This Germanic attitude to life can already be found in the oldest censuses we possess from the second century BC. In rock paintings in Swedish symbols of ancient customs, the Midgard Serpent, the spirit of life, appears; Thor's fight with the worm depicted. But especially during the Migration Period, the time of the great political awakening of the Germanic peoples, the spiritual forces of such a dawning worldview lived on in arts and crafts, as they had already done in the Bronze Age. With the Viking art of the North, this force even extended into the Christian era, indeed, it experienced a strong renewal.
The sun god rides, strong and dominant, and the Hornhausen Rider Stone depicts him, through the world, unharmed by the fateful forces. The variously designed motif of the lindworm appears on garment decorations and on wood carvings, even in the earliest churches in the North. Artists' hands created an image of Sigurd's fight with the dragon on the door of Hyllestad from his experience. Wandersan, a motif from Iceland, also shows life overcoming death. In this symbol, the two sides of the universe appear, and the nature of the mythical god Odin is explained Again and again, it shines through in all its forms that the Germanic people were aware that the divine mission of life rested within themselves, in their faith, in their energy. This energy was always shown a path to God. Only the weak fall prey to the dark powers.
Our fairy tales, sagas, and legends, our folk art, are symbols of the spiritual and moral life of our people's ancestors. We must not exchange the simplicity and clarity of their spiritual impulses for naivety. Do we not also strive again for the unity of life that shines forth from ancient tradition, from which even the medieval church drew the strength for its alien doctrine? Are not the moral foundations of our will the same as in ancient times? We still do not know the deeper forces that forced the Germanic people into a Christian way of thinking that was alien to them. Perhaps it was the dangerous moment of transition to a new, higher consciousness of their own. ity of life, which gave him tempting, almost similar concepts of a Roman-Christian life, however, frozen in formal thinking.
The knowledge of our self led us back to the divine order, in which we are a member, from which no spiritual transcendence can redeem us. Body, soul, and spirit once again form a unity; the eternal rhythm of life still fills us, and life appears in all things as the progressive divine revelation. Dr. Mahling"
SS Leitheft, year 9, issue 3, March, 1943
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