Honoring Bragi The Skald of Skalds

Note: The Photo was taken by Missloony and it is me holding the lyre she gave me as a gift, and what a wonderful gift!

Bragi the God of Poetry.eloquence and music in the Norse Pantheon, he whose songs are sung throughout nine spheres, the divine Poet of Asgard, the Speaker for Peace, the harpist of heavenly music that soothes, the hearts of warrior and woebegone alike, he is the Lord of Eloquence whose words ring out and run through the people.

" May you inspire us, O Bragi, Bane of Boredom, may you gift us even a tenth of your talent for weaving a wiser world. "

Who is Bragi?
Bragi is one of the sons of Odin, the eldest next to Thor. Long ago, the Mead of Poetry was guarded by a giant named Suttung who kept it in a cave under his house and set his daughter Gunnlod as its guardian. Odin was determined to steal the sacred Mead, and after many adventures he took the form of a snake and slipped into the cave, where he returned to a handsomer form and offered himself to Gunnlod as a lover. She took him on for three nights, during which he drank nearly all of the Mead of Poetry and sired a child on Gunnlod. Returning to Asgard, he vomited forth the sacred Mead into barrels and kept it there. Later, Gunnlod sent their son, Bragi, to live at his father's court in Asgard. He was brilliant and eloquent, with a beautiful singing voice, great musical talent, and a presence that could charm an audience. Odin made him the Skald of Asgard, but he does not always stay there.

Bragi is one of the few Gods who, it is said, is welcome in any world by any people. Rather than being a warrior, he is a speaker for peace and a diplomat. He wanders the Nine Worlds, welcomed joyfully into the halls of Aesir, Vanir, Jotun, Duergar, Alfar both light and dark, and sometimes that of unwitting humans. He sings or tells stories for his welcome, and gently leaves them with the ideals of peace and cooperation. He is married to Iduna, the goddess of orchards whose golden apples keep the Gods young. It is said that she carved the Runes into his tongue, that he might be even more a master of words. He is occasionally known as the "long-bearded one".

His name comes from the Norse word for poetry, bragr, and is cognate to the modern word "brag", as Norse poems were often songs of praise. His name may also be cognate to the word bragarfull, or the cup of mead that is passed in the hall.

The Mead of Poery had a long and bloody history before it came to Odin, and it was first made from the blood of the sacrificed Vanir god Kvasir. Much the same sort of things are said about Kvasir as about Bragi: he was welcome in every hall, everyone loved him, and he was a peacemaker. The personal gnosis of many who work with Bragi and his family is that Bragi is Kvasir reborn; that his soul entered the Mead of Poetry and then passed into Gunnlod's womb through Odin.

Honoring Bragi :

Bragi's Colors: Blue and gold

Symbol: Harp

Altar Suggestions: Musical instruments of any kind; well-written, impassioned books, music scores; the words to good poetry and songs; Herb Bennet and Purslane; the rune Os.

Food and drink: Anything you’d give to an honored guest.

Supported By RavenKaldera

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.

Mythology around Runes: Thurisaz

Mythology: Thurisaz


The first syllable of the rune, thur, or, thurs, survives today in Thursday, the name of the fifth day if the week, which literally means "giant's day", but it is also associated with the mighty god Thor, who was something of a giant, even among the larger-than-life deities of Asgard. The rune's name, Thurisaz, was an ancient title of the thunder god, and it has been suggested by some that the form of the rune represents Thor's hammer, although others think that it merely shows a single thorn on a stem.

Thurisaz

"The Thorn is Most Sharp, an evil thing to take a grip on, extremely grim for any man who rests among them"
                                                                        
                                                         "The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem"

  The rune name is Thurisaz it is the combination of the letters Th in the common alphabet, to the Anglo-Saxons, this rune was Thorn, while to the Vikings it was known as Thurs.
The Thurisaz rune represents a sharp thorn. By extension of the idea, it also suggests a blade, knife or a fang. Therefore the rune is also associated with the deadly bites of serpents. The sound of the letter, too, resembles the hiss of a snake, as well as the sound that a sword makes when it is drawn from a scabbard. It is the rune for tendency to changes and will of the destiny.

