Working With The Gods: Heimdall

Heimdall is possibly the less called deity when it comes to spiritual work. Not that people haven't tried or have no need for him, on the contrary, he is much needed, but he is also needed on his post for he is a guardian deity and seldom leaves his halls or its surroundings. He was once called to protect young boys or to attend the rituals when young boys become men. He is a good advisor for the young and he also protects them, but nowadays that kind of work isn't done as often as it used to be.

Doing spiritual work with Heimdall is very hard, only in very few circumstances will he come to the spiritual-worker. Most of the time it is the person doing the spirital work that will come to him. This out of the body experience will be easier for the spiritual-worker. Heimdall prefers male spiritual-workers, and the young who have recently become adults, he has much to teach to the young ones who have just began their journey and fight in this world.

Heimdal's Birth

Along the coasts of Vanaheim, lives the sea god, ruler of the Norse oceans, Aegir. His wife is Ran, and they both live in their great halls, filled with the ghosts of dead sailors, it is there where they go to rest before they are sent to Helheim or any other part of the Nine realms. Aegir and Ran have nine daughters, beautiful and terrible as the sea, they are so named from the eldest to the youngest, Kolga, Duva, Blodughadda, Bara, Bylgja, Hronn, Hevring, Unn and Himinglava. The nine sisters are very protective and have great love for each one of them.
It is said that the Aesir god Odin once laid with one of the nine sisters and she bore him a child, no one knows with which one the god did this because it was an event against the will of Aegir, and each of the sisters made a pact, never to tell anyone, not even their parents, especially their mother, because they feared their wrath would fall upon them, since the Sea gods have no love for the One-eyed one. As such, the nine sister hid in the darkest depths of the ocean, never to be found by anyone until the baby was born, when such thing happened, they brought the baby to Aegirheim, and told their parents what had happened, but never told which one of them had the baby. Aegir and Ran tried again and again to know the truth, which one of them was the mother of the baby, but none of them turned against each other, and the only truth that came out, was that the baby was the child of Odin and the nine of them, this is why that in some tales it is said that Odin laid with all the nine sisters. Regardless of  the truth, Ran had no love for this child and as such, the child would not be raised under their Halls, and as the nine sisters had no love for this child either, they agreed with Ran and the child was set on a boat towards the Island of Vanaheim in the hopes that some kind fold there would adopt the child.
Odin had been waiting to see the child, and to see what would happen next, and from Valaskjalf he saw that the child was going towards the coasts of Vanaheim, as soon as he could, he intercepted the child and brought her to Frigga's Halls at Fensalir. Frigga was used to deal with his husband's children from other affairs, and so she took care of the child and named him Heimdal. Frigga wanted to raise the child as her own, but Odin had in mind other plans for his newborn son, he wanted one of his children to come do Midgard and love the Humanfolk, and Odin decided that Heimdal would live two lives, one as a mortal and one as a god. Heimdal was placed on the boat again and sent to Midgard, where a poor fisherman found him and took the child with him. In Midgard he was named Rig, and he grew as fast as a mortal child does. Rig grew happy, but he always felt that there should be more than just that life in the farm of by the fishing boat, and he had a great fear in him, an inexplicable fear for the sea. His mothers watched him from afar, from the ocean, every time he walked on the beach, but the fear of the ocean held him back, and by his mothers he never knew his true origins.
When Rig was old enough, he left the farm and wandered off to many places in Midgard, he had many women and gave many children to those women, this was part of Odin's plan, to spread his blood with the mortals and thus enrich their bloodlines.
After many adventures and battles, Rig was made King, and Odin who was always watching him, was very proud of his son. When Rig came to old age and was lying on his deathbed, he closed his eyes for the last time as a mortal man, and all that stood beside him, weeping, felt into amazement when a great cloud of birds took him a flew off with his body. Rig was taken to Asgard, where he was restored to his immortal self, and he too was in amazement, to wake up in his bed, young and in the land of the gods, and he too shared  him them the same high title and it was given to him the job of gatekeeper of Asgard. Frigga told him about his true name, Heimdall, and took him as a son and he called her mother. In time the real tale of his birth was told to him, and in anger, he holds an hatred agaisnt all the Jotun folk, for coming from one of those wombs, but not knowing which one and being abandoned to the mercy of the waves, and to this day he avoids the ocean, but he keeps a great love for the mortal folk and he is very protective to them, but his heart is hardened because of all the things he knows about his birth and his life, and every time the day of his birthday comes, a great storm is formed on the oceans near Vanaheim, created by their Grandfathers and his nine mothers, to honor him.

