The Cave-under Drawing By CinderR0SE

The Cave-under drawing by CinderR0SE

this is the under pen drawing for the painting i’ll be doing of loki bound in the cave, the moment when the venom hits his eyes. the top part of the snake got cut off and all the details of the cave itself are going to be added when the painting is actually made in photoshop later. there are a few kennings associated to this story so i’m unsure if the name of the finished work will change or not. so lots of people have heard this story: loki is pissed hes not invited to a party where he was always supposed to be cause oaths are only *sorta* important, gets drunk and raucous at a party and kinda had enough of everyones shit involved and calls out there various overt shortcomings and personal lies/indignities and admits he murdered baldr. he flees the party afterwards in sort of a dramatic huff and realizes he’s probably screwed and should hide cause the threats weren’t funny anymore. he hides in wilderness near a stream and makes a rope to catch fish to eat with and thereby inventing netting. but when he hears thor coming to find him, he burns the rope and turns into a fish; he jumps into the water to hide and thor somehow figures out how to net from ashes left behind and catches him. vali and narfi, in the interim, are murdered as somehow a proper tradeoff for baldr; although they were totally innocent of everything but existing. (narfi is turned into a wolf and murders vali, because i guess loki having one child that was an uncontrollable wolf and messed around with wasn’t enough for everybody?) loki is caught and forced out of his fish form, for the life of me i don’t know how thor could manage that, and the intestines of vali are used to bind loki in a cave and skadi affixes a venomous snake that evidently sprung a leak, defying the natural order of the reptile kingdom too, and it drips on his face. i guess asgard has a leaking snake problem? (extensive knowledge of snakes tells me that that snake hadda be tortured a bit too because it would have to be permanently adhered in a position that forced it to constantly be milked of its venom, and yeah i understand its supposed to be a magical snake but if we are gonna use childrens intestines to enslave a god the very least someone could have done is discussed that poor snake too) and sigyn holds a bowl over lokis head put eventually would have to empty the poison out and it would fall into his eyes as originally planned and caused writhing so bad we experience earthquakes in our world (midgard). i am convinced snorri sturlson never saw an actual snake. so with all that in mind the end result of loki being freed is bring forth ragnarok where he takes on his ‘breaker of worlds’ kenning that MANY people know well and love arguing about. while it is overtly obvious with research that the story of loki’s binding is heavily influenced by the christian conversion period (and the bound devil narrative) as well as the christian politician who penned the story (wilily ole snorri), its worth noting that i personally find the story incredibly important regardless. i *personally* ascribe to loki, while a deity over many things, to a traditional funerary god as a manifestation of sacred funerary fire, bringing gifts or sacred offerings to other gods (since offerings and sacred dead were often burned). i notice too many things to not draw this conclusion personally and this binding story seems way more related to attempting to remove ancient peoples from there sacred dead via forced conversion and binding THAT in a hole in the ground. if you remove loki, you pretty much remove all connecting and fluid actions between worlds, gods and anything else otherwise and at the very least his function was so nessesary that its uttering ridiculous to malign it. and as a result in our world (cause again old stories need to be viewed in every lens possible), if you demonize, remove, isolate, and ultimately abolish traditional funerary rites and cut off people from there sacred dead its easier to manipulate and coerce them because they feel alone. its kinda backwards though, because the majority of people during this time period were actually committing the very acts that ultimately loki the god became accused of and ultimately punished for. the early conversion periods historically were notorious for going out of the way of outlaw and ban ANYTHING that had to do with the dead because they knew it was extremely effective to there targeted peoples. i feel like the narrative of loki being bound is, in many ways, representational of this AS WELL AS the targeting of someone who socially falls into the ‘other’. with all this in mind, i find lots of classical representations (paintings, block prints, sculptures) of scenes like this made thoroughout history, not even the modern ones, and loki looks particularly well put together oddly enough; whether he was viewed as the nordic devil, maligned villain, ‘other’ that needed to be stopped in society, or ultimate betrayer at that particular time period. he often looks somewhat irritated, maybe some weird faces here and there but mostly calm if not willfully determined. also he is depicted bound with ropes and chains and all in all looking *somehow* attractive when its actually supposed to be his sons intestines, horrifically painful, and anything put pretty. i feel personally that if people want to look into the cave and present something like this, that they might as well get a feel of what it might actually look like to see a god bound with venom dripping in his face. going through the effort to insist a god is tortured and then depict him as anything else is not doing service to the story whatever the original stories motive was (or historical accuracy, divinely inspired or otherwise) nor to the rawness that truly needs to be expressed. i plan on further illustrating many of the points i brought up here in works of art i make in the future, but the cave imagery i think is a good spring point; not even just for the treatment of loki and how no one really wants to look at it, but ultimately the various layers of meaning that could exist here. this will be a completed painting in the near future. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ do not remove my watermark, and if reposted elsewhere give me credit and link back to my main site, thanks! ~cinder. 

