Asatru Folk Assembly - 12⧸14⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 23 - Freyr

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Thank you.

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

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

00:03:00.000 Hello, everyone. Welcome to the As A True Folk Assembly's weekly podcast,

00:03:13.800 Victory Never Sleeps. I am Wynton Brandi Callahan, filling in for the Altaira Godi tonight.

00:03:20.100 And we have with us our esteemed lore teacher, Wynton Svon Harrell. How are you doing tonight,

00:03:29.200 fun i'm doing well how are you i'm doing pretty good so tonight we're going to be talking about

00:03:35.680 frere and before we start talking about frere can you give us just a real quick

00:03:43.360 synopsis or summary of what his name means where we find him first in our lore

00:03:52.080 um yeah i would say first and foremost it would be important to know that just like with

00:03:59.200 Odin, or Wotan, or Wotan, or Wodhanaz, as it's generally seen, you know, going backwards in linguistic reconstruction, excuse me, the clock.

00:04:13.140 Um, the, uh, the, uh, the name of Freyr is, uh, kind of a latter half addition to the name Inguaz, or Ingui, or, um, uh, Angus, or, actually, excuse me, let me see, it's not Angus, it's amongst the Goths.

00:04:38.220 he was known as, let me check my notes here. Let me see. Angus. Yes, it is Angus with an E.

00:04:51.960 So, you know, the understanding of Frey's name lineage going that far back denotes that he's

00:05:01.360 been with our folk as far as you know a very very very long time but the the procession of

00:05:09.640 uh lord fray coming out of or from njord and of of the vanic line um that's where things i think

00:05:21.000 get truly interesting but his namesake has been with us and through multiple branches of all

00:05:26.780 Indo-European languages, or I mean early European, proto-Germanic languages, and they all have

00:05:34.520 great similarities going all the way back to the Bronze Age. Obviously, fertility through phallic

00:05:40.660 imagery, war-like, oftentimes sword-based, kingliness, and showing solar head effigies,

00:05:50.740 and boars uh specifically like wild pigs um these three things even though they're not written down

00:05:58.340 are often always clumped together on stone carvings um especially like in oster gottland

00:06:05.700 they were uh you know seen there but it can't be marked that that is fray but it is generally

00:06:14.020 surmised because all the imagery that's there that's kind of connected together

00:06:17.940 um but i would say first and foremost that people need to understand that there's

00:06:22.420 technically two names to fray it's in v fray or or fray ing throw ing uh the the fray part is of

00:06:31.860 course uh coming from the the title lord so it just means the lord um and much like his sister

00:06:41.620 freya um it means the lady but seeing that his core name also has survived in many other instances

00:06:50.980 not not uh particularly in the adas but elsewhere especially in the sagas and in the uh the ingitals

00:06:58.980 the the the story of the kings of sweden uh there is mention of him being referred to as

00:07:06.260 ing v fray or fro ing and so ing is the focus that i would say most people have to look at

00:07:15.220 and that would actually be the true name so with lord ing um and generally we just call him the lord

00:07:24.900 um and i think that's really important for our folk to understand because when we look at other

00:07:30.900 things like um if we talk about the ingle nook in england with the in relation to the fireplace

00:07:37.380 if we see um obviously their connections to the angles or the anglish or the anglos

00:07:43.540 um and we look into continental germany we see a lot more referencing to uh like ing and angus

00:07:54.260 amongst the goths whereas uh when we start to cross the baltic we see more of a frayer and a

00:08:02.020 frothy and a and uh even a frico f-r-i-c-c-o but that actually has some debate as to whether or not

00:08:09.940 um that was just a germanization at the time of fray so and i i would argue yes because the author

00:08:17.620 was translating for for the continental germans so he used uh that name so yeah that's the biggest

00:08:24.580 important thing i would say just that everyone needs to realize that when we do call fray

00:08:30.180 fray we're calling him the lord and his uh i guess true name would be ing or ingwas or ingwa

00:08:41.780 or um engvie you know however and engvie may also be just a joining of the word ing and vey

00:08:49.940 the holy space so there is that excellent sir uh trent asks witness fun every anglo-saxon wants to

00:09:00.820 know does frayer have any relationship to our tribal god known as saxon

00:09:06.500 oh uh hitting a hitting a hot button um leave it up well east yeah

00:09:20.500 the sax not um mystery sex not um well i mean clearly we we've already i just mentioned that

00:09:28.980 there's there is some imagery always associated with uh engvifred or or with frey and uh one of

00:09:37.380 that would be of course the the seax or the the the sax sword um later kind of becoming a knife

00:09:45.620 uh and then later on in iceland sex meant sword in and of itself um so to say a connection to the

00:09:54.420 sword very very possible however there's some contenders in this debate when it comes to things

00:10:02.660 like uh as if you know to lean towards uh tiwa or uh the anglo-saxon tiu um as a uh

00:10:13.300 another prime example of the possibility um during charlemagne's conversion times there

00:10:19.060 was a prayer in which sex not sex not is absolutely mentioned um as far as

00:10:28.100 uh the connection to the anglos i mean i would say out of the two it would be much

00:10:32.340 more of a stronger case to say that frere is um

00:10:40.420 you know i don't want to say is sex not sex not is uh like i said it's a contested

00:10:49.060 thing i but i would say out of those two contenders i would say yes if we were talking

00:10:54.900 about the imagery of the sword and of the connectivity of um or the the power and gravity

00:11:03.060 of um angby fred amongst the anglos then yeah i would say that that would have a great um

00:11:12.260 case uh we do have to take into account though like when we talk about uh in beowulf when they

00:11:21.860 mention um that coming from across the baltic sea into into denmark there is the hero uh shield

00:11:29.860 sheafing and sheafing of course makes reference to the binding of wheat and again the agricultural

00:11:36.820 aspect connected to frey throughout all of the germanic branches uh is worth noting um

00:11:45.380 so if there if there is a chance that they diverted that far into shield sheafing or there's

00:11:52.100 even speculation that shield sheafing might have been like an avatar or a physical manifestation

00:11:57.780 of fray um as was later seen in other um like in sweden um

00:12:08.180 the only problem is is that there's no direct correlation

00:12:11.700 to sex not being mentioned in any other connective elements or domains in which the lord fray has

00:12:20.500 always taken precedent in um our our religion and in germanic life in general amongst the saxons um

00:12:31.940 again it would be interesting because if we talk about the angalos as being you know the sons of

00:12:38.340 ing or eng um and then saxons of course being saxonaut or having connection to saxonaut then

00:12:45.300 is this two tribes that were devoted to the lord fray and they joined together before

00:12:52.320 they came across i mean there's a lot of speculation there i i honestly cannot

00:12:57.260 place down an absolute answer on that way to throw the big one out there for us uh go

00:13:04.720 right out the gate i got hit with a wrench go to the east always start in trouble right off the bat

00:13:13.440 No, we're kidding.

00:13:14.600 We love you, Trent.

00:13:17.440 Tony asked, glad to see you both on here.

00:13:20.060 How are we doing tonight?

00:13:21.320 Well, Tony, I'm doing pretty darn good.

00:13:23.280 So we just had an outstanding Yule celebration at Baldershof last weekend.

00:13:30.780 We had people from North Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, Florida.

00:13:38.840 We had some New York's Hof folks up there, and that was an absolute treat to see them and meet them for the first time and share Yule with them.

00:13:48.540 And we had a really great time.

00:13:50.340 It was a beautiful event.

00:13:51.620 The food was amazing.

00:13:55.460 You know, Mike from New York's Hof and Stian from Baldershof just killed it in the kitchen.

00:14:00.940 It was an old Julia Child's recipe that Stian had modified.

00:14:05.840 and all the leadership served their folk in a three-course meal and it was absolutely beautiful

00:14:12.480 so you guys have yule coming up as well spawn at thor's off yes yes we're uh we decided to take

00:14:20.100 the weekend before uh mother's night as our our scheduled weekend to do all things and we've got

00:14:27.700 a ton of stuff coming up too we have a gigantic toy drive um that uh one of our lovely folk builders

00:14:34.400 She organized it herself. She's just got tons of toys for the kids. She's got a huge coat drive

00:14:41.540 going on as well. And then we have our monthly food drive going on. So all of that is going on

00:14:46.540 during a kind of a three-day event. But Saturday is the main day. We're expecting most people to

00:14:51.780 arrive there. We're just going to have people there on Friday and on Sunday morning as well.

00:14:57.580 and then we're going to be preparing for yule tradition um and kind of having classes on that

00:15:04.640 about um the the strata of a 12-night yule and um where that comes from and you know they kind of

00:15:15.140 the debates around it and things like that so we have uh yule coming up at odin's hof as well

00:15:22.880 as New York's Hof. So if you can make it to a Hof, weather permitting, please get a hold of those

00:15:29.700 people. So there is still a Yule to be had at Odin's Hof. Get a hold of Ashley Stockton about

00:15:36.740 that. And as far as Thor's Hof, we can get a hold of the Youngs and Svan, and they can probably get

00:15:43.080 you information about that. And as far as New York's Hof, get a hold of your Goethe Lane Ashby

00:15:50.460 and the plords as well as uh mike and tracy and they will get you guys all set up for yule yule

00:15:55.660 is one of those celebrations you definitely don't want to miss especially at hoff if you can make it

00:16:00.620 and second part of that question is fawn how are you doing tonight i'm doing great um

00:16:07.020 no jets overhead so that's good um and uh i mean all is well everything is good business is good

00:16:14.940 I've been blessed by Frey in many ways as far as prosperity and all good things.

00:16:20.920 So I am well.

00:16:23.460 Excellent.

00:16:25.520 Katla asks, I see people naming pets after gods, Thor, Loki, etc.

00:16:32.680 Loki is obviously bad, but is it blasphemy to do it with the other gods' names?

00:16:38.720 So we've had some discussion about this recently.

00:16:41.340 and we do understand that people have already named their children after gods or named pets

00:16:47.540 after gods and we are sure that it was done with the best of intentions but the as a true folk

00:16:53.000 assembly stance on that is our ancestors didn't name their pets and their children after gods

00:17:00.620 if you want to honor a god absolutely you can include their name within that name but they

00:17:07.100 were never actually named directly. So from a modern context, because obviously we don't just

00:17:12.340 do everything our ancestors did, but for a modern context, when you use the name of a god, you do so

00:17:19.940 in piety and in worship. So you are taking that name of Thor, of Odin, and you are giving it to

00:17:29.960 a human being in a mundane world. And it takes a little bit of that shine from it. It takes a

00:17:37.340 little bit of that piety from it. Now, we're not saying that if you've already named your children

00:17:43.000 that you should rename your children, or we're not saying you need to change all your legal

00:17:46.560 documents. But what we're saying is take heed when you're naming your children or your pets

00:17:51.980 or anything after the gods themselves. The gods are absolutely powerful, powerful beings,

00:17:58.760 powerful gods and um you know taking that into a mundane world changes that swan can you give us

00:18:06.740 some examples of how um towns children things like that utilize the names of our gods previously how

00:18:15.420 was that done before well i mean i think most everybody is is really really familiar with it

00:18:21.000 The biggest thing to understand is how all present it is at the same time, the way that it's so clearly done, it's kind of embarrassing in another way.

00:18:39.660 like if you are naming your child solely and singularly after one of the gods or if you're

00:18:45.060 naming one of your pets after the gods um which i i think is in poor taste in general there as well

00:18:53.460 um but throughout all the lore if you have you don't have to go but two inches into the lore

00:18:59.020 anywhere and you'll start to notice a pattern and it's so clear that anything otherwise is kind of

00:19:05.040 again embarrassingly just ominous the elephant in the room we look back we see thorstein thor

00:19:13.200 bjorn we see fredis we see so many different examples of the names of the gods being used in

00:19:20.720 conjunction with other elements to make names same when always when it comes to um temples

00:19:28.240 when it comes to hills when it comes to uh towns near the ocean or near a river or up on a hill

00:19:35.040 They're always kind of connected with but never singularly done, and it's a pattern that is subtle in the sense that if you're not looking for it or if – to be honest, a lot of people come into Ausatru and they're perhaps coming from a rejection of monotheism.

00:19:56.580 They're coming from a rejection of universalism. So they're coming in with this kind of branch being pulled. All their life, they're kind of getting pulled in one direction, and then it gets released, and they kind of fling off into another direction.

00:20:09.420 or at least they're equalizing out now um and they're starting to understand the premise of

00:20:16.540 divinity and a faith um but they're still kind of lacking a sense of what might be just general

00:20:23.580 common knowledge of what is pious or what piety is outside of a christian realm um and they might

00:20:33.980 also just not kind of understand culturally or even ancient culture of why we we don't do that

00:20:41.060 so you know i would say as this this question is just kind of popping up on me the first and

00:20:47.720 foremost is that there's always link names um and there's always kind of uh you know heighties and

00:20:54.400 and different names like for instance when freya is called the vanadis and the dis is like a goddess

00:21:00.780 or a a spinner of fate uh one who controls the luck and and the overall um abundance of a people

00:21:10.300 and she is the dees of the vana so that that makes perfect sense since she's a vanir and um

00:21:15.900 you know so there's there's things that you can hide in there uh and it was seen as more normal

00:21:21.520 another interesting thing is there's very few names uh after odin in the old norse um

00:21:28.380 uh even and i would say even in the anglo there's there's not a lot of connection generally any um

00:21:37.160 connections to him was done through simply like the general word for god like os so oswald being

00:21:44.580 you know like the the um the leader or the or the forest of the gods or oscar being the spear of the

00:21:51.040 gods and things like that. Again, link words. So yeah, I think it's in poor taste to do it

00:21:59.240 singularly. And I think that we should really take a collection of old names. You can go to

00:22:07.280 any name site. Go to my favorite one. It's called behindthename.com. It's one of the greatest

00:22:11.900 name sites I've ever found. I could peruse that for hours. And it just gives you the etymology

00:22:19.560 of tons of names and you'll notice very very quickly that even though they do have the gods

00:22:24.440 names listed up there um their usage which has a chart generally on the bottom is empty so it's not

00:22:33.240 necessarily used at all um and that's something worth noting and you can find great traditional

00:22:39.240 names you know elsewhere i think that that that should be reserved for the gods um and especially

00:22:45.800 in the context of modern time now yes we're talking about fray we're talking about ingvi

00:22:50.920 fray we're talking about uh engus amongst the goths or uh ingvar or all these things um you know

00:23:01.160 i think it would be important for us to consider um

00:23:06.680 like understanding the names of our gods at this context now also means we pass through a threshold

00:23:12.760 also truths changed and and and it's modern now we're in a modern world we're doing modern things

00:23:19.240 and and so we take what we have from the past as sacred especially considering how

00:23:25.720 i guess endangered or uh that's perhaps not the quite the right word but

00:23:31.080 there there is a looming sense that there is a that we must have the duty of keeping our history

00:23:37.960 um alive and clear so i think we should extend that especially in the concept of names

00:23:47.480 so nick asks so i've got two stories for the purpose or main aspect of charming of the plow

00:23:54.840 with the main excuse me with the main one being the story of gefian but also with the holiday

00:24:00.760 having aspects of frayer specifically with his fertility and virility and the act of plowing

00:24:07.000 the field in a different sense i'm not asking which of the two the holiday is about because

00:24:13.080 he suspects it's both but can you explain and elaborate in general so as far as gefion being

00:24:20.200 part of charming of the plow yes i usually do my charming of the plow blow to gefion um i think

00:24:27.320 she's really great for that particular holiday um i do blessings of tools but i also do the

00:24:33.240 blessings of the hands to be industrious and whatever that that may be that we use to plow

00:24:39.720 whether it's uh you know your hands are just as important tools as the pen you use the computer

00:24:46.280 you use um the plow itself but as far as fray being um part of that as plowing the field in

00:24:54.600 a different sense it's fun what are your thoughts on that oh well to uh to be fair and honest i i

00:25:02.440 think first and foremost we have to look at the origin of charming in the plow where it comes from

00:25:07.800 uh anglo-saxon england post conversion so christianity is in full swing churches everywhere

00:25:16.360 um and it's marked down and noted that they're doing something called the the the acre bot or

00:25:23.080 the the blessing of the acreage or the plots of land and that is the at the core the

00:25:30.200 The inspiration of the modern Ausatru holiday of Charming the Plough. So first and foremost, we have that. And in that, you know, there actually isn't any mention of Freyr. There is a mention of Nerthas, or as she's referred to in the poem as Ersa, which again, connection to linguistics, is Ertha.

