#paul bauschatz

[thorraborinn]

I know you've said that other Heathens have given you crap for giving Dr. Jackson Crawford even the mildest amount of criticism, but I was wondering if you would be willing to share any more criticism about his videos, especially the ones on the gods and Norse culture? If not, is anyone you know who has critiqued his stuff? I know Dr. MatthIas Nordvig doesn't like him, but he took down all his videos. I'm asking because I as I read a lot of other scholars' work the more I question how he came to some of those conclusions like translating Óðr's girl to Odin's girl. I know he subscribes to the idea that they are one and the same, but I still think it's weird to put in the translation while knowing you're not going to be adding explanations in the book.

Honestly I don't really have any systematic criticisms, just normal ones like I have for basically any scholar. I don't really watch his videos but I think I've agreed with most of what I have seen. It's more that because his content is so easily accessible and viewed by so many people, some of those people seem to have become really emotionally invested in him being an unquestionable authority, and they really shouldn't be doing that to anyone. There isn't a population of heathens who get personally offended and defensive if I say I think Terry Gunnell or Margaret Clunies Ross missed the mark somewhere. I think for many of Crawford's viewers he's the only specialist whose work they are accessing regularly, and if they read some other authors too they would have a better experience.

Come to think of it, some heathens do get really invested in certain authors like Vilhelm Grønbech or Paul Bauschatz, and get very defensive if you criticize them. To an extent this is also true of H.R. Ellis Davidson. For a lot of heathens of my generation her books were the first scholarly works they read, so their relationship to her was probably similar to heathens and Crawford now. And Ellis Davidson did a lot of good work that nonetheless can and should be criticized.

I will say though that Jackson Crawford's translation of the Poetic Edda is almost universally regarded as bad by people who can read the original, so yeah, most scholars would agree with you about that. And nobody seems to be able to wrap their heads around his decision not to include notes and commentary. I get the impression that he wasn't trying to make something that's accurate or suitable for scholars, but trying to produce something that's entertaining and easy to understand for a mass, popular audience with only casual interest. So if someone wants to get an accurate idea of what the source texts are actually saying, they should read Edward Pettit's translation or Carolyne Larrington's (2014, not 1996), just as someone who wants a translation that is highly poetic at the expense of accuracy and clarity might choose Hollander's.

To say any more than this would require me to watch more YouTube than I am willing to.

[dmitrifyodorovichkaramazov]

Seiðr Sources Masterpost 2021

Here is an updated list of all of the books and papers I recommend for the study of seiðr

The Viking Way - Neil Price

Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic - Clive Tolley

The Archeology of Seiðr: Circumpolar Traditions in Viking Pre-Christian Religion - Neil Price 

Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives: Spinning Seiðr - Eldar Heide

A Biography of Seiðr-staffs - Leszek Gardela

Shamanism in the Old Norse Tradition: A Theory Between Ideological Camps - Stefanie v. Schnurbein

A Sourcebook of Seið - Stephen Flowers (there are a lot of problems with this guy but its just a collection of every mention of seiðr in the sagas and Eddas)

The Hunting of the Vétt: in Search of the Old Norse Shamanic Drum - Clive Tolley

Remnants of Seiðr: Charms and Incantations in the German Diasporas - Nóel Braucher

The Image of Seiðr in Old Icelandic Literature: Consistency or Variation- Lyonel D. Perabo

Seiðr & Shamans: Defining the Myth of Ritual Specialists in pre-Christian Scandinavia - Sebastian Klein

The Chicanery of Seiðr 

Out of the Waters Beneath the Tree - Catherine Heath

On Shamanic Traditions

SHAMAN An International Journal  for Shamanistic Research

ECSTATIC RELIGION A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession 

SHAMANISM Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy - Mircea Eliade

On Spirits

Spirits Through Respiratory Passages -Eldar Heide

The heroized dead. People, animals, and materiality in Scandinavian death rituals, AD 200-1000 - Kristina Jennbert

Vorðr and Gandr: Helping Spirits in Norse Magic - Clive Tolley

On Shapeshifting and Soul-parts

Shapeshifting in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature - Lyonel D. Perabo

