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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in norse mythology

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Continuing the novel gnosis series of posts, wherein I discuss religious insights gained via writing my unpublished behemoth Some Say Fire, today I'm talking about Rindr. Rindr is kind of an obscure goddess so I'll start with an introduction to her story in the Lore, which is what Asatruars and other heathens call our religious canon. Rindr is the daughter of Billing, king of the Ruthenians. That sounds like she must be a human but she is considered a jotun, also called ettin or giantess. Odin needed to father his son Vali to be an agent of vengeance and decided Rindr was to be the mother. He set out to woo her in disguise as a warrior named Roster, but she did not accept him. He tried twice but was rejected both times, so instead Odin turned himself into a witch named Wecha and used magic. The two main interpretations of this story by scholars are the agricultural metaphor interpretation that Rindr is a personification of the frozen winter earth that needs to be thawed and fertilized, or the feminist interpretation that Odin is a problematic figure. I don't subscribe to either of those interpretations in my novel gnosis.

Rindr was born with the potential to become a goddess, like some other jotnar who joined the Aesir, but didn't finish becoming one until bearing the god-child. Her story then is a story of the trial of initiation that makes one reach one's potential, similar in general movement if not in detail to Odin's trial on the tree. The ways in which Rindr doesn’t quite pass the goddess ascension tests and how Odin figures out how to make it work anyway highlight exactly what those tests are and what they are for.

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Novel Gnosis part 13: Heimdall

Heimdall is the Guardian of the Rainbow Bridge. After Odin sculpted humanity, there is a story in heathen Lore that the god Rig then fathered new kinds of humans, and most Asatruars consider Rig to be a name of Heimdall. 

In the Fireverse, Heimdall is partly a participant in a lot of the shenanigans that Thor and Loki get up to in Jotunheim, because he is the one who lets them in and out. He opens the Bridge for them when they go and listens for them to call on him to send down the Bridge for their return. He’s a friend to both of them. There is Lore that Thor does not walk on the Bridge because his mighty footfalls would destroy it, but in the Fireverse he walk on it like everyone else.

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Novel Gnosis part 2: the Alfar

The Alfar (elves) live in Alfheim. Just like the jotnar living in Jotunheim and the dvergar living in Svartalfheim, the Alfar are really living in Alfheim even when they seem to be living in Midgard (the human world.) They can all go to other worlds but they all live in their dimensional homes regardless of whether that home appears to have a physical location in Midgard.

In Iceland when they are going to build a road, they will try to build around the “elf church” (sacred place of the alfar) but if it’s too hard to reroute they can ask them to move. The elf-whisperer isn’t really asking them to move their home, just the portal between the worlds. My novel-gnosis is that such a place is really more of a dimensional gateway than just a place where they live. Destroy the place on Midgard and you destroy the gateway, but if you ask nicely before building the road they may be able to move their gateway first.

Image: elf woman by SilviaP Design via Pixabay

P.S. if you like my writing you can find out more here: https://www.erinlaleauthor.com/

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
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Title: The All Father Paradox (Vikingverse Book One)

Publisher: Outland Entertainment

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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I finished reading The All Father Paradox yesterday. Thank you for the review, I would not have known about this book without it.

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

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  • Morgen
    Morgen says #
    I'm a Prachett fan and this sounds great! Adding to the To Read list, thanks

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Draugatrú: Or, Undead Religion

The old Norse didn't believe in ghosts per se.

Instead, they knew of a being called a draugr: a revenant, an un-dead, an animated corpse that will not lay still, but instead walks, wreaking ill, to trouble the lands of the living.

The Norse said DROW-ger. In Iceland today, they say DROY-goor. If (there's no evidence that they did) the English-speaking ancestors had known of such wights (or rather, un-wights) and had called them by an equivalent name, we would today name them drows (as drowse).

When the southron shavelings came in and started vaunting about their new god, you can't tell me that people didn't nod in recognition and say: Aha.

Come to think of it, this actually explains quite a bit about the history of the last thousand years, and (alas) much ill-wreaking that still goes on today.

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Pagan News Beagle: Watery Wednesday, April 26 2017

An online network seeks to help Pagan professionals. A look at some useful resources for those interested in Shinto. And a game that might be of interest to Heathens. It's Watery Wednesday, our news segment about the Pagan community around the world! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

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