Each Saxon Wiccan coven has its own, traditionally green-covered, copy of The Tree. This hand-scribed ritual book contains not only the Esbat, Sabbat, Handfasting, Birth and Death Rites of that particular coven, but any healing rituals, chants, recipes, remedies, and cures that the coven has chosen to preserve and pass down— in essence the accumulated wisdom and traditions of that coven willed into the future. With the Saxon tradition’s encouragement of a Witch maintaining a solitary practice (as much as participation in any coven they may be a member of), there is far more material that an individual Witch may wish to include in their personal copy of The Tree than what might be contained in the more spare coven book. Which is, to a certain degree, a “closed canon” after it has been written, only really significantly updated as new Gesiths record their names in The Tree upon Initiation. As Buckland taught, “Individual Witches may also keep their own personal copies of The Tree, if they wish. In addition to the rites they might then also include notes of their personal interests: astrology, herbs, tarot, or whatever.”
While there is some evidence for sophisticated astronomical knowledge as early as the Bronze Age among Germanic cultures, (the recently discovered Nebra “sky disk” being a particularly high profile example), and while during the Viking Age these sea-farers’ knowledge of the stars must have been considerable, it is not until literacy in Christian monasteries that we can clearly see the beginnings of astrology’s integration with Germanic herbal medicine. Acceptance of astrological lore is one of those things, (like burning frankincense before Romanized idols of the Gods, or not necessarily using the English word “holy” over the English word “sacred”, as if one’s never heard of the Norman invasion), that makes Wicca feel more “authentic” to me personally than many other closely related new religious movements.
Brian Branston’s The Lost Gods of England was criticized by G. Turville-Petre in 1959 for how it “reads pagan concepts in or between the lines of Old English poetry” (as if there were any other way to read anything pagan in Old English!). The book also explicitly acknowledged the existence of the modern religion of Wicca. Kathleen Herbert, who like Turville-Petre studied under J.R.R. Tolkien, would interpret Old English poetry similarly in 1994 in Looking for the Lost Gods of England (but is strangely less criticized for it), maybe because she didn’t mention Wicca. This is something to keep in mind when considering contemporary political rhetoric regarding nationalism as it relates to the idea of modern Paganism, as based on the 20th century archeological evidence, the pre-Christian English might as well be the pre-Christian Swedish. Only it is the latter, in the context of a modern nation-state, which is perceived as having a moral claim to an ancestral, (and now rather conveniently for post-colonial discourse) “indigenous” religion, with the “bad vikings” presumably having migrated out of the gene pool long ago.
Even for a proud Celt like Gerald Gardner, the Saxon history of England was unavoidable, and in The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) Gardner quite clearly cited the source for his understanding of pre-Christian “Saxon” religion. And such a classic text was it in Britain that A.S. Byatt’s Ragnarok (2011), set during The Blitz of World War II as experienced through the eyes of a child, made the book its central touchstone.
Asgard and the Gods, the Tales and Traditions of Our Northern Ancestors published in 1886, features a particular myth about Freya and a Huntsman (who is revealed to be the pre-Christian Germanic tribal hero Arminius) that I have not encountered in another handbook of Norse mythology. Presumably, this is because like H.A. Grueber’s Myths of the Norsemen from the Eddas and Sagas published in 1909, (and still widely available in the United States at any local Barnes & Noble), the way Anglo-Germanic mythology was told prior to the World Wars was quite different than the way it is presented now. While some look at these older mythology books and see romantic nationalism or a reductive approach to myth and religion as mere seasonal allegory, what seems to be missed is how well-integrated these artistic interpretations often were, and how freely late 19th and early 20th century artists and writers related “Occidental” and “Oriental” pantheons. When looking at more recent academic works on theological topics of central importance, such as Norwegian religious scholar Britt Mari-Nasstrom’s Freyja, the Great Goddess of the North (1995), I was struck by how concerned she was with refuting the idea of any Near Eastern links this Goddess may have had, in what for her must be (for some reason) a strictly “Indo-European” divinity.
