By Sean Jobst
[The following article was originally published on my Swabian Heathenry blog, a project I officially title the Schwäbisch Heidnisches Glaube. Aside from some article ideas for this blog, I've mostly been working on that other project. Since its focus is more "niche" and specified, most of its postings won't be republished here. But this current article is an exception, since some of its points intersect with themes on this blog.]
Sources confirm it was a common Suebi tradition to honor Wuodan (our original name for Him, later evolving into Old High German Wodan and modern German Wotan) with beer libations, so that a modern Swabian Heathen practice could incorporate a Giozan (Old High German “to pour” -> Proto-Germanic *Geutana, “to pour") with beer of a high quality befitting to Wuodan, preferably our own South German beers such as made with hops from the Bavarian Hallertau, where Wuodan and other Germanic Deities were honored and so their energies are imbued with the land.
As we were animists like every other ethnic faith, our ancestors knew that through this ritual the drink itself would become imbued with a spiritual energy exchanged with the Deity. Blotar (Proto-Germanic *Blotana, “to sacrifice”) were specific offerings to the Gods or Goddesses. This included something tangible as part of the gifting and exchange cycle; but could also include words or a vow honoring the Deity, invoked by their unique kennings and qualities. As noted by two leading scholars, the Indo-European words for libation come from the same roots as words for “promise, vow.”(1)
The great German linguist and folklorist Jacob Grimm (1785-1863), himself descended from the Hessian lands of the Chatti (kinsmen of the Irminones along with our Suebi and Alemanni), rendered an essential service to continental Germanisches Heidentum by collecting the folklore of disparate regions and compiling them into a cohesive work documenting continuity to our ancient Mythology - despite all propaganda claiming everything was “lost” or broken. Grimm linked this Germanic practice to the broader Indo-European tradition:
“As it was a primitive and widespread custom at a banquet to set aside a part of the food for the household gods, and particularly to place a dish of broth before Berhta and Hulda, the gods were also invited to share the festive drink. The drinker, before taking any himself, would pour some out of his vessel for the god or house sprite, as the Lithuanians, when they drank beer, spilt some of it on the ground for their earth-goddess Zemynele. Compare with this the Norwegian sagas of Thor, who appears at weddings when invited, and takes up and empties huge casks of ale. I will now turn once more to that account of the Suevic ale-titb (cupa) in Jonas, and use it to explain the heathen practice of minne drinking [ritual toast], which is far from being extinct under Christianity. Here also both name and custom appear common to all the Teutonic races.”(2)
The concept of a sacred beverage is a defining feature of Indo-European cultures, whose various mythos are filled with stories of Gods or heroes seeking holy drinks which initiated them into higher consciousness of frenzy or gnosis, and beverages of magical qualities such as the elixir or haoma. This motif is also a defining feature of the pan-European Grail Mythos, which though outwardly “christian” reveals deeper Pagan origins, and was transmitted by Germanic Minnesänger, most notably the Bavarian Wolfram von Eschenbach. Its remnants are centered within the Celtic and Germanic worlds, but its linguistic and mythic correspondences also extend eastward to the Caucasus, and to Iran via the figure of Parzifal.(3)
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| Parzifal with Amfortas in the Grail Castle (1883), by Bavarian painter August Spiess (1841-1923) for display in Der Sängersaal of Schloss Neuschwanstein (Source) |
Unfortunately, the exact format of an Alemannic/Suebi blot has not survived. For we who seek to revive our Heathenry, we can look to the formats provided by other continental Heathens, such as the Irminists or the Saxon Aldsidu, for clues on what our ancestors practiced. These sources about the beer libations to Wuodan are therefore even more valuable, for they describe a special offering vessel that contained the beer, made ‘sacred’ by the intentions of the participants and incantations uttered over it to honor Wuodan. But rather than the details, what’s most important is the overarching metaphysics of Blot, the divine purpose animating the ritual, as explained by the Finnish writer Aki Cederberg:
