tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28413481420335092632024-03-15T20:09:34.227-05:00The Norse Mythology Blog | norsemyth.orgArticles & Interviews by Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfried | Best Religion Weblog 2012 • 2013 • 2014Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.comBlogger262125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-70032011993922632652024-03-14T10:41:00.000-05:002024-03-14T10:41:20.205-05:00Bruce Lee and the Tao of ÁsatrúBruce Lee was the first Asian actor to achieve star billing in a Hollywood movie since the silent film era, and he was the first Chinese-American man ever to do so. His performance in <i>Enter the Dragon</i> (1973) made him a worldwide superstar, even though it was released a month after his premature death at age 32. The spirit of his on-screen performances continues to be a felt presence in motion pictures, television shows, video games, and comic books.<br /><br />
From teaching kung fu (which he usually spelled <i>gung fu</i>) in Seattle as a college student to developing the new martial art he called <i>jeet kune do</i> (“way of the intercepting fist”), Lee fundamentally changed and drove the development of martial arts in the United States. Acknowledging his iconoclastic and pioneering approach to training and fighting, <a href="https://magazine.fighttimes.com/dana-white-and-the-future-of-ufc/" target="_blank">Dana White</a> of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has called Lee “the father of mixed martial arts.”<br /><br />
There’s another aspect of Lee that doesn’t get as much attention: his written work as a philosopher.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjW-B1GbnJqIkI9O01fW7hbrOJmnxOS2Fb1Eaemu3Lg2LjwRz3rH0SkFU_ICdZCqtx3iLOe3FNjh_dz_JBpYloOYn3ea43EU-t6lkhKgwmX2GSpubyTdcBXOX86jwwXkTA6Soh4j1zdkh7ww3TDFIP0m9GxCFPRe7WH7h8mo9hEnVgEE-SgUcdCoTzIMRo" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="440" data-original-width="688" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjW-B1GbnJqIkI9O01fW7hbrOJmnxOS2Fb1Eaemu3Lg2LjwRz3rH0SkFU_ICdZCqtx3iLOe3FNjh_dz_JBpYloOYn3ea43EU-t6lkhKgwmX2GSpubyTdcBXOX86jwwXkTA6Soh4j1zdkh7ww3TDFIP0m9GxCFPRe7WH7h8mo9hEnVgEE-SgUcdCoTzIMRo=w640-h410" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bruce Lee stamps issued in Hong Kong (2020)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Like J.R.R. Tolkien with his <i>Silmarillion</i>, Lee was a prolific writer who filled box after box with drafts for the projects closest to his heart but couldn’t quite bring himself to close them off for publication. Tolkien died the same year as Lee, and his major mythological work was assembled from his notes and published in book form four years after his death. Lee’s <i>Tao of Jeet Kune Do</i> was a similar posthumous assemblage, as was the series of books titled <i>Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method</i>. Tuttle Publishing continues to print a series of standalone books compiled from Lee’s notes, letters, and interviews.<br /><br />
The various books credited to Lee aren’t simple “stand like this, kick like this” martial arts manuals. Yes, they have photos, diagrams, and detailed instructions for hand-to-hand combat, but they are also permeated with Lee’s wider philosophical and spiritual concerns. Quotes supposedly from Lee that often pop up online as inspirational nuggets are often actually lines that he spoke in character on television and on the silver screen. His original written reflections are more interesting and evince a deep engagement with his own study as a voracious reader in a wide range of disciplines.<br /><br />
As has happened before while reading other texts, I was surprised to find how much of Lee’s written work resonated with my own experiences in, of all things, <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathenry</a> – new religious movements that seek to reconstruct, recreate, and reimagine ancient Norse and wider Germanic polytheist paganism.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“A universal family”</span></span></b><br /><br />
Modern Germanic paganism’s relationship with Asian thought hasn’t been great. Some branches of American Ásatrú continue to embrace – sometimes unknowingly – <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2021/09/articles-of-faith-american-heathenry.html" target="_blank">cultural appropriation</a> of Asian materials that came into Pagan practice via Theosophy’s willful mishmash of world traditions and the Third Reich’s recasting of diversely sourced theory and practice as supposedly primeval Aryan.<br /><br />
From so-called runic “intoning” or “chanting” (<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Taking_Up_The_Runes/mnpJR1nciLYC?gbpv=1&bsq=intoning" target="_blank">overtly acknowledged</a> by today’s Heathens as a product of the racist German völkisch milieu and an appropriation of Indian meditational practice) to “rune yoga” (an appropriation of admittedly complicated Indian yoga that was also developed within the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dark_Enlightenment/0lIMBAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=runic+yoga&pg=PA54&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">German völkisch scene)</a>, even self-declared “not racist” practitioners continue to forward the <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Caravan/ryxHDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=nazi+appropriation+of+eastern+spirituality&pg=PA43&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">National Socialist</a> merging of elements from the Germanic past and Asian religious traditions.<br /><br />
There’s a great difference between <i>appropriation of </i>and <i>engagement with</i>. I’m disgusted by the first and dedicated to the second. Instead of taking and rebranding, the rightful focus should be on listening and learning – on fostering dialogue, recognizing parallels, and building connections.<br /><br />
As someone who spends so much time engaging with Old Norse mythology and poetry, it’s fascinating to read Lee’s discussions of the “kung fu man” focusing <i>chi</i> that evoke comparisons to the Old Norse <i>megin</i> that swells up within Thor when he is in need of great strength.<br /><br />
When Lee discusses the meaning of the word <i>tao</i> as way, principle, law, beginning, pattern, and truth, it is reminiscent of <i><a href="http://lexicon.ff.cuni.cz/html/oi_cleasbyvigfusson/b0526.html" target="_blank">siðr</a></i>, the Old Norse word that can mean custom, habit, manner, conduct, moral life, religion, faith, rite, ceremonial, and more.<br /><br />
I’m not claiming that such cross-cultural echoes are evidence of some Indo-European relation from the depths of time. I’m agreeing with Lee that communication across cultural boundaries – which are, by definition, human constructs – can be deeply meaningful and lead us to relate to each other at a higher level.<br /><br />
When asked by a Chinese reporter whether his marriage to a white American woman would “face unsolvable obstacles,” Lee replied:
<blockquote>Many people may think that it will be. But to me, this kind of racial barrier does not exist. If I say I believe that ‘everyone under the sun’ is a member of a universal family, you may think that I am bluffing and idealistic. But if anyone still believes in racial differences, I think he is too backward and narrow. No matter if your color is black or white, red or blue, I can still make friends with you without any barrier (<i>Bruce Lee: A Life</i>, p. 391).</blockquote>
There is much that American Heathens can learn from Bruce Lee on the subject of diversity.<br /><b><br /><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">
“Return to your senses”</span></span></b><br /><br />
Lee himself was an embodiment of diversity. Born in San Francisco’s Chinatown to Hong Kong residents temporarily in the United States, he was 5/8 Han Chinese, 1/4 English, and 1/8 Dutch-Jewish. Dividing his adult life between Hong Kong, Seattle, Oakland, and Los Angeles, he was called “the ultimate Mid-Pacific Man” by the Hong Kong media – a term used for “Westernized Chinese.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPRGhnG_dwnvUHfDnRfvOhVsCzS_SlH-98bycfNhVaqsK87SaCRCPmTaKz8WIuIE4uYTpxP8_4ptlkRYNDOHGhzifNd3ztkOkaZEZjs_JfKAp5WNuAaPoUWE7hyIglAK0htO7xxkQYMuTkS1bKTwquRGfY6icf6M3JIiUXQlArS7BXpm4GmXA3-8wEQY0" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="590" data-original-width="940" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgPRGhnG_dwnvUHfDnRfvOhVsCzS_SlH-98bycfNhVaqsK87SaCRCPmTaKz8WIuIE4uYTpxP8_4ptlkRYNDOHGhzifNd3ztkOkaZEZjs_JfKAp5WNuAaPoUWE7hyIglAK0htO7xxkQYMuTkS1bKTwquRGfY6icf6M3JIiUXQlArS7BXpm4GmXA3-8wEQY0=w640-h402" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Birthday party in San Francisco's Chinatown (1912)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Lee dealt with prejudice on both sides of the ocean, with some in Hong Kong asserting that he wasn’t “Chinese enough” and some in Hollywood rejecting him for his Chinese accent. He had the same issues with moving between cultural and linguistic worlds as my father (a <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2017/02/column-i-am-the-son-of-a-refugee.html" target="_blank">German immigrant</a> to the United States), specifically regarding thinking and writing in two languages:
<blockquote>I bought this English-Chinese dictionary originally to help me find the suitable English words when I first went to the United States when I was 18. Now I find that I have to use it to find the Chinese words which I have in mind (<i>Bruce Lee: A Life</i>, p. 363).</blockquote>
After decades living in the United States, my father was similarly suspended between American students who had difficulty understanding his accent and German friends who made fun of him for losing his rolling R’s. Also similar to Lee, he sometimes found himself floating between two languages when writing.<br /><br />
Like the American composer and performer Charles Mingus – who had a mixture of Chinese, German, Native American, African-American, and other heritages – Lee seems to have been drawn to those who didn’t fit into tidy ethnocultural boxes. Mingus felt that he wasn’t accepted as black by his black classmates in grade school and so gravitated towards a youthful social circle including Japanese, Greek, Italian, Mexican, and mixed-race kids. When building his social network of martial arts students and practitioners in the United States, Lee likewise engaged with a diverse group.<br /><br />
Shortly after Lee moved to Seattle in 1959, he was approached by Jesse Glover, a young African-American man who had become deeply interested in martial arts after a drunk and racist police officer broke his jaw. Glover faced a different flavor of racism when he found that no Asian martial arts teacher would accept a black student. In his mid-twenties, he managed to earn a black belt and become a teacher at the Seattle Judo Club but again ran into an anti-black wall when he attempted to study kung fu.<br /><br />
After seeing Lee give a public martial arts demonstration – his first in the United States – Glover asked to study with him. Following a typically intense audition, Lee accepted Glover as his first American student in a break with traditional barriers against black students in kung fu instruction.<br /><br />
Lee’s studio soon grew to include Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, and white students. Biographer Matthew Polly calls it “the most racially diverse group of students – white, black, brown, and yellow – in the history of the Chinese martial arts.”<br /><br />
In one of the many versions of an essay he penned on jeet kune do in 1971, Lee wrote that the article
<blockquote>is primarily concerned with the blossoming of a martial artist – not a “Chinese” martial artist, a “Japanese” martial artist, and so forth. A martial artist is first a human being, which we are ourselves; nationalities have nothing to do with martial arts. So please come out of that protective shell of isolation, that proud conclusion or whatever, and relate directly to what is being said – once again return to your senses by ceasing all that intellectual or mental mumbo jumbo (<i>Artist of Life</i>, p. 152).</blockquote>
Here is something on which practitioners of Ásatrú can meditate.<br /><br />
How many of those who repeatedly insist that they’re “not racist,” that they’re not like those awful Heathens over there who declare whiteness a prerequisite for participation in Ásatrú, will happily testify that they came to this religion because they discovered they had Swedish or some other Scandinavian ancestry? How many decide to become Heathen because a mail-order DNA test told them they had a bit of Nordicity in their bloodline? How many announce that they chose to leave the faiths in which they were raised and “return to the religion of their ancestors?”<br /><br />
Ásatrú and Heathenry are not ancient ancestral religious traditions. They are new religious movements more closely related to Scientology than they are to Hinduism, in the sense that they are modern inventions rather than branches of ongoing development on a religious family tree. As such, the decision of who can practice is totally up to us here today, right now. If only more Heathens would actively seek out diverse fellow practitioners as Lee did!<br /><br />
We should be educated on and respectful of the cultural precursors to modern Ásatrú in long-ago times, for sure. The more we learn about how the ancient religions were practiced, the more we are informed on how to build the modern religions in a way that is positive and meaningful for all involved.<br /><br />
Being respectful of origins, however, is quite different from being worshipful of those origins. Being informed should include what learning what to avoid and discard from the old days, as well. The manifestation of DNA test results as driver of religious adherence and an emphasis on ancient “original” practitioners as some sort of “Arch-Heathens” who practiced a purer form of religion is a deadly combination that leads naturally to a fundamentalist worldview.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Behind these curtains”</span></span></b><br /><br />
On a table by the entrance to Bruce Lee’s school in LA’s Chinatown, there was a small grave with a tiny tombstone that read, “In memory of a once fluid man crammed and distorted by the classical mess.” It was meant as a declaration of Lee’s key concept that rigidly following the classical teachings of particular kung fu or other martial arts schools would hobble the fighter in an actual fight. Instead, he emphasized, the fighter must go with the unpredictable flow of real combat and respond to reality as it is.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjz71D9ijfABAC37w8yfo8R4aSzV1zJzBMqGkg5RAp-9WU1KEYZ3peAAgOpFx5k53LYekEPtbQ-xN5JXKYofuylmJvrtBlaIBlFx5AgafEEbdnx6t5wvX6qXSJucm14lHVHmwVWqksX9vys1coMsCTTamQ5tNRBytg9DgjW0aJN6RdguWE_KmRFzY5t5dk" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1023" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjz71D9ijfABAC37w8yfo8R4aSzV1zJzBMqGkg5RAp-9WU1KEYZ3peAAgOpFx5k53LYekEPtbQ-xN5JXKYofuylmJvrtBlaIBlFx5AgafEEbdnx6t5wvX6qXSJucm14lHVHmwVWqksX9vys1coMsCTTamQ5tNRBytg9DgjW0aJN6RdguWE_KmRFzY5t5dk=w640-h442" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bruce Lee (in black top) in his Los Angeles school (1967)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
This was absolutely not an argument for an “anything goes” approach or for the disposal of dedicated training. To the contrary, Lee studied and incorporated elements form a wide variety of fighting forms – from the Wing Chun he studied with the legendary Ip Man in Hong Kong to the American boxing of Jack Dempsey and Muhammad Ali to the finer points of fencing theory and practice. By learning from the strengths of various systems without prejudice and refusing to blindly follow the failures of traditional forms, Lee was able to reach a point where he could truly inhabit the moment and fight by educated instinct.<br /><br />
Lee’s motto for jeet kune do is “using no way as way; having no limitation as limitation.” The emphasis is on flexibility in the face of changing circumstances, on responding in real time to the realities of life, on living in the time that we actually and bodily inhabit. What Lee says about adapting to the changeable moment in street fighting applies, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, to adapting to the changeable moment in our lived lives as practitioners of modern polytheist religions.<br /><br />
In parallel to Lee, my argument is not for an “anything goes” mindset regarding Ásatrú nor for turning our backs on the historical record. Instead, it is for a breadth of learning that leads to deeper understanding. That breadth should include information and insight from other traditions that is internalized without being appropriated.<br /><br />
A resolute obsession with trying to know the ultimately unknowable interior worldview of ancient Germanic pagans – as if there even were some overarching worldview shared by members of some true and unified universal church of Odin over large stretches of time and distance – leads to a form of fundamentalism that insists on the possibility of reconstructing a Viking Age Icelandic or other ancient Germanic religious world of belief and practice in today’s United States. One result of this obsession is to leave today’s American practitioners “crammed and distorted by the classical mess” as they constantly turn their inner eyes backwards through time.<br /><br />
Lee criticized this focus on replicating the forms of the past rather than engaging with the present:
<blockquote>Instead of facing combat in its suchness, quite a few systems of martial art accumulate “fanciness” that distorts and cramps their practitioners and distracts them from the actual reality of combat, which is simple and direct and nonclassical. Instead of going immediately to the heart of things, flowery forms and artificial techniques (organized despair!) are ritually practiced to simulate actual combat. Thus, instead of <i>being</i> in combat, these practitioners are idealistically <i>doing</i> something about combat (<i>The Tao of Gung Fu</i>, p. 170).</blockquote>
The applicability to Ásatrú seems clear.<br /><br />
When we obsess over how we think things were done in the distant past, whether relating to attempts to self-consciously adopt a putative worldview or replicate ritual dress, we place the “fanciness” of <i>doing</i> methodology over the “simple and direct and nonclassical” <i>being</i> in a living religion.<br /><br />
Lee’s student and movie co-star Bob Baker reports that Lee had planned a sequel to his “classical mess” tombstone:
<blockquote>He always had this idea if he was ever to open another school. When you walked through the door, there would be these large red curtains and then a sign that said, ‘Behind These Curtains Lies The Secret’… And then when you opened the curtains there was just a full length mirror. And that would be the way you get into the school (<i>Bruce Lee: A Life</i>, p. 380).</blockquote>
The message of the mirror for today’s Heathens is <i>we are Ásatrú</i>.<br /><br />
This thing of ours is what we make of it. How we reify the religion in our own lives right now determines what it is today and influences what it will become tomorrow. There is no secret answer hidden within the surviving texts, the found physical remains, and the secular academic theories. These various sources should all be studied and considered, but the living faith emanates from ourselves.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Constantly changing and constantly adapting”</span></span></b><br /><br />
In another version of “Toward Personal Liberation,” his 1971 jeet kune do essay, Lee wrote of turning away from national organizations:
<blockquote>Upon my arrival in the States, I did have my “Chinese” Institute; but since then I no longer believe in systems (Chinese or not Chinese), nor organizations. Big organizations, domestic and foreign branches, affiliations, and so forth, are not necessarily the places where a martial artist discovers/finds himself. More often this is quite to the contrary. To reach the growing number of students, some pre-conformed set must be established as standards for the branches to follow. As a result, all members will be conditioned according to the prescribed system. Many will probably end up as prisoners of a systemized drill (<i>Artist of Life</i>, p. 176).</blockquote>
Like Lee, I no longer believe in systems nor organizations for Ásatrú and Heathenry.<br /><br />
Not only are the national organizations deeply flawed, it is in the very nature of national organizations to be deeply flawed. No matter what the company line is regarding universalism, acceptance, or inclusion, the fact is that larger groups attract both those who want to dictate and those who want to be dictated to.<br /><br />
These fatally attracted and codependent mindsets necessarily feed upon each other, even when in seeming conflict, and achieve unity when rallying against any who challenge fundamental assumptions in the way that Lee did with traditional martial arts. This tendency only becomes more vulgar in the online and social media world where these organizations largely exist.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfPKmXInXKNfzwIkzYYIjRbbIffT02siRws1qr7GbVfBjjWofVRTFMCBB5i2zMfe1BgbMutJCFXdBgBFxOISzliOYFc68rsHlHiMIgNlyWpiCx-mI6vP4Wtdueda3-FZUUOrjhY9Opnwph_WU_Ubu6ia6S5FMHcE1wlk5CR7AFPaYRN53bhmoJxmnjr5w" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="691" data-original-width="1073" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhfPKmXInXKNfzwIkzYYIjRbbIffT02siRws1qr7GbVfBjjWofVRTFMCBB5i2zMfe1BgbMutJCFXdBgBFxOISzliOYFc68rsHlHiMIgNlyWpiCx-mI6vP4Wtdueda3-FZUUOrjhY9Opnwph_WU_Ubu6ia6S5FMHcE1wlk5CR7AFPaYRN53bhmoJxmnjr5w=w640-h412" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Postcard of martial arts performers in Manchuria (before 1911)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
When asked about the difference between various schools of kung fu, Lee was openly critical of instructors who pushed one traditional approach over another:
<blockquote>Of course we hear a lot of the teachers claiming their styles are soft and others are hard; these people are clinging blindly to one partial view of the totality. Because if they have understood and transcended the real meaning of gentleness and firmness, they wouldn’t have made such an impossible separation. I was asked by a so-called gung fu master once – one of those that really looked the part, with beard and all – as to what I think of yin (soft) and yang (firm). I simply answered “baloney!” Of course, he was quite shocked at my answer and still has not come to the realization that “it” is never two (<i>The Tao of Gung Fu</i>, p. 164).</blockquote>
Modern Heathenry has had more than its fair share of “those that really looked the part, with beard and all,” as if there were some necessary correlation between pseudo-Viking machismo and polytheist spirituality. As Lee said when teaching responses to street attacks that appear irrational, “There are many irrational people on the streets today.”<br /><br />
I must admit that I long for more of Lee’s type of iconoclast to appear in Ásatrú. I hope for younger practitioners to appear who will throw aside the macho posturing, the knowing or ignorant replication of völkisch practices, and the rote repetition of tired concepts and catch-phrases. Hopefully, we can someday yell “baloney” together.<br /><br />
After distancing himself from national organizations, Lee set out the path he had chosen to follow:
<blockquote>I believe in teaching/having a few pupils at one time, as teaching requires a constant alert observation of each individual in order to establish a direct relationship. A good teacher can never be fixed in a routine, and nowadays many are just that. During teaching, each moment requires a sensitive mind that is constantly changing and constantly adapting. Above all, a teacher must never force his student to fit his favorite pattern, [which] is a preformation (<i>Artist of Life</i>, p. 176).</blockquote>
This statement also works as an argument in favor of the small, local, face-to-face Ásatrú kindred of limited membership and long-term commitment over any national-level Heathen organization. Where the larger organization codifies and enforces, the smaller group questions and evolves. Lee’s small circle of friends, colleagues, students, and training partners is a positive role model for building vibrantly diverse kindreds that practice and grow together.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Artist of life”</span></span></b><br /><br />
I’ve written before about my personal saints, which include John Coltrane, Jack Kerouac, and Malcolm X. I explained my conception of sainthood in an article on my “patron saint” <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2019/08/column-jim-bouton-pray-for-us.html" target="_blank">Jim Bouton</a>, writing that a better term would perhaps be “ancestors, as we use that term ritually in <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/" target="_blank">Thor’s Oak Kindred</a> to refer to those now gone who inspire us, those departed souls with whom we feel a kinship that can be stronger than that to an unknown and nameless progenitor.” But it’s fun to say I have saints.<br /><br />
I’ve recently added Bruce Lee to my private pantheon of decidedly un-saintly saints. Like all the rest, he was complex, difficult, inspiring, problematic, hilarious, shocking, and deeply human. What makes him so meaningful to me is that he has that powerful quality which all of these figures have in common, a quality which I summed up in my article on <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2020/11/new-gods-of-fourth-world.html" target="_blank">Jack Kirby</a>, another one of my saints: they all “challenged themselves to be greater while publicly speaking out against the failings of their own society.”<br /><br />
In Lee’s case, the self-challenge and the speaking out were defining elements of his complex character. In the final draft of his essay “In My Own Process” from around 1973, he wrote:
<blockquote>Basically, I have always been a martial artist by choice, and actor by profession. But, above all, I am hoping to actualize myself to be an artist of life along the way (<i>Artist of Life</i>, p. 256).</blockquote>
It’s a worthy goal for each of us.<br /><br />
<i>Sources for this column include Artist of Life, Bruce Lee’s Fighting Method, The Tao of Gung Fu, and Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee; Bruce Lee: A Life by Matthew Polly; and Mingus: A Critical Biography by Brian Priestley. An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2021/08/column-bruce-lee-and-the-tao-of-asatru.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-19075124501508307802023-12-31T15:04:00.003-06:002023-12-31T15:05:15.180-06:00Art Contest – Adult Winners, Midwinter 2023Here are the adult winners! This year's <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2023/11/art-contest-midwinter-2023.html" target="">Midwinter Art Contest</a> celebrates the tenth anniversary of our international <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html#contests" target="">Norse Mythology Art Contest</a> here at <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/">The Norse Mythology Blog</a>. We received many amazing entries from around the world in the adult division this year, and it was very difficult to choose between them.<br /><br />
You can view the winning work in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2023/12/art-contest-teen-winners-midwinter-2023.html">teen division</a> and check out comments from the judges by clicking <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2023/12/art-contest-teen-winners-midwinter-2023.html">here</a>.<br />
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I'd again like to thank my fellow judge <b>Lee Carter</b> (UK artist for <i>2000 AD</i>, <i>Judge Dredd Megazine</i>, and many other great comics). This contest would not have been possible without his kind donation of time and insight.<br />
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The assignment was to create a piece that somehow relates to the character and legends of the <b>Norse gods and goddesses</b> and the celebration of <b>midwinter</b>. There was a really wide range of conceptual and technical approaches in the adult group this year, and it was very hard for us to rank them. Congratulations to all who entered! We are very thankful for all the artists who shared their creativity with us.<br />
<br />
<i>Note: You can click on the art to see a larger version.</i><br />
<br />
<b>FIRST PLACE (TIE)</b><br />Nordhild Siglinde Wetzler<br />
Age 25<br />Småland, Sweden<br />
<br />
Nordhild explains her winning entry:
<br />
<blockquote>
When the days get to their darkest point, we brighten them by spending time with the ones who are closest to us. That doesn't just mean family and friends but also the ones who deserve our time and attention the most – our pet companions. I imagine this is the same even for gods and goddesses, who surely have even more busy schedules than us.<br />
<br />
It was hard to find straightforward information connecting Freyja to Yule, but – having two cats myself – I felt most drawn to her. With her being the goddess of love and fertility, I feel those are two things closely related to Yule, which is about the love we have for the ones around us as well as the rebirth that midwinter stands for.<br /><br />
I imagined her sitting in her hall Fólkvangr, surrounded by her pets, enjoying an apple and perhaps waiting for the first guests to arrive to celebrate midwinter.</blockquote>
Nordhild won second place in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/12/art-contest-teen-winners-midwinter-2013.html">teen division</a> of the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/11/art-contest-midwinter-2013.html">Midwinter 2013 Art Contest</a>, way back in the contest's very first year. She won second place again in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/06/art-contest-teen-winners-midsummer-2014.html">teen division</a> of the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/05/art-contest-midsummer-2014.html">Midsummer 2014 Art Contest</a>. In the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2015/05/art-contest-midsummer-2015.html">Midsummer 2015 Art Contest</a>, she won first place in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2015/06/art-contest-teen-winners-midsummer-2015.html">teen division</a>.<br /><br />
This year, she moved up to the adult division and tied for first place. I love the calm power emanating from Freyja and her cats. The whiteness of Freyja's wonderfully rendered dress, of the cats, and of the snow outside contrasts beautifully with the warmth of the candlelight and the food and drink of the midwinter celebration. Nordhild really captures the warm spirit of the holiday.<br />
<br />
Lee writes, "The perspective works great and draws you in towards the character, then you're gifted with a mountain range that lets your imagination wander."<br />
<br />Congratulations, Nordhild! It's been wonderful to see your art grow in depth and maturity.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231205148if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV87b88d4s0lzlpWXMoUh9TogYl4KDOAnkfhoBw1N4CMWQsxg1QZFk-y870X7xA5XGXElcLf1KFazMwJm1y50ZtMK1_DJo0SOxXPwKx010E1Y6bMy9Pes8krecyPoQRXXwiETzoJdBgX9i8i9vrjWByOx4-g5JftluQ8QCjiam9FIFDohhDyW_gd-hCeVpETQPt1rb2Io626z8D33OMF1JQo15JJ6HbX7ap6rDA5AWN50wOPCJnhWhuWCQbrcs73nTQJjt3VjymlOSXPRL0ZakyQWMCqO19fXsqHi99VV0geq4C3_dmFrzSQmkMvLj2EEaQTaLuwc8WZaX3K4A0sA0vNN0spjIKHl9PxIE4kAKXtX2VcreKSxp7qQOkGyy4fKKC5mjzivAmTCNpvfbNUshBhHcSMkCAYcgpn2fL0zNg8VU15IcbTEX_ljhLRJbhfKG5_Zm6lijEXhPRCdaDZKziEAUw8QRxUOW-gTtci1Cs91Xs9JByLR34c2WEv091KYfcEHC60ejkauH_zGAXNu-oTKPX79kePbkTlT7mDn6R6Y5ilfp8l30hX0Ad8MHSttdYwhJryv8S5fWPtGf1KCC0xF5Wqo3DEsRYduHOg09cZtzKHn9LBf5MdrIH4tgJ9qlpbIZ-0FZ17FhCZhEMy66db_Fgec_0hgXyP6AFxtORSBD76R5aHmEFrc-mAE-7419-zlscWbp8HxUDRiJF9EvAj2fZ0yY_q6bo3u4TilwW0_MAx3bUuqCxDVhRNAoan4CXr9DpgRjFpxNYm3d_3oE2fGMgf4tHmPVkjHHnAS6gqWyM6es2FKqWJcbGwkD5Oo7hCqkpk0RRZbAi3N6OMqEOX9njHiwmcr1DvOqYKWMbZj61VIKL6qPEPlvDhMEngl_aqjGP-3_92EI8lUKnCjXvuXNHgDLzcR0wsxSvaP2JGuytrmiZsH7T96f-QmQveZTxOyi69W1vY_jzV6OFfnnGufVTIwKqSVvsKA2G9Te0XsqT_n5_FqLBK1JGbb2JBhMxZKHckoX5rvz6RSbSRn-rw-9PV6aCThOs-6UYRc0Z-Qw4EtmuX-uUmq3aZZIuvkJJyhEt70GFNiyxCk9ZvGVBxF4Y6Q9kQDPZtm0HUI9LbNn9CkrH31v_Y4wRs=w2110-h1500-s-no"><img border="0" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231205148if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV87b88d4s0lzlpWXMoUh9TogYl4KDOAnkfhoBw1N4CMWQsxg1QZFk-y870X7xA5XGXElcLf1KFazMwJm1y50ZtMK1_DJo0SOxXPwKx010E1Y6bMy9Pes8krecyPoQRXXwiETzoJdBgX9i8i9vrjWByOx4-g5JftluQ8QCjiam9FIFDohhDyW_gd-hCeVpETQPt1rb2Io626z8D33OMF1JQo15JJ6HbX7ap6rDA5AWN50wOPCJnhWhuWCQbrcs73nTQJjt3VjymlOSXPRL0ZakyQWMCqO19fXsqHi99VV0geq4C3_dmFrzSQmkMvLj2EEaQTaLuwc8WZaX3K4A0sA0vNN0spjIKHl9PxIE4kAKXtX2VcreKSxp7qQOkGyy4fKKC5mjzivAmTCNpvfbNUshBhHcSMkCAYcgpn2fL0zNg8VU15IcbTEX_ljhLRJbhfKG5_Zm6lijEXhPRCdaDZKziEAUw8QRxUOW-gTtci1Cs91Xs9JByLR34c2WEv091KYfcEHC60ejkauH_zGAXNu-oTKPX79kePbkTlT7mDn6R6Y5ilfp8l30hX0Ad8MHSttdYwhJryv8S5fWPtGf1KCC0xF5Wqo3DEsRYduHOg09cZtzKHn9LBf5MdrIH4tgJ9qlpbIZ-0FZ17FhCZhEMy66db_Fgec_0hgXyP6AFxtORSBD76R5aHmEFrc-mAE-7419-zlscWbp8HxUDRiJF9EvAj2fZ0yY_q6bo3u4TilwW0_MAx3bUuqCxDVhRNAoan4CXr9DpgRjFpxNYm3d_3oE2fGMgf4tHmPVkjHHnAS6gqWyM6es2FKqWJcbGwkD5Oo7hCqkpk0RRZbAi3N6OMqEOX9njHiwmcr1DvOqYKWMbZj61VIKL6qPEPlvDhMEngl_aqjGP-3_92EI8lUKnCjXvuXNHgDLzcR0wsxSvaP2JGuytrmiZsH7T96f-QmQveZTxOyi69W1vY_jzV6OFfnnGufVTIwKqSVvsKA2G9Te0XsqT_n5_FqLBK1JGbb2JBhMxZKHckoX5rvz6RSbSRn-rw-9PV6aCThOs-6UYRc0Z-Qw4EtmuX-uUmq3aZZIuvkJJyhEt70GFNiyxCk9ZvGVBxF4Y6Q9kQDPZtm0HUI9LbNn9CkrH31v_Y4wRs=w2110-h1500-s-no" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First Place (Tie): Nordhild Siglinde Wetzler<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>FIRST PLACE (TIE)</b><br />Eleanor Rose James<br />
Age 22<br />United Kingdom<br />
<br />
Eleanor writes this about her entry:
<br />
<blockquote>
I was inspired by the imagery and tales associated with Skaði, the jötunn and goddess who embodies the winter's spirit. Residing at the top of the tallest of frozen mountains, I aimed to depict Skaði as an ethereal elemental and natural force, a sharp frost that sweeps across the land in a graceful and deadly dance.</blockquote>
Lee comments, "A wonderful palette of cool winter colors with a well thought out composition. You can feel the movement and the cold winds."<br /><br />
The colors in Eleanor's entry really are wonderfully chilly. I love the quietly determined look on Skaði's face as she glides across the snow and ice. This is a work of art that really inspires the viewer to imagine the stories that hover behind it.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231205451if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV84SQTcf9IJ6HBpXrNRT2xFKns9qZJcrUMoI9txwBeVD8FiYpdtg3bsVQC3rnRkeX3w8A0AY_VeXEBGv8T2psntpeiaWMfG6Jy2JLBguQ950R3_rF3SskAjvYpoE2bJVvGQ_Hc14NRicBAw-FncuuIYft-mZR5bmuspFY2XX2FKkjpXA-sO1397WpInUdtXxht98PdZAPxBcdyXXWFsa9TeNQakfW7UOPsGGqMRM5VpybolHuFwQE1iVEnjz8Z1nDAzz1yEMvbJ-LbsV-5ZaesfnUFnN8Wslj9VGkGrkdFFjqcTwvxrqvMok3q5XqKnpqNMvFP6aFJBuMNvhylLC0dO2KyRjVd6O0M45BARcHBO3-LupHz87TRxXN0x3W3xoY1tWM30xw5Zg8zcfGBAaB8Vzv0i8wqrS56gKPfVR4fNO7vCz-BQ1cAF7il_9XPwjyoXt9iUoph2nrNVxJfxOLUWhRBbCax0D6E-I-7eHLMf8bmpYKL2iDlOk5wb514UBP6IJGIjc_CwAiHdhbD1Di3T7rFvJEMR8gMgUpiov1hzXebaMOTx1-VY1wVDS0P8LHkNhXR3liKEPq3eFQEudAu8JvLKswU3tnXVHIKt4_FIzU6YzHZNJhcGMOan-7VrLFmWpg3YEyB60lZ9MNVCZ85ykBvEW6XX3LXoQxkT7b23wADI-yUBIt9hS7uEH0dcJwXUd7KLtKnXSPpt_J2D2RKU2K24xtB6KpolqnHhBs7Y3ajRjLRoG0nJzkRY5LMtOaJ0w_IiYvduJAzrTWL6xShDVefcNJORqo1LekrKGYAdjf9aybzlaz1pdtyU_-LaCYjXjqdqBBm7rJxlQwV5XM5ta72UlcNYeWuF77DCPCdPCzTKs-GzciRA6Y_wOGN_pmZcxWh27C12jqKnVz1pD3Y68SvNqeIu-qduuNLh3N6RR-qECPQ-kxztsK0oHo3yeUZRx9kgr2UlEqbWiz_GVcTkorCa0MJxR1IeWJI8xwCnqa_vr-xQN47kQpkN29vZUvomR8_nOPt1a7kdKnc0X18nYIyACgLXdtAMOxSrLXAVllF1X82e1Ig0ZTPO6_6vZpuD5ix7tv-X1DPyaZS1uWhuxPWGk4PExlyJBM84qCkn0HpLa2RiRiPLAkCw=w2110-h1186-s-no" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231205451if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV84SQTcf9IJ6HBpXrNRT2xFKns9qZJcrUMoI9txwBeVD8FiYpdtg3bsVQC3rnRkeX3w8A0AY_VeXEBGv8T2psntpeiaWMfG6Jy2JLBguQ950R3_rF3SskAjvYpoE2bJVvGQ_Hc14NRicBAw-FncuuIYft-mZR5bmuspFY2XX2FKkjpXA-sO1397WpInUdtXxht98PdZAPxBcdyXXWFsa9TeNQakfW7UOPsGGqMRM5VpybolHuFwQE1iVEnjz8Z1nDAzz1yEMvbJ-LbsV-5ZaesfnUFnN8Wslj9VGkGrkdFFjqcTwvxrqvMok3q5XqKnpqNMvFP6aFJBuMNvhylLC0dO2KyRjVd6O0M45BARcHBO3-LupHz87TRxXN0x3W3xoY1tWM30xw5Zg8zcfGBAaB8Vzv0i8wqrS56gKPfVR4fNO7vCz-BQ1cAF7il_9XPwjyoXt9iUoph2nrNVxJfxOLUWhRBbCax0D6E-I-7eHLMf8bmpYKL2iDlOk5wb514UBP6IJGIjc_CwAiHdhbD1Di3T7rFvJEMR8gMgUpiov1hzXebaMOTx1-VY1wVDS0P8LHkNhXR3liKEPq3eFQEudAu8JvLKswU3tnXVHIKt4_FIzU6YzHZNJhcGMOan-7VrLFmWpg3YEyB60lZ9MNVCZ85ykBvEW6XX3LXoQxkT7b23wADI-yUBIt9hS7uEH0dcJwXUd7KLtKnXSPpt_J2D2RKU2K24xtB6KpolqnHhBs7Y3ajRjLRoG0nJzkRY5LMtOaJ0w_IiYvduJAzrTWL6xShDVefcNJORqo1LekrKGYAdjf9aybzlaz1pdtyU_-LaCYjXjqdqBBm7rJxlQwV5XM5ta72UlcNYeWuF77DCPCdPCzTKs-GzciRA6Y_wOGN_pmZcxWh27C12jqKnVz1pD3Y68SvNqeIu-qduuNLh3N6RR-qECPQ-kxztsK0oHo3yeUZRx9kgr2UlEqbWiz_GVcTkorCa0MJxR1IeWJI8xwCnqa_vr-xQN47kQpkN29vZUvomR8_nOPt1a7kdKnc0X18nYIyACgLXdtAMOxSrLXAVllF1X82e1Ig0ZTPO6_6vZpuD5ix7tv-X1DPyaZS1uWhuxPWGk4PExlyJBM84qCkn0HpLa2RiRiPLAkCw=w2110-h1186-s-no" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First Place (Tie): Eleanor Rose James<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>SECOND PLACE</b><br />Dawn Reynolds<br />
Age 44<br />Columbia, Tennessee, USA<br />
<br />
Dawn wrote a very detailed essay on all the elements of her artwork and their connections to Norse mythology. Here's an edited version of her lengthy statement about her image of Kvasir:
<br />
<blockquote>
Kvasir is a god created from either the saliva of the gods or chewed-up berries spit together as a pledge of peace after the war between the Aesir and the Vanir.<br /><br />
According to lore, the dwafs Fjalarr and Galarr didn't like him, so they killed him and drained his blood. They mixed it with honey to make mead. Anyone who drank it could become prolific in poetry.<br /><br />
In the United States, we could celebrate with beer (hops) or a beverage possibly made from cranberries to represent the berries chewed up and spat out that manifested his creation.<br /><br />Midwinter where I live is often represented with the colors red and green. We have evergreen trees and holly berries. However, I chose to use gigantic green hops and red cranberries. The snow is all around. What's in the cup? Is it his blood and honey? Is it an intoxicating drink of chewed up, spat out berries?<br /><br />
The hops represented are obnoxiously large. There are two to represent Fjalarr and Galarr. The symbols on Kvasir's cloak fasteners are bees to represent honey. The runes around the border and along the cloak seams are the ones that stood out to me the most in relation to this god of peace and how he became so.<br /><br />
These runes in the painting are meant as an offering from me to Kvasir. They are
for protection, harmony, friendship, home, and peace, as well as knowing the hard times that created the wisdom to seek peace.<br /><br />
Kvasir is not alone in this painting. He is observing those who have gathered and is prepared if conflict breaks out. But it shouldn't.<br /><br />
Peace, as we gather at midwinter – isn't it all anybody wants? Not everyone can have that. The challenges may come and even conflict. But we all have mysteries and magical abilities to overcome.<br /><br />
I personally write songs and lyrics to overcome difficulties. The poem on my painting is actually lyrics to a song I wrote called "Dark is Closer" that can be found on YouTube. Without poetry, we wouldn't have lyrics for songs.<br /><br />
There is great peacemaking magic in music and lyrics. This is why Kvasir inspires me. </blockquote>
Dawn was the third-place winner in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2019/12/art-contest-adult-winners-midwinter-2019.html">adult division</a> of the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2019/11/art-contest-midwinter-2019.html">Midwinter 2019 Art Contest</a> and runner-up in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2020/06/art-contest-adult-winners-midsummer-2020.html">adult division</a> of the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2020/05/art-contest-midsummer-2020.html">Midsummer 2020 Art Contest</a>. It's great to see her back again with an entry that won her highest ranking yet.<br />
<br />
Lee writes, "An intricate piece with your attention being draw towards his eyes, trusting and inviting. Wonderful work with a range of colous that fit really well together."<br />
<br />There's a wonderful sense of welcome and peace in this work with an emanating warmth that truly expresses the thoughtful joy of the midwinter season. I greatly appreciate all the thought that Dawn always puts into her work – thought that brings depth and emotional resonance her art.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231205850if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV86mOOOjnnI_-1msXhyLwbKnzKMhpnnXMwP9dFYnRCTaqNPSVRu5xnTmB5R9zoqNN2alNeoqGCB7McrOqTSKiXa7zS8QYrTVfFNYcBGmt7PYaR2U0GFcWqKJu4_PcTxphg_PuFsRr2B9Ur4mBQ2mn72DMxHX2RD3AZMGNSJwOrn_4glYst8HXrj6R6qFT0027Cx0GF40gNYAFmm753UhjwoBrEjzVJ6WChe7G2VYB1R5gRsHSLTONE_IWqDdfGwAWU8uaFrV0qthVCDY6ITCJLsvNYd2kqQvymNRzJT27WUnyzboQcwG9kacJ3qvBM7w6gAImsgoC-kcWQkxAT3_xcrufDP_40C1QUHMJlZY_RRpQ8aVnHQ5yr4t0NuQpnKm-KtI1Cw0dKbZStpi9qo32zOleH8kmAbdByiXrApSrI-qGBraycqRO91Wo2GkZIhSlGcTKOinq-mO0VHqIVTcIQWhJBFeZ3FA5FD8Tp4ZaXZT1E5vufhS3kLtW7gkWs6I_ZGTyABGNIed6MwM3Re1eSkllt6bCcEBvCDWfwz1B-4n-nXkcdraenEj8vuy3bOB21TPGVvvhYBJB-NfSjP8YlUgzuA9MKbDbMlPtF0D-9d6VzrSr8Em8jUohJDfeCFVVapHhJP6l6YdiuuYwnMFNesA9HsWr7SUPKC7haDJAfY4I9Xm6Stn9Z3SlUs2Vaw9wQoe3RgF1RiJl4pYQvaELg3EM2Tmi8Ega2Ajb5JQEUEop72MPvge3Ub7b-9U2h8NN8nhAcZl_JfEFb4ein8_PKV4H-LMfZHI-pMsMCzilkmUe3ccNLccAQtz9dmeOzpAITm3cjaHsYcrw5vgx6iYRVN7B61o7kePeBH-EcY3ntpDRLDIBi_ri5Rkm_OegWSSu3FsyhFAeBWITpKKbQfJtPQCrobjgfs0dloBfivEEEEb8TJSyMQJ1ft2nJkhbwFL-daRe_QgFV9T1PSy2g0DDlPWKY6RjVod0QuUFgy-gApSNBV8rvgJXxCStz-cvZC5rUwTMzgLxEMQJgTvota2jjmZ6iuH0Ige_18zVc2vq6AgMGKYIV55TYOLbHjMdkzIu6mhTg94XLNzBRc7ghJnj3Ln_UZ3Sy1_DDGv9O-Mf1N96_AyUyxVSMLueqo=w1870-h2486-s-no"><img border="0" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231205850if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV86mOOOjnnI_-1msXhyLwbKnzKMhpnnXMwP9dFYnRCTaqNPSVRu5xnTmB5R9zoqNN2alNeoqGCB7McrOqTSKiXa7zS8QYrTVfFNYcBGmt7PYaR2U0GFcWqKJu4_PcTxphg_PuFsRr2B9Ur4mBQ2mn72DMxHX2RD3AZMGNSJwOrn_4glYst8HXrj6R6qFT0027Cx0GF40gNYAFmm753UhjwoBrEjzVJ6WChe7G2VYB1R5gRsHSLTONE_IWqDdfGwAWU8uaFrV0qthVCDY6ITCJLsvNYd2kqQvymNRzJT27WUnyzboQcwG9kacJ3qvBM7w6gAImsgoC-kcWQkxAT3_xcrufDP_40C1QUHMJlZY_RRpQ8aVnHQ5yr4t0NuQpnKm-KtI1Cw0dKbZStpi9qo32zOleH8kmAbdByiXrApSrI-qGBraycqRO91Wo2GkZIhSlGcTKOinq-mO0VHqIVTcIQWhJBFeZ3FA5FD8Tp4ZaXZT1E5vufhS3kLtW7gkWs6I_ZGTyABGNIed6MwM3Re1eSkllt6bCcEBvCDWfwz1B-4n-nXkcdraenEj8vuy3bOB21TPGVvvhYBJB-NfSjP8YlUgzuA9MKbDbMlPtF0D-9d6VzrSr8Em8jUohJDfeCFVVapHhJP6l6YdiuuYwnMFNesA9HsWr7SUPKC7haDJAfY4I9Xm6Stn9Z3SlUs2Vaw9wQoe3RgF1RiJl4pYQvaELg3EM2Tmi8Ega2Ajb5JQEUEop72MPvge3Ub7b-9U2h8NN8nhAcZl_JfEFb4ein8_PKV4H-LMfZHI-pMsMCzilkmUe3ccNLccAQtz9dmeOzpAITm3cjaHsYcrw5vgx6iYRVN7B61o7kePeBH-EcY3ntpDRLDIBi_ri5Rkm_OegWSSu3FsyhFAeBWITpKKbQfJtPQCrobjgfs0dloBfivEEEEb8TJSyMQJ1ft2nJkhbwFL-daRe_QgFV9T1PSy2g0DDlPWKY6RjVod0QuUFgy-gApSNBV8rvgJXxCStz-cvZC5rUwTMzgLxEMQJgTvota2jjmZ6iuH0Ige_18zVc2vq6AgMGKYIV55TYOLbHjMdkzIu6mhTg94XLNzBRc7ghJnj3Ln_UZ3Sy1_DDGv9O-Mf1N96_AyUyxVSMLueqo=w1870-h2486-s-no" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Second Place: Dawn Reynolds<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>THIRD PLACE</b><br />Abigail Epplett<br />
Age 28<br />
Uxbridge, Massachusetts, USA<br />
<br />
Abigail writes about her artwork:
<br />
<blockquote>
In this quiet winter scene, bright Baldr and blind Höðr walk together, perhaps on their way to a midwinter gathering. The mistletoe along the path foreshadows their fates.<br /><br />
The body positions of the gods are deliberately anachronistic, as they demonstrate the best way to act as a sighted guide and to navigate with a blind cane.</blockquote>
This entry shows a very different technical approach from the others and – even while being set outside – has a unique wary of communicating a deep feeling of warmth and togetherness. The moment within the mythological timeline in which the artwork is set is interesting in a way that sparks reflection. Abigail shows both artistic skill and a creative imagination. Congratulations on a wonderful work!<br />
<br />
Lee comments, "What a wonderul picture! A real sense of friendship and ease, happy and content with each other's company as they wander down the avenue of trees. Great costume design."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231210043if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV85p9DmeYMHdDGEakU4O_09mwTw80ZhjkcONWhP3g7jeg_a01pk8gMxJ6dJOyfBGeqvNn14dXwcCNrIVR5Q1KoLoEOqgvMPjW5-v-hOGpwc-13ewXIh22d8g-mcJKKiWg2M7CfB96GxvgMzBM0E1XRueDIM9k8-vLTf2-pGIVhkEQKV6R-MlnUzUBmmk3n4iJQ8sCx0IQ7bkl_5AwwLkS4kFfEVTZDjuM3XFynY5twQSfzZd9dcQLhm1M-sRhN05tuRT5dNIY9qF5J23sQImAz7wknJ5yccRqRoObAlnfYQNCY27k42C6JTOJZIWow51qOBvtgnZJBPD-e41960EQr6YlJC_7VbYka7ldvJZcH3gKkpy1VHFRq_LzoMNz_enjf1m98RUc64JpMx_NxrUeoOvWO-tLROTUmHZrtD6KNur0SC1ILrlyMpBV9nJODwnSAyN61lUkPL1VJiw4oWtDRwXP6nZmxZpbz3nIXe45tpT0puaYM7IhX78Pht3FiscQDHgQUza_eMi8O-uS8OctgDdSq2z0jGCY0s4duoK3MguAt1Gyu69BjSPhzGkC0Qotjq9Woy88z4pXuNdO6ywaeWge5wWk858xLNFbHX4WJuauyleKCHJMsckgqQY9wcFrKZ6nLUkep_xt8d0iTpXItHH3sZDs1WAmgMuyQlLUkD_rf7-8bEbeARspPfKKPT3nOYcWZt-1Dnjw09jviD4oe5RRa-aqx8iM1O-A-YoQcB3Xek_QTHDXMsjkIPvAleRTy8WvR5_pb346Xc1NfILctMKciuh-ZzkqDPxU3gwaZD5frEQoO6k3_lmwSm8dAfNLFcpbmmB8zSCMA7gsVqE4A5joaZxkAgcB448zNiYByNonqpBZJYEHhXv0TcLCUlVgg2ebJBDAoujI9UHmBxX0_ncF2MImFRkaXXhnj1PwPaT817rFZV020btDPzADO2-3-oN8IX8rS_A4aPZWDfXc9DJN_f6gRgr3q4wMdhVqBDw7b2qcUrGzuRHvvk-wnKqZBPhFHQ4EzJMfX558_BLJfbHIcHTMIBmx03CDcOhPjDMzSYL1v0f00PZlIo_79AQ09Mwwp_1qk2BhQnuOCAgQs9UBLRLq2g7KkOe_oHu7nUO00VBBkG0r7QHZFc=w2110-h1178-s-no"><img border="0" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231210043if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV85p9DmeYMHdDGEakU4O_09mwTw80ZhjkcONWhP3g7jeg_a01pk8gMxJ6dJOyfBGeqvNn14dXwcCNrIVR5Q1KoLoEOqgvMPjW5-v-hOGpwc-13ewXIh22d8g-mcJKKiWg2M7CfB96GxvgMzBM0E1XRueDIM9k8-vLTf2-pGIVhkEQKV6R-MlnUzUBmmk3n4iJQ8sCx0IQ7bkl_5AwwLkS4kFfEVTZDjuM3XFynY5twQSfzZd9dcQLhm1M-sRhN05tuRT5dNIY9qF5J23sQImAz7wknJ5yccRqRoObAlnfYQNCY27k42C6JTOJZIWow51qOBvtgnZJBPD-e41960EQr6YlJC_7VbYka7ldvJZcH3gKkpy1VHFRq_LzoMNz_enjf1m98RUc64JpMx_NxrUeoOvWO-tLROTUmHZrtD6KNur0SC1ILrlyMpBV9nJODwnSAyN61lUkPL1VJiw4oWtDRwXP6nZmxZpbz3nIXe45tpT0puaYM7IhX78Pht3FiscQDHgQUza_eMi8O-uS8OctgDdSq2z0jGCY0s4duoK3MguAt1Gyu69BjSPhzGkC0Qotjq9Woy88z4pXuNdO6ywaeWge5wWk858xLNFbHX4WJuauyleKCHJMsckgqQY9wcFrKZ6nLUkep_xt8d0iTpXItHH3sZDs1WAmgMuyQlLUkD_rf7-8bEbeARspPfKKPT3nOYcWZt-1Dnjw09jviD4oe5RRa-aqx8iM1O-A-YoQcB3Xek_QTHDXMsjkIPvAleRTy8WvR5_pb346Xc1NfILctMKciuh-ZzkqDPxU3gwaZD5frEQoO6k3_lmwSm8dAfNLFcpbmmB8zSCMA7gsVqE4A5joaZxkAgcB448zNiYByNonqpBZJYEHhXv0TcLCUlVgg2ebJBDAoujI9UHmBxX0_ncF2MImFRkaXXhnj1PwPaT817rFZV020btDPzADO2-3-oN8IX8rS_A4aPZWDfXc9DJN_f6gRgr3q4wMdhVqBDw7b2qcUrGzuRHvvk-wnKqZBPhFHQ4EzJMfX558_BLJfbHIcHTMIBmx03CDcOhPjDMzSYL1v0f00PZlIo_79AQ09Mwwp_1qk2BhQnuOCAgQs9UBLRLq2g7KkOe_oHu7nUO00VBBkG0r7QHZFc=w2110-h1178-s-no" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Third Place: Abigail Epplett<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b>RUNNER-UP</b><br />
Jissey Raye L. Rafanan<br />
Age 32<br />
Zamboanga City, Philippines<br />
<br />
Jissey's explanation of this wonderful piece:
<br />
<blockquote>
The artwork depicts some members of the Asgardian pantheon – Freyja, Odin, Thor, and Tyr – around the Yule log. I opted to have them stand in a circle around a Yule log being burned while at the base of Yggdrasil.<br /><br />
Odin, with his back to the viewer, presides over the ceremony, in keeping with his station as the head of the Norse pantheon. Freyja is at his left, due to her role in the partition of the Einherjar for those to attend to her in Fólkvangr. Thor is at his right, since Mjölnir is used in consecration rites.</blockquote>
It's always amazing to see entries come in from all over the world, to learn how far Norse mythology has traveled, and to enjoy wonderful artistic interpretations like this beautiful artwork by Jissey – the piece that most closely sticks to this year's contest theme. Somehow, Jissey manages to draw us into the warm moment even without any of the main characters full facing the viewer. I also greatly appreciate the attention to mythological detail in the portrayal of the Norse deities.<br />
<br />
Lee comments, "Really nice rendering of the costumes and armor. The blue shadow across the snow puts a coolness in the air but with the fire keeping a really nice ambience."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231210345if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV84FB3Q3k_4Gys2bpXhJ5ZioS3SEt5XUdZ7xR6bMd4lZ_DiJDd8F4DUFrF-wDs9HyCUAxQi8Bxb2ZyJZYls0s82PpN2TZfoVeoWYb9OJG6YXSidCSaTj8j1YjrLzIJ4z3Oj8Djl6Rj0KfbxCC41hjJfylEZsz1FYbYsz0pgi6qHfWnfhvuvdG9sbjM3PcKyg2vEfAkVfJKUb40OSrdC18Y_cP-Hjj52lZBcZG1hh9VjcYkszPNjkuyEw716TxygjkHLx0GoHd7ekTlWO8io8ofAdSO6ywVIvcoxW2mGTFgw6O_-AnwW3XONAFE-RMoZzmKvGFmb1Hs_fUwOJV9O8oRyQz9b4jbSFH2QR6fiIMwy-cTj3MDtmQ5R-KkIRoKEMfYtFosbqEVp_TotBWo6m_bG8JezMjrv1tqPX3Hj_nWSrNbOViiyN4Dr8-yECIguJOZWCy0JltVZ_7vgJhelfZ-gi7y5Bs-M1KvLz807XTpGeziGBD-A-BgQ7SgmMXiHtrXZPQhaDUKQV887kcT9DI4VOMzTcNDTbpVFO3rc4yCiYvUJRho-yOwXysrAiNVHFfs5iJty0dFnbU9cBh4ll4QGiCqs8i_u8_2AKWM6D2nMiwR-94TUuhSwo-Sh29jV1ApZM3ice_LmBIXLg-xiL6xZK6OcV_XTDRLm1D83fok9bmKm6onxAWX2Soyg-y7fZKUP060jKy8kEWurtyApaDzXd3V0ygum8tGyGqhLSqYteB--XZ27xNE9K88KQ153LgYTL7vLqlFv-kwe8wqiz3DkJ_juPAJNKcLfV_6nTfER_LfTLCrFqyNsIVbvqxr7Kf2Z5kC7Ahllrwog7H4l1d3gxM3NQ6wBeX4CJwIfVwOd-KMvUc0QEwsVJZuREEp_A-qxXxH3kVVj10zkyVUtiPsJHJ4mVYZoTHriQlixn16vON_0eBlZ3-aFuwWw-eR64mxz0mMnYNCLFwBBPoolSXlH_sEppTi8ImOJMXBCaRUpD9rrhTdvstOiU4Gv_YoE6aw4IaQyLsaQqi_Lq0joo9YxREA-1nCFhXqBfHyz9QwciaGEeSmjVpPxqfEF5hKKaGTN1vKGByS-wd-ZYxhN02RzfXiiNg1MF-4RnuKRSNw7o2t2snZJ-MI46gpc=w1647-h2338-s-no"><img border="0" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231210345if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV84FB3Q3k_4Gys2bpXhJ5ZioS3SEt5XUdZ7xR6bMd4lZ_DiJDd8F4DUFrF-wDs9HyCUAxQi8Bxb2ZyJZYls0s82PpN2TZfoVeoWYb9OJG6YXSidCSaTj8j1YjrLzIJ4z3Oj8Djl6Rj0KfbxCC41hjJfylEZsz1FYbYsz0pgi6qHfWnfhvuvdG9sbjM3PcKyg2vEfAkVfJKUb40OSrdC18Y_cP-Hjj52lZBcZG1hh9VjcYkszPNjkuyEw716TxygjkHLx0GoHd7ekTlWO8io8ofAdSO6ywVIvcoxW2mGTFgw6O_-AnwW3XONAFE-RMoZzmKvGFmb1Hs_fUwOJV9O8oRyQz9b4jbSFH2QR6fiIMwy-cTj3MDtmQ5R-KkIRoKEMfYtFosbqEVp_TotBWo6m_bG8JezMjrv1tqPX3Hj_nWSrNbOViiyN4Dr8-yECIguJOZWCy0JltVZ_7vgJhelfZ-gi7y5Bs-M1KvLz807XTpGeziGBD-A-BgQ7SgmMXiHtrXZPQhaDUKQV887kcT9DI4VOMzTcNDTbpVFO3rc4yCiYvUJRho-yOwXysrAiNVHFfs5iJty0dFnbU9cBh4ll4QGiCqs8i_u8_2AKWM6D2nMiwR-94TUuhSwo-Sh29jV1ApZM3ice_LmBIXLg-xiL6xZK6OcV_XTDRLm1D83fok9bmKm6onxAWX2Soyg-y7fZKUP060jKy8kEWurtyApaDzXd3V0ygum8tGyGqhLSqYteB--XZ27xNE9K88KQ153LgYTL7vLqlFv-kwe8wqiz3DkJ_juPAJNKcLfV_6nTfER_LfTLCrFqyNsIVbvqxr7Kf2Z5kC7Ahllrwog7H4l1d3gxM3NQ6wBeX4CJwIfVwOd-KMvUc0QEwsVJZuREEp_A-qxXxH3kVVj10zkyVUtiPsJHJ4mVYZoTHriQlixn16vON_0eBlZ3-aFuwWw-eR64mxz0mMnYNCLFwBBPoolSXlH_sEppTi8ImOJMXBCaRUpD9rrhTdvstOiU4Gv_YoE6aw4IaQyLsaQqi_Lq0joo9YxREA-1nCFhXqBfHyz9QwciaGEeSmjVpPxqfEF5hKKaGTN1vKGByS-wd-ZYxhN02RzfXiiNg1MF-4RnuKRSNw7o2t2snZJ-MI46gpc=w1647-h2338-s-no" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Runner-Up: Jissey Raye L. Rafanan<br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<i>Thank you to all who entered this winter. We really enjoyed everyone's work. See you when the next contest rolls around!</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-23603515267276664182023-12-30T12:43:00.005-06:002023-12-31T12:06:04.622-06:00 Art Contest – Teen Winners, Midwinter 2023This year's <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2023/11/art-contest-midwinter-2023.html" target="">Midwinter Art Contest</a> didn't receive any entries in the kids division. The same thing happened back in our <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2020/05/art-contest-midsummer-2020.html" target="_blank">Midsummer 2020 Art Contest</a>. It's a shame, because we know there are plenty of children age twelve and under who love learning about mythology and creating their own interpretations of it. Please keep an eye out (like Odin) for our next art contest and share it with any artistic kids you know!<br /><br />
We also only received only one entry in the teen division, which includes artists between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. The same thing happened in <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2015/05/art-contest-midsummer-2015.html" target="_blank">Midsummer 2015</a> and <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2019/12/art-contest-teen-winners-midwinter-2019.html" target="_blank">Midwinter 2019</a>, so we can't simply blame the rise of A.I. for it! Stuff happens.<br /><br />
We did receive many amazing entries in the adult division for artists age twenty and up, so be sure to come back tomorrow and check them out.<br /><br />
Just because the teen entry this year is so absolutely fantastic, we've decided to feature it and give our congratulations to the artist for creating such amazing work.<br /><br />
I'd like to thank my fellow judge <b>Lee Carter</b> (UK artist for <i>2000 AD</i>, <i>Judge Dredd Megazine</i>, and other great comics from Boom! Studies, DK, Top Cow, and many more). I really appreciate the time that he volunteered to rank and comment on all the entries. This contest would not be possible without his generosity and kindness.<br />
<br />
The assignment was to create a piece that somehow relates to the character and legends of the <b>Norse gods and goddesses</b> and the celebration of <b>midwinter</b>. Big congratulations to our teen artist for creating such a wonderful work of art!<br /> <br />
<i>Note: You can click on the art to see a larger version.</i><br />
<br />
<b>FIRST PLACE</b><br />
Oskari Korkkonen <br />
Age 17<br />
Lapinlahti, Finland<br />
<br />
Oskari provides a short description of the work titled <i>Yule Father</i>, simply stating that it's "an acrylic painting depicting Odin in a red cloak wandering around Midgard at midwinter."<br /><br />
Lee writes, "Oskari's painting is really beautifully drawn. There's a great depth of tone on the character's red robe, with the fur collar rendered perfectly with rough brush strokes. There's a real feeling of travel as Odin makes his way via the directions of the stars."<br />
<br />
I agee with Lee, and I really like the combination of Odin's dark red with the pale blue of the snow and the deep blue-black of the sky. There's also a fascinating contrast between the joyfulness of Odin's somewhat Santa-like outfit on one hand and the mystery of his shadowy face and implied threat of his enormous spear on the other. Oskari has really captured the complicated nature of Odin's character in a very special way.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231180245if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV87C1sdzJBG6_8luFKfHFohDUCVHgV6KCqGAUEOHXKEnOe360gzK49oTba7nNGSmRKDl2FSqLs05JSGYw6b1B_KZ2Kou9_CCZDywwnMjwYLS4ICDFjcKPPJEcGmeLHnUMlVRgZ68UarkCW0CWTdVoz5W_P_N_q7bEn4BliKL2ZLzQYoeTktpPtCDVsiAwdNGDEw9cGy9f28ekzgKNq0EwVdRZSU_kAkCC6qPRvXuwTZU2QxiRBI8d8bv0dz52mfiDbTtG9G7MC3pMtIBHJpSrJfRAysFkhZKJsrEe_1Zj13capCCyZ_EOYNzhWHlO2jDeck1n3H2BPw-RG_kaDXa0wRdGuneOvguOdduMTnbiIF7hEyyhU-NprQQVGqo7RcRdkXf9uqdIzTZ_JULe32Q3byLVjalzSnrBwgag_-RdDTfH2a3xDDejKW-bZEA5Qvch6bg81AnsPy0XUWGgueeyOueRTNRoqwk1EvRNcmTmPYk7-slZJjRD8uFfafKde6rwj-dmv0aS8aG8INjUQwFocoQLV1DdrQyxgljKZFgJSRWjo9188lhMU-S4a34VuLluNbYaXVJuLMYPzYATzIR0DqzJQYBk4U031t9huR5svVE84CcAZT3nXggx2czEnc6DRuqYWVDkemnRPiyUtqerhVR8FWcpdhuoye5i6ucLRlDIl6bhuulQcLriOpq0u-YW__BRrZv4B0LOo0vruObnzD2E2ya-u2-_RMaCKKyy6PCFh5MsYjzOsknd4OdujbMwgr8cA4dcvFGGSgqM4VTDwpLxL2_HbZDxfeePL-4IofRPf_SXFmvVGoTbnXRKP6VUlfx4lqUJ_-3rntGgBmcJVICiXU3ZJdMJTNsdII-s1buSn2bivMegK7EswxfA8tWMKqfHoBV2NMAn06pw_OWU6s7gTWpnavJmA8Zjy6n7UJUD8sQIJleyeH_szJOh40neqf51ZvvavPqX2Ql9VZ1yDq0CmQmR5LonJzVNaxWZrgMKJk8GN9lQUhGI5d0NURju7tBX9RcgGtAlZ2wubpskbcfOHR9ompRPFez8MjgpbOUR2TXiECDX190YtRGBzO5qDE82I8-504eJ3McfiuhgvHXa-uCKRLOU1zdvN0qKGzuSWgLF60YDTg14tI=w1842-h2486-s-no" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3787" data-original-width="2807" height="640" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20231231180245if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ABLVV87C1sdzJBG6_8luFKfHFohDUCVHgV6KCqGAUEOHXKEnOe360gzK49oTba7nNGSmRKDl2FSqLs05JSGYw6b1B_KZ2Kou9_CCZDywwnMjwYLS4ICDFjcKPPJEcGmeLHnUMlVRgZ68UarkCW0CWTdVoz5W_P_N_q7bEn4BliKL2ZLzQYoeTktpPtCDVsiAwdNGDEw9cGy9f28ekzgKNq0EwVdRZSU_kAkCC6qPRvXuwTZU2QxiRBI8d8bv0dz52mfiDbTtG9G7MC3pMtIBHJpSrJfRAysFkhZKJsrEe_1Zj13capCCyZ_EOYNzhWHlO2jDeck1n3H2BPw-RG_kaDXa0wRdGuneOvguOdduMTnbiIF7hEyyhU-NprQQVGqo7RcRdkXf9uqdIzTZ_JULe32Q3byLVjalzSnrBwgag_-RdDTfH2a3xDDejKW-bZEA5Qvch6bg81AnsPy0XUWGgueeyOueRTNRoqwk1EvRNcmTmPYk7-slZJjRD8uFfafKde6rwj-dmv0aS8aG8INjUQwFocoQLV1DdrQyxgljKZFgJSRWjo9188lhMU-S4a34VuLluNbYaXVJuLMYPzYATzIR0DqzJQYBk4U031t9huR5svVE84CcAZT3nXggx2czEnc6DRuqYWVDkemnRPiyUtqerhVR8FWcpdhuoye5i6ucLRlDIl6bhuulQcLriOpq0u-YW__BRrZv4B0LOo0vruObnzD2E2ya-u2-_RMaCKKyy6PCFh5MsYjzOsknd4OdujbMwgr8cA4dcvFGGSgqM4VTDwpLxL2_HbZDxfeePL-4IofRPf_SXFmvVGoTbnXRKP6VUlfx4lqUJ_-3rntGgBmcJVICiXU3ZJdMJTNsdII-s1buSn2bivMegK7EswxfA8tWMKqfHoBV2NMAn06pw_OWU6s7gTWpnavJmA8Zjy6n7UJUD8sQIJleyeH_szJOh40neqf51ZvvavPqX2Ql9VZ1yDq0CmQmR5LonJzVNaxWZrgMKJk8GN9lQUhGI5d0NURju7tBX9RcgGtAlZ2wubpskbcfOHR9ompRPFez8MjgpbOUR2TXiECDX190YtRGBzO5qDE82I8-504eJ3McfiuhgvHXa-uCKRLOU1zdvN0qKGzuSWgLF60YDTg14tI=w1842-h2486-s-no" width="474" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First Place: Oskari Korkkonen<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<i>Adult winners will be announced tomorrow!</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-86463268986732634832023-11-19T15:41:00.001-06:002023-11-19T16:34:29.843-06:00Art Contest – Midwinter 2023<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMcZs_enpOTGY_K8nlfh6dz188UbIR1A7Pf4bq-dFw9BEG3UZUePLNcppgobQ-nEQRH1n2QxGk5pYGzUiftRTHn2FxQgItBgyGfv0Rj3iQ33Ja-CRuykyQB0UU5GwGZqInRAX7rJ52j0/s1600/Ayu+Putri+Kenyo+Jati.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="675" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgMcZs_enpOTGY_K8nlfh6dz188UbIR1A7Pf4bq-dFw9BEG3UZUePLNcppgobQ-nEQRH1n2QxGk5pYGzUiftRTHn2FxQgItBgyGfv0Rj3iQ33Ja-CRuykyQB0UU5GwGZqInRAX7rJ52j0/s1600/Ayu+Putri+Kenyo+Jati.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art by Ayu Putri Kenyo Jati (Indonesia), Teen First Place Winner, Midwinter Art Contest 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">CONTEST</span></b><br /><br />
Ten years after <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Blog</a>'s first art contest, the theme for our tenth art contest is different than it has been in the past. Be sure to carefully read the entire <b>Contest Theme</b> section so that you understand the assignment.<br /><br />
During the winter solstice on December 21, those of us in the northern hemisphere will experience the shortest day and longest night of the year. This may seem early in the season, but it’s really the middle. From this point on, days will get longer as we slowly move back towards summer.<br /><br />
Throughout Northern Europe, there are local traditions that celebrate midwinter. Some of these practices preserve very old rituals. Your original piece of visual art should capture the midwinter spirit.<br /><br />
I strongly suggest doing some reading and research on myth and folklore before you begin your artwork. What characters and concepts can you discover? Can you think of a way to relate them to the contest theme?<br /><br />
If you need some ideas about mythology, browse <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Blog Archive</a>. You can also click <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html#contests">here</a> to check out the past <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html#contests">Midwinter Art Contest winners</a> in the three categories: kid, teen, and adult. Most importantly – be creative!<br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">CONTEST THEME: GODS AND GODDESSES GATHER AT MIDWINTER</span></b><br /><br />
Your artwork entry must somehow relate to the character and legends of the <b>Norse gods and goddesses</b> and the celebration of <b>midwinter</b>.<br /><br />
There are many<b> gods and goddesses</b> in <b>Norse mythology</b>, and most have complex characteristics. Your job is to find something about some of them that speaks to you and inspires you, then combine it with some aspect of <b>midwinter</b> and create your own original work of art.<br /><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLK2B_JSCotviniVlCO-g118Onzr6Pm9XF84hm6BBN1psutQND6usXnE-hZUv6f7U6AjOPIbF0vIOIuQNEZXi1YA6Cf5olAQymIZMPvHmaeRqZJGHKHOKT71MYGFgq_EhQhlKFXniar-w/s1600/Levi+Simpson.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLK2B_JSCotviniVlCO-g118Onzr6Pm9XF84hm6BBN1psutQND6usXnE-hZUv6f7U6AjOPIbF0vIOIuQNEZXi1YA6Cf5olAQymIZMPvHmaeRqZJGHKHOKT71MYGFgq_EhQhlKFXniar-w/s1600/Levi+Simpson.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art by Levi Simpson (USA), Adult First Place Winner (Tie), Midwinter Art Contest 2014</td></tr>
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<b>Norse gods and goddesses</b> have connections to magic, prophecy, runes, wisdom, poetry, song, inspiration, creativity, performance, travel, hospitality, gifting, community, parenthood, childhood, friendship, relationships, religion, ritual, nature, culture, teaching, learning, ravens, wolves, goats, falcons, trees, peace, war, life, prosperity, death, standing against evil, and much more. There certainly is a lot to draw on for your entry!<br />
