Hammer of the Gods: Anglo-Saxon Paganism in Modern Times Second Edition

I absolutely love this book. It has everything you need to be properly informed regarding what Anglo-Saxon Heathenry is and how to actually practice it. It contains information on both how to perform a blot/husel and how to symbel, which are the basic building blocks of any Heathen practice. Two of my favorite sections involve how to make sacred space and a need fire since they contain the Need Fire song/chant and the Weonde (Making Sacred Boundary) song/chant, which I have adopted for my own practice.The book contains a section on special life rituals like weddings, funerals, and ceremonies of birth, and it also contains more commonplace rituals like how to do an altar dedication and a land-taking. The author also explains the social structure of both Asatru and Theodish belief. I especially enjoyed the Theodish belief section since this was my first introduction to it and found it totally fascinating.The section on the Holy Tides (holidays) contains both history and practical suggestions for activities. You also get an in depth section on the gods and goddesses as well as information on a large variety of wights. Other sections include what ritual tools you might need, the different parts of the soul, information on how the afterlife was viewed, and detailed information on wyrd and orlaeg. The thews or virtues are explored in depth from several different perspectives. Overall, I felt that the book has a mildly scholarly tone since the author really knows his material, but at the same time the book is fairly easy to read.I want to take a second to discuss some of the comments of previous posters. While I agree the book might be improved by a glossary, in reality I think it is meant to be more of a beginner-intermediate level book. It does have a few sentences where the sentence fluency is awkward. As to the complaint about inconsistent text formatting... Seriously? I buy books for the information they contain and not for someone's idea of personal aesthetics. The claim that punctuation errors are so rampant that every sentence contains an error is a hyperbole. Actually, I don't find the errors any more irritating than those that publishing houses editors subscribe to; for years they've been putting commas before coordinating conjunctions that are not linking two independent clauses, which drives me nuts and is one of my pet peeves. In fact, the last two "problems" seem to be just a listing of someone's personal pet peeves. Don't let it deflect you from this wonderful book.I've already found myself going back to this book repeatedly for the wealth of information contained within it. I've loved it enough that I've already ordered Mr. Wodening's Germanic Magic: A Primer on Galdor, Runes and Spa book and will end up buying his Þéodisc Geléafa "The Belief of the Tribe:": A Handbook on Germanic Heathenry and Theodish Belief book as well. I strongly recommend this book whether you are looking for help in establishing an Anglo-Saxon practice or if you just want some solid information about Anglo-Saxon Heathenry.

Having an interest in the Christian liturgy of the first millennium I noticed that Mr. Wodening's tides are not historically accurate. In general, the traditional festive practices he mentions for them, like wreath hanging, apple bobbing, etc. that we associate with these holidays are of modern origin, within the past two hundred years. Then there are some odder things, like equating the Solmonath ritual with a bot. This is the aecerbot, but regardless, bots were acts of exorcism or penance, the one in question being of the former type, to be performed on an as needed basis to lift a curse off of one's cropland. It's a magical ritual, not a religious one. Then he goes on to say (p.106) that this tide was the most persecuted, leaving only plow blessings and ground hog's day intact. Well, plow blessings originated in the 15th century among poor communities who only had one plow between them, which was kept in the church when not in use. When the priest brought it out he naturally cleaned it up and blessed it. Ground Hog's Day came about in 19th century America, and I don't know how he can connect this to a 2,000 year old European religion. His ignorance of Christianity shows up again on p.107 when he says eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is a pagan custom. Eating most animal products during Lent is forbidden, so on the days preceding the holy season everyone binged on forbidden foods so that they wouldn't go to waste. He is also surprisingly ignorant of Anglo-Saxon culture: on p.113 he says Hlaefmaest is a modern feast. The earliest reference I've found so far for this is in 673, noted by priests as being a unique Anglo-Saxon thing. How is this not old enough for him? Haligmonath he equates with "harvest home" traditions. These do date to the Anglo-Saxon period, but they were entirely secular. Lords who had lots of land needed to hire workers, and they were paid in food and given days of rest after the harvest was complete. He also says (still p.113) this happened on the autumnal equinox-like any harvest conveniently ends on the same day every year? Then, on the next page, he once more makes a gaff, saying Michaelmas customs are probably pagan. There have been several feasts dedicated to St. Michael, and he refers to the one on September 29th. This originated in Italy, does he mean Roman pagans? In Francia the feast was on October 18th; I would think this one would be more pertinent to his research.The final insult to intelligence, for me, is his description of Winter Nights. Old Norse sagas state this took place in early October (p.114) and was another harvest festival. Mr. Wodening then combines it with two feasts of Christian invention-All Saints' Day and St. Martin of Tours. Why? Because Germans and Austrians don't have this ancient festival, therefore there must have been some ancient Christian conspiracy to suppress it by turning it into a November feast! (p.115) Maybe that section of Europe simply has a different growing season? Then he equates Winter Nights with Guy Fawkes Day, which he admits was started in the 17th century, but solely because bonfires are lit on that day, it must be pagan in origin. I went to a family reunion once where my cousins made a bonfire-is that some kind of ancient ancestor worshiping ritual?Such a mess. Well, this book will give you a heads-up on what's going on with Theodisc Geleafa, unfortunately, most books on this religion appear to be written by him, and from some articles I read of his, he's a big believer in anti-christian conspiracies (basically, all of Christendom is a rip off of Asatru) and even wanted to use Native American burial grounds for heathen rituals. Bizarre. Go ahead, read his books, then do your own research.

