Anglo-Saxons

An Anglo-Saxon Pagan Birth by Swain Wodening Birth Rituals Not much information survives on birth rituals. Going by Germanic folklore, the father was definitely expected to be present at the birth of a child, and to provide the mother moral support and help ease the pain during the birth its self. This is seen especially in the Scandinavian countries. An old German practice that has been preserved was for the midwife to lay the newborn after birth, on the floor or ground, where upon the father picked it up. This seems to have meant that the father claimed the child and it was not to be exposed. In the Norse areas this seems sometimes to have been incorporated into the naming rite, and done on the ninth day. Within the lore its self, most brith rites deal with the goddesses and Idesa (Disir) . Sigrdrfuml verse 9 advises "Biarg-(help-) runes thou must know, if thou wilt help, and loose the child from women. In the palm they must be graven, and round the joints be clasped, and the Dsir prayed for aid. (Thorpe Translation)" And in ddrnargrtr verses 7 and 8 we are advised "Then speech the woman so weak began, Nor said she aught ere this she spake: "So may the holy ones thee help, Frigg and Freyja and favoring gods, As thou hast saved me from sorrow now." (Bellows translation). Modern Heathens therefore should be ready to pray to Frige (Frigga) and Freo (Freya) during the birth, and invoke the Idesa (Disir) prior to it as well. Name Giving After the birth, the primary activity of an infants early life took place on the ninth day after the child was born. This was the day the child was formally named and brought into the family. The Vatni Ausa or Nefn Fostir is well preserved in the sagas, and may well be the most mentioned Heathen rite in the lore. Mrin var vatni ausin og etta nafn gefi. Hn x ar upp og gerist lk mur sinni a yfirlitum. au smdust vel vi Glmur og Hallgerur og fr svo fram um hr. So the maiden was sprinkled with water, and had this name given her, and there she grew up, and got like her mother in looks and feature. Glum and Hallgerda agreed well together, and so it went on for a while.(Njal's Saga Chapter 14, DaSent translation)

rsteinn orskabtur tti son er kallaur var Brkr digri. En sumar a er rsteinn var hlfrtugur fddi ra sveinbarn og var Grmur nefndur er vatni var ausinn. ann svein gaf rsteinn r og kva vera skyldu hofgoa og kallar hann rgrm. Thorstein Codbiter had a son who was called Bork the Thick. But on a summer when Thorstein was five-and-twenty winters old, Thora bore him a man-child who was called Grim, and sprinkled with water. That lad Thorstein gave to Thor, and said that he should be a Temple-Priest, and called him Thorgrim. (Eyrbyggja Saga, Chapter 11, Morris and Magnusson translation) ra l barn um sumari, og var a mr; var hn vatni ausin og nafn gefi og ht sgerr. Thora bare a child in the summer; it was a girl. She was sprinkled with water, and named Asgerdr. (Egils Saga Skallagrmssonar, chapter 35, Green translation) By comparing the many different accounts of the Vatni Ausa, Edred Throsson reconstructed the naming rite in an article in the compilation work Green Runaas follows: "Ek verp vatni etta barn a, ok gef honum nafnit ______________(name) (eptir afa/ommu sinum/sinni.)" (English translation: "I throw water on this child and give it the name _______________ (after its grandfather/grandmother) (or some other ancestor). One can do an Old English translation of this. For a boy this would be as: Ic weorpe wter on bearne, ond giefe hine naman _______________ (ftre his Ealdfder). or for a girl: Ic weorpe wter on bearne, ond giefe h naman _______________ (ftre hre Ealdmodor). One would of course want a longer ritual than this though, so it is suggested one add a blot and perhaps a symbel to the naming ceremony, not to mention flesh out the naming rite its self. An outline for such a ritual might go as follows. Items needed are a blot bowl, and some water: The Naming 1) The Opening: The folk are called to stand around the altar, the mother holds the child.

2) The Naming: The mother hands the father the newborn, and then picks up the blot bowl filled with water. The father then dips his fingers in the water, and says the following for a boy: Ic weorpe wter on bearne, ond giefe hine naman (name). Or for a girl: Ic weorpe wter on bearne, ond giefe h naman (name). He then sprinkles the water on the baby's forehead. 3) The Closing: The father then hands the mother the baby, and invites all to take part in the hsel to follow. Baby's First Blot or Baby's First Hsel The goddess Frge should be invoked for the baby's first blot as she is the guardian of the newborn. Also invoked should be the ancestors especially the Idesa (Dsir). A basic blot outline can be seen at:http://haligwaerstow.ealdriht.org/blot.html. The first to be blessed during the blessing part of the blot should be the baby. Immediately, following the blot, all should be seated to feast. By now, baby should be ready to nurse, although he or she may need to go to sleep. If the babe needs to sleep, that is fine. He or she would not be the first to sleep through a feast in their honour! Baby's First Symbel Following the feast should be a short symbel in the baby's honour. The rounds would begin with the traditional first three, but the fourth round would be toasts to baby, or lullabies in the baby's honour. Following the fourth round, would be gifts to the baby. After the fourth round, the symbel may precede as usual. To read more on symbel goto symbel.htm. A baby's naming rite is its first public ritual and therefore should be conducted with much joy and honour. It could well set the tone for the rest of the baby's life.
http://www.englatheod.org/birth.htm

Death and burial practices of the Anglo-Saxons The Anglo-Saxons were fanatical in their belief that Fate, what they called the Wyrd, decided who would live and who would die. In their world, full of blood feuds, skirmishes,

and wars, death was not uncommon. Though not uncommon, the Anglo-Saxons were not desensitized too it and deeply mourned the loss of anyone close to their hearts. This was expressed in tributes they wrote to the ones they lost, which told of the grief at their loss.

