There was a regular priesthood of the great gods, but each man was priest for his own household.

As in most other heathen communities, the real worship of the people was mainly directed to the special family deities of every hearth.

The great gods were appealed to by the chieftains and by the race in battle: but the household gods or deified ancestors received the chief homage of the churls by their own firesides.
Thus the Anglo-Saxons, before the great exodus from Denmark and North Germany, appear as a race of fierce, cruel, and barbaric pagans, delighting in the sea, in slaughter, and in drink.

They dwelt in little isolated communities, bound together internally by ties of blood, and uniting occasionally with others only for purposes of rapine.

They lived a life which mainly alternated between grazing, piratical seafaring, and cattle-lifting; always on the war-trail against the possessions of others, when they were not specially engaged in taking care of their own.