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There are many tales of <b>Norse gods and goddeesses</b> hat you can read to inspire your entry. A good place to start is by reading <b><i>Children of Odin</i> by Padraic Colum</b>, which retells the major Norse myths and legends in family-friendly form. You can download the book for free from <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/books.html" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Online Library</a>; it can be found in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/books.html#retellings" target="_blank">Retellings and Reinterpretations</a> section.<br />
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<b>You can do any of these things:</b><br />
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1. Illustrate some versions of some Norse gods and goddesses and some aspect of midwinter<br />
2. Illustrate the feeling of Norse gods and goddesses and midwinter<br />
4. Create something inspired by Norse gods and goddesses and midwinter<br />
5. Draw something connecting Norse gods and goddesses and midwinter to other characters or concepts from Norse myth and Germanic folklore<br />
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<b>You must do this one thing:</b><br />
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Include a short explanation with your entry detailing how your work relates to Norse god and goddesses and midwinter<br />
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<b>Beware!</b><br />
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In this contest, <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/07/thor-is-dead.html">Marvel Comics</a> characters are <b>NOT</b> considered part of Norse mythology or folklore. Art with imagery from <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/09/blond-thor-stan-lee-wasnt-wrong.html">comic books</a> or <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/11/the-thor-movies-and-norse-mythology.html">movies</a> will <b>NOT</b> be accepted. Do some reading and research on myth and folklore, then base your imagery on what you learn.<br /><br />
This year, we're also taking a stand for the inspired creativity of human artists and <b>NOT</b> accepting any entries created using AI (artificial intelligence). Please embrace your individuality and do your own work.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">GUEST JUDGE</span></b><br />
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I am extremely proud to announce the guest judge for this year's Midwinter Art Contest. I really love his work, and I'm very happy that he agreed to participate this year. The two of us will judge the entries together.<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Lee Carter</span></b></span><br />
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I became a fan of illustrator, comics artist, and concept artist Lee Carter through his amazing work for the legendary UK weekly comic <i>2000 AD</i> and the associated monthly <i>Judge Dredd Megazine</i>. His work is often terrifying and always makes a powerful impact through his cinematic design and detailed linework.<br />
<br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0E75OoFJZ36-qeyOxi_EDhwSGW9oMWwllobQ7Py91Jvf2rewnJN886SjYW8Mm1pvtqG5jxSLbM00pxh3vR_uLmRiNHG_Ma2TKtxZ2EtYaaoPVZFxnBYcUFZ6J_wCEEf77L_k50ZUbqJKzN_poUANAnHq7w7eP2EhaKVOCM2vKG_Qh8Pthcj5df_H42Fg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1568" height="627" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg0E75OoFJZ36-qeyOxi_EDhwSGW9oMWwllobQ7Py91Jvf2rewnJN886SjYW8Mm1pvtqG5jxSLbM00pxh3vR_uLmRiNHG_Ma2TKtxZ2EtYaaoPVZFxnBYcUFZ6J_wCEEf77L_k50ZUbqJKzN_poUANAnHq7w7eP2EhaKVOCM2vKG_Qh8Pthcj5df_H42Fg=s16000" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2000ad.com/news/2000-ad-covers-uncovered-drokking-through-the-snow-with-lee-carter/" target="_blank">In-process art</a> for cover of <i>Judge Dredd Megazine</i> issue 439 by Lee Carter<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
For <a href="http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=droid&page=profiles&choice=LEEC" target="_blank"><i>2000 AD</i></a>, he's drawn both iconic series and new titles, including <i>Dead Eyes</i>, <i>Durham Red</i>, <i>Grey Area</i>, <i>Indigo Prime</i>, <i>Judge Dredd</i>, <i>Necrophim</i>, <i>Rogue Trooper</i>, <i>Tharg's Terror Tales</i>, and <i>Tharg's Time Twisters</i>. Whether the genre is science fiction or fantastic horror, Lee's artistic vision and brilliant craftsmanship pulls you into the weird worlds his work inhabits.<br /><br />
Over at the <i>Judge Dredd Megazine</i>, Lee and legendary Scottish writer Gordon Rennie's <i><a href="https://2000ad.com/news/the-2000-ad-abc-angelic/" target="_blank">Angelic</a></i> tells a disturbing tale that may or may not be the backstory of the notorious Angel Gang that Judge Dredd first tangled with way back in 1980. It's innovative and intense.<br />
<br />Lee has also done art for 451's <i>Sunflower</i>, Top Cow's <i>The Darkness</i>, and Boom! Studio's <i>Mr. Stuffins</i>. He's contributed to <i>The Dead Roots Comic Anthology</i>, DK's <i>The Most Important Comic Book on Earth</i>, Mam Tor's <i>Event Horizon</i>, Ahoy Comics' <i>Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter of Terror</i>, and Boom! Studios' <i>Cthulhu Tales</i> and <i>Pirate Tales</i>.<br /><br />I've long followed Lee's social media posts detailing the in-depth process he goes through to create his work, and I think's he's the perfect person to judge the contest this year.<br />
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You can learn more about Lee by visiting his <a href="https://www.artstation.com/mrleecarter">official website</a> and following him on <a href="https://twitter.com/MrLeeCarter" target="_blank">Twitter</a>.<br /><br />
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">
AGE CATEGORIES</span></b><br />
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There will be three winners in each of the following categories:<br />
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<b>Kids</b>: Age 12 and under<br />
<b>Teens</b>: Age 13-19<br />
<b>Adults</b>: Age 20 and up<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">RULES</span></b><br />
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1. Art must be done with crayon, marker, paint, pen, pencil, or digital materials.<br />
2. Original art only; no photos, collage, or work created using AI (artificial intelligence).<br />
3. Art must be kid-friendly; no nudity or violence.<br />
4. No copyrighted characters. Let’s leave the Marvel Comics to the professionals!<br />
5. One entry per person, please.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">HOW TO ENTER</span></b><br />
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Send an email to <b>mythcontest@live.com</b> that includes the following:<br />
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1. Your full name (kids can give first name and last initial)<br />
2. Your age (as of December 23, 2023)<br />
3. Your location (city, state/province, country)<br />
4. A short description of your artwork explaining how it relates to Norse gods, goddesses, and midwinter<br />
5. Your scanned artwork (as an attachment)<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><b>Seriously, don’t forget to include your art as an attachment!</b></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">ENTRY DEADLINE</span></b><br />
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11:59 p.m. (Chicago time) on <b>December 23, 2023</b><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">ANNOUNCEMENT OF WINNERS</span></b><br />
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Lee and I will be judging the entries based on creativity and relation to Norse mythology. Do some reading, do some thinking, and make something original!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Contest winners will be featured on sites and pages of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/norse-mythology-online.html" target="_blank">Norse Mythology Online</a></td></tr>
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The <b>three winners in each age group</b> will be featured on the many sites and pages of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/norse-mythology-online.html">Norse Mythology Online</a>:<br />
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• <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Blog</a><br />
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• <a href="https://www.facebook.com/norsemythology" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Facebook Page</a><br />
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• <a href="https://twitter.com/NorseMythNews" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Twitter Page</a><br />
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• <a href="http://www.pinterest.com/norsemythnews/" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Pinterest Page</a><br />
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Your art and your description of it will be posted on all of the above outlets and will remain permanently in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html" target="_blank">The Norse Mythology Blog Archive</a>.<br />
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<b>December 29</b>: Kid winners announced<br />
<b>December 30</b>: Teen winners announced<br />
<b>December 31</b>: Adult winners announced<br />
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Good luck to everyone!Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-73586937905602632352023-11-02T12:13:00.003-05:002023-11-02T12:24:41.150-05:00On a Viking Ship: Interview with Stephanie Smith PasculliIn 2010, construction of the ship known as the <a href="https://www.drakenhh.com/" target="_blank"><i>Draken Harald Hårfagre</i></a> began under the curation of Norwegian businessman Sigurd Aase. Scandinavian historians, ship builders, craftspeople, and artists collaborated to build the <i>Draken</i> on the model of the greatest long ships of the Viking Age, basing their work on archaeological finds, traditional techniques, written descriptions from the Icelandic sagas, and a range of other historical material.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJz8VTVw8jxVuDmA3lWJknSViGCq8S5GjhdgJYH6evGgWpdaIUk0sA9WZv9V3v-dWyE4yY_KUtVfCK090iJcvo_ffizLnrU0XDZefYyWB8NSjbQRk02jlSIdq6ibpRUdCpOoK0JZqvjN_g-nrNFahtLy87z0KKq_Vj2xoHcY6oSz1-ZHZWGYENlvuNzt4" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="1284" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjJz8VTVw8jxVuDmA3lWJknSViGCq8S5GjhdgJYH6evGgWpdaIUk0sA9WZv9V3v-dWyE4yY_KUtVfCK090iJcvo_ffizLnrU0XDZefYyWB8NSjbQRk02jlSIdq6ibpRUdCpOoK0JZqvjN_g-nrNFahtLy87z0KKq_Vj2xoHcY6oSz1-ZHZWGYENlvuNzt4=w400-h300" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephanie blows the horn aboard the <i>Draken Harald Hårfagr</i>e (Photo: Stephanie Smith Pasculli)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Named for Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, the oak ship is 115 feet long and 26 feet wide, with a 3,200-square-foot silk sail and a 79-foot mast of Douglas fir. It has an 8-foot 2-inch draft, displaces 80 tons, can reach a top speed of 14 knots, and took more than 10,000 nails to build. It is the largest Viking ship built in modern times, with room for one hundred oarsmen on twenty-five pairs of oars.<br /><br />
Trial sailing of the <i>Draken</i> took place off the Norwegian coast in 2012 and 2013. In 2014, the ship sailed between Haugesund, Norway and Liverpool, England.<br /><br />
In 2016, the ship sailed from Haugesund across the North Atlantic Ocean to the United States, with stops in the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and Canada. The goal was to reproduce the travels of Leif Eiríksson around the year 1000 CE.<br /><br />
In 2018, the ship made a tour of the East Coast of the United States, with stopovers from Mystic Seaport, Connecticut through Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington DC.<br /><br />
Last year, the <i>Draken</i> was docked at the Mystic Seaport Museum as it underwent maintenance and repairs. Stephanie Smith Pasculli was one member of the volunteer crew doing that work.<br /><br />
I first met Stephanie many years ago, when she was an adult student in two of my <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/norse-myth-classes.html" target="_blank">continuing education courses</a> – one on Norse mythology and one on the mythic sources of J.R.R. Tolkien’s <i>The Hobbit</i>. We’ve been friends ever since. She’s a founding member of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/" target="_blank">Thor’s Oak Kindred</a>, the diverse <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú</a> organization I lead in Chicago, and she’s been an absolute inspiration in many areas of this life we live.<br /><br />
Now living in Norwalk, Connecticut, Stephanie was raised in the northwest Seattle area and the surrounding Cascade and Olympic Mountain ranges, where she spent time camping, snowboarding, and motorcycling.<br /><br />
She’s lived and worked in Oregon, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York. She’s been a visual manager in retail for over twenty years with a twelve-year break in the middle for more education and to run her own business designing and building small structures (treehouses, cabins, barns) and theatrical works (sets, props, parade floats, costumes).<br /><br />
She earned her BA at Smith College while in her thirties, minoring in Medieval Studies with a focus on Old English and runes while majoring in Studio Art with a digital media focus. As a year-round rower, she jokes that she actually majored in crew.<br /><br />
When I asked Stephanie if she wanted to add anything to this amazing list of interesting things about herself, she answered, “I am a mother, and it is amazing.”<br /><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjC1cTshauWc0ZJLFRlRItDywSOswWNIO73yKlD5xq3WhIgIYKjdS8ZrE04p8E-MycLLn1gANEjAkQulTEt1qxMcFO6irhh7VbKDk4-HqkqvKzwbu8YOAZfjmAhMqN8XFNSAP6JrHhi2jqdRhf7k2v9cbJjLHGGkU3_CBFs2K5htqTIHW3CYSRYgjXsSFQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="971" data-original-width="1295" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjC1cTshauWc0ZJLFRlRItDywSOswWNIO73yKlD5xq3WhIgIYKjdS8ZrE04p8E-MycLLn1gANEjAkQulTEt1qxMcFO6irhh7VbKDk4-HqkqvKzwbu8YOAZfjmAhMqN8XFNSAP6JrHhi2jqdRhf7k2v9cbJjLHGGkU3_CBFs2K5htqTIHW3CYSRYgjXsSFQ=w400-h300" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephanie working on the <i>Draken</i> (Photo: Erik Petersen)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<b>KS – When did you first set foot on the <i>Draken</i>?</b><br /><br />
Stephanie Smith Pasculli – The <i>Draken</i> came to Chicago’s waterfront in July of 2016 on their Expedition America 2016 – departing from Norway in April – and I was exuberantly in line on the very first day, after following her construction for years. I remember being so excited that it was raining, as it held off the droves and bought my family and I more time onboard.<br /><b><br />
KS – How did you get selected to join the volunteer crew?</b><br /><br />
SSP – On <i>Draken Harald Hårfagre</i>’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DrakenHH" target="_blank">Facebook page</a> there was a post seeking applicants for a volunteer maintenance crew needed at Mystic Seaport last March. That post was shared 593 times, with hundreds of applicants resulting.<br /><br />
I was not chosen at first, and though I was not surprised, I admit to some graceful open weeping. But I did write back with my promise that if any spot were to open up, I would be there immediately. A spot did open up, and I was there.<br /><br />
<b>KS – What were your duties on the ship?</b><br /><br />
SSP – Every day, what was needed was different. We hauled out twelve tons of ballast stones one by one. We scraped the dirt and grit out of the tar inside the 115-foot ship. We scrubbed every inch and went back to scrape and scrub some more.<br /><br />
We filled any possible cracks with Boracol [a mixture of borax and glycol], we repainted under the waterline, retarred everywhere and everything remaining – including the 79-foot Douglas fir mast, the rigging, and the smaller sailboat kept on the <i>Draken</i>, charmingly referred to as <i>Baby Draken</i>.<br /><br />
Joyfully, I also took turns making coffee for <a href="https://www.swedishfood.com/fika" target="_blank">fika</a> [Swedish coffee break custom], scrubbing the bathroom at Mystic Seaport’s staff lounge area, and jumped into a live classroom <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaQrlLXrBX4" target="_blank">video tour for grade school children</a> without notice. Whatever, whenever!<br /><br />
<b>KS – How have your experiences onboard deepened your understanding of the Viking Era?</b><br /><br />
SSP – Two weeks on the <i>Draken</i> brought subtle openings of understanding, as did being around members of the crew who sailed across the Atlantic.<br /><br />
The ship showed me how hair blown loose in coastal winds embeds into the tar, the pure quantity of strikes it takes to replace one nail, the stiff and surprisingly intense weight of tarred hemp rope.<br /><br />
The crew’s stories of breaking masts, wild storms and racing through icy waters at night forced on by a single, mammoth sail brought another level of understanding. Their comradery, stout spirits, perpetual humor, and absolute commitment to doing what needs to be done easily illuminated for me the quality of character quintessential of earlier times.<br /><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgamQZoSMIbrTlYhcRZJ7hBffoXrReAv3WCUpYD4MSIbj21wXPivs0VHQ3Xd3VyYH-H5RbmegpKtCSflMwuKsnAzUjKPOZa2QcEmxLoDcKL3Ka-UXwFQctGraK_QzjDTcfbHu3Qn-3M1a9cCCKsqbU26YoCoqZ4OK7uVyMDQP5AKCzzckLgc2m2eXXGQ_o" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="1170" height="359" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgamQZoSMIbrTlYhcRZJ7hBffoXrReAv3WCUpYD4MSIbj21wXPivs0VHQ3Xd3VyYH-H5RbmegpKtCSflMwuKsnAzUjKPOZa2QcEmxLoDcKL3Ka-UXwFQctGraK_QzjDTcfbHu3Qn-3M1a9cCCKsqbU26YoCoqZ4OK7uVyMDQP5AKCzzckLgc2m2eXXGQ_o=w400-h300" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephanie and friends next to the <i>Draken</i> (Photo: Stephanie Smith Pasculli)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<b>KS – How do you identify in terms of spiritual identity and practice?</b><br /><br />
SSP – I feel like a nature-based spiritual person who is in the current of an ancient Pagan pulse, as it were. I was raised meditating with an understanding of an essential connectedness and all the ways it lives through the people of the world.<br /><br />
On a trip to the British Isles in my mid-twenties, however, I felt a startlingly physical reaction to a site I learned later was used for Pagan rituals. After returning to the US, I immediately began to research this experience and Paganism for the first time. I ended up attracting beautiful friends and teachers to delve into the earth’s rhythms and magic with, and this experience became my tuning fork for recreating connectedness and personal potentiality.<br /><br />
Decades passed with new friends and teachers weaving into my world, all deepening an ever-widening spiral. California brought time with Starhawk in her <a href="https://earthactivisttraining.org/" target="_blank">Earth Activist</a> permaculture training, Massachusetts revealed the incredibly special <a href="http://www.earthspirit.com/" target="_blank">Earth Spirit</a> community, and Chicago brought my dear friend, Dr. Karl Seigfried and the Thor’s Oak Kindred <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/events.html" target="_blank">blóts</a> and community. All of these continue to be a gift to my soul.<br /><br />
<b>KS – Where do you find yourself spiritually today in relation to where you were when you first came to Paganism?</b><br /><br />
SSP – When I first came to Paganism, it was 1995 and I didn’t have the internet! It was a while ago!<br /><br />
I only had a feeling in my body and the term <i>druid</i> to research at the library, dictionary, even the phone book, as I had nowhere else to search. I eventually found two books at the University of Washington’s library, and soon after, my people found me. It was the perfect beginning.<br /><br />
We were a small, diligent, magical group who worked together, lovingly and powerfully. Through subsequent years of moving and widening webs, I’ve come to feel much looser and yet stronger spiritually. I see so many ways to connect naturally and globally now, and as years pass with each season absorbed and treasured, my own seasons have a richness and humor too.<br /><br />
Through it all though, my connection to my parents’ Scandinavian roots is raising its head, I must say. I am able to identify more and more that note in my core, and it is awesome.<br /><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEib1JPnj2IkBgawKZoiGkZJUFWyNLFc4muC-X6Flsrb_4L_3rCJb6_8pk0nP6JZHGZ24KocSUCeP4LLcxeZE6OCGh5-D8_a-8egwp_JvBrST0u0k7dlGBsxE80HddKXYHVMwdFPvGgjiGhX2uw3y-vVWxNg2oamM3ryQ899iblWVyDHHqq7OT2hpMoUvDM" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="915" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEib1JPnj2IkBgawKZoiGkZJUFWyNLFc4muC-X6Flsrb_4L_3rCJb6_8pk0nP6JZHGZ24KocSUCeP4LLcxeZE6OCGh5-D8_a-8egwp_JvBrST0u0k7dlGBsxE80HddKXYHVMwdFPvGgjiGhX2uw3y-vVWxNg2oamM3ryQ899iblWVyDHHqq7OT2hpMoUvDM=w400-h300" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephanie gets into it aboard the <i>Draken</i> (Photo: Erik Petersen)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<b>KS – In a video for fifth grade schoolchildren, you described the <i>Draken</i> as “a sacred site” and “a sacred vessel.” Can you expand on that?</b><br /><br />
SSP – I can only say what is sacred to me, of course, and what I believe that means. We are all different, but to me, the amount of energy that is imbued in and emanates from the <i>Draken</i> is visceral.<br /><br />
There is the honest intention of all the sweat, soul, and spirit poured for years into its creation. There is the vibrancy of the world’s imagination set loose upon the dark waves. There is the ancestral heartbeat that has found a new hull to ring through for the first time in a thousand years.<br /><br />
The <i>Draken</i> literally hums with power, and you can see it a mile away. To step aboard sings in your feet, and if you are able to sit on the deck with your back nestled into the hull, you feel as if a wild and powerful goddess is smiling down at you specifically.<br /><b><br />
KS –Were there other Pagans working on the ship?</b><br /><br />
SSP – There were other Pagans on the ship, for sure. Conversations were natural and simple, as Ásatrú blended in with everyday comments and banter. References to Odin or little jokes involving the Norse pantheon in a sweet and knowing way felt like a type of shorthand for sharing glimpses of the sacred together, while also getting our work done before the rains came.<br /><b><br />
KS –Since 2018, the <i>Draken</i> crew has collaborated with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography by taking microplastic samples to help measure oceanic distribution of microplastics. Do you see a connection between your spirituality and this sort of environmental work?</b><br /><br />
SSP – I feel any movement at all towards the health of the earth is direct service to the spiritual sacred.<br /><br />
The crew of the <i>Draken</i>’s efforts and commitment to this research put more light on the term <i>oceanic distribution of microplastics</i>. Because they cared and acted, it is in our conversation today.<br /><br />
To me, environmental work is spirituality on its feet.<br /><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXev9hV3VjtyUEU7qhVT-yaZtEhan1ksIiYNN_KyH5I8ryr-vXuHGE7a0yhH6VOz55hyTuS_x294BKbCfBIuqruyknnffHt1873ETMo0JNEkxuMPQcDNAQ_ah6_uHye6GgG1TNV7p0bs2sNmnwmozakhXcmMRTvRJGz3qV1FW_FmCe8e5yj5ZA1KP6j6c" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhXev9hV3VjtyUEU7qhVT-yaZtEhan1ksIiYNN_KyH5I8ryr-vXuHGE7a0yhH6VOz55hyTuS_x294BKbCfBIuqruyknnffHt1873ETMo0JNEkxuMPQcDNAQ_ah6_uHye6GgG1TNV7p0bs2sNmnwmozakhXcmMRTvRJGz3qV1FW_FmCe8e5yj5ZA1KP6j6c=w300-h400" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stephanie on the Draken Harald Hårfagre (Photo: Stephanie Smith Pasculli)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<b>KS – This isn’t your first experience with “living history.” Can you describe your participation in Society for Creative Anachronism battle events?</b><br /><br />
SSP – Oh, the fighting! I love the fighting. I laugh to myself at my love for the <i>Draken</i>. I’m not a sailor, yet! I am a builder and a rower and a fighter who just needs a boat to get her there!<br /><br />
So yes, the SCA is an incredible worldwide organization where folks involve themselves in all aspects of culture before 1600. We do not reenact or pretend to be others; we embody and engage in the activities as closely as possible, and everyone is a participant.<br /><br />
My focus is “heavy list fighting,” specifically sword and shield as my primary weapon form for tournaments and small melees. For larger melees or all-out wars – hundreds against hundreds – I also fight with a spear. The weapons are rattan and are not padded, so all combatants must wear very extensive armor and be officially authorized to participate.<br /><br />
There are no divisions of gender, weight or age in combat, and the diversity of character and weapon type is astounding. I’ve been fighting for fifteen years, and it is soul fire.<br /><b><br />
KS – Is there a relationship between your fighting in these battles and your spiritual practice?</b><br /><br />
SSP – Absolutely! But how to describe it? It is an intoxicating mix of complete focus due to the danger at hand, the celebration of survival, and the deep awareness of my ancestors’ engagement with aggression as both sacrifice and conqueror.<br /><br />
There breathes my male and female, my Týr losing my hand into the mouth of Fenrir for others, my strategy striding into a swirl of chaos, my conversation with the violent aggression in me that has a place to shine.<br /><br />
So many fighters call it “stick therapy.” Maybe those are the best words.<br /><br />
<b>KS – I’ve long thought that you personally exude a deeply spiritual presence during the blót rites of Thor’s Oak Kindred, and you always have wonderfully moving things to say around the oak tree and over the drinking horn. Outside of ritual, are there other moments in your life where you feel similar a connection to the divine?</b><br /><br />
SSP – Ritual keeps finding her way in!<br /><br />
One exercise in Starhawk’s Earth Activist Training I took away and kept close was a four-part grounding technique. We visualized a location where we felt naturally grounded, we said a grounding word aloud, we touched a place on our bodies that centered us, we breathed it all in to root ourselves. The purpose was to build tools to center ourselves amidst the chaos that can happen in activist work. I also found it useful in the family!<br /><br />
The goal was that repeated use of these tools would abbreviate them to provide the same level of grounding with just one quick word or touch. All that is to say that, fifteen years later, a yummy smell from an uprooted tree may prompt a moment to connect and go deeper as I’m walking down the sidewalk.<br /><br />
But the moon though, she stops me in my tracks almost every time. The moon probably lives as my most fluid conduit. That is why she is tattooed on my arms. I have my heart on my sleeve! Along with two Viking ships.<b><br /><br />
KS – In academic study of religions, the concept of “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691016733/lived-religion-in-america" target="_blank">lived religion</a>” focuses on a dynamic understanding of religiosity that “reconsider[s] American religious history in terms of practices that are linked to specific social contexts.” How has your religious practice intersected with your understanding of yourself as a participant in contemporary American culture?</b><br /><br />
SSP – I honestly wrestle with how my religious beliefs intersect with my participation in modern America.<br /><br />
I make choices for the environment and spirit – like our family’s vegetarianism, home-based food production, lack of screen time, and political actions – but I have work to do here.<br /><br />
Professionally, I work in an environment which drives the perpetual spring modality. It values new growth on top of new growth. Youth is the goal. Maiden is the only goddess.<br /><br />
In my heart and home, we observe and value all seasons, the waning and the waxing, the Mother and Crone. We value the decline, the death, and the rest as much as life itself. This full cycle is sustainable.<br /><br />
So there is tension and yet some progress. We didn’t have free-range chickens three years ago, and they are now the comedy and pride of our typical suburban neighborhood.<br /><br />
<b>KS – Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights with us!</b><br /><br />
SSP – I am truly deeply humbled and honored to talk with you. Thank you.<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2022/05/on-a-viking-ship-an-interview-with-stephanie-smith-pasculli.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-33892734336750215602023-05-15T10:50:00.006-05:002023-08-31T13:55:02.223-05:00Heimdall, the World Tree, and All of Us<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNXdSs99ZlU" target="_blank">A voice from long ago</a> sounds in my head, colored blue with memory and longing.
<blockquote>Laying on my back<br />
In the newly mown grass<br />
Rain is coming down<br />
But I know the clouds will pass</blockquote>
The clouds will indeed pass. The sun will fall below the horizon and cede the darkening sky to night and to its own cousin stars across the cosmos.<br /><br />
As the night moves, one star will not. It will remain fixed, showing the way northward. Between dusk and dawn, the other stars will spin around it in concentric circles of light. In <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/system/news_items/main_images/1944_North-star_star-trails_Credit_Preston-Dyches.jpg" target="_blank">long-exposure photographs</a>, these circles around the pole star look like rings of an ancient tree.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230516161204if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/UhcCNqhlPS2crzselpeuEk8JVhV0JpRYjtGM7fDtI5u0By9omTphGtmactZP5LHUyC3l5sGqJ3q1Bk-zJZjVM7DBfARgkVkXRHv9y9zPNYiVc_zzdt9wVfITje0oZvzUyJvYrDzTRESbuf8-pmSUra7osoz_fuLO063_s9wiIRuFBujeWLtr9gsuuQ04QtL2CQyycAjykUCcYD_CTbz8FJy_W-z1wL1vtSe_w1XQl6YdObMzN8A2dpmgrBVM6ZDsPx4LlIgecbR6wDKJ2KzGFynIpUMkmZVFwTORN4z9mINmDcBlnhrytxaR4Y-BG5FgEOovwn6-D5gy2TEb_flFNPopH-qmpp2zIHf02PQGOpJEzCbmvBQPGL0yyRtZ-VUZ3VAFq8XSpX8tlwHKQx-EGkQWbNvIdG1FAtiLFlK4V54jPv3FVwnB0Sar4g9SFEMWEO8vVTItRYbPgzZc13BR-Zt6Zfiz619kWsNMvokggHv-GjlPDSYArNH4QTOuVJ3E5Dn2dHccyeNJQdcPiF_gu5U1pQLIVGjr4zLCs-tmj7B7QtQwZWFwjL1i3fRCiTUp9IORJEUeF-gyxWeb3-ustFdF9xZPg9A-LQyzhW8ZRfpYHyPn5Kzym77kColbQVXT7OFSvP_gbqRo1Frk9pyvcdbUNfGjjig48NLlRUvNVTA6q38o6YYl0aPkHRk1tc3SzFBxuXCjbOer3KiJa5j20KUUVVR1v7TW1T3M7Xy9pq4MEU1BF5Hf9Wn7-nKKLunabKN1ortatroHQFosCWreAi8OHbSCFKaUsC33k5Ar1l8hAdaUHz0vNVuhJntWQnmHV6WsnMoA_dzrHOCdC1qIWOrJatTREhRKbqc6oO90B8poM99Nx2o59BPCQcZ-itK9elbIYf9c-8z1SvIlHaqdWGH5IcF_A0xFl5RMp4ZHTBkhA_vXhxG6r4YFGfkKfW2DLhEnRFApqufWmkPY6r9yeOUzaIjk5QhhxLlXdPUvkIj48WxF4Anjtz3D2MFuHyazzVWZOr0lTKVZ6IbMVb_h3UeFOCss1sz4Rhqm4TxIogEkTWs1q8zbPVOBxI3Zl6CwY1v9fcfXc4eYvAGb6XJpuk2WJ6iAwWfD5uh06ZbMXI4ho3r71h5BlP20Tdxy6-QmgZvsL6RGq_Xnf7pDKFohpb8YvEBJe4hbDP_Jubn-lmwnQKBZN2exp4H2ByyFWC_o-aLQDJEcnA=w1968-h1970-s-no?authuser=5"><img data-original-height="2133" data-original-width="2131" height="480" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20230516161204if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/UhcCNqhlPS2crzselpeuEk8JVhV0JpRYjtGM7fDtI5u0By9omTphGtmactZP5LHUyC3l5sGqJ3q1Bk-zJZjVM7DBfARgkVkXRHv9y9zPNYiVc_zzdt9wVfITje0oZvzUyJvYrDzTRESbuf8-pmSUra7osoz_fuLO063_s9wiIRuFBujeWLtr9gsuuQ04QtL2CQyycAjykUCcYD_CTbz8FJy_W-z1wL1vtSe_w1XQl6YdObMzN8A2dpmgrBVM6ZDsPx4LlIgecbR6wDKJ2KzGFynIpUMkmZVFwTORN4z9mINmDcBlnhrytxaR4Y-BG5FgEOovwn6-D5gy2TEb_flFNPopH-qmpp2zIHf02PQGOpJEzCbmvBQPGL0yyRtZ-VUZ3VAFq8XSpX8tlwHKQx-EGkQWbNvIdG1FAtiLFlK4V54jPv3FVwnB0Sar4g9SFEMWEO8vVTItRYbPgzZc13BR-Zt6Zfiz619kWsNMvokggHv-GjlPDSYArNH4QTOuVJ3E5Dn2dHccyeNJQdcPiF_gu5U1pQLIVGjr4zLCs-tmj7B7QtQwZWFwjL1i3fRCiTUp9IORJEUeF-gyxWeb3-ustFdF9xZPg9A-LQyzhW8ZRfpYHyPn5Kzym77kColbQVXT7OFSvP_gbqRo1Frk9pyvcdbUNfGjjig48NLlRUvNVTA6q38o6YYl0aPkHRk1tc3SzFBxuXCjbOer3KiJa5j20KUUVVR1v7TW1T3M7Xy9pq4MEU1BF5Hf9Wn7-nKKLunabKN1ortatroHQFosCWreAi8OHbSCFKaUsC33k5Ar1l8hAdaUHz0vNVuhJntWQnmHV6WsnMoA_dzrHOCdC1qIWOrJatTREhRKbqc6oO90B8poM99Nx2o59BPCQcZ-itK9elbIYf9c-8z1SvIlHaqdWGH5IcF_A0xFl5RMp4ZHTBkhA_vXhxG6r4YFGfkKfW2DLhEnRFApqufWmkPY6r9yeOUzaIjk5QhhxLlXdPUvkIj48WxF4Anjtz3D2MFuHyazzVWZOr0lTKVZ6IbMVb_h3UeFOCss1sz4Rhqm4TxIogEkTWs1q8zbPVOBxI3Zl6CwY1v9fcfXc4eYvAGb6XJpuk2WJ6iAwWfD5uh06ZbMXI4ho3r71h5BlP20Tdxy6-QmgZvsL6RGq_Xnf7pDKFohpb8YvEBJe4hbDP_Jubn-lmwnQKBZN2exp4H2ByyFWC_o-aLQDJEcnA=w1968-h1970-s-no?authuser=5" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">“Photograph of the Stars in their Diurnal Motion round the Pole”<br />from <i>In the High Heavens</i> by Sir Robert S. Ball (1910) </td></tr></tbody></table><br />
The earth rotates around an axis drawn from the south pole, through the planet, out the north pole, and up to the pole star. With a bit of imagination, <a href="https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/internal_resources/5049/" target="_blank">diagrams of this world axis</a> show a trunk with roots in the earth and the pole star at the top of the leader.<br /><br />
Old Icelandic poetry tells us of the mighty measuring tree. The growth and life of this tree parallel the growth and life of this world, and none know where to find the beginning point of its roots.<br /><br />
The poetry’s great unnamed prophetess tells the god Odin of her ancient memories of nine giant women of the tree under the ground. The giant prophetess Hyndla tells the goddess Freyja of a mighty one born long ago to nine giant women at the edge of the earth. The god Heimdall himself speaks of being born of nine sisters who are his nine mothers.<br /><br />
Heimdall makes his home atop Himinbjörg, the “mountain of heaven.” From that vantage point, he sees and hears all that happens on the earth. As the great watchman of the world, he needs less sleep than a bird does.<br /><br />
One way to translate Heimdall’s name is “world tree.” It’s a translation that makes sense of these multiple elusive allusions.<br /><br />
The connection of trees to personhood is fundamental in Norse mythology. The gods create the first humans from two trees and name them Ash and Elm. At the other end of the time cycle, two humans named Life and Life-Eager survive the cataclysm of Ragnarök by hiding within the World Tree. Both at the beginning and at the end of mythic time, human life emerges from trees.<br /><br />
If the nine giant women of the tree under the ground are the nine mothers of Heimdall, then they are the roots from which the tree grows at the edge of the earth and stands atop the mountain of heaven. This poetic imagery is reflected in the scientific diagram of the axis that begins at the south pole, runs through the earth, then bursts out of the top of the world to grow up to the pole star in the heavens.<br /><br />
The World Tree branches out over our world, the world watched over by Heimdall as guardian. In this way, he-as-tree functions as the world’s warden tree, echoing on a cosmic scale the northern European belief in a homestead’s greatest tree as watcher over the generations of inhabitants. As the earthly tree sees far and wide from its high vantage point, as the earthly tree never sleeps in its unceasing watchfulness, so does Heimdall as the World Tree.<br /><br />
If we accept that the Old Icelandic poem <i>Rígsþula</i> (“List of Ríg”) is indeed about Heimdall and follow tradition by linking it to the opening of the great prophecy, then he is the father of all the tribes and all the classes of humanity. Not just Icelanders. Not just northern Europeans. All of us.<br /><br />
The World Tree isn’t the Scandinavia Tree or the White People Tree. It’s the tree of the entire world with roots deep inside the planet and branches that spread over and connect all living beings.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Under growing branches, not set in stone</b></span></span><br /><br />
In the second episode of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2987754/?ref_=vp_vi_tt" target="_blank"><i>Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey</i></a>, Neil deGrasse Tyson presents a powerful vision of the Tree of Life that illustrates the interconnectedness of all that live on earth. As if to underscore the imagery of the Norse myths, he makes a particular point of showing the similarities of an oak tree’s DNA with his own. “This tree and me,” he says, “we’re long-lost cousins.”<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230516161623if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2PkOgw-R6IIvtuMDfWftq81FAvckesAMNhSPUdEff2ta9n47KRYrs__gflRuZLDhXSPu7wVo8rQGiCSOU192xezxipKxvu8esgxmGGyGf3Wavj-Elk7h_yQvIU9AvTSNqBDRrJBqOjFA3hMVx8yRP7Cwqwx7wZ35Q3Kv6JSQeTbEpsfEvGe3thrDaB2qM7rZBEpx3XqWwIpLuGJqVouMpw0VmVskuqJZR16w2x1o_PswiOwhsF3Qg7zCP4qvmKTJUAbhTfkxvN1UKgmCQOSXRQ_ZOofh-4m3Umzixx3C7AvUv8XrbeXW-RgwWPzyuEjK1oqvIBJElsvVO3cp80BdA5qcwqYCk7f_vuBbDq9zBlKy5__7sDKHatZBi980H2uyiBH9BlGvvrBTEayIRlmkfvbhsU4NJJTFLkfBQ1QmstD15VP5zZ4MEd_D3do9hs3UB7Se_rKTeFqwAPR8e_p4UHbgkEaZN869oOjMn9fMBE08KU_7qY30wYKqSIh5bUQzfONCt4pKTiwjLhALJUGJ65Mvr0ZuxDrvnjZxlGjsUVbygS-TF1_L5r9vx5OPIVOTKxQA-t-YSeuffMf9y67Aq7eCfQ-DDPgObMCe_gZimBdNCr5uQL5l6CftNhQmvotTaBIE16ZCWL_cLUcnaYwln1szBp-rbhID9O9ccSAiSQq5jtO8FbEgJc28pArcmMU22cXV5-z0lQgI_awtMyaxhVWVZ7a5ovL4qd3CW2XLM2Btk-Bd-AEfhKRTEL22kC8vPVo7ShYP7le-c-Fg13DyYVrDoOetbPKx9Z59QKbFSejREfJc0Xok8bnv-Em6BwwCVr0HKy4zOmgJvPbn3sH3FgqGTxuwCw6JubSr-39XqOUqGuCbK0pNxYEWktafg76dGLut_ZpppcRsjb6UmY3u3PueB0SQE5yjMgfR-4WpPhKgUZ-20tjrewEcVMTKvX2fQ06Qt6_ehDj6gj-0nq4YTPzg81--XEeMi4NW74FLxKl-vJGM-vVcXTIJHWmXuscxKRNKWZedU6RQi-aqlpGrwGTwYgMi3FP8rcc0rALELTYyhDn1tP-wRN0ywSlheM37aYlX0pIquPgiJw45iWz1b6nfYgJhOre5hXrbgy43y-cODAhk_NFvOahFSbYzjBsY5k_1Q8KarkypqaGJVJt14lm8k9_-Zk5uQADqA7W0z3UEFUndobYIijZ4tBxT7z7i3-NuBzautg=w1948-h2484-s-no?authuser=5"><img data-original-height="2817" data-original-width="2210" height="612" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20230516161623if_/https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/2PkOgw-R6IIvtuMDfWftq81FAvckesAMNhSPUdEff2ta9n47KRYrs__gflRuZLDhXSPu7wVo8rQGiCSOU192xezxipKxvu8esgxmGGyGf3Wavj-Elk7h_yQvIU9AvTSNqBDRrJBqOjFA3hMVx8yRP7Cwqwx7wZ35Q3Kv6JSQeTbEpsfEvGe3thrDaB2qM7rZBEpx3XqWwIpLuGJqVouMpw0VmVskuqJZR16w2x1o_PswiOwhsF3Qg7zCP4qvmKTJUAbhTfkxvN1UKgmCQOSXRQ_ZOofh-4m3Umzixx3C7AvUv8XrbeXW-RgwWPzyuEjK1oqvIBJElsvVO3cp80BdA5qcwqYCk7f_vuBbDq9zBlKy5__7sDKHatZBi980H2uyiBH9BlGvvrBTEayIRlmkfvbhsU4NJJTFLkfBQ1QmstD15VP5zZ4MEd_D3do9hs3UB7Se_rKTeFqwAPR8e_p4UHbgkEaZN869oOjMn9fMBE08KU_7qY30wYKqSIh5bUQzfONCt4pKTiwjLhALJUGJ65Mvr0ZuxDrvnjZxlGjsUVbygS-TF1_L5r9vx5OPIVOTKxQA-t-YSeuffMf9y67Aq7eCfQ-DDPgObMCe_gZimBdNCr5uQL5l6CftNhQmvotTaBIE16ZCWL_cLUcnaYwln1szBp-rbhID9O9ccSAiSQq5jtO8FbEgJc28pArcmMU22cXV5-z0lQgI_awtMyaxhVWVZ7a5ovL4qd3CW2XLM2Btk-Bd-AEfhKRTEL22kC8vPVo7ShYP7le-c-Fg13DyYVrDoOetbPKx9Z59QKbFSejREfJc0Xok8bnv-Em6BwwCVr0HKy4zOmgJvPbn3sH3FgqGTxuwCw6JubSr-39XqOUqGuCbK0pNxYEWktafg76dGLut_ZpppcRsjb6UmY3u3PueB0SQE5yjMgfR-4WpPhKgUZ-20tjrewEcVMTKvX2fQ06Qt6_ehDj6gj-0nq4YTPzg81--XEeMi4NW74FLxKl-vJGM-vVcXTIJHWmXuscxKRNKWZedU6RQi-aqlpGrwGTwYgMi3FP8rcc0rALELTYyhDn1tP-wRN0ywSlheM37aYlX0pIquPgiJw45iWz1b6nfYgJhOre5hXrbgy43y-cODAhk_NFvOahFSbYzjBsY5k_1Q8KarkypqaGJVJt14lm8k9_-Zk5uQADqA7W0z3UEFUndobYIijZ4tBxT7z7i3-NuBzautg=w1948-h2484-s-no?authuser=5" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">“The Oak and the Reed” by Gustave Doré from <i>The Fables of La Fountaine</i> (1867)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
The film <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMlnms4YLBs" target="_blank">Dark Universe</a></i>, also narrated by Tyson, presents visualizations of the dark matter flowing throughout the universe that look like the cells of a tree or of a human being. Everything that is, is intrinsically connected. The macroscopic mirrors the microscopic, as the World Tree is an enlargement of the warden tree and Heimdall-as-tree magnifies humans-as-trees.<br /><br />
In the third decade of the twenty-first century, when we’re still weighted down with translations of the Eddas by baby boomer academics who resolutely translate terms for families, kindreds, and generations as “race,” it’s good to remember that the poems and myths tell us of all humanity being descended from and watched over by Heimdall-as-World-Tree. We can counter the racialist baggage that living scholars still carry forward from 19th-century scholarship by refreshing ourselves in the well of myth.<br /><br />
No, the corpus of Norse mythology is not some pure and beautiful lore of warm hugs. It is also not the corpus of “white religion” that so many practitioners of modern paganism today make it out to be, whether they overtly promote racist ideology or more carefully couch their language in terms of ancestry, heritage, and rhetoric referring to Vikings and Germanic tribes as “our glorious forefathers.”<br /><br />
In the ancient poetry and mythology, the World Tree grows from roots deep in the earth and watches over the entire world, and we humans are made from trees. In modern scientific theory, the world axis sprouts from roots in the earth below to reach up to the stars above, the cell-like structures of dark matter hold the cosmos together, and we are related to trees at a genetic level. There is no fundamental conflict between embracing the myths in our hearts and following the science with our minds.<br /><br />
There is also no fundamental conflict between loving Norse mythology and celebrating the diversity of the human family. We are all related to each other, and we all live together beneath the branches of the World Tree – whether conceived as spiritual symbol, mystical manifestation, or astronomical actuality.<br /><br />
It is indeed possible to have a theology of today that seeks inspiration from the old tales. There’s a lot of work to be done, but we can embrace the poetry and mythology without falling into the quicksand of fundamentalism or promoting the tired old racialism of outdated scholarship.<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathenry</a> are extremely young new religious movements. There’s no reason to assume that our theology is so set in stone that it cannot engage with the complex lives we lead now, or that it’s impossible to both honor the old worldviews and be true to our own diverse experiences and the scientific teachings of today. A lot of work is still to be done by those open to possibility and growth.<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <i><a href="https://wildhunt.org/2022/01/column-the-world-tree-heimdall-and-all-of-us.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a></i>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-92068562700504098152023-01-23T10:38:00.002-06:002023-01-27T11:25:06.778-06:00A 4th Grader Asks About Norse Mythology and Norse ReligionIt’s been a minute since I posted a set of answers, but I’ve long received emails from students in a wide range of levels who want to interview me about Norse mythology and Norse religion for their school projects.<br /><br />
I first answered questions that were sent by <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/11/high-school-student-asks-about-norse.html" target="_blank">a high school student</a> in 2011, followed by ones from <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2012/03/middle-school-student-asks-about-norse.html" target="_blank">a middle school student</a> in 2012. One <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/05/a-6th-grader-asks-about-norse-mythology.html" target="_blank">sixth grader</a> interviewed me in 2013, then <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/06/another-sixth-grader-asks-about-norse.html" target="_blank">another one</a> did in 2014. <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/05/a-college-student-asks-about-norse.html" target="_blank">A college student</a> sent a series of questions in 2016, and a second <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2018/03/another-high-school-student-asks-about.html" target="_blank">high school student</a> sent more in 2018. All my sets of answers can be found in the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html#students" target="_blank">For Students</a> section of this website’s <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html" target="_blank">Archive of Articles and Interviews</a>.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPf1rCMtrllksaq-HSJ_WtS6ktZJOF-IiJe_ksczYSRDu8ei2w_c3KlLdlJzN8PFJgFnGC3PY9bmqNdH_QnPa4OWZPRRIj-EgaOl18KzB4AS1KrZaUE2FwqGkwX1oJopU1WToYEoMNlEhaiEEKuOMv4_WmbHq2IlC7RL_WhYQsjnu2SO6LBj24HtY/s1600/hawthorne%20elementary%20school.pg%20copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="480" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwPf1rCMtrllksaq-HSJ_WtS6ktZJOF-IiJe_ksczYSRDu8ei2w_c3KlLdlJzN8PFJgFnGC3PY9bmqNdH_QnPa4OWZPRRIj-EgaOl18KzB4AS1KrZaUE2FwqGkwX1oJopU1WToYEoMNlEhaiEEKuOMv4_WmbHq2IlC7RL_WhYQsjnu2SO6LBj24HtY/w400-h188/hawthorne%20elementary%20school.pg%20copy.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hawthorne Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<b>Eliza L.</b> is a fourth-grade student in <b>Ms. Amanda Ladia</b>’s class at Hawthorne Elementary School in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father explains the “Passion Project” assignment: <blockquote>Each student is allowed to pick any topic they want that they are interested in and passionate about to explore throughout the year and deepen their knowledge on, and then present their research and knowledge on the topic at the end of the year.<br /><br />
Eliza selected Norse mythology. She has been reading and learning a lot over the past four months and is getting more and more excited about the subject. We have read some of your blog posts and other interviews, and we love the way you explain everything about Norse mythology.</blockquote>
The questions Eliza sent are excellent and actually cover topics that I discuss with my students who are a decade older. Most impressive! Everyone involved gave their permission for her questions and my answers to be posted here, and I hope that what I wrote will be helpful to those of any age who are interested in learning more about the Norse myths.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
What is a myth and why does Norse mythology exist?</b></span><br /><br />
We discuss this very complicated issue in the college course that I teach on Norse mythology and religion. One way to break it down simply is to define <i>mythology</i> as “a set of stories that is connected to a religion” and <i>religion</i> as “a set of beliefs and practices.” There’s much more to these things, but those two mini-definitions are a good place to start.<br /><br />
Myths can be told in many ways. Long ago, they were often performed in the form of poems or songs. They can be self-contained (like a movie) or linked together in a cycle of stories (like a chapter book). They can be understood in many ways, and you may understand a given myth very differently when you read it now and when you return to it at different stages of your life.<br /><br />
Norse myths are linked to the old religion that existed in various forms at various times and in various places in northern Europe. Before the new religion of Christianity spread throughout these lands, there was a variety of beliefs and practices (remember the <i>religion</i> definition) that included things like exchanging gifts with many gods, goddesses, ancestors, and land spirits.<br /><br />
As in other religions, stories were told about the figures that people who practiced these religions considered important. The stories explain ideas about how the world began, why it is the way it is now, and how it will end. The Norse myths are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes exciting, and sometimes scary – just like our own lives are.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
What is unique about Norse mythology compared to other mythology from different parts of the world?</b></span><br /><br />
One thing is the characters of the characters – how the personalities of each of the main figures is shown through their words and deeds. There are other thundering gods who charge through the sky and throw lightning in other mythologies, but there is only one Thor. When you read about him in the myths, you feel that you really get to know him as a special and unique fellow.<br /><br />
Another thing is the imagery of the myths. They tell of mystical women warriors who ride onto battlefields to choose who will fall. They tell of wise giants and dwarfs who get involved in deadly riddle contests with gods. They tell of mystical weapons that can pass on a god’s blessing or a dwarf’s curse. The unique characters and objects can inspire you to imagine fantastic scenes – no illustrations needed!<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
What does Norse Mythology have in common with Greek mythology?</b></span><br /><br />
This is a good follow-up to your previous question. There are several things, including a god who throws lightning from on high, a trio of mystical female figures connected to fate, a group of gods who fights a rival group of gods, a failed attempt to bring someone beloved back from the land of the dead, and a figure who steals from the gods and is eventually bound and tortured by a single animal.<br /><br />
There are many more similarities, but there are also commonalities with myths from what we now call Ireland, Wales, Iran, India, and elsewhere. Why would similar characters and stories show up in so many different places? The languages from these places are related to each other as part of the Indo-European family of languages. The myths from these places are also related.<br /><br />
The modern understanding of the Indo-European theory of language, mythology, religion, and other cultural elements suggests that, very long ago, ideas about life and ways of living spread out over a wide geographic range. These things – all foundational to the life of a community – changed as they traveled and evolved as they were developed in different places.<br /><br />
It’s surprising to find similar characters and situations in myths composed around 1000 BCE in India and myths written down in Iceland around 1220 CE. That’s over 2,000 years apart, and the distance between the two nation’s capitals is nearly 5,000 miles. Amazing! Learning about Hindu mythology from India has deepened my understanding of Norse mythology and my appreciation of human connectedness.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
Who is your favorite Norse god and why?</b></span><br /><br />
Can I choose three? When I first read the myths of Thor, he reminded me of my Opa – my grandfather on my German side who grew up a farmer in eastern Europe before becoming a bricklayer in Wisconsin. Thor is the god of the farmers and other regular people who work for a living. He’s as quick to forgiveness as he is to anger, he loves good food and drink, and he takes kids on adventures.<br /><br />
At age four in 1977, <i>Star Wars</i> was the first film I saw in a theater. I loved the space wizard Obi-Wan Kenobi. The same year, a cartoon of J.R.R. Tolkien’s <i>The Hobbit</i> was on TV, and I loved the wandering wizard Gandalf. I read T.W. White’s <i>The Sword in the Stone</i> as a kid and loved the wise wizard Merlin. I was predisposed to love Odin, the wizardly god who inspired the creation of so many later characters.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyf2J5BChyNM862N2E_aDE8xKeczOSgrYFAz4s1rtRipnTI1MFGGsYBAxkYfM0Isb6O5OkkSGkpsYTpBL-X6DXGvPZrXmwm8VpoE74ZeEqzAyeGJlrdaG3S9aMUF7h_6oB0l50UKfHoy_ID0foP2qal7f3TG_cOiVQd4yNWJH3MO5rHf9wKoXpdBvq/s1600/Tokubi%20Ka%20Ska%C3%B0i%20Midwinter%20Art%20Contestjpg.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1600" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyf2J5BChyNM862N2E_aDE8xKeczOSgrYFAz4s1rtRipnTI1MFGGsYBAxkYfM0Isb6O5OkkSGkpsYTpBL-X6DXGvPZrXmwm8VpoE74ZeEqzAyeGJlrdaG3S9aMUF7h_6oB0l50UKfHoy_ID0foP2qal7f3TG_cOiVQd4yNWJH3MO5rHf9wKoXpdBvq/w400-h278/Tokubi%20Ka%20Ska%C3%B0i%20Midwinter%20Art%20Contestjpg.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skaði by Tokubi Ka, Adult Third Place Winner, 2<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/" target="_blank">013 Midwinter Art Contest</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
I’ve always loved strong female characters like Pippi Longstocking, Eilonwy, Supergirl, Dakota North, Merida, Mirabel Madrigal, and Ms. Marvel. So, I immediately fell in love with Skadi, a frost giantess from the mountains whose father is killed by the gods. She goes alone to Asgard, challenges all the gods, and becomes goddess of skiing and hunting (like a Norse Artemis or Diana). She’s definitely cool!<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
What are a couple examples of the most interesting powers that the gods have, good or evil, in Norse mythology?</b></span><br /><br />
If you sit down and think about it, you may discover that powers in mythology aren’t always easily categorized as good or evil in and of themselves. What makes them good or evil is how they’re used. The ability to throw a lightning weapon is good when it’s used to protect us but evil if it’s used to harm us. This idea of power’s goodness or evilness via usage is also true about human power today.<br /><br />
You may have noticed that I wrote “ability to throw a lightning weapon,” not “ability to throw lightning.” Gods aren’t superheroes; they don’t each have a unique superpower. They have magical objects like Odin’s spear that can’t be stopped, Freyr’s glowing metal boar that runs over sky and sea, and Idunn’s apples that prevent the gods aging. If frost giants get these things, they may become gods themselves.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
Why do you think gods can die in Norse mythology?</b></span><br /><br />
If you’re used to the God of the Bible, reading about the gods of Norse mythology can be a bit of a shock. I went the other way as a little kid. I read the Greek myths (as retold by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire) before I read Bible stories (in various kiddie versions). Given the big family of Greek gods, I thought God must be lonely. I cracked my dad up when I asked him, “Why isn’t God married?” <br /><br />
In Indo-European mythologies, gods and goddesses are much more like human men and women than like sthe Biblical God. God exists outside of time and space while being everywhere all at once, but the gods are of the world around us and live in time like us. They’re born, they live, they love, they experience emotions, they have adventures, and they die – just on a much bigger scale than we do.<br /><br />
Wondering about the nature of death is one of the most fundamental and most difficult things about being human. You could even make an argument that thinking about death is what defines humanity (probably not for a fourth-grade assignment). Humans composed the myths, so it makes sense that this most basic of all truths – that death is part of life – is included in the stories of the gods and goddesses.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
Why do Norse gods have kids with more than one partner?</b></span><br /><br />
The first answer is again that the deities of Norse myth are like us, but on a grander scale. In the days before modern medicine, childbirth could be fatal to mothers, and fathers would sometimes remarry and have more children. It’s also an unfortunate fact that people sometimes stray from their committed relationships and marriages to have children with others. Gods, like humans, can make poor decisions.<br /><br />
The second answer is that those who wrote down the Norse myths two hundred years or so after Iceland’s conversion to Christianity tried to turn what were sometimes contradictory myths into a logical system. If one myth says a god has kids with one goddess and another myth says he has kids with a different goddess, later writers would merge the conflicting stories and say he had kids with both.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
Can all or most of the Norse gods shapeshift?</b></span> <br /><br />
Some of what at first seems like shape-changing may really just be disguise and cross-dressing. Thor disguises himself as a young boy and as a bride (!) when he travels to the land of the giants, but that’s not quite shapeshifting. Odin also disguises himself as a woman and uses sorcery to change his appearance.<br /><br />
Loki actually changes into a woman and bares babies, including as a female horse. Freyja and Frigg both have falcon cloaks that Loki uses to turn into a bird, but he uses his own abilities to turn into an insect, fish, and horse. Freyja also has the power to change one of her human followers into a boar. So, there’s a mixture of disguise, sorcery, magic objects, and shape-changing powers.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2Q5FtIUhcI3IGuG0nFAuFQyxhszDWMSZ-iu5nMd-qcE6G9jvuC2tD5vPqW6AQno_tnsmtsCRSG3QGCEI1iR5Ld7-c_3jyAOd176SBTH7NyjSAlMCV1ThJZ7VRQI1RdxpVBP3pO8CwLPIrmudqCqhvM1TCU4DkbwFEkaiGhXijnaL46VxzuYif5ic/s1600/odin%20the%20wanderer%20willy%20pogany%20padraic%20colum%20children%20of%20odin%20vintage%20illustration%201920%20norse%20myth%20myths%20mythology%20interview%20blog.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2203" data-original-width="1738" height="608" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2Q5FtIUhcI3IGuG0nFAuFQyxhszDWMSZ-iu5nMd-qcE6G9jvuC2tD5vPqW6AQno_tnsmtsCRSG3QGCEI1iR5Ld7-c_3jyAOd176SBTH7NyjSAlMCV1ThJZ7VRQI1RdxpVBP3pO8CwLPIrmudqCqhvM1TCU4DkbwFEkaiGhXijnaL46VxzuYif5ic/w504-h640/odin%20the%20wanderer%20willy%20pogany%20padraic%20colum%20children%20of%20odin%20vintage%20illustration%201920%20norse%20myth%20myths%20mythology%20interview%20blog.png" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> “Odin the Wanderer” by Willy Pogany from <i>The Children of Odin</i> (1920) by Padraic Colum<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
One thing to remember is that the gods are not literally what they appear to be in the myths. Loki says that Odin wanders the world in the guise of a wizard, which suggests that Odin isn’t really an old man with a long beard who walks in the forest. That’s either a disguise he wears when he visits our world or a way for tellers of myths to spin stories about mystical deities in forms that we can comprehend.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
Are myths still being created in Scandinavia and being added to Norse mythology?</b></span> <br /><br />
If we accept the definition I gave earlier – mythology is “a set of stories that is connected to a religion” – then new myths would have to be written by practitioners of Norse religion. Since the beginnings of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú</a> (modern Icelandic for “Æsir faith,” belief in or being true to the main group of Norse deities) in 1972 in Iceland, there has been an ever-increasing number of modern practitioners around the world.<br /><br />
Nearly a decade ago, I posted the results of my <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/01/worldwide-heathen-census-2013-results.html" target="_blank">Worldwide Heathen Census</a>. They showed practitioners of Ásatrú (and variations under names such as Heathenry and Germanic Paganism) in ninety-eight countries. I’m not sure about practitioners in Scandinavia writing new myths, but I’ve read several by Americans that seemed weirdly focused on promoting gun ownership and militarism. Such is life.<br /><br />
If we broaden the definition of mythology to include stories about mythological figures written by non-practitioners, then there’s an enormous amount being created around the world. So many writers of comic books, novels, cartoons, movies, TV shows, video games, role-playing games, and songs are writing new adventures of the old gods and goddesses. There’s always something new being released.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
How does Norse mythology influence today’s society?</b></span><br /><br />
The most obvious influence is in the forms of entertainment I just mentioned. We shouldn’t brush these aside and say that they’re just for fun. The stories we engage with across forms of media can have profound effects on our lives. They can bring us comfort in dark times, they can change how we see the world, and they can hopefully be a force for positive change.<br /><br />
Less obvious – or at least less visible – is the fact that, as I alluded to above, Norse mythology is once again connected to living religious practice. For today’s practitioners of Ásatrú, the myths can be as deeply meaningful as stories of Christ are for Christians and tales of Muhammad are for Muslims. At some point in your life, you may meet someone devoted to the figures you know from Norse myth!<br /><br />
I’m very glad that you chose Norse mythology for your project subject, and I’m really impressed by the seriousness and depth of your questions. I hope my answers help your understanding and encourage you to do more reading and research. Best wishes for your future studies!<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Epilogue</span></b></span><br /><br />
After reading my answers to her questions, Eliza sent me an email with this message.
