Anglo-Saxon polytheism - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Anglo-Saxon paganism, or as it has also been known, Anglo-Saxon heathenism,The religion has been referred to as "paganism" by most scholars, such as David M. Wilson

David M. Wilson

Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, Kt is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. He lives on the Isle of Man....

(1992) and Martin Carver

Martin Carver

Martin Oswald Hugh Carver FSA , is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of York, England, director of the Sutton Hoo Research Project and a leading exponent of new methods in excavation and survey. He specialises in the archaeology of early Medieval Europe...

(2010), but as "heathenism" by some others, like Brian Branston (1957). refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

between the fifth and eighth centuries CE, during the initial period of Early Mediaeval England. A variant of the wider Germanic paganism

Germanic paganism

Germanic paganism refers to the theology and religious practices of the Germanic peoples of north-western Europe from the Iron Age until their Christianization during the Medieval period...

found across much of north-western Europe, itself encompassed a heterogeneous variety of disparate beliefs and cultic practices. Developing from the earlier Iron Age

Iron Age

The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...

religion of continental northern Europe, it was introduced to Britain following the Anglo-Saxon migration in the mid fifth century, and remained the dominant religion in England until the Christianization

Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England

The Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England was a process spanning the 7th century.It is essentially the result of the Gregorian mission of 597, which was joined by the efforts of the Hiberno-Scottish mission from the 630s...

of its kingdoms between the seventh and eighth centuries, with some aspects gradually blending into folklore

English folklore

English folklore is the folk tradition which has developed in England over a number of centuries. Some stories can be traced back to their roots, while the origin of others is uncertain or disputed...

.

Much of what is supposedly known about Anglo-Saxon paganism is the result of the efforts of literary antiquarians in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; in particular, the notion that Old English poetry contains vestiges of an actual, historical pre-Christian paganism has increasingly been queried by Anglo-Saxonists. As with most religions designated as being pagan

Paganism

Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

by later Christian writers, Anglo-Saxon paganism is presumed to have been a polytheistic belief system, focused around the worship of deities known as the ése (singular ós). The most prominent of these deities may have been Woden

Woden

Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....

, for which reason the religion has also been called Wodenism, although other prominent gods included Thunor and Tiw. There was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities who inhabited the landscape, including elves, nicor and dragons

European dragon

European dragons are legendary creatures in folklore and mythology among the overlapping cultures of Europe.In European folklore, a dragon is a serpentine legendary creature. The Latin word draco, as in constellation Draco, comes directly from Greek δράκων,...

. Cultic practice largely revolved around demonstrations of devotion, including sacrifice

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is the offering of food, objects or the lives of animals or people to God or the gods as an act of propitiation or worship.While sacrifice often implies ritual killing, the term offering can be used for bloodless sacrifices of cereal food or artifacts...

of inanimate objects and animals, to these deities, particularly at certain religious festivals during the year. Pagan beliefs also influenced funerary practices, where the dead were either inhumed or cremated, typically with a selection of grave goods. There was also a magical component to the early Anglo-Saxon religion, and some scholars have also theorised that there may have been shamanic

Shamanism

Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...

aspects as well. These religious beliefs also had a bearing on the structure of Anglo-Saxon society, which was hierarchical, with kings often claiming a direct ancestral lineage from a god, particularly Woden. As such, it also had an influence on law codes during this period.

The deities of this religion provided the basis for the names of the days of the week in the English language. Despite this, there is much that we do not know about this medieval religion, and what is currently known about it comes mainly from the available archaeological

Anglo-Saxon archaeology

The archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England:*Anglo-Saxon hoards*Anglo-Saxon art**Sutton Hoo**Staffordshire Hoard**Canterbury-St Martin's hoard*Anglo-Saxon numismatics*Anglo-Saxon glass*Anglo-Saxon architecture-Burial:...

evidence. What is known about the religion and its accompanying mythology have since influenced both literature and Contemporary Paganism from the 18th century onwards.

History

The Anglo-Saxon tribes were not united before the 7th century, with seven main kingdoms, known collectively as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy

Heptarchy

The Heptarchy is a collective name applied to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of south, east, and central Great Britain during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, conventionally identified as seven: Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Wessex...

. Certain deities and religious practices were specific to certain localities.

Our literary sources on Anglo-Saxon England set in with Christianization only, leaving the pre-Christian 6th century in the prehistoric "Dark" of Sub-Roman Britain

Sub-Roman Britain

Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...

. Our best sources of information on the pre-Christian period are 7th to 8th century testimonies, such as Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

and the Franks Casket

Franks Casket

The Franks Casket is a small Anglo-Saxon whalebone chest from the seventh century, now in the British Museum. The casket is densely decorated with knife-cut narrative scenes in flat two-dimensional low-relief and with inscriptions mostly in Anglo-Saxon runes...

, which had already seen Christian redaction but nevertheless reflects a living memory of original traditions.

The transition of the Anglo-Saxons from the original religion to Christianity took place gradually, over the course of the 7th century, influenced on one side by Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity

Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...

and the Irish mission, on the other by Roman Catholicism introduced to England by Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine of Canterbury

Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597...

in 597. The Anglo-Saxon nobility were nearly all converted within a century, but the original religion among the rural population, as in other Germanic lands, didn't so much die out as gradually blend into folklore

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

.

As elsewhere, Christianization involved the adoption of original folk culture into a Christian context, including the conversion of sacrificial sites and original feast days. Pope Gregory the Great instructed Abbot Mellitus

Mellitus

Mellitus was the first Bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergymen sent to augment the mission,...

that:

I have come to the conclusion that the temples of the idols in England should not on any account be destroyed. Augustine must smash the idols, but the temples themselves should be sprinkled with holy water, and altars set up in them in which relics are to be enclosed. For we ought to take advantage of well-built temples by purifying them from devil-worship and dedicating them to the service of the true God.

The question of religious allegiance of the individual kings was not a political one, and there is no evidence of any military struggle of a native vs. a Christian faction as in that between Blot-Sweyn

Blot-Sweyn

Sweyn was a Swedish king c. 1080, who replaced his Christian brother-in-law Inge as King of Sweden, when Inge had refused to administer the blóts at the Temple at Uppsala. There is no mention of Sweyn in the regnal list of the Westrogothic law, which suggests that his rule did not reach...

and Inge the Elder during the 1080s in the Christianization of Sweden, and no military "crusade" as in the 8th century Saxon Wars

Saxon Wars

The Saxon Wars were the campaigns and insurrections of the more than thirty years from 772, when Charlemagne first entered Saxony with the intent to conquer, to 804, when the last rebellion of disaffected tribesmen was crushed. In all, eighteen battles were fought in what is now northwestern Germany...

of Charlemagne

Charlemagne

Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...

's. Each king was free to convert to Christianity as he pleased, due to the sacral nature of kingship in Germanic society automatically entailing the conversion of his subjects.
The only exception may be found in the war of Penda of Mercia

Penda of Mercia

Penda was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the...

against Northumbria. Penda exceptionally allied himself with the Welsh Kingdom of Gwynedd

Kingdom of Gwynedd

Gwynedd was one petty kingdom of several Welsh successor states which emerged in 5th-century post-Roman Britain in the Early Middle Ages, and later evolved into a principality during the High Middle Ages. It was based on the former Brythonic tribal lands of the Ordovices, Gangani, and the...

against his Anglo-Saxon neighbours.
In the Battle of Hatfield Chase

Battle of Hatfield Chase

The Battle of Hatfield Chase was fought on October 12, 633 at Hatfield Chase near Doncaster, Yorkshire, in Anglo-Saxon England between the Northumbrians under Edwin and an alliance of the Welsh of Gwynedd under Cadwallon ap Cadfan and the Mercians under Penda. The site was a marshy area about 8...

, Penda together with Cadwallon ap Cadfan

Cadwallon ap Cadfan

Cadwallon ap Cadfan was the King of Gwynedd from around 625 until his death in battle. The son and successor of Cadfan ap Iago, he is best remembered as the King of the Britons who invaded and conquered Northumbria, defeating and killing its king, Edwin, prior to his own death in battle against...

(who was nominally a Christian but according to Bede given to barbarous cruelty) resulted in the death of Edwin of Northumbria

Edwin of Northumbria

Edwin , also known as Eadwine or Æduini, was the King of Deira and Bernicia – which later became known as Northumbria – from about 616 until his death. He converted to Christianity and was baptised in 627; after he fell at the Battle of Hatfield Chase, he was venerated as a saint.Edwin was the son...

(who had been baptized in 627). As a result, Northumbria fell into chaos and was divided between Eanfrith

Eanfrith of Bernicia

Eanfrith was briefly King of Bernicia from 633 to 634. He was the son of Æthelfrith, a Bernician king who had also ruled Deira to the south before being killed in battle around 616 against Raedwald of East Anglia, who had given refuge to Edwin, an exiled prince of Deira.Edwin became king of...

and Osric

Osric of Deira

Osric was a King of Deira in northern England. He was a cousin of king Edwin of Northumbria, being the son of Edwin's uncle Aelfric...

