Are the Gods Merely Archetypes?

The question of the nature of the Gods is something which has given me much food for thought over recent years. Following a  conversation from last year with someone who was brand new to heathenism I wish to set forth my thoughts regarding this issue so that people who read this may understand the position which I take on this issue.

I believe that our Gods may be understood on a number of different levels. I accept the theory that they may be viewed as archetypes in a Jungian sense. Many modern heathens and I stress the word modern, are influenced greatly by Jung's work on archetypes, especially his essay Wotan (1936). Whilst I believe that Jung's contribution to the subject is useful and has a great deal of merit I do not accept that this is all that the Gods are. Jung in his essay described the Gods as sleeping or dormant archetypes which he pictured as "river-beds which dry up when the water deserts them". However because the water has flowed so long, for many centuries it has created deep channels. These channels still exist despite the centuries of Christianisation. However he predicted that "sooner or later the water will return to its old bed."

Of course the Germanic peoples were heathen for much longer than they were held under the grip of Christianity which by comparison is just (an unfortunate) blip in time. The people are thus able still to find their ancient deities with not too much trouble for in a sense they are part of our very nature and the fabric of our being. Jung believed that given the right circumstances they could manifest themselves within the collective life of a people. In his assessment of the phenomenon of the rise of National Socialism in Germany I believe that his analysis in this regard is correct. However it is sheer folly on our part to believe that this all that the Gods are. Jung was a scientist and the founder of Analytical Psychology but he was not a follower of the Ancient Ones. We should thus not feel ourselves to be constrained by his interpretation as it is the interpretation of a scientist but I feel that many heathens have been.

 In fact Jung took a rather scathing view of people who believed that the Gods had an existence independent of the people who honoured and believed in them: "A mind that is still childish thinks of the gods as metaphysical entities existing in their own right, or else regards them as playful or superstitious inventions." This is a typical materialist and almost atheist perspective. Jung, the scientist would seem to know better the nature of our Gods than our ancestors. Jung, like everyone was a product of his time and sought to explain the 'irrational' in rational terms and this simply does not work. Thus whilst I value Jung's contribution it is a grave mistake for us to regard his interpretation as the only valid one. Our ancestors certainly did see the Gods as existing "in their own right" and gave due reverence to them (See Tacitus's Germania). If all the Gods are are archetypes then why give them reverence or even honour? Are we not deceiving ourselves? For if they are only archetypes then all we do is give honour to a part of ourselves. I fail to see why our ancestors would think this way. The Gods as archetypes is a 20th and 21st century rationalisation of the divine and for some strange reason it is only the heathen deities that are rationalised in this way, not the Abrahamic one!

Edred Thorsson discusses the nature of the Gods in chapter 11 of his very interesting A Book of Troth. Edred poses the question: "What are the gods and goddesses?" He goes on to explain that the answer to this question depends upon the individual and their level of understanding and thus "there can be many answers". He points out that the Gods just like humans are "not one-dimensional" and cannot be "pigeonholed." The possibilities that he gives for their existence include:

1. Mental or psychological constructs.
2. True living beings.
3. Forces of nature.

He points out that the Gods may be viewed in many different ways. In my opinion Edred's presentation of the Gods is far more honest than that of Jung's. There is no reason at all why the Gods cannot be viewed in more than one way. They are complex and as Edred has said "are not one-dimensional easily defined, pigeonholed entities". Yet there are some who are dogmatic and will insist that the archetype explanation is the only valid one. To know the Gods takes a lifetime and I have spent most of my life on this sacred quest and I am still searching for answers.

Stephen A. McNallen in his Asatru. A Native European Spirituality appears to take the view that although the Gods "exist on the very margins of our comprehension" they are nevertheless very real and very powerful. Modern man in his conceit believes that he is the pinnacle of all that is, that there can be no higher power. If you are a heathen and only believe the Gods to be manifestations of psychic impulses within the Collective Unconscious then how do you differ from a pure atheist? Is your understanding of the Gods thus superior to that of our ancestors who were not influenced by Christianity or materialist science? If we believe that there are forces and powers, sentient beings that exist in different dimensions or on a higher vibrational frequency then why is it so difficult to accept the concept that we are the product of a divine agency, not 'evolution', a purely materialistic and faulty concept, for modern man as he is today is not the product of 'evolution' but involution!

