There is water and wine
There is bread and blood
There is craft and cleaning
There is dance and drug
There is sacrifice and storytelling
There is music and mentoring
There is silence and service
So many ways
To make offerings
To the Holy Ones
offering
Patreon Topic 23: Found Offerings
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From Elfwort comes this topic:
“Would you discuss found offerings to the Gods and wights in the Viking age and before, such as bog offerings?”
It’s important to note that not all found offerings were found in bogs, though that is certainly one place they were found. Other places, as noted by Claude Lecouteux in his book The Traditions of Household Spirits, were beneath the threshold and beneath the home otherwise. These sacrifices would be snakes, cats, roosters, and the like and were likely to be understood as guardians of the home.
Some found offerings, such as bog people who were clearly strangled or had their head bashed in may have been outlaws or even willingly made offering of themselves, while whole ships and their contents may have been offered along coastlines and interred for high-ranking people. It is not known for certain if the bog people were human sacrifices, as this article from The Atlantic covering the subject states, though my inclination is towards that being the case. This paper, At the threshold of the Viking Age by Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, Niels Bonde, and Terje Thun, explores the ship offerings in a particular case in Kvalsund, Norway. Boat parts and whole boats put into the bog would have been known as bog offerings. The famous Oseberg ship is another example of a ship offering.
Why would this have been done? In the case of the Kvalsund bog offering the authors posit that “Because vessels and water are at the core of the activity at this particular locality, and because there is a high risk of shipwrecking in this area, the vessel offerings may have been related to this danger in order to prevent shipwrecks, and therefore save or bring back lives, which is an element of fertility rituals in the widest sense.” The Oseberg ship, meanwhile, was a burial site. In the case of coastal offerings we could see non-burial ship offerings as made to Norðr, or perhaps to Rán and Ægir. We can speculate that ship burials on land were likely started with elaborate ceremonies that, when finished, would continue to celebrate the lives of those ‘aboard’. The ship itself was a way of securing good passage to the afterlife.
What does all this mean for the modern Heathen? We have a wide variety of ways to take care of our offerings, and that some of these methods of offerings are as old as time. It also points to some interesting ideas about setting up a household guardian. Now, I am not saying every Heathen should go out and bring home a snake, cat, etc to sacrifice to put under their theshold. However, it is important to think about why these sacrifices were made. These were invitations to the vaettr to take up residence inside the house, to guard and care for it. I am all for reclaiming our traditions of sacrifice, though I do not think folks would sacrifice what we now think of as pet animals like a cat or snake.
So, what can we do instead? We could ask the vaettr of a given animal to inhabit a substitute offering, such as one made of bread that we ritually slaughter and place beneath the threshold. Modern vulture culture provides us another way to bring this idea into modern Heathenry. Most of us work with found remains or those that result from a hunt. We could work with the skeleton or other remains of a willing animal or group of animals, and make offerings to them prior to deposition beneath the threshold. While these methods do not have the potency of a ritual sacrifice, for those who lack the skill or desire to these are important modern ways of engaging in practices alike to the old ways.
What about modern boat offerings? Given the proliferation of trash and waste in our oceans, lakes, rivers, and ponds, it is probably not the best idea to mimic our Ancestors in this way. Besides, as noted in the At the threshold paper, “Kvalsund was a bog at the time, not a lake, but the site was turned into a pond due to ritual construction and deposition.” Our offerings literally have the power to radically alter the environment. Taking care as to what and how we offer is important. So, should we carry on ship offerings? No, I would not. Besides, while the boats were made of materials that could decay over time modern boats do not.
Taking into consideration local needs for trees, including the need to retain old growth forest, to keep soil from eroding, and to reduce habitat loss, the use of whole logs to make a ship for the use of an offering, regardless of how impressive or potent it is, cannot be justified. Even seemingly benign rearrangement of stones in rivers to make cairns can have detrimental effects on the local environment, so here too we should be care what, if anything, we leave behind. If we are to leave offerings they should be compostable, or otherwise able to break down wherever we leave the offering without detrimental effect. Consider how much of the Oseberg ship was left intact despite burial and the composition of materials in it.
So does this mean we Heathens should not leave physical offerings? Of course not. It means that we need to be careful in regards to what we offer, where we offer it, and how we offer things. This honors the thing we offer and the Beings we offer it to. This honors and respects the life of the Beings we make offerings of, the Beings we offer it to, the Beings (such as Fire, Water, etc) that we offer through, and the landvaettir from which the offerings came and where those offerings will be laid down.
Patreon Song/Poem/Prayer 21 -For Freya
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 Freya.