, who both reverted

Apostasy

Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...

to paganism as they rose to power. Both Eanfrith and Osric were killed in battle against Cadwallon within the year. Cadwallon was in turn defeated by Oswald of Northumbria

Oswald of Northumbria

Oswald was King of Northumbria from 634 until his death, and is now venerated as a Christian saint.Oswald was the son of Æthelfrith of Bernicia and came to rule after spending a period in exile; after defeating the British ruler Cadwallon ap Cadfan, Oswald brought the two Northumbrian kingdoms of...

in the Battle of Heavenfield

Battle of Heavenfield

The Battle of Heavenfield was fought in 633 or 634 between a Northumbrian army under Oswald of Bernicia and a Welsh army under Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd. The battle resulted in a decisive Northumbrian victory. The Annales Cambriae record the battle as Bellum Cantscaul in 631...

shortly after. Penda again defeated Oswald at the Battle of Maserfield

Battle of Maserfield

The Battle of Maserfield , Welsh: "Maes Cogwy", was fought on August 5, 641 or 642, between the Anglo-Saxon kings Oswald of Northumbria and Penda of Mercia, ending in Oswald's defeat, death, and dismemberment...

in 641, ending in Oswald's death and dismemberment. The outcome of the battle ended "Northumbrian imperialism south of the Humber" and established Penda as the most powerful Mercian ruler so far to have emerged in the midlands and "the most formidable king in England," a position he maintained until his death in the Battle of Winwaed in 655.

Charles Plummer

Charles Plummer

Charles Plummer was an English historian, best known for editing Sir John Fortescue's The Governance of England, and for coining the term 'bastard feudalism'....

, writing in 1896, describes the defeat of Penda as "decisive as to the religious destiny of the English". Bede makes clear, however, that the war between Mercia and Northumbria was not religiously motivated: Penda tolerated the preaching of Christianity in Mercia, even including the baptism of his own heir, and held those reverting to paganism after receiving baptism in despise for their faithlessness. This testament of Penda's religious tolerance is particularly credible, as Bede tends to exaggerate Mercian barbarism in his account of Oswald as a saintly defender of the Christian faith.

After Penda's death, Mercia was converted, and all the kings who ruled thereafter were Christian, including Penda's sons Peada

Peada of Mercia

Peada , a son of Penda, was briefly King of southern Mercia after his father's death in November 655 until his own death in the spring of the next year.In about the year 653 Peada was made king of the Middle Angles by his father...

, who had already been baptized with his father's permission, as the condition set by king Oswiu of Northumbria

Oswiu of Northumbria

Oswiu , also known as Oswy or Oswig , was a King of Bernicia. His father, Æthelfrith of Bernicia, was killed in battle, fighting against Rædwald, King of the East Angles and Edwin of Deira at the River Idle in 616...

for the marriage of his daughter Alchflaed to Peada, to the husband's misfortune, according to Bede, who informs us that Peada was "very wickedly killed" through his wife's treachery "during the very time of celebrating Easter" in 656.

Penda's death in 655 may be taken as marking the decisive decline of paganism in England. Some smaller kingdoms continued to crown openly pagan Kings, but newly Christian Mercia became instrumental in their conversion. In 660 Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

crowned the pagan king Swithhelm. Swithhelm accepted baptism in 662 but his successor Sighere of Essex

Sighere of Essex

Sighere was the joint king of the Kingdom of Essex along with his brother Sebbi from 664 to 683. He was outlived by Sebbi, who became the sole ruler of Essex after his death. Sighere and Sebbi were cousins of their predecessor Swithelm. While Sighere returned to paganism, Sebbi remained...

encouraged a pagan rebellion in 665 that was only suppressed when Wulfhere of Mercia

Wulfhere of Mercia

Wulfhere was King of Mercia from the end of the 650s until 675. He was the first Christian king of all of Mercia, though it is not known when or how he converted from Anglo-Saxon paganism. His accession marked the end of Oswiu of Northumbria's overlordship of southern England, and Wulfhere...

intervened and established himself as overlord of Essex. It is not recorded if Sighere ever accepted baptism but he was forced to marry Wulfhere's Christian niece, who he later divorced.

Æthelwealh of Sussex accepted baptism at the behest of Wulfhere of Mercia

Wulfhere of Mercia

, although the year in unrecorded. In 681 the Bishop Wilfrid

Wilfrid

Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Gaul, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon...

arrived in Sussex to begin preaching to the general population. Bede records that the king had converted "not long previously", but Wulfhere had died in 675. Therefore Æthelwealh's baptism can only be assigned with certainty to Wulfhere's reign of 658-675, although it was probably at the very end of this period.

This left the Isle of Wight as the last openly pagan kingdom. Wulfhere of Mercia

Wulfhere of Mercia

had invaded in 661 and forced the islanders to convert, but as soon as he left they had reverted to paganism. They remained pagan until 686 when they were invaded by Cædwalla of Wessex. The last openly pagan king Arwald

Arwald

Arwald was the last Jutish King of the Isle of Wight and last pagan king in Anglo-Saxon England until the Vikings in the 9th century. His name may have been "Arwald" or "Atwald" - Bede's script is often difficult to read...

was killed in battle defending his kingdom, which was ethnically cleansed and incorporated into the Kingdom of Wessex. His heirs were baptised and then executed.

Cædwalla himself was unbaptised when he invaded the Isle of Wight. But throughout his reign he acted in cooperation with the church and gave the church a quarter of the Isle of the Wight. He abdicated in 688 and traveled to Rome to be baptised in 689.

Wilfrid

Wilfrid

was still converting the Pagan population of Sussex

Sussex

Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...

in 686. In 695 Wessex issued a law code proscribing fines for failing to baptise one's children and for failing to tithe.

By the 8th century, Anglo-Saxon England was at least nominally Christian, the Anglo-Saxon mission

Anglo-Saxon mission

Anglo-Saxon missionaries were instrumental in the spread of Christianity in the Frankish Empire during the 8th century, continuing the work of Hiberno-Scottish missionaries which had been spreading Celtic Christianity across the Frankish Empire as well as in Scotland and Anglo-Saxon England itself...

contributing significantly to the Christianization of the continental Frankish Empire

Frankish Empire

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire , Frankish Kingdom , Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century...

.
Germanic paganism again briefly returned to England in the form of Norse paganism

Norse paganism

Norse paganism is the religious traditions of the Norsemen, a Germanic people living in the Nordic countries. Norse paganism is therefore a subset of Germanic paganism, which was practiced in the lands inhabited by the Germanic tribes across most of Northern and Central Europe in the Viking Age...

, which Norse

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

Vikings from Scandinavia brought to the country in the 9th to 10th century—but it again succumbed to Christianisation. Thus, mention of the Norse "Thor, lord of ogres" is found in a runic charm discovered inserted in the margin of an Anglo-Saxon manuscript from the year 1073.
Polemics against lingering pagan customs continue into the 9th and 10th centuries, e.g. in the Laws of Ælfred (ca. 890), but England was an unambiguously Christian kingdom by the High Medieval period

Anglo-Norman

The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...

Cosmology

Currently, very little is known about the pagan cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

or world view followed by the early Anglo-Saxons. In the Nine Herbs Charm
Nine Herbs Charm
The Nine Herbs Charm is an Old English charm recorded in the 10th century Lacnunga manuscript. The charm is intended for treatment of poison and infection through the preparation of nine herbs. The numbers nine and three are mentioned frequently within the charm and are significant numbers in...

, there is a mention of "seven worlds", which may indicate that the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxons believed in seven realms. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the realm humans live on as Middangeard, (which was cognate to the Old Norse Midgard

Midgard

Midgard is one of the Nine Worlds and is an old Germanic name for our world and is the home of Humans, with the literal meaning "middle enclosure".-Etymology:...

) and also to a realm called Neorxnawang

Neorxnawang

Neorxnawang is an Old English term used to translate the Christian concept of "paradise" in Anglo-Saxon literature...

, corresponding to the Christian idea of Heaven

Heaven

Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

. Whilst these are terms used in a Christian context, some scholars have theorised that they may have originally been used to apply to earlier pagan realms. Similarly, in the Crist
Crist
Christ, in Old English Crist, is the title given to a triad of Old English religious poems in the Exeter Book comprising a total of 1664 lines and dealing with Christ's Advent, Ascension and Last Judgment. It was originally thought to be one piece completed by a single author, but the poem is now...

poem, there is a mention of Earendel, which may have been a name of the morning star, identified in the poem with John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

(who heralds the coming of the Christ as the morning star heralds the Sun). Various scholars, such as Brian Branston and Clive Tolley have suggested that the pagan Anglo-Saxons held a belief in a world tree

World tree

The world tree is a motif present in several religions and mythologies, particularly Indo-European religions, Siberian religions, and Native American religions. The world tree is represented as a colossal tree which supports the heavens, thereby connecting the heavens, the earth, and, through its...

, similar to the Norse concept of Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil

In Norse mythology, Yggdrasil is an immense tree that is central in Norse cosmology. It was said to be the world tree around which the nine worlds existed...

, though there is no solid evidence for this.

The Anglo-Saxon concept corresponding to fate

Destiny

Destiny or fate refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual...

was wyrd
Wyrd
Wyrd is a concept in Anglo-Saxon culture roughly corresponding to fate or personal destiny. The word is ancestral to Modern English weird, which retains its original meaning only dialectally....

, although the "pagan" nature of this conception is subject to some debate; Dorothy Whitelock suggested that it was a belief held only after Christianisation, while Branston maintained that wyrd had been an important concept for the pagan Anglo-Saxons. A description of how the pagan Anglo-Saxons viewed fate, or wyrd and the afterlife

Afterlife

The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...

was given by the Christian monk, the Venerable Bede, who stated that the heathens viewed "life and death as being like the experience of a sparrow who flies out of a freezing night into a warm hall full of feasting and merriment, and then out into the night again".

