Winifred Hodge Rose
In my previous article, The Occult Activities of the Hugr, Part I, I focused primarily on the innate abilities of the Hugr-soul to undertake certain occult actions, whether or not the whole person intended these actions, or deliberately developed these abilities. Here, I will focus more on the Hugr’s involvement in deliberate esoteric and magical practices. In essence, the former article covers the ‘wild’ Hugr, while this one takes a look at the ‘trained’ Hugr: the situation where the Hugr and the ordinary or Midgard-mind of the person work consciously together, developing mutual experience, skills and trust.
Keep in mind: this is a very brief overview of broad areas of esoteric and occult activity that our Hugr is capable of, and—importantly—that it is also subject to, when wielded by the Hugrs of others. I’ll start with the Hugr as an inner rede-giver, a counselor and guide, because this is the basis for building mutual trust and skill, and then I’ll link this with what one might call ‘ancestral magic.’ Then I’ll discuss my understanding of the Hugr’s involvement in spellcraft and runecraft, and touch on the subject of the ‘double’ or doppelganger. A discussion of Hugr in seidh and spaecraft follows, which includes not only oracular work, but also traditional witchcraft. Then I’ll move on to its role in Anglo-Saxon scinnlac or sheenlock, a form of shamanistic magic, and close with a discussion of Hugr’s ability to swell with power.
For more background about the Hugr, please refer to my articles The Occult Activities of the Hugr, Part I; Hunting the Wild Hugr; Who is Hugr?; and Disir, Hama and Hugr as Healing Partners, as well as the Study Guides pertaining to the Hugr.
Rede-Giver
I see this aspect of the Hugr as the foundation for all of its more thoughtful and deliberate esoteric abilities. Understanding the Hugr as a trusted counselor, advisor, rede-giver, means that we recognize Hugr as a soul-being in its own right: a being who knows what our conscious mind doesn’t know, and can see farther into the future, the past, and the complexities of the present than our rational minds are capable of. In my understanding, our Hugr is our inner partner in active magical work of all kinds. (Others of our souls are likely to be involved as well, depending on the type of working.) The more developed Hugr is, and the clearer the communication is, between our Hugr and our conscious mind, the more effective is our esoteric work. And as I outlined in the previous article, the Hugr is quite capable of acting on its own in an occult capacity, sometimes in ways we might not want or agree with. The key to occult work that is both effective and ethical is to develop and train our conscious self together with our Hugr, as a focused and well-grounded team.
Here are some examples from Germanic lore that illustrate the Hugr’s rede-giving abilities.
“He bore a wise Hugi (spahan hugi) within his breast.” Heliand 345-6.
Here are two quotations from Hymiskvidha (Poetic Edda): “(Thor’s) Hugr did not speak encouragingly to him”…when he saw the power of the giant Hymir. (v. 14.) Hymir tells Thor to go off to the herds of oxen to get bait for a fishing expedition, “if you trust in your Hugr.” (v. 17.) Here, Hugr is both the provider of courage to Thor, and his advisor who is telling him how to manage the menacing Hymir.
Near the end of chapter 19 of Egil’s Saga, Kveldulf receives a hug-bod, a Hugr-foreboding, that Thorolf will die before he does. Later, Skallagrim says to Thorolf: “one thing my Hugr tells me: if we part now, we will not meet again” (ch. 38).
“We come through friendly Hige to seek lord Hrothgar,” meaning ‘by reason of, by the agency of’ the advice from a friendly Hyge or Hugr. (Beowulf l. 267.) Note that it does not say ‘with’ a friendly Hige, but ‘through’ a friendly Hige, that is, the Hige is the cause of their action to visit Hrothgar.
Verse 69 in Old Norse, 74 in translation, of the Greenlandic Lay of Atli (Poetic Edda), says that Gudrun, who was described many times as having a strong and fierce Hugr, ‘knew how to take counsel with her Hugr’ in order to take strategic action.
Showing that our source of trust, as well as distrust, comes from our Hugr:
Sigurd and Gripir speak ‘heart to heart’: “as we two hugat maelum” or speak Hugr-to-Hugr (v. 10). Gripir later says “the shining king, Gjuki’s heir, trusted you, prince, with all his Hugr”. (v. 47; Gripismal, Poetic Edda.)
