DEBUNKING: Anglo-Saxon diversity: Updown Girl

 
 

Anglo-Saxon England was racially diverse according to a new genetics paper 'West African ancestry in seventh-century England: two individuals from Kent and Dorset published in Antiquity journal. But is Duncan Sayer misrepresenting the evidence? How significant are two skeletons with 1/4 black ancestry and have they failed to notice middle eastern ancestry in Updown Girl?

It is also worth nothing, as I did not mention it in the video, that the archaeologist Duncan Sayer, named author on the new paper, was the one who has been pushing for said paper since 2022 when Updown girl's sample was published in the supplements for the Gretzinger et al 2022 paper on Anglo-Saxons. 

The 2022 paper undermined a nonsense piece Sayer had written in 2018 for The Conversation in which he denied that English people share a common Anglo-Saxon origin and pretended that the fact the Germanic migrants mixed with Britons was a revelation and an own. This has always been known though, and no one ever denied it. He used the piece as a means to score political points openly attacking both UKIP and a charity for Heathens called The Odinist Fellowship. 

He also said: "The people of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries certainly did not think of themselves as Anglo-Saxons and would not have understood the description." The terms 'English' and 'Anglo-Saxon' were synonyms. While 'English' was first recorded as an ethnonym by Bede around 731 AD, the term 'Anglo-Saxon' came a bit later in 886 AD - but there is no reason to think that Anglisc is a term invented by Bede or that the common identity of Germanic people in Britain didn't exist before him. The fact that Jutes, Angles and Saxons all migrated in a coordinated way shows there was a tribal coalition prior even to their arrival. 

 What does he have against the English ethnic group, I wonder? It does explain the inclusion of woke artist Jade Montserrat in the paper. 

Sources

• B. Foody MG, Dulias K, Justeau P, et al. Ancient genomes reveal cosmopolitan ancestry and maternal kinship patterns at post-Roman Worth Matravers, Dorset. Antiquity. Published online 2025: 
• Sayer D, Gretzinger J, Hines J, et al. West African ancestry in seventh-century England: two individuals from Kent and Dorset. Antiquity. 2025 
• Gretzinger, J., Sayer, D., Justeau, P. et al. The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool. Nature 610, 112–119 (2022). 
• Bryc K, Durand EY, Macpherson JM, Reich D, Mountain JL. The genetic ancestry of African Americans, Latinos, and European Americans across the United States. Am J Hum Genet. 2015 . 

Anglo-Saxon roots of British Monarchy and the Coronation Ceremony

 His Majesty Charles III, King of the United Kingdom, will be crowned in May 2023 in a ritual which is nearly 1050 years old! The British monarchy and the ritual of coronation both have their origins in Anglo-Saxon England and its pagan kings who claimed descent from the King of the gods - Woden who the Vikings called Odin. In this video you will learn all the pagan elements that have survived in the modern coronation ritual - some of which date back to Ancient Rome!

Art: 

Raven god by Christian Sloan Hall
Sky father by Andrew Whyte
Wartooth Viking by Christian Sloan Hall
Odin and Sleipnir by Christopher Steininger
Odin and dead by Christian Sloan Hall
Hengist and Horsa by Graman

Sources:

Chaney, William, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity, (Manchester University Press: 1970)
Dumville, David. N., 'Kingship, Genealogies and Regnal Lists' in Early medieval kingship, P.H. Sawyer & I.N. Wood (eds), (Leeds: 1977).
Eliade, M. ‘The Myth of the Eternal Return’ (1954).
Faulkes, A., Six papers on The Prose Edda: Descent from the gods. 2nd ed, (Viking society for northern research: 2007).
HENRY MAYR- HARTING, 'The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, (3rd ed. Philadelphia, 1991) Bath Press.
Rowsell, T., “Woden and his Roles in Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogy”, University College London, (2012).

