Heathen Soul Lore #8 Winifred Hodge Rose These maids shape / make people’s aldrs (skapa monnum aldr); we call them Norns. (Gylfaginning in the Edda) Then came three Gods, potent and loving Aesir from their homes. They found on land Askr and Embla, capable of little, orlog-less. (Voluspa vs. 17, Poetic Edda) Urdh one is called, Verdandi another – scoring the tines – Skuld the third. There they lay laws, there they choose life for Aldar-children, speak orlog. (Voluspa vs. 20, Poetic Edda) The wise lack for little: now Odhroerir has come up to the rim of Alda Ve. (Havamal vs. 107 (106 in translation), Poetic Edda) With the Aldr Full-Soul we are dealing with some very large themes.  Aldr is our interface between Time and Eternity, between our Midgard lives and deeds, and the work of the Norns who weave the strands of orlay and wyrd into the fabric of the Worlds.  Aldr defines our mortality and the parameters of our humanity, and ties us to the power and poignant beauty of the tides of time as they wash over our beloved Midgard, bringing everything with them, taking everything away, eternally changing, always renewed. In previous articles I wrote of the Ferah Soul, born of trees and thunder, and the gifts given by Odin and his kin: the Souls called Ahma and Ghost, the capacity for divine inspiration and ecstasy called Wode or Odhr, and the La, Laeti, and Litr, which in my understanding comprise our human Hama, our shape-soul.  Now we come to our Aldr Soul and the cocoon or hama that it weaves for itself: the personal Werold or World that defines the circumstances of each of our lives.  This is the last of the Souls that are given by the Holy Ones at the mythical moment in time, as described in the Voluspa, when pre-humans were transformed into fully human beings, or the moment when the Gods transformed trees or non-human substance into humans, however one understands this event.  While Thor and the Goddesses and Gods of Earth and Sky are the patrons of the Ferah soul, and Odin and his brothers give us Ond / Ahma, Ghost and Hama Souls, it is the Norns who give the gift of our Aldr Soul.  This is made clear in the passage quoted above from Gylfaginning: we are told that the Norns shape people’s Aldrs.  The verb used here is “skapa,” cognate to Anglo-Saxon “gescyppan”; it means not only to shape but to make or create something.  These are the root words that were used to translate the Judeo-Christian myths about the creation of the world and human beings into Old Norse and Old English.  Interestingly, the same words also mean fate and destiny, linking us again with the Norns. The verses quoted above from the Voluspa tell us first that Odin and his kinsmen encountered two trees, or beings with the names of trees, on land near the sea, and then list the things which they lacked.  The passages go on to tell us that the three Gods gave Askr and Embla everything they were listed as lacking, except for one thing: orlog or orlay, roughly translated as ‘fate’.  The verses immediately following in the Voluspa then go on to tell us about the Tree, the lake which stands under the Tree, and the three wise maidens who live there, who are understood to be the Norns.  Then their gifts to humans are somewhat obscurely mentioned: the laws they lay, scoring on slips of wood (perhaps carving runes), the lives they choose, the orlog they speak for the children of Aldr.  Frey’s messenger Skirnir, in the Skirnismal poem of the Poetic Edda, was surely referring to these actions of the Norns in his dialog with the giantess Gerda’s watchman.  When Skirnir arrives on Gerda’s land, the watchman is astounded at his presumption and wonders whether he is fey (doomed) or dead already, that he would risk his life there.  Skirnir calmly tells him that “in one day was my aldr shaped, and all my life laid down” (vs. 13).  He means that his wyrd is what it is; he does not fear threats because he cannot change his wyrd.  He acts as his duty lays out, and his death will come when it comes. There is a balance between verse 17 of the Voluspa, which tells us that the trees / Askr and Embla were “without orlog”, and verse 20 about the Norns which imply that these beings are involved in some way with the gifts of orlog, wyrd, fate, destiny to the children of Aldr: human beings.  