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Working with the Gods: Heimdall

Heimdall

Heimdall is almost never called into working with by a spirit-worker, because bringing him down here means taking him away from his post. If he comes at all, it is for a short time, and he can be given beer with rams on it. He has been known to come down for the coming-of-age rituals of young men, or to answer their questions, as he seems to be a guardian of adolescent boys. He will want a male spirit-worker, and male attendants.

Supported By RavenKaldera

Note: The drawing was made by me. You can watch my Gallery at this [Link] and my Facebook page at this [Link] .

The Birth of Heimdal

Note: The drawing was made by me, you can see my works in this [Link] in my gallery.

This story was told to me By a friend of mine RavenKaldera

Heimdall's Birth

Aegir the Sea God lives under the waves in Aegirheim, off the coast of Vanaheim, where he holds his great feasts and does his brewing. Most modern folk like to think of him as the god of brewing, which is a slight on his great power; brewing is only a side hobby for him. Like Poseidon and Llyr, he is the ruler of the seas, and specifically the northern seas, clogged with ice and treacherous with storms. While Aegir likes to put on a jovial face, his wife Ran plays out the fickle and dangerous side of his nature for him. Her name means Robber, and she is the Thief of Ships, dragging the sailors down to death. Their ghosts are trapped in the hall of Aegir and Ran, entertaining the cold water-deities, until she tires of them and sends them on to Helheim.

The nine daughters of Aegir and Ran are known as the Nine Undines, or the Nine Waves. They take after their mother in temperament, mostly. They are said to be both beautiful and terrible, although beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. They are shapechangers, and can summon illusory forms that are lovely enough to make a sailor leap overboard in desire, although their true faces show with sharp teeth and claws and strange eyes the color of the sea. Their names are a litany of the powers of the Ocean: Kolga the Cold One, and Duva the Hidden One are the eldest, twins in age and both reserved. Blodughadda, the Blood-Haired and bloodthirsty, is next in age. Then there is big-bellied Bara, and Bylgja of the Breaker; then another pair of twins - the terrible Hronn of the Whirlpool and the anguished, wailing Hevring. Then comes Unn, the Undine of the Tides; and Himinglava, the Fair-Weather Undine, is the youngest and most fickle of the lot.

It is said that the Nine Maidens love each other more than any other, and that their alliance is unshakable. They never quarrel, or if they do, no one sees it. So when one of them chose to lay with the canny Aesir god Odin, against the wishes of their father Aegir, the other eight covered it up. It is also said that Odin lay with all nine of them; if this is so, he must have been either very brave to lie with nine deadly, toothed, bloodthirsty mermaids, or else very drunk on their father's brew. Either way, it is certain that at least one sea-etin lay with Odin, and that she got with child by him.

When she made it known to her sisters that she was with child, they all circled her in protection, knowing that their father - and especially their equally bloodthirsty mother, who had no love for the One-Eyed One - would be furious. So they all made a pact that no one should know which of them had done the deed, not even their parents. They all went away, and hid for many months in caves in the darkest part of the sea bottom, where not even Aegir and Ran could find them. In time, the babe was born, and they brought him in their arms to Aegirheim, where they confessed to their angry parents what had been done, if not who.

Aegir demanded again and again to know which of them had done the deed, but the sisters were a solid wall and would not move, and not one of them could be turned against another. Ran threatened to hang them all by their hair from the bottom of the biggest iceberg, but still they would not reveal the babe's true mother. "Let him be known as the child of Odin and the Nine of us," they all said, "for it is as good as true."

