Anglo-Saxon paganism

Anglo-Saxon paganism is the form of Germanic paganism practiced by the Anglo-Saxons in England, from the Anglo-Saxon invasion in the mid 5th century until the early 8th century when it gradually began blending into folklore as a result of Christianization. As with most religions designated as paganism (also heathendom, heathenism), it was a polytheistic tradition, focused around the worship of deities known as the ése (singular ós, the equivalent to the Norse æsir). The most prominent of these deities appear to have been Woden and Thunor, leading the religion to having been called Wodenism during the 19th century.^[1]

Most of what is known about Anglo-Saxon paganism comes from the study of the few first hand written accounts that survive from this period, such as those found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and also through the study of literature from the later Christian period, such as the Beowulf poem^[2] and also from the available archaeological evidence.

Contents 1 History 2 Mythology 2.1 Cosmology 2.2 Deities 2.3 Wights 2.4 Legend and poetry 3 Pagan society 3.1 Kingship 3.2 Law 4 Cultic practice 4.1 Worship and sacrifice 4.2 Burial 4.3 Festivals 4.4 Ritual drinking 4.5 Magic 5 List of pagan kings 6 Legacy 6.1 Place names 6.2 Days of the Week 7 Historical study 8 Neopaganism 9 Notes 10 References

History

The Anglo-Saxon tribes were not united before the 7th century, with seven main kingdoms, known collectively as the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. Certain deities and religious practices were specific to certain localities.

Our literary sources on Anglo-Saxon England set in with Christianization only, leaving the pagan 6th century in the prehistoric "Dark" of Sub-Roman Britain. Our best sources of information on the pagan period are 7th to 8th century testimonies, such as Beowulf^[3] and the Franks Casket, which had already seen Christian redaction but which nevertheless reflect a living memory of pagan traditions.

The transition of the Anglo-Saxons from paganism to Christianity took place gradually, over the course of the 7th century, influenced on one side by Celtic Christianity and the Irish mission, on the other by Roman Catholicism introduced to England by Augustine of Canterbury in 597. The Anglo-Saxon nobility were nearly all converted within a century, but paganism among the rural population, as in other Germanic lands, didn't so much die out as gradually blend into folklore.

As elsewhere, Christianization involved the adoption of pagan folk culture into a Christian context, including the conversion of sacrificial sites and pagan feast days. Pope Gregory the Great instructed Abbot Mellitus 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.^[4]

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 pagan vs. a Christian faction as in that between Blot-Sweyn and Inge the Elder during the 1080s in the Christianization of Sweden, and no military "crusade" as in the 8th century Saxon Wars of Charlemagne's. Each king was free to convert to Christianty 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 against Northumbria. Penda exceptionally allied himself with the Welsh Kingdom of Gwynedd against his Anglo-Saxon neighbours. In the Battle of Hatfield Chase, Penda together with Cadwallon ap Cadfan (who was nominally a Christian but according to Bede given to barbarous cruelty^[5]) resulted in the death of Edwin of Northumbria (who had been baptized in 627). As a result, Northumbria fell into chaos and was divided between Eanfrith and Osric, who both reverted 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 in the Battle of Heavenfield shortly after. Penda again defeated Oswald at the Battle of Maserfield 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,"^[6] a position he maintained until his death in the Battle of Winwaed in 655.

Charles Plummer, writing in 1896, describes the defeat of Penda as "decisive as to the religious destiny of the English".^[7] 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.^[8] 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, who had already been baptized with his father's permission, as the condition set by king Oswiu of Northumbria for the marriage of his daughter Alchflaed to Peada, to the husband's misfortune, according Bede, who informs us that Peada was "very wickedly killed" through his wife's treachery "during the very time of celebrating Easter" in 656.^[9]

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 crowned the pagan king Swithhelm. Swithhelm accepted baptism in 662 but his successor Sighere of Essex encouraged a pagan rebellion in 665 which was only suppressed when Wulfhere of Mercia 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, although the year in unrecorded. In 681 the Bishop Wilfrid 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 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 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 was still converting the Pagan population of Sussex 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 contributing significantly to the Christianization of the continental Frankish Empire. Germanic paganism again briefly returned to England in the form of Norse paganism, which was brought to the country by Norse Vikings from Scandinavia in the 9th to 10th century, but which 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.^[10] 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.

