Gnosis Diary: Life as a Heathen

My personal experiences, including religious and spiritual experiences, community interaction, general heathenry, and modern life on my heathen path, which is Asatru.

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Novel Gnosis part 1: intro

In this series of posts, I will be presenting some of my novel gnosis, that is, my religious insights gained via writing fiction. Most of these come from my unpublished behemoth Some Say Fire, in which I retold the entire corpus of heathen mythology, with original work inserted interstitially, like in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Some of my novel gnosis comes from my Time Yarns Universe, which has both published and unpublished works in it.

What does novel gnosis look like?

Like this, say: Aegir’s spear has a wave shaped blade like a kris.

Does he have have that in real life? Maybe. That's the thing about gnosis that comes from a work of fiction; it may or may not apply outside its own universe. In this case, that universe is the Fireverse, the world of Some Say Fire. But you may find it useful if it jibes with how you see things.

Here are a few more topics that only have one or two sentences about them. In future posts in this series, I'll present longer topics one by one. For example, Odin gets his own post.

Alfheim

It is always summer in Alfheim. There is no turning of seasons there.

Baldur

The reason mistletoe was not asked to promise no harm to Baldur was not because it was too young but because it was his own sacred plant. After his sacrifice, ox-eye daisy became his sacred flower. Even though Baldur, Nanna, and Hodur all died at different times, their powers passed to their new hosts at the same time, after the new sun and moon power hosts were found.

Dragons

In my novel, Loki shape-shifts into a dragon during a battle and sets things on fire.

Magni and Modi

In the Fireverse, Magni and Modi were immature and easily led throughout much of the book until near Ragnarok. They became antagonistic toward Fireverse-Loki because Fireverse-Bragi wanted them to be. See Bragi. By the end, though, they developed into the fine young men they would need to be to take over Thor’s hammer in the next universe.

Njord

Njord’s main house is on the ocean, but he has a secondary residence in Asgard’s main city which he only uses when he attends gatherings of all the gods, which Odin sometimes calls to deal with important issues. It’s like his Thing booth. He has a small fishing pond in front of it so he’s not completely away from water.

Ostara

Ostara doesn’t appear much in the story because the basic plotline of the story is drawn from lore, and there is no surviving myth featuring Ostara. She does come to gatherings of the gods that Odin calls, though.

Saga

Outside the Fireverse, online conversation led me to realize that Saga’s moist hall is the mouth and throat, where there are waves of sound. Saga’s and Frigga’s moist halls are both membranes which are points of interaction between the inside and the outside of the body. They are therefore liminal spaces.

Surtr

In the Fireverse, Surtr’s skin looks like a lake of lava on a volcano. That is, it looks like black paving stones with glowing red-orange grout between them.

Svalin

Svalin’s actual function as aurora goddess, shielding the earth, is not really depicted in the Fireverse. She just appears as a character in scenes set in Asgard where lots of gods are around.

Thrud

Fireverse-Thrud loved one of Loki’s children, so the reason she is not interested in marrying the dwarf who comes to woo her is because she has already chosen someone else.

Image: a vortex made of books, public domain

 

 

 

 

 

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Erin Lale is the author of Asatru For Beginners, and the updated, longer version of her book, Asatru: A Beginner's Guide to the Heathen Path. Erin has been a gythia since 1989. She was the editor and publisher of Berserkrgangr Magazine, and is admin/ owner of the Asatru Facebook Forum. She also writes science fiction and poetry, ran for public office, is a dyer and fiber artist, was acquisitions editor at a small press, and founded the Heathen Visibility Project.

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