Frau Perchta, the Goddess Sacred to Berchtesgaden

It is well known that Adolf Hitler had a home and a retreat at Obersalzburg, called the Berghof in Bayern, Deutschland. The Berghof overlooked the town of Berchtesgaden. What is not so well known is that Berchtesgaden is linked to the Germanic Goddess Frau Perchta or Berchta.The original German name would have been Perchterscadmen, Perhtersgadem, Berchirchsgadem or Berchtoldesgadem. Perchta is derived from the Old High German beraht, bereht from the Proto-Germanic *brehtaz, meaning 'the bright one'. An alternative etymology points to 'covered' or 'hidden'.

Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology Volume 1 links this Goddess with Holda and believes that whilst She once had a:

"benign and gladdening influence, yet she is now rarely represented as such; as a rule, the awe-inspiring side is brought into prominence, and she appears as a grim bugbear to frighten children with. In the stories of dame Berchta the bad meaning predominates, as the good one does in those of dame Holda; that is to say, the popular christian view had degraded Berchta lower than Holda. But she too is evidently one with Herke, Freke and some others (see Suppl.) 

Nigel Pennick in his Pagan Magic of the Northern Tradition. Customs, Rites, and Ceremonies (2015) refers to the Perchtenlauf, one of the ancient heathen carnivals of alpine Germany where the participants wore masks. He refers to Berchtesgaden as being the "spiritual home" of Frau Percht and the carnival there was not banned until 1601. This ban was overturned during the German Revolution of 1848, in which Richard Wagner was a prime mover. The Perchtenlauf is from late December to early January and thus is connected with the ancient feast of Yule. There is a link here with Woden who is also known as Grim. Mr Pennick draws a link between Odin's byname Grimnir which he interprets as "the one with the grimy face" or "blackened face" and the terrifying appearance of people wearing masks. He also refers to the Old Germanic isengrim ("mask covering the head") and egesgrima ("a terrifying mask").


Of course masked processions or carnivals are common to all areas of Germanic Europe and guising continues up to this very day in England and other countries. Undoubtedly there is also a further connection with the Wild Hunt of Woden at that time of the year in which Woden's hoardes also wore masks. Isengrim is the name of the wolf in the tale Reynard and the Fox. Isengrim was also a name used by Tolkien several times in his Lord of the Rings mythology.


Grim or Grimnir is a significant byname for Woden. Rudolf Simek interprets the name as 'the masked one' (Dictionary of Northern Mythology). In England we have place names incorporating this byname for Woden: Grimsdyke, Grim's Ditch (Berkshire Downs, Harrow, Hampshire, South Oxfordshire, Grime's Graves, Grimsbury, Oxfordshire, Grimsbury Castle, Berkshire, Grimley, Worcestershire, Grimspound, Dartmoor, Grim's Cote (Grimm's Cott), Northamptonshire, Grimsthorpe (Grim's Thorpe).

The Early Primacy of the Germanic Thunder God

The Icelandic Eddas portray Thor as the son of Odin but this concept does not apply to all parts of the pre-Christian Germanic world. An example of Thor occupying the primary role amongst the Aesir is the account of the temple at Uppsala given by Adam of Bremen in about 1070 CE:

"This people owns a very famous temple at Uppsala, not far from Sigtuna. In this temple, which is made exclusively of gold, the people worship the statues of three gods. Thor, the mightiest of them, has his seat in the middle of the room, and the places to the left and right of him are taken by Wodan and Fricco."

Wilhelm Waegner writing in his Asgard and the Gods states:

"In such manner people used, in the olden time, to call on the strong god of thunder, Thunar,- in the North, Thor. He was held in great reverence, and was pehaps even regarded as an equal of the God of Heaven. Traces of this are still recogniseable, for wherever he was spoken of in connection with the other gods, he was given the place of honour in the middle."

