Category: Uncategorized

Finally, turning the wheel

On By A.G. VanidottirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

We finally made it. The final high day of the wheel of the year, the moment we begin the descent through liminal space towards the longest night. Happy Día de los Muertos!

Sounds odd to say that, right? A day and night to remember those that have left us and I am saying to have a “happy” one? Well, yes. We mourn, cry, yell, scream, and hurt so very much when a loved one is lost. Believe me, I know. And that grief never goes away. It morphs, goes up and down, does curly-q’s, and generally hits (or doesn’t) at the oddest of times. It forever changes us as individuals. Yet many of the celebrations are about remembering, welcoming, and celebrating who they were to us. Happy is “relative” in the general sense. I suppose it would be better to say, May you have joyous remembrances on your Día de los Muertos this year. That would be a mouthful of course.

This year has been rough. And spooky week was booked with new videos on YouTube almost daily along with new pages on this website. But as I get back to my regularly scheduled programming I will be wrapping up the small series I have going on TikTok on the history of the runes, hopefully adding another podcast episode or two for my When the Fires were Lit series, and getting another publication out regarding the Winter Solstice Vigil. At least, if I can get a new cord to access my files that is. The one I have got jacked up and right now I can’t access my book or series files. Sigh. I guess that means I will need to write some more stories and myth tales to pass the time.

It’s a bittersweet day and I feel that with every beat of my heart. So, whether you are able to do it with a glad heart or a heavy one, know that the ancestors are there. They feel you. They know you love and miss them. Breathe and let yourself feel what you need to.

Many blessings to your households.

And…

May you have joyous remembrances on your Día de los Muertos this year.

Hel and the Inheritance of the Dead

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Hallo, my lovely little heathens! With Samhain fast approaching, and so many wonderful topics coming to light, I think it’s time we had another conversation about one of the most misunderstood figures in Norse mythology. Today, we’re talking about Hel, daughter of Loki and Angrboða, ruler of the dead, and the subject of an awful lot of nonsense about how Óðinn supposedly cast her away because she was either too hideous for him to look upon or a danger because of a dark prophecy hanging over her head. There is a tendency to relegate her to the role of an evil being cast down by the leader of the gods. Trust me, I’ve seen the images. Honestly, I think we’re looking at another Christian gloss laid over a much more complex story. Hel has been cast in the role of Lucifer, exiled by Yahweh for rebellion. Except that this neat little framework of a supreme deity casting out an evil being is not something we can simply impose on pre-Christian heathen beliefs as though it were universally understood. We need to be careful about assigning roles to beings and deities that may owe more to later religious interpretations than to those earlier traditions themselves.

Now, if you’ve been following my Ramblings for a while, you might remember my story about Týr and Fenrir, and how fear of a prophecy can become the very thing that brings it to pass. Hel’s story gives us another opportunity to examine that same fear, but I want to approach it from a slightly different direction. What if we’ve been looking at her position all wrong?

Let’s begin with something that often gets lost in the retelling. In Gylfaginning, Snorri tells us that Óðinn sent the gods to retrieve Loki’s children from Jötunheimr after prophecies warned that they would bring great misfortune to the gods. Now, we don’t know their ages, but I personally imagine these children were still quite young, perhaps in their early to mid teens at the oldest. Yes, there was a prophecy, but in my understanding of the relationships and obligations reflected in these stories, the Æsir were not simply a collection of monsters who hurt children because they disliked their parents. I cannot think of another instance in the existing myths where the gods actually caused some sort of harm against children. No, some rules are not broken – after all there were responsibilities to consider, even when fear and self-preservation entered the picture.

We get a glimpse of their actions through the account of a Christian-era scholar. Jörmungandr was cast into the sea, Fenrir was kept among the gods, and Hel was cast down to Niflheimr. Yet what often gets glossed over is what came of those decisions. Specifically to the sole daughter of Loki that we have mentioned. According to Snorri, Óðinn gave Hel authority over the dead across the nine worlds, where she would receive those who came to her after dying of sickness or old age.

