Asatru Folk Assembly - 3⧸5⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 139 - Helgakviða Hundingsbana II

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

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

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 We'll be right back.

00:02:00.000 Thank you.

00:02:30.000 Thank you.

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

00:03:22.980 I am excited to be back with my good friend and colleague, Witton Spahn-Harrell.

00:03:29.080 it has been due to circumstance uh shoot a full month since longer than that a month and a half

00:03:39.560 since he and i have sat and done a show together um first time i was sick and the other time i was

00:03:46.160 still on my my trip down to njordshoff for charming the plow which was a fantastic event

00:03:53.980 by the way um top of the show things i we're getting close i think closer than a lot of us

00:04:00.700 realize to ostara at thorshof it's going to be coming up quick uh coming up on the 21st through

00:04:08.940 the 23rd of this month so make it out if you're able i would love to see you guys there i look

00:04:18.700 forward to it every year it's it's a fantastic event with some of our very best people

00:04:24.380 it's a absolutely amazing place like i mentioned before on the show when you walk into the bay

00:04:33.740 the mural that's fawn painted of also thor is just dominates the space in a

00:04:40.780 profound way that you have to experience for yourself but no it's a wonderful event and i

00:04:45.900 look forward to seeing everybody there uh contact a folk builder if you would like to attend

00:04:53.100 nobody ever regrets going to these things a lot of people think about it and think about reasons

00:04:58.620 well i guess it's not the perfect time or not the perfect situation or maybe next year

00:05:04.620 everybody who has made the effort to go is glad that they did when they come back so i encourage

00:05:10.700 you to take that leap and go and meet us at thorshof and celebrate a powerful time of the year

00:05:18.220 uh as we honor the dawn goddess ostara um other top the show stuff so some um letting you guys

00:05:29.660 know how we're doing on some things i give you guys updates on here our big push that we are

00:05:35.580 continuing working on is paying off new york's off we've been working on that for a while north

00:05:41.740 off was our most expensive off um but it's an amazing hof and we're doing great on that pay down

00:05:50.060 you guys have been extremely generous uh those of you keeping track uh the graphic just because of

00:05:57.340 donations that came in right before the show the graphic is not even quite telling the whole story

00:06:02.860 so we're at 52 900 that we currently owe which is a lot considering but this time last month

00:06:15.420 i think we're like 57 um so we're making great progress you guys have been extremely generous

00:06:22.140 and we really appreciate it as this winds down and we get closer it comes out to about

00:06:27.980 73 donation from each afa member would pay this off off immediately but we're making awesome

00:06:35.340 progress on it and we are what's that 78.4 percent of the way through which is really tremendous so

00:06:42.860 i appreciate all the all the donations guys uh including the one that made this inaccurate and

00:06:49.980 knocked off an additional hundred dollars uh came in from gw farnsworth very loyal donator

00:06:57.020 to the program and we really appreciate you thank you so much for your generosity

00:07:02.300 um and he also donated thirty dollars towards uh this broadcast so thank you um

00:07:11.180 it's fine do you have any top of the top of the show things for us i think i was

00:07:15.660 i think you were trying to a second ago and i cut you off oh no just because you were

00:07:19.900 uh about austara and um thorsof um you know we just got the bathrooms fixed in um thorsof

00:07:29.660 in the actual hof not the uh meeting hall or the feasting hall but uh for folks who haven't been

00:07:38.860 there we have a lower section in the back and we've got two new bathrooms um rebuilt in there

00:07:46.700 but the next move that's coming is we're going to start fixing the ceiling again this is a hundred

00:07:52.700 year old plus church and um we're going to be i've been kind of reserved to do stained glass

00:08:02.140 um which is coming i think that for a lot of folks it might catch them as being odd that

00:08:07.980 we're doing stained glass but i really i've been kind of chomping at the bit um for thorsoff to

00:08:15.980 really explode um with color um because of the ceiling but once the ceiling gets fixed

00:08:25.740 the walls will be painted um and the windows will be covered with um faux stained glass i i would

00:08:33.820 love for it to be real stained glass but it will be faux and i will be making it um and uh i just

00:08:40.940 i think that the the advantage of me being at thor's hof is what gives it that extra little

00:08:48.540 um i think we we lack in other things but we do gain in aesthetic um because i'm kind of bored

00:08:55.500 there in the sense that i can you know devote my time to certain projects like that um i would love

00:09:01.980 to go to each of the hoffs and um get parties or groups together um people in their own areas with

00:09:10.380 artistic ability and start kind of just giving them some guide posts and then we move and then

00:09:16.460 each hoff have their own you know i mean uh njord's hoff is beautiful in decorations and

00:09:24.700 there's rope and netting and seashells and and then uh baldursof is unique and it's it's gold

00:09:32.380 and filigree and um its overall design and then oldensof of course is classic and has you know

00:09:41.420 beautiful inside space beautiful outside space but um yeah i think that for for ausa through

00:09:48.700 now where a lot of folks are focusing on you know the i guess they're still riding on the echoes of

00:09:59.000 the history channel larping viking thing but for for us it's about color it's about vibrance it's

00:10:08.200 about life it's about um vitality and i think that our ancestors especially when we um you know we

00:10:17.100 know about the way that they dressed they dressed their best they dressed in bright colors and they

00:10:21.560 were proud i think that all too often we find the modern media machine uh depict our ancestors as

00:10:29.600 being like mud covered and and um just just not uh you know a cultural people a a people of um

00:10:43.020 faith and of of language and of tribe um no matter where in in uh europe so i think that we're going

00:10:53.940 to try to really emphasize on bringing that back yeah a lot of people have strange

00:11:01.560 aesthetic ideas about the viking age um

00:11:07.640 there some of that comes from a romantic era classic juxtaposition of civilization versus

00:11:18.920 the noble savage and so they want to make um continental europe represent all of the

00:11:29.320 the trappings of civilization and then you know the the barbarian on the outside being 0.93

00:11:35.480 you know wild and savage and accompanied by you know unruly hair and filthy and 0.99

00:11:45.080 you know extra primitive uh whereas the viking was a technological master of the tools of his time

00:11:55.080 um at least those that were available in in scandinavia and northern europe and the places

00:12:01.240 he encountered uh you find um damascus pattern viking blades that are the the best some of the

00:12:12.360 best swords certainly the best swords in northern europe during the time they had the most technically

00:12:17.240 advanced ships because they were most effective they would celebrate wearing bright colors and

00:12:26.440 having nice shiny things and looking nice they were offensive to some of the you know english

00:12:33.480 christians because they bathed regularly which was you know they were above the grooming standards of

00:12:39.640 the day i went to um museum in uh in uh sorry in stockholm and they uh

00:12:54.760 i call them a shockingly high percentage of their viking era and earlier artifacts are you know

00:13:03.640 personal hygiene beard trimmer nose hair stuff like ear wax scraper outers

00:13:15.480 elaborate combs um yes this idea of the like filthy shoulder pelt ash on their face like 0.92

00:13:26.120 scary ooga booga viking is is really a disservice to our ancestors

00:13:31.480 um tonight so you guys can get there uh at our normal source on valuspout.org

00:13:41.160 we are going to be going through the helga kveda hunting's banner tv uh i missed the first one

00:13:50.600 so i'm excited to get here on the tail end of of these series uh i'm told that uh

00:13:58.600 go see trent east did a really good job you guys's episodes so i am

00:14:07.640 happy about that and i'm looking forward to going through this with you all this evening so

00:14:13.800 that said i i love trent but i feel sometimes like he's just like i'm gonna just wind wind

00:14:20.200 uh witness von up and just let him go there's there's fun in that for the whole family so

00:14:28.600 yeah the the challenge of sending people over to to me at a at a national event and just saying

00:14:36.040 like hey go talk to svana but ask him you know about this and then watch them get locked with

00:14:41.240 me for like an hour that is that is a proud afa tradition well and i mean there's been a couple of

00:14:50.520 people like there there have been a couple of people and usually you know it's typically done

00:14:58.460 in good fun because you get some of these people that will just go and you can get them on some

00:15:02.620 interesting topics i'll always remember one of the most amazing people i've ever met there's an

00:15:09.660 old time uh aussitur who's uh was really foundational back in the 80s and then was was a

00:15:20.940 very big deal in the early 90s with the australians um robert taylor and this man is

00:15:30.940 he is the most fascinating person that i have ever met um i've had so many really really good

00:15:37.580 conversations with him i haven't spoken to him in many years but he would come to our he went

00:15:43.580 i met him actually at midsummer in california and he lives and has for a very long time

00:15:49.100 in west virginia but he'd come out that year and i want to say it was like

00:15:57.260 2011 or something somewhere they're about and just the most you could talk to this guy about

00:16:05.100 any topic of under the sun and the game like some people would go and they would just pick

00:16:10.140 just off the wall topics and go prompt him into conversation just see what he would do

00:16:16.140 it doesn't matter what the topic was he could sit there and have meaningful things to say and

00:16:22.460 you know anecdotes and stories that related to it and this guy i mean he's a he's a very old

00:16:28.460 man i wouldn't be surprised i mean he's i'm gonna guess in his 80s but he's he's packed like 400

00:16:38.540 years into those 80 years he's got so many amazing stories and i you know i had the pleasure of

00:16:43.820 visiting him at his home one time and um there was another thing again like you'd sick people over to

00:16:52.700 talk to him about random things and just see what he would do and

00:16:57.020 you go into his home and every wall space is just filled with shelves of books i mean there has to

00:17:03.660 be thousands of books in his home and so somebody was you know just kind of you know good spirited

00:17:09.900 but hey robert what do you think about this and just pick a book at random like an innocuous

00:17:16.460 and he could like clear his day ah you know it i really liked what he had to say in the chapter

00:17:25.340 about this i mean i remember him saying this and that and the other and thought that was really

00:17:29.580 insightful but he made a point you know a few chapters later that i didn't care for

00:17:34.060 and you could do this two three times and he every time he had you know he'd read all of

00:17:39.820 these books and remembered everything from them and he's truly an amazing guy so we got got some

00:17:46.780 very wise and uh interesting folks that you get the pleasure of talking to if you attend some of

00:17:54.300 our events you'd be surprised that's a really special part of the event not just the not just

00:18:01.180 the the being there for ritual or you know any of the other activities that we do but just the

00:18:07.900 opportunity to speak to some some really special people and form friendships and hear stories and

00:18:16.940 you know just benefit from the association with some really great people so if you can make it

00:18:25.180 out to these things by all means please please i could not encourage you highly enough to do that

00:18:32.700 um it's fun do folks need to know anything special going into this poem this evening

00:18:43.100 um yes okay and you had said you missed the first one but these are all three of these

00:18:49.180 are kind of disjointed i would almost consider them the first one and the second one are um

00:18:58.380 framed under almost the reincarnation uh the rebirth of um the main uh male and female powers

00:19:09.180 the third one is almost a standalone but the problem with it is um even though it seems more

00:19:16.940 foundationally sound in the beginning it's actually the most disjointed so for anybody

00:19:22.540 that's just now joining us um when we you know when we're talking about um any of the uh helga

00:19:33.020 kvita any of the stories of helgi it's worth remembering that these are uh episodes if you

00:19:43.020 will episodes of um helge and his um you know uh heroics but the problem is is that the annotator

00:19:57.820 the person who wrote them down and it's not quite known um was not 100 percent uh i i think on the

00:20:08.140 stories and so you find these poems some of them are completely in separate sections and then

00:20:14.540 they're kind of crammed together so there's always elements that remain the same um helgi is and any

00:20:23.020 story of helgi is always connected to the volsung saga through sigmund who is sigurd the dragon

00:20:30.220 Slayer's father outside of that it gets loose uh there's mentions of of my son is trying to tear

00:20:41.020 down my my thing Eldred come on come on Eldred oh all right I got a sneaky little uh little kiddo

00:20:54.100 here as um Eldred go to bed anyways excuse me sorry about that um so all of these stories about

00:21:12.340 Helgi are almost like what if people were to think of uh or Heracles and his many adventures

00:21:23.140 and stories they are uh originally separate and you know episodic and then eventually later they

00:21:32.000 are put together and sometimes there is a sense that uh of you know putting them together with

00:21:40.460 the express um to to make it appear that it's all joined and so there's some annotated um

00:21:51.140 yeah i got a little rascal croatian you are absolutely correct the the third one is he's uh

00:21:58.740 he's wild um the the idea that when they start to annotate and bring all of the stories together

00:22:08.900 they utilize techniques but it's very hard to do it when we talk about poems poems are put together

00:22:17.700 um in order to add longevity to keep them together the person that's writing the stories

00:22:26.100 or the poems down uh is doing this in one shot it's going to take a very long time

00:22:32.340 so um they're kind of spliced and then melded together and the the scenes aren't super clean

00:22:40.900 and this third one is of the of the helgi uh series is probably the most disjointed um

00:22:51.780 so what do we have to gain out of this one i mean it's worth remembering especially in

00:22:57.380 in the case of heroic poems i wouldn't say so much with the divine poems of the gods there's

00:23:03.380 far more care placed in that but when we talk about the heroic poems um we clearly see the fault

00:23:12.340 of of man and writing and the attempt to keep everything orderly it's very hard to do when

00:23:21.940 you're shifting from an oratory culture to a writing culture um but we get all of these little

00:23:29.940 nuggets of wisdom we get the kind of um feeling of what the heroism of our ancestors looked like

00:23:40.420 what what they were attracted to what they were entertained by and so these elements that we see

00:23:46.820 of the the the mortal man uh rising up gaining you know benefits from divine or semi-divine

00:23:56.580 being like valkyrie where he is given poise and direction and then he faces his enemies and um

00:24:06.260 and even in in the second one you know he doesn't he doesn't he's not victorious

00:24:12.420 but that he meets his end with heroicism so there's all of these little things that i think

00:24:21.700 make it worth um looking into and worth reading but it again you have to go with it that it's not

00:24:31.940 as conjoined and smooth as the divine um poetry the divine stories um those are far better taken

00:24:43.700 care of even though they still are disjointed the halva mall is clearly three different poems put

00:24:49.700 together um so or at least as we know it's probably just three um so that's i think another

00:24:59.060 reason why in asa through we don't take the poems to be divine scripture that seems to be a a poignant

00:25:10.020 way uh that certain religions do it the the the man-made religions as i often call them or man

00:25:19.300 focused the mortal focused um where there is a uh a messiah or messiah there is a buddha or um a

00:25:28.820 prophet and then you have these disjointed stories that are slowly kind of smooth together and

00:25:35.620 they're predominantly historic um whereas for us this is more about the heroics of the warrior

00:25:47.300 primogen um the zenith of being a warrior and the historical part is almost completely

00:25:56.500 um lost we know that it perhaps is connected to the kings of denmark but we also know that there

00:26:03.220 are you know members of the story that are all the way back to the migration period including attila

00:26:09.460 but that doesn't matter the overall senses the um the air of it not the historicalness of it

00:26:19.000 the best way that I could describe it would be like anybody who's ever seen the movie Braveheart

00:26:24.000 completely non-historical um in so many ways but the overarching story is painted in a way

00:26:37.720 that it encourages

00:26:40.140 perennial, or

00:26:41.880 as Croatian War Master said, timeless

00:26:44.160 lessons. Perennial

00:26:45.900 ideas painted

00:26:47.680 and smoothed together.

