Norse Gods

This unfunded translation of the 1903 treatise by Ólafur Davíðsson, written and published in the German annual journal: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde under the title “Isländische Zauberzeichen und Zauberbücher”. 

This important work follows on from Jón Árnason’s Íslenzkar þjóðsögur og æfintýri, discussing this significant aspect of Icelandic culture most prominent in the 17th century.

Many months in the making, mostly checking through original source material in antiquarian Icelandic manuscripts and publications, it is provided free here. However financial contributions towards this and future research can be made on my website http://users.on.net/~starbase/galdrastafir/galdrastafir.htm

The Icelandic manuscript called “Huld”, meaning secrecy, was made by Geir Vigfússon in 1860.  It features a collection of runic alphabets in the first half and a small set of 30 "galdrastafir", magic symbols and sigils, in the second.

This presentation focuses only on the second and aims to provide a more complete and accurate English translation of the Icelandic text and secret codes, and which hopefully will be a platform from which further exploration can be embarked.

This is the original version. I have since added a few notes and a couple of corrections. That can be purchased for a very modest price on my website http://users.on.net/~starbase/galdrastafir/galdrastafir.htm

Seiðr y Völvas
Nel Riott, 2020 - Hermandad Vanasatru Argentina
[email protected]

Introducción
En este archivo traeré una recopilación de las entradas relacionadas con Seiðr y las Völvas que se han publicado en el blog de la Hermandad Vanasatru Argentina.
Hace tiempo que estoy en el estudio de Seiðr, y creo que debí haber hecho esta investigación hace tiempo ya que me proporcionó mucha satisfacción, nuevos saberes, y un poco más de entendimiento.
Me tomé el tiempo de investigar, seleccionar y traducir fuentes para la recopilación de información sobre völvas, para que las chicas de mi grupo de Seiðr tenga una base solida donde empezar y entender un poco más el camino que están tomando. Espero que séa de su agrado la información que seleccioné. Estarán adjuntados los contactos, y fuentes de donde saqué la información a final de éste pdf.
Aclaración: En este archivo puede llamarse “Seiðr” tanto a la práctica mágica como a la diosa de la magía nórdica, Heiðr.

Mythological stories are used to explain and maintain the balance between what is perceived as order and what is perceived as chaos within the natural universe. The oral traditions of a particular culture provide a framework for these stories that help explain the unexplainable within a culture's mythology. Myth provides insight from the normal, everyday world into another place, reaching unconscious areas within our mind (Greenwood, 2009, 76-77). It is this oral tradition or the performative aspect of myth that gives myth its power (Greenwood, 2009, 79-80). Myths involve the audience emotionally, emerging from an independent mind backed by a culture's social actions and beliefs (Greenwood, 2009, 76-80).

The habit of ‘translating’ or ‘interpreting’ the names of Latin pagan gods and goddesses into Germanic, Anglo-Saxon or Norse equivalents was common in the medieval North: the names of the days of the week in Germanic languages bears witness to the practice. But there never was a strict equivalence between one theonym and another: on the contrary, identifications were often unstable, they could and did shift. Focusing on the example of the godhead generally known as ‘Odin’, this paper shows that Latin ‘Mercury’, German ‘Wotan’, Anglo-Saxon ‘Woden’ and Norse ‘Óðinn’ were not always regarded as one and the same.

This paper is a contribution to the Vanir Debate that shows the 'Æsir' as a race of gods to be a modern construct and that the Old Norse word áss, æsir, was a poetic and elevated word for 'god, gods'. The study also points out that use of the word vanir in mentions of the cosmogonic war is not contrasted with æsir but with goð 'gods', which provides further evidence that the modern concept of 'Vanir' as a race of gods and thus subcategory of goð is incorrect. The long-held view of two races of Scandinavian gods called the 'Æsir' and the 'Vanir' is not an accurate representation of the religion. Rejecting current usage of these terms does not, however, require rejecting the view that Njǫrðr, Freyr and Freyja form a distinct group among the Old Norse gods, only that they were not collectively referred to as 'vanir' while other gods were referred to as 'æsir'. A better term for collectively referring to these gods would be masculine singular Njǫrðungr, neuter pl. Njǫrðung (i.e. including Freyja), masculine plural Njǫrðungar (i.e. not including Freyja).

Names of gods and other mythic agents are commonly seen as emblematic of the respective religions with which they are associated, both for researchers and for people involved in religious encounters. This paper explicates the relationship between names, images of mythic agents and people's social alignments with religious or cultural identities. These factors produce sociolinguistic perspectives on both theonym etymologies and on uses of the same names today.

