Asatru Folk Assembly - 11⧸5⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 174 - Helreið Brynhildar ｜ Dráp Niflunga ｜ Guðrúnarkviða in forna

00:00:00.000 Transcribed by ESO, translated by —

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

00:02:00.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:03:00.000 Oh, that's interesting.

00:03:10.880 Hello, all, and welcome to this week's exciting edition of Victory Never Sleeps.

00:03:16.620 The blob of black on the screen is my co-host, Witten Svahn, joining us tonight.

00:03:22.040 um due to a couple of things it's been it's been a month since we've had spawn on the program

00:03:30.740 um whatever you moved is still there so anyways uh welcome tonight we are going to cover a couple

00:03:42.380 of different, a number of different poems in the, you know, in the tail end of the poetic

00:03:52.460 edda. There's a lot of little short ones towards the end there. And so we're going to work

00:03:59.980 through a few of them in the time that we have with you guys tonight. But first, some

00:04:06.860 kind of top of the show news. We are all extremely excited about the dedication of

00:04:14.900 Frase Hoff coming up on December the 6th. So if you guys are able, we would love to

00:04:23.060 have you join us there. It is in Austin Town, Ohio. And it's, it's amazing. This is a once

00:04:31.980 in a lifetime opportunity to be there as we present the Hoff to Lord Freyer and

00:04:40.300 dedicate it and inaugurate our first ritual there in that Hoff and really, really solidify

00:04:54.800 its existence here in Midgard. And it's a pretty special thing. I got a chance to visit

00:05:03.000 last month to visit the Hoff site. The building is great. The property is great. The location is

00:05:11.240 great. Everything about it is fantastic. And I'm very excited to get to be there for it.

00:05:16.980 The McNallans are also going to make it out for the dedication. So that's an opportunity to meet

00:05:22.900 And our founder, Steve McNallan, and his lovely wife, Sheila McNallan, and a number of other members of AFA leadership that will be in attendance.

00:05:32.940 So, again, if you're able to make it, we would love to see you guys there.

00:05:35.940 If you're interested, contact your local folk builder, and they can get you all set up.

00:05:41.020 other news and things speaking of phrase

00:05:48.340 Hoff we continue to make amazing progress towards

00:05:52.560 paying that Hoff off we have not even had the dedication

00:05:56.620 yet and we are 30%

00:06:01.040 paid off which is fantastic means we got

00:06:04.320 87,433 remaining

00:06:09.000 So that's just about $116 per member would pay it off immediately, and that is tremendous progress with this relatively short amount of time we've had the Hoffs.

00:06:23.940 So thank you guys all for your generosity.

00:06:25.620 Speaking of generosity, GW Farnsworth, as always, starts us off with a $25 donation to this program and a $20 donation towards the payoff of Frazehoff.

00:06:40.580 So thank you for that. We appreciate it.

00:06:42.620 and also in phrasehoff news as of today the phrasehoff website is officially a thing

00:06:55.020 and live so you want to check that out at phrasehoff.org

00:07:00.940 so that people know do we have a map to pull up of what the phrasehoff district entails

00:07:12.620 levels so all of that in the very very pale blue is Frazehoff district West Virginia sits

00:07:27.820 kind of oddly in it and a lot of how we determined that was on road time with the mountain range

00:07:37.080 going through there it it changes kind of what's closer to what but that is the new

00:07:44.360 Frazehoff district also including oh wow that is the global projection of Frazehoff district

00:07:54.120 so yeah check it out if you are in that district here's your website it'll have

00:08:02.360 a calendar of your local events and things going on. And yeah, just one more time, we'd love to

00:08:11.000 see everybody at the dedication. Svahn is making his way up there soon to paint Frey's mural in

00:08:21.320 his Hoff. So I'm very, very excited to see what Svahn is able to produce for us.

00:08:27.000 us. I'm also excited for Svon to get to check out the Hoff. It's really cool, and I think

00:08:34.280 he'll be really impressed. Yeah, that's what we've got at the top of the show. Svon, is

00:08:45.140 there anything folks need to know before we dive into the first of our poems for the

00:08:54.200 evening uh just making sure that the order that i have uh kind of set up in my head is the same as

00:09:03.800 we are we're um doing uh brenhilda's ride to hell yes yes okay uh yeah this one specifically

00:09:20.360 um kind of lays to rest all of the lore that we've been covering but in an interesting way

00:09:30.680 and brings up a lot of good points about um the far more clear sense of the afterlife uh that

00:09:42.300 alsatru has um rather than i think what a lot of people have kind of presented

00:09:51.740 with alsatru um and the afterlife um it's always kind of struck me as a millstrom of information

00:10:03.980 and far less definitive than I think a lot of people want and it also I think some people have

00:10:16.460 kind of made up things kind of pulling from the the Egyptians and all of that so I find it very

00:10:26.520 interesting and here we do get a chance to see the glimpse of the poetic explanation of

00:10:38.760 Brynhild's ride to the underworld to the place of the souls the collective

00:10:46.520 domain, the protected domain of the souls. And it, I mean, it naturally adds context and extra

00:10:59.420 movement towards explaining, justifying, and

00:11:06.180 And even still allowing Brynhild to throw some extra attitude on this situation, as she was seen as a villain, ultimately.

00:11:25.920 And I'm not saying that there's a justification that she makes, but it's just another latticework of her reasoning.

00:11:40.540 And it really kind of goes away from what we are used to today in modern age, where they'll present a villain and the villain doesn't believe that they're a villain.

00:11:55.920 And they're actually a good guy. And they are doing this because they're ignorant or that it's the thing that they need to do in order to make things right.

00:12:12.580 I really got that this is about the word, about the oath, about reacting properly.

00:12:28.900 And I say that tentatively because, again, people can take this subjectively, but the slice of this in ethics at the time shows, again, a completion of fate, a part fit with the rest of the puzzle pieces.

00:12:57.420 And it wasn't done ignorantly, and it wasn't done in the sense that somehow, some way, in her mind, everything was right, or she needed to make it right.

00:13:22.400 And whether or not everyone around her didn't understand or not, that didn't matter. And the reality of it is, is that she was simply wronged. And then all of her actions were kind of in retribution to being wronged.

00:13:40.400 uh when people broke their oath when people tricked her she reacted in the way

00:13:49.760 where she was kind of leveling or it's it's like she was going for dharma but without the idea of

00:14:02.960 modern consequence or modern ethics involved it was kind of a um you struck me so i strike you

00:14:16.640 and i think that it's really important for the audience to think about how one our ethics change

00:14:24.640 um there are things that are perennial and but there are also things that are

00:14:32.960 subjective and it is based on our time and i'm sure that the way that our ancestors were in the

00:14:40.880 bronze age may have evolved until the time of the uh late nordic period so because they're they're

00:14:53.360 dealing with things and so this story takes place amongst the goths but is being spoken

00:15:02.240 during the late viking age or nordic age and you can kind of see how some of that plays out

00:15:13.200 and where it's painstakingly detailed um and i think it's important that we we look at that

00:15:21.840 see them in their slices of time realize that our ancestors did not have to deal with things

00:15:28.240 that we deal with today and um learn the lessons within the frame and then the application of today

00:15:40.960 may be different so i think that's something i wanted to kind of emphasize um also to the the

00:15:51.600 The narrative story of traversing and going into the land of the dead is also very telling.

00:16:05.460 It gives an idea of the way our ancestors saw that heaven wasn't just Ausgarder, but Ausgarder was a building or a domain within heaven to our ancestors.

00:16:22.740 And I think it should still remain, this understanding.

00:16:27.160 And the same with Niflheim or Helgarder and the idea of the boundaries of the domicile that is Ausgarder does not make the entirety of the heavenly domains.

00:16:45.960 But instead it is seen as an expanse or a realm of its own type of reality.

00:16:57.160 All right. Well, anybody who is following along with us this evening, it's at velispow.org. And, yeah, whenever you would like, if you could take us through the Elride Brynhildar.

00:17:19.160 right the the the ride to hell of brunhild um and i think it's also important we've talked about this

00:17:31.720 before hell not only the ausmineer of of death um allocated uh giving protection over the souls of men

00:17:46.600 being the least um dangerous is placed farthest away in the the first realm the low realm uh

00:18:00.200 that where the taproot of yggdrasil is and the first well that spawns the rivers but

00:18:09.200 But it's almost completely synonymous with death in and of itself. The idea of walking the hell road was death. Having the hell blau cloak was the blood settling in the back.

00:18:30.840 So, when we read in certain sagas, the usage of the word hell is very, very loose. It's not just simply referring. It's almost very similar to the usage of the word yarv, or it's spelled J-O-R-Ev, the goddess of the earth.

00:18:56.380 but there are different times in which it's focused as the being and as the result of the

00:19:05.060 being's domain in life so um and again it is a short poem so we're doing uh multiple poems

00:19:16.760 tonight too right yes we're doing three right so and and they're just boom boom boom so um

00:19:26.000 easy to kind of move from one to the other. Um, so, uh, we shall start with

00:19:35.140 the introduction in which they say, after the death of Brynhild, there, there were made

00:19:45.560 two bale fires

00:19:47.620 instead of bonn or boon

00:19:51.760 fires. These are the

00:19:53.660 ones of woe.

00:19:57.200 There's one for Sigurd

00:19:59.200 and that burned first

00:20:01.700 and on the other was Brynhild

00:20:03.780 burned. And she was

00:20:05.840 on a wagon which

00:20:07.660 was covered with rich

00:20:09.480 cloth.

00:20:11.620 Thus, it is told

00:20:13.480 that Brynhild went

00:20:15.500 in the wagon on hell way and passed by a house and there dwelt a certain giantess and the giantess

00:20:26.440 spoke. So I think it is interesting to note that death and travel, whether by boat or wagon,

00:20:41.220 There is a symbolic sense, sometimes both. I believe the Osberg ship has a woman. She is buried, but in a wagon on the boat. So the transitional space of that is definitely emphasized.

00:21:03.220 And I think the gods, the Vanir, the waning gods, and a wane is a wagon, being the gods of natural law is that this cycle is part of the natural cycles of the life. 0.95

00:21:24.300 And the ones that truly broke it for humanity, the folk, to exist in a different cycle than just regular animals are the Isir gods. 0.96

00:21:43.180 So, but the combination is still there. 0.98

00:21:47.200 So he is burned and then she is burned and now she's traveling on her own.

00:21:57.160 And the giantess says to her, thou shalt not further forward fare, my dwelling ribbed with rocks across, more seemly it were at thy weaving to stay than another's husband here to follow.

00:22:17.200 So, right away, she's speaking about her dwelling. Her dwelling, most likely, with the stones across, is a barrow mound.

00:22:28.500 And we also see this with, in Volospow, that Lord Odin draws forth a giantess from her burial, and the comparisons of this is that in this, in Niflhel, there is where things reside after death.

00:22:57.500 And then Helgaarder is an encapsulated place with the specific function of protecting the human souls, the ancestors, and where they're at from the spiritual landscape around.

