Walpurgisnacht: Why it has nothing to do with Anglo-Saxon Benedictine nun Walburga but everything with Paganism

written and copyrighted by Týra Alrune Sahsnotasvriunt

Surprisingly the misinformation that Anglo-Saxon Benedictine nun Walburga (710-779), who proselytized in Germany (ironically in Heidheim, “Heathen Home”) is the originator of Walpurgis’ Night and that it is a Catholic holiday is a wide-spread one.
This is even something promoted by German bloggers on wordpress, one of them even mentioning that “some” believe there “might be” Pagan roots to this holiday, but “this has never been definitively proven”.
A rather strange claim to those who have researched sources other than wikipedia or the countless Pagan and witches’ forums, groups and pages on here.

No. No. No. The Christian nun Walpurgis/Walburga had *nothing* to do with Walpurgisnacht, the ancient Pagan holiday…!

A translation of the name Walpurgis might already shed some light on the meaning of this holiday. Wal is a word with many translations and meanings, amongst other things, it means “large” and “staff”/”wand” but also “chosen” and “corpse”.
For example: The Walküren (Old Norse: valkyrjar) are the ones choosing the corpses off the battlefield. These Einherjer will fare to Walhalla, the hall of the slain, the chosen warriors, and reap the rewards of their bravery.
As already mentioned on this blog in https://paganmeltingpot.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/its-a-girl-thing-germanic-heroines-warriors-seers-witches-and-goddesses-part-1/, Waluburg (Walborg, Walburg) was also a famous seer of the Semnone tribe.
Naturally, her wand was her instrument of power and she was believed to – metaphorically – carry inside her the (knowledge of the) fate (=life and death) of her tribe if not mankind in general. This is the origin of the (term) “mental pregnancy” that various occult traditions adopted about a thousand years later.

Walpurgisnacht was also called Hexennacht (witches’ night). Magic conducted on this night would “ripen” especially fast and “be born” in the course of May, the ultimate “birth-month”.
Purgis for once is related to the German word Burg, homestead, castle and to the word Berg, mountain, and it also means motherly womb.
The rune Berkana in which the German words “Burg” or “Berg” are being preserved, is the “May”-rune, the birch-tree rune, also known as the rune of birth, rebirth, (fertility), motherly nourishment.
What does Berkana look like? Like a big-breasted and pregnant woman from the side. Mother nature at the height of her life.
Around the time of Walpurgisnacht nature really is “pregnant”; about to give birth to the fruits and flowers of the forests and fields, animals are having their litters, nature is basically exploding with new life.
The cycle of life, especially birth was not only viewed as something sacred but also female mystery and magic.
Metaphorically speaking we are all being suckled at the breasts of mother nature around this time of year: She is the great sustainer, the nourisher who is encouraging us to be fertile, to be productive, to create.
This is why the spirit of especially fertile creatures was “invoked” during this time also – the rabbit and the hen especially.
We already know that Christians also stole Easter, amongst many other things, but indeed the idea of easter eggs and putting up small figurines of rabbits, chicks and spring flowers is a Pagan one. It is unclear whether Eostre (“Ostara” – Easter) was an actual Germanic Goddess or a figure like Frau Holle that was later apotheosized or whether she might have any correlation to Norse Skadi, the “hare-headed” Goddess. This might be a blog post for another day.
Anyhow, May is also the time of year we still celebrate Mother’s Day in Germany and as far as I know also in several other Northern European countries.

Needless to say, the Christian Church hated the idea of women holding such a special, sacred and “powerful” role as creators of life and weavers of magic. The whole Christian religion appears to have been built on males’ inferiority complexes mainly anyhow.
The idea of pregnancy not conceived by the “holy spirit” but ordinary means, was a constant reminder of “original sin” and to celebrate it a sacrilege and an outrage. In the spirit of Exodus 22:18’s “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”, magic was condemned and banned just the same.

Like with so many other Pagan festivals and holy days, the Christian monks had trouble weeding out the beliefs and celebrations associated with Walpurgisnacht and thus claimed it for themselves.
Conveniently the above mentioned nun Walpurga was made the Christian matron of this celebration, May 1st was dedicated to her.

And suddenly the holiday was not so much about birth but about warding off evil witches and ungodly powers.
As if that was not enough, it was also the day in the middle ages, on which evil witches were hanged, drowned, burned and otherwise tortured to death during public spectacles. This event was then lavishly celebrated with dance and song.

This is why it is exceptionally hard to bear that even today’s Pagans and Heathens subscribe to this Christian nonsense. Many Pagans of different traditions gather at the Blocksberg (Brocken area, Saxony-Anhalt/Germany), a mountain (“Berg” > Berkana!) of age-old spiritual significance, and celebrate in a manner that does not befit this blessed day of Mother Nature giving birth.

View over the Brocken area (near Wernigerode in Saxony-Anhalt) from the Blocksberg. This stone altar was renamed “devil’s pulpit” by Christians, a term modern Pagans kept unfortunately…

Instead they are warding off those”evil” powers known as birth, rebirth, motherhood and the magic of creation – without even knowing it (or at least I strongly presume they don’t!)
Nowadays’ Pagans and witches will often sweep the area around the Brocken mountain on April 30th with fern, also known as “devil’s brush” since the early middle ages. This is to keep away the devil, demons, evil spirits and so forth. An obviously VERY Pagan thing to do…

There are several other disturbing traditions that modern Pagans and witches follow without questioning them even once. Why? Because they read them online or in “some medieval book”.
Those who have read the accounts of Tacitus or Cesar on the Germanic tribes know that just because a book is ancient, it is not necessarily completely true. These two above mentioned Romans were experts in confusing facts and even names.

