Notes

1. The Real Middle-earth

There are now many editions of Tolkien’s books. Most recent is J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (London: Collins 2002; first published 1956). Tolkien maintained a full correspondence with readers who wrote asking him detailed questions about his work, and was invariably open and informative about the sources for his fiction. Many of the letters are collected in H. Carpenter (ed.), The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (London: Allen & Unwin 1981).

Introductions to what we know of the peoples of early north-west Europe include R. Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300–1000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2nd edn, 1999), J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West 400–1000 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996) and H. Wolfram, The Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples, T. Dunlop (trs.) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) and with good illustrations is R. Rudgley, Barbarians: Secrets of the Dark Ages (London: Macmillan 2002). A readable and informative overview of the archaeology of the period is in M. Welch, Anglo-Saxon England (London: Batsford and English Heritage 1995). On the strong parallels between e.g. Celts and Anglo-Saxons, see the informed discusson of this point in R. Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (Oxford: Blackwell 1990, especially chapter 7), and H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988). P. B. Ellis, Celt and Saxon: The Struggle for Britain AD 410–937 (London: Constable 1993) provides a counterbalance to this new togetherness and a full account of the warfare between Saxons and Celts over the centuries.

Practical details of life in England at the close of the first millennium are engagingly detailed by R. Lacey and D. Danziger in The Year 1000 (London: Little, Brown 1999) and reviewed in R. I. Page, Life in Anglo-Saxon England (London: B. T. Batsford 1970).

S. O. Glosecki, considers how early Anglo-Saxon societies fulfil the main characteristics of oral, tribal cultures in Shamanism and Old English Poetry (New York: Garland 1989). The Worldwide Indigenous Science Network, funded by the Ford Foundation, researches the wisdom of surviving indigenous tribal cultures today. They have recently added a project to recover the ancient Anglo-Saxon tribal tradition. Their work is summarized at www.wisn.org.

There are now many renditions of Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon into modern English, each offering a slightly different atmosphere and interpretation of the lines. The classical editions are by E. Dobbie, Beowulf and Judith (The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 4: A Collective Edition, 6 vols, New York: Columbia University Press 1953) and R. K. Gordon (1926) republished as Beowulf (New York: Dover 1992), both of which read well. I like M. Alexander, Beowulf (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973). A recent translation by S. Heaney, Beowulf (London: Faber and Faber 1999) won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

The original 1000-year-old Anglo-Saxon medical manuscript is now in the British Library, where its reference is Harley 585. It is one of the central sources for this book. Provided below is a sample of references for those wishing to explore further. Discussions of the background to this document and translations of some of the materials came first in the classic work by T. O. Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England (Bristol: Thoemmes 2001, 3 vols; first published by Longman 1864–6). Cockayne gave the document the name ‘Lacnunga’, which is still used today. In the twentieth century came G. Storm’s very good early treatment, Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1948), analysis of the remedies by J. H. G. Grattan and C. Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine (Oxford University Press 1952); and W. Bonser’s comprehensive volume The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library 1963). Anthropological perspective is in N. F. Barley, ‘Anglo-Saxon Magico-Medicine’, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 3, 1972, pp.167–77, and a generally wider ancient medical context is by M. L. Cameron, ‘Anglo-Saxon Medicine and Magic’ in Anglo-Saxon England (17, Cambridge University Press 1990) and Anglo-Saxon Medicine (Cambridge University Press, 1993). The Lacnunga manuscript, encapsulating some of the most central ‘magical’ beliefs of the real Middle-earth has, in the last few years attracted renewed scholarly attention. Most recent editions are E. Pettit (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Remedies, Charms and Prayers from British Library MS Harley 585 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press 2001); most accessible of all is S. Pollington’s excellently informed and comprehensive volume Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000).

For a scholarly introduction to runes, R. W. V. Elliott, Runes (Manchester University Press, 2nd edn, 1989). A. Bammesberger (ed.), Old English Runes and Their Continental Background (Heidelberg: Carl Winter University, 1991) provides a Europe-wide context for the development of runes. Modern esoteric interpretations of runes are in, e.g., E. Thorsson, Runelore (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1987).

M. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose (London: Dent 1975) includes translations of Anglo-Saxon land charters.

Tacitus’ account of the early Germanic peoples was written in about AD 98. It is available in modern translation in H. Mattingly (ed.) and S. A. Handford (trs.), The Agricola and the Germania (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edn, 1970). Cassius Dio’s description of Boudicca is in vol. 8 (of 9) of Dio’s Roman History, E. Carey (trs. 1925) and Strabo’s description of the Celts is included in vol. 2 (of 8) The Geography of Strabo, H. L. Jones (trs.1923). Both sources are cited in A. Fraser, Boadicea’s Chariot, The Warrior Queens (London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988).

Wulfstan is quoted in M. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose (London: Dent, 1975) and a whole sermon is reported on pp. 116–25. More of Wulfstan’s perspective is provided by D. Bethurum (ed.), The Homilies of Wulfstan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957).

The central work of Snorri Sturluson is The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology, there are various translations and I have used the one by J. I. Young (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954). Some scholars used to suggest that this poetic vision of the Norse spiritual cosmos – written a little later in the thirteenth century than most of the material in this book – is too sophisticated to be used in conjunction with the less complete but cognate sources for ancient England and Germanic Europe. But, in cautioning against a literal interpolation of the later literature, these scholars have gone too far and, as is shown by Brian Branston and others, there are so many strong parallels between the Anglo-Saxon and the later Scandinavian material that over-caution takes us further from, rather than closer to, the truth. See B. Branston, The Lost Gods of England (London: Thames and Hudson 1984, especially pp. 45–55) and K. Crossley-Holland, The Norse Myths (London: Deutsch 1980 p. 133). A lively review of the saga literature is in M. Magnusson, Iceland Saga (London: The Bodley Head 1987).

The eventual full dialogue between the secular and rational age is explored comprehensively by Keith Thomas in Religion and the Decline of Magic (London: Blackwell, 1971).

2. The People of Middle-earth

Reviews of the tribal communities of early Europe are provided in R. Collins, Early Medieval Europe 300–1000 (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2nd edn, 1999), their military practices are in J. Laing, Warriors of the Dark Ages (Sutton 2000), and details of specific tribes are covered in some of the following books: on the Celts, see J. L. Bruneaux’s analysis in The Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries (Seaby 1988); archaeological background in B. Cunliffe, The Ancient Celts (Oxford University Press 1997); for an overview, M. Greene (ed.), The Celtic World (London: Routledge, 1991). Of the very many books which have considered aspects of the Celtic sacred tradition in detail, the most interesting include N. Tolstoy, The Quest for Merlin (London: Hamish Hamilton 1985), exploring the historical and legendary material on Merlin; J. Markale, Women of the Celts (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions 1986), on the role of women as evidenced in lore and legend; J. Matthews, Taliesin (London: Aquarian 1991); on the Celtic poet Taliesin; A. and B. Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (London: Thames and Hudson 1961, reprinted 1994) is a masterly interpretation of the spiritual themes of mythology.

Introductions to the influences on early Britain is in A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain (London: Constable, revised edn, 1992) and R. Hutton, Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (Oxford: Blackwell 1991), especially chapter 6 ‘The Imperial Synthesis AD 43–410’.

