Winter Nights (Vetrnætr) the Asatru Holiday of Love, Loss and Memory

“Winter Nights/Vetrnætr” is a holy tide we celebrate in Asatru/Heathenry/Norse Paganism at the end of the fall season and the beginning of the “Winter Nights.” Winter Nights is mentioned by the medieval Icelandic historian Snorri Sturlusson as one of the three major holidays on the Pre-Christian calendar in his chronicle “Hiemskringla” alongside Sigrblót (“Victory Sacrifice”, celebrated between Spring and Summer) and Yule (celebrated on Midwinter moon, the first full moon after the new year).

Winter Nights marked the beginning of a series of sacrifices (Blot), two of which that are mentioned in Snorri’s chronicle are “Álfablót” and “Dísablót.”

So “Winter Nights” was likely more of a period of time than a celebration in and of itself. Just like Yule was more of a period of time than any one particular celebration.

The way Norse Pagans celebrate Winter Nights today is as a holy tide of love, loss and memory.

• Love for our family and friends
• Loss of those we held dear who have died
• Memory when we celebrate their lives and keep them with us

The History of Winter Nights

In Iceland’s harsh climate, the slaughtering season fell earlier than November. Haustmánuðr, “Autumn Month,” lasted from mid-September to mid-October. The three days that fell at the end of this month were the Vetrnætr, “Winternights.” In the Icelandic calendar, the Winternights began on a day between October 8 and 15 in the Julian calendar, or between October 19 and 27 in the Gregorian calendar. In Norway, the first day of winter was fixed as October 14, the feast of the otherwise obscure St. Callixtus (Rím II §136; ed. Beckman and Kålund, Alfræði Íslenzk, vol. 2, p. 156; see also Brate, Nordens Äldre Tidräkning, p. 26), and there were also attempts in Iceland to Christianize Vetrnætr to Vetrmessa or Vetrarmessa, “Winter-Mass,” on October 14 (Cleasby and Vigfusson, Icelandic-English Dictionary, p. 701). Like Winterfylleþ in England, Winternights originaly marked the beginning of slaughtering; the month that followed in Iceland was Gormánuðr, “Slaughter-Month.”

Winternights is plural because it lasted for three nights

Valla-Ljóts saga 3 refers to hinar þriðju vetrnætur, “the third Winter Night.” Several sagas mention an “autumn gathering” (haustboð), and Egils saga 2 mentions an “autumn blót” (haustblót). Sometimes these gatherings were separate from Winternights: in Laxdæla saga 46, Óláfr hosts a haustboð half a month before his friend Osvif holds a Winternights gathering.

On the other hand, Eyrbyggja saga 37 tells that Snorri the Goði held a great haustboð at Winternights itself. Gisla saga 15 mentions that Þórgrimr held his haustboð at Winternights, and describes the purpose of his gathering (ÍF 6, pp. 80-81):

Þorgrímr ætlaði at hafa haustboð at vetrnóttum ok fagna vetri ok blóta Frey ok býðr þangat Berki, bróður sínum ok Eyjólfi Þórðarsyni ok mǫrgu ǫðru stórmenni. Gísli býr ok til veizlu ok býðr til sín mágum sínum ór Arnarfirði ok Þorkǫtlum tveimr, ok skorti eigi hálft hundrað manna at Gísla. Drykkja skyldi vera at hvárratveggja, ok var strát gólf á Sæbóli af sefinu af Seftjǫrn.

Thorgrim intended to have an autumn gathering at Winternights and welcome winter and sacrifice to Freyr, and he invited his brother Bork and Eyjolf Thordarson and many other prominent men. Gisli also prepared a feast and invited his kin from Arnarfjord and the two Thorketills. There were no fewer than half a hundred men at Gisli’s home. There was to be drinking at both houses, and the floor at Sæbol was strewn with sedges from Seftjorn.

