Heathen Soul Lore #14 Winifred Hodge Rose Anglo-Saxon sefa, seofa; Old Saxon sebo; Old Norse sefi; all of them with the meaning of “mind, spirit, understanding, heart.”  The Old Norse word sefi also has the meaning of ‘a relative’. Shaping our Understanding of Sefa Related words: Gothic sifan = to rejoice, be glad. Anglo-Saxon sifian, seofian = to sigh or lament (also modern German seufzen = to sigh or groan). Old Saxon aseffan, Old High German intseffan, Anglo-Saxon anseffian = to grasp, to understand, to be aware of.  Eggers considers that the original meaning of sebo was: using one’s senses to establish what is real (p. 10). Old Saxon af-sebbian and Middle High German beseben = to notice, perceive, observe. Old Norse sefa = to quieten, to calm down, soothe, reassure, set one’s mind at rest, also to bring into awareness. Old Norse Goddess name Sjofn. Possible Roots I haven’t found a definite root for sefa, but I believe that the etymology of ‘sib’ gives us some clues.  In particular, the Proto-Indo-European root *s(w)e-bho as an “enlargement of the word ‘self’” (Online Etymology Dictionary for ‘sibling’) brings us very close to Old Saxon sebo (the ‘b’ is crossed and indicates a ‘bh’ sound).  DeVries suggests a possible linkage between Sjofn, the Goddess-name Sif, and the word sefi (p. 479, 467), while at the same time, the Goddess-name Sif / Sippe / Sibbe is known to stem from the same root as ‘sib’ or relative.  Simek says that Snorri in his Gylfaginning derives the name and meaning of the Goddess Sjofn from sefi = which means both ‘sense’ and ‘relation’ (p. 286). In Old English, sibb meant ‘kinship, relationship, love, friendship, peace, happiness’.  (Basically, the same meanings as the rune Wunjo, which we’ll return to later.)  Proto-Germanic *sibja meant literally ‘one’s own’, a blood relation.  Sib-related words indicating ‘relationship’ occur in all the old and modern Germanic languages (though interestingly, our modern word and meaning of ‘sibling’ was coined less than 100 years ago, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.  That makes me feel more secure with the word my family has coined: ‘niblings’ to refer to ‘nieces and nephews’ collectively!  Thus, we get together with siblings and niblings.) Considering the soul-like nature of Sefa: ‘mind, spirit, understanding, heart’, it seems very logical to me to trace the roots of this word back to PIE *s(w)e-bho, a word extended from the personal pronoun *s(w)e, the root of ‘self’ as well as ‘that which belongs to oneself’, namely one’s relatives, friends and beloved ones.  The Old English and modern word ‘swain’ / Norse sveinn, comes from this root as well, meaning basically ‘the man belonging to someone’.   Thus, a swain is a suitor or boyfriend, and in older meanings a page, squire, manservant.  In a looser sense, ‘swains’ was a term used for young men belonging in a group or cohort of some kind.  Relationships and belonging are the domains of the Goddesses Sjofn and Sif / Sippe / Sibbe.  The basic meaning I derive for Sefa is thus “our self, with its abilities to sense, notice, perceive and understand, and that which is connected to our self through relationship, love and affection.”  The meanings related to awareness, noticing, paying attention to, as well as soothing and quieting, which I listed above, are all faculties of our Self that are needed to promote strong relationships between people who understand one another well, pay attention to and care for one another.  I associate the word ‘caring’ in all its meanings with Sefa, along with the perceptive insights that are gained from sincerely caring about others.  A nutshell-meaning of Sefa, to me, is ‘the one who cares’ within ourselves, whether that caring is related to people or other beings or things, or to any kind of situation or idea that one may care about.  This includes the meaning of ‘cares’ as ‘worries, sorrows, concerns,’ as well as the meaning of caring for someone or something, and caring about anything.  Sefa is the energy and the link between our self and whatever we care about, whether concrete (like another person, or the environment) or abstract (like the ideas of justice, beauty, kindness, honor). Some Examples of Sefa in Old Texts Rigsthula 44:  Rig knew runes that could ‘soothe and pacify Sefa, lay sorrows (to rest).’  (Sefa of svefja, sorgir laegja; Jonsson p. 163).  