Whether the deceased were cremated or buried, their final resting place was decorated to honor them. Most of the deceased were also buried with some of their worldly possessions, as the Anglo-Saxons believed that these would be needed in the afterlife. Among the items buried with them archaeologists have found jewelry, tools, weapons, and even the remnants of ships. Slaves and livestock, such as horses and mules, also were sometimes buried with the Anglo-Saxon owner so they could continue to serve them in the afterlife.

Though some Saxons were cremated, the predominate form of burial was inhumation in the form of barrows. This is an ancient burial practice dating back thousands of years in which a mound of earth and stones is raised over a grave or even a group of graves. The size of the barrow is proportional to the importance of the individual buried there, meaning that usually this practice was used for Anglo-Saxons to honor their dead nobles.

Once the influence of Christianity started to appear, pagans such as the Anglo-Saxons responded by developing even more elaborate rituals and cremating even more bodies. This was all in defiance as the Anglo-Saxons resisted the pressure put on them by the Christians. It is also believed that there was a tradition of human sacrifice in the AngloSaxon culture. Sometimes large barrows were surrounded by several smaller graves, many of them buried in distorted positions.

Eventually the power of Christianity washed over the Anglo-Saxons and paganism began to fall away, derided and disparaged by Christians. In time the Anglo-Saxons began to forsake their beliefs and paganism faded until it was almost completely forgotten. The burial rites of Christianity which involved the ringing of church bells, the reciting of psalms, and the cleaning and dressing of the dead, replaced the ancient pagan ways. Even

cremation was considered taboo as the Christians believed the dead would be called to rise up again on Judgement Day.
http://www.helium.com/items/1260472-anglo-saxon-burial-rites

3. Mediation, sacrifice, and temporality. In earlier times the Germanic peoples worshipped in groves, apparently without any representations of the deities; later the sacred groves were superseded by temples with idols in them, such as in England during the time of Christian mission (p. 41). In addition, "[English p]lace-name evidence suggests that hills were very often used for heathen temples." (p. 42) "It is more likely that the idols were pieces of wood on which carvers accentuated a natural resemblance to the essential feature of the 'god', as in a Danish example from an Iron Age site." (p. 42) An description of the interaction with the deity through the "pole" on the opposite side from England, in the case of the "Rus", is found, e.g. in "Ibn Fadlans account of his participation in the deputation sent by the Caliph al-Muqtadir in the year 921 A.D. to the King of the Bulghars of the Volga, in response to his request for help" (James Montgomery, "Ibn Fadlan and the Russiyyah"; Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 3 (2000); the translation of the Arabic is his):1 The moment their boats reach this dock every one of them disembarks, carrying bread, meat, onions, milk and alcohol (nabidh) [probably made from fermented honey, not beer], and goes to a tall piece of wood set up [in the ground]. This piece of wood has a face like the face of a man and is surrounded by small figurines behind which are long pieces of wood set up in the ground. [When] he reaches the large figure, he prostrates himself before it and says, Lord, I have come from a distant land, bringing so many slave-girls [priced at] such and such per head and so many sables *priced at+ such and such per pelt. He continues until he has mentioned all of the merchandise he has brought with him, then says, And I have brought this offering, leaving what he has brought with him in front of the piece of wood, saying, I wish you to provide me with a merchant who has many dinars and dirhams [J. M. notes the "Rus fondness for Islamic silver"] and who will buy from me whatever I want *to sell+ without haggling over the price I fix. Then he departs. If he has difficulty in selling [his goods] and he has to remain too many days, he returns with a second and third offering. If his wishes prove to be impossible he brings an offering to every single one of those

figurines and seeks its intercession, saying, These are the wives, daughters and sons of our Lord. He goes up to each figurine in turn and questions it, begging its intercession and grovelling before it. Sometimes business is good and he makes a quick sell, at which point he will say, My Lord has satisfied my request, so I am required to recompense him. He procures a number of sheep or cows and slaughters them, donating a portion of the meat to charity [J. M. notes: "The merchant probably held a feast of some sort"] and taking the rest and casting it before the large piece of wood and the small ones around it. He ties the heads of the cows or the sheep to that piece of wood set up in the ground. [We'll note the special significance of the animal head below.] At night, the dogs come and eat it all, but the man who has done all this will say, My Lord is pleased with me and has eaten my offering. As for who these deities of a family were which the wooden poles represented, Montgomery favours "Frey[r], of the Vanir, a god 'particularly associated with the Swedes' (Foote and Wilson, 389), a god generally held to be responsible for trade and shipping. His sister Freyja was the leader of the female divinities known as the Disir, 'who had influence on fertility and daily prosperity' (Roesdahl, 162). A sacrifice of an ox or a bull was most appropriate to Frey[r], who seems also to have been thought of as a bull, while his sister was thought of as a cow [more, below]... Jones and Pennick (A History of Pagan Europe, London, 1995, 144) on the other hand, associate Frey[r] with the horse and the pig." We immediately see that these wooden poles were the "mana poles", the artificially constructed regions where the anima-mana (in this case, of Freyr and his company) was especially concentrated. If we recall the overall structural field of sacrifice we have earlier isolated:

1. Ergonic
o o

(a.) exergonic: communion (sacrifice for us ourselves to eat) (b.) endergonic: expiatory (sacrifice for gods and spirits to eat)

(a) feeding the gods (in advance to obtain future beneficial results or afterwards to repair the exhaustion of the gods), deposit of energy in the structures of the cosmos (b) membrane-building