In Norway, King Olaf Haraldson was rather perturbed to find out that his subjects were celebrating Winternights according to the old customs (Óláfs saga helga 107, ÍF 27, p. 177):

Þat haust váru sǫgð Óláfi konungi þau tiðendi innan ór Þrándheimi, at boendur hefði þar haft veizlur fjǫlmennar at veturnóttum. Váru þar drykkjur miklar. Var konungi svá sagt, at þar væri minni ǫll signuð Ásum at fornum sið. Þat fylgdi ok þeiri sǫgn, at þar væri drepit naut ok hross og roðnir stallar af blóði ok framið blót ok veittr sá formáli, at þat skyldi vera til árbótar.

That fall, the tidings were told to King Olaf at Thrandheim that the freeholders had held a feast attended by many at Winternights. There was much drinking there. The king was told that there was minni-ale blessed to the Æsir according to the old custom. The story continued that cattle and horses were killed and the altars reddened with blood, and a blót carried out, and the prayer performed that had to be made for better seasons.

The history Ágrip af Nóregs konunga sǫgum 19 (ed. Driscoll, pp. 30-33) reports that Óláfr Tryggvason replaced Heathen sacrifices with Christian feasts, including haustǫl at Míkjálsmessu, “autumn ale on the feast day of St. Michael” (September 29). It seems possible that this was an attempt to substitute a Christian holiday for the old Heathen holiday, which at the time fell one to two weeks after St. Michael’s Day.

Besides sacrifices, feasting, and drinking, sporting contests (leikmót) were held at Winternights in Iceland. Eyrbyggja saga 43 mentions that the folk of Breidavik held an annual leikmót around the time of Winternights, which lasted for over two weeks and drew contestants and spectators from miles around. Another leikmót is held at the beginning of winter (á ǫndverðan vetr) in Egils saga 40, and yet another is held at a haustboð in Hallfreðar saga vandræðaskálds 2. The most common game at these meets seems to have been knáttleikr, which could be played on land or on the ice. The rules of knáttleikr aren’t completely clear from the saga accounts, but it was a rough and sometimes violent team sport involving hitting a ball with sticks. It was probably similar to the Irish game of hurling and the Scots game of shinty (Gunnell, “The Relationship Between Icelandic Knattleikur and Early Irish Hurling”).

When do you observe Winter Nights today?

Heathens celebrate Winter Nights in the Fall, sometime after the Autumnal Equinnox. Usually beginning the first full moon afterwards (usually in October), but others begin observation of the holy tide the second full moon afterwards (usually in November), or it goes from one full moon to the other.

Other Heathens celebrate Winter Nights based on observation of the trees. When the leaves turn colors on the trees, it’s the beginning of the Holy Tide. When the leaves are all off the trees, the Holy Tide has ended.

For our example, we will use the Moon-to-Moon dating for next year’s Winter Nights

Heathen Holidays more often refer to a period of a few days with multiple activities going on each day rather than one specific day.

We’ll use the example of Christmas. For a Christian, Christmas is one day: December 25th. But to a Heathen, they would think Christmas began as soon as the decorations went up and that Mariah Carey song started playing on the radio all the way until you finally take the tree down in March.

Now, you don’t need to go asking the boss for the whole month of November off, but just keep in mind that this is a Holy Tide, and lots of things can happen during it.

Things like Álfablót and Dísablót.

How did Heathens Celebrate Winter Nights and how would they do it today?

Although this is a time of enjoyment, there is a more solemn purpose as well. In the sagas, this is the time when the dead were remembered and honored, a time similar in some respects to the Irish Samhain.

The Dead Return: Alfablót and Disablót

The words álfar and dísir can have several meanings, but one commonly understood meaning today is that they have is deceased male and female ancestors, and this time of year seems to have been a time when they were worshipped.

Víga-Glúms saga 6 mentions a dísablót held at Winternights. Egils saga 44 mentions a dísablót near the beginning of winter, where there was drykkja mikil inni í stofunni, “much drink inside the hall.” In Þiðranda þáttr ok Þórhalls, there is a feast at Winternights, and this is the time when the dark dísir claim Thidrandi (transl. Waggoner, “Tales from the Flateyjarbók X,” pp. 28-33).

