How to Cultivate Luck : Hamingja and Orlog
In the old Norse and Germanic world, luck and fate were not blind forces - they were living powers shaped by human action. The ancients believed that every deed, every promise, and every act of courage strengthened your hamingja (personal luck) and wove your örlög (fate). This article explores how to build good fortune and a worthy reputation through honour, courage, and integrity - following the wisdom of the sagas and the laws of the Norns. Learn how to shape your own fate through your choices, and leave behind a name worth remembering.
Seiðr Craft – Chapter 7 Samhildr: Where the Laws Become Living
There is a quiet turning point in seiðr where the craft stops being a list of rules to remember and becomes a rhythm that moves through your body on its own. Before that point, the laws sit in the mind like lessons to recite. After it, they weave themselves together instinctively, shaping your breath, your timing and your presence without conscious effort. This shift from memorising to weaving is the essence of Samhildr - the moment the craft stops being something you perform and becomes something you inhabit.
The Forgotten Norns: Lesser Known Weavers of Fate in Norse Mythology
The Norns stand at the heart of Norse mythology, shaping fate in ways far older and deeper than the gods themselves. Far from being only three figures beside a well, the Norns form a vast host drawn from different realms, each weaving the threads of life, death and destiny. This blog explores their origins, their connection to orlog, their hidden appearances in the sagas, and the roles of lesser-known Norns whose names survive only in fragments. It also examines how they differ from other female spirit powers, how seidr brushes against their work, and how modern heathen belief understands them today. The world of the Norns is wider, stranger and more intricate than most imagine, and within it lies a vision of fate that remains powerful and relevant in the present day.
Mimir: The rememberer beneath the roots
Before the gods shaped the Nine Worlds and long before the sagas were sung, there was only memory, and its keeper was Mímir. Beneath the roots of Yggdrasil lay the still, dark well where thought becomes remembrance and truth settles like silt. From these depths Mímir drank, learning what even the gods feared to know. His wisdom was born not of thunder or war, but of silence, sacrifice, and the weight of remembering. This is not just the tale of a mythic guardian, but a meditation on the cost of insight and the quiet power of memory. In the shadow of the World-Tree, Mímir’s voice endures, whispering the truths that shaped the gods themselves.
Brynhildr: THe valkyrie who burned for love and vengence
She called to the living, and they answered in ruin. Before the gods fell silent and the old names faded from human memory, the sky thundered with the flight of the valkyrjur, Odin’s fierce choosers of the slain. Among them, Brynhildr shone brightest — a daughter of oath and storm, born to decide the fates of warriors. Yet it was her defiance, not her obedience, that carved her legend into the bones of Norse myth. When compassion stirred where duty demanded silence, Brynhildr’s wings were torn from the heavens, and exile reshaped her destiny. Her story begins not with loyalty, but with rebellion — and the price of choosing what the gods forbade.
Huginn and Muninn: The ravens of the ninth sky
Every morning, two invisible messengers rise from the human mind, one chasing thought and the other carrying memory. These are the modern echoes of Huginn and Muninn, the twin ravens of Odin whose daily flights shape the god’s understanding of the world. They are not just mythic birds but ancient symbols of consciousness itself, the eternal movement between experience and reflection. In their wings we find the map of how we perceive, remember, and ultimately make sense of our own existence.
What is orlog? : The Norse Law of Fate, Honour and Ancestral Destiny
Orlog is one of the oldest and most powerful ideas in Norse belief. It is the unseen foundation of fate, shaped by ancestral deeds, personal actions and the laws of life itself. More than destiny, Orlog teaches duty, honour and responsibility. In this article, we explore its meaning in the Eddas and Sagas, its connection to wyrd, the Norns and seiðr, and how the Norse lived in harmony with fate.
Seiðr Craft - Chapter 6: Ábyrgð - Responsibility
Irresponsibility in seiðr is never harmless. Every working is an exchange, and every thread you pull demands a price. The careless speak of fate as if it is a game, but wyrd does not forget. Power without honour becomes poison. This chapter reveals why responsibility is the foundation of true seiðr - why consent, consequence, and disciplined aftercare are not moral niceties but essential laws of the craft. Those who ignore them pay in silence, sickness, or tangled fate. Those who uphold them walk with steady power. This is not a path for the reckless - it is a path of weight, truth and sacred accountability.
Baldrs draumar -Baldr’s Dreams
Baldrs draumar, “The Dreams of Baldr,” is one of the most haunting poems of the Poetic Edda. In just a few short verses, it tells of Odin’s desperate journey to the realm of the dead to uncover the meaning of his son Baldr’s dark dreams. The seeress he awakens reveals a prophecy of death and doom - the beginning of Ragnarök. Through its quiet, mournful tone, the poem captures the Norse truth that even the gods cannot escape fate, and that knowledge often brings sorrow instead of comfort.
Baldr’s Dream (Story form)
When Baldr, the shining son of Odin, begins to dream of his own death, the gods of Asgard are filled with dread. Seeking the truth, Odin rides alone into the realm of the dead to awaken a long-buried seeress. Her prophecy reveals the coming of tragedy - Baldr’s death, the grief of the gods, and the first shadows of Ragnarök. Baldr’s Dreams is a timeless tale of love, loss, and the inescapable power of fate, echoing the belief that even gods cannot escape what must come.
Message from the Gods - 5/11/25
A timeless message inspired by the ancient Norse gods — Odin the Wanderer and Seeker of Wisdom, Frigg the Weaver of Fate, and Heimdallr the Watcher of Worlds.
They call upon those who walk the old path to weave life with purpose, guard the heart with strength, and seek truth beyond comfort.
