Urglaawe: Food for Groundhog Day

"Groundhog Day is actually the first day of an observance that we know by a few names: Entschtanning, Uffdredde, or Uffdredding (all of which mean "emergence") in Urglaawe parlance. ... In this post, we will cover the more common food traditions. The full article by Robert L. Schreiwer, which includes a recipe for Seimaage (stuffed hog's maw), may be found at the Urglaawe blog.

Der Grundsaudaag ("Groundhog Day")

‎"The groundhog is similar to Ratatask, the squirrel that runs up and down Yggdrasil bringing news of the nine worlds.... Braucherei reports the day as being sacred to the “Hearth Goddess,” who naturally would be Frigg. ... Akin to the second item is the creation of the Butzemann. The Butzemann is a scarecrow who is spiritually activated via a Braucherei ceremony called the Ceremony of the Corn. ... Also akin to Frigg is the cleaning of the hearth. ... Tradition holds that the first travelers with Holle and Wodan on the Furious Host (Wild Hunt) begin to return to the land at this time, if the groundhog predicts an early end to winter."  The full text of this blog entry on how practitioners of Urglaawe ("the original faith") observe the day known to many other Heathens as Disting, to Celtic Recons and Wiccans as Imbolc, and to most Americans as Groundhog Day may be found here at the Urglawwe blog site.

Mistletoe's lengthy history

"In Norse mythology, Frigg, the goddess of love and beauty, was the mother of the god Baldr. Frigg asked all living creatures to swear an oath never to harm Baldr after he had a series of visionary dreams. Baldr was protected from all harm, rendered invincible except for one plant: mistletoe. Frigg thought it was too small and innocent to do him any harm. Loki, the trickster god, fashioned a spear of mistletoe that proved to be Baldr's demise." Read the full article on mistletoe's folkloric history and life cycle at the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Lady of the Elves: The Great Germanic Goddess

Frau Holle, or Berchta, and her train.
Harper's New Monthly, December 1873,
artist unknown. Wikimedia  Commons.

Courtesy of Medievalists.net:

"The prominent goddess of Europe was known in Germany as Berchta and Holda, who appear as goddesses of the bright and the gloomy. These pairings might be represented as Berchta and Holda, Frigg and Hel, and Freyia and Hyndla. The bright goddess arose as a goddess of the sun and sky and the gloomy one appeared as representative of the earth and underworld, but with Berchta and Holda they encompass both aspects and were largely interchangeable. She received the souls of the dead who rode along the path of the Milky Way in a wagon to the underworld. As ‘lady of the elves’ or ‘queen of the fairies’ the huldren, elves, and dwarfs, thought to be spirits of the dead, would appear with her on earth from time to time."  The full article by Timothy J. Stephany may be read on the Rochester Institute of Technology's website.

Wikipedia entry for the day: Sága and Sökkvabekkr

Sága records while Odin dictates in an
 illustration (1919) by Robert Engels.
Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

"In Norse mythology, Sága (Old Norse: [saːɣa], possibly meaning "seeress"[1]) is a goddess associated with the location Sökkvabekkr (pronounced [sɔkːwabekːr] in Old Norse; "sunken bank", "sunken bench", or "treasure bank"[2]). At Sökkvabekkr, Sága and the god Odin merrily drink as cool waves flow. Both Sága and Sökkvabekkr are attested in the Poetic Edda, compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and in the Prose Edda, written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. Scholars have proposed theories about the implications of the goddess and her associated location, including that the location may be connected to the goddess Frigg's fen residence Fensalir and that Sága may be another name for Frigg." Read the full article at Wikipedia.