[The Pomegranate 13.

2 (2011) 146-162] TSSN 1528-0268 (Print)

doi: 10.1558/pome.V13Í2.146 ISSN 1743-1735 (Online)

Revisiting the Semnonenhain:

A Norse Anthropogonic Myth and the Germania

Michael D. J. Bintley

michael.bintley@canterbury.ac.uk

Abstract

Perhaps the most mysterious of the gods identified by Tacitus in his Ger-
mania of C.98 is the Suebian regnator omnium deus — the god who is lord of
all things. In a rather enigmatic fashion, Tacitus reveals that the wood-
land sanctuary of this god, the so-called Semnonenhain as it has become
known in scholarship, was thought to have been the ancestral birthplace
of a number of Germanic tribes.^ The aim of this essay is to show that
traces of a similar tradition in Old Norse literature, postdating the Genna-
nia by over a thousand years, may indicate that a creation myth related to
this belief was still alive in Iceland in the final years of Germanic heathen
religion. I will begin by outlining what is known about the compositional
contexts of the Germania, before discussing what can usefully be drawn
from Tacitus' description of the Semnonenhain and its associated anthro-
pogonic myth. Following a brief consideration of the contexts in which
the conversion of Scandinavia took place, we will move on to consider
elements of a potentially related tradition preserved in Norse Eddie and
Skaldic verse, and conclude with a few reflections on the extended poten-
tial of these observations.

The Germania, an ethnographical treatise^ provides the most complete

written account of early Germanic culture that we now possess.^ As there
is no sign in the text that Tacitus had spent any time in Germany himself,
it is thought that his primary sources would probably have included the
De Bello Gallico of Caesar, works of Pliny the Elder, and fragments from
Poseidonius.^ However, as Gudeman pointed out at the turn of the last
century, points of incidence between these texts and the Germania are
too few to account for a substantial amount of its detail. If Tacitus did

1. This term is commonly used in Germanic scholarship in discussion of the sacred grove
of the Semnones; for example see Much, Die Germania des Tacitus (Heidelberg: Carl Winter
Univcrtätsverlag, 1967), 432-40.
2. Ronald Martin, Tacitus (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1994), 49.
3. Ronald Mellor, Tacitus {London: Routledge, 1993), 14-15.

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 Bintley Revisiting the Semnonenhain 147

rely primarily upon written sources, he must have derived a great deal
from Pliny's Bella Germaniae, a work which is unfortunately now lost.*
Regardless of this supposed dependence on written sources, it therefore
seems likely that he would also have made use of the reports of sol-
diers and merchants who had been in contact with Germany, as well as
native Germans in Rome.^ In this respect it may be sigrüficant that King
Masyos of the Semnones visited Rome in 92 CE to receive the blessing
of the Emperor Domitian, accompanied by his high priestess Ganna.^
Tacitus was absent from Rome between 89 and 93, holding a "series of
praetorian posts, perhaps commanding a legion, and probably ending
his tour of duty with a final year as proconsul in "a minor province."^
In 88 Tacitus had been both a praetor and a member of the sacerdotal
college known as the quindecimviri sacris faciundis.^ The rank of praetor
included magisterial duties in Rome, whilst the priestly school to which
he belonged accorded responsibility for "scholarship and good sense"
in religious matters when Roman govemment required "supernatural
sanction for its projects."' Although Tacitus could not have met Masyos
in 92, it is likely—given his professional experience in religious matters
and obvious interest in Germany —that upon his retum to Rome in 93,
he would have been keen to speak with those who had. This possibility
seems all the more likely when one considers the prestige allotted to the
Semnones in the Germania, where they are described as the vetustissi-
mos nobilissimosque," the most ancient and most noble" of all the Suebian
ti-ibes.i"
No scholar would now make the mistake of unquestioningly accept-
ing what Tacitus writes as historically accurate in a strict sense; to what-
ever extent, it is clear that he was presenting the early Germans in a

4. Alfred Gudeman, "The Sources of the Germania of Tacitus." Transactions and Pro-
ceedings ofthe American Philological Association, 31 (1900): 111; see also Ronald Syme,
Tacitus, vol.1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 127-28.
5. Clarence W. MendeU, Tacitus: the Man and His Work (London: Oxford University
Press, 1957), 216.
6. Earnest Cary, trans., Dio's Roman History VIII, LCL (London: William Heine-
mann, 1925), 347.
7. Glen W. Bowersock, "Tacitus and the Province of Asia," in Tacitus and the Taci-
tean Tradition, ed. T.J. Luce and A.J. Woodman (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1993), 7-8; Mellor, Taatus, 8; Syme, Tacitus, Vol.1, 68.
8. Syme, Tacitus, Vol.1, 65.
9. Syn:ie, Tacitus, Vol.1, 65.
10. AU references to the Germania from J.G.C. Anderson, Comelii Taciti: De Origine
Et Situ Germanorum (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938); this instance, chapter 39; Richard
North, Heathen Gods in Old English Literature, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon
England, 22 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 141. Unless otherwise
stated, all translations are my own.