00:23:14.520 um so she kind of veils a insult and says you know it would be would have been better for you

00:23:27.340 to stay weaving than to follow another woman's husband into the land of the dead 0.86

00:23:35.320 So then she says 0.56

00:23:41.980 What wouldst thou have from Valand here

00:23:45.680 Fickle of heart

00:23:47.600 In this my house 1.00

00:23:49.740 Gold goddess now 0.99

00:23:53.060 If thou wouldst know 0.52

00:23:54.860 Hero's blood from thy hands has washed

00:23:58.680 So again

00:24:02.260 Veiled threats

00:24:04.540 Bear in mind, too, Walland is so far, as I know, and I've been kind of looking into it, is utilized throughout all the poems that we've spoken of as a sacred land or a special place, but is not actually correlated with any historical place that we know of.

00:24:25.840 And she's not talking about any supernatural place.

00:24:35.500 So the only thing I can find is the possibility that it is the land or the tribal land in which the Gutens or the Goths had set out in Eastern Europe.

00:24:50.960 But I'm not 100% on that.

00:24:53.700 So, Brynhild then retorts,

00:24:59.740 Chide me not, woman, from the rocky walls,

00:25:04.000 Though to battle once I was wont to go,

00:25:08.380 Better than thou I shall seem to be,

00:25:11.340 When men, us too, shall truly know.

00:25:17.660 The giantess speaks back,

00:25:21.660 Thou wast, Brynhild,

00:25:24.560 Boothley's daughter. 0.77

00:25:27.280 For the worst of evils born in the world, 1.00

00:25:31.020 to death thou hast given Gyuki's children 0.99

00:25:34.440 and laid their lofty house full low.

00:25:39.400 So, one, she knows about the things going on in Midgard.

00:25:44.920 She knows about these things,

00:25:47.480 and there is an inherent connection.

00:25:50.600 We speak about this with the wells and Earth's well being the source well.

00:25:57.600 And if it is the source well in heaven, then Mimir's well being the well of memory.

00:26:06.740 And then Ferogelmer being the kind of last and final place of descent.

00:26:16.480 And everything seems to be this kind of motion of slowly working its way down.

00:26:25.840 But she says, you killed Gyuki's children, which of course are the brothers, the three brothers,

00:26:34.400 who ultimately tricked and made Sigurd jump the fire and trick her.

00:26:43.320 So she knows of great detail.

00:26:46.480 um brunhild speaks truth from the wagon here i tell thee witless one if no thou wilt 0.87

00:26:58.400 how the heirs of gyuki gave to me joyless ever a breaker of oaths and of course 0.54

00:27:08.020 um she is referring to the fact that uh sigurd was tricked to being disguised and

00:27:19.520 uh impersonating and that right there on top of kind of turning on him and and in a murderous

00:27:30.460 intent

00:27:31.040 ultimately 0.91

00:27:34.520 kind of damned 0.50

00:27:36.240 them as well. 0.83

00:27:40.340 Let's see here.

00:27:43.200 Brunhild speaks.

00:27:45.900 Hild, the helmed

00:27:48.280 in Hlimtaler

00:27:50.840 they named

00:27:52.420 me of old.

00:27:54.200 All they who know me.

00:27:57.300 Now this section is

00:27:58.560 missing because of

00:28:03.980 the eligibility of the writing or the legibility.

00:28:12.220 Stanza seven, though, she does continue.

00:28:16.060 But she marks that she was once known simply as Hild of Hlimdallr.

00:28:23.040 And this is interesting because we've been talking about

00:28:27.180 of the Valkyrie in mortal sense to divine sense and then returning to mortal sense.

00:28:37.520 So she's speaking of being someone and she doesn't make reference to the fact that she's the daughter of the Goths,

00:28:47.920 I mean, or of the Huns.

00:28:50.080 And then when she returns, she becomes mortal again as punishment.

00:29:00.720 The monarch bold, the swan robes bore of the sisters ate beneath an oak.

00:29:08.560 Twelve winters I was, if no that wilt, when oaths I yielded the king so young.

00:29:15.900 Um, so eight of her, uh, Valkyrie sisters were donning robes and had taken them off and they were taken and she was married off to a young King, but she was young herself.

00:29:39.460 um and i don't know because there's no other hinting towards the idea of um the mortal souls

00:29:49.420 becoming or growing up to be valkyrie but uh it's just again very interesting or i think more

00:29:58.300 importantly since she's bringing this up as a sense of tragedy that she's justifying herself

00:30:05.720 What this really does point out is youthful marriages at that age were seen culturally as not good.

00:30:19.400 And that's why she's bringing it up along her list.

00:30:25.240 The first thing she says is, oh, I was betrothed to marriage through trickery after they stole my swan robes at the age of 12.

00:30:35.720 And that lends to the idea that our ancestors looked at that being unacceptable or not good.

00:30:48.600 So then she says, next, I let the leader of the Goths, Hjalm Gunnar, the old, go down to hell and victory brought to Auda's brother.

00:31:03.220 for this was was odin's anger mighty and that's where we have this point even though she's now

00:31:13.400 uh trapped in midgard she's still dictating the fates of warriors and she knew that um

00:31:24.940 How this brother was supposed to lose, and Hjallngundr was destined to live, but instead she did the opposite, and that made Lord Odin upset at her.

00:31:43.460 He beset me with shields in Scotland, red and white, their rims overlapping.

00:31:54.300 He bade that my sleep should broken be by him only who fear had nowhere found.

00:32:03.060 So no one would wake her up until there was some prince or noble or warrior who knew no fear.

00:32:15.660 And here we kind of see the essence of the sleeping princess, if you will, in general terms with the Western stories.

00:32:31.460 uh it's it's all here as well except instead of a kiss it is no fear or be incinerated um

00:32:40.980 so uh he let a he let around my hall in the southward looked the branches foe which is fire

00:32:54.320 High leaping burn

00:32:56.320 Across it he bade the hero come

00:33:00.020 Who brought me the gold that Fafnir guarded

00:33:03.540 So until fate, until the decree of Lord Odin

00:33:10.460 None would cross that fiery expanse

00:33:15.220 Until the one who had no fear

00:33:16.780 And that was Sigurd

00:33:18.920 on grani road the giver of gold again uh the reference to a ring giver or a giver of gold

00:33:29.960 or a gift giver is always kind of allocated towards um kings yarl's men of great station

00:33:40.860 that they give rings in order to bolster their folk or bolster their men,

00:33:51.180 but also to bring them in together in oath.

00:34:00.160 So he says,

00:34:01.320 On Grani Road, the giver of gold, where my foster father ruled his folk.

00:34:07.780 Best of all, he seemed to be the prince of the Danes when the people met.

00:34:14.660 So she is of the East and she is of the Gotlandic and he is of the Danes.

00:34:23.580 Happy we slept, one bed we had, as he, my brother, born had been.

00:34:31.320 there's a reason why she says that she's saying like my brother we slept together meaning they

00:34:41.240 did not have relations and this again was important at the time um and clearly making

00:34:50.240 reference to the fact that brothers and sisters are not intimate but more so is that they weren't

00:34:57.260 married yet so he even though they shared the same bed made no uh and inappropriate advances

00:35:06.740 um from that and this is again another sign of his um noble nature um

00:35:14.580 eight were the nights when neither their loving hand on either laid

00:35:20.680 Yet, Gudrun reproached me, Gyuki's daughter, that I in Sigurd's arms had slept, and then did I hear what I would wear hid, that they had betrayed me in taking a mate.

00:35:42.100 so again referencing the fact that Gudrun well and it's in reality it's Gudrun's mother

00:35:52.860 tricked Sigurd and took him in they they were married before she could ever realize

00:36:01.280 what was going on as she was waiting for him so she says that that the betrayal starts there

00:36:07.460 first because they stayed together did not go any advances and they were intending for marriage

00:36:13.660 um ever with grief and all too long are men and women born in the world but yet we shall live

00:36:24.120 our lives together sigarth and i sink down giantess go into the earth go into the mound

00:36:33.680 leave me alone. But I like this line here, ever with grief and all too long are men and women

00:36:40.620 born in the world. One, it's very dark. Obviously, the story and all of the stuff we've covered

00:36:50.040 kind of gives a peek into the reflection of why she thinks this way. But also too, I think the

00:36:57.160 attraction to tragic and foreign-worn love uh the very same things that we find in romeo and juliet

00:37:05.320 or in uh just very powerful love songs still alive and well uh in this time

00:37:15.800 but then she tells her to kick rocks

00:37:20.200 and there are some other spots here coming up where uh there are missing lines

00:37:25.640 um

00:37:26.920 hilled the helm

00:37:31.940 oh wait a minute did I go backwards

00:37:35.180 oh no that's the end of it right there

00:37:40.160 at 14 the stanza 14

00:37:43.940 so kind of cuts off very abruptly

00:37:48.260 as she's making her way

00:37:51.080 sorry i forgot that nick had muted me while we are transitioning here um want to recognize

00:38:09.520 leroy in uh michigan donated a hundred dollars towards phrasehoff thank you so much

00:38:16.120 and Gilbert in Georgia for donating $150 to Frey's Hoff.

00:38:22.660 Hail Frey, see y'all at the dedication.

00:38:25.780 I look forward to seeing you there, and thank you very much for your generosity.

00:38:29.380 We appreciate you.

00:38:34.040 Something that I wanted to – a couple of things that I wanted to mention

00:38:39.120 about this short piece that I think is, I don't know, I think is informative to our religious

00:38:53.240 practice. One of the reasons we read all these things isn't just the story that it's presented,

00:39:01.820 But the way it's presented and the points of reference and the backdrop that it paints of the understanding that our folk had with life, with their values, with the afterlife,

00:39:23.120 with how the mechanics of their all-encompassing faith worked the idea of the hell road the idea

00:39:37.280 that it's not like you know boom you die and then you're resurrected in in a heavenly realm kind of

00:39:46.880 thing. It's a process. And it's like a journey that occurs. The imagery in that with be they

00:39:59.480 Wayans or ships, or whatever it might be, it's like you were going on a journey from

00:40:05.540 the land of the living into the land of the dead. And we see

00:40:11.360 we see imagery with the valkyrie and with cremation and other things the idea of

00:40:22.680 hastening that journey by being snatched up out of this life and taken kind of directly if you're

00:40:29.560 playing the the chutes and ladders and you get on the little extra square that kind of gives you a

00:40:34.900 shortcut um and there is shortcuts through ascension but for the vast majority of those

00:40:43.640 who pass there is this process and i think that something else that's inherent in the poem is the

00:40:50.720 idea that there is a reconciliation thing in the process to where you account for certain things

00:40:59.560 or you face certain challenges and, you know, have to come to grips with the circumstances of your life,

00:41:07.420 the circumstances of your passing, and the things that go on that way.

00:41:11.960 And I think that, you know, there's just these subtle clues in this piece that I do think are important.

