Saxon Paganism for Today

By Robert Sass

Saxon Heathenry described for the beginner and advanced Saxon Heathen. Topics covered: Saxon Gods & Goddesses, Saxon Cosmology, the Irminsul, the Saxon Calendar & Wheel of the Year, Saxon Mythology, Saxon Prayer and Ritual, indoor & outdoor altars, Sumbal, Funerals, Arm Rings, Soothsaying, Saxon Runes, Oracle work and Divination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329257085

Book preview

Saxon Paganism for Today

Saxon Paganism for Today

by Robert Sass

The surname "Sass is the Old Saxon word meaning Saxon. The word Saxon survives as the surname Sass. The Saxons named their tribe after their weapon called sass in the Saxon language, meaning knife. Therefore, the Saxons were known as the tribe of the knife" as their tribesmen carried short swords or knives which were single sided blades.  The Saxons were first mentioned by the Roman author Claudius Ptolemaeus around the year 130 AD.

The Saxons originally dwelled in Nord-Albingia.  Nord-Albingia corresponds to the modern area of northwestern Germany and a small portion of southern Denmark.  After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Saxon tribe began to move and grow.  Some Saxons left for Britannia, but many of the Saxons (including our ancestors) stayed in Saxony and expanded Saxony southward.  Saxony is shown on the map below:

During the time of Charlemagne (8th century AD) the Saxons were divided into four subgroups in four regions. Nearest to the ancient Frankish kingdom of Austrasia was Westphalia and furthest away was Eastphalia. In between these two kingdoms was that of Engria or Engern (Angria) and north of these three, at the base of the Jutland peninsula, was Nord-Albingia, the original homeland of the Saxons.  The map below shows all four of these regions.  As stated above, the Sass surname was born in Westphalia.

http://lowlands-l.net/grammar-new/images/map-oldsaxon.jpg

The Saxons who went to Britannia, along with Angles, Jutes, and Frisians, became known as Anglo-Saxons.  Most of the settlers who went to Britannia were Angles.  It was the Angle tribe and not the Saxons who gave their name to England (Angle-land) and the English language (Anglish).  While all the Angles and Jutes left their original homeland, many of the Saxons remained in Saxony.  Saxony would continue to grow as a tribe for several more centuries.  My Sass ancestors would remain in Westphalia, Saxony and Old Saxon lands until the late 1920s, when they would come to America.  Surnames were first used in the early 11th century AD.  Noble families first started to use surnames, and soon after; all commoners were using them.  The Sass family Saxons was not of noble descent, but commoners.  There are many Saxon surnames.

The Saxons and their homeland (Saxony) was outside of the Roman Empire. The Anglo-Saxon writer Bede claimed in his work Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (731) that Old Saxony was the area between the Elbe, Weser, and the Eider rivers in the northwest area of modern Germany. The Saxons were different from their neighboring tribal confederations: the Alemanni, Bavarians, Thuringians, Franks, Angles, Jutes, and Frisians. These tribal confederations were ruled by kings. The Saxons were divided into a number of independent bodies under different drohtins (the Old Saxon word meaning war-leaders), and in times of war they elected a theodan (the Old Saxon word for tribal-leader). The Saxons lived by a republic in which all classes of Saxons had equal representation and voting power.

In the fifth and sixth centuries, the Saxons expanded Saxony to the Rhine. Towards the south the Saxons expanded as far as the Harz Mountains and the Eichsfeld. In the east their power extended at first as far as the Elbe and Saale Rivers. In the later centuries it extended farther. The Saxon expansion southwards was a direct result of the depletion of tribes to the south of Saxony due to centuries of conflict with the Roman Empire, which always sought to expand its borders.

The history of the Saxon tribe is also the history of forced conversion to christianity.  The Frankish king Clovis I (481-511) accepted christianity, united the various Frankish tribes, and conquered Roman Gaul. The new Frankish kingdom brought many of the northern tribes under its authority and forcefully made them christians.  However, the Saxons were the last of the Frankish neighbors to be forcefully christianized.

Many Anglo-Saxon christian missionaries sought to convert the Saxons. The names of a few of these missionaries have been preserved: Suitbert, Egnert, Hewald the Black, Hewald the White, and Lebuin. Boniface also preached without success among the Saxons. The Saxons were finally brought under Frankish supremacy by the Frankish ruler Charlemagne, after a bloody struggle that lasted thirty-three years (772-804). Charlemagne forcefully converted the Saxons to christianity, the Saxons being the last tribe that still held persistently to belief in the Northern Gods. After destroying the Saxon sacred grove and temple, the Irminsul, the Saxons retaliated with marauding expeditions to the Rhine, in which they burned churches and monasteries. The Saxons would fight to remain unconquered for 33 years.