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148 The Pomegranate 13.2 (2011)

certain light to suit his own ends. As Krebs's compelling recent study
of the Germania's often bloody history from Rome to the Third Reich
has shown, the misuse of this text — especially when considering ques-
tions of "origins" —has extended far beyond scholarship in still-recent
history." However, in maintaining a safe distance from all such lunatic
fringes, it is worth noting that numerous details provided in the Germa-
nia remain externally verifiable, whether archaeologically, linguistically,
or otherwise. If the text is to be reclaimed as a valuable historical source,
it is essential that the problems and possibilities it proffers be considered
on their own terms. On these grounds I want to go on to consider what
Tacitus writes about the creation of humans in the Semnonenhain, and
how this can illuminate our understanding of animistic beliefs in the
so-called Germanic religions, without the risk of becoming entangled in
other thorny issues such as ethnogenesis or myths of national identity.
In the first half of the Germania, which in accordance with ethno-
graphic convention focuses upon painting a rather general social land-
scape, Tacitus writes that Germanic tribesmen lucos ac nemora consecrant
(consecrate groves and clearings), rather than constructing temples or
carving images of their deities.^^ Woodlands, and in particular these con-
secrated spaces, are seen as integral to various cultic practices, including
the pasture of sacred animals (Ger 10), the marshalling of sacred stand-
ards (Ger 7), divination {Ger 10), and the cremation of the dead (Ger 27).
They are also central to the veneration of a number of tribal gods, not the
least of whom is the Suebian regnator omnium deus (the god who is lord
of all things), whose worship is briefly described as a ceremony involv-
ing human sacrifice {Ger 39). Tacitus writes that none might enter the
sacred grove of this deity nisi vinculo ligatus (unless tied with a bond) as
a demonstration of submission to the god therein {Ger 39). Rives, in his
commentary on the Germania, noted Pettazzoni's suggestion that this
practice implied that the god of the grove was not lord of all things, but
rather lord of all things within the groveP However, given the antiquity
that Tacitus allots to the Semnones by dint of their religion, it seems
unlikely that Tacitus meant the phrase to be read in this way, and far
more probable that he intended contemporary Romans to infer a deity of
great or ultimate power, comparable to their own Jupiter. Although this
feature of the text has led Eve Picard to argue that the regnator omnium

11. Christopher B. Krebs, A Most Dangerous Book: Tadtus's 'Germania' from the
Roman Empire to the Tliird Reich (London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2011).
12. Martin, Tacitus, 50; Germania, chapter 9 passim.
13. J. B. Rives, trans,, Tacitus: Germania (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 289. See
Raffaele Pettazzoni, "Regnator omnivm devs," in Essays on the History of Religions,
trans. H.J. Rose (Leiden: Brill, 1954), 14S-49.

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 Bintley Revisiting the Semnonenhain 149

deus has too much in common with Iuppiter Latiaris for this descrip-
tion to reliably indicate a Germanic cognate, it is generally accepted that
Tacitus was attempting to address his audience using the religious and
symbolic vocabulary to which they were accustomed (via interpretatio
romana), and thus entirely understandable that he should have sought
to make himself understood in this way.^*
Ultimately, the specific identity of the regnator omnium deus as he would
have been understood amongst the early Germans does not interfere
greatly with the arguments put forward in this essay. What is important
to recognise, in addition to interpretatio romana and the apparent mystery
of his involvement in human affairs, is the authority he is afforded by
this implicit comparison with Jupiter. In the same way that aspects of
Jupiter, Sol Invictus, and Christ became freely traded in the later Roman
Empire, so too might responsibility for the anthropogonic act described
by Tacitus be attributed to the appropriately supreme denizen of a loose
Germanic pantheon at different points in time. Myths of this kind are
especially transferrable, and indeed manipulable, because their basis lies
in the primordial materials of the natural world. Religions and loyal-
ties to gods can change within the lifetimes of individuals, but the reli-
ance of agricultural communities on the unending cycle of seasons does
not. As such, because mythologies associated with the natural world
develop far more slowly, they have often provided an excellent basis
for the inculturative efforts of proselytizers whose religious mytholo-
gies share a common symbolic vocabulary with potential followers. The
Christian conversion of Europe offers but one example of this.
When describing ritual practices associated with the sacred grove
of the regnator omnium deus, Tacitus wrote that eoque omnis superstitio
respicit, tamquam inde initia gentis (the whole supersfition amounts to
this, that here were the beginnings of the race) {Ger 39). Much took the
most obscure element of this description, concerning the initia gentis,
to indicate that Tacitus was referring to the origins of the Suebi alone.'^^
This reading hinges very much upon our interpretation of gens —a dif-
ficult word, as it may imply both an enfire race of people or, on a much
smaller scale, a clan.^* Although other tribes may have shown parficu-

