Winifred Hodge Rose
With discussion of the Aldr Soul in my article “Aldr and Orlay: Weaving a World”, I finished the list of souls which were given by the Powers of Earth and Sky, by Odin and his brothers, and by the Norns; the latter two as described in the Voluspa of the Poetic Edda. Now I will turn to two souls whose origins are less obviously divine, more earthly but also more mysterious in origin, and which are very active and powerful in our everyday, earthly lives: the Mod and Hugr/Hugi Souls. (Note that Mod is pronounced “mode,” and Hugr is “who-gr”).
There is a great deal of overlap in the nature of these two souls, and in fact a good argument can be made that they are really one soul with two different names given by different branches of the Germanic peoples. I see both similarities and differences between Hugr and Mod, and in this and following articles I will compare and contrast these two souls as I discuss their respective natures.
The Mod as an actual soul-being is not much developed in Gothic writings or in Old Norse lore; there, it appears primarily as an emotional state of anger, rage or fury, which can reach ecstatic levels similar to wode (see my article “Ghost Rider: Athom, Ghost and Wode in Action” for more about wode.) In Old Norse lore and folklore, in contrast, the Hugr stands out so strongly as a full-blown Soul that some scholars have concluded it is the original, “pure” soul of Norse belief, before it was influenced by Christianity. On the other hand, the Hugr does not clearly appear as a full-blown Soul in Anglo-Saxon belief at the time they became literate, while the Mod does so strongly. In Old Saxon, both Mod and Hugi are strongly developed. In Old High German writings the word Mod frequently appears; though its usage is often heavily influenced by Christian thought, there are still a number of instances useful for our explorations here. Thus, for discussion of the Mod as a human Full-Soul I rely primarily on Anglo-Saxon, Old Saxon and Old High German, but draw on Norse lore and folklore for some limited but important aspects of Mod’s nature and evolution, as I shall show.
A fascinating idea is put forth by Meyer, and further discussed by Eggers, Becker and other academic scholars. According to some of these scholars (others debate the idea but are not convinced), and I agree, Mod seems to have begun as an undifferentiated natural power or energy and then gradually developed into a nature spirit, a “daemon” (Greek) or “genius” (Latin) that became associated with, and eventually incorporated into, the human “soular system.” Daemons and geniuses refer to a guiding, protective, tutelary spirit that influences a human being. One of the most famous daemons is the one that guided the philosopher Socrates. Christians later turned “daemons” into “demons,” who lead people astray through temptation and deception: here we see a form of detrimental rather than helpful guidance. Christians substituted guardian angels for the helpful function of daemons.
As I will show here, Mod appears in several forms. It is an individualized spirit / soul being, which I am calling the Mod with a capital M. It is also an undifferentiated force which permeates Nature, animals and humans, and can be drawn upon by the Gods and otherworldly beings, that is closely related to megin or maegen. Finally, it is a state of being similar to wode, involving any of the following: natural or supernatural strength, courage and determination; great intelligence and wisdom; battle rage; savagery, cruelty, vengefulness and capriciousness. The latter two forms of mod (undifferentiated force; state of being) I refer to with lower-case m, and depend on context to differentiate them.
I am going to coin a word for modern Heathen use, namely “mody” (mode-ee) to translate the adjective / adverb made from Mod (modig / modags). It is used very frequently in the ancient languages, is a useful word, and saying “having a lot of mod, done in a mod-filled way, etc” is very awkward, especially when trying to translate poetry. Likewise, much meaning is lost if we try to use only one modern English word to translate modig, such as “courageous” or “angry”, rather than leaving the deep and complex word ‘mod’ to stand on its own, untranslated. Hopefully after the explorations I present here, we will be able to take Mod and modig on their own terms, without translation.
Basic Meanings
In 1926, Elisabeth Meyer published a valuable doctoral dissertation entitled “The Evolution of Meaning of Germ. *moda-“ (Die Bedeutungsentwicklung von Germ. *moda-), meticulously researched and thought-through, which was drawn on by many later scholars. She begins with a list of meanings of the word from both ancient and modern Germanic languages, according to various scholars in those languages, most of which I give here with the meanings translated into English and the terms for the languages (e.g. Old Icelandic instead of Old Norse) as given by Meyer. (A few of the words I was unable to translate.)
– Gothic moths = fury, rage.
– Old Icelandic modr = wrath, moodiness, heart’s grief, courage, fury.
– Old Danish mod = mind, senses, hu (hugr, frequently used as synonym for mod).
– Old Swedish moth = mind, senses, mind/senses in an uproar / disturbed; envy, pride, overconfidence.
– Meanings in the modern Scandinavian languages include fury, courage, bravery, boldness, daring.
– Anglo-Saxon mod = 1) the inner man, the spiritual as opposed to the bodily part of a man; 2) courage, high spirit, pride, arrogance; 3) greatness, magnificence, pride – applied to inanimate things.
– Middle English mod = mood, mind, courage.
– Old Saxon mod = mind, disposition, inner person, soulfulness, feeling, the inner person, heart, character, bold courage, the ability to enact one’s intentions effectively.
– Middle Low German mot = thinking, sensing, emotions, disposition.
– Old High German muot = mind, soul, spirit, heart.
– Middle High German muot and Middle Dutch moet = strength of thought, sensation, feeling, sentiment, will, senses, soul, spirit, mind, disposition, emotions, overconfidence, high spirits, longing, desiring, pondering a deed, decisiveness, courage, selfish, self-seeking, hopeful. (Note that if we look at kennings for the word “Hugr” in the “Skaldskarpamal” of the Prose Edda, we will find most of the same words or very similar ones listed.)
