It had been a while since I read a book like this. On a forum somebody asked about ASH sources (Anglo-Saxon Heathenry) and somebody recommended this book. It is available cheaply second hand, so that was a good inducement to read something ‘heathen’ again.
The persion inquiring about ASH sources might have had a book in mind solely about Anglo-Saxon heathenry. Owen continuously refers to Scandinavian heathenry. This is not unexpectedly, since however there certainly are Anglo-Saxon sources, the Eddas, etc. give a much more complete look at the world of Gods and spirits. Rites And Religions does give a good idea about what is available for Anglo-Saxon souces though. The cross-references are needed to put things in perspective and to explain things that are not available in Anglo-Saxon sources.
The most interesting chapter is the opening chapter “Gods and Legends”. It has quite a few images, quotes from tales and poems and general information about Gods and the like. A chapter about every day life is followed by a chapter about inhumation versus cremation. Both ways of disposing of the bodies of the deceased existed alongside eachother. The fourth chapter about ship burials starts interestingly, but soon becomes but an extremely detailed description of what was found where and when. Something similar happens in the chapter about “The Arrival of Christianity”. The chapter is overflooded with details about artifacts and the like. The last chapter about the Viking age has a few interesting points, but also here tends towards the very historic approach.
The book is good to get a general idea of Anglo-Saxon history, but I did not alway found it a great read. I suppose it works well as something to read as starters on the subject.
There are several versions of this book by the way, published by different publishing houses. I got the following:
A while ago I was going around the web like I do not do very often and I ran into a ‘blog’ called “Humanistic Paganism“, a board for atheistic pagans. I never really saw such divisions within ‘the pagan sphere’, but here apparently are people who found it needed to team up and give themselves a voice for having ‘uncommon pagan ideas’. The ‘blog’ has a few entries that make a nice read, but I have not really tried to read up. Soon after I started following the ‘blog’ a book was announced and eventually this book was published in April 2016 Godless Paganism, voices on Non-Theistic Pagans.
I got the book to see what this would be about and soon also experienced why there are people giving “non-theistic pagans” a voice. On an Asatru forum mostly occupied by Americans somebody asked about atheism and Asatru so I said: “Did you know about this book?” After that I get torched for recommending a book by somebody who is not accepted by “the community” and who tries to bring rot to paganism from the inside. So what are these ideas that appear to be offensive to some?
The main point seems to be that there are pagans out there who have a very strict idea of what (mostly) Asatru should be like: a certain kind of polytheism in which the Gods are all separate entities. There are people (like myself I may add) who have other views. A simple example, the Gods are part of a ‘larger Divinity’. So came distinctions between “hard” and “soft” polytheism, because the second view does not deny the Gods, but does have another view on them. The book under review shoves a whole lot of views different from what they call “hard polytheism” under their title and the largest part of the authors of the essays in this books are certainly not anti- or even a-theistic; while others are. There are again nuances within the atheistic group. Also within the confines of this book are pantheists, panentheists, etc.
The book comes up with all kinds of paganisms that I never heard of. “Humanistic”, “naturalistic”, “atheopagans”, PaGaians and whatnot. The authors come from all kinds of backgrounds. There are Wiccas, ecclectics, Southern-European pagans, Northern-European pagans, etc. There are very short and rather lengthy texts. Some are quite scholarly, while other are short and very personal. We run into people seeing Gods as projections of their psyches, people seeing Gods as archetypes or forces. There are worhippers of Mother Earth as Nature (not super-natural). Some texts go into practice. Of course there is quite a bit about how and why somebody who does not believe in literal Gods practices ritual for example and is this with ‘theisitic pagans’ or not? How was this in the past?
There is not much that I did not encounter in some form just as a form of paganism, rather than a ‘branch’ of it. Apparently over time some sort of conformity (dogmatism?) has grown within the pagan community and it has become necessary to give people with ‘other views’ a voice and a platform again. I do not find a whole lot of books with personal and practical contemporary paganism, so there is a reason to get this book already. Do not expect an in-depth learned book about contemporary pagan theology. Rather expect a book with texts by contemporary pagans sharing their views on things. Some even admit that they are not sure about everything they come up with so far and there are some who do not care to fill in all the details of their worldview as practice is more important than theory.