14. Eve Picard, Germanisches Sakralkönigtum? Quellenkritische Studien zur Germa-

nia des Tacitus und zur Altnordischen Überlieferung, Scandinavistische Arbeiten, 12
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1991), 11.
15. Much, Die Germania des Tadtus, 436; Chadwick also agreed that gentis here
referred to the Suebi. See H. Munro Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1924), 211.
16. Charlton T. Lewis, ed., A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews' Edition ofFre-
und's Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), 808-09. See also Max Radin,
"Gens, Familia, Stirps," Glassical Philology 9, no. 3 (1914): 235-47.

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150 The Pomegranate 13.2 (2011)

lar deference to other gods, this would not necessarily mean that the
regnator omnium deus was not honoured most highly. The worship of
Athene in Athens, comparably, did not detract from that of her father. It
seems entirely possible that this god was regarded as the father god by
a number of Germanic tribes at this time, and his grove, therefore, as a
shared ancestral birthplace.^^
There exists at least the possibility then, on the somewhat obscure evi-
dence of Tacitus, that the first century Suebi, and potentially other neigh-
bouring tribes, believed that they owed their origins to this sacred grove
of trees, the so-called Semnonenhain, although it is not clear what role the
grove itself was believed to have served in the creation of human beings.
It is of course entirely feasible that the earth within this grove may have
been seen as the sacred source of life. This author would like to consider
the possibility, given the emphasis upon the role of trees in numerous
other religious practices that are described in the Germania, that it was
the trees within this sacred grove that were thought to have provided the
material from which the bodies of humans were first formed.
The potential implications of this interpretation are far-reaching
when one considers the wealth of Germanic literatures that engage with
the depiction of trees and woodland in various ways. The aim of this
paper is to engage with potentially related anthropogonic myths in Old
Norse-Icelandic literature, in part at least because the formal Chris-
tianization of Iceland c. 1000 represented the formal end of Germarüc
paganism, with some of the literature composed at around this time pre-
serving some of the furthest stages of development that pagan Germanic
mythology was to reach whilst still being practised, in so far as written
records indicate. This may provide some useful insight into the way
that unrecorded Germanic paganisms developed over the intervening
centuries as they adapted to many and various cultural and geographic
influences. It is of course wise to sound a note of caution here. As Chris-
topher Abram writes, using the evidence of Tacitus as a source for later
Norse paganism is problematic due to a number of factors, not the least
of which being the inevitable changes that took place over the course of
this period which may have rendered many scholastic representations
of this religion unrecognizable to a "Germanic pagan of the late Iron
Age."^^ However, as Abram also notes, the Germania does nevertheless
supply us —through the comparative method —with "an essential tool

17. See discussion in Clive Tolley, Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic (Helsinki:
Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2009), 346-49.
18. Christopher Abram, Myths ofthe Pagan North: the Gods ofthe Norsemen (London:
Continuum, 2011), 53-59.

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 Bintley Revisiting the Semnonenhain 151

for understanding the nature of the early religions of the North."^' On

this point it may also be reasonably contended that those elements of
Germanic Paganism grounded in animism may have been far less sus-
ceptible to change than those that were attached to named deifies with
specific attributes.
Some of the extended possibilités of Tacitus' enigmafic observafion
concerning the Semnonenhain can be unlocked by considering a motif
that is common to several works of the Old Norse-Icelandic corpus.
Commonly cited ground for the comparison of tradifions preserved in
Old Norse poetry with Germanic religion of the first century is the deity
identified by Tacitus as Nerthus, who seems to have been later known
in Scandinavia as Njçrôr.^" A few notable Old Icelandic works preserve
what seem to be accotmts of the creation of men and women from wood
or trees, a tradition which potentially stems from a common source.^^ In
the Old Norse Vçluspa, which was probably composed in Iceland during
the twilight years of the first millennium, the Seeress recalls how three
of the JEsir set forth for the world of men:^
Fundo á landi litt megandi
Ask ok Emblo 0rl9glausa.