Stand vigilant, walk with honor, and shape your wyrd with courage.
Let this blessing guide your steps in the modern world, as it did our ancestors across ages of flame and frost.
The Great Heathen Army: The Storm of the North
In 865 AD, the seas delivered not a raid but a reckoning. The Great Heathen Army (jarls and war-bands from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) came to Britain with vengeance, conquest, and settlement in mind. Led in saga and song by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok (Ívarr hinn Beinlausi, Halfdan, and Ubba) the host shattered kingdoms, captured York, carved the Danelaw, and forced Alfred of Wessex to forge unity from ruin. Shield walls crashed, wedges split ranks, and longships turned rivers into roads. From Repton’s graves to Jórvík’s markets, conquest hardened into culture: Old Norse mingled with Old English; law, language, and place-names took root. The storm met its check at Edington, where Guthrum bent to baptism and a new border was drawn. Yet the legacy endured (coins, courts, and words in the tongue) evidence that the invasion remade the island. This is the story of a tempest that did not just ravage England - it helped create it.
Hafgufa: The Ancient Norse Sea Giant of Silence & Depth
Beneath the still skin of the sea, deeper than sun or memory can reach, the Hafgufa waits. In Norse tradition, it is not merely a monster but the ocean’s dreaming heart - vast, wordless, and older than gods. Sailors whispered of islands that breathed, of calm waters that opened like jaws, and of nights when the sea itself seemed to listen. The Hafgufa does not thrash or roar; it consumes in silence, a hunger as old as the tide. To glimpse it is to understand how small the world above truly is, and how infinite the darkness below. This is not a creature of rage but law - the deep recalling what strays too close. In its myth, terror is reverence, and stillness is power. The sea does not forget. The sea remembers everything.
Víðarr: The Silent Avenger
Víðarr, the silent god of Norse myth, is power without spectacle - endurance shaped into destiny. Born of Odin and the giantess Gríðr, he stands as the still axis of the cosmos: listening, waiting, acting only when the world demands it. His symbol is a humble shoe, stitched from countless scraps of leather (quiet offerings gathered across ages) made to brace against Fenrir’s jaws at Ragnarök. In Víðarr, silence is not absence but presence; not weakness, but focus. He is aftermath rather than wrath, the strength that rebuilds when thunder fades. Surviving the world’s fire, he walks the new earth with unbroken patience, a living promise that balance returns through restraint. This is the lesson of Víðarr: that true might is accumulated in stillness, and from silence, renewal begins.
How to Handle Conflict with Honour (Inspired by the Sagas)
In the harsh northern lands, honour was life itself. The old Norse and Germanic peoples believed that true strength lay not in cruelty, but in balance - in courage tempered by wisdom, and justice untainted by revenge. Inspired by the sagas and ancient codes of the North, this piece explores how to face conflict with dignity, drawing lessons from the wisdom of Njáll the Wise, the words of Odin, and the laws of the Thing. Learn how to stand firm without bitterness, defend what is right without needless harm, and live so your name endures with honour.
Seiðr Craft - Chapter 5: Sannindi - Truth
Truth in Seiðr is not gentle. It is the fire that strips illusion from sight, the torch that burns away deception until only clarity remains. To live in sannindi is to see as Odin saw — through pain and sacrifice — and to speak as the völva spoke, plainly and without flattery.
In this chapter, we walk the path of truth: how to recognise it, live it, and speak it even when it cuts deep. For without truth, Seiðr collapses into delusion. With it, the staff becomes a torch that lights the way between worlds.
Flateyjarbók: The Book of Flatey
Hidden away for centuries on the island of Flatey, Flateyjarbók is the largest and most beautiful of all Icelandic manuscripts. Written between 1387 and 1394, it gathers the sagas of kings, saints, and explorers — including the only surviving stories of Norse voyages to North America. More than just a book, it is a record of how medieval Icelanders saw their history, faith, and the world around them.
Asgard: Where Order Burns with Purpose
Above the storm and beneath the stars rises Asgard—a citadel of will where law is hammered from fire and purpose gleams like gold. Here dwell the Aesir: Odin’s hunger for wisdom, Thor’s steadfast strength, Frigg’s quiet foresight. Bifröst arcs like a burning vow between worlds, a bridge you cross by discipline, not desire. This is no idle heaven but the furnace of order, where every hall (Valhalla, Gladsheim, Bilskirnir) embodies a principle, and every oath bears weight. The myths name it a realm; the spirit remembers it as a practice. In an age of noise, Asgard is the art of attention—the choice to build meaning against the pull of entropy. Step onto the bridge. Bring your question. Pay the price. Let order burn with purpose.
Ullr: The Silent Hunter of the North
Snow falls without a sound. In the deep silence of the North, where frost rules and breath turns to mist, a shadow glides across the frozen wilds. He leaves no footprints, speaks no words, and yet his presence is felt in every oath sworn and every arrow loosed. Ullr (the Silent Hunter, the Winter Sovereign, the god of precision and unbroken honour) moves between worlds with the calm of inevitability. Though the sagas speak little of him, the North remembers. In the stillness before action, in the discipline forged by cold, Ullr waits.
Hervor: The Maiden Of The Dead Flame
She called to the dead and they answered in fire. In the age of iron and storm, one name echoed across the North like a battle cry: Hervor, the Viking shieldmaiden born of doom and destiny. She defied fate, summoned spirits from their graves, and claimed the cursed sword Tyrfing beneath a sky of haunted flame. Hers is a tale of fire, fury, and fearless will - the saga of a warrior who carved her own fate with steel. This is not just legend. This is Hervor: The Maiden of the Dead Flame.