From VVoden, by which name they stiled Mercury.
Of the Britons descent from Ioue, if you remember but AEneas sonneto Anchises, and Venus, with her deriuation of 〈◊〉〈◊〉 from Iupiters parents, suffi∣cient declaration will offer it selfe. For this of Woden, see somewhat to the III. Song. To what you read there, I here more fitly add this: Woden, in Saxon Ge∣nealogies, is ascended to, as the chiefe Ancestor of their most Roiall Proge∣nies; so you may see in Nennius, Bede, Ethelwerd, Florence of Worcester, an Anonymus de Regali Prosapia, Huntingdon, and Houeden, yet in such sort that in some of them they goe beyond him, through Frithwald, Frealaf, 〈◊〉〈◊〉, Fin, Godulph, Geta, and others, to Seth; But with so much vncertainty, that I imagine many of their descents were iust as true as the Theogonie in Hestod, 〈◊〉〈◊〉, or that of Prester Iohns, sometimes deriuing d himselfe very neere from the loines of Salomon. Of this Woden, beside my Authors nam'd, speci∣all mention is found in Paul e Warnfred who makes Frea his wife (others call her Fricco, and by her vnderstand Venus) and Adam f of Breme, which de∣scribe him as Mars, but in Geffrey of Monmouth, & 〈◊〉〈◊〉, in Hengists own person, he is affirm'd the same with Mercurie, who by Tacitus report was their chiefe Detty; and that also is warranted in the denomination of our Wodensday (according to the Dutch Wodensdagh) for the fourth day of the week titled by the ancient Planetary account with Name of Mercury. If that allusion in the Illustrations of the III. Song to Merc, allow it him not, then take the other first taught me by g Lipsius fetching Wodan frō Won or Win which is to Gain, and so make his name Wondan expressing in that sence the selfe h name 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 vsed by the Greekes. But without this inquiry you vnderstand the Au∣thor.