Mimisbrunnr.info Guide:

Getting Started with Germanic Mythology

Joseph S. Hopkins for Mimisbrunnr.info, June 2020. Updated September 2023.

The present guide serves as an expansion of Mimisbrunnr.info’s Getting Started with Norse Mythology and aims to assist readers in getting started with the broader topic of Germanic mythology, Norse myth being but one extension of Germanic myth. However, this guide notably differs from the aforementioned resource in that, rather than primarily offering a list of useful resources, Getting Started with Germanic Mythology aims to introduce readers to key concepts, offers readers advice in approaching the ancient Germanic record, and recommends reliable modern sources to assist readers on their path wherever possible.

Please note: Like all resources produced under the Mimisbrunnr.info project banner, this guide is not monetized, and does not contain affiliate links. Mimisbrunnr.info has no desire to sell you anything. Where possible, Mimisbrunnr.info recommends purchasing books mentioned in this guide from local bookstores over any other options (for example, if you’re in the United States, consider trying out the IndieBound search engine).

What does Germanic mean?

First, let’s clear up any potential confusion with a brief discussion about what we mean when we use the term Germanic in the context of this guide. The modern English language presents readers with an initial hurdle to overcome with this term, because English-speaking readers without a background in historical linguistics will immediately think of the modern nation of Germany when hearing the word Germanic. However, as used by anthropologists who specialize in language change, historical linguists or philologists, Germanic here refers to a language family that far predates the modern nation of Germany.

Since you’re reading this, you’re already well-versed in at least one Germanic language: English. That doesn’t mean that English stems from German; they are in fact closely related linguistic siblings, what linguists call sister languages. Historical linguists, specialists in the science of language, commonly categorize Germanic languages into three branches: West Germanic, North Germanic, and East Germanic. West Germanic consists of the aforementioned English and German, among many others, such as Dutch and Yiddish; whereas the North Germanic category contains languages such as Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish; and East Germanic is today extinct, with Gothic as the most notable example known to us today.

All Germanic languages ultimately stem from a largely unrecorded common tongue, which we today call Proto-Germanic. With varying levels of certainty, linguists have produced reconstructions of a significant amount of Proto-Germanic vocabulary by way of languages that descend from Proto-Germanic. The speakers of Proto-Germanic and its daughter languages are known in academia as the ancient Germanic peoples. The ancient Germanic peoples are the linguistic ancestors of all modern speakers of Germanic languages across the world, from Europe to the Americas and well beyond. Today English is by far the most widely spoken Germanic language, and one of the most commonly spoken languages on the planet.

What about Germanic mythology?

So where does mythology come into this? To answer that, let’s take a look at the words myth and mythology: Put simply, as far as this guide is concerned a myth is a traditional narrative featuring a deity, deities, or deity-like entities. Myth is a form of folklore, and it sits on the proverbial folklore studies shelf of folklore genres alongside legend, joke, the traditional recipe, and many other traditional, often orally transmitted aspects of human expression. A group of myths may be referred to as a body of myths (or some similar phrase) but more commonly (and more confusingly) a mythology, a term also widely used to refer to the study of myth.

Germanic mythology is therefore the shared or common bodies of myths of the ancient Germanic language speakers—and the study thereof. By way of a similar process as reconstructing Proto-Germanic, folklorists, philologists, and other specialized anthropologists can—to varying degrees of success and confidence—reconstruct elements of ancient Germanic culture, including components of lost myth bodies among the ancient Germanic peoples. Similar to the process of reconstructing ancient Germanic words, scholars reconstruct aspects of ancient Germanic myth by way of comparing myths and clusters of the most minuscule elements of myth, motifs, that occur in the historic record among related peoples, both within the Germanic language family and exterior to it.

Among the ancient Germanic peoples, the great majority of myth that comes down to us does so by way of references to—or writings by—the North Germanic peoples. Scholars have written much about these topics, but the broader discussion of Germanic mythology receives comparatively little analysis.

This is at least in part due to the complex, inaccessible, and diverse nature of the sources. In the absence of generally cohesive collections of North Germanic texts like the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and the saga corpus exterior to the North Germanic branch, readers must become familiar with the complexities of time, place, and history among a variety of different peoples.

