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This afternoon, our family offered up one of our spring lambs to Þórr towards abundance and to bring rain in the coming weeks, as our region has been wracked with wildfires recently.
After He had been reddened and after the blótleifar were placed, a great gust of wind swept through the grove, and the sun broke through from behind the overcast sky. We took this as a sign that our sacrifice was received.
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“It was well understood that the gods were usually unobservable in their ‘natural’ heavenly habitat. But they might deign to reveal themselves in the earthly realm as material images in a cult place (a site of worship). More than a symbol or representation, a cult image was a material manifestation of divine presence: the statue was not only identified with the deity, but was the deity. It is all too easy to dismiss this as a characteristic of unsophisticated or ‘primitive’ religious cultures, but this is to misunderstand the people of the past – and their gods. This was a world in which perceptions of reality were neither limited nor defined by the physical, but stretched along a continuum from the natural to the supra-natural. The cosmic membrane separating the earthly from the otherworldly was highly porous and malleable, so that divinity in all its myriad forms could break through into the world of humans, whether it was perceived as a strange scent on the wind, a fleeting shape glimpsed from the corner of the eye, or felt at a powerful place in the landscape. But divinity was at its most tangible when materialized in images of the gods. It was by means of cooperation between deities and worshippers, facilitated by ritual experts, that the earthly substance of the statue was transformed into a different category of being. As ritual specialists in Mesopotamia had put it, the divine statue was ‘born in heaven and made on earth’. As extraordinary beings, deities were thus unconstrained: they could remain unseen and at a distance in the heavens while simultaneously revealing themselves as stars in the sky, statues in temples, figurines in the home, or unseen but perceptible forces permeating the earthly realm.” God: An Anatomy, by Francesca Stravrakopoulou.
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Concerning modern political ideologies, the worldview and position of the Þórr siðr is grounded in ancient custom and law and therefore aligns with no modern political movement.
The sole purpose of the Þórr siðr is the preservation of the historical cult of Þórr and its customs.
Additionally, the Þórr siðr is not associated with nor allied to any modern heathen, pagan, or related religious organization.
We hold that the majority of modern organizations have failed to commit themselves fully to the proper observance of the forn lǫg and have thereby fallen into rangan átrúnaðr, that is, false belief and improper religious practice.
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There he reflected upon his achievements and was glad, for by means of lightning he had bestowed fire upon humanity, one of their greatest servants.Gotlandic folklore depicts Þórr gifting fire to mankind through lightning, recorded in Sagornas ö sägner och sagor från Gotland by John Nihlén.
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In chapter 18 of Hákonar saga góða, during the autumnal blótveizla at Lade in Trondheim, Sigurðr Hlaðajarl gives a toast and then hallows the full, then drinks from the horn to king Hákon. In AM 39 folio, the first full is hallowed to Óðinn, but AM 45 folio has the first full being dedicated to Þórr.
Both manuscripts are derived from an archetypal manuscript which is unfortunately now lost, but based on these variations, scholars understand that there were different literary traditions of the saga. Understanding the variations in the manuscripts is equally as important as understanding regional variations of myth and religious custom, as it can color our perspective of Old Norse culture.
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Prayers to any deity must follow the traditional formulae in their respective culture, as proper and right conduct is of the utmost importance when approaching a deity. In Old Norse culture, prayer was always accompanied by sacrifice, or a promise of a future sacrifice.
I will expand on my previous post here about the contractual nature of prayer:
1) Invocation
Hét ek þá á Þórr (…)
The initial portion establishes who is being addressed, the deity.
2) Offering clause
(…) at gefa honum hafr þann sem hann vildi velja (…)
The second portion establishes the contractual relationship between the petitioner and the deity, what will be given in exchange.
3) Reciprocal petition
(…) en hann skyldi jafna með oss systrum (…)
The final portion completes the petition and defines the expected action from the deity.
If the prayer and sacrifice is accepted by the deity, then it is customary to give another offering. This establishes the vinfengi between the petitioner and the deity, which is to be maintained with a continuous reciprocal exchange.
