Post by Mysti on Aug 11, 2007 12:19:49 GMT -5
Norse Gods/Goddesses of Valhalla
In last week's class we covered Odin, Freya, Loki, Ostara & Thor. Please review transcripts for info on them. I promised a listing of more so here ya go....Enjoy the magick and mystery of a long vanished era!
Balder
The God most beloved by all living things as well as by the other Gods, the Eddas say, was Balder. Blond, fair, & jandsome, he is good & loving in every way, always willing to sacrifice himself for others. He may be viewed as being similar to the Christ, or as the Green Man of the world's legends whose death is the sacrifice that brings new life to the Earth, & whose rebirth in Spring symbolizes the inevitable rebirth of all things. There are traces of Balder being part of a very ancient life-religion of which we now have no records, but which preceded the Gods of Valhalla. In it , Balder & his brother Hodur would have been the symbolic, yearly rivals for the favors of the Goddess. He is the patron of light & of day. Balder is always cheerful & caring, willing to listen & to help.
Tyr
The invincible warrior of the Nordic pantheon, & far older that all the others of Asgard was Tyr. He is said to have sacrificed his right hand to help bind Fenrir, the wolf who, when set free, is destined to devour the Sun. Tyr symbolizes will & desire. It is thought by scholars that he may have been the original father-god of the archaicIndo_europeans, long before the dawn of our histories.
Heimdall
A bright & gracious God, Heimdall guards the heavenly rainbow bridge that leads to the realm of the Gods. He is the watchman & warder of the Gods, & good to call upon at any time that watchfulness & guarding are required. The old legends told that he was born of the Elder Gods, that he wants less sleep than a bird, sees a hundred miles off by night or day, & hears the grass on the ground & the wool on a sheep's back both grow. It is said that his horn will alert all living things when the great conflict of Ragnarok comes, bringing with it the end of the world.
Bragi
The patron of poetry & eloquence, Bragi was the skald, bard, & minstrel of the Gods. He likes wells & springs, is easy to like & is enjoyable company at any time. He is the personification of poetic inspiration, the wisdom of the skalds, & divine illumination in the soul.
Freyr
Patron of fields, crops, & green growing things, he is the peaceful & fruitful protector of farmers, & a personification of the basic male principle in the universe. Freya & Freyr (sister & brother) were originally "Vanir": pre-Valhala deities who together shared the seasons. Quite probably the Spring & Summer were hers & the Fall & Winter were his.
Aegir
God of the sea & patron of sailors, & similar to Neptune. He can be fearsome & awe-inspiring to the extreme, as is the ocean itself. He has power over the sea serpents & water monsters of all kinds, yet Aegir is invariably a very genial & pleasant host to those who visit him.
Hodur
She is the Gossess of the burial mounds & the fairy-mountains. (As a result of their extensive researches, the Brothers Grimm felt that she was Venus in the ancient legend of Tannhauser.) Hulda is the Eye Goddess associated with the grave mounds, & whose spiral eye carvings mark ancient grave sites across all of Europe. (She may well have been the potent "fairy godmother" in the original German version of Cinderella in which Cinderella is stronger, magickally adept, and somewhat darker
The blind brother of Balder who, according to the legend, threw the mistletoe at his bright borther, not knowing that this small plant was the one thing in existence that could hurt or kill Balder. Some have said that he personifies ignorance & darkness, though it may be said that he is the personification of age & aging, & the dissolution which clears the way for rebirth of new life. There are some indications that before the time of Valhalla there was a life religion, now forgotten, in which Balder was the king of the waxing year, Hodur the Winter king (or the king of the declining year), and Nanna the eternal Goddess for whom they contended.
Hermodur
The messenger of the Gods, personifying quickness. He is son of Odin.
Sif
The Goddess who was consort to Thor, & who was famed for her long, beautiful golden hair with which she preferred to work her magick & enchantments. She is the patroness of harvests & the comfortable wealth that comes from them.
