Norse Warrior Magic and Shamanism

So the other day I wrote a post about shamanism practiced in the Norse culture and how Seiðr was the area of expertise for women and if men practiced such magics, that would be seen Ergi (unmanly) in the Norse society. I have also talked about other ways of spiritual magic that would be much more acceptable in society when dealing with male magic practices, and this is what I will be writing today and go deep into that subject.

There are different types of shamanic practices, and for men among the Norse society, there were ways to practice magic that would be more socially acceptable.
The Norse/Germanic society was very much warlike, and as such, there were always those elite group of warriors who practice shamanic magics that would help them in battle, this was such a way for men to practice magic in a way taht wouldn't be considered unmanly and people would accept it without judgment.

In earlier periods of history, the elite warriors were militia groups or warbands, but with time and during the Viking ages, these groups became more restricted, more closed and ritual practices would be done away from society. We know of such groups like the berserkers as I have written on another post, there weren't ordinary warriors, their initiation rituals, fighting techniques, and the spiritual practices were as complex as anyother shamanic magic practiced by any shaman, these warriors could be considered as Shaman-Warriors.
Such warriors would work their rage in trance before they went to battle, we know of these berserkers as being warriors who would run into battle, sometimes without any armour or any other type of clothing, shouting and howling, putting their shield away, most of the time they would even abandon their weapons. This was a sign of who they were, people knew a berserker in the battlefield, this was their mark and their presence alone would strike fear in the hearts of their enemies. The animal symbols of these warriors were often the wolf and the bear, and while in battle-trance, these warriors would call upon the strength of such animals, working with their spirit totems to invoke such powers. Now this is when we enter another subject related to these practices, the totemistic warriors.

Totemistic Warriors

Totemism in groups was very often related to the military in ancient Norse/Germanic society. Many of these military societies had an animal as a totem, a wolf or a bear as I have written previously. Shamanicaly, these warriors would work with the spirits of these animals in order to possess the ferocity and strength of them when they entered into battle.

Initiation rites for new members of these totemic groups would start by living for a while in the wilds, in which the means of obtaining food would be by hunting or stealing from the near by villages. A link with the wild had to be made, the warrior would have to live such as wolves or bears, even learning to kill to survive. This link with the natural world was important because these warriors had to adopt the way of life of their totemic animal. There was a clear distinction of realities, the mortal world or the world of the society where rules were applied with the aim of maintain order, and the other reality which was the wild world, dark and magical, where chaos reigned and the only law was the law of the strongest. There is a clear distinction here as it is in Norse cosmology, which tells us that the forces of order are always in battle against the forces of chaos.
With the progress of these rituals, the individual would identify himself with the animal and was spiritually united with it. the Initiation ended in group when the individual was accepted by the "pack", wearing the skin of his totemic animal, the wolf or the bear, which would be a marking that claimed the position of this individual as someone who went beyond the limits of humanity and became something more, something more beastlike, more ferocious. People knew this, and there wasn't anything more frightening to encounter in battle than these kind of warriors.
These rituals were something more than just symbolic, this included having the behavior of the animal due to the individual being possessed by his totemic animal.

During the Viking Age society two totemic groups' names are often heard (and it seems they have been the most powerful and the ones that left more marks of terror in their enemies' hearts) the Berserkers / Berserkir which means "bear-shirts" and the úlfheðnar "Wolf-Hides" and it isn't that hard to know which animal was the totem of which group.

Note: 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

Totemism in the Norse Culture

Before the existance of deities in human form among the early tribal communities with shamanic practices, the symbols of power and spiritual guidance were the animals. Each person or a group of people had a totem, that totem could be an animal or a plant, and the individual was bound to the totem and they were in a mutual spiritual relationship. The totem was generaly held to be a guardian or even an ancestor, and one way or another, the totem was effectively a part of the human-self.
This kind of spiritual practice was known worldwide, but when talking about "Totem" we often visualise the American Indian tribes or the peoples from Alaska or the Inuit folk. But all over the world, this was one of the first spiritual practices to be held by many cultures, and seldom does the Norse culture comes into argument when speaking of Totemism.

To the Norse and other Germanic peoples, totemism is manifested in two specific prominent and powerful areas which are, the animal helping spirits, known as Fylgjur, and the patron animals of shamanic military societies who had their own rituals turned to warlike events.

What are the Fylgjur ?

We have all heard about the cats, ravens and other animals associated with witches, and this is something that comes from an ancient past, familiar spirits who are often the companions of witches in European folktales, but in truth, the early shamanic tribes who made their religious and spiritual practices around totems, had these animals to aid them, not just the cat and the raven, but all animals that you can think of, powerful animals that helped each person, and while in trance, these creatures aided shamans and shamans could take the form of those animals to better understand their ways and follow them to whatever quest while in trance, working in the spiritual world. In the Norse old spiritual traditions, these familiar animals were called Fylgjur ( plural ) or Fylgja ( singular )

 The Fylgja is an animal spirit, however, a human helping spirit is also called a Fylgja in Old Norse literature sometimes, this shows us that a totem can also be an ancestor. The well-being of the  Fylgja is intimately tied to that of its owner, as a result, if the  Fylgja dies, its owner dies as well. Its character and form are closely connected to the character of its owner. This helping spirit can be seen as the totem of a single person rather than of an entire group.

It dies you say? A spirit can die?