Chantepie De La Saussaye in his The Religion of the Teutons conjectures that the verbal contest in the Harbardhsljodh between Odin (Harbardh) and Thor is an expression of:

"the antithesis between the old and the new era. That in the time of the warlike vikings and the poetic scalds Odhin, the god who welcomes warriors to Walhalla and who won the poets' mead, gradually supplanted Thor, is a theory that was advanced long ago and which has found ready acceptance with many scholars. In Norway, Thor was doubtless of old the chief god, as he was in Sweden alongside of Freyr, but Eddic song as well still assigns him a high rank, and in Iceland he was zealously worshipped."

Karl Mortensen writing in A Handbook of Norse Mythology when discussing the wording on certain ancient rune stones and noting the existence of 'hooked crosses' and hammers engraved upon them states that "Thor at this time was the chief god of the Danes; and for the rest of the North also."  
Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology Volume 1 affirms that:

He is the true national god of the Norwegians, landas (patrium numen), Egilss. p. 365-6, and when ass stans alone, it means especially him, e.g., Saem. 70a, as indeed the very meaning of ans (jugum montis) agrees with that of Fairguneis. His temples and statues were the most numerous in Norway and Sweden, and asmegin, divine strength, is understood chiefly of him. Hence the heathen religion in general is so frequently expressed by the simple Thor blota, Saem. 113b, het (called) a Thor, Land. 1, 12, truthi (believed) a Thor, Landn. 2, 12."

Heil, Lost God of the Anglo-Saxons

Some time ago whilst perusing my copy of Charles Isaac Elton`s Origins of English History (1890) I noticed a reference to an obscure Anglo-Saxon deity. Whilst discussing the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity he writes:

"The history of the conversion is full of incidents which illustrate the character of the English paganism. We are told of Ethelbert`s care to meet the missionaries under the open sky, for fear of the magical influence which they might gain by crossing his threshold; of the king bowing before his idol in a road-side shrine near Canterbury, and taking part with his nobles in the offering of the sacrifices, and of Augistine in his journey to the West breaking to pieces the image of a god which was adored by the villagers. The local traditions preserve the remembrance of the Woden-Hill within sight of the missionaries` landing-place, and of a temple on the site where Westminster Abbey stands, once `a place of dread` on the march-land where several kingdoms joined, but dedicated to the wealthy `King of London`, at the request of his protector Ethelbert."

 The footnote to this text states:

"Bede, Hist. Eccl. i. 25; Thorn`s Chronicle, Dec. Script. 1760. `Cerne Abbey was built by Austin, the English apostle, when he had dash`d to pieces the idol of the pagan Saxons called Heil, and had delivered them from their superstitious ignorance.` Camden, Brit. 56; Will. Malmesb. Gesta Pontificum, 142."

I cannot however find any reference to the incident of the destruction of the idol of Heil in the relevant section of Bede`s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. However  Paul Newman states in his Lost Gods of Albion that the French hagiographer Gotselin (1058-1098) was the first person to record the visit of St. Augustine to Cerne and using an earlier source describes how the worshippers of Helia taunted and drove out St Augustine and his band of followers.

Newman goes on to recount how Augistine came to `Cernel`, the old name for Cerne and he was jeered at and repulsed by the local community. He also refers to the Life of St Augistine in which the author tells us that Augustine destroyed the idol Heil, or Hegle. Walter of Coventry, a 13th century chronicler also recites a version of the story in which he refers to the idol as Helith. The well of  Augustine still stands at Cerne Abbas. Could it be that Heil, Hegle or Helith is the Anglo-Saxon name for Cerne? According to the 1789 edition of William Camden`s Britannia and William Stukely the chalk hill figure was called `Helis`.