Qnd Jjau né átto, 69 J)au né hçfôo,

là né laet né lito góoa.
Qnd gaf Oôinn, oô gaf Hœnir,
là gaf L69urr Uto góoa.

They found on the shore Ash and Elm, capable of little, and fateless. They
had neither breath nor spirit, nor flesh, nor voice, nor fresh complex-
ions; Óoirvn gave breath, Hcenir gave spirit, Lóourr gave flesh and fresh
complexions.
{Vql 17-18)^

Snorri Sturluson's Gylfaginning provides much the same account (under-

standably, given that Vçluspa was one of his primary sources), which
describes how Óoinn, Vili, and Vé found upon the seashore
tré tvau, ok tóku upp tréin ok skçpuôu af menn. Gaf hinn fyrsti çnd ok
lif, annarr vit ok hrcering, J)riöi ásjónu, málit ok heym ok sjón; gáfu J)eim

19. Abram, Myths of the Pagan North: the Gods of the Norsemen, 54.
20. Rudolf Simek, Dictionary ofNorthern Mythology, trans. Angela Hall (Cambridge:
D. S. Brewer, 1993), 230.
21. Similar arguments are made with reference to Sonatorrek in Michael D. J. Bintley,
"Life-Cycles of Men and Trees in Sonatorrek," Opticon 1826, 6 (2009).
22. Ursula Dronke, "Bemvulf and Ragnarçk," Saga-Book, 17 (1966-69): 307.
23. AU references to Vçluspa from Ursula Dronke, trans.. The Poetic Edda II: Mytho-
logical Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 7-24.

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152 The Pomegranate 13.2 (2011)

klœÔi ok nçfn. Hét karlmaÖrinn Askr, en konan Embla, ok ólusk JDaöan af

mannkindin l^eim er bygôin var gefin undir MiÖgaröi.

...two trees, and they took up the trees and shaped men from them. The
first gave breath and life, the other consciousness and movement, and the
third an aspect, speech and hearing and sight. They gave them clothes and
names. They called the man Askr, and the woman Embla, and to all the
mankind that sprang from them was given Middle-Earth.^**

In both of these accounts, the first composed c.lOOO, at the time of the
conversion^ with the same tradition reaffirmed by Snorri in the first half
of the thirteenth century, we see the head of the Norse pantheon and
his companions taking up pieces of wood that are aligned with specific
species of trees through their given names, which they then invigorate
with those qualities of life that make them human. Despite the fact that
their appearance on the seashore might thus be taken to mark them as
driftwood, their identification with recognizable trees could be taken to
indicate that this tradition had previously been associated with living
trees themselves. Additionally, given that Vçluspâ was more definitely
a product of an Icelandic context than some of the other works of the
poetic Edda, and as a great deal of timber did, and still does, reach the
shores of Iceland by sea, it might be suggested that this allusion in some
way pays particular homage to the experience of the Icelander. Alterna-
tively, we might also consider the seashore as a liminal space between
land and water, which alternately occupies both roles, and thus appro-
priate groimd for the transformation of one thing to another.
There are further examples of stories to be found in the poetic Edda in
which human beings are either created from trees or wood, or in which
humans are otherwise depicted as sprouting trees or plant life. The fol-
lowing lines, for example, occur in the portion of the Hávamál of the
Codex Regius (c.l270) that John McKinnell has dubbed "Hávamál A (the
Gnomic Poem, stt. 1-79)," in a stanza which he suggests may have origi-
nally referred to a specific (external) narrative.^ Here, Óoirm similarly
recalls how
Váoir mínir gaf ec velli at
tveim trémçnnum;
eccar j^at |?óttuz er |?eir rift hçfôo;
neiss er n0cqviör hair.

On my way I gave my clothes to two tree-men. They thought themselves

24. Anthony Faulkes, ed., Snorri Sturluson: Edda; Prologue and Gylfaginning, 2nd ed.,
(London: Viking Society for Northem Research, 2005), 13.
25. John McKinnell, "Hávamál B: A Poem of Sexual Intrigue," Saga-Book 29 (2003):
83-114 (88).