00:26:50.680 Braveheart offends me

00:26:51.960 and it offends me greatly

00:26:53.700 because it

00:26:55.800 knowingly

00:26:59.600 misrepresents

00:27:01.760 living or like

00:27:03.460 existence

00:27:06.440 people

00:27:07.700 right in history if you're going to do historical fiction come up with

00:27:17.460 okay if you're going to do historical fiction come up with people that didn't exist put them

00:27:22.820 in historical context and then make up your story but yeah and it like grossly

00:27:31.060 slandered and it it was just horrible with its history one of the difference here is you've got

00:27:38.740 tales that come down from you know even at the time ancient things in a society that doesn't

00:27:46.500 have wikipedia so in far off scandinavia when you hear people writing about attila it's very

00:27:57.460 very loosely based on you know legends that have made it down to you

00:28:07.780 you know 500 at least years after the fact so don't overly

00:28:17.540 the point of that that's interesting and these aren't meant to be historic that's one of the

00:28:23.620 things is you have things like beowulf and stuff that might have some historical connectivity

00:28:33.140 but they're not written the same way and they're not the same as sagas that are recorded as history

00:28:43.220 these are you know this is epic poetry about you know epic quasi supernatural things and it's

00:28:52.180 important to know the authors knew that going in there's no dishonesty here with the with the stuff

00:29:02.420 that they're they're presenting i also want to say that we just got a uh wayne sheehan bought us

00:29:11.380 three coffees it's a 15 donation i appreciate that so much thank you it's accompanied by

00:29:17.220 thanks for all the hard work and dedication i listen to victory never sleeps as i sleep and

00:29:22.500 also at the gym it's very good to have authentic folk teaching and actually living true hail the

00:29:28.740 afa hail the icier and hail victory wayne thank you so much for saying so i appreciate the kind

00:29:37.620 words i appreciate that you enjoy the program and i also appreciate your generosity so thank you very

00:29:44.020 much that hypes me up to know that someone's uh listening to us while just pressing steel

00:29:51.300 and getting stronger that's that's awesome all right so svan are you ready to take us

00:29:59.060 into the text of the evening uh yes absolutely so this is the the song um or the the the poem of

00:30:09.620 of um Helge Hundingsbane part two is kind of how it's it's referred to um

00:30:22.340 so again it starts off flat and it is giving the audience an immediate context and that's

00:30:33.800 lends us to understand that this is these were probably separate stories told and were told

00:30:43.320 perhaps there was even more we don't quite know but the construction of the poetics were

00:30:52.760 a huge part of the presentation of the story it is truly a cultural phenomena for our ancestors

00:31:02.120 to hear the poetic structure and stanza, particularly in upper courts.

00:31:10.920 This might have been told in a layman's terms amongst free men and semi-powerful people.

00:31:23.580 They might have heard a kind of story version.

00:31:26.240 But certainly in the Jarl's courts, this would have been spoken in poetic format.

00:31:33.180 And the fact that it is spoken in poetics is an entire kind of draw to it in and of itself, even though perhaps people in the audience didn't know the entirety of the stories.

00:31:47.480 Um, so we, uh, we, again, it's contexted in Denmark and there is a, a sense of placing where and the descendancy of Helgi comes from.

00:32:12.000 and you will again meant they'll there be mention of of sigmund sigurd the dragon slayer's father

00:32:19.220 um there will also be mentioning of the ilvings and the ilvings most likely but i cannot say with

00:32:27.720 absolute um sense is that they are the same as the wolflings that are mentioned in beowulf

00:32:35.440 um in denmark where the danes ended up warring with the wolflings and ultimately the their fate

00:32:45.580 was that they were pushed out of denmark and that they moved as a people to what is now poland and

00:32:53.260 then went down the volga river um and eventually settled in the black sea for a moment and

00:33:01.520 established the city of Kiev, which may have been under a different name by that, or at that time,

00:33:08.700 but was later named Kiev. And they probably joined the Gothic or Gutanish tribes, which were

00:33:19.260 multiple peoples the scary the rugi um etc so uh so this is before that mass exodus um

00:33:30.780 king sigmund the son of volsung had a wife named borghild from brauland they named their son helgi

00:33:44.300 after helgi your father son hegel or hail was helgi's foster father hunting the name the name

00:33:55.980 of a powerful king and hundlund is the name from him he was a mighty warrior and he had many sons

00:34:04.460 with him on his campaigns there was an enmity i always get that wrong and strife uh between these

00:34:14.620 two king hunding and king sigmund and each slew each other's kinsmen king sigmund and his family

00:34:23.900 were of the volsung and the ilvings helgi was a spy to the home of uh home of king hunding in

00:34:34.700 disguise celebrities who ruined their careers getting some background noise there um hyming

00:34:43.980 a son of king hundings was at home when helgi went forth then he met a young herdsman and said

00:34:52.300 So just to kind of, it really does a good job in explaining, you know, Sigmund as opposed to Hunding. So that kind of separation there.

00:35:08.300 Um, I like to think of it as during the time in which, um, Sigmund, King Sigmund, um, is, um, reigning in his power. If every, if people remember from the Volsunga saga, there, you know, Lord Odin enters into Sigmund's Hall, which is built around a tree, and he places the sword down to the hilt.

00:35:35.300 and then he walks out of the wedding and everyone tries to pull the sword out and finally Sigmund

00:35:43.800 pulls and then from that moment on is the rise of his power well I like to think of these as again

00:35:50.640 kind of running parallel to that that has the sword of power and yet there is also King Hunding

00:36:00.260 and this is a lot of their rivalry just like in the the past poems that we were talking about where

00:36:06.400 the sons of King Hunding get revenge on the son of Sigmund Helgi um they get revenge on him for

00:36:15.580 killing Hunding and that's the general idea if anybody needs to know but it's always a little

00:36:22.960 different in each one of the stories how that all goes about um and then i think it's also

00:36:30.480 interesting to know that um in this one here helgi is seen as a spy so um

00:36:39.440 you know in the poems before helgi clearly is sigmund's son in this case it's still the same

00:36:45.120 but he's unknown and not bright of fame perhaps uh maybe one of the youngest of the children

00:36:54.480 um as it would might be placed out there i think um everybody in our ancestral time knew

00:37:01.040 uh the first child the first male um usually had the best stakes to inheritance and every child

00:37:08.320 thereafter it just got harder and harder for them you know they had to make sure that they claimed

00:37:16.080 they had no birthright to claim they had to claim their own fame and so in that case this would kind

00:37:21.920 of lend to the idea that helgi is one of the youngest of the children and so he manages to

00:37:29.520 slip into his father's enemies or rival king's court without being noticed which would be

00:37:38.240 really strange for a prince to be able to do that unless of course he was the youngest and

00:37:44.000 just kind of not known or just not really focused upon so um

00:37:50.720 um so let's see Helgi was went as a spy to the home of King Hunding in disguise hyming

00:38:02.540 a son of King Hunding was home Helgi went forth but he met a young herdsman along the way and

00:38:10.460 again this is another um Nordic or Germanic trope that we will find consistently within stories

00:38:18.320 The Skirnir goes to Gerðr's hall, and he meets a herdsman on the hill before he presses forward.

00:38:30.760 Lord Odin, in the guise or disguise of Bolvurk, the bale worker, he goes to try to find Sutung's mountain.

00:38:43.180 he goes in the form of a vagabond and he stops at the the farm hands but again this idea that

00:38:52.940 the land is being worked on around the central place and the care the main character comes in

00:39:00.360 in disguise and is kind of you know getting the lay of the land and kind of prodding his way into

00:39:06.740 understanding what's going on um is a consistent uh story framework um

00:39:20.020 say to hate say to haming that helgi knows whom the heroes in armor hid

00:39:27.780 a gray wolf had they within their hall whom king hunding hamel fought

00:39:34.100 so at this point um helgi is is uh speaking to the the herdsman saying that

00:39:45.220 he should go and speak to the prince and let him know that this traveler he uh who you know as he

00:39:56.680 is knows of you know the hidden threat um that presides within their their uh hall which is a

00:40:06.440 bold move to be a spy but say like to come in and say i know where the hidden threats are in your

00:40:12.840 kingdom being the hidden threat. So Hamal was the name of Hael's son. King Hunding sent men to Hael

00:40:27.480 to seek Helgi, and Helgi could not save himself in any other way, so he put on the clothes 0.98

00:40:33.140 of a bond woman and set to work in the mill. They sought Helgi, but found him not.

00:40:42.180 So at this point, Helgi is discovered and he hides himself in the mill in women's clothes.

00:40:55.580 and uh that's not a good start and remember too like this these first uh five stanzas

00:41:05.180 are going to roll as they do and then there's suddenly there's going to kind of be a disjointed

00:41:09.320 switch um so most scholars believe that these are fragmented poems and we're not going to get

00:41:18.060 full explanations as to how

00:41:20.120 things just suddenly

00:41:21.300 become

00:41:23.200 they sought out

00:41:28.380 Helgi but found him not

00:41:29.700 then

00:41:31.660 blind 0.52

00:41:32.880 fake out the evil minded 1.00

00:41:36.180 of Hale's bond woman

00:41:38.360 bright are the eyes

00:41:40.720 yon comes not

00:41:42.420 of churls

00:41:43.500 who stand at the cairn

00:41:46.560 The millstones break, the boards are shattered.

00:41:52.460 The hero has a doom full hard that barely now, barely or barely now he needs, or barley now he needs must grind.

00:42:07.740 Better befits his hands to feel the hilt of a sword than a millstone's handle.

00:42:13.720 hale answered and said small is the wonder if boards are splintered again boards are um shields

00:42:27.800 um small is the wonder if boards are splintered by a monarch's daughter the mill is turned

00:42:34.600 once through clouds she was want to ride and battles fought like fighting men

00:42:40.280 So here is a reference just from the other stories before in which Helgi captures the love or the attention of a Valkyrie, but the Valkyria is semi-mortal.

00:43:09.040 so she is the daughter of a king she is the woman of a tribe um

00:43:14.440 Helgi escaped and went to a fighting ship he slew King Hunding and thenceforth was called

00:43:26.440 Helgi Hundingsbane so it see here I just in this sense of the way that there is a stanza and then

00:43:35.860 is kind of descriptive paragraphs and then a stanza again kind of shows that there's an attempt

00:43:43.300 to join these verses together perhaps three verses survive in one place

00:43:50.740 you know five or six in another and these descriptors are kind of used to jointed to um

00:43:58.420 um help the reader kind of understand what's going on um but it's it's it's very very brief

00:44:09.220 so something to point out that's worth noting I mentioned before that there's

00:44:17.620 like a mythological time of Heroes and then there's overtly historical saga work

00:44:25.840 and something to note in aryan religiosity in general um and it's funny because the thing

00:44:35.480 that comes to mind is the intro to hercules from when i was a kid but so this is a tale of a time

00:44:42.440 long ago the ancient gods were petty and cruel and plagued mankind with suffering so there was

00:44:48.280 this thing and there was this period of time and i don't know if we want to call it a golden age

00:44:56.200 or what we'd like to refer to it as where the gods and men interacted in a more

00:45:06.120 closely knit way where you have the frequent occurrence of gods taking shape and interacting

00:45:14.600 of man and you have these you know ascendant beings like uh like valkyries

00:45:27.480 in mortal settings or half mortal or in these kind of situations and you see a blending of

00:45:35.720 the word escapes me now

00:45:44.180 it'll come to me here in a second I'll get it but of these

00:45:54.100 intermediary forces that aren't quite gods but aren't quite demigods aren't quite gods aren't

00:46:03.400 quite men but are something ascendant and something other and you see those interplays

00:46:09.000 here when we talked earlier about the swan maidens um in in one of our previous stories

00:46:16.440 in these kind of heroic cycles you see that reflections of that time you see that in um

00:46:24.600 the greco-roman world i'm sure that you probably see that similarly in other myth cycles

00:46:30.520 so keep in mind that's the kind of mythic antiquity that this takes place in is in that age where it

00:46:41.560 was a much less rare occurrence for both of them to appear among men and to speak to kings and to

00:46:49.000 do things in a in a physical way in in the in the telling of it

00:47:01.160 oh and while i got the floor uh tyler m bought us a coffee thank you tyler we appreciate that

00:47:06.680 uh it's a five dollar donation and it's very much appreciated

00:47:09.720 um i could see the audience our audience going wow that was just like a lot of speech with

00:47:20.040 no direction whatsoever um but the best way that i could kind of explain it is that the poem is

00:47:26.300 hurriedly trying to show that helgi is this is the the son of sigmund that he is again from the

00:47:35.340 all sung the line um that hunding is an opposing king that helgi goes amongst

00:47:46.140 hunding's kingdom under the name hamal um or haumal and he is you know undermining

00:47:58.140 finding information etc um he tells them i know where the wolf is and maybe i was i might have

00:48:06.380 actually been incorrect that he wasn't trying to gain or garner attention by saying you know i know

00:48:11.980 where the bad stuff is but instead was relinquishing his identity as a kind of a

00:48:18.940 a tip to the hat like i've been here the whole time because immediately um king hunting sends

00:48:27.820 um uh hail to get halmal who is helgi very confusing totally understand that um and and

00:48:38.620 you know then when he does come to get him he runs off and hides as um a miller maid um to kind of

00:48:48.540 escape uh persecution or getting caught and then it immediately shifts to

00:48:57.820 The Valkyrie figure who is Sigrun, and Sigrun is the reincarnation, the return of the soul of Svalva from the first Helgi Hundingsbane.

00:49:14.640 And that's kind of, again, it will be brought up later on in the poem, but the uniqueness of the rebirth and the return of Helgi and Svalva is, again, another correlative point in all of these stories.

00:49:33.920 even though they could have very well have been understood as incident or different interpretations

00:49:40.560 of um they make note to say that after um svalva and and he are killed or i mean um pass that they

00:49:54.000 return one as a elevated valkyrie or um i would argue too that the valkyrie were seen as a

00:50:03.760 form of dsir so she returns as a dsir but a living embodiment and that helgi returns but is helgi

00:50:14.960 again and this is a note worth making so to stop in here because um

00:50:24.880 croatian war master uh says something over in the comments he said he used to listen to a

00:50:30.400 or he listened to a sanatana dharma teacher who said that the world used to be way fuller of

00:50:36.480 these kind of ascended beings and i think that's that's true like i don't dispute the truth of

00:50:47.520 the events of the story but i think it still becomes a it's not told as history like the

00:50:55.120 sagas but it does speak of that heroic age where there was much less of a gap or it's not even the

00:51:06.720 right word i guess the the veil between worlds was thinner you had more interaction between

00:51:14.640 the divine and the mortal and you had these kind of occurrences and i think it's worth noting here

00:51:20.640 because you know swan and i have spoken on here before a little bit about reincarnation

00:51:25.520 thoughts on it a lot of people are grumpy at me that i don't um buy into the one for one

00:51:33.760 reincarnation you know ah i'm so and so reborn as a general rule what i've always said and i think

00:51:42.240 this is the the counterpoint to what i was saying is but sometimes it is possible and it has happened

00:51:50.320 I don't forego it happening sometimes, but every Tom, Dick, and Harry didn't used to be Napoleon.

00:51:58.420 Like, that is a modern phenomenon that wasn't understood by our ancestors.

00:52:04.900 The common thing wasn't because you name your kid after your grandpa that he is your grandpa.

