Germania

Germania is an ethnography written by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus in 98 BCE, detailing the Germanic pagan societies of the time. It’s the oldest surviving written record of ancient Heathen customs.

According to Tacitus, the Germanic people worshiped the gods “Mercury” (Woden/Gwoden/Odin), “Hercules” (Thor), “Mars” (Tyr) and “Isis” (unknown goddess), and on Wednesdays they would sacrifice humans and animals to Odin. He wrote that the Germanic people were superstitious and would consult a system of lot-casting routinely to predict omens. For temples, he claimed the Germanic peoples preferred to worship outside in fields as opposed to in buildings, believing this was more appropriate than enshrining their gods. Unlike the Romans, they didn’t portray the gods in the likeness of human beings.

It’s unclear how objective Germania actually is as an ethnography. Tacitus never observed the Germanic people himself or personally set foot in the region. Instead, he sourced information from other written works and perhaps interviews, which were second-hand at best.

In recent years, Germania’s trustworthiness as a reliable source of ancient Germanic culture has been thrown in to question, since it’s an exemplary work of Roman nationalist propaganda. Many Roman scholars also served the state, and would therefore reinforce narratives of Rome’s greatness for the sake of political gain. This including portraying other cultures’ gods as misinterpretations of Roman ones, and characterize non-Roman societies as primitive and backwards. Tacitus himself described the Germanic peoples in derogatory ways, depicting them as lazy, uncultured, drunken, and brutal.

Germania is nevertheless significant to Norse Heathenry because it verifies the existence and age of some of its gods; namely, Thor, Odin, and Tyr.

You can read an English translation of Germania here.