It is clear in the Voluspa verses that the original lack of orlog/orlay in Askr and Embla meant that they were not truly human, not in possession of human lives and the metaphysical power that such lives should command.  I will return to the subject of orlay and its relation to human-ness later on in this article, but first want to explore the Aldr soul. Nourisher and Life-SpanAldr in Old Norse means age, both a person’s age and an age of time, and lifetime or life-span.  Aldar in Old Saxon also means age and life-span, as does Anglo-Saxon ealdor.  Ealdor also means an elder or noble person, but most significantly here it means ‘life, vital part.’  These words also are used to mean ‘forever, eternity.’  Both ON aldr-lag and AS ealdorlegu mean ‘destiny, death’: death is what the Alder ‘lays’ or ‘sets down’ for us at the fated time, the end of our life-span.  Here we see again the words meaning ‘layers, lay down,’ referring back to the actions of the Norns who lay layers of fate in the Well, and plaster layers of mud upon the World-Tree to nourish it.  (Gylfaginning in the prose Edda, p. 19.) The word Aldr comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *al = to nourish, related to alan, with the same meaning, a word found in Gothic, Anglo-Saxon and other Germanic languages.  *Al is also the root for words relating to age in the various Germanic languages, including English ‘old.’  The connection between nourishment and age is clear, especially when we think about the circumstances during the millennia of human development, when the availability of food, or lack of it, determined a person’s health and longevity.  Aldr nourishes our souls and body so we are able to achieve a long life-span. There is a lovely term for the World Tree Yggdrasil in verse 57 (Old Norse text) of the Voluspa: it is called Aldrnara, the nourisher of the Aldr, the soul which itself nourishes life. Some translators present this term as the Eldrnara, the nourisher of the fire, since this verse is describing the events of Ragnarok and the burning of the World Tree.  But in Old Norse the word appears as Aldrnara, Aldr-nourisher, and is translated as such in Simrock’s translation.  The World-Tree is the supporter of all life, rooted in the Well whence the Norns draw life-nourishing water and mud to sustain it, and shelters the Norns and the life-giving Gods.  “Aldrnara” seems a most fitting name for it. The idea of nourishment holds as much relevance to a person’s non-physical or metaphysical health as it does to one’s physical health and ability to reach old age.  Among the most important functions of our souls, as many believe, is the ability to absorb, metabolize and transport subtle energy throughout our body-soul system.  I believe that our various souls work with energy from various levels or frequencies, and that the Aldr and Ferah souls process energy very close to the physical spectrum.  As I will show here, a primary function of the Aldr soul is to nourish and support our physical life and the achievements and experiences of this life. To be designated as a full-blown soul, the Aldr must fit into one or more of the three criteria I’ve identified: 1) a life-soul which confers physical life by its presence and whose absence means immediate physical death; 2) a wander-soul or shape-soul which can temporarily leave the body during life and act as an independent entity without the body; and/or 3) an entity which has an independent, self-contained afterlife.  According to my understanding, the Aldr is a soul based on the first criterion: its presence is necessary for physical life, and its absence means imminent death.  Farther on I will also discuss my thoughts about whether the Aldr has an independent afterlife. The Anglo-Saxon language offers some useful words for understanding Aldr / Ealdor: there is a word for the physical body, ealdorgeard, which means “yard or enclosure of the ealdor / aldr.”  One of the words for “murderer” or “killer” in A-S: ealdorbana or Aldr-bane.  These words give us a picture of the physical body as an enclosure which contains and protects the Aldr.  Someone who breaks in and destroys this enclosure is the bane or murderer of this soul, allowing the Aldr to spill out of its protected boundary and be lost.  Lines 55-6 of the poem Beowulf tell us, concerning Beowulf’s father: faeder ellor hwearf, aldor of earde; that is, his father had died and his Aldr was “elsewhere gone, Aldr (away) from the Earth.”  