The book is good to get a feel of what the minds of a variety of contemporary pagans keep occupied. A thing I always enjoys learning about. Lots of things I read here are pretty far from my own views. The ecclecticism and New Age-approach of some people are things I cannot symphatise with, but it never hurts to learn about other ways of looking at things. What I do find interesting is that there are a few people describing how they try to make ‘including rituals’ which should work for ‘theists’ and ‘non-theists’ alike; which should even work whether the practitioner is interested in Southern, Northern European or ‘Amerindian’ mythology. The message is: of course there are different ideas within the ‘pagan community’, but why would anyone tell somebody else to be wrong? Does everybody going to the same celebration have exactly the same ideas? Fortunately not, otherwise I would probably be a lonely heathen.
And since I always tend to take sides with the underdog: of course I recommend this book! No matter how far some of the ideas posed here stand from my own, everybody has to walk his/her own path, come to his/her own conclusions and if these are different from my own, that is actually a good thing. So, whether you consider yourself ‘theistic’ (like myself) or not and whether you are pagan or not (or of whatever kind) here we have a book to get a bit of a feel of other people’s ideas.
In 2004 members of the Dutch heathen group Nederlands Heidendom (‘Dutch heathenry’) started to translate a 1943 work of the famous Dutch ‘Germanist’ Jan de Vries (1890-1964) about ‘the spiritual world of the Germans’ into Dutch. There was a revised edition of De Vries’ book published in 1964 which formed the basis for this translation. Chapters that were finished were published in the “Heidense Jaarboeken” (‘heathen yearbooks’), but now they are bundled together and published with extensive introductions in a well-printed booklet. This booklet is only available for members of the Nederlands Heidendom forum, so if you are one of those and missed it, be quick, the edition is not large. When you are not a member of the forum, you know what to look for on the black market!
The first (unnumbered) 60 pages contain four pieces of introduction from the hand of Boppo Grimmsma. He explains why the translations were started in the first place (even some Dutch find it difficult to read German), he made a biography of Jan de Vries, poses some theories about the lost manuscript of a Dutch version by Jan de Vries himself and then uses De Vries’ own ideas to see how objective the book is. This last part is more or less another biography, because it describes the man’s background and times and how these elements coloured his worldview and consquentally his work. Here you will also learn a thing or two about De Vries’ choices during the Second World War and how these choices polluted his name and fame when the war was over. These 60 pages are informative, well-written and entertaining, but contain some double information.
After these introductionary pages, 176 pages follow with the translation of the book of Jan de Vries. In seven chapters De Vries explains how the early inhabitents of North-Western Europe looked at the world. The subjects include honour; the sib/kindred and man’s place in ancient society; fate, heil, law, the soul; love and relationships; poetry and art (with well printed images); and in the last chapter, religion, cult and magic.
De Vries wrote this in an almost story-like style with many short references to a wide range of texts and sources. He touches upon etymology, comparitive myth, colleague investigators, archeology and what not. Still it remains a fairly easy-to-read book.
What is worth mentioning about this Dutch translation is that however the translation was made by six different people over the periode of about a decade, there are no big differences in writing style between the different chapters. Quite a feat! Even more of a feat is the current project, since members of Nederlands Heidendom started to translate De Vries’ major work of 1000 pages. The current title has “Raven-Reeks deel 1” (‘Raven series part 1’) on the back, so this suggests that more titles will follow. That might take a few more decades then I think.
So, when you have contacts with(in) the group of Nederlands Heidendom, make sure to get your very nicely-priced copy before it is too late.
Not too long ago there was a buzz going around in ‘the heathen world’, something new… On American and Dutch fora I read about “Urglaawe”. Now what would that be? Some sort of þheodism perhaps?
Then I ran into this little book with “Urglaawe myths”, subtitled “Old Deitsch Tales for the Current Era”. Another new term “Deitsch”. I knew that the “Pensylvania Dutch” are not really of Dutch descent, but rather German. Descendents from those Germans are now called “Deitsch” as is the area they inhabit. These emigrants/immigrants apparently kept some of their language and folklore and the author has set out to write down some of those tales before they die out.
