ART CONTEST – Kid Winners, Midsummer 2013

We received many wonderful entries for the first-ever art contest at The Norse Mythology Blog. The kids’ category had the most submissions, and the judging panel really had to spend some time considering how to rank these fantastic works of art. I would like to thank my two celebrity judges for their help with the contest. Boo Cook (2000 AD, Judge Dredd Megazine) and Richard Elson (The Mighty Thor, Journey Into Mystery) are not only two of my favorite comic book artists, they're also both wonderful and caring people.

Congratulations to the three winners! We all agreed that these were the best of a very strong group. The assignment was to create a piece that was on the theme of midsummer and contained at least one element from Norse mythology. These young people did so in very creative ways. Great work!

All three of our winners in this age group are from Cathy Yeoman’s group of Class 4 kids in Victoria, Australia. She’s been teaching Norse mythology to the students this year, and the excellent job she’s doing sure shows in the creative work her kids have done. We need more teachers like her!

Note: You can click on the art to see larger versions.

FIRST PLACE
Sheoaka F.
Age 10
Briar Hill, Victoria, Australia

“In my picture, Thor is lighting the midsummer bonfires and the people are dancing around fires. One side of the picture is day, and the other is night. All the gods and goddesses are looking down from Asgard, enjoying watching the people celebrating midsummer.”

First Place: Sheoaka F.

SECOND PLACE
Luke H.
Age 10
Briar Hill, Victoria, Australia

“My picture is of Hugin and Munin, the ravens of Odin, flying over Midgard and the midsummer festivities. They’ll take news back to Odin.”

Second Place: Luke H.

THIRD PLACE
Emma H.
Age 10
Briar Hill, Victoria, Australia

“Nidavellir: the dwarves of Midgard are celebrating Midsummer Eve with a fire, which they all gather around.”

Third Place: Emma H.

Teen winners will be announced tomorrow!

INTERVIEW WITH JORIS BOGHTDRINCKER OF HEIDEVOLK, Part Three

Golden Age of Leather: The Non-Viking Heidevolk Look

KS – In the new promotional photographs on your website, instead of Viking clothes, it all looks like Motörhead’s Ace of Spades with the motorcycle jackets and black shirts. Are you moving towards becoming a more straight metal band and less of a folk metal band?

JB – Nah. I don’t think so. I can understand why you think that.

We’ve been doing the whole tunic thing for a long while now. The topic that we sang on Batavi is the earliest stuff that we ever sang about. It would be a bit weird to us to run around in bearskins. I’m deliberately making a statement here, but this is our interpretation: “I’m dressed like this when I’m not at work. I walk around like this.” The way you see us in that booklet is the way you could walk into us on the streets of Arnhem.

We made it clear, this was a 21st-century interpretation of a 1st-century historical event. Take it for what it is. Not so much portraying the image on stage. You have to listen to the music, you have to read the lyrics to understand what we’re about. The way we stand on stage and the way we present ourselves in the booklet is the way we are now.

It’s hard to predict, but folk is just a very big part of what inspires us – even though we made not have had the folk sound on the last album. I can never see us turn into a purely heavy metal band. That will never happen.

The cover of Heidevolk's Wodan Heerst

KS – A lot of the bands on this scene go back pretty far. Ensiferum started nearly twenty years ago, in 1995. Do you think the folk metal thing is coming to an end, and you’re all going in a new direction?

JB – It could be. In Europe, there are precious few bands that manage to give an original twist to this sort of music. There’s Negură Bunget from Romania, there’s Dordeduh – but they never started out as typical folk or pagan bands. What they do have is this authentic inspiration from their region, from their history – and not as much molded into the classic Thor’s hammer, kilt-wearing band. Ha!

I think, maybe, it will die out. That could be. Or, if it doesn’t die out, it’ll take on a different form. The whole standard Viking thing on stage, Viking-themed stuff – it’s getting old. You have to come up with a new form of interpreting, a new form of presenting that. There are several bands that can just play the Viking card, and I’m sure we all know who those bands are. That’s okay. They built that reputation, and why not stick with it?

I think, for this scene – if you can call it that – to stay healthy, to stay relevant, musically relevant and conceptually relevant, it needs to find different ways of expressing itself. That’s what I find really interesting. Which bands are now evolving? Which bands are deepening their style? My preference is that you come up with totally new stuff, instead of going over it again and again. And there we have Ragnarök, and there we have the Braveheart sound sample again. Yeah.

Rockin' in the USA: Heidevolk on Tour

KS – Some bands in this genre are getting more and more complicated compositionally as they go on. Your new record, however, got rid of the other instruments and is more of a straight rock album.

JB – I think there was a lot of energy and force that needed go out, to be voiced. That’s when you don’t start bothering about composition as much as the feeling. You come up with logical, maybe even cliché sort of stuff. Again, proven things. They are not cliché because of nothing; it’s because they work. But it’s not like we consciously made a decision, “Okay, we have to come up with a more standard form of making music.” It’s just the way it turned out.

We’ve never been too conscious about having to make it complicated or having to add a new twist to it. It just happens, or it doesn’t happen. On this album, I guess it was a bit less experimental than, let’s say, on the first or the second album. When you look at song structures of the first album, when we listened to that, we were like, “Whoa! That was new.” Ha!

KS – Heri Joensen from Týr was just showing me on his laptop how he composes everybody’s parts. He even writes the guitar solos. It’s completely composed. For me, the excitement of performing music is improvising new things.

JB – Exactly.

Flaming Youth: Heidevolk Live
Photograph by Marcel Hakvoort

KS – If I tried to solo over one of Heri’s songs, I’d be lost in two seconds. When you have a simpler structure, though, you’re more free to improvise. When you play live, are your guitarists improvising, or are they playing the solos exactly like the recordings?