Verse 46 of the Havamal (Poetic Edda) says that when dealing with a person you don’t trust and who has ill intentions, go ahead and laugh with him, but take counsel with your Hugr (of hug maela) and consider how to return the same ‘gift’ that he is giving you.
Ancestor-Work
The first step for working consciously with our Hugr is to recognize it as a being with its own thoughts, intentions, emotions, knowledge and power, and develop an aware and trusting relationship with it. This path expands into the field of interactions with our ancestors (whether actual genetic ancestors, or ‘ancestors in spirit’), because, as I believe, ancestral spirits are actually the Hugr-souls of the ancestors. In addition, my understanding is that when reincarnation occurs, it is the Hugr soul which reincarnates, bringing with it knowledge from past lives which links it with ancestral knowledge. When your Hugr gives you rede and knowledge, it is likely coming from ancestral sources as well as Midgard sources that Hugr taps into.
When we work with the ancestors and other departed folk, we are working Hugr-to-Hugr; hence the value of developing our awareness of, and communication with, our own Hugr so as to facilitate this process. When you wish to contact your ancestors through spaecraft / seidh and in other ways, and when you desire help or knowledge from them, this work is done through your Hugr, reaching out to their Hugr-spirits and powers. Then, once contact has occurred, it is our Hugr who processes the full meaning of what was shared, and who evaluates the intentions, wisdom, and the execution of any actions that may arise out of this communication. It is good to ‘bear a wise Hugi within our breast’ when undertaking such activities!
There is an Anglo-Saxon charm against miscarriage, which instructs the mother to step over a grave while reciting a charm, and then to step over her husband in bed, speaking another charm to strengthen her child and make it live. (Storms pp. 196-8.) I interpret this as a form of Hugr-magic which calls on the Hugr-spirits of the child’s ancestors, both deceased and the living father, to keep the child hale and whole. When the mother steps over something, she is opening the passage for power to enter her womb and her baby. Another form of ancestral magic that is mentioned numerous times in the ancient writings is sleeping or meditating on a burial mound, while asking for healing, inspiration, or ancestral knowledge, often accompanied by a sacrifice or gift.
Our Hugr is also our inner warder, and advises us when it detects possible harm or risk as we consider an action we might take. Not all ancestral spirits are friendly and helpful, and forays into the afterworld of the ancestors entail various risks and dangers. An aspect of ancestral magic that I strongly advise, is to move your consciousness into your Hugr-soul with its powers of discernment and subtle thought, when contacting the world of the ancestors. That way you will have real-time awareness of dangers, opportunities, insights, precautions, that might not be available, or might be delayed or misinterpreted, if you rely entirely on your conscious mind. In the Study Guide about Hugr I offer exercises to begin the process of recognizing your Hugr and starting to work with it consciously.
Consider the powers of Odin. He is the exemplar of Hugr-powers: deep thought, powerful intentions and desires, galdor-father, Wish-father, advisor to heroes, subtle strategist, pursuer of hidden knowledge and wisdom, source of Huginn and Muninn. His ability to speak with the dead is a great source of his arcane knowledge. This kind of ancestral contact, and ancestral wisdom and knowledge, flow through our Hugr soul. Developing the ability to perceive, hear and trust our Hugr is a great step in any quest to work safely with the ancestors and with past-life experiences.
Spellcraft and Runecraft Affecting the Hugr
It is clear from the anecdotes I wrote about in The Occult Activities of the Hugr, Part I, and many other examples, that the Hugr can be an actor using occult powers to affect others, whether intentionally or inadvertently. I offer some examples here that show that the Hugr can also be the subject of deliberate magical spells. This is something that the careful practitioner should be aware of; these manipulative spells can come from otherworldly beings, as well as from living humans, who are not always fully aware of how their own Hugr is acting (see previous article). Here are some examples of how Hugr can be affected by spells.
“I know a sixteenth (spell-song or rune): if I wish to have all of a woman’s attention (gedh) and play, I turn / cast away (hverfi) the Hugi of the white-armed woman, and turn (snyk) all her Sefa (toward me).” (Havamal vs. 161, in the Poetic Edda.)
