Asatru Folk Assembly - 11⧸29⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 73 - Yule

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

00:02:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:03:00.000 Hello, and welcome to another exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:21.340 Tonight, we are going to talk about Yule as a 12-day event.

00:03:34.000 We're going to talk about the holiness of Yule, but we're also going to talk about various ways that we celebrate it and reasons we do what we do.

00:03:47.220 And it should be a nice discussion this evening.

00:03:51.340 Um, yeah, I hope since last time we got together, everybody had a nice Thanksgiving with their

00:04:05.260 friends and family and, uh, got a, got a good start to this, I guess, what we would traditionally

00:04:13.780 refer to as the holiday season. Not sure if everybody else has got their Yule stuff up,

00:04:21.980 but my daughter was relentless. So I tell you what, I finally gave in on Friday. I had to wait

00:04:29.320 until Thanksgiving was out of the way, but started getting stuff and we got trees up and

00:04:34.960 trying to be fully in the spirit for the entire month of December and starting a little bit early.

00:04:43.780 So, as opposed to one that is, I don't know, the nature of the one that we've discussed

00:04:58.960 before, Feast of the Einherjar and Yule is very different.

00:05:02.880 Feast of the Einherjar is a one-off.

00:05:05.880 It's one that largely is, I guess, for lack of a better term, a church celebration.

00:05:15.500 I'm sure people do it with their families as well.

00:05:18.200 But this one's a little bit different because it's a period of time and there's so much more involved in it.

00:05:25.080 And it's also been so ingrained in Western civilization since as far back as we can really go.

00:05:33.140 So, I'm trying to think of the best place to start tonight, Svon.

00:05:38.900 I guess, could you give folks a little bit of historical detail on Yule as close as we know that it was in the elder Alcetru period?

00:05:52.020 uh yes uh yule is a mysterious religious religious holiday that uh kind of spans

00:06:03.140 clarity to like obfuscation as far as uh certain time periods we don't know anything about it we

00:06:09.940 have a lot of speculation and then other time periods it comes into its own fruition it's very

00:06:15.380 clear there's clear uh you know native indigenous faith of europe versus a lot of you know the

00:06:22.660 christianity that is also played in and um so it just kind of goes back and forth but

00:06:29.940 for the most part uh the speculation about yule is that it was uh first off it wasn't um the new year

00:06:38.900 uh the new year was considered at winter nights or at the time at the at the sunset of the year

00:06:46.100 um and yule would be kind of seen as um the midnight of the year um which i'll bring up in

00:06:52.900 a second why that's relevant but um you know generally that it if we're talking about lunar

00:06:59.380 calendars and we're talking about the usage of um of uh like the anglo-saxon lunar calendar or the

00:07:06.740 germanic lunar calendar uh generally what you will see is that the the moon phases shift so greatly

00:07:15.940 that yule was most likely practiced around the full moon in what would be yulmanader but yulmanader

00:07:25.460 if you're using a lunar calendar would go differently than the gregorian calendar

00:07:32.580 so you get a lot of people nowadays that are uh you know reconstructionists are trying to

00:07:37.300 reconstruct the calendars and they're they're saying you know um that they're uh they're

00:07:44.660 you know oh well well actually yule is celebrated at this time and last uh last year i think it was

00:07:50.740 in january and well into the teens of january however um you know a lot of modern house true

00:08:00.500 practice the the holiday towards the end of the year of the gregorian calendar or uh i use the

00:08:09.380 iron mark which is a solar lunar calendar um and so it ends up timing very well with the gregorian

00:08:15.540 um but it was generally thought of to be that it was celebrated around the full moon and it was

00:08:22.520 most likely celebrated for three days beyond that a lot of the evidence is scant uh there's different

00:08:28.960 traditions depending on where you're at or what were you know what references i mean we know of

00:08:36.160 the yule log the yule log was utilized in victorian age but the usage of the yule log in relation to

00:08:42.240 the hearth or the you know some people have speculated that it was a log that was burned

00:08:48.160 in the center of the village um involving uh you know ceremonies with mummers or um mummers dance

00:08:56.320 mumming like mummers dance and wassailing going from house to house um this survives a lot too

00:09:03.840 in like comparative uh faiths with the welsh and um so there's it's kind of a a patchwork

00:09:12.240 of where a lot of people go with yule it can be hugely varied um and then some people would argue

00:09:20.240 that you know how much is of christianity is overlaid on it and so on and so forth um

00:09:26.560 but that's what we have historically we know that yule is a significant holy tide uh

00:09:35.280 you know as from nordic countries to anglo-saxon to central european the month itself is

00:09:43.760 yule month is in almost every indigenous calendar and yule as a meaning generally is speaking of a

00:09:54.320 revolving of the wheel or a turning time uh kind of like what would be maybe a central axis or the

00:10:00.660 hub of a wheel or just the turning of the wheel itself so it was understood as a turning time

00:10:05.520 That from that time forward, it was going to get brighter. And so the general overall feeling of Yule is the maintenance of a fire or a light and a coaxing of the turning of the year to keep the light a bright through the darkest time in order to pave the way for new light.

00:10:30.560 that was a general overview. And again, the, the, the evidence can be debated as to if somebody

00:10:40.380 comes in and says, well, no, it's absolutely this. It's like, uh, you can't really say that

00:10:45.100 because it's so piecemealed. Um, but you know, the three days around Yule month in the moon.

00:10:54.680 And I know that a lot of people nowadays are like, well, I want to do that because that's

00:10:58.520 way it was done um but it's worth noting now that like certain things that we do especially in

00:11:05.240 relation to timekeeping um and our understandings of the solstices the understandings of the hours

00:11:11.160 of the day um our our ancestors you know marked the the turning of a day at sunset we don't do

00:11:18.840 that anymore uh we do it at midnight so you know it's like some people that try to reconstruct

00:11:24.440 are picking and choosing what they want to do um and so i've always kind of viewed it as

00:11:31.320 we winter nights was the new year for our ancestors and now the middle of the winter

00:11:37.240 is the new year for us just as the time has changed we don't count the day at sunset we

00:11:41.960 count it at midnight and our understanding of things has changed which makes it you know infinitely

00:11:48.680 easier um and then there's some other things too we've picked up some traditions and

00:11:56.120 inclinations that have even have christian overtones to them because our folk have picked

00:12:02.680 up traditions after christianity and they've grown into them and i don't necessarily think they're

00:12:09.080 terrible especially when they're not just in reality christianity if it was orthodoxly

00:12:15.320 practice would not even be celebrating yule um but there are some unique things that also came

00:12:22.760 about from that including what you know the 12 days of yule a lot of people don't realize that

00:12:28.200 that's actually a christian overlay that we've kind of adopted over time um and so i like to

00:12:35.240 think of yule as it's a very very old and sacred and ancient um holiday but it's been tweaked and

00:12:43.720 evolved because it's it is one of those holidays that is absolutely still a living and organic

00:12:50.040 holiday and holidays are very rarely ever static they they have a tendency to grow with the people

00:12:55.960 as opposed to like uh you know it says here in this book on this piece of paper that

00:13:01.560 this is what they did once this one time in this one place in europe i think that gets pretty static

00:13:08.520 so uh yeah i mean that's the over over overall but we get into like a lot of things yule elf um gift

00:13:25.080 you know i'm there's so much and to just say hey talk about how we celebrate yule i think is

00:13:30.840 is a little bit overbroad. So I think maybe something we'll do after the initial preamble

00:13:39.660 there is kind of go to some of our questions, clear up those things, and then kind of piece

00:13:45.120 by piece take some of the things that are important and relevant to how we practice

00:13:53.020 yule and the astrophulk assembly yeah my broadness is for just an overview i've got a very detailed

00:14:00.460 yule celebration but yes you do yeah try to keep it open for everyone um

00:14:09.180 so i i mean i think i i think this flows well into the first questions that i'm seeing here

00:14:17.660 first question can you talk about the origins of yule and what we know about how it was celebrated

00:14:23.340 by germanic peoples in the early medieval era before it was christianized and how does that

00:14:28.460 contrast with how yule is celebrated today so swan broke down a lot of the first part of that question

00:14:38.940 To add to it a little bit, it's obviously relevant to the winter solstice.

00:14:50.320 I think some of the most ancient celebrations of our folk and most indigenous folk revolve around turning of seasons, revolve around solstices, and revolve around equinoxes.

00:15:03.640 they're observable events that mark changes in the year um

00:15:11.800 i also um i i'm aware that the you know i we have no reason to believe that the 12 days of yule

00:15:20.440 was a thing to our most ancient house and true ancestors but i think the christian overlay is

00:15:26.840 a little bit forced as well the fact that celebrating it from the eve of um the eve of

00:15:33.400 the solstice to new year's eve being 12 days is a little bit too convenient to just be a matter of

00:15:39.960 of coincidence and none of those have any like relevance to jesus other than i guess he has 12

00:15:47.400 apostles but 12 is a solar number that many forms of arian religiosity celebrated and recognized long

00:15:55.960 before any Middle Eastern undead folks were worshipped. So I think that's relevant and

00:16:08.500 important to realize. It was obviously relevant to the solstice, to a, I suppose, the height

00:16:22.860 of the difficult season for our ancestors the further you go back with technology and

00:16:29.460 especially in northern climates the the harder it is to make it through the winter and this

00:16:35.140 is kind of that halfway point where if you've made it this far then it's all downhill from

00:16:41.080 here every day is a little bit longer a little bit more warmth a little bit more sunlight

00:16:46.740 bringing you back towards the the height of activity at midsummer um

00:16:57.380 something i think that's really important when

00:17:04.420 all right this is a concept that we've talked about on this program many times

00:17:07.620 we're not reconstructing anything and and i get into a little bit of word games here

00:17:17.340 but in this typical sense when people talk about reconstruction what they're talking about is

00:17:24.340 trying to do stuff like our ancestors did stuff i don't try to do that in any other aspect of

00:17:34.320 my life i wouldn't try to do that now as more than you know a hobby or an interesting

00:17:42.000 fun historical exercise we're not trying to be our ancestors we're trying to be us

00:17:48.160 and so it's not so much about reconstructing it's about constructing what should we do now to

00:17:55.840 celebrate yule um we will drive ourselves crazy if our goal is to try to do it exactly as our

00:18:03.280 ancestors did we simply don't have the information we also don't have the social context to

00:18:10.320 do those things in a in a relevant way um an alsatruar in 980 in iceland is going to celebrate

00:18:22.240 yule very very different than a cimbri from 40 bc you know in continental germany as is

00:18:33.280 you know a danish neolithic man in uh you know 4000 bc all of those people celebrated yule in

00:18:44.480 one form or another just as we celebrate it today but the ways that they celebrated look real

00:18:50.800 different depending on where you're at and there's nothing wrong with that there's nothing wrong with

00:18:54.560 those local customs so yule is one of the easiest things and most accessible things for us to access

00:19:07.520 most all of us i it is the one of our holidays that has caught on the most

00:19:14.320 everybody celebrates it in one form of another it seems like the religious and the secular

00:19:20.400 alike because it's become so ingrained in society it's everywhere you go there's christmas carols

00:19:27.680 in any store you go into for the next month there's christmas music on the radio for the

00:19:32.800 next month you know half your neighbors are going to have lights up on their house to celebrate

00:19:40.640 take a note of that this year if you find if this is a new concept or something you

00:19:45.120 you haven't considered before, or you're new to House of Truth, how much of those things are

00:19:51.320 major sequences or anything having to do with Jesus or biblical stories or biblical teachings?

00:20:03.320 I think you'd find relatively few. I mean, you do see people with the manger scene. That's a common

00:20:08.280 it's a common motif this time of year in Christian households. Outside of that, all of those elements

00:20:16.980 are ours or ours adjacent. And when I say ours adjacent, are overtly ousatru,

00:20:24.420 or if not, are broadly European pagan. And that makes it easily accessible, and it makes it

00:20:34.120 something that um doesn't cause you to burn all the ships to go and embrace

00:20:41.720 Alcitru this time of year you don't have to forego most all of those traditions

00:20:45.940 you should probably forego midnight mass you should forego those kind of traditions but

00:20:52.760 But, you know, anything that involves pine trees and fir trees has nothing to do with the desert or with Christianity.

00:21:07.020 It has everything to do with our folk and celebrating the undying nature of evergreens and bringing some of that into our home.

00:21:22.760 There's argument over the Yule tree itself, over, you know, whether the whole concept in and of itself, because it was such a, as Christians would call it, a pagan custom, that they were forced to bring the trees inside to decorate because to celebrate them outside at a time of conversion was, you know, that's pagan stuff and bad stuff would happen to you by the Christian authorities.

00:21:50.080 um that's the story i've heard and i think that again when we go back in time i think some of

00:21:55.880 those things might be apocryphal apocryphal and might not be but the bible does talk about you

00:22:01.640 know the the pagan idolatry of of decorating trees now i don't think that those trees are

00:22:11.260 the same because again you're dealing with not our folk in a different part of the world

00:22:16.580 but the concept itself is antithetical to christianity the almost all of the traditions

00:22:25.540 around quote unquote christmas are fairly anti-christianity we talk about this again too

00:22:33.620 practices of medieval christianity in europe especially in the early period

00:22:38.740 are much more holdovers from practice of our faith than they are imported christian elements

00:22:50.420 but yeah so so part of the question asks you know how was it celebrated way back when so something

00:22:56.740 that is just true this time of year especially once the snow is fully set in in the northern

00:23:06.580 part of europe is a time to be in with your family it's time to spend time indoors a lot of your work

00:23:16.740 out in the fields out in whatever your other profession might be is brought indoors because

00:23:21.940 of the nature of the climate it's a time of celebration it's a time of get literally being

00:23:28.020 warmed by the fire telling stories and spending time with your family and i think that's at the

00:23:32.740 root of so much of our own memories as far as fond memories go about the holiday season

00:23:44.820 second part of the question is you know how does it contrast with today's yule celebration

00:23:51.940 well we're we're not viking so it contrasts quite a bit uh they didn't have you know colored lights

00:23:57.540 that you can press different buttons and make them flash and do different stuff the tree we

00:24:01.940 got this year and we went pretty cheap because we're planning on moving to sigerheim relatively

00:24:06.740 soon we didn't want to you know invest in a bunch of stuff it's got one button that can turn the

00:24:11.140 lights white or it can be multi-colored or they can flash i'm sure we celebrate it in a lot of

00:24:18.100 different ways many of us have all kinds of traditions in mind that are ways we celebrate

00:24:26.100 yule that involve driving around and looking at lights going and doing stuff at the store

00:24:32.980 you know in completely modern ways there's nothing wrong with that we're modern people

00:24:38.740 um there's no reason to believe our ancestors wouldn't be fully modern in how they how they

00:24:44.100 participate and how they celebrate yule um we know that it was from a period we know that or that it

00:24:51.780 was a period of time we also know you know as fawn mentioned at one point that was a three day period

00:24:58.740 well at this point it's a 12 day period 12 day fits real good it gives us stuff to do from the

00:25:06.020 period between um as i mentioned the the evening of the uh of the um winter solstice all the way

00:25:17.540 through until new year's eve it gives us that time of celebration and to kick off the new year

00:25:25.940 there's nothing served by the small minority of us trying to resurrect a year reckoning

00:25:33.380 that begins you know in in the fall that's that's larpy and it's kind of

00:25:41.620 it doesn't serve the purpose that it might have served before

00:25:47.540 The year begins January 1st. Why? Because it does. Because that's Western civilization. That's what we've decided upon. That's how all of the world around us works. We're not served by, you know, acting odd and insisting on our arcane things.

00:26:06.140 that the only the only relevance that we see is now that's just how one group of our ancestors

00:26:13.740 decided to mark time that's one of the things i think that we're very tempted if we find something

00:26:20.940 our ancestors do to try to ape the practice without understanding the purpose of the practice

00:26:28.620 and as i've said a lot of time the specific specifics are going to change in the location

00:26:33.660 over time and based on what your intent is but intent if we can discover intense of our ancestors

00:26:40.700 that's mad that matters that's timeless and we can find ways to express those in the context that

00:26:46.860 are relevant to us so it contrasted in you know undoubtedly many different ways based on the

00:26:53.580 context but the idea of celebrating making it through and over the hump in the winter time

00:27:00.300 by enjoying your preserved foodstuffs in your house with your in your you know in your abode

00:27:07.580 or in your community dwelling with your friends and your family and giving offerings and

00:27:13.980 celebrations to our gods that's remained the same i say remain the same that is once again the same

00:27:19.980 My daughter is excited about my Yule sweater. She just discovered I was wearing it, so she's

00:27:41.560 getting all excited about it. Our next question is, does the AFA celebrate the feast of Guler

00:27:49.140 and Skadi. Svan, are you familiar with the Feast of Ullr and Skadi?

00:27:57.420 Well, I'm familiar with the joining of those two. Lord Ullr is oftentimes

00:28:04.720 kind of bunched in with Lady Skadi, and I think that might be misappropriate in its,

00:28:13.840 or not inappropriate, inappropriate would be the better word, I guess, inappropriate in its usage.

00:28:20.320 I think that the intent of worship towards those two holy beings have a very different place than

00:28:28.940 they both have skis, they both have bows, they're in the mountains. That is kind of a bunching

00:28:38.580 together first and foremost however the feast of uller uh in my yule tradition or i would say in

00:28:45.300 the yule tradition that has been practiced in my house for many years there is an uller's night

00:28:51.700 which ends the hunting season which started back at winter finding and winter finding um

00:28:59.940 first and foremost most of the celebrations we have for our holy tides in the in the

00:29:04.660 the Ossetra Folk Assembly, do not focus strictly on one divine being. And in that case, you'll find

00:29:12.560 a lot of celebration towards Ullr, because it's the beginning of the hunting season. And you'll

00:29:17.340 also find a lot of, you know, dedication or gifting to Iduna or Idun in relation to the fact

00:29:25.120 that the apple harvest is going on at that time. So to say that everything kind of cookie cutters

00:29:31.460 into stuff doesn't quite work because again, it's organic. Um, so, uh, in relation to Ullr and

00:29:42.200 Skadi during a feast, no. Um, but the, you know, winter finding a lot of times Ullr is honored.

00:29:49.760 And then at Ullr's night at Yule, that is the end of the hunting season. And it's specifically one

00:29:56.240 the devotional acts is giving a bloat to uller and putting away um your your uh hunting gear

00:30:04.640 and cleaning it and so like i'll you know we'll go into more of that um but no as far as uh those

00:30:11.360 two together and i would i could go on too about the the uh i guess just misinformation in which

00:30:19.680 people kind of lined the uh those two the house and the oust veneer together and i think incorrectly

00:30:30.240 so um if you i i would i would say if you're a hunter or a frontiersman or a woodsman giving

00:30:38.960 homage to uller is no-brainer uh skadi on the other hand is a little like most of the oust veneer

00:30:49.680 a little bit more of a gray zone and i think it's more along the lines of um you know kind of

00:30:56.960 assuaging from forces that you might face out in the frontier or out in the mountains

00:31:03.200 um outside of that you know they they uh they kind of got lumped together i think

00:31:08.800 it was almost like an internal house a true community kind of uh move towards what i would

00:31:15.600 even consider kind of like a marvel like it's like we it's bad enough we did it to ourselves

00:31:23.120 in the sense of like they both are kind of similar so we're gonna put them together

00:31:26.880 and uh that's not really the case but i would go into the differences between worship of an

00:31:32.880 house or an austin or an oust veneer and how those two or those three would be different

00:31:40.080 so i don't usually link them together

00:31:44.320 um

00:31:45.600 Yeah, so short answer is no, the AFA doesn't have any prioritized feast for Uller and Skabi this time of year.

00:31:53.380 It's just not part of our calendar and what we do in an official context.

00:31:59.660 And as Svon said, and just as a matter of principle, we typically celebrate Uller quite a bit at Winterfinding.

00:32:07.680 um as a principle it's really important to us to treat the gods individually as opposed to to

00:32:18.400 lump them together around common themes if that makes sense and i think that's

00:32:28.800 I think that's a fundamental to relationships generally anytime you're trying to build a

00:32:38.340 relationship which is in a way certainly what we're trying to do with our gods obviously on a

00:32:43.680 very different scale but on the most fundamental level appreciating the other party for who they

00:32:56.240 are and not for shared hobbies like the idea that oh well they both like to ski so cool they're both

00:33:05.440 wintery and they like to ski so they must be the same um i don't think that's i i don't think that's

00:33:13.840 a a fair or accurate assessment and i think that the character of the two is in the nature of the

00:33:21.360 to is certainly very different whereas uhler's one of our our 12 high isere that we that we worship

00:33:29.440 scotty's not um she's a giantess that was you know welcomed in amongst the isere and but she's

00:33:36.400 from a very different a very different nature and i think that goes to you know some of the the meat

00:33:43.120 of what swan was talking about it's fine you got another point yeah what you know what you brought

00:33:47.120 up about intent uh a lot of the things that we do as gothar is looking at the intent what do the

00:33:54.960 skis mean do we actually believe that the holy gods are you know slaloming with uh you know

00:34:03.520 sweet set of skis the intent is is what did skiing mean especially to our nordic ancestors

00:34:10.080 at that very specific time and that was traversing the wilds it wasn't about slaloming down hills it

00:34:16.320 It was about crossing vast amounts of wintry expanse at a very dangerous time of the year.

00:34:22.700 And it was a sign.

00:34:24.200 It was a symbol of Frontier's spirit.

00:34:28.820 It would be the same as us thinking of like a snowshoe or a raccoon hat or something of that nature or a buoy knife.

00:34:35.160 These things kind of symbolize those imagery.

00:34:39.940 The, you know, so to, you know, it would make perfect sense in the idea that you would want those holy divines to perhaps bless your skis or trek, trekking over wild lands equipment.

00:34:53.520 It would make sense, but we don't literally believe or literally think that the, the, the oust veneer Scotty is going to, she's going to like ski in and she's some sort of like mean snow bunny or something.

00:35:11.520 i mean that's i i joke and i'm only i'm i i mean no disrespect to her either but um it's just it's

00:35:20.720 about intent and what it means what things mean deeply is something that we have to consider

00:35:26.400 i think that there's two camps during this time of year you've got the like the reconstruction

00:35:30.960 idea which is like uh we're gonna reconstruct this holiday because of the way our ancestors did it

00:35:37.360 on very little scant things so they kind of end up kind of mimicking or creating or hollowing out a

00:35:43.520 trough of of what they're going to do this time of year and then there's another another group

00:35:48.720 that basically they they realize the opportunity this the the beautiful time of the year

00:35:55.200 and they're desperate to know of an organized way of expressing the celebration of yule they're

00:36:02.480 desperate to know how they could uh teach their families perhaps the christian side of their

00:36:06.880 family how they could they could especially when it comes to children because this is such a powerful

00:36:13.040 this in austra are the two times of the year where we really focus on the kids and so i'm hoping that

00:36:20.800 with explaining some of the yule traditions that my family's been doing for years um it will help

00:36:27.120 people at least leave here with at least a three-day celebration or you can do the whole 12

00:36:33.360 day but that you have a full understanding of incorporating ancient uh not ancient but

00:36:42.000 older afa tradition mixed with home traditions and um acts of devotion and i think that

00:36:51.440 us being honest in the upfront that these are kind of traditions that have melded together over time

00:36:58.320 since the 70s um is is a far more i think intellectually honest route for us to go

00:37:06.960 instead of well it's gonna be you know on this moon in january this month and then it'll be in

00:37:12.240 the beginning of december next year but doesn't really matter because that's the gregorian

00:37:16.560 calendar we're only doing three days and we're gonna drag a tree and burn it for three days it's

00:37:21.040 that doesn't help a lot of people and it doesn't let them really sink into the intent of the of

00:37:28.880 the holy tide and so i think that our by tonight for those watching we're gonna get

00:37:35.080 all of that hashed out into understanding of stuff that you can do um because this has been

00:37:42.640 practiced solidly like orthopraxy by both me and alice harry ago the over the years our house you

00:37:52.720 know our yules have been uh practiced and evolving and growing and getting you know substantial so

00:38:01.600 i just wanted people to to get that at least um moving on from here

00:38:10.160 all right

00:38:12.640 So Nick reminds me to let you guys know that we're being broadcast live on Twitter, on Entropy, on VK, on Twitch, Odyssey, and Rumble, as well as here on YouTube.

00:38:32.220 um please like and share these and subscribe and you know do all you can to promote this

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00:38:45.440 folk also on Fridays these are uploaded on Spotify as podcasts as like standalone podcasts

00:38:51.960 um yeah so feel free to engage us in any of those we're happy to take your questions on

00:39:01.340 whatever those platforms you might be using.

00:39:05.040 As always, the quality, well, the content of our show

00:39:09.520 flows along with the questions that you guys ask.

00:39:13.100 So we appreciate your good questions.

00:39:17.660 That said, our next question is,

00:39:19.040 do we know the history of the modern practice

00:39:21.860 of ornaments on a tree?

00:39:24.280 I've heard ideas about hanging sacrifices,

00:39:27.100 but not as far as baubles.

00:39:31.340 Svan, what is your awareness of those origins?

00:39:36.500 The sacrifice from the tree part, immediately a lot of people will gravitate towards like Uppsala and the accounts of Adam of Brim and his account that they hung sacrifices from trees.

00:39:51.380 And we have a lot of references to gifting above the ground and gifting in a tree, gifting from a pole.

00:40:02.940 Obviously, sacrificing from an axis mundi is a very big, important part of our faith, especially in relation to Lord Woden.

00:40:11.740 But I think that that would be a time in which it was already established.

00:40:18.280 And so the origin of it is really not known.

00:40:20.820 and we see it in uh our our um traditions and we see it also in um other european traditions

00:40:33.460 uh namely you know again ribbons was what is a big one that i i can definitely think of in

00:40:39.060 relation to like the scotch scottish gale um traditions of hanging ribbons and trees

00:40:45.300 A lot of the ideas that go back into it is that it may have been breaded goods or oat goods, and this may have had some interplay between the Roman Empire and the Germanic people and their land.

00:41:04.520 There might have been some crossover there in relation to them trading, because you got to remember the Baltic amber trading into Rome was pretty strong.

00:41:15.640 And there was a lot of overlay there.

00:41:18.680 And so it's kind of hard to tell.

00:41:20.860 Some people say that it may come from Saturnalia and the idea of, um, hanging ornaments from nails

00:41:27.940 on houses and on doors and in doorways and on walls or in trees and bushes. And some people

00:41:35.880 would say that the oat cakes or the, um, the gifting and decorating of a tree with ribbons

00:41:41.140 and food may have come from the Germanic or even the Gaulish people. Um, but we don't know,

00:41:47.900 We have no idea.

00:41:49.220 And that kind of goes into that argument of, you know, did we bring the tree in as a way to kind of go away from pagan practices to Christianity?

00:42:00.880 Or was it done as, you know, like the Yule log was being brought in.

00:42:05.160 So the idea of bringing a tree in to decorate and hold it throughout the time period or throughout the holiday might have just been a natural evolution.

00:42:15.340 um we don't quite know as far as like spheres and and um like traditional christmas ornaments or

00:42:26.620 yule ornaments for the yule tree um which is always kind of a an uphill battle with my kids

00:42:32.880 because they're like oh dad are we going to go out and get a you know a christmas tree because

00:42:37.740 they're they're watching youtube or or they're uh talking to their friends and their friends might

00:42:44.660 be, you know, they celebrate Christmas. So I try to tell him like, no, remember we celebrate Yule

00:42:48.920 and it's a Yule tree in our house. And, you know, these are Yule decorations. And my,

00:42:53.480 my older son, he gets it. My, my littlest one still doesn't, but I don't terribly chastise it,

00:42:59.760 but it's, it's like a constant reiteration, um, because of their surroundings. Um,

00:43:05.680 I think that those, the, the spherical and the catching of lights and things

00:43:10.680 comes from hanging candles and that was an evolution that started where candles would be

00:43:16.640 hung or placed within lanterns would be hung from trees or candles would be placed in a living tree

00:43:23.020 and then the idea of things glinting and catching light may have been a natural evolution from there

00:43:28.960 whether it was a tin or other kind of highly polished non super expensive metals because

00:43:38.360 again like gold and silver might not be something that was uh available to most folks it was it was

00:43:44.360 highly polished metals and um you know twisted and turned and hung from strings so that they would

00:43:50.540 catch the light and that just kind of evolved over time most likely it was a victorian edition

00:43:56.760 um that was added later but to pinpoint is i think right now we don't have enough evidence to

00:44:07.280 exactly pinpoint a date or a time or a region where that became prevalent

00:44:15.280 so this is going to be a recurring theme with all of our holidays and with yule and i don't

00:44:23.840 i want to be real honest um none of this is an attempt to recreate ancient germanic people's

00:44:34.960 yule practice because the information that we have that's solid on that is the month of december

00:44:43.120 to through to early january somewhere is there was feasting there was sacrifice

00:44:50.800 we have an account that people would travel a distance bring with them

00:44:56.960 ale and grain and whatever sacrifices and communally celebrate for a period of time that varied

00:45:03.280 um you know it was a celebration in the sense there was feasting and heavy drinking as were

00:45:11.600 all celebrations uh amongst our folk we have accounts of you know as far as specifics go

00:45:20.320 we have an account of a three-round toasting process first round for uh to odin for the

00:45:28.240 success and for victory for the king, Jolnir, and we have round two for Njordr or Freyr for peace and

00:45:40.000 prosperity, and the third round towards the king himself to celebrate their monarch. And again,

00:45:45.780 that's a glimpse at one period of time in one Scandinavian country right in the midst of the

00:45:53.560 christianization process so i think to claim that we have specifics beyond that that we have source

00:46:00.960 material for is reaching quite a bit and i don't think we need to reach that hard i think what's

00:46:07.700 really interesting when we look at the celebrations around yule is to look at the things

00:46:14.860 sometimes the

00:46:18.540 length of something being a practice is evident by the fact that nobody knows when it started

00:46:28.520 because it's just always been i think a lot of the overtly christian practices we know very

00:46:34.820 specifically when they happened because there's church records that indicate when church fathers

00:46:40.980 or a pontiff officiated that you know this is how things were going to happen

00:46:45.900 there's things that clearly predate that and one of the things that is

00:46:50.300 europe was not the melting pot that it is now at the time so those traditions were were our

00:46:59.420 traditions either ours directly or our cousins which is still ours but they were arian arian

00:47:06.600 customs that were done in europe because if you look especially in that early period of christianity

00:47:13.000 the celebrations of european yule are very different than the middle eastern church or

00:47:20.680 the african church or anything that way those things that separate the character of early

00:47:28.920 medieval period catholicism in europe from that same period in a unified church in the middle

00:47:37.560 east and in in africa really shine a light on what things are holdovers of pagan european practice

00:47:45.720 and you're right much of it comes from depending on where you're at from eastern europe and you

00:47:51.720 know old school rod novery most often some of it comes i've seen in the comments from saturnalia

00:47:57.720 and, you know, midwinter celebrations in Greece and Rome.

