Winifred Hodge Rose
Note: This article draws on, and reproduces some parts of, my article “Born of Trees and Thunder: The Ferah Soul,” but it also includes new material.
Trees are so important to historical Heathen belief and practice, as well as to other branches of historical Paganism, that entire books can—and have—been written on the subject. Here I will follow a few among the many tree-related threads that are woven throughout this fabric of our troth—threads which I have followed in my study, writing, and practice for many years. These threads all lead from, and to, the great Tree of Life, of which we are all a part.
In this article I’ve interspersed a few verses from a long poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne called “Hertha,” first published in 1871. The name Hertha is an alteration of Nerthus, and in this poem ‘Hertha’ speaks as both Earth Mother and as the World-Tree, combined together. All of the verses quoted here are from this poem, except for the Havamál verse as noted.
Gods, Soul, and Trees
*Perkwus: This is the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word for the oak tree, and it is linguistically closely related to several other words and names important in Heathenry. There is the PIE Thunder God, *Perkwunos, whose name survives in the names of the Slavic and Baltic Thunder God, such as the Baltic Perkunas. It also survives in a Norse word for a Heathen temple: fjarghus, where fjarg is a plural word meaning “the Gods,” collectively. Thus, the Fjarghus is the Gods’ house, all the Gods together.
In the singular, this word fjarg shows up in the names of ancient Norse Deities of whom we know little: Fjörgynn, the father of Frigg, and Fjörgyn, the mother of Thor. ‘Fjörgyn’ also means ‘the earth,’ known as the mother of Thor, while the masculine Fjörgynn is thought to be related to thunder. I believe that these Deities are a brother-sister pair of spouses, as Njorð and Nerthus may have been at one time. (See discussions in Mallory & Adams pp. 407-8 and 582; also deVries vol. II pp. 274-5. Wikipedia has a brief but useful discussion on Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn.)
Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn can be regarded as the Germanic ‘descendants’ of the PIE thunder God, Perkwunos, based on the linguistics of their names. I think that Fjörgynn is an ancient Germanic version of a Thunder-God, and that Fjörgyn is the powerful Earth-Goddess known by many names across time and space. Their powers are expressed through various aspects of nature, but the emblem and the special channels of their powers in the Midgard realm are the oak tree, fir, and pine, and by extension trees generally.
Njorð and Nerthus are powers who focus on the fertility and plenty that humans strive to gain from the earth and from the sea, and the frith that one hopes for this prosperity to bring. Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn focus, I believe, on the powers of earth and air as they express themselves through the wilder spectrum of activity: storms, lightning and thunder; mountains, rocks and cliffs; deep forests, woods and wildlands.
Where dead ages hide under the live roots of the tree,
In my darkness the thunder makes utterance of me;
In the clash of my boughs with each other
Ye hear the waves sound of the sea.
Table 1 shows the related set of Proto-Indo-European words that lead to these conclusions about Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn: words relating Gods, trees, mountains, and life-soul together.
Table 1. Gods, Earth- and Sky-Powers
| Language | Life-Soul | Earth / Deity | Thunder / Deity |
| Proto-Indo- European Proto- Germanic | *perku *ferhwa | — *fergunja=mountain | *Perkwunos Thunder God |
| Old Norse | fjör | Fjörgyn (Earth Goddess) Fjörgynn (father of Frigg) fjarg (“Gods,” plural form) fjarghus (Gods’ house, temple) | Thor Thunder-God, son of Fjörgyn Earth-Goddess |
| Old Prussian Lithuanian, Latvian Old Russian | — | — | percunis = thunder Perkunas Thunder-God Perunu Thunder- God |
| Anglo-Saxon, Old Saxon, Old High German, Middle High German | feorh ferah ferah verch | fyrgen = forested mountain Firgunnea = ‘ore mountains’ virgunt = forested mountain | – |
| Gothic | fair, fairhw | fairgunni = forested mountain region | – |
(* The asterisk is used before Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and Proto-Germanic words to indicate that these words are reconstructed using linguistic science. There are no written records of their language going back to the time before the Indo-European peoples split off from one another. During the process of language evolution, the “p” sound often transmutes to “f”, and the “k” sound often transmutes to “h.” )
I realize that in the texts which come down to us, and that are important in modern Heathen belief, Thor is the son of Odin and Fjörgyn. I think that in the dim and misty past, though, he may have been the son of Fjörgyn and Fjörgynn, and that they, in turn, were morphisms of Perkwunos. Interestingly, this would make him the brother or half-brother of Frigg, and Odin’s brother-in-law rather than his son. Even as attested in known Heathen lore, Frigg and Thor would be at least cousins, if not siblings, if Fjörgynn Frigg’s father and Fjörgyn Thor’s mother are siblings as their names would indicate.
