Landtaking and Leavetaking
Rituals for Moving House
By: Ann Gróa Sheffield
Moving to a new home is a momentous event that involves literally coming
to grips with the past as we plan for and dream about the future. The
heathens of old recognized the significance of moving to new lands and
had rituals for "taking", or claiming, a new homestead. In this article,
some of the lore related to these rituals is discussed, and some perspectives
on Landtaking today are offered.
Lore
By virtue of its remote location and pride in its heritage, Iceland
has preserved the greatest amount of heathen lore. The island was settled
late in the heathen period, and the "Age of Settlements" has traditionally
been taken to be c. 870 - 930 CE. The Icelandic sagas, though recorded
by Christians in medieval times, preserve earlier memories of heathen
settlement rituals.
The most useful source of information about Landtaking is Landnámabók,
an Icelandic compilation of information about individual settlers and
their families. There are five extant versions in various stages of completeness
and preservation; the earliest dates from the late 13th century. All,
however, are thought to derive from a lost, 12th-century Landnámabók
written (at least in part) by Ari Thorgillson the Learned. Some of the
sagas provide additional detail about particular settlers, but the sources
are not independent. As manuscripts were re-copied, they might incorporate
material from other works, so that a story could accrete details over
time.
Nonetheless, this body of interrelated work remains our best guide to
heathen Landtaking customs, and I have tried to analyze those customs
here. Three themes appear repeatedly: 1) bringing significant objects
from the old home to the new; 2) claiming the new property by marking
its boundaries; and 3) hallowing the new land or dedicating it to a particular
god. There are also suggestions that certain sites on the land were perceived
as inherently holy. Each of these ideas is discussed below. Unless otherwise
stated, the lore cited comes from Pállson and Edwards' translation of
Landnámabók (1).
1. From the old home to the new.
By far the most common example of bringing along objects from a former
home is the practice of bringing the high-seat pillars. In most cases,
the pillars were tossed overboard, and the new homestead was established
wherever they washed ashore. Sometimes, it took several seasons to locate
the pillars, and the settlers would stay with friends or in temporary
settlements until the pillars were found. In some cases, the pillars had
an explicitly religious significance. For example, Landnámabók
(2) says of Thorolf Mostur-Beard:
...when he'd come west as far as Breidafjord, he threw his high-seat
pillars overboard. They had an image of Thor carved on them. Thorolf
declared that Thor would come ashore where he wanted Thorolf to make
his home.
Thorhadd the Old, who had been a goði in Norway, established a
new hof when he moved (3):
He had a great desire to go to Iceland, but before he set off, he dismantled
the temple and took the pillars and some earth from under the temple
with him. He put in at Stodvarfjord, and declared the whole fjord sacred.
One of the most intriguing "pillar stories" is that of Ingimund the
Old (4). During his youth in Norway, the prophetess Heid foresaw that
he would "settle in a still undiscovered country, west in the ocean."
Ingimund scoffed at the prophecy, but Heid added that "something had vanished
from his purse and wouldn't be found until he started digging for his
high-seat pillars in the new country." Ingimund then found that he had
lost a silver image of Frey. Years later, when he settled in Iceland,
he discovered the amulet when he set up his pillars, just as Heid foresaw.
This story suggests that Frey, like Thor, could lead his followers to
a new home and bless a new settlement.
The story of Thorhadd, quoted above, mentions that earth from the old
hof was carried to the new. A similar account is given of Thorolf Mostur-Beard
in Eyrbyggja Saga (5):
[Thorolf] asked the advice of his friend Thor about what he should
do, either make peace with the King, or leave the country [Norway]...
As it turned out, Thorolf was advised to go to Iceland.. He dismantled
the temple, and, along with most of its timbers, put aside some of
the earth from under Thor's pedestal.
Eyrbyggja Saga also states that the high-seat pillars "with the
figure of Thor carved on one of them", which are mentioned in
Landnámabók,
came from the hof itself. Perhaps the stories of Thorhadd and Thorolf
have been conflated, but it may also be that taking earth and timbers
from an old hof was the usual custom.
