Everything about Woden totally explained
Wōden was the name of
Odin in
Anglo-Saxon polytheism and he represents a later development of a
Proto-Germanic deity, *
Wōdanaz. Other
West Germanic forms of the name include
Dutch Wodan,
Old High German Wuotan, and
Low German Wodan.
Woden was worshipped during the
Migration period, until the
7th or
8th century, when
Germanic paganism was gradually replaced by
Christianity. In
Anglo-Saxon England, Woden was rationalized as a historical king, and remnants of worship were continued into modern times as
folklore, Wodan featuring prominently in both English and Continental folklore as the leader of the
Wild Hunt.
Wednesday, Wensley,
Wednesbury and
Wednesfield are named after Woden.
Origins
*Wōđanaz or
*Wōđinaz is the reconstructed
Proto-Germanic name of a god of
Germanic paganism. He is in all likelihood identical with the Germanic god identified as "
Mercury" by Roman writers and possibly with Tacitus'
regnator omnium deus.
Odin probably rose to prominence during the
Migration period, gradually displacing
Tyr as the head of the
pantheon in West and North
Germanic cultures -- though such theories are only academic speculation based on trends of worship for other Indo-European cognate deity figures related to Tyr. Outside of the Germanic branch of Indo-European cultures, Odin/Wotan/Wodan has no cognate names or religious equivalents of attested certainty, and was always considered the Germanic supreme god from recorded sources.
Testimonies of the god are scattered over a wide range, both temporally and geographically. More than a millennium separates the earliest Roman accounts and archaeological evidence from the
1st century from the Odin of the
Edda and later
medieval folklore.
Migration period
Details of
Migration period Germanic religion are sketchy, reconstructed from artifacts, sparse contemporary sources, and the later testimonies of medieval legends and placenames. According to
Jonas Bobiensis, the
6th century Irish missionary
Saint Columbanus is reputed to have disrupted a
Beer sacrifice to Wuodan (
Deo suo Vodano nomine) in
Bregenz,
Alemannia. "Wuodan" was the chief god of the
Alamanni, his name appears in the runic inscription on the
Nordendorf fibula.
The
Lombards in
579 during their blockade of
Rome, according to the
Dialogues (ch. 28) of Pope
Gregory the Great, sacrificed a goat's head to their god of war, dancing around it and singing "nefarious songs" (
per circuitum currentes et carmine nefando dedicantes, c.f.
ansulaikom). Gregory claims that the Lombards demanded of 400 of their Christian prisoners to bow before the goat's head in adoration, and as they refused slew them all.
Old High German Wodan
The
Merseburg Incantations, apart from runic inscriptions the only surviving pagan texts in the
Old High German language, were written around AD 800. One of them describes Wodan as a healer:
» Original:
:Phol ende UUodan vuorun zi holza. » du uuart demo Balderes volon sin vuoz birenkit
thu biguel en Sinhtgunt (Sinthgunt), Sunna era suister; » thu biguol en Friia, Volla era suister
thu biguol en Uuodan, so he uuola conda » sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki
sose lidirenki: ben zi bena » bluot zi bluoda, lid zi geliden
sôse gelîmida sin!
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» English translation:
:Phol (Balder) and Wodan were riding in the forest » Balder's foal sprained its foot
Sinhtgunt, sister of Sunna (Sól), bespake it » Frige, sister of Fulla, bespake it
Wodan bespake it, as he was well able: » be it bone-sprain, be it blood-sprain
be it limb-sprain, bone to bones » blood to blood, limb to limbs
as if they were glued!
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Anglo-Saxon Woden
The
Anglo-Saxon tribes brought their indigenous faith to what was to become
England around the 5th and 6th centuries and continued in that form of
worship until nearly all were converted to Christianity by the 9th century, at which point the old gods and any records of them were almost completely lost. This process of
Christianization followed an established pattern that's attested in accounts of the same from continental
Europe: leaders were
baptised for varied reasons, and the conversion of their respective peoples almost always inevitably followed, sometimes in the space of a few years, but more often over the course of a few generations though numerous aspects of indigenous beliefs often remained.
For the Anglo-Saxons, Woden was the
psychopomp or carrier-off of the dead, but not necessarily with the exact same attributes of the Norse Odin. There don't appear to have been the concepts of
Valkyries and
Valhalla in the Norse sense, although there's a word for the former,
Waelcyrge.
In addition to the roles named here, Woden was considered to be the leader of the
Wild Hunt. The familial relationships are the same between Woden and the other Anglo-Saxon gods as they're for the Norse.
Wednesday (
*Wēdnes dæg, "Woden's day", interestingly continuing the variant
*Wōdinaz (with
umlaut), unlike
Wōden, continuing
*Wōdanaz) is named after him, his link with the dead making him the appropriate match to the Roman
Mercury.
The Anglo-Saxon kings claimed descent from Woden. According to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the
Historia Britonum, Woden had the sons
Wecta,
Baeldaeg,
Casere and
Wihtlaeg.
- Wecta's line is continued by Witta, Wihtgils, Hengest and Horsa, and the Kings of Kent.
- Baeldaeg's line is continued by Brona, Frithugar, Freawine, Wig, Gewis, Esla, Elesa, Cerdic and the Kings of Wessex.