So how can we reconstruct Walpurgisnacht? Even Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn Theodor Storm or Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had it more right than most of today’s polytheists. One of our German “Bauernregeln” (country sayings/folk lores) states that “Ist die Hexennacht voller Regen, wird’s ein Jahr wohl voller Segen”. (If it rains during the witches’ night it will be a year full of blessing.) Another indication of this holy day being a celebration of fertility and (re-)birth. Despite brutal Karl the Great’s conversion of the Saxons to Christianity the “Tanz in den Mai” (dancing into May) remained a beloved and popular religious holiday here, up until today.
Dancing around a Maypole – think about this.
The Maypole symbolizes the phallus. (In our case Ingivi-Fro/Saxnot-Balder’s phallus). The men and women dancing around this pole were blessing his fertility, they were celebrating life itself and ultimately the union or the end-result of the union between “the God and Goddess”.
Our Irish brothers celebreated “Beltane”, not only etymologically related to the Semitic/(Hittite)God Baal or in the North “Balder”.
If you want to celebrate a more authentic Walpurgisnacht, do “freestyle” as much as you like, but always remember the actual reason and intention of this sacred day. Dance around a Maypole, is invoking the powers of the Mother, “Frija” and Saxnot or her/his equivalent, depending on your tradition. Otherwise, meditate, invoke your fertility and “love” deities, divine, drink, eat, be merry, make love in honor of the Gods who made us, who love us and sustain us, still – despite everything we are doing to their worlds – but don’t banish them with silly fear-filled rituals originating in a monotheist religion foreign to us (and basically foreign to life itself).
A popular recipe from early medieval times is the “Walpurgisbowle” or “Waldmeisterbowle” (woodruff punch). It was said to grant everyone who consumes it “the freedom to fly, imagine the future, see (reflect) on the past. (Of course the amount of sugar ensures that you will get drunk rather soon, the punch itself has a similar effect as Absinth has, meaning it will get you “high”) and Basically this punch consists of half a quart (500ml) white wine, half a quart (500ml) champagine, 1 ounce (approx. 30g) of sugar and a handful of woodruff leaves.
Enjoy your “inner journey”.

Builders, Heroes, Primal Gods – The Giants in the Germanic and Norse Traditions

written and copyrighted by Týra Alrune Sahsnotasvriunt

In Germanic and Norse cosmology not Gods came first but Giants. Out of them the multiverse was made, they are at the core essence of everything existent; the primal forces of nature, that – despite being bound to the law and order of the world tree – remain raw and in some ways forever untamed, unbound, evolution unleashed.
That most of mankind and most Germanic Pagans view these forces as “hostile” comes as no surprise, how tiny and insignificant are they in comparison, how powerless and envious.
Just as the Gods created the multiverse by murder thus the majority of mankind copies their actions, intruding, invading and destroying nature and the order of it by any means possible. To conquer and rule these ancient forces is their goal.
Yet once nature retaliates and puts mankind in its place, then the cry is waxen great, to speak in biblical terms.
“Enemies of the Gods”, “world destroyers”, “dumb”, “underdeveloped” “evil”, thus have the Giants been reviled.
All because mankind and Gods are not at the core of their concerns and are but a fraction of it, another wheel in the machinery of life, no more – or less – important than an ant.
Of course neither is all of mankind out to uproot the order of nature nor are all Giants the same. So let us take a look at how versatile these beings, these Primal Gods, truly are.

The murder of Ymir

Etymology

In Old Norse they are called Jotonn, (Swedish Jotun (sg), Jötnar (pl)), the Anglo-Saxons knew them as Eoten and (German) Saxons as Etan or Etin. All of these words are related to the word “to eat” or “hungry” and this is indeed one of the main attributes of the Giants. They are always boundlessly hungry, just like life itself, metaphorically speaking.
Another term for Giant is Thurse, Old Norse þurs (Strength).
The German word “Riese” or Old High German risi or riso, originally wrisi, wriso means the same thing, “strong” or “powerful”. Nowadays the German word “riesig” means “huge”, “gargantuan” though.
The word Hiune (German: Hühne) was first used in Middle High German. It is believed to point to the intermixture between some of the Germanic tribes with the “barbarian Giant-like Huns”, but there is no definitive proof for this assumption.

Runes

Thurisaz is the rune of the incredible strength of the Thursen-Giants. It is also associated with brutish Thunar, slayer of the Thursen and Jöten.

Uruz is the aurochs rune, the rune of the cosmic (“Allmother”) cow Audhumla. It also represents the power of creation and regeneration. For those that equate Audhumla with the Dark Mother figure (Angerboda etc.) Uruz also plays an important role.

Kenaz, the “fire rune” is mostly associated with Loki, sometimes with King Surt or the Giants of Muspili in particular.

In modern times further attempts were made to assign runes to particular Gods and Giants.
For example Hagalaz or Isa are sometimes thought to be Hel’s rune(s), however others believe that Isa is solely Angerboda’s rune and Hagalaz in combination with Thurisaz representative of Ragnarök.

Laguz is linked with Ran or Aegir (and I assume would have to be representative of the Undines and all other “water beings” or beings linked to water, which begs the question whether the Idisen to whom many a pond and lake was dedicated are included in this equation.)

Rökkatrúr believe the Futhorc rune Ac to represent Angerboda, likewise some Rökkatrúr believe that Tiwaz (original chief God Týr’s rune) is a link to the Fenriswolf.

And there are many more examples.
Whatever one may think of reinterpreting and changing a system as ancient and well thought out as the runes everyone must decide for themselves, though.

The Natures and Responsibilities of the Giants

There are Wind-, Weather-, Water-, Mountain-, Forest-, Frost- and Fire Giants and several more.
What all of them have in common is that they “stand as tall as trees and hills”, are usually even-natured unless provoked and keep to themselves and their own kind most of the time.
Plenty of Giant Gods have been described as especially handsome and proportionate.
They do not appear to fit the prejudice of being monstrous, barbarian dim-witted creatures. –

The Thurse Thrym is described as combing his horses’ manes and tending to his dogs with special care.
Gerd is so beautiful that she conquered Wanen God Frey’s heart at first sight.
Thjazi’s daughter Skadi is just as lovely, a skilled and disciplined huntress. She even marries into the Asen line.
Loki’s wit is beyond comparison. If not for him the Asen Gods would not have their most valued weapons and treasures.
Mimir is especially wise, his name translates to “The Pondering”.
Fenja and Menja cannot only see all of the worlds’ past but see the future as well.
And Aegir, Loki’s brother, is a generous host; his feasts are infamous and visited by both giants and Gods alike. He keeps the peace with Thunar even after he calls the Lord of the Sea a slave and inferior to the Asen, insulting Aegir’s hospitability.

Aegir, the “barnteitr”

Whereas certain criteria must be met to be allowed into Wal’s hall, Hel is welcoming to all, no matter how they met their end.
Eggdher is the giant’s watchman, a thorough and meticulous Thurs who is sitting atop a mountain watching for intruders or playing his flute.
Suttung is also known as “Fjalar the Wise”.
Jord/Fjörgyn/Fitjung/Hlödyn is the embodiment of the earth. Is she not all-wise and by being welcoming to all all-loving in her own way?
Wafthrudnir (mighty riddler) is known for his boundless wisdom. The only question he can in fact not answer is what Wotan whispered into Balder’s ear on the latter’s deathbed.
Sunna (sun) and Dag (day) light our days and Mani (moon) and Nott (night) our nights; we have their parents Nör, Mundilfari (world-turner) and Delling to thank for their existence.
Other attributes of the Giant Gods are fjólkunnig and hundvíss (knowledgeable), froþe (smart), ámáttegr (almighty), trolltrygg (faithful as a Giant) meaning faithful till death, something that holds especially true for Sigyn who remained by bound Loki’s side for aeons.