“Along with sumbel (meaning ritual libations of sacred drink raised in honor of the gods, ancestors, and the deeds of the living), blot is one of the central Germanic rituals of which we have historical knowledge. In a blot, an offering of drink or food was given to the gods, goddesses, spirits, or ancestors. At specific holy times, even animal and human sacrifices occasionally took place (the human sacrifices usually consisted of criminals or enemies of the community). The blot would be performed in a holy place or sacrificial grove, where a connection to the gods was particularly strong. In principle, this action was less about appeasing the divine and more about maintaining and strengthening a connection with the holy powers, which happened via sacrifice, offering, and gift-giving. The same reciprocal relationship that existed in human communities was thought to also exist between the human and the divine. Sacrifice was an expression of this principle. It was understood that by offering gifts to the gods, the latter would in turn bless humans with their gifts, such as luck, protection, fertility, love, or guidance – which, although intangible, are still at the epicenter of human life.”(4)
Generally, Abrahamics throw accusations of “sacrifice” against Heathens and Pagans, but rather than apologize about our ancestral traditions we can simply turn it back on them as projection. Their religions are centered around sacrifice, whether it be the salvationist “christ” story, the “divinely” ordered sacrifice of Isaac or Ismail (depending on which of the three iterations), Islamic Eid and halal sacrifices, the Hebrew scapegoat ritual or modern shechita, or the practice of circumcision whether against the male or female. There are biblical references to their god enjoying the “aroma” of “burnt offerings” (Exodus 29:18, Leviticus 1:9, Numbers 15:3), demanding strictly-defined sacrifices as central to his worship (Exodus 29:38-42, Numbers 15:1-29), and later extended to the sacrifice of christ (Hebrews 9:14 Ephesians 5:2). The way these verses and traditions are framed is one of a “divine” demand to be appeased by the sacrifices offered by “lesser” mortals.
In complete contrast, our Heathen or Pagan traditions viewed sacrifice as part of the gifting and exchange cycle – it was tied to Natural law. The Deities exist and as higher vibrational Beings, they don't “need” the sacrifices - its about the exchange and flow of energy as part of the Natural Order (Rita, related to rite). At least in the Germanic and Celtic worlds, sacrifice was done to those who would've already been killed such as certain heinous criminals or war captives. And when it came to animals, those would've been killed for food anyway – yet making use of all the parts and with due humane diligence to their spirit. Through sacrifice the more “mundane” acts of the world were elevated into ritual, raising the consciousness of the entire tribe or clan in the process. It should also be said that sacrifice is a general term that can be understood as including the intangible, such as sacrificing our time and work or making vows, creative acts and poetic words. Our traditions also evolve with us as peoples, so that the definition of sacrifice and exchange has expanded.
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| Ancient Germanic minne ritual. Illustration by German artist Martin Wiegand (1867-1961) for Bildersaal Deutscher Geschichte (Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1890). (Source) |
Columban’s account of Suebi ritual
The source he references is the Italian monk Jonas of Bobbio, whose Vita Columbani (Life of Columban, circa 639-641) is a biography of “Saint” Columban (543-615), the Irish missionary sent by Rome and the Frankish archons to convert our Suebi/Alemanni volk to Christianity. That his mission occurred over a hundred years after our regions were conquered by the Christianized Franks (following Clovis’ conversion in 496) demonstrates how resilient our tribesmen were upon our ancestral Heathenry in the face of a Christian onslaught backed by overwhelming political and financial authority.
