Hearthside

I find it fascinating how many people are really interested in Land-taking and Hallowing rites but know nothing about them. I first read about them in The Tradition of Household Spirits by Claude Lecouteaux, but there are many books that talk about them. There are actually examples of Land-taking and Land Hallowing in the Landnámabók . The basic premise of a Land-taking is to let the landwights know that you are taking stewardship of the land. I say “stewardship” very pointedly. You aren’t just taking the land, you are agreeing to take responsibility for the land. You have to take care of the parcel of land you take. If you don’t you will see the landwights encroaching back into that space. Even so, they may try from time to time. The most common elements of a land-taking are to walk (usually sunwise) around the boundary (in a process called circumambulation) of the piece of land you wish to take stewardship of and declaring to the wights your intentions to take stewardship of the lan...

So I have not been posting any new entries lately, even though I have many in the works in various stages. Instead I have been going back through previous entries as I have time to make video versions for accessibility. I will link my YouTube channel below if that is easier to follow me that way if you are visually impaired or are trying to listen to content on your commute. I warn you I am not a very natural YouTube personality. I am also embedding all the video versions of the blogs right in the old entries. I may not be updating too much more for awhile now though. The next month I have some personal changes in my life and I may not have space to record video until the dust settles, or time. We will see. Anyways, I wanted to give you a new post at least before I disappear. This post is a  true story that I thought you might enjoy. You may know that I love hiking. I often have formed reciprocal bonds with Land Spirits in places where I frequent. One of these places is a trail in ...

Okay, I have been sitting on this one for quite some time because I just wasn't sure I was doing my best work with it, and I want to do it justice. That said, the issue is timely, so I am going to attempt to put it out there. I would love to hear from you on Facebook or Instagram if you have something to add or if you think I didn't quite get something right. Honouring the Land and building relationships with the landvaettir is an important part of heathen practice. The Book of Settlements provides examples of actual laws pertaining to the landvaettir, which emphasizes their importance.There are also numerous mentions of the landvaettir in the Prose Edda and multiple sages. It would seem on the surface level we should have some idea how to approach these beings with so many sources available to us, and we do, but there is room for improvement. Something I spend a lot of time thinking about in my personal practice is the correct way to honour the land in a somewhat traditional ...

This is just a bit of light-hearted fun really. This weekend has been a bit too stimulating for me, but that doesn’t mean my brain wants to slow down. Weekends make me a lot more aware of the wights, because I try to carve out more time to both engage them, and also maintain the order of my environment. (Yes, that is just a fancy way of saying that Sunday is usually laundry day.) This weekend I am also feeling the spring creeping in through my open windows and thinking about outdoor projects that may need to be started. Talking about wights in the modern world can get a bit strange. In some ways it is more believable that certain rocks or trees are beings, but a lot of the modern world is fabricated. How does the modern city-dwelling animist make sense of that? Can a computer or a printer be a being? How about a car? If there are housewights, what about work wights? Do apartments have one wight for the whole building, or one for each apartment, or both? How do you find landwights when ...