Heathen Soul Lore #11 Winifred Hodge Rose The Hugr / Hugi / Hyge is often considered a soul-part which provides our capacity of thought.  (It is pronounced respectively “who-gr / who-gi with a hard ‘g’ / hee-yeh”.) This is undoubtedly true, but it is only part of the picture.  For one thing, as I explore in my other soul lore articles, there are other Full-Souls or soul-entities in addition to Hugr which have powerful intellectual capabilities, including the Ghost / Ahma and the Mod.  Thus, Hugr is not the sole source of these abilities.  And for another, when we look at the elder writings and the folklore, we can see overwhelming evidence that Hugr encompasses also the emotions, most of our everyday traits of personality, character and temperament, as well as many paranormal phenomena like our alter ego or double, our spirit-warder, our inner voice of wisdom, and more.  It was in studying the Hugr in lore and folklore that I first became aware that Hugr is not just a soul-part but a full-blown soul person in its own right, a full-soul as I call it.  This led me to explore the question of whether there are other full-souls besides the Hugr, and the result is this years-long, ongoing series of soul lore articles! Hugr is a full-soul, in my understanding, based on the second and third criteria that I discuss in “Definition and Overview of Heathen Souls”.  It does not match the first criterion: it is not a life-soul that causes death if it leaves the body.  On the contrary, Hugr leaves the body more readily than any other full-soul – its departure may not even be noticed by our conscious mind – and it is the most active and versatile of the full-souls as an independent entity.  Thus it fits my second criterion: it is a soul which can leave the body and act independently of it, with its own awareness.  I also believe it meets the third criterion of having an independent, self-contained afterlife, as I discuss in my article “Hunting the Wild Hugr”. Basic Meanings Please note that I use Hugr, Hugi, Hyge, and other word-forms interchangeably, depending on the language source I am discussing. I’ll begin with showing how broad Hugr’s characteristics are, looking first at the Skaldskarpamal of the Prose Edda.  The 13th century author, Snorri Sturlason, wrote this compilation of kennings, which are words or phrases that can be substituted for one another, like synonyms, with the purpose of deepening and enriching the expressiveness and symbolic overtones of Old Norse poetry.  According to Snorri, the following words can be kennings or synonyms for Hugr: mind, tenderness, love, affection, desire, pleasure, disposition, attitude, energy, fortitude, liking, memory, wit, temper, character, troth, anger, enmity, hostility, ferocity, evil, grief, sorrow, bad temper, wrath, duplicity, insincerity, inconstancy, frivolity, brashness, impulsiveness, impetuousness (Anthony Faulkes’ translation, p. 154).  (There is also a kenning for Hugr: “wind of the troll-wife”, which I discuss in my articles “Hunting the Wild Hugr” and “The Occult Activities of the Hugr, Parts I and II”.) These kennings for Hugr, taken all together, really add up to a complete personality, not just a part of a person such as rational thought alone.  In fact, rational thought may play little role in many of the characteristics listed above!  We can also see how limited the standard modern English translation of Old Norse “hugr” as “thought” is.  The English translator of the list of synonyms for Hugr does not use the word “hugr” in his translation: he lists these words as kennings for our word “thought”.  Read through the list again, and ask yourself how many of these words can possibly be stretched to be synonyms of “thought” as it is understood in modern English?   Although ‘thought’ plays a role in the actions and capabilities listed, these words do not really mean ‘thought’ as it is understood today. “Thought”, while being a valid translation of one important meaning of Hugr, cannot cover the full range of meanings of Hugr itself. Let’s take a look now at how Hugr / Hugi / Hyge / Hugs is defined in other old Germanic language branches. The Anglo-Saxon dictionary defines hyge as “thought, mind, heart, disposition, intention, courage, pride.”  There are a great many compound words formed with the ‘hyge’ root in Anglo-Saxon; I count 38 compound words beginning with hyge, and there are many more scattered throughout the dictionary with the hyge-root at the end or middle of a word.  