2. Defecatory: expiatory (sacrifice in order to expel disorders within ourselves)

3. Non-ergonic
o o

(a) accompaniment (for the dead) (b) divination (communication with the dead or the Spirit)

The above instance of offering, the sort of reciprocity captured in the formula do ut des, is a typical endergonic as the feeding of the gods to enable them to do certain things, or in energetic terms, the deposit of energy and its subsequent withdraw in some other energetic form (here a successful trade). The additional offering after the "return on the investment", which, with its concomitant "charity", reminds strongly of the Roman "daps... le repas offert aprs une conscration, repas de largesse, fte de magnificence", is still endergonic but, as thanksgiving, is to repair god's exhaustion after his "hard work" and which would result in his "anger" (entropic disintegration of the order of the cosmos or of society) if not remedied. The strongest, i.e. most nutritious, offering is of course the human sacrifice, which, as mentioned, the Germanic peoples (though not the postmigrational Anglo-Saxons?) periodically offered to their ancestor gods, such as Odin and Tiw. How the offering of the life of one's fellow tribesmen to the ancestral god helps to prevent his anger -- manifested as environmental catastrophes -- has previously been explained. An example of heathen temple which started appearing by the time of Christian mission was excavated at Yeavering in Northumberland, "in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia, an area where the majority of the population were Celtic. The Anglo-Saxons were acknowledged as rulers in Bernicia during the sixth century and Yeavering became a royal dwelling-place from the reign of Aethelfrith in the first years of the seventh century." (p. 43; figure below.) Noteworthy here is a massive, high post outside the temple to the north-west, certainly with ritual significance, i.e. a mana-pole, equivalent to the Pacific totem poles (p. 43 - 4); and furthermore the pit by the door filled with the skulls of oxen. "To the west there was a building probably used as a kitchen for cooking the ceremonial feasts. Associated with this structure was an area apparently reserved for butchering the sacrificial beasts. It contained many remains of the long bones of oxen, but, significantly, not skulls -- they ended up in the temple" (p. 45).

The Temple at Yeavering, probable plan. 10.5m x 5.1m. (p. 44) A sacrificial formula is evident here: the body of the ox was for the communion feast of society but its head -- the seat of its spirit (anima) -- was given back to god himself: As mentioned, "[i]n Scandinavian paganism animals, particularly oxen, were offered to Freyr on his annual journey... The ritual sacrifice of oxen is a feature of Anglo-Saxon paganism evidenced repeatedly by archaeology and confirmed by historical document." (p. 45) What is evidenced here is another instance of "god eats god himself": the oxen were (sometimes) the materialization of the Freyr's anima and as such considered particularly nutritious, highly concentrated with energy. The society thus ate them to regenerate social order and Freyr himself ate them (or only their anima which was congruent with him) to regenerate his own order (the fertility of nature -- such as in the generation of crops -- which he represents), just as Brahman ate Brahman or the Egyptian gods ate Maat. (We have already mentioned the "re-fertilization" of the Mother Earth by magicotheatrical means at New Year.) The undifferentiated form of sacrifice of the ox (simultaneous communion feast to regenerate society and expiatory feeding of the god)

signified thereby took place usually around November, the start of autumn, as "Bede ( De Temporum RationeXV) gave the English word blodmonath as the equivalent of November, explaining it: 'Blodmonath [was] the month of sacrifice because in it they dedicated to their gods [of fertility, Freyr and Freyja] the cattle which they were on the point of slaughtering' (Jones, p. 211, 213). In England in Anglo-Saxon days, and indeed until the agrarian revolution of modern times, the majority of cattle were slaughtered in the autumn and the carcasses salted as a winter food supply for the population since there was not sufficient fodder to keep the beasts alive through the winter. No doubt the slaughter, with its sudden excess of food, was an occasion for [communal] feasting... [And] the ox-head was dedicated to the gods [expiatory: to regenerate them so that they would not 'run out' by human exploitation of them but would be able to continue to provide next year]... [But moreover] perhaps the magnificent head of the beast... was an awesome object containing heathen magic." (p. 46) That is, where anima-mana or energy was especially concentrated, and thus nutritious and capable of serving as a "mana pole" at the same time. "The association of magic with the head of an animal is a not uncommon feature of heathenism. The Celts hung the heads of sacrificial animals on trees... In the sixth century, [as an example of the Germanic animal-head ritual], the Lombards had a custom of singing and dancing around a goats head." The head of the animal species that was considered especially the materialization of the deity's anima could thus serve the same function as did the totem poles or idols. "In later Scandinavian tradition goats were [as mentioned] associated with Thunor/ Thor; they drew his chariot. In one account the flesh of Thor's goat was eaten but the bones and the skins were kept by the god, who revitalized them with his hammer." That is, the part given back to the god was to ensure the future supply of the animals, future re-materialization of the god as these sacred animals. "This myth may have led to the bones, including the skull, of the goat being considered sacred to the god" (p. 46 - 7). The pagan (i.e. primitive) religion of the Germanic (Anglo-Saxon) peoples was practiced seasonally -- they marked macro-level time-units with seasonal feast and bonfire. In addition to the autumn feast of the oxen, we have mentioned that "[t]he winter festival which Bede called Mothers' Night marked the pagan New Year and was held on 25 December. It is likely that this Yule festival (the pagan name for December and January, we may remember, was giuli) involved the bringing in of evergreens, the burning of a Yule log and a feast centered round a boar's head." (p. 48) The "totem pole" this time was of the boar-anima, still associated sometimes with Freyr. "February, Bede tells us, was called Solmonath in heathen times, but 'it is possible to call Solmonath the month of cakes which, in it, they used to offer to their gods' (De Temporum Ratione, XV, Jones, p. 212)." (p. 49) The cakes were baked "in the images of the gods and in the shape of Freyr's boar (Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, I, p. 63 and note)." (Ibid.) The food for god was god itself, so

