I’ve just read an invaluable reflection by archaeologist Dr Jonathan Last on the recent Telegraph story reporting that neo-Nazi groups have been holding religious ceremonies at Avebury and Wayland’s Smithy.
The evidence came from a now-deleted video posted on YouTube of night time fire rituals and a swastika has reportedly been carved into one of the beech trees surrounding Wayland’s Smithy. The text is here.
Here’s the BBC News take on this story.
And here, The Mirror.
Dr Last points to the way British prehistory has been portrayed in the media as part of the problem. But he identifies a wider problem that, for all the sophisticated interpretations by academics, the public are fed a ‘conservative, nostalgic narrative of a lost rural England.’ This, Dr Last argues, chimes with the ‘blood and soil’ ideology of extremists. The 20th-century recreations of prehistoric monuments at Avebury and Wayland’s Smithy afford a sense of timelessness that takes these monuments out of history: they are instead mysterious and never-changing. He advocates a shift in the way heritage organisations should be explaining monuments and their landscapes. Also, he advocates that we should emphasise that prehistoric remains ‘belong to everyone and are found everywhere, not just in ‘idyllic’ places of rural England. He concludes: ‘Vile nationalism has infected too many areas of public life in Britain in the last few years; let’s not allow our shared prehistoric heritage to go the same way.’
I cannot but wholeheartedly agree. And yet my immediate response was to add a further point:
Archaeologists cannot spend a century treating these sites as prehistoric and be surprised that ignoring their biographies of use and reuse creates a yawning space for extremist fantasies. It’s not the press, but ‘prehistorians’ and ‘prehistory’ that create this problem
Now this is perhaps unfair for Avebury, but even here, there exists only one book ever published attempting to coherently and systematically place the henge monument in long-term context by charting the archaeology of Avebury and its environs from prehistory to more recent times: by Josh Pollard and Andrew Reynolds. Avebury’s National Trust have worked long and hard to accommodate and retain good relations with neo-Pagan communities, however, and so it seems unfair to castigate this site’s management because of this unfortunate incident(s). However, I do wonder whether a more detailed and informed engagement with the medieval archaeology of Avebury might have served, and going forward might serve, to counter those extremists who take their inspiration from Germanic heathenry and apply them to megalithic monuments. It is important however, to state that most neo-Pagans have no association or interest in these presumably ‘Heathen’ groups and their race-hate, and we must also counter any simple or exclusive connection between white supremacism and Heathenry in any case. Many followers who attach spiritual associations to Avebury will be furious at this news story and worried over whether it will affect their respectful access to the monument. The same applies to Wayland’s Smithy. Yet when it comes to Wayland’s Smithy, a site I’ve been researching, I find we have sleep-walked into this problem.
For background, see my previous posts about this monument:
So why was Wayland’s Smithy and not (say) Belas Knap or West Kennet long barrow, the focus of neo-Nazi activity? I can make an informed guess. Like other prehistoric monuments, they have long been used as focal points for neo-Pagan rituals and votive offerings, none of which are necessarily or likely to have an association with far-right politics in any fashion. Indeed, every time I’ve visited Wayland’s Smithy over the last 40 years I’ve seen evidence of neo-Pagan activities, particularly votive offerings within the chambers. But that in itself is not reason enough and let’s not condemn neo-Pagans wholesale as somehow responsible for this issue.
Specifically, I suspect the attraction for neo-Nazis is because Wayland’s Smithy is alone in Wessex as a surviving prehistoric megalithic monument with such overt association with a supposed ‘pagan’ Germanic supernatural figure and thus simultaneously it might be misconceived by extremists as:
- rooting Germanic paganism in the English landscape in a discrete monumental form;
- narrating the Germanic supplanting of earlier populations who inhabited this landscape;
- Wayland’s Smithy is on Ashdown where Alfred beat the Danes in AD 871.