00:25:56.440 uh same as the nordic i guess equivalent would be yard or yard the yard where we get the word yard

00:26:04.900 from so the earth is is first and foremost mentioned in that ritual and there is a digging

00:26:13.500 of furrows and there is a placing of of the last of the grains from the year before into the ground

00:26:19.860 in hopes of gaining blessing. But what we see here is a transference of the seed

00:26:27.400 and the wheat of last year into the ground for the new year. So there is connectivity there

00:26:37.120 between the idea of the germination of the seed into the ground and connection also to with the

00:26:44.460 plow making that formulation of the idea of the masculine and the cosmic coming down into the

00:26:52.900 natural order and into the fertile earth. And so there's tons of connections there that have

00:26:58.500 absolute validity. But when we move away from the Acrebat itself, what we also see is a connection

00:27:08.580 to the plow in reference to the story in, uh, the, the Gilfagining in which, uh, King Galfi

00:27:15.180 runs into Gavion. Gavion's name means the giver. And one of the things that I think we as hard

00:27:23.700 polytheists have to understand is that there is a stratification of the gods that always correlate

00:27:30.200 in the realm of that, which is cosmic order and the sky and the fire and the wind. And there is,

00:27:37.360 uh natural law that is exemplified through the earth and through water in the ground and so

00:27:45.600 we see this stratification happen above and in the middle world and um so

00:27:54.560 gevion is another stratification of the primordial which is the earth that's another thing i think

00:28:01.280 people need to wrap their heads around is that our gods are um they are stewards they are uh

00:28:09.360 wardens they are responsible by merit and by deed over great primordial powers so we don't

00:28:15.600 necessarily say like oh you know uh that rock is said god we don't we see the gods as primordial

00:28:25.360 they they rule over primordial forces that are all conjuncting into this center middle world

00:28:31.840 so gevion again is one of the aspects of the earth and i think it's most important that we

00:28:38.240 when i see gevion and what we're talking about is the bordering of land where she uh she takes

00:28:44.320 out zealand from the bottom of um sweden and um what i think really gevion is as an asinia too is

00:28:55.360 And I feel I have seen her manifest in our folk over and over and over again, even though they might be Christian and we can see this manifestation happening over and over again.

00:29:09.480 When you see the woman floating above the caravan of wagons, you know, to manifest destiny, when you see Columbina, you know, standing on the pedestal with the shield and with a scepter or with a sword and, you know, saying, well, you defend her and with the American flag on the shield.

00:29:25.940 These are all real aspects, I think, of what the giver Geviona is. And so, again, Charming of the Plow is about taking land, is about what you can plow and what you are tending and taking over, what you're responsible for.

00:29:41.720 And so Gevion has sanctity in the idea that she is that which gives and that which you must give in return in order to gain bounty. And so I see that as the plotage or acreage or boundary of the land or of your farm or homestead.

00:29:58.420 And then when we talk about Freyr in the representation of the plow from the sky into the earth, then we can see the correlation there between Freyr and Gerðr.

00:30:08.380 And then also, too, we also see the aspect of Nerthas being the giving earth as, you know, plowing through the earth in order to upset her, to wake her out of her catharsis state of the winter, arouse her from the slumber, if you will.

00:30:33.480 And so you see this theme happening over and over and over again, and it happens through cyclic sides of our faith. When we talk about the Vana, when we talk about the, I guess, Chthonic or natural law earth and water side, you see these cycles happening over and over and over again.

00:30:53.920 So they all have connection. And I think that's another thing that people need to wrap their heads around about modern Ausatru is that we have so many sources because we had great people in the beginning of Ausatru coming back, studying these things, and then bringing them together, almost like twining them like a rope.

00:31:11.860 You get one strand, it's weak, but you put a bunch of strands together and you've got a strong, solid understanding of a pan-European tradition. And then we move forward from there.

00:31:20.840 so yeah i think all of those elements have absolute validity and um as long as you know

00:31:27.920 you have these people that are like well actually it's the anchor butt and you know or uh you know

00:31:33.780 uh and i brought it up i said freya wasn't mentioned in that is actually he was never

00:31:38.620 mentioned and you know it's like it's it's frustrating because it's like they're picking

00:31:44.800 apart things in order to sort of establish some sense of like authority when in reality it's

00:31:52.240 the the i would see the the stronger move is to go okay yeah we've taken that and this and all

00:31:57.040 of that and wound it together because we've had the ability in our time now in modern time to look

00:32:01.520 and see what we've got we've got tons of stuff and um yeah we're gonna use it all like it's just

00:32:09.200 kind of more more of a uh i would say a an alpha mindset is to go in and say yeah that's that's

00:32:16.480 good i like that i like all of that let's we're gonna bring it all to the table we're gonna form

00:32:21.920 it together and then we're gonna move forward with it as a people end of story so yeah speaking of

00:32:29.200 speaking of holidays what do you believe would be quote unquote the best holidays to celebrate lord

00:32:36.560 right well i i again charming the plow has its understanding that charming the plow is actually

00:32:44.480 the beginning of a cycle i mean we have a lot of different ways that we can look at the year

00:32:49.120 uh the germanic concept of the summer tiding winter tidings so we can see them in in two forms

00:32:54.400 in which we would see the mid-summer being the height of the summer tide and we would see yule

00:33:00.000 as the height of the winter tide but there's also other ways that our ancestors and i think

00:33:04.880 we could look at it um obviously we had the the romantic or romanish um ideal of the four quarter

00:33:12.480 year um but one cycle that i definitely think people need to kind of get into themselves is

00:33:20.960 that charming of the plow is about setting the ground for when ostra throws open the gates and

00:33:27.120 lets the and the warmth comes through uh once that you're setting the ground uh freyr is is coming

00:33:35.600 he's the varalta god the god of the world you know he comes from leos afheim where he is the king of

00:33:42.880 he comes into the middle realm and all things begin and so from there to frey faxi which is

00:33:50.000 more or less seeing the end uh so you know you could choose either one of those frey faxi

00:33:57.120 Charming of the Plough, or some people call it Loafmas, the massing of the loaves, but that's actually a post-Christian name for it.

00:34:10.580 All of these, I think, have pertinent to honoring Frey, but understanding that it's the cycle, it's the beginning and the end, the recession, the coming forth, the light beaming out, coming into the world.

00:34:27.120 would be charming of the plow and then the receding uh and we see that again in like songs

00:34:31.680 like john barleycorn and the sacrifice of john barleycorn um so both of those i would say are

00:34:38.240 very prominent holidays more so though i would say fray faxy obviously modern house truce taken

00:34:44.080 phrase fray faxy as you know correlative to fray even though i mean historically that the name

00:34:52.160 itself is actually the name of a horse that was in dedicated in dedication to him but um that still

00:34:59.360 is a kenning for the hair of the horse which was the color of hay or the color of wheat so it was

00:35:05.920 most likely a blonde golden icelandic horse you know stout and with goldish hair so i would

00:35:13.520 definitely say freyfaxi uh and charming of the plow as well i mean you can't really separate the two

00:35:21.120 right tony asks i understand why gold was chosen for our gods on the murals

00:35:27.920 but why was red for our mortal heroes were there any other colors considered

00:35:33.920 spawn you're our expert in the arts and you do the art how can you talk to us about that

00:35:38.560 oh it was simple blood it was it was the uh the the banding of blood the idea that the the mortal

00:35:47.680 uh realm the color red there's lots of different indications for the color of red whether we're

00:35:52.160 talking about love or might or strength but in this case it's reference to blood um which is

00:35:59.520 important element in the birthright of our faith and in our folk uh heroes being um exonerated

00:36:07.040 amongst the folk and for for multiple of reasons uh whether it's of course you know not relenting

00:36:13.040 from their faith, even under extremely dire situations, or having some sort of sight beyond

00:36:21.160 the veil, a deep connection spiritually, the mysticism of their connection to the gods is

00:36:28.920 still being studied or trying to be understood, or perhaps they had some great historical

00:36:34.780 significance that um was a milestone within our faith um so red was chosen as the exemplary color

00:36:44.300 of blood actually i don't think there was any other discussion of the color um it was kind of

00:36:54.780 more or less are we going to have a symbol that would correlate an exalted sense of

00:37:01.660 understanding amongst our heroes and uh immediately we thought of the uh son and rod the 12 spoke

00:37:08.700 son and rod but in red to symbolize them being folk and being of the blood and that was it

00:37:15.580 that's that's how it that's how it stuck all right another question we've got here i heard

00:37:24.700 yule was historically celebrated in january does the afa do that no the as a true folk assembly

00:37:33.180 celebrates yule in december we celebrate thorough bloat in january i'm gonna ask nick there it is

00:37:40.940 pop that up there runestone.org calendar you will not only find out what the official and observed

00:37:49.500 dates of celebration are but you will also find write-ups on all of the heroes as well as write

00:37:56.380 ups on all of the holidays are going to put a lot of work into that specifically um githia catherine

00:38:02.620 erickson has put a lot of work in the into that as has spawn um giving you an outline if you click

00:38:08.060 on those links it'll give you a a summary of the holiday itself or a summary of the hero that is

00:38:14.300 honored that month also there will be um insider baseball for anybody that's uh coming to watch the

00:38:21.980 or watch the podcast tonight there is also a um a chance for people if they want to learn

00:38:28.300 the solar lunar perpetual calendar of the iron mark will be in the back of that calendar

00:38:34.780 so that you can post it up on a wall and and learn how to uh run that along with the gregorian

00:38:42.300 our classical western calendar excellent all right so if you are watching us on uh

00:38:50.460 youtube also know that we are streaming on entropy as well if you want to check us out on there you

00:38:57.260 can throw us a donation if you like we're going to answer your questions whether you donate or not

00:39:01.820 but if you donate we'll answer your question next we're also uh streaming on twitter vk and we're

00:39:08.380 also in odyssey as well we have uh social media galore that we're always active on um you can

00:39:15.900 find us on me we you can find us on twitter on vk on odyssey you can find us on gab i believe

00:39:25.180 we're trying to be everywhere that the folk are so that we can give you as much information as we can

00:39:29.660 kella asks oh wait do we answer the the yule question by oh no it's fun you want to take that

00:39:38.120 one yeah i do because that's what i was like i see it um go ahead so finn uh that's a great

00:39:45.760 question first and foremost uh by technicality january no not at all uh but i say by technicality

00:39:54.360 When we're talking about the Anglo-Saxon Yule, which is spelled G-E-O-L, and the G is actually a Y sound, so it's Yol, or Yeol, the lunar calendar that was used, that meant Yulemonav, or Yulemonth, drifted.

00:40:15.800 It wasn't comparable to the Gregorian calendar.

00:40:18.420 The Gregorian calendar is pretty confusing as it is in and of itself with all of its iterations, but the drifting of Yulmanov amongst the Gregorian calendar would mean that, sure, it probably did at some points fall in January, but it most likely fell or more predominantly fell in what would be the 10th month, Decca, or December.

00:40:45.600 again the weirdness of the gregorian calendar because it's the 12th month but you get what i'm

00:40:50.440 getting at is that it drifts in there and so far as we know we spoke we we have the speaking of

00:40:55.400 mother's night and most likely yule was celebrated at the full moon in yule month uh or at least the

00:41:05.740 day before the full moon through the full moon and it kind of ended at the end of full moon

00:41:09.600 And we don't have a lot of attestments to this. So when we talk about Yule, as far as what month

00:41:20.120 it might have fallen in, on a lunar calendar as it shifts, that's the big debate. It's worth noting

00:41:28.020 though, our ancestors saw the world and the year much like a macro of the day. So our ancestors

00:41:36.160 back then didn't have like modern the modern timekeeping so they saw the next day as being

00:41:41.740 at sunset uh and so the new year of the year was actually around winter nights or winter finding

00:41:49.340 i mean you know in between like i would say early october time frame to like early november and that

00:41:57.540 was the sunset of the year and so they often considered that to be the new year but like

00:42:05.240 But modern Assetree is kind of, well, it's adapted and changed and science has kind of helped us. So now we don't consider the next day to be at sunset because that's too variable. And we have midnight. And so the midnight of the year would then transfer, you know, to be around Yule time. I think that was a natural correlation that our folk and our people have done.

00:42:26.600 And so when you have people saying, oh, you know, the New Year's is on, you know, on winter nights, it's like, yeah, yeah, we, you know, it was, but midnight is now.

00:42:35.640 And so, and this is now, and it correlates better too.

00:42:38.560 It makes us not so foreign amongst non-Ossetree Western folk that our Yule correlates as a turning of the year.

00:42:45.980 And it ends, if we're doing the 12 month or even if we're just doing the three days, it ends at the end of the Gregorian calendar almost, you know, perfectly.

