Worship and sacrifice
The pagan Anglo-Saxons worshipped at a variety of different sites, known as ''hearg'' or ''hearh''; these included both specially built temples as well as certain geographical features of the landscape such as sacred trees, hilltops or wells. It has been suggested however that sometimes these temples would have actually been built alongside these pre-existing sacred sites in the landscape. Each of these ''hearh'' may have been devoted to a specific deity, for instance, in several cases, a grove of trees would be devoted to just one god, as can be seen from the town of Thundersley (from ''Thunor's Grove''), which was devoted to the god Thunor. In 2008, the historian Thor Ewing suggested that some of these sites were not dedicated to a well known deity, but simply to a local animistic one, who was believed to inhabit that very spot. The term for an altar or sacrificial site was ''weoh'', the one for temple was ''ealh''. Two such sites have been excavated by archaeologists, one being a part of a complex at Yeavering, Northumberland. These temples were, like virtually all Anglo-Saxon buildings, "wooden-framed" and contained "an altar and a likeness of one or more gods". During the later process of Christianisation, Pope Gregory the Great declared that such temples should not be destroyed, but converted into churches, although no such examples of these converted buildings survive today.The pagan Anglo-Saxons performed animal sacrifice in honour of the gods. It appears that they emphasised the killing of oxen over other animals, as suggested by both written and archaeological evidence. Sacrifice itself was not only found in Anglo-Saxon paganism, but was also common in other Germanic pagan religions, for instance the Norse practised a blood sacrifice known as Blót. The Christian monk Bede records that November (Old English ''Blótmónaþ'' "the month of sacrifice") was particularly associated with sacrificial practices:
Many Germanic peoples are recorded as conducting human sacrifice, yet there is no firm evidence that such a practice was performed by the Anglo-Saxons, although there is speculation that twenty three of the bodies buried at the Sutton Hoo burial site were sacrificial victims clustered around a sacred tree from which they had been hanged. Alongside this, some have suggested that the corpse of an Anglo-Saxon woman found at Sewerby on the Yorkshire Wolds suggested that she had been buried alive alongside a nobleman, possibly as a sacrifice, or to accompany him to the afterlife.
Burial
One of the aspects of Anglo-Saxon paganism that we know most about is their burial customs, which we have discovered from archaeological excavations at various sites, including Sutton Hoo, Spong Hill, Prittlewell, Snape and Walkington Wold, and we today know of the existence of around 1200 Anglo-Saxon pagan cemeteries. There was no set form of burial amongst the pagan Anglo-Saxons, with cremation being preferred amongst the Angles in the north and inhumation amongst the Saxons in the south, although both forms were found throughout England, sometimes in the same cemeteries. When cremation did take place, the ashes were usually placed within an urn and then buried, sometimes along with grave goods. Free Anglo-Saxon men were buried with at least one weapon in the pagan tradition, often a seax, but sometimes also with a spear, sword or shield, or a combination of these. Wealthy individuals were buried with rich grave goods. There are also various recorded cases of animal skulls, particularly oxen but also pig, being buried in human graves, a practice that was also found in earlier Roman Britain.Eventually, in the 6th and 7th centuries, the idea of burial mounds began to appear in Anglo-Saxon England, and in certain cases earlier burial mounds from the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Romano-British periods were simply reused by the Anglo-Saxons. It is not known why they adopted this practice, but it may be from the practices of the native Britons. Burial mounds remained objects of veneration in early Anglo-Saxon Christianity, and numerous churches were built next to tumuli. Another form of burial was that of ship burials, which were practiced by many of the Germanic peoples across northern Europe. In many cases it seems that the corpse was placed within a ship which was then either sent out to sea or left on land, but in both cases then set alight. In Suffolk however, ships were not burned, but buried, as is the case at Sutton Hoo, which it is believed, was the resting place of the king of the East Angles, Raedwald. Both ship and tumulus burials were described in the ''Beowulf'' poem, through the funerals of Scyld Scefing and Beowulf respectively.