Mythology

Cosmology

Currently, very little is known about the cosmology featured in Anglo-Saxon paganism. In the Nine Herbs Charm, 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) and also to a realm called Neorxnawang, corresponding to the Christian idea of Heaven. Whilst these are terms used in Christian context, some scholars have theorised that they may have corresponded to earlier pagan realms.^[11] Earendel may have been a name of the morning star, identified with John the Baptist (who heralds the coming of the Christ as the morning star heralds the Sun) in the Crist poem.

The Anglo-Saxon concept corresponding to fate was wyrd,^[12] although the "pagan" nature of this conception is subject to some debate; Dorothy Whitelock suggested that it was a belief held only after Christianisation,^[13] while Brian Branston maintained that wyrd had been an important concept for the pagan Anglo-Saxons.^[14] A description of how the pagan Anglo-Saxons viewed fate was given by the Christian monk, the Venerable Bede, who stated that they 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".^[12]

Deities

The ése had all but vanished from the religious thought of the Anglo-Saxons by the time our historical sources set in. Their chief, Woden (corresponding to Norse Odin) was euhemerized as an ancestor of the royal houses of Kent, Wessex, East Anglia and Mercia.^[15] The name of ése appears to survive as referring to a class of supernatural beings on equal footing with elves, as evident in a 10th century Metrical Charm "Against A Sudden Stitch" (Wið færstice) which offers remedy against sudden pain (such as rheumatism) caused by projectiles of either ése or elves or witches (gif hit wære esa gescot oððe hit wære ylfa gescot oððe hit wære hægtessan gescot "be it Ése-shot or Elf-shot or witch-shot"). The Anglo-Saxon rune poem is unaware of ós referring to a class of divine beings, taking it as Latin os "mouth" instead. The most straightforward survival of the term is in English given names like Oswald, Oshere, Oswin, Oslac etc., partly surviving as surnames such as Osgood, Osborn or Hasluck.

Woden nevertheless left most traces in English folklore and toponymy, appearing as the leader of the Wild Hunt. His name also appears as that of a healer in the Nine Herbs Charm, directly paralleling the role of Wodan in the Merseburg Incantations. The 10th century Exeter Book records the verse Wôden worhte weos, wuldor alwealda rûme roderas ("Woden wrought the (heathen) altars / the almighty Lord the wide heavens"). The name of such Wôdenes weohas (Saxon Wôdanes wih, Norse Oðins ve) or sanctuaries to Woden survives in placenames such as Wodeneswegs. Numerous other placenames contain the name of Woden, such as Wormshill and others.

The other ése are very sparsely attested and mostly accessible by comparison with their Norse counterparts. The name of Þunor, the god of thunder, survives in a few placenames such as Thurstable (from Þunres Stapol "Þunor's Pillar") in Essex and in given names such as Dustin or Thurston, paralleling Norse Thorstein. There is almost no evidence of Fríge, the equivalent of Frigg, except for the appearance of her name in translation of Venus in the name of Friday. Tiw was the god of warfare and battle, but had probably faded before the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England. His name survives in the translation of Mars in the name of Tuesday. In the Anglo-Saxon rune poem Tir is identified with Polaris rather than with a deity.

Other gods venerated in Anglo-Saxon England were Ingui, a god who is often equated with the Norse Yngvi, and Gēat, a deity associated with the Norse Gautr. Kathleen Herbert in her book 'Lost Gods of England' equates Ing with Norse Freyr. This is due to Frey being worshipped as Ingvi-Frey in Sweden, along with the same symbolism found in Beowulf (among other sources) regarding the boar as Frey's symbol and his role in fertility.^[16] Herbert also connects Ing to the early Germanic Nerthus.^[17]

The god Seaxnēat was not claimed as ancestor by all the Anglo-Saxons, but only by the East Saxon tribe who settled in southern England and formed the kingdom of Essex.

Eostre, according to Bede, was a goddess whose feast was celebrated in Spring. Bede asserts that the current Christian festival of Easter took its name from Eostur-monath Aprilis (modern April), the month the goddess's feast was in. Bede also mentions another goddess, Hretha, who is otherwise unattested.

