SOWELU ( SIGEL )

(Sun)

Victory, Success, Potential, energy and Expansion

As with any system, the Sun is the most positive and potent symbol, especially in the world of the North where the sun was so precious. It can also be seen as lightning and forms the third and most powerful fire rune, melting ice, causing the crops to grow and her festivals, especially the Longest Day or Summer Solstice were celebrated throughout the Northern world by great fire-wheels rolled down hills, flaming tar torches waved over the fields and bonfires lit on hilltops to welcome the Sun and give it power.

In the Far North and Scandinavia, the Sun was female. The Sun is referred to as the White Sow even today in Scandinavian countries. It is the rune of the sun or the sun-wheel, the sun moving through the year. It is seen in the Old Norse rune poem as light of the lands and refers to its holiness while the Icelandic poem talks of the sun as the `life-long destroyer of ice’, a reminder of how important the Sun was in these very cold land,

In the Elder Edda the Sun Goddess’s golden beams brought forth green plants on the newly created earth and brings forth green plants. Sunna or Sol, as she was also called, slept in a golden bed in Hel, the underworld when the Sun sank in the West, Before Dawn Sunna travelled through the underworld to emerge in the east through the jodyrr, the horse -doors. It is said that her arrival was proclaimed by Goldcomb, the Cockerel of Morn.