Professional Documents
Culture Documents
M E A N E Y
* My thanks are due to Sydney and Macquarie Universities for assistance in producing
typescripts of this article; and to Professor H. L. Rogers, to Dr and Mrs R. I. Jack and
especially to Professor D. Whitelock and to my colleague, Dr E. M. Liggins, for
reading it in its various stages and offering helpful comments and suggestions. They
have not, however, always agreed with my conclusions, and the responsibility for the
final form of the article must remain my own.
1 . The Chronicle of Wthelweard, Campbell, A. (Ed.), London, 1962, pp. xii-xvi.
Wthelweards career is also discussed by Barker, E. E., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
used by Ethelweard, Bulletin of Institute of Historical Research, XL, 19p7, 74-91.
There is a new assessment of Bthelweards language in Winterbottom, M., The Style
of Wthelweard, Medium E v u m , XXXVI, 1967, 109-18.
2. Barker, E. E., The Cottonian Fragments of Ethelweards Chronicle, Bull.Znsr.Hist.-
Res., XXIV, 1951, 5 3 . See also Chronicle of Wthelweard, Campbell (Ed.), pp. xi-xii.
3. Ibid., p. xiii, n. 2.
Audrey L. Meaney is Senior Lecturer in English, Macquarie University.
106 JOURNAL O F RELIGIOUS HISTORY
10. The writer hopes, at some future date,. to discugs,fully the versions of the Sceaf
story: it does not appear to be Scandinavian in orign, and 1s therefore left out of
account here.
11. 8.11. 547 B and C Chronicles take Idas genealogy five generations beyond Woden to
Godulf Geating: A originall four generations to Finn Godulfing.
S.U. 855 A, B, C and D t d e Bthelwulfs genealogy back to Adam. Asser, De Rebus
Gestis Alfredi, also has this genealo
S.U. 552 (B, C, originally A, not &%weard), 560 (B, C),597 ,(A, B, C),626 (B, C,
not Bthelweard), 755 (for 757, A, B), there are genealoges going back to Woden.
12. Hepen is used substantively and adjectivally in the Parker Chronicle from 832 to
A865 alongside Denisc; pugunus is similarly used by Bthelweard from 832 to 871 and
again in 879 but not always in exact translation. After A866 the Chronicle writer
prefers the sihple word here; and after 871 Bthelweard prefers burbarus. In 942 the
writer of the poem on the Five Boroughs used heden to describe the Norwegians of
Northumbria, contrasting them to the Christian Danes of Mercia; Bthelweard does not
translate this poem.
13. See Meanev. - ,A. L.. Woden in England. Folklore. LXXXVII. 1966. 105-15.
14. Sisam K., Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies, Proc. British Academy, XXXIX,
1953, 287z346; pp. 307-14.
108 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY
and organized paganism must have been long dead, though countryside
superstitions, witchcraft and the like, proved far more tenacious.15
Moreover, although it is quite probable that the heathen English
knew Woden as god of victory, Ethelweards specific statement that
pagans made sacrifices to Vuoddun for victory and courage, and that
the conquered man did also, derives from no known English source, but
is reminiscent of the Norse practice of sacrificing to Othin for victory
and power.lO Snorri says the Swedes believed that he gave victory to
some, and others he invited to himself, and they considered both to be
~ vanquished were needed ip Valholl against the time of
f 0 r t ~ n a t e . lThe
the Ragnargk.
Even Bthelweards statement that Wothen was rex multitudinis
Aarbarorum (I, 4), seems to foreshadow the complete Euhemerization
of the Ynglinga Saga and the Preface to the Prose Edda. Campbell
believes that Bthelweard misunderstood Bedes de cuius stirpe multurum
prouinciarum regium genus originern duxit (or the Old English o f Gres
strynde monigra mregGa cyningcynn fruman lredde (I, 15),18 but quite
possibly Wthelweard, like Snorri, was deliberately rationalizing his
source.
Bthelweard shows other signs of interest in and familiarity with the
Vikings and their language; signs which taken singly would not amount
to much; but which viewed as a group are impressive, and make one
the more inclined to accept a Norse origin for his statement about
Wothen. Campbell lists these points (pp. xxxv-xxxvi and p. lix) : ( a )
old Anglia had a capital city called sermonice Suxonico Slemuic, but by
the Danes H a i t h ~ b y(I,~ ~4;p. 9) ; (b) Northuuorthige is called Deoraby
by the Danes (IV, 2 ; p. 3 7 ) ; (c) the Danish leaders were known as
eorlus;20 (d) he improves the names of the Norse leaders (e.g.
Iguuar ==Chron. Inwzr, Ingwar;21 Sihtric = Chron. Sidroc; GuBrum
= Chron. Godrum).
Elfric
Unfortunately the career of Blfric, perhaps the greatest writer of Old
English prose, is known only in outline, and that is at times rather vague.
He was probably born about 955, and was a pupil of Bthelwold during
his episcopacy at Winchester (963-984). At the request of the ealdor-
man Bthelweards son Ethelmaer Elfric went as master of the monastic
school to the house which he had founded at Cerne Abbas in 987. The
acquaintance of the ealdorman and Elfric was evidently of long standing
at the time of the publication of Elfrics first series of Catholic Homilies,
since Elfric made a note for his scribes at the end of his English preface
to the effect that Rthelweard wished for four extra homilies in his copy.
Sisam dates the composition of this series to the first half of 991.22
It is perhaps legitimate to wonder, however, if the Latin of Bthelweards
chronicle-presuming that the writer and the ealdorman were the
same-would have been quite so idiosyncratic if his acquaintance with
Wlfric had antedated its composition; or if his protBgBs superior
scholarship may have been partly responsible for its discontinuation.
