Nisse: The Guardian of Hearth, Hay, and Snow
The Nisse is one of Scandinavia’s most enduring spirits - a small, watchful guardian who oversees barn, hearth, and home. Neither god nor demon, he is the embodiment of responsibility, care, and consequence. Appearing in winter tales, farmstead lore, and the whispered songs of the North, the Nisse protects livestock, maintains order, and rewards those who honor him with diligence. But neglect or disrespect carries a price. From solstice porridge offerings to centuries of traveler’s tales, this blog explores the Nisse’s origins, rituals, mischief, moral lessons, and lasting presence in modern Scandinavian life.
Hjalti the Twice-Hanged: The Man Who Would Not Die
They tried to kill him twice.
The rope bit, the gallows creaked, and still Hjalti walked away.
Hjalti the Twice-Hanged is not a figure from the surviving sagas, but he feels like one that should have been. Born from the edge where history, wyrd, and imagination meet, his story follows a warrior who survives two hangings and steps into the haunted space between life and death. Is he blessed by Odin, cursed by fate, or simply too stubborn to break?
This mythopoetic retelling explores Hjalti as a modern Norse legend: a man who refuses to bow to the noose, who walks with ravens and gallows-shadows, and who asks us a dangerous question - if you crossed death’s threshold and returned… what would you do with the life that followed?
Seiðr Craft - Chapter 10: Working With Silence
Silence is not emptiness - it is the deepest presence in seiðr. Long before visions form or voices rise, silence is the first threshold every practitioner must learn to cross. It reveals your fears, steadies your sight, and tests the strength of your grounding. In its weight and texture, the unseen world begins to listen back.
Chapter 10 explores silence as a realm, a teacher, and an initiation.
You’ll learn how to sit inside it without filling it, how to recognise the difference between silence and true absence, and how to read the subtle movements through which gods, ancestors, and land-wights actually speak.
This chapter is not about chasing messages - it is about preparing yourself to receive them. When you can stand inside silence without fear, your seiðr changes forever.
Norse Winter Spirits: Húsvættir, Draugr and more
Winter in the old Norse world was more than snow and silence - it was a season when the boundary between the living and the unseen thinned. Families honoured house spirits, elves wandered near the homestead, and the Wild Hunt roared across storm-heavy skies. This blog explores the húsvættir who guarded farmsteads, the álfar linked to land and ancestry, the restless winter dead, and the echoes of these beliefs in later Scandinavian folklore. Through sagas, folk customs and historical insight, we uncover how the North understood winter as a spirit-haunted time - and why those ideas still resonate today.
Unn the Deep-Minded: The Matriarch Who Built Iceland | Norse History & Myth
Unn the Deep-Minded was no conqueror with sword in hand - she was a builder in the aftermath of ruin. When her family fell and her homeland collapsed, she crafted a ship in secret and carried a people across the sea, forging the foundations of Icelandic society. Her legacy lives not in battlefields, but in resilience, renewal, and the quiet power of those who rebuild when everything has been lost. Her saga asks a timeless question: when the world breaks, will you break with it… or begin again?
The Huldra: The Hidden One Beneath the Hill
The Huldra is one of the most haunting figures in Scandinavian folklore - a breathtaking woman who appears at dusk among the birch and moss, her golden hair hiding a cow’s tail or hollow bark spine. She offers gifts, love, and fortune… but always at a price. To meet her is to step across the boundary between the human world and the hidden one, where beauty conceals danger and the forest remembers every name. Who is the Huldra - spirit, goddess, or warning? Step beneath the hill and discover the truth behind the Hidden One.
Seiðr Craft - Chapter 9: The Texture of Trance
Trance is not the dramatic plunge many imagine. It is a subtle shift in the body, a softening of the senses, a loosening of the everyday self until the worlds draw close enough to touch. In Chapter 9 of Seiðr Craft, we explore the real texture of trance: the descent of the body, the breath that opens the threshold, the sharpening of inner sight and the quiet tests that reveal misalignment. This chapter shows how Samhildr weaves through every moment of trance, shaping what you perceive, how you interpret it and how you return home.
What Is Jól (yule)? A Beginner’s Guide to Norse Midwinter
Jól, the ancient Norse midwinter festival, was far more than a single winter celebration. Rooted in the rhythms of nature and the spiritual worldview of early Scandinavia, Jól blended sacred rituals, family traditions, feasting, offerings, and deep respect for ancestors and household spirits. From Mothers’ Night to the Wild Hunt, from the Yule Goat to the glowing hearth-fire, this midwinter season shaped Northern life for centuries and continues to influence Scandinavian festive customs today. This guide explores the history, meaning, gods, and living traditions of Jól in rich detail.
