Prayer Beads, Week 4: Jotunheim, Midgard, Muspellheim

Moving to the next three of the nine worlds:

I honor the thunderous world of Jotunheim, and the mountain-thurses who grant focus and passion.
I honor our sister realm of Midgard, door to the Nine Worlds, by which I journey forth.
I honor the fiery world of Muspellheim, and the fire-etins who grant strength and loyalty.

Jotunheim/Jötunheimr

I honor the thunderous world of Jotunheim, and the mountain-thurses who grant focus and passion.

Possibly deriving from the Jotunheimen mountain range in Norway. One of the interesting things in studying the Nine Worlds is that they have locations in this world that both resemble them and have related names.

Jötunheimr is the land of the Jötunn/Jotuns, powerful nature spirits and shape changers. In the Lumsk song Trolltind refers to them. They are representative of chaos and the forces of nature.

After the coming of Christianity, they would get referred to by other names and became part of the array of local landspirits. Their powers and functions were, for example, absorbed into the group of creatures called trolls. In Skáldskaparmál we see the following passage, spoken by a troll:

Troll kalla mik tungl sjötrungnis, auðsug jötuns, élsólar böl, vilsinn völu, vörð náfjarðar, hvélsvelg himins – hvat's troll nema þat?

They call me Troll; Gnawer of the Moon, Giant of the Gale-blasts, Curse of the rain-hall, Companion of the Sibyl, Nightroaming hag, Swallower of the loaf of heaven. What is a Troll but that?

Many of the later stories and folklore refer to the power of Christianity driving them away, or good Christians being scared away from the wild places by the booming voices of giants.

The land of Jötunheimr itself is separated by the river Ífingr from the walls of Ásgarðr and is commonly seen as a wild place. This is where the (in)famous forest Járnviðr (the Iron Wood) is found.

Midgard/Miðgarðr

I honor our sister realm of Midgard, door to the Nine Worlds, by which I journey forth.

Literally meaning "middle enclosure," it generally refers to as our world, Earth, but spirit workers tend to think of it as an astral equivalent to our world. Set some time around the Iron Age, this world seems lost in time but has more tangible connections to the world around it. Because of this, and because of its closeness to our world, many spirit workers use it as a "launching off point" to visit the other realms.

The realm of Miðgarðr itself is often visualized as small continent, surrounded by a large body of water and surrounded by the great serpent Jörmungandr, who is also known as Midgårdsormen (Midgard's Serpent).

In some models of the Nine Worlds Miðgarðr is portrayed as being in the center of things, though one wonders if this is the same kind of perceptive flaw that lead to theories of geocentricism. Spirit workers who follow Kaldera's model of the Nine Worlds--laid out as a spiral--don't hold to this. Regardless of whether it actually is the center, however, it being the closest realm to ours means that it might as well be from a spirit workers perspective.

Muspellheim/Múspellsheimr

I honor the fiery world of Muspellheim, and the fire-etins who grant strength and loyalty.

Meaning "Muspel land," Múspellsheimr land of fire, one of the two primal worlds from which everything else came. Between this land and Niflheim lies the void of Ginnungagap ("magical (and creative) power-filled space"). This is one of the primordial worlds from which the universe came forth, and while also being a force of creation it is Muspel's children who will break the bifrost bridge come Ragnarök.

The land is ruled by Surtr (Old Norse for "The Black One"). He is remarked to be the oldest being in the Nine Worlds, and regardless of whether this is true of the entity, the stories about him are undoubtedly very very old.