Great Gray Owl
The big excitement this week has been the appearance of a Great Gray Owl, a boreal owl rarely seen in the United States. As the name implies, this is a very large owl, bigger even than the Great Horned. The … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Animals
Frigga: A short sketch
Then said Gangleri: “Which are the Asynjur?” Harr said: “Frigg is the foremost: she has that estate which is called Fensalir, and it is most glorious.” — The Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson, translated Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur. Deities tend to become … Continue reading →
Feline Fascism
It’s been a frustrating week in foreign language study. For some reason, Samhain has been on patrol a bit more than usual, enforcing the household English-only policy. This policy was instituted by the cat. She yowls whenever I review my … Continue reading →
A Hare at Heart Lake
So again I am musing, as I do every winter, about the plethora of Snowshoe Hare tracks with no Hares in sight. Yet during this outing I did spy a Great Horned Owl gliding between the branches. Snowshoe Hares are … Continue reading →
No articles, no photo essays, no poems today
No reviews either. I’m getting ready to submit the manuscript for my next book so I’m a bit distracted from blogs and blogging. I’ll let my cat Samhain handle the post this week. This picture was taken right after she … Continue reading →
The Antler Wagon
I’ve written a lot about deer, especially reindeer, this year. Here is a poem about the Saami reindeer sun goddess Beiwe. She rides across heaven in antler wagon.She rides across heaven in antler wagon.Holding her daughter, she defines the day.Holding … Continue reading →
Elen of the Ways
Again from my forthcoming book on animal divination: An increasingly popular conception of the Deer Goddess goes by the name of Elen or Elen of the Ways. Knowledge about this goddess was disseminated through the research of Caroline Wise(1) on … Continue reading →
Reindeer and the World Tree
More from my forthcoming book on animal divination: The stag of Artemis being in fact a reindeer raises questions about the four stags who nibble on the branches of the Germanic world tree, Yggdrasil. This is the tree that … Continue reading →
Artemis and the Reindeer Doe
Here is another short excerpt from my forthcoming book about animal divination: In antiquity the deer familiar of Artemis was a reindeer, which some confuse with a stag. Both horned and hornless does are depicted driving the goddess’s chariot. … Continue reading →
The Deer Shifters: Another deer article from the past
Several years ago a North Country man shot and killed a member of his hunting party, the girlfriend of his son. This is an all too frequent tragedy, not worth a mention anywhere but the local news. The man said … Continue reading →