Road to Hel- H R Ellis Davidson

Initiation Rituals in Old Norse Texts and their Relationship to Finno Karelian Bear Cult Rituals

Related Topics

ETHICAL WORLD CONCEPTION OF THE NORSE PEOPLE - ANDREW PETER FORS

The Religious Roles in pre-Christian Scandinavia

BALDR’S DRAUMAR (BALDUR’S DREAMS) 

Viking Worlds Things, Spaces and Movement

The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture - Paul C. Bauschatz 

[dwellordream]

“Truly, fear and awe before the possibility of women’s inherent contact with the supernatural are deep-rooted. Much- probaly too much- has been made of Tacitus’ assertions about the prophetic power and prestige of Germanic women. Glosecki speculates that ‘with Germanic as with many other tribal peoples, women were considered gifted in supernatural arts partly because of mesntruation, which connects them with the cosmic rhythm of lunar cycles.’ As Jenny Jochens notes, a reputation for supernatural knowledge may stem less from social deification than from difference: ‘Unableto choose between political alternatives or fearful of their outcome, men occasionally sought advice from ‘the others.’’ Paul Bauschatz likewise sketches the mythological and symbolic linkage of women and prophecy: ‘Women were more in touch with the forces beyond this life,’ the forces of the natural, animal world and of Urd’s Well, the world of Wyrd, the realm of the unknown and uncontrolled.

According to continental sources, some wandering wives join in ‘wild hunts’ with night-flying hags and spirits of the dead. Or so texts like the Canon Episcopi record: ‘Some wicked women perverted by the devil, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and profess in themselves, in the hours of the night, to ride upon certain beasts with Diana, the goddess of pagans, and an innumerable multitude of women, and in the silence of the dead of night to traverse great spaces of earth.’ Burchard of Worms likewise asks women in his Corrector: ‘Do you believe... that, in the silence of the night, when you are stretched upon your bed with your husband’s head on your breast you have the power, flesh though you are, to go out of the closed door and traverse great stretches of space with other women?’”

- L. M. C. Weston, “Women’s Medicine, Women’s Magic: The Old English Metrical Childbirth Charms.”

[tellusepisode]

She’s Out of My League (2010)

Comedy, Romance

An airport security guard gets involved with a girl who’s very obviously of a higher caliber than himself, and schemes to make the relationship last as his friends and family watch along in disbelief. Kirk (Baruchel) was languishing in a dead-end job as an airport security agent when he somehow managed to earn the affections of the successful and drop-dead gorgeous Molly (Eve).

Even Kirk isn’t exactly sure what Molly sees in him, though he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make the relationship work. With his friends, family, and ex-girlfriend all watching stunned from the sidelines, Kirk discovers that he’ll have to work overtime in order to convince Molly that he’s worth hanging on to.

Director: Jim Field Smith

Writers: Sean Anders, John Morris

Stars: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J. Miller, Mike Vogel, Nate Torrence, Lindsay Sloane, Kyle Bornheimer

►Cast:

Jay Baruchel→KirkAlice Eve→MollyT.J. Miller→StainerMike Vogel→JackNate Torrence→DevonLindsay Sloane→MarnieKyle Bornheimer→DylanJessica St. Clair→DebbieKrysten Ritter→PattyDebra Jo Rupp→Mrs. KettnerAdam LeFevre→Mr. KettnerKim Shaw→KatieJasika Nicole→WendyGeoff Stults→CamHayes MacArthur→RonAndrew Daly→Mr. FullerSharon Maughan→Mrs. McCleishTrevor Eve→Mr. McCleishAdam Tomei→RandyRobin Shorr→Tina JordanPatrick Jordan→BowlerTom Stoviak→Museum DirectorRick Applegate→“Plane Doctor”Heather Leigh→Flight AttendantChuck Aber→PilotJason McCune→Restaurant PatronYan Xi→KarenEvan Alex Cole→Scotty Reese (as Alex Cole)Joe Eberle→Hockey BartenderPhil Spano→Hockey CoordinatorJeff Adams→Hockey PlayerMila Cermak→Hockey PlayerMike Gaffney→Hockey PlayerTodd Gally→Hockey PlayerJim Gricar→Hockey PlayerRob Hofmann→Hockey PlayerJason C. Lewis→Hockey Player (as Jason Lewis)Ed Nusser→Hockey PlayerJory Rand→Hockey PlayerTom Rieck→Hockey PlayerMatthew Richert→Hockey Player (as Matt Richert)Joe Sager→Hockey PlayerLucia M. Aguirre→Flight AttendantElyse Alberts→Airline PassengerTony Amen→Airport PassengerNicholas Balzer→Airline PilotJoiel Bauschatz→Airline Ticket Agent / PedestrianRobert R. Bell→Airshow PatronAaron Bernard→First Class PassengerMinda Briley→Airport PassengerDavid Collihan→Airline Co-pilotSidney Crosby→SelfShawn Dando→ExtraJack Davis→Airport PatronRenee Downing→Birthday Party GuestMandy Ekman→StewardessJonathan Eldell→TravelerJackie Evancho→ExtraLamar Darnell Fields→Airport TravelerJim Fitzgerald→Pilot / Airline PassengerVal Gasior→Flight AttendantJosiah Hoffman→Pilot SmithKevin M. Jacobs→Market Square PatronCrystalann Jones→Bar PatronJeffrey Jones→Airport AdmirerWilliam Kania→Pittsburgh Penguins Hockey FanJon Knapp→Ex BoyfriendMichael Kolence→Party GuestJim Kuhn→Airline PassengerAlexis Kupka→SelfEric Leach→ExtraAlan Lee→TSA ArtStephanie Macdougall→Airport PassengerLorelei Mahoney→PassengerLaurie Mann→Hockey Crowd ExtraBuster Maxxwell→Flower sellerSean P. McCarthy→Airport TravelerLeslie McGuier→Airline ExtraTiffany Sander McKenzie→Airline PassengerChristopher Mele→Airport patronIan Michael→Restaurant GoerJeremy Moon→Airshow WorkerSusan Moran→Airline PassengerChristopher Nardizzi→Hockey FanPhil Nardozzi→Airline PassengerJillian O’Neil→Woman with SweaterDawn Renee→Flight AttendantPaul J. Rosenburg→BowlerDavid Santiago→Club PatronGaynelle W. Sloman→Party Guest / Driver on BridgeRay Sobieralski→PilotBrian E. Stead→WaiterRobert Stull→First Class PassengerJillian Vitko→Party GuestBlase Ward→Airport PatronJames Werley→Airport Person

Sources: imdb

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[dude-with-wings]

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” Use both the Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/40681546 to discuss whether the changes that…

[gwen-chan]

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” Use both the Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/40681546 to discuss whether the changes that…

[clunce]

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” Use both the Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/40681546 to discuss whether the changes that…

[detective-jay]

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” Use both the Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/40681546 to discuss whether the changes that…

[fredgeorge123]

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution

RESEARCH and UNDERSTAND plays Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” Use both the Pygmalion, Paul Bauschatz’s “The Uneasy Evolution of ‘My Fair Lady’ from ‘Pygmalion’,” and Marcie Ray’s “My Fair Lady: A Voice for Change.” https://www.jstor.org/stable/40681546 to discuss whether the changes that…

[thorraborinn]

What do you think about "The Well and the Tree" by Paul C. Bauschatz? (if you have read it that is) I often see recon heathens recommend as a crucial text on Germanic cosmologies but it seems to go against a more popular notion of fatalism supposedly held by the Norse (idk about other "Germanic" cosmologies). Very informative blog, by the way. :D

I had to reread it (well, skim it). I guess I didn’t have to but I figured I probably should. I read it some 10 years ago, could barely remember it, and most of what I thought I knew from it comes from heathens referring to it, and not necessarily being right about what it contains.

It sucks so much. My gods. I think the reason it has currency is that nobody can understand it and they take that to mean that it’s above their comprehension rather than that it’s incoherent.