made to look like god. So far Freyr's fertility seems the principal object of ritual "excitement". "Bede tells us that sacrifices were made [i.e. food was offered] to the goddess Hreda in March and that the festival of Eostre fell in April. At this time of year the associated rites would almost certainly be concerned with the celebration of spring... [and] bonfires were lit on hills during spring festivals." (Ibid.) Then the midsummer festival with bonfires "in the hills, but often in the streets", and the dance round or jump over the midsummer fire (seen also in Persia and Rome). (Ibid.) Herbs were also cast in it "to gain immunity from ill-health and misfortune", i.e. the endergonic "sacrifice" to appease or repair the dangerous spirits representing forces of linear entropy-increase. (Ibid.) Then September, Halegmonath (Holy month), with "feasting in celebration of the crop, as perpetuated by the Christian Harvest Festival. Probably the shadowy mythical figures of Sheaf and his son Beow (barley) were once associated with these rites." (Ibid.) Thus we have:

Nov. Blodmonath: autumn: oxen (Freyr) Dec. New Year: Yule and boar {Freyr [?] and Mother Earth) Feb. Solmonath: cakes in the shape of Freyr's boar (or bird and horse) March & April. spring: Hreda and Eostre fest. Midsummer festival Sept. Halegmonath: harvest: Sheaf and Beow [?].

"From this brief survey of the pagan year, we can see that the people in general would have been closely involved in these festivals, raising crops and animals, baking cakes, collecting fuel for bonfires, flocking to see images or wagons carrying the gods and joining them in procession. Above all they feasted, enjoying the fruits of their own labour while propitiating the deities." (Undifferentiated communion-expiation; ibid.) Nancy Jay has mentioned the "relation between sacrifice and temporal continuity": "Ancient calendrical systems are chronological orderings of sacrificial festivals; examples are Greek, Israelite, Egyptian, Roman, Hawaiian, Ashanti, Chinese, Vedic, Aztec, and Mayan calendars. In ancient Greece, for example, [citing Burkert] 'the order of the calendar is largely identical with the sequence of festivals. For this reason the calendars exhibit an extreme particularism; there are virtually as many calendars as there are cities and tribes'." (Throughout Your Generations Forever, p. 151) The same phenomenon is evidenced here among the Anglo-Saxons. That festive-sacrificial religiousness organizes calendar or the division of time in general is the same as eating orders our daily division of time: a system, whether a social organism, the cosmos, or a biological organism, entropically runs down

after a definite interval of time so as to require re-energization. Just as refill-hunger-refill (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) define the intervals of a unit of time ("day") repeated cyclically within the larger intervals ("season") of the macro-unit of time ("year", or one harvest cycle) repeated also cyclically -- and this is the primordial Zeitlichkeit corresponding to the sacred Weltlichkeit of the primitives -- so the communion feeding of society and the expiatory feeding of the god-cosmos have to take place seasonally within a year (i.e. defining the unit of time one level above daily, personal eating) to ensure the healthy functioning of both.

"Dancing warriors" plaque from Sutton Hoo helmet, from Owen, p. 14. This picture gives us a notion of the custume of the Anglo-Saxon worriors around the 7th century A.D. The last ergonic sacrifice to be noted among the Germanic peoples is the endergonic deposit of energy in the (artificially constructed) structures of the cosmos to strengthen them. Just as among the late Neolithic and Bronze age Chinese here among the pagan Anglo-Saxons "we have a little evidence that an important occasion like the inauguration of a new building might involve sacrifice and the burial of the victim as a kind of 'guardian

spirit': beneath the two posts which supported the roof of a hut in the Anglo-Saxon village of Sutton Courtenay... were placed the feet of a dog -- forefeet under one post, hind under the other. Under the entrance to King Edwin's hall at Yeavering rested the body of a man" (p. 48). Just as among the Chinese Shang, among the pagan Germanic peoples both professional priests and "[k]ings and tribal chiefs figured in sacrificial and other pagan ceremonies" (p. 51), but "the populace were not allowed to share [in the mysteries] and to carry out any necessary sacrifices without fear of reprisal from offended parties" (p. 50). The king, whose "two main responsibilities [were] to keep his people fed and to ensure military victory" (p. 51), fulfilled the first by the seasonal sacrifices and feasts that catalyzed "the cyclic planting and harvesting of crops and the breeding and killing of beasts" (ibid.). "Warfare, less regular in its occurrence, was prefaced by divination." (Ibid.) The purpose of divination was to enquire the ancestral anima-mana about the future (energetic) state of the cosmos to which human enterprises were assimilated -- and the atmospheric Anima, running the cosmos, would of course know it. The king however could perform divination without the use of animals as vehicles of communication, and consequently not sacrifice on such occasion. Tacitus left a description of the method (Germania, 10; cited, p. 52): For auspices and the casting of lots Auspicia sortesque ut qui they have the highest possible regard. maxime observant: sortium Their procedure in casting lots is consuetudo simplex. Virgam uniform. They break off a branch of a frugiferae arbori decisam in fruit-tree and slice it into strips; they surculos amputant eosque notis distinguish these by certain runes quibusdam discretos super [notis quibudam] and throw them, as candidam vestem temere ac random chances will have it, on to a fortuito spargunt. Mox, si white cloth. Then the priest of the publice consultetur, sacerdos state if the consultation is a public one, civitatis, sin privatim, ipse pater the father of the family if it is private, familiae, precatus deos after a prayer to the gods and an intent caelumque suspiciens ter gaze heavenward, picks up three, one singulos tollit, sublatos at a time, and reads their meaning secundum impressam ante from the runes scored on them. If the notam interpretatur. Si lots forbid an enterprise, there can be prohibuerunt, nulla de eadem no further consultation that day; if re in eundem diem consultatio; they allow it, further confirmation by sin permissum, auspiciorum auspices is required... (Owen, p. 52). adhuc fides exigitur.