Statue of Fenja and Menja in Odense/Denmark, ~1967

So where does the idea originate that they are dim-witted, underdeveloped and inferior to the Asen and Wanen Gods?
For once the Giants are often known to be barnteitr, happy as children, a term especially attributed to Aegir.
This term at least implies a certain kind of emotional simplicity; as knowledgeable and intelligent as many of them are, they have no interest in the complications that Gods and humans have created for themselves and the rest of the multiverse, be they of emotional or another nature.
Nature itself is rather “simple”; there are few grey areas. Nature’s laws are black and white, they are impartial to a large degree and do not place the well-being and survival of mankind, which is grandiose enough to deem itself special, first.
A good example for this would be Brünhild’s Helvegr (“ride to Hel” in the Elder Edda) on which she is halted by an unnamed Giantess (most likely Modgud). The Giantess speaks:

Modgud, the Giantess that initially refuses to let Brünhild pass

“Depart! You shall not pass though
My tall gates of towering stone:
It befits a wife to wind yarn,
Not to know another’s husband.”

It takes Brünhild a while to explain to the Giantess that she was tricked by evil men and that Siegfried is her true husband, that she belongs with him in death as she would have in life. She did not break any oaths (on her own accord), she did not violate the laws of nature hence. Such treachery, betrayal and cunning is apparently completely unknown to the otherwise rather knowledgeable Giantess, who is not unfamiliar with Brünhild and her fate save for the manmade trials and tribulations.
I often hear people say they wished they could live a simpler life, return or reconnect with nature, far away from the rest of society and its complex systems, only then would they be happy.
This is basically the “Giant life”. To return to nature means to absolutely and unquestioningly submit yourself to the primal and unchangeable forces of life.

In addition to the wise and witty Giants there are indeed those who are not just emotionally but intellectually simpler.
They don’t expect to be cheated and betrayed as they so often are in lore, folk and fairy tales either; they are true to their word, upright and honest and have no ulterior motives hence it is easy to make a fool of them, because they keep repeating their “mistake” of being honest and having no ulterior motives. For a while at least…until they catch on and unleash their terrible (though justified) wrath upon men, the earth and Gods alike.
To call these Giants dumb and insensitive is unjust though. They are the natural urges, the subconscious powers embodied. They, too, play an important role in the cycle of life, even if an uncomfortable one that is harder to comprehend oftentimes.

Their names already speak volumes:

We have Surt (dark), Syrpa (dirty colored), Lodin (shaggy) and Skinnnefja (fur nosed), Hrimgrimnir (frost-grim); all of who might just fit the common criteria for beauty a little less than the Giants mentioned in the second paragraph.
Jarnhaus (iron head), Hardhaus (hard head) and Skalli (skull) sound like stubborn but possibly also quite steady fellows.
A tad more intimidating sounding names are Hardgreip (hard grip), Wolvesmage (wolf stomach – voracious) Hrungnir (constantly hungry one), Hástígi (fast runner).
Many of these Giants are described as multi-headed creatures with dysmorphic proportions and some are alleged to have multiple extremities.
Scholars assume that these originally non-Germanic Giant beliefs may have been influenced by extended contacts with the Orient.

The unruliness and chaotic raw power of these type of Giants is not only displayed in their names but their features also. It is as though the power within is too large for them, fighting to break free again, misshaped their bodies in the process.
These are the Giants, often Thurses, who are responsible for floods, tornadoes, avalanches, tsunamis and other natural disasters. It includes Surt, King of Muspelheim, who longs to burn the world to the ground with his sword of fire. He sits on his throne biding his time until Ragnarök.

King Surt

They all are the cleaning agents of nature, dangerous and sometimes deadly. Hostile? In a way, yet only if you consider death the enemy of life rather than a part of the everlasting cycle.
Personally I have no desire to leave this mortal coil just yet, but I would prefer dying in a natural disaster rather than being shot dead by a thug out to get the 20 Euros in my purse. Fact is mankind is much more hostile towards mankind than nature could ever be.
Nature does everything for a reason whereas mankind acts on whims and trends according to their “Zeitgeist” most of the time.

The Worlds of the Giants plus Utangard and Ginnungagap

The first two worlds were Muspelheim and Nifelheim, realm of ice – Hel’s domain.
On top of these two there is Jötunheim, home to Giants of all tribes. Jötunheim is surrounded by the mountain range Grjótúnagard, where King Thrym and his Thursen folk reside.
Not only are the Giants found in all of the above mentioned realms but also in Midgard (and most likely all other remaining worlds), where they live in boulders, trees, in mountains, in the ocean and deep inside the earth. Again: they are what everything in the multiverse is made of, there is no way of locking them in or out of a world. Their power transcends everything.

Lastly there is Utgard or Utangard, the “outer limits” of Germanic cosmology, home of King Utgard-Loki and more wild Thursen folk.
To make this very clear, Utgard is traditionally not one of the nine worlds, it is considered an Otherrealm by most Germanic and Norse Pagans.
Thursatrú acknowledges eleven worlds of which Utgard and also Ginnungagap are a part. Ginnungagap is the empty space, the great divide, nothingness, in which everything comes undone and is re-assembled before returning to order; the runes for example.
Whether it is a world but rather a state is debatable though I presume.
The same holds true for Utgard. It is not part of the order of the multiverse, something that becomes evident in the traits of its Giants. They appear not to have any of the trolltryggd in them that are innate in their world tree-cousins and are sly and often deceitful too.
Whilst the Yggdrasilian Giants still carry in them the original (Gnostic or primal divine) spark of a state of being before order, they too were forced into shape.
They are known to be able to shape shift in most (or possibly all) cases, but are still bound to the cycle and its order while residing in the multiverse.
Let it be noted that they willingly remain in it as it is made clear throughout the Eddas and other lore that Yggdrasilians and Utgardians can very well cross over into each other’s realities.

