Everything about Irminsul totally explained
Irminsul (
Old Saxon "great pillar") is the pillar that's said to connect heaven and earth, represented by
oak or wooden pillars venerated by the
Saxons.
Irmin
A Germanic god,
Irmin, inferred from the name
Irminsul and the tribal name
Herminones, appears to have been the name of the national god or
demi-god of the Saxons. The
Old Norse form of
Irmin was
Jörmunr and interestingly, just like
Yggr, it was one of the
names of
Odin. "Yggr's horse",
Yggdrasil, was the
yew or
ash tree from which Odin sacrificed himself, and which connected heaven and earth. It appears, thus, that
Irminsul may have represented a
World tree corresponding to
Yggdrasil among the Saxon tribes of
Germany.
The
Sacred tree at Uppsala mentioned by the eleventh-century
chronicler, archbishop
Adam of Bremen, could have a direct relation to the Irmin pillar.
The actual Irminsul of the Saxons may have been a wooden pillar with a
cult image on top.
Jakob Grimm connects the name Irmin with
Old Norse iörmungrund "Earth", and
iörmungandr (
anguis maximus, for example the
Midgard serpent).
Location
According to one suggestion, it could have been situated on or near the
Externsteine. A twelfth century Christian relief on these standing stones depicts a tree-like design at the feet of
Nicodemus. It is disputed whether this is simply intended as a depiction of a palmtree, or represents the bent or fallen Irminsul beneath a triumphant Christianity.
Multiple pillars
At the time of
Charlemagne, there were probably several Irmin pillars. One of them, at Eresburg castle near
Paderborn, is reported to have been destroyed in
772.
Awareness of the significance of the concept seems to have persisted well into Christian times; Grimm cites the twelfth-century
Kaiserchronik as mentioning several Irmin pillars:
Concerning
Mercury:
» ûf einir yrmensûle / stuont ein abgot ungehiure, / den hiezen sie ir koufman;
"On an Irminsul / stands an enormous idol / which they call their merchant"
Concerning
Julius Caesar:
» Rômere in ungetrûwelîche sluogen / ûf einir yrmensûl sie in begruoben;
"The Romans slew him treacherously / and buried him on an Irminsul"
Concerning
Simon the Magician:
» ûf eine yrmensûl er steic / daz lantvolc im allesamt neic
"He climbed upon an Irminsul / the peasants all bowed before him"
Remains of an Irmin pillar apparently dating to
Roman times are found in the
Hildesheim cathedral, where it has been adapted as a candelabrum. The nearby village of
Irminseul points to an older connection of the area with the concept. Other placenames in the area like
Drachenberg "dragon's mount" and
Wormstal "worm's dale" point to the
Nibelung legend.
Roman association of warlike
Wotan with Mercury rather than with
Mars may have been due to an identification of the Irmin pillars with the
hermai dedicated to Mercury.
Neopaganism
The design of the Irminsul symbol current in
Germanic neopaganism, particularly
Heathenry and
Ásatrú, is based on the shape of the tree in the Externsteine relief, but straightened back into a vertical position. The shape of this design has been likened to that of the
Tyr (Ziu) rune. Irmin may have been an
epithet of Ziu in early Germanic times, only later transferred to Wotan, or Wotan himself may have emerged as separate from Ziu only in the
Migration Period.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Irminsul'.
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