Enjoyed this. when you said “paganize the Christian elements” my first thought was “REVERSE UNO CARD” 😂😂

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Oh gods I love that 🤣🤣🤣🤣

@mamawolf3759

9 ай бұрын

Accurate!

@MamaUrsa13

6 ай бұрын

😂i love that uno reverse humor oh my gods haha yes

Hallo Bente I am an American folk witch with Danish and Swedish and German as well as Welsh and Irish and I appreciate you covering this topic because I have been fascinated with magic since I was a little boy and I too began in wicca when I was 16 I came out of the broom closet about it

Danish girl here wanting to get into our folk magic, so very curious to see where we end up

@Curtis488

Ай бұрын

Yeah we are the ancient ones who should be rightfully practicing what our ancestors practiced

When I first started on this path, it was the 90s and literally the only witchy information anywhere was Wiccan. I didn't like the strictness of Wicca; all the tools and rules didn't appeal to me. I respect Wicca, but for me - if I wanted that many rules I would have just leaned into Christianity. So my journey stalled really early on. But in the past five years or so, as I'm comfortably in the Mother aspect and moving into the Crone aspect of the triple goddess - I've reconnected to the path. And Holy Balls is there a lot of information on folk magic out there now! It's incredible, and channels like yours have really helped me further my practice and I thank you so much for that. I now consider myself a Celtic folk witch, but I'm sure that will change and evolve as the years press on. It's so lovely to see someone I look up to is still evolving on their journey too

I found your channel by this video throwing the hail Mary out of looking up Swedish Folk Magic via KZread and I'm so glad I did. It can get so disheartening to see bad source after bad source that finding another queer, inclusive practitioner that makes content is like finding diamonds. Thank you so much for sharing this!

I am just starting to jump into Scandinavian Folk magic! I am American, but I have a lot of Scandinavian roots, in particular Danish, and I am really interested in the history and practices. So glad I found your channel! I already have the first book you recommended and am just starting to read it, but I put the second on my wish list! Thank you. 💜🇩🇰

I can tell you as an American mutt that we absolutely do that! That's incredible that you mentioned this, I've never heard anybody bring this up before! My fiance is British, and he always jokes "You're not Eastern European, you're American" lol. But I have Slavic heritage, as well as Scandinavian and Scottish. So, I've always been so attracted to those cultures and their histories, practices, etc. Since I was a kid I've felt the need to immerse myself in cultures I found more interesting (hence the English fiance lol). Always thought that was just a white American thing haha Love your videos and your style by the way!

As I'm watching this video I'm looking at research to incorporate more of my Armenian heritage into my practice! I also agree I really love that people are connecting more with their ancestors and cultures :]

5:20 - as a white American with Danish ancestry, it’s actually the part of my genetic makeup I’m most interested in learning about and preserving the traditions of.

Thanks i enjoyed this as I am also on a new path which i am going down Old English Folk Magick. Like you we also did things when we were young my GrandMa on my Mums side told me about. Only later to find out that these thing were an older passed down form of West Country (Somerset) Folk magick. She by all accounts was a Cottage Witch. My mother said nothing about this when she was alive. I found out though her brother and cousins one of which is a Green Witch. So it follows in the family. My younger brother blanked it out. It has taken me over 25 years to find this out. I know now why i took this path now. My other GrandMa was German and i think this is where my Nordic intersts come from which i am trying to find a way to add to my craft as a Solitary Religious Eclectic Hedgewitch. This is a long way from my years of High Magick and this new path feels right at last. The Elcectic bit comes from my other intersts in spiirts etc.

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Oh yeah going into folk magic from high magic - that’s a 180! 🤣 I hope you’ll have the most fun on your new journey 🥰

I JUST started down the path of digging into my ancestral roots and it's been so beautiful and validating. I am Puerto Rican AND Swedish (Värmland), and being able to find out more about my roots has made my practice even more personal and meaningful.

One of the weird (?) things about being USian is that the country is so new, history-wise, that I find I don't feel connected to any deeply established folk traditions here. Picking up Native American traditions feels very appropriative and wrong, so I don't do that. Connecting to folk practices from my ancestry is also a little problematic, as Celtic spirituality has been raided as well and there are few practices that my family continued. So I blunder about, trying to figure out where I belong.

