Heathen Elements in Wagner's Lohengrin

The tension between Christianity and the old Germanic heathen faith is present in all of us of Germanic ancestry and this is the consequence of the forced conversion of the Germanic peoples to this alien desert religion, often the result of the lack of faithfulness and downright treason of their kings and chieftains. Those of us who have children and raise them in the spirituality of our ancient Gods will thankfully not transmit this inner tension onto our sons and daughters who will grow to become genuinely free heathens, not exposed to the direct or indirect Christian indoctrination that more often than not occurs in schools. By home schooling children or failing that, taking them out of worship assemblies and Religious Education classes we protect them from the tyranny of monotheism.

This inner tension as I term it may be found in the operas, or more correctly, the music dramas of Richard Wagner. Whether this tension between the two religions was consciously or unconsciously woven into the fabric of these works, I am unsure. One particular work that has occupied my attention and meditation in recent years is Lohengrin. This is one of his earlier works, first performed in 1850. This was during Wagner's revolutionary phase; revolutionary in the political sense of the term. Of course we know that Wagner was a music revolutionary as well!

Lohengrin unlike some of his other works was grounded in history. It was a skilful blend of German history and elements of Germanic mythology although one must look beneath the surface a little bit to understand this. In Act 2 Scene 2 we have a scene which focuses on a confrontation between the heroine of the work, the obviously Christian Elsa who was to marry the swan knight Lohengrin, the son of Parsifal. Ortrud is portrayed by Wagner as the scheming wife of Friedrich von Telramund, Count of Brabant. In essence in this scene we have the conflict between the new and alien religion of Christianity and the heathenism of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples as Ortrud calls upon the ancient Gods:

"Entweihte Götter! Helft jetzt meiner Rache! Bestraft die Schmach, die hier euch angetan! Stärkt mich im Dienste eurer heil'gen Sache! Vernichtet der Abtrünn'gen schnöden Wahn! Wodan! Dich Starken rufe ich! Freia! Erhabne, höre mich! Segnet mir Trug und Heuchelei, dass glücklich meine Rache sei!"

Ortrud invokes the Gods Wodan and Freia. It should be noted that Wagner chose the Wodan form of Wotan, quite possibly because the Duchy of Brabant is situated in modern day Belgium and is mainly Flemish. It was part of the First Reich or the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The First Reich included within its borders all of Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, parts of Eastern France, northern Italy, Slovenia and western Poland so much of this empire was genuinely Germanic. Wodan was predominately used by Dutch, Flemish and Platt Deutsch (Lower Saxon) speakers. Freia amongst the continental Germanic tribes embodied the attributes of the Norse Frigga and Freyja as it is believed by many scholars that this deity was once regarded as a single unified Goddess and I am inclined to agree.

The concept of the swan knight is rooted in both Germanic and Celtic mythology and it is interesting how this theme is melded with the concept of the Grail which is rooted in Celtic mythology and ultimately Proto-Indo-European. Anne Ross in her excellent Pagan Celtic Britain (1967) points out the solar nature of the swan in the solar cults of the Bronze Age which continues into the legends of mediaeval Europe. In Germanic mythology we may recall the stories of swan maidens such as in the legend of Wayland the Smith. It would appear to be an inheritance that is common to both the Germanic and Celtic peoples and thus probably signifies a joint inheritance from Proto-Indo-European times. Anne Ross makes the observation that the legends of mediaeval Ireland and the Germanic countries feature chain or boat pulling swans that have the ability to make music. She concludes that the longevity of this theme is indicative of their origins in Pre-Celtic Europe which illustrates their great heathen antiquity. This is a subject which is worthy of further exploration. Certainly the similarity between the Celtic and Germanic legends in relation to swans points to a common Indo-European inheritance.

The swan solar motif is not confined to the Celto-Germanic cultural area but can be found in other lands settled by Aryans such as India:

"The Irish gods and the Celestial Rishis of India take the form of swans, like the swan-maidens when they visit mankind."(Indian Myth and Legend, 1913, Donald A. Mackenzie)

Some scholars seek the origins of Lohengrin in the Anglo-Saxon myth of Skeaf, the culture-bringing hero of the Anglo-Saxons:

