Heathenry

It’s now about a year since three of us got Yggdrasil off the ground. A few months earlier, we’d been bemoaning the lack of a specifically Heathen group in the Glasgow area; it had been obvious that if we did want one, we had to get it started ourselves — and so we did just that, calling our group Yggdrasil after the World Tree because we wanted no name which would specify a particular god or group of gods.

A year on, and the group has grown a little. It’s still small, but it’s healthy. The level of interest in our group from the wider pagan community has been heartening, although that hasn’t always meant that those who were interested knew what we meant when we used the terms “Heathen” or “Heathenry”; there have been one or two amusing misunderstandings. So: what is Heathenry?

If I said our gods were the Norse gods, I expect that everyone would nod in understanding and say, “Ah, yes...” The problem is that while our gods were revered by the Norse, and it’s largely their Norse names which are generally known, it wasn’t only the Norse. About 1,500 years ago, the Heathen gods were honoured across a vast area of Europe — in what we know as Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands and England. Heathenry is the pre-Christian religion of the Germanic peoples of Europe — the term has nothing to do with the modern nation state of Germany, it refers to those who spoke the languages which are the ancestors of the modern Scandinavian languages as well as German, English, Scots and Dutch.

They lived in the lands around the North Sea, which, in the Viking era, meant that it was easy for them to carry their gods even further afield — to Russia, for example, which derives its name from a Viking tribe, and to parts of what we now call Scotland. In our culture, the Heathen gods tend to get little attention. At school we may hear tales of the Greek and Roman deities; films have often incorporated themes from those mythologies, as well as the very photogenic Egyptian myths. Wagner and Marvel Comics aside, the Heathen gods don’t get much of a look in — which may be just as well, given that when films do drag in our gods you get Bob Hoskins as Odin. Yet these gods were an important part of the culture of these lands, something which we can still see from something so mundane as the calendar. Out of seven days of the week, four are named for Heathen gods: Týr (under his Anglo-Saxon name, Tiw) is honoured in Tuesday; Wednesday is named for Óðinn (Woden), Thursday for Thor (Thunar) and Friday for Frigg (Frige).

Modern Heathenry is a reconstruction of the ancient religion, looking back to the practices of our Heathen forebears using what we know from the literature which survives — Heathens are fortunate indeed in having a rich surviving literature — and the findings of archaeology to inform our direct experiences of our gods.

And those experiences can be very direct.

I have been asked at times why I chose these gods, this path; my response, and one which I have heard from other Heathens, is “What makes you think I had a choice?” These are my gods because they came and got me — as Thor told me at the time, “You know where you belong.”

As with all the pre-Christian pagan religions of Europe, Heathenry was completely polytheistic, and so the modern religion is: our gods are individuals, completely distinct from each other and from any other entity. I’m not even going to attempt to list all the gods — even leaving out variants of their names and some of the other names they are known by (in Gylfaginning, Snorri at one point notes fifty-three names by which Óðinn is known; these are by no means all of his names), that would just take too much space. Besides, it was never the case that every god was honoured everywhere in the Heathen world. In some places, Freyr was especially revered; in others, Thor was particularly loved. Óðinn might be All-Father, but that didn’t mean everyone everywhere specifically acknowledged him — in some areas, he was paid hardly any attention.

So it is today: the modern Heathen generally relates to a small number (possibly even just one) of the gods. We all acknowledge the existence of the rest, perhaps drinking a toast to “all the Æsir”, but we don’t attempt to directly contact all of them. Heathens tend to feel a strong sense of kinship with our gods, so a good analogy would be that those we don’t have much to do with are like distant cousins: we know of them, we don’t doubt they’re out there, but we rarely, if ever, see them.

On the other hand, those gods we do have a regular, direct relationship with are as near and accessible as your best friend. We don’t pray to our gods — we certainly don’t grovel in front of them — we talk to them, and we listen to what they say to us. They are not shy at getting their viewpoints across. As a friend said recently, “they don’t seem to be the sort of gods to trifle with ... they tend to trifle back!”

There are two groups of Heathen gods: the Æsir, often seen as warrior gods, and the Vanir, fertility and nature gods. This is a very simplistic separation, though. Óðinn, leader of the Æsir, is definitely a warrior chief. He also, though, is dedicated in his pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, giving up an eye to drink of the Well of Mimir and hanging nine nights on Yggdrasil, the World Tree, to win the secret of the runes (something many see as a shamanic initiation). Thor, Óðinn’s son, is very good in a fight. He also, though, is renowned for his compassion, for his willingness to defend the common man; of all the gods, Thor is known for spending most time amongst humans.

On the other hand, the Vanir (the best known of whom are probably Freyr and Freyja) may be nature and fertility deities, but don’t for a moment imagine this means they are fluffy, all gentleness and light. When the Æsir and Vanir warred, the result was stalemate, and hostages were exchanged. The Vanir became less than happy with one of their hostages, and, believing the Æsir had pulled a fast one, they lopped off the head of his companion and sent him back to the Æsir with it.

As well as these “major” gods, Heathens may form relationships with local deities and other wights. “Wight” is a general term for sentient being, but it is widely used today with specific reference to the spiritual beings who are neither god nor human (although both are, technically, wights). For many Heathens, the most regularly encountered wight is the House Wight, who can help with beer brewing, protecting the home, and so on — or, if the wight feels unhappy or slighted, may be mischievous and cause problems. If there is a good relationship with a House Wight, everything runs much more smoothly.