The Rise and Fall of Archaeology with Stone Age Herbalist

 

 Stone Age Herbalist is a dissident archaeologist, twitter personality and substack blogger. In this Jive Talk he describes the ancient origins of archaeology as a discipline, how it rose to a more rigorous practice in the modern era and then degenerated into modern woke archaeology. We discuss gay cavemen, transgender vikings, the migrations and invasions of Anglo-Saxons, Beaker folk, Yamnaya and others and finally end with a chat about anthropology in general.

Follow Stone age Herbalist on Twitter

Anglo-Saxon DNA proves the INVASION IS REAL!

'The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool' by Joscha Gretzinger and colleagues (2022) has answered some of the much debated and controversial questions concerning the Anglo-Saxon invasion of England which began in the 5th century AD. The study finds that as much as 75% of the ancestry of skeletons from England in the cemeteries from that time comes from Germanic migrants from Germany and Denmark. In this video I break down and summarise the findings.

 

The Anglo-Saxons and English Identity

JIVE TALK - I have been banned from Facebook

Anglo-Saxon Paganism: Elves, ents, orcs

What exactly are elves in the Anglo-Saxon pagan belief system? Did Anglo-Saxon pagans believe in an afterlife and Hell? I will answer all these questions in this video which is the second part of a 2 part series - I will also show you what their pagan temple at Yeavering looked like, and explain how the elves, orcs, dwarves, land wights and ents of their belief system were all classed as demons after Christianisation.

Art: 

Thomas Cormack - Elf blot  

Christian Sloan Hall - Hel, orcs, Odin, draugr
Christopher Steininger - Idunn, boat animation, mead-hall
Robert Molyneaux - Yeavering temple animation

 

Sources:

Abram, C. ‘In Search of Lost Time: Aldhelm and The Ruin’, Quaestio (Selected Proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic), vol. 1, 2000.
Dowden, Ken (2000). European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages.
Doyle, Conan. (2018). Dweorg in Old English: Aspects of Disease Terminology.
Gunnel, T., ‘How Elvish were the Elves?’ 2007.
Hall, A., 'Are there any Elves in Anglo-Saxon Place-Names?', Nomina: Journal of the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, 29 (2006), 61-80.
Hall, A., (2004). The Meanings of Elf, and Elves, in Medieval England. 2007.
Lund, J., "At the Water's Edge" in "Signals of Belief in Early England"
Lysaght, P. ‘the banshee: the irish supernatural death messenger’
North, R. 1997 Heathen gods in Old English literature.
Pollington, S. 2011. The Elder Gods: The Otherworld of Early England.
Price, Neil & Mortimer, Paul. (2014). An Eye for Odin? Divine Role-Playing in the Age of Sutton Hoo. European Journal of Archaeology.
Semple. S., A Fear of the Past: The Place of the Prehistoric Burial Mound in the Ideology of Middle and Later Anglo-Saxon England. (1998)

Anglo-Saxon Paganism: Gods

 

 What were the pre-Christian religious traditions of England like? This two part series serves as an introduction to Anglo-Saxon paganism. In this podcast we will look at the evidence we have for the pagan gods of the Anglo-Saxons and will compare them to what we know about the Norse equivalents that Vikings worshipped. At times it is also necessary to use Indo-European comparative mythology to understand the gods and goddesses of the Anglo-Saxons. “Anglo-Saxon paganism” refers to the Germanic pagan traditions brought to Britain in the 5th century and which persisted in surprising ways even after the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England over the 7th and 8th century. Thanks to Wulfheodenas for modelling their Vendel era Germanic weapons and clothing. 

 

Art: 

Alex Cristi - Erce. 

Andrew Whyte - Nehalennia. 

Christian Sloan Hall - Eastre . 

Gramanh Folcwald - Hengist and Horsa. 

Hungerstein - Tiw. 

Robert Molyneaux - Yeavering temple . 

Ryan Murray - Modra. 

1st Aquarian - Migration map. 

