General documentation
The Historic View:
The Terminology Heathen is in fact not a term that was ever used in the early days of the following, the term Heathen in fact was a name allocated to the followers of the tradition by the Christian Religion. It has since been adopted to a large extent as a generalized identification. In the days where birth was given to the "Odin" following there in fact none of the modern day identifying names tags and everyone merely "lived" and practiced the ways of old.
Thinking of the linguistic / anthropological terminology being "Germanic" of which consisted of a grouping of people in northern Europe sharing a common language as well as culture and religion. As time passed, seen to be 500 CE, this "open": ground got divided to what we now know as Germany, Denmark, Holland and Norway. This division as can be expected developed into their own individuality of language usage and communal dynamic and by the year 700CE there was a breakdown in communication and the growing differences in these divided communities.
Essentially the basis of the Germanic following centers around the Allfather, Lord Odin. Many names and variations exists, Odin, Wotan etc and we will look into all these names. Now, having said this i myself personally consider the terminology "Odinism" to be the original identity of the followers simply due to the fact that it identified the core, from this core it developed and birth was given to group identifying names and as we progress we will look at each and the basis of their standing.
Odinism:
A reconstructed religious organization with their main focus on Germanic Paganism, Mythology, Norse Paganism and Anglo Saxon Paganism. The wording of "Neo-völkisch movement " will sometimes be used in reference. in fact according to written history it was in the year 1848 that Orestes Brownson first used the term Odinism and this term was re-introduced by Rud Mills in the late 1930's so as we can see a identifying name only came as early as 1848. The Odinism following of which gained a foothold under this name developed into a fully fledged group during the 60's and early 70's, they still maintain their identification and in fact the term "Viking religion" and "Asatru" is shunned, the viking having only forms a short period of their history and was in fact not a religion or "path" in it's own right but rather a conquering military group of seafaring soldiers and certainly not a religious grouping. As they gained momentum and recognition in the year 1980 a name change came to be known as the Odinic Rite, this was brought into effect by John Gibbs-Bailey (known as "Hoskuld") and John Yeowell (known as "Stubba"), the founder members of the Committee for the Restoration of the Odinic Rite or Odinist Committee in England.
History:
http://www.wyrdwords.vispa.com/heathenry/reconstruction.html