Krakaþræla Véorr — The Raven-Bound Storm Rite of Hålogaland.

This esoteric rite, referred to as Krakaþræla Véorr or "The Binding of Storm by Raven-Thrall," was a clandestine ritual aimed at summoning storms, fog, frost, and dark weather through raven sorcery. The practitioners, often women, would don raven-feather cloaks and perform the ritual atop cliffs or carved platforms (seiðhjallr), invoking the raven as a spirit-guide and storm-harbinger.

In the northernmost reaches of ancient Norway, beyond the deep glacial folds of the Tysfjord and along the black coastlines of Hålogaland, the weather was not merely endured—it was summoned, shaped, and suffered like a living god. Among the seiðkona and seiðmaðr of this tempest-born region, the ability to manipulate the elements was not considered metaphor, myth, or mere madness—it was a dangerous, revered form of spirit-work, known and feared across kin-clans and fjord-folk alike. This was no light spellcraft, no hearthside charm. This was hrafnseiðr, raven-sorcery: the conjuration of dark weather, the luring of cloud and storm, the very wrangling of the skies.

Seiðr, in its rawest and most unflinching form, was the province of the outsider—female, queer, shunned, feared, or divine. Odin, the Allfather, learned it from Freyja and bore the shame of its effeminacy to wield its terrifying power. Yet in the cold, salt-bitter lands of Hålogaland, there were those for whom seiðr was more than a divine art—it was survival, domination, and identity. There, among cliff-top cairns and iron-grey fjords where ravens fed on frostbitten corpses, storm-workers gathered in silence, with cloaks of bone and beak, to call down darkness with the voice of birds and blood.

The rite recorded herein—Krakaþræla Véorr, or "The Binding of Storm by Raven-Thrall"—is one such example of that lost tradition. It is reconstructed from oral echoes, Icelandic and Norwegian sagas, archaeological clues, and comparative studies of Sámi noaidi weather rites, which often interlaced with Norse seiðr through cultural osmosis and shamanic exchange. While little of this sorcery survives in clean lines or sanitized verses, its bones remain—in fragments of saga, in cursing stones unearthed beside fjords, and in the black-feathered mythic symbols that still hover in the twilight of northern skies.

Where modern neopagan reconstructions might reach for aesthetic or affirmation, this rite dives headlong into the ancient worldview of fearsome necessity. The storm was a weapon, a curse, a herald of death—but also a guardian, a veil, a cleansing force. When farmers prayed for sun, the seiðkona in her cloak of feathers prayed for fog. When war-parties needed the cover of rain, she raised her staff and whispered to the ravens.

This conjuration is not metaphor. It is not romanticism. It is a restoration of ancestral sorcery, performed by those who knew how to speak the language of the unseen world and survive the consequences. What follows is a detailed, historically grounded rite—reconstructed and written in both Old Norse and English—for summoning storms, calling fog, beckoning frost, and commanding the black breath of the void through raven-guided seiðr. It is not written for safety. It is written for power.

Raven-Associated Deities in Norse Mythology

The raven holds significant symbolism in Norse mythology, closely associated with several deities:

• 1. Óðinn (Odin) – The Raven God par excellence

  • Odin is inseparable from ravens. His two thought-and-memory birds, Huginn (“Thought”) and Muninn (“Memory”), fly over the worlds each day and report back to him.

  • In skaldic poetry, ravens are also a battlefield kenning (carrion birds). Odin as a god of war, death, and knowledge is constantly evoked as “raven-god” (hrafnaguð).

  • Ravens symbolise his role as a god of hidden knowledge and necromantic wisdom (seiðr), as well as the chooser of the slain.

  
  2. Valfreyja / Freyja

  • Although not directly named with ravens in surviving sources, Freyja as leader of the Valkyrjur (“choosers of the slain”) is indirectly linked to them. Valkyries are described as appearing on battlefields where ravens feast.

  • Some late folklore and poetic kennings blend her with a battle-goddess whose cloak of feathers can be raven-black, though swan feathers are more common.

  • Her magical practice (seiðr) is also the same art Odin learned, deepening the raven/necromancy connection.

  
  3. Valkyrjur (Valkyries)

  • Individually and collectively the Valkyries have the strongest non-Odinic raven connection. In Helgakviða Hundingsbana and Darraðarljóð, they are portrayed weaving the fates of warriors while ravens circle overhead.

  • Some are even given names meaning “raven” or “black” in variant lists.

  
  4. Hrafnaguðinn / Hrafnagud – Epithets and minor spirits

  • Various poetic epithets mention “raven-gods” or “raven-spirits.” These are not deities per se but land-spirits, fylgjur (guardian spirits), or personifications of Odin’s carrion birds.

  
  5. Angrboða (Angrboða)

  • Angrboða is not described with ravens in the surviving mythic corpus, but she can be thematically tied to them:

    • She is a jötnakona (giantess) dwelling in the Ironwood (Járnviðr), a place where “witches feed Fenrir’s brood” (Völuspá 40).

    • The Ironwood is filled with monstrous wolves and “crow-black” creatures; some later esoteric and folkloric traditions link her as a death-crone or witch feeding carrion-birds.

    • Modern heathen and magical interpretations often draw on this imagery to associate her with ravens as omens of blood, death, and monstrous births, paralleling the battlefield ravens of Odin but in a more chthonic, witch-mother sense.

  
  6. Other Figures Sometimes Given Raven Associations

  • Hel, Angrboða’s daughter, as the death goddess: dark feathers, carrion, and birds of the corpse-field are natural symbolic companions.

