" Deor " (or " The Lament of Deor ") is an Old English poem found on folio 100r–100v of the late- 10th-century collection the Exeter Book . The poem consists of a reflection on misfortune by a poet whom the poem is usually thought to name Deor. The poem has no title in the Exeter Book itself; the title has been bestowed by modern editors.
67-424: In the poem, Deor's lord has replaced him with another poet. Deor mentions various figures from Germanic tradition and reconciles his own troubles with the troubles these figures faced, ending each section with the refrain "that passed away, so may this." The poem comprises forty-two alliterative lines. Placing this poem within a genre has proven to be quite difficult. Some commentators attempting to characterise
134-558: A Germanic "national spirit" ( Volksgeist ), as expressed in Otto Höfler 's "Germanic continuity theory". As a result, the use of folklore as a source went out of fashion after World War II, especially in Germany, but has experienced a revival since the 1990s in Nordic scholarship. Today, scholars are cautious in their use of folkloric material, keeping in mind that most was collected long after
201-587: A central theme of The Lord of the Rings . Germanic paganism Pontic Steppe Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Germanic paganism or Germanic religion refers to
268-461: A continuity between Tacitus's account of Tuisto and Mannus and the Gylfaginning account of the creation of the world. The name Tuisto , if it means 'twin' or 'double-being', could connect him to the name of the primordial being Ymir, whose name probably has a similar meaning. On the other hand, the form "Tuisco" may suggest a connection to Tyr . Similarly, both myths have a genealogy consisting of
335-515: A grandfather, a father, and then three sons. Ymir's name is etymologically connected to the Sanskrit Yama and Iranian Yima , while the creation of the world from Ymir's body is paralleled by the creation of the world from the primordial being Purusha in Indic mythology, suggesting not only a Proto-Germanic origin for Ymir but an even older Indo-European origin (see Indo-European cosmogony ). There
402-693: A rebirth of the world. The notion of the world's destruction by fire in the Southern Germanic area seems confirmed by the existence of the word Muspilli (probably " world conflagration ") to refer to the end of the world in Old High German; however, it is possible that this aspect derives from Christian influence. Scholarship on Ragnarök tends to either argue that it is a myth with composite, partially non-Scandinavian origins, that it has Indo-European parallels and thus origins, or that it derives from Christian influence. Information on Germanic cosmology
469-436: A strong belief in fate and chance to the followers of Germanic religion. Similarly, Old English, Old High German, and Old Saxon associate a word for fate, wyrd , as referring to an inescapable, impersonal fate or death. While scholarship of the early 20th century believed that this meant that Germanic religion was essentially fatalistic, scholars since 1969 have noted that this concept appears to have been heavily influenced by
536-404: A warrior are glory or death; all the good doings of Waldere are rehearsed, as well as the loftiness of his reputation; all doubt is cleared that it is truly Guthhere at fault for engaging Waldere. The second fragment consists mainly of Waldere challenging and taunting Guthhere, daring Guthhere to strip Waldere‘s armor from his shoulders. The end of the fragment finds Waldere putting the outcome of
603-592: Is also a Polish version of the story, the earliest form of which is in Chronicon Boguphali Episcopi , dating from the 13th or 14th century. The poem is the only proof that is known that the Anglo-Saxon people had any knowledge of the legend of Walter of Aquitaine. This was a very popular story in the Middle Ages. It is the story of Waldere (Walter) and Hildegyth who fall in love and steal treasure from
670-452: Is evidence of a myth of the end of the world in Germanic mythology, which can be reconstructed in very general terms from the surviving sources. The best known is the myth of Ragnarök , attested from Old Norse sources, which involves a war between the gods and the beings of chaos, leading to the destruction of almost all gods, giants, and living things in a cataclysm of fire. It is followed by
737-483: Is itself controversial, Bernhard Maier noting that it "implies a specifically modern point of view, which reflects the modern conceptual isolation of 'religion' from other aspects of culture". Never a unified or codified set of beliefs or practices, Germanic religion showed strong regional variations and Rudolf Simek writes that it is better to refer to "Germanic religions ". In many contact areas (e.g. Rhineland and eastern and northern Scandinavia), Germanic paganism
