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The Germanic Legacy: Women in Germanic and early Scandinavian culture.
The question of what  Germanic means: the common denominator for Gothic, Old Franconian,
Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German, Old English and Old Norse?
1. Linguistic similarities, but  Germanic may seem rather our category.
2. How much are we building today/has been built upon what really is fragmentary?
3. Some heroes and heroic kings (Ermanaric, Attila, Theodoric, Siegfried/Sigurd) from the
times of migration appear across what remains from those literary cultures, but is it the
influence of Carolingian (Charlemagne s) empire ca. 800 AD? A response to Charlemagne
multicultural empire  desire to create a common multi-national identity?
4. Anglo-Saxon scholarship as partly born out of the Romantic movement (18th/19th c.)
 Old English poetry a  temporarily alienated segment of German literature .
5. Simultaneously scholars desire to find the  original lay, the ur-tale continues unabated.
Tacitus and his De origine et situ germanorum (Germania) (fragments)
[Concerning the Origin and Situation of the Germanics], ca 100 A.D.
Government. Influence of Women. They choose their kings by birth, their generals for merit.
These kings have not unlimited or arbitrary power, and the generals do more by example than by
authority. If they are energetic, if they are conspicuous, if they fight in the front, they lead
because they are admired. & And what most stimulates their courage is that their squadrons or
battalions & are composed of families and clans. Close by them, too, are those dearest to
them, so that they hear the shrieks of women, the cries of infants. They are to every man the
most sacred witnesses of his bravery-they are his most generous applauders. The soldier
brings his wounds to mother and wife, who shrink not from counting or even demanding
them and who administer food and encouragement to the combatants.
Tradition says that armies already wavering and giving way have been rallied by women
who, with earnest entreaties and bosoms laid bare, have vividly represented the horrors of
captivity, which the Germans fear with such extreme dread on behalf of their women, that
the strongest tie by which a state can be bound is the being required to give, among the
number of hostages, maidens of noble birth.
Marriage Laws. & The wife does not bring a dowry to the husband, but the husband to the
wife. & With these presents the wife is espoused, and she herself in her turn brings her
husband a gift of arms. This they count their strongest bond of union, these their sacred
mysteries, these their gods of marriage. Lest the woman should think herself to stand apart from
aspirations after noble deeds and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the ceremony which
inaugurates marriage that she is her husband's partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer
and to dare with him alike both in in war.
Their Children. Laws Of Succession. In every household the children, naked and filthy, grow up
with those stout frames and limbs which we so much admire. Every mother suckles her own
offspring and never entrusts it to servants and nurses. The master is not distinguished from
the slave by being brought up with greater delicacy. & Sister's sons are held in as much
esteem by their uncles as by their fathers; indeed, some regard the relation as even more
sacred and binding, and prefer it in receiving hostages, thinking thus to secure a stronger
hold on the affections and a wider bond for the family.
Tacitus on Germanic women and their (apparent) strong position:
a. they accompanied their men in battles and thus spurned them into action;
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b. men would bring dowry to their wives;
c. very strict marriage laws - only one (respected) wife;
d. the relation between the man and the children of his sister sometimes preferred (in
hostage taking).
Germanic (and early Scandinavian) women  between the household and the seiðr magic:
" control over the internal world (over household). The key as symbolic of that power.
" Women could inherit possessions and land.
But other aspects are also observable:
" Fate governed by female Norns: Urðr  that which became/happened (cf. wyrd); Verðandi
 that which is happening; Skuld  that which should happen.
" Seiðr magic (spinning charms, cf. distaffs below), Völva(s) (shamanic seeress)
(cf. Freyja in Voluspa 22, the Oseberg ship burial)
Women and Germanic/Scandinavian warfare  the role of the Valkyries (val-kyrja, val-kyrjur)
choosers of the slain.
Mentions of heroic women or women wreaking havoc (some given the category of maleness) in
Icelandic sagas (the Oseberg ship tapestry  women notably present).
The awareness of the pre-Christian past and of the Germanic heritage in Anglo-Saxon
culture.
Awareness of the Germanic and pagan past in Anglo-Saxon times  cultural (cf. Bede
and Alfred) and linguistic (similarities of Old English and Old Norse, later also influences of
Old Norse on Old English).
No unified account of what the Anglo-Saxons believed in earlier: Tacitus mentions the
Germanic goddess Nerthus (OE: Erce?, Earth?), Bede mentions the spring equinox goddess
Eostre (cf. Easter) and Hretha (cf. Nerthus?), a fertility goddess.
Germanic legend also present in the world of Old English artefacts (Franks Casket is most
notable).
Medieval Scandinavian (recorded in Old Norse) literature presenting Nordic mythology (a
likely analogue to pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon beliefs).
a. Bishop Adam of Bremen (11th c.) in his Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum
(Deeds of Bishops of the Hamburg Church) gives accounts of Nordic beliefs and rituals.
b. The Poetic Edda (a.k.a. Elder Edda, anon., recorded in 13th c., found in Iceland in 1643)  a
collection of skaldic poems (ON skalds like OE scops) on Nordic mythology, gods (Ćsir) and
their conflicts with giants etc. Chief god here  Óðinn; Loki  the divine trickster.
Its opening poem is the Völuspá (Old Norse V%EÅ‚luspá, Prophecy of the Völva (Seeress).
c. The Prose Edda (a.k.a. Younger Edda, Snorri s Edda, written in 1220s and 1230s by Snorri
Sturluson) with two important works concerning mythological matters written as a book
for future poets:
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" Gylfagynning (Beguiling of Gylfi)  Norse myths in prose form: mythical King Gylfi of
Sweden sets off to discover the origins of the Ćsir.
It contains numerous quotations from an older, poetic text
" Skáldskaparmál (The Language of Poetry)  a dialogue between Ćgir (god of the
sea) and Bragi (god of poetry) on the nature of skaldic poetry.
Provides a list of kennings for a number of places, people and things (often
mythological connections and allusions) as well as names of famous Nordic poets.
d. Sagas: like the Ynglinga Saga (Saga of the Ynglings) by Snorri Sturluson from the
Heimskringla (The Garland of the World), a book on the lives of Norwegian kings.
e. Saxo Grammaticus s, Gesta Danorum (History of the Danes, late 12th c./early 13th c.) gives
some account of pagan gods;
Chief Nordic gods: Óðinn (war, poetry), Þorr (thunder, nature), Freyr (agriculture, fertility), Freya
(Freyr s sister and lover, goddess of love, beauty, fertility), Njörðr (their father and god of
the sea, one of the Vanir, another group of gods).
Gods fate decided by the Norns (Urðr one of them, cf. OE wyrd) and is to be finished in Ragnarök
(the doom of the gods). The Yggdrasil tree as an axis mundi.