This modern
stainless steel statue co-incidentally points North within a small English town
called Wednesbury in the county of
the West Midlands, England (United Kingdom) and depicts Sleipnir; Odin's
eight-legged horse in Norse mythology. Saint Bartholomew's Church
can be seen in this picture to the left of the statue on the horizon
where Hackwood theorised a
temple to Woden! Odin could travel over land,
sea, and air on Sleipnir making this horse an appropriate imagery
for any form of travel. According to Norse mythology, Sleipnir was
the foal of the trickster god Loki and Svadilfari, the stallion of a
rock giant who had tried to fool the Gods of Asgard. The subject was
chosen with reference to the town of Wednesbury, which was settled
by Vikings and originally named 'Wodin's bury'.
Sleipnir pictures
taken today by Rig Svenson at 1805 hrs GMT Sun 7th May 2006
Sculpted by Steve
Field, a Dudley artist, and manufactured by several local firms
including Apollo Engineering and Watsons, the steel horse is 45 feet
long and 25 feet high. It has a truly dynamic feel to it, especially
as you approach it from the bottom of the hill, and presents itself
as a most fitting monument in keeping with the area's mythology, and
industrial heritage. A most striking feature is the clear blue
eyes.Steve Field explained his choice of design thus: 'I thought
that a sculpture of the mythical beast would symbolise the new
dynamism of the area. The tail flickers like a flame and so refers
to the area's fiery industrial origins making a leap from the past
into the future.'
The design caused
some controversy in the local Wednesbury News at the time of the
proposal because of objections by a local vicar to its reference to
Norse mythology. The initial designs for Sleipnir were over 40 feet
high and included a interior stairway to provide a viewing platform
from the horse's head: this was modified for safety reasons to the
present design. The work was sited in November 1998 with live TV
coverage on Carlton. The relevance of Sleipnir comes from the fact that Wednesbury is a
contraction of "Woden's Borough", and Woden being also the Germanic
name for Odin.
During the "Dark
Ages" CE 500 to CE800 the fate of the rest of the Roman province was
very different: after imperial power collapsed CE410. Romanised
civilisation swiftly vanished. By the sixth century, most of
Britannia was taken over by 'Germanic' petty kingdoms known as
heptarchies. One such heptarchy was known then as MERCIA aka The
Marchlands ( Today this land is known as The Midlands ) as during
those times most of England was covered in woods or forests. There
was apparently complete discontinuity between Roman Britain and
Anglo-Saxon England; it was once believed that the Romano-British
were slaughtered or driven west by hordes of invading Anglo-Saxons,
part of the great westward movement of 'barbarians' overwhelming the
western empire. However, there was no such simple displacement of
'Celts' by 'Germans'. It has been suggested that Professor JRR
Tolkien drew inspiration for the land of Mordor from his experiences
in "The Black Country", that is to say the Industrialised Midlands
of England!
Wednesbury by
Night in the 19th century
Three
Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for the Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie,
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. – The Lord of the Rings, by JRR
Tolkien
The origin of the name of the town Wednesbury town has been the
subject of much controversy. Frederick William Hackwood stated in
“Religious Wednesbury”, one of his many local history books called
that WODNES-BYRI is the first authenticated spelling of the town's
name since it was found written on the back of a copy of the will of
Wulfric Spott, dated at C.E.1004. It has since been discovered, that
the endorsement's original writing dated from the twelfth century,
some two hundred years later.
The Doomsday book (C.E.I085) names the town Wadnesberrie. The common
opinion, however, is that the name of modern Wednesbury is derived
from that of Woden or Odin, the Saxon god of war, the terminal BURY
being the Anglo-Saxon BURGH or BYRIG, signifying an earthworks and
hence a fortified town.
Of the thousands of name places in Britain less than ten having the
name of Woden compounded with it. Wednesfield (The field of Woden)
and Wednesbury (Woden's Hill?) are the two most westerly. Taylor
suggest in his “Words and Places", that there is widespread evidence
of the worship of Woden and Thunor. Wednesbury in Staffordshire (now
West Midlands), Wisborough Hill in Essex, Wanborough in Surrey,
Wanborough in Wilts, two Warnboroughs in Hampshire, Woodnesborough
in Kent and Wilts, and Wenbury in Devon, are all corruptions of the
Anglo-Saxon word WODNES-BEORH, a name which indicates the existence
of a mound or other similar erection dedicated to Woden.
