Resources Spirits Spirits of the Land and Sea

Spirits of the Land and Sea

Summary

The world of “the Invisible” is richly populated by a multitude of wights.

Spirits in the air bring light, while the dark dwarves create works of great skill and just might teach us some of what they know. Seas, lakes, and rivers are home to beings, sometimes dangerous and hostile, sometimes playful and helpful.

This resource takes a great deal from Our Troth Vol. 2 and was generously donated by the publisher for the free enjoyment of all Heathens. It has been heavily edited for online reading, and a lot of information as well as an annotated bibliography is in the original book. If you’d like to read more, please buy the book!

Spirits of the Land and Sea

The world of “the Invisible” is richly populated by a multitude of wights.

Spirits in the air bring light, while the dark dwarves create works of great skill and just might teach us some of what they know. Seas, lakes, and rivers are home to beings, sometimes dangerous and hostile, sometimes playful and helpful.

Landwights

The third way in which alfs are described is as spirits inhabiting the land: the landvættir, “landwights.”

Unlike housewights and farm-wights (see Chapter 17), landwights are generally not bound to a particular family, farm, or grave, and they are not obliged to act in a human’s best interest. Like the wilderness itself, they can be unpredictable, and may be helpful or dangerous to the humans they encounter. There is considerable overlap between the lore of Germanic landwights—whether called alfs, huldufolk, Moosleute, or other names—and the sidhe or fae of Celtic lore. 

Direct evidence for the worship of land-spirits goes back at least to Roman-era Germany, where people raised altars and inscriptions not only to Roman and Germanic deities, but to the Genius Loci, the “Spirit of the Place”—or in one instance to the Præsides Huius Loci, the “Protectors of This Place,” and in another the Tutelae Loci, “Guardians of the Place.” Roman soldiers evidently thought it important to get on the good side of whatever holy powers might be living near their duty station (Saddington, “Roman Soldiers,” pp. 155-157, 161)

Ælfric of Eynsham complained of these practices in 11th century England, and although he didn’t specify that offerings were being brought to landwights, it seems very likely that this is what he meant (De Auguriis 129-135; ed. Skeat, Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, vol. 1 pp. 372-375): 

 Some men are so blind that they bring their offerings to earth-fast stones and also to trees and to well-springs as witches teach, and they refuse to understand how foolishly they act, or how the dead stone or the dumb tree can help them or give them health when they themselves never stir from their places. 

Although Ælfric accuses people of worshiping the rocks, trees, or springs directly, it seems far more likely that what they were doing was honoring the landwights living in these places. 

Landwights can defend their land against attack, as in the story from Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar in which a wizard goes to Iceland in whaleshape to see if it can be invaded. 

He finds that the island is teeming with landwights. When he tries to go ashore, the four guardians of the land drive him away: a dragon in the east, a huge bird in the north, a bull in the west, and a mountain giant in the south, each accompanied by a host of smaller wights in the same shape. These four warders still appear on Iceland’s coat of arms and on Icelandic coins.

In a famous episode in Egils saga, after Egil Skallagrimsson has gotten free of the clutches of King Eirik Bloodaxe and his queen Gunnhildr, he carves runes on a pole, kills a horse, and sets its head atop the pole, creating a níðstǫng (“curse-pole” or “insult-pole).

He first turns it against Eirik and Gunnhildr, and then turns it towards the land and says “I turn this insult against the landwights who dwell in the land, so that all of them may wander false paths, neither find nor encounter their homes, until they have driven King Eirik and Gunnhildr from the land” (Egils saga 57, ÍF 2, p. 171). 

Huldufólk  (Hidden People)

In Icelandic folklore, the word álfar is used almost synonymously with huldufólk, “hidden people.” Huldufólk live in a sort of “parallel universe” to ours. They follow much the same lifestyle as Icelanders did two or three centuries ago; they farm and fish and even attend church, but they never use modern clothing or technology. Recent polls show that well over half the population of Iceland either believes in álfar/huldufólk, or at least does not rule out their existence, and a fair number of Icelanders have the “second sight” needed to see them. 

Nearly every year, it seems, an Icelandic construction project goes awry because of alf interference, which can range from foreboding dreams to freak accidents. 

