07/08/2019
The SHOCKING TRUTH about Heathen Prayer
There is a very common notion in modern “Asatru” that prayer is un-Heathen, or somehow beneath the dignity of Heathens. Memes abound all over the internet with catch-phrases like “I bow to no one, I am a Heathen!” or “My gods don't ask me to pray!”
There is a very pervasive modern prejudice that praying and kneeling, even in worship of the holy Aesir and Vanir, is somehow a sign of cowardice, begging, weakness, shame, the kind of action that makes someone a niðing (cursed, disgraceful, spineless – the ultimate insult in Norse Heathen culture). At the same time there is plenty of boasting by these same people about how “we Heathens” honor our noble ancestors.
But are these two ideas compatible? Is prayer really supposed to be seen as shameful or cowardly for anyone who wants to honor their ancestors or the Heathen path? Did ancient Heathens share this view?
The reality will offend some people who have bought into the modern pop-culture trope of "badass Heathens don't bow"; I don't really care. I'm only interested in what the sources say on this.
A lot of new Heathens are ex-Christians, with bad memories of their former faith. As such, they are averse to the idea that any of the terms used Christians – such as prayer, kneeling, worship, or even 'religion' – could ever have any place in Heathenry. I understand this viewpoint and phase of emotional recovery – particularly with young men breaking away from an increasingly gelded Church culture in an increasingly testosterone-phobic modern world. The notion that Heathens and Vikings were “too proud to bow to anyone or anything” is definitely appealing in that scenario.
But after raging about for a few months or even years in that state, something gradually becomes clear; the chances of ever having any sort of connection with either the Gods or your ancestors, drop close to Zero the more you stay aloof from them; for the meaning of prayer isn't groveling – it's simply communication with otherworldly beings. "Pray" comes from the proto-Indo-European word *prek, which simply means to ask for something. It didn't actually mean self-degredation to any of our Indo-European ancestors. It was Christianity which turned combined prayer with programmed guilt and the Judaic doctrine of "Original Sin", to turn it into an act of self-humiliation and begging. But for Indo-European cultures, prayer - even prostration on the ground - was never seen as begging.
But today, after Christianity has done its damage, it is very hard for many of us to re-connect with that older, nobler understanding of prayer - one that did NOT involve "sin" and guilt. So as a result, post-Christian atheism, the materialist bastard child of an increasingly senile and impotent Church of Paul, comes in and invents a false concept of "Heathen morality" in which it buys into and regurgitates the worn-out trope that "Heathen" means "godless" or that Heathens may have had gods but "never prayed to them" or "never asked them for anything" or only saw them as "Jungian archetypes" (which is in fact a rather MODERN way of seeing them, which didn't exist in ancient Heathenry).
And it becomes very difficult to reconcile the rich spiritual cultures of ancient Heathens with a concept of a people that “never bowed” or “never called on the Gods or the Wights for anything”. The wiser among us realize that this disconnected “brosatru” attitude of “too proud to have bowed” isn't Heathen at all – it's atheist, reactive, and ultimately rather whiny.
As it turns out, ancient Heathens DID pray – quite publicly in fact. It just didn't look much like a Christian prayer; it didn't involve begging for mercy or using the language of an “unworthy wretched sinner”. But Heathens did have prayers where they asked the Gods for assistance (not free handouts as in Christianity), and non-Heathen witnesses and sources who wrote about Heathen rituals, did indeed understand them to be prayers. Indeed, prayer and blót (offering the gods a gift) were highly intertwined.
Probably the most intact and un-tampered prayer in Old Norse sources is the Sigdrífa prayer, so named because the Valkyrie Sigdrífa (Brynhild) taught it to the great hero Sigurd of the Volsung clan. Sigdrífa prayed as follows:
"Hail the Day!
Hail the Day's sons!
Hail Night and her sister!
[with] un-wrathful eyes,
look thou upon us,
and give those seated here, victory!
Hail the Aesir!
Hail the Asynjur!
Hail this full-providing Earth!