The rest behind a break so nobody has to watch me lose my mind writing this if they don’t want to.

It doesn’t start that bad, the first couple chapters are basically okay if outdated (but not worse than other staples like Ellis Davidson and Turville-Petre).

It’s a good, if especially egregious, example of an older paradigm of scholarship influenced too much by structural linguistics that takes for granted that Tacitus’s Germania, Beowulf, the Edda poems, and Heimskringla are all describing a contiguous thought-world that can be pieced back together by figuring out how to plug the different parts of each text back together. Thus, since the symbel in Beowulf doesn’t contain any references to pagan gods, no sumbl/symbel ever could have included worship of gods (no mention is made of the general lack of explicit mention of pagan deities in Beowulf).

Oh, and he doesn’t just not explain this, he actually says “I don’t know the other sources I’m drawing conclusions about that well, but I believe I’m right because, you know, I probably am” (p. 88):

He presents anything written in any Germanic language as representative of the “Germanic worldview” with no consideration whatsoever for possible Christian influence EXCEPT FOR THIS FUCKING PART:

Ignore the “automobiles” part, it’s the lack of context that makes that look ridiculous. But the rest of this is: EVERY SOURCE USED FOR THIS WORK EXCEPT TACITUS IS CHRISTIAN-INFLUENCED AND THAT’S WHY IT’S REPRESENTATIVE OF PAGAN GERMANIC THOUGHT ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

On the note of “older scholarship” and “too influenced by structural linguistics,” here’s a fun coincidence. On page 144, Bauschatz describes Lévi-Strauss’s model of “hot” and “cold” societies, and proceeds to describe what he thinks Germanic people believed using this model. You might have seen this post I did recently while this ask was sitting in my inbox, which I concluded with a quotation from Thunder Shaman by Ana Mariella Bacigalupo. In the middle of that I skipped over some text with “[...]” because it was pretty long already.

Here’s what I skipped over:

Lévi-Strauss’s perception of time as a binary opposition ignores indigenous understandings of time as an ongoing process that includes the past, present, and future simultaneously. Anthropologists capture the past, present, and future in social processes as they arise, change, and decline—only to be reinvented (Nash 2015).

aldfhasdl;kj there really do seem to be aspects of Bacigalupo’s articulation of Mapuche time concepts that have things in common with something that Bauschatz is grasping at but can’t get out of his own way to find. I’m gonna say this straight up: I think his belief in the causal force of the past on the present in Germanic mythology is, in a vague way, broadly correct and worth continuing to explore, but he proved incapable of doing it.

His elaboration on his idea that Germanic people had no concept of “the future” is completely meaningless semantics. If Völuspá‘s description of events that are going to happen but haven’t yet doesn’t describe “the future” (which he says it doesn’t) then it’s only by giving “future” such a narrow definition that nobody could ever possibly have a concept of “future.”

So much of the book is dedicated not to making arguments but trying to explain the things he thinks he’s already proven, like the comparison of his model of “Germanic time” to Augustine’s model of time and eternity (somehow he thinks he’s denying that Germanic people had a “future” but what he’s really saying is that they didn’t have “eternity” which would be a more useful argument worth going into for real).

The entire chapter 5 is just flagrant abuse of linguistics, none of it means anything. Furthermore, it’s circular; he arranges a model of Germanic time and a model of Germanic grammatical time (by picking and choosing different Indo-European features that are not necessarily contemporary to each other) so that they are similar, and then goes “look how similar they are!”

The last chapter is the best, not because it’s actually insightful, but because it’s where he lays out all his cards and explains (while not noticing that he’s doing so) that the entire project is just him reshaping the past in the image of his present but warped into an exoticized ideal Other in response to the alienation of modern existence. It’s so good. He walks right into it. Once again, I refer to the ask I just answered while yours was in my inbox, or rather to a comment in the tags of a reblog where someone mentioned this article by Ármann Jakobsson, about exactly this.

And I think that is why it’s secured such an important place in modern heathenry, it provides them with the exoticized ideal Other that they are looking for.