Deities

Anglo-Saxon paganism was a polytheistic

Polytheism

Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....

faith, worshipping many deities, who were known as ése.
The most popular god appears to have been Woden

Woden

Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....

, as "traces of his cult are scattered more widely over the rolling English countryside than those of any other heathen deity". The importance of Woden can also be seen in the fact that he was euhemerized as an ancestor of the royal houses of Kent, Wessex, East Anglia and Mercia. There are traces of Woden in English folklore

English folklore

and toponymy, where he appears as the leader of the Wild Hunt

Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground,...

and he is referred to as a healer in the Nine Herbs Charm
Nine Herbs Charm
The Nine Herbs Charm is an Old English charm recorded in the 10th century Lacnunga manuscript. The charm is intended for treatment of poison and infection through the preparation of nine herbs. The numbers nine and three are mentioned frequently within the charm and are significant numbers in...

, directly paralleling the role of his continental German parallel Wodan in the Merseburg Incantations

Merseburg Incantations

The Merseburg Incantations are two medieval magic spells, charms or incantations, written in Old High German. They are the only known examples of Germanic pagan belief preserved in this language...

.

The second most widespread deity from Anglo-Saxon England appears to be the god Thunor

Thor

In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...

, who was a god of the sky and thunder and who was "a friend of the common man", in contrast to Woden who was primarily associated with royalty. It has been suggested that the hammer and the swastika

Swastika

The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...

were the god's symbols, representing thunderbolts, and both of these symbols have been found in Anglo-Saxon graves, the latter being common on cremation urns. A third Anglo-Saxon god that we know about was Tiw, who, in the Anglo-Saxon rune poem Tir
Tiwaz rune
The t-rune is named after Týr, and was identified with this god. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *Tîwaz or *Teiwaz.-Rune poems:Tiwaz is mentioned in all three rune poems...

is identified with the star Polaris

Polaris

Polaris |Alpha]] Ursae Minoris, commonly North Star or Pole Star, also Lodestar) is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor. It is very close to the north celestial pole, making it the current northern pole star....

rather than with a deity, although it has been suggested that Tiw was likely a war deity.

Perhaps the most prominent female deity in Anglo-Saxon paganism was Fríge

Frige

*Frijjō is the reconstructed name or epithet of a hypothesized Common Germanic love goddess giving rise to both Frigg and Freyja....

, however there is still very little evidence for her worship, although it has been speculated that she was "a goddess of love or festivity". Another Anglo-Saxon divinity was Frey, who is mentioned in both The Dream of the Rood and a poem by the monk Caedmon, in both of which he is compared to the later Christian god Jesus Christ, indicating that Frey was perhaps a sacrificial deity. The East Saxon

Saxons

The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...

tribe who settled in southern England and formed the kingdom of Essex

Essex

claimed to be the descendents of a god known as Seaxnēat

Seaxneat

In Germanic mythology, Seaxnēat or Saxnōt is a god connected with the Saxons and, as recorded in Anglo-Saxons sources, their founder and ancestor. Seaxnēat appears in the genealogies of the kings of Essex. His name does not survive in any English placenames, although the element nēat in isolation...

, of whom little is known, whilst a runic poem mentions a god known as Ingui and the writer Asser

Asser

Asser was a Welsh monk from St David's, Dyfed, who became Bishop of Sherborne in the 890s. About 885 he was asked by Alfred the Great to leave St David's and join the circle of learned men whom Alfred was recruiting for his court...

mentioned a god known as Gēat

Geat

Geats , and sometimes Goths) were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting what is now Götaland in modern Sweden...

. The Christian monk known as the Venerable Bede also mentioned two further goddesses in his written works; Eostre

Eostre

Old English Ēostre and Old High German Ôstarâ are the names of a Germanic goddess whose Anglo-Saxon month, Ēostur-monath , has given its name to the festival of Easter...

, who was celebrated at a spring festival (Easter), and Hretha

Hretha

Hrêðe is a goddess in Anglo-Saxon paganism connected with the month Hrēdmōnath. Hrêðe is attested solely by Bede in his 8th century work De temporum ratione...

, whose name meant "glory".

Besides the ése, Anglo-Saxons also believed in other supernatural beings or "wight

Wight

Wight is a Middle English word, from Old English wiht, and used to describe a creature or living sentient being. It is akin to Old High German wiht, meaning a creature or thing.In its original usage the word wight described a living human being...

s", such as elves, and household deities, known as Cofgodas

Cofgodas

A Cofgod was an household god in Anglo-Saxon paganism related to the German kobold and equivalent to the Roman penates. It is generally accepted that the English hob and Anglo-Scottish brownie are the modern survival of the cofgod.-References:* "", An Other Dictionary: Tribal English. Accessed 13...

. These guarded a specific household, and were given offerings so they would continue. After Christianisation, the belief in Cofgodas may have survived through the form of the fairy

Fairy

A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...

being known as the Hob

Hob (folklore)

A hob is a type of small mythological household spirit found in the north and midlands of England, but especially on the Anglo-Scottish border, according to traditional folklore of those regions. They could live inside the house or outdoors. They are said to work in farmyards and thus could be...

. Tutelary deities of the household

Household deity

A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in pagan religions as well as in folklore across many parts of the world....

are part of the traditional religions of classical antiquity

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

, such as the Lares

Lares

Lares , archaically Lases, were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries or fruitfulness, hero-ancestors, or an amalgam of these....

of ancient Roman religion

Religion in ancient Rome

Religion in ancient Rome encompassed the religious beliefs and cult practices regarded by the Romans as indigenous and central to their identity as a people, as well as the various and many cults imported from other peoples brought under Roman rule. Romans thus offered cult to innumerable deities...

and the Agathodaemon

Agathodaemon

In ancient Greek religion, Agathos Daimon or Agathodaemon was a daemon or presiding spirit of the vineyards and grainfields and a personal companion spirit, similar to the Roman genius, ensuring good luck, health, and wisdom....

of ancient Greek religion

Ancient Greek religion

Greek religion encompasses the collection of beliefs and rituals practiced in ancient Greece in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. These different groups varied enough for it to be possible to speak of Greek religions or "cults" in the plural, though most of them shared...

.

In Anglo-Saxon England, elves (aelfe) were viewed as malevolent beings who could bring harm to humans. In the 10th century Metrical Charm

Anglo-Saxon Metrical Charms

Twelve Metrical Charms survive in Old English, in two medieval manuscripts, Bald's Leechbook and Lacnunga . They are:*Æcerbot*Against a Dwarf*Against a Wen*A Journey Charm*For a Swarm of Bees...

"Against A Sudden Stitch" (Wið færstice

Wið færstice

Wið færstice is an Old English medical text composed in, surviving in the collection known now as Lacnunga. Wið færstice means 'against a sudden/violent stabbing pain'; scholars have often sought to identify this as rheumatism, but other possibilities should not be excluded. The remedy describes...

), it states that various forms of sickness, such as rheumatism

Rheumatism

Rheumatism or rheumatic disorder is a non-specific term for medical problems affecting the joints and connective tissue. The study of, and therapeutic interventions in, such disorders is called rheumatology.-Terminology:...

, could be induced by "elfshot" - arrows fired by elves. They were believed to possess a type of magic

Magic (paranormal)

Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...

known as siden. Alongside the elves, other supernatural beings included dwarves (or dweorgas), ettins (or eoten) and dragons.. 'Etaynes' (ettins) and 'wodwos' (wood wos / wildmen) appear in Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, and these are potentially remnants of Anglo-Saxon belief. The name 'ettin' roughly translates as 'devourer' (eaten / eater) and is cognate with Jotun in Norse mythos. Another important figure in Anglo-Saxon belief appears to be 'thurse' (giant/ogre/monster), given the large number of place-names and folk-stories associated with derived forms (AS *hobbe-thurse: hobthurse, hobthrush, hobtrash, gytrash, trash etc). Forms of dwarf (dwerrow, dwerger, dweorgas etc) are not as well supported in the nomenclature of the English countryside implying that 'dwarfs' were not as widely a held customary belief, however 'bug-' (bugbear, bugaboo, scare-bug etc) and '-mare' (woodmare, nightmare) appear to be better supported and are potentially derived from Anglo-Saxon words. The name 'hob' remains contentious, with the accepted meaning 'diminutive of Robert' sitting uncomfortably with the large number of apparently old 'hob-' placenames (hobhole, hobdell, hobgate etc) in England.

Legend and poetry

In pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England, legends and other stories were transmitted orally instead of being written down - it is for this reason that very few survive to us today. After Christianisation however, certain poems were indeed written down, with surviving examples including the Nine Herbs Charm, The Dream of the Rood, Waldere
Waldere
Waldere or Waldhere is the conventional title given to two Old English fragments from a lost epic poem, discovered in 1860 by E. C. Werlauff, Librarian, in the Danish Royal Library at Copenhagen, where it is still preserved. The parchment pages had been reused as stiffening in the binding of an...

and most notably Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

. Whilst these contain many Christianised elements, there were certain mentions of earlier pagan deities and practices contained within them.

One of the most prominent surviving myths of the pagan Anglo-Saxons was that of the brothers Hengest and Horsa, who are named in historical sources as leaders of the earliest Anglo-Saxon incursions in the south of Britain. The name Hengest

Hengest

Hengist and Horsa are figures of Anglo-Saxon, and subsequently British, legend, which records the two as the Germanic brothers who led the Angle, Saxon, and Jutish armies that conquered the first territories of Great Britain in the 5th century AD...

means "stallion

Stallion (horse)

A stallion is a male horse that has not been gelded .Stallions will follow the conformation and phenotype of their breed, but within that standard, the presence of hormones such as testosterone may give stallions a thicker, "cresty" neck, as well as a somewhat more muscular physique as compared to...

