Editing Numbers in Germanic paganism (section)

==Examples==
Emphasis on the numbers three, nine, and multiples of three occur frequently in the ancient Germanic record. Examples include:

===West Germanic===
''[[Old English]]''
*''[[Æcerbot]]'': A charm that describes a ritual wherein the speaker should bow nine times to the east.<ref name="MACLEOD-MEES-242">{{harvp|MacLeod|Mees|2006|pp=127}}</ref>
*''[[Nine Herbs Charm]]'': A charm focused on nine plants, using the number nine extensively and featuring the Old English extension of the Germanic god Odin.<ref name="MACLEOD-MEES-242"/>

''[[Old High German]]''
* [[Merseburg Charms]]: Two Old High German charms stemming from the pagan period mentioning at least six pagan Germanic deities and other beings. According to Patricia Giangrosso, "the second Merseburg Charm is the only medieval German charm to specify gods from the pagan, Germanic past" and "no other Old High German or Middle High German charms show so clearly a structure based on the number three. This is especially striking in the second charm."<ref name="GIANGROSSO-2001:113">{{harvp|Giangrosso|2001|p=113}}</ref>

===North Germanic===
The [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic]] record frequently mentions the numbers three, nine, and multiples of three. A few examples of these many occurrences in [[Norse mythology]] include:
*Odin's self-sacrifice where he hangs for nine nights on a "windy tree" (''[[Hávamál]]'')<ref name=SIMEK232-233/>
*The "[[nine worlds]]" ({{lang|non|Níu Heimar}}) associated with [[Yggdrasil]] (''[[Vafþrúðnismál]]'')<ref name=SIMEK232-233/>
*[[Nine Mothers of Heimdallr]]<ref name=SIMEK232-233/>
*[[Nine Daughters of Ægir and Rán]]<ref name=SIMEK232-233/>
*The god [[Thor]]'s foretold nine steps before he dies at [[Ragnarök]]<ref name=SIMEK232-233/>
Exterior to texts on mythology, accounts of [[Temple of Uppsala]] by [[Adam of Bremen]] in what is today Sweden and of [[Lejre]] in today's Denmark by [[Thietmar of Merseburg]] purport that pagan sacrificial feasts occurred at these locations lasting nine days, where "supposedly nine victims were sacrificed each day".<ref name=SIMEK232-233/> According to Gardeła, "Leaving aside the problem of the historical veracity of these two Latin accounts, as well as the lack of tangible traces of violent and large-scale sacrificial acts in the archaeological record at Uppsala and Lejre, the fact that both Adam and Thietmar consistently refer to the number nine in ritual contexts leads to the supposition that the chroniclers wove their stories around an authentic and widespread idea rooted in the Viking Age."<ref name="GARDEŁA-2022-28">{{harvp|Gardeła|2022|p=28}}</ref>

[[Ibn Fadlān]]'s eyewitness account of the Viking Age Scandinavian Rus' in the first half of the 10th century on the [[Volga]] river mentions that the deceased Rus' leader's body was ritually left in a chamber for nine days before being set ablaze on a burning ship with a variety of goods and the body of a female slave.<ref name="GARDEŁA-2022-27">{{harvp|Gardeła|2022|p=27}}</ref>

===Archaeology===
A variety of objects found in the Germanic cultural sphere have been interpreted by scholars as reflecting a particular focus on the number nine. These include:
* Miniatures with nine studs found in a square or circular pattern.<ref name=GARDEŁA-2022-GEN>Discussed throughout {{harvp|Gardeła|2022}}.</ref>
* The [[valknut]]: According to scholar Leszek Gardeła, "Probably the most vivid manifestation of the number nine motif in the material culture of the Viking Age comes in the form of the so-called valknútr, a symbol carved in wood, metal and stone which usually takes the form of three inter-locking triangles (giving a total of nine triangle points)."<ref name=GARDEŁA-2022-28/>