 Sources: 

Chaney, W. A. 1972. The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity, The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory, 47:2, 141-143.

Das, R. et al. 2016. Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to Primeval Villages in the Ancient Iranian Lands of Ashkenaz, Genome Biology and Evolution, Volume 8, Issue 4. 

Dowden, K. 2000. European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. London and New York: Routledge. p. 229. 

Dumezil, G. 1988. ‘Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty’

Ealdorblotere, T. 2020. To Hold the Holytides. 

Faussett, B. 1856, Inventorium Sepulchrale. An Account of Some Antiquities dug up at Gilton, Kingston, Sibertswold, Bafriston, Beakesbourne, Chartham, and Crundale, in the County of Kent, from A.D. 1757 to A.D. 1773 (London 1856). 

Grimm, J. 1835. Deutsche Mythologie. 

Helmbrecht, M. 2012. A winged figure from Uppåkra.

Kemble, J. M. 1876. The Saxons in England. 

Kershaw, K. 2000. ‘The one-eyed god: Odin and the (Indo-)Germanic Männerbünde’ (Journal of Indo-European studies monograph). 

Nordberg, Andreas. 2006. Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning: Kalendrar och kalendariska riter i det förkristna Norden. Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur: Uppsala. 

North, R. 1997 Heathen gods in Old English literature. Cambridge University Press. 

North, R. Old English 'wopes hring' and the Old Norse myth of Baldr  

Pollington, S. 2011. The Elder Gods: The Otherworld of Early England. 

Reaves, W. 2018. Odin's Wife: Mother Earth in Germanic Mythology. 

Rowsell, T. 2011. Woden and his Roles in Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogy. 

Schiffels, S., Haak, W., Paajanen, P. et al. Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon genomes from East England reveal British migration history. Nat Commun 7, 10408 (2016). 

Stenton, F. 1943. Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford. 

Werner, J. 1964. Herkuleskeule und Donar-Amulett. Jahrb. RGZM 11, 176–197.

Interview with Ian Read of Fire + Ice

 

Germanic pagan Ian Read is best known for his neofolk project 'Fire + Ice' which “takes the purity and philosophy of early music and melds it into a message redolent with powerful seeds of honour, truth, loyalty and the bond of true friendship.” Ian is also Drihten (lord) and Rune-Master in the Rune-Gild, an initiatory school devoted to the esoteric and exoteric study of the Germanic runes.

Learn more on his blog: https://runa-eormensyl.com/

From Runes to Ruins (2014) / Watch Online

Watch From Runes to Ruins (2014) online for free.

Odin and the Horned Spear-Dancer

Viking and Anglo-Saxon artwork often includes a man with bird shaped horns. This mysterious figure is known as the horned man or the weapon dancer. The motif shows up in various different contexts and over a huge geographic range and timeframe - from early Anglo-Saxon England to Viking age Russia. It is commonly associated with the cult of the Nordic god Odin or the Anglo-Saxon god Woden and with extraordinary shamanic rituals as I shall explain in this video.

Sources:

• Mortimer, Paul, 'What Colour a God's Eyes' (2018)
  
• Oehrl, Sigmund, 'Horned ship-guide – an unnoticed picture stone fragment from Stora Valle, Gotland' (2016)
  
• Oehrl, Sigmund, 'DOCUMENTING AND INTERPRETING THE PICTURE STONES OF GOTLAND' (2017)

Artwork

The following paintings of the horned spear dancer are by Hungerstein.

How to receive a visionary dream according to pagan sources

 The video specifically looks at an irish rite known as Imbas forosnai performed by elite seer poets known as Filíd, also the tairbfheis, a rite to determine the High king at the Hill of Tara. In Wales there were the awenyddion and in Scotland they had a pagan rite of prophecy called Taghairm. I also look at several Anglo-Saxon and Norse Icelandic saga sources discussing Ulfhednar, Hammramr, Elves, haunted barrows and seers and compare them with the dreams described by Homer and Pausanias in Ancient Greece.

