On an island in the ocean there a chaste grove, and therein a sacred chariot, covered by a tester. Then they have glad days, and there is feasting in all places, which the goddess honours by her presence. Peace and good time is the only thing they know of and aspire. And so it goes on, till at last the goddess gets tired of the intercourse with the mortal beings and retires to her temple. Then immediately the chariot and the garments, and, if people may believe it, the goddess is washed in a secret lake.
Slaves make service at the washing, and immediately after it they are swallowed by the lake.
Hence is the origin of the mysterious terror and the sacred ignorance about what that may be which nobody is allowed to see unless he is sure to die. After describing how the republicanism of the southern Gottons is replaced by royalism among the Goths in Prussia, Tacitus goes on, making the Swedes represent royal absolutism. The weapons are not granted to anybody indiscriminately, as among the other Gottons, but locked up under the custody of a slave. The whole description is obviously due to an exaggerated report about the ritual peace during the sacrifices. The first vernacular gods were the Vanes.