The Grogaldr (Poetic Edda) tells of how young Svipdag goes to his mother’s grave and asks her help as he prepares to set out on a dangerous quest. Her afterlife Hugr-spirit responds by giving him magical spells to protect him. Verse 9 describes one of these spells: “If a foe stands before you, ready on gallows-way, turn (hverfi) his Hugr toward the other side, and turn (snuisk) until his Sefa is reconciled.”
These two spells take the same actions and use the same words for these magical actions. First, the subject’s Hugr is turned away, using the verb hverfi. Then the subject’s Sefa (see my article Sefa: The Soul of Relationship) is also ‘turned’, using a different verb snui. This ‘turning’ involves turning toward the spell-caster, rather than away, as with the Hugr. In both cases, it is clear that the subject’s attitude is one of resistance or enmity, as long as their Hugr is on guard within them. Once their Hugr is turned away, then the spellcaster works to move the subject’s Sefa into a more accommodating attitude, giving the spellcaster what he wants.
This verb snui is used again and again in the Norse languages when referring to magical action, and is worthy of further examination. I see it as meaningfully (not linguistically) related to our modern expression of ‘turning something into something else’ through magic. As one example of magical usage, forms of ‘snui’ are used multiple times in Egil’s Saga, when describing the famous scene where Egil uses runecraft to create a nithing-pole out of a horse’s head, with the purpose of driving out the king and queen from the land. He first turns the head toward the king and queen, then turns it toward the land, then turns it on / against the landwights to disorient them and make them feel lost, with the intention of harassing the landwights until they have driven out the rulers. All of these ‘turns’ use forms of the word ‘sny, snui.’ (See discussion of this in Mitchell, p. 68 and p. 102.) Another of the spells that Groa gives to her son Svipdag is used to ‘turn / snuisk’ the dangerous rivers Horn and Rudhr back toward Hel, when they are threatening his path (vs. 8).
The verb ‘hverfi’, used in the spells to ‘turn away’ the watchful Hugr, is related to ‘warp’, and stems from Proto-Indo-European *werp meaning ‘to turn, wind, bend.’ I find that the meaning of ‘warp’ fits well in the context of these magical spells: the natural intention of the Hugr to ward the Sefa is warped out of shape through manipulative magic.
Here’s another act of magic that can be similarly interpreted. Odin boasts to Thor that “I considered Hlebard a hard Jotun. He gave me a gambantein (a magical staff, wand or twig), and I ‘rolled or rotated’ (velta, related to ‘revolve’) his wits.” Thor replies “An ill Hugr you rewarded him with, who gave you good.” (Harbardsljod vs. 20-21, Poetic Edda.) Here, the use of ‘Hugr’ can mean several things: it can mean a mood or attitude, or an intention, all of which fit well in this context. But I interpret it that Odin actually changed or overturned Hlebard’s Hugr, warping and roiling his wits and the other powers of his Hugr, perhaps through use of the gambantein itself.
I think that working with runes and spells, and working with Odin in magical endeavors, all require strong involvement of our Hugr, interacting with Odin’s Hugr. Here is another magical work of Odin’s: “I know a tenth (rune or spell). If I see tunriders (witches) playing aloft, I can work it that they wander astray from their home-Hamas, from their home-Hugrs.” (Havamal vs. 155, Poetic Edda.) Here, Odin can use rune-craft to prevent witches, in their out-faring Hug-hams, from returning to home-base in their bodies. This provides us with a segue to the next phenomenon: the Hugr as a double, doppelganger, or as a spirit in animal form.
The Double and Animal-Double
The idea of humans having a spirit-double, either in their own form, an animal form, or some altered form such as a flying witch, is common among all the Germanic and other European lands, and among many other cultures as well. As I discussed in The Occult Activities of the Hugr, Part I, this double is given many different names. One of the names is Hugr, also Hug-ham or ‘Hugr-shape’; and others of the names, such as Fylgja and Vard, may in some cases be alternate names for the same entity.
