And there, sadly, the trail goes cold. Possibly because there is nothing in Old Norse lore about Éostre/Ôstara, she’s a bit neglected by many modern heathens. A lot simply celebrate the equinox itself, along with the wiccans. It’s been suggested she’s Iðunn, which is a bit odd – the apple trees are only now blooming in the mild climate where I am, but of course the chickens and other birds have been busy laying.

And of course we’re all (except those unfortunates still waiting for the snow to get out of the way; and the antipodeans) rejoicing in the springtime. Things are growing again. There are fresh greens at the farmers’ market. Gardening is more than reading seed catalogs and trying to protect things against frost and wind. Everything is leaping out of the ground, in most places, and the trees are setting about clothing their bareness. The animals are glad of the warmth and the longer days, and so are we.

Éostre/Ôstara’s name is cognate with those of various Indo-European dawn goddesses, and although the beginning of the heathen year is back at the start of Yule, this is the start of the growing year; recall that our forefathers started the day at sunset, which is why Hávamál advises us not to praise the day till evening – when it is over and the new one beginning. We’ve made our way through the dark days, the evening and the night of the beginning year, and now here is the sunshine of morning.

So I hailed and thanked Éostre this morning, and will continue to do so as this (lunar) month continues. It is churlish to forget her just because the Norsemen apparently hid her away under some other name – or Snorri forgot to mention her. (We have lost so much. Maybe he did not approve of the traditional rites of the tide, such as running barefoot in the fields, juggling eggs? Maybe he wasn’t aware she could be related to Greco-Roman?) At least the Anglo-Saxons and Germans preserved her name, and they preserved so little, we should value it all the more. Besides, the springtime is a lovely time, even for those who love the winter. It’s a time of promise and possibility.

Hail Éostre, hail Ôstara.

Wulfy while troubled by health problems tried to be part of the fragmented Heathen community, wanting to look deeper to his own spirituality; unfortunately in many of the self reflections his confidence became shaken and the core of his beliefs questioned.

Upon the time of his transmigration from this world to the Other World, he was in a dark place within his beliefs, due to the rapid decline of his health it became increasingly difficult to help him through the darkness.

Now a year later it is time the transmigration be completed, while it can not be done by me at his final resting place the winds carry the words to the trees to speak all the same. I debated on posting this writing in English and decided that it would be best that I did for those who knew Wulfy:

Passing of Máni and Sól upon the Gods’ disc.
Twisted woods with dark paths.
Water cold flows to the knees now.
Now deep with in dark the colours all faded.
No exit from this land can be seen by most.
With the pale orb high take my hand to escape this wonder land.
Troubled spirits echoing on time lost to most.
Winds carry the words silently spoken upon the songs of birds.

Power is the earth … power is from the sky high above.
Take the mark of Týr and keep your head held high.
The road lays before now, go forth to make the journey in the Other World.
Where the line of your ancestors becomes clear.
Go forth through tall trees with open paths.
Huldrefolk lead the way to the clearing of woods.
And soon you will find paradise!

Monsters of this world you are free of now.
Your spirit is faded from the view of most.
All the life that once was is a ghost to you now.
Those across the gods’ disc will see you again.
When they fall asleep.

May you find what you were looking for but could not find in this world.

Noil

Briefly, based on an analysis of “mythologies” of the Indo-European language family, and using texts such as Rígsþula as keys, Dumézil grouped the gods (and as an afterthought the goddesses) into one of three functional niches: sovereignty, war, and fertility (often referred to as first, second, and third function respectively). He saw the first function as characteristically divided between two gods: a “sovereign god of law” and a “sovereign god of magic” (his type examples are Mitra and Varuṇa, respectively). The second function is pretty easy to understand: gods like the Hindu Indra, the Greek Ares, and the Roman Mars. For the third function, he was heavily influenced by Greek and so regarded fertility gods as also having to do with death: chthonic. Dumézil saw the fertility gods as characteristically paired and associated with twin-ness; this partly because of the Greek Dioscuroi and Vedic Aśvins, both divine twins, and partly because sexual relations require two bodies. The Vanir seemed to him to obviously fit this third function, and this is probably why so many heathens have absorbed the notion that Freyja and Freyr are not just sister and brother, but twins. It was in fact the Germanic pantheon that led him to divide the first function, that of sovereignty, between two gods: in order to accommodate both Týr and Óðinn. Some of the details of his theory show this quite clearly: the first kind of sovereign deity (Mitra, Týr) embodies divine Law and is implacable, while the second (Varuṇa, Óðinn) manipulates things and is from a human point of view cruel and capricious. Týr is god of the þing and does not laugh; Óðinn is called furor (fury) by Adam of Bremen and rather often kills his followers. Whereas Mitra and Varuṇa tend to be contrasted by calling one day and the other night, one the god of the visible and the other of the invisible, and so forth; a lot more abstract.

Dumézil’s theory was developed primarily based on gods of ancient India and the Zoroastrian figures that are successors to them and on Roman history, legend, and custom that tell us about the effaced pantheon of ancient Rome. In these materials, there is quite a clear element of social stratification, the Indian castes being quite blatant. One way of defining mythology that is widely accepted in academia is as stories that teach social relations in religious terms. In some sense of course, this is obvious; we learn a little bit from every story, in particular about human relations, behavioral options, and morals, and a story about the gods, being important, is thus particularly influential. But Dumézil glommed onto the threefold class heirarchy presented in Indic texts in particular, and welcomed Rígsþula as an almost unambiguously similar statement among Germanic texts. So there is a definite element of classism behind his analysis: he does indeed regard the gods of the first function as superior to those of the second, and those of the second as superior to the agricultural gods of the third function. Applied to heathenry, this leads to the idea that Thor is a god of churls and that followers of Óðinn are inherently better – as sometimes seen in the works of Edred – and to dismissal of the Vanir. It’s also been the main point of protest against Dumézil now that the shine has worn off his work since he died: he was personally enamored of class and authoritarianism, and anti-imperialist nativists are among the main attackers of the whole Indo-European enterprise, so they don’t like that at all.