Sources:

Chadwick, N., ‘Dreams in Early European Literature’, in: Carney, James, and David Greene (eds), Celtic studies: essays in memory of Angus Matheson 1912–1962, London: Routledge, 1968. 33–50.

Martin Martin A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland (1703)

O Rahilly, T. F., ‘Early irish history and mythology’ (Dublin 1946)

Ramos, Eduardo, ‘The Dreams of a Bear: Animal Traditions in the Old Norse-Icelandic Context’ (2014) 

Tendulkar, S. and Dwivedi, R., “Swapna’ in the Indian classics: Mythology or science?” (2010)  

Vaschide and H. Piéron, ‘PROPHETIC DREAMS IN GREEK AND ROMAN ANTIQUITY’ (Oxford : 1901)

The Wooing of Emer by Cú Chulainn (Author: [unknown]), p.303 (paragraph 78.) 

How Anglo-Saxon are the English people?

Sites from which samples were extracted

This paper, Schiffels et al (2016), was a revealing study in ancient Anglo-Saxon DNA. It looked at DNA from 10 skeletons from 3 sites in East England: Hinxton, Oakington and Linton dating from before and after the Anglo-Saxon invasions. This study is better at estimating the genetic impact of Anglo-Saxons on England than other studies which only compare modern British people to modern populations on the continent.

"we estimate that on average the contemporary East English population derives 38% of its ancestry from Anglo-Saxon migrations."

They reach the 38% figure by looking at the unique Dutch-like DNA that was not present in early Iron Age samples from Hinton but appears in post AS invasion England. We can say that 38% of the DNA of modern people in East England comes from the invading Anglo-Saxons, but this figure somewhat obscures the reality of what Anglo-Saxons were.

"The middle Anglo-Saxon samples from Hinxton (HS1, HS2 and HS3) share relatively more rare variants with modern Dutch than the Iron Age samples from Hinxton (HI1 and HI2) and Linton (L). The early Anglo-Saxon samples from Oakington are more diverse with O1 and O2 being closer to the middle Anglo-Saxon samples, O4 exhibiting the same pattern as the Iron Age samples, and O3 showing an intermediate level of allele sharing, suggesting mixed ancestry."

In other words, Anglo-Saxons mixed with the Celtic Britons very quickly but there were also subsequent arrivals of more Germanic people from the continent. Geneticists using the term Anglo-Saxon in relation to the 38% figure are specifically referring to the newcomers. But when historians refer to the Anglo-Saxons, they don't just mean the Germanic people who arrived in the Migration era, they are referring to a full 600 years of English history!

If you were to ask the question of how much DNA we have from an average Anglo-Saxon, ranging from the mixed woman labelled O3, who lived in the early AS era around 500 AD, to any Anglo-Saxons living in the 7th, 8th or 9th century, then the % would be MUCH higher than 38%! The fact is that the DNA of Anglo-Saxon England from was for most of the AS period the same as that of modern ethnically English people ie: a mix of continental Germanic and Iron Age British Celtic.

Riddles in the Dark Ages

Written by Tom Rowsell in 2015 for Medievalists.net 

One of the most memorable scenes from Tolkien’s The Hobbit is called “Riddles in the Dark”. I remember the nerdish cheers echoing through the darkness of the cinema as the scene opened in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of the famous novel. The scene’s popularity is rather surprising when you consider that there are no great battles or speeches, nor busty maidens and dragons, just a little hobbit and a strange subterranean creature engaged in a battle of wits.

Gollum, as the creature is named, challenges Bilbo Baggins to a game of riddles, on which Bilbo’s life is at stake. Gollum’s cryptic riddles are as enchanting and compelling as any other of Tolkien’s Middle Earth creations. Here is one of my favourites.

Voiceless it cries,Wingless flutters,Toothless bites,Mouthless mutters. 