As one example, in Hardar Saga Grimkelssonar, ch. 30, a woman dreamed that eighty wolves surrounded the house, and they were interpreted as being the Hugir of their enemies: spirit-forerunners who were surrounding the house preparatory to an attack (see DeVries p. 221). Another example is given in the quotation above: the flying witches are able to go aloft because they are in spirit-form, involving their Hugr and Hama, or Hug-ham, a shape (Hama) that their Hugr can take on through magic in order to fare abroad from their body.
The ability to walk as a ‘doppelganger’ or double of oneself is known in folklore around the world, going back many years and into the present. Lecouteaux (p. 32-3) describes one instance of this from a Nordic medieval compendium of ‘miraculous’ works by Christian priests. A man named Snorri was under the spell of a troll-woman, who pressed upon him with her spells, trying to force him toward the mountain where she lived. During an attack, Snorri called for help from his bishop, Father Gudmund, whereupon Gudmund appeared as a light-form, sprinkled the giantess with holy water, and caused her to melt into the earth. As this was happening, the physical Father Gudmund had fallen asleep against the shoulder of his assistant, while he was praying. The assistant said that for a little while, he could not feel the weight of the bishop against his shoulder, corresponding to the time the bishop’s double was out of his body.
Lecouteux uses this anecdote to make the important point that people’s Hugrs are in close and instant communication with each other, even when in our conscious minds and the physical world, this instantaneous communication would not be possible. Snorri, in great danger, called upon his bishop, the bishop’s Hugr heard his need, and was there instantaneously to help.
Many times the doppelganger appears to a relative or beloved one of a person who is dying or passed into death, even when the two persons are separated by many miles. There are so very many examples of this type of phenomenon, and so many ways and terms for describing it, that I will not go into more detail here. The main point, aside from the existence of the doppelganger, is this ability of instant communication from Hugr to Hugr through visions, calls for help, counsel, insight, awareness. This is how and why the Hugr is so good at anything that involves communication unconstrained by time and space, such as seidh and spaecraft, and communication with the ancestors, Deities, and other spirits.
(Those who are interested in further reading on this subject may enjoy Claude Lecouteux’ Witches, Werewolves and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages. He focuses on the Germanic concepts of the Hugr (witches), Hama (werewolves) and Fylgja (fairies), and offers a multitude of examples from many sources, primarily from Germanic cultures, but also Baltic, Sami, Roman, and others. And of course, there are many other resources covering this subject, as well.)
Seidhcraft
Seidh and spaecraft are, I believe, large and powerful domains of action for the Hugr soul. Spaecraft refers to oracular trancework, second sight, and related skills. Seidh includes these skills, but also many others that fit within the fields of ‘witchcraft’ and shamanistic activities, depending on how one defines them. Modern Heathens tend to use these terms interchangeably, and focus on the oracular or wisdom-seeking aspects of this craft, such as communicating with the departed, with Deities, Landwights, and other spirits, and for seeking counsel about important matters in their lives. These are all areas where Hugr’s skills and knowledge serve us well.
Older references to seidhr show that it could be used for malicious magic, or to stymie the efforts of others to engage in malicious magic. There are also expressions showing the involvement of the Hugr in these matters, including examples that I quoted, above. There’s an intriguing line in the Voluspa (Poetic Edda) that says that Heidh: “seidh, hvars kunni, seidh hug leikinn” (vs. 22 in ON, 23 in translation). The first phrase says that Heid knew seidh; the second has been interpreted in various ways. Leikinn means ‘to play’, also ‘to skip or hop’. A ‘leika’ is a toy or game. It occurs in the other Germanic languages as well, for example Gothic laiks = a sport, a dance.
Strömbäck interprets hug-leikinn as meaning moving into the ecstatic state of outfaring (Sejd, p. 19). An example of this meaning may be shown in this quotation from Fostbroedhra Saga ch. 20: “I took a gandreidh (magical ride, outfaring ecstatic state) to many places this night, and I learned with certainty things I did not know before” (quoted in Lecouteux p. 29-30).
