Norse Pagan House Blessing
You bought a new home? Congratulations!
Whether it’s an apartment in the city or a big estate in the countryside or somewhere in between, moving to a new place is an important event in someone’s life. Sometimes it means we move across town, other times it’s across the country, and still other times it’s halfway around the world.
Whatever the case may be, whether you are buying a house or renting a new apartment, Heathens have a way we can always feel at home no matter where we are: blessing your new home.
There are no good historical resources for a Heathen House Blessing
Sorry, but there are no good historical sources for blessing a home from ancient Norse Paganism. If you’re the kind of person for whom following the “letter of the law” is very important, you can go right ahead and stop reading now. This is an entirely re-imagined ritual that modern Heathens cobbled together and made up to celebrate and consecrate this important event in our lives.
It was mostly pulled from observation of other traditions in other Indo-European religions (Zoroastrianism, Hinduism and Hellenism mostly) where we find the bits and pieces that make up this ceremony. Again, I want to say this: this is completely created by modern Heathens from observation of other traditions.
Those readers out there who demand “citations of UPG” can put your swords and axes away.
While we don’t have historical evidence of this practice, many heathens today feel like moving into a new home or apartment is a moment that needs some kind of acknowledgement.
Moving out is also a rite of passage in our modern world. It is when we strike out on our own and move away from the home we knew into a new home. There are very few rites of passage in modern culture, but moving out is one of them. It can be a scary moment for young people, and having our spiritual life to help mediate that experience through ritual is how we can connect our former life to our new life.
How to perform an Ásatrú House Blessing
Here’s where we will break down how to perform the ritual, what you’ll need to gather and get beforehand, and step by step what you’ll need to do.
Keep in mind, this is all cobbled together from various house blessing rituals from around the Pagan world and slapped together with a bit of “Norse Glue” so feel free to incorporate more elements or remove those that don’t work for your situation.
If you are having guests to the blessing (especially if they are bringing kids) be sure to tell your guests to bring bells. Trust me. This will come up later. Everyone bring bells.
You’ll want to do this ritual before you move all your stuff in, and ideally before you make any modifications to the house or the property.
Fire is critical for this ritual. A simple large candle, several skinny candles, and a few tea-light or votive candles will suffice, and I would recommend getting a lantern to protect the flame on the large candle. the skinny candles you will use to transfer the flame from the large candle to the tea-light candles.
- You want to mark out three spots in the home where you are going to make your offerings
- To the Land Spirit: find a spot outdoors on the property where you want to make your offering and mark it (more details below)
- To the House Spirit: find the “energetic center” of the home, which is the place where you feel you and your family are going to be spending the most time, or a particularly unique and prominent built-in feature of the home (like a fire-place, built in buffet, etc)
- To the Gods: this could be in the room in which you intend to put your shrine to the Gods or just the biggest room in the house. You’ll want a lot of room here because this offering is one you might want to do along with a lot of guests.
- Place the tea light or votive candles around the following places in the home:
- The furnace/boiler/HVAC unit (the source of heat in the home).
- Wherever the main water comes into the home (usually there is a water meter there to indicate where it is)
- Wherever the electricity enters the home (usually there will be an electrical meter indicating where it is)
- The place where all the cooking will be done (stove or oven).
- The bedrooms where people will be sleeping.
- The “energetic center” of the home.
You’ll need bells, so have some bells handy to ring them around the house as you go from room to room.
You want to bring your home altar/shrine and the icons from that altar/shrine if you have them. If you don’t, this might be a good time to get one!
Decorate the frame of your front door with chalk, garlands of flowers… whatever you like. You can go all out here. Make it colorful, joyful and cheerful looking!
If possible, light the flame on the large candle with fire from your old stove, or light it within your old home (this is part of why I said a lantern would be helpful) and bring the flame with you to your new home.
Bring three offerings: one for the house spirits, one for the land spirits and one for the Gods (you may want to invoke a God to be the “protector of your home” which is usually Freyja or Thor). You can even write their name on the Front Door when decorating saying “FREYJA VIGI” or “THORR VIGI” “Freyja Bless (this house)” or “Thor Bless (this house)
This can either be really short or really long depending on how much property you’re talking about. But you’ll figure it out. If it’s a lot a lot of acreage, think about what you might consider to be your “yard” which is just the immediate area around where you will be dwelling.
You’ll take the lantern and walk the perimeter of that land and mark it as the boundary of the “yard.”
The first offer we make is outdoors, to the spirits of the land. Well before you begin the ritual, you should have already scouted out a location on the property where you want to leave your offerings to the Land Spirits.
Different Heathens have different ways of determining what this is from the very esoteric and complex (like blindfolding yourself and wandering around with an antler until you feel a locus of energy) to something simple like “oh, that tree over there has a useful little nook where I could pour an offering!”
Once you’ve found that spot, mark it out and decorate it before you begin the ceremony with flower garlands, colorful chalk, whatever it is that you can do to make the spot feel like it’s part of the festivities. Whatever you choose just make sure you’ve got lots of bright happy colors!
Once you have walked the perimeter, bring your offering to the location you marked. Here is where you will perform a Blót or offering to the Land Spirits to open your relationship with them.
After the offering to the Land Spirits is complete, enter the home through the front door, or the main entrance you and anyone visiting your home will be using.
This should have already been decorated with nice bright happy colors. You or your priest should then sprinkle pure water on the threshold, and wave a candle under the top of the door frame.
You or the priest can speak a blessing at this point.
In the name of Holy Thor,
Our Lord Protector
In the name of Holy Freyja,
Our Lady of Grace and Joy
May this door welcome friend and good fortune,
and guard against evil and misery.