Put these points together and this landscape is readily perceived by neo-Nazis inspired by simplistic readings of Germanic paganism and Anglo-Saxon history as some form of sacred English heartland, linking the downs to the monument. In their crazed view, what better place to meet to worship and fantasise about a present-day patriotic Alfredan-style valiant and beleaguered defence of England against invading foreigners? One doesn’t have to look far to see the broader appeal of this romantic landscape with its White Horse, often associated with Alfred’s victory, Wayland’s Smithy, and the Vale of the White Horse, and its particular megalithic qualities. Although relating to a different, later, battle, one only has to look to the popularity of the TV series The Last Kingdom and its choice to portray Ecgbert’s Stone – where Alfred’s forces gather before engaging the Danes at Edington – as a megalithic monument to see the power of prehistoric features in the early medieval landscape in the storytelling and fantasies we continue to perpetuate regarding the birth of England.
The specific association of these stories with Wayland’s Smithy should be no revelation. Indeed, the seeds of this narrative were sown in antiquarian and early archaeological writings of the mid-19th century. In previous publications I’ve demonstrably shown how early Victorian archaeologists looked to Wayland’s Smithy and its landscape to illustrate the re-dedication of the entire countryside by swarms of incoming Teutons who replaced the ‘Celts’ – at that time still believed to exist as a ‘race’ and to have been the makers of megalithic monuments. In this view, the Germanic deity/hero Weland is evidence of the Anglo-Saxon religious and racial supremacy over, and supplanting of, the Britons/’Celts’. See my papers here and here.
What is shocking is that we haven’t moved beyond this view in how we communicate Wayland’s Smithy to visitors. Still to this day, the heritage interpretation of Wayland’s Smithy gives the stark impression: ‘named after the Saxon smith-god’! The sign as one approaches the site from the Ridgeway does nothing to counter the perception that this was a Germanic pagan theophoric place-name, even though the association with Weland comes in the Christian Anglo-Saxon period: a 10th-century charter (S564: ære gedrifonan fyrh, andlang fyrh oˇ hit cym∂ on ˇæt wide geat be eastan Welandes smi∂∂an: The Electronic Sawyer) for the estate of Compton. Meanwhile, the heritage board on site itself says nothing about the place-name and folklore traditions: this is regarded as a Neolithic archaeological monument, letting the later uses and perceptions of the site float free with no interpretive guidance offered to the visitor.
Reading this information on-site or online, one would be forgiven for thinking academics still regard this as some kind of pagan Saxon cult site, or an ancient monument superstitiously attributed to a Germanic god or hero because of a complete biological and cultural dislocation at the end of Roman Britain: there were no Britons around to tell them otherwise and the ‘Saxons’ now ruled the roost.
Tell me I’m wrong: but before you do so check out the English Heritage website for Wayland’s Smithy here. While you’re at it, check out the Wikipedia entry. The List entry gives a fair summary of the significance weighted towards its Neolithic phases.
Basically, we should have collectively seen this coming as archaeologists. Continuing to regard the Wayland appellation to Wayland’s Smithy as evidence of a pre-Christian Germanic cult site or pagan awe afforded to ancient monuments is perhaps one of the most spurious, lazy and plain problematic inferences that modern archaeologists and heritage professionals has inherited and still spews out for visitors to read. While I’m not saying archaeologists have been encouraging or facilitating neo-Nazi delusions directly, Wayland’s Smithy’s use as a focal point by such individuals might justifiably be regarded as a disaster waiting to happen, fostered by the treatment of the site as a prehistoric monument, and paying no critical attention to its later archaeological history or folklore.