Many others interpret hug-leikinn as ‘playing with people’s minds / hugrs’, generally for malicious or selfish ends. I would say that the examples of spells that I quoted above, about turning / hverfi / warping people’s Hugrs and ‘rotating their wits’, are good examples of this interpretation. In my view, hug-leikinn can have both meanings: the playfulness and delight that can come from faring out of our body on magical flights, as well as manipulating and toying with people’s Hugrs, minds, and perceptions.
Either way, this word hug-leikinn associated with seidh shows that seidh does involve working with Hugrs: using one’s own Hugr for seidhcraft, and affecting the Hugrs of others in various ways through seidhcraft. This is further confirmed by the Havamal verse I quoted above, about Odin knowing a rune-spell to block witches, faring out in their Hug-hams, from returning to their ordinary shapes and minds. The witches he is referring to are practicing a form of seidh, and they are doing it in their Hugr-forms.
Let’s use this word ‘hug-leikinn’ as a bridge toward another form of magic that may be related: Anglo-Saxon scinnlac or ‘sheen-lac’, with ‘lac’ being the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of ‘leikinn.’
A Glimmer of Anglo-Saxon Magic
The Anglo-Saxon language had the word ‘hyge’ or ‘hige’, widely used and richly compounded with other words, but I have not seen that word applied to magical and occult phenomena in Anglo-Saxon in the way that Hugr was used in all the Scandinavian languages until recent times. However, let’s consider this. In my article Hunting the Wild Hugr I noted that one proposed word-root and cognate words for Hugr meant ‘shine, burn, glow, bright, white’. Anglo-Saxon has the word ‘scinn (sheen)’, from which come our words ‘sheen, shining’. Scinan meant ‘to shine, flash, illuminate’, and scinnes meant ‘radiance’.
Scinn and Scinnhiw (shining shape) meant ‘spectre, illusion, phantom, evil spirit, magical image.’ Interestingly, scinn also meant ‘skin’ (conceptually relating to shape, Hama, Hug-ham or Hugr-shape). Very common terms for ‘magic’ in Anglo-Saxon used this word scinn in their construction, and one of the most common was scinnlac, with a scinnlaeca or scinncraeftiga (masc) and a scinnlaece (fem) being a magician, wizard, sorceress, witch.
Now let’s compare this with a description from 1864 by a Swedish folklorist: “The vard (literally: a guardian) is a being attached to the individual, a spirit who accompanies a person wherever he goes, and sometimes reveals itself as a glimmer or in the form of the person as a second self (hamn), a phantom. The presence of the vard can even be felt, both by other people and by the individual himself when he is out of doors at night. The expressions used for this are: ‘It is with him’, ‘he has the glimmer with him’, ‘he has the vard with him’.” (Quoted in Strömbäck, Concept of the Soul, p. 17.)
As I discussed in Part I, the vard seems to be much the same as the Hugr, and I suggest that with the scinnhiw or ‘shining shape’ we are dealing with the same sort of phenomenon: a warding spirit who can appear as a sheen or a glimmer in the night, or as the double of a person. My own thought is that the Anglo-Saxon scinn or scinnhiw can refer to an afterlife Hugr, and to a Hugr disembodied from its living human, as well as perhaps some other types of phantom phenomena such as ghosts.
Now let’s look at the other part of the word scinnlac. ‘Lac’ in Anglo-Saxon had a great many meanings, including play, sport, strife, battle (‘sword-play’), sacrifice, offering. The verb ‘lacan’ meant ‘to move up and down, leap, jump, swing, fly.’ The verb ‘gelacnian’ meant ‘to heal, cure, treat, look after, dress a wound,’ and ‘lacnung’ was a ‘healing, cure, remedy’. (Compare to the old word for a physician, a ‘leech’, with leechcraft or laececraeft being the practice of medicine.)
A number of those meanings are the same as Old Norse leikinn that I discussed earlier, with reference to the effect of seidhcraft on the Hugr. Here we have the same word associated with the Scinn or Scinnhiw, the shining shape, to create the word Scinnlac which refers to magic, as does Seidh. I think it’s reasonable to assume that we are dealing with the same class of phenomena here: a form of magic that deals with phantom shapes which may be the Hugrs of people, living or dead, as well as possibly other types of phantoms.