00:52:10.120 but if you do that rightly if you're inspired to do so if you see something if you think of

00:52:18.520 something reminiscent or if you want to stack the odds for them to get a maximal inheritance

00:52:23.560 they would get a piece of that and in some cases and certainly in this poetic cycle

00:52:29.700 on an exceptional thing you get a great personage reborn in a one-for-one much more full way and even

00:52:41.960 that i wonder how 100 it is or if it's not some kind of a mixture of the new life with a heavy

00:52:54.200 overlay coexisting of the old life where you have two things existing simultaneous but you have

00:53:01.720 examples of very great people sometimes with extraordinary things occurring and i don't ever

00:53:10.600 preclude that that can happen that just is a an extreme rarity in a miraculous circumstance when

00:53:19.480 it does happen i i did want to say too one thing that we we've never really pointed it out uh

00:53:28.760 outside of the reincarnation part of the soul complex we've talked about that at length but

00:53:35.560 again a lot of folks well i wouldn't say a lot that's that's misspeaking i have run into people

00:53:43.160 who have either wondered why the also true folk assembly believes in ascendancy after death and

00:53:53.480 um and i think we i have rambled on about that quite at length but without truly focusing or

00:54:00.440 putting it in framework and here is another example of that ascendancy where svalva passes

00:54:08.520 and then she returns as sigrun and sigrun is a mortal character but also a divine

00:54:18.760 character uh and in this case spoken of as a valkyrie um and we see that with skirner

00:54:26.360 and we've spoken about that in um ale saga we see these the the the soul complex being allowed

00:54:36.680 to ride the route up from uh and that the gods you know place the soul into the minutia of order

00:54:48.840 whether it's in a hall or whether it's as you know as a servant in their hall um

00:54:56.120 you know it i i think that it's pretty clear it's just simply not you know laid out you know

00:55:03.880 know, Ausatru paint by numbers kind of thing. But you can, you can clearly follow the point

00:55:10.140 A to point B. And this is another example of it. Though I think it's a little bit more

00:55:16.020 dramatic. You know, having her as a, a Deezer, but alive, um, and a Valkyrie, uh, determiner

00:55:26.780 of fate uh a prize to be won it's the it's in a way it's it's the way that we can equivalent human 0.52

00:55:36.940 um heroes attaining through the divine feminine much like we see with the gods if we see lord

00:55:45.100 odin going into certain's mountain and gaining from the feminine horn bearer that's clearly seen

00:55:51.820 in the divine realm this is now brought into the mortal realm but mimics the divine so swan when

00:55:59.260 you talk about posthumous ascension when are these people wondering about the idea of ascendant

00:56:08.140 mortals or about the idea that after they are dead they can like out like years after they are dead

00:56:18.860 that they can achieve something i think it's a combination of both i think the i've had and

00:56:25.500 again these are questions that thor saw that usually come up during our classes um but the

00:56:32.140 idea that like is this a new thing like why am i suddenly understanding now that the uh the also

00:56:39.900 true folk assembly austria's religion believes in in post-mortal ascension and then it's almost

00:56:47.740 like it hits them in a in a new way but that's really because the context is being plainly laid

00:56:54.380 out as opposed to the poetics of it you know in all of these stories um and i think that

00:57:04.700 they asked predominantly about the um the rising up or being anointed by or being again reordered

00:57:16.380 in the system by the gods not so much about how or why again through fame of deed um clearly

00:57:25.580 because the gods and the ancestors see the deeds um and we as mortals are kind of separated by our

00:57:33.100 own perceptions so we may only gain the understanding over time but um yeah i think

00:57:43.500 it's more uh in the in the first part of that is is is why or how or in what indications would we

00:57:51.580 come to that and i i would say firstly we point to the lore um there are multiple points in which

00:57:59.660 um the beings that exist amongst the gods and the beings that exist amongst mortals

00:58:05.660 whether they are alvar or desir um are you know like a dark alva is you know someone who

00:58:15.800 had once been mortal had once held blood but now was placed within the world in a different way

00:58:22.940 uh presiding over a battlefield presiding over a burial mound um presiding over a weapon and

00:58:30.340 a desir of course either coming in the form of a valkyrie like in this case or uh as a uh a matron

00:58:37.380 a matroni of the tribe um so i think that part is not so much i would say shocking but just

00:58:48.420 oh yeah i never well yeah i never saw it that way but then there's also the understanding that

00:58:55.940 you know uh the ascension from fame from deed uh and that that movement into place i think

00:59:10.260 yeah it's just interesting because i wonder i always wonder

00:59:12.900 you know where the question is or or or whatever so it can get explained a little bit better um

00:59:18.580 It's interesting. The concept of sainthood is like literal idolatry and goes against all of Judaism.

00:59:36.240 Like it's, it's, it's one of the big bads. It's, you know, it's, it's a real bad thing to do, according to, you know, semantically. Yeah. But it absolutely is the most prominent example of what we're talking about.

00:59:55.900 even if the context is not pleasant to people that aren't familiar with the development of medieval Catholicism.

01:00:03.560 But the veneration and celebration of heroes due to great deeds or great sacrifices in their life is absolutely our tradition that was co-opted by the church.

01:00:16.220 and you see that like relics magical relics and reliquaries are overtly pagan and shockingly pagan

01:00:26.460 to any of the critics of the catholic church because they are and that's why they're the

01:00:32.240 you know again all the pagan stuff is the cool stuff about catholicism um

01:00:37.400 but yes saint the cult of saints is a you know front and center example of it but you see it

01:00:47.000 you see it in a lot of other aryan practices you certainly see it in rome in the you know

01:00:53.540 cult of emperors and the deification of ancestors um so you see that ascension but something 0.67

01:01:00.340 that's interesting in sainthood, and I don't

01:01:04.560 know if this is a carryover

01:01:08.400 or not from

01:01:10.460 Ausatru times, but the idea of

01:01:16.540 in the saint tradition, the saint just doesn't

01:01:20.880 ascend and become a saint at the moment. There are some saints that are

01:01:24.340 celebrated as such by just universal acclaim at the time

01:01:28.540 of death but in general there's a process and sometimes you know you'll find centuries later

01:01:34.700 the vatican choosing to you know canonize a saint after amount of time in a way a lot of that is

01:01:44.620 building fame after death to your fame after death is so overwhelming that it's recognized and

01:01:51.340 acknowledged and i do think the tradition of that is a holdover i don't think we know

01:01:58.380 how that process looked to our ancestors or what signs they saw that indicated to them

01:02:05.500 that a hero or an ancestor had achieved ascension but it's important

01:02:14.140 if we know that it happens and that it's a thing it's also important to always acknowledge that

01:02:19.900 our gods are mighty and they have broad sweeping powers and discretion to do the things they want

01:02:28.700 to do very often we have a tendency to and i don't think this is done intentionally or in bad faith

01:02:39.180 but it's like we try to force our gods to abide by the rules and preconceptions we have in our head

01:02:47.980 about how stuff works and they have zero obligation to conform to that they're gods and

01:03:00.460 they you know it if they want to do something it doesn't matter if it conflicts with our

01:03:07.660 understanding of things they're gods and they have dominion to do to do things and to enact

01:03:13.980 their will and that does include you know elevating mortals or inviting those mortals

01:03:20.300 to their halls or visiting morals or you know choosing to

01:03:27.420 you know choosing to help help in that ascension um putting it out there

01:03:33.900 so swan has disappeared i'm not sure if he's taking a break for a second

01:03:37.180 i'm chasing i have to put my son to bed okay he keeps coming down no that's fine um i'll be right

01:03:49.220 back i'll tackle a couple questions while you're doing that uh some of these i'm going to save

01:03:55.900 because i'd like spawns um input on them uh sarah asks uh good evening i'll share your goethian

01:04:07.980 witness fawn coming up march 9th is a day of remembrance for olgar of egg and how do each of

01:04:15.580 you plan to honor him on that day and i appreciate you mentioning that um on the topic of ascension

01:04:22.940 and heroes those that don't know the astro folk assembly has men and women who we celebrate as

01:04:30.140 ascended heroes we honor them with days of remembrance and oh there's one of those folks

01:04:41.820 it's a good question on what that day falls on and how i'm going to honor him on that day

01:04:48.860 i'm certainly going to try to spread the word to our folk as best i could to make sure

01:04:55.340 people are engaging in that one of the cool ways that folks do is have you know have a family meal

01:05:01.500 where they celebrate them and tell their story around the dinner table to you know to those

01:05:07.980 gathered many of us who are having gatherings um having my may end up honoring him a day early at

01:05:20.060 my uh dinner that i host at my home that's coming up this saturday but yeah speaking their name and

01:05:27.420 sharing their story is a really important way to honor them it's also a special thing to you know

01:05:32.060 light a candle and maybe offer some incense or you know a libation uh in front of the altar and

01:05:40.060 to reach out to them and to tell them of your appreciation and your admiration for their deeds

01:05:46.780 swan has returned to us it's fun we have taken a long time away from the text

01:05:52.060 let's go back and get a little bit more of the text in okay yeah and i i just i i heard the

01:05:57.980 question as i was running up the stairs um i did want to say to oliver of ecquier is one of my

01:06:06.140 most favorite heroes of celebration because of his persistent faith um and he wasn't he wasn't

01:06:16.140 i'm not saying he wasn't a warrior but the context in which he became a hero of our faith was not

01:06:22.460 based on um his prowess in battle or his willingness to to stand up against opposition

01:06:29.660 but the fact that he was in the service of his folk he was you know gathering hoftoller

01:06:37.580 from the folk and building surplus for um for bloat and you know directly under the shadow of

01:06:45.980 the cross as um you know the the the royals of the nordic people were taken to um start employing

01:06:56.540 their tactics and utilizing the money that they were gaining by you know converting and

01:07:02.620 the land that they were getting and all the kind of shenanigans that they were doing um

01:07:07.580 Oliver and his other fellow Godi gather together and to help the folk continue their traditions. 0.89

01:07:19.840 And then, you know, these kind of power hungry employees of the politics of religion came in and kill Oliver and the other Godi and then take all of the gathered foodstuffs that were utilized. 0.87

01:07:45.340 And it was all done, you know, under the – Olaf Tryggvorson, you know, saying that this was just his new religion of the god of love.

01:08:06.520 So, anyways, let me get back to the text.

01:08:09.740 um okay so we kind of place that understanding of um being in disguise then being found out and

01:08:23.980 um it swiftly moves and by stanza five and four uh or excuse me by five we um we see a shift

01:08:36.700 in the poem there's a brief sense helgi escapes the situation he goes to a fighting ship there

01:08:43.520 he fights and kills king hunding so very fast and then um it immediately shifts over into

01:08:53.500 what most likely is a fragment of or a surviving fragment of another poem and they're just kind

01:09:00.960 of conjoined here, by the annotator in the 12th century, even though these poems most likely

01:09:07.680 were from the 10th century, and that's why only fragments of them had survived.

01:09:15.340 So, he lay with his host in Brunnawager,

01:09:21.760 um and they had their strand slaughtering and ate the flesh raw hogni was the name of a king

01:09:34.680 his daughter was sigrun she was a valkyrie who rode air and water she was svalva reborn

01:09:44.880 So, Sugrun rode to Helgi's ship and said,

01:09:51.880 Who rules the ship by the shore so steep?

01:09:56.880 Where is the home ye warriors have?

01:09:59.880 Why do ye bide in Brunavale?

01:10:05.880 Or what the way that ye wish to try?

01:10:11.880 So, again, that first part of the poem is about him undercover and escaping and then killing King Winding.

01:10:21.020 And then he escapes and now he's, you know, amongst his warband and their ships and they are approached by a Valkyrie who is the daughter of Hogni, King Hogni.

01:10:36.660 um and she challenges them and this is again where we see that connection that will abide

01:10:45.380 between Helgi and Sigrun and we saw this in the previous um poems as well but there is really

01:10:53.380 like such a swift and kind of it's welded together and it's not welded smoothly um

01:11:00.900 helgi speaks to her hamals the ship by the shore so steep our home is lazy do we have

01:11:13.980 for fair wind bide we in brunnebauer eastward the way that we wish to try so he's he simply states

01:11:23.360 the um his name in hidden sense homo um and he says that uh

01:11:30.720 and and this is an interesting thing i wonder if he's stating this or that the person who

01:11:40.800 annotated the poems is making connections to the first stanzas of his hidden name but

01:11:49.480 But if these are from another poem, that might have actually been an insert put in to connect to them. Another form of kind of linking. But either way, if we were to just look at it face value, you know, the presumption would then be that Helgi is saying that his name is Hamal and this is Hamal's ship.

01:12:10.540 And they are from Hlisi, the island of Hlör. And that's really, again, another poetic nod of their connection to the Jotun Eier.

01:12:31.540 So in essence, it would be very similar to Helgi giving his false name and saying that they hail from Davy Jones' locker.

01:12:44.000 like hlesi is that the origin point of ayur and ayur and raun are seen as the jotuns

01:12:55.480 they are the jotuns but in this in the lore they are seen as that that the jotuns of the primordial

01:13:01.880 ocean and uh that the gods you know have placed their dominion upon them through oath and that's

01:13:09.540 where the cauldron is and there the gods you know step out of the heavenly realm and come down into

01:13:17.120 the oceanic realm and i you know i've spoken a bit about the metaphysics of this the i the the

01:13:24.220 point of the gods of order coming down into the most primordial part of the earth where all of

01:13:31.480 the truly the power of the of the jotens here that manifest within orlog here from storms and

01:13:40.000 you know tremors of the earth there they they they've tried to place dominion upon them and

01:13:49.360 for the most part they do but i think our ancestors saw it as when the gods are there

01:13:54.440 i and round play according to the rules but when the gods are not there and you have to be

01:14:01.120 careful especially as a sailor maritime sense that suddenly and quickly ayur would raise storms 0.95

01:14:10.160 raise waves and that brown was always waiting to snatch souls and drag them into and back to hlisi

01:14:22.160 um but i just i find it it's kind of comparable to that is he's he's saying that uh our home is 0.69

01:14:30.080 davy jones locker um and and then immediately he says you know do we have fair wind do we have um

01:14:38.720 friendship and the ability to pass by through this way and they're heading east

01:14:46.320 um in seven sigrin speaks now again bear in mind too for those who are reading this

01:14:53.200 you can see the difference between verses one through four and then there's a little bit of a

01:14:58.560 joiner gap and now we have this dialogue poem being spoken um and it's written very cleanly

01:15:07.120 and very neatly in its stanzas and that's why most scholars believe that these might be

01:15:13.440 incidences from two separate stories um sigrin speaks where has thou warrior battle wakened

01:15:23.200 or gorged the birds of the sisters of Guth?

01:15:28.620 Why is thy bernie spattered with blood?

01:15:32.260 Why helmed dost feast on food uncooked?

01:15:38.080 So this is interesting.

01:15:42.520 One, the reference of the sisters of Guth.

01:15:45.900 Guth is listed as a valkyrie.

01:15:48.960 um not before i say that i guess i would have to there is multiple lists and mentionings of

01:16:00.640 the valkyria there's kind of the core list that we would know skogel you know spear shaker and

01:16:08.400 and what have you but the birds of the sisters of good is in essence ravens and you know you have fed

01:16:20.440 them um there is one thing that i'm wondering here when they're talking about the gorging um

01:16:29.940 in which they eat raw food and they're um and again this is something that you know reading these

01:16:42.860 stories um again after many many years or just glancing over some of them i i would love to say

01:16:50.780 that i've read every bit of lore with an extensive mind and that would be a lie and in essence i have

01:16:58.520 glanced over i've looked into things and like one of the things that escaped me here is the mentioning

01:17:06.200 of um the the the consumption of the raw and

01:17:17.320 okay i'm writing that down because i want to go look into that but i don't want to hold up

01:17:25.500 the rest of what we're doing so um she asks you know what battle have you done why is your

01:17:34.780 your birni uh splattered with blood why do you feed the ravens um or in essence what is going on

01:17:42.000 um and helgi speaks latest of all the ilving sun on the western sea if no that wilt captured bears

01:17:53.240 in braugeland and fed the eagles with edge of sword so he is saying you know that he is the

01:18:01.960 son of sigmund and of the volsung line and of the ilving line and that they have fed eagles by edge

01:18:09.880 of sword. And now it is shown, he says, why our shirts are bloody and little our food

01:18:24.120 with fire is cooked. So they're basically camping in hurriedness because they just followed

01:18:34.560 battle. Um, and there's not a lot of time to prep. They're just simply eating and they're

01:18:42.440 covered in blood and they haven't made themselves presentable in any way. And Sigrun asks, why are

01:18:49.020 they covered in blood? We just came from battle. Um, and we just fed the Eagles. Um, but now,

01:18:55.980 you know why uh we're just under prepped for um anything else we've just walked out of battle

01:19:04.880 and sigrin says of battle thou tellest and there was bent hunting the king before helgi down

01:19:12.400 there was carnage when thou didst avenge thy kin and blood flowed fast on the blade of the sword

01:19:21.300 So now she's hinting, or perhaps, again, when he said that this was Hamal's ship, that might have been the annotator trying to connect to the first stanzas, but it's clear here that Sigrun knows Helgi is the one that has slain King Hunding.

01:19:42.000 um and specifically with dist avenge thy kin um

01:19:51.120 so you know i and it's it's not really brought up anymore in that regards um

01:19:58.720 and also it's another thing to know like where uh helgi is from is also a fictitional place

01:20:09.740 Brauglund and it's in Bellows he translated as Bragi's land but more likely because the usage

01:20:22.160 of the word Bragi even though or Brai is clearly associated with Lord Brai the lord of poetry

01:20:31.960 I think that just like with the word Yard and the holy Ostvenir, who is Yard, there is context of differences.

01:20:44.700 And in this case, it would be more befitting to look at it as Braugeland is kind of like the land of high renown.

01:20:56.900 It was known by the audience to be not a place.

