Germanic Folklore

Proto-Germanic paganism was the beliefs of the speakers of Proto-Germanic and includes topics such as the Germanic mythology, legendry, and folk beliefs of early Germanic culture. By way of the comparative method, Germanic philologists, a variety of historical linguist, have proposed reconstructions of entities, locations, and concepts with various levels of security in early Germanic folklore (reconstructions are indicated by the presence of an asterisk). The present article includes both reconstructed forms and proposed motifs from the early Germanic period.

Linguistic reconstructions can be obtained via comparison between the various Germanic languages, comparison with related words in other Indo-European languages, especially Celtic and Baltic, comparison with borrowings into neighbouring language families such as Uralic, or via a combination of those methods. This allows linguists to project some terms back to the Proto-Germanic period despite their attestation in only one Germanic language; for instance, ''*saidaz'' ('magic') is only attested in Old Norse ''seiðr'', but has parallels in Proto-Celtic ''*soytos'' and Lithuanian ''saitas''.

Deities

Entities

Locations

Other

Shared lexicon with Celtic, Baltic and Slavic

Proto-Celtic

The common religious vocabulary between Celtic and Germanic languages suggests that speakers of Proto-Germanic and Proto-Celtic were in close contact in ancient times and likely shared some of their beliefs. This connection likely dates back even further to interactions between Pre-Germanic and Celtic languages, as shown by some cognates that do not exhibit the effects of Grimm's Law, which is usually dated to around 500 BCE.

Historian John T. Koch argues that Pre-Germanic and Pre-Celtic languages remained in close contact from 1800 to between 1200 and 900 BCE, partly due to the long-distance metal trade with Scandinavia. A few of these terms can be identified as Celtic loanwords that entered the Germanic languages between 900 and 500 BCE, after the sound changes in Proto-Celtic had been completed, but before the emergence of Grimm's Law in Proto-Germanic.

Baltic and Slavic

The relationship between Proto-Germanic speakers and those of Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic is unclear. Edgar Polomé writes that the "acceptable lexical evidence exclusively shared by the Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic tribes is hardly sufficient to draw any definite conclusions as to their close relationship". Frederik Kortlandt argues that because a substantial portion of the vocabulary shared between Germanic and Balto-Slavic was borrowed after the Baltic–Slavic split, Germanic and Proto-Balto-Slavic could never have been contiguous Indo-European dialects. According to him, the earliest contacts between Germanic and Baltic-Slavic speakers must date to the early Middle Ages, and Germanic loanwords in Baltic must have passed through a Slavic intermediary.

Some religious materials have been found to be shared between Germanic, Slavic and Celtic. For instance, the Proto-Germanic word for ''werewolf'' (''*wira-wulfaz'', 'man-wolf') appears to be semantically related to the Proto-Slavic and Proto-Celtic equivalents *''vьlko-dlakь'' ('wolf-haired') and *''wiro-kū'' ('man-dog'), respectively. The motif of the Wild Hunt is also shared amongst the Germans, Celts, and Slavs.

Shared lexicon

See also

*Anthropomorphic wooden cult figurines of Central and Northern Europe
*Sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology
* Proto-Celtic paganism
* Proto-Indo-Iranian paganism

Notes

References

* Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989). ''Íslensk orðsifjabók''. Orðabók Háskólans.
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{{Germanic peoples

European folklore