When visible, huldrefolk appear human, and often beautiful from the front, but something about their backs gives them away. Sometimes a huldre has an animal tail; often its back is hollow, resembling a hollow log overgrown with moss. Some Scandinavian huldrefolk, like the huldufólk in Iceland, live more or less as humans do and do not usually bother people. Others may lead people astray or try to seduce them.

 Honoring the Landwights 

Offerings may be left for the landwights wherever their presence is felt. Heathens today can leave offerings at the roots of trees, on large rocks, or beside springs. If you have large rocks on your land where the presence of landwights can be felt, you could chip or grind small cup-shaped depressions into the rocks and leave offerings there, or look for natural hollows that serve the same purpose. 

Today, anyone offering food to the landwights should not leave trash or residue behind. Food offerings should nourish any wild birds and mammals who come to share in the bounty, and they should not attract noxious or dangerous animals and get them used to seeking out human food. This is not a problem everywhere, but there are still parts of North America where bears, wolves, and coyotes live, and here food offerings must be very carefully chosen and not left out for long, if at all. 

Rod Landreth had some other suggestions in his “Hip Heathen” column in Idunna 52 (p. 35): 

Our ancestors understood that when the local animals ate the offerings that either the wights had already taken what they wanted or the animals were the wights themselves. This may have been fine in the 12th Century, but we really don’t want raccoons or possums to be visiting our homes (and trashcans) expecting food all the time. 

Since the landvættir are a bit hardier than their inside counterparts, generally a wight’s home is a stump, large rock or something similar. We don’t want food out; thus I recommend things that can take the weather and are not easily nabbed by local children.

 Today, when so many human activities seem almost deliberately intended to offend the landwights, we need to repair our relationship with the land and the beings that live on it, whether visible or not. Restoring our relationship with the landwights, and through them, with the earth, may be one of the most important things for Heathens to do.

Any major construction or landscaping projects should have their permission. They often live in trees or boulders, so if you absolutely have to move any of these, you must warn them in advance, and if you can’t avoid destroying their homes, at the very least give them time to move out. Landwights tend to dislike loud noises and bloodshed; they probably also hate pollution, heavy traffic, and littering. 

Anything you do for the integrity of your land may be considered a service and an offering to the landwights, whether it’s direct activism against polluters, working on ecological restoration projects, or simply picking up litter. 

Wights of the Waters 

We can reconstruct a Proto-Germanic root, *nikwas, meaning some sort of uncanny being that lives in water (Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary, p. 390). However, the linguistic and cultural descendants of the *nikwas are diverse. In Old English, nicor meant a terrifying monster. Beowulf brags about fighting and killing nine nicors during his swimming match with Breca (Beowulf 423). 

In more recent folklore, the näck is a gifted fiddler or harper who might teach people to play in exchange for an offering. Tales differ as to what offering he prefers: it might be drops of the fiddler’s own blood, a black lamb, a fat white goat, a piece of meat, or perhaps a helping of snuff or brandy. If the fiddler is lucky, the näck will teach him a certain tune that will make everyone dance if they hear it. Several tunes in the folk repertoire supposedly came from the näck (Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 2, pp. 492-494). 

A well-known ballad, with versions recorded throughout Scandinavia, tells of a water-wight who seizes the hero’s beloved. The hero plays his harp or his horn in a magically powerful way, and frees his beloved from the water, although versions differ as to whether she is still alive or not at the end. This ballad is usually called “Villemann og Magnhild” in Norway, and “Harpans Kraft” (“Power of the Harp)’ or “Tonernes Magt” (“Power of Music)’ in Sweden and Denmark (transl. Broadbridge, Treading the Dance, pp. 106-108).80 Water-wights may also appear in the form of horses. 

The most famous Nixe is probably die Lorelei, said to sit on a rock in the Rhine and sing an enchanting song that lures sailors to wreck. Female Nixen have foresight and will sometimes answer queries: in Nibelungenlied 25, Hagen spies two wisiu wip (wise women), also called merewip (mer-women), bathing in the Danube. When he steals their clothes, to get them back they show him where to cross the river, but they also foretell that his entire company will be killed (transl. Hatto, pp. 193-195). 