00:48:02.780 All of those things were true.

00:48:05.400 And I don't pretend to hide or to gloss over any of those things.

00:48:10.540 As far as the trees, there's all kind of speculation.

00:48:15.240 But most of it is just that speculation.

00:48:17.580 What we do know is that trees were received decoration and veneration by our ancestors.

00:48:24.980 certainly the celts did that with a lot of their sacred groves we know that our people did that at

00:48:30.700 one point we don't know exactly how we know there were you know sacred trees we see that in our lore

00:48:37.980 we hear about that with the erminsul itself and we hear about that with with thor's oak

00:48:43.760 we're aware that that occurred and we are also aware that when that occurs we often would celebrate

00:48:52.740 by one of the things that we do know. We would color things with blood of sacrifice as part

00:49:03.900 of our veneration. So idols, the hof itself, and sacred trees. And anything that was sacred

00:49:12.400 as well as the participants would be sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice. Sure, that

00:49:18.600 took many different forms,

00:49:21.180 but that was a basic component to all our blotar.

00:49:24.840 And we hear about that at the Yule Feast.

00:49:29.680 I assume some of that is the trees were decorated

00:49:33.300 with the sacrifice.

00:49:35.860 And we also hear at various different periods,

00:49:37.940 though not associated with Yule,

00:49:40.360 the idea of hanging sacrifice in trees

00:49:43.240 specifically for sacrifices to the Allfather.

00:49:46.540 We see this after the Battle of Todorbergerwald. We see this, you know, numerous different times, as well as at the celebration of Uppsala.

00:49:59.520 That's the closest I've got. The specific details of celebrating, you know, the Yule Tree in the quote-unquote Christmas tree tradition of today.

00:50:10.920 the most solid we can get is, you know, Reformation period, starting to take those

00:50:18.020 inside and celebrate them and adorn them with candles, like Svon mentioned.

00:50:23.320 I think that's the easiest we can get. Go ahead.

00:50:26.880 I find a lot of people too, when they go into like kind of an attempt to reconstruct,

00:50:32.300 what they'll do is they'll focus on a Yule log and then perhaps decorating outside,

00:50:37.540 uh you know uh a tree or um some sort of hedgerow or something um and that is in in uh my yule

00:50:46.980 tradition that's but it i've also i have a yule tree inside i think the correlation of of for my

00:50:54.300 children to understand i i i think it's you know you you go and you go to any local farmer's market

00:51:01.460 and you see the yule trees coming out um some people do fake yule trees and and i and i get

00:51:06.980 that too, especially now with how much they cost and inflation and such. But that reconstruction

00:51:14.040 attempt of like, okay, we're just going to do the Yule log and then we're going to decorate outside

00:51:18.960 misses a lot of the point. I think it's, again, forcing to attempt to reconstruct as opposed

00:51:26.100 to capturing the intent of the holy tide. And then on top of that, your children might

00:51:33.640 you know missed the mark on that as well and um so you know there's you know deep important things

00:51:42.380 as far as like our our holy tide and the 12 days and what they each represent and then there's also

00:51:48.800 again of course the the yule figure uh many australia today uh focus on the on yulmir or

00:51:56.940 of being Odin or of Thor. I've seen some of that as well. And having the Yule spirit or the Yule

00:52:04.940 elf, which is what I celebrate. And I even see my son, he's sneaking around here because I think

00:52:14.140 he wants to listen and find out like the machinations of the Yule elf. He's working his

00:52:20.540 magic um but yes there there's there's things that you can do religiously as an adult uh in

00:52:29.020 dedication and piety throughout the year in it converting from the darkest time to the to the

00:52:34.380 lightest time but there's also things for your children to do and i think that you know if you

00:52:39.140 can you know using a christmas tree or a yule tree is you know completely viable um and it has

00:52:47.880 You know, I know people that, and including myself, like placing a large, like stitched serpent around the bottom of the tree and placing an eagle at the top has connotations, of course, to Yggdrasil.

00:53:06.740 so uh that's not written anywhere that's not mentioned in some ancient lore text it's just

00:53:15.060 something that we started doing because it it it naturally lends that way especially

00:53:21.020 with lore and things like that so you know don't be afraid to um understand the tiding of the year

00:53:30.220 has old and new and it's all mixed together it's always been here but some things are new

00:53:35.660 and they might be new for you this year if you want to try to do some of these things

00:53:39.940 might be new for um your kids and sometimes i understand if you've already got yule traditions

00:53:45.200 your children are older now that might be already set in stone but if you're a new parent

00:53:50.620 or a new um uh you don't have kids yet but you're thinking about this on the horizon

00:53:57.460 you know picking up these traditions and incorporating them in to make an organic

00:54:02.260 holy tide that is memorable for your family, for even your non-Ausatru family, and for your children

00:54:09.600 is important. Don't lose that intent. The why is everything. I would encourage,

00:54:19.600 and I've talked about this in the program as well. There was a period in modern Ausatru

00:54:25.220 where people needed to take this hard rejection of Christianity stance

00:54:34.020 and they needed such a firm break between that and this forming

00:54:41.560 that they hit it really hard.

00:54:46.260 It oftentimes threw the baby out with the bath water,

00:54:49.920 but they wanted to start fresh and be so clearly defined to recapture this.

00:54:54.640 And I see the point of that at that time. I really do. That time's come and gone. At that point in the very birth of modern Ausitru, a lot of it was a definition of Ausitru as how not Christian we are.

00:55:11.640 Today, it's not that at all. It's how Ausitru we are. Christianity, or any other faith for that matter, isn't relevant to that. Ausitru is defined on its own terms and its own merits, not in its contrast to anything else, other than abject chaos, I suppose, or literally disloyalty to the Aesir.

00:55:39.940 so i just advise everybody why are you doing what you're doing and if the reason that you're doing

00:55:50.580 it is to be off-putting to normal people or to be or to virtue signal or to whatever

00:55:59.460 this is one of those times that we can celebrate in in many ways fully participate in the community

00:56:10.420 around us in a positive festive fun way for ourselves and for our children

00:56:17.380 and i would encourage you that unless it's specifically of a religious nature and this

00:56:26.120 is going to bring us to our next question here, but if it's specifically like, I'll get into this

00:56:31.340 in the next question, because I think it's a better time to go into this, but just keep in mind,

00:56:37.220 why are you doing what you're doing? If you're doing it to recreate something very ancient,

00:56:44.340 you don't have the material to do that. And why would you want to? You're not an ancient person,

00:56:51.640 a modern person so if we started today what can you do to celebrate yule and to honor our gods

00:56:59.320 and do that with your traditions fawn mentioned you know the idea of setting up your yule tree

00:57:05.080 in such a way to incorporate parts from yggdrasil and i think a lot of our people do that that's a

00:57:11.880 very common thing that i know a number of people just organically do because again that tree is so

00:57:16.920 prevalent in our myth cycle. Our next question, how does the AFA feel about people who celebrate

00:57:25.500 Yule at the Hoff and Christmas with their extended family? I personally love both.

00:57:35.320 At the risk of sounding too Christian, the devil's in the details.

00:57:39.520 um what does that mean if celebrating christmas when you're not at the hof means going to

00:57:48.160 midnight mass or going to you know a manger play at your at your local baptist church

00:57:56.560 then the afa is absolutely opposed to that that's literally disloyalty to the isere

00:58:01.040 if celebrating christmas means going over to your non-alster true family's house on the 25th and

00:58:07.120 opening presents and celebrating and you know spending time with your family absolutely we'd

00:58:14.240 encourage you to do that if the idea is that you're going and celebrating yule in secret

00:58:25.040 and then pretending to your family that you're still a christian and celebrating it in a christian

00:58:31.200 context, then no, that's disloyalty to the ICR2 and it's wrong. But because of the way that it

00:58:40.700 is celebrated, I don't know many families that have a whole lot of overt Christian celebration

00:58:48.120 to Christmas Day. They have feasting with family and giving each other's gifts and drinking hot

00:58:55.540 chocolate and listening to Bing Crosby and, you know, having a nice time. And I think we're all

00:59:01.460 for that. And that's a wonderful thing to do. What are your thoughts, Svon? Yeah, I draw the line

00:59:09.060 in veneration towards obviously any God outside of our faith. And again, you know, we go into,

00:59:17.940 I'm not a Roman historian, but the idea that the tax audit that was done in Bethlehem by the Roman

00:59:24.260 empire was generally seen as being done around august september time frame and that might have

00:59:29.300 been the reason why um they were going to bethlehem uh and so that places it entirely out some people

00:59:36.740 say it's earlier in the year or what have you but christianity has melded itself over a very

00:59:42.420 important time in the year uh most likely to do the kind of the very same thing they were they

00:59:48.500 wanted to uh during that conversion time they wanted to not jar people so hard away from their

00:59:57.700 core traditions and in doing so they they helped kind of encapsulate some of it uh and you know

01:00:04.020 that is worth noting or just societally wise they can't get rid of it um and i'm glad they didn't

01:00:10.900 But incorporating both, you know, hanging holly and wreaths and bells, like reindeer bells, which that's a fairly newer addiction to things on doors, all that stuff.

01:00:29.360 That just, it opens up, if it's not in direct veneration to, you know, Christianity or Judaism, you know, meld it in, incorporate it in.

01:00:42.860 It's completely and totally viable.

01:00:45.400 It's, you know, being an American or being a European or being a Western cultural thing is all open there.

01:00:54.780 Um, I think that, uh, you know, when, when you get away from a lot of that, a lot of those things do naturally melt, even though maybe historically or origin wise, they're not fully known.

01:01:10.080 or they may have been a newer addition during Victorian Yule or during the Renaissance in

01:01:17.160 which a lot of old traditions were really coming about as a kind of stylized way of celebrating

01:01:25.340 Christmas was to bring in a lot of the old folkways. Those tides have happened in Europe

01:01:32.460 numerous times. Again, the faith of our blood and of our souls never goes away,

01:01:38.860 no matter how much you try to overlay foreign religion on it um so yeah you know i i enjoy both

01:01:45.660 i celebrate yule for 12 days but i do at one point during our yule celebration we go over to

01:01:52.300 grandma's house and we you know she gives out christmas presents and to to her um grandchildren

01:02:01.160 and we you know involve ourselves in that as well because so my kids love it because they kind of

01:02:07.480 get two days of gift giving. But again, it's about spending that time with your family and

01:02:17.140 not being, kind of like what you said, I think edgelording is the equivalent of virtue signaling

01:02:24.720 in a lot of ways. And we got to get away from that. People are not going to understand that

01:02:29.740 our faith is a serious faith if we continue to build on those presets.

01:02:37.480 up next

01:02:43.220 actually

01:02:47.340 pause for a sec

01:02:50.640 7 o'clock and I think we should

01:02:53.180 just to make sure we get to it

01:02:55.060 we'll get to everybody's questions I promise that

01:02:56.880 if you guys want to donate

01:02:58.420 again we got a couple of places

01:03:00.580 hopefully we'll be back next week

01:03:02.660 with the bells and the whistles and the stuff that broke

01:03:04.900 Nick's computer

01:03:05.640 um after we've done significant we've taken some time off to try to perfect that process

01:03:11.780 so it is smooth when we do it again but i know that's the way we often take donations on here

01:03:17.460 i was just going to say if you guys donate or do the monetized like super chat where you throw

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01:03:34.860 or some of the other services we have, or they have the buy you a coffee thing.

01:03:39.980 I don't really speak that, but you guys that do can figure that out

01:03:42.820 if you want to get them up there quick.

01:03:44.520 If not, we will get to them.

01:03:45.880 But I want to make sure we talk about the different Yule celebrations.

01:03:56.920 So, first up, Svahn, could you walk us through Svahn's 12 Days of Yule?

01:04:08.020 Well, yes, I think the first thing that anybody that's been in Austritur for a while understands the first night is kind of hearkened by Mother's Night, or Mother's Night.

01:04:19.940 Mother's Night has origins, really, in Anglo-Saxon tradition.

01:04:24.860 not in it's not really mentioned in any sources for the nordic uh folk so mother's night

01:04:32.540 was is mentioned but again the details of what exactly goes on during the ancient mother's night

01:04:40.860 is not fully explained in any way shape or form what it has become is that there is a correlation

01:04:47.900 to the dying light of lord balder and his return from the darkness after ragnarok that clearly has

01:04:57.900 correlations here as well as sunnah and the the tiding of of uh the darkest night of the year

01:05:03.980 which is of course you know the winter solstice or uh midwinter for us if you're looking at a um

01:05:11.580 um a bipolar um uh calendar system we have mid-summer and mid-winter and these are very

01:05:23.420 very important and now that we have a better understanding of a lot of the ash uh astrological

01:05:28.460 um or astra like the the machinations of the timings of the year and our our our timekeeping

01:05:37.740 has gotten a lot better we understand these important time frames so um in my iron mark

01:05:44.380 or in the gregorian calendar uh this time is significant so mother's night is always seen as

01:05:50.300 the eve of the winter solstice so for uh sake of you know to get away from confusion um in uh the

01:06:01.100 gregorian calendar that's december 20th and so if you were looking at yule as just say uh

01:06:07.740 a three-day or or four-day celebration um the first thing that i would state is that mother's

01:06:14.620 night is the 20th and it has become the night in which we honor lady frigga and we honor balder and

01:06:21.660 the loss uh that the gods felt in the darkest time of their of their year if you will or of the of

01:06:28.780 the cycle and so we correlate those two because it is the darkest time of our year and so mother's

01:06:37.260 night is generally the night in which you'll find a vast majority of the celebration going on during

01:06:43.900 yule and this is the time in which the yule log is is decorated and uh incorporated into bloat and

01:06:52.460 then it is burned and then from that light there's a lot of different traditions in the way that that

01:06:57.740 that actually plays out but the yule log is burned the mistletoe is hung um under the door and um

01:07:06.140 usually of the threshold of the house uh wreaths might be hung at the front door or

01:07:11.180 uh bows of holly may be uh hung throughout the the uh house or hallways or archways or doors

01:07:18.860 and mistletoe might be you know placed somewhere depending on you know different households um

01:07:25.020 And a bloat is held to Lady Frigga and to the gods and to Baldr and a dedication of giving of faith and piety to Baldr in strengthening him for after Ragnarok, his return will be the faith of our troth to the gods.

01:07:48.560 So a lot of Mother's Night is conducted there.

01:07:53.620 um in the in the iron mark here the iron mark is now we're we're moving our way down the last

01:08:02.640 day is uh right is the 19th of december and then we shift into uh mother's night

01:08:09.460 um but you don't need to have the iron mark to do this the 20th at sundown everything begins

01:08:18.520 And generally that might show up as a, you know, something as simple as a bloat.

01:08:25.240 And the bloat is about blessing the Yule Log.

01:08:28.340 For us, we drill little holes in the Yule Log that's decorated with holly and pine and other festive greenery that's, you know, alive at this time.

01:08:40.720 And what we do is we place candles in for remembrance of those who are no longer with us or who are alive, but are physically separated from us, perhaps, you know, overseas or out, you know, in doing things in their lives and they can't be with us.

01:08:58.640 So a lot of times we will place candles in those holes in celebration of them.

01:09:05.160 So you end up seeing this Yule log with a varying amount of lights.

01:09:10.620 And what we also do is we light the Yule log from the need fire.

01:09:16.320 So the way you do the need fire is really dependent on you.

01:09:20.580 you could do them in just starting a fire um outside and bringing the flame from outside

01:09:27.300 to inside to burning the yule log perhaps you don't have a fireplace though and you want to

01:09:32.340 burn the yule log outside you can do that as well but the idea of starting a fire by friction um

01:09:40.500 again you know for real uh i guess going into attempting to uh reconstruct a lot and i use that

01:09:50.580 in a lighter sense of starting a fire with a bow drill. Again, this comes from the Anglo-Saxon

01:09:56.820 Enels, which they were saying that, you know, that heathens started fires by friction and that

01:10:04.860 they should only do it by flint and steel. And some people do that. Some people just start a

01:10:10.540 light outside, carry it inside. I have found a good way of starting a fire through a cotton ball

01:10:17.620 and using ash from the Yule log from the year before.

01:10:21.440 So taking that ash and putting it in between two panels of wood

01:10:24.860 with a rolled piece of cotton gets it going,

01:10:28.180 and you spark a fire from the ash of the Yule log from the year before,

01:10:33.660 and then you bring that inside, start a fire in your fireplace,

01:10:37.680 hold bloat around the Yule log,

01:10:39.460 and give honor to Lady Frigga and to Baldr and to all the gods

01:10:45.040 and to Jolnir, Lord Odin. And then we place the Yule log in the fire. And that's kind of what

01:10:53.440 begins Yule. And when we get into the Yule figure, and what I mean by that is what most people would

01:11:01.700 call Santa Claus or Father Christmas or the Yule elf, as I have taught my children, the Yule elf.

01:11:11.500 um and the traditions of that figure vary throughout europe as well um we tell the

01:11:19.340 children that the lighting of the yule log is a hearkening of the yule elf that every family has

01:11:24.900 a yule there isn't just one that goes all over the world but that each individual family has

01:11:31.900 a spirit of the of the fireplace since we have a fireplace um and he lives in the ingle nook and

01:11:38.900 the yule log is a um a hearkening of him and we burn a yule bach and that yule bach becomes his

01:11:48.820 yule bach that he will use to travel and carry the gifts that will come later on in the yule

01:11:56.100 uh days to to follow so mother's night is is the big one people come over

01:12:02.100 lots of guests eating feasting after the yule log is lit traditional foods um

01:12:08.900 from lamb and uh ham to fish um lots of you know beef uh you know i know some people have

01:12:16.660 uh german recipes and english recipes that they really like or southern recipes based on

01:12:22.180 kind of the family traditions that have passed down to them and it's really just a time to sit

01:12:28.020 around the table and eat and drink and be merry with your kinfolk after bloat while the yule log

01:12:35.540 is burning in the fireplace and so i mean i looking at it i'm sorry i thought you were to

01:12:42.500 pause keep going i need to interrupt i was gonna say let's go through this each day at a time and

01:12:48.420 i think that's a way for us to get some questions in and also to kind of back and forth because

01:12:52.740 there's a couple parallel tracks here of traditions for us to incorporate go ahead i really didn't

01:12:59.700 mean to catch no no yeah um yeah and this being that first night the night of the 20th if if you

01:13:06.260 were doing the 12 night celebration it would go from the 20th to new year's on the gregorian

01:13:11.860 calendar which would be the uh december uh the end of december and the beginning of january and

01:13:16.580 january 1st is kind of uh you know more of the gregorian uh turning of the year um but it kind

01:13:22.980 of coincides together for the iron mark that is the end of the year and the beginning of the new

01:13:28.020 year um so it all coalesces around mother's night and um again yule in its construction

01:13:38.500 has always been kind of a replication of the year past so a general sense is that throughout yule

01:13:46.980 celebrating these days has a kind of a micro scale versus the macro scale of the year itself

01:13:56.020 So it's kind of like a rehash or a replay of the year. So Yule on Mother's Night is kind of replicating Yule from last year. Again, that's the reason why bringing the ash from the Yule tree from the year before.

01:14:09.940 A lot of people, including myself, I take the end piece of the Yule tree from last year, cut it off and use that as the Yule log. Again, transferring that cyclic nature to it.

01:14:25.620 not everybody can do that. Some people might not be able to burn something in their house in a

01:14:30.600 fireplace. Some people might not have a yule log that first time from the yule tree from the year

01:14:37.540 before. Again, too, I don't recommend burning a huge amount, especially if it's because yule

01:14:43.760 trees are pine trees and they get sappy and burning too much sapped wood in your fireplace

01:14:50.000 can be dangerous so you know starting a fire with dry wood and then placing a small yule log

01:14:56.640 from the yule tree in there on mother's night is uh is a way to go i think without you know um

01:15:04.400 causing any kind of alarm for um fire hazards and there's more about fire hazards what we what we do

01:15:12.000 on that night outside after bloat or outside of bloat is during the feast a lot of folks will grab

01:15:19.440 We call them seven day candles. Sometimes you might see them with like a Catholic imagery at

01:15:25.440 certain stores. Sometimes you can find them in plain white, plain red, plain green. Some people

01:15:32.840 make them. I've had tallow candles that we made one year and use them, but we take a light from

01:15:38.580 the Yule log and we keep it over the 12 nights. We, we never let it go out. So after feast and

01:15:48.120 we're done eating and we say goodbye to everyone under the mistletoe, we give, you know, proper

01:15:52.720 handshakes for men to men. And, you know, we embrace our brothers and embrace the children

01:16:00.180 or, you know, and we kiss our loved ones within the acceptable, um, point of tradition. Because

01:16:06.760 again, I think some people, sometimes they go into these, uh, like, what am I going to kiss

01:16:11.540 my friend's wife or something? No, you can embrace her. And, and it's like a gesture of

01:16:17.420 love and kindness under the mistletoe. Again, reminding the mistletoe that it wasn't its fault

01:16:23.200 for the death of Balder. As they leave, that candle is taken and I place it in a pot of water

01:16:29.920 and place it in front of the fireplace until the fire is completely done. And then I'll clean the

01:16:36.260 fireplace out and place that light into the fireplace. And we have a mesh grid and the

01:16:44.780 children know now like don't touch the flame the flame's got to keep going and we monitor it

01:16:50.820 throughout the 12 nights and we transfer that light from the yule log to a new candle when it

01:16:56.200 gets too low and then we blow the old one out when it's near its uh lowering stage some some people

01:17:03.040 leave it lit because they want to keep the light going um there's a kind of a tradition that's

01:17:09.020 grown about that with the light going out. And that's a, that's a beautiful thing. But they try

01:17:18.100 to keep it lit for the, for the duration, whether it's, you know, mother's night and then the winter

01:17:24.080 solstice the next day, or perhaps they try to keep it going into ancestors night or, or throughout

01:17:31.080 the entire 12 nights. And if you're, if your light goes out, the idea is that when folks take their

01:17:37.880 light home, which again, those candles can be held inside a, uh, a vehicle's, uh, drink caddy.

01:17:45.540 Um, and it's very funny driving home from Yule celebrations and people have like these

01:17:49.020 candle under lights. They're driving home, trying to make sure it doesn't go out. Um,

01:17:53.940 the idea is that if your light goes out, you, your folk will bring a light from their Yule light

01:17:59.120 and go to your house and relight your light. Because in the darkest time of the year,

01:18:03.640 you can always rely on your kinfolk to reignite your light to keep it going so that's because

01:18:09.660 that was totally organically kind of come about um when somebody's light went out and then it was

01:18:15.880 like what do i do and it's like i'll be there and then they show up with a light from their

01:18:21.200 yule light and they light yours again and it's it's a great reminder of the fact that during

01:18:26.540 the darkest times it's you can't exclude yourself from community you should include yourself and not

01:18:32.420 be afraid to accept the help from your, your fellow kinfolk. So that's kind of a, a beautiful

01:18:38.760 point. And ultimately the light is kept for however long during the duration of Yule. And then the last

01:18:44.500 boon fire or fire of, of rejoicing at the end of Yule is lit from that flame, from the Yule log.

01:18:51.640 And that's a semblance or a symbolic meaning of keeping the flame of light through the darkest

01:18:56.900 time of the year so i find that beautiful and poetic so a couple other

01:19:09.220 couple other things and one of the great things about having svan on for this episode he's got

01:19:15.860 a very elaborate awesome way that he and his family celebrate yule and i think it's a lot

01:19:21.380 of good ideas for the rest of us to incorporate um i think we need to be honest with ourselves about

01:19:30.260 ways people celebrate and

01:19:36.500 there's no reason to believe that at some point in our ancient past

01:19:42.260 odin rode down on slepner and told viking guy x this is how i want you to celebrate yule

01:19:53.060 much more likely all of these traditions happen much like the traditions we're talking to you

01:19:59.300 about tonight happen to where you're doing stuff in the winter and you overlay themes from our

01:20:05.700 from our beliefs into them to internalize those beliefs to acknowledge and celebrate those beliefs

01:20:14.020 and to honor our gods with our deeds and with being mindful and you come up with ways to

01:20:23.020 share that with your family and with your folk there's no and i i know that this is hard but i

01:20:32.420 think that we look at stuff and because an ancient Viking guy did it, somehow it's more holy than a

01:20:39.000 modern Al-Satruer doing it. And that's not the case. If they're done out of reverence and

01:20:44.440 developed out of reverence, they're both just as holy. The key is whether it honors our gods or

01:20:52.280 not. Does it honor our gods? And secondly, does it bring us closer to our folk and our family?

01:20:58.980 Does it instill the traditions and values that we want in the next generation?

01:21:05.140 But first and foremost, does it honor our gods?

01:21:07.400 And is it something our gods would smile on or something that would offend them?

01:21:12.380 That said, one of the things kind of similar.

01:21:18.680 The longest night is often the night of the 20th, but not always, especially depending on where you are.

01:21:25.320 um i think as a safe bet that's one of the things that people do on that night and that you know

01:21:31.440 you're you're close enough you're within a day to it but um one of the things that we always

01:21:37.540 used to do and something else to keep in mind on modern celebrations often we have to adjust those

01:21:45.920 to reasonable expectations of people people have work people have commitments people have other

01:21:52.260 things we as a society are not wholly also true if we were in someday in the future if we are

01:21:59.780 living in an also true nation where everything is built around this then we can do things very

01:22:04.420 differently but for the time being we have to you know temper some things with some practicality but

01:22:10.980 one of the things that um i always very much used to do i haven't done as much lately just due to

01:22:18.660 some other circumstance but i still try to find a way to do it a little bit but one of the things

01:22:23.220 that we used to do up in alaska and it was especially meaningful up in alaska because

01:22:29.860 the longest night of the year is much longer where i come from than it is other places

01:22:36.740 very often the sun you know i was in anchorage area very often the sun would go down

01:22:41.540 let's say like a little bit after four probably come up the next morning 11 30 or so so it's a

01:22:52.760 pretty long period of time but what we like to do was i'd get together with the folk up there

01:22:59.380 and we would light a candle a fire we would light something and create a flame

01:23:06.080 right before sundown. And we would hold vigil over the flame, keeping watch over the light

01:23:13.820 through the longest night. And so, like Svahn mentioned, sometimes some of us weren't

01:23:22.060 on site because of whatever and commitments at the time. Sometimes people had to go home early

01:23:27.880 for various reasons. So everybody would light their candle off of this flame. And

01:23:33.260 And I remember numerous times being in my car and you want the defrost on because it's really cold, but you don't want the air to blow out the candles.

01:23:43.360 So you're like trying to protect this candle while you're trying to drive and get wax all over your console and have a lot of memories about that.

01:23:52.920 But we would do that. So we'd try to stay up and play games and celebrate and spend time together all through the night for those of us that could.

