A Re-Evaluation of Germanic Paganism and Beliefs
The biggest pitfall in agreeing upon a framework for reconstructionist pagan beliefs is that there would have been huge variations in the myth and legends from village to village or region to region at any one time. Ritual and belief structures would therefore also be varied and would have changed based on the movements of population groups big or small, and the effects of trade, warfare and politics of different times.
Add to this issue the immense passage of time since Christianity trashed our native customs, and the prospect of finding a totally complete Northern European religious base that can be used by reconstructionist pagans today is simply unrealistic.
But it is possible to theorise connections and similarities with surviving myth and archaeological fragments from other Indo-European cultures to fill in the blanks though, but for reasons already mentioned, filling in gaps from cultures that were thousands of miles away is not really ideal, but ultimately necessary given the lack of literary sources for Germanic or Northern European paganism besides the well known Icelandic and Scandinavian sagas.
To complicate things, it is generally thought that almost all of the mythological cues from Europe come from the Aryans who began their expansions east and westward from the Black Sea around 3000 years ago. Many consider the war between the Aesir and Vanir a folk-memory that explains the war and eventual inter-marriage between the vestiges of older hunter gatherer and early farming cultures and the invading Aryans.
We know that the Aryans were undoubtedly warlike and from our modern lens particularly brutal, their votive axes and fast spread across Eurasia attests to the fact, but this does not necessarily mean that they eradicated all memories of the older customs or that they systematically ethnically cleansed the entire continent. Reports from only a few years ago reveal that with the speed that Aryan culture expanded, likely quickened by their domestication of the horse, they was able to spread diseases like the plague into parts of Europe that hadn't been exposed before. The older WHG cultures therefore suffered a double whammy, defeated not only by the war-axe but by unseen pathogens too. Despite this, it is generally reported that the average pre-Aryan, WHG genetic contribution to those living in Britain stands around 10%, although this figure varies wildly from study to study and has continued to shift as more data is looked at.
As I have already discussed in my other article “Temples of Life – Religious Uses of Henges Considered”, it is a possibility that aspects of older non-Indo-European religions lived on, a claim I made on the basis that the construction and use of the henges at Stonehenge and Avebury in England continued even after the arrival of the first groups of Yamnaya derived peoples. DNA markers probably aren't all that relevant to religion and social norms though, and in my opinion we have come to presume that there was or is an obvious black and white difference between Indo-Europeans and the older cultures that they came to replace. Whilst it's obvious that they won out linguistically and to a lesser extent genetically, there is no way of knowing how and to what degree the older native religions differed from the new imported one.
India has managed to avoid significant ingress from Christianity and Islam and their Vedic texts go back some three thousand years, yet looking at Hinduism in India from the outside it seems chaotic. Gods have duel meanings, various names, different stories and associations and are bound up in trinities. There are different schools of thought, Shaivism both puranic and non-puranic, Shaktism, Smartism – the list goes on. Truth be told, I do not have a great deal of knowledge on Hindu literature, and becoming an expert would be a lifelong, herculean task, but as we will find out shortly, I believe that there are aspects of this surviving Indo-European (or perhaps pre-indo-european) derived (or influenced, depending on who you ask) religion that may help bring us somewhat closer to rekindling something from our own past in northern Europe.
It is interesting to note however that some authors, such as Alain Danielou, consider the Indo-European (or 'Aryan') influence in India to be mostly destructive having destroyed the earlier civilisation of the Indus valley and bringing different and contradictory practices to the Indians living there. The same could be said for the situation in the rest of Europe. Great monuments such as Stonehenge began their construction way before the “civilising” force of the more martially capable Aryans, so we're left to wonder to what degree their legacy was. For those of an esoteric mindset, the general view is that the Kali Yuga began just as the Aryans were beginning to expand out into the rest of Eurasia.
Additionally, as already stated, we simply do not know what similarities there were in religious and cultural terms across Eurasia before the Aryan period. It may be that we wrongly attribute the similar Indo-European cultures to the Yamnaya invasions, when they could have largely shared the same practices with the people they came to dominate. The Indo-Europeans did not gestate in an isolated realm, and so they must have had a similar outlook as their neighbours at the time. Thus I would claim that we cannot ignore clues from pre-Indo-European monuments in Europe that we might otherwise discount.