Hulda
Also known as Holle or Berchta. She is one of the earlier Gods, or Giants, & represents an earlier goddess tradition that far preceded Valhalla. For those who are drawn to the folk magicks of ancient Europe, particularly those during the era & in the lands of the Norse religion, an understanding of Hulda is very useful indeed. Although Hulda has no direct part in the Eddic cycle oflegends (she is mentioned indirectly & her magick user followers, as adherents to an older tradition, are mentioned as often being in conflict with the followers of Asgard), her worship once spread over all of north, central, & eastern Europe, & contributed greatly to the common people's traditions in following the Norse religion. There is a vast amount of her folklore still surviving & there are probably millions in those regions that still follow Hulda, though under a different name. Over the past thousand years a thin veneer of Christianity has been applied & the Goddess has been re-named as "Mary", with her deeds & sayings transferred mostly intact as a part of the local versions of Judeo-Christianity.
than in our present popular Walt Disney version.) Sometimes comely & dignified, though more often appearing as an old crone or a wise woman, she is kind, benignant, & merciful. Hulda (or Holle) likes lakes & fountains, creates rain & snow, & rules her own garden-like realm in the nether wirld. Apple trees are particularly sacred to her. She is patron of flax & weaving, & is often mentioned in eastern European legends as going through houses & blessing the infants.
There is another side to Hulda: she is Goddess of the Witches, & also the Goddess of Winter & the underworld. At the depth of Winter she leads a procession of wolves, elves, withches, & spirits of the dead through the moonlight & snow, carrying away the souls of those whose time has come to die. Oftimes she can appear as a beautiful woman from the front, though look like a tree from behind.
Hulda is both the kindly bringer-in of life & the dark, austere one who takes it away at life's end, She is the forerunner of Hel, & later gave many powers to the Asgardian Queen of the underworld. She often carries a spindle for spinning the threads of fate & destiny. Some legends state that her spindle is magickally linked with the axis that runs from the middle of the Earth, out through the North Pole & to the North Star. This she later gave to Freya.
Hulda is the original patroness of housewives & of families, though in later times this was passed first to Freya & then to Frigga. She loves singing & the playing of musical instruments, & was thus also the original patroness of music. In some parts of Northern Europe she is said to be the wife or mother of Odin, although this admittedly conflicts with the better-known & more recent legends. In ancient times some peoples in northerb Europe called the Milky Way "Hulda's Road", though more recently this "road of souls" was said to beong to Freya, who has also inherited many of Hulda's other strong attributes.
Some scholars have felt that she precedes the Old Gods, & that her name is also Huldana, Erda, or Earth. If so, then Hulda is perhaps the most ancient of all the High Ones, & derves honor as the Utilmate Source.
Ran
Queen of the Sea & consort of Aegit, the Sea God. In the legends of northern Europe she has always been considerably more important than Aegir. Ran is queen of the undines, or mermaids, & hence s known for her music, her ability to prophesy the future, her spells of enchantment & her great beauty. The souls of those who have drowned are said to go into her realms. She is the patroness of girls & of young women who have not yet married. Ran's daughters are the proverbial "nine waves of the sea", & the entrance to her abode is through the Maelstrom, the vast whirlpool said by legends to exist somewhere in the higher latitudes of the North Sea.
Hel
Loki's daughter is queen of the realms of the dead, & is as fearsome as the darker aspects of the ancient Greek HEcate. Hel (also called Hella or Hellia) is sister of the chaos wolf Fenrir & a vast earth dragon; she is pictured as half-black & half-white. Hella sits in judgment of souls which have not been able to attain either the high state of Valhalla or the elemental beauty of Ran's sea realm. There area different traditions & the legends of Hel changed with time. She was preceded by the archaic Lady Hulda, & apparently received all powers from this Elder Goddess. Hel's realms, according to the early legends, are deep within the Earth, at the root of all existence (which in the Eddas was figuratively called the base of the World Tree, Yggdrasill) & can be quite pleasing or severely unpleasant, depending on what a soul truly deserves. Interestingly, Jungian psychology places Hella deep within the subconscious of every living human, in the "racial memory" itself. Hella is not death nor any evil being; she neither kills nor torments. She takes the souls of the departed & holds them with an inexorable grip. She is the hard reality which lies at the end of all things.
Iduna
The Goddess of youth, she also represents our Earth. Iduna supplied the Gods with the source of immortality, magickal apples. There is a metaphysical importance here, for the apple has always been eqated with the wisdom of how the universe really works. Apples are the sweet fruit of the soil which, when sliced crossways, show a five-pointed star, symbolizing humankind made perfect, the ages of man, eternal rebirth & much more. One should refer to the writings of Robert Graves' "The White Goddess" for an in-depth discussion of this ancient, universal symbol.
Nanna
Balder's wife was a Goddess who was good, loving, & devoted. It is said that after Balder's death she died of heartbreak. Her spirit comforts those who have lost a member of their family, since Balder himself existed happily & with good friends in Hel's realm after death. He was, in time, joined by his beloved wife. In some very ancient legends she is the ageless & beautiful Goddess for whom Balder & Hodur eternally contend; she finally descended into the underworld to confront Hodur, & successfully bring the slain Balder back up into the world of the living once again.