01:24:03.260 i worked nights at the time so it was a little bit easier for me to do but that was something

01:24:08.460 we always did just to celebrate on on that longest night of the year but the idea is the

01:24:13.820 same as to tend that flame through the darkest part of the year that's symbolic and you can

01:24:22.460 make it symbolic in a million different ways but it's beautiful and special and it's a nice

01:24:27.260 it's a nice thing to do with your folder i also want to mention that for each of the 12 days

01:24:34.940 steve mcnallen back i don't know when he first started doing it but he made uh

01:24:42.940 a series of videos about it you know a little book about it about how the mcnallen family

01:24:49.580 would celebrate and observe the 12 days of you and the afa has taken that on as something that we

01:24:55.340 we look to it for inspiration throughout those days and they're kind of um you know he'd light

01:25:02.560 a candle to each of these points of information or points of uh you know things to be reminded of

01:25:09.120 and to be mindful of that day to celebrate that day and to focus on and um the the first

01:25:16.200 first day of yuletide was for industriousness so the virtue of industriousness is what he would

01:25:25.200 you would have the focus beyond that day and finding ways to to celebrate that to be useful

01:25:32.760 to be aware of and mindful of people putting in hard work and especially in that time of year

01:25:40.700 all of the hard work that's gone in so that we can last through the winter our employment in this day

01:25:46.880 and age isn't as seasonal as that but in our ancestors time you'd have to get a lot of work

01:25:53.560 done during the summer to be able to sustain yourself through the winter and if you didn't

01:26:00.360 take that time and you weren't industriousness you and your family would suffer quite a bit

01:26:05.560 and your community by extension through that winter time trying to make it through those

01:26:09.240 lean months so paying heed to that on that first night was you know is something that we we give

01:26:16.360 you fought to on that first day of real time yeah i completely incorporated in the candle lighting

01:26:23.800 ceremonies uh that i i failed to mention that one of the first when we light that first candle it's

01:26:31.640 lit on the 20th in commemoration to founder mcnalen's candle lighting ceremony so everyone

01:26:39.160 takes a moment of silence to and to uh meditate or or to just incorporate the virtue that is lit

01:26:45.880 from the first uh the first candle from the yule log and it and it it follows but every morning i

01:26:53.400 end up um i have a uh a 12 day it looks like a large wooden um like candle holder um and each

01:27:05.640 morning i'll take a light from the yule light and light the next candle and have a moment uh usually

01:27:12.040 the children are up with me depending on work and things like that that are going on and that those

01:27:16.440 candles are are lit in commemoration of those virtues of the of the day and then you know

01:27:22.840 sometimes got to go to work you got to go do things you got to live your life and and uh so

01:27:27.720 carrying that with you and mentality until you come home at night and get to celebrate the next bloat

01:27:33.880 is very very important so we'll ask a couple of questions here um this one is for you being a son

01:27:41.480 of iceland uh-oh do the elves that work for santa claus in some way relate to the elves from norse

01:27:50.040 myths or the kind of elves that a lot of people in iceland still believe in i knew i knew this

01:27:56.680 was going towards the yule lads at some point are your icelandic elves the same as santa's helpers

01:28:04.200 well i think that uh you know i would say like anglosphere santa claus elves and that dynamic

01:28:11.480 um definitely come from heavily i would say in the nordic region i wouldn't necessarily say

01:28:18.680 iceland per se because there's a lot of of the uh the laplander kind of imagery especially with

01:28:24.200 the reindeer and the sleigh uh and the the idea of the the residing of of uh the jolly old elf

01:28:31.960 santa claus you know being up in the north and then of course we we have the origins of of uh

01:28:37.400 saint nicholas the the turk um and his giving of gifts during uh that time in eastern or in greece

01:28:46.040 um that that kind of melds there and it gets a little fuzzy and i was definitely gonna go into

01:28:50.920 some of that but um the yule lads in um iceland only recently in the last hundred years has kind

01:29:00.280 of taken on like a sense of the beard and the hat and um perhaps some of the coloration and

01:29:08.520 uh things like that but in iceland they're seen as traveling and uh the yule often in my tradition

01:29:16.520 does the same thing but they see that they have 13 yule lads and they arrive early in december

01:29:24.600 and continue up to christmas day and there were again this uh the the yule elf uh or the elf or

01:29:35.320 the alvar of this time frame uh now is surviving in sweden and norway as the tomta and the nisi

01:29:42.840 uh or the nisa the um the uh house spirit if you will and i think they have much more of a kinship

01:29:50.360 to that um because icelanders are ultimately from norway um and in that these these yule lads come

01:29:59.480 down from the mountain again a kind of uh hearkening to that this is not a christian celebration but

01:30:06.520 uh from an older time or from out in the in the edges and i don't prescribe to this but this is

01:30:11.560 i think what they did they kind of placed a lot of the figures of the elder faith into frameworks

01:30:19.000 that were acceptable the elves became jolly little figures that were not very uh powerful

01:30:26.840 or prominent or they they physically changed the way they were perceived by the folk in order to

01:30:35.240 lessen them and out of that comes the the elves being these tiny little figures that make toys

01:30:41.640 or they come down in iceland and every night each one of them does a a funny little thing um

01:30:48.440 and they're very very timely based there's there's one called the meat hooker and what he

01:30:53.480 does is he he it takes an iron hook and he goes down the the the chimney and he grabs all the

01:30:59.880 smoked meat that was being smoked at the time in iceland that doesn't have a lot of relevance today

01:31:04.200 here in america or just even in in a lot of ways in iceland um there's you know door slammer one

01:31:10.920 night and and generally the way it's celebrated is that uh the the yule lads uh while the kids

01:31:17.480 are asleep they come out and you know the doors are slammed or the uh all the the skier in the

01:31:23.960 house is eaten depending on how you know deep you want to go and they become kind of more commercialized

01:31:31.640 over uh time especially with modern housing and things like that um so the yule lads um

01:31:39.240 i think in relation to western anglosphere santa claus and the elves are more leaned towards the

01:31:46.680 tomta and the nisi as being in their imagery of of these kind of little beings that make the toys

01:31:55.000 and um again that harkens back to a time when toys were handmade so a lot of time you know now it's

01:32:01.320 it's uh you you see the joker it shows like a ship coming from china it's like the elves have

01:32:07.240 have made their their toys or whatever and it's kind of a uh off-colored joke in the sense that

01:32:13.960 it kind of reminds me that we have deviated away from a lot of certain things that used to be very

01:32:19.320 common for us as far as making handmade toys and giving them out to the kids um but yes the tomta

01:32:25.960 and the nisi seem to be the elven uh kind of imagery uh based out of it but to be honest an

01:32:34.760 elf could be uh simply a title that's given to like a leo self is a light elf and i often have

01:32:41.960 a tendency to believe of the yule elf that visits our house is a light elf because he comes from

01:32:49.080 the light of he's brought by the light of the yule log being lit and by the candle that's being held

01:32:56.120 and um there's lots of connotations towards fire and the ingle nook and the house elf when we talk

01:33:04.200 about um the tradition of giving burnt charcoal to greedy children or miserly children and that

01:33:10.360 that's a tradition that holds in in um my house is if if a child is greedy and is only concerned

01:33:15.960 about the gifts that that he or she's gonna get um then they end up getting a burnt you know uh

01:33:22.760 stick uh in their stocking and it's kind of like a a big like yeah you were you were being greedy um

01:33:30.360 Um, and that comes from chocolate Pete. Okay. Here we go. No, uh, smart, smart to Pete. Uh,

01:33:41.980 if you're looking at mainland Europe in, in the, in, in, uh, the Western Germany and the Netherlands,

01:33:48.360 they have a figure called smart to Pete. And this again, kind of goes along with another common

01:33:54.780 trope throughout Yuletide traditions that I think really bases itself, it's uniquely Christian.

01:34:04.400 And I'm talking about Svartapit, Krampus, or in Iceland, she's known as Grilla, is this kind of

01:34:12.280 antagonistic character. In the Netherlands, though, Svartapit is seen as much more joyous.

01:34:18.760 I have a friend who is from the Netherlands, and he told me that they were taught as children that St. Nicholas was a Turk who lived in Greece and gave toys to children as a good Samaritan of the church.

01:34:35.560 and he ended up saving moorish children from slavery and so he has this sidekick

01:34:46.460 um who is a moorish child i've also heard now he that's what he told me but i've also heard that

01:34:54.040 he was a coal spirit or they back when the houses were warmed by coal and that he was a spirit that

01:34:59.920 lived in the coal house. And the general idea is that if you're a bad child, Svartapete will

01:35:07.240 whip you on the tail end with a switch. And so he became this, again, that trope that was

01:35:16.240 throughout most of Europe was that there was this figure that would shame you or punish you for being

01:35:22.900 bad child uh sometimes it is the ulf himself sometimes by giving coal or giving a burnt

01:35:29.300 piece of wood or it was kind of relegated off to a side character in iceland grilla is the

01:35:37.700 uh the witch the um child eating witch that if you are a bad child she will snatch you up and

01:35:44.900 throw you in a sack and take you out into a cave and if if and eat you and if you are good and she

01:35:52.100 She has no children to eat. She has to eat nail soup and the nails kill her. So it gives the

01:35:58.940 children a moral compunction to kill the witch. Again, all of these things I think really do

01:36:05.420 correlate back to Christianity and the idea of Saint Nicholas being a saintly figure and this

01:36:11.080 kind of perhaps imagery or a character of, uh, an, uh, foreignness or of an ancientness of the,

01:36:20.820 of the, uh, elder practices as being kind of like a, uh, a mean character. And this creates

01:36:28.060 that contrast. And I think that this came about from Christianity's practice of the faith of the,

01:36:35.880 of the holy tide and kind of added that in and um i don't really do that here i remember being young

01:36:43.000 and and moving from iceland and being relieved that uh grilla couldn't get me because i lived

01:36:49.240 in america and not in iceland anymore um and that's not a tradition i've fostered but you

01:36:55.880 see it in the alps um and again the relation of krampus the uh the idea of the of the horns and

01:37:02.040 the goats and the sheepskin this really goes back to the swiss um uh mountain dancers that would

01:37:09.560 wear sheepskins and horns and baskets and bells and uh they would you know tell the kids to be

01:37:17.080 good during yuletide or they weren't gonna you know get any um gifts or blessings from from

01:37:23.320 uh santa claus and um and so the the idea of the pastoral sense and there may be connections to

01:37:31.640 perhaps pan since the swiss are on the border with italy and that kind of may have infused itself

01:37:38.120 there or some sort of pastoral uh arian um spirit that watches over the the the sheep and the cows

01:37:45.480 and the goats um but that's kind of where krumpus comes from um in in uh in my house the yule elf

01:37:54.440 is called with the with the uh yule log and he takes the yule bach which again we burn a yule bach

01:38:01.240 in the in the fire uh before we eat and the uh the yule bach is seen as kind of like a smoky

01:38:09.320 misty um visage of of the yule bach and he carries the gifts and the yule elf leaves and he goes on

01:38:17.640 on a on a travel instead of coming to the town like in iceland he goes to the ancestors and the

01:38:24.200 key important thing to remember is this is entirely hinged on another night in yule which

01:38:30.200 we'll get to his ancestors night when he brings gifts from the ancestors and gives the family a

01:38:36.440 chance to speak about those that have come before um but his whole purpose is to be called to travel

01:38:44.360 to the ancestors to bring the gifts from the ancestors back give gifts of his own into the

01:38:49.800 stockings or burnt pieces of stick for miserly and greedy children and generally he'll eat the

01:38:56.680 gift that's given to him that's left by the fireplace and um and then that begins the gift

01:39:03.480 exchange that will come so the ancestors gifts are my children know this as the time when the

01:39:09.320 ancestors give their gifts and we will speak about the ancestors on ancestors night they get

01:39:14.920 gifts in the morning from the yule elf in the stockings and in iceland they use shoes in the

01:39:19.160 windowsill um uh as in the difference and um they uh and then at night we do it we do the exchanging

01:39:28.520 of the gifts between family members and that kind of ends ancestors night um but you know we'll get

01:39:36.280 into that that's that's uh the 24th of december but um that's kind of seen as that the night of

01:39:42.440 the mother's night between the 20th and the 24th the yule elf is taking his yule bak and he's going

01:39:50.520 to the ancestors to gather the gifts from them and so in a way he's kind of a postal delivery

01:39:56.920 kind of um figure because the ancestors want to ensure that the children are uh well clothed

01:40:04.840 well-educated strong or healthy and that kind of again comes from iceland as well with the yola

01:40:11.080 kati the idea the yule cat uh some of you may be familiar with it some of you might not but

01:40:16.520 the yule cat in iceland is a cat which again there are no native species of cat in iceland

01:40:22.760 uh so it's grilla's cat the witch's cat and he will eat children if they're not wearing new

01:40:28.600 winter clothes because again this was a uh tradition of making sure the kids were like

01:40:34.120 mom dad you got to get me new clothes or the yule cat's gonna get and again that sounds kind of

01:40:39.800 funny but in iceland winter kills you it can kill you and so uh that kind of is where that tradition

01:40:47.720 evolved from so i kind of kept that with um the the uh the the ancestors wanting their their

01:40:55.720 children to be um well clothed and well fed but that's for ancestors night because we shift into

01:41:03.640 the 21st so do you and katherine get the kids new winter gear every year are you just serving

01:41:10.280 them up to asriel to get eaten no so uh generally uh for for ancestors night i don't want to skip

01:41:18.040 ahead but uh you know uh the gifts that are given from the ancestors are usually in brown paper bag

01:41:24.680 packages like wrapped with twine and their names are written on the corner like a parcel package

01:41:30.500 and before when they open them up they uh we pull down the pictures of them and before they open

01:41:38.640 them up we speak about them we talk about them and we tell stories about their lives and then

01:41:45.260 when they open the packages generally it's woolen socks um hats mittens gloves because as they're

01:41:52.120 growing bigger, you know, we have to get newer things or sometimes they, you know, boots or

01:41:57.700 scarves or things that they might've grown out of, uh, sometimes books, educational books.

01:42:03.480 So my kids see those gifts as really important because it comes from the ancestors. They never

01:42:09.860 saw them as, oh, you know, I got a sweater and they just, you know, uh, I wanted a toy,

01:42:15.520 but I got a sweater. No, it's just understood that the ancestors don't give those kinds of

01:42:20.980 gifts. We give gifts to each other during the gift exchange of toys and things that we might like and

01:42:27.160 get at the store, but it's things that are more, you know, shaws and hats, knitted things, more,

01:42:35.340 you know, homegrown gifts that come from the ancestors. And it gives us a chance on Ancestors

01:42:40.020 Night to talk about who they come from. This comes from your great-grandfather, you know,

01:42:45.000 and he was this person he did this for a job and he was you know known for this or whatever uh you

01:42:51.720 know you can really speak of and the idea is ultimately um as me and my wife have done this

01:42:58.280 we realize that with this tradition we pray and hope that our grandchildren or great great

01:43:04.600 grandchildren will pull down pictures of us and speak about us and get gifts from us that the yule

01:43:11.800 elf delivered and uh that's the true magic of ancestors night but um like what you kind of said

01:43:18.940 about tending the flame the next day um lighting a candle um in in in uh remembrance and in virtue

01:43:29.220 and then what we generally do is from that flame we'll build another fire outside and we'll light

01:43:36.500 a sunwheel in the morning. Okay. So with that, bring us to 21st, 21st, second day of Yuletide.

01:43:46.120 Second day of Yuletide. So after mother's night and everyone leaves and the Yule light is lit

01:43:53.440 and everything is set and the Yule elf is on his way down to the ancestors, the candle is kept.

01:44:02.200 and in the morning sometimes uh i've been like i've had uh austra come over and we will stay up

01:44:09.880 all night till dawn and but again depending on work and depending on timing that can't always

01:44:15.560 be done so generally either at dawn or sometime before noon a sun wheel is made and this is kind

01:44:24.520 of something that can be done before you will you could make a yule bach you could purchase a yule

01:44:29.800 bach there's a lot of ones you can buy on online or you know made in in uh from sellers on etsy or

01:44:36.520 what have you but generally i will always make a sun wheel um and that sun wheel is to be burnt

01:44:43.000 in the morning of the 21st and a small bloat in honoring of the light and the returning of the

01:44:49.960 light and that yule has officially started and we've kept the light going for the first night

01:44:55.160 we celebrate by doing a lot of different things sometimes it's just as simple as placing a sun

01:45:00.360 wheel in the fire sometimes uh we've done it where we've uh placed them on strings and poles

01:45:06.920 and so numerous sun wheels would be burnt in the in the uh fire and then they're spun around

01:45:13.400 uh much to the chagrin of our neighbors um who no idea what the heck's going on um other times

01:45:20.600 we've done one where um we've done a spindle wheel where if you twine it and you can pull it

01:45:25.580 in and out it spins one way and then the other and while that's on fire but you got to be careful of

01:45:31.140 course because if you're in a residential area flinging flames everywhere might not always be

01:45:37.420 good i would also say too if you're this could incorporate the tradition of burning a wheel and

01:45:42.560 sending it down a hill is a an older tradition especially from the anglo-saxon um folks in you

01:45:49.840 in england in certain areas of burning a wheel and sending it down a hill but again lots of stuff

01:45:55.040 to consider as far as safety i would say that the easiest way to do it is to create sun wheels

01:46:01.120 whether out of um hay uh you could do them out of wood you could do them out of paper paper mache

01:46:08.400 or casting material you build this sun wheel and you burn it in the in the morning of the 21st

01:46:15.600 and this starts the official turning time of yule and from there uh generally i

01:46:25.440 we don't do anything for the rest of the day so it's the night before and the morning of and then

01:46:30.800 we kind of take that day to either rest recalibrate or start beginning day three day four and so on

01:46:38.000 and so forth so um it's worth noting that all of these these traditions that are done throughout

01:46:43.200 the day are not as intense as the first night. They can be intense depending on the houses you

01:46:50.920 go to. And in my area, generally all the Alistair folk will open up their houses so that if people

01:46:56.800 want to come over during one of the nights of Yule to celebrate, and sometimes the days are

01:47:01.500 divvied up on the night of the 20th, like, hey, I'll take, you know, you know, uh, sixth night

01:47:08.080 and seventh night and um and generally ancestors night which is the 24th nobody is over at anyone's

01:47:14.400 house they're generally either at home or at uh like close relatives because again it's ancestors

01:47:19.360 night and it's more in correlation to direct blood kin that came before you but um so the

01:47:26.160 night of the 20th you know again the yule log lighting mistletoe everything going on and then

01:47:32.640 in the morning lighting a sun wheel celebrating and giving a bloat to suna or to the the returning

01:47:38.880 of the light to balder and then uh taking the rest of the day to just relax or tend to what you have

01:47:46.720 to uh as far as work say again i said or sleep if you've been up all night if you stay up all night

01:47:54.000 yes it kind of it's it's a it's an open thing there uh depending on how crazy you you take it

01:48:01.040 and that was another thing i wanted to you brought up um and it's important for people to realize too

01:48:06.240 uh at at the hoffs we celebrate yule at the hoffs but the they might be on the weekend before so

01:48:14.400 the 20th might be a tuesday or a wednesday but we're going to celebrate yule celebrations on

01:48:22.400 on, I believe, day four, because that's what most of our Hoffs are going to be celebrating

01:48:33.540 on during Ewell this year.

01:48:35.520 Okay.

01:48:35.740 So day four, we'll talk about Hoff observance.

01:48:39.180 Yeah, I think, I mean, at Thor's Hoff, we have to do, we're going to do it the weekend

01:48:43.100 prior.

01:48:45.560 It just ended up working out that way for us, scheduling-wise.

01:48:49.580 And I think that people need to know that that's an adaptation based on getting the community together when you when you can.

01:48:57.200 And then practicing the at home with the flame and doing things throughout the 12 nights is, you know, it's kind of a home thing or a localized thing where you get together with certain folks and families and things of that nature.

01:49:13.220 So, yeah, that's day one and day two.

01:49:15.440 So I'll throw this in here on as far as day two goes.

01:49:19.640 First, Steve's day two is about justice.

01:49:24.860 And my understanding is it's about justice in the micro and the macro.

01:49:35.520 It's to be reflective about fair treatment of a group of people individually.

01:49:45.440 of treating people fairly, and yeah, of justice. I don't want to belabor the term, but the idea of

01:49:56.480 focusing on that and what that means to you, how that's relevant in your life, how that's relevant

01:50:03.320 in the way that you practice your faith throughout the year. And I think that may take different

01:50:09.540 shapes to different people, depending on what your year has looked like or the experiences that

01:50:14.620 you've been through but focusing you know that's certainly one of our virtues is treating people

01:50:20.540 fairly treating all people fairly too and i think that this is worth saying not just

01:50:28.780 not just people but all living things that we interact with having a spirit of treating them

01:50:37.260 appropriately of returning good for good or bad for bad of

01:50:47.180 being mindful of the justice or injustice of our actions and i think that we all if asked yes

01:50:55.420 clearly justice is good injustice is bad but to really think about that in our interpersonal

01:51:02.540 reactions like hey are we being fair to this person or are we not cuts both ways are we being

01:51:10.060 overly generous with a person who's a scumbag or you know are we being too hard on someone

01:51:17.260 because of you know a personal dislike or are we treating them fairly and giving

01:51:22.300 giving them what they deserve in our capacity and i think that's always something really good to be

01:51:27.900 mindful of um i wanted to bring up one thing too that might be of help for people to remember

01:51:40.780 is the first two nights set a precedent for the rest of yule you have mother's night and then what

01:51:47.260 we call suna's day or or the solstice day day of the sun is based off of the microcosm of the year

01:51:55.500 or in specifically of the days of the week so if you take the um the old reckoning of the week

01:52:06.860 where you have uh sunday and moon day and uh tears day and woven's day and thursday you already have

01:52:16.220 up to to uh uh freya's day or friday six days and i'm i'm placing out uh longer's dog or wash day

01:52:28.540 you have six days and then you have six nights so it's it makes 12. so the way that you can kind

01:52:34.860 of see it is and i you know here if we have mother's night and then we move into suna's day

01:52:43.020 then you know that this is going to be a night and this is going to be a day and so it makes

01:52:47.900 a total of 12 as you go through that if anybody's wondering what what makes a day and what makes a

01:52:53.820 night it doesn't have a significance you're going to probably do them practice the celebrations at

01:52:59.420 night but it's it's a way to organize it so that you can understand it so if you know that monday

01:53:04.540 follows sunday you've already got half of the days of yule memorized somebody just realized

01:53:11.580 they were on camera and is oh yeah yeah don't do that aubrey that's gross um our audience does not

01:53:19.180 want to see what you're eating although to let you guys know she is eating quest protein chips

01:53:25.260 and she prefers those to regular chips so appreciate that um let me get to another couple

01:53:34.220 questions maybe here before we go on to day three uh the next question is noel is a word that comes

01:53:41.900 from latin meaning birth and it's used a lot around this time i know it's used in french to

01:53:47.500 mean christmas do you feel it is appropriate to use in the asa aubrey keep your food in your

01:53:55.580 mouth or we're gonna have to get you off camera baby um so it's better than christmas because

01:54:04.220 it doesn't have christ's name in it and i'm a i'm a big proponent on this instead of everybody

01:54:13.820 coming up with their own special name for stuff it's the same thing with wearing a

01:54:21.660 saying also true as opposed to foreign satyr or heathen or you can use a variety of things that

01:54:28.700 are all technically accurate the more you use also true the more you reinforce its meaning

01:54:35.500 we could all wear different symbols around our neck we wear thor's hammer because it

01:54:39.660 means something when people see it it is directly associated with our faith

01:54:44.860 if your choice is noel or christmas then noel it is if your choice is what to call it call

01:54:56.060 it yule because everybody knows what that is it's our it's an archaic enough thing that is

01:55:01.340 synonymous with christmas anyway so it's not baffling it's not awkward it's not uncomfortable

01:55:07.740 to use but it makes people stop and recognize they're clearly saying something other than

01:55:13.500 christmas why are they saying that it doesn't have to lead to more conversation if you don't want it

01:55:19.820 to but it certainly can so i really do think that yule is the the best option available to us all

01:55:26.700 together um so yeah what are your thoughts on that's fun well yeah it does come from the roman

01:55:37.980 latin word uh not not natalis or or uh of birth natal is uh where another word that we use and

01:55:47.100 it does mean birthing but it definitely has heavy connotations towards the birth of um yeshua or

01:55:54.220 the birth of rabbi yeshua um and it in that sense of sacred birth and you could probably angle it

01:56:00.620 towards the rebirth of the sun or rebirth of the light um but yeah i agree with you yule seems to

01:56:07.420 hold are better but if you're speaking from a latin based um origin if you're if you're french

01:56:14.140 and you're celebrating it and the language is completely latin based i i could understand um

01:56:21.660 the usage of and i think it would be better than say christmas but um

01:56:27.420 it comes to brings up one thing a lot of people especially around this time of year in america

01:56:32.780 there's always this uh they're trying to kill christmas they don't want to say merry christmas

01:56:38.300 or they don't want to say anything in relation to uh you know yeshua and the sky rabbi stuff so um

01:56:49.980 i've always been of the mindset that i like to um say in return because again we were talking about

01:56:57.420 justice and fairness. If somebody says Merry Christmas to me, I always say Merry Christmas

01:57:03.000 to you and have a happy Yule. I use what I would say after giving in reciprocation what they would

01:57:11.060 say. I find that makes it easy. This is a really important point. And there's a lot of Karens out

01:57:22.900 there in the atheist community but there's also a lot of edge lords in our community

01:57:28.820 that want to get real spicy and i don't celebrate christmas i celebrate you

01:57:36.100 the only answer when somebody says wishes you something nice is either reciprocation or thank you

01:57:43.780 um don't be a jerk if somebody says matt happy hanukkah thank you uh you know happy yule or

01:57:54.340 whatever the case may be depending on the person that tells me that um

01:58:02.260 somebody of a of a different complexion wants to say happy kwanzaa i'm gonna say thank you

01:58:07.140 um which may ask them how they're trying to go realistically though there's no need to take offense

01:58:17.380 for somebody wishing you something positive that they do and it's a good opportunity to

01:58:25.460 be a nice human as opposed to be an edge lord that's kind of a common theme here it's not aimed

01:58:33.860 to anybody specific there's a lot of people that are trying to do this right and some people that

01:58:37.520 are trying to be super authentic because they want to honor the gods properly or because they're so

01:58:43.780 zealous for our faith that they're you know going acting in a way that maybe spawn and i wouldn't

01:58:51.120 but their intention is to just be super pious i respect that i do this isn't meant to be insulting

01:58:58.480 It's just a reminder that this is a good time of year to be nice to folks in general.

01:59:05.620 And one way of doing that is by sharing in the joy and merriment when you can, in the spirit it's intended.

01:59:13.900 And I think that goes well with the principle of justice and is kind of a good thing to loop in with today.

01:59:19.180 I apologize for my daughter's disgusting camera habits.

01:59:23.000 I tried to limit that as best I could.

01:59:28.480 And yeah, we got time for another one here. Don't some of the traditions around Christmas

01:59:35.700 also come from the Roman Saturnalia? Swan, how do you know, what do you know about Christmas's

01:59:42.540 relation to the Roman celebration of Saturnalia? I think that Saturnalia was definitely loaded

01:59:51.180 into Christianity when Catholicism was on its height and it spread. And there was a schism

01:59:58.320 between the Germanic side and the Latin-based side of the holiday and of the religion itself.

02:00:04.840 They had a huge rift that started between Latin-speaking Christianity in Europe and

02:00:11.320 Germanic-speaking Christianity in Europe. And I think Saturnalia's traditions kind of come from

02:00:18.240 that. And yes, there was clearly an overlay. When the Christians were in Rome, they soaked up a lot

02:00:24.960 of that, but Saturnalia was done in, um, uh, kind of just before I would say like, uh, I've heard

02:00:32.540 the 15th, 16th or 17th of December timeframe. And again, the reason, uh, talking about, uh,

02:00:40.860 Saturn or the, the turning of Saturn and the Deca month or the 10th month and calendars.

02:00:47.080 And that's a fun subject that not everybody's really into, but the idea is that, um, the,

02:00:53.200 the turning of the year. And one tradition that really kind of seems to, I think St. Nicholas was

02:00:59.380 overlaid on top of was gift giving. Saturnalia really did have a gift giving element to it,

02:01:05.940 but those gifts had a tendency to be funny or they were kind of like a joking gift that was

02:01:12.800 given out to your families or friends. And it was kind of seen as humorous along with

02:01:17.780 a lot of these state-based sacrifices that were going on in the Roman religion, there was this

02:01:25.240 homeliness of the idea of exchanging gifts. And I think that kind of came with it.

02:01:29.540 And the whole St. Nicholas thing perhaps was either on it when it came to Northern Europe,

02:01:35.620 or it probably wasn't, but it was, again, another way that it eventually meshed.

02:01:42.380 And so one thing that I would definitely say is that the gift giving element to another person may be a vestige from Saturnalia.

02:01:54.380 And this happens a lot with the Germanic religion in general.

02:01:57.800 Like if for us, May Day has a lot of connotations towards celebrations that were done by the Latin or Roman world that the Gauls and the Germanics picked up as well.

02:02:11.700 it was a flower festival. And so Mayas and May Day, there's a lot of overlap there. And I really

02:02:18.760 kind of relegate that to bring different branches of Aryan people interchanging based over time.

02:02:25.900 And again, how the holiday has adapted. So we experience that still to this day,

02:02:33.380 and it's not wrong or improper. I think there's a worthwhile time to mention this.

02:02:41.700 I was talking to Cliff about this with Cliff Erickson at Winter Nights.

02:02:57.360 Any kind of logic tells us that our gods are as old as we are, as a folk, as a people.

02:03:05.080 that said they didn't sprout up when some of our people found themselves on the Tiber

02:03:15.300 our faith didn't sprout there or if they found themselves on the Rhine their faith

02:03:20.860 their faith didn't sprout there our faith comes from our most ancient point of origin

02:03:28.220 from area varta from hyperborea from our beginning and our people have spread out and formed varying

02:03:38.300 different levels of culture and types of culture depending on where they've gone

02:03:42.380 and over the march of eons they've gone out they've come back they've gone out they've come

02:03:50.140 back and different points of arian spirituality have been informed by our our cousins spirituality

02:04:02.620 and that's not wrong that's not bad and it's not sacrilegious our folk have

02:04:08.780 done such a variety of things and developed different strengths and weaknesses different ways

02:04:17.180 of honoring our deities different understandings of those personalities and they're being

02:04:24.940 interchanged there and overlap there isn't inauthentic it's not genuine it's not ungenuine

02:04:31.260 it's it's a very reasonable and you know in some ways desirable thing to see and reflect on

02:04:39.180 how these traditions differ in different climates a lot of our celebration

02:04:44.460 takes a very climate specific form that's not essential to our faith our faith exists

02:04:55.180 wherever our people go our folk have colonized you know every type of climate in this world

02:05:04.540 and our faith is just as relevant there and the celebrations become more and more silly

02:05:10.100 the more they're trying to celebrate a climate that they don't exist in. Celebrating something

02:05:14.880 in the desert, you know, if you're in Arizona celebrating Alcetru, your seasonal rituals might

02:05:21.660 look very, very different. You're in a completely different place from our ancestors, but you're not

02:05:27.520 in a different place from our gods. Our gods are with us wherever we are and it's just kind of

02:05:32.880 important to keep that in the back of your mind um for what it's worth that said swan can you take

02:05:42.020 us into day three yeah so kind of speaking about saturnalia and the the the point of the roman

02:05:51.260 calendar and the turning of the of the year um uh saturn and um it's worth noting that the third

02:05:59.860 night or excuse me the um the uh as the the third day uh celebration is is when we start to look at

02:06:09.860 the purposing of days of the week and things of that nature so um i i on our our third day is

02:06:20.500 Nertha's night. Nertha, Nerthus, Hertha, Ertha, Yard. She goes by many names throughout all of

02:06:31.280 the Germanic languages, the earth. So one of the things that I think, again, we're talking about

02:06:39.460 macro and micro replays of the year. It's worth noting is after mother's night, the next day is

02:06:45.320 day of the sun and the day that follows that is the day of the earth it's a great way to remember

02:06:51.800 it as well because the next one is actually the day of the moon so it goes mother's night

02:06:58.520 the solstice day is the day of the sun the next night the third night is an earth's night and

02:07:03.320 that's the day you can call it yardas night earth as night hertha's night um but the the way that

02:07:11.880 this um day ends up kind of looking is is you know you've burned the sun wheel on the 21st

02:07:20.040 and so on the 22nd you light a candle in in uh virtue of that day and and and start your day

02:07:28.360 thinking about that um and then at night when you get home the bloke that is done

02:07:36.280 is your dedication to the lady of the earth and she is we at this point the celebrations become

02:07:45.160 pious acts of devotion so generally what in my house this translates into different things one

02:07:52.600 is the the hearth is cleaned i'll i'll usually um you know i pull the candle out i start cleaning out

02:07:59.800 all the ash from the night of the 20th um the kitchen is cleaned and the yard is winterized

02:08:06.920 and this is kind of a day of cleaning and a day of duty of understanding about stewardship and

02:08:12.600 taking up your area and responsibility of your of your house and and the land that it's on

02:08:19.560 and then you know so during the day in the afternoon usually when i get back from work

02:08:24.600 cleaning out the hearth, doing things around the house or in the yard, mending things,

02:08:32.460 and then coming back and holding a bloat to Nertha or to Nerthus or to Yarth, the mother of Thor,

02:08:40.640 the earth. And that bloat may be something is just a simple, small libation with a horn in the bowl.

02:08:50.120 and then, you know, a meal for the family and then we go to bed.

02:08:56.840 So a lot of times I think people get daunted by the idea that 12 nights of Yule being, you know, massive.

02:09:04.820 And it could be if we were living in an house of True Nation, it could be.

02:09:09.280 But for the most part at a house, that is a cleanup day.