One example is the Old High German Merseburg Charm II. As readers can see, the charm mentions six deities, all but one of which are known to specialists from the North Germanic corpus. One of these deities otherwise only receives brief mention in the North Germanic corpus, the goddess Volla (known to Old Norse speakers as Fulla), while another goddess, Sinthgunt, receives no other surviving mention at all. Whether Sinthgunt is another name for a goddess in the Old Norse corpus or refers to an otherwise unknown goddess remains a mystery.

Some entities, such as governments, have attempted to prescribe, codify, or promote an ‘official’ version of a particular narrative or pantheon, as one can find espoused in the ‘official’ religious narratives espoused by a variety of modern, generally monotheistic religious organizations. This phenomenon also occurs in language (called prescriptivism). However, like language, myth does not remain static; it changes, expands, and diversifies. When we are allowed a glimpse at ancient myth among polytheistic peoples on-the-ground, such as the first-hand second century CE insight provided by Ancient Greek historian Pausanius’s Description of Greece, Pausanius finds variation and innovation in local tradition. For example, consider the following passage in book eight (Arcadia) on these topics, wherein Pausanius seeks out a remarkable statue of the goddess Demeter from before his time due to his interest in variations in local tradition, yet does not find it and discovers that local tradition has changed:

Elaion the other mountain is about four miles from Phigalia; there is a Cave of Demeter there with the title Black Demeter. The Phigalians believe the same as they say at Thelpousa about the coupling of Poseidon and Demeter, though the Phigalians say Demeter gave birth not to a horse but a goddess Arkadians call the Mistress.

… The Phigalians say because of all this they considered the cave as sacred to Demeter, and dedicated a wooden statue there. The statue was like this: she was sitting on a rock, and looked like a woman except for the head; she had a horse’s head and mane, with serpents and other beasts sprouting out of her head; she wore a tunic down to her feet, she had a dolphin in one hand and a dove on the other. To anyone with intelligence and good memory, it is obvious why they made the wooden image in this shape. They say she was named Black Demeter because the goddess also was dressed in black. (Levi 1988 [1971]: 475-479)

Pausanius describes how tradition holds that this statue, made by an anonymous artist, had burnt under unknown circumstances. He says that the wooden statue was replaced by with a bronze piece created by a famous sculptor, Onatas, who replicated it by way of a painting or copy of the wooden statue and through dream visions. Searching for the bronze replica, Pausanius performs a particular local custom of offering and witnesses celebrations of the event around a sacred grove surrounding the Cave of Demeter, but finds the statue to be absent. (Ibid.)

Scholars expect some level of change—known as innovation—to occur over time. This yields variation. However, aspects of myth can also be remarkably resistant to change. For example, Roman senator Tacitus’s Germania (1 CE) relays that the Semnones, an ancient Germanic people, place great emphasis on a particular grove, the Grove of the Semnones. According to Tacitus, this sacred grove was also where the Semnones believe they originated. In other words, the Semnones believed they stem from trees. This focus on sacred groves and the notion of descending from and maintaining a sort of kinship to trees is very strongly attested among the North Germanic peoples over a millennia later. In fact, the North Germanic peoples maintained that they, too, stemmed from trees, but also from groves (for further discussion and context, see the Kvasir Symbol Database entry “Sacred Tree & Holy Grove”).

While small, the Old English record provides numerous references and texts of interest to specialists in ancient Germanic studies. Consider, for example, Nigon Wyrta Galdor, often referred to as the Nine Herbs Charm, which calls upon the god Odin to provide healing (perhaps for a snake bite), and references a variety of motifs surrounding the god that appear elsewhere in the record, such as the god’s association with healing in the aforementioned Merseburg Charm II.

Although it rarely mentions the beliefs of the pre-Christianization Old English speakers, the Old English textual record allows for other insights: The Old English record happens to allow for unique glimpses into a very early era of myth among the ancient Germanic peoples, so early that it provides further support for reconstruction of elements of the myths of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The Proto-Indo-Europeans are the linguistic ancestor of speakers of the Germanic, Slavic, Romance, Greek, and Iranian languages, among many others. Languages that descend from Proto-Indo-European are known as Indo-European languages.