Whether this figure has its origins with the Anglo-Saxons no one can determine but it is absolutely clear that our ancestors did venerate this figure and equated it with Heil. This often happens when new peoples take over an ancient sacred site. They honour it but name it after their own god or gods. One interesting aspect of the Cerne giant is that he wields a club in his right hand and some have speculated that he represents Hercules and thus has a Roman origin. However we need to bear in mind that Thunor also wielded a club as an alternative to the axe or hammer and thus it could just as easily be related to Him. The etymology though is against this idea and it is more likely that this area was sacred to the God referred to as Heil. The name would imply possibly a deity of healing. This name, particularly in the form Helith is in fact suggestive of a Goddess rather than a male deity. It is interesting that the well I referred to is reckoned to have healing properties and thus predates Augustine`s arrival there. Some have speculated that Helith may be related to Frau Hoelle or the Norse Hel but more research is surely needed about this deity before we can speak with any authority about Him/Her.

Phol/Balder, a Germanic and Indo-European Comparison

The Second Merseburg Charm of the 9th/10th century CE refers to a Germanic God called Phol:

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.

Many scholars assume that Phol is just another name for Balder and the evidence from the charm would seem to confirm this. However it is strange that the same God should be referred to by two different names within the same charm. Rudolf Simek (Dictionary of Northern Mythology) contests the assumption that it is the same God and puts forward a different theory. He associates Phol with the Goddess Volla referred to in the charm. He asserts that the Nordic equivalent of the German Volla is Fulla, the Goddess of fullness and thus links Her to Freyja and thus Phol with Freyr. The great Jacob Grimm appears to be convinced in his Teutonic Mythology Volume 1 that Balder and Phol are one and the same divinity. He refers to a Pholesauwa or Pholesouwa 10-12 miles from Passau mentioned in a document drawn up between 774-788 CE. This would appear to be a place of His worship. There is also a Pholespiunt on the Altmuehl between Eichstaedt and Kipfenberg in a forest. The Fulla traditions also refer to Pholesbrunnen in Thuringia. He cites other examples in his work such as Poelde in the Harz mountains so it is clear that Phol was a recognised German deity whether or not He was the same as Balder.

Grimm finds parallels between Phol and other Indo-European deities:

"I incline to this last hypothesis, and connect Phol and Pol (whose o may very well have sprung from a) with the Celtic Beal, Beul, Bel, Belenus, a divinity of light or fire, the Slav. Bielbogh, Belbogh (white-god), the adj. biel, bel (albus), Lith. baltas, which last with its extension T makes it probable that Baeldag and Baldr are of the same root, but have not undergone consonant-change. Phol and Paltar therefore are in their beginning one, but reveal to us two divergent historical developments of the same word, and a not unimportant difference in the mythology of the several Teutonic races." (Grimm)

Grimm concludes that this God was known to Thuringians and the Bavarians as Phol although they knew of His alternative names of Paltar and Balder. The Saxons and Westphalians knew Him as Baldag and Baeldag. Clearly Phol was known to not only the Teutons but other northern Aryan peoples such as the Balts, Slavs and Celts. Thus we may infer from this that His origins go back to a shared northern Aryan common past.

However we may also be able to draw a link to the Hellenic Apollo. There is not only a remarkable similarity between the names of Phol and Apollo but both were divinities of light and associated with the North. Six months every year Apollo would wander north to the land of the Hyperboreans. By contrast Balder would be consigned to the underworld of Hel, although not merely for six months of the year although this part of the solar myth may be a distortion to fit in with the myth of Ragnarok. Phol or Pol/A-pol-lo may also be considered to be the God of the Pole, the pole that is which connects the Hyperborean and Thulean far North with the Pole Star. He is thus both a solar and a polar deity. There is a common connecting thread that runs through the whole of Germanic and Aryan mythology-the emphasis on BOTH the polar and the solar. Phol, the masculine pole and polar God: Sol the feminine solar Goddess, a contrast of opposites.

I am reminded of the practice of the ancient Teutons of erecting poles as representing their Gods. A wooden pole or carved image of a God would be erected in a heap of stones and worshipped. This was common during the Germanic Bronze Age and Iron Age and also far back into the European Stone Age. The phallic association is obvious as well as the link with the Irminsul.