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 Bintiey Revisiting the Semnonenhain 153

warriors when they had linen; the naked man is clothed by shame.
(Háv 49)2^

The features that this story bears in common with Vqluspá are rela-
tively straightforward. In each account, Óoinn discovers two wooden
figures —trees in Vqluspá, and tree-men in Hávamál - that are brought to
life through the blessing of divine gifts. Although the specific location
where this takes place is not clearly identified in Hávamál in quite the
same way that it seems to be in Vqluspá, the power that Óoinn exerts
in both examples over trees, whether we consider them to be living or
dead, remains much the same.
These accounts may also share some ground with Rigspula, which
describes how the god Heimdallr went out on his travels meo sióvars trçndu
(along the seashore) and nefndiz Rigr (called himself Rigr).^'' The narra-
tive of the poem describes how Heimdallr visits three married couples
in three households representing a tripartite social structure, in which
he observes their way of life and the tasks they perform there. In each
home he beds the lady of the house, who subsequently gives birth to the
founding father of one of three distinct social classes. It is interesting in
this respect that Hugo Pipping argued that the name Heimdallr prob-
ably meant "world tree," the problematic second element of dalr being a
synonymic replacement of yr (related to both álmr and bogi), which had
at one point functioned as part of the word Heim-y (world-yew) — a term
that had become obsolete by the time of Snorri.^ Although this inter-
pretation is by no means universally accepted, and does create certain
problems. Clive Tolley has demonstrated that "a sense of 'flourishing'
for -dallr still appears to offer the best etymology" in his recent work on
Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic and also draws a number of further
connections between Heimdallr and the World Tree, both symbolic and
etymological.^' One concern of Rigspula, therefore, may be the portrayal
of HeimdaUr, the World Tree (ON Yggdrasill), as the progenitor of men
and women. Perhaps significantly, Heimdallr is also identified as the
father of mankind at the beginning of Vçluspa, where the Seeress salutes

26. All references to Hávamál from Gustav Neckel, ed., Edda: die Lieder des Godex
Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern,, 5th ed. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Urüversitäts-
verlag, 1983), 17-44.
27. All references to Rígslpula from Dronke, Edda II: Mythological Poems, 162-73.
28. Hugo Pipping, "Eddastudier I," Studier i Nordisk Filologi 16 (1925): 9.
29. Tolley, as others have done, finds some difficulties with Pipping's interpreta-
tion of -dallr, arguing that "Heimdallr can only be interpreted as an ¡-stem, unless its
declension has been altered at a late date." Tolley nevertheless concurs with Pipping
in his opinion that Heimdallr is etymologically connected with the Norse World Tree.
See ToUey, Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic, vol. 1,370-74.

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154 The Pomegranate 13.2 (2011)

her human audience as mçgo Heimdalar 'Heimdallr's offspring' {Vçl 1);

in other words, perhaps, the offspring of a world tree.
Although it may be unwise to overstate the potential progenitive role
of Heimdallr in Rigspula, it is nevertheless worth noting the existence
of this possibility and to consider it in conjunction with those accounts
given in Vçluspâ and Hávamál of the creation of humans from trees by
Óoinn himself. Whilst it would be a fundamental error to suggest that
these three accounts point to any single coherent narrative, and to do
so would be to grossly oversimplify multiple Germanic Paganisms into
one ur form that simply did not exist, we can nevertheless posit entirely
reasonable alternatives as to how their proposed common feature may
have endured. One might make the sensible suggestion that animistic
beliefs rooted in landscape features, such as trees and springs, did not
face the same difficulties in transmission that influenced the names and
attributes of heathen gods as a natural consequence of factors such as
migration and cultural exchange.
An anthropogonic myth of this kind might not therefore require
attachment to any one particular figure or set of stories, forming an idea
complex in its own right from which separate yet related traditions of
the sort that we find in these three poems may have emerged. It is inter-
esting, if perhaps unsurprising, that we should find responsibility for
this act of creation lying in the hands of ÓOinn, given his common iden-
tification in later Icelandic literature as aldafadir (father of mankind) and
alfçdr (all-father), although these may have emerged as a result of the
enthusiasm of later authors for his literary character.^*' A prolonged dis-
cussion of the Norse cognate of Tacitus' regnator omnium deus in the first
century is not my focus here, though he has been identified variously
with t'órr, Óoinn, and Tyr.^^ It is worth noting that if the regnator omnium
deus was not *Wödanaz, and I make no claim that he was, that respon-
sibility for the anthropogonic act is likely to have been later transferred
to Old Norse-Icelandic ÓOinn because of his status as an aristocratic
warrior god.^^
These stories in which human beings were created from wood and
trees, if they do seem to reflect some sort of conunon anthropogonic
myth, are likely to bear some relation to the frequent presentation of
human beings as trees in Old Norse Skaldic and Eddie verse. In his study
of Skaldic verse, Rudolf Meissner catalogued no fewer than twenty-nine
tree and plant-sourced "basic words" in kermings for men, which are