But in any case – this doesn’t fit heathenry at all well. To begin with Rígsþula: that’s an anomalous poem about a god otherwise unmentioned in the lore, whose name is the Irish word for king, and who may or may not be Heimdallr. It also breaks off after defining four classes: Kon Ungr, the prototype of the king, is Rígr’s grandson, the son of the last of his three sons. And where is the support in the rest of the lore for social stratification related to different gods? All I can think of is the gibes in Harbarðsljóð.

“Gods of the peasantry” is a poor way to think of the Vanir. They were winning the war against the Æsir at one point – they devastated Asgard so that it had to be provided with a new wall by the giant builder. Freyr is betstr allra ballriða (best of all warriors – Lokasenna), folkvaldi goða (leader of the host of the gods – Skírnismál), and even ása iaðarr (lord of Æsir – Lokasenna again). Lest we think these terms are tongue-in-cheek, let’s recall that in addition to being the or one of the leaders of an army that breached the defences of Asgard, he not only killed a giant with a stag’s antler – he could have done it with his bare hands (Gylfaginning). And he’s called veraldar goð (god of the world, a term that lived on in Sami religion) in both Ynglingasaga and Flateyjarbók. That’s your “warrior function” as well as your “sovereign function.” And in any case, Germanic armies have always been fairly meritocratic. They started as levies of all the suitably aged men of the tribe and continued as levies of the menfolk of a shire or a country. That’s the same guys who farmed the fields. And in the Viking Age, the viking went out harrying to get treasure – with which to settle on a farm. (Unless of course he made himself king of some place like Sicily.) Classes of people who don’t farm, let alone a middle caste who only make war, are a late development in Germanic society, only really coming about under feudalism. As we see from both the sagas and the lore of the gods, such a division of labor is just not Germanic, especially the brushing off of farming. What mattered more was how free the farmer was.

And our gods all have something to do with sex. Thor blesses the marriage with his hammer! In fact, Thor single-handedly casts the tripartite division into doubt. He’s not a muscle-bound brute – he’s djúphugaðr, the deep-thinker (Haustlǫng), and he bests the dwarf Alvíss (all-wise, heh) handily in a contest of wits. Conversely, pretty much all our gods have to do with war – Týr, Óðinn, and Thor are often grouped together as “war gods,” and of course Týr is particularly identified that way. Not with rulership; some people don’t even known he is also god of the þing. Dumézil was troubled from the start by this “flattening” effect whereby “first function” gods of sovereignty were “pushed down” to the “second function” of war, and he became so troubled by the variety of manifestations of strength in Germanic “myths” that he bisected the second function, too, to account for Thor’s associations with fertility and the earth and for the frequent occurrence of chaotic warriors in Germanic stories. Of course, that meant he had each of the three “functions” divided between two types,  making it simpler and potentially more accurate to resolve the system as a dualistic opposition between constructive and destructive.

But in Germanic terms, it simply won’t wash anyway. Freyr won’t fit well into his system; Thor won’t fit well into his system; Óðinn frankly won’t fit well into any system; and what about Freyja taking half of those who die in battle? If that is simply the death part of being a “chthonic” deity, then what about the other half, that Óðinn takes? And looking at sovereignty, don’t Baldr and Forseti fit that model quite as well as Týr? One of the big problems is that war was the ultimate way of settling judicial questions in Germanic culture; this remains so even after the custom becomes accepted of saving general bloodshed by having a duel between designated representatives stand in for battle between armies. So it simply isn’t true that sovereignty and legal judgment resided in a sphere distinct from war. War was a legal judgment and the ruler had to be a warrior, not just a general. Dumézil’s class stereotypes don’t fit, and Germanic tribes did not set roles apart even in the manner of the three Vedic castes. Also, Freyja’s magic (and many names) are a counterpoint to Óðin’s. And where does Ullr fit in the neat system? Never mind Loki . . .

One reason the Germanic pantheon busts out of Dumézil’s system may simply be that we have an unusually large number of gods and goddesses recorded. Snorri tried to say there were 13, presumably on the model of the Greek pantheon, but there are far more in his own work. But those we know most about fit least well into the niches. And the whole thing presupposes that the Germanic pantheon changed only slightly after the tribes left the Indo-European homeland. That flies in the face of a lot of evidence. The Æsir-Vanir war and subsequent treaty. The substantial indications that Týr and Ullr are older gods. (One cannot have it both ways – if Týr was originally the same figure as the Greek Zeus, and a sky god, then it’s plain his role in the pantheon has changed.) In fact the rigidity of Dumézil’s theory and its problems accommodating our gods and goddesses cast into question the closeness of our pantheon to other Indo-European ones. It reminds one of how different the Ṛg-Veda and the Greek and Roman myths are from our lore. They have very different themes and obsessions (gods and goddesses manipulating people; gods giving people a whole raft of rules to live by . . . ) That’s why Rígsþula is so anomalous – it’s more like those other scriptures than the rest of our stuff is. And it’s the contact point with Dumézil’s theory.

So I think we’re better off not letting it color our view of the gods; and rolling back the influence it has had in our thinking, such as Edred’s assertions about Odinists being superior to Thorians, the comparative neglect of the Vanir, and views of kingship as inherently Germanic.

This particular blót is very regional depended in that where you live it may not be anywhere near the time to prepare the fields or tools for planting because of winter conditions. So for many people the blót is done at a later time when it is more appropriate for their location.

February also marks the event of Þorrablót in which a whole month of festivities go on. While not related directly to Heathenry, the event stems from a Icelandic chief who wanted to be remembered so he sponsored and hosted a month long party, which from that point on has taken on name of the month Þorri.