Utgardians are free of the cycle and its laws in their realm, but are they free in ours? – Skrymir, who has a run-in with Thunar at the outskirts of Midgard, is often equated with Utgard-Loki. While Thunar is traveling to Utgard, a Giant named Skrymir joins him.
We know that Thunar regularly journeys to Jötunheim to slaughter Giants with his hammer Mjölnir. Never has it been mentioned that Mjölnir did not fulfill its purpose.
Yet when Thunar attempts to murder Skrymir in his sleep three nights in a row he fails. Skrymir’s only comments in the mornings are that he wonders whether a tree leaf, acorn or bird refuse accidentally landed on his face at night, as he is noticing a slight itch on it.
The Utgardians appear to possess greater strength (and slyness) even in our realm.
In their own outer limits they can take shape if they want to, as they did when Thunar and Loki fared to visit them, but they don’t appear to remain in one form for long or only take it on in order to trick the Yggdrasilians visiting Utgard.
The “great Thunderer” Thunar was completely powerless against the Utgardian Thursen. His strength and knowledge was no match for the forces of boundless freedom, formlessness and chaos.
This is why I would view both Ginnungagap as well as Utgard as completely separate from the tree, with qualities and goals that run diametrically opposed to ours.
There is no reason for enmity though; different realities can indeed co-exist without (much) interference and especially without warfare after all.

Utgard-Loki

The Price and Reward of Reintegrating into the Circle

The Eddas, folk tales and later (christianized) German fairy tales are filled with accounts of Giants as great builders, fine constructionists but also brutish simpletons with either rather basic needs or demands beyond human perception.
The story of Blast whose terms of building the walls of Asgard the Gods pretend to agree to, while really plotting to murder him, was already told in https://paganmeltingpot.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/holy-horse-horses-in-the-germanic-and-other-polytheist-traditions/.
Usually these kinds of stories are rather similarly constructed. The Giant agrees to do as he was asked by God or mortal and in return demands the home owner, his virginal daughter or in the case of Blast, the Wanen Goddess Freija as payment.
If we look at this as a metaphor, the meaning could not get much more obvious than this. This is the harsher (sounding) version of three times three.
If you invoke the primal, all-powerful forces of nature you better be prepared to pay the price to keep the balance intact.
Living in accordance with the natural laws, giving yourself to these ancient forces will bring you unimagined knowledge. – But you will lose your metaphorical “virginity”, basically your innocence and ignorance, in the process. There is no turning back. And this is not an easy road to walk.

Grimm’s fairy tale “Das tapfere Schneiderlein”

The trolltrygga – ever-loyal – Giants never breech their contract in lore. They neither lie nor deceive, yet they are merciless in their demands and in their conduct, that much is true.
In the Grimm’s fairy tale Das tapfere Schneiderlein (The brave Tailor) the tailor has a run-in with a Giant who invites him to compete with him. Whilst the Giant plays fairly, the tailor cheats his vis-á-vis in order to win.
Needless to say the tailor is the “hero” in this story, alas, what moral of the story this is supposed to teach us I am not quite sure, but it remains a popular fairy tale nonetheless.

In another Grimm’s fairy tale, Von einem jungen Riesen (Of a Young Giant) a human boy the size of a thumb is adopted by a Giant who feeds him of his own breast milk. 7 years later, when the boy is as tall as his stepfather, the Giant takes him to the forest and asks him to uproot a group of trees. The boy completes the task after some struggle.
Dissatisfied, the Giant takes home the boy again and feeds him for another 7 years until he asks him once more to uproot a group of trees. This continues once more until the boy has become a Giant himself. He returns home to his birth parents. Yet they are terrified of his height and strength and send him away.
In the course of the fairy tale it is emphasized that the once human boy is not just a Giant physically but he has become a Giant emotionally as well.
He finds employment on a farm, but instead of asking for food, shelter or money as payment he asks to strike his employer three times.
Interestingly the farmer agrees to this demand because he does not believe the Giant will complete the chores he assigned him on time. A big mistake.
On payday the farmer attempts to talk the Giant out of the agreed three strikes.
Enraged, the Giant hits his employer so hard he is cast out of sight, far beyond the horizon. The Giant then turns to the farmer’s wife and tells her she will have to pay the rest of her husband’s debt. The terrified woman begs for mercy; in vain.

In this story we find another universal law. That energy set in motion will have to discharge somewhere. This is the impartial, seemingly “careless” and merciless side of the Giants (or basically nature itself) mentioned earlier.
Likewise, in the Bible it is written that God will haunt and persecute the children and their children’s children of those breaking the covenant. This is the same principle. This is part of a person’s orlog (family fate) or as the Bible calls it, “original sin”.

Of course not all interactions with Giants demand a hard price to pay. There are also those tales of great reward and friendship between humans and Giants in which their strength is praised but also their meekness and goodness of the heart are emphasized.
In those tales Giants literally cry a river when witnessing the death of small forest animals and give them a worthy burial.
They are the protectors of the forests, tending to wounded animals and nursing them back to health, helping pregnant animals deliver their young, or they uproot dead trees and craft from them nice winter homes for rabbits, birds and other small or larger animals.
Some Forest Giants seek shelter on farms during especially stormy, icy winter nights. Come spring they grant the farmers their protection from spring floods and tend to their fields, granting them a good harvest.

That the forces of nature are always both gentle and cruel, raw and merciful, steady and turbulent is emphasized in the marriage between Aegir and Ran. Aegir interacts friendlily with the Gods and grants good speed to every ship of mortals that he encounters.
His wife Ran (greedy robber) is the exact opposite. The sea witch in the fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” is based on her and like the original she collects unlucky souls and offers unholy contracts.
Ran herself sinks ships and forces sailors to live in her dark, wet, chilly hall. Neither Gods nor men interest her much if they don’t do as she pleases. The sea is both friend and foe to humans and especially seafarers.

Ran

 Animal Giants

The most popular animal Giants are probably the Fenriswolf and Jörmungand, the Midgard Serpent. Fenris’ only crime was to grow swiftly in size and be insanely hungry at all times, gladly devouring everything the Asen Gods presented him with.
A great appetite is not exactly unusual for Giants, yet fearing young Fenris’ great strength and that they might be overthrown, the Asen Gods tricked and bound him.
In the process they betrayed and dismembered one of their own, Týr, who had given his word to Fenris that he would not be harmed.

Hel, Fenris and Jörmungand

Jörmungand (from Old Norse jormun = Mighty and gandr = staff/wand) is sometimes described as curling around Midgard after he was thrown so carelessly into the sea by the Asen Gods.
Neither is Jörmungand’s sex mentioned nor are there any accounts about it other than a short notion that Thunar will slay the great serpent during Ragnarök and that he is known to go and stir it, poking, prodding and beating at it without much success – and most importantly – without point nor apparent reason.
Jörmungand could easily plague if not annihilate Midgard if it is large enough to curl around it. However, it doesn’t cause much trouble other than stir the sea at times and feed off careless sailors. Only when provoked by Thunar does Jörmungand display its true might.
(Although it might be concluded that – Jörmungand aside – generally minimizing the giant population as Thunar regularly does or “keeping the forces of unbound evolution in check” is a way of ensuring at least some form of stability and keeping the powers in “balance” for now.)

