Winifred Hodge Rose
A Human-Jotnar Switch
Our human-technological collective can now be considered as powerful and baneful as the most powerful of the Jotnar were considered to be in ancient times. In traditional Germanic thought, humans and human activities were viewed as ‘ordering’ powers, while the Giants were considered chaotic and destructive. But whatever the truth may be in that belief, it no longer holds. Human activities that could be viewed as harmless and even environmentally well-balanced become less so as human populations and technological capacities increase.
If the Jotnar were considered to promote chaos while humans and Deities promoted order, something has now turned around in that equation. In our efforts to promote ‘order’—social order, economic order, global order, public goods—we have loosed chaotic forces of climate change, ecosystem destruction, pollution, extinction, disruptions and breakdowns of social and cultural patterns around the world. “We” being human beings as a collective, along with our technology, resource use, and generation of wastes.
On the individual human level, there is an innocence to this—the same innocence as animals and all living beings have. The basic things we want are natural, not evil: food, shelter, safety, health, children, kindreds, social groups. But when our numbers, our desires, and our resource consumptions multiply, we begin to tip large and complex earth-systems increasingly out of balance. The Jotnar naturally react to this; they are the children of Earth, in so many mythologies around the world. Taking another view, they are the inherent powers of the Earth projected into active forms that exist on the energy-levels of Nature.
We are enabling and provoking massively powerful Jotunn activity by our collective human activities: Jotunn activity seen in the warming oceans, changes in the global patterns of atmospheric and oceanic currents impacting our weather and climate, hurricanes, wildfires, drought, extinctions, ecosystem collapse, pest invasions and epidemics affecting humans, animals, crops, ecosystems, and all the resulting social disruptions.
In these ways, we are the sources of chaos and disruption in the natural life and living processes of Jordhr / Nerthus, while the Jotnar can be seen as mighty forces that work, albeit violently, toward rebalancing an increasingly chaotic natural world. Our actions trigger theirs, their actions trigger ours, and the whole situation escalates. On one level, it’s almost like a dreadful contest between the human collective and the Jotnar as to who can bend the processes of nature more powerfully towards their will and their side. We can see the results all around us.
Another Look at Jotnar
Let’s take a closer look at this situation, beginning with the nature of the Jotnar. Who are they, what are they like? Here are some of the traits that humans have perceived in ‘Giants’, according to Germanic and many other cultures around the world.
1. They are excessive and overreactive, temperamental and powerful beings who unleash great, destructive energies into the world.
2. They are ignorant, thoughtless, seemingly even stupid. They just react, and don’t think things through.
3. They are greedy, and go after what they want, careless of the consequences.
4. They are focused on their own concerns. They may not perceive the impacts their activities have on humans, and even if they do, they don’t care.
5. They multiply, and Deities like Thor and his brethren in other pantheons constantly have to fight them and keep their numbers down.
Hmmm…..do these traits maybe apply, in a collective sense, to some other beings we know? Is it possible that the Jotnar might perceive these same traits in HUMAN BEHAVIOR???
(Gasp! Clutch pearls!)
Some of them have a reputation for great wisdom. Let’s walk over to the other side—the Jotun side, turn around, and see what the view looks like from there. Keep in mind that we are talking about human behavior collectively over great spans of time and space, which is how the Jotnar view us. Here is what they may see, looking back at us:
1. Humans engage in fights, conflicts, raids, warfare, oppression, scorched-earth tactics, often for the most inexplicable and senseless reasons like ‘glory’ (whatever that is), pride and prestige, disagreement about some philosophical or religious principle, one-upmanship, or taking offense at something. They also blow things up a lot, even when they’re not mad.
2. Humans tend to think in the short-term, don’t focus on long-term consequences. What they want now is of greater import than what will result from that, a long time in the future.
3. Humans have ‘needs’, they are always wanting this and needing that. They are never satisfied.
4. Humans are very human-focused, and in fact very focused only on their own social entities like family, friends, local interests, and people they feel connected to. They are not very willing to see, admit, or adjust to the impacts their actions may have on anything outside those circles.
5. Humans multiply, and the forces of Earth and Nature, personified as destructive giants, wights of illness, plagues of pests, and other energy-wave-forms that the Earth extrudes, are needed to keep their populations and impacts in check.
Is it possible that we and the Jotnar are kindred beings, with so many of the same traits? There’s another story about where humans came from: not a story about trees and Embla and Askr, but a story about an Earth-born God called Tuisto / Tuisco, who produced Mannus (perhaps Mannaz), who then produced the founding fathers of the tribes. (Tacitus p. 63.)
