Norse – every day's a holiday!

June 8, 2012June 8, 2012

Happy Lindisfarne!

June 8

Happy Lindisfarne!

Lindisfarne is a small island in the northeast of England—also known as Holy Island—that houses a small castle and monastery. The “island” is actually connected to the mainland by a small strip of land that is revealed by the changing tide twice a day…

But in the Asatru tradition, Lindisfarne Day is a holiday celebrating what is generally conceived to be the beginning of the Viking Era, on June 8th, 793 AD.

On that day three Viking ships landed on Lindisfarne and a bunch of Norsemen sacked a Christian monastery there.

As the English monk Alcuin described,

“Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.”

No, it doesn’t sound like an event to base a holiday around. Some neo-pagan chronicles have tried to ascribe positive motives to the perpetrators such as revenge killings, but it was a rather bloody affair in which innocent and defenseless monks were slaughtered for loot. As one modern-day party-pooper explains, “I won’t be celebrating Lindisfarne, which was more the equivalent of a botched 7-11 robbery than heroism.”

Happy Lindisfarne!

But in the Asatru tradition, Lindisfarne Day is a holiday celebrating what is generally conceived to be the beginning of the Viking Era, on June 8th, 793 AD.

On that day three Viking ships landed on Lindisfarne and a bunch of Norsemen sacked a Christian monastery there.

As the English monk Alcuin described,

But in the Asatru tradition, Lindisfarne is a holiday celebrating what is generally recognized as the beginning of the Viking Era: June 8th, 793 AD.

On that day three Norse ships landed on Lindisfarne and a bunch of Vikings sacked a Christian monastery there, “a place more venerable than all in Britain,” according to the English monk Alcuin…

“Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. . . .The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.” — Alcuin, letter to Elthelred, King of Northumbria

“I won’t be celebrating Lindisfarne, which was more the equivalent of a botched 7-11 robbery than heroism.” (mombu.com religion forum)

Odin's Wild Hunt PN Arbo — Odin's Wild Hunt, by PN Arbo, 1872

Lindisfarne – uchicago.edu

The Viking World

January 9, 2012January 10, 2012

Raud the Strong

January 9

Far north in the Salten Fiord
By rapine, fire and sword
Lives the Viking, Raud the Strong;
All the Godoe Isles belong
To him and his heathen horde…

With rites that we both abhor
He worships Odin and Thor
So it cannot yet be said
That all the old gods are dead
And the warlocks are no more…

Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

When King Olaf Tryggvason came to power in 998 he converted the Norwegian population to Christianity Viking style; by…

“looting and burning Pagan temples and compelling community after community to be baptized or die, taking hostages to enforce continued Christian observance.”
A History of Pagan Europe, by Prudence Jones

Despite these persuasive efforts, many of the Vikings were reluctant to renounce their Gods and accept Jesus as their savior. New and increasingly painful tortures and executions were devised by King Olaf and his men.

The seer Thorlief had his eye torn out. Eyvind Kinnrifi was tortured with a brazier of hot coals on his stomach. Other pagans were beheaded with an axe, mutilated, drown, or burned alive along with their residences.

But the most innovative torture developed was reserved for a landowner, leader-priest and sea-farer known as Raud the Strong. Raud the Strong was known for his beautiful longship, a boat larger than any of the King’s, with a dragon’s head crafted into the bow.

When Raud the Strong refused to renounce Thor and Odin, King Olaf’s men inserted a poisonous snake into a long metal horn. The horn was then rammed down Raud’s throat and the end of it was heated with a flame, forcing the snake to wriggle down Raud’s esophagus.

http://www.destinyslobster.com/asatru/calendar.html

Longfellow waxes poetically on the scene. After Raud refuses King Olaf’s offer…

Then between his jaws distended
When his frantic struggles ended
Through King Olaf’s horn an adder,
Touched by fire, they forced to glide.

Sharp his tooth was as an arrow
As he gnawed through bone and marrow;
But without a groan or shudder,
Raud the Strong blaspheming died.

Then baptized they all that region,
Swarthy Lap and fair Norwegian,
Far as swims the salmon, leaping
Up the streams of Salten Fiord.

In their temples Thor and Odin
Lay in dust and ashes trodden,
As King Olaf, onward sweeping,
Preached the Gospel with his sword

After Raud’s death King Olaf seized Raud’s beautiful ship, and supposedly copied the design. According to legend this is how the famous Viking ships got their distinct shape.

How Asatru’s observe Raud the Strong Day, I don’t know. But it is not by shoving horns with snakes down Christians’ throats.

December 21, 2011December 23, 2011

Winter Solstice & Yule Festival

December 21

All the Feasts of Heathendom…

“Among all feasts of heathendom, Yule-festival is most important, it being the anticipation of the celebration of winter solstice.”

–Karl Weinhold, Christmas Games and Songs from Southern Germany and Silesia

And of all the annual celebrations on earth there is none older and more universal than the celebration of the Winter Solstice.

Many of the world’s oldest monuments, which for years baffled anthropologists and archeologists, are now believed to have functioned as massive calendars that predicted the winter and summer solstices with astonishing accuracy. From Newgrange in Ireland and Stonehenge in England, both of which predate the Druids, to the Chankillo towers in Peru built 1700 years before the Incas, to the 365-day calendar used by the ancient Egyptians. All of these calendars were used to make sense of and to find meaning and patterns in an otherwise mysterious and unpredictable world.

The word “Yule” used in Germanic and Norse countries comes from “yula” meaning wheel, referring to the cycling of the seasons and the wheel of time. The term predates Christianity, but today yule-tide greetings are synonymous with the Christmas season.

The word Solstice comes from the Latin words “sol”, or “sun,” and “sistere”, meaning “to stand still.” The Solstice is the moment at which the sun stands still. Winter Solstice marks the longest night and shortest day of the year, and it usually falls on December 21 or 22. From that night on forward the ancients knew–or prayed–that the days would grow longer and warmer, providing for sufficient harvest and plenitude the following year.

As early as 2400 BC the ancient Egyptians worshipped Osiris, the god of death, life and fertility Osiris during the solstice. It was the day on which he was said to have been entombed and reborn. This tradition was echoed in later Greek ceremonies paying homage to Dionysus.

The ancient Romans celebrated the solstice with a week-long festival called Saturnalia, honoring Saturn, the god of agriculture. The symbols they used included holly and wreaths, and it was a time of exchanging gifts.

The Druids called this time Alban Arthan, the Light of Winter. Although it has also gained the interpretation Light of Arthur by the poets, harkening to the legendary king who was associated with the sun and believed to have been born on the Winter Solstice.

In the Norse lands on Yule’s Eve a boar was sacrificed and its meat used for the holy feast. Those who could not afford to do so, broke a boar-shaped loaf of bread in its place.

So have a great Yulstice! Yule be glad you did!