Gerd
The wife of Freyr, her beauty was so great that it left sparkles in the air after she passed. She was given the choice of immortality or annihilation under the pressure (or inspiration) of Freyr, & consciously made the decision to become an immortal goddess.
Bil
The Goddess of weaving, as mentioned in "The Sga of Gisli the Outlaw". Weaving, like spinning, seems to have been a means for effecting magick as well as a very common household routine.
The Norns
The three Goddesses of fate who spun the destinies & histories of men, women, nations, & Gods--even the history & untilmate destiny of the universe itself.
Frigga
The patron of mothers, parenting, & households, Frigga was the wife of Odin & the chief of Asynjor. Her son was the Bright One of Valhalla, Balder. Originally Frigga & Freya were probably one diety, but in most of the legends she is seprarte, being the older & highly competent matron whose common sense & family love holds the home together. Frigga is perhaps one of the most basic of all society, the family & the home, could not exist. She rewards good housewives, wathces the home & is guardian of women in childbirth.
Ullr
A stepson of Thor & Sif, & a minor hero of Nordic myth.
Vali
The son of Loki by Siguna or by Rinda, & one of the Aesir.
Skaldi
The Giantess who was the nother of Freyr, & is the patroness of all who love wild, snow-covered wilderness mountains. She became the wife of Njord.
Foresti
One of the Aesir, & son of Balder & Nanna. He is the patron of justice & uprightness.
Njord
A Giant who was father of Freyr & Freya, & may originally have been consort to the Earth-Mother Goddess Jord.
Vidar
"The Silent One", who was the son of Odin by a Giantess, & who was almost as strong as Thor. One of the Aesir, the legends tell that he untltimately destroys the chaos-wolf Fenrir at the world's end of Ragnarok.
Aesir
The entourage of Gods & Goddesses who were the attendants of Odin.
Asynjor
The entourage of Gods & Goddesses who were the attendants of Freya & Frigga.
Vanir
In Nordic myth these appear to have been the seafaring gods of a race which preceded the Aesir in Scandinavia. After a defeat by the Aesir, the Vanir fused with them.
Giants
The Elder Gods of Nordic myth who wre displaced by the Aesir, the Asynjor, & the Vanir. They could be of normal human stature & were known for their magick & often for their beauty.
In last week's class we covered Odin, Freya, Loki, Ostara & Thor. Please review transcripts for info on them. I promised a listing of more so here ya go....Enjoy the magick and mystery of a long vanished era!
Balder
The God most beloved by all living things as well as by the other Gods, the Eddas say, was Balder. Blond, fair, & jandsome, he is good & loving in every way, always willing to sacrifice himself for others. He may be viewed as being similar to the Christ, or as the Green Man of the world's legends whose death is the sacrifice that brings new life to the Earth, & whose rebirth in Spring symbolizes the inevitable rebirth of all things. There are traces of Balder being part of a very ancient life-religion of which we now have no records, but which preceded the Gods of Valhalla. In it , Balder & his brother Hodur would have been the symbolic, yearly rivals for the favors of the Goddess. He is the patron of light & of day. Balder is always cheerful & caring, willing to listen & to help.
Tyr
The invincible warrior of the Nordic pantheon, & far older that all the others of Asgard was Tyr. He is said to have sacrificed his right hand to help bind Fenrir, the wolf who, when set free, is destined to devour the Sun. Tyr symbolizes will & desire. It is thought by scholars that he may have been the original father-god of the archaicIndo_europeans, long before the dawn of our histories.
Heimdall
A bright & gracious God, Heimdall guards the heavenly rainbow bridge that leads to the realm of the Gods. He is the watchman & warder of the Gods, & good to call upon at any time that watchfulness & guarding are required. The old legends told that he was born of the Elder Gods, that he wants less sleep than a bird, sees a hundred miles off by night or day, & hears the grass on the ground & the wool on a sheep's back both grow. It is said that his horn will alert all living things when the great conflict of Ragnarok comes, bringing with it the end of the world.
Bragi
The patron of poetry & eloquence, Bragi was the skald, bard, & minstrel of the Gods. He likes wells & springs, is easy to like & is enjoyable company at any time. He is the personification of poetic inspiration, the wisdom of the skalds, & divine illumination in the soul.
Freyr
Patron of fields, crops, & green growing things, he is the peaceful & fruitful protector of farmers, & a personification of the basic male principle in the universe. Freya & Freyr (sister & brother) were originally "Vanir": pre-Valhala deities who together shared the seasons. Quite probably the Spring & Summer were hers & the Fall & Winter were his.