Such accounts are a useful source for describing our ancestral traditions because these missionaries, desiring to convert a people to their foreign archonic religion, recorded traditions as they witnessed them, wanting to “refute” and ascribe them to the “demonic” (since it was related to Gods of ethnikos, gentilis “the nations” rather than to their own hebraic messianic egregore). These accounts can be easily discerned from their own commentary, as these were “supernatural” exaggerations obviously invented to fit their mythic hagiography, as well as to demonstrate the “truth” of Christianity and their own “miraculous” claims to sainthood. I now cite Jonas’ account in its original Latin, followed by the English translation:
“Ad destinatum deinde perveniunt locum. Quem peragrans vir Dei non suis placere animis aiet, sed tamen ob fidem in gentibus serendam inibi paulisper moraturum se spondit. Sunt etenim inibi vicinae nationes Suaevorum. Quo cum moraretur et inter habitatores loci illius progrederetur, repperit eos sacrificium profanum litare velle, vasque magnum, quem vulgo cupam vocant, qui XX modia amplius minusve capiebat, cervisa plenum in medio positum. Ad quem vir Dei accessit sciscitaturque, quid de illo fieri vellint. Illi aiunt se Deo suo Vodano* nomine, quem Mercurium, ut alii aiunt, autumant, velle litare. Ille pestiferum opus audiens vas insufflat, miroque modo vas cum fragore dissolvitur et per frustra dividitur, visque rapida cum ligore cervisae prorumpit; manifesteque datur intellegi diabolum in eo vase fuisse occultatum, qui per profanum ligorem caperet animas sacrificantum. Videntes barbari, stupefacti aiunt magnum virum Dei habere anhelitum, qui sic possit dissolvere vas ligaminibus munitum; castigatusque euangelicis dictis, ut ab his segregarentur sacrificiis, domibus redire imperat. Multique eorum tunc per beati viri suasum vel doctrinam ad Christi fidem conversi, baptismum sunt consecuti; aliosque, quos iam lavacro ablutus error detinebat profanus, ad cultum euangelicae doctrinae monitis suis ut bonus pastor ecclesiae sinibus reducebat. * Vadono (A1a), Wodano (A1b), Woda (A2)”
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| Columban among the "savage" Suebi/Alemanni, portraying an obvious Christian bias |
“At length they arrived at the place designated, which did not wholly please Columban; but he decided to remain, in order to spread the faith among the people, who were Swabians. Once, as he was going through this country, he discovered that the natives were going to make a heathen offering. They had a large cask that they called a cupa, and that held about twenty-six measures, filled with beer and set in their midst. On Columban’s asking what they intended to do with it, they answered that they were making an offering to their God Wodan (whom others call Mercury). When he heard of this abomination, he breathed on the cask, and lo! it broke with a crash and fell in pieces so that all the beer ran out. Then it was clear that the devil had been concealed in the cask, and that through the earthly drink he had proposed to ensnare the souls of the participants. As the heathens saw that, they were amazed and said Columban had a strong breath, to split a well-bound cask in that manner. But he reproved them in the words of the Gospel, and commanded them to cease from such offerings and to go home. Many were converted then, by the preaching of the holy man, and turning to the learning and faith of Christ, were baptized by him. Others, who were already baptized but still lived in the heathenish unbelief, like a good shepherd, he again led by his words to the faith and into the bosom of the church.”(5)
The “supernatural” element is obviously part of his mythic hagiography, contradicted by the historical resistance he faced trying to convert our kinsmen; and as it steals the qualities associated with the God he was demonstrating his alleged “power” over, as the modern German Heathen writer and artist ‘Iwobrand’ writes: “It is worth mentioning that the breath ascribed to the saint seems to point towards the very god that is supposed to be defeated by it: Wodan is the god of the storm-like spirit, Old English wōd (Germanic *wōdaz), which gets hold of the furious, i.e. the inspired.”(6)
Jonas’ last sentence is closer to the truth, as it was only a centuries-long process of syncretism imposed by the church and its Frankish authorities, that converted the Suebi/Alemanni – notwithstanding the folklore we held onto since then which can now be a guiding light to Schwäbisches Heidentum, whose living flame was never entirely extinguished - it just went underground, often hiding in plain sight within the church, and embedded within the ancestral memories and archetypal symbols of the volk. As Iwobrand continues: “In the sixth century there was already a network of monasteries in the region, but since the fifth century a great number of Alemanni had fallen back into paganism. Especially the more remote areas, covered with thick woodland, would still be settled by a persistent pagan population.”
