Click the tartan to view its entry in The Scottish Registers of Tartans which includes registration details, restrictions, and registrant information.
Unregistered tartans may link to one of the web's online design environments for similar information.
For any questions about reproduction of designs or weaving of these tartans, please contact the registrant directly or via this website.
The Season of Yule
"To Odin many a soul was driven, to Odin many a rich gift given."
~ Snorri Sturluson
On this, the darkest day of the winter solstice, we reflect on ancient festivals and traditions steeped in mystery and wonder. Among them, we find Grim, one of the many names for Odin, the widely revered god of Scandinavian, Viking, and Germanic mythology. Over the centuries, more than 170 names have been recorded for Odin, each describing his manifold powers, attributes, and the religious practices that honored him. This enigmatic deity embodies wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet. His legacy endures, particularly in the name of Wednesday—Woden's Day—a testament to his prominence in language and culture.
On the mainland of Orkney, Scotland, the Standing Stones of Stenness, thought to be the oldest henge site in the British Isles and dating to Neolithic times, holds echoes of Odin's influence. One of these stones, the Odin Stone or Stone o' Odin, stood as a pair with another around 3000 BC. Tragically, the remaining Odin Stone was toppled and allegedly destroyed by a landowner in 1814. Its original location was forgotten for centuries, until archaeologists rediscovered its socket hole in 1988. While evidence of Norse burial rites in Scotland exists, there is little to suggest that Norse gods were venerated before the reintroduction of Christianity. It is likely the Odin Stone derived its name and associations later, serving as an "oathing stone."
Renowned for its miraculous healing powers, the Odin Stone was the center of many "magical" rites, offering protection, cures, and health in old age. Beyond its mystical reputation, the stone gained fame for its role in sealing agreements and binding marriages. Visitors from across Orkney, particularly young lovers, would clasp hands through the stone’s hole to swear the "Odin Oath," making their vows unbreakable. Though the exact words of this solemn oath are lost to time, it was considered binding and sacred well into the 18th century. 💙 🤍 🤎 🌲 🕯️
References to Odin appear in place names throughout regions historically inhabited by the ancient Germanic and Scandinavian peoples.
Designed by Mikael Öst, of Helsingland, Sweden, Helsingland is an old spelling of Hälsingland. landscape/region in the middle of Sweden, one of many places with a legacy of ancient influcences.
According to the designer's notes:
Grim is another name for Oden or Odin, in Old Norse Óðinn, a god from the Scandinavian Viking mythology. Helsingland is an old spelling of Hälsingland a landscape/region in the middle of Sweden.
Odin veneration, part of the polytheistic Anglo-Saxon paganism (itself a variant of Germanic paganism) is found across much of north-western Europe, encompassing a variety of beliefs and cultic practices which were introduced to Britain following the Anglo-Saxon migration in the mid 5th century. This remained a dominant belief system until the Christianisation of its kingdoms between the 7th and 8th centuries, with some aspects gradually blending into folklore.
In the latter decades of the ninth century during the Late Anglo-Saxon period, Scandinavian settlers arrived in Britain, bringing with them their own, kindred pre-Christian beliefs. Although no cultic sites used by Scandinavian pagans have been archaeologically identified, it is believed that place names suggest some possible examples. For instance, Roseberry Topping in North Yorkshire was known as Othensberg in the twelfth century, a name which derived from the Old Norse Óðinsberg, or 'Hill of Óðin'.
Place names containing Wodnes- or Wednes- as their first element have also been interpreted by some scholars as references to Woden, such as the basis for such place names as Woodnesborough ("Woden's Barrow") in Kent, Wansdyke ("Woden's Dyke") in Wiltshire, and Wensley ("Woden's Woodland Clearing" or "Woden's Wood") in Derbyshire..
The name Woden also appears as an ancestor of the royal genealogies of Kent, Wessex, East Anglia and Mercia, resulting in suggestions that after losing his status as a god during the Christianisation process he was recast as a royal ancestor.
Though not widely accepted by all place-name scholars, Odin's alternate name, Grim, may be reflected in such English place-names as Grimspound in Dartmoor, Grimes Graves in Norfolk and Grimsby ("Grim's Village") in Lincolnshire – because in recorded Norse mythology, the god Óðinn is also known as Grímnir.
Scottish place names attributed to the same derivations include:
Edin's Hall Broch, Berwickshire, sometimes Odin's Hall Broch and originally Wooden's (Woden's) Hall
Grim's Dyke - another term used for the Antonine Wall
Woden Law - "Woden Hill", an Iron Age hillfort in the Cheviots.
In Norse and Germanic mythology creation stories, under Woden’s supervision, the earth and sky were created from the dead body of a giant named Ymir. Woden also created the first man and woman from an ash tree and an alder.
For more on the Odin Stone, click the painting of The Wild Hunt of Odin, by Peter Nicolai Arbo, 1872.