The Nordic Witch

Here's something to try next Yule: There's a belief among some Heathens (particularly Theodsmen) that dreams you have on each of the twelve nights correspond to each month in the upcoming year, offering clues as to how one might navigate the times ahead.

I managed to note down 19 dreams across 11 nights (I missed Mother's Night), several of which seem significant.

It is interesting, or rather sad, how modern people, and European Pagans, have more desire to connect with a tribe that could be the most distant of ancestors instead of their own direct heritage, nations, and tribes.
People who can't tell you their great great grand parent's names but can rattled off potential connection to ancient times.
I, too, am guilty of such at times as well.

Maybe it speaks to the state of the West and how deteriorated understanding and pride in one's heritage has become.

Spiritually, as Pagans we have to look to the ancient past, but that doesn't mean not having pride in one's more direct heritage.

Also, as some people have previously asked me about the word Wassail;

Old English had two verbs for 'to be', these were wesan (Dutch wezen, Frisian wêze, Icelandic/Faroese/Swedish vera, Danish/Norwegian være) and of course bēon (German still uses its cognate forms bin and bist). Much like the word 'to go', OE gān, which has taken the past tense 'went' from 'wend', OE wendan, modern English 'be' is a suppletive verb. Thus it has merged the infinitive of bēon (along with the past participle been from OE gebēon) with the regular forms from wesan; am, art, is and are (from Old Norse eru > earon, replacing the earlier sind), was, wert and were.

The imperative form is wes, equivalent to 'be!', so it seems that the phrase 'wassail' comes from Anglo-Saxon wes hǣl, 'be healthy!' One can also add pronouns; wes þū hāl 'be thou hale' or plural wesað gē hāle, 'be ye hale' (both of which are attested in Old English). However there is a problem...

Most spellings of hǣl were hāl, which became northern English 'hale' and southern 'whole' (with an excrescent W for disambiguation with 'hole'), but all are related to words like 'health', 'heal' and even 'holy' and 'hallow'. While it is possible that the phrase descends from dialects using wes hǣl, it is equally likely that the same phrase in Old Norse, using the more familiar vowel sounds in ves heill (attested 1275), replaced earlier Old English forms.