<blockquote>Thank you for doing my interview. I am very grateful you could do this for me. I liked learning about the comparison to other mythologies throughout the world. I learned many things. One thing I learned is that not all the gods can shapeshift, which I didn't understand before. I learned and understand better what I have been studying. Thank you so much for taking time to answer my questions.</blockquote>
She also made this amazing postcard with illustrations of Thor’s hammer Mjölnir and Odin’s spear Gungnir plus another thank you note that she also wrote out in runes. Very cool!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSb_UqcXkT7J7wCeLUCr_4cMe-tDrwucW8souIQJQK-BB3CeYZRm7CrVbN6AyRCmeKYehh0LTere0VIaOIezOy1XUotOXKtsmHtwNWSGlitadJCxyVxoyZjWWOUdaUWeno35fSUfyXQT8KWplNNYAGtFddWkL-C73DkeV59RDty9GrIx3OkuaB2oYk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="2418" data-original-width="2698" height="430" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSb_UqcXkT7J7wCeLUCr_4cMe-tDrwucW8souIQJQK-BB3CeYZRm7CrVbN6AyRCmeKYehh0LTere0VIaOIezOy1XUotOXKtsmHtwNWSGlitadJCxyVxoyZjWWOUdaUWeno35fSUfyXQT8KWplNNYAGtFddWkL-C73DkeV59RDty9GrIx3OkuaB2oYk=w400-h358" width="480" /></a><br /><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvFmSehsSyHRj1_BimmIsrFd1T0-1pb8K1MMtMPXu_q1QcP3ltYupgB5yce8MseWjCXJD5e2qMbTBC7lioH4-31IWcWPc2uKDBVxpt0ZcC7fChEzzgGuCGZKh6oRESOYh0VYU-kHLBKUVhIe6JdV_IBe5k40GbNYf2nhpOyByHtDU_6fQ9SZjjpcBf" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="992" data-original-width="2652" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvFmSehsSyHRj1_BimmIsrFd1T0-1pb8K1MMtMPXu_q1QcP3ltYupgB5yce8MseWjCXJD5e2qMbTBC7lioH4-31IWcWPc2uKDBVxpt0ZcC7fChEzzgGuCGZKh6oRESOYh0VYU-kHLBKUVhIe6JdV_IBe5k40GbNYf2nhpOyByHtDU_6fQ9SZjjpcBf=w400-h150" width="480" /></a></div><br />The art of the thank-you note isn’t dead! There is still hope for humanity.<br /><br />
This has been a wonderful experience all around, and I send kudos out to Eliza, her parents, and her teachers. Hail!Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-59480011473496061122022-12-21T12:55:00.001-06:002022-12-21T12:55:24.853-06:00To Odin at Midwinter<i>The following text is an enormously expanded version of the opening hail I presented </i><i>at <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/events.html" target="_blank">Midwinter Blót</a></i><i> as goði (priest) of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/kindred.html" target="_blank">Thor’s Oak Kindred</a>, our diverse organization dedicated to the practice of the <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú religion</a> in Chicago.</i><br /><br />
<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2019/09/ragnarok-and-odin-death-and-memory.html" target="_blank">Odin</a>, all-father, wanderer, wise one, bringer of breath, giver of the gift of creativity, thank you for inspiring us to see all human beings as part of the same world family, to open ourselves to new experiences, to seek wisdom and follow the path of learning wherever it leads, to welcome the magical gift of life, and to celebrate the creativity that you inspire in the human spirit.<br /><br />
For all of this, we are grateful.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVs4jmxo6hgZlrcdReWKzyL94E0u_j3kWFKfYsKVAunMderKwBH5p7nnL6hfz5vnt3XBG52fqlctuxAMt2Ll47zgaiSeOZ3xeONg2JtyTsmbVrz_96H9r_sGbNAs_RZUjSrm5-dnQnNqurRPZGG1x0tp-YHlsfkt98tn-F-0V5OqvUk2XsZtmMOjPd/s1600/Wanderer%20in%20the%20Storm%201835%20Julius%20von%20Leypold%20German%20Odin%20Midwinter%20Yule%20Asatru%20A%CC%81satru%CC%81%20Heathen%20Heathenry%20Pagan%20Paganism%20Blo%CC%81t%20Yuletide.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="1200" height="362" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVs4jmxo6hgZlrcdReWKzyL94E0u_j3kWFKfYsKVAunMderKwBH5p7nnL6hfz5vnt3XBG52fqlctuxAMt2Ll47zgaiSeOZ3xeONg2JtyTsmbVrz_96H9r_sGbNAs_RZUjSrm5-dnQnNqurRPZGG1x0tp-YHlsfkt98tn-F-0V5OqvUk2XsZtmMOjPd/w640-h482/Wanderer%20in%20the%20Storm%201835%20Julius%20von%20Leypold%20German%20Odin%20Midwinter%20Yule%20Asatru%20A%CC%81satru%CC%81%20Heathen%20Heathenry%20Pagan%20Paganism%20Blo%CC%81t%20Yuletide.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Wanderer in the Storm</i> (1835) by Julius von Leypold<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">When we meet someone new and begin a new friendship, you are with us.</span></b></span><br /><br />
As the father of all, you have taught us that <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/11/wyrd-will-weave-us-together.html" target="_blank">human connection is paramount</a>.<br /><br />
In <i>Hávamál</i> (“Sayings of the High One”), you say:
<blockquote>I was young once,<br />
I walked all on my own.<br />
Then I was lost on the ways.<br />
I thought I’d found wealth<br />
when I found another man.<br />
Man’s joy is man.<br /><br />
A young fir-tree shrivels<br />
that stands on stony ground,<br />
no bark nor pine-needle protects it.<br />
A man is like that<br />
whom nobody loves–<br />
how is he to live long?<br /><br />
One does not need to give a man<br />
only a big gift:<br />
often one purchases praises for oneself with little.<br />
With half a loaf<br />
and a leaning cup<br />
I acquired for myself a comrade.</blockquote>
This is not a message of conflict and conquering but of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2017/07/haters-of-gold-and-keepers-of-bread.html" target="_blank">companionship and generosity</a>. Human connection is a key to happiness, and connection can be made with the smallest of kind gestures.<br /><br />
You watch over all of us with your lone eye, and you send your ravens over all of our world to report on humanity’s doings. The neighbor, the fellow citizen, the visitor, the immigrant, and those who live far away from us – all are under your gaze and all are part of the same wider family.<br /><br />
When we open our hearts, all people bring opportunities for friendship.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">When we feel the urge to leave our homes and travel the world, you are with us.</span></b></span><br /><br />
As <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2021/07/following-wanderer.html" target="_blank">the great way-walker of Norse mythology</a> and the model for myriad wandering wizards, you have shown us that there is always more out there to experience.<br /><br />
Especially now, with plague continuing to darken our doorsteps and further flare-ups threatening on the horizon, the urge to get out of our normal spaces and dive into the diversity of experience beyond our doorsteps can be both overwhelming and frustrating.<br /><br />
Some of us are required by our professions to venture into dangerous situations. Some of us are required by our health conditions to remain at home. Whatever our situation, whenever the opportunity for adventure returns, the wanderlust that we feel in our hearts finds its divine form in you.<br /><br />
When we embrace the mystery and possibility of new experiences, we follow in your footsteps.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When we thrill with the discovery of knowledge and the learning of wisdom, you are with us.</span></span></b><br /><br />
As the devoted seeker who risks much to gain new insight, you have modeled for us the way to wisdom.<br /><br />
It is not easy to educate ourselves, and it is the simple answer to the difficult question that is the most dangerous.<br /><br />
We don’t need to hang on a windswept tree nine entire nights, but we do need to put in the hard work to find solid information and diverse perspectives on the problems that we face as individuals, as communities, as nations, and as a world.<br /><br />
The difficulties before us are legion, and they are serious. From racist violence to the ongoing pandemic to <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2022/05/and-all-generous-earth-asatru-ritual.html" target="_blank">the enormity of climate change</a>, needful answers will not be found in the droppings of corporate media pundits or the offal of social media chain letters.<br /><br />
To find positive ways forward, we must follow your lead and put in the strenuous effort required to find real answers and true paths forward.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When we are amazed at the wonderful diversity of life on earth, you are with us.</span></span></b><br /><br />
As the one who brought breath to the first humans, you have bound us to all life on this beautiful planet.<br /><br />
As we breathe, we continually connect ourselves to each other and to every living creature around us. We share the air with beasts on the ground and birds on the wing, with rooted plants and crawling creatures. The constant exchange of breath out for breath in makes us part of an ongoing gifting cycle with all life on earth.<br /><br />
There are so many forms of life around us, with so many more still unknown to us. Yet there are also forms of life that have disappeared in our own lifetimes, never to return in any human lifetime.<br /><br />
As we poison the air with filth from our burning fuels and industrial waste, we dishonor the breath that you brought us and, indeed, make it harder for our future descendants to themselves breathe.<br /><br />
To show our gratitude for the breath you instilled within us and to respect all the teeming life around us, we must make real changes in how we live.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">When we are moved to creativity or embrace the creativity of others, you are with us.</span></span></b><br /><br />
As <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/07/norse-mythology-musical-creativity.html" target="_blank">the inspirer of creativity</a>, you have given us the gift that so often brings us comfort in the darkness.<br /><br />
The great tenth-century Icelandic poet Egill Skallagrímsson was grateful for your providing him with the power of poetry, even as he lamented your taking of his son’s lives. In his poem <i>Sonatorrek</i> (“Loss of Sons”), he writes:
<blockquote>…in good ways too<br />
the friend of wisdom<br />
has granted me<br />
redress for affliction.<br /><br />
He who does battle<br />
and tackles the hell-wolf<br />
gave me the craft<br />
that is beyond reproach…</blockquote>
In the depths of sorrow and anger, he acknowledges that his Odin-inspired poetic ability enables him to express that same sorrow and anger. That artistic work brought some level of catharsis to both Egill then and to those of us who now read his words a thousand and more years later.<br /><br />
Whether we create poetry or prose, song or symphony, collage or construction, the creative act enables us to express our innermost selves and address our deepest concerns. When we immerse ourselves in the creations of others, we can simultaneously lose and find ourselves.<br /><br />
As Egill showed us, your gift of creativity can comfort us in the darkest depths even as it challenges us to rise up and face what the world throws at us.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">We ask you to be with us on these darkest nights of the annual cycle.</span></span></b><br /><br />
The darkness can be frightening, and the uncertainty of the days to come can be oppressive.<br /><br />
But the dark can also be comforting, as we gather together with friends and family to celebrate the season in good cheer. The uncertain future can also be exciting, as we dream of days to come and all the adventures and learning that they will surely bring.<br /><br />
As we celebrate these long nights of midwinter, we ask you to bring the light that will grow around us and within us as we turn towards the unknown future of a new year beginning.<br /><br />
We ask you to continue to inspire us with love of community, to keep our hearts open to new experiences, to walk with us on the path to wisdom, to remind us to venerate life as the greatest gift, and to inspire us with the gift of creativity as it both comforts us and challenges us.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Hail, Odin!</span></span></b><br /><br />
<i>Hávamál text is from The Poetic Edda, Volume II: Mythological Poems II (2011) by Ursula Dronke. Sonatorrek text is from The Sagas of Icelanders: A Selection (2000) by Penguin Books. An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2021/12/column-to-odin-at-midwinter.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i><br /><br />Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-73350050012939938112022-11-18T12:27:00.003-06:002022-11-18T12:35:16.421-06:00Interview with Jason Aaron (Thor: God of Thunder), Part Two<i>Click <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2022/08/interview-with-jason-aaron-thor-god-of.html" target="_blank">here</a> for <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2022/08/interview-with-jason-aaron-thor-god-of.html" target="_blank">Part One</a> of the interview.</i><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Politics and religion</span></b></span><br /><br />
<b>KS – Some of us who teach and write about Norse mythology have to deal with the dark side of growing interest in this material being connected to the resurgence of white nationalist fixation on these myths and religions.<br /><br />
You were writing the most well-known figure from Norse mythology while far-right mass shooters were name-checking Valhalla in their manifestos. Was the connection between white nationalism and Norse symbols such as Thor’s hammer and the runes ever something you considered as a writer, when communicating with visual artists, or in discussions with editors?</b><br /><br />
JA – Yeah, somewhat. That’s certainly a thing I became aware of as I was working on the book. I don’t think I really understood that connection coming into it. I became very aware of it.<br /><br />
Part of it is, some of those guys were among the people yelling at me when we announced the Jane Foster story. They really didn’t like it.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGq2S9TE5c36Vhq92EN3RzotnSsS1UWX94FG0-zmGpMMiE76OAH7lrejplAragkNf5RUg73uRFOjrgqHbWx7rtonC8yjkyaQDM-H-hlu7-ahXPpd1HZE_UwvD7DlD_jrEy9Ass3rAYThHrZJ7ZLmST6u56F_a-igwBiud9L-lcctTO_kVI6ZOFOC8y/s1200/thor%205%20cover%20art%20russell%20dauterman%20matthew%20wilson%20jason%20aaron%20interview%20marvel%20comics%20cinematic%20universe%20mcu%20jane%20foster%20helmet%20hammer%20mjolnir%20mjo%CC%88lnir%20frost%20giant%20battle%20fight%20fighting%20norse%20mythology%20myth%20myths.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="791" height="728" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGq2S9TE5c36Vhq92EN3RzotnSsS1UWX94FG0-zmGpMMiE76OAH7lrejplAragkNf5RUg73uRFOjrgqHbWx7rtonC8yjkyaQDM-H-hlu7-ahXPpd1HZE_UwvD7DlD_jrEy9Ass3rAYThHrZJ7ZLmST6u56F_a-igwBiud9L-lcctTO_kVI6ZOFOC8y/s1200/thor%205%20cover%20art%20russell%20dauterman%20matthew%20wilson%20jason%20aaron%20interview%20marvel%20comics%20cinematic%20universe%20mcu%20jane%20foster%20helmet%20hammer%20mjolnir%20mjo%CC%88lnir%20frost%20giant%20battle%20fight%20fighting%20norse%20mythology%20myth%20myths.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Russell Dauterman cover art for Jason Aaron’s <i>Thor</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
It’s certainly something we’re aware of. You have to be aware of all sorts of stuff when you’re dealing with images today, but I wouldn’t say it ever stopped me from telling the story I was going to tell, in any way.<br /><br />
<b>KS – Stan Lee and Jack Kirby already had the Norse gods interacting with the Greek gods back in the 1960s, and later Marvel writers introduced Thor to the Hindu deities.<br /><br />
You moved from <i>interfaith</i> to <i>intergalactic</i>, introducing concepts such as Omnipotence City, where gods from throughout the universe meet and interact, but you grounded your new gods with worshipers and living religions on other planets. They really do seem to be gods – the gods of alien cultures, not the space-aliens-as-gods of Erich von Däniken and arguably Jack Kirby.<br /><br />
You had big, confrontational meetings with the Shi’ar gods, but there’s also a small moment from very early on in your run that you bring back at the very end of <i>King Thor</i>, when he helps a planet that has no gods by bringing in gods who have lost their own planets.<br /><br />
It’s a way of portraying deities within the Marvel universe that is structurally and fundamentally different from the somewhat basic 1960s scenes of big buff Thor wrestling with big buff Hercules, then going off together to get drunk afterwards.<br /><br />
How would you describe your approach to portraying the new gods you’ve created in the Marvel universe?</b><br /><br />
JA – I think a lot went into that. Like you said, that reference to the very first Thor story I did, where the little girl prays, and Thor ends up bringing new gods – I always kind of meant to come back to that.<br /><br />
My original idea was that those new gods – brand new gods that we make up and design – would be a big part of the book going forward, just to give Thor a different cast. So, some of it was about trying to inject new characters into his supporting cast, because we had seen so much of the usual crew for so long – to bring some new gods into the mix.<br /><br />
It didn’t really work out that way. I still ended up using a lot of those same characters, because I really liked them.<br /><br />
I did want to expand the cast of gods we’d seen in the Marvel universe. Some of that maybe just for selfish reasons. You like to carve out your own little corner of the sandbox, and if I’m making up new gods, I don’t have to share those as much with everybody else. I could do whatever I want to do with them.<br /><br />
The Shi’ar gods, I did not make up. Those existed. We just had rarely ever seen them in person. They’re always just called to by Shi’ar characters. I wanted to make them a big part of the story.<br /><br />
Again, a lot of what I was doing with those gods that I was bringing in was to show how petty and vain and horrible they were, which only reinforces what Thor is learning about gods and worthiness over the course of his journey – and making him question his own worthiness, which all goes back to that first story I did with the God Butcher.<br /><br />
I mean, he’s called <i>the God Butcher</i>, so you can tell he’s not a nice guy. He is a serial killer of gods and goes beyond that to where he’s wiping people out, left and right. But there are times when he’s talking that he’s saying things that I believe, the way I feel personally.<br /><br />
His son, at one point, gives this speech about “wouldn’t it be better if none of you guys existed, and we weren’t all fighting over you?” Like a lot of good villains, I think Gorr has got a good idea. His heart’s in the right place, in some way. He just goes to really horrible lengths to make that happen.<br /><br />
Everything I’m showing with the gods after that is going back to that idea.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Creativity and continuity</span></b></span><br /><br />
<b>KS – I’d like to talk about the idea of creating your own niche in a long-running and ongoing series.<br /><br />
Comics in the U.S. work fundamentally differently than they do in the U.K. Over there, Judge Dredd is a character made of marble. No matter how many writers and artists come and go, no matter what trials the character goes through, no matter how much things in his series have developed and changed, someone in the UK who last read Dredd comics in 1980 could be handed a new comic this week and basically know what is going on.<br /><br />
On the other hand, when Marvel and DC regularly reboot their titles with new writer-artist teams, character designs change radically, and the continuity painstakingly built up by the last team is thrown out by the next team, who then begins building their own continuity.<br /><br />
Your run on Thor seems to have very little relationship to the character’s immediately preceding twenty-first century storylines. You give him a new past and a new future as you create an entirely new history of the character from the dawn of time to the end of time.<br /><br />
How much did you feel honor bound – or even contractually bound – to retain elements of Thor comics from the distant or recent past?</b><br /><br />
JA – I think this is one of the challenges of telling stories with these characters. How do you honor all that stuff from the past but do something different?<br /><br />
You can’t honor all of it. You can read the Wikipedia page for any Marvel character in existence, and all this stuff can’t exist at the same time. It doesn’t make sense.<br /><br />
Try reading Spider-Man’s Wikipedia page and tell me how you fit all that together. You can’t, so you’re always going to have to pick and choose, somewhat.<br /><br />
<b>KS – I’m a Superman fanatic, but I still can’t understand the latest DC concept of their iconic characters now remembering everything that has happened in all comics eras as if it’s from past lives. That seems like such a mess, to have today’s Superman remember the 1930s and the 1970s.</b><br /><br />
JA – Yeah, it pains me to say, I grew up as a DC kid, and I can’t always keep up with where DC is at, continuity-wise.<br /><br />
With Marvel, I like that it’s a little more shifting sands, where we’re like <i>what year did Peter Parker get bit by the radioactive spider?</i> It did not happen in the 1960s, even though that’s when it happened, publishing-wise. It probably happened vaguely seven years ago, ten years ago.<br /><br />
What war did Frank Castle fight in before he became the Punisher? Originally, that was Vietnam. What was it now? Maybe, at some point, it was the first Iraq War. Then it becomes the second Iraq War. What will it be ten years from now? I don’t know.<br /><br />
So, you always have to dance between the raindrops. I think there’s an argument to be made that you’d like to see these characters grow up as you grow up, but that’s kind of selfish for you, because what about all those readers who are coming into them for the first time?<br /><br />
I think there’s an argument that Peter Parker should never be married, should never grow up and have kids, probably should still be in high school, in the same way that Bart Simpson is never going to graduate from grade school.<br /><br />
It does become a weird thing where you’re always having to ignore some parts. Tony Stark became Iron Man in Vietnam, so that’s [now] not part of Tony Stark’s origin. You’re always having to refresh the origins.<br /><br />
Me, I like that. I like making these characters relevant. I’m fascinated by any sort of characters we talk about that get rebooted or re-looked at over the course of many, many years. Judge Dredd is one of the few ones where, like you said, they stay the same.<br /><br />
Look at the way James Bond gets reinterpreted over the course of different decades. I like that kind of stuff, so I like that challenge of my job. How do you take the cool part of this stuff, how do you take who Thor is, what makes cool Thor stories exist, how do you take that and show it to somebody who has never read a Thor story? That’s how I always think of it.<br /><br />
Don’t assume everybody comes to the table already invested in these characters and knowing what’s cool about these characters. If you know that as a creator, you have to <i>show</i> everybody. Every issue, you have to show them this is what’s cool about this character, this is why you should want to read that story.<br /><br />
To do that, I think you pick and choose what’s cool before, and then you add new stuff to the mix.<br /><br />
With Marvel, I’ve never been given strict instructions of <i>it’s got to be like this</i>. We figure that stuff out as we go.<br /><br />
With <i>Thor</i>, when I was first pitching it and figuring it out, I knew I wanted to do those young Thor stories. It’s a question of <i>when would Thor have become worthy for the first time and picked up that hammer?</i> We’d seen him wielding the hammer in the past, before, but…<br /><br />
Tom Brevoort – who was not my editor on this book, he’s my editor on <i>Avengers</i> – more than anybody is the bastion of knowledge of Marvel continuity. He’s the one who said, “just give him an axe or something.”<br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUf9VVXKpjJWg4V3PROwFvXlpyD-uRVEBlgSMJ00og-bS5MFoMFqzt-BbqzGze5uc7K-jYtUia-lTJ1-dbDtMbbuwd-BOk4t1LuLRxdQeoQTsN6AOsOqzfQhHPdsDKSd1F6e2ihjg8YJpdqp7sCZZ2FajaIyLfYv4wau_ruJUXvsGFV-zx_1NtEUqD" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="791" height="728" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhUf9VVXKpjJWg4V3PROwFvXlpyD-uRVEBlgSMJ00og-bS5MFoMFqzt-BbqzGze5uc7K-jYtUia-lTJ1-dbDtMbbuwd-BOk4t1LuLRxdQeoQTsN6AOsOqzfQhHPdsDKSd1F6e2ihjg8YJpdqp7sCZZ2FajaIyLfYv4wau_ruJUXvsGFV-zx_1NtEUqD=s1200" width="480" /></a></div><br />
Okay, well, Tom says I can, then Viking Age Thor has an axe. He can’t pick up the hammer yet. I don’t think that fit with all of the Thor history we’d seen before, but that’s why we went with it.<br /><br />
<b>KS – I like it, because it makes sense with the four-thousand-year timeline that we start my Norse mythology and religion course with. In the northern world, before the thunder god was represented with a hammer, he was portrayed with an axe.<br /><br />
The earliest representations show an axe, and that’s what lines up with even more ancient, pre-Nordic materials. The hammer actually historically developed from an axe to a hammer.</b><br /><br />
JA – Yeah, that’s exactly what we had in mind. Ha!<br /><b><br />
KS – After having spent nearly a decade building a Jason Aaron mythology of Thor that’s different from the past versions but retains elements of them, how do you feel about what has been retained of your own constructed creation – or not retained – in the new Thor run by the new creative team?</b><br /><br />
JA – I could give you a very specific, direct answer to that.<br /><br />
I did deal with some of the things from the Thor runs before me, from the J. Michael Straczynski run, from Matt Fraction’s run, Kieron Gillen’s. Asgard was still in Broxton, Oklahoma for the longest time when I was writing Thor, until I set fire to Broxton, Oklahoma.<br /><br />
Donny Cates is the guy who’s writing <i>Thor</i> now. He’s a big fan of mine, a big fan of what I did on <i>Thor</i>. I told him, before he ever started writing it, “it’s yours now, so feel free to take anything I did and set it on fire, if that’s what you need to do to tell your story.”<br /><br />
I think that’s how you always have to look at it. Don’t feel you’re beholden to what I did. I <i>did</i> what I did. I told my story. No matter what you do, it will still exist. As long as it’s in print, it’s still there. People can go read it. You’re not going back and taking anything away. Do whatever you need to do to tell the stories that you gotta tell.<br /><br />
Yet Donnie has touched on things I’ve done, and still his and my stories interact in different ways. What he’s done [with Thor and] Venom goes back to my God Butcher story in a huge way.<br /><br />
You can take those things and use them as you see fit. What you don’t need, throw it out or set it on fire and just keep pushing forward.<br /><br />
As someone who grew up reading comics and loves comics and has a pretty healthy knowledge of continuity, I still don’t want to read stories that are beholden to continuity. Not everybody feels the same.<br /><br />
I wrote <i>Star Wars</i> comics, which was a lot of fun, but <i>Star Wars</i> and Lucasfilm have a very different attitude towards continuity. If George Lucas scribbled it on a notepad back in 1978, you cannot change it. That is written in stone, like it was brought down like the Ten Commandments. They are militant in the way they stick to continuity.<br /><br />
I think that can be a hindrance, at times, to telling cool stories. I’d rather have a continuity that is flexible. It doesn’t mean you throw everything out, but there’s got to be some flexibility there, just to do some new shit with these characters.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Talking to Taika</span></b></span><br /><br />
<b>KS – UK comics writers and artists have long and openly discussed the downside of being a creator within a system that you don’t own, a system that actually owns everything you create for them. <i>Thor: Love and Thunder</i> features the God Butcher and shows Jane Foster becoming Thor, so your writing is at the core of the film.<br /><br />
Do you have any say over how your original creations are used in the movie? Do you have any relationship at all with the production?</b><br /><br />
JA – No. No formal relationship. Marvel publishing and Marvel Studios are under the same umbrella, in one sense, but nobody from Marvel Studios has ever called me up to tell me what to do in a story. I’ll know what’s coming up in the movies, just so we’re aware of it.<br /><br />
With this [movie], I’ve talked to Taika Waititi, who’s the director, about some things. I’m a little more in the loop on that.<br /><br />
<b>KS – Was he asking you to expound on things?</b><br /><br />
JA – Yeah. We just talked about different parts of it, but it felt more like a personal thing. Again, the relationship’s not a formal one between Marvel Studios and publishing.<br /><br />
But that’s not a surprise. If you do work-for-hire in comics, you know that’s the deal. I’ve been very happy with my relationship with Marvel and have no complaints about that, but I don’t spend all my time doing work-for-hire comics.<br /><br />
I think for anyone who works in comics, it makes sense financially, it makes sense for the long-term health of your career, and for me creatively to do stuff that’s yours, to do stuff that you own and control and that’s original, which has its own headaches and challenges, too.<br /><br />
I enjoy, for pretty much my entire career, being able to do both. I broke into comics doing original work and doing work-for-hire superhero stuff. I still enjoy doing both. I don’t know that I want to be writing monthly, ongoing comics forever, because that can be a bit of a grind. I think I’ll always want to do work-for-hire stuff at the same time that I’m doing my own stuff.<br /><br />
<b>KS – I’ve read that you now have an exclusive Marvel contract. Is it still work-for-hire, even with that?</b><br /><br />
JA – I’ve been exclusive to Marvel for ten years or so. Longer. Quite a while.<br /><br />
It guarantees you a certain amount of work, probably gets you more money than you would get without it. It basically just means you can’t go write Superman or Batman.<br /><br />
<b>KS – But it doesn’t mean that you get a cut of the movie using the characters you developed?</b><br /><br />
JA – I can’t speak to what it’s like at DC, but at Marvel there are character creation participation agreements. It has to be judged by whether or not that character is derivative or not.<br /><br />
I have those agreements for a lot of different characters I’ve created, so it means you get something. It doesn’t mean you’re going to get rich, necessarily, off of them making statues and toys and TV shows of your characters, but you do get something as opposed to nothing.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Questions from college students</span></b></span><br /><br />
<i>At this point, students in attendance were invited to ask questions.</i><br /><br />
<b>Student 1 – Going back to what you said about how sometimes there’s a line that you hold for a better moment or some conversations that you know may not fit where you are currently. Was there ever a character story that, for whatever reason, didn’t really fully come to fruition that you kind of wish had?</b><br /><br />
JA – <i>The Mighty Valkyries</i> #1 came out this week. As part of that, for my newsletter, I went back into some of my old notes and outlines for old Thor stories and pulled some stuff out from of the beginning of the Jane Foster story.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-KqcbdJXNUbbZK7q0cCPyHim08lXkAKTSEVZ2K2bVKPhOEp1V7cg2u-HU3E51L4dQLyIPh7HWPdE6iBmSAGtNOWv6OqoimeoYVvnRz1IcZrb83Jmcm4EBv_TxE9m1qItY0NFDRhr7SV6MUvPUbX3NEtJx1H2I_SAXuFV9iAxJoeeJnKbGhxSDm1sX" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1537" data-original-width="1000" height="738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-KqcbdJXNUbbZK7q0cCPyHim08lXkAKTSEVZ2K2bVKPhOEp1V7cg2u-HU3E51L4dQLyIPh7HWPdE6iBmSAGtNOWv6OqoimeoYVvnRz1IcZrb83Jmcm4EBv_TxE9m1qItY0NFDRhr7SV6MUvPUbX3NEtJx1H2I_SAXuFV9iAxJoeeJnKbGhxSDm1sX=s1200" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mattia De Iulis cover art for Jason Aaron and Torunn Grønbekk’s <i>The Mighty Valkyries</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Looking back through those, most everything I saw was stuff I eventually did. It might have been six years after I wrote that note that I got to the story, but eventually I did.<br /><br />
There’s always going to be stuff that winds up on the cutting room floor. To me, it’s always good to leave with a little bit of gas still in your tank.<br /><br />
I wrote <i>Thor</i> for seven years, over the course of a lot of different series. In my mind, it’s still one long story, but you sort of have to Google to figure out <i>in what order do I read these books</i>, because there’s <i>Thor: God of Thunder</i> and <i>Thor</i> and <i>Mighty Thor</i> and <i>Unworthy Thor</i>.<br /><br />
It’s a lot of different books, so it’s a challenge to stay on a character that long and keep writing as the book changes and gets relaunched and whatnot.<br /><br />
When I started writing <i>Thor</i> was the first time I’d been at Marvel long enough and had enough confidence to say<i> this is going to be mine, and I’m going to stay here until I’m done or the sales tank, and you guys take it away from me.</i><br /><br />
I had plenty of opportunities along the way to leave <i>Thor</i>, and I said <i>no</i>. So, I was able to write with the sort of confidence of <i>all right, I have this idea. It’s going to take me five years to get there, but I’m just going to assume I’m going to have those five years and write with that confidence.</i><br /><br />
I’m sure, by the time I was done, there were still a couple of things in there that I didn’t get to. Nothing big that I can think of, but…<br /><br />
I’d say that, on my original outline, there was at least one arc on there that I never did that I had originally planned. So, maybe that’s something I’ll get to, somewhere else down the line.<br /><br />
But there have been plenty of cases where I’ll have a character, an idea that I don’t use that I’ll use [later], maybe even in another book. I had a <i>John Constantine, Hellblazer</i> story that I never did that I ended up doing as a Wolverine story years later, so that happens a lot.<br /><br />
<b>Student 2 – Obviously, you spend all this time writing and developing all these characters. It takes years to get from one end to the other, and then they’re translated into movies that have two hours to get this really well-developed character into a film.<br /><br />
How do you feel like all these characters are depicted? Do you think they do a good job at getting that all into the films, or do you think there’s still a lot more than they could do to depict these characters?</b><br /><br />
JA – If you’re talking specifically in terms of Marvel movies, they’re not all created equal, right? Some of them I like more than others, so it’s a challenge.<br /><br />
I’ve adapted some of my own stuff before, so when you’re when you’re working within the constraints of a TV show or a movie, it’s a different ball of wax. You gotta serve a lot of different masters there.<br /><br />
Even in times when they get something really right… I don’t think that first Captain America movie is my favorite, by any stretch. It’s probably my least favorite of all the captain America movies, but the early stuff with Steve before he becomes Cap, when you see this is who this guy is before we get some muscles and the shield. This is who Cap is. That, I think, is some of the best character stuff in any of the Marvel movies, even though once he becomes Cap, maybe the movie’s not quite as good.<br /><br />
I think it’s hard to do all that stuff. I like that first Thor movie. I think there’s some good stuff in that. It bothers me that we never see him pick up the hammer, when you make a point of showing that he can’t pick up the hammer. Nobody can pick up the hammer. We don’t ever see him pick it up. It flies to him, which is not the same thing as showing him pick it up.<br /><br />
That bothers me, and I’m sure there’s a reason why that happened. I’m sure that was probably in some version of the story. At some point it got changed for different reasons.<br /><br />
For the most part, I think the Marvel films have a lot of the good character stuff that makes you… You gotta like these characters and be invested in them, before you give a shit when Thanos snaps his fingers and makes them disappear. I think they, for the most part, do a really, really good job.<br /><br />
It’s because they’re doing exactly what I talked about, what people who do my job do. They’re going back and picking and choosing all the good stuff from all the best versions, all the best stories from these characters over the course of decades.<br /><br />
Look at the <i>Falcon and the Winter Soldier</i> show and the number of different stories they’re taking things from, a huge long list. That’s what you’re able to do when you have this wealth of material to choose from.<br /><br />
<b>Student 3 – I’m writing a high fantasy novel right now, and I’ve found that world-building can be super fun when you really get into the weeds and start getting down into this guild, this association, the city, all of the different inner workings of it. But then you eventually get to the point where every single thing has a thousand-year backstory, and you get too deep into it.<br /><br />
So, I’m curious what your process of world-building is and where you get to be like <i>this is enough, this is where I have all the information I need to tell the story.</i></b><br /><br />
JA – For me, it’s exactly that. It’s more about telling the story, and what adds to telling that story and what doesn’t.<br /><br />
I love all that stuff, too. I love the <i>Song of Ice and Fire</i> books. I love the all the <i>Game of Thrones</i> books. I love that he spent so much time talking about what they eat.<br /><br />
Every time they sit down for a meal, you’re going to get a list of what they had for the eight different courses. I like that. That does help inform you that what they eat in King’s Landing is different than what they eat in Winterfell and wherever else, so it is world building, in that sense. It doesn’t mean you have to do that, every time they sit down for a meal.<br /><br />
With <i>Thor</i>, when I first took over the book, I couldn’t name the Nine Realms. I didn’t know which one’s the fire one, which one’s the ice one. I didn’t know any of that. So part of it, I wanted to learn that, and I wanted people reading the book to know, because it also hadn’t been consistent in terms of how those realms were shown in the years leading up to that.<br /><br />
I wanted to nail down, this is the dead setting for Thor stories, these are the realms he goes to, this what they look like, so that people know are they good, are they allies, are they enemies.<br /><br />
To do that, in a way, was world-building but also telling a story. I had the idea of building towards a big war. There’s going to be a war. The realms that are going to war, they will move from one realm to another and, eventually, make their way to earth.<br /><br />
So, that pretty much became world-building, just in service of that story – or story in service of world-building. What I really did is, over the course of years and multiple different stories, just sprinkle that stuff in there, just to drive the story along.<br /><br />
I agree, not falling down that hole and getting lost and just the world-building. I think it’s good to just use whatever you need to do to tell the story, to propel the story along.<br /><br />
<b>KS – As you were building those worlds over the years, I liked that you didn’t have heavy exposition. We got a little taste of how the Vanir were different, but it didn’t feel like information being vomited to the audience. Instead, we read it, and we wonder why this guy is wearing this giant animal skin.<br /><br />
I like it when it’s not explained, when there’s mystery left to it. Sometimes, it’s positive to not only not get lost in the weeds, but just to let the audience see the weeds over there and wonder.</b><br /><br />
JA – Some of that goes back to me feeling confident enough to say I’m going to do this over the course of years. I couldn’t have done world-building for nine realms – we ended up with ten realms, because we made up another one – I couldn’t do world-building for ten realms in one arc or two arcs.<br /><br />
But to be able to sprinkle it here and there, over the course of twenty arcs or however many, that’s feasible. So, some of it is just taking the space to do that.<br /><br />
We made up symbols for the different realms when we did <i>War of the Realms</i>, and I ended up getting a tattoo for one of them, of Muspelheim. So, I went from not knowing what the hell Muspelheim was to getting our symbol for it tattooed on my body.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbTspQL9IB_85kKcS5F2ygyTg7OZg8EKzLavHXTCiKG5MlvzrZHqRfGSRQLKvt4JR_I1fNkrR6LqeRGYNm9cpXDDoyWRicCFnvt191RvNVxiQwsVyMDsv1joy2IiawCHxCXzDlwOuRYmOzsJKmkOL3aNVo7VC7quml1dx7YtDMe4TyGP_CBCcLdZtt" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1592" height="724" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjbTspQL9IB_85kKcS5F2ygyTg7OZg8EKzLavHXTCiKG5MlvzrZHqRfGSRQLKvt4JR_I1fNkrR6LqeRGYNm9cpXDDoyWRicCFnvt191RvNVxiQwsVyMDsv1joy2IiawCHxCXzDlwOuRYmOzsJKmkOL3aNVo7VC7quml1dx7YtDMe4TyGP_CBCcLdZtt=s1200" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arthur Adams cover art for Jason Aaron’s <i>The War of the Realms</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
It’s the one promotional tattoo I have. Marvel Comics paid for me to get the tattoo.<br /><br />
<b>KS – What, really?</b><br /><br />
JA – Yeah, just to promote <i>War of the Realms</i>, but it’s the one and only time they’ve ever done that and ever will do.<br /><br />
<b>Student 4 – I saw that you were involved with <i>Heroes Reborn</i>, and I wanted some insight on how that project works. I know that you’ve written for the Avengers, so what is it like to over-write the Avengers, basically?</b><br /><br />
JA – It’s something that sort of grew out of my Avengers run.<br /><br />
The Squadron Supreme are Marvel characters that have been around for a long, long time. You might say they’re analogs of some other characters you might know. I’ll let you figure out for yourself who that is. They’ve been a part of my Avengers run in a big way.<br /><br />
This was, basically, doing one of those <i>What If?</i> or alternate timeline stories. What would this Marvel universe look like if the Avengers never existed, if Captain America was never pulled out of the ice? The Squadron Supreme are now and have always been the heroes at the center.<br /><br />
It changes stories from Marvel’s past and a lot of the other characters. There’s no Spider-Man. There’s no Fantastic Four.<br /><br />
<i>Heroes Reborn</i> is eight issues. Each one gives us a different look at what this universe looks like. Each issue focuses on a different member of the Squadron. There’s a Hyperion issue, and Nighthawk and Blur and Power Princess.<br /><br />
It’s hard to talk about it. I don’t think people will even really get it or understand what it is, until you read it. I will just say I’ve had tremendous fun with this. It’s eight issues over the course of two months, so I had to write all of it in advance. A lot of it, I wrote last year. It was one source of joy in the midst of last year. I had a crazy amount of fun with it.<br /><br />
They’re all going to print now, so I’ve been doing the lettering corrections these last few weeks and having a lot of fun, all over again. I’m excited for people to see it. I’ll say that. Let’s see what people make of it.<br /><br />
<b>KS – How long does your Marvel contract go? Are you near the end, or will it go for a while, yet?</b><br /><br />
JA – Not near the end. I’ve got over a year left, at this point. So, I’ll be around for at least a bit longer.<br /><br />
<b>KS – Thank you for really getting into this stuff and explaining how you work with all this great material. We all appreciate it.</b><br /><br />
JA – It always helps when people ask good questions. I’m a quiet guy, but I can talk about nerd shit all day. Thanks for asking good questions. Thanks for everything. You guys all had good questions. Thanks, everybody.Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-78423156893951487532022-08-05T10:44:00.001-05:002022-11-18T12:29:21.170-06:00Interview with Jason Aaron (Thor: God of Thunder), Part OneJason Aaron’s historic run as writer of Marvel’s Thor comics began with <i>Thor: God of Thunder</i> #1 in 2012 and concluded over a hundred issues later with <i>King Thor</i> #4 in 2019, but continued in another form through ten issues of <i>Valkyrie: Jane Foster</i>, four issues of <i>Return of the Valkyries</i>, and five issues of <i>The Mighty Valkryies</i>.<br /><br />
His seven-year tenure writing Thor is nearly twice as long as Walt Simonson’s legendary run in the 1980s and just shy of creator Jack Kirby’s record on the character. Elements from Jason’s many years of Thor stories were adapted in the 2022 <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/11/the-thor-movies-and-norse-mythology.html" target="_blank">Marvel Cinematic Universe</a> film <i>Thor: Love and Thunder</i>.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikRJPxet31OtFOBhHYyQ2SyAOHr3tooIqqcIYq9MgfNidPbs8qDQedqB_HO6w4EoHiBavxiWWPBxfDJSOJ9_NFPrAP50qcq9BXyo2RfVKoYJtT9ubaETFMPsOdGaWk9jmkI41zE0KWwmxH7-m7zeCMs6i22kGwGRfc3X8HJFBaKWagmsoNobYHgRZh" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikRJPxet31OtFOBhHYyQ2SyAOHr3tooIqqcIYq9MgfNidPbs8qDQedqB_HO6w4EoHiBavxiWWPBxfDJSOJ9_NFPrAP50qcq9BXyo2RfVKoYJtT9ubaETFMPsOdGaWk9jmkI41zE0KWwmxH7-m7zeCMs6i22kGwGRfc3X8HJFBaKWagmsoNobYHgRZh=w640-h360" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Esad Ribić cover art for Jason Aaron’s <i>Thor: God of Thunder</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Jason’s other work for Marvel Comics has included Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, Hulk, Punisher, Wolverine, Conan the Barbarian, and <i>Star Wars</i>. He currently writes writes <i>The Avengers</i>. Outside of these legacy series, he has written <i>The Goddamned</i>, <i>Men of Wrath</i>, <i>The Other Side</i>, <i>Scalped</i>, <i>Sea of Stars</i>, and <i>Southern Bastards</i>.<br /><br />
In my roles as Adjunct Professor in Humanities and Faculty Advisor for Pagan Forum at Illinois Institute of Technology, I interviewed Jason via Zoom on April 22, 2021. Students from my courses and Pagan Forum participated and were joined by others who were simply interested in Marvel comics and movies.<br /><br />
Jason was a wonderful interviewee – both incredibly open about himself and wonderfully thoughtful in explaining his work. The students and I are very grateful for his generosity in spending this time with us, and we hope you enjoy this two-part interview transcript.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Faith and transformation</b></span></span><br /><br />
<b>KS – In the 2019 epitaph you wrote for your Thor run, you state that you “haven’t believed in God, in any gods, for a long time,” but also that the Marvel version of Thor – the one centered on worthiness, not really something the Norse original cares much about – is the sort of god you “would like to believe in.”<br /><br />
Although writers like Walt Simonson and Matt Fraction had already dug into the mythological side of Thor, you really get deeply into the religious side of the character in a way that, I think, is a first for how this character has been approached at Marvel.<br /><br />
Faith in oneself and faith in gods are key issues throughout your run. How did your own relationship to religion affect how you approached writing Thor?</b><br /><br />
JA – In a huge way. I think everything that you just said became the key to me figuring out the character to begin with.<br /><br />
I didn’t grow up a huge Thor fan. I read some of the Simonson stuff when that was coming out, but it wasn’t a character where I was going around with a briefcase full of Thor ideas, like I was really chomping at the bit to pitch Thor.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgplawTgTe04PkouwC1ncFcPDelBkGkEHjEc58lF2xPdkDDn4M8MUKuuYupnMSq7TonH-868ks0dz8FAyNOz31XljrHD9oItZgq9tNSol0O-Ao_siKTNRp5nKbyCkMf3MV9tOO12RlETZVCsnglWmh5WdO_ATZNA63-w6V5leK20oszj7YI6gz-vvKE" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1602" data-original-width="2400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgplawTgTe04PkouwC1ncFcPDelBkGkEHjEc58lF2xPdkDDn4M8MUKuuYupnMSq7TonH-868ks0dz8FAyNOz31XljrHD9oItZgq9tNSol0O-Ao_siKTNRp5nKbyCkMf3MV9tOO12RlETZVCsnglWmh5WdO_ATZNA63-w6V5leK20oszj7YI6gz-vvKE=w640-h428" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Writer Jason Aaron<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
I think the first time I read Matt Fraction’s <i>Ages of Thunder</i> one-shots – I think there were three or four one-shots he did – they were really, really good and were very much like a heavy metal kind of Thor, the kind of Thor you can see spray-painted on a van. That was the first time I thought, “Oh, yeah. I could see having some fun doing Thor.”<br /><br />
Then there was a point called “Marvel NOW!” – this initiative where really every book Marvel had was up for grabs. All creators were switching around on everything, so everybody was faced with a question of “what do you want to do right now?” That moment was really the first time I thought, “You know, I want to do Thor.”<br /><br />
Esad Ribić was really quickly attached to draw the book. Esad has a style very much in that same kind of vein as what Matt Fraction had done on those <i>Ages of Thunder</i> books, so I kind of knew right off that was the vibe I was going for -– this sort of dark, weird Kirby-ish vibe.<br /><br />
I had all that in place really before I had a story, so I went back and started reading those <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/09/blond-thor-stan-lee-wasnt-wrong.html" target="_blank">original Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Thor stories</a> – which I’d never read before – which are really, really good and some of my favorite Kirby stuff from Marvel.<br /><br />
Thor at the time, kind of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/11/the-thor-movies-and-norse-mythology.html" target="_blank">led by the movies</a>, was being pushed in a direction of “well, this guy is not <i>really</i> a god. His people are these aliens who live a long time, and they were perceived by primitive humans as gods, but they’re not really gods.”<br /><br />
I didn’t really like that idea. I love what they’ve done in the movies, but that part of the idea didn’t appeal to me as much, especially when I went back and read those original issues.<br /><br />
Stan talked about when they first decided to do Thor. That was the idea of “how do we do somebody who’s different than the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man? Well, what if we did somebody who’s actually a god? What is that like?”<br /><br />
I knew I wanted to lean hard into that idea of it. That’s why that book is called <i>Thor: God of Thunder</i>, and the first arc is the God Butcher, and the next arc is the Godbomb.<br /><br />
We lean hard into that idea of Thor being a god. In the first issue, he answers a prayer, which I don’t think is something we’d really seen him do much of in the past. Knowing that I wanted all that to be a key part of it, it brought those issues of faith and worthiness to the forefront.<br /><br />
For me, I grew up in the South. I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, so I grew up very religious. That was a big part of who I was, up until I went off to college, and – in terms of my faith – things started to kind of fall apart. Little by little, cracks started to form – “I don’t believe this part of it anymore. I don’t believe that part.”<br /><br />
I literally had kind of an epiphany one time, having an argument with my dad about things, and he got frustrated with me and said, “If you don’t believe any of this stuff, I don’t understand why you believe any of it,” and this light bulb went off over my head, and I was like, “You know what? I think you’re right. I think I don’t believe this anymore.”<br /><br />
I’ve identified as an atheist since that point, which was my early twenties.<br /><br />
That said, you can look at a lot of the work I’ve done, and a lot of it has been about issues of faith, questions of faith.<br /><br />
I broke into comics in 2001 with this Marvel Comics talent search contest, where I submitted a synopsis for a Wolverine story. That was my first published comics work. It’s a little short story inspired by Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.”<br /><br />
[Wolverine] stumbles out of the woods and has this encounter with this woman on a dirt road winding through the woods of the South. They’re talking about faith, and she’s asking Wolverine about his faith.<br /><br />
So, from the very beginning of me working in comics, that was a subject I was attracted to. I think it makes sense I’d wind up doing Thor, even though I never would have seen that coming when I first got into comics.<br /><br />
Wrapping all that stuff up, I think you can see so much of my Thor run goes back to those original Lee and Kirby stories, probably in a bigger way once I got to the Jane Foster part of it, because that goes back to that idea of transformation, where they put an inscription on the hammer [“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of... Thor”].<br /><br />
That very first story is this guy Donald Blake goes into this cave and finds this hammer, and it transforms him into Thor, though Stan and Jack later retconned their own story, and you found out that, well, that was Thor all the time, and his dad had sent him to Earth to teach him humility.<br /><br />
To go back and reread those stories now, like a lot of that early Marvel stuff, they’re figuring things out as they go. The X-Men, it took them a long time to figure that out.<br /><br />
You can see in <i>Thor</i>, they pretty quickly got bored of the idea of this guy who transforms into Thor. Donald Blake would just disappear for long stretches, so it made sense eventually that they threw all that away.<br /><br />
But that inscription was still there, and then Walt Simonson brought that back in a huge way, right out of the gate with his run.<br /><br />
So, with the Jane stuff, it’s very much going back to that idea of you could pick up this hammer, if you’re worthy enough, and become Thor.<br /><br />
The key character motivation for me writing Thor Odinson – Thor the god – was that every day, he would wake up, that hammer sitting next to his bedside. He looks at it, he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to pick it up today. He knows he picked it up yesterday, and he flew around the universe, and he punched people in the face, and he saved the day, but when he wakes up the next day, he’s like, “Am I going to be worthy today?”<br /><br />
That idea that he would always question that, and that’s the lesson that he learned from that is to not wake up every day and assume “oh, yeah, I’m totally gonna be super worthy today.”<br /><br />
I liked that idea, and as part of that, I knew at some point I’d do a story where he <i>wasn’t</i> worthy, where he <i>couldn’t</i> pick it up.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Jane Foster wields the hammer</b></span></span><br /><br />
<b>KS – I’ve read that the creation of Marvel’s Thor was a conscious attempt to get a Superman for Marvel, because superheroes were having a resurgence in the 1960s. The red cape and the flying but also the love triangle, where you had Lois, Clark, and Superman – and two people in the triangle were the same person. They replicated this in their Marvel romance comics way.</b><br /><br />
JA – Exact same thing, yeah.<br /><br />
<b>KS – You don’t have so much of the romance thing in your run, but you have the triangle where it’s the two women and Thor, where she’s the goddess, and she’s the person. It’s again a sort of three-way relationship. Especially when you first introduce her, Thor is totally threatened by this new female Thor and doesn’t realize that she’s his nurse from the old days.</b><br /><br />
JA – Yeah, I had tremendous fun with all that part of it. By the time I’d started that Jane Foster story, I’d been writing Thor for a few years. I’d been at Marvel for ten years, at least.<br /><br />
That Jane stuff still feels like the biggest, most “Marvel” story I’ve ever done, and it’s very much like an old school Marvel story.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_BgCO_9FX55V61hSGHwnjjAJAJ668TENKW36uE0ENgc18kAeLd53ofsEhXN_S6qcOPo6eDUBxo5CBnuCy6qDkjury_6DTXofNBnWmn9ttbFenHB19JgbtmLROCGA_NwiYO90lOMgiFzNYdcyXQbGAzfYxd9tS8EfYxPKkROz762b4mjWn4Fns8dCI" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="1930" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_BgCO_9FX55V61hSGHwnjjAJAJ668TENKW36uE0ENgc18kAeLd53ofsEhXN_S6qcOPo6eDUBxo5CBnuCy6qDkjury_6DTXofNBnWmn9ttbFenHB19JgbtmLROCGA_NwiYO90lOMgiFzNYdcyXQbGAzfYxd9tS8EfYxPKkROz762b4mjWn4Fns8dCI=w640-h360" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Russell Dauterman cover art for Jason Aaron’s <i>The Mighty Thor</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
She’s got a secret identity. She doesn’t want people to know that she’s secretly Thor. She’s dealing with very real-world problems in her life as Jane, and she’s going through breast cancer treatment, and the fact that she is Thor is making all that worse. It’s making her life worse and harder. <br /><br />It’s literally killing her, because every time she transforms, it’s neutralizing the effects of the chemotherapy she just went through. Every time she comes back as Jane, she’s sicker than she was before.<br /><br />
All that stuff to me felt like classic, old-school Marvel Comics and, at the same time, I wanted to show this is someone who loves and relishes what she’s getting to do.<br /><br />
She’s been a part of this Thor universe since the very beginning. Her first appearance was the second issue of <i>Journey into Mystery</i>, the second Thor comic in <i>Journey into Mystery</i>, so she’s always been there.<br /><br />Back then, she was – like you said – a love interest, and she was a damsel in distress a lot. Loki would show up and take her hostage to try to get at Thor, but she’s always been around.<br /><br />
Now, she’s getting to be at the center of that universe and getting to fly around and punch gods in the face for the first time, and she’s loving it. I liked writing that.<br /><br />
Her life really sucks in a lot of ways. It’s incredibly difficult. She’s getting closer to death, as it goes, but she’s enjoying every second of what she’s getting to do and enjoying exploring her powers and her relationship with the hammer.<br /><br />
Getting to write somebody who is experiencing all that stuff for the first time is really fun, and how her relationship with the hammer is different than Thor Odinson’s relationship with it had been, making the hammer more of a sentient, living being.<br /><br />
We see right off that even Odin can’t pick up the hammer, and he’s supposedly the one who put the enchantment on it in the first place – the worthiness enchantment. The fact that he can’t pick it up tells you this has grown beyond what was initially.<br /><br />
All that Jane stuff was tremendous fun.<br /><br />You know, there was a backlash about her story from the moment it was announced, before it even existed. There was some backlash of “well, why is this other character coming in and taking Thor’s name? Why couldn’t you just make her a new character? Why does she have to be Thor?”<br /><br />
I would take all those comments and criticism and put them in the actual book. Odin many times says things people would yell at me on Twitter. We would answer those questions in the book.<br /><br />
I didn’t create the idea of Odin being a jerk. He has been Thor’s greatest enemy, going back to those Lee and Kirby stories. That exists. Most especially his relationship with Jane.<br /><br />When you go back and Thor says, “Hey, this is my girlfriend, Jane,” Odin was not very happy about that. I didn’t make all that stuff up. I bring it to a head in a big way.<br /><br />
There was always that backlash of “well, why couldn’t she just be someone else?” which I think completely misses the mark of this idea of taking this character who had been a supporting character in this universe for so long and making her the center of it.<br /><br />
No, she’s not Thunderstrike. She’s not Thor Girl. She is Thor. It’s the difference between doing a Nightwing story and having Dick Grayson become Batman. Those are two different stories, and I didn’t want to do a Nightwing story. This was about her being Thor and being at the center of that universe.<br /><br />
To me, the people who would say it was a different kind of Thor story than I’d been doing or was somehow not a Thor story – to me, it was again the most <i>Thor</i> of any of the Thor stories I did, because it went back to his first appearance, to how things were established right out of the gate with that character and that idea of transformation and worthiness.<br /><br />
It brought all those things back in a big way and took all that to its next big step. I wasn’t trying to do exactly what Walt [Simonson] did with Beta Ray Bill or what had been done when other people had picked up the hammer. I think it’s the next evolution of that.<br /><br />
<b>KS – In your tales of Jane Foster as Thor, you engage with the early Marvel Thor mythology in a way that writers in this century have not. The idea of having a human with a deep physical challenge who can temporarily transform into a god of old, of the dual consciousness between her human mind and her Asgardian one, even of her worry that she will turn back into her weak human form if separated too long from her hammer in battle – these all hearken back to the very beginnings of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s creation.<br /><br />
When Marvel first went public about the new female Thor, editor Wil Moss said, “This new Thor isn’t a temporary female substitute – she’s now the one and only Thor.” At the time, you said she was “the Thor of the Marvel universe for the foreseeable future.” As a lifelong comics reader, I’ve seen so many character redesigns, reboots, transformations, and deaths that eventually snapped back to a more traditional portrayal, so <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/07/thor-is-dead.html" target="_blank">I was a bit skeptical</a>.<br /><br />
Now that Jane Foster is the Valkyrie and Thor is back as the god of thunder, can you tell us how this went down at Marvel? Were you, Marvel editors. and Marvel administrators committed to Jane Foster permanently being the Thor that Marvel’s own website said was designed “to speak directly to an audience that long was not the target for super hero comic books in America: women and girls”? Or was she planned from the beginning to step aside for the return of the male Thor once he’d found his worthiness?</b><br /><br />
JA – I will say, <i>nothing</i> is permanent in comics. None of us who are making the comics are permanent.<br /><br />
These characters have been in publication for sixty-plus years, at this point. They change, they shift, they come back to center. That will always be the case.<br /><br />
This change came about in different stages. Like I said, I always had the idea of getting to a point where Thor Odinson couldn’t pick up the hammer anymore and wasn’t worthy for a bit.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4xRVukK8ykXF2z0PUNpp1GTwm5JdLh7bRK_D5CRvHkllzq7vkuXhja3y86sDy8X_NrPJXQYwkTyoJ1ADbCRpWGoWpzHjrAQzi-bWCTHvsm3ZYRhUH1NiRinkqvnkcuErWli2nixzx3g6RjP9DYTc5DnNcrTTH4d7WwfqzQD8yacfod3fDjEvFM9da" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="2398" data-original-width="1580" height="729" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg4xRVukK8ykXF2z0PUNpp1GTwm5JdLh7bRK_D5CRvHkllzq7vkuXhja3y86sDy8X_NrPJXQYwkTyoJ1ADbCRpWGoWpzHjrAQzi-bWCTHvsm3ZYRhUH1NiRinkqvnkcuErWli2nixzx3g6RjP9DYTc5DnNcrTTH4d7WwfqzQD8yacfod3fDjEvFM9da=w422-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ryan Sook cover art for Jason Aaron’s <i>The Unworthy Thor</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
That was initially an arc. I was going to do an arc called “Unworthy” where he couldn’t pick up the hammer. The Mangog shows up, who’s this great old Kirby villain. He shows up to raise hell, and that was an arc.<br /><br />
Then I expanded a little bit. I thought, “Well, that would be cool, while he can’t pick up the hammer, to have somebody else come and pick it up.”<br /><br />
