Further Reflections on the Goddess Isa

I have already discussed on this blog the existence of the Germanic Goddess Isa. [See Zisa/Isa/Ista/Isis/Ischtar/Isais published on 20/1/13 and The Germanic Ethnicity of Isolde, the Goddess Isa and Iceland published on 25/8/12.] What I wish to do now is bring together material from two previous articles to clarify my thoughts about this rather now obscure German Goddess.

It is a vital part of our task that we bring to light that which has been lost through both exoteric and esoteric means. However this blog unlike Die Armanenschaft der Ario-Germanen is more concerned with the exoteric so I will confine myself to what scholars actually know about Her.

Wilhelm Waegner in his Asgard and the Gods[1886] compares Isa with the Celto-Germanic Goddess Nehalennia who was primarily worshipped in the Netherlands:

"Nehalennia, the protectress of ships and trade, was worshipped by the Keltic and Teutonic races in a sacred grove on the island of Walcheren; she had also altars and holy places dedicated to her at Nivelles. The worship of Isa or Eisen, who was identical with Nehalennia, was even older and more wide-spread throughout Germany. St. Gertrude took her place in Christian times, and her name[Geer, ie spear, and Trude, daughter of Thor] betrays its heathen origin."

In Chapter V of Legends of the Wagner Drama[1900] which was reprinted as Legends of the Wagner Trilogy, part of The Volsunga Saga[1907]  by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris, Jessie L. Weston states:

"This dwelling of Brynhild`s is either in or near Bertangaland, which is generally identified as Britain. With this closely agrees the Nibelungenlied, which represents the princess as ruling over Island and dwelling in the castle of Isenstein on the sea-shore. [Rassmann identifies Island as derived from Isa, a goddess of the under-world, probably the same as Holda, and not as Iceland.]"

Miss Weston goes on to state:

 "In the folk-songs current in Denmark and the Faroe Isles, Brynhild is represented as dwelling on the Glasberg, up the glittering sides of which none but Sigurd can ride.

"Now the Glasberg is well known to students of German folk-lore as the abode of departed spirits,ie the other-world, and, as such, connected with the mountain in which Holda, who is goddess of the dead, lives. It is no abode of terror, but of rest and bliss; though the dwellers in it would often gladly return to this world, but are unable of themselves to do so. Rassmann identifies the  Glasberg alike with the Gnita-heide, as mentioned above, and with the island Glid, mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles as the abode of departed spirits, the original root signifying glanz, freude, wonne."

Miss Weston goes on to compare the Glasberg and Glid with the Arthurian and Celtic belief in an island in the Western seas which is the abode of the blessed dead-Avalon or Tir na nog. She notes that "Avalon became identified with Glastonbury,"

It is interesting that Isa has thus far been compared with Nehalennia, Holda, Gertrude and Brynhild. There is a further connection-Isolde.

Again in Legends of the Wagner Drama whilst discussing Wagner`s Tristan und Isolde Miss Weston makes the case for Isolde being of Germanic and not Irish origin. She points out that in the 9th and 10th centuries Ireland was overrun by Vikings who held court at Dublin. Thus a princess from Dublin must logically be of Danish and not of Irish origin.

"That a princess of Dublin should bear a Germanic name is not merely probable, but natural, and consequently we find that German scholars give as the derivation of the name Isolde, Iswalt, or Iswalda[Eis-walterin=ruler of the ice], which explains the fact that the early German form seems to be Isalde, as in Wolfram, and not Isolde. The heroine then is no Celtic maiden, but a child of the North, a Viking`s daughter; hence the legends always represent her as fair and golden-haired-she is `die lichte` in the Northern versions, as distinguished from `die schwarze`, the rival Isolde.