JB – It differs. Certain things are a bit loose, and sometimes they just try to stick as close as possible to what they did on the record. For me, personally, I’m all for improvisation and the moment. But I’m not sure if everybody in our band is that comfortable with that.

KS – Are the solos always so-and-so long and so many bars?

JB – I believe most of it is like that, yeah. I think we have precious few exceptions. My personal idea would be just go with the flow and go with the feeling at the moment. There are certain limitations of what you can do.

The point you just made, I find very interesting. The more basic the music gets, the more fertile of a soil it becomes to improvise. You can really add your own twist to it, then, or come up with new stuff. The way Heri writes music, it’s very “then, then, then,” and “then, then, then,” all the layers.

With us, we used to have way more time. We used to study and not be as busy with our girlfriends and our work, so you could put more time and effort in it. As time progresses, you have to become very efficient with the time you get to spend with your band – which, at times, can put some pressure on the whole creative thing. You have to, within a certain time frame, come up with some new stuff. We never set deadlines that we couldn’t make, so far. It feels like we’re never going to make it, but then we make it. I think the pressure you get from that can also bring out some creative stuff. If there’s positive pressure, it can bring out good stuff.

If it were up to me, we could do with a bit more improvisation – a bit more feeling. It used to be different. It used to be a more, yeah, go with the flow. This is an interesting question, because it raises thoughts.

Map of Batavi & other Germanic tribes

KS – Let’s talk a little bit more about Batavi, the new Heidevolk album. For readers who are unfamiliar with the history of the Batavi tribe, can you explain who these people were?

JB – The Batavian people were a tribe that came from Hessen in modern-day Germany, and they made their way up to what is now the Netherlands. There’s still some debate whether they traveled there by their own free will, or they were moved there. They ended up in what is now our region, Gelderland, and there they encountered the Roman Empire.

That’s a very interesting setting. On one hand, you have all these Germanic tribes that didn’t get along amongst themselves, either. On the other front, there was this huge, massive empire trying to expand its borders. They then were faced with the decision, what do you do? Do you stay autonomous, or do you become a buffer state and enjoy the benefits of being exempt from paying taxes – just providing soldiers for the Roman army?

Over the course of history, the Dutch have been looking at this tribe as being the founding fathers of the nation. I wouldn’t go that far, but they seem to have gotten that role. The Batavians were looked at as the forefathers of what later on became the Dutch people. Not a very scientific point of view, but still very interesting how they inspired the nation up until now, basically.

What do they mean to me? Well, I was born in the city that was sort of the epicenter of the Batavian revolt. I was born in a small village close to a big town, so we always had this feeling – we are small and they are big, and they’re against us, and they want us to join their city, or they want to expand at our cost. So the whole metaphor of Batavians fighting Romans has been present in my youth, the village identifying itself with the Batavians. And the Romans – when you go to Nijmegen, it takes pride in being a Roman city. There’s not that much propaganda for Batavian history, for some reason, which I find a bit strange.

I guess that ignited that spark for me, to find out more about the history. They are seen as the progenitors of what we are now as a nation. And to me, personally, I very much like the metaphor of the small tribe standing up to the big tribe.

The cover of Heidevolk's Batavi

KS – Can you explain the story behind the mask on the album cover?

JB – This is a mask that was used in the Roman army. The symbolism behind this was that the Batavians used that mask. They were very proficient horsemen, so this is a cavalry mask. This is actually used by the Batavians and the Romans.

The symbolism behind this is that, when they joined forces with the Romans, they took on the Roman protection and they also fought for Rome – yet they veiled their own identity. When they revolted, they cast off their mask, and they showed their true face. That’s an element you see there, too, with the blood. In the background, you see the soil, which is clay soil, and that is very typical of the area where all of this took place – the fertile, rich clay grounds of the Betuwe, an area that is most likely named after the Batavi people. We put that symbolism into one picture.

KS – So this is the mask after it’s been thrown on the ground.

JB – Yeah. But it can also be seen as the blood that was spilled by both the Romans and by the Batavians in the name of Rome. I find it a fascinating story, even though the revolt was not successful. Daring to stand up against Rome, that in itself. Ha!

Funeral marker for Indus, a member of
the Batavi who served in Emperor Nero's
imperial guard in in the 1st century CE

KS – Since this album focuses in such detail on one subject, did you do a different type of research than you had done for previous recordings?

JB – Yeah, I guess so, because what we tried to do is create a Gesamtkunstwerk, so it had to be intertwined. What you do want to know, you want to check your facts. You want to make sure that one thing follows in a logical way after another. That made it different, because you wanted to know the whole story. We had to have a moment where it starts, where it ends. Then you had to chop that story into chapters, and those chapters needed focus.

In that way, it was a really big challenge to dig up as much about the different things we sing about – the different chapters – whereas on previous albums, you could just take it one subject at a time. In the end, you could even shift the songs around, because there was no linear thing in the whole story. But now we had to focus: “Okay, so this is how it starts. This is how it has to sound like. Like a start, a beginning.” And in the end, it sort of fades away, and it takes a retrospective feeling: “What did we just do?”

So both composition-wise and conceptually-wise, you had to really focus on what was going on, and “Where are we in the story now? What are we trying to do? Are we still on the same page as the story?” Quite an interesting exercise, especially because we have not been known for focusing. Ha! There are six front men in this band. But it was a very good exercise. You needed to pull together and to have a point, like a dot on the horizon – that’s where we’re going to go – and you had to set out a course. We’ve never done that.

It was very interesting to see, and I’m not really sure we’re if going to do that again in that form. It can also be very narrowing, constricting. Certain people weren’t very comfortable with that. Some people just like to write whatever they want, whenever they come up with it. That was a change with this album.

Joris and Mark onstage in New York, April 2013
Photograph by Eric Hanson

KS – I’ve been trying to think of an example of a band with two frontmen that didn’t also play instruments. The members of The Who all sang, for example, but they also played. You never sang in a band before Heidevolk. Had Mark been in other bands?