In one manuscript of the legendary Heiðreks saga, King Álfr of Álfheimr holds a great dísablót in the autumn, and his beautiful daughter Álfhildr conducts the rites (transl. Tolkien, Saga of King Heidrek, p. 67). On the other hand, in Austfararvísur, the poet Sighvat describes a difficult journey in late fall and complains that the lady of a household will not offer hospitality to his party because the household is holding álfablót, a sacrifice to the álfar. Gísla saga 15, quoted above, mentions a Winternights blót to Freyr; recall that Freyr is the lord of Álfheimr, and in Ynglinga saga he is said to have died and yet lived on in his mound, so he has clear associations with the álfar as deceased ancestors.

When Winternights festivities are described in any detail, they often seem to be restricted to kin.

The dísablót described in Víga-Glúms saga 6 and the Winternights feast described in Þiðranda þáttr ok Þórhalls are attended only by relatives and close friends of the householder, while Sighvat’s account in Austfararvísur tells how they were turned away from a house because the family was sacrificing to the álfar.

In Egils saga 43-44, Egil and his men arrive at the home of Bard after a difficult journey around the beginning of winter, and their apologetic host puts them up in an outbuilding, gives them only skyr to drink (a curdled milk product somewhat like yogurt), and gives them straw to sleep on—while at the same time, he is holding a dísablót and great feast in the main hall, with King Eirik and Queen Gunnhild as his guests. Bard fails rather badly at hospitality (and Egil ends up killing him, although not before Bard and Gunnhild have tried to poison his ale), but the point of the episode may be that this dísablót is the time when the family draws close to honor its own worthy ancestors. Outsiders may have no real reason to attend (except for Eirik and Gunnhild, who in any case are said to be dear friends of Bárðr).

Feasts and games may be more open, but it appeared to be the family’s task alone to pay honor to their álfar and dísir.

Three-Day Feast (Saxons)

The chronicler Widukind of Corvey begins his Res Gestae Saxonicae [History of the Saxons] with the story of how the Saxons came to the lands of the Thuringians. The Thuringians didn’t want them there, and there were several battles between them. The climactic one, in which the Saxons allied with the Franks and narrowly avoided being betrayed by them, was allegedly fought in 531.

After their victory, the Saxons celebrated:

When morning came, the Saxons placed an eagle before the eastern gate, and constructed an altar of victory following the error of their fathers. They worshipped their divinities in their own manner. . . . . They spent three days celebrating their victory, dividing up the booty from the enemy, celebrating funeral rites on behalf of the dead, and praising their leader to the heavens. They acclaimed him for having a divine spirit and heavenly strength since it was through his constancy that he brought them to achieve this victory. All of this was completed, according to the memory of our ancestors, on the first of October. These days of error have been transformed through the decrees of religious men into fasts, prayers, and offerings by all of those who became Christians before us.

The fact that Widukind happens to mention that “these days of error have been transformed. . . into fasts, prayers, and offerings” suggests that the victory was commemorated each year until the Saxons were forced to accept Christianity, after which the holiday was replaced by a Christian feast. This would be rather unusual.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have major holidays that were established to commemorate a specific event in history, but as far as we can tell, most pre-Christian holidays celebrated recurring seasonal cycles and events that aren’t thought of as having a “beginning” or “founding.”

It’s possible that Widukind misinterpreted the Saxons’ traditional autumn or harvest festival as a commemoration of the famous battle. Whatever the case, modern Heathens who are inspired by the Saxons might celebrate a feast around October 1.587

Allelieweziel (Pennsylvania Dutch/Urglaawe)

Allelieweziel translates as “the goal of all love.”

In Urglaawe practice, Allelieweziel begins on the night of October 30 and lasts for twelve nights. Allelieweziel is the beginning of the dark time of the year, the time when the old year dies and the dead are closest to the living. This is the time when the goddess Holle departs to lead the Wild Hunt, turning over the year to her consort Ewicher Yeeger (Eternal Hunter). Although he is associated with death and darkness, he protects the people against King Frost (Greene, “The Celebration and Observance of Allelieweziel”).

