Woden

If a West Saxon farmer in pagan times had walked out of his bury or ton above the Vale of Pewsey some autumn day, and looking up to the hills had caught sight of a bearded stranger seeming in long cloak larger than life as he stalked the skyline through low cloud; and if they had met at the gallows by the crossroads where a body still dangled; and if the farmer had noticed the old wanderer glancing up from under a shadowy hood or floppy-brimmed hat with a gleam of recognition out of his one piercing eye as though acclaiming a more than ordinary interest, a possessive interest, in the corpse; and if a pair of ravens had tumbled out of the mist at that moment, and a couple of wolves howled one to the other in some near-by wood; and if the stranger had been helping himself along with a massive spear larger by far than normal; and if all this had induced in the beholder a feeling of awe; then he would have been justified in believing that he was in the presence of Woden tramping the world of men over his own Wansdyke. (Branston, 86)

We know from place-names that there was a center of Woden worship above the Vale of Pewsey. Woden was the most widely honored of the heathen gods in England. ". . . we find him commemorated as the patron of settlements among the Angles of Northumbria, the East and West Saxons of Essex and Wessex, and the Jutes of Kent. There is no shadow of a doubt that the aristocracy of the Old English looked upon Woden as chief god: the genealogies of the kings bear witness to the former dignity of Woden's name, for even in Christian times the royal houses of Kent, Essex, Wessex, Deira, Bernicia and East Anglia all traced back to Woden. (Branston, 87)

Woden, by some, is taken to be a deified development of the German storm giant Wode leading his 'wild army' his procession of the homeless dead across the sky. We know this for various reasons; one is the fact that in Sweden das wutende Heer is known as 'Odens jagt' or 'Woden's Hunt'. This is the Odinn who in an Old Norse sources is identified with the eight-legged stallion Sleipnir. Some authorities think that Woden and his steed were originally identical, but this contradicts the myth that the steed was born of Loki.

Sum man was gehaten
Mercurius on life;
He was swithe facenful
And swicol on dedum
And lufode eac stala
And leasbrednysse;
hone macodon tha haethenan
him to maeran gode
And aet wega gelaetum
Him lac offrodon
and to heagum beorgum
him on borhton onsegdnysse.
Thes god was awurthra
betwux eallum haethenum
and he is Othon gehaten
othrum namen on Denisc.

Once there lived a man
who was Mercury called;
He was vastly deceitful
And cunning in his deeds,
He loved well to steal
And all lying tricks;
The heathens had made him
The highest of their gods,
And at the cross-roads
They offered him booty
And to the high hills
Brought him victims to slay.
This god was most honored
Among all the heathen;
His name when translated
To Danish is Odinn.

The origin of runes, according to the latest authorities came to us from the Etruscans; they did not use them for writing or reading, but for magickally for divination. From the above quotation from the Nine Herb Charms and the Old Norse Legend, which describes Odinn's discovery of the runes, we see that Woden was taken to be a wise magician.

Odinn himself tells of his wild experience in the Lay of the High One:

I trow that I hung
On the windy tree,
          Swung there nights all of nine;
Gashed with a blade
Bloodied for Odinn,
          Myself an offering to myself
Knotted to that tree
No man knows
          Whither the root of it runs.

None gave me bread
None gave me drink,
          Down to the depths I peered
To snatch up runes
With a roaring screech
          And fall in a dizzied faint!

Wellbeing I won
And wisdom too,
          I grew and joyed in my growth;
From a word to a word
I was led to a word
          from a deed to another deed.