Compare this with the Shang or the general northern Asian procedure of burning animal bones (turtle shells, shoulder blades of an ox) and determining the response of the Ancestor by interpreting the cracks on them caused by the burning. Among the Germanic peoples there were also "sacrifices to establish contact with the spirit world" using principally the cock and the hen (Montgomery, ftnt. 59). We will see instances of this below. 4. Burial. The experience of the return of the breath-soul to the atmosphere after death gives rise to the belief of the journey of the soul to the world of the dead, where it needs to use just the same sort of things that it had needed to use when it was here among the living. Now the method of burials favored by the Saxons was inhumation (burial) while the Anglian preferred cremation (p. 68), in agreement with their self-designation of ancestry from Woden who had decreed cremation. In the case of inhumation the dead was always buried accompanied by things of daily necessities, the "grave goods"; which, if the dead had need of living beings when here, like servants or animals, would then constitute the second type of non-ergonic sacrifices, those for accompaniment: the killing of the living and the release of their souls to serve the dead in the afterlife. But the sacrifice of humans or animals was rare in burial as well as in cremation rites, reflecting more likely the material scarcity of Anglo-Saxon Britain that did not permit such waste of meat or labour. The inanimate equipment with which the Anglo-Saxon peoples accompanied their dead for their use in the afterlife were usually such things as spear in the case of dead men (possibly reflecting also the cult of Woden), and jewellery and spinning equipment in the case of dead women (p. 67). For both sexes there were also combs, pottery, and wooden containers, which probably held food or drink for the dead, thus serving the same function as sacrificial offering: feed for the soul. Even money was sometimes needed for the journey of the dead. The coins which have been found in the purse for the dead in Sutton Hoo ship burial (below) "were probably a symbolic payment for the forty oarsmen needed to row the ship" to the next world (p. 121; this practice "normally belongs with Greek and Roman paganism, where the common practice was to place a coin in the corpse's mouth. The custom had percolated into the Germanic world, apparently, since similar 'payments' occur in a small number of rich Frankish graves"; ibid.). "In some cases [of inhumation] superstitious practices may have been performed to prevent the dead person from troubling the living. These included decapitation of the corpse, the strewing of flints or placing of stones over the body and the burning of corn" (p. 73 - 4), but also the ritual breaking (killing) of spear and the filling of the grave soil with charcoal and pieces of pottery (p. 74). This again served the same function as did the defensive sacrifice (membrane formation): if the dead could not be placated with nutrients, then fortification had to be built to defend against them, or else they needed to be disabled or rendered weak and weaponless. The pagan graves were usually oriented north-south, but after

conversion the Anglo-Saxon graves became east-west in the Christian manner (p. 74). "Surprisingly, it was in the seventh century, when Christianity was influencing people both physically and spiritually, that the Anglo-Saxons revived the custom of burial under barrows" (p. 75), which custom was general during the Bronze and Iron Age Britain. "Barrow burial plays a part in the northern mythology and in Icelandic literature is associated with Woden and with Freyr, who was himself believed to have been laid in a mound" (ibid.); but of course god could never "really" die. The purpose of the "raising of a burial mound" is "the ensuring of posthumous fame for the dead man." (p. 75) In this way, "[i]n what was probably the same urge to bury their dead under visible tumuli, certain sixth- and seventh-century inhabitants of England began using older barrows for their internment. Thus, mounds originally raised over Neolithic or Bronze Age graves came to be used, secondarily, by the Anglo-Saxons" (p. 78). The Christian Church stopped these pagan burial practices only by the end of the seventh century. Barrows (Old. Eng. hlaew) must not be thought of as some inheritance from the Proto-Indo-European ancestors, who were traditionally identified as the warrior nomads burying their chiefs in barrows in the southern Russian steppes some 4,000 B.C. (the "Kurgan culture" of Marija Gimbutas). As we shall see, the Proto-Indo-Europeans were most likely agriculturalists spreading out from Anatolia starting at least 6,000 B.C. (the view of Collin Renfrew and the recent Russian linguists). Furthermore, inhumation in mounds were motivated by the common experiences of ancient peoples and therefore was not peculiar to the Indo-Europeans (consider the gigantic burial mounds for the first emperor of China in Xian, 2,100 years ago). Now before considering the cremation rites of the Anglo-Saxons, let us first look at the ship funeral rites peculiar to the sea-faring Germanic peoples. Here the dead was placed in a ship for his journey to the next world, "with the elaborate equipment the dead man would need for life [there] appropriate to his rank" (i.e. accompaniment; p. 97). The ship was then either towed out to sea and burnt, or burnt on land, or buried on land. Owen discusses three ship burials found in Britain, all in Suffolk, one at Snape (found 1862), two at Sutton Hoo (found 1938 & 1939). Ship burials originated in Scandinavia and spread outward from there such as to Britain. In Scandinavia, where during the Iron Age, the dead were usually cremated and buried under mounds, a new type of boat grave appeared in the sixth and seventh centuries. This new burial rite was complex: a boat was lowered into a large hole, the dead man was laid in it on a bed of grass accompanied by his weapons and domestic equipment; then a stallion and an old greyhound were laid beside the boat and killed. The boat was covered with planks, which included sledge-body side-rails, and covered with earth. (Dolukhanov, cited by Montgomery.) The AngloSaxons followed this model. "It was evidently the practice of the community at Snape to cremate their dead and place the ashes in urns, in a common burial ground", with those