Consider the following elements of Proto-Indo-European myth that occur in the scant few records of Old English deities known to us today:

• Horse twins and dawn goddess: Eighth century Anglo-Saxon chronicler Bede mentions the founding horse-associated brothers Hengist and Horsa in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum) and mentions Ēostre, goddess and English language namesake for the holiday Easter, in his The Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione). In Indo-European studies, these two motifs are known as the horse brothers and dawn goddess, respectively. Both are extremely common in Indo-European myth bodies, perhaps best known to readers today as the ancient Greek Dioscuri and Aurora, or the Vedic Sanskrit Aśvins and Ushas. The divine twins are commonly associated with horses and occur as founding figures, whereas the personified dawn is strongly associated with the east—where the dawn occurs—and, as one would expect, the Sun (in fact personified as a goddess in Germanic myth, as attested in Old Norse and Old High German). The dawn goddess would be known as *austaz, meaning both ‘dawn’ and ‘east’. (For brief discussion on etymology and lexical items related to Old English Ēostre, see OED 2020a, cf. Orel 2003: 30).

• Day-Sky Father: Attested by way of the English weekday name Tuesday (Tīw’s Day, for a chronology of the phrases’s occurrence in the Old English record, see OED 2020b), the deity Tīw is widely referenced in the ancient Germanic record, most extensively in the North Germanic branch (Old Norse Týr). The Proto-Germanic form, *Tīwaz, ultimately derives from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name in the following example phrases: Ancient Greek Zeus Patēr, Latin Jupiter, and Vedic Sanskrit Dyáuṣ Pitṛ́. The Proto-Indo-European form of this deity was strongly associated with the daylight sky, an aspect missing from references to the Germanic extension of the deity in the few extant narratives concerning him.

The complexities don’t end there: As this guide will briefly touch upon, ideology, politicization, and pseudoscience are all topics readers would be wise to keep an eye out for when approaching the topic of Germanic mythology. And this makes for an excellent time to reiterate that the present article is a guide to getting started with the study of ancient Germanic mythology, and not in itself an overview of the ancient Germanic record. So let’s take a look at the highest-grade tools necessary for approaching the record by way of the natural process in which readers are likely to research these items: Discovering a topic through a handbook (a tertiary source), comparing translations of the sources of the handbook entry (the primary sources), and consulting books and papers that take a deeper dive into the subject (known as secondary sources).

TERTIARY SOURCES: MAPS TO THE UNIVERSE

So, if this guide does not provide a list of sources, where can one find them? Due to the varied, scattered, and immense nature of the corpus, the most cohesive way to approach Germanic mythology is by way of tertiary sources, specifically handbooks. To date, only one English handbook is dedicated specifically to the topic of the ancient Germanic peoples:

• Simek, Rudolf. 1996. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D. S. Brewer. Publisher website.

Austrian philologist Rudolf Simek is a well-known academic in the field, and there’s currently nothing else in the English language quite like his handbook. Unfortunately, the handbook has many problems. Just as a few examples, Simek does not provide entries for important items from the Old English record; he has not updated it with any developments, such as archaeological finds, since at least the 1980s (despite several reprints and new editions); and Simek’s then-pet theories play a major role in many of his entries (some of which are demonstrably incorrect).

The handbook also lacks an index (but Mimisbrunnr.info made one!) and Simek at times refers to absent entries or entries that have evidently been renamed or perhaps merged. The English edition of the handbook is also a revised and evidently expanded translation of Simek’s original German language editions, which results in curious translation issues, which is not a small issue for a book that frequently discusses etymology. Nonetheless, many of the topics Simek covers here receive very little discussion in English language sources beyond this handbook, and this reason alone makes the handbook a necessity for serious researchers in ancient Germanic studies.

Readers can also find discussion about the ancient Germanic peoples in other tertiary sources on the North Germanic record, each of which has its quirks:

• Lindow, John. 2002. Handbook of Norse Mythology. Oxford University Press. Publisher website.

• Orchard, Andy. 1997. Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. Cassell.

American scholar John Lindow’s handbook is widely available, but it suffers from some of the same issues as Simek’s. First, while Lindow is a respected medievalist and folklorist in the field today, his handbook has in particular areas aged poorly, particularly regarding topics like modern Germanic heathenry and online sources like the then-nascent Wikipedia, but also because his handbook lacks core entries (the handbook curiously lacks an entry for valkyrie, for example). English scholar Andy Orchard’s handbook pays more attention to the Old English record than Simek’s, but his entries are quite brief. The print status of Orchard’s handbook remains unclear as of the composition of this article, but used copies appear to be readily available.