Phantoms were also called scinngedwola (shining phantom). A person could be ‘scinn-seoc’ or sheen-sick: haunted by a phantom, which sounds similar to phenomena I described in The Occult Activities of the Hugr, Part I, concerning the effects of an envious or inimical Hugr. The Anglo-Saxon translation of the Greek Elysian Fields, the beautiful afterlife abode of those blessed by the Gods, was ‘scinfeld’ or sheen-field: the abode of shining beings. Clearly, these are souls.
It’s unfortunate that the Anglo-Saxon texts I have read that refer to the scinnhiw etc. are not very enlightening for our purposes of understanding Heathen souls. They mostly talk about Christian miracles overcoming the evil phantoms and practitioners of magic, dressing up Christian sermons and homilies to make them exciting for their listeners, and to make points about Christian morality. There’s lots of stuff about ‘evil’ phantoms and magicians, and judging from Scandinavian and other folklore around the world, this is true enough: there was plenty of evil stuff going on. But not only evil stuff. The Elysian Fields, abode of the Blessed Spirits, would presumably not have been translated as ‘scinfeld’ or sheen-field unless scinn-beings could be considered ‘good’ or ‘neutral’ as well as ‘evil.’ Like so much else in Heathen lore, I think that the understanding of ‘scinn / sheen’ and scinncraeft / sheencraft’ was transformed from a rich and complex set of concepts and practices into a parody of itself due to Christian efforts to demonize Heathen understandings and practices.
Finally, I want to note the wide scope of the Anglo-Saxon word ‘lac’, including not only play, battle-play, sport, dance, etc., but also ‘offering, sacrifice’, and meanings relating to leechcraft, to medicine and healing. If we combine all these meanings and activities with the activities of dealing with spirits in various ways, we end up with a broad description of shamanistic practice. Shamans give offerings and sacrifices to spirits, work with them for healing, cursing, and bewitching, hold contests and battles with them (often while in spirit-form themselves), and dance, leap, play music, etc., during their rituals for calling the spirits and entering into alternate states of consciousness. To me, Scinnlac (which I modernize as Sheenlock) carries the meaning of an Anglo-Saxon form of shamanistic practice, and also links up with Norse seidh practice. And I believe that Hugr souls are deeply involved in all of these practices: Hugrs of practitioners, of those they practice upon, and disembodied Hugrs of the departed.
Swelling of the Hugr
When shamans, rune-magicians, seidh and other magic practitioners prepare to do their work, they must undertake some form of raising inner power. Practitioners, and types of magical practice, tend to have their own preferred ways of doing this, and these ways often differ greatly. But the purpose is the same: raising, focusing and directing magical power to achieve their purpose, and to protect themselves, and perhaps others, as necessary while they are doing this.
Here, we arrive at the Hugr’s propensity to swell with power and burst out as the ‘wind of the troll-wife’, as I discussed in Hunting the Wild Hugr. In that article, I wrote about the idea of ‘swelling with power’ as it is understood in Vedic (Hindu) sacro-magical tradition, a very ancient tradition rooted in Indo-European culture. Here I want to expand a little upon this belief, because unlike the European pagan traditions which were interrupted and damaged, Vedic lore about souls and magic has been preserved and grown through the centuries. Though of course there are a great many differences between Vedic and ancient Germanic beliefs, I find that there are also some remarkable similarities, which can expand our understanding of aspects of our own traditions.
Brahma in Sanskrit is not only a great deity; brahmana is also a term for magical power expressed through spells and sacred ritual formulas: basically, this is galdor. Compare this description of brahman with what I have written about Hugr in all my articles: Brahman “is capable of assuming the form of any specific emotion, vision, impulse, or thought. It moves our conscious personality by premonitions, flashes of advice, and bursts of desire, but its source is hidden in the depths, outside the pale of sense-experience and the mind-process… Brahman properly is that which lies beyond the sphere and reach of intellectual consciousness, in the dark, great, unmeasured zone of height beyond height, depth beyond depth.” (Zimmer p. 79; also discussion beginning on p. 74.)