- Casere's line is continued by Tytmon, Trygils, Hrothmund, Hryp, Wilhelm, Wehha, Wuffa and the Kings of East Anglia.
- Wihtlaeg's line is continued by Wermund king of Angel, Offa Wermundson, Angeltheow, Eomer, Icel and the Kings of Mercia.
The Christian writer of the
Exeter Book (341, 28) 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 toponymy as
Odinsvi,
Wodeneswegs.
In folklore
Woden persisted as a figure in folklore and folk religion throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern period, notably as the leader of the
Wild Hunt found in
English,
German,
Swiss, and
Scandinavian traditions.
A celebrated late attestation of invocation of Wodan in Germany dates to
1593, in
Mecklenburg, where the formula
Wode, Hale dynem Rosse nun Voder "Wodan, fetch now food for your horse" was spoken over the last sheaf of the harvest.
David Franck adds, that at the squires' mansions, when the rye is all cut, there's
Wodel-beer served out to the mowers; no one weeds flax on a Wodenstag, lest Woden's horse should trample the seeds; from Christmas to Twelfth-day they won't spin, nor leave any flax on the distaff, and to the question why? they answer, Wode is galloping across.
We are expressly told, this wild hunter Wode rides a white horse. (34)
A custom in Schaumburg is reported by Grimm: the people go out to mow in parites of twelve, sixteen or twenty scythes, but it's so managed, that on the last day of harvest they're all finished at the same time, or some leave a strip standing which they can cut down at a stroke the last thing, or they merely pass their scythes over the stubble, pretending there's still some left to mow. At the last stroke of the scythe they raise their implements aloft, plant them upright, and beat the blades three times with the strop. Each spills on the field a little of the drink he has, whether beer, brandy, or milk, then drinks himself, while they wave their hats, beat their scythes three times, and cry aloud
Wôld, Wôld, Wôld! and the women knock all the crumbs out of their baskets on the stubble. They march home shouting and singing. If the ceremony was omitted, the next year would bring bad crops of hay and corn. The first strophe of the song is quoted by Grimm,
» Wôld, Wôld, Wôld!
hävenhüne weit wat schüt, » jümm hei dal van häven süt.
Vulle kruken un sangen hät hei, » upen holte wässt manigerlei:
hei is nig barn un wert nig old. » Wôld, Wôld, Wôld!
Grimm notes that the custom had died out in the fifty years preceding his time of writing (1835).
Toponyms
Grimm (
Teutonic Mythology,
ch. 7
) discusses traces of Woden's name in toponymy.
Certain mountains were sacred to the service of the god.
Othensberg, now
Onsberg, on the Danish island of
Samsöe;
Odensberg in
Schonen.
Godesberg near
Bonn, from earlier
Wôdenesberg (annis 947, 974). Near the holy oak in Hesse, which Boniface brought down, there stood a
Wuodenesberg, still so named in a document of 1154, later
Vdenesberg, Gudensberg; this hill isn't to be confounded with Gudensberg by
Erkshausen, nor with a Gudenberg by
Oberelsungen and Zierenberg so that three mountains of this name occur in
Lower Hesse alone; conf.
montem Vodinberg, cum silva eidem monti attinente, (doc. of 1265). In a different neighbourhood, a
Henricus comes de Wôdenesberg is named in a doc. of 1130.
A
Wôdnes beorg in the Saxon Chronicle, later
Wodnesborough, Wansborough in
Wiltshire. A
Wôdnesbeorg in Lappenberg's map near the
Bearucwudu, conf.
Wodnesbury, Wodnesdyke, Wôdanesfeld. To this we must add, that about the Hessian
Gudensberg the story goes that King Charles lies prisoned in it, that he there won a victory over the Saxons, and opened a well in the wood for his thirsting army, but he'll yet come forth of the mountain, he and his host, at the appointed time. The mythus of a victorious army pining for water is already applied to King Carl by the Frankish annalists, at the very moment when they bring out the destruction of the
Irminsul; but beyond a doubt it's older : Saxo Grammaticus has it of the victorious
Balder.
The
breviarium Lulli, in names a place in
Thuringia:
in Wudaneshusum, and again
Woteneshusun; in
Oldenburg there's a
Wodensholt, now
Godensholt, cited in a land-book of 1428;
Wothenower, seat of a Brandenburg family anno 1334; not far from
Bergen op Zoom, towards Antwerp, stands to this day a
Woensdrecht, as if
Wodani trajectum.
Woensel =
Wodenssele,
Wodani aula, lies near
Eindhoven on the Dommel in Northern Brabant.
This Woensel is like the
Oðinssalr, Othänsäle, Onsala;
Wunstorp, Wunsdorf, a convent and small town in Lower Saxony, stands unmutilated as
Wodenstorp in a document of 1179. Near
Windbergen in the Ditmar country, an open space in a wood bears the name of
Wodenslag, Wonslag. Near
Hadersleben in Schleswig are the villages of
Wonsbeke, Wonslei, Woyens formerly
Wodensyen. An Anglo-Saxon documen of 862 contains in a boundary-settlement the name
Wônstoc =
Wôdenesstoc,
Wodani stipes, and at the same time betrays the influence of the god on ancient delimitation (Wuotan, Hermes, Mercury, all seem to be divinities of measurement and demarcation)
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