Diana L. Paxson, founder and Gythja of Hrafnar, is well-known as a pagan leader and the author of non-fiction books and fiction with pagan and legendary themes. She was consecrated as a priestess in 1982 and is an Elder in the Covenant of the Goddess, for which she served two terms as First Officer. After a close encounter with Odin in 1987, her focus began to turn more and more toward heathenry. In 1988 she started a rune class, which provided the basic material that became her first non-fiction book, Taking up the Runes. The next year, she worked with the group to recreate a ritual for oracular seidh and later to present it at local festivals.
Between 1992 and 2024 she was active in the Troth, an international heathen organization, in which she served in many roles, including editing one hundred issues of the Troth’s journal, Idunna. In the mid-nineties she began teaching workshops on oracular practice, and conducting workshops at conferences and festivals.
She is the author of seven non-fiction books: Taking up the Runes, Trance-Portation, The Way of the Oracle, Essential Asatru Citadel, Odin: Magic, Runes and Ecstasy, and Possession, Depossession and Divine Relationships. twenty-nine novels, of which The Wolf and the Raven, Dragons of the Rhine, The Lord Of Horses,and The Book of the Spear, have Heathen themes, and over a hundred short stories.
You can find out more about Diana and her work on www.diana-paxson.com.