One last thing I want to say about it is that I actually wasn’t able to find a lot of the problems that I thought I was going to. I thought the weird modern heathen thing about wyrd and ørlǫg being two distinct but interrelating components of a single system came from Bauschatz, but if it did I couldn’t find it. Also while the chapter on verb tenses and aspects is bad it’s not as horrendously bad as the oversimplified “Germanic people had no concept of the future because they had no future tense” thing that heathens like to say, which can be disproven as easily as pointing out that Modern English has no future tense. The rigid, formulaic symbel/sumbl structure that heathens insist on repeating with no change or development is nowhere to be found; while I have problems with his chapter on the subject it at least has a lot more depth than what most heathens have made of it. Like I mentioned, he denies the presence of devotion to deities at symbel/sumbl -- if heathens were as into this book as they say, our sumbl would look a lot different. I’m honestly not convinced that that many of them have read it.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had really incredible experiences at sumbl, as has probably anyone who’s been to enough of them. But I grieve the loss of what we could have if we weren’t holding ourselves to an arbitrary, rigid pattern based on unwavering loyalty to incorrect beliefs about what people did a thousand+ years ago).

Ultimately, the biggest problem with this book isn’t even really the book itself, it’s the way heathens use it. Instead of being like “hey this idea is interesting, maybe let’s develop this more but also see if it checks out with other sources/scholarship,” the role of this book has been to shut down discussion and enforce boundaries on legitimate expressions of heathenry.

Rather than The Well and the Tree some better books that touch on overlapping topics include The Norns in Old Norse Mythology by Karen Bek-Pedersen (the earlier version, her dissertation, is available for free online) and Tracing Old Norse Cosmology by Anders Andrén which unfortunately costs a billion dollars if you can find it, I dunno if it would be on Library Genesis because I would never encourage using that.

[calloftheancestors]

Wyrd Designs – Understanding the Words – Wyrd and Orlog

“The concepts of wyrd and orlog are interconnected, but can sometimes prove to be stumbling blocks as their meanings are learned. In Heathenry we have no absolute concept of one’s fate, rather we have a notion that our destiny, or doom is comprised by choices and while a certain fate may come to pass, we also have the ability to make other choices to potentially change it. To understand how wyrd and orlog are connected, let us explore the meanings of these words.

The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology gives us an illuminating background for the Old English term wyrd derives from a Common Germanic term * wurđíz. Wyrd has cognates in Old Saxon wurd, Old High German wurt, and Old Norse urðr. The Proto-Indo-European root is *wert- “to turn, rotate”, in Common Germanic * wirþ-with a meaning “to come to pass, to become, to be due” (also in weorþ, the notion of “worth” both in the sense of “price, value, amount due” and “honour, dignity, due esteem”).

That’s a complex answer I know, but it’s to illustrate that this word is highly nuanced. Most simplistically it is defined as our native concept of ‘fate’, and the root word is also where we get the Goddess Urd, she of the Norns whose well Urdabrunnr waters the great world tree Yggdrasil.

The weavers of the web, the Nornir, were the powers all the Gods and Goddesses turned to for wisdom; this can be demonstrated etymologically. Paul Bauschatz expands upon our understanding in his Well and Tree, where he describes the source of Urðr’s name, the verb verda which means ‘to turn’ is “not only the source of the German werden, but Middle High German wirtel ‘distaff wheel, spindel’ as well.” Weaving and spinning of textiles could easily become a microcosm for the greater macrocosm of weaving the web of existence. John Lindow sees that the Nornir were very much associated with spinning and controlling a person’s fate, and we know that Urðabrunnr (Urðr’s Well), rooted to the world tree, was where the Gods had their place of justice. We see this connection with justice further underlined, as the etymological origins for the word versus (as in legal cases) also derives from this same family of words (vertere, PIE wert).

Christy Ward, influenced by other scholarly works, tells us that Ørlög is literally “ur”, meaning ancient or primeval, and “lög” is law: ørlög is the law of how things will be, laid down by wyrd or fate by the three Norns. The Norns, Urðr (“That Which Is”), Verðandi (“That Which Is Becoming”) and Skuld (“That Which Should Become”) are the embodiment of wyrd.

