Disclaimer: This piece merely reflects my own understanding of this deity based on my research and experiences.

📜 Englisc Seaxnéat

In the Old English context, we see Seaxnéat as a figure at the head of the Essex royal genealogy (which was later altered to place Wóden as his father). His name in Old English can be broken into seax ‘sax, knife’ (the characteristic knife of the Saxon) + (ge)néat ‘comrade, companion’ (related to néat ‘animal; cow, ox’); thus, his name could possibly be interpreted as ‘knife-companion’ or perhaps ‘companion of the Saxons.’

Apart from the genealogy and his name, there are virtually no records of this figure in Old English. We must therefore look to other sources to uncover more about Seaxnéat.

⛪ Old Saxon Saxnôt

In the 9th century Baptismal Vow found in Mainz, Germany, which seems to be in some form of Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian, or Old English, there is mention of three deities which the person being baptized must renounce:

This does not give us any detail about these figures, but it does indicate that these three deities were considered important, including the enigmatic Saxnôt. It is this importance which has led scholars to pursue various avenues for identifying Saxnôt with better-known figures in Germanic paganism.

⚔️ Seaxnéat as Týr?

Some scholars^❦1Grimm 1835; Chaney 1970 have linked Seaxnéat with the figure of Zio/Týr/Tíw. The primary basis of this link seems to be the association with war that a name such as ‘knife companion’ might imply. This appears insubstantial when considering that many (if not most) Germanic deities have some association with war (particularly Wôden, another of the gods mentioned in the Baptismal Vow).

Another, more circuitous connection has been drawn on the basis of long-range Indo-European etymology, particularly that of the element néat. This term derives ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *neud- ‘grasp, acquire, use’ (cf. Old English néotan ‘to use,’ Gothic ganiutan ‘to obtain, catch’) which philologists such as Tolkien^❦2Tolkien 1932 and Wagner^❦3Wagner 1986, p 180-187 have also posited as the etymon of the celtic theonym nōdens; a connection with tíw is then made based on this proposed etymological relation with Nōdens. There are two problems with this connection, however:

Given these issues, I find attempts to link Seaxnéat with Týr unconvincing.

🌱 Seaxnéat as Freyr?

In his Lexikon der germanischen Mythologie^❦6Simek 1984, p 340, Rudolf Simek notes that, given that Saxnôt is named along with Thunær and Wôden, he must have been an important god. This assessment makes sense — he was named as one of the gods whom the Saxon being baptised must renounce. Simek, however, goes on to state that, while others have attempted an identification with Týr, “an identification with Freyr (Turville-Petre) would seem to be more likely according to the Indo-Germanic —> three-system function.” Simek here is invoking (via Gabriel Turville-Petre) the trifunctional hypothesis of George Dumézil, which posits that Proto-Indo-European society was divided into priestly, warrior, and commoner classes with representation of these respective sacred, martial, and economic/fertility domains in the pantheon.

This hypothesis has been contested on multiple fronts, but whether it is to be accepted or not, it is not clear how this hypothesis is relevant to what we find in the Baptismal Vow; even if these three domains were salient in the religion and culture of the saxons, it does not necessarily follow that the three deities who were considered most important in the context of the Baptismal Vow corresponded exactly to these three domains. The deities that a particular culture considers important do not always neatly fit the molds of what is expected by comparative mythological frameworks.

There are also issues with identifying these deities with Dumézil’s domains: if “Freyr”-Saxnôt is to be identified with the third (economic/fertility/commoners) domain, how are we to assign the sacred/priestly and the martial domains? Wôden’s counterpart in Norse myth, for example, has associations with both magic and warfare, and Thunær’s is associated both common folk and is invoked in runic inscriptions asking him to ‘hallow’ them.

Therefore, while it is very likely that the three deities listed in the Baptismal Vow were considered of chief importance to the Saxons, identifying Saxnôt on the basis of postulated Indo-European domains is fraught with difficulty.

🗡️ Seaxnéat as himself

Hidden behind many of the scholarly attempts to identify Seaxnéat with another deity is an unexamined assumption: that his apparent importance to the Saxons necessitates his equivalency with a deity who is prominently cited in other (chiefly Norse) sources. There are two interrelated contentions I would make in the face of this assumption:

It seems very likely that Seaxnéat was a deity that was venerated as a patron or perhaps an ancestor of the Saxon people. This importance seems to have been continued by the Saxons who later established Essex, at least as late as the composition of their earliest royal genealogies.

📝 A quick summary

Below is a quick summary of some of the key points presented in the earlier sections of this page:

• • A figure named Seaxnéat is listed as an ancestral figure in the Essex royal genealogy; his name is most likely connected with the characteristic knife of the Saxons (the sax), or with the Saxons themselves.
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• • There is an Old Saxon Baptismal Vow wherein the baptizee must renounce a god name Saxnôt (cognate with Seaxnéat), alongside Wôden & Thunær. This suggests that he was significant to the Saxons.
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• • Due to his significance, many scholars have assumed he must correlate with a figure found in Norse sources, such as Týr or Freyr. It is my opinion that these correlations are built upon shakey evidence, and moreover are unnecessary.
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• • His importance seems to be largely based on his particular connection with the Saxon people, a connection which survived even into the formation of the Old English kingdom of Essex.

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🍂 Notes & Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Nico Solheim-Davidson for helping me gain access to some of these resources.

• ^❦1 Grimm 1835; Chaney 1970
• ^❦2 Tolkien 1932
• ^❦3 Wagner 1986, p 180-187
• ^❦4 Mallory & Adams 2006, p 129
• ^❦5 Matasović 2009, p 350
• ^❦6 Simek 1984, p 340

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📚 Bibliography

• 🔖 Chaney, WA 1970· The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England: The Transition from Paganism to Christianity
• 🔖 Grimm, J 1835· Deutsche Mythologie
• 🔖 Mallory, J & Adams, DQ 2006· The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World
• 🔖 Matasović, R 2009· Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Celtic
• 🔖 Tolkien, JRR 1932· “The name Nodens,” Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London
• 🔖 Wagner, H 1986· “Zur Etymologie von keltisch Nodons, Ir. Nuadu, Kymr. Nudd/Lludd,” Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 41
• 🔖 Simek, R 1984· Lexikon der germanischen Mythologie

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