Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

with an unpleasant death as part of the expensive sacrifice to the war god.

Tacitus tells us that the Hermundari and the Chatti sacrificed to Mars and Mercury in return for victory. There is little doubt that Mercury represented the Germanic god Wodan at the time when Tacitus wrote. In England the same god, Woden, gave his name to the fourth day of the week, Wednesday, the day which in France is called Mercredi after the Roman god. Just as Odin was looked on as the divine ancestor of the Swedes, so Woden was believed to be the founder of many royal dynasties. Most of the Anglo-Saxon kings looked back to him as their divine ancestor. The reason for his identification with Mercury will be discussed more fully in a later chapter (p. 140).

At the time of Tacitus however there is reason to believe that the Roman god of war, Mars, was identified not with Wodan, but with another Germanic god, Tiwaz. Odin in fact appears to be the successor of both Wodan and Tiwaz, retaining some of the qualities and attributes of both these gods. In Snorri’s account Tiwaz appears as Tyr. He is only a shadowy figure, but Snorri mentions that men prayed to him for victory, and also that he was renowned for his wisdom as well as for his valour. Tiwaz in his day must have been a very great power among the heathen Germans. The third day of the week, sacred in Rome to Mars, was called after him throughout the Teutonic world, so that against Mardi in France we have Tuesday in England. In Old Norse his name was used as a synonym for ‘god’, and Odin bore among his titles that of Sigtyr, the Tyr, or god, of victory. The name Tiwaz is related to the Greek Zeus, and to the Roman Jupiter (who was originally Dyaus pitar, father Dyaus). All three are thought to be derived from dieus, the Indo-Germanic word for god, which stands also for the shining heaven and the light of day. It is probable that Tiwaz was the supreme sky god of the Germans as well as their god of battle.

Although Odin had in the main taken the place of Tiwaz at the close of the heathen period, memories of the earlier battle god still lingered. In one of the Edda poems dealing with spells to use in battle, men are told to carve runes of victory, giving the name of Tyr.¹ We have what may be instances of this name on weapons. A helmet from Negau in Austria bears an inscription in North Italic letters of the second century B.C., which has been thought by some scholars to give Teiwa, an archaic form of the god’s name.² A spear from Kowel bears the rune which is the initial of the god’s name. Another symbol resembling this rune, so small that it could hardly have been noticeable even when new, has been detected on a spear found in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery of the sixth century in Holborough, Kent.³ These may be signs of the ancient Germanic war god, cut by those who wished to claim his help and protection in battle.

Terrible though the rites associated with Tiwaz were, it seems that he was no mere crude deity of slaughter. Among the titles given to him in inscriptions of the Roman period, we find Mars Thingsus. This must mean that Tiwaz was associated with the Thing, the Assembly of the people held to settle disputes and to establish the law. Just as the Lord of Hosts who gave victory in battle to Moses was the same god who delivered to him the tablets of the Law, so Tiwaz appears to have been the protector of law and order in the community as well as ruler over the realm of war. Tacitus tells us that no man might be flogged, imprisoned, or put to death among the Germans save by their priests, ‘in obedience to the god which they believe to preside over battle’.¹ If the god of battle punished criminals, then he must surely have been regarded as the supporter of order and justice.

This idea never wholly disappeared in the north, and it may be noticed that the place where the official sword-duel, the holmganga, was fought was close beside the site of the Chief Assembly of Iceland, where the important law cases were held. The appeal to the sword as an arbiter between men has a long and impressive history among the Germanic peoples.² According to Tacitus, they were accustomed to use the duel as a form of augury. They used before a battle to secure a captive from the enemy and to match him against a champion of their own. In this way they tested the luck of their side, and the result was held to foreshadow that of the battle to come. Records from the early history of the Germans have many references to single combat between two champions, while behind them the opposing armies waited and watched. The spirit of such a combat is well expressed in the eighth century by Paul the Deacon, who wrote in a history of the Lombards:

See how many people there are on both sides! What need is there that so great a multitude perish ? Let us join, he and I, in single combat, and may that one of us to whom God may have willed to give the victory have and possess all this people safe and entire.

