Winifred Hodge Rose
What is a soul? What does it mean to have one? Or more than one? Can a soul be gained or lost? Where does it come from? Where does it go to? Questions such as these have probably occupied peoples of all times and places throughout human history. There is nothing surprising about this interest, since inquiries and understandings of the soul explore the roots of living and being, of self and other, and the mysteries of subjective time and of the unseen world which offers only hints of its presence in our ordinary lives. Exploration of these questions is a primary purpose of all religions and forms of spirituality.
How does one study ancient concepts and beliefs about something as abstract as “the soul”? Archaeological artifacts and pictorial art can offer only a few hints. Written information comes almost entirely from accounts by Christians whose lifelong efforts were devoted to eradicating pre-Christian beliefs, and who made little or no effort to understand the subject. We have somewhat better luck when we turn to the oldest written poetry, such as the Old Norse Eddas. But even here there is the problem of trying to understand and translate unfamiliar concepts couched in an ancient language, and the subject matter of these poems is seldom focused on the nature of the soul, at least not by our modern concepts about what a ‘soul’ is.
The term ‘Heathens’, or ‘people of the heath,’ is used to describe the ancient paganisms of the tribes who spoke the old Germanic languages of Europe, including Anglo-Saxon, Old Saxon, Old Norse, Old High German, Gothic, Frisian, Frankish, and other related languages. They left clues to their philosophies and world-views, their understandings of religion, the world, and life in general, in their poetry and art, their languages and laws, their folklore and customs. Aspects of these ancient paganisms are brought forward into present-day Heathen beliefs and practices. (For a review of ancient and modern Heathen history, see Waggoner, Our Troth, Vol. 1.)
My primary approach has been to focus on words themselves, words from all of the ancient Germanic languages that give us clues to concepts of the soul. I view words as ‘artifacts’ of concepts, similar to the way archaeological objects are artifacts of culture. Ancient objects can teach us much about a culture, though there are limitations to this knowledge, and ancient words can teach us much about the conceptual world of the speakers, though again there are limitations. But words, standing alone, are not sufficient. An arrowhead or a potsherd that shows up in somebody’s junk collection in the attic tells us far less than the same item could tell if it had been found in place by an archaeological team, in context with other items that collectively record a culture in a specific time and place.
In the same way, simply getting a modern translation of an ancient word out of a dictionary can be fairly uninformative, and often actively misleading, in comparison to reading and understanding that word in place in its original text. And even this does not go far enough. Not only must an object or a word be understood in its own context. The larger entities – cultures and concepts – must in turn be taken in context: their histories and their interactions with other surrounding cultures and concepts. In my efforts here, I have also looked at early Christian concepts as they were at the times when they first began to influence the religious thought of the various Germanic peoples.
So the core of my approach is this: I have taken words relating to the soul from dictionaries of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Old Saxon, Old High German, and Gothic languages, and then read through many textual passages in these languages where those words appear, to get a sense of them in context. Some of these texts were non-Christian writings, such as poems, sagas, and miscellaneous records. But many of the writings were specifically Christian in nature: retellings of New Testament events in the Germanic languages, translations or discussions of Christian scripture and theology, and also applications of classical Greek, Roman and Hellenistic philosophy to Christian thought. These were important because of their subject matter, focusing on soul, spirit and related topics directly relevant to my purpose.
Among the most enlightening questions for me to pursue have been: which Germanic words were used to translate which Latin or Greek words, and why? How well do Christian terms, as expressed mostly in the Latin language, translate into Germanic terms? What happened to the concepts when they were translated into a different language family? Were they altered by being translated into words that evolved within in a very different, Heathen, world-view? To find answers to these questions I also referred to Latin texts, mostly from the Old and New Testaments, looked at how these were translated into Germanic languages, and studied modern scholars who pursued these topics.
Let me give a concrete example of what I mean. One of the most useful texts for this effort has been the Old Saxon Heliand. This epic poem, dating from the first half of the 9th century, is not a word for word translation but a retelling of the Christian gospel using very traditional Germanic imagery and language. It presents Jesus as the leader of a Germanic-style band of oathed companions (his disciples), where Peter is his personal sword-thane, and all are referred to as ‘heroes.’ They go fishing not in the calmness of an inland lake, but in their oceangoing longboats, battling horrendous tides and winds, just as the Vikings do. The angels announcing Jesus’ birth come not to shepherds but to the guards of the King’s prize horse herds. Mary is presented not as a simple village girl but as a woman of the nobility, descendant of kings, possessed of all a noblewoman’s beauty and qualities as would be appropriate for a Germanic heroine. The scene of Jesus’ trial before Pontius Pilate, more detailed than the originals, illustrates the Germanic love of dramatic judicial ordeals and details of law. At Jesus’ baptism, the dove with a message from his God alights on Jesus’ shoulder and speaks in his ear, just as Odin’s ravens Hugin and Munin swoop to his shoulder with their messages. Nazareth, Jerusalem, and other towns are described as ‘high-timbered’ fortified burgs on hilltops.
