Irminsul facts:
Information about the Irminsul is varied and greatly debated. I personally believe very
strongly in its existence and former importance as a major symbol of faith for
Germanic peoples on the mainland, specifically the tribe of the Irminones, also known as Herminones or Hermiones.
The Irminsul (Old Saxon, probably "great/mighty pillar" or "arising pillar") was a kind of
pillar which is attested as playing an important role in the Germanic paganism of the Saxon
people. The oldest chronicle describing an Irminsul refers to it as a tree trunk erected in the open air.
A Germanic god Irmin, inferred from the name Irminsul and the tribal name Irminones,
is sometimes presumed to have been the national god or demi-god of the Saxons.
It has been suggested that Irmin was more probably an aspect or epithet of some other deity
– most likely Wodan (Odin). Irmin might also have been an epithet of the
god Ziu (Tyr) in early Germanic times, only later transferred to Odin.
Though a very strong theory of this deity having been Thor/Donar is also very likely.
The Old Norse form of Irmin is Jormunr, which just like Yggr was one of the names of Odin.
Yggdrasil ("Yggr's horse") was the yew or ash tree from which Odin sacrificed himself,
and which connected the nine worlds. Jakob Grimm connects the name Irmin with Old Norse terms
like iormungrund ("great ground", i.e. the Earth) or iormungandr ("great snake", i.e. the Midgard serpent).
According to the Royal Frankish Annals (772AD), during the Saxon wars, Charlemagne
is repeatedly described as ordering the destruction of the chief
seat of their religion, an Irminsul. The Irminsul is described as not
being far from Heresburg (now Obermarsberg), Germany.
Jacob Grimm states that "strong reasons" point to the actual location of the
Irminsul as being approximately 15 miles (24 km) away, in the Teutoburg Forest
and states that the original name for the region "Osning" may have meant "Holy Wood."
The Benedictine monk Rudolf of Fulda (AD 865) provides a description of an Irminsul
in chapter 3 of his Latin work De miraculis sancti Alexandri. Rudolf's description states
that the Irminsul was a great wooden pillar erected and worshipped beneath
the open sky and that its name, Irminsul, signifies universal all-sustaining pillar.