Noil

The dísir are a problem for academics. They seem superfluous. Norse belief has so many spirits: vættir, huldrufolk, fylgjur, valkyries . . . and there’s obvious blurring around the edges, or confusion. For instance, what is one to make of Þiðranda Þáttr, in which nine black-clad dísir on black horses or kin-fylgjur fight with nine light-clad dísir or fylgjur on white horses over an eighteen-year-old who out of hospitality has disobeyed orders not to open the door on Winternights, and slay him, in an elaborate play-acting of the struggle between heathenry and Xianity in late-10th-century Iceland? The story ends with a vision of all the vættir emerging from their underground homes as Xianity triumphs. The lad who is the victim is described as humble – a natural Xian. (The writer probably didn’t care that hospitality is more of a heathen virtue than a Xian.) But those dísir or fylgjur – the story uses both labels – are a weird valkyric blend. Why not just call them fylgjur – or valkyries – and have done with the dís label? Again, nobody calls gods vættir (except in Anglo-Saxon, where wiht, “wight,” simply means “being” or in some compounds, “thing”) or calls goddesses fylgjur or valkyries (although many academics regard Þorgerðr Hǫlgabrúðr and Irpa as valkyries rather than goddesses). But Freyja is Vanadís (dís of the Vanir) and Skaði is Ǫndurdís (snowshoe dís). Further confusion is added by the role of the idisi in the Old High German First Merseburg Charm: they tie and untie battle-fetters. This is the classic role posited for the valkyries by KveldulfR Gundarson, and reflected in a couple of valkyrie names (Hlǫkk and Herfjǫtr). And in Anglo-Saxon idis simply means “lady.” So a very confused, messy picture out of which no discrete role emerges for the dísir.

However, take it from the other side, and this is a rare case indeed in which we have attestations from the entire span of historical heathenry, and all the sections of the Germanic world. The names Ǫndurdís and Vanadís tell us that in Old Norse dís can, or does, refer to someone divine. In fact Freyja is also called Vanaguð (deity of the Vanir), just like Freyr and their father Njǫrð, and Skaði can also be called Ǫndurguð. Also we have mentions of the dísablót – blót to the dísir – and the name of the Swedish January fair, Disting, which must originally have been associated with that as Dísaþing. And most decisively the story of King Aðils of Sweden dying when he profanes the dísarsálr – the hall of the dís (often misinterpreted by academics who should know better as plural dísir, but the “r” makes it singular in form, sacred to one dís). One academic posited with some reason that dís was an older word for “goddess,” pointing out that the goddesses, including Freyja, are usually referred to in the texts as ásynjur, but that actually only means female Æsir. This has been roundly ignored, but at least one other scholar thought similarly: Gwyn Jones titled his translation of “Þiðranda Þáttr” “Thidrandi Whom the Goddesses Slew.” In Anglo-Saxon, although we don’t have anything but prosaic uses of the word idis, we do have Bede’s laconic words on Módranect (various spellings), “Mothers’ Night,” being the beginning of the heathen year and celebrated all night (the night of the Winter Solstice, which at the time was the official date of Xian Yule, too, although the calendar had in fact slipped by a few days since it was established in Rome). And the “Matrones” for whom Germanic people paid for scads of votive tablets and altars in Roman-occupied Europe are also mothers. Plus of course the First Merseburg Charm idisi – and one cannot overemphasize how precious information on heathenry among the continental Germanic tribes is; we have hardly anything left.

So from that point of view, we have two different words, the (i)dís word and the term “mothers”, but thanks to the German evidence, it looks as if it all belongs together; and we have roles, or natures of the beings, that flummox the academics. Part of this may be change over vast time (and fragmentation of the culture). Anglo-Saxons had clearly lost any association of the word idis with heathenry. Whether before or after the conversion is hard to say, but they appear to have buried Freyja (Fréo) where the Xians couldn’t find her name, so there may have been some speaking in code and euphemisms involved. (Indeed there was in Old Norse: Freyr and Freyja are known to us by what must originally have been titles, “lord” and “lady”). They kept the associated holy tide as the less specifically heathen “Mothers’ Night.” The Germans kept memories of the idisi as slayers, as fighters who go up against the other side – which is also the role of the dark dísir in “Þiðranda Þáttr,” but with horses and swords rather than spells. Only the Norse texts give us examples of a single dís – in Skaði’s and Freyja’s alternate names, and in the dísarsálr, which may have been a temple to Freyja.

Modern heathenry has taken an approach based on what Bede says and supported by the Dísablót, and identified the dísir as our female ancestors. But usually they are seen as being particular female ancestors, who are strong enough to take on a role protecting the family descended from them, or who choose to do so. As such, they’re regarded as individuals. All those plurals – Matrones, idisi, Módranect, Dísablót – suggest they were usually thought of en masse. As indeed were the gods – heathens in Scandinavia clung to the custom of referring to the gods as an indissoluble totality, with the neuter plural words like guð, bǫnd, hǫpt, and regin/rǫgn. Possibly what has happened is that with the attenuation of the heathen tradition in the roughly 1,000 years of the gap, the number of dísir has dwindled. But it’s certain that the customary honoring of them is for all of them.

I think it is an alternate word for “goddess” – that’s what it is in Vanadís and Ǫndurdís! But it also, clearly, refers to our ancestral mothers. I have no explanation of the sex imbalance here; there is clearly something wrong with seeing the Álfablót as the corresponding honor done to our male ancestors if it implies that they change species after they die, as it seems to; unless it has to do with the incontrovertibility of descent in the female line. The child visibly issues from a particular woman’s womb. (And here I will make the obligatory shoutout to Heimdallr, with his nine mothers. Some mysteries remain mysteries.)  But what the academics seem most freaked out about is that the dísir/idisi sometimes kill people. Like valkyries. And after all, is that so strange? Ours is not a culture in which women wielding swords are something totally weird – although the lore is strangely silent on the goddesses killing (except for Þorgerðr Hǫlgabrúðr), I am sure they are all perfectly ready and able to do so. The literary development of the valkyrie, who becomes a princess running around in armor who falls for a hero and aids him in battle (just like Þorgerðr Hǫlgabrúðr), can be seen as evidence of Xian titillation with warrior-women. It’s strange in their culture, not in ours. And that may be the whole story about why the dísir don’t seem to fit well – they are a part of ancestor veneration and they have always been ready to take up the cudgels for us, and these became strange things as time went by and ways of thinking shifted. So did remembering that our families – which the vast majority of us nowadays think of as nuclear families, plus a few aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, and nieces – are in fact parts of a whole fabric. We are all related to uncounted numbers of others, living and dead. And so our dísir are tribal whether we are or not.