The answer, as Bilbo well knows, is wind. One might think that riddles about weather are rather out of place in medieval fantasy novels of this kind, and that Tolkien merely added it as a frivolous diversion, but that is a mistake. Tolkien was twice Professor of Anglo-Saxon (Old English) at the University of Oxford, and the riders of Rohan from Lord of the Rings were clearly based on the Anglo-Saxons. Rohan itself was based on the country and great hall of Hrothgar from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. What many do not realise is that the Anglo-Saxons, as well as being macho war-like ale gulpers, also loved riddles. See this Old English example:

Hwylc is hæleþa     þæs horsc  þæs hygecræftig þæt mæge asecgan     hwa mec on sið wræceþōn ic astige     strong stundū reþeþrymful þunie     þragum wræcefere geond foldan     folcsalo bærneræced reafige     recas stigaðhaswe ofer hrofū     hlǐn bið on eorþanwælcwealm wera     þōn Ic wudu hrerebearwas bledhwate     beamas fylleholme gehrefed     heanū meahtumwrecan on waþe     wide sendedhæbbe me on hrycge    ær hadas wreahfoldbuendra     flæsc gæstassomod on sunde     saga hwa mec þecceoþþe hu ic hatte     þe þa hlæst bere What good man is     so learned and so cleverthat he can say who drives me     forth on my way?When I rise up strong     at times furious,I thunder mightily     and again with havocI sweep over the land,     burn the great hall,ravage the buildings.     Smoke mounts on highdark over the rooftops.     Clamour is everywhere,sudden death among men.     When I shake the forest,the trees proud in their fruit,     I fell the boles.With my roof of water,     by the powers aboveI am driven far and wide     on my avenging path.I bear on my back     what once covered the formsof the earth-dwellers,     their body and soultogether in the waters.     Say what covers meor what I am called     who bears this burden.

The answer, which refers to the biblical flood, is a storm of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning on land. Although longer, this riddle from the 10th century Exeter book is not at all dissimilar to Gollum’s one. But there are some Anglo-Saxon riddles which a conservative Catholic like Tolkien would never dream of including in a children’s novel.

Hyse cwom gangan,   þær he hie wisse
stondan in wincsele,   stop feorran to,
hror hægstealdmon,   hof his agen
hrægl hondum up,   hrand under gyrdels
hyre stondendre   stiþes nathwæt,
worhte his willan;   wagedan buta.
Þegn onnette,   wæs þragum nyt
tillic esne,   teorode hwæþre
æt stunda gehwam   strong ær þon hio,
werig þæs weorces.   Hyre weaxan ongon
under gyrdelse…

A young man came walking
he knew she was waiting there in the corner.
Marching to her from afar,
that bold bachelor heaved up his garment with his hands
and thrust something stiff
under her girdle as she stood there.
And then he had his pleasure.
Both of them shook.
The man moved quickly,
and that good servant was useful for awhile,
but, although previously stronger than she,
he grew tired and weary from his work.
Under her girdle, something began to grow…

Pretty raunchy huh? No it is not! Get your mind out of the gutter; the riddle probably just refers to a man churning milk with a stiff plunger so that it grows into butter. We will never know for sure, as the answers aren’t included in the manuscript. There are many Anglo-Saxon riddles of this sort, all evoking something rude while referring to something innocent.

Anglo-Saxons favoured alliteration to rhyme, so Tolkien’s riddles do not resemble them in this sense. Latin riddles were popular in medieval Europe but it is clear from the nature of the riddles themselves that Tolkien’s were influenced more by those of Anglo-Saxon England. Latin riddles depended on knowledge of a specific subject in order to be deciphered, while English riddles were often about common things like the weather.

Archer Taylor identifies five different types of riddle in the Exeter book, one of which is the “neck riddle”, so named because it is used to save one’s neck. Neck riddles are unfair because there is no way for the person guessing the riddle to know the answer. Bilbo’s final question is a neck riddle, “what have I got in my pocket?”

