Hermod - The torch on dark roads

We know of some gods from differente cultures, that are the psychopomp archetype, the kind of gods more linked to the soul and to the shamanic journeys than others, specific gods to whom people turn to when there is the need of a spiritual journey to whatever realm of the spiritual world, especially when it comes to the underworld or the place where most mortal spirits rest.
In the Northern traditional paganism, Hermod is such a god, a god who guides people to and fro, between this world and the next, but he will guide you well if you have the need to visit the Underworld.

There are Norse tales that tells us of Hermod being the son of Odin, other tells us of him being one of Odin's squires, both might be true, for in ancient times, especially in the Norse countries, the younger sons of a King could indeed be his pageboys/squires and sent to other countries for diplomacy, call for help and call to arms, and usually they would serve as ransom, and would stay in a country away from his home land in token of peace and good will, as a prove that the King would keep his promise, if the case was some kind of a quest and people needed to go and help in the war or some importante battle, the King's son would stay in the country until the quest/war/battle was done and the people could return to their homeland, only after they arrive, the boy could return home. For the elder brothers of the King's young son, this wasn't something to be sad about, because in the Viking times brothers would fight to death to be the only heirs to the throne, and if anybrother was away, there was no need to kill him and the way to the throne was easier to get. But to the King, sending his younger son to another country as a squire, on an errand, was a way to protect him against his brothers.

Hermod is also one of the gods associated with the tale of the death of Baldr, for when he died and walked the road to Helheim, the goddess Frigga hoped that somehow there could be na exception for her youngest son to return to life and come back to live in Asgard Frigga asked among the Aesir if there was anyone there who wanted to gain all her love and favor, the only thing they needed to do, wa ridding to Helheim and ask the Queen of the dead, Hela, for mercy and if Baldr could return home. Hermod was the brave one who stepped forward to do the task, and Ódin lend him his steed, Sleipnir for the task. Hermod rode for nine days and nine nights and met the guardian goddess Mordgud at the river Gjoll. Mordgud gave him the news, that Baldr had already passed the bridge and went through Hel Gate the night before. Hermod entered the gate and knelt before the goddess of the Underworld, Hela, and asked for Baldr to become alive again. Hela told him that Baldr could be reborn if all creatures wept for him, by hearing this, Hermod returned to Asgard giving the news to Frigga. Baldr gave Hermod his ring Draupnir which had been burned with him on his funeral pyre, this was a token to prove that Hermod had spoken to Baldr. Nana, Baldr's wife, after taking suicide because of the grief of her husband's death, was also with him in Helheim, and gave to Hermod a linen robe for Frigga and a ring for Fulla. Frigga by hearing the news, asked to all creatures to weep for Baldr, and so they did, except a giantess who was Loki in disguise, and because of this, Baldr remained in Helheim and the journey of Hermod was wasted, but Hermod became a deity of guidance and since that time, he started to help people on the dark roads of Helheim to find their path into their last home of eternity. People can call upon him for guidance, and he can help when the road ahead seems dark and dreadful, for all of us need to choose our own paths, and some times the choise is hard but must be taken... Hermod can help you in taking the first step.

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Scotland's Iron Age: Into the Underworld

There has been a lot of recent discoveries about the Iron Age period in Scotland, which shows us the mystical and magical way of living in those times, how people act when the people closest to them died, how they treated their dead and also the their daily ways of living. One of the recent findings, perfect to talk about the Iron Age, was in the Isle of Skype, such a wonderful place rich in Iron Age culture and History, and of course a good insight of how people traditionally interact with subterranean spaces. The place is called  High Pasture Cave, where people once carved steps leading down into a cave where they used to deposit the remainings of butchered pigs. Well we know that people all over Great Britain in the Iron Age and before, had specific places where they would poured the remains of what they ate, some kind of ancient recycling acts, away from the community, in proper places where the smell couldn't spread and attract wild animals and possible threats, and also a place where those remainings would undergo a change and feed the earth with the minerals that come from rotten things in decomposition ( this reminds me of the post i have written about Nidhog in the month of April of 2013, you might want to check it ). The High Pasture Cave wasn't just the place to deposit such things because also a woman and her two children were left there, a new born and one still a fetus. Well this might seem strange, but it isn't rare to find these things especially in places that gave origin to the Celtic Myths of the Underworld, by entering a cave, a tomb, a hole in the ground, well any place that could lead to a dark chamber, the symbolism of two places completely different, the world outside, and the dark places on earth below, the entrace was the boundary between the two worlds, and such a myth comes for the Neolithic times as such - these were the places of transformation, where things passed through the process of transformation, in these tombs in addition of being found the remains of animals and also people, it is often found pottery, and this has tree meanings that always comes to mind, the need to leave with the dead their belongings so they may take with them to the afterlife, objects according to their social lifes, their place in the community, their works and their gender, another meaning is that they used to feast with their dead especially on seasonal celebrations in order to be in touch with their loved ones, closer to understand the true meaning of death, to ask aid and wisdom to their ancestors, also the other meaning ( which is exactly the purpose of this post ) is that these people use to make their cooking here, not only because of the reasons i have written previously but also because of that i have already said, this was a place os transformation, where the raw fish or meat apparently inappropriated to be cosumed, would become something  life-sustaining, the carcasses of animals would become food, the remainings of what couldn't be eaten, would feed the earth and the recently dead of these people's communities would also pass through the transformation of death, when they leave their body and start a new way of life and are united with their ancestors.
In many places in Scotland we find a Broch right on top of a neolithic tomb, this isn't a coincidence, of all the places to build, they had to build right on top of these ancient neolithic chambered tombs and caves, and also the entrances of the Brochs were aligned exactly with the entrance to the tomb, also the people that build the Brochs in most places when these tombs hadn't an opening on the top, they would build an entrance right to the tomb again, so it is possible that the people in later times were still using the neolitich tombs to place their dead, because the newly built passage had carving symbols associated with death and the burial rites, as it is the good example of the Broch at Howe on Orkney.
Some tombs where also found, that were not covered by later houses, such as the Calf of Eday, also in Orkney, seem to have been the focus for feasting during the Iron Age, as pottery and animal bones were discarded around them. Moreover, at Unival on North Uist, the chamber of a tomb was incorporated into an Iron Age roundhouse and used as a cooking pit. This also matches High Pasture Cave, with its collection of butchered pig remains.
Such places are an interesting view of the the mind of these people in ancient times, places laced with symbolism and meaning, the opposite of two worlds and how people naturaly interacted with them.

