Note 14 — Chapter I · THE EARLY GERMANS
Reading edition
Evidently these were not images of their gods, for in another place (Chap. 9) Tacitus tells us that the Germans deemed it a dishonor to their deities to represent them in human form. The images were probably those of wild beasts, as the wolf of Woden (or Odin), or the ram of Tyr, and were national standards preserved with religious care in the sacred groves, whence they were brought forth when the tribe was on the point of going to war.