01:21:00.780 but that it was a place of high renown it was a place utilized in in the story um quite clearly

01:21:08.540 and with you know great uh

01:21:12.660 pomp and and and ceremony about it so they're from braugeland um

01:21:20.500 and uh i just i just saw that that brief there that mention and again you have to be careful

01:21:31.040 um where you go with translations like that people have really changed or shifted off into

01:21:40.320 different directions with that like uh in this case with bellows you know he says braggie's

01:21:46.400 land or braggie's wood um without giving consideration to the word bragger and what

01:21:54.560 it might mean as far as you know speaking eloquently or passing on or speaking with

01:22:02.880 authority um so i find it funny that and then the other point that was also mentioned too is

01:22:11.360 um captured bears in bragalon and fed the eagles with the edge of sword

01:22:16.160 um the word is bjarne and clearly our bjartner it's um bears and uh in the annotated notes down

01:22:27.560 at the bottom he states berserkers so like there's no indication of that perhaps there is but

01:22:36.220 or hunting it's just it's the the jump by interpreters of the text sometimes to me is

01:22:48.520 a little hasty um I always think about the translation in the Ausitru Aida I think it is

01:22:58.560 where he says that the translation

01:23:02.820 of like Hrodwitner means Heimdall,

01:23:05.920 but Hrodwitner or Theodwitner

01:23:09.580 means people of the wolf.

01:23:12.600 So you got to be careful

01:23:13.680 when they jump like that.

01:23:16.760 So he's basically explaining

01:23:18.440 where they've been,

01:23:19.080 what they were doing

01:23:20.180 and why they are awesome warriors.

01:23:24.860 And Helgi spake,

01:23:26.360 how didst thou know

01:23:28.240 that now our kin maiden wise we all we have well avenged so he's hiding the name of the ship

01:23:37.220 Hummel um he's not letting it out and yet she knows that Helgi just killed King Hunding and that

01:23:47.080 the avenge of his kin has been has been reached so now he's asking like how do you know about this

01:23:55.360 what word or perhaps what sight do you have? Many there are of the sons of the mighty who share

01:24:04.560 alike our lofty race. This here is, he's speaking of the Volsungs, he's speaking of his father

01:24:12.460 Sigmund, and he says, you know, many of his sons of our line, how did you know that Killing King

01:24:19.620 avenged and she speaks in 12 not far was i from the lord of the folk yester morn when the monarch

01:24:31.580 was slain though crafty the son of sigmund me thinks when he speaks of the fight in slaughter

01:24:40.140 runes um so she tells him i was not far during the battle but watching and that would make sense

01:24:50.780 if we look at it clearly in the valkyria sense that she is always on the edge of battle um but

01:25:00.780 the uh the lord of the folk the monarch is king hunting um but she says the crafty son of sigmund

01:25:09.900 so that either the whole ruse is up she knows that this is healthy she knows that by slay or

01:25:17.180 that his purpose for slaying king hundi is is hunting is uh is revenge um but i think it's

01:25:24.540 also really uh interesting she's alluding to the fact that he is crafty uh obviously that's also

01:25:31.980 mentioned when he hides as a mill maid to get away but and also here that he knows

01:25:38.780 runes and the the translation errors is air so vowel runes not battle runes but runes

01:25:52.700 they translate as slaughter but the chosen could also be vowel is also

01:25:59.660 um could be utilized as chosen in translation so the the the runes of lord ovin of of battle

01:26:12.460 of twisting battles fate um perhaps is you know she's accusing him of knowing magics um far beyond

01:26:24.300 what he just lets out in front um and then she continues to speak in 13 she says on the long

01:26:36.140 ship once i saw thee well when in the blood stained bow that was and round the icy waves

01:26:45.100 were raging now would the hero hide from me but to hogni's daughter is helgi known

01:26:52.940 or is helgi known so she says you know you were brave in battle and now you're trying to hide

01:26:58.380 your name uh and pretend use cunningness and craftiness saying this is someone or another name

01:27:06.780 title ship but she knows so it's like you're brave to fight in the in the bow of the ship

01:27:14.940 against your enemies but you hide from me and she's like but it's of no use i know who you are

01:27:22.220 So now we see another shift. There's a paragraph and it will shift to kind of different circumstance. And this may be another welding mark of where the prose of a small section of a story was, remember, written down, and now it needs to be connected.

01:27:45.720 And that was often the case. Would-be scalds, would-be poets, would memorize small stanzas, snippets, sometimes in the middle of a poem, simply to show that they could understand the rules of poetry.

01:28:06.140 so that they they would show that they could they understood meter um so that's how

01:28:13.180 the possibility that these little fragmented stanzas survived and it it didn't matter to

01:28:22.400 snori or saimander um they wanted to get them all and they would fill and connect later

01:28:30.580 um so now we see it just kind of suddenly jump grandma was the name of a mighty king

01:28:41.080 who dwelt in Svaurin's hill he had many sons one's one was named Hothbrod another

01:28:52.780 Godmund. A third

01:28:55.620 Starkath.

01:28:58.620 Hothbrod 0.97

01:28:59.460 was in a king's

01:29:01.640 meeting, and he won

01:29:03.500 the promise of having 0.99

01:29:05.140 Sigrun 0.99

01:29:06.300 as, you know,

01:29:09.440 she is the daughter of a king.

01:29:12.480 Hogni's daughter.

01:29:14.100 And for his,

01:29:15.420 to betroth his wife,

01:29:17.360 but when she heard this, 0.94

01:29:19.140 she rode with the Valkyries

01:29:21.140 over the air and the sea to seek Helgi out.

01:29:26.140 Helgi was then at Loafjol,

01:29:30.020 and Water Mountain is where he's at,

01:29:36.480 and had fought with Hunding's sons.

01:29:40.880 There he killed Alf and Eolf,

01:29:44.540 Hjordvath and Hervvath.

01:29:46.380 Now, we covered that in the other poems,

01:29:48.240 that he did slaughter Hunding's sons who came to avenge their father's death.

01:29:54.660 So this is clearly a passage of time, another weld mark showing gaps.

01:30:04.800 It's trying to cover gaps before we enter the next poetic stanzas.

01:30:09.440 so she meets him and then he goes on to fight the sons of Hunding who are attempting to avenge him

01:30:20.240 and he kills Alf and Eolf, Hyorvav and Hervav

01:30:27.860 he was all weary with battle and sat under the eagle stone

01:30:34.280 there sigrun found him again and ran to throw her arms about his neck and kissed him and told him

01:30:43.960 her tidings as it is set forth in the old volsung lay so a couple of things there one there's a

01:30:54.920 pretty immediate she's challenging him in front of his boat um and asking him what he's doing there

01:31:00.840 and he had just killed king hunding now he has killed the sons who rightfully so are trying to

01:31:09.000 avenge their father um and the the overall feeling of sigrun has changed she's now in love with him

01:31:20.920 or she's throwing his arms around her neck she's she's kissing him and then they directly reference

01:31:27.240 another poem uh which doesn't often happen and so in this case and told him her tidings

01:31:34.920 as is set forth in the old volsung lay um and we will be covering the volsung saga

01:31:43.240 um where you know the connections between these two are there but they're very very scarce very

01:31:50.600 very thin um but we see it now the valkyrie princess is able and capable of moving about

01:32:03.800 reaching him over great distances and she has become enamored with his might with his ability to

01:32:12.120 one, get vengeance against King Hunding and then consistently maintain and evade, you know, the vengeance that his sons want.

01:32:27.140 So in 14, Sigrun the Joyful, chieftain sought, forthwith Helgi's hand she took. She greeted the hero, helmed and kissed him.

01:32:42.120 The warrior's heart to the woman turned.

01:32:47.140 And again, the point of reading these poems, I think, are ultimately for small, you know, granular pieces of lore,

01:32:57.800 especially alluding to the way that our ancestors thought about things.

01:33:02.060 But the other reason is for stuff like this.

01:33:05.060 the really cool um way they describe that you know she she runs to him um and he he's he's

01:33:16.340 still wearing his helmet and she um embraces him and she kisses him hard and uh that his

01:33:23.680 heart is so strong towards her um from her heart the daughter of hogni spake dear was

01:33:34.340 helgi she said to her so obviously clear you know she's speaking that the context is made clear for

01:33:44.920 the audience that she's being sincere and that helgi is dear to her um in 16 at the meeting of

01:33:59.420 hothbrod mated i was but another hero i feign would have though king the wrath of my kin i fear

01:34:12.460 since i broke my father's fairest wish so now we start to get almost into a tristan and isolde or

01:34:21.260 romeo and juliette um kind of story framework she's betrothed to another asking prince by her

01:34:33.820 father in order to build kingdom and to make you know peace and relations but she's not in love

01:34:41.980 with that uh person that her father has deemed she she must marry then no she's in love with helgi

01:34:51.260 um and she fears the wrath of her her brothers she fears the wrath of her father

01:34:59.200 17 and again this is another cut despite there uh you can see that that inconsistency again

01:35:09.120 normally there's four lines in the stanza this is only two and then immediately it shifts over

01:35:13.980 to Helgi. 17. Long with all my heart I loved Sigmund's son ere ever I saw him. She's speaking

01:35:21.980 about Helgi, who is Sigmund's son, and she says, since I laid eyes upon you, I have truly been in

01:35:28.080 love with you. And Helgi speaks, fear not ever. Hogni's anger, her father, nor yet thy kinsman's

01:35:38.940 cruel wrath maiden thou with me shalt live thy kindred fair one i shall not fear so you should

01:35:47.000 not fear your father's wrath you should not fear your kinsman's wrath you will reside with me i

01:35:52.540 will protect you um and you shall not fear and then again we see another section here a welding

01:36:01.280 section. Helgi then assembled a great sea host, a battle, or an armada of ships, and went to

01:36:11.000 Freckstein. On the sea, he met a perilous storm. Lightning flashed overhead, and the bolts,

01:36:17.820 bolts of lightning struck the ship. They saw in the air there were nine Valkyries riding,

01:36:24.520 and recognized Sigrun amongst them.

01:36:28.700 Then the storm abated and they came safe and sound to land.

01:36:36.180 Granmar's son sat on a certain mountain as the ships sailed into the land.

01:36:44.000 Gavmund leaped on a horse and rode for news to a promontory near the harbor. 0.84

01:36:50.900 The Volsungs were even then lowering their sails.

01:36:55.580 Then Gothmund said, as is written before in the Helgi lay.

01:37:02.900 In 19, who is the king who captains the fleet and to the land the warriors lead?

01:37:11.720 So Gothmund is a messenger coming down to speak to Helgi, and it's referenced to the previous play of Helgi.

01:37:24.500 20.

01:37:28.660 Never shall Sigrun from Seba Fjol,

01:37:32.800 Hofbrad King, be held in thine arms.

01:37:37.320 Grandma's sons full cold have grown

01:37:40.660 and the giant's steeds gray on corpse's gorge.

01:37:48.000 So he has ensured 0.89

01:37:52.960 that the one who uh sigrin is betrothed to by her father is no longer alive 0.97

01:38:04.720 and the steed of giant this is um or giant steeds gray is speaking again

01:38:11.360 of wolves it's a poetic so upon their bodies wolves shall gorge themselves

01:38:16.880 so he has removed competition um

01:38:23.740 let me see here

01:38:27.940 gothmund then speaks again the messenger coming down first shall swords at freckestein prove

01:38:37.760 our worth in place of words time is it hoth broad vengeance to have if in battle

01:38:46.360 worsted once once we were

01:38:50.940 sin filthy now um if if you're able to read this too and this is again i think the first time where

01:39:00.780 it's really helpful is looking at the annotated notes on the website where they start to help you

01:39:07.240 kind of connect the the structure of this poem since it's clearly uh like a mixed tempo um

01:39:20.600 that uh

01:39:24.760 there there's this coral brewing um

01:39:27.560 between uh hoth broad and um either i guess i mean that's i'm kind of kind of uh double-stepped

01:39:42.600 on it as well um whether he's speaking to helgi or if he's speaking to simfield um but i i assume

01:39:51.240 it's it's helgi and that uh sinfuelty and um hofbrod are present at this conversation between

01:40:01.480 gothmund and helgi sinfuelty speaks better gothmund to tend the goats and climb the rocks

01:40:10.520 of the mountain cliffs a hazel switch to hold in thy hand more seemingly were than the hilt of a

01:40:16.840 sword so gothman comes down and says you know i know you're uh strong warriors but you will find

01:40:25.800 blades instead of words here amongst our people and then sin filthy says no it's better better

01:40:32.120 you carry a hazel switch and thwap the butt of sheep than a sword i think uh because you will

01:40:38.600 find out how not good you are um and then helgi speaks

01:40:49.000 better sin fealty the twould beseem battles to give and eagles to gladden

01:40:56.680 than vain and empty speech to utter thou warriors oft with words do strive

01:41:02.600 no it is better sin fealty if you know you give bodies to the ravens you give bodies to the wolves

01:41:13.220 instead of giving a lot of lip um and in 24 good i he's continuing to speak helgi says good i find

01:41:24.420 it not the sons of gramnar or grandma but for heroes to seemly the truth to speak at at moen

01:41:33.600 hymer proved the men that hearts for for the wielding of swords they had and ever brave the

01:41:41.500 warriors are so this mentioning here of uh moenheimer um which is let me see the manuscript

01:41:53.520 is abbreviated the first letters of the um which do not appear and they apply with no um

01:42:01.440 with no interpolation so again this is a segment of the poem referencing to

01:42:07.920 a different part of the poem that's lost and they have joined it into this

01:42:13.360 um but overall the essence is that his men have certainly you know gained experience in fighting

01:42:24.320 and again i love the the way that it's kind of placed out the truth to speak

01:42:30.320 that the men proved that their hearts for wielding swords they had

01:42:35.360 um then grandma's sons summoned an army many kings came there there was hogni sigrin's father

01:42:45.680 and his sons, Bragi and Dag.

01:42:50.080 There was a great battle

01:42:52.240 and all of Grandma's sons were slain

01:42:55.000 and all their allies, only Dag.

01:42:58.220 Hogni's son was spared

01:42:59.940 and he swore loyalty to the Volsungs. 1.00

01:43:04.140 Sigrun went among the dead

01:43:06.060 and found Hothbrod

01:43:07.620 and at the coming of death,

01:43:10.960 she said this.

01:43:12.800 Now, bear in mind, 0.99

01:43:14.420 And in the translations, they call him Deir, but I will use the word Dag because it's D-A-G.

01:43:22.640 But Dag is not really correct. Deir is, of course, Dey.

01:43:30.420 But he's spared. 0.75

01:43:32.000 Instead of slaughtering them all, he is left to live, not to completely destroy the line of all of Grandmar's sons.

01:43:46.140 Grandmar, of course, being Hogni's father. 0.94

01:43:50.980 So Hogni is the father of Sigrun.

01:43:55.960 And this is what Helgi had said.

01:43:58.000 You don't have to fear your father's wrath.

01:43:59.900 you don't have to fear your kin's wrath

01:44:02.240 I'll stand up against

01:44:04.060 them as well and win

01:44:05.640 so then

01:44:10.320 when this passes

01:44:11.620 Sigrun went amongst

01:44:14.200 them and found Hothbrod 1.00

01:44:15.740 never shall 1.00

01:44:20.360 Sigrun from

01:44:21.300 Sevafjol 0.99

01:44:22.880 Sevafjol is like

01:44:25.600 the sea

01:44:27.180 the

01:44:28.380 um it's like it's like the soaked mountain if you will uh so never shall sigrim from

01:44:39.860 savafjol hoth broad king beheld in thine arms grandma's son full cold have grown

01:44:46.320 and the giant steeds gray on corpse's gorge so there we see too she says i'm not going to be

01:44:53.580 betrothed to you you are now dead and anybody who would deny you know me being with helgi is is dead

01:45:01.800 and then there's a complete repeat of the last line referring to wolves and the gray

01:45:10.560 and the giant steeds gray on corpses shall gorge

01:45:15.540 but then she turns to Helgi

01:45:21.700 she seeks him out after the battle

01:45:23.420 and was full of joy

01:45:25.300 he said

01:45:27.220 maid

01:45:29.140 not fair is thy fortune 0.72

01:45:31.420 the norns I blame

01:45:33.480 that this would be

01:45:35.060 this morn there fell at

01:45:37.260 Frekestein

01:45:38.860 Bragi and Hogni beneath my hand

01:45:41.960 the way I think

01:45:44.080 this is the best way to look at or to interpret this is um basically says you know perhaps the

01:45:52.740 norns are not looking kindly upon you because you have fallen in love with the man who has slain

01:45:58.020 your father and slain your brothers um again this is not that he's doing this murderously

01:46:06.380 but that he's doing this in defense of their love but it's still not a good thing she loses her

01:46:12.540 kinfolk um but again she's a valkyrie so is she a divine being who is you know losing her mortal kin

01:46:25.340 and they will now move on into you know valhal or to their ancestors or is this

01:46:32.460 again more you hammer you you hemorrhized and she is a princess and um she's so in love with helgi

01:46:41.880 and could not stop her father and brothers from attempting to back um her uh

01:46:50.400 the the man that was seeking her her um hand in marriage hothbrod

01:46:56.760 you know they backed him instead of their sister she didn't want it and they were pushing for it

01:47:04.720 so did they end up kind of sealing their own fates but either way helgi says you know fate is not 0.76

01:47:12.580 kind upon you to force me to kill your kin

01:47:17.660 um in 27 at klebyark fell the sons of rollout starkath the king in in styrkleiver 0.97

01:47:31.580 uh fighters more noble saw i never the the body fought when the head had fallen so

01:47:42.380 So he says to there at Klebjörg, the sons of Hrauro, Starcap the king, he was slain and still his men fought on.