After arriving at the Merovingian court of King Theudebert II of Austrasia at Metz (Lothringen) in 611, Columban’s mission was “granted” land at Bregenz, in Vorarlberg (the Schwäbisch part of modern Austria). Following the route of the Rhein and Donau, he met with little success among our volk, further attesting to the Heathen resilience well into the 7th century. Accompanied by “Saint” Gallus to Bregenz in 612, Columban found an oratory outwardly dedicated to “Saint” Aurelia but containing three brass idols, which he destroyed and threw into Lake Constanz, and founded the Mehrerau Abbey.(7) Gallus remained as the conquerors' religious general over Schwaben, lending his name to St. Gallen and other Swiss toponyms.
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| Bregenzerwald in Vorarlberg (Source) |
Heathen worship resisted Christianization in Bregenz
A similar account was given in the Vita S. Galli, written by the Swabian monk Walafrid Strabo sometime in the early 800s: “They also found in the temple some images of bronze, gilded and fixed to the wall, which the people, having abandoned the worship of the sacred altar, adored, and were accustomed to offer sacrifices to: these are the ancient and ancient gods, the guardians of this place, whose comfort both we and ours endure to the present day.” Given the earlier account of Tacitus about the foremost Gods of the Suebi, these three could possibly represent Ziu, Wuodan and Donar. After quoting this passage (in its original Latin), Grimm gives a lengthy analysis on whose idols they possibly were:
“A doubt may be raised, however, as to whether by these heathen gods are to be understood Alamannish, or possibly Roman gods? Roman paganism in a district of the old Helvetia is quite conceivable, and dii tutores loci sounds almost like the very thing. On the other hand it must be remembered, that Alamanns had been settled here for three centuries, and any other worship than theirs could hardly be at that time the popular one. That sacrifice to Woden on the neighboring Lake of Zurich mentioned by Jonas in his older biography of the two saints, was altogether German. Lastly, the association of three divinities to be jointly worshipped stands out a prominent feature in our domestic heathenism; when the Romans dedicated a temple to several deities, their images were not placed side by side, but in separate cellae (chapels).”(8)
He continues: “By this account also the temple is first of all Christian, and afterwards occupied by the heathen (Alamanns), therefore not an old Eomanone [Irminone]. That Woden’s statue was one of those idola vana that were broken to pieces, may almost be inferred from Jonas’ account of the beer-sacrifice offered to him. Eatpert’s cantilena S. Galli has only the vague words: Castra de Turegum adnavigant Tucconium, Decent fidem gentem, Jovem linquunt ardentem [‘The camp of the Turegians sails to Tuconium, They befit the nation's faith, They leave Jove burning’]. This Jupiter on fire, from whom the people apostatized, may very well be Donar (Thunar, Thor), but his statue is not alluded to. According to Arx, Eckehardus IV. quotes Joviset Neptuni idola, but I cannot find the passage; conf. p. 122 Ermoldus Nigellus on Neptune. It is plain that the three statues have to do with the idolatry on L. Constance, not with that on L. Zurich; and if Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune stood there together, the first two at all events may be easily applied to German deities.”(9)
Its significant these passages mention “saint” Aurelia of Strasbourg and not the “Christ” figure, suggesting the Christians used various “saints” who could easily be disguised as tutelary deities to convert our ancestors, otherwise repulsed by the “Christ” stories. Even the historicity of this fourth century “saint” was questioned by Alsatian historian Philippe-André Grandidier (1752-1787) who, despite being a priest, was committed to the scientific method. The account also attests to the resilient of Heathenry, as even the semblance of Christian worship was shed in favor of the open worship of our Gods. Missionaries were continuously sent, culminating in Columban and Galli. After a year of many of his abbots – who should be seen as religious invaders – being “murdered” in the woods by our Heathen tribesmen, Columban crossed the Alps where he died three years later in Lombardy.
