Symbel

Symbel (OE) and sumbl (ON) are Germanic terms for "feast, banquet".

Paul C. Bauschatz in 1976 suggested that the term reflects a pagan ritual which had a "great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people". Bauschatz' lead is followed only sporadically in modern scholarship, but his interpretation has inspired such solemn drinking-rituals in Germanic neopaganism.

The ritual according to Bauschatz was always conducted indoors, usually in a chieftain's mead hall. Symbel involved a formulaic ritual which was more solemn and serious than mere drinking or celebration. The primary elements of symbel are drinking ale or mead from a drinking horn, speech making (which often included formulaic boasting and oaths), and gift giving. Eating and feasting were specifically excluded from symbel, and no alcohol was set aside for the gods or other deities in the form of a sacrifice.

Accounts of the symbel are preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf (lines 489-675 and 1491–1500), Dream of the Rood (line 141) and Judith (line 15), Old Saxon Heliand (line 3339), and the Old Norse Lokasenna (stanza 8) as well as other Eddic and Saga texts, such as in the Heimskringla account of the funeral ale held by King Sweyn, or in the Fagrskinna.

The prevalent view today is that Old English symbel, Old Saxon symbal, sumbal (Old High German *sumbal) and Old Norse sumbl, all of which translate roughly as "feast, banquet, (social) gathering", continue a Common Germanic *sumlan "banquet", which would correspond to a PIE *sṃ-lo- "joint meal" or "congregation" (literally, symposium or ).

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