Hagal

While Werkgroep Traditie is pondering what direction the magazine will follow for its 14th year of publication ‘the other Flemish Asatru organisation’ Werkgroep Hagal launches its own magazine. This is not entirely unexpected, since there have been two publications earlier (see book reviews section). “Wende” (litt. “turning point”, but mostly referring to the solstitiae) became an A5 photocopied magazine of 34 pages with 7 articles, poems and songs and a foreword.
Werkgroep Hagal is a relatively (in comparison to Traditie) young organisation that on one side fills the gap that Traditie leaves in far West of Flanders (Belgium may not be big, but if you have to travel from West Flanders to the Traditie lectures, it is still quite a drive), but on the other side plays more into the needs of the ‘younger’ pagans. While Traditie is a ‘traditional’ organisation (they started as a group of families living in the old fashion), Hagal is more like a ‘neopagan’ group with a unmistakable lower average age than Traditie. There is more Sturm und Drang in Hagal and they are proud of it and it of course shows in the magazine. Slogans such as “I am proud to be a pagan”, “a life without honour is no longer a life” or “honourable, servient, resistant” (this sounds better in Dutch!) can be found throughout the publication. Also the group leans a bit more towards ‘politics’ (and I only said leans).
In any case, a new Asatru magazine in Dutch with an article about the “sibbe” (Dutch) / “Sippe” (German), dwarves, sword dances, the famous grave of Kivik, Sweden, Germanic virtues and flaws (a text of Jan de Vries) and “housemarks” (rune-like family signs), for a large part written by main man Wolf Pyck, who is also a gifted stone cutter. Get in contact with Werkgroup Hagal if you are interested.