2. Claiming and hallowing.
The Icelandic settlers often marked their land-claims by putting up boundary
markers. There were many ways to do this; Landnámabók mentions
a "tall pole", "a freshly-cut birch pole", an arrow-shot, and a cairn
(6). A man named Nattfari "marked his claim on trees." (7) Two brothers,
Vestmann and Vemund, were apparently Christian, but their Landtaking recalls
heathen practice (8):
They put up an axe on Reistar Peak and called the fjord Oxarfjord
["axe-fjord"]. In the west they put up an eagle, and called that place
Arnarthufa ["eagle-mound"]; and at a third place they raised a cross
and called the place Kross Ridge after it. This is how they hallowed
Oxarfjord and claimed the whole of it for themselves.
The story of Vestmann and Vemund combines claiming the land with hallowing
it. They used a cross, but the usual heathen method was to hallow the
land with fire, as did Helgi the Lean (9):
Helgi's faith was very much mixed: he believed in Christ but
invoked Thor when it came to voyages and difficult times. When Helgi
sighted Iceland, he consulted Thor as to where he should put in... [Helgi]
took possession of the whole of Eyjafjord, between Sigluness and Reynisness.
He built fires at every estuary to hallow his land claim."
When Jorund the Priest claimed land to build a hof, he "carried fire around
it and dedicated it to the temple." (10) According to
Eyrbyggja Saga
(11), that great Thorsman Thorolf Mostur-beard "carried fire round the
land he claimed," where he later built his hof.
3. "Holding sacred".
Several of the settlers in Landnámabók are said to have "held
sacred" certain natural features on their land and to have named their
farms for these holy sites. Thorir Flap "made his home at Lund ["grove"],
and held the grove sacred" (12). Thorstein Red-Nose, who farmed at Foss
["waterfall"], "used to make sacrifices to the waterfall and all the left-overs
had to be thrown into it." (13) Eyvind, son of Lodin Fishing-Hook, "took
possession of Flateyjardale up to Gunnsteinar ["battle(?)-rocks"], and
held the boulders there sacred" (14).
The most famous example is again Thorolf Mostur-Beard, who held sacred
an entire mountain (Helgafell, "holy mountain") (15):
He held the mountain on that headland so sacred that he called
it Helgafell and no one was allowed even to look at it unless he'd washed
himself first. So holy was the mountain, no living creature there, man
or beast, could be harmed until they left of their own accord. Thorolf
and his kinsmen all believed that they would go into the mountain when
they died.
It seems that here, people were not hallowing the land or
making
it sacred; rather, they recognized and honored holiness when they encountered
it. Moreover, this was not a vague or passive reverence; the verb translated
by Pállson and Edwards as "hold sacred" is
blótaði, defined in
Cleasby-Vigfusson (16) as "to worship with sacrifices." That is, people
offered blots to the sacred places on their land.
A Tale of Two Landtakings
The lore surveyed above certainly contains a lot of information about
how to move from Viking-Age Norway to an uninhabited fjord in Iceland,
but how does this apply today? How can the ancient customs be adapted
for 20th-century heathens?
I had to consider these questions in late 1996. My husband and I had
just moved to a new house, and I wanted to celebrate the move and hallow
the new property. Part of what follows is my own experience in carrying
out that ritual and encountering the land. In 1997, I was honored to be
a guest at a Landtaking hosted by Gladsheim Kindred; with their permission,
I have described their ritual, also. I hope these two different stories
with a common theme will provide others with ideas about how to adapt
the lore in their own lives.
When we moved into our new house, Thor moved first. We don't have high-seat
pillars, but I do have a Thor idol that sits on my home altar. The big
move (i.e., the furniture) did not occur until a couple of weeks later,
but the first meal we ate in our new home was Thanksgiving dinner. That
evening, I installed Thor in his place on the new altar and asked him
to bless our home and land.
Two weeks later, four heathen friends - Bob Stine, Gary Asmussen, and
my Kinsman Dirk Mahling and his young son Hendrik- honored us by joining
in the actual Landtaking. The heart of the ritual was "carrying fire around
the land". We started at one of the eight corners of the property. There,
we lit a candle lantern and also dug a little hollow in the ground, where
we placed a lighted "tea-light" candle. We then carried the lantern around
the borders of the land. At each corner, we lit another tea light and
left it burning there. As we completed the circuit and returned to the
first corner, daylight was fading. Bob was the first to reach the candle
we had placed, and he called out, "It still burns!" Some of the candles
continued to burn for hours afterwards, and Bob and Dirk reported that
they could see them as they drive home. Late that night, under a sky ablaze
with stars, Gary and I poured out a silent blot on a large boulder that
stands near the front door.