In any case, here we have several progenitor Deities who are linguistically connected with trees, and especially with the oak tree, which is considered to ‘draw’ lightning, or God-power, to itself. Let’s follow the implications further.
Trees and Souls
Table 2. Trees and Life-Soul Words
| Language | Trees | Life-Soul |
| Proto-Indo-European | *perkwu = oak | *perku |
| Proto-Germanic Gothic | *ferhwa = oak *furhwon = fir furh-jon = fir | *ferhwa |
| Old High German/ Old Saxon/ Old Frisian / Lombardian | fereh-eih = oak foraha = pine fereha = oak | ferah, ferh, ferch, verch, ferech |
| Old Norse | fjörr = tree fura = pine fyri = fir | fjör = life-soul, pith fjörr = living being |
| Anglo-Saxon | furh = pine | feorh, ferhð |
| Modern English Modern German | fir tree Föhre = pine | — |
Table 2 shows closely related words for trees and for a specific soul, called ferah in Old Saxon, fjör in Old Norse, and split into two words, feorh and ferhð, in Anglo-Saxon. Ferah is a term for the life-force that makes humans and other living beings alive, and its meaning is expanded in different directions that are relevant to this life-soul, including meanings of ‘mind (Anglo-Saxon ferhð), wisdom (Old Saxon feraht), human beings (Old Saxon firibarn), living beings (Anglo-Saxon feohrcynn), and ‘the folk’ or the community of people (Old Saxon firihi).
The connection between trees and the human spirit runs deep. Paul Friedrich notes that “phonologically unimpeachable” Indo-European cognates for the PIE word *doru, meaning ‘wood, tree,’ include words like ‘truth, loyalty,’ and Norse tru meaning ‘belief.’ (Mallory & Adams p. 598.) Trees are examples of steadfastness and faithfulness, outliving humans and holding their place through storms and disasters of all kinds. They were considered as guardians and warders, such as the vårdträd (warding trees) and tuntre (farmstead trees) in Scandinavia (Dowden p. 70). In fairy tales and sometimes in actual practice in Germany up until recent times, the Lebensbaum (life-tree) or Schicksalsbaum (fate- or wyrd-tree) was planted when a child was born, and the fate of the tree and the fate of the child were considered to mirror each other. Many other close, ‘personal’ relationships were considered to exist between specific trees and human individuals and communities (Erich & Beitel p. 466-7).
I am that which began,
Out of me the years roll;
Out of me God and man,
I am equal and whole.
God changes, and man,
And the form of them bodily;
I am the soul.
A different kind of warding function is shown by the Yew in early Germanic culture: not only were bow-staves preferentially made from yew, but also judges’ staffs and other ritual implements were made of yew (Mallory & Adams p. 654), as well as yews being planted to ward graveyards up until present time in England. All of these reflect various ways of warding the wellbeing of the community.
There is also the implication here, supported by a vast number of religious and folklore practices, that the qualities inherent in specific trees continue after they are cut and the wood used for human purposes. Michael Bintley’s book Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England discusses how these understandings carried over from Heathen into Christian practice in early England. Among the most remarkable features was how early English Christians not only revered the Christian cross, but personified it in art and poetry as a tree-being with thoughts and feelings of its own. The famous Anglo-Saxon poem, Dream of the Rood, exemplifies this, where the entire poem is ‘spoken’ by the wood of the cross itself (‘rood’ is a word for the cross). Would the Germanic peoples have had more trouble accepting Christian symbolism if Jesus had died in a different way, not hanging on a wooden cross or ‘tree’? It’s an interesting question to ask!