But Tolkien’s use of a neck riddle is just as likely to be the result of Viking influence as Anglo-Saxon.  He seems to have used several Old Norse sources for “Riddles in the Dark”. In the Vafþrúðnismál from the Elder Edda and in the Saga of King Heidrek the Wise, the god Odin adopts a disguise before entering into a riddle contest. His final riddle is “What did Odin whisper in Baldr’s ear before Baldr was burned on the funeral pyre?” No one except Odin himself can know this, so it’s just as unfair as Bilbo’s riddle. In each Viking tale, the answerer finally realises that the riddler is Odin himself; Tolkien combines the reactions of Vafþrúðnir, who concedes defeat and Heidrek, who attacks Odin, making Gollum acquiesce at first but then attack Bilbo later.

Another possible Norse influence on the scene can be found in Gollum’s final riddle, which Bilbo only solves by accident.

This thing all things devours;Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;Gnaws iron, bites steel;Grinds hard stones to meal;Slays king, ruins town,And beats mountain down.

The answer is time, which is depicted here as a physical force, one which slays kings and bites steel. In one scene from the 13th century Icelandic text Gylfaginning, Thor and his pals are in the hall of a giant king named Utgard-Loki who presents them with a number of impossible challenges. After being defeated in a drinking challenge, Thor is eager to prove himself in a test of strength. Utgard-Loki asks him to wrestle an old woman named Elli. This should have been easy, but the harder Thor gripped her, the faster she stood and it wasn’t long before he was defeated. It is then revealed that the withered woman was “Old Age” personified, and that neither man nor god can ever defeat time.

Tolkien was as enamoured with Norse mythology as he was with Anglo-Saxon poetry, and it is fascinating to see how each have influenced his works. If you enjoyed the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings, then I must urge you to investigate Old English and Icelandic literature, as they are equally enthralling 

The History of Britain and her People

Horse-healing magic from the steppes

I have long known of the second Merseberg charm, one of two which constitute the only surviving pagan verses in Old High German. As with most Germanic pagan things, we only have it by chance; a cleric at an abbey happened to put it in a liturgical book in the 10th century. We can be sure the charm, a cure for an injured horse, dates to many centuries earlier because it actually invokes seven pagan gods.

Phol ende uuodan uuorun zi holza.
du uuart demo balderes uolon sin uuoz birenkit.
thu biguol en sinthgunt, sunna era suister;
thu biguol en friia, uolla era suister;
thu biguol en uuodan, so he uuola conda:
sose benrenki, sose bluotrenki, sose lidirenki:
ben zi bena, bluot si bluoda,

lid zi geliden, sose gelimida sin!
Phol and Wodan were riding to the woods,
and the foot of Balder's foal was sprained
So Sinthgunt, Sunna's sister, conjured it;
and Frija, Volla's sister, conjured it;
and Wodan conjured it, as well he could:
Like bone-sprain, so blood-sprain, so joint-sprain:
Bone to bone, blood to blood, joints to joints, so may they be glued

Later I discovered that this charm, written in Christian times, did not merely date to the days of Germanic paganism, but far further back. The evidence is in in Book IV/12 of the Atharva-Veda, compiled in India between 1200 BC - 1000 BC.

Rohan! art thou, causing to heal (rohanî), the broken bone thou causest to heal (rohanî): cause this here to heal(rohaya), O arundhatî!

That bone of thine which, injured and burst, exists in thy person, Dhâtar shall kindly knit together again, joint with joint!

Thy marrow shall unite with marrow, and thy joint (unite) with joint; the part of thy flesh that has fallen off, and thy bone shall grow together again!

Thy marrow shall be joined together with marrow, thy skin grow together with skin! Thy blood, thy bone shall grow, thy flesh grow together with flesh!

Fit together hair with hair, and fit together skin with skin! Thy blood, thy bone shall grow: what is cut join thou together, O plant!

