Recently Aelfric Avery published a three volume set on the Armanen Runes. Some time ago I completed my first reading of volume 1, published by Lulu Books. I have not yet purchased the other two volumes in the set but I will do in due course.
Mr Avery is better known for his works on Gothic mythology and religion so it is good to see him turn his hand to the more esoteric works of the early 19th century. There is very little material which has been translated into English on the Armanen Rune masters. Thus far the most noted translators and reinterpreters have been Dr Stephen Edred Flowers (Edred Thorsson) and the 55 Club. I have occasionally translated some extracts of the more obscure literature on my blogs, most notably by Friedrich Bernhard Marby.
Mr Avery sets the groundwork for Armanism in volume 1 by giving a history of it and its main thinkers and pioneers, being Guido von List, Friedrich Bernhard Marby, Rudolf John Gorsleben, Siegfried Adolf Kummer, Karl Maria Wiligut and Peryt Shou as well as post war rune masters such as Karl Spiesberger, Adolf Schleipfer, Karl Hans Welz and Edred Thorsson. It may be argued that Marby was not an Armanen rune master as he did not work with the Armanen Futhorkh but the Anglo-Saxon/Anglo-Frisian Futhorc but nevertheless he was a rune master and had a deep influence on the Armanen tradition and was the originator of rune yoga or rune gymnastics, later developed by Kummer. Mr Avery does emphasise this point in his book. So for these reasons it is valid to include this great man within a work on Armanism.
Mr Avery discusses the relationship between Wotanism (von List) and Armanism, the thorny subject of National Socialism and the Armanen runes, the use of the term 'Aryan', Irminism, Aryan Kristianity, Hyperborea, Atlantis, the Midnight Mountain, ancient civilisations, Root Races, Vril, alchemy, the Holy Grail, Isais, the Black Sun, the Swastika and even Zoroastrianism. As far as I know Mr Avery is the first and thus far only published writer to link the Black Sun with the runes and to introduce the religion of Zoroastrianism in connection with Armanism. It should be noted that in recent years Dr Flowers has researched Zoroastrianism and published several books on how this religion may be adopted by modern day Indo-Europeans and magical practises within this tradition.
Volume 1 contains a great deal of hitherto untranslated material which is essential reading for all latter day Armanen and I have to say that Mr Avery's work is both old in the sense of the source material but at the same time refreshingly new with his ingenious interpretation. With this 3 volume set and his recent translation of Siegfried Adolf Kummer's Heilige Runenmacht (Holy Rune Might) this young man has established himself as someone to follow in the coming years. It is very rare to find a modern writer who is not shackled by false notions of political correctness and who is both a practicing heathen and an Armanen. This book may be purchased on Amazon, Lulu Books and ebay. Without the least hesitation I wholeheartedly endorse and recommend this incredible book to my readers.
Friday, 23 August 2019
Wednesday, 21 August 2019
The Fylfot (Swastika) in Anglo-Saxon England
We are told repeatedly these days that the swastika symbol has 'nothing to do' with the German or Germanic peoples and belongs originally to Hindu civilisation etc. This of course is a bare faced lie for there is ample evidence for the use of this symbol by many pre-Christian Indo-European peoples outside of India. For this article I intend to focus exclusively on its use by the Anglo-Saxon and Norse peoples.
Hilda Roderick Ellis Davidson refers to the use of the swastika or fylfot in Anglo-Saxon times in her remarkable Gods and Myths of Northern Europe (1964) and points out that it is to be found on funeral urns in pre-Christian England, especially in cemeteries in East Anglia. She points out the great care that was taken when carving the symbol with a high degree of precision so this symbol clearly had particular significance for our ancestors. She associates this symbol with Thunor, the Anglo-Saxon variant of the Norse Thor and by inscribing the fylfot on urns our ancestors were asking for Thunor's protection of the dead person. Likewise David Wilson comes to the same conclusion in his Anglo-Saxon Paganism (1992).
It needs to be remembered that Thunor or Thor is a God who is most closely associated with protection and the wearing of the hammer or axe amulet gives the wearer a feeling and consciousness that He walks before, behind and along side us. It is clear from the Eddas that Thor was invoked on at least three special occasions in the lives of His followers: birth, marriage and death. We know that many children were named after Thor in pre-Christian Iceland and Scandinavia. Often names incorporated 'Thor' as a prefix. It must be pointed out that probably no one would have been called 'Thor' but 'Thor' was included as part of a given name, e.g. Thorolf, Thorbjorn, Thorgrim, Thorgeir, Thorkel, Thormod, Thorsten, Thorvald, etc. Davidson points out that the hammer was "used to hallow the new-born child who was accepted into the community" (page 80).
Thor presided over marriage rites. A hammer would be placed on the lap of the bride which symbolically was a request for Thor to bless the woman with fertility. In the Lay of Thrym (Thrymskvida) in the Poetic Edda we have the story of how Thor won back His hammer from the giant Thrym by presenting Himself as the giant's bride. The hammer is placed into the hands of Thor as part of the wedding ceremony so what we have here is the mythological origin of this marriage ritual. Some scholars have drawn analogies between this and the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale recorded by the Grimm brothers. Bronze Age rock carvings in Bohuslan in Sweden show an axe wielding God standing over a couple which could be a very early pictorial depiction of a Thunder/Sky deity blessing a marriage.
Thor also presided over funeral rites. We already have evidence for the association of Thunor with funerary urns but there is also a story in Gylfaginning in the Prose Edda which relates the death and funeral of Baldr. Thor uses His hammer to consecrate the funeral fire.
In addition to the appearance of the fylfot on funeral urns the symbol also appears on Anglo-Saxon broaches, bronze belt mounts, sword hilts and Saxon sceatta coins. Germanic bracteates from Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Hungary also feature the fylfot, sometimes in association with the God Woden/Wodan/Odin. Many items recovered from the Anglo-Saxon Sutton Hoo ship burial also feature the fylfot.
* The image at the head of this article is that of an urn found in North Elham, Norfolk and dated to the 5th-6th century.
Tuesday, 20 August 2019
The United Kingdom and its Orwellian Advance Towards Mass Slavery
The subjugation of the English people is almost complete. CCTV cameras are everywhere, whether they are operated by private companies such as shops, shopping centres, local authority street cameras or mobile ones that are operated by the police. London itself is the most spied upon city in the world, even one place ahead in the rankings above Bejing in China. See: The Most Spied Upon Cities in the World As far as the United Kingdom as a whole is concerned 20% of the world's CCTV cameras are to be found in this country and yet the United Kingdom is only the 21st most populated country in the world, taking up a mere 0.87% of the global population.
Earlier this year there was a controversial case of the police stopping a man who refused to show his face to a mobile police recording camera. After stopping him the man continued to refuse to have his face filmed and he was consequently issued with a £90 fine for allegedly 'swearing' although the last time I checked there was no law on the statute book that outlawed swearing and I dare say he only swore when he had been unjustly stopped to begin with! This appears to have been an incident entirely initiated and provoked by the police. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of that particular case we have seen in recent years a tendency by the police to view ordinary members of the public as 'guilty' until proven innocent and an even more worrying tendency for certain forces to make up their own laws on the hoof!
An example of the police creating de facto as opposed to de jure laws is Nottingham Police in 2016 taking it upon themselves to classify wolf whistling as a 'hate crime'. Behind all of this is of course a group of feminists. Police forces have a statutory duty to uphold the law and apart from common law, law is made by Parliament, not by the police!
The now leader of the Liberal Democrat Party (a feminist with a shrill voice) is one of those politicians campaigning for 'misogyny' to become a 'hate crime'. You will note however that these feminists have little to say about misandry which is far more common. One only has to think of the stereotype of the 'nagging wife' to realise that there is some truth in what I say. Likewise a man is more likely to be a victim of 'domestic violence' than a woman and yet very little is said about this. For many years now I have been saying on my blogs that Aryan man must grow balls and take back mastery over his own hearth and bugger political correctness!