Gylfaginning: In the tale where Thor visits a peasant family and slaughters his goats for a meal for all of them, the son, Thjalfi, cracked one of the bones for the marrow.  In the morning, Thor raised his Hammer over the goats, hallowing them and bringing them back to life, but when he saw that one of them was limping he became furious or ‘modhr’, cast into a state of raging Mod.  But when he saw the terror of the family, “he left off his modhr and  ‘sefadiz’”: he entered into his Sefa with its kind and soothing nature; he calmed himself and accepted compensation. (Edda pp. 37-8) Heliand l. 582:  When the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she had conceived Jesus, she understood him ‘in her own Sebo,’ a heart-deep perception and profound caring.  Joseph ‘afsuof’ or ‘perceived’ that Mary was pregnant (l. 93). Havamal v. 57 (56 in translation):  “Moderately wise a person should be, never too wise; he who wishes a carefree Sefi should not know his orlog (fate) beforehand.” Verse 104 (105 in translation): Odin gave Gunnlodh ill repayment for her hale Hugr (heila hugar), for her sorrowful Sefa, when he stole the mead of poetry, after seducing her away from her guardianship of the mead. Beowulf ll 49-50:  ‘He experienced grieving Sefa, mourning Mod.’ (Him waes geomor sefa, murnende mod.)  Ll. 277-8: ‘That I may through (my) broad / spacious / abundant Sefa offer rede to Hrothgar.” L. 473:  “It is sorrow to me to say from my Sefa…”.  Other places in Beowulf describe people’s Sefa as grim or savage.  Ll. 1841-2:“The wise drighten (the Christian God, according to the poet) has sent these words into your Sefa.” Ll. 489-90: Hrothgar says to Beowulf: “Sit now to sumble (feast), let go of constraint, you who rejoice in victory: speak as your Sefa whets / urges you.”  (Site nu to symle, ond onseal meoto, sige-hredh secgum, swa thin sefa hwette.) I like the last quotation from Beowulf.  Here, hospitable King Hrothgar is telling Beowulf how welcome he is; he doesn’t need to guard himself among these strangers, but can let go of constraints and relax.  He and his words and thoughts are welcome at this festive gathering.  (It actually turns out that Hrothgar is wrong: during the feast Beowulf is challenged about his deeds and reputation by Unferhth (whose name means ‘not-ferhth’, not-wise).  So Beowulf actually still needed to keep his guard up, but good old Hrothgar’s heart was in the right place!) We can see from these various quotations that Sefa feels not only positive emotions, but negative ones too, including worry, sorrow, sometimes even grimness and savagery.  I think that all of these emotions can be tied to ‘caring about something.’  When something you love or care greatly about is threatened or lost, you may become worried, sorrowful, grim, even savage in reaction to what happened: these emotions grow out of the fundamental emotion of caring.  Here is a picture of the purest, fullest expression of Sefa that I can think of: Sefa is what fills your heart to overflowing at the moment when you first hold your longed-for newborn child or grandchild close against your chest, where your Sefa soul resides.  Relationship, kinship, tenderness, love, attentive care, whole-hearted commitment: these are the blessings of Sefa. Sjofn, Sif and their Companions Snorri Sturlason, in his Gylfaginning (35; p. 30) tells us that the Asynja or Aesir-goddess Sjofn “is much concerned to direct people’s minds to love, both women and men.  It is from her name that affection is called siafni.”  Simek suggests that “Sjofn is a goddess of marriage and love, or else one of relationships, and is one of several goddesses named by Snorri who are matron-like guardian goddesses” (p. 286).  I like his last point: Sjofn not only inclines one toward love, friendship, and loving attitudes toward one’s kin, but also helps to ward the relationship and keep it strong.  I see her as a ‘daughter’ or hypostasis of Frigg, whose name means ‘Beloved’ and who is focused on marriage and family ties, among many other things. Sjofn’s sister-Goddess Lofn helps bring about marriages and relationships even when many obstacles stand in the way.  (As a Heathen, I would give Lofn great credit for the progress that has been made in legalizing same-sex unions.)  The Goddess Var hears the oaths and private agreements that men and women make to each other, and punishes those who break them.  Vor is the Goddess of Awareness, which ties in with our Sefa’s awareness and concern for whatever it cares about.  