00:42:54.940 especially like in the iron mark you know it's it the turning of the year is on mother's night

00:42:59.680 and the first 12 nights once you're done with the first 12 nights well the gregorian calendar

00:43:04.300 turns over so it helps everyone kind of stay together and so we're not some foreign group

00:43:10.460 trying to you know meet out our little pie and pushing everyone out we want people to understand

00:43:17.220 the way we do things so yes i just wanted to answer that is um technically it probably fell

00:43:24.120 in january a couple of times throughout the long extension of that but it's not you can't place a

00:43:29.800 gregorian month on the anglo-saxon lunar calendar and it most predominantly fell in the last 12th

00:43:36.920 month all right katla asks is there a connection with frayer to enki enki as a as a ancient

00:43:47.400 samaria was a god and his name meant lord of the earth and he was the head of those gods enki

00:43:52.760 sounds similar to frere's names okay yeah i i've heard i've heard this this question asked about

00:44:00.760 ingi or angus um i think that the biggest correlation that we might have to look at

00:44:08.120 is that there might be a similarity there based on where that all comes from if you're talking

00:44:15.560 about the hittites and the louians they are a they're a proto or they're they were of an

00:44:21.320 indo-european origin and so therefore their language has a lot of that now just like

00:44:27.800 the arians that moved into india and they ended up having some admixture with the uh people that

00:44:34.440 lived there so to so did the uh proto-indo-europeans that moved down into the middle east and then they

00:44:41.880 ended up mixing a lot with people south of there so i i would say that and i'm not a you know i'm

00:44:51.320 learned scholar on Sumerian gods or Babylonian gods. And I know that there's a lot of

00:44:59.640 kind of stigma against that. And I see Christians try to use that a lot of the time because

00:45:06.200 remember their Christianity is a subsect of Judaism and Judaism. They, well, they were

00:45:11.960 enslaved by the Babylonians. And so they have a, they have a tendency to demonize everything that

00:45:18.420 they correlate them with, whether it's the Canaanites or the Syrian Phoenicians, or if we're

00:45:26.980 talking about the Babylonian Sumerians, all of that is demonized, even though we're using the

00:45:34.340 Greek word for it wrong. I would look into the correlation of whether or not Enki has the

00:45:44.920 foundations of that religiosity coming from the hittites and the louians if it is absolutely i

00:45:52.440 would say there's a connection however um it could also be coincidental based on uh these things i

00:46:02.360 mean there's people that try to correlate uh and this could happen like perfect example uh in

00:46:08.280 modern day also true there are some people that try to correlate volley with valentine's day

00:46:12.840 there's no connection whatsoever it has absolutely no meaning it's just it's a pure coincidence that

00:46:18.440 volley and valentine have kind of a they start with a b and you know or it's so there could be

00:46:25.000 some some essence of that happening there it happens quite a lot when people do retrograding

00:46:30.920 of things but i would say looking at the hittite louian connection or any any uh mention of that

00:46:38.120 Because there's, I mean, there's even mentions in the Bible or in the Tanakh in the Old Testament about how the people of Judea couldn't conquer up in the north because of the chariots of iron.

00:46:51.920 And so that's most likely a reference to those people.

00:46:56.480 And if that's where he sources from, then there could very well be a correlative sense, not a direct connection.

00:47:03.000 I don't think that there was some sort of migratory religiosity that moved from that space up into the Nordic lands, but that you have to remember most of our stuff comes from a core and then spreads out in branches.

00:47:14.920 And so there would be a parallel correlation linguistically and purposefully.

00:47:21.940 So, yeah, I wouldn't shoot that down, but I would have to look into that.

00:47:26.380 And I will look into that, actually.

00:47:27.920 All right.

00:47:33.000 Ryan asks question, I am mostly way done with making a video about making a grove of Thor with oak trees.

00:47:43.120 Do you think it's doable to get several folks together and buy the saplings and fertilizer?

00:47:48.540 What do you think?

00:47:50.860 I mean, I think that's entirely up to you and the dedication of your folk right there.

00:47:55.640 I will say what I do think is a beautiful thing is folk getting together to do things like that.

00:48:05.080 I also think it would be great if you guys got together and donated an oak tree to Thorshof, to be honest.

00:48:10.820 I think that would be amazing that, you know, part of that grove that you guys have, send one of those saplings to Thorshof, you know?

00:48:17.820 Or vice versa, too.

00:48:18.860 We could send an acorn from the oak at Thorshof to be at the grove.

00:48:23.560 I think there would be a great interconnectivity there.

00:48:25.500 that's a that's a cool devotional project that's it's pretty hefty um i think that's a i think

00:48:33.340 that's a great idea to do something like that i mean that's that's a lot of work and that's

00:48:38.060 a lot of financial responsibility and anything that you can do to bring the folk together like

00:48:42.460 that i think that's a a great thing and i definitely would recommend uh pulling thors

00:48:47.420 off into that or vice versa what do you think's fun yeah i mean uh i would definitely say if

00:48:54.540 you're talking about like getting folks together for the saplings and the fertilizer and things

00:48:58.940 like that if you're um yeah if you're looking for help absolutely i would say go to folk builders

00:49:08.460 go to any gothar contact me and i'd love to talk to you about this um you know any any chance to

00:49:16.300 make a video in honor to thor would be awesome um as far as like getting funds and things together

00:49:23.580 like that would go from the in a planning stage of how you were planning on doing it who you

00:49:28.220 wanted to get involved with um and how you wanted to be involved with it i think that you know or

00:49:33.660 making those connections privately so that we could find out your location and we could see

00:49:39.900 what we could do about logistics that would be very cool but you i don't understand you're making

00:49:45.820 the video um but the the grove hasn't been planted yet or are you videotaping the progress of it

00:49:54.780 that's that's the only question i would have about that um but that sounds awesome

00:50:03.180 caitlin asks what is the difference between odinism and aussitrew

00:50:09.500 what's the difference one give me your back you want to take it or you want i'll let you go sir

00:50:18.680 i like to yeah we've had this this this question asked before and i don't mind repeat questions i

00:50:24.420 think they're great because they do reiterate or give us a chance to reiterate and establish

00:50:28.640 What the AFA is doing is making a point that we are the Axis Mundi of our church.

00:50:39.720 Big surprise. We are the center of our church because we are our church.

00:50:44.380 So when we state what we see and what we believe, it's important that we be clear.

00:50:50.240 um odinism uh again uh there is a plethora of names that were brought about during the modern

00:51:00.480 revival of the the believing in the faith of the teutonic gods and a lot of people didn't quite

00:51:07.440 have a set thing it was it was a it was a smorgasbord if you will of things to do and

00:51:15.120 And so some folks have chosen to go with Odinism as the title, and Odinism is, I would say, the same thing as Ausatru, especially in correlation with the AFA, but in its name, it's quite – again, it's kind of, I would say, misplaced.

00:51:37.980 um it's not a religion entirely based upon the worship of odin we are hard hard polytheists

00:51:44.300 we believe in an in a a nexus of um divine powers that work in and out and through and around and

00:51:53.180 so to singularity name it is kind of a just more i guess a nuanced misnomer and so that's why we

00:51:59.980 move towards aussitrew we're true to all of the ice here all of the gods and so we find

00:52:05.900 also true to be a better title um but yet still we have no i don't think any particular issues like

00:52:14.780 there are people that come to afa events they're members of the afa and they say they're heathens

00:52:20.700 or they say they're odinists or they say they're wodenists um and i think at an individual level

00:52:28.140 if that's the way somebody wants to describe themselves that's that's okay but i don't think

00:52:32.300 it's ultimately the best path i think the outsider folk assembly has uh kind of set down no

00:52:39.980 also true is about being truffle to the gods to the icier this is the best name for it um

00:52:46.380 but yes as far as denominational differences there isn't a lot most uh odinists whether um

00:52:52.380 i mean i don't honestly know of any odinus organizations that are around or active or

00:52:59.260 doing anything um and i mean not that that's i mean it's it's just kind of i remember back in

00:53:06.980 the 90s there were quite a few groups especially like newsletters and on the internet as it was

00:53:11.300 just budding towards the end of the 90s early 2000s and then they just kind of i don't know

00:53:17.540 went away people i guess got older or maybe perhaps they joined the afa and then that was

00:53:22.860 just kind of like a transference of natural like everyone getting together and organizing and

00:53:27.300 unifying under one banner um so the difference between them is very nuanced it's just i would

00:53:34.700 say more or less a choosing of names in the early times of the revival and the reconstruction of

00:53:42.500 the faith and um you know i've heard foreign center uh or foreign see that the old path um

00:53:50.420 which you know i guess would be a great nomenclature for if you were talking to an outsider

00:53:55.020 and saying well this is our old way this is just the way we do things but also true takes more of

00:53:59.900 a stance of us you know when we have to arrive to do um you know uh when we go to a hospital

00:54:08.540 for the last rights over uh somebody who's passing and and uh if you know you have some

00:54:14.860 guy showing up in a tunic and like a smurf hat or something and everyone there is they're gonna

00:54:22.380 be looking at like you know leather booties and leg wraps it's gonna be kind it's not seen

00:54:29.980 people just can't quite wrap their their way around it so that's why a lot of uh the afa you

00:54:35.900 know we we take on western and i mean modern western apparel we wear suits we have ties you

00:54:43.820 know we we don stoles which are greek in in origin so uh you know we take this the the modern

00:54:51.980 westernism and add it into it and i think that's another thing that differentiates us from from

00:54:56.540 other groups um and how they operate as far as our our presence and our the seriousness of what

00:55:02.620 we're doing so you bring up talking about you know explaining to uh people who may not be familiar

00:55:09.820 with as a true you know talking talking about it as the old ways or this is our folk way and and

00:55:16.460 that's great but one thing that you do need to remember when you are explaining it that way

00:55:22.380 if you use the word as a true they'll ask you what that means and that includes the relationship with

00:55:28.860 the gods itself just saying that these are all old folk ways that i don't believe gives the

00:55:35.020 the religiosity behind it. You know, the old folkways may be our songs and our food and our

00:55:40.580 dances and our customs and our traditions. And yes, honoring our gods, because that's what they

00:55:45.520 did. But it's not part of the name. And it's not something that, well, this is just something my

00:55:50.780 ancestors did. You know, there's a good possibility if they don't understand the religiosity of it,

00:55:55.820 that they're just going to think that you're trying to keep a culture alive, which you are.

00:56:01.800 but i always want to make sure we use the word as a true because it it implies that religiosity to it

00:56:07.440 yeah there's a willful manifestation instead of a passive kind of well this is just what

00:56:14.360 my folk have always done it's like no no i'm also true like i'm truthful and trothful to my gods

00:56:19.880 and and and take a stance a strong stance right

00:56:24.700 kedy asks svan are you aware of any gods from the iberian pantheon similar to frere

00:56:35.820 or of how the spanish peninsula may have celebrated ceremonies similar to charming of the plow

00:56:45.080 this is well it's interesting because first and foremost central europe and then eventually with

00:56:52.140 the roman uh you know spike coming up over the alps um europe was sent into a tizzy we basically

00:57:01.140 had three uh you know polytheistic societies um fighting each other in a way and so um you know

00:57:11.880 as the romans kind of pushed the gaulish people westward into the iberian peninsula you have

00:57:18.880 a connection um you know of the iberian gallic now as far as names go if we're you know your

00:57:28.000 start if you're starting in say like spain or uh portugal uh you know you might be looking at

00:57:35.560 you know names that um you know that start out more phonetically connected to that language

00:57:41.900 maybe even with some latin elements to it but you need to work your way back ultimately to what i

00:57:46.920 say continental gaulish um like pantheonic gods and of course you know when we talk about the

00:57:55.560 gods like the gauls and the slavs and even the hellenics or the the the greco-roman uh we see

00:58:01.800 them as cousins and so we see them as again parallel branches and um you know there's a lot

00:58:08.680 of great respect now considering all of our collective history together uh for bad or for

00:58:14.680 good i mean i know there's obviously a lot of germano uh and teutonic verse gallic historical

00:58:22.360 past that we could bring up in a heartbeat and people start pointing fingers about things that

00:58:26.760 happened long long ago and yes we do have a modded history but um i think it's it's a good thing for

00:58:33.160 all people to find the gods of their folk and if you find the gods of your folk from the iberian

00:58:37.640 peninsula to be a closer and more linguistically connective power uh there's no nothing wrong with

00:58:44.520 with that as far as my knowledge of that um the only correlative thing i remember is and and here's

00:58:53.460 the thing is i want i don't know if i'm butchering the name because again i'm not i'm i come from my

00:58:58.500 root i come from my branch so when i start stepping into other people's branches please forgive me

00:59:04.140 on the idea that i might be butchering names or pronunciations um

00:59:09.080 the worship of cernanos or cernanos or kernanos um and the cauldron um the man with the antlers

00:59:21.320 upon the cauldron holding the two snakes i'm not 100 sure if that is a continental gaulish

00:59:29.660 god or if that's an isle like scottish irish um and i don't think he was unless it may be perhaps

00:59:40.160 the welsh but um correlatively um you know it's kind of hard it the gauls transferred over into

00:59:51.160 the islands before the teutons came over as the you know with the anglos and the saxons

00:59:56.360 so um linguistically that's kind of hard to place for me um actually

01:00:02.140 Wynton Callahan might have a fair amount of of knowledge I know you're you're more of the Isles

01:00:11.060 understanding of the Gaulish uh uh religion sort of sort of I mean I'm better on the Slavic side

01:00:19.040 so you know people say I know a lot a lot about Celtic lore I really don't I think it's the red

01:00:24.680 hair oh oh i just i heard it once and then i was like okay well i'll go to her for

01:00:32.920 you just got voluntold i'm late on layman's terms i mean i've got the books but they've

01:00:37.800 been a while since i read them but no i don't think i would have anything to add on the iberian

01:00:44.440 peninsula or any anything like that yeah i really wish like right now like i would it's kind of rude

01:00:51.160 for me to just start going on to a phone or something like that right now during a podcast

01:00:56.040 to like figure this out but i do that like all the time uh during certain calls or like even when i'm

01:01:01.720 like you know getting into debates let me ask you spun what stanza is this in in the locus center

01:01:08.040 and you're like give me 30 seconds yeah in 30 seconds yeah then i you know like interpretations

01:01:14.280 and things like that and then then of course too like i have some uh some old norse books that i um

01:01:18.760 Um, that I really pulled from in order to help with, there was, uh, somebody mentioning about, uh, um, an odd statement on Thorpe's, um, uh, messaging, uh, where he's, uh, in the have them all where he talks about, don't give eye stock to a man.

01:01:35.860 Uh, and what that meant was when you look at the old Norse word, it means side glances from your eyes, meaning like, don't, um, don't conspire against a guest when they come into the hall.