Jörmungand, the “Mighty Staff”

In order to trick Jörmungand into thinking that it was just another sea serpent gliding through the waters rather than a boat full of mortals, the Vikings’ figurehead was a serpent head.
It is interesting that save for Loki’s only humanoid daughter with Angerboda, Hel, all of his children are bound in some form or another. Jörmungand is basically being “bound” around the countries of this earth and forced to eat its own tail.
Fenrir is bound by magically crafted rope.
Nari and Narfi are not bound but their intestines are used to bind Loki after Balder’s death.
Obviously, the binding of all these above-mentioned Giants was not very conductive to the survival of the Asen in the very end, but maybe they knew this and their story is not the Greek tragedy it appears to be at first sight. If they are the “Gods of consciousness” they will most likely be aware that a multiverse created the way it was would end (or keep repeating itself) in the same way.

Ironwood

There are also the wolves of Ironwood, Angerboda’s other children. She nurses and prepares them until it is time for the end battle.
Her wolverine sons Skoll (greedy) and Hati (hateful) roam the skies, hunting Sunna, the sun, and Mani, the moon. For now we will have to thank them for chasing after the two, for Sunna and Mani had been too vain and lazy to shine their lights upon Gods, Giants, wights and men. If not for Loki who unleashed Skoll and Hati on them, we would all sit in eternal darkness now.
Skoll is so gargantuan that he will swallow Sunna whole, come Ragnarök. Luckily “Elf Candle” as she is also known, bore a child before her death, who will illuminate the New World.

Nidhögg with messenger squirrel Ratatösk

The Storm and Weather Giant Hräsvelg (corpse-eater) is sitting atop the world tree, causing both storm as well as gentle breeze when flapping his wings.
The serpent (dragon) Nidhögg (low cowerer) curls around the base of the Yggdrasil, chewing at its roots. Nidhögg and Hräsvelg do not grow tired of throwing insults back and forth at each other. Alas they are so far away from each other on the tree that the squirrel Ratatösk keeps running back and forth between them, delivering their snarky messages.

Eight-legged Sleipnir is the size of a regular horse, yet since both his parents are the newly-called “Rökkr”-Giants (a term I’m not opposed to but that should be mentioned is not historical) what else would he be? He is well-liked by Germanic and Norse Pagans while his siblings are usually condemned and hated. Yet…it is Sleipnir that carries Wotan towards his death, his brother Fenrir will devour that once foreign and most likely originally Eastern/Slavic God.

All these animal Giants appear not to be able to change shape. The Giants born into humanoid shape are often described as transforming into animals though.
Loki regularly turns into a fox.
Thjazi transforms into a Giant eagle.
Fafnir on the other hand used to be human and later changed himself into the grisly dragon that Siegfried slew.
Grendel might just be a kind of Giant, he is described as a strange blend between animal and human.
Is it supposed to tell us something that the animal Giants cannot change shape? Do they possess less power? Or are they more primal and hence powerful in turn, more Giant-like in nature because they are all instinct without complicated thoughts confusing them?
All of the above mentioned play a pivotal role in Ragnarök, without them the cycle could not be ended, a new cycle could not be begun.

Storm Jotun

Historical and Modern Giant Cult

Ich paut dir Fasolt, dass du das wetter verfirst mir und meinen nachpauren ân schaden.
(“I beg you, Fasolt, that you grant me good weather and keep harm from my neighbors and me”).
Thus goes an ancient German prayer to Storm- and Weather Giant Fasolt.
To say that there are no traces of a historical Giant cult or of Giant veneration is not completely correct hence. There are – admittedly scarce – traces in the fairy tales and in classical lore as mentioned before. One other example is the prayer of Thorvald Holbark to Surt (!) in Landnamabók.
Save for the above weather blessing and a few vardulokkur and galdralát as sung in Seid rituals – such as the Buslabaen – there are however few testimonies that Giants were called upon. Which is not to say that they could not have existed, a lot got lost in the course of christianization after all.
One German(ic) incantation to stop heavy bleedings addresses “Tumbo” (unfeeling, silent, the name of a Stone Giant). It speaks of how Tumbo is sitting in a mountain with a child in his arms. The Giant is being flattered by calling him “holy” and then asked to close the wound.
Whether this charm or prayer was tied to the rock formation of a specific location that looked like a Giant holding a child cannot be determined anymore.
It’s possible that just like the German Horse Blessing there are forgotten allegories or metaphors we just cannot decipher anymore nowadays.

Even if there had never been a historical Giant cult, who says they cannot or should not be venerated? They have truly remained trolltrygg and have kept this world alive and still in relative balance despite what we have done and continue to do to it. For this alone they deserve the utmost respect that they were so long denied.

Their path is one of selflessness. They know of their personal futures, of their fates, and yet they accept it, working towards the next great leap in evolution (Ragnarök) without fear or regret. Nature itself cannot die. Nothing can. There is no death, only transformation.
The Asen are fighting so that there will be something left after our world has been burned, that is their role and they fulfill it just as dutifully. They are the stabilizing forces, without the giants they would represent stagnation. Without the Asen the giants would be “Utangardian”, unpredictable and most likely utterly dangerous.

If you praise the Asen and the Wanen, blot to the Alben, toast the dwarves, bow to the Idisen and give a nightly thanks to your Fylgja, yes, even give an acknowledging nod to Hel around the time of the second Idisenblot, do not be a hypocrite and shun or ignore those forces this world was made of and still essentially consists of. Hail the Giants!

Balder, Frija and the Relics of the pre Germanic Fertility Cult

written and copyrighted by Týra Alrune Sahsnotasvriunt

The hero was inextricably connected to the matriarchal Goddess. Just as she, the Earthmother, was the embodiment of the cycle of life as maiden, mother and crone, the hero, Sunfather, in his birth/son, sacrifice and rebirth aspects was too.
He was not permitted to age or die of old age; otherwise the cycle would have been broken. Instead, he was sacrificed.
In other words, he was given back to the cycle during the height of his fertility, so he would return renewed, refreshed and the cycle would begin anew.
By returning into the Earth (mother) he fertilized her until she was ready to give birth to him again.
Some people are offended by these apparently “incestuous” ideas, but it is important to understand that they are not to be taken literally.
These were metaphors known in almost every ancient culture. They were merely a way of explaining the circle of life in a non-scientific way with strong images everyone could relate to at that time.

