I was recently astounded to read in Richard Rudgley's 2018 book The Return of Odin that

Today in both American and British pagan circles, practitioners generally divide themselves into three basic groups: Wiccans; Druids, and those who follow some kind of Celtic religion; and Heathens, those who follow Germanic and Norse traditions [231].

Admittedly, the book was originally published in 2006; maybe things were simpler in those days.

Still, if I knew Rudgley well enough to tease him, or if I weren't a Midwesterner, and hence constitutionally incapable of public rudeness, I would really have to suggest that maybe, just maybe, he needs to get out a bit more often.

I don't know about Britain—although I have my doubts—but here in the US, I can assure you from personal experience that pagans come in lots more flavors than Wiccan, Celtic, or Germanic.

Lots more.

So I can't help but find it a jest for the gods that, in fact, I can recognize something of myself in all three of Rudgley's categories.

Me, I'm a Witch of the Tribe of Witches. While I don't self-identify as Wiccan, I have those initiations under my cincture, and I'd check the box, if that's what there were to be checked.

Our roots (and name) go back to the old Anglo-Saxon Hwicce (HWITCH-eh) people of Britain's Cotswolds and Severn basin, so you could call me a Heathen of sorts as well. The Younger Heathenry figured out long before anyone else that, when the bristles meet the breeze, there's no real paganism without tribe.

(It's something of a wry insiders' joke among us that we're “too Heathen for the Witches, and too Witchy for the Heathens.”)

That said, as both archaeology and genetics demonstrate, there's cultural and demographic continuity between the elder Hwicce and the old Celtic Dobunni tribe who had previously held the same territory. In us, their children whether by birth or adoption—in our calendar, our language, our thews (= customs, ways)—Celtic and Germanic meet, join hands, and kiss. The fact is, we're a mixed people, and have been from the start.

Now in diaspora around the world, truly have the latter-day Hwicce become a people of many peoples, many places, and many wisdoms; but always we remain true to kind.

Rarely in our journeys have we ever met a hedge we couldn't straddle.

Richard Rudgley (2018) The Return of Odin: The Modern Renaissance of Pagan Imagination. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions.