The Norse god Odin has two pet ravens, Hugin and Munin. He sends them out each morning to fly around the world and gather news. When they return they sit on his shoulders and tell him all they have seen and heard. Their names come from the old Norse language and are generally translated as Hugin = Thought and Munin = Memory. In a verse from the old Norse poem Grimnismál, Odin says:
“Hugin and Munin
Fly every day
Over all the world
I worry for Hugin
That he might not return,
But I worry more for Munin.” 1
The understanding here is that the ravens are spiritual extensions of Odin and if they do not return he effectively loses a part of himself.
There are times as you get older that your own faculties of thought and memory are not as dependable as they used to be. I am not necessarily talking about the onset of diseases such as Alzheimer’s but just the recall of certain words or names that shift position just as you are about to speak, as well as when you can only describe what it is you mean in a roundabout way because you can’t remember the exact word. Recently I was making a cake and was looking in the cupboard for some ground almonds, but the only word I could summon for this ingredient was ‘almond dust’! Close but not quite right.
Watching the ravens fly and call here in Blonduos and with a concern from time to time for my own thought and memory I find I have a possible theme to work on. I am felting, knitting and layering with black wool to expose gaps in and around the connected fibres and to tangle and knot other fibres that are not already broken and fragmented. It somehow feels appropriate.
1 The Poetic Edda. Grímnismál, stanza 20. Translated by Daniel McCoy. From: https://norse-mythology.org/gods-and-creatures/others/hugin-and-munin/ [accessed 10.5.19]
Delia Salter