– Old and New Frisian mod = courage, mind, disposition, inner person, will, independence. (Meyer pp 9-10)
Note also the modern German descendants of mod: Mut (moot) meaning courage, bravery; and Gemut meaning mind, disposition, inner person, soulfulness, feeling.
Meyer stated that other scholars drew these all together into a consolidated meaning of “strongly moved emotions / soul; high excitement /stimulation; stirred-up Gemut / inner person; lively feelings.” But her sense was that these meanings are too abstract to be completely true to the ancient Germanic culture and languages, and reflect more of modern psychological understanding than of older, more concrete perceptions. She emphasized the importance of looking at the word in context with others that frequently accompany it, namely maegen (main), maegencraft (main-craft), and miht (might), all of them Anglo-Saxon words denoting power and strength, both natural and supernatural. Especially in Anglo-Saxon, where the word-meanings are highly developed, Mod very frequently appears paired with one of these other words for power. The context shows that not only physical strength and power are meant, but also mental and spiritual power.
As one among many examples, Meyer quotes a verse from the Anglo-Saxon poem Elene, where “the wise among you who have the most maegen and modcraeft” are called into council to develop a clever strategy for saving their people from a foe that is physically stronger than they are (p.13). Queens and wise counselors are very often described with mod and maegen words in Anglo-Saxon, denoting both wisdom and virtue in the sense of a good character powerfully applied for the good of the folk.
Gods (Heathen and Christian), Heathen heroes like Beowulf, Christian saints, Queens, wise folk: all were seen as being gifted with mod, maegen, miht, modcraeft, and related terms, which distinguish them from the ordinary and the every-day. The Latin word virtus, the root of “virtue”, was translated into the ancient Germanic languages using the words “mod and maegen” together (Meyer p. 14-15). We gain a sense of the same meaning when we speak of the “virtue” of an herb, a potion or a magical object, its special power that sets it apart from the ordinary. A wonderful example of such virtue is found in Fjolvinnsmal, vs. 15, where Svipdag, seeing Menglad and her ladies sitting under the great Tree bearing mysterious healing and life-giving fruits, asks “What modi has this famous tree, that it can be felled neither by fire nor by iron?”
Powerful animals also have these characteristics: think of the aurochs under the Rune Ur, in the Old English Rune Poem, called a “modig wiht,” a mody wight. Uncastrated stallions and bulls were called “mod” to distinguish them from geldings and oxen (Meyer p. 20). Weather, too, could be referred to by this word, as in Grimnismal 42 in the Poetic Edda which describes the hard-mody sky / cloud-cover that was created from Ymir’s skull or brains (heila). The power of the sea was seen as an expression of mod. Anglo-Saxon poetry, for example, contains several references to “merestraemes mod”, the mod of the streaming sea; Old Norse and Old Saxon have similar expressions. Even a good beer was considered to have mod: Meyer quotes an old German Brewer’s Guild document from Hamburg that refers to a beer’s “modes, smacks (flavor), und krafft (sic; strength)” (p. 27).
Our modern English “mood”, descended from mod, also refers to a powerful state of being; that is, moods can be powerful, though sometimes they can also weaken us. Moods can overwhelm us, fighting our best, most reasonable efforts to overcome them and put them aside. Moods are primitive, powerful, springing from hidden roots, and are much affected by our environment: the weather, our surroundings, the moods of people around us, and by conditions such as mob mentality and group-think. We can be swept up not only by our own moods, but by group moods, into anything ranging from fads and fashions, to political or religious movements, to mass hysteria, panic, and mob violence. The Mod soul underlies our moods and is integrally connected to, and reflective of, mod and maegen in our environment and in others around us.
Meyer’s conclusion is that the root meaning of moda is based in the concept of “Macht,” of might, strength, virtue in the sense of special power, that sets one above the ordinary and can even reach to supernatural and divine levels. The scholar Becker agrees with Meyer on the connection of Mod with supernatural spiritual might or Macht (Becker p. 158).
Turning to another source, de Vries’ Old Norse Dictionary postulates that Mod stems from the Proto-Indo-European root *ma, meaning to be emotionally stirred, excited (gemutserregung), as well as meaning “striving.” He suggests related words in Greek that mean to strive, to yearn or wish for, to rage; also a Tocharian word meaning strength. In previous articles I noted also the connection between our Ghost soul and the root of the word Ghost meaning “to be excited, stirred up.” There is certainly some overlap between the state of wode, a characteristic of the Ghost soul as I understand, and the state of mod, a characteristic of the Mod soul (see Meyer’s discussion of these similarities, p.44-5). Here, in seeing similarities between Ghost-states and Mod-states, we begin to move into the idea of Mod as a Daemon, a spirit-being who has a certain independence from us and influences us through urges, longings, and various strong emotional states that seem like they come upon us “out of the blue.”
Mod as Daemon
Numerous scholars of southern and western Germanic literature have noted that the Mod-soul or Mod-faculty within a person has the ability to drive, urge, incite that person to action. The Old Saxon Heliand, which retells the Christian gospels in heavily Germanicized imagery and vocabulary, states at the very beginning of the poem that: “many were those whose Mod incited / urged them (iro mod gespon) so that they began to spread God’s word”. Here we see clearly that Mod was envisioned as something belonging to oneself but also having its own volition and identity.