Wights

Besides the ése, Anglo-Saxons also believed in other supernatural beings or "wights", such as elves, and household deities, known as Cofgodas. These would guard a specific household, and would be given offerings so that they would continue. After Christianisation, it is believed that the belief in Cofgodas survived through the form of the fairy being known as the Hob. Similar beliefs are found in other pagan belief systems, such as the Lares of Roman paganism and the Agathodaemon of Ancient Greek religion.

Many different supernatural creatures featured in not only myths, but also in the beliefs of everyday life. These included elves, dwarves, dragons, and giants (Etten), all of which could bring harm to men.

Legend and poetry

Amongst the great mythological figures of the Anglo-Saxons was Hengest and Horsa, who are named in historical sources as leaders of the earliest Anglo-Saxon incursions in the south. The name Hengest means "stallion" and Horsa means "horse", reminiscent of the horse sacrifice connected to the inauguration of pagan kings.

The Geatish hero Beowulf is the eponymous hero of the only Anglo-Saxon epic surviving in full. He travels to Denmark to slay the monster Grendel, who had terrorised the kingdom of Hrothgar, before going on to kill Grendel's mother. He later became a king of Geatland, and lost his life in battle with a dragon who had been terrorising the land. This story may have come from the Wuffing dynasty of East Anglia, who originated in the areas mentioned.^{[citation needed]}

Weyland the smith figures in Scandinavian as well as continental Germanic mythology. His picture adorns the Franks Casket, an Anglo-Saxon royal hoard box and was meant there to refer to wealth and partnership. [2]

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, thegn, heah-gerefa and gerefa.^[18] An eorl was a man of rank, as opposed to the ordinary freeman, known as ceorl. Free men were also a part of a hierarchy, with at least three different ranks (reflected in different amounts of weregild due for individuals of different ranks), although all free men had the right to participate in things (folkmoots). Germanic pagan society practiced slavery, and such slaves or unfree serfs were known as esne, and later also as theows.

Offices at the court included that of the thyle and the scop. The title of hlaford ("lord") denoted the head of any household in origin and expressed the relation to allegiance between a follower and his leader.

Early Anglo-Saxon warfare had many aspects of endemic warfare typical of tribal warrior societies. It was based on retainers bound by oath to fight for their lords who would in turn be obliged to show generosity to their followers.^[19]

Kingship

The pagan Anglo-Saxons inherited the common Germanic institution of sacral kingship. A king (cyning) was elected from among elegible members of a royal family or cynn by the witena gemōt, an assembly of an elite which 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 culminating in a unified kingdom 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.^[20] The central importance of the institution of kingship is illustrated by the twenty-six synonyms for "king" employed by the Beowulf poet.^[21]

The title of Bretwalda 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 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.^[22]

The sacral position of pagan kings as the semi-divine descendants of Woden in the Middle Ages was transformed into the idea of the Divine Right of Christian monarchs ruling By the Grace of God (Dei Gratia).

Law

Records of Anglo-Saxon law codes dating to the 7th century have survived, compiled by Æthelberht of Kent (c. 602 AD), by Hlothhære and Eadric of Kent, and by Ine of Wessex (c. 694 AD) soon after their conversion to Christianity. Other codes survive from the 8th to 9th centuries, notably the Laws of Alfred the Great, 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.^[23] The secular portions of the laws nevertheless clearly record tribal laws of the pagan period.^[24] Characteristic are its prescriptions of compensation payments or bots, including a weregild to be payed 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 payed 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 feuds. 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 ordeals and capital punishment appear in 10th century codes only. Strangely, the wager of battle 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.

Cultic practice

Worship and sacrifice

The pagan Anglo-Saxons worshipped at a variety of different sites, known as hearg or hearh; these included both specially built temples as well as certain geographical features of the landscape such as sacred trees or wells. It has been suggested however that sometimes these temples would have actually been built alongside these pre-existing sacred sites in the landscape.^[25] Each of these hearh may have been devoted to a specific deity, for instance, in several cases, a grove of trees would be devoted to just one god, as can be seen from the town of Thundersley (from Thunor's Grove), which was devoted to the god Thunor. In 2008, the historian Thor Ewing suggested that some of these sites were not dedicated to a well known deity, but simply to a local animistic one, who was believed to inhabit that very spot.^[26] The term for an altar or sacrificial site was weoh, the one for temple was ealh. Two such sites have been excavated by archaeologists, one being a part of a complex at Yeavering, Northumberland.^[27][28] These temples were, like virtually all Anglo-Saxon buildings, "wooden-framed" and contained "an altar and a likeness of one or more gods".^[25] During the later process of Christianisation, Pope Gregory the Great declared that such temples should not be destroyed, but converted into churches,^[29] although no such examples of these converted buildings survive today.

