Hexennacht: The Night Between Fires

By Desirée Alwine, RFU Recovery Team Leader

Hexennacht, or “Witches’ Night" as it’s often called today, sits on the edge of April and May, right where spring stops whispering and starts stretching its limbs. Fires are lit, strange things are said to stir, and the veil between the ordinary and the slightly less ordinary feels thinner than usual.

You won’t find “Hexennacht” neatly written in the Poetic Edda or laid out in a tidy stanza of the Prose Edda. Our ancestors didn’t leave us a checklist labeled “Night of Witches: Do This.” What they did leave us is a worldview.

For early Germanic and Norse peoples, this time of year was a threshold: Winter was truly losing its grip. The land was waking up. Boundaries (seasonal, spiritual, and social) were shifting, and when boundaries shift, people get cautious. Fires were lit for warmth, and to ward, mark, and claim space. Communities gathered for celebration, and because being alone on a liminal night felt like a bad idea.

While the name itself is later (more Central European, German folklore), the themes echo in the broader tradition. In Hávamál, there’s constant warning about watchfulness, unseen dangers, and the need for awareness. In the sagas, we see repeated concern with night travel, spirits and ill-will, and the importance of guarded space. In cosmology, the movement between states (night/day, winter/summer) is always treated as meaningful and never neutral.

So what is Hexennacht, really? Think of it less as a fixed ancient holiday and more as a night where the old instincts kick in. A night to light fires, keep close to your people, acknowledge that the world is changing...again. In simple terms, Hexennacht isn’t about broomsticks and caricatures, it’s about transition, caution, fire, and awareness.

A night when the land shifts, the unseen feels closer, and you remember that the world is bigger than what you see in daylight.