TEUTONIC MAGIC - Awaken Video

thought to be omens of death and disaster. The horse is also the vehicle of travel between the worlds: It
may be that the stick of the gandreid was sometimes a sort of hobbyhorse, and a number of folk tales
have survived in which a witch turns a stick or reed into a horse and rides it to "meet with the deviL" the
Christian term for the myrkreid (dark-ride) or kveldreid (night- ride) of the seidhr-worker.
The use of the horse in divination and as the vehicle of godly wisdom is discussed under ehwaz.
RAVEN
The raven is the bird most associated with Odhinn. It is the bird of battle, and for one to be followed by
ravens on the way to war is a good sign, because it means that one will feed them well. Ravens flying
overhead or croaking is a sign that Odhinn has heard one's prayers or accepted one's sacrifice and will
help one. The raven was often embroidered on magical banners-an Anglo-Saxon account says that the
Norse flag was of plain white silk, but a raven appeared on it in wartime. When the army was to win the
day, its beak was open and wings fluttering, but when they were to lose, it sat still and its feathers
drooped. The Jarl Sigurdhr of the Orkney Islands had a raven banner which his mother had made. This
banner was so enchanted that whoever it was borne before would win the battle, but the standard-bearer
was doomed to die. Sigurdhr won many fights with its aid, but at the Battle of Clontarf (1016), after two
men had been killed under the banner, he was forced to take it up himself and so lost his own life and the
battle.
The raven is a bird of cunning, wisdom, and trickery as well as of war. Odhinn's ravens Huginn and
Muninn have been spoken of often-they are the bearers of Odhinn's mind, who often fly before his chosen
to show them their way. The deceptive nature of the raven appears often in later Germanic folklore, and
Grimm says that the raven seems to combine within himself the folklorish characteristics of wolf and of
fox, melding the greed of one with the other's cunning.
WOLF
The nature of the wolf has been somewhat discussed under the chapter on the vargr. The wolf is the fylgja
of a ferocious person, usually a warrior or a witch. Witches ride on the backs of their wolffylgjur, using
serpents for reins.
The wolf is the embodiment of fury and chaos, which is seen in all its forms in Odhinn. As a being of
woe, the nature of the wolf is shown in the Fenris-Wolf, the epitome of brute wildness. Coupled with this,
however, one should consider the fact that it was lucky to meet a wolf when setting out on any
undertaking, just as it was lucky to meet a warrior. The wildness of the wolf is also its great strength.
WYRM (first printed as The Northern Dragon, Northways 1, 1)
The word wyrm is the original Germanic-based term for a serpent or dragon, draca being adopted from
the Latin draco at a very early time.
When the dragon appears in Teutonic legend, it is nearly always as a frightful menace which must
be slain by the hero. Sigurdhr's victory over Fafnir is his deed of daring "which soar(s) highest the
heavens beneath."18 In the case of Beowulf and Wiglaf, the dragon is the only fitting end for the aged
Beowulf, who is clearly too great a hero for any man's sword to cut down, while Wiglafs role in the right
raises him to the position of Beowulf’s heir (the king lacking any heir of his own body). The hero is
raised up by his vktory over the dragon, but these are heroes who are already exceptional in some way.
Beowulf has already proved himself mighty against the out-dwellers, and indeed has a few traits of the
out- dweller himself (see Chapter 19, Grendel). Sigurdhr is the son of a shape changer, lineage which
gives him added strength in dealing with the dragon. The hero who holds this might, who stands at the
border of the gardhr, is the one who is closest to the great workings of Wyrd.
The rewards which the wyrm holds for the hero who slays it also write its own nature forth. The first of
these is, of course, the gold which is the embodiment of the dragon's vast magical might (see fehu; note
that the wyrm is said, when set upon a pile of gold, to grow to the exact size of the treasure), as is its
power of breathing fire or fiery venom. The hoard is concealed within a mound, which in Beowuif is
unquestionably a burial mound. In the story of Fafflir, while no burial has taken place, the hoard is an
inheritance, Sigurdhr's first plan being to win back that portion of Hreithmar's gold which Fafnir had kept
from his brother Reginn. Not only is the power-hoard hidden, but it comes specifically from the "past"-the
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