02:09:13.440 It's a final getting the nooks and crannies of the house, getting the nooks and crannies of the fireplace,

02:09:19.040 getting things cleaned up and sorted and, and, and set up from the 20th and the 21st and giving

02:09:27.480 thanks to the mother of the earth and the fruits. And oftentimes that I will generally dig a hole

02:09:36.660 and place a gift and then cover it. And that I usually do after the bloat while dinner's going

02:09:44.800 on i'll i'll head out sometimes my son or uh my daughter will head out with me and i'll do that

02:09:50.240 out in the in the yard in the yards of of the the grounds and that is really it for the third night

02:09:58.000 is is the night of the earth so day three um in the mcdalen celebration is courage

02:10:10.720 I beat it to death on this program, but the point of these themes for these days is to

02:10:22.160 take a moment to reflect on them with yourself, with your family, and think about how those

02:10:28.880 things relate. The courage that I talk about so often on here about being open with your faith,

02:10:38.560 being open as as a member of our church um those things may look really different to our children

02:10:48.320 you know what does courage mean to the members of your family and think about that think about

02:10:53.920 and internalize ways that you can be more courageous by courageous i don't mean more in

02:11:00.800 your face or more confrontational i mean what ways can you stand up and be counted for what you

02:11:11.440 believe in in what ways do you act out of fear that you could not and you could choose to act

02:11:19.760 differently in what ways does fear control your life um and there no matter how no matter where

02:11:30.240 we are any of these principles are things that we can think on and we can all do better at

02:11:36.640 some of us have greater distances to go on some of them than others but all of us could be better at

02:11:42.240 each of these things and it's worth taking a special day during this holy time of year

02:11:49.440 to really think on that and to think on it as a family as well um i mean only good can come from

02:11:58.160 that and so day three is a day to focus on courage

02:12:06.480 so a couple we'll go through here on some more questions

02:12:13.520 question do you guys have any source in hand about the winter solstice and why it is related

02:12:18.960 to yule i haven't found anything about that so first crack that i'm going to have in

02:12:28.880 no absolutely not but what i do have is some common sense

02:12:36.800 the solstice archaeology tells us that the solstice was very important to our ancestors

02:12:44.080 in the oldest time periods that we have any understanding of there are numerous neolithic

02:12:50.160 monuments there are monuments in scotland there's new grange in ireland that are aligned

02:12:57.600 very specifically with the lunar solstice so celebrating and acknowledging ritually

02:13:04.560 the solstice was absolutely something that was very important to our ancestors i mean

02:13:10.320 if you think about the level of technology of stone age people

02:13:16.400 constructing a structure like that that's mind-boggling to begin with

02:13:22.640 but to make it precise to a sunrise or a sunset at a solstice period that's meaningful it's

02:13:32.500 something that people probably spent generations perfecting before before implementing so common

02:13:39.960 sense tells us that was very important at that point in time the fact that the yule celebration

02:13:47.980 overlaps the solstice and is in such close proximity if we see it as a as a one-day period

02:13:55.420 to the winter solstice if we see it as a three-day period it overlaps is that's not coincidental

02:14:03.980 it clearly has a meaning exactly what that was and how our ancestors conceived of it

02:14:10.700 it, I can't tell you, but it would be illogical to think that it wasn't relevant to that practice,

02:14:19.320 at least certainly in its earliest forms. But the archaeology of Neolithic monuments

02:14:27.380 being oriented to the solstice is the closest thing I have to the source material that I

02:14:31.720 think you're looking for. Svon, do you have any more to add on that?

02:14:36.420 Yeah, I think that a big understanding outside of archaeological stones and the alignment of the solstices in relation to those stones, when we talk about calendar keeping and time management that has gone on, we have seen that the relevance of timekeeping has changed over time.

02:14:59.420 sometimes it was more important to go seasonal sometimes it was more important to follow lunar

02:15:04.540 cycles sometimes it was more important to follow follow solar cycles um i saw in the uh in the um

02:15:12.540 comments about the soul in invictus cult that that became very prominent in the roman later roman

02:15:20.380 um uh periods is that uh again that was an association right there towards uh the very very

02:15:30.140 uh poignant uh highs and lows of the of the sun and um that brought a lot of that and that comes

02:15:38.460 from their time keeping with an invested interest in it so that was important and so it became kind

02:15:43.740 of known and so as calendars changed and as the church kind of uh you know went from the julian

02:15:51.580 calendar the gregorian um a lot of these things become kind of pointed to the times they're in

02:15:59.420 as far as to yule itself if you were talking about it from an anglo-saxon sense no most of

02:16:05.020 the anglo-saxon calendar was done by lunar months and it's still debated i know a lot of people say

02:16:10.220 um that the the full moon was at the middle of the month and it was counted as this first sliver

02:16:15.420 but as far as timekeeping goes that's kind of hard to do especially in a very cloudy place

02:16:20.940 to see when that sliver shows up so the days were kind of that that calendar system i i wonder about

02:16:28.400 its usage a lot in relation to that or perhaps it was done mathematically but that might have been

02:16:33.740 done by certain people in society uh whether they were priests or or scalds or kings or people around

02:16:41.740 the king um and it may have only been really prevalent to the king uh at that point but uh

02:16:49.500 the winter solstice now is i think more important because we understand a lot more and our our

02:16:55.900 calendar keeping has aligned with our understanding and that has been because of developments

02:17:01.580 throughout so the the time frame that i was here ago he's talking about with the megalith building

02:17:07.340 and the stone structures that was an observational point and there may have been very different ways

02:17:13.580 of counting those times to those key points but yule as a practice in relation to those

02:17:22.700 measurements may have been very different it may have been again people have proposed that it was

02:17:27.180 around full moons during that month but that yule month was still named yule month as a turning time

02:17:34.540 with the purpose of the solstice being that peak in the arc of the year so

02:17:44.140 it uh it ha i think it has significance without necessarily anyone being able to say oh it's

02:17:51.500 absolutely this. And I mean, even if you mark it archaically with certainly the

02:18:01.820 Scandinavian romantics and the romantic period talk about mid-venter bloat. Mid-winter itself

02:18:09.500 implies the solstice. The fact that it is juxtaposed to mid-summer where we are celebrating the

02:18:15.500 solstice there's a lot of logical inference as far as you know a a document of an ancient person

02:18:24.940 telling us i i don't have one of those in hand as as was asked um next question what are your

02:18:36.220 favorite yuletide cookies and treats care to make an ulcer your gothic decree as to the best cookie

02:18:45.500 so

02:18:47.900 day three is about courage i don't really have a courageous choice but hearkening back to the day

02:18:58.020 of justice on day two the fair choice i cannot say there's one one cookie i can say there's some

02:19:05.940 less good cookies and some more good cookies i don't know there's a clear front runner on what

02:19:11.800 the official

02:19:12.780 All's Harrier Gothic cookie choice is.

02:19:15.820 Tell you what, I really like those

02:19:17.140 the peanut butter ones

02:19:19.760 that have the Hershey's

02:19:21.840 Kiss stuck in them.

02:19:24.640 I realize

02:19:25.840 after they cool, very often the

02:19:27.740 Kiss separates. Those are

02:19:29.800 awesome. I always look forward to those.

02:19:33.300 Little peanut

02:19:33.860 butter balls are always awesome.

02:19:36.900 Yeah, Buckeyes.

02:19:39.140 I mean,

02:19:40.020 there's

02:19:42.360 give me all of the cookies and uh here's the thing send me all of the different variants

02:19:49.960 of cookies that you have and then i will be able to fairly judge which is the best cookie

02:19:55.960 that goes to anybody on this uh on this broadcast listening to it now or in the future

02:20:01.080 i'm happy to judge such contests um no i really like those i like um

02:20:07.080 um my friend from high school and he is terrible at keeping up with just social niceties but his

02:20:18.520 wife is awesome she always sends us uh some holiday goodies that she makes and i always

02:20:24.860 really appreciate that um there was like i'm trying to remember there was those christmas

02:20:35.000 wreath looking things in school that they would make with like green food coloring and corn flakes

02:20:43.400 or something but when they could get the mint extract in there those are awesome

02:20:50.760 something else i like that i do think is related because i see it around this time but you can get

02:20:55.240 them year round and it's old man candy but that means it's cheap candy is those spearmint leaves

02:21:02.520 the spearmint leaves on the little two for a dollar or whatever orange bags of candy

02:21:07.400 those are solid they're mint they're delicious i recommend those year-round

02:21:13.880 i had a really good recipe to like candy nuts one time that was really good i wish i

02:21:20.920 still had the recipe because it was it was just awesome any kind of a

02:21:24.520 cinnamony nut brittle this time of year is is a solid choice

02:21:32.280 pep variety of peppermint barks are are always that's always a winner

02:21:39.480 shoot there's there's tons of goodies this time of year that are awesome those are some of my

02:21:45.320 favorites that i can think about and just thinking about aubrey in this year what um

02:21:51.080 Something my mom used to always make sure that I had in my stocking that I think we'll do for Ancestors Night in honor of her this year is the chocolate oranges.

02:22:03.760 Same here.

02:22:04.840 Those are awesome.

02:22:06.820 I've always liked those.

02:22:08.480 Chocolate and orange has always been one of my favorite combinations.

02:22:12.020 But my mom would always make sure that I get one of those growing up in my stocking.

02:22:17.220 so i think we're gonna gonna do that for aubrey this year too and for me because they're delicious

02:22:24.580 um that said spawn you have any favorite uh yuletide cookies or treats you want to

02:22:31.220 share with the class yeah the the the uh sugar cookies with the crystalline sugar on them like

02:22:37.220 there there would be like a yule tree it'd be green crystalline sugar on top of that

02:22:42.340 sugar cookie and when you like dip it into hot tea it would turn the the green or red or if you're

02:22:48.740 going through them that it's just a you know it's like a mishmash of food coloring in there but it's

02:22:54.260 basically that those sugar cookies that you can find with a coating of that crystalline sprinkling

02:23:00.500 sugar on top but you brought up a point about peppermint and i was thinking like um yeah a lot

02:23:05.940 of the mint families that you know you cut down your mint for the winter time it's gonna grow back

02:23:11.700 next year but you know so much mint uh available you know doing mint meads is really good this

02:23:18.500 time of year uh during yule too because they're a night kind of dedicated to making mead and um

02:23:25.540 uh cookies and jellies and jams so there was a when i first started going to national events

02:23:34.020 in 2010 there was a guy and he turned out not to be my favorite guy in the world but he was

02:23:45.300 an amazing wizard when it came to uh mead flavoring this wouldn't be my normal go-to

02:23:55.140 but it accomplished what he wanted to really good and i think it's good this time of year

02:23:59.700 he made a chocolate mint mead and the flavor really came through it was a little bit thicker

02:24:07.780 than i would normally be accustomed to on a mead but the flavor was really really good he also made

02:24:16.260 an apple pie flavored mead that was the best of its kind that i had but he was really good at

02:24:22.580 that i know there's a number of people that can incorporate that in a mead really well and it

02:24:26.580 doesn't sound like it would go particularly but it but it really did um just i will throw this

02:24:32.660 out here should have mentioned that i suppose on uh night one but i've done some long symbols

02:24:42.660 on that night and uh you know nobody got silly or crazy or anything but some informal living

02:24:50.020 room symbols and i remember one time and again it's middle of the night we can't just run up to

02:24:57.220 the store we're in a spot where we couldn't so we ran out of meat for the symbol and it was

02:25:01.300 an informal symbol so we were just going around until everybody said what they wanted to do and

02:25:05.860 we had you know as i mentioned earlier we had like 10 hours on our hands so we ran out of mead

02:25:12.980 and we ended up putting whatever alcohol we had in the house into the horn and making a

02:25:22.040 cacophony of alcoholic beverages in the horn um but we ended up finishing it up with a horn

02:25:30.560 basically full of peppermint schnapps and that was festive again it was a horn you only got it

02:25:37.360 it came around to you so nobody was yeah nobody had their own like i i don't recall maybe somebody

02:25:44.560 had their own private supply but nobody got messed up or anything but it's not really informative to

02:25:51.920 the program it's just kind of a memory i have of celebrating with some of my friends

02:25:56.720 that just whenever i think of peppermint schnapps it always takes me there for a minute

02:26:01.440 um ali said jungle juice symbol you got to do what you got to do sometimes you can get created

02:26:10.780 it doesn't always have to be the same thing i think we use we use ritual meat a lot but this

02:26:16.220 is as good a time as any doesn't have to be meat um you can use a lot of different things i think

02:26:22.840 to keep most in keeping with the spirit of sumble and with our ancestors it should be alcoholic

02:26:29.940 Assuming you're an adult and it's an appropriate thing to do where you're at.

02:26:37.580 But yeah, a lot of times an ale or a beer is a really good thing to use during sumble.

02:26:47.160 Certainly, you know, they talk about that in the lore.

02:26:51.060 They talk about ale ruins and things.

02:26:54.140 Celebrating with ale is a thing.

02:26:56.080 the nobility of our folk especially into antiquity would like to use wine wine was a status drink

02:27:03.120 I mean mead was common but wine had to be imported from from Rome and from other places outside of

02:27:09.800 the tribe so it was reserved for you know the aristocracy there's a lot of options there so

02:27:16.020 you don't it doesn't always have to be mead I think we get stuck in that mindset a lot

02:27:20.740 Our next question, can you talk about the relations between the Amanita muscaria mushroom and its red and white coloring and the possible origins of Santa Claus in the crossover with shamanism?

02:27:39.020 What are your thoughts on this, Spong?

02:27:41.880 That's a really cool question.

02:27:44.720 but uh okay so the growth period of aminata muscara in relation to the birch trees and

02:27:55.920 the northern climes it's it's not a psilocybic and it grows in the in the turning of of the times

02:28:04.720 uh right before winter when it gets too harsh um and so most likely if you were talking about

02:28:12.080 processes it was harvested way before the midwinter and um so the correlation there

02:28:19.680 the only time based on my studies is that it would have been processed at that time if there was

02:28:27.440 a correlation to that and and we don't have a ton of information in relation to germanic beliefs the

02:28:35.840 the um usage of it in northern norway and northern sweden and in northern finland may have been the

02:28:43.040 only real kind of uh high avail availabilities of it unless there was you know more usage maybe in

02:28:50.080 the higher altitudes in central europe and but there's not a lot of um definitive proof of that

02:28:57.760 in relation to the coloring uh there's been speculation that there's connection to that as

02:29:05.040 well um i don't know because when you talk about the commercialization of santa claus and the red

02:29:10.480 and the white and the black uh you know some people have lots of theories about that um and

02:29:16.640 that the yule elf wasn't always seen as wearing red white and black and that you know that

02:29:22.720 development may have been a modern thing or or or what have you i can't say definitively that there

02:29:29.200 is a connection but i have looked into it um i find that the the idea of the uh vitki the northern

02:29:37.840 vitki or shaman if you will uh to use that word um and it's the usage of uh things like that um

02:29:49.680 i don't know i i don't know how much it would have folklore relevance to common folk who are

02:29:56.160 celebrating you know a lot i do know that uh the red hat in relation to the tomta and the nisi

02:30:06.320 in norway and in scandinavia or in uh sweden um there has been speculation that there is a

02:30:14.560 connection there it's not a red hat with white spots it's just simply a red hat and we know that

02:30:19.280 red has significant color um especially in relation to uh the usage of it in in uh clothing

02:30:28.000 it's been speculated that in germanic mysticism or or again like vitki's the idea of the red hat

02:30:35.280 or red pants as being a symbol of power of of either mobility or the ability to uh you know

02:30:44.000 uh keep time is what i'm getting at is that i feel that perhaps the idea of the red hat

02:30:50.720 may have correlations towards that but that it may have had a significance towards perhaps the

02:30:57.200 person that was keeping time the person that was measuring out the year and a red hat may have been

02:31:02.640 a symbol of that and that may have been correlated to some of the practices that were passed down and

02:31:07.760 known about uh aminata um i don't know i wish i could say yes absolutely but looking into stuff i

02:31:17.520 it's it's really unconclusive and it's kind of like a possible bleed over um there is a lot of

02:31:25.840 correlations that people have made there is a book called the magic mushroom uh in which

02:31:31.440 uh i highly recommend if people are interested in this subject but it correlates into um

02:31:36.720 the Egyptian religion, even Judaism and early Christianity. There's a lot of things,

02:31:44.240 rabbit holes, it goes down. But again, it's trying to convince you of its case.

02:31:51.420 And I don't know. I don't know, honestly. But timekeeping and the wise people,

02:31:58.860 the idea of a red hat symbolizing wisdom, power, and keeping of those things.

02:32:06.720 counting the days whether it was like a runic calendar with a pin uh very much like what i do

02:32:12.480 with the iron mark um uh measuring out the the cycles like in a metonic cycle or was generally

02:32:20.480 regulated to someone or relegated to someone who had the time to do that sometimes the elderly

02:32:26.140 uh somebody of wise you know positioning or priestly positionings and they kept a lot of

02:32:32.800 that and even still the common folk would keep more on a seasonal sense and it seems to be when

02:32:40.160 you look at shamanism the usage of that is a closely guarded secret by those wise people

02:32:46.180 it um there is of course stuff with the siberians and their usage of it and uh i'm not really going

02:32:52.940 to go into all of that because some of that practice is kind of really out of the box um

02:32:59.000 if anybody knows any of that stuff about the siberians and and the gourd and the um drinking

02:33:05.600 of certain things but um i don't think that that was a common understanding and i don't think that

02:33:13.600 i mean folklore wise i think perhaps the mushroom was associated again with the land spirits and

02:33:21.560 with alvar um and so there may be a connection there between the tomta and the nisi and that

02:33:27.780 that the idea of the red hat uh even the yule lads are oftentimes depicted as wearing red hats

02:33:34.500 um and that may have hearkened but we don't see it in like father christmas but we do see father

02:33:41.540 christmas of like the victorian agent in anglos spheres as riding a goat so again the yule bach

02:33:48.180 shows up even in england uh in relation to that and he's carrying wassail uh ale you know um

02:33:56.180 as as part of that time and tradition of the season with having the mummers uh dancing from

02:34:01.380 house to house to get sips of of of uh wassail and um or ale for for singing and and and making jovial

02:34:10.580 times um so that specific correlation i don't quite know i would like to say yes but um

02:34:20.900 Um, the, the adaptation of the, of the Yule elf, the jolly old elf, uh, St. Nicholas or the Santa

02:34:29.340 Claus or the Tomta and the Nisi is a very interesting, uh, thing. I think it's far older

02:34:35.900 than, uh, any other. I mean, I think the Yulebach comes out of, um, the idea of the Tomta or the

02:34:44.060 Nisi because, um, again, it survives in Iceland, but the Yulebach kind of leaves. There is no,

02:34:50.900 uh yule goat in iceland so um in the yule tradition that you know at this point we're

02:34:59.380 talking about we have the you know mother's knight and the yule elf gets summoned and he

02:35:06.420 leaves to go to the to the ancestors and by this time my children know on on the third night on

02:35:13.300 nertha's night he's coming back so it's another technically two days he's going to come back

02:35:21.940 and bear the gifts and uh that's the gift exchange night the ancestors night is a big night for the

02:35:27.220 kids and so that traveling of the yule elf um and in all of the uh variations that you know i i have

02:35:37.700 seen and even purchased i have pillows that come out this time of year i'm i'm actually thinking

02:35:43.300 about grabbing a couple of them um they uh they show the yule elf with um a red hat uh you can go

02:35:53.300 on to uh numerous stores and get pillow covers um with prints on them and i you know i simply just

02:36:02.340 if you look up the um tomta and the yulebach or yulebach and the yule elf you get tons of different

02:36:10.180 things coming up and i you know we've got around this time of the year they start coming out and

02:36:14.980 every single one of them has a red hat um but as far as direct correlation i i don't have anything

02:36:21.940 on that one so svan is awesome that he'll cover for me when i have to take a bathroom break i was

02:36:29.860 actually looking for a picture i couldn't find it was a so my grandfather was in the army and my

02:36:41.700 he and my grandmother my mom and my uncle spent time in germany in the 50s post-war

02:36:49.060 in the american sector or whatever and there's this picture of them with the creepiest german

02:36:55.220 santa and he's all like skinny and it was just kind of an illustration of how

02:37:00.980 all white people's conception of santa claus is not necessarily the big fat coca-cola santa claus

02:37:07.780 um but yeah i couldn't find the picture so all for naught but svan wrapped it up the second i

02:37:13.620 sat down because yes well now i just saw somebody bring up the yule lector too uh

02:37:19.860 uh well I'm gonna say this about the uh the mushroom thing oh yeah to people who are really

02:37:28.140 into mushrooms mushrooms are to those people like placentas are to bard

02:37:41.340 if you try and I don't mean that insultingly but if you try hard enough you can find correlations

02:37:48.540 between most anything you want so you have to look with a critical eye on is that really there or not

02:38:01.180 i don't think there's any particular reason to believe that in relation to santa claus

02:38:08.780 as far as other relevancies to psychedelic mushrooms and ancient religious practice

02:38:17.420 absolutely but i've read and this isn't this isn't aimed at the person asking question at all

02:38:21.900 i've read numerous books i i i'm aware of numerous books i've read one on it um there's a lot of

02:38:31.900 people whose theory is you know almost everything somehow relates to psychedelics at some point in

02:38:40.460 ancient prehistory i know there's a lot of those theories out there they make some really

02:38:46.620 interesting correlations but much like varg and the placenta thing i don't

02:38:54.620 i think there's a lot of other options than just being that and i don't really see it as being a

02:39:02.220 ever-present thing i don't think that's necessarily relevant to the very early

02:39:07.900 conceptions of the santa claus character i see that develop much more in modern times

02:39:14.940 with the colors and things so it would be hard for me to think that that's some holdover from

02:39:22.300 a very ancient shamanic practice um but it's not impossible it's not impossible but it

02:39:30.700 i don't i don't see it and i would i would err on the side of that not being the case so

02:39:38.780 before we get to the next questions let's do uh day four if you would spawn

02:39:44.220 understood uh so as we yeah we move along and uh like i said before um when you have mother's night

02:39:53.400 you have uh soon as day or you have the day of the sun and then nerth is night we move on into

02:40:01.280 what follows after suna sunday is moon day so monny's night is the fourth night and in this

02:40:10.880 one there's a lot of this one really correlates around the usage of calendar keeping and time

02:40:17.800 keeping as um uh honoring of the moon in the usage of good luck and timeliness the idea of

02:40:25.840 the moon being full and you know uh committing to acts of like um you know as as tacitus said

02:40:33.280 this time is auspicious for the germanics and they often committed um contracts around this

02:40:40.120 time as it was seen as a boonful thing to do around the full moon and um that things after

02:40:47.680 the full moon were kind of seen as like not a good time to do joining things or contracting things

02:40:53.480 um the correlation of the moon is i think more important and in this night if you're not following

02:41:01.860 the iron mark one of the things that could be done is this night is again another act of piety

02:41:08.000 towards setting up your calendar for the next year whatever that might be if it's in your house and

02:41:14.360 you're planning on setting up the nights that you're going to hold your holy tides or setting

02:41:20.240 up the times to make sure that your work doesn't clash with you going to the off and celebrating

02:41:25.460 the holy tides of the next year um for the uh for the iron markets it's the day that we set up

02:41:32.120 the full moons for the for the coming year so that we can track everything as we go through

02:41:38.340 because all of the moons are the months and we just passed through the full moon of yule month

02:41:45.260 so that's why we're now heading towards yule um so generally it's the night that we set up the next

02:41:53.700 calendar uh it's a 364 day calendar that goes from midwinter to midsummer and then from midsummer

02:42:02.400 to midwinter respectively uh and you just track the days as you go so if you can count days that's

02:42:09.840 the way that the the calendar works but the moons are the the indicators of what holy tides are to

02:42:17.580 come and so each moon has a holy tide connected to it and generally it works out quite well with

02:42:23.460 gregorian calendar for the most part you have 12 moons one year 13 moons another and um it cycles

02:42:30.260 through like that so we give honor to money and we give honor to the the keeping of time setting the

02:42:38.580 the calendar up so if it wasn't done say through calendar keeping it would be done through your

02:42:44.980 literal business calendar slash religious holy tide calendar setting things up and generally it's

02:42:51.380 It's a small bloat to, uh, money or like, uh, was it two years ago or perhaps a year ago?

02:42:59.280 No, it was two years ago.

02:43:00.560 Uh, it was like a full moon right around that time.

02:43:03.220 So it was really nice to kind of go out into the light of the moon and hold a, a, a bloat

02:43:09.100 and have a fire lit.

02:43:10.740 Um, but it was, um, yeah, I, I just saw too, all the related things.

02:43:18.660 They are on me.

02:43:19.360 either if you go to my page and scroll down like just a couple they're they're all there as far as

02:43:25.040 uh yules the imageries and even stuff with the iron mark but um yeah monny's night is again a

02:43:31.760 big thing to understand is the first night and the and the second day are big and thereafter it

02:43:37.840 becomes pious and devotional lighting your candle and focusing on your virtue of the day and then

02:43:45.040 having a small bloat and doing some act whether it's cleaning your hearth um setting your calendar

02:43:52.640 um these little acts are what kind of keeps the the yuletide going making sure your flame is

02:43:58.240 tended but other than that you're living you know you're doing your your day-to-day as normal it's

02:44:04.800 just with small libational bloats every night in dedication and the way to remember it is again you

02:44:12.080 have mother's night day of the sun day of the earth day of the moon and that's a great way

02:44:18.720 for a lot of people to organize and understanding those those those days those first four days um

02:44:25.440 and then after that it goes into of course tuesday or tears day olden's day or woven's day oh yeah

02:44:33.120 there it is um excellent yeah so you know in the beginning here we have mother's night with uh

02:44:41.280 the the yule log and the light as soon as day and then i i put a um a broom as a a symbol of

02:44:50.160 cleaning the earth and cleaning the house and getting things ready and then time keeping in

02:44:56.720 relation to uh the 23rd money's day and again you could correlate this entirely to the gregorian

02:45:02.800 calendar uh in the iron mark it's really easy because mother's night is day zero and then

02:45:08.960 soonest day is the first day so the the winter solstice starts the whole year over again and

02:45:14.400 it's because we do count the sun we are a soul it's a solar lunar calendar so if you can count

02:45:20.720 the days and the months are like tidings thereof so that that fourth thing is mani's night and it's

02:45:26.640 a night in dedication to scheduling timekeeping and um as i had mentioned the people that keep

02:45:33.600 time and keep mark of the days wasn't always somebody that was just around it might have been

02:45:39.920 the head of the household or an advisor to the king somebody who was just off that's what his

02:45:46.160 job was to make sure that everything was following in accordance with the the seasons and the days

02:45:53.600 and the the times of the year um but it's become more of a hobby if you will in relation to the

02:46:02.000 the fact that you can absolutely use the gregorian calendar and not be thrown off like oh i don't know

02:46:06.620 how to use this this other archaic calendar or or you know i don't know how to use it so i can't do

02:46:14.400 it no it's just for those who are kind of enthusiasts for the calendar and timekeeping

02:46:20.800 but that's mani's night and then we we uh again like i spoke of about with the um yule elf he's

02:46:28.960 his way back kids know it because in the morning the ancestors gifts show up for ancestors night

02:46:37.520 which is the fifth day so this day um

02:46:48.400 by the mcnellens is uh the focus is on generosity um and i think that's

02:46:58.960 relatively self-explanatory um especially this time of year yeah i mean

02:47:06.380 but i think that it has other implications and the idea is more

02:47:14.580 to think about it in general over the course of how you live your life as opposed to

02:47:21.520 you know obviously give people gifts around yule time it's a thing but this is more to reflect like

02:47:28.440 man. So Yuletide in general is a good time to take stock of where you're at and how far you've

02:47:42.520 come for good or for ill in the previous year and maybe plans or resolutions to do different

02:47:50.680 things in the year to come um so it's a good time to you know have i been generous this year have i

02:47:59.160 been focused on myself have i been giving and you know that can come in a lot of things obviously

02:48:05.320 have i been generous like have i donated to stuff have i donated to the hof have i given donations

02:48:11.960 to the afa or to folk services or to the hof or whatever the case is but also you know have i been

02:48:18.680 generous with my time have i been giving of a giving spirit as far as you know

02:48:27.480 helping people out maybe when i don't want to or i'm feeling tired um

02:48:35.160 spending time in selfless things that help the folk but maybe are a pain in my butt to do

02:48:45.560 have i done that have i been generous with the resources that i have and how can i be more

02:48:53.000 generous in a reasonable way i mean nobody it's not a virtue in aussitry for you to make yourself

02:48:58.840 a pauper by giving all of your riches to someone else but the concept of having a giving spirit

02:49:06.040 and being you know bountiful and doling out your gifts that's a good thing has always been seen

02:49:14.040 is a virtue it's a religious virtue of vows are true it's a common sense virtue of people like

02:49:20.600 folks that are have a giving spirit so

02:49:27.720 fitting and it just happens to be on this one that most of our hoffs are going to be celebrating yule

02:49:34.120 at the hoff so an idea of a yule at an afa hall this will be our this will be the day that we

02:49:43.080 celebrate yule at odenshoff this year um you know we decorate the hoff up people go and get a yule

02:49:55.880 tree and we'll you know it's kind of a weekend whole weekend event so they'll set it up in the

02:50:01.240 hoff we'll exchange gifts we'll make sure that there's gifts for for all the children they're

02:50:05.560 going to be in attendance um at our hoffs what we like to do is to get toys and give gifts to

02:50:13.480 the children of the community and have that as either part of our food pantry that month or

02:50:19.240 separate to where local kids that you know don't have a lot can come to our hoff and get a gift

02:50:27.240 and that's a nice thing to do that we've done and kind of pioneered at odin's hoff

02:50:33.160 um as far as bloat and celebration i usually perform the yule bloat at uh at odenshoff and

02:50:45.720 there's there's not a bad option as to what god to honor or or who to celebrate as i've

02:50:54.280 said on this program many times often our people will develop a special relationship

02:50:59.480 with a particular god or a goddess and they can reach out to that god or goddess for whatever

02:51:07.400 occasion it doesn't just have to be your equals water if you're you know if your patron god that

02:51:15.080 you spend your time worshiping is vidar and you're going on a ocean voyage you can absolutely

02:51:23.240 in treat vidar for help um there's things there's gods that are certainly more obvious choices uh

02:51:29.960 this time of year odin is certainly an obvious choice one of his one of his hekti one of his

02:51:35.240 his uh nicknames is is yulnir or the yule father um i usually do

02:51:45.160 an aesir in general bloat i try to invoke all of them and the spirit of it is one of joy and

02:51:56.500 celebration and trying to get people to ring bells and make noise and be happy and you know

02:52:02.440 wish the gods a happy yule and celebrate and the idea that i try to incorporate into bloat for yule

02:52:11.260 specifically is sharing in celebration between our folk and our gods and uh that's the spirit

02:52:22.300 i try to put in there um we'll often use a uh a sun wheel we'll do that both at

02:52:42.140 at yule and at midsummer sometimes that takes different forms sometimes people will make one out

02:52:49.100 of a straw or something that's very flammable and will tie ribbons to it that's very often

02:52:54.620 something at midsummer but we've done it at you before also um we'll light up a sun wheel or a

02:53:01.740 a solar cross to celebrate the turning of the seasons and the return and the constant

02:53:11.420 the reliable return of that sun through the darkest time of year to the height of midsummer.

