On the 24th of March I marked four years as a heathen and a Astaruer. So this is just a small post to mark this late mark and I want to thank everyone for coming and reading.
Monday, August 10, 2020
Asatru (4 Years)
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Asatru (2 Years)
Hail!
Today marks two years honoring the Norse gods, my way, and loving it. It's been a much better year than last year. I got a total of eight books, which I've shown and done book reviews on, and I've been better connected with the Astaru community. The only downside was being no longer on Facebook and unable to take part in Blots. It's been a year of creating my own rituals, working on my book project, getting my damn GED, moving, putting up with crazy things, and so much more.
I think the gods for giving me the patients to put up with morons and life in general. Here's to another year and then I can say that I'm no longer in that period of time that I would most likely leave. Oh and here's to another year of posting posts.
Today marks two years honoring the Norse gods, my way, and loving it. It's been a much better year than last year. I got a total of eight books, which I've shown and done book reviews on, and I've been better connected with the Astaru community. The only downside was being no longer on Facebook and unable to take part in Blots. It's been a year of creating my own rituals, working on my book project, getting my damn GED, moving, putting up with crazy things, and so much more.
I think the gods for giving me the patients to put up with morons and life in general. Here's to another year and then I can say that I'm no longer in that period of time that I would most likely leave. Oh and here's to another year of posting posts.
Friday, November 17, 2017
Changing Things
Hail!
I've decided to change my blog to The Norse Witch. I've decided to practice Norse Wicca, even though I do consider myself to be a Norse Pagan, or Norse Polytheist. This is just something that I feel that I need to do and I feel connected to this path. I hope that you'll continue to come on here and read my posts.
I've decided to change my blog to The Norse Witch. I've decided to practice Norse Wicca, even though I do consider myself to be a Norse Pagan, or Norse Polytheist. This is just something that I feel that I need to do and I feel connected to this path. I hope that you'll continue to come on here and read my posts.
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Blog of an Independent Astaruer up for a Year
Hail!
Today marks one year that I redid this blog and started posting again. After this post I will not post any more about how much time has passed until November of next year. Thanks, everyone, that has come on here and read my blog. Means the world to me.
Today marks one year that I redid this blog and started posting again. After this post I will not post any more about how much time has passed until November of next year. Thanks, everyone, that has come on here and read my blog. Means the world to me.
Monday, October 30, 2017
God Post: Nidhogg
I got this from Norse Mythology for Smart People.
Nidhogg (Old Norse Níðhöggr, literally “Curse-striker” or “He Who Strikes with Malice”) is the foremost of several serpents or dragons who dwell beneath the world-tree Yggdrasil and eat its roots. This is highly injurious to the tree, which holds the Nine Worlds of the cosmos.[1] Nidhogg’s actions have the intention of pulling the cosmos back to chaos, and he, along with his reptilian cohort, can therefore surely be classified among the giants (or, as they were called in pre-Christian times, “devourers”).
From this it would make sense for Nidhogg to have a prominent role in Ragnarok, the cyclically recurrent event in which the giants succeed in destroying the cosmos. This does indeed seem to be the case. In one especially important Old Norse poem (the Völuspá or “Insight of the Seeress”), Nidhogg is described as flying out from beneath Yggdrasil during Ragnarok, presumably to aid the giants’ cause.[2]
Later in the same poem, Nidhogg is also said to preside over a part of the underworld called Náströnd (“The Shore of Corpses”) where perjurers, murderers, and adulterers are punished.[3] However, this conception of the afterlife as marked by moral retribution is totally foreign to the indigenous worldview of the Norse and other Germanic peoples, and must be an instance (one of many) of Christian influence upon the poem.
Nidhogg (Old Norse Níðhöggr, literally “Curse-striker” or “He Who Strikes with Malice”) is the foremost of several serpents or dragons who dwell beneath the world-tree Yggdrasil and eat its roots. This is highly injurious to the tree, which holds the Nine Worlds of the cosmos.[1] Nidhogg’s actions have the intention of pulling the cosmos back to chaos, and he, along with his reptilian cohort, can therefore surely be classified among the giants (or, as they were called in pre-Christian times, “devourers”).
