The Golden Heart of Heathenry

“These poet-singer, then, were the real priesthood of the Wotans-cultus, and formed the Bard or Skald ORder. While in the Halgadomen and the bardic schools they tended to the secret teachings, cultivated and propagated the esoteric part of the Wotans-cultus and also celebrated there the mysteries. They were also conveyors of sagas and poetry as well as singers on several occasions before the people. They then presented their teachings clouded in mythological images, under the guise of fairy tales, which the people then passed on orally and so reached our days. That was the exoteric part of their teaching, which in its counterpart, Christianity is called “Legend”...

The priest was a double headed figure. He was a philosopher/reasoning sage in the quiet of his cell or in the Halgadoms before listeners, or as they gathered in the Holy Haag under a tree, or perhaps arguably at the round tower which stood in each Halgadom. But in front of the people, he was a poet-singer as well as a “mime” (from Mimir) in the Mystery Plays, and that way educated the imagination and feeling of the people. As a teacher of reason and wisdom he gave general truths, as poet-singer employed the feeling and imagination to the same goals. Arousing enthusiasm and when necessary fanaticism in the audience and engaged them through their feeling/sensations. To this end, he accompanied his songs with music, whether harp, lyre, violin, or flute and the ever-present drum or cymbal. Yes, the name of the violin (the German word for violin is Geige) derived from Gygas, meaning “magic”.”

• The Wotan Priesthood by Guido Von List

What is a poet? What does it mean to use words in a way to feed and charge and move the heart and imagination? Is it possible to tell someone words that say one thing, but evoke a completely different feeling? How is this possible? How is it possible that someone could describe a battle in a sensual way? How is it possible that someone could give one a feeling of romance over death?

We humans are so easily tricked, but not by our hearts, but with our minds.

Our Ancient Heathen ancestors knew this. The Ancient Wotan cults knew that words are merely illusions. It is the way words are used: what words are used and when. They played with metaphors and allegories. They used words like the strings of a harp and while we heard the words….we FELT the music underneath.

Words can transport us to different places. They can move us and feed our imagination. Most of what we all dream about is based on the stories and legends we grew up hearing and watching on TV. So words have much power.

They can also be lies.

So how do we know what is a lie and what is the truth? Is it as simple as cross checking other sources? What if the whole world believed a lie? Like what if the whole world believed that the soul does not exist and yet, something in you “felt” it? How would you know what is truth and what is lie?

This is what I believe Snorri left us. He left us a tool to play with to figure out what is true for us and what isn’t true for us. The words actually don’t mean a thing. It’s HOW the words are used that creates feeling and emotion.

Let me be real with all of you. If you think you are not susceptible to your emotions then name one time you did something reckless in the name of love. We all are born with emotions and feelings. These emotions and feelings are our power. They are what feeds our subconscious and in the spiritual community, this is what feeds the Fylgja. Emotions feed your Fylgja and they also act to move and communicate with it.

In my Seidr work, the more I am completely open and honest about what I am feeling with myself in any given moment, are the times that the world talks back. It was my study of Snorri that led me on the path to opening up to my Fylgja. It was playing with the kennings and meditating on them that helped me feel the difference between interacting with my own ego and my divine spirit. When we interact with a spirit of ourselves or another person, we FEEL things. We gain sensation. The more we do sensory awareness meditation and dig deeper into those sensations, then the other senses start to become more alive. Soon you will be smelling people’s fear. You might hear their inner cries for help. You might actually feel the physical warm touch of your lover even though they are a thousand miles away. Souls can connect over vast distances and many in the Shamanic community travel and visit one another without ever using their physical bodies.

Sometimes I will be approached by the souls of others who I haven’t met yet. I feel the brush of their hand on me or hear their heart-songs and then I ask the Norns to show me signs to light the way to them. I wait and keep my heart open to the signs. How do I know when I see a sign?

Well, my feelings, of course!! Those sensations honed from Lore can be used as feelers into the Astral world. The key is never taking anything too literally (the mind likes to complicate things). Only focus on the feeling. You will develop certain feelings that draw you forward and some that tell you to back away. Listen to your feelings, they will guide you. The body can be a big clue in this work. Listen to the subtle cues from your body.

At first, it will be messy and you will be overwhelmed. But I say push through, because on the other side of those emotions is a vast network of new sensations to ride and discover. Once you start mastering your emotions and getting a handle of them, you will be able to use them more efficiently so they won’t swing you all over the place. They will also guide you to places that are amazing.

