Witch's Sanctuary: the hidden grove of Freya

The Witch's Sanctuary, in later years called the Sanctuary Grove, was the second great region of Midgard that Kratos and Atreus crossed into early in their journey from the Wildwoods. Sealed away behind a living wall of roots, the grove was the refuge of the Witch of the Woods, the woman the travelers would eventually come to know as Freya, once wife of Odin and Queen of the Valkyries. Her home lay sheltered beneath the belly of Chaurli, a giant tortoise whose shell carried a towering red leafed tree, and her gardens held the herbs with which she healed her wounded friend, the boar Hildisvini.

The hunt for the golden marked boar#

Not long after leaving the Wildwoods, Kratos and Atreus took up the trail of a large boar unlike any ordinary beast of the forest, its hide traced with thin lines of glowing gold. Father and son pursued the animal through the trees for some time before Atreus finally landed the crippling shot. It was then that the hunters heard a woman screaming at the boy for hurting the creature. Fearing for his son, Kratos ran toward the sound and, after passing through a tight corridor of stone, reached the entrance of the grove, where the pair came face to face with the Witch of the Woods herself. She rebuked their violent antics and told them plainly that the boar, Hildisvini, was no quarry but her friend, now bleeding out from the wound in his right side.

With Kratos helping to keep the animal alive under her guidance, the Witch revealed the way into her sanctuary. A living wall of roots barred the path, and at her gesture the roots bent and receded, opening onto a garden unlike anything in the frozen country around it.

A grove apart from winter#

Where the lands Kratos and Atreus had crossed were earthen and snowbound, the Witch's Sanctuary was a bright splash of color. Rich foliage decorated the garden, and the creatures within it lived without fear. An elk bearing the same golden markings as the hunted boar grazed peacefully through the grounds, as did a second boar. Behind the Witch's home lay a number of smaller garden patches, and a river ran past them into the cavern system that wound beneath the grove. An old well within those caves climbed back up toward the house above, linking the depths to the garden.

The main feature of the sanctuary was Chaurli, a tortoise of enormous size. From his shell grew a massive tree that extended hundreds of feet above the ground, its canopy thick with bright red leaves, and beneath his belly stood the home of the Witch herself. When Atreus later greeted the great creature and gave him the name Chaurli, the boy's grasp of languages let him understand the tortoise's words, to the surprise of both Freya and Kratos, and to the father's visible irritation.

The healing of Hildisvini#

To save the wounded boar, the Witch sent Kratos into her gardens for two plants. The first was Lamb's Cress, a white petaled flower growing in a patch of grass to the left of the back door of her home, and the second was Red Root, found on the opposite side near Atreus. Kratos helped his son retrieve the root, reprimanding the boy for his forgetfulness in leaving his mother's knife behind, and the two returned to the Witch, who completed the healing salve and saved Hildisvini's life.

In return for their help, the Witch pressed a glimmering golden mark to the necks of both father and son. This was the Witch's Compass, a charm that would guide the travelers onward through the trials of their journey. Only later did Kratos and Atreus learn who their benefactor truly was. The Witch of the Woods was Freya, wife of the Allfather Odin and former Queen of the Valkyries, bound to the world of Midgard by Odin as punishment for breaking off her marriage to him. The grove was not merely her garden but the whole compass of her exile.

Returns to the grove#

The sanctuary remained a haven that Kratos and Atreus came back to as their journey unfolded. After Kratos took the severed head of Mimir from his imprisonment, father and son carried it back to the Witch's woods, arriving at the grove where Atreus greeted the giant tortoise by the name he had chosen for him. Within Freya's home beneath Chaurli, the travelers sought her aid once more.

The grove had sheltered Freya long before the Spartan's arrival. Sometime after she left Odin, she came across Chaurli in the Sanctuary Grove, and in exchange for her personal care the tortoise became her home, his body the roof over her walls and his warmth part of the life of the garden.

Neglect, Fimbulwinter, and the years after#

The grove's peace did not survive Freya's grief. After the death of her son Baldur, the vengeful goddess abandoned the sanctuary and Chaurli with it, leaving the tortoise to endure Fimbulwinter alone. His hearth went cold from years of neglect, and the creature was slowly freezing to death beneath the tree he carried.

It was Atreus who found him. Having run away from the house of Sindri after a bitter dispute with his father, the boy crossed back into Midgard and made his way through the storm, fending off Hel-Walkers and other horrors of the winter, until he came upon Chaurli near death in the abandoned grove. Atreus got inside Freya's home and built a fire in the hearth to warm the tortoise, telling his old friend that he could not stay but that the fire would last until someone else came to look after him. At the window appeared the raven Huginn, who had been expecting the boy, and at Atreus's asking the ravens carried him away toward Odin in Asgard.

After Ragnarok, Freya returned to the Sanctuary Grove and uneasily apologized to Chaurli for the neglect her quest for revenge had brought upon him. She did not resume her old exile there. Choosing to stay at Kratos's side in the work that followed the war, she offered her old home to Birgir, a weary Traveler warrior looking to retire from fighting. Birgir was reluctant to impose, but Freya insisted, and he remained in her house in the grove as Chaurli's caretaker, keeping the great tortoise company and musing that he might one day write a book.