The Lord and Two Ladies
This post really began last year when I first began contemplating the true nature of the main goddesses in the Germanic pantheon. The main goddess figures who have have been passed down the ages to us from pre-Christian Germanic society are known as Freya, Frigg and Ostara. There has been much speculation for centuries as to whether Freya and Frigg are actually one and the same, but as I looked at the myths I came to the conclusion, at that point unaware of evidence from further afield, that these three prominent deities may well be three aspects or 'avatars' of the same figure.
I proposed therefore that perhaps these three avatars represented different stages in a woman's life, with Ostara as the maiden, Freya as the mothering age woman maybe in her early to mid-twenties and Frigg representing an older matriarchal figure with greater responsibilities for the people and deities around her.
To begin explaining the logic here, consider that Ostara or Easter (literally the east star) is associated with the dawn each day, not just, as some heathens commonly refer to her as, the goddess of the spring. Comparison with the Lithuanian goddess Ausrine shows a connection with the planet Venus as she rises in the morning before the sun.
It is important to note that there are some difficulties in making this connection, as most Indo-European cultures have confusingly separated or divided the dawn role between different deities. For example in Greek mythology Eos the goddess of the dawn, who with her consort Astraeus (the starry one) birthed Phosphorus, the male deity of Venus or the Morning Star. There were also distinctions drawn between Venus in its dawn and dusk state, acknowledging that from our perspective, it never appears high in the night's sky and disappears during the day light. To the Greeks the Evening Star, also a son of Eos, was Hesperus.
Ostara, as a dawn goddess therefore represents the return of light, and heralds the return of the sun.
Freya, known as “the Lady” also has a connection with light, she was described as beautiful and shining, and carried Brísingamen with her, meaning fiery or shining necklace. Using a tenuous light connection as a starting point to conclude that Ostara and Freya are the same figure might not sound too convincing, but consider that Indo-European goddesses of love and sexuality have always had an enduring connection with the planet Venus. Most obvious is the goddess Venus, with the Interpretatio Graeca model also concluding that Freya was indeed this same figure. Additionally, the whole “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” concept is so deeply woven into Western thought that it barely requires mentioning. A large mountain on the planet Venus was even named after Milda, Freya's Lithuanian counterpart, so it is not like there is no cultural context for making this claim.
The goddess Frigg seems to be the patron of very similar aspects of life as Freya, except with an apparently more mature and responsible outlook. Where Freya represents sexuality required for lovemaking and procreation, Frigg seems more focused on what comes afterwards – fertility, childbearing and family. To explain why I believe Ostara-Freya are her alter egos, it is easiest to do so by pointing out their respective husbands. Freya is married to Odr, an enigmatic figure who is seldom mentioned in the eddas and largely lost to time, however we do know that he travelled extensively for long periods of time because Freya cries tears of gold in his absence. It would not therefore be wild to speculate that Odr is another aspect of Odin who also travels extensively – and quite clearly has an etymological connection with Odin. Freya's morphing into Frigg may also be a representation of her increased social worth being married out of the Vanir tribe and into the Aesir.
Hopefully my explanation of the Ostara-Freya-Frigg roles make a little sense, but if not further elaborations or proof will come in a short while.
Freyr, Freya's brother, was known as “the Lord” and in some cases was seen as being on an equal pegging with Odin. I am of course basing this assumption on the fact that kings in Sweden and in parts of the Low Countries claimed him as their divine ancestor in the same way that other nations did with Odin. Freyr generally represents male fertility and is himself associated with the sun as a solar deity, although that is confused across most Indo-European cultures because of Sol and Mani, figures which in my opinion reverse the logical cosmology. I only say this because you would assume the sun and its connection with many phallic shadow casting rituals across the world would be male and the moon with its twenty-eight day cycle that is vaguely in time with women's menstrual cycles, would be female.