Now, there are strong grounds for doubting the theophoric place-name interpretation, based on our knowledge that many supposed ‘pagan’ place-names are actually Christian-period in date and dedicated with other motives and associations, but also based on our knowledge of the early medieval landscape around this site: this was an early medieval thoroughfare in the middle and late Anglo-Saxon period, not some sleepy backwater where ‘pagan’ stories might have lingered on unnoticed by church and state! I cannot outline all the arguments here, however, but an alternative reading of the place-name and the post-Neolithic archaeology of Wayland’s Smithy will be dealt with in a forthcoming publication. I will say, however, that we have no independent evidence Weland was regarded as a ‘god’ in pre-Christian England. There are no sites where early Anglo-Saxon funerary and ritual activity take places that are connected with Weland place-names. When we encounter him, it is in overtly Christian contexts and he is an anti-hero whose tale speaks to Christian lordship, gift-giving and retributive violence. To whet your appetite about the specific links to a megalithic structure, see my 2015 book chapter where I present an argument that the megalithic chambered tomb in the later Anglo-Saxon peom Beowulf was not perceived as a ‘tomb’ at all, and seeing a prehistoric monument described as the dragon’s lair is an uncritical reading of the poem and displays an ignorance of later Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical and secular elite landscapes in which the poem would have been performed. Instead, the dragon’s lair was portrayed as a treasury of a doomed race: the results of an anti-funeral; laid without ceremony by a lone survivor who left it behind. Scholars have imagined a megalithic tomb in Beowulf and likewise they’ve lazily allowed the persistence of a connection between ancient races of giants and chambered tombs elsewhere. I think the likelihood that early medieval people saw Wayland’s Smithy as a tomb of a pagan deity or hero incredibly unlikely. Weland’s smithy was… his smithy – his place of incarceration and where he made treasures but also enacted his revenge on a despotic ruler. If there is any connection at all between the story of Volundr known from Icelandic writings in the 13th century and earlier incarnations, it is possible that later Anglo-Saxon Christians might equally be considered this ruinous megalithic chambered tomb, less a ‘tomb’ or a place of cult, but a monument linked to a smithy in a story of rape and murder as retributive violence and where the bones of the king’s sons were turned into treasures. Here, there is a connection to the dragon’s barrow in Beowulf: it was a treasury, not a tomb at all. Wayland’s Smity is implausible as a place of pagan veneration or superstitious awe; but part of a complex mnemonic landscape of later Anglo-Saxon Wessex, with political and religious dimensions to it, it just about makes sense alongside other ‘supernatural’ place-names in a well-organised and fully Christianised landscape.
Regardless of how we interpret the ‘Wayland’ attribution, and even if some evidence is forthcoming that this was a theophoric place-name with roots in the 5th-7th centuries AD, there are stronger grounds for criticising the myopic focus of heritage interpretation of Wayland’s Smithy on its Neolithic construction which erases any discussion of the later landscape and monument’s use and reuse. Absence of information only fuels the problem. Treating the place-name as a later ‘fancy’ or ‘wrong attribution’ by ‘incomers’ isn’t sufficient.
Put these together, and we have a clusterfxxk of poor heritage interpretation that is ripe appropriated by extremists. How did this happen? Partly it’s down to our persistent obsession with the ‘origins’ of monuments: how monuments came to be in the first instance, in the case of Wayland’s Smithy, in the early Neolithic. Another aspect is the chronological bracketing of monuments into time-periods: even Dr Last regards this as a ‘prehistoric’ monument, which is not his fault but how we categorise these monuments and I likewise slip into the same descriptors all the time. This ignores evidence of Iron Age and Roman activity on and around the site, as well as its early medieval place-name attribution as incidental or secondary. Lastly, there simply hasn’t been a modern study of Wayland’s Smithy’s archaeology and place-name dedication even if there are loads of available resources.
How do we remedy this? Partly, prehistorians need to stop seeing the afterlives of monuments as an afterthought. Also, it falls to me and fellow early medievalists who’ve been writing about prehistoric monuments deployed in various fashions in the Early Middle Ages to work harder to engage people with our work. I confess I still haven’t finished writing an article on Wayland’s Smithy. Someone in England’s heritage organisations might want to take note of my work now or when it’s published. But that’s no excuse for them: the academic research on the complex life-histories of monuments has been around for decades, and yet still, as Last states, we dish up the same dire gruel for the public to consume. Professor Sarah Semple’s book Perceptions of the Prehistoric in Anglo-Saxon England addressing the rich data from historical, place-name and archaeological evidence for how prehistoric monuments were reused and perceived in Anglo-Saxon England is now well-established, and her publications on this have spanned three decades now. Professor Cornelius Holtorf’s work on the afterlives of megaliths have also been around for decades.