for their leaders marked by a tumulus. (p. 102; more, below.) But the royal elite here received the special ship burial. The boat, 15m long and 3m wide, was brought along the River Alde to the nearest point to the cemetery, dragged uphill, placed in the trench already dug, with grave goods on its wooden floor, then buried unburnt. The first boat found at Sutton Hoo was 1.8m wide and 6.9m long, furnished with buckets holding food or liquor for the dead (the accompanying food). The second, 27.1m long and 4.3m across, lavishly furnished (the possible traces of animal sacrifice therein should be interpreted as "food to take with"), probably "commemorates Raedwald, King of East Anglia, who died in 624 or 625" (p. 107) and, although converted to Christianity, never abandoned paganism, having "in the same temple an altar for the holy Sacrifice of Christ side by side with an altar on which victims [food] were offered to devils [pagan gods and spirits]." (Bede, HE, cited by Owen, ibid.) This one was also dragged uphill and placed in the trench, with a large tumulus above. Of ship cremated Ibn Fadlan again furnishes a description from the "Rus": I was told that when their chieftains die, the least they do is to cremate them. I was very keen to verify this, when I learned of the death of one of their great men. They placed him in his grave (qabr) and erected a canopy over it for ten days, until they had finished making and sewing his [funeral garments]. In the case of a poor man they build a small boat, place him inside and burn it. In the case of a rich man, they gather together his possessions and divide them into three, one third for his family, one third to use for [his funeral] garments, and one third with which they purchase alcohol which they drink on the day when his slave-girl kills herself [or is sacrificed] and is cremated together with her master. (They are addicted to alcohol, which they drink night and day. Sometimes one of them dies with the cup still in his hand.) When their chieftain dies, his family ask his slave-girls and slave-boys, Who among you will die with him? and some of them reply, I shall. Having said this, it becomes incumbent upon the person and it is impossible ever to turn back. Should that person try to, he is not permitted to do so. It is usually slave-girls who make this offer. When that man whom I mentioned earlier died, they said to his slavegirls, Who will die with him? and one of them said, I shall. So they placed two slave-girls in charge of her to take care of her and

accompany her wherever she went, even to the point of occasionally washing her feet with their own hands. They set about attending to the dead man, preparing his clothes for him and setting right all he needed. Every day the slave-girl would drink [alcohol] and would sing merrily and cheerfully. On the day when he and the slave-girl were to be burned I arrived at the river where his ship was. To my surprise I discovered that it had been beached and that four planks of birch (khadank) and other types of wood had been erected for it. Around them wood had been placed in such a way as to resemble scaffolding (anbr). Then the ship was hauled and placed on top of this wood. They advanced, going to and fro [around the boat] uttering words which I did not understand, while he was still in his grave and had not been exhumed. Then they produced a couch and placed it on the ship, covering it with quilts [made of] Byzantine silk brocade and cushions [made of] Byzantine silk brocade. Then a crone arrived whom they called the Angel of Death and she spread on the couch the coverings we have mentioned. She is responsible for having his [garments] sewn up and putting him in order and it is she who kills the slave-girls. I myself saw her: a gloomy, corpulent woman, neither young nor old. When they came to his grave, they removed the soil from the wood and then removed the wood, exhuming him [still dressed] in the izr in which he had died. I could see that he had turned black because of the coldness of the ground. They had also placed alcohol, fruit and a pandora (tunbr) [a musical instrument] beside him in the grave, all of which they took out. Surprisingly, he had not begun to stink and only his colour had deteriorated. They clothed him in trousers, leggings (rn), boots, a qurtaq, and a silk caftan with golden buttons [both ceremonial insignia to mark the deceased's honour], and placed a silk qalansuwwah [fringed] with sable on his head. They carried him inside the pavilion on the ship and laid him to rest on the quilt, propping him with cushions. Then they brought alcohol, fruit and herbs (rayhn) [M. mentions that these "were somehow used to effect communication with the spirit world"; hence not for use in the afterlife (as accompanying food and drug)?] and placed them beside him. Next they brought bread, meat and onions, which they cast in front of him, a dog,

which they cut in two and which they threw onto the ship, and all of his weaponry, which they placed beside him. They then brought two mounts, made them gallop until they began to sweat, cut them up into pieces and threw the flesh onto the ship. *M. cites Smyser, The sweating of the horses is evidently a relic of torturing sacrificial animals (or human beings) to enhance the value of the sacrifice to the god. To, i.e., increase their energetic content. These, then, were all the nonergonic sacrifices of accompaniment.] They next fetched two cows, which they also cut up into pieces and threw on board, and a cock and a hen, which they slaughtered and cast onto it. [The cock and hen do not here seem to be for communicational purpose, but for accompaniment, i.e. for equipment, food, or even divinational use in the afterlife. Thus M. cites Roesdahl (ftnt. 59): These graves illustrate vividly concepts central to the traditional picture of Valhall. . . . What could be better to take to Valhall than your horse and weapons? Horses resplendent in their trappings were suitable for high-ranking men even though they were not likely to have been used in battle and presumably they also had to bear their masters to the Other World. Weapons were obviously necessary and the other grave-goods were no doubt useful both for the journey and for feasting on arrival.+ Meanwhile, the slave-girl who wished to be killed was coming and going, entering one pavilion after another. The owner of the pavilion would have intercourse with her and say to her, Tell your master that I have done this purely out of love for you. At the time of the evening prayer on Friday they brought the slave-girl to a thing that they had constructed, like a door-frame. She placed her feet on the hands of the men and was raised above that door-frame. She said something and they brought her down. Then they lifted her up a second time and she did what she had done the first time. They brought her down and then lifted her up a third time and she did what she had done on the first two occasions. They next handed her a hen. She cut off its head and threw it away. They took the hen and threw it on board the ship. [Evidently this was "a [shamanistic] way of communicating with the spirit world" by releasing the spirit of the hen which was to carry the slave-girl's soul to the yonder for a peek, as shown below.]

