... In every dialect appear kindred or derivative terms for the deity, for sacrifice, for temples, and for the priesthood.  This mythic religion was in some points a nature-worship, though there might have existed, as has been said, something more ancient, and superior to the worship of the visible and impersonated powers or energies of the material world.  The Romans discovered, not without wonder, that the supreme deity of the actual German worship was not invested in the attributes of their Jove, but rather of Mercury.  There is no doubt that Woden was the divinity to whom they assigned this name, a name which, in its various forms, (it became at length Odin,) is common to the Goths, Lombards, Saxons, Frisians, and other tribes.  In its primitive conception, if any of these conceptions were clear and distinct, Woden appears to have been the all-mighty, all-permeating Spirit—the Mind, the primal mover of things, the all-Wise, the God of speech and of knowledge.  But with a warlike people, the supreme deity could not but be a god of battle, the giver of victory.  He possessed therefore the attributes of Mars blended with those of Mercury.  The conduct or the reception of departed spirits, which belonged to the pagan Mercury, may have been one function which led to his identification with the Teutonic Woden.  Already, no doubt, their world of the dead was a rude Valhalla... (History of Latin Christianity, Milman, 1881)