Land Wights may be found in any feature of the landscape — a hill, a rock, a tree, a stream; sometimes they may be willing to communicate, but some wights are really not interested and are not at all welcoming. There are times, too, when a wight may cause problems for the plans of humans, as in this account from Iceland (as told by Jenny Blain in her book, Wights & Ancestors):

The classic story, told of several locations, is one of a boulder that is where the road is planned to go, people attempt to move it, machines break down, they consult a local person, often an older woman, who tells them of the Wight whose house is the boulder. In some cases an ‘expert’ consults with the Wight, perhaps achieving a negotiation in which the wight agrees to ‘move house’, a period of days is specified, and the (now unoccupied) boulder can now be moved. Two women, I was told, had become particularly well-known for this negotiation.

Another type of being of particular importance to Heathens is the spirits of Ancestors. We honour our ancestors, both in terms of our blood ancestors and those now dead who have in some way inspired us. The Disir, female ancestral spirits, are also known to exercise a protective function over the family.

Heathens try to maintain healthy relationships with the gods, wights and ancestral spirits as well as with our human community in everyday life. We endeavour to behave with honour and integrity in daily life; this is as sacred a thing as any rite. In particular, when a Heathen gives his or her word, it is binding — and so this is not something to be undertaken lightly.

When it comes to actual religious rites, there are two basic forms: the blót and the symbel (pronounced respectively bloat and sumble), although they can be and are often combined. The blót is a sacrificial ritual and in the past would have involved the slaughter of an animal and its offering to the gods, followed by feasting. This is hardly practical today — few of us know how to humanely slaughter an animal for such an offering, and there is tight regulation of the killing of animals for meat. It is common for modern Heathens to offer mead instead. Mead is a holy drink to Heathens: in our lore, we read of an immensely wise being, Kvasir, who was killed by two dwarves; his blood was mixed with honey and thus was mead made. Anyone who drank of this mead became wise, a poet or a scholar. In a blót the mead will be poured as an offering and may also be sprinkled on the participants. It is usual for a feast to follow.

The symbel is a Heathen drinking ritual. A horn of blessed mead (usually, although any alcohol will do at a pinch) is circulated, or the mead may be poured into each person’s own drinking vessel. Rounds of toasting follow, in which gods and ancestors are named and honoured, wights may be honoured, and participants may brag of what they have accomplished and boast of what they intend to accomplish; such a boast is a public promise to which all present, including the gods, bear witness and will hold the boaster accountable. Symbel is a sacred rite: what is spoken over the symbel horn is taken in with the mead to become part of the speaker’s wyrd and the wyrd of the participants generally. (Wyrd is too big a subject to cover in this article. Suffice it to say it is neither simply Fate, as sometimes suggested, nor is it the same as karma. Anyone interested in the subject should read the excellent article on Wyrd by Arlea Hunt-Anschütz.)

There is no fixed seasonal cycle celebrated by all Heathens everywhere. In Britain, three festivals are commonly celebrated: Yule, beginning around the winter solstice and lasting for twelve days (this incorporates Mothers’ Night on the 25th); the festival of Eostre in April, which is particularly celebrated in England (this goddess was known to the Anglo-Saxons, but there is no evidence the Norse knew her); and Winternights, falling in late October or early November, a festival marking the start of winter.

There are two questions which pagans from other traditions always seem to ask of Heathens. One is: don’t you practice magic, then?

Many Heathens do practice magic in some form. This may be galdr, which uses chanting and runes to powerful effect, or seiðr, an oracular practice seen as having much in common with shamanism. Runes are also often used for divination — a practice which is very recent (in fact, it seems I am probably older than the use of runes for divination!) but nevertheless can be very effective. However Heathens may practice magic, though, it is not an intrinsic part of the religion. It is quite possible to be a Heathen and never practice magic — and many Heathens do just that.

The other question is some variation on what happens when we die — do we believe in re-incarnation or what? There is no one simple answer to this question. The common belief among non-heathens is that we believe we go to Valhalla, Óðinn’s hall, after death and there fight to the death during the day and feast at night. But Valhalla is not the destination of everyone: Óðinn picks heroes who have fallen in battle to go to Valhalla, although even this is not the only possibility for such heroes — he shares the heroic dead with Freyja, who takes half those slain in battle to her hall.

Those who do not fall in battle — what happens to them? Those who drown at sea are said to be taken to Ran’s hall, and at the time the mythology was written down this fate would be a distinct possibility for many Heathens. Many, if not most, though, go to Hel’s domain. Hel is one of Loki’s offspring by the giantess Angrboda, the other two being the Midgard Serpent and the Fenris Wolf. Hel was given a domain where she has to give board to all who are sent to her; she is specifically said to receive all who die of old age or sickness. Her hall is not seen as being a place of torment and torture, but more a neutral environment where we might expect to meet some of our ancestors. Perhaps not everyone goes to Hel; it is also suggested that some may go to the halls of other gods. There are a few Heathens who believe in some form of reincarnation, although there is no real support for this in the lore.

For all that the question of where we end up in the next life seems to fascinate some non-Heathens, it isn’t one most Heathens spend a great deal of time thinking about. What matters to us is living well in this life: living honourably, keeping faith with our gods, being true to our word (the making of a promise is no trivial matter for a Heathen).

Sometimes it seems that a bald description of our religion may sound a little sterile to others, our gods rather demanding (some certainly are — but they have their reasons). That may be because it is difficult to describe in words how enriching the relationships with our gods are for us. Our gods can be tricky, exacting, and maddeningly mysterious — or very communicative, sometimes with almost overwhelming clarity; they also return gift for gift, lend a hand when help is needed, and in some cases are good companions with whom to share a pint or a horn of mead. Yes, they can make life more complicated, but at least that is never boring.

Hail to the Æsir!
Hail to the Asynjur!
Hail to the mighty, fecund earth!

Heathenry

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