Another remarkable example of Mod acting separately from the person is in the Beowulf poem. Lines 720 through 735 describe Grendel entering into Heorot hall, filled with sleeping warriors, and exulting at the opportunity for violence and bloodshed before him. This sense of exultation is expressed as “his Mod laughed (his mod ahlog).” It is clearly Grendel’s Mod, not Grendel ‘himself’ who laughs here. In others of these lines we see phrases that indicate he has entered into a supernatural state of strength and rage, showing the exaltation of his Mod-daemon-soul: he burst the iron-bound door open with a touch, in his eyes was an ugly light like fire, he was yrre-mod, his Mod in a state of rage, of ire. Likewise, Thor’s Hugr soul laughs and exults within his breast when his stolen Hammer is brought out of hiding, at the end of the Thrymskvida poem (Poetic Edda). And it’s interesting to compare this with another moment of triumph / exultation in Greek mythology, when Zeus’s Htor soul laughs within his breast during (what he thinks is) his seduction of his previously-angry wife, Hera, though actually she is seducing him using Aphrodite’s magical belt (Brisingamen, anyone?). (Claus p. 24)
In each case, we see a soul acting as a separate entity within a person, energizing them toward what they consider a great deed and triumph. Energizing, inciting and motivating are major functions of the Mod soul at all levels of being.
In the Old High German poems of Ottfrid we see more examples of the Mod acting as a separate person inside oneself. “My Mod (muat) informs me that you are a fore-seer,” he writes (min muat duat mih uuis, thaz thu forasago sis). He also describes in several places how the envious muat hates and rejects the good (that is, the Christian God and his teachings). (Eggers p. 7-8) Eggers notes that the verbs used to describe the muat’s actions are used only in context of persons or people, showing a personal construction of the word muat. In King Alfred’s Anglo-Saxon translation of the Psalms, like Ottfried he uses the expression “my mod tells me….” (Ps. 51:21). This is just the same as the phrase that comes up in the Norse sagas: “my hugr tells me….”
The scholar Eggers, looking at the above passage in Beowulf, sees Grendel as being possessed and driven by his Mod-daemon (p. 6). He and other scholars studying the continental Germanic literature note that Mod is the only soul-entity or soul faculty that is used with transitive verbs, where Mod itself takes action as a person would, as well as being the receiver of actions such as being the site of emotions or thoughts (Eggers p. 4-5). In Norse lore, it is the Hugr that has this same characteristic, but not the Mod. Meyer, Eggers, Becker, and other scholars see this characteristic of Mod, the way it is used with transitive verbs of action, as well as the archaic syntax of Mod word-usage, as a possible indication of a very ancient understanding pointing back to Mod as an independent nature-spirit which would at times possess and overwhelm a person and drive that person to act in accordance with the Mod-spirit’s desires.
The Norse Hugr does something very similar, though with some subtle but significant differences. In particular, the Mod generally acts upon the person from within, affecting their own behavior, while the Hugr may often act upon others outside oneself through magical means, a flowing or bursting outward of occult power. (See my articles about the Hugr on this website.) However, the ON word modhr can occasionally be used to mean “sorcery” (trolldom), and in these cases it is much the same as Hugr in this context. (Meyer p.26)
Eggers (p. 14f), drawing on Meyer, sees our ancestors conceiving of Mod as originally being an external Daemon spirit, not very personal, but more in the nature of barely-personified energy, force, power. This power can be expressed through humans, Gods and Goddesses, Jotnar, animals, weather, and other natural phenomena like ocean waves (much like the magical concept of Elementals).
In the second stage, Mod wandered or was drawn into the soul-realm of human beings, but is not yet fully incorporated therein. It expresses itself as urges toward certain actions, as well as strength and will, generally, but is still quite distinct from the “person.” This is the level of development that appears in the few Gothic uses of the word, as well as in Old Norse, mostly used to mean enormous rage, fury, overwhelming desire to win, to conquer, to have one’s own way against all obstacles. The Norse expression ‘Jotunmodhi’ describes such a state, comparing it to the Jotnar, the Giants, in a state of rage. Thor can enter a state of Asmodhi, the rage-power of the Aesir, in the same way.
Thirdly, Mod internalized itself into the inner person of human beings, expressing itself as more sophisticated emotions, desires, motivations, as well as the more primitive eruptive impulses (think ‘moods’ here).
And finally, as we see especially in Anglo-Saxon writings, Mod becomes the entire Inner Person, the persona, ego, living soul, of human beings, without overt implication of an external force acting on the human. The Anglo-Saxon dictionary defines mod as: heart, mind, spirit, mood, temper, courage, arrogance, pride, power, violence. Notice in particular that the primary meanings in Angelseax are heart, mind, and spirit. If we look at the list of mod-words given by Meyer that I quoted earlier, we can see this expanded meaning of mind and spirit carried forward into Middle High and Low German, Middle Dutch and other languages of that period. In the process, according to Eggers, Mod displaced the “original inner self of humans,” the Hugi soul. (Eggers p.14f).
For myself, I see this question of “which was the original soul in ancient Germanic thought” (a question also discussed by other authors based on Old Norse lore) as off-base. I don’t think the Germanic peoples, any more than any other “primitive” tribal peoples that I am aware of through anthropological studies, saw humans as having only one soul. Thus, an argument as to which soul was the “original” one is rather a waste of energy, in my opinion. Instead, we should be focusing, as I am trying to do, on understanding all of the souls and soul-parts as understood in Germanic thought, without prejudice toward one or the other.