The Norns give to us our orlog (or the laws and absolutes of our fate), as much as they in conjunction with ourselves weave the wyrd that is becoming. The absolutes of our fates are those items that cannot be changed, like who our biological parents are, the situation and circumstances into which we are born. The ‘past’ always influences our present and our future. Think of it like this, we know that there are certain scientific laws and principals that affect all things, such as gravity. Gravity can be thought of as a type of orlog. While gravity may dictate that we humans stay on the earth, through our ingenuity we have built planes, spacecraft, etc. that can leave the earth and even the atmosphere. These items are still affected by gravity of course, and gravity is always exerting its force and presence. Similarly, it’s like DNA. DNA can be the orlog we are given, we may be very susceptible to certain types of diseases, but if one knows about this genetic inclination and vulnerability and takes steps in their life to try to stave it off, it is possible to in fact stave off such things.

But while wyrd is our concept for fate, it is also changing and not absolute. We can take the orlog, and then from our choices and actions, and the choices and actions of those around us, we together ‘weave’ what our wyrd will be.

To better understand how orlog and wyrd interconnect, let’s try thinking of it as the weaving of a tapestry. When one weaves a tapestry or rug, there are regularly spaced threads that all flow in one direction (these are called warp threads). These threads always exist. They are the foundation, or if you will the rules. Those items, like the orlog, that cannot be changed.

To create the pattern, to truly weave, one then takes threads known as weft that go perpendicular to these other threads. It is the manipulation of these threads through the warp threads that gives you the pattern. Does your weft change colors? How many warp threads does the weft threads go over, before going under? etc.

Therefore even with the weaving analogy, the orlog remains the framework or warp, and then our actions, and all other factors represent the weft, and its through the combination of these factors that wyrd is woven.”

(2011 article from Patheo.com)

[maier-files]

New Post has been published on The Maier Files

New Post has been published on http://the.maier-files.com/womens-work/

Women’s Work

If you try to unravel the different levels, connections, storylines and hidden meanings in Maier files, getting into the world of Disir and ancient European goddesses can be very helpful. An interesting read is the original work written by Alice Karlsdóttir a leading expert on Norse religion, the Norse Goddess.

[vc_row][vc_column width=’3/4′]

Mrs. Karlsdóttir in her book Norse Goddess Magic  states that women today tend to trivialize goddess Frigg’s functions. The main reason is that some women who are still trying to disentangle themselves from unfair societal restrictions, many of which stem from the medieval Christian social structure with its roots in Roman feudalism, a goddess devoted to marriage, children, relationships, and domestic skills is much less appealing. But, she says, we need to try to appreciate what these skills meant in the context of the society in which the figure of Frigg originated.

Providing fire, food, drink, clothing, and bedding, as well as things like soap and candles, for all the inhabitants of a Teutonic or Norse farm was much more complex than microwaving a few leftovers, and if the housewife didn’t plan carefully through the winter and spring, the consequences of running out of something around, say, February, were very serious. Surviving in a cold and harsh environment depended on it!

Women’s Work

The brewing of ale and mead was generally considered the province of the women, and in Norse and Teutonic society this was more significant than merely hosting a few drunken brawls. Ale was viewed as a spiritual substance, imbued with the power to unite both gods and humans, and without which the high feasts and rituals were impossible. Besides their use in worship and in the practice of medicine and magic, mead and ale were used to formalize councils; to seal important agreements and bargains, such as treaties, marriages, and the transfer of property; to celebrate festivals; to display hospitality and goodwill; and to honor all important life occasions. Indeed, contractual agreements depended on good beers and alcoholic beverages to be considered valid, and the sharing of drink was a key element in religious ritual.

