Anglo-Saxon
Working exclusively within the Anglo-Saxon tradition can be difficult as there is more material available about the Norse pantheon and practice. However, there are some excellent texts out there to help you expand your wisdom-horde and get a feel for the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Norse traditions.
English Heroic Legends, Kathleen Herbert, 1993 (under the title ‘Spellcraft’) and 2000
Click here to buy English Heroic Legends
Kathleen Herbert is really passionate about what she does, and it shows. English Heroic Legends seeks to re-create tales which would have been well known to the Anglo-Saxons but have come to us through mentions in later sources and varients. The book is in two sections, the first giving stories such as ’Rune-Riddle’ and ‘The Harper and the River’Elf’, and the second discussing Spellcraft and the sources used to inform each of the stories. The stories dramatise the Anglo-Saxon world view: drawing out concepts of honour and oath; exploring the complex relationships of ‘kin’; and demonstrating the continual presence, crossing and re-crossing, of the boundaries between the worlds.
Interestingly, Herbert suggests that the Anglo-Saxons were more goddess oriented than the Norse - the Lady and her barley king consort featuring in their worship more than the fierce patron of warrior and waelyrie, Woden.
When Beowulf was killed, the Swedes came south in force over the great lakes to take Geatland. His young kinsman Wiglaf fought his way to the coast with the last of his war-band. They shepherded as many of their women and children as they could rescue: they also carried the royal treasure. When they reached the sea they took ship and fled westwards.
It was late in the year; too late to set out on the whale-road unless there was no choice. The Geats had a grim voyage, driven by an icy north-east wind that turned rain into hail and scourged them Wyrd stood their friend, though; she kept them from drowning. They made landfall at last among the Angelcynn who had settled in eastern Britain. (The Harper and the River-Elf pg. 193)
