Ronald Hutton | contemplativeinquiry

March 22, 2023

VIKING PAGAN GODS IN BRITAIN

Professor Ronald Hutton’s fourth lecture in the Gresham College series on early Pagan history in Britain (1) is about the Vikings and their spiritual legacy. An overview of the old Norse world shows a people who, expanding beyond their Scandinavian homelands, were notable both as aggressive sea raiders and as traders, farmers and town builders. Travelling to new lands, and often settling in them, they grew familiar with cultures from Britain and Ireland in the west to Russia and the Byzantine Empire in the east. Their name was known in the Islamic world and as far as China. Slaving was a major part of their trade.

The raiding came first – a ‘Viking’ is a raider. They first became known in Britain and Ireland as looters of monasteries, where non-warrior monks lived close to the sea in places noted for their treasure. Monks who were not killed often became slaves. Hutton notes that early Scandinavian literature is largely realistic (relatively sparse in supernatural themes) and shows a tolerance of psychotic violence. A small boy gets bested by larger peers in a ball game and, enraged, drives an axe into another boy’s head. The community wonders what to do with him and steers away from serious punishment. For ‘he has ‘the makings of a real Viking’. Saga heroes are not very religious. Asked by a Christian ruler what he believes in, one replies: ‘I believe in me’. This seems to be the self-reliant ethic of the rootless, adventuring Viking.

Our written knowledge of Viking Pagan gods largely comes from Icelandic sources dating from 150-400 years after Christian conversion. It includes poetry, sagas and scholarly work. According to Hutton, the Pagan poems are no longer fully understood. It is thought that depictions of Paganism in this work are drawn partly from contemporary Baltic and Slav Paganism, better known by the writers than their own past. It is possible that Odin’s sacrifice of self to self, over nine days, on the windy tree is a response to Christianity: Odin is tougher than Christ.

In prose work, goddesses are few and far between. There are more goddess names in the older poems, but we do not know their stories. The gods on record are those still known in modern popular culture: Odin (the leader, god of travel, wisdom, knowledge, war, poetry); Thor (god of sky, weather, farming); Frey (god of fertility, crops, animals); Freya (goddess of love, war, magic); Baldur (handsome, beloved of all); Tyr (heroic god of war); Loki (devious and cunning – with a question around the word ‘evil’?). However, there is some doubt on whether either the warriors’ paradise Valhalla, or the end-of-the-world story of Ragnarok are derived from early Pagan tradition.

The Pagan Viking Gods came to Britain, with serious settlements beginning in the 860s, and they are remembered in place names. Odin, for example, is very well remembered in Orkney. But their worship did not last long, at least officially. The last Pagan ruler was removed in 954. The settlers had always lived among a larger co-existing Christian population. However, King Canute had to pass a law in the early 11th century forbidding the veneration of trees, stones and pools, the use of charms and the worship of sun and moon. Hutton suggests that here we see glimpses of a family and nature oriented religion without priests and temples and so unlikely to leave monuments. There is no archaeological evidence for Viking temples or shrines in Britain, though 34 swords have been found in English rivers in a way that suggests they were placed there as offerings. There are carvings that seem to show Pagan themes on crosses and a slab in the church at Sockburn, County Durham, shows the war god Tyr with Fenris, the wolf who bit his hand off.

Most of the archaeological research focuses on burial sites and grave goods. High status burials in particular included graves goods – on the whole, men had weapons, women had jewellery and both might have horses and dogs. These suggest a belief in another life in which people will want their possessions, but there does not seem to be a consistent narrative about what this afterlife would be. In some cases it is possible that, where more than one person is involved, someone may have been killed in order to accompany the deceased. Norse-settled Scotland and its islands (Both northern and western) are rich in burial sites, as is the Isle of Mann (still constitutionally a Norse lordship under the British crown run by its Parliament the Tynwald). In one ship burial there, an earlier Christian burial site was desecrated to make room for the newcomers. English Viking burial sites include the Henley Woods burials and the large site by the River Trent near Repton in Derbyshire. This is the site of the military camp set up the ‘sons of Ragnar’.

All in all, there is enough to suggest that Viking Paganism once flourished it Britain. But we do not quite catch the subjective life of its adherents. Perhaps people wore their religion lightly; perhaps it was deeply interwoven with material life and not seen as a major specific preoccupation. Soon enough, it was superseded, often for largely political reasons, by Christianity. Enigmatic pointers from literature and archaeology, enduring place names, and the land, the sea, the sky themselves (to borrow the Celtic elements) are what remain.

(1) https://gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/viking-gods/

February 23, 2023

ANGLO-SAXON PAGAN GODS

This post is based on Ronald Hutton’s third lecture in the Gresham College series on early Pagan history in Britain (1). Hutton notes that the Anglo-Saxons arrived at a later date than the Romans, but with a religion that is less well-known. Why? He explains that it came as a foreign importation that did not mix well with existing traditions, whether Christian or Pagan. Moreover the Pagan Anglo-Saxons left no written records about their own practices, and their conversion to Christianity came too soon for a substantial body of archaeological evidence to accumulate.

