Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the new edition, AD 2000
- Introduction to the 1975 edition of The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism
- PART I THE SEARCH FOR ANGLO-SAXON PAGANISM
- 1 The Romantic background
- 2 The English branch of the German tree
- 3 Christianity puts an end to folk-poetry
- 4 ‘Half-veiled remains of pagan poetry’
- 5 English and German views on the conversion of the English
- 6 J.M. Kemble
- 7 The views of the founders seen through the writings of their lesser contemporaries
- 8 English views of the late nineteenth century and after
- 9 Stock views disintegrating Old English poems and finding Germanic antiquities in them
- 10 The gods Themselves
- 11 Wyrd
- 12 Conclusion
- PART II ANGLO-SAXON TRIAL BY JURY
- I. Index of sources
- II. Index of scholars, critics, and authors
- III. General Index
10 - The gods Themselves
from PART I - THE SEARCH FOR ANGLO-SAXON PAGANISM
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the new edition, AD 2000
- Introduction to the 1975 edition of The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism
- PART I THE SEARCH FOR ANGLO-SAXON PAGANISM
- 1 The Romantic background
- 2 The English branch of the German tree
- 3 Christianity puts an end to folk-poetry
- 4 ‘Half-veiled remains of pagan poetry’
- 5 English and German views on the conversion of the English
- 6 J.M. Kemble
- 7 The views of the founders seen through the writings of their lesser contemporaries
- 8 English views of the late nineteenth century and after
- 9 Stock views disintegrating Old English poems and finding Germanic antiquities in them
- 10 The gods Themselves
- 11 Wyrd
- 12 Conclusion
- PART II ANGLO-SAXON TRIAL BY JURY
- I. Index of sources
- II. Index of scholars, critics, and authors
- III. General Index
Summary
Appearances Veiled by Christianity
THOSE WHO SEARCH Old English literature for evidence of the Germanic past can have no greater reward for their labours than to find references to the pagan deities themselves. We have seen how Grimm and his followers were often led to pagan deities by fanciful etymologies. An example, similar in effect though even less controlled in method, is M.B. Price's comment on sigorcynn on swegle (Elene line 754) and on engla þreatas sigeleoð sungon (Guthlac lines 1314–15):
May not this conception of the angels as a victorious host, a triumphant race, which has overcome the machinations of evil and enjoys the compensation of victory have been suggested by the blissful condition of the heroes who receive their reward amid the joys of Walhalla?
The search may be conducted with greater pretentiousness. George Stephens, writing in 1866, provides a good example:
The excessive value of our oldest verse is not confined to its intrinsic merits, its frequent sublimity and beauty. It also reaches to the many reminiscences we there find of those older religious ideas which gradually gave way before a purer and nobler faith. And these reminiscences are not confined to the mere language.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Imagining the Anglo-Saxon PastThe Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism and Anglo-Saxon Trial by Jury, pp. 77 - 84Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2000