I use feelings now to communicate with my fylgja and I ask him questions ( in the form of a feeling) and he answers with kennings in real life. They don’t mean anything to anyone else but me usually, so this is something that only we can teach ourselves. But, the important point is the feeling and learning to communicate with feeling.

I will warn you, though. Tap into this and Wodenaz will fill your life. When it does it can make yourself and people around you very emotional for a bit. Just stay steady and keep up your meditations. Keep doing blots to the Gods. Full emotional honesty with oneself is really the only way to get through this.

Below I have listed a good starting point for anyone who wants to give this a try. Read the following pieces of lore and try the homework questions below:

Kenning from Skaldskaparmal - The APPLE

"The heart is called grain-sheaf; [one should periphrase it by terming it Grain or Stone or Apple or Nut or Ball, or the like, in figures of the breast or of feeling. More over, it may be called House or Earth or Mount of Feeling. One should periphrase the breast by calling it House or Garth or Ship of the Heart, of Breath, or of the Liver; Land of Energy, of Feeling, and of Memory]. Feeling is affection and emotion, love, passion, desire, love-longing. [Passion should be periphrased by calling it Wind of Troll Women; also it is correct to name what one soever is desired, and to name giants, periphrasing giantesses as Woman or Mother or Daughter of the Giants.] Feeling is also called mood, liking, eagerness, courage, activity, memory, understanding,temper, humor, good faith. It is also wrath, enmity, mischievousness, grimness, balefulness, grief, sorrow, ill-will, spite, falseness, faithlessness, fickleness, light-mindedness, baseness, hasty temper, violence.”

"How should one periphrase Loki? Thus: call him Son of Fárbauti and Laufey, or of Nil, Brother of Býleistr and of Helblindi, Father of the Monster of Ván (that is, Fenris-Wolf), and of the Vast Monster (that is, the Midgard Serpent), and of Hel, and Nari, and Áli; Kinsman and Uncle, Evil Companion and Bench-Mate of Odin and the Æsir, Visitor and Chest-Trapping of Geirrödr, Thief of the Giants, of the Goat, of Brísinga-men, and of Idunn's Apples, Kinsman of Sleipnir, Husband of Sigyn, Foe of the Gods, Harmer of Sif's Hair, Forger of Evil, the Sly God,Slanderer and Cheat of the Gods, Contriver of Baldr's Death, the Bound God, Wrangling Foe of Heimdallr and of Skadi."

"How should Idunn be periphrased? Thus: by calling her Wife of Bragi, and Keeper of the Apples; and the apples should be called Age-Elixir of the Æsir. Idunn is also called Spoil of the Giant Thjazi, according to the tale that has been told before, how he took her away from the Æsir."

The Story of Idunna and Thiazi

A certain man was named Ægir, or Hlér. He dwelt on the island which is now called Hlér's Isle,[2] and was deeply versed in black magic. He took his way to Ásgard, but the Æsir had foreknowledge of his journey; he was received with good cheer, and yet many things were done by deceit, with eye-illusions. And at evening, when it was time for drinking, Odin had swords brought into the hall, so bright that light radiated from them: and other illumination was not used while they sat at drinking. The n the Æsir came in to their banquet, and in the high-seats sat them down those twelve Æsir who were appointed to be judges; these were their names: Thor, Njördr, Freyr, Týr, Heimdallr, Bragi, Vídarr, Váli, Ullr, Hœnir, Forseti, Loki; and in like manner the Ásynjur: Frigg, Freyja, Gefjun, Idunn, Gerdr, Sigyn, Fulla, Nanna. It seemed glorious to Ægir to look about him in the hall: the wainscottings there were all hung with fair shields; there was also stinging mead, copiously quaffed. The man seated next to Ægir was Bragi, and they took part together in drinking and in converse: Bragi told Ægir of many things which had come to pass among the Æsir.

He began the story at the point where three of the Æsir, Odin and Loki and Hœnir, departed from home and were wandering over mountains and wastes, and food was hard to find. But when they came down into a certain dale, they saw a herd of oxen, took one ox, and set about cooking it. Now when they thought that it must be cooked, they broke up the fire, and it was not cooked. After a while had passed, they having scattered the fire a second time, and it was not cooked, they took counsel together, asking each other what it might mean. Then they heard a voice speaking in the oak up above them, declaring that he who sat there confessed he had caused the lack of virtue in the fire. They looked thither, and there sat an eagle; and it was no small one. Then the eagle said: "If ye are willing to give me my fill of the ox, then it will cook in the fire." They assented to this. Then he let himself float down from the tree and alighted by the fire, and forthwith at the very first took unto himself the two hams of the ox, and both shoulders. Then Loki was angered, snatched up a great pole, brandished it with all his strength, and drove it at the eagle's body. The eagle plunged violently at the blow and flew up, so that the pole was fast to the eagle's back, and Loki's hands to the other end of the pole. The eagle flew at such a height that Loki's feet down below knocked against stones and rock-heaps and trees, and he thought his arms would be torn from his shoulders. He cried aloud, entreating the eagle urgently for peace; but the eagle declared that Loki should never be loosed, unless he would give him his oath to induce Idunn to come out of Ásgard with her apples. Loki assented, and being straightway loosed, went to his companions; nor for that time are any more things reported concerning their journey, until they had come home.