Frija/Frigga/Frikka the great Weaver, depicted with swans (also the attribute animals of the Valkyries and Idisen).

Traces of the Earthmother/Sunfather idea can be found in the tale of Balder and Frija (Frigg). Balder (Lord) and Frija (Lady, originally “beloved” from Sanskrit priya) belong together as the later siblings Frikka and Frikko or Freija (Lady) and Frey (Lord) do.
Originally these were not divine names but only titles with which they were respectfully addressed.
These titles lived on the Old High German word frouwe and nowadays German Frau for “woman”, “miss/misses”, (“wife”) or Fräulein for “young miss” (literally: “little lady”).

Balder’s death

Balder is not just gentle and fair, his beauty is so overwhelming that it is described as “gleaming”, he is “like the sun”, loved and appreciated by all.
Frija, his mother, knows the future of all beings. She foresaw Balder’s death.
It is hard to believe she would just “forget” to ask the thistle to swear an oath on not harming her beloved son.
Especially if she foresaw that in order to rule in the New World Balder had to “die”/fare to Hel so he would survive Ragnarök.
She must have acted in accordance with Loki and the “masterplan”.
This was remembered in the annual ritual spearing of a boar, slaughter of a white horse or the stag that was shot with an arrow around the time of harvest. This ritual sacrifice and the following celebration were similar in style to the original Celtic Lughnasad celebrations, although the background stories differ mostly.
By the way, boar, white horse and stag are attributed to the God Frey as well.
(Compare https://paganmeltingpot.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/holy-horse-horses-in-the-germanic-and-other-polytheist-traditions/).
In this charm Balder is first called “Phol” (Foal God) before it is mentioned that the foal he was riding on had twisted its ankle. Most scholars were quick enough to identify Phol as Frey, but for some reason refused to equate him with Balder.

In Southern Germany Frija was known as Frikka. At least two local legends in the Schweinfurt (“Pig (boar)’s ford” – !) area near Frikkenklingen are about her and her son Lall (also: Loll, Löll, Lell, Lull), meaning “Little Lord”, to whom a fenced iron statue was dedicated.
It was the statue of a young boy with poppy wreath draped around his neck and shoulders and curly hair as fair as the sun (>sunwheel/cycle of life).
With his right hand he was touching his tongue in lustful jest (>maturation), in his right hand he held a cup of wine filled with ears of corn (>sacrifice).
He was naked save for a loincloth and the effigy of vitality, fertility, youth and beauty, a remnant of the ancient “Sunfather” God, youthful companion of the Mother Goddess.
The German word lallen (to babble) is directly based on the child-God Lall. He marks the transition from babbling infant to child and child to young adulthood. These children are still called “toothers” (Zahner) in German.
This is also where the idea of the “tooth fairy” comes from:
A Swedish legend says that when Frey was little the Gods gave him Albenheim (Alfheim) as a gift for growing his first tooth.
A custom that was adopted by many peoples in the North, giving little gifts to their toothing children in order to soothe their pain and welcome the next stage of their lives.

As the patriarchal Wotan cult and the Roman influence altered the originally matriarchal structures of pre and early Germanic society from simple to developed to dependent matriarchy and then – at last – patriarchy, this had to be explained in lore somehow.
This is the origin of the Wanen-Asen war.
The Wanen deities were given male counterparts who dominated them or had distinctly more power.
In some cases they were replaced by superior male Gods; in Saxon Nerthus’ case: Njörd who was made father of Freija and Frey.
Wotan did not replace but marry Frija, but he “stole” her presidency as head of the Wild Hunt, amongst many other things.
In fact Frija, the weaver of fates, the Nornen Queen, was suddenly good for little else than to bless marriages and watch over them.
When her husband had been away on his travels for so long the Asen thought he was not to return anymore, his brothers Vili and Ve decided to divide all his riches but share (!) Frija.
This humiliating practice was common law in the Germanic and Norse societies in the early middle ages.
Furthermore, Freija, both maiden and crone aspect of Frija, the mother, was degraded to being a whorish love deity who slept with four dwarves for a necklace…amongst other things… Welcome to patriarchy.

It’s a Girl Thing – Germanic Heroines, Warriors, Seers, Witches and Goddesses *Part 2*

written and copyrighted by Týra Alrune Sahsnotasvriunt

This is the second part of the Germanic Women series. In the first part the role of the Sibyllen/Völvas, Matrons, Norns and Disir were covered.

Walküren (Valkyries)

The Walküren once were more than just „Wotan’s Wishmaidens“. The independent guardian spirits of the dead suddenly had a stern, “all-powerful” master in Wotan, and were not good for much else than to fulfill his personal demands and act on his whims.
The origins of the Walküren lie in the pre indo-Germanic mother/Goddess cult. Their name alone sparks terror, for Old Norse valkyrjar and Old English waelcyrge mean those who choose the corpses (from the battlefield) or literally “corpse-chooser”.
The only account regarding the original independent nature of the Walküren is found in the Njalssaga. It speaks of twelve females sitting at a weaving chair inside a mound. Their weaving wool is made of human intestines, the weights for looms are made up of male skulls. They are singing a song about harvesting the warriors on a battlefield.

After finishing their grisly incantation the Walküren leave the mound, six of them ride towards the South and six towards the North. (Six to Muspilli and six to Nifl? Also, six is the number of rebirth or renewal by destruction; this is the Kenaz rune principle, the sixth rune of the Futhark dedicated to world-renewer Loki.)
It is insinuated that while they are sitting inside the mound weaving the warriors’ fates they are at the same time present on the battlefield itself.
Like the Nornen the Walküren alone decide what to weave, what warriors, both male and female, to choose and who to spare.
Neither prayer nor offering will change their decision; they are independent and do not answer to any God such as Wotan, let alone humans.

As already mentioned their independence was taken from them later on; but even worse, in Medieval Skaldic Poetry the Walküren are described as lowering themselves enough to fall in love with mortals.
These beings obviously have nothing in common with the strong, independent female guardian spirits that once wove the fates of warriors; instead they let humans determine theirs (!) as the story of Brünhilde and Siegfried (Das Nibelungenlied) shows.

This particular storyline of the Nibelungs is especially interesting as it points to the death of the Mother Goddess cult, which did not suit the rigid and patriarchal structures of Medieval, and most importantly increasingly Christian, society.
In the course of the story Brünhilde the Walküre is betrayed and dethroned by men. Still, as long as she is in possession of her magical belt, she remains independent to a degree.
Siegfried and Gunther trick her, forcing off her belt and Siegfried rapes her in front of her husband, Gunther. The matriarch is dead, figuratively speaking, and as she falls and the balance between male and female rule is destroyed, thus falls all of mankind: The saga of the Nibelungs ends with an inferno no one survives, a kind of Ragnarök on a smaller scale.

