Festival of the Runes

Day 1 of 9 informal altar

Official altar, showing offerings of bourbon and sausage.

Making up our own festivals is one of my favorite parts of tradition building. In our tradition, we use runes as our system of symbolism. To honor that great gift, I've created a Festival of the Runes.

I began with the old festival of Walpugisnacht:

"The festival of Walpurgis, a night both of revelry and darkness. The nine nights of April 22 (interestingly enough, the modern festival of Earth Day) to April 30 are venerated as rememberance of the AllFather's self-sacrifice upon the World Tree Yggdrasil. It was on the ninth night (April 30, Walpurgisnacht) that he beheld the Runes, grasped them, and ritually died for an instant. At that moment, all the Light in the 9 worlds is extinguished, and utter Chaos reigns. At the final stroke of midnight, the Light returns in dazzling brilliance, and the bale-fires are lit. On Walpurgisnacht, the dead have full sway upon the earth; it is the ending night of the Wild Hunt. May 1 is the festival of Thrimilci; the beginning of Summer. Thrimilci is a festival of joy and fertility, much like Ostara; however, most of the Northern World is finally escaping from the snow at this time."

When I dug a bit deeper, I found that Walberga (or Walpurga) was a Christian saint canonized in CE 860 who was credited with Christianizing many Germanic tribes. This saint's day was used to create a celebration that coincided with the Pagan Beltane celebrations. A classic move by the medieval church - distract people from their nature-based ancestral faith with pageantry.

For our celebration, I wanted to lose the medieval Christian overtones and keep the timing. Nine days of celebration to honor Odin and his discovery of the runes during the Wild Hunt of spring felt right to me. What we do is light a candle in the window to guide Odin to us. We create an altar honoring Odin and the runes. Each night, we make offerings to Odin, like mead and meat. We sing the song of the runes, then read nine passages from the Havamal.

I really enjoyed it. This is a simple celebration, and I really liked focusing on the wisdom of the Havamal. It's pithy and surprisingly relevant in the modern era. We can all learn to take care of business and be a good member of the community! Hail Odin!