Names of the Living World: some land spirits

Elder flower kindred in my May garden

What are the names of the spirits in your ancestral languages? What are the names of the spirits in the land where you live now? How does our relationship to place transform when we view it as relationship, necessitating respect and reciprocity?

Here are the names of some land spirits in my lineage:

Alfar — elves

Dvegar — dwarves

Jötnar — giants

LandVættir — land spirits or wights, comes from weight, lid of a chest, shrine

Huldrefolk — hidden people

Underjordiske — those under the ground

Haugfolk — people of the mounds, carin people

Haugbúi — carin dweller

tussefolk

Ivi∂ia — giantess, wood troll

Árma∂r — harvest/season man

Spáma∂r — divination man

Landdísir — land goddesses/ancestors

Bergbúi — rock dweller

Trolls — Jutuls/riser

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Gardvord — guardian spirit of the farm and inhabitants, gard=enclosed space vör∂=woman, ward

Gardsbonde — enclosed space husband

Also Nisse

Tusse

Tuftebonde

Tuftekall

Tomte

Gobonde

Tunvord

Tunkall

Rudkall

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Fossegrim — waterfall spirit

Nökk/Nykk — water spirit

Oskorei — terror host or Asgard’s host

Jolerei — Yule host

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These are all of Germanic/Scandinavian origin and are sourced from the books Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe by HR Ellis Davidson and Phantoms and Fairies from Norwegian Folklore by Tor Åge Bringsværd — a souvenir book I brought back from Norway when I was in my twenties and which has been so incredibly useful in my life now.

:

In a time of deep mourning, where nearly daily I am finding myself in tears of grief and loss, the animate world connects and sustains, restores and heals.

Learning these names is a memory, re-membering, and also beginning.

By this and every effort may the balance be regained.