One important ritual of Allelieweziel is the burning of the Butzemann. The Butzemann is a scarecrow-like figure, made in February during the observance of Entschanning from the remnants of the previous year’s crop stuffed into old clothes. The Butzemann is felt to have a soul of his own, and he is set to watch over the fields. At Allelieweziel, the Butzemann is told of things that the celebrants want to banish from their lives, either in words or by being given pieces of paper. Then he is burned; his spirit is free to depart on the Wild Hunt, and his ashes are spread on the fields.

Allelieweziel marks the beginning of die Schlachtzeit, the butchering season.

One Pennsylvania German custom that has been adopted by Urglaawe is the making of Metzelsupp, “slaughter soup,” made from the meat of the animals butchered at this time. As each family completed its yearly butchering, it would make Metzelsupp and send portions around to neighboring families, who would reciprocate as they finished their own slaughtering. Failure to give Metzelsupp after receiving some was highly offensive. Whether the custom has pre-Christian roots or not is uncertain; regardless, it fits the “gift for a gift” and community-building ethos of Heathenry quite well (Schreiwer and Eckhart, Dictionary of Urglaawe Terminology, p. 54).

Rob Schreiwer describes Allelieweziel (“At the Tiller,” p. 1):

The word “Allelieweziel” in Deitsch (Pennsylvania German) can translate into English in many ways, including “the goal of all love,” “the target of all love,” “the aim of all love,” and “the purpose of all love.” Allelieweziel represents the transition from the light half (Brechthelft) of the spiritual year to the dark half (Dunkelheft).

As is the probable case for many of our observances, it is not likely that our ancestors looked at a calendar to determine the onset of Allelieweziel. We do so in the current era for numerous reasons, including the coordination of community gatherings. Thus the observance begins at sundown on October 30, when Holle sets off upon the Wild Hunt to seek out the souls of the deceased. She is followed by an entourage of the land spirits as well as entities from other realms. Throughout the dark half of the year, Holle hunts for stray souls. As She finds them, they join the Furious Host until She brings them to her Mill to “grind” them into their next life.

Allelieweziel is the death phase of the life-death-rebirth cycle, which is underscored by the honoring of the god Holler, who is closely associated with death (if not Death himself), on the final day of the holiday (November 11). This honoring is the modern Urglaawe observance of Ewicher Yeeger (Eternal Hunter). Soon after the end of Allelieweziel, the land is set upon by the armies of der Reifkeenich (King Frost), which is a story unto itself!

Another aspect to the holiday is the recognition of the contributions and sacrifices that males make for the good of the community.

Traditionally, as winter set in, culling of herds, particularly males, helped to provide food for humans and conserve resources for the remaining herd. This recognition is underscored by the burning of the Butzemann, or activated scarecrow, by the end of the first day of Allelieweziel.

The Butzemann is the “father” of this year’s crops and is now released from his duties. Prior to the burning, though, he is to be shown seeds or cuttings of plants to help ensure that we will nurture his descendants. As he is burned, he is to take with him all of the things that we want to banish from our spiritual lives, particularly things that were on our list of resolutions at the New Year.

The purpose of the pyre is to bring about the extinction of those negative aspects of our lives, as well as transmitting any gifts to the deities. As we watch him burn, we honor his work and reflect upon the year gone by. I should mention that there are many superstitions surrounding a Butzemann, how he is tended, and his proper disposal.

The time between Allelieweziel and Yule is considered to be the darkest time: the time between death and rebirth.

It is not a time to fear, but instead a time to recognize the need for change within ourselves and within all creation. The end of one thing is a beginning of something new. The duty of each individual being, whether human, animal, or plant, is to strive to leave the world a better place for our descendants (and for the part of us that returns for another life in a new soul construct!) than it was when we came into it. This is the “goal of all love.” This is Allelieweziel.

Hail to those who have gone before.