01:47:54.100 They didn't scatter.

01:47:55.460 So he's giving them a commandment for their bravery despite their loss.

01:48:03.460 In 28, on the ground full low, the slain are lying.

01:48:07.680 Most are there of the men of thy race.

01:48:12.380 Not hast thou won, for thy fate it was, brave men to bring to the battlefield.

01:48:19.960 So another thing I wanted to point out, the usage of the word race.

01:48:27.280 Here, and we can see this when we apply it to the stories of the gods and the Yatans.

01:48:33.240 The race that's being spoken of is the kin folk, the bloodline connect.

01:48:41.920 it is not seen as a separate race in the way that we use it today in reality our ancestors

01:48:49.600 didn't even have to context anything in that way um so that that translation of you know kin or

01:49:01.440 family or um the word theod is like the tribe and or of of your family and here you know in

01:49:12.000 the word theme is implied that you know you know your your kinfolk your family are all dead um

01:49:23.440 so was it you know was it worth all of this then sigrin wept helgi continued to speak 29

01:49:33.680 grieve not sigrin the battle is gained the fighter can shun not his fate it's the bullet is out of

01:49:41.680 the barrel and a warrior cannot help the the lives they live her brothers her father were warriors

01:49:50.240 brave and true they were doing what they believed was right which was to come after him and he bested

01:49:56.720 them that's simply it and sigrin speaks to life would i call them who slaughtered lie

01:50:08.880 if safe on thy breast i might be

01:50:12.000 so if i could lay my head upon your chest helgi is what she says

01:50:22.280 then safely without their their um protests they would still be alive that's all she wanted

01:50:31.260 is in essence what she's saying and helgi took sigrin to wife and they had sons helgi did not

01:50:40.780 reach old age. Dag, the son of Hogni, offered sacrifices to Odin to be avenged for his father's

01:50:50.460 death. Odin gave Dag his spear, and Dag found Helgi, his brother-in-law, at a place which is

01:50:59.700 called Fjortland. He thrust the spear through Helgi's body. Then Helgi fell, and Dag rode to

01:51:09.260 Svea Fjol and told Sigurd in the Tidings. Now, anybody that's familiar with the Volsunga Saga,

01:51:14.800 this is clearly a connection, but instead of Sigurd, it's Helgi. What I think this is, is again,

01:51:23.000 there are heroic tropes that are formulated in these stories, and where Sigurd and the Volsunga

01:51:34.120 saga are complete and relatively clean helgi's stories are choppy but there's clearly that they

01:51:41.800 were utilizing almost the same things in the stories uh to pass on and this is one of them

01:51:53.160 um as in the volsung saga sigmund is slain by odin spear and this could be analogous for fighting

01:52:02.680 in battle and dying in battle being chosen by lord odin um or it it could be in the sense a literal

01:52:13.080 sense that that um they is he prays to lord odin to get vengeance because he was spared at the

01:52:21.880 battle and wants to slay helgi and i think our ancestors would have viewed this as here's the

01:52:31.720 this one the youngest son who gets spared he prays to lord odin and lord odin wants helgi

01:52:41.480 in his hall so he accommodates that in order to ensure that the soul of helgi comes to him

01:52:50.280 um that was also another common understanding um sigmund sigurd's father um his wife is full

01:53:01.060 of child he's a great king he's he's conquering and then lord odin comes and stabs him with a

01:53:08.420 spear in the middle of the battle and sigmund tries to break the haft of gungnir and it shatters

01:53:14.940 into three pieces and before he dies he tells his wife reforge this sword for my son who is now in

01:53:20.780 your belly it's i mean it's just so rich with um all of these you know motifs that are in uh

01:53:32.620 germanic and germanic arian stories um that we can again see that being placed here um

01:53:39.900 um Sigurd is slayed by um uh his his brother-in-law through the back stabbed by a spear a

01:53:52.380 spear but in this case they say no no it's Helgi is stabbed by Lord Odin's spear who who receives

01:53:59.760 it from Lord I mean from Lord Odin they receives the spear and then commits to sending him to Valhall

01:54:06.540 Then he returns to tell his sister, Sigrun, Helgi's wife, the deed that has been done in 30.

01:54:22.240 Sad I am, sister, sorrowed tell thee. Woe to my kin, unwilling I worked. In the morn there fell at Fjordaland, the noblest prince the world has known.

01:54:36.540 And his heel he set on the hero's neck.

01:54:43.840 Again, pretty, you know, gruesome, but yet complimentary.

01:54:49.520 And Sigrun speaks in 31. 0.86

01:54:52.160 Now may every oath thee bite.

01:54:56.460 That with Helgi sworn thou hast by the water bright of light and the ice cold stone of Oud.

01:55:04.460 so um the mentioning here of the sacred rivers lyped uh is mentioned in the grimness mode and um

01:55:17.460 it's uh i would have to i need to go back and look for that exact translation but the um

01:55:26.840 um so here we have the the wave stone and the the river like the holy river um you know she's

01:55:41.000 saying that you swore by these holy things um but you you in essence have broken your oath by slaying

01:55:52.760 um undeserving or backhandedly so she says you know may now may every oath bite me every oath

01:56:00.920 you take will immediately you know bind you into troublesome sense and you know you will be unable

01:56:07.960 to fulfill them um and then she says the ship sail not in which thou sailest though a favoring

01:56:18.840 wind shall follow after the horse shall run not thereon thou ridest thou feign thou art thy foe

01:56:27.000 to flee so she's cursing him she says may every oath bite you may every sail not be filled with

01:56:37.240 a favorable wind even though you step on a boat may no horse find a fleet of foot even though you

01:56:44.440 rightist um and that you will be caught by any any foe you flee from

01:56:55.960 so she's really laying it on um basically i don't think that this is really less less a cursing of

01:57:03.400 condition but more of a cursing of fate uh very reminiscent of skirner laying curse upon

01:57:13.080 gerder or threat of curse um and in 33 she continues the sword shall bite not which thou

01:57:21.960 bearest so you will make no true cut into your enemy till thy head itself it sings about

01:57:30.440 vengeance where mine for helgi's murder where thou a wolf in the woods without

01:57:37.400 possessing not and knowing no joy having no food save force save corpses to feed upon

01:57:46.680 so very similar to how uh skirner says that every horn of mead that get there the holy

01:57:54.520 austin here um every horn she drinks will be the urine of a goat uh here you know

01:58:02.200 know uh you will find no kinsman you will have no sword that can cut into anyone and you will 0.86

01:58:09.980 live in the wilds as a vargar and eat um the flesh of of humans um

01:58:18.260 which was again seen as a very egregious moral infliction

01:58:24.700 uh dog then speaks and retorts to sig sigrun and again i want to emphasize this section

01:58:36.160 is a poetic section that's been welded onto the other poetic sections

01:58:42.580 so there is that um but again looking into the way and placement of the words the way that they

01:58:51.080 repeat about you know um the fact that cannibalism is a moral infraction the fact that any warrior

01:58:59.320 would never want his sword to be blunted by a curse or that he would not be able to sail or he

01:59:05.160 would not be able to ride these are all really kind of important indicators of the way our ancestors

01:59:11.640 felt the gravity of this curse and what was truly important to any young um

01:59:17.080 um atheling any young feign any young warrior uh and and dog speaks in retort he says in 34

01:59:28.060 mad thou art sister and wild of mind such a curse on thy brother to cast

01:59:34.140 oh then his ruler over every ill who sunders kin with runes of spite so 0.50

01:59:41.660 you're crazy to think that I would not seek vengeance upon the one who slayed my father

01:59:51.400 and my brothers. And you, you are, you know, you are truly mad because you would know that Lord 0.97

02:00:02.480 odin um knows of every ill he he sees of every deed whether through the well of urd or through

02:00:12.480 the well of memory he's got both ends covered so he knows what truly was done and that you inspired

02:00:20.160 helgi to kill your father and you inspired helgi to kill our brothers and you call me wrong

02:00:28.240 um and then he continues to say he says thy brother my thy brother rings so red will give thee 0.99

02:00:37.540 all uh vandals and the dollar take half my hand to pay the harm ring decked made and as

02:00:48.540 as mead for thy sons so he's

02:00:55.800 offering up lands um in compensation for deed he's you take these to these places

02:01:10.500 um and for your children helgi's sons and go this will you know i'm not leaving you in

02:01:20.340 destitution i'm not coming to kill his sons but i needed to avenge the death of my father take

02:01:26.240 these lands and um i think it's also very interesting here that one of the um mentions

02:01:33.760 vandalsve vandalsve means the temple of the vandals and i think that that's really another

02:01:42.680 nod to the fact that this is even pre-danish history that this goes way back into the migration

02:01:48.580 periods um and it would certainly place uh this story way outside of denmark you know farther

02:01:58.820 south in central um europe so it you know it's i've speculated too that a lot of these stories

02:02:06.360 may have um been known by different name or under um different assumptions and that they were simply

02:02:16.060 um placed in the nordic time for the audience but that they could have very well it just like the

02:02:25.020 transfer between tristan and his old to romeo and juliet um they're very similar perhaps the

02:02:31.500 names have changed but the framework is still the same um but the fact that it's specifically called

02:02:36.620 vandals way is interesting and then he also mentions uh big dollar and another reason why

02:02:46.780 the translation of heim dollar um i know that in the predominant sense the translation is seen as

02:02:54.540 the home dale but um or excuse me the uh the light of the world or or like deling detler um

02:03:03.340 but i've also said too that heimdall could mean the home valley um and here we see it again

02:03:10.780 linguistically but she says you know you are still of wealth you still have your sons i needed

02:03:16.940 to complete my vengeance and you're crazy if you think that lord othen didn't see 0.99

02:03:23.660 that you beckoned helgi to kill your own kin 1.00

02:03:26.860 end. And then Sigrun speaks in return. Oh, I think, oh no, I've been reading this poem 1.00

02:03:41.500 for so long. And I wonder if I've been dropped from the thing. Let me see. Nick, are you

02:03:51.940 still there you're good sir no worries okay all right i'm sorry i just i wanted to make sure

02:03:58.320 because i've been focusing on the writing that i you know didn't want to miss miss out on if i had

02:04:05.600 been kicked off um you're good we're live all's well okay so sigrin then speaks to her brother

02:04:15.100 again she says i shall sit not happy in svea early or late my life to love if the light cannot show

02:04:24.460 in the leader's band uh blyard bearing him back to his home the golden bitted i shall greet him

02:04:36.780 never so the the bleier the the battle breather um she's speaking about helgi's horse the golden

02:04:51.580 bitted um she's lamenting the loss of her love she says i you know i shall not sit happy early

02:05:03.980 or late the love of my life if the light cannot show in that leader's um band um

02:05:14.380 where his horse bears him back to his home

02:05:20.380 and so he it's it's gone it's it's too far gone he's already passed

02:05:27.020 she's just speaking of the joy of seeing him come home on his horse and now that is not the case

02:05:33.980 And 37, such the fear that Helgi's foes ever felt, and all their kin as makes the goats with terror mad, run from the wolf among the rocks.

02:05:47.780 So I think it's more important in this section to understand that the audience would be moved by the absolute fidelity that Sigrun has to Helgi.

02:06:07.020 And this is a desired trait amongst the menfolk, amongst our ancestors. I would argue it's still a trait today. But at this point, the audience would just be like, wow, she's just so loyal and loved him so deeply and is, you know, embittered by her brother's treachery.

02:06:32.380 and that's kind of what these poetic points would be as the warriors were listening um

02:06:38.920 and she says you know his enemies his foes they felt fear just as um like a male goat a ram

02:06:49.420 uh with with rage and terror would flee away the scouring you know skinny uh flea-bitten

02:06:59.440 wolves and i think it's worth understanding that not all the times were wolves seen as

02:07:07.180 um you know glorious creatures but it let more or less seen as like you know ribbed bony uh

02:07:16.320 skeething creatures that were constantly trying to break into um society and so she's saying

02:07:25.820 helgi was like a ram who would stand up against um you know these foul ever-present um

02:07:39.020 creatures and i was looking to translation um 37. they're not oh yes it's ulvi ulvi

02:07:50.780 older um okay yeah so yeah he he defends with majesticness while there are these kind of lurking

02:08:00.840 and craven um skulking wolves she then says helgi rose above heroes all like the lofty ash above

02:08:15.240 lowly thorns where the noble stag with dew besprinkled bearing in his head above all

02:08:22.060 beasts and his horns gleam bright to heaven itself again the audience would just be like wow

02:08:28.780 this this is you know being remembered and loved by your your betrothed by your wife at this level

02:08:38.300 You know, she says he was above the scouring wolves. He stood above the thorns and brambles as an ash would.

02:08:51.280 And that, you know, he was a noble stag, just, you know, in crowned in dew from the morning, bearing his head above all the cowering animals in the forest.

02:09:10.180 And his horns would gleam bright to heaven itself.

02:09:14.540 this is really good poetic um things considering the first half of the poem being so so um

02:09:24.700 fragmentary uh i also like translations wise i think a lot of people might know

02:09:32.860 that the word deer day or in anglo-saxon means beasts or animals um

02:09:39.260 um but here the reference is deer calver like deer calf um or i think more or less that it's

02:09:53.340 the young the youthful you know stag with with a crown of um antler

02:10:03.760 yeah you were absolutely right when you were talking about earlier that the

02:10:09.260 The real benefit of some of these fragmentary pieces isn't the narrative as a whole, but are really, really beautiful bits of imagery and expression.

02:10:25.780 and expression of thought and value that's at the very core of Al-Satru and Al-Satru values

02:10:41.480 and things to be lauded.

02:10:45.240 And it's definitely heroic in tone in a really special way that I think even a modern audience

02:10:54.780 can't appreciate so i think it's very well done that way and the linguistics too because as we're

02:11:02.760 learning more and more icelandic like uh in the part where you know the the translation is above

02:11:09.520 all heroes the word is hildingum and hildingum the um part is context for the word the word is

02:11:18.280 hildinger which is hild is battle ingrid is men so he rose above the battlemen um like no other and

02:11:30.200 he stood like a deer a deer calver but yet later uh in the sentence it says bearing his head above

02:11:39.480 all beasts and the word is birum so deer calver is utilized to specifically speak of a heart

02:11:48.280 And dyrum is beasts in general. You know, I recently just found that out, that dyr or deer meant animals of all kind in the wildness, and that the word heart in Anglo-Saxon was, you know, dedicated specifically to the antlered undulate.