The processes of both brewing and baking have something of the holy and mysterious about them, even today. One takes these seemingly inert ingredients—grain and milk, honey and water—and adds this magical substance known as yeast (in reality the living cells of a small fungus), and after a period of hours or months, the original ingredients have mysteriously changed, transformed into something else—the bread rises, the ale or mead ferments. In earlier times, when fermenting was left to the mercy of wild yeast from the air, this change must have seemed even more miraculous. Therefore, brewing was probably endowed with the formality of ritual, incorporating special ceremonies and practices. People prepared their ale with great care for fear that any carelessness might keep the brew from becoming strong enough, which would be not just an inconvenience but a sign of ill luck and misfortune.

Thus a woman’s skill in brewing was more than just proof of her housewifely prowess; it was proof of her holiness, her luck, and her kinship with the gods. Hálfs saga gives an example of the significance of brewing. King Alrek’s two wives, Geirhild and Signy, had an ale-brewing contest to determine which of them would be queen. Spinning and weaving, like brewing, have a magical side to them. The act of drop-spinning involves taking a bunch of loose fibers on a distaff in one hand and forming a thread by a combination of twisting and drawing out fibers in a continuous line with the other hand. The twisting process is aided by the turning of the spindle, around which the finished yarn is wound to prevent the thread from unraveling.

The spinning process is suggestive of the power that brings things into manifestation, the shaping might that defines the fate of all that exists. For this reason, spinning was associated with the Norns, the Norse incarnations of time and causality. Paul C. Bauschatz, author of The Well and the Tree, associates the name of one of them, Verdandi (“Becoming”), with various root words that all relate to the concept of “turning.” The spiral-like movement of spun thread reminds one of the cyclical nature of the Germanic worldview, in which life was seen as a continuously repeating pattern rather than a linear progression.

Weaving is also associated with the Norns and with magic. It is the process of forming a textile by interlocking two sets of threads, the passive, lengthwise warp with the active, crosswise weft, or woof. This process is dependent on the interconnectedness of the threads and hence is often seen as symbolic of the web of life, where lives and events overlap to create a pattern that is only observable by stepping back to view the finished product as a whole.

Linen, the cloth made from the fibers of the flax plant, which the goddess Holda is said to have given to humans, is one of the most difficult and challenging fabrics to spin and weave, and thus is an appropriate symbol for the goddess of handicrafts. The practice of harvesting and preparing flax and linen is to this day a ritualized process, fraught with tradition and secrecy. The fibers are removed from the tough and woody flax stalks and then laid out in the fields for about six weeks to absorb the dew. After a second drying, the fibers, which look remarkably like human hair, are cleaned and combed. They are difficult to work with because of their lack of elasticity, and the best results are obtained from “wet-spinning” and weaving in rooms heavy with humidity. In fact, Europeans used to weave linen in caves, one of Holda’s favorite dwelling places. Techniques for finishing the linen vary and are usually carefully kept secrets!

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  https://amzn.to/2xSmIo9

[dmitrifyodorovichkaramazov]

Seiðr Sources Masterpost

Here’s a collection of all the reputable (and maybe some slightly less reputable) sources I’ve found for seiðr and related topics

Seiðr

The Viking Way- Neil Price

Shamanism in Norse Myth and Magic - Clive Tolley

The Archeology of Seiðr: Circumpolar Traditions in Viking Pre-Christian Religion - Neil Price

Old Norse Religion in Long Term Perspectives: Spinning Seiðr - Eldar Heide

A Biography of Seiðr-staffs - Leszek Gardela

Shamanism in the Old Norse Tradition: A Theory Between Ideological Camps - Stefanie v. Schnurbein

A Sourcebook of Seið - Stephen Flowers (there are a lot of problems with this guy but its just a collection of every mention of seiðr in the sagas and Eddas)

The Hunting of the Vétt: in Search of the Old Norse Shamanic Drum - Clive Tolley

Remnants of Seiðr: Charms and Incantations in the German Diasporas - Nóel Braucher 

Seidhr, A Scholarly Study of the Art - Sir Sigurd

The Image of Seiðr in Old Icelandic Literature: Consistency or Variation- Lyonel D. Perabo

Seiðr & Shamans: Defining the Myth of Ritual Specialists in pre-Christian Scandinavia - Sebastian Klein