30. Simek, Dictionary of Northern Mythology, 7-9.

31. Ibid., 280; Much, Die Germania des Tacitus, 436-47.
32. Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 469.

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 Bintley Revisiting the Semnonenhain 155

used in a variety of ways throughout the corpus.^^ Egill Skallagrimsson

referred to fallen warriors as Óoins eiki (Óoinn's oaks) in Hqfuölausn (c.
950).^ Kormákr Qgmundarson, who composed poetry in memory of
Earl Sigurör Hlaöir, described him in Siguröardrapa (c. 965) as a meiör
(beam) and Eyvindr Skáldaspillir similarly depicted Earl Hákon as a
viör, vápnberr (tree, weapon-bearing) in Háleygjatal (c. 985).^^
The list goes ever onward in Skaldic poetry, but the same idea is equally
convmon in other Eddie poems, where numerous heroes and nobles are
identified with trees. In Hamoismál, the final poem in the Völsung cycle,
Gudrun mourns the death of her daughter Svanhildr, trampled to death
by the horses of King Içrmunrekkr. As Guorún incites her sons to avenge
their sister, her lament combines the imagery of tree and leaf:
Einstœô em ek oröin sem çsp 1 holti,
fallin at frœndom sem fura at kvisti,
vaöin at vilia sem viör at laufi, '
pa er in kvistskoeSa komr um dag varman.
I stand alone, like an aspen in the forest, with my kindred cut away like
the branches of a fir; deprived of happiness, like a tree of its leaves, when
a girl cutting branches comes on a warm day.
{Ham 5)^

Often, as here, these verses make specific use of the physical forms of
trees in their descriptions of the loss of kith and kin.
Elsewhere, the increase in the stature of heroes is described in terms
that draw upon the imagery of growing plants and trees. For example,
in the first of the Helgakviöa Hundingsbana poems, the increase of the
Völsung hero Helgi is expressed in comparable terms:
Pa nam at vaxa fyr vina briósti
álmr ítrborinn, ynöis Uóma;
harm galt oc gaff gull veröungo,
sparöi eigi hilmir hodd bloörekinn.
Then that shining-bom elm-tree, that radiant bliss, began to grow in his
friend's hearts; he paid and gave gold to the troop, that chief spared not
the bloodstained hoard.

33. E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Scaldic Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), xlvii.

Hi; Rudolf Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden: Ein Beitrag zur Skaldischen Poetik
(HUdesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1984), 266-72.
34. Finnur Jónsson, ed.. Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning, B: Rettet Tekst, I. Bind
(Copenhagen: S.L. MoUers Bogtrykken, 1912-15), 32 (st. 8,1. 7).
35. Ibid., 69 (st. 2,1.1); and 61 (st. 9,1. 2).
36. All references to Hamoismál from Ursula Dronke, trans.. The Poetic Edda, Vol. 1:
Heroic Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), 161-67.

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156 777e Pomegranate 13.2 (2011)

{HHI9)^^

Likewise, in Helgakviöa Hundingsbana 11, Helgi is also likened to the

ash tree Yggdrasill itself, in a manner that is at the very least nominally
reminiscent of Askr, the first
Svá bar Helgi af hildingom
sem itrscapaör ascr af l^ymi,
eöa sa dyrkálfr, dçggo slungirm...

So was Helgi beside the chieftains like the bright-growing ash by the
thorns, or the young stag, dew-drenched...
{HHU 38)^^

Imagery from less mythological than heroic literature also appears

in Gudrunarkviöa I and Guörunarkvida ÍÍ, which detail the events fol-
lowing the murder of the great Völsung hero SigurÖr Tn his discussion
of the origins of these poems, Andersson argued that Guörünarkviöa U
probably antedated and influenced the composition of Guörunarkviöa I,
both poems having drawn upon the older Eddie poems SiguröarkviÖa in
skamma and SiguröarkviÖa in meiri, with skamma being the eldest of the
four.-«»
In Guörunarkviöa I Sigurör's sister Gullrçnd laments the death of her
brother, saying that he had grown in glory sem vseri geirlaucr or grasi
vaxinn (as if he were a green plant grown out of the grass) {Guö 118).
Gullrçnd recalls the days when
Ec l^óttac oc ¡iíióoans reccom
hverri hœrri Herians dísi;
nú em ec svá litil, sem lauf sé
opt Í içlstrom at içfur dauöan.