In conclusion, I can identify today a series of critical recommendations for the heritage interpretation of Wayland’s Smithy and its environs both on-site and digitally that recognise its early medieval significance in fashions that counter extremist fantasies about this monument and its setting. This isn’t a panacea to stop open and publicly accessible prehistoric monuments far from habitations being the focus of all manner of rituals and gatherings for a variety of purposes, including these neo-Nazis. What it can do is give the public visiting the site in the Oxfordshire landscape today, or looking it up online, a clear sense of what Wayland’s Smithy may have meant to Neolithic people, Bronze Age communities, Iron Age and Roman populations, and to those living around it through the Middle Ages into the modern era. We cannot future-proof our sites and monuments from appropriation by extremists, but in Wayland Smithy’s case, while archaeologists didn’t cause this situation, they have been sleepwalking into this situation.
Archaeo𝔡𝔢𝔞𝔱𝔥 
Which 10th-century charter mentions Wayland?
Compton Beauchamp
S 564
I’ve added a link!
Thanks for this. It is perhaps worth also considering that this ostensibly 10th-century record only survives as a 13th-century cartulary copy, so the question about when exactly the reference to “Welandes smiððan” was introduced to the text could be extended from issuance of an original record of Eadred’s actum in the 10th century through the time when the Abingdon’s cartulary was compiled in the 13th. Work that I’ve engaged in on Worcester’s 11th-century archive indicates that record-keepers of the late Anglo-Saxon era apparently didn’t take issue with modifying–perhaps ‘updating’–the texts of their land records: many records preserved among Worcester’s series of 11th-century cartularies exhibit a variety of textual modifications that were introduced by the cathedral and priory’s record-keepers as the circumstances of a given record’s preservation changed. Assuming that the standards of archival preservation observed by Abingdon’s early record-keepers were similar to those evidently observed by Worcester’s, ‘updating’ the name of a boundary point would not have been regarded as beyond the pale. It is also interesting to note that in her commentary on the text of this charter, Susan Kelly notes that “An attempt has been made to connect various features in this area, some of them mentioned in this and other boundary surveys, with characters in the Wayland legend [her note cites L. V. Grinsell, -White Horse Hill and the surrounding country- (London, 1939)]; the theory is ingenious but unconvincing [she cites Gelling’s comments in -The Placenames of Berkshire-, ii, p.347].” (-Anglo-Saxon Charters VII, The Charters of Abingdon Abbey-, pt. 1, pp. 203 – 5).
That’s really helpful, thanks!
Where are Kelly’s comments? Here? Kelly, Abingdon. Kelly, S. E., ed., The Charters of Abingdon Abbey, Anglo-Saxon Charters, 2 vols (Oxford, 2000–2001), 7 and 8. 321 charters cited.
Susan Kelly’s edition of charter S 564 is charter #50 in Volume VII of the Anglo-Saxon Charters series (Charters of Abingdon Abbey, part I). Her comments on the boundary clause specifically are on p. 205.
Reblogged this on craftybitsblog.
“So why was Wayland’s Smithy and not (say) Belas Knap or West Kennet long barrow, the focus of neo-Nazi activity?”
I would suggest that the current press focus on Woden’s Folk’s use of Avebury and Wayland’s Smithy might tell us more (or at least as much) about which sites the mainstream media find interesting or noteworthy rather than which sites Woden’s Folk are actually selecting for their rites. Avebury is one of the most famous archaeological sites in Britain, and Wayland’s Smithy is comparatively well-known (at least by long barrow standards). Both sites are also under the National Trust’s jurisdiction, which adds an additional level of notability to them. I suspect that it is that fact which encouraged the Telegraph (and subsequently BBC News and the Mirror) to provide coverage of these events.