00:41:18.260 There is also the implication at the very end in the last stanzas that, you know,

00:41:24.140 her and Sigurd get an opportunity to reunite in that afterlife and to get another chance

00:41:32.160 to see how things are going to go at that point. So I think those are tantalizing. I don't think

00:41:39.980 they give us the full picture by any means, but they give us little glimpses into the

00:41:46.820 also true the you know archaic also true understanding of death of the process of

00:41:55.340 the souls traveling across the veil and of what that kind of looked like what that implied

00:42:04.940 i think that's really important and i think it's it's a special element of our faith that doesn't

00:42:11.220 get i don't know it doesn't get enough focus or enough attention paid to it

00:42:19.300 so it's little but i i think it's i think it's cool but it's too short to do a whole episode on

00:42:25.380 right that's why i wanted to do do a few more this evening um you know i don't want to just

00:42:30.820 pack them in i know that some of these some of these at the end are a little bit tedious

00:42:35.540 i know that a larger audience is typically more excited about the big the big meaty pieces about

00:42:46.020 the gods and i think those are really really important so i i get that but i think there's

00:42:51.540 a lot of little there's a lot of meat left on the bone when you don't read these um often overlooked

00:42:58.660 poems and yes well and and those little things like when she says you know i was

00:43:08.660 unwillingly taken out of the the swan skin and um uh you know i was married at 12

00:43:19.780 and so that lens again that uh the inverse of that is why you know why is she saying that

00:43:28.500 she's saying that because again she's pleading her case and by pleading her case she's kind of

00:43:34.900 showing what was um wrong what was deemed or looked at negatively so but at the same time

00:43:46.900 she was not always seen as simply a wronged villain no she was wronged in her perception

00:43:56.100 and that was enough for her to seek um total revenge

00:44:06.580 um so the next one we have 0.93

00:44:12.500 uh kind of uh let's do this instead oh just to just to break them up because we have a couple

00:44:19.220 of questions let's hit the questions and then we'll start fresh into a new piece okay yeah

00:44:26.100 Just in case there's people who are asking that may not have the endurance to go with us this evening.

00:44:35.580 First one was emailed to us.

00:44:39.120 Everybody out there, anytime a question strikes you, please feel free to email your questions to vns at runestone.org.

00:44:50.220 And we will answer them the next show we have.

00:44:54.660 We'll make sure to get to those.

00:44:55.900 We have gotten a good couple of folks that regularly leave questions for us there.

00:45:03.500 And so you guys are all encouraged to do that whenever you'd like.

00:45:07.260 This one is from Random Fun Guy.

00:45:11.940 A random funny guy.

00:45:14.600 How do you reconcile the concept of fate and free will in Alcetru?

00:45:19.360 They seem opposed.

00:45:20.960 the Abrahamic idea of Yahweh being omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent appears to have the

00:45:30.060 same problem in terms of predestination versus free will. Are the Iser all omnipotent, omniscient, 0.95

00:45:37.700 and benevolent? So a couple of questions in there. It's fun. You want to take first swing at those? 0.99

00:45:43.920 okay yeah and usually answering from like the the last and then working backward firstly is

00:45:51.860 no the isir are not omnipotent um but their power is far greater um i think then some people may

00:46:05.080 perceive and when we talk about the gods and powers uh they i think a lot of people

00:46:16.120 try to ask or comprehend how uh if the gods um are able to use primordial forces then who created

00:46:26.680 those forces and it keeps going back into these kind of uh blurry undefinable what-ifs and

00:46:33.720 And I think that the biggest defining point is after the tripartite of Yggdrasil and Ymir and Adumla,

00:46:51.060 there is a great stratification of these wills all interacting with the primordial forces that are often caused by movement.

00:47:03.720 I think movement, sound, and light are the products of these things.

00:47:10.120 Now, we in the mythos stories will say it is an ocean or a weapon, painting concepts with words and ideas that are understandable.

00:47:23.760 But the reality of this being that they are primordial and cosmic and so beyond comprehension that bringing them into focus via a vehicle or a color or an animal are ways for us to better understand modes.

00:47:47.540 Um, so when we look at the gods, it's hard for, uh, when it comes to like, say Christians who have made Yahweh so undefinably omnipotent and, uh, blurred, you go back into the old Testament.

00:48:10.620 it's very very clear it's pretty straightforward um and you don't get that same kind of sense

00:48:17.380 what happens is is after christianity hits greece and it gets heavily influenced by neoplatonism

00:48:26.700 that's when the identity of the middle east starts to kind of crumble more and you get a lot

00:48:34.820 of the philosophical understandings of the the trinity which didn't exist until europe of course

00:48:41.160 you have people who argue that um but there's all of these kind of bigger concepts um whereas with

00:48:50.700 mythos and with story the idea is that we are learning about and mapping the way the gods move

00:48:59.800 around and they are part of an ecosystem there's not just one singular thing that makes everything

00:49:09.980 does everything and is everything all in one um whether internally or externally there's

00:49:16.480 always multiplicity so the multiplicity of the gods within a area that has

00:49:27.580 that which can be used, that which is, we would say like fire in the land of fire and ice and

00:49:39.700 proto-matter in the land of ice. But these great divine beings are in a cosmic scale having will

00:49:48.440 and there's not just one thing that has will. And I mean, again, even Christianity 0.74

00:49:55.480 kind of lies about this is that they do believe that other things have will, but they ultimately

00:50:03.200 they're all lower than the one thing. And that thing is so omnipotent that if those things are

00:50:09.820 around, it's by choice from the omnipotent. So it removes all sense of conflict and gaining

00:50:20.000 ahead. So that ultimately brings me to the last part, which is will and fate.

00:50:28.860 I think in Ausatru, there's a lot of people who have different sides or philosophies of it.

00:50:35.320 Some people may think that fate is far more prevalent than will, but we do see the balance

00:50:42.260 of the two, almost as if when we see fate mentioned by our ancestors, it is that which

00:50:52.260 was that is set, that which is coming into being, and that which should happen.

00:50:59.660 Skuld is debt. She is the weaver of the outcomes of will, the outcomes of deeds. And so there is a combination, but it's not completely linear.

00:51:18.580 the the actions that happen during the present are affected by the past but have an outcome

00:51:26.680 that is uniquely its own um and that you can change your fate if if you are doomed

00:51:36.320 uh you can change your fate by drastic action and drastic will um it's just going against the

00:51:45.500 tidal wave of past actions um but it's not impossible and so you know if this if fate was

00:51:54.100 so set the idea that lord odin staving off in a rock uh would be pointless and i think that that's

00:52:05.220 uh, the reason why will has far more of a presence in our outlook of, uh, fate and will.

00:52:18.500 So it's like fate looks backwards and looks into the past. And that's very important because you

00:52:26.240 can you know uh show trajectory of where things are going from the past but there is always still

00:52:37.040 will and the outcome of deeds for the future

00:52:42.080 yeah I think

00:52:46.540 I think we are

00:52:54.960 conditioned

00:52:59.040 in

00:53:00.380 in Abrahamism

00:53:06.600 but also in

00:53:08.880 modern scholarships tendency to paint everything in absolutes and I don't

00:53:22.400 the world doesn't work that way and I think reality informs us the world doesn't work that way

00:53:29.660 but when we examine

00:53:33.080 when we treat religion like a book report

00:53:43.240 it is much easier and more coherent to paint everything in absolutes

00:53:50.680 when you approach religion as a system of real things that exist and that shape lives

00:54:00.100 then you're confronted with all of the inconvenient ambiguities that we deal with

00:54:08.560 and I think that you know we are very used to everything is black and white or everything is

00:54:16.380 gray and there's no such thing as black and white which in and of itself is a is an absolute

00:54:21.160 there's black there is white and there is gray and that's less clean but it is much more real

00:54:34.060 and i think instinctively we know that and i think it it adds a great deal of the buy-in

00:54:40.060 to our faith once you accept that and then you can apply it in a real and authentic way as opposed to

00:54:48.500 pretending pretending that everything is that clear because it's not so it's one of the things

00:54:56.380 there is fate and there is free will yes they do have a

00:55:03.920 you know um an opposition to one another and i think that the way spawn explained it is

00:55:15.340 is certainly you know the point you have a very solid past because the past has already happened

00:55:26.740 it's in the record books we've got it that that occurs the present is currently unfolding and

00:55:33.120 then the future you can plot trajectories of things and you can fate can be laid out for you

00:55:42.320 in a smooth pathway towards a destination

00:55:46.780 or in a, you know, difficult pathway towards a destination.

00:55:54.180 But it's ever-changing, and the second that it's spoken,

00:55:59.800 changes are put in motion that have the potential to alter it.

00:56:04.760 So when you deal with a prophecy or someone who is doing,

00:56:09.020 you know reading the runes or you know any kind of divination they can look at what

00:56:19.740 if they are gifted they can see

00:56:24.320 as of this moment where things are heading

00:56:29.340 but the the act of them doing that presents you with options to stay that course to lean

00:56:38.600 into that fate or to challenge that and try to take a different course and sometimes the

00:56:47.960 you know that river is strong and very hard to pull against and sometimes it's not i mean

00:56:54.600 there's a lot of factors in that but i think fundamentally we all understand that free will

00:57:02.280 exists. There is no person that has ever lived that doesn't understand that. If we actually

00:57:08.980 try to think about it and try to logic it out, if everything is completely faded and

00:57:15.540 there is no free will involved, then you can't have heroism. You can't have villainy. You

00:57:23.200 can't have, you know, victory. You can't have failure. You can't have any of those

00:57:30.060 things if you are just conscious of being along for the ride of something that's all been laid

00:57:35.860 out before you're here that it's just not how things work and i think we all know that

00:57:40.100 i think if we didn't know that our lives would look very very different and a lot more boring

00:57:47.460 so the the hero is only heroic because his will is is very much the factor that's at play if he

00:57:58.560 has no choice in the matter, then it ceases being heroic. So I

00:58:04.540 think that's really important. That is to say, and in, but what

00:58:11.100 I meant earlier, when I said that both things exist, there are

00:58:17.220 people that are destined for great things. But those people

00:58:22.860 can choose to not do those things or could be taken by some tragedy to where they are not able

00:58:31.660 to achieve that destiny and i think that we all understand the truth of that in life and our

00:58:39.580 ancestors did too the other thing that's really important when you're examining what our ancestors

00:58:45.260 thought or what we think now just because something happened a long time ago doesn't 0.99

00:58:52.140 mean that the people it happened to are idiots our ancestors had just as large brains as you and i 0.99

00:58:59.260 have they were very smart and very intelligent people they had just as much capacity to grasp 1.00

00:59:08.140 the world around them and to make sense of things so these weren't you know simple idiots that just 0.98

00:59:15.260 went along with these very fairy tale ideas these were real people that were very well acquainted 0.98

00:59:21.820 with the realities of the world around them so yes there's people that obviously have the hand

00:59:27.740 of fate on them there's people that have a destiny woven for them that that's powerful

00:59:33.260 but that can all be affected and that's why and this goes to the next point i'll get off this

00:59:39.020 that i'm rambling on um the omniscience no the gods are not omniscient the gods are not um anything

00:59:48.940 but they're not omni anything because again either they're mortal and they have no power

00:59:59.380 or each of them individually is all powerful at all of the things that's not real that's not how

01:00:06.500 reality works it's not how our faith works they are vastly wise they are vastly powerful

01:00:13.800 But our lore shows us time and again their quest to gain power, to gain knowledge, to learn hidden mysteries of the universe, to learn the plans of their foes, to win knowledge of the runes, to gain power over their enemies, to struggle against chaos.