Words and manly wit
give us, noble two -
and healing hands, for life."
(Sigdrífumál, verses 2-3)
This is a true prayer in every traditionally Pagan sense of the word. It contains (1) statements of praise to the Gods; and (2) requests of help and assistance - in that order. In other words, calling on the Gods with praise, and asking them for something – even if it is something rather general. And if a Valkyrie and a daughter of Odin would see fit do this, then what does that say about mere humans?
Not only did ancient Heathens pray to the Gods – they also bowed before them.
In the Norwegian Rune Poem, it is written regarding the Sól (Sig) Rune:
“Sól er landa ljóme; lúti ek helgum dóme.”
Translation: “Sun is the light of the world; I bow to the holy decree.”
Now you could argue that this Rune Poem is influenced by Christianity, due to its late age of recording (13th or 14th century). But what is interesting is that the name of Christ is not invoked in this verse of the poem at all, even though he is mentioned in other places in the medieval Rune Poems. In other words, this is a Christ-free verse about a holy decree or judgment. So whose decree was the Skáld really speaking of? May it perhaps be a veiled reference to the decree of the Norns? Or perhaps to the judgment of Forseti, god of law and justice? Perhaps that of Sól, or even of Freyr, god of the seasons and agriculture, whose rise and fall in the Eddas is essentially one of Solar-year metaphor.
Another case of bowing before Sól, the Sun Goddess, is preserved in the Sólarljóð, a 13th-Century Norse poem from Iceland, about death and Wyrd. Though it ends in a Christian context, much of the material in its earlier verses is noticeably Heathen in allusions and content:
Sól ek sá,
svá þótti mér,
sem ek sæja göfgan guð;
henni ek laut
hinzta sinni
aldaheimi í.
Translation:
“The Sun I saw,
so 'twas thought by me,
same as I see a giving god;
to her I bowed
a final time
in this world.”
(Sólarljóð, verse 41)
This indicates that not only did Heathens bow in prayer, but that the Sun, in whatever form, was centrally sacred to Heathen cosmology as a “giving god”; aside from Sól, a number of giving gods and goddesses among the Aesir and Vanir can be understood as solar deities, particularly Freyr, Fulla, Gefjon, and Baldur. And the Norse even bowed to Sólbefore death, “a final time, in this world”; indicating that bowing to the gods was not only normal, but that they had no problem doing so as one of their last deeds in life. The belief they would take with them to the grave, was one in which bowing to a god was perfectly acceptable; they never went back on this belief or “repented” of it.
The Arab courtier Ahmad Ibn Fadlan recorded a prayer among the Rus, a tribe likely descended from Swedish Vikings who had settled among the Slavs in the future Russia. Ibn Fadlan's record of their prayer is actually not the so-called “Viking Prayer” cited in the movie “The 13th Warrior” ("Lo, there do I see my father!...")- which isn't a prayer to any gods, but rather, a modern poem loosely based on a mystic vision (not prayer) originally described by a slave girl, her words witnessed by Ibn Fadlan through an interpreter.
The real “Viking Prayer” in Ibn Fadlan's account appears in a different chapter, and its content is also rather different. He records that the men of the Rus, when they arrive at a port to trade (in this case a port on the Volga river), would pray to their gods in the following manner:
“As soon as their boats arrive at this port, each of them disembarks, taking with him bread and meat, onions, milk and wine, and he walks until he comes to a great wooden post stuck in the ground with a face like that of a man, and around it are little figures. Behind these images there are long wooden stakes driven into the ground. Each of them prostrates himself before the great idol, saying to it:
‘Oh my Lord, I have come from a far country and I have with me such and such a number of young slave girls, and such and such a number of sable skins ...’ and so on, until he has listed all the trade goods he has brought. [Then he adds:] ‘I have brought you this gift.’ Then he leaves what he has with him in front of the wooden post [and says:]
‘I would like you to do me the favor of sending me a merchant who has large quantities of dinars and dirhams and who will buy everything that I want and not argue with me over my price.’
Then he departs.” (The Risala of Ibn Fadlan, section on “offerings to the idols”).