And so as the world turns over into a new year and the time out of our normal lives, to be with our families, to consider our goals, and to honor the gods for 12 nights and days that is Yule begins, we should honor the dísir, our mothers, for they connect us to our origins and they help and defend us today. I do not think the academic had it exactly right – a dís is not a goddess, but a goddess may be called a dís. It is an old word of honor, a layer laid down in the Well, and not effaced. We should honor all our mothers as well as our gods and goddesses, and tonight is the night for the Mothers.

Lets examine the passages:

“Þá er ok lauss orðinn hundrinn Garmr, er bundinn er fyrir Gnipahelli. Hann er it mesta forað. Hann á víg móti Tý, ok verðr hvárr öðrum at bana.

Then shall the dog Garmr be loosed, which is bound before Gnipa’s Cave: he is the greatest monster; he shall do battle with Týr, and each become the other’s slayer.”

Gylfaginning 51, Prose Edda – Thorpe translation

In Thorpe’s translation many of the scribes since Snorri, this passage has been scribed as Týr doing battle with Garmr, however the battle does not make sense; in many ways this battle seems to be more Óðinnistic in nature and appears to be an overshadowing. It is well established that Óðinn and Fenrir fight in which Fenrir swallows Óðinn who is immediately avenged by Viðarr, who kills Fenrir by tearing the wolf into two halves.

There is also the fact that both Garmr and Fenrir are bound and have a relationship to Hel; on this alone it would seem more likely that Garmr is in fact Fenrir; as it is implied in the Völuspá.

“Geyr nú Garmr mjök fyr Gnipahelli,
festr mun slitna en freki renna;
fjölð veit ek fræða fram sé ek lengra
um ragna rök römm sigtíva.

Now Garmr howls loud | before Gnipahellir,
The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free;
Much do I know, | and more can see
Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight.”

Völuspá 58, Poetic Edda – Bellows translation

The similarities between Garmr and Fenrir can not be ignored when it is looked at closely. As we know from the Prose Edda that Fenrir was bound after having run loose causing chaos and destruction; this is further supported in Nordic folklore and warnings about the great wolf. The lore does not give an account to why Garmr is fettered, it is simply stated as such as Óðinn passes him at the entrance to the Gnipa-Cave where the seeress who knows Baldr’s killer lies. In addition to the binding of both Garmr and Fenrir the lore says both howl and bay out as if they are in pain; in the case of Fenrir we know this cause of pain is a sword that is placed in his mouth. For Garmr there is no lore that explains why he howls out.

With this connections between Garmr and Fenrir it is possible that both are the same; in that Garmr is a shadow of Fenrir and the product of poetic creativity.

As such getting back to the confusion between týr and Týr; if one approaches the battle of Ragnarök now with Garmr and Fenrir being one in the same; it removes Týr from the final battle. Which would be more fitting as by this time of the late Viking Age Týr played such a minor role in the Nordic countries where he was barely known as Týr. The mere fact that the Nordic people referred to him as “God” suggests his ancient stature; in fact he is so old that his name had been forgotten where as in the regions further south in Germania the proto-Germanic Tiwaz becomes Zîu in Old High German and in Anglo-Saxon England Tíw or Tí(g) (í and ig both mean long i) his name is remembered and therefore shows the separation of the being from the role.

It is well established that Óðinn was increasing his role as the Christian influence over Heathen beliefs in the north took more root and moved the society towards a monotheistic view point. With the expansion in role at the time the lore was recorded by Snorri some 200+ years after Heathenism in Iceland the confusion between “god” and Tiwaz would have well been cemented in the minds of those recounting the stories of their ancestors.

So what does it mean now?

If the lore passages are re-evaluated to:

** Then shall the wolf Fenrir be loosed, which is bound before Gnipa’s Cave: he is the greatest monster; he shall do battle with god, and each become the other’s slayer. ** — indirectly Óðinn is the slayer of Fenrir as proven by Viðarr the son of Óðinn.

** Now Fenrir howls loud | before Gnipahellir,
The fetters will burst, | and the wolf run free;
Much do I know, | and more can see
Of the fate of the gods, | the mighty in fight. ** — this passage makes a lot more sense when referring to Fenrir and not Garmr.

Notice the only changes I made in the above passages was changing the dog Garmr to the wolf Fenrir and Týr to God. I bolded the wolf passage in the Völsupá to show the key to the whole reworking of the lore. I think this is an important correction that is long over due both in ancient and modern thinking. With this correction it shows that Tiwaz was indeed not involved in the battle or at the very least will not be killed in Ragnarök.

Noil

Veiztu hvé raða skal?

Veiztu hvé fá skal?

Veitztu hvé freista skal?

Veiztu hvé biðia skal?

Veiztu hvé blóta skal?

Veiztu hvé senda skal?

Veiztu hvé sóa skal?

Betra er óbeðit

en sé ofblótit–

ey sér til gildis giǫf.

Betra er ósent

en sé ofsóit.

Svá Þundr um reist

fyr þióða rǫk,

þar hann upp um reis,

er hann aptr of kom.