Returning to the issue of CCTVs and their ubiquitous presence, one only has to recall the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, originally published in 1949 but completed in 1948. In his work we have the infamous telescreen which operated both as a television and a security camera. A couple of years ago it was revealed that 'smart' televisions had the capacity to spy on you and indeed so does your laptop computer which is why I suggest that people disable the camera and microphone functions when they are not needed. Like the telescreen modern television is full of propaganda, whether this be overt such as the 'news' or more covert such as the social conditioning that we find not only in mindless soap operas for adults but BBC children's programmes. The CBBC channel is rife with this with bedtime stories telling toddlers that some families have two 'mothers' or two 'fathers'.
With the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act in 1998 for the first time in England, Scotland and Wales judges had the power to imposer longer prison sentences and larger fines if it could be established in court that an offence was motivated by 'hate' of the victim's race or religious affiliation. This went one step further than sections 3 and 3A of the Public Order Act of 1986 which outlawed for the first time 'hate speech'. Now we have the criminalisation of thought and THIS is Orwellian. We have moved from the criminalisation of an act to the criminalisation of words to the criminalisation of the thought. This was predicted by Orwell in his novel and the term that he coined for this was crimethink, although those who have not actually read the book refer to this as thoughtcrime. The terms crimethink and wrongthink are the ones actually used in the society portrayed in the novel.
Many years ago when I went through a phase of reading some of David Icke's earlier books I encountered Icke's use of the term 'internal policeman'. He talked about his theory that people do not always need the actual police to police their actions, words or thoughts for we do this ourselves. Social engineering and social conditioning have created one vast prison, a prison without bars in which we are as individuals so terrified of having unorthodox thoughts that we act as our own internal or psychological policeman and monitor and control our own thoughts lest we say or do something which would be frowned upon by society as a whole. The State no longer merely outlaws the act but our inconvenient and rebellious words and now our thoughts, with judges punishing us for having unorthodox thoughts. Crimethink has now become a reality and is on the statute book.
The organisation in Orwell's novel that enforced laws concerning crimethink were of course the Thought Police or to use the more correct term which appears in the novel, Thinkpol, and they used the surveillance systems of the day, not so much as to catch real criminals but to look for any deviation in behaviour or appearance from the masses. This is the main purpose of CCTV in the United Kingdom today. It is largely impotent in detecting or preventing crime. Instead it is a system that is being used (along with the Internet and 'smart' phones) to amass data on the whole population. The prime mover in this are the 'intelligence' (unfortunate use of the term-it reminds me of that other oxymoron 'military intelligence') agencies, in particular GCHQ whose main task is to not just monitor foreign and hostile 'enemy' communications but to spy on the general populace, something which they have been doing illegally for decades and yet no one has been taken to court over this. The courts are there merely to punish the masses who do not conform to the expectations of the (largely invisible) elite. Their love of fining people is an excellent way to raise funds for the Treasury instead of compensating the victim. As an aside when Woden's Folk appeared in most mainstream news outlets the other week this new blog of mine experienced a spike in visits as did those of my folk comrades. I am well aware that GCHQ and/or MI5 visit our blogs for their presence is detectable in the corresponding spike in Linux users in my blog statistics, an operating system which is used by less than 2% of the population but is standard for GCHQ! I do hope that their visits were not a complete waste of time and that they did learn something about Indo-European mythology!
Like the modern day police and 'intelligence' agencies Thinkpol orchestrate false flag operations and as part of this they infiltrate what they regard as 'subversive' organisations and influence others to commit offences. Usually the most suspect ones are the 'fanatics' who have very little if any prior history that can be checked. Undercover reporters who earn their living from lying to others and duplicity are often used by the authorities for purposes of infiltration and subversion and I have no doubt that they share information with them either willingly or under duress.
Returning to David Icke's theory of the internal policeman this in essence is the same thing as the Orwellian concept of doublethink, the ability to hold two contradictory opinions at the same time. This is essentially cognitive dissonance and ultimately it can result in only one thing-psychosis. This may help in part to explain the sharp rise in mental illness in recent decades. People en masse these days engage in doublethink without necessarily always being aware of it. With this kind of mass sociological and psychological control one can see why the government does not need to spend greater sums of money on expanding the 'intelligence' services.
The official term for the language of Oceania, the fictional superstate in which the novel is set is newspeak, an artificial language deliberately constructed in order to control the thoughts, words and ultimately the actions of the masses. It is no secret that this is the very same aim of political correctness which made its public appearance in the west in the 1970s and has gained a firm foothold since then. This ideology, initially promoted by Marxists is now mainstream and has infected every aspect of our lives. It effectively legitimises homosexuality, same-sex 'marriage', miscegenation, feminism and any other act or movement that harms Aryan society. Any prevailing lunatic theory gaining currency such as 'gender dysphoria' and people being allowed to 'choose' a gender is not only legitimised by the State and its institutions but those who oppose it are treated as social lepers or even criminalised. Even once rational people who like myself are old enough to remember a slightly saner world are infected by this neurosis and neurosis is exactly what political correctness is.
Newspeak is not only an artificial language created by the State but the size of its vocabulary shrinks every year, giving people less options for the words that they can use. This effectively limits freedom of thought as well. As with political correctness and Icke's internal policeman newspeak starts off with controlling our words and then our thoughts with the ultimate aim of discouraging unorthodoxy and rebellion against the State. This is why the laws introduced since the mid 1980s should cause us to speak out against this encroaching totalitarianism.
Propaganda was a central feature of how the party of the State, Ingsoc (English Socialism) operated. The primary means of disseminating propaganda (or lies) was via the telescreen and the press. We see the same methods used today by the State. Where the State does not own or control the media (e.g. the BBC) it works in cahoots with rootless millionaire media owners who likewise have a personal vested interest in preserving the lie so the same crap is turned out regardless of who owns a particular 'news' paper, television or radio company. The same type of people are recruited for these positions who have undergone the same type of education (brainwashing) in the cultural Marxist universities of the day and like paid whores will follow the 'party line' and not deviate from what they are told to write or speak. There is very little real journalism to speak of these days. More often than not a 'journalist' to save time, energy and work will simply copy and paste what they read on the Internet without any critical examination or any genuine right of reply when someone has been defamed by these creatures with their lies and slurs.
What is the purpose of all this brainwashing? To what end are we being manipulated? One of the aims is to create a compliant population, a compliant workforce, a nation of slaves. This process in England was initiated by William the Bastard and the Norman invasion and conquest of 1066 where most of our native nobles were deposed (apart from the traitors) and century after century of social conditioning has occurred since then. The extension of basic education and literacy to the masses was for two reasons and neither were altruistic. The first reason was that the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century required a greater number of skilled people and educated people who could function in administrative positions. Secondly with the emergence of 'news' papers in the 17th century the elite of the day realised that mass propaganda could very quickly be disseminated to the population as a whole but that this was contingent on mass education as well and this started to develop in the mid 19th century. My great great great grandfather was originally a schoolmaster in the 1830s and 40s prior to becoming a minister of religion. Being born in the 18th century he could only have received an education if his father, a Gentleman, paid for it. The vast majority of people at the time had little if no literacy and this no longer suited the economic system of the time or the elite. With the gradual extension of the electoral franchise in the 19th century there had to be a means of influencing the masses politically. This of course was the role of the press and eventually in the 20th century the radio and then television. For this reason the Internet is seen as a threat to the State for it has no regulatory control over it. Consequently many police forces will spend thousands of pounds in Council Tax payers' money 'policing' the Internet, searching for 'subversives'! Likewise GCHQ and MI5 will have teams of people engaged in checking what people like me write on our blogs and websites.
