Hello my dear friends, how are you?
My name is Arith Härger and this is the 2nd part of the concept of spinning and weaving in Seidr
The activities of spinning yarn and weaving fabric in the Norse society, especially during the Viking Age,
occupied most of women's time
It was almost a full time job, because it required very intensive labour to create outstanding amounts of woollen cloth
to be used in clothes, bags, tents, every imaginable bedspreads, and of course, sails for ships,
which in the Viking Age both their dimensions and numbers increased to such tremendous proportions
that the weaving and spinning works almost seemed to be the first stages of "industrialization" during the Middle Ages of Scandinavia
It was an activity so time-consuming and very monotonous, which lead people to constantly make the same movements
almost mechanical, permitting one's thoughts to drift away, far into the depths of consciousness
As such, I'm quite sure women pondered about all sorts of things including more esoteric matters and the concepts of the divine
Weaving and spinning was a very solitary activity behind doors, spending most of the time doing that work,
and women could very well lose their minds with such a monotonous lonely activity
So many women would come together and weave and spin in the presence of their female friends
They exchange knowledge, ideas, and perceptions
Enough time to question the nature of all things and experience with one another the conclusions they have probably came up with
So it shouldn't be surprising that groups of women doing their spinning and weaving would be labelled witches
forming a coven and "conspiring against Christianity"
An unfortunate idea, but with magical connotations nonetheless
Spinning and weaving became a metaphorical image for life, destiny or fate
In classical Mythology we have the parcae and the moirai
which are the personified fate of each individual, and the goddess Clotho spins the thread of life of each individual
In Norse mythology we have the same, the Norns, who travelled to assign the future to each new-born child
or they themselves weaved the life-thread of each being, and in some accounts carved the fate on wood
The spinning of fate and weaving of life-threads associated with the Norns was done during the night
Night-time was the reality the Norns lived in and did all their works
Which is comprehensible
Most of the weaving work was done during the night, indoors
Day time was to work in the farm and do other activities which required day light
And let's not forget that in Northern countries most of the year the nights are much longer, and practically every activity was a nocturnal activity
Night for most women was the time to do their weaving and spinning works
spending most of the time sitting on a chair by the fire place, listening to the creaking of fire, watching the dancing flames
tired of a day's work and try to be awake the rest of the night to finish their weaving and spinning;
a time-consuming activity, tiring, mechanical-movements, monotonous, and other external factors contributing to lull a person to sleep
Exhaustion and all these factors associated with the work of spinning and weaving-
might have contributed to naturally induce women into altered states of consciousness
Thus, the motif of women spinning and weaving the threads of one's life and weaving the tapestry of the community,
is a metaphor for the actual physical activity,
which under certain circumstances became a highly symbolic act associated with magic and supernatural powers
The spinning and weaving activity was time-consuming as I've said,
but the entire process of preparing the wool for the actual activity of spinning, was also a time-consuming manual process
Shear the sheep, washing and dry the wool, fluffed up and disentangled by hand, then combed with wool combs
A very delicate process which I won't go into details
Suffice to say that the more accurate and meticulous the work is, the best results;
the best fibres resulting in the best balls of yarn
A fine cloth required a fine yarn, a coarse wool will result in a coarse yarn which in turn will produce a crude fabric
So at this stage, one must decide what kind of yarn to create according to the final product one wants
This is an entire process of creation,
from the raw material of a living creature, going through an outstanding process of transformation by the skill of a person,
all the way into a fabric for a variety of purposes, resulting in an almost metamorphosis of the material
This entire process of creation can be a metaphor for the process of creating life itself
giving shape to something, a purpose, a destiny
This entire textile work is a metaphor for what I've said in the previous video
Magic creatures in the form of balls of yarn and spindles with yarn;
magic winds and whirlwinds which are the physical shape of the mind of the practitioner of seidr
This entire work of creating fibres, twisting them to create strings and weave them into something, is implicit in the art of seidr -
the practitioner of seidr spins its mind, gives it shape, purpose and sends forth its mind
The consciousness of the performer of seidr which comes in the form of magical beings or magical wind,
is linked by metaphorical strings to the person, to the powers conjured and to the will the seidr performer can send forth
In a less complex way this is portrayed in the magical creatures such as the Bjära and the Smørkatt
If such creatures are injured or killed, so is the sorcerer who created them
The creature is bound to the practitioner of seidr, linked by invisible life-threads,
spun and weaved by the seidr performer to give shape to its own consciousness and send it to do something
This is why weaving and spinning tools are the symbolic tools used in the rituals by seidr practitioners
The distaff, for instance, in Old Icelandic "rokkr", and surprisingly in Portuguese "roca"
The Portuguese did spend a lot of time with Icelandic people but that's something for another time
The distaff is a very useful item for spinning as it helps to keep the unspun fibres in order
In its simplest form it is a wooden stick, held between the knees
This is the symbolic tool of the practitioner of seidr, because it's directly associated with spinning activity
It's the person's staff, rod, wand, even sceptre
The symbolic tool of power and a conductor of energy
The later representation of the tool with which the shaman hits the drum
And as I've said before, holding the distaff between the legs to work on spinning and weaving, is highly suggestive,
just like a witch holds the broom while riding it
The Distaff was symbolically the mount the practitioner of seidr rode to perform acts of seidr,
just like the witch rode the broom and the shaman rode the drum
All metaphors for the exact same spiritual activity
As previously said, the word seidr itself can help us to find a link to the spinning activity and why it's associated with fate
The word seidr is etymologically associated with "snare", "cord" and "string"
