We are standing in a Roman marketplace in the second century CE. A merchant tosses a die, then whispers a prayer to Fortuna. Three hundred miles north, in a sacred grove on an island in the Baltic, a priestess touches a wheeled cart carrying a veiled image of Nerthus. The merchant calls his goddess by a name he knows. The priestess may have used a different one, but Latin writers centuries later would call her Hertha.
Fortuna and Hertha are not the same deity. They do not come from the same pantheon, and the second name may not refer to a goddess at all. But comparing the two reveals how Roman and Germanic peoples each tried to read the shape of fate — one through luck, the other through land.
We compare them here not to force a match, but to see what each culture believed fortune actually was.
Definition: What does each name actually mean?
Fortuna is the Roman goddess of chance, luck, and fate. Her name comes from Latin “fors” (chance). The Romans saw her as the distributor of both good and bad fortune, often shown with a wheel, a rudder, and a cornucopia. She was worshipped from the early Republic into the Empire, with a major temple on the Tiber dedicated by Servius Tullius in the 6th century BCE (Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.55).
Hertha is a far more contested figure. The name appears in the first printed edition (1472) of Tacitus’s Germania (98 CE) as “Herthum” in a passage describing a goddess worshipped by seven tribes on an island in the ocean. Modern scholars generally agree that the original text read “Nerthus” — the name later confirmed by the ninth-century Codex Aesinas manuscript. The variant “Hertha” likely comes from a scribal error: the capital N misread as H. Jacob Grimm revived the name in Teutonic Mythology (1835), treating Hertha as a distinct goddess of earth and fertility. Most historians today accept that Hertha is a ghost word — a mistake preserved by print.
We can only compare these two if we acknowledge that Hertha is, at best, a theoretical goddess reconstructed from a damaged manuscript. But as the comparison existed in occult literature of the 19th and 20th centuries (Ralph Whitlock’s Handbook of Norse Mythology, for example, treats Hertha as a variant name for Nerthus), we address it here on those terms.
Where the two goddesses come from
Fortuna’s origins are Roman but not exclusively Italic. She shares attributes with the Greek Tyche, and earlier with the Egyptian Renenutet and the Mesopotamian Ištar as a distributor of lots. The oldest known cult of Fortuna in Rome was the Temple of Fors Fortuna on the right bank of the Tiber, said to have been founded by King Servius Tullius (Pliny the Elder, Natural History 8.197). The festival of Fors Fortuna on June 24 was a rowdy celebration of plebeian luck, where boatloads of Romans floated down the river in wreaths and threw themselves into the water, a gesture we read today as a rite of purification and a gamble with chance itself.
Hertha’s origins are Germanic, but only through the lens of Roman ethnography. Tacitus’s Germania chapter 40 describes a goddess “Nerthus, that is, Mother Earth,” who was served by a priest and whose image was carried on a wheeled cart through villages during a time of peace and plenty. The cart was washed in a secret lake by slaves who were then drowned, because they had seen the goddess. The seven tribes mentioned (Anglii, Varini, and others) were coastal and island-dwelling. The cult has been linked to Neolithic cart models found in bogs and to later folk traditions of the “Wagon of the Earth Mother” in Scandinavia.
The human consequence: for Romans, Fortuna’s wheel turned unpredictably for individuals; for the tribes of the North, Nerthus (Hertha) brought fertility to the land in a cyclical, communal rhythm. One gambled; the other guaranteed the harvest, provided the rites were kept.
Symbolism and meaning in practice
Fortuna is almost always shown with her wheel, the rota Fortunae – a concept that persists today as “the wheel of fortune.” She also holds a rudder, meaning she steers lives, and a cornucopia, meaning she distributes abundance. But the cornucopia is double-edged: she gives, and she can take away. The goddess was worshipped in many specialized aspects: Fortuna Virilis (luck in love), Fortuna Primigenia (firstborn luck, at Praeneste), Fortuna Redux (safe return). Each aspect addressed a different anxiety.
Hertha, as reconstructed, has no wheel, no rudder. She is tied to the earth itself. The cart in which her image rode was likely a cover for a more ancient tradition, a wooden wagon drawn by oxen, moving through fields to bless the soil. The wheel of Hertha is not a symbol of chance but of the seasonal cycle: the cart’s wheels dig ruts that mark the path of the goddess through the land. This is not luck; this is the guarantee that winter will yield to spring.
The difference is profound: Fortuna is invoked when the outcome is unknown, a dice roll, a sea voyage, a pregnancy. Hertha is present when the outcome is known but must be earned, a seed in soil, an ox in harness, a priestess who sees the cart without being drowned.
How you spoke to each: cult and divination
We know exactly how Romans addressed Fortuna. The temple at Praeneste used a method of divination by lots, “sortes”, where a child drew a written oracle from a chest. Cicero mentions this practice in De Divinatione 2.41, noting that it was still popular in his day despite his skepticism. The sortes were short verses of obscure meaning; the seeker interpreted them based on the situation. The priestess of Fortuna at Praeneste was not an ecstatic prophet but a custodian of a lottery system.