On the topic of Germanic myth specifically, Mimisbrunnr.info’s Kvasir Symbol Database (KSD) builds on coverage of topics discussed in the above handbooks and includes discussion of topics the handbooks do not cover.

As demonstrated by the discussion above, comparative data from sources both inside and outside of the Germanic language family provide important context when discussing these topics. In turn, readers stand to benefit from the following handbooks:

• Lindahl, Carl; John McNamara; and John Lindow (Editors). 2002. Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs. Oxford University Press. Publisher website.

• Mallory, J. P. & Douglas Q. Adams. 1997. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers. Available online at Archive.org.

These two handbooks are to date often overlooked in ancient Germanic studies, but both reference works provide a wealth of knowledge on rarely discussed topics that cover a wide span of time, and both frequently touch on the ancient Germanic peoples and related topics. Irish-American archaeologist J. P. Mallory and American philologist Douglas Q. Adams’s once-rare Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture is now hosted on Archive.org, where readers can view it at their leisure (as linked above).

Similarly, while not quite a handbook, Estonian-American philologist Jaan Puhvaal’s classic Comparative Mythology (1987) also makes for foundational reading for comparative Indo-European context:

• Puhvel, Jaan. 1987. Comparative Mythology. John Hopkins University Press. Publisher website.

Divided by language family, Puhvaal briefly touches on many sources and topics per branch, making it approachable in a handbook-like manner.

Additionally, while largely unapproachable to nonspecialists in historical linguistics and curiously limited in its coverage, readers will find the following handbook on Germanic etymology handy:

• Orel, Vladimir. 2003. Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Brill. Available online at Archive.org.

Orel’s handbook is strong on comparative data, but curiously arranged and presented. Additionally, Orel appears to avoid general discussion about topics such as Germanic mythology, perhaps due to a lack of background on the topic. In turn, readers will find some expected entries missing. Nonetheless, Orel’s handbook is comparatively recent and quite useful when approaching some of the more commonly discussed etymologies of the Germanic language family.

Exterior to these sources, German readers affiliated with specific academic institutions will have access to de Gruyter’s Germanische Altertumskunde Online for further comparison, but access to this resource is so gated that very few readers will ever see it.

A NOTE ON Retellings (OR THE ABSENCE THEREOF)

While surely as ancient as language itself, retellings are something of a largely unsung yet widely appreciated art—invariably the product of complex decisions and considerations, retellings are certainly one of humanity’s oldest traditions. For general audiences in particular, retellings make for a great place to start when learning about a specific body of myths. However, likely because scant few narratives exterior to the North Germanic branch have made it into the textual record and because so many barriers exist between a general audience and the broader corpus of ancient Germanic myth material, no collection of retellings focused specifically on Germanic mythology exists to date.

Primary SourceS: A JOURNEY TO THE PAST

Translations of primary sources require significant caution, a problem that is not restricted to texts containing Germanic myth. Only specialists have the background necessary to translate material, but translation is far more complex than swapping elements of one language out for another. The production of a truly accurate, approachable, and nuanced translation requires an interdisciplinary background.

For example, a translator focused on texts associated with myth from a background focused solely on the topic of historical linguistics may be able to regurgitate paradigms on demand and describe historic sound changes, but may not know the first thing about folklore studies, leading to uniformed observations or outright misinformation. This makes for a curious problem: Readers may be misled by translators who can produce what appears to be an informed edition but are in reality incapable of analyzing a source text beyond a surface level, leading to numerous issues.

Translation is a series of decisions. When working with any translation, wise readers will always have more than a single translation on hand for reference to offset any potential issues. Beyond considering the background of a translator, there are a few core elements one might consider when choosing among translations to compare:

• Notes: Does the translation contain extensive notes (or provide them available online for free)? If not, this is a bad sign. In 2020, a publisher may not allow a translator to include notes as extensive they’d like, but translators can today provide their notes online for readers with little effort. If a translator simply makes no effort to provide notes, this is a red flag. Additionally, it’s wise to ask a related question: Do translator notes contain transparency about rendering decisions? Translators invariably encounter material that may be understood a few ways. For example, ancient texts sometimes contain what is known as a hapax legomenon (sometimes simply called a hapax), a word that only occurs once in a given context, or phrases in poetry may be understood in a variety of ways, sometimes leading to very different results. If a translator does not notify the reader of notable alternate translations, the reader is only getting part of the story.

