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’.

Another Odin idol is taking shape. I used a wind-felled tree, suitable for Viðrir. The face is based on an Anglo Saxon artifact.
ᚬᚦᛁᚾ × ᚢᛁᚴᛁ

The Elder flowers are out at the moment, ready to be foraged. The Elder is a Witches tree and is protected by Hyldemoer, the Elder-Mother who inhabits the tree. She is a tree spirit who sometimes appears as a lady in a red cloak. It's unlucky to cut down or use the wood without her permission - you risk her curse if you do! In some parts of England she is known as Old Girl or the Old lady. A Northamptonshire tale tells of a man who cut a stick from an elder tree and the tree bled from its wound. The man later passed an old lady who was the Elder spirit herself, her arm wrapped in a bloody bandage.

Tolkien used the name Lembas for his Elvish bread in Lord of the Rings, which meant Way-bread. This was a word play on the OE weg-brāde, which was in fact the OE name for the plant Plantain - a herb found in the Nine Herbs Charm.

The Nine Sacred Herbs -

Una / mucgwyrt - Mugwort.
Waybread / wegbrade - Plantain (from the Plantago family which is native to England).
Stune, suggestions vary between lamb’s cress (hairy bittercress) / shepherds purse / water cress.
Atterlothe / attorlaðe - Betony (some say Nightshade).
Maythe / mægðe – Mayweed (also called Chamomile) Chamaemelum nobile (English or Roman Chamomile) and Matricaria chamomilla (German or Wild Chamomile) are all native to England.
Wergulu –most often translated as Crab Apple.
Stiðe – Nettle (Stiðe means stiff).
Fille - Chervil (some say Wild thyme (Thymus polytrichus) which is native to England).
Finule - Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) was introduced by the Romans to Britain and is not the same as the bulb fennel varieties.

UPDATE - I see a few people claiming Cockspur grass is one of the Nine Herbs (as Atterlothe / attorlaðe) however Cockspur grass was introduced to England in the 1600's and is not native.

Many thanks to Dan for the shout-out in this Fyrgen podcast where he talks about his views on the internet and AI technology. As Dan says Loki is a deceiver and loga, OE for liar is a name I’ve often used to describe Loki. On the Nordendorf I fibulae there is a runic innoscription on the reverse, which reads-

awa leubwini
logaþore / wodan / wigiþonar

Wodan and wigiþonar refer to Woden and Battle or Holy Thunor. We can also see the term loga in the name logaþore which is believed to refer to either Lóðurr or Loki. It’s possible the name is cognate with the OE Logðor or logeðer which means cunning, crafty or malicious, whilst logaþore itself is said to mean ‘dares to tell lies’. Loki the liar indeed.

As well as meaning liar in OE, Loga or Lōga can mean ‘flame’ in the Norse languages, from the root *laugi which also give us such words as OE līeġ (flame or fiery) and the name Loge, the demigod of fire in Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen. Fire is a good analogy for Loga (Loki) as he needs to be controlled by the Esen in order to be useful – but left unchecked he becomes wild and destructive. His mothers name is Laufey, meaning leafy, whilst his father is the Eoten Fárbauti, whose name means anger striker or sudden-striker, a kenning for lightning. Loki comes into being when the lightning strikes the arid lands and the wildfires ensue.

art - Loki by Arthur Rackham