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#1732858125311804-579: Is not always immediately obvious. Archaeological evidence is also extensive, including evidence from burials and sacrificial sites. Ancient votive altars from the Rhineland often contain inscriptions naming gods with Germanic or partially Germanic names. Most textual sources on Germanic religion were written by outsiders. The chief textual source for Germanic religion in the Roman period is Tacitus's Germania . There are problems with Tacitus's work, however, as it
871-400: Is only provided in Nordic sources, but there is evidence for considerable continuity of beliefs despite variation over time and space. Scholarship is marked by disagreement about whether Snorri Sturlason's Edda is a reliable source for pre-Christian Norse cosmology, as Snorri has undoubtedly imposed an ordered, Christian worldview on his material. Midgard ("dwelling place in the middle")
938-470: Is possible that constraining the poem to an existing genre is artificial, for the poem may represent yet another, otherwise unattested genre, or it might well stand alone outside of generic rules. "Deor" is a lament in the voice of a poet exiled from his former life of luxury, respect, and popularity. He compares his current predicament to the predicaments of figures from stories traditional in medieval Germanic-speaking culture. The first twenty-seven lines of
1005-453: Is praise of a sword, followed by Waldere's praise of his own armour and his defiance of Guthhere. The speeches represented in the fragments have nothing corresponding to them in Ekkehard's text, which suggests that these are independent renderings of the same familiar source material. A passing reference— " Win fame by valiant deeds, and may God guard thee the while" — shows that, like Beowulf ,
1072-494: Is sometimes applied to practices dating to as early as the Stone Age or Bronze Age , but its use is more generally restricted to the time period after the Germanic languages had become distinct from other Indo-European languages (early Iron Age ). Germanic paganism covers a period of around one thousand years in terms of written sources, from the first reports in Roman sources to the final conversion to Christianity. Because of
1139-519: Is the conventional title given to two Old English fragments, of around 32 and 31 lines, from a lost epic poem , discovered in 1860 by E. C. Werlauff, Librarian, in the Danish Royal Library at Copenhagen , where it is still preserved. The parchment pages had been reused as stiffening in the binding of an Elizabethan prayer book , which had presumably come to Europe following the Dissolution of
1206-623: Is unclear how much he really knew about the Germanic peoples he described and because he employed numerous topoi dating back to Herodotus that were used when describing a barbarian people. Tacitus' reliability as a source can be characterized by his rhetorical tendencies, since one of the purposes of Germania was to present his Roman compatriots with an example of the virtues he believed they lacked. Julius Caesar, Procopius , and other ancient authors also offer some information on Germanic religion. Textual sources for post-Roman continental Germanic religion are written by Christian authors: Some of
1273-608: Is used to refer to the inhabited world or a barrier surrounding the inhabited world in Norse mythology. The term is first attested as midjungards in Gothic with Wulfila 's translation of the bible (c. 370 CE), and has cognates in Saxon, Old English, and Old High German. It is thus probably an old Germanic designation. In the Prose Edda , Midgard also seems to be the part of the world inhabited by
1340-614: Is usually attributed to the Icelander Snorri Sturluson (13th century CE), Skaldic poetry , poetic kennings with mythological content, Snorri's Heimskringla , the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus (12th-13th century CE), Icelandic historical writing and sagas , as well as outsider sources such as the report on the Rus' made by the Arab traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan (10th century),
1407-468: The Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum by bishop Adam of Bremen (11th century CE), and various saints' lives. Germanic religion has been influenced by the beliefs of other cultures. Celtic and Germanic peoples were in close contact in the first millennium BCE, and evidence for Celtic influence on Germanic religion is found in religious vocabulary. This includes, for instance, the name of
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#17328581253111474-592: The Merseburg Charms and heroic texts that may date from pagan times, but were written down by Christians. The poems of the Edda , while pagan in origin, continued to circulate orally in a Christian context before being written down, which makes an application to pre-Christian times difficult. In contrast, pre-Christian images such as on bracteates , gold foil figures , and rune and picture stones are direct attestations of Germanic religion. The interpretation of these images
