Heathendom in the Germanic World

Peoples who spoke Germanic languages told us in their own words, symbols and artefacts how they experienced people, animals, plants and the world in which they lived. They did this in the form of sagas and legends about gods, elves, giants, dwarfs and other mythological creatures, and in stories about legendary events that made a deep impression on them. Since the Migration Period (c. 300 – 600 AD), these stories have been written down in several Germanic languages, including Old Norse, Old English, and Old Saxon. In this book fragments from their texts are quoted, together with a translation that is as literal as possible. In this way the reader can 'recognise' the words in their original context.

The choice of quotations is determined by the subject of this book: the appearance of the theonym Wodan in Old Saxon, Woden in Anglo-Saxon and Oðinn in Old Norse. The All-Father of the Germanicspeaking peoples is both a warrior god and a leader of the Wild Hunt. But he is also the god of poetry, healer of horse wounds and patron of warlocks. Why?

Wodan gives up half the fallen warriors on the battlefields to Freyja, the Vanir goddess of love and witchcraft. Why? How do Wodan and Freyja deal with magic? What spells or curses do they use? You will find answers to these and many more questions in this reference work about the written and archaeological traces that Woden left behind in archives, libraries, museums, folklore, herbal books, personal names and place names.

Gods, giants, elves, dwarves, ghosts, and heroes appear in ancient texts and artifacts left to us by Germanic-speaking peoples from the first millennium AD to about 1400 AD. In their stories about mythological creatures and legendary figures, they tried to answer life's core questions, such as, ‘Where do we come from?’, 'Who are we?’ and ‘Where are we going?'

Dr Frits Henry Brookman studied history, economics and Swedish. With a scholarship from the Swedish government, he took classes in (Nordic) history and languages at Stockholm University. He obtained his DSc from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. There he was appointed and taught the history and social aspects of science. He also taught economics at the International School of Amsterdam. After obtaining his LLM in Dutch law from the University of Amsterdam, he worked as an international lawyer in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Luxembourg and Düsseldorf. He then resumed his research into the pagan heritage of northwestern Europe.