chieftain Jupiter." The name of a in the Gothic alphabet is ahsa. The common Germanic name of the rune may thus have either been ansuz "God, one of the Æsir", or ahsam "ear (of corn)" Asleikr The personal names Old Norse Ásleikr (Latinised as Ansleicus), Old English Óslác (modern "Hasluck") and Old High German Ansleh may continue the term for a sacrificial performance for the gods in early Germanic paganism (). Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch (s.v. "Leich") compares *laikom to the meaning of Greek , denoting first the ceremonial procession to the sacrifice, but also ritual dance and hymns pertaining to religious ritual. Paul Herrman (1906) identified as such *ansulaikom the victory songs of the Batavi after defeating Quintus Petillius Cerialis in the Revolt of the Batavi in the year AD 69 according to Tacitus' account, and also the "nefarious song" accompanied by "running in a circle" around the head of a decapitated goat sacrificed to (he presumes) Wodan (Odin), sung by the Lombards at their victory celebration in 579 according to the report of Pope Gregory I (Dialogues ch. 28). Ásatrú Ásatrú, a kind of Heathenry whose name means "faith in the Æsir", is a new religious movement of polytheistic reconstructionism based on Norse paganism. As of 2007, Ásatrú is a religion officially recognized by the governments of Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Most adherents do not emphasize worship of the Æsir in particular and refer to their practice as "Forn sed/sidr/siður" meaning old customs. The Icelandic Ásatrúarfélagið describes Ásatrú as "Nordic pantheism" involving "belief in the Icelandic/Nordic folklore" including all the "spirits and entities" besides "gods and other beings" this entails. See also Horses of the Æsir Common Germanic deities List of Germanic deities Tuatha Dé Danann References Bibliography DuBois, Thomas A. (1999). Nordic Religions in the Viking Age. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dumézil, Georges (1973). Gods of the Ancient Northmen. Edited by Einar Haugen; Introduction by C. Scott Littleton and Udo Strutynski. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Grimm, Jacob (1882–83). Teutonic Mythology. 4 vols. Trans. James Steven Stallybrass. London: Bell. Munch, P. A. (1926). Norse Mythology: Legends of Gods and Heroes. In the revision of Magnus Olsen; translated from the Norwegian by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press. Orchard, Andy (2002). Cassell's Dictionary of Norse Myth and Legend. London: Cassell. Turville-Petre, Gabriel (1964). Myth and Religion of