1541-496: The matronae . Early medieval sources identify a pantheon consisting of the gods *Wodanaz ( Odin ), *Thunraz ( Thor ), *Tiwaz ( Tyr ), and *Frijjō ( Frigg ), as well as numerous other gods, many of whom are only attested from Norse sources (see Proto-Germanic folklore ). Textual and archaeological sources allow the reconstruction of aspects of Germanic ritual and practice. These include well-attested burial practices, which likely had religious significance, such as rich grave goods and
1608-537: The Christianized Greco-Roman notion of fortuna fatalis ("fatal fortune") rather than reflecting Germanic belief. Nevertheless, Norse myth attests the belief that even the gods were subject to fate. While it is thus clear that older scholarship exaggerated the importance of fate in Germanic religion, it still had its own concept of fate. Most Norse texts dealing with fate are heroic, which probably influences their portrayal of fate. In Norse myth, fate
1675-564: The English People (c. 731). Other sources include historians such as Jordanes (6th century CE) and Paul the Deacon (8th century), as well as saint lives and Christian legislation against various practices. Textual sources for Scandinavian religion are much more extensive. They include the aforementioned poems of the Poetic Edda, Eddic poetry found in other sources, the Prose Edda , which
1742-475: The Exeter Book, such as " The Seafarer " and " The Wanderer ". Richard North has argued that the poem was written in about 856 as a satire on King Æthelwulf of Wessex . John Miles Foley has hypothesized that the apparent murkiness of "Deor" is also in no small part attributable to the obscurity of the poet's references. As he puts it, "Cut off from its traditional background, 'Deor' makes little sense". Because
1809-447: The Germanic peoples, including those living at some distance from the Roman frontier. In later centuries, Germanic religion was also influenced by Christianity. There is evidence for the appropriation of Christian symbolism on gold bracteates and possibly in the understanding of the roles of particular gods. The Christianization of the Germanic peoples was a long process during which there are many textual and archaeological examples of
1876-505: The Monasteries in England in the 16th century. The portion that was found was a part of a much larger work. What remains of the poem comes in two parts, written on two separate single leaves, usually called “fragment I” and “fragment II”, and generally dated about 1000. The date of the poem's composition is unknown. The fragments can be situated in the epic of which they formed part because
1943-499: The Roman period cannot be related to a later Norse god; many names attested in the Nordic sources are similarly without any known non-Nordic equivalents. The much higher number of sources on Scandinavian religion has led to a methodologically problematic tendency to use Scandinavian material to complete and interpret the much more sparsely attested information on continental Germanic religion. Most scholars accept some form of continuity between Indo-European and Germanic religion, but
2010-621: The Viking Age, there is evidence for continued Irish mythological and Insular Celtic influence on Norse religion. During the Roman period, Germanic gods were equated with Roman gods and worshipped with Roman names in contact zones, a process known as Interpretatio Romana ; later, Germanic names were also applied to Roman gods ( Interpretatio Germanica ). This was done to better understand one another's religions as well as to syncretize elements of each religion. This resulted in various aspects of Roman worship and iconography being adopted among
2077-535: The amount of time and space covered by the term "Germanic religion", controversy exists as to the degree of continuity of beliefs and practices between the earliest attestations in Tacitus and the later attestations of Norse paganism from the high Middle Ages. Many scholars argue for continuity, seeing evidence of commonalities between the Roman, early medieval, and Norse attestations, while many other scholars are skeptical. The majority of Germanic gods attested by name during
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2144-412: The burial in ships or wagons. Wooden carved figures that may represent gods have been discovered in bogs throughout northern Europe, and rich sacrificial deposits, including objects, animals, and human remains, have been discovered in springs, bogs, and under the foundations of new structures. Evidence for sacred places includes not only natural locations such as sacred groves but also early evidence for
2211-428: The co-existence and sometimes mixture of pagan and Christian worship and ideas. Christian sources frequently equate Germanic gods with demons and forms of the devil ( Interpretatio Christiana ). It is likely that multiple creation myths existed among Germanic peoples. Creation myths are not attested for the continental Germanic peoples or Anglo-Saxons; Tacitus includes the story of Germanic tribes' descent from
