Patreon Topic 66: On Odin and the Wild Hunt

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From Cynnian comes this topic:

“Seasonally, maybe elucidate particulars with Odin and the Wild Hunt.”

It’s funny that I got this question when I did. I am currently reading Phantom Armies of the Night by Claude Lecouteux which goes over things like the Wild Hunt, the Furious Host, and other such phenomena. Lecouteux’s books are just awesome, and I highly recommend this for background on origins and theories around it.

Without quoting large swathes of the book, much of the work that he has uncovered tends to cover ideas that the Wild Hunt are, in part, made up of the Dead. In Christian sources these tend to be the unbaptized or especially sinful, and recounts of them tend to diverge into sermons against sin at varying points. However, Odin’s Wild Hunt tends to be composed of other beings as well. At times, valkyries seem to be implied to be part of it, masked folks who have joined it, folks whose hamr (Double as Lecouteux calls it) have joined the Hunt, as well as many other Beings.

Some useful quotes to this by Lecouteux:

“In Denmark, Odin sets out in pursuit of a supernatural being.” (69).

“One of the principal arguments made by scholars in favor of Odin as leader of the Wild Hunt is the motify of the storm.” (209). 

“The most solid argument in Odin’s favor is undoubtedly the fact that the Infernal Throng sometimes consists of warriors and horsemen. As the god of war annd the owner of the horse Sleipnir, Odin is at home in this context. He also finds a place as master of Jöl (Jölnir), through his knowledge of necromancy and other magical practices that make him the god-shaman who has mastered the trance journey, and by his Einherjar, the dead warriors that make up the army with whom he will confront the powers of chaos during Ragnarök.” (214)

Another interesting quote is “Nicholas Gryse (1543-1614) cites a Mecklenburg custom intended to appearse Odin, he relays the words of a peasant song:

Wode, take now fodder for your horse

‘Tis now thistles and brambles

Next year it shall be most excellent grain.” (219)

This theme ties in themes of fecundity and fertility that Lecouteux goes on to explore in other contexts.

Lecouteux dedicates an entire chapter to Odin and the Wild Hunt and how it differs from things like the Furious Army, Odin’s Army, and related phenomena. What seems to me to be the biggest difference is the function or purpose of it. The Wild Hunt seems to me to be more restorative in its function than the Furious Army, the Diabolical Hunstman, and other motifs. Whether it is hunting a supernatural being such as an álf, or if it is passing over-through places as a host, it seems to be more of a restorative force or a balancing one, which also seems to have ties to fertility and fecundity, than merely dragging the Dead to hell or to the underworld. Many of the members of the Hunt are Dead, but they also can be other beings as well, and many are masked depending on the recounting.

Lecouteux sums this up pretty well, saying:

“What is most striking in the history of the Wild Hunt is its variability, its ability to meld with other beliefs, to draw elements from them and to combine them. The narratives we have read here allow us to see two large vectors. First is the ancestor worship that encourages the merger of the theme and the table of souls, the fairy repast. Next is the cult rituals culminate in masquerades and Carnival-like processions. Grafted upon this trunk are motifs taken from the legend of the wild huntsman and, when the clerics had taken possession of the Wild Hunt and adopted it in accordance with Christian dogm and other elements of medieval creation, the legend of a cursed hunter, which nothing but a miniature version of the Inernal Hunt that has been reduced to its simplest expression.” (237)

To sum up an excellent book and reams of folklore, Odin and the Wild Hunt tends to be a seasonal occurence (though it may also occur nightly depending on one’s understanding/time period) that brings fecundity, fertility, restoration, and balance back to the land and its people. Getting swept up in it is particularly dangerous whether in body or one’s hamr, but it can also be rewarding if you are prepared and able to handle it. This is where modern Wild Hunt cultus and esoteric work, such as I have experienced with Maleck Odinsson, comes into play.

In my experiences of it, the Wild Hunt does carry these ideas of fecundity, fertility, restoration, and balancing in my own experience of it. Our rituals tend to be oriented around the New Moon, and involve meeting the Wild Hunt in our hamr as it makes its nightly rounds. My experience of the Wild Hunt is that Odin is not is only leader, and that role does get passed around with other noted leaders of the Wild Hunt such as Frau Perchta, and I have seen Frigg lead the Hunt as well.