Now, I want you to sit with that for a moment. If the intention was simply to banish Hel, why establish her in such an important position? Why place her in a position where the living and the dead would have reason to acknowledge her authority? And here is the line of questioning I find particularly interesting: did Óðinn actually possess the authority to grant her dominion over the dead, or is that the framework through which Snorri chose to explain a much older belief in terms his audience would tolerate? What if Óðinn did not create Hel’s authority at all? What if he recognized a connection that was already hers and provided a way for her to exercise it? And what if the story is more complicated than a powerful male god rejecting an unpleasant-looking, prophecy-ridden niece?

To explore that possibility, we need to consider the world in which these stories took shape, before Snorri recorded them. Our evidence is fragmentary, and we cannot reconstruct every pre-Christian belief from later Icelandic writings. Nevertheless, the surviving traditions give us glimpses of a religious world in which the dead were not necessarily forgotten, discarded, or regarded as inherently evil. Relationships with the dead could remain important to the living, and ritual observances such as Dísablót and Álfablót remind us that the unseen world was not simply something to fear. It was also a world with which people maintained relationships, including relationships with those who had passed from one world to the next. Although we cannot claim that every one of these observances was exclusively about ancestors, they do help us consider a religious worldview in which the unseen was woven into the life of the community. The relationship between the living and the unseen was more complicated than a simple division between good and evil. Which allows us to bring Loki into it.

In Lokasenna, Loki reminds Óðinn that they once mingled their blood and that Óðinn had promised not to drink unless a drink was brought for them both. Whatever else we make of their relationship, Loki invokes a bond that Óðinn cannot simply pretend never existed. Their connection carried obligations, and the poem shows Óðinn responding by having a place made for Loki at the feast, thus acknowledging that the bond exists. Let’s broaden that scope. What if we look at Loki’s children through that same lens of relationship obligation? What are the ties that bind them? In my personal interpretation, the blood bond makes Óðinn something much closer to an uncle to all of Loki’s children than a distant ruler passing judgment on someone else’s children. Loki is not merely another being whose offspring happen to frighten the Æsir. He is someone with whom Óðinn has a profound bond, one that Loki himself calls upon when his place among the gods is challenged.

The surviving sources do not specifically tell us that Óðinn owed Loki’s children an inheritance through their blood-brother bond. It is an interpretation, not a claim that we’ve uncovered a missing passage from the Eddas. Yet kinship, fostering, marriage alliances, and the obligations created by oaths give us a way to imagine how these relationships might have been understood in a time very different than our own. In a society where relationships were bound together by more than affection, an obligation did not necessarily disappear simply because fulfilling it became inconvenient. Imagine, for a moment, that Óðinn felt responsible for the children of the man with whom he had sworn such a bond. The prophecies frightened him, certainly, and he wanted to limit the danger they represented. Yet perhaps he also had responsibilities he could not ignore without upsetting the balance of his own societal relationships.

Look at what happens to the three children through this lens. Fenrir remains among the gods, with Týr stepping forward to take responsibility for him in a relationship that I interpret as resembling fostering. Jörmungandr is placed in the waters surrounding Miðgarðr, eventually encircling the world. In my reading, his position can be understood not merely as confinement, but as a protective role connected to the very world he surrounds like the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros. Hel, meanwhile, becomes associated with a realm of her own in which she is the sole ruler along with dominion over the dead who come to her.

Each child occupies a significant place in the structure of the worlds, even as the gods attempt to manage the danger they believe the children represent. That doesn’t erase the fear, and it doesn’t mean every decision made by the Æsir was kind or fair. It does, however, leave room for something other than simple rejection. We often see in the myths across pantheons, women have been diminished – their agency and power either removed or lessened – in favor of men. This isn’t an attempt to bash men, far from it. It’s an observation in my 24+ years of pagan practice of the need to review the lore from many different angles to notice what is there, and perhaps far more importantly, what isn’t there. The goddesses of our lore were much more prominent than we have been led to believe, otherwise there would be no mention at all. It becomes our responsibility as the current caretakers of that lore to ensure they are remembered.

In the case of Hel, we need to strip away that concept of throwing her away to avoid bad things and see it for what it was: a young girl tied to a prophecy who was removed from her home and family. Then, out of fear, she was sent even further away. Where, in any of that situation, does she represent evil or bad? Óðinn was put in the impossible situation of fulfilling his obligations to a man with whom he had sworn a blood-oath or fulfilling his obligations to protect the people to whom he was responsible. Perhaps, upon meeting young Hel, he realized he could do both in one action. Recognize who she was, respect her agency and authority, and still remove someone viewed as a threat. It wasn’t kind, she was a little girl after all. But the alternative might have been far worse had she been left for others among the Æsir to handle. Now, he at least had an option, one that would allow the glimpses of the future he had received thus far be more manageable if handled the right way.