Shortly after moving into our present house, we prepared to sell our
old home, and cleaning it for the last time served as a way of saying
goodbye and thanking its wights for the good years we spent there. To
complete this "leavetaking", I carried out a final blot and sacrifice
at the mighty hickory tree where I worshipped the gods on our old land.
I also took away a little of the earth from its roots, and, as the vés
and the hof on our present land have been hallowed, a little of the earth
from our former home has mingled with the earth of the new.
In the three years since our Landtaking, I have come to know something
of the wights who inhabit our new home and to "hold sacred" certain trees
and sites. The process of learning about the local land-wights and building
a relationship with them continues; it is a process that I expect will
continue over all the years we will spend in this place.
Another example of a Landtaking ritual comes from my experience as a
guest of Gladsheim Kindred. They created a ceremony to hallow the new
home of two of their members, Joe and Vicki Marek. Before the guests arrived,
members of the Kindred set up a vé-pole at each of the four corners of
the land and decorated the poles with ribbons and symbols. The day of
the Landtaking itself was blessed by Skadhi, who sent a gift of snow (rare
in southern Maryland) that fell throughout the day.
The Landtaking was held as part of a regular blot. The intent of the
Landtaking itself was, in Vicki's words, "to dedicate each corner, with
its vé-pole, to a God or Goddess that means a lot to us." The blot began
as usual, and when the time to claim the land arrived, we trooped outside.
Joe blew three mighty blasts on a horn, then we went to the first vé-pole.
Vicki invoked Frigga and asked her blessings on their new home, then her
Kinswoman Robin Dial tied a key to the pole as an offering to the goddess.
At the second pole, their Kinsman Bill Dial invoked Thor, and a straw
doll was offered to the Thunderer.
The third pole was in a grove of evergreen trees. Joe and Vicki wanted
not only to claim their land, but also to dedicate this grove to the worship
of the gods. They invoked their patrons, Odhin and Freyja, and asked all
the gods to bless the holy site. An offering of mead was poured out on
the vé-pole, and a hand-woven cord hung with runes carved by Joe was tied
to a nearby tree in the grove.
At the fourth pole, Joe invoked the landvaettir, asked for their friendship,
and promised to honor them in return. Bread was left at the vé-pole as
an offering to the land wights. We then returned inside, where the blot
continued, and many toasts were raised asking the gods and wights to bless
Joe and Vicki's new home.
I hope this glimpse of Landtakings recent and ancient will be helpful
to other heathens who are moving to a new home. Each family or individual
will develop a unique approach to such a personal celebration, but, for
what it's worth, here is what seems to me essential: Bring what is sacred
to you from the old home to the new. Claim the boundaries of your space,
whether they be apartment walls or the edges of far fields. Hallow your
home, with fire or offerings or whatever seems fitting to you, and honor
the holiness you find indwelling there. And, though it's not in the lore,
my experiences suggest this addition: invite your friends and kin, and
their goodwill will be a blessing on your home and a joy to your heart.
Endnotes
1. The Book of Settlements: Landnámabók. Pálsson, Hermann and Edwards,
Paul, transl.; University of Manitoba Press: Manitoba: Manitoba, Canada;
1972.
2. Ibid., p. 45.
3. Ibid., p. 117.
4. Ibid., pp. 83-84.
5. Eyrbyggja Saga. Pálsson, Hermann and Edwards, Paul, transl.;
Penguin Books: London; 1989, p. 28.
6. Landnámabók, pp. 87, 89-91.
7. Ibid., p. 105.
8. Ibid., p. 108.
9. Ibid., p. 97.
10. Ibid., p. 131.
11. Eyrbyggja Saga, pp. 29-29.
12. Landnámabók, p. 103.
13. Ibid., p. 134.
14. Ibid., p. 104.
15. Ibid., pp. 45-46. The account in Eyrbyggja Saga (pp. 29-30)
is nearly identical.
16. Cleasby, Richard; Vigfusson, Gudbrand; and Craigie, William A.. An
Icelandic-English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Oxford University Press