Blotmonath (England, continental Europe)

The Menologium and several other Old English sources place the beginning of winter on November 7. Bede mentions that the old name for October in the English calendar was Winterfylleþ, “Winter Full Moon,” and adds the important details that winter consisted of six months in which the nights were longer than the days, and that winter began on the first full moon in October (De temporum ratione 15, transl. Wallis, The Reckoning of Time, p. 54). If we remove the Roman calendar from the equation, it would make sense to see Winterfylleþ as the first full moon after the autumnal equinox, and Blōtmōnaþ, “Sacrifice Month,” beginning on the second full moon.

In the Christian calendar, the traditional time for celebrating the arrival of winter was St. Martin’s Day, or Martinmas, November 11 (sometimes turned into “Martlemas,” “Martymas,” or something similar in English). St. Martin, of course, was a Christian saint, and like many traditional holidays, most of our documentation for the traditions of this day comes from medieval and early modern sources. Nonetheless, as we’ve pointed out repeatedly, the seasons were not different for pagans and Christians. For both, this time marked the end of the active agricultural year: the harvest was in, the animals were penned up for the winter, and in areas where rye and winter wheat were grown, the sowing season was over. In England, it was one of the days when hired hands could end their employment and seek new contracts (Walsh, “Medieval English Martinmesse,” pp. 244-245). In fact, there is some evidence that Martinmas absorbed pagan practices at a very early date: Martin died in 397, but in 578, a church council, the Council of Auxerre in northern France, specifically condemned vigils in honor of St. Martin, along with other suspiciously pagan practices that their Frankish, German, and Gallo-Roman parishioners were evidently getting up to (Canon V; ed. Maasen, Concilia Aevi Merivingici, p. 180).

Why feasting at this time?

Around this time of year, livestock were brought into barns when there was no longer enough grass in the pastures for them to graze outdoors. They would depend on hay for food until the new grass would come in spring. This is the time when old animals, or those not likely to survive the winter, would be slaughtered. If the hay harvest had been poor, or the winter looked like it might be a long one, difficult decisions would have to be made, and more livestock might have to be slaughtered than a farmer would want to. But this was a time when fresh meat was available. Much of it would have to be smoked, salted, dried, or turned into sausage, but in good years plenty was available for feasts. This is probably why the Old English Menologium celebrates November as a time of bounty (Karasawa, XXXX; translation BW):

And þæs ofstum bringð

embe feower niht, folce genihtsum,

Blotmonað on tun, beornum to wiste,

Nouembris, niða bearnum

eadignesse, swa nan oðer na deð

monað maran miltse drihtnes.

And after four nights,

Blotmonath, bountiful for the people,

November swiftly brings to town

Prosperity for the children of men,

as sustenance for men, as no other month

does more, by the mercy of the Lord.

In medieval and early modern Europe in many areas, Martinmas was celebrated with roast goose. “Martinmas beef” or pork might also be on the feast menu. All of these animals would have been grazing on the stubble from the harvested fields, and the pigs would have been driven to the forest to forage on acorns and other fallen nuts. Having just been brought in from this grazing and foraging, these animals were as fat as they would ever be, and meat served at Martinmas was at its prime (Walsh, “Medieval English Martinmesse,” pp. 231-234). As Thomas Tusser wrote in 1557 (Fiue Hundreth Good Pointes of Husbandrie, p. 224):

For Easter, at Martilmas hange up a biefe:

for pease fed and stall fed, play pickpurse the thiefe.119

With that and fat bakon, till grasse biefe come in:

thy folk shall loke cherely, when others loke thin.

In Shetland in the 19th century, a bull, a pig, and several sheep were slaughtered around the beginning of November, and their meat was carefully preserved, including the tripe, sausages, black puddings, and “some other combinations of meat and suet unknown, I believe, except in these islands.” Grain and other provisions that were not locally available were shipped in. This marked the beginning of the winter season (Edmondston and Saxby, The Home of a Naturalist, p. 124)

The agricultural year would not have been significantly different in pre-Christian times, and this is why Bede called November Blōtmōnaþ, “month of animal sacrifices,” “for then the cattle which were to be slaughtered were consecrated to their gods” (De temporum ratione 15, transl. Wallis, The Reckoning of Time, p. 54).

