HERTHA, or HERTHUS, a great deity of the ancient Germans. Her name is doubtless the root of the modern English earth, and the German Erde, over which part of the world she was believed to preside. Tacitus in his Germania, states that she was worshipped with great solemnity by the Suevi, and that her temple stood in an island of the ocean, where her service was performed by a single priest. On great occasions, regulated by this priest, the covered chariot of the goddess was drawn forth from the sanctuary by the sacred cows and led in triumph throughout the country. Those districts were held to be peculiarly favoured through which the chariot passed; arms were laid aside; peace was proclaimed, and the time was spent in universal merry-making, till the priest declared that it was the will of the goddess to return to her shrine. Her image was then washed in a sacred spring; and as all who witnessed the ceremony of the ablution were drowned, the rites of the goddess Hertha were always associated in the minds of the vulgar with feelings of the most reverential awe. The island of Rügen was long regarded as being the sacred island of Hertha, but the honour has also been claimed for Heligoland and Zetland. Recent researches avail no further than to limit the choice to one of the Danish islands. The whole subject of Hertha and her worship is fully discussed by Grimm in his German Mythology.