Ibn Fadlan's Risala (“exposition”) was, of course, written for the Abbasid Caliphate from a strict Sunni Muslim point of view, so his rather materialistic and profit-centered description of the Rus prayer does not sound particularly spiritual, or even positive - but interestingly, its context indicates it may not be that far off from reality – it seems perfectly tailored to the needs of the moment for the Rus traders. Many Vikings were traders after all - the upheaval of the 7th to 10th Centuries had caused many farmers to lose their lands and they were forced to take up new occupations – including both raiding and selling the b***y of said raids. In the climate of chaos that ensued after the Church blockade of Heathen lands in northern Europe, many Norsemen were forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere, and only the toughest survived the journeys and the often deadly competition.
Prayers for material success were likely a very real concern of these men, moreso than spiritual improvement; for them, a bad sales season meant starvation or loss of trading opportunities among their ship and crew. Whoever Ibn Fadlan saw, probably would have been concerned with business first and foremost, and would not necessarily have been the most spiritually-minded of Heathens, even when we consider the very real exaggeration-prone bias of his xenophobia towards non-Muslims (and even towards plenty of non-Arab Muslims).
On the other hand, Ibn Fadlan's own Arab culture had made haggling and bargaining into an art form, and though he may have rendered the money aspect of the Rus prayer in the coinage of his own people, the Rus were indeed accepting gold dinars and silver dirhams from Arab traders in Kiev and elsewhere as payment for their furs and slaves, so perhaps this account reflects his own understanding of what foreign pagan cultures “must” have been praying for when trading with the Arabs. Nonetheless, his account of the Heathen prayer shows no real contradiction in demonstrated values with other historical accounts.
Another interesting detail is that he renders the Rus men addressing the big statue of a god as "My Lord" in his account. It's possible the interpreter could have been translating loosely for him, but keep in mind that Freyr in Old Norse means "Lord", and Ingwi-Freyr is a shining golden god of plenty and prosperity (mostly in agriculture, but can be invoked for other kinds of prosperity as well).
So the Rus may have been praying to Freyr for assistance in business, since this was their immediate concern at their trading port - but that doesn't mean they didn't have more spiritual aspects to their religion. Ibn Fadlan obviously didn't witness all of their holidays, rituals, and prayers. He only saw a bit more than the average foreign trader would have seen, so it's no surprise he mainly saw the business prayers of their merchants.
Other instances of Heathen prayer are largely in agreement with Ibn Fadlan that Germanic tribes placed a huge amount of reverence in the act of calling on the Gods; perhaps because they were not doing it every day, or even every week, it carried more solemnity and importance when it did happen, than an everyday act of prayer for a Christian or Muslim.
Cornelius Tacitus (1st century CE) records a fervent (and apparently quite effective) act of devotion and prostration at the holy grove of the Suevi in the Germania:
“Of all the Suevi (Swabians), the Semnones recount themselves to be the most ancient and most noble. The belief of their antiquity is confirmed by religious mysteries. At a stated time of the year, all the several people descended from the same stock, assemble by their deputies in a wood; consecrated by the reverence of their forefathers, and by superstitious awe in times of old.... To this grove another sort of reverence is also paid. No one enters it otherwise than bound with ropes, thence professing his subordination and meanness, and power of the Deity there. If he fall down, he is not permitted to rise or be raised, but crawls along upon the ground. And of all their superstition, this is the drift and tendency; that from this place the nation drew their origin, that here their God, the supreme Governor of the world, resides, and that all other things whatsoever are subject to him and bound to obey him. The potent condition of the Semnones has increased their influence and authority, as they inhabit a hundred towns; and from the largeness of their community it comes, that they hold themselves to be the head of the Suevi.”
- Germania, Chapter 39.
Snorri Sturluson, writing over a millennium later in Iceland, records the following Heathen prayers to Odin in the Skáldskaparmál.
Kormák the skald sang this:
I pray the precious Ruler
of Yngwi's people, over me
to hold his hand, bow-shaking.