2278-456: The construction of structures such as temples and the worship of standing poles in some places. Other known Germanic religious practices include divination and magic, and there is some evidence for festivals and the existence of priests. Germanic religion is principally defined as the religious traditions of speakers of Germanic languages (the Germanic peoples ). The term "religion" in this context
2345-578: The conversion and the advent of writing. Areas where continuity can be noted include agrarian rites and magical ideas, as well as the root elements of some folktales. Sources on Germanic religion can be divided between primary sources and secondary sources. Primary sources include texts, structures, place names, personal names, and objects that were created by devotees of the religion; secondary sources are normally texts that were written by outsiders. Examples of primary sources include some Latin alphabet and Runic inscriptions, as well as poetic texts such as
2412-459: The court of Attila, where they were held hostage. Waldere and Hildegyth are sought out by two men, Guthhere , who is the king of the Burgundians, and Hagena . These two men are after the treasure that Waldere and Hildegyth possess. The poem is about the conflict that is about to take place between the two parties. In one fragment someone encourages Waldere to go on fighting. In the other there
2479-457: The degree of continuity is a subject of controversy. Jens Peter Schjødt writes that while many scholars view comparisons of Germanic religion with other attested Indo-European religions positively, "just as many, or perhaps even more, have been sceptical". While supportive of Indo-European comparison, Schjødt notes that the "dangers" of comparison are taking disparate elements out of context and arguing that myths and mythical structures found around
2546-462: The deity * Þun(a)raz ( Thor ), which is identical to Celtic * Toranos ( Taranis ), the Germanic name of the runes (Celtic * rūna 'secret, magic'), and the Germanic name for the sacred groves , * nemeđaz (Celtic nemeton ). Evidence for further close religious contacts is found in the Roman-era Rhineland goddesses known as matronae , which display both Celtic and Germanic names. During
2613-509: The existence of one or more origin myths, the existence of a myth of the end of the world, a general belief in the inhabited world being a " middle-earth ", as well as some aspects of belief in fate and the afterlife. The Germanic peoples believed in a multitude of gods, and in other supernatural beings such as jötnar (often glossed as giants), dwarfs , elves , and dragons . Roman-era sources, using Roman names, mention several important male gods, as well as several goddesses such as Nerthus and
2680-738: The fight in God’s hands (Cavill). In the story of Walter, this fight results in harm to everyone that has participated. However, in the end the two sides come to a peaceful resolution and eventually Waldere and Hildegyth leave and get married. This ending does not appear in the remaining fragments of Waldere . Waldere was first edited by George Stephens (Copenhagen, 1860), afterwards by R. Wulker in Bibliothek der angel-sächsischen Poesie (vol. 1, Cassel, 1881); then by Peter Holthausen in Göteborgs högskolas årsskrift (vol. 5, 1899), with autotype reproductions of
2747-457: The first being was the giant Ymir , who was followed by the cow Auðumbla , eventually leading to the birth of Odin and his two brothers. The brothers kill Ymir and make the world out of his body, before finally making the first man and woman out of trees ( Ask and Embla ). Some scholars suspect that Gylfaginning had been compiled from various contradictory sources, with some details from those sources having been left out. Besides Gylfaginning ,
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2814-460: The five vignettes mention characters well known from stories associated with Theodoric the Great , but it is unclear what the other is alluding to. Partly for this reason, many scholars have assumed that there is no narrative thread running through the poem. Recent work has, however, argued that the vignettes imply a narrative sequence connected with Theodoric; in particular, Jennifer Lorden has argued that
2881-450: The gods Tuisto (or Tuisco), who is born from the earth, and Mannus ( Germania chapter 2), resulting in a division into three or five Germanic subgroups. Tuisto appears to mean "twin" or "double-being", suggesting that he was a hermaphroditic being capable of impregnating himself. These gods are only attested in Germania . It is not possible to decide based on Tacitus's report whether
2948-675: The gods of the Lombards are described in the 7th-century Origo gentis Langobardorum ("Origin of the Lombard People"), while a small amount of information on the religion of the pagan Franks can be found in Gregory of Tours 's late 6th-century Historia Francorum ("History of the Franks"). An important source for the pre-Christian religion of the Anglo-Saxons is Bede 's Ecclesiastical History of