" and Horsa means "horse", reminiscent of the horse sacrifice

Horse sacrifice

Many Indo-European religious branches show evidence for horse sacrifice, and comparative mythology suggests that they derive from a Proto-Indo-European ritual.-Context:...

connected to the inauguration of pagan kings. Another important mythological figure is Weyland the smith, a figure who also appeared in other forms of Germanic mythology. An image of Weyland adorns the Franks Casket

Franks Casket

, an Anglo-Saxon royal hoard box and was meant there to refer to wealth and partnership.

The only surviving Anglo-Saxon epic poem is the story of Beowulf
Beowulf
Beowulf , but modern scholars agree in naming it after the hero whose life is its subject." of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.It survives in a single...

, known only from a surviving manuscript that was written down by a Christian monk sometime between the eighth and eleventh centuries AD. The story it tells is set not in England but in Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

, and revolves around a Geat

Geat

Geats , and sometimes Goths) were a North Germanic tribe inhabiting what is now Götaland in modern Sweden...

ish warrior named Beowulf

Beowulf (hero)

Beowulf is a legendary Geatish hero and later turned king in the epic poem named after him, one of the oldest surviving pieces of literature in the English language.-Etymology and origins of the character:...

who travels to Denmark to defeat a monster known as Grendel

Grendel

Grendel is one of three antagonists, along with Grendel's mother and the dragon, in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf . Grendel is usually depicted as a monster, though this is the subject of scholarly debate. In the poem, Grendel is feared by all but Beowulf.-Story:The poem Beowulf is contained in...

who is terrorising the kingdom of Hrothgar, and later, Grendel's Mother

Grendel's mother

Grendel's mother is one of three antagonists in the work of Old English literature of anonymous authorship, Beowulf . She is never given a name in the text....

as well. Following this, he later becomes the king of Geatland before finally dying in battle with a dragon. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it was commonly believed that Beowulf was not an Anglo-Saxon pagan tale, but a Scandinavian Christian one; it was not until the influential critical essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics
Beowulf: the monsters and the critics
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" was a 1936 lecture given by J. R. R. Tolkien on literary criticism on the Old English heroic epic poem Beowulf...

by J.R.R. Tolkien, delivered in 1936, that Beowulf was established as a quintessentially English poem that, while Christian, looked back on a living memory of paganism. Nonetheless, some academics still hold reservations about accepting it as containing information pertaining to Anglo-Saxon paganism, with Patrick Wormald

Patrick Wormald

Charles Patrick Wormald was a British historian born in Neston, Cheshire, son of historian Brian Wormald.He attended Eton College as a King's Scholar...

noting that "vast reserves of intellectual energy have been devoted to threshing this poem for grains of authentic pagan belief, but it must be admitted that the harvest has been meagre. The poet may have known that his heroes were pagans, but he did not know much about paganism."

Cultic practice

As archaeologist Sarah Semple noted, "the rituals [of the early Anglo-Saxons] involved the full pre-Christian repertoire: votive deposits, furnished burial, monumental mounds, sacred natural phenomenon and eventually constructed pillars, shrines and temples", thereby having many commonalities with other pre-Christian religions in Europe.

Places of worship

The pagan Anglo-Saxons worshipped at a variety of different sites across their landscape, some of which were apparently specially built temple

Heathen hofs

Heathen hofs or Germanic pagan temples were the temple buildings of Germanic paganism; there are also a few built for use in modern Germanic neopaganism...

s and others that were natural geographical features such as sacred trees

Vörðr

In Norse mythology, a vörðr is a warden spirit, believed to follow from birth to death the soul of every person. In Old Swedish, the corresponding word is varþer; in modern Swedish vård, and the belief in them remained strong in Scandinavian folklore up until the last centuries...

, hilltops or wells. According to place name evidence, these sites of worship were known alternately as either hearg
Hörgr
A hörgr or hearg was a type of religious building or altar possibly consisting of a heap of stones, used in Norse paganism...

or as wēoh
Vé (shrine)
In Germanic paganism, a vé or wēoh is a type of shrine or sacred enclosure. The term appears in skaldic poetry and in place names in Scandinavia , often in connection with a Norse deity or a geographic feature. The name of the Norse god Vé, refers to the practice...

, and it was widely assumed by nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars that these two terms were synonyms that could be used interchangeably. However, in the latter part of the twentieth century, some etymologists

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...

began to theorise that the two words actually had different meanings. Archaeologist David Wilson

David M. Wilson

Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, Kt is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. He lives on the Isle of Man....

stated that hearg "may" refer to "a special type of religious site, one that occupied a prominent position on high land and was a communal place of worship for a specific group of people, a tribe or folk group, perhaps at particular times of the year" whilst wēoh sites, the majority of which appeared to be "situated very close to ancient route ways", were instead more "likely... small, wayside shrine[s], accessible to the traveller."

Each of these hearg may have been devoted to a specific deity, for instance, in several cases, a grove of trees

Sacred grove

A sacred grove is a grove of trees of special religious importance to a particular culture. Sacred groves were most prominent in the Ancient Near East and prehistoric Europe, but feature in various cultures throughout the world...

was devoted to just one god, as can be seen from the town of Thundersley

Thundersley

Thundersley is a district in the north west of the Castle Point Borough, in south east Essex, England, about 35 miles east of London.-Toponymy:...

(from Thunor's Grove), which was devoted to the god Thunor. Popular historian Thor Ewing suggested that some of these sites were not dedicated to a well known deity, but simply to a local animistic

Animism

Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....

one, who was believed to inhabit that very spot.

The pagan Anglo-Saxons built temples to worship their gods, which were "wooden-framed" and contained "an altar and a likeness of one or more gods". Some have suggested that sometimes these temples were built alongside pre-existing sacred sites in the landscape, and indeed, "ancient remains in the landscape held a significant place in the Anglo-Saxon mind as part of a wider, numinous, spiritual and resonant landscape". These temples are mentioned in various later Anglo-Saxon texts, most of which discuss them in reference to their Christianization. Pope Gregory the Great, who was head of the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

during much of the Christianization of England, variously suggested both that the temples should be sprinkled with holy water

Holy water

Holy water is water that, in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and some other churches, has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects; or as a means of repelling evil.The use for baptism and...

and converted into churches, or that they should be destroyed. According to Bede, it was this latter advice that was taken up by Coifi

Coifi

Coifi or Cofi was the priest of the temple at Goodmanham in Northumbria in 627.Bede's description of Coifi is that of the chief of priests in Northumbria; the fact that he is the chief priest suggests that there was some sort of organised pagan priesthood in existence during Coifi's time...

, an influential English pagan priest for King Edwin of Northumbria

Edwin of Northumbria

, who after being converted to Christianity, cast a spear into the temple at Goodmanham

Goodmanham

Goodmanham is a small village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated approximately to the north-east of Market Weighton...

and then burned it to the ground. These occasional literary references to Anglo-Saxon temples are accompanied by some limited archaeological evidence. The best known example of this is a room, known by excavators as D2, which was a part of the royal complex at Yeavering

Yeavering

Yeavering is a very small hamlet in the north-east corner of the civil parish of Kirknewton in the English county of Northumberland. It is located on the River Glen at the northern edge of the Cheviot Hills...

in Northumberland

Northumberland

Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...

, and which has been widely interpreted as a temple room, for it contained buried oxen skulls, two postholes that have been interpreted as holding idols, and no evidence of domestic usage. Other possible temples or shrine buildings have been identified by archaeological investigation as existing within such Anglo-Saxon cemeteries as Lyminge

Lyminge

Lyminge is a village in southeast Kent, England. It lies about five miles from Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel, on the road passing through the Elham Valley. The Nailbourne stream begins in the village and flows north through the Valley, to become one of the tributary streams of the Great Stour...

in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

and Bishopstone

Bishopstone, East Sussex

Bishopstone is a hamlet with a population of about 200 people, located along a dead-end road west of Seaford, East Sussex. Bishopstone was an episcopal manor: hence its name meaning "dwelling place of the bishop". The church, dedicated to Saint Andrew, is thought to date from the 8th century, and...

in Sussex

Sussex

. Although Pope Gregory had promoted the idea, as of yet, no archaeological investigation has found any firm evidence of churches being built on top of earlier pagan temples in England. Nonetheless, as archaeologist David Wilson

David M. Wilson

Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, Kt is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. He lives on the Isle of Man....

noted, this is "hardly surprising" due to "the making of crypt

Crypt

In architecture, a crypt is a stone chamber or vault beneath the floor of a burial vault possibly containing sarcophagi, coffins or relics....

s and the general rebuilding of churches over the centuries," which would likely destroy any earlier pagan foundations.

Sacrifice

The pagan Anglo-Saxons performed animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practised by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature...

in honour of the gods. It appears that they emphasised the killing of oxen over other species, as suggested by both written and archaeological evidence. Sacrifice itself was not only found in Anglo-Saxon paganism, but was also common in other Germanic pagan religions, for instance the Norse practised a blood sacrifice known as Blót
Blót
The blót was Norse pagan sacrifice to the Norse gods and the spirits of the land. The sacrifice often took the form of a sacramental meal or feast. Related religious practices were performed by other Germanic peoples, such as the pagan Anglo-Saxons...