02:53:20.200 That's always been a cause for celebration of our folk and so we try to celebrate and

02:53:25.860 acknowledge that they're usually with a set, a light sun wheel. One of the other things, and I

02:53:33.460 think three questions from now, but I think now's the time to do it. Has any of you guys made a Yule

02:53:43.160 gog or you'll block um yes so a couple of things

02:53:53.160 much like the bread horses at uh frayfaxi

02:53:59.880 beauty is in the eye of the beholder of your yule box i have made some less than great looking

02:54:07.880 yule box uh at odin's off i've made some some subpar versions um but yeah i've tried to make

02:54:17.480 those you know out of out of straw um one really memorable time we were celebrating yule in alaska

02:54:26.840 and it was so cold out but it was it was neat the ritual circle in my yard we'd gone out with

02:54:34.040 the snow grower and carved out this circle and clear it out and so it was this it was a naturally

02:54:42.040 because of the snow wall around it the space was very well defined it was nice it was like a

02:54:48.120 a four foot high wall of snow surrounding it with a tin pallet bonfire in the middle

02:54:57.720 so it was awesome it was hot it was this amazing bonfire and we were standing around it in the

02:55:03.480 circle and we hadn't made the circle quite big enough but it was negative 20 or something

02:55:10.520 at that time so we were we were spinning and like rotissering ourselves because

02:55:18.920 the side facing the fire was uncomfortably warm but the side not facing the fire was

02:55:24.520 uncomfortably cold so we'd constantly be having to shift our positioning a little bit to

02:55:30.200 not either burn or freeze but this bonfire was awesome and it was we had prepared a

02:55:39.960 um we had prepared a yulebach and this is why it uh this is why it comes up we prepared a yulebach

02:55:51.080 and it was a big one it was made out of bales of hay so it probably stood you know three bales high

02:56:02.240 by like four bales long and it was stuck together and it was we had it on the we had

02:56:10.700 a certain distance from the fire so it was there to offer when it was time and it was

02:56:20.620 weird it was amazing that when we gave bloat the fire from the bonfire was so hot

02:56:32.860 that right at the crescendo when i was turning to offer the yulebach to the gods

02:56:42.100 it reached its smoke point and it burst into flames and it was perfectly timed

02:56:51.220 um yeah it was amazing um that yulebach i did not make you could probably tell because it was

02:57:02.360 a good-looking Yule Bach. But the timing on it was spectacular. And that was one I really

02:57:14.300 remember up there as far as the actual Yule Road itself. I was going to say, I made one as well

02:57:25.060 out of straw and it was uh there was a lot of emotional love in in building that but the skill

02:57:34.660 level i was not for me it was pretty hard i was struggling with a lot of it i did find out a

02:57:41.380 really cool way if you don't have the ability to do with straw you can make a yulebok out of uh

02:57:47.940 wood and it's very very easy to do and um so i i just simply drew it right now if you take

02:57:56.580 a panel of wood and shape it like a yulebach and cut two slits and then make two little horseshoe

02:58:03.780 pieces of wood for the legs that go right up in here it'll stabilize it's great for um

02:58:09.780 for yule tree decorations for putting them on tables or you can make a bigger one i i know that

02:58:16.740 traditionally of course doing it in in the in the hay style is really really cool and powerful

02:58:22.980 and great for for burning with the yule log but if you don't have that ability that doesn't mean

02:58:28.420 you can't get around it just saying um time for uh some more questions uh next question in line

02:58:42.740 is krampus a pagan creek pre-christian figure and could he somehow spiritually be real what

02:58:51.140 are your thoughts fawn well i kind of i kind of hinted towards that actually i think that um

02:58:59.380 when we talk about pre-christian there are clear evidence towards arian uh traditions in relation

02:59:06.580 to a a either a demigod a land spirit or a divine being that it presides over the the shepherds and

02:59:17.300 their flocks and i'm just throwing that very broadly out there and so there could be correlations

02:59:24.660 to that i don't know enough about specifically in swiss and uh alpine lore uh going that far back

02:59:36.580 Um, but I think that that might be the biggest and most, uh, anchored correlation.

02:59:44.620 Um, however, you know, that we do know that the Swiss have a, they, they have a dance,

02:59:50.640 uh, a troop of, uh, menfolk that are called oftentimes called the wild men or, and they're

02:59:56.380 wearing, uh, sheepskins and sometimes they wear masks with horns.

03:00:01.060 And of course there's a clear correlation between a goat and the Yule Bach.

03:00:05.060 Um, but it's also worth noting that the Yulebach is utilized because that's a, uh, carrying packages and carrying, um, things over mountains, uh, oftentimes and through snow, um, you know, utilizing a goat or a, uh, a big enough animal that can kind of, uh, work terrain despite having some weight on its back.

03:00:28.420 Uh, that may have had its own thing, but the Swiss may have brought about, uh, the Krampus, uh, act at least of dancing in the streets and moving through the towns that might've been kind of a drift over from the wild men.

03:00:45.520 Um, but again, I think a lot of the intent of the, of the personage of Krampus or Grilla or Svartapete is a Christian, uh, utilization most, I would say. I'm not saying it's from them, but I certainly see that they, they feel they've utilized it quite well.

03:01:05.960 the idea again is the good is, you know, St. Nicholas or going to church. And if you don't

03:01:14.260 go to church on Christmas day, you know, you're going to get or invite the evil in of this

03:01:21.020 character. And I think that as Christianity has lost a lot of its grip around things,

03:01:28.320 people take into it as being quite fun and, you know, relatively, you know, wholesome and even,

03:01:34.900 you know if svarta pete's chasing you around with a switch or krampus has you know a bundle of of

03:01:41.680 uh twigs and switches that he's you know running after you with but some of them can get quite

03:01:46.560 grisly and it looks almost like a miniature halloween celebration in in relation to like

03:01:52.180 america and again it might be because they um don't really celebrate halloween there so it

03:02:00.500 kind of ends up being like that we we find that in aryan branches uh there are scary nights that

03:02:06.820 are often usually two of them one in the winter and one during the spring time frame right at the

03:02:14.660 turning before at the equinox so you'll find for us it's it's winter nights and hexanoct and um

03:02:22.340 a lot of times in nordic countries they don't celebrate halloween so they'll do some sort of

03:02:26.660 a scary day or scary night towards the either early winter, like in Iceland, they do it in

03:02:32.260 February. The children dress up in, in, uh, uh, costumes and they go from store to store,

03:02:38.960 um, asking the, the merchants at the store to give them candy or they'll play tricks on them

03:02:45.680 and things like that. So it's trick or treat, but it's in February. Um, and you find sometimes,

03:02:49.820 Of course, Witches' Night and the bonfires being lit for Wolfsbergenacht throughout the Nordic lands in April, May timeframe.

03:03:02.360 So I think that that's kind of a correlation of where it's gone, and that's more the winter scary, and they've lumped it up with Krampus.

03:03:11.180 I know a lot of German practitioners of Auschwitz are descended from Germans.

03:03:15.660 they hold crampus in high regard and they incorporate that in their families at home

03:03:21.200 um i don't i'm not i mean i'm not descended from germany the nation so i don't have a lot of

03:03:28.760 crampus stuff and i didn't bring the whole grilla thing again i i more or less have the yule elf

03:03:35.120 punish the kids for being greedy or miserly or covetous and not being generous and and giving

03:03:41.860 of gifts during this time so you know i don't i yeah it's it's hard to say i most people would

03:03:48.740 immediately say yes absolutely has ancient origins pagan origins or heathen origins um

03:03:56.500 but as to how or why it might be more specifically because of the swiss themselves and their their

03:04:04.020 herding and shepherding practices, but I don't know.

03:04:10.420 Yeah, I absolutely think

03:04:12.640 that those traditions are pre-Christian, but they're certainly

03:04:16.460 harnessed and then utilized for

03:04:20.400 Christian duality during the Christian period.

03:04:28.400 It's always, I don't know,

03:04:30.160 entertaining to me that santa has like his enforcer that you know strong hand

03:04:40.560 i it's funny swan's story about his dutch friend's explanation makes

03:04:45.520 chocolate pete sound like uh morton and freeman in uh robin hood

03:04:49.600 yeah he haunts my dreams well and i always i had always heard that svarta pete was a character of

03:05:01.840 uh in relation to the coal house and that's why he was you know it was very dark and of course

03:05:07.280 they're getting they're under fire for uh blackface and all of that stuff and um a lot of the people

03:05:13.760 in the netherlands hold a very they have a he's the fun uh kind of character that uh is really

03:05:22.320 down with the kids and running around and there's a lot of happiness people want to take pictures

03:05:26.720 of svarta pete whereas you know saint nicholas is you know he's got a shepherd's crook in in

03:05:31.760 the netherlands big long beard giant pope hat um there's a very old concept of and i think this

03:05:40.880 harkens back in a way to the wild hunt and various things of if you act wrong if you don't do the

03:05:47.600 right action at the right time especially during winter if you commit some winter impropriety

03:05:54.800 some ooga booga thing is going to inflict something nasty on you so mind your p's and q's

03:06:04.720 and i think that tradition is held over into the christian period in any kind of authentic

03:06:12.480 christianity santa claus is idolatry and him hanging out with like his demon buddy that they

03:06:23.440 like team up and inflict stuff on you is is certainly not something the apostles would have

03:06:31.760 recognized or found reasonable kind of like the book of june though

03:06:39.840 yeah it really is in a way i think that you you and i would laugh at that i don't think

03:06:45.040 that the early christian fathers would i think they'd be they wouldn't get the irony uh right

03:06:52.480 but yeah i do think i do think that kind of especially in a more bestial

03:06:58.000 um krampus form does harken back to to the pagan period um

03:07:07.920 swan can you tell us about day five okay so day five is ancestors night uh it is the 24th of

03:07:16.560 december um i don't know if the the icon's gonna come up again on the screen but it is the

03:07:23.920 night in which basically the families come together so after you know we if you look at

03:07:32.880 all the ones on the top it's sunday moon day tears day odin's day thursday thursday and then we have

03:07:38.640 all the knights at the bottom there but they're going back and forth uh ancestors night is

03:07:43.520 generally marked by the arrival of the yule elf early in the morning hours while the children are

03:07:50.640 sleep he gets into the house whether it's through the chimney or through a window uh or just you

03:07:57.760 know the yulebach is made of smoke and he's made of light and fire so flash he's in the house and

03:08:04.160 he drops off the gifts from the ancestors and uh you know throughout in this local area there's

03:08:12.240 quite a few us true in this area that celebrate some have done colorful gift wrapping and sometimes

03:08:19.200 it's very different than the wrapping of the gifts that the family gets for each other

03:08:23.520 i have a tendency to do it just the brown parcel package paper uh with twine and i write all the

03:08:30.080 names in runic um just for uh i guess to imbue that into the minds of my children that when they

03:08:39.280 see this and they understand it's it's very magical to them and um they uh they will generally come

03:08:46.720 down in the morning and see the gifts underneath the yule tree and that signifies okay now they can

03:08:53.200 go get their gifts and those gifts have been wrapped usually with the help of me or my wife

03:08:58.720 and we do them in rotation so that everyone doesn't see so that's a long kind of process

03:09:04.560 you know throughout all of the beginning of december is us wrapping gifts so that other

03:09:09.600 people can't see but the idea is that you have the ancestors gifts you have the yule else gifts

03:09:15.280 which are in the stockings at this point too uh and he is um generally on monny's night will give

03:09:21.680 out some like cookies usually is what cookies and milk you love loves cookies and milk trust me and

03:09:28.320 um so uh you know those are eaten and this the stockings are are uh filled and then the kids

03:09:36.880 will bring their presence down and place them around the yule tree um and those gifts are

03:09:43.440 usually like a one for one so if my eldest son he will get a gift sometimes for um me and my wife or

03:09:53.840 certainly for each one of his siblings and he's already they were talking about it today and

03:09:58.720 writing lists down i know exactly what i want to get for my brother i know exactly what i want to

03:10:02.480 get for my my sister and so they're very very focused on getting gifts for their siblings

03:10:09.680 and also for us um and they also write down gifts that they might like sometimes they're more

03:10:16.320 but generally they get about as many gifts as there are people in the house one gift

03:10:20.880 sometimes two depending um but it's not really all about the gift itself as per se the gift

03:10:28.160 exchange with each other and building that that that strong bond between each other and again

03:10:33.520 too the you know it's like if if they're miserly or greedy or whatever the ulef's watching ulef is

03:10:39.840 always waiting for the next year to just throw a bunch of burnt charcoal in your stocking because

03:10:45.760 you're being a greedy little miserly kid and um so uh they'll bring the gifts down and then we let

03:10:55.040 them sit all day and uh the kids get to open up their stockings and eat some chocolate oranges

03:11:02.400 are a big one for in my house as well because it's just superb but sometimes we do like little um

03:11:08.080 puzzle games the triangles with golf pins and and little games that they can play together and um

03:11:15.680 uh sometimes they're utility things like the ulf likes to put like hot hands the little things that

03:11:21.360 they can crack and put into their pockets to keep their hands warm uh during uh being outside or

03:11:29.280 what have you um and then go throughout the day as per normal and then once the night comes

03:11:37.120 um we begin by opening up the presence so the first thing we do is we hold the bloat to the

03:11:42.480 ancestors and we give libation to all the ancestors and we pull all the pictures of

03:11:46.800 our ancestors down and make them present and center in the house and then generally what

03:11:53.280 What we'll do is we'll have the eldest kind of he becomes the Yule Elf's helper and he passes out all the gifts of the ancestors first.

03:12:02.880 And we we start down the line. We start with, you know, the the oldest patriarch of the family that has passed and and usually his wife or sometimes it'll be on the other side of the family.

03:12:17.580 if um depending on the information you might have and uh we talk about them so we say hey

03:12:24.660 you know this these this these gifts were given to you by your great great grandfather or your

03:12:30.920 great great grandmother and this is what we know about them and this is who they are and we usually

03:12:35.440 show pictures of them all of our pictures that come from weddings so it's really nice and sometimes

03:12:40.780 we'll we'll do them both at the same time because they're in the picture together um

03:12:46.120 and those gifts are opened and my son still talks about the wool socks like every time winter

03:12:53.320 turns he still talks about the wool socks that he got from his great grandmother like

03:12:58.200 years ago and he's like oh i get to break out the winter clothes and put on the wool socks that are

03:13:02.640 super comfortable and it's such a great way to get your children involved and understanding to

03:13:12.200 the the significance of of everything these cycles because we're talking about not just

03:13:18.480 yearly cycles but life cycles too and so on the 24th you know we open up the ancestors gifts and

03:13:25.840 then we do the gift exchange the you know sibling to sibling they'll give each other gifts and they

03:13:31.240 open them up together and then generally they're hugging each other and saying thank you and

03:13:35.640 it's it's a good time all around and then we end that night you know um

03:13:41.680 with while we're eating generally and opening up gifts and this works out very well if you

03:13:48.180 have christian family members because a lot of times uh like we'll we'll go over the next day

03:13:53.660 on the 25th to grandma's house at some point and celebrate with them and then come home at night

03:14:00.900 and do uh tears bloat but that's for the next night but um it helps it works out very well

03:14:08.980 it incorporates well i've found from my experience

03:14:14.260 there you go um

03:14:18.100 in the mcdalen celebration it is the day for hospitality um

03:14:24.580 Um, again, during the Yule season is a really good time to put this principle into practice

03:14:33.580 and to invite friends and family over to be a good guest and to be a good host.

03:14:43.600 Um, but more throughout the year, you know, contemplating

03:14:47.400 ways that you can do that and it's just kind of a remark to the principal

03:14:56.700 um one of the outside true fundamentals takes me back to my roots things that I do is uh once

03:15:08.700 you know every month every month I host a meal at my house with AFA members you know in the

03:15:17.220 area or anybody who wants to, if you're not in the area, I appreciate you making the journey.

03:15:24.560 But having the folk over at my table and sharing a meal with them and letting them into my house

03:15:32.580 is really important to me because that's one of my fundamentals of how I got involved in House

03:15:38.300 True to begin with, of how I first started getting together with other people who practice our faith

03:15:43.880 is hosting something at my house and sharing a meal with people at my table.

03:15:51.060 So finding ways to incorporate hospitality throughout the year is important.

03:15:57.860 It's one of our virtues, and it's also a very good tool to build the folk in your area.

03:16:04.360 You don't have to be a folk builder or have a title to do that.

03:16:08.180 You can just be a regular Alistair True practitioner that wants to have others come over and celebrate something at your house during the Yule season.

03:16:15.980 It's a really nice thing to do.

03:16:19.720 As a random thing, something my family would always do, and I've gotten lazy with when I was single and then when it was not living at home,

03:16:32.240 and then when it's you know just me and mandy especially because she she can't tolerate the

03:16:38.320 gluten um but one of the traditions and we need to do this this year if you're listening mandy um

03:16:48.480 falls on this day uh but my my grandparents you know growing up my grandparents my mom's family

03:16:55.520 would always have ham sandwiches on christmas eve which that's what this falls on um don't

03:17:04.960 know why i looked it up i can't see that that's any kind of tradition outside of just my family

03:17:10.640 but it was it's kind of something we always would do and it's kind of silly it doesn't sound that

03:17:15.280 festive but we'd get a i don't even know if you can find this anymore but they would get a uh

03:17:23.280 boiled like ham not like a cured ham but like a you know that cut of the pig that was fresh

03:17:32.560 boil it up and then you know slice it up and make sandwiches out of it we'd go all out get

03:17:38.320 different kind of mustards and different kind of pickles and all kind of different fixings

03:17:43.200 and different breads or whatever and some chips and we just go to town on some ham sandwiches

03:17:49.520 but it's what we used to do i remember doing it with my grandparents um man just thinking

03:17:54.480 about it right now it takes me back to their dining room table and doing that that's something

03:17:59.440 that we used to do um no particular relevance to alsa true today's broadcast but kind of a family

03:18:08.960 thing that came to mind when we were talking about stuff folks do and uh auspicious that it

03:18:14.960 fell on ancestors night too yeah um yeah it's nice we'll do that this year because that sounds tasty

03:18:23.280 and i need an excuse so we'll do it um the next question the

03:18:32.640 yulestang i don't know the a with the little degree over the top of it i don't speak that

03:18:42.720 i'm not sure what noise it makes um is an is an old practice similar to the idea of the old tree

03:18:52.480 and its decorations but they are mainly placed outside the home do you think there's a clue

03:18:58.080 there about the origin of that topic swan do you have thoughts on this yeah um again one of the

03:19:06.560 big things that i've always correlated towards the decoration outside is

03:19:11.840 either ribbons bells and glinting items or also bread cookies and oat cakes um

03:19:20.480 oat cakes being tied in ribbons and hung from trees um i don't know perhaps this is kind of

03:19:27.360 and it's actually in in my yule uh celebration is a day uh because of its connection to giving gifts

03:19:38.000 to the land spirits giving gifts to the land and uh especially to the animals that are out at this

03:19:43.200 time trying to forage for food so um a lot of times i think these the decorations outside uh had

03:19:51.600 a lot of veneration towards the land spirits um and whatever that might be i know that in iceland

03:19:57.680 like the the hoodl folk are a big thing towards the latter half of yule so much so that it they

03:20:04.400 they still talked about like if you saw a full moon that would happen either on like i've heard

03:20:10.800 christmas eve christmas day or new year's eve or new year's day or sorry or the day of new year's

03:20:18.160 but at night uh on a full moon you you could see the hoodl folks torches up on the mountains or up

03:20:24.720 on the cliff sides um and i think that there's a deep correlation to yule and its practice

03:20:31.600 in relation to giving gifts outside so um specifically so much so that i you know i

03:20:38.480 there is a day in the yule celebration uh that is dedicated to that and that's how you celebrate it

03:20:44.400 is by going out and doing um gift giving up upon trees bushes and hedgerows um outside and um but

03:20:54.720 as far as the yulestong goes i i'm assuming that's norwegian uh because of the a with the uh singular

03:21:03.600 circle there um uh i i know that it's it's survived a lot of times in germany too they

03:21:12.800 obviously they have the yule lector but they would also have the um the tree that was a small

03:21:18.240 tree placed on a table decorated with with um candles or um little cakes or ribbons and things

03:21:27.920 of that nature and so i mean the specifics of it being outside um is definitely i would say more

03:21:37.680 cultural again iceland doesn't really have that because the trees in iceland are well i mean

03:21:43.520 they're bigger now but in the olden days it wasn't always that these there there were shrubs basically

03:21:49.140 because of the wind so i think it correlates heavily on the areas you're in um and i know

03:21:57.560 that uh the trees that would be decorated the most were the ones near graveyards so that's

03:22:02.700 another thing. Again, ancestor worship

03:22:04.680 and land spirit veneration

03:22:06.640 as well.

03:22:11.580 All right.

03:22:21.920 Have you guys...

03:22:23.340 Okay, we already answered that one.

03:22:24.840 Is there a connection between

03:22:26.760 Santa Claus and

03:22:28.560 Odin? You know,

03:22:30.660 there was a...

03:22:32.700 There was a phase in modern Alcitru where that was a really common and almost like asking the question was like an event within itself of trying to make that equation or arguing about, no, it's Odin, no, it's Thor.

03:22:54.200 And I think all of that is silly to one degree or another.

03:23:00.400 The idea of a, you know, Father Yule going out and bestowing blessings on people who behave right is a nice thing.

03:23:15.340 um i think that's cool i don't think that that's the domain of one of our high gods i don't think

03:23:28.260 that really passes muster in that regard i mean again i said father yule the yule father

03:23:37.900 is one of Odin's by names.

03:23:40.320 I get that.

03:23:42.660 But

03:23:42.940 you know,

03:23:46.460 I don't

03:23:46.720 my understanding of the All-Father

03:23:52.160 is not of

03:23:53.760 the sort that creeps down

03:23:56.180 your chimney and eats your cookies.

03:23:58.060 And that's just not

03:23:59.620 that does not match up in my experience.

03:24:04.300 I think that's

03:24:05.500 when we always need to find an answer that's the easy answer I think it's much more rooted in

03:24:13.060 folklore of a spirit of a less exalted in godhood origin but that's just my thought on it

03:24:23.860 Svan what are your thoughts about that well and I think uh the biggest one is the the titling of

03:24:29.560 jolnir and the yule father in poetics and in the the the courts of the king as opposed to perhaps

03:24:37.640 just the a common homestead thinking that you know odin's going to drop by or sneak into the

03:24:44.720 house or and things like that i think that um that may have been a later thing and it may have had

03:24:50.540 great purpose in getting people to come back to the gods in into the last like couple decades but

03:24:58.980 for me uh from winter finding when ullr is honored for hunting there's another part of that story

03:25:08.900 that i is that there that the yule father is taking flight in the wild hunt and that he doesn't

03:25:17.180 return until odin's night or woven's night during yule and so the the the term yulnir or yul father

03:25:26.020 is that one he comes back to his throne uh in the middle of yule and he has done his ride but that

03:25:35.300 it's it's done with a more or less he's he's out there riding in the wind and and is is a just

03:25:42.740 larger than life powerful force of of his travelings as the as the the the head of the wild

03:25:52.020 hunt the driton of the of the of the riding horses and so i've always kind of veered away

03:25:57.940 from that i know that some people really have a kinship towards thor and thor definitely does

03:26:03.460 kind of fill in that whole uh you know with like with the alphian rosca and the idea of with the

03:26:11.300 kids um and i guess they jumped to that conclusion with the with the yulebok and with thor's goats

03:26:19.220 and um i don't know if that has a lot of real actual tangible core correlation because just

03:26:26.020 like the the mushroom comment before some people have said well with the red hats that's a you

03:26:31.540 know because thor has got a red beard and red is his color and and so they're i think they're

03:26:37.780 connecting things and they're doing it with the intent of trying to bring it back sometimes it's

03:26:42.900 it's about kind of pulling it away from christianity or or what have you but ultimately it ended up

03:26:49.220 bringing a lot of the focus around Yule being not, you know, a Christian, a truly a Christian

03:26:58.540 holiday. And that I understand, but the intent of it is there. I don't, I've always saw the

03:27:04.760 connections between the fire, the chimney, the charcoal or the coal and all of these things as

03:27:11.420 being more connected towards a tomta a nisi a house elf a yule elf a a spirit that represents

03:27:20.300 a connection between either the giving and gifting between each other or between the

03:27:25.500 ancestors in the living family so that's where i've always taken it

03:27:29.740 have you listened to dan carlin's twilight of the isere one and two i have not i've never heard of

03:27:42.640 that and i'm not really sure what what we're referencing svan are you familiar i'm familiar

03:27:47.400 with it i have not i have not stopped to listen to it um uh so i'm not a hundred percent sure

03:27:54.660 Or, you know, what I got from it was that it was speaking about the conversion or Nordic times and Yule versus Christianity or something of that nature.

03:28:06.800 But I haven't I have not stopped to listen to it. Trust me, I will. But no, I haven't.

03:28:14.520 All right. Next. Isn't Sol Invictus the pagan tie to Christianity?

03:28:22.220 A, not B.

03:28:24.660 It is certainly, and I don't know what the right word for people in the field, I don't know what they call this, but the post, I'm going to say post-Olympian Roman religion.

03:28:44.680 there's a lot of these kind of things along with the cult of of mithra and other things that

03:28:57.680 share points of commonality that there's a very compelling case to be made that christianity is

03:29:06.160 borrowed heavily

03:29:08.160 from

03:29:08.680 in the nicest way

03:29:12.120 to express it

03:29:13.080 yeah that's certainly a

03:29:18.080 gateway drug to

03:29:19.340 Jesus

03:29:20.900 but it's not the only one

03:29:25.600 it's not like that is the answer

03:29:27.800 but that is certainly one of them

03:29:29.620 that

03:29:30.180 made the transition

03:29:34.280 between

03:29:35.680 paganism and Christianity in the empire more palatable or put it in a, in a context that

03:29:43.860 they could get behind a little bit more. Swan, do you have any more to add specifically on the

03:29:53.780 indomitable sun cult? Yeah, I think that we, we see this too in Egypt with the, the raw worship

03:30:02.480 And the empire's, I don't know if it's a correlation back to or perhaps an influence, like you said, with the Mithras cult, but I definitely think it's the connection to Christianity becoming Aryan, because Christianity is clearly a subsect of Judaism.

03:30:20.720 But as it enveloped into Europe, it got painted with many Aryan traits, one of them being solar connections through the Romans, the Trinity, and the tripartite.

03:30:35.520 uh there's no absolutely no doubt in my mind that christianic because christianity didn't always

03:30:40.480 have the trinity they fought a war over it and it was because the tripartite is so important in every

03:30:47.580 arian branch of faith that the sky is is dominated by the three thrones if you will um so yeah i

03:30:57.000 think it's it's one of its connections to where it kind of draped on a heavy amount of arianism

03:31:02.760 onto itself, uh, whether it was done on purpose or just through synchronization, clearly the,

03:31:09.360 the potters of Mithra temple, um, and the fathers of the, the churches of the papacy's,

03:31:16.440 um, there's a lot of correlation. It was all happening around at that time.

03:31:19.640 But I would also say that the Romans themselves did that. They brought that cult into practice

03:31:25.700 because it refocuses the power of the culture that i think was probably being lost a lot of

03:31:33.060 it was being washed out or brought in with foreign influences so a lot of times the singularity is

03:31:41.620 brought into cult practice in order to re-harden up the a lot of the uh perhaps in reaction to

03:31:50.020 these things and that's just a speculation on my part i'm not going to say it a hundred percent

03:31:53.700 but i feel like this kind of also happened with the egyptians and um christianity was coming up

03:32:00.340 as a rise when this was happening and those things obviously through constantine and and

03:32:05.300 all of that that all synchronized together and shifting from the sabbath day that the subsect

03:32:11.380 judaic christians shifted over to the day of the sun i mean that's all right in that area

03:32:18.100 all right so we'll do one more all right one more question before we get to the next day

03:32:28.980 do you guys stay inside home during the night of yule to avoid the i've never heard of this term

03:32:38.040 before the asgard syria and the spirits of yule like the yule bakker or do you risk it being

03:32:49.240 outside using fire so the closest i can relate to what you're saying is ideas about the wild hunt

03:33:03.560 um

03:33:05.340 so

03:33:09.740 sorta I

03:33:10.980 no I'm not so superstitious that I

03:33:17.920 like stay inside and like

03:33:19.900 genuinely fearful of going outside

03:33:21.940 but I do try to acknowledge

03:33:23.860 and often on

03:33:25.340 just because

03:33:28.080 it's culturally significant at the

03:33:30.100 time

03:33:30.620 um i will leave out offerings for that the wild hunt would pass me by that uh you know maybe

03:33:42.900 an apple or some carrots or something for the horses for specifically for slepner

03:33:48.820 um

03:33:50.200 i've done that um especially in places that have been a bit more

03:33:58.480 of wintry than I'm currently experiencing. I'm certainly during Yule, and I don't even know if

03:34:12.640 this makes sense. And quite honestly, it's hard because so much of Yule tradition to me is

03:34:23.000 triggered by snow. If there's not standing snow on the ground, it's hard for me to really internal

03:34:28.440 some of these things um but i remember when i was in alaska celebrating yule

03:34:38.440 when i was outside during yule it's like i was much more aware of my surroundings my head was

03:34:44.840 on a swivel i was aware i was keenly aware of the creek of the trees or the wind and those things

03:34:52.200 I don't have the same level of superstition as some of our ancestors.

03:35:00.080 I don't genuinely fear for myself being out on those winter nights,

03:35:05.400 but I am aware and feel the presence of the unseen.