The Danelaw: The Shadow Kingdom
The Danelaw was more than a conquered territory—it was a crucible in which two worlds collided and transformed each other. From the first terrifying raids on monasteries to the rise of Viking kingdoms in Northumbria and East Anglia, the arrival of the Great Heathen Army reshaped the destiny of England. Battles burned across the landscape, law and belief systems merged, cities flourished under Norse rule, and a hybrid culture emerged that would help form the foundation of the English nation. This is the story of conquest and coexistence, of fire and law, of warriors, settlers, kings, and the enduring shadow they left behind.
Sleipnir: The Steed Between Worlds
Before the walls of Asgard were raised, before men named their fears or prayed to the gods, the worlds whispered of a being who could cross what no other could. From dream, deception, and divine necessity emerged Sleipnir - Odin’s eight-legged steed, the fastest and most mysterious creature in the Norse cosmos. Born of Loki’s shapeshifting and the giant stallion Svaðilfari, Sleipnir became far more than a mount; he was the living road between realms, the embodiment of motion, trance, and the breath that carries the soul across worlds. This is the tale of the grey horse who bore gods to fate, rode through Hel, outran giants, and became the symbol of transcendence itself.
How Fate and Free Will Worked Together in Norse Belief
The Norse did not see fate and free will as enemies. They lived in a world where destiny set the shape of a life, but personal choice coloured every step within it. Through orlog, ancestral luck, the weaving of wyrd and the work of the Norns, the old North created a worldview where inevitability and agency moved together like partners in a dance. This blog explores how the Norse understood the forces that shaped human life - how signs, dreams and deeds influenced one’s path, how Christianity reshaped older beliefs, and why this ancient way of thinking still resonates today.
Seiðr Craft - Chapter 8: ‘Standing’ Grounding
Standing grounding is the spine of seiðr. Before you call to the gods, ancestors, or landvættir, you must become properly placed: rooted, aligned, and fully present. This chapter explores the Norse foundations of grounding through the cosmology of Yggdrasil, shows how historical sources hint at this preparation, and gives you a complete step-by-step ritual to root, center, and steady yourself. When you stand well, the craft opens. When you don’t, everything wavers.
Haunted North: The Norse Understanding of Ghosts and the Supernatural
The Viking Age world was alive with unseen forces. To the Norse, the dead did not simply vanish into a distant afterlife - they lingered, walked, warned and sometimes rose again in flesh and fury. Ghosts could be physical revenants, dream visitors, protective ancestors or restless spirits tied to land and lineage. Alongside them lived trolls, wights, elves and other beings who shaped daily life as surely as storms or seasons. Drawing on sagas, Eddic poems and later Scandinavian folklore, this exploration reveals a world where the boundary between living and dead was thin, fate was ever present, and the unseen was woven into the fabric of existence.
Björn Ironside: The Son Who Sailed Beyond the World
Bjorn Ironside is one of the most celebrated figures in Viking lore - a fearless warrior, a renowned explorer, and a legendary son of Ragnar Lothbrok. Remembered for his daring raids across Europe and his bold expeditions into the Mediterranean, Bjorn earned a reputation as a leader who pushed the boundaries of the Viking world. His story, preserved in medieval sagas and embellished through centuries of storytelling, reveals the ambition, resilience, and adventurous spirit that defined the Norse age.
Harald Fairhair: The Oath That Forged a Kingdom
Harald Fairhair stands as one of the most pivotal figures in early Norwegian history. Known as the first king to unite Norway under a single rule, Harald’s story blends legend and reality, from his vow to win a kingdom worthy of a great ruler to the battles that secured his power. His reign marked a turning point in Scandinavian politics, laying the foundation for a centralized Norwegian monarchy and influencing the saga traditions that preserved his legacy for centuries.
Fáfnir: The Hoard Beneath the Heart
Fafnir is one of the most iconic figures in Norse mythology - a dwarf prince transformed into a fearsome dragon by greed and the curse of a powerful treasure hoard. His story, preserved in the Völsunga Saga, follows his descent into monstrous form and his dramatic death at the hands of the hero Sigurd. Fafnir’s tale explores themes of greed, fate, and corruption, leaving a lasting influence on modern fantasy and mythic storytelling.
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.