I initially thought that might be his mom, Freyja, that she would pick it up and wield it for a bit.<br /><br />
Then that grew again as things went on. I did this event called “Original Sin,” which is where something happens so that Thor Odinson becomes unworthy, and coming out of that – it wasn’t really planned to begin with that Sam Wilson was going to become the new Captain America at that same time.<br /><br />
So, it became a chance to relaunch both of those titles at once, and having somebody else pick up the hammer will be its own new series. It was sort of fortuitous timing that turned into an initiative.<br /><br />
Coming into that, to say that it’s permanent – you don’t have any idea. If sales tank and nobody buys it, then permanent becomes six issues. You’ve got to wrap up that story of move on, and maybe I’m fired from <i>Thor</i> at that point. Who knows?<br /><br />
Yes, the idea was going to be that she was the Thor of the Marvel Universe. Once she took over, she was Thor. Thankfully, sales went up. Sales were <i>really</i> great.<br /><br />
I got to tell that story the way I wanted to tell it. She was in the Avengers with Sam Wilson Cap for a while, so, for that period of time, she was Thor.<br /><br />
That said, from the get-go, I was always telling a very specific story with Jane, so I knew from the beginning. She came into this with cancer. She was dealing with cancer. I was never going to “magic away” her cancer.<br /><br />
From the beginning, from the first issue where we find out she has cancer, Thor tells her, “Let me take you to some wizards I know, and we’ll have that taken care of,” and she says, “Nope, not going to do that sort of thing. That stuff comes with a price.”<br /><br />She’s a doctor. She’s gonna beat this the good old-fashioned way. I was never going to magic that away.<br /><br />
I didn’t want to take that lightly. If I’m going to go into this huge story, where the main character is struggling with breast cancer, that’s the story. Her getting to fly around with the hammer is the cool part, but this is Jane’s story that we’re going to play out.<br /><br />
I always knew, from the beginning, how that story was going to go and what that final story would be, which turns into the Mangog story. That original one arc of unworthiness and the Mangog turned into however many arcs it ended up being at the end, a few years’ worth of stories.<br /><br />
<b>KS – There really is an amazing conflict in that period of the stories between this liberation as Thor, where she’s poking Thor in the chest with his hammer and just living it up and having these great adventures that comic readers all dream of having, and this very serious, grim tale of the woman who’s dying of breast cancer.<br /><br />
This is something I talk about in my classes – the stories that we consume are not necessarily fun or entertaining. The stuff that lasts and has meaning is not stuff that’s fun, like throwaway summer comedies. I can’t even remember some movies I saw five years ago, but these kinds of stories are the ones that stick with you, bother you, and go on to live inside of the readers for a long time.<br /><br />
But there’s that contrast that you had between very broad and hilarious comedy and real human tragedy. Not mystical fantasy tragedy, but real human stories.</b><br /><br />
JA – I think that’s the challenge with all this sort of stuff.<br /><br />
Everything I do at Marvel – in particular something like <i>Thor</i>, where the scope of it is so grand and epic, there are other realms that Thor goes to, and they fly through space and all these things that are hard for us to relate to – to do all that and have the fun of all that but also in some way make it grounded and have a real emotional connection to it.<br /><br />
Jane’s story is one of the things I’m most proud of from my entire career in comics, because I think it’s where I got a good mix of that right. It is fun, it’s exciting, but there were parts of it that I cried while writing. People cry when I have comics signings for it.<br /><br />
To have all that wadded up in the same stories – that’s what I’m striving for, I think, with everything I do.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Relating to the god of thunder</b></span></span><br /><br />
<b>KS – Many times, while reading your Thor run over the last decade, I got flashbacks to when I was a teenager in the late 1980s, and I found a giant box of an almost complete run of 1970s and early 1980s <i>Heavy Metal</i> comics. Part of it was the visual style of your artistic partners, but the other part was how you wrote this mixture of deeply intense personal interactions and amazingly enormous cosmic events with this way of storytelling that is both focused and expansive, at the same time.<br /><br />
It makes the gods seem both very much like like us and immensely different from us, and it plants narrative seeds that slowly grow underground and sometimes don’t explode into view until much later. The reader has to understand it retroactively, and some of it was like reading Mœbius and those guys, where you’re not quite sure what’s going on. You know it’s important, but you don’t understand it until later on.<br /><br />
To what extent have non-US, non-Marvel, non-DC writers and artists like those that used to be featured in <i>Heavy Metal</i> influenced your approach to storytelling?</b><br /><br />
JA – Not to a huge degree. I read more of that stuff these days than I ever did growing up.<br /><br />
When I was first getting into comics back in the 1980s, there wasn’t a whole lot of that European stuff that was available here, or Japanese manga. I remember the first time <i>Lone Wolf and Cub</i> started to be printed here. It was a huge deal.<br /><br />
I didn’t grow up with a lot of that stuff. I’ve read more Mœbius and Jodorowski stuff, but I certainly wasn’t reading it in my formative years.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDUsKdUp9psZ1_7eZgDzvEZsbdlWFsOOumRCsjYfrg8TK82OboqMnqXnZs_YffQXJyqhC3dVa4z7rQ9PNVb1XwWUhEHWzeqeCrtUio0NVjnbnPZWKMaE1Q5pyulUt7eqiBAdxTeSpl0DH9EHPsU4-AA4vvJQux2NPfyA_2JJZMD-pen7aJmRMMXNpY" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="900" height="729" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjDUsKdUp9psZ1_7eZgDzvEZsbdlWFsOOumRCsjYfrg8TK82OboqMnqXnZs_YffQXJyqhC3dVa4z7rQ9PNVb1XwWUhEHWzeqeCrtUio0NVjnbnPZWKMaE1Q5pyulUt7eqiBAdxTeSpl0DH9EHPsU4-AA4vvJQux2NPfyA_2JJZMD-pen7aJmRMMXNpY=w421-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jason Aaron and Esad Ribić’s <i>Thor: God of Thunder</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
With Thor, a lot of what you’re talking about speaks to the challenge of writing a character like that.<br /><br />
When I first started talking about doing it and pitching it, Tom Brevoort – who’s my editor on <i>Avengers</i>, who has been at Marvel pretty much longer than anybody, at this point, one of the best editors I’ve worked with and a guy with a library of Marvel comics in his head – he was talking about how he never got into Thor growing up, because when Thor would spend so much time in Asgard or flying around in these other realms, he would lose interest and lose connection to it.<br /><br />
I get that. At times, I felt like that, reading <i>Green Lantern</i> or <i>Legion of Super-Heroes</i>, where you just feel like this is so disconnected from the world I know. I don’t relate to it. I don’t connect to it.<br /><br />
So, how do you do that? How do you have Thor fly out there and lean into the fact that he is a god, lean into the fact that he’s got this unique setting where he’s got these other realms he goes to?<br /><br />
Captain America is not going to Jotunheim, and Spider-Man’s not going to Alfheim – the realm of the elves – but Thor does that all the time.<br /><br />
So how do you do that and make all that cool without losing any kind of emotional resonance to the story?<br /><br />
That was the challenge. I wanted to go big and grand and epic but to really make you feel and relate to Thor. I was always trying to get that balance right.<br /><br />
<b>KS – In several of my courses, we talk about the immense tradition of Indo-European storytelling from ancient India and ancient Greece to Viking Iceland and nineteenth-century Germany and on to our own American popular culture. We work to identify what Wendy Doniger calls “Indo-European building blocks” – ancient bits of story that are continually combined in new forms.<br /><br />
You’ve been working at a unique historical nexus, creating original work where ancient mythology and modern commercial culture smash into each other. What is it like to sit at that particular spot and produce new stories with ancient elements on a regular deadline?</b><br /><br />
JA – It’s really cool. I mean, it sounds great, when you put it that way.<br /><br />
From the get-go, from when I first learned how to read, I was a huge comic fan. Loved to read. I think, like anybody who goes on to write for a living, the first step was that I was just a voracious reader.<br /><br />
I read everything I could get my hands on. I particularly loved comics. Loved fantasy. Loved Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories.<br /><br />
Once I went to college, I knew I wanted to write but didn’t really know what form that would take. I didn’t have any idea how to break into the comic business, and it was a lot harder to do back in those days, anyways.<br /><br />
One of the smart things I did when I went to college is I took a lot of literature courses that were outside things I’d been interested in before.<br /><br />I took a Mark Twain class that I really, really loved, and I’d never really been much of a Twain fan. I’d read <i>Huckleberry Finn</i> and <i>Tom Sawyer</i>, and that was about it. But going past that, I became a huge Twain fan. I became a huge William Faulkner fan, when I took a class about him.<br /><br />
I read <i>Beowulf</i> in college and really loved it. A thing I’d read before, and it didn’t stick with me, didn’t touch me or affect me, and read it in college and really loved it.<br /><br />
I think breaking outside my limited sphere of reading influence was a big deal for me, to open me up to other stuff. I still try to do that. It’s harder, these days, just being busy.<br /><br />
I don’t know about everybody else, but a year ago, I felt like “we’re not going anywhere [because of coronavirus lockdowns], so at least there’ll be more time for reading.”<br /><br />It didn’t really work out that way. It was harder to work, harder to read, at times last year. Kind of getting back to that now.<br /><br />
I still try to read things that are not for work, because I think my work has always been the best when it’s pulling from a lot of different sources.<br /><br />
My cousin Gus [Hasford] was a writer. He was a Vietnam vet and wrote the book <i>The Short-Timers</i>, which is what Stanley Kubrick’s <i>Full Metal Jacket</i> was based on. He was a big influence on me, the first guy I ever knew who wrote for a living. I’ve got a bunch of his old letters and stuff.<br /><br />
He died back in the 1990s, but I’ve got a letter he wrote to the customs department at one point, when he was living somewhere overseas and was having a shitload of books shipped to him. He wrote, “You know I need all these books, because I’m a writer, and the secret to a good writer is stealing your ideas from as wide a variety of sources as possible.”<br /><br />
I think it’s true, in some sense, that it helps to just read a lot of different stuff and pull things from a lot of different sources, especially when you’re talking about what I do for a living.<br /><br />On the one hand, I get to stand on the shoulders of giants like Jack Kirby and all these creators who have worked on these characters for many years, and you get to pick and choose the cool stuff from what they’ve done in the past, but it also makes it more challenging to bring something new to the table.<br /><br />
How do you tell a Thor story that hasn’t been told before, a hundred times? How do you tell a new Spider-Man story?<br /><br />
I think the challenge is always to bring something from somewhere else, bring something that isn’t already there and bring something of yourself. What can you say with Thor that hasn’t been said before?<br /><br />
I think that’s the challenge I face every day, when I sit down to write whatever it is I have to write for the day.<br /><br /><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>“The kind of god I would like to believe in”</b></span></span><br /><b><br />
KS – Thor and the Norse gods are, of course, fundamentally not creations of Marvel – but there are now nearly sixty years of history and mythology of Marvel’s own Asgardians that so many writers and artists have built, and this mythology often diverges widely from the original Norse mythology. When writing Marvel’s Thor, how much was the Norse Thor on your mind, if at all?</b><br /><br />
JA – Not a whole lot. I didn’t have much of a background in Norse mythology.<br /><br />
I hadn’t read a whole lot, so once started working on it, I bought a bunch of books and read more and thought to maybe use some of it but pretty quickly realized – like you said – this is not the same.<br /><br />
I think Walt Simonson did a great job injecting more Norse mythology into the book, but I wouldn’t say it was a huge driving force in what I was doing.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCXF8h8U85ukJJxRFt2URoRHQ5YjWI69DKFOy_VpGD_8LwX-09sGam3sf9CRypNN6LSytNIG2tLGU6EFbCTJdJBxr0TiDweQNenbv6e3Xeo_RwmSfa4RQTvXHDDOfBseM8rXDmcObcvLUPWS-4YxlIz-q11ETWFRjSvwFd_3N9a3r1x-f27qfCRI-9" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="2308" data-original-width="1520" height="729" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgCXF8h8U85ukJJxRFt2URoRHQ5YjWI69DKFOy_VpGD_8LwX-09sGam3sf9CRypNN6LSytNIG2tLGU6EFbCTJdJBxr0TiDweQNenbv6e3Xeo_RwmSfa4RQTvXHDDOfBseM8rXDmcObcvLUPWS-4YxlIz-q11ETWFRjSvwFd_3N9a3r1x-f27qfCRI-9=w421-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Russell Dauterman cover art for Jason Aaron and Torunn Grønbekk's <i>The Mighty Valkyries</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
You can see more of it in the Valkyrie book that I co-write right now, because my co-writer Torunn Grønbekk is Norwegian, and literally her entire family’s named after Thor.<br /><br />
She shows me pictures of her childhood, where they’re straight up dressing like Vikings and running around the fjords, so she has a very intimate relationship with all that stuff. She injects more of it into the Valkyrie stuff she and I have been doing together.<br /><b><br />
KS – Long before that series, you were notably doing what Walt Simonson had done by not only creating original characters of your own around Thor but also bringing in several figures from Norse mythology – such as Bor and the Disir – even while radically changing them from their portrayal in the myths. What was the process you went through for transforming characters, objects, and concepts from the mythology into the Marvel universe?</b><br /><br />
JA – I’d have to know specifically which ones we’re talking about. I don’t know that I’ve got a process for that, beyond just whatever seems right.<br /><br />
<b>KS – For example, the Dísir. In your version, they’re like undead Valkyries of ancient times. I wonder if you have a character, then you go looking for a name to fit it – or do you read something and say, “Oh, wow. I can use that and transform it”?</b><br /><br />
JA – To me, it’s all of those.<br /><br />
Literally, I’ve got my Thor notebook there that’s a few hundred pages of ideas jotted down – thoughts I had, words from stuff as I was reading, going back and reading old Thor comics, as I was doing research. Just jot this down, jot that down.<br /><br />
Some of it never turned into anything. Some of it, you can see the first kernels of what became five or six years worth of stories. So, it depends.<br /><br />
Sometimes, you’re looking for something to serve a function within the stories. Sometimes, it’s just about “I like this cool thing, and where do I work it in?” Sometimes you might have to hold on to that for issues and issues before it’s the right time.<br /><br />
One secret to writing, I think you have to learn pretty quickly, is just because you have a cool idea at the time doesn’t mean it needs to go into what you’re working on, which sucks.<br /><br />
There are times you’re like, “Man, this is a really good page” or “This is a really good three lines of dialogue,” but it doesn’t belong here, so it doesn’t need to be here, so you hang on to it until the time <i>is</i> right.<br /><br />
Again, I think it helps that I love to read comics. I always have. I never had that period where I stopped reading, got out of comics.<br /><br />
I’ve always been reading, so in some sense I’ve always been doing work-related research. It helps to give you inspiration and things to pull stuff from.<br /><br />
<b>KS – The Norse gods you write about are not only part of Marvel myth and Norse myth but also part of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathenry</a>, modern iterations of Norse and Germanic religion. Back in 2013, the months-long <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/01/worldwide-heathen-census-2013-results.html" target="_blank">Worldwide Heathen Census</a> I ran estimated that there were nearly 40,000 practitioners around the world at that time, with the largest number living in the United States. Anecdotally, the population seems to have greatly grown since then, possibly driven by the popularity of the <i>Vikings</i> TV series, the Thor movies, and your own run on the comics.<br /><br />
You several times show Thor directly interacting with his worshipers – even responding to prayers. Did the fact that these Marvel characters are alternate versions of deities actively venerated today play into your work?</b><br /><br />
JA – No, not really. As someone who grew up with faith and lost that faith along the way and became an atheist but still remained fascinated by the ideas of faith and of all different religions, I looked at all of it as story fodder.<br /><br />
I do a book called <i>The Goddamned</i> which is a really dark and brutal version of the pre-flood Biblical world. The first story arc was the story of Noah, where it turns out Noah was not a very nice guy. He’s the guy who’d come to town and chop down all the trees and steal a bunch of people as slave labor to go build this giant boat he was building.<br /><br />
I’m very indiscriminate in terms of the religions I choose to make stories from. So, no, I never really thought of it that way.<br /><br />
To me, with Thor, I was trying to write as an atheist, to write the kind of god I would like to believe in.<br /><br />
The first issue I did after that first big arc about the God Butcher, the serial killer of gods, and building this Godbomb to kill all the gods. Right after that, it’s eleven issues of big, cosmic craziness.<br /><br />
Right after that, I did a standalone issue where Thor came back to Midgard – came back to Earth – for the first time in almost a year, at that point. It was about what does Thor do when he when he comes back to Midgard? Who does he go see? Who does he hang out with?<br /><br />
We see him do things like show up to spend time with this guy who’s on death row and is about to go be executed, and he brings him some rare fruit from some faraway planet. We see him hanging out with nuns and old vets. We see him make it rain on the Westboro Baptist Church protesters. We just see how does Thor interact with real people.<br /><br />
I was very interested in that. That’s another one of my favorite issues of the stories I’ve done – just a day in the life of Thor on Midgard.<br /><br />
He also goes and gets drunk on mead at some point, but a lot of it is to show the very real human interactions between this god and the people he connects with – people of different faiths and religions, not all people who are worshiping Thor.<br /><br />
So again, that was very much me saying I’d like to believe in this kind of guy, and I hope that if one exists, I hope he’s like this guy.<br /><br />
<b>KS – There was a story that I loved where Thor’s in love with a human woman – I think it’s in Viking times – and he goes on some space adventure. By the time he comes back, for him it’s just a moment, but she’s already dead and gone after waiting for him for her entire life.</b><br /><br />
JA – That was in the last Thor series I did.<br /><br />Through my whole ride, I’d flash back and do young Thor stories, stories of Thor before he could lift the hammer. That was one of them. I don’t remember exactly what issue it was.<br /><br />
He references her. She’s brought up a few times. That was a first lesson to him of “oh, these [human] lives are really fleeting.”<br /><br />
It’s the first time he has that godly perspective when it comes to interacting with life on Midgard.<br /><br />
<i>To be continued in <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2022/11/interview-with-jason-aaron-thor-god-of.html" target="_blank">Part Two</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-22606999031310955592022-07-07T11:46:00.003-05:002022-09-06T14:29:03.610-05:00“And All the Generous Earth”: Ásatrú Ritual and Climate Change Ethics, Part Two<i>Click <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2022/05/and-all-generous-earth-asatru-ritual.html" target="_blank">here</a> for <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2022/05/and-all-generous-earth-asatru-ritual.html" target="_blank">Part One</a> of the article.</i><br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Transtemporal care</b></span></span><br /><br />
In addition to thinking with the planet, to focusing on a <i>landvættir</i> ethic and a Jörð ethic, <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Heathen</a> ritual addresses issues of scale raised by American philosopher J. Baird Callicott in <i>Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic</i>. In the conclusion to his book, Callicott discusses questions of relationships between generations near and distant in connection to the climatic consequences of current actions. His own personal emotional investment of care is centered on his son, grandson, and possible great-grandchildren – those individuals with whom he has or is likely to have intimate relationships. “After about a century,” however, his “personal stake in the state of the world begins to fade and its demographic composition is presently indeterminate.”<sup>46</sup> He asserts that “[e]thics is scale sensitive” and that “[t]here is a temporal limit to care.”<sup>47</sup><br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQy2mBoK9owWUOpsCKtl0D7jBHbJmIEfZfrBrVxZBcrzdRussrrxe1RPIvc4dDA05N39hRmZYnE8g9KtfYrmuUMwdUjA6N8Pt0l5wlK41EzyDAutOIk7PSob4WJB3iq2egxFfCmDMN4vDsIWs_4I7A7lMianhtUb3XGm5RFbCPUjt1Zy25kSmDCzF/s1920/William%20Sheridan%20Young%201837%201878%20Souvenir%20of%20the%20Kanawha%20Western%20Virginia%20c.1860%20Oil%20on%20canvas%20asatru%20a%CC%81satru%CC%81%20ritual%20rite%20blot%20blo%CC%81t%20climate%20change%20environmental%20ethic%20ethics%20heathen%20heathenry.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1168" data-original-width="1920" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsQy2mBoK9owWUOpsCKtl0D7jBHbJmIEfZfrBrVxZBcrzdRussrrxe1RPIvc4dDA05N39hRmZYnE8g9KtfYrmuUMwdUjA6N8Pt0l5wlK41EzyDAutOIk7PSob4WJB3iq2egxFfCmDMN4vDsIWs_4I7A7lMianhtUb3XGm5RFbCPUjt1Zy25kSmDCzF/w400-h244/William%20Sheridan%20Young%201837%201878%20Souvenir%20of%20the%20Kanawha%20Western%20Virginia%20c.1860%20Oil%20on%20canvas%20asatru%20a%CC%81satru%CC%81%20ritual%20rite%20blot%20blo%CC%81t%20climate%20change%20environmental%20ethic%20ethics%20heathen%20heathenry.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">S<i>ouvenir of the Kanawha, Western Virginia</i> by William Sheridan Young (c. 1860)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Taking this position leads Callicott to ask, “Can one really care that in about a million years the human species will, one way or another, become extinct?”<sup>48</sup> To address the problem of individual disconnectedness of interest from possible peoples in the far future – the difficulty of “car[ing] for something so abstract as indeterminate distant future generations considered holistically or collectively”<sup>49</sup> – he suggests “global human civilization” as the object of care, setting a future temporal limit of five thousand years based on a past cultural history of the same time length.<sup>50</sup> “Global civilization,” he concludes, “can serve as a surrogate for Unknown Future generations because it is scaled proportionately to the effects of our present actions on the global climate.”<sup>51</sup><br /><br />
The Norse mythology that constitutes an important part of the conceptual background for modern Ásatrú provides a tripartite concept of temporality that undergirds modern blót practice and an embedded Heathen response to Callicott’s questions of transtemporal care. The Old Icelandic poem <i>Völuspá</i> (“Prophecy of the Seeress”) tells of three maidens who come from the water beneath the World Tree:
<blockquote>From there come girls, knowing a great deal,<br />
three from the lake standing under the tree;<br />
Urd one is called, Verdandi another—<br />
they carved on a wooden slip—Skuld the third;<br /><br />
they laid down laws, they chose lives<br />
for the sons of men, the fates of men.<sup>52</sup></blockquote>
Paraphrasing these lines, Snorri Sturluson writes, “These maidens shape men’s lives. We call them norns.”<sup>53</sup> Connected to both water and trees, sources of life in the myths and important carbon sinks in the environment, the three norns have individual names derived from verbs related to the act of becoming. <i>Urðr</i> and <i>Verðandi</i> are both connected to the verb <i>verða</i> (“to become”) and so can be interpreted as, respectively, “what has become” and “what is becoming.” <i>Skuld</i> parallels the verb <i>skulu</i> (“shall, must”) and, taken together with the other two, can be read as “what must become.” It is an oversimplification to translate these names as “past, present, and future,” since their implicit temporality is paired with implications of both emergent action and necessary causality. These significations are echoed in the modern blót rite as practitioners speak over the ritual drinking horn.<br /><br />
The Ásatrú practice of blót builds a concept of care in three temporal directions: sideways, backward, and forward. The ritual life of the religion nurtures a sense of both intra- and intergenerational solidarity, answering a need articulated by Pope Benedict XVI in his popular 2015 encyclical on the environment:
<blockquote>Beginning in the middle of the last century and overcoming many difficulties, there has been a growing conviction that our planet is a homeland and that humanity is one people living in a common home. An interdependent world not only makes us more conscious of the negative effects of certain lifestyles and models of production and consumption which affect us all; more importantly, it motivates us to ensure that solutions are proposed from a global perspective, and not simply to defend the interests of a few countries. Interdependence obliges us to think of <i>one world with a common plan</i>.<sup>54</sup></blockquote>
As detailed above, the blót ritual reinforces a conception of the earth not only as a homeland or physical field but also as an anthropomorphic goddess with whom the human community has an interdependent reciprocal relationship. Despite the racist proclamations of neo-völkisch Ásatrú, the lore studied by modern practitioners does not suggest that the earth was gifted by the gods to any specific group of any particular race, ethnicity, or nationality. A progressive Ásatrú worldview is built upon a mythology that tells of a World Tree spreading its branches over all lands and a World Serpent threatening all peoples. The “global perspective” for which Pope Francis argues is already built into Ásatrú, and it is expanded within blót to embrace interdependency across time as well as space.<br /><br />
The sideways temporal relationship exists between current Ásatrú practitioners as they relate to each other. The small-group kindred structure of American Ásatrú is centered on the concept that members are “kindred by choice,” that they willfully join together in constructed kinship. This creates relations of “elective affinities” as practitioners – largely adults and young adults who come to Ásatrú as a consciously chosen religion, rather than an inherited family one – “embrace a sense of kinship… that stem[s] from affinities ‘of mind and soul.’”<sup>55</sup> Standing together in blót, kindred members share intimate accounts of their lives and concerns, particularly in the portion of the rite dedicated to ancestor veneration (see below).<br /><br />
American practitioners largely come to Ásatrú after being raised in other, most often Christian, religious traditions. The kindred setting empowers them to speak openly about relationships and issues that may be <i>verboten</i> within their own families and familial religious structures. The membership of Thor’s Oak Kindred has included trans, gay, and adopted individuals, as well as individuals either estranged from parents or with parents who have never been present in their lives. The kindred’s ritual setting creates a supportive space in which members can speak more openly than they may be able to in family situations. By embracing elective kinship, practitioners forcefully reject the theology Pope Francis injects into his environmental encyclical to attack transgender people and those making feminist arguments<sup>56</sup> as he apparently connects them with the “negative effects of certain lifestyles” mentioned above.<br /><br />
Participants in blót regularly share deeply emotional and private information when they speak during the ancestral portion of the ritual. Doing so serves to build a wider circle of the “intimate relationships” that Callicott speaks of exclusively in connection to blood relations and strengthens the sideways temporal relationship among the members who stand together during the rite. This expands a strong feeling of reciprocal responsibility beyond merely one’s own original family and opens the individual to a broader concept of care and connection, as will be discussed below. In addition, this segment of blót stresses more than only the sideways connections.<br /><br />
The backward temporal relationship is clearly foregrounded during the section of blót focused on the veneration of ancestors. Concepts of ancestry vary greatly, but American practitioners generally take a broad view of who can be honored as an ancestor. In Thor’s Oak Kindred, the category of <i>ancestor</i> includes deceased family members with whom one has a personal connection (parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, etc.), more distant family relations (such as unknown family members who immigrated to the United States), larger ancestral groups (in one case, a particular kin group in Ireland), aspirational ancestors (including Germanic tribes of the Roman Era), and those who are kindred by choice (close family friends, for example).<br /><br />
In addition to addressing such individuals and groups from across a wide racial and ethnic spectrum, participants have hailed as ancestors a diverse range of figures who are not directly related to the speakers, including African-American victims of police brutality, Asian-Americans killed in hate crimes, LGBTQ+ activists who founded social movements, casualties of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19, journalists who stood up to powerful political forces, and early environmental activists. In each instance, the speaker expressed a strong sense of connection to the deceased person or people, often evoking similar feelings in the other participants.<br /><br />
This expansive conception of the <i>ancestor</i> category serves to further develop the participants’ concept of care, to broaden the embrace of connectedness in ever-expanding temporal and spatial circles. Such communal growth is strengthened by the fact that this portion of the blót is more participatory than the opening hailing of the Powers. The ritual drinking horn is passed around the circle, and each kindred member addresses their chosen figure(s) like this:
<blockquote>Participant: I raise this horn to all the Syrian refugees who have died while seeking better lives for themselves and their loved ones, from two-year-old Alan Kurdi lying on the sand to the elders lost in the waters. As the son of a refugee, I understand the horrors that drive people from their homes and the necessity that sends them onto dangerous paths. We have failed you, and we must work together to help those who even now have embarked on attempts to escape terrifying situations. Hail to the fallen refugees from Syria!<br /><br />
Other kindred members: Hail!<br /><br />
<i>Participant drinks from the horn, then pours a draft for the Syrian refugees into the soil at the base of the tree.</i></blockquote>
Given the diversity of the individual participants and the openness of the ancestral concept, the turn to the ancestors crosses all constructed lines of race, ethnicity, and class as it moves beyond both Callicott’s allegiance to close blood relations and his care for faceless “global human civilization.”<br /><br />
Several years ago, an African-American Heathen member of Thor’s Oak Kindred hailed Thorhall the Huntsman, a member of Eirik the Red’s crew who sailed to North America around the year 1000. A resolute pagan in the age of Nordic Christian conversion, Thorhall “had paid scant heed to the faith [of Christianity] since it had come to Greenland. Thorhall was not popular with most people.”<sup>57</sup> As a black man practicing Ásatrú in mostly white and mostly Christian southeast Wisconsin, the kindred member felt a deep kinship with the stubborn pagan who clashed with Eirik’s Christian crew. For this modern practitioner, an engagement with the lore led to a personal connection with an individual distant in time and place that was subsequently celebrated in the multicultural (African-American, Mexican-American, Guyanese-American, German-American, etc.) and intergenerational (toddler to middle-aged) setting of the group blót.<br /><br />
The expansiveness of this view of ancestry nurtures the ability of participants to deeply empathize with ethnically and spatially “other” people, including those who are often on the front lines of the extreme weather events generated by climate change. The wider the concept of community becomes, the more one feels connected to and responsible for distant peoples.<br /><br />
The backward temporal relationship leads to a forward one. Radcliffe-Brown’s analysis of this turn in “primitive society” can also be applied to modern Ásatrú practice:
<blockquote>For in the rites of commemoration of the ancestors it is sufficient that the participants should express their reverential gratitude to those from whom they have received their life, and their sense of duty towards those not yet born, to whom they in due course will stand in the position of revered ancestors. There still remains the sense of dependence. The living depend on those of the past; they have duties to those living in the present and to those of the future who will depend on them.<sup>58</sup></blockquote>
By regularly focusing on the dependency of the present on the past, Heathens internalize a sense of kinship (literal and symbolic) with a deep past that simultaneously builds a sense of responsibility for the deep future. Studying a lore that includes rock carvings from approximately 2000 BCE connects modern Heathens to an ancient tradition across time; studying scholarship that places Germanic languages in the context of a wider Indo-European “family tree” connects them to a cross-cultural network across space.<br /><br />
This process of expanding understanding of dependency and responsibility moves far beyond Callicott’s “personal stake in the state of the world” based on relationships of blood and his abstract concept of deculturated “global human civilization.” By foregrounding connections to a broad and deep past in group ritual, Ásatrú praxis inculcates a conception of connection to a broad and deep future.<br /><br />
As practitioners peer ever farther into the prehistory of their religion – whether in study of reconstructed Proto-Indo-European linguistic roots, examination of the oldest human art objects, or consideration of the earth's origins through the lens of Norse mythology – they come to see themselves as nodes in a branching network that extends into distant pasts and futures that are equally unknowable yet feel equally connected. In this context, Callicott's setting of the temporal limit of care at five thousand years seems somewhat myopic.<br />
__________________<br />
<sup>46</sup>Callicott, <i>Thinking Like a Planet</i>, 297.<br />
<sup>47</sup>Ibid., 298.<br />
<sup>48</sup>Ibid.<br />
<sup>49</sup>Ibid., 302.<br />
<sup>50</sup>Ibid., 298-9.<br />
<sup>51</sup>Ibid., 302.<br />
<sup>52</sup>Larrington, 6.<br />
<sup>53</sup>Snorri Sturluson, 18.<br />
<sup>54</sup>Pope Francis and McDonagh, <i>On Care for Our Common Home</i>, 225. Emphasis in the original.<br />
<sup>55</sup>Penny, <i>Kindred by Choice</i>, xi-xii. The subjects are Germans and their relationships with Native Americans, but the concept maps well onto American Ásatrú.<br />
<sup>56</sup>Ibid., 221-222.<br />
<sup>57</sup><i>The Sagas of Icelanders</i>, 666.<br />
<sup>58</sup>Radcliffe-Brown, <i>Structure and Function in Primitive Society</i>, 176.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>From lore to ritual</b></span></span><br /><br />
Theological readings of the lore reinforce this concept of community with both past and future. The <i>Vita Vulframmi</i> on the life of the missionary Wulfram of Sens tells of the pagan Frisian ruler Radbod pulling back on the verge of being baptized. When Radbod asks Wulfram if his forefathers await him in the Christian heaven and is told that, as pagans, they are surely damned, he replies, “I cannot abandon my ancestors and the fellowship of all the greatest men of the Frisian people… I would rather remain in the places that have been reserved for me and all the Frisian nation from time immemorial.”<sup>59</sup> Radbod’s sense of connection to those who came before him overrides any desire for a promised afterlife of heavenly bliss.<br /><br />
A similar dismissal of newly arrived afterlife ideas appears in the voice of the god Odin in the medieval Icelandic <i>Hávamál</i>, likely composed during the years of pagan interaction with Christian missionaries and converts:
<blockquote>Cattle die, kinsmen die, the self dies the same, but the glory of reputation never dies for the one who gets himself a good one.<sup>60</sup></blockquote>
This suggests that the judgment of future generations on those now living mattered deeply to early pagans. As Radbod’s feeling of dependence on past generations trumps desire for individual access to paradise, Odin’s feeling of responsibility to future generations trumps desire for the survival of an individual soul.<br /><br />
The contrast between pagan and Christian conceptions of the future is made explicit in the Anglo-Saxon Christian poem <i>The Wanderer</i>, which contains a verse parallel to the one attributed to Odin (the connections are even clearer in the original languages) with a theologically significant change to the punch line:
<blockquote>Here wealth is temporary, here a friend is temporary, here oneself is temporary, here a kinsman is temporary; all this foundation of the earth will become worthless!<sup>61</sup></blockquote>
Where the focus of the pagan poet is on the time-transcending importance of one’s deeds for later generations, the Christian poet brushes aside all earthly things as “worthless.” The pagan worldview presented stresses the relationship between current and future generations, while the Christian worldview expressed denigrates any relationship whatsoever with the world itself.<br /><br />
The pagan emphasis on the importance of the deep future’s view of the actions of today’s individuals appears in statements such as the <i>Saga of the Volsungs</i> aside that the hero Sigurð’s “name is known in all tongues north of the Greek Ocean, and so it must remain while the world endures.”<sup>62</sup> It also appears in the Old Norse doomsday myth of Ragnarök, which includes a postscript about the inhabitants of the far future time cycle after the earth has been renewed following the massive cosmic cataclysm:
<blockquote>Then they will all sit down together and talk and discuss their mysteries and speak of the things that happened in former times, of the Midgard serpent and Fenriswolf. Then they will find in the grass the golden playing pieces that had belonged to the Æsir.<sup>63</sup></blockquote>
In this melancholy passage, there is an emotional sense of longing (at least for Heathen readers) for a connection with our far distant and unknowable descendants, a hope that they will think of us with kindness and forgive the poor choices we continue to make. As in the saga statement about Sigurð, the scope of that hope extends to the farthest future of humanity.<br /><br />
This heartfelt bond with future people also appears in the oath-poem performed as part of the Icelandic Ásatrú ritual of the <i>Landvættablót</i>, as described by Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir:
<blockquote>One special thing we always chant at these blóts is <i>Tryggðamál</i> [“Peace Guarantee Speech,” a medieval Icelandic “ode… about [how] you will keep your word as long as the earth revolves, snow falls, a ship sails, and a Finn skis”<sup>64</sup>] – a very holy and beautiful text.<br /><br />
While fire burns,<br />
Earth is fertile,<br />
A child (which can speak) calls upon its mother<br />
And mother gives birth to her offspring,<br />
Men light fires,<br />
A ship glides,<br />
Shields flash,<br />
Sun shines,<br />
Snow falls,<br />
The Finn skis,<br />
Fir grows,<br />
The falcon flies<br />
On a spring day,<br />
The breeze carries him<br />
Under both wings,<br />
The heavens revolve,<br />
The world is settled,<br />
Wind blows,<br />
Waters fall into the ocean,<br />
Men sow their seeds (of corn).<sup>65</sup></blockquote>
Including a performance of this particular text in this particular blót – the ritual dedicated to remembering and thanking the land spirits and to “reminding us to do our best” – focuses the attention of the participants on the far future while simultaneously (via the poetry) celebrating the continuity and connectedness of life across vast stretches of time and (via the oath) emphasizing and sacralizing the responsibility of the present generation to those yet to come. In addition, the recitation of the text connects human and natural worlds in a tapestry of “the eternal things,” or at least those things hoped to be eternal.<br /><br />
Callicott asks, “Can one really care that in about a million years the human species will, one way or another, become extinct?” Heathen ritual and use of texts suggests that we can, and that we can share and encourage that care with others in our person-to-person communities. The care thus generated and strengthened can be deeply moving in a way that an intellectual commitment to “global human civilization” may not be.<br />
__________________<br />
<sup>59</sup>Caciola, <i>Afterlives</i>, 11-12.<br />
<sup>60</sup>Seigfried, “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/02/the-wanderer-old-english-poem.html" target="_blank">The Wanderer: An Old English Poem</a>.”<br />
<sup>61</sup>Ibid.<br />
<sup>62</sup>Byock, <i>Saga of the Volsungs</i>, 72.<br />
<sup>63</sup>Snorri Sturluson, 56.<br />
<sup>64</sup>Seigfried, “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/06/interview-with-hilmar-orn-hilmarsson-of_30.html" target="_blank">Interview with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Part Two</a>.”<br />
<sup>65</sup>Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir, email communication.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The web of wyrd</span></b></span><br /><br />
The above discussion shows that a broad spatial conception is accompanied by a broad temporal conception in Ásatrú as a lived religion. Callicott has suggested that the “protracted global scale” of climate change provides a challenge to ethics that is poorly addressed by a turn to moral paradigms of the past:
<blockquote>Giving equal consideration to the equal interests of billions of spatially and temporally distant moral patients appears to be absurd to all but a few moral philosophers willing to embrace the implications, carried to their logical extremes, of a moral paradigm, constructed in a time when people lived in actual villages, not a global village.<sup>66</sup></blockquote>
Perhaps Callicott simply is looking to the wrong past. Germanic tribes of the Migration Age and Nordic peoples of the Viking Age – two broad historical groups that provide much of the cultural background of modern Ásatrú and Heathenry – are notable for their far-ranging travels, their contacts with many other societies, and their cultural exchange of everything from art styles to religious concepts. The idea of a global village existed long before Marshall McLuhan popularized it, and it has a modern life within the rite of blót.<br /><br />
The tripartite temporal connections in Ásatrú ritual intersect with planet-wide spatial connections through the concept of <i>wyrd</i>, a theological construction built on Old English and Old Norse models. Wyrd encompasses ideas of action and fate, and it centers on the belief that actions taken in the past determine what destiny awaits in the future.<sup>67</sup> There are linguistic and conceptual connections to the norns discussed above; in Old Icelandic sources, the same word appears as the name of the norn whose name can be interpreted as “what has become” (<i>Urðr</i>) and as a term for "fate" (<i>urðr</i>). Together, these two usages reinforce the idea that past deeds set the parameters for future possibilities.<br /><br />
In an Ásatrú conception of wyrd, the actions of an individual’s ancestors determine what paths are open to her, and her own actions modify those possible paths for good or ill; they work on her personal wyrd. Yet her wyrd is also modified by the wyrd of every person with whom she comes into contact – from family, friends, and colleagues to people she meets once on the street. Her wyrd is also affected by the wyrds of all those who interact with the people she herself engages. This complicated branching of causality is known among Heathens as “the web of wyrd.”<br /><br />
Reinforced by the emphasis on wide-ranging relationships in blót, the wyrd concept builds an awareness of interconnectivity between far-off actors – an acknowledgment, for example, that our consumer choice to burn fossil fuels has profound consequences for families in areas already experiencing traumatic effects of climate change. A conception of the global workings of the web of wyrd through both our personal stories and our multitudinous impacts upon the world is reflected in the common Heathen statement that “we are our deeds.”<sup>68</sup><br /><br />
For practitioners of Ásatrú, there is an understanding of the relationship between action and consequence – an understanding that counters Callicott’s claim that the “protracted global scale” of climate change cannot be addressed by moral systems built upon ancient paradigms. By studying ancient lore and reifying its concepts in ritual, practitioners of Ásatrú build an understanding of the interrelatedness of all human actors.<br /><br />
Wyrd is often specifically invoked in blót, especially in making a connection between the drink in the ritual horn and the water where the norns meet and choose “the fates of men.” In her recommendations for designing rites, Lafayllve uses several variations of this invocation, such as in her instructions for a blót to the goddess Frigg (here called Frigga):
<blockquote><i>When the horn returns to you, offer up your own words of prayer and thanks. Then place your hand over the horn.</i><br /><br />
SAY: Wealful words have been whispered over the waters of the Well, where they will form their own layer in wyrd. Wishes offered, thanks given, we share this drink now with Frigga.<sup>69</sup></blockquote>
There is a commonly held Ásatrú conception that what is said in blót alters the wyrd of the rite’s participants. The speech act in ritual is accepted as a real action, with all the implications of effect upon the individual, the practitioners present, and the more distant individuals connected via wyrd and its associated liquid. By clearly acknowledging the workings of wyrd during the blót, participants indeed use paradigms of the past as the basis for a modern moral system that addresses Callicott’s “protracted global scale.”<br /><br />
As I write this, we are still weighing the ramifications of the Supreme Court of the United States announcing a decision that severely hampers the ability of the Enivronmental Protection Agency to regulate climate-changing carbon emissions. The Heathen ideal of weighing the wider implications of one’s words and deeds – and considering the consequences even for those we will never meet – seems very attractive today.<br />
__________________<br />
<sup>66</sup>Callicott, 282.<br />
<sup>67</sup>Seigfried, “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/11/wyrd-will-weave-us-together.html" target="_blank">Wyrd Will Weave Us Together</a>.”<br />
<sup>68</sup>Wódening, <i>We Are Our Deeds</i>.<br />
<sup>69</sup>Lafayllve, 182.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Opening a space</span></b></span><br /><br />
Ásatrú lore provides guidelines and examplars, not rules or commandments. These models can suggest innovative ways of thinking about and relating to climate change. As this article has argued, the ritual of blót, recognition of reciprocity with the earth, appreciation of inherent value in the natural world, conception of transtemporal relationships, and wyrd theory of interconnectedness and consequences of human action all serve to build individual and community understanding of issues that have challenged previous ethics of climate change.<br /><br />
Despite coming from a minority, marginalized, and misunderstood religion, these ways of engaging in a ritual context with issues raised by climate change ethicists can provide possible paths forward for members of other faith traditions. In particular, religious leaders who are seeking additional ways to involve their communities with environmental issues may find some inspiration for their own ministerial work while changing and adapting the specific elements to fit the theology and praxis of their respective religions.<br /><br />
Exactly how the Ásatrú model can be modified to fit other religious traditions is up to the creativity of the adapters. In academic and interfaith settings, Heathens are regularly expected to knowledgeably discuss the core concepts of other, more populous and powerful faiths. For members of those dominant religions, it may be a fruitful exercise to engage with ideas from a progressive Ásatrú perspective.<br /><br />
In the field of ethics, I hope that this article will open a space in the discussion of climate change for practitioners of Ásatrú to inhabit. Jenkins begins his introduction to <i>The Future of Ethics</i> by writing that “[e]thics seems imperiled by unprecedented problems.”<sup>70</sup> If this is so, any voice from a heretofore unrecognized perspective with something meaningful to say regarding the critical problems of climate change should be made welcome.<br />
__________________<br />
<sup>70</sup>Jenkins, 1.<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Bibliography</span></b></span><br /></div><br />
Adam of Bremen. <i>History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen</i>. Translated by Francis J. Tschan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.<br /><br />
Ásatrúarfélagið website. Accessed July 6, 2022. http://asatru.is.<br /><br />
Bellows, Henry Adams, trans. <i>The Poetic Edda</i>. New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1923.<br /><br />
Berg, Jónína K. “Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson: A Personal Reminiscence.” <i>Tyr: Myth–Culture–Tradition</i>, 3 (2008), 263-72.<br /><br />
“Blótuðu Þór í Úrhellisrigningu.” <i>Vísir</i>, August 7, 1973.<br /><br />
Byock, Jess, trans. <i>Saga of the Volsungs: The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer</i>. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.<br /><br />
Caciola, Nancy Mandeville. <i>Afterlives: The Return of the Dead in the Middle Ages</i>. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016.<br /><br />
Callicott, J. Baird. <i>Thinking Like a Planet: The Land Ethic and the Earth Ethic</i>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.<br /><br />
Grundtvig, N.F.S. <i>Poetiske Skrifter</i>. Edited by Svend Grundtvig. Kjøbenhavn: Karl Schønbergs Forlag, 1880.<br /><br />
Haukur Bragason. Personal communication, March 23, 2014.<br /><br />
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson. Email communication, July 10, 2016.<br /><br />
Jenkins, Willis. <i>The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity</i>. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2013.<br /><br />
Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir. Email communication, 2013-present.<br /><br />
Jonas of Bobbio. <i>Life of St. Columban</i>. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1895.<br /><br />
Kant, Immanuel. <i>Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone</i>. Translated by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson. Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1934.<br /><br />
Lafayllve, Patricia M. <i>A Practical Heathen’s Guide to Asatru</i>. Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2013.<br /><br />
Larrington, Carolyne, trans. <i>The Poetic Edda</i> (Revised Edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.<br /><br />
Munro, Dana Carleton, ed. <i>Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European History</i> (VI, no. 5). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, c. 1900.<br /><br />
Northcott, Michael S. <i>A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming</i>. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2007.<br /><br />
Penny, H. Glenn. <i>Kindred by Choice: Germans and American Indians since 1800</i>. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.<br /><br />
Perkins, Richard. “The Gateway to Trondheim: Two Icelanders at Agdenes.” <i>Saga-Book</i>, XXV (1998-2001), 179-213.<br /><br />
Pope Francis and Sean McDonagh. <i>On Care for Our Common Home: Laudato Si’, The Encyclial of Pope Francis on the Environment</i>. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2016.<br /><br />
Radcliffe-Brown, A.R. <i>Structure and Function in Primitive Society: Essays and Addresses</i>. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1952.<br /><br />
<i>The Sagas of Icelanders: A Selection</i>. London: Penguin Books, 2001.<br /><br />
Seigfried, Karl E. H. “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2012/05/elf-kerfuffle-in-iceland.html" target="_blank">Elf Kerfuffle in Iceland</a>.” <i>The Norse Mythology Blog</i>, May 24, 2012. http://www.norsemyth.org/2012/05/elf-kerfuffle-in-iceland.html.<br /><br />
–––. “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/06/interview-with-hilmar-orn-hilmarsson-of_30.html" target="_blank">Interview with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson of the Ásatrúarfélagið, Part Two</a>.” <i>The Norse Mythology Blog</i>, June 30, 2011.<br /><br />
–––. “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/02/the-wanderer-old-english-poem.html" target="_blank">The Wanderer: An Old English Poem</a>.” <i>The Norse Mythology Blog</i>, February 29, 2016.<br /><br />
–––. “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/11/wyrd-will-weave-us-together.html" target="_blank">Wyrd Will Weave Us Together</a>.” <i>The Norse Mythology Blog</i>, November 30, 2016.<br /><br />
–––. “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/01/worldwide-heathen-census-2013-results.html" target="_blank">Worldwide Heathen Census 2013: Results & Analysis</a>.” <i>The Norse Mythology Blog</i>, January 6, 2014.<br /><br />
Seigfried, Karl E. H. et al. “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/01/heathens-in-military-heathen-resource.html" target="_blank">Heathen Resource Guide for Chaplains</a>.” T<i>he Norse Mythology Blog</i>, January 11, 2016.<br /><br />
Simek, Rudolf. <i>Dictionary of Northern Mythology</i>. Translated by Angela Hall. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993.<br /><br />
Snorri Sturluson. <i>Edda</i>. Translated by Anthony Faulkes. London: Everyman, 1995.<br /><br />
Wódening, Eric. <i>We Are Our Deeds: The Elder Heathenry, Its Ethic and Thew</i>. Baltimore: White Marsh Press, 2011.Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-9592987745080468862022-05-17T10:39:00.003-05:002022-08-04T14:50:32.662-05:00“And All the Generous Earth”: Ásatrú Ritual and Climate Change Ethics, Part OneThis article presents an <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú</a> perspective on climate change ethics. It addresses ways in which a progressive Ásatrú public theology can offer new perspectives on problems of climate change ethics via examination of the modern practice of historically grounded ritual known as <i>blót</i> – a rite that foregrounds reciprocity with the earth, inherent value in the natural world, transtemporal human relationships, global connectedness, and the consequences of human action.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinH7PjwUYv2PGFIs2P4_lpzNJsef9Stt5U5qUO7jhaKqUYisSb4a1WZKebQnSupJVKtNISqPUddUlnHNXGzOohHaSGBqHrP2A6qX8FgkPeHlvFQCHIDv6KscESL_6QjWqeQuiB55M69Htdh9TcoAY474xUE35R44sHz6D9b39pQS-qgp8hj_ZOclMx" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1467" data-original-width="2000" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEinH7PjwUYv2PGFIs2P4_lpzNJsef9Stt5U5qUO7jhaKqUYisSb4a1WZKebQnSupJVKtNISqPUddUlnHNXGzOohHaSGBqHrP2A6qX8FgkPeHlvFQCHIDv6KscESL_6QjWqeQuiB55M69Htdh9TcoAY474xUE35R44sHz6D9b39pQS-qgp8hj_ZOclMx=w400-h294" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Landscape with a Wanderer</i> by Thomas Fearnley (1830)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
In addition to discussing Ásatrú textual sources and examples of ritual, the article engages with recent work in environmental ethics by Willis Jenkins, Michael S. Northcott, and J. Baird Callicott as it offers a new ethical model for responding to issues of climate change.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A new Old Norse religion</b></span></span></span><br /><br />
Ásatrú is a modern religion that revives/reconstructs/reimagines pre-Christian Germanic religion with emphasis on medieval Icelandic texts. The term <i>Ásatrú</i> is modern Icelandic for “Æsir faith,” belief in or loyalty to the major tribe of Norse gods and goddesses; its earliest known appearance is in N.F.S. Grundtvig’s 1811 <i>Optrin af Norners og Asers Kamp</i>, which uses the Danish form <i>Asatro</i>.<sup>1</sup> Practitioners often self-identify as <i>Heathens</i>.<sup>2</sup><br />
<br />
The term <i>Heathenry</i> refers to the wider world of Germanic polytheism, which includes elements of Anglo-Saxon, continental European, and Scandinavian pre-Christian religions. <i>Lore</i> is an emic term for the wide range of source texts, which include Roman reports, Old Norse poetry, Icelandic sagas, legal codes, medieval literature, nineteenth-century folklore, etc. <i>Blót</i> (“sacrificial worship”) is the central rite in both ancient and modern practice. The specifics of contemporary ritual will be discussed in detail later in this article.<br /><br />
The beginning of the new religious movement can be specifically dated to April 20, 1972,<sup>3</sup> when twelve men and women met at Hotel Borg in Reykjavík to discuss a revival of Iceland’s pre-Christian religion and to found the Ásatrúarfélagið (“Ásatrú Fellowship”).<sup>4</sup> Officially recognized by the Icelandic government as a religious organization in May 1973,<sup>5</sup> the group held the first public blót in Iceland since pagan ritual was outlawed in 1000 CE on either the 1972 summer solstice<sup>6</sup> or on August 5, 1973.<sup>7</sup><br />
<br />
The religion soon spread out from Iceland, and the number of adherents has greatly grown over the past fifty years. The <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/01/worldwide-heathen-census-2013-results.html" target="_blank">Worldwide Heathen Census 2013</a> received responses from ninety-eight countries and estimated the total global number of adherents at 36,289.<sup>8</sup> As of May 2022, Ásatrúarfélagið membership has increased by more than 41,000 percent since the organization’s founding.<sup>9</sup><br />
__________________<br />
<sup>1</sup> Grundtvig, <i>Poetiske Skrifter</i>, 333.<br />
<sup>2</sup> This article uses <i>Heathen</i> to refer to contemporary practitioners of Germanic polytheism and <i>pagan</i> to refer to those of the medieval period and earlier.<br />
<sup>3</sup> Berg, “Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson,” 269.<br />
<sup>4</sup> Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, email communication.<br />
<sup>5</sup> Berg, 270-1.<br />
<sup>6</sup> Ibid., 269.<br />
<sup>7</sup> “Blótuðu Þór í Úrhellisrigningu,” <i>Vísir</i>.<br />
<sup>8</sup> Seigfried, “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/01/worldwide-heathen-census-2013-results.html" target="_blank">Worldwide Heathen Census 2013: Results & Analysis</a>.”<br />
<sup>9</sup> Ásatrúarfélagið website, “Um Ásatrúarfélagið.”<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Ethical competency</b></span></span><br />
<br />If a progressive Ásatrú public theology is to engage with the ongoing discussion of climate change ethics, a basic first point of contact is the question of ethical competency raised by religious studies scholar Willis Jenkins in <i>The Future of Ethics: Sustainability, Social Justice, and Religious Creativity</i>.<br />
<br />
Jenkins argues that “[o]ur ethical traditions seem incompetent to the trouble our powers create.”<sup>10</sup> Rather than leaving behind “imperfect concepts and incompetent communities,” he attempts “to do ethics in the context of reform projects.”<sup>11</sup> In his system, religious ethics of climate change should not be constructed on a ground of worldviews, cosmologies, and “grand stories of human purpose,” but should instead “begin from concrete problems, uncertain traditions, and incompetent communities.”<sup>12</sup><br />
<br />
Jenkins does not abandon what he views as an “incompetent” North Atlantic Christianity, which “cannot generate an adequate climate ethic,” but asserts that, when a religious tradition “finds itself incompetent to a changing context, religious traditions need reform projects capable of generating new possibilities of action that can be recognized by its members as legitimate interpretations.”<sup>13</sup><br />
<br />
For Jenkins, the starting point of a Christian climate ethic is therefore an analysis of “how the problem alienates the practice of Christian life from reality.”<sup>14</sup> In his work, Jenkins seeks to “interpret the conflicts, uncertainties, and perversions that corrupt Christian ethics,” with the goal that Christian communities recognize how their corrupted ethics “renders uncertain and incompetent their practice of life” and then “may begin to create practices in which it becomes possible to give answer to God for atmospheric powers.”<sup>15</sup><br />
<br />
This article accepts Jenkins’ concept of necessary ethical competency and asserts that Ásatrú already addresses the specific areas in which he calls for reform. Faced with the problems of climate change, Ásatrú offers focused concepts and competent communities. Rather than working on the reform of “uncertain traditions” that “cannot generate an adequate climate ethic,” this article turns to a religious system well suited to engage with the problem – a religion with a life that already relates to reality in a way that addresses major issues raised by climate change ethicists.<br />
<br />
This is not to deny that there are deeply problematic forms of Ásatrú in the United States. Neo-völkisch Ásatrú translates older racialist German <i>völkisch</i> ideology into contemporary racist American “folkish” theology that insists upon race as a deciding factor of religiosity. The core belief that DNA determines spiritual worldview is inextricably bound with the insistence that neo-völkisch Ásatrú is for white people only. The writings and actions of these practitioners have led to international public protests by other Heathens, bans from social media platforms, and inclusion in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ongoing documentation of hate groups in the United States.<sup>16</sup><br />