But at the appointed time Loki lured Idunn out of Ásgard into a certain wood, saying that he had found such apples as would seem to her of great virtue, and prayed that she would have her apples with her and compare them with these. Then Thjazi the giant came there in his eagle's plumage and took Idunn and flew away with her, off into Thrymheimr to his abode.

Saga of the Volsungs

"Much wealth won in war gat Rerir to himself, and wedded a wife withal, such as he deemed meet for him, and long they lived together, but had no child to take the heritage after them; and ill-content they both were with that, and prayed the Gods with heart and soul that they might get them a child. And so it is said that Odin hears their prayer, and Freyia no less hearkens wherewith they prayed unto her: so she, never lacking for all good counsel, calls to her her casket-bearing may,1 the daughter of Hrimnir the giant, and sets an apple in her hand, and bids her bring it to the king. She took the apple, and did on her the gear of a crow, and went flying till she came whereas the king sat on a mound, and there she let the apple fall into the lap of the king; but he took the apple and deemed he knew whereto it would avail; so he goes home from the mound to his own folk, and came to the queen, and some deal of that apple she ate.

So, as the tale tells, the queen soon knew that she big with child, but a long time wore or ever she might give birth to the child: so it befell that the king must needs go to the wars, after the custom of kings, that he may keep his own land in peace: and in this journey it came to pass that Rerir fell sick and got his death, being minded to go home to Odin, a thing much desired of many folk in those days.

Now no otherwise it goes with the queen's sickness than heretofore, nor may she be the lighter of her child, and six winters wore away with the sickness still heavy on her; so that at the last she feels that she may not live long; wherefore now she bade cut the child from out of her; and it was done even as she bade; a man-child was it, and great of growth from his birth, as might well be; and they say that the youngling kissed his mother or ever she died; but to him is a name given, and he is called Volsung; and he was king over Hunland in the room of his father. From his early years he was big and strong, and full of daring in all manly deeds and trials, and he became the greatest of warriors, and of good hap in all the battles of his warfaring.

Now when he was fully come to man's estate, Hrimnir the giant sends to him Ljod his daughter; she of whom the tale told, that she brought the apple to Rerir, Volsung's father. So Volsung weds her withal; and long they abode together with good hap and great love. They had ten sons and one daughter, and their eldest son was hight Sigmund, and their daughter Signy; and these two were twins, and in all wise the foremost and the fairest of the children of Volsung the king, and mighty, as all his seed was; even as has been long told from ancient days, and in tales of long ago, with the greatest fame of all men, how that the Volsungs have been great men and high-minded and far above the most of men both in cunning and in prowess and all things high and mighty.

So says the story that king Volsung let build a noble hall in such a wise, that a big oak-tree stood therein, and that the limbs of the tree blossomed fair out over the roof of the hall, while below stood the trunk within it, and the said trunk did men call Branstock.

Skirnismal

19. "Eleven apples, | all of gold,

Here will I give thee, Gerth,

To buy thy troth | that Freyr shall be

Deemed to be dearest to you."

Gerth spake:

20. "I will not take | at any man's wish

These eleven apples ever;

Nor shall Freyr and I | one dwelling find

So long as we two live."

1. How are Idunna’s apples the key to everlasting life?

2. If apples mean “the heart” and Rerir’s wife got pregnant with a heart obtained from Odin, then how does a woman become pregnant from the heart of Odin?

3. How could a heart be carried by a crow?

4. How did Loki get Idunna back? After her heart was stolen?

5. The giant Thiazi lived in a famous place called Thrymheim. Who else lived there?

6. Why would Thiazi want Idunna’s heart?

7. How could Freyr give Gerd eleven golden hearts?

8. Who is known as “gold”?

9. How do you feel about these stories after reading the kenning at the top? Do you see the stories differently? What are the sensations in your mind and heart? Did you have a physical reaction?