I don't profess to be particularly knowledgeable so maybe this is a problem with my own lack of understanding but this to me is a pretty fundamental conflict that needs looking into in greater detail. How there can be solar gods and goddesses simultaneously needs further clarification.
Freyr's consort is Gerdr, a somewhat unwilling bride who is associated with the earth, a common Indo-European myth that can be traced back to Dyeus and his solar “eye” and his consort the earth goddess Plethwih. Again complicating matters we find that Freyr's mother is assumed to be Nerthus, described as another goddess that represents the earth. I will come back with a theory about these repeating archetypes towards the end.
Here we can begin to delve into Indian mythology which contains the last surviving fragments from Indo-European myth that is still being practiced. As I've already stated, I'm not an expert in either Germanic or Indian culture, and everything I say here should really be seen as nothing but conjecture.
We have already discussed the theory of the triple Goddess theme that potentially links Ostara, Freya and Frigg, but in Hinduism they know this concept by the term Tridevi. The tridevi includes Saraswati the goddess of knowledge, music, art, wisdom, and learning. Lakshmi, the goddess of prosperity, good fortune, and beauty and finally Parvati, the goddess of fertility, love, beauty, marriage, children, and devotion. These figures do seem to cover every aspect of the Freya-Frigg persona.
Interestingly there is a possible link between Lakshmi to Ostara because of Lakshmi's star, an eight pointed symbol that on its own would not necessarily symbolise Venus, but coincidentally is also a similar symbol used to venerate Ishtar or Astarte, a Semitic goddess of war, sexuality and fertility that strongly associated with the planet Venus.
This goddess or trio of goddesses are also linked through their choice of husbands. Freya and Frigg are married to Odr and Odin (essentially the same figure) and Ishtar was married to the biblical god Yahweh at one stage! (Some have even theorised that 'Lucifer', the illuminating one, is actually Ishtar – which follows the atypical Abrahamic demonisation of women.) Saraswati was married to Brahma, Lakshmi was married to Vishnu and Parvati was married to Shiva – but the key here is that these three Indian gods also made up a trinity of their own called the Trimurti.
Using the knowledge of the Indian coupled trinities, it might begin to make some aspect of Germanic lore make sense. The Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva trio becomes identical to Odin, but maybe Vili and Ve can fill in the blanks here. Vili and Ve are described as Odin's brothers, but apart from a few scant references they are not found in any great part of the lore after the main creation myth. If we look into the meaning of name Odin we get the word “frenzy”, which is hardly befitting a god who is also known for his wisdom and leadership qualities. In the original proto-Germanic language however the figure Odin and his brothers were alliterated and called Woðanaz, Weljon and Wixan – or inspiration, will and divinity. I think you will agree these names suit the overall role that Odin plays in the Eddas, but I would argue that it seems far more likely that these three are different aspects of the same overarching “All Father” figure. This trinity in Germanic thought, might begin to explain how Odin was able to sacrifice himself to himself, given that his Indian counterpart Vishnu also confusingly worships Shiva-Linga.
Indian lore is confusing though because each of these three personas of the 'One' supreme deity are broken down even further into different avatars. In a way this is something mirrored in the surviving Germanic lore by the multiple names that are attributed to Odin and others, but maybe during the course of time, the true significance of the Odin-Vili-Ve trinity has been lost.
Employing this logic we can start to wonder what other Germanic gods, if any, may fit in with this idea of a trinity. There are a few candidates; Loki and Hoenir (of whom have been Odin's travelling companions.) Lóðurr – also presumed to be figure of Loki, but also argued as a persona or version of Freyr. How the stories of wars and challenges between different aspects of the same 'All Father' should be interpreted are beyond the scope of this post, but maybe the lessons to be learned from them are meant to relate as much to the internal conflicts within ourselves as they are to external issues in our lives.
Even Freyr himself may well be a persona of Odin, and I will explain how I came to this conclusion, despite it being a difficult one to tackle.