<br />
The progressive Ásatrú public theology forwarded in this article absolutely rejects the neo-völkisch movement and insists on diversity as a fundamental strength of our nation and our religious communities. An emphasis on diversity is a central concern of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/" target="_blank">Thor’s Oak Kindred</a>, the Chicago-based religious organization I lead as goði (“priest”).<sup>17</sup> This emphasis emerges not only in the makeup of our membership but also in our theology and practice, as will be discussed below.<br />
<br />
In regards to climate change ethics, progressive Ásatrú is largely free of what Jenkins asserts are “the conflicts, uncertainties, and perversions that corrupt Christian ethics,” and its practitioners are both certain and competent in a life-practice that directly engages relationships within the transtemporal human community and with the wider world. Through study of lore and celebration of ritual, the practice of Ásatrú reinforces understanding of reciprocal relationships with the natural world, inherent value of living things, connections to past and future peoples, interrelatedness of all human actors, and consequences of human actions.<br />
<br />
This article specifically examines the ritual of blót as a model for addressing multiple problems of climate change ethics.<br />
__________________<br />
<sup>10</sup> Jenkins, <i>The Future of Ethics</i>, 3.<br />
<sup>11</sup> Ibid., 4.<br />
<sup>12</sup> Ibid., 19-20.<br />
<sup>13</sup> Ibid., 21.<br />
<sup>14</sup> Ibid., 23.<br />
<sup>15</sup> Ibid.<br />
<sup>16</sup> Southern Poverty Law Center website, “Neo-Völkisch.”<br />
<sup>17</sup> Thor’s Oak Kindred website, “<a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/kindred.html" target="_blank">Kindred</a>.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The ritual of blót</span></b></span><br /><br />
The basic root of the blót ritual is a reifying of reciprocal relationships between the performer(s) of the rite and the receiver(s). A gifting cycle is established and maintained in which, as the god Odin states in the Old Icelandic poem <i>Hávamál</i> (“Sayings of the High One”), “mutual givers and receivers are friends for longest, if the friendship keeps going well.”<sup>18</sup> The word <i>blót</i> and the paired verb <i>blóta</i> (“to sacrifice”) likely have an original meaning of “to strengthen (the god).”<sup>19</sup><br />
<br />
By making an offering to strengthen the deity, the follower hopes to receive a favor (general or particular) in return. The offering is neither payment nor bribe, but rather an instance of gifting in an ongoing and reciprocal cycle. In <i>Hávamál</i>, Odin emphasizes an ethic of <i>hóf</i> (“moderation”) and reciprocity as he warns his followers that it is “[b]etter not to pray than to sacrifice too much: one gift always calls for another.”<sup>20</sup><br /><br />
In the Norse mythological poems written down in thirteenth-century Iceland and collected together in a set now known as the <i>Poetic Edda</i>, the deities themselves hold blót, sometimes to each other and sometimes to themselves. In the poem <i>Hyndluljóð</i> (“Song of Hyndla”), the goddess Freyja says that she will sacrifice (<i>blóta</i>) to the god Thor so that he will grant her request to be friendly to a certain giantess, despite his sworn enmity to the giants.<sup>21</sup> In <i>Hávamál</i>, Odin famously sacrifices himself to himself to gain mystic knowledge of the runes.<sup>22</sup><br />
<br />
The medieval prose narratives (often with interpolated poetry) known as Icelandic sagas were composed after Iceland’s conversion to Christianity but offer detailed accounts of pre-conversion blóts that may have been passed down via oral tradition. Descriptions in these literary sources dovetail with accounts given by continental Christian scribes (with varying degrees of anti-pagan polemic) in their descriptions of interactions between missionaries and the northerners they aimed to convert.<br />
<br />
As in the Vedic sacrifice of India, there seems to have been a hierarchical sense of what was to be sacrificed. At one end of the scale, the massive national sacrifice at Uppsala every nine years offered “of every living thing that is male… nine heads”; men, horses, and dogs were among the victims.<sup>23</sup> At the other end, the Swabians are said to have made a much more modest “heathen offering” of a cask of beer “to their God Wodan.”<sup>24</sup><br />
<br />
Today, the great violence of the Uppsala rite is a distant relic of history, and modern blóts tend toward the second example. The most common offerings are of alcoholic beverages – usually beer or mead, often home brewed. Throughout the year, blóts are held as part of a cycle of annual rituals, to celebrate life events, and at a community’s need.<br />
__________________<br />
<sup>18</sup> Larrington, <i>Poetic Edda</i>, 18.<br />
<sup>19</sup> Simek, <i>Dictionary of Northern Mythology</i>, 271.<br />
<sup>20</sup> Larrington, 33.<br />
<sup>21</sup> Ibid., 246.<br />
<sup>22</sup> Ibid., 32.<br />
<sup>23</sup> Adam of Bremen, <i>History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen</i>, 208.<br />
<sup>24</sup> Jonas of Bobbio, <i>Life of St. Columban</i>, 31-2.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Earth goddess and land spirits</span></b></span><br /><br />In contrast to the “uncertain traditions” that Jenkins insists “cannot generate an adequate climate ethic,” the central Ásatrú ritual is inherently centered on reciprocity with the world in which we live. Even when the rite is focused on a particular deity or celebratory occasion, the performative act of modern blót is built upon an understanding of human life as directly engaged with the earth and environment.<br />
<br />Although there is a great variety of ritual praxis throughout today’s Heathen world, it is common to open blóts with the Valkyrie’s prayer from the Old Icelandic poem <i>Sigrdrífumál</i> (“Sayings of the Victory-Driver”). The Icelandic Ásatrúarfélagið uses the two verses as a standard ritual element,<sup>25</sup> as do many American Ásatrú practitioners.<br />
<br />
In the United States, the 1923 translation by <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/books.html" target="_blank">Henry Adams Bellows</a> remains popular for ritual use:
<blockquote>2. Hail, day! Hail, sons of day!<br />
And night and her daughter now!<br />
Look on us here with loving eyes,<br />
That waiting we victory win.<br /><br />
3. Hail to the gods! Ye goddesses, hail,<br />
And all the generous earth!<br />
Give to us wisdom and goodly speech,<br />
And healing hands, life-long.<sup>26</sup></blockquote>
The earth is addressed in each of these verses, although – as in many of the anonymous works included in the <i>Poetic Edda</i> – the references require a bit of mythological exegesis to uncover.<br />
<br />
In verse 2, the second line’s reference to the daughter of night is usually read in light of Snorri Sturluson’s <i>Edda</i> of c. 1220, in which the Icelander states that the earth goddess Jörð (“Earth”) is the daughter of Nótt (“Night”).<sup>27</sup> In the second line of verse 3, Bellows translates <i>in fjölnýta fold</i> as “the generous earth,” which could be taken to refer to Jörð. However, the word <i>fold</i> (cognate with English “field”) refers to earth as soil and ground rather than as a concrete deity.<br />
<br />
So, whatever the specific occasional context, recitation of the Valkyrie’s prayer focuses the attention of the ritual participants on the earth both as an anthropomorphic goddess who brings success and as a physical field that provides sustenance. In the context of a ritual built on reciprocity of offering and asking, the bipartite grounding in the earth is a central relational component from which the remainder of the rite grows. <br /><br />
This double consciousness of the earth as both deity and material is paralleled by the honoring of the <i>landvættir</i> (“land wights,” “land spirits”) in blót. American Heathen priestess and author Patricia M. Lafayllve states that the <i>landvættir</i> are “spirits of the land, rocks, trees, bodies of water, and so on.”<sup>28</sup> This modern Ásatrú conception of inspirited natural objects reflects historical evidence.<br />
<br />
The <i>Capitulatio de partibus Saxoniæ</i>, an ordinance issued by the Christian <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2015/11/charlemagnes-saxon-war-religio-cultural.html" target="_blank">Charlemagne</a> for governance of the pagan Saxons in c. 785, levies monetary fines for making (1) “a vow at springs or trees or groves” or (2) “partak[ing] of a repast in honor of the demons.”<sup>29</sup> Reading through the condemnatory language, this seems to refer to Saxon analogues of the pre-conversion Icelandic (1) veneration of land wights and (2) human consumption of the meat offered in blót after the conclusion of the ritual.<br />
<br />
Written sources of medieval Iceland portray land wights as living in trees and boulders, as being “closely connected to the land surrounding the farm and the cultivated soil.”<sup>30</sup> These beings functioned as “the guardian-spirits of particular areas or localities” who “defended their territory against hostile forces and controlled the welfare of its inhabitants and those who travelled through it.”<sup>31</sup>
This sense of inspirited place appears to stand behind the outdoor pagan rites anathematized by Charlemagne’s ordinance.<br /><br />
Medievalist Rudolf Simek writes that “the ritual meal of the sacrificial meat can be traced back to Viking Age heathen practices”<sup>32</sup> and that “[t]he sacrifice of food was one of the most important forms of sacrifice among Germanic peoples, in which the slaughtered animal was eaten by the sacrificing community.<sup>33</sup> This meal as part of the pagan sacrificial rite seems to be what the <i>Capitulatio</i> condemns as “a repast in honor of demons.”<br /><br />
The veneration of land wights and the sacrificial meal both parallel the double sense of spiritual being and material object in the Valkyrie’s prayer. The land wight is paired with the natural location, and the sending of the sacrifice is paired with the eating of the meal. The spiritual world and the physical world are engaged as intrinsically interrelated, as always having been intimately intertwined.<br />
<br />
A strong sense of reciprocal relationship with land wights continues in Iceland today, where Ásatrúarfélagið allsherjargoði (“high priest,” leader of the religious organization) <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/06/interview-with-hilmar-orn-hilmarsson-of.html" target="_blank">Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson</a> relates contemporary Ásatrú practice to the nation’s original settlement:
<blockquote>It’s part of my oath that I will fight with nature [i.e., on nature’s side] and respect the . . . how can I say it? We sincerely believe that, when we settled this country, we did it in good connection with the nature spirits and the spirits of the land. When we do our ceremonies, we are also offering our greetings and pouring out beer for the <i>genius loci</i> - the local spirits. I think it’s really important that we should give this country in better shape to our children and grandchildren than we receive it. If you have to take a political stand, so be it.<sup>34</sup></blockquote>
Hilmar connects the history of Icelandic <i>landnám</i> (“settlement,” literally “land-taking”), positive relationship with land wights, ritual veneration of land wights in blót, land stewardship for future generations, and direct action in the political sphere. He makes no division between the historical, spiritual, ritual, ecological, and political. To the contrary, all are forwarded together as elements of a unified system of becoming, being, and doing that maintains an interconnection with the earth in the human past, present, and future. This engagement with tripartite temporality will be discussed in more detail below.<br />
<br />
Modern Icelanders’ concept of the <i>landvættir</i> sometimes overlaps with that of the <i>álfar</i> (“elves”), an originally distinct type of beings who may have once represented the spirits of departed ancestors. Government road construction projects are still rerouted around boulders believed to be elf homes. In 2012, a member of parliament personally paid to move an enormous stone from the mainland to his residence in the Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands) after – according to elf specialist Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir – <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2012/05/elf-kerfuffle-in-iceland.html" target="_blank">the elf family that inhabited it saved his life</a> during his car accident in its vicinity.<sup>35</sup> In this gratitude to the invisible elves and care for the boulder they are said to inhabit, the double understanding in the Valkyrie’s prayer of the natural world manifesting in both spiritual being and physical object appears in yet another guise.<br /><br />
Underlying these various conceptions of the earth and natural objects is the idea of independent life in the natural world, of conscious creatures that embody or inhabit both animate and inanimate things. The manner in which these beings are honored relates to an Ásatrú ideal of inherent value.<br />
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<sup>25</sup> Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir, email communication.<br />
<sup>26</sup> Bellows, <i>Poetic Edda</i>. 389-90.<br />
<sup>27</sup> Snorri Sturluson, <i>Edda</i>, 14.<br />
<sup>28</sup> Lafayllve, <i>Practical Heathen’s Guide to Ásatrú</i>, 73.<br />
<sup>29</sup> Munro, <i>Translations and Reprints</i>, 2-5.<br />
<sup>30</sup> Raudvere, “Popular Religion in the Viking Age,” 237.<br />
<sup>31</sup> Perkins, “The Gateway to Trondheim: Two Icelanders at Agdenes,” 196.<br />
<sup>32</sup> Simek, 272.<br />
<sup>33</sup> Ibid., 271.<br />
<sup>34</sup> Seigfried, “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/07/interview-with-hilmar-orn-hilmarsson-of.html" target="_blank">Interview with Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Part Three</a>.”<br />
<sup>35</sup> Seigfried, “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2012/05/elf-kerfuffle-in-iceland.html" target="_blank">Elf Kerfuffle in Iceland</a>.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Offering and inherent value</span></b></span><br /><br />
Lafayllve suggests a variety of items that modern Heathens can offer to land wights in their local vicinity – including milk, butter, beer, mead, cider, honey, oats, barley, fruits, herbs, and vegetables – “particularly during their respective harvesting seasons.”<sup>36</sup> The offerings are either natural objects or traditional products made directly from them. <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2017/04/interview-with-druid-kirk-s-thomas-of.html" target="_blank">Kirk S. Thomas</a>, former Archdruid of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship but a pagan theologian much respected by American Heathens,<sup>37</sup> emphasizes that offerings to nature deities should not be plucked from natural settings, but “must be something that the giver has a right to give.”<sup>38</sup> Lafayllve’s list of offerings underscores this idea; the optimal gift is something that the giver spent time cultivating or crafting from natural ingredients. A secondary option is to purchase these items using one’s own earned income. In either case, the nature of the object offered foregrounds a reciprocal relationship with the natural world that acknowledges the cycle of cultivation, craft, consumption, and gratitude.<br /><br />
This recognition and reinforcement of reciprocal relationships with the natural world offers a conception of inherent value notably different from that found in Michael S. Northcott’s modern classic <i>A Moral Climate</i>. The ethicist and Scottish Episcopal priest argues that “the value of non-human species arises from their having been made by the divine Creator who made them in their myriad diversity as a reflection of the divine nature.”<sup>39</sup> The Christian deity implants value into the world through “an act in which intrinsic worth is created by divine freedom and generosity.”<sup>40</sup> “From a Christian perspective,”<sup>41</sup> as presented by Northcott, the earth and its other-than-human inhabitants have a value that is intrinsic only insofar as it is placed within them by God and as they serve to reflect his divine glory. Respect for the natural world is – through a transitive property – veneration of the Creator, rather than a direct engagement with independent subjects with value that is truly inherent (in the basic sense of being innate to the thing itself).<br /><br />
In contrast, an Ásatrú worldview – as reflected in the ritual of blót – sees the earth, elements of the environment, and “non-human species” as entities with individual agency and inherent value. There is no sense of <i>ex nihilo</i> creation in Heathen lore; the material universe predates the birth of the gods, who themselves are craftsmen and organizers – demiurges, in the original sense – rather than all-powerful creators. Instead, the earth and elements of the natural world are addressed as enchanted and active anthropomorphic beings who have value in and of themselves and with whom we must build relationships of reciprocity. Rather than relating to the natural world as a vessel for the transmission of a creator god’s divinity, the practice of blót reinforces a sense that the earth is an active agent with value intrinsic to its own distinct being.<br /><br />
The land wights, while lesser powers than the earth goddess, are also given veneration in a way that focuses the community’s attention on its multiple levels of connection with its surroundings. The anthropomorphic conceptualization of trees, rivers, and other aspects of the environment necessarily fosters a sense of relationship with active partners that deserve respect. Approaching elements of the world not as <i>things</i> serving as conduits to an outside divinity but rather as <i>beings</i> of inherent worth with which we can interact in the here and now strengthens a relational sense that situates blót participants within a living system of valued agents.<br /><br />
In the blóts of Thor’s Oak Kindred, we regularly honor and offer to the earth goddess Jörð and to the land wights. Our standard ritual form includes addressing an individual power (from Old Norse <i>regin</i>, “[higher] powers”), citing meaningful bynames (secondary names or titles of divine figures), thanking her for her gifts, asking her to continue giving, offering a group hail (a wish for <i>heill</i>, Old Norse “[good] luck, [good] health”), and making an offering of sanctified beer from the ritual drinking horn. As the participants stand around the oak tree dedicated to the god Thor, one of these addresses is performed like this:
<blockquote>Goði: Jörð, earth goddess, giver of plenty, we thank you for the gifts of sustenance you give us, despite our mistreatment of you. We ask that you continue to share your bounty with us as we work to protect you from our own misdeeds. Hail Jörð!<br /><br />
Kindred members: Hail!<br /><br />
<i>Goði drinks from the horn, then pours a draft for Jörð into the soil at the base of the tree.</i></blockquote>
For Thor’s Oak Kindred, a standard blót includes such individual addresses to an array of figures, including the divine trio Odin, Thor, and Freyja; the cosmic trio Jörð, Sól (“Sun”), and Máni (“Moon”); and the land wights. Given the fact that the Valkyrie’s prayer is recited to begin the blót, the earth is specifically addressed three times – two more times than any other power.<br /><br />
The land wights of the areas inhabited and traveled through by the kindred are specifically honored at blót. In this ritual performance, the community reminds itself of its relationship to the earth and the environment through engagement with the anthropomorphic Jörð and <i>landvættir</i>. Well over two centuries ago, Immanuel Kant wrote that the repeated ritual act of communion
<blockquote>contains within itself something great, expanding the narrow, selfish, and unsociable cast of mind among men, especially in matters of religion, toward the idea of a cosmopolitan <i>moral community</i>; and it is a good means of enlivening a community to the moral disposition of brotherly love which it represents.<sup>42</sup></blockquote>
Similarly, by regularly standing together at blót and reaffirming commitment to a reciprocal relationship with Jörð and <i>landvættir</i>, Heathens move beyond solo rituals of devotion – which can tend towards a focus on the desires of the individual – and engage in a group rite promoting the growth of a Kantian moral community that engages with the planet and non-human species in a deeply emotional way. The act of participating in blót promotes a mindset of mindfulness specifically oriented towards respect for the environment. Such direct address obviates the need for Jenkins’ religious reform project; the reorientation of worldview he calls for has always already been hardwired into Heathen ritual.<br /><br />
Parallel processes are evident in Iceland, where the Ásatrúarfélagið’s annual calendar of five major blóts includes <i>Landvættablót</i>, a ritual specifically dedicated to the land wights. Goði Haukur Bragason states that the ceremony’s two central functions are “to keep the land strong and remind the people that we are guests here”.<sup>43</sup> The ritual faces both outward (toward a positive relationship with the land) and inward (toward the “moral disposition” of the religious community). Staðgengill Allsherjargoða (“Deputy High Priestess”) <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/01/interview-with-johanna-g-harardottir-of.html" target="_blank">Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir</a> underscores the reciprocity of the relationship celebrated at <i>Landvættablót</i>:
<blockquote>We made a contract when the settlers came to Iceland; they [the <i>landvættir</i>] would let us pass and live here, and we would take care of the land and treat it well. The story is told in <i>Landnámabók</i> [“Book of Settlement,” literally “land-taking”]. The <i>landvættir</i> have kept their part of the bargain. It’s a question if we are doing the same. This blót is for them, remembering our deal, thanking them. The blót is for reminding us to do our best, too.<sup>44</sup></blockquote>
Jóhanna’s statement on recognition of a reciprocal relationship with the land and a Kantian direction of community attention to moral issues of environmental engagement reflects the dual focus of <i>Landvættablót</i> mentioned by Haukur and the dual function of blót in general discussed above. The reification of reciprocity is grounded in the conception of land wights as distinct entities of agency and value with whom a transgenerational “contract” can be made and regularly reaffirmed. Engagement with the environment emerges from ritual, which itself emerges from worldview; the very identification of land wights as valued agents leads through ritual engagement as covenanted partners to a communal sense of responsibility to the land.<br /><br />
Some Ásatrú practitioners in the United States follow an annual ritual calendar that includes several rites based on the traditional agrarian year of northern Europe, including various versions of Charming of the Plow (“a turning point into the end of winter”), Harvest (“when the final preparations are made for the coming winter”), and Winternights (“at the end of autumn and after all the harvests have been brought in”).<sup>45</sup> There is little to suggest that a significant number of American Heathens are full-time farmers, yet the rites are celebrated even by urban practitioners in order to maintain a connection to the earth as a source of sustenance – “the generous earth” of the Valkyrie’s prayer – and to reaffirm respect for those who work with the earth to provide for the needs of others. By incorporating an awareness of regional farming cycles into their scheduling of celebrations, practitioners ritually endorse the emphasis on locally sourced food that has been embraced by environmental activists.<br />
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<sup>36</sup> Lafayllve, 80.<br />
<sup>37</sup> Although written by a Druid, Thomas’ <i>Sacred Gifts</i> is one of only five texts included in the “Suggested Reading List” of Seigfried et al., “<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/01/heathens-in-military-heathen-resource.html" target="_blank">Heathen Resource Guide for Chaplains</a>,” written at the request of the United States Department of Defense.<br />
<sup>38</sup> Thomas, <i>Sacred Gifts</i>, 74.<br />
<sup>39</sup> Northcott, <i>A Moral Climate</i>, 60-1.<br />
<sup>40</sup> Ibid., 77-8.<br />
<sup>41</sup> Ibid., 60.<br />
<sup>42</sup> Kant, <i>Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone</i>, 187-8. Emphasis is in the original.<br />
<sup>43</sup> Haukur Bragason, personal communication.<br />
<sup>44</sup> Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir, email communication.<br />
<sup>45</sup> Lafayllve, 193, 199, 203.<br />
<br />
<i>Sincere thanks to Prof. Sarah E. Fredericks of the University of Chicago Divinity School for her constructive comments on this article when I was a graduate student in her Climate Change Ethics course. A full bibliography will be posted in <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2022/07/and-all-generous-earth-asatru-ritual.html" target="_blank">Part Two</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-22155264634390026752022-03-02T11:01:00.001-06:002022-03-02T11:01:53.443-06:00Like Rain on the MountainThe last two years felt much longer than they really were.<br /><br />
In some ways, it was like being a child again. Back in those long-ago days of the 1970s, it seemed like a week was a mighty length, a month an eternity, and a summer unending. More recently, I blink, and a decade has passed me by.<br /><br />
Since Friday, March 13, 2020 – the first day after my school told us all to go home and stay home – time has slithered along, as the normal markers have all changed or disappeared.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-8iB-RTuDPVd_9G4USp5JpEsQibN-igiQ9Sd0TvAPYvM0LajzN9WL3lXbxlNBNEpFc1g6mEgv6TTuaWCXI7GQU1KdF-7HY4_qWPjvjWRyvGxsAXHlbpY2kx0fTsDgzarYmHIVdelMtleuwC4tIU9iwrGdOrGhRQw3O2_3V06RlbpkGyN5rClMcWJk" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1154" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh-8iB-RTuDPVd_9G4USp5JpEsQibN-igiQ9Sd0TvAPYvM0LajzN9WL3lXbxlNBNEpFc1g6mEgv6TTuaWCXI7GQU1KdF-7HY4_qWPjvjWRyvGxsAXHlbpY2kx0fTsDgzarYmHIVdelMtleuwC4tIU9iwrGdOrGhRQw3O2_3V06RlbpkGyN5rClMcWJk=w400-h254" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Night Rain at Ōyama</i> by Utagawa Toyokuni II (c. 1830)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
I know that I’ve been extremely lucky that much of my work was able to be done remotely. I’ve taught eleven college courses online, written multiple articles at home, done interviews and given lectures on Zoom, and remotely recorded my bits for various music projects.<br /><br />
But I’ve also seen a big percentage of my income evaporate as orchestras shut down and music venues closed. Even now, some performance spaces are bumping scheduled performances into the future.<br /><br />
For others, the toll has been much higher. Loved ones have been lost to this pernicious disease. Lives have been derailed by <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Flong-term-effects.html" target="_blank">long COVID</a>. Jobs have evaporated. Careers have crashed. Businesses have been permanently closed.<br /><br />
Through the worst of it, many of those with jobs that couldn’t go virtual have soldiered through. Not only doctors, nurses, and other first responders, but also the dedicated people who make our lives possible by maintaining roads, sewers, farms, and food distribution. We owe them much more than this selfish society will ever give them.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Lament</b></span></span><br /><br />
As I scan tables of dark statistics, read testimonies of suffering and loss, and drive by empty storefronts, the words of J.R.R. Tolkien echo in my mind.
<blockquote>Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?<br />
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?<br />
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?<br />
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?<br />
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;<br />
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.<br />
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,<br />
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?</blockquote>
In <i>The Two Towers</i>, Tolkien set these words into the mouth of Aragorn as “Lament for the Rohirrim,” but they are based on and inspired by the anonymous Old English poem known as <i><a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/02/the-wanderer-old-english-poem.html" target="_blank">The Wanderer</a></i> – a compiled work with several parallels to the aphorisms of Odin compiled in the Old Norse <i>Hávamál</i> (“Sayings of the High One”).<br /><br />
We have made such a great number of mistakes in our response to this gross pandemic. Even as time has seemed to slow down, it hasn’t been slow enough for our elected leaders and appointed officials to get a grip on the right thing to do, the efficient thing to do, the moral thing to do. Stuck between bad actors and those incapable of acting, it often feels like our nation is careening onward like a horse without a rider as we chase after it and attempt to grab its reins.<br /><br />
Have we ever had true leadership? The very idea seems like a dream or a memory on the edge of sense. The last year or five have often demonstrated that we exist in a strange netherworld between anarchy and police state, and they have repeatedly revealed loopholes that the so-called founding fathers left in the system they started. Many among us have long known these things, and now hard reality has begun to dawn on many more as naïve hopes pass away like rain.<br /><br />
In the United States, we’ve nearly reached 79 million <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_casesper100klast7days" target="_blank">cases of COVID-19</a>. We’re now closing in on one million deaths. There are incredibly awful r<a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/tracking-the-covid-19-economys-effects-on-food-housing-and" target="_blank">ates of hunger, housing problems, and unemployment</a>. For far too large a number of those in our communities, the days have indeed gone down behind the hills into shadow.<br /><br />
Yet there is reason for optimism and for mature hope.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Baldr will come</b></span></span><br /><br />
The <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker" target="_blank">numbers of fully vaccinated Americans</a> continue to climb. Children as young as five have been getting the vaccine. Elementary schools, high schools, and colleges have been providing shots to their students, faculty, and staff.<br /><br />
We’re slowly moving back to a place where we can have some version of a regular life again. We won’t get back to the way things were. There have been too many losses. There has been too much change. Going backwards isn’t a great direction for a society to go, anyway.<br /><br />
The world we’re heading into will be different. I believe it will be better.<br /><br />
The prophetess who narrates the Old Norse poem <i>Völuspá</i> (“Prophecy of the Seeress”) speaks of new life after the cataclysmic and epoch-ending events of Ragnarök (“doom of the powers”).
<blockquote>She sees, coming up for a second time,<br />
earth from the ocean, eternally green;<br />
the waterfalls plunge, the eagle soars above them,<br />
over the mountain hunting fish.<br /><br />
The Æsir find one another on the Renewing Field,<br />
and they converse about the mighty Earth Girdler,<br />
and the Mighty God’s ancient runes.<br /><br />
There will be found again in the grass<br />
the wonderful golden game pieces,<br />
those which they possessed in the bygone days.<br /><br />
Without sowing, the fields will grow,<br />
all evil will be healed, Baldr will come…</blockquote>
Our world will come up a second time, and life will again thrive. We will get through this, and we are closer to the end than we are to the beginning. The world we’re heading into will be different from the one we left behind, but new green will grow, and new lives will be led.<br /><br />
As the Æsir gods will do after Ragnarök, we will find one another again. Relationships that were suspended in what used to be commonly called the world-wide web will break free, and we will step back into the eternally renewing fields of conversation and community.<br /><br />
We will discuss the mighty monster that surrounded the earth, but it will be an airborne virus rather than a serpent of the seas. Some of us will indeed discuss the symbols and secrets of Odin, hopefully over a horn of ale or a glass of wine.<br /><br />
We will return to the games we love. I will take my magnetic backgammon set to the coffee shop to destroy all challengers, and I will jump up from my seat at Wrigley Field to cheer the Cubs on to another World Series triumph. At least, these are things of which I dream.<br /><br />
I also dream of new growth, new life, new joys. I dream of the effects of evil and hatred being healed. I dream of a time when Baldr, bright and beautiful god of peace, will loom larger in our lives than gods of chaos, conflict, and destruction.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Shadows</b></span></span><br /><br />
After her glorious vision of the future, the prophetess of <i>Völuspá</i> issues a final warning.
<blockquote>There comes the shadow-dark dragon flying,<br />
the gleaming serpent, up from the Dark Mountains,<br />
the Hateful Striker flies over the plain, in his pinions<br />
he carries corpses; now she will sink down.</blockquote>
Before she returns from her vision to everyday existence, the prophetess warns that there will still be darkness in the beautiful new world after Ragnarök.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmk6Kqcv_NOMC8BAaChdzrFMek5oujdFOLN8GmJMwaBUXHyX_rS8tT0mIHj3cm9pDJbhXE_DjqwbGpL_b0feycGUjesSnTfZDnNyvbXUSuAJBOYCAdTv09JWFLdGT2arxfB8pQFb8ro5lGUFXVtRnCId-Qf6HbtkLBIo6ieXnysv9pjeahA37cyMeY" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1339" data-original-width="2049" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhmk6Kqcv_NOMC8BAaChdzrFMek5oujdFOLN8GmJMwaBUXHyX_rS8tT0mIHj3cm9pDJbhXE_DjqwbGpL_b0feycGUjesSnTfZDnNyvbXUSuAJBOYCAdTv09JWFLdGT2arxfB8pQFb8ro5lGUFXVtRnCId-Qf6HbtkLBIo6ieXnysv9pjeahA37cyMeY=w400-h261" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Autumn Mood at Ishiyama</i> by Utagawa Hiroshige (c. 1835)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Despite the continuing roll-out of the vaccine to those five years old and older, the shadow of the pandemic still falls upon our youngest children. Those who are age four or below are as vulnerable now as they have been all along.<br /><br />
There are some signs that a form of the vaccine for the youngest children will be <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-postpones-panel-meeting-discuss-pfizer-covid-vaccine-kids-under-5-2022-02-11/" target="_blank">approved in April</a>, but there are also signs that the safety data collection and review <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/well/live/covid-vaccine-children.html" target="_blank">may take even longer to complete</a>.<br /><br />
Despite this news, elementary schools nationwide are determined to return to fully unmasked instruction this spring. Only a prophetess can tell us whether we’ll look back at this decision as a massive disaster or no big deal.<br /><br />
Even after a safe vaccine for young children has been approved, produced, and distributed, there will be yet other shadows lingering over us.<br /><br />
The problems that were here before the pandemic have not magically evaporated over the last fourteen months. We continue to be a nation of mass shootings, police violence, resurgent white nationalism, racist disenfranchisement, gross income inequality, and willful turning away from the very real climate crisis.<br /><br />
Whenever the post-pandemic world arrives, whatever form it takes, the fundamental problems that we have refused to truly address together will still be deeply woven into it.<br /><br />
Will we continue to fuss over the effects instead of focusing on the causes? Will we meekly point to the written rules while the hateful strikers around us trample on the very structures they claim to value most?<br /><br />
As we dream of the future, we must also work to make it better. The old ways of engaging with the serpent aren’t working, and they haven’t worked for many, many years.<br /><br />
It’s long past time for people of positive intent to join together and stand against the dragon of hate.<br /><br />
Whether we force out compromised incumbents by electing new progressive voices, leave the corporate political parties and support the alternatives, work to repeal the Second Amendment and design a sane replacement, join massive boycotts of corporate polluters and strikes against billionaires who pay starvation wages, demand federal prosecution of killer cops and violent nationalists, or refuse to accept the racist gerrymandering of our communities, we must do more than quietly complain.<br /><br />
Is it so scary to say these things? Must we forever be a nation of snipes who stick to our decayed political banners, link arms in shield-walls against each other and against any real progress, and merely nibble at the edges of the real issues we continue to face while shouting slogans at each other?<br /><br />
Yes, a better era is coming, but it will not come quietly. We must brave our fear of the dark mountains and work together to illuminate the shadows.<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2021/05/column-like-rain-on-the-mountain.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>. Verses from Völuspá have been adapted from Carolyne Larrington’s 2014 translation.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-42837516067012986622021-09-06T14:06:00.000-05:002021-09-06T14:06:31.185-05:00"Articles of Faith": American Heathenry and Cultural AppropriationAfter photographs and video from the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol showed one of the participants – the individual formerly known as “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/us/politics/qanon-shaman-capitol-guilty.html" target="_blank">QAnon Shaman</a>” – having tattoos of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/07/the-meaning-of-thors-hammer.html" target="_blank">Thor’s hammer</a>, the World Tree, and the so-called Valknut, American practitioners of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathenry</a> who publicly self-identify as “not racist” issued public statements or communicated their responses to members of the media.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOCZ1zG1IIiM8RI4GLIy2WIPbqbM28U2GdefxVrCHXllq7FqBlXqGoiyoqPPOhyphenhyphengp7hmYxKjyd_ZDyvYnCZEwmxgQ0VAAjjzWcET6FlRFoychUkpPCnqj-bTsmp5unP13fYk8-V4zj08/s2048/qanon+shaman+january+6+capitol+attack+valknut+yggdrasil+yggdrasill+world+tree+thor+thors+hammer+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+asatru+a%25CC%2581satru%25CC%2581+heathen+heathenry+united+states+american.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIOCZ1zG1IIiM8RI4GLIy2WIPbqbM28U2GdefxVrCHXllq7FqBlXqGoiyoqPPOhyphenhyphengp7hmYxKjyd_ZDyvYnCZEwmxgQ0VAAjjzWcET6FlRFoychUkpPCnqj-bTsmp5unP13fYk8-V4zj08/w640-h426/qanon+shaman+january+6+capitol+attack+valknut+yggdrasil+yggdrasill+world+tree+thor+thors+hammer+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+asatru+a%25CC%2581satru%25CC%2581+heathen+heathenry+united+states+american.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"QAnon Shaman" during the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021 (Manuel Balce Ceneta photo)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
A common theme in <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2021/01/heathens-respond-to-q-shaman-and-norse-imagery-in-capitol-riot.html" target="_blank">reporting on the event and the American Heathen reaction</a> was the assertion that “the Heathen community” is standing against “appropriation of their symbols by white supremacists and extremists.” Heathens themselves accused the Capitol attackers of taking “our symbols” and described them as “extremists on the lunatic fringe of the far right.”<br /><br />
In <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/01/08/heathens-condemn-storming-of-capitol-after-religious-symbols-appear-amid-mob/" target="_blank">interviews</a> and <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/qanon-shaman-maga-capitol-riot-rune-pagan-imagery-tattoo-1111344/" target="_blank">comments</a>, American Heathens stated that “white supremacy is the antithesis of [their] beliefs.” They denounced “fringe right wingers appropriating Heathen iconography” and placing their “articles of faith at the center of the violence.” <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/panmankey/2021/01/horns-of-dishonor-conspiracy-and-racism-in-pagan-spaces/" target="_blank">Reports</a> referred to “the reactions of REAL HEATHENS on the appropriation of their symbols,” and <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/decoding-hate-symbols-seen-at-capitol-insurrection#close" target="_blank">reporters</a> stated that the “appropriation infuriates contemporary pagans and Heathens.”<br /><br />
The attack on the Capitol was indeed a shameful assault on this nation’s democratic process and democratically elected officials. Racist iterations of Ásatrú and Heathenry are indeed abominations that have documented connections to hate speech and hate crimes. There is no question that Heathens who stand against racism and racist violence are right to speak out and clearly voice their strong opposition.<br /><br />
There are fundamental issues, however, with the repeated claims of appropriation.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Basic definitions</b></span></span><br /><br />
James O. Young, Professor of Philosophy at University of Victoria, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Cultural_Appropriation_and_the_Arts/oxyOsvs4Zw0C?gbpv=1" target="_blank">defines “cultural appropriation”</a> as an act “that occurs across the boundaries of cultures. Members of one culture (I will call them outsiders) take for their own, or for their own use, items produced by a member or members of another culture (call them insiders).” The in-group creates cultural goods both material and immaterial, and the out-group breaches the separation between the two groups to take these goods and use them – or even claim that they themselves are the true creators and owners.<br /><br />
Issues of power differential are key to cultural appropriation. Raymond Yang, a visual art teacher in Seattle who writes about approaches to teaching the concept to students, <a href="https://theartofeducation.edu/2018/04/20/a-project-to-help-teach-your-students-about-appropriation/" target="_blank">defines the term</a> as “the adoption of the elements of another culture (often a minority group) by members of the dominant culture. It is an unequal exchange in that the appropriators often use these stolen elements for monetary gain or prestige, without regard for the value, respect, or importance paid to these images and traditions in the original culture.” It is the inequality between different cultures that spurs and enables the appropriative act, as the larger, more powerful group takes and claims ownership of the cultural material belonging to the smaller, less powerful group.<br /><br />
Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, both professors of comparative literature, <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Renaissance_Clothing_and_the_Materials_o/78AWIDTV4ZUC?hl=en&gbpv=1" target="_blank">connect cultural appropriation to European colonialism</a>. They write of unequal exchanges in which “the colonizing powers” take “appropriated goods” from Africa, America, and Asia while valorizing the “supposed heroism” of the takers and erasing the labor of the producers. Again, the stress is on the crossing of cultural boundaries, as the powerful outsider not only removes the cultural materials, but claims them as their own and negates the creative act of the insider.<br /><br />
Reviewing the Heathen claims of cultural appropriation in light of these definitions and explanations, it quickly becomes clear that there are some basic contradictions.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Creation</b></span></span><br /><br />
The designation of an act as “cultural appropriation” presupposes that the in-group whose cultural goods are being appropriated created those goods. In the case at hand, this presupposition has no basis in historical fact.<br /><br />
As portrayed on the lower torso of the tattooed Capitol rioter, Thor’s hammer is in the general shape of the small pendants that saw a surge of popularity in Scandinavia during the era of Christian conversion a millennium and more ago. Simpler versions of the hammer appear on memorial stones and in depictions of Thor from the Viking Age. In Sweden, primeval predecessors of the god’s hammer in the form of an axe wielded by a godlike figure are found in carvings dating to approximately 1800 BCE.<br /><br />
The three interlocking triangles sometimes called <i>Valknut</i> today are clearly represented on a<a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1855-1115-1" target="_blank"> finger-ring dating to the 700s or 800s</a> and found in Cambridgeshire, England. They also appear on a handful of Scandinavian items of the Viking Age, most notably a stone carving from the 700s in Gotland, Sweden. The <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Myths_of_the_Pagan_North/7MaxusRNVGkC?hl=en&gbpv=1" target="_blank">association of the symbol with the Norse god Odin</a>, writes Christopher Abram of University of Notre Dame Medieval Institute, is simply down to the fact that “it tends to accompany pictures of warriors.”<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZiUyPp8M-TgImriYWqfWMRBoqubllmRv_Smqojdq3s2Nsv8__AE50kSrOdi5xaQOiQa6XTeNjNtl9SMpYIyQ8TIBrmYtJrOyrk1SW6aKTMaLMCL1prx1Uy9O1l_2DtgqSu4rhdy2eJs/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1016" data-original-width="1288" height="379" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZiUyPp8M-TgImriYWqfWMRBoqubllmRv_Smqojdq3s2Nsv8__AE50kSrOdi5xaQOiQa6XTeNjNtl9SMpYIyQ8TIBrmYtJrOyrk1SW6aKTMaLMCL1prx1Uy9O1l_2DtgqSu4rhdy2eJs/w640-h505/valknut+triangle+triangles+finger+ring+700s+800s+eighth+ninth+century+anglo+saxon+early+english+pagan+asatru+heathen+heathenry+.png" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finger-ring from 8th-9th century found in Cambridgeshire, England (<a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1855-1115-1" target="_blank">British Museum</a>)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Yggdrasill, the World Tree of Norse mythology, appears in the Old Icelandic mythological poems and Snorri Sturluson’s <i>Edda</i> of c. 1220. There have long been theories forwarded that attempt to connect various medieval descriptions and representations of trees and other objects to Yggdrasill as described in the literary sources, but images of the tree used by Heathens today – and in the tattoos of the Capitol attacker – seem to be based on either illustrations from the 1800s and 1900s or on original art from the wider modern Pagan sphere.<br /><br />
Aside from copyright issues relating to specific modern interpretations by individual living artists, there can be no claim of creation by American Heathens of the symbols of hammer, triangles, and tree that are historically related to Old Norse mythology and religion in one form or another. Even the most casual perusal of archaeological and literary attestations shows the ancient nature of these symbols, as it does of religious symbols from around the world.<br /><br />
The American Heathens now speaking out are not claiming creation, but the act of creation is fundamental to the very notion of cultural appropriation. Without it, the claim is built on quicksand.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Ownership</b></span></span><br /><br />
A group can claim legitimate ownership of a cultural good even when it was anonymously created long ago, if it was subsequently reproduced and used over many centuries. This continued reproduction and usage over the long term – especially when intrinsically connected to religio-cultural practices – can form the rightful basis for righteous claims of appropriation.<br /><br />
Unlike the claim of creation, the claim of ownership of the hammer, triangle, and tree symbols is specifically being claimed by the American Heathens and clearly attributed to them by reporters. Like creation, this has no basis in historical fact.<br /><br />
When I asked Uppsala University Professor of Scandinavian Languages Henrik Williams who owns these three symbols, he simply replied, “Nobody and everyone.”<br /><br />
Helga Hlaðgerður Lúthersdóttir, Lecturer (Teaching) in Icelandic at University College London, likewise said that the symbols are owned by “no one,” and explained some of the elements in play:
<blockquote>This is a cultural heritage, but even so something that is very much a thing of the past and in no way alive in Nordic cultures today. Where these symbols have gained new lives is in congregations and kindreds of neo-Pagans, and there, symbols such as the Thor’s hammer have absolutely new importance, a religious importance, similar to the Christian cross. But this is not a cultural heritage, and I have never been able to accept arguments to that direction.</blockquote>
She specifically addressed the enormity of the gulf between the Old Norse religion and American Heathenry.
<blockquote>With the massive gap we have between the source culture, the Norse, and the target culture, the contemporary white American, there is absolutely no way anyone can claim an unbroken line and, thereby, “ownership” of any of those cultural components. Whether we are looking at claims to Viking heritage or pagan heritage, we are looking at a recreation or reestablishment of a culture that not only firmly and squarely belongs in the past, but which came to an end. Certainly, certain cultural elements survived the conversion to Christianity and the shift to (near) feudal agricultural society under church and king, but they did not do so as remnants or beacons of glorious past, but rather as folkloristic reactions to work and environment.<br /><br />
An item like the Thor’s hammer found in Denmark is likely to have meaning to a Dane as something that refers to their ancient history. But the meaning of it as a religious item has been broken long since, and any such meaning attached has been recreated. This meaning can absolutely be true to the believer, but it is not a meaning the culture has carried on, but a culture that has been re-established through scholarly and cultural work.</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBs4l4R9KG0M87zo1naYp08Qx6lggLsa2D4mWLthRVKeXfPMnbMDmQ7Ynou090A4Xmv0pqCAw6_vUQoGchttLsFwBAoMWWPouzJSV68Cj6PF9ENkk4RFLZJR6xnuN55e12WJFVKAAT5V4/s2048/thor-thors-hammer-mjolnir-mjo%25CC%2588lnir-pendant-necklace-illustration-sweden-swedish-ostrergotland-o%25CC%2588stergo%25CC%2588tland-1994x2048.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1994" height="493" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBs4l4R9KG0M87zo1naYp08Qx6lggLsa2D4mWLthRVKeXfPMnbMDmQ7Ynou090A4Xmv0pqCAw6_vUQoGchttLsFwBAoMWWPouzJSV68Cj6PF9ENkk4RFLZJR6xnuN55e12WJFVKAAT5V4/w624-h640/thor-thors-hammer-mjolnir-mjo%25CC%2588lnir-pendant-necklace-illustration-sweden-swedish-ostrergotland-o%25CC%2588stergo%25CC%2588tland-1994x2048.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration of Thor's hammer pendant from Östergötland Sweden<br /><i>Kulturgeschichte Schwedens von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum elften Jahrhundert nach Christus</i><br />by Oscar Montelius (1906)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />
The leaders of Iceland’s Ásatrúarfélagið (“Ásatrú Fellowship”) have long taken a strong stand against racism, including in a <a href="https://asatru.is/statement" target="_blank">2014 statement</a> particularly rejecting “the use of Ásatrú as a justification for supremacy ideology.” The statement also recommitted to welcoming foreign visitors “with an interest in our cultural heritage and spiritual traditions.” But any American Heathens – even the self-declared “not racist” ones – claiming the symbols as their own and accusing others of appropriating their cultural property gets a strong reaction in Iceland.<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/01/interview-with-johanna-g-harardottir-of.html" target="_blank">Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir</a>, currently serving as the Icelandic organization’s <i>allsherjargoði</i> (roughly “high priest”) while <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/06/interview-with-hilmar-orn-hilmarsson-of.html" target="_blank">Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson</a> is on leave, resolutely rejected any American Heathen claim to ownership of the symbols. “In my eyes, these ‘non-racist groups’ are in their own minds some kind of mentors of a culture they don’t know and is not their own – something they just don’t understand and never will,” she told me. “For me, this is like looking at children in the playground fighting over whose sand it is they are throwing into each other’s eyes.”<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Separate and unequal</b></span></span><br /><br />
In addition to issues of creation and ownership, the concept of cultural appropriation foregrounds (a) unequal exchange between separate cultural groups in which (b) the larger and more powerful group takes cultural goods from the smaller and less powerful group and (c) claims the goods as their own while erasing the claim of the first owners. Statements on appropriation from American Heathens in media accounts after January 6th fail on all three counts.<br /><br />
Overtly racist American Heathens do not belong to a culture that is separate from that of those making the claims of appropriation against them. American Heathenry today encompasses a range from white supremacist to antifascist activist, with practitioners found at multiple stops between the two extremes on right and left. Since the beginning of American Ásatrú in the 1970s – and especially after its splintering in the 1980s – there has been a porous border between the overtly racist and not-overtly-racist factions, with practitioners, clergy, authors, and leaders moving from one side to the other at various points.<br /><br />
This lateral movement within the subcultural milieu of American Heathenry has been long documented by academics such as <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Radical_Religion_in_America/qIilYBbxSbcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=jeffrey+kaplan+religion+extremist&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">Jeffrey Kaplan in religious studies</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gods_of_the_Blood/FIwwWSSL5JIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=gods+of+the+blood+mattias&printsec=frontcover" target="_blank">Mattias Gardell in comparative religion</a>. It can be seen as an ongoing process in expulsions of elders, exchanges of authors, and swaps of publishing rights. Scholars tracing the history of the various warring factions over time find those who lead one side writing articles and rituals for the other. With such intertwined roots and growth, the element of unequal exchange between separate cultural groups is simply absent.<br /><br />
The point regarding the larger and more powerful group taking cultural goods from the smaller and less powerful group is also vexed in this case. If those accused of appropriating the symbols belonging to “not racist” American Heathens are “extremists on the lunatic fringe of the far right” and “fringe right wingers appropriating Heathen iconography,” as is claimed in the media reports cited above, the racists are then a smaller, less powerful group taking the symbols of a larger, more powerful American Heathen group that opposes them. This claim that the appropriators are members of a small “fringe” puts the concept of cultural appropriation as a power imbalance on its head and knocks out this element of the term’s definitions.<br /><br />
The claim doesn’t work even when reversed. If the racists are a smaller group, then the claim of appropriation doesn’t work; if the racists are a larger group, then the claims that they are merely a fringe is false. It has been quite difficult to find out where the largest numbers of American Heathens actually do fall on the left-right spectrum, with numbers of active participants in various organizations difficult to verify, with an unknown number of solitary practitioners, with the high amount of turnover in this relatively small new religious movement, and with the general problem of taking claims of “I’m not racist” from white Americans at face value. In any case, it doesn’t really work to simultaneously claim to be both the righteous majority and the victimized minority.<br /><br />
The element of the dominant group claiming given cultural goods as their own while erasing claims of the first owners not only bumps up against unfounded assertions of ownership but also inverts the history of American Heathenry. The overtly racist, <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/neo-volkisch" target="_blank">neo-völkisch</a> version of Heathenry was here in the United States growing its numbers for nearly two decades before any significant “not racist” form appeared. Indeed, the branch of American Heathenry that declared itself to not be solely centered on völkisch ideology split off from the racist version during the mid-1980s schism mentioned above.<br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmFT3lOsArQqc6YfF_MPyWz5XXMhGC6CIP6beSbHbnUCXItN6aHWjXaz-_w9FsrLDsAWbhEzBXwIkQKGMbdEHdAc8ksu7iILSMrmvAdMwBi5MEY-Kr9qxRhlhNuXlqo46WBuVNpFwFiTY/s485/glass+runes+rune+pendants+third+reich+nazi+germany.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="449" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmFT3lOsArQqc6YfF_MPyWz5XXMhGC6CIP6beSbHbnUCXItN6aHWjXaz-_w9FsrLDsAWbhEzBXwIkQKGMbdEHdAc8ksu7iILSMrmvAdMwBi5MEY-Kr9qxRhlhNuXlqo46WBuVNpFwFiTY/w592-h640/glass+runes+rune+pendants+third+reich+nazi+germany.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glass rune pendants issued in Germany by the Nazi Deutsche Jugendherbergswerk (1940)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
After the split, not only were individuals and writings able to move freely between the various branches that grew from a common racist trunk, but “not racist” practitioners did and do use concepts either created by the first, völkisch American Heathens or imported by them from 19th century Romantic nationalists, German völkisch mytics who influenced the Nazis, and actual Third Reich occultists. There remains to be written a detailed academic study of today’s American Heathen theology and practice that carefully parses the origins of each individual strand.<br /><br />
Perhaps this part of the argument is off-topic, and the American Heathens making claims of cultural appropriation are only and specifically talking about non-Heathen racists. The problem with this idea is that we have seen denunciations and accusations using the same language whenever a racist or neo-völkisch Heathen individual or organization makes an offensive statement or is in the news for hate speech or hate crimes. In those cases, the racist Heathens are often said to be “not actually Heathens” – as echoed in the statement about “real Heathens” cited at the beginning of this article.<br /><br />
In addition to veering into a “no true Scotsman” fallacy, this idea of “not actually Heathens” also touches on the <a href="http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20101/BasicFallacies.htm#equiv" target="_blank">fallacy of equivocation</a>. When the social media accounts of someone like the tattooed Capitol rioter use images and texts from non-Norse mythologies and religions in addition to ones associated with Heathenry, American Heathens says this means he is “not Heathen.” Yet it is not uncommon for American Heathens to include veneration of deities and mythological figures outside of the “Norse pantheon” in their practice, nor is it uncommon to incorporate elements of worship taken from other traditions. Generally, these individuals are not publicly branded “not Heathen,” but are instead described with terms such as “dual trad[ition]” or “honoring the gods of their ancestors.”<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Making the claim</b></span></span><br /><br />
When American Heathens make claims of appropriation, are they themselves engaging in appropriation of a term used to elucidate ways in which white Americans have appropriated cultural goods from BIPOC (black, indigenous, and people of color) communities here and around the world? I asked a variety of scholars what they thought of this complicated situation.<br /><br />
Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel, Professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and Chair of Latin American Studies at University of Miami, addressed this question in the context of the term’s roots in resistance. “When I learned the notion of appropriation,” she told me, “it was a strategy of resistance – I learned about it in feminist scholarship – and it was good. This new understanding of the term seems to be a co-optation of the term. [I’m] thinking about it as a notion that had subversive potential and was co-opted by straight, white, Christian men and like-thinking people to whitewash cultural referents.”<br /><br />
Utkarsh Patel, who teaches comparative mythology at University of Mumbai in India, suggested that the claim of ownership embedded within the accusation of appropriation is itself an act of appropriation:
<p></p><blockquote>I would think that when there is a cultural vacuum, there is a greater need for appropriation. Historically, there are no original white Americans, and the natives were driven away or marginalized. In such a scenario, they have a vacuum, and there is a greater need to appropriate, and it is this vulnerability that drives them to do what they do. Often, the communities who move in carry their cultural symbols/rituals with them, which makes the earlier ones further vulnerable. And then, they appropriate what suits them or works for them, often without understanding the nuances of the symbols.</blockquote>
Cristián Roa, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at University of Illinois Chicago’s Latin American and Latino studies program, was sympathetic to the motivation but not to the method. “I basically understand the desire for those groups to distance themselves from that,” he said, referencing the appearance of Norse symbols at the Capitol raid, “but I believe the accusation of appropriation is misplaced. ‘That is not who we are or what we stand for’ sounds more accurate. White supremacists, fascists, etc. have their own kind of spirituality, however dark or misplaced it may be.”<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1K0OWsIYXODaOVGXf520iiKl0lJxWTrKc6pb6l7Lj8I0YyQ-kdte_Bws0QxvQfnjPL_9Ad4dyeMkQOCWSVbA5vIeU55-lKxfcQ-cNtaR7Kof7zbXoEbOew7e9PMqlYsJSEdwoSj_iJE/s1900/qanon+shaman+january+6+capitol+attack+valknut+yggdrasil+yggdrasill+world+tree+thor+thors+hammer+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+asatru+a%25CC%2581satru%25CC%2581+heathen+heathenry+united+states+american+riot.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1267" data-original-width="1900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia1K0OWsIYXODaOVGXf520iiKl0lJxWTrKc6pb6l7Lj8I0YyQ-kdte_Bws0QxvQfnjPL_9Ad4dyeMkQOCWSVbA5vIeU55-lKxfcQ-cNtaR7Kof7zbXoEbOew7e9PMqlYsJSEdwoSj_iJE/w640-h426/qanon+shaman+january+6+capitol+attack+valknut+yggdrasil+yggdrasill+world+tree+thor+thors+hammer+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+asatru+a%25CC%2581satru%25CC%2581+heathen+heathenry+united+states+american+riot.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"QAnon Shaman" with U.S. flag at the January 6 Capitol attack (Manuel Balce Ceneta photo)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Helga Hlaðgerður Lúthersdóttir of University College London, already quoted above, was also sympathetic, but highlighted the racialized nature of these appropriation claims.
