Tag: Woden

Woden or Wodan (Old English: Ƿōden, Old High German: Wôdan, Old Saxon: Uuôden) is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz.
Though less is known about the pre-Christian religion of Anglo-Saxon and continental Germanic peoples than is known about Norse paganism, Woden is attested in English, German, and Dutch toponyms as well as in various texts and pieces of archeological evidence from the Early Middle Ages.
*Wōđanaz or *Wōđinaz is the reconstructed Proto-Germanic name of a god of Germanic paganism. The name is connected to the Proto-Indo-European stem *wāt, “inspiration”, derived ultimately from the Indo-European theme *awē, “to blow”. *Wāt continues in Old Irish fáith, “poet” or “seer”; Old High German wut, “fury”; and Gothic wods, “possessed”. Old English had the noun wōþ “song, sound”, corresponding to Old Norse óðr, which has the meaning “fury” but…