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

In my opinion it’s totally fine to go into the practices of your ancestors as long as you take it very seriously and do your research properly. I mean what else do people expect from white Americans? To make up their own practice entirely? 😅

@aubreejobizzarro1208

Ай бұрын

I want to offer a different perspective on Indigenous spiritual practices (Also I don’t speak for the indigenous community, I’m just an ally with deep ecological investment in Turtle Island). When they are done without the teachings from the community or the Elders, they are appropriative. (Like white sage, which has been commercialized and endangered by its commodification, and it is not used with the other three medicines in mainstream practice.) However when you learn the stories from faith keepers and culture carriers, they enrich how you view and relate to the land you live on. I personally feel it is another form of colonization when indigenous spiritual practices and stories are shut out or ignored because of misconceptions when it comes to cultural exchange. To ignore or not learn from Indigenous spiritual leaders is to deny yourself the ability to naturalize (like naturalized citizens) on a spiritual level. There are ceremonies that are not open to outsiders, and are either tribe, clan, or family specific. There are things you will feel are not open to you, and that’s okay! But a lot of spiritual and ecological knowledge is embedded in spiritual stories, that lead to spiritual practices on the individual level.

Ah, this is such a life-affirming video to watch! 😍 As I'm listening to your stories of local folk magic, I feel inspired to share some of my own, that I've spent the past few days thinking about. I'm from Northern Norway, and I've never taken a DNA test, but I've done research into my lineage going back 200 years or so. In that time frame my ancestors were, unsurprisingly, Norwegian, Sámi, and Finnish. I grew up with a Christmas custom of setting out porridge for "fjøsnissen" every 23rd of December. I always assumed it was something adults did to entertain children. Now I see it's a classical case of giving an offering to the barn spirit! I also remember being a child, and my grandmother telling me to not waive a white cloth at the aurora borealis, because it would kidnap me. So I ran out, white cloth in hand, and waived and waived at the aurora. She did not swoop down to catch me. I was very disappointed. In recent years, I read an online news article about how Sámi people have a high respect for the aurora borealis spirit; it is considered bad form, or bad luck, to look at the aurora, think about the aurora, or engage with the aurora too intensely. One should be careful around the northern lights. I see parallels between this and the story my grandmother told me. She also told me about how they used a specific bone from fish as divination when she was a child. During dinner, it would be picked from the fish, and the kids (9 siblings in total) would fight about it. Whomever got it would put it on the top of their head, tilt their head forwards so the fish bone dropped to the plate. My great-grandfather would provide answers to their questions/tell their fortune based on which way the fish bone landed. During dinner one day, my grandma gave me the fish bone, so of course I cleaned it and am keeping it safe ☺️ I'm so excited to keep digging through my memories for more pieces of folk magic that I've overlooked! (Sidenote: I felt an immediate connection to your video, because I saw your lynx tattoo. I have one, too! I only get tattoos of spirit allies, so it felt like a good sign to see you have one as well.)

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Oh thank you so much for sharing all of this! That’s so so interesting! Especially also to see the Sámi influence in your family ☺️ And yes my Fylgja presents itself as a Lynx so that’s why I got it tattooed ☺️☺️

I do agree I think it's important to work with deity's and traditions with your local area and ancestry. I think it will improve your connection with it. I live in Britain so I looked into Celtic deities and also Norse/Saxon ones. However even though i love the customs of both I could never fully connect with a goddess from neither Celtic nor Norse. So look into my mum side as they are all Italian and with some of them supposed to be witches. I had alot more success and now obsessed with Diana which is weird as I never really thought of Roman deities.

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Oh that’s amazing 😍

@AstralHealthGuy

Жыл бұрын

@@TheNorseWitch thank you 🙂🙂

I realize I'm in the minority, but I feel that if you are coming from a place of love and respect for your fellow human, there is absolutely nothing wrong with culturally appreciating and learning from other humans backgrounds! We're supposed to learn, grow, and share from one another & each others cultures, that's how you heal you the gaps of divide. Blessed Be.

