Eight nights in the same bed. Neither lover reaches for the other. Then another woman’s accusation exposes a betrayal. As Brynhildr recounts these events on the road to Hel, Kaun, the rune of the ulcer, brings a wound concealed beneath the appearance of an honorable marriage into today’s reckoning.
Tag: Norse Paganism
Helreið Brynhildar, Part 2: The Dead Woman Accused of Destroying a Dynasty
The giantess knows her name. She calls Brynhildr the daughter of Buðli and accuses her of bringing death upon the children of Gjúki. But the dead warrior refuses to accept the accusation without telling her own story. On the last full day of Haustmánuður, as the Moon approaches darkness, a confrontation on the road to Hel becomes a dispute over betrayal, broken promises, and the destruction of a royal household.
Fjölsvinnsmál, Part 9: His Name Opens the Gates
The hounds begin to fawn. The house bursts open. After the guarded questions and impossible conditions, the traveler reveals his name—and the woman he has sought demands proof that he really is the one she has awaited.
Saint Francis and the Sacred Family of Nature
With Francis, the most productive evidence is his own language. He gives us a medieval Christian expression of sacred kinship with the world. Reading him alongside the Norse material helps us examine how family language gives religious meaning to our relationships with natural powers.
His feast becomes an invitation to study—and to pay attention.
Fjölsvinnsmál, Part 4: The Weapon Behind Nine Locks
Wind-Cold’s questions lead to a weapon made with runes, a guarded chest, and the offering its keeper requires. Today’s reckoning brings together iron, protection, and the gathering of resources as autumn deepens.
What Michaelmas Preserves of the Pagan Autumn
Seasonal reckoning: Michaelmas, Equinox and Vetrnætr Northern European Pagans often complain that we know almost nothing about the old religion, only to fill the gaps with shallow inventions or practices appropriated from other cultures. I think much of this problem comes from our unwillingness to scrutinize early Northern European Christianity and recognize the wealth of… Continue reading What Michaelmas Preserves of the Pagan Autumn
The Trickster Boasted—and the King Summoned Fire
Kaun enters the hall as a consuming force. Loki names his extraordinary appetite before Útgarða-Loki, and the king answers by placing him opposite something no appetite can defeat: fire itself.
Beyond the Enclosure, Even the Gods Must Prove Themselves
Thank the gods, there are places even they cannot control—wild spaces beyond the influence of their words, their will, and their song. Today, beneath the waning light of an eclipsed moon, the gods enter such a place and discover that their authority ends at its border.