The reality is that Woden’s Folk and other related occult and/or Pagan groups with white racialist views (the Odinic Rite, Order of Nine Angles etc) have been carrying out ritualised acts at various archaeological sites for decades – not just Avebury and Wayland’s Smithy. Woden’s Folk for instance are among the Folkish Heathen groups which have been using the White Horse Stone in Western Kent for many, many years – but the White Horse Stone isn’t a particular ‘sexy’ or well-known site, so there isn’t much impetus for the Telegraph to give coverage to acts that take place there.
This certainly isn’t to dispute any of the arguments that you make in this post. I think it true that the reference to Wayland does give Wayland’s Smithy the “Germanic” veneer that makes it particularly appealing for Heathen groups and that archaeologists should make more effort to underscore the cultural history of archaeological monuments. However, I do think that the current press focus on Avebury and Wayland’s Smithy is to some extent concealing a much more widespread pattern of activity among Pagan racialist groups. That’s something that public archaeologists should be aware of.
Thanks Ethan! I was hoping you’d pitch in, since I wasn’t sure whether the groups being discussed in the press are the same ones you’ve been writing about, or different ones. BUT I do think that the Hoar Stone and Wayland’s Smithy share in legendary Anglo-Saxon connections, and so I presume there is a shared connection here. Avebury is a prominent site, true, but again it is also one with Anglo-Saxon associations.
Why is it that so many so-called ‘intelligent’ and ‘intellectual’ people believe without question what is read in the gutter-press? The whole of the article about Woden’s Folk was riddled with smears, innuendos and down-right lies. This started with the ‘Daily Telegraph’ whose ‘undercover reporter’ did nothing but converse with some of us through emails. Woden’s Folk is NOT a ‘racist’ group, we clearly state that we believe in a love of our own kind and NOT hatred of others. Neither do we believe that Adolf Hitler was the ‘Second Coming’ of Odin since this is firstly a Christian term, and secondly we merely covered subjects such as Carl Jung’s ideas on National Socialist Germany, particularly his ‘Wotan’ thesis. We are not ‘Hitler Worshippers’ or ‘Neo-Nazis’ (the latter being a press/media smear-term). What we do believe in, which goes against the grain, is that Globalism is destructive of all peoples and all lands. We are not ‘nationalists’ but we do have a love of Land and Folk, and we do hold the Mother Earth to be a Living Being which should be held sacred. And we also believe, which does not cut ice in our ‘progressive society’, is that we should question what we are taught by academics who have an ‘agenda’ to press upon us.
We are ‘Folkish Wodenists’ because we believe in the English Folk, and we believe in our Sacred Land – England. Sites such as Avebury and Wayland’s Smithy are sacred to us, and no Wodenist would ever carve swastikas or anything else on trees. If you check up you will find this tactic has been done to smear similar groups at the White Horse Stone where the Odinic Rite had to remove painted graffiti there some years ago. The damage at Wayland’s Smithy (in many of the papers) was not directly aimed at us but was a tactic of ‘smear by association’ which is a common method used by the press and media. In fact, anyone who has visited the site will find that the trees have been carved with people’s initials and the damage at the sides of the chamber is due to the public who go there as a ‘tourist attraction’.
One year we collected three bags of rubbish at the site left by others who use this; I suppose this is not bad really when you consider the tons of rubbish left at Stonehenge every year. We use fire-bowls for a Ritual Fire and never too near the stones, and we have been visited by the police on occasions and have no problems with them. We have NEVER caused damage at any site, and we have never caused any trouble – unlike the ‘anti-fascist’ fascists who are hell bent on stopping us from using such sites for our legitimate religious rites. (Wodenism is a valid religion here in England backed by English Law – ‘Holden vs. The Post Office’.)