So, who was the “villain” then? Hel for circumstances of her birth and a prophecy? Or Óðinn for sending a little girl far away from her family to protect his people? Fear, it seems, gives prophecy the teeth it needs to satisfy its hunger.

Next episode of When the Fires were Lit series is now live!

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The road to becoming the gods we know is not a short one, and the world they inhabit is still finding its shape. In this next chapter of When the Fires Were Lit — The Road from Ásgarðr, Óðinn and Lóðurr continue their travels through a young and unsettled world, meeting people whose ideas about leadership, justice, and responsibility challenge what they thought they understood. Every encounter offers something new to consider, and every road seems to lead toward another question waiting to be answered.

As the settlements grow and relationships begin to take root, the future of the Æsir starts to look a little different. What does it mean to build something that will last? What responsibilities come with power, and what might be lost along the way? The surviving myths leave us plenty of room to wonder, and this journey continues through those spaces between the fragments, where possibility and imagination can meet.

This is another long one. So much has to be set up for the two tribes to finally meet. But we are close. Soon we will see the events of Gullveig’s burning from the point of view of the Aesir. And then the war that follows. Join me on the path as we discover what these enigmatic beings want published and not forgotten.

This episode is primarily UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) inspired by Norse mythology. While the surviving sources provide the framework, much of what unfolds within this series is my own spiritual and creative interpretation rather than established lore. Some characters, names, relationships, events, and motivations appearing in this series do not exist in the surviving sources at all. They are my own creations, used to explore the gaps left behind and imagine how one fragment of surviving mythology might have grown into another had the tale survived. Where the lore ends and my own storytelling begins, I encourage listeners to remain curious, ask questions, and explore the surviving sources for themselves.

🌿 Topics explored in this episode:

  • The early bonds forming
  • The responsibilities of leadership
  • Justice, loyalty, and the cost of protecting a community
  • Óðinn’s growing understanding of power and knowledge
  • The people and relationships shaping the beginnings of Ásgarðr

Source material: The Poetic Edda and The Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson.

✨ Ramblings Through Vanaheim is a space for historical lore, modern pagan practice, thoughtful speculation, and the occasional rabbit trail into the unknown.

Because sometimes the most interesting parts of mythology aren’t the answers themselves, but the questions we’re brave enough to ask.

Image: The Gathering of Gods, created by the podcast author using ChatGPT.
Drumming: Sound effect by Adinkra Audio, Pixabay.

You can find Ramblings Through Vanaheim here:

Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cw/RamblingsfromVanaheim
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAeOKGtMPDBxVpDEVTuVqow
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@agvanidottir

WordPress website: https://ramblingsfromvanaheim.org/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61594929923104

New pages on the website

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I’ve been a busy little bee these past few weeks. Under my Stories Untold tab I have re-organized the different tales to match the hearth they belong to. I also added quite a few new ones. Many of these were made into tellings that appear on YouTube and TikTok, but I thought the written text belonged here as well.

Among the newest material is a page on Idunna, though not quite a myth story…yet. And uploaded today is a story about Jörð. Well, not so much a story I wrote as a memory she shared that made me look at the Allfather a little differently. LOL. She is sassy, spunky, funny, and I am here for all of it. Take a peak at the goodies I left you. Remember, while these may not be the types of stories you believe, they are a potential possibility like so many others.

I’m about half way through the next podcast episode. I’ve been struggling to get the interactions and events just right. They are there but the connective tissue is missing. Hopefully, I can get that completed soon and uploaded. I’m so close to bringing them up to the meeting with Gullveig. There are just a few extra pieces that have to be maneuvered into place first.

Winter Nights is coming up on the 14th, I think, I need to check my calendar again. After that we have Samhain racing towards us as well as álfablót. The latter has been used in two different contexts that I have heard: one is as a celebration of the male ancestors, similar to Dísablót; and the other as a sacrificial feast to the Ljósálfar and their kin. I suppose it is up to the practitioner to determine which they prefer. After that we enter liminal space – where the veil is thin, the dead walk, and the Wild Hunt rides.

