#hearg

I went into the woods today and built a hearg by the creek behind the house in honor of Mōdraniht.  The embroidery is an old goddess pattern and the horse represents  Hofvarpnir (Hoof-Flourisher), Gna’s horse with which she brings messages and hopefully prayers to Frigg.  I left offerings of bread, milk, and honey.

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Wikipedia:

Mōdraniht or Modranicht (Old English "Night of the Mothers" or "Mothers' Night") was an event held at what is now Christmas Eve by the Anglo-Saxon Pagans. The event is attested by the medieval English historian Bede in his 8th-century Latin work De temporum ratione. It has been suggested that sacrifices may have occurred during this event. Scholars have proposed connections between the Anglo-Saxon Mōdraniht and events attested among other Germanic peoples (specifically those involving the dísir, collective female ancestral beings, and Yule) and the Germanic Matres and Matronae, female beings attested by way of altar and votive inscriptions, nearly always appearing in trios.

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Horg

“þeir er hǫrg ok hof hátimbroðo” “Shrines and temples they timbered high” - Völuspá

A horg (Old Norse “hǫrgr”) is a sacrificial site or a form of altar in pre-Christian times in the Nordic countries and which roughly refers to a "stone pile".

In the poem Hyndluljóð, the goddess Frøya (Freyja) speaks favorably of Ottar (Óttar) for having worshiped her so faithfully by using a horg. Frøya details that the horg is constructed of a heap of stones and that Ottar often reddened these stones with sacrificial blood in dedication to her. Snorre Sturlason states that the horg is used in the veneration of the Åsynjene (female gods).

In the poem Vafþrúðnismál, it is also stated that many a horg and hov were dedicated to Njord (Njörðr).

A horg is considered different to a hov (from the Old Norse hof), commonly called a “temple”. A rough simplification is that horg were for outdoor rituals and hov for indoors worship.

Many modern day heathens within Scandinavia continue to use a stone set as a focal point for rituals conducted outdoors to this day.

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