A thread that is used to bind or catch spirits or other beings
The entire context of textile work takes place in female domestic environments,
which in a patriarchal society those were the places they had real power
In their monotonous repetitive movements in spinning work probably helped to enter in a trance state of mind,
not necessarily speaking of spiritual work, but speaking of mechanical movements, the entire work is almost a reflex
the person is so accustomed that even does it blindfolded
The fact of creating something out of practically nothing -
making strings, transforming in cords, weave a fabric -
it almost seems magical in nature
Spinning can therefore be seen as a metaphor for creation, for fertility and motherhood,
thus also the connection with the spindle and the distaff which have phallic shapes and therefore the relation with fertility and other sexual connotations
In the work of spinning and weaving such objects are innocent in nature, just mere tools
But such objects change their character when used in seidr
In the hands of a practitioner of seidr the distaff changes its nature
In a couple of accounts it's precisely the use of the distaff that conjures the sorceress tricks and only those who are trained in such arts can see it's a trick
The distaff is the conductor of the mind of the sorceress, and by using it, it gives shape to the will of the sorceress
Seidr is a certain mind structure, a way of thinking that changes the function and property of things
A way of thinking which is able to manipulate minds and visual perceptions
The distaff is just a tool, something to help give shape to the will,
but it's the decisions of the sorcerer, seiðkona, Völva, etc. that makes things happen
ust like it's the decision of the person who prepares the wool before the actual spinning work,
deciding what will be the final result of the entire process of creation
First making the right decision so achieve the wanted result
The entire magical work in seidr is just like the entire process of creating a fabric through spinning and weaving
Deciding, preparing, transforming, giving shape and creating
Since Seidr was an activity closely associated with women and their lonely activities within their domestic domains,
Seidr rituals served a variety of household purposes such as divination and clairvoyance,
inding things hidden in the mind as well as in physical locations
Healing purposes, good luck, influence the weather, and for successful hunts, but obviously for the exact opposite of all these things
Battle magic was another important aspect of seidr, having influence on the outcome of a battle
This goes far back into the Germanic traditions of the chieftain's wife being the sorceress of the tribe
and through divination predicting the outcome of a battle and through active magic she could influence and alter that outcome
About battle magic there are interesting accounts and it wasn't that pretty
To be honest, nowadays there seems to be a great flourishing of Old Norse traditions and a comeback
but people seem to do precisely what they have done with Celtic traditions -
romanticizing the truth and give it a little drop of fantasy like in fairy tales
Sometimes people portray the pagans as the victims of Christianity, which they certainly were,
but the portrait is often clouded by the wrong imagine that pagans were just dancing naked in the forest and living their happy lives in peace
We must not forget that ancient pagans were humans,
and cruelty is a trait of people who lived very violent lives, within very violent societies,
lives closer to the cruelty of nature and in response they were also very cruel
Some of the accounts we have of Battle-magic come from myths, folklore, sagas and poems
but that doesn't mean such accounts do not portray the truth, on the contrary
Myths explain the unexplainable by adding very real elements people are familiar with
We have an account of Valkyries "weaving" a battle, creating a terrible "textile work" with bloodstained grey cloths made of human intestines and heads
chanting magic spells over it while moving back and forth in the process of weaving
Bloodthirsty women in screaming laughter eager to engage in combat and excited in creating a bloodbath
This is magic of total violence and destruction, that's the purpose
When the Valkyries have completed their work they tear it apart, destroying what they have created
This shows the very pagan understanding of spiritual force residing in objects
I've said this before, thought Europe since the Bronze Age, pagan cultures gifted the gods with a variety of objects created by their own skill ,
and then destroyed them precisely to release the magic in it
People were not offering the gods the objects;
people were offering their own essence which resided in the objects when they created them,
when they have placed their ideas, thoughts, will, skills, in the very creation of objects
When the Valkyries destroyed their work,
was precisely so their own will, which had been given shape through the creation of a fabric, could be released and make things happen
make the purpose of that magic happen
I'm not going into details about this specific account of battle-magic,
I'll leave that to an academic work of mine which I've published on my Patreon
precisely with the release of this video,
so for more details just check my Patreon
On that academic work I give more examples
It's about Seidr and the Weaving and Spinning concept
Suffice to say that in Seidr things weren't that magical and pretty
This particular account shows very real ritual performances in the magic of seidr
As I've said before, in Seidr different rituals and techniques were used for different purposes
and some were quite bloody and violent
The description of this one in particular looks like the lyrics of some very dark Back Metal band
In conclusion, the concept of spinning and weaving in Seidr ,
is a metaphor for the magical work which involves a psychological ability to take a relative control over minds and places by giving shape to the will
We can imagine the hypnotizing factor in the monotonous, circular movements of the spindle
by which the wool is transformed in a thread to give shape to a fabric;
a metaphor for spinning the thread of life itself, giving shape to the desire of creating something and giving it a purpose, a destiny
Alright my dear friends I hope you have enjoyed this video
and before you go, just a little information
if you want to know more about Seidr and other magical activities within the Norse traditional paganism
I recommend you to visit Ræveðis
he's a friend of mine who really knows his stuff when it comes to magical works within the Norse traditional paganism
on the comment section I will leave the links to his Youtube and his Patreon
and if you want to read my academic work about Seidr and this concept of Spinning and Weaving
just visit my Patreon as well
so, thank you so much for watching
and see you on the next video
tack för idag! (Thank you for today!)
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