• Age: When it comes to translations, age matters. A lot can happen in a decade, much less three, six, or nine. A variety of things can happen that may impact how well a translation ages. Fields invariably advance, scholars make discoveries and breakthroughs, and newly discovered texts or objects can have a big impact. Older texts may rely on discredited theories or invoke topics that are today considered pseudoscience, such as long-discredited etymologies and Victorian-era concepts of race. Nonetheless, older texts may still be useful for comparative purposes, but readers are wise to approach them with strong scrutiny.

• Dual edition: Does the translation include the source text they used to produce the translation? Dual editions provide readers with a rendition of its source text side-by-side with the translation. However, providing source text(s) can be more complicated than one may initially think: For example, only recently has the English language become ‘standardized’ by way of a complex variety of changes. Ancient texts reflect a wide variety of spelling conventions and dialects. Additionally, manuscript history can wield a major impact on source texts. When a single manuscript exists, replicating a ‘normalized’ version of this manuscript for readers to compare with a translation is a fairly straightforward process, whereas a collection of manuscripts with unclear relationships to one another yet significant variations can lead to a much more complex situation, necessitating extensive notes and comparative discussion. In short, a ‘normalized’ source text is nice to have for readers where possible.

Secondary sources: CONSULT THE EXPERTS

Although no modern secondary English work focuses entirely on the topic of Germanic myth that we here at Mimisbrunnr.info can recommend, a variety of quality English language sources that discuss the topic at varying lengths do exist, generally focused on a specific topic or discussing the topic in comparative context. By going this route, readers have a few options regarding what angle they might choose to take.

For example, we know that the ancient Germanic peoples placed intense emphasis on sacred trees and holy groves. Central to both the physical and mental landscape of the ancient Germanic peoples, the concept of ‘tree-ness’ receives repeated emphasis throughout the record, spanning over at least a millennium. Although today there exists no single, definitive volume from modern scholars discussing the many facets of this topic, several scholars have written about it over the past few decades.

To get an idea of what secondary sources on this topic offer readers, let’s take a quick look at three relatively recent (in academic time, anyway) books on the topic from experts in different but related fields all under the broader umbrella of ancient Germanic studies. Let’s start with European Paganism, authored by English classicist Ken Dowden and published by Routledge in 2008:

• Dowden, Ken. 2008. European Paganism. Routledge. Publisher website.

In his book, Dowden discusses various peoples of what we today call Europe, and discusses sacred trees and holy groves as important elements of the beliefs of these peoples, paying particular attention to records of the ancient Germanic peoples. Dowden mentions many important sources on these topics in a comparative context, and discusses them in a remarkably approachable and intuitive manner, organizing and presenting his discussions in a straight-forward, appealing, and almost casual manner. Dowden’s text is an ideal place to start on this topic. However, because European Paganism provides a broad overview of a vast record, Dowden is unable to provide extended and in-depth discussion about many of the topics he covers, such as the ancient Germanic peoples specifically.

Let’s zoom in a bit, so to speak. For a closer look at the ancient Germanic focus on sacred trees and groves, Australian historian of religions Carole Cusack’s 2011 The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations:

• Cusack, Carole M. 2011. The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Cusack focuses on the concept of the sacred tree among the ancient Germanic peoples throughout this book. The author provides to-date rare analysis of the topic throughout the ancient Germanic record: Cusack begins with Tacitus’s Germania and traces the concept’s numerous mentions throughout the ancient Germanic record and into the folklore of modern Germanic speakers. While Cusack’s work is broadly excellent here, her approach is not as easy to approach as Dowden’s, and general readers are likely to have a difficult time with it. Additionally, her chapter on the North Germanic peoples is curiously weak in comparison to her coverage of the rest of the record, as she spends an unexpectedly large amount of time discussing theoretical approaches to figures in the record.

In a third secondary source, American philologist Christopher Abram takes a very different approach to the material in his 2019 book Evergreen Ash:

• Abram, Christopher. 2019. Evergreen Ash: Ecology and Catastrophe in Old Norse Myth and Literature. University of Virginia Press.

