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When Kings Were Kings, and Shields Were Shields

 Och, shades of Alex Sanders.*

In 1995, the Théodsmen of Winland (America = Old Norse Vínland) together raised Garman Lord on a shield, thus making him King of Winland.

Well, King of Théodish Winland, anyway.

In 2022 Lord stepped down from the giftstool (= throne) of Winland, and the Théodsmen together raised Thórbeorht Éaldorblótere on a shield, thus making him the second King of Théodish Winland.

Well, second sitting king, anyway.

Raising someone to kingship literally, not by coronation or by enthronement, but by lifting him on a shield, is a hoary Germanic custom attested by several Classical writers.

Talk about articulate symbolism. The king is the shield—protector—of the people, but it is the people—symbolized by the dright ( = warband) that uphold the king. Lifting someone on a shield is a pretty profound image of mutual dependence.

We may elevate you above us, but it's a contingent elevation.

Beware of a fall.

I don't often catch my friend and colleague Théodsman (and lore-master) Hildiwulf Scop out in matters of ancient Germanic lore, which he knows backwards and forwards, with a comprehensiveness that I can only describe as Talmudic.

(“We're the Orthodox Jews of Heathenry,” he tells me, which comparison itself has much to tell.)

Ah, but. When he promptly answers “Sitting” to my question, “When the king at his king-making is raised on the shield, is he standing or sitting?” I can only find myself in disagreement.

I've got documentation, too.

Because—wisely—they didn't trust their compatriots, the emperors of Byzantium hired Germanic mercenaries to protect them (the so-called Varangian—literally, "barbarian"—Guard), and numerous Byzantine kings were raised to their kingship in the Germanic way—on a shield.

Byzantines being Byzantines—i.e. nearly as self-obsessed as modern pagans—there is, of course, ample documentation—even illustrations—of this rite.

All of them depict the king standing on the shield.

Hildiwulf's answer may reflect current Théodish practice, but that's not how the ancestors did it.

When what we do today differs from ancestral precedent, what then? This question is inescapable for the modern pagan, and brooks no single answer. Certainly our responsibility here is to be honest, and to ask ourselves the hard questions.

Sometimes there's a fit reason for the difference. In these overfed days, I suspect, kings tend to be a little more, um, ample than they used to be.

In 2017, when hubby and I were brainstorming images for our Coffee Tarot deck, I felt that portraying the American political divide was the perfect portrayal of the 2 of Swords.

My friend opens the door.

“Hi,” I say, “I'm from Aradia's Witnesses. I'm here today to discuss the Book of Shadows.”

My friend laughs.

“Did you ever come to the right place,” she says. “Come on in.”

It's an old joke: What's the difference between a JW and a Wiccan?

Actually, I've never had an STD. For years, though, I thought that I had.

Listen, and I'll tell.

Early Spring and oh, I had the Itch.

Literally. I would lay in bed at night and cry because I couldn't sleep, so badly did I itch.

Finally, I dragged my sorry, sleep-deprived ass in to the clinic. The doctor didn't even bother to examine me. You could see the wheels of homophobia turning in his smug-ass head as he assessed me.

Gay guy, itch: must be venereal, right?

Scabies, he diagnosed.

As I was leaving the exam room, he leaned forward, fixed me with his eye, and said, in the smuggest, smarmiest possible voice: “And have a blessed Easter.”

Yeah, you too, nazz, and the horse you rode in on.

I schmeered on the prescribed goop, and a week or two later, all was well.

So for years I thought that I'd had scabies.

More the fool, me.

You wouldn't know it from our reputation, but in Winter, the North is a desert.

Deep Winter. With prolonged cold, the air loses all moisture. For all the snow on the ground, it's dry, dry, dry, and all the hot showers in the world won't put back what the cold sucks away.

Some survival strategies as we make our annual journey through the High Desert of Deep Winter.

Venus rules this most popular day of the week. Small wonder that this is the ideal night for a tryst. To prepare yourself for a night of lovemaking, you should take a goddess bath with the following potion in a special cup or bowl. I call mine the Venus Vial. Perform this rite on a Friday night.

1 cup sesame oil

My primary goddess is Freya. That has been true all along, as the gods have recently affirmed for me, even when Freya gave me to Sigyn for a while. Sigyn was who I needed at the point in my life when I was dealing with caregiving and then death and its aftermath. As long time readers of this blog know, last year I started my Monster Powers journey (see my posts titled Monster Powers.) As my Gila Lizard Powers (GLP-1) medicine got my health under control and I started losing weight, I found myself vaulted into the world of perfumes, and began exploring new aspects of beauty which I had never considered before. That was when the goddess Frigga told me my primary goddess was still Freya and always would be. Later I affirmed that with Freya herself.

Long ago, in my 20s, my natural body was thin and beautiful and strong and capable. It was also dying, bleeding to death. I tried a medicine to attempt to make that stop, Depo-Provera, which didn't work and caused me to gain 60 lbs. in 3 months and become severely depressed before I went off of it and started trying other medicines over the course of the next year, none of which really worked, but I survived. In trying to deal with my new body, I began making art of Stone Age goddesses such as the Goddess of Willendorf and the Goddess and Laussel. I shifted my personal beauty standard to the Stone Age and identified as goddess shaped. I realized the rest of the world took that as a joke, and went with it, as I went with it any time my most serious and personal expressions came across as funny. For 30 years, I embraced Stone Age beauty, even as I tried, and failed, to get my natural body back.

So, boys, sauna's all stoked up. Which will it be tonight: social sweat, or ritual?

Sacred or secular? No, not really. Sitting around sweating together, naked in the dark: that's sacred—non-ordinary, you could say—pretty much by definition.

No, both kinds of sweat are sacred. They're just for different purposes.

One's for talking, one's for doing.

Sometimes there are things that need to be said, honesties that need to be spoken, agreements that need to be reached. The power of the sauna makes all those things easier.

That's the talking sweat.

For the other, though, we leave the words behind. Instead, we sing: three songs. One to begin, one to do, one to end.

Somewhere in there, in one of those songs, we always sing to the Horned, since he's the one that taught us the sweat in the first place.

That's the singing sweat. That's for working magic.