Norse Gods & Heroes

Heilsa! Welcome to Abbott’s Inn’s Nordic Tradition 8! We’re glad you could make it! Do check out the other groups on 7 other networks! What do you know about Norse tradition? Do you have a favorite Norse God or Goddess? My favorites are the Vanir, rather than the Aesir. The Vanir are the old Gods and Goddesses, while the Aesir are the newer deities, and the ones most people think of when they think of Norse or Germanic deities: Odin, sometimes spelled Odhinn, Frigga, Loki, Thor, etc. The Vanir are more the agricultural deities Freyja, Frey or Freyr, etc. I like Freyja because She is the Goddess of love, fertility, prosperity, cats, and Witchcraft. Freyja is one of Stephen’s favorites, too. For Freyr, my favorite Norse god, he was a symbol of the young god sacrificing himself for the good of humankind. He was also a sea god, very appropriate for a country full of Vikings. I got this formation out of the book Mythology: A Visual Encyclopedia.. If you can get this from your friendly local bookstore or Amazon.com do it.. It is a great book. Gertrude Jobes’ Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Symbols says that during a war between the Aesir and Vanir, Freyr was taken hostage, and later counted as one of the aesir. He was brother and husband of Freyja as well as Gerd. He brought the rain and fertility for the crops. He was the son of Njord and Nerthus or Skadi. He, along with his sister/wife Freyja was god of prosperity and peace. In his youth he was lord of Alfheim, the home of the Alfar or the elves. Stephen’s favorite Norse God is daddy Odin the AllFather. I think he’s Stephen’s favorite because he has a trickster aspect.

If you ever have a chance to acquire the Hammer of Thor game do so. It is a wonderful way to learn about Norse mythology. You play the game by putting together a party of gods, goddesses, human heroes both male and female, and you adventure on the world tree Yggdrasil. One of the things you try to do is gain magickal treasures. The combat system is entertaining balanced and enthralling. You can’t see how strong you are until you actually begin to fight. In the game you usually don’t fight to the death, but in reality, the Norse Gods and heroes did, to do otherwise is cowardice. We would like to find out from you if you know of any other games about Norse mythology that you can turn us onto. Besides Hammer of Thor, another Norse game is Swords and Shields by Milton Bradley. All Stephen has left of his copy is the board. If you know where he can obtain another copy, please post here. The object of the game is pretty simple: you have 2 sides: one side is swords, about 10 in number the other is an army of 10 shields. In the center is the Viking king. The goal of the game is to surround the Viking king with your army. At the same time, attempting to eliminate as many of the other side as possible without giving up your position of strength around the king. A variant of swords and shields was played in the mead halls of ancient Viking warrior kings. Stephen really hopes you can help him find a new copy of this game. If you can help us find this game, Stephen and I will play the games and give a blow by blow description here.

Another way to embrace the old Norse Gods and Goddesses is the runes. I have three sets of runes. My first set are the Ralph Blum Runes, which I don’t recommend. Blum is a Christian, and the Christians have no business playing around with the Runes. My second set I made myself out of salt dough after reading Leaves of Yggdrasil, which really brought the Runes home to me. My third set is a set of semi-precious stones with the runes engraved on them in gold. Of the three, my favorite set is the third set. I also have the instructions for crocheting runes. Many of the Runes are directly related to the old Norse Gods and Goddesses. For example, in the Elder Futhark, you have Freyja’s Aett, Hagal’s Aett, and Tiu’s Aett. Runes play a very important role in mythology. I have a theory. The reason that Odin had to go through the torture of hanging on Yggdrasil for 9 nights and days, losing his eye, and getting the lance in his side, was that the Runes originally were the province of women; that is, Nerthus and Her priestesses. Stephen’s theory is that Odin sacrificed himself to himself in the dead of winter, the God of Norse shamanism the blood from the lance wound dripped into the snow, solidified into the Runes, thus the Runes being a living force. My theory is that the original blood in the Runes was menstrual blood. My theory goes along with that of Donald Tyson, whose Runes are red. Odin being the God of Norse shamanism links us up with Adventures in Shamanism. Runes were used in many different ways. Runes were used by Norse warriors carved on their weapons in invocations to deities, spells (bindrunes, etc.), thus making the weapon a magickal one.