Aegir
God of the sea & patron of sailors, & similar to Neptune. He can be fearsome & awe-inspiring to the extreme, as is the ocean itself. He has power over the sea serpents & water monsters of all kinds, yet Aegir is invariably a very genial & pleasant host to those who visit him.
Hodur
She is the Gossess of the burial mounds & the fairy-mountains. (As a result of their extensive researches, the Brothers Grimm felt that she was Venus in the ancient legend of Tannhauser.) Hulda is the Eye Goddess associated with the grave mounds, & whose spiral eye carvings mark ancient grave sites across all of Europe. (She may well have been the potent "fairy godmother" in the original German version of Cinderella in which Cinderella is stronger, magickally adept, and somewhat darker
The blind brother of Balder who, according to the legend, threw the mistletoe at his bright borther, not knowing that this small plant was the one thing in existence that could hurt or kill Balder. Some have said that he personifies ignorance & darkness, though it may be said that he is the personification of age & aging, & the dissolution which clears the way for rebirth of new life. There are some indications that before the time of Valhalla there was a life religion, now forgotten, in which Balder was the king of the waxing year, Hodur the Winter king (or the king of the declining year), and Nanna the eternal Goddess for whom they contended.
Hermodur
The messenger of the Gods, personifying quickness. He is son of Odin.
Sif
The Goddess who was consort to Thor, & who was famed for her long, beautiful golden hair with which she preferred to work her magick & enchantments. She is the patroness of harvests & the comfortable wealth that comes from them.
Hulda
Also known as Holle or Berchta. She is one of the earlier Gods, or Giants, & represents an earlier goddess tradition that far preceded Valhalla. For those who are drawn to the folk magicks of ancient Europe, particularly those during the era & in the lands of the Norse religion, an understanding of Hulda is very useful indeed. Although Hulda has no direct part in the Eddic cycle oflegends (she is mentioned indirectly & her magick user followers, as adherents to an older tradition, are mentioned as often being in conflict with the followers of Asgard), her worship once spread over all of north, central, & eastern Europe, & contributed greatly to the common people's traditions in following the Norse religion. There is a vast amount of her folklore still surviving & there are probably millions in those regions that still follow Hulda, though under a different name. Over the past thousand years a thin veneer of Christianity has been applied & the Goddess has been re-named as "Mary", with her deeds & sayings transferred mostly intact as a part of the local versions of Judeo-Christianity.
than in our present popular Walt Disney version.) Sometimes comely & dignified, though more often appearing as an old crone or a wise woman, she is kind, benignant, & merciful. Hulda (or Holle) likes lakes & fountains, creates rain & snow, & rules her own garden-like realm in the nether wirld. Apple trees are particularly sacred to her. She is patron of flax & weaving, & is often mentioned in eastern European legends as going through houses & blessing the infants.
There is another side to Hulda: she is Goddess of the Witches, & also the Goddess of Winter & the underworld. At the depth of Winter she leads a procession of wolves, elves, withches, & spirits of the dead through the moonlight & snow, carrying away the souls of those whose time has come to die. Oftimes she can appear as a beautiful woman from the front, though look like a tree from behind.
Hulda is both the kindly bringer-in of life & the dark, austere one who takes it away at life's end, She is the forerunner of Hel, & later gave many powers to the Asgardian Queen of the underworld. She often carries a spindle for spinning the threads of fate & destiny. Some legends state that her spindle is magickally linked with the axis that runs from the middle of the Earth, out through the North Pole & to the North Star. This she later gave to Freya.
Hulda is the original patroness of housewives & of families, though in later times this was passed first to Freya & then to Frigga. She loves singing & the playing of musical instruments, & was thus also the original patroness of music. In some parts of Northern Europe she is said to be the wife or mother of Odin, although this admittedly conflicts with the better-known & more recent legends. In ancient times some peoples in northerb Europe called the Milky Way "Hulda's Road", though more recently this "road of souls" was said to beong to Freya, who has also inherited many of Hulda's other strong attributes.
Some scholars have felt that she precedes the Old Gods, & that her name is also Huldana, Erda, or Earth. If so, then Hulda is perhaps the most ancient of all the High Ones, & derves honor as the Utilmate Source.