The Chicanery of Seiðr

Out of the Waters Beneath the Tree - Catherine Heath

On Circumpolar Shamanic Traditions

Shamanism in Siberia: Russian Records of Indigenous Spirituality - Andrei A. Znamenski

SHAMAN An International Journal  for Shamanistic Research

Related Topics

Spirits Through Respiratory Passages - Eldar Heide

The Religious Roles in pre-Christian Scandinavia - Marketa Chvalkovska 

Magic beyond the binary: magic and gender in the Poetic Edda - Meghan Callaghan

Viking Worlds: Things, Spaces and Movement

The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture - Paul C. Bauschatz 

The Ethical World-Conception of the Norse People - Andrew Peter Fors

Nine paces from Hel: time and motion in Old Norse ritual performance - Neil Price

[gotojobin]

#YGGDRASIL #THEWELLOFURD #YGGDRASILANDTHEWELLOFURD As Paul Bauschatz points out in his landmark study The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture, Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd correspond to the two tenses of Germanic languages. Even modern English, a Germanic language, still has only two tenses: 1) the past tense, which includes events that are now over (“It rained”) as well as those that began in the past and are still happening (“It has been raining”), and 2) the present tense, which describes events that are currently happening (“It is raining”). Unlike Romance languages such as Spanish or French, for example, Germanic languages have no true future tense. Instead, they use certain verbs in the present tense to express something similar to futurity, such as “will” or “shall” (“I will go to the party” or “It shall rain”). Rather than “futurity,” however, what these verbs express could more accurately be called “intention” or “necessity.” The Well of Urd corresponds to the past tense. It is the reservoir of completed or ongoing actions that nourish the tree and influence its growth. Yggdrasil, in turn, corresponds to the present tense, that which is being actualized here and now. What of intention and necessity, then? This is the water that permeates the image, flowing up from the well into the tree, dripping from the leaves of the tree as dew, and returning to the well, where it then seeps back up into the tree.[5] Here, time is cyclical rather than linear. The present returns to the past, where it retroactively changes the past. The new past, in turn, is reabsorbed into a new present, whose originality is an outgrowth of the give-and-take between the waters of the well and the the waters of the tree.

[gotojobin]

#YGGDRASIL #THEWELLOFURD #YGGDRASILANDTHEWELLOFURD These three maidens are the Norns, and their carvings consist of runes, the magical alphabet of the ancient Germanic peoples. In addition to the inhabitants of the Nine Worlds, several beings live in, on, or under the tree itself. The Eddic poemGrímnismál, “The Song of the Hooded One,” mentions many of them – but, unfortunately, only in passing. An anonymous eagle perches in the upper branches of the tree. A number of dragons or snakes, most notablyNidhogg, gnaw at the roots from below. A squirrel, Ratatosk, carries messages (presumably malicious ones) between Nidhogg and the eagle. Four deer, Dain, Dvalin, Duneyr, and Dyrathror, nibble the highest shoots.[4] A Model of Time and Destiny It’s important to keep in mind that the image of Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd is a myth, and therefore portrays the perceived meaning or essence of something rather than merely describing the thing’s physical characteristics. Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd weren’t thought of as existing in a single physical location, but rather dwell within the invisible heart of anything and everything. Fundamentally, this image expresses the indigenous Germanic perspective on the concepts of time and destiny. As Paul Bauschatz points out in his landmark study The Well and the Tree: World and Time in Early Germanic Culture, Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd correspond to the two tenses of Germanic languages. Even modern English, a Germanic language, still has only two tenses: 1) the past tense, which includes events that are now over (“It rained”) as well as those that began in the past and are still happening (“It has been raining”), and 2) the present tense, which describes events that are currently happening (“It is raining”). Unlike Romance languages such as Spanish or French, for example, Germanic languages have no true future tense. Instead, they use certain verbs in the present tense to express something similar to futurity, such as “will” or “shall” (“I will go to the party” or “It shall rain”). Rather than “futurity,” however, what these verbs express could more accurately be called “intention” or “necessity.”