The pagan Anglo-Saxons performed animal sacrifice in honour of the gods. It appears that they emphasised the killing of oxen over other animals, as suggested by both written^[30] and archaeological evidence.^[27] 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. The Christian monk Bede 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."[31]

Many Germanic peoples are recorded as conducting human sacrifice, yet there is no firm evidence that such a practice was performed by the Anglo-Saxons, although there is speculation that twenty three of the bodies buried at the Sutton Hoo burial site were sacrificial victims clustered around a sacred tree from which they had been hung.^[32] Alongside this, some have suggested that the corpse of an Anglo-Saxon woman found at Sewerby on the Yorkshire Wolds suggested that she had been buried alive alongside a nobleman, possibly as a sacrifice, or to accompany him to the afterlife.^[33]

Burial

Archaeological digs of Anglo-Saxon pagan burials from the 6th to early 7th century have yielded the most information about Anglo-Saxon paganism. Of prime importance among these is the Sutton Hoo cemetery, including a rich ship burial. Other important burial sites include Spong Hill, Prittlewell, Snape and Walkington Wold, among others.

Free Anglo-Saxon men were buried with at least one weapon in the pagan tradition, often a seax, but sometimes also with a spear, sword or shield, or a combination of these. Wealthy individuals were buried with rich grave goods. The cessation of graves containing weapons or other goods in the course of the 7th century is the archaeological reflex of the transition to Christianity.

Beowulf gives two descriptions of burials, the ship burial of Scyld Scefing and the tumulus burial of Beowulf himself. They are extremely valuable as literary accounts of an otherwise prehistoric practice well-attested in archaeology. The only comparable literary description of a pagan tumulus burial is the funeral of Patroclus as described in book 23 of the Iliad.

Beowulf is taken to Hronesness, where he burned on a funeral pyre. During cremation, the Geats lament the death of their lord, a widow's lament being mentioned in particular, singing dirges as they circumambulate the barrow. Afterwards, a mound is built on top of a hill, overlooking the sea, and filled with treasure. A band of twelve of the best warriors ride around the barrow, singing dirges in praise of their lord. Parallels to this account have been drawn to the account of Attila's burial in Jordanes' Getica.^[34] Jordanes tells that as Attila's body was lying in state, the best horsemen of the Huns circled it, as in circus games.

Burial mounds remained objects of veneration in early Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and numerous churches were built next to tumuli.

Festivals

Everything that we know about the religious festivals of the pagan Anglo-Saxons comes from a book written by the Christian monk, the Venerable Bede, entitled De temporum ratione, meaning The Reckoning of Time,^[35] in which he described the calendar of the year. The pagan Anglo-Saxons followed a calendar comprising of 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 (meaning Mother Night), which was situated at the Winter solstice and which marked the start of the Anglo-Saxon year.^[12][36]

Following this festival, in the month of Solmonað (February), Bede claims that the pagans offered cakes to their deities.^[37] Then, in Eostur-monath Aprilis (April), a spring festival was celebrated, dedicated to the goddess Eostre,^[12] and the later Christian festival of Easter allegedly 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.^[12] The month of November was known as Blod-Monath, meaning Blood Month, and was commemorated with animal sacrifice, both in offering to the gods, and also likely to gather a source of food to be stored over the winter.^[12]

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".^[38]

Ritual drinking

Symbel is the Old English term for a banquet organized by a feudal lord for his retainers, whether they be Christian or pagan. Paul C. Bauschatz in 1976 suggested that the term reflects a specifically pagan ritual in origin which had a "great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people".^[39] Bauschatz' lead is followed only sporadically in contemporary scholarship, but his interpretation has inspired drinking-rituals in Germanic neopaganism.