The root of brahma is brh or brah, meaning ‘to grow or increase, to fatten’, and it is used to describe deities ‘swollen with power’. ‘Brh’ is also the root of the Sanskrit word ‘to roar’, which I associate with the power of rune-galdor: swelling with rune-power and bursting out with the deeply vibrated power of a roar as one utters the galdor. I think that some of these Hindu ideas about brahman-power practices could be enlightening for those who are interested in pursuing Hugr-magic as expressed in galdors, rune-spells and the like. In particular, it relates well to the practice of building Hugr’s power within the chest, swelling until it bursts out in galdor like the ‘wind of the troll-wife.’ We may not actually want to behave as a troll-wife! But this is a poetic way of expressing the great power of the Hugr and how it can burst out into the world. It is up to us, to ensure that the power is used for worthy goals, and not for harm.
In Closing
I want to close by turning again to my article Hunting the Wild Hugr. There, I explored a number of word roots and related concepts to help us comprehend the complex being that is the Hugr. I’m just going to touch on the six ‘root-complexes’ I discussed there, and show how they relate to what I have discussed in this article.
Root-complexes:
“Shining.” This relates to the ‘glimmer’, the Scinnhiw or sheen-hue, the shining shape, that it sometimes perceived when the Hugr is disembodied and roams in Midgard. This subject-area expands into the shamanistic domain of scinnlac or sheenlock, as well as seidh-work.
“Mounds and Wights” relates to ancestral magic and the ability of our living Hugr to communicate with the Hugr-spirits of the dead.
“The Unborn, Swelling.” This relates to powers of conception, generation, and regeneration, and to swelling with power, whether it is the power of growing a child within, or the power that swells within us and is born forth from us through galdor, spells, and other deeds of magic.
“An Eldritch Cry.” This connects with the previous root: the calling-out of galdors and spells, songs of enchantment, powerful poetry, heartfelt emotion, the birth-cries of mother and baby, or the birth-cry of new powers and enlightenment bursting forth from our Hugr. The eldritch cry is also what we sometimes hear, loudly or faintly, calling us to pursue the mysteries and powers of all our souls.
“Excitation, Stirring up the Soul.” This is what occurs as we pursue first the lore of the souls, and then the many ways each soul can grow and take action in our lives. More specifically, this is part of the process for preparing our Hugr for shamanistic and other forms of magic.
“The Watcher; Magical Force.” I’ve discussed magical force throughout this and other articles. The Hugr is our warder, our lookout, our fore-runner, our scout, our rede-giver or advisor, in the otherworldly domains of magic as well as in our everyday-world, all of them filled with challenges, decisions, and need for wise judgement and action.
Our Hugr has the potential to be a wise and powerful soul-being within us, able to promote and protect our well-being, our relationships, and our goals in life, whether magic is one of those goals, or not. Hugr can also lead us astray if its powerful negative emotions and selfish desires are allowed unrestrained action in our lives, and the consequences are even worse if we pursue magical activities motivated and powered by a Hugr in this state. It’s up to us to work together consciously with our Hugr, to promote the wisdom, goodwill, and beneficial power that we are all capable of.
Bookhoard
Chickering, Howell D. Jr., transl. Beowulf. Dual language edition. Doubleday, N.Y. 1977.
De Vries, Jan. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, Band I. Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin, Germany, 1956.
Egil’s Saga, transl. Hermann Palsson and Paul Edwards. Penguin Books, London. 1976.
Hall, J.R. Clark, with supplement by Herbert D. Merritt. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 4th Edition. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada, 1960.
Heliand: http://www.hieronymus.us.com/latinweb/Mediaevum/Heliand.htm
Jonsson, Finnur. De Gammle Eddadigte. G.E.C. Gads Forlag, Kobenhavn, Denmark, 1932.
Larrington, Carolyne, transl. The Poetic Edda, revised edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2014.
Lecouteux, Claude. Witches, Werewolves and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages. Inner Traditions, Rochester VT. 2003.
Mitchell, Stephen A. Witchcraft and Magic in the Nordic Middle Ages. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. 2011.
Strömbäck, Dag. Sejd: Textstudier i nordisk religionshistoria. H Geber; Köpenhamn, Levin & Munksgaard, Stockholm, 1935.
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This article was first published on this webpage, December 2020.