01:00:40.800 chaos existence be it heavenly or um earthly exists in a constant state of movement and of

01:00:53.880 struggle and that's that's a fact of life and of our reality that our ancestors certainly embraced

01:01:02.340 um and benevolence is a strange it's a strange term to use in when we talk about absolutes

01:01:15.180 and it's funny because

01:01:18.840 Abrahamists don't really believe that either their texts describe their God as being jealous and

01:01:29.760 angry and like malicious and doing not benevolent things um i don't when you stare when you

01:01:40.000 sterilize things to where some something is all sunshine rainbows and and roses you take away a

01:01:51.360 certain amount of personality our gods are real living existent entities with personality

01:01:59.760 with will and with capacity to express their will and i think that trying to put them into those

01:02:07.680 you know artificial categories isn't it misses the reality of our gods and it makes them

01:02:18.100 caricatures of themselves and i think that does them a disservice i think it's the same thing when

01:02:24.340 you talk about free will that's not pushed in a direction, or when you talk about every decision

01:02:35.800 you make being predestined to make, and so you're not really choosing what you're watching on the

01:02:40.260 TV tonight that's already been decided for you somehow, and you're just following the path

01:02:46.320 laid out for you and whatever. That's not how it works. And again, I think we all know that

01:02:53.160 that's not how it works. What's interesting is the interplay between those things and I think

01:02:58.560 that is what creates a lot of the drama is you have currents of fate working against you sometimes

01:03:06.760 like working against a hero oftentimes. You have places to where other forces are trying to make

01:03:14.440 that hero end up and sometimes he can't escape that fate. Sometimes he's able to slip one trap

01:03:19.500 only to fall into another because the pull of that destiny is so powerful but the fact that

01:03:28.040 there's a story to be told is because there is will it's because the hero is trying to act against

01:03:35.040 that and to alter his fate in some way and sometimes that's easy and sometimes it's

01:03:39.840 insurmountable but that entire struggle tells you that all of those small actions in between

01:03:47.700 are certainly expressions of free will but no that's a question that we get often in one way

01:03:54.080 or another and I think that the early romantic era scholars on the subject treat Ausitru and

01:04:04.860 our ancestors as some kind of a historical curiosity and not as a like living faith that

01:04:10.780 real people actually practiced. So they really lean into absolutes. And this is one of the ones

01:04:17.660 that I think has damaged people's perception of, you know, how Ausatru was conceived in our

01:04:25.360 ancestors' time. Next, go ahead. There's an extension question to this in the chat. And

01:04:34.960 i also had one other thought because of what you were saying um you know every time it was

01:04:43.460 ever mentioned say that that the warrior was saying our fate was woven that wasn't an omission

01:04:50.880 of free will which is like exactly what you're saying it just made me think of like um instances

01:04:58.000 in literature where it's not that they didn't believe that free will existed but generally

01:05:03.940 they would say it when they were in perhaps what they viewed as their final battle. It was

01:05:10.080 that all of our free will and all of our actions and everything that we have done has led us to

01:05:15.220 here. And now we are truly tied in. I think people have perceived that to mean that that's

01:05:25.500 the way our ancestors saw about everything. But the other part that's kind of interesting is

01:05:32.500 uh there is a question in here um about uh skulld and shield um i'm trying to see who wrote it um

01:05:44.500 but the idea that if there's any etymological connection between shield and skulld and there

01:05:52.340 is the word skilled or skilled eventually became shield um means to cut or to separate

01:06:05.940 and that's uh i guess in the sense of a shield being able to separate one uh the the carrier

01:06:12.900 from the opponent um but there's also connections to skull cutting the thread cutting the thread

01:06:20.580 of someone so i think what it truly represents is the finality of will um as it is up to the

01:06:32.340 very last minute and then uh things can be brought to a close um but after that's i mean that's

01:06:43.380 speculative um indo-european translation of the idea that skilled to separate or to break apart or

01:06:52.260 to keep a division but i find that very interesting and of course you see that too with like weaving

01:07:00.340 and uh the the scissors um so it immediately made me think like oh i want to check out the

01:07:08.980 etymology of of scissors or shears so you have shears uh shields and skull and i think very much

01:07:19.460 so this may be lending to the uh the idea of the ending or the cutting or the separating of the

01:07:27.220 thread and also there was another thing i saw as well as um the three i don't know if anybody's

01:07:35.700 ever heard of it but where there's three threads a gold thread for for uh highborn or nobleborn

01:07:45.620 silver threads for freemen and copper threads for lowborn um so far as i know i can't find

01:07:52.580 anything on that other than the simple mention that heroes have golden threads so that the

01:07:59.860 poetic mentioning of the fact that heroes are um uh have nobility uh inherent in them before their

01:08:12.820 deeds see i'm wondering how that works etymologically because i don't find the same

01:08:19.780 rundown in the etymology when you go back i don't find that same point of connectivity yeah i got

01:08:27.780 so um here it says uh the middle dutch dutch german gothic uh coming from the ie scale

01:08:40.900 um so it has a bunch of funny things around the scale and i think that makes a difference

01:08:46.180 because that scale means cut but the scale from proto-indo-european i'm looking at means

01:08:51.700 to be obliged beholden to oh to be guilty oh see so you know little little differences and and i

01:09:03.700 i say that i wonder if there is some kind of um cross overlap within that together that close

01:09:10.740 that far back but the debt the obligation all of those things weave in i think we

01:09:21.700 I think it really plays to your point about the threads tying you into stuff.

01:09:30.120 You know, once you weave yourself really tight, you, you know, as they say, you paint yourself into a corner and you find yourself in the situation that you're in.

01:09:40.920 And if you can see the threads that are starting to weave that snare for you, then you can alter what you're doing to avoid it.

01:09:54.380 Once you find yourself in the midst of it, now all of a sudden you see all the threads that brought you there.

01:10:01.380 The tighter that weaves, the more that pins you into a spot.

01:10:05.840 But it's made up of choices that you make over time.

01:10:09.200 Now, it's also made up of, you know, choices other people make in relation to you, again, other free will, the free will that's exercised against you, if it's some supernatural, you know, hex that you're put under, all of those things, but all of those things individually are expressions of free will.

01:10:28.740 um so we've got one more question i also want to uh say that tyler in new hampshire donated

01:10:37.240 500 to phrase off thank you tyler that's amazing

01:10:42.700 well done and much appreciated that's crazy that's awesome

01:10:52.240 bit of extra reading um i think the confusion might be because the the word shield is different

01:11:00.920 than the word shield it's s-h-i-l-d not i-e-l-d so it's not the type of shield

01:11:07.500 the shield that means debt is not the type of shield that means yeah a sword and shield

01:11:14.200 yeah and i'm posting up kind of what i what i found oh obviously actually that's not gonna work

01:11:24.040 because there's a space limit on that i'll post it up to you just to kind of cool yeah so um in the

01:11:33.200 meantime can you talk about the woad self and is it similar to the idea of the higher self

01:11:42.240 swan you want to take first shot at that yeah i think uh and we were again strangely enough

01:11:49.540 just talking about this um at the hoff the components of the soul working together to

01:11:57.960 attain the woad self the woad self as its elevated form perhaps is the form that lord

01:12:06.280 Othen takes notice of. But all of the components that we were talking about, just kind of going

01:12:15.560 through and their resignation of kind of falling into the sowl after the leak is no longer the 0.80

01:12:25.400 vessel and carrying on uh to the to the ancestors unless there is the attainment of the woed self

01:12:37.880 where the paragon of being whether um and i think it's cumulative i think it is mental

01:12:48.360 um and physical and also action uh kind of coming into its purest form and this is something that

01:12:58.600 i think we were ultimately coming through with uh all the the the literature that we were looking

01:13:08.840 at especially founder mcnallan's book ausitru a native european religion um as we were seeing the

01:13:17.960 components as components but this woe to self element is kind of known and spoken of as this

01:13:26.600 culmination and what exactly is it and i i honestly don't know how to articulate what it is

01:13:34.680 But I do believe it is that kind of flair in the dark of Lord Odin's eye, the seeing these moments, especially if we're talking about in a singular moment where someone supersedes their own self, perhaps in mortality or in mind.

01:13:59.720 And they no longer, they in essence float above and separate themselves from the mundane to such a degree that they become a force, something beautiful or terrible to behold that is burning bright.

01:14:21.580 and then sometimes cut down or taken away.

01:14:29.280 That moment, achieving their purest sense in the moment.

01:14:38.540 In talks that I've had with our founder, Steve McAllen,

01:14:47.420 on this subject over the years,

01:14:51.580 And that's one of the words that I kind of veer away from a little bit because it crosses

01:14:59.980 linguistics and I'm trying to get all our linguistics to line up.

01:15:05.320 So you know, I would call that the the other self or the the the old shelfer.

01:15:16.380 think but because those words are cognates that mean the same thing but it's a concept of

01:15:32.060 yeah i think you're spot on when you when you compared it to the higher self um

01:15:36.460 Um, it's, and I've often described this as kind of a, I don't know, a meaning of life

01:15:47.740 thing that we all face is the distance between the man that you are and your, your woe self,

01:15:58.780 the distance between who you are and who you ought to be in like the best version of yourself.

01:16:06.460 and i think that there are transcendent moments but i also think like what's fawn mentioned

01:16:14.220 earlier is true as well it's like when the different pieces of your soul fully integrate that

01:16:28.540 um actualization of the woad self or the other self

01:16:36.460 is important. And I do think that you become transcendent if you can become that fully.

01:16:46.060 I think for a lucky few, you have moments where you touch that, where in a moment you are

01:16:57.740 integrated and you are the best of yourself at a moment of transcendence. And then it's

01:17:06.380 slips you know back to a less perfect state but that ability to merge

01:17:15.500 who you who you are in reality with the best version of your highest potential

01:17:24.140 is something that i think we all chase after and is a an inspirational thing for us to try to always

01:17:31.180 is contemplate what your woed self would do in a given situation and try to be that man

01:17:39.220 I think that is informative so yes I think it's the

01:17:45.640 it's like it's the projected best version of yourself that you ought to be or that you are

01:17:57.700 capable of being and when you fit into that outline when you fit into that and are integrated

01:18:08.340 in that way that moment however long it lasts is transcendent and i think that's the idea of that

01:18:16.900 self that self that is the the fulfillment of the inspiration of the woad of the the other of

01:18:27.700 The ecstatic, godly fury of your potential, I think that's the congealment of that.