We have seen this week the publication of a report by The Centre for Social Justice (another oxymoron) titled Ageing Confidently-Supporting an ageing workforce. This piece of propaganda from an organisation which is chaired by that famous social justice warrior, Iain Duncan Smith (the Secretary of State who introduced the now infamous Universal Credit) and proposes (surprise, surprise) that the State pension retirement age should be increased first to 70 in 2028 and then 75 in 2035. This in effect would turn the entire country into a workhouse, a slave population where only a minority of people such as Duncan Smith could afford to retire whenever they wanted and I can guarantee that the likes of him will not be flogging their guts out on a building site at the age of 74! Any political party which attempts to support and adopt this insane and inhumane policy will be severely punished at the next general election and the Conservative Party effectively is supported by people who have already retired or are close to it. As the Americans say "do the mathematics"!
For a number of years now we keep hearing the mantra that 'we are all living longer' which in itself of course is a lie for we are not "all" living longer. As I have commented on other blogs before now, people are not living any longer than they ever used to do-they are simply not dying in infancy any more. This has extended the average life span but NOT the life expectancy which are two separate issues. Anyone like myself who has spent several years in ancestral research can tell you that nothing has changed in terms of life spans apart from the near eradication of infant mortality. We are being sold a lie and many are foolish enough to believe it. There may be more old and older people alive now but that is due to the spike in births after the war and extending to the early 1960s and the consequent reduction of births since then with the introduction of contraception and legalised child murder. Once these 'baby boomers' start to die off as we will, the population will begin to stabalise. In terms of 'affordability' of pensions if the HMRC were to pull their finger out and chase millionaires and large corporations for the tax that is owed to the Treasury instead of agreeing cosy deals behind closed doors then this recovered tax would more than offset the cost of old age pensions. However the Conservative government prefers instead to offer tax cuts to its rich financial backers than look after its elderly. The recent fiasco over the withdrawal of free television licences for the over 75s is indicative of that. Regardless of whether people are 'living longer' or not they are certainly not getting any healthier as the BBC keeps telling us about the burden that the elderly place upon the NHS! So there is a clear contradiction (cognitive dissonance) and a flaw in the arguments of these social justice warriors such as Duncan Smith. Likewise we are continually bombarded with propaganda that people actually want to work themselves to death. Everything you see is by popular demand!
I really do urge my readers to obtain a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four and to analyse it in depth for this is the blueprint of modern western government.
Earlier this year there was a controversial case of the police stopping a man who refused to show his face to a mobile police recording camera. After stopping him the man continued to refuse to have his face filmed and he was consequently issued with a £90 fine for allegedly 'swearing' although the last time I checked there was no law on the statute book that outlawed swearing and I dare say he only swore when he had been unjustly stopped to begin with! This appears to have been an incident entirely initiated and provoked by the police. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of that particular case we have seen in recent years a tendency by the police to view ordinary members of the public as 'guilty' until proven innocent and an even more worrying tendency for certain forces to make up their own laws on the hoof!
An example of the police creating de facto as opposed to de jure laws is Nottingham Police in 2016 taking it upon themselves to classify wolf whistling as a 'hate crime'. Behind all of this is of course a group of feminists. Police forces have a statutory duty to uphold the law and apart from common law, law is made by Parliament, not by the police!
The now leader of the Liberal Democrat Party (a feminist with a shrill voice) is one of those politicians campaigning for 'misogyny' to become a 'hate crime'. You will note however that these feminists have little to say about misandry which is far more common. One only has to think of the stereotype of the 'nagging wife' to realise that there is some truth in what I say. Likewise a man is more likely to be a victim of 'domestic violence' than a woman and yet very little is said about this. For many years now I have been saying on my blogs that Aryan man must grow balls and take back mastery over his own hearth and bugger political correctness!
Returning to the issue of CCTVs and their ubiquitous presence, one only has to recall the novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, originally published in 1949 but completed in 1948. In his work we have the infamous telescreen which operated both as a television and a security camera. A couple of years ago it was revealed that 'smart' televisions had the capacity to spy on you and indeed so does your laptop computer which is why I suggest that people disable the camera and microphone functions when they are not needed. Like the telescreen modern television is full of propaganda, whether this be overt such as the 'news' or more covert such as the social conditioning that we find not only in mindless soap operas for adults but BBC children's programmes. The CBBC channel is rife with this with bedtime stories telling toddlers that some families have two 'mothers' or two 'fathers'.
With the introduction of the Crime and Disorder Act in 1998 for the first time in England, Scotland and Wales judges had the power to imposer longer prison sentences and larger fines if it could be established in court that an offence was motivated by 'hate' of the victim's race or religious affiliation. This went one step further than sections 3 and 3A of the Public Order Act of 1986 which outlawed for the first time 'hate speech'. Now we have the criminalisation of thought and THIS is Orwellian. We have moved from the criminalisation of an act to the criminalisation of words to the criminalisation of the thought. This was predicted by Orwell in his novel and the term that he coined for this was crimethink, although those who have not actually read the book refer to this as thoughtcrime. The terms crimethink and wrongthink are the ones actually used in the society portrayed in the novel.
Many years ago when I went through a phase of reading some of David Icke's earlier books I encountered Icke's use of the term 'internal policeman'. He talked about his theory that people do not always need the actual police to police their actions, words or thoughts for we do this ourselves. Social engineering and social conditioning have created one vast prison, a prison without bars in which we are as individuals so terrified of having unorthodox thoughts that we act as our own internal or psychological policeman and monitor and control our own thoughts lest we say or do something which would be frowned upon by society as a whole. The State no longer merely outlaws the act but our inconvenient and rebellious words and now our thoughts, with judges punishing us for having unorthodox thoughts. Crimethink has now become a reality and is on the statute book.
The organisation in Orwell's novel that enforced laws concerning crimethink were of course the Thought Police or to use the more correct term which appears in the novel, Thinkpol, and they used the surveillance systems of the day, not so much as to catch real criminals but to look for any deviation in behaviour or appearance from the masses. This is the main purpose of CCTV in the United Kingdom today. It is largely impotent in detecting or preventing crime. Instead it is a system that is being used (along with the Internet and 'smart' phones) to amass data on the whole population. The prime mover in this are the 'intelligence' (unfortunate use of the term-it reminds me of that other oxymoron 'military intelligence') agencies, in particular GCHQ whose main task is to not just monitor foreign and hostile 'enemy' communications but to spy on the general populace, something which they have been doing illegally for decades and yet no one has been taken to court over this. The courts are there merely to punish the masses who do not conform to the expectations of the (largely invisible) elite. Their love of fining people is an excellent way to raise funds for the Treasury instead of compensating the victim. As an aside when Woden's Folk appeared in most mainstream news outlets the other week this new blog of mine experienced a spike in visits as did those of my folk comrades. I am well aware that GCHQ and/or MI5 visit our blogs for their presence is detectable in the corresponding spike in Linux users in my blog statistics, an operating system which is used by less than 2% of the population but is standard for GCHQ! I do hope that their visits were not a complete waste of time and that they did learn something about Indo-European mythology!
Like the modern day police and 'intelligence' agencies Thinkpol orchestrate false flag operations and as part of this they infiltrate what they regard as 'subversive' organisations and influence others to commit offences. Usually the most suspect ones are the 'fanatics' who have very little if any prior history that can be checked. Undercover reporters who earn their living from lying to others and duplicity are often used by the authorities for purposes of infiltration and subversion and I have no doubt that they share information with them either willingly or under duress.