My favorite time of year!

Ah me, the new things abounding…

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Hallo my little Heathens!

The weather is shifting, the world is turning toward the dark half of the year, and my creative noggin has officially burst its firewalls. While the characters in my podcast are continuing their coffee break before we dive back into the lead up to the Æsir-Vanir war, I have finally wrangled one of my biggest back-burner projects back into reality.

I mentioned in my last update that I was working on revamping my seasonal materials. I am incredibly excited to share that I have finally channeled that creative fire into three physical tools you can now bring to your own hearth and practice. All three are print-on-demand and are officially available as paperbacks on both Amazon and Lulu:

  • The 12-Night Samhain Devotional Journal: Specifically designed for ancestor veneration and modern animist practice. If you are preparing to honor your dead, sit for a dumb supper, or step into the thinning veil this autumn, this 134 page journal provides a dedicated, structured layout to anchor your 12 nights of ritual, reflection, and practice while giving room in the spiral bound* text to add your own thoughts in one place. (*Spiral bound is only on Lulu, Amazon wouldn’t let me use that option.)
  • The Aesir Gods of Norse Mythology Coloring Book: Bring the holy powers of Ásgarðr into your quiet time. Featuring twenty beautifully detailed portraits inspired by the Æsir, the most famous tribe of gods in the Norse tradition. Designed for adults, teens, mythology enthusiasts, pagans, Heathens, and anyone who enjoys intricate line art, each illustration is paired with an easy-to-read companion page introducing the figure’s history, symbolism, family relationships, name meanings, primary source material, a bit of author UPG, and traditional associations.
  • The Vanir Gods of Norse Mythology Coloring Book: Dedicated entirely to the distinct, magic-weaving spirits of Vanaheimr. Featuring fourteen beautifully detailed portraits inspired by the Vanir, one of the oldest families of gods in the Norse tradition. Designed for adults, teens, mythology enthusiasts, pagans, Heathens, and anyone who enjoys intricate line art, each illustration is paired with an easy-to-read companion page introducing the figure’s history, symbolism, family relationships, name meanings, primary source material, a bit of author UPG, and traditional associations.

These books are pieces of my own lived magical practice offered to yours. If you want a hands-on way to meditate on the lore, step into ancestor work this season, or simply support the channel during a tough financial winter, you can find all three paperbacks on Amazon and Lulu right now.

Additionally, I have posted my original interview with Hades under the Stories Untold tab from 2019. It was buried in my posts and was long past due to move to a more permanent home. But that isn’t the only one! I was recently visited by a different deity of the Underworld, this time from the Celts. Yep, there a brand new interview with Cernunnos added as well. Man, was that one fun and a little embarrassing to write. He has an absolutely wicked sense of humor. 🙂 There is no telling who will show up next.

There are more project in the works, I promise. Now that these things have been moved off the shelf there is now room for other projects to breath and oh is there so much to write. I hope you stick around and enjoy the ride.

Skál, and thank you for rambling through Vanaheim with me!

click on the links below to access my published material –

Full author’s page (Lulu):

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/ramblingsfromvanaheim

Amazon Links ~

Coloring Books:

12 Nights of Samhain:

It’s time for all things Orange; and possibly Pumpkin

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Hallo my little Heathens and Heathen-friendlies!

It’s been a bit since I last published something that wasn’t tied to my podcast. The story will continue, but right now the characters are sitting around the break table having coffee, some muffins, and probably something that I shouldn’t inspect too closely. I think telling their story pulls on some strings and feelings, both for them and for myself, so they’ve decided we need to pause for just a bit and breathe before continuing. Which absolutely leaves me time for other writing and projects.

Of course, I have an entire list: continuing the next section of the Vanir Edda, Oðr part 2, Jǫrð’s story in fuller context than the latest podcast episode, another coloring book, revamping my 12 Nights of Samhain, my 12 Nights of Yule, my winter solstice vigil, prayers, interviews with the gods (Cernunnos suddenly wants some of my time, and I’m not sure what to do with that!), runes as individual workings, spells and healing, and so much more. My creative noggin is nearly bursting, and I have to get it wrangled into some semblance of order before I can make sense of all of it.

