Bird Gods in Ancient Euro 



pe 



during the Middle Ages to have found his way 

 into the German poets of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury. This is the nature god Wunsch, often 

 mentioned by Hartmann in a way to prove 

 that he was conceived as a deity like Vaino, 

 who created and invented things, especially 

 grain, plants and flowers, beauty in women 

 and children, power and magical strength in 

 men. He often appears where we might 

 translate his name by Nature or Providence 

 or God, but more specifically he is a god of 

 love and happiness who gives to men what 

 they desire, a god of fortune, as the female 

 Venus and Aphrodite were. In throwing dice 

 the Venus cast was the lucky cast. To say 

 that a woman had the figure or feet of 

 Wunsch was exactly as if one said of Venus. 

 Yet Wunsch is always spoken of as masculine. 

 It is sad to think that the boy learning to 

 shoot, the feather hunter and the pot hunter 

 are fast rendering our woods, fields and gardens 

 tuneless and given over to insects destructive 



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