Reading through the Norse sagas, mythological stories, Eddas, and other material that we have regarding our ancestors, their lives and beliefs can be frustrating. The process is often difficult and the words hard to understand or hard to articulate due to the differences in languages and the age of the material. Language is a living being; it is constantly growing, evolving and changing. In the Modern Heathen’s Dictionary you will find many terms, names, places, symbols and ideas that have been translated into modern English. The words have been given modern spellings when possible, and then we have provided what we hope is an easy to understand pronunciation guide followed by a brief definition. The goal is to provide a better understanding of the words and their meanings so they can be more easily integrated into your current life.
Language plays a huge role in everything that happens in this world. Words do not exactly reflect how we see the world, but instead, they express how we experience it in our own particular way. Trying to think outside of language and words is impossible for us as a species because every thought that we have happens in our individual language using the words that we know, hence there is a power in words. In a heathen society, it is believed that when we vocalize a thought it makes a piece of reality, thereby altering reality in some unidentifiable manner.