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Sacred Trees And Groves In Germanic Paganism And Mythology
Trees hold a particular role in Germanic paganism and Germanic mythology, both as individuals ( sacred trees) and in groups (sacred groves). The central role of trees in Germanic religion is noted in the earliest written reports about the Germanic peoples, with the Roman historian Tacitus stating that Germanic cult practices took place exclusively in groves rather than temples. Scholars consider that reverence for and rites performed at individual trees are derived from the mythological role of the world tree, Yggdrasil; onomastic and some historical evidence also connects individual deities to both groves and individual trees. After Christianisation, trees continue to play a significant role in the folk beliefs of the Germanic peoples. Terminology The pagan Germanic peoples referred to holy places by a variety of terms and many of these terms variously referred to stones, groves, and temple structures. From Proto-Germanic , a masculine noun, developed Old Norse meaning 'alt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tree Of Yggdrasil
''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the Most common words in English, most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old High German
Old High German (OHG; ) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally identified as the period from around 500/750 to 1050. Rather than representing a single supra-regional form of German, Old High German encompasses the numerous West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialects that had undergone the set of sound change, consonantal changes called the High German consonant shift, Second Sound Shift. At the start of this period, dialect areas reflected the territories of largely independent tribal kingdoms, but by 788 the conquests of Charlemagne had brought all OHG dialect areas into a single polity. The period also saw the development of a stable linguistic border between German and Gallo-Romance languages, Gallo-Romance, later French language, French. Old High German largely preserved the synthetic language, synthetic inflectional system inherited from its ancestral Germanic forms. The eventual disruption of these patterns, which led to the more analytic language ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Low German
Middle Low German is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented in writing since about 1225–34 (). During the Hanseatic period (from about 1300 to about 1600), Middle Low German was the leading written language in the north of Central Europe and served as a lingua franca in the northern half of Europe. It was used parallel to medieval Latin also for purposes of diplomacy and for deeds. Terminology While ''Middle Low German'' (MLG) is a scholarly term developed in hindsight, speakers in their time referred to the language mainly as (Saxon) or (the Saxon language). In contrast to Latin as the primary written language, speakers also referred to discourse in Saxon as speaking/writing , i.e. 'clearly, intelligibly'. This contains the same root as 'German' (cf., High German: , Dutch ( archaically ''N(i)ederduytsche'' to mean the contemporary version of the Dutch language) both from Proto-Germanic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to Germanic peoples, Germanic settlers who became one of the most important cultural groups in Britain by the 5th century. The Anglo-Saxon period in Britain is considered to have started by about 450 and ended in 1066, with the Norman conquest of England, Norman Conquest. Although the details of Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, their early settlement and History of Anglo-Saxon England, political development are not clear, by the 8th century an Anglo-Saxon cultural identity which was generally called had developed out of the interaction of these settlers with the existing Romano-British culture. By 1066, most of the people of what is now England spoke Old English, and were considered English. Viking and Norman invasions chang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Irish
Old Irish, also called Old Gaelic (, Ogham, Ogham script: ᚌᚑᚔᚇᚓᚂᚉ; ; ; or ), is the oldest form of the Goidelic languages, Goidelic/Gaelic language for which there are extensive written texts. It was used from 600 to 900. The main contemporary texts are dated 700–850; by 900 the language had already transitioned into early Middle Irish. Some Old Irish texts date from the 10th century, although these are presumably copies of texts written at an earlier time. Old Irish is forebear to Modern Irish, Manx language, Manx and Scottish Gaelic. Old Irish is known for having a particularly complex system of morphology (linguistics), morphology and especially of allomorphy (more or less unpredictable variations in stems and suffixes in differing circumstances), as well as a complex phonology, sound system involving grammatically significant Irish initial mutations, consonant mutations to the initial consonant of a word. Apparently,It is difficult to know for sure, giv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacellum
A ''sacellum'' is a small shrine in ancient Roman religious contexts. The word is a diminutive of ''sacrum'' (neuter of ''sacer'', "belonging to a god"). The numerous ''sacella'' of ancient Rome included both shrines maintained on private properties by families, and public ones. A ''sacellum'' might be square or round. Varro and Verrius Flaccus describe ''sacella'' in ways that at first seem contradictory, the former defining a ''sacellum'' in its entirety as equivalent to a ''cella'', which is specifically an enclosed space, and the latter insisting that a ''sacellum'' had no roof. "Enclosure", however, is the shared characteristic, roofed over or not. "The ''sacellum''", notes Jörg Rüpke, "was both less complex and less elaborately defined than a temple proper". The meaning can overlap with that of ''sacrarium'', a place where sacred objects ''(sacra)'' were stored or deposited for safekeeping. The ''sacella'' of the Argei, for instance, are also called ''sacraria''. In pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area around Rome, Italy. Through the expansion of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language in the Italian Peninsula and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. It has greatly influenced many languages, Latin influence in English, including English, having contributed List of Latin words with English derivatives, many words to the English lexicon, particularly after the Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons and the Norman Conquest. Latin Root (linguistics), roots appear frequently in the technical vocabulary used by fields such as theology, List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names, the sciences, List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes, medicine, and List of Latin legal terms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nemeton
A nemeton (plural: nemeta) was a sacred space of ancient Celtic religion. Nemeta appear to have been primarily situated in natural areas, often sacred groves.Koch, p. 1350. However, other evidence suggests that the word implied a wider variety of ritual spaces, such as shrines and temples.Green, p. 448.Dowden, p. 134. Evidence for nemeta consists chiefly of inscriptions and toponymy or place-names, which occur all across the Celtic world. Toponyms related to the word ''nemeton'' occur as far west as Galicia in the Iberian peninsula, as far north as Scotland, and as far east as central Turkey. The word is related to the name of the Nemetes tribe living by the Rhine between the Palatinate and Lake Constance in what is now Germany, and their goddess Nemetona. Attestations in Latin The word nemeton is explained late in a gloss by Fortunatus : « loco nomine Vernemetis… quod quasi fanum ingens Gallica lingua refert. » ("in a place called Vernemetis...which means like a ''fanum' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaulish
Gaulish is an extinct Celtic languages, Celtic language spoken in parts of Continental Europe before and during the period of the Roman Empire. In the narrow sense, Gaulish was the language of the Celts of Gaul (now France, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine). In a wider sense, it also comprises varieties of Celtic that were spoken across much of central Europe ("Noric language, Noric"), parts of the Balkans, and Anatolia ("Galatian language, Galatian"), which are thought to have been closely related. The more divergent Lepontic language, Lepontic of Northern Italy has also sometimes been subsumed under Gaulish. Together with Lepontic and the Celtiberian language, Celtiberian spoken in the Iberian Peninsula, Gaulish is a member of the geographic group of Continental Celtic languages. The precise linguistic relationships among them, as well as between them and the modern Insul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Frankish
Frankish ( reconstructed endonym: *), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 10th centuries. Franks under king Chlodio settled in Roman Gaul in the 5th century. One of his successors, named Clovis I, took over the Roman province of Gallia Lugdunensis (in modern day France). Outnumbered by the local populace, the ruling Franks there adapted to its language which was a Proto-Romance dialect. However, many modern French words and place names are still of Frankish origin. Between the 5th and 10th centuries, Frankish spoken in Northeastern France, present-day Belgium, and the Netherlands is subsequently referred to as Old Dutch, whereas the Frankish varieties spoken in the Rhineland were heavily influenced by Elbe Germanic dialects and the Second Germanic consonant shift and formed part of the modern Central Franconian and Rhine Franconian dialects of German and Luxembourgish. The Old Franki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vé (shrine)
In Germanic paganism, a vé (Old Norse: ) or wēoh (Old English) is a type of shrine, sacred enclosure or other place with religious significance. The term appears in skaldic poetry and in place names in Scandinavia (with the exception of Iceland), often in connection with an Old Norse religion, Old Norse deity or a geographic feature. Functions Andy Orchard says that a vé may have surrounded a temple or have been simply a marked, open place where worship occurred. Orchard points out that Tacitus, in his 1st century Common Era, CE work ''Germania (book), Germania'', says that the Germanic peoples, unlike the Ancient Rome, Romans, "did not seek to contain their deities within temple walls."Orchard (1997:173–174). Etymology Vé derives from a Proto-Germanic language, Common Germanic word meaning sacred or holy, cf. Gothic language, Gothic ''weihs'' (holy), Old English ''wēoh, wīg'' (idol), German language, German ''weihen'' (consecrate, sanctify), German ''Weihnachten'' (Chri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indo-European Languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e.g., Tajikistan and Afghanistan), Armenia, and areas of southern India. Historically, Indo-European languages were also spoken in Anatolia. Some European languages of this family—English language, English, French language, French, Portuguese language, Portuguese, Russian language, Russian, Spanish language, Spanish, and Dutch language, Dutch—have expanded through colonialism in the modern period and are now spoken across several continents. The Indo-European family is divided into several branches or sub-families, including Albanian language, Albanian, Armenian language, Armenian, Balto-Slavic, Celtic languages, Celtic, Germanic languages, Germanic, Hellenic languages, Hellenic, Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian, and Italic languages, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
