Submission to Academia Letters

The All-Deity-Inclusive Being in English Heathenism

Gary Stanfield

We are about to make frequent mention of a sentient being that includes all
differentiated deities in a polytheistic pantheon as its own aspects. That defi-
nition is quite a mouthful and a lot of words in a sentence, and “godhead” is a
strange-looking idiom that does not quite carry the right nuance.
Therefore, let us abbreviate “all-deity-inclusive being” with the pronounce-
able “ADIB”.
The native English Heathen religion included a theology that included a
being spoken of as “god”. We can infer this because:

1. the language had a noun “god” which is not appropriate for the Catholic
godhead because it is grammatically neuter, but which is quite appropriate
as the label of a deity object that is inclusive of all the pantheon’s deity
aspects and is therefore not entirely male nor female;

2. there are sites named for “God-” that were outdoor locations and located
outside settlements, contrary to Catholic customs of venue naming and
location; and

3. we cannot rule out “god” as the proper name of a Heathen deity, and
other polytheistic religions have an ADIB in their theologies.

1: The Neuter Noun

Old English (OE) has þǽt god available to denote an ADIB. It also has sé god,
which Christians could use as the preferred name of Yahweh. For denoting a
male deity, OE has sé goda, and it has sío gyden to denote goddess. The word

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þǽt god is available to denote a being, for OE has sé godhád for the non-wight
concepts of god-ness, godhood, or divine nature (Bosworth and Toller 1898,
1921; Clark Hall 1960).
The grammatically neuter “god” is unsuitable as the preferred name of the
(grammatically and theologically masculine) Yahweh, the Trinity, or the Trini-
tarian aspect sometimes called God the Father, for Catholics are averse to using
the pronoun “It” for any deity at all. It is thus unlike Latin deus (masculine)
and Greek theos (masculine).
We often look to Norse religion for analogies to English Heathenism, and
Old Norse also has a word suited to denote an ADIB. Observe that Cleasby
and Vigfusson have an extensive essay under their lemma “Goð” (Cleasby and
Vigfusson [1874] n.d.). They tell us that in Heathen times, the Old Norse neuter
“goð” referred to the godhead and was “almost exclusively in the plural”, a
practice we see used with Elohim in the Bible to refer to the complexity and
majesty of the wight also called Yahweh (Spangler 2011).
The OE “God” — either masculine or neuter — was probably not an alias
for Tíw. Although the Norse god Týr’s name is translated into Modern English
as “God”, the neuter “Goð” is not an alias of his. In Neckel’s (1936a) glossary
to his edition of the Poetic Edda, he defines “goð” as sun, god, & “gottheit”
(“godhood”), but not as referring to the male deity called Týr.

2: Venue Names
Sorting through place-name evidence, I found 10 English place names start-
ing with “God” that probably date from Heathen times: Godeselle (Kent),
Godley (Cheshire), Godley (Surrey), Godney (Somerset), Godsfield (Hamp-
shire), Godshill (Hampshire), Godshill (Wight), Godstone (Surrey), Godstow
(Oxfordshire), and Godswell Grove (Wiltshire). I also found another 11 other
candidates in the scholarly literature and a road atlas, but rejected them for
various reasons, such as not likely named prior to Christian supremacy or (in
one case) not being a place name but a personal name instead. Godney was
not an ADIB site, for it seems to have been named Male Deities’ Island, but
the other nine place names could be ADIB worship venues. (Too many sources

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to cite all here, but these are the more important: Bartholomew 1997; Drayton
1993; Smith, Edward 2014; Gelling 1997: 156-163; Harmer and Watkins 1989;
Mills 2011; Moss 2020; Owen 1985: 41, 43; Powell-Smith et al n. d.; Reaney
1964: 116-123; Wilson 1992: 5-21).
We have seen that sites named God- are not necessarily Christian venues, be-
cause OE has a neuter word “god”, which is not suitable for Christian liturgical
use, so how do we know if a site was originally Christian or Heathen?
The locations of the venues provide useful clues. Venues named for known
Heathen deities tend to be outdoors (no permanent buildings on the sites) and
located out of settlements (Semple 2010). There are traditional theological
reasons for this, relating to Proto-Germanic culture, but we will pass over the
details for now (Mattingly and Handford 1970: Tacitus’ Germania, chapters 9
and 45). I examined all 21 “God-” places using satellite photos, ground-level
photos, topographic maps, the 1086 survey of economically productive resources,
and other documents. The ten likely Heathen site names all reference places
outside settlements in early medieval times and have no indication of buildings
from that era.
Another clue is that Catholics name their religious venues for saints, Christ,
or (not so commonly) with reference to the Trinity, but not for “God”. Any
church with “God” in its name is very probably Protestant and post-medieval.

3: An ADIB in the Pantheon

An ADIB can easily fit into a Heathen Pantheon, for it can be understood as
a complement to understandings of the differentiated lesser deities. An ADIB
might or might not get much liturgical attention.
Fuller (2004: 30-32) tells us that the Hindu deity Brahman is an ADIB,
although Brahman does not get much liturgical attention in modern Hinduism.
Evans-Pritchard’s 1956 book tells of the Nuer ADIB, Kwoth. This ADIB
gets much liturgical attention. Kwoth is addressed indirectly through the more
limited deities, directly by name, and directly without using any name. Kwoth
is omnipresent, and a spiritual substance called kwoth is common to Kwoth and
the lesser deities (Evans-Pritchard 1956: 106-107, 117-122).

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 Evidently, the English Heathen ADIB did get substantial liturgical attention.

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