3015-515: The gods was originally subterranean as well. The Norse imagined the inhabited world to be surrounded by a sort of dragon or serpent, Jörmungandr ; although only explicitly attested in Scandinavian sources, allusions to a world-surrounding monster from southern Germany and England suggest that this concept may have been common Germanic. Some Christian authors of the Middle Ages, such as Bede (c. 700) and Thietmar of Merseburg (c. 1000), attribute
3082-410: The gods. The dwelling place of the gods themselves is known as Asgard , while the giants dwell in lands sometimes referred to as Jötunheimar , outside of Midgard. The ash tree Yggdrasill is at the center of the world, and propped up the heavens in the same way as the Saxon pillar Irminsul was said to. The world of the dead (Hel) seems to have been underground, and it is possible that the realm of
3149-427: The grave, a world of the dead in the sky, and reincarnation. Beliefs varied by time and place and may have contradictory in the same time and place. The two most important afterlives in the attested corpus were located at Hel and Valhalla , while additional destinations for the dead are also mentioned. A number of sources refer to Hel as the general abode of the dead. Waldere " Waldere " or " Waldhere "
3216-644: The medieval Germanic-speaking world. According to Norse mythology , the Heodenings ( Hjaðningar ) were involved in the never-ending "battle of the Heodenings", the Hjaðningavíg . Heorrenda (Hjarrandi) was also one of the names of the god Odin . "Deor" had a profound influence on J. R. R. Tolkien , the refrain in particular—which he himself translated as "Time has passed since then, this too can pass"— decline and fall in Middle-earth being, according to Tom Shippey ,
3283-400: The modern day reflect a continuity with earlier Germanic religion. Earlier scholars, beginning with Jacob Grimm , believed that modern folklore was of ancient origin and had changed little over the centuries, which allowed the use of folklore and fairy tales as sources of Germanic religion. These ideas later came under the influence of völkisch ideology, which stressed the organic unity of
3350-446: The most important sources on Nordic creation myths are the Eddic poems Vǫluspá , Vafþrúðnismál , and Grímnismál . The 9th-century Old High German Wessobrunn Prayer begins with a series of negative pairs to describe the time before creation that show similarity to a number of Nordic descriptions of the time before the world, suggesting an orally transmitted formula. There may be
3417-532: The myth was meant to describe an origin of the gods or of humans. Tacitus also includes a second myth: the Semnones believed that they originated in a sacred grove of fetters where a particular god dwelled ( Germania chapter 39, for more on this see "Sacred trees, groves, and poles" below). The only Nordic comprehensive origin myth is provided by the Prose Edda book Gylfaginning . According to Gylfaginning ,
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#17328581253113484-525: The narrator's own sorrow at having lost his position of privilege. At the poem's conclusion, we learn that this person (who, depending on the interpretation of the Old English, may be called Deor) reveals that he was once a great poet among the Heodenings , until he was displaced and sent wandering by Heorrenda , a more skillful poet. Once more, it is clear that the poem alludes to stories attested more widely in
3551-399: The poem had been given a Christianized context. The first portion is a speech given by Hildegyth trying to motivate Waldere for his upcoming fight. In this speech, Paul Cavill finds, Hildegyth tries to inspire Waldere in four main ways: Mimming , the great sword of Waldere, that was made by the renowned smith Weland , is praised; Waldere is reminded that the only two outcomes available to
3618-418: The poem is not entirely translatable into modern English—the third and fourth stanzas remain indeterminate to this day, and even the refrain prompts argument and poses linguistic difficulties—without grasping the allusions of the poem, it is quite difficult to understand the poet's implied attitude, and therefore to place it in any genre satisfactorily. Further, given the mass loss of Anglo-Saxon literature, it
3685-428: The poem present five vignettes, alluding to traditional stories and separated by a refrain (for which there is no close parallel elsewhere in Old English poetry) which says " þæs ofereode, þisses swa mæg " (usually translated "that passed over, so may this"). Although the precise significance of this refrain is debated, it clearly indicates that the misfortunes described in each vignette were eventually overcome. Four of
3752-635: The precise degree and details of this continuity are subjects of debate. Germanic religion was influenced by neighboring cultures, including that of the Celts, the Romans, and, later, by the Christian religion. Very few sources exist that were written by pagan adherents themselves; instead, most were written by outsiders and can thus present problems for reconstructing authentic Germanic beliefs and practices. Some basic aspects of Germanic belief can be reconstructed, including
