Reconstructed sceptre, helmet and clothing for the Wuffinga king Raedwald.

British Museum

At our larger folk-moots we often use drums whilst chanting galdor, which helps keep rhythm. These are normally Irish Bodhráns. It’s believed the Bodhrán was once a farming tool, used to remove husk from grains. A very similar drum can be found in English folk music called the riddle drum. This is a modern name for a type of drum possibly having been once called a ‘hylsung’ in Anglo-Saxon times. Just like the Bodhrán this was originally a farming tool designed to remove husk from grains, a process called winnowing or riddling – hence the name. The instrument was played across the British isles, including Cornwall and Ireland where it was known as the English riddle.

Image – Butser Ancient Farm.

Photo of a recently discovered carnyx from a site in Thetford. Only two others have ever been found in Britain and this one is the most complete carnyx ever discovered. Along with the carnyx was a bronze boar head war standard.

Three Carnyx players are depicted in this scene on the Gundestrup Cauldron.

Os byþ ordfruma ælere spræce,
wisdomes wraþu ond witena frofur
and eorla gehwam eadnys ond tohiht

Os is the origin of all language
Wisdom’s foundation and wise man’s comfort
And to every hero blessings and hope.

Os rune and Woden artwork by Brian Partridge

The Gesta Herewardi Saxonis, the early 12th century translation of an older (and lost) Old English text on the English outlaw Hereward the Wake contains within a denoscription of a pagan practise, normally performed by women, called ‘wylle-weorðung’ or well-weirding, also recorded as ‘waking the well’. The ritual involved asking the spirit or guardian of a sacred well or spring questions to which the spirit would provide the answer.

...In the middle of the night Hereward saw them go out in silence to a spring; of water that flowed to- wards the east near the garden of the house, so he followed them immediately, and heard them at a distance conversing, questioning, and getting replies from some unknown guardian of the spring...

The only planet in our solar system with a Germanic name is Earth. The name is rooted in the Proto- Germanic *erþō and is cognate with another Proto-Germanic word *erwô, itself perhaps cognate with Celtic terms for Earth such as the Welsh erw (field). This name seems to be for the physical earth – the soil and land, fields and ground.

The much debated name Erce is one many English heathens use for Mother Earth or Mother of Earth. The line ‘Erce Erce Erce’ from the Æcerbot field-remedy charm seems to have its parallel in the Latin prayer ‘sanctus, sanctus, sanctus’ (sacred, sacred, sacred). The name Erce possibly comes from the root eorcnan meaning holy.

If the English had a separate name for Earth Mother in her harvest aspect, this might have been a name formed from the verbs gifan, to give, or gifian, to bestow gifts, such as Giefu, grace, favour; Gifole, generous, bountiful; Gifiende, bestowing gifts. Such a name would be related to the Norse Gefn, giver, a by-name of Freya and to Gefjon, the giving one.

- Kathleen Herbert 'Looking for the Lost gods of England'

Artwork 'gyfu rune' by Brian Partridge

Swa þes middangeard
ealra dogra gehwam dreoseð ond fealleð;
forþon ne mæg weorþan wis wer ær he age
wintra dæl in woruldrice. Wita sceal geþyldig,
ne sceal no to hatheort, ne to hrædwyrde,
ne to wac wiga, ne to wanhydig,
ne to forht ne to fægen, ne to feohgifre,
ne næfre gielpes to georn ær he geare cunne.

So this earth declines and falls, every single day;
And so a man cannot become wise
before he has his share of winters in the world. A wise person should be patient,
should not be too hot-hearted, nor too hasty with words,
neither too weak a warrior, nor too reckless,
neither too fearful, nor too quick to rejoice, nor too greedy,
nor ever too eager to boast before he knows for sure.

- The Wanderer

Woodcut by W. G. Collingwood (1908) depicting Svipdagr listening to his deceased mother and völva, Gróa who shares with him Galdor that will protect him when he goes to charm the goddess Menglöð.

An Iron Age eagle brooch from Lejre, Denmark, with a bearded Odin mask on its leg and a serpent in its beak.
The serpent and eagle could represent the forms Odin takes to recover the Mead of Poetry, or be an apotropaic motif, the serpent representing chaos, subdued by Odin. ᚨ

The mask of Odin -here- appears in the place as the mask of Woden from the Sutton Hoo raven -here-.

Verse from the Old English poem ‘The Fortunes of Men’ from the Exeter Book.

Sum sceal on geapum galgan ridan,
seomian æt swylte, oþþæt sawlhord,
bancofa blodig, abrocen weorþeð.
þær him hrefn nimeþ heafodsyne,
sliteð salwigpad sawelleasne;
noþer he þy facne mæg folmum biwergan,
laþum lyftsceaþan, biþ his lif scæcen,
ond he feleleas, feores orwena,
blac on beame bideð wyrde,
bewegen wælmiste. Bið him werig noma!

'One (man) must ride the gaping gallows,
hang to death, until his soul-hoard,
his bloody bone-coffer, becomes broken.
There (on the gallows) the raven takes his eye,
the dark-cloaked one tears at the soulless;
nor is he able to ward off that evil,
that loathsome thief of the air,
with his hands-- his life is fled,
and he, senseless, without hope of living,
pale on the tree, awaits his fate,
covered by the mists of slaughter. His name is cursed!'

The hamlet of Taston (from Thor’s Stan) in Oxfordshire is named after Thor’s Stone (stan being OE for stone) which can be seen in the picture above. The stone was said to be a thunderbolt from the thunder god himself and that an image of a thunderbolt can be found on it. The surrounding area in also sacred to Thunor as not too far from the stone is a spring called Thorsbrook (Thor’s stream).

One of the oldest surviving uses of the Anglo Saxon Gar (spear) rune is on the 8th Century Ruthwell Cross, where it takes the place of Gyfu in galgu (OE: gallows) on the east face…perhaps a nod to Woden, when the memory of His worship was fresh in the minds of the Anglo Saxons. ᚸ

Many English places named after a god included the suffix -leah, (-ley in modern English), meaning a woodland clearing or open land. This suggests the common folk prayed to the gods outdoors (or privately at home), whilst the two largest heathen temples we know of at Yeavering and Rendlesham were both associated with royalty.

photo - Thursley (Thunor's clearing) common.