Semple, Sarah (1998). "A Fear of the Past: The Place of the Prehistoric Burial Mound in the Ideology of Middle and Later Anglo-Saxon England". World Archaeology. 30 (1): 109–126. doi: 10.1080/00438243.1998.9980400. Control of the holy city of Nippur and its temple priesthood generally meant hegemony over most of Sumer, as listed on the Sumerian King List; at one point, the Nippur priesthood conferred the title of queen of Sumer on Kugbau, a popular taverness from nearby Kish (who was later deified as Kubaba). Cemeteries are the most widely excavated aspect of Anglo-Saxon archaeology and thus much information about the funerary aspects of Anglo-Saxon pagan religion has been obtained. [38]

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In historical polytheism, a priest administers the sacrifice to a deity, often in highly elaborate ritual. In the Ancient Near East, the priesthood also acted on behalf of the deities in managing their property. Tornaghi, Paola. "ANGLO-SAXON CHARMS AND THE LANGUAGE OF MAGIC." Aevum 84, no. 2 (2010): 439–64. www.jstor.org/stable/20862333.

Gerarai, fourteen Athenian matrons of Dionysus, presided over sacrifices and participated in the festivals of Anthesteria. The Anglo-Saxons, like other Germanic peoples, adapted the week-day names introduced by their interaction with the Roman Empire but glossed their indigenous gods over the Roman deities (with the exception of Saturday) in a process known as Interpretatio germanica: The Anglo-Saxon Age: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192854032. Christian sources regularly complained that the pagans of Anglo-Saxon England practised animal sacrifice. [188] In the seventh century, the first laws against pagan sacrifices appeared, while in the Paenitentiale Theodori one to ten years' penance was allotted for making sacrifices or for eating sacrificed meat. [176] Archaeological evidence reveals that meat was often used as a funerary offering and in many cases whole animal carcasses were placed in burials. [188] Commenting on this archaeological evidence, Pluskowski expressed the view that this reflected "a regular and well-established practice in early Anglo-Saxon society." [188] Sē mōnaþ is nemned Novembris on Lǣden, and on ūre ġeþēode "blōtmōnaþ", for þon þe ūre ieldran, þā hīe hǣðene wǣron, on þām mōnaþe hīe blēoton ā, þæt is þæt hīe betāhton and benemdon heora dēofolġieldum þā nēat þā þe hīe woldon sellan.

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the Norse Gods and Northumbria". Journal of Religious History. 6 (2): 105–132. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.1970.tb00557.x. Weapons, among them spears, swords, seaxes, and shield fittings have been found from English rivers, such as the River Thames, although no large-scale weapons deposits in wetlands have been discovered that are akin to those found elsewhere in Europe. [198] Priests and kings [ edit ] I’ve avoided using the term “leader” so far. Leadership can come from any position or role. But we expect leadership from our priests, and we often look at them as figureheads in our movement, rightly or wrongly. Other possible temples or shrine buildings have been identified by archaeological investigation as existing within such Anglo-Saxon cemeteries as Lyminge in Kent and Bishopstone in Sussex. [162] Although Pope Gregory referred to the conversion of pagan cult spaces into churches, no archaeological investigation has yet found any firm evidence of churches being built on top of earlier pagan temples in England. [163] It may be that Gregory's advice was never taken by the Anglo-Saxon Christians, [159] although it is possible that the construction of crypts and the rebuilding of churches have destroyed earlier pagan foundations. [164]

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Adams, Noël (2015). "Between Myth and Reality: Hunter and Prey in Early Anglo-Saxon Art". In Michael D. J. Bintley; Thomas T. J. Williams (eds.). Representing Beasts in Early Medieval England and Scandinavia. Woodbridge: Boydell. pp.13–52. ISBN 978-1783270088. This article is about the pre-Christian religion. For the modern revival, see Heathenry (new religious movement). This article is part of the series: Many Pagans and even more polytheists already keep shrines: places of devotion and worship, usually centered around a statue or other image of a deity. People who are considered priests tend to do this more formally and regularly.

