to Woden, thus conferring upon them a religious sanction, like that of
Hermes amongst the Greeks. Anglo-Saxon worship generally gathered around
natural features; and sacred oaks, ashes, wells, hills, and rivers are
among the commonest memorials of our heathen ancestors. Many of them
were reconsecrated after the introduction of Christianity to saints of
the church, and so have retained their character for sanctity almost to
our own time.

Thunor, the same word as our modern English thunder, was practically,
though not philologically, the Anglo-Saxon representative of Zeus. We
are more familiar with his name in its clipped Norse form of Thor.
Thursday is Thunor's day (Thunres dæg: dies Jovis) and the thunderbolt,
really a polished stone axe of the aboriginal neolithic savages, was
supposed to be his weapon. Thundersfield, in Surrey; Thundersley, in
Essex; and Thursley, in Surrey, still preserve the memory of his sacred
sites. Thurleigh, in Bedford; Thurlow, in Essex; Thursley, in
Cumberland; Thursfield, in Staffordshire; and Thursford, in Norfolk, are
more probably due to later Danish influence, and commemorate namesakes
of the Norse Thor rather than the English Thunor.

Tiw, the philological equivalent of Zeus, answered rather in character
to Ares, and had for his day Tuesday (dies Martis). Tiw's mere and Tiw's
thorn occur in charters, and a few places still retain his name. Frea
gives his title to Friday (dies Veneris), and Sætere to Saturday (dies
Saturni). But the Anglo-Saxon worship really paid more attention to
certain deified heroes,–Bældæg, Geat, and Sceaf; and to certain
personified abstractions,–Wig (war), Death, and Sige (victory), than to
these minor gods. And, as often happens in Polytheistic religions, there
is reason to believe that the popular creed had much less reference to
the gods at all than to many inferior spirits of a naturalistic sort.