Note 632 — Chapter XII · HEATHENDOM.

This probably was the case even before any German settlement was made in Britain. But no argument can be raised on this ground against the genuineness of the Wóden worship here; because, if the continental Germans worshiped him, they probably carried his rites with them to England. We know that he is one of the gods named in the celebrated formulary of renunciation, which the missionary Christians prepared for the use of the Saxon converts. Why the interpretatio Romana (Tac. Germ. xliii.) fixed upon Wóden as the corresponding god to Mercury we do not clearly see: but we are not acquainted with the rites and legends which may have made this perfectly clear to the Romans.