1 thought myself, amongst the retinue of my lord, to be higher than all

of Oöinn's women; now 1 am so small, just like a leaf amongst the bay
willows at the death of the prince.
{Gud 119)**^

In Guörunarkviöa II, in a manner reminiscent of Gullrçnd's lament in

Guörunarkviöa Í, King Atli senses —in dreams —that his sons have met

37. All references to Helgakviöa Hundingsbana I from Neckel, Edda, 130-39.

38. Klaus Von See, et al., Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, Bd. 4: Heldenlieder
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter Uni tä tsver lag, 2004), 208-09, 765.
39. All references to Helgakviöa Hundingsbana II from Neckel, Edda, 150-61.
40. Theodore M. Andersson, The Legend of ßrynhild (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1980), 24-77,108-27.
41. All references to Gudrunarkviöa I from Neckel, Edda, 202-06.

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 Bintley Revisiting the Semnonenhain 157

their end, yet he remains unaware that his wife Guorún is responsible
for their deaths until after she has fed them to him, in revenge for the
brutal murder of her brothers Hçgni and Gunnarr. In this poem, it is
Guorún who mourns Sigurör sem vaeri grœn lauer or grasi vaxinn (as if
he were a green plant grown out of the grass) {Guô II 2). Atli tells her of
his visions:
Hugöa ec her í túru teina fallna,
pá er ek vüdigac vaxna lata,
rifnir meö rótom, roönir í bloöi,
bomir á becci, beôit mic at tyggva.

I thought that here in the meadow the saplings had fallen, those which I
had wished to grow tall, tom from their roots, reddened in blood, borne
to the bench, bidden to me to taste.
(Guô/Í 40)"^

The cumulative effect of the examples given here is not intended to

overwhelm the reader with a long list of humans associated with trees,
but to show the variety of usage in this sort of poetry alone. Notably, the
same symbolic imagery is applied here to men, women, and children,
young and old, both by others, and by themselves. The impression one
develops when encountering these en masse is almost that of a human
forest of beams and branches, growing together, shedding leaves, and at
times undergoing tremendous strain and hardship.
Snorri Sturluson had his own explanation for the associafion of men
and women with trees, which is given in his guide for would-be skalds,
Skáldskaparmál. Here, Snorri tells us that a man is
kallaör reynir vápna eöa viga, feröa ok athafnar, skipa ok alls Jjess er harm
rieör ok reynir (called the rowan [reynir] of weapons and of battles, expe-
ditions and activities, and of all the things over which he has power or
tests [reynir]).'^

He goes on to note that a woman, comparably,

er selja guUs J)ess er hon gefr, ok samheiti vi9 selju er tré . . . hon er ok log
kçlluô {jess er hon gefr. Lag heitir ok tré J>at er fellr í skógi (is the dealer
(selja) of the gold which she gives, and selja is another name for a tree . . . .
she is also called the consumer (log) of that which she gives. Log is another
name for a tree that is felled in the woods.)""^

42. All references to GudnJnarkvida II from Neckel, Edda,

43. Anthony Faulkes, ed., Snorri Sturtuson: Edda: Skáldskaparmál, Vot. I: Introduction,
Text and Notes (London: Viking Society for Northern Research, 1998), 64 (1. 26-27).
44. Ibid. 63(1. 14-17).

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158 The Pomegranate 13.2 (2011)

Snorri argued that men and women had acquired the names of trees
because the gendered social practices in which they participated, as
reynir and selja, were also associated with trees. He tells us that men were
aligned with trees whose timbers played a prominent (although by no
means exclusive) role in masculine expeditionary and warlike practices;
askr (ash), for example, having been used in the manufacture of spears
and ships.''^ Other woods that Snorri lists as "masculine" are the afore-
mentioned reynir (rowan), vidr ok meiÖr (tree and beam) lundr (grove),
askpollum (ash-grove), buss, (boxwood), hlynr (maple), bçrr (spruce),
stafr (stave), and pom (thom).**^ Some of these terms are not particularly
directing. Hardwoods such as maple and ash are well suited to the pro-
duction of weaponry, but softwood trees such as spruce and thorn might
have fulfilled a variety of functions. Terms such as "grove" lead us into
the woods, but nowhere in particular.
Evidence for links between gendered tree-kennings and gendered
practices is perhaps more convincing in the case of Snorri's "feminine"
woods. Although mçrk (forest) and tróda (rod) do not offer a great deal,
the bjçrk (birch), the lind (linden), and the eik (oak) yield rather more."*^
Split oak timbers are especially suited to the construction of buildings,
and it is therefore interesting that the other two names for women which
Snorri provides, skorda (prop) and stod (pillar), also indicate timbers used
in this way.**^ On the whole, it might be suggested that the woods Snorri
associated with women were those which implied protection and stabil-
ity, the linden and the birch having been used throughout Scandinavia
and the British Isles to create shields for the bodies of men, whilst oak
timbers, pillars, and props were used in the construction of buildings
for the defence and maintenance of the community. In a philological
sense, this explanation does capably account for the trees and peoples
discussed by Snorri. Anthony Faulkes has argued that it is more likely,
however, that tree-names appear in kennings "because of the similarity
in appearance between a man and a tree.""*^ If the myth of human crea-
tion from trees emerged primarily as a result of anthropomorphism, it is
interesting that the rationalisation of Skâldskaparmàl lies not far from the
mythological account given in Gylfaginning. It shows a perhaps uncom-
mon willingness to accommodate the poetry of myth alongside what
Snorri appears to have seen as the formal origin of these terms.
There is, then, relatively abundant evidence to show that associa-