On the west Germanic peoples and Anglo-Saxons, the period from the departure of the Roman overlords up to the end of the first millennium is reviewed in J. Campbell (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991). The background to the arrival and settlement of the tribal groups from mainland Europe is described in varying detail in almost all general introductions to Anglo-Saxon England. For readers interested in the transposition of tribal groups from the Continent into early England, and the nature of the early settlements, useful books for overall reviews include: N. Higham, Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons (London: Seaby 1992); M. Todd, The Early Germans (Oxford, 1992); and M. Welch, Anglo-Saxon England (London: Batsford 1992). D. Hooke (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Settlements (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1988) and J. N. L. Myres, The English Settlements (Oxford: The Clarendon Press 1985) consider the way communities developed. J. Hines (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Woodbridge, 1997) provides for a range of essays on early culture. For the formation of kingdoms see T. Dickinson and D. Griffiths, The Making of Kingdoms: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History (Oxford, 1999, vol. 10). A classic source which is still fascinating reading, even though some of the material has been supplanted by more recent research, is H. M. Chadwick, The Origin of the English Nation (Cambridge University Press 1907). Introductions to the tribal cultures of the Huns and Goths are in P. Howarth, Attila, King of the Huns (London: Constable 1994), E. A. Thompson, The Huns (Oxford: Blackwell, revised edn, 1996) and P. Heather The Goths (Oxford: Blackwell 1996).

The Vikings are well covered in P. Cavill, Vikings: Fear and Faith in Anglo-Saxon England (London: HarperCollins, 2001) who considers their impact on Christian developments. E. Roesdahl, The Vikings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edn, 1988) is useful for a general overview and H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964) on the spiritual perspectives of the Norse. J. Graham-Campbell, The Viking World (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, revised edn, 1989) includes excellent illustrations of archaeological artefacts.

The nature of Anglo-Saxon kings, queens, and chieftans, is analysed in W. A. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester University Press, 1970).

On Bede, an introduction to his life and works is in P. Ward, The Venerable Bede (London: Geoffrey Chapman 1990). P. Hunter Blair, The World of Bede (Cambridge University Press, revised edn, 1990) considers the historical and cultural context in which Bede lived. An accessible edition of Bede’s writing is Bede, A History of the English Church and People, L. Sherley-Price (trs.) (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968).

3. How They Lived?

Details of the replica Anglo-Saxon village at West Stow can be found in S. West’s very readable and informative publication, West Stow Revisited, (St Edmondsbury Borough Council, 2001). The village, in West Stow Country Park, about 6 miles north-west of Bury St Edmunds, is open to the general public. A colourful account of the activities of an Anglo-Saxon village, in addition to the West Stow publications, is in R. Lacey and D. Danziger The Year 1000 (London: Little Brown 1999).

King Ine’s laws gave specificity to customs which had been in existence in Germanic tribal societies for a long time. See F. Stenton, The Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford University Press, 3rd edn, 1971), and chapter IX ‘The Structure of Early English Society’ for a clear and authoritative summary of the early law-givers, including Ine.

Tacitus’ accounts of the society of the early Germans is in H. Mattingly (ed.), S. A. Handford (trs.), Agricola and the Germania (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edn, 1970). S. Schama gives an interesting consideration of Tacitus and other writers on the early Germans in Landscape and Memory (London: HarperCollins 1995, pp. 75–100).

Technical aspects of sword making and fighting are reviewed in S. Pollington, The English Warrior from Earliest Times till 1066 (Hockwoldcum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2001).

The ways in which the early Anglo-Saxon evolved into modern English is described in R. McCrum, R. MacNeil and W. Cran, The Story of English (London: Faber and Faber, 1992).

Techniques of food growth, preparation and cooking are detailed in A. Hagen, A Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food: Processing and Consumption (Pinner: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1992) and in A. Hagen, A Second Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Food and Drink: Production and Distribution (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 1995). For gender roles see also C. E. Fell, Women in Anglo-Saxon England, (London 1984).

4. The Magic of the Forest

The age and significance of yew trees, including the tree called Ankerwyke, the burial at Taplow Court under a yew, and a gazeteer of ancient yews across Britain are in A. Chetan and D. Brueton, The Sacred Yew (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1994). Ancient oaks in Windsor Park are photographed beautifully in T. Pakenham Meetings with Remarkable Trees (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1996).

The debate about the actual extent of forest cover is still going on. Earlier estimates of forest cover based on geological research were later reassessed more modestly, and now the pendulum is swinging back again as place-name research is identifying new areas of woodland. Forest cover had been cleared considerably by human use even early in the Middle-earth period, cf. O. Rackham, Trees and Woodlands in the British Landscape (London: 1990) and P. Marren, Britain’s Ancient Woodland (London: 1990). But certainly, trees were still far more of a feature of the landscape – and of the human worldview – than in more recent centuries. D. Hill, An Atlas of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Blackwell 1984) concludes, on p. 17, from the available evidence that ‘there were then important forests in England, and that the country was more heavily wooded than in later periods’. For a more general survey of the natural landscape then, see also P. Dark, The Environment of Britain in the First Millennium AD (London: Bristol Classical Press 2000). Details of the forest of Andresweald are in P. Brandon (ed.), The South Saxons (London: Phillimore 1978, pp. 138–59). The atmosphere and high aesthetics of forests and their significance for the early Germans is in S. Schama, Landscape and Memory (London: HarperCollins 1995). A fine analysis and review of forest management practice, the concept of barnstokkr, the relation between the words for ‘tree’ and ‘trust’, the magical powers of maiden ash trees and ash wands, the drawing of circles of protection, and the hag-riding of horses, are all in S. Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000), especially the section called ‘Tree Lore’, pp. 493–506.

Tolkien explains the source of Mirkwood and his strong feelings about the beauty of trees in his letters, in H. Carpenter, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (London: Allen & Unwin 1981).

Banishments of indigenous Anglo-Saxon practice by the Christian authorities are reviewed in G. R. Owen, Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons (Newton Abbot: 1981) and detailed in W. Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library 1963, pp. 129–36), including the laws of King Cnut and the proclamations of St Eligius. Further details of the indigenous magical practices are in W. Bonser, ‘The Significance of Colour in Ancient and Medieval Magic, with some Modern Comparisons’ Man, XXV, 1925, pp. 194–8. For the objects used see A. L. Meaney, ‘Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones’, British Archaeological Reports, British Series no. 96, 1981, and for the nature of the practitioners, see A. L. Meaney, ‘Women, Witchcraft and Magic in Anglo-Saxon England’ in S. G. Scragg (ed.), Superstition and Popular Medicine in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester University Press, 1989). On the nature of magical ritual in general see S. J. Tambiah ‘Form and Meaning of Magical Acts: A Point of View’ in R. Horton (ed.), Modes of Thought (London: Faber 1973). S. O. Glosecki’s analysis of the imaginal in Anglo-Saxon England shows how features of nature had many layers of significance in Shamanism and Old English Poetry (New York: Garland 1989). For the close relationship between the literal world and the imaginal ‘Otherworld’ see N. Tolstoy, The Quest for Merlin (London: Hamish Hamilton 1985, p. 162) and J. Markale, Women of the Celts (Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions 1986, pp. 194–5). On Pope Gregory and the general co-option of pagan rites by the Christian missionaries, see V. Flint, The Rise of Magic in Medieval Europe (Princeton University Press, 1991) and for Gregory’s letter to Augustine see B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (ed. and trs.), Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1969).

English place names are in K. Cameron, English Place Names (London: Batsford, 1961) and in G. J. Copley, English Place-Names and Their Origins, (London: David & Charles 1971).

Descriptions of the Norse cosmos and creation are reviewed in H. R. Ellis Davidson Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988). A Germanic culture analysis is provided in R. Metzner, The Well of Remembrance (Boston: Shambhala 1994, esp. pp. 192–211), and perspectives from the Norse tradition is in E. O. G. Turville-Petrie, Myth and Religion of the North (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964). Vivid accounts are in B. Branston, Gods of the North (London: Thames and Hudson 1980) and M. Magnusson, Hammer of the North (London: Orbis 1976). Odin’s vision of the structure of the cosmos in realms and worlds is described engagingly in K. Crossley-Holland, The Norse Myths (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1980, pp. 15–17). The Germanic world tree, called Irminsul, is discussed in P. G. Bauschatz, The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 1982).

