Sigrblot

This April 19th, Seven Trees will be wishing everyone a Happy Harpa!

Our viking ancestors divided the year into two seasons, Náttleysi (“Nightless days”) and Skammdegi (“Short days”). Harpa (possibly a Scandinavian goddess) is the name of the first month of summer, roughly coinciding with mid-April to mid-May.

The holiday celebrated on this day has multiple names – Sumarsdag, Sumardagurinn fyrsti, and Sigrblot. Many summer-kickoff observances were all about fertility, invoking bountiful crops and productive livestock in the up-coming warm season. But Sigrblot (“victory sacrifice”) was intended to bring success and luck to warriors, since summer also heralded the onset of fighting/raiding season.

The Icelandic Club of Greater Seattle details some of the less-warlike traditions of Sumarsdag:

People also used to give summer gifts on the First Day of Summer in Iceland, four centuries before Christmas presents became a tradition, and the summer gift tradition is still practiced in some households. People celebrated with a feast, often more elaborate than on Christmas Eve.

Farmers took a break from their hard work and children were allowed to play with their friends from the neighboring farms. The day was dedicated to young women and to children (it is also known as Children’s Day). On this day young men would often reveal whom they fancied.

Another tradition on the First Day of Summer, called húslestur, involved people getting together and listening to readings from the Icelandic sagas, poems or other literature.

If the weather was warm, farmers would let their cattle and rams out, to allow the animals to greet summer, and to also entertain themselves by watching the animals play.

People used to go to mass on the First Day of Summer until the mid-18th century when the inspectors of the Danish church authority discovered that mass was being held on this heathen day and banned the practice.

According to legend, people considered it a good sign if summer and winter “froze together” (if there was frost on the last night before summer).

People would put a bowl filled with water outside to check whether it had frozen in the early hours of the next morning, before the morning sun could melt it. If the water had frozen, the summer would be a good one.

Curious about what Vikings might have eaten on feast days (or any day)? The Viking Answer Lady has a very informative page on Viking Foods.

The Rosala Viking Centre in Finland hosts authentic blot feasts, as well as many other viking-related activities. If you can’t visit in person, their extensive website, full of evocative pictures, is definitely worth exploring.

 

Charming of the Plow

Depending on where you’re located, winter is showing its age and spring is on the horizon. This transition has always been marked by local traditions. In modern East Coast America we have Groundhog Day, Christian Europe has Candlemas, Pagan traditions celebrate Imbolc, and descendants of Vikings and Anglo-Saxons welcome the new growing season in yet another way - the charming of the plough (also known as Disting).

A team of transformed oxen driven by the Norse goddess Gefjun.

In Sweden at this time, a religious festival was held called the Disablot, to honor the disir – female gods, landspririts, and ancestors. Included in this observance was the governing assembly called the Thing, where laws were made and interpreted, grievances were adjudicated, contracts sealed, and so on. The combined gathering was called Disting, and marked the start of the growing season in that part of the world.

Engraving of a Disablot by J. Malmsrom, a Swedish author.

A Scandinavian legend describes early ‘land-taking’ customs in the story of the goddess Gefjon. Like many ancient tales, there are conflicting versions from various sources, but the gist is that a Swedish king promised Gefjon as much land as she could plough in a day with four oxen. She transformed her four sons (fathered by an unnamed jotunn) into supernaturally strong oxen, and: Gefjun‘s plough “cut so hard and deep that it uprooted the land, and the oxen drew the land out into the sea to the west and halted in a certain sound.” Gefjun there placed the land, and bestowed upon it the name Zealand. Where the land had been taken from a lake stands.

There has been an association of women and ploughing since time immemorial. Folk traditions in some areas of Russia (where the Vikings settled as Rus) call for women to plough the borders of a community to ward off sickness or calamity. Anglo-Saxons held the Æcerbot or ‘field remedy’ ritual, to heal land that was yielding poorly and return it to full productivity. The ritual called for anointing the plow with herbs and oils, for cakes to be placed in the fresh furrows, and for daylong incantations and songs.

Erce, Erce, Erce, Earthen Mother!
May the Allwielder grant thee, the great Drihten,
acres waxing and covering,
increasing and strengthening.
A sheaf betokens the reaper’s produce
and the broad barley’s produce
and the white wheat’s produce
and the produce of all earth.
Grant to them, great Drihten
whose hallows that in heaven are,
that his farm be fortified against all fiends, each one,
and it be bordered against all
baleful things, each one,
that through the land is seen.
Now I ask the Wielder, that this world shaped,
That there be no such cunning woman; no such crafty man,
That with a word of power changes what is said.

While thumbing through all those seed catalogs, take a moment to think about the earth that grows our food, and how best to care for it. At Seven Trees Farm, we add to the health of our land by adding back manure, lime, composted livestock bedding, etc. We also use as few chemicals and toxins as possible, not just for our own health, but to keep the natural bug-filled ecosystem thriving.

Another way we show respect for our bountiful Earth is by leaving some areas ‘un-plowed’, so that our own landvaettir have an undisturbed place to inhabit. The wild birds also appreciate the thickets and brambles, as do the myriad frogs which will start their spring peeping soon.

For more information about ancestral early spring traditions, check out these links -

Charming the Plow: Disting

Holy Tides – Charming of the Plough and Disting

Plough Songs