This book is full of German-sounding, but not quote German, words and sentences. “Braucherei” and “Hexerei” are forms of the old ways, a “Lumbemann” is a scarecrow, a “Butzemann” a “spiritually activated scarecrow”, a “Wassernix” a “watersprite”. A short sentenced that is used in this book appears to be some sort of Bavarian (from Bavaria in Southern Germany).
The 60 pages are mostly filled with retellings of tales which can be about the “Ewicher Yeeger” (‘eternal hunter’), friendly beavers or Til Eileschpiggel. Small stories about man interacting with nature and its spirits.
This little book makes a nice read of about an hour, but will not teach you much about this contemporary Urlaawe that the internet seems to be full of nowadays.
“Jennifer Snook is an Instructional Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Mississippi”. Raised as “a college-bound army brat”, first in Germany, later in the USA, Snook became interested in “paganism” and later “heathenry”. When she started to study sociology, she wrote her dissertation on contemporary heathens. She remained both a practitionar and an observer ever since. 15 Years of fieldwork resulted in this 200+ page book on “American Heathens, the politics of identity in pagan religious movement”.
The author gives a very personal look into her personal path here and there, like on how she rolled into the pagan world (a term that she uses quite generally including various sorts of paganism) and later “heathenry” (which is more a specific German-centered kind, say “Asatru”, “Odinism”, “þheodism”, etc.). The book interweaves personal accounts of gatherings and rituals that Snook attented, interviews, musings of her own and of course her sociological considerations.
The author gives an idea of the history of American heathenry and writes about a couple of ‘big subjects’ at length. Identity, ethnicity, race, whiteness, ancestry as one group, gender roles as another subject. There have been quite some investigations linking heathenry to white power. However Snook shows herself as a very left-leaning thinker, she shows that these subjects are much less black-and-white as often portrayed. The same with conservatism and the role of women within heathenry. Snook makes it clear that she finds but a few allies in her particular line of thought within the heathen world, but at least breaks a lance to look at these subject in a more nuanced way than her predecessors often did.
“American Heathens” shows well the difficulty of subjects such as that of (perceived) racism, subordination of women and the like by giving quotes from interviews and her own thoughts. Unfortunately Snook looks at a subject from so man different sides within just a page that it hard to figure out what way she exactly tries to lead her readers. Both her gender study and her chapters about racial exclusivity elude me frequently, especially when her (apparent) own ideas are bluntly stated as facts (the difference between man and woman is automatically oppressive for example). The concluding remarks fortunately make up for a few of these indistinctnesses.
What is interesting for a European is to see how some things in the USA are very recognisable while other developments are entirely alien to heathery in Europe. A little strange is Snook’s (apparent) idea that heathenry in Europe is imported from the USA though.
So, perhaps not “a standard text for scholars and teachers in the emerging field of Pagan studies” as Michael Strmiska states on the back, but likely the best in the field so far; interesting for scholars and heathen alike. It would be interesting if the investigation would go on to include Europe.
Dan McCoy wrote a lengthy essay, or a little book, of about 100 pages about “the Sacred and the Profane in Germanic Polytheism”. The text contains a ‘contemporary heathen theology’ such as represented in The Journal of Contemporary Heathen Thought. It might have fitted in that journal, since McCoy’s text is about as academic as the texts in JOCHT.
McCoy mostly speaks about the difference between monotheism and polytheism. The terms get a very specific meaning in this book. Monotheism is not just the form of the three Abrahamistic religions, but the author also applies it to science which he calls the religion of our time. He spends a large part of his book (the first chapters) showing the flaws of monotheism, it duality and rigidity. The text gets a thick ‘monotheism is bad, polytheism is good’ tone and like the “French theologian” that McGoy refers to in the beginning (Alain de Benoist), the author spends more pages on showing what is wrong about ‘that other philosophy’ than elaborating his own.
Just as with the terms monotheism and polytheism, McCoy has very specific explanations of other terms, such as “myth”, which is anything ‘above human’ that ‘just is’. This can be just as well mythology as scientific hypothesis. Other terms (also Icelandic) get very simple explanations and translation.
