Axenthof Thiad

Suggested Reading

We have created the following list as an aid to the potential Theodsman and for the reconstruction of pre-Christian Germanic heathenry in general. All sources are linked to Amazon.com for quick and easy purchase.

The list is divided into three pages: Primary Sources, Secondary Sources (current page), and Additional Suggested Reading.

Secondary Sources

Secondary sources provide additional information regarding the lore presented in the primary source material. These sources are essential to understanding the context in which the primary source material may be properly understood. The world, and resulting world-view, of the pre-Christian Germanic heathen was very different from our own . In order to understand the lore as our heathen ancestors did we must adopt, as much as possible, their world-view. The secondary sources are beneficial in demonstrating the research and discoveries involved in reconstructing that world-view.

The following list is in no particular order.

• The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity (Reprint Editions of Manchester University Press), by William A. Chaney.


• Gods of the Ancient Northmen (UCLA Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore & Mythology. Publications, 3), by Georges Dumezil.


• The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation, by James C. Russell.


• Early Germanic Literature and Culture (Camden House History of German Literature), by Brian Murdoch. The essay on Germanic religion by Rudolph Simek is particularly interesting.


• Language and History in the Early Germanic World, by D.H. Green.


• The Mead-Hall: The Feasting Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England, by Stephen Pollington.


• Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law: Being an Essay Supplemental to (1) 'The English Village Community' (2) 'The Tribal System in Wales', by Frederic Seebohm.


• Heathen Gods in Old English Literature (Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England), by Richard North.


• Nordic Religions in the Viking Age (The Middle Ages Series), by Thomas DuBois.


• Images of Community in Old English Poetry (Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England), by Hugh Magennis.


• Representations of the Natural World in Old English Poetry (Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England), by Jennifer Neville.


• The Semiotics of Fate, Death, and the Soul in Germanic Culture: The Christianization of Old Saxon (Berkeley Insights in Linguistics and Semiotics), by Prisca Augustyn.


• Decolonizing the Viking Age (Acta Archaeologica Lundensia Series in 8, 43), by Fredrik Svanberg.


• Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes and Interactions, an International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3-7, 2004, by K. Jennbert, et al.


• The Lost Gods of England (History & politics), by Brian Banston.


• Lady With a Mead Cup: Ritual Prophecy and Lordship in the European Warband from La Tene to the Viking Age, by Michael J. Enright.


• Norsemen in the Viking Age (The Peoples of Europe), by Eric Christiansen.


• Feasting the Dead: Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals (Anglo-Saxon Studies), by Christina Lee.


• Living With the Dead in the Middle Ages, by Patrick J. Geary.


• The Anglo-Saxon Way of Death, by Samantha Lucy.


• The One-eyed God: Odin and the (Indo-) Germanic Männerbünde (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph No. 36), by Kris Kershaw.


• Essays on Germanic Religion (Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph Series No. 6), by Edgar C. Polome.


• Comparative Mythology, by Jaan Puhvel. An introduction to the comparative studies of Indo-European myths.


• Myth and Law Among the Indo-Europeans: Studies in Indo-European Comparative Mythology, by Jaan Puhvel.


• How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics, by Calvert Watkins. This is a very interesting work on poetic formulae in the Indo-European tradition.


• In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and Myth, by J.P. Mallory. Mallory's introduction to the question of Indo-European origins.


• The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World (Oxford Linguistics), by J.P. Mallory. A new introduction to the Proto-Indo-European question.


• The Religious Attitudes of the Indo-Europeans, by Hans F.K. Gunther.

More titles coming soon.

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