Germanic Peoples, Celts & Slavs

Picture Central Europe two thousand years ago: no Germany, no Poland, no fixed borders. Instead a patchwork of tribes that came and went, formed alliances, fell out and reinvented themselves. "The Germanic peoples" are in truth not one people but a drawer that outsiders pulled open. That is exactly what makes the subject so fascinating – and it demands that we stay honest.

The family tree – click your way through

Below, the shared Indo-European root, and from it three mighty branches: Celts, Germanic peoples and Slavs. Tap a group and you land on its own detailed page. Below each you'll find every individual tribe – one click takes you straight to the article.

1. "Germanic" – a label, not a self-name

Let us begin with a disappointment: nobody stood on the Rhine and shouted "We are Germanic!". The term was brought into play by others. The earliest use is attributed to the Greek Poseidonius (1st c. BC) – though his work is lost and survives only in later quotations; the earliest fully preserved use is found in Julius Caesar, who summarily declared the peoples east of the Rhine to be "Germani" and so turned the word into the great organising idea.

We owe the most to Tacitus (Germania, around AD 98). He even reveals that "Germani" was originally only the name of a single tribe (the Tungri), which the victors then imposed on everyone. Where does the word come from? Unclear, probably Celtic.

2. Where they came from

The trail leads north. In the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 2000–500 BC) the Germanic proto-language probably emerged; the Germanic becomes clearly graspable with the Jastorf culture (from c. 6th c. BC). Rule of thumb: from about 500 BC one may speak of Germanic languages – the name "Germani" only appears centuries later.

3. Germanic peoples and Celts – the border that wasn't

Caesar drew a clean line on the Rhine: Celts to the left, Germanic peoples to the right. Nice and tidy – and largely invented. Caesar himself knew of "Germani" west of the Rhine, and the word "Germanic" is moreover probably Celtic. Who the Celts were – Helvetii, Aedui, Arverni, Carnutes – you can read on the page The Celts.

4. The three kindreds and the forefather Mannus

The Germanic peoples told themselves a fine origin story: all descended from the god Mannus, son of the earth-born Tuisto. His sons became the ancestors of three groups:

Ingaevones (on the coast) · Herminones (inland) · Istaevones (the rest).

5. The Germanic tribes – a quick run-through

North Germanic – Danes, Swedes, Norwegians: from them came the Vikings.
West Germanic – the great middle: Suebi, Saxons, Franks, Frisians, Chatti, Cherusci (Arminius!), Batavi, Ubii (Cologne).
East Germanic – the wanderers: Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, Gepids, Heruli.

6. The Slavs – the neighbours in the east

As the Germanic peoples moved west and south during the Migration Period, the Slavs filled the east of Central Europe. Around 600 they reached the Elbe-Saale line – a Germanic-Slavic border now ran right through what is today Germany. Three branches:

West Slavs – Poles, Czechs and the Polabians/Wends: Sorbs (in Lusatia to this day!), Obotrites, Lutici, the Rani of Rügen.
East Slavs – the roots of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians; out of them grew the Kievan Rus.
South Slavs – Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and the Slavicised Bulgars in the Balkans.

7. The faith – and why it is so hard to grasp

A finished "Germanic pantheon" exists in that form only for the Norse faith – and that was written down only in Christian Iceland. For the continental Germanic peoples, and even more so for the Slavs, we have only fragments, described by people who were just then trying to abolish these gods.

8. Gods in Roman masks

Tacitus names the Germanic gods with Roman names: Mercurius = Wodan, Hercules = Donar, Mars = Tiw. We carry the proof with us every week: the days of the week – Tuesday (Tiw/Ziu), Wednesday (Wodan, English Wednesday), Thursday (Donar/Thor), Friday (Frija/Frigg).

9. Gods & cults of the mainland

Many we know only from a single line: Nerthus, the earth mother; the "Isis" of the Suebi; the twins Alcis; the goddesses Tamfana and Baduhenna. Hard evidence, by contrast, comes from the Rhenish Matronae – triple mother goddesses on hundreds of altars, most densely around Cologne, Bonn and in the Eifel – and from the Merseburg Charms, the only pagan verses in the German language.

10. The faith of the Slavs

With the Slavs the situation is thinner still – there is no Slavic "Edda". Even so, certain figures stand out: Perun, the god of thunder and sky; Veles, the god of cattle, oaths and the underworld; and besides them Svarog, Dazhbog, Stribog and the goddess Mokosh. One peculiarity: the West Slavs built temples and carved many-headed idols – the four-faced Svantevit of Arkona, the three-headed Triglav of Szczecin.

11. The grand table of gods

Astonishingly many gods are the same across the language borders – they merely wear different clothes (Proto-Germanic forms with *):

12. What really connects – and what does not

A common Indo-European heritage runs through Germanic peoples, Slavs and Balts alike – most clearly the thunder god with the oak. Much else is regional and late: Aesir and Vanir, Yggdrasil and the fully painted Ragnarök are above all Norse. There was never one Germanic or Slavic religion, but many varieties.

13. Myth versus evidence – for the tavern debate

And what remains? A great deal: shared names of gods from the Rhine to the Volga, a common world of legend and the honest wonder at how much lies in the mist. It is exactly this piece of forgotten homeland that we engrave – with respect for our forebears.

Sources & further reading

Antiquity: Tacitus (Germania, Annals); Caesar; Pliny; Jordanes; for the Slavs Procopius, Thietmar of Merseburg, Helmold of Bosau, Saxo Grammaticus, the Primary Chronicle. Scholarship, among others: Simek, de Vries, Ellis Davidson, Pohl, Goffart, Steuer, Brather. Map: public-domain Natural Earth outlines (CC0). All contested points are marked above as "myth" or as uncertain.

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