The same principle can be found in Véølundarkvipa. Here, as much as in several folk tales, the Walküren are depicted as swans. The swan, representing purity both spiritually as well as physically, was also associated with the soul and death in general.
In Véølundarkvipa the swan girls fly through the dark forest to “ørlog drýgja” – decide (clan/family) fate. They sit down at a lake, taking off their wings and feathers to “weave fine linen”, in other words they weave the fate(s) of the warriors on the battlefield.
Wölund and his brothers steal their feathers and force them to take them as husbands. 7 years go by in which the Walküren yearn to return to weaving the fates of the warriors. In the 8th year they plot their escape, in the 9th year (note the sacred number 9 in this context) they leave behind their captors and children to become what they once were. This, of course, is a bit of a happier ending, if only slightly.

There is also an Anglo-Saxon blessing in which the Walküren are basically described as a witch army riding in the sky and casting their spears down into the warriors’s backs, claiming them thus. The (German) Saxons held a similar view of the Walküren and so even in today’s German we use the word Hexenschuß (“witch shot”) for lumbalgia.

It is the Idisen (Disir) that are specifically named in the first Merseburg Incantation, yet it is impossible not to think of the Walküren when reading the following:

“Eiris sazun idisi, sazun hera duoder,
suma hapt heptidun, suma heri leridun,
suma clubodun umbi cuoniouuidi:
insprinc haptbandun, inuar uigandun”

 Once Disir were sitting, sitting here and there.
Some were binding fetters, some were restraining the army.
Some were undoing the fetters, ????????
Free yourself from the fetters, escape the warriors!

Are the Walküren Hlokk (“restraint/chain”) and Herfjotr (“fetter”) described in this charm? It becomes clear that the idea of Idisen, Walküren, Nornen, Alrunen (witches), anthropomorphic Fylgjen, Hamingjen and others all seem to have influenced each other to some degree; it can be tricky to distinguish between them nowadays because contemporary Norse and Germanic Pagans mostly don’t make the same tribal distinctions between Gods, beings and practices anymore as was common in the old days. To shed some light on the Idisen/Walküren mystery though: In Germany the Norse Valkyries were adopted from the Norse and the Idisen turned into meek, benevolent female spirits, often ancestral spirits.

Alrune, Heid, Haegse – The Witches

There is a common misconception amongst the majority of today’s witches that everything was peachy for witches in “ye olden days”. This is not completely the case with the Germanic peoples.

There were Healers and Herbalists, those we would call Naturopaths today. They applied their potions, crèmes and herbs while whispering charms or prayers.
Healing used to be a solely female occupation and was passed on from mother, aunt or grandmother to the younger female generation of one family; there are no accounts of male healers from those times at all. Under certain circumstances women could fight alongside the men on the battlefields, yet men were barred from entering the areas of “female mysteries” without exception.

Countless accounts from Viking times mention that the Germanic healers that accompanied their army or troop set up their tents near the battlefield and treated both their own men as well as the hostile warriors.
They treated them no differently and if need arose, they buried them and spoke a blessing over their grave as well.
One example is the account of the healer Halldora:
“Halldora called her women to follow her into the battle between Glums against Thorarinn. – “We shall tend to the wounds of the men who are still filled with life, no matter which army they are from”.
The story mentions another interesting belief from those days; healers could not only heal but resurrect the dead as Helga did with Thorarinn.

What might the mighty Walküren have thought of this? Or did this happen in accordance with them?
Another thought comes to mind. – What of Iduna and her “magical” (healing) apples? Once the Asen Gods did not have them at their disposal they grew old and withered. Had Iduna not returned in time to rejuvenate them and they had died, would she have been able to resurrect them as well?
It is Eir that is the healer amongst the Asen, but not even she holds the power to resurrect the dead. This truly is a practice that reeks of witchcraft rather than (natural) healing.
Many unanswered questions remain when it comes to “loopholes” in the usually very structured Germanic belief system of old.

The Völven (aka Sibyllen, Spákonur, Wicce – Wise Women/Seers), already mentioned in part 1, often traveled from Hof (farm) to Hof, offering their services and in return demanding food and shelter until they journeyed on.
Whether these women, who were often called to mediate between two opposing tribes or political factions within one tribe, possessed actual magical powers or were mainly mentalists with exceptional power of observations is a matter of interpretation I presume.
They did, however, consult the runes (as described in the accounts of the battle between Sueban king Ariovist against Cesar 58 BC for example) and worked with other oracles and incantations called vardlokkur (spirit-luring) in Old Norse.
The lines were blurred between Völven and Wîsiu Wîp, wise women, as they were called in German and Spákonur (seeing women) in Old Norse.

Divination was regarded as a high magical art indeed, yet witchcraft was also often viewed as harmful and dangerous as it was a direct infringement onto the personal wyrd and orlog of a person. The further the North was christianized the more Christianity influenced the beliefs of those who remained Pagan.
Had they already been skeptical and partly fearful of certain types of witchcraft, they now fell prey to the mass-hysteria and bottomless fear of witches; they persecuted and banished those accused of practicing magic almost as much as the Christians did.
There were many different names for witches, specifying what kind of witchcraft they practiced. The more Christianity wreaked havoc the more negative connotations these originally rather neutral names received.

To give a few examples:

The word Haegse originally meant fence-seer in Old High German. It was related to the Old High German word Hagazussa meaning fence-sitter and the Old Norse word Túnridur meaning fence-rider.
Both are pointing to the Shamanic practice of traveling between the worlds.
Later, however, the Haegsen and Hagazussen were suddenly described as being monstrous, evil magic-weavers living in the deep, dark forest and coming out at night to plague and harm common people.
The word fence-sitter or fence-rider was reinterpreted as meaning that the witches were breaking the “Hoffrieden” (literally: farm-peace) and destroying the sacred barriers (fences) of the community against unlucky and negative forces.

Likewise the terms Myrkridur (Old Norse: Darkrider), Kveldridur (Old Norse: Eveningriders), or Nahtvrouwen (Old High German: Nightwomen) were also reinterpreted to mean something solely negative and sinister, instead of describing the practice of diving into the “dark”, i.e. subconscious powers within via Shamanic or other magical journeys.