For preparation, I tend to mask up in my lyke (physical body) with my wolf pelt for the duration of the rite, keeping my taufr bag full of taufr to various Gods, Ancestors, and vaettir in my pocket or nearby. Often, I will wear protective taufr and taufr tied to Odin, wolves, Fenrisúlfr, and other Gods, including my valknut, Mjölnir, wolf, and bracelet with úlfheðnar bracteates on them. During the rite my hamr will generally take the form of a werewolf, wolf, or some other similar being, though I have kept a human-like form for the Hunt before. In joining the Hunt, I have found it to often already be in progress. Sometimes I am allowed to hunt certain beings who have caused harm to the community, and other times I am told to stick with the Hunt and hunt who They do. Sometimes it is both.

So what now? You’re in the Wild Hunt. Maybe you’re following it in its round, or maybe you’re being told to go handle something. So you do. Sometimes it is being in the noise of the storm, being the storm. Others, it is a predator on the hunt with your packmates, tearing apart something that has done another wrong. Sometimes it is taking up a spear or a sword and driving it into a vaettr, whether human or not, and letting the blood soak. Sometimes it is merely riding with the Hunt and experiencing it from within. Sometimes the Hunt takes you over and you are a snarling thing, an extension of something, someone else, no longer your own. Whatever it is, the Wild Hunt lives up to its namesake. It is wild, it is chaotic, it is powerful, and it is raw.

Then you come back into a body that feels hungry and tired, and sometimes also so full of energy you feel you could run a marathon. Then the energy crash hits after some food, or a good drink of coffee or tea. The Wild Hunt takes and it blesses. It ravages and rights. It is the use of power to do, and cultivating power to use in the Hunt is, in my experience, part and parcel of doing that Work.

What I find quite interesting is how many of my experiences of the Wild Hunt comport with the writings that are left to us on it. I find it striking in the similarity it carries to other nightly/seasonal spirit flight and spiritwork recountings, such as the benedanti and Thiess of Kaltenbrun’s experiences as a werewolf.

These are my insights into Odin and the Wild Hunt.

A Lay for the Wild Hunt

The horde roaves roads of forests,
Roaming the wild of the world
Across field and fen, frost and flame
The host fairs forth

Gods and great Dead are the vanguard,
Wolves and wild things follow and watch the ways
Above come ravens and crows in the wake
Between are those borne and brought into stride

The sunsets are stained dark with blood
Shadows teem and swallow the night
The sound of their sumons are hooves and howls
Carrying the calls of the Wild Hunt’s host

Offer, lest the door be darkened
Good beer, bread, or blade freely given
For many are the mouths of the might Hunt
And satisfaction ever They seek

Join, if you are of a mind to journey
To scout and slaughter, by blade, bow, or bite
Among man and monster one may find their kin
Blessed by the ways of the Wild

I Ask You

Is this how you feel

Having watch the world turned,

The Worlds burned

In vision tortured

Without distortion?

Is this how you feel,

this deep-seated pain

like a knife when you see

the cycles ’round again?

Is this how you feel

As grief heaps up

And all that lies before

and behind, your son?

Is this how you feel

That your stand still must be made,

Before the mouth?

Is this how you feel

Melancholic resolve forged in pain of love?

Is this how you feel?

The Hunt is On

I hear the hoofbeats hammer

I hear the howling on the wind

I hear the gait of sword, spear, and gun

The Hunt is on

I smell the slathering sweat

I smell the steel in the wound

I smell the breath of God, grave, and snow

The Hunt is on

I see the sky split

I see the spray of blood

I see the wend of Host, heroes, and Sleipnir

The Hunt is on

I taste the tears’ trail

I taste the take of the kill

I taste the marrow of the wicked, warlocks, and traitors

The Hunt is on

I feel the fury flow

I feel the frenzy of the Ride

I feel the call of the vaettir, Valkyries, and Fráriðr

The Hunt is on

The Hunt is on

The Hunt is on

Polytheist Devotional Art Challenge Day 2: Love

You are vicious and wild

You are wrathful and cold

You are ruthless and direct

You taught me to love these things in myself

Not to indulge

To control, to temper, to work

That there is purpose in it

That there is clarity

That there is honesty

Then there is action

I love You because You would not have me shy away

You would have me embrace all I am

As You have

Discarding nothing

Patreon Topic 44: On Wolf Cultus

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From Maleck Odinsson comes this topic:

“What does Wolf Cultus look like to you?”