In fact, if we were going to look for “original Germanic souls” I would point to Ferah / Fjor and Ahma / Ond / Athom as being the oldest soul words, going directly back to words meaning “soul, spirit, vital principle” in Proto-Indo-European, and appearing with the same meanings in all the Germanic languages as well as other Indo-European languages, in contrast to Mod and Hugi which are somewhat more ambiguous. There is quite a difference between these various entities – Ferah (vital principle), Ahma / Ond / Athom (spirit), versus Mod and Hugi (daemonic, separable from the body) – differences which are difficult to discuss in modern English if we call everything by the same word “soul.”
I want to make it clear that, in my understanding, while the humanized Mod-soul inserted itself and evolved as described above, the original mod-force and Mod-daemons or elementals which inhabit nature still continue their own existences. Some Mod-spirits decided to join or were drawn into the human soul-orbit, while others remained nature spirits. These continue to act within and be drawn upon by Deities (especially Thor and his children), Jotnar, natural phenomena, some animals, and other beings of the Worlds.
So if we accept, even just for the sake of discussion, the ideas presented above, how might the Mod-daemon have accomplished this intricate process of incorporating itself into the human soular-system? To address this intriguing question, I will turn in an unlikely direction: the role of the Mod in illness.
Mod as Daemon of Sickness
There are two ways to consider the role of the Mod in illness. One is that mod in its simplest form is strength and power, intimately connected with might and main. When people or animals lose their strength, this is the cause and/or the result of illness. In a tale about the deeds of St. Cornelius, ‘modstuhlin’ or mod-stolen was used to translate into Old Swedish the Latin word “paralitica”; that is, a person or animal whose Mod has been stolen or lost becomes physically paralyzed. The same translation occurs in medieval medical texts (Meyer p. 19). (If you are interested, the remedy for this condition is hedgehog meat.)
I suspect that the phenomenon of war-fetter, the paralysis of warriors in the midst of battle by rune or galdor magic, is in effect the paralysis or theft of their Mod soul that deprives them of strength, courage, will, and motive force. Note here that the loss of the Mod does not necessarily result in immediate death, showing that the Mod is not a life-soul according to my criteria. Rather, it is a wander-soul which can be removed from the living body unwillingly, with severe consequences to one’s health.
This is certainly a logical consequence of the understanding that the Mod was not originally part of the Gods-given human soul-complex, so its loss should not lead directly to death. Rather, theft, loss, or damage to the Mod-soul leads to a decrease in the inflow of mod and maegen (power, strength, energy) from the environment. Without this inflow, people and animals become lethargic, depressed, weak, paralyzed, lacking the strength and will to act or even to live, depending on the severity of the condition. Many of the spells in Anton Bang’s Norwegian compendium of “Hexeformularer” are designed to restore mod to an ailing person or domestic animal. Note that these spells are directed more toward restoration of health and energy through the ousting of afflicting spirits, rather than what would today be called “soul retrieval”.
The other connection between Mod and sickness brings us back to the interesting question of how Mod-Daemons and humans became connected in the first place. Meyer (p. 34-7) discusses examples of words meaning “mod-sickness” from a variety of Germanic languages (e.g. modsott, mosott, modseoc, mossuen, etc. Note that Germanic language dialects often drop the last consonant from both Mod and Hugi, so that Mod becomes Mo and Hugi becomes Hu.) These terms can apply to both humans and animals. As she discusses, it is difficult to tell from the old texts what specific illnesses are meant by these terms, and modern scholars have made a number of different suggestions, including jaundice, heart ailments, and stomach pains and ailments. Many instances indicate more of a psychological state rather than a physical illness, such as the Geatish warriors who wait, “modes seoc” or Mod-sick, by the swamp for Beowulf to return from fighting Grendel’s mother. He has been gone so long that they are heartsick and hopeless, sure that he is dead. (l. 1603)
There are, however, some indications that all these kinds of illnesses can be caused by wights: Meyer quotes a Danish saying about the “evil Mo” in this context, and give examples of afflictions caused by something like the “evil eye”. She further describes afflictions just like those called “elf-shot, hag-shot, troll-shot” etc. in the various Germanic languages, which are attributed to the Mo or Mod. In some cases, this seems to be caused by a sorcerous person’s Mod-soul, but more often it seems to be associated with a free-ranging evil spirit, or with the Christian devil. These afflictions resembling elf-shot include sudden onset of nausea, tics, trembling, pains, and various symptoms I have not been able to translate.
It’s interesting to compare this with what can happen to the Greek thymos soul, a soul which has such strong similarities with both Mod and Hugi that I will be returning to it in future articles. Snell (p. 18) describes the thymos as greatly affected by pain: eaten away, torn asunder, feeling it to be sharp, heavy, immense. The examples of mod-sickness describe both physical and emotional pains that could fit those descriptions well. In Homer’s Iliad Book 16, the healing-god Apollo answers the prayer of wounded Glaucos by soothing his pain and casting strength in his thymos (Snell 19-20).
Meyer notes the confusion I have experienced myself, in that the various “mod” words in Old Norse and the continental Germanic languages frequently refer to “tiredness, fatigue” rather than to a spirit or soul of any kind, though she also notes that the words “mod-as-spirit” and “mod-as-fatigue” are at root related to each other, deriving from the idea of might and strength, and hence the lack thereof. She goes on to say that there are countless examples of states of fatigue, depression, etc. called “mod” and attributed to the afflictions of evil spirits (p. 37), and Bang also gives many examples of this. So although the specific details are somewhat unclear, overall the evidence is suggestive of the idea that Mod-wights are involved in certain human and animal illnesses, and especially involved with illnesses that affect a person’s or animal’s Mod-soul and disrupt its physical and psychological functions. This is very consistent with the beliefs of shamanic cultures around the world which personify the cause of illnesses as spirits or wights.
