Anglo-Saxon and Norse Paganism: Were They The Same?

Is there any difference between the Anglo-Saxon and Norse gods?

I already knew that the English days of the week are a vestigial remnant of Anglo-Saxon paganism: Tiw (Tuesday), Woden (Wednesday), Thunor (Thursday) and Frige (Friday). Similarly, I knew about Eostre (Easter) and Hel (Hell). There isn’t much new ground covered in this video.

From Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of England:

“The first two commanders are said to be Hengist and Horsa, being afterwards slain in battle by the Britons, was buried in the eastern parts of Kent, where a monument, bearing his name, is still in existence. They were the sons of Victgilsus, whose father was Vecta, son of Woden; from whose stock the royal race of many provinces deduce their original.”

According to Bede, Hengist and Horsa were the commanders of the force who led the ancestors of the English to Britain were the grandsons of Woden who was a real person. The royal houses of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Kent, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, Deira and Bernicia (Northumbria) all claimed descent from Woden.

According to Dr. Jackson Crawford, Odin and Woden are just different names for the same god in old Germanic languages which is what we would expect:

According to Survive the Jive, Woden and Odin are also just different names for the same god in similar languages and stem from a common proto-Indo-European root:

The Vikings who invaded England were closely related to the Anglo-Saxons. The two groups had only diverged a few centuries before. It is hard to discern the genetic impact that the Vikings had on England because the two groups were almost genetically indistinguishable. As for the Celts who occupied Britain, even they had only diverged from the Germanics in the Bronze Age a few thousand years before and both were descended from the Yamnaya.

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13 Comments

  1. What’s the difference? At least their “pagan” gods weren’t intrinsically destructive to their race and cultures as was (is) Jewish Christianity.

    • And the first comment is? Some ass blathering on about how ‘Jewish christianity’ (god, are people that stupid, to think diametrically opposite faiths are ‘the same’? Yes, Bozo, they ARE that stupid!) ‘ruined Europe.’

      Then go type your comment on a hollow log devoted to Irminsul, and go back to living out of doors, with only fires, and berries to eat. Jackasses all….

      • the nihilistic insanity leg’s of the Trojan Horse philosophy to destroy the Nordic peoples (Scandi-Germano-Breton-Norse-Dane-Anglo-Saxon-Irish) by the worship of a foreign man as creator of the creator of the universe: ”

        “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple” Luke 14:26

        Very family oriented and tribe nation building and so called “religion” … indeed … and what we see all around us today!!!

      • @ John+ … you know nothing of the Germano-Nordic-Dane-Anglo-Saxon-Breton-Celtic histories and civilizations at all … go back to worshipping your idol the foreign man … a spiritual son of Shiva-Moloch-Yahweh …

    • Imagine studying the Viking Age and coming away from it thinking that the pagan gods WERE NOT inherently destructive when all of Northern Europe from Ireland to Russia was set ablaze.

  2. if England’s DNA has 10 to 40% of “Anglo-Saxan” haplogroups (certainly in this number it’s included all the other migrating-invading Germanic triibes like Jutes, Normans, etc because there’s no specific “Angio-Saxan” haplogroups) it means that England is still 60 to 90% Celtic, right?
    And probably it’s only the Y-DNA, not the maternal mt-DNA.

    25% Germanic, 75% Celtic.
    Wouldn’t it make much more sense to embrace the Celtic heritage?
    Celtics were way more advanced than the Germanics two thousand years ago, they were able to build good cities and feed the population.

    • We’re getting to that as well.

      The goal here is to cover England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. It just so happens that right now I am mostly focused on the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods of British history. I want to build out from there to Germany and Scandinavia as well.

      • HW, is it not true that the Norman bloodline in Britain is still more or less intact? There are still a lot of Brits in the higher echelons of society with names like Doocy, Spencer and Montgomery. I’m going to have to re-acquaint myself with Sir Walter Scott’s 1817 masterpiece Ivanhoe. I believe it is the first novel of historical fiction.

  3. I’m sure the great pagan philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, etc. were all known to Roman Britain, and, probably to some of the Germanic tribes too.

  4. In old English H is often somewhat silent. Hengist could be spoken ‘Engis. Horsa could be said ‘Orsa.

    English people today often drop the aitch on names. Harry becomes ‘Arry and Henry becomes ‘Enry.

    Engis sounds a lot like English, spoken in a style of slurry words.

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