Asatru Folk Assembly - How the Queen of the Sky Gave Gifts to Men (Academy Storytime)

00:00:00.000 hi there boys and girls and welcome to storytime with gibbia sheila mcnallan i chose a special

00:00:27.840 story today. It is from a very old book. The book itself is called Stories of Norse Heroes

00:00:40.640 from the Eddas and the Sagas retold by E. M. William Wilmot Buxton. And what's special about

00:00:48.480 this book is that it's old, even older than me, even older than your grandparents. This book was

00:00:53.760 written over 100 years ago in 1909. But I like the way that Wilmot Buxton tells

00:01:00.440 the story of our gods and goddesses because they get retold in different

00:01:04.640 ways. They were in a language that is what we call Old Norse and it has been

00:01:11.160 translated into English so we can read it. And when people translate it, sometimes

00:01:15.960 the translations are different. And I like the way Wilmot Buxton did this

00:01:20.260 because he added a lot of details and kind of let his imagination go with him

00:01:25.080 as he tells the story of Frigg, of Odin's wife Frigg, the mother of all, the mother

00:01:31.720 of the gods, the mother of us. And it's called How the Queen of the Sky Gave

00:01:36.580 Gifts to Men. This is the tale which the Northmen tell of Friggah, Queen of the

00:01:43.140 aces by the side of all father odin upon his high seat and ausgard sat frigga his wife

00:01:52.020 the queen of the houses sometimes she would be dressed in snow white garments bound at

00:01:58.020 the waist by a golden girdle which hung a great bunch of golden keys and the earth dwellers

00:02:05.060 gazing into the sky would admire the great white clouds as they floated across the blue

00:02:10.740 not perceiving that these clouds are really the folds of Frigga's flowing white robe as it waved

00:02:17.140 in the wind at other times she would wear dark gray or purple garments and then the earth dwellers

00:02:24.100 made haste into their houses for they said the sky is lowering today and a storm is nigh at hand

00:02:31.300 Frigga had a palace of her own called Fensilear, or the Hall of Mists, where she spent much

00:02:40.580 of her time at her wheel, spinning gold thread or weaving web after web of many colored clouds.

00:02:49.620 All night long she sat at this golden wheel, and if you look at the sky on a starry night,

00:02:55.060 you may chance to see it set up where the men of the south show a constellation cluster of stars

00:03:03.060 called the girl girdle of orion sometimes we call it the belt of orion orion's belt

00:03:10.660 it's also called the belt of frig husbands and wives who dwelt lovingly together upon earth were

00:03:18.020 invited by frigga to her hall when they died so that they might be forever united within

00:03:24.340 its hospitable walls. Isn't that a nice place to go? Frigga was especially interested in all good

00:03:31.220 housewives, and she herself set them set an excellent example in Fen Salir. When the snowflakes

00:03:37.700 fell, the earth dwellers knew it was Frigga shaking her great feather bed, and when it rained, they

00:03:42.740 said it was her washing day. It was she who first gave them the gift of flax that the women upon

00:03:49.700 the earth might spin and weave and bleach their linen, which is cloth, as white as the clouds of 0.99

00:03:57.560 her own white robe. And this is how it came about. There once was a shepherd who lived among the 0.61

00:04:04.100 mountains with his wife and children, and so very poor was he that he often found it hard to give

00:04:10.240 his family enough to satisfy their hunger. But he did not grumble. He only worked the harder,

00:04:16.580 and his wife though she had scarcely any furniture and never a chance of a new dress

00:04:22.120 kept the house so clean and the old clothes so well mended that all unknown to herself she rose

00:04:28.880 high in the favor of all seeing Frigga. Frigga's watching her sees how she takes care of her family

00:04:37.100 and her home. Now one day when the shepherd had driven his few poor sheep up the mountain to

00:04:42.960 pasture. A fine reindeer sprang from the rocks above him and began to leap toward toward the

00:04:49.800 steep slope. The shepherd snatched up his crossbow and pursued the animal, thinking to himself,

00:04:56.600 now we shall have a better meal than we have had for many a long day. Up and up leaped the reindeer,

00:05:02.980 always just out of reach, and at length disappeared behind a great boulder,

00:05:08.480 just as the shepherd, breathless and weary, reached the spot.

00:05:13.400 No sign of the reindeer was to be seen,

00:05:15.780 but on looking around, the shepherd saw that he was among the snowy heights of the mountains

00:05:21.120 and almost at the top of a great glacier.

00:05:25.240 Presently, as he pursued in his vain search for the animal,

00:05:29.980 he saw to his amazement an open door leading apparently into the heart of the glacier.

00:05:35.680 A glacier is like it's frozen a river of ice.

00:05:40.180 It's on mountaintops, and it's solid ice.

00:05:42.760 So there's a door going into the glacier.

