The quality of the workmanship is competent rather than exceptional, and it may well have been made by a local provincial craftsman. The carvings are intriguing and clearly had some religious significance.
The quote is from Stephen Pollington’s new book, Woden: A Historical Companion (p. 237). This post is not about the book as such (which I do intend to review here, in the near future), nor even about the particular carvings, which perhaps depict Woden/Óðinn with His ravens, as well as Þórr and the serpent, in the 12th-century English church that’s being described here.
Rather, I’d like to pause, and think about that “local provincial craftsman” whose work is “competent rather than exceptional.” It may well be that in that little corner of 12th-century Essex, as in many other places and times throughout history, that local craftsman was simply one of the only people available with the tools and the skills to execute the work: either he makes carvings that are “good enough,” or the space goes unadorned.
And yet.
The work is competent. It’s been seen and contemplated by countless people who’ve passed through that building, for more than eight centuries, and has inspired at least some of them, in whatever way, to turn their thoughts to the Holy Ones.
And even more than that, the anonymous workman himself had the joy, the honor, the privilege of using his time, his skill, and his labor to glorify the Gods, and to draw other humans closer to the Gods. This in itself is a gift, given to that craftsman by his community.
In our day, especially through the power of the internet, which facilitates labor arbitrage on a wider scale than ever before, it’s so very easy to sit down with a phone or computer and with a few clicks (or a few hours of scrolling through Etsy or wherever else), order “the perfect statue” for a shrine.
Let’s leave aside the worst cases, where the items are mass-produced in some third-world sweatshop, by workers who are woefully mistreated, abused, and underpaid, where the very designs they’re executing were stolen from pious individual craftspeople elsewhere. We clearly don’t want to offer that to our Gods.
In the best cases, those Etsy purchases support individual craftspeople who are pious and devout, who delight in spending their working days making the Gods visible in wood or stone, clay or canvas, and who, by the standards of the place in which they live, are able to make ends meet by doing so. In those cases, we are in fact giving those craftspeople a blessing, not unlike the one the 12th-century carver in Essex received, by commissioning or purchasing their wares. That’s a good thing.
And yet.
The Essex carver no doubt walked into that church himself, regularly, for the rest of his life. His neighbors knew him and his work, thought not only of the Gods, but also of their neighbor the carver, when they gazed upon the carved symbols of Þórr and Óðinn which their neighbor’s hands had shaped.
That community gave their neighbor one of the most wonderful blessings, by allowing him, through their support, to spend at least a few of his days bringing to earth, through his hands, the images of the Holy Powers — indeed, to spend at least a few of his days in such close imitation of Óðinn and His Brothers, who shaped the images of our first parents, Askr and Embla, there on the rocky shore. And even after the work was done, they allowed their neighbor to continue his imitation of the Gods, day after day, viewing his own small work of creation in the place where he too was present, just as the Gods are always present, continuing to look after the humans and the world that they have made.
And that community gave themselves a special blessing. In turning to their neighbor, rather than looking to hire (or import the work of) some “exceptional” carver from far away, they became a community in which that divine work of creation is carried on, here and now, so directly and immediately.
Perhaps that’s even better.
barefootwisdom 