The earliest date recorded that Charlemagne desired the conquest of Saxony for Christ (and himself) was 772 AD. Frankish writings show that the Franks did not want Pagans on the border of their christian empire.  The Franks had already defeated the Muslims a few decades earlier, and were determined that Europe must be won for Christ, and not become Muslim or remain Pagan.  The nature of the Frankish kingdom was also one in which church and state were never separated.

Charlemagne brutally enforced christianity.  The native Heathenry of the Saxons was forbidden by capital punishment.  Charlemagne issued mass executions and deportations such as the Massacre of Verden where 4,500 Saxons were beheaded in 782. Although the Saxons wished to retain their native religion and rejected christianity for centuries, the Saxons eventually, through decades of force, accepted the foreign Roman religion with its culture.  Later the Saxons were forcefully bringing this foreign religion and civilization to the Slavonic tribes.  The converted Saxons would eventually attack other Northmen such as the Vikings, who practiced the same Heathenry the Saxons held dear for centuries. The Saxon people forgot their roots. The christianization of Saxony eventually caused the Saxons to lose their culture, their republic, and even their own distinct language: Old Saxon or Ald-Sassisch.  Saxon cultural identity is now completely lost.

Saxon Saga

Once there were a people known as the Saxons.  They lived in the area that is now a part of the Eastern Netherlands and Northwestern Germany.  While some in the tribe fled with the Angles and Jutes to settle Britannia, many Saxons remained in Saxony.  For 350 years after some migrated to Britain, the Saxons were still a powerful tribe, and a well-populated tribe.  They spoke their own language and they had their own religion.

Saxony’s government was a republic.  Saxony was divided into 100 gau (counties).  Each year, the whole nation would meet for a national assembly, with 36 representatives in attendance from each of the 100 gau.  Each gau would send 12 nobles, 12 free men, and 12 peasants, for the Saxons believed that all classes of people should have an equal voice in government.  Therefore, 3,600 Saxon representatives would meet for the national assembly, held at Marklo on the Weser River, an outdoor Sacred Grove.  Here the nation would call upon their Gods and Goddesses for guidance for how the nation would be led in the coming year.  The nobles would draw lots to determine whom the Gods wanted to be Theodan of the tribe if there was war.  When the year was over, that Theodan would return to his normal status and a new Theodan would be chosen for the year to lead the nation if there would be war.

The Saxons were used to being different from the other Germanic and European tribes around them.  All other tribes had a king, a position of authority the Saxon people deemed to be dangerous, too much power for one person.  The goal of the Saxon government was to give all people an equal voice.  While the Saxons were used to being different from other tribes, the Franks became different from the other tribes in the North as well when they accepted christianity, the religion of Rome.  Rome taught that the Northern Europeans were barbarians, who worshipped demons.  Rome had an ideal of Kaiser (Caesar), which sounded all too much like dictatorship to the Saxons, who did not think there was a difference between an emperor (kaiser) and a king.  Rome also taught that the world should be under one country/empire (Reich), and under one religion (christianity) and language (Latin) guided by the pope, the christian dictator of spiritual affairs.  The mindset of Rome and their religion made the Franks different from the Saxons.

Religion was the greatest difference between the Saxons and Franks.  Christianity was a monotheistic religion, whereas Saxon Heathenry was polytheistic.  Monotheism believes that there is one god and one way to that god, and all unbelievers are lost, or damned, in need of salvation (change).  Monotheism holds that there is one group of people who are right (believers) and everyone else is wrong (unbelievers).  Polytheism believes that all people are right, for there are many Gods and Goddesses, and many ways to those deities. Religion was never a reason for war, when all are right, and being different was something good.  Polytheism’s first reaction to missionizing was to simply ignore it and to continue to worship all their native and Ancestral Gods. (Polytheists do not and did not evangelize.)

However, Frankish monotheism turned to violence to convert, Old Testament and book of Revelation style.  The Franks invaded Saxony, and burnt down their sacred groves.  They announced See, your gods don’t exist at all.  We burnt down your sacred groves and the gods did nothing!  The following season, the Saxons would retaliate, burning down churches, announcing Your god must not exist either, as we burnt down his churches and he did nothing to stop us!

