Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/413

 The Origin of the German Carnival Comedy 409 many. 36 The ancestors of the Germans possessed these forms of folk-ritual previous to their contact with the Romans. Moreover, there seems to have been a uniformity of religious practices "not only among the Teutonic and Keltic tribes, who inhabited western and northwestern Europe and the British Islands, but also amongst all the Aryan-speaking peoples." 37 The ship-procession was also a part of the Germanic worship and a long established custom among all the German tribes. The ship was the symbol of a number of Teutonic goddesses. ?8 Tacitus records that the Suevi dedicated, in the first century of our era, a ship to their goddess, whom he identifies as Isis. 39 The name is, of course, his inter pretatio Romana of a Germanic goddess, probably Nehellenia. He calls her Isis as he calls Wootan Mercury and Thor Mars. 40 This goddess of fruition appears to have been worshipped by a ship-procession in the Netherlands and Germany. 41 Her name is probably derived from Semit. nohal, nihal, to flow or to float, just as is that of St. Nicholas, who is the patron of the mariners. Among the Batavians and Frisians this goddess appears to have been pos- sessed with many attributes of Isis, among which is also the ship. 42 She is also called Pelagia, and often supports her left foot or both feet on the keel of a ship. 43 Aix-la-Chapelle proba- bly was the chief centre of her worship. Her old picture is still preserved in the minster of that town. 44 The ship-procession was probably also a part of the worship of Nerthus. 45 Tacitus 46 also speaks of the procession in a "vchiculutn" of the image of Nerthus, the Earth-Mother, 37 Cf. Chambers, op. tit., i. 100. 38 Cf. Simrock, op. tit., p. 390. Mannhardt, op. tit., i. 559n2, rejects this view; cf. also Sepp, op. tit., p. 54. 39 Germania, 9. 40 Cf. S. Reinach, "Mythologie et Religion des Germains," Anndes du Musee Guinet. Conferences au Musee Guinet. Bibliotheque de Vulgarisation xxxi. (1909) 58. 41 Cf. Usener, op. tit., pp. 126^. 42 Cf. L. Lersch, op. tit., ix. 115. 43 Cf. ]. W. Wolf, op. tit., xii.22. 44 Cf. Simrock, op. tit., pp. 3695?. Ibid. 46 Germania, 40.