I quizzed the interpreter about her actions and he said, The first time they lifted her, she said, Behold, I see my father and my mother. The second time she said, Behold, I see all of my dead kindred, seated. The third time she said, Behold, I see my master, seated in Paradise. Paradise is beautiful and verdant. He is accompanied by his men and his male-slaves. He summons me, so bring me to him. *M. cites (ftnt. 60) Simpson that "the wooden frame symbolizes a barrier between this world and the Otherworld" and notes further (ftnt. 61) that "[h]er dead master is apparently already seated at the communal table, feasting, before the cremation ceremony stipulated by Odin. She is, of course, under the influence of a strong hallucinogenic. Her desire to be reunited with family and her master contradicts Roesdahls assertion that 'apart from the Valkyries who fetched the dead warriors, there do not seem to have been any women in Valhall'".] So they brought her to the ship and she removed two bracelets that she was wearing, handing them to the woman called the Angel of Death, the one who was to kill her. She also removed two anklets that she was wearing, handing them to the two slave-girls who had waited upon her: they were the daughters of the crone known as the Angel of Death. Then they lifted her onto the ship but did not bring her into the pavilion. The men came with their shields and sticks and handed her a cup of alcohol over which she chanted and then drank. The interpreter said to me, Thereby she bids her female companions farewell. She was handed another cup, which she took and chanted for a long time, while the crone urged her to drink it and to enter the pavilion in which her master lay. [The nabidh was probably drugged, as M. notes (ftnt. 62).] I saw that she was befuddled and wanted to enter the pavilion but she had [only] put her head into the pavilion [while her body remained outside it]. The crone grabbed hold of her head and dragged her into the pavilion, entering it at the same time. The men began to bang their shields with the sticks so that her screams could not be heard and so terrify the other slave-girls, who would not, then, seek to die with their masters. [M. notes (ftnt. 64) Ibn Fadln's possible failure "to see the ritual importance of the noise, intended to distract the attention of the spirit world, whose presence might mar the second ritual marriage inside the pavilion."] Six men entered the pavilion and all had intercourse with the slave-girl. They laid her down beside her master and two of them took hold of her

feet, two her hands. The crone called the Angel of Death placed a rope around her neck in such a way that the ends crossed one another (mukhlafan) and handed it to two [of the men] to pull on it. She advanced with a broad-bladed dagger and began to thrust it in and out between her ribs, now here, now there, while the two men throttled her with the rope until she died. Then the deceaseds next of kin approached and took hold of a piece of wood and set fire to it. He walked backwards, with the back of his neck to the ship, his face to the people, with the lighted piece of wood in one hand and the other hand on his anus, being completely naked. He ignited the wood that had been set up under the ship after they had placed the slave-girl whom they had killed beside her master. Then the people came forward with sticks and firewood. Each one carried a stick the end of which he had set fire to and which he threw on top of the wood. The wood caught fire, and then the ship, the pavilion, the man, the slave-girl and all it contained. A dreadful wind arose and the flames leapt higher and blazed fiercely. One of the Rusiyyah stood beside me and I heard him speaking to my interpreter. I quizzed him about what he had said, and he replied, He said, You Arabs are a foolish lot! So I said, Why is that? and he replied, Because you purposely take those who are dearest to you and whom you hold in highest esteem and throw them under the earth, where they are eaten by the earth, by vermin and by worms, whereas we burn them in the fire there and then, so that they enter Paradise immediately. Then he laughed loud and long. I quizzed him about that *i.e., the entry into Paradise+ and he said, Because of the love which my Lord feels for him. He has sent the wind to take him away within an hour. Actually, it took scarcely an hour for the ship, the firewood, the slave-girl and her master to be burnt to a fine ash. They built something like a round hillock over the ship, which they had pulled out of the water, and placed in the middle of it a large piece of birch (khadank) on which they wrote the name of the man and the name of the King of the Rs. Then they left. (Montgomery's translation, ibid.; Owen's translation, ibid., p. 98 - 101.) As Foote and Wilson have noted (cited by Montgomery), "striking elements in this description [by an Arab of a people mixed between Germanic and Slavic], such as the

