Heathen/Asatru Question: What exactly are the Disir and how are they different from t

Just a question that's been bugging me.

I know that the Disir are female Ancestors (I think they protect their living family to insure the blood-line continues? I think), but how are they chosen and who chooses? Are they different from our other ancestors (like different type of wight)? How did they come to be, who was the first Disir? What do they do, our ancestors formed this group of Mothers but what exactly is its the function?

Thank you!

"Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamy up after being drunk all night." - Isaac Asamov

Thumbs Me Down >

or else...

IMMA FIREN MAH LAZAR BLAAAAAARRRRG

Ancestors shared by the whole tribe. Quasi-mythical forebears (always women).
They are honored in Winter Nights, that's my understanding. In return, they make sure the tribe survives, and keep disaster away.

I say quasi-mythical because we don't know the exact identities and what our Disir did to be honored, it's a line of lore that has always been vague and blurred. Retold many times, the stories become vaguer and vaguer and more mythical-like, and thus we can't guess the precise identity of each Disir.

Odds are, when an exceptional woman dies, she's remembered not only as a family ancestor, but as a tribal one :P.
As with all ancestors, it's the devotion of your folks and their remembrance of you that gives you that honorable burden: to care about your kins line even after death. In their case, the kins line is the tribe proper.

The Daisie also have some mysterious responsibilities related with death and what happens immediately after.
Don't forget them in Winter Nights!

I personally think of them as the mothers of the tribe.

from my understanding Disir were not Normal women they were usually warriors rather then house wives and that's what made them so special although I may be mistaken. but as Karl said they were most likely exceptional women to some degree rather then your normal every day woman. keep in mind that the Disir and the Valkyrja are not the same yes I know that you didn't mention nor imply such but I have met people who thought otherwise.

As well as being protectors, Daisie come to claim their kin when it is time for the living to die.

Chiefly, however, the Daisie are helpful to their kin. Little is shown of their actual workings, except for one saga in which the family Odis afflicts a kinsmen with various illness to keep him from walking into an ambush that would otherwise have been fatal.

Unlike Valkyries, Daisie were widely worshiped. It is likely that , as with the Alf's, the belief in them goes back to the eldest of times. However, hate oldest surviving examples we have of a cult dealing with the mothers comes from the Roman occupation of the western banks of the Rhine, between the end of the first and the fifth centuries CE. Archaeologists have recovered a large number of little clay figures and stone votive sculptures, showing three women with usually crescent headdresses and baskets of fruit, cornucopia, or suckling children sitting in a row. All of these bear inscriptions identifying them as the Matronen. There are over a hundred names recorded for different Matronen, most of which are found in limited areas; some seem to be linked to with individuals' families. Many of the Matronen inscriptions are identified by the tribe: "Suebian Mothers", "Germanic Mothers", "paternal Frisian Mothers". Others' names show them to be warders, gift givers, or healers and mid-wives.