"Scholars are now universally agreed that the origin of the Swan-Knight story is to be found in the myth of Skeaf, the reputed ancestor of the Anglo-Saxons. This legend relates how to the shores of these, our own ancestors, there drifted a rudderless boat, in which, cradled on a sheaf of corn, and surrounded by arms and treasure, there lay a sleeping child. To the child the Angles gave the name of Skeaf, from the sheaf of corn on which he lay. Grown to manhood he became their king, and from him they learned the arts of peace and of war. At length the king died, and obedient to his will they bare the body to the seashore, laid it again in the ship which had brought him hither, and the vessel and its burden drifted away into the unknown distance. From Skeaf sprang a mighty race of kings, and the folk were fain to believe that this mysterious ancestor of their rulers had been in truth a god." (Legends of the Wagner Drama, 1900, Jessie L. Weston)

Recently on rereading an article by Wulf Ingesunnu's in the Sword of Wayland (Black Front Press, 2016) I saw a reference by Wulf which linked the God Hoenir to the stork who in fairytales is responsible for delivering new born babies to their parents. Jessie Weston also links Hoenir to a bird but this time both the stork and the swan:

"Some scholars hold that Hoenir himself may have been a personification of the swan, or stork, the white water-bird, and translate aurkonungr as 'lord of the ooze.' Cf. Corpus Poeticum Boreale, Introduction, p. cii. The origin of the myth is certainly extremely ancient, and involved in great obscurity." (Legends of the Wagner Drama)

She relates a tale from the Faroe Islands in which a peasant, playing a game of skill with a giant has to forfeit the life of his son if he is unable to hide the child. He calls upon the aid of Odin, Hoenir and Loki. It is Hoenir who is successful in hiding the child by transforming him into a piece of down and concealing him in the neck of a swan. she consider that Hoenir is a spring or light God.

The Concept of Scripture Within a Germanic Heathen Context

We often hear the phrase 'religion(s) of the book' and this is always applied to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The 'book' referred to are the collective scriptures of the aforesaid religions. The Christian Bible incorporates the Hebrew Bible, referred to by Christians as the Old Testament and adds to this the four canonical gospels, the various epistles (letters) and the rather strange Book of Revelation. What is not common knowledge amongst non-Christians and even amongst many Christians is that there is a collection of other scriptural books known collectively as the Apocrypha. The original King James Bible which is also known as the Authorised Version contained the Apocrypha and this was sandwiched between the Old and New Testaments. The same can be said for the Geneva Bible which was published in its entirety in 1560, 51 years before the King James Bible. However this was not the first English Bible for that dubious honour belongs to the Great Bible, authorised by Henry VIII in 1539. Prior to this only parts of the Bible had been translated into English, namely the Tyndale New Testament (1525) and the Pentateuch (1530) which are the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The Apocrypha consists of the following books:

1 Esdras
2 Esdras
Tobit
Judith
Rest of Esther
Wisdom
Ecclesiasticus
Baruch
Epistle of Jeremiah
Song of the Three Children
Story of Susannah
The Idol Bel and the Dragon
Prayer of Manasseh
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees

It is quite rare to find the Apocrypha in later revisions of the English Bible (and there have been many in recent years) and you will struggle to find a King James Bible with one but not impossible and some of the books make for very interesting reading when approached from the perspective of comparative mythology, especially Bel and the Dragon! Whilst the Apocrypha is recognised as deuterocanonical which gives them a secondary status below that of the Old and New Testaments by both the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches it is virtually ignored by those Protestant Churches which broke away from the Church of England.

What is interesting is that the quite well known Book of Enoch is excluded from the Apocrypha and did not form part of the canon of scriptures of either Judaism or most Christian Churches apart from the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Churches and yet part of the book is referred to in the Epistle of Jude, a book which Martin Luther did not accept as scripture along with the Epistles of James and Hebrews and the Book of Revelation. However his followers ignored him on this point! The Book of Enoch contains much that may be useful for us to study as Armanen or esoteric heathens along with the Epistle of James and the Book of Revelation. Many other initiates have come to the same conclusion including the late David Lane. The biblical books here and there do contain obvious plagiarisms from Indo-European writings, spiritual systems and mythologies which do not fit into a Semitic mindset. In addition to the Apocrypha and the Book of Enoch we have the relatively recent discoveries of gnostic gospels:

Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Marcion
Gospel of Basilides
Gospel of Truth
Gospel of the Four Heavenly Realms
Gospel of Mary
Gospel of Judas
Greek Gospel of the Egyptians
Gospel of Philip
Pseudo-Gospel of the Twelve
Gospel of Perfection
Coptic Gospel of the Egyptians

There are also many other non-gnostic gospels that did not make it into the canon of biblical scripture but it is abundantly clear that the concept of what is 'scripture' amongst these so-called 'religions of the book' is a moot point and many of these writings are very far removed from traditional Christianity and reveal a gnostic and pagan influence.