. The Christian monk Bede

Bede

Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

records that November (Old English Blótmónaþ "the month of sacrifice") was particularly associated with sacrificial practices:

Bede's original Old English:

Se mónaþ is nemned on Léden Novembris, and on úre geþeóde blótmónaþ, forðon úre yldran, ðá hý hǽðene wǽron, on ðam mónþe hý bleóton á, ðæt is, ðæt hý betǽhton and benémdon hyra deófolgyldum ða neát ða ðe hý woldon syllan.

Modern English translation:

"This month is called Novembris in Latin, and in our language the month of sacrifice, because our forefathers, when they were heathens, always sacrificed in this month, that is, that they took and devoted to their idols the cattle which they wished to offer."

There are several cases where animal remains were buried in what appears to be ritualistic conditions, for instance at Frilford, Berkshire, a pig or boar's head was buried with six flat stones and two Roman-era tiles then placed on top, whilst at an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Soham, Cambridgeshire, an oxe's head was buried with the muzzle facing down. Archaeologist David Wilson

David M. Wilson

Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, Kt is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. He lives on the Isle of Man....

stated that these may be "evidence of sacrifices to a pagan god."

Many Germanic peoples are recorded as conducting human sacrifice

Human sacrifice

Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...

, yet there is no firm evidence the Anglo-Saxons had such a practice, though there is speculation that twenty three of the bodies at the Sutton Hoo

Sutton Hoo

Sutton Hoo, near to Woodbridge, in the English county of Suffolk, is the site of two 6th and early 7th century cemeteries. One contained an undisturbed ship burial including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance, now held in the British...

burial site were sacrificial victims clustered around a sacred tree from which they had been hanged. Alongside this, some have suggested that the corpse of an Anglo-Saxon woman found at Sewerby

Sewerby

Sewerby is a village in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England approximately north east of Bridlington on the North Sea coast.Sewerby forms part of the civil parish of Bridlington....

on the Yorkshire Wolds

Yorkshire Wolds

The Yorkshire Wolds are low hills in the counties of East Riding of Yorkshire and North Yorkshire in northeastern England. The name also applies to the district in which the hills lie....

suggested that she had been buried alive alongside a nobleman, possibly as a sacrifice, or to accompany him to the afterlife.

Funerary rites

One of the aspects of Anglo-Saxon paganism that we know most about is their burial customs, which we have discovered from archaeological excavations at various sites, including Sutton Hoo

Sutton Hoo

, Spong Hill

Spong Hill

Spong Hill is an Anglo-Saxon cemetery site located at North Elmham in Norfolk, England. The largest Early Anglo-Saxon burial site ever excavated, it contains within it 2259 cremations and 57 inhumations. The site at Spong Hill consisted of two cemeteries, a large cremation cemetery and a smaller,...

, Prittlewell

Royal saxon tomb in Prittlewell

The Royal Saxon tomb in Prittlewell is a high-status Anglo-Saxon tomb excavated at Prittlewell, north of Southend-on-Sea, in the English county of Essex....

, Snape

Snape boat grave

The Snape ship burial is a 6th century boat grave found at Snape Common, near Aldeburgh in Suffolk, East Anglia.-History:This was the first boat grave of its kind discovered in England , and foreshadowed the discovery of the two large ship burials, one of them...

and Walkington Wold

Walkington Wold Burials

The Walkington Wold burials in the East Riding of Yorkshire are the skeletal remains of 13 individuals from the Anglo-Saxon period, discovered in the late 1960s...

, and we today know of the existence of around 1200 Anglo-Saxon pagan cemeteries. There was no set form of burial amongst the pagan Anglo-Saxons, with cremation

Cremation

Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....

being preferred amongst the Angles

Angles

The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...

in the north and inhumation amongst the Saxons

Saxons

in the south, although both forms were found throughout England, sometimes in the same cemeteries. When cremation did take place, the ashes were usually placed within an urn and then buried, sometimes along with grave goods

Grave goods

Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are the items buried along with the body.They are usually personal possessions, supplies to smooth the deceased's journey into the afterlife or offerings to the gods. Grave goods are a type of votive deposit...

. According to archaeologist Dave Wilson, "the usual orientation for an inhumation in a pagan Anglo-Saxon cemetery was west-east, with the head to the west, although there were often deviations from this." Indicating a possible religious belief, grave goods were common amongst inhumation burials as well as cremations; free Anglo-Saxon men were buried with at least one weapon in the pagan tradition, often a seax

Seax

Seax in Old English means knife or cutting tool. The name of the roofer's tool, the zax, is a development from this word...

, but sometimes also with a spear

Migration Period spear

The spear together with the sword, the longsax and the shield was the main equipment of the Germanic warriors during the Migration period and the Early Middle Ages.-Terminology:...

, sword

Migration Period sword

Swords of the Migration Period show a transition from the Roman era Spatha to the "Viking sword" types of the Early Middle Ages....

or shield, or a combination of these. There are also a number of recorded cases of parts of non-human animals being buried within such graves. Most common amongst these was body parts belonging to either goats or sheep, although parts of oxen were also relatively common, and there are also isolated cases of goose

Goose

The word goose is the English name for a group of waterfowl, belonging to the family Anatidae. This family also includes swans, most of which are larger than true geese, and ducks, which are smaller....

, crab apples, duck eggs and hazelnuts being buried in graves. It is widely thought therefore that such items constituted a food source for the deceased. In some cases, animal skulls, particularly oxen but also pig, were buried in human graves, a practice that was also found in earlier Roman Britain

Roman Britain

Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...

.

Certain Anglo-Saxon burials appeared to have ritualistic elements to them, implying that a religious rite was performed over them during the funeral. Whilst there are many multiple burials, where more than one corpse was found in a single grave, that date from the Anglo-Saxon period, there is "a small group of such burials where an interpretation involving ritual practices may be possible". For instance, at Welbeck Hill in Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire

Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, and the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north. It also borders...

, the corpse of a decapitated woman was placed in reverse on top of the body of an old man, whilst in a number of other similar examples, female bodies were again placed above those of men. This has led some archaeologists to suspect a form of suttee, where the female was the spouse of the male, and was killed to accompany him upon death. Other theories hold that the females were slaves who were viewed as the property of the men, and who were again killed to accompany their master. Similarly, four Anglo-Saxon burials have been excavated where it appears that the individual was buried whilst still alive, which could imply that this was a part of either a religious rite or as a form of punishment. There are also many cases where corpses have been found decapitated, for instance, at a mass grave in Thetford

Thetford

Thetford is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland district of Norfolk, England. It is on the A11 road between Norwich and London, just south of Thetford Forest. The civil parish, covering an area of , has a population of 21,588.-History:...

, Norfolk

Norfolk

Norfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...

, fifty beheaded individuals were discovered, their heads possibly having been taken as trophies of war. In other cases of decapitation it seems possible that it was evidence of religious ritual (presumably human sacrifice

Human sacrifice

) or execution.

Archaeological investigation has displayed that structures or buildings were built inside a number of pagan cemeteries, and as David Wilson noted, "The evidence, then, from cemetery excavations is suggestive of small structures and features, some of which may perhaps be interpreted as shrines or sacred areas". In some cases, there is evidence of far smaller structures being built around or alongside individual graves, implying possible small shrines to the dead individual or individuals buried there.

Eventually, in the sixth and seventh centuries, the idea of burial mounds began to appear in Anglo-Saxon England, and in certain cases earlier burial mounds from the Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

, Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

, Iron Age

Iron Age

and Romano-British

Roman Britain

periods were simply reused by the Anglo-Saxons. It is not known why they adopted this practice, but it may be from the practices of the native Britons. Burial mounds remained objects of veneration in early Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and numerous churches were built next to tumuli. Another form of burial was that of ship burial

Ship burial

A ship burial or boat grave is a burial in which a ship or boat is used either as a container for the dead and the grave goods, or as a part of the grave goods itself. If the ship is very small, it is called a boat grave...

s, which were practiced by many of the Germanic peoples across northern Europe. In many cases it seems that the corpse was placed in a ship that was either sent out to sea or left on land, but in both cases burned. In Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

however, ships were not burned, but buried, as is the case at Sutton Hoo, which it is believed, was the resting place of the king of the East Angles, Raedwald. Both ship and tumulus burials were described in the Beowulf poem, through the funerals of Scyld Scefing and Beowulf

Beowulf (hero)

respectively.

Festivals

Everything that we know about the religious festival

Religious festival

A religious festival is a time of special importance marked by adherents to that religion. Religious festivals are commonly celebrated on recurring cycles in a calendar year or lunar calendar...

s of the pagan Anglo-Saxons comes from a book written by the Christian monk, the Venerable Bede, entitled De temporum ratione
De temporum ratione
The Reckoning of Time is an Anglo-Saxon era treatise written in Latin by the Northumbrian monk Bede in 725. The treatise includes an introduction to the traditional ancient and medieval view of the cosmos, including an explanation of how the spherical earth influenced the changing length of...

, meaning The Reckoning of Time, in which he described the calendar of the year. The pagan Anglo-Saxons followed a calendar with twelve lunar months, with the occasional year having thirteen months so that the lunar and solar alignment could be corrected. Bede claimed that the greatest pagan festival was Modraniht
Yule
Yule or Yuletide is a winter festival that was initially celebrated by the historical Germanic people as a pagan religious festival, though it was later absorbed into, and equated with, the Christian festival of Christmas. The festival was originally celebrated from late December to early January...