Significantly, as one of the Nine Worlds of Norse cosmology, Vanaheimr receives only a few collective mentions in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and Heimskringla. Despite the low frequency of textual references, the possible importance of Vanaheimr should not be diminished. Enhanced knowledge about Vanaheimr could have a profound impact on how we read and understand the body of Old Norse texts, as well as our approach to Norse mythology. In cosmological terms it is the plane of the Vanir, a host of Norse gods aligned with fertility, wisdom, and prophecy. But where is Vanaheimr, and what does it look like in literary terms? How does Vanaheimr comport with Ásgarðr, the other plane of the Norse gods? In this presentation I will examine not only the noted text references, but any relevant clues to be found throughout the Old Icelandic texts and other contemporary Latin and Germanic sources. Also, I will deeply investigate related word etymologies in Old Norse, Proto-Germanic, and any other Indo-European languages which may illuminate the search, and I will relate Vanaheimr to possible parallel contexts in other world mythologies. In addition to literary research, I will investigate geographic data and the archaeological records for insights.

In Old Norse the word troll is inextricably linked to the sphere of magic: in mythology it indicates supernatural creatures almost exclusively of female sex, often associated with giants with whom they embody both the spirits of the dead and the chaotic and uncontrollable natural forces, and it is from them that magic itself originates. Despite this dangerous bond and despite its destructive potential, in the pagan world view magic is still necessary and can also be used for a good purpose. With the introduction of Christianity this conception changes: the new religion, for which magic is idolatry and the work of the devil, not only counts magicians among the opponents of Christian missionaries, but attributes explicitly demonic characteristics to the trolls. At the same time, in above all legal sources the word troll began to be used as synonymous with witch or sorcerer, while a new unequivocally derogatory term, trolldómr (still existing in Scandinavian languages), was coined to indicate the magical arts.
The present article therefore intends to illustrate the fundamental stages of the process of demonization of trolls and magic against the more general background of the transition from a polytheistic to a monotheistic religious system, and from the opposition of order / chaos (or culture / nature) to the moral dualism between good and evil.

Mennyi változtatást engedhet meg magának egy videojáték egy egységes mitológiai világ részletein, és milyen megvalósítási határok közé illeszthetők ezek az elemek? A God of War elsősorban fantasyjáték önálló történettel, amivel műfajában a felső kategória versenyzője. Ennek okán képi világa ráerősít a túlzásokra, jellemző rá a túldíszítettség és a gigászi jelenetek ábrázolása.

According to Norse mythology, Odin, king of the AEsir and ruler of Asgard, was envious of the Norns who resided within the Well of Urd beneath the Norse World Tree and controlled all destinies primarily by carving runes into Yggdrasil's trunk. These runic symbols would

In this essay I describe how it is possible for mythological consciousness to believe itself to have absolute power over reality, and yet at, at the same time, feel its destiny to be wholly fated. I take Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms as my primary text.

It is usually thought that only one being can be all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-loving. Challenging this monotheist conviction, I propose a universe ruled by two deities: ‘day shift God’ oversees the events that occur while the sun is up, whereas ‘night shift God’ oversees the events that occur while the sun is down. I survey objections to this proposal and conclude that the real obstacle is not an argument, but an aesthetic preference.

Språkforskaren Eivind Vågslid (1897-1986) sitt store prosjekt var ei avmytologisering av påståtte gudenamn i norske stadnamn. Prosjektet vekte sterk motstand, og doktoravhandlinga hans på emnet i 1974 vart refusert. Om ein nyttar teoriane hans på "gudeøya Tysnes" i Sunnhordland, det gamle Njardarlog, vert konklusjonen at tanken om ein tett forekomst av sakrale stadnamn i Tysnes byggjer på feilaktige konklusjonar,  eller som Vågslid noko krassare uttrykte det, "det ville og røyndlause tankespinnet" ved ei slik oppfatning. I denne artikkelen vert såleis Vågslid si avmytologisering av Njardarlog kortfatta presentert.

This is the first translation for our age of Year 6 of The Coligny Calendar from December 27, 2006 to December 16, 2007. It was used in the continuing cycle of the calendar for the year 2017 and now for the year 2025- 2026. This is your calendar for the next year. Each year will follow as the pattern will repeat in five year cycles using the solar-lunar-stellar and planetary cycles of the celestial bodies marked by the Druids on Stonehenge and the stone circles in the Celtic lands.