At the end of the poem, Beowulf’s Aldr departed, that is, he died (l. 2624). The absence of the Aldr on earth indicates that death has occurred.  The function of the Aldr as a life-soul shows clearly in other expressions from Beowulf, for example in line 2599 Beowulf’s companions fled in terror from the dragon in order to protect their Aldrs (ealdre burgon).  During his fight with Grendel, Beowulf sought to rob Grendel of his Aldr (aldre beneotan, l. 680).   There is a parallel expression in the Reginsmal poem of the Poetic Edda,where the sons of Hunding are described as Eylimi’s “Aldr-snatchers” (aldrs synjudhu, l. 15), that is, his killers.  The relatively physical nature of the Aldr shows up in a dramatic scene in Beowulf, where a Geatish spearman shot a sea-serpent and the spear actually “stood in the aldr” of the sea-serpent (him on aldre stod, ll. 1433-5).  A Greek Soul-Cognate: the Aion Pre-Classical Homeric Greek ideas about multiple souls show some fascinating parallels with Germanic concepts, although by several centuries later, moving into the classical period of Greece and the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, concepts about the soul had greatly changed.  There are several archaic Greek (Homeric period) concepts of souls which have particularly close and clear cognates with Germanic souls; one of them is the Aion which parallels the Aldr. One of the most striking parallels between Aion and Aldr is that they both began with meanings concerning both life-force and the related aspects of a person’s age and span of life; then, both eventually lost the sense of ‘life-force’ and became solely related to time: the age of a person, an age of time, everlasting, eternity.   We can see the parallel usage in the final words of the Christian Lord’s Prayer (“for ever and ever”) in the different languages: in Greek it is “from aion to aion,” in Anglo-Saxon, “from ealdre to ealdre.”   The word and concept of “Aeon” is an important one in Gnostic philosophy, which reaches back into pre-Christian or early Christian times and continues today, and also in the writings of the great psychologist, C.G. Jung.  To them, Aeon is 1) an age of time, 2) a finite, created world (both inner and outer), and 3) the godly spirit indwelling or embodying that time and world.  As we shall see here, these meanings overlap very interestingly with Germanic Aldr and Werold. The Greek word aion derives from Proto-Indo-European *ayu or *yu, meaning life force, vitality, vital force of animated beings.  It is related to other Greek words: aiolos = ‘nimble, changeful of hue,’ and aiollein = to shift rapidly to and fro. (Claus p. 12.)  These words suggest the fluttering, pulsating energy of the human aura, which constantly changes color, shape and size in response to thoughts, emotions, and other internal and external influences.  Understanding a little more about the Aion soul reinforces some of the understandings about the Aldr. The Greek Aion shows itself as a life-soul in many instances in the Homeric poems where it leaves a person at death, and its going equates to loss of life.  In the Iliad, the Greek Achilles speaks of a dead warrior, fearing that flies, worms and rot will enter the corpse now that the Aion “is slain therefrom.”  (Onians p. 200).  Clearly, it was understood that the presence of the Aion preserves the living integrity of the body, while its loss leads to corruption.  Its quasi-physical nature shows up in a hymn to the God Hermes, describing him slaughtering his sacred cattle whom he ‘pierced in their aiones’ (Onians p. 205): here he can fairly be called an Ealdorbana, an Aldr-bane!  This usage is identical to the line in Beowulf I mentioned above, where the spear thrown by a warrior ‘stood in the Aldr’ of the sea-serpent. The Footholds of the Aldr / Aion Aion is also ‘shed’ as tears, sweat, semen, and cerebrospinal fluid (Claus p. 13, Onians p. 201ff).  Hippocrates, the famous Greek physician known as ‘the father of medicine,’ and others referred to spinal marrow as aion (Onians p. 206). Some modern scholars think that Homeric Greeks believed Aion is actually marrow, or dwells in the marrow, or is otherwise related to marrow and to certain body fluids.  All of these aspects of Aion are reminiscent of the Anglo-Saxon idea of the body as the ‘yard’ or enclosure of the Aldr, the ealdorgeard.  