Returning to David Icke's theory of the internal policeman this in essence is the same thing as the Orwellian concept of doublethink, the ability to hold two contradictory opinions at the same time. This is essentially cognitive dissonance and ultimately it can result in only one thing-psychosis. This may help in part to explain the sharp rise in mental illness in recent decades. People en masse these days engage in doublethink without necessarily always being aware of it. With this kind of mass sociological and psychological control one can see why the government does not need to spend greater sums of money on expanding the 'intelligence' services.
The official term for the language of Oceania, the fictional superstate in which the novel is set is newspeak, an artificial language deliberately constructed in order to control the thoughts, words and ultimately the actions of the masses. It is no secret that this is the very same aim of political correctness which made its public appearance in the west in the 1970s and has gained a firm foothold since then. This ideology, initially promoted by Marxists is now mainstream and has infected every aspect of our lives. It effectively legitimises homosexuality, same-sex 'marriage', miscegenation, feminism and any other act or movement that harms Aryan society. Any prevailing lunatic theory gaining currency such as 'gender dysphoria' and people being allowed to 'choose' a gender is not only legitimised by the State and its institutions but those who oppose it are treated as social lepers or even criminalised. Even once rational people who like myself are old enough to remember a slightly saner world are infected by this neurosis and neurosis is exactly what political correctness is.
Newspeak is not only an artificial language created by the State but the size of its vocabulary shrinks every year, giving people less options for the words that they can use. This effectively limits freedom of thought as well. As with political correctness and Icke's internal policeman newspeak starts off with controlling our words and then our thoughts with the ultimate aim of discouraging unorthodoxy and rebellion against the State. This is why the laws introduced since the mid 1980s should cause us to speak out against this encroaching totalitarianism.
Propaganda was a central feature of how the party of the State, Ingsoc (English Socialism) operated. The primary means of disseminating propaganda (or lies) was via the telescreen and the press. We see the same methods used today by the State. Where the State does not own or control the media (e.g. the BBC) it works in cahoots with rootless millionaire media owners who likewise have a personal vested interest in preserving the lie so the same crap is turned out regardless of who owns a particular 'news' paper, television or radio company. The same type of people are recruited for these positions who have undergone the same type of education (brainwashing) in the cultural Marxist universities of the day and like paid whores will follow the 'party line' and not deviate from what they are told to write or speak. There is very little real journalism to speak of these days. More often than not a 'journalist' to save time, energy and work will simply copy and paste what they read on the Internet without any critical examination or any genuine right of reply when someone has been defamed by these creatures with their lies and slurs.
What is the purpose of all this brainwashing? To what end are we being manipulated? One of the aims is to create a compliant population, a compliant workforce, a nation of slaves. This process in England was initiated by William the Bastard and the Norman invasion and conquest of 1066 where most of our native nobles were deposed (apart from the traitors) and century after century of social conditioning has occurred since then. The extension of basic education and literacy to the masses was for two reasons and neither were altruistic. The first reason was that the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century required a greater number of skilled people and educated people who could function in administrative positions. Secondly with the emergence of 'news' papers in the 17th century the elite of the day realised that mass propaganda could very quickly be disseminated to the population as a whole but that this was contingent on mass education as well and this started to develop in the mid 19th century. My great great great grandfather was originally a schoolmaster in the 1830s and 40s prior to becoming a minister of religion. Being born in the 18th century he could only have received an education if his father, a Gentleman, paid for it. The vast majority of people at the time had little if no literacy and this no longer suited the economic system of the time or the elite. With the gradual extension of the electoral franchise in the 19th century there had to be a means of influencing the masses politically. This of course was the role of the press and eventually in the 20th century the radio and then television. For this reason the Internet is seen as a threat to the State for it has no regulatory control over it. Consequently many police forces will spend thousands of pounds in Council Tax payers' money 'policing' the Internet, searching for 'subversives'! Likewise GCHQ and MI5 will have teams of people engaged in checking what people like me write on our blogs and websites.
We have seen this week the publication of a report by The Centre for Social Justice (another oxymoron) titled Ageing Confidently-Supporting an ageing workforce. This piece of propaganda from an organisation which is chaired by that famous social justice warrior, Iain Duncan Smith (the Secretary of State who introduced the now infamous Universal Credit) and proposes (surprise, surprise) that the State pension retirement age should be increased first to 70 in 2028 and then 75 in 2035. This in effect would turn the entire country into a workhouse, a slave population where only a minority of people such as Duncan Smith could afford to retire whenever they wanted and I can guarantee that the likes of him will not be flogging their guts out on a building site at the age of 74! Any political party which attempts to support and adopt this insane and inhumane policy will be severely punished at the next general election and the Conservative Party effectively is supported by people who have already retired or are close to it. As the Americans say "do the mathematics"!
For a number of years now we keep hearing the mantra that 'we are all living longer' which in itself of course is a lie for we are not "all" living longer. As I have commented on other blogs before now, people are not living any longer than they ever used to do-they are simply not dying in infancy any more. This has extended the average life span but NOT the life expectancy which are two separate issues. Anyone like myself who has spent several years in ancestral research can tell you that nothing has changed in terms of life spans apart from the near eradication of infant mortality. We are being sold a lie and many are foolish enough to believe it. There may be more old and older people alive now but that is due to the spike in births after the war and extending to the early 1960s and the consequent reduction of births since then with the introduction of contraception and legalised child murder. Once these 'baby boomers' start to die off as we will, the population will begin to stabalise. In terms of 'affordability' of pensions if the HMRC were to pull their finger out and chase millionaires and large corporations for the tax that is owed to the Treasury instead of agreeing cosy deals behind closed doors then this recovered tax would more than offset the cost of old age pensions. However the Conservative government prefers instead to offer tax cuts to its rich financial backers than look after its elderly. The recent fiasco over the withdrawal of free television licences for the over 75s is indicative of that. Regardless of whether people are 'living longer' or not they are certainly not getting any healthier as the BBC keeps telling us about the burden that the elderly place upon the NHS! So there is a clear contradiction (cognitive dissonance) and a flaw in the arguments of these social justice warriors such as Duncan Smith. Likewise we are continually bombarded with propaganda that people actually want to work themselves to death. Everything you see is by popular demand!
I really do urge my readers to obtain a copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four and to analyse it in depth for this is the blueprint of modern western government.
Monday, 19 August 2019
The Triquetra-a Symbol Common to the Germanic and Celtic Peoples
The symbol known as the triquetra is generally assumed to be a Celtic or solely a Celtic symbol and often a Christian one at that. Whilst the symbol became ubiquitous in early mediaeval Celtic inspired art in the British Isle its origins reach back into pre-Christian times and are not confined to just the Celts. A form of this symbol may be found on Scandinavian rune stones and a photographic example of this is attached to this article. The rune stone in question is catalogued as U 937 from Funbo in Uppsala, Sweden, now situated in a park at Uppsala University.
A triquetra also is to be found on the 7th Anglo-Saxon frith stool in Hexham Abbey, Northumberland. I have seen the stool but I cannot recall now after more than 20 years whether at the time I noticed the symbol or not. The presence of a triquetra on an Anglo-Saxon stone chair or 'throne' points to the possible use of this symbol by the Anglo-Saxons. It certainly remained as a spiritual symbol with the transition from heathenism to Christianity when it became known as the 'Trinity Knot', symbolising the triune Christian god as 'Father, Son and Holy Ghost'.
The triquetra is often compared to the Norse Valknut but I find the comparison to be quite superficial although I would argue that stylistically it is similar to the triple horns of Odin symbol, an alternative Odinic triple symbol. The symbol does appear on early silver Anglo-Saxon coins although it must not be assumed that at the time that this was intended to be depicted as a heathen symbol. The form of triquetra on this coin: Anglo-Saxon coin does strongly resemble the form on the U 937 Funbo rune stone. A form of the symbol also appears on English Viking era coins and here is an example of one from York: Viking Coin My readers will notice that this form of the triquetra strongly resembles the triple horn of Odin symbol. I have provided links to the website which feature images of these coins rather than posting their images on here as I am unsure of their copyright status.