(Hávamál 144-45)

I have the new third volume of Ursula Dronke’s edition of the Elder Edda sitting here beside me. Sadly, she has not assembled for Hávamál anything like the tremendous edifice of notes and analytical material that she did for Vǫluspá. There is no commentary on verse 145, that great crux of heathen praxis, at all.  She regards 144 as “a roundup of ritual obligations.” That makes it still odder that she did not talk about the contrast with 145. If the questions in 144 carry the weight of “You must do this,” then why is 145 saying quite directly, “Better not . . . “?  She seems to have been fired more by seeing echoes of Xianity: in the windswept tree passage (138, Veit ek, at ek hekk . . . , “I know that I was hanging . . .”) she sees “the pathos of the abandoned Christ” in Við hleifi mik sældo | né við hornigi, “They did not hearten me with a loaf | or a horn of ale.” That makes her no good judge of sacrifice; she’s thinking gratuitously of a very different one. Also, where before she had a gift for threading her way through the labyrinth of scholarly viewpoints, highlighting and linking those that her own scholarship told her were worth attention . . . now she has just decided Hávamál “gather[s] together the high moments of pagan and Christian tradition” and that Óðinn pierces himself with Gungnir both because in the Gospel according to John Jesus got poked with a spear to make sure he was dead and because Folke Ström says a spear dedicates someone to Óðinn. The latter is of course not only basic heathenry needing no scholarly citation, it’s in the text: ok gefinn Óðni, | siálfr siálfom mér, “and given to Óðinn | — myself to myself.” And the former a wild-eyed piece of craziness, which the Dream of the Rood and the Ruthwell Cross do nothing whatsoever to support.

With that major reservation noted, here’s her translation of the “list of obligations.”

“Do you know how one must carve them?

Do you know how one must construe them?

Do you know how one must tint them?

Do you know how one must test them?

Do you know how one must supplicate?

Do you know how one must sacrifice?

Do you know how one must send off the soul?

Do you know how one must stop up the breath?”

This is basically accurate. Skal does not mean “how you are going to, ” it does indeed mean “how you must” do each thing. Clearer and better than the more familiar Hollander translation: “Know’st how to write . . . ?” And she rightly links the last item, sóa, to A-S swógan, “suffocate,” while Hollander has “sacrifice” there and the synonym “offer” where she has “sacrifice.” Scholarship has decided that there must have been a ritual method of slaughter using suffocation. I’m not so sure – blood was needed for reddening the harrow, quite apart from its putative use in divination using hlautteinar – but the word in that half-line seems to denote stopping breathing. Rendering biðia as “supplicate” sounds wrong – heathens don’t beg – but that’s the word the Xians used for “pray” and so is always going to be problematic in its connotations. I would probably use the simplest possible word: “ask.” That’s what she has used for the opening of verse 145: “Better to have asked for nothing.” And that’s what Hollander has for biðia – but he has confusingly used “supplicate” for senda. He sees the first four half-lines as being about runes, the other four about blóting and addressing the gods. That has a certain logic with verse 145 about to come along – which is all about blóting and addressing the gods. So presumably he’s thinking “send a message.” That’s also closer to the attested meanings of the verb than her “send off the soul”; she’s assuming “the soul” is unstated because she has this notion that the verse is about the entire span of religious obligations in heathenry. But quite apart from the fact that “send off” is idiomatic English, but senda just means “send” – and where is one sending the soul to? –  it’s used for throwing spears, but the word “spear” is somewhere in the passage for clarity; and it’s used with “message” implied, as we can write in somewhat archaic English, “Send to him that . . .” – but I don’t know of any attestations where what is sent is simply left for the guessing. Her theory is leading her by the nose here. On freista, I’m more sympathetic: Hollander has “understand,” which just echoes the meaning of ráða (her “construe,” his “read”) – he’s wimped out and given a synonym of what he already said, as he often does. She’s correctly noted that it basically means “test” – both in the basic meaning of “make an attempt” and in the Xian religious meaning of “tempt.”

But what does “test” mean with reference to the runes? Her note sums up the “obligations” as follows: “to cultivate runes to link men with the occult world; to supplicate and sacrifice (to the gods): to dispatch the dead with the right ritual.” So she apparently thinks sóa, as well as senda, refers to the human dead. Surely “send” the blóted animal is a plausible reading, and “suffocate” more obviously relates to an animal than a human? The obligation to use runes is problematic – especially as an obligatory link to “the occult world.” I think she’s been listening to too many wiccans. And there are eighteen uses of runes coming very soon in the last section that render her view of the purpose of runes very simplistic. “It’s all the occult” doesn’t fit this poem well. But I remain unsure what she thinks the test involves. Instead of spelling out which lines are on which “obligation,” she has expounded on how the dead were “sent” to a destination – notably in ship burials, which she for some reason thinks were “always metaphorical.” I do not see why the existence of ship burials on dry land means there were never actual flaming ships sent out over the water. (Nor do I see the point as adequate support for senda meaning “send off the dead” anyhow.)

In her introduction to the poem, she speaks of different voices interrupting each other. That’s the way Hávamál sounds to many of us, especially with the third-person references to Óðinn by many different names, like the one to Þundr in verse 145. She describes verse 144 thus: “Another voice brusquely interrogates: ‘Can you perform the eight ceremonies of your creed, the secret writing, the wishing prayer, the muffled sacrifice . . .?’” “Brusque interrogation” is indeed how it must have struck many a modern heathen, because sadly, what we have most clearly lost is the ceremonial how-tos. Indeed, do we know how we must blót? No. We can only try. And piece together the clues we have (and hope we are not emphasizing stuff some Xian was wrong about) and hope the gods let us know what works and what doesn’t. Actually there is a heartening piece of evidence that there was no one correct way to offer to the gods among the ancient heathens: Jonas of Bobbio’s Vita Columbani mentions Alemanni doing a beer-blót to Wodan (Vadono); they had for the purpose a vas . . . magnum, quod vulgo “cupam” vocant, . . . cerevisia plenum - a “large vessel . . . which they call in the vulgar tongue a cupa, . . .  full of beer.” But notice that she refers there to “the eight ceremonies of your creed.” This is even clearer than “roundup of ritual obligations”; she has in mind an analogue to Xian sacraments. In that case, where is marriage? and confirmation/coming of age? and baptism/name-giving, which is mentioned in Hávamál itself? One might also expect a theoretical list of heathen sacraments to include inheritance. Instead she has related the first four to the runes – that doesn’t accord well with the eight lines representing eight distinct ceremonies, and makes the list even more obviously not a complete set of religious obligations (if such existed). Her theory has run away with her.