From this it would make sense for Nidhogg to have a prominent role in Ragnarok, the cyclically recurrent event in which the giants succeed in destroying the cosmos. This does indeed seem to be the case. In one especially important Old Norse poem (the Völuspá or “Insight of the Seeress”), Nidhogg is described as flying out from beneath Yggdrasil during Ragnarok, presumably to aid the giants’ cause.[2]
Later in the same poem, Nidhogg is also said to preside over a part of the underworld called Náströnd (“The Shore of Corpses”) where perjurers, murderers, and adulterers are punished.[3] However, this conception of the afterlife as marked by moral retribution is totally foreign to the indigenous worldview of the Norse and other Germanic peoples, and must be an instance (one of many) of Christian influence upon the poem.
Monday, October 23, 2017
God Post: Garm
I got this from Norse Mythology for Smart People. Enjoy.
Garm (Old Norse Garmr, whose meaning/etymology is unknown) is a dog or wolf associated with the underworld and the forces of destruction. Little is known about him, since the references to him are sparse and vague. There’s just barely enough material in the surviving Old Norse sources to get a general idea about the kind of being he was perceived to be during the Viking Age.
In the Grímnismál, one of the poems in the Poetic Edda, Garm is said to be to canines what Odin is to gods and what Yggdrasil is to trees – that is, the greatest among them, the exemplar.[1]
In the Völuspá, another Eddic poem, Garm is mentioned as part of a refrain that repeats throughout the poem:
This interpretation is supported by the fact that, as the gods and the forces of chaos battled during Ragnarok, the god Tyr is said to have engaged Garm in single combat.[3] Since Tyr had earlier tricked Fenrir into allowing himself to be bound in an unbreakable chain, and since Fenrir had bitten off the god’s hand in the process, it would make sense for the two to have had a vendetta against each other, which in turn makes it likely that the wolf Tyr fought during Ragnarok was none other than Fenrir.[4]
Some scholars have also linked Garm with the nameless hound of Hel mentioned in another Eddic poem, Baldrs Draumar. The reference to the dog in the poem is only in passing; he barks at Odin as the god rides into the underworld.[5] The identification of Garm with this hound is difficult to demonstrate conclusively due to the fact that we have no idea what or where “Gnipa Cave” is. Still, cave imagery is used to depict the underworld in mythologies from all over the world, which makes the suggestion that Gnipa Cave is an entrance to the underworld, and Garm its guardian, far from unreasonable.
Regardless of whether or not Garm, Fenrir, and the hound of Hel are the same figure, they certainly seem to be little more than multiplications of the same type of figure: a canine associated with the underworld and the forces of chaos who breaks free at the world’s end as an omen of its destruction and in order to aid its destruction. The exact differences between these figures are highly ambiguous, and, in any case, superficial.
Garm (Old Norse Garmr, whose meaning/etymology is unknown) is a dog or wolf associated with the underworld and the forces of destruction. Little is known about him, since the references to him are sparse and vague. There’s just barely enough material in the surviving Old Norse sources to get a general idea about the kind of being he was perceived to be during the Viking Age.
In the Grímnismál, one of the poems in the Poetic Edda, Garm is said to be to canines what Odin is to gods and what Yggdrasil is to trees – that is, the greatest among them, the exemplar.[1]
In the Völuspá, another Eddic poem, Garm is mentioned as part of a refrain that repeats throughout the poem:
Now Garm howls wildlyWhile the reference to Garm in the Grímnismál calls him a hundr, “dog,” this reference in the Völuspá uses the word freki, “wolf.” This refrain is recited as part of an account of the events leading up to and during Ragnarok, the destruction of the cosmos and its re-submergence into chaos. Another one of the events that heralded Ragnarok was the escape of the wolf Fenrir, who had been tied up by the gods and left in a remote swamp so that he wouldn’t devour the cosmos. The two images of bound wolves breaking loose at the same time can’t help but make one wonder whether or not Fenrir and Garm are ultimately the same figure.
Before Gnipa Cave.