(meaning Mother Night), which was situated at the Winter solstice

Winter solstice

Winter solstice may refer to:* Winter solstice, astronomical event* Winter Solstice , former band* Winter Solstice: North , seasonal songs* Winter Solstice , 2005 American film...

, which marked the start of the Anglo-Saxon year.

Following this festival, in the month of Solmonað (February), Bede claims that the pagans offered cakes to their deities. Then, in Eostur-monath Aprilis
Germanic calendar
The Germanic calendars were the regional calendars used amongst the early Germanic peoples, prior to the adoption of the Julian calendar in the Early Middle Ages....

(April), a spring festival was celebrated, dedicated to the goddess Eostre

Eostre

Old English Ēostre and Old High German Ôstarâ are the names of a Germanic goddess whose Anglo-Saxon month, Ēostur-monath , has given its name to the festival of Easter...

, and the later Christian festival of Easter

Easter

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

took its name from this month and its goddess. The month of September was known as Halegmonath, meaning Holy Month, which may indicate that it had special religious significance. The month of November was known as Blod-Monath, meaning Blood Month, and was commemorated with animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice

Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practised by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature...

, both in offering to the gods, and also likely to gather a source of food to be stored over the winter.

Remarking on Bede's account of the Anglo-Saxon year, the historian Brian Branston noted that they "show us a people who of necessity fitted closely into the pattern of the changing year, who were of the earth and what grows in it" and that they were "in fact, a people who were in a symbiotic relationship with mother earth and father sky".

Ritual drinking

In Anglo-Saxon England, a feudal lord would organise a banquet known as a symbel
Symbel
Symbel and sumbl 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"....

for his retainers, whether they be Christian or pagan. Paul C. Bauschatz, in 1976, suggested that the term reflects a specifically pagan ritual that had a "great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people." Bauschatz' lead is followed only sporadically in contemporary scholarship, but his interpretation has inspired drinking-rituals in Germanic neopaganism

Germanic neopaganism

Germanic neopaganism is the contemporary revival of historical Germanic paganism. Precursor movements appeared in the early 20th century in Germany and Austria. A second wave of revival began in the early 1970s...

.

Regardless of its possible religious connotations, the symbel

Symbel

Symbel and sumbl 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"....

had a central function in maintaining hierarchy and allegiance in Anglo-Saxon warrior society. The symbel takes place in the chieftain's mead hall

Mead hall

In ancient Scandinavia and Germanic Europe a mead hall or feasting hall was initially simply a large building with a single room. From the fifth century to early medieval times such a building was the residence of a lord and his retainers. The mead hall was generally the great hall of the king...

. It involved drinking ale

Ale

Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast. The yeast will ferment the beer quickly, giving it a sweet, full bodied and fruity taste...

or mead

Mead

Mead , also called honey wine, is an alcoholic beverage that is produced by fermenting a solution of honey and water. It may also be produced by fermenting a solution of water and honey with grain mash, which is strained immediately after fermentation...

from a drinking horn

Drinking horn

A drinking horn is the horn of a bovid used as a drinking vessel. Drinking horns are known from Classical Antiquity especially in Thrace and the Balkans, and remained in use for ceremonial purposes throughout the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period in some parts of Europe, notably in Germanic...

, 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.

Symbolism

Various recurring symbols appear on certain pagan Anglo-Saxon artefacts, in particular on grave goods. Most notable amongst these was the swastika

Swastika

, which was widely inscribed on crematory urns and also on various brooches and other forms of (often female) jewellery as well as on certain pieces of ceremonial weaponry. The archaeologist David Wilson remarked that this "undoubtedly had special importance for the Anglo-Saxons, either magical or religious, or both. It seems very likely that it was the symbol of the thunder god Thunor, and when found on weapons or military gear its purpose would be to provide protection and success in battle." He also noted however that its widespread usage might have led to it becoming "a purely decorative device with no real symbolic importance." Another symbol that has appeared on several pagan artefacts from this period was the rune , which represented the letter T and is associated with the god Tiw.

Magic and witchcraft

Anglo-Saxon pagans believed in magic

Magic (paranormal)

and witchcraft

Witchcraft

Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...

. There are various Old English terms for "witch", including hægtesse "witch, fury", whence Modern English hag
Hag
A hag is a wizened old woman, or a kind of fairy or goddess having the appearance of such a woman, often found in folklore and children's tales such as Hansel and Gretel. Hags are often seen as malevolent, but may also be one of the chosen forms of shapeshifting deities, such as the Morrígan or...

, wicca
Witch (etymology)
The word witch derives from the Old English nouns wicca "sorcerer, wizard" and wicce "sorceress, witch". The word's further origins in Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European are unclear.-Germanic etymology:...

, gealdricge, scinlæce and hellrúne. The belief in witchcraft was suppressed in the 9th to 10th century as is evident e.g. from the Laws of Ælfred (ca. 890).

The Christian authorities attempted to stamp out a belief and practice in witchcraft, with Theodore

Theodore of Tarsus

Theodore was the eighth Archbishop of Canterbury, best known for his reform of the English Church and establishment of a school in Canterbury....

's Penitential condemning "those that consult divinations and use them in the pagan manner, or that permit people of that kind into their houses to seek some knowledge". Similarly, in the Disciplus Umbrensium, it condemns those "who observe auguries, omens or dreams or any other prophecies after the manner of the pagans".

The word wiccan "witches" is associated with animistic healing rites in Halitgar

Halitgar

Halitgar was a ninth-century bishop of Cambrai . He is known also as an apostle to the Danes, and the writer of a widely-known penitential.-Life:...

's Latin Penitential where it is stated that:

Some men are so blind that they bring their offering to earth-fast stone and also to trees and to wellsprings, as the witches teach, and are unwilling to understand how stupidly they do or how that dead stone or that dumb tree might help them or give forth health when they themselves are never able to stir from their place.

The phrase swa wiccan tæcaþ ("as the witches teach") seems to be an addition to Halitgar's original, added by an eleventh century Old English translator.

The pagan Anglo-Saxons also appeared to wear amulet

Amulet

An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...

s, and there are many cases where corpses were buried with them. As David Wilson

David M. Wilson

Sir David Mackenzie Wilson, Kt is a British archaeologist, art historian, and museum curator, specialising in Anglo-Saxon art and the Viking Age. He lives on the Isle of Man....

noted, "To the early [Anglo-]Saxons, they were part and parcel of the supernatural

Supernatural

The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...

that made up their world of 'belief', although occupying the shadowy dividing area between superstition and religion, if indeed such a division actually existed." One of the most notable amulets found in Anglo-Saxon graves is the cowrie shell, which has been often interpreted by modern academics as having been a fertility

Fertility

Fertility is the natural capability of producing offsprings. As a measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population. Fertility differs from fecundity, which is defined as the potential for reproduction...

symbol due to its physical resemblance to the vagina

Vagina

The vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...

and the fact that it was most commonly found in female graves. Not being native to British seas, the cowrie shells had to have been brought to England by traders who had come all the way from the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. Animal teeth were also used as amulets by the pagan Anglo-Saxons, and many examples have been found that had formerly belonged to boar

Boar

Wild boar, also wild pig, is a species of the pig genus Sus, part of the biological family Suidae. The species includes many subspecies. It is the wild ancestor of the domestic pig, an animal with which it freely hybridises...

, beaver

Beaver

The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...

, and in some cases even humans. Other amulets included items such as amethyst

Amethyst

Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz often used in jewelry. The name comes from the Ancient Greek ἀ a- and μέθυστος methustos , a reference to the belief that the stone protected its owner from drunkenness; the ancient Greeks and Romans wore amethyst and made drinking vessels of it in the belief...

and amber

Amber

Amber is fossilized tree resin , which has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic times. Amber is used as an ingredient in perfumes, as a healing agent in folk medicine, and as jewelry. There are five classes of amber, defined on the basis of their chemical constituents...

beads, pieces of quartz

Quartz

Quartz is the second-most-abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust, after feldspar. It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO2. There are many different varieties of quartz,...

or iron pyrite, worked

Stone tool

A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, particularly Stone Age cultures that have become extinct...

and unworked flint, pre-Anglo-Saxon coinage and fossils, and from their distribution in graves, it has been stated that in Anglo-Saxon pagan society, "amulets [were] very much more the preserve of women than men".

Pagan society

Germanic pagan society was structured hierarchically, under a tribal chieftain or cyning ("king") who at the same time acted as military leader, high judge and high priest. The tribe was bound together by a code of customary proper behaviour or sidu regulating the contracts (ǽ) and conflicts between the individual families or sibbs within the tribe. The aristocratic society arrayed below the king included the ranks of ealdorman
Ealdorman
An ealdorman is the term used for a high-ranking royal official and prior magistrate of an Anglo-Saxon shire or group of shires from about the ninth century to the time of King Cnut...

, thegn
Thegn
The term thegn , from OE þegn, ðegn "servant, attendant, retainer", is commonly used to describe either an aristocratic retainer of a king or nobleman in Anglo-Saxon England, or as a class term, the majority of the aristocracy below the ranks of ealdormen and high-reeves...

, heah-gerefa
High-reeve
High-reeve was a title taken by some English magnates during the 10th and 11th-centuries, and is particularly associated with the rulers of Bamburgh. It was not however only used by rulers of Bamburgh...

and gerefa
Reeve (England)
Originally in Anglo-Saxon England the reeve was a senior official with local responsibilities under the Crown e.g. as the chief magistrate of a town or district...

