Modernized Havamal - Verse 45

If you know someone,
but don't trust them,
and you still need something from them,
don't feel shamed about lying and saying nice things to them.
Trade lie for lie with them,
and do what you have to do to survive.

Harvestfest / Winternights (Old Norse - Vetrnætr)

Winternights

Winter Nights or Old Norse Vetrnætr was a Norse winter festival that was initially celebrated in pre-Christian Scandinavia. It was said by Snorri Sturluson that Winter Nights is one of the three most important festivals.

The following is from Odinsvolk.ca:

Winternights is held the 31st of October. Winternights marked the final end of harvest and the time when the animals that were not expected to make it through the winter were butchered and smoked or made into sausage. The festival is also called "Elf-Blessing", "Dis-Blessing", or "Frey-Blessing", which tells us that it was especially a time of honouring the ancestral spirits, the spirits of the land, the Vanir, and the powers of fruitfulness, wisdom, and death. It marks the turning of the year from summer to winter, the turning of our awareness from outside to inside.

Among the Norse, the ritual was often led by the woman of a family - the ruler of the house and all within. One of the commonest harvest customs of the Germanic people was the hallowing and leaving of the "Last Sheaf" in the field, often for Odin and/or his host of the dead, though the specifics of the custom vary considerably over its wide range. The Wild Hunt begins to ride after Winternights, and the roads and fields no longer belong to humans, but to ghosts and trolls.

The Winternights feast is also especially seen as a time to celebrate our kinship and friendship with both the living and our earlier forebears. It marks the beginning of the long dark wintertime at which memory becomes more important than foresight, at which old tales are told and great deeds are toasted as we ready ourselves for the spring to come. It is a time to think of accomplishments achieved and those which have yet to be made. Winternights also marks the beginning of a time of indoor work, thought and craftsmanship.

Spirits

These festival and feast celebrated the accessibility, veneration, awe, and respect of the dead. This was also a time for contemplation. To the ancient Germanic peoples death was never very far away, and it viewed as a natural and necessary part of life. To die was not as much of a surprise or tragedy it is in modern times and death as not viewed as something "scary" or "evil". Of higher importance to the Germanic people was to live & die with honour and thereby live on in the memory of the tribe and be honoured at this great feast.

Starting on this night, the great divisions between the worlds was somewhat diminished which can allow the forces of chaos to invade the realms of order, the material world conjoining with the world of the dead. At this time began the Wild hunt in which the restless spirits of the dead and those yet to be born walked amongst the living. The dead could return to the places where they had lived and food and entertainment were provided in their honour. In this way the tribes were at one with its past, present and future.

Again, the Christians forcefully subverted the sacred Germanic Heathen calendar to honour Christianity, Winter nights on October 31 became "All Hallows Eve" and November 1st was declared "All Saint's Day".

Text from the Odins's Volk online calendar.

Whither the Ring-Givers ?

For my friends and fans who enjoy Kennings and metaphors as much as I do, here is a new poem for you, structured as an Elegy (no, not eulogy, lol)


Whither the Ring-Givers ?
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Beneath a coal grey sky I stoop, upon a barren field, not fallow.
Amongst withered crops I wander, and kinsmen's graves all shallow.

For no men to harvest did we lend, lest your shield wall falter.
Our grain is spent,  no rings adorn our arms, our wealth you did not alter.

We were sons of heimdall brave, and held our oaths till Brynhild's sisters came.
For we loved our lord, our gods and kin, yet you flew with little shame.



In Urd's domain, heavy were my arms with rings, and so proudly did we sail,
O'er the whale road, beneath a shield of gold, our might did never fail.

My battle snake's teeth were daily soaked, my purse dragged at my belt.
Our Ring-Giver lead his fiersome  host, and kings before us knelt.

We the loyal, we the brave, dared Valhalla take us soon,
But Skuld was silent, and shared with us not, that we would lose our boon.



Whither thee Ring-Giver? Have we offended you? Did we not bleed?
But to a deaf sky I rage, my silent quarry will not heed.

I yet remember the heady days in Urd's court, with bellies full and eyes ahead.
So to Skuld's glorious hall we will lead the host, with weapons sharp and foes dead.

We brave and loyal sons of Rig march ever, on Skuld's road ahead,
we must resolve to be steadfast Ring-Givers, ever brave, ever loyal, beyond the halls of the dead.

- Eoghan Odinsson
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