Together, the meanings of all these compound words provide a similar grouping to the ones Snorri listed, above.  They include characteristics such as wisdom, folly, heedlessness, prudence, courage, and so forth.  The compound words using hyge show that hyge is considered to be the source, the site, the location within our soul-body complex, of these various characteristics, emotions and reactions.  As in Old Norse, translators of Anglo-Saxon often use the modern word “heart” to translate hyge, as well as “mind”, depending on the context. In the Old Saxon Heliand (a poetic retelling of the Christian gospels written around the same time as the Beowulf poem) “hugi” is the most frequently used word relating to soul-functions (Becker p.159-60), occurring 188 times in this poem (p.180) and has forty different adjectives formed from it (p. 51).  It is also widely used in other OS texts.  Overall, hugi refers to sense, perception, mind (Sinn); thought (Gedanke); mind, soul, heart, disposition, temperament, spirit, feeling (Gemut); and heart (Herz) (Becker p. 22).  An interesting compound word is also frequently used: “hugiskefti”.  This word literally translates to “hugi-ship” – the state of being in one’s Hugi, in the same sense as we would use the word ‘apprenticeship’ to denote the state of being an apprentice, or ‘friendship’ as the state of being friends with another person.  Anglo-Saxon has this same word, ‘hygesceaft’, translated as “mind, heart.”  This is an intriguing word that deserves more exploration. (I explore one perspective on it in “Disir, Hama and Hugr as Healing Partners.”) Old High German Hugu means “mind, heart”, and word-forms of the hugu-root include words for “to remember, to think, sense.”  Becker (p. 97-8) notes that ‘hugu’ is not as widely used in OHG texts as it is in Old Saxon, and has a more focused meaning: Hugu is involved primarily with intention, with focus, with thought oriented toward a particular goal such as the understanding of Christian writings and teachings.  On the other hand, the words for ‘heart’ and ‘breast’ are widely used in places where ‘hugi’ would be used in Old Saxon.  Below I discuss the close connection between Hugr and the heart and breast.  Another connection between heart and hugu comes in the OHG words ‘gihuct’ or ‘gihugd’ meaning not only ‘thought’ but also ‘joy’, and ‘hugelich’ meaning ‘gladdening’.    The Gothic dictionary shows the following meanings: Hugs: intelligence, thought, understanding. Hugjan: to think, imagine, believe; and ga-hugjan: to deem, consider. Ga-hugds: a thought, mind, conscience. Af-hugjan (to remove the hugs): to make senseless, stupefy, bewitch. These meanings are more in line with the modern idea of the Hugr as primarily rational thought.  Did the Gothic language not have the other meanings and implications of Hugr listed above?  Were these perhaps later developments in the other Germanic languages?  Or is the more limited meaning of the word due to the subject matter of the few Gothic texts we have?   These texts are not poetry; they are translations of portions of the Christian Bible and a brief biblical commentary, part of a calendar, and a couple of title deeds (Skeat p. vi-vii).  If we had examples of passionate, deeply felt Gothic poetry, would the meanings of Hugs be more expansive?  Who can say? Hugi has dropped out of modern English and German, with only a few dialectical remnants.  It’s useful to look at the Hug-word in a modern language derived from Old Norse that has retained much of the ‘flavor’ and character of that language, namely Faroese.  In the Faroese dictionary there are many words and compound words based on Huga; here are some of the meanings of these various words: to think of, to recollect, mind, temperament, temper, disposition, wishful or desirous of something, eager, keen, zealous, interested, attentive, whole-hearted, thought, idea, that which brings delight or sadness, envy, strong desire for what another has, and other meanings.  The latter meaning – the Hugr as the source of envy and what results from it – shows up in dialects of other modern Scandinavian languages and is a subject I explore further in “The Occult Activities of the Hugr, Parts I and II”.  Hugr and related words are still widely used in modern Scandinavian languages.  You might find it enjoyable to look into the modern Danish and Norwegian term hygge, a popular concept of comfort and coziness that you’ll find all over the internet (in English, too), as well as in lovely little books.  