The anthropologist Herrera, in his book Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings, offers an interesting perspective on this, though he is working with a different (Amerindian) culture and time-frame. He argues that the phenomena that religiously-oriented Christian missionaries translated as beliefs in harmful, non-material ‘spirit-beings’ can be more effectively viewed as real-world microbial entities which indigenous shamans are able to perceive and interpret through shamanic methods. “Since the earliest accounts, Amerindian shamanic notions have shared more in common with current microbial ecology than with Christian religious beliefs” (referring to ‘evil spirits’; p. ix).
Let’s look at modern evolutionary theory for a moment now. Viruses and bacteria are thought to have actually incorporated themselves into human (and other species’) DNA and molecular processes. For example, the mitochondria that power our cells with energy were once independent, parasitic bacteria that evolved into a symbiotic relationship with early multi-celled organisms, continuing along in the evolutionary process. Now we provide these originally independent organisms with nourishment and a place to live, they provide us with energy. Interestingly, they come with their own separate DNA, called mitochondrial DNA.
Here is a fascinating report: “…findings suggest an astonishing 30 percent of all protein adaptations since humans’ divergence with chimpanzees have been driven by viruses. ….this constant battle with viruses has shaped us in every aspect.” (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160713100911.htm.) There is an enormous amount of recent research available on the internet, showing how various microbes, including those in our own gut, skin, and other personal microbiomes, have affected human adaptation and evolution. I view this as “the will to thrive, succeed and win” in action, showing a vital characteristic of the Mod soul.
There is also the well-understood situation of the bacteria in our gut being vital to our life and health, providing not only for our digestion but producing many of our most important biological substances such as neurotransmitters, hormones and vitamins. This is another example of something that is within us, vital to our survival, but not exactly us, and integrates potentially disease-causing organisms (bacteria) into our own body’s strength and health processes, including support of our immune system, our defender.
Moalem’s book “Survival of the Sickest: The surprising connections between disease and longevity” (as well as many other current writings on this subject) shows how some diseases carry adaptational advantages along with them, like the well-known example of how the gene for sickle cell anemia carries with it a resistance to malaria infection. I recently read a news article about discoveries showing how intestinal parasites may confer resistance to certain diseases as a “gift” to their hosts.
So, modern evolutionary theory is now looking at a situation where agents of illness – bacteria, viruses, parasites – incorporated themselves into our body and our human DNA and over a period of evolutionary time become useful, indeed essential, parts of our own being. Yet still they retain traces of their original separateness, and in the case of our gut bacteria, they really are separate. Doesn’t this provide a nice parallel model for how the Mod, as a daemon or wight that often expresses itself as a spirit of illness, could have incorporated itself into our soular system?
I think that our microbiome, especially in the gut, is a part of the physical foothold of our Mod soul, in the same way that our heart and chest are the physical foothold of our Hugr and Sefa souls, and the breath is, of our Ghost and Ahma. Ferah and Aldr ‘fill’ our body, our Ealdor-yard, with subtle energy bodies very close to the physical level, to the point where they can feel the torture or sickness happening to the physical body. Hama’s physical foothold is the shape and the abilities of our physical body. All our souls, with the possible exception of Saiwalo, have physical footholds while we are alive in Midgard, and Mod is no exception.
Mod’s foothold is not only our microbiome, but all the body systems and processes that are integrated with it, such as our digestive system, metabolism and our immune system. These systems provide us with physical strength and energy: energy for powerful thought processes and will power, and strength to resist what needs to be resisted (our immune system), all of them characteristics of the Mod soul who gives us the ‘power of the gut’! At the same time, these physical characteristics of Mod also provide avenues for illnesses and dysfunctions to take hold.
Indeed, it might be possible that certain illnesses, in evolutionary terms, are simply the by-product of efforts by our body-soul complex to adjust to the presence and energies of the Mod daemon, much as in tribal cultures shamans may go through a long and terrible period of illness as part of their calling by, and integration with, their tutelary spirits. Many cultures say that the shaman’s body itself must be radically changed, most often through illness, in order to accommodate and work with the spirits. Something like this could be the case, too, during an evolutionary period of human / Mod-daemon integration.
The Implications of Human-Mod Co-Evolution
Here is my interpretation of these ideas, in a nutshell. Microbial entities (viruses, microbes etc.) very clearly possess, in a non-conscious way, these fundamental qualities: the ‘will’ to survive, multiply, take over the ‘territory’ that they are invading, alter that territory to their advantage, and ‘make the world their own.’ These qualities are very similar to Jotunmoði that I described earlier: the primitive, powerful rage and will to conquer, to overcome, to get what they want, that characterizes the Jotnar in a state of moðr. If we look at primitive Mod itself, regardless of what kind of being it is expressing itself through, whether microbes or giants, the qualities and characteristics are much the same.
My theory of Mod’s evolution is that Mod-wights began as very primitive spirit-beings which could attach themselves and work through physical Midgard beings. (I believe that the Mod-power within otherworldly beings such as Deities, Dwarves, Jotnar, Landwights, develops in a different way, through being absorbed directly from their own natural environment.) These Midgard Mod-wights brought with them their powerful, though unconscious, ‘will’ to survive, thrive, multiply / increase in strength, and take over. They also brought with them the strategic adaptability that microbes and viruses are famed for. I think that in physical Midgard the primary trajectory for this development was through Mod-microbe symbiosis, keeping in mind that microbes are the largest, most widespread and adaptable category of beings on Earth, and play a major role in the evolutionary and ecological processes of life on Earth.
