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Character Areas Tour Poetry and Prose about the Gardens
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The Saxon DeitiesStowe: Hawkwell Field
In the triangular area of northern Hawkwell Field formed by The Gothic Temple to the south, Lord Cobham's Monument to the north, and The Queen's Temple to the northwest, is a small dell encircled by seven stone plinths. Upon six of these plinths, as of 2005, stand the statues of the recently restored Saxon Deities Sunna, Mona, Tiw, Woden, Friga, and Seatern.
Originally, all seven Deities stood in a round hedged enclosure or cabinet, open to the sky and having an altar in the middle, in the area now occupied by the buildings of Stowe School. This was called the Saxon or Sylvan Temple and, according to the Survey, was in existence by 1720, though the statues themselves may not have been in place until 1729, by which time the sculptor Rysbrack had produced both them and several of the busts that eventually found their way into the Temple of British Worthies. Bevington places the Deities in the Sylvan Temple by around 1727. In the mid 1740s the statues were removed to an area just to the east of the Gothic Temple, and in 1771 to their present location.
The Deities give their names to the days of the week: Sunna (Sunday), Mona (Monday), Tiw (Tueday), Woden (Wednesday), Thor (Thursday), Friga (Friday), and Seatern (Saturday). Sunna and Mona represent the sun and the moon; Seatern (Saetern) the anglicized name of the Italian harvest god. In Norse mythology, Woden or Odin is the sky god, patron of culture, and the inventor of runes. Friga is his wife, queen of the gods and the goddess of married love; she is thought to have become assimilated with Freya, another wife of Odin and goddess of love, beauty, and fertility. Thor, a son of Odin, is the god of thunder, famed for his hammer -- the thunderbolt -- which always returned to him after being hurled as a weapon. Tiw, or Tyr, another son of Odin, is the Norse god of war.
Gilbert West celebrates the Saxon Deities in a passage of his poem on Stowe and emphasizes their significance as British (as opposed to classical) cultural icons. This emphasis on British cultural roots is present also in the neo-gothic architecutral style and the original name (Temple of Liberty) of the Gothic Temple.
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