Upright Meaning:

The rune Thurisaz suggests boundaries, which in old Norse times were often marked out by thickets of hawthorn. So by extension it is important to know your own limits when this rune appears. Hasty decisions made now will be regretted later, so it is definitely not a time to forge ahead regardless. Because of the rune's association with sharp objects, fangs and snakes, Thurisaz may indicate a time of personal risk. There may be people around you who are being less then honest of who do not have your best interests at heart. In business matters especially, extreme care must be taken, for there is a danger of being let down to betrayed. However, this can only occur if you are not sufficiently vigilant, so be warned. The rune may show that you will soon have to defend yourself and your actions in some way. However, it may also indicate that luck will arrive in the guise of a challenge. Tradition states that if used as a charm, this rune will blunt the words and weapons of your enemies.


Inverted Meaning:

If you are in any doubt about your actions, do nothing at all. If you act hastily now, you will have plenty of time in the future to repent your folly. An inverted Thurisaz emphasises that warnings of its upright meaning and indicates that you are in danger of walking straight into a trap. It also shows that you are likely to play into the hands of your enemies and that your own rash actions will prove to be your undoing. Take a step back and review your situation. Pause, reflect and then proceed very cautiously indeed.

Body Part: Nervous system, all over the body.
Associated Maladies: Nervous tension, irritability, oversensitization, degenerative nervous disorders
Action: Irritated
Solution: Removal of a foreign object

Dreams and Visions

Note: The photo was taken by Missloony

Dreams are a part of us, and what would become of us without them? If we dont dream, then we are not alive, unemotional, there are no objectives, dreams can guide us, warn us, or travel in our mind to escape for sometimes the harsh reality, to excape the city life, social problems, the stressful routine, we can learn from dreams and i will give you examples.