Working with Constellation Entities

Humans have been mapping the stars for thousands of years. We have always made shapes in the stars and observed their movements and much of that birthed astrology as we know it today. But these constellations can technically be considered their own PANTHEON. The cosmic pantheon… space pantheon? Maybe just "constellation pantheon"… the name is still a work in progress lol

Every one of the constellations has a mythology and reason for being placed in the night sky. Like Cancer the crab was originally a large crab sent by Hera to distract Heracles while he was fighting the Hydra, Heracles crushed it underfoot, Hera went "…*shrug* eh, oh well" and popped it up into the night sky to be a constellation. Cassiopeia pissed off Poseidon because hubris (TLDR version) and then placed her in the sky on a throne but upside-down as a mockery. The story of Gemini is a bit more macabre but it is still kinda sweet: Despite having different fathers, Castor and Polydeuces (like the stars in Gemini - Castor and Pollux) grew up together and were very close. One day, the brothers clashed with another set of twins, Idas and Lynceus, when they fought over two women, Phoebe and Hilaira. Lynceus killed Castor by stabbing him with a sword. Devastated Polydeuces asked Zeus to share his immortality with his murdered brother and the god placed them both in the sky, where they remain inseparable as the constellation Gemini.

My point with all of this is that because they have mythology and lore, because they are divine in a sense, you can WORK WITH THEM like any other deity! Isn't that the coolest fucking thing you've ever heard? Working with constellations. I will never get over that. Anywho… The constellation myths aren't just from Greek mythology, though the Greeks did have a major influence over it because they were far more concerned with the stars and wrote more down than a lot of other ancient civilizations did, except Babylon, Babylon did a TON of astrology back in the day... So did Egypt... But that's not the point. They all had stories of the stars too but theirs are very different than the ones we most commonly hear.

You can work with constellation entities just like you would any deity. They are wise beyond what we may expect, vocal, comforting (depending on who you petition, I'm sure), and will guide your way and teach you lessons if you let them.

Their personalities will vary greatly because there are 88 constellations in the night sky ranging from Ursa Major and Ursa Minor to Auriga, Pegasus, Capricorn, Draco and more. There are a great many constellations to choose from and each with their own unique stories/mythos and personalities.

If you want to get into working with the Constellations, do your due diligence and research the constellation stories and myths. The stories will vary, there are DOZENS of stories about Orion, so please do take into consideration other factors about overlapping mythology. Like in that story, Artemis was a virgin goddess who never gave it up even for Orion. So don't let anyone fool you into thinking that Orion took that from Artemis. Cross reference with Hellenic and Roman mythology or Babylonian stories/myths to find commonalities and what makes the most sense historically and from a mythological perspective.

When you have read up on your constellations and know who you want to call on, reach out and petition them. Ask for their assistance and help. “just look up at the stars in their constellation, breathe the night air and ask” They will come. They have watched humanity for as long or longer than we have watched them. They will see you and hear you, all you have to do is make yourself and your intentions known.

OFFERINGS

Offerings are going to be a thing with constellations just like any deity, entity, or spirit you work with, so knowing what to give them is a good start.

Ursa Major is a bear, give her berries, honey, meat, fish, and things bears would eat. I imagine she would also like flowers or fresh water (water is ALWAYS accepted and will always be an acceptable offering for any spirit or entity). Ophiuchus (grumbles in astrology) is based off the Medic of the gods, Asklepios. Offer him snake shed, bronze (or bronze looking things), empty medication bottles to put offerings in, alcohol, etc. Hercules is a constellation as well as a Greek Hero in myth. Offer him olive oil, fruits, nuts, wine, water, breads, red meat, or anything else you may offer to the Greek hero or just general Hellenic deity offerings.

General Offerings and Devotionals:

- Star imagery - Stargazing and spending time just looking at the stars and watching them - Studying Astronomy or Astrology - Making art of them - Nighttime meditations - Those "Night Sky" Yankee Candles may be a good offering - "Starry Night" prints by Van Gogh - If they are an animal constellation, get figurines of the animal they represent for their altar space - Crystals that look like they are made of stars (there are a few types out there but i can't for the life of me remember what they are). - Put those Glow Stars on your ceiling as a devotional offering. Bonus points if you map out a certain month's night sky constellations with the glow stars. - Take up Cosmic Witchcraft and plan your spells to different moon phases and cosmic events

There are a ton of different ideas for offerings and devotional acts for Constellation entities. You get the gist though, get creative with it! They will appreciate anything you give with honest and pure intention, i promise.