There’s lots of very enjoyable scholarly and Heathen discussion about this being and the meaning of the name, which probably relates to “two” in one way or another. Some have likened Tuisto to Ymir, said to be hermaphroditic, with Tuisto thus being male-female twinned together, which would make a lot of sense as a progenitor. Others see a connection with Tiw or Tyr, and with the word ‘twist’, also related to ‘two’ but with the sense of ‘two things in opposition to each other,’ Tiw as a God of conflict as well as a Sky-Father. There are many possible connections of this myth with names and myths in other Indo-European branches, and a number of them involve twins. (You can read a brief overview here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuisto)
Without getting too far into the weeds, I’m just going to pick out some strands and relate them to my thesis here. Let’s bring together a hermaphroditic Ymir and a twinned Tuisto, born of Earth or of the icy-fiery cosmic powers that gave birth to Earth, and suggest they are twin progenitors of Jotnar and humans, respectively.
The difference in our human perception of their birth and their natures suggests the possibility that these beings were ‘twisted’ into opposition to each other from the beginning. Ymir arises from Ice, one of the primal cosmic polarities, and something that is by its nature dangerous to humans. He-she is seen as something monstrous and primal. Tuisto is born from Earth, recognized as our Mother in so many mythologies, and is seen as someone divine and kindred to us. Yet, in this view, they could be twins—born together, entwined and twisted together, for good and for ill.
This leads us to the idea that we and the Jotnar are more akin than we may realize. It also suggests that any solution or adaptation to the Earth-disruptions we all face now may need to be a joint effort among our two ‘tribes’, human and Jotnar, working in concert rather than fighting against each other. We need to create grithsteads / places of truce, and frithsteads / places where we interact frithfully and fruitfully with each other. Here is an idea about one form that this joint effort could take: regarding renewable energy installations as Jotun-Shrines, and as grithsteads or frithsteads where humans and Jotnar can work together.
Jotun-Shrines
If we hope for the elemental Giants to tone down the impacts of their energies on our human world, one approach is to provide them with other outlets for it. The one I’m proposing here is renewable energy installations, which I will call REIs, for convenience: wind turbines, hydropower dams, solar arrays, geothermal, wave-energy harvesters, the lot. Even nuclear plants, which I’ll discuss more, later, although they are not ‘renewable.’ Now clearly, most humans on this planet are not going to approach REIs in this way! This means that ‘enlightened’ Heathens, and perhaps other Pagans and Animists too, need to be the facilitators and ambassadors in this effort. The approach that I envision is simple in concept, but may be challenging in practice, depending on how creatively we pursue it.
Let’s start with this: what is a shrine? In essence, it is any kind of physical setup that draws us into closer communion with the being—Deity, human spirit, wight, whomever—to whom the shrine is dedicated. Often shrines are deliberately built or set up with this purpose in mind, but not always. Sometimes people will turn a place where something happened into a shrine, such as the place where innocent people were killed, or where some event of great significance occurred. These may be temporary shrines like flowers and votive candles, or more permanent shrines like memorials and monuments.
Here, I’m proposing that we learn to regard REIs as shrines to Jotnar and their mighty energies, and treat them as such. Depending on the installation, we may or may not have physical access to it. Some of them, like hydropower dams, might be accessible to the public; others like wind turbines set up on private property or out at sea may not be. And in truth, leaving posies, votives, ribbons and stuffed animals at these Jotun-Shrines, the way we might do at other kinds of shrines, may not be that appealing to the Jotnar, not to mention being somewhat environmentally unfriendly. Even leaving food items is not a good idea; my feeling is that many (though not all) of the REIs are not that safe or friendly toward the smaller landwights and the animals that the wights often associate with, and who will be attracted to the food. So we need to approach these shrines differently, although if we have our own installation, such as a solar-panel on our roof or a small wind turbine, we can treat it more like a traditional shrine if we wish.
Example: Wind-Turbines
Here is my approach, and undoubtedly other people will come up with other good ideas. I use wind turbines as an example, because of how they affect me and because where my husband and I live, we have large arrays of them spread out both to the north and the south, as well as a few single turbines set up by small businesses nearby. We can see their red lights blinking eerily during the night, and drive by them in the daytime if we’re going out of town. They are definitely a presence on our flat-as-a-pancake landscape. It’s easy to complain about them as an intrusion into the landscape, an ecological disruption, or to ignore them as one more element of civilizational infrastructure all around us. All those perspectives are valid.
But the wind turbines ‘talk’ to me, and this is how the idea of Jotun-Shrines came to me in the first place. (I may be channeling the famous fictional Spanish knight, Don Quixote, who nearsightedly mistook windmills for giants, and galloped off on quests to joust against them! In fact, my suggestions here could probably be termed ‘quixotic,’ a word formed from his name. I actually named our car after Don Quixote’s trusty horse, Rocinante, because I drove off to look at the turbine fields more closely, soon after we got the car, but in spite of being able to see them, I couldn’t find a route to them. I got lost hunting for windmill-giants, just like Don Quixote, and I think it was all due to the Jotnar!)