Most of the dreams we have are just reflexions of your daily needs, problems, anxieties, wishes and fears, even if you dont remeber and you ask yourself "what kind of a dream was that?!" all those emotions stay hidden in the back of your brain, and while you sleep, your brain "goes" there and pick all those images, and you can control your dreams, you can think of something while dreaming and it will happen in the dream, but that is most tiring for your brain, and it will reflect in your entire body, because you are thinking in your own thoughts, and when you wake up, its like you have never slept the entire time you were dreaming.
But few times ( but for some people it is regular ) your dreams may be visions, warnings, jorneys and even you are actually in somewhere out of your body interacting with real people, souls, spirits even Gods. Sometimes you see in your dreams people that were important to you, people that have gone away from this world, most of the time is just your brain working, picking the need to see those people again, to talk with them, say a last word, your wishes and needs, dreadful needs that make you so anxious and your brain starts to enter in a state, that is a burst of images. But few times you actually seeing them, but that doesnt happen so often, and even if it realy happens some day, you will not guess it out.
As i've tould, we may be in contact with other beings, in situations we think that it is just a dream, that is also why in many times we do not pay any attention to dreams, but they can realy help us in times of need.
I will give you few examples of jorneys or places and situations that have happen to me, out of the body and not a dream, but first i would like to tell you how do you know it is not a dream, if it is real, if you are actually living that. We have to train our brain, our body, we have nightmares and we are led by them to a mournful state of mind, wariness, fear, sorrow, but we have to let it go, train yourself and dont let your dreams / nightmares control you, you can control them, you can wish hard and concentrate, meditate and you can make your dreams become a real jorney, out of your body experiences, i've work hard in that but i dont have those jorneys too often, since i can remember i have lots of dreams, about things i've never seen before, wars, madness, people getting killed in medieval dark times and even before that, of course today that we can see in books, movies, paintings, but for a child, that the only places to see were the rooms in the house and the garden outside full of beautiful natural things, that may be a bit awkward, runing as a tall adult man in the snow among naked dark pine trees in a great forest, dressed with clothes made of animal fur, with others like me, runing and screaming with swords and axes, towards an hidden enemy that is shouting beyond the snowy hills, and other dreams like these as i was a child, to see myself killing and blood everywhere, but the visions were not always this, but also beautiful places, so beautiful to my eyes, and i was just standing there in awe. So in time i have development a capacity to know what is a dream and what is a vision and what is a jorney, i know what i am actually living, and what is just a dream to joke about, sometimes i dream with my eyes open, hallucinations and i know that, but other times i see and it is real, so i will now give you examples of what i have seen, few examples that might be very interesting.
Once while i was resting my body in the bed, i closed my eyes and i went to a place of complete darkness, there was nothing to be seen but i was there moving and hearing sounds, nature sounds, the wind in the trees, my steps over fallen leafs and the cracking of twigs, and i've heard voices, and laughter, there was a light in tones of autumn, all around there were naked trees, helm and oak trees, i went there, all i saw a great bonfire and people dancing around it, but they were all shadows, then i saw a great shadowed shap of a man, tall, taller then a normal person, with horns of an elk, and like the others was just a shadow, dark, but i was glad, and i was happy, joy filled me, i almost wanted to dance around the fire, but i was uneasy because i couldn't see the faces and it was moving to fast, in trance and extasy. I had this dream long ago in the 31 of october, then after this i came about a text in a book, and it was talking about the importance of that day, the 31st of october to 1st of November, Samhain, and the night that there is a gap between this world and the other, where the dead can joy us, in every religion talks about this, and that there is a God, a celtic one, ( of course that are many who come in this day, like Odin for the Wildhunt, which in the celtic myths there is also the wildhunt ) in this specific day, calls many to join him, Cernunnos the horned god, this was strange and i had that dream withoug knowing all of this.
An other dream i had, was about a place, green and yellow, far as the eye could see, i was standing in a great hill, and there was a huge tree far away, i could see its branches touching the clouds, i went down the hill to meet this great tree, when i was closed to it, i saw that the trunk was so large, that i couldn't see anything else of the landscape to the right or to the left, i passed the tree, and i went inside of it, like a ghost, inside there were stairs, all around the trunk but inside, and it went up, always up till i could see no more but a great light in tones of a soft blue and white, i saw many people going for it, hundreds or maybe thousands of souls and i knew they were souls, glowing, the inside of the tree was beautiful and the bark so smooth, tiny yellow lights dancing everywhere, like butterflies but glowing like fireflies, there was grass where i was standing in amazement, so green and clean, fresh with dew drops, i saw then a man, clothed in grey, a great white beard, there was a shadow in his face by his left side, there was no left eye, and a wolf behind him, they were both walking in my direction, and all was well.
Another that i had was not so long ago, about 2 weeks ago, while my girlfriend was playing the lyre she gave me as a gift, the music she played, the sound of it was strange, the melody was beautiful and yet so sad, but the sound of the strings could not make sadness reach my ears, each string made an happy sound, i was relaxed, i smiled and i closed my eyes, but i opened them again and somewhere between my room and what was going on, i say in front of my eyes a dream, but i was awake in there, in the room with my girlfriend, and i saw a beautiful deep forest, all in tones of green, the top of the trees in dark greens, the ground of light green and roots gently embracing all the surroundings, it was a grey sky, and a soft rain, mist came intertwined with the trunks of the trees, leaving the moss so green and fresh, i was just there, between the border of the forest and a vast green field that ended with an other part of the forest, it was a glade in that valley, i saw then the tall grass moving, something walking to me, it was a wolf, he was calm and so was i, he stoped, then in the forest to my left there was a standing figure, starting to walk in my direction, clothed in animal fur, and a voice near the wolf said "He is Dagda..." and something else that i cant remember, after this was over, i went to see if Dagda meant something, and i read that he is a Celtic God, older then all.
Also when i am with my girlfriend, in a more intimate situation, in other words, making love, when i reach the orgasm, i see often wolves runing towards a hill, amoung trees, many trees, and i am runing with them, and i am also a wolf, i can hear them breathing fast, i can fell the wind in my fur, the howls, and i can smell all things, in a clear night of full moon, and its silver light in our backs, in our gray fur, the sensation is of total freedom, something that i've never had before and i can see this for about 1 year and a half, then all of us wolves, get to the top of that great hill, and in fact it was a mountain, because down, far below, there is a great valley as far as the eye can see, with many forests, and few wooden houses with smoke coming out of the stone chimneys and a great river that flows to the horrizon, shining in silver and white because of the light of the moon, all so fast in extasy and happiness we stand there at the top of the world howling.
I dream a lot, but i have also visions and jorneys, but unfortunately those are few, but when i have them, it changes me completly.