The shamanic perspective in Anglo-Saxon culture is reviewed by S. O. Glosecki Shamanism and Old English Poetry (New York: Garland 1989). The primary source for the Havamal is Snorri Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954, p. 40–6). N. Tolstoy, The Quest for Merlin (London: Hamish Hamilton 1985, p. 177); and B. Branston, Gods of the North (London: Thames and Hudson 1980, pp. 114–15) discuss the shamanic significance of Odin’s by-name Ygg. The initiation experiences of shamans worldwide are described in M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (London: Routledge, 1964) – the Siberian example of scaling a birch tree as world tree is on p. 469. For the various kinds of landscape used for initiation around the world see J. Swan ‘Sacred Places in Nature: One Tool in the Shaman’s Medicine Bag’, in G. Doore (ed.), Shaman’s Path (Boston: Shambhala 1988, pp. 151–60). The importance of an extended imagination for the shamanic vision is considered in S. Greenwood, Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld: An Anthropology (Oxford: Berg 2000) and the role of imagery in M. Tucker, Dreaming with Open Eyes: The Shamanic Spirit in Contemporary Art and Culture (London: HarperCollins 1993). A review of the psychological states of mind typical of shamanic activity is in R. Walsh, The Spirit of Shamanism (Los Angeles: Tarcher 1990) and a range of essays introducing the shamanic perspective provided in S. Nicolson (ed.), Shamanism: An Expanded View of Reality (Wheaton, Illinois: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1987). For an attempt to illustrate the various visions of shamanic states of consciousness through artwork, costume, mask and ritual see J. Halifax, Shaman: The Wounded Healer (London: Thames and Hudson, 1982).

Odin’s initiation journey took ‘nine nights’, but in mythological time it can seem much longer or shorter. A. and B. Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (London: Thames and Hudson 1961, reprinted 1994) has excellent discussions of mythological time. See M. Eliade, Shamanism (pp. 274–9) for a consideration of the shamanic significance of the number nine.

For early magical practice see R. Kieckheffer, Magic in the Middle-Ages (Cambridge University Press 1989), and for its embodiment in names of gods and other evidence see F. P. Magoun, ‘On Some Survivals of Pagan Belief in Anglo-Saxon England’ in Harvard Theological Review 1947. See also T. J. Csordas, ‘Imaginal Performance and Memory in Ritual Healing’, in C. Laderman and M. Roseman (eds), The Performance of Healing (London: Routledge 1996, pp. 91–114).

5. Towers of Doom

The desertion of Roman buildings in the south-east of Anglo-Saxon England are mentioned by J. Blair, ‘Roman Remains’ in M. Lapidge (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Blackwell 1999, pp. 396–8), in C. J. Arnold, Roman Britain to Saxon England (London: Croom Helm 1984) and in B. Branston, The Lost Gods of England (London: Thames and Hudson 1984, pp. 22). Recent archaeological analyses are reviewed by N. Faulkner in ‘Decline and Fall’, British Archaeology, 55, October 2000. For the high quality of Roman roads see C. Taylor, Roads and Tracks of Britain (London: 1979) and also D. Hooke, The Anglo-Saxon Landscape: the Kingdom of the Hwicce (Manchester University Press 1985). The abandoned Roman villa at Fawler is discussed by T. Shippey, The Road to Middle-earth (London: Harper Collins 1982). The historian’s opinion that urban life is more sophisticated than rural is mentioned in H. Finberg, The Formation of England 550–1042, p. 75.

The significance of crossroads and ‘spirit’ in the landscape is considered by P. Devereux, Haunted Land (London: Piatkus 2001), and by N. Pennick and P. Devereux, Lines on the Landscape (London: Robert Hale 1989).

A discussion and diagram of the settlement and buildings of Yeavering is in H. R. Ellis Davidson, The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe (London: Routledge 1993, pp. 22–4).

Early Germanic cultures on the Rhine are discussed in S. Schama, Landscape and Memory (London: HarperCollins 1995). Our primary source for Nerthus and her procession is in Tacitus, H. Mattingly (ed.), S. A. Handford (trs.), The Agricola and the Germania (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1970). Other interesting accounts of the wagons and Nerthus’ travels are included in P. Berger, The Goddess Obscured (London: Robert Hale 1988). A good introduction to the peat-bog finds is in H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1964, pp. 95–6).

The nature of the Roman statues of gods and goddesses is discussed in A. Fraser, Boadicea’s Chariot: The Warrior Queens (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1988). The notion that ‘gods and goddesses’ in early Anglo-Saxon culture were more like nature spirits is in B. Griffiths, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 1996).

The poem ‘The Ruin’, probably about Bath, is included in many collections of Anglo-Saxon verse, including R. K. Gordon, Anglo-Saxon Poetry (London: Dent, revised edn, 1954, p. 84) and M. Alexander, The Earlist English Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1966). The classic source for this and other Anglo-Saxon poems is still G. P. Krapp and E. Dobbie (eds), The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 vols, which includes ‘The Ruin’ in vol. 3 The Exeter Book. (New York and London: Routledge 1931–53).

The concept of wyrd features in B. Bates, The Way of Wyrd (London: Century 1983), and is also considered in A. Stone, Wyrd: Fate and Destiny in North European Paganism (self-published, printed by Newark Chamber of Commerce, 1989).

6. The Dragon’s Lair

The role of dragons as icons for kings is introduced in W. A. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester University Press 1970, pp. 127–30), and their nature as guardians of treasure hoards is reviewed in H. R. Ellis Davidson, ‘The Hill of the Dragon: Anglo-Saxon Burial Mounds in Literature and Archaeology’, Folk-lore, LXI, 1950, pp. 169–84. Other dragon references are reviewed by G. Speake, Anglo-Saxon Animal Art and its Germanic Background (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1980) and earlier by C. H. Whitman, ‘The Old English Animal Names’, Anglia I, XXX, 1907, pp. 389–90. Dragon place names are documented in D. Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism (London: British Museum Publications 1992), in P. Drayton, ‘Danelaw Gods – The Place-name Evidence: Exploring New Interpretations’, Mercian Mysteries, August 1993, pp. 7–12, available online 2001 from the archive of B. Trubshaw (ed.) At the Edge, www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge, and in M. Gelling, ‘Place-names and Anglo-Saxon Paganism’, University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 8, 1961–2, pp. 7–24. Dragon names in a more general context are in K. Cameron, English Place Names (London: Batsford 1961), C. M. Mathews, Place Names of the English-Speaking World (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1972) and P. H. Reaney, The Origin of English Place-Names (London: Routledge 1960). For dragon legends, the Celtic dragon legend of Llud and Lefelys is in J. Gantz (trs.), The Mabinogion (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1976). The legendary background to dragons is covered in J. Hoult, Dragons: Their History and Symbolism (Glastonbury: Gothic Image 1987), B. Griffiths, Meet the Dragon: An Introduction to Beowulf’s Adversary (Wymeswold: Heart of Albion Press 1996) and F. Huxley, The Dragon (London: Thames and Hudson 1979). The primary source for the world serpent is S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954, pp. 56 and 89). Chinese dragons and feng shui are discussed in P. Rawson and L. Legeza, Tao: The Chinese Philosophy of Time and Change (London: Thames and Hudson 1973) and N. Pennick The Ancient Science of Geomancy (London: Thames and Hudson 1979). By the end of the eighth century most villages had been formed. See H. Finberg, The Formation of England: 550–1042 (1974). The land charter mentioning Grendel is translated by M. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose (London: Dent 1975, p. 12). The nature of Grendel is considered in S. Newton, The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer 1993).