Nonetheless the early Anglo-Saxons have had a lasting influence on English culture. They occupied a land that had experienced a major system collapse. A place which had once had towns, stone buildings, country houses, factories, substantial military installations and a money-using, trading economy, now made do with subsistence farming and wooden buildings, ruled over by rival petty kings. On the whole, the Saxons didn’t bring this about. It’s what they found, and they were troubled by the ruins of past power and prosperity as an example of what fate (wyrd) could do. They wondered, too, what had happened to the people (giants?) who had built the now ruined structures that they saw around them. Anglo-Saxon poetry (for example The Wanderer) reflects on this poignancy.

To get glimpses of Anglo-Saxon religion, Hutton says, we look to Roman accounts of their continental ancestors in Germany, narratives from later English Christians, and still later Icelandic sources describing a world view that is seen as cognate with the early English one. Their most important god was Woden, evidenced in place names and the family trees of early English kings. He is described as the King of the Gods, and patron of rulers, voyagers, and skills. He is a wisdom figure who can also be a cunning deceiver and an enchanter. In this he resembles the Norse Odin, the German Wotan – and also, in certain respects, the Roman Mercury. But this doesn’t mean a one-to-one correspondence: Woden, unlike Odin, is shown with the full use of both eyes. Other significant gods were Thunor (with similarities to Thor, Donner, Taranis and Jupiter), Tiu the war god (compared to Mars) and Frigg – goddess of love, fertility and abundance (like Freya, and Venus).

Other gods are named, though we know little about them – Seaxnet, Ing, Geat, Hreda (a goddess of the earth) and Eostre (concerned with dawn and spring). The names of more local and tribal deities are lost. There were sacred places – on hills (Hearg = modern English Harrow) and on level ground, especially near roads (Weoh). There were specific places linked to deities near burial mounds. The only known candidate for a Pagan Anglo-Saxon temple is Yeavering in Northumberland, but even that might be a royal hall. Little is known about the priesthood. There was no equivalent knowledge-bearing class like the Celtic Druids. Kingship was a semi-sacred role and kings could be blamed for disasters. Shadowy non-human figures (elves) co-existed with humans in the world and were seen as harmful. They lacked the glamour found in Irish and Welsh stories about such denizens of the wild places – forests and hollow hills.

We have a wealth of information from grave goods. There is a fairly even split between burial and cremation. Ashes from cremations tended to be kept in urns. These were decorated, primarily with serpent imagery. The swastika was also popular, as a fire image. In the case of inhumations, people were buried facing east, accompanied by grave goods that would be useful for an afterlife. These included crystal and glass beads, combs and razors, belts and knives (as eating utensils). There is relatively little gender distinction in the choice of goods, except that weapons were associated with men. (Even here Hutton notes the revision now being brought about by DNA examination of bones in Scandinavia, and confirming the presence of high status women warriors: could the same be true of the Pagan English?) From the sixth century, the Pagan Anglo-Saxons used burial mounds. Towards the end of the Pagan period, high status burial could be rich and elaborate – the most famous example being at Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, first excavated in 1939. This can be seen as a response to growing prosperity and the rise of Christian competition.

597 CE marks the first mission from Rome to the southern English. (Northumbrians were first introduced to the new religion by Celtic monks based in Iona.) In 665 CE the last English kingdom was formally converted. Penda the powerful Pagan Mercian king fought the Christian kingdoms, but for loot, power and glory, not for his religion. He did not stand in the way of his son’s conversion. There were no wars of religion or clearly identified martyrs on either side. Christianity offered many political, diplomatic and commercial advantages to the ruling class. The Christians were highly organised, determined and had a unified creed to rally around. These characteristics seem largely absent on the Pagan side. Official Paganism was over in the Anglo-Saxon world until it faced the Viking invasions that began in the 790s. Even then, the now Christian Anglo-Saxons did everything they could to resist them, partly as a matter of faith.

(1) https://gresham.ac.uk/watch-now/anglo-saxon-gods/

December 12, 2022

PAGANISM IN ROMAN BRITAIN

This post concerns Ronald Hutton’s Gresham College lecture about Paganism in Roman Britain (1). In it, he summarises our current academic knowledge, and asks: how Romanised was British religion within the Roman Empire? It proves to be a hard question to answer, for three main reasons.

The first is that we know little about British religion immediately before the occupation, apart from the fact that Druids had a leading role in at least some religious activity.

The second is that, although the Romans generally honoured local gods and their worshippers, they made an exception for war gods and religious communities hostile to Roman rule. British Druids belonged to the latter category, so any ongoing British Druid activity is off the record. The Druids were in any case averse to written records about their calling.