Bind-Runes are a combination of two or more Runes to form a spell. I sometimes will “read” a house that is built in the English half-timber style, since the visible beams form Runes. There is a whole magickal system based upon bind-runes. When shaking the Runes in a reading, whatever Runes land on each other can be made into bind-runes. Besides being used as spells and to inscribe the warriors’ names on their weapons, they were used as a lettering/writing system. Runes were also used to inscribe monuments and tombstones with the dead person’s name, exploits, or maybe just a reminiscence. They also inscribed their dragon-ships when they went a-viking. Viking is a verb, by the way, not a noun. By the way, this is slightly off-topic, but Google either “Viking kittens” or “The Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin. You will get a real visual treat, but make sure you have no liquids in your mouth, or your keyboard will get slattered with your beverage. The cornerstone of Norse magick is the Runes. Besides bind-Runes, there is another technique where you become the Rune yourself. They’re called stadhagaldr, which are mudras and body positions in the shapes of the Runes. It’s a whole system based upon forming Runes with the body. It’s basically a Germanic version of the Hindu mudras. What do you folks think? This is the time for you to do some research on the relationship between the stadhagaldr of the Runes and the Hindu mudras of Sanskrit. We could say a lot more about the Runes, but will save it for Abbott’s Inn Nordic Rune Corner 8, which is the next group we will do on Facebook. Norse Shamans embroider Runes on their shaman coats. Prudence Priest has Runes embroidered on her priestess robe.

The holidays are coming up, and with them many treats. I know of many Scandinavian treats, which are often done this time of year. One example is Fattigman, which is like a sweetened fried noodle. I featured it in my story, which came out in December ’06, Yule Yelps [The Fattigman Files]. It was about a small town in Minnesota, which was settled about a century ago by Norwegian Asatruar. The story has both werewolves and The Wild Hunt. My pen name is Rita Trevalyan. Google it. If you can find it for sale anywhere, please buy a download. I think you’ll like it. It’s a romance and a very dark look at the holidays. My subconscious was allowed to go hog-wild with this story, and dark is how I see Yule, even though it supposedly is the birth of light. This is the dark time of year. Enough of the personal stuff.
The skalds were the Norse bards, and sang the sagas, which are the main way that we know about the Norse deities, and heroes. One hero is Siegfried or Sigfrith, of the Volsunga Saga (Which is what the Ring Cycle of Richard Wagner was based upon). Brunhilde is another Norse Hero(ine). Beowulf is another hero like this. These are all we can think of. Why don’t you guys do research on Norse heroes and get back to us?
I just Googled “Norse Heroes” and hit the motherlode. There was a whole alphabetical list of them. One hero was Arngrim. Here is a contest for you. Fabricate a Norse hero, and tell us all about him. Stephen came up with Olaf SkullCrusher. See if you can do better. The winner gets a free reading with either the Norse or Viking Tarot Decks.

Agilaz (in Anglo-Saxon Egil) fought off a While bunch of enemies while in his fortress. He was a skilled archer. He and his wife Aliruna were besieged in their keep until Egil fought off their attackers armed only with his bow and arrows.

Bjorn Ironside carried on many successful raids in France in the 9th century. See what you can come up with. I got these from the motherlode mentioned in the large paragraph above.

Dell has really messed up Stephen’s work. Don’t buy Dell. Also, if you’ve been watching those Blue Hippo commercials, don’t do business with Blue Hippo either. The CEO is a cokehead and a ripoff artist. His computers, if you even get one from him, suck out loud. If possible, they’re even worse than Dell. We mention these things because we care about our Pagan community, and we want people to know what is going on both with us and in the world at large. Doc said that 1 in 6 Dell computers (of both kinds) don’t work right out of the box. Stephen must’ve gotten that one in six because he’s had nothing but trouble with it from day one about 17 months ago. We were working on a new blog for Keen and lost it because Bailee sat on the keyboard, and made it crash twice.