Elfric displays his knowledge of the Norse gods in a homily, De
Falsis Deis,23 based on Martin of Bragas De Correctione Rusticorurn
of the sixth century. The part of the sermon in which we are interested
mainly consists of a derogatory description of the classical gods, but to
it he has added the interpretatio romana of the Scandinavian gods,
stating that the sixth day of the week is named for bare sceamlease
gydenan Venus gehaten and Frycg on Denise, that louis is called Dor
among some peoples, and that he is most beloved by the Danes-an
interesting statement for which we have no corroborative evidence-
and that Mercurius is called Obon by another name in Danish. To this
he adds the comment that the Danes said in their error that this Zouis
whom they called por was the son of Mercurius whom they called Obon;
but they were wrong, because we read in heathen and Christian books
that Zouis was Saturns son.
It is also possible, as Philippson pointed outz4 that the picture of the
pagans bringing sacrifices to Mercury to heagum beorgum should also
be referred rather to the worship of Othin than to that of Mercury, since
Elfric regarded them as the same god, and since there is considerable
evidence25 for the worship of Othin in high places. Pope points out,
however, that Elfrics source has a generalizing passage not long before
concerning demons who appeared to men in various forms and were
offered sacrifices on high mountains and in leafy woods. He therefore
concludes: With this generalization to support him and the knowledge
that Mercury was one of the Olympian gods, Elfric would have needed
no more than a vague notion of Odin-worship to bring forth his
assertion.26
22. Sisam, K., MSS Bodley 340 and 342: Blfrics Catholic Homilies, Studies in the
History of Old English Literature, Oxford, 1953, pp. 148-98, esp. 159.
23. Uncollected Homilies of BZfric, 11, Pope, J. C. (Ed.), Early English Text Society,
260, London, 1968, pp. 667-724, esp. 684-5.
24. Germanisches Heidentum bei den Angelsachsen, p. 161.
25. Conveniently summarized in Bethurum, D., The Homilies o f Wulfstan, Oxford,
1957, p. 338.
26. Uncollected Homilies of Bljric, 11, Pope (Ed.), pp. 715-16. I am grateful to Pro-
fessor Pope for allowing me to see this in proof form before publication.
110 J O U R N A L O F RELIGIOUS HISTORY
In his Life of St Martin Elfric similarly tells how the devil used to
appear to the saint in the form of these same heathen gods, sometimes
as Zouis who is called Por, sometimes as Mercurius or Obon and some-
times as Venus or F r i ~ g . ~
Elfric also shows some knowledge of heathen practices in his homily
De Auguriis,28 since in passages not derived from his source, the Pseudo-
Augustine De Augurii9 he speaks of auguries from horses and dogs
(as well as from birds and sneezing). Although the casting of lots does
appear in his source, he emphasizes that it was only sinful if it was
practised mid aces deofleJcrefte, with the devils art.30 The Lives of
the Saints, which includes the De Auguriis homily and the Life of St
Martin, is dated by Sisam to soon after 993. To it is appended the
homily De Auguriis which was probably written about the same time or
a little earlier.31
It is quite possible that Rlfric could have gained his knowledge of
Norse gods and customs from Ethelweard himself, or from the same
source as Ethelweards, or from one very similar to it. Their oppor-
tunities of obtaining it are, on the other hand, not precisely alike.
At the time when Ethelweard and Elfric were writing there were
two possible sources within England from which they might have
obtained their information: the Eastern Danelaw and Northumbria; or
it might have come direct from the more distant areas of the Scandi-
navian world. Which of these was in fact the source, and how the
necessary contacts were made are questions which it would be vain to
imagine could be answered conclusively, but which must at any rate be
examined more closely.
The Settlers in the Eastern Danelaw
It would have been easy enough for Ethelweard, although perhaps not
for Elfric before 1005, to have come into contact with descendants of
the original Danish settlers south of the Humber. The ealdormans
estates lay substantially within the old Mercian kingdom, and some were
within the diocese of Dorchester, which stretched into Danish M e r ~ i a . ~ ~
There can be little doubt, too, that at the end of the tenth century
sufficient remained of Danish language and nomenclature, especially in
Lincolnshire and the area of the Five Boroughs, to account for much
27. Klfrics Lives of the Saints, 11, Skeat, W. W. (Ed.), EETS, 114, London, 1900,
pp. 218-313, esp. 264.
28. Klfrics Lives of the Saints, I, Skeat (Ed.), EETS, 76, London, 1881, pp. 364-83,
esp. 371.
29. Forster, Max, Altenglische Predigtquellen I, 2: Pseudo-Augustin und Blfric,
Archiv fur das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, CXVI, 1906, 307-8.
30. Other added passages refer more probably to superstitious practices current in south
England than to Norse heathenism. See the discussion of the laws on pp. 120ff.
31. Sisam, Studies in the History of Old English Literature, pp. 167-8, notes that
Zlfric kept a copy of short works by having them entered at the end of a suitable
codex. See also The Chronology of Blfrics Works, The Anglo-Saxons; Studies . . .
presented to Bruce Dickins, Clemoes, P. (Ed.), London, 1959, pp. 212-47, esp. 220-2.
32. Barker, Bull.lnst.Hist.Res., XL, 1967, 90.
T H E N O R S E GODS A N D N O R T H U M B R I A 111
33. See Stenton, Sir Frank, The Danes in England, Proc. British Academy, XIII,
1927, 3-46.
34. Accounts of the excavation of this cemetery are to be found in the Derbyshire
Archaeological Journal, LXVI, 1946, 1-23; LXXV, 1955, 140-4; LXXVI, 1956, 40-56.