Once a Mod-wight, attached to a microbial population, was settled within another type of being such as a human, through symbiosis and evolution they adapted to each other, and Mod took on other qualities characteristic of that type of being, whether human, animal, whatever. My thought about ‘where our Mod comes from’ is that during our life and as death approaches, Mod grows ‘buds’ from itself and releases them as a tree releases its seeds. These Mod-buds float around in the environment and attach themselves to infants of the same type of being that they were released from. (As a parallel development, keep in mind that baby humans, animals, birds, etc. pick up the microbes of their mother during birth and from the nest /den / environment, and pick up those of other close family members as well. These microbes establish themselves as the infant’s microbiome, the foothold of their Mod.)
The Mod-buds, likely to come from someone in the infant’s close environment, carry with them something of what the Mod-soul of the originating person or other being has developed and learned throughout their lifetime. Thus, with each generation, the Mod-buds of humans become more human-like, while the Mods of bears become more bear-like, etc. These connections affect not only the development of species, but the development of family characteristics as well, such as temperament and attitude.
Here are the implications of these ideas, relating to the everyday conduct of our lives. The symbiosis, the living-together, of ourselves as humans with these other entities, offers adaptational advantage but also comes at a cost. The same can be said concerning our Mod soul. Our Mod soul confers many advantages, all relating to strength, willpower and outstanding capability as these express themselves through our body, mind and souls. The gifts of the Mod can indeed reach supernatural and even divine levels of development.
However, Mod also can plague us with moods, unwise impulses, knee-jerk reactions, selfishness, capriciousness, bad temper, rage, cruelty and savagery. All of these meanings come across very clearly when reading the word in context of the oldest Germanic literature. The word “mod / modhr,” used as an adjective about a person in all the Germanic languages, often signified a person who was angry, cruel or savage, as well as other times signifying courage and bravery. The primitive nature of the Mod-daemon can express itself in unthinking reactiveness like mob violence, domestic abuse, hair-trigger temper, and social injustices.
The Mod (as with the Hugr) is very much a soul that needs to be trained and cultivated, and brought into harmony with our other souls. Mod carries great physical and mental power and ability, but to my way of thinking it shows its non-human origin by its natural lack of great human gifts like compassion, foresightedness, self-control, and the willingness to compromise one’s own desires for the greater good of one’s communities, from one’s family on up. These considerations are not natural to the primitive Mod soul, and we can easily see this in the innocently selfish behavior of small children until they have been guided toward more of a sense of empathy and of how humans can beneficially interact with one another to keep family and community ties strong.
I would say that many of the social / political / economic problems in today’s world (as well as many other periods in history) could be an example of mass Mod-daemon-possession, leading people to pursue power, selfish advantage, and their own aims without awareness or concern for the greater long-term damage that occurs to everything from the environment to the social processes necessary for living together and collectively solving problems. This is the kind of thing that can happen when our daemon souls are out of balance with our other Gods-given souls.
The Afterlife of Mod-Soul
The word Mod was often used to translate the Latin term ‘anima’, meaning ‘soul’ (the soul within a living person; the afterlife anima was translated with the word sawle, seola or ‘soul’). This shows the central role that Mod played in their conception of the human soul-body complex. King Alfred, in his translation of the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon, went so far as to cry out for salvation not only for his Gast (his spirit) and Sawle (his anima / soul), but also for his Mod (also anima) to be saved and taken to heaven, showing that he conceived it to be a true soul (for example, in Psalm 15:10). He used the word ‘mod’ more frequently than gast, and at least as frequently as sawle in his texts, when referring to the ‘soul’. This illustrates a more evolved form of Mod, not simply a mood or state of being but an actual soul. (See further discussion of this in my article “What Happened to Heathen Saiwalo-Soul?”.)
In fact, after years of exploring and struggling with the question of Mod’s afterlife, I’m inclining toward Ælfred’s view, though I’m coming at it from a different direction. There isn’t much to go on, concerning this topic, in the old literature. In Beowulf, a person’s death is described by saying “nor could his restless / wavering Mod remain within his breast” (ll. 1150-1). That’s about the extent of what I’ve found, in terms of Heathen-oriented material on the Mod at the time of death! It would certainly be logical to conclude that Mod returns to some sort of existence as elemental energies in Midgard. Yet, I don’t believe this is the case, at least for human Mod.
Mod shows too much development, too much shape, coherence and complexity, in living humans, to assume that this all falls apart after the separation of our souls at death. Not to mention Mod’s great degree of energy, strength, will, determination. All of these point toward an entity that should be able to maintain its coherence, even when it is disembodied. Yet, my sense is that there is no particular Mod-place where human afterlife Mod-spirits congregate, on their own. I’m coming to believe that Mod actually remains in partnership with our Ghost after death, and gives Ghost the power and energy to pursue the kind of active afterlife that we see in the portrayal of Valhalla and the Einherjar, Odin’s chosen warriors, as well as the warriors in Freya’s Folkvang, and Thor’s Bilskirnir. Not necessarily active in warlike ways, but active along the lines of whichever Deity or Deities they associate with after death.
