Krodo according to the 1492 ''Saxon Chronicle''

incunable In the history of printing, an incunable or incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. Incunabula were pr ...

, probably written by the Brunswick goldsmith Conrad Bothe (c. 1475 – c. 1501) and printed in the studio of Peter Schöffer at Mainz, was a Germanic god of the Saxons. He is supposed to have been similar to the Roman god

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; h ...

. Modern historians characterize the figure of Krodo as a fake (Janzen 2017).

Description

The ''Saxon Chronicle'' (written in Middle Low German: ''Cronecken der Sassen'') contains a fanciful illustration of Krodo as a man clad in a linen garment with a wafting belt, who is standing on a large fish (a

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

or perch) holding a bucket of roses in his right hand and an upright wheel in his left. The symbols possibly refer to the ancient four elements, though numerous further attempts at an interpretation have been given. According to Bothe,

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

during the conquests of '' Magna Germania'' ordered the erection of several fortresses crowned by statues of Roman deities; one of them was dedicated to Saturn–named ''Krodo'' by the local population–and stood at the site of later

Harzburg The Harzburg, also called Große Harzburg ("Great Harz Castle"), is a former imperial castle, situated on the northwestern edge of the Harz mountain range overlooking the spa resort of Bad Harzburg in Goslar District in the state of Lower Saxony ...

Castle. When in 780, during the

Saxon Wars The Saxon Wars were the campaigns and insurrections of the thirty-three years from 772, when Charlemagne first entered Saxony with the intent to conquer, to 804, when the last rebellion of tribesmen was defeated. In all, 18 campaigns were fought ...

, the Frankish king Charlemagne occupied the region he allegedly had the pagan statue destroyed in the course of the Christianization of the Saxon people. Bothe's account was already rejected as a fable by contemporary scholars such as Albert Krantz (c. 1450 – 1517). As the 15th century ''Saxon Chronicle'' is the first and only source, the existence of Krodo today is generally considered doubtful along with other supposed Germanic gods, such as Ostara or

Stuffo Stuffo is the name of a supposed Germanic god, who originates from various late medieval legends from Germany related to Saint Boniface. Origin Stuffo first appears in a few late medieval/early modern Bonifacian legends. A 1756 image of the god be ...

. Although his annals are obviously based on earlier chronicles like the '' Sächsische Weltchronik'', Bothe himself renders no references or sources of his assumption. Nevertheless the nearby Goslar collegiate church contained the so-called Krodo Altar, which probably dates back to the 11th century and may have been transferred from Harzburg Castle by Emperor Henry III to his

Imperial Palace of Goslar The Imperial Palace of Goslar (german: link=no, Kaiserpfalz Goslar) is a historical building complex at the foot of the Rammelsberg hill in the south of the town of Goslar north of the Harz mountains, central Germany. It covers an area of about ...

about 1047. In German folklore the tales of the pagan Krodo idol (''Götze Crodo'') were passed down apparently as a subject in the region of the villages of Götzenthal and Grotenleide near the

Upper Saxon Upper Saxon (german: Obersächsisch, ; ) is an East Central German language spoken in much of the modern German state of Saxony and in adjacent parts of southeastern Saxony-Anhalt and eastern Thuringia. As of the early 21st century, it's m ...

town of Meerane.

Johann Georg Theodor Grässe Johann Georg Theodor Grässe (or Graesse) (31 January 1814 – 27 August 1885) was a German bibliographer and literary historian. He worked in Dresden at the Münzkabinett and also edited the journal ''Zeitschrift für Museologie und Antiquitäten ...

: ''Der Sagenschatz des Königreichs Sachsen''. Vol. 2, Dresden 1874, p. 26-27 In the spa resort of Bad Harzburg several streets and public institutions are named after Krodo. The town advertises itself today using the figure as a mascot. A replica statue was erected at Harzburg Castle in 2007.

References

Sources

* Vollmer, Wilhelm: ''Wörterbuch der Mythologie''. Stuttgart 1874, p. 302. * J.A.E. Köhler: ''Das Sagenbuch des Erzgebirges'', 1886

External links

The god Krodo, by Horst Woick

{{Authority control Slavic pseudo-deities Germanic gods Old Saxony