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| The missionaries had an Abrahamic-induced fear of our forests, mountains, lakes and rivers, knowing these contained a primal spiritual energy. An illustration by German Heathen writer and artist Iwobrand (Source) |
Other accounts of beer libations across Deutschland
Beer has an ancient history in Germany, extending at least 3,000 years. Archaeological excavations from a burial site of a Celtic or Germanic chieftain near Kulmbach (Bayern) has uncovered ceramic amphoras containing beer residue. That he was sent off to the Otherworld with gifts of beer accompanying him underscores the sacredness of beer as a ritual drink in our regions. Nearby the Kulmbacher Mönchhof brewery was founded in 1349, suggesting that much like churches so too were breweries often constructed atop Heathen sacred sites. Around 98 CE, the Roman Tacitus also recorded both the popularity of beer and its ritualistic use among the Germanic peoples. One modern historian has mentioned the cultural implications between Germanic beer culture vis-à-vis the dominant Roman vinology:
“Although beer was a common beverage in practically all ancient societies, the wine-drinking Greeks and Romans mysteriously excluded it from their diet. It is too simplistic to state that they simply disliked the drink. For each negative trait imputed to beer there almost invariably exists some further testimony to the contrary. Thus it is variously described as a sour, foul-smelling, impure, cloudy, harmful, flatulence-causing, unmanly liquid made from rotten cereals, a divine punishment, but also as a sweet, good-tasting, nice-smelling, nutritious, healthful, useful, strong cereal beverage, a divine gift. The exclusion of beer from the Greek and Roman diet is essentially a manifestation of a deep-set vinocentricity closely connected to a disdain of the ‘other’.
“The vinocentric outlook is obvious from the fact that beer was often simply known as barley wine or wheat wine, while barbarians were said to make intoxicating beverages in imitation of wine, and to have recourse to beer when wine was wanting. Wine and beer were also often considered polar opposites: wine was civilized and beer barbaric (in being undiluted with water, though it was, it seems, just as strong as wine, and in being drunk with filtered straws); wine was manly and beer effeminate; wine upper class and beer lower class. The very fact that beer was the drink of others was enough to condemn it, and the actual taste of the beverage probably had little influence on verdicts against it. Those who actually ventured to try some brew did not necessarily find it so bad.”(10)
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| Perhaps the most famous of the Matronae votive altars, the Matronae Aufaniae (circa 164CE), discovered under the site of the Bonn Minster church. |
We now continue our journey from the South into more North German regions, further attesting to the Heathen practice of beer libations. The first clue concerns the general use of beer for sacred purposes and not only to Wuodan. Spread across Deutschland are votive offerings to the Matronae, various feminine tutelary spirits associated with specific areas. These reveal the shared animism of the Celts and Germanen, upon which later Roman elements were also added, for these were all branches of the same Indo-European family and the Matronae are the matron energies tied to place. A list of Matronae compiled by the Norwegian scholar and historian Maria Kvilhaug includes a patroness of beer:
“Alusneihae (Beer Mothers)Where: Inden-Pier, Kreis Düren [Nordrhein-Westfalen], West Germany
Aside from the Suebi, Grimm traces beer offerings to Wuodan among the Northern folk customs of Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg: “He [18th century Mecklenburg historian David Franck] adds, that at the squires mansions, when the rye is all cut, there is Wodel-beer served out to the mowers; no one weeds flax on a Wodenstag, lest Woden’s horse should trample the seeds; from Christmas to Twelfth-day they will not spin, nor leave any flax on the distaff, and to the question why they answer, Wode is galloping across. We are expressly told, this wild hunter Wode rides a white horse….
