Talk:Anglo-Saxon paganism

unwight

Hello, An evil spirit in OE is an unwight, a wight instead is a normal animal. Thanks --130.123.103.11 (talk) 02:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC) Also, maybe tangential but interesting, fifel is a sea monster and the OE word for ocean was fifelway and the word for echo would correspond to windmare. --130.123.103.11 (talk) 02:07, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Folkloric Survivals

Most of this section consists of a Mudman urban legend that is uncited and appears to have nothing to do with pre-christian medieval beliefs Ffejmopp (talk) 13:02, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Anglo-Saxon religion which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. older ≠ wiser 19:34, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Anglo-Saxon religion which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 07:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

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Decline and Prevalence

When did ancient polytheistic practices in the British Isles largely end? I'm aware that Christianization became very prevalent following the eighth century, but how long did communities or individuals hold out on Paganism? 72.194.68.4 (talk) 18:57, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Different parts of the British Isles experienced Christianisation at different periods, but when it comes to England it's difficult to say for certain. The English aristocracy had (at least officially) converted to Christianity by the start of the eighth century, although the Scandinavian settlement of England in the ninth centuries then brought in a new wave of non-Christian migrants. However, by the High Middle Ages (so 1066), there was certainly no evidence for the continued practice of pagan religion in England (Ronald Hutton's article, "How Pagan were the English Peasants", in Folklore, is a good summary of the evidence on this issue). Problematically of course, the English populace remained fairly polytheistic even when they were Christian. The cult of saints greatly proliferated in the late Anglo-Saxon period onward, while it is probable that these Christian Anglo-Saxons also believed in all manner of spirits (like the elves mentioned in elf-charms), and perhaps they felt the need to propitiate some of them with offerings. So while paganism, as an active non-Christian world-view, was pretty much extinct in England by the eleventh century (or so the scant evidence available to us suggests), the Christians of this period continued to behave in a very polytheistic way that would not have been totally unfamiliar to their pagan ancestors. Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:57, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

POV

Although well-written this article needs som tweaking. Some authors "argue" while others "note" while all of them are making educated guesses. It seems that the authors of this article are quite certain of what theories are to believed and what are not. If this isn't addressed, I'll have a go at it. Berig (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Unknown pillars must be Irminsul

Hello, under 5. Cult Practices 1.3 Cultic trees and megaliths, there is a passage talking about unknown pillars that were objects of veneration. The same wiki walk that brought me to this page also took me to https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Irminsul here on Wikipedia, which has to be the same thing. But I have no primary souce to attest to that, and no real idea where to start. 109.230.202.60 (talk) 16:25, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Article and subject reference name change

Whereby the following is said within the main text of the article:

The term "pre-Christian" religion has also been used; this avoids the judgemental connotations of "paganism" and "heathenism" but is not always chronologically accurate.

It seems fitting that the article name and references to the subject matter of the article should shift away from the label of "paganism" and instead refer to the "pre-Christianity Anglo-Saxon religion"

In some places the word order switching around for purposes of fluid communication makes sense, but I would say that on balance the article would be better of for using a more scholarly term which tries to be clean of bias.

TLDR: The article says outright that one of the established scholarly positions is that the word "paganism" to describe pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon religion is reductionist, framed by early Christian bias, and suggests a kind of uniformity of beliefs that simply did not exist. It would be better, therefor, to use a more neutral term which lacks the implications which make the former term undesirable. Merovingian Fan (talk) 20:29, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

Priests & Kings

This section tries to have it both ways regarding sacral kingship - first it cites a source that says the notion is no longer accepted, then the third following paragraph is all about its role. B.Bryant (talk) 15:29, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I am inclined to delete the whole section. It seems to be a random set of comments which are often vague or irrelevant, and the second half has short citations to sources not listed in the bibliography. Any views on this? Dudley Miles (talk) 15:47, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Don't agree. I have rejigged in an attempt to harmonize, also splitting into the two types. There is probably too much off-topic political background in "Kings". We know so little about the subject it seems unwise to come down too firmly one way or the other. There is also an element of academic fashion, which may very well go into reverse one day, the gleeful cry of "the textbooks will need to be rewritten" coming up, mainly from those hoping to do the rewriting. Johnbod (talk) 16:15, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The priests section looks OK now but I would still delete kings. It was written by an editor who provided short citations but no sources, so is effectively unreferenced. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

No doubt: The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity. William A. Chaney. University of California Press, 1970, is one. Maybe: Anthropology and the study of pre-Conquest warfare and society: the ritual war in Anglo-Saxon England, Halsall, Guy. (1989) - In: Weapons and Warfare in Anglo-Saxon England p. 155-177 another. The more relevant bits of the section might be saved. Or not. Johnbod (talk) 01:51, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

If you or anyone else wants to get hold of the sources, check them and revise the section that is fine. Otherwise, I think the section should be deleted. If a topic should be covered, I think it is generally better for someone interested to start from scratch with the sources available to them than to try to sort out a bad edit. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)