The significance of crossroads is considered in N. Pennick, Earth Harmony (London: Century 1987) and P. Devereux, Earth Memory (Slough: Quantum 1991).

Pennick, Earth Harmony (pp. 22–3) elucidates the importance of artistic language for describing the nuances of the ‘physical’ landscape. For how the spiritual landscape is embedded in our experience of the physical see B. Lopez, Crossing Open Ground (London: Macmillan 1988). The parallels between advanced scientific theory and mystical concepts and languages was introduced by F. Capra, The Tao of Physics (Berkeley: Shambhala 1975) and is the first book in what is now practically a genre. B. Lancaster, Mind, Brain and Human Potential (Shaftesbury: Element 1991) describes how the mind constructs what we presume to be an ‘objective’ external reality. Psychological geographers recognize that our view of landscape evokes a deep response, see Y. F. Tuan Topophilia (Berkeley: University of California Press 1968), and the interaction between human activity and experiences of the landscape are seen more recently in, for example, both Arctic and Australian indigenous culture, described in B. Lopez, Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape (London: Macmillan 1986, p. 296).

7. A Hoard of Treasure

The White Horse of Uffington is claimed as Celtic workmanship by A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain (London: Constable, revised edn, 1992), but is considered perhaps more likely to be Saxon by R. Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (Oxford: Blackwell 1991), and H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988). An example of a Christian image of the dragon as the power of evil and darkness is Carpaccio’s St George Killing the Dragon, illustrated in F. Huxley The Dragon (London: Thames and Hudson 1979, p. 79).

Terms like ‘wyrmbed’ show how dragons became parts of kennings or ‘clue words’, the understanding of which depended usually on a knowledge of mythology. In the myths, serpent-dragons were said to lie on golden treaure in burial mounds, which were therefore ‘wyrmbeds’. H. R. Ellis Davidson The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe (London: Routledge, 1993).

The Sutton Hoo archeological finds, displayed in the British Museum, are reproduced in many books, including M. O. H. Carver (ed.), The Age of Sutton Hoo (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1992) and Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? (London: British Museum Publications, 1998). The classic British Museum publication is R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton-Hoo Ship Burial (3 vols) (London: British Museum Publications, 1975–83). Discussions of the Sutton Hoo treasure and its significance may be found in R. Hutton The Pagan Religions of The Ancient British Isles (Oxford: Blackwell 1991, pp. 275–9), C. Hills ‘The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England in the Pagan Period: A Review’, Anglo-Saxon England 8, (Cambridge University Press 1979, pp. 318–26) and G. Owen, Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons (Newton Abbot: David & Charles 1981, pp. 67–79). A summary of the findings and their significance is in H. R. Ellis Davidson The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe, pp. 17–24. Of particular relevance to Anglo-Saxon magic is S. O. Glosecki ‘Wolf Dancers and Whispering Beasts: Shamanic Motifs from Sutton Hoo?’, Mankind Quarterly, 26, 1986, pp. 305–19.

For a consideration of the concept of ‘luck’ see A. R. Smith, ‘The Luck in the Head: Some Further Observations’, Folklore, LXXIX, 1963, pp. 396–8, W. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester University Press, 1970) and S. Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2001), which considers also the debts, obligations and spiritual level of gift-exchange.

There are various renditions of Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon into modern English, referenced earlier. Analyses and commentaries on Beowulf run into the hundreds. For readers wishing to explore further, some sources of relevance to this book include J. R. R. Tolkien, ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 22, 1936, pp. 245–95, C. Watkins, How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford University Press 1995), A. Bonjour, ‘Beowulf and the Beasts of Battle’, Proceedings of the Modern Language Association, 72, 1957, pp. 563–73, N. K. Chadwick, ‘The Monsters and Beowulf’, in P. Clemoes (ed.), The Anglo-Saxons (London: Bower and Bower 1959), G. N. Garmonsway, Beowulf and its Analogues (London: Dent 1968), G. Hubener, ‘Beowulf and Germanic Exorcism’, Review of English Studies, 11, 1935, pp. 163–81, M. Osborn, Beowulf: A Verse Translation with Treasures of the North (Berkeley: University of California Press 1983) and D. Whitelock, The Audience of Beowulf (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1951). For the oral performance of Beowulf as a magical charm, or galdor, see S. Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000).

L. Dossey, Space, Time and Medicine (Boulder: Shambhala 1982) provides a clear exposition of the principles of cyclic time.

A primary source for Norse legends is S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954). On the death and rebirth of the snake/dragon, A. Mindell, Dreambody (London: Routledge 1984, p. 129).

8. Elves’ Arrows

Elfshot appears in the Lacnunga in a magical charm to protect people from their arrows, as in S. Pollington’s Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000, p. 229). The picture of the man shot with elves’ arrows in the Utrecht Psalter is in the British Library, MS Harley 603, folio 22r. The Utrecht Psalter, and its illustrations, is discussed in J. Brantley, ‘The Iconography of the Utrecht Psalter and the Old English Descent into Hell’, Anglo-Saxon England, 28, 1999, pp. 43–63. Discussions of the nature of elfshot appear in R. North, ‘Heathen Gods in Old English Literature’, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 22 (Cambridge University Press 1997), K. L. Jolly, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England: Elf Charms in Context (Chapel Hill: 1996), M. L. Cameron, Anglo-Saxon Medicine (Cambridge University Press 1993), W. Bonser ‘Magical Practices Against Elves’, Folk-Lore, XXXVII, 1926, pp. 356–63 and N. Thun ‘The Malignant Elves: Notes on Anglo-Saxon Magic and Germanic Myth’, Studia Neophilologica, 41, 1969, pp. 378–96. For the nature of elves generally in Anglo-Saxon England, and elves being a general word for spirits, see B. Griffiths Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 1996, p. 50); and G. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1948). Tolkien explained his perspective on elves in a letter see H. Carpenter, The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (London: Allen & Unwin 1981, p. 176). T. Shippey, The Road to Middle-earth (London: Allen & Unwin 1982) discusses the beauty of elves. For Saxo’s description of elves and the practice of going to a gifted person for seeing into the Otherworld see H. R. Ellis Davidson (ed.) Saxo Grammaticus – The History of the Danes, Books 1–9, vol I, P. Fisher (trs.) and vol II, commentary H. R. Ellis Davidson (Cambridge University Press 1979–80). For cross-cultural material on such ‘gifted’ people in more recently surviving cultures see M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (London: Routledge, 1956).

Anglo-Saxon terms for wizards and witches are legion, and are reviewed in Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000), W. Bonser The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library 1963) and B. Griffiths, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic, p. 89). This latter book also introduces ‘Cormac’s Saga’ (p. 53), and the practice of alfablot.

The contributions of Aelfric are documented in M. M. Gatch, Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Aelfric and Wulfstan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977).

The belief in landspirits is discussed in H. R. Ellis Davidson, The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe (London: Routledge 1993), and the development of the ‘races’ of gods, the Aesir and Vanir, in R. North, ‘Heathen Gods in Old English Literature’, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, 22, 1997. Almost all general books on Scandinavian mythology and religions have good sections on Frey, regarded as a fertility god, and in some ways elaborating the early belief in spirits, see E. Turville-Petre Myth and Religion of the North (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1964), a review of his saga appearances in M. Magnusson, Iceland Saga (London: The Bodley Head 1987), insightful perspectives on his nature and significance are found throughout H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988). Snorri Sturluson’s ‘original’ description of Frey is in J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954). A particularly interesting account and discussion of Frey’s wooing of Gerd is in B. Branston, Gods of the North (London: Thames and Hudson 1980).