35. See also whitelock, D., The Conversion of the Eastern Danelaw, Saga-Book of
the Viking Society, XII, 1941, 159-76.
36. Stenton, Sir Frank, Anglo-Saxon England, 2nd edn., Oxford, 1947, pp. 444-6.
37. See Whitelock, D., The Dealings of the Kings of England with Northumbria in the
Tenth and Eleventh Centuries, The Anglo-Saxons: Studies . . . presented to Bruce
Dickins, Clemoes (Ed.), pp. 70-88.
38. See Shetelig, Haakon, Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland, part 1 ,
A n Introduction to the Viking History of Western Europe, Oslo, 1940, p. 63, and
Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 251. Archaeological, material from the Viking Age
found in York is considered in Waterman, D. M., Late Saxon, Viking, and Earl
Medieval Finds from York, Archaeologia, XCVII, 1959, 59-105, and is consistent w i d
the historical evidence.
112 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY
Yet for a while it seemed that Christianity might soon win over the
Northumbrian Danes; for them, as for those settled south of the
Humber, the pantheistic nature of Scandinavian religion, and the pro-
longed contact of Vikings with Christianity [would have] made the
acceptance of a Christian god easy.3s In York the archiepiscopy con-
tinued almost ~ninterrupted,~ and in Northumbria north of the Tees,
which remained English at least in government, S t Cuthberts see was
re-established at Chester-le-Street about 883.41 About the same time,
the Danes of York accepted a Christian king, G ~ t h f r i t h ,and ~ ~ his
successors4~iaround the turn of the century issued a coinage Carolingian
in inspiration, Christian . . . in conception . . . original in design
and competent in execution44 which shows them coming to terms with
their environment and with a money economy, even although one of
them, Sigeferth, had led a fleet raiding southwards in 893,46 taking
advantage of the threat posed to King Elfred by new Danish invaders,
and the other, Cnut, minted coins also at the French port of Quentovic
and is therefore supposed by Stenton to have been the ruler of a
~ ~ of the coinage
genuine Viking state, maintained by ~ e a - p o w e r .Most
of the following years appears to have had the reverse legend SCI
PETRI, and was therefore perhaps issued under the auspices of the new
39. See Wilson D. M., The Vikings Relationship with Christianity in Northern
England, JourAal of British Archaeological Association, XXX, 1967, 38-47. F o r the
following brief account of the interrelationship of Vikings and English, heathenism and
Christianity, reference has chiefly been made t o the sources translated in vol. I of Eng-
lish Historical Documents, Whitelock, D. (Ed.), London, 1955, particularly to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the History of St Cuthbert, and the History of the Kings
attributed to Simeon of Durham. Miss Whitelocks introduction, especially pp. 35-45, and
Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 259-61, 317-20, 322, 325, 327-30, 334-6, 338-9, 352-8,
have also been consulted. Scottish and Irish annals have been used in the translations
in Anderson, A. 0. (Ed.), Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286, Edin-
burgh, 1922, vol. I. Dates given are as English Historical Documents, vol. I, White-
lock (Ed.).
40. According t o Roger of Wendover, Archbishop Wulfhere was driven out in 872,
and according t o Simeon of Durham he was reinstated in 873. English Historical
Documents, vol. I, Whitelock (Ed.), pp. 251, 256.
41. Deduced from recorded Durham traditions. I am indebted t o Professor Whitelock
for pointing out t o me the facts in the last two footnotes.
42. Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, 13; English Historical Documents, vol. I, Whitelock
(Ed.), p. 261 and n. 1 .
43. Or successor-see Lyon, C. S., and Stewart. B. H. I. H., The Northumbrian Viking
Coins in the Cuerdale Hoard, Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies presented to F . M . Stenton,
Dolley, R. H. M. (Ed.), London, 1961, pp. 96-121, esp. 114-18.
44. Ibid., p. 100.
45. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (A, B, C, D ) says that a fleet came in 894 and
besieged Exeter and a fortress on the north coast of Devon. This is quite possibly the
same as the fleet of one Sigeferth, piraticus, which according to Wthelweard (who
apparently possessed an otherwise unknown Northumbrian account of the last years of
the ninth century-see Stenton, Sir Frank, Bthelweards Account of the Last Years of
King Alfreds Reign, EHR, XXIV, 1909, 79-84), came from the Northumbrians in
893 and ravaged along the coast bis tempore in uno.
The chronology of these events is very obscure. Although WJhelweard dates
Sigeferths expedition after (his ita gestis) the fall of Benfleet (whlch he mentions
after the encounter at Buttington) it seems improbable that there should have been two
large fleets raiding from Northumbria at roughly the same time one ignored by the
Chronicle and the other by Wthelweard. I n view of this, we may b i justified in supposing
that part of Wthelweards. confused chronology derived from the difficulty of inserting
material derived from a different, Northumbnan, source into the Chronicle narrative.
46. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 260. See also Dolley, R. H. M., Viking Coins of
the Danelaw and of Dublin, London, 1965, p. 19 and plates V and VII.
T H E N O R S E GODS A N D N O R T H U M B R I A 113
61. Beaven, Murray, King Edmund I and the Danes of York, EHR, XXXIII, 1918,
1-9.
62. Historiu Regum s.a. 941; English Historical Documents, vol. I, Whitelock (Ed.),
p. 253.
63. Dolley, Viking Coins o f Danelaw and of Dublin, p. 25.
64. Ethelweard attributes the reduction of the two desertores, Rregnald and Anlaf,
to Wulfstan and the ealdormen of Mercia, but under too late a date.
65. The second part of Campbells article in EHR, LVII, 1942, deals with the events
of Eadreds reign (91-7).