While its title correctly reflects that Abram primarily discusses the Old Norse record in this text, his scope incorporates the rest of the ancient Germanic record. Abram takes deep dives into attestations, and considers them in the broader biological framework (with emphasis on topics such as ecology). By way of this approach, Abram provides unique and thought-provoking but quite sobering observations on the topic of ancient groves and sacred trees among the ancient Germanic peoples that may well prove to be quite influential. However, this approach also means that Abram’s book does not make for an especially approachable historic guide to the material for readers new to the record.

Each of these three books work best when consulted for particular topics together, each providing strength in areas in which others are weak, and each taking a different approach to the same topics in the same historic record. Together they illustrate the strengths, weaknesses, and necessity of secondary sources composed by experts in the same field. As is the case with translations of the same material, readers stand to benefit from comparing as many secondary sources as possible. In fact, readers may find the results to be quite surprising: Different perspectives, whether slight or radical, can provide a fuller view of the bigger picture. From a birds-eye-view to a magnifying glass, different approaches come with different limitations and strengths.

Synthesis: CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

The ancient Germanic corpus is somehow both nebulous and limited. It provides readers enigmatic glimpses into an ancient past where people spoke a very similar language to what readers know today, and yet experienced a very different world, which they responded to with a very different worldview than modern, post-industrial peoples. Ultimately, reconstructing the ancient past is impossible—there are simply too many gaps in the record, yielding to varying levels of approximations. Some aspects of the record are particularly well-attested to the point of inarguability, others are vague sketches, and other aspects are under-studied, despite a few hundred years of scholarship. While some readers may find this constant gray area off-putting or frustrating, others will find this reality to be endlessly inspiring.

Nonetheless, the ancient world provides no shortage of lessons for modern readers, including alternate perspectives on the relationship between humankind and what we today call “Nature”, and many lessons of success and failure. When reading these shrouded yet vibrant texts, it’s easy to see why so many influential artists from widely different backgrounds have found so much inspiration in the ancient Germanic corpus: Examples include progressive priest and folk school progenitor N. F. S. Grundtvig, tremendously influential doomed romantic revolutionary playboy Lord Byron, early environmentalist and socialist polymath William Morris, Catholic World War I veteran J. R. R. Tolkien, the “Darwin of the humanities” —and one-half of the Brothers Grimm—Jacob Grimm, and, unfortunately, assorted pseudoscientists in Nazi Germany.

Since its ‘rediscovery’—a subject for another time—the influence that ancient Germanic myth wields today is very real and restricted to no particular group. Tales from ancient Germanic myth receive much attention in popular culture in ways relevant to their audience. Consider two parallel examples: Ponyo (2008) directed by Hayao Mayazaki (Studio Ghibli), an animist tale in which a young fish—Brunhilde—falls in love with a mortal boy, and Django Unchained (2012) directed by Quentin Tarantino, in which Django, formerly an enslaved black man, returns to slavery-era Mississippi to rescue his wife, Broomhilda von Shaft. While thematically quite different, both Ponyo and Django Unchained are retellings of the ancient Germanic Völsung cycle by way of German composed Richard Wagner’s 19th century Die Walküre. A nascent and growing new religious movement, Heathenry, also draws extensively from this material, manifesting in a variety of different ways into a variety of different groups in a spectrum of political alignments, and exploring new approaches to spirituality while drawing from the past, just as many others have before them.

Whatever one might hope to draw from the material, by approaching the corpus with the points discussed above in mind, readers can expect to find what they’re looking for, and in many cases no doubt beyond what they expect.

External LINKS

For readers interested in discussing the topic of Germanic mythology, Mimisbrunnr.info operates the r/AncientGermanic subreddit. This growing subreddit is open to the public and all are welcome to contribute.

REFERENCES

• Levi, Peter. 1988 [1971]. Pausanius: Guide to Greece. Volume 2: Southern Greece. Penguin.

• OED. 2020a. "Easter, n.1". OED Online. March 2020. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/59097?rskey=uaT8fL&result=1&isAdvanced=false (accessed June 01, 2020).

• OED. 2020b. "Tuesday, n. and adv.". OED Online. March 2020. Oxford University Press. https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/207270?redirectedFrom=tuesday (accessed May 29, 2020).

• Orel, Vladimir. 2003. A Handbook of Germanic Etymology. Brill.