The short answer is that Wolf Cultus looks a lot like my other cultus does. I have places set aside on our family hearth Gods’ vé for the Wolf Gods, spaces on the Ancestors’ vé for the Wolf Ancestors, and spaces on the animalvaettir vé for Wolf and wolves. They each receive offerings, usually water, and occasionally food and/or alcohol like our other Ginnreginn.

I wear a large necklace of Úlfr, the Old Norse word for Wolf and a Míkilvaettr (Big/Mighty spirit) alongside my Valknut for Óðinn and my Mjölnir for Þórr. I carry representations of wolves and úlfheðinn on me otherwise, both as reminders of our relationship and as connection points with Them. I make regular prayers to Them, both in our home during our regular prayers and outside the home.

The way I engage with Wolf Cultus every day looks, acts, is lived, and is in relationship with the Wolf Ginnreginn in ways that are carried a lot like my others are. There are things that I do because of these relationships in addition to cultus. For instance, I donate and write on behalf of causes that specifically have to do with issues around wolves, such as the bullshit wolf hunts that have been called for in the Michigan legislature. A good number of the Gods that are part of my various cultus all tend to have wolf connections -Óðinn, Angrboða, Skaði, Ullr, Hela, Fenris, Lykeios, Lupa, Anpu, and Wepwawet. Small wonder that my hearth cultus does not change much then since so many are connected with or are wolves in some way Themselves!

Does Wolf Cultus involve howling? Sometimes. My son doesn’t like to, but my daughter sure does. So, when she and I do prayers specifically to the Wolf Ginnreginn on our own, we howl. A lot of the other more noticeably wolf-oriented things do not actually occur in the hearth cultus. A lot of that occurs for me in spiritual connection work, but most of that is not during regular cultus of prayers and offerings. Sometimes it occurs on its own. It might be hamfara (faring forth in hamr), or it might be some spiritual work with a group of vaettir, such as in Maleck’s own Pack Magic which you can read about here. So far as I practice Wolf Cultus it is distinct from spiritwork or magic since the point of cultus is to worship rather than to engage in spiritwork or magic.

Private Wolf Cultus rituals, though, look a bit different. I own and work with the vaettr of a wolf that was prepared by Lupa, a wonderful Pagan artist. You can find her work here, here, and here. This wolf and I have bonded on a fairly deep level over the years, and he reflects at least some my inward soul outwardly. He is in a place of honor most days underneath our Gods’ vé, and when I put him on the connection with my wolf self, the Wolf Gods, the Wolf Ancestors, and wolfvaettir is powerful, and fairly instant. Whether I am wearing him or not, when I engage in Wolf Cultus on my own we are engaged in it together. When I do not do Wolf Cultus with him present, sometimes I am engaging with one of the wolf items I carry on my person. It is sometimes hard to write about, not only because of how personal it is.

Sometimes it is hard to write about because of how visceral the connections are, how your senses light up with the power and impact of one of the Wolf Gods making Their Presence known in ways that hit you in every bit of your Soul Matrix. Sometimes it is hard to write about because you have Wolf Ancestors that you connect with, and there is such a feeling of elation, joy, pack that is hard to put into words that do it justice. Other times it is hard to write about because you really are just reaching for words to describe raw feelings, or experiences that are close to the chest and you keep private. Even here my cultus starts out the same: prayers, offerings, and a few moments to connect. Breathing slow, steady breaths at first, perhaps quickening or lengthening if getting into trance is called for. Whether the trance comes on, the Presences are felt, or if there is work to do, being thankful for the connection with Them. Then the prayers of thanks, and prepping to get on with the remainder of the day.