I’m going to address a quick something before diving into the actual purpose of this update. Art and AI. So, here’s the thing: in a perfect world where my talents for drawing a straight line with a ruler would be legendary, there would be no need for AI assistance. We all know this isn’t a perfect world. I have been creating Norse-themed coloring books for sale on Amazon and Lulu. They are 8.5 x 11 inches, with the coloring pages taking up full pages facing a description page that introduces the character with known material from the lore. I recently posted about having created these, one for the Vanir and one for the Æsir, on my personal Facebook page. There were several negative responses citing that anything created with AI is garbage and hurts “real” artists. I was even told separately that I should be ashamed for doing it.

Sigh. It seems like whenever I teach myself something new (whether a skill or program), find a way to perhaps earn a few extra dollars (dollars that are desperately needed right now while I’m at 14 months unemployed) there is a person or persons who feel the need to rake me over the coals and tear my efforts down. Don’t use AI. You didn’t cite my name enough times in the work you do. Nobody wants that. Hire a real artist. You aren’t original enough. The list goes on.

Folks, just stop it.

My “art,” as such, is my own creation. It comes from MY brain, whether it is descriptions of images, re-tellings of stories, modern myths, rituals and prayers adjusted with my own wording and processes, prayer books, or whatever else I happen to be working on. I don’t lie if I utilize AI. I usually add that information to my copyright pages or mark videos to make sure it is stated from the beginning. I cite sources and people as needed. I am not going to plaster someone else’s name all over my work just because they inspired it. I will cite them the single time appropriately, and that’s it. The work is still mine. Inspiration deserves acknowledgment when acknowledgment is appropriate, but inspiration does not make someone else the creator of what I eventually build from it.

AI is a tool. When wielded responsibly, it is an excellent one. I see images and stories in my mind. I then begin to set down descriptors: looks, age, hints from the myths, modern-ish clothing inspired by earlier styles, coloring, lineage, and whatever other feelings I get about how they want to be depicted. Then I start describing them in my prompts to generate. One completed image may have 10–20 discarded versions because I didn’t like how the nose and eyes were set, or the background was wrong, or some other random piece kept it from feeling like “them.” It can take me upwards of a week to get an image fine-tuned and ready to share if the lines aren’t coming out right. The same thing happens with artists as they work by hand.

Admittedly, it isn’t “art” in the way so many others are gifted at creating it. I have tried drawing myself, but that isn’t where my talents lie. If I had the money to hire someone, there is still no guarantee that they would be able to capture what I am looking for when they have their own style of drawing. The tools I have, however, help me bring to life what I see hovering in my brain. Getting it onto paper leaves room for other things to come forward instead of getting bottle-necked behind my own internal firewalls.

Tools have always changed the way people create. Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Canva, Paint, and the whole host of other programs people use to create comic strips, graphic novels, illustrations, or even memes all put something between the creator’s hand and the finished product. My process is simply different again. No, I didn’t take a pen, pencil, charcoal, watercolor, or paint and put it to canvas, but they are still my creations, just created with words and the help of a program that can translate those words into images I get excited about. Belittling that, or worse trying to take it away, is cruel and unnecessary. It turns the artist who has concerns into a bitter curmudgeon with little regard for the ingenuity and talent of those who use alternative tools and try to express themselves in positive, healthy ways.

I’m not Picasso or Rembrandt, and I don’t call myself an “artist” in the truest sense of the word. But trying to shame me for offering something using the skills and materials I have to those who might enjoy it is a shitty thing to do. I’m not stealing your customers, and I’m not flooding the market with garbage. I’m offering a piece of myself and how I interact with the spirit realm to others.

So, do I use AI to generate my Shorts, podcasts, blog posts, etc.? Yes and no. I use AI as an editing tool. The topics and writings are my own. I am becoming increasingly aware, as I age, that I am probably somewhere in the neurodivergent neighborhood, although I don’t have an official diagnosis. I recognize a lot of those behaviors and coping mechanisms in myself, and one day I will have the money to get tested officially. In the meantime, I deal with things the best I can.