9. Plant Magic

The Old English Herbarium and the Lacnunga, the enchantment of plants, Hildegard’s attitude to mandrake, and Pliny’s comments on early Celtic plant magic, are discussed in W. Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library 1963). Mugwort and celandine are considered by G. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1948). These magical/medical manuscripts are newly translated and analysed in S. Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000), including mention of the magical healing reputation of vervain (p. 163), a consideration of the concepts of ‘haelu’ and health (pp. 453 and 488), and the spirit force suffusing the cosmos in Anglo-Saxon England. For the concepts of vital power, and the intimate interrelation of people with the landscape and the gods, see R. H. Wax, Magic, Fate and History: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988), especially chapter IV ‘The Ideal Typical Enchanted Point of View’.

For examples of ancient European notions of life force in people see R. B. Onions The Origins of European Thought (Cambridge University Press 1954, pp. 129 and 474).

Dolores Krieger developed the approach to healing now known as Therapeutic Touch.

10. Spirit Nights

The source for the Norse myth about Night is S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954, p. 37–8), and comments about ironwood are on p. 39.

Tacitus’ comments are in H. Mattingly (ed.), S. A. Handford (trs.), The Agricola and the Germania (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edn, 1970).

The picking of periwinkle by the seasons of the moon is discussed in S. Pollington Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000) and in G. Storms Anglo-Saxon Magic The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, (1948), who also considers the nature of fertility festivals.

Concepts of liminal moments, spirit nights and the Otherworld are in A. and B. Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (London: Thames and Hudson 1961, reprinted 1994).

Wulfstan is quoted in M. Swanton, Anglo-Saxon Prose (London: Dent 1975) and the whole sermon is reported in pp. 116–25.

11. Wells of Wisdom

Well dressing and other well traditions are discussed by J. and C. Bord, Earth Rites (London: Granada 1982), by J. A. MacCulloch, Religion of the Ancient Celts (London: Constable 1991, first published 1911, pp. 181–97), including the association of the River Seine with the goddess Sequana; by N. Pennick Celtic Sacred Landscapes (London: Thames and Hudson 2000, pp. 63–77) and by J. Michell, The Earth Spirit (London: Thames and Hudson 1975, pp. 76–7).

Wells in Wales are documented in F. Jones, The Holy Wells of Wales (Cardiff: University of Wales Press 1954). Fritwell as site of divination is in C. Hough, ‘The Place-Name Fritwell’, Journal of the English Place-Name Society, 29, 1997, and is discussed in Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000). The honouring of Coventina is considered in A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain (London: Constable, revised edn, 1992, p. 56), who also mentions the River Glen in her discussion of sanctuaries associated with springs, wells and rivers (pp. 46–59). For a collection of river names, see E. Ekwell, English River-Names (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1928); for precious Celtic art objects found and probably dedicated to the Thames in London see C. Fox, Pattern and Purpose: A Survey of Celtic Art in Britain (Cardiff: 1958). Women going to wells for fertility rituals is in J. M. McPherson, Primitive Beliefs in the North-East of Scotland (London: Longmans and Green 1929 pp. 50–1).

S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954) is the source for the Norse vision of twenty-seven great rivers of the Upperworld, the description of Yggdrasil (pp. 42–6) and the vision of the water in the sacred wells (pp. 45–6).

Joseph Campbell discusses water and women in Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God (New York: Viking, revised edn, 1969). Related discussions are in G. Owen, Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons (Newton Abbot: 1981) and M. Sjoo and B. Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (New York: Harper and Row 1987).

Research into the sensitivity of water is reported in T. Shwenk, Sensitive Chaos (New York: Schocken Books 1976); this work is also discussed in L. Watson, Earthworks (pp. 120–1).

Pilgrims’ badges in the River Thames are reported in R. Merrifield, The Archaeology of Religion and Magic (London: 1987) and discussed in R. Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (Oxford: Blackwell 1990).

12. The Raven’s Omen

The poems ‘Elene’ and ‘Judith’ are included in R. K. Gordon (ed. and trs.) Anglo-Saxon Poetry (New York: Dutton 1926, revised 1977). An analysis is in P. J. Lucas, ‘Judith and the Woman Hero’, Yearbook of English Studies, 22, 1992, pp. 17–27.

Brunanburgh is mentioned in W. A. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester University Press, 1970), which also introduces the story of Ravenlandeye. The warmer weather of part of the first millennium is in J. Rackham ‘Environment and Economy in Anglo-Saxon England’, CBA Research Report, 8, 9, York, 1994.

Mabd, Morrigu and the crows, and the story of Alasdair and bird language, are all in C. and J. Matthews, The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Shaftesbury: Element 1994). Babd is summarized in M. Dixon-Kennedy, Celtic Myth and Legend (London: Blandford 1996) and discussed in A. and B. Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (London: Thames and Hudson 1961, reprinted 1994). A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain (London: Constable, revised edn, 1992) considers Owein’s board game of wooden wisdom, and the story of Da Choca’s Hostel.

Gregory of Tours account of the ‘bird prophecies’ of the Franks is considered in H. R. Ellis Davidson, ‘The Germanic World’ in M. Loewe and C. Blacker (eds), Divination and Oracles (London: Allen and Unwin 1981), as is the wizard’s view of the future.

Amulets are reviewed in A. L. Meaney, Anglo-Saxon Amulets and Curing Stones (British Archaeological Reports, British Series no. 96 Oxford 1981).

The source for Odin’s two ravens is S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954).

A discussion and diagram of the settlement and buildings of Yeavering is in H. R. Ellis Davidson The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe (London: Routledge 1993 pp. 22–4). Yeavering was probably abandoned after Edwin’s death see B. Hope-Taylor, Yeavering: An Anglo-British Centre of Early Northumbria (London: 1977).

The original account of King Edwin and the crow is the early Life of St Gregory, written between AD 680 and 714 by an anonymous monk of Whitby, and is one of the earliest pieces of literature in England. It is translated and included in D. Whitelock (ed.), English Historical Documents (London: Eyre and Spottiswood 1955, p. 688).

13. Shapeshifters

The ancient European belief that people could alter shape from human to animal is introduced in T. O. Rahilly, Early Irish History and Mythology (Dublin: 1957, pp. 323–5) and discussed in N. Tolstoy, The Quest for Merlin (London: Hamish Hamilton 1985) and S. O. Glosecki Shamanism and Old English Poetry (1989), which also has excellent discussions of the concepts of dreams from outside the body, soul, hamr, spirit skin and fetch – especially ‘Images of the Animal Guardians’, chapter 6, pp. 181–210, including the sensing of the presence of fetches. See also consideration of these concepts in H. P. Duerr and F. Goodman (trs.), Dreamtime: Concerning the Boundary Between Wilderness and Civilization (Oxford: Blackwell 1985), B. Collinder, The Lapps (Princeton University Press 1949, pp. 148–9) and E. O. G. Turville-Petre, Myth and Religion of the North (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1964, pp. 221–30). For shamans in a state of trance and shamans journeying out of their bodies, see J. Halifax, Shamanic Voices: the Shaman as Seer, Poet and Healer (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1979) for first-hand narration of experiences of ‘animal presence’.