03:35:14.660 That sounds odd, and I don't know a more succinct,

03:35:19.740 more tangible way of putting it because the feeling itself isn't tangible it's just kind of

03:35:26.520 you know you get the chicken skin or you get the hairs on the back of your neck standing up kind of

03:35:31.760 a kind of a spookiness but i don't really feel it in a dangerous sense more in just a heightened

03:35:38.960 awareness way what about you swan uh not particularly i i again kind of like what you

03:35:48.520 had said just the awareness of it culturally um i always heavily focus on the wild hunt to me uh

03:35:58.440 yulnir the yulfather when he's riding in the wind there is that air of that he's going out i i've

03:36:05.320 never seen the wild hunt as some sort of uh torrential darkness of the einherjar because

03:36:11.640 i've always seen them as glorious uh heroic shining examples of heroism um instead i've

03:36:19.320 always taken the wild hunt to be much more that uh lord odin is out in that night wind and he's

03:36:26.440 gathering up the the lost of the crossroads the people that never quite made their trek or have

03:36:33.720 been out so there's kind of a spookiness to it and i i believe i have seen the wild hunt at one point

03:36:42.280 with uh with uh witten erickson was with me at the time but um the idea is that an ill wind

03:36:51.800 could come about if you're out late at night when you shouldn't be you should be at home

03:36:56.440 you should be at your house you should be with your family and if you find yourself out there

03:37:01.080 and in those crossroad lost places far off there could be a kind of sense of foreboding and

03:37:08.760 mysteriousness of this time until lord will then comes back to home comes comes back to his throne

03:37:15.640 on his night i've always kind of had that but it was never like don't go outside at night don't

03:37:21.640 light fires um it wasn't necessarily always like that it was just kind of an air of mystery

03:37:28.520 and caution and i think

03:37:34.120 i think some of that is a tradition that's a holdover in the christianization time

03:37:40.440 where we're supposed to be fearful of the gods as evil spirits that are spooky and out

03:37:47.000 you know walking the wasteland wishing to do us harm um i don't

03:37:58.520 um no part of me feels that foreboding but it's

03:38:07.160 it's one of those how you interact with strange occurrences that happen during that time you know

03:38:14.420 I remember one time we were having uh celebrating Yule at the Hoff and

03:38:23.000 some rando long beard hoary looking

03:38:28.520 This guy shows up at the door and wonders, you know, asks what we're up to and claims to be ausitru of some sort.

03:38:39.080 Oftentimes we'd have more scrutiny, but it was auspicious.

03:38:44.300 So we welcomed the guy in and we gave him something to eat and gave him something to drink.

03:38:49.400 And he kind of, you know, made his way and disappeared.

03:38:51.980 We never heard from him again.

03:38:53.440 And I'm not making an overt claim that he's like the avatar of the All-Father.

03:39:00.980 But it's one of those occurrences that you're just really aware of things like that happening during that time.

03:39:10.640 I'd say that's probably the closest situation.

03:39:15.580 so i am less professional at this than swan is as far as my fill in fill in space when somebody

03:39:28.840 disappears i don't know if we drop connections or somebody had to make a bathroom break

03:39:32.820 they don't need for three and a half hours so i don't fault him either way there he is

03:39:38.620 i had to go to the restroom okay cool that was quick so quick he became disheveled

03:39:44.420 um all right so that brings us to day six or what's commonly known as christmas day um swan

03:39:59.220 what is day six of this is uh this is tears day so there you can see on the 25th there this uh

03:40:09.940 uh, the, uh, the purple, um, circle with the sword tears day is, uh, generally the way it's

03:40:19.240 always been in practice at my home is that we'll go over to our non-ousetre family houses to

03:40:28.440 celebrate. Sometimes grandma will have things for the kids. And, uh, sometimes it's been everything

03:40:34.340 from like the the uh what is it the dirty santa and the white elephant or white elephant or i

03:40:41.300 don't know what they call it it was never i didn't understand this until my uh wife's family like they

03:40:47.300 they do this and it i think it kind of again is the joking gifts that hole over um like just like

03:40:54.980 in when we mentioned about saturnalia and things like that um and it's fun i it was new to me and

03:41:01.780 it was kind of an interesting um uh game of gift giving uh and where you like mockingly steal from

03:41:09.380 other people and then there's bartering and trading and people are laughing and joking

03:41:14.580 i think that's more for the adults the kids just get happy gifts and um you know we eat over there

03:41:21.060 or uh you know i'll help help out if we're something in the yard or helping grandpa get

03:41:27.140 stuff done and and just doing things like that and then come home at night and it is really

03:41:35.060 for me uh a bloat of in honor of sacrifice and duty and it this is the the day that i light a

03:41:44.020 candle uh justice and to the idea of what that sacral duty means um to nation and to your folk

03:41:52.180 and what what you have to give up uh sometimes in order to protect your family and your folks so

03:41:58.180 it's a it's a somber day and i i call these three these these next three days as the warriors three

03:42:04.660 so you know we start off with mother's night as the intro and then you have the the um planetary

03:42:10.980 or you know you have the sun and the earth and the moon and then you have ancestors night and

03:42:16.260 thus it switches over into the warriors three and um that mainly being uh tier um the einherjar and

03:42:25.140 and oven and um so this day starts about uh great sacrifices sometimes i hold honor and bloat to

03:42:35.140 uh friends that have sacrificed um in military endeavors and things like that it's a night

03:42:42.980 sometimes that i remember them but it's also in honor predominantly to lord tear and his sacrifice

03:42:49.460 to um stave the wolf to bind the wolf and uh so it's it's a somber night um in dedication

03:43:00.260 to that so usually a bloat to lord tear um poems and uh gifts are are usually given in the forms of

03:43:09.460 libation sometimes i'll um you know i take a i'll buy a glove and draw runes on it and and

03:43:17.780 then light it on fire as a remembrance of sacrifice um and then quietly you know

03:43:27.380 close out the night and start the warriors three

03:43:31.380 well it started out with the the white elephant gift exchange and then swan got all somber so

03:43:41.620 um ironically really strangely put in there uh the mcnellens focus today on moderation

03:43:50.360 this is a time that we're celebrating with the ideas maybe to focus on

03:43:56.860 throughout the course of the year, in what ways you can moderate extreme, aberrant behaviors

03:44:08.380 and bring them back towards center. And I think that's, again, certain of us are more prone to

03:44:19.980 that than others. And I think very often, a certain amount of moderation comes with age,

03:44:26.000 with wisdom and experience but maybe some of our people that are you know edge lordy about

03:44:35.360 some stuff can bring it in a little bit and be a little bit more a little bit less uh

03:44:44.240 less extreme on things that aren't important and by all means be an extremist on things that

03:44:53.040 are a firm line in the sand but there's a whole lot of other things

03:44:59.680 that we can

03:45:03.440 moderate in our behavior in overreactions to certain things

03:45:10.080 check and recenter yourself and reevaluate is your behavior in regards to things appropriate

03:45:18.960 or is it pushed to a level that might not be appropriate i think that's a valid thing to

03:45:27.360 pay attention to throughout the year um one of the things swan mentioned the uh

03:45:34.240 i've never heard dirty santa that sounds odd um but or white elephant or whatever but the funny

03:45:42.000 comical silly gift exchange things i often do something that involves a uh a chocolatey santa

03:45:53.600 figure um there is there is a character if you look it up that wears it's got dreadlocks and

03:46:02.000 rasta stuff that's like the kwanzaa santa variant um so sometimes my gifts and those

03:46:11.200 kind of things may involve that i had a chocolatey santa that was literally a chocolatey santa one

03:46:16.480 time it was kind of the thing that i passed back and forth during these scenarios especially when

03:46:22.160 you have a steal or whatever i was doing it pretty regularly and it was a thing and i don't know mandy

03:46:29.360 got the munchies or something and so she decided that she would unwrap and eat the chocolate santa

03:46:34.720 and it kind of messed up my tradition I was doing.

03:46:40.880 Yeah, so that's, again, not a suggested way to celebrate the holidays,

03:46:46.340 just a whimsical acknowledgement of something that I've been involved in

03:46:52.800 during those kind of things.

03:46:55.940 And seriously, folks, it's really important to have a time for

03:47:01.440 very serious reverence but it's also a time of joy and celebration and having fun and everything

03:47:10.900 you do doesn't have to be the most profoundly deep pious thing that you do you can celebrate

03:47:18.540 you can have a good time um our gods often often when we get particularly spiritual we find

03:47:28.400 ourselves getting grim. It's important to worship our gods with joy as well. And it doesn't mean

03:47:37.680 treating very serious things not seriously. But we mistakenly, and I think people do this in

03:47:48.840 particular with Odin. I mentioned one time during a bloat, and this kind of blew people's mind

03:47:58.520 because they've never considered it. I don't know if I... I expressed during the bloat that I hope

03:48:07.980 that our actions that our deeds would make the all-father would make odin smile and

03:48:19.900 some people who are in the circle with me it was they weren't like offended by it but they

03:48:24.620 never considered odin smiling they always pictured him as being grim and i mean certainly some of his

03:48:34.780 is haiti um would lend themselves to that

03:48:41.980 but i genuinely want to celebrate during this time of year with our gods

03:48:46.380 i want them to be happy i want to share that joy with them with my folk and with my family and so

03:48:53.580 we can get very very serious a lot of the time there is absolutely a time to

03:49:05.820 be light-hearted and have fun and celebrate and to smile and to share warmth and i think

03:49:14.140 that sometimes when people get involved in also true especially young men

03:49:18.300 they have a tendency and it comes from all the right reasons and all the right places

03:49:26.220 to be very always very martial always very serious perhaps grim there is a time and a place

03:49:35.180 and i love you guys for it that is we need that sometimes but we also need that celebration and

03:49:46.220 hugging and playing with the babies and having fun and it's important to balance that and so

03:49:52.460 brings me back i think that is a time for moderation you know yes you're serious yes

03:50:00.460 you are an arian warrior but are you also a a glad man are you also someone who expresses joy

03:50:10.380 it's also worth remembering that you know one of odin's places of residence is gladheim gladsheim

03:50:21.100 the home of joy

03:50:25.980 with that yeah no we got some questions we can do um sarah asks is the yule elf a tomta swan

03:50:39.500 I made reference to that. I think that the word Tomta or the word Nisi or the word Alvar or the word Hurufolk are all collaborative to each other.

03:50:58.640 So, yes, I mean, and if you have Nordic, like Norwegian and Swedish descendancy, and you want to incorporate the Yule elf into your Yule tradition, absolutely, you could call them the Yule tomta, the Yule nisi, 100%.

03:51:14.700 um i generally when i tell my kids is that every family has a yule elf that that that's connected

03:51:24.640 to their ancestors some of them the tradition goes back long so the yule elf has a tendency to

03:51:29.460 look old and sometimes when they he's new or they just now call them with the yule log

03:51:36.200 and just recently got him he shows up young and the reason why i did that is and i these pillows

03:51:42.800 are are are old but they have this is a a a picture from arthur arthur arachnum he did uh

03:51:51.120 many of the um the pictures of freya and the valkyries and but he did this very stylized uh

03:52:00.240 yule alf riding on the the a very large yule bach um i also got this pillow here these all come out

03:52:08.240 around this this time of year um you know and it's you know whether he's a little with a with

03:52:16.480 a beard and i don't really go into i understand that christianization kind of minuscule the alvar

03:52:22.480 minuscule made the the beings tiny but at the same time like i'm not so hard bent on the ideas like

03:52:30.960 no he wasn't that's a christian thing or that or what or what have you um oftentimes he's just

03:52:37.760 represented as a jolly happy um alf that wants to see the kids uh be generous and hospitable

03:52:48.560 and give gifts to each other and into their family

03:52:51.120 so ali asks witten scan that happens a lot when you do um talk to text i get that all the time

03:53:03.140 using matches to light a sacred fire be a decent forward-facing way to continue the friction fire

03:53:12.820 tradition but adapt to modern life i would say you would dan i would say lighting the fire first

03:53:21.940 and foremost is important this is the most important thing um we can get caught up in a

03:53:27.460 lot of that i the the the joke is is like the the struggle for friction fire whether it's

03:53:34.020 like using a bow drill if anybody's uh into survival stuff and and primitive camping and

03:53:39.380 minimalist camping starting a fire with friction is ridiculously hard and takes a lot of skill and

03:53:45.540 practice um i have found too doing it with the cotton is is difficult too sometimes especially

03:53:51.700 if the cotton gets wet or if the boards aren't set right um matches yeah again it's a friction

03:53:58.820 it's a friction fire but i think it's more important we we consider lighting a fire and

03:54:04.580 however you do it would be more about building that sacredness and intent in your own way

03:54:11.540 um if you had special matches or perhaps they were um you know ones with significance perhaps

03:54:19.700 they were uh sold by someone that in your community or they have some sort of significance

03:54:24.900 i know people that make their own matches do um for survival situations and things like that

03:54:31.540 i think that'd be really cool but yes i i think it's it's legitimate because the first

03:54:36.100 and foremost is that you're relighting or you're lighting the fire that's the most important thing

03:54:43.860 so i want to comment on this i know i am not went and scan but

03:54:55.060 why

03:54:55.380 why are you right why are you creating your fire through fiction through friction why is that

03:55:04.020 important to you and there's not a right or wrong answer if that process is important to you fine

03:55:12.660 if it harkens back to you the struggle of our ancestors to appreciate the magic that fire is

03:55:22.340 fine if it's about need and desperation and if it's about your toil to make the fire

03:55:29.780 fine if it's i don't know because it's old timey and the purists say you're supposed to

03:55:36.420 not fine that's stupid so have a good reason if that's what you want to do

03:55:42.820 and your reason is is legitimate behind it absolutely um

03:55:47.620 Um, and this, okay, this is going to sound flippant, and I don't mean it that way.

03:55:55.840 I really don't.

03:56:01.640 In a way, I find, and this is only speaking for me, you may have a very beautiful reason

03:56:07.280 that you do things the way that you do.

03:56:09.300 For me, I feel, and I really do feel this, it's insulting to my ancestors to do primitive stuff, because literally one of the most important characteristics of our folk is the advancement of technology.

03:56:34.240 is our innovating and overcoming and having nice things.

03:56:41.800 I say it jokingly at different times,

03:56:45.420 but people that find value in doing something in a primitive way,

03:56:54.560 I feel like that insults the spirit of my ancestors that worked so hard

03:57:00.540 so that I can have air conditioning and so that I can have a lighter.

03:57:04.240 um honestly but again that's the mindset I'm going into it with and it's probably very

03:57:11.500 different in your situation if you think that a friction fire or using a flint if you think

03:57:17.320 that's really important to you and you have a reason behind it the intent is what matters and

03:57:25.540 we should never lose sight of that when we do anything ritually or

03:57:30.220 or otherwise but especially ritually why are we doing what we're doing what are we wanting to

03:57:38.700 accomplish what is the meaning if you're doing something in the hardest most laborious way

03:57:44.700 possible as a form of offering or whatever there may be very very good reasons to do that

03:57:53.100 but just have a clear don't do that because somebody told you you're supposed to have a

03:57:59.820 clear understanding of why you're doing it. And this, again, not about what we're talking about,

03:58:06.340 but a general truth that I think is really important. It's, this is the same reason that

03:58:12.140 when doing ritual, I don't like using archaic language unless, unless I tell people beforehand

03:58:23.780 what it means. I don't want anyone doing something ritually that they can't put their intent into,

03:58:32.960 excuse me, wholeheartedly. So if there's a chant or if there's a piece of the ritual that you want

03:58:39.820 to do in Old Norse or in German or in Swedish or whatever you do, it's very important to me to

03:58:47.740 explain that to those who are participating so that they can fully invest in it they have a

03:58:54.140 reason and a very clear intent i think intent is the key to ritual generally and that intent

03:59:02.060 is strongest when you know why you're doing what you're doing um we've got time for at least one

03:59:10.940 more question um trying to do each of these days at the half hour mark so um i read this is the

03:59:21.500 next question i read there were two spartipedes symbolic of odin's ravens swan thoughts i for one

03:59:33.580 have never heard of that have you spotted no no i i uh matter of fact uh all the because i looked

03:59:41.020 into it just because it was it became a kind of a thing between you and me matt where we were

03:59:46.860 i was very interested in learning of this tradition and i i understand the political

03:59:51.180 climate that it was you know is in and has been in and people that are not from the netherlands

03:59:56.540 suddenly have a problem with it or people that are living currently in the netherlands that are not

04:00:01.260 netherlanders uh that are not dutch uh not from the little country i thoroughly enjoy it every

04:00:08.300 year well and i looked into it and one of the things i found interesting was that he wears

04:00:14.220 a a costume that is reminiscent of the vatican guard um and there's a lot of different reasons

04:00:21.820 for that i guess it's connected to the catholic church um and of course uh saint nicholas or saint

04:00:29.580 santa claus uh has you know he's wearing like the bishop hat with the the fish mouth um kind

04:00:36.220 of headdress and and and it has a shepherd's crook and but it's stylized uh in catholic manner

04:00:43.660 um i've never heard of two i have seen multiple svarta pete's uh in their festivals where they'll

04:00:50.540 have like five six ten a whole parade of them um and uh again causes a lot of uh it whips up the

04:01:01.900 ire of a lot of people who can't get their head around it um but never before have i um saw a

04:01:10.460 correlation between svarta pete and um olden's ravens and i wonder if that again is another move

04:01:19.180 kind of like how people have done with the yule bach and thor's goats or with yolnir and and lord

04:01:27.580 odin of of the yuletide being like the yule spirit or the yule elf i wonder if it's a connection or

04:01:35.420 perhaps people are trying to create points to again ping in our faith into a broader circle to

04:01:43.820 pull people out of you know uh christian origin of the of the faith but i've never heard of that

04:01:50.140 ever all right do you like any uh christmas music or you get annoyed hearing it everywhere spawn

04:02:00.860 oh this is a a double-edged sword for me um if uh on one account i understand that a lot

04:02:10.300 of the carols and in the west especially in relation to it being a christian holiday a lot

04:02:15.820 of the christmas carols in relation to christ and christianity um i respect them having those those

04:02:23.740 songs i i don't think the date is right i don't think it's uh you know it's clearly our holiday

04:02:30.300 but they have taken it and they've celebrated it and they have their christmas songs and um i don't

04:02:36.220 really you know bite my thumb at it or anything of that nature and i know that a lot of songs that

04:02:41.820 were created in america and in in and in the west recently were were written and produced and uh

04:02:51.420 you know like sold out by people who don't even celebrate christmas in the west they are uh of a

04:02:58.860 probably of a different religion and they're they they pushed out a lot of these things

04:03:06.220 besides Adam Sandler's. Yeah. So the one thing I will say is occasionally in those songs,

04:03:14.840 they will hearken back. And I think that certain people that have problems with Christianity

04:03:20.760 will also try to remind them that their holiday has an older, you know, origin. And I don't know

04:03:30.320 if they necessarily do that more as a thumb in the eye, as opposed to veneration to the elder.

04:03:36.220 uh, holiday, the indigenous faith of Europe. Um, but occasionally you'll find a glean, you know,

04:03:42.120 um, uh, uh, what is it? Have yourself a merry little Christmas has a couple of, um, remarks

04:03:49.480 in there about the days of yore and, and the yuletide and, um, you know, boughs of holly

04:03:56.580 and about fate and about, uh, kind of a, not saying the Nornir, but, or the Norns, but kind

04:04:03.560 of lending towards the idea that this is a turning time of fate and destiny and, and

04:04:09.760 all of that. But if you go and look for Yuletide stuff, you'll end up kind of finding a lot

04:04:17.540 of crystal store pagan cat lady Wiccan stuff. It's the cat lady stuff or it's cookie monster

04:04:29.000 metal or there's this thing that's popped up in my reels lately that's like ridiculous

04:04:37.560 like hot chicks in ridiculous pretend viking shoulder pelt makeup stuff but singing like

04:04:47.120 1700s pirate songs like it's really strange and i don't understand the genre and i don't know why

04:04:56.660 popping up it's i wish i don't know why they look like that um that's not authentic and it's kind

04:05:05.060 of obnoxious but they like chant like awesome pirate sea shanties yeah um i don't know why

04:05:14.420 it's a thing i you know what i am envious christians you guys got us beat on that you

04:05:23.540 guys are awesome i hope that we can get there with our music i don't like silly christmas songs

04:05:30.660 they very much annoy me and it doesn't mean modern but like goofy christmas songs i

04:05:38.740 matt's not a fan of the comedy unless it is spontaneous comedy and not like staged and

04:05:43.620 planned comedy it offends me those things annoy me um the paul mccartney christmas song really

04:05:54.420 irritates me i hate that one um busy having wonderful christmas time no that irritates

04:06:04.260 me and makes me very upset the george michael christmas song really irritates me a lot too

04:06:10.020 i don't like that and that's rust upon me pun intended around christmas and i don't like it um

04:06:21.140 but the most of the like

04:06:29.060 crooner stuff i i love i think it harkens back to a time where our people were in a much more

04:06:37.780 noble state and uh i like that a lot it's very pleasant the stuff that i like the most that

04:06:46.880 gets stuck in my head and i always kick myself about is the very overtly religious ones

04:06:52.640 oh come all ye faithful is awesome it is an amazing song it bothers me if i catch myself

04:07:00.860 singing it to myself because i ought not be singing that song um but yeah the

04:07:10.220 the really overtly religious ones are very very well done they stick in your head they embed in

04:07:17.180 your soul and they stay with you i really look forward to the day that we have some of those of

04:07:26.060 our own um but no i don't be grudge i i acknowledge i acknowledge their win and i i appreciate that

04:07:39.180 and i wish that we had some i will say one thing i want to pull a kind of old school

04:07:45.020 i was the true uh i don't know like again skaldic and poetry and song um back in the 90s there was

04:07:55.260 a website uh or late late 90s i think is when it really came into being and there was a um it's

04:08:02.140 called odin's gift it is a website that has mp3 tracks so you know sometimes just little snippets

04:08:10.540 of but there's whole lists of songs some of them were um like english mummer songs that were updated

04:08:18.620 we or or um perhaps more focused around yule as opposed to christmas um there's a lot of uh ones

04:08:26.060 done by people that were in our true circles back then i don't even know where they are now or or

04:08:33.420 what have you um or even if they're still alive um but there were some really interesting songs

04:08:39.740 on that website that i would always recommend you know worth taking a look at some of them

04:08:44.780 are pretty interesting so it's interesting that you mentioned that one thing that i've seen in

04:08:54.380 in ousa true is a

04:08:58.620 let's take christmas songs and rework them with ousa true themes

04:09:04.060 if that's something that you enjoy doing more power to you i find it really cringy and i don't

04:09:15.700 like that i'm not it is not heretical it is not wrong i'm not denouncing it from the

04:09:23.960 all's here your gothic throne i'm just saying it makes me uncomfortable i find it cringy and

04:09:31.200 I can't really get behind entertainment.

04:09:32.680 There's a ton of original work on there, though, too, as well.

04:09:36.640 And that really is an expansive site, if it's the one I'm thinking about.

04:09:41.480 And I haven't looked at that in years.

04:09:43.540 Yeah, if you pull it up, it's still kind of old website looking.

04:09:47.520 And when you click on the MP3 track, it takes you to a separate thing,

04:09:52.120 and it just runs the little MP3.

04:09:54.580 Yeah, odins-gift.com.

04:09:57.660 Old school.

04:09:58.360 All right.

04:09:59.840 So Svan, take us to Boxing Day or the seventh day.

04:10:06.860 What is it?

04:10:07.700 Seventh?

04:10:08.460 Seventh day of Yule?

04:10:10.520 Yes, it is.

04:10:11.420 Let me see.

04:10:11.780 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

04:10:13.780 Yes.

04:10:14.640 All right.

04:10:16.080 So we're on the 26th, and this is the second day of what I would call the Warriors Three.

04:10:20.620 um after uh tears bloat the the previous night this night i i often dedicated einherjars night

04:10:30.220 it is again the micro to macro it's is that a lot of the the yule celebrations are celebrations to

04:10:37.680 the gods and holidays from the year that has just passed and on this night i generally hold a dinner

04:10:46.380 and dedication to heroes that have exemplified um truly a like indomitable spirit the idea that

04:10:57.720 they have attained a level and that comes about through uh oftentimes like medal of honor

04:11:05.480 recipients i'll i'll honor that night i'll i'll tell my children about the the stories or the

04:11:11.320 events of men who have sacrificed their lives or faced just harrowing odds and either came out

04:11:22.200 victorious or at least victorious but may have fallen. And I reemphasize heroism. I want my sons

04:11:32.300 to really take to understanding that there are heroes and that they could be heroes too if the

04:11:39.940 time is in fate and destiny that they should meet it laughing, shining, and attempting to attain

04:11:46.500 that same spirit. So this night becomes kind of an in-memoriam night of the men who have

04:11:57.660 sacrificed, hearkening again back to Tyr, but the ones who have ascended, hearkening again

04:12:03.280 to the next night, which is Odin's night, and being chosen by the Valfather. So the Einherjar

04:12:10.200 and the Valkyrie and Valhall have a tendency to really be played out on Einherjar's night.

04:12:20.600 And it's also what we kind of, in my house, we call it the night that all of Valhall is preparing

04:12:27.000 for the return of Yulnir, of the Yul father, as he's coming back from the wild hunt.

04:12:33.660 So heaven is celebrating, and so are we.

04:12:40.380 All right.

04:12:49.000 So on this night, it's the McNallan theme for it is community.

04:12:57.000 And, again, it's one of those things that's self-evident during the Yule season of, it's sad if someone's all alone during the holidays, especially during Yule.

04:13:16.260 I worked in the bar industry for a time

04:13:23.900 and

04:13:24.720 it's really sad when you have a lot

04:13:27.740 when people come in and celebrate

04:13:29.940 with a bunch of their friends that are in town

04:13:31.780 for the holidays, that's awesome

04:13:33.220 you'd have a lot

04:13:35.920 of folks coming in by themselves

04:13:37.740 trying to drink away their sorrows

04:13:39.700 because they don't have anybody

04:13:40.860 um it's a good time to think about how you engage in community throughout the year

04:13:58.680 we are

04:13:59.640 you look around in your neighborhood maybe you're in a better situation but so many of us

04:14:13.160 we don't know our neighbors we are isolated in communities because communities aren't set up

04:14:21.380 these days with people around people with commonality we are told that we're enriched

04:14:28.060 by all the diversity but in effect it's atomized everybody to individuals and there's not community

04:14:36.760 cohesion like there once was and maybe you're in a place where that's not the case and if so I envy

04:14:42.400 you um it's one of the big things I'm trying to build and make happen with Sigurheim is to build

04:14:50.660 a community of our folk who are bonded together by shared things not by all of the enriching ways

04:14:58.660 that we're different but all of the things that we all share and hold dear together

04:15:06.820 and i mean this with all my heart the afa is the best way to do that that i've seen in my life

04:15:16.020 um to get together with people that share things in common with you the important things

04:15:23.860 and to be a part of that community and to gain strength from one another

04:15:28.500 if you are weak are you part of a community that can help you be stronger if you're strong

04:15:34.820 are you part of a community to where you can help bring other people up and strengthen them

04:15:39.940 um community is so fundamental to everything we do and it's a really important thing to

04:15:46.780 focus on and I think it's it's very valuable at this time of year especially

04:15:54.580 um our next question is what is your thought on Glog where's the O with some little dots

04:16:03.040 over top of it again don't speak that don't know what noise it makes I'ma call it Glog

04:16:08.620 it may make a different vowel sound i have so i looked it up when i saw this question first i've

04:16:18.460 never it says that it's made with like aquavit and it's a scandinavian thing i am very familiar

04:16:24.860 with glue vine and i love glue vine i love mulled wine and especially with like schnapps and stuff

04:16:32.860 glue vine is awesome in any of its variants always been a fan um love that this time of year

04:16:41.420 or i say this time of year like we're in full swing we're still in november so i'm ahead of

04:16:45.340 myself but we're having the yule episode i got the sweater on forgive me um

04:16:51.740 never had the glob though with it with the aqua bit so i'm not sure how it's different or what

04:16:56.140 different flavors are in it but i would love to try it because it's right up my alley

04:16:59.980 i'm always been a fan of that and anybody who's bought chocers chocers always comes

04:17:05.660 the meat always comes with this little mulling packet and that's awesome if you've never used

04:17:11.420 it you're cheating yourself mulled meat is amazing mulled wine certainly is awesome

04:17:18.620 never had the glog and i'm kind of was looking up recipes because i think i'm gonna gonna have

04:17:23.820 to do that this year what about you swan i've never had uh the i've never had glog but it is

04:17:31.260 very much the festive time of year to drink it's like blue vine it's like wassail it's um

04:17:39.420 yeah the molds and warm uh wine uh i've never had that recipe and i would like to try it i think

04:17:48.380 it'd be kind of nice i generally uh when i used to drink i would drink glue vine uh during thor's

04:17:55.980 night uh because we would be pitching the yeast for mead and um and so a lot of times and you

04:18:03.100 know imbibing on like a a port wine or a lighter wine um while you know celebrating that night um

04:18:11.980 Um, but no, never, never had, um, Glock.

04:18:18.600 Next question.

04:18:20.720 All's Harry Goethe.

04:18:21.940 I am late, but can we see your ugly sweater?

04:18:25.380 Guessing it's pushing weight.

04:18:28.080 Whoa.

04:18:30.560 Nothing ugly about this sweater.

04:18:33.080 It is a festive sweater, perhaps.

04:18:38.940 So.

04:18:41.980 It is a swole Santa.

04:18:45.280 It's got dumbbells on it, gym shoes, and he is delivering a bag of games.

04:18:57.180 The muscle definition.

04:18:59.480 It is there.

04:19:03.740 Santa's cut.

04:19:04.920 He's on them diuretics.

04:19:06.120 Yes.

04:19:06.520 i think to the ugly sweater is less jolly his belly does not rubble like a bowl full of jelly

04:19:16.800 well and i i think the ugly sweater that's kind of a thing that's come about too i've noticed over

04:19:23.540 the last 10 years or so the even in truth i literally bought it for an ugly sweater wine

04:19:29.980 walk years ago themed wine walks are a thing out here and they're awesome um

04:19:41.180 all right gentlemen can we talk about yule ector or

04:19:47.820 term lector aka yule lantern never heard the second term you use and its importance to yule

04:19:55.740 celebrations. Thank you. Svon, do you know about the deep history of the Yule Ector?

