Land/Housewight's and their worship...

[GaryG]

Spurred on by an inquiry made by Rae'ya in another thread, what worship...if any...do you do/have regarding local wights, what do you do? How do you do it? When do you do it?

[B. de Corbin]

Re: Land/Housewight's and their worship...

Are those the things that move in the trees when no wind is blowing?

I'm not a Heathen, so I'm not familiar with the term.

[Denarius]

Re: Land/Housewight's and their worship...

Wights are zombies that protect burial mounds, yes?

[Rae'ya]

Re: Land/Housewight's and their worship...

Wights are spirits. The Old Norse term is 'vaettr', plural 'vaettir', which has been Anglicized into 'wights'.

Technically, any spirit can be termed a wight. But "local wights" are usually things like landspirits, house spirits, greenwights (the spirits of plants and trees) and animal spirits. It MAY also include ancestors, depending on where you live, but they are generally considered a different category of spirits.

Wights are zombies that protect burial mounds, yes?

These would be called 'draugr', plural 'draugar' (both Old Norse terms). They are not quite the same as zombies (neither modern nor the original Haitian variety)... but they're close.

[GaryG]

Re: Land/Housewight's and their worship...

Are those the things that move in the trees when no wind is blowing?

I'm not a Heathen, so I'm not familiar with the term.

ALL of the beings are wights, even the Aesir and Vanir just "higher level wights."

[Rae'ya]

Re: Land/Housewight's and their worship...

Spurred on by an inquiry made by Rae'ya in another thread, what worship...if any...do you do/have regarding local wights, what do you do? How do you do it? When do you do it?

I work with local landvaettir and sometimes with the landvaettir of places that I travel to. When I travel it's more a matter of connecting, acknowledging and being respectful (picking up rubbish etc) rather than propitiation or working closely with them. I have a particular affinity for mountain and cave spirits. There are several local landvaettir where I live... we have the city spirit, which I don't really connect with so much (though it's much more approachable than some other cities I've been to), a number of small river spirits, and the actual landspirits themselves. The southern end of the Mount Lofty Ranges is close and brings several land and mountain spirits who are named in the local Aboriginal lore.

I don't 'worship' the local landvaettir, but aim to form a reciprocal relationship with them and the complex of plant and animal spirits that are a part of local bioregion. On a physical level I do things like educate myself about my local bioregion and the components of it, try to buy local produce and support local business wherever possible, aim for a sustainable lifestyle (which is limited at the moment by the fact that we rent but we have future plans), recycle, reduce our household waste, use water responsibly, pick up litter, (will) use native endemic plants in my garden (when I have my own garden rather than this rented one), support conservation and re-vegetation/re-habitation, heal/rehabilitate and release (where applicable) local wildlife via my job and refuse to contribute to the humanisation and malnutrition of local wildlife. On a spiritual level I connect with the landvaettr, maintain a constant ground, tie myself into the landvaettr when I fare-forth, and generally revere, respect and send energy it's way. You could potentially call that 'worship' I guess.

I also have a little household of house-and-home spirits. This house itself doesn't have a resident spirit of it's own, which is probably a symptom of being a rental property, and we've been careful not to invite one because we know that we wont be here for long and don't know whether we'd be able to take it with us when we do move.

[Heka]

I work with local landvaettir and sometimes with the landvaettir of places that I travel to. When I travel it's more a matter of connecting, acknowledging and being respectful (picking up rubbish etc) rather than propitiation or working closely with them. I have a particular affinity for mountain and cave spirits. There are several local landvaettir where I live... we have the city spirit, which I don't really connect with so much (though it's much more approachable than some other cities I've been to), a number of small river spirits, and the actual landspirits themselves. The southern end of the Mount Lofty Ranges is close and brings several land and mountain spirits who are named in the local Aboriginal lore.

I don't 'worship' the local landvaettir, but aim to form a reciprocal relationship with them and the complex of plant and animal spirits that are a part of local bioregion. On a physical level I do things like educate myself about my local bioregion and the components of it, try to buy local produce and support local business wherever possible, aim for a sustainable lifestyle (which is limited at the moment by the fact that we rent but we have future plans), recycle, reduce our household waste, use water responsibly, pick up litter, (will) use native endemic plants in my garden (when I have my own garden rather than this rented one), support conservation and re-vegetation/re-habitation, heal/rehabilitate and release (where applicable) local wildlife via my job and refuse to contribute to the humanisation and malnutrition of local wildlife. On a spiritual level I connect with the landvaettr, maintain a constant ground, tie myself into the landvaettr when I fare-forth, and generally revere, respect and send energy it's way. You could potentially call that 'worship' I guess.

I also have a little household of house-and-home spirits. This house itself doesn't have a resident spirit of it's own, which is probably a symptom of being a rental property, and we've been careful not to invite one because we know that we wont be hre for long and don't know whether we'd be able to take it with us when we do move.

^^^ this is my intention also. It's just less ... intentional... one day, im still young yet haha

[Ula]

Re: Land/Housewight's and their worship...

I do offerings daily to my wights. I have three in my yard. I haven done them for the river and hills locally to.When we go to camp I make an offering there as well. Usually honey and ale.

[Rowan Wulfram]

Re: Land/Housewight's and their worship...

I'm still working out my regular practice, but so far I've occasionally made libations to them outside with alcohol and have also left them offerings on the altar that is in my room. So far the offerings have just been small things like a bowl of milk or a portion of food I made.

I live in apartment, so I probably won't have a lasting relationship with the wights here, but I thought I would at least give them a peace offering and offer friendship for however long my duration here may be.