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Priestesses in antiquity often performed sacred prostitution, and in Ancient Greece, some priestesses such as Pythia, priestess at Delphi, acted as oracles. No cultic building has survived from the early Anglo-Saxon period, and nor do we have a contemporary illustration or even a clear description of such a structure. [151] However, there are four references to pre-Christian cultic structures that appear in Anglo-Saxon literary sources. [152] Three of these can be found in Bede's Ecclesiastical History. [152] One is a quotation from a letter written in 601 by Pope Gregory the Great to the Abbot Mellitus, in which he stated that Christian missionaries need not destroy "the temples of the idols" but that they should be sprinkled with holy water and converted into churches. [153] A second reference to cultic spaces found in Bede appears in his discussion of Coifi, an influential English pagan priest for King Edwin of Northumbria, who – after converting to Christianity – cast a spear into the temple at Goodmanham and then burned it to the ground. [154] The third account was a reference to a temple in which King Rædwald of East Anglia kept an altar to both the Christian God and another to "demons". [155] Bede referred to these spaces using the Latin term fanum; he did not mention whether they were roofed or not, although he chose to use fanum over the Latin term templum, which would more clearly describe a roofed temple building. [2] However, Bede probably never saw a pagan cultic space first hand, and was thus relying on literary sources for his understanding of what they looked like. [152] Branston 1957, p.29; Gelling 1961, pp.10–11; Meaney 1966, pp.105–106; Wilson 1992, p.11; Welch 2011, p.865.Grendon, Felix. "The Anglo-Saxon Charms." The Journal of American Folklore 22, no. 84 (1909): 105–237. doi: 10.2307/534353.

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But in our Pagan and polytheist religions, we expect our priests to be good magicians. This is especially true when we need a house cleansing or when we think someone is working magic against us and we need help. 15. Leader and Figurehead Previous understanding of the topic, well rooted in the ideas of its time, regarded the English as adherents of two consecutive religions: paganism governed the settlers of the 4th-6th century, but was superseded in the 7th-10th century by Christianity. Of the two, Christianity, a religion of the book, documented itself thoroughly, while in failing to do so paganism laid itself open to centuries of abuse, conjecture or mindless admiration." Pluskowski, Aleks (2011). "The Archaeology of Paganism". In Helena Hamerow; David A. Hinton; Sally Crawford (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp.764–778. ISBN 978-0199212149. There are several cases where animal remains were buried in what appears to be ritualistic conditions, for instance at Frilford, Berkshire, a pig or boar's head was buried with six flat stones and two Roman-era tiles then placed on top, while at an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Soham, Cambridgeshire, an ox's head was buried with the muzzle facing down. Archaeologist David Wilson stated that these may be "evidence of sacrifices to a pagan god". [191] The folklorist Jacqueline Simpson has suggested that some English folk customs recorded in the late medieval and early modern periods involving the display of a decapitated animal's head on a pole may derive their origins from pre-Christian sacrificial practices. [192]

Blair, John (1995). "Anglo-Saxon Pagan Shrines and their Prototypes". Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History. 8: 1–28. Further information: Germanic poetry A 1908 depiction of Beowulf fighting the dragon, by J. R. Skelton. Following this festival, in the month of Solmonað (February), Bede claims that the pagans offered cakes to their deities. [230] [231] Then, in Eostur-monath Aprilis (April), a spring festival was celebrated, dedicated to the goddess Eostre, [232] [86] and the later Christian festival of Easter took its name from this month and its goddess. The month of September was known as Halegmonath, meaning Holy Month, which may indicate that it had special religious significance. [233] [86] The month of November was known as Blōtmōnaþ, meaning Blót Month, and was commemorated with animal sacrifice, both in offering to the gods, and probably also to gather a source of food to be stored over the winter. [86] [234] While historical investigation into Germanic paganism and its mythology began in the seventeenth century with Peder Resen's Edda Islandorum (1665), this largely focused only upon Norse mythology, much of which was preserved in Old Icelandic sources. In the eighteenth century, English Romanticism developed a strong enthusiasm for Iceland and Nordic culture, expressed in original English poems extolling Viking virtues, such as Thomas Warton's "Runic Odes" of 1748. With nascent nationalism in early nineteenth-century Europe, by the 1830s both Nordic and German philology had produced "national mythologies" in N. F. S. Grundtvig's Nordens Mytologi and Jacob Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, respectively. British Romanticism at the same time had at its disposal both a Celtic and a Viking revival, but nothing focusing on the Anglo-Saxons because there was very little evidence of their pagan mythology still surviving. Indeed, so scant was evidence of paganism in Anglo-Saxon England that some scholars came to assume that the Anglo-Saxons had been Christianised essentially from the moment of their arrival in Britain. [253] Ellis Davidson, Hilda (1992). "Human Sacrifice in the Late Pagan Period in North Western Europe". In Martin Carver (ed.). The Age of Sutton Hoo: The Seventh Century in North-Western Europe. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. pp.331–340.