01:01:46.960 but it was just a weird choice of them like the word stock like taking stock of the situation

01:01:51.480 so i mean i love i would it's like itchy i want to like dig immediately on enki and i want to dig

01:01:58.760 immediately on the iberian peninsula but i'm the same way i want to so i i have this this

01:02:04.480 fascination with uh old books that are no longer published anymore and like published in the 1890s

01:02:10.220 the 1910s and things like that so i'm a real big forgotten books fan right so i know i have one

01:02:16.860 and i'm my fingers are going okay i know exactly where these books are yeah um yeah i would just

01:02:24.060 say um the biggest thing would be to look at continental gaulish religion and it's very very

01:02:31.180 based more on i think um you know there's more um the intermingling of the romanish lifestyle

01:02:38.380 So when we see a lot of the matroni worship in the reliefs that were done and we see that the triplet female desir or female mothers or the fates or the, you know, however they might be interpreted by both sides, you find a lot of stuff there.

01:02:55.520 When we talk about, like, the gods Tuisto and Tyrannus and Esus amongst, like, the tripartite of the continental Gauls is very different than, like, say, the Irish or Welsh because by the time they started really putting their things down, they had already euhemorized all their gods into being, like, chieftains.

01:03:15.000 So there is validity there, though.

01:03:18.140 The Iberian Peninsula, and also bear in mind, there's validity on the Teutonic side, too, because after doing almost a full cycle around Europe, the Vandals ended up settling in the Iberian Peninsula as well.

01:03:30.740 And so there was an influx of Germanic-Western expansion, but those guys were – a lot of them had worked for the Roman army.

01:03:40.520 They were probably Fodorati that had moved westward and eventually settled in there.

01:03:47.880 And also the Goths settled in there as well.

01:03:51.120 So there's validity on the Teutonic side as well as the Gallic or Celtic title for the Spaniards or Spaniard Portugal.

01:04:03.140 Very interesting question, though.

01:04:04.580 And I think that one thing, too, is that we do have folk who are part of Ausatru that are in Spain.

01:04:10.520 Um, and we, you know, I, I think it's a really great area that a lot of people don't realize has a lot of deep connections, both to the Gallic people and to the Teutonic people, especially when you travel up through the Northern areas, you see a lot of, uh, place names, you see a lot of, um, you know, historical sites and also see it in the people, uh, amongst those people in Northern Spain.

01:04:34.800 So a great area. I think it would be awesome. You know, as we do more of these chime in, let me know. I'll see if I can. I'm going to write this stuff down and I might actually like if there's a break edge wise, I'm be like, oh, also from question from last time, see if I can't shed some light on it. So stay tuned.

01:04:56.680 all right well we have got a donation from lawrence forbes on entropy gave us a ten

01:05:06.300 dollars canadian we appreciate that very much sir and said good evening brandy and spawn no

01:05:12.360 question just wanted to say very interesting stream tonight your wisdom knowledge and service

01:05:16.760 to our folk is greatly appreciated thank you sir we appreciate you as well as people like you that

01:05:23.280 you know supports the as true folk assembly and therefore support supports the aesir i always say

01:05:29.440 every gift to the as a true folk assembly is literally a gift to the gods we are building

01:05:33.680 their temples with your gifts and we thank you for that thank you we've mentioned charming of

01:05:39.560 the plow a few times so i think we should plug charming of the plow that's coming up

01:05:44.920 we are going to have uh charming of the plow this year in florida tickets are on sale at

01:05:52.820 runestone.org. So go over to runestone.org and go into the products and you can get your Charming

01:05:59.940 of the Plow at Njordshof. That is going to be this 2023, February 3rd through 5th. So

01:06:07.300 definitely check that out. It's going to be the first Charming of the Plow at Njordshof and it's

01:06:13.960 going to be one to remember and one for the history books. So please go check that out.

01:06:18.860 While you're over there spending money, I would like you to also visit the Folk Services Fund and our South Africa Fund.

01:06:28.180 Those are two other things that you can definitely share your hard-earned money that you sacrificed for.

01:06:36.280 Go over to runestone.org and donate, and you're going to see the As a True Academy.

01:06:42.280 You're going to see each one of the Hoffs will be there.

01:06:45.180 Frase Hoff was there, Sigurheim is there, our South African Fund is there, and very importantly

01:06:51.120 our folk services. So it's a very, very hard time of year financially for a lot of our folk. This

01:06:57.180 tends to be the leanest time of year, just as it was for our ancestors, I think it is for us now.

01:07:02.880 And if you can and if you're willing, please go over to that folk services and donate. That money

01:07:08.580 does go to our folk that are in need for things that they've got going on and to try to help them

01:07:14.140 out. So while you're over there buying your Charming Out the Plow ticket, drop a $10 into

01:07:18.520 that folk services and that would be greatly appreciated or any of the other great things

01:07:22.540 that you can go donate to on that site as well. All right, we have got another question. This

01:07:30.860 one's going to be from Sarah. Is the lessons of Freyfaxi the importance of understanding how

01:07:37.380 serious making an oath truly is. I believe that's a big part of the story. Yes. What I also

01:07:46.560 personally believe on this also is what it means when you yourself don't take the oath of another

01:07:54.100 person seriously enough and the consequences of that as well. You know, we see an oath being made

01:08:02.140 regarding Freyfaxi, but we also see someone else not taking that oath seriously enough

01:08:08.020 and paid the consequences for that. Spahn, what do you think about that?

01:08:17.400 I'm a little confused by the question. I'm trying to think in correlation to Skjernesmo

01:08:22.300 and the story between Frey and Gerd, or the othing during Freyfaxi.

01:08:30.940 um i'm trying to like pinpoint exactly where that is uh if we're talking about the skin or small

01:08:37.980 then everything you just said absolutely when we talk about those the othing uh and when we

01:08:44.060 understand about what it you know means we're talking about the oath of the earth to the seed

01:08:49.420 when the seed comes in it is embraced by the earth um and and how hard it is for the seed

01:08:55.580 to enter the earth and the struggle that it takes in order to become the the ripe field um i think

01:09:03.580 that's a huge part of that story um you know when we talk about frey faxie as far as like

01:09:12.860 i mean i guess yes through skirnismal i would agree that that i was just trying to figure out

01:09:17.660 exactly uh which way was was she referring to this but yes as far as skirnismal i think it's

01:09:23.900 the oath between the earth the earth and the receiving that the earth takes of the seed which

01:09:30.340 is in essence the the the story you know is playing about about the struggle of the the seed

01:09:37.480 trying to break into the ground and uh the the cold the unrelenting unforgiving earth and how

01:09:46.320 the struggle of this tiny seed uh through by way of like scaredness being scared or being the bright

01:09:53.180 and shining one is kind of a predecessor to this process the light brings forth the fruitation of

01:09:59.860 the seed so yeah cory asked what is your favorite story of frayer and why what's your favorite

01:10:10.540 stories fawn well i mean mine is finding his wife and her heart melting in the end that's my

01:10:18.300 favorite story yeah i mean a skinner small is is uh is i mean it's that's a big one that is the

01:10:26.060 big one um yeah and i think when a lot of people read it they they take different things away from

01:10:33.460 it and some of it's good some of it's bad i mean clearly right there what you just said you know

01:10:38.520 the the melting of the the rhyme ice of gerda um whereas like and i i take it as you know the

01:10:45.620 struggle of the seed to gain into the earth like the literal seed not not making any allegoric

01:10:50.240 uh code talk there i'm talking i feel like it does to me that the perennial truth of that story

01:10:57.280 is about uh the light warming the earth and then making way for the true power of yngwie frey which

01:11:03.880 is the the microcosmic germ or seed that brings forth life um you know i and when we talk about

01:11:12.300 like if you're into runes, you know, that's a great story because there's some interesting

01:11:15.680 stuff there that the, that the, um, poetics, you know, they're placed in there. We talk about

01:11:20.760 some of the rune, um, curses that are levied at Gaird and this, this, uh, the beaming light coming

01:11:27.680 out from Frey's hall. I mean, the whole story is awesome. First off, Freyr going to sit in

01:11:37.980 odin's throne nobody does that freyr does that like he he does it and when he but the price

01:11:46.460 of that you know when you have the precipice to see from the from the the throne of battle

01:11:51.760 um but interestingly enough he doesn't see battle he sees

01:11:56.840 so that i you know the source of of him who he is i think is also exemplified on the precipice

01:12:06.320 We know that in Adam of Bremen's mentioning of Fricko or Frey, he also refers to Wotan as rage. And so when Wodan or Odin sits upon the battle precipice, we know what he's looking for. We know what is to be seen in battles between brothers. I mean, we see it right now.

01:12:30.400 so but when Freyr goes up there he sees from I think what his true core is even upon the precipice

01:12:38.520 of battle he still looks forward into the east and into the middle realm and he sees love and he

01:12:43.300 sees the shining ice maiden her name means the the guard the closed the enclosed space and um

01:12:52.520 and he falls detrimentally in love because is he grows sad and then of course a lot of people are

01:13:00.520 uh they they try to presentize this situation in which um you know frere sends his man skierner to

01:13:07.320 propose a meet between this uh you know this common girl and you know yes it's it's written

01:13:15.080 to be theatrical and you hemorrhized in that sense but there's a lot more going on here

01:13:19.480 than some kids at the roller rink going hey like tell that girl i really like her

01:13:24.040 um and and and for people to to take it just at that flat level kind of it it's funny and it's

01:13:31.320 tongue-in-cheek but it also is kind of annoying like that's not the only thing that's going on

01:13:35.960 here but and in looking at the name skirner meaning the bright and shining one the glinting

01:13:41.320 ray we know what's going on this is this is the process of like around the time between charming

01:13:47.080 in the plow and ostra when the gates are open that that light shines in and from you know

01:13:55.000 i'll get into this in a little bit later but yeah i mean that whole process there's so much stuff in

01:14:00.200 that story that is just phenomenal uh and the poetics of it are great and i mean it sounds

01:14:09.080 like when you hear skirner you know propositioning gerva with this curse and he's talking about you

01:14:16.200 know the thirst runes that he's going to carve against her and every mead that she goes to drink

01:14:20.200 is going to turn into the foul liquid from the from the bladder of goats i mean there are a lot

01:14:26.360 of people are like what is going on with it what they don't realize what this this is the struggle

01:14:29.880 between the light warming up the earth i mean that's really what's going on but the poetics

01:14:34.760 in there are pretty savage i mean this the whoever you know the the the writing of this was is

01:14:39.960 phenomenal and i mean just peak essence of like uh you know nordic poetics going on there where

01:14:50.520 they're just painting this picture for everyone to hear and you could just imagine people in the in

01:14:55.720 the you know benches going whoa like holy crap like that that's what it was for it was a shock

01:15:02.200 value and uh but again you know garetha doesn't relent she says no i don't care i don't care if

01:15:07.640 he has money i don't care about this i don't care about that and so again it shows nordic societal

01:15:13.320 relationships it shows about how relationships were perceived back then you know you read the

01:15:19.000 sagas and it's always a young man sending a friend to the father you know because it's illegal to

01:15:23.640 kill the friend like it's a you know if the father kills the suitor because he's you know a craven

01:15:30.280 person in the community or whatever it had less of a stance than if it was just a third party

01:15:35.400 so again you have this societal mentioning of skirner but kind of being the man that goes in

01:15:41.400 and he originally tries to present himself to the household and it's gara that runs the household

01:15:46.200 her father is not there and she states to him you know i have my father's well off

01:15:51.000 i don't need the money i don't need any of this so you see a a playing out of a societal

01:15:58.440 chemistry of the time it's just like when thor gets his hammer and it gets it placed upon his

01:16:04.040 lap because of the wedding well i mean there's no reason for that to actually be the case it's

01:16:10.120 nodding towards a ceremonial uh thing that was a present at the time so it's story-wise i think

01:16:16.920 a lot of people when they read that so yes the scare scanner small i'm in agreeance with you

01:16:21.560 it is awesome i could go on for forever on that one i think what sarah was asking about with a

01:16:28.600 previous question i think she was asking about actually fray faxing the horse itself and is the

01:16:36.120 love oh yes yes the lesson of that horse dying um the phrase actually the importance of understanding

01:16:43.880 how serious making an oath truly is yes but not only your oath because of the you know the things

01:16:51.240 that you have to do to maintain it and the sacrifices you have to have to maintain it

01:16:54.840 but what happens when other people don't take your oaths as seriously as you do

01:17:00.680 that's what i think well i mean it reflects a kind of karma uh versus dharma i mean if you look

01:17:10.440 at um if you look at the story and you see how he was acting in the area you know his actions were

01:17:19.440 not very honorable uh he was making a lot of enemies and um he uh you know even the other

01:17:29.080 govies and and of course back then the govi was also to a land owner and a speaker of the law

01:17:34.080 and probably conducted rights in his own area but uh you know he's making enemies across the board

01:17:39.640 and so in a way his oath that he made uh was the ultimate undoing to his prosperity and so i think

01:17:48.860 ultimately it was yeah it was a punishment based around the idea that um you know your deeds your

01:17:55.420 correct actions you're going against correct action and this oath that you made is going to

01:18:01.100 end up binding you to the the uh overall return of those incorrect actions and eventually he did i

01:18:08.460 mean he ended up you know the the godis that killed the horse and he ended up moving over

01:18:14.300 to the eastern side of iceland and he did make a substantial uh like return back to like uh

01:18:21.900 i guess sustainability and he even got a little revenge against some of his enemies

01:18:26.620 but ultimately he you know he was worse off than when when he started and i think that you know

01:18:33.980 is the point of that is that when you make these oaths oaths are a way to build your luck your

01:18:39.740 and to break them does drain that luck but more so too you have to remember that sometimes the

01:18:47.660 oaths that you make are fated and leave a wake once you make that oath as as weird goes on

01:18:55.740 there's a wake that follows in that oath and that wake can affect other things and and it and it i

01:19:02.460 think it does and i think that's how the gods do meet out or measure out our doom uh they they do

01:19:09.100 so i don't believe that the the gods see us in a in a post-life sense i don't think that they judge

01:19:14.060 us in death i think they judge us in life i think they see us now and an oath standing creates wake

01:19:21.900 and that weight can be messed with especially if you're not acting right and i think the gods

01:19:26.860 in tune themselves to the moment now they're not waiting in the underworld to measure your

01:19:31.820 heart against a feather or some sort of kind of chthonic concept no they're they're watching now

01:19:37.340 and that's a big sign of that story is that that oath he made had measurements and effects on the

01:19:44.540 deeds he was doing outside of that oath yeah you can keep an oath to fray sure but if you're acting

01:19:51.260 an ass everywhere else that that that oath yeah could could be used against you in your judgment

01:19:58.940 and your doom by the gods so 100 on that one sorry thank you for clarification yes

01:20:06.620 Allie asks, there was discussion at Ewell of horse sacrifice to Frere, not by killing, but by never letting your best horse work as a sacrifice, only breed. Is there historical context for this type of sacrifice?

