There was a time that some people were thinking about starting a West-Flemish branch of Werkgroep Traditie. Eventually the larger part of that group went their own path and formed Werkgroep Hagal. Hagal has been around for some years and decided to start a publication that is made available twice a year. Here we have the second issue. The magazine is again an A5 photocopied and stapled publication, but in comparison to the 36 pages of the first issue, considerably thicker: 64 pages. This is mostly due to the opening article De Ingveonen in (West-)Vlaanderen by H. Krekelbergh and A. Demoor that covers about two-thirds of the magazine. The article is about the Ingveonic language, but to come to their point, the writers give a historical, archeological and literary overview of this Germanic people to conclude with linguistics. These two writers also make the start of another difference with the first issue of Wende: while this first issue was almost entirely filled with writings of Wolf Pyck, in the second issue there is a variety of writers. Let us see what more you get for the few euros that this publication costs.
P. van Coillie has interviewed Jozef Breakmans who spent 15 years of his life trying to purify the Icelandic language. As founder of “Háfrónska” (‘high Icelandic’) he is left disillusionated and dropped his life’s work. Next up is Wolf Pyck with an article in which he seems to try to put ‘his’ group under the flag of “Odalism”. I don’t remember having heard of that term before, but it of course comes from the “Odal” rune that refers to heritage. “Odalism” is a nice term for our way of thinking, since it means as much as being proud of ones own heritage, so the term can be used by similar groups who have their focus on their own territorial history and religion. Searching a bit through the internet -though- the term seems to appear mostly in connection with rather radical or (almost) political groups with some kind of ‘Blut und Boden’ philosophy. The term is given a ‘new’ interpretation which has nothing but my consent and however Hagal has a bit more of a ‘political’ edge than Traditie, I can find myself in their ideas. If it is smart to incorporate a term that already seems spoiled, is another thing though (especially with that advertisement below it…).
In any case, after a song, follows an article about the birch tree. K. Hoornaert writes about the ‘history’ of the tree, the usuage of the leaves, sap, bark, wood, etc. A wonderfull “etnobotanical” twist that I hadn’t seen in similar publications. A nice idea!
J.O. Plasmans writes about the winter solstice, N. Krekelbergh about ancestors, burial mounds and “alven” (and that in my region!), S. Vanhaverbeke reviews the book The lost civilisation of Homo Supersapiens of Jos Rogiers, who suggests that Darwin’s evolution is not linear, but elliptical, so in earlier times there was a superior species. E. v. Dombrowski closes the publication with a poem called Wij moeten bereid zijn (‘We have to be willing’) and so we come to the end of Wende issue 2.
If you are interested in getting a copy of this magazine in Dutch, go to the website of Werkgroep Hagal and click on “vormingsblad Wende” on the top of the right sidebar for more information.