This personification of trees and the recognition of intimate links between trees and persons implies that they share something soul-like, which I believe to be the Ferah soul. In my understanding, this soul expresses itself differently in humans and in the species of other living beings, but it shares the same substrate of the Ferah life-force.
Here I offer a story about these connections between Gods, primal trees, and the coming-into-being of humans. I’ve taken the liberty of retelling the familiar myth of the shaping of Ask and Embla from logs or trees, by including in my story these insights about the connections between Gods, life-souls (Ferah), trees, humans, Earth, thunder and lightning.
A New Tale of Ask and Embla
Trees, rooted in Mother Earth, attract lightning bolts, Sky-God power. And so, one mythic day, Thor rode the clouds above a forest in his beloved Midgard, while from Asgard three mighty brothers set forth in that direction, all coming at last to a strand between the forest and the sea. This slender strip of no-man’s-land stood between Land and Sea, Midgard and Otherworlds, Matter and Spirit.
Together the Gods came across two trees there, trees with great Ferah-spirits of their own that drew the Gods’ awareness like magnets. Raising his Hammer, the Hallower of Midgard gave the life-releasing blow, striking one tree on the fore-swing and the other on the back-swing.
The trees-becoming-humans stood there between Mother Earth and Father Sky, between negative and positive poles of power, and felt the God-mains flowing through them in brilliant surges of actinic light.
And so the Ferah-souls within these trees burst forth as flames and were transformed into Ferahs of new beings, human beings, different but akin to the ancient spirits of the woods. The Sons of Borr gave their great gifts: breath and spirit, wode and speech. They clothed these transformed Ferah-spirits with the human shape, the Hama, so they would not be naked spirits in a world of tree-clothed wights. Human Hamas are so skillful and powerful that Ask and Embla, as Odin remarked, felt like heroes when they had been so clothed!
(Odin said:)
My clothes I gave, along the way, to two tree-people.
They thought themselves heroes when they had clothing;
The naked person is ashamed.
(Havamal verse 49, in the Poetic Edda, my translation.)
At Ragnarök, human souls will take shelter within the beleaguered Tree. Then, at the beginning of the new cycle of time, Lif and Lifthrasir will come forth as flames of life from the sheltering wood, just as their forebears Ask and Embla did, so many generations before.
Trees and the Community of Life
As you can see by referring to Tables 1 and 2, there are a number of words that derive from trees and the soul-words ferah, feorh, fjör, etc, that refer also to living beings, human beings, and their collectives. An example is the Anglo-Saxon feorhcynn, the ‘kindred of the feorh,’ of humans and of living beings generally. Old Saxon firihi means ‘the folk,’ and firibarn, ‘child of ferah’, refers to human beings. Old Norse fjörr refers to a ‘living being,’ including trees. Other related old Germanic words refer to forested regions, where the forest is a community of trees and other living beings.
A forest is not simply individual trees standing around in the same area. Tree and plant roots intermingle with each other underground, and interact with all the myriad of soil organisms, including fungal mycelia which facilitate complex biochemical communications and interactions among the trees and other living beings of the forests. We too, as members of the Feorhcynn, and in a sense the spiritual descendants of trees, have hidden roots embedded in metaphysical layers of nature. We can learn to sense through these root-organs, and to communicate through them in nonverbal ways. (See Sheldrake’s book Entangled Lives; also the discussion of cultural ‘entanglement’ or ‘meshing’ between human minds, bodies, and ‘things,’ in particular trees and wood, in Bintley pp. 18-20.)
To speak of ferah / feorh / fjör is to speak also of this community of life, the feorhcynn, consisting of ferah-ensouled living beings in many different forms interacting with, and depending upon, each other in ways both overt and subtle.
In Heathen times and beyond, trees, groves and forests were used to mark places of communal worship and assembly, and these trees were highly revered. One of the ways that Christian missionaries and kings tried to destroy Heathen and Pagan worship was by cutting down these trees, including the enormous Donar-Oak at Geismar, and the famous Irminsul, a wooden pillar or tree-trunk revered by the Saxons as the support of the world. (Dowden pp. 70-71, and 118-119.)