Also, her translation of 144 doesn’t match up well with her translation of 145, which is:

Better to have asked for nothing

than sacrificed excessively–

always a gift expects to be paid for.

Better no souls escorted

than too many lives smothered.

Þundr-Óðinn carved that

before the close of men’s history,

at the place where he rose up,

when he returned.

Here, she uses “asked for” where before she used “supplicated” – confusing, but also in this verse it is connected to sacrifice; so the two cannot be distinct ceremonies/obligations. Worse, in translating and explicating 144, she saw senda as referring to (metaphorically, in her view) sending off the dead to the afterlife, and sóa as also related to funeral ritual; she says it “also relates to a type of sacrificial killing of  animals by smothering.” Note that “also.” In the introduction to the poem, she attributes 145 to a different voice from 144, one that “fear[s] excess”, and paraphrases the fourth and fifth halflines thus: “Better no soul escorted to the otherworld, than that humans should be killed to accompany it.” She refers in the notes to Ibn Fadlan’s account of the funeral among the Rus, which includes the killing of the slave girl. (But she does not explicitly mention that killing there; just the use of ships.) So apparently in her translation of sóa in 144 she was thinking of human sacrifice to accompany a dead person as a heathen obligation – and in 145 she sees the speaker recoiling against this waste. This is extremely tenuously supported. It makes far more sense to relate sóa to animal sacrifice – to blót – because there are no contextual clues for taking senda in that odd meaning of “send off to the afterlife.” That comes from her assumption that 144 is a set of distinct heathen obligations. And 144 and 145 are both clearly talking about sacrifice; in both cases it is less of a stretch to see a continuation of the same idea.

That’s the root of her interpretation of the problem verse, 145: she sees Óðinn as having learned from hanging on the tree a “humane knowledge,” “a kind of mercy, a moderation in judgement.” All of which is of course unsupported in the text. The name Þundr takes us nowhere useful so far as I know: it’s the name of Óðinn that mysteriously seems etymologically connected to the word for “thunder,” but how that connects here . . . I got nuthin’. However, we do know it refers to Óðinn, and we have been told why he hung on the tree: to seize the runes. That verse is 138. The runes in relation to other forms of magic precede it; matters of the runes follow it; what follows 144-45 is the recitation of charms or chants (galdrs – the poem refers to them as lióð, songs or as Dronke renders the word, lays). There is nothing about learning mercy, although of course manifold benefits to people as well as means of attack are mentioned. And is it in character for Óðinn to have learned mercy from his ordeal? Not judging by most of his names . . . and not with any support in lore that I can think of, although this poem does contain his regrets at how he has treated women.

Also she’s either sidestepped or overlooked the crux of the problem in 145: what we are being warned against. With Xian virtues in mind, she plumps for the most popular interpretation: “Better to have asked for nothing | than sacrificed excessively–” is, for example,  Hollander’s “‘Tis better unasked | than offered overmuch.” (Hollander gives up and simply repeats this where she has “Better no souls escorted | than too many lives smothered.” Clearly he, like me, sees the sending and the killing as also referring to blót and asking.) The prefix of- does usually mean “too much.” However, it can also be an alternate of um (usually printed as a separate word; the manuscripts do not reliably distinguish prefixes from separate words), and in fact both um reist and of blótit in 145 are cited as examples under that header in the first edition of Cleasby-Vigfusson. The meaning of this “enclitic particle”? Unstated. In the more usual form um, it is simply omitted in translations. If we omit it here, we get: “Better not to have asked | than to have blóted . . . Better not to have sent | than to have sacrificed [a beast].” Better not to have asked the gods at all for a favor than to have followed it up with a sacrifice”? That’s a plausible alternate reading that fits the line I omitted: ey sér til gildis giǫf (usually translated, “a gift asks for a gift”). In Hyndluljóð, Freyja is not at all upset at Ottar for having made his harrow like glass with blood of sacrificed oxen:

“Hǫrg hann mér gerði
hlaðinn steinum,
- nú er grjót þat
at gleri orðit; -
rauð hann í nýju
nauta blóði;
æ trúði Óttarr
á ásynjur.”

(Hollander is particularly recherché in his wording here, so here’s Bellows’ version:

“For me a shrine | of stones he made,–
And now to glass | the rock has grown;–
Oft with the blood | of beasts was it red;
In the goddesses ever | did Ottar trust.”

Ottar blóted a lot, and she approves. What he didn’t do is ask for something and then follow it up with a blót. So I suggest that “It would be better not to ask than to ask and follow it up with a blót, because the gift in a blót makes it a demand for a gift in return” is a possible interpretation.

Or maybe she’s right. There is after all a passage explicitly urging moderation in Hávamál – the one advocating being “middling wise” (meðalsnotr; translated that way by both Dronke and Hollander; and repeated three times). Odd though that seems coming from Óðinn, who gives not his eye teeth but his eye for wisdom. And hangs himself and runs himself through for nine nights for wisdom. And wanders the worlds for wisdom. And studies seiðr (and gives Freyja half the slain with first pick, possibly in exchange for that knowledge). And who knows what-all else he does for wisdom! That passage says that the reason to be middling wise is because otherwise you will know the awful things that are coming. But still, he repeats it three times. And one could legitimately say that any sacrifice is a gift – that’s simply what it is.

Dronke doesn’t help the issue by translating the “gift” line obscurely. Literally, “Always a gift looks for a payment.” (And Hollander has “gain.”) But gildi can also mean “honor,” “tribute,” a “guild” and a “banquet” (related meanings). I’ve written about the word before, drawing on her own analysis of Vǫluspá 23. So “a gift looks for a gift back” (reciprocal honoring) lurks behind the wording just as much as “A gift exacts a tax.”