Patreon Song/Poem/Prayer 16 -For Úlfheðnarfóðir -We Find You

If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon. This prayer was requested from Maleck Odinsson for Úlfheðnarfóðir.

Úlfheðnarfóðir

We find You

Standing before our blessed kin

We find You

Blood boiling and bared fangs

We find You

Howling, writhing, wrapped within ourselves

We find You

Our ónd pulses with power

We find You

Our hamr hallowed

We find You

Forest, field, and fen under our feet

We find You

Concrete, rebar, and ruin before us

We find You

Fighting, fucking, and fierce joy filling us

We find You

Scruffed, the pups are secure

You Find us

Lost and lonely are led to love and pack

You Find us

The broken and battered are healed

You Find us

The raging and wrathful are directed

You Find us

Blessed in blood

You Find us

Honored in ónd

You Find us

Hallowed in hamr

You Find us

By howl and hand, fang and fury

Hail and Honor to You, Úlfheðnarfóðir!

Patreon Topic 12: Sacred Kingship and Heathenry

If you want to submit a topic you would like me to write on for this blog or my Patreon, sign up for the Uruz or Thurisaz level or above here on my Patreon.

Note: Until now I have referred to folks by their level of Patreon support. For some of Patreon patrons I will now refer to them by a name I have permission to use. This makes it easier to organize and find posts. Thank you to all my supporters on Patreon and to all of my readers!

From StreakingFate comes this question:

“For a topic idea, have you covered sacred kingship yet? Historically in Heathenry, how it is seen present day in Heathenry if it is, or both.”

Before I begin to tackle this question it is important to talk about what we mean by Heathenry. There are a lot of cultural wells from which we can drink. Norse Heathenry is one, Anglo-Saxon another, Frankish another, and so on. Then there are folks that mix their paths eclectically or syncretically, neither of which are wrong, but they tend to be different approachs. Myself, I am primarily a Heathen whose sources lie in Icelandic, Norse, and Germanic sources with a smattering of Anglo-Saxon. My approach to the question of “Is Frigg and Freyja a single Goddess or separate Goddesses?” is to treat Them as separate, with Frigg an Aesir and Freyja a Vanir. This may seem like an odd point of departure, but this matters in terms of how we understand the Gods, and how we understand the impact of lore, including myth and archaeology, on our various religions.

Since I am not writing from a primarily Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, etc perspective, there are a lot of potential answers to this question. I cannot tell you what the Anglo-Saxon Heathen answer is to this question because that is not my primary framework any more than the Frankish Heathen is.

I have not covered sacred kingship much on this blog. It simply does not enter much into my understanding of my place with the Gods, Ancestors, or vaettir. I am a goði, a spiritual specialist who is both a chieftain and a priest so far as how we in Mímisbrunnr Kindred use the term.

Let us dig into what is meant by sacred kingship. The Encyclopedia Britannic has a great overview of the concept of sacred kingship, though by no means is it the most detailed or probably accurate overview specific to a given culture. In its article, the Encyclopedia lists three basic forms of a sacred kingship:

(1) the possessor of supernatural power, (2) the divine or semidivine king, and (3) the agent of the sacred.

I do not serve a sacred kingship role as it is often seen in the Fisher King archetype, and only small Heathen, eg Theodish, or Northern Tradition kingdoms, eg The Kingdom of Asphodel, as I have read and understood, hold to such ideas.

Now, if we depart from kingship and dig into sacral status, then this is something most Heathens believe in. However, it is quick to spot that in modern Heathenry that sacral status is not beholden to only a few. If anything differs greatly from historical Heathenry, it is that the goði is not the main arbiter of a community either in terms of how the community runs that they are head of, or that they have inherently more spiritual power than others who live in the community they head. Everyone has access to power through engaging in specific work, eg seið work, spirit work, working with óðr, and so on. A given person may or may not be ‘wired’ for the work, but that does not mean that you have to be born into a certain bloodline to access these spiritual techniques or engage with spiritual power effectively.

