Hail Odin

05/09/2026

Battle of Largs reenactment. No blood. Disappointed. But brilliant 👏

05/09/2026

SERIES: SHADOW SIDE OF THE GODS
They speared her. Burned her three times. She came back three times. Who was Gullveig .....and what were the gods afraid of?

This might be one of the strangest episodes in Norse mythology. And if you've never heard of Gullveig...You're probably not alone. Her appearance in Völuspá is incredibly brief but what happens to her is brutal.

Gullveig enters the hall of Hár - generally understood here as Odin. The gods spear her. Then they burn her. Not once. Three times. And three times...She is reborn.

No explanation is given for why they wanted her dead. No great crime is described beforehand. She simply appears in the poem...and the gods try repeatedly to destroy her. And then things get even stranger. The next stanza speaks of a woman called Heiðr. She practises seiðr. She performs magic. She is described as being welcomed or pleasing to "wicked women" although the wording and interpretation of this passage have caused plenty of scholarly debate.

Many scholars have wondered whether Gullveig and Heiðr are actually the same woman. If they are...the gods tried to burn a practitioner of seiðr three times. And failed. But we simply don't know for certain.

Was Gullveig Freyja?
This theory gets repeated online as though it's settled fact. It isn't. Some scholars have proposed that Gullveig may be another name or manifestation of Freyja. There are reasons for the theory. Freyja is strongly associated with seiðr, and according to Ynglinga saga she introduced the practice to the Æsir. Freyja is also Vanir. And immediately after the Gullveig episode, Völuspá turns to something enormous …the first war in the world.
The war between the Æsir and Vanir. That has led some scholars to suggest that Gullveig's treatment may somehow have triggered the conflict. If Gullveig were connected with the Vanir perhaps even Freyja herself suddenly the sequence becomes very interesting. A woman associated with magic enters Odin's hall. The Æsir try to destroy her. She survives. Then...war. But again, the poem never actually says: "Gullveig was Freyja." Nor does it explicitly say: "The Vanir attacked because Gullveig was burned." We're connecting fragments of a story whose full version has been lost. And that's precisely what makes it fascinating.

But here's what bothers me.
Why were the gods trying to kill her in the first place?
Was Gullveig dangerous?
Was her magic considered threatening?
Did she represent something the Æsir couldn't control?
Was this punishment?
Fear?
Or are we missing a huge part of a story that an audience a thousand years ago would have understood immediately?

Because whatever Gullveig was... fire couldn't destroy her. Three attempts. Three rebirths. And shortly afterwards, the gods themselves are at war. Maybe the uncomfortable part of this story isn't Gullveig at all. Maybe it's the Æsir.

What do you think?
Why did the gods want Gullveig dead?
Were they destroying something dangerous or something they feared?
Are Gullveig and Heiðr the same woman?
Do you think the identification with Freyja makes sense, or are we trying too hard to fill gaps in the mythology?
And if Gullveig's treatment really did contribute to the Æsir–Vanir War... who were actually the aggressors?

Sources
Gullveig's spearing, burning and rebirth -Völuspá, stanza 21 (Poetic Edda).
The first war and conflict between Æsir and Vanir -Völuspá, stanzas 23–24.
Freyja and seiðr - Ynglinga saga, chapter 4 (Heimskringla, Snorri Sturluson).
Further reading
Rudolf Simek - Dictionary of Northern Mythology - useful overview of Gullveig and the competing interpretations of her identity.
Carolyne Larrington -The Poetic Edda - translation and commentary useful for the difficult Gullveig/Heiðr passage and its position immediately before the Æsir–Vanir conflict.

05/09/2026

04/09/2026

A slightly more personal post from me tonight, which I don't do very often on Hail Odin.

I'm actually really proud to say I've become a Dréngr of an oathed clan of Heathen Pagans, Úlfrætt Miðgarðr.

For me, one of the best parts of it has simply been the community that's being built. The chats, the learning, sharing what we know, asking questions, taking the p**s out of each other, and actually getting to know people beyond a name and profile picture online. And I think we need more of this in modern Paganism.

Not necessarily clans. Not everyone wants that and that's absolutely fine....But actual community. People teaching each other..... People meeting..... Sharing knowledge.... Sitting around a fire together when we can, rather than Heathenry existing entirely through Facebook posts and arguments about who is doing it "right".

I've spent years running Hail Odin and talking about the old ways, history, the gods and what modern Heathenry can look like. It's been genuinely nice to step into something myself where I'm still learning too.

So this is just a rare little glimpse into the person behind Hail Odin.

If finding a Pagan Heathen community, clan or kindred is something you've genuinely been thinking about, reach out to people. Ask questions. Find out what's around you. Take your time and make sure their values actually match your own before you give anyone your word!

And if it's not for you, that's alright too. Paganism doesn't need another thing everyone has to do the same way....

