![]() Woden, from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and a medical charm with Odinic parallels from the so-called Lacnunga (found in British Library Manuscript Harley 585), seems to be a warrior-god however, the sparse evidence undermines any clear portrait of this mythic figure. Scholars have debated the role and significance of these respective pagan deities and their potential relationship with each other. Like Oðinn, he is often understood in surviving narratives as a deified chieftain who becomes the godhead of the Norse pantheon. It is impossible to tell precisely how analogous the Anglo-Saxon chieftain Woden and the Norse god Oðinn might have been by the time the Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded, conquering the once Roman island of Britannia. Woden remains an obscure and enigmatic figure in the extant written records from early medieval England. 18th century image from Icelandic MS, Reykjavík, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, SÁM 66 © All Rights Reserved. This legendary figure was later understood to be an ancestral chieftain from whom the Anglo-Saxon kings claimed descent and thus the authority to rule in England. ![]() Woden is presumably derived from a common god of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples and is often identified with the pagan god Oðinn, who was worshiped in early medieval Scandinavia and called the Alföðr (“Allfather”) in Old Norse. Long before Geoffrey of Monmouth’s 12 th century Historia Regum Britannium, the most influential mythic ancestor of the English people was Woden. ![]() King Arthur is not the only legendary figure used to legitimize rulership in medieval England.
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