JB – Yeah.

KS – It seems like it would be very psychologically different to stand next to another singer like this.

JB – Yeah. One of the bands we were inspired by musically is Isengard from Norway, and they have a lot of vocals that are combined so that the harmony part, we all felt that that was very nice. Just each individual knew that record and said, “Well, that’s fantastic.” I discovered I had a voice, and Mark has fantastic voice. He’s a way better singer than I am. So then we just gave it a try, you know, “Maybe we can do that.” There used to be a band in the Netherlands called Grimm, and they also were inspired by Isengard. It was two frontmen, but they also were playing guitar – so not just the singing thing.

I thought it was a challenge. I was completely new to band dynamics, so it never bothered me that we were sort of like the first, or one of few that did that. We just did it, and we weren’t bothered by any knowledge. Ha!

KS – That’s more than the questions I had. I appreciate you taking the time.

JB – Thanks for taking an interest in our band. I must say, for a spoken interview – this was pretty painless!

INTERVIEW WITH JORIS BOGHTDRINCKER OF HEIDEVOLK, Part Two

Click here for Part One.

Joris Boghtdrincker of Heidevolk

KS – The songs that you wrote the lyrics for on the first record (De Strijdlust Is Geboren) are about Donar and Wodan and refer to Roman writings about the Germanic tribes (“Furor Teutonicus”). As a Netherlander, do you feel more of a connection to the continental sources for northern mythology than to the Icelandic ones?

JB – Yeah, I feel a lot more connected to what has been going on on the continent than Scandinavia. Which is not to say that I cannot draw inspiration from the northern regions. What I like to do is, especially, read about things like comparative mythology and see how different central concepts have local varieties, local ways of manifesting themselves.

The sad part is that a lot of our history – a lot of the pagan history – has been wiped away or changed at an earlier age than, let’s say, the Scandinavian stuff. It’s kind of tempting to hook onto the Scandinavian thing, but I feel much more connected to the local history and the local version of it. That does present us with the problem that there has been passed on a lot less, and a lot of it has been destroyed. It’s the hard way, I guess. It would be easier to just hook onto Odin and Thor and stuff.

KS – On Wallhalla Wacht, you personally wrote almost all the lyrics and liner notes yourself. This was the first metal or rock album I had ever seen with footnotes. Why did you decide to write these miniature historical essays instead of simply having English translations of the lyrics in the booklet?

JB – I don’t think that was a conscious decision to do either/or.

The cover of Heidevolk's Walhalla Wacht

KS – But you don’t translate the lyrics.

JB – I think a lot of the meaning and a lot of the feeling will get lost if I do that. People just have to take the lyrics for what they are – at least take Dutch for what it is. I will go as far as to give the listener an idea of what we’re trying to say. I know of certain bands that have tried translating their lyrics. It becomes some sort of Frankenstein, if you ask me. The feeling, the metrum – it gets lost. So that’s why I didn’t do that.

You’re familiar with a band called Skyforger? That is a band definitely worth checking out, because they have the whole Baltic thing going. They have been doing that for years before we did. It’s one of our sources of inspiration – not so much thematically, but musically and the way they go about their business. They always allowed listeners to understand what they were singing about. It’s not like bizarre, own little thing and we’re going to be very secretive about what it is.

What they also do is, during concerts, they talk a lot about, “This next song is…” Some people handle that better than other people. Some people, they start screaming, “SLAYER!” and “Next song! Next song!” It’s one of the things that I really like about that band. They tell a story. For us, that was important, too, because we had a story to tell. Maybe not everybody could understand the lyrics, but at least you can get an idea of what it’s about.

I always enjoy liner notes. Some people hate it, because it ruins their image of a song, or their interpretation. But then, just keep that page folded in the booklet, I suppose.

Dageraad ("dawn") over Nijmegen in the Netherladnds

KS – When I’m teaching music history, I try to get the students to think about how instrumental music can have meaning – whether it can have meaning without lyrics. I think it’s interesting that you include essays for your instrumental pieces like “Dageraad” and “Veleda” that talk about what you’re expressing. This is something you don’t see very often in popular music.

JB – That’s an interesting point. I think a lot of instrumental classical music can tell a story, and sometimes it’s best not to know what the author was trying to say. It’s nicer to come up with your own interpretation, your own sensation of what those sounds mean to you.

Since all of our music is rooted into certain themes, I guess that’s why we thought it was necessary also for the instrumental tracks. How does this piece of music fit in this story? What does it express? But if people just like it for other reasons, that’s perfectly fine, too.

KS – Heidevolk guitarist and founding member Sebas quit the band in 2011, saying:

When I founded the band in 2002 I have done this to, as an artist, bring a message to the world, the proud pagan message of Heidevolk. Now I have noticed the time has slowly come for me to look to other things, and there for I have decided to focus myself more on paganism and other musical projects I always wanted to work on but never had the time for.

Do you feel the band is still bringing a “proud pagan message” to the world?

Heidevolk guitarist Sebas Bloeddorst in 2011
Photograph by Alessia Simoncini

JB – I don’t think that has lessened with his leaving. I know for a fact that he is very much into that sort of stuff. What we will never compromise on is the message. I’m sort of a hardliner within the band. That’s also again that level between the spiritual and the profane. I’m not going to name any names, but we have certain people that are more into it for other reasons than others. I really think it’s important that we have a message, that it shouldn’t become a shallow image or anything.

It worries me, in general in this sort of music, that sometimes you see people using the image – abusing the image, I should say. Then again, I’m very postmodern on this whole thing. Who am I to say you should or should not abuse those themes in certain ways? People are going to draw from it what they want, anyway. If you bring a serious message presented in a serious way, I trust people will see that and people will know that. And if it’s just image or just fun, that’s fine, too.