Hroptr carried with him Gungnir.
- Skáldskaparmál, chapter 2
*
Thus sang Eínarr:
Since less with Bestla's [other] children
prevail most lordly princes
than [with] you, my task is singing
Your praise in songs of battle.
- Skáldskaparmál, chapter 2
*
From the Skáld Eínarr “Skálaglamm” (bowl-jingle) Helgason:
I pray the high-souled Warder
of earth to hear the Ocean;
- of the Cliff of Dwarves, [to hear] my verses:
Hear, Jarl, the Gore of Kvasir (poetry).
- Skáldskaparmál, chapter 3
In this last verse, Eínarr Helgason prayed (asked) Odin to hear his poetry; so highly was poetry, the very blood and flesh of Kvasir, esteemed by the Norse, that it could even be deemed a gift in honor of the Gods.
Heathen prayers of praise to Thor were recorded in the Skáldskaparmál as well.
Vetrliði Sumarliðason said:
You smashed the limbs of Leikn;
you bashed Þrivaldi;
you knocked down Starkaðr;
you trod Gjalp dead under foot!
- Skáldskaparmál, chapter 4
*
Thus sang Thorbjörn Dísarskáld:
You did smite the head of Keila,
Smash Kjallandi altogether,
Ere you slew Lútr and Leidi,
Did spill the blood of Búseyra;
Did hold back Hengjankjapta,
Hyrrokkin died before;
Yet sooner in like fashion
Svívör, from life, was taken.
- Skáldskaparmál, chapter 4
Now, you might be saying, “but Snorri was a Christian! How can we trust him?”
Well, Snorri was also the man who preserved and wrote down most of the Norse Lore we have. Not the Poetic Edda of course, but he did write the Prose Edda, the Heimskringla, and several other texts, which put together, far exceed the Poetic Edda in length. Is there some Christian influence in his work? Of course.
But he also quotes Heathen Lore extensively, including parts of the Poetic Edda which he learned independently through the still-rich oral traditions of Iceland. Without him, the words and prayers of Heathen Skálds who preceded him would have been lost forever. And historians are generally agreed that the events and people he describes in most of his writings on Iceland are corroborated by both family records and the archaeological record.
Snorri only includes the first portions of these prayers – the “praise” portions. The second portion, the “bidding” or asking a favor from the Gods, he leaves out – as he would, giving that leaving it in would have resulted in trouble. A Christian scribe, living in a Christian time, would not be looked upon kindly if he wrote down Heathen requests for help from Heathen gods. But he would be tolerated if he only included the praise portions of the prayers, because these could simply be written off by Christian bishops as old odes to fictional gods about their destruction of fictional beings – much like how the church viewed manuscripts of the Greek and Roman odes to Neptune or Poseidon, which still survive today.
Here we can understand just how desperate Snorri was to preserve the knowledge of his ancestors; he essentially self-censored the latter halves of these prayers, so that his books would not be burned as heresy, and the Lore lost completely. It is unfortunate he was not in a position to preserve the prayers in full, but at least he ensured that this much survived.
Lastly, the majority of Icelandic Sagas not written by Snorri also provide plenty of evidence that Heathens prayed quite devotedly to the Gods, and would indeed kneel and bow before images of them. In fact, it was a crime in Heathen society to refuse to do so!
The Kjalnesinga saga tells of Búi, a local troublemaker, who claimed it was undignified to pray, bid, or blót to the Gods, and considered it shameful to even go to the local Heathen temple (Kjalnesinga saga, chapter 3). His attitude sounds just like many “brosatru” types today. Búi was prosecuted by the son of the local Gothi (Heathen priest) for 'denial of religion' (átrúnaður), and the jury at the Thing, or local assembly, sentenced Búi to full outlawry.