Do thou here rise up, go forth, run forth, (as) a chariot with sound wheels, firm feloe, and strong nave; stand upright firmly!

If he has been injured by falling into a pit, or if a stone was cast and hurt him, may he (Dhâtar, the fashioner) fit him together, joint to joint, as the wagoner (Ribhu) the parts of a chariot!

I do not think for a moment that the Germanic charm is derived from the Vedic source. I find it far more likely both derive from a charm belonging to the Yamnaya culture on the Neolithic Eastern European steppes which was originally for horses, as in the case of the Merseberg charm, and that it was adapted in India for human use. It has been established that Yamnaya were late Proto-Indo-European speakers and are responsible for the modern domestic horse, so they were of course the first to develop magic for the aid of horses, and this would have spread with the horses, religion and Indo-European languages.

Today I was made aware of another cognate for the charm; this time from Ireland, an account contributed by a school child in county Cork in 1938.

There was an old woman named Layng that lived near this school and she had cure of the sprain. These are the words of the charm. "Our Lord God went a hunting through moors and through mountains. His foals foot wrested, he sat down and blessed it, saying from bone to bone, from flesh to flesh every sinew in its own place." She used rub the sprain very much while saying these words and she would say the Lords Prayer." She was a protestand. She left the charm to some men around this place. Some of the old people had charms for stopping blood, toothache, rash, St. Anthony's fire, choking and one very old man heard a charm for making rats come out of their holes and cut their necks with a razor.

Now, the fact she was a Protestant, and that as far as I am aware Layng is a name of Scottish origin, brought to Ireland by Scottish immigrants, makes me hesitant to ascribe this to an ancient Irish tradition. I consider three possible explanations.

1. That this is of West-Germanic origin, like the Merseberg charm, and was brought to Scotland by Anglo-Saxons. 
2. That this is a North Germanic cognate brought to Scotland by Vikings. 
3. This is a Scots-Celtic cognate charm from the same Indo-European root as the Germanic and Vedic ones.

The woman invoked "Our Lord God" which is not only a common epithet of the Christian God, but also a name for Odin. I am not aware of a Celtic god who is invoked by this name. There are at least 10 more examples of charms in recorded Irish folklore which follow the same formula.

There is also an example from Sweden written down in 1860 which may be a Northern cognate if it is not derived from the West Germanic one.

Dåve red över vattubro,
Så kom han in i Tive skog;
Hästen snava mot en rot
och vrickade sin ena fot.
Gångande kom Oden:
- Jag skall bota dig för vred,
kött i kött, ben i ben,
jag skall sätta led mot led,
och din fot skall aldrig sveda eller värka mer

Dåve rode over Vattubro, then he came into Tive woods; the horse tripped on a root and sprained one of his feet. Odin came walking: I will cure you for sprain, meat to meat, bone to bone, I will put joint to joint, and your foot shall never sting or hurt again. 

And another from 19th century Sweden which invokes the goddesses:

Fylla red utför berget, hästen vred sin vänstra fot, så mötte hon Freja. – Jag skall bota din häst. Ur vred, ur skred, i led! Jag skall bota dig för stockvred, stenvred, gångvred, ont ur kött, gott i kött, ont ur ben, gott i ben, gott för ont, led för led, aldri mer skall du få vred! Fylla rode down the hill, the horse sprained its left foot, then she met Freja. I will cure your horse. Out sprain, out fall, in joint! I will heal you from log sprain, stone sprain, walk sprain bad out of flesh, good into flesh bad out of bone, good into bone good for bad, joint for joint, never again shall you have sprain! 

In 2013 I read one of my poems in a cafe in London. As you can hear, it was very much influenced by this magic charm...

Preserving Germanic English aka Anglish

This article was originally published here in July 2014. 