45 Ibid., 65 (1. 20).

46. Ibid., 65 (1. 5,10,11,15, 25, 28); 66 (1. 5,10).
47. Ibid., 63 (1. 23, 28); 64 (1.13, 21,18).
48. Ibid., 64(1.3,8).
49. Ibid., 192.

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 Bintley Revisiting the Semnonenhain 159

tions between humans and trees were commonplace in Skaldic and

Eddie poetry, a feature which is of particular interest in the light of those
accounts found in Vqluspá and Gylfaginning of the creation of human
beings from trees, the bringing to life of wooden figures by Óoinn in
Hávamál, ctnd the potential role of Heimdallr as progenitor of mankind
in Rigspula and Vçluspâ. As this paper has suggested, it is possible that
the shared features of Vçluspâ, Hávamál, and Rigspula may indicate that
they were drawing upon an idea complex associated with a common
anthropogonic myth, elements of which seem to be have been alive as
Germanic heathenism drew to a formal close in Iceland c. 1000, in which
it was maintained that human beings had in some way been created
from wood or trees. It is intriguing, then, that the Germania should also
suggest that the first-century Semnonenhain, a holy woodland grove of
veneration and sacrifice, was also widely held to have been a sacred
place of human creation. To compare the creation of humans from wood
and trees to their creation within a sacred grove is not necessarily to
compare like with like; this much must be stated plainly. One set of evi-
dence is concerned primarily with the anthropogonic act and the mate-
rials with which it was conducted, the other with the situation of the act
itself within a ritual landscape. Although the nature of the initia gentis
described by Tacitus thus remains uncertain, the likelihood that this in
some way involved trees, given its location in a patch of sacred wood-
land, and the importance of trees in Germanic religion both in the first
century and for centuries to follow, may indicate that it too involved the
use of wood or trees in much the same way. Perhaps, therefore, it may be
considered an ancient ancestor of the same Norse Pagan tradition.
It remains to say that there is still much work to be done on the role of
trees in Germanic religion and literature in comparative contexts such as
these. This article raises possibilities which the author has also explored
in Anglo-Saxon England, but which are far more abundant in Old Norse
literature.™ I have stopped short of discussing saga material here, as the
compositions themselves, if not the material that some of them discuss,
belongs to a much later period. This is not, however, to say that this
might not be profitably investigated to explore how the saga writers
engaged with the beliefs or literary conceits of their forebears. I have
argued elsewhere that the role of trees in the pre-Christian culture of
the Anglo-Saxons underwent a process of realignment with the Chris-
tian faith in the post-conversion period.^^ The same may well have been

50. Michael D. J. Bintley, 'Trees and Woodland in Anglo-Saxon Culture' (PhD

thesis. University College London, 2009).
51. Michael D. J. Bintley, 'Landscape Gardening: Remodelling the Hortus Gonclusus
in Judgement Day II," The Review of English Studies, 62.253 (2011), 1-14; see also Michael

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160 The Pomegranate 13.2 (2011)

true of the Viking world's cultural inheritors. Finally, it remains to make

the obvious point that this kind of approach to investigating the possible
ramifications of religious continuity is by no means limited to Germanic
religion. The study of religions old and new in many fields may benefit
from recognizing that rather than an insistence on foregrounding formal
etymological relationships between deities and attributes (for example),
it may make more practical investigative sense to focus on those aspects
of the experiential world — natural or otherwise — that have a greater ten-
dency to remain constant than the human terms we devise to under-
stand and define them.

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