  • Skuld (a Valkyrie/Norn hybrid in some texts) sometimes depicted as raven-winged. 
    
    
    
    

    
    

The Ritual: Krakaþræla Véorr

A. Time and Place

• Lunar Phase: New Moon (niðamyrkr), invoking chaos and concealment.

• Time: From civil twilight to deep night.

• Location: High sea cliffs, storm-formed hills, or megalithic cairns where ravens nest.

B. Tools and Ingredients

• Raven-feather cloak (hrafnkufl)

• Blackened seiðr staff inscribed with Hagalaz, Isa, and Ansuz runes

• Raven skull anointed with blood and ash

• Bowl of fermented crowberry wine mixed with grave dirt and stormwater

• Nine obsidian or flint shards for the outer circle

C. Preparation

1. Fast for nine hours, consuming only snowmelt, stormwater, mountain stream or rainwater.

2. Paint runes on the body using charcoal, bone ash, and raven blood.

3. Place the raven skull on a carved rock altar facing north.

4. Arrange the nine stones in a spiral pattern representing the nine nights Óðinn hung on Yggdrasill.

D. Conjuration Chant

In Old Norse:

“Hrafn, hrafn, blás vind af norðr, kald sem dauði, fljóg af þoka! Komi él, komi regn, komi myrkr og snjór af skugga! Hörgr brennr, hjarta óttast ekki, veðr mitt hlýðar!”

Translation:

"Raven, raven, blow wind from the north, cold as death, fast as fog! Let hail come, let rain fall, let darkness and snow rise from shadow! The altar burns, the heart fears not, the weather shall obey me!"

Repeat the chant in an escalating tone while striking the staff to the ground.

Trance and Spirit-Binding

• Enter a trance through breathwork and wine infusion.

• Summon ravens as messengers; interpret their cries as oracles.

• Spiritually project into the cloud mass to "untie the veil" that holds back the storm.

• Repeat the name of the storm (revealed through vision or raven call) 3, 9, or 27 times, depending on the desired magnitude.
  
  

  In many magical traditions (Norse included), to know the name of a spirit, weather-being, or elemental force is to have power over it. When a seiðkona or seiðmaðr refers to naming the storm, they may be:

  • Invoking the storm's spirit-form (a vættir or vindandi) by its secret name.

  • Calling on a specific storm entity, e.g., Hrævaþrumr (“Corpse-Thunder”) or Fjǫrgýnsbani (“Slayer of Fjǫrgyn's Kin”), as one might call a god, giant, or daemon.

  • Commanding the storm by declaring or bestowing its name, which binds it into form—“naming” as creation and control.

  Some historical and reconstructed rites (especially those involved with seiðr) involve giving the storm a ritual name during the conjuration—symbolic and potent—such as:

  “Ek kalli þik, Þursmóðirgrár, skýjaþræll ok fjǫrnefnd hræsvelgrs!”

  ("I call you, Grey Mother of Trolls, cloud-slave and death-named by Hræsvelgr!")

  This kind of invocation names the storm in the act of summoning it, granting it a unique identity for that working. 

Offerings and Sacrifice

• Perform bloodletting (a drop from the practitioner's palm) onto the skull.

• Burn a braid of hair and feather as a symbolic death-offering.

• Pour wine in four directions: North (wind), East (fog), South (hail), West (snow).

Closure and Grounding

• Extinguish the candle or ember by blowing.

• Speak the following in Old Norse:

“Sé ek í valhǫllum himins, sé ek á djúpum foldar, hér stendr órkraftr dimma, ek geng heim í skuggavǫrð.”

Translation: "I behold in the halls of the high heavens, I behold upon the deep realms of earth, here stands the primeval force of darkness, I journey home beneath the shadow-guard."

• Lay the staff on the ground; bury the skull.

Explanation of Terms and Complexity:

• Valhǫll here is used metaphorically as “halls of the high heavens,” evoking the divine realm yet avoiding Christian connotations—more like the abode of gods or exalted spirits.

• Djúpr foldar means “deep realms of earth,” invoking the layered mysteries of Midgard and the underworld.

• Órkraftr dimma — “primeval force of darkness,” a powerful term denoting raw, ancient energy, the primordial chaos or dark magic summoned by the seiðr practitioner.

• Skuggavǫrð — “shadow-guard,” representing both spiritual protection and the liminal threshold between worlds, where the sorcerer traverses.

 

Ethical Considerations and Consequences

Weather sorcery is perilous. Summoning a storm invokes the wild forces of nature and the dead. Misuse can lead to madness, famine, shipwreck, or spiritual backlash. Only those trained in raven lore and guided by the svartir andar (black spirits) should attempt this rite.

Conclusion

The Krakaþræla Véorr ritual exemplifies the profound and formidable nature of Norse raven sorcery. Rooted in the traditions of Hålogaland, this rite intertwines the elements of seiðr, raven symbolism, and weather manipulation. Practitioners must approach with reverence, understanding the gravity and potential consequences of invoking such potent forces.

References:

• Price, N. (2020). Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings. London: Allen Lane.

• Dillmann, F. (2006). Le Seidr: Etude sur la sorcellerie nordique. Dijon: Editions du Murmure.

• Gardeła, L. (2021). The Archaeology of Magic in Viking Age and Early Medieval Northern Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

• Simek, R. (2007). Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Translated by A. Hall. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

• Scandinavian Center for Shamanic Studies. (n.d.). The Legacy of Seidr. 

• Scandification. (n.d.). Ravens in Norse mythology: Your guide to the Viking raven. Retrieved from https://scandification.com/ravens-in-norse-mythology-viking-raven/

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