 It’s common knowledge that languages are fluid things which merge into one another and evolve to become new languages. But the way they change isn’t necessarily natural or arbitrary. The changes that occur to languages are often the result of wars, genocides, mass migrations, political meddling and religious taboos. The point of any language is to make oneself understood and this fact has meant that geography maintains the distinct character of different languages so that they remain intelligible to those inhabiting a certain area.

 Linguistic purism is usually about preserving a language and protecting it from being corrupted by the introduction of foreign words. But Anglish is a bit different from other types of linguistic purism because it isn’t intended to preserve the English language as it is spoken now, nor as it has ever been spoken. Instead Anglish is a form of English stripped clean of the last 1000 years of non-Germanic influence, while also being brought up to date in terms of modern syntax, grammar and spelling.

So words like love, which is derived from the Old English word lufian, remain as they are in Anglish, while words like horticulture, the first part of which is derived from the Latin hortus meaning garden, have to be altered. The Anglish translation of horticulture is wortcraft, which is a compound of wort, meaning plant, and craft, meaning work.

Anglish speakers are a fringe movement of linguistic purists who want to streamline the English language and rid it of words of un-Anglo-Saxon origin. They don’t speak Old English as it was, because they keep the modern versions of words derived from Old English ones, but they replace words derived from French or Latin with what they consider to be the most appropriate Germanic English equivalents.

Anglish speakers haven’t had to invent an entire language as such, because most of the normal English words we use in daily conversation are of Old English origin. But although spoken English is primarily Germanic, the vast majority of words in the English language are of non Germanic origin, and this is where Anglish purists have had to be inventive. The words they have created are quite charming but confusing at times. Fortunately the Anglish Moot have provided an online Anglish Wordbook (wordbook is Anglish for dictionary) to help you learn the lingo.

In many cases you can guess what is meant because Anglish is quite intuitive. “Expand” is replaced by swell while “edit” is replaced by bework. The Anglish movement has roots way back in the late 1800s when Elias Molee advocated an English purged of its Romance components. He made his case in two books; “Pure Saxon English” and “Plea for an American Language, or Germanic-English”. He proposed a language similar to Anglish called Tutonish, which was intended to be a “union tongue” for all the Germanic-language speaking peoples, with a schematised English syntax and a largely German- and Scandinavian-based vocabulary.

In 1989 Poul Anderson wrote a short text about atomic theory in a version of English free from Romance elements. The text entitled “Uncleftish Beholding” is seen as the blueprint for the modern Anglish movement and what it can achieve. These opening paragraphs give you a feel for how Anderson made scientific speech seem more accessible and almost folksy.

“For most of its being, mankind did not know what things are made of, but could only guess. With the growth of worldken, we began to learn, and today we have a beholding of stuff and work that watching bears out, both in the workstead and in daily life. The underlying kinds of stuff are the *firststuffs*, which link together in sundry ways to give rise to the rest. Formerly we knew of ninety-two firststuffs, from waterstuff, the lightest and barest, to ymirstuff, the heaviest. Now we have made more, such as aegirstuff and helstuff.” 

The compound words like ymirstuff and aegirstuff reference figures from Nordic mythology, like the primordial giant of creation Ymir and the God of the sea Aegir, in order to describe the base elements of the universe in a Germanic context. Anderson also borrowed from German words to create “waterstuff” and “sourstuff”, coming from Wasserstoff (hydrogen) and Sauerstoff (oxygen).

It is unlikely that the Anglish dialect being created by linguistic enthusiasts will ever become widespread, but it is not without value. One thing about Anglish words is that they are more consistent and easier to understand if you have never heard them before. This is a great lesson for journalists, poets and authors struggling with vocabulary. Language is, after all, a means of making oneself understood. If we endeavour to express the more complicated concepts of life and science with the most basic Anglo-Saxon language possible, then we may find the language is not only easier to understand but also sounds better.

King Alfred the Great is too straight, white and male

Sacred Land - Pagan perspectives on barrows and ruins

Wassailing the trees - a Pagan tradition