The great god of the conquering races, who invaded Britain and subdued the Britons, was Woden, who has given his name to Wednesday; and this god with one eye had a double aspect. He was god of the air, the wind, and he was also god of the sun. According to the etymology of his name, he was the god of the gale, and the source of all breath; but his one fiery eye was most certainly the sun; and he was represented holding a wheel of gold, and that golden wheel symbolised the sun. The Gauls also had a sun god, representations of whom holding a wheel have been discovered in France in considerable numbers; and, unquestionably, when Goths, Burgundians, and Franks invaded Gaul, or swept over it, their sun god and the Gallic wheel-bearing god were identified. But those who thought of and adored Woden as god of the wind thought nothing of the wheel. Woden was a cruel deity, who demanded sacrifices; and the sacrifices he required were human. In the Elder Edda, a collection of very ancient songs relating to the Norse gods and heroes, who were the same as the gods and heroes of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, is one mysterious poem, supposed to be sung by Odin (Woden) himself as he hangs in the world-tree, a self-immolated victim, between heaven and earth for nine nights. “I knew that I hung In the wind-rocked tree Nine whole nights, Wounded with a spear; And to Odin offered Myself to myself, On that tree, Of which no one knows From what root it springs.” As he thus hangs, himself the sacrifice offered to himself as god, he composes a song of twice nine runes, and the result of the twelfth is:-- “If on a tree I see A corpse swinging by a halter, I can so grave runes And them write That that man shall with me Walk and converse.” That is to say, every victim hung on a tree becomes one of Odin’s band, with whom he rides in the storm blast over the earth. Unfortunately, the myth connected with this curious poem is not preserved; but we can gather so much from it, that Odin was said to have immolated himself to himself by hanging in the world-tree, and that thenceforth he claimed all men who had been hung as members of his band.