Harvest and Winter Nights
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It is interesting that Winter Nights (or Vetrnætr) is probably my favourite Heathen holiday and the last one I got to writing about here. (Well, we will see what I say after a long winter, and then maybe Sigrblót will be my favourite.) The reality is that while I love this time of year and all the symbolism, the weather, everything… I am always very busy. Finding a spare moment to write this was a challenge, but it was starting to feel like an incomplete task. In a way, that is the embodiment of this holiday. This is the celebration of the end of summer and the harvest, the preparation for the winter. We can tell by its name that it is a series of nights, rather than one. (Although it is my personal take that all of the Heathen holidays were a series of nights, probably the 3 surrounding the full moon.) If we look at the Ynglinga Saga, Winter Nights is said to be a blot at the beginning of winter for a good year. Many modern Heathens associated it with the phrase: Til árs ok friða...