04:20:02.760 Yeah, the Yule Ector is specifically in connection to German celebration of Yule

04:20:10.780 or, you know, Christmas, even to the point where it's survived in Christian times and is,

04:20:19.640 you know a centerpiece of lighting both on you know christmas eve or christmas day uh and

04:20:27.020 at either a special table or at the dining table uh and the tradition goes very far back especially

04:20:33.840 the four-sided clay um with the uh hexagram or stars uh on it so that either sometimes the

04:20:42.240 candle is on top sometimes it's a lantern like like um was said where it's inside the uh so

04:20:49.120 around uses both right and yeah sometimes both and i think for some folks um i have a special

04:20:55.860 one from iceland that i i use but i use it very much like a yule lector um i just don't want to

04:21:02.060 i i'm i'm not german uh but i use something very similar in a in very much the same fashion and

04:21:09.240 when i do like when i light my candles to meditate on the virtues um sometimes what i will do is i'll

04:21:17.080 i'll light each candle on the as we're going for the 12 days i'll i will um have the the uh

04:21:24.360 special candle lit and from lit from the yule flame and then from that candle i'll light the

04:21:29.880 lights as i uh meditate on the virtues so it's like incorporated in as part of my lighting

04:21:37.240 ceremonies uh throughout yule but um i think that's something that you'll find in different

04:21:43.320 houses different things are done some people incorporate them some people don't um some people

04:21:49.000 kind of incorporate them in the yule light like they'll have the yule lector but the problem with

04:21:53.880 it is is that again most of the time it's an open flame open candle so it burns very quickly

04:21:59.240 or it's susceptible to at least like if you have a draft if you keep it in your near your

04:22:03.880 fireplace it might burn down quickly so i use it kind of to light and then i i also extinguish

04:22:12.280 because i keep that one candle running the entire time but i use that to light it

04:22:21.400 yeah i'm i'm familiar the the thing i know about it is i don't have one and i wish that it did um

04:22:32.440 yeah that's the best i've got on it they're awesome they're a you know

04:22:36.840 know old german tradition i wish i had one i think they're really cool i've seen them with

04:22:42.980 the stars i've seen with the heart motif on them as well um yeah they're neat i've seen them you

04:22:51.080 know i know people who have made them themselves out of clay i'm not really sure where you go to

04:22:57.420 get them um but yeah they're very etsy well and it's part of the you know it's part of that

04:23:05.640 lighting tradition that we've talked about throughout speaking of mushrooms spawn i read

04:23:14.280 books that correlate the amanita to the mjolnir what is your take on this

04:23:20.040 oh okay so i do know one thing there was somebody that i can't remember who brought it up but the

04:23:30.120 drying process of them of the aminata uh hanging upside down from stem and having the head dry out

04:23:38.280 um as being some sort of correlation to the mjolnir um i mean rowan berries are clearly

04:23:47.240 associated with uh the storm father um i don't know like i said i don't think there's any

04:23:54.120 absolute because i know that in preparation the caps are not usually cut so it's not like

04:23:59.000 a portabella that you would cook where it has a stem and and then the uh the edges generally it's

04:24:05.240 dried and the stems are um either mashed up or used elsewhere and the caps are kept separately

04:24:11.960 um as far as in relation to milner i i've heard some somewhere on the internet that this was a

04:24:20.440 thing, but not necessarily anywhere else. So I'll harken back to my answer about varg and the

04:24:29.640 placenta. You can like mushrooms and think they're really cool and enjoy visiting the mushroom

04:24:39.820 kingdom if you like. Don't endorse that if it's not legal in the place that you reside. But that

04:24:47.140 being said you can enjoy those things without finding connection to them in everything and

04:24:55.380 it's one of those things our brain likes patterns and we like to recognize we like to recognize

04:25:03.940 patterns if you're a smart person and you're a creative person

04:25:10.100 you can backfill anything you want to see some sort of commonality and a correlation

04:25:21.180 and this isn't just about that this happens a lot in our circles is

04:25:30.440 a lack of skepticism about perceived commonalities i think you got to look a little bit deeper i

04:25:43.820 don't think there's evidence to support a lot of these things doesn't mean they're impossible

04:25:48.220 but it's a pretty substantial leap a lot of the time

04:25:53.320 um but again the question was directed at uh at spawn um so yeah do you have thoughts more

04:26:03.820 thoughts on that I heard a sigh well the only thing I was going to say is in my experience

04:26:08.980 um I know that the red may have had some associations but I know that in the drying

04:26:14.260 process it turns a like a tallow orange or yellow uh yellowing so I don't know if that would really

04:26:20.740 any significance again the drying process of hanging it upside down and it loses its color or

04:26:26.580 what what have you i yeah and no part of me is denying a ritual use of psychedelics historically

04:26:36.900 um i'm not downplaying that at all but i think that it overly simplifies when we start trying

04:26:44.580 to connect everything to it and i say it i say it comically but the point stands in a very serious

04:26:51.060 way it's like varg does with the placenta when you get one theme and you make it

04:27:02.100 very important to your analysis of stuff it's very easy to apply

04:27:07.460 in areas where it's not appropriate to apply to if you're focused heavily on something you will

04:27:16.100 start seeing it everywhere because you've conditioned your brain to only see what you're

04:27:22.740 looking to see so you have a certain confirmation bias and that's what i'd guard against on on

04:27:29.460 things like that like yes absolutely there's use of psychedelics in european paganism historically

04:27:40.660 absolutely don't fault that at all but just because there is sometimes doesn't mean that

04:27:48.660 everything has to go back to that as a root um

04:27:53.300 Um, have either of you ever tried lutefisk? It's a very divided subject in my family. It was my

04:28:02.580 grandfather's favorite Yule meal, and we ate it every year growing up. I have not, but I would

04:28:08.040 really like to. Um, you know, I, I've tried the rotten shark of swan's people, but I've never

04:28:15.580 tried the lutefisk. And I'm, I'm really curious. I saw somebody over in the chat talking about

04:28:21.100 pickled herring i really like things that are pickled i would love to try pickled herring

04:28:27.900 that sounds really good lutefisk i don't know you are the first person i've heard to speak

04:28:33.660 positively of it but i'd really like to give it a shot what about you swan yeah i've had it

04:28:39.820 the way it was prepared it didn't taste it didn't taste bad i i have i mean of course i have a

04:28:49.100 palate that might be a little bit more used to that again pickled your herring is a a very common

04:28:55.980 uh with sweet wine sauce and onions uh that it's like pickled and it it tastes sugary it has sugar

04:29:02.220 in it um and that the herring is very dense and small little cubes uh or like not cubes but um

04:29:10.140 little palates uh and my my mother would actually eat that as a salad topping she would put it on

04:29:18.460 greens and then just um put a couple of the herring down and then drizzle some of the wine sauce on

04:29:24.780 to the leaves and you know with beets and um other things like root vegetables um

04:29:32.300 and uh it was really good i mean it is good um but the the when i had it i didn't i've heard

04:29:38.220 about like it being in cans and i don't know if this was made from uh like a canned because it

04:29:44.060 was on a plate and it it was with you know i had it with potatoes and it was it tasted fine to me

04:29:50.620 but i've heard horror stories and i don't know if it's like again some people will say like oh i

04:29:57.180 can't stomach the smell of like this nordic food with all the fish and stuff but like i'll smell

04:30:02.300 it it's like oh that's not that bad it's just smells like fish it's in your blood's fun what

04:30:07.340 was that what was that dish that grandma made for for your grandpa skate skate there you go

04:30:14.060 that's made the whole house smell like boiled parsnips and in a not good way but it's but

04:30:22.460 put it in your mouth and it melts like butter and it tastes amazing so not related we'll get to this

04:30:28.860 actually on our next episode but uh what are your what are your thoughts on the rotten shark

04:30:35.260 yeah how carl for people well how carl has kind of now become a thing that is it the the method

04:30:43.340 in a way of smoking and burying and pressing the shark is super traditional and it involves kind of

04:30:50.860 again the sacrifices that our ancestors made to keep food and preserve it um and a lot of times

04:30:57.660 you'll you'll meet people in iceland that they don't eat it they don't like it or or something

04:31:03.020 like that and sometimes i've even heard it say like oh it's just a food that gives people an

04:31:07.500 excuse to drink brenovan because traditionally you drink brenovan which tastes like pumpernickel

04:31:12.860 bread it's a really good yeah it's a liquor that yeah it's they they joke and say oh it's just a

04:31:20.380 reason to kind of wash it down with brenovan um you're a grown man you can chug brenovan if you

04:31:27.900 want well and they have dark yeah exactly i mean they have it too with uh with some breakfasts like

04:31:35.100 um you have brenovan with oatmeal and toast with again like a a salad of some sort of

04:31:41.980 you know a pickled herrings and or um egg salad or something and then you like drink and eat

04:31:48.380 the breakfast um i the only thing i don't like is the squishy kind of tofu denseness of it and the

04:32:01.660 the smoky flavor and it's not quite it's fish but it isn't fish it's strong so i that is what it is

04:32:11.900 i'm not a fan

04:32:12.700 Okay. So next question.

04:32:27.280 One question I have, what is one fairly simple Yule tradition I can bring to the table this

04:32:33.980 holiday season as it will be a Christmas celebration that the family is celebrating?

04:32:40.240 so I'm not that guy honestly I'm trying to incorporate what Svan does to do more

04:32:48.000 stuff for my own family so Svan what would you suggest is a tradition he could bring

04:32:56.240 to his non-Alsatru family this holiday season I would say uh carrying the light uh perhaps if you

04:33:07.040 have the ability to light a yule log in a fireplace or if you don't and you need to do it

04:33:12.400 outside um something as simple as getting your family even if they're they're christian um

04:33:20.080 you know you you get a yule log find a log um you could start the the whole the utilizing the bottom

04:33:27.600 of the of the yule tree or christmas tree and do that next year but say this year you just get a

04:33:33.040 log and start a fire outside um in a fire pit maybe all the men folk go outside and light the

04:33:40.640 fire and then bring uh you know something uh to ignite and bring it inside and light it inside

04:33:51.520 like a candle like perhaps have your wife or the lady of the house hold a candle and you walk up

04:33:57.520 to the door and you light her candle um with the yule log flame and then she brings it inside

04:34:05.120 the house and you have it lit just for dinner or just for that time as a remembrance of of the yule

04:34:12.560 the the point is carrying the light with your loved ones with your family through the darkness

04:34:17.520 something i'm thinking simple and one night if you were doing a meal on the 24th or you're

04:34:23.040 doing a meal on the 25th and you wanted to do something light a yule log and then bring the

04:34:29.760 flame and have it kind of present uh during the night and that would be one thing i would say

04:34:35.840 would kind of incorporate your faith in with uh your family's celebration of christmas

04:34:42.160 i think that's a really good idea um

04:34:50.080 all right spawn tell us about day eight ah well household yeah so this is olden's night

04:35:02.240 olden's night is fun um so i'll i on the on the religious side this is the the return of from the

04:35:11.680 wild hunt this is odin's night to come back into valhall and back into glad time and uh it's a it's

04:35:18.640 a time of celebration but what it has kind of become over the years is a night of auguries um

04:35:25.920 if you look up european tradition of new year's because we're now we're starting to shift towards

04:35:31.920 the gregorian new year and there's a lot of european traditions towards kind of augury and

04:35:38.800 And whether it's for fun or whether, you know, and this came about from the Victorian age

04:35:46.120 and the spiritualism revival in the late 1800s, the idea of, like, there's, I forgot what

04:35:55.380 it is exactly, it's called, it's pewter reading, where they would, in German households, they

04:35:59.540 would take pewter and they would melt it over a candle and then drip it into cold water

04:36:05.780 and then read the shapes of the pewter um you could do this with wax as well um this knight has

04:36:12.900 a tendency to float around the idea that when when odin returns he has either knowledge that he's

04:36:20.980 attained or that now it's time for him to refocus on looking into the secrets of things like again

04:36:27.940 the eye in the well of mimir the um the usage of runes so sometimes um divinatory practices are

04:36:36.340 held as this night is seen as a very auspicious night to get a glimpse into the things between

04:36:44.020 things so it could be something as simple as cartomancy or wax reading um and and generally

04:36:52.900 what that looks like is, um, you know, holding a bloat to the L father and, uh, first and

04:37:02.580 foremost, I, I generally, and this is just a personal thing for me, but I, um, I always

04:37:08.160 put, uh, an apple outside and a small shot of snobs, uh, rumple mints or something of

04:37:16.540 that nature outside on this night after bloat. So I blessed the apple with my, my faith and my

04:37:23.960 trough and my hopes of a, of a, of a grand return. And, um, I cut the apple into, uh, three pieces

04:37:32.240 and I take the shot and I put it outside. Um, sometimes I put a little skein of like, uh, wheat,

04:37:39.440 um as a symbol towards um the wild hunt and the riders or to sleep near um and i usually do that

04:37:48.120 after i hail over and during a bloat and have libation go outside place that out come back

04:37:54.960 inside and we do little things like sometimes like for the little ones we'll do like a game of match

04:38:02.880 with the cards like put the cards out flip them over and try to do memory and do match and then

04:38:09.120 you know once the little ones kind of go or maybe we'll drip wax into water because the pewter stuff

04:38:15.120 is hard to get sometimes and then when the kids finally go to bed what i'll do is i'll i'll

04:38:21.960 generally i'll cast uh rune tines to see or glean um uh what's to come and this is probably one of

04:38:33.760 the only times I will throw rune tines unless it's an absolute necessity. I don't do it often

04:38:43.760 because again, sometimes knowing too much is not always, being overwise or knowing too much is

04:38:49.820 not always good. But for this, I will do it for the year to come, the turning of Yule to find

04:38:59.700 out what's laying on the other side of the of the holiday so it can be as fun or as um i don't know

04:39:10.620 mystical or esoteric as you want it to be um it could be simply just a celebration of the return

04:39:16.960 from the wild hunt of odin and it doesn't necessarily have to be divinatory in its nature

04:39:28.100 but it kind of became that way and um a lot of folks would um uh again if you're not into the

04:39:36.260 runes if you're not uh you know someone who partakes in the knowledge of it um but i got to

04:39:43.940 the point where even folks around would um come and ask some questions so it would end up being

04:39:51.940 like maybe three readings that night one for myself and maybe some for others to try to

04:39:58.340 uh glean some of these things but it runic divination is a nuanced thing in it's it's kind

04:40:05.300 of a uh an interest within the religion that doesn't always apply to everyone and um so

04:40:13.620 i usually left that for late at night and uh sometimes it was it was a it was a night to go

04:40:18.980 out on for a walk or stand outside and kind of um you know contemplate where i'm at it's it is cold

04:40:27.060 even though i live in the south um it's usually cold around this time of year but it's not

04:40:32.020 blistering cold or snowstorms or you know things like that so you know a night out in the brisk

04:40:39.460 air um to kind of recenter my head on a lot of stuff um you know and singing

04:40:48.980 prayers to Lord Odin it's a special night for me um and I have a lot of love for it and so

04:40:56.560 Odin's night and uh Thor's night have grown into um things in which like say for instance people

04:41:05.520 that I know might come and seek answers through runic knowledge um but that's not to say that

04:41:11.680 if you were perhaps a veteran and Einherjar's night might be a thing or

04:41:16.320 uh tears night might be something of a communal thing or a community thing um every night has

04:41:22.380 its own but it just happened to be that odin's night and thor's night uh particularly at my

04:41:28.020 house have always been very um active nights even though the a majority of yule after

04:41:34.420 mother's night is really kind of small and insular and and ancestors night is clearly for

04:41:41.540 the kids and to

04:41:43.520 get a chance to talk about the ancestors.

04:41:46.360 Odin's Night is kind of

04:41:47.300 another one that kind of

04:41:49.540 peaks up in the middle of it

04:41:50.960 and gets

04:41:52.620 fun. I really enjoy

04:41:55.540 it. It's a fun time.

04:42:01.480 Yeah, that one sounds awesome.

04:42:06.000 In Steve's

04:42:09.540 scheme of the days, this one is for

04:42:11.500 individuality this is a very important one i know to our founder steve mcnellen the idea of

04:42:24.620 building building the self building the self having a very clear sense of who you are

04:42:34.140 as an individual component of the greater whole being really important so kind of a day to

04:42:41.500 reflect inward and make sure that you know our our community which was the previous day

04:42:56.060 is built on the strength of the individuals in that chain or as our ancestors would talk about

04:43:04.080 in your in your kin fence perhaps or in your shield wall if you have a weak link you have a

04:43:11.600 hole and your defense is lacking your integrity is lacking are you holding up your end are you

04:43:21.360 valuable to the folks in your community because of who you are and what you bring to the table

04:43:29.200 how can you be more so what can you do to be a stronger piece of that kin fence a stronger piece

04:43:40.960 of the folk and make you know thus make our community be stronger by your presence in it

04:43:48.520 and that really is the root of the word honor we've made it this like internal your personal

04:43:57.840 code thing but it was the value placed upon you by your community you received an honor you were

04:44:06.880 honored by your community it wasn't your personal sense of right and wrong it was did your peers

04:44:14.500 find value in you so have you made yourself someone to be you know have you made your worth

04:44:25.540 self-evident to your peers and to your community.

04:44:29.980 If you have, how can you do more?

04:44:33.500 If you haven't, how can you

04:44:35.680 do that? And this is a good day to think on that

04:44:40.820 in that scheme.

04:44:46.620 So Githya Anna asks, has anyone

04:44:49.620 asked where he got that sweater? Got it off of Amazon

04:44:54.300 as many of us get many of the the things that we have pretty proud of it pretty happy about it um

04:45:04.060 maybe worn it four or five times but i've had it four or five years so i call that good

04:45:11.660 um and then the next question what are your thoughts on wassail i'll have to watch more

04:45:19.100 of these in the future absolutely hope that you do uh if you like them share them tell your friends

04:45:26.620 while sales awesome any of those spiced holiday drinks are amazing so um that's right up my alley

04:45:35.820 it's something i absolutely enjoy um especially if it involves cider like that it makes it fruity

04:45:41.980 and good and sweet and delicious naturally i love that stuff i said that earlier on the blog comment

04:45:49.100 um do you have particular thoughts on wassail Svon yeah I think people need to know that wassail and

04:45:59.840 Glog and glue vine and again these are all Germanic uh celebrations of of an imbibement of a mold

04:46:09.200 warm uh alcohol not usually very strong um that's you know shared at that time

04:46:18.680 It's interesting, though, with with the English, particularly because there's a whole culture around wassailing with wassailers or the folks that go from house to house singing traditional folk songs and asking for, you know, drinks in return.

04:46:39.680 so they come to the door they sing songs and then someone takes the wassail that they have and they

04:46:45.360 fill up their cups and they drink and they're merry and then they move to the next house and

04:46:49.680 it's a drunk halloween yeah and it and it's cool i mean especially if you're the last house whoo

04:46:56.080 you gotta imagine no honestly in a lot of ways it harkens back to this sweater i got it for the

04:47:01.760 wine walk that's what you do you go to each of these stations and you try the different wine or

04:47:06.880 or whatever i think that's a really cool custom i wish that was still something folks

04:47:12.880 still something folks did uh every now and again you'll find yourself in a spot where you've got

04:47:17.440 a group of people that do caroling that'll go around and and sing carols in front of folks

04:47:23.200 houses i've seen that happen places i've never they have never appeared at my door to serenade

04:47:30.960 me with any uh holiday carols but i have seen that happen and i know there's some groups that

04:47:36.960 do that there's an old picture of father christmas if people look it up father christmas from england

04:47:45.120 and it's he's kind of a a a tricky old uh alf sitting on top of a goat and he's carrying a

04:47:54.880 giant jug and it says right on or a giant bowl and it says right on there wassail and that's one of

04:48:00.320 of my favorite kind of pictures kind of hearkening and that that time in the victorian era um and it

04:48:09.280 really kind of shows uh it's a it's a little twinkle a little nod towards the olden ways

04:48:15.680 i think the yule elf kind of you know given that wink i got the wassail and i got the

04:48:22.080 the the holly wreath and i've got the yule bach and i'll be back when you guys are ready

04:48:30.320 all right so swan tell us about day nine so uh with with lord othen taking stead this kind of

04:48:42.480 comes about from saxo grammaticus's account in which he says that ruler takes the throne

04:48:51.080 and that uh lord olden leaves the story of the uemera your your hemorrhized version um it could

04:48:59.800 be however you take it but it kind of comes from that that's where the inspiration from that was

04:49:07.160 so when lord othen takes over heaven ullr or the hunting season ullr steps down and the hunting

04:49:15.720 season ends. This, uh, kind of, again, coincides completely with hunting season, especially my

04:49:22.980 area. Uh, it ends it a little earlier. I know that, uh, in my area, I think the hunting season

04:49:28.200 ends technically, uh, in the very early days of January, but, um, from winter finding to Uler's

04:49:37.300 night during Yule is the hunting season. So by this time, it is a time to, first off, give honor

04:49:46.860 to Ullr, the lord of the hunt, and generally any venison or duck or any sort of animals, or even

04:49:56.620 two, I would say, frozen pieces that you might be trying to move out because the new season brought

04:50:03.640 new stuff in, this is the night that it's cooked. This is the night that, you know, you'll find

04:50:09.940 foul and wild game and, you know, exotic meats are kind of eaten on this night.

04:50:21.880 And another big thing is, so you're holding a bloat and you hold dinner. If you have hunting

04:50:30.020 equipment or or what have you either during the day or after bloat and after dinner when the kids

04:50:36.660 go to bed cleaning the weapons um i utilize this day i do it during the day and i i usually will

04:50:45.140 uh get my son with me and i'll get the youngest one later when he's a little older but

04:50:50.740 um and show him how to clean weapons show him how to clean a rifle how to clean the pistols um and

04:50:57.700 reiterate safety reiterate responsibility reiterate again um our sacred duty to our

04:51:05.060 self-defense and uh to being you know um moral and prudent people um and so you know with with

04:51:14.820 that that responsibility um i will go through everything from firearm safety to cleaning and

04:51:23.140 And understanding even, you know, munitions and ballistics and utilize it as a day to really show the boys how to, you know, protect themselves or understand and get a healthy respect.

04:51:41.780 Sometimes I'll go to the range. A lot of times during this time of year, the ranges are, are not very busy. So I kind of look at it as a day to go and support local shooting range and, or maybe just do some plinking with a 22 and then go and clean it with my son and show him that you got to, you know, maintain your weapons.

04:52:01.840 But Uller's Night is kind of the ending of a cycle.

04:52:07.600 And so oftentimes I'll, you know, late at night when everyone's gone to bed, you know,

04:52:15.680 maybe perhaps sit down, take apart a weapon, clean it, and really put things back together

04:52:21.540 and really think about the responsibility and the duty and the honor of being able to use and maintain and clean a weapon for, you know, food and for self-defense.

04:52:37.620 So Uller's night can be, I've always made it more educational.

04:52:43.060 It wasn't necessarily a community night.

04:52:44.940 Not a lot of folks come over on that night at my house, but that's just because it's more about what we have there and passing on that knowledge to my sons.

04:52:59.940 So.

04:53:03.340 In Steve's days of Yule, this is the day that we celebrate truth.

04:53:07.820 so that manifests in our lives throughout the year in a lot of different ways

04:53:18.460 certainly in our honesty and dealing with each other absolutely

04:53:25.940 but one really important way

04:53:30.260 that's easy to lose sight of or to not be aware of unless you constantly

04:53:39.420 have a check-in is are you honest with yourself

04:53:45.660 when taking stock of things perhaps of any of these days

04:53:55.940 This is one of the more introspective ones on, are you honest with yourself on your self-assessment?

04:54:07.740 Are you honest with yourself on your strengths, on your weaknesses, on things you could have done better or different?

04:54:17.340 Or honestly, on things that you know damn well you did right and other people didn't like.

04:54:25.940 the honest self-reflection is really important one of the best things I ever picked up out of

04:54:33.140 Nine Doors of Midgard which is a really really good book by the way when I've had clergy students

04:54:41.720 I've always asked them to keep a journal and this is completely taken from there

04:54:48.500 um and dr flowers recommends in there that you keep this journal of you know basically good

04:54:57.300 things about yourself and bad things about yourself that you want to improve on and check

04:55:02.020 back in with that periodically to see what progress you've made it's a very good time to do that

04:55:09.060 i still have the one i made

04:55:10.580 like seven years ago now or something and to look back on and see

04:55:18.580 what areas i've improved on what areas maybe i haven't improved on

04:55:24.380 um perceived strengths then versus perceived strengths now

04:55:30.160 that frequent check-in with where you are versus where you were in in relation to where you want

04:55:40.360 to be is only effective if it's honest but being truthful with ourselves and when we hear this

04:55:52.300 it's easy to only hear like be brutally honest about your flaws do that absolutely do that

04:56:02.760 But be brutally honest about your strengths, too. Having an honest assessment of yourself helps you strategize in the entire rest of your life on how you deal with others, on how you internalize events in your life.

04:56:20.860 So a lot of, especially a lot of Steve's days here, are for introspection and improvement on yourself.

04:56:33.080 And I think that truth is a really powerful one of those themes to focus on.

04:56:45.920 The question that we have sitting here is, gentlemen, very informative stream.

04:56:50.860 what's the afa stance on thorfinn carl sefni i know our stance on leaf erickson

04:56:59.500 and him being a traitor to our gods essentially curious about thorfinn thanks

04:57:06.540 fun uh swan do you have thoughts and feelings about thorfinn yeah i

04:57:11.740 I, well, so I don't think religiosity towards him is as grievous as it is towards Lever because Lever specifically kind of thumbed in his, in his father's eye, uh, especially in relation to his mother.

04:57:31.060 You know, the story goes that, you know, Leif converted his mother to Christianity, and that was kind of an extra step on, you know, it said that she would not give him affections because he was of the older faith.

04:57:51.280 And there's the story that he wanted to build, or she wanted him to build her a chapel on the land, and he couldn't stand the old faith, so he threw an axe over a hill so that she would be somewhere else when she was doing stuff like that.

04:58:06.840 And I think that that has a particular bitterness to it.

04:58:12.420 But the falling of, you know, Vidland in its own self, and I think just that time in general, the conversion and the time in which, you know, people were kind of mixing the faith.

04:58:31.320 I don't know.

04:58:32.100 I think it's a little bit more egregious when we talk about Leif.

04:58:36.840 as opposed to the accomplishments that thorfinn made as and uh i don't know was was he involved

04:58:45.240 i'm trying to remember if he was involved with uh the whale as i'm the whale the beached whale

04:58:56.680 uh in relation to thor and the story about food yeah starvation that's the one yeah um

04:59:07.220 i don't remember the details i'm still

04:59:11.840 a little uh shaky on it it's been a while um wait did he

04:59:21.160 when he was talking about the bounty,

04:59:25.460 he asked the Gothi to

04:59:26.760 see if he would get something

04:59:30.940 from the gods and a whale

04:59:32.580 had beached itself?

04:59:40.440 I believe so.

04:59:41.840 As I recall, it's been a long time.

04:59:44.280 It's been a while.

04:59:46.720 Let me see real quick.

04:59:51.160 I remember him going to Markland and Vinland, and I think he had the two Scottish slaves that were the first to actually step foot in Vinland.

05:00:04.940 yep

05:00:17.940 it's

05:00:18.400 let me see

05:00:21.280 I can't find

05:00:31.800 I mean because all I have to remember is

05:00:33.700 right now is

05:00:35.400 the stepping of the slaves

05:00:38.080 and him in Vinland

05:00:39.020 but I keep thinking

05:00:41.900 of the whale story

05:00:43.380 and I'm trying to think if there's something

05:00:49.640 in relation specifically to our faith

05:00:51.780 the Greenlander saga

05:01:00.760 this would be one I'm going to have to

05:01:02.860 i would have to like sit down i don't remember there being that much of a bitterness towards him

05:01:09.660 in relation to the faith as there was with life labor because of his relationship with his father

05:01:18.300 and of course this all correlates with you know the when when uh eric the red got outcast from

05:01:25.500 iceland and had to go with his son to greenland and but he had already established trade routes

05:01:32.460 there um and i don't even remember i i'm almost positive the conversion of his mother and that

05:01:38.860 whole situation happened in greenland so it was after they left iceland and i think as they became

05:01:43.980 more remote greenland being founded by kind of young upstart um like they were kind of following

05:01:55.180 this foreign faith coming in, Greenland had a lot more of a Christian overtones than even Iceland

05:02:04.340 did, strangely enough. And I think that might have also really been because there was an outside

05:02:10.380 force of Inuits and there might have been some sort of drive there, as there seems to be that

05:02:17.640 the Greenlanders and the Inuits traded a lot and mixed a lot. And I wonder if that was from kind

05:02:24.600 of a universal sense or a conversion drive amongst the Greenlanders, as opposed to where

05:02:30.820 Iceland was already established. Reykjavik was found based off of Ausatru, like, tenants.

05:02:42.560 And so it was already long established there, and it was very slow to turn over, as opposed

05:02:50.500 where greenland was like oh it's a new land and well we're gonna we're all you know part of the

05:02:55.860 the faith from rome so we'll be able to you know uh kind of do what we want here

05:03:04.980 nobody's gonna be able to say it

05:03:09.620 um yeah i really don't remember a lot about it honestly um i'm furiously trying to look it up

05:03:17.220 over here or whatnot um uh yeah so he's re-emphasizing there too about just being

05:03:28.420 the first to discover uh vinland and mark linden well so here's the thing um

05:03:38.100 the issue with leith and with anyone of that generation if you are raised

05:03:44.500 ausitru and you reject ausitru to become a christian you are literally a traitor to the

05:03:49.220 gods and we oppose you and wish bad things on you um if that is not the case then we don't

05:04:00.260 by your last comment i'm assuming that somehow he's not uh if he remained ausitru and

05:04:11.540 then of course we don't have a problem with them the problem that we run into is

05:04:22.260 leaf was a viking guy who did cool stuff that's fine there's a lot of those but

05:04:30.660 amongst the cool stuff that he did he also betrayed our gods

05:04:34.420 and in so in so doing alienated diskin and other things but

05:04:42.900 as an house true church we don't just celebrate white people who do cool stuff

05:04:49.940 we celebrate people who are are loyal and faithful to our gods certainly in other times

05:04:56.180 we celebrate people who were not house true because there wasn't a viable option for them

05:05:01.420 in the 1500s

05:05:03.640 or whatever, but

05:05:05.040 a person of the generation that went

05:05:07.320 from Ausatru

05:05:08.220 to

05:05:09.560 letting Ausatru die and

05:05:13.160 embracing Christianity, we absolutely

05:05:15.180 take a hard stance against that across

05:05:17.220 the board. I don't recall Thorfinn's

05:05:19.680 religious predilections

05:05:21.420 and a quick

05:05:22.200 Google search doesn't tell me.