‘Shaman’ is today the widely used and accepted umbrella term for practitioners of healing and the sacred in tribal societies. They are believed to be especially gifted in mediating between the spirit world and the everyday world, and to be able to perceive through a kind of dream consciousness during waking life; literally ‘dreaming with open eyes’ see M. Tucker, Dreaming with Open Eyes: The Shamanic Spirit in Modern Art and Culture (London: Harper Collins 1993). H. R. Ellis Davidson in her Pagan Scandinavia (New York: Praeger 1967) writing about shamans in the context of ancient Scandinavia, says on p. 23, that ‘The shaman … could send out his spirit in a trance to discover what was hidden, to heal the sick, to enter the land of the Dead and return to men, to combat evil powers and to assuage the wrath of the spirits. One of the outstanding characteristics of the shaman everywhere is his close relationship with the animal world, emphasized in costume and ritual, and by the belief in animal spirits helping and hindering him in his endeavours.’ General source material on the role and activities of shamans in ancient Europe and Scandinavia can be found, for example, in Glosecki Shamanism and Old English Poetry, P. Buchholz, ‘Shamanism: the Testimony of Old Icelandic Literary Tradition’, Medieval Scandinavia, 4, 1971, pp. 7–20, M. A. Arent, ‘The Heroic Pattern: Old Germanic Helmets, Beowulf, and Grettis saga’, in E. C. Polome (ed.), Old Norse Literature and Mythology (Austin: University of Texas Press 1969, pp. 130–99), C. Edsman, Studies in Shamanism: A Symposium (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell 1967, pp. 120–65), H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1964 pp. 141–9), M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964 pp. 379–87), V. Salmon, ‘The Wanderer and the Seafarer and the Old English Conception of the Soul’, Modern Language Review, 55, 1960, pp. 1–10) and N. K. Chadwick, Poetry and Prophecy (Cambridge University Press 1952). Shamanic rituals to acquire guardian spirits are described in M. D. Jakobsen, Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books 1999), Eliade, Shamanism, pp. 110–44, H. Kalweit, Dreamtime and Inner Space (Boston: Shambhala 1988, pp. 209–12) and P. Vitebsky, The Shaman (London: Macmillan, 1995 pp. 59–63).

The Manannan and Mongan story is included in C. and J. Matthews, The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Shaftesbury: Element 1994).

W. A. Chaney. The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester University Press, 1970, pp. 121–35) has a discussion of animals sacred to the Anglo-Saxons. A. Ross, Pagan Celtic Britain (London: Constable, revised edn, 1992, pp. 302–446) comprehensively reviews animals sacred to the Celts. In more recently surviving tribal cultures, animals also have significance see Eliade Shamanism (especially pp. 88–99), and also J. E. Brown, Animals of the Soul (Shaftesbury: Element 1992). On how these attitudes of closeness with animals has now been lost see B. Lopez, Crossing Open Ground (London: Macmillan 1988).

For the magical role of the bear, see the excellent analysis of Beowulf references in Glosecki, Shamanism p. 198, in K. La Budde, ‘Cultural Primitivism in William Faulkner’s The Bear’, in F. Utley (ed.), Bear, Man, and God (New York: Random House 1964, pp. 226–33) and in R. Carpenter, Folk Tale, Fiction, and Saga in the Homeric Epics (Berkeley: University of California Press 1946).

The concept of berserker is discussed by Ellis Davidson in Gods and Myths (p. 66–70), which includes the story of Bothvar Bjarki as a bear, M. Eliade, W. Trask (trs.), Rites and Symbols of Initiation (New York: Harper and Row 1975 p. 72) and Duerr and Goodman, Dreamtime (p. 62). For the psychology of the warrior, including the berserkers, see S. Pollington The English Warrior from Earliest Times till 1066 (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books, 2001).

The boar-helmets in Beowulf are considered in Glosecki, Shamanism (p. 54) and the military practice of destroying captured, spiritually enhanced weapons is in Ellis Davidson, Pagan Scandinavia (p. 70–1).

Tacitus reported that early Germanic peoples wore animal skins in H. Mattingly (ed.), S. A. Handford (trs.), The Agricola and the Germania, chapter 17. See also W. Bonser, ‘Animal Skins in Magic and Medicine’ Folklore, 73, 1962, 128–9.

Hrolf’s saga and Athils are mentioned in H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988).

On Odin travelling in fetch form see Snorri Sturluson, E. Monsen and A. H. Smith (trs.), Heimskringla (Heffer 1931). For the Volsung saga Sigmund and Sinjof, see H. R. Ellis Davidson Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1964, p. 68).

14. The Wizard’s Wild Ride

The wild hunt entry in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for AD 1127 is in G. N. Garmonsway (ed.), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (London: J. M. Dent 1953, new edn 1972). The Celtic figure Gwynn ap Nudd, who rode in wild hunt, listed in M. Dixon-Kennedy, Celtic Myth and Legend (London: Blandford 1996). For symbolic horses among the Celts, M. Green, ‘British Hill-Figures: A Celtic Interpretation’, Cosmos, 11, pp. 125–138 and J. A. MacCulloch, The Religion of the Ancient Celts (London: Constable 1911, reprinted 1991).

The story of the death of Fergus is told in C. and J. Matthews The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Shaftesbury: Element 1994, pp. 358–76).

S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954), relates the story of Hrimfaxi, and the magic horse Sleipnir. Hermothr’s ride to the Lower-world is described in the Norse manuscripts with a seemingly objective geography. For the relationship between sacred landscapes and the material world see H. R. Ellis Davidson, ‘Mythical geography in the Edda Poems’, in G. D. Flood (ed.), Mapping Invisible Worlds (Yearbook 9 of the Traditional Cosmology Society, Edinburgh University Press, 1993, pp. 95–106). Shamanic journeys from more recent cultures into the dangerous but wisdom-bestowing environs of the Lowerworld are recounted in, for example, H. Kalweit, M. Kohn (trs.), Shamans, Healers and Medicine Men (Boston: Shambhala, 1992) and J. Halifax, Shamanic Voices: the Shaman as Seer, Poet and Healer (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1979).

Tacitus describes how the early Germanic peoples consulted prophetic horses see H. Mattingly (ed.), S. A. Handford (trs.), The Agricola and the Germania (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edn, 1970). For a perspective on the imaginal world of Anglo-Saxon England, see S. O. Glosecki Shamanism and Old Engish Poetry (New York: Garland 1989).

Interesting analyses of the name Yggdrasil appear in N. Tolstoy Quest for Merlin (London: Hamish Hamilton 1985, p. 177) and B. Branston Gods of the North (London: Thames and Hudson 1980, pp. 114–15).

The balance of forces in Norse cosmology are explored in R. H. Wax Magic, Fate and History: The Changing Ethos of the Vikings (Kansas: Colorado Press 1969).

15. The Web of Destiny

For childbirth practices see M. Deegan, ‘Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Anglo-Saxon Medical Texts: A Preliminary Survey’, in D. G. Scragg and M. Deegan (eds), Medicine in Early Mediaeval England (Manchester University Press, 1989).

K. Morris, Sorceress or Witch: The Image of Gender in Medieval Iceland and Northern Europe (London: University Press of America 1991) considers the meaning of the term ‘hagtesse’. She also discusses Frigg as a Norse and Anglo-Saxon goddess who expressed fertility themes. On this see also B. Branston, The Lost Gods of England (London: Thames and Hudson, 2nd edn, 1974) especially pp. 127–34 and K. Crossley-Holland, The Norse Myths (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1980). P. Berger, The Goddess Obscured (London: Robert Hale 1988) is especially interesting on the fertility aspects of the corn spirit. Women’s childbirth celebrations are indicated in M. Eliade Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (London: Collins/Fontana 1968). Symbolic approaches to aspects of childbirth are reviewed in B. C. Bates and A. Newman-Turner, ‘Imagery and Symbolism in the Birth Practices of Traditional Cultures’, Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care and Education, 1985, 12, 1, pp. 29–36. Awareness of the biological and cosmological aspects of the female monthly cycle were much stronger then, and are discussed in T. Buckley and A. Gottlieb (eds), Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation (Berkeley: University of California Press 1988) and M. Sjoo and B. Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (San Francisco: Harper and Row 1987). The latter also indicates the relevance of the great spider woman of the Navajo.

