The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/landvaettir)
“If someone had ever asked me if I thought of myself as an animist, I’m sure I would have said yes,” writes Eric O. Scott. “But I don’t know if I really understood that commitment until I bonded with Friend Tree, and didn’t confront its implications until his time was at an end.”
As Icelanders evacuate from the town of Grindavík, TWH speaks with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, allsherjargoði of the Icelandic Heathen organization Ásatrúarfélagið, about how the seismic activity and potential volcanic eruption has affected local Heathens.
When I purchased this home and land, I did more than take title to some property. I made a covenant with the land and the land spirits to care for them and all the lives they hold. To work to nourish them and help them provide for the animals and the winged and crawly creatures who, in turn, sustain the land.
The din had been loud inside the house, but outside, I felt like I was being buffeted by it, surrounded on all sides by argument. I felt a guilty weight in the pit of my stomach. I knew what the sound was now. I looked up and without any joy found what I expected to find.
There were exactly two black crows sitting in the branches of my tree, facing my house, yelling at me.
“What do you want?” I sighed. But I knew.
Weekend Editor Eric O. Scott discovers a gaze of raccoons in his back yard.