Swain Wodening’s Blog

In ancient Heathenry, land wights were worshiped at water falls, boulders, trees, and other things of beauty in nature. When I was on the farm, I had plenty of places to leave land wight offerings. There was the big hill at the back of the place. Then there was the crook in the creek that was especially scenic. And there were countless trees in the seventeen acres of woods. When I moved into the city, if I was lucky, I had a tree in the yard to leave offerings at. This is what I did when I lived in Columbia, and again when I lived in Texas. Once I moved back to Missouri though, I thought I would try something different. While I do have a big poplar tree in back of the house (the tallest in town), I wanted more places to leave offerings. Enter, the gnomes. I have always been a fan of garden gnomes. While I do not collect them, I do own a few. It occurred to me that gnomes are what I pictured land wights in human form as looking like. Maybe it was years of fairy tales as a kid that made me think this, but regardless, I started leaving offerings to land wights at the gnomes. I have been doing it for two years now, and with great success. My tomato plants even at this late date still have green cherry tomatoes on them. Things have went so well with the land wights that I brought two of them inside and was gifted with a third that I use to represent the house wights.

Now, I am not suggesting everyone use gnomes to represent land wights. Indeed, I think a tree or rose bush would be the preferred place to leave offerings. But if one is devoid of plants, rocks, and have the simple suburban flat yard without any vegetation but grass, gnomes and other garden statues are ideal. If such is your case that all you have is grass, you may wish to put in a flower garden. Then add a few garden statues. It needn’t be gnomes, it could be almost anything, even a large pretty rock. Not only will they improve the beauty of your property, but their beauty may attract land wights to your home.