Forwarded from ᛉ Sagnamaðr Stark ᛉ
Close-up of the horned Woden figure on the Sutton Hoo helmet. ᚩ
The figure on the left bears a striking resemblance to the figure on the Sutton Hoo helmet. This could be Woden, or equally one of Woden’s Wolf Warriors. There was a strong association with wolves and the wolf warrior across East Anglia where many of the Horned Woden head pendants are found, but also the Woden Head and Norfolk Wolf coins. East Anglia is where we find the village Freckenham, from the OE Freca-hām, whilst the kingdom of Anglia was once ruled over by the Wuffingas, the 'Kin of the Wolf', also called the Wulfingas in Beowulf.
Sunna, Mōna, Tiw, Woden, Frĩg and Seatern statues from Stowe Gardens, sculpted by John Michael Rysbrack. Each god gives their name to a day of the week. The statue Thunar stands in the V&A museum.
Bynames for Woden.
The OE word hār means ‘grey’ and is the root of Woden’s byname (ON) Hárbarðr, (OE) *Hārbeard / Hārbard ‘Greybeard’. The ON name Hārr also meant greybeard or grey haired. The word survives in the English hoar, which gives us the term hoar frost.
The ON Hār means High, Woden being the High One (or Havi) and this has a cognate in OE as hēah. Hār and hēah both come from *hauhaz. Very similar to this root is *haihaz, giving the Goths their word haihs and the Norse *hahaʀ which meant One-Eyed – itself a denoscription of Woden.
The OE word hār means ‘grey’ and is the root of Woden’s byname (ON) Hárbarðr, (OE) *Hārbeard / Hārbard ‘Greybeard’. The ON name Hārr also meant greybeard or grey haired. The word survives in the English hoar, which gives us the term hoar frost.
The ON Hār means High, Woden being the High One (or Havi) and this has a cognate in OE as hēah. Hār and hēah both come from *hauhaz. Very similar to this root is *haihaz, giving the Goths their word haihs and the Norse *hahaʀ which meant One-Eyed – itself a denoscription of Woden.
I had time to finish these new Thunor linocuts today, carved in the same style as my Woden prints. As usual, these will be given away to family and friends.
Hāl wes þū, Thunor!
Hāl wes þū, Thunor!
Forwarded from Folkish Odinism Dorset
I love The New Forest Hampshire which is the next county over from where I live in Dorset: The Jutes were the last tribe in England to suffer forced conversion to xtianity. The Jutes on the Isle of Wight and Hampshire were invaded 3 times, mostly wiped out and replaced with colonists from Wessex and Mercia because they refused to convert.
Today Hampshire has, especially in the New Forest, the biggest concentration in England of place names for streams, hills, villages and woodlands etc that are named after the native Gods of the English. This shows us how committed the Jutes were to the Gods and how place names can be useful when studying the culture of our ancestors. There is a bog named after the God Woden, Hills named after a great Ash Tree, a small lake named after Woden that is now only a stream and a village named after the Goddess Frigga as a few examples from the top of my head. The old name for what is now called the New Forest was Forest of 'Ytene', which means 'The Forest of the Jutes'.
Today Hampshire has, especially in the New Forest, the biggest concentration in England of place names for streams, hills, villages and woodlands etc that are named after the native Gods of the English. This shows us how committed the Jutes were to the Gods and how place names can be useful when studying the culture of our ancestors. There is a bog named after the God Woden, Hills named after a great Ash Tree, a small lake named after Woden that is now only a stream and a village named after the Goddess Frigga as a few examples from the top of my head. The old name for what is now called the New Forest was Forest of 'Ytene', which means 'The Forest of the Jutes'.
Reconstruction of the Thornborough Henges by Simon Edwards. Built 5000 years ago in Thornborough, North Yorkshire, England, the alignment of the henges mirror the three stars of Orion’s belt. Furthermore, a ditch that ran through the site pointed west to where the Orion constellation set on the horizon during the autumn months.
Forwarded from ᛉ Sagnamaðr Stark ᛉ
An Anglo Saxon noblewoman’s grave goods, containing an amulet made of a beaver’s tooth.
The 8th Century poet Aldhelm’s Enigma claimed that beavers “destroy pestilence and the deadly plague”; this amulet may have sought to invoke the hardiness and longevity of the beaver.
The Anglo Saxon Iar rune, similar to the Hagal rune in the Younger Futhark, which is described as a “sickness of serpents” in the Icelandic Rune Poem, has been proposed to represent the beaver in the Anglo Saxon Futhorc.
“Iar byþ eafix and ðeah a bruceþ
fodres on foldan, hafaþ fægerne eard
wætre beworpen, ðær he wynnum leofaþ.”
“Iar is a river fish and yet it always feeds on land;
it has a fair abode encompassed by water, where it lives in happiness.”
~Anglo Saxon Rune Poem
ᛡ
The 8th Century poet Aldhelm’s Enigma claimed that beavers “destroy pestilence and the deadly plague”; this amulet may have sought to invoke the hardiness and longevity of the beaver.
The Anglo Saxon Iar rune, similar to the Hagal rune in the Younger Futhark, which is described as a “sickness of serpents” in the Icelandic Rune Poem, has been proposed to represent the beaver in the Anglo Saxon Futhorc.
“Iar byþ eafix and ðeah a bruceþ
fodres on foldan, hafaþ fægerne eard
wætre beworpen, ðær he wynnum leofaþ.”
“Iar is a river fish and yet it always feeds on land;
it has a fair abode encompassed by water, where it lives in happiness.”
~Anglo Saxon Rune Poem
ᛡ
We usually assume the first humans, Ask and Embla refer to (the trees) Ash and Elm, however the root of Embla is open to question. Gunlög Josefsson suggests Embla meant 'firemaker’. Woden gave Ash and Embla life through his divine breath, not unlike blowing life into a dying fire, giving life to Ash and Embers.
In the Old English rune poem, the verse for the æsc (ash) rune describes ‘men’ (mankind) using term firas, which comes from the Germanic word *firhwijaz which means a ‘living person’. What is interesting is that the root of this word comes from *ferhuz, itself meaning ‘life, body’ but also ‘tree’, especially ‘oak’ where it is suggested that the Germanic word *ferhuz may have come from *pérkus meaning oak. In the Old English rune poem, we find the runes Oak and Ash besides each other – perhaps reminiscent of the first people who, carved from the trunks of trees were given life (breath) by the gods.
In the Old English rune poem, the verse for the æsc (ash) rune describes ‘men’ (mankind) using term firas, which comes from the Germanic word *firhwijaz which means a ‘living person’. What is interesting is that the root of this word comes from *ferhuz, itself meaning ‘life, body’ but also ‘tree’, especially ‘oak’ where it is suggested that the Germanic word *ferhuz may have come from *pérkus meaning oak. In the Old English rune poem, we find the runes Oak and Ash besides each other – perhaps reminiscent of the first people who, carved from the trunks of trees were given life (breath) by the gods.
Thor.pdf
5.5 MB
Thor the Wind-raiser and the Eyrarland Image. An academic paper on the imagery of Thor holding his beard.
It’s the full moon tonight (11.14pm for us in England) and its another supermoon, where the moon is closer to the Earth and appears larger in the sky. It is the last full moon before the solstice but also the blot-moon - depending on which calendar you use. I own a few different heathen calendars and they all suggest something different, however I think the ‘why’ we give blot is sometimes more important than the ‘when’. So as usual on the full moon, my family hearth will honour the gods, our ancestors and the land wights.