One year there was great excitement as the Saxons were assembling in Marklo.  They paid homage to their Gods and Goddesses, and cast lots for their Theodan.  However, this year was different.  The Frankish king summoned missionaries from England, and one was sent to the Saxon assembly at Marklo.  The Franks spoke High German, a different language than the Saxons who spoke Old Saxon.  The Anglo-Saxons in England could speak better to the Saxons and had already been converted.  The Angle bishop named Lebuin came to the Saxons dressed in Roman monk garb, making the usual monotheistic announcement:  I am a Christian bishop, he said, and I come to tell you of my God. Your gods and goddesses which you worship are not gods at all, but demons, and it is wrong to worship them. Mine is the only true god. He is stronger than all others, and all who do not bow down before him are Heathen. Give up your religion and take mine. If you do not, a powerful king will come against you, whom God shall send to punish you. He will conquer your nation and wipe it out from existence. To avoid this, you must become Christians and stop celebrating your holy days, change all your customs, and worship the one true god on the Christian holidays.

How should the Saxons have reacted to this?  Since most of my readers are American, let’s put this in a modern American context.  Most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  Whether these are religious holidays, or secular family holidays, what would the American reaction be to the following scenario:  Muslims come to America, conquer America, and convert all to Islam by force.  We are told we could no longer celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, but must revere Fridays as Sabbaths and Ramadan.  All who are caught celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, are publicly put to death.  Most Americans have at least one family member publicly put to death in front of them.  How would Americans feel about this?  The answer should be no different than the Saxon reaction was to the warlike and missionizing Franks.

What has he said to us? Our Gods are not Gods at all?  That we must give up who we are and all that we know and take this foreign god, or this king will come upon us to destroy us?  Away with this man!  According to the Frankish writing about ‘Saint’ Lebuin, he left the Saxon assembly unharmed (though by a miracle of God.)  In reality, the polytheists let an intolerant religious idea go on deaf ears.

The monk went back to Charlemagne and reported that the Saxons were a stubborn people, refusing to accept Christ. Charlemagne was angry and called together a great council both of the men of the church and of the fighting men of the kingdom. They agreed that they would fight the rebellious Saxons and force them to become christians. Charlemagne’s own records of his rule, the Royal Frankish Annals, record Charlemagne’s reaction: He decided to attack the treacherous and treaty-breaking tribe of the Saxons and to persist in this war until they were either defeated and forced to accept the Christian religion, or be entirely exterminated.  With a great army he crossed over into Saxony.

In the western part of Saxony, near the Frankish border, there was a Sacred Grove where the Saxons came together to worship. The Saxons believed that the universe was shaped like a great pillar or tree: the rays of the sun were the branches and the earth was the trunk. On the branches and at the roots lived the Gods, the Sun and Moon and stars, the lightning and thunder, and nature Gods. So, they worshipped at an image of this all-sustaining world tree.  They called their sacred tree Irminsul which means strong pillar in Old Saxon. They called the earth Middilgard or Middle Earth/Yard. The Irminsul was the center of Saxon religion.  During the sacred seasons of the year they met there at the Sacred Grove, at the Irminsul and its Temple, paying homage to their Gods and Goddesses.

Charlemagne was not just a zealous christian.  He was a Kaiser (emperor), bent on Reich (empire.)  Charlemagne today is known as the Father of Europe as he would eventually conquer almost all of Europe, spreading christianity with the sword, and uniting Europe under Frankish rule and the rule of the church.  Pope Leo crowned Charlemagne Kaiser (Caesar/Emperor) on December 25th, 800 AD.  Christianity and its call for crusade was a convenient way to build his empire and to be seen as a good christian monarch.

Charlemagne knew of the Saxon Irminsul.  Charlemagne felt that by destroying the Irminsul, and taking the treasures (Saxon offerings) there, he could finance his army, and send a strong message, that not only will the nation of Saxony fall, but their Heathenry and way of life would fall as well.

Frankish soldiers stormed the Irminsul and stepped within the sacred area where only the priests of the Saxons might stand. They found there a hoard of silver and many ornaments, deposited before the Irminsul as offerings by many generations of Saxons. They carried away the offerings and cut the pillar in pieces. In three days the destruction was finished, the sacred grove and temple had been cut down and a Frankish church and fort rose in its place. 

