Our Gods
When the first christian missionaries crossed the alemannic regions between the Black Forest and the Alps during the sixth century, they came across many communities who still worhsipped the old pagan gods. They met nearby hills, wells, canyons or waterfalls and offered them the blood of beheaded animas. At such a Pluoz, Beer was brewn and drunken in the honour of the Ensî, the old germanic gods. These gods were not seen as almighty. Not unlike the later christian saints, they were seen as powers who gave strength and helped in times of need, but not as immortal transcendental deities.
The songs in which these gods were honoured, are long forgotten. However, they are not completely unknown. Centuries after the Christianization of the Alemanni, some of the germanic Myths were written down in the medieval literature of iceland, the Eddur and Sögur. Though a lot of these literature is pure fiction, some myths go back to very early times, when indoeuropean languages as germanic and latin had not yet grown apart. In one way or another, these myths must have been known to the Alemanni.
Wuodan is the alemannic god of storm and wind. He is a healer and a master of wisdom and magic, but also a god of war. His divine furor, the Wuod, enraged the warriors in battle. This is also the background of the midwinter festivals, where you can still feel his archaic frenzy. Wuodan is also the god of the dead: He guides the host of the dead – the Wuotisheer – through the winter nights, in the lowlands as a wild hunt with horns and barking, hellish dogs, in the mountains as a long procession singing beautyfull, yet strange chants. For the alemmannic settler, he must have been an ambiguous figure, benevolent and powerfull, but at the same time sinister and dangerous.
In contrast to Wuodan who is accompanied by raven and wolves, Zîu is the god of the bright day sky. He is a heroic, severe and righteous god and was called before duels and vowels. He was seen as Mars Thingsus, the patron of thing, the heathen landsgemeinde, where the free men choose their leaders, voting with their raised hands.
Donar is the alemannic name of the god of thunder. He is a protector of the peasants and their cattle and was seen as a brave warrior, who fought against the giants, who constantly threatened the homesteads of the mortals. In heathen times, Alemanni wore the roman mace of Hercules as a symbol of his power. These maces are the origin of the norse Thor‘s Hammer, who finally became a symbol for the old custom in times of christianisation. In some regions, people still swear by his name: To utter a hearty bim Tonnder is seen as more powerfull than any prayer…
In heathen times, also the powers of wealth, health and fertility were venerated. Many indogermanic myths tell about the holy marriage of the sons of the sky god and their sister, the erotic and bellicose goddess of dawn. In sanskrit, her name was Usas, the alemannic form must have been Ostara. When Swiss children look forward to Ooschtara, the use the name of an ancient heathen goddess. In Scandinavia, these female deity was venerated as Freya. Like Usas, the latter is depicted as a fierce, but also erotic goddess: She sleeps with her brother, is named sow and rides a golden boar. The remembrance of this powerfull goddess is still alive in the tales of the Pfaffenkellerin – a lustrous and dreadfull women, who shows herself as a sow or as a witch riding naked on a boar…