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Tag Archives: magic
The Dagda
The Dagda is the head of the Irish pantheon, whose name means the “Good God”. He is head of the Tuatha de Danann, and was king of Ireland between Nuada and Lugh, but he can also take on the appearance and manners of a peasant farmer. He has been compared to his fellow Celts Sucellos and Cernunnos, but he also resembles the Norse god Odin, being changeable and tricky as well as a great magician.
Seshat: Mistress of the Books
The Egyptian goddess Seshat is one of the lesser-known Egyptian deities, and yet she was an enduring one. Her name means “Female Scribe” and the art of the scribe was her area: the burgeoning state of Egypt needed to keep records, formalize contracts and agreements, and make blueprints for buildings. This made her a useful deity, but also limited her cult, as we shall see.
Gullveig: the goddess who wouldn’t die
Considering that she may have started a cosmic war, we know very little about the Norse goddess Gullveig. Her story comes from the Eddic poem Völuspá, which tells how the Aesir riddled her with spears and then burned her three times but couldn’t kill her.
The next event in the poem is the war between the Aesir and Vanir, the two groups of Norse deities, so it’s always been assumed that somehow the attack on Gullveig started it.
Morpheus and the dream gods
Neil Gaiman fans already know this, but Morpheus and his family were the spirits of dream, who sent dreams to mortals from their home in Erebos. This was a place, but also their father. (Having a personification for a parent can be confusing.)
Through the Fiery Wall: Menglod, Brynhild, and Gerdr
Norse myth tends to echo; one story calling to another. There are at least three stories in Norse myth about a young man passing through a wall of flames and other hazards to reach a woman. This would seem to be a straightforward story of a woman sought and won, except that in two of these stories the young man is a stand-in for another, and only one story has a happy ending.
Odin and Freyja: one’s grim, one’s golden, but they are a lot alike
Odin and Freyja are the “stars” of the Norse pantheon. The most famous god of the warlike Aesir, and the (only) goddess of the Vanir, they are surprisingly alike. Both are magicians, both gather the slain, and both take an interest in mortals.
Odin and the Morrigan
This week’s post could easily have been called “fearsome deities“: Odin, whose name means “fury”, and the Morrigan, who steps out of the fairy realm to stir up war and slaughter. It’s not hard to see what they have in common.
Worshipping Giantesses (and possible castration)
In an earlier post, I discussed a possible magical formula for preserving and reviving dead body parts. This time I want to consider who these revived bits were being offered to: the giantesses.
This is a post by a Roman polytheist about Freyja. It has a lot of insights into the nature of the Lady, and how similar she is to Odin. All the Vanir are travelling deities, in one way or another, but I think with Freyja this gets overlooked.
Last Sunday, May 1st, was the Dominalia, my annual feast to Freya. After ritually burning the usual offerings to Janus, Juno and my Lares, as is customary on the Calends, I prepared a new fire for the ritus aprinus. Practice makes perfect, so it went better then my first attempts, and I offered the Vanadís small portions of homemade caramel, barley, cinnamon and cherry liquor, plus libations of wine to Her and Her family. I also asked Her to bless a small bowl of flowers mixed with barley, which I took with me in the afternoon and casted on a farm field and a seaside hill top on my way to the beach. And then at some point, my mind produced a question I had not yet considered: is Freya a Lady of Roads or Travellers?
There’s certainly no obvious reference to it in the surviving lore, where She’s…
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