66. Waterman. Archaeologiu, XCVII, 1959, 70 and passim thereafter.
67. Estimates based on Domesday Book would suggest the number was closer to 7,000,
ibid., 67-8.
116 J O I J R N A L OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY
68. Stenton, Sir Frank, York in the Eleventh Century, York Minster Historical Tracts
627-1027, Thompson, A. H. (Ed.), 1927, quoted in Waterman, op. cit., p. 70.
69. Smith, A. H., The Place-Names of the East Riding. of Yorkshire and York, Eng-
lish Place-Name Society ~. (hereafter EPNS). _ . 1937.. _PP.
. . XIV. Cambridge. _ xxv. 280.
70. See especially the introductions to the English Place-Name Society volumes on the
East Riding (EPNS, XIV, pp. xxv-xxvi), and West Riding (EPNS, XXXVI, pp. 62-3),
and Westmorland (EPNS. XLII, P. xlii).
71. Turville-Petre, G., Origins if-Zcelandic Literature, Oxford, 1953, pp. 41-2.
T H E N O R S E GODS A N D N O R T H U M B R I A 117
another the YglundarkviSa, the first because of its Celtic affinities, the
second because the Weland story is evidenced more in England than
elsewhere; but the ascriptions are more than doubtful and it would be
unwise to base any arguments on these poems.72 It is perhaps worth
remarking that Sophus Bugge believed the idea of RagnarQk to have
been derived from Christianity which the Vikings had encountered in
Britain, but his ideas were not generally accepted, and it seems much
more probable that the twilight of the gods was an integral part of
Norse paganism-evidently a part with which the Vikings in England
were very familiar.
Yet it would appear that some of the Hiberno-Norse settlers, especi-
ally those in north-western England, had been converted before they
came across the sea from Ireland, to judge from the names of Irish
saints imbedded in church dedications and place-name^.^^ Moreover,
D. M. Wilson has argued cogently that the Vikings, whether of Danish
or Norwegian extraction, soon gave up their practice of barrow burial
and began to inter in Christian churchyards. From Northumbria only
about a dozen Viking burials with grave goods in the pagan manner
are known and about half of them have been found in churchyards:
more if one assumes that other isolated finds in churchyards were also
from burials. The move to churchyard burial, and the subsequent
termination of the practice of supplying grave-goods, would explain the
great rarity of identifiable Viking burials in the n0rth.7~
On the other hand, the occurrence of the place-name element -haugr
hill, burial mound with a Scandinavian personal name in the genitive
case as the first element points to the opposite conclusion. Although in
some of the place-names -haugr may mean simply hill, and although
in others the genitive will indicate ownership, a fair number of them
are likely to refer to the actual burial place of the named person, as is
the case in S ~ a n d i n a v i a .This
~ ~ is illustrated most graphically by pairs
of neighbouring names which occasionally occur, when the same man
gave his name to both homestead and barrow-for example Grimes-
thorpe and Grimeshou, Haggenby and Haggandehow, and possibly
Clareton and Claro, all in the West Riding.7e Such p l a c e - n a m e y e
common in the West and North Ridings of Yorkshire and in Cumber-
land and Westmorland, less common in Lancashire and the East Riding
where they are found chiefly on the Wolds, and not recorded at all in
72. See Smith, A. H. The Early Literary Relations of England and Scandinavia,
Saga-Book of rhe Viki& Society, XI, 1928-1936, 215-32, esp. 222. See also Binns, Univ.
i Bergen Aarbok, 1956, 13.
7 3 . See Collingwood, W. G., Christian Vikings, Antiquity, I, 1927, 172-80.
74. Wilson, J.Brit.Arch.Soc., XXX, 1967, 44-5. See also the list in Shetelig, H., The
Viking Graves, Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland, part VI, Civilisation
of the Viking Settlers in relation to their old and new countries, Oslo, 1954, pp. 65-111,
esp. 75-7.
75. Smith, A. H., English Place-Name Elements, part I (A-IW), EPNS, XXV, Cam-
bridge, 1956, sub haugr.
76. Smith, EPNS, XXXVI, 1962, p. 66 and n. 1.
118. JOIJRNAT, O F RFLIGIOUS HISTORY
77. See the Place-Name of the North Riding (EPNS, V ) , pp. 314, 320: . . . o f the
East Riding (EPNS, XIV) pp. 305, 313, 324; . . . of Cumberland, I11 (EPNS, XXII),
pp. 477, 502; . . . of W&t Riding, VII (EPNS, XXXVI), pp. 201-2, 277; . . . of
Westmorland, I1 (EPNS, XLIII), pp. 259, 305.
78. Wilson, J.Brit.Arch.Soc., XXX, 1967, 46.
79. Binns, Univ. i Bergen Aarbok, 1956, 26-9.
80. Wilson, op. cit., p. 38.
81. Descriptions and discussions of the Gosforth Cross are to be found in Davidson,
H. R. Ellis, Gods and Heroes in Stone, The Early Cultures of North-West Europe,
Chudwick Memorial Studies, Dickins, B. and Fox, C. (Eds.), Cambridge, 1950, pp. 123-
39, esp. 130; Berg, Knut, The Gosforth Cross, Journal of Warburg and Courtauld
Znstirutes, XXI, 1958, 27-43. The latter article has an extensive bibliography. Most of the
stones mentioned here are discussed and illustrated in CoUingwood, W. G., Northum-
brian Crosses of the Pre-Norman Age, London, 1927.
82. Davidson, op. cit., pp. 131-2.
83. Kendrick, Sir T., Lare Saxon and Viking Art, London, 1949; Wilson, D. M. and
Klindt-Jensen, O., Viking Art, London, 1963, pp. 147-60.