Another signficant departure, due in no small part to how diasporic the Heathen communities have become from their historical roots in America and over time from the ancient Heathen cultures we take inspiration and root in, we do not have the kind of passed-on roles that we might have if they had survived until today. Perhaps, had ancient Heathen cultures not been converted, seiðkona and seiðmaðr would have kept up their work they would have passed on the experiences and understanding they had. Had the ancient Heathen cultures not converted, perhaps spiritual techniques like the varðlokkur noted on but not, unfortunately, written out, in the Saga of Erik the Red may have survied until today. We cannot predict how these roles would have come down to us. We can look at the functions they served in the communities they were part of, look at how our own communities are organized, and whether they are still useful to us, or, even more important, if this is even something our Gods are asking to take up and if we are willing to.

From my observation sacred kingship is largely seen as something belonging to the past. This is hardly surprising given America’s history, let alone 1/3 of Americans rent their home, and many Americans who do own land do not own more than than an acre, let alone land in enough acres to justify any kind of kingdom.

Were there sacred kings in Norse or Icelandic culture? Not in the sense of a divine figure akin to a pharaoh of Kemet, no. Not god-kings. Were kings and chieftains seen as particularly spiritually powerful or potent? Yes. So the 1st and 3rd definitions in the Encyclopedia article were certainly part of ancient Norse culture. What about the 2nd? The Ynglings, Ingvaones, Skilfingar, and the Fairhairs were said to be able to trace their ancestry to Freyr, the caste system to Heimdall or Odin (depending on whether you believe Rig is the former or latter), and Frosti was said to be the legendary founder of Skjalf’s line.

Given the practical and political obstacles before it, I am unsure any beyond a few small groups are going to pick up the notion of sacred kingship.

Patreon Poem/Prayer/Song 7 -For Sleipnir

If you want to submit a request for a prayer, poem, or song to be written to you privately or to be posted on this blog or my Patreon for a God, Ancestor, or spirit, sign up for the Ansuz and above level here on my Patreon. This prayer was requested from my fourth Raiðo patron for Sleipnir.

Over skies and oceans you have crossed

Over land and the Helvegen itself

Eight legs across Nine Worlds

Glorious-Maned, Peerless Stallion, Best of Horses!

Spear-Hooved, Iron-Flanked, Windswept Galloper!

Sleipnir Lokison!

O Holy One, Son of a God and His Bloodbrother’s Bearer

You bring Your burdens unbowed

Through danger and Death to home and hearth

Praise to You O Peerless Journeyer

Sire of Blessed Steeds

Grey-coated Wanderer of Worlds!

Patreon Topic 9: On Seiðr

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From my third Raiðo supporter comes this topic:

“The distinguishing characteristics of *authentic* seiðr, from your perspective and from the perspective of the medieval sources (as relevant).”

When we’re talking about authentic I think getting to what is vs is not authentic is worth taking some time to define.

When it comes to authentic seiðr I care far less about what may be historically authentic comparative to what is authentic to the requirements of our Gods, Ancestors, vaettir, religions, and communities now. This is not to say historically authentic seiðr is something to brush off, but I recognize that we have a handful of sources and one detailed account of what seiðr looked like at one point in time, and conjecture in a handful of other sections. Further, it can be argued in one instance we see, in Eiríks saga rauða (The Saga of Erik the Red), what we are seeing is a spá rite rather than a seiðr rite. Our map of seiðr, like a lot of what we have available to us, is far less complete than ideal.

This comes to how we define terms in the modern age vs how they may have been divided (or not) in the past. Because I like discrete categories for explanation and for looking at things, I put seiðr and spá into two separate categories. Generally, the way I tend to divide the categories is to the purpose of the rite. If the point is only to contact the spirits for divination, it is a spá rite. If divination is involved but the point is to affect change on a spiritual/magical level, it is a seiðr rite.

I likewise will use descriptions for the people performing the magic. If a person’s primary training and involvement in a ritual is for divination/transmission of spiritual messages with the calling in of spirits, it is a spákona (prophecy woman), spámaðr (prophecy man/human). If a person’s primary training and involvement in a ritual is for affecting Urðr/Wyrd then it would be seiðkona (magic/spell/enchantment woman) or seiðmaðr (magic/spell/enchantment man/human). A prophetess then would be a völva. As I usually use the term a völva can do both even she specializes in one or the other.

