The New International Encyclopædia/Irminus

IRMINUS (AS., exalted). The divine ancestor of the Germanic Hermiones, probably identical with Tiw or Tyr. The Saxons erected in his honor great tree-trunks, the so-called Irminsûli, e.g. at Scheidungen, after the defeat of the Thuringians, and at Eresburg, Westphalia. The latter, which was looked upon as the national shrine, was destroyed by Charles the Great in 772.