 |
Diana as witch on St. Nicholas altar piece
of 1485, Mühlhausen, Thüringen Germany
(full altar and description below) |
Diana is well known as the goddess of hunt, the moon, childbirth, women and nature from Roman mythology. Along with
Minerva and
Vesta, she was one of the three
maiden goddesses, who had sworn never to marry. Less known is that in medieval Germany she was considered
mistress of witches and still as
dea paganorum: pagan goddess, hundreds of years after the Romans had left.
Was Diana introduced into Germany by the Romans, or had she been a Germanic deity or Mother long before the Romans came?
Wikipedia:
Diana was worshipped at a festival on August 13, when King Servius Tullius, himself born a slave, dedicated her temple on the Aventine Hill in the mid-6th century BC. Being placed on the Aventine, and thus outside the pomerium, meant that Diana's cult essentially remained a foreign one, like that of Bacchus; she was never officially transferred to Rome as Juno was after the sack of Veii. It seems that her cult originated in Aricia, (...)
German
Wikipedia (translated):
Nothing was passed down about an initial Diana myth - independent of Greek mythology -, as Diana was identified very early already and almost completely with the Greek Artemis. The Greek myths were adopted with substitution of the Greek deities by their Roman equivalents.
In the Oera Linda-book, a female deity or divine Mother
Thjanja is mentioned along with
Frya,
Fàsta,
Médéa, "and many others" (fragment below). This name also appears many times in the manuscript as verb, meaning
to serve, which still has equivalents in several North European languages:
dienen - Dutch, German
tsjinje - Frisian
tjene - Danish, Norwegian
tjäna - Swedish
þjóna, thjóna - Icelandic
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| Diana by Paul Bergon (1863-1912) |
A Dutch female name is Dina (varieties Dine, Diena, Dientje, etc.; perhaps also Tina, Tinka, Tanja, etc.). Origin and meaning are unclear among the specialists. I would suggest that like Diana, it is derived from thiania: dienen.
Oldfrisian dictionaries
Wiarda (1786)
tinia, tyena, thiania - to serve
thianst, thianest - service
thianster - witch (!)
Hettema (1832)
thiania, tjaenje - to serve
thiansta, tjaenst - service, servant
thianster, tjaonster - witch (!)
Richthofen (1840)
thiania, tienia - to serve
thianer, tiener - servant
thianost, thianest, thianst, tienst - service
Note that in OLB the spelling for witch (besides HEX) is "THJONSTER", and no relation to "THJANJA" (to serve) is suggested: [034/15] AS THV THÀN NÉN THJONSTER NE BISTE
Fragment in Oera Linda-book
[132/21]
HWERSA IMMAN EN BYLD MÁKATH ÀFTER ÉNNEN VRSTURVEN ÀND THET LIKT
SÁ LÁWATH HJA THÀT THENE GÁST THES VRSTURVENE THÉR INNE FÁRATH.
THÉRVR HÀVATH HJA ALLE BYLDA VRBURGEN.
FON FRYA. FÀSTA. MÉDÉA. THJANJA. HELLÉNJA ÀND FÉLO ÔTHERA.
(translation Ott, not yet published:)
When someone makes an image of a dead person and it shows a good likeness,
they believe that the ghost of the departed resides in it.
They therefore hide all images
of Frya, Festa, Medea, Diana, Hellenia and many others.
(translation Sandbach, 1876:)
When they make a statue of a dead person
they believe that the spirit of the departed enters into it;
therefore they have hidden their statues
of Frya, Fâsta, Medea, Thiania, Hellenia, and many others.
(For other fragments with THJANJA used as verb, see post of
March 30, 2012.)
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