Thank you for sharing this! Finally prioritizing and answering the call to my ancestors. Celtic and Norse folk music has always resonated with me and after finding out my grandmother was 100% Swedish and I’m hunting down everything I can on Swedish folk magic.

Thanks for sharing. Always great information.

What an interesting video! Thank you! Here comes a long comment, because apparently I have Thoughts™. I'm from Finland, and the overlap between Scandinavian practices and Finnish ones is no surprise. Fun fact: in Finland, on New Year's Eve, we used to melt pewter (sold in the shape of a horseshoe, no less) and pour the molten pewter into water to divine the upcoming year. Then the law changed because the horseshoes included like 3 percent lead, and thus, the horseshoes haven't been sold in a few years. Upon googling I did discover they're selling them again, so I suppose they've changed the composition or something. I also liked hearing your thoughts on working with ancestral practices. I haven't done a DNA test for a myriad of reasons, but I am quite sure most of my ancestry is Finnish (maybe with a sprinkle of Russian or Karelian). To my knowledge, my family has lived in Finland for centuries. That being said, I wish Finnish paganism hadn't been mixed up with Karelian spirituality a couple of centuries ago by some Finns wanting to claim Karelians as a "Finnish tribe" or something. Karelian spirituality isn't open to everyone, which is why I've chosen to steer away from anything that I cannot verify is Finnish or open to everyone. I am all for syncretism of open spiritualities and of natural syncretism that would happen over the course of centuries, but when we have people consciously deciding to melt two spiritualities together, that's just wrong. Especially because of the power dynamics between the Finns and the Karelians… and because Karelian spirituality isn't open to everyone.

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Oh that‘s sad… I mean the claiming of Karelian practices. Totally understand that you want to stay away from those if they’re closed 😞

Very beautiful and wholesome video. your work is deeply appreciated sister ❤️

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

🥹❤️

I'm still in the early part of my spiritual journey. I am of mostly northern European descent, German, Swiss, French, Polish, English, Welsh and Irish. I have avoided using the term Norse Pagan to refer to myself but I have discovered many common cultural similarities throughout those cultures. Christianity in Europe tried for centuries to either appropriate or obliterate the old traditions and practices. It's why many people still frown upon us who want to practice magick and consider being a witch some form of evil, which it most certainly is not. I have been referring to myself as a Northern Polythiest who wants to practice the old ways in a modern form. My sister is a solitary witch and through chats with her we have come to the realization that both my mother and my maternal grandmother as well were what are sometimes referred to as "organic witches" in other words they did things practicing witches may do without even realizing it. My journey is a journey of self discovery and the desire to reclaim the beliefs and traditions that frankly were stolen from us centuries ago. I don't consider it cultural appropriation. I consider it cultural reclamation.

@Hulderkall

9 ай бұрын

I can recommend looking into the term heathenry as it's supposed to encompass a lot of these overlapping beliefs from norse to anglo-saxxon and etc if I remember correctly

It's always good to watch your video's. Even if only to see you & listen to you 👍🙂.

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Aww thanks 🥰

Thank you for your video. I've ordered the Trolldom book now... it looks amazing :)

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

It is! I also found out very quickly after I recorded the video that the author offers a Trolldom online course! It’s not cheap but I signed up and the first class was already amazing!

Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend is a super amazing resource for english speakers!!

I've been reading a some finnish folk tradition history lately, and I am greatly amused how many things you could do by flashing female genitalia. Not kidding, you could bless or curse stuff just by lifting up your skirt. Interestingly, this has caused a chainreaction, and these days, while most people are not familiar with "harakointi" (which means exposing female genitalia in old practices, but would these days mean in direct tranlation something like "magpie-ing" [yes, magpie as the bird, I do not know...]), the old finnish word for female genitalia is actually the most popular swearword here for this particular reason, though in some places it is not used to describe female genitalia in common speech at all anymore. xD "Vittu" was seen as a powerful thing - I mean, you can push a life out of that thing! - and it even was considered to have a connection to afterlife (one of the weird little things that point out that somewhere in history people of sami and finns probably had some kind of idea of reincarnation that dropped out of favor somewhere in the history). Women should not step over the tools of the man because they would break or rust or dull and you would flash yourself to certain grains but not all of them because vittu was too powerful for some of them. The mother of the house would stand over the fence gate when you let the cows out, so power or vittu would keep them safe etc. It was a whole thing! Buuuuuut then people started to accuse ladies for "putting spells on men by exposing themselves" for certain men to get away with sexual assault, aaaaand other stuff so that kinda died out. Still, the bad ending aside... Folk magic is just delightful. Absolutely delightful.