Which interpretation one prefers comes down to theology: do you see the gods as wanting us to blót – but not to use it as a way to get them to answer prayers? Or do you see them as having a problem only if the blóts – of which prayers are normal parts – are too frequent? I prefer the former. I think the notion of asking is natural in Xianity, but not so much in heathenry. Ottar didn’t ask, he just trusted and blóted.

It’s also a theological issue whether you see the Hávamál passage as a blend of Xianity and heathenry, as Dronke does. The second half of 145, Þundr etching these runes after he returned to life, gives her some support if the hanging on the windswept tree is seen as a deliberate analogy to Jesus hanging on the cross. And thinking that way, you expect heathenry to have sacraments and lists of obligations. But for me that requires a tin ear for heathenry and serious ignoring of the context within the poem, which is runes and sacrifice (Óðinn gives/sacrifices himself to himself), and in which these two verses are set together for a reason. I think she’s lost her nose.

John Blatnik, introduced a bill in the US Congress to make Leif Eriksson Day a nation wide observance in 1963; it was approved by annual proclamation by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, in which every year has been annually proclaimed by other presidents.

During the presidential proclamations, it is tradition to praise people of Scandinavian heritage for their ongoing contributions in society. However as early as 1925 president Calvin Coolidge gave recognition to Leif Eriksson as the discoverer of America; due to the research by scholars like Anderson, Gjerset and Hektoen.

So why October 9th? On October 9, 1825 the Restauration arrived from Stavanger, Norway in the first organized migration of Norwegians to the United States. The date has nothing to do with Leif Eriksson or his voyage to America.

Leif Eriksson Day has two functions, first to acknowledge what Norwegians have contributed as well as other Scandinavians to American society; and to begin the trend to a correction in history that is long over due, in that Christopher Columbus was not the first European in America, the Norwegians were.

According to the Grœnlendinga saga Bjarni Herjólfsson was on his way to Greenland from Iceland to visit his parents, when he was blown off course arriving in a strange new landscape, in the year 985 or 986 CE. Although his crew begged Bjarni to explore this mountainous tree covered wilderness Bjarni was eager to find his parents and not explore the new land.

It was not until Leif Eriksson arrived in Greenland in 1000 CE with the intent to convert Greenland to Christianity ousting his father Erik the Red. Leif himself was recently converted by Olaf I of Norway and had been charged by Olaf to convert Greenland.

However upon arriving in Greenland Leif bought Bjarni’s ship and headed out in a exploration of the lands that Bjarni had discovered in the year 1002 or 1003 CE.

The first lands Leif came to he named Helluland, which is most likely Baffin Island in Canada, the second land was named Markland, which is believed to be Labrador and to a greater extent Atlantic Canada. The third land Leif came to he named Vinland. There is great debate about the location of Vinland due to the particular items found at this location, wild grapes and butternuts. It is most likely in my personal research of this topic to be in south-eastern New Brunswick, Canada. As it has both wild grapes and the only location in Atlantic Canada that butternut also occurs along with the wild grapes.

The settlement in L`Anse Aux Meadows discovered by the Ingstad’s in the 1950′s – 1960′s proved that the Norse were the first Europeans in North America in approximately the year 1000 CE, which would correspond to the voyage of Leif Eriksson.

Although Leif Eriksson converted to Christianity his accomplishments and deeds as Norseman can not be ignored as they play a vital role in the correction of Germanic history and cultural image.

Many people make a distinction between “spirituality” and “religion.” I’ve written elsewhere about my disagreement with this dichotomy. It implies that what you do and why you do it can be separated. This violates the heathen principle that “We are our deeds.” What we do matters. If we set aside actions by classing them as “religion” and separate from “spirituality,” then why are we doing meaningless things, rather than investing them with spiritual meaning or doing them because we mean them? Is it just that we’re conforming to expectations? Are we in fact being hypocritical, performing actions that do not reflect our “spiritual” convictions? Then we should stop performing those actions. Or do them for a reason. For example, it’s dishonest, and an insult to the gods, to participate in the worship rituals of deities who are not yours. If you are multi-faith, that’s one thing. But if not, going to church and honoring the Xian god, or attending rites of religio romana, is a betrayal of our gods and also a trivialization of the other(s). Because these rites have meaning. As another example, if you believe you only truly honor our gods in meditation or by faring forth to them, and that meeting with other heathens for blót is “mere religion,” then don’t do it. Do what you believe to be the most meaningful and proper thing to do. Heathenry does not have a text saying “Blót with a kindred or else!” The one text speaking of mandatory blóts – thrice yearly – is Heimskringla, and that’s hardly binding on your conscience. And in fact we do have a lore text speaking very sternly of not blóting wrongly: Hávamál 145, “Betra er óbeðit en sé ofblótit.” That covers blóting when you would prefer to do something “more spiritual.”

But in fact, the problem lies in the dichotomy. Action is real and meaningful – we are our deeds, our deeds express who we are and what we believe. If you don’t believe something is right or useful, don’t do it. If you do think it has some purpose, then that’s a reason to do it. “Religion” is not what you do to please (or shock) the neighbors. Either it’s the outward expression of “spirituality” – and therefore in my opinion it’s more useful to use “religion” for the whole shebang. Or if you prefer, “way.” Or it’s the sum total of your inward and outward relationship to deity, in which case carving spirit out of it is just impossible.

And that’s the thing. Separating the “spiritual” from the rest of life doesn’t make sense in a heathen context.

We hear tell of the gods interacting with humans right here, in Midgard/Middangeard. Thor and Loki stopped off at a farmer’s house to have dinner and spend the night; Thor provided the meat. Rígr went for a walk and engendered three sons on mortal women at the three houses he stayed at (or three generations in the same family over time, judging by the couples’ names). Hávamál is very clear: the guest knocking at your door may be a god. In Grímnismál, a man who had been fostered by Óðinn failed to recognize him. “It’s not like that now,” you might say. But then why honor these gods, if they are no longer interested in us, or no longer real?