01:18:38.360 oh we also said something about uh the hammer that the hammer is uh kind of a good indicator

01:18:51.360 of the woe to self that that as you're moving towards the the being you should be your hammer

01:18:58.260 has uh an effect it can a quantifiable kind of thing uh and of the way that you command room

01:19:07.520 the presence um or just over i mean overall uh i hate to say the word but in it because it's been

01:19:17.020 bastard bastardized by other but the aura of oneself kind of being an indicator of

01:19:24.820 how you get close to your other versus i guess the opposite whatever that might be where the 0.97

01:19:31.860 hammer is a deficit or is weak or frail or insignificant yeah well it's it's funny because

01:19:42.880 we separate these things out in ways that are digestible i think the lines aren't nearly as

01:19:47.880 clear in the reality of our our soul makeup but i think the hammer is

01:19:53.680 more visual and more of an image or a projection of that as opposed to the

01:20:02.140 fulfillment of it or the embodiment of it so I but I do think that your your hammer is a 0.99

01:20:14.440 I do think that is an indicator of what that woad self might be or might look like

01:20:20.780 you actually embodying it the embodiment of it becomes the load self uh when the hammer is fleshed

01:20:30.200 out um i think that's that's a thing but again one of the things that we do struggle with is

01:20:38.900 the more we try to talk about these things words fail us when you talk about metaphysics at some

01:20:47.220 point because the concepts themselves are are transcendent and outside the range of our vocabulary

01:21:01.140 with that we've got a very short one stanza poem for you next the draup niflunga so

01:21:12.340 So Svahn, is there anything folks need to know before we hit the ground on that?

01:21:18.560 It is really what this was supposed to be or where it was kind of placed in things is as an introduction to the Reyn's Maul that we read a while back as we were going through Fafnir the Dragon, Reyn.

01:21:41.060 and uh they were kind of being atomized away from the core story this was uh the introductory

01:21:51.140 but was separated simply because it most likely had a different composer so I think it was kind

01:22:01.460 of uh brought out of that to be looked at in that way but that's also kind of that's why it's

01:22:08.340 ultimately short is that it was more or less an introduction to the Rehensmull poem.

01:22:21.220 All right. Well, whenever you would like, let's give it a read. Like I said, it's short when it's

01:22:29.100 one stanza. It's a big stanza. It's not like one of the little couplets that we end up with. It's

01:22:35.260 a paragraph and and this really takes place after sigurd's uh slaying and gunner and hogni the the

01:22:47.580 brothers of are the sons of gyuki of course their youngest brother was slain in the process of

01:22:55.980 slaying Sigurd he was cut in twain by a uh flying the flying sword um but after that the other two 0.90

01:23:09.020 brothers uh end up kind of gaining their spoils and ultimately their fate lies at dying at the

01:23:18.180 blade of Atli. But that's all this kind of is, is kind of speaking about that time. So Gunnar and Hogni

01:23:31.120 then take all the gold that Fafnir had had. There was strife between the Gyukkings and Atli,

01:23:40.000 For he held the Göttings guilty for Brynhild's death, as she was one of the Huns in the Gothic lands.

01:23:54.660 It was agreed that they should give him Gudrun, their sister, as a wife.

01:24:01.300 And they gave her a draught of forgetfulness to drink before she would consent to be wedded to Atli.

01:24:10.000 so again we see the the mcguffin of the story or the the plot kind of uh convenience but

01:24:20.720 more importantly if you look at the way the audience is reading this or being perceived

01:24:26.860 like they're being told these things it's again another mark of treachery on gunner and hulkney

01:24:36.500 The, the idea of someone being able to give a potion to someone to make them forget is cowardly. It's, it's, uh, again, you're not only averting fate, you're also averting will.

01:24:56.200 Both of those are being hidden from by the forgetfulness, and these things are common throughout all the poems.

01:25:06.820 We spoke about the queen poisoning the horn against the hero, because this is an inverse of the feminine giving divine power to the hero, as in the sword with the Lady of the Lake or with Gunlov and Lord Oven.

01:25:27.240 it was an inverse and the audience would know that and have it would it would evoke emotions

01:25:37.220 well in this case too the audience is hearing them giving off these these potions which seem

01:25:47.700 to source from their mother and her knowledge of it but it's simply just again nefarious

01:25:56.100 dastardly to be able to to try and want to just remove yourself from all the things that you have 0.79

01:26:03.780 done and giving their sister over to atli um is kind of again dastardly they're uh the um the 1.00

01:26:16.820 gyukings according to kind of like mapping things out they're burgundians in eastern france and 0.98

01:26:25.140 And Otley and the Gothic kingdoms are kind of in what would be currently Austria and all the way over to the Black Sea. 0.96

01:26:35.560 So they're kind of also doing that to get rid of her because she knows that they were plotting to kill her husband and now they've got his gold.

01:26:48.560 so they need to kind of get her out of there and um and of course she's all torn up from all of 0.84

01:26:55.780 this and from from brunhild and so uh they're they're dividing the spoils um

01:27:02.960 so they gave her a draw to forgetfulness to drink before she would consent consent to wedding

01:27:12.180 King Atli. The sons of Atli were Erp and Eitel, and Svanhild was the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun.

01:27:26.680 King Atli invited Gunnar and Hogni to come to him and sent as a messenger Vingi or Kneifroth.

01:27:35.660 Gudrun was aware of the treachery

01:27:40.200 and sent with him a message in runes

01:27:42.460 that they should not come

01:27:44.140 and as a token she sent

01:27:46.560 to Hogni the ring

01:27:48.220 of Anvarnat

01:27:50.160 the Anvarnat

01:27:52.440 the 0.99

01:27:52.680 I believe this is the dwarf

01:27:55.400 where the ring 0.99

01:27:56.540 yeah Anvari's ring

01:28:01.020 yeah Anvari's ring

01:28:02.640 that's the final

01:28:04.500 the final piece that covered up the whisk the whisker right right and this yeah this is and

01:28:09.920 this is kind of a re-emphasization of it but ultimately too and this was a common thing that

01:28:16.960 happened pretty much from the migration period to the late nordic period was the treachery of

01:28:24.360 the truce talk yeah come on we'll do a truce talk and then it's totally an ambush i mean this

01:28:31.980 happened with odiker by theodoric um in rome or in ravenna i mean in the uh in the in the province but

01:28:43.420 um so again another common theme so she tries to warn them don't come here and more importantly

01:28:53.740 or interestingly is that she writes runes down the usage of the runes um to pass messages even

01:29:01.660 all the way as far back as this which would be the migration area um she's aware of the treachery

01:29:09.660 so she sent him a message in runes they that they should not come and as a token she sent

01:29:16.940 to hogni the ring at anvarnoth and tied a wolf's hair within it gunner had sought

01:29:25.420 Adrun, Atli's sister for his wife, but had her not, and then he married Glaumvor,

01:29:34.300 and Hogni's wife was Kostbara. Their sons were Sollar and Snaivir and Gyuki, and when the Gyukings 0.98

01:29:45.980 came to Atli, then Gyudrun besought her sons to plead for their lives of both of the Gyukings,

01:29:53.740 but they would not do so hogni's heart was cut out and gunner was cast into a serpent's den

01:30:01.500 he smote on a harp and put the serpents to sleep but one adder stung him in the liver

01:30:11.180 so a couple of things about that last part one is um they're mentioning gunner and hogni and uh

01:30:21.900 uh, one's desire to marry the daughter of Otley, but eventually they, they, uh, get married,

01:30:30.140 have children, but they all go to this kind of bringing of peace and they misinterpret

01:30:40.720 or don't understand the runes. I was, uh, I saw some other things where it was saying that,

01:30:48.120 that the the runes were somehow smudged or broken and they couldn't understand

01:30:54.420 um the message ultimately but they go there and um the major reason why she uh gudrun

01:31:08.260 pleas for their life is because of the bloodline she doesn't want the bloodline of her people

01:31:15.980 to end it's super important to keep the bloodline of your people going and atli did not

01:31:24.700 uh heed that and of course this ultimately leads to gudrun plotting his death in revenge for killing

01:31:33.340 her family line but uh i just thought it was interesting that the the he smote a harp so he

01:31:40.860 was playing a harp in attempt to put the serpents to sleep but one bit him uh underneath the rib

01:31:50.780 um you know and there's no ever there's never any mention of gunner being a uh

01:32:00.860 a musician but uh again i think that that part is

01:32:05.340 uh playing on that we see that a lot even in western stories like uh

01:32:14.400 I'm sorry I forgot the Christian's name the one in the lion den

01:32:19.960 Daniel Daniel that's it um that that story and the uh calming of the beasts is a very old

01:32:32.800 story uh trope or uh it is a thing that is very european uh i you know i think that story um

01:32:44.740 didn't happen and what really it was was another example of christianity synthesizing uh european

01:32:55.380 ideals and folklore in order to, um, push it. Uh, they did this with the Bacchanalia and the

01:33:04.600 Last Supper. Um, they did this with, uh, the manger, uh, with Jesus being born in a manger

01:33:12.320 where that kind of goes again to Bacchus. And the idea of calming the beasts with

01:33:19.960 music

01:33:21.300 is throughout Greek and Roman

01:33:24.280 and Germanic

01:33:26.060 culture as well.

01:33:27.920 So, and even still

01:33:30.160 surviving all the way

01:33:32.220 into the late Nordic age.

01:33:35.580 So, 0.59

01:33:36.580 that's it.

01:33:38.640 That's all that there is on it.

01:33:44.300 All right.

01:33:46.640 Well,

01:33:47.320 we do not have additional questions and the next one is a little bit meaty so

01:33:56.480 whenever you are ready if you would like to take us through uh gudrunar kovida

01:34:04.460 all right so now we're going to informa uh yeah it's uh and this is of course gudrun's

01:34:15.740 uh lament or gudrun's side of the story which has only been kind of touched on um as we go

01:34:27.080 around through everyone but i love the fact that much like the stories of hercules amongst the

01:34:34.060 greeks there being multiple endings um having different points of view uh this was ultimately

01:34:42.980 storytelling, but brought down into the discipline of poetry and then expounded on

01:34:53.420 because the audience would be familiar with the people being spoken of. I could only imagine

01:35:04.940 though i wondered like if a poet is saying something from uh this story and someone not

01:35:14.780 knowing the story of sigurd and which makes me think perhaps the likelihood of that it was so low

01:35:22.460 that this story the sigurd the dragon slayer story was so widespread so well known that it

01:35:29.980 wasn't a risk or a gamble to um create from other perspectives in the story that's the thing by the

01:35:39.660 time this is recorded and certainly by the time the the etta was recorded it's an ancient story um

01:35:49.580 when elements of it were first composed i think is anybody's guess but the events and the people

01:36:03.560 involved are 600 years prior to getting written down in this format so that's a long period of

01:36:15.600 time um you know that's us passing down an oral tradition from you know

01:36:26.960 the 1400s that's that's a long it's a long period for this to be disseminated throughout europe and

01:36:38.400 And through all the courts of Europe, through all the campfires of lords and kings, and yeah, the spread of it, when you think about it, is tremendous and spans large swaths of the continent.