But seeing a proper little community being built has reminded me how important that human side of all this actually is.

I'm really proud to be part of it.

Hail the Gods.
Hail the ancestors.
Hail Úlfrætt Miðgarðr.
And hail the people keeping community alive.

04/09/2026

Freyja had a husband. Most people have never heard of him.

His name was Óðr, and they had a daughter called Hnoss. Then Óðr went away on long journeys.

Where did he go? Why did he leave? Did he ever return?
The surviving stories don’t tell us.

What they do tell us is that Freyja went looking for him.
The Prose Edda says she travelled among unfamiliar peoples searching for Óðr. On her travels she was known by several names, including Mardöll, Hörn, Gefn and Sýr.

She also wept for him, and her tears were said to be red gold. That image found its way into Norse poetry, where gold could be called Freyja’s tears.

It’s a side of Freyja we don’t hear much about. Not the necklace, the magic or her share of the slain. Just somebody searching for a person who vanished, travelling through unknown places and never being given an ending.

There is another mystery here too. The names Óðr and Óðinn are closely related, and both figures are wanderers. Some scholars have wondered whether Óðr was once connected with Odin, perhaps even another form of him.

But that remains a theory. The surviving sources treat them as separate figures and never tell us they are the same. So we are left with the journey, the different names and the gold she cried.

Whatever the complete story of Freyja and Óðr once was, most of it has been lost.

Rather fittingly, Óðr is still missing.

Sources
Prose Edda, Gylfaginning
Prose Edda, Skáldskaparmál -kennings for Freyja and gold

04/09/2026

You know what to do.... good luck!

03/09/2026

That “Viking compass” you keep seeing? Let’s clear it up properly. The symbol is called the Vegvísir.

You’ll often see it described as an ancient Viking symbol used for navigation…but historically, that’s not quite right.

The Vegvísir comes from the Huld Manuscript an Icelandic collection of magical staves written in the 1800s. So while it looks Norse…it’s actually centuries after the Viking Age.

The original meaning recorded with it is “If this sign is carried, one will never lose their way in storms or bad weather, even when the way is not known.”

It belongs to a later Icelandic tradition of galdrastafir ,magical symbols used for protection, guidance, and influence. These traditions grew out of a mix of older Norse ideas and later Christian-era folk magic.

Here’s the important bit, This doesn’t make the symbol “fake” or meaningless. It just means ...It’s not Viking Age...It’s Icelandic folk magic from much later....And it carries a symbolic meaning of guidance and not losing your way...

If you’ve got one, wear it, draw it, use it that’s your call. Just understand what it actually is.

02/09/2026

SERIES: SHADOW SIDE OF THE GODS - Loki... Villain... or Necessary Chaos?

We all know how Loki's story ends. Baldr is dead. Loki is bound. And when Ragnarök comes, he stands against the gods. Easy enough then. Loki's the villain.

Except... he wasn't always.

Earlier in the stories, Loki travels alongside the gods and repeatedly gets them out of trouble - admittedly, sometimes trouble he bloody caused in the first place. When Mjölnir is stolen, Loki helps Thor get it back. When Iðunn is taken and the gods begin to age, Loki brings her home. After Loki cuts off Sif's hair, his attempt to put things right eventually leads to the creation of Mjölnir, Gungnir, Draupnir, Gullinbursti and Skíðblaðnir.

Then there's the building of Ásgarðr's wall. Loki's solution ends with the birth of Sleipnir, Odin's eight-legged horse. There's a pattern here. Loki creates chaos. Loki fixes chaos. And somehow the world is often different afterwards. But then we reach Baldr. In Snorri's account, Loki engineers his death and later appears to prevent his return from Hel.

That's harder to explain away as useful mischief. And in Lokasenna, Loki turns on the gods completely, throwing accusations of cowardice, dishonour and sexual misconduct around the hall.
Some accusations seem to have support elsewhere. Others may simply be insults. But suddenly the troublemaker isn't just causing trouble...He's pointing at everyone else's flaws too.

Eventually the gods bind him beneath a venomous serpent.
At Ragnarök, he fights against the people he once travelled beside.
So what happened? Was Loki always the villain waiting to reveal himself? Did the gods tolerate him only while his chaos benefited them? Did punishment and rejection turn an ally into an enemy?
Or are we trying to find a sympathetic explanation for someone who eventually did genuinely terrible things?

Maybe Loki isn't supposed to fit neatly into good or evil. Maybe that's why he's still so interesting.

So .... villain or necessary chaos?
And here's the question I'm most interested in... Did Loki betray the gods... or did Loki and the gods eventually betray each other?

Sources: Þrymskviða and Lokasenna -Poetic Edda; Gylfaginning and Skáldskaparmál -Prose Edda; Völuspá; and the early skaldic poem Haustlöng.