For those who have read other books on heathenry and been left feeling that they've just read regurgitated information from the Eddas, you'll understand my skepticism when approaching any heathen book. This one however takes a different approach and what a relief to find detailed accounts of heathen traditions, blots, lore references and insightful thoughts into actual scholarship that is out there, but rarely (unfortunately) discussed in modern books. You can't readily bring all of your scholarly papers with you when participating in heathen discussion groups but with this book, you can reference parts of it that make for thought-provoking group dialogue. Hammer of the Gods: Anglo-Saxon Paganism in Modern Times stays true to it's title in that it delves into heathenry from the Anglo-Saxon perspective. It even goes so far as to provide spellings and names in both Old Norse and Middle English to provide perspective on the language. Furthermore, it doesn't leave you hanging with terms you may be unfamiliar with. The author provides details on the terms provided, and does so in a professional way that still allows for smooth flow that isn't dry or uninteresting. Quite the opposite in fact, this book is written in such a way that it leaves the reader searching even deeper beyond what is provided, hence the reason I deem it as a work that is thought-provoking and makes for good discussion as I mentioned above. Initially, I purchased this solely for my Kindle but it will also be purchased as an addition to my personal reading library as well.

Wodening has produced an incredibly informative text, even if most of what is written is not concrete. This isn't his own fault, as most knowledge of early English paganism was destroyed through Christianisation. However, I can't say I have loved reading this book; there are far too many grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, awkward sentence structures etc. I find myself reading each sentence twice over at least to really understand it.It would also be nice if it was more clearly said when a word is old English, old German, old Norse etc. Some information is repeated several times even in the same passage, and the text could probably be slimmed down a fair bit without losing any information.

Fantastic book. Lots of information and I will go so far as to say that if you are new to heanthry, this book is the only book you need for Anglo-Saxon polytheism. It has everything you need to know and everything to start practicing within it!My only con would be the unattractive design (not the front cover). The words are quite big and this book could be slimmed down with a few coloured pictures put in somewhere.

An interesting little book, crammed full of information. not sure of the validity of all that is stated, but a lot of good info andvery well put together. Worth the read.

A great book for anyone who wishes to learn how they might practice the heathenry of their English forbears.

It is quite clear that the author has spent a great deal of time researching his subject; but that is understandable because it is also his religion. But it is also the old religion for all of us of Northern European descent. I find curious the fact that there are silly little mistakes in basic English spelling and grammer from time to time, while he seems comfortable with Old English, Old Norse and Gothic. His name is obviously a nom de plume, but he has written a valuable book with much information. He is to be applauded; but the proof reading should be of a higher standard.