If the prayer and sacrifice is not accepted by the deity, then it is in one’s best interest to offer to another deity and see if one receives good heill from them.
As a rule, it is in one’s best interest to not approach a deity if one has nothing to give, as this could be insulting to them and cause them to hold anger and hate towards you. As we know from the sagas, some people are naturally favored by certain gods, and some are naturally hated by others, and that hate can be extended to one’s kin. The gods do not love everyone equally, so it is best to keep to proper custom when you do approach.
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Svá mǫrg ok mikil þrekvirki hafði Þórr unnit, farit í gegnum bjǫrg ok hamra.
— Sveins þáttr ok Finns
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The new logo I commissioned from @strigaartist on Instragram.
The main influence for the logo comes from Bragi Boddason’s poetic fragment in Skáldskaparmál which depicts Þórr with Mjǫllnir in his hand when he faces off against the Miðgarðsormr.
Ziva designed the hammer after the Købelev amulet, while this amulet is famous for it’s “this is a hammer” inscription, the alternate side of the head has a spiral and dot pattern which repeats the ǫndótt augu (terrifying eyes) motif seen on other amulets and mentioned in the literature.
Support real artists.
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Excerpts from Gǫngu-Hrólfs saga and Hrólfs saga Gautrekssonar saga both give a similar reflection that there were known variations in myth and sagas that conflict in the 12th and 13th centuries. There is wisdom in understanding this nature of myth and transmission.
Excerpt from Kinship in Old Norse Myth and Legend by Katherine Marie Olley
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Glaðilegt sumar!
Samkvæmt hinu gamla íslenska misseristali er í dag fyrsti sumardagur, fyrsti dagur Hörpu. Sumarið hefst jafnan á Þórsdegi, sem má tengja við forna Þórsdýrkun.
Heill Sǫnnungr ok Sumarriði!
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As a rule, I do not subscribe to idealism of any sort when it comes to interpreting Old Norse myth or the sagas.
There is untold value in the realism embedded within these tales, as it furthers our understanding of the culture and the ways by which the the people understood the world around them. Approaching the sources conservatively, and on their own terms is the only way to cultivate an accurate understanding.
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In the sagas, Þórr has another half-jǫtunn child known as Skinnefja. A daughter, she is attested in Egils saga einhenda ok Ásmundar berserkjabana whom he has with Arinnefja, one of the eighteen daughters of the jǫtunn-king Ǫskruðr and his queen Kúla.
Skinnefja was described as meira á þverveginn en hæðina, that is, more broad than tall and this is the result of a curse by the sisters of her mother Arinnefja that no child that they had by Þórr would hvárki vaxa né vel dafna, neither grow nor thrive.
The saga describes:
Síðan lá Þórr hjá mér ok gerði mér stúlku þessa, sem nú megið þit hér sjá, ok hefir þat hrinit á henni, sem þær báðu, því at hún er nú alin minni en þá er hún kom til. Þórr gaf mér allan arfinn eptir þær systr. Hefir hann ávallt verit mér í liðsinni síðan. After that Þórr lay with me and begot for me this girl, whom you may now see here. And that has come upon her which they asked for, for she is now grown smaller than when she first came. Þórr gave me the entire inheritance after those sisters. He has always been a help to me since.In the later Egils rímur einhenda, she is called Skinnverja.
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“A Viking-Age person would no more claim to ‘believe in’ the Norse gods and other similar beings than they would ‘believe in’ a mountain or the sea. These things were self-evident, a matter rather of knowledge, with no distinction between the physical and the spiritual.“
(Price 2013: 166)
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Today I formally accepted my daughter Hilda into our household and performed the ausa vatni.
In accordance with my duty as the goði and varðveizlumaðr of the Þórr siðr, I have dedicated her to our god, and have given her the name Þórhildr.
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Today we welcomed summer up on Thor’s Hill with the blót of a buck to Þórr for victory, and a doe to the goddesses as thanks for our recent blessings and to secure their favor for future blessings.