“A custom in Schaumburg [Lower Saxony] I find thus described [By Munchhausen in Bragur VI. 1, 2134.]: the people go out to mow in parties of twelve, sixteen or twenty scythes, but it is so managed, that on the last day of harvest they all finish at the same time, or some leave a strip standing which they can cut down at a stroke the last thing, or they merely pass their scythes over the stubble, pretending there is still some left to mow. At the last stroke of the scythe they raise their implements aloft, putting them upright, and beat the blades three times with the strop. Each spills on the field a little of the drink he has, whether beer, brandy, or milk, then drinks himself, while they wave their hats, beat their scythes three times, and cry aloud Wold, Wold, Wold! and the women knock all the crumbs out of their baskets on the stubble. They march home shouting and singing.”(12)
Finally, preserved in the texts of our Norse cousins across the North and Baltic Seas are these pertinent words directly from the High One Himself: “66. To some feasts, I’ve come much too late, And to others, much too soon- either the beer was all gone, Or not yet brewed: The unlucky man can’t seem to get it right” – Hávamál: The Words of the High One(13)
So it is that I raise a libation to Wuodan. Prost und Hail Wuodan!
ADDENDUM: Scientific Findings and Esoteric/Shamanic Musings
I recently listened to a podcast which on the surface has nothing to do with Swabian Heathenry, but a section of it was so pertinent that I added this new section. The information comes from the Gnostic visionary and comparative mythologist John Lamb Lash (hereafter named JLL), whose work has influenced me since late 2021. I’ve incorporated the wisdom he has distilled from the Pagan Mysteries, into my own spiritual worldview, with its base foundation of my own ancestral heritage.
Our ancestors knew the properties of certain plants within their own biosphere, a reality so innate and expressive worldwide that it’s a discipline called Ethnobotany. (A great source for this within our Schwäbisch/Alemannisch context is Wolf-Dieter Storl, originally from Sachsen but long resident in and acclimated to Bavarian Swabia). Our ancestors came to these realizations – only “discovered” by science many centuries later – through their instincts, intuition, and observation of the world and their minds and bodies. As Heathens, we never had a false dichotomy between spiritual and scientific.
Our weltanschauung and traditions are incredibly logical and rational, while still embracing the Mysterious. As a God of shamanic and ecstatic qualities, its an obvious conclusion that so too would there be an esoteric layer to the beer libations to Wuodan – not on every occasion or even to most people, but certainly in rituals by initiates of His Mysteries such as männerbünde (warrior brotherhoods) and trained Zaubermacher (magicians) or Runen-Meischter (Rune masters). This would also occur on auspicious calendar times of heightened awareness and perception.
JLL cited the 2001 work by Richard Evans Schultes, Albert Hofmann, and Christian Rätsch (Plants of the Gods: Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers), who observed how botanists discovered these plants to be nitrogen-bearing, expressing their surprise as to why since nitrogen serves no apparent benefit to these plants. But as he notes: “They’re a benefit to humanity and to human animals, that's why they have these entheogenous properties.”
“Nitrogen is a component of the biosphere, you breathe it, and it permeates your skin and pores.” Why is the atmosphere 78% nitrogen? Drawing on his Gnosis, JLL mentions “interaction with nitrogen, detection of the effects of nitrogen, and delving into the inner recesses of the nitrogen zone of the planet,” through shamanic practices which we can also experience as a living reality beyond the merely conceptual, in the same way we experience oxygen or hydrogen.
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| "The Sacred Grove of the Druids", painting from the Opera Norma, by Italian artist Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835), portraying the sky in much the same way as the telestic method described by John Lamb Lash. The Druids were the uniquely Celtic initiates of the Pagan Mysteries. |
“Several things happen when you direct your awareness in a telestic trance, to a nitrogen zone.” The sky “turns green” and “fractalizes into hexagonal facets.” This isn’t hallucination but are related to Benard cells, related to “the activity of chaos and complexity out of which everything emerges.” So through this observation you go deeper into the cells and through gazing into these facets, you see the activity within like “a wild thrashing of tendrils.” (Could this be another layer of meaning to the Wild Hunt?). “If you look deeper, keep a gentle steady gaze, these rising tendrical forms inside each facet, will assume the form of a dakini, a sky dancer.”