As Germanic heathens we too have our own 'scriptures' although there is a general collective tendency to avoid use of this term but I believe that this feeling is more to do with our rejection of the Christian religion than any well thought through analysis. We have of course the Eddas which are divided into two collections of writings; the Poetic Edda also known as the Elder Edda, written down in the 13th century and ascribed to Saemundr the Learned although this is rejected by modern scholars. Apart from anything Saemundr lived from 1056-1133 and the Edda or Codex Regius (which forms part of this Edda) dates back to the 13th century. This Edda is older and distinguished from the Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) by being poetic in form. It is believed that Snorri either quoted from the Elder Edda or from a common and now lost source. The Elder Edda contains the mythological poems found in the Codex Regius but also additional material such as other mythological poems, e.g. the Rigsthula and also heroic lays such as those based upon Helgi and the Niflung Cycle. Sometimes one may find parts of the Elder Edda published in two volumes; one volume of mythological poetry and one of heroic poetry.

Both Eddas should be studied by heathens and it is advisable to study more than one translation of each Edda. It is even better if one were to study the Eddas in the original Old Norse language. To this end I have recently embarked upon a study of Old Norse as well as Modern Icelandic on which it is based. It is clear to me that from my analysis of various translations of the Eddas that there is at times a clear guesswork involved by the translator and for this reason I prefer to make my own best guess!

We are left with the important question of how do we view the Eddas? Do we view them simply as a  useful collection of old writings from which we may gain important information about our Gods or do we ascribe a certain sanctity to them? I have mentioned before in earlier articles on other blogs that there is a certain blasé attitude amongst some heathens today in terms of how they approach the Gods, as if they somehow have less power or deserve less respect that that of the Judeo-Christian god and I believe that this attitude may be explained in two ways. Heathens associate the Judeo-Christian god with a monotheistic, all powerful and universal god. However monotheism does not have its origins in Judaism but in Indo-European religions such as Hinduism and Zoroastrianism and Akhenaten's Great Hymn to the Aten (See A Son of God: The Life and Philosophy of Akhnaton, King of Egypt and Joy of the Sun: The Beautiful Life of Akhnaton, King of Egypt, Told To Young People, both by Savitri Devi). Secondly there is in these modern times a tendency to reject all authority whether this be the authority of the Gods or of man. Consequently the Eddas are seen to lack the authority of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. This may be attributed to a general trend towards the atomisation of individuals who divorce themselves from the notions of community and society. This idea is echoed in the words of the late Margaret Thatcher: "And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families." Whist individualism in itself is not a negative thing it has to be balanced towards our duties towards clan, tribe and race.

When heathens embrace the ancient Gods of their ancestors they do so with an attitude of conscious rejection of the Christian god and all aspects of the Christian religion. This is understandable and to an extent necessary. However we need to consider that the Christian religion underwent fundamental changes when it encountered our ancestors and certain accommodations were made to embrace heathens apart from the use of force, violence and law. This whole subject is analysed very thoroughly in a remarkable book which I read many tears ago by Dr James C. Russell-The Germanization of Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation, 1994. This work has been referred to by Edred Thorsson in his writings and I recommend this book to all my readers. The process of the Christianisation of the Germanic peoples was (contrary to the perception of many heathens) a two way process and ironically we can discover remnants of our pre-Christian beliefs in some of the rituals and practices of the mediaeval Christian Church if we know where to look! Another work which may be useful in this regard is Christianity: The Origins of a Pagan Religion by Professor Philippe Walther, 2006. On the issue of the Christ figure we have the much older work, Aryan Sun-Myths: Origin of Religion by Sarah E. Titcomb with an Introduction by Charles Morris, 1899. The more recent Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled by Acharya S, 2004 is also in my opinion required reading on the subject.

Much of what is written in the Eddas is composed in the third person about the Gods and heroes but some elements of the Eddas, most notably the Havamal and elements of Gylfaginning are in the first person and spoken by All-Father Odin Himself. The Havamal (Sayings of the High One) contains wisdom that has been learned by the God, in part through His many wanderings in Midgarth and thus this part of the Elder Edda deserves special study by the Wodenist/Odinist.

