PIOTR WROTE:
<<The craziest misunderstanding of all is the complex equation Irmin =
Arminius = Hermann, from which it is deduced that the Irminsul was erected to
commemorate "Hermann/Arminius", a kind of Ur-Hermanndenkmal. The Saxon
Irminsul was actually described as "universalis columna, quasi sustinens
omnia" (Rudolf of Fulda), made of an huge tree trunk, and if it was not a
representation of the World Tree, the central pillar of the Universe, rather
than a boundary marker or anyone's monument, you can spear me to an ash
tree.>>
I personally think a front row seat at the next meeeting of the The Ancient
Order of New Age Atlanteans and Teutonic Rune Masters would a more
appropriate punishment.
Based on what I could find on the web, the word "irminsul" from early on
consistently refered to a pillar or column with an image on top, when it is
described in detail at all. This makes it a dead ringer for a Roman/Greek
herma. There's really no reason to think that the word referred to anything
else, except among members of the Mystic Order of the The Magnanimous Tree.
The fact that is was wood would be no surprise to any archaeologists, since
the Saxons (despite their name) were not building with much stone at the time.
Rudolf's description does not contradict that. <universalis> in any of the
annals is rarely if ever a reference to the Universe or Cosmos or other
mysterious stuff. It most often means accessible or belonging to everyone -
just like "catholic" - being opposite of <singuli> or <proprius> ("nihil...
proprium aut universale"). "quasi sustinens omnia" can be read as nothing
more than "as if providing for all people" (e.g.,"si qua spes reliqua est,
quae fortium civium mentes cogitationesque sustentet", "conscientia
sustentor", "Caesaris summa in omnis,... nunc eius adflictis fortunis
universa sustinet.")
Of course, pillars that support the sky are a dime a dozen in mythology (that
is what the "pillars of Hercules" are sometimes, but most times herculae are
just one form of hermae. But perhaps Nut the Egyptian god and Irmin/Wodan's
world tree and Atlas and his pillars are all just "representations" of the
pillar that must have misfunctioned in Atlantis?)
Rudolf's folk etymology here, aside from creating some kind of "para-god" in
later minds, simply confused the herma/Hermes/erma pillar word with the
(H)ermo:n-/irmin/erma concept word - "unbounded, with free-access,
not-closed-out." Rudolf, unlike most other commentators, probably did not
have known that hermaes were pillars.
These two words/concepts were connected at one time, but the obvious early
connection has been overshadowed by the need to find cosmic meaning in one
particular column that really wasn't all that unusual, as just another
example of the spread of Greek and Roman cultural practices to the north of
Europe.
Of course, both words being borrowed, bouncing back and forth between
Romance, Latin and Germanic and one actually coming from two different
original sources, it is easy to see how Rudolf, modern Atlanteans and 19th
Century Hermannians would get confused.
As far as who this Irmin was, a thousand years of testimony tells us who he
was (and I believe Rudolf does too, in the form of Mercury. But Widukind
makes it clearer: "Hirmin vel Hermis...") Anyone who thinks he is free to go
and come as he pleases therefore must also be confused, we are told in a
phrase recorded by Grimm: "he ment, use herre gott heet Herm..."
Steve