. An eorl
Earl
An earl is a member of the nobility. The title is Anglo-Saxon, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, and meant "chieftain", particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king's stead. In Scandinavia, it became obsolete in the Middle Ages and was replaced with duke...

was a man of rank, as opposed to the ordinary freeman, known as ceorl
Churl
A churl , in its earliest Old English meaning, was simply "a man", but the word soon came to mean "a non-servile peasant", still spelt ċeorl, and denoting the lowest rank of freemen...

. Free men were also a part of a hierarchy, with at least three different ranks (reflected in different amounts of weregild

Weregild

Weregild was a value placed on every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code...

due for individuals of different ranks), although all free men had the right to participate in things (folkmoots). Germanic pagan society practiced slavery

Slavery

Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, and such slaves or unfree serfs were known as esne, and later also as theows.

Offices at the court included that of the thyle
Thyle
A Thyle, was a position of the court associated with Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon royalty and chieftains in the Early Middle Ages with the duty of determining truth of public statements.. Most literary references are found in Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon literature like the Hávamál, where Odin...

and the scop
Scop
A ' was an Old English poet, the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of the Old Norse .As far as we can tell from what has been preserved, the art of the scop was directed mostly towards epic poetry; the surviving verse in Old English consists of the epic Beowulf, religious verse in epic formats such as the...

. The title of hlaford ("lord

Lord

Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...

") denoted the head of any household in origin and expressed the relation to allegiance between a follower and his leader. Early Anglo-Saxon warfare

Anglo-Saxon warfare

The period of Anglo-Saxon warfare spans the 5th Century AD to the 11th in England. Its technology and tactics resemble those of other European cultural areas of the Early Middle Ages, although the Anglo-Saxons, unlike the Continental German tribes such as the Franks and the Goths, do not appear to...

had many aspects of endemic warfare

Endemic warfare

Endemic warfare is the state of continual, low-threshold warfare in a tribal warrior society. Endemic warfare is often highly ritualized and plays an important function in assisting the formation of a social structure among the tribes' men by proving themselves in battle.Ritual fighting permits...

typical of tribal warrior societies. It was based on retainers bound by oath

Oath

An oath is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow...

to fight for their lords who in turn were obliged to show generosity to their followers.

Kingship

The pagan Anglo-Saxons inherited the common Germanic institution of sacral kingship. A king (cyning) was elected

Elective monarchy

An elective monarchy is a monarchy ruled by an elected rather than hereditary monarch. The manner of election, the nature of the candidacy and the electors vary from case to case...

from among eligible members of a royal family or cynn by the witena gemōt
Witenagemot
The Witenagemot , also known as the Witan was a political institution in Anglo-Saxon England which operated from before the 7th century until the 11th century.The Witenagemot was an assembly of the ruling class whose primary function was to advise the king and whose membership was...

, an assembly of an elite that replaced the earlier folkmoot, which was the equivalent of the Germanic thing, the assembly of all free men. Tribal kingship came to an end in the 9th century with the hegemony of Wessex

Wessex

The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...

culminating in a unified kingdom of England

Kingdom of England

The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...

by the 10th century. The cult of kingship was central to pagan Anglo-Saxon society. The king was equivalent to the position of high priest. By his divine descent he represented or indeed was the "luck" of the people

Folk

The English word Folk is derived from a Germanic noun, *fulka meaning "people" or "army"...

. The central importance of the institution of kingship is illustrated by the twenty-six synonyms for "king" employed by the Beowulf poet.

The title of Bretwalda
Bretwalda
Bretwalda is an Old English word, the first record of which comes from the late 9th century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. It is given to some of the rulers of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms from the 5th century onwards who had achieved overlordship of some or all of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms...

appears to have conveyed the status of some sort of formal or ceremonial overlordship over Britain, but it is uncertain whether it predates the 9th century, and if it does, what, if any, prerogatives it carried. Patrick Wormald

Patrick Wormald

Charles Patrick Wormald was a British historian born in Neston, Cheshire, son of historian Brian Wormald.He attended Eton College as a King's Scholar...

interprets it as "less an objectively realized office than a subjectively perceived status" and emphasizes the partiality of its usage in favour of Southumbrian kings.

Many Anglo-Saxon pagan kings made the claim that they were the semi-divine descendants of Woden

Woden

Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....

, an idea that was transformed after Christianisation into the idea of the Divine Right

Divine Right of Kings

The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...

of Christian monarchs ruling By the Grace of God

By the Grace of God

By the Grace of God is an introductory part of the full styles of a monarch taken to be ruling by divine right, not a title in its own right....

(Dei Gratia).

Law

Records of Anglo-Saxon law codes dating to the 7th century have survived, the first being the Law of Æthelberht

Law of Æthelberht

The Law of Æthelberht is a set of legal provisions written in Old English, probably dating to the early 7th century. It originates in the kingdom of Kent, and is the first Germanic-language law code...

, attributed to Æthelberht of Kent (c. 602 AD), then later codes by Hlothhære and Eadric of Kent, and by Ine of Wessex

Ine of Wessex

Ine was King of Wessex from 688 to 726. He was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor, Cædwalla, who had brought much of southern England under his control and expanded West Saxon territory substantially...

(c. 694 AD). Other codes survive from the 8th to 9th centuries, notably the Laws of Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great

Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...

, dating to the 890s.

These law codes contain laws particular to the Church, including the churchfrith offering protection to a wanted criminal within a church building. The secular portions of the laws nevertheless clearly record tribal laws of the pagan period.
Characteristic are its prescriptions of compensation payments or bots, including a weregild

Weregild

Weregild was a value placed on every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code...

to be paid in the case of manslaughter, as opposed to corporeal punishments. The relative amounts of the fines allow an insight into the value system in Anglo-Saxon society. The highest fines in Æthelberht's law code are for the killing of people under the direct protection of the king, and equal fines are paid for adultery with an unmarried woman of the king's household. Alfred has a special law against drawing a weapon in the king's hall. Alfred does prescribe corporeal punishments, such as the cutting out of the tongue, which may however be averted by paying a weregild.
Alfred also sets down rules on how to lawfully fight out feud

Feud

A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...

s. Such fights are considered orwige, meaning that deaths resulting from them do not fall under manslaughter.
An enemy caught within his home may be besieged for seven days but not attacked unless he tries to escape.
If he surrenders, he must be kept safe for thirty days to allow him to call for help from his kinsmen and friends, or beg aid from an ealdorman or from the king. A follower may fight orwige if his lord is attacked. In the same way, a lord may fight for his follower, or any man may fight orwige with his born kinsman excepting against his lord. A man may also fight orwige against another man caught committing adultery with his wife, sister, daughter or mother.

References to ordeal

Trial by ordeal

Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience...

s and capital punishment

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

appear in 10th century codes only.
Strangely, the wager of battle

Trial by combat

Trial by combat was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession, in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it is a judicially sanctioned duel...

does not appear to figure in Anglo-Saxon law in spite of being a Germanic pagan custom in origin, but is introduced in England only under Norman rule.

Place names

Many place names in England are named after various things to do with Anglo-Saxon paganism. A number of towns and villages, such as Weedon, Wyville

Wyville

Wyville with Hungerton, or indeed Hungerton-cum-Wyville is a village and civil parish about five miles southwest of Grantham in South Kesteven, Lincolnshire, England. It is also an ecclesiastical parish of the Harlaxton Group of the Grantham Deanery in the Diocese of Lincoln...

and Harrowden

Harrowden

The name Harrowden might refer to:Places*Harrowden, Bedfordshire - a hamlet*Great Harrowden - a village in Northamptonshire*Little Harrowden - a village in NorthamptonshirePeople*Baron Vaux of Harrowden...

have terms like ealh, weoh and hearh incorporated into them, indicating that they were places used for worship by the pagan Anglo-Saxons, and from using this toponymy, sixty sites of pagan worship have been identified across the country. Other sites are named after specific Anglo-Saxon deities, for instance, Frigedene and Freefolk

Freefolk

Freefolk is a village in Hampshire, England. It lies to the west and almost directly alongside the village of Laverstoke; the two villages are separated by the River Test....

are named after Frige, Thundersley

Thundersley

Thundersley is a district in the north west of the Castle Point Borough, in south east Essex, England, about 35 miles east of London.-Toponymy:...

after Thunor, and Woodway House

Woodway House

Woodway House is in Teignmouth, South Devon, England. It was at one time a farm on lands held by the Bishops of Exeter. In around 1815 a thatched 'cottage' in the 'cottage orne' style of Horace Walpole's Thames-side villa, Strawberry Hill, was built here by Captain James Spratt R.N.Walpole built...

, Woodnesborough

Woodnesborough

Woodnesborough is a village in East Kent two miles west of Sandwich.Its name is believed to originate from Woden's Borough after Anglo-Saxon god Woden ....

and Wansdyke named after Woden.