The third is that we know the names of only a few people from this period, so get only occasional glimpses of individuals and their practices. Britons of any social standing tended to adopt Roman names, at least for the written record, but the records are too sparse to distinguish between the developing cultures of Romanised Britons and localised Romans. All we have is the Roman names. People who made do without Roman names go unrecorded.

These three limitations mean that we have limited knowledge, and that this knowledge is heavily tilted towards Roman practices and understandings. We do however have the names of a number of indigenous deities from the Roman period, and some understanding of their roles. According to Hutton, such deities tended to be highly localised, and connected to specific activities – like Coventina looking after the sacred spring at Carrowburgh not far from Hadrian’s wall. On the whole Goddesses were linked to the land, hills, rivers, springs and wells. Gods were concerned with war, protection, trade and travel.

Other gods were imported during the centuries of occupation. Continental Celtic culture brought Rosmerta, the Matres and Epona. Widely acknowledged Roman gods included Jupiter, Mars, Silvanus and Mercury. Other parts of the empire contributed Apollo, Bacchus, Mithras, Cybele and Athys, Isis and Serapis.

Hutton finds in both Romans and Celts a very different attitude to deity from that of the later arriving Christian faith. Pagan Gods asked for acknowledgement and respect. Beyond that they were not greatly interested in us. They did not make laws, issue commands or monitor our performance. The Latin word superstitio referred to excessive fear of the divine. Hutton characterises mainstream Roman British religion as largely transactional. Roman priesthood was a job for the local magistrates.

Hence, according to Hutton, there was no theology. If you wanted the gods’ help, and had the support and resources, you built shrines, enacted rituals and offered sacrifice. (Animal sacrifice was required to be swift and painless, or it did not please the gods.) If you looked for a deeper or more intense religious experience, and were deemed eligible, you sought initiation into a mystery school. If you were concerned with speculation about the cosmos and our place in it, or wanted a set of values and practices to live by, you turned to philosophy. The one religious demand made by the state was a public reverencing of the Emperor’s numen (the divine power within him) which the early Christians, other than Gnostics, risked martyrdom rather than acknowledge.

The lecture includes a discussion of hybridised (or ‘twinned’) deities and the high esteem in which they could be held – Sulis Minerva at Aquae Sulis (Bath), Apollo Maponus (with a major shrine a little beyond Hadrian’s Wall at Lochmaben) and Mars (or possibly Mercury) Nodens, at Lydney, close to the River Severn in the Forest of Dean.

Hutton ends with a rare opportunity to acknowledge a real, named person, Magnius. He is known to have been a Briton, a commoner with some resources. He had a tomb erected at Aquae Sulis for his daughter, who had died aged only eighteen months. A tomb for one so young was very rare, and the poignancy of this act reaches across the centuries to us, connecting humans who, from very different times and cultures, are united by the same capacity to love and to grieve. I found this a good note on which to end a lecture which provides some insight into a subject where much will always be unknown.

(1) https://www.gresham.ac.uk/ (Go to browse by series then lecture series 2022-23 then Finding Britain’s Lost Gods. The specific lecture is Paganism in Roman Britain.)

Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol, a specialist in Pagan and Druid studies, and enjoys a very high reputation within both the academic and Pagan communities.

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October 6, 2022

LEARNING ABOUT OUR PAGAN ANCESTORS, AND LEARNING FROM THEM

Recently I watched Ronald Hutton’s first Gresham College lecture about Gods of Pagan Britain on youtube (1). It sets the scene for a series, raising questions about what we can know about the spiritual lives of our ancestors, what we can fruitfully imagine, and how to tell the difference.

Professor Hutton explores two specific topics. The first is our current archaeological understanding of the Stonehenge monument on Salisbury Plain, England, together with its legendary history and place in the public imagination. The second is the case of the Lindow Man, who was violently killed and thrown into a peat bog in Derbyshire, thus partly preserving his body for conceivably (but probably not) 2,000 years. He has been widely considered, including at times by archaeologists, to be the victim of a Druid sacrifice, though Hutton points out that there are good reasons to question this.

I was drawn to this lecture, both informative and entertaining, by my interest in learning from an ancestral culture without its own texts, as well as about it. This is part of my reason for following a modern Druidry that embraces indigenous themes long pre-dating the Druidry of the Celtic iron age. The people who built Stonehenge in the third millennium BCE bequeathed us the wheel of the year, with its circle and cycles, and its focus on the solstices and equinoxes. We can be inspired by this and honour the ancestors by embedding it in our own lives in ways that suit our time and culture.

For readers who have not yet seen and heard the lecture, I recommend that you take a look at the video.

(1) https://youtube.com/watch?v=QjC0lGr4h04&t=5s/

Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at the University of Bristol, a specialist in Pagan and Druid studies, and enjoys a very high reputation within both the academic and Pagan communities.

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