[81] Great synod—great meeting.
[82] Stuarts English Constitution, p. 275.
[83] Mallets North. Antiq. Vol. I. 61. The northern nations had, like the Greeks, twelv principal deities, and this article in their religious beleef might originate the institution of twelv preests, twelv judges, &c. Many civil institutions among rude nations, may be traced to their religious opinions; and perhaps the preference given to the number twelv, in Germany, in Greece, and in Judea, had its origin in some circumstances az ancient az the race of the Jews.
Odin, which in Anglo Saxon, waz Woden, waz the supreme god of the Goths, answering to the Jupiter of the Greeks: And it iz remarkable that the words, god, good, odin and woden, all sprung from one source. We shall not be surprized that the same word should begin with such different letters, when we reflect that such changes are very common. The Danes omit w in word; a dictionary they call ord-bog, a word book; and the Spaniards, in attempting to pronounce w, always articulate g. See my Dissertations, p. 335.
[84] North. Antiq. Vol. I. 169.
[85] London, in England, probably had its name from this place.
[86] North. Antiq. Vol. II. 41.
[87] See Chardin's Travels, Vol. III.
[88] Tac. de Mor. Germ. c. 7.
[89] Tac. de Mor. Germ. c. 11.