Regardless of its possible religious connotations, the symbel had a central function in maintaining hierarchy and allegiance in Anglo-Saxon warrior society. The symbel takes place in the chieftain's mead hall. It involved drinking ale or mead from a drinking horn, speech making (which often included formulaic boasting and oaths), and gift-giving. Eating and feasting were specifically excluded from symbel, and no alcohol was set aside for the gods or other deities in the form of a sacrifice.^[40]

Magic

Anglo-Saxon pagans believed in magic and witchcraft. There are various Old English terms for "witch", including hægtesse "witch, fury", whence Modern English hag, wicca, 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 word wiccan "witches" is associated with animistic healing rites in Halitgar'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.^[41]

List of pagan kings

The following is a list of pagan Anglo-Saxon kings from the invasion to Christianization. The dates are given are such as are preserved in English historiography (notably the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) and cannot be taken as certain or accurate.

Kent

• Oisc of Kent, son of Hengest (d. 516)
• Eormenric of Kent (d. 580)
• Æthelberht of Kent (d. 616) baptized ca. 601
• Eadbald of Kent (d. 640) baptized 624

Sussex

• Ælle of Sussex (d. 514)
• Cissa of Sussex
• Æthelwealh of Sussex (d. 685) baptized during his reign under the sponsorship of Wulfhere of Mercia

Mercia

• Icel of Mercia (d. 527)
• Cnebba
• Cynewald
• Creoda of Mercia (d. 593)
• Pybba of Mercia (d. 615)
• Cearl of Mercia
• Penda of Mercia (d. 655)

Wessex

• Cerdic of Wessex (d. 534)
  • Stuf and Wihtgar, nephews of Cerdic, ruled the Isle of Wight. The names of their successors are unknown until Arwald (d. 686), final king of the Isle of Wight.
• Cynric of Wessex (d. 560)
• Ceawlin of Wessex (d. 593)
• Ceol of Wessex (d. 597)
• Ceolwulf of Wessex
• Cynegils of Wessex (d. 642), baptized in the 630s
• Cædwalla of Wessex (d. 689), abdicated in 688 to travel to Rome for baptism

East Anglia

• Wehha of East Anglia (d. 571)
• Wuffa of East Anglia (d. 578)
• Tytila of East Anglia (d. 593)
• Rædwald of East Anglia (d. 624), baptized ca.604. Rædwald is the main candidate for the identity of the nobleman buried at Sutton Hoo.
• Eorpwald of East Anglia (d.627) baptized 627
• Ricberht of East Anglia deposed in 630

Essex

• Aescwine of Essex (d. 587)
• Sledda of Essex (d. 604)
• Saebert of Essex (d. 616), baptized upon his acsession in 604
• Seaxred of Essex and Sæward of Essex (d.617)
• Sigeberht I of Essex (d.653)
• Sigeberht II of Essex (d.660) baptized sometime after acsession, 653 or 654
• Swithhelm of Essex (d.664) baptized in 662
• Sighere of Essex (d.683) possibly baptized in 665 as he married a Christian wife.

Northumbria

• Ida of Bernicia (d. 559)
• Glappa of Bernicia (d. 560)
• Adda of Bernicia (d. 568)
• Æthelric of Bernicia (d. 572)
• Theodric of Bernicia (d. 579)
• Frithuwald of Bernicia (d. 585)
• Ælla of Deira (d.588)
• Hussa of Bernicia (d. 593)
• Aethelric of Deira (d. 604)
• Æthelfrith of Northumbria (d. 616)
• Edwin of Northumbria (d. 633) baptized in 627
• Osric of Deira and Eanfrith of Bernicia reverted to paganism upon their brief rise to power in 633 to 634.

Legacy

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 and 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.^[42] Other sites are named after specific Anglo-Saxon deities, for instance, Frigedene and Freefolk are named after Frige, Thundersley after Thunor, and Woodway House, Woodnesborough and Wansdyke named after Woden.^[43]

Days of the Week

The seven day planetary week originated in Hellenistic Egypt by the 2nd century BC, and was taken over in the interpretatio romana of the Greek gods in the Roman Empire period, named for Sol, Luna, Mars, Mercurius, Jupiter, Venus and Saturnus. The English language days of the week are, with the exception of Saturday (which was named after Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture and harvest), loan-translations of the Latin names, by the interpretatio romana of Germanic deities.