As for reaching out to them, just reach out like you would any other deity. Call on them, leave an offering, and make your intentions known. You can verify their answers with divination and can vet them using their mythology.

on the romance of cannibalism by silas denver melvin (@sweatermuppet)

click for better quality + do not remove caption

Gjelle's dolmen - a sägen from Söderslätt

Spring (Östra Vemmenhög, Skåne) by Carl Conrad Dahlberg

"There once lived a giant wizard in Gislöv, his name was Gjelle. He was very old, and had endured many things in his lifetime; but when the church was built in Gislöv, and the church bells started ringing, he couldn't stand the noise, and moved away from there, and nobody knew where he went.

Many, many years thereafter, a ship sailed from Skåne to the East. When they had been sailing for a very long time, they entered a sea that was called Leverhavet ('liver sea'), because it looked like coagulated blood. There, the ship stopped next to an island, and even though it hadn't run aground, and even though they raised all sails, the ship remained in the same place that it had stopped.

In the night, the ship's crew saw a ghost in the shape of a sailor, and it asked them where they were going, and where they came from. One of the bosuns, who was a brave man from Blekinge, answered that they unfortunately had been driven there by the storm, and that they came from Skåne. "Right well," the ghost replied, "then please come with me and follow me to my master, who is residing on this island, because he wants to speak with someone from Skåne, and has been waiting to do so for a very long time. If you agree to meet him, know that you will never regret that journey." The bosun didn't need much time to think about the offer, but quickly agreed to follow the ghost.

They hadn't walked very far when they met a huge, frightful giant - old, blind, and with a long, gray beard. The giant asked the bosun where he lived. When the bosun answered "In Skåne,” just like he had done before, the giant asked him if he knew the village of Gislöv, and if he knew the daughter's of Sven Dyring, particularly the one of them who was called Märta. The giant asked if the bosun would be willing to go to her, tell her that old Gjelle is sending his greetings to her, and then also bring her some things that the giant wanted to give to her. The bosun said "Yes, all will be done according to your wishes, just as long as we're lucky enough to safely get away with our ship and leave this island."

"Don't doubt that you will," the giant responded, "all of you¹ will make a safe return to Skåne. Just take this box, and hand it to Sven Dyring's daughter, but be careful not to open the box beforehand to see what's inside it. If you follow my instructions faithfully and well, then you'll receive so much that you'll never want for anything. When you get back home to Gislöv, and have handed over the box, you should go to a large rock that lies down in the river on the western side of Gjelle's dolmen² in Gislöv, and look for a hole, in which you will find a key. Take this key and go to the stone that is placed in the middle of the roof on Gjelle's dolmen, put the key into the keyhole that you will find there, and say 'Mach open Gjelle's dolmen!' The stone will soon open for you, but I advised you to not look back."

The bosun thanked him for this advice, and happily accepted the giant's mission. Then he wanted to say goodbye to the giant and go back to the ship. But the giant had more to say: "Wait, I have questions that I want to ask you. Tell me, what's it like in Gislöv today? Are they still as strong as they were back in my days? Come here, and let me shake your hand." - The bosun almost offered his own hand, but the ghost whispered to him "Don't be a fool, use this instead," and handed him a five pointed, iron manure fork, which the giant squeezed so hard that it bent, believing that it was the bosun's hand, and said: "Well, they're quite strong; but they were much stronger in the olden days." Then he asked another question: " Do you get a good cereal harvest in Gislöv nowadays?" The bosun replied: "Yes."

[The giant asked:] "How much do you get from sowing a bushel³?" The bosun answered: "At least four barrels."

"That's satisfactory," said the giant, "but in my days, I got much more than that, because I plowed one ell deep, and sowed one quarter thick, so you better believe that there grew a fine cereal crop in the fields of Gislöv!

Back then I had a little girl, and she went and gathered plows, oxen, horses, plowmen and drivers in her apron, and carried them to me and said: 'Father! What are these tiny little things?' I answered her: 'Release them, my daughter, for they are the ones that will take over after us. Let them go.'

Other than that, I worked too hard carrying rocks west of Gislöv back in the days when I was still strong, and I got blind from it. Still, I would have left eleven memorials after me there, if I had been able to stay a little longer. But since the white⁴ bell men came to Gislöv, I could no longer live there in peace, but had to move here. When you get back to Gislöv, tell people that old Gjelle says hello. He's still alive, even though he's blind. But please, don't forget to give the box to Sven Dyring's daughter. If you do as I've told you, you can rest assured that both you and your crew will return home safely."

The bosun said goodbye to the giant and went back to the ship. As soon as he entered the deck, the most favourable winds carried the ship away from the island.