Ancient figures of ‘the mothers’ from Roman times are in G. Owen, Rites and Religions of the Anglo-Saxons (Newton Abbot: 1981) and for further back in prehistory see M. Gimbutas, The Civilisation of the Goddess (San Francisco: HarperCollins 1991) and M. Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess (San Francisco: Harper & Row 1989).

B. Branston, The Lost Gods of England (London: Thames and Hudson 1974 and 1984 edition) and H. R. Ellis Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988) both discuss the significance and cross-cultural parallels of the Wyrd Sisters.

The Bishop of Worms and the tradition of the Parcae can be found in H. R. Ellis Davidson Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1964). The Norns and Bralund appear in the opening stanzas of The First Lay of Helgi; my source is P. B. Taylor and W. H. Auden (trs.), The Elder Edda. A Selection (London: Faber and Faber, 1969).

On gewif and weaving destiny in Viking cosmology, R. H. Wax, Magic, Fate and History History: Early Scandinavian and Celtic Religions (Manchester University Press 1988), ‘Another intrinsic aspect of the magical world view is the idea that man, the gods, and all the other phenomena are related or connected to each other by a web of empathy’ (p. 50). An interesting discussion along similar lines is in N. Pennick, Games of the Gods (London: Rider 1988, pp. 27–31). The processes of spinning and weaving in the first millennium are summarized clearly with illustrations in J. Graham-Campbell, The Viking World (London: Frances Lincoln 1989, pp. 121–2). Spinning and weaving implements recovered in excavations at West Stow are described in S. West, West Stow Revisited (St Edmundsbury Borough Council, 2001).

Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Fridlef consulting women about his children in his twelfth-century Gesta Danorum. Njals saga M. Magnusson and H. Palsson (trs.), Njal’s Saga (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1960). Kogi cosmological belief systems are described in A. Ereira, The Heart of the World (London: Jonathan Cape 1990).

The Solomon and Saturn prose and poetic manuscripts are covered by K. O’Brien O’Keefe, ‘Solomon and Saturn, Poetic and Prose’ in M. Lapidge (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: Blackwell 2001, pp. 424–5); and T. A. Shippey (trs.), Poems of Wisdom and Learning in Old English (Cambridge: 1976).

16. The Seeress

Evidence for wizardry and magic in ancient Europe is considered by S. O. Glosecki, Shamanism and Old English Poetry (New York: Garland 1989) and B. Griffiths, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 1996), which references Theodore’s penitential against employing diviners, and the laws and punishments against wizards. See also A. Davies, ‘Witches in Anglo-Saxon England: Five Case Histories’ in D. G. Scragg (ed.), Superstition and Popular Medicine in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester University Press, 1989) and N. Price (ed.) The Archaeology of Shamanism (London: Routledge 2002). See R. Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press 1989) for the nature of distinctions between priestesses and witches. Tacitus is a major source for information on how the Romans had to negotiate with Germanic seeresses, the name of Veleda, and references to wise women of the Chatti tribe, in H. Mattingly (ed.), S. A. Handford (trs.), The Agricola and the Germania (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edn, 1970). On the nature and status of seeresses, see K. Morris, Sorceress or Witch: The Image of Gender in Medieval Iceland and Northern Europe (1991) and, more generally, J. Jesch, Women in the Viking Age (Woodbridge: Boydell Press 1991).

On the name ‘Veleda’ as a professional title, H. R. Ellis Davidson (ed.) The Seer in Celtic and Other Traditions (Edinburgh: John Donald 1989) and H. R. Ellis Davidson ‘The Germanic World’, in M. Loewe and C. Blacker (eds) Divination and Oracles (London: Allen and Unwin 1981), which also deals with the dangers to travelling shamanic souls, the seidr practitioner’s ‘gaping and falling down’, and the significance of the Scottish dialect word for ‘warlock’.

There are a number of translations of the saga appearance of Thorbiorg. My source is G. Jones, Eirik the Red (Oxford University Press 1961, pp. 135–6). Discussions of seidr include J. Blain, Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic: Ecstasy and Neo-Shamanism in North European Paganism (London: Routledge 2002), T. Dubois, Nordic Religions in the Viking Age (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 1999), S. O. Glosecki, Shamanism and Old English Poetry (New York: Garland 1989, pp. 96–102), including an analysis of the drink given to Thorbiorg, N. K. Chadwick, Poetry and Prophecy (Cambridge University Press 1952, pp. 9–10), Edsman, Studies in Shamanism: A Symposium (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell 1967, pp. 143–5), M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (London: Routledge, 1964, pp. 385–7) and P. Foote (ed.), G. Johnson (trs.), The Saga of Gilsi The Outlaw (University of Toronto Press 1963, p. 79). On Freya: S. S. Grundy ‘Freyja and Frigg’, in S. Billington and M. Green (eds), The Concept of the Goddess (London: Routledge 1996). For the background to the songs necessary for spirits to come, spakonas travelling with trained singers and breathing technique and phrasing etc., see C. M. Bowra, Primitive Song (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962).

The story of Norna-Gest is considered in A. Stone, Wyrd: Fate and Destiny in North European Paganism (self-published, printed by Newark Chamber of Commerce 1989).

For references to the Celtic practice of ‘imbas’ divination, the seeress named Fedelm, Gerald of Wales on divination trances, chanting or murmuring in divination technique, see C. Matthews, The Elements of The Celtic Tradition. (Shaftesbury: Element 1989), C. and J. Matthews, The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Shaftesbury: Element 1994) and A. Stone, Wyrd: Fate and Destiny relates these approaches to the Anglo-Saxon concept of wyrd.

On the bodies recovered from bogs, and the nature of ‘magic bags’, P. V. Glob, R. Bruce-Mitford (trs.), The Mound People (London: Faber and Faber 1969). On the symbolism of animals’ hearts being eaten by hunters, see B. Lopez, Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape (London: Macmillan 1986).

Freya’s falcon coat borrowed by Loki is considered in H. R. Ellis Davidson Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe (Manchester University Press 1988, pp. 212–13). On the trickster figure a classic text is P. Radin, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology (London: 1956). See also H. R. Ellis Davidson, ‘Loki and Saxo’s Hamlet’, in P. Williams (ed.), The Fool and the Trickster (Ipswich: D. S. Brewer 1979).

Lapp shaman on inspirational songs in H. Kalweit, Dreamtime and Inner Space (Boston: Shambhala 1988).

17. Ents

Theories of the origins of the Cerne giant are reviewed in M. Green, ‘British Hill-Figures: A Celtic Interpretation’, Cosmos, 11, 1995, pp. 125–38 and in T. Darvill, K. Barker, B. Bender and R. Hutton (eds), The Cerne Giant: an Antiquity on Trial (Oxbow 2000). Possible origins of the hillside Wilmington giant are considered in R. Castledon, The Wilmington Giant: the Quest for a Lost Myth (Wellingborough, Northampton: Turnstone Press 1983).

Various ancient Germanic terms for giants are recorded in the classic nineteenth-century study of folklore and etymological analyses by J. Grimm, J. S. Stallybrass (trs.), Teutonic Mythology (New York: Dover 1966, 4 vols, 4th edn). Anglo-Saxon terms for giants are considered in W. Bonser, The Medical Background of Anglo-Saxon England (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library 1963).

The origins of creation, the giant Ymir, and also the story of Thor competing against the giants, are told by Snorri Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), in The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954).