The poems of the Verse Edda yield the following information: warriors killed honorably on the battlefield find their way to Odinn in his hall of the slain Valholl, anglicized as Valhalla. This edifice, shinning bright with gold, is easily recognized for its rafters are spars, it is tiled with shields, the benches are strewn with war-coats, and over the western door hangs a wolf with an eagle hovering above it. Here every day does Odinn "choose men killed with weapons". There are five hundred and fifty doors in Valhalla's walls, each wide enough to allow through eight hundred men marching abreast, shoulder to shoulder, at one time. These doors are mentioned as being for use particularly when the warriors double forth to "fight with the Wolf", that is to say at the time of the Ragnarok. But the outermost entry port called Valgrind, "the holy barred-gate of the slain" of which "few people can tell how tightly it is locked", is the one door to Valhalla: here hey indulge the two hugest appetites of the Viking, feasting and fighting. Their meat is prepared in a mighty cauldron holding enough succulent stew to feed them all; and its main ingredient is the flesh of a magickal boar who, though struck and dressed for table one day, is never the less alive and ready for the same treatment the next. The warriors' tipple is the sparkling mead, which spirts from the teats of the nanny goat Heidrun who browses on the branches of Laerad (Yggdrasill) the tree standing outside Valhalla. (Branston, 94)

So we see that there is an 'everlasting battle' associated with Odinn-Woden, however it is not even mentioned -- and this is significant -- in the fullest of the verse sources describing Valhalla and the Einheriar, namely the Lay of Grimnir. This only leads one to believe that originally the idea of the 'everlasting battle' existed separately from that of the Chosen Slain. Thus we see the myth as a living entity growing and changing right before our eyes.

that same summer (A.D. 58) the Hermunduri and Chatti fought a great battle. They both wanted to grab hold of the rich salt-producing river flowing between them . . . . The Chatti were defeated and with catastrophic results. For each side, in the event of victory, had dedicated the other to Tiwaz and Wodenaz. This vow meant that ever man-jack of the beaten side together with their horses and every possession had to be destroyed.

Captured both Roman camps and a huge booty. They proceeded to destroy everything they could lay hands on in fulfillment of a novel and unusual vow: all clothing was ripped in pieces and cast away; gold and silver were flung into the river; the war-coats of the men were hacked to bits; the horses' harness destroyed; the horses themselves were drowned under; the men were strung up on trees with nooses round their necks, so that no booty remained for the victor nor was any pity shown to the vanquished.

In May 1950 a rather dramatic reminder of the customs of our pagan forefathers comes to us from Cimbraic territory. From central Jutland workers cutting peat in the Tollund bog uncovered the well-preserved body of a man, middle-aged or more. At first it was thought that a murder had recently been committed but before long, it was discovered that this North West European had been held in pickle by the bog, and it was in fact some 2000 years since he had lived and breathed.

The appearance and conditions under which the body was found afforded striking parallels to those mentioned of the sacrificed prisoners described by Orosius in the passage quoted above. Tollund Man had been hanged: the rope of two plaited leather thongs was still round his neck. Then, except for a leather cap and a leather belt about his waist, he was stark naked. Many other such bodies have been found in the Tollund bog, many are naked, many have the rope that hanged them round their necks and many are wounded. (Branston, 100)

The Anglo-Saxon Woden stalked the rolling downland, one-eyed and wise beyond all knowing in cloak and hood when the weather was fine, stopping at crossroads to recognize his own dangling from the gallows; but on black and stormy nights he racketed across the sky at the head of his wild hunt of lost and noisy souls.

Woden, My Woden,
How you hold back the shivers of the cold,
the mighty comforter of masculine souls
they did not die a vain death, yet one to serve you.

How could one possibly serve a dark lord?
One who takes those hung as a sacrafice,
He who lurkes in dark corners,
cousin of the reaper. . .
How could one possibly love thee?

Yet their were many hundreds, thousands
They were your hands as you marched them into battle
they the pawns and you the reward.
They prayed that you would guide their hands
let them fight honorably and then in turn
they too would die by the sword and you the reward.
They would feast all day,
Drink all day,
and play at skills of battle until the day,
when they would march the untilmate march,
the last battle,
to lead us to a golden erra.
They would fight on until the end.
Your choosen warriors.

Let them fall in the fields,
let them hang at the crossroads,
these men will provide long after death,
unto the lord they love the most.
Woden, Odinn, Carer of brave souls.
Eternal reward to do what they do best.

--Sarah Mariah Green