Northern mythology

APPENDIX. 261
applying rather to Roman tlian German heathenism ^ We
have in fact no genuine or trustworthy testimony that
clearly describes to us an idol in Germany Proper.
In no
Life of a saint is it related that a converter destroyed such
an idol. On the contrary, all the passages, which here
enter into consideration, point either to a blending of
foreign worship, or, on closer examination, there is no
question in them of an idol, or they are of doubtful character^.
The three brazen and gilt images, which St. Gall
found
and destroyed at Bregenz on the Lake of Constance, built
into the wall of a church dedicated to St. Aurelia, and
venerated by the people as gods, were no doubt of Roman
origin^, like
those stone images which St. Columban (ob.
615) met with at Luxeuil in Tranche Comte'*. The statue
of Diana at Treves, and the images of Mars and Mercury
in the south of Gaul, of which Gregory of Tours makes
mention^, are likewise rather Roman or Keltic than German.
Not even the noted and in other respects remarkable
passage of Widukind (i. 12), according to which the
Saxons, after their victory over the Thuringians on the
Unstrut, raised an altar and worshiped a god "nomine
Martem,effipe columnarum imitantes Herculem, loco Solem,
1 Similar forms of speech are numerous : e. g. Gregor. Tur. Hist. Franc.
II. 29. Willibald, Vita Bonifac. 11. 339, ap. Pertz. Vita Willehadi, ib. II.
380. Bonifac. Ep. 6 ; Vita Lebuini, ib. II. 362. Vita S. Kiliani in Act.
Bened. sec. 2. p. 992. Idola was the usual denomination of the heathen
gods. The passages, however, in the Vita Bonifacii and Vita Willehadi,
which refer to the Frisians, may appear convincing, as they had temples
also.
2 Midler, p. 65.
3 Walafrid. Strab. Vita S. Galli, in Act. Bened. sec. 2. p. 233. Comp.
Vita S. Galli ap. Pertz, ii. 7 ; Ratperti Casus S. GalU, ap. Pertz, ii. 61.
^ JonaeBobbiensisVitaS.Columbani,c.l7,in Act. Bened. sec. 2. pp.12, 13.
5 Hist. Franc, viii. 15. Mirac. 2. 5 : grande delubrum, ubi in columna
altissima simulacrum Mai'tis INIercuriique colebatur.