01:20:22.740 uh so there's a mingling of that uh i mean obviously we know that our ancestors have

01:20:29.460 done horse sacrifices all the way back to uh the original the the home valley in which we come from

01:20:37.060 the home dale um but the uh in this case i think we're referring to a lot of the horse um farming

01:20:47.380 up in iceland and especially in the saga uh uh you know where we're where freyfaxi is like utilized

01:20:54.820 in the story um that time horse sacrifices were done more along the lines that you would take

01:21:02.820 some of your best horses stallions and all the men folk would gather together in the late

01:21:08.980 summertime right before the cold and they would um fight the horses they'd fight them together

01:21:16.340 and so they would do uh you know a fight and the fight was generally you know the the horse that

01:21:21.620 ran away was the loser and so you know you had these horses going and they're fighting each

01:21:25.940 other they're hoofing each other and and the the biggest the baddest horse that was the strongest

01:21:31.220 was bred out from that event and then oftentimes and i don't think it was every time i think it was

01:21:37.300 more along the lines of depending on his age uh but if the if the strong stallion was was uh

01:21:43.220 bread out and maybe he had won the year before or something but i the ultimate culmination of

01:21:48.980 it is that that horse was sacrificed that the meat was shared with the gods so there was a

01:21:55.300 cauldron and a and a boiling of the meat and so that all the folk there that were gathered

01:22:00.900 generally most likely a culminative feast at the end of the event uh they would breed out

01:22:06.740 the winner and then they would kill the winner and they would butcher it sacrally and they would

01:22:11.460 share the meat with all the folk gathered in a big feast with that being the center point of it

01:22:16.500 and icelanders are still horse eaters today remember the reason why we don't eat horses

01:22:20.820 like in the in the west is because it's judaic law that you're not supposed to eat an animal

01:22:26.100 that doesn't have a a cloven hoof but uh us icelanders or you know where where i come from

01:22:32.900 and my father my uh grandfather owned a horse farm uh yeah we still we only eat the bad ones

01:22:39.060 as we like to tell uh foreign folks just so that makes them feel better yeah we only eat the mean

01:22:44.580 ones but but i grew up on a ranch we only we only ate the mean bulls too it's okay right

01:22:53.060 but yes yeah i think that's that that's the culmination of sacrifice that we're talking about

01:22:57.060 is is that that time of time frame was done kind of like that and it wasn't really fully remarked

01:23:03.220 down but it's referenced to quite a bit especially in iceland so

01:23:10.740 all right human manipulation nation asks i have a question how do you all recommend we stay true

01:23:17.940 to our faith while looking amongst non-believers family co-workers strangers during this christmas

01:23:26.020 season so we don't just isolate okay i understand let me explain a few things to you

01:23:36.420 when i go home to my family for my grandmother's christmas weekend and my entire family bows their

01:23:46.500 head and says the catholic prayer before meals i do not bow my head i sit very respectfully

01:23:54.580 and very very quietly but myself and my children do not bow our head we do not do the sign of the

01:24:01.860 cross we do not join in the prayer you will see me and my children do a hammer sign over our own food

01:24:08.980 respectfully but we do not interrupt their practice and we do not impose our beliefs

01:24:16.580 on their practice unless we are asked about it which we always are at some point but we are

01:24:22.740 respectful. This is not the time for you to get into a spiritual debate. But if you are asked

01:24:31.780 questions, don't shy away from those questions. Be proud of what you're doing and be proud of who

01:24:37.720 you are. Be proud of your folk and be proud of your gods. You can still go to your grandmother's

01:24:43.000 house and share a meal, give gifts, have conversations, drink some homemade wine and

01:24:51.000 play cribbage and be just fine. I promise it can be done. The more that you talk about your

01:24:59.240 religion and your church and your beliefs as if they are part of an everyday life as they should

01:25:06.020 be, the more people will accept that that is who you are. And you might get asked about Thor at

01:25:13.580 Christmas. It's happened. My family's proud of what I do, even if they don't all share the same

01:25:23.480 religion I do. Even if they do not worship the Aesir, my family is proud of what I do. I have

01:25:30.400 family members that are members of the Azechu Folk Assembly. I have family members who have

01:25:35.740 donated to Baldur's Hof and are not part of the Azechu Folk Assembly. And I have a plethora of

01:25:41.800 aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, siblings that support what I'm doing because they know

01:25:49.400 that it brings completion to my life and it because it makes me a better person and they

01:25:56.760 have seen how much more driven I am now that I found my way home. So my biggest recommendation

01:26:05.240 to you is to talk about this more often so that it's not awkward at grandma's Christmas dinner.

01:26:11.800 And be honest when they ask you questions.

01:26:14.640 Don't be embarrassed.

01:26:16.220 You have nothing to be embarrassed about.

01:26:19.000 Be respectful of where you came from.

01:26:23.220 Those people, you know, depending on your family dynamic,

01:26:26.520 that's still your family.

01:26:28.380 That's still your grandmother.

01:26:29.640 That's still your parents.

01:26:30.480 Be respectful.

01:26:32.060 In time, hopefully that they will understand.

01:26:34.720 But the more you make this real to them,

01:26:37.200 because it's real for you and it's good for you,

01:26:39.840 the more accepting they will be and the less awkward christmas dinner will be at your grandma's

01:26:45.520 house it's fun um i definitely think from a family aspect which you just covered is

01:26:53.180 perfect i so i'll go with the the work angle since that was also in the question but and i

01:26:59.680 would like to point out the the biggest thing you just said don't isolate which i brought up before

01:27:05.020 Or, you know, when we – the reason why, like, the Iron Mark isn't an official calendar is because we use the Gregorian calendar because everyone uses it, and that's the way we understand things, and that's the way we get work done.

01:27:16.960 So it's kind of a side project, and we don't try to isolate ourselves.

01:27:21.200 And so I will be first and foremost to tell you I am not a fan of Christianity.

01:27:25.860 I'm not a fan of any of the Abrahamic faiths, and I'm quite vocal about it.

01:27:31.320 Anybody who never follows me on Twitter can probably see that a lot.

01:27:34.760 I am shooting from the hip probably more than I should. But really what it is is about a measurement

01:27:41.800 of who comes at you with things. If somebody comes at you respectfully, nicely, and they say,

01:27:48.440 hey, Merry Christmas, I say Merry Christmas right away to all of my co-workers or not co-workers,

01:27:54.280 but well, I do have co-workers sort of. I have people that also have their private businesses

01:27:59.760 in my area. Or my clients, when they come in and say Merry Christmas, I say Merry Christmas back

01:28:07.140 because I understand the meaning of this time of year. And there's so much overlay between

01:28:14.920 our holidays that it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. And they certainly

01:28:21.440 often don't very know know a lot of the the uh teutonic and germanic folk faith elements from

01:28:30.720 all over involved in that um so i would say you know like say merry christmas when they say

01:28:36.400 merry christmas back but i also say like and have a happy yule uh that's one thing that that kind of

01:28:42.320 um i wanted to bring up too there's a lot of folks that talk about glad glad you'll uh in iceland

01:28:48.480 it's gladeleg jule uh gladeleg means like merry or happiness um glad yule is kind of a a a modern

01:28:58.800 uh western like canadian american australian way of saying like gladeleg jule or glad yule um

01:29:06.480 but you know happy yule happy yuletide merry yule they all have the same meaning as as uh in

01:29:12.640 correlation to gladeleg or glad um and so you know a lot of times i'll say like have a happy yuletide

01:29:20.400 and people are like oh yeah oh you're bringing out the old stuff and and you're like ah yes

01:29:26.320 you know every year i break it out consistently like you know it's like so like you know you

01:29:32.160 don't have to really go into it uh about you know you know explaining some strange you know this is

01:29:40.480 or you know i don't know i i've had a tendency too where i've talked to my clients and um they've

01:29:45.600 gotten to the point where they're like oh you got anything going on for the christmas holiday and

01:29:49.280 i'm like oh yeah i got 12 things going on and uh and and they're like really 12 like the 12 days

01:29:56.080 of christmas and i'm like yeah just like the 12 days of christmas except we call it yule and

01:30:00.480 they're like oh really and they just kind of move into it especially you know i have found folk

01:30:06.480 people who are not folk um all of them you know are just interested in it they're generally really

01:30:13.200 nice and i don't see any point in not sharing what they want to hear like as far as like the

01:30:18.880 level of an amount but that what they want to hear about the holidays um i don't think it's

01:30:24.000 a time to just jump on the soapbox i know that's weird for me to say but um yeah yeah i think i

01:30:31.920 I think that going out there and just gauging the moment, but ultimately saying Merry Christmas

01:30:38.400 and a happy Yuletide is one of the safest things that you can do.

01:30:43.460 I've always led with the ideas, whatever anybody says to me, I say in return and then

01:30:49.660 say what I celebrate as well.

01:30:52.120 That's, I think, one of the best rules.

01:30:53.800 If they say Merry Christmas to me, I say Merry Christmas to you and a happy Yuletide.

01:30:58.240 and then most people don't even realize it because it's it's still something they understand um

01:31:05.840 and when you're talking about your religion amongst your co-workers and things like that

01:31:11.400 and around this time you know it depends uh you know i i celebrate with the yule elf and then

01:31:18.300 others might celebrate with uh seeing thor as the your father figure of the time frame or some

01:31:24.580 people might see olden as the yule i mean the yule father and so um there's you know there's

01:31:30.340 you could tell people i think you know it's like well we have different traditions everywhere

01:31:34.580 uh for some folk but generally there's always the yule log the yule tree you know there's the

01:31:41.140 hanging of the mistletoe and you know and and once you start saying stuff like that they're like

01:31:45.980 how is that any different exactly and you know you move on from there

01:31:51.840 Sarah asks, do you already have a vision in your head for a mural at Frazehoff?

01:32:04.320 Yes. Next question. No, no. Yeah, absolutely. I do. Yes. One thing is that there's some

01:32:16.020 correlation to Njordshof. There was talk about that in the initial conception. And so if there's

01:32:22.680 any complaints, please direct them towards Goethe Lane. And you never saw me. No. The

01:32:29.460 biggest thing is that Goethe Lane started the idea of putting Frey and Freya in the mural at

01:32:39.020 Njordshof. And I was just playing around with some colorations and things and what I wanted to do.

01:32:46.020 And, uh, then people started saying, well, you know, you got to carry that over to phrase off. And I was like, crap. So, so I kind of got, I got stuck into that. Uh, I'm going to play with some elements. Yes, but, uh, I do. And I, I, I had to, to be in honesty, joking aside, I had, um, I, uh, I guess a, a, a vision of it to come to my head.

01:33:14.100 I don't want to speak of that as being like perhaps maybe like from outside of myself.

01:33:20.260 I'm not saying that.

01:33:21.520 What I am saying, though, is that I definitely just kind of had a flash of inspiration of what that image of his Godstead would be.

01:33:31.960 But again, it could change based on the wall.

01:33:34.720 So, you know, it really depends on the building and a lot of what I have to work with.

01:33:39.340 But generally, it always starts with about the sternum up.

01:33:44.100 And, you know, the I I can say as this much that the inspiration that I got is that there's going to be a semi profiled look.

01:33:56.760 And, you know, I saw the image kind of in correlation with horse riding, if you will.

01:34:04.380 That's about all I'm going to say on that. But again, that could change.

01:34:07.820 There's nothing concrete about that because of the area I have to work with.

01:34:12.820 so but yes colors formation uh you know and and certain things i know that like a lot of artists

01:34:20.260 nowadays are trying to place um i see a lot of this like marvelization of the jotens with like

01:34:26.020 blue tattoos and i see the vanas they're showing the vanas like having elf ears i'm assuming because

01:34:32.740 of the correlation of ingvi frey being the lord of leo selfheim um but it's not going to have any

01:34:39.460 of that it's more correlated to njortzhoff so everything will kind of be built on an extension

01:34:44.740 of itself beautiful return of the nolder what do you think about people who try to discredit you

01:34:55.620 from our religion by trying to prove you don't have the knowledge of all ancient norse history

01:35:02.900 what am i going to prove i don't have all of the knowledge of all of ancient norse history nobody

01:35:08.180 does it's kind of ridiculous to pretend that you do um i'm i'm just saying but you i've read the

01:35:17.180 lore many many times and one thing i will tell you is that every time you read that lore you

01:35:22.000 are going to remember something and learn something every single time you read it i bet to

01:35:27.040 this day whenever witness font opens up one of those books he realizes something else he knows

01:35:32.740 something else to look up in the ancient text he can reference into another piece of lore

01:35:38.100 and i bet he grabs a dictionary and can figure out what that word means a little bit better

01:35:43.700 if you stop learning you're done we are never going to know everything and if you think that

01:35:50.820 you know everything you're done but what i will say to you is if we can get into a lore debate

01:35:57.780 and you seem to think that you can pick some obscure sentence out of an obscure text and try

01:36:07.060 to baffle me with it, I'm going to ask you when the last time you held a bloat was. I'm going to

01:36:11.920 ask you when the last time you saw the tears of a woman as you hailed the gods. I'm going to ask

01:36:19.280 you when the last time you held a child of our folk in your arms and gave them a name for the

01:36:25.480 folk to recognize. I'm going to ask you when the last time you built a Hoff was. I'm going to ask

01:36:31.360 you how much you pay of your hard earned money every day as a gift to your gods. I'm going to

01:36:38.880 ask you how many people were at your house celebrating with you at Yule. I'm going to ask

01:36:45.820 you what the point is. That's what I'm going to do. Svan, what are you going to do? Well, I mean,

01:36:52.240 I guess if you're talking about people, um, I see that thrown a lot. It's low hanging fruit first

01:36:58.140 and foremost for somebody to say, you don't have, um, perhaps if you don't have a grasp of the

01:37:03.980 entire corpus of all of that stuff. And again, like I had, I, I don't have it at all. Uh, but

01:37:12.520 yeah, it's been a long time and I got a lot of stuff in there, but it all gets jumbled up.

