We know the gods of the Vikings from the Edda. But how do we know the gods of the Germanic peoples on the Rhine, a thousand years earlier? Mostly through Roman eyes – and under Roman names. This is called interpretatio romana, and it is the key to the oldest Germanic belief.
The Germanic peoples of the Roman imperial age did not write down their gods themselves. What we know of them we owe in large part to the Romans – and to their habit of equating foreign gods with their own. A Roman author saw a Germanic god, recognised in him "one like Mercury" and called him that too. This translation of gods is called interpretatio romana.
Tacitus puts it most clearly. Of the gods the Germanic peoples worshipped "Mercury" most – meaning the god we later know as Woden/Odin. Beside him "Hercules" – the thunder god, our Thunor/Thor – and "Mars", the war god Tiwaz/Tyr. These equations are no accident: they live on to this day in the weekdays. Wednesday was Mercury's and Woden's day (Wednesday), Thursday Thunor's day (Thursday), Friday the day of the goddess (Frigg/Freyja), Tuesday that of Tiwaz (Tuesday).
Sometimes, though, the native names stand on the votive stones – and then it gets exciting. At Hadrian's Wall Frisian soldiers dedicated to Mars Thingsus, the god of the Thing, the people's assembly. In the Netherlands and the Rhineland people worshipped Hercules Magusanus, the chief god of the Batavians. On the coast, where the Rhine flowed into the sea, stood the great sanctuary of Nehalennia, a guardian goddess of sea traders, with a dog and a cornucopia. And Tacitus names the Alcis, a divine pair of brothers. These names are not Norse – but they are the real, continental heaven of gods from which the Norse world too later grew.
Of the gods they worship Mercury most … beside him they appease Hercules and Mars with permitted sacrificial animals.Tacitus, Germania 9, own translation from the public-domain text
Without the interpretatio romana we would know almost nothing of early Germanic belief. But it is also a trap: a Roman name is already an interpretation. "Mercury" stresses Woden's role as guide of souls and god of travellers – his sides as war and wisdom god almost vanish. We see the Germanic gods through Roman spectacles. And yet: without these stones on the Rhine and at Hadrian's Wall the path from Tiwaz to Tyr, from Woden to Odin, from Thunor to Thor would have remained dark for us.
The Matronae · Nerthus – the earth goddess · The grove of the Semnones · The Norse pantheon · The Germanic feasts.
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