Listen well, now, for this is the story of Grandfather Sheaf.

Long ago our people lived on the shores of the Northern Sea, and we knew neither bread nor beer, neither brewing nor baking. We hunted and fished and gathered, as our people had always done, since the time of the Great Ice and before.

One day in spring, with the ice newly broken, a ship came slowly to shore: a long ship, with a high, antlered prow. The strange thing was that this ship was completely empty. But going down to meet it, we saw that indeed the ship was not empty, for in it lay a babe, a man-child asleep and naked, and cradled in a shield, and under his head a barley sheaf.

We took this boy to our people and so brought him up, and he was called Shield Sheaving, Shield son of Sheaf. When he came to manhood and his beard was fully grown, he was accounted the wisest and most capable of men, and so together we raised him on the shield and made him king.

The Sheaf-son led our people wisely and well. He taught us the arts of plowing and sowing, of reaping and threshing. From him we learned to brew and to bake.

He was good to look upon as well; he loved many women and fathered many children. But his chiefest love he kept always for the men of his people, as of course is only right.

One year after harvest Shield Sheaving died, old and full of years, and we laid him again in the Sea Stag, with his shield beside him and a barley sheaf beneath his head. We pushed him out onto the water, and the sea took him. 'No one knows,' says the poet, 'who in the end received that ship and its treasures.'

Here the story ends. But my heart tells me that there on the sea Shield Sheaving changed his life, so that on some other spring morning, with the ice newly broken, who is to say that he did not come again, renewed and full of youth, to yet another shore, to teach yet another people the arts of peace and harvest.

So this is the tale of Shield Sheaving, who is also called Yngvi, Grandfather Sheaf, Seed-Frey, and even Father Christmas. He is the fruitful father, oldest and youngest, giver of good gifts, and himself the best gift of all.

To this day at Yule the men of our kindred gather together to pour to him 'for frith and year,' as it is said, for peace and good harvest.

For we the men are seed-bearers, like Grandfather Sheaf, and our seed and its sowing are holy to him.

That is the story, and this is the stave:

Who is the suckling in the ship,

and why is his pillow a sheaf?

He is called Shield Sheaving,

sea-barrowed and sea-born.


© Steven Posch 2006

 

The Rite of Grandfather Sheaf was first enacted in modern times in 2006.

 

In memory of

Sparky T. Rabbit

1954-2014