Freyr As A Persona Of Odin
Freyr as I already mentioned at the beginning of this post is a God that is also associated with kings, but he is of the Vanir tribe whereas Odin is from the Aesir. How exactly he could be considered one of the 'All Father's' personas then is contentious given that they came from different families, but considering their consorts there may well be some grounds to this. Freyr is rumoured to have had an incestuous relationship with his sister Freya, but also marries Gerdr the earth goddess. Odin on the other hand is married to Freya-Frigg, but Thor, his most famous son, was born not of Freya-Frigg but of Jord who is also a goddess of the earth.
It is not known who Freya and Freyr's mother was, but one theory is that it was yet another earth goddess Nerthus or Hreda, who was once worshipped in March. How exactly you explain away the existence of three earth goddesses is difficult, but given that Odin and Freyr may well have the same sexual partners, it is not totally inconceivable that they're one and the same.
In Hindu lore, the goddess Prithvi the earth goddess, also has two consorts. One is Dyaus Pita (an Indian version of the Indo-European Dyeus) and the other is Varaha who is an avatar of Vishnu. Both Varaha-Vishnu and Dyaus Pita have aspects that could be identified with both Odin and Freyr, but the one eye-opening piece in this jigsaw is the fact that Vahara was represented by and associated with boar! The symbol of the boar is also shared with Freyr, to which was sacrificed to him on high festivals. (This is where tradition of Christmas ham comes from.) This all seems way too connected to be coincidental.
It stands to reason then that when reduced down to bare bones there are three main deities, a heavenly Father, a heavenly mother and a goddess of the earth – but the notion of a threesome may be incorrect as some in the past have linked the goddess Frigg with that of Jord too! Quite how a Venus-Earth character combined into a single goddess would work with this proposed avatar system in place is beyond me at the moment, hence my personal interpretation is that its predominately a three-way relationship at play here.
If the Freyr-Odin connection is true then it means that the relationship between the trinity-duo is at least in part incestuous, but this is all symbolic. The Germanic people never would have permitted such behaviour in their society and likely would have given the death sentence to anyone who attempted to do so! This may seem obvious, but unfortunately this is a statement that is necessary as many Christians, who are used to being spoon fed their spirituality, take everything at face value.
What about Tyr?
It has often been said that Tyr was once the chief deity to the Germanic peoples, but was usurped by Odin. The thing to recognise here is that Tyr or Teiwaz was cognate with the older Indo-European name of Dyeus which, as we've already discussed, may well have also been personified by Freyr and Odin.Tyr may well simply be an older interpretation of the All Father, but his connection to justice is interesting given the known human sacrifices that are believed to have been offered to Odin later on after having been hung. Were sacrifices willing, or were the ritual killings of people hung and left in bogs done so for reasons owing more to the judiciary system than worship?
Speaking of sacrifices, I think its important to also point out that Tyr, Odin and Freyr all made significant sacrifices for the greater good with Tyr giving his hand, Odin his eye and Freyr his sword.
Baldr And His Return
I could never understand Baldr's significance. It is clear that all the Gods love him, and that his death is massively important, but the stories never really explain why, instead telling only how his death occurred. His importance in the grand scheme of Germanic mythology is never really alluded to. From what I could tell, Baldr held many of the same characteristics as Freyr, and in light of the Odin-Freyr connection I think I may have a theory that explains why he was killed.
Baldr is a son of Odin, and his name has been interpreted as both “shining day” and “Lord”. These again very much align with Freyr's role, but we have to ask why Loki went out of his way to deceive Hod into murdering his own brother with the mistletoe. This was not a random act and there must have been a reason for him doing this.
The purpose seems to me, when viewed from the perspective of reincarnation and these 'avatars' of different deities being reborn into different, albeit similar characters, that Baldr was ritually killed by the Mistletoe (a plant which due to its evergreen and seemingly otherworldly rootless nature, symbolised ever-lasting life) to safeguard him, rather than to harm him.
The internment of Baldr in Hel may be that it ensured that there was a Freyr-like figure to continue in Gimle after Ragnarok had come and gone. Similarly his wife Nanna who sacrificed herself to be with him in the afterlife, may also symbolise the next generation of a Freya-like figure for the times to come too. Hence we're led through the lore to understand the significance of the cyclical nature of life and the world around us.