The Goddess Sif’s name itself means ‘related, relative’, connected to the plural ON word sifjar meaning one’s relations, family, kindred.  The German word Sippe is the same: kinship, consanguinity, family, relatives, kith and kin; also the word for a genus (one step higher than a species) in biological terminology.  There is a lovely adjective used of Queen Wealhtheow in Beowulf: she is called frithu-sibb folca, the frith-sib of the folk (l. 2017).  Heathen frith is the outgrowth of strong relationships; it is woven from the mutual trust and support that healthy interrelationships foster among us.  Sif is the mother of Ullr and Thrud, the wife of Thor, the stepmother of Magni and Modi.  I like to think of Sif as the frith-sib of all Heathen folk, related and relating to us all as a kinswoman and a leader in the kindly arts of weaving frith-relationships among us. The Goddess Frigg, whose name means ‘beloved’, is a promoter of frith: the fabric of healthy relationships that support a peaceful family or community, where mutual obligations, responsibilities, commitments, and benefits are acknowledged and acted upon.  Frigg’s assistant or her emanation, Hlin, is a Goddess of protection and refuge, something that Sefa is sometimes in need of during the turbulent interactions of the outside world.  Sefa, in turn, longs to protect those it loves, and provide a home-like refuge for them: duties that Hlin can help with. The whole matter of ‘relationships’ is both challenging and of utmost importance to humans, and it is no surprise that a whole team of Goddesses is needed to deal with the challenges and promote the rewards of relationship!  I would say that it is our Sefa soul through which all these Goddesses work, and through which we relate to them, at least with respect to our relationships and the skills of perception that are needed for this.  And I would say the same for our own Disir / Idesa / Matron-Goddesses: promoting and defending the ties, obligations and rewards of any kind of kinship or relationship is a major focus of theirs.  Vulnerability of Sefa It becomes clear, as we learn more about Sefa, that it is naturally a tender, affectionate inner self, the one within ourselves that we would call warm-hearted and kindly, who feels that we are ‘kindred spirits’ with another person.  It is from Sefa that we have our capacity for empathy, sympathy, understanding, and commitment.  I think that when the old texts talk about a warrior’s ‘grim or savage Sefa’, these warriors have had to harden and encapsulate their originally tender, childhood Sefa as a result of their brutal life experiences.  Sefa is vulnerable because of its tenderness and warmth, its desire for loving and affectionate relationships.  As we well know, the ‘world out there’ can be very cruel, threatening and manipulative toward this innermost, tender part of ourselves, seeking to take advantage of it. Our vulnerable Sefa needs a warder, and in fact it has two of them: our Hugr and our Mod souls, who interact with Sefa in subtly different ways.  Here are some quotations showing Hugr’s relationship with Sefa. Havamal v. 94 (v. 95 in translation): Hugr alone knows that which lives near the heart; he alone knows sefa.  (Hugr einn that veit, es byr hjarta naer, einn es han ser of sefa.) Havamal v. 161: I know a sixteenth (rune or spell-song): if I wish of a woman to have her gedh (attention, awareness, consideration) and play, I turn (away) the hugi of the white-armed woman, and shift / turn all her sefa (toward me).  (That kank sextanda, ef vilk hins svinna mans hafa gedh alt ok gaman, hugi hverfik hvitarmri konu, ok snyk hennar ollum sefa.)  (For more discussion of these verses and of Hugr’s involvement in love and relationship, see my article Who is Hugr?) These verses tell us that Hugr is very close to, and very aware of, our Sefa.  Hugr also loves, and desires friendship and trust, and I believe that it is the close connection between our Hugr soul and our Sefa that causes this desire to arise within our Hugr.  Hugr, however, is not by nature tender and vulnerable, as Sefa is.  Hugr is strong and wily, courageous and deep-thinking.  One of its important soul-functions is that of the Warder, who can to an extent foresee or intuit what is coming toward us, and who has very good insight into the inner motives and intentions of others.  