02:12:09.140 um but here we see in old norse dear calver and dirham um

02:12:17.540 in designation to that so if you're into linguistics too these poems have lots of value

02:12:23.620 you just kind of have to get through the way that they're pieced and batched together

02:12:29.700 and then it goes again um with reference to lord odin

02:12:34.100 as it's connected a hill was made in Helgi's memory and when he came to Valhall

02:12:43.560 then Odin bade him rule over everything with himself so clearly he goes to Valhall he dies

02:12:54.080 and you know by by blade because Lord Odin gave they the the spear in order to ensure that he goes

02:13:02.560 there um but on top of this it is spoken that he he is given regency by lord odin to rule there as

02:13:18.160 well just pretty pretty heavy stuff there um so now helgi is in valhall he's in the afterlife

02:13:40.240 um chosen by lord othen and helgi says in 39

02:13:44.800 a thou shalt hunding of every hero wash the feet and kindle the fire

02:13:52.720 tie up dogs and tend the horses and feed the swine air to sleep thou goest

02:13:59.680 and then it immediately shifts to one of sigrin's maids went went one evening to helgi's hill and

02:14:08.180 saw helgi rode to the hill with many men and the maiden said so before we get into that just

02:14:13.980 there's this mention that he has rule in dominion and um he's speaking to hunding

02:14:20.800 in the afterlife so this is an extra level of how much the the the grief or you know in reality i

02:14:33.620 i it's fictional hero versus villain helgi says that hunding in valhall will wash the feet of

02:14:46.260 every hero that walks in this is clearly a um a slight this is you know this is punishment

02:14:56.660 but because he's such a great warrior lord odin gives him permission to dictate and he

02:15:02.740 still goes after hunting and says no you're going to kindle the fire you're going to tie up the dogs

02:15:07.620 you're going to tend the horses and feed the pigs as a as a thrall would even in valhall that's

02:15:15.700 very brutal uh poetic things to be you know said after um and then it shifts

02:15:24.340 um and here we see the hill dedicated to helgi in which he appears he he visits and he is not alone

02:15:35.860 but with his host of men so one of sigrin's maidens which would generally be referred to as

02:15:42.500 valkyria or valkyrie but could also again simply be a hand maiden of her um

02:15:51.080 she's at the hill and helgi shows up riding to the hill with many men and the maiden speaks out

02:16:02.060 and she says is this a dream that me thinks i see or the doom of the gods

02:16:10.240 that dead men ride and hither spurring urge your steeds or is home coming now to the hero's

02:16:20.680 granted now it's a my belief that these this is another fragment welded on because there's a little

02:16:31.320 kind of uh sigrin's maidens now are at the hill this could have happened uh before ascension to

02:16:41.780 or you know as in story placement but here they they welded in and say that you know he's shown

02:16:50.340 up to the hill in his dedication um and another point worth noting in in stanza 40 is the express

02:16:59.780 word of rock narak um you know i know it's the doom of the gods the the twilight of the gods but

02:17:10.340 it as a combination word is specifically used to mean the end of times um and i don't know if a

02:17:18.740 a lot of people have ever wondered like is that a commonality thing or is that was just something

02:17:23.280 you specialized no it's it's the the end times it's it's very much like how christians use the

02:17:30.240 the word for the battle of gidon that the the uh judahites or eudaites um referred to with

02:17:39.500 armaghidon um our ancestors would look at the end of times under the word rakhnerak

02:17:47.720 so she

02:17:55.580 speaks and Helgi in

02:17:57.960 form says

02:17:59.540 no dream is this that

02:18:01.540 thou thinkest to see

02:18:03.880 nor is it the end of the

02:18:06.360 world though us

02:18:08.380 thou beholdest and hither spurring

02:18:10.440 we urge our steeds

02:18:11.720 nor is home coming now to the

02:18:14.300 heroes granted

02:18:15.180 the maiden went home and said this to Sigrun

02:18:19.660 go forth Sigrun from Sevifjol

02:18:24.600 if fain the lord of the folk wouldst find 0.90

02:18:29.260 the hill is open, Helgi is come

02:18:33.120 the sword tracks bleed, the monarch bade

02:18:37.440 that thou his wounds shouldst now make well

02:18:41.980 so she's saying the the hill the you know and i'm presuming because of the way it's written that um

02:18:52.620 that the hill is open is that this isn't just a hill it's a barrow

02:18:59.300 um which would lend of course that helgi was buried and not burned so that showing that

02:19:08.060 our ancestors did have

02:19:09.840 you know these

02:19:11.620 back and

02:19:14.160 forth traditions

02:19:15.860 I think that also gives us a clue that

02:19:18.080 this is further back than the Danish

02:19:20.080 and the Viking Age

02:19:22.060 but also to the

02:19:26.100 point of the Barrow opening

02:19:27.980 being a portal

02:19:29.800 to the other world

02:19:32.060 so he has gone to

02:19:34.120 Valhall just to tell

02:19:35.820 Hunding

02:19:36.400 to wash feet and be a slave again really emphasizing again um the hatred between the two

02:19:45.720 and then he comes back through this portal she's sitting on the hill and 0.79

02:19:50.120 the the barrow whites um appear um and he tells her to go get sigrin

02:20:00.300 and she runs back and says you should go and there you will you know you will meet him and 0.54

02:20:08.000 make him whole and of course Sigrun then runs to the hill to Helgi and said

02:20:14.280 now I am glad of our meeting together as Odin's hawks so eager for prey when slaughter and flesh

02:20:24.080 all warm thy scent or do wet see the red of day so remember i was talking about welding

02:20:32.960 in this case is really interesting because now we have i don't know if that was if that was um

02:20:40.880 bellows but you see that double or that rhyming at the end is unique perhaps coincidental or

02:20:50.320 intentional but i think it was more done on bellow's point um but the word hawks odin's

02:20:58.000 hawks um and the word hawker in old norse um you know and this reference could mean

02:21:09.120 that odin's hawks are ravens so it's poetic or it's that odin's hawks are the valkyries

02:21:15.520 eager for for the souls that they they are inclined by him to pick up um

02:21:25.600 but uh she says again first will i kiss the lifeless king air off the bloody barney thou

02:21:32.880 cast with frost thy hair is heavy helgi and damp thou art with the dew of death ice cold hands has

02:21:41.920 hold knees kinsmen what prince can i to bring the ease so clearly different poetic style than before

02:21:53.440 but it is still just as powerful um that she rides there and says that she will wash him

02:22:02.320 and she will clean him and that he has frost and blood in his hair he's damp with the dew of death

02:22:09.040 um and that she will clean him and and and make him whole what can she do and helgi speaks thou

02:22:20.320 alone sigrun of sever sever fuel art cause that helgi with the dew is heavy gold decked made thy

02:22:29.920 tears are grievous sun bright south made air thou sleepest each falls like blood on the hero's breast

02:22:41.360 burned out cold and crushed with care 0.73

02:22:47.520 so he says to her you know that you alone um are the reason that helgi is 0.75

02:22:58.800 heavy with the dew of death and then he says you know gold decked maiden wearing her

02:23:07.040 riches her wealth um that her tears are grievous she is a sun bright south maid

02:23:15.520 um which could allude to her being perhaps you know sun-kissed uh skin um

02:23:24.160 but there there rings a bit of a sense that of fate is the reason why he is dead is ultimately

02:23:35.500 because of her and remember these are fragments kind of welded together so you see in the beginning

02:23:43.140 of the poem he's like no you're with me don't worry about your dad i'll fight everyone and now

02:23:48.520 he's turning around and saying i'm the reason you're dead or i'm the reason i'm uh you're the

02:23:54.520 reason i am dead excuse me so you can clearly see that these are pretty much fragmented bits

02:24:03.640 put together helgi speaks well shall we drink a noble drop the love and lands are lost to me

02:24:12.600 no man a song of sorrow shall sing though bleeding wounds are on my breast now in the hill

02:24:22.220 our brides we hold the heroes loves by the husband's dead by their husband's dead

02:24:31.400 sigrin made ready a bed in the hill here a bed i have made for thee helgi to rest thee from care

02:24:39.700 thou kin of the Ilvings, I will make thee sink to sleep in my arms

02:24:45.860 as once I lay with the living king.

02:24:50.420 And Helgi speaks, now do I say that in Sevafjol

02:24:54.980 aught may happen early or late since thou sleepest clasped in a corpse's arms.

02:25:03.080 So fair in the hill the daughter of Hogni, living thou com'st a daughter of kings.

02:25:09.700 so it's the the final embrace the the the i will embrace you in death as i embrace you in life

02:25:20.220 um and this again is more a i i think a reassertment of

02:25:25.380 the the tragedy of their lives the tragedy of their love and you know the purposing of 0.51

02:25:33.820 of killing their her father and her brothers and all of that but none of that matters

02:25:39.980 if simply they can lay in each other's arms again um

02:25:49.020 and helgi speaks now i must ride the reddened ways and my bay steed set to tread the sky

02:25:58.220 westward i go to wind helm's bridges air saul govnir waits the warrior's throng

02:26:09.740 so this is an interesting use of the of the of the poetics one is he says westward i go

02:26:18.060 um that is why in the australian folk assembly when we bury our dead we have them uh with you

02:26:26.940 know uh all things facing the west now a lot of folks might know that there's a commonality there

02:26:34.220 with um celtic tradition but it's also stated here that uh in essence westward means waning

02:26:41.980 the sun falls to the west so does all of our fates fall to the west um it is the resting

02:26:50.220 spot. And I think that when we look at cosmology, the East, Jotunheim is the source of much woe that 0.89

02:27:00.540 falls into the world. It's the resistance, it's the dissipation. But Vanaheim, even though it 0.84

02:27:10.220 clearly is the source of life, it is also the returning point of death, especially amongst

02:27:16.220 animals but i think that the usage of the word westward to go meaning simply just kind of

02:27:23.800 synonymous with death um and uh wind helm now i know some people might be thinking about

02:27:36.140 you know certain pop culture game but this is clearly a reference to bivrost

02:27:42.680 you know where he says that

02:27:48.420 I will go westward to Bivrost Bridge

02:27:53.340 high in the arcing realm of heaven

02:27:57.580 that center place where

02:28:02.320 the gods reside

02:28:05.560 the rainbow bridge arcs from them

02:28:08.540 and descends down

02:28:10.400 It's not like an arch that goes from one part of Helgard to another, but no, it descends down from the gods, and he will find that bridge and go and ride that way.

02:28:23.620 i'm trying to see here too

02:28:31.940 so in the notes here and i was wondering about that uh saugovnir hall crower is what

02:28:42.200 that's translated to and this of course most likely is the reference to the cock that that

02:28:49.680 or the the crowing cock at the end of ragnarok that sits upon valhall gulen combi um and this 0.57

02:28:58.960 is another poetic name for him so he's going to return back to valhall um where

02:29:07.440 the rooster sits upon the hall and will crow at ragnarok

02:29:12.800 and he wakes the warrior throng the einherjar then helgi and his followers rode on their way

02:29:22.820 and the woman went home to the dwelling another evening sigrun bade the maiden keep watch at the

02:29:29.320 hill and at sunset when sigrid came to the hill she said now where he come if come he might

02:29:36.800 sigmund's son from odin's seat hope grows dim of the hero's return when eagles sit on the ash

02:29:46.400 trees bows and men are seeking the meeting of dreams so this is again more of a welding of

02:29:59.240 other parts of the poems you the the this poetic segment has five lines that's another sign that

02:30:07.160 this is very oddly placed but it's referencing clearly to the fact that he had visited the hill

02:30:13.880 but she comes back and says no we must keep vigil he may return she's so forlorn of his death and

02:30:21.400 desperate to be with him she's willing to set a watch in case his ghostly image comes back

02:30:33.960 and the maiden says to her mad thou would it seem alone to seek daughter of heroes the house

02:30:41.880 of the dead for mightier now at night are all the ghosts of the dead than when day is bright

02:30:49.960 so you would seem crazy to be standing here or setting me to stand here in the darkness of the

02:30:57.000 night when the strength of ghosts is higher than when the day burns bright um and the word that's

02:31:09.960 used um uh for um ghosts of the dead is draugr house the the barrow mound um so i find that very

02:31:22.760 very interesting um sigrin was early dead of sorrow and grief it was believed in olden times

02:31:34.280 that people were born again but that is now called old wives folly of helgi and sigran it is said

02:31:44.600 that they were born again he became helgi hading skati and she kara the daughter of halfdan

02:31:53.800 as is told in the lay of cara and she was also a valkyrie so it leaves with kind of an

02:32:02.680 an addendum note um by the annotator who says you know now that is seen as folly but in the olden

02:32:12.360 times it was possible through great love or through great motivation you could in your soul

02:32:21.080 be brought back and placed in the middle world especially when your fate was so entwined with

02:32:27.800 the one you loved and i think that that's again placed less as a

02:32:36.120 concrete religious theological idea but is placed out as a poetic ideal of love

02:32:45.080 um i certainly don't think that it's not possible for the gods to edict order and bring forth

02:32:54.520 perhaps whole soul of men um but certainly not you die and then you come back out again

02:33:02.360 but this one is really emphasizing that that interconnection of love between helgi and sigrun

02:33:10.280 or helgi and svalva or helgi and kata later on and and then the story continues

02:33:18.600 um but that's it that's the there you have it i appreciate you reading the uh story for us tonight

02:33:28.440 um we've got a few questions one of the questions is predated our broadcast it was like on

02:33:38.040 10 minutes before before we started uh hail all looking forward to another great show as always

02:33:45.720 appreciate that since show is partially question driven i came up with a couple one 0.72

02:33:53.640 a few shows back spawn talked about how lady freya participated in sexual magic slash ritual

02:34:01.640 can't remember how it was phrased to gain a gift from the dwarves i believe is sexual magic an

02:34:08.760 actual thing when i hear that term i think of two people putting on masks going to the beach or a

02:34:16.600 cave and doing their thing and summoning some kind of spirit or something but is there an actual

02:34:24.680 legitimate use of this kind of thing in our belief system sorry uh it's a bit off color

02:34:32.440 i mean that's part one we'll get to part two here in a second but swan you mentioned it so

02:34:41.100 take first crack at that well again when we speak about the divine when the divine get married when

02:34:50.680 the divine battle when the divine um have the this sexual relation with dwarves this is allegoric

02:35:00.200 This is not, again, the unification, or in reality, especially in the feminine, Holy Freya takes from the four directions of the earth.

02:35:16.480 She takes from the north, she takes from the south, or takes from the east, takes from the south, and takes from the west.

02:35:22.320 So, that idea of the, especially with the dwarves being kind of the soul and the power of the earth, they are the material spirit, they are the spirit of substance and of energy, heat, constriction, and all of that.

02:35:42.440 our ancestors knew you know pulling gold out of the mountain the veins of the mountain and and

02:35:49.880 the precious metals and and stones that come out of the mountain the realm of the dwarves

02:35:55.880 um so by her doing that she's attaining by going all four directions because directionality it was

02:36:04.440 important to our ancestors the idea of proclaiming that you know of holding your blade or holding

02:36:10.680 your horn to the north and to the east and to the south and to the west that was a proclamation of

02:36:18.120 all um you know it's not some like just some wiccan thing of watchtowers or what have you

02:36:27.640 we have lots of these um you know kind of signs of the importance of this and again the dwarves

02:36:36.440 four specifically that is clearly alluding to the the four being the foundational number of

02:36:46.680 the entirety of so she draws within her this power of the earth of the base elements and she

02:36:57.640 in turn gains brzingomen which isn't an actual literal real necklace but is the symbol of her

02:37:08.940 mastery over and her dispense or dominion over possession beauty and power so as far as the

02:37:18.640 story goes i i it's i do not see that literal um as far as

02:37:27.520 uh say sex magic i know you said it was off color but um i've read quite a few books um especially

02:37:34.800 uh freighter uds germanic sex magic there's a couple of others um i think there's a lot of

02:37:41.840 hellenic influence when it comes to things of that nature but um for them to be expressed

02:37:51.200 in our lore you'll find it very rarely uh and it's often only just little glimpses of

02:37:59.200 um certain things like uh the witches in the barn i forgot the uh story right off the top

02:38:06.720 of my head but it was spoken of that they had a wand that was phallic and um that they were casting

02:38:12.960 spells uh in a sexual nature to bit like build up and and do that and that was kind of seen as like

02:38:20.640 very very uh it was right in on taboo um it was meant to kind of make the audience go

02:38:32.400 you know what were they doing or even the menstruation of the jotun filling the river

02:38:38.560 trying to drown lord thor any time that we've ever seen these kind of mentions of like

02:38:44.400 either sexual magic or magic associated with um the sexual body um is always seen as kind of very

02:38:56.320 poignant very drastic um and either about dispensing or receiving um the powers that be um

02:39:11.680 but in the late nordic period and even earlier i don't think you find much

02:39:16.160 i think that you see most of that stuff starting to crop in post-christianity i think that um

02:39:22.640 perhaps the the concept of sexual magic was far more taboo after christianity and so you find a

02:39:32.160 lot of that formulation happening you see that with the accusations towards witches having you

02:39:38.160 know sex with satan slash goats um or that uh the witches including men who are also burned because

02:39:48.240 ice i think iceland was the one country where during the witch burning more men were burned 0.98

02:39:54.000 than women but all of them had heavy sexual allegations thrown at them um i think you see

02:40:00.720 a lot more of that uh present post-christianity and we don't find any real super concrete

02:40:10.080 um things referring to that so in the details of it there's not a lot to go on you find most of that

02:40:19.440 later the little that we do have is clearly very poignant and when we speak about the holy freya

02:40:26.880 gaining or letting in the powers from the four directions of the earth that has bigger meaning 0.98

02:40:33.940 than you know she simply had um sex with dwarves

02:40:42.260 so the question i'm honing in on is you know is there an actual legitimate use of this kind of

02:40:51.380 thing in our belief system no i don't think you're going to find um ancient lore detailing like

02:41:01.300 the right of sex magic and there's not like an afa sex magic manual or something that said um

02:41:13.700 a couple of things to to consider on it

02:41:23.940 one of the reasons i think it was demonized by christianity as much as it was sexuality

02:41:30.260 in general is it is in fact magical and powerful um sex in itself is magic it literally is the only

02:41:41.380 way we make offspring and anybody who's ever had children it is extremely magical that

02:41:49.860 all of a sudden there's this life growing inside of a woman that becomes your child and

02:41:56.740 And it is fundamentally very magical.

