longitudine trunci, absque fratrum labore astantium
apparuerunt. quo viso prius devotantes Pagani etiam versa vice
benedictionem Domino, pristina abjecta nialedictione, credentes
1 A shorter account of the same in the annalist Saxo, p. 133.