Germanic Mythology

Abstract The term Germanic mythology refers to the gods and heroes of European peoples that include Germans, Scandinavians, and Anglo-Saxons. These are people whose languages—one of which would evolve into Old English and then, with other influences, into Middle and Modern English—derive from the same Indo-European branch. Terms commonly applied to the most northern of the Germanic peoples are Norse and, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, Viking. Germanic mythology has a certain unity of theme and narrative but reflects the conditions of several cultures “contaminated” in various degrees by surrounding realities. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf in Old English contains elements of Germanic mythology, as do the later German epic the Nibelungenlied, the Scandinavian Volsunga Saga, and especially the Eddas of Iceland. But all these works bear the marks and influences of the Christian era in which they took literary form.