I just ordered Trolldom in fact! Excited to learn more about this path.

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Yeay! It’s so good 😍

Thank you for sharing this. especially the part about white people in many cultures, thinking that there traditions aren't special enough. I also find this to be true with the words we use to describe ourselves as magical workers and in the practice of herbalism. There is a belief that it is better if it's "exotic". Great video.

Just watching your new video now 🇬🇧

It is hard to find resources on Scandinavian folk magic. I’ve been searching ever since I found out I’m 9% Scandinavian. It totally shocked me. Anyways my search lead me to your channel. You are my best resource! So thank you so much for sharing. I enjoy your content very much!

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Aww ❤️ quickly after filming this Video I found out that the author of the Trolldom book offers an online course!

@shar3066

5 ай бұрын

As a Swede, don't really call it witch craft. We call it abilities. Some can stem blood, we had a patient who was on blood thinning tablets and had fallen, and had blood pouring. It so happened another older patient could stem blood so we let her do her job. It stopped bleeding immiadiately. We practice a lot of things that goes way back in time still. If it works, it works. It's more apart of the culture rather than label it as something. We still use a lot of the natural remedies and i personally dont label me as anything , i just have abilities but it's apart of the culture where I don't see it as I'm this, you're that. I'm apart of the earth and it reveals and guides us, its in fact how much your are in tune with that and how open you are, to use those abilities to something useful. It very much guides me in everything I do. To listen to the earth, the signs, intuition and dreams is basic skills, everyone should do it. Where do you find perspective? Where do you ground yourself? Not in the sofa infront of the tv, that's for sure.

Love your tattoos ❤

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Thank you 🥰

I'm watching this video as an American with no ties to my heritage and my ancestors. Found out I'm extremely Scottish/Irish/Welsh and English, with a chunk of Norwegian and German. Makes me feel a little silly having already named myself after a Greek goddess 😅 I really wanna learn a lot more about Celtic snd Norse culture. I want to feel that connection to my roots. Want to understand more of who I am. I think a lot of white Americans feel kind of lost in that sense, like they're missing something they can see other people have, it's sad

I'm just starting to learn about my ancestor's practices, and it's helped me feel more ground. Being born in America (2nd gen German American) I've never felt like I belonged to any culture other than idk, star wars?

I am a pagan great work

I have been practicing some form of witchcraft since I was small. My mother taught me, and her mother practiced (although she passed before I was born), and it was very much from the Irish side of the family, but I never felt truly connected to it. Not to say that it isn't truly fascinating. Besides Irish, I am also Sicilian, Czech, Polish, and a little bit of Swedish in there as well. I am currently diving into everything to find which feels like home.

More videos like this ❤

@danielavolkmann6422

Жыл бұрын

Und gute Besserung 🌱

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Danke ❤️ bin schon fast wieder auf den Beinen ☺️

I feel like most people's entry point is Wiccan. That's where I started as well.

Thank you for sharing this material. I know it’s very late to comment on this video but are you able to do more videos about Scandinavian folk magic (especially the info in German?) :)

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

I will at some point make content about it but I want to make sure that I know what I’m doing and talking about before I do that. I don’t feel like as a very new practitioner it’s my place to talk about it.

I love that you addressed exploring other cultural traditions. I'm American with Scandinavian and European descent. Americans are kind of bastards in that we dont have long ancestry like Native Americans or Indigenous people. I've grown very wary of appropriating other's traditions. I want to learn my ancestors practices and folk magic.

a ton of my ancestry is Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Also anishinaabe

Great content. I see you chest totoe is coming a long..ouch but colouring is lest painful!we all start with Wiccan some go with the flow and yourself has taken a different path yule blessings from Devon..🌛🌕🌜💜

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Coloring is less painful? Oh I wish, for me personally the color is the worst part in any tattoo 🙊🙊

The heritage explanation at the beginning made me came up with a question: how did your family reacted when you expressed interest/practice in Norse witchcraft? Do they ever ask you something about it? Do you have witchcraft in your heritage?

