The Nine Handmaidens of Mengloth

In a previous post i talked about Mengloth, the goddess of healing in the Norse pantheon and her handmaidens. This post will be about those nine handmaidens what what are their healing expertise for those who sick the specific kind of healing of each one. To have an idea what i will write about, i advise you to read the previous post.
 
Who is Hlif?
 
Hlif is one of the nine handmaidens of Mengloth, the Norse goddess of Healing. Her name means "Help", she is specialized in women's problems. She works with all the women who are pregnant, or those who unfortunately are unable to become pregnant and want to and all problems that might appear in women's reproductive organs. She can be invoked for a safe birth, and she is extremely protective when it comes to infants, she can also help women who became recent mothers, in those early stages of the baby, when he/she is too fragile and needs the best care and nourishment possible.

Who is Hlifthrasa?

Her name means "Help-Breather", and as the name suggests, her speciality is the respiratory sistem. She can be called upon those who have any kind of problem in the lungs or other difficulties associated with the lack of oxygen. She helps people with colds, coughs, lung cancer, she also helps people who are trying to heal their lungs when they quit smoking after so many years, but also if people were expoused to any kind of chemical, pneumonia, tuberculosis etc.
Breathing is the natural impulse which gives life to our body by letting the air flow in it. without this natural element the functions in our body are not the same and we wouldn't be alive.

Who is Thjodvara?

Thjodvara's name means "Folk-Guardian", her expertise involves all the physical mechanics of the body, bone, muscle and tendon. Her skills and knowledge are about physical therapy. She can be called to those who might have any kind of bone diseases, or in the movement of the body which helps the external and internal body by exercising the limbs. She also helps with skin problems.

Who is Bjort?

Bjort is the old Norse name for "bright", and this goddess is very concerned with the body temperature, this might seem familiar, when we have the fever the first thing we check is the body temperature. But it's more than that, because too much heat or too much cold in the body, might affect the tissues, not only of the skin, but also of our internal organs, and it can complicate diseases. Like everything else, there must be a balance between these things, and Bjort can help with that. Think of it as the heat or cold therapies, the ones today and those of our ancestors, like saunas for instance, the purification of the body, the physical body, its welfare reflects in the state of the mind. Like the Heat of the sun, it has certain effects on people, the kind of natural energie the body needs, not excessively of course, but always trying to keep the balance.

Who is Bleik?

As i have spoken about  purification in Bjort, well.. Bleik is the handmaiden in charge of purification. Her name means "White". She helps with the detoxification of ills in the body, of all organs. She works with the different ways to cleanse to body and the purification of the same.
There are many ways for the body to be intoxicated or poisoned, but the most obvious way is the problem we all face in modern times, the mass pollution everywhere in our daily environment.

Who is Blith?

Her name means "happy", this goddess' expertise is with the brain and all mental problems. She helps people with mood disorders of any kind, even grief. She also helps those who can't sleep, because of insomnia or because other problems in the brain such das epression, or even physical pain, she helps those people to have a good sleep, for the lack of sleeping only worsens the other mental disorders.

Who is Frith?

Frith is the goddess in charge of integrating the systems of the body, helping people to find the inner balance, or what is out of balance and putting it right. Her name means "peace" or "order", so by this you can already see the connection of the name with the problems of the body. She is the figure who finds out what people have and diagnoses the patient. Everything in the body must have a balance, however, it  may not be the perfect balance, but some times the organs or anyother thing in the body is so out of balance, that help is needed, and she can link things, so the body might work naturally healthy.

Who is Aurboda?

Aurboda is married with Gymir, they are the parents of Gerda, Freyr's wife. Aurboda's speciality is the compounting of medicines and she has the knowledge of their effects and the effects of each substance has on the body. The powers of each herb, which is something our ancestors worked with, the traditional medicine. When people take any kind of remedy, all sorts of questions pop out in their heads, if that will actually help? what are the side effects? for how long will we have to take that? if it causes any kind of pain? and so on... well Aurboda knows about it all, her vast wisdom helps in these cases, when so many doubts in healign terms affects us. She is Mengloth's Delivery Woman, carring herbs to so many in need. She reminds me of my grandfather's (from my mother side ) grandmother, or shall i say, my great-great grandmother, she had the knowledge of so many herbs, and she knew where to catch them, for what purpose, to heal what and what were the effects, she know how to brew each of them in the specific manners required.

Who is Eir?

Eir might be the same healing goddess of Asgard, she is not only Mengloth's handmaiden, but also a very powerful colleague, helping Mengloth in Jotunheim, as Mengloth might also be called by Eir to assist her in Asgard. Eir coming from Asgard, the realm of warriors and gods associated with war, it isn't a surprise that her specialty is surgery, healing and taking care of physical wounds, flesh wounds from the battlefield, in other words, she knows how to open the body and repair it, healing the massive injuries that constantly happen in a battlefield. She is the goddess with the tough job of making the fast decisions in all the situations a patient is between life and death, much like any surgeon, people who have to face the most terrible and frightening sounds. She can be called upon those people in a very bad state, almost dying, when life is hanging by a thread, but she can also be called upon all those who are there to help healing the wounds, we might see her as the patron of surgeons.