Hrethe and Ostara

On the 21st March as Wodenists we celebrate the rite of Summer Finding, the day when the forces of light are now in balance with the forces of darkness, Sunna beginning Her victorious ascent in the heavens. The month of March was known to the Anglo-Saxons as Hrēþmōnaþ which technically began in the modern month of February and extends to April, so roughly March. April was called Ēostermōnaþ after the Saxon Goddess Ēostre who is honoured even today by the Christians, although unwittingly in many cases. This Goddess does have variants of Her name. To the Northumbrians She was called Ēostre, to the West Saxons She was Ēastre and in Old High German She was Ôstara. In fact She is even referred to in the King James Bible:

"And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people." (Acts 12:4)

No doubt the translators of the 1611 Bible made a clear error, intending to use an English term for a Jewish festival!  Modern versions of the Bible translate Easter as 'Passover' but clearly they were referring to the time of year with reference to a Germanic heathen festival.

Bede (673-735) who is most widely known as the author of A History of the English Church and People referred to Ēostre in his De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time) in 725 CE. He stated that feasts were held in honour of Her in the month of Ēosturmōnaþ.

The fame and importance of Ostara must have been great for the Church was unable to eradicate Her name and thus they named one of their most important festivals after this Goddess as Jacob Grimm states:

"This Ostara, like the A.S.  Ēastre, must in the heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries. "(Teutonic Mythology Volume 1)

The German variant of Her name has a special significance:

"The OHG. adv. ostar expresses movement toward the rising sun (Gramm. 3, 205), likewise the ON. austr, and probably an AS eastor and Goth. austr. In Latin the identical auster has been pushed round to the noonday quarter, the South. In the Edda a male being, a spirit of light, bears the name of Austri, so a female one might have been called Austra; the High German and Saxon tribes seem on the contrary to have formed only an Ostara, Eastre (fem), not Ostaro, Eastra (masc). And that may be the reason why the Norsemen said paskir and not austrur: they had never worshipped a goddess Austra, or her cultus was already extinct.

"Ostara, Eastre seems therefore to have been the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, whose meaning could be easily adapted to the resurrection-day of the christian`s God. Bonfires were lighted at Easter, and according to a popular belief of long standing, the moment the sun rises on Easter Sunday morning, he gives three joyful leaps, he dances for joy (Superst. 813). Water drawn on the Easter morning is, like that at Christmas, holy and healing (Superst. 775. 804); here also heathen notions seems to have grafted themselves on great christian festivals. Maidens clothed in white, who at Easter, at the season of returning spring, show themselves in clefts of the rock and on mountains, are suggestive of the ancient goddess (see Suppl.).  

The town of Osterode in the Harz mountains in the German `Land` of  Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) is reckoned to be named after Ostara and Grimm relates this tale about Her:

"At Osterrode, every Easter Sunday before sunrise, may be seen a white maiden, who slowly walks down to the brook and there washes; a large bunch of keys hangs at her girdle. A poor linen-weaver having met her at that season, she took him into the castle ruins, and of three white lilies she plucked him one which he stuck in his hat. When he got home, he found the lily was pure gold and silver, and the town of Osterrode had not the money to buy it of him. The Easter-maiden`s marvellous flower was taken by the Duke in return for a pension to the weaver, and placed in his princely coat of arms. (Teutonic Mythology Volume 3)

 Scholars conjecture that Ostara derives from a Proto-Indo-European Goddess, *Hausōs and as a beautiful young woman the dawn is personified. Indo-European mythologies are replete with examples of an abduction and imprisonment of a dawn Goddess and Her liberation by a dragon-slaying hero. This motif continues down to the present time in the form of legends and fairytales.

Interestingly the Ariosophist Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels believed that the Ostrogoths and Austria (Österreich) were derived from Ostara and thus he named his magazine after Her.

By contrast the Goddess Hrethe (Hrêðe/Hrêða) which means `famous` or `victorious` appears to be more of a warrior deity whose purpose is to banish winter to make way for the coming of Ostara for Hrēþmōnaþ precedes Ēastermōnaþ. Grimm also considers Hrethe to be a "shining Goddess":

".....I believe that the AS. name was really Hrēþ or Hrēþe = OHG. Hruod or Hruoda, and derived, as I said on p.206, from hruod gloria, fama; so that we get the meaning of a shining and renownful goddess."