Within Hinduism there are many scriptures or sacred writings and the oldest are to be found in the Rig Veda which I have often quoted from in my blogs. The Hindu approaches these scriptures with reverence and rightly so for they are the oldest Indo-European writings and the oldest religious text in use! I leave you with this one thought to consider as heathens: do not the words of Odin deserve our reverence or is this attitude to be reserved only for the Christian 'god'?

The 'Fanatical Heathenism' of the Saxons and the Return to our Saxon Identity

The Saxon people were amongst the last of the Germanic peoples to be converted to Christianity. Unlike the Icelanders the Saxons fought to the death to preserve their heathen religion and overturn the advances of Christianity. Christianity had to be imposed upon the Saxons by fire and by the sword. They did not meekly agree by voting to swap religions as happened in Iceland in about 1000 CE.

Widukind (also known as Wittekind) led the Saxons in defence of their heathen religion against Charlemagne (Karl der Große) in the `Saxon Wars` from 777 to 785 CE. The rebellion against Karl`s Franks was no doubt precipitated by the disgraceful destruction of the Irminsul sanctuary in 772. Unlike many of the other Saxon nobles he refused to appear at Karl`s court in Paderborn in 777. The Frankish Annals refer to him as a `traitor` and an `insurgent`-words still used by today to demonise the opponents of the Zionist-American NWO.

The Saxons retaliated against the Franks (the NWO of the day) by destroying xtian churches, much like the  Vikings did a little later. Karl desperately wanted to incorporate the Saxon lands into his empire, much like the NWO is doing today in eastern Europe. Widukind`s companion and fellow Germanic heathen was the Danish Sigfred who was possibly the famous Sigurd Hring. The Nibelungenlied records an alliance of the Saxons and Danes against the Franks led by Siegfried. Gudmund Schuette in his Our Forefathers the Gothonic Nations Volume II refers to: 

"Saxon-Danish political co-operation against the Franks from the sixth to the ninth century."

Warfare between the Saxons and Franks intensified between the years 782-784 and this culminated in the Massacre of Verden, Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) in 782 when 4,500 Saxon rebels were captured and massacred for their refusal to capitulate to Karl and accept the alien religion of Christianity. National Socialist Germany honoured these heathen martyrs and a memorial known as the Sachsenhain (Saxon Grove) was erected in 1935 which still stands today. The memorial takes the form of 4,500 boulders to represent each of the martyrs beheaded by the butcher Karl.

Widukind translates as `child of the woods`. We are reminded of the English Saxon Robin i` the Hood, who was also considered to be an `outlaw`, fighting against foreign Norman domination and is also considered to be a Woden archetype.

So persistent was Saxon heathenism that in the 9th century a special baptismal vow, the Old Saxon Baptismal Vow had to be worded when converting the Saxons to Christianity:

"End ec forsacho allum dioboles uuercum and uuordum, Thunaer ende Uuôden ende Saxnôte ende allum thêm unholdum thê hira genôtas sint."

"'I renounce all the deeds and words of the devil, Thunaer, Wōden and Saxnōt, and all those fiends that are their companions."

 The Anglo-Saxons were likewise noted for their 'fanatical heathenism'.  Gudmund Schuette makes the interesting point that although the Angles were only a minority with the Jutes when compared to the more numerous Saxons yet it is their name rather than Saxon which was eventually adopted by the English nation. He speculates that this was because of the 'bad reputation' that the Saxons had because of their  'fanatical heathenism'. Today we should take this as a compliment!

Schuette throughout his work emphasises the 'fanatical heathenism' of the Saxons and this is something that we as Saxons or Anglo-Saxons today, who hear the call of the blood, which is none other than the call of the Gods should take heathen and racial pride in. Indeed I would go so far to say that as it is the Saxon element that predominately made up the Anglo-Saxons in England we as heathens should consider the abandoning of the name of  'English' once and for all. I will here enumerate my reasons for this:

1. The ethnic English are predominately Saxon in origin, not Anglian.

2. The Saxons unlike the Angles clung tenaciously to their natural religion. There were of course honourable and notable exceptions such as King Penda of Mercia.

3. English or Anglian is wrapped up in Christianity via Anglicanism. The two are almost synonymous.

4. Non-English immigrants and their decendants are increasingly identifying themselves as being not just 'British' (a civic nationality) but as 'English'.

5. One who is not Germanic can not possibly identify him or herself as Saxon and this helps to preserve both our ethnic and religious identity.

6. The term 'Saxon' alligns our racial and religious identity with that of our continental Germanic brethren and away from Zionist 'Britain'.

The Viking Raids: Heathen Germanic Vengeance?

