Mimir is not specifically a god of the waters, but he is best known as the keeper of Mímisbrunnr, the well of wisdom.

At the end of the war between the Aesir and the Vanir, hostages were exchanged between both sides to keep the peace. Sent by the Vanir were, of course, Njörðr, Freyr and Freya. In exchange, the Aesir sent Mimir, who was known for his wisdom, and Hœnir, who was described to them as a great leader. The Vanir, however, came to feel that they’d been lied to and beheaded Mimir. Odin eventually retrieved his head and placed it in the well, where he can still deliver wisdom to those willing to sacrifice for it.

Famously, Mímisbrunnr is the well at which Odin sacrificed his eye for wisdom, pulling it out and throwing it into the water in exchange for a drink. Some modern heathens have spirit-journeyed to Mímisbrunnr, seeing wisdom or advice from Mimir.

While Nerthus is more properly a goddess of the Earth, a fertility goddess worshiped for nature’s bounty, she was reported to travel, veiled, to a sacred lake and to bathe there, and perhaps because of this she is sometimes associated with sacred lakes, holy wells, and other groundwater sources. According to Tacitus, the slaves who were allowed to see her without her veil as the statue was bathed were drowned afterward.

She is also believed to be the sister-wife of Njörðr, the god of the sea, and so their relationship can be seen as a symbol of either the shore where the earth and sea meet, or of the flow of water from rives and lakes into the sea.

You might have success asking Nerthus for help when working with water as a source of life, or if you want to invoke a goddess alongside Njörðr.

Rán is invoked during a storm at sea in Frithiof’s Saga. When it seems all is lost and they will surely drown, Frithiof sings about his love, and how it seems like he’ll soon be keeping company with Rán instead of his lover.

Now it blew harder and harder yet, so that to those who were aboard liker to huge peaks and mountains than to waves seemed the sea-breakers that crashed on all sides against the ship.
Then Frithiof sang:—
“On bolster I sat
In Baldur’s Mead erst,
And all songs that I could
To the king’s daughter sang;
Now on Ran’s bed belike
Must I soon be a-lying,
And another shall be
By Ingibiorg’s side.”
Continued…

In the Prose Edda, the sea and its rules are referred to in many ways. This translation of the Skáldskaparmál is from Northvegr. Continued…

Classic Images

Continued…

When I began working with several Norse gods last year, I realized it was simultaneously very new and the culmination of old habits.

I’ve always been interested in the Norse myths, though I felt like I never resonated with the gods. I’d read Bullfinch and the sorts of books featuring Norse gods that elementary students come across, and nothing in them really drew my attention, but in the back of my mind I had crossed them off the list of pantheons to research.

And yet I found myself reading fiction featuring them repeatedly – Diana Wynne Jones’ Eight Days of Luke, Douglas Adams’ Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Sandman, Marvel’s Thor and the anime Matenai Loki Ragnarok all spring immediately to mind – and that’s just off the top of my head.

At the same time, I was drawn to the concept of God as Storyteller. Oh, and I felt like I was being followed by big black raven-like crows, but that’s another matter entirely.

Other things happened, other priorities cropped up, and I felt like I was groping around in the dark, trying to find something. I read books. I read a lot of books, trying to find the right answer. I kept getting drawn to people writing about their relationships with the Norse gods, the Northern tradition, and Anglo-Saxon practice – and at first I went “what can I learn from this for my own spirituality.” And somehow it didn’t occur to me that what I could be learning was the spirituality! I know, it’s amazing how dense one can be.

Finally, after some major life changes and some careful questions from my favorite Local Pagan Store Owner, I started seriously looking at my religious life again. As I always do, when in doubt, I started reading. I took a closer look at the myths, and I realized there was a lot there I hadn’t noticed before. I read about the gods, and discovered that among many other skills, Odin is a god of storytellers. I studied the nine noble virtues and found a system that was a good match for the values I always held.

Once I started reaching back to Odin, it was pretty much open season and it wasn’t long before I found myself drawn straight to the gods of the waters. Somehow I always end up back at the ocean no matter where I go or what I do, and so here I am.

My altar to Rán is very much a work in progress, and I suspect it’s going to remain that way for a long time. Rather than a flat surface, it’s built around a net hung from the wall.

I thought about how to create an altar to Rán for several months before finally understanding how I should do it. Part of my inspiration came from Galina Krasskova’s Full Fathom Five, in which there’s an essay describing an altar to the Waves that was constructed as a mobile. The rest came from the lore, where Rán’s net is one of her most recognizable traits.

A large glass float hangs above the net. These floats were originally developed in Norway in the early 1800s and were attached to nets to make it easy for fishermen to retrieve them. I’ve been fascinated by cobalt glass since I was a child, when my father started collecting these and other fishing paraphernalia to decorate the area around the pool, so the blue glass float has a lot of personal meaning and energy as well as the symbolism inherent to a device designed to make sure nets returned to their owners.

The net itself has many different items strung from it. Most of the decorations are shells with holes drilled in them for string. Many of them are recent acquisitions but not all of them are. Some shells I’ve kept for years without a real reason, souvenirs of childhood vacations and of studying abroad. There are other pieces strung on there as well – a pair of shark jaws I got on a whim, strings of shell beads, an old shark-tooth necklace. A pendant that resembles a ship’s wheel, another that’s made of sea glass carved into the shape of an arrowhead. Other jewelry that seemed appropriate. I have some small gold pieces and charms that still need to be cleaned and blessed before they go up, along with some strands of pearls that seem to need a new home.

I’m sure this style of altar won’t be for everyone, but as my apartment is suffering from a lack of flat surfaces anyway and to me, it feels right.

The most well-known of the Northern sea-gods, Njörðr (commonly written Njord) is of the Vanir, the more agriculturally attuned gods. When the fighting between the Aesir and the Vanir drew to a close, he was one of the Vanir hostages, along with his children Freyr and Freya. They were accepted into Asgard with open arms and are often worshipped as Aesir.

Unlike Aegir, the elemental sea, Njörðr is more often regarded as the god of seafaring. He loves the ocean, but his hall is on the shore. He is sympathetic to sailors, merchants and fishermen, and it prayed to for favorable winds, good fishing, and the blessing of wealth. For most people, he will be the most accessible of the Norse gods of the sea.

I’ll confess that I have less experience of him than I have of Rán or Aegir. However, there are a number of people working with the Vanir and sharing their experiences, some of whom are linked on my links page, and they are excellent sources for modern UPG on Njord and his family.

Njörðr’s first wife, the mother of Freyr and Freya, is not specified in the extant lore, though it’s known from the Lokasenna that she was his sister. Some scholars draw a line between him and Nerthus, believing her to be their mother; their names are linguistically related much as Freyr and Freya are. That kind of royal brother-sister relationship was frowned on by the Aesir, however, and Njörðr wound up with a second wife.

When the goddess Skadi demanded recompence for the death of her father in the form of a husband, the Aesir told her she could choose amongst the available gods, but only by looking at his feet. She picked the pair she considered the most beautiful, hoping for handsome Balder, but got Njörðr instead. Their relationship was strained by the fact that neither wanted to live away from their homes – Njörðr’s on the shore and Skadi’s in the snow-capped mountains. Eventually they separated, though whether they divorced or they remain on good terms while apart is up for debate.