Yahoo has been revamped completely. I got the new Yahoo toolbar, and added a bunch of our stuff to it. The new Yahoo has retooled both the toolbar and the home page, where you can add your own stuff. Also Yahoo has improved its messenger in the video talk aspect. We are still dissatisfied with Yahoo’s draconian policy of deleting certain groups after just 6 weeks of inactivity. It would be ok if they were even handed about it, but they seem to only delete certain groups, while others they leave alone. For this reason, and because of their draconian categorization process, we will not be putting any more groups on Yahoo. Google has also revamped their toolbar and googletalk.

Do not do business with IMVU. The new management of IMVU is a bunch of right-wing Republican Puritans who are utterly anti-Pagan, anti-women and anti-sex. I had my bank disallow IMVU from deducting money from my checking account. Fully 40% of the people on IMVU are Pagans. If all the Pagans left, we might not put the network out of business, but we could definitely make it feel the pinch. I think that even the Pag-Symps would leave after the Pagans left, especially the ones interested in cybersex. Charles, also Carey, the new CEO is a conservative Baptist, who has no business running a network like IMVU. In the name of “making the Internet safe for kids”, he and his henchmen are making IMVU no fun for anyone. I feel that having an age restricted section is protection enough for the little nippers, and that adults should have a section where they are totally free to do as they will. Stephen is furious, but I am indifferent. IMVU was nothing to me but an exercise in frustration that I spent way too much money and time on. I think it’s a waste of time and money, but Stephen lives most of his life on IMVU, and so is really bummed out by these developments. They have blocked out all the cool body enhancements and furniture Stephen got from Twinkle so they can’t be seen by anyone but him. IMVU is being investigated by: the FBI, Better Business Bureau, FCC, and FTC for its fraudulent and unethical business dealings. They have a file on IMVU the size of my 3rd exhubby, and he is big. He’s gotten even larger since we’ve split up. It makes me wonder why Doc had the heart attack, and not him. If you have any fraud complaints, contact the FBI Fraud division and the Better Business Bureau. .

I have just joined Stephen on KEEN. I am also doing readings outside of KEEN. I charge $15 for a fifteen minute reading. I got a webcam, and a mic/headset, so will be able to do readings on Yahoo and Windows Live as soon as they get hooked up. I am hunting for a publisher, since FireDrake’s Weyr unfortunately got closed down. Readings and classes are our currency. I am also helping Stephen promote our friend Walter Rhoads’ art, their art gallery Gallery 14 and Julie’s tax service. I’m doing everything to raise money except sex. I refuse to get involved in porn, and I don’t have a very sexy voice.

Stephen wants to thank all of you for calling him at (land-line) 916-455-2267 or
(cell) 916-612-2504 and ordering either a divination reading or a class for just $31.95. With webcam and voice on Yahoo IM, Windows Live Msgr, or Skype, it’s almost like being here. For the reading, you got to choose a deck, method, or tool from a vast array of decks/methods/tools. For the class, you got to choose from a myriad of topics in the vast area of magick. Some of you couldn’t decide between a reading and a class, and so for just $59.90 you knew you could have both.a reading and a class; how perfect is that? You can have a reading then in the class find out how he did it. Or you can have two classes, or two readings as long as they are on two separate and different topics/questions. And thank you too for using and spreading around his Zodiac referral number 1-800-280-8496. You told your friends, relatives, in-laws, neighbors, coworkers, colleagues, teachers, kids’ teachers, fellow parents in your PTA, bus drivers, beauticians, and anyone else we might have left out. If you know of any other categories I may have omitted , do tell me. We would like to have other sites where we can have our groups.

So basically what we want is some action from you people. We want your feedback. We know we can always count on Dylan to give feedback, but he’s a partner in this venture. How about the rest of you? This is supposed to be a cooperative effort here. For those of you who are on Red Light, Stephen is doing readings for the cost of 10 rays, and classes for 20 rays. Red Light is a network that is more liberal than IMVU has become, since that Charles guy took over.
Tegwedd ShadowDancer
Stephen Abbott
Inky
Bailee Beasley Beastly
Little Boy
Frikki & Frakki
Dr.Livingston I. Presume




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