Sometimes I get a bit annoyed by it. The subject means too much to me to become hollow, when it’s just a shell. To me, it’s about the core – and that core should always be in the music.

KS – The Walhalla Wacht liner notes very strongly speak of Saxons fighting Charlemagne to defend their pagan beliefs, of Radboud refusing to convert to Christianity, of honoring Wodan, of respecting dead ancestors, and of saluting Saxons who chose death over conversion. You write of “the strife for immortality on earth by obtaining a good name, and the realization of being part of an everlasting cycle that transcends a human life.” At the end of the booklet, you personally thank “Thunaer ende Uoden ende Saxnote ende alum them umholdum, the hira genotas sint” – a quote from the Abjuration of Lestines (742 CE) by which German pagans renounced their former faith on their conversion to Christianity.

Many bands in the pagan metal genre write songs with very pro-pagan lyrics, but then give interviews where they make fun of heathens, ridicule Ásatrú and declare themselves atheists. Where do you stand on this?

Wodan is alive and well and living in the Netherlands.
He even has his own soccer team in Eindhoven.

JB – That’s an interesting question. What I believe is not the same as what my ancestors believed. What I try to put into the music is the respect for the way they thought and the way they portrayed their values on certain gods, because that is my belief. What a god is, is an accumulation of values – of things that have been instrumental for survival portrayed on several characters who also interact.

To me, personally, what does it mean to believe? It is what you rely on. I don’t care if people would call me an atheist that is inspired by pagan themes. Fair enough. To me, a pagan is a person that is trying to cope with the world he lives in and is very conscious about the forces that motivate him. I find a lot of inspiration from the stories about Thor, Donar – whatever you call him – Wodan, Odin. And those are very strong forces in my life. I know for a fact that they are.

I can relate how they have influenced my forefathers – in a different way, probably. But when I read about these characters, I feel a very strong connection, and I can understand really well how those forces have… how planets are formed, certain elements are combined in certain places. They emanate forces and they stand for things. I realize this is getting maybe a bit out there. Ha!

KS – Not at all. I think that some of today’s heathens – especially if they come to this from a Christian background – think that it necessarily has to be a literal belief. They basically take a Christian belief system and move it over. In America, we tend to have a very literal approach to religion. However, in some of the Old Norse texts, the gods are thought of as powers and that which binds. Even back then, this was a way in which the gods could be conceived.

Thor: just a guy in a cart with two he-goats, holding a hammer

JB – Exactly. I think, if you know your history, you can see how the gods evolved. It’s not this top-down thing, not a revelation thing. It is not something that stands apart from this world. It is a part of this world, and it is shaped by this world. Sometimes you get these people who think there’s actually a guy in a cart with two he-goats, holding a hammer. Yeah. If you want to believe that – ha! That’s all fine, but…

I think what people should always be able to do is distinguish between the shape and between the meaning of things – and never take things too literally. They should be able to make out what the symbolism stands for and not take it for face value. I’m sure that many of the other religions that made it big, so to speak, started out like that. Then people just stopped thinking and just took it for what it was, or they gave very literal interpretations to those sources.

It can be a challenge, just digging for what the meaning of things is – because there is no one right interpretation. Again, that must sound very postmodern, but I do think that’s how it works.

KS – This is why I asked earlier about your statements on local focus. Some of what you’ve said about your music lines up with modern approaches to heathenry that focus on locality and worldview – as opposed to mystical belief.

JB – Oh, yes. What I am looking for – and what I was looking for back then – is the purest form. But, at the same time, it is not like I want to recreate the purest form and then bring it to this day and age. It’s like putting an old vase together, and there you go.

This is clearly the right interpretation.

I think, like everybody, I have evolved in my thinking on that subject. I think it’s important. When I started getting interested in these matters, I was looking for one right interpretation of things. What does this rune stand for? I had a hard time coping with different information, or when you have different sources that are contradictory. How do you deal with that? Do you say, “I choose that as the right interpretation?” Or do you put yourself above that material and say, “Okay, so there’s different ways of looking at it,” and you make up your personal mind about this.

I’ve become a bit more laid back when it comes to that. It’s not like I’m digging for the one truth, because I know it’s not out there.

KS – Many northern metal bands focus almost exclusively on the violence of Ragnarök and Viking raids. Heidevolk has some nice macho music, but you also have several beautiful songs focusing on goddesses and female leaders like Nehalennia, Ostara and Veleda. What attracts you to these untypical metal subjects?

JB – I think that represents the spectrum of things that inspire us. Of course, there’s the macho and the warlike things of that history that inspire us, but we have a bigger scope. We’re not afraid to express the softer side. It’s not about being only macho.

Can you guess where this Heidevolk photo was taken?

We do adjust our set to the audiences. When we play at a festival like this, we know most of the people are here just to have a good time. We’re not here to preach or anything, so we play the uptempo songs with just the occasional slower moments. When we do headliner shows at home, we come up with a representation of what we play. That means softer songs, faster songs, profane and spiritual. We’re not afraid to go into the sort of softer and more emotional areas of things that inspire us – and musically, also.

It can be a challenge, because we have different forces in the band, too. Some people are more into the loud stuff. The other day, we wrote a doom riff – and I know for a fact that our drummer is not a very big fan of doom. We wrote it, and he was [saying], “I want to go faster! I want to go faster!” But then he got the feeling, you know?

KS – Ha! His heart slowed down.

JB – “Ah, okay. If this is doom, then we can write another couple more doom songs.” Because he got the inspiration.

KS – That’s interesting, because I was surprised hearing parts of your new album. It seemed like the spirits of Iron Maiden and Motörhead were pushing out the folk music elements. Are those bands that influence either you or the guitarists in the band?

Traditional Viking banner

JB – Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. If you speak about archetypes in metal, I think the names you just mentioned are prime candidates.

