What gods and lore would have been believed by people in western Germany prior to the introduction of Christianity?

by NCMtoBe

My family history has been traced back to Guldental Germany in the district of Bad Kreuznach. (The oldest written example of my surname was found there on a tombstone. I can't right now remember when it was dated but it was quite old.)

I'm trying to understand what my ancestors would have believed in before converting to Christianity. When I try to find examples of gods and deities from what is now Germany I find mostly examples of Norse gods (Odin, Thor, etc...) called by different names like "Woden."

Is it likely that these same gods were revered here as well or is it just that Norse mythology is much better understood and known causing my searches to skew that way?

Thank you for any help you can offer.

random-dent

What we commonly know now as "Norse" mythology is actually an example of/related to a broader Germanic pantheon that was prominent in much of Northwestern Europe. This pantheon was never as stringently codified as the Greek or Roman pantheons, and not all German peoples had exact 1:1 correlations between all their gods, but there was significant crossover.^1

The reason we associate it with Norse culture more than other areas is because Norse populations were Christianized much later. The Franks, Goths and Alamani were largely Christianized (though sometimes Arian) by the 3rd-5th century, whereas Christian Kings of Denmark, Sweden and Norway were actually still conducting crusades to Christianize other Scandinavian peoples into the 13th century. The first outreaches to those kingdoms didn't even happen until the 9th century. There were still significant non-christian Sami populations into the 18th century, and still some Sami people around today.

So Scandinavia held on to the traditional Germanic pantheon much later than other Germanic groups. There were likely some differences between southern and northern Germans in practice, but this is not something I can speak to.

Interesting side note: the Germanic pantheon is either an iteration of or significantly influenced by the much older proto-indo-european pantheon. PIE culture spread over Europe some time in pre-history (possibly associated with the spread of horse riding), and you can see many traces of it culturally through European deities. For instance, Zeus and Jupiter were both iterations of the "sky father" god in the PIE pantheon, which is also the same deity that led to Dyauṣ Pitā in the Indian Verdic Pantheon.^2

For a Germanic example, Thor is the same deity as Fjörgyn, who is the same basic deity as the Celtic god Sucellus.

Sources:

  1. Lindow, John (2001). Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press. 12.

  2. Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q., eds. (1997). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. London: Routledge

Edit:

Fun note #2: These gods are where we get our days of the week! Monday=Moon's Day, Tuesday = Tiw's Day, Wednesday = Wodin's Day, Thursday = Thor's Day, Friday = Fri's Day.... Saturday = Saturn's Day (Boo! Boo lack of parallel structure! Boo!), and Sunday = Sun's Day.

Edit 2:

Accidentally wrote "Aryan" instead of "Arian." The former is a group from Indo-European ethnography, the latter followers of Arius of Alexandria who insisted that the Son (Jesus) was less divine than the Father in the trinity.