Again, since many of my readers are Catholic and/or American, let’s put this act into a more modern context.  How would catholics react if the Vatican was stormed by a muslim army?  How would they react if it were burnt to the ground and a foreign stronghold was built on the site?  How much contention is there in Israel where a mosque stands on the site the Jewish Temple once stood?  How did America feel after September 11th, when the two World Trade Center Towers fell to the ground?  The Saxon reaction was not any different from the way catholics or Americans would react.  The Saxons would stand and fight (for 33 years) to protect their freedom, their homeland, their way of life, from foreign invaders, from an ambitious king, Charles Magnes (Charlemagne), which meant Charles the great.  They wanted to keep their freedom, and they wanted the freedom to choose their religion.  After the Irminsul was destroyed, Charlemagne thought that he had defeated the Saxons.  He had the nobles and drohtins of Saxony come together and offer him allegiance.  However, Charlemagne’s Royal Frankish Annals recorded one small sentence: Widukind, Theodan of the Westphalians, was not there.  Charlemagne did not know who Widukind was, or how powerful a leader Widukind would become.  While other Saxon nobles went to Charlemagne, to offer allegiance, Widukind did not, and he had urged the other nobles not to go. In the heart of this Saxon theodan burned a passion for independence which was like a torch shining out in these days of gloom, giving forth its light and heat until all Saxony caught fire and was aglow with the passion for freedom and their faith, their ancestral ways.

The Franks think they have conquered us. The king has gone away and left his men to rule over us. He has burned down the sacred places of our Ancestors. He has banned our democratic republic and councils at Marklo, where we forbid kingships as dictatorships, but allow all, noble, free, and servile equal representation and voice in affairs. Shall we let any man, however strong, place us under the rule of foreigners and take away our Gods, giving us a foreign god in their place? So spoke Widukind, and so men began to speak all through the land and the people rose, with him as their leader, and threw off the hated yoke of the Franks and tore down the forts and churches which had been built.

Charlemagne had several advantages on his side.  The size of his empire was growing, and the numbers of the christians in Europe were growing.  The church in Rome blessed and sanctioned armed attacks and forced conversion of the Heathens (probable origins of the Crusades).  Charlemagne marched back into Saxony with a large army.  Again he conquered and summoned the nobles of Saxony to offer allegiance.  Charlemagne supervised mass baptisms, and by giving bribes to Saxon nobles and positions of power in his new administration over Saxony, he enticed Saxon nobles to push christianity down to the masses of people in the lower two classes of Saxon society.  However, once again, there is a sentence in Charlemagne’s Royal Annals: Widukind, Theodan of the Westphalians, was not there. Widukind had fled to another Heathen nation just north of Saxony, Denmark.  Widukind had married Geva of Westfold, daughter of the Danish king Goimo I and sister of the Danish kings Ragnar and Siegfried. Widukind found refuge with the Danes, and planned another counter attack in defense of his faith and homeland.  Now however, Charlemagne knew that it mattered Widukind was not there, that Widukind had won the allegiance of the Saxon people, the numerous two lower classes, who wished to remain Saxon, who lost trust with Saxon nobles who converted to christianity through Frankish bribes, betraying their government at Marklo, betraying the Saxon republic, replacing it with the feudalism of the rest of Europe, where serfs were property of the nobles with no rights.  This is precisely what Saxon society was set up to avoid, dictatorship by the few.

Like most successful war leaders against Frankish or Roman armies, Widukind lead the Saxons in guerrilla style warfare.  Once Charlemagne left Saxony with his traveling army to conquer more of Europe, the Saxons renounced their forced baptismal vows and their forced conversion to christianity, and attacked a Frankish force at night at the Suntel Mountain.  The Saxons inflicted a grave defeat on Charlemagne’s army, wiping out his battalion almost completely.  Charlemagne, off in Spain trying to expand his empire, was most upset that he had to again travel to Saxony, putting a halt to his ambition, to again impose his feudalistic government and christianity on the Heathen Saxons.  Charlemagne realized that this would now become a long war, and decided to commit some acts of terror to bring this war to an end as soon as possible. Charlemagne demanded the traitor nobles he bribed to turn over all Saxons responsible for this uprising, while Widukind fled again to Denmark.  4,500 Saxon warriors were rounded up by the traitorous nobles.  Charlemagne beheaded 4,500 Saxons for returning to their Heathen ways after forced baptism and defeating a Frankish force in a pitched battle.  Charlemagne then enacted new laws to be enforced by Frankish and traitor Saxon nobles in Saxony.  These laws were hated by the Saxon masses, as these laws taxed them one tenth of their income and of their labor to build christian churches from demolished Saxon sacred groves, demanded two out of every 120 Saxons to be given over

Reviews for Saxon Paganism for Today

[Fern Black · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I did get some interesting historical facts out of this book. The trouble here is that it is in great need of editing. It reads more like a series of essays put together that even by themselves are in dire need of editing. The result is a smattering of new information in between things repeated ad nauseum to the point of complete unnecessity.