Following on from my article The Fanatical Heathenism of the Saxons and the Return to our Saxon Identity  I would like to build further on my argument that the Saxon Wars against the Franks were of a religious nature. At about the same time we can see the beginnings of the `Viking` raids. The first one recorded in England was in the year 793 at Lindisfarne off the coast of Northumberland in the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. Lindisfarne is also called Holy Island and is today a very pleasant tourist attraction.

The Vikings were a sea faring people of North Germanic descent. They did not use this term to describe themselves as a folk. The noun `Viking` comes from the Old Norse fara í víking which means to `go a viking` or to `go on an expedition`. So originally Viking was something you did, not something you were. There was essentially no difference between the Anglo-Saxons and the Scandinavian Vikings genetically or culturally. We are really the same people. Prior to the Viking Age people thought of the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians as Vikings or pirates. They too were sea raiders from northern Europe and like the Vikings were heathen, worshippers of Woden and Thunor or Odin and Thor. This is probably why the Danes were so successful in integrating with the Anglo-Saxons when they settled here. The Old English for `Viking` is wicing and appears in literature for the first time in the 9th century poem Widsith.

                              siþþan hy forwræcon wicinga cynn

                                       My translation: "since they expelled the kin of the Vikings." 


J.R. Clark Hall`s A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary translates wicingsceathe as `piracy`. Wic or vik means a bay, inlet or creek in Old English and Old Norse and some 19th century scholars conjectured that the term could mean `bay king` or `sea king`. Another explanation could be the ing of the wic or vik, ie people of the bay. Certainly it conveys the meaning of seafarers and this is something that was particular to the North Germanic coastal tribes such as the Angles, Jutes, Frisians and some of the Saxons. England as we know it today would not exist if this was not the case.

By the time that the Vikings had begun their raiding in the late 8th century most of the English tribes had been converted to xtianity and experienced the same terror that the Britons must have faced in 5th century. The Vikings raids were essentially a repetition of what happened in the 5th to the 6th centuries with the raids and colonisation of the heathen Anglo-Saxons. The Vikings rejuvenated the Germanic blood of the Anglo-Saxons and brought again the Old Gods to England.Traditionally it is said that the Vikings were motivated by the lust for loot and the desire for new land but there is an equally valid argument that this was a continuation of the religious wars which started with the Saxons not long before on the continent. The German Saxons maintained their heathen religion far longer than the Anglo-Saxons in England and the Vikings raids could be seen as revenge for the Anglo-Saxons` betrayal of their racial Gods. It is significant that many of these bloodthirsty raids were aimed at religious institutions such as churches, monastaries and abbeys. Of course these were rich pickings for gold, silver and precious jewels but this does not explain the reason for the butchery of the clergy. It was clearly vengeance as the prayer of the xtians of the time demonstrate:

"A furore Normannorum libera nos, Domine," which translates as "From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord."

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports this for the year 793:

 "In this year terrible portents appeared over Northumbria and sadly affrightened the inhabitants: there were exceptional flashes of lightning, and firey dragons were seen flying in the air. A great famine followed soon upon these signs, and a little after that in the same year on the ides of June the harrying of the heathen miserably destroyed God's church in Lindisfarne by rapine and slaughter."

Of the raid of Lindisfarne in 793 Simeon of Durham states:

 "And they came to the church of Lindisfarne, laid everything waste with grievous plundering, trampled the holy places with polluted feet, dug up the altars and seized all the treasures of the holy church. They killed some of the brothers; some they took away with them in fetters; many they drove out, naked and loaded with insults; and some they drowned in the sea."

Quite hypocritically the English monk Alcuin who served at Karl the Butcher`s court at Aachen whilst commenting upon this raid said:

 "It is some 350 years that we and our forefathers have inhabited this lovely land, and never before in Britain has such a terror appeared as this we have now suffered at the hands of the heathen. Nor was it thought possible that such an inroad from the sea could be made."

This Karl was the same bastard who butchered 4,500 Saxons at Verden, Niedersachsen in 782 because they refused to bend the knee before him and his jewish `saviour`. I do not think that the timing of these Viking raids was a mere coincidence, but vengeance for what the xtians did to the Danes` heathen Saxon brothers.

Clearly he had a very short memory for these were the tactics of the Anglo-Saxons also! The Gods of the English were once more honoured in those parts of England where the Danes settled. The wearing of Thunor`s Hammer once again became popular. This practice did not originate with the Vikings as I have demonstrated in previous articles but they certainly revived it.