<br /><blockquote>It is extremely difficult to see how any group made up of white Americans can possibly claim Nordic symbols as their own through heritage, and any claims for appropriation based on “ownership” through heritage are very difficult (I want to say impossible) to honor due to overt racial undertones. At the same time, the Pagan side of this argument, i.e. the religious side, has a point – to have a symbol that is sacred to you used (often quite casually) in racist/white-supremacist context must be absolutely infuriating and extremely hurtful – IF you have no such tendencies yourself. And that’s where the water gets murky and where we need a much more open discussion.</blockquote>
Joseph Pierce, Associate Professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University, was not sympathetic to the appropriation claims at all. After reading the “disavowal” published in <i>The Wild Hunt</i>, he said:
<blockquote>But the idea that there is a “not racist” version of contemporary Paganism, is, to my mind, lacking in historical depth. The question of belonging is at the heart of the revival of Norse mythology, it seems to me, but this revival is always already inflected with an understanding of place that is inseparable from settler colonialism in the U.S. So, the rioting, and the wildness that it invokes, that is an expression of some sort of deep and almost mystical connection to land, is in my mind, just another version of “playing Indian” that is a foundational gesture in the U.S. Or, as I put it, a desire for indigeneity without Indigenous people.<br /><br />
The inherent violence of whiteness in the settler colonial regime cannot be overlooked in our discussions of Norse revivalism because it takes place in the context of waning white supremacy (thus MAGA) and a reinvigorated search for white belonging in a land that cannot ever be truly “theirs.” At least from the perspective of a Native American person, this is how I read it.</blockquote>
Given all of the above, I hope that American Heathens and those who write about them will reconsider the casual use of the appropriation accusation when the next such story hits the news – and there will be many such stories.<br /><br />
The appropriation claim is an easy thing to say and a tempting thing to write about, because it has a feel of truthiness about it to some white Americans who practice some form of Paganism. It adds what seems to be a deeper resonance to the right and proper denunciations of heinous acts and actors. But it’s simply false on its face.<br /><br />
Worse, it forwards a notion – intentionally or not – that white Americans who choose to practice some form of this new religious movement and resent the symbols they find meaningful being used in tattoos and on flags of admittedly awful insurrectionists are somehow equivalent to Native Americans and other indigenous peoples who speak out against centuries of cultural appropriation, horrific violence, and genocide perpetrated against them by white Americans.<br /><br />
And that is racist.<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2021/01/column-articles-of-faith-american-heathenry-and-cultural-appropriation.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-39852546515865232712021-08-19T12:25:00.001-05:002021-08-19T12:25:37.449-05:00It's Up to YouThe United States of America is not at a turning point. We took the wrong step years ago. We’re now having breakfast in the ruins of the American promise and watching the chickens coming home to roost.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwxi4py6KImy1IfcLSab6QPEzv47c-yQg3hKZqJ4tuCbI7VblVcurRY7w66J8DiLG2CwwrrHMg5rEQXsqnpxGQnIZD578DaTSRyqCC9Dux7safNTEP91r-n48rV6B_M50YgQKcB6-838/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1240" data-original-width="2003" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFwxi4py6KImy1IfcLSab6QPEzv47c-yQg3hKZqJ4tuCbI7VblVcurRY7w66J8DiLG2CwwrrHMg5rEQXsqnpxGQnIZD578DaTSRyqCC9Dux7safNTEP91r-n48rV6B_M50YgQKcB6-838/w640-h396/among+the+ruins+of+famagusta.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration from <i>In an Enchanted Island</i> (1889) by W. H. Mallock<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
For those of us who still believe that this ship can be forced back on course toward a better future, there is work to be done. For those of positive intent who still believe in hope and change, there are tasks to take up.<br /><br />
The path to progress is both simple and difficult, but it takes clear vision and determined will to see it and to follow it. Here are three simple signposts to mark the way.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>1. Choose diversity over inclusion</b></span></span><br /><br />
Within <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathenry</a> and throughout the wider modern Pagan world, the buzzword “inclusion” has led to much complacency and little fundamental change.<br /><br />
From the outset, focusing on inclusion has simply allowed the same old arguments to continue with new terminology and allowed the same cancers to spread and fester in new mutations.<br /><br />
What does it mean to be inclusive? It means to include people. Should we include people with different opinions? Of course. Should we include people with different politics? Yes. Should we include racists? Gosh, it’s so hard to say if someone is really racist or not.<br /><br />
There’s the trouble. Almost immediately, we’re mired in the same old muck of arguing over the definition of racism. Is belonging to an all-white religious organization racist? Is electing all-white leadership racist? Is programming an event with only white speakers racist? Is ancestor veneration racist?<br /><br />
When people start answering “no” to these sorts of questions, they’re playing on a field with goal posts controlled by racists – goal posts that are moved a bit farther back every time a question is answered in the negative.<br /><br />
The result is a community with racists in it. The result is a community where accusations of racism and denunciations of racists are considered far worse than promoting racism and being racist. If the definition of racism is always debated, the racists retain their seat at the table indefinitely.<br /><br />
The clearest way forward is to dump inclusion and embrace diversity.<br /><br />
Before a single positive step forward can be taken, though, we must be willing to question the assertion that all-white organizations are already diverse enough if they have white people with a plurality of abilities, identities, orientations, and relationship structures.<br /><br />
Yes, bless, this is fantastic! So many good people have been excluded from so many religious communities because of outright and/or sublimated bigotry over these issues for so many long years. It is only to be celebrated that we can all welcome each other in loving communion. This is positive and beautiful, full stop.<br /><br />
However, the cancer at the heart of these United States is, has been, and seemingly will always be racism. Diverting the issue of racial diversity to other avenues of identity again allows the racists to move the goal posts.<br /><br />
It’s far past time to make a stand and take action.<br /><br />
If our communities and our organizations are all white, we must ask what we have done in the past and are doing now that only attracts white people. If our community events are all white, we must ask what choices we have made in the past and are making now that exclude everyone but white people. We must answer honestly, and we must make immediate and radical changes of intent, direction, and action.<br /><br />
Diversity is not a box to be checked. It is not a meaningless catchphrase of political correctness. It is a value in and of itself. It is part of what really makes America truly great. It strengthens us all and opens doors to new ways of seeing, new vectors of relating, and new paths toward a better future.<br /><br />
When we build diverse communities, there will be no place for racists. When the discussion finally moves past debating racists over the definition of racism; when we accept that racism is the blistered disease of white America; when our communities, organizations, leaderships, events, festivals, rituals, and rites actually reflect the beautiful rainbow coalition that is America’s fundamental strength; then we will finally have built a space in which racists will truly be unwelcome.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>2. Stop making violent threats</b></span></span><br /><br />
White America has an obsession with making violent threats. Not just the far right, not just the conservatives, but white Americans generally. In a time when there’s so much discussion of finding common ground, here is one thing with wide acceptance.<br /><br />
Don’t like how the governor is instituting lockdowns? Make a threat to kidnap her.<br /><br />
Don’t like how the legislature is handling the coronavirus crisis? Make a threat to storm the state capitol.<br /><br />
Don’t like how a business requires masks? Make a threat to torch the place.<br /><br />
Don’t like how the election turned out? Make a threat to assassinate the winner.<br /><br />
Don’t like how a journalist covered an issue? Make a threat to stab them.<br /><br />
Don’t like how a columnist wrote about your deity? Make a threat to smash their head in.<br /><br />
Don’t like how someone wrote a comment on social media? Make a threat to cut off their hands.<br /><br />
We have to resist the urge to deflect from this, to insist that it’s not just white people, to shout that it’s really the other side, to claim that it’s serious when they do it but just a figure of speech when we do it. That way of thinking is intellectually dishonest and morally bankrupt.<br /><br />
American Pagans have unfollowed, unfriended, and unliked me over the slightest suggestion that maybe, perhaps, somewhere within the infinite realm of possibilities lies the smallest chance that there is even the most miniscule of connections between this nation’s obsession with (1) ultraviolent first-person shooter video games, super gory action and horror films, insanely macho misrepresentations of historical groups (Vikings, Germanic tribes, Greek warriors, American vigilantes, various militaries), and feverishly emotional attachment to private ownership of firearms as a determinant of white male identity and (2) the prevalence of violent threats by white Americans.<br /><br />
I’ve been told that violent threats are “just how my generation expresses itself online.” I’ve been told that extremely specific threats of extremely specific acts of violence directed extremely specifically at a specifically identified person are “just being metaphorical.”<br /><br />
This is patent nonsense.<br /><br />
Across political lines, a desperate neediness has taken hold of white Americans. An intense and unfillable quivering hole of want resolutely insists on devouring the public conversation and consuming anyone who dares suggest that we take a turn listening to non-white voices for a change. This nation is driving off a cliff at full speed, and the shaking hand of white America is clutching the steering wheel in a rictus grip.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEc2htQXLv74OAuLpEtpYdsqErkWkXog-zSBFmO3N9UfADM-MOy08HDmiyGoAb266vu_tjXZetjDjmUROhNVSfkwBIllxEXUv_bpPbgH74N1efz3iWaYi9s3Qxonvnmzg3LAnvvxcumo0/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="476" data-original-width="849" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEc2htQXLv74OAuLpEtpYdsqErkWkXog-zSBFmO3N9UfADM-MOy08HDmiyGoAb266vu_tjXZetjDjmUROhNVSfkwBIllxEXUv_bpPbgH74N1efz3iWaYi9s3Qxonvnmzg3LAnvvxcumo0/w640-h358/california+highways.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photograph from <i>California Highways</i> (1920) by Ben Blow<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
The knee-jerk reaction to demands for real progress – from white conservatives, white moderates, and white liberals – is to counsel patience, to advise a gentle march to slow improvement at the land-speed rate of a retreating glacial wall at the beginning of the ending of an ice age. Anything faster than that and the Right will demand the National Guard be sent in, while the Left will indignantly hashtag about it but stop well short of taking any real action to support any timely change.<br /><br />
To paraphrase Dr. King, I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the nation’s great stumbling block in its stride toward freedom is not the extremist or the terrorist, but the white citizen, who is more devoted to their own supposed unique specialness than to equality; who prefers the making of violent threats which promote a violent culture to the true ceding of privileged power, which is the real basis of societal progress.<br /><br />
If some of our neighbors, family, friends, and colleagues simply can’t refrain from making threats – whatever their twisted internal psychology may be – it’s up to the rest of us to shut them out of the public dialogue. If we care about this nation, that’s all there is to it.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">3. Care about other people</span></b></span><br /><br />
Caring about other human beings sometimes seems to be an impossible ask in today’s United States.<br /><br />
The long line of American rhetoric about “freedom” may not always have been about personal selfishness and individual entitlement, but it sure as shooting is now.<br /><br />
What is freedom? Owning as many guns as income allows. What is freedom? Coughing in someone’s face during a pandemic. What is freedom? My way or the goddamned highway.<br /><br />
When did America go wrong in this regard? When was it ever right in this regard?<br /><br />
Our Founding Fathers waxed poetic about the beauty of individual liberty while they legally enshrined human slavery. As the great American historian Randy Marsh famously said, “The strength of this country is the ability to do one thing and say another.” And so our very concept of freedom was built on a quicksand foundation of lies and deceptions.<br /><br />
Yes, the people of this nation have risen up for good causes now and again. The Confederacy lost. The Axis lost. The Klan lost. Trump lost. But the hatred continues, on both the grand political and the small personal scale. How do we break with the hateful weight of this country’s history?<br /><br />
Care.<br /><br />
Care about other people.<br /><br />
That’s it. That’s the answer.<br /><br />
Simply acknowledging that other people are actually other people – simply allowing that they have the same claim to all the rights we demand and deserve the same privileges we expect – would go a long way toward fixing the mess in which we find ourselves mired.<br /><br />
Should the vote of a black woman on the South Side of Chicago be equal to the vote of a white man in rural Nebraska? Yes. Should a Latina owner of a small business receive the same amount of federal aid as a white owner of a corporation? Yes. Should a Native American teenager have the same access to higher education as the son of a real estate mogul? Yes.<br /><br />
We all know the answer to questions like these, though, is a quiet but firm “no” whispered in the ear of a congressman with corporate sponsorship.<br /><br />
We don’t really believe in freedom here in this land. We don’t really believe in equality. We believe in the self.<br /><br />
What does Odin – all-father, high one, bringer of victory – have to say about the self? He says the self shall also die.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvJnCGNA1H7smVb44ZVRmcGVymRVenyAeKb3lEpshAROVZxXEYddfAbWrAIJhaD9ezFM2Xk-RPCIQp8SmkSxyiOvWrz4lWuWS5A_VLZTUIk7QOPckrhPWx6tRsK3lUrDSLXYLoXCAMb8/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1405" data-original-width="2048" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvJnCGNA1H7smVb44ZVRmcGVymRVenyAeKb3lEpshAROVZxXEYddfAbWrAIJhaD9ezFM2Xk-RPCIQp8SmkSxyiOvWrz4lWuWS5A_VLZTUIk7QOPckrhPWx6tRsK3lUrDSLXYLoXCAMb8/w640-h440/odin+quetzalcoatl+norse+myth+myths+mythology+god+gods+blog+article+john+adams+building+library+of+congress+washington+dc+bronze+sculpted+sculpture+bas+relief+figure+lee+lawrie.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Odin and Quetzalcoatl on doors to John Adams Building of Library of Congress by Lee Lawrie (1939)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Odin says a lot of interesting things. He says the wealthy man will lie dead before his door while the fire he paid for burns brightly within. He says generosity and friendship are mighty values and great responsibilities. He says the joy of the person is another person. He says that friendship is valuable and must be maintained.<br /><br />
Do we care anymore what an old god had to say nearly a thousand years ago? Do we care what words those old poets spoke and those younger scribes transcribed on a faraway island? Do those old verses still matter? Does anything matter?<br /><br />
Yes, gods damn it. It all matters. But even the one-eyed raven god can’t shake this country out of its selfish obsession.<br /><br />
Only we can, and we only can if we can get out of our own demented heads and accept that our neighbors are just as good, just as valuable, just as human as we are.<br /><br />
We need to get over ourselves and care about each other. We need to stop staring at ourselves in the mirror and start looking out the window.<br /><br />
Until we’re able to see each other as equally valuable, we’ll continue marching in lock step towards a darker future.<br /><br />
I choose diversity. I choose to reject violence. I choose to care about other people.<br /><br />
The rest is up to you.<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2020/12/opinion-its-up-to-you.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-18342751484619508312021-07-23T15:41:00.001-05:002021-07-23T15:41:29.657-05:00Sigurd, the Dragon, and Our World TodayMythology matters. The tales we tell reflect our values, even when we tell ourselves that they do not. The old stories bring with them the old worldviews, yet we are not duty-bound to accept everything that is woven into the texts to which we still return after all these long centuries.<br /><br />
In the formulation of French philosopher Paul Ricœur, myths are spaces where symbols interact in narrative form. Symbols are notoriously slippery, and what they may have meant to the peoples of the long ago time are not necessarily the same meanings they carry to all of us in the now.<br /><br />
One of the stories that now seems particularly pregnant with contemporary meaning is that of the Sigurd and the dragon.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf6TcNE3q0sqAt5ztjD2kv7x7kwOK9raqOW0lyRQHpn1_12_PMXIRypyqvQpO1RnpMfCaYnl_u2x0Yfl5QkkxACRP31cM3mMzbIMtUg5rHFaPCSNHhzq7dYn8O9ngvSijFfuKBqOHy2rg/s1024/Sigurd+Fafnir+dragon+slayer+sword+norse+myth+mythology+poetic+edda+illustration+Klugh+Maria+Tales+from+the+Far+North+Chicago+IL+A+Flanagan+Company+1909.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="698" height="704" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf6TcNE3q0sqAt5ztjD2kv7x7kwOK9raqOW0lyRQHpn1_12_PMXIRypyqvQpO1RnpMfCaYnl_u2x0Yfl5QkkxACRP31cM3mMzbIMtUg5rHFaPCSNHhzq7dYn8O9ngvSijFfuKBqOHy2rg/w436-h640/Sigurd+Fafnir+dragon+slayer+sword+norse+myth+mythology+poetic+edda+illustration+Klugh+Maria+Tales+from+the+Far+North+Chicago+IL+A+Flanagan+Company+1909.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sigurd and the dragon in <i>Tales from the Far North</i> (1909) by Maria C. Klugh<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
The Old Norse poem <i>Reginsmál</i> (“Sayings of Regin [the mighty one]”) tells the tale of the famously cursed treasure hoard that plays a major role in the tragic events of the Icelandic <i>Völsunga saga</i> (“Saga of the Völsungs”) and the German <i>Nibelungenlied</i> (“Song of the Nibelungs”), both written down in the thirteenth century.<br /><br />
The poem begins in the mythological world of gods, giants, and dwarfs before pivoting halfway through to the legendary world of Sigurd, the Odin-descended dragon slayer distantly connected to the historical sixth-century Frankish king Sigibert.
Regin the smith, who is either a dwarf or simply “a dwarf in height,” tells his mythic backstory to the young Sigurd, sent to him to be raised as a foster-son. Here are the key elements, briefly retold.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The smith’s tale</b></span></span><br /><br />
The gods Odin and Hœnir and the giant Loki arrive together at a waterfall. Loki throws a stone to kill an otter sitting on the riverbank with his eyes closed, eating a salmon. The trio makes a bag from the otter’s skin and proudly show it and the fish to Regin’s father Hreidmar, with whom they spend the night.<br /><br />
The animal killed by Loki was actually Otr (“otter”), another son of Hreidmar, who had the habit of fishing at the waterfall while changed into the form of an otter. The father and his other sons grab Odin, Hœnir, and Loki, then threaten the trio with death unless they fill the otter-skin bag with gold and cover it with the same.<br /><br />
The two gods send Loki to find the needful gold. He borrows the net of the sea-goddess (or sea-giantess) Rán (“robbery”), returns to the waterfall, and catches the dwarf Andvari (“careful”) who had been cursed by a norn “in the early days” to swim in the water as a pike.<br /><br />
Echoing the deadly threat of Hreidmar, Loki demands that the dwarf-turned-fish hand over all his gold, including the ring Andvaranaut (“Andvari’s gift”). As he retreats into a rock, Andvari curses the gold and declares that it will cause death and strife.<br /><br />
When Loki returns to Hreidmar with the treasure, the gold is used to fill the otter-skin bag and cover it up. One whisker pokes out, and Odin gives up the dwarf’s ring to cover it at their host’s demand.<br /><br />
Loki passes along the curse, which immediately claims Hreidmar as its first victim. Regin and Fáfnir (“embracer”) demand “a share of the compensation from Hreidmar for their brother.” When their father refuses, Fáfnir kills him in his sleep, takes all of the treasure, and guards it in the form of a dragon wearing an <i>ægishjálmr</i> (“helmet of terror”) that causes abject fear in all living beings.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Sacred heart</b></span></span><br /><br />
The sequel to the smith’s story appears in the poem <i>Fáfnismál</i> (“Sayings of Fáfnir”), in which Sigurd is led by Regin to find and kill the dragon. The youth fatally stabs Fáfnir in the heart, but the two manage to have a lengthy conversation before the monster expires.<br /><br />
Fáfnir passes the curse on to Sigurd, who seems completely unconcerned. The dying dragon brags of his days of terroristic rule:
<blockquote>The helm of terror I wore among the sons of men,<br />
while I lay upon the neck-rings [i.e. atop the treasure hoard];<br />
more powerful than all I thought myself to be,<br />
I didn’t encounter many equals.</blockquote>
With a final imprecation that Sigurd will die at the hand of his brother Regin, the dragon expires. The smith cuts out his heart, drinks the dragon’s blood, and instructs Sigurd to roast the heart for him while he takes a nap.<br /><br />
Roasting the heart on a spit, Sigurd pokes it to test how done it is, burns his finger, and sticks his finger in his mouth. By tasting the little bit of Fáfnir’s <i>hjartablóð</i> (“heart blood”), he is immediately able to understand the speech of birds. They warn him that Regin plans to kill him, tell him to take the treasure for himself, and send him off to waken the Valkyrie Sigrdrífa (“victory driver”).<br /><br />
The poem <i>Sigrdrífumál</i> (“Sayings of Sigrdrífa”) tells of Odin sticking the Valkyrie with a <i>svefnþorni</i> (“sleep thorn”), declaring that she will never win again in battle, and announcing that she will be married. In other words, he casts her out of the world of the gods and withdraws her Valkyrie status.<br /><br />
Even yet, she retains much wisdom regarding the magical use of runes and Odinnic aphorisms for right living. She shares all of this lore in great detail with Sigurd (and us) after he asks her to teach him wisdom and “news from all the worlds.”<br /><br />
At this point, the thirteenth-century manuscript source of the poems has a notorious lacuna where several leaves were cut out of the codex. When the story resumes in the next poem fragment, Sigurd has become fatally embroiled in the very human world of kinship entanglements and is killed “on the south side of the Rhine” by one of his brothers-in-law.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>A stone’s throw away</b></span></span><br /><br />
How can we read this hoary old tale so that it has meaningful resonance in today’s world? One way of beginning is to follow Ricœur and consider the symbols that interact in the narrative.<br /><br />
When Odin wanders the road with Loki as one of his companions, it is the giant who has sworn blood-brotherhood with him whose seemingly inconsequential action – throwing a rock at a sleeping otter – does indeed have deep consequences. From the beginning of the story, the danger comes from within the family.<br /><br />
When the trio arrives at Hreidmar’s, they come into conflict with another trio and another family: the father and his two sons, all suffering the loss of the third brother as the wanton pruning of a healthy branch on their tree of kinship.<br /><br />
After the wounded trio threaten death unless they are given gold, Loki passes on the same threat to the dwarf, minding his own business under the waterfall just as the otter had done beside it before being killed by Loki. In this tightly constructed narrative, everything is echoed and reflected back on itself.<br /><br />
Indeed, just as the dwarf had been cursed by the unnamed norn, he himself curses Loki for taking his amassed hoard of gold. As Andvari attempted to hold back the last ring from Loki, Odin attempts to hold it back from Hreidmar. As Loki was cursed for taking the gold from Andvari, Hreidmar is cursed for taking it from Loki.<br /><br />
This particular section of the myth ends where it began, with the killing of a member of Hreidmar’s family. Loki kills Otr and gets a pelt; Fáfnir kills his father and gets a hoard.<br /><br />
In the twelve verses that (with prose interpolations) make up this section, Loki passes on the curse in the exact middle. Actually, Loki is truly in the middle of this set of concentric circles that spread out like ripples in the pool under the waterfall, as the dwarf-fish turns its tail and utters its curse on the gold.<br /><br />
Loki instigates the action with his apparently casual throw of the stone, yet the results pass through him without affecting him. He acts as conduit and conductor for threats of death and for curses of dark magic, but he seems free enough to walk away at any point with no ill effects.<br /><br />
Yes, Hreidmar’s family is destroyed, but the ultimate target of Loki’s throw won’t become apparent until the next bit of the story.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Ascent and descent</b></span></span><br /><br />
After receiving his death blow from Sigurd, the dragon passes on the curse to the young hero. The long arm of Loki begins to reveal itself, as the curse moves from Hreidmar’s family to that of Odin.<br /><br />
Sigurd is of the Völsung line and is the great-great-great-grandson of Odin the Allfather. He carries the reforged sword originally awarded to his father Sigmund by the god, but the gift of Odin is canceled out by the gift Loki gives – the dwarf’s fatal curse.<br /><br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLecDtahuWX5zNH5ybBqxH-8ZDTk9HpRbMXZfodZyDbhFA85bQgRQz1OBQvHOb9VAHHW9EIchdZjHD_XWfMQj86ETASB21D_P4Li_QnuyX9H6iSPWL-X9aJr8nNJdpASQAjgXXa3BnN1M/s686/death+of+sigurd+siegfried+hagen+Der+Nibelungen+noth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="478" height="689" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLecDtahuWX5zNH5ybBqxH-8ZDTk9HpRbMXZfodZyDbhFA85bQgRQz1OBQvHOb9VAHHW9EIchdZjHD_XWfMQj86ETASB21D_P4Li_QnuyX9H6iSPWL-X9aJr8nNJdpASQAjgXXa3BnN1M/w446-h640/death+of+sigurd+siegfried+hagen+Der+Nibelungen+noth.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Death of Sigurd/Siegfried in <i>Der Nibelungen Noth</i> (1843) edited by Gustav Pfizer</td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Before the curse can take effect, Sigurd tastes the blood of his vanquished enemy and gains something of the dragon’s deeper powers of understanding. Listening to the advice of the birds he can suddenly understand, he sets off to climb the mountain and learn the lore of the mystic woman strong enough to disobey the orders of Odin, face his divine wrath, and live to tell her tale.<br /><br />
Sigrdrífa inverts Loki’s role: where the giant served as a conduit to pass on the dwarf’s curse to Hreidmar – and ultimately to Sigurd and beyond – the Valkyrie serves as a conductor of Odin’s divine wisdom, passing it along to the young hero. Even further distinguished from Loki, she effectively filters the knowledge presented to Sigurd by absorbing the dark denunciations of her that Odin had made without passing them along as Loki did by giving Hreidmar both treasure and curse.<br /><br />
When Sigurd makes his Zarathustrian descent from the mountain, he leaves the world of mystic beings and enters the world of humanity. Despite the wisdom gained from the dragon, the birds, and the Valkyrie, he succumbs to the smothering web of jealousy, lust, hatred, and greed. But among these lowest of human drives, the hand of mythology reaches into the more mundane world of heroic legend, and the curse tips the emotional scales towards darkness and death.<br /><br />
Loki’s simple toss of a stone has resulted in the death of the greatest of Odin’s human descendant, and – according to the Old Norse material – the greatest hero of the northern world. Although some today still tie Loki to the tradition of the culture hero, here he spectacularly fails to meet the criteria of bringing direct help to humanity and instead seems to revel in passing on the curse to generations “not yet born.”<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>No decoder ring needed</b></span></span><br /><br />
Parsing the events of the myth in this fashion is a necessary first step, but it only provides one possible interpretation of the symbolic interactions within the world of mythology.<br /><br />
The simple act of choosing and enunciating an interpretation is dangerous enough in itself, as it runs the risk of offending those who hold other and differing interpretations close to their hearts. Taking the next step of forming new and modern meanings leaves one open to denunciations of blasphemy, an ancient concept that – like so much from the past that perhaps should have stayed there – has gained new life in this strange era we are all traveling through together.<br /><br />
There is a great deal in the old tales that resonates today, so there is nothing for it but to jump in with both feet.<br /><br />
The myth is saturated with betrayal from inside the family, from inside the community that has been bound together by oath and deed. We merely have to look around ourselves today to see that those who swear to protect and to serve are instead gunning down the unarmed and beating down the peaceful. Those who take oaths to preserve, protect, and defend our highest laws are instead openly breaking them. Those who claim to be defending their communities are instead eagerly seeking to harm their neighbors. We in the United States of America are a family, and we are hurting each other.<br /><br />
As the prophecies of the Old Norse <i>Völuspá</i> (“Prophecy of the Seeress”) and the Sanskrit <i>Mahābhārata</i> (“Great Epic of the Bhārata Dynasty”) both warn, the important relationships that sustain our societies break down in the darkest times of our history. A cursed hoard is the vehicle for the drive into disaster in the mythic world; in our modern world, we only needed an infinitesimal virus to enter our bodily systems for our social systems to begin crumbling around us.<br /><br />
Whether through manipulation of the curse or through his own flawed character, Fáfnir first commits patricide and then turns into a dragon to guard his ill-gotten wealth and snort poison around himself. The meaning of the dragon transformation becomes clearer when stood next to Regin being “a dwarf in height” when he first meets Sigurd. The overwhelming greed of Fáfnir – what J.R.R. Tolkien called “the dragon-sickness” – has made him into an actual monster, as the intense jealousy of his brother Regin has shrunk him down as it eats at him from the inside.<br /><br />
When the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution disappears in a puff of burning smoke before <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/investigations/emoluments-clause">one man’s determined self-dealing</a>, when consuming envy of the undeniably great African-American contributions to our culture leads fully grown adults to cheer on <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/prosecutors-seek-show-evidence-past-violence-kyle-rittenhouse-trial-n1273005" target="_blank">a teenage boy who crossed state lines to kill his fellow citizens</a>, we don’t need a secret decoder ring to explain the symbolism of the mythic figures.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Who will tell the tale?</b></span></span><br /><br />
We have before us the story of a child who is sent off to be fostered in the smithy and develops into the greatest hero of the cultures that told these tales. That in itself should resonate with any who still believe in the fading memory of the so-called American dream. It surely resonates with those among us who face a daily struggle to make a better life for themselves and their families, whether the world is against them or no.<br /><br />
Armed with nothing but his own youthful courage, Sigurd defeats an amoral monster who is willing to kill his own father for money, to do anything to anyone to protect his stolen wealth, and who – in his final moments – wants nothing more than to hold onto to his terroristic power.<br /><br />
To each their own beliefs, but I believe in the young people in the streets right now who are taking incredible personal risks as they stand up to tyranny and terror, as they oppose lawless officers of the law, as they declare that black lives do indeed matter, as they insist that hate has no place here – and I believe that these brave youth are the heroes of our own story.<br /><br />
By tasting the heart-blood of the dragon he has vanquished, Sigurd is able to understand the speech of birds who fly far and know much. Aside from mystical interpretations, it is obvious that overcoming seemingly overwhelming difficulties brings us new insight into the world. We have to earn the wisdom we have, and it is acquired with difficulty as we struggle through our lived lives. The birds can be read as representing the promptings of the spirit to take action in the world, with “spirit” read in whatever way is most meaningful to the reader. There is definitely a need for meaningful action in this world of ours today.<br /><br />
The story of ascending the mountain to awaken the Valkyrie and seek her wisdom can understandably lead to mystical interpretations, but it can also be read as a reflection on the struggle to become enlightened in the “Age of Enlightenment” sense. Whether or not wisdom is hidden behind a ring of fire, it is never easily gained. In our time when even common sense is uncommon, when people take the random rantings of self-absorbed politicos over the considered advice of medical professionals, true wisdom is rarer than gold and worth more than any gem.<br /><br />
Sigurd descends the mountain, however, and is brought down by the failings of the human world. Both the curse and the inherent vices of human society are inexorable, and this too is a hard lesson for us to learn. Whatever our political persuasions, whatever our backgrounds and allegiances, all of us who call ourselves Americans are living under the curse of racism that reaches out from the year 1619 and strangles our nation still today. This curse is as powerful and as transgenerational as any called down by a righteously furious dwarf-fish.<br /><br />
Yet there is hope in myth, as there is in life. Before the curse can take effect and take his breath, Sigurd was able to slay a mighty monster and sit at the feet of divinity. What will we each of us do in the years that we are fated to live? Will we rise up from apprentice to hero, face down the monsters of our time, and welcome the wisdom of wise women? Or will we shrivel up in jealousy and grow monstrous in greed? Our stories are yet unwritten, and we ourselves will tell our own tales.<br /><br />
<i>Quotations from the Old Norse poems are from</i> The Poetic Edda<i>, translated by Carolyne Larrington (Oxford World’s Classics, 2014). An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2020/09/opinion-sigurd-the-dragon-and-our-world-today.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-65353241670928767082021-07-02T11:22:00.000-05:002021-07-02T11:22:02.148-05:00Following the WandererWe’re living through an era in these United States in which wisdom seems a scarce commodity.<br /><br />
<i>Vísdómr</i>, the Old Norse analogue to our modern English <i>wisdom</i>, has not only the meaning “knowledge, intelligence,” but also “foreboding” and “to know for certain.” These secondary meanings weigh heavy on the mind during these tumultuous times and years of plague.<br /><br />
Here in Chicago, the skies are filled with shadows. Dark clouds loom overhead. The natural world seems to express the national mood, as America’s nineteenth century landscape painters surely believed it did.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFeEoaK0J0gbjQ-Rww1eAeY9DLRR6SWYSCmZArco2bYzUe38wPghSOGelbHSgbEfw1pZIMkW-4_sE7eD66f-nkBcdXVOVMIg72tHID6DxFTKhjcognUiSJ0_KkD5zNqxz3peKCxgxh4Q/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="994" data-original-width="1500" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLFeEoaK0J0gbjQ-Rww1eAeY9DLRR6SWYSCmZArco2bYzUe38wPghSOGelbHSgbEfw1pZIMkW-4_sE7eD66f-nkBcdXVOVMIg72tHID6DxFTKhjcognUiSJ0_KkD5zNqxz3peKCxgxh4Q/w640-h424/A-Coming-Storm-Sanford-Gifford-American-1823-1880.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A Coming Storm</i> (1863) by Sanford Gifford (1823-1880)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
For practitioners of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú</a>, the words of the god Odin on wisdom carry particular weight. Right now, they are even more weighty than usual.<br /><span style="color: #990000;"><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>“A wise-man’s heart is seldom glad”</b></span></span><br /><br />
One of the strongest impulses for my own turning to the Old Way as a modern religious practice was reading the twenty-third verse of the medieval Icelandic <i>Hávamál</i> (“Sayings of the High One”). In a section of the poem focused on the foolish man, Odin says (in Andy Orchard’s translation):
<blockquote>23. An unwise man lies awake all night,<br />
brooding on everything;<br />
he’s quite worn out, when morning comes,<br />
and it’s all just as bad as before.</blockquote>
I did not experience a mystical revelation that a manifest deity was sharing esoteric teachings or a sacred epiphany that an ancient text contained the ultimate answers of our supposedly glorious Viking forefathers. Instead, I realized that living human poets over a thousand years ago had asked the same questions as I have, myself.<br /><br />
I felt a connection to that long-ago time – not a cultural, ethnic, or racial kinship, but a communion of mind and spirit.<br /><br />
Since I first learned what death was as a child, I’ve spent countless nights staring at the ceiling in the dark, trying not to think about the eternal cessation of consciousness at life’s end. The <i>Hávamál</i> poet is clearly correct; spending the night broodingly awake changes nothing about the ultimate fate of the self, but it does leave you exhausted the next day.<br /><br />
This isn’t the only mention of the subject in the Odin poem. Three later verses come at the topic from a slightly different angle (Orchard’s translation):
<blockquote>54. Middling-wise should each man be,<br />
never over-wise;<br />
for he lives the fairest life of folks<br />
who knows not over-much.<br /><br />
55. Middling-wise should each man be<br />
never over-wise;<br />
for a wise-man’s heart is seldom glad,<br />
if he is truly wise.<br /><br />
56. Middling-wise should each man be,<br />
never over-wise;<br />
he never knows his fate before,<br />
whose spirit is freest from sorrow.</blockquote>
Again, the words of the ancient poets resonated within me. The scribe who compiled the written version of the poem in the thirteenth-century Icelandic manuscript known as the Codex Regius (“King’s Book”) may simply be preserving three oral variations of the same basic verse, but there may also be a logical and poetic buildup to the third verse.<br /><br />
The first verse says life is better for the one who doesn’t know too much. But why? The second verse says that the one who knows much isn’t often happy. But why? The third verse says that knowing one’s fate burdens the soul with sadness.<br /><br />
This progression supports reading the “awake all night” verse as being about more than simply fretting over day-to-day cares. Taken together, the verses suggest that knowing one’s fate – that realizing that there really is a final ending to life – is the subject of the midnight meditation.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>“Oneself dies just the same”</b></span></span><br /><br />
But didn’t Vikings go to Valhalla? Didn’t half of those killed each day go to Freyja’s hall?<br /><br />
Yes, there are definitely verses in the old poetry that support the idea of an afterlife of the soul in the divine realms. There is also evidence for northern European pagan belief in an afterlife within the burial mound and for continued life after death in the company of ancestors. There is also evidence for a belief in reincarnation.<br /><br />
The arguably most famous verse in <i>Hávamál</i> offers another possibility. Like the “middling-wise” verses, it comes with a variant. In Andy Orchard’s translation, it reads:
<blockquote>76. Cattle die, kinsmen die,<br />
oneself dies just the same.<br />
But words of glory never die<br />
for the one who gets a good name.<br /><br />
77. Cattle die, kinsmen die,<br />
oneself dies just the same.<br />
I know one thing that never dies:<br />
the judgment on each one dead.</blockquote>
In these verses, the Old Norse <i>sjálfr</i> is translated as “oneself” by both Orchard and Ursula Dronke. Carolyne Larrington, however, translates it as “the self,” and this choice is the one that sets my mind to wandering.<br /><br />
With this translation of that single word, the verse can be read as saying that what we own is impermanent (<i>fé</i> means both “cattle” and “property”), the ones we love are impermanent, and even the self – the soul – is impermanent. There is support for this reading in <i>Völuspá</i> (“Prophecy of the Seeress”), another foundational Old Norse poem.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1HVW8Q2yvUDHr601Dll-sMIRfizvbuKrd4K2ElAVFttmZquzGz5Yj50CGi0_gh7wl_dCEHyJJw89qhOGUSOEINtI3zq_DGWN3O1mcLTvLprW68AcsrKQaf40Cy0FK97ogGB_j594S1lk/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="645" data-original-width="950" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1HVW8Q2yvUDHr601Dll-sMIRfizvbuKrd4K2ElAVFttmZquzGz5Yj50CGi0_gh7wl_dCEHyJJw89qhOGUSOEINtI3zq_DGWN3O1mcLTvLprW68AcsrKQaf40Cy0FK97ogGB_j594S1lk/w640-h434/odin+sleipnir+fenrir+wolf+wolves+gungnir+spear+geri+freki+ragnarok+ragnaro%25CC%2588k+louis+moe+illustration+illustrations+norse+myth+myths+mythology+god+godes+doom+power+powers.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration of Fenrir and Odin at Ragnarök (1928) by Louis Moe (1857-1945)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />At Ragnarök (“doom of the powers”), the final battle of Norse mythology, “warriors tread Hel-roads.” In his <i>Edda</i>, Snorri Sturluson explains this as referring to Loki leading <i>allir Heljarsinnar</i> (“all of Hel’s companions”) to fight against the side of the gods. Not only do the glorious undead warriors of Odin’s Valhalla join the battle, but the inglorious inhabitants of Hel’s Hel also return from the dead to enter the fray.<br><br>
Maybe the poetic image of treading the road to Hel simply means “to die,” and the warriors are going into Hel after being killed in the final fighting. But Snorri’s explanation makes theological sense: the dead return from both the underworld and world above to fight and die on either side of the battle.<br /><br />
And there’s the rub: at the end of this time cycle, even the dead shall die. The afterlife is not eternal. Within Norse mythology, it’s clear that nothing living lives forever, in this world or any other. The great gods fall at Ragnarök, and all humans are wiped out except for the single couple hiding from the final fire by seeking refuge in the wood.<br /><br />
Through those two, life goes on – but not individual lives. Combining this idea with the “cattle die” verses, there is optimism to be found. There is a small light that shines in the immeasurable darkness. We will indeed die – body, mind, and soul – but we will live on both in the memories of future generations and in the very fact that future generations will indeed come to be.<br /><br />
Yet even in this light, there is shadow. Yes, it is comforting to think that life will go on, even if our lives won’t. But these days – amidst plague, violence, and catastrophic climate change – it is often difficult to sustain faith that the long line of future generations will actually continue far into the future. The more we read, the more we learn, the darker it all seems.<br /><br />
On this, too, the poet of Odin again has something to say.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Seeker of doom wisdom</span></b></span><br /><br />
Immediately before the “middling-wise” verses comes this observation on human nature (Larrintgon’s translation):
</p><blockquote>53. Of small sands, of small seas,<br />
small are the minds of men;<br />
thus all men aren’t equally wise:<br />
half wise, half not, everywhere.</blockquote>
This verse seems a bit on the nose in these days of an equally divided U.S. Senate and a split citizenry with diametrically opposed views of fact and reality.<br /><br />
In terms of the above discussion, this verse’s assertion that only half of us are wise means that only half of us are wise enough to seriously ponder the ultimate death of the soul. But wait! It’s the “unwise man” who loses sleep over pondering this dark subject. Is this whole poem just a jumble of incoherent and internally contradictory verses?<br /><br />
I don’t believe that it is, and I would organize the ideas like this:
<blockquote>1. Only half of us spend our time pondering the ultimate fate of individual consciousness.<br /><br />
2. The one who is truly wise does ponder it, and she realizes that individual life is finite.<br /><br />
3. This realization is not a happy one and leads to late-night existential crises and sleepy workdays.<br /><br />
4. By becoming too wise, the wise one becomes the unwise one.<br /><br />
5. The one who wants to be happy is better served by being middling-wise – half wise, half not.</blockquote>
Who wants to be happy? It’s a key question of our times.<br /><br />
We now know that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-told-bob-woodward-he-knew-february-covid-19-was-n1239658" target="_blank">President Donald Trump knew</a> just how easily transmissible and just how deadly this coronavirus is all the way back in February 2020 but decided to actively hide the fact from the American people because he didn’t want “to create a panic.”<br /><br />
To be fair, I spent long nights early in the pandemic doom-scrolling through Twitter and reading threads and articles about the horrors of the virus and the mass death around us and ahead of us. Would I have slept better not knowing any of this and simply watching <i>WKRP in Cincinnati</i> reruns before bed? Yes, absolutely. Would I prefer not to know about the virus? Absolutely not.<br /><br />
Odin himself, as we know him through the Icelandic texts, is determined to be wisely unhappy. He takes on starvation and torture to gain mystic insight, he enters dangerous situations to gather intelligence, and he painfully gives of himself to acquire wisdom. His particular obsession is to learn as much as possible about exactly that subject that keeps half of us awake at night: the ultimate fate of all things, including himself.<br /><br />
He is a seeker of doom wisdom, and that is not a happy path.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Wanderer’s path</span></b></span><br /><br />
As a child, <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2017/02/column-i-am-the-son-of-a-refugee.html" target="_blank">my father</a> survived, escaped from, and helped his relatives escape from anti-German extermination camps run by Marshall Tito’s Yugoslavian Partisans. In the camps, he saw death up close and the worst human evil eye-to-eye.<br /><br />
He later entered the monastery in an attempt to answer the question of how good Christian people could do such horrific deeds. Even later, he left the monastery and turned to the study of philosophy. He spent the rest of his life teaching about facing death, celebrating life, and fighting for human rights for all.<br /><br />
Was he happy? Yes, there was much joy in his life. But there was also deep sadness and powerful anger. I expect the children of Holocaust survivors understand exactly what I mean.<br /><br />
As Odin goes down the path that leads to dark answers regarding existence and non-existence, confirming and reconfirming the realness of death, he does not give up and turn to self-pity, suicide, or the hard comforts of self-induced obliviousness. He rededicates himself to the fight for the survival of all, even knowing that the quest is destined to ultimately fail for all – including himself.<br /><br />
My father followed a similar path. Having faced the pit of human cruelty and death as a child, he did not give up hope or seek to blot out his understanding. He craved more learning, more understanding, more wisdom. Like Odin, he shared that wisdom. He argued unstoppably for human dignity and civil rights, for openness to new ideas and welcoming of diversity. Like Odin, he never gave up.<br /><br />
We each decide on a daily basis whether or not to follow Odin’s path of troubling wisdom. As Neil Peart once wrote, “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” It’s only by actively setting our feet on the Wanderer’s path, by consciously embracing the disorientation of deep knowledge that we follow that thorny way. It’s all too easy to slide down the other path of blissfully unaware happiness, and that’s where we slip whenever we choose to turn away from Odin’s way.<br /><br />
The path of study, of learning, of doggedly pursuing information even when it makes you more wise but less happy – it’s not for everyone. Maybe it’s only for half of us. Or maybe that estimate in the old poem is wildly off.<br /><br />
Whatever the percentage really is, I do think that Odin and his poet are fundamentally correct in their understanding of the dangers of knowing too much. What we do with their advice is for each of us to decide.<br /><br />
We would all do well to remember that sleep is a good thing! It probably is best just to be middling-wise, but I’ve chosen to follow the Wanderer.<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2020/10/column-following-the-wanderer.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-40428492965072155582021-05-12T12:08:00.000-05:002021-05-12T12:08:20.165-05:00The Left Eye of Odin (or Right)Every so often, one of the college students in my Norse mythology classes raises a hand and asks, “Which eye did Odin give up to drink from Mimir’s well?”<br /><br />
Related questions include which side of Hel’s face is the corpse side, what the size measurements of Freyja’s cats are, and what the design specifications of Loki’s mistletoe missile are.<br><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVQoGkbqhj5PM_nS0k5VRIVghiK_WfCTW3oKvbcPDAYnePMNMFMQo5rH-d-aQ232uuXB_d7o0tWPTXEiOu633FY_rM5JYkoN-tQ-zpuqX5eP63vwcB6LWNs2vGh2SH11uKO0QMgP0fu1A/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="1581" data-original-width="2009" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVQoGkbqhj5PM_nS0k5VRIVghiK_WfCTW3oKvbcPDAYnePMNMFMQo5rH-d-aQ232uuXB_d7o0tWPTXEiOu633FY_rM5JYkoN-tQ-zpuqX5eP63vwcB6LWNs2vGh2SH11uKO0QMgP0fu1A/w640-h504/odin-sleipnir-gungnir-hugin-munin-ravens-helmet-cloak-norse-mythology-myth-myths-god-gods-illustration-art-2048x1611.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Odin, Sleipnir, Huginn, and Muninn by Gerhard Munthe (1849-1929)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />My first, gut reaction to this type of question was to reply that mythology functions differently from fantasy.<br /><br />
Myth is vague where modern fantasy novels give page after page of specific details. Myth is elusive and allusive where tabletop role-playing games qualify and quantify every characteristic feature in overwhelming detail. Myth compresses action into stark imagery where video games expand conflict into endless hyperreal performances.<br /><br />
Students raised on Harry Potter, <i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>, and <i>World of Warcraft</i> may find mythology disappointingly diffuse. So many myths lack direct speech or dialogue in the modern sense. There is often no sense of the characters having inner lives, and motivations can range from totally banal to utterly incomprehensible.<br /><br />
In Norse mythology, physical descriptions of mythological figures are few. Some of the details we are sure we have read are actually akin to mass hallucinations, as in the widespread idea that Thor has a red beard in the <i>Eddas</i>. <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/09/blond-thor-stan-lee-wasnt-wrong.html" target="_blank">He does not</a>.<br /><br />
The image of the red-bearded Viking Thor comes from the Icelandic sagas, historical and fantastic prose fiction composed two centuries and more after the nation’s public conversion to Christianity and written in imitation of new forms of literature filtering up from the Christian continent.<br /><br />
Red Thor appears in strikingly Christian contexts, as a threatening figure of the pagan past who seeks to flip new converts back to the Old Way. Any similarities to the red devil are purely non-coincidental.<br /><br />
Yet the meme of the red-bearded Eddic Thor has long been embedded into the writing of even the scholarly giants of Scandinavian studies, in their standard dictionaries and public publications.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Christian accretions and pagan cores</b></span></span><br /><br />
There seems to be something in the modern mind that craves specificity, that imposes concrete imagery onto textual traditions where that type of descriptive writing does not exist.<br /><br />
Or perhaps it’s not so much an issue of the modern mind but of the post-pagan, post-polytheistic perspective. Snorri Sturluson, thirteenth-century author or compiler of what we now call the <i>Prose Edda</i>, determinedly included or invented small descriptive details that are not present in the poetic sources he prosified.<br /><br />
The closer we get to the present, the more people seem to crave these sorts of details. From the retellings by William Morris in the nineteenth century to the transformations by J.R.R. Tolkien in the twentieth to the repackagings by Neil Gaiman in the twenty-first, the Snorrian impulse to muddle about with the texts and fill in the gaps seems irresistible.<br /><br />
So much of modern reading of ancient myth views it as literature, as something that sits on the same shelf as the fairy tale and the fantasy novel. There is indeed a hostility in some parts of academia and some branches of postmodern <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathenry</a> to viewing the surviving Norse myths as at all religious, condemning them instead as products of medieval Christian authors that present hopelessly muddled and willfully distorted versions of what may never have been pagan tales in the first place.<br /><br />
In a nutshell, the counterargument (of which I am a determined proponent) acknowledges the general scope of this criticism but counteroffers the mountain range of corroborating evidence and explicative theory from archaeology, linguistics, history of religions, and neighboring fields to argue that what Christian accretions have been sprinkled over the myths do not nullify the pagan mythological core at the heart of the surviving texts.<br /><br />
It is the very turning away from reading the myths as literature to reading them in the wider context of specifically religious texts of related world religions that leads to a better answer for those students asking about eyes and faces, cats and mistletoe.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>India and Iceland</b></span></span><br /><br />
“Wodan,” wrote Adam of Bremen in the eleventh century, “id est furor.” Wodan is fury, as his Icelandic counterpart Odin is furious (etymologically speaking). There are many historical accounts and semi-historical saga descriptions of bloody sacrifices to the bloodthirsty god who is often connected to the causes, manifestations, and consequences of killing and war.<br /><br />
Yet the image of Odin as the wandering wizard endures, shaped into the Wanderer by Richard Wagner and morphed into Gandalf by J.R.R. Tolkien. How do we reconcile the furious figure who hovers over the battlefield with the wise walker along ancient paths?<br /><br />
Thousands of miles span the distance from India to Iceland, and thousands of years passed between the composition of the <i>Mahābhārata</i> and the transcription of the Norse myths, yet the parallels between the Vedic and Eddic mythologies have been known, studied, and disputed since Sir William Jones laid out the connections between Germanic, Indic, and other surprisingly related language groups in 1787 as the Indo-European theory was first formulated.<br /><br />
Jones was part of the British colonial administration in India, and his theories were filtered through the Romantic nationalism of the nineteenth century to provide theoretical, rhetorical, and propagandistic fodder for the Nazi horrors of the twentieth.<br><br>
The old ideas of blond Aryan hordes riding out of the Caucasus to conquer the world have rightfully and righteously been dragged into the trash icon of academia’s shared desktop, but the fact of linguistic, cultural, ethical, mythical, and religious connections between members of the wider Indo-European family remain.<br /><br />
My copies of the ancient Sanskrit texts from India are covered by smudgy spiderwebs of my penciled notes, such as “cf. <i>Hávamál</i>,” “cf. <i>Völuspá</i>,” “blót,” and “reciprocal gifting.” On nearly every page of every text I’ve studied, there are amazing parallels to the Norse material, from outlines of myths shared by Indra and Thor to very specific healing spells that appear in ancient India as they do in medieval Germany.<br /><br />
These finds can be so exciting to someone as excitable as me on these subjects that, at one point while I was in divinity school, Prof. Wendy Doniger had to limit me to a set number of “ooh, this is just like that bit in Norse myth” exclamations in each class session.<br /><br />
It was one of these moments in class that enabled me to provide my own students with a deeper answer to their questions about Odin’s eyes and to find for myself a more meaningful understanding of the wide disparity between the war-inciter and the wanderer.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Cold feet</b></span></span><br /><br />
By the sixth book of the Sanskrit <i>Mahābhārata</i>, the warring parties whose rivalry has consumed the preceding five books are finally ready to face off in their ultimate battle. In the last moments before the combat begins, the great and supremely macho hero Arjuna gets cold feet.<br /><br />
Looking across the battlefield, he sees that both armies are composed of his own “fathers, grandfathers, teachers, uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, companions, fathers-in-law, and friends.” Consumed with compassion and despair, he tells his chariot driver that he will not fight against his own family members, and he throws down his bow and arrows.<br /><br />
His chariot driver tells him that he is behaving in an unworthy manner and warns him against becoming <i>klība</i>, a Sanskrit term with a range of meanings focused on “unmanliness” that is similar to the Old Norse <i>ergi</i>. “Shake off this miserable weakness of heart and get up,” the driver admonishes the languishing hero.<br /><br />
When Arjuna continues to complain of his concerns, his chariot driver begins an enormously lengthy lecture not only on the responsibilities of the warrior, but on a host of increasingly esoteric religious teachings.
<br /><br />
In fact, the chariot driver is the god Krishna, and the teachings he recites to Arjuna are the sacred text known as the <i>Bhagavad Gītā</i> (“Song of the Lord”).<br /><br />
After Krishna finishes one section of his lessons for Arjuna by declaring that there is “no end to [his] divine manifestations,” the hero responds:
<blockquote>You are just as you have described yourself, great lord; but I wish to see your majestic form, supreme person. Master, if you think I will be able to see it, then show me your imperishable self, lord of yoga.</blockquote>
Krishna agrees to reveal his forms to Arjuna “in their hundreds and thousands: diverse, divine, and of many colors and shapes.” He tells the reluctant warrior to observe “the whole universe with its mobile and immobile aspects concentrated within [his] body.”<br /><br />
Because this vision is too great for human eyes, he grants divine sight to Arjuna.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">It’s all too much</span></b></span><br /><br />
The narrator describes Krishna’s “supreme, majestic form” as revealed at that moment.
<blockquote>With many mouths and eyes and numerous wonderful aspects, with multiple divine ornaments and raised divine weapons, it bore celestial garlands and robes and was anointed with divine perfumes, composed of all marvels, godly, infinite, and facing all directions. If the light of a thousand suns rising at once were to appear in the sky, it might resemble the splendor of that great soul. [Arjuna] saw the entire universe with its various divisions concentrated there in the body of the god of gods.</blockquote>Arjuna bows his head and speaks mighty words in praise of Krishna’s great cosmic beauty, but he soon begins to testify to the great panic and enormous fear he feels when he sees Krishna’s “mouths like the fire of time” into which all the “heroes of the world of men” rush into “like the many rivers running into the sea,” to be crushed and devoured. As revealed to Arjuna, the “blazing mouths” of Krishna devour “all peoples, all worlds.” <br /><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8OFxPxdhDlCKteLi6zpXSB_mfugnU3b-1Hs12SF6tdmjUZGYQliqIubC1QKR2pFVDMbZaF8rkjk_uAx5dS18OpHn2pWmCqEY3hOtieOZ8xaRUqKGoHy0INqGGgfj4sddLs4ZhsgJPxHY/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1407" height="698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8OFxPxdhDlCKteLi6zpXSB_mfugnU3b-1Hs12SF6tdmjUZGYQliqIubC1QKR2pFVDMbZaF8rkjk_uAx5dS18OpHn2pWmCqEY3hOtieOZ8xaRUqKGoHy0INqGGgfj4sddLs4ZhsgJPxHY/w440-h640/krishna-arjuna-bhagavad-gita-reveals-ultimate-cosmic-universal-form.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Krishna reveals his cosmic form to Arjuna in an Indian illustration from the early 1900s<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br>
Krishna responds to Arjuna’s fear by declaring, “I am Time, the world destroyer, ripened, and here I am busy crushing the worlds.”<br /><br />
The hero again bows, praises Krishna, finally realizing that the chariot driver he has palled around with is actually the mightiest of all deities.<br /><br />
Arjuna apologizes for past familiarities and begs for an end to the overwhelming cosmic vision, asking Krishna to revert to a limited form that can be comprehended with normal human senses – to conform to the common image of the god as a young man with diadem, mace, and discus. “Change into your four-armed form, thousand-armed god of universal form!”<br /><br />
Krishna obliges, and the lesson continues.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fury itself</span></b></span><br /><br />
I’m not saying that Krishna is a parallel of Odin, and I’m not placing an equal sign between the Krishnavite “Song of the Lord” and the Odinic “Sayings of the High One.”<br><br>
At least as regards the larger question at hand in this particular article, I’m not as interested in the specificities of the god or the teachings being promulgated as I am in this notion of a cosmic divinity too immense to be comprehended – a “god of universal form” that must shrink down into a conventional form so that we humans of merely mortal perspicacity can conceive of it without our brains melting.<br /><br />
When Krishna takes his guise of a human charioteer, he is a comforting figure who guides and helps. When he is in his regular religious depiction as a four-armed anthropomorphic deity with traditional weapons, he remains comprehensible. It is only when he reveals his ultimate universal form that he becomes overwhelming and terrifying.<br /><br />
In this light, there is an insight into the figure of Odin and the contradictions of his portrayals. It’s quite easy to follow the shape of the above paragraph and apply it to the Norse god.<br /><br />
When Odin takes his guise of a human wanderer, he offers advice and shares wisdom. When he is in his regular religious depiction as the far-seeing anthropomorphic deity on the high seat above, he remains comprehensible.<br /><br />
The final step, however, is often missing. It is only when he reveals his ultimate abstract form as fury itself that Odin becomes overwhelming and terrifying.<br /><br />
The surviving Old Norse texts do not contain the detailed theological discussion that is so deeply woven through the Sanskrit sources, so we are left to formulate this form for ourselves. Since it’s not clearly portrayed in the texts we have, where do we find the greater, non-anthropomorphic form of Odin?<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Odin is there</span></b></span><br /><br />
Again, the “Song of the Lord” gives a hint. Krishna makes clear to Arjuna that he is in all the world and that he abides in all beings. I believe that we can find Odin within ourselves, for better or worse.<br /><br />
He is the fury that stirs poet, artist, dancer, and musician as they enter into a deeply creative state in which they lose track of time and mundane situation. When the guitarist is so concentrated on improvising in the moment that she doesn’t afterward remember making any conscious musical decisions, Odin is there. When the painter is so immersed in the work that she doesn’t notice the night’s passing until the beeping of her morning alarm finds her still brushing away, Odin is there.<br /><br />
He is also the fury that stirs runner, boxer, gymnast, and baseball player as they find the zone where conscious thought gives way to inspired action. When the boxer senses that the moment has come and explodes into a flurry of blows from all angles that brings the knockout, yet doesn’t feel or realize that his own nose is already broken, Odin is there. When the baseball player perceives the ball as floating gently over the plate in slow motion and hears no sound within an internal quietude as he slams the ball out of the park, Odin is there.<br /><br />
The overtaking of the conscious mind is not always so beautiful. Odin is also there when the abuser sees red and hurts without control. He is there when the police officer succumbs to fear and hate and empties his weapon into the back of a child. He is there when the soldier sees a friend fall and his mind snaps free of anything that would restrain his indiscriminate revenge. This is the truly overwhelming and terrifying Odin.<br /><br />
What all of these experiences have in common is the feeling that something has entered the mind and overwhelmed everyday thought. Seeing red, entering the zone, getting lost in the creative moment – all have a sense of drunkenness about them, of intoxication.<br /><br />
The Norse myths capture this feeling by telling us that Odin lives on wine alone and shares out the mead of poetry that inspires the mind of the one who drinks it. The tenth-century Icelander Egill Skallagrímsson famously rails against the bloodthirsty Odin for taking the lives of his sons but thanks him for the gift of poetic skill that allows him to express his grief.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Gather around the table</b></span></span><br /><br />
But this is all too abstract and has too many different individual manifestations, from the passion of the painter to the rage of the killer. It is also far too terrifying. Who among us would be able to gaze into the eyes (or even one lone eye) of the power of unrestrained fury itself?<br /><br />
So we shrink Odin down into a form in which he is more comprehensible, more understandable, and more relatable.<br><br>
Although his eye may flash with fury from time to time, the wanderer with his beard, hat, cloak, and walking stick is someone we can look forward to meeting. How wonderful would it be to sit by a forest brook and listen to the wise wizard share his wisdom?<br /><br />
Finally, there is a better answer I can give to my students when they ask about Odin’s eye.<br /><br />
The specifics are up to the storyteller and to the one who hears the story. Imagine the gods as the tales inspire you, but always remember that Odin is not the wanderer. He is not the regal figure on his high seat. These are forms that he takes so we can comprehend him or forms in which we conceive divine powers so we can engage with them.<br /><br />
Enjoy the myths, but remember that – as the philosopher Paul Ricœur wrote long ago – myths are made of symbols interacting in narrative form.<br /><br />
Both historically and in today’s world, reading myths literally leads to a fundamentalist mindset with all of its awful outcomes. If we instead agree to gather around the table and discuss what meanings may lie behind the myths, maybe we can have a conversation about leading better lives together.<br /><i><br />
Quotations from the Bhagavad Gītā are from </i>Mahābhārata, Book Six: Bhīṣma, Volume One<i>, translated by Alex Cherniak (New York University Press, 2008). An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2020/08/column-the-left-eye-of-odin-or-right.html">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-82002263150333174352021-03-12T13:12:00.001-06:002021-03-12T13:12:58.128-06:00Wyrd Science: Viking Equity in the Coronavirus AgeThe national disaster of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States has shown us that <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/11/wyrd-will-weave-us-together.html" target="_blank">wyrd really does weave us together</a>.<br /><br />
Old Norse <i>urðr</i>, Old English <i>wyrd</i>, and Modern English <i>weird</i> have a range of definitions, but together they give a sense that the actions we have taken of our own free will in the past determine the fate that will await us in the future. <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqnBAHXSa4Zq-u_HHxqmosx08mQi1dJuUZhRj6KIPNDsfka1N0iBTJ2JpXzInYHGlLGEES_Ws8xLUHeviCihYzDqE7skVjixd7ECs0udhYkr3u_piRanWkzt6p1UGH_TQxwPTaC7TJx-s/s1429/josiah+boydell+sir+joshua+reynold+robert+thew+painter+painting+engrave+engraving+macbeth+shakespeare+thre+witches+weird+sisters+wyrd+urd+urdr+well+of+asatru+heathen+heathenry+pagan+paganism.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1055" data-original-width="1429" height="354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqnBAHXSa4Zq-u_HHxqmosx08mQi1dJuUZhRj6KIPNDsfka1N0iBTJ2JpXzInYHGlLGEES_Ws8xLUHeviCihYzDqE7skVjixd7ECs0udhYkr3u_piRanWkzt6p1UGH_TQxwPTaC7TJx-s/w400-h295/josiah+boydell+sir+joshua+reynold+robert+thew+painter+painting+engrave+engraving+macbeth+shakespeare+thre+witches+weird+sisters+wyrd+urd+urdr+well+of+asatru+heathen+heathenry+pagan+paganism.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Macbeth and the Weird Sisters: Robert Thew engraving based on Sir Joshua Reynolds painting (1803)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Rather than an ideology of individualism, this is a concept concentrated on connection. Actions taken by others before we were born, actions taken by those close to us during our lives, and actions taken by faraway people we will never meet all color the thread of life that connects a person’s past to that person’s future.<br /><br />
We are now seeing how these interconnections near and far are shaping our wyrd, whether we will them to or not.<br /><br />
From one city in central China, the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-maps-and-cases/" target="_blank">COVID-19 pandemic has spread to over 219 countries and territories</a> around the world. In less than fourteen months, the United States has gone from one case to nearly thirty million. There have now been over 118 million cases worldwide. The global death toll is approaching three million.<br /><br />
From the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/health/coronavirus-pregnancy-covid-19.html" target="_blank">baby infected in the womb</a> to the d<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/healthcare-workers-death-coronavirus/" target="_blank">octors, nurses, and other health care workers whose personal protective equipment did not protect them from dying</a> of this accursed disease, we are being affected by the deeds of others both close by and incredibly distant.<br /><br />
For those of us who practice the modern religions of <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathenry</a>, there are also threads that connect our perceptions and portrayals of the past to our deeds that impact the lives of others.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Vikings and berserkers</b></span></span><br /><br />
Two of the most popular images of the Viking Age in both popular culture and within Heathenry are those of the Viking raider and the berserker. In movies, television, comic books, video games, costumed reenactment, religious imagery, and texts by and for practitioners, the attacking Viking and the furious berserker appear with regularity.<br /><br />
What is behind these popular archetypes?<br /><br />
Whether the term <i>Viking</i> has roots in terms for fjords, rowers, or something else entirely, the portrayal today centers on the raider, the bearded pirate who sails across the seas to brutally raid and rape, capture and kill, poach and plunder. He buries his axe willy-nilly not only in the skulls of enemy warriors, but of any villagers or clergy who happen to cross his bloody path.<br /><br />
The berserker of legend takes this bloody-mindedness one step further. As the Icelander Snorri Sturluson put it in his <i>Saga of the Ynglings</i> of c. 1225:
<blockquote>Odin knew how to make it such that in battle his enemies became blind and deaf and fearful and their weapons bit not more than wands, but his own men went without coats of mail and were mad as hounds or wolves, bit into their shields, were strong as bears or bulls. They killed the menfolk, but neither fire nor iron worked on them. That is called the way of the berserker.</blockquote>
Fueled by the holy madness of divine inspiration or driven wholly mad by enraging ritual and the ingestion of mind-altering substances, the berserker was oblivious to the damage inflicted on enemies, comrades, and even himself. Between the onset of the excited mental state and the exhaustion that followed it, he gave no thought to the consequences of his actions.<br /><br />
There are shades of Vikings and berserkers around us, even now.<br /><br />
Parents who want their children to go back to school insist that all children must go back to school. Pundits calculate the number of dead students Americans would accept as the cost of getting the kids out of the house. Adults who choose to disobey public health recommendations and government orders on self-quarantining and the wearing of masks physically attack those who choose to follow them. Elected officials tell us that our parents dying alone in overcrowded hospitals is a small price to pay for businesses to reopen.<br /><br />
This combination of self-centeredness and willful disregard for the well-being of others shows those who make these selfish choices to be far closer to the grinning raiders of popular imagination than any earnest internet denizen who posts about their mail-order DNA test supposedly proving that they have the blood of Vikings flowing in their veins.<br /><br />
Others insist that visiting a hair salon or binge drinking in a crowded bar is an inherent human right that no governmental instruction or medical necessity can contravene. They think it’s nothing but a hilarious prank to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/grocery-store-throws-out-35k-worth-food-woman-coughed-twisted-n1169401" target="_blank">cough on $35,000 worth of new food that must then be destroyed</a>. They angrily threaten employees at medical offices who quietly tell them masks are required to receive treatment. They post online threats to <a href="https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2020/05/11/whitmer-becomes-target-of-dozens-of-threats-on-private-facebook-groups-ahead-of-armed-rally-in-lansing" target="_blank">lynch, beat, shoot, hang, and behead a governor</a> who dared to issue social-distancing orders to slow the spread of the virus.<br /><br />
Like the berserkers, their disregard for the suffering of strangers extends to their friends, family, and themselves. They don’t care whether the imprisonment, sickness, and death that result from their deeds is that of others or their own. All that matters is the satisfaction of their desires and the expression of rage at any who stand in their way.<br /><br />
Is this selfish wallowing in desire and anger really the foundation of the Viking Age?<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Moderation and equity</b></span></span><br /><br />
The Old Norse word <i>hof</i> is quite familiar to American Heathens, who use it to refer to temples and other roofed religious sanctuaries. Arguably less familiar is the term <i>hóf</i>, which has a range of meanings that encompass moderation, measure, proportion, equity, fairness, reasonableness, temperance, and justness.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW7Sc9rrvIoMZFbm1nmX1ZzYPSb8pT82wcIUAlcrp774HHZKHuGW2UzQyQbkeV_Op8SuTgLMTMR4movPWW2ZocmZviUNaNiz8v0eWQHS_Ufivns6mtCSjM0Sw7CQ_NF0Q3PXo8v-syplQ/s2048/Pieter+Bruegel+the+Elder+The+Peasant+Dance+1568+painting+festival+village+life+celebration+asatru+heathen+heathenry+the+wild+hunt+column.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1426" data-original-width="2048" height="334" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW7Sc9rrvIoMZFbm1nmX1ZzYPSb8pT82wcIUAlcrp774HHZKHuGW2UzQyQbkeV_Op8SuTgLMTMR4movPWW2ZocmZviUNaNiz8v0eWQHS_Ufivns6mtCSjM0Sw7CQ_NF0Q3PXo8v-syplQ/w400-h279/Pieter+Bruegel+the+Elder+The+Peasant+Dance+1568+painting+festival+village+life+celebration+asatru+heathen+heathenry+the+wild+hunt+column.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Peasant Dance</i> by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1568)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Out of the many versions of the so-called “nine noble virtues” that are promoted across the Heathen political spectrum, I can’t find any that includes this concept among its listing of what are presented as ancient Norse pagan values but which seem suspiciously close to contemporary Protestant ethics.<br /><br />
In the United States, Heathenry often overlaps with a celebration of Vikingness in attitude, imagery, and garb; a recent academic work on “Heathenism in Contemporary America” was titled <i>Being Viking</i>. Given the state of our national character, it’s unsurprising that a quiet focus on moderation and equity is less popular in the U.S. than an embrace of macho posturing, oath-making over ale, and a claim that Odin’s ancient advice to take weapons when traveling on open land and to bring a spear when out on the open road is somehow connected to collecting private caches of guns in twenty-first century America.<br /><br />
Vikings and berserkers are admittedly fun to read about, but do we want members of our communities to take them as role models?<br /><br />
The seemingly endless American fads of genealogy tracing and personal DNA testing often lead their devotees to excitedly declare that they’re the descendants of Viking heroes and medieval kings. Much less often do we hear breathless giddiness over the realization that the vast majority of our ancestors were everyday working people – farmers, craftspeople, the salt of the earth whose names and deeds weren’t considered important enough by historiographers to include in their tales of the mighty.<br /><br />
In farm life and village life, hóf has always been more important than piracy and rage. In <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2017/02/column-i-am-the-son-of-a-refugee.html" target="_blank">my father’s German village</a> of Karavukovo (“the place of the black wolf”), wolves were seen as enemies who threatened the livestock at the center of rural life. What community welcomes the man who lives as a wolf?<br /><br />
In his book <i>Viking Age Iceland</i>, Jesse L. Byock writes that hóf was embraced by the mighty as well as the meek.