The Great Cycle
Hermodr, usually considered the son of Odin, travelled to Hel to negotiate with Hel to release Baldr, travelling on Slepnir for nine nights. This is important, and probably ties into the reincarnation belief in some way. Perhaps the nine nights are the nine months of gestation in which we go through to be born, or reborn as it were. This reincarnation may have been seen as literal for both their gods and their family members. Perhaps this might explain why most cultures up until Christianity were so ready to define themselves by their ancestors, and we see this in the reuse of first names for first born children, and in the common 'son' suffix in scandinavian surnames.
Whether these different aspects of the gods are akin to Hindu avatars is anyones guess, but it does seem strange that there are so many parallels that cross over.
Unfortunately taking this very reductionist method with so much oral tradition missing does break and complicate the lore from a reconstructionist point of view. Yet at the same time it explains the wider understanding of their view of life. Maybe this is the point, the lore is multifaceted, on one level being light-hearted entertainment for children around the evening fire, but also a wider guide on philosophy and cosmology at the same time.
The problem is that we are viewing all of this through a modern lens, and the way in which we break down and interpret information is always going to be different to how our ancestors did over a thousand years ago. Perhaps we dwell on the issue too much, and if we accept that Odin as the All Father, and Frigg as the All Mother are akin to the Greek concept of Logos, their many personas just become different ways in which universal consciousness can manifest itself – the stories explaining the concept of life and death in a very different time to our own.
Simplified Interpretations
My hypothesis for a while has been that some of the older monuments left in Europe from the neolithic still held some residual use and symbology for our later Indo-European ancestors. As already explained in my Temple of Life post, I posit that many of the belief structures from the early European farmers were incredibly similar to the Indo-Europeans who came to eventually replace them. The fact that they clearly reused aspects of the large henges in Britain attests to this fact, and looking at the symbols left behind in places like Avebury, I think it is obvious that their religious thinking very much tied the patterns in the heavens and seasons with some form of ancestral worship.
Now if they linked the midwinter or May Day sunrise (some sites used different alignments) with ritual use of womb-tombs and Linga-Yoni shadow-play, it seems sensible to assume that the cycle in heavens may also have applied to the the dead. If you would like to read about that in more detail then I would invite you to check out the previous post, but the simplified version is that many now believe that late-neolithic and early bronze age cultures believed in a form of literal reincarnation.
We know that Odin and Freya are both associated with death. After battles, Freya gets first pick of the fallen and are taken to her hall in Folkvangr whereas Odin takes his share to Valhalla. This is a fact often lost on many “asatru” who like to larp as Viking age warriors – Valhalla is not necessarily a place you want to go to because presumably since Freya had the first pick, you're effectively second best. Freya's fallen are never mentioned again in any of the surviving lore, so it is conceivable that whilst those in her hall are resting or are free to reincarnate, Valhalla is more like a form of purgatory – a place you go to train for the rest of this age until you're needed to serve as cannonfodder at Ragnarok.
Freya and Freyr's astrological representations in the sun and the and Venus may suggest something to do with this birth and rebirth cycle. Ostara-Freya's Venus symbol heralding the return of her brother Freyr, and his solar rays “impregnating” the earth with barrow and stone alignments in ancient European practice.
We know that Freyr rules over the realm of Alfheimr, and that it is the abode of the light-elves or the Ljósálfar. The necessary distinction here between light and dark elves may be significant, but one interpretation may be that the souls residing in Alfheimr will be allowed to return to Midgard to be reborn at a later date. Nowhere does it state where Freya's Folksvangr or Sessrúmnir, the hall within Folkvangr, are to be found, but given that their symbols - the rising sun and morning star both originate from the same point in the sky, I don't think it would be too outrageous to posit the possibility that Folkvangr is found in her brother's realm of Alfheimr. That would link the honoured dead staying with Freya in her hall with the light-elves inhabiting the same place which for all intensive purposes would be viewed as a kind of temporary location for the dead to stop-off at before being reborn in Midgard. In short, the elves were simply souls that were ready to be reborn.