It’s interesting to compare this term to one with essentially the same meaning in modern German, namely Gemütlichkeit.  The base-word here, Gemüt, is descended from old German words for Mod (mut, muat).  This is an example of how similar the concepts of Hugr and Mod are, and how they were preferentially developed in different languages. Three Domains of Hugr Hugr functions as a human soul-being in three large domains.  One of them is intrinsic, fully within ourselves and feeling like our ‘self.’  It is much involved in the soul-functions that are attributed to the heart, such as love, grief, anger and other emotions.  It also has a strong influence on our character, temperament, behavior and moods, a function shared with our Mod soul.  And it forms the mental framework for our thought processes, doing a lot of our thinking as well as shaping the thoughts that come to us from our other souls, influencing them with its ‘matters of the heart’ and its concerns relating to its warder functions.    The second great domain where Hugr operates is on the borders between our ‘self’, and the world and beings outside our self.  Here Hugr functions as a rede-giver, an advisor and counselor, a warder of the heart and mind, a Hugbod (hoog-bode) or harbinger who delivers forebodings about future events, and as a mysterious channel or facilitator of luck in the form of hamingja. This second domain is where Hugr’s access to knowledge hidden from our conscious minds comes into play, including knowledge of the hidden motives of other people, “gut feelings”(which it shares with Mod), intuition, hunches about some future event on the horizon, knowledge of other Worlds and beings, and understanding about matters of orlay, wyrd, luck, and other obscure threads running through the fabric of reality.  In my experience, Hugr plays a primary role in spaecraft as well.  Hugr’s facility in this domain depends in part upon its own maturity and development over lifetimes of ancestral service and reincarnation (see “Hunting the Wild Hugr”), and in part upon our willingness and ability to ‘hear’ our own Hugr, to enter into our own Hugiskefti or Hygesceaft, the state of bringing our awareness fully into our Hugr-soul for a period of full communication.  Hugr and the conscious or ‘everyday’ self can work together to improve this process of trust and communication throughout our lifetime. Concerning Hugr’s third domain of action: it is sometimes capable of moving entirely outside the compass of our self, either as a shapeless flow of power, or by taking on a shape called a ‘hugham’, which may be a double of our physical body, or an animal shape, and in either case often possesses paranormal powers such as flying, bilocation, or supernatural strength.  The Hugham or the unshaped flow of Hugr-power can operate independently at a distance from us, sometimes entirely without our awareness that this is happening.  And of course, the other large part of this third domain occurs after death of the physical body, when the fully independent Hugr may become an ancestral or warding spirit for a time, before reincarnating (see “Hunting the Wild Hugr”). So these are Hugr’s three domains of action: 1) inner self, enclosed within the body; 2) on the border between self and outside world, and 3) fully independent of the body.      Hugr and the Heart The Old Saxon Heliand, a poetic retelling of the Christian gospels that provides a rich trove for understanding how words relating to soul lore were used, frequently links the Hugi with the heart, both in terms of location of this soul within the body, and in terms of the emotional functions of this soul.  The Hugi is described as being “within the breast, with the heart, around the heart, near the heart” in many places in this epic-length poem. The breast and the heart are ‘containers’ for the action of Hugi within.  Eggers gives several examples of ‘an herton huggian’ meaning “to think within the heart” (p. 9-10).  Another way to understand this is to see Hugi as a being who thinks, and resides in and around the heart.  The same connection with the heart is seen in Old Norse lore, and shows up in many places in the Poetic Edda. Verse 95 (vs. 94 in the Old Norse version) of the Havamal says that “Hugr alone knows what lies near the heart; Hugr alone knows Sefa.”  (The Sefa is a soul much involved in our emotions, and closely linked to both Hugr and Mod.)   