Note: A Broch is an Iron Age structure of a type only found in Scotland, great examples of the most sophisticated architecture ever created. The theory was that these buildings were defensive military structures, the Iron Age equivalent to castles but as you can read in this post, was also more than that.

Note2:  If you have any questions for me or if you want to see my artistic works, check out my Facebook page and make a Like if you can by following this link --> http://www.facebook.com/ArithHarger
 

Hela The Goddess of the Underworld

Who is Hela?

Hel, or Hela, the Goddess of the Underworld, is the eldest child of Angrboda and Loki. She is also the Goddess of Death in the cosmology of the Nine Worlds, and the Keeper of the Underworld. She is one of the most powerful - some might say the most powerful - of all the Jotun deities.

She usually appears in her half-rotted or half-skeletal form, divided down the middle vertically. Her hair is usually pale and long on her living side, although sometimes it is black. Sometimes she has appeared living above the waist and rotting below it; sometimes as a pale white woman who merely smells of rot. (In fact, the rot smell is always present with her, and it is a good way to know that you are actually speaking with Hela. The general coldness of the atmostphere around her is another tip-off.) Part of her insistence on keeping these shapes rather than a "normal", unrotted form is to force the understanding of Death onto people. She does not hold with any kind of denial around Death; she requires that it be seen and respected as the natural process that it is, and not euphemized or buried or prettied up.

Hela is tall, generally clad only in a long, simple robe of black or grey, and does not stand on ceremony. She has been described by several people as having a low, quiet "whiskey-and-cigarettes" voice, and She moves slowly and sometimes with a limp on her skeletal foot. Her great stillness is one of the things that people notice about Her. When She sits, She may move her hands some to gesture, but very little else; psychically She is like a great pool of black stillness. Every move is made with graceful, ghostly slowness. It is said that She moves fast only when she is angry, and then you're in too much trouble to notice.

If She holds out a hand for you to take, it will be Her skeletal one. This is a test. Remember that She was born in the Iron Wood, where showing your acceptance of the physical deformities of others is part of how you show respect and friendship. Take Her rotting, skeletal hand (which, as some people have reported, feels exactly like a dead limb except that it moves) and kiss it. If you can't bear to do such a thing, you have no business dealing with her. It is said that she only offers her living hand to the Dead, so you should be grateful for small favors.

Hela's History :

Long ago, before the dismemberment of Ymir and the creation of Midgard and Asgard, the underworld was named Jormungrund. It was populated by the dead souls of Jotnar, and some live ones as well - Jotnar are particularly good at traveling to the Deathlands. As far as we can tell, it was looked after by a goddess named Hel, but she was not the Hel who lives there today. Both the name and the job title seem to be something that is passed on. Apparently someone needs to take on the important (and fairly powerful) job of looking after the Dead, and someone is chosen from one of the races when the last Hel retires.

Jotun legend has it that when the old Hel died, the Dead roamed the Nine Worlds for seven years, as there was no one to keep them in check. Every race hoped to have one of its members chosen for this crucial task, which would create an unlimited power-base for whoever was allied with Death, if Death could be persuaded to side with its native race. Mimir, the consort of the last Hel, did what he could to hold things together while everyone waited. Collective breaths were held across the Nine Worlds ... and then Angrboda, the Hagia of the Iron Wood, had a daughter by her consort, the infamous Loki. When the girl-etin was barely walking, it is said, she took on her shapeshifting form, and it was that of a rotting corpse. This was the signal that she was the inheritor of the name and the title, and she was immediately named Hel, or Hela in the Jotun-tongue (the Alfar call her Leikin), and raised to claim the rulership of the Land of the Dead.

Various rumors went around that Loki and Angrboda had done dark magic to make sure that their child would be the Death Goddess; other rumors said that they had merely foreseen that it would be so, and married in order to bring it about. Whether it came about by chance or planning, it was a great disappointment to the other races, who had hoped to pull the Deathlands out of the control of Jotun hands. Odin promptly put a "banishing-spell" on the tiny Hela, which basically banned her from ever entering Asgard, and indeed she has never set foot there.

When Hela came of age, she took over Jormundgrund and entirely recreated it, renaming it Helheim. Mimir handed the care of the place to her and left, going to Asgard to live with the Aesir who had promised him an honored place for his wisdom. Instead of caves and dankness, she opened it to the black sky and planted orchards, and grass grew over the stony burial mounds. She built the castle Elvidnir and swore that no matter how many the Dead, she would find a way to feed them all, if only sparingly. She redesigned Helheim in such a way as to bring maximum peacefulness to those who reside in it; instead of dank caves, it is a subtly ever-changing tapestry of hills and fields and colorful autumn woods.

Since then, she has dutifully tended to her Dead, about whom she feels fiercely protective. She looks down on necromancy and other forms of magic used to "bother the Dead", although she will allow seidhr-workers and others who respect her boundaries to enter a special area close to Hel's Gate, and speak with what Dead wish to come to them.

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Note:  This was scheduled to this day.