<br /><blockquote>Success in maintaining reciprocal agreements and playing the role of advocate required conformity to a standard of moderation, termed <i>hóf</i>. An individual who observed this standard was called a <i>hófsmaðr</i>, a person of justice and temperance.</blockquote>
The one who refused to abide by this standard was censured by all.
<blockquote>The opposite of <i>hóf</i> was <i>óhóf</i>, a failure to observe restraint denoting excess or intemperance. Displays of <i>óhóf</i> alarmed both friend and foe. They called forth the exercise of peer pressure against an overbearing individual with the result that rarely did one leader succeed in imposing his will on other leaders for very long. The practice of <i>óhóf</i> was known as <i>ójafnaðr</i>, meaning unevenness, unfairness or injustice in dealing with others.</blockquote>
This self-centered behavior was recognized as harmful to the community, and the community did something about it.
<blockquote><i>Ójafnaðr</i>, which is often translated as ‘being overbearing’ or ‘unjust’, disturbed the consensual nature of decision-making and set in motion a series of coercive responses; for example, when an individual’s greed or ambition threatened the balance of power, other leaders banded together in an effort to counter his immoderate behavior.</blockquote>
If we truly believe that the old poems and sagas are worth reading, that they contain wisdom that is worth remembering, here is something to embrace in today’s world. For any who are focused on learning the worldview of the long ago time, on reconstructing the Old Way, or on building a new religious movement upon the foundation of ancient Germanic paganism, here is a bedrock on which to stand.<br /><br />
It is profoundly Heathen to care about others, to resist our selfish desires, to moderate our behavior, to use good judgment, and to work for the good of the wider community. If we want to be truly Heathen, we must push back on the berserker individualism that says masks stifle freedom and instead do what is right for our families, our communities, our nation, and our world.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">We the people</span></b></span><br /><br />
And so it comes back to wyrd.<br /><br />
Every action we take has consequences. Every deed has repercussions. The steps we take reverberate beyond our hearing, beyond what we can know. The web of wyrd that connects us all has never been more obvious.<br /><br />
When we prioritize our individual impulses over what the wider world needs now, our solipsistic narcissism does real harm. When we yank on the threads of the web and try to pull it in the direction we desire, the greater structure will snap back and pull us along with it in unintended ways.<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2020/07/interview-with-angela-walker-green.html" target="_blank">2020 Green Party vice-presidential candidate Angela Walker</a> said something to me that resonates with this idea.
<blockquote>I believe that, at the end of the day, that is the thing that will always save us. We take care of each other. We take care of ourselves. As long as we have a government that is insensitive to the needs of the people, we’re going to have to.</blockquote>
We. Each other. The people. This is the worldview that will get us through these dark times.<br /><br />
We the people of the United States, in order to follow the workings of wyrd, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common good, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of the Powers to ourselves and our posterity, must endorse and embrace the standard of <i>hóf</i> in our daily lives, our choices, and our interactions with others.<br /><br />
If we don’t, there is only more darkness ahead.<br /><br />
<i>Quotations from Old Norse were translated by the Karl E. H. Seigfried. An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2020/07/column-wyrd-science-viking-equity-in-the-coronavirus-age.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-31731377999902176972021-01-01T13:18:00.002-06:002021-03-12T13:03:16.462-06:00Ásatrú and Hindu: The Mythology Project InterviewA few months ago, I was interviewed by <a href="https://utkarshmp.com/about/" target="_blank">Utkarsh Patel</a>, who teaches comparative mythology at the University of Mumbai in India. The interview was for <a href="https://themythologyproject.com/" target="_blank"><i>The Mythology Project</i></a>, a fantastic enterprise that Utkarsh co-founded and currently leads with comparative mythologist <a href="https://themythologyproject.com/author/arundhuti-dasgupta-singhal/" target="_blank">Arundhuti Dasgupta Singhal</a>. Both Utkarsh and Arundhuti are also prolific writers and authors of <a href="https://themythologyproject.com/about-us/" target="_blank">groundbreaking books on myth and folklore</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWYooodik0jjjUZrLbPdXTdSqFh1p33kZebbQaBMGAHwDWTI33q4HkIwsfa669fGG3qEEkyRraBvXK0D7nT1p7X56BELMWREAoqqq6aPDbz5PYVpqPq6YYWfjZuMGDB2xwIGM86XYK-gU/s1620/the+mythology+project+interview+karl+e+h+seigfried+norse+mythology+blog+asatru+definition+heathenry.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="207" data-original-width="1620" height="61" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWYooodik0jjjUZrLbPdXTdSqFh1p33kZebbQaBMGAHwDWTI33q4HkIwsfa669fGG3qEEkyRraBvXK0D7nT1p7X56BELMWREAoqqq6aPDbz5PYVpqPq6YYWfjZuMGDB2xwIGM86XYK-gU/w400-h51/the+mythology+project+interview+karl+e+h+seigfried+norse+mythology+blog+asatru+definition+heathenry.png" width="480" /></a></div><br /><i>The Mythology Project</i> is designed to be “a meeting place for myths, legends and folktales from around the world.” Its founders describe its fantastic mission in detail.
<blockquote>The Project is an endeavour to create a space that preserves and nurtures this immeasurable intangible inheritance, and offer a platform that encourages debate and discussion on its influence on us as people and our understanding of the world around us. It will shine a light on the manner and form in which ancient cultures nourished themselves, through stories, songs, poetry, craft and performing arts—through the legacy that lives on in among us.</blockquote><blockquote>While being located within India and focused on its vast heritage of myth and folklore, the Project will not be exclusive to the region. It will work to uncover the intricate web of likenesses and variances that create a criss-cross of connections throughout the global, imagined landscape of our past.</blockquote><blockquote>The Project understands the past as an inheritance that goes beyond monuments and statues, as one that is manifest in myriad forms that seep into the routine existence of the present. Our aim is dig into this rich cultural stockpile, piecing together the puzzle of our existence through archival collections, by researching living myths and traditions and conducting public lectures, workshops and courses for adults and children.</blockquote>It was a great honor to be interviewed for this wonderful project. There are so many paths to explore between Hinduism and <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú</a>, and I am extremely happy that Utkarsh and Arundhuti have decided to include Norse mythology and <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html#asatru" target="_blank">Ásatrú theology</a>. I look forward to collaborating with them in the future.<br /><br />Utkarsh’s questions are in large bold type below, with my answers in the normal font.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>What is the significance of myth in Nordic culture?</b></span><br /><br />
In the past, before northern Europe was converted to Christianity and when Germanic polytheism was a living set of religions throughout a very large region for a very long time, the myths functioned as do the myths of any religion.<br /><br />
Myths are traditional tales told within a religious culture that express that culture’s worldview and/or explain beliefs, practices, and the natural world. There are Christian and Jewish myths just as there are Norse and Hindu myths.<br /><br />
To understand the significance of the myths, we need to understand the parent culture to the best of our ability. To divorce myth from culture – as do some widely read theories of the “hero’s journey” and so on – may be a meaningful literary exercise, but it tells us little of religious meaning.<br /><br />
The first step is to place the myths in cultural context, to place them in dialogue with what we know from history, archaeology, and other written sources of the time period. Without doing this, the myths become nursery tales that float free from any cultural weight.<br /><br /><i></i>
There are elements in the Norse myths that tie directly to what we know of real-world practice. For example, Thor shrinks his hammer and wears it inside his shirt as northern European pagans wore small amulets of Thor’s hammer around their necks.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsJ-d-IDMI5WyLcYVcyXGt6oDe8AATvgexrgrDy5B_PYj4yCrtzF0UK7MOpK12crUSFSRdXtSutuvY3aiDSK1O85s6JB1nfeUusB3L5klKwaAaWncauxS6bHB_SFfcEExvdDa7SW1RMI/s1186/A+stone+Thor+Hammer+found+in+%25C3%259Ejo%25CC%2581rsa%25CC%2581rdalur+Fornleifastofnun+I%25CC%2581sland+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+necklace+pendant+norse+mythology+god+gods+artifact+archaeology+discovery.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1186" data-original-width="1097" height="519" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfsJ-d-IDMI5WyLcYVcyXGt6oDe8AATvgexrgrDy5B_PYj4yCrtzF0UK7MOpK12crUSFSRdXtSutuvY3aiDSK1O85s6JB1nfeUusB3L5klKwaAaWncauxS6bHB_SFfcEExvdDa7SW1RMI/w370-h400/A+stone+Thor+Hammer+found+in+%25C3%259Ejo%25CC%2581rsa%25CC%2581rdalur+Fornleifastofnun+I%25CC%2581sland+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+necklace+pendant+norse+mythology+god+gods+artifact+archaeology+discovery.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stone <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2019/06/thors-hammer-in-iceland-interview-with.html" target="_blank">Thor's hammer amulet</a> found in farmstead from Viking Age in Iceland<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
As in the oldest Sanskrit layers of Indian mythology, the Norse myths discuss the sacrificial act. They tell of the god Odin sacrificing himself to himself in a double ritual – both stabbing and hanging – that we have evidence of as actual sacrificial practice.<br /><br />
Those of us who today practice <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">the modern form of Norse religion known as Ásatrú</a> (Icelandic for “Æsir faith,” referring to the main tribe of Norse gods) face the task of incorporating myths of long ago into our modern lives and finding meaning within them.<br /><br />
In India, there are not only vast numbers of myths and legends, but there are also many long centuries of theological writings that discuss interpretations of the old stories. In Ásatrú, we are faced with a relatively tiny number of myths and no surviving second-order theological discourse by the practitioners of long ago – that is, no reflection upon the meaning of the myths in the context of a living practice.<br /><br />
Engaging in this type of theological discourse now, I always come back to the idea of the French philosopher Paul Ricœur that mythology is “a species of symbols” and myths are “symbols developed in the form of narrations.” This is an important key to unlocking meaning in the modern world.<br /><br />
We must ask: <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/07/the-meaning-of-thors-hammer.html" target="_blank">what does Thor’s hammer symbolize</a>? If we dig into our sources and understand that it is a symbol of protecting the community from all harm, then we must ask: what do those the hammer is raised against symbolize?<br /><br />
Following these chains of questions and answers can help us to understand not only the meanings in the myths, but what meaning they can have for us now.<br /><br />
Following this line, we can ask: how do we define “community” today? What harms does this community face, and what can we do to protect it? The broader the questions become, the wider the field of possible answers. The choices of interpretation that we make say much about our own values and how we relate to the world around us.<br /><br />
We are not bound to accept the ancient significance of the myths – we no longer make human sacrifices to Odin, for one very obvious example – but I do believe that it is important to ground our modern understandings in study of what Icelanders long ago called <i>forn siðr</i>, the Old Way.<br /><br />
Without grounding in an understanding of the past, there is always a danger of our own creations of meaning simply floating away, untethered to any tradition whatsoever. If we believe that there is no value in that older tradition, why turn to the old myths at all?<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>What are the stories that hold most meaning for the people?</b></span><br /><br />
Even without the second-order theological discourse that I mentioned above, there is still a way to survey which myths were most important in the old times. We can assume – although assuming is always tempting in this field and can be a dangerous method! – that a story told and retold is one that was important to the culture that told it.<br /><br />
“The function of repetition,” writes the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, “is to render the structure of the myth apparent.” When a myth is told and retold in various forms, there must be something in the myth that is very important to its parent culture and/or addresses some key point of contention and difficulty within the culture.<br /><br />
The myth of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2017/06/thor-world-serpent-and-what-world-needs.html" target="_blank">Thor’s fishing trip to catch the World Serpent</a> is a very straightforward example. It is told in both of the <i>Eddas</i>, the thirteenth-century Icelandic texts that provide the most coherent surviving record of the Norse myths – one is in poetic form, the other in prose. The story also appears in the work of several poets active in the ninth and tenth centuries. In addition, there are visual representations of the story, both in surviving stone carvings and in contemporary poetic references to wooden carvings now long gone.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnkjoTOxWDsd7urJYENvVWzr8YHTlltbbp2XLF3P0hDezRhV2hXgDU8eyGwYfFneERhywcc2e8H7zkU5ccY879610zkmxO9RHxmMCtwEuotVlrBSpUhLdEXEfF9LRocxdZ9eTvmONQrc/s1824/thor+fishing+trip+world+serpent+jormundgand+jormungandr+hammer+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+carving+carved+stone+altuna+sweden+illustration+boat+foot+ox+head.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1824" data-original-width="1368" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvnkjoTOxWDsd7urJYENvVWzr8YHTlltbbp2XLF3P0hDezRhV2hXgDU8eyGwYfFneERhywcc2e8H7zkU5ccY879610zkmxO9RHxmMCtwEuotVlrBSpUhLdEXEfF9LRocxdZ9eTvmONQrc/w300-h400/thor+fishing+trip+world+serpent+jormundgand+jormungandr+hammer+mjolnir+mjo%25CC%2588lnir+carving+carved+stone+altuna+sweden+illustration+boat+foot+ox+head.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stone carving of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2017/06/thor-world-serpent-and-what-world-needs.html" target="_blank">Thor's fishing trip</a> from early 11th century in Altuna, Sweden<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Why was the story considered so important? Possibly because it shows Thor, the great protector of the human and divine worlds, in direct conflict with his greatest enemy – the gigantic serpent of the waters who surrounds the earth and is the literally enormous threat to the worlds of both humans and gods. Thor risks his own life as he seeks to pull the serpent from the waters and smite it with his mighty thunder-weapon. Even a young child can understand Thor’s role in these images.<br /><br />
There are also more subtle stories with more subtle repetitions. The tale of a father with a son who kills his other son appears in Norse myth (Odin, Höðr, Baldr) and the Old English <i>Beowulf</i> (Hreðel, Hæþcyn, Herebeald). The variation of a son whose father is killed by his uncle(s) appears in the Icelandic <i>Völsunga saga</i> (Rerir, Sigi, unnamed uncles) and the <i>Gesta Danorum</i> of Denmark’s Saxo Grammaticus (Amleth, Orvendil, Fengi).<br /><br />
The difficulty embedded in these repeated stories is one of conflicting duties within the old system of kinship relations. A father is bound to avenge his son, but how can he kill his other son? A son is bound to avenge his father, but how can he kill his uncle?<br /><br />
Those who know the <i>Mahābhārata</i> are familiar with the idea of being stuck between conflicting dharmas; this is one of many points of contact between the Icelandic and the Indian, and the great literature of both nations wrestles with these moral issues.<br /><br />
Whether the tale provides a way to grasp the role of the deity in an immediate way (like Thor and the World Serpent) or to examine an ethical dilemma in the form of narrative (like the fathers and sons), the fact that the same stories are repeated in multiple forms and formats does gives us a sense of core concepts and conflicts within the wider cultures that created them.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>What is the significance of violence in Norse mythology? Why do we have such vivid descriptions of a battle and, in this sense, how would you compare these motifs and patterns with world mythology?</b></span><br /><br />
On one hand, the ancient world was a violent world, and the tales reflect the tenor of their times.<br /><br />
The Icelander Snorri Sturluson tells us that the bright and beautiful god Baldr is “the most beautifully spoken and the most merciful, but one of his characteristics is that none of his decisions is effective.” Baldr will rule in the golden age of peace that will begin the next cosmic cycle after the end of this one (another point of contact with Hinduism), but he is simply too kind and peaceful to have a large role in the myths of the Viking Age. In fact, it is his shameful murder at the instigation of Loki that truly begins the slide into doom at Ragnarök.<br /><br />
On the other hand, tales need adventure.<br /><br />
If Bilbo Baggins never left his comfortable home and became embroiled in the dwarvish scheme to vanquish the dragon, <i>The Hobbit</i> would be a book about pipe smoking and vegetable gardening. These may be very nice things to do, but they do not hold the audience enrapt around either the campfire or the fireplace. Conflict of some sort is what drives narrative, and what is the ultimate form of this-worldly conflict than violence, battle, and war? These are awful things to be thrown into, but they do keep the audience engaged.<br /><br />
On the third hand, it’s always good to listen to Mahātmā Gandhi on the <i>Bhagavad Gītā</i>.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg62MaEhj4ICn8sB88GG29BKpH-Ax1bT25StcpfZIIn05xpTTaJsG3Hnzj05S8a43nGbtho6jASUm4cQKKbUvVVpVgL8S5nBzG90CCfL6dsZBu1LvPBpxOl_zJY13HoaEBEO87qb7-3ChQ/s1000/krishna+arjuna+bhagavad+gita+illustration+hindu+hinduism+norse+mythology+myth+myths+god+gods+asatru+heathenry+blog.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="528" data-original-width="1000" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg62MaEhj4ICn8sB88GG29BKpH-Ax1bT25StcpfZIIn05xpTTaJsG3Hnzj05S8a43nGbtho6jASUm4cQKKbUvVVpVgL8S5nBzG90CCfL6dsZBu1LvPBpxOl_zJY13HoaEBEO87qb7-3ChQ/w400-h211/krishna+arjuna+bhagavad+gita+illustration+hindu+hinduism+norse+mythology+myth+myths+god+gods+asatru+heathenry+blog.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration of the <i>Bhagavad Gītā</i> showing Arjuna and Krishna (India, 19th century)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Describing his first impression of the text in 1888, he writes of what he called Vyāsa’s “religious theme”:<br /><blockquote>I felt that it was not a historical work, but that, under the guise of physical warfare, it described the duel that perpetually went on in the hearts of mankind, and that physical warfare was brought in merely to make the description of the internal duel more alluring.</blockquote>
This allure is what I mentioned about keeping the audience enrapt, but there is something deeper in Gandhi’s words – the idea that stirring tales of violent deeds can be read at two levels: the physical and the spiritual.<br /><br />
I would respectfully add one more degree and say that mythology can be read or heard at three levels: dramatic, emotional, and spiritual.<br /><br />
At the first level of drama, myths can be enjoyed as grand tales of adventure by individuals both young and old.<br /><br />
At the second level of emotion, the tales can be returned to again and again as one’s life experience deepens – the same person as child, teenager, young adult, middle-aged person, and elder can hear the same story at these different life points and have very different emotional reactions as they relate the tales to their own experiences.<br /><br />
The third level of spirituality is seeking to understand the deeper messages that the myths encode symbolically, even if our own modern solving of the code is quite different from how the symbols may have been understood millennia ago.<br /><br />
The tales of Tyr and Thor are violent ones, but we can see beyond the violence to the message. In different ways, both gods stand up for their communities and put themselves in grave harm in order to protect those around them.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2017/05/tyr-and-wolf-in-todays-world.html" target="_blank">Tyr gives his right hand</a> so that Loki’s enormous and terrifying wolf-son can be bound until the end of this time cycle, and Thor loses his life at the final battle of Ragnarök even as he finally defeats the World Serpent.<br /><br />
We can see these mythic actions embodied by those around us now – by firefighters who rush into the burning forests of America’s west coast and by front-line medical workers who offer up their own lives in sacrifice to save those stricken with this terrible virus.<br /><br />
Myth is life, life is myth, and both can veer between the violent and the sublime.<br /><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Which Indian god holds a close parallel with a Norse god?</b></span><br /><br />
The closest parallels are in the oldest layers of Sanskrit, for it is these that contain the most classic Indo-European motifs that are shared by the myths, legends, and fairy tales of the Norse, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Roman, and other related cultures. These building blocks of story appear in so many different combinations across such a wide range of time and space.<br /><br />
Thor and Indra are the most obvious parallels.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLzrXOlWTPRgbr-EMKFUs3FVXMe-RdotK9WbEFTU2we95X12pPHNG5Psm6uw5G-gtx-l4fKwwOI9n1uS-DL1PVcdw-PgjntDGLh15MO-GK7sKR3oM_dFsno2N2wlhAIeUdBM3kZtwXNs/s2048/indra+vajra+vritra+thunderbolt+lightning+thunder+weapon+hindu+sanskrit+hinduism+thor+mjolnir+norse+mythology+illustration+hindu+hinduism+asatru+heathen+heathenry+blog.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1330" data-original-width="2048" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzLzrXOlWTPRgbr-EMKFUs3FVXMe-RdotK9WbEFTU2we95X12pPHNG5Psm6uw5G-gtx-l4fKwwOI9n1uS-DL1PVcdw-PgjntDGLh15MO-GK7sKR3oM_dFsno2N2wlhAIeUdBM3kZtwXNs/w400-h260/indra+vajra+vritra+thunderbolt+lightning+thunder+weapon+hindu+sanskrit+hinduism+thor+mjolnir+norse+mythology+illustration+hindu+hinduism+asatru+heathen+heathenry+blog.jpg" width="490" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Indra kills Vritra with his vajra, the thunder-weapon (India, undated)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
In the great pagan temple of Uppsala in eleventh-century Sweden, Thor sat in the center and was considered the mightiest of all, as Indra was considered the great king of the gods in the older myths of India. Both have enormous appetites, both wield the thunder-weapon, both respond to challenges from enemies of the gods, and both face the great serpent of the waters.<br /><br />
But this sort of parallel isn’t really the most interesting. The mighty wielder of the lightning bolt is found throughout Indo-European mythologies, so the Iceland-India connection is not unique.<br /><br />
The creation myths of the <i>Eddas</i> and the <i>Vedas</i> have parallels that are much more fascinating. They even begin with similar lines.<br /><br />
The Old Norse <i>Völuspá</i> (“Prophecy of the Seeress”) tells of a time before the world was made:
<blockquote>There was no sand nor sea nor chill waves, no earth to be found nor high heaven, a gulf of gaping void, and grass was nowhere.</blockquote>
The Sanskrit <i>Nāsadīya Sūkta</i>, the creation hymn, opens in like fashion:
<blockquote>There was neither non-existence nor existence, no realm of air nor sky beyond... There was no death then nor immortality, there was no sign of night nor of day.</blockquote>
Thousands of miles and thousands of years apart, both mythic systems begin their creation songs by describing the unimaginable void as a list of what is not there, by placing the immensely ancient nothingness before creation in terms of negating what we can see around ourselves now. They both find the same solution to comprehending the incomprehensible.<br /><br />
According to the Sansksrit <i>Puruṣa Sūkta</i>, the hymn of the cosmic giant Puruṣa, the gods sacrifice the enormous figure and make the moon from his mind, the sun from his eye, the wind from his breath, the sky from his head, and the earth from his feet. <br /><br />The Icelandic <i>Eddas</i> tell us that the gods kill the primeval giant Ymir and make the clouds from his brain, the sky from his skull, the earth from his flesh, the sea from his blood, the mountains from his bones, and the trees from his hair.<br /><br />
The Indian and the Icelandic are again parallel, this time sharing the idea that the gods create the world from the yet older being whom they kill together early in time. Everything that is created, both myths tell us, is made from what came before.<br /><br />
There are other parallels, of course. I dive deeply into these with the students in my “World Religions” course, in which we examine Hindu, Norse, and Celtic mythology and religion. I am also very interested in parallel theological ideas between modern Ásatrú and Hinduism, such as the twin concepts of wyrd and karma. We have much more in common with each other than many may think.<br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
What is your opinion of the Marvel universe and its depiction of the Norse gods?</b></span><br /><br />
In India, you have a long tradition of multimedia adaptations of the great Hindu myths and legends. We have nothing that can begin to compare with something like the giant <i>Mahabharat</i> television series, which adapted the Sanskrit epic over the course of ninety-four episodes – plus the forty-five of the sequel series that picked up the bits that had been left out. Amazing! I show students in my “Religion and Social Movements” course the beginning of the <i>Bhagavad Gītā</i> scene when we study the text.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu2pQo70lGKcAIcIP4ZEplFZmzTs4dGmxjqGJWYgXxvCTHBqd2rUpX2s1PamQWrPVmTyolPs4J_Q-ZU53PDfLP5SBj-KFs0lKRiZhAEpKGd1N8ktQolZxuavmt4Df7JVwCq4NPCGpC8iY/s1195/Nitish+Bharadwaj+Krishna+Mahabharat+Mahabharata+tv+series+1988+1990+hindu+hinduism+sanskrit+old+norse+mythology+blog+myth+myths+interview+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1195" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu2pQo70lGKcAIcIP4ZEplFZmzTs4dGmxjqGJWYgXxvCTHBqd2rUpX2s1PamQWrPVmTyolPs4J_Q-ZU53PDfLP5SBj-KFs0lKRiZhAEpKGd1N8ktQolZxuavmt4Df7JVwCq4NPCGpC8iY/w400-h223/Nitish+Bharadwaj+Krishna+Mahabharat+Mahabharata+tv+series+1988+1990+hindu+hinduism+sanskrit+old+norse+mythology+blog+myth+myths+interview+copy.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nitish Bharadwaj as Krishna in the <i>Mahabharat</i> TV series (1988-1990)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />There is no comparable adaptation of the Norse myths. There have been some animated features, but there is no serious film or extended television version for adults that I know. Instead, we have Hollywood films based on <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/09/blond-thor-stan-lee-wasnt-wrong.html" target="_blank">the comic book version of Thor</a> created by <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2020/11/new-gods-of-fourth-world.html" target="_blank">Jack Kirby</a> and Stan Lee in 1962.<br /><br />
I very much believe that we should each of us read the myths, engage with them, and bring them in dialogue with our own life experiences. However, it is strange to me how much <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/11/the-thor-movies-and-norse-mythology.html" target="_blank">the first Marvel Thor film</a> reforms Norse mythology as Judeo-Christian lore.<br /><br />
The movie Odin fumes like the angry God of the Old Testament, and there is nothing at all of his Wanderer avatar – of his taking earthly form as the old wizard who engages in riddle-contests with giants, advises heroes on how to defeat dragons, and shares his ancient wisdom with all of humanity. Instead, the film figure sits on his throne in Asgard and makes mighty proclamations – God the Father instead of the All-father.<br /><br />
Thor is very much recast as Christ, sent down from heaven to live as a mortal among mortals. He gathers followers unto himself and makes of them dedicated disciples by convincing them of his godliness. He proves himself worthy of divinity by being willing to sacrifice himself to save humanity and is thus restored to full godhood at the right hand of his father. Amen. This is not the Thor from Norse mythology, and this is not his story.<br /><br />
This doesn’t mean I don’t love the Marvel Thor comics. I do. I have shelves full of them, from the very beginning through the latest adventures. I also enjoy the movies, and I’ve seen every film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. <i>Thor: Ragnarok</i> is probably my favorite one, not least because they finally had the sense to use Led Zeppelin’s great Viking metal epic “Immigrant Song.”<br /><br />
I don’t see the comics and movies as any sort of blasphemy – not even a little bit. I enjoy Marvel’s tales of the mighty Thor as much as I enjoy stories of the spectacular Spider-Man and the invincible Iron Man. I’ve loved superheroes since I was four years old, and I was four a very long time ago.<br /><br />
I believe that one of the great powers of myth is that it is told and retold by each new generation. I’ve heard so many students from India say that they learned of Rāma and Sītā from their mothers or grandmothers, from being told the stories instead of reading them. There is an unlimited number of <i>Rāmāyaṇas</i>, and more of them are being told somewhere right now.<br /><br />
The fact that children and adults around the world are fascinated with Thor because of the Marvel version today is a wonderful thing. I first met him through the Marvel comics, back when he lived here in Chicago. It was very exciting to the child version of me that Thor lived down the street! It’s exciting to me as an adult that he lives wherever the storm arrives to chase away the stale air and bring the beauty of the rains.<br /><br />
And that’s how I hope it works for others. Not necessarily to become a practitioner of Ásatrú but to become curious enough about Thor to find the <i>Eddas</i> at the library or the bookstore – maybe to sign up for a course so that they can learn more about the culture that produced these wonderful myths and to reflect upon what they can mean for all of us during this dark time.<br /><br />I know that the myths are helpful to me, and I am always happy to hear that they are of help to others.<br /><br /><i>An earlier version of this interview appeared at <a href="https://themythologyproject.com/karl-interview/" target="_blank">The Mythology Project</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-78361257847643100952020-12-09T11:43:00.000-06:002020-12-09T11:43:15.526-06:00A Ragnarök of One's OwnIn his 1936 <a href="https://archive.org/details/igorstravinskyan011583mbp/page/n51/mode/2up" target="_blank">autobiography</a>, the composer Igor Stravinsky describes his 1912 visit to Bayreuth, Germany, to attend a performance of <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/archive.html#wagner" target="_blank">Richard Wagner</a>’s <i>Parsifal</i>.<br /><br />
The opera tells the story of a quest for the Holy Grail by one of King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, and draws upon a thirteenth-century Middle High German romance by knight and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach. Wagner freely mixes elements of the medieval work with his own idiosyncratic philosophical and anti-Semitic ideologies in his final opera, completed eight years after <i>Götterdämmerung</i> (“Twilight of the Gods”), the concluding part of his cycle of operas based on Norse mythology and German legend.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ_RT4kBkOrBlUnI5lo51AV-d0_K30O2XZcb2sPD0dUAgcMBZ9fJqIZsSZk6LsOH3ITcX6mm4GhDNzgCnB1GPVvadrqc0tdCmZz8xVNCwDVfCCLq7iw4HoPYwZcY0BBQmduffDbrGgFeU/s2048/Richard+Wagner+as+Wotan+Odin+1876+cartoon+igor+stravinsky+critic+criticism+bayreuth+parsifal+ring+of+the+nibelung+nibelungen+norse+myth+myths+mythology+german+legend+legends+religion+religious+cult+cultic+thinking.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1623" height="606" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ_RT4kBkOrBlUnI5lo51AV-d0_K30O2XZcb2sPD0dUAgcMBZ9fJqIZsSZk6LsOH3ITcX6mm4GhDNzgCnB1GPVvadrqc0tdCmZz8xVNCwDVfCCLq7iw4HoPYwZcY0BBQmduffDbrGgFeU/w508-h640/Richard+Wagner+as+Wotan+Odin+1876+cartoon+igor+stravinsky+critic+criticism+bayreuth+parsifal+ring+of+the+nibelung+nibelungen+norse+myth+myths+mythology+german+legend+legends+religion+religious+cult+cultic+thinking.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Wagner as Wotan (Odin) in an 1876 cartoon<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
At the time of his trip to Germany, Stravinsky himself was in the midst of composing music for <i>Le Sacre du printemps</i> (“The Rite of Spring”), a ballet subtitled “Pictures of Pagan Russia.” In his autobiography, he describes the genesis of the piece:
<blockquote>I had a fleeting vision which came to me as a complete surprise, my mind at the moment being full of other things. I saw in my imagination a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, seated in a circle, watched a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing her to propitiate the god of spring. Such was the theme of the <i>Sacre du printemps</i>.</blockquote>
Although both the German Wagner and the Russian Stravinsky turned to pagan subjects for inspiration, their music and worldviews were greatly at odds.<br /><br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Religious mindset</span></span></b><br /><br />
For Stravinsky, religious subject matter was subsumed into a powerfully modernist artistic vision. He had a visceral reaction to witnessing the performance at Bayreuth, where Wagner – with the financial support of devoted donors and Bavarian King Ludwig II – had built an opera house in which only his own works were performed.<br /><br />
Stravinsky explains his reaction to the scene:
<blockquote>What I find revolting in the whole affair is the underlying conception which dictated it – the principle of putting a work of art on the same level as the sacred and symbolic ritual which constitutes a religious service. And, indeed, is not all this comedy of Bayreuth, with its ridiculous formalities, simply an unconscious aping of a religious rite?</blockquote>
It is not merely the showy theatricality of the Bayreuth production that disgusts Stravinsky; he is repulsed by the audience’s willing desire to be swept away in quasi-religious fervor.<br /><br />
After calling for the end of “this unseemly and sacrilegious conception of art as religion and the theatre as a temple,” Stravinsky forwards an argument against this conflation of attitudes.
<blockquote>[O]ne cannot imagine a believer adopting a critical attitude towards a religious service. That would be a contradiction in terms; the believer would cease to be a believer. The attitude of an audience is exactly the opposite. It is not dependent upon faith or blind submission. At a performance one admires or one rejects. One accepts only after having passed judgment, however little one may be aware of it. The critical faculty plays an essential part. To confound these two distinct lines of thought is to give proof of a complete lack of discernment, and certainly of bad taste.</blockquote>
This is, of course, a generalization about the religious mindset that takes the fundamentalist and literalist as synecdoche for the diverse world of approaches to religious belief and practice. This same process leads liberal American commenters to criticize “religious people” when they often actually mean “conservative evangelical Christians of rural America.”<br /><br />
But Stravinsky’s point stands regarding the suspension of critical faculties by the devotee of the artist. After all, the word <i>fan</i> is an abbreviation of <i>fanatic</i>. Whether the fan is a Wagnerite, a Tolkienite, or a #ReleaseTheSnyderCuttite, the move from appreciation to devotion often leads to both dissolution of discernment and hostility towards those who dare to discuss the object of affection on its merits.<br /><br />
Like the sacrificer in the <i>Ṛg Veda</i> who begins to see himself as the god Indra (earning the wrath of the thunderer), the fan’s identification of self with the object of veneration can become so great that the boundary between observer and observed dissolves. For the most dedicated, even the mildest critique of the work is perceived as an intensely personal attack on the fan.<br /><br />
Does Wagner’s well-documented anti-Semitism surface in his operas? Do Tolkien’s “<a href="http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/1964_BBC_Interview" target="_blank">quite obviously</a>” Jewish dwarves embody anti-Semitic stereotypes? The true fan will not only <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/09/interview-with-david-pountney-director.html" target="_blank">deny it</a> but will furiously denounce the person daring to suggest an affirmative answer.<br /><br /><span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Fundamentalist adherence</span></b></span><br /><br />
The conclusion of Stravinsky’s argument is deeply relevant to our current cultural moment. Written as Nazi Germany was expanding and the Axis powers were ascendant, Stravinsky’s polemic against the sacralization of the artwork ends with a turn to the political developments of his time.
<blockquote>But is it at all surprising that such confusion should arise at a time like the present, when the openly irreligious masses in their degradation of spiritual values and debasement of human thought necessarily lead us to utter brutalization? People are, however, apparently fully aware of the sort of monster to which the world is about to give birth, and perceive with annoyance that man cannot live without some kind of cult. An effort is therefore made to refurbish old cults dragged from some revolutionary arsenal, wherewith to enter into competition with the Church.</blockquote>
We again find ourselves living through a time of cultic thinking and fundamentalist belief creeping into public life.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49XGcyGjidEYCTxBq0ofw4WKnzcyqnqp29v0TbZVhp9TcyrFiM6CZW6qfYUehhD1ZARGmbGRQgOxcpZ4QXH8GofB_gKs6wM7RXmH8s8T8QPAGyWZaLxoFNmRyYMz4xPrOQgve_QD4Rfo/s735/Amalie+Materna+as+Kundry+in+Parsifal+opera+Richard+Wagner+Bayreuth+production+1882.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="735" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49XGcyGjidEYCTxBq0ofw4WKnzcyqnqp29v0TbZVhp9TcyrFiM6CZW6qfYUehhD1ZARGmbGRQgOxcpZ4QXH8GofB_gKs6wM7RXmH8s8T8QPAGyWZaLxoFNmRyYMz4xPrOQgve_QD4Rfo/w640-h412/Amalie+Materna+as+Kundry+in+Parsifal+opera+Richard+Wagner+Bayreuth+production+1882.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Amalie Materna as Kundry in 1882 Bayreuth production of Wagner's <i>Parsifal</i><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Within the online world of Heathenry, differing theological views are denounced as blasphemy (seemingly without any sense of historical irony). Inside the Twitterverse, academics posting about their research are swamped by roving gangs of anonymous mansplainers who pose endless rhetorical questions that no sane answer can satisfy. Across social media, virtual communities of intent form to affirm preconceptions and reinforce prejudices, from <a href="https://revealnews.org/article/hundreds-of-cops-are-in-extremist-facebook-groups-why-havent-their-departments-done-anything-about-it/" target="_blank">Facebook support groups</a> for racist police officers to a <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-alt-right-leaves-facebook-for-russian-site-vkontakte" target="_blank">Russian social media platform</a> where American neo-Nazis build international contacts.<br /><br />
In all of these examples, critical thinking has given way to the fervor of fundamentalism. Whether the doctrine is religious or political, adherence to its precepts overrides all rational evaluation. Questioning of basic assumptions leads to denunciation by the group and excommunication of the individual, a process that strengthens groupthink as the membership in the group becomes refined down to a harder core.<br /><br />
We now see this process exploding from the virtual world into the regular world.<br /><br />
During the election, Trump’s supporters brushed aside accusations of sexual assault as politically motivated and denounced any who even slightly questioned his proclamations as traitors who wanted the communists to win. During the election, Biden’s supporters brushed aside accusations of sexual assault as politically motivated and denounced any who even slightly questioned his candidacy as traitors who wanted the fascists to win. Grossly anti-Semitic imagery, homophobic declarations, and racist symbols are proudly displayed by <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anti-semitic-lockdown-protest/" target="_blank">furious protestors</a> demanding the end of coronavirus mitigation measures and refusing even the most common-sense safety practices. Scapegoats abound as conspiracy theories and in-group loyalty trump all rational discussion.<br /><br />
Steven Colbert’s <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/truthiness-meaning-word-origin" target="_blank">truthiness</a> has been succeeded by a belief that reality itself is a matter of opinion, not in a theological sense of <i>maya</i> versus <i>brahman</i> – of illusion versus ultimate reality – but in a very basic and everyday way.<br /><br />
If the president says something is absolutely fake that he said was absolutely real just minutes earlier, and his supporters believe both statements are akin to holy writ, what is real? If #BelieveWomen and #MeToo are inherently powerful and essentially undeniable when the offender is a Republican but abused women are shouted down as gold-digging liars and political tools when the offender is a Democrat, what is real? If the coronavirus is simultaneously a leftist hoax designed to take away your guns and an unstoppable danger that requires trillions of dollars in corporate handouts, what is real?<br /><br />
Doublethink is the order of the day as groups across the political spectrum descend into a madness of fundamentalist adherence to whatever doctrine the day requires.<br /><br />
Modern Pagans declare support for diversity and inclusiveness while embracing sectarian tribalism as a positive way of structuring religious communities. White conservatives in central Michigan fly the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-host-defends-michigan-protesters-with-confederate-flags-2020-4" target="_blank">Confederate Battle Flag</a> of the Army of Northern Virginia while demanding stoppage of best practices for minimizing the number of coronavirus deaths in their own community. The party that trumpets its belief that “<a href="https://www.gop.com/topic/family-values-pro-life/canonical/" target="_blank">all Americans have an unalienable right to life as stated in The Declaration of Independence</a>” insists that “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/493879-texas-lt-governor-on-reopening-state-there-are-more-important-things" target="_blank">[t]here are more important things than living</a>” and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/15/gop-coronavirus-economy-death/" target="_blank">dead civilians</a> (particularly <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/dan-patrick-coronavirus-grandparents" target="_blank">dead grandparents</a>) are a fair trade for business profits. The “<a href="https://democrats.org/who-we-are/who-we-serve/" target="_blank">party of inclusion</a>” puts forward the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/us/politics/democratic-candidates-race.html" target="_blank">most diverse Democratic primary field in history</a> before choosing the elderly, white, straight, male, Christian multimillionaire.<br /><br /><span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">A doom of our own making</span></b></span><br /><br />
The epitaph of this age of ours is likely to be “my party, right or wrong,” whether the party is political, religious, racial, or what have you.<br /><br />
To point this out is not to indulge in whataboutism, to say that there is no real difference between political ideologies. Quite the opposite. It’s the willingness to wallow in the basest sort of attacks on the other/outsider paired with the resolute refusal to allow any open discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the home team that results in the atrophy of the critical faculty. We tell college students that they must take humanities courses to develop their critical thinking skills, but what living models do they have when so much of public life is built on slandering the other side and dehumanizing the dissenter?<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YBPBx6P7jDDJS8FIprw4Fqs7bAYpKU8Fga4I3Rzq9Cg4U2HwVCvXlksHKNCIcLquq-Zoe_L6-KAkfxVTZeitc5wjHbXxnKLe1QgKCdPPVk9eZZ46ExGjpvZldnscs0iJhMGeY3yaryA/s2048/Jean+Cocteau+Igor+Stravinsky+Jouant+Le+Sacre+Du+Printemps+the+rite+of+spring+cartoon+illustration+piano+ballet+dance+dancers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1351" data-original-width="2048" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YBPBx6P7jDDJS8FIprw4Fqs7bAYpKU8Fga4I3Rzq9Cg4U2HwVCvXlksHKNCIcLquq-Zoe_L6-KAkfxVTZeitc5wjHbXxnKLe1QgKCdPPVk9eZZ46ExGjpvZldnscs0iJhMGeY3yaryA/w640-h422/Jean+Cocteau+Igor+Stravinsky+Jouant+Le+Sacre+Du+Printemps+the+rite+of+spring+cartoon+illustration+piano+ballet+dance+dancers.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Igor Stravinsky plays <i>Le Sacre du printemps</i> ("The Rite of Spring") in a 1913 cartoon by Jean Cocteau<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
In the current overheated environment, there seems to be a fear that admitting any fault at all is handing ammunition to the enemy. <i>Don’t worry, we’ll fix our own problems later. We just need to win this election, promote this conference, get these membership numbers up, finish whatever project in the now that we’ve set up as the one thing that must be accomplished at all costs.</i> The dream is deferred, the underserved are labeled as special interests, and the status quo rumbles on.<br /><br />
It doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to be reflective about one’s own group while still standing strongly against real wrong. Somehow, we need to cultivate the inner voice that stops the fingers about to type the bullying, the harassment, and the death threat. We need to build the internalized critical apparatus that asks if the thing we are about to do is truly of worth and worth doing.<br /><br />
We are burning up in a blazing sea of hot takes pouring forth from the endless stream of social media opinions, deceptions, and lies, from the so-called coronavirus briefings that descended into hate rallies, and from our friends and family who insist we must vote for their chosen candidate, or everything terrible to come is our own individual fault. We need a cool breeze to bring us to our senses so that we can climb out of the heat and reflect on what we can all do to move forward out of this mess.<br /><br />
Stravinsky writes of living in a moment when “degradation of spiritual values and debasement of human thought necessarily lead us to utter brutalization.” In our own moment, how can we elevate spiritual values and enhance human thought so that we’re able to move to higher ground? Can we find the answers to today’s problems by turning yet again to ancient texts, or do we need new words to find new solutions? How can we improve our educational systems and social systems so that they develop engaged citizens instead of enraged strangers?<br /><br />
It is difficult to think of engagement in an age of stay-at-home orders and social distancing, at a time when conversations occur on Zoom or through facemasks of dubious efficacy, but the fact that it is now difficult makes it imperative that we do. Will we come through this era-defining trial determined to work together to drive fundamental and consequential change for the better, or will we crawl through with a hardened determination to screw the other guy?<br /><br />
Committing to real change is especially hard for anyone convinced that a holy text is inerrant, that the gods speak truths directly into their ears, or that the leader of their particular group can do no wrong. Stravinsky writes that “one cannot imagine a believer adopting a critical attitude towards a religious service” and warns of the danger of such a species of true and unshakable belief growing in the public realm.<br /><br />
Are we still capable of adopting an attitude that is constructively critical, or are we doomed to slouch towards a Ragnarök of our own making?<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2020/04/opinion-a-ragnarok-of-ones-own.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-34070549736954683442020-11-18T11:12:00.000-06:002020-11-18T11:12:39.327-06:00New Gods of the Fourth WorldI’ve known about Darkseid at least since he appeared on the cover of the first issue of DC Comics’ <i>Super Powers</i> in 1985. Since then, I’ve read dozens of comic books featuring the dark master of Apokolips and all the associated New Gods created by Jack Kirby.<br /><br />
When yet another reboot of Superman comics introduced Lex Luthor’s Apokoliptian armor and use of a Mother Box, I realized that I’ve never really had a particularly clear grasp of Kirby’s whole DC mythology. I know who the characters are, I know about the strange melding of mysticism and technology, but I’ve never really felt like I fully understood what all the fuss and bother with these strange figures was all about.<br /><br />
I decided to pick up a used copy of the first volume of <i>Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus</i> to start at the beginning and see if I could get a better understanding of the weirdness.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzj1zjHYFqs8-SOyj8eqenUxmLGteSUPnY5RcK21hRbdlqKc9MHQ9SPQC2fPvPIJ6AGMX8h49s1dGxnJYyvsFIvYrTwZOZJEV3EiHF-Z4MDhrgQVa7AHhLxhC6anupk13O0YaZkeDQ680/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="857" data-original-width="1170" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzj1zjHYFqs8-SOyj8eqenUxmLGteSUPnY5RcK21hRbdlqKc9MHQ9SPQC2fPvPIJ6AGMX8h49s1dGxnJYyvsFIvYrTwZOZJEV3EiHF-Z4MDhrgQVa7AHhLxhC6anupk13O0YaZkeDQ680/w640-h469/jack+kirby+the+mighty+thor+marvel+comics+fourth+world+omnibus+dc+big+barda+orion+marvel+masterworks+norse+myth+mythology+god+gods+deities+comics+comic+books+book+adaptation+interpretation+illustration+update.jpg" title="Mythological works of Jack Kirby (photo by Karl E. H. Seigfried)" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mythological works of Jack Kirby (photo by <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/about.html" target="_blank">Karl E. H. Seigfried</a>)</td></tr></tbody></table><br />From the first 1970 issue of Kirby’s run on <i>Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen</i> – the bizarre choice for Kirby to launch his new mythology after arriving at DC – it was clear that breaking free of the leash that Marvel editor Stan Lee held on his creativity led to some fundamentally strange storytelling.<br /><br />
As writer, artist, and editor of his own work, Kirby brought back the Newsboy Legion – a corny gang of kids he had co-created for DC way back in 1942 – even as he began introducing freakish concepts of hidden conspiracies that would quickly blossom into the complicated plot of what DC called (without explanation) the “Fourth World” storyline, which wound through the Olsen series plus the Kirby-created titles <i>The Forever People</i>, <i>The New Gods</i>, and <i>Mister Miracle</i>.<br /><br />
By the time the first issue of <i>The New Gods</i> arrived in 1971, Kirby had already introduced Darkseid and several of his accomplices, a secret federal genetic lab known as the DNA Project (morphed into Project Cadmus by DC after the 1985 <i>Crisis on Infinite Earths</i> series), a big green Jimmy Olsen that veered awfully close to copyright infringement on the Hulk (co-created by Kirby for Marvel), a new version of the Guardian (another 1942 DC co-creation of Kirby), a group of New Age hippie teenager gods from space in the form of the Forever People of New Genesis, and the mystical female sentient computers known as Mother Boxes.<br /><br />
It was clear that DC was giving Kirby free rein to spin out his strange visions of society, science, space, and spirituality, but things took a surprising (to me, at least) turn in that first issue of <i>The New Gods</i>.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilTpjR_09jQ1ijVTs8havoP563YaXurlpZFi5xXOJtll3i7DAQB1u8_-S0vS44gMBz_GyA0UsqffM90NsgmorNK7jrcp0_nc1qMqSIDdbpwA6iyKAU7DTdonp73vmw6xDr0HJYvxMkR-k/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
<img data-original-height="1635" data-original-width="1219" height="644" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilTpjR_09jQ1ijVTs8havoP563YaXurlpZFi5xXOJtll3i7DAQB1u8_-S0vS44gMBz_GyA0UsqffM90NsgmorNK7jrcp0_nc1qMqSIDdbpwA6iyKAU7DTdonp73vmw6xDr0HJYvxMkR-k/w477-h640/the+new+gods+issue+1+first+jack+kirby+fourth+world+dc+omnibus+epilogue+old+gods+ragnarok+ragnaro%25CC%2588k+destruction+of+asgard+destroyed+death+of+thor+marvel+comics+holocaust+end+of+an+era.jpg" title="The fall of the old gods, from the first issue of The New Gods by Jack Kirby" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The fall of the old gods, from the first issue of <i>The New Gods</i> by Jack Kirby</td></tr></tbody></table><br />In a two page prologue titled “Epilogue,” Kirby writes,
<blockquote><i>There came a time when the old gods died!</i> The brave died with cunning! The noble perished, locked in battle with unleashed evil! It was the <i>last</i> day for them! An ancient era was <i>passing</i> in <i>fiery</i> holocaust!</blockquote>
The full-page illustration shows figures who look an awful lot like the Asgardian gods Kirby had drawn for Marvel from 1962 until 1970. There’s even a shadowy portrayal of a powerful figure in a winged helmet wielding a short-handled hammer.<br /><br />
Kirby continues with a description of “the home of the old gods” being torn asunder into two halves and accompanies it with a drawing of an island in outer space with an outline that looks suspiciously like that of the version of Asgard he had long illustrated over at Marvel. The two halves of the old gods’ dwelling become the paired planets of New Genesis and Apokolips, the domains of Highfather and Darkseid, and new deities that arise to take the place of the old.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">From Asgard to Apokolips</span></b></span><br /><br />
This was the point at which I realized Kirby was giving DC a direct sequel to the sagas of the Norse gods he had produced for Marvel. Indeed, he had already been working on the concept while still employed at Stan Lee’s company, planning out a Ragnarök that would kill off the Asgardians and give rise to new gods of a new mythology. Due to his ongoing and now well-known shafting by Marvel over creator rights and compensation, he refrained from sharing his plans until he had moved over to the Distinguished Competition.<br /><br />
The Fourth World mythos is a direct continuation of Kirby’s long project of bringing the gods of Norse mythology into modern settings – a project dating back to at least 1941, when Kirby created a version of the Roman god Mercury for Timely Comics who was soon renamed Hurricane and declared to be “son of Thor, god of Thunder.” In 1942, Kirby drew an incarnation of Thor with red beard and horned helmet for DC’s <i>Adventure Comics</i>, then created another bearded Thor in 1957 for DC’s <i>Tales of the Unexpected</i>. His deepest dive into the mythology of the <i>Eddas</i> was, of course, his long run on Marvel’s <i>The Mighty Thor</i> and its backup feature <i>Tales of Asgard</i>.<br /><br />
After seeing the Norse connections of Kirby’s 1970s material for DC, I picked up the insanely huge complete compendium called <i>The Fourth World Omnibus</i>. Containing all of Kirby’s New Gods tales from 1970 through 1985, the weight of the 1,481-page monstrosity felt like it was bruising my rib cage when I laid down on the couch to read it. It didn’t disappoint in the deity department.<br /><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2iY9tANUd7rUBM0Wpfomi9ygl7gry5sOvhKDNOwk4xxSCB534je2Z0DlxYOWwJNM8wZJsftrt5BPwSsQlQgrlPsmqIDQwHPAMNiC-X-WZEB5_-2RbjZ01x4nFqOMlGu9WQ8cjqXy3eAc/s0/the+new+gods+issue+7+seventh+in+the+beginning+baldr+balduur+sorceress+enchantress+freya+freyja+heid+hei%25C3%25B0+wicked+woman+new+genesis+izaya+the+inheritor+avia+god+goddess+jack+kirby+dc+comics+the+mighty+thor+marvel+comics.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;">
<img data-original-height="1328" data-original-width="975" height="654" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2iY9tANUd7rUBM0Wpfomi9ygl7gry5sOvhKDNOwk4xxSCB534je2Z0DlxYOWwJNM8wZJsftrt5BPwSsQlQgrlPsmqIDQwHPAMNiC-X-WZEB5_-2RbjZ01x4nFqOMlGu9WQ8cjqXy3eAc/w470-h640/the+new+gods+issue+7+seventh+in+the+beginning+baldr+balduur+sorceress+enchantress+freya+freyja+heid+hei%25C3%25B0+wicked+woman+new+genesis+izaya+the+inheritor+avia+god+goddess+jack+kirby+dc+comics+the+mighty+thor+marvel+comics.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Relaxing after Ragnarök, from the seventh issue of <i>The New Gods</i> by Jack Kirby</td></tr></tbody></table><br />The seventh issue of <i>The New Gods</i>, published in 1972, tied Kirby’s new mythology even more deeply to the Norse myths. “In the beginning,” the narration begins biblically,
<blockquote>The <i>New Gods</i> were formless in image and aimless in deed!!! On <i>each</i> of their <i>two</i> new worlds, their races had sprung from a <i>survivor</i> of the old!! The living atoms of <i>Balduur</i> gave nobility and strength to one!! – And the shadow planet was saturated with the cunning and evil which was once a <i>sorceress</i>!!</blockquote>
I’ve written before about the fact that Kirby and Lee sometimes seem to <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/09/blond-thor-stan-lee-wasnt-wrong.html" target="_blank">know more about the sources of Norse mythology</a> than prominent academics. I’ve also written about the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2013/11/the-thor-movies-and-norse-mythology.html" target="_blank">blend of Judeo-Christian and Norse mythologies</a> the two of them created. Both Stan Lee (Stanley Lieber) and Jack Kirby (Jacob Kurtzberg) were born in New York City to Jewish immigrants from Europe, and they both repeatedly mix elements from Abrahamic and Indo-European myths.<br /><br />
Here, Kirby moves easily from the opening words of the Book of Genesis to the final verses of the Old Norse poem <i>Völuspá</i> (“Prophecy of the Seeress”) and their revelation that the god Baldr will rule over a new world of peace after the devastation of Ragnarök. Kirby’s line about the aimlessness of the New Gods in their early days seems to echo the lines in <i>Völuspá</i> about the first age of the Norse gods, when sun, moon, and stars wandered about without knowing their own paths.<br /><br />
If the spirit of the bright god Baldr suffuses the beautiful world of the New Gods, who is the evil sorceress who gives her character to Darkseid and the dark gods of Apokolips? The obvious choice is Kirby’s own Enchantress, an enemy of Thor and sometime ally of Loki in Marvel’s version of Norse mythology. In his Thor comics published late in the first decade of this century, writer Matt Fraction explicitly equated the Enchantress with the Norse goddess Freyja. Did Kirby also make this connection?<br /><br />
In <i>Völuspá</i>, the prophetess speaks of a female figure named Heiðr (“bright”) who makes prophecies, practices sorcery, performs enchantments, and “was always the joy of an evil woman.” She’s usually interpreted to be Freyja, the Vanir goddess who teaches magical practices to the Æsir. Maybe this suggestion of a connection between Freyja, sorcery, and wicked women suggested the idea of the Enchantress to Kirby.<br /><br />
Kirby associates the sorceress progenitor of the Apokolips gods with “cunning and evil,” the core traits of his own Marvel version of Loki. The Old Norse <i>Hyndluljóð</i> (“Song of Hyndla”) has a striking description of Loki being impregnated by an evil woman and becoming the ancestor of every ogress that came after. Perhaps this connection between Loki and ill-working women was also in Kirby’s mind when he conceived the origins of Apokolips.<br /><br />
Loki looms larger in the character of Metron, especially as portrayed in this particular issue. Although one of the New Gods of New Genesis, he strikes a pact with Darkseid and is willing to provide services that harm his original tribe in order to further his own personal ends even as he brushes aside the fact that his double-dealing will “create the means for mass slaughter.”<br /><br />In the <i>Eddas</i>, Loki is likewise a figure who plays both sides as he moves between the giants of his original tribe and the gods with whom he lives in the mythic present. Like Metron, he shows little loyalty to either side in the cosmic conflict, is motivated by his own needs, and moves everyone down the line to the bloody climax of Ragnarök.<br /><br />
The issue ends with Highfather and Darkseid exchanging hostages to – for a time – end the conflict between their two tribes of warring gods. Snorri Sturluson’s <i>Ynglinga saga</i> (“Saga of the Ynglings”) tells of the similar exchange of hostages that ends the first great mythological war between the god-tribes of the Æsir and Vanir. Given the obvious similarity between the names Highfather and Allfather (an English translation of the Old Norse <i>Alföðr</i>, a byname of Odin) it would seem that the patriarch of the New Gods is a parallel of the patriarch of the Norse gods as portrayed in the Icelandic sources.<br><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2bwwl-vMv6i1bDfvXnd-BOv9LPOHdPkmSQyKNtg2NtPjmWwcR6O-9zJj-iVZJuuKwHyQzCXkuVsR8JNpD-QyvY3mwRgjdeI_ICGP9-WUIddD1xpsvYNipNmNpvBw2Q_cfzEP2xjPgu04/s768/the+new+gods+7+fourth+world+jack+kirby+dc+comics+highfather+rejects+the+way+of+war+war+staff.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="350" data-original-width="768" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2bwwl-vMv6i1bDfvXnd-BOv9LPOHdPkmSQyKNtg2NtPjmWwcR6O-9zJj-iVZJuuKwHyQzCXkuVsR8JNpD-QyvY3mwRgjdeI_ICGP9-WUIddD1xpsvYNipNmNpvBw2Q_cfzEP2xjPgu04/w640-h292/the+new+gods+7+fourth+world+jack+kirby+dc+comics+highfather+rejects+the+way+of+war+war+staff.jpg" title="Highfather rejects his war-staff and renounces war, from issue 7 of The New Gods by Jack Kirby" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Highfather rejects his war-staff and renounces war, from issue 7 of <i>The New Gods</i> by Jack Kirby<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
But Kirby’s Highfather is more closely connected to the Old Testament than he is to Old Norse. He bears a staff in the shape of a Mosaic shepherd’s crook, not an Odinnic spear. Indeed, the seventh issue of <i>The New Gods</i> shows him rejecting his “war-staff” as a weapon as he renounces war itself. After he does so, a wall appears in a desert waste and “a hand of flame” writes a message on it, stating that the inheritance of the man who becomes the Highfather is the Source, Kirby’s pre-<i>Star Wars</i> concept of a universal force that courses through the universe.<br /><br />
This fairly obviously refers to the mystic hand that writes on the wall of Belshazzar in the Book of Daniel, delivering God’s message that the Babylonian ruler’s kingdom will be divided. Division also relates to Kirby’s tale, as the exchange of hostages immediately follows and the two tribes of gods agree to stay apart on their own respective planets.<br /><br />
Highfather discards his staff of war and carries a staff of peace, eventually – at the conclusion of <i>The Hunger Dogs</i>, the 1985 graphic novel at the end of the <i>Omnibus</i> – raising his staff meaningfully as he leads the New Gods in search of a new home for his tribe in a not altogether subtle reflection of Moses as a shepherd leading the Israelites away from oppression and towards their eventual home.<br /><br />