02:41:59.620 It's also magical in the sense that we've talked earlier, and it doesn't have to be.

02:42:08.080 People can just go, you know, it can be completely base and vulgar and whatever, like many things.

02:42:15.880 But you can ritualize a great many things to add intention and context to what they're done for.

02:42:26.740 In the right scenario, and again, outside of a hocus pocus context, the chemical and emotional output and upheaval of sexuality, of sex, of the orgasm process is a potent unleashing of really powerful.

02:42:56.740 energy. And you see that a lot. And again, you can read a lot of

02:43:04.900 books that are kooky to one degree or another about sex magic that are

02:43:10.840 salacious and whatever. One that was kind of an interesting expression of it

02:43:18.320 was The Metaphysics of Sex by Julius Evola was an interesting book altogether. It doesn't just

02:43:25.860 talk about the sex act but about gender as it relates to magic as well um but yeah i think so

02:43:37.620 much of magic is about generating extreme focus extreme energy and then directing that energy

02:43:48.660 intentionally at an extreme at a purpose the intensity of the sexual congress is

02:43:58.260 useful magically in that context now what you want to make of that or do with that

02:44:05.760 uh you know that's not really something we're advising on here but yes there could be legitimate

02:44:15.900 use of it depending on what, you know, what the intent is and, you know, the devil's in the

02:44:22.120 details. But no, I wouldn't write it off as something that's completely BS because I don't

02:44:27.280 think that it is. And the second question, in your opinion, do you think those of us who go to

02:44:34.780 the ancestors or to the hall of a god is given a physical form? Those that feast and fight with

02:44:42.500 gods perhaps if so any opinion on what that physical form might be like swan thoughts

02:44:51.460 um i really think when it comes to dealing with

02:44:58.420 Alvar, Dísir, our ancestors, the gods, we have to, I think our brains

02:45:10.900 formulate or project image onto. I don't think that they exist this way.

02:45:21.820 I don't believe that, you know, there is this overall sense, but that very much so like the observant I, the individual, the ego in this world is bound very much by order, by the presence of laws and rules.

02:45:49.820 rules i think the laws and rules of the worlds outside of ours are different

02:45:56.620 but that when we interact we clearly see image do they exist like that when we are not perceiving

02:46:07.500 them in the material that i don't know i would assume no that perhaps that understanding is first

02:46:16.220 for you know i can't speak and say with with authority i think that's something beyond that

02:46:22.460 we we understand beyond death it's it's it's almost like if you're asking me

02:46:30.060 how does our consciousness work post-mortem as opposed to how it works now and the only reason

02:46:38.060 why i state that i think that these spiritual beings do take form when we interact with them

02:46:43.500 in the material is because of the stories in which say someone has lost a loved one and that loved

02:46:50.700 one it returns but perhaps they're shrouded in death or they're you know there's something wrong

02:46:58.140 with them that indicates that the consciousness of the person seeing them clearly knows that they

02:47:03.580 have traversed through they're covered in battle wounds or or what have you um i believe that the

02:47:11.420 spirit of the being is is that is is non-biological and is affected by the perception of the folk when

02:47:22.780 they enter the realm of the material our middle world but what they look like outside of our

02:47:29.340 perception as mortals i don't know i've often wondered and speculated but i guess i won't know

02:47:37.580 until I cross that threshold

02:47:41.220 and walk Hell's Road

02:47:44.000 or if I'm chosen

02:47:46.280 and Lord Odin bids that I get the ride

02:47:51.200 across Bivrost,

02:47:53.240 either way, I won't understand

02:47:55.300 the true nature of them

02:47:57.220 and we are only working from our perception

02:48:01.040 in the material.

02:48:04.700 Yeah, I think we do a disservice

02:48:06.680 us when we overextend you know we pretend we know for for fact things that we don't but we so we

02:48:20.120 don't know the totality of what that looks like but we do know observed experience of what that

02:48:26.720 looks like so there's a couple of things your question like do they go to a distant place

02:48:37.460 and have a physical self that sits on a physical bench and eats physical pork

02:48:42.860 um i think that's unlikely that that's the case i don't that's not how i envision that to be

02:48:51.120 um but again the gods can do what they want what we do know happens is

02:49:00.960 personages beyond the veil can

02:49:09.660 assume a physical form can manifest physically or visually they can manifest

02:49:18.480 visual visually and not be physical they can manifest physically and not be visual

02:49:25.320 um i think our perception of that

02:49:30.180 differs i think we deal with elements of our soul that we would call the hammer

02:49:36.800 but i also think of a concept that we talk about um

02:49:43.120 uh the the other self or the the like

02:49:50.400 your idealized self yeah so i think kind of a default position of your afterlife self

02:50:01.260 is you at the best version of yourself you at the height of your physical beauty of your physical

02:50:12.360 prowess you at your best i think that's what that tends to look like with also gravitas worth more

02:50:26.440 than the sum of its parts i think there also is a presence and an element of feeling associated with

02:50:34.040 that but what we also see when people experience interaction with visions of glimpses of loved ones

02:50:46.040 that have passed i've heard things where they appear as a much younger person than you ever

02:50:53.720 knew them and you only find out later that you recognize who it was through sharing the experience

02:51:00.440 with you know your parents or your grandparents or somebody who knew them at that time but i also

02:51:09.160 there are people that appear just as they were the last time you knew them or you know

02:51:16.440 there have been instances of people you know different members of the family interacting

02:51:21.960 with a similar departed loved one at different stages of that person's life based on when

02:51:29.480 that member of the family knew though um i think when you get when you get into that realm if

02:51:36.760 there's the power enough to manifest physically and or visually i think that you can kind of do

02:51:46.680 what you want that way or so i did that doesn't express a quite quite right that can be done

02:51:53.960 differently based on purpose and that really does seem to be the case um you know if they exist in

02:52:01.320 the realm of the gods the gods don't exist in a physical human form as physical you know humanoid

02:52:09.640 looking creatures the way that we understand it to our understanding but we have time and again

02:52:15.880 where they appear in disguise as humans doing things um so i don't think we have the firmest

02:52:24.200 of answers to the question but i do think that uh our loved ones can you know in this poem we see

02:52:32.520 that in this poem we see him come back and make a visit in a physical form to where he's damp and

02:52:38.680 and wet from the grave um but then he goes back into the realm beyond physicality so

02:52:51.000 situationally but i don't think that's their standard state on the other side of the veil

02:52:57.240 again we will all find out one day uh our next question i recently bought uh the tolkien book

02:53:06.680 the legend of sigurd and goodwin um in hopes to better learn uh the new lung and lead and richard

02:53:16.200 wagner's uh ring cycle any pro tips on tolkien's book to get the most out of it i have never read

02:53:24.760 tolkien's rendition so i don't have anything to offer what about you swan um yeah i would say

02:53:31.960 one thing to consider is it the the the writing is way more relatable because it's not being

02:53:39.080 translated it is in english the other thing is we spoke uh in one of the verses tonight

02:53:50.360 the mentioning of sin filthy sin filthy is mentioned in beowulf and of course he's mentioned

02:53:55.640 in the volsunga saga um you know he uh

02:54:03.800 he is said to be the incestuous child between sigmund sigurd's father and he unknowingly uh

02:54:16.520 has a child with his sister not knowing that that's his sister um in in um

02:54:25.640 In Tolkien's book, he proposes that that mistake is because of elven or alf trickery, that an alf is the mother of Sinfjolthi and that he tricks or she tricks Sigmund into having, you know, giving her a child.

02:54:52.980 um but that the tragedy of it is the great joke of it is is that he later finds out that's his

02:54:58.880 sister but it wasn't his sister at all in Tolkien's version it was an elf that had an expressed desire

02:55:04.940 to hurt Sigmund um so there's little things that are tweaked but the overall sense I mean Sigurd

02:55:14.500 is there um i mean there's just so much in connection to the two that i i really do think

02:55:23.620 it's it's worth um reading and then he adds um so much with of the lore but again he expresses it

02:55:35.780 in in english so there's a little bit more of a of a connection to it's less poetic and more

02:55:42.500 story based he speaks of of you know the wolves the the wolves of giantesses and all of these

02:55:50.100 things it's it's all it there's reference to um uh with the earliest part of the volsung saga

02:56:01.460 where the gods um meet and you know kill otter and then try to cover his skin with with gold

02:56:09.460 and there's fafner and ray in but it's a little less about them being they're not captured it's

02:56:15.700 that loki does it unto his own um so there again you just have to be careful there are things that

02:56:24.740 he takes liberty at but then also at the same time he really holds true and blends and welds

02:56:35.300 these different parts of the stories all together very very well so i i enjoyed it

02:56:44.420 but um you just have to be mindful and don't take it uh to be the written and translated lore

02:56:52.420 but instead somebody who's very well versed in that lore kind of almost congruently putting

02:57:00.100 everything together um almost seamlessly but just by shifting certain things like uh

02:57:11.620 and ovin and loki aren't captured by um fafnir's father but instead loki's there and he's the one

02:57:20.500 that kills otter um and grabs andvari the uh the dwarf out of the uh water and you know puts the

02:57:29.060 ring down the other gods aren't even i think they're in that whole um altercation but it

02:57:35.060 then it still continues on i don't know it's really good i think it's worth reading for sure

02:57:41.060 do you have it yeah uh adrian i apologize uh while back i just saw this now while back adrian

02:57:50.580 donated 20 to the bns fund thank you so much adrian uh both of you are amazing in your knowledge

02:57:58.100 and dedication never miss a show greatly appreciate the information and your time

02:58:03.700 we're very glad that you um appreciate the compliment and we're very glad that you're

02:58:09.380 you know paying attention and enjoying the show

02:58:16.340 question from matt and svawn do you think ash wednesday has any pagan roots to it

02:58:21.380 i've heard more protestant branches of christianity make this accusation

02:58:26.580 but i wonder if there is any truth to it swan do you have thoughts on this

02:58:32.420 oh okay i don't know i i looked into this a little while ago maybe a couple years ago

02:58:41.860 that perhaps there might be some ceremonial connection that the ash upon the head may be

02:58:49.620 remnants from the hellenic tradition of like a blessing of hestia um who was the hellenic arian

02:58:57.380 goddess of the earth outside of that not not a lot um i do know that that lent is mentioned during

02:59:10.020 the council of nicae so that puts it pretty far back um but the word lent and a lot of people think

02:59:18.100 it's strictly a christian based word remember it it it's a word that means long uh it's the word

02:59:26.740 or the time of year in which it's that thin stretch between winter and the the coming warmth

02:59:35.060 so um a lot of times people interpret it to mean like to go without and again that's synonymous um

02:59:42.660 with the timing because it is again you're at the bottom of the barrel your your food reserves are

02:59:47.860 gone but the days are slowly getting longer and so it's that light at the end of the tunnel

02:59:54.500 so the word lent is not exclusively christian the ash on the head i i can't be a hundred percent

03:00:03.860 if i had time i might be a researcher but i i have read somewhere that it may be connected to

03:00:08.740 like blessings of hestia um but outside of that you know the the emphasis of returning to dust

03:00:16.740 is pretty Christian, born of the church by Saul of Tarsus

03:00:26.480 and Shimon or Simon, who later is known as Peter.

03:00:32.480 I think these guys were the ones that really started to establish that.

03:00:36.680 See, I think this one's reaching a bit.

03:00:39.480 There's a longstanding Jewish tradition,

03:00:43.480 tradition an old testament tradition of supplication by wearing ashes and sackcloth

03:00:52.520 and i think that there's even wearing ashes on the head so i think that this mark as a as a 0.71

03:00:59.720 supplicant or as a you know penance for you know all of your jewish guilt thing

03:01:07.880 is in keeping with long-standing Jewish tradition about ashes and such.

03:01:16.340 But, I mean, they could have, it's, you know,

03:01:19.480 baptism is absolutely a Christian thing in the,

03:01:23.640 take them in the river and dunk them and whatever. 0.79

03:01:28.880 Baptism in a baptismal font is applying that concept to,

03:01:34.280 in a way that's completely

03:01:36.600 non-biblical and absolutely pagan

03:01:38.620 drawn. So perhaps, you know, the 0.93

03:01:40.600 drawing a symbol on the head with ash

03:01:42.580 could be a borrowing of something

03:01:44.820 that is pagan. But the

03:01:46.620 idea of using ashes as a

03:01:48.620 way to show that you,

03:01:50.400 you know, that you're

03:01:52.660 regretful or

03:01:56.120 guilty of something or

03:01:57.860 worthless or

03:01:59.180 whatever they want you to do with it is

03:02:02.200 a part of that.

03:02:04.280 this one's for you swan uh croatian war master why is the color uh for thor's half orange

03:02:11.780 because that's what i chose um that is the truth of it

03:02:18.660 um slightly more unique to that story is is that i was not alone initially

03:02:25.320 um with some of the decision making but that person decided to uh that the pressures of

03:02:34.020 the reality of having a hof was too great for him and he ran from the challenge of establishing off

03:02:42.660 so when he did it was just me by myself making these decisions and to be honest it was it was 0.96

03:02:53.060 because i was here ago they were speaking about um the hoffs being our bivrost our bridge to the

03:03:01.540 gods a a kind of return or a testament to our wanting to rebuild and re-bridge to the gods

03:03:11.940 i know that the rainbow and all of that stuff especially now just the context of it is you

03:03:17.860 know whether you're a hippie or a christian the the uh the rainbow symbology now is completely

03:03:23.540 different from all of that um but my mindset was uh that the red of ovenshoff um

03:03:35.220 in california that deep brick red that dark um rich red um i was like wow well the next

03:03:45.140 the next color in the rainbow is orange so i chose orange but i didn't want to do orange i

03:03:50.100 wanted to do like a burnt autumn um it was winter time when all of these decisions were being made

03:03:56.980 and i wanted their an emphasis to be on this the sunrise the sunset the kind of coziness of winter

03:04:06.180 so the orange and black became just the desired i think that we i think you and i uh also really

03:04:13.940 had that conversation we were trying to state that we didn't have to stick to simple like the

03:04:19.940 simple tropes through lore it didn't have to be that odin's hof had a raven or odin's hof had a

03:04:27.060 wolf i think it was quite fitting that their kinfield kill was a horse especially and there

03:04:31.860 are still connections to lord othen through horses and clearly there's connections to lord thor with

03:04:37.140 bears but the bear was not chosen because of lord thor the bear was chosen because one our area

03:04:45.860 north carolina and the black bear but also the strength and solidarity of being alone

03:04:51.140 the soul fighting bear versus the pack of wolves or what have you so there's a variety of reasons

03:04:59.620 that we go for certain colors and certain um animals to represent you know in our

03:05:07.380 representations of the hoffs and

03:05:14.660 it's not to do just whatever is the most iconic for that god like yeah we could we

03:05:21.620 could certainly do that that wouldn't be wrong um but we were kind of

03:05:36.100 given red and horses at odin's hof before that was

03:05:42.980 certainly before i was in the spot uh making those decisions and that's what we had to run with and

03:05:50.020 the idea of doing that because i think a lot of us maybe even myself included would have done like

03:05:55.300 dark blue and ravens or or what have you but oh you know we can go outside of the box a little bit

03:06:04.020 our gods don't only like one color that's that's silly you probably like a lot of colors i know i

03:06:10.500 got a lot of colors that look good i wear different ties and different you know us putting them in

03:06:16.500 these very narrow boxes isn't all what it's about so no part of us thinks that thorshoff is going

03:06:24.020 to be the only thorshoff it's just the first thorshoff um so not only do we want to represent

03:06:33.060 that it's thorshoff but also that is the local hoff for linden north carolina and so we want