We never wanted to add like 30% folk and 50% metal. It doesn’t work like that. It’s just more the moment, you know? What inspires us. We had the lineup change then, so we had to do some soul-searching. What are we about? What is the music that we want to make? We had some aggression in us. It’s difficult, you know. It’s never a conscious decision, sort of “Let’s put a bit more of this into the mix.”

I think the type of music they made is very timeless. What we do try to achieve is to create a sort of timeless sound. That may sound pretentious, but I think it’s good – if you sing about timeless themes and cyclic themes – that you also use music that is timeless. I will never go as far as to say that “we created this timeless masterpiece inspired by...”

But it is the philosophy we had behind this CD. We need to come up with some very strong, deep-rooted musical styles. I’m not putting it into the right words. Ha!

KS – No, it’s good.

To be concluded in Part Three.

INTERVIEW WITH JORIS BOGHTDRINCKER OF HEIDEVOLK, Part One

Joris Boghtdrincker of Heidevolk

During the Chicago stop of the Paganfest America Part IV tour on April 13th, I interviewed Joris Boghtdrincker of the Dutch metal band Heidevolk. I’ve followed the band’s music since finding their Walhalla Wacht album on the wall at Chicago’s dearly departed Metal Haven record shop in 2008. With two male vocalists singing over a blend of folk music and modern metal, the band has a unique and instantly recognizable sound. They have released four full-length albums that show a deep knowledge of Germanic mythology and history, with a particular focus on the traditions of Gelderland, their home province in the Netherlands.

Joris has been the band’s main lyricist. On the Heidevolk website, his profile lists Jan de Vries’ Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte as his favorite book. During the set by the Faroese band Týr later in the evening, Joris tracked me down in the crowd to tell me something about the Romanian scholar Mercia Eliade that he’d been trying to think of during the interview. This is not your average heavy metal singer. It was a pleasure to spend some time with this thoughtful and eloquent man and hear him speak quietly and passionately about history, music, mythology and religion.

In a strange turn of events, it was announced May 8th on the Heidevolk website that Joris has left the band. A statement from Joris reads:

After ten great years with Heidevolk, new horizons are beckoning me and I feel it is time for a change. I want to thank all involved in Heidevolk for the good times we had, and I want to wish them all the best in their future endeavours. To all the people I met and had the honour of performing for: it has been a pleasure and I am deeply thankful for all the memories. Wæs þu hæl!

I’m both shocked and saddened by this turn of events. I wish Joris the best as he follows whatever new path he has chosen to follow. I have full faith that he will accomplish great things.

KS – Does Heidevolk mean “heath folk” or “heathen folk”?

The cover of Heidevolk's first album

JB – The first. Heath folk. So, folk of the heath-land. As you know, the term heathen and pagan derive from the same root, as in the inhabitant [of the countryside]. We started out as a band that only sang about folklore. That was our main source of inspiration. We got together at concerts, and there were six guys that shared similar views of what music should sound like – the music they wanted to make and the inspiration they wanted to voice with their music. We were very like-minded. Most of the other guys had experiences in other bands; I didn’t.

KS – This is the first band you sang in?

JB – Yeah. So that’s what got it started. We were trying to come up with a name. It was really a bit silly – writing names on a schoolboard and [saying], “Ah, that sounds silly.” All of a sudden, then, a guy – I don’t know who it was, exactly – said, “We like the outdoors and we are very inspired by the history of our people.” So why not take heath, because that’s a very characteristic landscape, and folk as a reference to the history of our people? Put the two together and you have Heidevolk. It is not heathen folk, necessarily.

KS – You’ve said in interviews that your music is built on a foundation of local history, folklore, myth and nature. This could also serve as a description of current trends in contemporary heathenry, which seems to be moving away from large organizations and towards a more historically oriented and localized practice. What elements of historical heathenry in the Netherlands do you think are uniquely Dutch, as opposed to being common aspects of a Pan-Germanic continuum?

Map of the ancient Netherlands, drawn in 1617 by P. Kaerius

JB – When you look at the history of the Dutch, most of it is comprised of what has been passed on through the sources of Tacitus, and that’s like the earliest references that we have. In general, I think you can say that there are three tribes that built what we now are as a people: the Saxons, the Franks and the Frisians. What I think is unique about the history is the whole interaction between these tribes. It’s difficult to say, because I can imagine very well that this applies to different parts, too. So what makes that unique? Its specific history. I would say the typical things that went on: the wars they had, the political power shifting, Christianity. It’s hard to put into words, I realize. It’s a good question. It makes me think.

KS – So your interest is more tied to the specific tribes in the area, as opposed to a Pan-Germanic or Norse perspective.

JB – I’m very much into the local stuff. We never played the Viking card or the Pan-Germanic card. We do have some songs that have generic themes, but most of our stuff is about local historic events and our personal experiences in nature. I don’t know if that answers your question, but I’m more of that position. It needs to be authentic. It needs to be real. It needs to be tied to local history. That’s what inspires me. It’s been like that ever since we started. It’s been a very personal and a local experience that we’re trying to voice.

KS – You’ve said that your live show “combines the extremes of the profane with the spiritual” and that “there is a bandwidth between the profane and the spiritual between which all sane people must levitate.” What role do you think the spiritual plays in your writing and performing? How does the spiritual manifest itself for you?

Frigg als Ostara by Carl Emil Doepler (1882)

JB – I think for any musician to be inspired, he needs to have some sort of spiritual experience. It doesn’t necessarily mean spirits or ghosts or whatever, but it means an experience that goes beyond things that can be explained logically. That can be emotions. To me, it’s mainly emotions and the impact that an environment or a tale has on me. For instance, the second song we’re going to play tonight is “Ostara.” We have a relatively long piece in that song where there’s no words, but it’s just a rush that you get. That is what we try to put into the music.