For peace and for plenty
For all and for always.
Before you go around blessing the whole home, you’ll want to come to the place where you have marked for your offering to the House Spirit. Again, this should be decorated with bright colors, streamers, garlands of flowers, whatever makes the space feel bright and happy.
Choosing the space shouldn’t be too difficult. Some people look for the “energetic center” of the home which is where they again feel a spiritual locus of activity. But if you’re not inclined towards walking around your house with an antler or something, just look for a particularly unique feature in the home or the place where you think you and your family will be spending most of their time and set up a little spot there.
This is where you will make your first offering to your House Spirit.
This is where all those little candles we set up will come into play.
Remember where we put them? Here is a reminder.
- The furnace/boiler/HVAC unit (the source of heat in the home).
- Wherever the main water comes into the home (usually there is a water meter there to indicate where it is)
- Wherever the electricity enters the home (usually there will be an electrical meter indicating where it is)
- The place where all the cooking will be done (stove or oven).
- The bedrooms where people will be sleeping.
You go to each place and speak a blessing there and light the candle with the flame you have been carrying in your lantern. Here are a few suggestions for what to say.
At the The furnace/boiler/HVAC unit
In the name of Holy Thor
Protector of mankind,
Bless our hearth and keep us in comfort
From the winter’s chill and the summer’s heat
May there be peace in this home.
For peace and plenty
For all and always.
Wherever the main water comes into the home (usually there is a water meter there to indicate where it is)
In the name of Father Njord
Bless our well and keep it clean
Free from all illness and pollution,
May there be health in this home.
For peace and plenty
For all and always.
Wherever the electricity enters the home (usually there will be an electrical meter indicating where it is)
In the name of Bright Freyja,
Lady of light and happiness:
Bless this power and keep it safe
May there be light in this home.
For peace and plenty,
For all and always.
The place where all the cooking will be done (stove or oven).
In the name of Lord Freyr Yngve,
Lord of peace and plenty:
May this home be ever nourished.
For peace and plenty
For all and always.
The bedrooms where people will be sleeping.
In the name of Beloved Frigg
Lady of tranquility and sanctuary:
Watch over us as we sleep and bless us with renewal.
For peace and plenty,
For all and always.
After blessing all those places, return to the center of the home where we had talked about before: where you set up the shrine/altar.
This is where you’ll want to set up the pictures of your ancestors if you have any, or any symbol or picture that you feel represents the protective spirits of your family, vocation, or profession (Dísir or Álfar).
You’ll welcome them to your new home with an offering.
Finally, you will make your Blót to the Gods. Whoever’s name you chose to put on your door, or whichever Gods you feel you want to be a regular part of your household customs, that’s who you’d make your offering to. For example, if you’ve worshipped Odin your whole life and now you’ve moved into a new home, it’s time to welcome him.
There is no particular “God of the Home” that you need to offer to here. This is where you are re-establishing your devotional relationship to the Gods you had at your old home, so Blót as you normally would.
Now it’s time to have some fun and begin the party.
Some people like to do this with a censor full of incense or a bouquet of burning herbs, and others like to do this with pots and pans. In my opinion, smoking or smudging is smelly and too somber, and banging pots and pans is just… annoying.
Bells, though? Bells work great.
Every guest to your house blessing should have brought a bell with them. Everyone with bells in hand now starts swinging them like there is no tomorrow and running through the house ringing bells in every room, nook and cranny.
This is a great job for kids, especially if you’ve had a chance to hide prizes around the house to be sure they really rang those bells absolutely everywhere. Once the home has had bells rung everywhere and people are out of breath, it’s time to start the housewarming party.
Congratulations! You did it! Time to pop some corks and celebrate!
Why we perform a House Blessing (and who does it)
We perform a house blessing as a way to introduce a person to the spirits of the dwelling and the spirits of the land. One thing we as Heathens understand is that we do not own the spirits of our home, nor do we own the spirits of the land. We enter into a relationship with them–and we want that relationship to be based in the reciprocity of the Gifting Cycle.
That’s why one of the most important elements of the House Blessing is the first offering to the land and house spirits. In doing so, you acknowledge that you are not the first dweller on this land or the first to call this place home; rather, you are one in a long line of people who have been in relationship with these beings in one form or another. Like with any relationship, is your responsibility to comport that relationship in the spirit of goodness and reciprocity.
In giving our first gift to the spirits of the house and the land, we affirm that our own benevolent nature, the nature of the divine itself, is also part of the nature of these spirits as well.
To give you an analogy: when you come to a new home, it’s like being in an unfamiliar country with people who don’t speak your language. What do you do to show them you are a good person, that you mean them no harm, and that you in fact want to be friends with them?
We begin with a gift.
In giving a gift, we show the goodness of our own nature and our faith that this good nature is theirs too. They return our gift with a gift because their nature is the same as ours. Even without words: we can see the true nature of each of us.
This is how Heathens begin their relationship with their new home: with a gift–a sacrifice.
You can perform the House Blessing yourself, or you can have a Priest (Gothi/Gythia) perform it with you.
A priest can be a very handy person to know.
If your Heathen community has a priest, or has someone at least who everyone regards as good at that kind of stuff, and you’d like them to help you, this is an opportune time for them to do so. The ritual is a little different when the priest is doing the work, but not terribly different, and it’s nice when someone else is taking care of it.
You don’t need a priest at all. You can even do this all by yourself if you want to. You could say “This article is bogus and I’m going to write my OWN house blessing.” That’s perfectly fine to do. Our goal here isn’t to show you the way, but to show you one way. Institutional knowledge. It’s nice to have!