Well, lets put it like this, "dies", you see, when the animal spirit is linked to the body of the mortal, it can suffer whatever the mortal body might suffer, and that goes the other way also, because a shaman while in trance, his/her spirit can catch any disease on the othr world, the spirit might not be ready for some trials, and that is even worse than the other way around, because if the spirit suffers anything, it reflects on the body and a shaman can die, that happens to other people that aren't shamans but are able to have out of the body experiences, and people might lose their mind, go mad, cerebrally paralyzed, or catch a "flu" that the body isn't able to respond and dies, because the body without the soul/spirit, doesn't work properly. So you have to take care of your spirit animal as you take care of yourself or your own soul ( which is something most of us have no idea what to do ) because what ever happens to you or to it, it will reflect on the other and the spirit animal might "die" and leave you.

There are many gods and goddesses in the Norse pantheon that have personal totem animals which may or may not be Fylgjur. For example, Odin is particularly associated with wolves, ravens, and horses, while Thor is with goats, and Freya and Freyr with wild boars. It should come as no surprise, then, that their human devotees have personal totems of their own.


Note: The artwork to illustrate this post is a drawing made by me. 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

Cybele The first goddess

Throughout the history of humankind there has always been many deities to explain each thing in the natural world. At first, the tribes worked with shamanic pratices ( which many tribal communities still do nowadays ) and the powers of divine were seen in nature and each animal was sacred, each animal had abilities and a way of dealing with life itself in a particular way, and such abilties and gift we humans also needed, so by watching how nature worked, we did the same, and there was what we call Totemism, a community belief in which every human is thought to have a strong spiritual connection  with an animal, be it a physical or a spirit animal, each person would have a Totem and follow its wisdom. But then those divine powers started to appear in the form of human beings, and that human shape of the divine spread through many cultures worldwide, there were thousands of gods and goddesses and that gave birth to religions, some more complex than others, as the human mind evolved, so did the gods and so did the necessity of explaining other complex things of the universe. But the figure of a goddess has always been present, a figure that comes from the Neolithic and even before that, the Mother goddess of the Earth,, of fertility, the goddess who gave birth to all and even to the gods. We see many of these statuettes through time and the cult of this mother goddess lived through the ages and had great adhesion in many cultures, such was this adhesion that religions were formed around her.
To our days comes the name of Cybele, the goddess mother of all men, goddess of the earth and fertility, giver of life and sustenance, a goddess who makes the synthesis of previous various religious realities. She is the goddess of all and this figure was created according to the cults of the earth goddess that comes since time immemorial, Cybele was created in the central area of the Turkish peninsula, the zone where Phrygia was. Since she was also a goddess of rebirth, her cult was around the 4th of April during Spring time. There is even the myth of Attis the shepherd, when the goddess Cybele fell in love with him and made him her priest with the condition that he would always be faithful to her, but one day he fell in love with a nymph, breaking the vow of chastity and the goddess killed him, not with her own hands or any power, not in a way that she could lets say " get her hands dirty " but by driving him mad in such a way that he was forced to mutilate himself. But after his death he turns into a three or revives in human forme, either way, he comes back in one form or another at spring, showing the powers of rebirth of this goddess, the symbolism of Spring.

 This worship of the mother goddess had a great importance in Roman society, and as such, it has reached us spreading throughout Europe. So important was her cult that we see in history several Mother Goddess' cults all over Europe until the present day. Portugal was one of many European countries to be invaded by the Romans and the Roman cults were placed in the country, and as the Romans adopted various deities even Portuguese ones (Lusitanian) the Lusitanian people also adopted this goddess, Cybele, and in many archaeological excavations we met traces of the worship of this goddess, figurines and such. In Portugal the cult to this goddess was great in the Central, southern and coastal regions of the country. In the Northern regions of Portugal the Roman cults weren't that much, in many places didn't even existed, because those regions are more mountainous and much cooler and to create pathways for these regions was difficult and even the transportation of soldiers and goods was dangerous and the romans lost more than they won, so the Northern parts of Portugal the cults remained Celtic and Germanic.

After the christianization of Europe and most Lusitanians got killed, or adopted Roman cults and later Christian ones, and the old deities were almost forgotten, a cult around the virgin Mary replaced the Roman cult to Cybele, the goddess of fertility, nature and of humankind and of gods, became virgin Mary which is symbolicaly very similar in the way that she is the mother of the son of the divine powers. As such, the cult of the virgin Mary became so important to the Portuguese people, which in fact comes from a Roman pagan past.

In Ancient Rome the celebrations to Cybele were very violent, it started with the sacrifice of a bull ( Taurobolium ) and a sheep ( Riobolium ) and the priest bathed in the blood of these animals, symbolizing the birth, in blood leaving the womb, and also by the symbolism of these animals that are generators of life by consumption. The importance of the bull as a symbol of strength in classical antiquity, was so marked in the festivities to Cybele while the Romans remained in the  Iberian peninsula, that still somehow remained as a cult and we can still see it in the bloody Bullfighting in Portugal and Spain (a tradition of which I am totally against).

The blood bath of the priest in these celebreations is still visible in christianity, when the wine was poured onto the head of the faithful, literally bathed in wine as in antiquity bathd in blood, of course with the passing of ages it is now drunk, the symbolism is implicit.

Note: The artwork to illustrate this post is a drawing of Bragi made by me. 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