After a good journey, the unharmed crew went ashore in Hälsingborg. From there, the bosun walked to Gislöv to deliver the box; but when he came to Söderskog, and he was close enough to see the tip of Gislöv's church tower, he thought that it would be safe to open the box. He couldn't help himself, he had to see what was inside it. He opened the box, and found a large, costly, golden belt. After admiring the belt for quite some time, he got the idea to try and see if it would reach around one of the large oak trees in the forest. He stretched the belt out, and fastened it around the tree trunk. Then he stepped back to admire how beautifully it glimmered in the sunlight. But as he stood there, the oak was lifted out of the dirt and took off, with roots and crown, flying over hills and through valleys, and soon neither oak nor belt could be seen anymore, and it was easy to imagine what would have happened to Sven Dyring's Märta if she had fastened the belt around her waist.

The bosun was heavy-hearted and dispirited. He doubted that he would receive the reward that he had been promised. "But," he thought to himself "giving up is not an option. I have to try to do as I was told; who knows, it might work." Then he went to Gislöv, and to the rock that lies down in the river, where he found the hole and the key. Next, he went to Gjelle's dolmen, found the keyhole in the middle stone on the roof, put the key in it and said: "Mach open Gjelle's dolmen!" The dolmen opened up, and he saw such a massive pile of gold, silver and money inside it that he was shocked and cried out: "Cross in the name of Christ, there's so much silver here!" And just as he wanted to grab some of it, he turned, looking back to make sure that nobody could see what he was doing, and everything disappeared, and when he turned back to become a man of influence and take, as one says, gold by the handfuls, he saw nothing more than the hole on the middle stone that looked like a keyhole. But Sven Dyring's daughter, who never got the beautiful belt, went mad when the story came to light. Her family is still said to be members of the congregation [in Gislöv], and some of them are usually mentally deficient.

The pile of rocks, or the dolmen, has gotten its name from Gjelle the giant, who told the very same bosun that his wife was buried under Torsberg's dolmen, which stands in Gislöv's eastern field,⁵ and his children are buried under a pile of rocks on the meadows next to the beach, this pile is known as Mode's dolmen.

It is also said that a well-known witch lived in Gislöv in the heathen times, and she wanted to summon [supernatural powers] under Gjelle's dolmen to destroy it. But when she was summoning [the supernatural powers], and about to utter the last word, "Gjelle's dolmen," Gjelle, who was a mightier wizard, obfuscated her, so that she said "Mode's dolmen" instead, and it immediately fell down, and its rocks broke into pieces, which are still visible.

One time, many of the villagers from Gislöv brought masons to try and break the stones into even smaller pieces, creating holes that can still be seen here and there on the rocks; but when they were chipping away at the rocks, it seemed to them like the entire village of Gislöv was engulfed by flames. They abandoned the rocks and hurried home to save what little they could. When they had almost reached the village, a tiny man approached them, riding on a white gander. The little man had a red hat on his head, a black bit in the beak of the goose, and wide spurs, and he was riding at full speed. He laughed at the farmers, and they laughed back at him; but when they entered the village, they found that everything was in order, and that no harm had been done [to their homes].

Many hauntings and supernatural events are noticed at [Mode's] dolmen. It's very easy for travelers to get lost on the road that passes by it, and when that happens, you can hear a peculiar sound, like [the sound of] an infant. There are still people who can attest to this."

- Folklivet i Skytts härad, by Nicolovius

All of the ancient monuments mentioned in this sägen have unfortunately been destroyed. I haven't found any records of what they might have looked like, apart from this story. Below is a picture of a passage grave called Erkes dös that is located in Lilla Isie socken (= parish) a few kilometres south east of Gislöv.

¹The giant is using a very old-fashioned, archaic language: "I skolen komma alla...", "Huru mycket fån I..." etc.

²It's possible that it was a passage grave, rather than a dolmen. Some places called "so and so's dös" (dös = dolmen) are passage graves. Since I'm not an archaeologist, I have chosen to go with the literal translation.

³The Swedish volume units skäppa (bushel) and tunna (barrel) are not the same size as their American or British equivalents. In fact, the exact volume of a skäppa varies a lot between different regions. I have opted not to include these discrepancies in the story, as they're completely irrelevant to the plot.

⁴In this context: Christian

⁵Vång is a regional word that can be translated into 'field' or 'meadow'

I don’t think I legitimately can be loud enough about how uncomfortable it is seeing “hail” be used unironically is asatro/norse pagan communities

What hail is okay for: ice rain, you want a weird word to use when talking about flagging down a taxi

Like good intentions or otherwise; in a community plagued by nazis appropriating the religion maybe we shouldn’t use “hail” towards our gods when that word now has some fucking connotations after a certain world war

One of these days I'll talk about how Norse Heathenry is mirepresented to promote an extremely colonized and distinctly American interpretation of masculinity.