Hugr can warn us, and bring to our attention that things may not be as they seem to be on the surface; Hugr guides us into deep, hidden knowledge.  In the second verse I quoted above, we see that the woman, warded by her Hugr, could not be unwillingly seduced unless the seducer used a spell to turn her Hugr away from its warding function, leaving her tender Sefa vulnerable to the wiles of the seducer. Our Sefa can become hardened and grim, no longer warm and tender, due to the cruel pressures of life.  I think that when this happens, it means that the Hugr is not well-connected with Sefa, and is not doing its job of warding Sefa’s essential nature.  Hugr can itself be a grim, manipulative and cynical soul, and in fact it is the Hugr within an ill-meaning person who preys on other people’s Sefas.  When Hugr is like this, it likely doesn’t appreciate or care about its own Sefa, and doesn’t work to ward it.  The appreciation and desire for love, friendship and kinship that should naturally flow from Sefa into Hugr is instead blocked and crushed, causing an overall hardening of the person’s character and souls. People fall into this situation because they fear for their tender emotions; they know these emotions can be disappointed, abused, mocked, threatened, exploited.  But it is a mistake to try to deaden these emotions and desires as a way to protect oneself.  A Heathen conception of soul lore can teach us that it is possible to have a thriving, warm-hearted, loving Sefa within us, in spite of all the threats from the outside world, as long as our Hugr does its job of warding Sefa.  Hugr has good judgement and clear sight.  It can tell us when it is safe to reveal our Sefa and pursue its desire for relationship, versus Sefa needing to stay sequestered and protected inside ourselves while strong and wily Hugr takes care of any outer defense we might need.  Awareness of both these souls will help us to live a life well-balanced between open-hearted, trusting relationships on the one hand, versus a well-protected inner self, aware of the many pitfalls within human society, on the other.  This is not all up to Hugr to do, however: Sefa’s ability to perceive and be aware of others should feed into Hugr’s strategic decisions. There is another way that Hugr and Sefa are connected: through ancestral ties.  In my understanding, our ancestral spirits, the Alfar and Disir, are the Hugr-souls of our departed kin.  The Hugr-soul within us is also likely to be a reincarnated soul, connecting us with past lives and relationships.  (See Who is Hugr? and Hunting the Wild Hugr.)   Hugr and Sefa are both souls who desire and value kinship and close relationships, and their interaction and mutual support helps us pursue these desires in healthy and successful ways. (For more discussion of Hugr’s warding of Sefa, see the Study Guide: Sefa, Hugr and Mod Together.) Modsefa / Modsebo Modsefa in Anglo-Saxon is translated as “heart, mind, spirit, soul, thought, imagination, purpose, character.”  Old Saxon modsebo is very similar.  As far as I know, this word-combination was not used in Old Norse or Gothic, languages where the word ‘mod’ was not developed into such soulful meanings as it was in the Saxon-root languages and Old High German.  The words modsefa and modsebo are widely used in Old Saxon and Anglo-Saxon texts, often as an indication of ‘where’, within oneself, emotions and thoughts are occurring, the way we would say ‘in my heart, in my mind’ about some thought or feeling.  The Modsefa often seems to be the ‘place’ where Mod ‘does things’ within ourselves.  In the Heliand, a person speaks of holding enmity against another ‘in his Modsebo.’  Elsewhere, it says that a priest ‘in his Modsebo never forgot God.’  In Beowulf, when describing the people’s desperate prayer to the Gods to protect them from Grendel, the Christian poet mocks the Heathens’ belief in their Gods by saying “that was their custom, their heathen hope: they were mindful (gemundon) of hell in their Modsefas” (ll. 178-80). Modsefa also seems to refer to character and reputation.  Some examples from Beowulf: in speaking of a prince, ‘his Modsefa was known by many’ (l. 349).  Likewise, Beowulf says that ‘as soon as Hrothgar knew his Modsefa’, Hrothgar offered him great hospitality (l. 2012). The textual evidence we have seems to show little difference between the meanings of Mod itself (see my article Dances with Daemons for detailed … Continue reading Sefa: The Soul of Relationship