03:06:40.500 to include animals that have relevance not only to the god that we're giving worship to but also

03:06:48.100 to the land and to the area and to the people that congregate there and have a meaning that's

03:06:52.820 regional and the colors um sometimes are just left up to the the whims of of the gothar of

03:07:01.300 that district on what they think you know aesthetically matches what they'd like to

03:07:07.460 to convey or what uh for a variety of reasons and i think that getting outside of the same very

03:07:15.980 limited color palette that everybody tends to focus on is a nice thing to do our our ancestors

03:07:25.000 and our gods like bright different colors this isn't just about black metal stuff where everything's

03:07:33.940 like black and red and there's other stuff you can do there's other um other color choices

03:07:42.260 other animals that are worthy to be on there that are you know significant for other reasons and

03:07:47.780 that's really all there was to that it's almost like with uh with uh lord new earth and his hoff

03:07:56.340 the the uh the marlin you know i there's nothing to stay i in my knowledge in the lore that our

03:08:02.900 ancestors even knew of a fish like that but it but it's indicative of florida and it becomes a

03:08:10.660 connection point there when you talk about prosperous waters and florida and you combine

03:08:18.500 them because we didn't know where we were going to put new york's off for sure we're for certainly

03:08:23.220 going to have it on a state that had coastline but you know it could have gone to washington

03:08:29.220 and we thought about that at one point if it had it would have liked salmon yeah

03:08:36.580 if it had been in you know massachusetts it could could it could have been cod it could

03:08:44.580 have been lobster it could have been it could have been a variety of different things i don't

03:08:51.220 think we were gonna have it be like the coyote or something but who's to say it couldn't have

03:08:58.180 who's to say one day uh near there will not have a hof in new mexico with a coyote

03:09:06.500 again there's not there's not really a wrong answer unless you're doing it with wrong intentions

03:09:11.380 on that um or unless it's just hideous so uh okay and here's a question

03:09:23.780 that i think okay this question came by email keep in mind guys you can email questions to us

03:09:33.780 at any time at vns at runestone.org and we will answer that on the next show

03:09:41.540 if you put it on a particular host we can try to hold that off until that host is present

03:09:47.560 if that's important to your question. But Tyler, as someone who is the president of the local

03:09:56.480 Little League and works in a public-facing role in the Bible Belt, how do you be more openly

03:10:02.920 out of truth? My closest family members and friends know my faith, but I don't want to lose

03:10:08.500 the ability to provide for my family and make an impact in my community. But I also don't want to

03:10:15.040 shy away from my beliefs. What do you recommend other than having the courage to just wear my

03:10:20.700 hammer on the outside of my shirt rather than the inside of it? It's fun. Do you have thoughts on

03:10:26.740 this? Yeah, I think the easiest way and the best way to express your faith in, I live in the Bible

03:10:38.540 belt as well outside of simply wearing your hammer is and i and i think the default that a lot of us

03:10:45.420 have is you know to commit to deeds but let's talk about one of the biggest hurdles that we have

03:10:52.380 in ausa through is that our folk are afraid to speak with the mindset of being ausa through with

03:11:02.540 um and it's not a fear of in the conventional sense it's just that we are not used to speaking

03:11:10.220 around other people um but you know as i've raised my children i've noticed it's so easy for them

03:11:17.180 to do it i i hear my son will like something drastic will happen and he'll be like oh my god

03:11:23.660 you know he's and it's it's just that subtle sense that other people have been like wait did he say

03:11:29.740 gods um but they have no fear of that so truly i think one of the best ways that we need to

03:11:39.100 start to express our religion is through our speech um sometimes if you don't know the crowd

03:11:47.100 i will say you know um by the holy powers that are divine this is the way it fell or this is

03:11:55.500 the way it happened and i'm i'm not saying you know you know by god's mysterious plan i'm clearly

03:12:03.100 referencing the multiplicity um or you could go very specific you know the gods are how you doing

03:12:11.500 the gods are treating me well the gods and ancestors are treating me well when you add

03:12:16.940 and also incorporate that last part as well it it changes from your run-of-the-mill perhaps edge

03:12:25.260 lording you know left-leaning people who just want to make their christian neighbors upset

03:12:32.140 that's not what you're doing instead you're simply speaking from the foundational spiritual

03:12:38.140 sense that you have of your own they have theirs you have yours it's not about making them

03:12:45.020 uncomfortable so you're not trying to speak with the intention of offense but instead you're trying

03:12:52.060 to speak from a place where you also feel comfortable um i think we get this a lot during

03:12:59.100 yule when um people the whole merry christmas happy holidays and i've told my children a very

03:13:06.300 simple rule if somebody says to you merry christmas you say merry christmas back and then you say and

03:13:12.540 happy yuletide because that's what you celebrate so that way one you give you are gracious to them

03:13:19.980 but then they too also know where you stand and i think that all comes about with our speech

03:13:26.700 and we need to be able to talk to people about um that we are of this faith our faith has been

03:13:35.180 around for a long time the the pre-christian european faith i think is a great title and it's

03:13:42.620 not a about proselytizing but being a beacon of the ethics the morals and the devotion to the gods

03:13:53.660 and i think that that speaks far more volume than uh attempting to you know convert through fear or

03:14:02.140 caveat. Instead, you say, no, I'm of this faith. My faith has been around for a very

03:14:07.340 long time. And again, you'll notice that particularly malicious Christians will try 1.00

03:14:16.500 to attack and say, oh, you know, Alistair is illegitimate. It's not a real religion. There 0.98

03:14:21.100 isn't a real church. Well, we have a real church. We have a real priesthood. We have a divine

03:14:25.860 initiatory foundation and an extension of divine hand in our leadership everything that they've

03:14:33.540 ever accused us of we have and once you have that you don't have to defend that um it's

03:14:43.060 it becomes more about being congruent with your fellow friends whether they're christian

03:14:50.980 or what have you and giving them their respect but again standing firmly that you expect respect as

03:14:58.420 well they should give it to you because you give it to them and that comes in your speech

03:15:06.100 um if they fall short of that if they show themselves to be um you know malicious or or

03:15:14.820 conniving or what have you there's nothing you can do to stop that but i will say this i have

03:15:19.940 some very very devout christian friends um and i remember distinctly one of them my friend max

03:15:27.220 saying you know if you're an enemy of christ you're an enemy of me i have my criticism is

03:15:33.700 against christianity i have my my criticisms against the church and in its multiple time frames

03:15:40.420 throughout its existence um especially the way my ancestors were treated but i'm not an enemy of a

03:15:49.940 european christian um i i don't i think he's more misguided than he is perhaps an outright enemy

03:15:59.860 i know i can be very vocal about christianity and i can be have a searing criticism towards it

03:16:07.060 but i have met them as people and through their deeds i respect them but they should respect you

03:16:14.500 too that's the thing most people don't know any better um there are a great many of

03:16:25.620 there's so many people that are christians

03:16:29.380 i suppose as well as atheists but you're talking about bible belt problems

03:16:36.880 that have no idea there's anything else out there for white people i was one of those people until

03:16:45.060 i found out so true i didn't really because i didn't really critically think on it that's the

03:16:50.560 default and so that's kind of where you're at until there's something that causes you to think

03:16:56.880 maybe there's something else. And any one of us could be that

03:17:00.800 catalyst for someone else to, hey, you know, I never thought

03:17:04.960 about that. And, you know, you ask the question,

03:17:10.160 bluntly, anything is going to take a certain amount of courage

03:17:18.500 and discomfort. You said besides just taking out your

03:17:23.120 hammer, the thing about taking out your hammer is it

03:17:26.880 isn't rude or in everybody else's face,

03:17:32.760 but it is something for people to see and make note of.

03:17:37.660 It's the, you know, anytime I am out,

03:17:40.420 if I have a conversation with random people about Ausitru,

03:17:44.060 it is because they noticed my hammer.

03:17:46.220 That's the only way that they would know to strike up a conversation

03:17:50.160 and ask me about it.

03:17:51.400 a subtle thing is certainly like Svon talked about with your language a little bit

03:17:57.700 but in all of that there's some really important things to consider I think

03:18:03.860 you being a devout Ousitruar does not equal losing the ability to provide for your family

03:18:15.960 or have a positive impact in your community. First, that's just not correct, even if you

03:18:25.760 immediately get fired and ostracized by your community. There are still ways for you to make

03:18:31.060 impacts that are positive, and there are still plenty of other things you can do to feed your

03:18:35.560 family. I don't say that to minimize your concern. What I say is when we're scared, we amplify those

03:18:43.620 fears in our head, especially when those fears are the fear of the unknown. Even in a worst case

03:18:54.320 scenario, if you could know for a fact that four out of five employers will not hire you if you're

03:19:01.100 house a true, but a fifth one will, that is much easier than I have no idea if they will or they

03:19:07.700 won't what will i do what if nobody will hire me what if the what ifs are what's terrifying

03:19:13.460 and the thing here is i can't tell you that you won't have community repercussions and i can't

03:19:21.700 tell you that you won't face some kind of economic discrimination but i can tell you that lots of

03:19:28.500 people are open about being also true and don't have either of those things happen to them lots

03:19:35.140 and lots and lots of people lots of people in the in the public sector are openly ousted true and

03:19:43.140 don't face unemployment or persecution or a lack of ability to do the things to talk about

03:19:49.440 and people that are in the bible bill that is true you're going to have to make those decisions

03:19:57.700 for yourself on where you feel comfortable or not but the biggest thing that i can say is

03:20:02.740 to whatever degree that you express your faith don't do it sheepishly like you're doing something

03:20:13.060 wrong don't do it where you feel afraid or guilty also don't do it where you're um hold on

03:20:24.180 um to kind of expound on what i was hearing really saying when you go about in your life

03:20:38.180 doing things one of the things that you can do is just speak openly about the gods speak openly

03:20:43.420 about your ancestors or speak openly about your desire to be pious to the gods and pious to your

03:20:50.000 ancestors you could you can say you know uh you know i i i certainly don't want to do anything

03:20:57.260 that would dishonor my ancestors my ancestors are watching me and i don't want to do anything that

03:21:03.680 would make them embarrassed i don't want my ancestors to look at me with shame i don't want

03:21:11.320 the gods to look at me in shame i don't want the gods to witness my deeds and and see my folly i

03:21:18.140 to make sure i'm on the right path all of these words and verbiages can really help get people to

03:21:24.620 understand your your outlook in the way that you do things um you know and again that still goes

03:21:38.620 back to words another thing an incident that i had recently i was talking about uh somebody was

03:21:44.380 asking me about valentine's day and i i had just spoken that you know we don't really celebrate

03:21:49.660 valentine's day in the hardcore mode at my house and that's not because of ousatru that's just

03:21:57.180 my family that's just our thing we don't really do that i don't really know why and oh yes and

03:22:04.460 saint patrick's day somebody was asking me do you celebrate saint patrick's day and i was like

03:22:08.460 no i don't really do that and of course i'm speaking of the fact that saint patrick was

03:22:15.020 a traitor to his people and was you know uh allotted for uh hurting his fellow irishmen

03:22:22.500 for this foreign faith you know getting rid of the snakes um i was just like no i don't really

03:22:28.960 celebrate that but i don't really celebrate valentine's day and the interesting part of

03:22:32.520 that conversation was uh the the gentleman who's at that that place of business said

03:22:37.500 well so what do you celebrate around this time of year and i was like well in about six days the

03:22:43.440 full moon is coming and that moon we call it the austera moon easter moon and we're about to

03:22:50.540 celebrate our easter which is about a month earlier than christianity's easter and he was

03:22:57.220 like oh wow that's it's really interesting that's cool but and we did have a lot of time to expound

03:23:03.320 that i had to leave the the place of business but just speaking about it like that let let him know

03:23:10.040 i'm not one thing but my my people's you know my people are different and it was just my verbiage

03:23:18.600 just by talking and letting people know so i apologize about having to run there i was using a

03:23:25.320 new um resin incense and my whole incense burner just caught a light and there was this massive

03:23:33.400 like incense oil fire on my altar that i had to go put a stop to um no harm done but i will use

03:23:42.360 less i think it melted and then the like it overflowed and caught flame i don't know

03:23:50.440 but i'll do it differently next time that said back to what i was trying to um express

03:23:55.320 your words are important but your non-verbals are really important too when you talk about

03:24:08.680 it with people if you're ashamed of what you're doing and you act like you're doing something

03:24:13.960 wrong no matter what you say they will take from it that you're up to something

03:24:19.720 if you're proud of it you're like oh yeah a mouse is true oh what's that oh yeah that's that's that's

03:24:28.120 my religion depending on the context of what they ask next you know hmm well so you don't like jesus

03:24:35.100 no i'm not a christian i worship i worship our gods the icier

03:24:39.040 and you know depending on what they say if you respond positively like you're doing something

03:24:46.780 that you are proud of doing that you're happy about and you don't treat it like it's strange

03:24:52.780 and odd and you know diabolical that has a massive effect on things the other thing is

03:25:02.300 and i don't think you're in danger of doing this but for anybody else who needs to listen

03:25:06.780 also don't come at people with a chip on your shoulder and try to punch them in the face with

03:25:11.740 with your house of trueness.

03:25:14.040 You're not out there trying to make waves

03:25:16.320 or trying to be like, you know,

03:25:18.500 they celebrate Christmas at your office and like, 0.98

03:25:21.160 damn it, I'm house of truth. 0.99

03:25:22.500 We don't celebrate Christmas. 1.00

03:25:24.800 You, brother.

03:25:25.860 Yeah, there's no need for any of that.

03:25:30.160 But for you to celebrate, you know,

03:25:33.560 with things relevant to our gods in your office space

03:25:37.740 and people to ask you questions,

03:25:39.860 that's a perfectly good thing for you to do.

03:25:43.640 And ultimately, you're going to choose your comfort level.

03:25:45.780 I would urge that you try to muster up the courage to do something by asking the question.

03:26:02.460 You're saying that you acknowledge it's something you want to do and wish you could do more.

03:26:06.380 I would urge you to go with that to whatever level that you can and that you're comfortable 0.99

03:26:11.280 doing you know your environment you may work for the most extreme you know zealot Christians that 0.80

03:26:20.180 are going to be particularly offended by what you're doing I don't know your circumstance and

03:26:25.680 I'm not gonna pretend that I do or you know anything that way that's not what I'm saying

03:26:31.260 but pick little subtle things. Whatever you do and to whatever degree you do them though,

03:26:37.200 do them proudly. The other thing is if there's prep work involved or either way, this is never

03:26:45.840 a bad idea. Be a good person. Live our virtues and be known for being a good person. If your

03:26:58.580 co-workers and families that you're involved in little league with or whatever else know you as

03:27:04.180 a great guy and then find out that you also happen to be also true that is a very positive thing if

03:27:17.380 that's not how it works it's varying degrees less positive

03:27:21.300 um so yeah i think that's the best advice we've got for you those are all the questions we have

03:27:28.680 tonight uh swan it was very nice to get back on here with you i i've missed our episodes and uh

03:27:36.100 special treat for you guys we probably should have done it before now but we're doing it now um

03:27:43.980 we are going to take a break from the edda for a little bit and we will be going through and in

03:27:53.040 several different parts not all at once we're going to go through the volsung saga that will

03:27:58.560 give everybody a lot of background to the things that we're discussing um and make a lot of it make

03:28:06.720 a lot more sense and give everybody kind of that backstory and besides that it's a really cool and

03:28:13.020 special part of our lore that we want to go over anyway so i think this is a very good time for us

03:28:18.940 to do that um so yeah if you can make it out to ostara do that we would love to see you there

03:28:30.780 i will be joined next week by uh whitney clifford erickson to talk about also true as a living

03:28:37.500 religion as we tried to do last month and uh poor internet connection thwarted those efforts but

03:28:43.020 we're going to keep going until we get the episode because he's got good things to say about it um

03:28:49.420 yeah i'm looking forward to talking to you guys then until then

03:28:53.900 hail the isir hail the folk hail the afa remember victory never sleeps

03:29:07.500 Transcription by CastingWords

03:29:37.500 Thank you.

03:30:07.500 We'll be right back.

03:30:37.500 We'll be right back.

03:31:07.500 Transcription by CastingWords

03:31:37.500 Transcription by CastingWords

Asatru Folk Assembly - March 06, 2025

3⧸5⧸25 Victory Never Sleeps, Episode 139 - Helgakviða Hundingsbana II

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