{"product_id":"nordic-female-ancient-spirit-companion-ragna","title":"Nordic Female Ancient Spirit Companion · Ragna","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMeet Ragna.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eRagna was born around 1333 on a farm high in a valley in western Norway, in a house of logs with a roof of turf, where the mountains stood so close that the sun disappeared behind them in October and did not come back until February. There were nine of them in the house: her parents, her grandmother, five brothers and sisters, and Ragna. In summer, they took the goats up to the high pastures. In winter, they sat close around the fire, and her grandmother told stories.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eOne of the stories was about Pesta.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003ePesta was an old woman in black who walked the roads with a rake in one hand and a broom in the other. Where she came with the rake, some people survived, because a rake leaves gaps. Where she came with the broom, she swept the place clean. No one was left.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eIn the summer of 1349, an English ship docked in Bergen with the plague on board. Within weeks it was moving up the fjords, from farm to farm and valley to valley. Before it was over, perhaps half the people of Norway were dead.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eIt reached Ragna’s valley in the autumn. She was sixteen. One evening she was bringing in the goats when she saw an old woman in black walking slowly up the valley road, and she saw what the woman was carrying. It was a broom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eHer grandmother died first, then her father, then the little ones, one after another, then her mother. Then the neighbours. Then the priest who came to bury them. Ragna dug graves until her hands bled. When she could not dig any more, she wrapped the rest of them in linen, laid them on their beds, and closed the doors.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eShe never got sick. She never understood why.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eFor years after that, Ragna lived alone in the valley. The fields went to grass. The goats went wild in the hills. Snow fell on roofs with no smoke rising from them. And the houses were not empty, not to her. The dead stayed. She could hear them in the evenings: a chair creaking, someone humming, a door closing in a house where no one lived. So she visited them. She sat in their kitchens. She told them about the weather and the goats. At every meal, she set the table for nine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eSlowly she stopped speaking out loud. She stopped combing her hair. When her own clothes wore out, she went to the chest at the foot of her mother’s bed and put on the white linen her mother had kept ready for her own burial, the way people did in those days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eYears later, men from the next valley came over the mountain to see if anyone was left, and to claim the empty farms if no one was. They found her standing in the long grass outside her father’s house, barefoot, in a white shift, with hair down to her waist. When they called to her, she ran, quick and silent, like a bird. It took them two days to catch her. In the old legend of a girl like her in the valley of Jostedal, the people called her the grouse, because she was as shy as one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eRagna was the last. By law, every farm in the valley was hers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eShe married one of the men who found her, had children of her own, and lived to be old. The valley filled up again slowly. But she was never quite tame. On autumn evenings, her children would see her walk up the road to the old houses at dusk, and come back hours later with grass in her hair. They knew better than to ask whom she had been visiting.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eWhen she was very old, she walked up the road one evening and did not come back. They found her sitting on the doorstep of the house where she was born, with her hands in her lap, as if she were waiting for someone to open the door.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eNow Ragna walks again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat she can do for you\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eRagna is the one to call on when:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eyour whole world has fallen apart, and you have to get through it and start again\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eyou live alone or feel very lonely, and want someone in the house who understands\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eyour home has old dead in it, sounds, doors, cold rooms, and you want them calmed or spoken with\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eyou have lost many people, or carry a grief no one around you understands\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ethere is an inheritance, a house or land that should be yours, and someone is trying to take it\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eyou want to protect your house against sickness and bad luck coming in, the old way\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eyou feel you have been made too tame, too quiet, too sensible, and want some of the wild back\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhat she is like\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eStrange and gentle. She is not like other spirits. People who knew her in life said there was something in her eyes that did not quite belong to this world. She is shy, easily startled and wary of anything loud. She speaks very little and listens a great deal. She laughs suddenly, at things no one else finds funny.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eShe is not afraid of death at all. She lived with it for years. But she is afraid of being left alone again, and once she has chosen a home, she does not want to leave it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow you’ll know she’s there\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eThe smell of hay, woodsmoke and wet grass. Doors you closed standing open. A chair pulled out from the table. Humming in another room. The faint sound of goat bells. Dreams of an empty valley in the fog, where smoke rises from just one chimney. And in an empty house, the feeling of being watched kindly by someone standing very still in the doorway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHow to work with her\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eYou can, but not nessecary: Once a week, set an extra place at your table, a plate and a cup, and leave a little of your meal on it. It is for her and for all the people she lost.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eTo protect the house, burn a little dried juniper and carry the smoke through every room, the way people did in Norway when sickness came. Ask Ragna to walk with you. She knows what it is to keep sickness out.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eShe likes bread, goat’s cheese or goat’s milk, a sprig of juniper, a piece of white linen, wild grasses, and a door left a little open at dusk. Speak to her softly, and do not be hurt if she takes her time. It took two days to catch her the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003eShe spent years setting the table for the dead. She would very much like to sit at a table with the living again.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHow your companion speaks\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYour companion can reach you through dreams, thoughts, words, feelings and images, through a pendulum, through warmth or cold, or through automatic writing. How soon that happens depends on the spirit settling into your home, on their willingness, and on your own ability to connect. Sometimes it begins before the vessel arrives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eBefore you choose\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEverything known about this spirit is on this page. There are no further images, details or hidden knowledge beyond what is written here, and a printed copy comes with your order. What you discover from there is yours alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pendant you receive is the exact one shown. This listing is for this one item only.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy buying, you confirm that you understand what it means to keep a spirit companion. Please read \u003ca href=\"\/pages\/help-faq\"\u003eHelp \u0026amp; FAQ\u003c\/a\u003e first. For my background and the story behind Grimrunes, see \u003ca href=\"\/pages\/about-hazel\"\u003eAbout Hazel\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e— Hazel\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Grimrunes","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54418248499528,"sku":null,"price":1100.0,"currency_code":"DKK","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0839\/6983\/5336\/files\/Billede_3_fd8756f0-5a5b-4ca6-b8df-e9496e276139.jpg?v=1793118245","url":"https:\/\/grimrunes.com\/products\/nordic-female-ancient-spirit-companion-ragna","provider":"Grimrunes","version":"1.0","type":"link"}