Woden

“ We will now proceed to notice the sources which preserve some relics of the old heathenism.
THE GENEALOGIES
bear the greatest testimony to the former dignity of Woden’s name. The royal houses of Kent, Essex, Deira, Bernicia, Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia,—all trace up to Woden. Some go up far above Woden, who has a series of mythological progenitors, the oldest of whom appears to be Scyld, the name which forms the starting-point of the “Beowulf.”
THE LAWS.
In the Kentish code of Wihtræd (d. 725) there are penalties set down for those who sacrifice to devils, meaning heathen gods. ”

“ Woden is called Way-wont or Traveller, and the like names.
3. Gwydion was a consummate magician, and he is found among those who consult the sorcerers of Arianrhod. [71]
Woden was taunted with acquiring his wisdom by magic, with sitting under waterfalls and conversing with the dead.
4. Gwydion (as Gweir) acquired his gifts of poetry and music from the nether world: he visited the submarine city of Caer Sidi, where he underwent vile treatment at the hands of the Head of Hades; but thenceforth he was for ever a bard, and poets and musicians are the artists of Gwydion under the name Seon. ”

“ Gwydion had a mistress called Arianrhod, whose name meant Silver-wheel: she dwelt in her castle in the sea. She remained a maiden and wished to pass for a virgin, whence her indignation at finding her son living.
Woden (as Gylfe) had a leman called Gefjon, a word which occurs as a name for the sea, and she had associated with her a 'diúp röᵭul,' [70] to be interpreted altus rotulus or deep-sinking wheel: she led a maiden's life like Arianrhod, and she changed into oxen the sons she bore Woden.
3. Gwydion had a son Llew, whose death was no less peculiar than that of Woden's son Balder ”

“ It will be observed that Wednesfield and Wednesbury at least were founded by the Saxons in their pagan days; that is before their acceptance of the White Christ, which was towards the close of the seventh century. Tradition hath it that at the Anglian advent into this district, the worship of Woden was first set up in a grove at Wednesfield. Here was first fixed the Woden Stone, the sacred altar on which human sacrifices were offered of that dread Teutonic deity, Woden. ”

“ But Woden, whom they, and especially the Angles, believed to be the chief deity, from whom they derived their 192origin, and to whom the fourth day of the week is dedicated, he asserted with probability to have been a mortal man, king of the Saxons, by faith a pagan, from whom they and many nations have their descent.’ The ground on which he sat there ‘grew into a little hill, and remaineth there unto this day;’ and ‘men and women, old men and young men, rich and poor, flock to the man of God to be instructed in the faith.’ And here he fixed his see for a time ”

“ Kuhn, in Haupt's Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, v. 472. The idea of a northern myth will of course excite the alarm of all sensible patriotic Englishmen, (e.g. Mr. Hunter, at page 3 of his tract,) and the bare suggestion of Woden will be received, in the same quarters, with an explosion of scorn. And yet we find the famous shot of Eigill, one of the mythical personages of the Scandinavians, (and perhaps to be regarded as one of the forms of Woden,) attributed in the ballad of Adam Bel to William of Cloudesly, who may be considered as Robin Hood under another name. ”

“ In Pomerania and Mecklenburg, Wode (Woden) is said to be out hunting [14] when stormy winds blow through the woods, and formerly the wild huntsman was heard along the gloomy avenues of Whittlebury Forest. ”

“ A day was fixed for the purpose, and then the King and his nobles, followed by a crowd of people, proceeded from Londesborough to Goodmandingham, and in the midst Coifi, mounted on a war steed and brandishing a lance in his hand. As the priests of Woden were only permitted to ride mares, and not to bear arms of any kind, the people gazed upon him with superstitious horror, expecting that either the [Pg 41] earth would open and swallow him, or a thunderbolt descend from the sky and strike him dead ”

“ For if the Aryans in question had attained to the idea of so transcendent a god as this would suggest, there would be a difficulty in understanding how, as the Dyaus of Sanskrit literature, he should have become comparatively a lay figure, that as Tiu he should have been superseded by Woden and Thor among the Teutons, and that among the Gauls his pre-eminence should at any time have been threatened by a Mercury. This would look somewhat like a reversion of the great law of evolution, a serious argument against any theory of religion or mythology. ”