There are also many cases where corpses have been found decapitated, for instance, at a mass grave in Thetford, Norfolk, fifty beheaded individuals were discovered, their heads possibly having been taken as trophies of war. In other cases of decapitation it seems possible that it was evidence of human sacrifice or execution.
Festivals
Everything that we know about the religious festivals of the pagan Anglo-Saxons comes from a book written by the Christian monk, the Venerable Bede, entitled ''De temporum ratione'', meaning ''The Reckoning of Time'', in which he described the calendar of the year. The pagan Anglo-Saxons followed a calendar with twelve lunar months, with the occasional year having thirteen months so that the lunar and solar alignment could be corrected. Bede claimed that the greatest pagan festival was Modraniht (meaning ''Mother Night''), which was situated at the Winter solstice and which marked the start of the Anglo-Saxon year.Following this festival, in the month of ''Solmonað'' (February), Bede claims that the pagans offered cakes to their deities. Then, in Eostur-monath Aprilis (April), a spring festival was celebrated, dedicated to the goddess Eostre, and the later Christian festival of Easter took its name from this month and its goddess. The month of September was known as ''Halegmonath'', meaning ''Holy Month'', which may indicate that it had special religious significance. The month of November was known as ''Blod-Monath'', meaning ''Blood Month'', and was commemorated with animal sacrifice, both in offering to the gods, and also likely to gather a source of food to be stored over the winter.
Remarking on Bede's account of the Anglo-Saxon year, the historian Brian Branston noted that they "show us a people who of necessity fitted closely into the pattern of the changing year, who were of the earth and what grows in it" and that they were "in fact, a people who were in a symbiotic relationship with mother earth and father sky".
Ritual drinking
In Anglo-Saxon England, a feudal lord would organise a banquet known as a ''symbel'' for his retainers, whether they be Christian or pagan. Paul C. Bauschatz in 1976 suggested that the term reflects a specifically pagan ritual in origin which had a "great religious significance in the culture of the early Germanic people". Bauschatz' lead is followed only sporadically in contemporary scholarship, but his interpretation has inspired drinking-rituals in Germanic neopaganism.Regardless of its possible religious connotations, the symbel had a central function in maintaining hierarchy and allegiance in Anglo-Saxon warrior society. The symbel takes place in the chieftain's mead hall. It involved drinking ale or mead from a drinking horn, speech making (which often included formulaic boasting and oaths), and gift-giving. Eating and feasting were specifically excluded from symbel, and no alcohol was set aside for the gods or other deities in the form of a sacrifice.
Magic and witchcraft
Anglo-Saxon pagans believed in magic and witchcraft. There are various Old English terms for "witch", including ''hægtesse'' "witch, fury", whence Modern English ''hag'', ''wicca'', ''gealdricge'', ''scinlæce'' and ''hellrúne''. The belief in witchcraft was suppressed in the 9th to 10th century as is evident e.g. from the ''Laws of Ælfred'' (ca. 890).The Christian authorities attempted to stamp out a belief and practice in witchcraft, with Theodore's ''Penitential'' condemning "those that consult divinations and use them in the pagan manner, or that permit people of that kind into their houses to seek some knowledge". Similarly, in the ''Disciplus Umbrensium'', it condemns those "who observe auguries, omens or dreams or any other prophecies after the manner of the pagans".
The word ''wiccan'' "witches" is associated with animistic healing rites in Halitgar's Latin Penitential where it is stated that:
:Some men are so blind that they bring their offering to earth-fast stone and also to trees and to wellsprings, as the witches teach, and are unwilling to understand how stupidly they do or how that dead stone or that dumb tree might help them or give forth health when they themselves are never able to stir from their place.
The phrase ''swa wiccan tæcaþ'' ("as the witches teach") seems to be an addition to Halitgar's original, added by an eleventh century Old English translator.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Anglo-Saxon paganism, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
