The artizan class, such as it was, must have been attached to the houses of the chieftains, probably in a servile position.  Pottery was manufactured of excellent but simple patterns.  Metal work was, of course, thoroughly understood, and the Anglo-Saxon swords and knives discovered in barrows are of good construction.  Every chief had also his minstrel, who sang the short and jerky Anglo-Saxon songs to the accompaniment of a harp.  The dead were burnt and their ashes placed in tumuli in the north:  the southern tribes buried their warriors in full military dress, and from their tombs much of the little knowledge which we possess as to their habits is derived.  Thence have been taken their swords, a yard long, with ornamental hilt and double-cutting edge, often covered by runic inscriptions; their small girdle knives; their long spears; and their round, leather-faced, wooden shields.  The jewellery is of gold, enriched with coloured enamel, pearl, or sliced garnet.  Buckles, rings, bracelets, hairpins, necklaces, scissors, and toilet requisites were also buried with the dead.  Glass drinking-cups which occur amongst the tombs, were probably imported from the continent to Kent or London; and some small trade certainly existed with the Roman world, as we learn from Baeda.

In faith the English remained true to their old Teutonic myths.  Their intercourse with the Christian Welsh was not of a kind to make them embrace the religion which must have seemed to them that of slaves and enemies.  Baeda tells us that the English worshipped idols, and sacrificed oxen to their gods.  Many traces of their mythology are still left in our midst.

First in importance among their deities came Woden, the Odin of our Scandinavian kinsmen, whose name we still preserve in Wednesday (dies Mercurii).  To him every royal family of the English traced its descent.  Mr. Kemble has pointed out many high places in England which keep his name to the present day.  Wanborough, in Surrey, at the heaven-water-parting of the Hog’s Back, was originally Wodnesbeorh, or the hill of Woden.  Wanborough, in Wiltshire, which divides the valleys of the Kennet and the Isis, has the same origin; as has also Woodnesborough in Kent.  Wonston, in Hants, was probably Woden’s stone; Wambrook, Wampool, and Wansford, his brook, his pool, and his ford.  All these names are redolent of that nature-worship which was so marked a portion of the Anglo-Saxon religion.  Godshill, in the Isle of Wight, now crowned by a Christian church, was also probably the site of early Woden worship.  The boundaries of estates, as mentioned in charters, give instances of trees, stones, and posts, used as landmarks, and dedicated to Woden, thus conferring upon them a religious sanction, like that of Hermes amongst the Greeks.  Anglo-Saxon worship generally gathered around natural features; and sacred oaks, ashes, wells, hills, and rivers are among the commonest memorials of our heathen ancestors.  Many of them were reconsecrated after the introduction of Christianity to saints of the church, and so have retained their character for sanctity almost to our own time.