It can also be argued that the word BEORH, from which all these
other English place names are derived, signifies merely a hill and
not a fortified hill. Beorh could also mean a mountain, a heap, an
earthwork, a barrow or a burrow (burial tumulus). Jacob Grimm in his
Mythology (cap.7) notes a number of "Woden Hills" and the town of
Wednesbury may have a similar origin. The pagan town of Wodnes-Byri
(C.E.586-652) existed as a local habitation and a name, long before
the Christian religion had penetrated that then vast mid-England
woodland.
Historically, the original form of Wodnes-Byri dates from some
period between the pagan Engles (Angles) settling in the Midlands in
C.E.586 and their subsequent conversion to Christianity. Cridda, was
the leader of a band of Engles from the Northern kingdom of Deira
(Northumbria) who, through a southerly migration, founded the new
settlement of Mercia, the March or Borderland of Wales.
There is little reason to doubt that before the advent of the White
or Pale Christ in Mercia, the Mercians knew Woden, Thunor and
Freyja. The suggestion by Hackwood that Wednesbury Hill was once
crowned with a Temple or Shrine of Woden is a possibility. A
wodenic
named place usually intimates holy ground and the cult of Woden both
in Europe and in England was especially connected with hills. (F.M.
Stenton Anglo-Saxon England pgs 40). Hounds were traditional tied in
with Woden in Teutonic Mythology. There was a story around the old
Wednesbury colliers, that they habitually heard a pack of hounds in
the air as they went to the mines. This was recorded by Plot in
C.E.1686.
John F.Ede M.A. in his book, History of Wednesbury follows on from
Hackwood with another view on Hackwood’s theory that Wednesbury was
founded by Penda, and was for a time his headquarters, as
speculation, which has no evidence against it. Mr C.F.Slade has
given some (C.F.Slade VCH, iv, 7-10) additional plausibility to
Hackwood's theories by his recent analysis of the evidence afforded
by Doomsday concerning the original settlement of the area. As there
was no documentary evidence of Penda's earlier period (C.E.632-654),
Hackwood it would seem had a free hand to entertain his belief that
Wednesbury became a Royal capital, and thus the mother city of the
Midlands.
Hackwood affirmed a belief that Wednesbury Hill was crowned with a
Temple of Woden and that a Parish Church, Saint Bartholomew now occupies the site of
this Pagan Temple.
According to Bede, at the first Christianising of the English, the
existing heathen temples were made use of after being dedicated to
some Christian Saint. Indeed some of them were allowed to contain
two altars, one for the Saint, and one for the rites offered to
Woden, or Thor, or Frea, the triad of the old Norse worship. Such
devotions to alledged *demon gods, performed with many
degrading rites, could have only a demoralising effect on the
Christian converts. At Wednesbury, for instance, where a temple of
Woden was dedicated to Saint Bartholomew, what hope was there that
the peaceful teachings of the White Christ should prevail with a
warlike people over their racial pride in a bloodthirsty God of War?
St Bartholomew Church Wednesbury
As the late Vicar, the Rev. John Lyons, once
wrote:
"On the lofty hill, raised above all the surrounding country, rest
our Parish Church, the glory, the ornament and the beauty of the
town. It stands as a beacon visible for many miles around it, its
spire pointing towards the heavens, thus teaching, by mute but
significant sign, where our thoughts and final hopes should tend.
This hill, with its spire crowned Church, was not always the teacher
of heavenly things. There was a time when Woden, the fierce and
sanguinary idol of the Danes and Norwegians, stained this hill with
the blood of human beings offered in sacrifice to him. This Woden is
supposed to be the same as Odin, on whom our poet Gray has composed
a wild and beautiful ode, entitled The Descent of Odin. “This devil
worship passed away as the light of Christianity arose and spread on
our island; but the foundations of the material building were not
yet to be laid."
See: Wednesbury Ancient and Modern - F. W. Hackwood (Ed Alan Vernon)