“ Auld palmer Hood, IV, 445; Síðhöttr, Deephood, I, 95. Hood, Thomas, his Lost Heir, III, 234 n. Hoodening, Hood==Hooden==Woden (Kuhn) , III, 48. The Hoodie, Gaelic tale, I, 290 n., 503. Horn of elfin-knight inspires maid with longing for him, I, 15-17, 55; so Quintalin’s harp, 50; boon of blowing on horn (often asked by man in difficulty or about to be executed, and often three blasts) , III, 122 f., 125, 166, 182 ”

“ WODENOTH or WOODNOTH, ARTHUR (1590?–1650?) , colonial pioneer, born about 1590, was descended from the Wodenoths or Woodnoths of Savington, Cheshire (Two Lives of Ferrar, ed. Mayor, p. 339; Visitation of Cheshire, pp. 254-6; Addit. MSS. 6529 f. 72, 6032 f. 132; Ormerod, Cheshire, iii. 448, 483-4) . He was second son of John Wodenoth of Savington, by his second wife, Jane, daughter of John Touchet of Whitley. Mary Wodenoth, the mother of Nicholas Ferrar [q. v.] ”

“ Wadman went round about by Namur to get at my uncle Toby's groin; and engaged him to attack the point of the advanced counterscarp, and pele mele with the Dutch to take the counterguard of St. Roch sword in hand—and then with tender notes playing upon his ear, led him all bleeding by the hand out of the trench, wiping her eye, as he was carried to his tent—Heaven! Earth! Sea!—all was lifted up—the springs of nature rose above their levels—an angel of mercy sat besides him on the sopha—his heart glow'd with fire—and had he been worth a thousand, he had lost every heart of them to Mrs. Wadman. ”

“ Hood River is a clean, substantial-looking town of about three thousand people. Besides being famous for apples, it has the added distinction of being the home address of the Hon. Billy Sunday when he is recuperating from his strenuous campaigns against the devil—and Billy’s devil is quite as crude and primitive as the demon of the Indians who cracked his tail at The Dalles. Billy has invested a small portion of the proceeds of soul-saving135 in an apple ranch a few miles from Hood River, one of the finest in the valley, a garage man told us. ”

“ The groups under the dreaming garden trees, and the full moon, and the white evening-star' had been memorable that evening.
'She might do for Africa,' said Hood doubtfully, 'but I wouldn't let her go and spoil her complexion.'
'If you were the curate?' asked the explorer with a smile.
'What's he to do with it?' said Hood impatiently. 'Didn't he almost promise he'd sail with me in two months' time? I want him for work.'
'That's too bad,' said the explorer; 'cut that labor-agent business. Let him stay at home and marry Perpetua. There's a family living waiting for him across the river. ”

“ I have m}’self seen Hood only from the common level, but have beheld him in many moods and phases, when white, cold, and stern he towered rigidly over a winter landscape, and when draped from summit to base in a golden-tinted tissue of morning mist, through which he peeped like a girl in trying on a robe of yellow gauze,—not quite shaken down on one side, the petticoat of snow showing daintily underneath. Many are the solid old mountain’s masquerading airs, and, despite the dignity of his thousands of years, he sometimes affects the blushes of the rose. ”

“ Art thou also a worshipper of the great Gowf?" "Am I!" cried the King. "Am I!" He broke off. "Listen!"
From the minstrels' room high up in the palace there came the sound of singing. The minstrels were practising a new paean of praise—words by the Grand Vizier, music by the High Priest of Hec—which they were to render at the next full moon at the banquet of the worshippers of Gowf. The words came clear and distinct through the still air:
"Oh, praises let us utter To our most glorious King! It fairly makes you stutter To see him start his swing! Success attend his putter! ”

“ As the King stood sombrely surveying the garden, his attention was attracted by a small, bearded man with bushy eyebrows and a face like a walnut, who stood not far away on a gravelled path flanked by rose bushes. For some minutes he eyed this man in silence, then he called to the Grand Vizier, who was standing in the little group of courtiers and officials at the other end of the terrace. The bearded man, apparently unconscious of the Royal scrutiny, had placed a rounded stone on the gravel, and was standing beside it making curious passes over it with his hoe. ”