What do the gods do, when they aren’t knocking on mortals’ doors? Jörð/Eorþ has something to do with the earth. . . . on which we all live, and from which come all our crops. Thor/Þunor sends the lightning. . . and protects all of this world, and blesses our marriages, and the lightning fixes the nitrogen and ripens the grain. Yngvi Freyr/Ing Fréa makes the weather kind and makes all things flourish, including humans. His father Njörðr/Neorð provides the fish our fishers catch, and blesses us with wealth. And so on. None of these is divorced from the material world. I have to think really hard to think of a god or goddess of ours who is abstract. Ægir? Nope, brewing and the ocean deep as well as poetry. Bragi? A better case, largely because we know less about him – but he’s married to Iðunn, and those apples are real enough. Freyja? Hard to deny the reality of love and sex, and the spiritists are the last to deny the reality of seiðr. Maybe this is another reason Óðinn is so popular; but he really does a lot of concrete things. He hangs himself for nine days and nine nights. He shape-changes a lot. He wields the spear – and throws it over armies, and changes a reed into a spear. And he is the Wanderer. He knocks on all those doors and walks down all those roads. As his particular dévotés recognize, it’s him you are most likely to meet in a dark alley or on a deserted headland.

How do we conventionally honor the gods? We share a drink with them (or traditionally, the boiled flesh of a slain beast). In the lore and the sagas, people blót. The private temples that pious heathen Icelanders supposedly built (whether or not they are just reflections of Xian chapels) are blóthúsar – blóthouses. Even if you prefer to talk with the gods in your head without offering them a drink, even if you consider that a more appropriate way of relating to a deity, you have to admit they take drink and food offerings, now as always.

What have the gods done in the past? Made Midgard/Middangeard. Made Asgard/Esageard and fought a war over it. Killed one of their number through trickery. These are all concrete things.

Also, let’s pause over Midgard/Middangeard. That’s our home, and they made it for us to live in it. Thor/Þunor busts a gut protecting it (as well as Asgard/Esageard) so that we (as well as the gods) have a safe place to live. He doesn’t go on dangerous trips into Giantland just for kicks and to fish for humongous serpents; he’s knocking himself out to keep us all safe. (And getting mocked in Hárbarðsljóð for not instead spending his time romancing cute giantesses.) Isn’t it rather ungrateful to regard this world as just a honeypot or a cage, luring us or keeping us from living in a spiritual world? And how can it not be spiritual when it’s provided for us by our gods, visited by our gods, constantly tended by our gods? This earth beneath our feet is Jörð/Eorþ’s place. Not some clod to be cast aside. The ancient heathens sealed blood brotherhood by walking and mingling blood on the soil beneath an arch of living sod. We pour out blót drink on the soil. Many of us prefer to blót in the open air, as Tacitus says all the tribes of Germany did in his time. And of course there is the story that the gods formed us of trees . . .

And what about our minds? The gifts of the sons of Bor to Askr and Embla were: volition, movement, and human skin (or human senses, in the alternate version). Our minds are the gift of the gods. Even if you are not as literal as me, how can you deny the sacredness of mind to a god named for óðr? and who strategizes constantly, not least to save all that is from the looming menace of Ragnarǫk?

Dreams are not to be sneezed at. They are often the first way we hear and see the gods. They offer us portents and guidance. The ancient heathens had a healthy respect for them and discussed them with each other. But the gods do not only live in our dreams. And Óðin’s eye was a pledge, and is gone in the well now. It’s not a kind of periscope. (If it were, would he feel the need to talk with Mímir’s head?) Trancing is sacred to some people, and can be very useful. But we are not to spend our lives sleepwalking. That would be a waste of the gods’ gifts to us, and an insult to their presence in the here and now. And I could of course add that being heathen is not just about the gods. We are also surrounded by a multitude of vættir; this world is also sacred to them, and if we have a happy home, we have housewights.

It’s an error of conceptualization. If we dichotomize, declare only the internal world real and good, then of course the “surface” world becomes illusory and a trap. But that “tyranny of onliness” comes from our own division of things. Humans have both minds and bodies. Which dreams, the mind or the body? They both do, for they are indivisible. Even when you fare forth, you do not permanently cut the link between your hamingja/hama and your body. To do so would be death. Heathenry is a holistic religion. We have vés, sacred places, both human-made and natural; and we have all been in places that are blighted and sterile. But in general, the divine is interwoven with the ordinary in our worldview. Our forefathers and foremothers blóted at home with ordinary utensils; it’s our modernness that leads us to use special bowls and drinking vessels, and some of us to wear special clothes. Those are modern options; people didn’t use to have so many possessions. Although the ancient Germanic people were noted for their love of jewelry; both its beauty and the amount they wore and consigned to the ground with their dead. Perhaps grave goods are one of the most powerful testaments to the sanctity with which solid, real things can be invested. For after all, the realm of the gods is not unreal. It overlaps and interweaves with our sphere of existence. We can go “inside” to talk to the gods, yes. But we can also speak out loud; that is the conventional way of doing it, in our Way. Just as the walls of a prison cell cannot keep us from talking to our gods, so they are no more present in the innermost recesses of our spirits than they are in the “external” world. Yes, there is distraction from our gods in the constant yammering of advertising and of peer pressure. Yes, just as many of us seek a quiet and beautiful place to commune with the gods, so many of us need mental quietude to focus on them and to hear them. But there are many modern stories of them making themselves heard regardless – in a classroom, in a car in traffic, in a conversation with someone. To assume that we cannot focus on them, cannot reach them, cannot hear them, except in a world away from the real, or except by turning off our minds, or to argue that the entire world has been poisoned by the unheathen to the extent that we can only get away from their mindset in dreams – is to grant them victory. It is an alien division between sacred and secular. There is no fully secular thing in heathenry; we can, after all, all hallow a vé and we can all blót without a priest. This is not, of course, to say that all is sweetness and light upon Midgard/Middangeard. There are very bad things. Nor do I condemn inner practices for those who are drawn to them. But the gods are right here as well as there, and their vés are right here in their green and blue world.