Days of the week

The Anglo-Saxons, like other Germanic peoples, adapted the Week-day names

Week-day names

The names of the days of the week from the Roman period have been both named after the seven planets of classical astronomy and numbered, beginning with Monday. In Slavic languages, a numbering system was adopted, but beginning with Monday. There was an even older tradition of names in Ancient...

introduced by their interaction with the Roman Empire but glossed their indigenous gods over the Roman deities (with the exception of Saturday) in a process known as Interpretatio germanica:

Modern English day name	Old English day name	English day name meaning	Glossed from Latin day name	Latin day name meaning
Monday	Mōnandæg	"Moon Moon The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more... 's day", personified in related Norse mythology as the god Máni Mani Mani is a name or word occurring in several etymologically unrelated languages and cultures, including:* Maní - a legend of the indigenous tribe Tupi in Brazil.* Mani , the founder of Manichaeism....	Dies Lunae	"Day of the Luna Selene In Greek mythology, Selene was an archaic lunar deity and the daughter of the Titans Hyperion and Theia. In Roman mythology, the moon goddess is called Luna, Latin for "moon".... ", the personified moon in Roman mythology
Tuesday	Tiwesdæg	"Tiw's day"	Dies Martis	"Day of Mars Mars (mythology) Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions... "
Wednesday	Wōdnesdæg	"Woden Odin Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "Wodanaz" or "Wōđanaz".... 's day"	Dies Mercurii	"Day of Mercury Mercury (mythology) Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces... "
Thursday	Þūnresdæg	"Thunor Thor In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility... 's day"	Dies Iovis	"Day of Jupiter Jupiter (mythology) In ancient Roman religion and myth, Jupiter or Jove is the king of the gods, and the god of the sky and thunder. He is the equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon.... "
Friday	Frigedæg	"*Frija Frigg Frigg is a major goddess in Norse paganism, a subset of Germanic paganism. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses" and the queen of Asgard. Frigg appears primarily in Norse mythological stories as a wife and a mother. She is also described as having the power... 's day"	Dies Veneris	"Day of Venus Venus (mythology) Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths... "
Saturday	Sæturnesdæg	"Saturn Saturn (mythology) In ancient Roman religion and myth, Saturn was a major god presiding over agriculture and the harvest time. His reign was depicted as a Golden Age of abundance and peace by many Roman authors. In medieval times he was known as the Roman god of agriculture, justice and strength. He held a sickle in... 's day"	Dies Saturni	"Day of Saturn"
Sunday	Sunnandæg	"Sun's day", personified as the goddess Sól/Sunna among other Germanic peoples	Dies Solis	"Day of the Sun", the sun is personified as Sol Sol (mythology) Sol was the solar deity in Ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods. The first, Sol Indiges, was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did solar cult... in Roman mythology

Folkloric survivals

Various elements of English folklore

Folklore

from the Mediaeval period onwards have been interpreted as being survivals from Anglo-Saxon paganism. For instance, writing in the 1720s, Henry Bourne stated his belief that the winter custom of the Yule log

Yule log

A Yule log is a large and extremely hard log which is burned in the hearth as a part of traditional Yule or Christmas celebrations in several European cultures...

was a leftover from Anglo-Saxon paganism, however this is an idea that has been disputed by some subsequent research by the likes of historian Ronald Hutton

Ronald Hutton

Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...

, who believe that it was only introduced into England in the seventeenth century by immigrants arriving from Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

.

The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is an English folk dance involving reindeer antlers and a hobby horse that takes place each year in Abbots Bromley, a small village in Staffordshire, England.-Origins:...

, which is performed annually in the village of Abbots Bromley

Abbots Bromley

Abbots Bromley is a village in Staffordshire, England. It is famous for the annual Abbots Bromley Horn Dance. It is also the home of one of the Woodard Schools, Abbots Bromley School for Girls...

in Staffordshire

Staffordshire

Staffordshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. Part of the National Forest lies within its borders...

, has also been claimed, by some, to be a remnant of Anglo-Saxon paganism. The antlers used in the dance belonged to reindeer

Reindeer

The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...

and have been carbon dated to the eleventh century, and it is therefore believed that they originated in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

and were brought to England some time in the late Mediaeval period, as by that time reindeer were extinct in Britain.

Some claim that notions of the Man in the Moon

Man in the Moon

The Man in the Moon is an imaginary figure resembling a human face, head or body, that observers from some cultural backgrounds typically perceive in the bright disc of the full moon...

are a survival of the masculine anthropomorphic figure of the moon

Mani

Mani is a name or word occurring in several etymologically unrelated languages and cultures, including:* Maní - a legend of the indigenous tribe Tupi in Brazil.* Mani , the founder of Manichaeism....

in Germanic myths.

Historiography

Whilst historical investigation into Germanic paganism and its mythology began in the seventeenth century with Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum (1665), this largely focused only upon Norse mythology

Norse mythology

Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...

, much of which was preserved in Old Icelandic sources. In the eighteenth century, English Romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

developed a strong enthusiasm for Iceland and Nordic culture, expressed in original English poems extolling Viking virtues, such as Thomas Warton's "Runic Odes" of 1748. In the nineteenth century this developed into two movements within the British educated elite, one of which was composed of Scandophiles and the other of Germanophile

Germanophile

A Germanophile is a person who is fond of German culture, German people, and Germany in general, exhibiting as it were German nationalism in spite of not being an ethnic German or a German citizen. Its opposite is Germanophobia...

s, who associated the English with either the Scandinavians or the Germans, respectively. With nascent nationalism

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

in early nineteenth-century Europe, by the 1830s both Nordic and German philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

had produced "national mythologies" in Nikolai Grundtvig's Nordens Mytologi and Jacob Grimm

Jacob Grimm

Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm was a German philologist, jurist and mythologist. He is best known as the discoverer of Grimm's Law, the author of the monumental Deutsches Wörterbuch, the author of Deutsche Mythologie and, more popularly, as one of the Brothers Grimm, as the editor of Grimm's Fairy...

's Deutsche Mythologie
Deutsche Mythologie
Deutsche Mythologie is a seminal treatise on Germanic mythology by Jacob Grimm. First published in Germany in 1835, the work is an exhaustive treatment of the subject, tracing the mythology and beliefs of the Ancient Germanic peoples from their earliest attestations to their survivals in modern...

, respectively. British Romanticism at the same time had at its disposal both a Celtic

Celtic Revival

Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on the traditions of Celtic literature and Celtic art, or in fact more often what art historians call Insular art...

and a Viking revival

Viking revival

Early modern publications dealing with Old Norse culture appeared in the 16th century, e.g. Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus and the first edition of the13th century Gesta Danorum , in 1514...

, but nothing focusing on the Anglo-Saxons because there was very little evidence of their pagan mythology still surviving. Indeed, so scant was evidence of paganism in Anglo-Saxon England that some scholars came to assume that the Anglo-Saxons had been Christianized essentially from the moment of their arrival in Britain.

The study of Anglo-Saxon paganism began only in the mid nineteenth century, when John Kemble published The Saxons in England Volume I (1849), in which he discussed the usefulness of examining place-names to find out about the religion. This was followed by the publication of John Yonge Akerman

John Yonge Akerman

John Yonge Akerman was an English antiquarian specializing mainly in numismatics. He was born in Wiltshire.He became known early in association with his favourite study, having initiated the Numismatic Journal during 1836. The next year he became the secretary of the newly established Numismatic...

's Remains of Pagan Saxondom (1855). Akerman defended his chosen subject in the introduction by pointing out the archaeological evidence of a "Pagan Saxon mode of sepulture" on English soil lasting from the "middle of the fifth to the middle or perhaps the end of the seventh century". From this point onward, more academic research into the Anglo-Saxons' pagan religion appeared. This led to further books on the subject, such as those primarily about the Anglo-Saxon gods, such as Brian Branston's The Lost Gods of England (1957), and Kathy Herbert's Looking for the Lost Gods of England (1994). Others emphasised archaeological evidence, such as David Wilson's Anglo-Saxon Paganism (1992) and the edited anthology Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited (2010).

Contemporary Paganism

In the 1930s Alexander Rud Mills established in Australia "The Anglecyn Church of Odin", a thoroughly pagan religion but with rituals influenced by the literary style of Anglicanism. The Anglecyn Church went underground as a result of political persecution in 1942, but was revived in 1972 in Melbourne, Australia.

A later reconstructed form of Anglo-Saxon paganism arose in the 1970s as a subset of Germanic neopaganism

Germanic neopaganism

, in the form of Theodism. It was founded by Garman Lord, who had originally been a Wicca

Wicca

Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...

n in the Gardnerian tradition

Gardnerian Wicca

Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...

. In 1971, Lord formed a Wiccan coven

Coven

A coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches or in some cases vampires. Due to the word's association with witches, a gathering of Wiccans, followers of the witchcraft-based neopagan religion of Wicca, is also described as a coven....

that emphasized the iconography of Anglo-Saxon paganism, named The Coven Witan of Anglo-Saxon Wicca. However, Lord later abandoned any use of Wiccan teachings, instead focusing entirely upon the resurrection of the pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon religion in 1976 after supposedly having a vision of the deities Woden

Woden

Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....

and Frige

Frige

*Frijjō is the reconstructed name or epithet of a hypothesized Common Germanic love goddess giving rise to both Frigg and Freyja....

.

Similarly, the Wiccan who introduced the Gardnerian tradition to the United States, Raymond Buckland

Raymond Buckland

Raymond Buckland , whose craft name is Robat, is an English American writer on the subject of Wicca and the occult, and a significant figure in the history of Wicca, of which he is a High Priest in both the Gardnerian and Seax traditions.According to his written works, primarily Witchcraft from the...

, later wrote a book in 1973 entitled The Tree in which he outlined the creation of a tradition known as Seax-Wica

Seax-Wica

Seax-Wica is a tradition, or denomination, of the neopagan religion of Wicca which is largely inspired by the iconography of the historical Anglo-Saxon paganism, though, unlike Theodism, it is not a reconstruction of the early mediaeval religion itself....

, which uses the symbolism and iconography of Anglo-Saxon paganism, but in a "traditional" Wiccan framework.

External links

Heathen cult in English place-names

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