Merseburg charms

Asatru glossary

E

Eddas – next to the sagas, eddas are the most important source for researching Nordic mythology. There are two narratives bearing this name: Poetic Eddas and the Prose Edda, that is Snorri’s Edda. The Poetic Edda is a collection of poems which were gathered from the 9th to the 12th century AD in Iceland. The essential part of this collection are poems Voluspa and Hávamál. Snorri’s Edda is consisted of four parts: Prologue, The Fooling of Gylfi, Skáldsaparmál and Háttatal. The most important part is certainly The Fooling of Gylfi, seeing that it describes the complete history of the Nordic Universe, and represents all the Gods of the Nordic pantheon.

Egir – God of the sea and the Ran’s husband. His nine daughters are the waves, and their names are: Himinglaeva, Dufa, Blodughadda, Hefring, Unn, Hronn, Bylgja, Bara and Kolga. As he often sunk ships, the Nordic people would sacrifice prisoners to him, hoping that will give them safe sailing. Egir is also known as a very hospitable deity, whose halls often played host to feasts for the Gods. On one of those feasts Loki appeared and mocked the Gods, as described in the Lokasenna.

Egir

Einherjar – Odin’s warriors «they who fight alone», they are dead heroes staying in Valhalla until Ragnarok. Their food is meat of magical boar Sehrimnir and their beverage the mead served to them by the Valkyries. Einherjars spend their days battling on a field in front of Valhalla, and none of their wounds are lethal, because they heal on themselves.

Embla – the first woman, made out of a birch tree. Henir, Odin and Lodur gave life to her and her husband Askr.