A folk name for November in the Netherlands is Slachtmaand, which also means “slaughter month.” Some of the animals would have to be slaughtered, both to feed the people and to free up food for the surviving animals. The sacrifices at this time were a way of making a necessary slaughter sacred, giving thanks to the gods, returning a portion of their gifts to the Earth, and strengthening the bonds of frith and fellowship among the community.

In wine-growing regions of Europe, Martinmas was the time to drink the first new wine of the season.

As early as the 8th century, the day was celebrated with merry inebriation. Games, plays and comic songs were also traditional, the best-known being the Scottish border ballad “Get Up and Bar The Door” (Walsh, “Martinmas”). A brief interlude of warm days might fall at about this time; in England this was “St. Martin’s summer,” while in the United States this is “Indian summer,” and elsewhere it is “old woman’s summer” (e.g. German Altweibersommer, Russian bab’e leto).

Like the feasting, this weather could be seen as one last chance to enjoy the riches that the summer season has brought, before the cold finally settles in for months. And then it is time to turn the mind and body inward, working indoors and keeping warm against the rising chill.

Why do Heathens today celebrate Winter Nights? Love, Loss and Memory

“Deyr fé, deyja frændr,
deyr sjalfr it sama,
ek veit einn, at aldrei deyr:
dómr um dauðan hvern.”

“Cattle (Weath) die, Friends die,

You will die yourself,

I know one thing that never dies,

the judgment on (memory of) those who died.”

This is one of the most famous verses from the Old Norse poem “Havamal” which is a poem featuring some “sayings” of a wanderer who arrives at a house and offers wisdom in exchange for a warm fire and a hot meal. Through the course of the poem, the guest is revealed to be Odin and the host receives practical, philosophical and lastly esoteric/magical wisdom as the poem reaches its conclusion.

Winter Nights is the Holy Tide where Heathens remember our lost loved ones.

There is no other way to put it. This is the time where we remember our dead. It is after the Harvest parties are over and we think of the people who weren’t there. We think about the people we miss: our grandparents, our parents, our friends and relatives. We think about the cold season to come and those we wished we could share the coming Yule with.

If Midsummer and Harvest were our party, Winter Nights is our afterparty.

Winter Nights is where we reflect on an important truth about human life: it ends.

There isn’t any avoiding it. At some point, we will be separated from the people we love. We will miss them when they are gone, just like they will miss us when we are gone. We will watch our loved ones get old, become sick and die. We too will become old and sick and we too will die.

Our wealth is transitory. No matter how hard we work or how much we carefully save and plan, eventually our wealth will do us no good. We might be able to buy expensive medical treatments. We might be able to buy things that make our lives more enjoyable. But we can’t buy more life.

But, the poem reminds us, we can count on our memory outliving us. This phrase can be heard like a blessing or a curse depending on how you lived. Our words and deeds in life will outlive us. They will be reflected in how people remember us, just as what our loved ones did are part of our memories of them.

Winter Nights grounds us in this truth and invites us to live our lives in such a way as to have our memories be a comfort and a blessing.

Is Winter Nights like Dia de los Muertos or Halloween?

Winter Nights in spirit is closer to Dia de los Muertos than Halloween in that the spirit of remembrance in both holidays is essentially the same, though the way they are celebrated differs. The problem, of course, is that Dia de los Muertos is a living tradition and Winter Nights is a reconstructed one, so we don’t know exactly how similar they would have looked. Halloween derives from an English Christian tradition of “All Hallows Eve” which celebrated the lives of the Saints.

Samhain was a Celtic holy tide around this period which Wiccans have adopted in their Wheel of the Year, and we are in a similar problem because we are all reconstructing those traditions rather than carrying on a living one.

Many Heathens incorporate an altar to their loved ones in their homes which may resemble an “offierenda” that you might see in a Mexican home. Much like the offierenda, offerings and decorations may come into play during the Winter Nights Holy Tide that you wouldn’t see in the rest of the year.

So in short, in spirit Winter Nights is more similar to Dia de los Muertos, though Winter Nights is celebrated typically more sober and somber than what we typically think of when we think of Dia de los Muertos.