Seiðkona Who shakes in the throes of vaettir
Spákona Who hears the vaettir speak
Ginnregin Who embodies power
Whose mouth is full of blood
Whose hand hold the sacrificial knife
Whose spear is keen and wet
Whose sword is fierce and eager
Whose hair is braided for battle
Whose eyes pierce the foe
Whose wings cut the air
Whose words stir Urðr
Patreon Song/Poem/Prayer 11 -A Song for Grandmother Mugwort
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 by Maleck Odinsson.
Amma Una, Amma Una, Amma Una
Eldest of Herbs, Eldest of Plants, Eldest of Green Power
Amma Una, Amma Una, Amma Una
Cleansing, Empowering, Offering
Amma Una, Amma Una, Amma Una
Protecting, Healing, Knowing
Amma Una, Amma Una, Amma Una
Poison-killer, Blister-killer, Spirit-killer
Amma Una, Amma Una, Amma Una
Spirit Blesser, Spirit Empowerer, Spirit Enlivener
Amma Una, Amma Una, Amma Una
Gipt fá gipt, gipt fá gipt, gipt fá gipt
Amma Una, Amma Una, Amma Una
Þökk fyrir, Þökk fyrir, Þökk fyrir Amma Una
A Prayer of Praise to Holy Healers
Hail Mengloth, Jotun Goddess whose hands heal and wisdom preserves health of body, mind, and soul!
Who knows the ways to knit flesh and bone
Who knows the ways to bring vitality and vigor
Who teaches those who listen in the holy arts of healing!
Whose work staunches the blood of wounds
Who guards the lines of the heart so all is kept free from infection
Whose skillful hands knit the skin and flesh that every wound may become a scar
Whose wisdom of herbs and medicine makes every illness become renewed vigor
Thank You for blessing the doctors, nurses, techs, and healers with wisdom, skill, care, and prudence!
Hail Mengloth! Ves ðu heil!
Hail O Eir, Aesir Goddess of the healing hands!
O Wise Goddess who teaches the eager to learn how to heal!
O Battle Medic whose hands have tended the flesh from the bite of wood, bone, bronze, iron, steel, and powder!
O Careful One who brings the healing teams together in purpose!
Thank You! You have blessed the doctors, the nurses, the techs, the healers with care, caution, wisdom and skillful work!
Hail Eir! Ves ðu heil!
Io Asklepios, Divine Physician!
Io to the Son of Apollon and Koronis!
Io Kheiron’s Son!
O Wielder of the Serpent-Staff
Whose hands have healed holy and mortal flesh alike
Whose lessons have instructed the countless lines of doctors, nurses, techs, and all those who heal
Whose work has saved the lives of countless people
Whose wisdom has been preserved that the work and art of healing has continued
At Whose side stands Telesphorus that health and recovery are one in healing
Thank You for blessing the doctors, nurses, techs, and staff with knowledge, skill, care, and wisdom!
Io Asklepios! Khairete!
O Imhotep, Divine Physician
Whose words and works have blessed the world
In whose hands and heart Thoth worked good blessings
In whose mind and heart was brilliance and its blessings shared with every doctor and physician, every surgeon and assistant
O Wise Teacher, thank You, for Your lessons and writings that taught all who followed and read of You how to heal!
O Divine Physician, thank You, for your skill has blessed the harmed and sick with health and vigor!
O Divine Surgeon, thank You, for Your skill has delivered life from death!
O Supreme Magician, thank you, for Your Words and Works yet give wisdom, yet give insight, yet strive out sickness, and yet heal!
Em Hotep, Dua, Dua Neter en-ek O Imhotep!
A Prayer of Thanks in the Midst of Storms
Hail holy Thunderer, Who brings lightning and rain!
Thank You for protecting our family!
Hail holy Stormer, Who brings the winds!
Thank You for blowing the worst of the storms beyond us!
Hail holy Vaettir of Clouds, Rain, Lightning, Winds, and Hail!
Thank you for letting us get safely home and sparing our home from harm!
The #DoMagick Challenge Day 22
Ingwaz (Wikimedia Commons)
Today I did galdr with Ingwaz.
Worked with earplugs again today. They were fairly effective at helping me block out the outside world and concentrating fully on the work tonight.
A note: I know that the #DoMagick Challenge was to take place over the course of December, however, due to obligations to my family, Kindred, and getting hit for overtime at my job, I have been playing catch-up with my sleep. So I will be finishing up the Challenge’s 30 days, just not on the same timetable as all the other folks.
In the first round of galdr I experienced sex. The generations that grew from roots rooted in sex, then back, farther and farther back until it was no longer sex I was experiencing, but cell division. It was going from what was familiar to the unfamiliar, from this generation and humanity on back through the lines until our beginning. It was…odd. Good, but odd. I do not have words to adequately describe what going back in time and experiencing each stage of life was like, but suffice to say it was all-connective between ourselves and every thing once you go back far enough.
