Tag: Jötunheimr

Calendar of the Sun for June 9th

9 Lithemonath

Jotunheim Day

Colors: Brown and dark green
Element: Earth
Altar: Upon a brown and green cloth place many potted plants, as if to form a jungle. In their midst place a shallow bowl full of stones and water, a hammer, a horn of mead, and many knives and swords.
Offerings: Leave offerings outside to the land-vaettir.
Daily Meal: Meat.

Jotunheim Invocation

Hail to the land of the Jotun
And all its indwellers in the outlands!
By the cliff-thurses in their mountain crags,
By the rime-thurses in the lands of frost,
By the fire-thurses, children of Surt and Sinmora,
By the skogsrar, the wood-roes of the forest,
By the nackar, the nixies of the many rivers of Hvergelmir,
By the sjora, the spirits of the sacred lakes,
By the forskarlar, the falls-men of the watery heights,
By the duergar who live under the Earth,
By every powerful etin warrior,
By every lovely and terrible etin-bride,
By the power of the land-wights themselves
Upon which all our footsteps fall,
By Utgard and Thrymheim and Gastropnir,
We honor you in all your elemental glory!
Bless us with your courage
And your unswerving persistence,
And your understanding of the natural world
In all its wonder.
Hail, kingdom of Jotunheim, great in magic!

(The mead is passed around, and any who wish to remember the name of a particular Jotun-spirit may do so. The rest is poured out as a libation. Then all take drums and rattles, and gather around in a circle, and let there be drumming and low, wordless chanting for the rest of the hour.)

[Pagan Book of Hours]

Trees and Creation

In the Norse Tradition, Yggdrassil, the world tree supported the nine realms of existence. At the top was Asgard, the home of the Aesir, the principle deities, led by Odin and his consort Frigg. This level also contained Vanaheim, the kingdom of the wind, fertility and sea gods, with whom the Aesir fashioned an uneasy peace, and Alfheim, home of the light elves. On the middle level was Midgard, the land of the humans. They shared this level with Jotunheim, the land of the frost giants and Nidavellir, the realm of the dwarves, who guarded their treasures and made artifacts for the deities. The lowest realm was divided between Niflheim and Hel, realms of the dead and Svartalafheim, home of the dark elves.

In Eastern Europe as well as in Asia the mythological world tree was considered the axis of the world with the pole star at the top. Shamans, the magickal priests or healers of indigenous peoples worldwide, climb this tree in a trance to reach other realms. Look up through the branches of a very tall tree on a starry night and you will see how this belief came into being.

The tree appears in numerous creation myths. In one Maori legend, the tree was the first thing to appear at creation and on it grew countless buds that contained all created life. A number of Native North American creation myths tell how the first humans climbed pine or fir trees from the underworld and broke through on to the Earth. In Viking myth the first man was fashioned by Odin and his brothers from an Ash (Aesc) and the first woman from an Elm tree (Embla). The gods found the trees while walking on the seashore.