The Aion as marrow reminds me of an Old High German healing charm which commands “the Worm and nine grandchildren-worms” to crawl out from the marrow, through the veins, flesh, skin, and into an arrow, which I assume was held so as to prick the skin during the charm. (Barber p. 83 & note p. 158.)  Presumably, once the worms had crawled into the arrow, the arrow would be shot far away where it could do no more harm.  The ‘worms’ (in a shamanic sense these are energy intrusions, in a scientific sense they act as germs or viruses) are considered the cause of pain and illness, affecting the Aldr soul and through it the body.  They are laired in the marrow where the Aldr / life-force is strongest and their effects most severe. In my understanding, our souls have what I call footholds in our physical body and its life-processes: places where that soul interfaces most powerfully with our physical life. Aldr’s foothold lies in our bone marrow and in the many fluids of our body, which are held within the body by our Ealdoryard, the Aldr’s boundary that coincides with our physical exterior. Many of our body fluids are regulated by cycles of time: the rise and fall in levels of hormones, neurotransmitters, digestive, reproductive, immune-related fluids, the fluids that bathe and wash our brain, spinal column and bone marrow, and many others, influenced by diurnal, lunar and seasonal cycles and by our age and stage of life. These are among the means by which Aldr influences our physical body and our body-in-time; they are Aldr’s foothold in our body. The fluids ruled by Aldr symbolically mirror Aldr’s source in the waters of the Norns’ Well. Aldr-Wita: Holistic Health Practice India is still home to a form of health practice that is one of the oldest recorded medical practices in the world, called Ayurveda.  The term itself is very telling: Ayu means “life-span, life force”.  The word root is the same as that of aion:  *ayu / *yu = ‘life-force, vitality, vital force’.  “Veda” means ‘knowledge, science’ in Sanskrit.  It is directly cognate with Anglo-Saxon wita = knowledge and Old Norse vit = consciousness, intelligence, knowledge, etc.    Thus, Ayurveda means “science / knowledge of the life-span, life-force”.   This connects directly with Aldr as ‘life-span, life force.”  Whether or not our elder kin actually used the term “Aldr-wita”, it would be a perfect word for modern Heathens to use to indicate a Heathen perspective and practice of holistic health and healing.  And there is, I believe, much we could learn from the ancient Indian practice, parts of which go back to prehistory and times when the Indo-European groups were still in contact with each other. An Ayurvedic practitioner in India is known as a Vaidya, ‘one who knows.’  This is cognate to the Anglo-Saxon witega (m) and witegestre (f), terms for wise people, counselors, elders; and also the Old Norse vitki, a wizard.  So a nice term for a practioner of Aldr-wita would be an Aldr-witega (WIT-eh-gah) or Aldr-vitki for a man, Aldr-witegestre or Aldr-witegess (WIT-eh-guess, being easier to pronounce), or Aldr-vitka for a woman.  Or, for that matter, they could be called Aldr-wizards! Another nice term for modern use is “Alveig” for a health-giving potion, whether herbal or rune-magical. The word al-veig means ‘nourishing drink.’ The practice of noble women giving nourishing and magical drinks is very widespread in the Old Norse lore, including especially the drink filled with magical power that Sigrdrifa gave to Sigurd in the Lay of Sigdrifa in the Poetic Edda.  Our modern Aldr-wizards can prepare an ‘alveig’ to strengthen and heal the Aldrs of those they are helping. In the Rigsthula of the Old Norse Poetic Edda, we have a fine example of a Heathen Aldr-wizard.  It tells how Heimdal-Rig taught his grandson Konr about aevinrunar ok aldrrunar, runes of eternity and runes of the Aldr.  The verses go on to say that Konr could, among other things, help in childbirth, deaden sword blades, quiet the ocean, quench fires, soothe and comfort men, allay sorrow.  Konr himself had the strength and vigor of eight men, showing his powerful Aldr.  (Rigsthula vs. 43-44)   One of the most interesting things about these verses, to me, is the pairing of aevinrunar, ‘everlasting-runes’ with aldrrunar.  I mentioned earlier that I see parallels between the Greek aion and … Continue reading Aldr and Orlay: Weaving a World