It takes the author until the last chapter before he turns towards the “destiny” of his subtitle. This does not really concern more than a very free retelling of the Balder myth though.
The above sounds quite critical, I know. I do recommend this book for people interested in ‘contemporary heathen thought’, though. Like for reading the mentioned journal you should not be afraid of scholarly language and moderns ways of reasoning. There are not too many contemporary heathens not just trying to show how things were in the past, but writing about ‘heathen subjects’ from a contemporary viewpoint, hence describing a paganism for the world of today. Or the other way around, McCoy shows a contemporary heathen’s perspective on things.
There are things in this little book that I would have described differently and things that I simply do not agree with, but by reader other views I have to reconsider my own, so this is never a bad thing. Besides, I am happy to see another articulate comtemporary heathen writing about ‘heathen things’. That alone
The ‘heathen yearbooks’ are actually planned to be published early in the year, but the twelfth edition took a bit longer to finish. This time no attempt was made to stay around 100 pages and the well-printed booklet reached up to 134 which make up for seven longer or shorter essays.
The yearbook starts with looking back at the past year in which a group split off of Nederlands Heidendom. Then follows the continuing translation of Jan de Vries’ famous Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte into the Dutch language. The chapters are about the soul(s) and (fittingly as we will see later) Fate. Next up is Gerard who bought an old wood-carved plate and investigates its symbolism and function. The two next articles are by Boppo Grimmsma. Both texts he earlier used during the group walk in the fall of 2014 through an area overlapping parts of the provinces Drenthe, Overijssel and Fryslân. These texts are mostly historical and explain some things that are still left to see in the area of what used to be seen there. The most interesting text is of guest-author Frank Bosman who wrote a penetrating analyses of the Heliand. Bosman describes it as a perfect synthesis of Christian and prechristian religion. The author of the Heliand is both critical towards and full of praise about the new religion. He made some original adjustments in order to be able to give a story of a warlord Jesus rather than the Jesus from the Bible. Next up is myself. I was asked to make a Dutch version of my 2012 text about the Primal Law which you can read in English by clicking the link. At the end, three 999 word stories of the story-telling-competition are published.
As always a nice little publication for people who can read Dutch and are interested in history and the prechristian religion.
In 2002 Tyr was announced to be an annual journal. Obviously the editors have chosen quality over quantity, because the journals have been made available in 2002, 2004, 2008 and 2014. (If this continues, we do not have to expect Tyr 5 before 2022!). Issue 4 was worth the wait.
We already got used to 400+ pages with a variety of essays, usually of quite some length. Also the same as before are a range of book reviews towards the end (some quite lenghty too) and a handfull of music reviews. The approach seems to be more contemporary pagan than “radical traditionalist” this time. That is to say, after the too long “What is religion?” of Alain de Benoist, things get ‘more pagan’. Collin Cleary, for example, wonders “What is Odinism?” and this leads to quite a different story than (probably) of many people calling themselves “Odinists”. Cleary goes more in the left hand path direction of Edred Flowers.
Next up is a very nice article about a subject I might have never read about “Traditional time-telling in old England, and modern” from the hand of Nigel Pennick. The first half of the article is the more interesting to me and lives up to the title better than the last part about heathen calendars.
Then follow two articles of the French author Claude Lecouteux who writes about “Garden dwarves and house spirits” and about “…the furious army”. The texts are alright, but I could suggest better non-English texts should the editors want to.
Again an original subject is Steve Harris’ “On barbaric suffering”. A subject that might sound Christian in basis, but Harris shows that the pre-Christians had ideas about this subject too.
A shorter text is “Germanic art in the first millenium”. Stephen Pollington shows his thoughs on Germanic and Celtic weaving pattern and other symbols that might not immediately appear to be such in ancient art.
Michael Moynihan teaches us a thing or two about the artist Rockwell Kent who had some Germanic interests. Moynihan did not get me overly enthousiastic about Kent, but interests are there to differ, right?
