Caveat Lector - If you are a literalist lacking poetic ability or a Nationalistic religious zealot out looking for scraps to fit into your own map - read no further. To you this text will be utter nonsense, and you are wasting your time.
Hœnir or Höner, as he is called in Swedish appears in a few instances in the Norse sagas. In the Codex Regius version of Voluspa, he is out walking with Odin and Loki (although Loki is spelled Lodur in this particular story). That these three are out walking also happens in the story of Reginsmal and in the poem Haustlang.
In the Voluspa, Höner gifts the sense of reason/judgement/intellect to Ash and Elm, the first humans. In Gylfaginning, the name Höner is replaced by Vili, doing the very same.
It might serve the English speaking reader well to know that reason, judgement and intellect, all who can be summed up in the action of “thinking”, are modern terms.
The old term for this faculty is Hugr. In Swedish we have several verbs formed out of this noun, such as “Håga”, “Hugsa” etc. The term is preserved in the English hoe/how, meaning ’care, anxiety, trouble, sorrow, but are nowadays regarded as outdated and only existing in dialectal form. The old term Hugr included more than just an isolated “thinking”. The Hugr is also what we use to long for, dare, having lust, be in the mood, recall and the act of remembering. Not memory itself.
Then we can read about Höner in the Ynglingasaga, in which he and Mimir goes as a hostage to the Vanir after the truce. The Vanir makes him their Chief, but due to his daftness and having to rely on Mimir for answers, they get tired of him and send him back to the Aesir.
In Skáldskaparmál Höner is called “The quick Aesir”, “Longlegs” and “Mudking or possibly the Shining King, since Aur can mean both gold and mud. (”Hvernig skal kenna Hœni? - Svá, at kalla hann sessa eða sinna eða mála Óðins ok enn skjóta ás ok en langa fót och aurkonung”). Höner is also described as good looking but quiet, having quiet manners and is called the most fearful of the Aesir.
If we, just for a second, stop taking everything literarily and instead apply the concept of poetic perception to this, we find that Höner has all the generalized qualities of an intellectual scholar. Down to the very same, crane-like exaggerated way a classic scholar is depicted in popular culture today and if Höner wasn´t deemed a Norse God, one might think he was utterly British.
His name derives from the same root as the English word “Hen” and is still used in the modern Swedish term Höna – “Chicken”.Through both etymology and the content of several stories, Höner is associated with the Crane, the Storch and the Swan. If we consider what these have in common, as well as their associated place in the natural day and year along with local folklore, Höner certainly seems to belong to an older layer of Northern deities. These birds appear frequently on both Swedish bronze age rock carvings as on rune stone illustrations such as Ockelbostenen on which the bird stands right behind the Goddess Hel, ready to receive and transport a soul.
After all, the Hugr is famed for being able to transport the soul “ahead of time”. In some cases, when the Hugr is particularly strong in someone, it come in “Hamn”, meaning that it appears in the physical on the location where it is directed. In the wake of this there are all kinds of distant influences also ascribed to the Hugr. So, Höner can certainly be said to be a transporter of “souls”.
If we – for a moment - make a poetic comparison between Höner and another bird like character further South – the Egyptian God Toth, it is not hard to see that they share plenty of traits. Amusingly enough Plato´s description of Toth in Phaedrus, echoes the reason why the Vanir found him so useless:
“In the story, Thoth remarks to King Thamus of Egypt that writing is a wonderful substitute for memory. Thamus remarks that it is a remedy for reminding, not remembering, with the appearance but not the reality of wisdom. Future generations will hear much without being properly taught and will appear wise but not be so”.
One might say that writing would be very much the idea of Höner and the gift of the Hugr, through which we can recollect. But lacking the fullness of the real content of memory, the actual wisdom, residing with Mimir.
Despite these almost amusing downsides, if we regard Höner as intellect, we must credit him with being one of the most important qualities we have. Höner is up there among the top three deities in our sagas, just as in life. When we are out walking, along with us are the trio of Life force, Intellect and Passion – Odin, Höner and Loki. Each of them with their own quirks, upsides and downsides.
It is our reason that brings awareness up to the surface in the morning. It is reason that entangles us from the labyrinth of dreams, it is reason that – along with memory - brings life force forward to assemble our current existence in the morning.
Very much like our bronze age myths in the Sea bird helps the Sun up from the capture in the waters below the Eastern horizon in the morning. And in the Spring, it is the Crane who announces it.
Höner, like intellect, does seem to act as a preserver of life. Especially compared to Odin and Loki. Perhaps this is why Höner survives Ragnarök and they do not? Our life force may die out along with our raging passion at the culmination of any story, but our intellect remains?
Maybe he is quiet, easily scared and daft, but we just have to live with that, don´t we?
In terms of practice, we hardly need more emphasis on training the obvious traits of intellect these days. And Nature will help us discern our intellectual part quite fast. But the hidden qualities provided by Höner and described in the term Hugr requires a proper teacher of Trolldom. We could have good use for Höner as a divine form if we can avoid falling into the modern religious approach of worship and bargaining withing some false supernatural world view. The creation or adoption of a concrete God -form provides us with the possibility of perceptual distancing and independence. It can also serve us in further developing the qualities we might associate with Höner, but that takes much more actual work than reading a blog post about him.
In the modern construction of old Norse mythology, with its associated Viking romanticism, Höner is not the first to be chosen to be incorporated in the personal pantheon. The helmet is too heavy, the sword is absent, he is scared, clumsy and indecisive. Not much of a warrior at all. Yet, Odin and Loki rarely venture out without him. Not should you.
Written by : Johannes B.Gårdbäck.
Sources: Google it.
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