Ran
Queen of the Sea & consort of Aegit, the Sea God. In the legends of northern Europe she has always been considerably more important than Aegir. Ran is queen of the undines, or mermaids, & hence s known for her music, her ability to prophesy the future, her spells of enchantment & her great beauty. The souls of those who have drowned are said to go into her realms. She is the patroness of girls & of young women who have not yet married. Ran's daughters are the proverbial "nine waves of the sea", & the entrance to her abode is through the Maelstrom, the vast whirlpool said by legends to exist somewhere in the higher latitudes of the North Sea.
Hel
Loki's daughter is queen of the realms of the dead, & is as fearsome as the darker aspects of the ancient Greek HEcate. Hel (also called Hella or Hellia) is sister of the chaos wolf Fenrir & a vast earth dragon; she is pictured as half-black & half-white. Hella sits in judgment of souls which have not been able to attain either the high state of Valhalla or the elemental beauty of Ran's sea realm. There area different traditions & the legends of Hel changed with time. She was preceded by the archaic Lady Hulda, & apparently received all powers from this Elder Goddess. Hel's realms, according to the early legends, are deep within the Earth, at the root of all existence (which in the Eddas was figuratively called the base of the World Tree, Yggdrasill) & can be quite pleasing or severely unpleasant, depending on what a soul truly deserves. Interestingly, Jungian psychology places Hella deep within the subconscious of every living human, in the "racial memory" itself. Hella is not death nor any evil being; she neither kills nor torments. She takes the souls of the departed & holds them with an inexorable grip. She is the hard reality which lies at the end of all things.
Iduna
The Goddess of youth, she also represents our Earth. Iduna supplied the Gods with the source of immortality, magickal apples. There is a metaphysical importance here, for the apple has always been eqated with the wisdom of how the universe really works. Apples are the sweet fruit of the soil which, when sliced crossways, show a five-pointed star, symbolizing humankind made perfect, the ages of man, eternal rebirth & much more. One should refer to the writings of Robert Graves' "The White Goddess" for an in-depth discussion of this ancient, universal symbol.
Nanna
Balder's wife was a Goddess who was good, loving, & devoted. It is said that after Balder's death she died of heartbreak. Her spirit comforts those who have lost a member of their family, since Balder himself existed happily & with good friends in Hel's realm after death. He was, in time, joined by his beloved wife. In some very ancient legends she is the ageless & beautiful Goddess for whom Balder & Hodur eternally contend; she finally descended into the underworld to confront Hodur, & successfully bring the slain Balder back up into the world of the living once again.
Gerd
The wife of Freyr, her beauty was so great that it left sparkles in the air after she passed. She was given the choice of immortality or annihilation under the pressure (or inspiration) of Freyr, & consciously made the decision to become an immortal goddess.
Bil
The Goddess of weaving, as mentioned in "The Sga of Gisli the Outlaw". Weaving, like spinning, seems to have been a means for effecting magick as well as a very common household routine.
The Norns
The three Goddesses of fate who spun the destinies & histories of men, women, nations, & Gods--even the history & untilmate destiny of the universe itself.
Frigga
The patron of mothers, parenting, & households, Frigga was the wife of Odin & the chief of Asynjor. Her son was the Bright One of Valhalla, Balder. Originally Frigga & Freya were probably one diety, but in most of the legends she is seprarte, being the older & highly competent matron whose common sense & family love holds the home together. Frigga is perhaps one of the most basic of all society, the family & the home, could not exist. She rewards good housewives, wathces the home & is guardian of women in childbirth.
Ullr
A stepson of Thor & Sif, & a minor hero of Nordic myth.
Vali
The son of Loki by Siguna or by Rinda, & one of the Aesir.
Skaldi
The Giantess who was the nother of Freyr, & is the patroness of all who love wild, snow-covered wilderness mountains. She became the wife of Njord.
Foresti
One of the Aesir, & son of Balder & Nanna. He is the patron of justice & uprightness.
Njord
A Giant who was father of Freyr & Freya, & may originally have been consort to the Earth-Mother Goddess Jord.
Vidar
"The Silent One", who was the son of Odin by a Giantess, & who was almost as strong as Thor. One of the Aesir, the legends tell that he untltimately destroys the chaos-wolf Fenrir at the world's end of Ragnarok.
Aesir
The entourage of Gods & Goddesses who were the attendants of Odin.
Asynjor
The entourage of Gods & Goddesses who were the attendants of Freya & Frigga.
Vanir
In Nordic myth these appear to have been the seafaring gods of a race which preceded the Aesir in Scandinavia. After a defeat by the Aesir, the Vanir fused with them.
Giants
The Elder Gods of Nordic myth who wre displaced by the Aesir, the Asynjor, & the Vanir. They could be of normal human stature & were known for their magick & often for their beauty.