How I separate seiðr from other forms of magic, eg sympathetic magic, is that seiðr requires the use of óðr, frenzy, both in the sense of the furious rocking back and forth and/or other forms of ecstatic trance, and the working with of the soul part of the same name. It is spellwork that affects the flow/weaving of Urðr primarily through the use of óðr and other techinques and soul parts as needed. Now, that is not to say that you cannot blend seiðr with sympathetic magic, or other works as you need, are called to, etc. You might find blending magic work to be effective. Given each person engaging in seiðr is doing so in a modern context I would hardly be surprised to find a wide variety of seiðr practices.

All of this is to say that how I define ‘authentic’ may run completely contrary to how another Heathen or Northern Tradition Pagan may define it. Since my definitions and ideas of how seiðr is conducted take from the medieval sources we have, I would say that my understanding of authentic is not counter to them, but inclusive of them. This holds with how I treat much of the surviving material. None of what we have was meant as religious instruction and none of what we have is primary source. All is secondary sourcing, and most of that buried behind Christian or Christian-biased writing on the subject.

Authentic seiðr, like any modern Heathen practice, is what schews as close to our Heathen sources, and moreover, what works. We know in the sources that she sits in a high seat and that there is a vardlokkur, a ward song, held before the seiðr rite. What was this song? We are not told, and so, it may be the seiðkona needs to find her own vardlokkur and teach it to someone else to perform, or perform it herself prior to the rite.

What to wear? Thankfully, this is where The Saga of Erik the Red is a lot more explicit.

“Now, when she came in the evening, accompanied by the man who had been sent to meet her, she was dressed in such wise that she had a blue mantle over her, with strings for the neck, and it was inlaid with gems quite down to the skirt. On her neck she had glass beads. On her head she had a black hood of lambskin, lined with ermine. A staff she had in her hand, with a knob thereon; it was ornamented with brass, and inlaid with gems round about the knob. Around her she wore a girdle of soft hair, and therein was a large skin-bag, in which she kept the talismans needful to her in her wisdom. She wore hairy calf-skin shoes on her feet, with long and strong-looking thongs to them, and great knobs of latten at the ends. On her hands she had gloves of ermine-skin, and they were white and hairy within…

…She had a brazen spoon, and a knife with a handle of walrus-tusk, which was mounted with two rings of brass, and the point of it was broken off.”

Now, consider this in the modern age and that many of us are operating on shoe-string budgets and our communities even more so. I think most of the accoutremonts make sense for the time period, and that they were often patronized by the wealthy. A stripped down variation of this would be a blue head covering, or a blue hoody with a black hood. Some kind of necklace with glass beads. A brass-headed staff on the more expensive end (JoAnn Fabrics and hardware stores have pieces that could work here), a simple wooden staff on the other. Mind, I do not think a person needs to dress the part exactly to work with seiðr. It might help some folks to recreate the look of a seiðkona as accurately as possible. It might help others to just work with the suggestions here, or a good blindfold or a cloak to get a similar effect to get them in the seiðr headspace.

How to bring in the spirits? We only have a few hints at how seiðr was done, and these are sparse. We know the seiðkona sat on a highest seat and the spirits came in after the vardlokkur was sung. From my reading it is likely some kind of heavy trance was entered into, and something akin to mediumship work or channeling took place. I am not comfortable talking in depth on this in a modern context for a few reasons. First, is that my process was given to me by Freyja when Óðinn handed me to Her for instruction. Second, divulging how to do this without training brings a lot of risks and it would be fairly irresponsible of me just to outline what to do. Third, whatever I do write may not work for you -at all.

What matters is whether or not a given seiðr working is a success. Does it enable the seiðr worker to contact the Holy Powers they need to? Does it provide accurate, actionable information? Does the hamingja and megin of those engaged in it improve through its use? To my mind the reason seiðr survived so long as it did is because it worked. It is the same reason seiðr is seeing a revival now.