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Cσρуяιgнт © 2011™

Mythology around Runes: Uruz

As i write about a Rune, i will also write about its mythology and as i wrote about Uruz this wednesday, here it goes the mythology around it.


Mythology: Uruz
It is likely that Uruz originally represented the second half of a primordial pair, the first being the cow, Audhumla, symbolised by the first rune, fehu. Uruz is undoubtedly masculine in character, and, indeed, there may have once been a mythological equivalent of the primitive mother goddess that was represented as a mighty bull god. If this was the case, then conformation of the theory has been lost over time. However, it is true that the most macho of the viking gods was associated with this rune. Thor, the thunder god, the strong champion of the deities of Asgard and sworn enemy of the chaotic giants, was the divinity to whom the peoples of the north ascribed the rune Uruz.The subsidiary meanings of both hail and ore add credence to this attribution, since Thor is the god of the storm and wielder of the deadly hammer that was made for him by subterranean dwarves.

Uruz

"Ur is a wild and fierce beast possessing great horns.
A formidable ranger of moorland, it fights with its horns.
It is a beast of courage."
                                                                           "The Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem"

  The rune name is Uruz it is the letter U in the common alphabet, the rune for physical strength, good health, wisdom, sudden changes, male potency.
The name of the rune is primarily connected with long extinct wild bulls of the north, the aurochs. These untameable beasts roamed the wastelands and were much feared. However, the sound of the alternative name, ur, creates a pun, both on the old Norse word for ore, hence metal, and on a word meaning hail or drizzle, hence inclement weather. As well as these subsidiary concepts, the syllable Ur can also be taken to mean "ancient" or "primordial". This is a fitting description for an animal of prehistoric power, such an auroch. This rune is considered masculine and forceful in nature.

Upright Meaning:

Powerful energies are at work when the rune Uruz appears. If you require added vitality, then Uruz is a good omen. However, you must treat this power with respect and caution, or its wild nature may cause you to regret the fact that you chose to use its force in the first place. After all, it is fairly easy to goad a bull into charging, but it is not as simple a matter to stop it when its job is done. This rune's association with courage and great strength means taht it is certain that you will overcome any obstacles. Brute force will not be enough: You will also have to use your intelligence to harness the power of Uruz wisely. This rune is considered good for healing, giving strength to those who have been ill and hastening recovery. Uruz may also indicate a rise in status, but first make sure that you are not biting off more then you can chew.

Inverted Meaning:

Weakness and physical or mental fatigue are indicated when Uruz is inverted. There may even be an underlying health problem, so perhaps it is time for a check-up ora thorough review of your lefestyle. There is a sense of being overwhelmed by events and not having the will to face up to reality when the rune appears in this position, so take care: powerful forcer may ranged against you.

Body Part: Muscular system - all voluntary muscles
Associated Maladies: Lack of flexibility through overmuscling
Action: Strong, vital, healthy.
Solution: Exercise, power foods such as high-protein and high-carb diet.