In late July 2024, Odin’s Warrior Tribe visited the location of the Irminsul for the second time in the last few years. In today’s Obermarsburg in Hessen, Germany, there once was an area and Saxon Heathen fortress called Eresburg and this is where the Irminsul was located. Here stood a sacred and holy Heathen type of column/monument - the Irminsul - and some kind of religious complex, temple (possibly) and sanctuary. The Irminsul is believed to have been made of wood – probably oak for its size - and was a symbol in which the Saxon Heathens honored our Gods. The Irminsul stood on the highest ground of Obermarsburg, which is at the back side of the present-day St. Peter and St. Paul Church – or right above where there is a crypt today. There may have been a temple with the Irminsul, the Church says it was where the current Church crypt is located. Accounts say that Charlemagne also seized a gold and silver hoard from the Irminsul location, according to the Brothers' Grimm.
Charlemagne’s (Karl der Grosse in German) Frankish troops conquered the Eresburg in 772 CE and destroyed the Irminsul in their campaign to destroy Heathenry in the Germanic tribal areas especially among the Saxons who held out against conversion. The Irminsul was more than just a simple pillar or column as it took several days to destroy. Archaeological remains of the Irminsul have not been discovered on Obsermarsberg. According to a tradition documented since the 16th century, the remains of the Irminsul, from the Eresburg were buried at the Corvey Monastery in Westphalia. These remains were later exhumed and transported to Hildesheim, only 25 kilometers from the village of Irmenseul. It is said that the remains now lie beneath a column in Hildesheim Cathedral.
Drawn from the Hildesheim Cathedral website: Legend has it that the Irmensäule (Irminsul) in Hildesheim Cathedral was originally part of the Heathen Irminsul destroyed by the Franks. The pillar's shaft is crafted from calc-sinter, which are calcium deposits from the Roman Eifel Aqueduct that supplied ancient Cologne with fresh water for 190 years. The pillar is encircled by bronze rings at both ends, with the upper ring transitioning into a metal goblet resembling a capital. Over the years, the arrangement of the pillar has changed several times. Initially, it featured a crown of 14 lights and an iron spike in the middle for placing candles during festivals, likely the Easter candles. In 1651, Dean Friedrich von Oyenhausen replaced the top of this column with a wooden image of Mary, which was later replaced by a silver image of Mary donated by Jodokus Edmund von Brabeck in 1741. During the Cathedral's restoration, the Irminsul’s arrangement was altered again, and the figure of Mary was replaced by a crystal cross that now crowns the pillar/column. The figure of Mary is currently housed in the Cathedral Museum’s collection.
How does this make you feel that the Cathedral displays a column they call the Irminsul?
The Royal Frankish Annals describe the Irminsul in Eresburg. According to the Frankish Annals:
“The most gracious Lord King Charles then held an assembly at Worms. From Worms he marched first into Saxony. Capturing the castle of Eresburg, he proceeded as far as the Irminsul, destroyed this idol and carried away the gold and silver which he found. A great drought occurred so that there was no water in the place where the Irminsul stood. The glorious king wished to remain there two or three days to destroy the temple completely, but they had no water. Suddenly at noon, through the grace of God, while the army rested and nobody knew what was happening, so much water poured forth in a stream that the whole army had enough. Then the great king came to the River Weser. Here he held parley with the Saxons, obtained twelve hostages, and returned to Francia. He celebrated Christmas at Herstal and Easter, too.”
At the site of the destroyed Irminsul the Franks first erected a wooden Benedictine Church/Monastery to continue their mission of forcing Heathens to convert. It was as strategy that involved killing at times those who resisted, destroying Heathen and sacred locations, and coopting (bribing) wealthy Saxons with titles and wealth. Charlemagne came to Eresburg himself in 758 CE to oversee conversion in the area and stayed half a year. The Frankish approach was particularly evident in the infamous "Capitulatio de partibus Saxonae" - a decree that punished with death anyone who followed heathen rites and disregarded the Christian religion.
While the exact design of the Irminsul is unknown there is a guess of a representation going back many centuries that is seen on the Externsteine. Wilhelm Teudt was a WWI veteran, cleric, Nazi Party member, whose hobby was archaeology. He studied the Externsteine near Detmold. He proposed that it too was a Saxon shrine and a possible location of another Irminsul. That remains unproven. He assumed that the Germanic buildings there had been made from wood and thus left no traces. He took an image on the Externsteine and promoted it as the Irminsul. The Externsteine is 60km from Obermarsberg the site of the known Irminsul. The Irminsul was not a palm tree though as some would believe since they are not native to Germany. So, we will never know the exact design of the Irminsul and could speculate that it was a column or like a large god pole most likely of oak.
There is also a bronze plaque relief of this Teudt style of Irminsul – modern version of what it looked like - surrounded by its enemies Charlemagne and “Saint” Sturmius a Benedictine Abbot of Fulda who was a missionary and a discipline of Winfried known as Boniface who destroyed Donareiche – Thor’s Oak near Fritzlar. The Benedictines were especially the enemy of Heathens.