That, I would say, makes up for the spiritual part. It is purely the emotion, the sensation you get. You’re not unfamiliar with our repertoire. We also have songs about drinking, and that is one of the lower pleasures in life. What makes that specific spiritual ceiling? For instance, the character of Wodan, Odin, Ergriffenheit and the whole idea of getting into this war frenzy. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you go mad in your head or you lose all control, but it is that sensation of…

Having said that – ha! As a matter of fact, I believe it is.

KS – I think that’s interesting. When you say emotion and rush, that really is related to the root of Odin’s name – to Wotan.

JB – Wütend.

"This drink – I like it. Another!"

KS – Exactly. I realized this for myself while I was recording a guitar solo for a project with Hawkwind. The engineer would bring me a shot of French press coffee after each take. After half an hour, the room was red, and my solos kept getting more and more wild. I think that experiences like this are what became culturally understood as possession by Odin.

JB – Yeah. It is like that. You want to address that feeling. You want to chain that to some sort of phenomenon, be it an archetype or a… I guess that is it.

We’ve never been too conscious about these things. We know what the gods stand for. We know how they inspire us. But it’s only when outsiders ask us, “So how does it influence you, exactly?” I guess it is exactly that. It is the workings of those forces or those archetypes.

KS – Of the powers.

JB – Yeah.

KS – How do you feel that focusing so much on studying the history and worldview of this past era has affected your own perspective on modern life in the 21st century?

JB – I think human history is all about survival, dealing with the environment you are born in and dealing with the age you are born in. So even though the circumstances aren’t the same as they used to be in a lot of respects, and a lot of older values seem to have disappeared or lost their relevance in modern-day society, I think what to me is most inspirational is this drive to cope with what’s going on and to find a way to survive and to deal with things – and also to become very conscious of the things that inspire you. The things that drive you, basically. What motivates you.

I think a lot of people in this day and age are born just receiving impulses. They are born into a variety of cultures and historical backgrounds, and that’s all fine – but that may be an explanation itself why people start looking at themselves: “So, what makes me unique? What makes my family unique?” I’m not saying that it should be. People can make their own choices about that, but it may explain why people become more conscious about their own background. To me, modern-day society presents a lot of challenges, because you have to deal with so many different patterns of expectation, so many different views, so many impulses from media.

Following a road between the trees of Gelderland

To me, personally, I find it good to know where my roots lie. It’s sort of like a tree. To know where your roots lie makes clear to you how you are balanced in this world. What brought you to this point? What brought my existence into being? That’s what it represents to me.

KS – Reamon (one of Heidevolk’s guitarists) has called you “a walking encyclopedia, especially about Germanic tribes in Holland.”

JB – I wouldn’t go that far. Ha!

KS – What sort of a research process do you do when writing lyrics?

JB – It differs. Sometimes, you want to tell a historical tale, and then I think you should check your facts. Then I do a lot of background research.

I’ve never claimed that what we write is historically correct. We try to make it as much historically correct [as possible], without letting it interfere into the whole creative process. What we do is, we root it in facts, but we do give it our own interpretation, because this is 21st-century people looking at past phenomena.

To us, it is mainly about conveying the feeling, mainly about conveying the inspiration we get from the things that have been passed on to us. We have very few lyrics that describe historical facts – like, purely, then this happened, then that happened. We always give an interpretation, but it’s like a historical romance. It is what somebody from that time could have thought when, for instance, the latest album was written from the perspective of the Batavi people – but it’s an interpretation, because we can never be sure how they felt. So, it’s just 21st-century people interpreting what happened then, and no claim to the truth, whatsoever.

KS – Are you going to the library and checking books? What’s your process?

The Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen

JB – Oh, yeah. For instance, for the last CD, we did a lot of background research with a local museum called Valkhof Museum in Nijmegen. It has a large collection of historical finds about the Batavians and the Romans. It was very interesting, because the people that worked there were very helpful and enthusiastic about the whole thing. They helped us come up with ideas: “This is what they used. Maybe you can use that for the artwork.” It was really kind of nice to make that link between young people – semi-young people – being interested in the subject and people that look at it from an academic point of view. That’s always the balance.

If you want to look at it from an extreme academic point of view, what we’re doing is not historically correct. Certain musicians have said, “You’re trying to make interpretations of folk music that are not correct.” We never claim to do that. That’s not our ambition. What we do try to do is to make it as solid [as possible] on both sides, and then bring it together in one experience. If that inspires people to look beyond what we’re doing and try to find out more…

I find it very interesting when we get mails, “You sing about this, but wasn’t it supposed to be like that?” It evokes a conversation. It evokes thoughts. I would say, when that happens, I have succeeded – igniting passion in other people.

KS – Reamon was actually a history teacher?

JB – He still is a teacher of history. I think it’s high school.

KS – He does that when you’re not touring?

JB – Yeah. Ha!

This picture totally reminds me of drinking Mountain Dew and
playing Dungeons & Dragons in my friend Andy's basement.

KS – It’s funny, what you said about listing dates in songs. As a kid, I had a friend who wrote a school history paper on Alexander the Great, and he got all his information from the song by Iron Maiden. Do you ever wonder if Dutch school kids are using your album notes to do their homework?

JB – I know for a fact that they do. Sometimes, we get emails from other teachers of history that use it. They show a clip or YouTube on the white board, just to ignite the passion – hoping to provoke some thoughts in students. It can be quite boring when you read all the facts. You have to get the feeling behind it.

We’ve had several teachers of history emailing us. Even though they cannot stand for everything that we stand for, the whole thing of bringing ancient history in a modern way – and in a way that appeals to young people – is very appealing to them. They can use it to make the kids think about what the material that they’re dealing with is about.

That, I think, is one of the greatest fruits of our labor. It has so many branches. Some people just like the music or the sound of the music. Other people get inspired by the things that we sing about, and other people just have a good time. It’s all fine with me. I never had a true vision of imposing thoughts on people. It’s not like that. It’s very interesting to see what people read into the music and what they draw from it – and it differs.