Then Ran declared that regardless of which of her ungrateful daughters had whelped the pup, she would not have it raised in her home. Since the sisters had no real care for the child either, they agreed and set him afloat on a boat headed for the island of Vanaheim, hoping that the child would wash up there and be adopted by some kind parents. It had also occurred to them that the child's father might wish to know his son, and indeed Odin had been waiting to see what would happen. As soon as the babe's boat surfaced, he saw it from his throne at Valaskialf, and set out to intercept it. Scooping the child from the water, he brought the golden babe straight to Frigga's apartments at Fensalir.

Frigga, who was used to dealing with her husband's various children by his affairs, saw that the babe was fair and finely formed, and named him Heimdall. She offered to raise him as her own, but Odin had another plan in mind. He wished a child of his to come to love the humanfolk of Midgard, helpless and hapless as they were, and he decided that this son would live two lives, one as a mortal man and one as a god. He took the foundling in his arms and placed him back in the boat, which he deposited on the ocean inside the girth of the Midgard Serpent. Little Heimdall floated to shore, where a poor fisherman rescued him and brought him home. There he was renamed Rig, and grew quickly as mortal children do, for a mortal seeming had been cast upon him by his father.

The golden child was raised by loving although poor mortals, but he always felt that there ought to be more to his life than this, and he yearned for something more than the fishing-boat and the pig-yard and the garden. If there was one thing that he feared, unreasonably, it was the sea. His foster parents put that down to his early abandonment on the little boat, and forgave it of him. Sometimes, while walking the beach, he would see the sunlight glinting off of what might be the head of a woman among the waves, and when he squinted closer he would see the flip of a tail as it vanished into the water, but nothing more, and he refused to go into the salt waves. If he had done so, he would have discovered that he could swim as well as a fish, but his strange fear held him back. So it was that his mothers watched him from afar, but never spoke to him, and he did not know his origin.

When he grew old enough to leave the seaside farm, he did so, and wandered all of Midgard. He lay with women of every class, from rich to poor, and sired many children, and this too was part of Odin's plan, to get his blood into as many of the folk of Midgard as possible, and thus enrich their bloodlines. Through time and glory and battle and many adventures, Rig was finally made a king in the prime of his life, and Odin who watched was proud of his son. Eventually he grew old and near to death, and on his deathbed, as his eyes were closed by the family who stood weeping about him, a great cloud of birds lowered themselves from the sky and took up his body, and all wondered in awe and amazement.

His body was carried to Asgard, where a small spark of life still remained in it, ready to be snuffed out. Odin restored him to youth and to his immortal self, the body of the youth who was born of the meeting of sea and sky, with eyes of a blue somewhere between the two. He rose in wonder from his bed to find himself in the land of the Gods, and himself one among them, and they cheered him, and called him by his true name of Heimdall. And so it was that he was given the job of gatekeeper of Asgard, and took up his destiny as Odin's son and prince.

Frigga took him to her breast and called him as her son, and he called her Mother. Yet eventually he asked of the story of his birth, and it was told to him. He cried out in anger, remembering the far-distant heads in the water, and his fear of the sea, and swore out against the cold women who had abandoned him to the waves, and he not even able to know which womb it was that bore him. So to this day Heimdall avoids the ocean, and keeps to his father's home in the sky, although he loves and protects the humanfolk of Midgard with a great passion. His heart is hardened against all those of Jotun blood for his anger with his mothers, and this sorrow and anger is one of the things he learned from his life as a mortal, along with his personal caring for them.

And if you ask the Nine Undines to this day, they will not say which of them bore him, but only that he once came from all their arms and was delivered up to his destiny, and as he had both a mortal mother who loved him and an Aesir mother who values him, what need has he of any of them? And then they are gone into the water with a splash and a flash of their tails, and no one can see, through the cold waters, whether any salt tears are shed for him, the child of the meeting of sea and sky. But every year on his birthday, a storm rises up at sea, and all will do well to keep to land on that day and avoid the uncertain mercies of the Nine Ladies of the wild ocean's miles.