Every detail of the poem is described in traditional poetic form, words and imagery that would resonate with Germanic Heathens. This was the intention of the author, likely a Saxon monk, who may well have been a convert from Heathenism himself, and was certainly writing for a Heathen population very unwilling to convert to the religion of their hated Frankish conquerors. (A good reference for the historical context of this poem is Murphy’s The Saxon Savior.)
Thus, although the subject matter of the poem is Christian, the vocabulary and concepts are rooted in traditional Heathen thought. A modern scholar describes the Heliand-poet as having “an astonishingly rich vocabulary for describing soul-related characteristics and feelings” (Eggers p. 11). There is not a single, simple translation of soul-words here. For example, the Christian Latin term anima, modern English ‘soul’, is translated into a large variety of different Saxon words, depending on the context, showing that there is not a one-to-one correspondence of terminology here, and the same occurs for spiritus (spirit), mens (mind), vita (life), cor (heart) and many other words. The lack of a one-to-one correspondence is not surprising when one comes to believe, as I have, that Germanic Heathenry recognizes multiple souls as opposed to only one or two, soul and spirit, as posited in Christian thought. By comparing words and concepts from the Latin texts and looking at how they were transformed by the Saxon retelling, we can learn far more about ancient Heathen beliefs than might be expected from reading a Christian work.
I also found some extremely interesting parallels between ancient Germanic and Homeric (archaic) Greek concepts of the soul, and compared words and concepts in other Indo-European languages as well. I have supplemented this effort with folklore and folk beliefs from different cultures, comparative religion and anthropology, and modern theories about the soul, and my own explorations and insights as a modern Heathen spiritual practitioner. Hopefully, I have made it clear throughout my writings as to which conclusions come from academic and textual references, and which ones are my own, so that the reader can evaluate them accordingly.
Is the end result of all this effort a perfect, incontrovertible Heathen doctrine of the soul(s)? No, it is not! Almost certainly, such a thing never existed and probably never will. For any theory of Heathen beliefs about the soul, including my own, I could point to historical and linguistic evidence that fails to support or even actively contradicts it. We are talking about related groups of people, languages and cultures that were widely spread in time and space, that were influenced by and exerted influence on their surrounding neighbors, that did not communicate and store information via writing, and that did not think in terms of doctrine, dogma, or other forms of enforced consistency.
For these ancient peoples, religion was not a matter of the individual soul’s salvation or damnation based on specific beliefs. It was a matter of maintaining beneficial relationships among people, between people and their deities, and with the natural world. The important thing was not dogmatic details of belief, but right action that maintained the important balances in the world. This does not mean that their own souls were not an important matter for them. It only means that there was a lot of room for personal and local interpretations and variations, which took place within a common overall world-view but was not rigidly constrained by it.
What I present here is a set of concepts I call Heathen soul lore, which I believe to be a supportable interpretation of available evidence from many different venues, and which can, I trust, contribute an important dimension to the present-day practice of the Heathen faith and to the general study of religion and spirituality. I have worked to draw this material together into a coherent whole, a modern but lore-based perspective on Heathen spiritual belief. It is my hope that this work will contribute to the present-day practice of Germanic Heathenry and to the general study of religion and spirituality, including various other branches of modern Paganism.
I want to point out that there is a great deal of other modern Heathen writing on the subjects I address on this website, worthy of pursuit whether my ideas are in agreement with them or not! Heathen soul lore and other knowledge is an organic growth, sending forth many fertile sprouts of different kinds, full of life and vigor. Long may it be so! We seek what nourishes our own souls: that is the ultimate criterion for choosing any lore, any path, any way of life. My hope is that my soul lore explorations here will prove nourishing to you, and stimulate you to further pursue the learnings of the soul in whatever directions draw you.
Bookhoard / Bibliography
Eggers, Hans. “Altgermanische Seelenvorstellungen in Lichte des Heliand.” Jahrbuch des Vereins für Niederdeutsche Sprachforschung. 1957 / 80. Neumünster, Germany: Karl Wachholtz Verlag.
Murphy, G. Ronald. The Saxon Savior. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Waggoner, Ben. Our Troth, Volume 1. Philadelphia: The Troth, 2020.
This page was updated May 2021.