My brain goes everywhere, and I often find myself rereading material and cringing because of all the loose plot holes and explanations. “I” understand exactly what I was trying to say because I have it stored in my memory, but somehow it never got onto the page in a way that others will be able to make sense of. AI helps me find those issues so I can address them, close the loops, pull from existing source material accurately rather than vaguely, and use infinitely better grammar. So, yes, I do use AI in my writings. But no, I don’t use it to create from scratch without putting any effort into it. It is a tool, just like spellcheck, and that is how I use it.

Now that I have addressed all of those various accusations and concerns, on to far more pleasant things. Today, I am publishing a separate page for Winter Finding. No, not Winter Nights—that is different.

Whether you tie it to the Fall Equinox for the sabbat connection or try to observe it based on moon cycles, Winter Finding is one of the closest things we have in modern Heathen or Heathen-centric practice to a fall celebration. Many of us today live in climates that have three or four distinct seasons rather than just two main ones, with a week or two on either end for transition like the much colder climates experienced by early Nordic peoples. We like to have something that marks the changing of the calendar and weather, something that gives us a reason to stop for a moment and celebrate the turning of the year. Especially given the events going on currently in our beleaguered nation, I think we could all use a little more of that.

So, if you want to learn a little about a fall-oriented observance, go over to the Winter Finding page and see if this is something you might want to incorporate into your own practice.

Happy Fall, y’all!

Part 2 of The Road from Ásgarðr is now live!

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Part 2 of When the Fires Were Lit — The Road from Ásgarðr is finally ready.

The road continues. The Shadow remains, the brothers encounter someone who will become important to their journey, and eventually their paths begin to separate. Along the way, we get a little more of Óðinn and Lóðurr as brothers, travelers, and very different men trying to find their way through worlds that are still becoming what they will eventually be.

All culminating in Óðinn meeting a familiar face. What happens there is a story about earth, magic, curiosity, and the things we can learn when we stop trying so hard to understand everything and simply listen. There may also be a little trouble along the way. Because apparently, sending Óðinn into the garden of a woman who knows exactly what she’s doing was never going to end quietly. 😉

When the Fires Were Lit — The Road from Ásgarðr (Part 2) is now available wherever you listen to Ramblings Through Vanaheim.

For Patreon users:

https://www.patreon.com/RamblingsfromVanaheim/posts/when-fires-were-168861000?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

For YouTube users:

The next section of When the Fires were Lit series is now up!

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When the Fires Were Lit — The Road from Ásgarðr (Part 1)

I thought we were ready for the negotiations. My apologies for taking so long. This one I have actually had to split into two episodes in order to flesh it out the way it deserves. Part 2 might take a little bit longer to write and publish.

For the first three parts of When the Fires Were Lit, we have walked through this story primarily beside the Vanir. We met Gullveig before she ever crossed the borders into Ásgarðr. We explored Vanaheimr, its people, its relationships, and the world they were trying to protect. Then we followed them into the First War and watched that conflict become increasingly personal until there was very little left for either side to win.

The Vanir are finally ready to talk. So logically, that should be where we go next. Except something kept pulling at me every time I tried to sit and write that next piece. We aren’t ready yet.

We know why the Vanir are coming to the negotiation table. We know what they have lost and what the war has cost them. We have stood inside their homes, met their families, and watched some of those relationships bend or break beneath years of violence. But what do we actually know about the people waiting for them across that field?

We know their names from the lore of course: Óðinn, Frigg, Týr, Vili, Ve, Mímir, and others whose names will eventually become inseparable from the stories of Ásgarðr. We know what the surviving mythology tells us some of them become. What we don’t really know is how they got there.

One of the things I love—and occasionally find absolutely maddening—about working with Norse mythology is just how enormous some of its silences are. Mostly this is due to a lack of primary source material in extant. But there is also the problem that when it WAS written down a lot of gaps were left. I recently watched an episode of Dr. Jackson Crawford’s YouTube channel where he highlights a few reasons for those gaps: the author didn’t know what actually happened, the author didn’t think it important enough to write down, the author presumed people would know what those gaps held, etc. Even he said it was enormously frustrating. We are glad to have anything at all but it is long past time to recognize that those gaps deserve to have their stories told.

Right now, monumental events happen in a handful of lines. Then suddenly everyone has moved on. People appear with little explanation of where they came from. Others disappear just as abruptly. Relationships are mentioned without beginnings. Wars happen without campaigns. Marriages exist without courtships. Children appear without childhoods. Even the creation of the cosmos moves with astonishing speed when we stop and think about the enormity of what is actually being described.