This Havamal saying is a very significant one, in my opinion. It points to one of Hugr’s most important functions: it is a warder, a protector, of the integrity and independence of our heart-mind functions, and of our Sefa-soul who resides in the heart.  Here is another telling verse from the Havamal that clearly illustrates this point.  “I know a sixteenth (spell-song or rune): if I wish to have all of a woman’s mind (gedh) and play, I turn (away) the hugi of the white-armed woman, and turn all her sefa (toward me).”  (Vs. 161.) Along with this, let’s look at another Havamal verse: “Fickle are men’s hugr toward women; when we speak fairest, that is falsest hyggjum (action of Hugr; intention); that entraps the (woman’s) clever hugi.”  (Vs. 90) Both of these verses clearly show that the woman’s Hugi naturally protects her heart, her feelings, her tender Sefa soul.  The only way a man can seduce her against her will is by turning away or distracting her inner warder, her Hugr, with its power of discerning the hidden motives of others, and its power of speaking or acting in self defense.  (Of course, similar situations can occur between persons of any gender; here, I’m going with specific Old Norse texts.) Note that the man’s own Hugr is involved in this endeavor: this is, at root, a contest between Hugrs!  In the first example, the woman’s Hugr is turned away by rune-magic.  Her Hugr, in this case, must be very strong to require such powerful intervention.  In the second example the woman’s Hugr is weaker.  Its instinct is to defend her heart and Sefa from disappointment and betrayal, but this Hugr is subject to distraction and misdirection by fair words and promises.  The Hugr has a strong instinct toward self-protection, but also toward love and friendship, and it can be difficult, as we probably all know from experience, to balance between these two important impulses!  Because Hugr enjoys the play of minds and words, enjoys being clever and interacting with witty people, it can be distracted from both of these greater impulses of self-protection and of trust and love.  This tendency toward distraction results in a weak Hugr, unable to ward us fully.   Some people’s Hugrs are eager to exploit and manipulate others.  These manipulators see relationships of any kind as a contest they intend to win, rather than as a give and take of goodwill and mutual benefit.  These are the people our Hugr needs to ward us from, alerting us to the situation and coming up with good ways to deal with it.  Some spirit-beings have the same manipulative attitude, whether they are hostile after-life Hugrs, or any of a variety of other hostile or exploitative beings.  Our own Hugr is needed for protection from these beings, too, partnering with Mod and some of our other souls, and with deities, ancestors, and other spiritual beings willing to help.  Though we may be fortunate to have many others to aid us, our Hugr plays a central role here because of its ability to discern the hidden motives of others, and its rede-giving wisdom leading us in the best direction to deal with the problem. This illustrates the importance of ‘hlutro hugiu’, a ‘clear or pure Hugi’, which can observe a situation without distortions, assumptions, hangups and other baggage, and thus produce wise, clear-minded rede for us to follow.  This phrase, hlutro hugiu, is often urged as a desirable state in the Heliand; I shall discuss it further, below. Continuing with examples from the Poetic Edda showing the close connection between Hugr and the heart, in Hyndluljodh v. 41 we are told that Loki found and ate a woman’s burned heart, called her “hugstein,” her Hug-stone.  Havamal vs. 119 says that “sorrow eats the heart if you never tell anyone your whole Hug,” showing the importance of trustworthy friendship to the Hugr. Hugr is so much involved in the emotion of love, as described in Old Norse, that the word ‘hug’ is often used to mean ‘love and/or desire,’ without further mention of the latter words. When Frey is overwhelmed with desire and love for Gerda, so deeply that he becomes ill, this is referred to as “hugsott”, meaning “Hug-sickness” (Skirnismal introduction).  No mention is made in the ON text about ‘love or desire’; Frey’s state is simply summed up as “hugsott.” When Sigurd is greatly distressed after hearing Gripr’s prophesy that he will forget and betray the Valkyrie Sigrdrifr, he expresses his love for her as … Continue reading Who is Hugr?