T H E N O R S E GODS A N D N O R T H U M B R I A 119
The only other god who has been recognized on the stones is Loki,
who has also been suggested as the original for other bound
Several explanations have been put forward for the occurrence of
these heathen scenes on Christian crosses-ranging from Sir Thomas
Kendricks idea that they were due to the Christian liking for ornamenta-
tion and indifference as to the subject matter,s6 to Mrs Davidsons that
parallelism between the Norse and Christian ideas of the end of the
world, or the desire to commemorate an ancestor were responsible;s6
and to Knut Bergs that the representation of RagnarQk illustrated the
fall of the old gods and the establishment of the church through the
Crucifixion.87 It has even been claimed that the scenes from the sigurd
story, occurring on crosses on Man and at Halton in north Lancashire
and at Leeds have obvious parallelisms with certain parts of the Gospels
and with the whole Christian philosophy of evil.ss
Yet, even accepting that Norse myth remained inspirational in art and
literature in Britain until the millennium at least, it seems quite possible
that for the Vikings, as for Radwald, it would not have been unthink-
able to have had a temple with one altar to Christ and another to their
old godss9-even if it would have been completely unthinkable to the
archbishop and the other churchmen in northern England-or, as for
Helgi the Lean, to have believed in Christ, but have called on Thor
when in peril or on the sea90-or to have buried their dead in a pagan
manner in Christian churchyards, and adorned their crosses with scenes
from pagan myth and story. As Binns puts it:
c
The m ntal background of the Viking in contact with Christianity
[was] . . . of two worlds which did not at all shade off into one
another, but existed in their most characteristic forms on each side of
the boundary: it was not the less firmly either for being both.s1
After Northumbrias final incorporation within England, however,
Christianity would have been encouraged there, not only for pietys
sake, but also to help in the assimilation programme. After Wulfstan I,
no archbishop of York was himself a Northumbrian, but was usually
chosen from the southern Danelaw. For long periods the archiepiscopacy
was held in plurality with a southern diocese, usually Worcester, and
Miss Whitelock points out that this would help to break down the
84. Collingwood, op. cit., p. 158; see also Davidson, op. cit., pp. 124, 132-3.
85. Late Saxon and Viking Art, pp. 59-60.
86. Davidson, op. cit., pp. 133-5.
87. The Gosforth Cross, Journal of Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXI, 1958, 35.
An interesting parallel is afforded by the use of Pagan Motifs and Practices in Christian
Art and Ritual in Roman Britain: see Toynbee, .I. M. C., Christianity in Britain 300-
700, Barley, M. W. and Hanson, R. P. C. (Eds.), Leicester, 1968, pp. 177-92.
88 Wilson J.Brit.Arch.Soc., XXX, 1967, 41. For a description of these scenes see
Eliis [Davidson], H. R., Sigurd in the Art of the Viking Age, Antiquity, XVI, 1942,
216-36; see also Collingwood, op. cit., pp. 159-63, and Davidson, op. cit., 124-6.
89. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, 11, 15.
90. EyfirCIinga SQgur, Kristjansson, J. (Ed.) Reykjavik, 1956, lslenzk Fornrir, IX, 3,
n. 1; a reference is there given to Landndmabdk, 264-5.
91. Binns, Univ. i Bergen Aarbok, 1956, 11-12.
120 J O U K N A L OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY
isolation of the north and bring it into contact with the new
but no monasteries were established there, and the church at York in
the later Anglo-Saxon period was impoverished. Since one would have
supposed that the area would have contained at least a few lords, whose
ancestors had been enriched by Viking plunder, it may be legitimate to
assume that the church was not popular enough in southern Northum-
bria to attract the generosity of such men as it did in the East Midlands
and East Anglia. Even Wulfstan IT, Archbishop of York, was a bene-
factor of Ely rather than attempting the establishment of a monastery
in his archdiocese, and this may have been because of a fear of northern
instability : that the Northumbrians might, given the opportunity, again
choose for themselves an independent ruler, even if he were a pagan,
in preference to the southern king.93
Other place-names, in addition to those with -haugr already men-
tioned, illustrate Northumbrian heathenism. In the North Riding of
Yorkshire occurs the one English place-name containing ON Othin-
Roseberry Topping, earlier Othenesberg, a large conical hill;94 and in
Westmorland the name Hoff descends from ON hof heathen
In the remoter places of the countryside, too, one might occasionally
come across a Norse alfr, skratti, skyrsi, troll or burs in place of an
equally terrifying and supernatural English Elf, scinna, scucca, grendel
or b y r ~ While
. ~ ~ all these place-names were probably established well
I
before the mid-tenth century, their survival depended on their ability to
remain on the tongues of the later inhabitants.
The element lundr which occurs in Northumbria about fifteen times
is particularly interesting. In the southern Danelaw it appears to mean
no more than grove, but Reginald of Durham, writing c. 1290,
explains it as nemus paci donatum, a grove given to peaceQsand thus
it seems to have been equivalent to the English fridsplot, peace-spot,
which appears in the so-called Canons of Edgar. Karl Jost has shown
these to be a compilation of Wulfstan 11, Archbishop of York from
1002 to 1023, probably written soon after his translation there.QYThe
passage in which it occurs runs
16. And we teach, that each priest should zealously exalt Christianity,
and fully extinguish and forbid every heathen practice ( h e j e n -
dorn) : the worship of wells (wiiweurjunga), and necromancy
(Zicwiglunga), and augury (hwata) and incantation (galdra) and
100. Jost, Karl, Die Institutes of Policy, Civil and Ecclesiastical, Swiss Studies in
English. 47. Bern. 1959. 1). 184.
lOi. In probable order of composition: Bethurum VI, 11. 85-7; Bethurum VIIIc, 11.