Ymir lives. Ymir dies. A flood follows. The cosmos is shaped from what remains. Life continues.

Those are not small events. There are entire lifetimes hiding between those statements. And those are the spaces I keep wandering into. For this part of When the Fires Were Lit, we’re going much farther backward than I originally expected. Before the war and Gullveig. Before the walls of Ásgarðr. Back to Ymir. Not because I suddenly decided this series needed an extended detour through the Norse creation story, but because the farther I followed the threads backward, the more I realized that the war I have been exploring doesn’t really begin with Gullveig walking through the gates. By then, too much has already happened. Too much we don’t know.

So, we move into the Æsir side of the story. I am pulled to understand the why of what they did. But understanding is not the same as forgiveness. That is as true in real life as in mythology. Nothing we’re about to explore changes what happened to Gullveig. The Æsir violated the rules of hospitality when they turned against their guest. Whatever fears, suspicions, histories, or misunderstandings existed beforehand do not magically make that choice acceptable.

The stories aren’t particularly interesting when everyone can be divided neatly into heroes and villains though. People can do terrible things while believing they have very good reasons for doing them. Sometimes fear wins. Sometimes protecting one person means hurting another. Which often leads us to understand only afterward that the thing we were so certain of was never what we thought it was at all. That doesn’t erase responsibility, it makes it more complicated. And mythology has always been very good at complicated.

So I want to give the Æsir the same opportunity I gave the Vanir. I want to meet them before the war defines them. Before titles and kennings and centuries of retellings make them feel inevitable. I want to let them be people for a while. People who love each other. People who irritate the Hel out of each other. People who make mistakes. People who learn. People who survive things that change them. People who occasionally do something remarkably clever and then follow it with something so spectacularly stupid that you wonder how they survived long enough to become gods. I want to humanize them in a way that is real and visceral without them losing who they are or who they will become.

In other words, people worth sitting around the hearth with. Eventually Gullveig is going to arrive. And when she does, I don’t want us simply asking:

How could they do this?

I want us to know enough about everyone involved that the much more uncomfortable question becomes:

How did they convince themselves they had to?

*A Note About Lore, UPG, and the People You May Not Recognize:

As with the Vanir portions of this series, The Road from Ásgarðr begins with surviving mythology and then wanders quite happily into the enormous territory the sources leave unexplored. Which means this is primarily a UPG storytelling project. There will be events that have recognizable foundations in the Poetic Edda or Snorri’s Prose Edda. But from there, I am exploring possibilities—connecting fragments, imagining motivations, building relationships, and asking what might have happened during all those years the surviving stories skip.

There will also be names and characters in this part of the series that you will not find no matter how enthusiastically you dig through the Eddas. That’s because I created them. For certain parts of the story to work, it requires people that the surviving sources never bothered to name. Giving them names and agency that make sense for what we have of them seemed to build the story more organically. They aren’t secret figures I discovered buried in an obscure manuscript somewhere. They are part of my UPG and creative mythmaking.

I’ll continue trying to make those boundaries clear because I think we can play in the spaces left by mythology without pretending our additions were preserved alongside it. In fact, I think knowing where the surviving story stops makes exploring those spaces even more interesting. We are writing, building, re-telling, and experiencing the mythology of the future. So why not give them something truly entertaining to work from?

This new section of When the Fires Were Lit carries the subtitle: The Road from Ásgarðr: Shadows Before Dawn. There is a reason for that name. Actually, there are several but I’m not telling you what they are yet. ;P

For now, we’re leaving the devastated halls of Vanaheimr and the waiting negotiation table behind. Everyone there will still be waiting for us when we return. Instead, there is another road we need to walk. And it begins much earlier than I expected. Before Ásgarðr was a stronghold. Before the Æsir were a people. Before Óðinn was the Allfather. Back when the worlds themselves were still young enough for the consequences of creation to be settling into place.

Come sit by the hearth for a while and let me tell you a story. It’s time to meet the other side.

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Part 3 of the ‘When the Fires were Lit’ Series is Now Available

On By A.G. VanidottirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

The next chapter of the Gullveig series has arrived, and I have to admit…this one was also a very difficult episodes to write. Having lost a child myself I did pull from some of that to bring this to life.

