Anglo-Saxon Paganism: History and Beliefs by Jamie Lang

The book was given me by my friend Anwen who runs Airy Fairy, Sheffield's premier pagan bookshop, meeting place and cafe. It was written by her friend Jamie and features a Freya painting modelled on Anwen on the front cover. So this is a book that came out of a community that overlaps my own local magical one, and I wanted to give it a thorough review. And it is well worth the effort. It's an unusual and, in its own way, groundbreaking book. But it’s taken me years to do. First the book went missing when I was moving house two years ago. Then… well, enough of excuses. The review is finally here. Anglo-Saxon Paganism consists of essays about the history and myths of the Anglo-Saxon world plus the author’s own versions of the mythic tales. The book is a rich offering, with nice attention to history and useful timelines to contextualize the origins of AS culture. I’m going to dive into the bits of the text I particularly engaged with before discussing the book’s sh...