01:37:17.100 um so you know that's low-hanging fruit against you and you should kind of you should laugh at

01:37:25.760 people for oh wow look at you you're cute you're hitting me on i can hit you on that as well because

01:37:31.220 i i mean it's like you you talk to anybody um in any other correlated religion they most of them

01:37:38.180 haven't read the bible most of them haven't read the fullness of the bible they've read they

01:37:43.160 cherry pick things they needed and uh then the rest of it is you know when we talk about lore

01:37:50.280 versus doing if i'm arguing with someone or debating someone about religiosity whether

01:37:57.400 it's within the faith or uh across the faith like say christianity or or judaism or islam

01:38:04.920 the one thing that i would say is is that i i have more respect again for the practitioner the person

01:38:10.840 who's who's doing orth you know orthopraxy then then the ortho the uh you know the clerical

01:38:17.320 ecclesiastical scholar living in the basement um you know so lore is kind of a funny thing like i i

01:38:27.400 i have a lot of knowledge about the bible so i'll debate with people about things and you know i

01:38:33.160 soon find out they don't know a lot they haven't read a lot or they've only read what they needed

01:38:38.360 to read um but if they're still faithful i mean that argument has i can't pick on them for their

01:38:45.640 faith it's that's that's not low-hanging fruit so again what uh witten callahan said was you know

01:38:51.880 your deeds and your faith towards the gods is i think the first and foremost foundation in which

01:38:57.640 you must build on and then your relationship through lore and through study and through

01:39:02.200 questions and things like that will come later um when you have people you know questioning the

01:39:09.080 validity of your religion saying oh you don't have a uh you know a grasp of everything it's like um

01:39:16.440 you know i i don't want to give the the mom like kind of thing where it's like uh you know they

01:39:24.280 pay them no you know mind and you know they're they don't they're probably just

01:39:29.400 projecting their inadequacies on you but in a way it's kind of like that and so you know i would say

01:39:37.720 um if if you feel like you're lacking utilize it that's the best advice i can give you if you feel

01:39:45.080 like you're lacking in knowledge and you feel like you're lacking in orthopraxy you're not doing

01:39:48.600 enough and you're not remembering enough well guess what you got to do do more and remember

01:39:54.280 more and just every time you get hit take that in and use it to get more if that's what you're

01:40:02.760 encountering you might you know i can't there's nothing i can tell you that will stop that from

01:40:07.960 happening to you as far as like getting in debates with people but every time you take a hit take it

01:40:12.600 and i and you know what i'm just gonna take my comeuppance now comeuppance now i can't pronounce

01:40:19.480 the names either that's fawn's job and he has to walk me through it like hooked on phonics

01:40:25.160 so that's okay yeah i'm big on the linguistics part not on i'm not a an old norse fan actually

01:40:33.880 like i try to promote the idea of at least anglicizing and i think that our people that

01:40:39.720 were doing interpretations of the norse were anglicizing and i like english i think it's a

01:40:44.120 cool language um and uh but yes like you might have trouble with linguistics again too you know

01:40:52.760 hey shoot me a message if you need any help with anything you know uh always shoot me just like a

01:40:59.160 a text or something or a message you can message me over on twitter and uh i've helped people out

01:41:04.440 with little bits of verse or pronunciations and i would say too you know get it from all multiple

01:41:09.080 sources find out different people and what they what they take on it because just like oven you

01:41:14.420 know let no shadow go uninspected so find all multiple sources you know dig your elbows on the

01:41:20.300 table and listen and from all over so awesome rare opportunity to ask brandy about her five

01:41:30.460 favorite five books any topic not counting edda's rune books and lore okay

01:41:38.760 We're about to show you how much of a nerd your Witten is.

01:41:43.660 I'm going to show you my first one.

01:41:45.700 Oh, you're pulling them down.

01:41:48.500 Got them right here.

01:41:50.340 I'm proud of this one, Swan.

01:41:52.440 Oh, yeah.

01:41:56.660 Yes.

01:41:57.960 That is by far one of my favorites, and it's well-loved.

01:42:03.080 That's the one that has a lot of the Arthur Rackman.

01:42:07.460 is it arthur rackman pictures in there yes it does yeah that's a good one yes yes yes i love

01:42:15.920 him as an artist phenomenal okay i'm not gonna lie this is in my top five books like it's it's

01:42:22.600 very worn um in all honesty one of my other favorite books and like i said you can laugh

01:42:30.480 at me later the uh little house on the prairie books love little house on the prairie books i

01:42:36.660 loved them from the time I was a kid my grandmother used to read them to me so that might be a really

01:42:42.560 big reason why I like them I still read them as an adult so my other book that I have read so many

01:42:54.860 times that it's literally on its seventh life seventh new version is Pride and Prejudice by

01:43:02.140 jane austen big fan um let's see what else do i like because we're not we're not talking just

01:43:13.260 religious books right i guess other than the lore and the sagas and stuff like that um books that i

01:43:21.220 like for like academic study look at me just pulling books off my shelf i apologize uh the

01:43:28.240 Viking. This is a good book. You have to remember it's academic and not written from a religious

01:43:35.080 point of view, and that it was also published in 1889. So you need to remember we are modern

01:43:47.640 people. This is not a modern book, so it has a lot of academic information. I like that.

01:43:53.940 is that four that's four

01:43:57.420 starship troopers

01:44:01.260 it's a favorite of mine as well yes those are my top five judge as you will

01:44:10.720 yeah it doesn't feel weird like when you start you're like oh now i'm getting exposed and i

01:44:16.840 can't really like you can't throw flack on that you just have to kind of press forward i can't

01:44:22.680 pretend I didn't hear the question. Cause Nick will remind me that it's there, but yes. So there

01:44:30.100 we go. You know, um, I love, I love old folklore, like the brothers glim grim, absolutely adore

01:44:38.020 folklore, little house on the prairie starship troopers, pride and prejudice. I don't travel

01:44:43.100 anywhere. If you go to an event, like if I travel for a national event, that book is in my backpack.

01:44:48.880 i promise it's there it's been a long time since i've read that so it's like i really want to like

01:44:56.060 kind of go back and read it that's wonderful do it for yule yep uh i did i did want to say there

01:45:03.880 was some stuff going on over here i said i'm looking at these these these comments coming in

01:45:07.760 some of them are really cool i know the name thing really like stirred a hornet's ness and

01:45:11.580 you know when we talk about what we talk about victory never sleeps we say you know it's like

01:45:15.340 we're going to talk about Frere, man, we go all over the place, every podcast. So, and I know

01:45:20.420 that, you know, there's different levels of lore and stuff that people know, but I wanted to say

01:45:24.740 too, that there was mentioning about changing your names, the idea of utilizing, you know,

01:45:31.180 somebody said, you know, change your name from a biblical name if you've got one and all of that.

01:45:35.660 I wanted to make something, I want to make a comment on that since I'm seeing all of this

01:45:40.260 conversation going on one thing for uh for everyone to know like i changed my name from

01:45:46.240 the icelandic version to an anglicized version because my name in icelandic is hard for english

01:45:51.980 mouths to pronounce um and so i i you know and in iceland too a lot of times we we always like

01:46:00.480 in english we make nicknames you know if your name is valla bjork you might be just called valla

01:46:05.280 or, you know, and if your name is Christiana, you might be Christabit, you know, like a little bit,

01:46:12.360 or, you know, that's my aunt's nickname. And so there's, you know, and like my other uncle's name

01:46:17.460 is Svanberg, but we call him, you know, Sampi. So it's like, you know, there's, we have these

01:46:22.560 nicknames, but if you, a lot of people in Ossetra, I think, keep their biblical style names,

01:46:30.440 not because they're any connection to the bible is because they were given for people that are in

01:46:35.880 their family and i i totally respect that i think that's a good thing um i'm named after my

01:46:40.360 grandfather and you know the swan it's not the toughest of names you know it's like i mean i

01:46:47.400 guess unless you piss off a swan or something but it's like ah um but you know it's like it's not

01:46:52.600 like my brother's name which means falcon and that's a valor is such a cooler name but um

01:46:59.160 anyways they um you know if you have a a name that that uh has meaning in your family i would

01:47:06.520 say consider before you change it i i think it's important too that people kind of utilize their

01:47:11.320 real names don't hide behind um pseudo names and things like that i think that's kind of

01:47:16.760 passe it's it's an old thing a lot of people say you know i'm shirking my christian name and i want

01:47:21.080 to take on my my viking name don't forget to anglo names are freaking awesome you know like

01:47:26.680 Like the names that I think people have tried to tell us are stupid or nerdy, like Herbert.

01:47:33.680 Herbert is an awesome – it means bright warrior.

01:47:36.360 That is such a cool freaking name.

01:47:38.760 Go to Behind the Name.

01:47:40.860 They got great stuff there.

01:47:41.960 You can learn a lot about Albert, meaning all bright, and Edgar, meaning wise spear striker.

01:47:48.660 I mean, these are awesome freaking names.

01:47:50.980 Own them.

01:47:52.160 Nick, I wanted to let you know too.

01:47:53.660 Yeah, your name is Greek.

01:47:55.480 So it's not biblical, even though it obviously was used by a lot of people during Saul of Tarsus and his time in the Greek areas with Philip, of course, Philiopis, the friendly horse, is what that name means, and Nicholas.

01:48:12.020 But if you do decide to change your name, do it legally.

01:48:15.280 So that way it's up front.

01:48:16.740 It's not a pseudonym.

01:48:17.600 Go to your courthouse. If you don't have any particular attachment to your name, go there, do it legally, and then people can respect you from there on out and understand that that's your legal name. I understand that. Just don't – my name is David or Joshua.

01:48:40.920 But, you know, it starts with when you have your children name them Teutonic names.

01:48:46.860 That's it.

01:48:47.480 You know, I my my son is got one son has a German name.

01:48:54.760 My daughter has an Etruscan name and my other son has an Anglo-Saxon name.

01:48:59.920 So, I mean, you know, it's up to you to change, change things.

01:49:03.740 And, you know, it's like I didn't name my children Icelandic names.

01:49:06.860 so it's you know take it for what it is i just wanted to clarify some of all that chat at least

01:49:14.660 i've been looking at it and like it's interesting yeah lawrence forbes gave us another ten dollars

01:49:22.320 canadian and says i think that was good advice you both gave on relating to family and work at

01:49:28.660 this time of year my approach is to do the best to keep the christ out of christmas but furthermore

01:49:33.380 So never utter that name unless it's a serious discussion trying to expose the person what a scam Judeo Christianity is.

01:49:40.980 So I appreciate that $10, sir.

01:49:43.720 Keep that.

01:49:44.380 Yeah, Canada.

01:49:45.180 You donate a lot.

01:49:46.400 We appreciate that very, very much.

01:49:49.480 But as far as keep the Christ out of Christmas, I'd recommend Germanization of Christianity.

01:49:57.520 yeah early yeah the the christianization of early medieval christianity i think is the full title

01:50:04.120 oh it's up there uh yes i would recommend that phenomenal book absolutely read that book um it's

01:50:12.140 it's really really great and it'll there's a reason it's required reading for the for the

01:50:17.500 that is it's a good book it's a good book but thank you very much sir we appreciate that

01:50:23.780 um let's see stian i'd like to hear the witness thoughts on frayer stand against

01:50:30.740 sura at regnarok and what he can glean from the mythology before we do that i want to throw up

01:50:37.540 folk builder christian penner's artwork of this i think it's great so awesome that's a

01:50:48.280 it looks like a like a tattoo i can definitely see the boar too right there

01:50:52.180 writing up on Gulen Bursti.

01:50:56.340 Yes.

01:50:57.680 So what do you think, sir?

01:50:59.100 Why don't you give that to us?

01:51:01.160 Write that down for us.

01:51:03.380 Well, I mean, when you talk about correlative powers

01:51:05.800 and seeing the overall layers of chaos versus order

01:51:10.080 repeatedly over and over and over again,

01:51:12.700 whether we're talking about Fenris or Jormungandr or Surt.

01:51:20.620 And one of the biggest things that in the cosmology of our faith, the one world that is not nearby or seen as a far off element is Muspelheim.

01:51:32.600 And Muspelheim is a great mystery, I think, linguistically and historically.

01:51:37.240 There's references to it even in medieval Europe, you know, about the sons of Muspel and what even Muspel means.

01:51:45.220 um but in general sense the land of fire cosmic fire the the initiation spark slash termination

01:51:53.380 spark if you will if we're talking about like grand kind of quantum and cosmic physics um

01:52:00.880 when we we see

01:52:03.400 first and foremost and this is what i was going to get at earlier i had made a hint towards it is

01:52:10.640 Understanding in our cosmology that the upper world and the lower world are sandwiching the middle, and the middle world is a correlative connection point between multiple realms that focus in on what is the material.

01:52:26.140 So we have like four spiritual realms surrounding the mundane world.

01:52:32.900 And so when we talk about the Veralta god Frey being the god of the world, and we're talking about his bounty, his vegetative powers, the power of life and of rebirth and of fertility and all of these things.

01:52:47.320 What I think we see is the upper realm, the realm of life and of light being transcendent against the flame of purging.

01:53:07.680 And so we see a direct correlation of the middle world fighting against the cosmic fire that's coming.

01:53:15.080 And again, we see Niflheim and Helheim are connected, and they're in the lower, and then we see the four nexus worlds in the material, and then we see, of course, Hemen, and then Muspelheim is the one that's way off, and it slowly correlates itself back towards Niflheim, and everything lights itself on fire.

01:53:40.540 I think what we're kind of seeing is life against the consumptive flame. I think also, too, it's worth noting that if we were to look at it not in a cosmic way, but in a terrestrial way or an earth way, a yarding way, in the yarding sense, we would see it again as like fire when the seeds drop as a flame passes through the forest.

01:54:04.960 And I mean, there's long studies knowing that flame and forestry are connected. I think our ancestors knew it, could see it and understood fertile ground coming from the forest that received the kiss of the flame.

01:54:19.220 So in a weird, like, and I mean, in a binding sense of the way this story correlates its wisdom is through weird, constantly restating that we're talking about the seed of germination after the flame.