So…these turbines are gigantic, majestic, hypnotic, eerie at night, and somewhat threatening. When I come close to them, I can feel or sense some kind of strange energy being churned in the atmosphere around them, sometimes strongly enough to make me feel a little dizzy. There is something numinous there: not in the physical turbine itself, but coming through a doorway that uses the turbine as its access. And this is what a shrine is: a doorway between worlds, perceptions, states of being, and between beings who stand in different worlds and commune through that doorway. The shrine is the common ground and the meeting-point.
I use my human consciousness, my own souls, as one endpoint of this doorway or passageway, and try to perceive who is at the other end, using the turbine itself and its energies as the connection point, and also as a buffer zone between us. I do this at a distance, of course, often a distance of miles, with our flat topography. I don’t approach too closely, and I don’t bring any material offerings. My offering is my attention, my willingness to connect with the Jotun on the other end of the passage. I want to know something of who the Jotun is, what their life is like, what they want, how they connect with and perceive the Midgard that humans perceive and populate. I try to sense the flavor of their energy, and thereby sense their Will and their own souls, Hugr, Mod, and all. How does this individual Jotun want to work its Will into Midgard, or possibly what does it want to take out of Midgard through the work it is doing?
We are different beings, the Jotun and I; there are many ways that we do not intersect. But there are also things we have in common, relating to the functioning and the wellbeing of the Earth and all her powers: she is our mutual forebear. In many ways, the Jotun is likely be closer to Jordhr than I am. When we share our attention, energy, and Will with each other, for a time we are mutually aligned and can direct our joint powers as we choose. At this point, we can connect again with the physical turbine and its intention: to transform some portion of Earth’s energy into a form humans can use for our needs, while minimizing the cost to the Earth of such an action.
This is the human side of the equation. What is on the Jotun side? One thing is simply channeling power: Jotnar like to do that, no question! That is food for them, feast and nourishment and sensory enjoyment. But, depending on the Jotun involved, there may be a good deal more that they are trying to accomplish or to experience, other reasons for their involvement. These reasons may or may not align with human desires, human logic or understanding. They may or may not want to share them with us, or want us to be involved.
The communion of human and Jotun at the REI shrine often comes to an abrupt and clumsy finish. In my experience, on both sides there is an initial interest and curiosity, a willingness to meet on common ground for a common purpose. But after a short while, the profound differences between us again become apparent, and our alignment twists and slips apart. I think this is natural and healthy for human-Jotun interactions: this brief but powerful and purposeful alignment, and then the clear separation. The REI acts as a buffer zone, as well as a meeting space, thus reinforcing both connection and separation in turn. I suspect the same kind of thing happens between the Deities and the Jotnar: they join together to produce mighty offspring, for example, but then separate because their lives and natures are too different for permanent pairing, as Njordh and Skadhi found.
Your own Virtual Jotun-Shrine
My discussion of wind-turbines is just an example; the same sort of approach can be made toward other types of REIs, and indeed toward nuclear plants and the dangerous powers they channel. I’ve also used my own approach as an example of how to engage with the Jotun-Shrine. Others may prefer to engage in something less intense, for example a simple greeting, or a statement of thanks or solidarity toward the Jotun(s) who is working that REI.
Here is another approach. Since there are many REIs that we can’t get anywhere close to, another way to work with them is to create a virtual shrine, using whatever symbols, drawings, photos, etc, that you might wish to represent the installation and the indwelling Jotun. You may want to choose the installation that is closest to where you live, ideally one that supplies some of the power you use yourself.
It is important to give this virtual shrine a name that reflects the real installation you intend to work with: the Jotun and the location are specific, not generic. In my understanding, trying to do this generically, spread across many installations, or just a general spraying over the landscape, dilutes the effort into uselessness. In fact, this is more of an insult or a dismissal of the actual Jotunn, than it is a way to work with them. They are individuals, working at specific places on the Earth, and they need to be named and treated as such. If you can discover the name or by-name of the Jotun you’re working with, that would be ideal.
You can add anything you like to this shrine you are making, in the way of decorations, statues or other Jotun-images, and I recommend a representation of the Element that your REI is associated with. For example: Fire for a solar installation or geothermal, Air for turbines, Water and Earth for hydropower dams, etc. You may like to use music that reminds you of Jotnar when you work with your shrine.
Our manner of engagement with the REI-Jotnar is something for each of us to work out for ourselves, and it can change over time as we gain experience.