While Sunday and Monday may be considered straighforward translation of Dies Solis "day of the Sun" and Dies Lunae "day of the Moon", the names of Tuesday (Tiw's day, translating "Mars' day"), Wednesday (Woden's day, translating "day of Mercury"), Thursday (Thunor's day, translating "day of Jupiter") and Friday (Freya's day, translating "day of Venus") make clear that the loan-translation was based on theonyms rather than celestial bodies.

Historical study

The scholarly rediscovery of Germanic paganism and mythology begins as early as in the 17th century, with Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum of 1665. It however long remains focussed on Norse paganism, due to the fortuitous preservation of much Old Icelandic material. English Romanticism developed a strong enthusiasm for Iceland and Nordic culture in the 18th century, expressed in original English poems extolling Viking virtues, e. g. Thomas Warton's "Runic Odes" of 1748. British learned society in the 19th century was divided between Scandophiles and Germanophiles, who associated the English with either the Scandinavians or the Germans, respectively. ^[44] With nascent nationalism in early 19th-century Europe, by the 1830s both Nordic and German philology had produced "national mythologies" in Nikolai Grundtvig's Nordens Mytologi and Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, respectively. British Romanticism at the same time had at its disposal both a Celtic and a Viking revival, but nothing focusing on the Anglo-Saxons as a Germanic tradition in its own right. 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.^[45] The study of the — compared to Icelandic tradition — very fragmentary traces of Anglo-Saxon paganism begins in the mid 19th century, with Remains of Pagan Saxondom by John Yonge Akerman (1855). Akerman defends 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" (p. vii).

Study of the Beowulf poem begins in the early 19th century. In 1805 Sharon Turner translated selected verses into English.^[46] This was followed in 1814 by John Josias Conybeare who published an edition "in English paraphrase and Latin verse translation." ^[46] In 1815, Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin published the first complete edition in Latin.^[46] Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig reviewed this edition in 1815 and created the first complete verse translation in Danish in 1820.^[46] For long, however, Beowulf was recognized neither as pagan nor as Anglo-Saxon. Set as it is in Scandinavia, and containing numerous references to the Christian God, it was understood as a Scandinavian and Christian legend. Thorkelin in 1815 identified Beowulf as a poema danicum dialecto anglosaxonica, a "Danish poem in Anglo-Saxon dialect", subsuming Anglo-Saxon under the Scandinavian languages. It was only the influential critical essay Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics by J.R.R. Tolkien, delivered in 1936, which established Beowulf as a quintessentially English poem which, while Christian, looked back on a living memory of paganism.^[47]

Neopaganism

In the 20th century, with the rise of the Neopagan movement, a reconstructed form of Anglo-Saxon paganism arose in the 1970s as a subset of Germanic neopaganism, in the form of Theodism.

A tradition of Wicca, known as Seax-Wica, founded by Raymond Buckland in 1973, uses the symbolism and iconography of Anglo-Saxon paganism, but in a traditional Wiccan framework.

Notes

References

v • d • e Anglo-Saxon paganism and mythology Gods and divine figures Beowa • Ēostre • Frigga • Hengist and Horsa • Hretha • Ing • Saxnot • Þunor • Tiw • Wælcyrige • Wade • Wayland the Smith • Wōden Heroic figures Ægil • Beowa • Eormenric • Godwulf • Sceafa • Sigemund • Waldere • Widsith Other beings Cofgod • Elf • Dwarf (Dweorh) • Eoten/Thurs • Wight Locations Middangeard • Neorxnawang Sources Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Anglo-Saxon calendar • Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem • Beowulf • De temporum ratione • Deor • Ealuscerwen • Finnesburg Fragment • Franks Casket • Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum • Nine Herbs Charm • Old English language • Spong Hill • Wið færstice • Æcerbot Origins Germanic paganism • (Angles • Frisians • Jutes • Saxons) Society and culture Anglo-Saxon law • Anglo-Saxon runes • Calendar • Blōtan • Folkmoot • Frith • Hearg • Maypole • Moot hill • Scop • Symbel • Thegn • Thing • Thyle • Weregild • Wicce • Wilweorthunga • Wyrd • Yule Neopagan revival Fyrnsidu • Seax-Wica • Theodism

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