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Chapter 3. Midgard 81
The benefits of interacting with the lineages of land-spirits revolved around maintaining
one’s wholeness, one’s quality of life, in general, and increasing access to
luck/ power. Individual and family health was maintained as the ancestral lands
prospered. As with interacting with powerful human beings, one’s access to luck/
power (ON = heill) was increased through interaction with powerful non-organic
beings as well. In a few recorded cases an individual was lead to buried wealth
which improved the overall standing of the family within the community. The protective
function of these beings also took the form of presages of deaths, visitors
and approaching “bad luck” in whatever form it might take, and in at least one
recorded story collected by Ivar Aasen in 1842 a gaardvord beat up and killed a troll
which had threatened a man’s life. 33 In spite of the wonderful benefits of interacting
with the lineage of a land- or domestic-spirit, the relationship was always tense and
dangerous to some degree.
The results of either knowingly or unknowingly interacting with these non-organic
beings in a inappropriate fashion could have dire results because the breaking of a
specific taboo would not only result in one’s family’s losing access to power/ luck,
but also because the non-organic beings of either household or the wilds were notorious
for exacting revenge. Revenge, although often directed at the taboo-breaker,
was often carried out with unbaptized babies or couples immediately prior to their
weddings being very easy targets most likely because they had not been officially
blessed and therefore under the protection of the Church. Acceptance of the Christian
religion was supposed to help protect one from the vengeful activities, but the
Heathen utilized other protection in the form of charms or simply by setting things
right with the offended spirit if it was at all possible. Ignorance was considered to
be of no protection whatsoever.
Revenge was often considered to be a primary cause for disease, infant mortality
(which was high at the time), death of mothers during childbirth, deformities of
children at birth (probably the source of “the changeling stories” in northern European
folklore), madness, or an individual’s simply disappearing (being lost forever
in the wilderness, for example). Madness, coma, and general malaise in cultures
surrounding the Teutonic realm such as the Saamí or the Finns were, and still are,
considered in the folk culture to be related to soul or power theft by non-organic
beings and is best treated by charms, ceremonies, or, in the worst cases, by the
Cunning Man (noaide), or the Whole-Maker. Within the Germanic realm, there
are a number of diseases well-recorded in not only the sagaic and folkloric literature
which are directly attributed to these non-organic beings (usually with the prefix
alf- attached) but also in early and medieval herbals:
33 Folktales of Norway by Reidar Christiansen, tr. Pat Iversen, The University of Chicago
Press, p. 143, 1964.