Idis (Germanic)
In Germanic mythology, an idis (Old Saxon, plural idisi) is a divine female being. Idis is cognate to Old High German itis and Old English ides, meaning 'well-respected and dignified woman.' Connections have been assumed or theorized between the idisi and the North Germanic dísir; female beings associated with fate, as well as the amended place name Idistaviso.
Attestations
Idisi
One of the two Old High German Merseburg Incantations call upon female beings—idisi—to bind and hamper an army. The incantation reads:
Ides
In line 1259 of the Old English poem Beowulf, Grendel's Mother is introduced as an ides:
Theories
The idisi mentioned in the first Merseburg Incantation are generally considered to be valkyries. Rudolf Simek says that "these Idisi are obviously a kind of valkyrie, as these also have the power to hamper enemies in Norse mythology" and points to a connection with the valkyrie name Herfjötur (Old Norse "army-fetter").Hilda Ellis Davidson compares the incantation to the Old English Wið færstice charm, and theorizes a similar role for them both.
Germanic
Germanic may refer to
See also
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of approximately 500 million people mainly in North America, Oceania, Central Europe, Western and Northern Europe.
The West Germanic branch includes the two most widely spoken Germanic languages: English, with approximately 360–400 million native speakers, and German, with over 100 million native speakers. Other major West Germanic languages are Dutch with 23 million speakers,Low German with approximately 5 million in Germany and 1.7 million in the Netherlands, and Afrikaans, an offshoot of Dutch, with over 7.2 million.
The main North Germanic languages are Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, which have a combined total of about 20 million speakers.
The East Germanic branch included Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic, all of which are now extinct. The last to die off was Crimean Gothic, spoken in the late 18th century in some isolated areas of Crimea.
The SIL Ethnologue lists 48 different living Germanic languages, of which 42 belong to the Western branch, and 6 to the Northern branch. The total number of Germanic languages through history is unknown, as some of them—especially East Germanic languages—disappeared during or shortly after the Migration Period.
Idis
Idis or IDIS may refer to:
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