Norse/Germanic Ritual Centers

A community spiritual festival site called a hof in Old Norse. This is where the Mid-Summer festival would have been held. The word "hof" is Akkadian HW meaning "howling" so it is a place of communal noise making and bonding (just like what wolves do when howling.)
Image is an artist's reconstruction of site (Artist: Kari Støren Binns, 2011) Online at: http://www.germanicmythology.com/original/RanheimSite.html
View from a hill towards the Trondheim Fjord showing the remains of the horgr as a faint gray circle. (Photo: Preben Rønne 2010)
A bead found in the soil covering the Horg representing the the dark new moon and eye pupil god Su who is also mentioned in the Trondheim runestone.
In the centre of the horg were found these water cracked stones. They had been placed in a wooden box, 1.3 meters in length and about 1 meter wide. The box was visible in the form of small red-brown stripes, each of which was almosttwo centimetres wide,. These stones were packed in a reddish sand and gravel. These stones seem to have been part of an opening ritual involving the life powers (red color, water, fire).

A Howling Site (Hof) With a Horg (Magic Stage) at Trondheim Norway (400 - 950 CE)

(July 8, 2023) While not a sacred place like a temple or sacred grove, Hof's were places where Pagan festivals took place like the festival of Mid-Summer. These were feasts presided over by priests and magic crafters.

This site was located on the side of a shallow hill overlooking the fjord outside of Trondheim, Norway. The site was located in a suburb called Ranheim before the site was destroyed by a housing development.

The site consisted of a large circular horg (Old Norse Hǫrgr: Akkadian ḪR.G meaning "liver.energizer") about 15 meters (48 feet) in diameter and almost a meter (3 feet) high above the original soil. A horg is any place which raises emotional energy. (The liver was thought to be the source of emotions and also connected to the other motion source, the fate defining heavenly bodies. Hence liver divinations) In this case it is a raised platform on which emotion magic rituals would be performed or led. It is not a stone mound or burial cairn. When first found this horg was completely covered by a thick layer of earth. This layer was removed and what was assumed to be a common type of cairn was revealed to be almost flat instead! The archaeologists believed this soil was placed on the Horg in order to hide it from Christian authorities.

This Horg was placed over an old fire pit made directly on the soil layer predating the hof suggesting that this was a ritual bonfire. The charcoal from this pit was dated to 400-500 AD.  The pre Hof soil layer had plow marks from an ancient ard plow indicating that this pasture was originally farmed and that it was part of a crop rotation scheme.

The entrance path to the hof was off to the side of the pasture. At the end of the entrance was a 2-story caretaker's cabin 5.3 x 4.5 meters which is not correctly drawn in the image. One level would have housed various cooking and ritual supplies while the other level would have been for a summer caretaker. It was dated to about 900 CE and did not have a stone foundation indicating it was not meant to be permanent. The open pasture was were where the feasting and socializing would have taken place. 

The word for and horg is mentioned in verse 7 of the Völuspá in the Poetic Edda (Codex Regius). This text has a sibyl describing how the gods gathered together and made a horg and hov. This is the text although it is not translated well because the author has no knowledge of the Akkadian roots of many European words.


‘Hittusk Æsir á Iðavelli,þeir er hǫrg ok hof átimbruðu;afla lǫgðu,  auð smíðuðu,tangir skópu ok tól gørðu.
‘The Æsir met on Iðavǫllr,they who erected an altar (horg) and a temple (hof) high;they set up forges, fashioned treasure,shaped tongs and made tools.

(Translation by Edward Pettit, CC BY-NC 4.0 in 2023. Online at: https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0308/ch1.xhtml)

A runestone dating to the same period was also found in the Trondheim area and is shown below.

