Hearthside

One of the groups that I am a part of challenged people to write the story of the marriage of Skaði, but wrong answers only. Naturally, many rose to the challenge. There were a number of witty results, and many that were well thought out. It was requested that I write a longer version of mine because it was quite enjoyable, so I will do that here. First, however, I wanted to talk about storytelling and how our Lore changes over time with different tellings.  Historically, there were many versions of a story. They would vary each time they were told depending on the Skald and the audience and what was being conveyed through the retelling. You could hear a story 100 times and each time it would be different. Part of this was your life experience, and part of it was what the Skald was trying to say through the story. When our Lore was written down often it was taken from multiple versions of the oral story, and mixed with the biases of the person who recorded it. Since then the bias o...

 What do Hinduism and Heathenry have in common? Proto-Indo-European roots and the potential for “Holy Cow” jokes!  One figure in Nordic mythology that I always find fascinating is Auðumbla. Who is this cow, and how did she become a part of the creation story? Is Auðumbla a goddess? Where did she come from? And if she is a cow, why does she have horns? First of all, it seems like there is something funny going on here. Auðumbla is a cow in so far as she is female, but she is no domesticated cow. In fact, she is most likely an auroch, hence the horns. You may have heard of aurochs before if you have done some delving into the runes (or not). Basically, they were wild cattle with huge horns that lived in the forests of Northern Europe. Sadly, they are now extinct.  How did the elder Heathens view aurochs? They associated them with the forests, and wild energy. They also saw them as strong and persevering. So then, it makes sense that Auðumbla, an auroch, was seen as a powerf...

I have been writing a lot about Heathenry from a female perspective, but how important is gender (and also sexual identity) to Heathenry? The answer is, not very.  I am talking about Heathenry from a female perspective mainly because when I was starting this blog I was not seeing enough women creating Heathen content even though as a religion there are actually a fairly large percentage of women in leadership roles compared to broader society. I felt a bit strange stepping into this role, while people around me seemed to think I was a good fit for it. Additionally, I have found in other Heathen circles that sometimes I am put into a position where the discussion is very male dominated, to the point that I have joked on occasion that perhaps I needed a beard to be a part of it. So I am pushing back against that, but it is really only a start. Gender is a construct from the broader over-culture. We cannot know what the elder Heathens truly thought about gender and sexual identity....