“Thorgrim the Gothi was greatly concerned about the men who would not offer (prayer and sacrifice). They put him in a most difficult position. Then he sent Thorsteinn his son to have a word with Búi, who would not offer, and called him, Búi, a dog. That spring ... Thorsteinn called Búi to answer for his denial-of-religion to the Kjalarnes Thing, to stand trial for outlawry. Thorsteinn testified to [witnessing] this offense, and Búi was later found guilty as an outlaw. Nobody would acknowledge Búi, even those he knew from all the journeys he made before. He went, as always, to Brautarholt to find his father and mother, and even then, he still did. From this, everything became hugely contentious between houses."
- Kjalnesinga saga chapter 3
“...Then he went into the temple. He saw that Thorsteinn lay on his face before Thor. Búi went quietly until he came to Thorstein. He grabbed Thorsteinn in such a way that he took one hand under his knee, while another under his shoulders. In that way he drew Thorsteinn to the air and drove his head down to the stone (altar) so firmly that the brain spilled out all over the floor. He was already dead. He carried him out of the temple and threw him into the garden. Then he returned to the temple. He then took the sacred fire of ordination and ran out. Then he placed logs around the temple and drew in the scene... Now the temple would burn up in less than an hour. Búi then turned out and locked both the temple and the garden and threw the keys into the flame. After that Búi went his way.”
- Kjalnesinga saga chapter 4
Refusing to pray to the Gods wasn't just un-Heathen to the ancients, it was considered blasphemous and a criminal offense, the habit of murderers, arsonists, and temple-defilers – not because of any commandment (there aren't any in Heathenry), but rather because it was bad for the Wyrd of the entire folk to have one of their own being disrespectful to the Gods.
Ancient Heathens had a very strong spiritual sense of community, and it definitely was not the sort of “do what thou wilt”, “every man for himself” cult of the entitled individual that we see today in the modern world. Your family and folk would have made solemn oaths to the Gods, to pray for good harvests or fish-catches, and would have offered up prayers of thanks (and symbolic sacrifices) for all they received. To reject these customs meant a breach of community oath, and thus outlawry, for threatening the Wyrd of your folk and town. Modern Asatru simply doesn't have that same deep sense of community oath or togetherness.
And it's a loss, because with it, there would be so much more cohesion and partnership, and so much less weak-ego infighting. The Wyrd of the arrogant atheist Búi, has definitely reared its head in the modern “Asatru” atheist-in-denial.
I truly wish this wasn't the case. I'm not here to bash Asatru; it has some very good people, who simply deserve better teachers and Gothar. But then again, I wasn't there in the 1970s setting the agenda when American Asatru was first formed. Who was? A bunch of former wiccans and ex-Christian atheists who didn't understand historical Indo-European prayer. They created an atmosphere of "prayer-phobia" that's become VERY hard to change.
That is why I am starting anew, with The Heathen Way.
Note that in the Kjalnesinga saga, Thorsteinn, the son of the local Gothi, was literally planting his face on the floor before Thor, when he was killed. Heathens, the sons of priests no less, prayed on the floor of the temple. Let that sink in for a moment. He was essentially praying the same way Muslims do, only with Thor in place of Allah. This may seem odd to us today, what with all the comic books and movies claiming that the Gods are just like us, or that no Norseman ever bowed to them. But it's common in the Sagas.
Now, does this mean that every Heathen was expected to prostrate himself on the floor when praying? Not necessarily. Prayer rituals may have been different outside of Iceland. But keep in mind, now we have three accounts of prostration from three very different sources from different times, writing about three separate Germanic tribes: Ibn Fadlan (10th century Arab Muslim writing about the Rus), Tacitus (1st century Roman polytheist writing about the Semnones – and plenty of other tribes), and the Kjalnesinga saga (13th century Icelandic quasi-Christian Skáld, writing about his own Norse Heathen ancestors).
But we have yet another account of Heathen bowing and prayer! In Harðar saga og Hólmverja, another Thorsteinn went to his local temple, as was his habit. He bent down before the stone altar in the temple, and he spoke to the gods:
“...when Thorsteinn came, he went into the offering-house (temple), and fell down before the stone upon which he had offered, and which he had erected in the 'house, and spoke before it. (Indriði stood outside the 'house). He heard this through the stone:
You have here,
for the last time,
leggy feet,
folded your foot [in prostration].