References

Rønne, Preben (2011) Horg, hov and ve –a pre-Christian cult place at Ranheim in Trøndelag, Norway, in the 4rd – 10th centuries AD. Adoranten. Online at: https://www.rockartscandinavia.com/images/articles/preben_roenne_a11.pdf

Rune stone as displayed at the University Museum at  Trondheim.  Photo from: https://www.arild-hauge.com/vitenskapsmuseet.htm

Trondheim Runestone (800 CE)

(July 8, 2023) This is a text promoting offerings to astrology-powers to get the connective life powers of Hu and Ayu moving. The text is claiming offerings made directly to the life-powers directly are ineffective. What is lacking is the energy behind the life powers and not the amount of the life powers. Hu and Ayu only represent the connective layer of life powers in the Ancient Pagan Paradgim unlike Thor and his hammer which represent all 3 layers of the life powers. 

Su is the dark new moon god and the source of motion powers (astrology and emotional). Selu (Selene) is the feminine bright moon component which defines the energy release amount.

The Christian cross seems to be a later addition because nothing Christian is referenced in the text.

Translation in Akkadian (Rune Text 20)

(read left to right. Capital letters on object. Small letters are inferred Inner vowels. Verbs are italic bold) 
  1. Gu  AYu  Ru.  Pu  AYu  Tu  GiSu : Ṭu  Tu  Ku  Du  Ya : KiSu  Ḫu  Gu  Ya  Tu :  Gu  AWu  Su  :  Su  ISu  IGu  :  Ya  :  Tu  ASu  Ya  UYa (Rune 20.1)
  2. Du  ASu  Ya  Su  :  Yu  AKu  ṬaTu  Gi  :  A  Tu  SeDu  Su  :  Su  Tu  Ya  Ḫu  :  Gu  AYu,  Gu  Ḫu  Tu  :  Du  Ya  Ḫu  EPu.  Gu  AYu  Pu.  ReYu  AGu (Rune 20.2)

(Dual use letters are E/H, I/Y, U/W, and '/A in which vowel appears at beginning of words except for Yahu which is keeping its traditional Hebrew transliteration)

In English

  1. Energize Ayu's eagle-vultures. Open Ayu's astrology-magic with blessings :  Thu's astrology-magic does not life-manifest involvement :  Clinging to Hu is not energizing astrology-magic  : Energize the motion-powers of Su  :  Su is fated by the Woman (Selu, Selene) : Is it not : Astrology-magic cannot celestial-heal the fate-curses (by itself without emotion magic).
  2. Life-manifestations are not only being celestially-healed by Su  :  Are not the emotion-owls contributing to the energy?  :  Those astrology-magic-powers are being cared-for by Su  :  Su is not crafting-magic for Hu  :   Energize Ayu, energize Hu's astrology-magic  :  Don't life-manifest Hu's drying.  Energize Ayu's openings. Shepherd the anger.

Horse use their front feet to get  what they want

Cows rely on their humans to break ice for them although they can break ice by accidentally walking on it.

Indo-European Culture Was Based On Horses 

(July 8, 2023) The importance of horses to the Indo-Europeans would be reflected in their ritual centers and later European (Druid and Indo-European) ritual centers where decentralized tribalism remained the main form of social organization instead of centralized empires around the Mediterranean.

The reason the steppe people of Eurasia were  involved with the horse was because horses could survive their winters. They had the behavior of using their hooves to break through thin layers of snow and ice to get at the vegetation. Cattle don't do this. Bison can survive deep snows but not ice because they use their heads to push aside the snow which is why they have such big heads and necks. Bison can survive in regions with deeper snowfall than horses.

Consequently, their primary use of horses was for food and milk. Only later were they adapted for transport and warfare because they turned out to be faster than cattle. Yet the Druid cattle were found to be more productive in terms of milk and meat production. 

The Indo-Europeans also seem to been the first to use crop rotation in order to keep the same plots of land fertile. This also manured their fields since one of the rotations was pasturing.  In contrast, Druid culture was based upon slash and burn agriculture. This made the Indo-European farming much more productive than found in Druid Culture.