[75] The notion that once prevailed that the Irminsûl was the 'pillar of Hermann,' set up on the spot of the defeat of Varus, is now generally discredited. Some German antiquaries take the pillar to be a rude figure of the native god Irmin; but nothing seems to be known of this alleged deity: and it is more probable that the name Irmin is after all merely an altered form of the Keltic word which appears in Welsh as Hir Vaen, the long stone (Maen, a stone). Thus the pillar, so far from being the monument of the great Teutonic victory, would commemorate a pre-Teutonic race, whose name for it the invading tribes adopted. The Rev. Dr. Scott, of Westminster, to whose kindness I am indebted for this explanation, informs me that a rude ditty recording the destruction of the pillar by Charles was current on the spot a few years ago. It ran thus:—
'Irmin slad Irmin
Sla Pfeifen sla Trommen
Der Kaiser wird kommen
Mit Hammer und Stangen
Wird Irmin uphangen.'
[76] Eginhard, Ann.
[77] Most probably the Scots of Ireland—Eginhard, Vita Karoli, cap. 16.
[78] Eginhard, Vita Karoli, cap. 23.
[79] Aix-la-Chapelle. See the lines in Pertz (M. G. H. ii.), beginning,—