The Thorn, or Thurs, on the Rose
Jotnar are not all sweetness and light, of course; they can be unpredictable, dangerous, and uncooperative (…unlike humans, of course….!). The same sort of thing can be said for renewable energy and nuclear energy. There are a great many reasons for phasing out nuclear power, but the thing to consider in this context is that while there are still nuclear plants in operation, it might be good to keep the Jotnar who are involved with that form of energy in a good mood! We really don’t want enraged nuclear-associated Jotnar rampaging around.
REIs and nuclear help us resolve one set of problems, but create other problems in their place. The materials necessary for making solar arrays and turbines, for example, require means for their production that are environmentally and socially damaging. Hydropower dams have many negative effects on ecosystems and communities, and fail entirely in extreme drought. Nuclear energy produces clean power now at the risk of severe future impacts from nuclear waste, as well as high cost, and risks of misuse of nuclear materials.
All of them create disposal and decommissioning problems, distribution and social-justice problems. We need to know this, to acknowledge that REIs and nuclear are double-edged swords, not the solutions to all our troubles. We are not ‘home-free’ here; our work of learning to live sustainably on this Earth is not done, even if we achieve a great shift into renewable energy.
This is another way that Jotnar and renewable energy are essentially matched: they are both double-edged swords, both have many negative and even dangerous traits. But at this time, we need renewables as part of a suite of technological and human-behavioral changes that (we can hope) will keep us going for awhile longer, and maybe even give us time to become wiser about the way we all live on this Earth. And the Earth with her garment, Nature, needs her children, the Giants (along with all her other children), as active expressions of her enormous life-force in her everlasting struggle to exist, evolve, transform, rebalance, renew.
Grotte-song
Grotte-Song is a poem in the Poetic Edda that wonderfully captures this double-edged-sword nature of the Jotnar, and offers us a lesson in how to interact with them! Two young giant women, Fenja and Menja, have been captured and brought as slaves to turn the heavy mill of King Frodi. This mill is magical, turning out wealth and wellbeing for the king and the realm, and Frodi is so determined to put it to use, that he refuses to allow these powerful Jotun-maids any time to rest, sleep or eat.
At first Fenja and Menja set to work with goodwill. Menja encourages them to mill gold, wealth, blessedness, comfort, happiness for the king and the realm. But as time goes on and their efforts are abused by Frodi’s demands, the maids become angry, and discuss things that Frodi would have been wise to know, before he treated them so. He didn’t bother to learn about their lineage or their history, and this was a mistake!
We discover that they are kin to the mighty giants Hrungnir, Thjazi, Idi and Aurnir (and thus, of course, to Skadhi, daughter of Thjazi). Fenja and Menja themselves, as little-girl giants, were the ones who tossed this enormous mill-stone up to the surface of Midgard as they played in Jotunheim. Later, as battle-maids, they fought in Midgard: crushing armies, challenging berserkers, overthrowing a prince, regarded as champion warriors. (We are not told how these mighty maids ended up as slaves. Maybe magic was used.)
Straining at Frodi’s mill, not allowed to rest, their hands now remember the rough feel of weapon-shafts, and they start singing ancient tales and magical chants. They call up a baneful fate for Frodi, an army which now approaches and will overthrow him. The warning beacon-fires are already alight on the heights above the sleeping kingdom, but they come too late. As their anger and their magic grow, Fenja and Menja become so forceful that the great mill-stone, its shaft, and its iron supports shatter into fragments. They close the poem by announcing: “the women have done a full stint of milling!” Yes, I would say they have!
In Closing
There are clear lessons in this tale, that we can apply to this project of viewing REIs as Jotun-Shrines. The giants may work willingly on these joint energy projects; they may understand very well the Earth’s need for this form of energy-transformation. But they are also likely to have their own agendas, their own histories, identities, intentions. Abusing these powerful beings and the energies they constellate through their shrines and through Earth-processes and functions will backfire on us. Instead, we can choose to communicate respectfully with them through our newly-established Jotun-Shrines, and work together to align the intentions and the actions of Jotnar and humans, as we all (at least the wise among us) seek to rotate ourselves back into balance with our mother Earth.
You can give yourself a musical treat by listening to Sequentia’s beautiful, eerie rendition of the Grotte-Song in Old Norse on this site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLmzPKPcKmc
Or you can find it on other sites using this title: “Sequentia Nu erum kumnar.” This hypnotic song is about twelve minutes long, and works very well for entering into an altered state of consciousness in preparation for communicating with the Jotnar! I recommend it for use when you work with the Jotunn shrines.
Bookhoard
Larrington, Carolyne. The Poetic Edda. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Tacitus, transl. Herbert Benario. Agricola, Germany, and Dialogue on Orators. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.