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Chapter 4. The Sky Connection 99
Figure 4.2. Himinbjörg–to the far North
were, and in many places still are, Halloween and Yule, and the period of time in
between the two holidays was considered to be an especially dangerous time for being
outdoors at night. Because of the reciprocity between the middle- and underworlds
(see Chapt. 4), the best time for travel for the inhabitants of the underworld would
have been at night in the winter (in middleworld terms) because in the Land Below
it would be early summer during the day. The primary Day of the Dead for the
Scandinavians was Yule–essentially Midsummer for the inhabitants of the Land of
the Dead, and for the Celts it was Halloween or Samhain.
For the inhabitants of northern Europe around 1000 CE, including the Scandinavians,
the Saamí, the Finns, The Rus (Germanic folk living in the border area/
trade route along the Dnjeper), several of the east-European tribes, the Eve of the
Dead was somewhere between December 15th and January 15th, and the gate to
the Land of the Dead which lay far to the north, coincidentally at the north end
of the rainbow-bridge and where the gate of the Milky Way lay at midnight on the
winter solstice. For the Celts, whose underworld gate lay in the West, Samhain was
the primary holiday when the gates leading to either the Land Below or the “Blessed
Isles” were open, and at midnight on that date, the arms of the Milky Way embrace
the westernmost point on the horizon.
With preliminary observations out of the way, an explanation of the night sky