Walther Blachetta briefly discusses the triquetra in his Das Buch der Deutschen Sinnzeichen, 1941:
"The triquetra is likewise an old Germanic form of the trefot and the sign for the threefold duty, which God, the world and mankind place on every life. " (My translation )
Please note that the German term for the triquetra is Die Dreierschild. Of course the interpretation by Blachetta must be regarded as a personal opinion as we cannot possibly know after so many centuries how our ancestors viewed the symbol and its meaning for them but there may very well be a certain overlap in meaning with other Germanic, Celtic and Indo-European symbols which are triple in nature.
Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Folkish Wodenism: Daily Press - Smears and Lies
Folkish Wodenism: Daily Press - Smears and Lies:
Our supporters will no doubt have seen the sensationalism of the press in action, starting with the Daily Telegraph. An article about Woden's Folk was full of smear-by-association, distortion and downright lies. It went as far as to try a smear-by-association with terrorists from overseas who were labelled 'Odinist', even though one claimed himself to be a 'Christian' and the other I know little of to comment.
- We are not a 'neo-nazi' or 'fascist' group, both of these being politically orientated: we are a Religious Movement. In fact we are a Religious Movement that is recognised in English Law through a tribunal case.
- We have never stated that Adolf Hitler was the 'Second Coming of a Norse God', merely pointed out the archetypal symbolism brought up by Carl Gustav Jung, the Swiss Psychologist. 'Second Coming' is not a phrase used within Wodenism, it is a Christian concept. We have also gone into the archetypes of Hengest, Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan.
- In regard to the carving of 'Swastikas' at the site of Wayland's Smithy no Wodenist or Northern Heathen would ever do such a thing, this being a Sacred Site. If there are 'Swastikas' carved into the trees there I suggest that these be investigated for criminal damage as this is not the first time a Heathen Sacred Site here in England has had this done in order to smear Wodenism or Odinism. We have never done damage to this or any other site; indeed on one occasion we cleared THREE bin-bags full of rubbish from the site and took it home with us. Contrast this with the tons of rubbish collected from Stonehenge each Midsummer!
- Even where individual supporters (we have no membership) may involve themselves in political action, we do not do so and have always stuck to our Folkish Religion which has its own rites and rituals. We hold Folk-Moots which are concerned with rituals and religious rites (as can be seen from the photos in the press).
- We are most certainly not a 'racist' group since on many occasions I have stated clearly that we are willing to work with other peoples of the world who oppose globalism and the destruction of nations and lands. We have never espoused 'racist' views nor any form of 'race hatred' - we uphold a love of our own folk.
- Most of the conversation between myself and the 'undercover reporter' concerned gardening, but this was completely ignored in favour of attacking us for our interest in the Martial Arts, Bushcraft and Survivalism, things done by millions of people today. Our work as a Nature Religion and concerns with ecology and our Sacred Land were ignored, even though this forms a great part of our work. Our work within the sphere of Bushcraft and Survalism is not done through the Wodenic Hearths (not 'cells' as stated by the press) but by individuals doing this on their own initiative. This work has actually been justified by the headlines in the same issue of the Telegraph which told of power-cuts due to outdated generators, and floods around England. This is the reason we do these things, as clearly stated in our work.
We shall make a full statement later on this subject.
Wayland the Smith
"Wayland's Smithy", by Ethan_Doyle_White , licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayland%27s_Smithy This image has not been changed and the image owner does not endorse this blog.
Wayland to me is a curious entity for He does not rank amongst the Aesir in the Eddas and yet there is a tendency to consider Him as a divine personage. He is certainly a pan-Germanic entity as He appears right across the ancient Germanic world from the Anglo-Saxons to the Norse and the Germans.
The relevant sources are Volundarkvida (Poetic Edda), Thidrekssaga (based on original Low German material), various German legends concerning Theodoric the Great and Deor, Waldere and Beowulf (Old English). I would encourage my readers to read the aforementioned sources to get a fuller picture of Wayland (Old English Welund) who is known as Volundr or Velentr in Old Norse, Wieland in Modern German and Wiolant in Old High German. The Proto-Germanic has been reconstructed as *Welandaz, meaning 'battle-brave' (see Der Name Wieland, Beitraege zur Namenforschung, Hellmut Rosenfeld, 1969).
The legend of Wayland appears also in sculpture, eg the Franks Casket, a small chest made from whale bone and dating to the 8th century. It features scenes from both Germanic and Roman mythology as well as the Bible and is covered with Anglo-Saxon runes. It is certainly culturally and religiously a hotchpotch! The onset of the Viking Age in England also reintroduced this figure to the Christianised English. A panel featuring Wayland holding Beaduhild above His head is to be found on the 10th century Leeds Cross found in the now demolished Leeds Parish Church. The cross is now housed in Leeds Minster.
In England Wayland is better known for his association with a Neolithic long barrow-Wayland's Smithy in the Berkshire Downs. Archaeologists have dated its construction to around 4500-3800 BCE. Curiously this is used as an argument to state that as the barrow predates the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons it must therefore have nothing whatsoever to do with either the Anglo-Saxons or their Gods. This is an ignorant and ill-informed 'argument' that flies in the face of the facts that there has been two way migration between England and continental Europe for millennia and that a form of English or Germanic was spoken in England many centuries before the official date of 449CE given in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for the arrival of the English tribes. Regardless of this even if they were correct that does not gainsay the sanctity given to the site by our Anglo-Saxon ancestors and this is why it is still sacred to us heathens today.
There is a well known legend attributed to the site referred to in A Letter to Dr. Mead Concerning Some Antiquities in Berkshire by Francis Wise, 1738:
"At this place lived formerly an invisible Smith, and if a traveller's Horse had lost a Shoe upon the road, he had no more to do than to bring the Horse to this place with a piece of money, and leaving both there for some little time, he might come again and find the money gone, but the Horse new shod."
Curiously in 1921 during an excavation two iron bars were discovered which is an indication that at some point in the distant past this burial chamber was indeed used as a smithy.
Whilst the Viking settlers certainly breathed new life into the Wayland legend His memory had not been eradicated by a couple of centuries of Christianity for even the Christian King Alfred the Great makes reference to Him in his translation of Boethius:
"Where now are the bones of Wayland the wise, that goldsmith so glorious of yore? Who now wots of the bones of Wayland the wise or which is the low where they lie?"
In the Thidrekssaga it is revealed that the father of Wayland is a giant called Wade. Wade was the son of King Wilkinus and a mermaid. Wade's Causeway in the North York Moors is a 6,000 years old monument which is associated in folklore with the giant Wade and its more ancient name is Waddes grave. It is tempting to draw a link between Wade and Woden, whose most ancient name was Wode, a storm giant. I am also reminded of Merovech who according to legend was the son of the Quinotaur, the beast of Neptune and the wife of Chlodio, King of the Franks. There is a recurring theme in European mythology of great heroes and kings being born from otherworldly creatures or Gods. Sometimes the Gods would take the form of a beast. We have the example of the birth of Alexander the Great who was according to legend conceived on his mother Olympia by a snake who was Ammon, the Egyptian form of Zeus. Alexander identified closely with Zeus-Ammon and certainly seemed to be convinced of the veracity of the legend of his descent from Him.
The sources make it clear that Wayland was made lame due to being hamstrung by King Nidhad and this provided the motivation for His revenge. I am reminded of the Greek Hephaestus (possibly a son of Zeus) who was made lame following His fall from the heavens. He was of course the smith of the Gods and also like Wayland of apparent divine parentage.