One confirmation of this idea comes from the account in the Heliand that tells of Jesus’ agonizing inner conflict on the Mount of Olives, as he struggles to accept his mission of crucifixion. The Heliand -poet presents this inner conflict as an argument among his souls, as I describe in my article “Ghost Rider”. Jesus’ Ghost accepts his mission; his Likhamo (Lichama), Hugi, Mod, and ‘flesh’ (Lich) are resistant to it. Eventually the Mod decides to join the Ghost, and the other souls are outvoted or overpowered by these two together. (Heliand Chapter 57; also see discussion in Becker pp. 19-20 and 42-43.) The Heliand-poet, at least, recognizes an affinity between Ghost and Mod souls, and I am coming to see it that way, myself.
Our afterlife Ghosts are drawn toward the God-homes or divine realms that they are closest to during life. I think that our afterlife Ghost has the option of becoming very involved with the aims and activities of whichever Deities they are closest to, and that its partner-Mod will add Will, strength, energy and ability to these efforts. The whole idea of an active, goal-oriented afterlife is one that would appeal to active, goal-oriented Mod-souls.
If Mod began, in an evolutionary sense, as energy associated with microbiological communities, needing a host to develop further, then we can see this affinity for partnership with Ghost as a natural progression. Mod is hosted within a human and the human environment, and becomes more human-like. This process occurs especially through its association with the Sefa-soul and their mutual creation of our Modsefa, discussed in “Sefa: The Soul of Relationship,” and the Study Guide “Sefa, Mod and Hugr Together”. Then after Mod’s evolution within this living environment, it may be hosted with our Ghost after death. Mod then participates in, and contributes to, all the spiritual growth, activity and spiritual evolution available to Ghost in the God-realms, and thereby reaches its own evolutionary pinnacle. This understanding of Mod’s trajectory is very consistent with its signature powers of Will, determination, drive, achievement, and strategic adaptation.
Another factor that weighs in favor of this close connection between Mod and Ghost is the similarity between Ghost’s ability to enter or be thrown into a state of wode (see “Ghost Rider”), and Mod’s tendency to enter into an ecstatic state called ‘mod’, as I discussed earlier. These two states are very close in nature, as I discuss further in the Study Guide “Exploring Mod”. It is easy to see that Ghost and Mod could mutually inspire and energize each other through their own natural ecstatic states.
Mod’s Potency and the Holy Ones
Mod appears in Gothic and Nordic lore as a state of high energy and raging emotion, much like uncontrolled Wode. Thor is described as being ‘in Jotunmodi’, in a state of powerful energy and rage like the Jotnar. ‘Asmodi’, the Mod of the Aesir, is another phrase used. This is Mod in its elemental form: powerful, raw, unsubtle, motivated by Will but not necessarily by Wisdom. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mod appears in Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon writings as a fully developed Inner Person, the Persona, the Ego, who urges and motivates the person into powerful actions and deeds.
The word Mod was often used to translate the Latin term ‘anima’, meaning ‘soul’ (the soul within a living person; the afterlife anima was translated with the word ‘sawle, sele’ or ‘soul’). This shows the central role that Mod played in their conception of the human soul-body complex. King Alfred, in his translation of the Psalms into Anglo-Saxon, went so far as to cry out for salvation not only for his ‘Gast’ (his spirit) and ‘Sawle’ (his anima / soul), but also for his Mod (also anima) to be saved and taken to heaven, showing that he conceived it to be a true soul. He used the word ‘mod’ more frequently than either ‘gast’ or ‘sawle’ in his texts. This illustrates a more evolved form of Mod, not simply a mood or state of being but an actual soul, well-integrated with the rest of the human soular system.
A key thing to understand about Mod is that within each of us, it is both: both primitive and elemental, and evolved and complex, but always powerful and potent. Mod is rooted in the Will, and one of its main characteristics is that it motivates, urges, and incites us toward action. ‘What kind of action,’ however, is another matter! The word ‘mod’ in the old Germanic languages frequently meant ‘savage, cruel, enraged, hot-tempered, vengeful’ and the like. On the opposite end was the word ‘modcraft’ which meant ‘intelligence.’ This word was used to describe wise queens, councilors and elders, people of experience, knowledge and strategic wisdom. When advisors were needed to address a crucial challenge to the kingdom or the tribe, an existential threat, the call went out for those with modcraft to gather and consult on the best course to take.
Mod, when combined with the word ‘maegen’, meaning power, strength, energy, was also used to translate Latin virtus or ‘virtue’ in the sense of special qualities or powers inherent in an object. For example, we speak of the ‘healing virtue’ of plants, or the virtue of a power-object such as a magical item that sets it above ordinary items of that kind.
It can be confusing to understand the difference between mægen / megin / main, versus mod-power, with both of them meaning forms of powerful energy. I view these energies as coming from the same source, except that mod-power is shaped by the mood and character of the being who is accessing it, while mægen is sheer strength and power. Thus, we have Asmoði and Jotunmoði: states of Mod which involve great main or mægen, but these flows are channeled through different beings with different moods and motives, taking on the flavor of their respective Mod-souls.
Although, as I believe, Mod and our other Daemon souls are not given to us by the Deities, the Holy Ones also possess Mods of their own and can serve as guides and role models for us in developing our Mod. Thor, his sons Magni (Might) and Modi (Mod-y, having great Mod), and his daughter Thrud (Strength) are the most obvious examples. (See the Study Guides on Mod for more on this subject.) Any or all of them can be mentors of great value when we want to train and develop our Mod in the areas where their powers lie. Mod’s power of ‘virtue or potency’ is also exemplified in Thor’s mighty Hammer, with its power to crush and conquer, and its power to confer life, fertility, blessing, protection and hallowing.
