Irminsul
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Irminsul (Old Saxon "great pillar") is the pillar that is said to connect heaven and earth, represented by oak or wooden pillars venerated by the Saxons.
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[edit] 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.[1] 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, i.e. the Midgard serpent).
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] References
- Karl Schoppe, Die Irminsul, Forschungen über ihren Standort, Paderborn 1947.
- ^ Robinson, Charles Henry (1917). The Conversion of Europe. London, New York, Bombay and Calcutta: Longmans, Green, and Co., 389.