While the previous episodes explored the growing conflict between the Æsir and the Vanir, and the consequences of an undefended capital, Part 3 turns its attention to the people caught in the middle of the war. The fighting is far from over, but the emotional cost of the conflict is becoming impossible to ignore. War of any kind is more than just armies. This series tries to bring to life the people and costs outside of the battlefields.

This episode is also the first in the series that is primarily UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis). Although it draws inspiration from characters and themes found in the surviving Norse sources, much of the story is my own spiritual and creative interpretation of the spaces where the lore grows quiet. As always, I’ll never present my UPG as historical fact, but I hope it offers another way to think about these ancient stories and the people within them. You are not required to agree with me.

Please note: This episode contains themes of war, death, child loss, grief, trauma, and the care of the deceased. If those subjects are especially difficult for you, please take care of yourself before listening. The themes covered are generally not designed for those under the age of 18.

If you’ve been following the series from the beginning, thank you for walking this path with me. Your encouragement and thoughtful conversations have meant more than you know, and I hope you’ll join me as we continue exploring one possible telling of the First War of the Gods.

You can listen now on Patreon, YouTube, or through Buzzsprout once the limit renews on the 31st.

As always…

Thank you for rambling through Vanaheim with me. 💚 🌿

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When the Fires Were Lit – The Story of Gullveig and the First War of the Gods Part 2

On By A.G. VanidottirIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Part 2 of The Æsir–Vanir War is now live.

When I first imagined this series, I expected the war itself would occupy most of the story. I also only thought it would be a slightly longer single episode. Instead, the characters insisted that before we could understand the battles, we first needed to understand what those battles cost the people waiting at home. So what should have been a brief rendition with maybe a few characters developed more fully has turned into a multi episode epic. Odyssey, eat your heart out. This episode became less about armies and victories, and more about the quiet devastation left behind when violence reaches those who never carried a weapon. This happens even today when war hits those that didn’t ask for it. And it breaks my heart.

Without giving too much away, Part 2 follows life in Vanaheim as the war drags on, the growing burden carried by those left behind, and the tragedy that forever changes the royal family. It is, without question, the most emotionally difficult episode I have written to date.

As always, this series is rooted in the surviving Old Norse sources—including the Poetic Edda, Skáldskaparmál, and Ynglinga saga—while using Unverified Personal Gnosis (UPG) and informed speculation to bridge the many gaps those texts leave behind. My goal is not to rewrite the lore, but to explore one possible way these events might have unfolded while remaining true to the spirit of the surviving traditions. I continue to take quite a lot of liberties with relationships and chronology where the surviving texts remain silent, as that is how the story has unfolded for me. Your understanding may follow a different path, and that’s perfectly okay.

I also want to repeat the content warning from Part 1 because it becomes even more important here.

Sometimes the stories that come through to me reflect the brutality of earlier times. The people who first heard and retold these stories did not soften them for comfortable audiences, and neither do the surviving sources. Snorri preserved much of the mythology through the lens of Christian Iceland while attempting to preserve older poetic traditions, but when I ask how this story wishes to be told, what comes through is often difficult to write, let alone hear.

Please be aware that this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence, war, grief, and the deaths of both adults and children. Nothing has been included for shock value alone. Every difficult scene serves the story, the characters, and the emotional weight of what follows. Even so, if you live with PTSD related to violence, abuse, or the loss of a loved one, I encourage you to practice self-care and listen in smaller portions if needed. This is also not an episode I would recommend for listeners under the age of eighteen.

The image accompanying this episode may look quiet at first glance. That was intentional. One of the greatest obscenities of this chapter is that Vanaheim itself still stands. The forests remain green. The grass still grows. The great hall still watches over its people. It is life that has vanished. Sometimes absence tells a more terrible story than destruction ever could.

Thank you, as always, for walking this road with me. I hope you’ll continue the journey of this story and find threads of truth and deeper connection to those I portray within it. As a quick aside, I am working on episode 3 but it may be a few more days before I get it published. Perhaps George Martin ought to take a few pointers from me.

Skál!

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Buzzsprout won’t let me upload until July 31st so that one will be added later.

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