The style of Irminsul derived from the Externsteine is what most people today associate with the Irminsul and it is found on jewelry and the emblems of various Heathen groups. Like many things in our faith because origins are unknown it is the intent of the design.
The Irminsul may have been an oak pillar reaching to the sky – supporting a Saxon God Irmin or representing perhaps Yggdrasil? The name Irinsul in Old Saxon is a compound meaning Irmin’s 'great pillar'. The Benedictine monk Rudolf of Fulda gave a description of the Irminsul in the Latin work De miraculis sancti Alexandri. He describes the Irminsul was a great wooden pillar erected and worshipped beneath the open sky and its name, Irminsul, signifies universal all-sustaining pillar. In some older scholarship, Irmin is presumed to have been a Saxon God or an aspect of another God most likely Wodan (Odin). Speculative is that Irmin might have a name for Ziu (Tyr) in early Germanic times.
There are several other sources that corroborate the existence of the Irminsul in Eresburg. Among them are the “Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg” by Adam of Bremen and the Annales Petaviani, which is part of a yearly history of the Carolingian empire in Latin. The Annales Petaviani states: "He (Charlemagne) conquered the Eresburg and found the place which is called Ermensul and set these places on fire."
Others have proposed that there was more than one Irminsul. A modern interpretation of the Irminsul was erected in October 1996 on the Bornhöhe, located on the Romberg, a hill near the town of Irmenseul in Germany. This 9-meter-high oak trunk features a sun wheel cross attachment made of cast aluminum, with a diameter of about 1.6 meters. The design of the column, called the "Irmenseule," is inspired by the town's coat of arms.
Benedictine Monk Ruolf wrote the Latin “De miraculis sancti Alexandri” and he gave a description in 865 CE that the Irminsul was a great wooden pillar erected and worshipped beneath the open sky. An image identified as the Irminsul by some is on the Externsteine; however, some have rejected that. Adam of Bremen wrote translated from the Latin: “They worshiped him (Irmin) in a high place under the god, of no small size, and called him in the language of the country Irminsul, which in Latin is called the universal pillar, as if supporting everything. and the Swedes according to the heathen rite. We have taken these extracts from the writings of Einhard, concerning the arrival, manners, and superstitions of the Saxons, who are still slaves and Swedes, in pagan rites.”
The original wooden church that was built at Eresburg (Obermarsberg) was eventually replaced by a stone church. The current St. Peter and St. Paul Church makes no apologies for the destruction of the Irminsul and indeed celebrates it while advocating religious tolerance and calling their church on holy Heathen ground as something honorable… Also, the tablets put up by the Church say that at the site of the Irminsul that the Heathen Priests and Priestesses made “bloody sacrifices made.” The only bloddy sacrifice there we actucally know of were all the Heathens killed by the Franks.
The forced conversion of Saxons later entailed the Saxon Baptismal Vow and the Lex Saxonum laws promulgated by Charlemagne between 782 and 803 to subdue Saxons. The Saxon Baptismal vow in Latin contains the names of three of our Germanic Gods – two for whom their identities are clear, and one is an educated guess. “End ec forsacho allum dioboles uuercum and uuordum, Thunar ende UUoden ende Saxnote ende allum them uuholdum the hira genotas sint.” (I renounce all the deeds and words of the devil, Thor, Wodan (Odin) and Saxnot and all fiends which are their companions.”) Saxnot is interesting because there are no other references to him in such documents. Saxnot does appear in the genealogies of many Saxon royal houses and is therefore deeply connected to the Saxons. According to Jacob Grimm, in his work “Teutonic Mythology,” Saxnot was the Saxon National God, and he could also be identical to another Germanic later Norse deity, ie Freyr. The Lex Saxonum comes down to two manuscripts and two older editions.
So, while there are questions about the Irminsul looked like, what else there was at the Eresburg that was destroyed, and where are any remains there are also many things that we do know. The Irminsul existed at Eresburg, it was an important Heathen symbol of our faith, and it was sacred to the Saxons. We carry this belief forward and we honor the Saxons who worshipped there and died defending it.
At the now where the Irminsul once stood, was destroyed, and where Saxons died is a sign that says in German “Peace on Earth”...
All photos by the Chieftain and copyright Odin’s Warrior Tribe.
Statue at entrance to the St. Peter and St. Paul Church in Obermarsburg
Bronze Relief of Charlemagne and "Saint Sturmius" and a common depiction of the Irminsul in the St. Peter and St. Paul Church.
Behind St. Peter and St. Paul Church.
St. Peter and St. Paul Church on the location where the Irminsul stood.
Back side of the St. Peter and St. Paul Church - the high ground near the crypt where the Irminsul would have stood.
Irminsul artwork in slate front of the Obermarsburg Museum.
St. Peter and St. Paul Church from the 13th Century and cemetery on Obermarsburg.
Piece of the older 785CE Church at Obermarsburg
The palm tree design in a Christian relief carved at Externsteine that was postulated to represent the Irminsul and that has influenced more representations.
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