01:37:03.420 but also you know over the course of centuries so it's really interesting what comes down to us

01:37:12.340 when this is getting recorded in the 1200s right and i wonder at that point these stories are spoken

01:37:19.540 and then at a certain point they become poem um and all the details are are kind of hammered out

01:37:29.260 into meter and disciplined uh style of poetry or has it always you know i i'm a believer that it

01:37:38.220 was a story before poems but some people make the argument that the only reason why these have last

01:37:43.660 is because they were made into uh poems all along um but i mean either way it's it's uh yeah from

01:37:55.500 the years 500 to the uh this poem that we're about to go over is supposedly um by guesstimate um 12

01:38:09.820 12th century so um that's a huge expanse of time uh the other thing is that's worth noting i just

01:38:18.060 check the notes and um is that there are a lot of omissions and pieces taken out

01:38:26.620 survive so there might be some choppy parts in here and that's because of the uh the condition

01:38:35.260 of the poem

01:38:40.220 all right

01:38:40.780 okay so it starts first with uh king theodric who you know this name immediately is guys oh it's

01:38:57.020 i looked at the bottom there theodoric so uh this is the kind of nordic translation of

01:39:04.460 the gothic name theodoric um and this is i believe the same theodoric that slayed odaker that i had

01:39:13.180 mentioned earlier um king feodric was with atli and had lost most of his men feodric and gudrun

01:39:25.260 lamented their griefs together she spoke to him saying and now we begin the the metered verse

01:39:33.740 A maid of maids, my mother bore me, bright in my bower, my brothers I loved, till Gyuki dowered me with gold, dowered with gold, and to Sigurd gave me.

01:39:49.580 So just to clarify to dowry, the idea that there was property and wealth that was significant to the station of a woman that when she came into a house in marriage,

01:40:10.640 She brought with her this property that enriched the house, whether monetarily sometimes, with actual objects like weaving looms and things like that. 0.92

01:40:27.660 So Sigurd rose over Gyuki's sons. He became much, much better than my brothers.

01:40:40.640 as the leak grows green above the grass again we see that referencing that we've seen numerous

01:40:49.840 times before the poetic sense of the the leak being greater than the grass or the stag over

01:40:58.480 all the beasts doth stand or as glow red gold above silver gray till my brothers let me no

01:41:07.860 longer have the best of heroes my husband to be sleep they could not or quarrels settle

01:41:14.660 till sigurd lay at last had slain from the thing ran granny the horse of sigurd with thundering

01:41:26.180 feet but thence did sigurd himself come never covered with sweat was the saddle bearer want

01:41:34.900 the warrior's weight to bear weeping i sought with granny to speak with tear wet cheeks for the

01:41:43.540 tale i asked the head of granny was bowed to the grass the steed knew well his master was slain

01:41:53.220 so i think this is a really well written um and sorrowful

01:41:58.900 poem and we've spoken about the horse grani and how the essence of a horse that laments the death

01:42:11.260 of its owner uh that being so good uh and being able to carry the treasure of fafnir grani has

01:42:21.800 as a horse its own kind of element within the story and she wishes to see the horse

01:42:31.140 because it's the last living representation of him um and this would really get i i believe

01:42:40.000 especially if you consider how much horsemanship is important in island uh this being said and

01:42:46.580 spoken um and the significance that horses have within icelandic culture is um significant so um

01:43:05.620 long i waited and pondered well ere ever the king for tidings i asked then there's a break because of

01:43:13.460 um uh the uh condition and it goes to the seventh stanza um his head bowed gunner but hognitold

01:43:29.540 the newsful store of sigurd slain hewned to death at our hands he lies gutorm slayer given to wolves

01:43:39.780 on the southern road thou shalt sigurd see where here thou canst the ravens cry the eagles cry as

01:43:51.860 food they crave and about thy husband wolves are howling so again all of this death imagery um and

01:44:02.500 And the southern road, or, you know, on the road downward, I think is probably the better translation going in there.

01:44:22.600 But the road of the dead, road of hell, and around him ravens cry, and around him eagles cry, and wolves are howling. 0.90

01:44:32.500 Why dost thou, Hogni, such a horror let me hear? 0.88

01:44:40.140 All joyless left, ravens yet, thy heart shall rend

01:44:44.900 in a land that never thou hast known.

01:44:50.180 So the intro that we just spoke about,

01:44:54.960 where Hogni's heart is removed by Atli, 0.71

01:44:57.480 She foretells it that his heart will be eaten and rendered from him in a land that he has never known. 0.89

01:45:07.820 So when he goes to the east, few the words of Hogni were, bitter his heart from the heavy sorrow.

01:45:16.660 But he speaks, greater Gudrun thy grief shall be, if the raven sow, my heart shall rend.

01:45:27.480 From him who spake, I turned me soon in the woods to find what the wolves had left, tears I had not, nor wrung my hands, nor wailing went as other women, when by Sigurd slain I sat.

01:45:46.840 Sorry, that's actually correction, that's her speaking, saying that she did not wail and cry as other women have.

01:45:57.480 when she sat next to the body of her husband but the darkness of that moment

01:46:05.160 fully seeped into her uh never so black had seemed the night as when in sorrow

01:46:13.000 my sigurd sat the wolves and then the verses gone uh best of all be thought

01:46:24.280 t would be if i my life could only lose or like to birchwood burned might be so

01:46:34.360 another important thing that i think we should see is that uh the the she's talking about it 0.68

01:46:42.520 would be better if she was dead but the story continues on she doesn't uh kill herself or

01:46:50.280 anything of that nature and continues on in her life and i wonder if that's an implication towards

01:46:57.880 the idea that sacrifice of life perhaps in a situation where you are fighting off someone

01:47:08.360 with imminent doom was okay but perhaps the idea of like trying to take yourself

01:47:17.080 out of woe was seen as as something perhaps not to do um

01:47:25.260 so she uh she says best of all me thought to it if my life could be only lose or like to

01:47:36.780 birchwood burned might be from the mountains forth five days i fared till horlofs horlofs

01:47:46.220 hall so high I saw. Seven half years with Thora I stayed, Håkon's daughter in Denmark then,

01:47:56.560 with gold she broidered to bring me joy. Southern halls and Danish swans. On the tapestry wove me

01:48:05.980 warrior's deeds and the hero's things on our handiwork. Flashing shields and fighters armed,

01:48:14.940 Sword throng, helm throng

01:48:18.240 And the host of the king

01:48:20.440 Host being, of course, the army

01:48:24.380 The army of the king

01:48:26.120 Sigmund's ship by land was sailing

01:48:33.320 Gold in the figurehead 0.96

01:48:34.900 Gay the beaks on board we wove

01:48:38.260 The warriors faring 0.97

01:48:39.760 Sigur and Sikir

01:48:42.100 South of Fionn 0.92

01:48:45.060 then grimhild asked the gothic queen whether willingly would i and this is of course

01:48:55.060 it's lost in the poem but it's lending to the arrangement of the marriage between her and

01:49:01.540 atlee so grimhild most likely began the arrangement of that um

01:49:08.100 her needlework cast she aside and called her sons to ask with stern resolve who amends to their

01:49:18.340 sister would make for her son or the wife requite for her husband killed ready was gunner gold to 1.00

01:49:28.420 give amends for my hurt and hog me too then would she know who now would go the horse to saddle the 1.00

01:49:38.920 wagon to harness the horse to ride and the hawk to fly and the shafts from bows of you to shoot

01:49:46.900 And so from this point, Grimhild from the Goths comes and says that Atlee wishes to be betrothed and who would build a dowry for her.

01:50:05.240 And, of course, it's her brothers who killed her husband do this.

01:50:10.880 And that's why I think that they were purposely trying to get rid of her, that they were purposely trying to separate her and send her away.

01:50:20.400 But she goes and she takes a group with her and she leaves for the east.

01:50:30.340 um valdar king of the danes uh was come with uh yaris leaf and amoth and yariscar

01:50:44.580 in the in like princess came they all the long bearded men with mantles red

01:50:51.340 short mail coats and mighty their helms swords at their belts and brown their hair

01:50:58.240 And so I think this here too is showing the aged men of the warriors that attended her and attended this coming to the Goths and to Atli.

01:51:15.280 But more importantly, I think something to consider. Blonde hair was seen as a symbol of youthfulness. And a lot of the reasons I think that culturally the Nordic ancestors dyed their hair blonde was, again, because it was a sign of youthfulness.

01:51:36.260 we don't see that everywhere we see the germans dyed their hair red for war so this was something

01:51:41.620 kind of more unique to the the nordic people um as a child with blonde hair would get darker as

01:51:49.860 they grew older so i think that's the major reason what they're what they're emphasizing

01:51:54.260 in this is they were long bearded um and they wear mantles of red uh because of station uh in society

01:52:03.780 and um they're bare weapons but and have their brown hair um each to give me gifts was feign

01:52:14.420 gifts to give in goodly speech comfort so for my sorrows great to bring they tried but i trusted

01:52:22.260 them not. A draught or a draught, a drink, did Grimhild give me to drink? Bitter and

01:52:36.920 cold, I forgot my cares. For mingled therein was magic earth, ice cold sea, and the blood

01:52:45.100 of a swine. So this is the forgetful potion or the drop thereof. In the cup were runes of every kind

01:53:00.060 written and reddened. I could not read them. A heather fish from the hadding's land,

01:53:08.860 an ear uncut and the entrails of a beast i think one of the things is that this might not obviously

01:53:21.420 be a completely accurate kind of sense of magic but that even when we hear about the witches

01:53:30.180 is making the potions with the Eye of Newt, etc. I wonder, you know, to what degree if this may be

01:53:40.820 herbal code, but also just, again, the audience getting the idea that there's all these kind of,

01:53:49.460 like very significant and odd things placed in the drink and like the ear uncut and I wonder

01:54:05.000 too if like if this is an ear of a grain or an actual ear or the ear you know

01:54:11.360 this one was kind of interesting but very very hard to find any leads on

01:54:16.720 But much evil was brewed within the beer

01:54:22.360 Blossoms of trees and acorns burned

01:54:26.220 Dew of the hearth, which would be ash

01:54:30.580 And holy entrails, the liver of swine

01:54:35.120 All grief to a lie

01:54:37.320 Then I forgot when the draught they gave me

01:54:41.440 And there in the hall my husband slaying

01:54:44.840 on their knees the kings all three did kneel ere she herself to speak again began so she forgets

01:54:52.920 her mind gets um alleviated of all the memory and sorrow and she kind of comes through and there's

01:55:01.560 the three men there that she has kind of lost the idea of them even being there to begin with

01:55:09.800 and then grim hill the one who produces the the potions uh speaks to her

01:55:18.040 gudrun gold to thee i give the wealth that once thy father's was rings to have

01:55:27.560 and love verse halls and the hangings all that monarch had

01:55:33.960 um and i i believe the hangings being uh drapery clothing the things that made halls warm and also

01:55:44.600 the decorations inlaid sometimes with gold and things so all of the the the furnishings of that

01:55:52.440 hall um then she speaks more she says hunnish women skilled in weaving who gold make fair 0.70

01:56:07.960 to give thee joy and the wealth of boothly thine shall be gold decked one as at least wife

01:56:16.920 so bear in mind the story is gudrun lamenting the entirety of everything happening but at this

01:56:24.840 moment grimhild gives her this potion and then tells her everything's going to be great you're

01:56:30.840 going to have all of this wealth you're going to have this hall and you're going to be wed to atli 0.60

01:56:36.920 um and then Gudrun speaks a husband now I will not have nor wife of Brynhild's brother be

01:56:50.520 it beseems me not with Boothley's son happy to be an heir and heirs to bear

01:56:58.900 and then she retorts so again even forgetting she doesn't want to be wed to Brynhild's

01:57:11.720 uh brother who is Atli so even forgetting that holds she's still having this grudge

01:57:20.080 against Brunhild knowingly for a good reason. 0.90

01:57:26.780 Seek not on men to avenge thy sorrows,

01:57:31.320 though the blame at first with us hath been.