Monday, 5 August 2019
Meritocracy, the Enemy of the Traditional World and the Indo-European Caste System
Some time ago I read read some suggestions that the revived Germanic caste system should be based on a meritocracy, something which I cannot agree with and in essence is a contradiction of the concept of caste. Meritocracy is defined according to the Collins Concise English Dictionary as:
"rule by persons chosen for their superior talents or intellect." In effect this is the system which is used by democracy which the aforesaid dictionary defines as: "government by the people or their elected representatives."
It is clear to me that we cannot have both; a caste system and a meritocracy. The caste systems of the Indo-European peoples were no doubt a reflection of the original Aryan caste system, something which I have discussed many times on this blog and on my previous blogs. I do not intend to repeat the same arguments here. There was originally no mobility between the various castes. Only gradually with the onset of degeneration and intercaste miscegenation did this happen. This eventually caused the breakdown of the caste system and the loss of racial consciousness and blood memory. People were born into the caste which was fitting to their non-corporeal essence. There was generally no desire to be different to the station and caste that one was born into. This is a very modern and western notion and has no place in a traditional Aryan world view. Julius Evola in his Revolt Against the Modern World argues that traditional man was able to develop his own nature within the caste system and the said system was regarded as a "natural, agreeable institution" with no thoughts of 'social injustice' or 'oppression' which are modern political concepts. A man recognised his relation towards his superiors and inferiors according to their inner nature which the caste system was a visible expression of. The modern concept of 'social mobility' in antithetical to the traditional Indo-European concept of caste. The castes defined functions and ways of being. In essence they were a microcosm of the divine order of the Gods.
Professor Jean Haudry makes the observation in his The Indo-Europeans that "Celtic society has three function-classes.....but only two birth-classes." By this statement he is arguing that there was a certain degree of mobility between the priestly and warrior castes but not so with the third. In ancient Germanic society the descendants of a man that had been freed from the condition of thraldom were only recognised as freemen from the third generation onwards.
This point regarding mobility is important as the first two castes-sovereign/priest, warrior/noble are clearly distinct from the third caste which relates to either production or trade (the mercantile or middle classes). The difference is most apparent when we consider the Rigsthula in the Elder/Poetic Edda. The third caste here is not that of the producer but that of the thralls and it is very clear from the description of this caste that they bear no physical (an in my opinion, genetic) resemblance to the jarl or karl castes:
"Edda a child brought forth: they with water sprinkled its swarthy skin, and named it Thrael. It grew up, and well it throve; of its hands the skin was shrivelled, the knuckles knotty, and the fingers thick; a hideous countenance it had, a curved back, and protruding heels." (Rigsthula 7-8, Thorpe translation)
By comparison the karl is described as being a 'ruddy redhead' and the jarl as having 'light' hair. Clearly the higher Germanic castes were of Nordic race whilst the thrall is by definition a slave and is clearly of inferior physical, mental and spiritual disposition. As I have mentioned before the thrall has no place in the true Aryan caste system for the Germanic is a degenerated form of the Aryan. If one studies Rigsthula one can see the original Aryan tripartite system: Kon (son of Jarl), Jarl and Karl. Thus the kon (priestly/royal caste is biologically related to the jarl (warrior/noble) and rules over the related karl caste. The introduction of the thrall caste only occurred in my opinion when the Germanic peoples encountered, conquered and enslaved alien peoples. One lesson that history teaches us is that imperialism and slavery rebound upon the conquering elite with the pollution and watering down of the Aryan blood. We are seeing this sad state of affairs all around us today. It is of course likely or at least possible that the physical descriptions in Rigsthula are an exaggeration to emphasise the difference between the castes, no doubt to help maintain caste boundaries.
Let us now read what Caesar had to say about the caste system in Gaul:
Throughout all Gaul there are two orders of those men who are of any rank and dignity: for the commonality is held almost in the condition of slaves, and dares to undertake nothing of itself, and is admitted to no deliberation. The greater part, when they are pressed either by debt, or the large amount of their tributes, or the oppression of the more powerful, give themselves up in vassalage to the nobles, who possess over them the same rights without exception as masters over their slaves. But of these two orders, one is that of the Druids, the other that of the knights. The former are engaged in things sacred, conduct the public and the private sacrifices, and interpret all matters of religion. To these a large number of the young men resort for the purpose of instruction, and they [the Druids] are in great honor among them. (The Gallic Wars, Book 6:13, McDevitte and Bohn translation)
Clearly the only castes which mattered among the Gauls were the Druids (priestly) and the Knights (warriors/nobles). Unfortunately he does not give us a physical description of the various castes. The Irish caste system is also worth examining in this context. Peter Berresford Ellis states that Irish society was divided into various sub classes of druids, a 'warrior nobility' and 'free peasants' called 'cow-herds'. He makes the interesting observation that the Irish term for 'cow-herds' is bo aire. He also states that the 'Chief Magistrate' of a tribe was known as the Aire Echta. (See page 194 of The Druids)
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that it was the highest castes of Indo-European society that were clearly Nordic in race and descended from the ancient solar Aryan race, semi-divine beings who brought culture and order to a chaotic and primitive world. With the onset of the Kali Yuga these semi-divine beings degenerated from their godly condition and thus many of their European descendants today behave little better than the beasts of the field in their lechery and drunkenness. The masses have become degenerate both physically and spiritually. They have become as thralls and are acting according to type. This is why a meritocracy can have no lasting benefits. As a final point I would ask my readers to consider the fake knighthoods and peerages are today doled out to political sycophants and wealthy donators to political parties. These modern day 'lords' and 'knights' are fake plastic impostors and undeserving of titles which once belonged to those of superior noble blood and those who through courageous deeds in warfare were elevated to the status of knighthood. Even those families with ancient titles no longer deserve the station that they hold. How many of these newly knighted parvenus can mount a horse and fight with sword and lance? This is just another example of life in the Kali Yuga in the degenerate 'western world', the epitome of which is that enemy of all nobility, the United States of America, a capitalist cess pit which is viewed by many British politicians and the masses in general as worthy of emulation!
Sunday, 4 August 2019
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.
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
False Machismo and the Lack of Balance in Modern Heathenism
I have read many books over the years on Odinism and on Germanic heathenism in general, both by contemporary heathens and works by scholars who seek to genuinely identify the beliefs and practices of our Germanic and Indo-European forefathers. Many of the books published by contemporary heathens and articles by them on the Internet, especially from North America display a certain false machismo which is more fitting for a gang of Hell's Angels than genuine followers of our ancestral deities. One sees this especially in works by Wotansvolk with images of Vikings with bulging muscles and Gods with fiercesome (adjective's spelling is intended) demeanours. I do currently have a number of their works on my shelves, purchased many years ago which I have since outgrown and intend to dispose of in the near future to make space for more interesting works.
The point that I am trying to make is that for far too long as English heathens we have allowed our religious beliefs and practices to be determined (like almost everything) by Americans. For those of you who used to follow my previous blogs you will realise by now that I hold 'Americanism' and indeed the United States as a country (established by genocidal puritans) in deep contempt. Practically everything that the average American holds dear I stand against with one exception-the general concept of 'free speech' (I can't think of anything else). The USA is the physical embodiment of militarism, aggression, capitalism and bare-faced hypocrisy. There are of course individual Americans who I hold in high regard. What I am referring to is the country itself, its system of government and its 'god', capitalism. England's gain in getting rid of these religious fanatics was the Red Indians' loss!