166-8; see also Bethurum, Homjlies of W d f s t a n , p. 103. In Homilies Bethurum Xc, 1.
105 and XII, 1. 66, the prohibitions of heathenism are general.
102. d3lfrics Lives of fhe Saints, Skeat (Ed.), I, 372.
103. Elfric, Sermones Caiholici, Thorpe, B. (Ed.), London, 1844, I. 474-6.
122 JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY
104. Cf. Sermo XIV, 4, Sancti Caesarii Arelatensis Sermones, 2nd edn. Turnholt, 1953,
I, 71.
105. Cf. that ascribed by Albers to Bede, X, 1; Egberts, VIII, 1; the so-called Roman
Penitential of Halitgar, 38 (see McNeill, J. T. and Gamer, Helena M., Medieval
Handbooks of Penance, Records of Civilization, XXIX, New York, 1938, passim).
106. Bethurum, Homilies of Wulfstan, p. 70.
107. Whitelock, D., Wulfstan at York, Franciplegius; Medieval and Linguistic Studies
in Honor of Francis Peabody Magoun.Jr., Bessmger, J . B. and Creed, R. P. (Eds.),
New York, 1965, pp. 214-31. This article deals briefly wlth Wulfstans references to
paganlsm.
108. McNeill and Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance, pp. 243ff.
109. As do later codes of Bthelred.
110. Sisam, K., The Relationship of Bthelreds Codes V and VI, Sfudies in the
History of Old English Literature, Oxford, 1953, pp. 278-87, esp. 284.
111. The Latin vocabulary here appears to translate the Old English but it is difficult
;o establish the exact meaning of the words. In Classical Latin pyfhonicus is a
diviner, prophet, with the development of meaning to sorcerer; the connection with
snakes, however, appears to give the word the occasional meaning of poisoner.
Veneficus is literally poisoner, but also develops the meaning sorcerer. It is here
probably rendering the OE mordwyrhtan.
See also Latham, R., Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, London, 1965, sub
pythonissa and venenator.
T H E NORSE GODS AND N O R T H U M B R I A 123
the false gods, or delivered for sacrifice (11. 25-27); and thirdly, that
they dare not ill-treat the servants of the false gods (11. 29-31).
Although one cannot be sure here that Wulfstan was not exaggerating
the virtues of the heathens in order to castigate the Christians (compare
Tacitus praise of the simple Germans and his condemnation of the
degenerate and luxury-loving Romans) it seems most probable that he
had knowledge of heathen customs, especially those pertaining to
sacrifice.
And there is his homily Bethurum XII, De Falsis Deis, which is an
adaptation into his own rhythmical style of Blfrics homily afore-
mentioned. He omits Rlfrics equation of Venus with Frycg-perhaps
only because he does not use his section on the names of the days of
the week12?-but his own introduction to the homily is in many ways
close to his description of heathenism in Cnuts laws, since he says that
the sun and moon were also worshipped as gods for their shining
brightness, likewise the shining stars, fire because of its sudden burning,
also water, and earth because she feeds everything. Unfortunately
Miss Bethurum does not attempt to date this homily, and, as she says,
it seems rather more a piece of learning than a tract addressed to a
current evil.12s In view of the similarities to Cnuts laws it may approxi-
mate to them in date, but neither Wulfstans nor Elfrics use of Denisc
for the heathens need make us assume that their information must
necessarily derive from Cnut and his followers rather than the Norsemen
of York.lZ9
If, however, Ethelweard and Elfric derived their knowledge of Norse
gods from Northumbria, how did it reach them in the south? There
are, in fact, numerous possibilities. Rthelweard, as a member of the
royal family and an important official, was in a favoured position for
gathering information. He attended the kings councils and courts, to
which magnates from all over the country, including Northumbria north
and south, also came. These magnates would have included occasion-
ally the Bishop of Chester-le-Street, and, more often, the Archbishop
of York,laOwho both might well have taken the opportunity to bemoan
the difficulties they encountered with the pagans in their dioceses.
One would suppose, too, that the archbishops would have been
accompanied by southern clergy when they first went to York, who
would have made frequent journeys to the south with or on behalf of
the archbishop, and perhaps have returned to the south permanently on
127. It is noticeable that neither Blfric nor Wulfstan equates Mars with Tyr.
128. Bethurum, Homilies of Wulfstan, p. 334.
129. Binns, Univ. 1 Bergen Aarbok, 1956, 7 , argues fhat OE Nordrnanna meant exclusively
Norwegian and not Dane; but this would not exclude Dene from being used in a more
general sense. The vocabular of the Chronicle entries for the year 787 are interesting:
all except A report that in t&s year three ships Norlirnanna raided on the south coast;
D, E and F add that the raiders were from Hrereba (or Hereba) lande-i.e. probably
Horthaland on the Hardanger Fjord in Norway. Yet the comment in all versions is
that these were the first ships Deniscra manna which had come to England. In any case,
the population of the Northumbrian Viking kingdom is likely to have included many
of Danish descent who also, in the climate then prevailing, maintained their heathenism.
130. I am indebted to Professor Whitelock for this and other points in this passage.
126 J O U R N A L O F R E L I G I O U S HISTORY
his death and the appointment of his successor. Wlfric could well have
come into contact with these men, even if he did not attend the kings
councils, which he may well have done-it is he who gives contem-
porary references to the submission of the rulers Cumera and Scotta,
of the Cymry and the Scots, who came eight kings on one day to
Edgar in 973.13
Another possibility of contact would have been by means of hostages.