01:57:34.740 Happy shalt be as if both still lived,

01:57:38.720 Sigurd and Sigmund, if sons thou bearest.

01:57:44.740 So don't be sad.

01:57:47.580 and uh don't get uh warriors to avenge the death but live the memory of uh sigurd and and and the

01:58:00.280 volsungs by bearing forth children which is really kind of flawed logic in my opinion but

01:58:05.880 She's trying to trick Gudrun.

01:58:10.480 Gudrun speaks,

01:58:13.220 Grimhild,

01:58:14.800 I may not gladness find

01:58:17.700 nor hold forth hopes to heroes now

01:58:20.400 since once the raven and the ravening wolf

01:58:23.660 Sigurd's heart blood hungrily lapped.

01:58:29.100 And Grimhild speaks,

01:58:30.900 Noblest of birth is the ruler now.

01:58:33.560 I have found for thee

01:58:34.920 And the foremost of all, him shalt thou have, while life thou hast, or husbandless you will be, if him thou wilt not choose.

01:58:47.080 And again, we've spoken about marriage in the royal courts, why it was so important to gain those stations.

01:58:56.140 So this exchange back and forth is really Grimhild's political movings.

01:59:06.940 Gudrun speaks, seek not so eagerly me to send.

01:59:15.600 Don't seek so eagerly to send me away is what she's getting there. 1.00

01:59:19.800 To be a bride of yon baneful race, of Gunnar first his wrath shall fall, and the heart will he tear from Hogni's breast. 1.00

01:59:32.580 So, prophetically speaking of what is to come when Atlee invites her brothers. 0.99

01:59:44.760 And this is, of course, Grimhild is their mother.

01:59:49.800 Grimhild is the mother of Gudrun and Gunnirn Hogni, so she's also kind of saying, like, don't be so quick to weave me into the weird over there, because what ultimately comes of this is that your sons will die, my brothers will die, and all of this is bad.

02:00:11.740 um weeping grim healed heard the words that fate full sore for her sons foretold and mighty woe

02:00:23.540 for them should work she spoke lands i give thee with all that live there

02:00:30.340 vin bjork is mine or is thine dal bjork too have them forever but hear me daughter

02:00:39.240 gudrun speaks so must i do as the kings besought and against my will for my kinsmen wed

02:00:48.880 never with my husband joy i had and my sons my by my brother's fate were saved not that part there

02:00:58.740 the way that it kind of should be read is that what she's saying is never with joy will i have

02:01:07.140 with the husband at Lee um it's not reflect reflective of saying she never had any joy with

02:01:15.680 Sigurd no it's quite the opposite but um she says she has to do it as royalty beckons um against her

02:01:24.100 will uh but never with my husband her future husband um joy I had and my sons by my brother's

02:01:34.920 fate were saved not i could not rest till of life i had robbed the warrior bold and the maker of

02:01:42.920 battles this uh stanza 35 is missing the front half so i yeah i don't know if this is grimhild

02:01:55.880 saying this that she um could not rest until sigurd was dead uh

02:02:04.920 I don't, I mean, again, this is where that, that choppiness really kind of is the only thing that's bad about this poem.

02:02:13.600 But Gudrun speaks.

02:02:17.600 Soon on horseback, each hero was, and the foreign woman in wagon faring.

02:02:26.600 A week through lands so cold we went, and a second week the waves we smoked.

02:02:32.900 and a third through lands the water lacked so um a couple of things about this she is the foreign

02:02:42.580 woman that that are the outsider um but the the mapping of this going over perhaps the danube

02:02:51.800 or the the dnepper river or going into um the black sea and then also interestingly enough

02:03:02.020 into the lands where water lacked um you know i don't know if this is accurate to geological or

02:03:13.380 just a sense of we went through the cold we went through the rain we went through the the water we

02:03:21.060 went through the desert kind of just showing this great expanse but she moves eastward um

02:03:32.020 And she says, the warders now on the lofty walls opened the gates and in we rode the men of the guards upon the parapet.

02:03:44.040 Atlee woke me for forever. I seemed of bitterness full for my brother's death.

02:03:50.900 Atlee spoke now from sleep.

02:03:55.440 OK, wait a minute. This is interesting there.

02:03:58.680 It says the Norris have waked me.

02:04:02.020 the norns that's a misspelling on the uh websites part because in the in the uh old

02:04:09.060 norse it's uh the norns woke me so now from sleep the norns have woken me with visions

02:04:23.660 of terror to thee will i tell them bethought thou gudrun gyuki's daughter with poisoned 0.53

02:04:31.120 blade dis pierce my body so he has premonition from the norns he receives the the premonition that 0.91

02:04:43.760 uh gudrun will pierce his body with a poisoned blade which is true in the story and i think

02:04:52.480 it's also kind of more important that the re-emphasizing of premonition the premonition

02:04:59.120 of Sigurd's death and Gunnar's death and Hogni's death and Brynhild's death all of these are

02:05:06.280 repeated beforehand I think that either the audience already knew the end result or it was

02:05:17.260 a way to let them know before the end of the poem so that they kind of to entice them to keep

02:05:24.820 listening how does how does uh it all play out um and gudrun speaks after he says this

02:05:36.180 fire a dream of steel shall follow and willful pride one of woman's wrath and baneful sore

02:05:44.260 i shall burn from thee and tend and heal thee though hated thou am

02:05:50.020 so she interprets his dream a little differently um she says no i won't poison you with a blade

02:06:00.760 i will be lancing or cutting out an abscess and we'll all will heal you despite the fact

02:06:08.200 uh that i am hated here in your land and i i think that's um interesting she's she's trying

02:06:18.400 to conceal I think ultimately what's happening or maybe she doesn't fully believe it as of yet

02:06:27.580 but Atlee is given that either way so Atlee speaks of plants I dreamed in the garden drooping

02:06:38.640 That fain would I have, full high to grow

02:06:43.460 Plucked by the roots and red with blood 0.91

02:06:46.700 They brought them hither and bade me eat them

02:06:51.060 I dreamed my hawks from my hand had flown

02:06:55.720 Eager for food to an evil house

02:06:58.740 I dreamed their hearts with honey I ate

02:07:02.860 Soaked in blood and heavy my sorrow

02:07:06.340 Hounds, I dreamed. From my hand, I loosed. Loud in hunger and pain, they howled. Their flesh, me thought, was eagle food. And their bodies, now, I needs must eat.

02:07:22.680 And so the plants, the hawk, and the hounds, all, I think, significant of the land that he owned and, of course, the powers of being a king.

02:07:46.400 All of these great powers kind of coming back to him where he must consume them because of his doom.

02:07:58.440 But Gudrun speaks back and says, men shall soon of sacrifice speak and off the heads of beasts shall hew.

02:08:09.220 Die they shall ere day has dawned, a few nights hence, and the folk shall have them.

02:08:16.400 So she's saying, don't worry. The Godis will sacrifice and they will bathe the blood of the animals of bloat and they will give the meat to the people and share it with the gods.

02:08:37.220 so don't worry is uh i think this line here she's really saying like you are in good graces with the

02:08:45.380 gods you have priests who are about to sacrifice um the animals and the the folks shall have

02:08:53.380 so all thing is all things are a right you shouldn't worry um but atli speaks again and

02:09:01.700 says on my bed i sank nor slumber sought weary with woe full well i remember

02:09:10.900 and then the last part of the stanza is of course and terribly inconveniently gone

02:09:18.900 um and gudrun speaks back soon on horseback each hero was and the foreign woman in wagons

02:09:28.740 fairing a week through the oh wait a minute oh sorry i went backwards there um oh that's because

02:09:37.060 yes it suddenly ends right there at the the dream of otley but you know the story kind of

02:09:45.700 this poem is all it's doing is foreshadowing or going into detail more about gudrun's lament

02:09:55.700 and then her being married to atli and ultimately what's to come and her hiding

02:10:03.380 the dream that atli has and kind of writing it off is more indicative to that she still

02:10:10.820 um had uh plans and this of course is um after you know he kills her brothers too

02:10:21.220 too. And I wonder, too, if Attlee felt like her brother slaying her first husband, maybe he was

02:10:34.140 doing her a favor or attempting to kind of win her over that way, but that didn't work. That

02:10:41.240 doesn't work, especially with the moral ethics that we've seen played out. And I wonder, too,

02:10:48.540 it's maybe perhaps some lack of understanding that aptly being of the of the of the east of the

02:10:55.900 guttanish and um people coming out of the um steps of russia if maybe that wasn't something

02:11:06.380 he fully understood or even cared about but kills her brothers and then says oh you know it's so

02:11:12.940 crazy i had this dream that you were gonna kill me and she's like oh no no it's just gonna lance

02:11:18.300 a back boil and uh everything's gonna be okay i don't know sorry but that's the end of that um that

02:11:28.780 poem. Well, there you have it. We keep hitting this from different angles. This poem I think

02:11:50.720 was really, some of the imagery was really, really well done, especially at the beginning.

02:11:57.800 Like, there's a lot of really nice pieces.

02:12:01.760 It sucks that there's pieces missing and stuff that we won't ever know, but it's also really, I don't know, encouraging and exciting that we have so much of it.

02:12:16.300 But the fact that we read through this and so many of these pieces are stated again and again in little different ways from a little different perspective, all these different pieces of this poem being preserved in the Etta is a little bit tedious to work through sometimes to get that.

02:12:32.880 But it's a testament to the effort put in to preserve this and have this make it all the way down to us again about a story from, I don't know, probably 500 written with characters around that time.

02:12:57.360 so having that make it all the way to us you know in large part or from people like

02:13:04.560 simonder who recorded this stuff and cataloged it and preserved it for us to have so i think

02:13:11.780 that's really cool that we've got so many different little angles on it and i assure

02:13:16.500 you we're we're working our way through it we don't have too many more left what's up yeah i

02:13:22.880 just had a um so we just did the old poem of gudrun but there's a another short one we're

02:13:30.640 are we doing uh gudruna in uh the third lay of gudrun it's an 11 stanzaed one two weeks from

02:13:42.560 now we are oh oh okay i didn't know if we were doing that um kind of all coupled in because this

02:13:49.840 is kind of another extension of i mean they all are in this section until we get out of it um

02:14:00.720 i get that we're beating it to death but we are going through them in the order that it came down

02:14:07.020 to us so I don't know

02:14:08.860 blame Simon D'Oro on that

02:14:11.120 we've got

02:14:16.280 in this

02:14:19.000 specific

02:14:20.100 Volsung cycle

02:14:23.180 we've got

02:14:24.260 four more poems

02:14:26.480 and then we've only got after

02:14:31.100 that an additional four

02:14:33.080 poems until we are done with Poetic

02:14:35.060 out so i appreciate you guys um working through it with us i'm glad we're able to cover a little

02:14:42.900 bit of ground tonight with three different pieces that i think you know all have little bits that are

02:14:52.580 juicy and enticing um angela in new hampshire donated 50

02:14:59.140 towards paying off phrasehoff thank you very much angela we appreciate it

02:15:05.060 And I do not see an abundance of other questions going on tonight.