Goddess Spirituality authors such as Patricia Monaghan would continue with “Frazerian” approaches to myth well into the 1990s, in her case directly comparing Freya with the Goddess Anat. And while these interpretations have come under a great deal of criticism within Neo-paganism in the last couple of decades, how they are in error is admittedly quite lost on me, especially when one of the more interesting historical ways pantheons have been integrated, with roots clearly going back to the Middle East, is astrology. As noted previously, there may be no solid evidence for astrology among the Germanic tribes prior to Christianization, but it is equally likely that Snorri Sturluson’s presentation of the Gods and Goddesses in groups of 12 is based on post-Christian classical influence rather than any proto-Indo-European Dii Consentes. Similarly, the Icelandic equation of Njord to Saturn (neither of whom were still officially worshipped when this “interpretatio Romana” was made), is far more easily explained by literacy than “Indo-Europeanness”. Regardless, astrology predates Christianity, and certainly the Roman Empire’s conversion to it. The 1st century Astronomica attributed to Marcus Manilius gives patron Gods for each of the 12 houses, or signs, of the Western zodiac, as well as rulerships for the various parts of the human body. Which, for those of us Witches whose interests and aptitudes in astrology have never gone farther than Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs (1968), is more than enough to have fun going down the rabbit-hole of personal, patron-guided symbolism. The Astronomica lists the Roman patrons of the signs as follows:
- Aries – Minerva
- Taurus – Venus
- Gemini – Apollo
- Cancer – Mercury
- Leo – Jupiter (and Cybele!)
- Virgo – Ceres
- Libra – Vulcan
- Scorpio – Mars
- Sagittarius – Diana
- Capricorn – Vesta
- Aquarius – Juno
- Pisces – Neptune
Starcraft, an archaic English word for astrology, was incidentally the proposed title for an expanded edition of Victor B. Neuburg’s Swift Wings (1921) that never saw publication. It was also used by Oswald Cockayne in his monumental: Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England: Being a Collection of Documents, for the most part never before printed, illustrating the history of science in this country before the Norman conquest (1864), to describe the lore contained within Old English healing manuscripts. Of particular note for the Seax Wica tradition, Cockayne is also the one who originally used the Old English word “Lacnunga” or “Remedies” to specifically refer to the collection of herbal medicine that includes the famous “Nine Herbs Charm” that so memorably appeals to Woden for magical aid, rather than Christ. Cockayne himself described these rare non-Christian references in an otherwise Christian collection of charms as a “Norse” element in the manuscripts, which should serve as another reminder, (alongside the archeological evidence of England and Sweden), that it is how we talk about the pre-Christian Germanic tribes that is subject to social, cultural, and political changes, not the extant primary source material itself.
The Wiccan teaching about death and the afterlife is quite clear. Death is not to be feared, as it is a reunion with loved ones and the Gods, for rebirth into new life. Retribution occurs in the present life, and therefore Wiccans believe neither in a Christian “Hell”, nor in a doctrine of reincarnation that teaches any deferred form of punishment, such as incarnation in a lower status, or as a “lesser” form of life. Debts (and rewards) are paid in this life, or not at all. As Buckland wrote in a segment for Earth Religion News in 1974 entitled The Saxon “Heaven”:
In many traditions of the Craft the “land of life after death” is referred to as the “Summerland” (a term also used by Spiritualists, incidentally). Ideas on this Summerland are generally vague. It is the land ruled over by God; the place where you rest between lives. Little is written of it in the Book of Shadows for it is part of the oral tradition. We know it is not quite the same place as the Christian “Heaven”, and certainly not their “Hell”! It is neither “above” nor “below”. If it exists anywhere it is—again vaguely—to the East. Possibly there is some tie-in with the “Cradle of Civilization”, and it owes its name not so much to Summer but to Sumer? In the Seax-Wica the name for this between-the-worlds place is “Drëun”, and it is thought-though again not too specifically-to exist beneath the Earth; its entrance being through a Barrow. This would certainly align the Seax-Wica and its myth of the Goddess (See The Tree) with the many universal myths of descents into the “under-world” (e.g. Ishtar’s search for Tammuz). The symbolism of such descents is, of course, the wheel of the year-loss leading to Fall and Winter; retrieval to the fertility of Spring and Summer.
This then is why it is Hearhden (a Wican Name for Heimdall) who wards the Barrow that leads to Drëun, and why the Saxon Witchcraft Rite for the Dead is called “Crossing the Bridge”, for this Bridge is no less than the “Rainbow Bridge” that connects the World of Men to the World of Gods. For those interested in Starcraft who may wish to experiment with integrating the 12 signs of Western astrology with the Germanic pantheon, the “12 Heavenly Palaces” and their rulerships given in Asgard and the Gods are as follows:
- Aries -Himinbiorg of Heimdall
- Taurus – Sokwabek of Saga
- Gemini – Gladsheim of Odin
- Cancer – Noatun of Njord
- Leo – Breidablick of Baldur
- Virgo – Folkvang of Freya
- Libra – Glitnir of Forseti
- Scorpio – Thrymheim of Skadi
- Sagittarius – Ydalir of Uller
- Capricorn – Bilskirnir of Thor
- Aquarius – Valaskialf of Vali
- Pisces – Landvidi of Vidar
And may the Gods preserve the Craft!
(Illustration is “The Northern Gods Descending” by William Gershom Collingwood, 1890.)
Lincoln Green 