Germanic mythology

Archaeological remains, such as petroglyphs in Scandinavia, suggest continuity in Germanic mythology since at least the Nordic Bronze Age.

[1] Later Latin-language sources on Germanic mythology include Getica by Jordanes, History of the Lombards by Paul the Deacon, Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede, Vita Ansgari by Rimbert, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum by Adam of Bremen, and Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus.

[1] Vernacular sources on Germanic mythology include the Merseburg Charms, the Nibelungenlied,[2] and various pieces of Old English literature, particularly Beowulf.

The seeress in Völuspá tells of how the world began with a great magical nothingness called Ginnungagap, until Odin and his two brothers raised the Earth from the sea.

Parallels to Auðumbla are found in Indo-Iranian religion, testifying to the ancient Indo-European origins of Germanic mythology.

Other significant Æsir include the trickster god Loki; Heimdallr, who is reported in Rígsþula to have fathered the three classes of men; and Týr, a god associated with war and who lost his hand to the wolf Fenrir, who some scholars have proposed on linguistic evidence may have been a central deity in the Germanic pantheon in earlier times.

[1] Similarities have been pointed out between Njörðr and Nerthus, a Germanic fertility god mentioned by Tacitus in Germania in the 1st-century AD.

[3] A number of legendary creatures appear in Germanic mythology, such as dísir, fylgjur, draugar, dwarfs, elves,[1] as well as jötnar, goblins, giants, trolls and dragons.