02:15:14.340 So that's kind of where we are currently at this evening.

02:15:24.720 That's why I was thinking, like, if we shot forward on that last one of Gutherland,

02:15:30.060 but i don't know if the the thumbnails have already been made no that's fine and we've got

02:15:38.460 we've got time to go over that um so yeah i appreciate working through those tonight not

02:15:45.900 a ton of questions but um is what it is and uh there's nothing wrong with having uh

02:15:53.500 I'm having an early close in time on it this evening.

02:15:59.140 I do want to make a plug again while there's still time to make travel plans and other things.

02:16:08.080 Phrasehoff dedication.

02:16:09.840 Got a lot of people signing up for it.

02:16:11.620 I think there will be a lot of people in attendance.

02:16:14.320 You should be one of them.

02:16:16.260 So make it happen if you can.

02:16:23.900 it's literally a once-in-a-lifetime thing it's very convenient for folks driving it's right off of

02:16:31.420 you know highway 80 and i forget what the other cross highway is but it's right off the highway

02:16:36.780 it's really a a very we're very fortunate in the location and i think anybody who gets to

02:16:44.060 go and check it out will see how fortunate we've we've been on it but we're we've really got a nice

02:16:49.100 spot very very proud of it very excited about it um also if you're listening to this program

02:16:58.300 and you are not a member of the house true folk assembly assuming you are white and heterosexual

02:17:03.980 you should fix that and join not the whiteness or the heterosexuality but you should fix your

02:17:08.620 lack of being an afa member um yeah we want to bring all our folk home a lot of people think

02:17:16.700 maybe one day they'll they'll join and but you know waiting until the time's right the time's

02:17:22.780 right there'll never be the perfect time but the best time to do it is right now uh also kind of

02:17:29.980 a side thing words matter as we've had the law speaker mention on here and so i wanted to oh

02:17:40.220 good night okay all right anyways so words matter stuff's important one of the things that i have

02:17:53.260 heard from a number of people in recent weeks who are not afa members is that they support us 100

02:18:02.460 percent what does that mean i'm very curious because we have a lot of fans that like what

02:18:11.180 we're doing that are generally supportive of the idea of the astro folk assembly and

02:18:17.660 you know they assure us like man we we appreciate you we support you a hundred percent well are you

02:18:24.220 member will know then didn't then you support so i guess the follow-up question so are you

02:18:32.620 member no well you know do you donate well no you mean you support us zero percent um

02:18:42.620 we appreciate all the support i want anybody though that has that thought to think about it

02:18:47.580 if you do like what we're doing and you do support us a hundred percent very seldom do i have somebody

02:18:53.820 say they support us like 77.5 percent 93 it's kind of an all or nothing deal

02:19:04.460 but if you support us get on the team we would love to we would love to have you with us um

02:19:13.580 something that i've noticed when people say that

02:19:15.820 oftentimes we will have people that don't see something close to them

02:19:23.140 and they're you know man i support you guys 100 man if only there was something close to me i

02:19:29.480 would join i promise you joining is the fastest way to get something closer to you and i've said

02:19:37.540 this a million times and i'll say it a million more the way this works is everybody it's the

02:19:45.320 analogy i know people get tired of my bar analogy sometimes but on a slow night i watch over the

02:19:52.680 course of hours when i was working at the front door at a bar i'd watch it'd be a tuesday and

02:19:56.600 nobody's in there but you know every few minutes somebody comes by look in there's nobody there

02:20:03.640 it's dead a couple couple minutes go by well oh yeah maybe i'll check back later nobody's in there

02:20:10.760 tonight if everybody who did that just went in and had a beer it would be a hopping night right

02:20:20.680 but it takes it takes those first few that are willing to be the only ones in an area for a

02:20:26.680 little bit in order to get momentum but momentum is how we have all of the thriving communities we

02:20:32.280 have it's how we are able to get hoffs that's another thing that people i've noticed man but

02:20:40.200 i can't join there's not a hoff near me not so long ago like 10 years and one month ago

02:20:50.760 there were no hoffs near anybody um the way that hoffs have happened five of them so far

02:20:59.160 is because we did have people that got together where there wasn't a hoff and by seeing all of

02:21:04.680 those people there and having confidence in the community they were building we were able to put 0.98

02:21:09.800 Hoffs places. So if you want, if you're waiting for people to be near you and you're looking

02:21:19.060 around for who those people are going to be, look in the mirror. That's who that person

02:21:23.760 should be. And we can build around you and help you build stuff in your area. We're not

02:21:30.780 yet at a point where we can send out Ausatru missionaries to build a spot. What happens 0.89

02:21:36.560 every place we've been successful is that we have an individual who sees that they want something

02:21:43.440 in their area that they don't have and they decide to step up and to join and to gather other folks

02:21:50.900 around them and put in you know a little bit of time and a little bit of effort and we will help

02:21:57.820 you all the way to build something near you but uh yeah we could use your help if you support us

02:22:05.000 get on the team if you're thinking about it now is the time um also if you enjoy the program

02:22:11.720 tell your friends about it there's you know we all have we all have these circles of friends

02:22:18.120 and acquaintances that often defy geography in today's internet age

02:22:27.720 probably everybody out there that's listening to this knows somebody that should be knows

02:22:31.560 somebody that might be interested in joining the ask true folk assembly and coming home to their

02:22:36.200 native faith uh tell them about it spread the word we appreciate all the help you can we can get that

02:22:43.160 way um and we do have a question that popped up are you going to cover the prosetta after

02:22:51.400 you're finished with the poetic data so easy answer is yes we are going to do that are we

02:22:59.400 we going to do that directly after it i had assumed that we were but we hadn't really discussed that

02:23:06.280 so let's you know swan and i will confer but very likely that will come directly after

02:23:15.720 it's definitely one that we're going to cover in relatively short uh you know relatively soon

02:23:22.440 because it is very important and i see swan over on the side

02:23:25.960 um the prose etta has the gilfaginning in it and the gilfaginning as a as a singular work is

02:23:37.960 very very important i think it's one of the best if not the best that we have in taking all of the

02:23:47.320 aspects of our lore and putting it in one place in an explanatory format to basically explain

02:23:59.640 what alsatru is what our faith and our conception of the gods and the world and

02:24:08.360 And the cosmology of Al-Satru is.

02:24:13.000 It expresses that in a very clear and very intentional way that's, you know, we're not picking up bits and pieces from, you know, a bigger story about something else and applying them.

02:24:27.720 It's directly, this is what, and it's written that way.

02:24:32.280 Like, this is what the ancestors believed.

02:24:34.860 That was kind of the purpose of that particular section by Snorri, is to recount what the religion of his ancestors were.

02:24:46.640 And he was very devoted to doing that in an authentic way.

02:24:49.680 so it's it's something that uh informs how we practice house true in the afa quite a bit and

02:24:58.720 where we get um a lot of very directly how we do things so we're excited to get to that

02:25:07.280 um and yeah we'll likely do it right after uh the fun keeps nodding his head so we're

02:25:14.160 We're going to do it directly after we've done with the poetic edda.

02:25:19.040 We'll call that good.

02:25:20.420 And that is what we'll move on to next.

02:25:23.060 I'm itching to get to the gill beginning because of just like the things you said.

02:25:28.660 And there are so many elements all right there that we implement within the theology of the church.

02:25:35.880 So, I mean, everything from the tripartite to the wells and certain things that I've noticed other people, perhaps, you know, more internet-y people are trying to say that things are wrong or different and they're moving things around.

02:25:51.940 And it's like, no, it's very clear here in the gill beginning.

02:25:55.600 And that is where we, you know, and even down to the temples being built in order from the gill beginning, everything.

02:26:06.060 It's such a it's the I think it's the cornerstone of lore in relation to the theological framework or at least the lore framework of the church.

02:26:19.380 I'm itching to get at it

02:26:21.940 yeah no it's exciting

02:26:24.300 it's something that I'm definitely looking forward to

02:26:26.340 also because it is so very

02:26:28.160 foundational to what we do

02:26:29.740 so I'm looking forward to that one

02:26:31.600 and I appreciate

02:26:34.260 you guys thank you very much

02:26:36.060 for being here and being such an awesome

02:26:38.180 audience thank you very much for the folks

02:26:40.080 that donated tonight

02:26:41.400 and continue to donate

02:26:43.580 the progress we have made

02:26:46.380 on paying off Frazehoff

02:26:48.100 has been astounding we're you know over 30 percent before we've even done dedication so that's

02:26:57.700 that's really amazing and it's because your guys generosity so thank you for that

02:27:01.620 and uh also thank you producer nick for the work you're putting in

02:27:05.940 we appreciate it i appreciate you making sure these shows function smooth for us each and every week

02:27:11.620 Svon, it's good to get to talk to you back on here. I know we only had you on once last month,

02:27:19.460 so it's nice to get a chance to talk to you, and I'm very excited to see what you are able to paint

02:27:26.260 at Frashoff. No doubt it will be magnificent. Well, and the fact that the episode is

02:27:33.460 kind of shorter than our usual is good because I'm going to be hitting the road tonight

02:27:37.140 um to avoid traffic so i will road the night traveling and be there tomorrow

02:27:45.060 okay well it's cool i'm excited text me when you get there i'm curious about what you think

02:27:50.260 um yeah so it's working out good on that also everybody um i don't know gear up and be excited

02:28:00.320 for next week we are going to be joined for another history episode with folk builder chris

02:28:06.500 Savage. This time we're going to talk about the loyal Anglo-Saxons and their struggle against

02:28:14.160 the insurgent Christianity there, and some of our heroes that stood against the tide

02:28:22.740 and for brief moments in time brought their kingdoms back in line with Troth to the Aesir.

02:28:29.900 so we're going to have that episode

02:28:33.000 I'm very excited

02:28:34.720 his last similar episode

02:28:37.240 he did on the Goths was

02:28:38.940 fantastic

02:28:40.440 so this is going to be an exciting one

02:28:43.320 that I'm looking forward to

02:28:44.520 that's one week from today

02:28:46.320 tell your friends

02:28:47.820 it's going to be awesome

02:28:49.780 we will see you then

02:28:50.940 until then 0.64

02:28:51.760 hail the Aesir

02:28:53.260 hail the folk

02:28:54.080 hail the AFA

02:28:55.220 remember

02:28:56.160 victory never sleeps

02:28:57.840 Thank you.

02:29:27.840 Thank you.

02:29:57.840 Transcription by CastingWords

02:30:27.840 Thank you.

02:30:57.840 Thank you.

02:31:27.840 Thank you.

02:31:57.840 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - November 06, 2025

11⧸5⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Ep 174 - Helreið Brynhildar ｜ Dráp Niflunga ｜ Guðrúnarkviða in forna

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