>>17795786
>>17795798
the irminsul was a pagan idol, most often described as a pillar or a tree, that the saxons worshiped as the holiest shrine of their religion. tensions between the franks and saxons escalated after the great migration as they began to compete for more land. in the 700s charlemange, king of the franks, invaded saxony and destroyed the irminsul in retaliation for many farm raids the saxons waged upon the franks. this began a very long and bloody war between the two tribes that ended with frankish victory and the conversion of the saxons. this stone relief is from near where the irminsul was supposed to be, and its theorized by some that the bent shape in the lower right is the irminsul, brought low before the cross in some kind of symbolic humiliation. irmin was the tribal deity of the western germanic tribes, and is sometimes used as a name for odin, so its possible the irminsul was the saxon version of yggdrasil, but too little is known about its cult and origins. nobody is even really sure what it looked like, this is just a theory that the relief shows the irminsul. the relief is very old and worn, and the lower part is much older and seems to depict pagan imagery more than christian stuff.