Worship of Hertha (Nerthus) followed a different logic. Tacitus describes the priest as a man, not a woman, but the goddess herself was served by a male priest because she was female. The cart was only touched by the priest. No weapons were carried during the festival. There was no oracle. The goddess’s will was expressed through the fertility of the land: good weather, abundant crops, peace among tribes. The ritual was a kind of seasonal theater in which the entire tribe participated by staying home, not fighting, and watching the cart pass. The consequence: war stopped. The land was sacred during her presence.
Divination for Nerthus’s tribes likely occurred through other means, runes, seeresses like Veleda (mentioned in Tacitus’s Histories), but not through the cart festival itself. Fortuna’s lottery was a direct query; Hertha’s procession was a demonstration of ongoing favor.
Where the two meet and where they separate
The obvious convergence is the wheel. Both goddesses are associated with a wheel, but Fortuna’s wheel turns vertically, a symbol of rise and fall; Nerthus’s cart has wheels that roll horizontally, a symbol of progress across the land. One is about the caprice of individual destiny; the other about the reliable cycle of the earth.
Another meeting point is the concept of luck as something external that can be managed. Romans managed Fortuna through vows and offerings. The tribes of the North managed Nerthus through seasonal compliance. Neither culture believed fate was fixed; both thought that proper ritual could improve one’s chances.
But they separate sharply on the role of human agency. Fortuna’s wheel can be ridden upward by the clever and brave (the Roman ideal of virtus). Hertha’s cart leaves no room for human ambition, you follow it or you do not. There is no charm for better luck in a German bog; there is only correct worship.
The 19th-century occult revival tended to conflate the two because both names appeared in classical sources and both were “pagan.” Gerald Massey, in The Natural Genesis (1883), argued that Hertha was a version of the great mother goddess and that Fortuna was her Roman echo. This is speculation, not evidence.
Common misconceptions about Fortuna and Hertha
Hertha was a distinct Germanic goddess. Almost certainly not. The weight of manuscript evidence points to Nerthus. “Hertha” is a scribal or printer’s error that achieved popularity through Jacob Grimm. In occult literature, Hertha sometimes appears as a separate figure, but we can find no primary source that uses the name before the 1472 edition of Tacitus.
Fortuna was only about good luck. Romans reversed this by saying “Fortuna” emphasis on the first syllable) meant bad luck. There was a Temple of Fortuna Muliebris (Women’s Fortune) that protected against bad outcomes. The goddess was ambivalent.
Both were goddesses of fate. Not exactly. The Romans had the Parcae for fate. Fortuna distributed the results of fate’s decrees. The Germanic tribes had the Norns (Urd, Verdandi, Skuld) for fate; Nerthus was earth, not fate. The comparison works only if we treat “fate” very loosely.
Their symbols are interchangeable. A wheel is not a wheel. Fortuna’s wheel is a gambling device; Nerthus’s wheel is a vehicle for a sacred image. We cannot read “wheel of fortune” onto a Germanic cult cart without erasing what the cart actually did.
FAQ
Is Hertha the same as the Norse goddess Nerthus?
Yes, probably. The name “Nerthus” appears in Tacitus, and cognate forms suggest a connection to the Norse god Njörðr (sea deity), which creates a gender problem: Njörðr is male. Some scholars argue that Nerthus was originally a male goddess or that the cult involved a priest impersonating the goddess. This remains unresolved.
Did the Romans ever compare Fortuna to a Germanic goddess?
No. The Romans did not systematically compare their lucky goddess to northern earth deities. The comparison is a modern scholarly or occult exercise.
How were offerings made to Fortuna?
Common offerings included wine, incense, and small images of wheels or rudders. The kalathos (a basket-shaped crown) was associated with her. At her temple in Rome, people left dice, coins, and written prayers on lead tablets.
Can modern practitioners work with both Fortuna and Hertha?
Some do, but the underlying worldview differs. Working with Fortuna tends toward petition and personal divination. Working with “Hertha” (or Nerthus) tends toward seasonal ritual, earth connection, and communal cycle. Reconciling the two requires choosing which definition of fate you accept.
Related guides from our library
The comparison of Roman and Germanic deities rarely stops at two. For a broader view of how these cultures structured their pantheons, see our vertical hub on deity comparison. The symbols of each, the wheel of Fortuna, the cart of Nerthus, also appear in our glossary of fate-related symbols. And for a deeper look at how Roman polytheism absorbed and renamed foreign gods, read our guide on Roman and Germanic religious exchange.
Fortuna and Hertha never shared a temple or a grove. But the impulse that drove the merchant to throw dice, and the tribes to let the cart pass, the belief that fortune could be touched, turned, or followed, connects them across the distance. The wheel turns. The cart rolls. Whether we call it luck or land, we still try to find our place on its path.