As part of our soul, the hama appears as a spiritual covering which is projected outward. It is essentially our true form and can leave the body. This spiritual travel was known in ON as Hamfor ‘The journey of the hamr’, reconstructed into OE as *hamafōr. Hama (not to be confused with Hāma, the English name for Heimdallr) comes from the Proto-Germanic *hamô and is found in the OE words ċildhama ‘the womb’ and lichama ‘corpse’ (‘lic’ meaning dead).

One of two rare Anglo Saxon glass 'drinking horns’ found in 1937 in Rainham (Havering London). Only three have ever been found in England.

photo by Hāmasson

Author Jim Leary suggests that the top of Silbury Hill was flattened by the Anglo-Saxons who used the site as a defensive position, with archaeological evidence of post holes found on the top, supporting the idea. In the photo above (taken by myself when my daughter and I last visited the site) you can see the top of the burgh is flat. The name Silbury was recorded as Seleburgh (around the year 1200). 'Sele' was OE for hall, whilst bury came from burgh or burg. The name certainly suggests there was once a structure on top of the hill.

The Nebenstedt bracteate (128b) contains runes that read ‘glïaugiR uïu rnR’ which are interpreted as meaning ‘glowing eye consecrates the runes’. ‘Glowing eye’ is a kenning for Woden, who also used the bynames Báleygr or Flaming Eye and Bileygr, Flashing Eye.

Art by AuthenticProduct

The battle frenzy was come upon the Friend of the Raven. He was no more the gray-bearded husband of Frig, but Grim, the Masked One. The All-father, host of the Hall of Happiness, had donned a different aspect. Now was he Fire-eyed, the Evildoer, Blind, Double-blind. Out of decay arises growth; from destruction, rebirth; from fire, fertilization. The god bears more than one face, though he be one behind the masks.

- The Coming of the King by Nikolai Tolstoy,
- Art by Arthur Rackham.

We’ve had three swarms of bees fly over our garden in the last few days. An OE kenning for bees was the Victory-women or Sīgewīf and Jacob Grimm compared the sting of the bee with the sword of the Wælcyrian, though in truth, bees are at their most placid whilst swarming. In folklore the buzzing of a swarm indicated that the goddess Frēo was nearby. There is an OE charm which was meant to prevent bees from swarming;

Sitte ge, sīgewīf, sīgað tō eorðan,
næfre ge wilde tō wuda fleogan,
beō ge swā gemindige, mīnes gōdes,
swā bið manna gehwilc, metes and ēðeles.

Settle down, victory-women, sink to earth,
never be wild and fly to the woods.
Be as mindful of my welfare,
as is each man of border and of home.

It’s the May full moon tonight and as usual my family hearth will be holding rites. Grimm believed that May was associated with Bældæg (ON Baldur) and was even called Phol-mânôt, Phol being another name for Bældæg.

May is also the month when our hearth honours Béowa and Béole, who appear in the Lokasenna as Byggvir and Beyla, both servants of Fréa. Béowa means barley but he has been connected to Beowulf (Bee-wolf or Barley-wolf) whilst Béole could be from baun (*baunilo) ‘bean’ or *biuilo meaning bee, which is the more common interpretation of her name.

Wes hāl Béowa, Wes hāl Béole!

I have ne'er heard of
Men so mighty of muscle and valor,
Earls so eminent, as the atheling-brothers,
Hengist and Horsa, heroes of Anglia,
Lords of the mainland. The lay of the gleeman
Is full of their fame. Far 'mid the races,
The minstrel's song, swelling to heavenward,
Tells of the splendid, spacious, audacious
Deeds of those daring, doughty, invincible
Fathers of freedom who fared o'er the waters
Hither to England, and here builded them
A kingdom so mighty that men cannot shake it,
And hell cannot take it...

- John Lesslie Hall 'The Calling of Hengist and Horsa' 1899
- image by artist John Karst

'The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.'

- Treebeard from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

Últiseta was the act of seeking counsel with the dead by ‘sitting out’ over night at auspicious or liminal places, such as crossroads or burial mounds. Another name for the custom recorded in medieval Germany was hliodarsaza, meaning 'hearing-sitting' where '-saza' is believed to come from the same root as '-seta'. Hliodar is cognate with the Old English hleodor or 'hearing'. In Old German there was a similar term hliozan which roughly translated as 'diviner', with an Old English word hleoðor meaning both diviner and sound.

Similar to Últiseta and Hliodarsaza was an Anglo-Saxon custom called 'Waking the Well', also referred to as ‘Watching the Well’ where advice was sort from the spirit of a well by sitting next to it all night. Many different beings were known to inhabit wells including Nicor’s, Wyrms (young dragons such as the Lambton Worm) and other water spirits. Making offerings to either the spirits or the well or spring may even be the origin of the ‘wishing well’. Some wishing wells were known as Fyrht-welles and the name survives in Fritwell, a village in Oxfordshire.

The word Friht or Freht comes from the Proto-Germanic *frehnaną which meant 'to question, inquire, examine' and referred divination and fortune telling. The word can be found in the Old English frihtere, a diviner, soothsayer - frihtrian to divine and frihtrung meaning divination.

Illustration by Arthur Rackham.

Woden is also called the Wúscfreá or Wish-lord, where the OE wusc or wȳsc (meaning wish) is cognate with the ON Osk – hence one of Odin’s bynames is Oski.

Woden is ever watchful and an awakener of the folk. In Gylfaginning Woden is called Vakr which means both ‘to be watchful’ and ‘to be wakeful’ and is cognate with the OE Wacor. A runic innoscription on the Reistad Stone includes this line about Woden - 'ek Wakraʀ unnam wraita' or ‘I, Wakraʀ, understand writing’.