Chains will snap
And the wolf will run.[2]
This interpretation is supported by the fact that, as the gods and the forces of chaos battled during Ragnarok, the god Tyr is said to have engaged Garm in single combat.[3] Since Tyr had earlier tricked Fenrir into allowing himself to be bound in an unbreakable chain, and since Fenrir had bitten off the god’s hand in the process, it would make sense for the two to have had a vendetta against each other, which in turn makes it likely that the wolf Tyr fought during Ragnarok was none other than Fenrir.[4]
Some scholars have also linked Garm with the nameless hound of Hel mentioned in another Eddic poem, Baldrs Draumar. The reference to the dog in the poem is only in passing; he barks at Odin as the god rides into the underworld.[5] The identification of Garm with this hound is difficult to demonstrate conclusively due to the fact that we have no idea what or where “Gnipa Cave” is. Still, cave imagery is used to depict the underworld in mythologies from all over the world, which makes the suggestion that Gnipa Cave is an entrance to the underworld, and Garm its guardian, far from unreasonable.
Regardless of whether or not Garm, Fenrir, and the hound of Hel are the same figure, they certainly seem to be little more than multiplications of the same type of figure: a canine associated with the underworld and the forces of chaos who breaks free at the world’s end as an omen of its destruction and in order to aid its destruction. The exact differences between these figures are highly ambiguous, and, in any case, superficial.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
God Posts: Ran and Aegir
I got this from Norse Mythology for Smart People.
Note: I've mentioned Aegir but Ran had no info. This site has info about Ran. So I'm including both info for Ran and her husband.
Aegir (pronounced “EYE-geer;” Old Norse Ægir) and Ran (pronounced “RAN;” Old Norse Rán) are two of the most often-mentioned giants in Norse mythology. Unfortunately, as fragmentary as the sources for our knowledge of Norse mythology are, that doesn’t come out to a particularly large number of mentions. Still, some of the most general characteristics attributed to Aegir and Ran by the pre-Christian Norse can be discerned.
Aegir and Ran are, respectively, husband and wife. They dwell in a magnificent hall beneath the ocean, and can be seen as the animating powers of the ocean and its varying qualities. Aegir (“Ocean”), who is often portrayed as a gracious host, seems to correspond to its more benevolent aspects. Ran (“Robber”[1]) seems to correspond to its more sinister aspects; in Old Norse poetry, she’s usually mentioned in the context of drowning unfortunate seafarers and dragging them down to dwell in her underwater abode.
While the relationship between the Aesir gods and the giants is ambivalent at best, and often marked by considerable strife, Aegir and Ran enjoy an overwhelmingly friendly relationship with the gods. The gods are apparently regular guests at Aegir’s magnificent feasts.
Together the couple has nine daughters, who are usually interpreted as being spirits of the waves.
Note: I've mentioned Aegir but Ran had no info. This site has info about Ran. So I'm including both info for Ran and her husband.
Aegir (pronounced “EYE-geer;” Old Norse Ægir) and Ran (pronounced “RAN;” Old Norse Rán) are two of the most often-mentioned giants in Norse mythology. Unfortunately, as fragmentary as the sources for our knowledge of Norse mythology are, that doesn’t come out to a particularly large number of mentions. Still, some of the most general characteristics attributed to Aegir and Ran by the pre-Christian Norse can be discerned.
Aegir and Ran are, respectively, husband and wife. They dwell in a magnificent hall beneath the ocean, and can be seen as the animating powers of the ocean and its varying qualities. Aegir (“Ocean”), who is often portrayed as a gracious host, seems to correspond to its more benevolent aspects. Ran (“Robber”[1]) seems to correspond to its more sinister aspects; in Old Norse poetry, she’s usually mentioned in the context of drowning unfortunate seafarers and dragging them down to dwell in her underwater abode.
While the relationship between the Aesir gods and the giants is ambivalent at best, and often marked by considerable strife, Aegir and Ran enjoy an overwhelmingly friendly relationship with the gods. The gods are apparently regular guests at Aegir’s magnificent feasts.
Together the couple has nine daughters, who are usually interpreted as being spirits of the waves.
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