For those who claim we do not have any connection to these sites I suggest you throw off the blinkers and start to study the ever-growing ideas that these islands were not exclusively ‘Celtic’ before the Romans came. To start with I suggest you check the following ‘Celtic’ tribes –
Tegeingle (Deceangli) who dwelt in Anglesey (Angle’s Island) at the time the Druids were slaughtered by the Romans – their name means ‘Fair Ingl’ or ‘Fair Angles’. This tribe eventually moved eastwards into Flintshire, into an area called ‘Englefield’ – a name relating to the ‘Engles’ or ‘Angles’ – the English.
Eceni – A name that has Germanic roots associated with the Oak Tree; and the battle fought by Boudicca was recorded in the Old English ‘Icen-hilde Wey’ (Icen-Battle-Way). Their coins show the ‘Eye of Woden’ as do others around East Anglia. They were connected to the Wolf-Totem as were the ‘later’ Wuffingas. The ‘Golden Torcs’ worn by the aethlingas were clearly based upon ‘knotted cords’ and were most likely worn as a dedication to Woden – God of the Hanged. Woden is a god who ‘fetters’ his Initiates to his will, which is worked here on Earth.
The Belgae – Some of the tribes (as with the Belgae in Northern Gaul) were clearly Germanic, and we can see how they brought the Worship of Woden here to the South of England through the name ‘Gwydion’ (Wydion) who is clearly Woden and does not belong in the ‘Tuatha de Danaan’ gods of the Irish. Look at the similarities between the two gods if you do not believe this. This name forms part of the Welsh Gods and there are instances where Norse-Germanic Mythology can be seen in the Welsh Myths – which is true of Ireland and Scotland too.
The Suessiones – These were here in England amongst the confederation of the Belgae and they have a coin showing Woden being swallowed by the Fenris Wolf.
The Chauci occupied an area near to Dublin in Ireland and were a Germanic Tribe; this may be verified since they were very close kin to the Saxons and a ‘Saxon’ dwelling with various artefacts were found in Dublin UNDERNEATH the Viking settlement – this was ‘hushed up’ of course. The Gangani of Ireland and then Wales were part of the confederation with the Tegeingl – their name means ‘Wanderers’ in Old English and Germanic. Then the Catti (Scotland and England), the Atta-Cotti (Scotland), and various other ‘Britons’ who were claimed to be ‘Celtic’. Last, but not least, the Frisian connection with Stonehenge which has been glossed over too.
You will find similar sites as Wayland’s Smithy, East Kennet Long Barrow etc. all around Scandinavia and indeed the USA, as well as many parts of the ancient world – where these people travelled. Silbury Hill, close to Avebury, is dedicated to some fictional ‘King Sil’ and yet the Old English name ‘Seleburg’ refers to a wooden structure (‘sele’ = ‘hall’, ‘selig’ = ‘blessed/holy) whose remains (from ‘Anglo-Saxon’ times) I believe were found there. The Germanic Tribes used this as a ‘Thing-Stead’, a thing they would do at sites which were linked to their Ancestors.
By the way, the smear-association with Brevik is quite amusing since he claimed to be a Christian in his manifesto, and he was shown in the press at the time with full Masonic Regalia – do we blame these organisations for what he did? The other one I have no idea of I am afraid. The ‘Telegraph’ was dealing with ‘anti-fascist’ groups which are not actually named, but one ‘anti-fascist’ group is Antifa which is under investigation in the US who are deciding whether it should be banned as a ‘terrorist organisation’. There are some ‘anti-fascist’ groups who use violence and promote violence.
Thank you for your time and for listening to what we have to say in reply to the smears and lies from which all this has originated.
Wulf Ingessunu
Thanks, Howard. On a personal note, I’m deeply saddened that the issues you highlight persist at Wayland’s Smithy, a place I associate with so many happy memories from the 80s and 90s.
This is some speculation that The Weyland Corporation that is in Ridley Scott’s Alien and Bladerunner films are inspired by the idea of the Wayland Smithy.