This American militaristic, aggressive and capitalist attitude can be found in the writings of some American heathens, even high profile ones. They seem unable to help themselves. They are unable to restrain themselves at any notion of criticism of their society and mores and label their opponents as being 'socialist'. It would seem that a country which seeks to protect its most vulnerable citizens; the sick, the old, the young, the homeless and unemployed is 'socialist'. I find elements of this attitude here in England as well. I note a certain veiled criticism of the 'welfare state' (see paragraph 23 of Odinism, What is it?) in an online archived article of the Odinic Rite. This of course may be quite an old article and their views may have changed but the paragraph troubles me. See Odinism, What is it? As in Christianity, particularly Protestantism, work became a 'virtue' in itself, something which appears to be echoed in Odinism.
The ancient Greeks however had a clearer concept of the 'value' of 'work' and ascribed greater value to leisure time. Perhaps with the increasingly mechanised nature of the work place we will see an increase in leisure time and who knows perhaps the introduction of an unconditional 'universal basic income' for every adult. See Basic Income It is interesting to note that the welfare state is regarded by Americans as an example of the much hated 'socialism' and not surprisingly it has the worst welfare state in the entire developed world. Let me be quite clear about this; an industrial or post-industrial society REQUIRES a welfare state unless you subscribe to the concept that a man is nothing more than a thrall to the 1% of the 1% and should slave his entire life until he drops down dead at 70 from exhaustion?
We are seeing the beginnings of this in the United Kingdom with the government's attacks upon the welfare state and the steadily increasing pension age and its sinister mantra of 'generational fairness' which pits the young against the old. This has always been the tactics of the Tories-they divide and rule. Before England's Industrial Revolution when it was still largely rural one or two of my ancestors in North Meols, Lancashire acted as 'Overseers of the Poor'. See Overseer of the Poor Rural communities looked after their most vulnerable members as if they were a family. This is the essence of National Socialism except that many who claim to be National Socialists tend to glorify capitalism and are at heart 'right-wingers' not genuine left wing revolutionaries as the NSDAP was in its very early days until it sold out to big business and murdered its brownshirts and at this point embarked upon a disastrous militaristic campaign. Even Miguel Serrano recognises this fact in one of his writings.
The rejection of the welfare state by many Odinists, American or otherwise is an outworking of this false machismo and should remain where it belongs-in the USA. We see also a rejection of the concept of prayer by many Odinists who see it as a form of 'begging' and 'pleading', demeaning of their masculinity! Again we see this attitude in the aforementioned article by the Odinic Rite (paragraph 26), the author of which seems to be oblivious to the many examples in the Icelandic sagas of Norsemen praying to the Gods, such as the Landnamabok and the Saga of Erik the Red. These muscly Norsemen did not consider it demeaning to offer prayers to the Mighty Thor. I also noted a similar line of thought in the article All About Odinism by the Odinist Fellowship who state that Odinists "do not bow or kneel" before the Gods. Again this entirely flies in the face of the historical evidence. It is faulty thinking, not based on the evidence which is available to us. It is NOT demeaning to kneel or bow before the Gods. Our ancestors did so willingly to their lords and those lords did so to their superior lords so how much more worthy of respect are our deities? The whole concept of prayer is dealt with in some detail by Tom Rowsell in his excellent video: Indo-European Prayer and Ritual This is not intended to be an attack upon the Odinic Rite or the Odinist Fellowsip as I highly esteem both organisations. It is the faulty thinking that is at the heart of Odinism that places stubborn human pride-masculine pride at that ahead of true devotion and service to the Gods. I would also like to point out that there is also nothing wrong with the concept of SERVICE or being a SERVANT! To be a servant of our Gods is surely the highest calling.
I see many examples on the Internet of Odinists stating that even when they do engage in prayer they never bend the knee or bow. This may be so but it is NOT traditional! Again these proud Odinists need to actually read the sagas which they esteem so highly. They should start with the sagas which feature the Goddess Thorgerdr Holgabrudr and Her follower Jarl Haakon Sigurdsson, a ruler of Norway from about 975 to 995. The relevant sagas are Jomsvikinga Saga and the Faereyinga Saga.
The only way that we can counter these faulty understandings of certain aspects of Germanic heathenism is through encouraging heathens to spend time in thoroughly studying the source material so that modern day heathenism is grounded on the best available evidence of our traditions, not Hollywood films (made by Americans). As Europeans we need to be more selective in our reading matter especially where American authors are concerned. By encouraging the involvement of more females we may hopefully gain a more balanced view of our religion for balance is something which is generally lacking in most forms of reconstructed heathenism and paganism.
The point that I am trying to make is that for far too long as English heathens we have allowed our religious beliefs and practices to be determined (like almost everything) by Americans. For those of you who used to follow my previous blogs you will realise by now that I hold 'Americanism' and indeed the United States as a country (established by genocidal puritans) in deep contempt. Practically everything that the average American holds dear I stand against with one exception-the general concept of 'free speech' (I can't think of anything else). The USA is the physical embodiment of militarism, aggression, capitalism and bare-faced hypocrisy. There are of course individual Americans who I hold in high regard. What I am referring to is the country itself, its system of government and its 'god', capitalism. England's gain in getting rid of these religious fanatics was the Red Indians' loss!
This American militaristic, aggressive and capitalist attitude can be found in the writings of some American heathens, even high profile ones. They seem unable to help themselves. They are unable to restrain themselves at any notion of criticism of their society and mores and label their opponents as being 'socialist'. It would seem that a country which seeks to protect its most vulnerable citizens; the sick, the old, the young, the homeless and unemployed is 'socialist'. I find elements of this attitude here in England as well. I note a certain veiled criticism of the 'welfare state' (see paragraph 23 of Odinism, What is it?) in an online archived article of the Odinic Rite. This of course may be quite an old article and their views may have changed but the paragraph troubles me. See Odinism, What is it? As in Christianity, particularly Protestantism, work became a 'virtue' in itself, something which appears to be echoed in Odinism.
The ancient Greeks however had a clearer concept of the 'value' of 'work' and ascribed greater value to leisure time. Perhaps with the increasingly mechanised nature of the work place we will see an increase in leisure time and who knows perhaps the introduction of an unconditional 'universal basic income' for every adult. See Basic Income It is interesting to note that the welfare state is regarded by Americans as an example of the much hated 'socialism' and not surprisingly it has the worst welfare state in the entire developed world. Let me be quite clear about this; an industrial or post-industrial society REQUIRES a welfare state unless you subscribe to the concept that a man is nothing more than a thrall to the 1% of the 1% and should slave his entire life until he drops down dead at 70 from exhaustion?
We are seeing the beginnings of this in the United Kingdom with the government's attacks upon the welfare state and the steadily increasing pension age and its sinister mantra of 'generational fairness' which pits the young against the old. This has always been the tactics of the Tories-they divide and rule. Before England's Industrial Revolution when it was still largely rural one or two of my ancestors in North Meols, Lancashire acted as 'Overseers of the Poor'. See Overseer of the Poor Rural communities looked after their most vulnerable members as if they were a family. This is the essence of National Socialism except that many who claim to be National Socialists tend to glorify capitalism and are at heart 'right-wingers' not genuine left wing revolutionaries as the NSDAP was in its very early days until it sold out to big business and murdered its brownshirts and at this point embarked upon a disastrous militaristic campaign. Even Miguel Serrano recognises this fact in one of his writings.
