Hagalaz means hail – frozen rain, pieces of ice falling from the sky. It derives from the word hagal which means ice, and is an embodiment of cosmic ice, a force identified by the rune shamans as existing at one extreme of the cosmic-energy spectrum, across from its polar opposite, cosmic fire. As shamans from a variety of different traditions and cultures have known for millennia, cosmic ice can be found on Earth in its solidified form in the quartz crystal, which is a reservoir of focused energy, much like Hagalaz itself.