The Hamhleypa (Icelandic: Running into a different Shape = shapeshifter) were accused of transforming into an animal and bringing on hail, storms, being responsible for a bad harvest, the death of cattle or children. These misconceptions about witches lived far beyond the middle ages and frighteningly are embraced by a majority of the followers of the monotheistic religions to this day.

There is one famous incantation in the Hávamál (13th century) against the “evil witchcraft” of the Hamhleypa:

“One tenth I know, when Trollkonor (Magical Women)
Ride through the air in flight:
Make them change their route I can[.]
Homeward, robbed of their cover (their animal form or (dis)guise)
Homeward with a confused mind.”

The author of the Hávamál, the Icelander Snorri Sturlason, was a Christian who lived in a completely Christian society already, so his accounts of witches (and alleged incantations warding them off) better be taken with a grain of salt.

Similar to the Hamhleypa was the practice of Hamfór and Gandreiðr. As mentioned in part 1, a Gand or Gander was a kind of wand, but Gandr also meant spirit, ghost, other-worldly creature. A Gandreiðr was “spirit-riding”, basically a magical, Shamanic journey during which you could see your past, present or future in a different light. Likewise the Hamfór was a spiritual journey during which your soul left the body and traveled through different spheres to gather information.
The giantess Hyrrokin was described as riding on a wolf (gezäumt) with snakes when attending Balder’s funeral. Hyrrokin is sometimes equated with Angerboda. Did Angerboda-Hyrrokin attend Balder’s funeral during her Gandreid in order to see or secure his future after Ragnarök? If not by her consort Loki’s doing, Balder would not have been kept safe by Hel during the end battle so he could return to the New World afterwards.

Other names for witches were Alrunen (all-whisperers/rune-expert), Heid (clear, bright), Fordoeða (Murderer), Wicce (pronounced “witcheh”. Anglo-Saxon: knowledgable, wise, from which the modern term “Wicca” comes from), Anglo-Saxon Witega (knowing signs), Old High German Wizago (German: “Weissager”) and Old Norse Vitki all describe someone who is knowledgeable in the art of divination (usually conducted with runes).
The Old Norse word Galster is related to Old High German Kalstahari, a term for someone who knows how to sing the magical songs, the vardulokkur or galdralát as described above.
Although there are some historians and scholars who insist that all witchcraft was persecuted pre-Christian times, the different descriptions and attributes of the different terms for ‘witch’ indicate otherwise.
After all several Gods (Freija, Holle-Frigga, Iduna, etc.), Jöten and Thursen (Hyrrokin, Heid, Gullveig, Elli, Fenja and Menja, etc.) and wights practice magic and/or witchcraft without any negative connotation in lore. The Völva of the Völuspa, Heidi, is human even and both humanity as well as Gods were grateful for her messages.

Bindrunes for galdraworkings

The Edda teaches that Wotan even crossed the social taboo of forcing himself into the sacred space of female mysteries such as healing, witchcraft and divination; he learned the “womanly” art of Seid, the art of divining with the help of the spirits (of the deceased), something that Völven traveling from Hof to Hof also often engaged in.
However, Seid (Old Norse: Seidhr) became popular enough for several males to become Seidmen. These men were often looked down upon, probably because this “womanly” practice was of female Wanen origin and it was mentioned that the war-happy Asen were helpless against the Seid magic of the Wanen deities.

Seid could also be used against people as described in the stories of the witch Busla who curses a king with galdr to do her bidding and in Laxdoelasaga it is the farmer Thorleikr who asks the witch Grima to help him curse his neighbor.
In both cases the witches cursed the men while they were asleep and helpless, something that influenced the medieval (Christianized) belief of “demonic” Alben riding people’s chests at night in order to cause bad dreams and bad luck.
Since the Germanic peoples were all highly virtuous and incredibly brave folks with a strong morale of right and wrong it comes as no surprise that such cowardly practices that avoided a fair and open fight were condemned and despised.
In fact, they were even punishable by fine or in the case of Ragnvold in the Förnmannasaga it was even punishable by death.
It’s also possible that Seid, “death magic”, was also feared more than other forms of divination, because of the old Germanic belief in aptrgangr, draugr, other kinds of revenants and ghostly beings out to harm humans.
Seid is often described as being accompanied by heavy storms, the Gerningaveðr (magical weather).
In later times people were of the opinion that only evil magic brought on such storms.

Yet…where was Thor when his domain was invaded like this? Is this just an indication that the Gods did not intervene unasked, much like nowadays when we pollute and destroy the earth given to us, or that while humans viewed such witchcraft and storms as evil the Gods did not? Who knows.
Fact is that even in today’s Germany we know the term Wetterhexe (weather witch) which is used either to describe meteorologists but also people very sensitive to the weather, and is not associated with anything harmful or negative (anymore).
Female Warriors

There were active and passive female warriors. The passive warriors accompanied their tribe’s army or troop and cheered them on from the sidelines of the battlefield.
Plutarch writes that during one particular battle the Teutonic warriors tried to retreat. Their women ran at them with axes and swords, fighting them – the traitors – as much as their enemies, the Romans. This appears to be a common phenomenon amongst the Germanic tribes as Tacitus in his “Germania” and Cesar in his “De Bello Gallico” confirm.
Furthermore, Tacitus writes that the women used psychological warfare against their own men by shouting at them to spare them and the children the humiliation of Roman captivity and all the gruesomeness it entailed.
If their men fought successfully the Germanic women would bear their breasts and shake them so as to keep up the motivation of the warriors.

Active female warriors (“shieldmaidens”) often bore names ending with or including the syllables wig, hild, gund, gart, hadu, ger (spear), brünne, helm (helm) etc. They were found in all known Germanic and Scandinavian tribes. Were they raised to become warriors or did they choose their (warrior) names later on as they decided to join the army?
Even in the saga of Erik the Red we hear of brave Freydis, the pregnant wife of a warrior, who actively joins the battle, fighting with exposed breasts. Something that confused and frightens the enemies so much that they escape as quickly as possible.

Two factors influenced the drastic change in Pagan Germanic societal structure in which women had had a relatively good standing: The diffusion of the Wotan cult and the increasing contact with the Christian Romans who did not grant any rights to women.
Before the Winniles had accepted the Wotan cult and renamed themselves Langobards their women had had the right to carry swords, axes and other weaponry and use it as well. If not for them, they would not have defeated the Vandals.
However, in 568, after they had settled in Northern Italy, they enacted laws that clearly stated that women were absolutely forbidden to carry or use weapons.
Either due to societal change or by (Christian) law and conversion, one after another all Germanic tribes began treating their women as second-class citizens without any rights, feelings nor wits. The beginning of the dark age.