The rejection of the welfare state by many Odinists, American or otherwise is an outworking of this false machismo and should remain where it belongs-in the USA. We see also a rejection of the concept of prayer by many Odinists who see it as a form of 'begging' and 'pleading', demeaning of their masculinity! Again we see this attitude in the aforementioned article by the Odinic Rite (paragraph 26), the author of which seems to be oblivious to the many examples in the Icelandic sagas of Norsemen praying to the Gods, such as the Landnamabok and the Saga of Erik the Red. These muscly Norsemen did not consider it demeaning to offer prayers to the Mighty Thor. I also noted a similar line of thought in the article All About Odinism by the Odinist Fellowship who state that Odinists "do not bow or kneel" before the Gods. Again this entirely flies in the face of the historical evidence. It is faulty thinking, not based on the evidence which is available to us. It is NOT demeaning to kneel or bow before the Gods. Our ancestors did so willingly to their lords and those lords did so to their superior lords so how much more worthy of respect are our deities? The whole concept of prayer is dealt with in some detail by Tom Rowsell in his excellent video: Indo-European Prayer and Ritual This is not intended to be an attack upon the Odinic Rite or the Odinist Fellowsip as I highly esteem both organisations. It is the faulty thinking that is at the heart of Odinism that places stubborn human pride-masculine pride at that ahead of true devotion and service to the Gods. I would also like to point out that there is also nothing wrong with the concept of SERVICE or being a SERVANT! To be a servant of our Gods is surely the highest calling.
I see many examples on the Internet of Odinists stating that even when they do engage in prayer they never bend the knee or bow. This may be so but it is NOT traditional! Again these proud Odinists need to actually read the sagas which they esteem so highly. They should start with the sagas which feature the Goddess Thorgerdr Holgabrudr and Her follower Jarl Haakon Sigurdsson, a ruler of Norway from about 975 to 995. The relevant sagas are Jomsvikinga Saga and the Faereyinga Saga.
The only way that we can counter these faulty understandings of certain aspects of Germanic heathenism is through encouraging heathens to spend time in thoroughly studying the source material so that modern day heathenism is grounded on the best available evidence of our traditions, not Hollywood films (made by Americans). As Europeans we need to be more selective in our reading matter especially where American authors are concerned. By encouraging the involvement of more females we may hopefully gain a more balanced view of our religion for balance is something which is generally lacking in most forms of reconstructed heathenism and paganism.
Monday, 29 July 2019
The Sacred Spears of the Germanic Priest Kings
During the latter half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century a number of sacred spears belonging to the pre-christian Germanic tribes were located in modern day Germany, Sweden and Poland, being the Kovel spear, the Dahmsdorf spear, the Rozwadow spear and the Moos spear.
What these spears have in common is their construction-Iron with silver inlay and their runic inscriptions.
The one from Dahmsdorf has the inscription Ansuz-Jera-Nauthiz-Ansuz-Raitho. The inscription reading from right to left says ranja, ie the "runner". Edred Thorsson in his The Mysteries of the Goths (Runa Raven, 2007) speculates that this has the meaning of "the one which causes [them] to flee". The owner of the spear may have been a Burgundian, originally an East Germanic tribe. It dates from around 250CE and it also contains solar and lunar symbols and was discovered in 1865 during the construction of a train station at Dahmsdorf-Muecheberg. This and the other spears were never used in combat and clearly were of ceremonial purpose. Either these spears belonged to tribal priests or were symbolic totems of regal power belonging to chieftains.
The spear was the original and favoured weapon of the Germanic peoples and every Germanic freeman, every warrior possessed one as a mark of his status. In the case of chieftains and priests these were obviously more elaborate as these spears clearly have a mystical purpose. We are of course reminded of Gungnir, the spear of Wotan/Wodan/Woden/Odin which likewise was according to Sigdrifumal 17 insricribed with 17 runes on its tip. It would of course be tempting to speculate what they are. It is of course possible that this may be a version of the normally 16 runes Younger Futhark.
The Dahmsdorf spear contains both a triskelion and a swastika, both of which are solar symbols. These spears also contain tamgas which are Sarmatian or Scythian tribal symbols and thus show a connection with the steppe dwelling Iranian tribes who lived close to the East Germanic peoples.
The Germanic peoples considered themselves to be the offspring of their Gods and nobles in particular often reckoned their descent from Wodan. Therefore it is natural for a Germanic chieftain or king to possess a sacred spear as a symbol of the Wodan given regal power.
Alternatively the tamga symbol may be interpreted as a Blitzbündel symbol which is associated with the God Thunor. See my other articles on this symbol: An Esoteric Interpretation of Das Blitzbündel and The Trisula and the Vajra and their Associations with Das Blitzbündel
Later in the post-conversion times and the arising of the Parsifal myth the sacred spear or lance features as the symbolic weapon of the Grail king. We know that the Holy Lance or spear of Longinus which allegedly currently resides in the Hofburg Museum in Wien has been dated to no earlier than the 7th century CE and therefore is not contemporary with the times of the so-called Christ.
No doubt this spear falls into a similar category as the four runic spears referred to in this article.
Sunday, 28 July 2019
The Red Beard of the Aryan Thunder God
The Thunder Gods of the Aryan peoples are usually portrayed as sporting long and often red beards. As Jacob Grimm states in his Teutonic Mythology Volume 1:
"The German thundergod was no doubt represented, like Zeus and Jupiter, with a long beard. A Danish rhyme still calls him 'Thor med sit lange skiag' (F. Magnusen's lex. 957). But the ON. sagas everywhere define him more narrowly as red-bearded, of course in allusion to the fiery phenomenon of lightning: when the god is angry, he blows in his red beard, and thunder peals through the clouds. In the Fornm. sog. 2, 182 and 10, 329 he is a tall, handsome, red-bearded youth: Mikill vexti (in growth), ok ungligr, fridr synum (fair to see), ok raudskeggjadr; in 5, 249 madr raudskeggjadr. Men in distress invoked his red beard: Landsmenn toko that rad (adopted the plan) at heita thetta hit rauda skegg, 2, 183. When in wrath he shakes his beard: Reidr var tha, skeg nam at hrista, scor nam at dyja (wroth was he then, beard he took to bristling, hair to tossing), Saem. 70."
Grimm goes on to state:
"This red beard of the thunderer is still remembered in curses, and that among the Frisian folk, without any visible connexion with the Norse ideas: 'diis ruadhiiret donner regiir!' (let red-haired thunder see to that) is to this day an exclamation of the North Frisians. And when the Icelanders call a fox holtathorr, Thorr of the holt, it is probably in allusion to his red fur."
Walter Keating Kelly in his Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore states:
"Indra's beard was golden; Agni is invoked in the Vedas as the god with the golden beard and golden teeth. Fire and the 'red gold' are associated ideas in all Indo-European languages. Thor's beard was red, and it thundered and lightened when he blew in it. His hair too was red, and that such hair and beards were much admired when he was there to set the fashion, may be inferred not only from general considerations, but more particularly from the extreme aversion which was conceived for them when Christianity came in. Rother-bart, Teufelsart, 'Redbeard, devil-steered,' is a German proverb; and the more to insult the memory of the fallen god, it was fabled that he and the vilest of men, the arch traitor Judas, had hair and beards of the same colour."
The Thunder Gods of the Balts and Slavs likewise sported red beards. It is for this very reason that beards went out of fashion in the post-conversion period and were (and to a certain extent still are) associated with heathenism. Anti-beard prejudice is still a factor today and most people who are prejudiced against beards do not consciously understand why. It is an unconscious prejudice brought about through centuries of Christian conditioning. As a mark of respect and reverence to Thunor, one of the primary deities who I feel a strong personal attachment to I wear a bead and wear it long. It is not only a statement of our Germanic heathen faith but a rejection of the superficial and anti-traditional mores of the herd. It also has the added psychological factor of invoking a certain degree of fear and respect in one's enemies. Scientific studies will of course tell you that beards are disliked (real beards that is) by women but this is of little consequence as the women of the herd are part of the prostituted and race-less and culture-less masses. They form no part of the nation of Woden. I notice that in recent years other folkish heathens have also started to grow beards and often also grow their hair long in the tradition of our ancestors.
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