Though not occurring in a Germanic context, the tale of how Martin of Tours tore down a Pagan temple and the pine tree beside it is notable. The Pagan villagers stood by without significant protest while their temple was destroyed, but the attack on the pine tree that grew next to it was strongly resisted, and according to the accounts of Martin’s activities, this happened more than once (Dowden p. 76). I suspect that the pine trees were there first, and were the primary focus of worship, while the temples played a supportive and practical role in sustaining that worship. Note that the preponderance of cases where sacred trees were attacked involve either oak trees or pine trees, both named in Proto-Indo-European by *perkwus-related words.
Della Hooke in her book Trees in Anglo-Saxon England describes a fascinating recent find in Norfolk, England, resulting from coastal erosion. A huge oak-tree had been uprooted (not cut) in the spring of 2049 BCE, and set upside down, with the roots upwards and the upper part of the tree buried to support this position. This was surrounded by a stockade of split poles that were made from another enormous tree some 22 feet in diameter. All of this must have entailed a great amount of work, especially for neolithic peoples and their tools. Hooke has some interesting speculations about the purpose of this establishment, and its similarity to aspects of Hindu, Persian, Saami, and other ancient myths about the Tree of Life (pp. 15ff.). Whatever meanings it may have had, it’s clear that this was one of the many expressions of community religious and symbolic practices relating to sacred trees.
The tree many-rooted
That swells to the sky
With frondage red-fruited,
The life-tree am I.
In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves:
Ye shall live and not die.
It is no wonder that ancient Heathens, and ancient Pagans generally, chose to worship in groves and forests, assemble for meetings under great trees, shape tree trunks into god-posts and other sacred images, have specially honored beams and doorposts in their buildings, use kennings and names of trees to describe and name people, and tell many myths and stories about the relationships between trees and humans. Like trees, the roots of our being are entangled with each other and our environment. Like trees, people are nourished and sustained by Gods of earth and sky. Like trees, we are sometimes struck by lightning / God-power, and if we do not burn to death, then we burn with life as conduits of God-power into the world.
Great Yggdrasil is the backbone of the multiverse; the Irminsul pillar-tree unites earth and sky; Iðunn sustains the Gods from her magical apple tree. Donar-oaks and other mighty Midgard trees sheltered assemblies and ceremonies of the folk through time immemorial. Ancient Greeks traveled many miles to hear Zeus Thunder-God whispering his oracles through the Oak of Dodona. Trees played the same central role in the worship and communal practices of Celts, Slavs, and Balts as they did with the Germans. The religions of the Pagan Indo-Europeans, past and present, would not be what they are without the holy presence of the trees.
I bid you but be;
I have need not of prayer;
I have need of you free
As your mouths of mine air,
That my heart may be greater within me,
Beholding the fruits of me fair.
Sunlight slanting through the solemn, silent forest shows us that even the greatest cathedrals with their stained-glass windows and carven columns are only pale reflections of the oldest temple of all. Beyond the logic of evolutionary science, which is true in its own way, the human spirit knows its kinship with the trees.
Note: This article is included in my book, Wandering on Heathen Ways: Writings on Heathen Holy Ones, Wights, and Spiritual Practice.
Book-Hoard
Bintley, Michael. Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England (Anglo-Saxon Studies, 26). Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2015.
Dowden, Ken. European Paganism: The Realities of Cult from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Erich, Oswald A. and Richard Beitl. Wörterbuch der Deutschen Volkskunde. Stuttgart: Alfred Kroener Verlag, 1955.
Grimm, Jacob. Teutonic Mythology. (J.S. Stalleybrass edition). London: George Bell & Sons, 1883.
Hooke, Della. Trees in Anglo-Saxon England: Literature, Lore and Landscape (Anglo-Saxon Studies, 13). Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2013
Jonsson, Finnur, ed. De Gamle Eddadigte. København: G.E.C. Gads Forlag, 1932.
Mallory, J.P. and D.Q. Adams, editors. Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago, IL: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures. New York: Random House, 2021.