Angel of Death, the ritual intercourse, and the wary and naked kindler of the pyre, cannot be paralleled in Norse sources". The statement Because of the love which my Lord feels for him. He has sent the wind to take him away within an hour is quite instructive in confirming the original experience of divinity to be the atmosphere, wind, or air, to which the breath-soul is assimilated after its departure from the body. The dead is seen returning to the atmosphere when the atmospheric Anima violently swoops him up. Remember that the sacrificial food for the god is preferably burnt and rendered smoke so as to be congruent with the ancestral spirit, i.e. to easily blend into the atmosphere, thus being "eaten" by the Anima. As Montgomery writes in footnote (68) at this juncture: "Compare this with Snorri Sturlusons comments: 'Odin made it a law that all dead men should be burnt, and their belongings laid with them on the pyre, and the ashes cast into the sea or buried in the ground. He said that in this way every man would come to Valhalla with whatever riches had been laid with him on the pyre... Outstanding men should have a mound raised to their memory, and all others famous for manly deeds should have a memorial stone... It was their belief that the higher the smoke rose in the air, the higher would be raised the man whose pyre it was, and the more goods were burnt with him, the richer he would be.' (Simpson, 193)" Snorri Sturluson's recollection of Odin's decree captures the original motivating experience behind cremation. Owen notes that "those who cremated seem to have had a rather different conception of the afterlife from those who inhumed... [They] believed that fire worked some metamorphosis." (p. 79) In Beowulf the description of the cremation of the hero on the pyre itself is finished, after the mournful song of the Geatish woman, with the statement "Heaven swallowed the smoke." (p. 85) The poet also describes the cremation of another hero, Hnaef: "Heads melted, gashes sprang open, then blood flowed out of the body's wound. Flame, greediest of spirits, swallowed up all of those whom the battle took there, from both nations." (p. 86) It is not a different conception that is at issue, but a more forceful expression of animism: cremation, as a means of "melting" the body into the atmosphere, is the most forceful way to separate the breath-soul from the body and return it to the atmosphere (p. 20). In the daily circumstances of the Anglo-Saxons, however, "rather than being laid upon a pyre as in the literary tradition, the corpses were normally laid on the ground, or in a shallow trench, and the pyre heaped over them." (p. 87) The whole thing was also done haphazardly. Animals (pigs, oxen, horses, according to the age, sex and rank of the deceased) may have been burnt with the dead as food -- or for clothing and labour -- in the next world. The remains, as already hinted, were placed in pottery vessels and buried in the ground ("and some cremated remains were buried in the ground without vessels", p. 88). The ash constituted the "material" waste left behind after the "spirit" was rendered back to the atmosphere ("...the release of the spirit by fire which cremation was supposed to

achieve", p. 88). But many of the pottery vessels had a hole in them to perhaps allow the soul of the cremated person to go in and out. Of the varieties of decorational patterns on the burial potteries, the most interesting was the "wyrm motif", which "owed its popularity in the first place to its ritual significance as a protective device." (p. 90) Apparently, animae feared as forces of entropic disintegration could also be positively employed. 5. Mana objects. If shaman is the personnel intermediate between the world of the living flesh and the world of the spiritual dead, "mana-objects" are the instrumental intermediate. The Anglo-Saxon manifestations of these have been unearthed from Sutton Hoo: the whetstone sceptre (figure below), "an object of magic and potency, whether in enlisting the aid of ancestors or warding off evil" (cited by Owen, p. 113), i.e. like a mini-portable mana pole, a concentrator, conductor, or reincarnation point of the ancestral anima-mana of the atmosphere. First of all, the stag standing "on top of the sceptre, seems to have been a symbol of royalty in the northern world" (p. 114); secondly, the anima-mana in question seems to be that of Odin, the conceived ancestor of the royal house. "[T]hose special powers and influences that established the fortunes of the Sutton Hoo royal house were encapsulated in the staff, as Odin's divine strength was in his spear." (Cited by Owen, p. 114) Similar in function to the sceptre is the standard (see figure).

<- The whetstone or sceptre from Sutton Hoo The standard from Sutton Hoo ->

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The Anglo-Saxon Ritual Year These are the Anglo-Saxon month names which some Heathens base their seasonal festivals on. The only fixed dates are the solstice's Yule and Litha normally celebrated on the 21st December and 21st June respectively. Other ceremonies appropriate to the month can be be celebrated at any convenient time within that month. (See also the page on traditional festivals for notes on Eostre, Lammas and Mother's Night.) Aefterra Geola - 'After Yule' - January The month after the Yule (midwinter) celebrations.

Solmonath - 'Mud Month' February The historian Bede refered to cakes being made in this month as offerings for the gods and goddesses. Hrethmonath - 'Hretha's month' - March Hretha is one of the Anglo-Saxon goddesses. Her name means the 'brave one' and is appropriate for this time of the year when food was very scarce until recent times. Eostremonath - 'Eostre's month' - April Eostre is a well known Anglo-Saxon goddess who has given her name to Easter. Her name derives from the word 'east'. She represents the Spring and the strengthening sun. Thrimilci - 'three milkings' - May This month acknowledges the easier life of the summer with its abundance of foodstuffs. Cows could now be milked three times a day.

Aerra Litha - 'before Litha (midsummer)' - June This month is named for the summer solstice - a major celebration in the Anglo-Saxon calender. Aefterra Litha - 'after Litha (midsummer)' - July The month after the midsummer celebrations. Weodmonath - 'weed month' - August This month marks the start of the harvest and the Loaf Mass or Lammas ceremonies that protected the grain barns. Haligmonath - 'holy month' - September September is the time when the grain harvest is brought home. This is a time of thanksgiving and the giving of offerings to the gods and goddesses. Winterfylleth - 'winter fullness' - October This month acknowledges the start of the cold season. Blotmonath - 'blood month' - November November is the time when cattle were traditionally slaughtered as fodder was difficult to gather in large quantities. In ancient heathen times the beasts were dedicated to the gods

and goddesses before slaughter and their flesh was carefully preserved to last the winter. Aerra Geola - 'before Yule' - December This month anticipates Yule the midwinter ceremony.
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