Placenames in England that have a direct connection to Wōden...

Placenames in England that have a direct connection to Wōden include Wednesbury and Wednesfield in Staffordshire, Woodnesborough and Wormhill in Kent, Wenslow and Wensley in Bedfordshire, and Wensley in Derbyshire. Grimspound also connects to Wōden through His epithet Grim – which in Old Norse is Grímr – meaning “hooded one.”

Another example is Adam’s Grave in Wiltshire, a Neolithic long barrow called Wōdnesbeorg during the Anglo-Saxon period. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions two battles that occurred at Wōdnesbeorg in 592 AD and 715 AD:

592 AD: Her micel wælfill wæs æt Woddes beorge, Ceawlin wæs ut adrifen. “There was great slaughter at Woden’s hill, and Ceawlin was driven out.”

715 AD: Her Ine Ceolred fuhton æt Woddes beorge. “There Ine and Ceolred fought at Woden’s hill.”

Wōden’s Hill was important as a strategic military position during the Anglo-Saxon period because it lay between the Ridgeway and the medieval earthworks Wansdyke (Wōden’s Dyke). These locations also show Wōden’s active participation in the natural and man-made landscape and the events that occur on them.

Neolithic monuments have a strong connection to Wōden, and Wōden’s Hill serves as an example of the spiritual and religious dimension these monuments hold because they were constructed by our ancestors in the Neolithic period, linking us and our ancestors themselves into prehistory.

Wōden’s connection to prehistoric monuments and the natural landscape is a reminder of His ultimate dominion over creation and the extent of His creational power.

Vǫluspá in the Poetic Edda is a strong reminder in the Old Norse literature on earth’s creation by Óðinn and His potent ability to reshape titanic mythic forces:

“At the dawn of days,
Did Ymir wake,
Neither sand nor sea,
Nor song of waves,
Earth was not,
Nor heavens high,
A gaping void,
Of grass still shy

Then Bórr’s sons (Óðinn, Villi, Vé) lifted the land,
Miðgarðr they made;
The sun from the south,
Warmed the stones of earth,
And green was the ground,
With growing leeks.”

Wōden’s Hill pictured above.