01:54:40.660 another interesting thing of course is the story elements of of frere frere slays um uh cert with

01:54:50.400 an antler it's mentioned that his sword which again i really do frere's such a uh story-wise

01:55:00.480 dynamically he's awesome as a fighter he's not a lot of people try to cram him into this sense of

01:55:06.460 him being some like dainty thing uh they seem to do that with a couple of balder and with frayer

01:55:11.940 too they we get this kind of like uh you know sense of stuff really what they're they're pulling

01:55:17.320 from a christian who was trying to defame the worship of fray so he said you know that the

01:55:22.400 priest looked infeminate because they were wearing these long tunics and they had bells on of course

01:55:27.300 we see correlation with elf uh honoring alvar are honoring through bells um bronze bells um

01:55:34.680 um but so the other they're reinforcing this no freighter is not that at all I mean there's a

01:55:41.220 reason why he rides his horses called the bloody hooves and that's not because he ran it so hard

01:55:47.460 that it's bleeding it's because it's from the battlefield and he had a sword that fought on

01:55:51.840 its own I mean he was the best and the brightest of the houses before he gave up his sword you know

01:55:58.260 the you know i always like in my storytelling uh you know and and things like that i i try to paint

01:56:06.260 that i think the spirit affair seeing him as the young warrior on the battlefield laughing and

01:56:14.100 swinging his sword and riding in fury um you know completely and and totally into the moment of this

01:56:21.780 time i mean they they the wise vanair are battle wise and so um i think it's interesting though

01:56:29.540 when we talk about the the giving of the sword and the attainment of the the staghorn um

01:56:37.060 that's an interesting one i mean obviously the loss of the sword is mentioned in in uh giving

01:56:42.660 his sword to gain the love of gerda um and it's never actually physically said that that's given

01:56:49.540 up in skeerness mall but it's referenced later on uh the taking up of the antler is an interesting

01:56:56.020 one i mean there could be correlations i think that's why like speaking of the iberian peninsula

01:57:00.340 and sir nunus the celtic god with the antlers on his head or um i think hern the hunter amongst

01:57:07.300 the english like folklore is also said to have antler horns and yes there could be correlations

01:57:14.020 to wuldor or ullr and frey on that one um i think it's just more or less interesting to think of as

01:57:23.140 like a fashioned weapon an elder weapon it's one of the only times in which you see in our stories

01:57:29.540 the degration of technology like with thor you know we know the bronze axe we know the bronze

01:57:38.340 hammer and then of course we know about grid of all the iron rod and then eventually moving into

01:57:43.140 to Mjolnir. But with Freyr, you see this de-escalation in technology, a kind of reverting back to the

01:57:50.660 primordial life. As far as the mysticism, and that I'm not 100% sure, is maybe what our ancestors

01:57:57.740 were trying to portray in the idea of him, you know, gacking search with a, sorry, gacking is

01:58:05.800 such an unofficial term but you know just driving it home with that with a staghorn is uh i think

01:58:13.240 truly an interesting thing and i think it might mean uh again another drive towards the primordial

01:58:18.220 desire to survive um where you know the the same equivalency is i lost my gun so i pull off my

01:58:27.040 helmet or i hit with a shovel or i throw a rock or you know it's just that primordial essence to

01:58:33.160 to survive and you're fighting against sutra with the you know the same that scary flaming sword and

01:58:40.680 you know just the primordial will to live that's the way i've always taken that

01:58:44.520 um but again very very interesting and i wonder if it is allegoric towards the flash burning and

01:58:51.700 the germination of the forest too again perennial truths of myth they they they can they have truths

01:58:58.060 in multiple levels in all times you know is ragnarok happening has it happened and will it

01:59:04.300 happen yes it's all cyclical so uh the alshir go the ass spawn did you tell them about the festive

01:59:13.580 pig face eating no but i will go ahead oh see he's he's watching he's always watching yes

01:59:28.060 because that was that was a shot across the bow just remember no no um yeah uh so i have on my uh

01:59:37.080 so on the 12 nights of yule um because we know that like when you separate the days of the of

01:59:43.520 the week when we talk about the old uh you know when we talk about sunnestag and maunestag and

01:59:48.580 tierstag oldenstag thorstag and then most likely it was fricastag or fricastag uh because in

01:59:55.880 correlation to the Romans, they had Isis for Friday. So if we're looking at a strong feminine

02:00:00.920 figure of the goddesses, that would be probably correlative. But Mother's Night is dedicated to

02:00:07.580 Frigga. So on the 12th night, we went with Frey and Freya's Night, or Freya's Night, just to keep

02:00:14.860 it simple. And on that night, I buy, not on that night, I buy it. Actually, I haven't bought it

02:00:22.480 yet, but I'm going to the slaughterhouse here in Chesapeake, Virginia, where I live. I buy a pig's

02:00:33.200 head. And so what I usually do is there's a lot of recipes for it. It's a very traditional meal

02:00:38.520 amongst you. If you look up some of the old Victorian iconography, you will see plum pudding

02:00:44.020 and pig's heads or boar's heads on the table. And so there's lots of recipes out there. Some of them

02:00:49.840 really cool if you're uh an adventurous eater um as i am you know um you know lathering the

02:00:57.200 the uh the porcine flesh with uh lots of salted butter and cloves in little x marks

02:01:06.800 and then frying it it comes out like almost like bacon and then eating the jowl and i do eat the

02:01:12.000 tongue um uh you know cutting a pork tongue and then eating it with mint jelly is amazing

02:01:18.880 um so but yes on that night we we we cook a a a pig's head and glaze it and crisp it up and eat

02:01:30.040 the skin like bacon eat the jowls which are very soft meat and then of course eating the tongue and

02:01:34.780 the tradition of it is kind of like um we don't necessarily do this all the time because of course

02:01:39.760 oaths are very serious but new year's resolutions placed upon the boar's head which comes from an

02:01:45.440 old Anglo-Saxon tradition of the the hunt over Yule for the wild boar and the the men the warriors

02:01:51.600 placing an oath upon the boar's head that they just hunted so it's kind of a um a reflection

02:01:58.380 of that tradition um but yeah that's my 12th night uh and then of course we take the Yule flame and

02:02:04.340 go outside and light a big bonfire and um and hail Frey and hail Freya for the new and upcoming year

02:02:11.680 so steven monday asks what do you think is the importance of the volson saga i was always told

02:02:21.240 it is the hardest to read but one of the best it is one of the best and it's one of the most

02:02:27.100 famous i mean this is the one spawn that tolkien himself was inspired on is it not

02:02:33.600 i mean there's absolutely tons of elements yeah you can see a lot of what tolkien used out of

02:02:39.560 the Bolson saga. Um, there's a lot of appearances by the gods and there's, there's a lot of

02:02:46.380 mix of what's the right word. There's, there's a lot of magical things that happen, you know,

02:02:57.660 um, it's just, it's a great saga. It's, it's long and hard to read, but it's great. I mean,

02:03:03.920 it's absolutely great i think it's very very important um it shows how i think part of it

02:03:10.780 shows how um our spirituality mixes with the magical things the same things and that shows

02:03:19.500 how that mix is in there and you don't see that very often so that's one thing i like what about

02:03:24.420 you swan i think the overlap there is really important um uh it blew you know it blows my

02:03:31.040 mind like when you read about it and you read about the figure atli and then realizing that

02:03:35.460 that that most likely is attila and you know other characters in the story being the king of the goths

02:03:43.160 or you know other things of that nature so there's a lot of stuff um you know in relation to

02:03:49.720 oh oh we have a we have a baby emergency sorry folks i know if anybody who's a parent would

02:03:57.380 understand completely um but yeah you see a correlative um like overlapping of historical

02:04:03.360 figures and some of them clearly weren't alive from what we know uh at the same time but in the

02:04:10.820 story even though it's not actually the same person or at least it's leaning towards or pulled

02:04:17.440 from them as an inspiration they're they're overlapped there i think that's a really cool

02:04:21.640 aspect of the story um the other thing is is i mean there are key elements especially runic stuff

02:04:28.680 there's some things in there in which when sigurd reaches and you know gets mystical knowledge from

02:04:35.000 the valkyrie um it's an interesting thing too in and of itself because we don't necessarily see

02:04:41.160 the valkyries a lot in other aspects but it's very very clear a story point of it but i think

02:04:50.200 ultimately the biggest thing is it's a tragic story about someone going through great deeds

02:04:58.920 and making proclamation and then not following through on it completely and owning the situation

02:05:07.800 instead of like it's kind of like a faultiness of coming back and then what ends up happening

02:05:12.040 is once that that's the tragedy instead of following through and and and taking the full-on

02:05:17.480 destiny the treasure of the of of weird and of fate before you there's this moment where he

02:05:23.880 steps back and that that ends up causing all kinds of problems when he goes and he gets his mind

02:05:29.560 you know uh messed with and then he forgets about her he forgets about the valkyrie and then

02:05:35.480 then he ends up representing someone else and she remembers him for who he is and that this causes

02:05:41.160 a series of events so i mean it's it's a great tragic story with lots of great elements both

02:05:46.680 from the material and history and also spiritual and I would even say magical like in in the proper

02:05:55.460 term. James says and we covered this a little bit already but James puts in here today hello

02:06:06.820 I have always looked at Freyfaxi as being more about the importance of being frugal when making

02:06:13.540 olds because of the weight and responsibility that comes with them yeah 100 i i that's a great lesson

02:06:22.020 and and again the focus on the saga is um not i would say a huge part of modern ausitrus take on

02:06:35.300 it i think it is worth noting and if you definitely know the saga that's even better um however

02:06:43.540 And ultimately, it's the celebration of the end of the harvest time.

02:06:49.300 So, you know, when you take about a lot of these things, generally, you know, at Thorshof, it's how we joke and say it's the carb slayer holiday where there's bread and beer.

02:07:01.020 And if you're on like a low carb diet, you might as well just give up.

02:07:04.920 Let's just throw in the towel for the day.

02:07:07.180 But at the same time, what is it?

02:07:09.040 I mean, we're talking about I understand what you're saying about it religiously.

02:07:13.540 and especially in context of the saga. And I would say definitely, if you meet other

02:07:17.360 Ossetru who don't know about the saga and about the oath, that Frey's will be made on

02:07:24.600 the horse and all of that, that's good. I talk about it a lot during Frey Faxi in and

02:07:32.200 of itself, but the horse represents something more, especially when we make the bread horse

02:07:37.000 and we break it into pieces and we eat it. We're talking about the fertility of the last

02:07:41.660 cutting time the last sheaf the last little gift that's given um you know that's going to be held

02:07:48.860 and is going to be carried over to charming of the plow the next year for the fields to grow

02:07:53.260 so you know uh if somebody doesn't know about the story don't hold it against them

02:07:59.260 i would say teach them if you can but remember it is it is our harvest festival it's very important

02:08:04.460 loaf mass and um you know it's a fun time but yes oaths are serious and i think in the afa

02:08:11.420 we don't we don't take a lot of oaths i know like a lot of people do oaths during sumble

02:08:17.340 and things like that and i i've noticed especially in my time in the austral folk assembly um

02:08:24.620 there's not a lot of oath taking done it's it's done more officially when you take your position

02:08:30.060 as a folk builder it's more official when you take your position as a gothar um these othing

02:08:36.140 moments are really really important otherwise you know getting a govi to preside over an oath

02:08:41.340 has been a big thing in the afa as well because i think a lot of folk when they when they do take

02:08:46.140 an oath we have a we have a priesthood we have gothar and so they seek the gothar out and say

02:08:53.340 hey can you be present for this sometimes every temple has an iron ring and that iron ring they

02:08:59.180 want to hold an oath on um but it's very it's not super super common at all and i think that lesson

02:09:06.220 what you're saying is very important they're not you have people that come into also true and they

02:09:11.180 are edge lords or they're just very rebellious towards where they're coming from and they want

02:09:16.220 to throw around oaths and you know just be as viking as possible in this kind of like play

02:09:24.620 mindset of like i'm gonna oath on you know this bear skull brother for forever to do and be with

02:09:31.020 you no matter how detrimental your life might be because you're you know being crazy people like

02:09:38.620 just say and do crazy things and uh they need to understand that oaths aren't done like that

02:09:43.500 they're very important and again they can they leave in wake in your weird things that the gods

02:09:50.540 can meet out your doom with quite easily if you're not following correct action so yeah good lesson

02:09:58.780 though yes nick says and since we're bringing up festivities and you mentioned the 12 days earlier

02:10:06.620 what's the deal you've got a set founder mcnallan has his version githya katie's written about her

02:10:11.820 family's set inspired by yours and what are your 12 days of yule what are the 12 days of yule

02:10:19.100 okay uh well so uh founder mcnallan had the the the candle lighting ceremony on youtube set

02:10:27.980 pretty much i mean that's almost like i think like back when youtube was really just taken off

02:10:33.820 um and so and i have incorporated that because i wasn't always in the astro folk assembly

02:10:39.020 but had my yule tradition uh so you find a lot of what what's happening in ausa true is things are

02:10:45.580 coming together i know elsewhere go these waiting for me to say it but i'll say it once things

02:10:51.420 galvanize like i love that word no uh things it comes together things are coming together

02:10:57.900 what you end up having is principalities or different areas um all having their own traditions

02:11:04.860 and um unfortunately you know different elements like some people might pull from a german alp

02:11:11.580 tradition more of a something for them that they like and then somebody else might have more of a

02:11:16.940 a norwegian maybe swedish and then other might have an icelandic or uh you know just an overall

02:11:24.460 kind of germanic tradition so you get all these traditions everywhere um and i'm not necessarily

02:11:31.100 saying that any of them are right or wrong i think that what what's happening is is on the other end

02:11:35.900 is people coming into the faith and going what do we do like i want to do something i

02:11:40.940 this is my first time i'm coming into the faith i'm coming back home

02:11:43.580 what's what's yule about and and when you like pick a card pick a card people are like oh crap

02:11:53.660 like they they don't exactly know what to do uh so my yule tradition is not based off the

02:11:59.580 icelandic yule tradition i grew up celebrating yule and you know of course there's grilla and

02:12:04.760 all that stuff and i've already marked on that about in other podcasts about

02:12:07.580 the scary caricatures and how I'm not really into them. I'm not saying that either way, but

02:12:15.700 the Yule tradition that I practice, have been practicing for almost 15 years, I think,

02:12:27.540 if I count correctly, and it formulated itself over about five years and it just grew more and

02:12:36.440 more again yule is a is an interesting topic you'll get the basement wizard saying you know

02:12:41.240 it's three three nights and during yule month yule month and all that stuff and the 12 nights is the

02:12:47.400 eucharist and that's a christian thing and it's like well we can't really tell where you know

02:12:52.760 did they pull that from us because there was never really a correlative holiday uh in christianity

02:13:01.000 before it came to europe about the the the eucharist and three kings day and the 12 nights

02:13:06.120 after the 25th which is celebrated in like ukraine and russia and and also in some some south american

02:13:12.920 countries and things like that where the catholics and the orthodox are um but you know when we talk

02:13:18.680 about the 12 nights of yule it was a correlation sense of like okay well if the year is a macro

02:13:25.160 uh of the microcosm of the week basically we're messing around with time on yule because it's the

02:13:32.900 turning of the year so the day represents the year or the seasons represent the year the year

02:13:39.300 represents times so there there's a play of micro and macro in there and um what ended up kind of

02:13:48.540 correlating from from my yule tradition is that there if you look at the days of the week minus

02:13:54.260 Lagerstag, which is wash day, the day in which you did all your chores and things, there was six

02:14:02.040 days. And if you put a day in between those days, you get 12. And it was such an easy way to

02:14:09.440 remember it. Because if you can remember what comes after Sunday, which is Monday, and you

02:14:15.720 understand that there's a day in between, all you have to do is memorize six days and you got the

02:14:20.020 rest you got all 12 bang and so i i was you know like i i teach my son and how so he can remember

02:14:26.340 it is understanding that you know we start out with mother's night so if mother's night is the

02:14:31.740 first night that we do it then then the first day of the week is suna's day so that's the 21st which

02:14:37.320 is the solstice makes perfect sense so after mother's night on suna's day we burn sun wheels

02:14:44.440 in the fire in the morning and give bloat to the sun and to the darkest time we keep a flame

02:14:51.000 from the yule log on mother's night burning one flame and i utilize that flame in founder

02:14:58.660 mcnalen's candle lighting ceremony i meditate on the virtues in the morning so yule is 12 days from

02:15:05.760 morning to night i hold bloat at night usually and in the morning uh and i say usually because

02:15:11.220 it can depend sometimes you go to there's a birthday party i go to and we we hold um we we

02:15:17.460 celebrate uh the land tier on that night so you know that's his birthday and so we do it kind of

02:15:22.660 whenever we can but um you know so we we have a set thing put up the mistletoe and i have a tradition

02:15:31.220 about that where i have to steal the mistletoe uh from some place that's become a family tradition

02:15:36.980 I'm not recommending that to people. I don't want you to get arrested and be like, ah, the guy on YouTube told me to steal it.

