Elves

Last night on Destination Truth, they went to Iceland in search of elves.  I wish they’d spent more time talking about elves than looking for them, but what can you do?

I think I’ve told you that one theory is that the gods cannot change fate (because their experience of time is not linear like ours is) and this is, in part, one of the reasons they are so interested in us and invested in us, when they are–because we can change fate, ours and, therefore, to some extent, theirs.

Supposedly, there are two “people” in our world who can change Fortune–us and the elves.  In general, our worlds sit nestled in right together, but we are mostly blind to each other, even though we can often see evidence of the existance of the other.  There are, supposedly, though, thing spots, where we can encounter each other pretty consistantly.

So, to be flip, elf teenagers probably go to the same outcroppings human teenagers go to in order to scare the shit out of each other and themselves.

There’s a sense from the Lore that the Aesir and the Vanir, before the war, lived in two separate realms and had customs very different from each other.  And the Vanir, I think it’s clear, had their realm on that other side.  And all those quasi-unseen beings whose presense still makes itself known–the elves, the disir, the wrights, etc.–would seem to fall under the influence (to use the word inadiquately) of the Vanir.

Which is not to say that the Aesir aren’t magical.  But then the lines are so blurry when you start to try to fix them.

You might divvy it up differently, where the Aesir are of village and town, and the Vanir are of the countryside and the Juton are of the wilderness.  Or you might understand it in terms of magic, with the Aesir doing more controlled, deliberate work, the Vanir being more wild and intuative about it, and then the Juton working as if magic were the only law.

It’s hard to make sense of things intellectually when those things are deliberately designed to speak to the kinds of Truth that aren’t understood first with your brain.

Sometimes, I think it’d be nice to have someone to mull this stuff over with, you know?

But who do I know?  The guy with the World Tree on his back is actually Catholic.  The guy who named his children Wolf and Grimm is, I’m sure, just an unrepentant D&D player.  And I don’t want to get to know strangers.

I’m still bone tired of making sacred space with groups of strangers.

Are you reading WitchDoctor Joe’s blog?  It’s new to me, but I’m enjoying it.  It fits in some how with all of this, but I’m not yet sure how so there you go.