Northern mythology

262 EPITOME OF GERMAN MYTHOLOGY.
quern Grreci appellant Apollinem/^ appears to us unquestionably
to indicate a true idol. AYe can infer from the
words of Vridukind nothing more than the erection of a
column similar to the Irmenseule at Eresburg, which
Charles the Great destroyed.
In the passages which relate
to this latter^ it is called sometimes idolum, sometimes
fanuni, sometimes luciis ; but the word itself shows that
Rudolf of Fulda was right in defining it " truncum ligni
non parvse magnitudinis in altum erectum/^ nor is his
expression for it of '^^universalis columna^^ an unfitting
one^.
The history of the
development of Greek and Roman
image worship may aid us to a clearer insight into our
native heathenism. The Greek representation of a god
had not from the commencement the pretension of being a
likeness of the god, but was only a symbol of his presence,,
for a sense of which the piety of ancient times required
the less of externals the more deeply it was impressed
with the belief of that presence^. An external sign of the
divinity was, nevertheless, necessary for the sake of having
an object on which pious veneration of the gods might
manifest itself. As, therefore, both in Hellas and Italy,
the antique representations of the gods, as lances, etc.,
were mere symbols, in like manner we may regard the
swords of the Quadi and the golden snakes of the Langobardi
only as consecrated signs announcing the presence
of the god. The representations of the gods next developed
themselves, among the Greeks, under the form of
rough stones, stone pillars
and wooden poles, which were
1 See the passages relating to the Irmenseule in Meibora. de Irminsula
Saxonica, in Rer. Germ. Scriptt. iii. pp. 2, sq. D. M. pp. 105, sq. Comp.
also Ideler's Einhard, i. 156, sq.
- Miiller, p. 67. Rudolf. Fuld. Transl. S. Alexandri, ap. Pertz, ii. 676.
3 0. MUUer, Handbuch der Archaeologie dcr Kunst, § 6(j.