The Scandinavian and German mythology are alike destitute of these names; although among the many goddesses they recognize some two may perhaps be identical with ours. The name Hréðe may possibly mean _severe_, _fierce_, and denote a warlike goddess; but still I am more inclined to connect it with the adjective Hróð, glorious, famous, and to see in it the meaning of the _great_ or _glorious_ goddess, that is, in some form or other, Fricge, Wóden’s wife: it is however not to be forgotten that the German Chrodo, in Anglosaxon Hróð or even Hréðe, is now admitted, and that this god was in fact Saturn. It is true that we have more than one fragmentary legend in which the name of Saturn survives, but in a heroic rather than a godlike form, and this may have been the cause of its preservation: the Church found Saturn useful, and kept him; nor is it at all surprising that a change of sex should have taken place: the same thing happened with the German goddess Nerthus, who reappears in the Norse god Niördr, and the classical scholar will at once remember the god Lunus, as well as the goddess Luna[704]. Whatever explanation we may attempt to give of Hréðe, it is clear that she was a Saxon goddess to whom at stated periods sacrifice was offered. The same thing may be said of Eóstre or Eástre, whose name must be etymologically connected with Eást, _oriens_, and who therefore was in all probability a goddess of brightness and splendour, perhaps also a Beorhte or Bright goddess: she may have been a goddess of light, of the morning beams, of the newly awakening year, when the sun first begins to recover power after the gloom and darkness of winter. That she was deeply impressed upon the mind and feelings of the people follows from her name having been retained for the great festival of the church: it may also be fairly argued that she was a mild and gentle divinity, whom the clergy did not fear thus to commemorate. ----- Footnote 704: The name of Nerthus stands in all the best MSS. of Tacitus’ Germania, and the change of it into Herthus, though very plausible, was unnecessary. One easily sees the cause of error: it was thought that Herthus, _terra mater_, was the Gothic Airthus, in Old-german Erdu, in Anglosaxon Eorðe. But there is no H in these words; if there were we should have had a Teutonic Vesta. The goddess’s name was Nairthus, Nerdu, Nerðe, and her corresponding form in Old-norse, Niördr. -----