@TheNorseWitch

8 ай бұрын

Not at all… my family is very agnostic if not atheistic apart from my sister who’s rather Christian. Nobody has any interest in witchcraft or heathenry whatsoever

Hello, I'm basque decent, mixed South american european spanish/german/native. Both my grandmothers and great grandmothers were witches ( both spanish/basque decent) , experts in herbs, flowers and influenced by native south american shamans. I have always felt the call but not sure what roots to follow: I do know my magic is green but still struggle with how to manifest what is in my blood.

question, do multiple deities from different cultures contact you? and how do you tell the difference? I feel like I'm drawn to thor but I also feel like ares is contacting me in some way as well. and in some ways they are similar ofc they aren't entirely...

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

To me that hasn’t happened so unfortunately I can’t help you with that :/ I guess I’d have someone else do a confirmation reading or something ☺️

Have you tried branching out to folk traditions of neighbouring countries? Some of the things you mentioned sound familiar to me and I'm Dutch. I don't know how available translations of these kinds of books are, but it might help in your research? Perhaps it could fill in a few gaps. Edit: I know you just talked in the video about being very happy finding your ancestor's practices 😅 but considering there was a lot of moving around back then, similar/the same gods and not a lot of written history, it might be worth a shot.

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Definitely! That’s why I’m looking at folktales from Denmark AND Germany for example ☺️ there’s a lot of overlap! I don’t know how much of an overlap there is with for example Denmark and Sweden or Denmark and Norway but I guess it’ll also be quite a lot 🤔 but actually quickly after filming this video I found a Trolldom (Scandinavian folk magic) course so I decided to take that too! I bet it’ll help me loads! ☺️

@TheGalacticGrizzly

Жыл бұрын

@@TheNorseWitch oooh, sounds cool! Have fun ☺️

@TheNorseWitch

Жыл бұрын

Thank you 🥰🥰

i have a really mixed ancenstry, russian,german,swedish,dutch,spanish and italian, so im trying everything ahahaa

@TheNorseWitch

11 ай бұрын

A lot to choose from 🤣

I would love to learn about my ancestry but it’s hard as where I am right now is not safe for me

I'm American. I just did my family tree, well, it took 10 years or so. I'm mainly English on my mother's side, who came to America in colonial times. My father's side was harder to find. His mother side was from Belgium, East Flanders, Kaprijike, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium to be exact. Going back seemingly to the beginning of time in this little area. I have no idea about this area of the world. Since most things I find on this area are very general, or in Dutch, it's frustrating, to say the least. I have no idea where I would even begin to find any traditions or folk practices there.

@TheGalacticGrizzly

Жыл бұрын

Try reaching out to Belgian and Dutch witches or historians! I'm sure there are plenty who'd be delighted to give you a rundown of cultural practices.

@GreenMonkeyToaster

Жыл бұрын

I've also seen a lot of mention online of dutch immigrant folk magic and traditions that is still strong in the US within dutch-immigrant communities. Sometimes emigrant populations manage to hold on to traditions that the original population did not. Just look at iceland vs norway

Ja Biskop, hon här.

I had to watch this one because I too have recently looked into folk magick and have trolldom. Like you, I'm not a fan of the Christian elements in the book and wouldn't mind paganizing those parts.

Svartkonstbocker trolldom

For anyone interested in learning languages: I have found Pimsleur to be the BEST language learning program. It’s where I’m learning Norwegian and it is super easy to turn on while driving or going for a walk. I’ve learned / retained more in 2 lessons of Pimsleur than in ages of using Duolingo. For Korean and Chinese though Lingodeer is great because its better at teaching characters. Neither are free but 100000% worth it!

Im a Norwegian pagan and I want to get in touch with my roots and classic Norwegian magic does anyone know any books or articles specifically about Norwegian magic