Honoring the Water-Wights 

Like all wights, the water-wights can sometimes bring benefits to those who befriend them, but their enmity is something fearful. Those who encounter any sort of wight should treat them respectfully and try to give them anything they might ask for. When going out on a river or the ocean, make a small gift of food and drink, so that the wight does not get the idea of choosing its own sacrifice. (Simpson, Scandinavian Folktales, p. 230; Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 2, p. 497).

Dwarves 

Snorri repeatedly implies that the svartálfar are equivalent to the dvergar, the dwarves. In Gylfaginning 34, Skírnir goes to Svartálfheimr to ask the dvergar to forge Fenrir’s fetter; in Skáldskaparmál 35, Thor orders Loki to get the svartálfar to replace Sif ’s hair, and Loki duly visits the dvergar; and in Skáldskaparmál 39, Loki goes to Svartálfheimr to get the hoard of the dvergr Andvari. 

In some texts, dvergar overlap with álfar in general: dwarf-names in Vǫluspá include Álfr, Gandálfr (“Wand-Alf ”), and Vindálfr (“Wind-Alf ”), while Dáinn, who teaches the runes to the álfar in Hávamál 143, is also known as a dwarf (Motz, “Of Elves and Dwarves,” p. 93). The German dwarf-name Alberich means “Elves’ Ruler.”

The poem Hrafnagaldur Óðins lists dwarves and dark-alfs as separate: gýgjur og þursar, náir, dvergar og dökkálfar: “ogres and thurses, corpses, dwarves, and dark-alfs” (verse 25; ed. Lassen, p. 94)—but this is a late poem and may not be an accurate guide to pre-Christian thought. For purposes of this book, we will assume that dwarves, døkkálfar, and svartálfar are the same, with the usual caveats that drawing neat lines between different “species” of wight is impossible. 

The word “dwarf ” (ON dvergr, OE dweorg, dweorh, OHG twerc) has been proposed to come from roots meaning “ghost” or “demon” (compare Sanskrit dhváras, “demon”), but it may more probably come from a Germanic root meaning “to squeeze, to press” (Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary, p. 112). 

Dwarves as depicted in legendary sagas and folklore are not warlike, and they can be forced to work by threats, but they hold grudges and always get their revenge. 

However, they can be exceptionally generous when treated well. In the legendary saga Þórsteins saga bæjarmagns 3, the hero saves a dwarf ’s child, and the grateful dwarf gives him a magic shirt that protects him from wounds and exhaustion, a silver ring that bestows wealth, a black flint that makes him invisible, and a stone and steel point that can shoot sparks, melt snow, or be thrown as a weapon and return to the thrower’s hand (transl. Hermann Pálsson and Edwards, Seven Viking Romances, pp. 261-262).

Honoring the Dwarves

Individual humans or families might choose to strike up relationships with local dwarves, as they might with land-spirits in general. Those who work with metal and rock, and especially those who work in mines, should stay on their good side with gifts. They may find themselves rewarded in return, or they may even be taught some of their skills. 

Winifred Hodge Rose has contributed some advice:

A word of caution, however: the Dwarves can be tricky and hostile, as well as helpful at times. 

They are extremely clannish and don’t like outsiders. Landwights are often much easier to work with than are the deep-living dwarvish tribes of craft-folk, if one approaches the landwights appropriately and offers them help as well as asking them for theirs. . . . If you do approach the Dwarves, watch your words (and your back) carefully, be careful of both making and breaking promises, and know when to back out. And never steal from them! Including stealing mod. That will gain you their life-long enmity; they are not forgiving people. Some Heathen groups begin a blót by calling upon the dwarves who support the four corners of the sky, for balance and protection. 

Birgit Knorr (“Dwarves and their Names,” p. 28) advises: 

There are many stories that indicate dwarfs like to help heathens uphold the old ways; dwarfs do not like the land around churches or the sound of church bells. We can call on them for help with our work, especially smithcraft, mining, tunnel building, brewing, spinning, weaving, baking, working hard, energy, old crafts. . . 

They can give us strength to work hard, live simply and healthily and in harmony with the material world around us.