by Tacitus is generally regarded as a rain-charm. From the similarity of this cult to that of goddesses of fertility all over Europe, we may assume that Nerthus, like Frey, partook of this character. Amongst other Teutonic races the earliest parallel to her peregrinations is recorded by the Byzantine historian Sozomen, in the fifth century, who states that the Goths lead round a statue in a covered vehicle. From the ninth century we have the item: "concerning the images which they carry about the fields," in a list of prohibited superstitions. But ample evidence for these practices is afforded by the ceremonies, common up to twenty years ago, connected with Plough Monday in England and with Frau Holle in Germany.
It is to be noted that the names Nerthus and Njörd are identical in all but gender, and it seems that in Scandinavia Nerthus has changed her sex and has subsequently been partly ousted by Frey; Njörd, however, still rules over fishery and wealth — two very closely allied ideas among the Norwegians, to whom a sea teeming with fish was quite as important as the fertility of the land. It is just possible that it is Njörd to whom a ninth century Latin poem refers, under the name of Neptune, as a chief god of the Normans. Frey seems also to have partially ousted his sister Freyja. One of the Edda poems is concerned with a certain Ottar, who sacrifices oxen to Freyja, and whom she on one occasion declares to be her husband — a parallel case to that of Frey and the priestess mentioned above, but with the sexes reversed.
Of the numerous other gods mentioned in our sources some may be either tribal deities, or better-known gods under other names. Such are the Frisian god Fosite: the twins whom Tacitus equates with Castor and Pollux, and who are worshipped by the Nahanarvali: the god Saxnot, or Saxneat, forsworn with Wodan and Thunor in an Old Saxon formula for converts, and claimed as an ancestor by the English East Saxon royal family. Other gods, such as Balder and Loki, of whom we only hear in Scandinavia, have been occasionally regarded as mere mythological figureheads. Of the evil-disposed Loki there is indeed no trace of any sort of cult. It has been suggested that he was a Finnish god. Balder is the subject of much controversy, some scholars dismissing him from the rank of deity altogether, while Dr Frazer maintains that the story is a survival of tree worship, and of the ritual sacrifice of the god. In any case the only reference to an actual cult of Balder occurs in a late and doubtful saga. Tyr, who seems to have been a war-god, stands in a different category. It is likely that he had once been an important deity all over Teutonic Europe, though his cult was already overshadowed by that of Odin at the dawn of historical times. Some modern authorities place his cult in close connexion with that of Nerthus — for which view certain local groups of place-names afford support — and regard him as being originally a god of the sky. A reference by Procopius to Ares, in his account of the inhabitants of Thule, and by Jornandes to Mars, both of