You will be rectified
upon your knee-skin
to [pay] hard Indriði
a high penalty.”
- Harðar saga og Hólmverja, chapter 38
Thus, not only did some ancient Heathens pray, kneel, and even bow their heads down onto the floor in front of both indoor offering-stones (altars) and statues of the Gods, but they even believed in the efficacy of such prayer to bring a response from the Gods on at least a few occasions. And the gods wouldn't sugar-coat things or tell you what you wanted to hear. Thorsteinn obviously wouldn't have liked what he heard, but he accepted it and left the temple reverently... only to have his head cut off by Indriði a short while later as revenge for a prior blood feud.
CONCLUSIONS:
Ancient Heathens prayed. Every surviving ancient account that discusses whether they prayed, falls on the side of a strong “YES”. The prayers involved both words of praise and petitions for help.
Ancient Heathens bowed before their Gods; they of course didn't literally worship the wooden statues, but rather, what they represented. The statue is a symbolic representation of the god.
Ancient Heathens even knelt, sat on their knees, and bent down and planted their faces on the floor in front of god-statues and stone altars inside of temples.
Ancient Heathens actually considered it sacrilege and criminal to refuse to pray in the temples or make offerings to the gods. Again, the Wyrd of the Folk had Primacy over the whims of the individual.
Should you pray? That is up to you.
But traditional Heathens did pray then, and we also do now - we often give prayers of praise and thanks; more rarely we also add the second part of Heathen prayer, the request for assistance, when we deem the aid of the gods necessary.
Should you bow and prostrate yourself? That is up to personal choice today. Sure, some don't feel comfortable with it. But it is simply a bow, as you would do before a King in ancient times, and the Gods are far greater than human Kings. It does not involve any begging or “worthless sinner talk”, at least not based on any of the sources we have. We need to stop seeing bowing and prayer as “shameful” if we're going to truly understand what traditional Heathenry is all about.
Lastly, Heathens did NOT consider it disgraceful or “cowardly” to pray.They certainly didn't deem someone as a niðing for praying. In fact, quite the opposite – prayer was an expected social norm, especially prayers for prosperity and health. They outlawed and banished anyone who didn't pray.
Anyone who claims that praying is cowardly or weak, and still claims to honor their ancestors, needs to take a good look in the mirror. Indo-European ancestors ALL prayed, Germanic or otherwise – the very concept of prayer as “asking the Gods, and gifting back to the Gods” is primally Indo-European; it is not isolated, nor would it make any sense to say that Germanic people didn't have it when all other Indo-European races and cultures did.
I only cite Germanic-related sources here for the sake of brevity; there are plenty of references in the Iranian Avesta and Bundahishn, the Greco-Roman writings of Ovid, Hesiod, Pindar, and Apollodorus, and the Jain Agamas and the earliest layers of the Indian Vedas, which show a consistent stream of related Indo-European prayer customs with a common ancestral source. If you are Germanic, you've now seen plenty of proof that your ancestors prayed, bowed, prostrated themselves before the Gods. So were your ancestors cowardly, begging niðings, or were they brave, noblepeople that you REALLY honor and look up to? You can't have it both ways.
The idea that “prayer is un-Heathen” is not the way of any Heathen ancestors. Indeed, Germanic Heathen were like all other Indo-European pagans, in that they considered reverence to the Gods to be a vital part of one's obligations to the Folk and its Wyrd; to condemn Heathen prayer and refuse to offer up either prayers or physical offerings to the gods, was the real cowardice, in the view of ancient Heathens. It took a brave man or woman to stand before the Gods, offer gifts, ask for assistance, and be accountable for using whatever blessings the Gods gave.
You cannot claim to be “following the ways of the noble Ancestors” while at the same time claiming that “Heathens don't pray”. The two views are NOT compatible, and all indications, from the above sources and many others, are that our Indo-European ancestors – Germanic or otherwise – typically would not have looked well upon those who refused to pray to the Gods AT ALL.
