Hearthside

Image from Wikipedia and created by Bygul So I am in a bit of a mood over this... My kindred in the last 2 years has been making an extra effort to promote inclusive heathenry in our province, the reason being was that I noted that it was easier to find Folkish groups than anything else when you Googled our province and the word “heathenry.” As such we did note that the Wikipedia page for Heathenry in Canada appeared high in the search results and we were sure to link ourselves and other inclusive heathen groups locally onto that page. (As plenty of other kindreds and groups had already done.) Unfortunately, due to the nature of it being a small, decentralized religion most groups organize using Facebook, and Wikipedia is starting to take a hard line of Facebook page links as being uncredible. (Which I get for things like scientific information, but not religion…) In any case, a massive overhaul of the Heathenry in Canada page has occurred, removing a huge number of external links. In ...

  Glad Jól! I find Yule to be such an interesting holytide for Heathenry because of the diversity of modern traditions. Some choose to celebrate it at Christmas, some at the solstice, some at the midwinter moon. Some choose to celebrate it as one day/night, some as 3, some as twelve, or even as a season. For me the Yule season encompasses 2 lunar months. The Yule moon in December, and the Midwinter moon in January. But when I say Old Jól, I mean specifically the 3 days surrounding the full moon in the Midwinter month. For me this is the most focused time of festivity in the Yule season, although other traditions are interspersed throughout the 2 lunar months.  Thinking about Jól, we are coming out of the Dark Time, looking forward to a new cycle. The sun is returning. We think back on all that has happened in the past year, we take stock of our luck, we remember those who have passed, and then we look forward to the next cycle. We gather together with kin and feast, and remini...

I was rabbit-holing a bit lately on what deities are associated with Yule, and Winter, and the Dark Time. Holda, Ska ð i, Ullr, Odin, Frigg, Thor… perhaps Freyr? Sol? Baldr? … Hel?! We right away stumble across the same issue I addressed with Skaði, is Hel worshipful? Hel does not seem to be named among the Asynjur, although many modern heathens seem to place her among them anyways. This doesn’t necessarily mean she was not worshipped or at least appeased by the elder heathens.  In the Lore, Odin does not let Hel remain among the Æsir, but the gods are not afraid of her in the same way as her brothers. She is given Helheim as her own realm to rule over, so it seems the gods respected her even if they considered her “other.” They even try to negotiate with her for the return of Baldr, and she makes them a deal, even if it is not one they are able to collect on.  Some scholars think she is more of a personification of the grave, than a deity, much in the same way that Sol and Ma...