Stardust reference from J. and M. Gribbin, Stardust (London: Allen Lane 2000).

Trolls and elemental aspects of Scandinavian landscape are covered in M. Magnusson, Hammer of the North (London: Orbis 1976). See also M. Tucker, ‘Not the Land, but an Idea of a Land’, in J. Freeman (ed.), Landscapes from a High Latitude (London: Lund Humphries 1989 pp. 106–20).

The primary source for Ran, the goddess of the sea, is C. Larrington (trs.), The Poetic Edda (Oxford University Press 1996).

18. The Dwarves’ Forge

The treasures found in the Sutton Hoo archeological dig are described and put in context in M. Carver, Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? (London: British Museum Press, 1998), and A. C. Evans, The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial (London: British Museum Press 1996) vividly describes all the artefacts recovered from the grave, most of which are illustrated. There are many publications which feature this artwork in good reproductions, including R. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial (London: British Museum Publications 1972) for the impressive range of Anglo-Saxon jewellery recovered from this site, including for example the interwoven design of the ‘great gold buckle’ (colour plate on p. 65), M. Magnusson, Hammer of the North (London: Orbis 1976) for excellent photographs of many pieces and also E. Roesdale et.al. (eds), The Vikings in England (London: The Anglo-Danish Viking Project 1981).

J. Graham-Campbell, The Viking World (London: Frances Lincoln 1989, pp. 114–21) on clothing, jewellery, cleanliness of Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, and even ‘an artificial make-up for the eyes’ for both men and women. J. Graham-Campbell and D. Kidd, The Vikings (London: British Museum Publications 1980) includes discussion of likely clothing designs. B. Branston, The Lost Gods of England (London: Thames and Hudson 1984, p. 33) says, ‘The womenfolk frequently adorned themselves with two and sometimes three brooches, often with festoons of glass and amber beads looped from brooch to brooch. Their waists were spanned by a girdle from which might hang characteristic T-shaped iron or bronze trinkets, ivory rings, strike-a-lights and knives.’ This book also discusses the legendary Weland and his smithy.

See M. Tucker, Dreaming With Open Eyes: The Shamanic Spirit in Contemporary Art and Culture (London: Harper Collins 1993) for a comprehensive analysis of the presence of the sacred in art.

The supernatural status of iron is discussed in S. Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000); the magical power of smiths in M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964). The forge in G. Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire (Boston: Beacon Press 1968).

K. Crossley-Holland, The Norse Myths (1980) contains an account of Freya’s possible relationships with the dwarfs, as does H. R. Ellis Davidson, The Lost Beliefs of Northern Europe (London: Routledge 1993, pp. 108–9). Freya’s necklace is considered by R. Metzner, The Well of Remembrance (London: Shambhala 1994).

The primary source for the dwarf wisdom of Alvis is C. Larrington (trs.), The Poetic Edda (Oxford University Press 1996).

Interlace and the mutual interdependence of everything is discussed in R. H. Wax, Magic, Fate and History: The Changing Ethos of the Vikings (Kansas: Colorado Press, 1969).

19. Spellbinding

The story of Imma is in S. Pollington, The English Warrior from Earliest Times Till 1066 (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2002).

Bede’s history of England is in Bede, L. Sherley-Price (trs.), A History of the English Church and People (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968).

Odin’s spellbinding knots are discussed in H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1964, pp. 63–4). The ‘binding power’ of Odin has been compared with the lines and knots of the Indian Varuna, cf. G. Dumezil, Gods of the Ancient Northmen (E. Haugen ed. Berkeley: University of California 1973).

The primary source for the stories of Fenrir, Loki and Ragnarok and the ending of the world, is S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954).

On the balance of cosmological forces, R. H. Wax, Magic, Fate and History: the Changing Ethos of the Vikings (Kansas: Colorado Press 1969).

For an excellent evocation of the spirit of the wolf see B. Lopez, Of Wolves and Men (New York: Dent 1978).

20. The Spider Monster

G. Storms, Anglo-Saxon Magic (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff 1948) and S. Pollington, Leechcraft: Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 2000) for translations of the spider creature spell. S. O. Glosecki Shamanism and Old English Poetry (New York: Garland 1989) for a comprehensive consideration of the shamanic bases of these texts. Sickness as a gateway to initiation in shamanic societies is explored in J. Halifax, Shaman: The Wounded Healer (London: Thames and Hudson 1982). The use of sleep deprivation, fasting, etc., for the induction of trance states is in P. Vitebsky, The Shaman (London: Macmillan 1998). The primary source for Odin ‘drumming in the cove’ is P. B. Taylor and W. H. Auden (trs.), The Elder Edda: A Selection (London: Faber and Faber 1969). Research on drumming and altered states is in M. Harner The Way of the Shaman (San Francisco: Harper and Row 1980). Galdor, chanting and spells in Pollington, Leechcraft.

Wyrd sisters references in B. Branston, Gods of the North (London: Thames and Hudson 1980).

For the use of divinatory dreams in ancient northern Europe see H. R. Ellis Davidson, ‘The Germanic World’, in M. Loewe and C. Blacker (eds), Divination and Oracles (London: Allen and Unwin 1981). Dreaming and imaginal states of consciousness where experiential journeys are ‘real’ are considered in J. Achterberg, Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine (Boston: Shambhala 1985) and A. Bleakley, The Fruits of the Moon Tree (London: Gateway 1984). See also the accounts by shamans of their initiatory experiences in J. Halifax, Shamanic Voices: the Shaman as Seer, Poet and Healer (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1979) and the analysis in S. Larsen, The Shaman’s Doorway: Opening the Mythic Imagination to Contemporary Consciousness (New York, Harper Colophon 1977).

Yaralde tribe images of the web are in M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (London: Routledge 1964). The Malekulans are discussed in J. Campbell, Primitive Mythology: The Masks of God (New York: Viking 1969 revised edn, pp. 444–51). The Collective Unconscious is related to imagery in C. G. Jung (ed.), Man and His Symbols (Garden City, N.J: Doubleday, 1964).

21. Journey to the Edge of Middle-earth

For Sutton Hoo, a main source is M. Carver, Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings? (London: British Museum Press, 1998), see also M. S. Midgley, ‘Earthen Long Barrows of Northern Europe: A Vision of the Neolithic World’, Cosmos, 11, pp. 117–23.

My main Beowulf sources here are M. Alexander, Beowulf (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973) and S. Newton, The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer 1993).

The source for Aelfric on witches, burial mounds, ghosts, etc., is P. Clemoes (ed.), Aelfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series Text (Oxford University Press 1997).

Fridjof’s saga is mentioned in H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1964), the Hallbjorn and Thorlief story is in H. R. Ellis Davidson Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe (Manchester University Press 1988), which also notes the long history of Scandinavian ship burials.

Odin standing under hanged men to hear their words is mentioned in R. Metzner, The Well of Remembrance (Boston: Shambhala 1994).

The primary source for Skidbladnir, for Balder’s ship funeral and for Odin riding to the Lowerworld is S. Sturluson, J. I. Young (trs.), The Prose Edda: Tales from the Norse Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1954).

That beautiful maids from the land of youth go to the Otherworld in ships is indicated in C. and J. Matthews, The Encyclopaedia of Celtic Wisdom (Shaftesbury: Element 1994).

The concept of garsecg is discussed in Newton, The Origins of Beowulf and in B. Griffiths, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic (Hockwold-cum-Wilton: Anglo-Saxon Books 1996), which also considers the stories of Hading and Harthgreper, and Angantyr talking to the dead.

The riddle about Aegir, god of the sea, is in K. Crossley-Holland (trs), The Exeter Book Riddles (Harmondsworth: Penguin, revised edn, 1993).