3819-411: The protagonists are Gauti and Magnhild. Numerous other interpretations exist, including that the vignette is part of a well integrated narrative sequence and concerns Niðhad. The fourth vignette presents the thirty-year reign of Theodoric the Great. A possible connection between this and the preceding sections is that the Old English poem Waldere , as well as German and Old Norse analogues, have Widia,
3886-447: The son of Weland and Beaduhild, as one of Theodoric's foremost retainers. The fifth vignette comments on the miseries inflicted by Ermanaric of the Goths , implicitly following his usurpation of Theodoric's power as recounted in legendary Germanic-language stories. In Lorden's argument, these events too are ones which centrally feature Widia. The remainder of the poem (lines 28–42) turn to
3953-530: The subject, adventures surrounding the hero Walter of Aquitaine , is known in other texts: a Latin epic poem Waltharius by Ekkehard of Abbey of St. Gall , dating from the first half of the 10th century; fragments of a Bavarian poem dating from the first half of the 13th century; and two episodes in the Norwegian Þiðreks saga . Incidental references to the Waldere occur in several Middle High German poems, and there
4020-495: The third vignette is ungrammatical and its meaning uncertain. In the 1930s, Kemp Malone influentially proposed that it talks about characters called Geat and Maethild, and that their story is the same as that told in the much later Scandinavian ballad known as the Power of the Harp . Variants of this ballad from all the Scandinavian nations are known, and in some of these variants the names of
4087-469: The tradition of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Medievalist scholars who have viewed the poem within the Anglo-Saxon tradition have therefore seen it primarily as a begging poem—a poem written by a travelling and begging poet who is without a place at a noble court—although because few other begging poems survive, assigning it to such a genre is somewhat speculative. Others have related "Deor" to other melancholy poems in
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#17328581253114154-702: The traditional, culturally significant religion of the Germanic peoples . With a chronological range of at least one thousand years in an area covering Scandinavia, the British Isles, modern Germany, the Netherlands, and at times other parts of Europe, the beliefs and practices of Germanic paganism varied. Scholars typically assume some degree of continuity between Roman-era beliefs and those found in Norse paganism , as well as between Germanic religion and reconstructed Indo-European religion and post-conversion folklore , though
4221-479: The vignettes trace the career of Widia as most clearly attested in the Old Norse Þiðreks saga . The first vignette presents the travails of the legendary smith Weland caused by his enslavement by the king Niðhad . The second turns to the difficulties experienced by Niðhad's daughter Beadohilde , implicitly when Weland takes revenge on her father by murdering her brothers and getting her pregnant. The text of
4288-416: The work have called it an ubi sunt ("where are they?") poem because of its meditations on transience . It can also be considered a traditional lament and poem of consolation. Christian consolation poems, however, usually attempt to subsume personal miseries in a historical or explicitly metaphysical context (e.g., Boethius 's Consolation of Philosophy ), and such perspectives are somewhat remote from
4355-409: The world must be Indo-European just because they appear in multiple Indo-European cultures. Bernhard Maier argues that similarities with other Indo-European religions do not necessarily result from a common origin, but can also be the result of convergence. Continuity also concerns the question of whether popular, post-conversion beliefs and practices ( folklore ) found among Germanic speakers up to
4422-445: Was created by supernatural female beings called Norns , who appear either individually or as a collective and who give people their fate at birth and are somehow involved in their deaths. Other female beings, the disir and valkyries , were also associated with fate. Early Germanic beliefs about the afterlife are not well known; however, the sources indicate a variety of beliefs, including belief in an underworld , continued life in
4489-595: Was similar to neighboring religions such as those of the Slavs , Celts , or Finnic peoples . The use of the qualifier "Germanic" (e.g. "Germanic religion" and its variants) remains common in German-language scholarship, but is less commonly used in English and other scholarly languages, where scholars usually specify which branch of paganism is meant (e.g. Norse paganism or Anglo-Saxon paganism ). The term "Germanic religion"
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