TEUTONIC MAGIC - Awaken Video

eing can be described as the lich(body) enlivened by hamingja-force and possibly hamr, but without any
of the conscious aspects of the soul. The true draugr does not recognize people who were known to it in
life, nor, with only a few exceptions, can it speak. The Egill's Saga tells how Skallagrimr's corpse was
taken out through the broken wall, apparently so that if he should walk after death, he would come to the
wall and not the door-the blind movement of the undead's instinct. Although no overt connection appears
between the berserker or skin-changer and the undead in Germanic myth, as in Slavic countries where it
is thought that a werewolf will become a vampire after death, precautions are frequently taken to prevent
anyone with uncanny powers from walking: the corpses of witches are often staked down with runecarved
sticks, heads cut off, and so forth.
The Grettis Saga describes Grettir's fights with two wights who are said to be draugar, although they
differ from the usual walking dead in their level of awareness and mental activity. The first is Karr the
Old, who has characteristics of both draugr and Dokkalf. Although he is clearly described and seems to
act as an undead, his hauntings are carried out for the sole purpose of increasing his son's holdings, and
his son's wish is enough to act as a warding for others. Grettir slays this wight by cutting his head off and
clapping it alongside the draugr's thigh, a traditional means of laying these beings.9 The second, Clam, is
the mighty and vicious draugr of a mighty and vicious man who was slain by an unnatural being on the
first night of Yule. His body was found, blue and swollen, but so heavy that it could not be moved, which
is one of the usual traits of draugar. Glam walked for two years, more in the autumm and winter and less
in the bright seasons, slaying men and destroying farms, and finally Grettir came to grapple with him.
Grettir eventually overcame Glam by wrestling, but when their eyes met by moonlight he was horribly
dismayed (compare with the eyes of the sorceror). The saga says that there was more fiendish craft in
Glam than in most other ghosts, giving him the ability to speak to Grettir. Glam cursed Grettir so that he
should never grow in strength, that he should always be an outlaw and alone, and that he should always
see Glam's eyes before his own, which left him with a hideous terror of being alone in the dark.10
Glam is an exceptional draugr, as he seems to have become undead by his own will and strength,
thus retaining something of a mind and the power to curse. In most cases the draugr is mindless, seeming
to be accidentally created when the hamingja for some reason or other remains with the body. Otherwise,
the lich is sometimes animated by a sorceror for the purpose of working woe, and the hamingja filling it
might be that of the sorceror or of a sacrifice. This is not to be confused with Odhinn's practice of carving
runes to make the dead speak, or of summoning up ghosts; those works are concerned with the actual
mind of the dead person, and any other parts, body or soul, are incidentals which make communication
between the living and the dead easier. When the consciousness of the dead person is willingly present, it
is usually in the setting of disir, Dokkalfar, or other well-wishing barrow wights. However, disturbmg the
dead or angering them is very dangerous, and even a magical circle is not always warding enough when
you have called an unwilling ghost up to Midgardhr. In workings with the undead, runic magic was more
often called upon to prevent their workings or to keep them from doing harm than to create them.
JOTUNS
The term jotun is used in English as a general description of the descendants of Ymir. These beings
embody the proto-forces of the universe before it was divided into utangardhs and innangardhs. They are
thus chaotic by nature and belong to the world of the utangardhs now. In general, it can be said that they
embody the raw forces of wild nature.
The jotuns are loosely divided into three separate races, although these frequently blurred, especially
under the demands of the Norse poetic form. Nevertheless the functions and nature of these beings can be
clearly seen, even though the terminology has broken down. In Runelore, Thorsson classifies them as
etins (ON jotunn,jotnar), which he writes forth as ageless, non-evolving beings of great power, wisdom,
and magic; rises, the characteristic "giants" of legend; and thurses, the unintelligent antagonists of
conscious- ness and order, which are further divided into rime-thurses and firethurses. Risir commonly
dwell in mountains and cliffs, rime-thurses among the rocks in cold, icy places. lilsir sometimes mate
with humans, and the hero Starkadh was the grandson of such a pairing. The gods frequently mate with
etins and risir, and none of the Aesir are without some trace of the blood of the jotun kindred.
The nature of etins and risir varies as drastically as the nature of any other highly conscious class of
being. Some, like Aegir and the wise etin Mimir, are helpful to the gods; others, like Utgardsloki and
150