History of the Langobards, v, 41 (Foulke’s translation)

We know that the Germans were accustomed to take a solemn oath on their weapons, and that this was a very ancient custom, well established in heathen times. This is in accordance with the idea of the god of battle as the supreme arbiter, and it is not difficult to comprehend the effectiveness of such an oath. A man’s safety and life depended on the reliability of his weapons, and fighting was a tricky business at best; a broken oath which had been made on sword or spear might result in failure at the moment of crisis. That a man’s own weapon should turn against him is one of the more frightening of the curses which could be pronounced against an enemy.

It is probably significant that the one myth about Tyr which has survived in the pages of Snorri concerns the binding of the wolf Fenrir, the adversary of the gods (see p. 31). Only Tyr was brave enough to feed him, and willing to sacrifice his hand in order that the monster should be bound. Later on, the wolf is the special adversary of Odin at Ragnarok. It seems likely that in earlier Germanic myths it was Tiwaz who was matched against him. Snorri tells us that Tyr was killed by Garm, a hound of the underworld, who may well be Fenrir under another name.

At the time of Tacitus, the Semnones, a warlike people who were later known as the Alamanni, lived between the Rhine and the Oder. They worshipped a god called God and Ruler of All (Deus Regnator Omnium). In A.D. 92 their king visited Rome, and Tacitus may well have learned about their religious customs from him or from one of his companions. He tells us¹ that the Semnones gathered yearly in a sacred wood, with other tribes related to them, and that in this place ‘hallowed by the auguries of their forefathers and by ancient awe’, they witnessed a human sacrifice. Whoever entered the wood had to be bound with a cord as a sign of humility before the god, and if he fell he might not get to his feet but had to roll over the ground. This appears to emphasize the power of the god to bind his followers, as Tyr bound the wolf; the idea of binding is found associated with Odin as war god, and more about this will be said later (pp. 63 and 147). We cannot be certain that Tiwaz was in fact the god of the Semnones, but it seems most probable that he was the supreme deity worshipped in the wood.²

It is also possible that the god of the Saxons, known as Saxnot, was the same as the war god Tiwaz. He is mentioned along with Wodan and Thunor as a god who had to be renounced when they were baptized, in an early renunciation formula.¹ He must have been an important deity to be placed alongside the other two, and he was evidently the same god whose name (Seaxneat) is given as that of the founder of the dynasty of the Saxon kings in Essex. Saxnot could originally have been Sahsginot, ‘sword companion’, and this is a fitting name for a war god in whose honour swords were wielded and to whom swords were sacrificed. The worship of Tiwaz under this name may thus have been brought into Essex when the Saxons came over to Britain. Tiwaz was also known in England under the name of Tiw or Tig, as is implied by a few early forms of place-names like Tewin in Hertfordshire and Tuesley in Surrey. At Tysoe, on Edge Hill, seven miles from Banbury, a red horse was cut on the hill slope, and was scoured every Palm Sunday until the end of the eighteenth century; it is possible that here there was a place once sacred to the god, and that the horse was associated with him.

In Tiwaz we have an early Germanic war god, an ancestor of Odin. He had great powers, and extensive sacrifices were made to him. He was a one-handed god, and since a one-handed figure wielding a weapon is seen among Bronze Age rock-engravings in Scandinavia it has been suggested that his worship may go back to very early times in the north, and that the myth of the god binding the wolf is of great antiquity. Dumezil² believes that another version has been preserved in the story of the Roman hero, Mucius Sc?vola, who willingly sacrificed his hand to save his people from destruction. Certainly Tiwaz differs in one respect from Wodan, who seems to have taken over his position as god of battle later in the heathen period. Tiwaz was associated with law and justice, whereas Wodan and Odin are reproached on many occasions for fickleness and treachery. While Odin is renowned for wisdom and cunning, he is not represented as in any way concerned with justice among men. To find a reason for this change in the character of the war god, it will be necessary to return to the Scandinavian Odin and to consider some of his companions and followers in Asgard and on earth.