05:05:25.760 That's why I threw it to Svan

05:05:27.080 first so I could Google it

05:05:29.160 and try to find a good answer on it

05:05:31.020 and i and i can't let go but that's our issue with with leaf uh if thorfinn is the same way

05:05:37.580 then we have the same issue if he is not then we do not respond you have follow-up yeah that would

05:05:43.500 i mean because i know that they were together i know that him and labor like sailed together um

05:05:51.900 and i remember the beach whale story very much so and i think there's religious

05:05:56.380 connotation in that part of the story in which there's like a christian and an also true or man

05:06:03.260 and they like the also term and praise the thor and the beach whale shows up but i i always get

05:06:09.960 that confused i can't remember if that was in greenland or if that was in iceland though i don't

05:06:19.240 think it was in iceland but i'm i'm like never sure on that one yet um and i have to

05:06:25.100 like read into it to get back to the details of it um i don't know i mean him and labor were

05:06:31.660 together and even though i know labor like headed expeditions clearly to greenland and he was there

05:06:38.620 at markland i don't know or if perhaps you're saying he would be a better substitute um as

05:06:47.180 to give honor as the one of the as an absolute true hero but i can't remember his religious

05:06:56.380 leanings and i don't know if labor was that much of a twat that he wouldn't be friends with an

05:07:03.500 an outsider i mean i'm sure he had to have been because i'm sure there were people that might have

05:07:10.620 you know just didn't agree with him uh maybe far more able than his elderly parents by the

05:07:15.900 the time he kind of converted his mom and stuff like that i just remember it being a point of

05:07:20.060 contention more so with leif than with thorfinn so i don't i'd have to look at that yeah without

05:07:28.540 knowing dolphins particulars i can't and immediately the whale the whale part of the saga

05:07:35.080 is where i would focus because for some reason in my head i remember there being something like that

05:07:41.340 because there was that was the thing and the point was you know the outsider were like ah

05:07:46.580 this is thor has blessed us with this whale i don't recall thorfinn's which side of that he

05:07:56.340 fell on so yeah yeah there was a lot of stories like that i think and some people speculated that

05:08:02.660 they may have been additions by the time they were written down or that the details were additions

05:08:07.320 i remember them like there was a a berserker and he there was a christian that was like show your

05:08:14.920 faith by walking over this fire and he put iron in the coal so that when the berserker walked

05:08:20.960 over they melted his feet or and i think that has a lot to go back to um the bible in which

05:08:28.380 there was a like a a showdown between a rabbi and a canaanite priest and it kind of

05:08:35.680 airs that same thing but i i don't remember yeah in specific relations with that saga

05:08:43.520 other than i remember the way i will look into this and try to get to the bottom of it

05:08:47.520 um in the meantime swan tell us about day 10.

05:08:54.320 okay so yeah we're moving into day 10. um this is like a big night uh at my house

05:09:05.600 a lot of people come over, not all of them are even Ausitre. They just, they're like,

05:09:09.960 this is one of those nights they come over and they're like, oh, you guys are still doing

05:09:13.080 something. And it's, it's, uh, the brewing night, uh, when I brewed a lot of mead and I, I used to

05:09:19.400 brew a lot, um, uh, Thor's night. So Thor's night is the night in which we pitch yeast for,

05:09:29.100 into the must for me that will be utilized during um austra so should be ready by then

05:09:37.900 so another way to kind of continue on from one year to the next or the turning time

05:09:43.420 was to make mead on thor's night so generally uh even it's to the point where we take off work and

05:09:52.300 come to the house and get our you know cleaning buckets and clean all the buckets out clean it

05:09:57.660 all the stirrers and and uh sometimes we had mead that needed to be racked so we would rack mead and

05:10:04.460 pitch yeast and drink um glue vine or drink uh mulled mead and store-bought stuff and

05:10:14.220 big thing too is i would always cook like lamb that was the big thing icelandic style

05:10:20.380 and golden potatoes. So a traditional Icelandic meal that my mother used to cook, I would cook

05:10:30.100 it on that night. And again, it's kind of like hearkening towards Thoroblot. But yeah, so it was

05:10:37.320 a a night to of of you know rompus drinking and brewing i i would give gifts to through uh

05:10:49.480 daughter of thor of course as her being the the uh oust veneer over um brewing and ask her for

05:10:57.480 because she's the she's the good strength if you will um and i always would give an offering to

05:11:04.520 her for a clean brew um and then of course hold bloat to thor and just eat copious amounts of lamb

05:11:15.720 and potatoes and sometimes it would get funny i remember a couple years back well actually more

05:11:21.160 than a couple years back but uh where you know we've done doing all the meat and just uh the the

05:11:30.440 the the horns were deep and uh it got to the point where we're doing like feats of strength we're

05:11:37.320 lifting kettlebells and and and uh i made a yoke a a wooden yoke that had chains that would hold

05:11:46.680 45 pound kettlebells and see how many times people could press it over their heads or or do squats

05:11:52.040 and it was it was pretty fun i mean it could be a day as simple in let's say for instance if you're

05:11:57.640 doing it by yourself or you it could be a day of self-improvement it could be a day to go to the

05:12:01.960 gym it could be a day to um get yourself ready for you know the new year new you um kind of uh

05:12:12.600 idea you know go to the gym and and give piety and strength um but i always had it kind of more

05:12:20.520 as a it was a mead and lamb night uh golden potatoes are just yellow potatoes that are um

05:12:28.040 rolled in sugar that's been melted down and it kind of makes a makes them like a golden crust

05:12:34.440 and then we would eat a lots of lamb with a jelly and drink it was it was good it was

05:12:43.640 i i don't drink now so generally it's a big night for me to cook i like to cook

05:12:48.440 and i like to uh put a lot of food down on the table and and get to eating and and having a good

05:12:54.760 time with the kids and generally i'll tell stories because tons of stories of uh the the storm father

05:13:02.360 so it's a fun night it sounds like it so this night is the night to focus on steadfastness

05:13:18.440 Wow. And this night and the next night, you'll see, it's tricky to find the nuance difference, I guess.

05:13:38.780 This is one of the most important values for Al-Sachua. It's one of the most important values for a man.

05:13:48.440 your ability to stand for what you believe in, even when there's opposition.

05:13:55.920 We are very used to a very easy life to where there's not consequence.

05:14:04.120 We don't like when there's consequence.

05:14:07.040 We don't like when there is a cost to stand up for something that is valuable to you.

05:14:12.480 Now, we're unaccustomed to, we're accustomed and we're unconditioned to being able to stand, to weather the storm, to take the hit and keep trucking.

05:14:26.760 most often the first sign of opposition

05:14:30.880 or discomfort

05:14:32.060 people in our

05:14:35.000 in this wolf age tend to have

05:14:36.940 a tendency to fold

05:14:38.460 and to

05:14:39.780 as the kids say these days to cuck

05:14:43.240 that's the thing

05:14:48.060 to our ancestors

05:14:52.980 if you

05:14:54.520 turned and ran

05:14:56.780 when you faced opposition,

05:15:00.460 Tacitus

05:15:00.940 put that in the same

05:15:02.700 category as homosexuals

05:15:05.200 in the sense that

05:15:06.740 they were

05:15:07.380 mashed down into the bog

05:15:11.000 because the

05:15:12.760 idea of it was so

05:15:14.360 just shameful

05:15:16.620 and distasteful that

05:15:18.700 they wanted that not to be seen.

05:15:20.620 um cowardice in the face of opposition was it wasn't even like you defame the person make an

05:15:34.700 example out of them there were people that that was part of the judicial code that you did

05:15:40.460 but this was so just off-putting that they wanted all traces of it eliminated so it wasn't

05:15:50.300 something to to dwell on um it's easy to

05:16:02.700 stand back in the distance and pound your chest and talk about what an awesome viking warrior you

05:16:07.980 are it's also easy for us to judge people who get scared but all of these different values

05:16:17.260 that we talked about during the yule celebration

05:16:20.920 they synergize are we honest with ourselves and where we are with our level level of steadfastness

05:16:31.720 or courage to be steadfast and if we are honest and we find ourselves wanting what can we do in

05:16:39.680 the next year to make that better what can we do in the next year to be able to stand stronger

05:16:47.120 and that's not a it's not a one and done thing it's a lifetime of conditioning ourselves to

05:16:55.520 stand in the face of opposition

05:16:58.700 and not to give ground when we find consequence for standing for our values

05:17:08.740 it is very much easier said than done but it's essential and it's one of those fundamentals that

05:17:15.260 makes a man

05:17:17.320 a person of worth

05:17:19.280 or a person without worth

05:17:20.760 one thing

05:17:23.280 I have seen in my time in Ausatru

05:17:25.220 is

05:17:26.960 the guys that

05:17:29.040 talk about

05:17:30.380 guys who talk a big

05:17:35.200 game who often look the part

05:17:37.440 who

05:17:38.160 you know are brawlers

05:17:41.520 and ex-con guys

05:17:43.560 and whatever else

05:17:45.240 very often those guys are the quickest

05:17:49.560 to fold when scrutiny and discomfort face them

05:17:53.600 I've also seen guys that you wouldn't expect much out of at all

05:17:57.820 that seem physically weak

05:18:01.460 that seem socially

05:18:04.420 unadept

05:18:07.460 that have been stalwart and solid

05:18:11.860 as a rock in the face of the storm

05:18:14.580 and have never given an inch.

05:18:20.300 It's strange because the ability to be steadfast is...

05:18:36.780 It's funny because all of these things go together,

05:18:39.740 and what's the difference between courage, steadfastness, and loyalty?

05:18:43.460 they're all very very similar the difference is very subtle the ability to remain steadfast in

05:18:51.420 the face of discomfort or in the face of opposition is one of the most fundamental things

05:19:02.100 that okay so i'll do this i know i'm hemming and hawing over this because finding the detail

05:19:08.640 points between these two things are really different. We talk all in common parlance

05:19:15.660 when we're like, ah, he's a good guy. He's a good man. That very often means that someone

05:19:22.520 is nice or they're not particularly offensive or they don't do mean things to be. That's

05:19:33.820 not the same as a good man. That person is not actively doing bad things. Being neutral, like

05:19:41.380 not being bad, doesn't make you good. What makes you good is you yourself being virtuous.

05:19:49.280 Your ability to stand fast or to be steadfast is one of those key characteristics that separates

05:19:57.620 a good man from a non-offensive man um and that's a key we we call someone a good a good guy way too

05:20:09.460 often when we just you know if we don't have sufficient reason to dislike them they're a good

05:20:15.780 guy no they're not there may be a neutral guy they're at best they're a you know baseline guy

05:20:24.740 your value as a man has so much to do with your ability to stand fast

05:20:30.500 i need to be steadfast we'll talk more about very similar concepts on the following day

05:20:42.580 so spawn take us to day 11.

05:20:45.220 ah well this is a lanvetier's night or land white's night and this is a

05:20:56.260 particular one that's good it's fun for the children and it begins to

05:21:02.080 hearken towards the end of yule and generally it's celebrated with a bloat i usually do it

05:21:11.020 right at sundown um while there's still some light outside so not always deep into the night and I

05:21:19.420 it's one of the only um yule bloats that I will conduct outside and it's specifically you know if

05:21:27.100 you have a shrine to the land whites um I have a hedgerow it's very very long and um it's that's

05:21:34.600 the best place for me where i i hang up take ribbons and hang up um oat cakes or um another

05:21:46.120 one is that we've done which was pretty successful was taking pine cones and swathing them in peanut

05:21:52.520 butter and bird seed and hanging those up like little mini yule trees throughout the hedgerow

05:21:59.240 for the animals and holding uh a gifting of the land spirits the kids love this one it is

05:22:06.760 it's fun it's a great way to just pay homage to the land hopefully by this time through you'll

05:22:12.840 you're you know taking care of your your area you're winterizing you're putting things away

05:22:19.080 organized all your wood pile is set everything is all your duties are kind of done with

05:22:24.840 so by this time it's just giving thanks and honor if you have an outdoor um horg or um

05:22:33.640 again if you have a sacred tree you know putting down ribbons uh putting in you know little on the

05:22:40.760 ends of the ribbons prayers or um you know writing in runic or um things that are kind of gifted to

05:22:49.320 the air if you will the air and the earth are kind of uh highly prized here but again it's it's a it's

05:22:56.920 another day that harkens back to the tradition of ornamentally giving thanks to trees outside

05:23:03.880 to um you know even if it let's say if you don't have a lot of forest or trees nearby the idea of

05:23:11.480 placing out gifts for the animals or the birds maybe on the outside of your property along a

05:23:21.600 fence line or on a fence post or up on a pole even if you don't have anything let's say you're

05:23:27.640 or at a roof or a stoop generally it takes the form of giving gifts to birds because

05:23:35.640 when you're consider other things or squirrels or things of that nature um obviously like if

05:23:42.140 you're living in the city you don't want to have a lot of pests coming at your house so you know

05:23:47.500 go to the park and leave an offering or something of that nature there's a lot of ways you could do

05:23:53.000 it depending on if you're rural or living in an urban kind of environment you just don't have the

05:23:58.840 ability to get out into the wilds or you don't have anything near your house um going to a park

05:24:04.980 and laying out offerings uh hanging apple slices hanging uh bird seed hanging oat cakes or even

05:24:14.100 just little like sugar cookies if you will um for the animals uh in the middle of the winter

05:24:21.700 that's really what this is kind of about is is giving them that midwinter uh bump if you will

05:24:29.220 and uh kind of yeah just having fun with the children i think that's the the one remarkable

05:24:35.940 thing that it's turned into is kind of doing some crafts with the kids and hanging them up in the

05:24:41.060 trees and and giving honor to the land whites and just having fun on that on that day it's a

05:24:47.220 a another one of the children's days if you will a lot of the times so the theme for day 11 is loyalty

05:24:59.220 I think the difference between loyalty and steadfastness, and again, this is a failing of language, steadfastness is loyalty to principle, whereas loyalty is loyalty to a person.

05:25:25.200 And I think a person, you can expand that to the gods, just a being.

05:25:38.980 Standing for a principle is one thing, and it's the ramifications are a little bit different, and the mental justifications are also different.

05:25:51.700 staying loyal to a person is

05:25:57.340 any of these virtues aren't important unless they're capable of withstanding a test

05:26:07.160 you're not loyal to someone if you are a fair weather friend you're loyal to them

05:26:15.580 if you stand by them when it's difficult to do so,

05:26:19.780 if you stand by them when you are upset with them,

05:26:23.600 if you stand by them when there's consequence,

05:26:26.560 if you stand by them if it is unpopular to do so.

05:26:32.460 Something that is a big symptom of our soul sickness as a people

05:26:40.880 is there's almost a virtue in neutrality.

05:26:45.580 There's a celebration of, well, you know, I don't like to take sides.

05:26:51.260 Then you're worthless.

05:26:54.000 Literally.

05:26:56.060 Take a side.

05:26:57.420 I respect my enemy much more than I respect the guy that just, I don't want to pick a side.

05:27:04.200 I'm everybody's friend.

05:27:07.340 No, that guy has literally zero value.

05:27:09.720 an enemy may have legitimate reasons or strength of character or an issue over principle they take

05:27:19.900 an opposite side but people who just don't want to get involved they just want to be left alone

05:27:24.860 those people lack the fundamentals that make a man a man and it's one of those things that

05:27:36.760 I think, you know, it's easy to see in a man-on-man, inherently martial conception of the world.

05:27:45.920 You see it with women, too.

05:27:50.280 Standing by your friends and against your enemies has a value.

05:27:57.220 you refusing to choose a side is the least possible character it's you

05:28:07.700 hedging your bets just in case whoever wins you're on the side where people are gonna

05:28:17.740 be nice to you and you're going to be able to parasitically exist on that on that kindness

05:28:25.300 the quote that's always bandied about in this regard is is a friend to all is a friend to none

05:28:39.920 and that's profoundly truthful

05:28:44.120 ousatru is literally about loyalty it's in the name it's in the word

05:28:57.160 if you well i don't take sides you know

05:29:01.360 you're not ousatru you're not anything true you are lacking in character take a side

05:29:12.620 Stand with your friends, pick your foes, and engage in life.

05:29:22.860 If you're standing on the sideline waiting to see where everything settles, it's extremely disgraceful and it's antithetical to everything that we stand for.

05:29:36.880 And what is true of that, that I don't think these people realize, they are not valued.

05:29:58.200 by whoever they end up on the winning side of everyone knows what where you stood or where

05:30:06.920 you didn't stand and the victor factors that in

05:30:12.320 it's really tempting to live your life that way

05:30:20.680 but it's hard because everyone universally does not respect that

05:30:29.000 we may give lip service to that in the wolf age of wokeness

05:30:35.820 but deep down everybody knows

05:30:40.580 um I've seen that in uh I've seen that in racial conflicts where you'll have a group of of

05:30:55.520 a group of blacks and a group of whites and you'll have liberal woke white guy on the side

05:31:04.260 that doesn't stand with his guys it's like ah you know I don't I don't have a side

05:31:08.960 neither side respects you when you do that i've seen both sides respect members on the other team

05:31:18.860 after everything's said and done because that person was down for theirs

05:31:26.100 if you're the guy sitting on the sidelines that's not win or lose neither side respects you

05:31:35.580 And we see far too much of that in this day and age.

05:31:42.580 We see far too much of it specifically against our people or with our people.

05:31:49.580 And it's a frequent disappointment, unfortunately.

05:32:00.540 i hope that collectively we can all get better at that and we can encourage our folk and the folks

05:32:08.860 we know to have the strength of character to choose a side and to stand with it and stand with

05:32:18.860 their friends against opposition

05:32:21.740 um part of this is a uh non-confrontationalism that i think has been bred into us in recent years

05:32:34.340 to where we we constantly want to avoid rocking the boat or having a conflict

05:32:42.140 everyone instinctively knows

05:32:47.180 that if you have a conflict and this is a thing again young men don't have this as much these

05:32:54.620 days in my life when i've been in fights if you show up and you stand your ground and you fight

05:33:03.740 and you do do what you got to do the end of the day you can get up and look the other guy in the

05:33:09.880 eye and be good on the other side there can be respect between men if you don't and you're not

05:33:20.600 able to stand up for yourself or for your friends or for your family or for the people that you're

05:33:25.400 supposed to be loyal to that's remembered and it's remembered on an instinctual level

05:33:32.760 to where the woke media has taught us not to say it out loud but we all know it internally

05:33:39.880 and you can very quickly find yourself on the opposite end of worth. I think that I'm

05:33:48.040 just belaboring the point but it's an epidemic these days and I think it's really important

05:33:55.000 for us to focus on. And then Svahn, can you tell us about day 12?

05:34:02.040 i knew you've been waiting for this one got to yeah all right so one of the things that's worth

05:34:11.880 noting is um this is the last night the 31st it's it's frayer's day lord frayer's day or um sometimes

05:34:22.120 together with with his with lady freya um it is the joyous day and it has some

05:34:28.760 connotations back to anglo-saxon traditions of the ending of the wild hunt also meaning a physical

05:34:36.920 wild hunt that happened during yule and that a boar was slain and the boar's head as a key central

05:34:45.760 point of the feast what that translates in modern sense and uh this isn't like a an idea this is

05:34:53.620 just something, this is something I do. And, uh, I, a lot of people that have ever known me have

05:34:59.440 has known that I've practiced Yule this way is I go to the butcher shop and I try to get a boar's

05:35:04.840 head, a pig's head, um, for this celebration. And, uh, on this night, generally the, the,

05:35:15.980 meal and the bloat are almost one. It's like the bloat begins the meal. And I spend the day

05:35:25.100 cooking. I'll score the pig's head, lather it in butter and salt and put it into the oven to where

05:35:32.040 the skin becomes almost like crispy bacon. The jowls are generally eaten. I cook the tongue as

05:35:40.080 well and chop that up and eat it with jelly and jams. And, um, it is phenomenal. Uh, basically,

05:35:47.360 if you like bacon and pork chops, you're in, and, and maybe chicharrones or, uh, you know, like, um,

05:35:55.420 crispy belly fat, it's right in all of there. It's really, really good. It's just in a way that

05:36:02.160 you're not normally used to seeing it, which is in the, in the form, uh, its head is there, but, um,

05:36:07.860 um generally the center of the feasting table um if anybody's on me we and they go and look back

05:36:15.040 you can see all of this that i did last year um but this uh this night is about

05:36:24.180 wealth bounty and hopefulness of the new year so one of the first things that

05:36:30.760 that we do is uh we're you know with the with the bloats and with the feast um it harkens

05:36:39.380 at the end what we'll do is after we eat we take the fire from the the flame and we light a brand

05:36:47.040 and we take it outside and we've already stacked up in our fire pit a big uh pile of wood and we

05:36:54.320 light that on fire and that is the final flame and end of yule and i'm telling you by the time

05:37:01.980 you're done uh if you've kept your your flame alight or if it went out and you had to get

05:37:07.200 community to come and help out generally this is a great night a lot of times what will happen is

05:37:12.760 we'll do bloat to lord fray and ask for good bounty and prosperity for the year and

05:37:19.880 wealth and all good things. Um, sometimes people will take oaths and put their hands upon the

05:37:27.220 boar's head and make an oath for the next year. This is a, um, an ancient tradition that's marked

05:37:34.460 down as, uh, of course, placing oaths on, on the boar's head. If you look it up, um, there's some

05:37:40.580 interesting lore about that, but generally what it has become is kind of like our new year's

05:37:46.140 resolutions are placed upon it. Um, generally we have a, uh, uh, like I last year I, I did

05:37:53.900 one till mid summer and, uh, also to placing down a where guild, uh, if you don't make

05:38:00.220 your, your resolution, what are you willing to pay in lieu of your not meeting the mark

05:38:07.600 of your oath. And so a lot of times it has to do with that or, and my, my sons get involved.

05:38:14.080 my daughter gets involved they um they make an oath and generally their oath is

05:38:18.760 uh for instance one of my children offered to help at a animal shelter uh for the year

05:38:25.500 and they stuck to it mainly because we had to drive them there but um they were going to make

05:38:32.340 it and so we you know they held true to their oath through the year and so little things like

05:38:36.860 that um in which they kind of imbue upon them a duty and that duty is to make something better

05:38:44.540 or to achieve something and you generally place down a wereguild of uh you know what you might

05:38:51.080 have to do i think with them it was some sort of chore that they would undertake if they never made

05:38:56.300 it throughout the uh the year and again that fire lighting that boon fire sometimes we would hop it

05:39:03.840 sometimes it'll blow horns. Um, it's just a, it's a testament to keeping that flame for 12 days

05:39:10.120 and getting to light that fire and finally put out your light, uh, on your candle is like a huge,

05:39:17.700 uh, win. So, you know, uh, one of the things worth noting to about the construction of the 12 days,

05:39:26.260 a couple of things. One, I think the 12 days comes from the, so there's the Eucharist and

05:39:32.720 the idea that on the 25th, some Christian groups will go 12 days until they celebrate something

05:39:38.940 called Three Kings Day. Whether or not that is old Yule infused over Christianity or Christianity

05:39:49.420 has influenced us is a great question. I don't know where the 12 days specifically comes from

05:39:57.280 in relation to the three kings day but i know that 12 has significance and the reason why we

05:40:03.320 choose to do 12 days is kind of again the micro to macro of the year before 12 months 12 moons

05:40:10.780 12 days of yule it all at the 12 holy gods there's a lot in relation to that and 24

05:40:18.980 so there's uh that that number repeats over and over and over again so one other thing

05:40:27.220 too is that uh in the construction you might notice that there's like sunday monday tuesday

05:40:32.740 wednesday thursday on that on those upper uh and phrase day there's people out there that'll be

05:40:38.580 like well actually and you are correct phrase day is not not actually it's we know scholastically

05:40:47.620 that it was most likely freyes or freeze day meaning the anglo-saxon name or germanic name

05:40:55.060 for frigga but mother's night is dedicated to frigga so phrase day became very very just obvious

05:41:07.060 in relation to the the boar's head and making an oath and then of course new year's resolutions and

05:41:13.700 it kind of all integrated together creating that so yes we know that's the correct way

05:41:20.180 But Friggas got the first day in Yule and Lord Frey and the feast with eating ham is correct.

05:41:32.620 Uh-oh.

05:41:33.820 It's not the correct way.

05:41:36.160 It is one way that our ancient ancestors celebrated the 12th day.

05:41:43.580 i know um i just i always kind of have to play for the i guess the basement wizards or

05:41:52.740 whatever it is it's just somebody's gonna say and i know because i know but it works out well

05:41:59.500 and this is what it's turned into this is how it's evolved

05:42:02.660 i picture that guy being chris farley like adjusting his belt

05:42:12.040 um the black room classes yeah we we don't need to cater to the basement wizards um they can put

05:42:23.320 put a basement hex on you if they have the magical gravitas they perhaps have the physical gravitas

05:42:33.800 that said a couple questions

05:42:36.280 where can one find a pig face

05:42:44.780 oh easy got attached to a pig obviously aside from that what i i found was um well here in

05:42:55.780 the south i know i know that um pork and and butcher shops a lot of um uh you know uh swine

05:43:04.220 is sold at most butcher shops so like i found a place called central meats and they're a just a

05:43:10.940 local um uh you know butcher shop slash uh i think they actually process the animals

05:43:19.580 um there um but they're not far off like it's it's a 20 minute drive um you can go to butcher

05:43:28.540 shops and find them. If you're not able to, you know, some, some online places in, I've seen

05:43:37.900 people actually get like frozen ones from meat packing places online, but sometimes they'll get

05:43:46.280 a half. So it's only half a boar's head on the plate. And that's good too. Cause I find sometimes

05:43:53.220 the whole is a little bit too much but uh like just eating one half i know in iceland we do the

05:43:59.860 same thing with lamb's head um but the idea is uh really is of the the the jowl meat which is about

05:44:06.420 the size of a large pork chop that's really what you're you're trying to eat and the skin the skin

05:44:12.100 when you cook it right it's like a crispy um uh bacon pork rind kind of combo pork jowl is amazing

05:44:21.220 yeah um i didn't realize that until i lived in florida pork rind is is fantastic uh or pork jowl

05:44:28.660 was fantastic um so how much does a pig face cost you uh so the one that i buy full full size

05:44:40.580 depending on weight can fluctuate anywhere between thirty dollars and fifty dollars

05:44:45.620 that was uh i got a pretty heavy one and you don't have a lot of i didn't have a lot of choices like

05:44:52.480 they might have only like two or three on hand and that's they don't really sell them that often

05:44:57.560 and um at this point they kind of know either me or my wife coming in there they know

05:45:03.080 why we're there because it's i mean that's the only time i ever go into that that that particular

05:45:08.860 one because there's another butcher shop that's really close to me so that if i wanted cuts i go

05:45:14.120 there but i mean this is a it does harken back to the ancient tradition of the wild hunt and

05:45:25.400 the hunting of the of the winter boar and placing absolutely it does it's funny and i laugh at it i

05:45:32.280 really want to do that this year and i mean to every year and don't get around to it so like

05:45:37.240 i'm looking on my phone for local butcher shops of the things this is probably the most traditional

05:45:43.640 that we've talked about is you know having the boar's hat we've all seen those you know old-timey

05:45:52.360 paintings and things you have the pig's head with the apple in it

05:45:57.080 thing yeah sometimes stuff in the ears okay so then then comes how do you prepare the big face

05:46:05.400 okay so there's a couple ways you can do it and um really what i i will you can cook it in

05:46:12.280 in a tightly wrapped foiled tray uh and then afterwards pull it off pull off the foil and

05:46:19.480 um you can um place butter on it then scoring the skin slightly in x patterns makes better

05:46:27.400 grip for butter and salt sometimes um getting soft butter or room temperature butter and mixing it

05:46:33.400 with salt and then pasting it on and then uh sticking it back in the oven and then the last

05:46:40.360 like 10 minutes you want to do a broiler and the only reason why i say it's sometimes the ears will

05:46:46.760 get singed if you put it in for too long but that that crisping with the butter is the key and

05:46:54.120 that's like an you know 20 minutes so you end up baking it in the oven at 350 for a while but

05:47:04.360 there's not a ton of meat on it it's it it's really only in here the most of it is skin

05:47:09.640 so it's not as bad as you might think uh the only thing is if you get it frozen you might have to do

05:47:16.600 either longer just to thaw it out or if you thaw it out in your fridge the night before

05:47:22.280 depends on when you get it uh if i i had to do one really really fast from frozen so what i did

05:47:28.360 is i actually took a lobster pot and stuck it in warm water boiled it uh until it was completely

05:47:36.040 softened and then pulled it out scored the skin and then did the oven and that took about an hour

05:47:41.720 and a half two hours and then that last 20 30 minutes to really really crisp the skin there's

05:47:49.400 a lot of recipes online too surprisingly all right well there you have it so

05:47:55.640 this as the final day of yule um the theme for day 12 is wisdom

05:48:01.800 in a lot of ways wisdom is the culmination of all of the aforesaid 11

05:48:14.040 concepts but integrated one to another in your analysis of

05:48:20.600 did how did i succeed in the year that's come before this what did i accomplish

05:48:34.280 what can i do better next year what areas do i need to work on what um what of my

05:48:42.280 what of my strengths do i need to enhance

05:48:44.520 um what of my weaknesses should i focus on in the next year all of those things are a very

05:48:53.880 good thing to do on day 12 and then you know celebrate it that night with some champagne and

05:49:00.680 pig face um i see uh i i'm gonna say her name rock kaylee mcphee um uh saying that you know

05:49:12.660 she's she's i think she's the one who also talked about the the hemisphere time shifts in new zealand

05:49:19.460 i believe yeah and this is this is um you know it's always great in the sense that you can

05:49:25.620 well you're ahead of the curve in a way speaking of turnings of the wheel but um i'd just be

05:49:32.020 infinitely happy to know that someone is celebrating on the other side of the world

05:49:38.740 uh and we're all sharing in the same tradition maybe at different times of the year but you

05:49:43.860 know what perfect eat a midsummer pig face and then you know how to do it for for yule in true

05:49:52.020 in y'all's june um it's always good time for a pig face i joke i'm fascinated by this every time

05:50:01.140 spawn talks about it it sounds awesome mark my words i'm gonna do it this year

05:50:09.060 if i can find one within hours drive i'm gonna do it and i'll start looking on that tomorrow

05:50:17.940 but that said um

05:50:22.420 coming up next week we've got brandy with the third and final installment of her beowulf series

05:50:31.140 we've got some time now to implement swan's amazing list of all the different ways that

05:50:38.980 he celebrates the days of yule with his family so we got a little bit of time to prepare for that

05:50:44.900 i encourage all of us including myself to go out and do that it's going to be kind of the first

05:50:50.180 year that aubrey is really aware and can fully digest some of these things so i'm very excited

05:50:56.900 about that until i speak to you guys next time hail the gods hail the folk

05:51:06.180 kill the afa remember victory never sleeps happy yule everybody happy yule

05:51:26.900 Thank you.

05:51:56.900 Thank you.

05:52:26.900 Thank you.

05:52:56.900 Thank you.

05:53:26.900 We'll be right back.

05:53:56.900 Transcription by CastingWords

Asatru Folk Assembly - November 30, 2023

11⧸29⧸23 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 73 - Yule

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