Our ancestors are the foundation of our luck, our orlæg. Their actions during life contributed to the conditions of our lives and from their stories we learn how to act (and not act). A Heathen worldview places emphasis on respecting the examples of those who came before us. Because of this, we engage in the gifting cycle with our ancestors in much the same way that we worship the gods. Many of us have altars to our ancestors and give offerings and pray to them for guidance, support, and protection. We recognize, however, that not all blood ancestors are worth our respect, and conversely that not every ancestor was a blood relation. Adoption, of children and adults, has been common in Germanic cultures for millenia, and we know that some of our strongest bonds are with the people we choose. We honor those who deserve our veneration.
The English word “wight” (Old Norse: “vættr”) literally means a “being,” though we use the word to refer to the beings that we cannot see; the souls of nature and objects. We believe that all things have a soul and that our relationships with those wights are important to the health and well-being of our world. Heathens often categorize wights into two major categories: House Wights (Old Norse “husvættir”, Old English “cofgodas”) and Land Wights (Old Norse “landvættir”, Old English “wihta”).
House wights are those beings that inhabit the spaces that have been transformed for human habitation. They are the souls of homes, buildings, cultivated land, and domesticated animals to name a few. The Anglo-Saxons called these wights “cofgodas,” literally “house gods,” and would make offerings to them in a similar way to how they offered sacrifices to the gods and their ancestors. The relationships between these wights and the humans that live with them can be deeply personal and cross generations.
Land wights are the beings that exist in the wild places of the world. The souls of wild animals, plants, forests, and bodies of water are just a few examples of these beings. Because they exist outside of settled spaces, land wights do not have the same reciprocal relationship with humans that house wights do. While our offerings to house wights maintain an almost familial relationship, when we make offerings to land wights it is a ritual of mutual respect. We ask the land wights to respect our health and well-being and we promise respect in return. When something is taken, such as when hunting or felling trees, something should be given in return in order to keep our relationship with those wights in balance.