Woden’s Swastika

Nigel Pennick

Source: Journal of Geomancy vol. 3 no. 4, July 1979, pp. 91-93

Although the swastika is one of the most ancient and venerable of symbols,
its recent association with German National Socialism has rendered research
into it somewhat taboo. However, serious students of prehistory recognize
that recent uses or misuses of symbols have only a superficial bearing on the
correct interpretation of ancient usages.
The present article was prompted by a graffito brought to the author’s
attention in the church at Sutton in Bedfordshire. The inscription in
question is medieval in date and thus long after the suppression of paganism
in England, and of course is inside a Christian building. The graffito is of a
bearded man with flowing long hair performing what is perhaps a dance.
One hand is upraised and in form resembles the carvings of hands which
adorn the walls of the Royston Cave in Hertfordshire. Upon his coat is a
swastika of a very precise type. This swastika pattern would appear to be a
decorative variation on the familiar heraldic/religious symbol which
occurred everywhere from Roman mosaics through Victorian stained-glass,
British World War One savings stamps to the Nuremberg Rallies and
pro-Communist Vietnamese Cao Dai shrines. However, research has shown
that this variation of the emblem was not a fanciful doodle made by a bored
pagan during a compulsory church service. Although it adorns a Christian
medieval wall, the symbol traces back to prehistoric times in both Britain
and Scandinavia. In the nineteenth-century book by
Holmberg,Skandinaviens Hällristningar, an identical swastika is illustrated
on plate 32. The Hällristningar, rock scribings of prehistoric date found all
over Scandinavia, comprise a series of as yet inexplicable symbols which
may have had a religious meaning, may have been writing, calendrical
notation, magical invocation or divinatory purpose. What is known about
these enigmatic graffiti which occur upon stones, rock faces and in caves, is
that they are the direct forerunner of the magical system of writing known as
Runic (see the author’s Ogham and Runic, available through IGR). The
symbol in question was found at Tossene on the coast of Sweden to the north
of Göteborg.
However, the British connexion is not restricted to the pagan dancer at
Sutton. On a prehistoric rock near Ilkley in Yorkshire was found another,
identical swastika. J. Romilly Allen, the Victorian antiquary and expert on
ancient Celtic art, wrote: “About a mile to the west of the Panorama Rock, on
the extreme edge of the cliff forming the north boundary of Addingham high
moor, and overhanging the valley of the Wharfe, is a large block of gritstone
19 ft. long by 7 ft. broad, by 4 ft. 6 ins. thick. At the east end of the stone are
two rock basins 1 ft 3 ins, across, and at the other is carved the very unusual
device shown on the accompanying drawing (the swastika). I consider this
to be by far the most interesting of all the Ilkley sculptures … The “swastica”
occurs on the foot of Buddha … and the Ilkley device appears to be a
modification made by doubling the lines and curving the arms. The
“swastica” was engraved on a very large number of the spindle whorls found
by Dr. Schliemann at Troy. The “swastica” or “fyllot” is said to be a symbol
for Baal or Woden.”

This last piece of information is of the greatest importance. Its connexion

with pagan religion, a survival in folk customs long after the Christian
religion had been imposed on an unwilling audience by the state, explains
the identity of the symbol in ancient and historic times.

In Little Waltham church in Essex, the symbol again appears, this time
without the dancer.

The standard form of swastika has been equated with the summation of the
four seasons, the positions of the circumpolar stars known now as the
Plough or Great Bear, a constellation of the utmost significance since the
time of Ancient Egypt. It was this constellation which provided the
orientation-point for Egyptian temples, and was known as the {​ 92}​ time as
the Bull’s Foreleg. This leg connexion can still be seen in the three legged
swastika or triskele which forms the national emblem of the Isle of Man.

The emblematical nature of ancient knowledge is nowadays often

misunderstood. Just as the constellations of the heavens are still used and
form a valuable mnemonic for recalling star names and positions, so much
of the ancients’ figurative names for terrestrial and celestial phenomena was
also not to be taken literally, as modern pundits do almost invariably. Earth
energies were personified as dragons or Yarthlings; Devas, spirits, fairies,
gremlins, gnomes, angels, ‘Black Shuck’, ‘Wills’ Mother’s’, Miles’s Boy, Old
Nick, The Wild Hunt and other such folk-memories may be a way of
explaining or describing forces and energies which are of this type. Research
into such matters is only now being freed from the deadhand of Victorian
materialism which has hindered it by banal literal acceptance.

To return to the pattern. Is there any clue now available to us for its
interpretation? The answer is yes. Current about the beginning of this
century was a certain piece of lore well known to schoolboys. It was couched
in the terms of a puzzle of the kind which required a pictorial solution like
the Königsberg Bridge Problem or the Gas/Water/ Electricity to three
houses trick. These two are insoluble, but the following is not: “Four rich
men and four poor men had their houses symmetrically situated at the
corners of two squares, one inside the other, with a pond in the centre. The
rich men determined to build a wall which should exclude the poor men,
who had their houses close to the water, from the use of it, and at the same
time permit the rich men free access, as before. How was this done?”

It was done by the swastika pattern of Sutton. This riddle has the makings
of a degenerate legend or a mnemonic exercise. Its potency as a symbol
certainly survived not only the {​ 93}​ Christianization of England but even its
known function and meaning. In geomantic terms it appears to symbolize
the central axis of the universe with its circulating forces. The eight dots
around the world axis or omphalos may refer to the prechristian eightfold
division of the year (and the day) still observed by pagans: Autumnal
Equinox; Samhain; Winter Solstice; Candlemas; Spring Equinox; Beltane
(May Day); Midsummer Solstice and Lammas. An article in a later issue of
JOG will deal more fully with the eightfold division of space and time in
pagan England. The swastika of Sutton was obviously a symbol worn on a
garment of a dancer sacred to Woden or Baal (Bel, Celtic god of light). Does
this graffito represent a May dancer or the spiritual forerunner of Morris
Dancers? Future research into astronomical/geomantic symbolism may yet
reveal the true meaning of this enigmatic emblem.
If any reader has any information on other examples of this symbol, I would
be grateful to hear from them.