02:15:45.020 No, but it's a tradition of mine in which we always scope out mistletoe in the trees.

02:15:51.660 And I've done it to where, you know, the first time I did it, I was chased off of a guy's lawn with a ladder.

02:15:59.340 I've sent my son up into trees. It's been a fun tradition.

02:16:03.980 tradition but uh you know hanging the mistletoe and shaking and and embracing your brothers under

02:16:10.540 the mistletoe um you know giving a kiss on the forehead or the cheek to your loved ones or

02:16:15.740 giving an actual kiss to your your wife or your children um you know that that's part of it

02:16:21.340 hanging the wreath up you know in in protection of this of this dark time it is the end of the

02:16:26.380 wild hunt um up until you know ovins night in my yule tradition there's the wild hunt is still

02:16:31.820 going and it gets worse and worse and worse until right before on owens night um so you know placing

02:16:37.500 the wreath up in protection um carrying the flame and and then transferring that flame

02:16:43.580 when that candle gets low making sure it doesn't go out and if it does go out i actually you know

02:16:48.540 my other folk around me have the flame as well and that's part of that tradition is if your flame

02:16:53.500 goes out your your kinfolk come over with a flame from theirs and they relight your flame letting

02:17:00.700 people know you know um there's so there's a lot of elements in my my yule tradition it's it's a

02:17:06.940 long class i will be holding it at thor's off but um you know there's basically the the days are

02:17:16.540 mother's night as soon as day in the morning we burn a sun wheel and then we rest because we

02:17:22.220 were up all night on mother's night and everything is all the festivities have just started so the

02:17:26.940 second day is kind of just like we hail the sun and then we take a break so i usually take off

02:17:32.780 on the 21st um and the 20th i do for logistic reasons but we practice at night and um after

02:17:41.340 everything is set you know uh the next night is nertha's night or uh she could be you know your

02:17:47.820 the mother of thor the earth um i i call her nertha which is a derivative or an anglicization

02:17:54.220 of nerfus and that day's a like a cleaning day we clean the hearth fire um the men folk you know

02:18:01.580 men folk i'll say i'll use myself as an example i'll go out and rake leaves um you know chop them

02:18:07.580 up uh do things in the yard clean things up get my wood piles set up you know make sure the chickens

02:18:13.900 are winterized completely and just do things like that my wife will do things like you know she 1.00

02:18:18.780 she tends to the kids. We, we clean the house. She does, you know, she's doing like all kinds

02:18:24.420 of stuff during that time, washing drapery and, and couch covers and things that I can't even

02:18:31.000 figure out how to fold. So, I mean, but that's, that's her power. That's where she's at. So I'm

02:18:35.620 outside doing all that other stuff and getting my garden ready for spring. And so that's Nertha's

02:18:42.820 and then the next night is, is well, Sunday and then Nertha's night, there's Monty's day. So I

02:18:48.480 always kind of correlate those three as sun earth and moon money's night is when i prep my full moon

02:18:53.700 on the iron mark i go through and i i look at the full moons and count them out so that way i can

02:18:58.700 get my moons for the for the next coming year um and then i hold blow to money and then uh the next

02:19:05.100 night after that we go into ancestors night which is the 24th on the gregorian calendar and that's

02:19:10.480 when the yule elf brings the gifts from the ancestors and um they're placed under the tree

02:19:15.920 in the morning they're there when the kids come down they see all the gifts from the ancestors

02:19:19.960 and then we take our gifts that we're going to gift exchange to each other so there's two sets

02:19:25.360 of gifts or actually three there's the ancestors gifts under the tree that the yule elf delivered

02:19:29.780 on his yule block um and uh there's the gifts he's placed in the stockings for the kids

02:19:36.520 and then there's the gifts that we're going to give to each other because the yule elf does not

02:19:40.600 like miserly children or miserly folk it's about gift giving to your kin so you know uh we tell

02:19:47.060 the kids that if they're miserly or greedy they're going to get charcoal and and burnt wood

02:19:51.920 in their stockings and um but yeah the ancestors gifts are open that night so the kids have to kind

02:19:58.040 of learn patience not to they don't touch them in the morning they actually wait all day while

02:20:02.120 the presents are there and we take our gift giving presents and put them down next to the ancestors

02:20:06.640 the past and the present together and uh at night they we bring down all the photos of the ancestors

02:20:13.660 and then we open up the ancestors gifts first and the ancestors always send gifts to the kids that

02:20:18.800 are sweaters socks books writing utensils because they care about the future of the line and so my

02:20:28.780 kids love their gifts from the ancestors my son still talks about the the wool socks that his

02:20:34.880 great-grandmother gave him a couple yules back. So it's a beautiful time to talk about your

02:20:42.320 ancestors to your children. And then you go into the gift exchange and give each other gifts based

02:20:48.240 off of, you know, homemade gifts are best, I think, or just things like last year, my son received his

02:20:54.380 first firearm. He got a small 22 rifle. It was a big, big event. So, you know, that was a big thing

02:21:00.420 for me to give to my son so that's that's ancestors night and then we move into tears night

02:21:05.780 because again sunday monday tuesday with one in between so tears night of course honoring tear

02:21:12.340 then we have einher's night and woven's night and i call those the warriors three and um you know

02:21:18.500 tears night is is i think for me is a a very unemotional time about praying um for our folk

02:21:27.860 and for our people and for our nations um and i think you know then we move into einher's night

02:21:33.380 which is for me i i've lost some friends overseas so einher's night is pretty big for me but at the

02:21:41.060 same time too i also that night uh during einher's night we um i recommend like my son will look up

02:21:47.780 like a medal of honor recipient or a a famous hero you know um like i'm doing uh mosby the great

02:21:56.180 the gray ghost of the confederacy and um for this year for einherter's night and i will actually

02:22:03.060 tell the kids about him and then we hold the bloat to the einherjar and it's and then you

02:22:08.340 know we conclude it for the night wolven's night is the end of the wild hunt so that night

02:22:13.700 the children usually go out with me and we'll place apple slices out for the the horses of

02:22:19.860 the returning of the wild hunt and uh usually i'll leave out a small shot of mint schnapps

02:22:25.380 that's a personal tradition of mine um that's been going on for a very long time and um and then

02:22:31.620 that's usually the night of auguries for yule you know if you think about a lot of the european

02:22:36.100 traditions of like reading pewter drippings in the water uh reading candle waxing um you know

02:22:43.860 any sort of auguries cards cartomancy and and and other things like that are done on woden's night

02:22:49.380 and they uh you know they're they're those nights are it's a night of mystery it's a night of

02:22:55.540 conclusion it's an understanding that odin has returned back to heaven after riding his wild

02:23:01.380 hunt and once he does that of course stepping down is ullr so the next night is ullr's night

02:23:07.540 so you see it's like there's a day and a night is as far as the title goes mother's night soonest day

02:23:14.340 nertha's night mani's day ancestors night is tears day and it goes on like this so and there's you

02:23:21.460 know odin's night and then there's um ullr's night the following and that's usually the end of the

02:23:27.460 hunting season put away all your weapons clean them put them away uh i use it as a firearm safety

02:23:34.020 night for my for my son and now my daughter is starting to learn as well that she's coming of

02:23:39.220 age to understand this is how it works this is what it is it's a dangerous thing and

02:23:44.100 you know give that that class and uh my son's starting to get familiar with you know how to

02:23:48.660 clean and and do things and respecting weapons um i showed him how to sharpen a knife last year

02:23:55.460 that was like all we i showed him how to sharpen a knife and we gave hail to uller and that was

02:24:01.060 pretty much it so it's not it doesn't have to be huge um thor's day though is generally if you're

02:24:07.780 a brewer mead brewer beer brewer that's usually the day during yule that i i recommend because

02:24:13.140 we pitch yeast in in uh you know in all of our buckets and that mead will probably be ready by

02:24:20.020 ostras so if you do your stuff on thor's night and pitch it then you'll have it ready by austra and

02:24:26.580 so it's just a it's a every day is a devotional thing that can help whether it's cleaning the

02:24:31.780 fireplace or doing other things like that like thor's night you know we we usually eat lamb

02:24:36.980 and we pitch the yeast and everybody brings beer that they want to showcase that night so it's a

02:24:43.620 big night at the house um and then uh land white's night is generally outside and what we do the kids

02:24:50.500 will smear peanut butter and bird seed on pine cones hang them up in the tree biscuits on ribbons

02:24:55.380 up in the tree or in the bushes kind of just feeding the birds uh and the local you know

02:25:00.580 animals that are struggling this time of year and then of course lastly after land whites night is

02:25:07.220 phrase night and that's the night where we take that flame we've been nursing for 12 days you

02:25:12.420 know making sure it doesn't go out um and you know i keep it safe in a pot of water inside my fireplace

02:25:18.740 you know when i'm not burning a fire i'll you know i'll take it out when i do but light a torch

02:25:24.500 with that flame and take it outside and you light a bonfire on the last night after you eat your

02:25:29.540 pig's head you know you you know i i it's a it's a big thing to like make sure you don't blow your

02:25:36.980 light out before you if you have that torch lit make sure you keep that light on so because i've

02:25:41.460 gone outside and the wind oh yeah then you have to run back inside and light it again so lesson

02:25:48.740 learned last night don't blow that out after you light the torch go out light the bonfire and my

02:25:54.420 hope is that eventually one day this tradition will be embraced by many folk and from the temples

02:26:01.460 they'll gain their yule log lights their flames or the ash in order to make a fire and they go home

02:26:07.940 and they light a fire at home and then at the end when the gods look down upon where the folk are

02:26:12.900 they'll see lights all lighting at the end of yule so that's a very brief synopsis of my yule

02:26:20.580 tradition we did a candle um blessing on the last day that we had yule of baldersov where we

02:26:28.500 you know we we lit our full flame like we always do um but we blessed candles to

02:26:35.220 send home with people and we put candles off at the full flame and you know i mean i i get they

02:26:40.740 can't leave that lit all the time but we did tell them before you extinguish this flame

02:26:46.900 first you must light it in your soul and may it be burned bright and strong even if this candle's

02:26:53.220 not lit so anytime you extinguish one of those flames make sure that you are intentionally

02:26:59.300 lighting it within yourself before you extinguish that flame yeah and that's that's another thing

02:27:03.860 logistics of the temples and of the timing too because we have to converge for most people so

02:27:09.140 like even though yule starts on the 20th um you know we're getting together the weekend before

02:27:15.140 or some people have already gotten together because that's the time that they got to do this

02:27:19.460 so yeah i mean and you know if you if you uh have that sacred flame that you keep from the temple

02:27:25.380 and you can light a yule log at your home and start or or or just keep it you know and understand

02:27:30.900 that you know it's like you're not going to commit some great sin if if it has to adapt because of

02:27:38.180 certain things and i definitely see that that's another reason why we have those traditions so

02:27:41.940 regionally is because certain things might not work out charming the plow in minnesota is a hard

02:27:47.060 thing to do in the ground when it's covered by like inches of ice inches of ice and feet of snow

02:27:56.340 yeah planting anything inside unless it's inside you're not planting in february you're not doing

02:28:01.860 anything in february except trying to stay warm so me right i think i think the biggest thing is my

02:28:08.580 my attempt uh at teaching this yule tradition is to give people something that they can see

02:28:14.900 that has been practiced it has tradition it has it has a lot of coal coalescing elements

02:28:21.780 but it's a baseline and then you know based on certain things based on whether you're near

02:28:27.940 temples whether you're by yourself whether you have children or not you know the yule elf might

02:28:32.660 not be a big thing if you don't have children so there's lots of stuff it's just a baseline to cover

02:28:37.060 all everything and then you can go with what you got just celebrate and do and you can do no wrong

02:28:48.100 well that looks like that is all the questions that we have got from the chat tonight

02:28:54.820 okay all right well thank you swan it is always a pleasure to listen to you and to

02:29:00.820 learn from you every time every time you open your mouth i learn something new so

02:29:05.460 i appreciate all the time and effort in this i really do so thank you very much for being here

02:29:11.620 sir thank you so much and and hail fray i know we you know talking we base our our stuff off

02:29:18.500 the questions and how you know what people are throwing at us uh but again too we know that a

02:29:23.780 lot of people come at this from different angles if you have questions about the gods make sure

02:29:27.860 you throw them up there but if you have your knowledge about the gods and you're just more

02:29:31.220 interested in talking about what we're doing and things of that nature hey thank you and thank you

02:29:36.740 to canada for being so giving tonight yes canada thank you for your generosity we very much

02:29:42.260 appreciate that our northern brothers northern brothers all right everyone you guys have a great

02:29:50.340 week we'll do this again next week and remember until then victory never sleeps hail the gods

02:29:56.820 hail the folk and hail the afa hail everybody

02:30:26.820 Thank you.

02:30:56.820 Thank you.

02:31:26.820 Thank you.

02:31:56.820 Thank you.

02:32:26.820 Thank you.

02:32:56.820 Thank you.

Asatru Folk Assembly - December 15, 2022

12⧸14⧸22 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 23 - Freyr

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