Christianity had become dominant. So also the worship of wells and
springs was christianized when it was found impossible to prevent it.
Great churches arose over or near them, as at Walsingham, where an
abbey, the holiest place in England, after the shrine of St Thomas at
Canterbury, threw its majestic shade over the heathen wishing-well,
and the worshippers of Odin and the Nornir were gradually converted
into votaries of the Virgin Mary. Such practices form a subject of
constant remonstrance and reproof in the treatises and penitential
epistles of medieval divines, and in some few places and churches,
even in England, such rites are still yearly celebrated. [13]

So, too, again with the ancient gods. They were cast down from
honour, but not from power. They lost their genial kindly influence
as the protectors of men and the origin of all things good; but their
existence was tolerated; they became powerful for ill, and
degenerated into malignant demons. Thus the worshippers of Odin had
supposed that at certain times and rare intervals the good powers
shewed themselves in bodily shape to mortal eye, passing through the
land in divine progress, bringing blessings in their train, and
receiving in return the offerings and homage of their grateful
votaries. But these were naturally only exceptional instances; on
ordinary occasions the pious heathen recognized his gods sweeping
through the air in cloud and storm, riding on the wings of the wind,
and speaking in awful accents, as the tempest howled and roared, and
the sea shook his white mane and crest. Nor did he fail to see them
in the dust and din of battle, when Odin appeared with his terrible
helm, succouring his own, striking fear into their foes, and turning
the day in many a doubtful fight; or in the hurry and uproar of the
chase, where the mighty huntsman on his swift steed, seen in glimpses
among the trees, took up the hunt where weary mortals laid it down,