Frigg and her Ladies exemplify a different arena of Mod. Queens, in Anglo-Saxon writings, were honored for their modcraft and wisdom, and were praised as ‘mode gethungen’ (for example, Queen Wealhtheow in line 624 of Beowulf). “Gethungen” translates to “excellence, virtue, goodness, perfection.” An exemplary queen developed her Mod in this way and applied its powers for the good of her people and land. Frigg is the ‘queen of queens’, well known for her wisdom and the sense of strategy she brings to her contests of wit with her husband Odin! Her Mod, and those of her Ladies, can serve as examples and guides for those of us (men and women both) who want to develop modcraft: power which is expressed as subtle wisdom, strategy, wise rede, and the kind of noble comportment and behavior that draws respect, honor and trust from others. Frigg’s distaff, spindle and loom, and her box of adornments guarded by Fulla, are also mod-filled objects of great potency and virtue.
There was a princess named Modthryth, meaning ‘glory of Mod’. Unfortunately she glorified all the problematic aspects of Mod, including savagery, cruelty, selfishness and capriciousness; in fact, she was a really terrible person! Neither her parents nor anyone else in the kingdom could control her. Eventually she was married to the great king Offa, and once she became queen she changed greatly. She “Held high love for the heroes’ lord,” and “Fame she found there for generous gifts from the throne…she used her fortunes well.” (Beowulf ll. 1931-1955.) This presents a nice little allegory of Mod’s evolution within a person: from basically a savage beast, a wild elemental uncaring about human values, into a gracious and generous queen worthy of her name: Modthryth.
In Closing
My own sense is that Mod is rooted in the concept of “Will.” All Mod’s expressions of power, virtue (in the sense of special qualities), strength, rage, moods, and all the rest are at root expressions of the individual willpower of the Mod daemon striving to gain the object of its will. At a primitive level, the object of Mod’s will is likely to be selfish and often even destructive from a human perspective. When Mod is well integrated and balanced with a person’s other souls, then Mod’s enormous will, power, and determination can be harnessed to achieve great, beneficial deeds and purposes.
My gut feeling (“my Mod tells me….!”) is that here lies the clue to explain why both the Mod daemon and the human soul-complex would be drawn to associate so closely with each other in the first place. Mod daemons can and do exist independently in nature. The original human soul-body complex has its own sources of power and strength. Why would they need or want each other, especially if their symbiosis or coexistence was associated with physical and emotional frictions such as illnesses, states of moodiness, inner conflicts, and increased vulnerability if they lose connection with each other? The answer, I think, is that both the Mod daemon and the original human soul-body complex have much greater potential for power, self-development, and self-expression when they work together than when they are separate.
The rune Ehwaz, illustrating the mutual power and benefit gained from a well-managed partnership between horse and rider, has much to teach us as we ponder the possibility that our own total soular system includes a powerful daemon within it. We need to act on the understanding that our Mod is the horse, our mody wight: powerful, beautiful, willful, temperamental, full of great potential. And we – our Gods-given human soul-complex – are the rider who must deeply understand the horse, train it well and care for it, value it and make good use of it, but always retain the mastery over this powerful being.
Further reading about Mod: “Esoteric Affinities of the Heathen Souls,” as well as the Mod Study Guides.
Bookhoard
Bang, Anton C. Hexeformularer og Magiske Opskrifte. Kristiana I Comission hos Jacob Dybwad, A.W. Broggers Bogtrykkerei, Norway 1900-01.
Becker, Gertraud. Geist und Seele im Altsachsischen und im Althochdeutschen: Der Sinnbereich des Seelischen und die Worter gest-geist und seola-sela in den Denkmalern bis zum 11.Jahrhundert. Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, Heidelberg Germany 1964.
Chickering, Howell D. Jr, translator. Beowulf. Doubleday, New York, 1977.
Claus, David B. Toward the Soul: An Inquiry into the Meaning of PSYCHE before Plato. Yale University Press, New Haven, 1981.
de Vries, Jan. Altnordisches Etymologisches Worterbuch. E.J. Brill, Leiden, Holland, 1961.
Eggers, Hans. “Altgermanische Seelenvorstellungen in Lichte des Heliand.” Jahrbuch des Vereins für Niederdeutsche Sprachforschung, 1957, Vol. 80. Karl Wacholtz Verlag, Neumünster, Germany.
Flannery, Tim. Here on Earth: A Natural History of the Planet. The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, 2010.
Herrera, César E. Giraldo. Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave McMillan / Springer Nature, 2018.
Koene, J. R., transl. Heliand, oder das Lied vom Leben Jesu. Druck und Verlag der Theissing’schen Buchhandlung, Munster, 1855. (Dual language, Old Saxon and German)
Margulis, Lynn. The Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution. Basic Books / Perseus Book Group, Amherst, 1998.
Meyer, Elisabeth Marie. Die Bedeutungsentwicklung von Germanischen *moda-. Buchdruckerei des Waisenhauses, Halle, 1926
Moalem, Sharon. Survival of the Sickest: the surprising connections between disease and longevity. 2007. HarperCollins, New York.
O’Neill, Patrick P. King Alfred’s Old English Prose Translation of the First Fifty Psalms. Medieval Academy Books, 2001.
Snell, Bruno. The Discovery of the Mind: The Greek Origins of European Thought. Harper & Brothers, 1960, New York.
An earlier version of this article was published in Idunna: A Journal of Northern Tradition, #98, Winter 2013. Revised May 2021.