Whenever the Northumbrians acknowledged the supremacy of the kings
of England hostages must have been given. The Northumbrians who
accompanied Eadred to A b i n g d ~ n lmay ~ ~ have been such, rather than
magcates attending the kings court. Even after Northumbria came
finally under English rule, it is likely enough that the kings may have
felt it better to keep some hostages to safeguard their hold on this
recalcitrant province. Certainly at the Battle of Maldon in 991 there
was a Northumbrian hostage with Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex; and
if it was a usual practice to billet hostages on ealdormen, there is every
reason to suppose that Wthelweard, ealdorman in the south-west and
of royal blood, would also have provided such hospitality. Yet one
cannot rule out the possibility that Byrhtnoths hostage was part of a
response to the renewed Viking attacks, which would not have taken
place before the time at which Bthelweard was writing (978-988, see
discussion under Ethelweard above).
It is also possible that Bthelweard might have obtained his informa-
tion simply by means of ordinary intercourse with Northumbria. We
are apt to think that any state of enmity, cold or hot, automatically
entails a closing of frontiers; but this is not likely to have been the case
in passport-less Anglo-Saxon England. Although doubtless strangers
would have been viewed with suspicion, there may well have been more
movement by merchants and those rich and powerful enough to provide
some measure of protection for themselves than we readily imagine.
H. R. Loyn has pointed out that there would have been a considerable
amount of internal trade within England at this period.133 Even if the
two most frequently traded commodities, iron and salt, were locally
available to the North~mbrians~~ they may well have needed to
augment their supplies in these and other goods from the more southerly
parts of England. The law code Edgar IV, probably dated 962-963,
131. In his homily for St.Swithuns- Day, &Ifrids Lives of the Saints, Skeat (Ed.),, I,
468, and, less precisely, in the epilogue to hIs Verslon of Judges, The Old Engbsh
Version of the Heptateuch, Crawford, S.,J. (Ed.), EETS, 160, 1922, pp. 416-17. See
English Historical Documents, vol. I, Whitelock (Ed.), pp. 853, 854 for translatlon.
132. Wlfrics Life of St Ethelwold, Stevenson, J. (Ed.), ch. 8, .Chronicon Monasterii
de Abingdon, 11, Rolls Series, London, 1858, pp. 253-66, especially 258. See English
Historical Documents, vol. I, Whitelock (Ed.), p. 834 for translahon.
133. Loyn, H. R., Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest, London, 1962,
ch. 3, Internal Trade: the Coinage and the Towns, pp. 98-145; see also Loyn,
Boroughs and Mints, A.D. 900-1066, Anglo-Saxon Coins: Studies presented to F . M .
Stenton, Dolley (Ed.), London, 1961, pp. 122-35.
134. Domesday refers to iron workers at Wragley in the West Riding; and salt manu-
facture was of considerable importance in Cheshire. See Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England
and the Norman Conquest, pp. 102, 107, 109.
T H E N O R S E GODS A N D N O R T H U M B R I A 127
140. See the account of the voyage of Ohthere in King Elfreds Orosius; and Egils
Saga, ch. 17 (trans. Jones, G., Syracuse, 1960, p. 5 7 ) .
141. Arbman, H., The Vikings, London, 1961, p. 47; Jones, G., A History of the
Vikings, London, 1968, pp. 157-74; Hedeby, whjch survived until the mid-eleventh
century, was probably not so directly concerned wlth the products of the Scandinavian
peninsula.
142. Laws of the Kings of England. Robertson (Ed.), pp. 56-61.
143. Ch. 74 in Snorri, Sturluson, Heimskringla, Reykjavik, 1944, p. 194. (In other eds.
ch. 60 or 81.)
144. Grierson, P., Commerce in the Dark Ages: A Critique of the Evidence, Trans-
actions of Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., IX, 1959, 23-40.
145. Loyn, Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest, p. 95.
T H E N O R S E GODS A N D N O R T H U M B R I A 129
opposite d i r e ~ t i 0 n . l ~Most
~ of the trade would appear to have been
with the east coast ports of England; but if any merchants had pene-
trated to the southern ports within Bthelweards ealdormanry, he would
certainly have heard of them.14T It is also probable that he might have
met Scandinavian merchants in London; the privileges accorded to them
there and recorded in a document of the time of King John, may well
have originated much earlier.148
Again, if we can trust the sagas, there were Icelanders, moved by the
spirit of adventure, and perhaps with poetic ability as their credentials,
who took service with English kings, and, again, although specific cases
may be unprovable, it was evidently regarded as a normal thing to do.
According to his saga, Egil Skallagrimsson came with his brother
Thorolf and fought for Bthelstan at a battle probably to be equated with
Brunanb~rh.~~~
Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue is similarly said to have come to Ethelred
the Unready and written a singularly inappropriate panegyric to him.15o
One of his later verses (ch. XI) tells how he was delayed in order to
fight for Ethelred-presumably against Swein and his Danes. He does
not seem to have been so addicted to mythological kennings as Egil,
but although he would have shared in the conversion of Iceland in 1000,
being then in his teens, he uses enough kennings in his versesle to show
that he was aware of at least the names of many of the pagan gods, and
that he knew some of Othins heiti and of his connection with warfare-
enough, certainly, for him to have been able to give Ethelweard his
information about them, had he not first arrived in England well after
Rthelweards death.