“ We will first visit Hood. Though not the highest, this is the boldest and most picturesque of all. Moreover by reason of its location, seen conspicuously as it is from Portland and the Willamette Valley, and because of its nearness to the old immigrant road into Oregon, Hood was the first noticed, and the most often described, painted, and berhymed of any of the wintry brotherhood. As the Puget Sound region became settled, and great cities began to grow up there, Mt. Rainier (“Takhoma”) began to be a rival in popular estimation. ”

“ You nearly hit his serene graciousness the King!"
"Mphm!" said the bearded man, nonchalantly, and began to wave his hoe mystically over another stone.
Into the King's careworn face there had crept a look of interest, almost of excitement.
"What god does he hope to propitiate by these rites?" he asked.
"The deity, I learn from your Majesty's admiral is called Gowf."
"Gowf? Gowf?" King Merolchazzar ran over in his mind the muster-roll of the gods of Oom. There were sixty-seven of them, but Gowf was not of their number. "It is a strange religion," he murmured. "A strange religion, indeed. ”

“ But in threading the cañon of the Columbia, one morning as we rounded a rocky bastion, suddenly, a hundred miles away, Hood stood before us, a vast pyramidal peak, snow-clad from base to summit, resting in solitary grandeur on a great mountain range—itself black with firs and pines. From the apparent level or slight undulation of the general Cascade Range, Hood quickly shoots up loftily into the sky, individual and alone, and serene and unapproachable dominates the far-stretching landscape. ”

“ From any part of the city a quarter of a mile back, Mount Hood is seen in its finest aspect, rising grandly above the fir-clad slopes of the Cascade Range. It marks the place of the sun's rising in the summer months; and passes at evening, when reflecting the hues of sunset, through many beautiful gradations of light and color. Even by moonlight its spectral shape is still discernible at the distance of sixty miles. ”

“ In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. At first Howden seems a dull and somewhat disappointing town, compared with what we would have expected{108} to have seen surrounding a collegiate church on such imposing lines. There are too many modern houses of that unsatisfactory whity-red brick so extensively used in these parts of Yorkshire. ”

“ And the barn! He had been all wrong about the barn. It was a great little place, comfortable, airy, and cheerful. What could be more invigorating than that smell of hay? Even the rats, he felt, must be pretty decent rats, when you came to know them.
"I'm here!"
Maud advanced quickly. His eyes had grown accustomed to the murk, and he could see her dimly. The smell of her damp raincoat came to him like a breath of ozone. He could even see her eyes shining in the darkness, so close was she to him.
"I hope you've not been waiting long?"
George's heart was thundering against his ribs. ”

“ At the entrance of the first labyrinthine winding he turned and looked back to see Godwyn standing upon the bank, the moonlight silvering his thin hair and high serene brow. In the mystic white light, against the expanse of solemn heaven, he looked a vision, a seer or prophet risen from beneath the sighing grass. He waved his hand to Landless, saying in his quiet voice, "Until to-morrow!" The boat made the turn, and the lonely figure and the hut beyond it vanished, leaving only the moonlight, the wash and lap of water, and the desolate sighing of the marsh grass. ”

“ Would their wardens ever wake up and see them fed? The carriers tied up his packs, and moved forward with a swing. Still there was no sign from the buck-sail, boy and master alike were still within, though the sun had climbed over the hills. Hood shrugged his shoulders, and moved off down the west road. He left that little mystery, as he had left bigger riddles in Africa, utterly unsolved.
Soon they dried themselves at a hospitable hut-fire in a village. It was Lady Day. Hood noted the seasonable blue-and-white of his blanket as he hung it on a rafter. ”

“ They had now reached that point in the road where three choices offer themselves to the wayfarer. By going straight on he may win through to the village of Moresby-in-the-Vale, a charming little place with a Norman church; by turning to the left he may visit the equally seductive hamlet of Little Weeting; by turning to the right off the main road and going down a leafy lane he may find himself at the door of Platt's farm. When Maud, reaching the cross-roads, suddenly swung down the one to the left, Lord Belpher was for the moment completely baffled. ”