In the second round of galdr I was in a field. Cows, or what were near to them, I think they could have been aurochs, were lazing in it. This was just a feeling of utter peace. No predators, no worry, no nothing but lazing in a field and relaxing. When I began the next part of the galdr, they were being guided about the field. They were being herded or moved around with. Their waste fed the ground as they shredded the earth with their hooves, they ate the grasses, great big stalking things not like what we’re used to with these manicured lawns. These were grasses. They were wild. As they were eaten many shed their seeds and spread, and the aurochs helped them along to propagate the next generation. The last part of the galdr was a huge shift. Suddenly I was in a wholly different field, different grasses. Smaller grasses, great furrows in the ground over which grew plants and grasses. I saw a red flower with a black center, and heard from far off someone singing Flander’s Field. The song and scene faded as I finished galdring.
In the last round of galdr I was in a special wood-roofed hut, the scent of blood all around. The auroch’s neck was red, its body wedged into a pair of wooden beams formed into an X, tied tight to it. My hand was covered in its blood, a long knife in my hand as I held it so it would not fall. Then, the next galdr began and I and some others were butchering it in the hut, placing its parts onto wooden slats that were taken from us. In the last galdr, there was a vessel of blood that had been beneath it taken, and its blood was sprinkled on a fire, on the people, on the Gods, which were present in the poles. As I finished the galdr, it seemed to echo through me, and life was sprinkled on the field, the fire, the people, the Gods. The land would be fertile. I could see it. The people would be too. The Gods were pleased. Then, I opened my eyes, and took deep breaths as I settled back into now-time.
I did my prayers of thanks to Rúnatýr and the Runevaettir. I cleansed with the candle and prayed prayers of thanks to the Eldest Ancestor.
Link to the Daily Ritual for the Challenge.
#DoMagick
A Small Offering
I could hear the crows calling
The small cage was empty
The suet was all gone and the birds were hungry
So I laid out another offering
Peanuts for good growth and warmth in winter
A small offering that would save lives
Something shifted as I put the offering in
Shut the cage firmly and checked how it hung
It was acceptance
I hear you, landvaettir
The Hospital Dead
I feel the dead and the dying press around me
A pressure at first as soon as the doors part that builds
Each step bringing more
A throng of voices, shades walking down hallways
That no longer exist
Faces contort, bodies shuffle
What is left behind is rasping breath
Pained heartbroken moments
Loneliness
It does not take long to peel back layers
To see why these ones stayed
Most aren’t lost; they’re forgotten
They cannot understand why they never came back
Why they never came
I hear their lamentations
No one has come to grieve them, none to miss them
No one to lay down prayers or a flower
No one to say “Farewell”
In every hospital the Dead stay
So many unmourned, so many bound
Laying and shuffling in every floor
There are no wasted prayers;
Lay down a flower
There are no wasted prayers;
Lay down a coin
There are no wasted prayers;
Lay down a drink
There are no wasted prayers;
Lay down a plate of food
There are no wasted prayers;
Lay down a song
There are no wasted prayers;
Lay down your tears
Do not ask “Do They deserve it?”
They are Dead
I lay down these lines
The pressure eases
Because someone remembers Them
I whisper prayers in a silent hall
The pressure eases
Because someone speaks to Them
I pour down an offering
The pressure eases
Because someone has slaked Their thirst
I lay down an offering
The pressure eases
Because someone has fed Their hunger
They do not leave
But each may do their part
To remember and honor the Dead
For Nerthus
Prayer 1
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Cart carries blessed seed and soil
to whoever’s home it visits
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Bounty bring virility to Vanaheim
shared selflessly with kith and kin
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Hands have graced our gardens
through Your reach, the roots grow deep
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Body rides upon the roads;
Your veiled visage a holy Mystery
Hail Holy Vanir of Fertile Fields
Whose Ways wend to beauty and blessings,
let all live with You in good Gebo
Prayer 2
The loamy earth that welcomes the seed
The black soil that bursts with life
The tree who overgrows the bones
The ground who eats the bodies
The inundated ground that bears the rice
The sandy ground that bears the spears
The grove where the deer mate
The fields where their young are born
The ever-breathing forests
The ever-teeming swamps
The ever-eating earth
The ever-giving earth
All these things You are
Hail to you, O Nerthus!
Prayer 3
They sank down into the waters
Held down by iron grips
A sacrifice for seeing Your holy Face
They sank down into the bog
Their blood reddening the waters
A sacrifice for keeping the community clean
They were offered to You
O Holy Nerthus
That the ways between us
May be kept well
Sarenth Odinsson 