Franconia. Many sovereign families of the north, are said to be descended from these princes[1]. Thus Horsa and Hengist, the chiefs of those Saxons, who conquered Britain in the fifth century, counted Odin or Woden[2] in the number of their ancestors: it was the same with the other Anglo-Saxon princes; as well as the greatest part of those of Lower Germany and the north. But there is reason to suspect that all these genealogies, which have given birth to so many insipid panegyrics and frivolous researches, are founded upon a meer equivoque, or double meaning of the word Odin. This word signified, as we have seen above, the supreme God of the Scythians, we know also that it was customary with all the heroes of these nations to speak of themselves as sprung from their divinities, especially their God of War. The historians of those times, that is to say the
- ↑ Snorro Sturleson. Chron. Norveg. p. 4.
- ↑ Odin in the dialect of the Anglo-Saxons was called Woden or Wodan. The ancient chronicles of this people, particularly that published by Gibson, expresly assert that Hengist and Horsa, were descended from him. We find there ten or twelve genealogies of the English princes traced up to the same source: and the Author concludes with this reflection: “It is from Odin that all our royal families derive their descent.” V. p. 13.