Christian Rätsch investigated “The mead of inspiration”. This text is mostly interesting because it breaks with hip contemporary heathen ideas about mead and what is really was and what it was used for. Rather than just a eerily sweet drink made from fermented honey, Rätsch argues that the real mead was more something between beer and what we call mead today.
Then we go psychedelic with Carl Abrahamsson and Joshua Buckly who took a look at Ralph Metzner and his scientific experimentations with psychedelics.
After this we get two lengthy interviews. The first is with Sequentia foreman Benjamin Bagby who tells us about scholarly approaches to ancient music and his own. The other interviews is with Sean Ragon of Cult of Youth (who has a shop in NYC, so next time I am there…!)
A few music reviews follow, more metal this time, but many a page is dedicated to the musical outlets of the recently deceased Jonas Trinkunas (of the Lithuanian heathen movement Romuva) to whom this volume is dedicated.
Joscelyn Godwin is again present in this volume. He made a lengthy review of Evola’s Path of Cinnabar by comparing it to the lives of René Guénon and Carl Gustav Jung. Godwin makes some interesting observations. In the second part of the review Godwin shows that he does not necessarily follow the appraisal of Evola when he reviews a new Italian biography that shows some things about the man that avid followers probably would have rather seen under the carpet.
Other reviewed books are about John Mitchell, Western esotericism (actually by Godwin, Gnosticism, Germanic folklore in America and the like.
As always Tyr makes a good read on a variety of subjects and I can recommend this title to contemporary heathens and “radical traditionalists” alike.
I know Cleary from the Tyr journal (of which I am actually reading the fourth volume now) and indeed, that is where many texts from this collection of essays are first printed. Other texts are from the Rûna journal, the Counter Currents website or unpublished.
The collection of texts are varried. Cleary gives his very original and thought-provoking views on modern heathenry in the first three texts. Gods for contemporary man and a view on the ideas of Alain de Benoist. Cleary suggests creating an ‘opening’ within ourselves to allow the Gods to reach us, but his Gods are not those of many contemporary pagans. I do not follow Cleary all the way, but he sure makes some points to ponder about, also at reading again after several years.
The next texts are also about “Nordic paganism”, but more… ‘experimental’ so to say.
In the last two texts, Cleary portrays his views on our end-time in reviewing the Prisonerseries and the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Cleary’s ideas show elements of Traditionalism, more precisely the “radical” variant that the Tyr journal. Further Cleary is heavily influened by, but at times also critical about, Edred Flowers/Thorsson. Cleary is a member of the Rune-Gild, so this is not really strange. I am not a big Thorsson fan myself, but I have not read all that much of him, but the texts with the thickest Thorsson sauce in Cleary’s book (such as the “Philosophical Notes on the Runes” are the least interesting to me. Also Cleary uses a lot of philosophy and makes many references to philosophers.
The book has a little under 200 pages. Within these you will find an original thinker who is not afraid to step on some toes and to touch unpopular subjects. A good read for contemporary pagans and non-pagans alike.
I missed a couple of issues. Well, five actually. With the “Wende”s coming out twice a year, that makes a 2,5-year gap. Fortunately I ran into a couple of members last weekend who brought the latest issue and this latest issue certainly makes a good read.
The highlight of issue 15, to me, is the 23 paged (A4 format!) investigation of the Freyr/Gerd myth by Luc Cielen. Cielen compares some well-known Germanic stories to reconstruct and interpret the myth in which Freyr falls in love with Gerd, but has his servant sent out to win her for him. The story from the Skírnismá is laid aside the Skáldskaparmál, the Sturlaugs saga starfsanna, Völsungasaga, Fjölsvinnsmál, parts of the Gesta Danorum and elements of other myths and stories. It makes an interesting read. Even though I find the conclusion not too convincing, the way to it gives a very nice piece of comparative myth.
Another relatively large text is a report of a visit of three Hagal members to the European Congress of Ethnic Religions (ECER) in Vilnius, Lithuania, last spring.
There is an interview with Dutch investigators of language and shorter texts, all in all spanning 55 pages.
Get in contact with Hagal by clicking on the cover. The magazine is in Dutch of course.
2014 Werkgroep Hagal, issn 2034-3361