Moreover, the later Anglo-Saxon period appears to have been a time
of missionary effort in Scandinavia, and although it reached its peak
somewhat later than Ethelweard was writing, it is quite possible that he
or Elfric may have encountered one or two who had been perhaps to
Norway and returned.162
It may also be relevant that a late-tenth-century version of the English
genealogies appears as the basis of a passage in the prologue to Snorris
Eddu ( $ Q 3 and 4) ,153 and there the Old English names are translated
into Norse-Vithar does not appear in the Kentish line, but Voden
whom we call Oain and Beldeg whom we call Baldr do. At first sight
146. Lewis, A. R., The Northern Seas, Princeton, 1958, pp. 305, 329, 334.
147. L o w . ov. cit.., 0.. 99.
_ ,
154. Professor Whitelock queries whether they were taken by the missionaries referred
to above.
155. Lukman, Niels, in Kulturhistorisk Leksikon f o r Nordisk Middelalder, Copenhagen,
1956, I, 142-3.
156. Walsh, A., Scandinavian Relations with Zreland during the Viking Period, Dublin,
1922, ch. VII, The Vikings and the Celtic Church, pp. 47-56. See also Young, J. I.,
A Note on the Norse Occupation of Ireland, History, new ser., X X X V , 1950, 11-32.
157. Lewis, The Northern Seas, pp. 330, 430.
158. Tait, J., The Medieval English Borough, Manchester, 1936, p. 10.
159. Roger of Wendovers unreliable version of this list contains the name Jukil (which
could represent ON Jokell) Westmariae. It is, unfortunately, best ignored. See
Stenton, Sir Frank, Pre-Conquest Westmorland, An Znventory of the Historical Monu-
ments in Westmorland, London, 1936, pp. li-1%.
160. See the discussion of this name in E. V. Gordons edition of the Battle o f Maldon,
2nd edn., London, 1939, pp. 84-5.
161. Anderson (Early Sources of Scottish History, p. 479 n.) identifies him with Mact,
Harolds son, who according to Welsh sources had invaded Anglesey a few years before,
and who is recorded under the name Magnus in the Annals of the Four Masters as
plunderin Inishcathy with the Lawmen of the Islands. His father was probably
Harold, ford of the foreigners of Limerick whose death is recorded in 940 (Walsh,
op. cit., p. 2 5 ) . T h e Hebrides and Man were called the Znnsi-Gall, Isles of the
Foreigners, already by the Irish in the ninth century, and were known to the Norse
as the Subreyiar, the southern isles. Godred, Maccus brother, is called King of
Znnsi-Gall in Irish sources, and Gubrebr, King of Man in Njals saga, chs 86 and 89.
See also Megaw, Basil S. and Eleanor M. The Norse Heritage in the Isle of Man,
The Early Cultures of North-West Europe: H. M . Chadwick Memorial Studies, Dickins,
B. and Fox, C. (Eds.), Cambridge, 1950, p. 157, n. 1.
T H E NORSE GODS A N D NORTHUMBRIA 131
The Vikings had begun to bury their dead on Man, which was
strategically placed for their activities in the region,lB2from about the
middle of the ninth century.lB3 It shows the same religious confusion
as Northumbria in this period, with burials of pagan character in
churchyards, and Christian crosses with scenes of pagan mythology
and legend.IB4
Brqndsted believes that the occupation of the more northerly islands-
the Hebrides, the Orkneys and the Shetlands-could have begun even
at the end of the eighth century;ls6 and that they served as convenient
bases for the raids around the coast of Scotland which were frequent
at that time. The Hebrides were closely connected with Man and
probably enjoyed a similar culture; they supplied some notable settlers
to Iceland.lBGThe Orkneys had their own jurls and according to the
sagas were often visited by adventurers. The power of these earls
reached its zenith in the days of Sigurd the Stout, whose rule, under
his famous raven banner, extended south as far as Fife. He is supposed
by Anderson to have been the Sigfrith at Chester in 973, before he
became Earl. The Shetlands were more closely connected with Norway,
and presumably shared both its paganism and its conversion.lB7 Viking
graves have been found on all these islands, with a sprinkling of boat
burials.las From the islands an expansion on to the Scottish mainland
seems to have taken place in the tenth century. Coin-hoards belonging
to the tenth century occur throughout these islands, and on the Scottish
mainland, and many of them clearly date from before the time of
clanegeld payment.la9
Any of these areas, rather than Scandinavia itself, or Northumbria,
could have produced the man, adventurer or pirate, who told Ethel-
weard and Elfric the names of the gods of the Norsemen, and the
former that they were accustomed to sacrifice to Othin for victory. It
may be relevant that a man with the Irish-Norse name Maccus,170
who was almost certainly not a hostage, was named as one of the
defenders of the bridge in the poem on the Battle of Maldon (1. 80).
We do not have to assume, however, that Zthelweards source was
necessarily the same as Elfrics, nor that Ethelweard derived all his
Scandinavian knowledge from one informant. The improvement of the
Danish names in the Chronicle need not have been due to the same
person who told him about Othin, Baldr and Vithar. It is surely not
beyond the bounds of possibility that a relative of King Elfred-who
162. Megaw, op. cit., p. 148.
163. Arbman, The Vikings, p. 72; BrQndsted, J., The Vikings, London, 1960, p. 101.
164. Wilson, i.Brif.Arch.Soc., XXX, 1967, 40-2; Davidson, Gods and Heroes in Stone,
Early Cultures of North-East Europe, Dickins and FOX(Eds.), passim,
165. Brendsted, The Vikings, pp. 31-2, 52-3.
166. Arbman, The Vikings, pp. 52-3.
167. Ibid., p. 52.
168. BrGndsted, The Vikings, pp. 217-8.
169. Lewis, The Northern Seas, p. 331; see also Fig. 1 opposite p. 142 in Anglo-Saxon
Coins: Studies presented to F . M . Stenton, Dolley (Ed.).
170. See n. 160 above.
132 J O U R N A L O F R E L I G I O U S HISTORY