Freyr's marriage to the giantess Gerdr may be a clue to this, because the consummation of their marriage occurs at a place called Barri. Scholars have argued over the meaning of Barri - some have claimed it means cornfield or woodland grove but I wonder if its definition is connected with the similar sounding word 'barrow' – as in burial place. The English word barrow in this context can be traced back etymologically to proto-Germanic 'bergaz' and Indo-European 'berg' as in a high hill or place, but it could potentially also be traced back to proto-germanic 'barwijǭ', which means 'to carry'. Freyr (the sun) impregnating Gerdr (the earth) at Barri (the burial mound/s) would tidy up the connection with reincarnation. Also in this sense, a burial mound could also be seen as a pregnant belly, with those interred being 'carried' by the earth before being reincarnated.
Further weight to this argument may come from Freyr's association with children's teeth, as he was given the realm of Alfheimr as a teething present. One has to wonder if due to the high infant mortality rate, there was a psychological coping mechanism within Germanic society that only gave a child their humanity once they had reached a certain age. Perhaps a 'christening' ritual was given to the child once they were older, after which they would begin to take on the identity of a deceased ancestor. This view is not particularly without merit, archaeologists have long pondered about the lack of pre-christian non-adult skeletal finds, and would fit in with the known laws of the time period, namely that one was considered adult around the age of ten. We know that there were attempts in Anglo-Saxon society to raise the age of adulthood higher than twelve to make society fairer to the youth, but was reduced again under king Canute's reign after 1016.
In all likeliness the concept of childhood was probably alien to our forefathers – at least in the manner in which we view it today. Alfheimr being given to Freyr as a teething present I would argue is most likely a reference to gaining their first adult tooth then, rather than their baby teeth. Maybe after the first adult teeth they would be considered old enough to join the rest of society and claim their ancestral connections – and since we know an individual could own land and be found guilty of crimes from around the age of ten or so, this would tie everything up quite neatly.
(As an aside, one has to wonder whether the tooth fairy, although officially an American tradition started in the 20th century, is somehow a continuation of some kind of “coming of age” ceremony. Being bestowed money in place of an ancestor's soul...)
This theory, whilst certainly not mainstream, would fit entirely with the idea of Orlog which is not only built upon (or disgraced) by individual family members but by every successive generation. This is different to wyrd, which is seen as entirely as individual's fate which is changeable to a degree. Orlog is something that can be built up with deeds to empower your descendants down the line, or destroyed by the actions of forefathers.
Further argument could be made that Freyr's ship Skíðblaðnir, is the manner in which the gods bring the souls of the dead to Alfheimr and back again to Midgard. This may explain why high profile burials were buried with or sent out on burning ships, or why 'stoneships' were used for burials of lesser stature.
I wouldn't like to say whether this rebirth process is meant to be metaphorical or literal – whether they had a way of knowing which child would be given what dead ancestors persona, whether they had the belief of souls born with a clean slate, or if it was all merely figurative. But this does fit the overall mindset of a more cyclical view of time.
Ragnarok in this instance can be used to explain all of the cycles of life. In the cosmological sense it can represent the changing seasons and life and death of the sun. It can represent struggles within our own lives, and the life-death process we each much go through. It can also represent the idea of ages, throughout which humanity is fated to go through repeating for all time in much the same way the Indians have the Yugas.
And that is where I will end this. I have not supplied sources for this post, something that I usually do, and the reason why is because most of this was done with the aid of Wikipedia and the odd website offering small snippets of information, particularly when it comes to Indian references. Although I have been an Odinist for a decade, and interested in paganism for over figtheen years, I am far from being the most knowledgable person on the subject, and thus this theory is far from perfect.
Theory is the right word, this should not be seen as something I expect people to take one hundred percent seriously. I will be going back over this at a later date to fill in gaps I have missed or to provide a greater level of detail but in order to do this I will need a lot of time to re-read mythological sources in greater detail. Realistically its probably going to be a year or two before I can actually go into the kinds of depths required to validate the various ideas I have made, but I have a gut feeling that much of what I have said is landing near the target.
If you have anything you could add, if you agree with parts of it, or if you take any issue with any presumptions I have made so far, please get in contact with me or feel free to comment here. I'm not going to be offended by critique.
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