JLL references Tibetan Vajrayana shamanic practices corresponding to those recorded of our own ancient European mystic initiates. He mentions experiments with fermented beer by the Tibetan Nyingma scholar-yogi Longchenpa (1308-1364). Similarly: “The chemical element of the drink at Eleusis was fermented barley.” (The Hellenic Eleusinian initiates’ barley drink kykeon, was known – after a nine-day period of fasting and purification – to induce profound visions and transcending fear of death, much like those of the Germanic initiates to Wuodan. The Greek state of thummos is very similar to our own Germanic state of wode).
“Longchenpa attested in some of the records attributed to him, about he and a group of eight apprentices – that’s interesting because Gnostics were in groups of eight and sixteen – and describes vividly how they see these dakinis dancing in the sky.” “And that’s one experience you can have at the nitrogen zone, when you’re actually feeling and processing nitrogen, these paranormal states come spontaneously.”(14)
Notes:
(1) Douglas Q. Adams and J.P. Mallory, “Libation,” Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, London/Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997, p. 351.
(2) Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, Vol. I, trans. James Steven Stallybrass, London: George Bell & Sons, 1882, p. 59.
(3) Among leading scholars of Grail and Arthurian literature, the English Jessie Weston (1850-1928) and American Roger Sherman Loomis (1887-1966) argued convincingly for pre-Christian origins of the Grail Mythos, particularly within Celtic mythology and folklore. See also the online lectures of John Lamb Lash, who gives a Sophianic Animistic description of the Grail journey and its meaning. For the Heathen origins of the German Minnesänger, see Guido von List's Das Geheimnis der Runen (1908) and Otto Rahn's Luzifers Hofgesind (1937).
(4) Aki Cederberg, Holy Europe, North Augusta, SC: Arcana Europa Media, 2024, p. 5.
(5) The Life of St. Columban, by the Monk Jonas, trans. Dana Carleton Munro, Book I, Chapter 53, < https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/columban.asp>.
(6) Iwobrand, “Alemannic Paganism in the Vitae Columbani & Galli,” Oct. 5, 2020, <https://iwobrand.wordpress.com/2020/10/05/alemannic-paganism-in-the-vitae-columbani-galli/>.
(7) See Columba Edmonds, “St. Columbanus,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 4, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. Online: <https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04137a.htm>.
(8) Grimm, op. cit., p. 109.
(9) ibid., p. 110. Later in his work, Grimm proposes that “Neptune” refers to either Wodan or Njord. But I place little relevance here, as there is obviously no attestations of Njord among our inland mountainous volk, although sometimes there is overlap between sea and chthonic Deities. I'm prone to chalk the account up to how far-removed these missionaries were from their own Germanic or Celtic ancestry, conceiving the pre-Christian generally in Roman terms. May the Truth be uncovered either way.
(10) Max Nelson, “The Cultural Construction of Beer Among Greeks and Romans,” Syllecta Classica, January 2003, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 101-120, < https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268871081_The_Cultural_Construction_of_Beer_Among_Greeks_and_Romans>.
(11) Maria Kvilhaug, “Ancestral Mothers and Goddess Collectives in German Iron Age Votive Altars and Inscriptions dedicated to the ‘Matrones’,” Jan. 21, 2020, <https://bladehoner.wordpress.com/2020/01/21/ancestral-mothers-and-goddess-collectives-in-german-iron-age-votive-altars-and-inscriptions-dedicated-to-the-matrones/>.
(12) Grimm, op. cit., p. 156.
(13) From the translation by James Hjuka Coulter, Sewell: Hammerstede, 2nd edition, 2002, reproduced in his book: Germanic Heathenry: A Practical Guide, 1st Books Library, 2003, p. 261.
(14) From The Psychedelic Podcast, “John Lamb Lash – Telestic Shamanism: Gnosis, Cognitive Ecstasy, and Entheogens,” 25 June 2022.
