Before I get too far into this, check it out! I did an interview on Rökkatru for Talking My Path by Rebecca Buchanan, who happens to have been the first person to have ever given me a shot at this publication thing. Pretty neat!

Now, to get back to it! In my last post on the values of Rökkatru, I introduced some of the values as embodied by the gods and interpretations of them and their stories. I’ll do the same here, but without the preamble — let’s jump right in.

 

Sigyn is best known for being the wife of Loki and the mother of his children Narvi (also rendered “Narfi”) and Vali. She lost her sons when one was turned into a wolf to kill the other. After, she stayed by her imprisoned husband’s side, holding a simple bowl above his head to capture the venom that dripped from a snake tied above him.

This minimal suriving lore leads to the most common interpretation of Sigyn as being a goddess of loyalty and fidelty. As a result, Sigyn’s value or lesson is most often attributed as loyalty, and is expanded upon to highlight the importance of standing by those you love when they are cast out or pushed out.

However, other scraps of lost lore, such as the meaning of her name (alternately interpreted as “victory woman” or “friend of victory”) and the kenning “Incantation Fetter,” we can clearly see that there was so much more to this goddess than has survived into the modern era. Looking to kennings she has received from modern practicioners, including such names as “Balm for the Broken,” “Safe Harbor for the Heart,” and “Lady of Unyielding Gentleness,” we can see a very common theme of how she is understood among her adherents. According to the UPG/PVPG of many in the Rökkatru community, Sigyn offers en encompassing comfort to those who have been wounded and/or ostracized. For this reason I would propose that she additionally embodies the values of compassion and empathy.

Surt is a fire jötunn from Muspelheim, who is fated to kill Freyr during Ragnarok. The historian Rudolf Simek has proposed that Surt is an embodiment of eruptive volcanic force, something which doevtails well with the interpretation of the jötnar as nature spirits as well with the fact that Eddas were written in Iceland, which hosts quite a lot of volcanic activity.

Surt is yet another for whom not much has been recorded, but according to Gylfaginning, Vafþrúðnismál, and Völuspá, Surt will lay waste to the earth with a flaming sword before the whole mess is swallowed by the sea. For this reason he has also been associated in the Rökkatru community with wildfires.

Volcanoes, wildfires, and the spirit of fire generally is nothing if not overbearingly intense. Surt’s actions in Ragnarok certainly mirror this intensity, and it is for this reason that the value attributed to him is simply that of intensity—pouring your whole heart and soul into what you are doing, and never half-assing a thing.

 

Jord is a jötunn woman who embodies the earth. She is the mother of Thor and is referred to in Gylfaginning as the daughter of Nótt and Anarr. Because she plays no role in the myths and we have no surviving lore about her outside of these tiny scraps, some scholars think she likely wasn’t honored or considered literal and personified in her own right. Some scholars believe it is very unlikely that Jord was recipient of worship in the past, but more represented the general concept of the earth.

Nonetheless, this has not prevented modern practicioners from honoring her and learning from her. As the embodiment of the earth upon which we live, many Rökkatru have come to see her as representing the value of nature or the value of reverence for nature. For Rökkatru, many of whom are keenly in tune with the damage that humanity has done to the planet, this value is of the utmost importance in the age of climate change.

Nidhogg is best known for being the dragon coiled among the roots of Yggdrasil, ever gnawing upon its roots. Though this is recounted in Grímnismál as a terrible evil suffered by Yggdrasil, along with the rotting of its trunk and eating of its leaves by a group of harts, it is often interupted more as form of therapuetic exfoliation by Rökkatru—in essence, Nidhogg is seen as that which consumes the dead substances which erode from the surface of the world tree.

In Völuspá Nidhogg is also noted as presiding over an underworld called Náströnd, but due to the nature of this underworld as being overtly concerned with moral reprecussion, especially for crimes such as adultry and falsehood, scholars have highlighted this as a possible Christian revision. Nonetheless, this has, in addition to the aforementioned interpretation of Nidhogg’s chewing on the roots of Yggdrasil, has contributed to Nidhogg’s value being understood as recycling.

I might pose a rephrasing of this value to better reflect the nature of Nidhogg in these interpretations of the dragon, and to accommodate our cultural understanding of the word “recycling.” Rather than recycling I might rather describe Nidhogg’s value as the value of decay. All things must decay, even stone which is eroded from mountain ranges into sand. Leaves which fall in autumn decay back into earth, returning nutrients to the soil and providing habitat for insects in the meantime. All creatures which die are consumed by bacteria, fungi, insects, and scavengers of all variteies. Entire ecosystems have decay at their foundation, and though it may not always be pretty to look at, it is important to remember its value.

 

Gerd is best known for being the jötunn wife of the Vanir god Freyr, and is often called the Lady of the Walled Garden. She’s only known from the story of Freyr’s pursuit of her, in which he sends his friend and servant Skírnir to woo Gerd on his behalf. Though she resists repeatedly, she eventually succumbs to Skírnir’s threats and agrees to marry Freyr.

Because Gerd eventually married Freyr, effectively making peace with him and by extension his people, her value has sometime been attributed as that of frithmaking, essentially the concept of making peace and “building bridges” rather than making war.

Based on the UPG/PVPG many have experienced with her, however, she may represent different values to different people. Somewhat ironically I’ve heard multiple women report having good luck seeking counsil and aid from Gerd with regards to stalkers and abusers. Many others associate her more strongly with the walled garden of her name than with the story of her marriage to Frey (myself being among them). Given this her values could just as easily be that of farming and permaculture, especially as a goddess associated with fertile soil (according to commonly accepted scholarly interpretations of the story of her marriage to Freyr) and through this potentially connected to Jord (community gardens and farms which focus on sustainability are one avenue for communities and individuals to address climate change). She could also easily embody the value of survival—sometimes frithmaking is less about building bridges and more about living to fight another day.

Skadi is one goddess who not all Rökkatru agree upon. Because she is known for having made peace with the Æsir, marrying (and eventually divorcing) Njordr and taking up a hall in Asgard. It is often assumed that this means she has sided with the Æsir during Ragnarok, though this is not attested to in any surviving lore.

Some Rökkatru reject Skadi for these reasons, while others still accept her due to her jötunn nature. Nonetheless, she is still sometimes has the value of self reliance attributed to her as a Rökkatru value, and certainly this is something many in the community value deeply.

Self reliance is attrributed to Skadi as a value due to the nature of her story: when her father was killed by the Æsir she marched into Asgard to challenge them for the loss, taking control of the situation and her life in doing so, and winning a place for herself among the Æsir in the process, thereby exercising absolute autonomy over the direction of her life from thereon out.