KS – Do you see yourself ever having a second career as an author or educator?

JB – Yeah. As a matter of fact, I do. For now, it’s too much about the passion of making music and the release of the inspiration I get from it. I can see myself in a couple of years, when hopefully I will have calmed down – ha! – try to be a bit more academic about what I’m doing.

To be continued in Part Two.

NORSE MYTHOLOGY IN POPULAR CULTURE

The dude on the cover of the June 2013
issue of Viking magazine totally isn't me.

Back in March, I was interviewed by Viking magazine for a feature on Norse mythology in popular culture. “Myths in the Modern Age” by Denise Logeland appears in the June 2013 issue of the magazine published by Sons of Norway. What follows is the complete text of my answers to Ms. Logeland’s questions on my approach to the Norse myths and what meaning they can hold for people in the 21st century.

VM – When and why did you begin to study Norse mythology? What role and meaning has it had in your personal life?

KS – I grew up with two philosophy professors for parents. As a kid during World War II, my father led his family out of anti-German death camps in Yugoslavia and into freedom in Austria. He was a monk before he left the Church to go into philosophy. My mother grew up in San Diego and was the first in her family to go to college. She was a nun before she left the Church to go into philosophy. You can imagine the conversations at the dinner table.

When I was a kid, my parents had me read the Bible and the Greek myths. They told me that I could believe whatever I chose as an adult, but that I needed to know the Judeo-Christian and Greco-Roman traditions so I could understand our heritage of art, literature, music and philosophy. Growing up, I only knew the Norse myths from reading Marvel’s Thor comics. As a young German-American dual citizen (with Scottish and English mixed in), I believed that the Norse myths were really something just for Scandinavians.

At some point, I picked up a book of Norse myths while browsing at a bookstore. The back cover said

The age-old legends and tales of Nordic mythology are a common heritage of German, Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon peoples.

This was something I had never been taught in school. I had chosen to read the Nibelungenlied for a grade-school project, and I knew the German fairy tales and legends, but I hadn’t ever connected the Norse myths themselves with my own family background(s).

The Children of Odin by Padraic Colum
(also known as Nordic Gods and Heroes)

That blurb led me to read The Children of Odin, a retelling of the major Norse myths written by Irish poet Padraic Colum in 1920. I felt an immediate connection to the stories. Thor reminded me of my Opa, who had been a hard-working and open-hearted farmer back in the old country. Odin reminded me of my father, who dedicated his life to learning and questioning, seeking to understand and prevent a repeat of the inhuman horrors of the Second World War.

I immediately started reading everything I could find on the Norse myths and the culture and history that surrounded them. The more I read, the more I came to realize that they really are the cultural heritage of the North. I tell my students that we may say Norse religion, but we really mean Pan-Germanic religion(s). The myths preserved for us by our Icelandic friends are the late flowering of a long and complicated tradition that took many forms and had many variations throughout a vast stretch of time and throughout the Germanic world – from continental Europe to the British Isles and throughout the Nordic countries.

When I read the Poetic Edda, I was amazed by the worldview expressed in the poems – especially in Hávamál (“Sayings of the High One”), in which Odin speaks directly to the reader/listener. It really moved me to find out that – long, long ago – my ancestors had asked the same questions about their lives as I had about mine. How do we lead lives of worth? What meaning can we create in our lives? How do we treat others? What is the value of wisdom if it makes us more aware of our mortality?

Thor really doesn't get along with monsters.

For me, Odin represents the endless search for knowledge – even if that knowledge doesn’t necessarily make you happier. Thor represents the inner strength to stand up to monsters. I don’t mean physical monsters like giants and trolls, but the monsters we deal with today: racism, sexism, homophobia and so on. There is much in the myths we can learn from and apply to our modern lives, if we read the myths poetically instead of literally. We are used to doing this with other religious texts like the Old and New Testaments. We simply need to see beyond the fantastic surface of the lore and seek to understand the deeper worldview that it expresses.

VM – What do we know about how the myths were told and used historically? Originally, who told them to whom, and why? When did they cease to be in wide circulation in the Nordic countries? When, how and why did their role change?

KS – The Norse myths that most people are familiar with really come from two Icelandic books from the 13th century – the Poetic Edda and the Edda. Strangely enough, they were both written down more than two centuries after Iceland’s conversion to Christianity. However, they contain our most coherent account of the mythology, based on much older oral traditions. Some of the myths have been connected to ancient poetry from Scandinavia, the British Isles and continental Europe.

"I'm here to chop down your sacred tree
of Thor. Also, would you mind telling me
your holy stories, so I can write 'em down
and they can inspire future metal bands?"

One of the things that makes Norse religion so different from other faiths is that its surviving texts were written down by people actually hostile to the faith. The Christians who created the surviving manuscripts belonged to a religion that had actively stamped out northern heathenry over the preceding centuries, sometimes in a very bloody fashion. Imagine if militant atheists had written the New Testament or the Chinese government was the only source of information about Tibetan Buddhism!

It’s really a miracle that we have the myths at all. We have to thank Snorri Sturluson and the anonymous compiler of the Poetic Edda for their pride in their cultural heritage, for having a sense of history that was strong enough for them to preserve the stories and legends of the older belief system.

To the casual reader, the Norse myths can be enjoyed as fantastic tales of adventure. The more serious reader will, however, quickly realize that something much deeper is behind these stories. They are the cultural artifacts of a religious system, and much of that system is deeply embedded in the poetry and prose. Imagine if all that survived of the New Testament was stories of Jesus walking around performing miracles, with no context or religious meaning attached. You would simply have myths of a Jewish wizard, and you would miss the deep religious and spiritual meaning of his life and message.