00:05:46.040 He was a fearless man, and so without hesitation,

00:05:49.560 he passed boldly through the doorway

00:05:51.660 and found himself standing in a marvelous cavern,

00:05:56.980 a cave lit up by blazing torches

00:05:59.760 which gleamed upon rich jewels

00:06:02.020 hanging from the roofs and the walls. 0.83

00:06:04.160 And in the midst stood a woman, most fair to behold, clad in snow-white robes and surrounded by a group of lovely maidens.

00:06:13.840 And who is that lady? Frigga.

00:06:17.960 The shepherd's boldness gave way at this awesome sight, and he sank to his knees before the Asa, Frigga, for it was she.

00:06:27.200 But Frigga bade him to be of good cheer and said,

00:06:29.440 Choose now whatsoever you would carry away with you as a remembrance of this place.

00:06:35.740 Take anything you want and sign by my home here.

00:06:39.420 The shepherd's eyes wandered over the glittering jewels on the walls and the roof,

00:06:43.680 but they came back to a little bunch of blue flowers which Frigga held in her hand.

00:06:49.040 They alone, they looked so home-like to him.

00:06:53.160 The rest were hard and cold. 0.75

00:06:55.840 And so he asked timidly that he might be given this little nosegay,

00:07:00.200 this little cluster of blue flowers.

00:07:02.580 Then Frigga smiled kindly upon him.

00:07:05.020 The most wise has been your choice, said she.

00:07:08.820 Take with the flowers this measure of seed and sow it into your field,

00:07:15.640 and you shall grow flowers of your own.

00:07:18.460 They shall bring prosperity to you and yours and your family.

00:07:22.640 And so the shepherd took the flowers and the seed, and scarcely had he done some, when a mighty

00:07:28.240 peal of thunder, followed by the shock of an earthquake, rent a cavern, and when he had

00:07:35.060 collected his senses, he found he was once more upon the mountainside. The door had closed.

00:07:42.420 Fricka's home was closed to him now, and when he reached home, he told his tale. His wife scolded

00:07:49.000 him roundly for not bringing home a jewel which would have made them rich forever but when she

00:07:55.480 would have thrown the flowers away he prevented her she didn't think the flowers had any value

00:08:02.440 remember that's what he chose to take just flowers no jewels next day he sowed the seed in his field

00:08:10.440 and was surprised to find how fat how far it went and very soon after this the field was thick with

00:08:17.960 tiny green shoots and though his wife reproached him for wasting good ground upon useless flowers

00:08:24.600 he watched and waited in hope until the field was blue with the starry flax blooms

00:08:31.960 just imagine looking outside your window and seeing nothing but blue flowers from flax from

00:08:37.720 flax plants the flax flowers then one night when the flowers had withered and the seed was ripe

00:08:45.080 Frigga, in her disguise of an old woman, visited the lowly hut and showed the shepherd and his astonished wife how to use the flax stalks, how to weave the thread into linen or cloth like we make our clothes from.

00:09:03.340 It was not long before all the dwellers in that part of the earth had heard of the wonderful material and were hurrying to the shepherd's hut to buy the bleached linen or the seed from which it was obtained.

00:09:15.080 And so the shepherd and his family were soon among the richest people in the land, and the promise of Frigga was amply fulfilled.

00:09:24.960 That's the end of the story.

00:09:27.080 But what's special about it is that this time of year, in February, when I'm reading this story, we have been celebrating Charming of the Plow.

00:09:35.540 Now remember, he had to go take the seed and plant the seed and wait for it to grow.

00:09:40.580 And then he harvested from the flowers the seeds that were left.

00:09:44.220 but he also took the stalks and they pulled strands of pieces from the stems and those

00:09:52.060 they could weave them on a loom and make fabric for their clothes. Pretty amazing. But I want you

00:09:59.040 to think about Charming of the Plow because this is the time of year that we are cutting,

00:10:05.400 basically preparing the soil using a plow like they used to do. We really don't, but we have

00:10:11.220 one at each hoth. And the idea is that we prepare the soil, we open it up, and we put seed in it.

00:10:18.600 And what we did when we were at Odin's Hoth last weekend, we actually put in little pieces of bread

00:10:24.700 with wishes on it and with things that we felt we'd already used. And so put those away, put those in

00:10:31.520 the soil so that they're there and can break down and be there to nourish the plants that are going

00:10:36.780 come from it to give them food the things that already happened so that new

00:10:41.040 greater things can grow and that is what we do here at Charming of the Plow and

00:10:45.900 so this story about our beautiful all-mother Frigga she who is mother to

00:10:52.020 the gods too is very wise and she gave the farmer just what he needed a jewel

00:10:58.020 would not have done anything for the family like the seeds and the blue

00:11:02.280 flowers of flax. So I hope you enjoyed this story and pretty soon we'll do another one. Thank you for

00:11:08.660 being here. Bye-bye.

Asatru Folk Assembly - February 26, 2024

How the Queen of the Sky Gave Gifts to Men (Academy Storytime)

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