So if Highfather is Kirby’s new Moses, where is his Odin?<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Odinnic fury and a Broadway star</b></span></span><br /><br />
The same issue shows that Darkseid’s young son Orion has been given to Highfather as part of the hostage exchange. He grows up to be the great warrior prophesied to bring down Darkseid himself. Throughout his Fourth World mythos, Kirby portrays Orion as a figure whose rage continually threatens to overwhelm him. He pushes his allies aside in his furious determination to gather information that will enable him to win victory over his enemies and wreak bloody havoc as he obsesses over the prophecy of the final battle and his own ultimate fate.<br /><br />
Odin’s very name has etymological roots in terms for fury and madness, and his berserker devotees are defined by their overwhelming rage. I’m one of many people who give precedence to the Icelandic images of Odin as a wandering sharer of wisdom and inspirer of creativity, but he is also the bloodthirsty god of war who seeks information about the final battle to come, stirs up violent strife among men, and is identified by the medieval German chronicler Adam of Bremen as “Wodan, id est furor” (“Wodan, that is fury”).<br /><br />
It is this darker aspect of the god – himself the son of a giantess and the grandson of a giant named Bölþorn (“evil thorn”) – that Kirby transmutes into Darkseid’s universe-traveling son Orion, willfully mashing up Greek and Norse mythology as he names his Odinnic character for the Greek hunter.<br /><br />
Kirby may have chosen this particular mythic name to connect his character with Odin as the leader of a form of the Wild Hunt, but a penchant for Greek-Norse hybridization is already evident in his 1941 tales of Mercury, son of Thor. Even in this, he echoes Snorri’s <i>Edda</i>, with its insistence that the Norse gods can be traced back to the legendary heroes of the Trojan War.<br /><br />
Kirby also seems to be following Snorri in his portrayal of Lightray, the bright and shining god of New Genesis who dresses all in white and refuses to engage with the dark fury of Orion’s single-mindedness and bloody-mindedness. Much of Kirby’s characterization of Lightray parallels Snorri’s introduction of Baldr in the <i>Edda</i>:
<blockquote>He is so fair in appearance and so bright that light shines from him, and there is a plant so white that it is called after Baldr’s eyelash… He is the wisest of the Æsir and most beautifully spoken and most merciful, but it is one of his characteristics that none of his decisions can be fulfilled.</blockquote>
With only the smallest of changes, this could be modified to describe Lightray, the bright one whose words of peace are furiously brushed aside by the raging Orion.<br /><br />
And what of Thor?<br /><br />
At the end of the 1960s, shortly before he left Marvel, Kirby made a series of presentation drawings showing radical reworkings of the cast of <i>The Mighty Thor</i>. The character and costume designs show a conceptual midpoint between his 1960s Marvel gods and his 1970s DC deities. He was clearly thinking of new directions for the thunderer, and two very Thor-ish, but very different, figures appear in his Fourth World epic – one male and one female.<br /><br>In a backup feature paralleling his old <i>Tales of Asgard</i> series for Marvel, the 1971 fifth issue of <i>The Forever People</i> features Kirby’s introduction of a New God named Lonar who wanders alone (hence his rather transparent name) through the ruins of Asgard on New Genesis in search of remnants of “the elder gods.” He finds a “battle horse” of the past era who is given the name Thunderer in Lonar’s next backup feature, two issues later.<br><br>
Perhaps echoing the hostility between Thor and Odin in the Old Norse <i>Hárbarðsljóð</i> (“Song of Graybeard”), the horse rears up and bolts when touched by Orion. Or maybe the horse, a survivor of one Ragnarök, recognizes that Orion is destined to bring about another.<br><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36ZRgGrn2H0KawgRyjd5P397DD9iOFLgvZy4Hj8eErfaMkCP4ZvU-3oyCjjowbMvq07WiCRlGfQrTrXh-LURq_bT9Ht9lHVL3LNITIHYoVVp1rqbHoAQwua_-L9zsQJ7GKuGTMJVa_tg/s1217/hunger+dogs+graphic+novel+jack+kirby+fourth+world+new+gods+dc+comics+highfather+lonar+the+mighty+thor+marvel+comics.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="1217" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg36ZRgGrn2H0KawgRyjd5P397DD9iOFLgvZy4Hj8eErfaMkCP4ZvU-3oyCjjowbMvq07WiCRlGfQrTrXh-LURq_bT9Ht9lHVL3LNITIHYoVVp1rqbHoAQwua_-L9zsQJ7GKuGTMJVa_tg/w640-h289/hunger+dogs+graphic+novel+jack+kirby+fourth+world+new+gods+dc+comics+highfather+lonar+the+mighty+thor+marvel+comics.jpg" title="Lonar wears "the trappings of the elder gods" in Hunger Dogs by Jack Kirby" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lonar wears "the trappings of the elder gods" in <i>Hunger Dogs</i> by Jack Kirby</td></tr></tbody></table><br>
When Lonar reappears thirteen years later in the graphic novel that brings a form of closure to Kirby’s mythology, he is drawn like a slightly redesigned version of Kirby’s Marvel Thor – a design much closer to the 1960s character than to the proposed updates Kirby created before leaving for DC. Lonar’s long hair flows from beneath a winged helmet as he returns to the city of the New Gods and Highfather remarks, “Don’t you look splendid in the trappings of the elder gods!” and tells him that he’s “not the first to be intrigued by the ancient past.”<br><br>
As with several of Kirby’s characters – he openly said Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four was a self-portrait – Lonar seems to be a reflection of an aspect of the artist’s self. In this case, he is an acknowledgement of Kirby’s lifelong love of ancient mythology and its tales of gods and heroes.<br /><br />
That said, the character who seems the most direct descendant of Marvel’s Thor in DC’s New Gods is Big Barda. She appears in all her glory on the first page of the 1971 fourth issue of <i>Mister Miracle</i>, wearing armor and helmet heavily stylized in the Kirby manner. Like Kirby's Thor, Barda is the tank of the party, always ready to rush in and start smashing enemies with her “mega-rod,” an hand-held weapon that – like Marvel’s Mjölnir – isn’t only a blunt instrument, but manifests whatever amazing powers Kirby needs it to have at a given point in the storyline.<br><br>
She’s arguably the most macho figure of the Fourth World, bringing a direct Thor-like energy to what sometimes devolves into posturing Wagnerian space opera. Big Barda is also the leader of the Female Furies, the bizarre Valkyrie-like force that follows her lead from Apokolips to her adventures on Earth and elsewhere. In 1987, artist, writer, and Kirby devotee Walter Simonson strengthened the Thor-Barda connection when he introduced the new-look Marvel Thor wearing armor that was awfully close in color scheme, concept, and design to that worn by Big Barda.<br /><br />
Given his mixing of mythologies, it’s interesting that Kirby’s direct inspiration for Big Barda was the Jewish Broadway singer Lainie Kazan, then a rising star after stepping in for Barbra Streisand in <i>Funny Girl</i> and being featured in an issue of <i>Playboy</i>. Multiculturalism is a feature of the Fourth World, with three of the series having black characters in the core cast and the other having a prominent recurring African-American character.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Mugged by the Word of God”</span></b></span><br /><br />
Kirby’s social and political concerns come through in other ways, such as in the depiction of Glorious Godfrey in the 1971 third issue of <i>The Forever People</i>. Based on the <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2018/03/column-the-dark-heart-of-billy-graham.html" target="_blank">anti-Semitic and homophobic evangelical Christian minister Billy Graham</a>, Godfrey smilingly encourages his followers to embrace “anti-life” as he issues helmets that enable them to hide their identities and – with the freedom from morality granted by anonymity – wield brutal violence against those they wish to eliminate.<br><br>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvD7queUuGd7Xw7OgN5USvelasybWLrSUewPXqSVGJI3GVEH6vTi3MUNOxd6v1gpgCRsARxmaulLJ4z2TvqtSZv57NF4ZxZP32QEUtBIEBtQUEkXZJxbqEiCPNAm5jrkfy21f6pPoDA8A/s1489/the+forever+people+third+issue+3+jack+kirby+glorious+godfrey+billy+graham+evangelist+jack+kirby+fourth+world+dc+comics+anti+life+antilife+equation+darkseid+cult+helmet+justified+justifier.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1069" data-original-width="1489" height="345" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvD7queUuGd7Xw7OgN5USvelasybWLrSUewPXqSVGJI3GVEH6vTi3MUNOxd6v1gpgCRsARxmaulLJ4z2TvqtSZv57NF4ZxZP32QEUtBIEBtQUEkXZJxbqEiCPNAm5jrkfy21f6pPoDA8A/w640-h459/the+forever+people+third+issue+3+jack+kirby+glorious+godfrey+billy+graham+evangelist+jack+kirby+fourth+world+dc+comics+anti+life+antilife+equation+darkseid+cult+helmet+justified+justifier.jpg" title="Glorious Godfrey evangelizes for Darkseid, from the third issue of The Forever People by Jack Kirby" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Glorious Godfrey evangelizes for Darkseid, from the third issue of <i>The Forever People</i> by Jack Kirby<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Kirby introduces Godfrey by showing him standing on a giant stage and preaching of a coming holocaust before smilingly telling his followers that they are superior to those to whom they will bring “Darkseid’s gift of anti-life.” Always ratcheting up his influences to symbolic levels, Kirby portrays Billy Graham’s manipulation of his enormous audiences in cosmic terms.<br /><br>
Sometimes the mythological and sociological influences coincide, as in Kirby’s portrayal of the “bugs,” humanoids who evolve in underground colonies from poisonous “micro-life” sent against New Genesis by Darkseid as the dwarfs of Norse mythology evolve “by decision of the gods” from where they squirm in the flesh of the dead giant Ymir “like maggots in flesh.”<br><br>
In the 1972 tenth issue of <i>The New Gods</i>, Kirby shows the rulers of New Genesis – as imperfect as the gods of the various Indo-European mythologies – working to eradicate what they see as a lesser race by denouncing them as pests who seek to rise above their station. In case you miss the parallel with the Nazis gassing their Jewish prisoners in extermination camps, Kirby provides disturbing imagery of a field covered with dead and dying as the lone standing figure chokes to death and yellow clouds of gas drift over the scene.<br /><br />
Kirby’s idiosyncratic admixture of the mythological, sociological, and technological sometimes gives the work a prescient quality. At the beginning of his Fourth World saga, Kirby’s portrayal of the Mother Box as a small computer obsessively loved by its owner, always kept close to the body, and turned to for information and help in all circumstances predicts the ubiquity of and intense love for smartphones nearly forty years before the appearance of the first iPhone.<br><br>
At the end of his epic, Darkseid becomes almost pathetic as he laments the rise of Micro-Mark, the new technology developed for him by the deviant New Genesis god named Esak that seems to portray digital technology and/or nuclear weapons. In 1985, the year the <i>Hunger Dogs</i> graphic novel appeared, Microsoft released its first iteration of Windows and began the digital transformation of postmodern life even as the Air Force began testing its Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser as a possible defense against incoming nuclear missiles. As always, Kirby reworked his concerns about real-world developments into symbolic form.<br /><br />
In his introduction to the first book of the multi-volume collection of the Fourth World comics, Scottish writer Grant Morrison discusses the effect of first attempting to read this material at age eleven. Kirby’s tales, he writes,
<blockquote>operated at a higher frequency than my pre-adolescent brain was wired up to match; his operatic visions of burning planets and snarling sci-fi deities left me with an inner shudder of the numinous and uncanny. Kirby’s dramas were staged across Jungian vistas of raw symbol and storm…. Kirby was too wild, too creepy, too raw.</blockquote>
He describes “experiencing a near-religious sense of awe and terror” and feeling like he’d “been mugged by the Word of God and somehow walked away.”<br /><br />
Despite being thirty-five years older when I first read this material, I had a similar experience. At every step, I felt like Kirby’s tales manifested at the level of mythology, of myth as described by the French philosopher and theologian Paul Ricœur as “symbols developed in the form of narrations.”<br><br>
In Kirby’s sprawling epic – improvised and willed into material form as he furiously created page after page and issue after issue for year after year – the narrative is often difficult to follow, the dialogue is many times obscure, the motivations of the characters are regularly unclear, good and evil are sometimes not so clearly delineated, death is always a threatening presence, and there constantly seems to be some deeper symbolic meaning that is just out of reach behind the surface action.<br /><br />
Kirby really was transcending the medium in which he worked and creating a new mythology that followed and built upon the ancient Norse mythology that he so long and so deeply loved. Like the myths of ancient times, Kirby provided no key to decode his symbols – even though DC later attempted, in Snorrian fashion, to explain away all the inherent uncanniness of his vision as they sanded away the rough edges to fit Kirby’s characters into the mainstream of their own corporate mythos. Also like the old myths, Kirby’s work both expresses the deepest concerns of his time and speaks to the worrying aspects of our own age.<br><br><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECpuHwao5Km2LOXx-V58MelFecEf2JLjrt1no956d1B644em7-5-6cX4jlNfdH2MdmNtM53LSpWLEO5IiPpa1vSgD1WmwF74PwG1672pD07ZCjT286BxngneitFcHIr2QJ1jP3ahmTI8/s2048/jack+kirby+self+portrait+1944+world+war+ii+2+colored+by+rob+steibel.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1473" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECpuHwao5Km2LOXx-V58MelFecEf2JLjrt1no956d1B644em7-5-6cX4jlNfdH2MdmNtM53LSpWLEO5IiPpa1vSgD1WmwF74PwG1672pD07ZCjT286BxngneitFcHIr2QJ1jP3ahmTI8/w460-h640/jack+kirby+self+portrait+1944+world+war+ii+2+colored+by+rob+steibel.jpg" title="1944 self-portrait by Jack Kirby, colored by Rob Steibel" width="460" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1944 self-portrait by Jack Kirby, colored by <a href="https://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/dynamics/2011/02/19/kirby-portrait-with-fan-colors/" target="_blank">Rob Steibel</a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br>
Last year, I wrote about baseball player, author, and activist <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2019/08/column-jim-bouton-pray-for-us.html" target="_blank">Jim Bouton as one of my personal saints</a>. The other very human individuals I consider in that category are John Coltrane, Jack Kerouac, and Malcolm X – all of whom challenged themselves to be greater while publicly speaking out against the failings of their own society. After reading the Fourth World saga and Mark Evanier’s excellent illustrated biography <i>Kirby: King of Comics</i>, I’ve now added Jack Kirby to that short list. Like the others, he is a prophet – not only in the sense of speaking of things yet to come, but with the meaning of being inspired with deep spiritual insight.<br /><br />
There’s much more to be said about Jack Kirby. As lengthy as this article turned out to be, it barely scratches the surface. Hail to the king of comics!<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2019/11/column-new-gods-of-the-fourth-world.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-60429242013347287002020-09-22T17:42:00.006-05:002020-10-26T13:06:47.957-05:00The Fall Equinox and the Lives We LeadHere in the northern hemisphere, the autumnal equinox occurs on Tuesday, September 22. Due to the crowded calendars of our busy modern lives not lining up exactly with the cosmic movements of celestial bodies, I and my friends in <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/" target="_blank">Thor’s Oak Kindred</a> will get together via Zoom to celebrate our annual fall <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">blót </a>on Saturday night. The fact that we will be celebrating a modern version of ancient ritual via videoconferencing led me to reflect on what it means to celebrate this particular turning point of the year in a multicultural urban setting of non-farmers.<br /><br />
In 2017, <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2017/09/column-six-heathens-speak-of-fall.html" target="_blank">I asked several Heathens</a> in England, Germany, and the United States how they and their religious communities celebrate the fall equinox. In one way or another, each mentioned farming and fishing, harvest and hunting, rural life and regional traditions. All the answers were interesting, and there were as many differences in their responses as similarities. Reading their comments today, however, I’m struck by how much my own experiences in the Second City don’t line up with theirs.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOxqVujxztaX5s2v8Fk4fKbz1aQIeyh-inyGJhQqsBLremxvswraXWE0qrxkwc30550do0Zm6q-n5Zjg5UfbyK4GbpW6vuEnVDnNg8JHj7YGZZh5QHgdgBMJ2GnDBMo63iIjd_zZOUOA/s1600/vintage+chicago+postcard.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1600" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOxqVujxztaX5s2v8Fk4fKbz1aQIeyh-inyGJhQqsBLremxvswraXWE0qrxkwc30550do0Zm6q-n5Zjg5UfbyK4GbpW6vuEnVDnNg8JHj7YGZZh5QHgdgBMJ2GnDBMo63iIjd_zZOUOA/w640-h410/vintage+chicago+postcard.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vintage Chicago postcard<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Urban Heathen</span></b></span><br /><br />
Spending hours fighting rush-hour traffic among the hazy forms of sky-scraping towers of commerce, crowding into an L car to come back from Wrigley Field after cheering the Cubs on to a September win, pushing through the crowds of tourists at the Chicago Jazz Festival to get to the sea of smiling faces in the playgrounds at Maggie Daley Park, putting together PowerPoint presentations on the Great Migration of African-Americans from the rural south to the urban north for classrooms full of students from around the country and around the world, looking on as Little Leaguers determinedly take to fields surrounded on all sides by busy city streets to extend the softball season through September and into October, picking up a pizza for Friday night dinner from a crowded corner bar that has been serving slices in a Jewish neighborhood for sixty-six years, trying to decide between a twelve-pack of German or Mexican beer at the liquor store that had a tiny counter for foreign cheeses at the back when I was in preschool and the regular grocery stores only had Kraft Singles and Easy Cheese, trying to count how many different languages are being spoken by parents and children at the neighborhood playground after school gets out, heading out to the highway to drive up to Wisconsin for orchestra rehearsal a few days after recording a season’s worth of South Side Chicago gospel music for programs WGN-TV: these are some of the things that have happened around the fall equinox in my own life, and I’m happy with this life.<br /><br />
It’s simply a fact that I have no direct connection to the rural traditions cited by those other Heathens. My mom grows some little vegetables in pots on her condo porch overlooking a city thoroughfare. Aside from those tiny tomatoes and miniature carrots, everything we eat and drink is mediated by multiple levels of distribution. It’s definitely problematic how much fossil fuel is used and how much pollution is produced to get a pumpkin from country farm to city grocer, but I must admit I still get a thrill from being able to eat marzipan made in Germany and drink Bitburger “brewed according to the German Beer Purity Law of 1516.” International trade has its benefits.<br /><br />
It’s also a fact that I get a kick from the bright lights of the big city. It’s exciting to play with legends of gospel music while surrounded by gigantic TV cameras and to record in the same studios and on the same equipment where classic Chicago blues and jazz has been recorded for decades. It’s a blast to host a weekly FM radio show in the same part of the city where Jack Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Richard Wright, and Gwendolyn Brooks made important contributions to our nation’s history. It’s amazing to perform at Symphony Hall and Millennium Park and so many other venues and stages. It’s fantastic to stand up at Wrigley and feel the entire stadium shake with the roaring crowd when one of our Cubbies hits a ball out of the park.<br /><br />
It’s wonderful, also, to be able to share my love of what Heathens call “the lore” in this wild world I inhabit. My classes on the <i>Eddas</i>, <i>Beowulf</i>, <i>Völsunga saga</i>, and the <i>Nibelungenlied</i> have been full of students from China, India, Japan, Nigeria, eastern Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere around the planet. It’s one thing to discuss these texts in all-Heathen Facebook groups. It’s another to dive deeply into them with international students of all creeds and none. Coming to these texts with fresh eyes, my students have often had insights and made comments that caused me to rethink fundamental assumptions I had made about specific lines and verses. In this multicultural setting, it has also become painfully obvious that even the latest translations make word-choices that are fundamentally racist and still beholden to the old nineteenth-century colonialist ways of rendering the texts.<br /><br /><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Still we celebrate</b></span></span><br /><br />
So I’m happy with this urban life. I don’t have any Romantic longing for a supposedly simpler agrarian past, whether of the 1950s or the 950s. Yes, I’m thankful for the American farmers who work long hours every day to keep us fed with nutritious food, for all those who labor endlessly to make our modern lives possible. Yet I’m also thankful for the city workers who make our urban lives livable and for the scientists who bring us the medications that enable me to keep breathing. Our current American era is one of deep divisions and bitter strife, but I would rather be here in the thick of it than in any other time or place. I study the past and obsess over its mythology, poetry, religion, and ritual, but I have no desire to live in those ancient times or to somehow reconstruct an age before human rights, modern medicine, and the scientific method.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNIVkTAi6CXhnLtMcK6jGDPHMdRLZC2oVY-IoU6PGBhOkp7Z93BSMDqROjVtW-lW77KY-vBHYZtF4ELr5bQOv7qKLAFUldmddsXp5_FObZ4mAJMj70QjnFgodBVCEnIbVprVxSaQ-_8WI/s1799/I40+wacker+drive+and+chicago+river+by+night+vintage+postcard.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1199" data-original-width="1799" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNIVkTAi6CXhnLtMcK6jGDPHMdRLZC2oVY-IoU6PGBhOkp7Z93BSMDqROjVtW-lW77KY-vBHYZtF4ELr5bQOv7qKLAFUldmddsXp5_FObZ4mAJMj70QjnFgodBVCEnIbVprVxSaQ-_8WI/w640-h426/I40+wacker+drive+and+chicago+river+by+night+vintage+postcard.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vintage postcard of Chicago by night<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />
Yet still we celebrate fall blót. What symbolism and meaning can such an event have for those of us who have no direct connection to agrarian life, who are happy with the diverse urban world we inhabit, and who have no longing for the long ago time? What does the cycle of the year mean to those of us who gladly live in urban America in 2020 and consciously practice a New Religious Movement with no pretense of reconstructing a supposed ancient tradition? Do we need to shame ourselves for shopping at the grocery store, or can we celebrate the lives we lead and still find celebration of the turning points of the year to be deeply meaningful in our religious practice?<br><br>
The wheel of the year turns as much for us as it does for our friends who live closer to fields of <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/05/monsanto200805" target="_blank">Monsanto-branded corn and soy</a>. Although the changing of the seasons have shifted on the calendar from where they were when I was growing up, we still experience the glory of fall colors, the thrill of chilly nights, and the steady creep of lengthening darkness. The air feels and smells different now than it did just a few weeks ago. The skies are changing above and clothing is changing on the street. There’s a sense of both holding on and looking forward. Personally, I’m reluctant to acknowledge summer is really over until the final out of the World Series, but the world turns whether we will or no.<br /><br />
For all of my life, I’ve gone hiking in the large forest preserves near us, in the state parks up in Wisconsin, and in the national parks to the west. Long before I learned about modern <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Heathenry</a>, I was deeply in love with the quiet mysteries of the forest, in awe of the changes that came over the woods as the sun set, and in touch with the way life ebbed and flowed from season to season, each with its own special sights, sounds, and smells. Listening to dry leaves crunch underfoot and gazing up at the glorious explosions of red, yellow, and orange has been a fall ritual as long as I can remember. But the forest preserves here are bound by multi-lane highways and giant expressways, and the roar of traffic creeps into the woody quiet when you least expect it.<br /><br />
This encroachment of our machined life upon the natural world is one of the things foremost on my mind during this time of seasonal change. There are <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/09/three-billion-birds-lost-north-america/" target="_blank">nearly three billion fewer birds</a> in North America now than when I was a child chasing sparrows in the front yard. As <a href="https://www.wbez.org/stories/local-tree-experts-talk-un-report-on-declining-biodiversity/77d927f5-398b-41d8-a55f-1e12d1b1a43e" target="_blank">biodiversity declines</a> around the world, urban areas are facing real negative effects that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/755349748/trees-are-key-to-fighting-urban-heat-but-cities-keep-losing-them?fbclid=IwAR13ciYiWgkKt51QZemjX7_tqmDXbzHtjTFGngZTcfV3_NAmVFKFRrp7otg" target="_blank">disproportionately affect poorer areas and communities of color</a>. If Heathens and other Pagans really do believe that we are our deeds and that we practice world-affirming and earth-based traditions, do we have a special responsibility to lead the way on climate change issues?<br /><br /><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>From words to deeds</b></span></span><br /><br />
<a href="https://wildhunt.org/2018/04/asatru-ritual-and-climate-change-ethics-part-one.html" target="_blank">I believe that we do</a>, and I believe that practitioners of modern religions should spend at least as much time on looking to the future as they do gazing at the past. Aside from our personal choices regarding plastics and petroleum, aside from making toasts to the gods of the earth in ritual settings, we need to be making our voices heard in the public sphere and openly joining those like Greta Thunberg who are brave enough to echo <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2017/06/thor-world-serpent-and-what-world-needs.html" target="_blank">Thor’s stand against the World Serpent</a> by challenging governments and corporations to make real change. If we are going to venerate our ancestors, we would do well to remember that we will also someday be ancestors. How will our descendants judge our actions and inaction at this crucial turning point?<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkm7iiji58Ql7NTWw-Zv374bHGNcHd8nacPEKwODftNxxSEHCjaiixpB70Ie5_Xu7SGml1u3IldxwYAR0NkpEFeH8vE49BK7l-3SOhJS7EvK5Vn5yTkGfwOxSnWwdX0zOMPJvuSfuhyc/s998/night+scene+looking+south+on+michigan+boulevard+chicago.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="998" height="308" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGkm7iiji58Ql7NTWw-Zv374bHGNcHd8nacPEKwODftNxxSEHCjaiixpB70Ie5_Xu7SGml1u3IldxwYAR0NkpEFeH8vE49BK7l-3SOhJS7EvK5Vn5yTkGfwOxSnWwdX0zOMPJvuSfuhyc/w640-h410/night+scene+looking+south+on+michigan+boulevard+chicago.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vintage postcard of Chicago night scene<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Issues of access, diversity, and equality are intimately tied up with issues of ecology. This deep connection between human society and the natural world has long been at the core of paganisms past and present. As we work for change in the ecological sphere, let’s also work for change in the social sphere. As <a href="https://www.axios.com/trump-trade-war-farm-aid-subsidies-auto-bailout-c6eaf580-381b-422f-8c3d-886f3f9e6115.html" target="_blank">federal payouts to farmers in 2019</a> reach double the amount paid to the automobile industry in 2009, let’s fight the enormous cuts to education funding that <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/divided-learn-state-budgets-cuts-hit-poorer-minority-college-students" target="_blank">disproportionately affect students of color in urban areas</a>. As we face the reality of a third Supreme Court justice being appointed by this Republican president who lost the popular vote, let’s fight to end the electoral college system that <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/12/electoral-college-great-whiter-states-lousy-cities/" target="_blank">gives greater weight to the votes of rural white people than to those of urban people of color</a>. As more Pagans publicly <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2019/05/on-inclusive-heathenry.html" target="_blank">declare their commitment to inclusivity</a>, let’s make sure that our deeds reflect our words.<br /><br />
In his 1793 book <i>Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone</i>, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant writes of the power of group ritual to affect change within the individual participants and, by extension, in the larger society.
<blockquote>The oft-repeated ceremony (<i>communion</i>) of a <i>renewal, continuation, and propagation of this churchly community</i> under laws of <i>equality</i>, a ceremony which indeed can be performed, after the example of the Founder of such a church (and, at the same time, in memory of him), through the formality of a common partaking at the same table, contains within itself something great, expanding the narrow, selfish, and unsociable cast of mind among men, especially in matters of religion, toward the idea of a cosmopolitan <i>moral community</i>; and it is a good means of enlivening a community to the moral disposition of brotherly love which it represents.</blockquote>
Kant’s language obviously refers to the Christian rite, but can, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, be applied to the Ásatrú ritual of blót. By standing together under the autumn sky and speaking over the communal drinking horn, we can expand our inward individual gaze outward to embrace our religious communities, our cities, our states, our countries, and the world itself. The ritual act of speaking and listening can be an agent of change that expands our narrow inward focus to encompass a far larger and more diverse world. As we speak of this changing of the seasons and the turn towards winter, we can send our thoughts out like Odin’s ravens to look out over all the world and to deepen our connections to all the life that it holds. Our words can spur on the deeds needed in these dark times.<br /><br />
For the 1973 song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQi7HP9Bjs" target="_blank">Spiral Architect</a>,” Black Sabbath lyricist and bassist Geezer Butler wrote these lines:
<blockquote>Of all the things I value most of all<br />
I look inside myself<br />
and see my world<br />
and know that it is good.<br /><br />
Of all the things I value most of all<br />
I look upon my earth<br />
and feel the warmth<br />
and know that it is good.</blockquote>
Like Kant, Butler connects the inner experience of the individual with the outer life of the world and moves from one into the other. As shown in the parallel structure of the verses and the equal declarations of worth, to connect oneself to the wider world’s story is not to negate one’s personal narrative. While participating in blót, we share our own experiences and share in the experiences of those who stand beside us. For both Kant and Butler, the journey is from the inner world to the outer one. Heathens of positive intent move farther along the path of that journey each time we perform the rite of blót, each time we join the living community of practice to send out our words and direct our sight outwards.<br /><br />
As the light of the summer fades, may we more clearly hear the voices of others and more resolutely focus on right action that leads to a better world for all of us.<i><br><br>
An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2019/09/column-the-fall-equinox-and-the-lives-we-lead.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-57399113070823453742020-09-11T14:03:00.000-05:002020-09-11T14:03:45.879-05:00Innangard and Utangard: Problematic Roots of Heathen Dualism<p>The paired concepts of “innangard” and “utangard” regularly appear in discussions within the various <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú and Heathen</a> communities in the United States. Supposedly, they together form a key structural element of worldview for ancient Germanic polytheism and the modern reconstruction, recreation, and reimagining of the Old Way.<br /><br />
In reaction to the popularity of these terms on the American Heathen scenes, a recent <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsIZneUeZQw" target="_blank">YouTube video</a> by the Old Norse translator Jackson Crawford forwards an argument that <i>innangard</i> and <i>utangard</i> are “two non-words in Old Norse.”</p><p>Like so much having to do with the intersection of ancient paganism and modern Paganism, however, the situation is complicated.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghlDqaOrgl8hmQ3pgYhDfxYcmtRmgwoMuufEX2iWE2draRqxSHY2ArAQmTu9HqcR1JPBRXr-i9eStvcVk_lyMHgikbNrV4khIFeetocpEh-GtYhULdfouUTs7QgUaf1idI3DiAgqxcKZo/s1170/medieval-miniature-Siege-of-Antioch-Se%25CC%2581bastien-Mamerot-Les-Passages-dOutremer-innangard-innangarth-utgard-utgarth-utangard-utangarth-heathen-asatru-pagan-the-wild-hunt-public-theology-article-1170x1103.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1103" data-original-width="1170" height="453" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghlDqaOrgl8hmQ3pgYhDfxYcmtRmgwoMuufEX2iWE2draRqxSHY2ArAQmTu9HqcR1JPBRXr-i9eStvcVk_lyMHgikbNrV4khIFeetocpEh-GtYhULdfouUTs7QgUaf1idI3DiAgqxcKZo/w640-h605/medieval-miniature-Siege-of-Antioch-Se%25CC%2581bastien-Mamerot-Les-Passages-dOutremer-innangard-innangarth-utgard-utgarth-utangard-utangarth-heathen-asatru-pagan-the-wild-hunt-public-theology-article-1170x1103.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Siege of Antioch in a medieval miniature (c. 1475)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #990000;"><b>Mundane terminology</b></span></span><br /><br />
The Old Norse <i>innangarðs</i> does indeed exist, but it has the simple meaning “within doors” and lacks any deeper resonance. The related word <i>innangarða</i> also exists – with the plain meaning “within the ‘yard,’ inside the fence” – but it appears in church histories, not in texts connected to pagan myth, belief, or practice.<br /><br />
Likewise, the noun <i>útangarða</i> simply means “outside the yard (house)” and appears in Icelandic law codes that were not committed to writing until over a century after Iceland’s official conversion to Christianity in the year 1000. The earliest surviving manuscripts of these codes are from nearly three centuries after the conversion.</p><p>A form of the term appears in the mythological poem <i>Fjölsvinnsmál</i> as <i>útan garða</i> and simply means “outside the walls”; the earliest record of the poem is in paper manuscripts of the 1600s. The related term <i>útangarðs</i> means “outside the fence” and again has no profound sense attached.<br /><br />
The plural noun <i>útgarðar</i> means “the outer building” but appears in Old Icelandic mythology with the meaning “the lands outside the fences” as part of the name or title Útgarða-Loki. In the <i>Edda</i> of Snorri Sturluson, composed around 1220 – over two centuries after conversion – the god Thor travels eastward and crosses the ocean and a large forest before reaching the castle of the giant king called Útgarða-Loki (“Loki of Útgarðar”). In Snorri’s text, the name Útgarðr is used specifically to refer to the castle, not to any wider area.<br /><br />
Around the same time that the Icelandic antiquarian Snorri composed his <i>Edda</i>, the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus wrote his monumental <i>History of the Danes</i>. It features several mythological tales of the Norse gods rewritten as semi-historical legends of human and superhuman heroes with Latinized names.<br /><br />
In one of these tales, the hero Thorkillus embarks on adventures that parallel those of Thor in the Icelandic texts. He sails over the ocean to a land of eternal night before crossing a dark land without grass to find an enormous cliff and enter a cave in which he finds a giant named Vgarthilocus. Modern editors have changed the giant’s name as recorded in the first printed edition to Utgarthilocus or even Utgartha-Loki to make it line up with the character in the Icelandic <i>Edda</i>.<br /><br />
The various versions of <i>innangarða</i> and <i>útangarða</i> that appear in the source texts seem fairly mundane, yet the Americanized terms “innangard” and “utangard” are invested with heavy meaning by Heathens in the United States.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The Americanization of Early Medieval Paganism</b></span></span><br /><br />
In the second volume of <i>Our Troth</i>, published by the U.S.-based organization founded by members of the Ásatrú Free Assembly and now known as the Troth, <i>innangard</i> is defined as “the enclosed world of the human community, within which order, law and security are found, and which must be protected from the outside (by defense against intruders) and from the inside (by maintaining frith [Old Norse “peace”]).”</p><p>Gravity is given to the term by an assertion that “[t]he opposition between the innangard and utangard is fundamental to the way the Teutonic peoples saw themselves in the world.” The corresponding <i>utangard</i> is defined as “the wild and chaotic world, home of outlaws, strangers, giants and monsters.”<br /><br />
In <i>Asatru: A Native European Spirituality</i>, written by the <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/neo-volkisch" target="_blank">neo-völkisch</a> American Stephen McNallen who founded both the Ásatrú Free Assembly and Ásatrú Folk Assembly, <i>innangarth</i> is made synonymous to “Folk Within.” This term is defined as “[c]ollectively, the people descended from the European tribes, wherever they may live or whatever their religious belief.”</p><p>The term <i>utangarth</i> is not in the book’s glossary, but it used in other Ásatrú Folk Assembly publications with the meaning “all forces gathered against the Folk.”<br /><br />
As with so much of Heathenry in the United States, a rather plain Icelandic concept is seen through a lens of prototypically American worldview and recast in a form that touches upon conservative American concepts of law and order, defense from intruders, paranoia about outsiders, and a concept of ancestry grounded in racialist ideas of Europeanness.</p><p>Like many modern Heathen concepts in this country, the source seems to be a Danish scholar named Vilhelm Grønbech.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>“Our folk is Middle-garth”</b></span></span><br /><br />
In 1909, Grønbech published the first part of <i>Vor Folkeætt i Oldtiden</i> (“Our People in Ancient Times”), translated into English as <i>The Culture of the Teutons</i> in 1931. PDFs of the translated text continue to be circulated among American Heathens, and the book is regularly listed in Heathen bibliographies and recommended reading lists. Over the years, several Grønbechian concepts have become hardwired into modern Heathenry in the United States.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zNQ5pxPN0CoI4yvR-KN_Z3v7cNOM7ogjRcFOT281-rA1azWxCkIkBJZJOlRrdY_juFEgRT1pX-cyaerQCYQ3NLd6dU0fqfI2jEm7k6f_3ZEoVcZ7YPvVKxSJY7KXVdmrhLHnmq0Un4s/s1086/Vilhelm+Gr%25C3%25B8nbech+Culture+of+the+Teutons+Gronbech.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1086" data-original-width="800" height="652" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0zNQ5pxPN0CoI4yvR-KN_Z3v7cNOM7ogjRcFOT281-rA1azWxCkIkBJZJOlRrdY_juFEgRT1pX-cyaerQCYQ3NLd6dU0fqfI2jEm7k6f_3ZEoVcZ7YPvVKxSJY7KXVdmrhLHnmq0Un4s/w472-h640/Vilhelm+Gr%25C3%25B8nbech+Culture+of+the+Teutons+Gronbech.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Vilhelm Grønbech (1873-1948)<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />
Unfortunately, the book channels racialist <i>völkisch</i> concepts through Grønbech’s idiosyncratic readings of the Icelandic sagas. It forwards a supposed reconstruction of the inner workings of the souls of various ancient northern European peoples that are mashed together as Grøbech’s primeval Teutons, unquestioningly accepted to be “our forefathers.”</p><p>The work is saturated with nineteenth-century Romantic and pseudo-Nietzschean ideals of the Germanic “central will,” the transformative spiritual effects of physical violence, and a pan-Germanic identity shared across time by readers and subjects. Core to this ideology is Grønbech’s portrayal of “Middle-garth” and “Utgard.”<br /><br />
The Old Icelandic <i>miðgarðr</i> means “middle yard” or “central enclosure” and has cognates throughout the old Germanic languages. It refers to the world of humans, as distinct from those of gods, giants, and other mythological tribes.<br /><br />
In Grønbech’s work, the word takes on a <i>völkisch</i> meaning and is directly opposed to his conception of Utgard. “Our folk,” he writes, “is Middle-garth, and that which lies beyond is Utgard.”</p><p>Using language disturbingly similar to that of Third Reich propaganda and today’s white nationalism, he discusses killing foreigners as an act free of moral consequence shortly before asserting the mystic sacredness of the clan. Biological mysticism and anti-modernism appear as he writes that “the brethren of the clan are not only one soul but one bone, one flesh, in a literal sense that escapes modern brains.” Middle-garth, according to Grønbech, “belongs to men, and belongs to them because they are the strongest, the conquerors” who are fundamentally opposed to “the rabble of Utgard.”<br /><br />
More than recalling the infighting protagonists of the Icelandic sagas, this rhetoric is reminiscent of the Nazi appropriation and manipulation of Friedrich Nietzsche. The philosopher’s image of “the splendid blond beast, prowling about avidly in search of spoil and victory” was transformed by Nazi propagandists into a symbol of the conquering Aryan hero as part of their twisted justification for the mass murder of the Jewish population and the invasion of neighboring nations.</p><p>In Grønbech’s hands, the diverse polytheism and wide-ranging cultural exchange of the ancient world is transformed into a Romantic nationalist dualism of the unified Teutonic clan versus the Others who deserve no ethical consideration.<br /><br />
Unsurprisingly, the audiences for Grønbech’s public lectures skyrocketed during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. <i>The Culture of the Teutons</i> was translated into German by the National Socialist academic Otto Höfler, printed by a <i>völkisch</i> publisher under Nazi control, and included in the library of the Institute for Research of the Jewish Question, a planned Third Reich university system for research and indoctrination focused on anti-Semitic ideology.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Grønbech as guru</b></span></span><br /><br />
It is popular in American Heathenry to dismiss facts such as these by asking “should we throw away the runes because the Nazis used them?”</p><p>The counter-question I would ask is, “what in Grønbech appealed so powerfully to Nazi officers and ideologues?” As a follow-up, I would ask, “what are the implications of American Heathens being attracted to the same twentieth-century text that so captivated the leaders of the Third Reich?”<br /><br />
Although some Heathens view Grønbech as a neutral chronicler of ancient worldview who bases his conclusions on solid academic research, the mode of this work is much closer to the rhapsodic imaginings of Romantics waxing lyrical on the rough virtues of noble savages ancient and distant than it is to the focused, critical, and relentlessly sourced work of scholars in the 111 years since the work first appeared.<br /><br />
I have repeatedly read material by and had discussions with American Heathens who consider Grønbech’s theories to be not theories at all, but rather the factual and undeniable core beliefs of actual Heathens of the long-ago time, be they first-century continental Germanic tribesmen, sixth-century English pagans, or ninth-century Icelandic heathens.<br /><br />
Grønbech’s theoretical distinction between the supposed spiritual meanings of Middle-garth and Utgard has morphed into the general acceptance of the innangard-utangard dualism in much of modern American Heathenry of various flavors, with <i>Middle-garth</i> being replaced by <i>innangard</i> due to the regular use of <i>Midgard</i> for the earth (without spiritual or mystical connotations) and the more obvious in-out opposition of the adopted pair of terms.<br /><br />
An objection can be made that, aside from the purely linguistic issues, Norse mythology does indeed show a distinction between inner and outer worlds.</p><p>As described above, Thor must travel over some form of natural boundary in order to reach the land of the giants, the territory of the tribe of anti-gods that competes with the gods. This idea of crossing a boundary – river, sea, forest, wasteland, or mountain range – in order to move from the familiar inner world to the strange outer world appears throughout Indo-European mythologies, from Sanskrit to Norse, from ancient Indian epics to 19th-century German fairy tales.<br /><br />
Yet it is a narrative trope, not necessarily a spiritual teaching. The hero of the tale must leave home to have the transformative adventure, whether it is Rama going into Dandakaranya, Beowulf sailing to Heorot, or Thor traveling to Jötunheim. The journey is required by the demands of story, not the callings of spirit.<br /><br />
<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>There’s still time to change the road you’re on</b></span></span><br /><br />
When American Heathens scoff at the idea of having basic empathy for anyone except their inner circle by saying “not my innangard, not my problem” or write social media posts describing people outside their insular Heathen community as subhuman denizens of the utangard, they are channeling the ideology of the early 1900s <i>völkisch</i> milieu, not any demonstrably real religious worldview of long-ago pagans.</p><p>When they speak of a unified and ultimately mono-racial modern Heathen in-group that stands in opposition to their African-American, Latinx, Muslim, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ neighbors, and when they speak of those fellow Americans as “stranger peoples,” they are reconstructing Third Reich ideology, not ancient heathen spirituality.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMw1ZmYyK4cRMYJF4P1nwqwbQt7nhFc5U5aQiJzwdxiA6k2WQvOmgsVcWsZOIhfDvQsNYSFAiVRh5MEXTsfJUlPKYdDiJcbx-Q3rGxEbnhhaGrs5AQFPu9TAwijahgZVCsqed2nIQXxu8/s1648/The+Ash+Yggdrasil+The+world+tree+Yggdrasil+and+some+of+its+inhabitants+Date+Published+in+1886+Source+Photographer+Wa%25CC%2588gner+Wilhelm+1886+Asgard+and+the+gods.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1648" data-original-width="1280" height="618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMw1ZmYyK4cRMYJF4P1nwqwbQt7nhFc5U5aQiJzwdxiA6k2WQvOmgsVcWsZOIhfDvQsNYSFAiVRh5MEXTsfJUlPKYdDiJcbx-Q3rGxEbnhhaGrs5AQFPu9TAwijahgZVCsqed2nIQXxu8/w498-h640/The+Ash+Yggdrasil+The+world+tree+Yggdrasil+and+some+of+its+inhabitants+Date+Published+in+1886+Source+Photographer+Wa%25CC%2588gner+Wilhelm+1886+Asgard+and+the+gods.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The World Tree in an 1886 illustration by Wilhelm Wägner<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />
My original intention was to write a somewhat hippy-dippy article about “the expanding innangard” that challenged the inherent divisiveness of the Heathen concept by discussing widening rings of human connection, by building upon what I’ve written before on <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2016/11/wyrd-will-weave-us-together.html" target="_blank">wyrd weaving us all together</a>. Then I stumbled upon a reposting of the YouTube video about “two non-words in Old Norse,” started to do some digging, and ended up with yet another element of American Heathenry that has deeply problematic ties to racialist <i>völkisch</i> ideology.<br /><br />
The situation is less one of pure and ancient Heathen ideals that were temporarily appropriated by the Third Reich than it is of today’s Heathens accepting as ancient truths what are actually interpretations and manipulations of Old Norse material by Nazis and those whose writings were adopted as dogma by them.<br /><br />
Just how much of today’s Heathenry in the United States is really rooted in Romanticism, <i>völkisch</i> ideology, and actual Nazi propaganda?</p><p>If today’s Ásatrú and Heathenry really is focused on reconstruction, recreation, and reimagining of the Old Way, we need to be clear about which old way we intend to follow. For some, the difficulty will be in pruning away beloved elements with roots in a relatively recent and decidedly dark past.<i><br /></i></p><div style="text-align: center;"><i>
</i><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Selected Sources</b></span><br /></div><br />
<i>Laws of Early Iceland: Grágás I</i>. Translated by Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote, and Richard Perkins. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006.<br /><br />
Lindow, John. <i>Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs</i>. Oxford: Oxford, 2001.<br /><br />
Mees, Bernard. <i>The Science of the Swastika</i>. Budapest: Central European University, 2008.<br /><br />
–––. “Völkische Altnordistik: The Politics of Nordic Studies in the German-Speaking Countries, 1926-45.” In <i>Old Norse Myths, Literature, and Society: Proceedings of the 11th International Saga Conference</i>, edited by Geraldine Barnes and Margaret Clunies Ross, 316-326. Sydney: Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney, 2000, 319.<br /><br />
Mitchell, P.M. <i>Vilhelm Grønbech</i>. Boston: Hall-Twayne, 1978.<br /><br />
<i>Poetic Edda, The</i>. Translated by Carolyne Larrington. Oxford: Oxford, 2014.<br /><br />
Saxo Grammaticus. <i>The History of the Danes, Books I-IX</i>. Edited by Hilda Ellis Davidson, translated by Peter Fisher. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996.<br /><br />
Simek, Rudolf. <i>Dictionary of Northern Mythology</i>. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993.<br /><br />
Snorri Sturluson. <i>The Prose Edda</i>. Translated by Jesse Byock. London: Penguin, 2005.<br /><br />
Stork, John. “<a href="https://drc.libraries.uc.edu/bitstream/handle/2374.UC/732765/NaziBooksUCL.pdf" target="_blank">Artifacts of Fascism: Nazi Books at the University of Cincinnati Libraries</a>.” University of Cincinnati Digital Resource Commons website.<br /><br />
Vigfusson, Gudbrand. <i>An Icelandic-English Dictionary</i>. Oxford: Oxford, 1874.<br /><br />
Vikstrand, Per. “Ásgarðr, Miðgarðr, and Útgarðr: A linguistic approach to a classical problem.” In <i>Old Norse religion in long-term perspectives: Origins, changes, and interactions</i>, edited by Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere, 354-357. Lund, Sweden: Nordic Academic Press, 2006.<br /><br />
Wellendorf, Jonas. <i>Gods and Humans in Medieval Scandinavia: Retying the Bonds</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge, 2018.<br /><br />
<i>An earlier version of this article appeared at <a href="https://wildhunt.org/2020/01/column-innangard-and-utangard-problematic-roots-of-heathen-dualism.html" target="_blank">The Wild Hunt</a>.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2841348142033509263.post-3368284221822078372020-07-18T10:35:00.000-05:002020-07-18T10:35:26.253-05:00Modern Heathens and the Poetic EddaForty-nine years ago, one of the most important textual sources of Norse mythology was returned to its original home in Iceland.<br />
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The thirteenth-century Icelandic manuscript known as the Codex Regius (“royal manuscript”) contains poems about gods, heroes, dragons, dwarfs, and giants from Iceland’s pagan past.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2uYKU8D7x607T42_C8CWT8lXSWe2hbMF-gBuFbVUuPkY-f-XnVEvOFmXPxc8X4YSZawmd6nB_WzJiXOIc3Sk08jSqoT8y8kEb7fZPhy35tej4xPBFloRkXZFEhHur15oKUFdN-22He0/s1600/arthur+rackham+sea+battle+stories+from+the+edda+illustration+ink+gouache+paperboard+thor+hymir+world+serpent+jormungandr+fishing+trip+illustration+painting+poetic+elder+edda.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1155" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz2uYKU8D7x607T42_C8CWT8lXSWe2hbMF-gBuFbVUuPkY-f-XnVEvOFmXPxc8X4YSZawmd6nB_WzJiXOIc3Sk08jSqoT8y8kEb7fZPhy35tej4xPBFloRkXZFEhHur15oKUFdN-22He0/s640/arthur+rackham+sea+battle+stories+from+the+edda+illustration+ink+gouache+paperboard+thor+hymir+world+serpent+jormungandr+fishing+trip+illustration+painting+poetic+elder+edda.png" width="462" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration of Thor's fishing trip by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)</td></tr>
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Scholars disagree about the composition dates of the various poems, but they generally agree that the written texts preserve elements of oral tradition preexisting Iceland’s public conversion from paganism to Christianity in 1000 CE. After an Icelandic bishop presented the manuscript as a gift to the Danish king in 1662, it became known as the “royal manuscript.”<br />
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Iceland’s great collection of mythological poems remained in Denmark for over three hundred years, until the conclusion of process of negotiation that began with the 1961 passing of a Danish law regarding the return of Icelandic manuscripts, continued through legal proceedings, and culminated in the 1971 ratifaction of a bilateral treaty.<br />
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Icelanders didn’t trust the safety of air travel for the long-awaited return of the irreplaceable mythological manuscript, so a military escort guarded its journey via ship to Reykjavík, where a large crowd joyfully awaited its arrival on April 21, 1971.<br />
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Today, the poems are known and loved around the world as the core of the <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/books.html" target="_blank"><i>Poetic Edda</i></a>, a book that has been repeatedly translated into many languages in various forms since the mid-1600s. The collection tells of the prophecy of Ragnarök, the wise sayings of Odin, the adventures of Thor, the slanderous accusations by Loki, the tragedy of Sigurd the dragon-slayer, and much more.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>An insight into a life that was</b></span></span><br />
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Pagan poems written down in thirteenth-century Iceland have a vibrant life in today’s <a href="https://www.thorsoak.info/p/asatru.html" target="_blank">Ásatrú</a>, a contemporary iteration of Old Norse religion whose practitioners refer to themselves as Heathens. The name of the new religious movement is a modern Icelandic term that translates as “Æsir Faith,” referring to belief in or loyalty to the main tribe of Norse gods. <br />
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In the twenty-first century, the <i>Poetic Edda</i> is treasured by Heathens in Iceland as a vital connection to voices from the pagan past.<br />
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“The poems of the <i>Eddas</i> are a source of wisdom of humanity,” says <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2011/01/interview-with-johanna-g-harardottir-of.html" target="_blank">Jóhanna G. Harðardóttir</a>, goði (“priest”) of the Ásatrúarfélagið (“Ásatrú Fellowship”), the religious organization that began the revival of pre-Christian Heathen religion in Iceland in 1972.<br />
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According to Jóhanna, <i>Hávamál</i> (“Sayings of the High One”), a poem narrated by the Norse god Odin, contains “the best lessons you can learn about getting along with other people in life. The world has changed, but people are still the same.”<br />
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<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/12/three-asatru-worldviews-part-one.html" target="_blank">Haukur Bragason</a>, another Icelandic Ásatrú goði, sees the poems as sources of both knowledge and entertainment. “They are a treasure, an insight into a life that was,” he says. “They are man-made fantasy explanations to questions that could not be answered. They contain serious philosophical questions and teachings, as well as being the TV series of that time.”<br />
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<b><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Worldwide Heathens</span></span></b><br />
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Although it may be impossible to truly translate poetry, the <i>Poetic Edda</i> is known and loved in many languages.<br />
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Since the 1972 founding of Ásatrú in Iceland, modern versions of ancient Norse and Germanic religions have spread widely. The <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2014/01/worldwide-heathen-census-2013-results.html" target="_blank">Worldwide Heathen Census 2013</a> found followers in 98 countries. Iceland has the largest number of Heathens per capita, while the United States has the greatest total number.<br />
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The poems resonate with Heathens in many lands, and the myths they contain have an influence that transcends national borders.<br />
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“In Germany, we have a long and very rich tradition in translating the <i>Poetic Edda</i>,” says Andreas Zautner of the German Ásatrú organization known as the Eldaring. “There are more than a dozen translations highlighting different aspects. The <i>Poetic Edda</i> is still influencing our daily culture. For example, if you visit Thale in the Harz Mountains, you find wooden statues of Eddic figures all over the town.”<br />
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Other Heathens were lured to Iceland by the <i>Poetic Edda</i>.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBG3bDk1a58DSlWTiPKMwcjhVGr2Ms59YErgqa30uoWT7RfiE3Cw0F_7dmnVoWDFbG6VNHniklyBJMPWxPTCdT3WPZs1uXd0ZCa-tQgBq98JulnVxfA78MrYbwTCxL2UT4fZT0jp6NIE/s1600/statue+metal+Thor+wagon+chariot+and+goats+by+Haukur+Halldo%25CC%2581rsson+Straumur%252C+Iceland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBG3bDk1a58DSlWTiPKMwcjhVGr2Ms59YErgqa30uoWT7RfiE3Cw0F_7dmnVoWDFbG6VNHniklyBJMPWxPTCdT3WPZs1uXd0ZCa-tQgBq98JulnVxfA78MrYbwTCxL2UT4fZT0jp6NIE/s400/statue+metal+Thor+wagon+chariot+and+goats+by+Haukur+Halldo%25CC%2581rsson+Straumur%252C+Iceland.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statue of Thor and his goats by Haukur Halldórsson in Straumur, Iceland </td></tr>
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“I knew the poems before I came to Iceland, because I came mainly to learn more about them,” says Lenka Kovárová, a former member of the Ásatrúarfélagið’s lögretta (board of directors) who came to Reykjavík from the Czech Republic to earn a Master’s degree in Old Norse religion at the University of Iceland. “I see them in wider context as a part of European heritage, as a sort of pattern of wisdom.”<br />
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For others, like Eric Scott, an American Heathen who writes for <i>The Wild Hunt</i> and who came to Reykjavík to study Icelandic language, the <i>Poetic Edda</i> is no less important.<br />
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“The <i>Edda</i> is like an heirloom – a reminder of where I, as a Heathen, have come from, and an inspiration for the future,” Eric says. “The voice of the poems is a grandfather’s voice, describing a foreign world in a foreign time, but a world less different from my own than it would seem at first. The poetry isn’t a set of fixed laws or inarguable truths, but rather a store of tales and maxims to meditate on.”<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Poetry as ritual</b></span></span><br />
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Throughout the international Ásatrú community, the Icelandic poems are used in spiritual contexts. “I use the poems to remind me of who I am,” says Jóhanna, “and to teach children who they are and what they can become, if they want to.”<br />
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<a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/2019/04/heathen-south-interview-with-ryan.html" target="_blank">Ryan Denison</a>, member of Atlanta’s Hearthfire Kindred and founder of Polytheist and Pagan Educational Symposium (PAPER), has a complex relationship with the poems. “My group always includes poetry from the <i>Eddas</i> or sagas in our rituals,” he says. “We find it adds beauty and meaning to our rites. Some of the ideas in those works should and need to be left in the past, but there is much wisdom there, as well.”<br />
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The poems are spoken or sung in Ásatrú celebrations around the world.<br />
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“Ásatrúarfélagið uses the poems in all their rituals and ceremonies,” says Haukur. “You can always find something relevant to the occasion at hand or the milestone in people’s lives. We use verses from <i>Hávamál</i>, <i>Völuspá</i> (“Prophecy of the Seeress”), and <i>Sigrdrífumál</i> (“Sayings of the Victory-Driver”), for example, in everything from a name-giving ceremony to a wedding and funeral, and also in common rituals.”<br />
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<i>Sigrdrífumál</i> is one of the poems most widely used in modern religious contexts. Two verses used by the Ásatrúarfélagið in ceremonies and celebrations are also used by American groups to begin rituals. In Henry Adams Bellows’ <a href="https://www.norsemyth.org/p/books.html" target="_blank">classic translation</a>, they read:
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<blockquote>
Hail, day! Hail, sons of day!<br />
And night and her daughter now!<br />
Look on us here with loving eyes,<br />
That waiting we victory win.<br />
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Hail to the gods! Ye goddesses, hail,<br />
And all the generous earth!<br />
Give to us wisdom and goodly speech,<br />
And healing hands, life-long.</blockquote>
Other poems are often recited or chanted on special occasions. In Germany, a verse spoken or sung by the god Odin is used for funerals and the remembrance of lost loved ones:
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<blockquote>
Cattle die, and kinsmen die,<br />
And so one dies one’s self;<br />
One thing now that never dies,<br />
The fame of a dead man’s deeds.</blockquote>
The poems are sometimes given dramatic performance as part of religious rituals. Eric has performed <i>Völuspá</i> as part of a midwinter Yule ceremony.<br />
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“We walked our group through the mythic history of the poem,” he says, “reenacting its events, especially the tale of Baldr’s death. Stepping into the poem, and embodying it, gave <i>Völuspá</i> even greater depth for me. I had not only read the text, but – in a sense – I had lived it, as well.”<br />
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In many ways, in many lands, these ancient Icelandic poems continue to resonate deeply in hearts and minds. Eight centuries after they were first written down, and nearly five decades after the Codex Regius manuscript was returned to Iceland, the poems of the <i>Poetic Edda</i> have a vibrant life as part of the worldwide religious tradition of Ásatrú.<br />
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<i>An earlier version of this article was published in The Reykjavík Grapevine.</i>Dr. Karl E. H. Seigfriedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12175244816952769358noreply@blogger.com0