In order to really understand the Norse myths, we need to dive into archeology, history, comparative religion and a host of other disciplines. We need to read primary sources by writers from other cultures whose paths crossed that of the Norsemen – including Arab, English, Greek and Roman authors. In the twentieth century, the French philologist Georges Dumézil teased out the meaning of some obscure Norse myths by cross-referencing them with religious texts from India and Iran – distant cousins on the tree of Indo-European religious traditions.

Today, even ancient religious practices
can be packaged in a box and sold online.

As Christianity slowly took hold in Northern Europe, it would be expected that the Norse myths would die out as their root religion was forced out. Strangely enough, the myths never went away. Tales of the gods and heroes survived in folklore, in popular ballads, in fairy tales and in legends. In rural areas, the gods lived on in folk belief and superstition well into the twentieth century. The older generation of my German family, when they came to America after the Second World War, brought practices with them that – while supposedly Catholic – had ancient roots in pre-Christian religion (like burying the statue of a saint in the yard and telling him he couldn’t come out until the house was sold for a good price).

VM – I've come across a number of examples of Norse myths being referenced in contemporary culture. What are some examples that you're familiar with and find particularly interesting and significant? Why?

So the Norse gods didn't wear spandex
and fight supervillains from outer space?

KS – I think it’s amazing that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were both sons of Jewish immigrants, yet turned to Norse mythology to create one of the most recognizable icons of twentieth-century popular culture – the Mighty Thor of Marvel Comics. They used the ancient figures of Norse myth to tell very modern stories of life in America and even to work out issues related to the horrors of World War II. They mixed new ideas from the Space Age with the old mythology, creating a mixture of science fiction and myth that enabled the gods to walk down the streets of 1960s Manhattan.

Over the decades, many brilliant writers and artists have worked with the Marvel version of the Norse myths, and some of them have taken the characters much closer to the ancient stories. I happen to love the comics, and I think that they continue to deal with contemporary issues in very interesting ways. How would Thor react to 9/11? What place does the World Tree have in the modern urban world?

I’m also fascinated with the whole phenomenon of Viking Metal and Pagan Metal. There are many rock bands from Northern Europe and Scandinavia that focus exclusively on mythology, history and legend as the focus of their lyrics, album art and stage shows. They come from all over; Týr is from the Faroe Islands, Heidevolk is from Holland, Amon Amarth is from Sweden, Ensiferum is from Finland.

Heidevolk's reaction to a club owner saying "I'll mail the check."

Some of these groups blend the folk music traditions of their respective countries with modern metal music in very creative ways. Some use historical instruments side-by-side with standard rock instrumentation. Some use traditional lyrics and melodies and set them in modern fashion. Some provide extensive liner notes that explain the literary and historical sources for each song.

Like the comics, this musical genre blends ancient and modern in very interesting ways. Sometimes, the lyrics make specific comment on contemporary culture and politics, but through the lens of an ancient worldview. Admittedly, a lot of it can be macho Viking posturing, but there is some serious thought at the heart of the best examples of this type of music.

VM – What is it about the Norse myths that cause them to endure in the collective conscience and imagination?

This scene is perfectly understandable,
if you take the time to understand it.

KS – Any great faith tradition has ancient tales and poetry that encode the questions and knowledge of ancient peoples. Norse religion is no different. There have always been people who have looked outside the Judeo-Christian tradition for insights into life’s mysteries. There is a power and vitality in the Norse myths that is very different from what you hear in church on Sundays. Among all the fantastic elements of Norse mythology, there is an earthiness and sense of realness that is very appealing.

There are so many ways to read the Norse myths: allegorically, mystically, psychologically, religiously. There is no doctrine being foregrounded in the myths; the reader can bring her own interpretations to the stories. As a mythologist, I would hope that these interpretations would be built on a study of cultural context, but the magic of myth is that it can actually be read at so many different levels of engagement and knowledge.

Also, there is something in Norse mythology for everyone. While a young person may be attracted to the strength and adventurous spirit of Thor, an older adult may feel a kinship with the melancholy wisdom-seeking of Odin. The appeal of the myths cuts across lines of gender and sexual orientation; the mystic glamour of Freya and the maternal strength of Frigg attract modern women and the sexual free-spiritedness of Loki speaks to members of the LGBT community.

VM – Do the myths hold lessons for present-day readers? If so, what are those lessons?

KS – Norse mythology holds many lessons for today’s readers, just like the texts of any great religious tradition. Much of the serious scholarship skips over this. Modern academics, for whatever reason, seem to be very uncomfortable drawing lessons from Norse mythology. They tend to lock the myths in the strongbox of the past, which really does leave them in the dustbin of history. I think that’s a terrible shame, since there is so much in the mythology that is meaningful to modern people.

The Sayings of the High One still sound,
if you simply take the time to listen.

In Hávamál, Odin does not give commandments from on high, but provides aphorisms that serve as suggestions for leading a good life. He shares tales from his own experiences, providing examples of what led to failure and what led to success. This is very different from the rule-making patriarch of the Abrahamic tradition. Odin stresses the importance of gaining wisdom, but fully acknowledges that knowledge does not always bring happiness. The more that he learns about the future, the more he becomes certain about the finality of death. The beauty of it all is that this does not lead to depression or fatalism, but rather to a fiercely burning passion to lead a life of action and accomplishment while raging against the dying of the light.

In many ways, Thor can be seen as an idealized self-image of the common man. He is completely honest, he prefers an open brawl to devious machinations, he is strong and hard-working, and he has a salt-of-the-earth wisdom that is very different from Odin’s studied cleverness. He is completely dedicated to protecting the world from the forces of darkness, and he has a very endearing lack of any sense of self-preservation – he simply leaps in and starts hitting things with his hammer. He is the god of the regular folk, the guy you’d love to have a beer with. The fundamental lesson of Thor is that all of us must stand up for what is right and fearlessly take on the “monsters” of our time. We must be brave enough to stand up against whatever form of monstrous injustice rears its head in our own experience.

A big Viking “thank you” to Denise Logeland for asking such insightful questions!